The S Files: asking for it?

LITERALLY.

So. Stubenville, eh? A town that cares more about high school football than justice or women's rights. A town that conspired in the drugging, kidnapping, gang rape, sodomisation and urination upon a female minor because she had the gall to dump the team's quarterback. A town that fosters the kind of misogyny that not only allows this sort of thing to happen, but also affectionately calls its perpetrators the Rape Crew – high school students who are given so much privilege that they can take an unconscious rape victim to not one but two coach's homes and still not be charged. (For a full report, see the ongoing report at LocalLeaks, driven by Anonymous cell KnightSec. A trigger warning probably goes without saying, but it might also make you lose faith in humanity.)

But as one of the coaches told the New York Times, the rape was just an "excuse", because "what else are you going to tell your parents when you come home drunk like that and after a night like that? She had to make up something. Now people are trying to blow up our football program because of it." Exactly. This high school football team and its 19 coaches conspired to drug, kidnap, and gang rape a girl because she dumped one of the players and now, gawd! People are expecting this institutionalised criminality not only to stop but also to pay for what it's done? There is just no justice! Don't we know who these high school athletes are?! Well, we do now.

The key issue here has to do with the entitlement the perpetrators felt they had. Putting aside whether she was inebriated, it does not change the fact that these guys still raped her, and thought it was a perfectly acceptable thing to do. Knight Sec managed to obtain a 12-minute video of one of the Rape Crew discussing the incident. As reported by LocalLeaks:

The video was shot so soon after the attack, that one person present becomes disgusted and actually leaves to go check on the condition of the victim. It is important to also note that despite this strong evidence, [he] has yet to be arrested or charged in this brutal attack.

(Incidentally, if you feel that someone who admits to at least being an accessory to these crimes – and finds them hysterical, no less – shouldn't receive an athletic scholarship to the university whose t-shirt he is wearing while being so bloody offensive, why not sign this petition? You know what's gonna be "dead", dude? Your professional football career.)

Mmmkay?

It is sobering that despite all the people aware of what was happening – including a 'friend' of the victim, who was the catalyst for the evening's atrocities, and two authority figures – no one really stood up to say "this is not okay. What you are doing is not funny, it is not just, it is a crime and a violation". Maybe the town of Stubenville, its bumbling sheriff and its prosecuting attorney (the mother of one of the rapists and whose home the crime took place in, no less) can rally together to delete images from cell phones, scare the victim into not pressing charges, and even sue a local blogger for defamation, but shouldn't they instead be teaching their sons that hey, when a girl breaks up with you, you don't exact revenge by orchestrating a 12-hour gang rape, videoing it and posting it to the internet?  And no, this isn't about just not sharing it on social media because you might get caught, it's about NOT DOING IT AT ALL. You get dumped, go get a thing of Chunky Monkey and watch some John Hughes films like everyone else. You want a taste of vigilante justice? Well, Anonymous heard you. 

The coaches can say whatever they want about how the victim had it coming or what did she expect, but what they are not doing is denying that she was raped. They are instead implicitly saying that it is right that she was raped. That it's okay the high school football team gang-raped and sodomised a fellow student, because she was drunk. This is the logic. If a girl gets drunk, she should be raped. That's what happens when girls drink. She had it coming. And so it goes with rape culture: the responsibility lies only with women. To teach women to Not Get Raped is to not only presume all men are rapists, but to give them permission to be rapists.

A woman's body is not public property. No one is entitled to it. It doesn't matter how she chooses to dress, how she behaves, what she says: if she is raped, she did not have it coming. No one has a rape coming. Not even the rape crew.

Rosey Morris

These sweet little paintings my Rosey Morris on Etsy made my die just a little inside. The gold and silver edged landscape, portraits and nature scenes have a child-like unfinished quality as if they were details stolen from a mural. The moon and clouds round is just like looking up through an open observatory dome. Also, rooster.

Who said good art can't be affordable?

(I didn't. I did not say that)

via Bijou and Boheme

An Important PSA about Fake Geek Girls

I've been a fan of "A Distant Soil" ever since the fated day in 2001 I stumbled upon one of Colleen Doran's collections because it was sitting too close to an Elfquest anniversary edition at Big Planet Comics. I haven't even read all of her exquisitely drawn issues.

