All I care about is reading Rainbow Rowell’s newly-released Carry On (YES, it is the extended fanfic that Cath was writing in Fangirl, yes!), which I will certainly have finished by the time you read this. Mallory THAT BITCH got an early copy and has been taunting me with “you’re going to looooove it” and “I stayed up all niiiiiight” and “what a shame YOU don’t have a copy” and I hate her.
Stephenie Meyer, in an attempt to capitalize on Rainbow’s book day, has released a special gender-swap Bella and Edward story that ONLY COMES WITH THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY EDITION OF TWILIGHT. Excuse me? A OF ALL, most days when I’m in the shower I already pretend that I’m a powerful lady vampire and I take a human male companion and turn him after a few years of being more special than he is, and B OF ALL, I love those terrible books but I’m not gonna buy one twice. I shall wait for it to be made available as a standalone.
In the meantime, let’s buy this cool queer comics anthology instead.
Carolita on how to spot a recent upstate transplant.
My friend Carrie’s new puppy is not sure about this:
Incredible piece on hope and memory and language:
In November 2010, when I was 25 years old, I moved in with a man who was 98. This man, whom I’ll call Mr. Schecter, wasn’t a friend or relation or anyone I knew. He was a Holocaust survivor in the first stages of dementia, and I’d been hired to look after him. Although my background was in clinical psychology, I was by no means a professional caregiver. I was employed because Mr. Schecter’s son—I’ll call him Sam—had seriously underestimated his father’s condition. Sam’s mistake was understandable. The most obvious paradox of dementia is the victim’s frequent inability to recognize it, and Mr. Schecter went about his life as though burdened by the normal aches and pains of aging rather than by an irrevocable and debilitating illness. If he put the laundry detergent in the oven or forgot which floor he lived on, he’d shake his head and sigh, Mayn kop arbet nisht (“my head doesn’t work”). But it was a lament, not a diagnosis. And this denial, both clinical and profoundly human, led Sam to misjudge the illness as well.
Wesley Morris on identity (there are parts about Hamilton and Key and Peele):
What started this flux? For more than a decade, we’ve lived with personal technologies — video games and social-media platforms — that have helped us create alternate or auxiliary personae. We’ve also spent a dozen years in the daily grip of makeover shows, in which a team of experts transforms your personal style, your home, your body, your spouse. There are TV competitions for the best fashion design, body painting, drag queen. Some forms of cosmetic alteration have become perfectly normal, and there are shows for that, too. Our reinventions feel gleeful and liberating — and tied to an essentially American optimism. After centuries of women living alongside men, and of the races living adjacent to one another, even if only notionally, our rigidly enforced gender and racial lines are finally breaking down. There’s a sense of fluidity and permissiveness and a smashing of binaries. We’re all becoming one another. Well, we are. And we’re not.
okay, I’m going to include some of the part about “Negrotown”:
The show left us with a dream of Edenic self-containment as the key to black contentment — a stunning contradiction of all its previous sketches. It was a rebuke to both racial integration and ghettoization. It split me open. I cried with laughter at the joke of this obviously fake place as a kind of heaven. I cried with sadness, because if you’re in Negrotown, you’re also in a special ring of hell.
The bitterness of the sketch made me wonder if being black in America is the one identity that won’t ever mutate. I’m someone who believes himself to have complete individual autonomy, someone who feels free. But I also know some of that autonomy is limited, illusory, conditional. I live knowing that whatever my blackness means to me can be at odds with what it means to certain white observers, at any moment. So I live with two identities: mine and others’ perceptions of it. So much of blackness evolving has been limited to whiteness allowing it to evolve, without white people accepting that they are in the position of granting permission. Allowing. If that symbiotic dynamic is going to change, white people will need to become more conscious that they, too, can be perceived.
how we could avoid having people’s skin randomly tear off in sheets with a simple test:
The solution is a genetic test. Chung predicted this in his 2004 paper, concluding: “It should be possible to exploit this association in a highly reliable test to predict severe adverse reaction.” Indeed, it was. In Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, and other Asian countries, doctors now carry out routine genetic tests for the HLA-B*15:02 variant before prescribing carbamazepine. It takes just 24 hours and if anyone tests positive, they get the newer, more expensive drugs.
