Entries tagged with come in alone

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: "Welcome Home Son" :: Radical Face

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(no subject)

I have a seriously tempting, crazy idea.

I'm thinking of joining the Tea Party. Like, all officially and shit.

You can hit your away buttons now.

See, though, the thing is this: they claim this, on their website. "Tea Party Nation welcomes all patriots, regardless of gender, ethnicity or national origin to join us and help save this great country."

We can quibble about whether this is a "great" country or one that's really, really fucked up, but the thing is - there is utterly nothing about my politics, which are, at best, liberal, that makes me not-a-patriot.

According to Merriam-Webster, patriot means "one who loves his or her country and supports its authority and interests".

The fact that I'm not waging revolution in the streets suggests that I support America's authority and its interests. I don't love this country the way I love, say, gin, but I'm pretty sure it's preferable to living in Chad. Let's face it: all those things that people currently dismiss as "first-world problems"? I have those, and I have them because I live here. And I like them. So I'm happy living here.

I'm certainly happy living here because I don't have to deal with armed insurrection in the streets. I may not like the people who choose to become police officers, but I find a police presence is better than no police presence. I respect all significant laws of the land. I, in actions if not in words, respect America's authority by allowing it to have some say in what I do as I conduct my daily business. I don't, for example, evade my taxes, and I do carry the state licence that proves I can operate a motor vehicle.

So that's the first part of their statement out of the way.

They are concerned with gender, ethnicity, and national origin next; not a problem for me, since I'm Whitey McWhiterson, born right here in the US, and they don't seem to, on the face of it, have a problem with women in the ranks. That's out of the way.

To save this great country - well, again, we can quibble about whether it's great, but on the face of it, I like living here. So I'll concede that one on the basis of the rest of the argument.

See, I think this country needs saving too.

I think it needs saving from our pollution. I think it needs saving from fiscally-irresponsible corporations. Hell, I think it needs saving from corporations period. I think it needs saving from the fear-mongers and the hate-mongers, and the people who preach something they don't believe because they get money for pandering to the fears and hates of morons who can't figure out a gimmick to make a buck when they're smacked with it. I think it needs saving from people who think that the right to bear arms means the right to bear them right into Wal-Mart. I think it needs saving from the companies and individuals that tout America First and yet manufacture and sell products made overseas, to the detriment of the American economy and the workers at the bottom of the food chain. I think it needs saving from people who don't understand that what we pay for now is what we get later, and think that it's not worth paying for the health care or the education or the feeding or the support of someone who is not-them. I think it needs saving from greed, from hate, from inattention, from me-first, from not-in-my-backyard, from a national posture of arrogance, from the belief that enough armed people can effect a change somewhere we have no business being, from our dependence on oil, from the death penalty, from the people who want other people to shut up, from your god, and from Puritanism run amok.

I think it needs, above all, to be saved from ignorance, fear, and the beliefs of childhood. Life was easier when I wasn't making the decisions, sure! That doesn't mean that the 80s were a wonder time that should be brought back.

I think, therefore, that the Tea Party had better reconsider their welcoming statement on their website and think about whether they want me in their party - because you bet your ass I wouldn't be working for their definition of what will save America. I'll be working for mine.

And I'll be doing it under their umbrella. In their names.

Why not? They're doing all kinds of shit in my name - I want my name back. I want the right to call myself a patriot back. I want people to not assume, if I call myself a patriot (I generally don't, but that's not the point) that patriot means I want to burn the niggers and the fags and the ragheads. (And the Tea Party had better not try to argue that they don't, because their actions speak otherwise.)

Most of all, I don't want to see their America. Their America is not one I know, recognise, or love, but I seem to be trapped here with a significant number of total blowhards who think they get to dictate out of their own fear and moronic idiocy what I think and do and know and care about. And that shit cannot stand.

So, since the Tea Party and I are in agreement according to their welcoming statement, I think I should join them. I want to save America too.

Current Mood: cold

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(no subject)

I am fucking freezing. Half my flist is posting about 90+ temps.