Doran has posted a PSA on her website accompanied by a discussion about what she called, "The Emotional Economics of Scarcity".  This is about bullying folks, the sexism prevalent in geek (and may I add gaming) culture, about the subsistence of mean girls even within subculture cliques and, I think, a study about how women have been trained to interact to tear each other down in dominantly patriarchal constructs.

Yes, watch the hysterical, 40's style propaganda film. (While you are at it, enjoy "Women, know your limits!" from Henry Enfield of the BBC immediately afterward).

There is no contradiction between being a frock-sporting, lipstick-wearing, fake-eyelash fluttering female and being a blathering, fandom-obsessed, subculture-worshiping geek.  There is no dichotomy.  Geek culture, science fiction and in fact science, math and technology are not inherently male.  And they will keep telling you that they are.  They are not.  Einstein's brain might have been different than normal people's brains, but the normal male brain is no different than yours.  There is nothing about aggression that inherently indicates leadership.  It only indicates that you are a dude since it is biological linked to a production of testerone.  All of those ideas are constructs.  Perhaps becasue the 1%-ers are 99.998% male, and they are terrified that any change in the status quo represents a loss of control. It doesn't.  Without change there is only stagnation.

More importantly, there is no diminishing of yourself when others succeed.  To think anything otherwise is straight up narcissism and you should probably get that checked out.  With a therapist. Change is made by groups sticking together and pursuing similar ideals side-by-side.

Now go listen to "As Cool As I Am," by Dar Williams.

When You Wish Upon a Star Wars

Disney buys LucasFilm for Four Billion; Episode VII anticipated for 2015.

Just sit with that for a moment. It's a little scary.  Disney is the corporate behemoth equivalent of the Empire, amirite?  But then I read this part of the official press release, and I got really, really excited:

"For the past 35 years, one of my greatest pleasures has been to see Star Wars passed from one generation to the next,” said George Lucas, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Lucasfilm. “It’s now time for me to pass Star Wars on to a new generation of filmmakers." 

A new generation of filmmakers. This is a good thing. The last time George Lucas turned over the reins to someone else, we got The Empire Strikes Back.  Director Irvin Kershner delivered a dark, complex, emotionally resonant story that built on the Saturday matinee adventure of Episode IV and fully exploited the richness of the hero's journey trope.

Granted, there's a lot that could go wrong.   If it does, it will probably involve Jar Jar. Return of the Jedi could be reissued with all the Ewoks digitally replaced by Fozzie Bears (which honestly, would be kind of awesome).  But in the best case scenario, Disney utilizes the staggering amount of creativity already at its disposal - Pixar, the Muppets, and Marvel - and applies it to telling a new generation of stories set in the Star Wars 'verse.

If you're still not sold, I'll leave you with this:

Joss Whedon might get a crack and writing and directing a Star Wars movie. 

You just got light headed didn't you?  It's alright. You just go lie down and I'll bring you a glass of blue milk and a damp cloth for your forehead.  Then we can get to the serious business of fantasy casting the upcoming films. I think we all know who should play Han and Leia's son.

A Magic Binder Full of Women

During university, a particularly awe-inspiring upperclasswoman who lived down the hall from me had fine-tuned a feminist, tri-colored Magic the Gathering deck by Wizards of the Coast. All of the cards, whether creature or enchantments, featured powerful female images.

Jiminy Christmas did I want one just like it.

However, my geek-lust for that deck has nothing on the Magic Binder Full of Women's, selection of politically charged cards, which has sprung up in response to the birth of the "Binders full of Women" meme following Romney's quickly quipped gaffe in the second presidential debate.

You can bulk out your deck with choices like:

• Nancy Reagan (artifact) - All of your undead units creatures in play gain the text "regeneration".
• Michell Obama (angel) - Flying, Vigilance. Target creature gain flying until end of turn.
• Jan Brewer (legendary harpy) - Return target creature to owner's hand. 

Now some of you may be complaining that Internet memes detract from the real issues, in what is, essentially, a deadly serious political contest. But in my opinion, memes actually draw attention to the issues. While I didn't have access to live television coverage for the second presidential debate while I'm in London, I knew exactly what I'd missed first thing in the morning during my daily in-bed Facebook/Twitter scan. And it was impossible not to notice that equal pay for equal work and women's rights were at the heart of this meme.