Here is a very worthy cause: a GoFundMe for an South Side Chicago school’s English department to buy books:
We put our hearts and souls into this school and our kids every single day. We can do without air conditioning on the third floor during 90 degree Chicago weather; we guzzle water. We can do without paper to make copies; we buy our own and bring it up from our car three flights of stairs one ream at a time. We can do without a functioning computer lab large enough to hold a full class; we teach our kids how to be resourceful by going to their public libraries and, in the worst case scenarios, typing full essays into Google Drive on their smart phones.
What we cannot do without–no, what we REFUSE to do without–are the materials we need to build the foundational critical skills that our students need and deserve.
Justice is providing students from the South Side of Chicago with access to the same quality of materials that the students in the North Shore of Chicago are guaranteed. And, at least on our watch, we will not allow the injustices of a budget to impact our kids for the rest of their lives.
On being deported:
Unlike all my previous journeys, on this occasion I would be denied the thing after which all travellers yearn – their destination. Upon arrival at Heathrow, I was detained for more than nine hours and then deported, my residence stamp of nineteen years cancelled. At no point did British Border Force officials attempt to contact my wife. No previous journey had prepared me for that, or the subsequent limbo, which at the time of my writing has lasted seven weeks.
This experience has been so disorienting, that I have on several nights since woken from dreams of being in London, in our house, in our garden, with family and friends. My body was returned, but my heart continued the journey.
Written by a Toastie who uses gaming to do group therapy with kids:
“No, it’s like…it’s got claws…” After fumbling through an unclear analogy and then failing to base a complex concept on these hazy descriptions, I finally thought, “screw it, I’m just going to talk aboutMario Kart.” I asked everyone who had played Mario Kart to raise their hands. The response was universal. Okay, already we had a better recognition rate. I asked about a time when they were doing great in the game, and if a friend had ever done something that left them feeling betrayed and angry. Their immediate answer: the blue shell. And there it was. A simple term we could use to parse the mire of childhood friendships.
Can we please talk about the Norwegian bodybuilders who visit a tiny town together to make them feel even bigger?
They were obviously too sexy for their shirts.
Yes, let’s. I like how affirming they appear to be of each other.
oh my God
“I don’t hang pictures on my wall. I frame tiny postage stamps.” I LOVE THEM
Went to high school with a guy named Thor. ^^This is what he looked like after football practice. Oh, my stars, my beating heart.
Life is a rich tapestry, and some parts of that tapestry are just a little brighter than others.
Hello friends, I am looking for a gender-neutral way to say something equivalent to “I’m your man.”
I had “I’m your girl” for a while but that is awful. Help!
Further reading on the topic.
I’m your lobster?
Sorry, replied before clicking. After doing that: maybe “I’m the one you need”?
Lisa Kudrow is a treasure.
In the new movie Sleeping With Other People, at one point Jason Mantzoukas says that about Jason Sudeikis and Allison Brie’s relationship and I totally lost it.
“I’m your huckleberry.”
dammit I tried to post that but I got locked out of the comments section
My boss just called me his huckleberry about 5 minutes ago.
That whole idiom includes such a weird feudal service overtone, for me. Which somehow makes a male speaker seem all knightly and a female speaker all subordinate-y. :\
Where an actual job title is involved, maybe just use that – “When it comes to debugging, I’m your engineer” ? Or swap in the imperative – “Pick me”, “send me”, “stand back and watch me”? Or even switch to the second-person explicitly – “If something comes in with a due date of yesterday, you’ll want me” ?
ahahahah “stand back and watch me” reminded me of the way Karsa Orlong in the Malazan books just says “Witness.” before he’s about to ride off and do something ridiculously badass.