I AM NOT EVEN OUT OF OCTOBER YET, APPARENTLY. We are celebrating "Juneuary" right about now. High today: Expected to be SIXTY ONE DEGREES. And cloudy. So very cloudy.

Look, I'm FROM Seattle and I think this is unreasonable. I think it is unreasonable that I am carrying gloves with me everywhere I go. I think it is unreasonable that I am still wearing four tops to try to stay warm. I think it is unreasonable that I can't wear skirts without heavy tights because it is so fucking cold (on the plus side, incidents of me bleeding to death from razor burn are at an all-time low). I think it is unreasonable that right now I am hoping that they're scheduling the Bite of Seattle for indoors because it will be too fucking cold to eat outside (and that's not even till next month). I think it is unreasonable that I am considering going to Mexico solely so I can see the sun and have some Vitamin D and NOT DIE.

I am WELL aware that it is unreasonable that my cold-related nerve damage site is acting up right now and it normally only does that in the depths (and I mean the DEPTHS, like, say, Christmas week light displays outdoors at Enchanted Village where you will never be warm again even if you are wearing ten tops and silk underwear and three pairs of socks and four pairs of gloves and twelve scarves and carrying a space heater in your shorts) is acting up.

And...that is pretty much the news for now. I have five more days of the film festival left, and then it's straight on to the silent film festival (Douglas Fairbanks! No more German Impressionist silent films!). I may try to write up some reviews of things, if I can remember that I saw them.

Also: Bandflesh. In theory, the best I can say is that I have no dog in that fight and therefore I don't care, but in actual fact, I have never been impressed when bandom interacts in an anonymous fashion, and I don't see that changing even if bandflesh were full of saints.

Apparently, I managed to cut my hand today while playing solitaire on my ipod while I tried to warm up enough to GET OUT OF BED.

Current Music: "Heads Explode" :: Monster Magnet

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(no subject)

Okay, so. In my continuing vain attempt to clear shit up that really should not be shit except that a) I am paranoid and b) someone is a chickenshit, I will do this.

In return, I want something.

Here it is. I will quit shouting in all-caps as much as possible at least until I forget that I ever said that or have so much rage that I would really like to reach through the screen and smack someone in the uvula, and in return, everyone can have their capital letters back.

Seriously, use capital letters. You're not being non-hierarchical, you're not being awesome, you're not made of bunnies, you look like an illiterate moron when you write fiction that fails to include capital letters. Why would I read something that you can't even be bothered to follow convention on presenting? How would I know that you understand, say, how to write? You don't, apparently.

I really pretty much don't include journal posts in this, because, well, if I can't read your post, I'm not going to, and I trust that if you can't read mine, you won't either. See? All fair. Also, a journal post is not something necessarily written for others to consume (though I would argue that the very definition of LJ is "someone else is consuming what you write") and what you do in your own home is, was, and always will be, different from what you do in public. I know everyone has a volume of Miss Manners lying around. Check me if you don't believe me. House rules =/= social rules.

But in fiction, you are communicating with someone, and the capital letter serves a valuable, valuable role. Not only does it indicate the beginning of a sentence in way that, um, anyone and everyone who has ever been in at least an American grade-school classroom should understand, it indicates a proper noun. It indicates something that you would like people to really, really pay attention to, and it is not fucking cute to decide that your job in life is to overthrow the hierarchical organisation of text by being all rebellious and shit and not using capital letters where appropriate (or where inappropriate, because frankly, I fucking love capital letters) because that renders whatever you have just spent a whole lot of time and thought on unreadable.

And you know what? I make the fucking rules on this one, buddy. I have no interest at all in consuming a work that someone can't even be fucking arsed to follow relatively standard rules on.

But aside from that there's this:
The point of writing is to communicate. That's it. That's all it does. You are communicating with someone, even if it is only yourself. There is absolutely no other purpose of writing. Even if you just do this: 3ghgzvhiqwgvjswbiohw that's communicating. (In that case, it is communicating that I am somewhat of an idiot, but there you go - you are now more informed via my writing.)

