vulgarweed: (foxroar_by_strill)
1 AM is the best time for posting for me, it's the closest to real free time I get; I know a lot of people miss the posts because of that, but what can I do? It's been a very, very busy week. #understatement.


Occupy Chicago is where I was for 12 hours yesterday. No, I wasn't arrested -- I had the choice to stand in the arresting space, and I chose to stand in the witnessing space instead. I felt vaguely guilty about that for about 10 minutes, and then I remembered my early 20s and remembered I'd earned my merit badges already. Still, the amazing mass solidarity of a singularly-focused crowd is a major peak experience for me, and I will keep going until....well, until our nation is different. Very different.

Today I went to the Chicago Cultural Center for the release party for a longtime dear friend's book about Aretha Franklin.

In between, y'know, work. And the novels. I'll be putting up a new post at my original fic journal [livejournal.com profile] face_fomus shortly. (all posts there are locked)
vulgarweed: (procrastinate)
Now that hopefully this "birther" nonsense has been laid to rest, I'd like to consider some of the aesthetic reasons that, IMO, it's a FAIL as historical legends go. It's batshit insane, of course, especially as one goes further and further down the rabbit hole trying to explain why there was already an international conspiracy surrounding the birth of some college kids' kid back in 1961. But it's not batshit insane enough--it's not just that it doesn't hold water, but it also doesn't have enough symbolically-resonant absurdity to make really good conspiracy fiction. Even Robert Anton Wilson couldn't have done much with it.

If you want an example of a whackjob theory that has literary legs, this one is just about my favorite:

Is George W. Bush Really a Grandson of Aleister Crowley?

Did you ever lose a night's sleep wondering that? Now you will. You're welcome.

Yes, this is a real thing, as things go: (warning: links lead to crazycakes)
http://truthalliance.net/Archive/News/tabid/67/ID/336/font-color0079D4Is-Aleister-Crowley-the-Father-of-Barbara-Bushfont.aspx
http://www.moneyteachers.org/Aleister+Crowley+Barbara+Bush.htm
http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid=39&contentid=4506
http://forum.davidicke.com/showthread.php?t=30953


Behold the face of the New Aeon!



Spew What Thou Swilt Shall Be the Whole of the Law


(Now, in reference to this post, if I were writing historical fantasy fiction about the 20th/21st centuries two hundred years from now, this would totally be true in my fictional world.)
vulgarweed: (squonk_by_aurora_starwing)
Don't Ask Don't Tell is dead! This is such good news!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/18/dont-ask-dont-tell-repeal_5_n_798636.html


Don Van Vliet, aka Captain Beefheart, is also dead, and this is one of the most upsetting pieces of bad news I've learned this decade. My dad was (and is) a huge fan, and I heard his music growing up from toddlerhood to teens.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLdRh7qdi_g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfa6j_ru4x4&feature=fvw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjZDhPqdcdA
vulgarweed: (Default)
So I was walking to my bus route and back, and mentally wanting to put a Molotov cocktail through the window of everyone who couldn't be arsed to shovel or put down salt. Because you might think the ice on your stretch of sidewalk is no big deal. For yourself.

BUT...if you're clumsy and have no health insurance (cause you're underemployed and broke, as many of us are these days)--and are in the US;I'm ranting about Chicago people here--you know damn well that every chance you have of falling and hurting yourself might mean that your parents could lose their house if you wind up suddenly hospitalized. For us pedestrians, it's often safer to walk in the street than on the sidewalks, and even so we have to go slow and grope the iron fences.


Mostly, the worst offenders are yuppie condos. People who have garages right under their lofts, and so have no vested interest in the general communal life of the city, which involves WALKING.
vulgarweed: (Default)
Current reading obsession: Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files.

At the bus stop a couple days ago, a woman stared at me and squee'd with a look of recognition, and I'm thinking, like, "do I know you?" and it wasn't me she was squeaking at, but the book (Summer Knight, book 4). "I'm on Book 9" she said, and I said, "NO SPOILERS!" and she said, "Oh no. But you'll love it."


I want to recommend this EXCELLENT post by [livejournal.com profile] mofic: Talking to the Long-Term Unemployed: a Few Suggestions. Nowadays, I bet just about everyone knows someone in the this category. This post is excellent because it addresses a lot of the emotional aspects of unemployment and how it affects people socially--there is such awkwardness around matters of income and class status in our society, so much internalized shame and unconscious judgment, so much uneasiness concerning depression and despair especially as related to the cult of positive-thinking in the conventional wisdom about job-hunting, so much dread of imposing-on-friends and wanting-to-help-but-being-unable-to-fix-it, etcetera, that it's a real minefield. Please read this post.