Then I googled for images and came up with a bunch of fanart I wish I hadn’t seen. 🙁
That aside, these are good suggestions. Thanks. <3
I usually picture someone who’s really street smart and/or very practical and competent. Great at getting things done, knows who’s who around here, good at not asking questions, does well as a henchman or right hand man. They’re probably a scruffy adventurer, an honest farmhand, a stoic cowboy or possibly a con man. They may have been a Plucky Urchin as a child. “I’m your man” men from Game of Thrones include Tyrion, Bronn, Littlefinger, The Hound, Jorah and even Jamie. Discworld: Moist, Carrot, possibly Nanny Ogg though she’s slightly unpredictable.
BUT, it’s a horribly gendered trope (just look at how many times I’ve used “man” in this reply) because the world sucks so why would a woman be useful. I think Arya would be amazing at it though.
I mean, as a ciswoman who is read as a woman somewhere between “reliably” and “always”, I might just use “I’m your man” or “I’m your guy”. Because sometimes the best way to lampshade the gendering of both language and implied trope is to force the listener through a few seconds of cognitive dissonance of their own.
And with the already-savvy, it’s easy enough to throw a heavy dose of fake-machismo into the delivery so it can be a jolly joke together.
But that obviously won’t work for everyone or every situation, and wasn’t the original request, and I really don’t have very good advice for what Hills should do, since everything she does is five-times as examined for gender as anything I say. 😐
Yeah, I’ve taken to calling myself a guy in those situations, too (I’m a cis lady). Who has two thumbs and whatever else? This guy!
Or I would say, “I’m the one!”
I think Casanunda would also qualify. I can see him getting pulled into elaborate adventures in the name of love. Because he tries harder.
i use “i’m your man”. i use gendered slang/phrases with complete disregard for their gender. i still can’t figure out if that makes me a bad or good feminist/person/queer. i kinda maybe feel like if everyone acted with disregard, it would neuter the word “man” and all things “masculine” of their supposed inherent superiority. or does it make a me a tool (tool!) of the patriarchy?
(if i’d been told in school that i’d be hanging out on the toast some day, i would’ve paid more attention in critical thinking and writing class.)
*sigh*
*goes to get another cup of tea and a cookie*
Cheerful link about a baby cheetah and his dog friend
This is literally the best thing I have ever seen
YES. NGL, the cheetahs and their dog friends are one of my favorite parts about the zoo here
Please enjoy this video from last summer about the newest baby cheetah at the SD Zoo meeting his puppy friend
I nom on your ear!
no I nom on YOUR ear
Baby cheetah falling off the bed! alksjdfklsdjklj
Did you see the part where it was licking the bed just a few moments later? 😀 😀 😀
THEY’RE JUST BIG SCAREDY CATS!!!!!
Mario Kart/the blue shell is also a really good way of discussing diversity initiatives and privilege.
Thank you for the shoutout! I saw that my article was getting more traffic and I couldn’t figure out why, then a friend linked me to your comment. Much appreciated!
That is awesome. I always love good ways to describe/explain privilege!
I suspect that people deemed too rude to be police are shunted into the border patrol system. I have never had a good experience with those of the US. They are either robotic or abusive.
My husband and I drove down to Vermont for the weekend last fall and the border guy we dealt with just could not process the knowledge that we had rented the car we were driving.
“What’s wrong with YOUR car?”
“We don’t have one.”
“You don’t have a CAR?”
“No.”
“How do you get to work?”
“I take the bus.”
Border guy, thoroughly alarmed by this point, sticks his head through the driver’s side window and frowns at me. “What about you, ma’am? Do you take the bus too?”
“…yes?”
After a bit more back-and-forth on the topic of the car, he finally let us through.
My “favourite” though was the border dude who looked at our passports and said, “So YOU were born in Ohio… and YOU were born in Ro-ma-ni-a… how did you two meet?” I was dying to say, “Fuck you, that’s how” but that would have been counter-productive. He obviously thought I was a mail-order bride or something. I guess his initial impression wasn’t improved by my husband’s honest answer of “We met on the internet.” It’s been 5 years and I’m still mad about that.