Communication is best achieved, at least in English and probably in most other languages, and I really don't want to get into an argument about Serbo-Croat or Basque or Laotian, by standardising as much as possible what things mean and how they are presented.

That includes capital letters, because they have meaning in the structure of a sentence.

The more you work on developing your own style and on following the rules, the more you get to bend them, but seriously, that's not one that's awesome to bend. (Nor is not using standard punctuation. I don't expect everyone to grasp the three legitimate uses of the colon, but you can - I promise - use quotation marks and live through the terror.) And it is not awesome to bend because you are not doing something stylistic, you're doing something to alter the readability of your work. If you want to do something stylistic, have 150 distinct points of view in your story. Go nuts on text effects (I frankly adore Alfred Bester for doing that.) or on plots or on povs or weird shit that occurs via words, but really - don't fuck with the words. You want people to read what you've written, I promise.

So here. Have some capital letters back. I give them to you freely - give them a good home, treat them well, and generally use them, because I promise - it increases your readability, and therefore your audience. And I have never, ever, ever, not even in conversation with Southern Baptist and/or Mormon women, understood why anyone would voluntarily marginalise themselves. Work within the system to be awesomely different. Surprise me with your work, with how cool it is, don't turn me off immediately by indicating that you don't know how to fucking write.

Current Mood: annoyed
Current Music: "Heaven Help Us" :: My Chemical Romance

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WANKITY wank wank wank

In case anyone has forgotten, I am channonyarrow at GJ as well.

ETA: I'm not likely to leave LJ at the moment. I am mainly mirroring this journal on GJ (no, I have no idea how I'll do that, whether I'll just use one to read and one to post, or what) because of the most recent round of Strikethrough. And yes, I do actually give a shit about that. What my reaction will ultimately be, I can't say, but I don't like that a private company thinks it can dictate what is or is not free speech and what is obscenity by values that range from "someone said they don't like it" to the Miller Test, without consistency, when even the United States Supreme Court cannot define what is and is not obscenity and what is free speech.

It doesn't help that the latest round of "to catch a predator" shows seems to be focusing on LJ. Because god knows, I'm totally a pedo and so are the people I know in fandom.

I am, however, not likely to be looking at anything other than an inconvenience in terms of my own journaling, and a weird one. It is more convenient to keep my journal on LJ. I have many non-fandom friends who are not going to be affected by this, and who are not going to move as a result, and those are connexions I value. I'm not going to be deleted any time soon, since I don't do anything that's going to target these idiots who think that the internet should be sanitised for your protection. However, in light of some of the conversations going on, I felt it was appropriate to reiterate my location on GJ.

As to what it will mean in terms of "supporting" Livejournal - well. The thing I've learned is to wait and see. Do I have a sanguine hope of a happy ending? Not really - they've never responded to all the comments addressed to them when they changed the rules the weekend that Deathly Hallows came out and Sectus was going on. Do I have a fatal hope of an unhappy ending? Not really - they backed down, ultimately, on Strikethrough, and their policies are so flawed that I can't imagine that a lawyer would actually let them stand (and they DO have lawyers). At this point, I'm calling the odds fifty-fifty. Whether I will continue to give them money I don't know. I like having a paid journal, but I don't like supporting people who wish to police what I can and cannot look at as long as no actual child is being harmed.

I am an editor. Words are sacred to me (and yes, I wince every time someone on cranky_editors posts that they work for a POD publisher because I hate POD) so the right of free speech is up there even higher than most other values and liberties I hold dear. I don't like that LJ/6A is choosing to use the worst of two systems, the public and private systems in America, and is not choosing to think about this. They are bodging together their right as a private corporation based in America to dictate the content that is hosted on their servers, because they would be named in a lawsuit about child pornographers, since such images would be illegal under American law, with their wish (I have no better term) to support freedom of speech by not censoring unless it is called to their attention.