Also, it sticks because it is damn funny.

You can submit your own ideas for the cards here.

Let’s get our Organize on: Taxonomy vs Folksonomy

Image courtesy of Pop Chart Lab (available as a poster!)

Organization is my dirty little secret. Dirty, because it never seems to trickle down to my own desk, rendering me a professional pig pen. Secret, because I hungrily digest research on sophisticated ways to relate, arrange, and organize information, terrified that I would be pilloried if anyone saw what I was reading.  But “little” is a misnomer. When I am presented with inefficient, ineffective methods of knowledge management that both waste my time and confuse me, I can rage. Like a wild-eyed wildebeest raised solely on Google algorithms, I can rage. And so begins a bender into the world of taxonomies and their much maligned cousins, folksonomies, better known as social tagging.

Rather than cause me innumerable suffering, taxonomies are supposed to help make sense of the world. (Who could live without a taxonomy of beer? Beer.) Taxonomies work behind the scenes, allowing us to fit our product quickly into the right space, so that it can be retrieved by someone else at a later time. They are not just family trees of animal classifications that branch off into the ether, although hierarchies are the form in which they most often appear. Ideally, taxonomies are comprised of three major components: schemes that classify and group items, controlled vocabularies that serve to explain and relate terms, and knowledge maps that clearly demonstrate relationships.

Image courtesy of Green Chameleon

The key word is relationship. It’s very hard work, as we all know. Taxonomies are living creatures; they must not only be established, but tested, and maintained regularly.  There is no one correct way to structure a taxonomy, demonstrated by challenges to these suggested types of science in science fiction.  Do we all agree on how this is organized? I doubt it. (I bet a minor war might break out between CandyBuffet and FreshSnaps if we ever dared to discuss it.) And just think of how much effort has to go into keeping this up-to-date. It's an ever-expanding universe of information! Most fields are, except for Latin and Star Wars. We all like certainty and structure in our relationships, but with the pace of knowledge generation and dissemination, how can practical taxonomies keep up? Like the good cynic I am, I argue that they cannot possibly do so. Enter folksonomies, stage right.

Image courtesy of Little Red Crayon

Wikipedia has an excellent entry on folksonomies, with a nicely articulated definition: “A folksonomy is a system of classification derived from the practice and method of collaboratively creating and managing tags to annotate and categorize content.” Contrary to popular belief and Bill Murray, it is not mass chaos. Organization does emerge, categories can be identified, especially at higher levels, and among groups of individuals working in similar fields. Complex adaptive systems, made famous by Malcolm Gladwell in The Tipping Point (though he never uses the term), run rampant in our society, including our knowledge management systems. They forsake top-down, centrally managed systems for user-generated classifications. Patterns shift as knowledge is generated, used, and modified, which is incredibly fast. It shouldn't be that surprising: people are good at classifying their own stuff, and the stuff that they're interested in. Perhaps a tenuous relationship can emerge, where folksonomies help to craft taxonomies and maintain their relevance. And then maybe we all can find organizational happiness in the balance. 

A war on two fronts

Usually I leave the politics stuff to FreshSnaps, AletheaKairos and Catty, but this smacks of a fundamental misunderstanding of word usage and by gum, I will defend the rights of semantics everywhere.

Rebecca Solnit, has a nice article on Salon, "Must men be patronizing?" about why some men feel compelled to hold court and explain things to women. Now Solnit is incredibly succinct and is a lover of facts by profession, but I'm going to state first that not all men are enamored with the sound of their own voices and that women can succumb to this kind of smugness and entitlement as well. (Phew, that's out of the way), but "the out-and-out confrontational confidence of the totally ignorant is", according to Solnit, "gendered".

"Self-doubt is a good tool for correcting, understanding, listening, and progressing," suggests Solnit, "though too much is paralyzing and total self-confidence produces arrogant idiots." She goes on to say, "This syndrome is a war that nearly every woman faces every day, a war within herself too, a belief in her superfluity, an invitation to silence, one from which a fairly nice career as a writer (with a lot of research and facts correctly deployed) has not entirely freed me."