(I am sort of reluctant to say I feel a lot of this applies to me, because I am not "unemployed" per se; in fact, I have two jobs, but neither is full-time, neither has benefits, and neither pays particularly well, so I still feel like I'm struggling and my position is very tenuous and I am looking for a full-time position, so still getting the rejections. But emotionally this post really hit home for me in a lot of ways.)
vulgarweed: (buggre_by_dwightsredshoes)
http://www.servicemembersunited.org/survey

This is the survey the Pentagon sent out to service members regarding DADT.

It basically boils down to 32 pages of variations on the theme of:

Q. I will treat other human beings in my unit as human beings if I find out they are gay/lesbian, true/false?

A. (multiple choice):

1. Yes

2. No

3. Maybe, but ICK! I won't like it.

4. I'm too ignorant to know or care.


Yes, I've read the whole thing all the way through, and I would definitely quit any job who thought this line of questioning was appropriate in any way. Yes, I get that in the military it's different, you sign up for a contract and you have to take orders...so isn't it long past time someone with authority stood up and said GLBT PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE AND THEY ARE YOUR COMRADES, SO MAN UP, SOLDIER, AND GET OVER YOUR STUPID SUPERSTITIOUS PREJUDICES OR ELSE?

(And if the Pentagon is so worried about the possibility of people feeling uncomfortable about folks maybe getting checked out in the showers...maybe they might want to do something about the widespread and well-documented rape of female soldiers by male soldiers allegedly on their same side? Cause I can't think of anything more damaging to unit cohesion than that.)
vulgarweed: (blake_liberty_by_hawk_moon267)
Reuters article.

I was on food stamps for a while in the early 90s, during the FIRST Bush recession, when I had just graduated from college. My roommates at the time went in to the office together, submitted all our documentation, and even though we were all working, we still made so little money relative to our expenses that we qualified.

I was not ashamed. I refused to be ashamed. The idea that government food assistance is something to be ashamed of is a right-wing meme, and it is WRONG - most people who collect assistance of any kind ARE working. I worked full-time--hard, night hours--and still qualified. It was my EMPLOYER who should have been ashamed, not me.

And stop with the "taxpayer" meme too - even when I had that cheap-ass low-paying job, there was still state and federal income tax taken out of my paycheck. As there still is. And I'm fine with that! Assistance to the poor is a miniscule fraction of the federal budget compared to the military-industrial complex. I accept that we don't get to dictate where our tax money goes, but given my choice, I would SO much rather have my money go towards feeding people here than killing people overseas.

I just want to say, if you're one of the 1 in 8, you have nothing to be ashamed of. You have a right to help when you need it. Don't be afraid to ask - sustaining your life IS a worthy expenditure of taxpayers funds. You are worthy, and you deserve it.

And speaking of statistics, on this Memorial Day, 1 in 4 homeless people in America is a veteran.
vulgarweed: (stop-squick-by-casira)
My state's ex-governor's wife ate a tarantula on a reality show yesterday.
vulgarweed: (Default)
My state's ex-governor's wife ate a tarantula on a reality show yesterday.
vulgarweed: (slashersforo_by_penknife)
His first executive order: Close Gitmo, ban torture.

I feel like I'm waking up from a very, very long nightmare. With one flourish of his pen, millions of Americans are beginning to recover from the oppressive sense of shame the Bush administration's international shitbaggery has brought on us all.

Me? Well, I've been sleep-deprived for four days straight, and I'm just beginning to recover from the oppressive - but FUCKING JOYOUS - exhaustion.

By my calculations, me and a bunch of my Chicago homies walked from RFK stadium to the Washington Monument and back on Tuesday - and not by the most direct route either. I'm guessing, counting all the meandering, it was in the neighborhood of 10 miles. This on two hours of sleep after shaking it in thrift-shop formalwear at the Big Shoulders Ball (we all wore Chicago-flag lapel pins!) Remember, our hotel was in Baltimore. We drove there and back after the ball. ><

For the inauguration? We stood by the Washington Monument in the cold wind, jumping up and down on our toes to catch glimpses of the nearest jumbotron, which was not very near. But the sound system was good, and we heard everything - down to Roberts flubbing the oath, OMG, passive-aggressive much? (Remember, Obama voted to not confirm him!) The crowd? All roughly two million of us? Like Grant Park times 10. Confused, cold, tired, frustrated - and so, SO incredibly joyous and kind to one another. Even the police and military herding us around couldn't wipe off the grins. I'm still wearing mine. I'm exhausted and achy and I caught a cold, but I would totally do it all over again and again and again.

Thanks again to [livejournal.com profile] lillithj and her hubby for the hospitality, the kitty and puppy love, the rides to and from the Metro station, and the awesome Mexican food!

Also good news? My parents have wireless Internet now.
vulgarweed: (hope_by_megathy27)
So I leave for DC dark-and-early this coming morning!


Laptop is coming along - I'll try to post when there's wireless around. After the shindig I'm going to go visit my folks in the backwoods for a few days.