The problem with this is in the execution of that. Yes, every single Snarry work is now ToS-able, since we know that, canonically, Harry was not eighteen when Snape died. Child porn in the US.

Except! US law has never judged a work of fiction as child porn! Case in point: The Colour Purple. Well Schooled in Murder, by Elizabeth George. I KNOW I have other books on my shelves that qualify to SOME as being child porn, but the US has never found a work of fiction that I know of to qualify as such. As well, the US has never found an image of fictional people to be child porn as far as I know - I am on shakier ground here, but it makes sense. To be child porn, it has to hurt a child, and there is no child hurt if there is no child involved in its making. What happens to the porn after creation is an entirely different issue; I'm speaking of its creation.

I personally think that they're misreading "child porn", as used by Warriors For Innocence and other groups, to mean "child porn" when WfI means "teh gay". I have no take on the predator crap, other than to wonder whether shows that got a lot of watchers and eyes by finding actual pedophiles on MySpace will get the same watchers and eyes by looking at people on LJ who like looking at pictures of people having sex, regardless of age.

I also think that their execution of this policy is flawed in the extreme. I realise that we live in a happy country (for those of us in the US, which is where LJ's servers are located, so everyone ON LJ lives in the US) that believes that we can dictate what other people do and don't do, but we should NOT encourage that. It is behaviour that is not right, in my opinion. It is even higher than freedom of speech and sacredness of words, in my opinion - I have the right to do anything that does not hurt another person incapable of consent, in my opinion.

You click on a link marked NSFW, you get what you deserve. If you don't like teh gay, stay out of fandom. What LJ is doing with this policy and its execution is encouraging anyone who has a grudge against someone to go rat them out (and I do wonder how long it'll take before daily_deviant is ToS'd). With the "guidelines" that LJ follows, the main one being the Miller Test, which presupposes a community standard so that what is obscene in Podunk, GA is not necessarily obscene in New York, NY, there is nothing to stop this sort of abuse from happening.

Note, please, that LJ is not claiming that the works that have earned ToS's are copyright violations. They are offensive to someone.

So. We have a system ripe for abuse. You have a grudge? Great! ToS me! You can do it, you really can. I write about incest in a fictional relationship where one of the participants is underage. If you do that, however, I will come after YOU.

This seems to be where LJ stopped thinking. "The Miller Test" sounded sufficiently awesome to them and they didn't stop and think about whether someone could or would actually rat someone out on the basis of the fact that Person A and Person B did not get along. That's not upholding freedom of speech, in either of the manners that LJ has the right to do so. I personally believe that they are better served by going with the widest, broadest definition of free speech possible, before they shrink, and that things that are actual depictions of children in sexual situations should be prosecuted to the fullest extent, but that's not how LJ chose to roll. They threw words at a problem that weren't good enough words and that didn't do the job they wanted them to, then got scared when the fanartists didn't just disappear and started ToS-ing. They could have done something really good; they chose not to.

I don't want to support that, but it's a bit like my car. If I give up my car for the good of the environment, I give up a LOT - like being able to see my parents regularly. Like being able to do anything, five days a week, other than work and get to and from work. Like being able to go out with friends. If I give up LJ for my principles of free speech, I lose a LOT of my friends. I am now supporting something I don't agree with for the ease of my life, and I don't like that. But I don't have better options right now.

Current Mood: cynical
Current Music: "My Girlfriend's Girlfriend", Type O Negative

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Why I Am Here

This is my first, and, unless I find a better use for it than merely wasting oil and shitting filth into the air, only post on LiveJournal. See, I have only one reason to be here: friends.

However, I do feel compelled to point you to my actual blog, that I actually use, in my pursuit of destroying the lives of people I don't know. The site, when I can be bothered to update, is at www.steppinrazor3.com. Click the link that says Weblog.
Or you could even get adventurous and find out the kind of person I'll be when I'm writing for a living, by looking at the Rant of the Week and the Dungeon of Thought.

And be sure to come in alone.