"On two occasions ... I objected to the behavior of a man, only to be told that the incidents hadn’t happened at all as I said, that I was subjective, delusional, overwrought, dishonest — in a nutshell, female ... Billions of women must be out there on this 6-billion-person planet being told that they are not reliable witnesses to their own lives, that the truth is not their property, now or ever. This goes way beyond Men Explaining Things, but it’s part of the same archipelago of arrogance."

Why am I going on about this? Because I agree with Solnit that "at the heart of the struggle of feminism to give rape, date rape, marital rape, domestic violence, and workplace sexual harassment legal standing as crimes has been the necessity of making women credible and audible."

Yes, that's right, this is a post about Todd Akin and the use of language when discussing rape (Thanks to the NYTimes for the the link).

Kelly Whitman's has some excellent things to say about talking about and acknowledging rape in her "Using the Right Words About Rape" post at her Mocha Momma blog. As a young mom and a teacher, she tries to speak naturally and organically with her children about their bodies and how to discern abuse. Why can't we do the same thing as a nation with our laws and with the adults we have elected to Congress?

"Most women fight wars on two fronts," Solnit tells us, "one for whatever the putative topic is and one simply for the right to speak, to have ideas, to be acknowledged to be in possession of facts and truths, to have value, to be a human being. Things have certainly gotten better, but this war won’t end in my lifetime."

And thanks to bors blog for the "The Avenging Uterus Vs. Todd Akin" Strip!

Olympic Comedy and Tragedy

I knew something was up with Olympic coverage when I couldn't find a live showing of the opening ceremonies. The Washington Post TV guide had a '(L)' next to the prime time scheduled event, which I had to patiently explain to my father couldn't be live (No Dad, it'll be 2 AM there. Trust me no one is going to the stadium when the tube won't even be running).

Thank goodness for streaming BBC One's (excellent) commercial free coverage. I didn't even have to sign up for a $100 a month subscription to a cable-TV service of their choice (Neither of my parents have cable btw NBC. And they likely never will).  Heidi Moore has a great piece on NBC insistence that we "huddle around the radio" to receive our Olympic news in "NBC fail shows network's commitment to 'the last great buggy-whip Olympics'".

I'll continue to show my displeasure by making use of the trending #nbcfail twitter hashtag (Women's soccer gold match game anyone? Oh, never mind.  You need a cable subscription for that too. I braved Lucky Bar by myself on a Thursday for this?). I also highly recommend following NBCDelayed on Twitter to feel vindicated.

Tip of the Hat to the Guardian for their London 2012 Viral Video Chart: the 10 best videos from the Games, which showcases the viral video highlights of the Olympics thus far. Cry all over again with South Korea's Shin A-lam's mind-boggling defeat with (literally) a brick-by-brick recreation of the women's fencing semi-final. Then watch Funny or Die's video of Sir Patrick Stewart swindling yanks as an Olympic ticket scalper to make the pain go away.  (sigh. wishes were a knight or a dame or whatever.) You get Simon Pegg, Ryan Lochte's patriotic grille and that girl who plays Arya on Game of Thrones.

 Enjoy.

A petite rant on usage

I worked for a financial newspaper that shall remain nameless (Voldemortgage News? Hrm...) and it had the worst culture of institutionalized bullying I have ever had to endure. Which made me a ruthless editor because editing became survival.

The scars of this experience are my intolerance for misused words. I'd be annoyed by them anyway, I assure you, but not to this PTSD degree. And while I could dismiss my vehement reactions on unresolved anger at a chief sub who was a righteous prick and needed a kick in the balls, it still doesn't change the fact that words are misused all the damn time by people and publications that should know better, and as a result they are dumbing down our entire society and heralding the End of Times.

Here are a few examples:

Over. Dear every newspaper editor or broadcast journalist ever, please stop saying "over" when you mean "about". "Over" implies space and direction. Full disclosure: I used "over" in a headline when I was working on the Daily Telegraph business desk but that was because "about" wouldn't fit and the next word was "oil" so it rolled nicely. But you know what? Print is dying, the internet has unlimited space and the Daily Mail is going to use all of it for a five-deck SEO-generating headline so there's no excuse for saying "over" when you mean "about".