I've never left Madimi alone this long. *eep* my neighbor Sarah, who is sublimely trustworthy, will be feeding her, but still. wibble.
vulgarweed: (caronfire_by_dwightsredshoes)
Now it can be told: I wrote Seven Signs, Seven Seals (Delivered - I'm Yours!) for [livejournal.com profile] htebazytook. She's one of my favorite writers in the fandom, so it was awesome to get to write for her, especially since she offered up a prompt that played right to my weaknesses. Crowley and Aziraphale are unleashed on the 2008 Presidential election.


(I thought this would be super-obvious, especially considering my Yuletide story, but no one guessed it.)
vulgarweed: (yuletidenoob)
My first Yuletide as a full-fledged participant (I wrote a New Year's Resolution story a couple years ago) went extravagantly well!

The story written for me: Little Settlement On the Moon, by Rina. (fandom: Laura Ingalls Wilder - Little House series, rated G). A sudden and intense attack of childhood nostalgia led me to request a science fiction or fantasy AU for the Ingalls family. Rina did a terrific job of taking them out of the setting we know but still keeping them very much themselves. I hadn't realized how much Wilder has in common with Ray Bradbury in capturing the bittersweetness of childhood, until now. Thank you thank you thank you!

I wrote Ten Sephirot, Nine and a Half Fingers, Eight Nights, 44 Presidents for [livejournal.com profile] gayalithiel. (fandom: RPF 20th-21st century politics; Rahm Emanuel/Barack Obama, NC-17). I usually put the smutty politislash under friendslock on this journal, but what the hell, it's Yuletide. Besides, really only the last few paragraphs are smutty.
vulgarweed: (Default)
Here's an interesting US politics trivia trend:

Did you know that George W. Bush is the first right-handed US President since Jimmy Carter? (Carter's immediate predecessor Gerald Ford was left-handed as well.)

And that in the 1992 race, all three main competitors--George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Ross Perot--were left-handed?

If the 2008 race shakes out to be Barack Obama vs. John McCain (which certainly seems to be the way it's going), the next President will be left-handed, either way.

Only somewhere between 10 and 15% of the general population is left-handed. (I'm not, I just find this interesting.) Let the conspiracy theories begin! (or, y'know, not).
vulgarweed: (Default)
Here's an interesting US politics trivia trend:

Did you know that George W. Bush is the first right-handed US President since Jimmy Carter? (Carter's immediate predecessor Gerald Ford was left-handed as well.)

And that in the 1992 race, all three main competitors--George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Ross Perot--were left-handed?

If the 2008 race shakes out to be Barack Obama vs. John McCain (which certainly seems to be the way it's going), the next President will be left-handed, either way.

Only somewhere between 10 and 15% of the general population is left-handed. (I'm not, I just find this interesting.) Let the conspiracy theories begin! (or, y'know, not).
vulgarweed: (ravenclaw_barack_by_timebound)
Primary in my home state today. Gee, wonder which way it's going to go. (not!)

I had one of those dipshit 3 AM revelations:

Presidents are father figures--the Good Father or the Bad one, either way.

I am NOT psychologically ready to have a President who's only 8 years older than me!

Younger than many good friends of mine. Younger than many I've dated.

I remember the little meltdown my dad had the first time the POTUS was younger than him (Clinton). I think mine will be worse when that happens.

OK, back to my regularly-scheduled delegate-fuzzy-math-geeking.
vulgarweed: (ravenclaw_barack_by_timebound)
Primary in my home state today. Gee, wonder which way it's going to go. (not!)

I had one of those dipshit 3 AM revelations:

Presidents are father figures--the Good Father or the Bad one, either way.

I am NOT psychologically ready to have a President who's only 8 years older than me!

Younger than many good friends of mine. Younger than many I've dated.

I remember the little meltdown my dad had the first time the POTUS was younger than him (Clinton). I think mine will be worse when that happens.

OK, back to my regularly-scheduled delegate-fuzzy-math-geeking.
vulgarweed: (stop-squick-by-casira)
Semi-coherent conspiracy theory post about rigged elections on one of my political communities. I was willing to play along until I got to this sentence: I believe that's why Barack came as hard as he did in his speech tonight mentioning Karl Rove.

EEEEEWWWWWWWW.
vulgarweed: (stop-squick-by-casira)
Semi-coherent conspiracy theory post about rigged elections on one of my political communities. I was willing to play along until I got to this sentence: I believe that's why Barack came as hard as he did in his speech tonight mentioning Karl Rove.

EEEEEWWWWWWWW.
vulgarweed: (bluestater_by_tubbycass)
I VOTED.

[livejournal.com profile] ursuscelticus will recognize a reprise of some themes, clarified and expanded....


I made it through the wilderness... )

Whew. It was a harder choice than you might think. But not as hard as it would've been if JE hadn't dropped out.

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