And just in case you don't mean "about", you probably mean "more than". Because if it's an amount of something, it's "more than". And while we're talking about amounts...

Significant. You mean "substantial". Because it's an amount, right? You're talking about an amount. You're talking about how much more you're paying in insurance every month or how many more students are not going to go to university if there are no jobs. Amounts are "substantial". If you say "significant" you're implying something is special. And you know what? It isn't.

Fantastical. You know who the worst sinner of this is? SFX magazine. Every goddamn "reboot" of a "franchise" is "fantastical", according to its "showrunner". NO. If it's a fantasy you're describing, then the adjective is "fantastic". Yes I am aware that it is a superlative. It's funny how some words can function in different word classes, isn't it? Like "fuck" and "smurf". Stop taking a perfectly cromulent adjective and trying to turn it into another adjective. I don't care if Shakespeare used it. You're not Shakespeare. You're not even Stephen Moffat. Unless you are. But if you are, please don't say "fantastical" because you're Stephen Goddamn Moffat and you are BETTER THAN THAT.


Vast majority. It's either a majority or it isn't. Fuck off with this "vast" nonsense.

Whilst/amongst. In grad school my grammar professor argued (in my words, not his) that anyone who said "whilst" or "amongst" was a pretentious dickhead and in practice I've found this to be largely true.

Fab dot com

Let me start by apologizing, to you and your bank account.  Because you're going to go to Fab.com and be powerless to resist their daily collections of art, fashion, jewelry, furniture, and home goods.  It's an electronic orgasm of what Eddie would lovingly call gorgeous, tasteful, little stylish little gorgeous things.

YOU'RE GOING TO BUY ALL OF THE THINGS.  

Like this, for example.  

Space Jam by Chase Kunz.  Currently hanging in my bathroom

Items tend to arrive when they arrive, but if you don't mind waiting, it's a minor thing.  It's like Christmas!  One day something you forgot you ordered just magically shows up at your door.  So far I've only had one real hiccup with an order when I received the wrong item.  The customer service reps I dealt with via email were very communicative and downright earnest in their desire to make right the mistake.  When they weren't able to replace the item, I got a full refund plus a $10 shopping credit.  Earnest like a fox.  A stylish gorgeous little fox. 

The Inspiration Grid

For a daily dose of arresting images, visit The Inspiration Grid.  This curated gallery presents new works in art and design from creators around the world.  It's easy to immerse yourself in these beautiful, amusing, and provocative pieces.

Some of my favorites come from the photography gallery:

Interiors of classical instruments, created by Mona Sibai and Björn Ewers for an advertising campaign to promote the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.   Photographer: Mierswa KluskaIf

Lips: Creative Photography by Nikos Vasilakis

The War Against Christmas, high speed photos of exploding Christmas ornaments by Alan Sailer

The Inspiration Grid

Bully for you, Mittens

I guess the news cycle has washed away all traces of the Mitt Romney Is A Bully story that commandeered headlines for about 10 minutes in May. Many people argued that Romney being a bully in high school isn't that big a deal because he should be judged on what he does now.
I disagree. (And not because there isn't anything to judge him on now, because there is. Lots.)

When I was in sixth grade, I was bullied repeatedly to the point that I started skipping school for weeks at a time. Because I was bullied, I bullied others I perceived to be weaker than me when I got the chance to, because that's how I thought things went and how I thought I had to survive. (That's how it works; it's a cycle. You might notice this now in how Romney treats the middle and lower classes in regards to tax and healthcare.) This reaction-bullying resulted in the worst thing I think I have ever said to another human being.

His name was Chris and he was having a more difficult time adjusting to middle school than I was. I'd heard from someone that he wanted to commit suicide. So after school one day when we were the only two students left at the bike rack, I said: "Hey, is it true you wanted to kill yourself?"
He said "yeah". Defensively. Like, you wanna-make-something-of-it.
So I said: "What are you waiting for?"
And he snorted in a "yeah, good one" manner and rode off.
He disappeared before the year was out.

I have regretted this for years and never told anyone this story. Ever.
But I remember it. I carry it with me and I would apologize to Chris if I even knew how to find him, if he was even still alive.

In 1965, Mitt Romney bullied a classmate who had the audacity to style his hair. His "long" hair that draped over one eye. In 1965. Okay, the Beatles happened already, Mitt. Even at Cranbook. But that didn't stop him from corralling his gang of Crabbes and Goyles to physically restrain John Laubner and cut his hair off.

Are there worse things? Yes. Like telling a student to go kill himself, maybe. But I was 11. Mitt was 18. I was a disturbed child and Mitt was a grown man ready to take up his place in the 1%. And while I remember my horrible act, Mitt apparently does not. Oh, his classmates remember it, feel bad about it, and even made an attempt to atone for it before Laubner died. But Mitt, in a startlingly heroic move worthy of any American President, does more than just deny it ever happened, he rubbishes the entire issue by saying he doesn't remember it.

For some reason, electing a President has become a popularity contest instead of the job interview it actually is. Voters, if you elect this bullying dickwad asshole President of the United States of America, you have just made the villain of every John Hughes film ever Prom King. And that is not how we want to be known in the global community. It really isn't.

TARDIS and Browncoat Jerseys - Last Day to Order

It's hard to think about hockey when it's 4,000 degrees outside, and inside you haven't moved from the couch since Friday.  Also, you can suddenly speak with great authority about the nuances of a full twisting layout Tsukahara.  But!  Today is the last day to order one of these cunning jerseys from designer Dave Delisle.

You can customize the number.  9 is my Doctor

To me this is a form of cosplay, as many people opt to put a character’s name on their back. In my opinion this is sort of a fandom, where every design I post is usually for something I really love. I don’t see these as products but large personal billboards for things we like, be itGame of Thrones or Voltron or Zelda or what have you. I hope large companies see these as fan expressions, not infringing. 

I don’t have big aspirations of turning this into a mega-business, I rather like the small scale we are currently at. I do hope geeky hockey jerseys become more commonplace eventually. 

If anyone had jerseys like these available I wouldn’t be going through all this effort. Maybe Reebok will take notice.

Check out Dave's site for more great designs.  Fandom jerseys from Dave's Geeky Hockey.  Tip o'the hat to Bruce!

Large Hadron Quilts

I'd like to imagine that when the scientists and engineers at CERN go to sleep at night, they tuck themselves up under one of these:

Inner Eye February 2010 Size: 120 cm square. Materials: Silk, synthetic fabric, pvc fabric and sequins.

Inner Eye February 2010
Size: 120 cm square.
Materials: Silk, synthetic fabric, pvc fabric and sequins.

Teacher and artist Kate Findlay was inspired by the recurring circle-in-square motif of the Large Hadron Collider and spent four years translating those forms into fabric.

Findlay used traditional patchwork for her three earliest pieces, “Breakthrough,” “Inner Eye,” and “Does the Dark Matter?” Because of the way fabric moves, this technique makes creating circles a fiendish feat. After six to eight weeks of sewing, and down to the final piece, she says, “My heart was absolutely in my mouth.” Until she finished, she had no idea whether everything would line up and lie flat.

Quilts by Kate Findlay via Symmetry magazine - February 2012.  Tip o'the hat to Bethanew.

Astonishing, Awesome, Beautiful, Seductive

And the ship's not bad either.

Each year at San Diego Comic Con there's a Starship Smackdown panel held to determine which spaceship is best.  Prior to watching this video, if asked, I would have naturally thrown my vote to the Millenium Falcon.

But Neil DeGrasse Tyson makes a very persuasive argument for the USS Enterprise, NCC-1701.

 

What matters is not what they look like now, but what they looked like to others at the time that they prevailed.  There is only one spaceship [in the bracket] that's earlier than [USS Enterprise] and that's the flying saucer from The Day The Earth Stood Still ... So, what matters here is what did that spaceship [points to USS Enterprise] look like at the time it came out?  Compared with anything that had been imagined before.  And when you consider that, that is the most astonishing, awesome, beautiful, seductive machine that has ever graced the screen. 

And everything else is derivative.

In other news, when the Wu-Tang Clan's GZA undertakes an album intended to convey the grandeur, energy, and chaos of the universe itself, who does he turn to?

Daniella Zalcman for The Wall Street Journal

Watch out, guys.  We've got an actual badass over here.

Starship Smackdown via

GZA on 'Dark Matter' album: WSJ