I think we actually met that same guy in Vermont on our way back East from our honeymoon.
“Why did you get married in Michigan?”
“Our family is there.”
“But this says you live in Massachusetts.”
“Yes, we moved.”
“So why were you in Michigan?”
“For our wedding.”
etc etc etc. The real exchange was actually more ridiculous but I seem to have blocked the details. It also involved some discussion of the fact that my husband was originally from out west, which just complicated things further.
I went across the border into Michigan a couple of weeks ago, and just as I rolled up; my Detroit radio station started a phone in call about sex toys that involved someone telling a story about a vibrating tongue ring and her ass.
I have NEVER hit the power button so hard and fast.
WOW, that is surreal. I’ve only had one encounter with border partrol, moving from Texas to Oregon earlier this year and driving through El Paso to New Mexico. It was a very brief encounter, since we’e unambiguously white (like, of Swedish descent). They asked if my mom and I were Americans, I said yes, he looked in the backseat at my two cats in carriers, and I said they were Americans too. Then he let us go.
There’s a great segment on This American Life about the legalities of in-country border patrol:
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/ep…
It’s act 2.
I used to go up to Montreal on weekends when I went to college in Vermont, and the US border guys were always such miserable assholes. The Canadians were always cheerful and friendly, but coming back it was all scowling and surliness and probing questions about what I’d been doing (drinking legally, that’s what), and that was with a US passport. Every time I took the bus it took forever to get across the border because they had to corral all the people with foreign passports and interrogate them in separate rooms. Just super gross.
I went to Canada for work a couple months ago, and weirdly the lady we talked to going into Canada was way ruder than the man we talked to going into the US. She seemed to think it was preposterous that we could need four people for a business meeting (despite us all having different specialties).
The US ones are the worst. The Dutch ones are friendlier, and often attractive young men which helps
In Ireland I had a very kindly old grandpa-type stereotype of an Irish man who was very sweet to us and kept the chitchat brief but friendly. He even had a twinkle in his eye.
In France I had this incredibly cranky tall, leggy, model-looking woman who seemed to be annoyed at everything in life and resented having a job at all. I remember she confiscated a lighter from someone in my group by tossing it in her podium drawer, then pulled out some hardcover book (Danielle Steele? Robert Ludlum? Something like that) and sighed “Do you want this? I HATE reading in English” and basically traded the girl the book for the lighter. (I actually kinda liked her.)
I’ve been through Dutch customs a lot now and they all seem to be young military-looking sorts, both male and female. The Brits are really suspicious though, they are very interested in why I’m going and who I might be with.
The Brits once confiscated a pie fork that was randomly still at the bottom of my backpack after a movie. Crucial detail: I also had it with me on the way to the UK, but the Dutch customs people either didn’t notice or (accurately) didn’t think a short Dutch girl could do a lot of damage with a tiny pie fork.
On a visit to the Supreme Court library in London, I was stopped at the entrance after going through a metal detector, because I had a fork in my lunchbox. I had to hand it over before I was allowed in. (I handed over the whole lunchbox, because I had used it to eat my lunch and it was not particularly clean.) I’m not sure what they thought I would do; there were security guards all over the place, and it would take me ages to rummage through my bag, pull out the box, open it up and retrieve the fork, let alone stab someone with it.
The difference between London airports and other European cities is weird. I remember the first time going through Gatwick, I couldn’t believe how much anti-terrorist shit there was around.
Like in Dublin its all ‘Hey welcome to Ireland, LEPRECAUNS, give us your money!’, but in London the signs are all ‘DO NOT THREATEN OUR STAFF WE WILL SHOOT YOU.’
I also saw two armed police guards in London Bridge train station recently, and I don’t mean hand-guns, the two of them had those big two handed guns with the torch on top that are strapped to the person. I thought that armed police were specialist units that had to be called in, not just general guard duty (I was also a bit a off my tits and go very paranoid walking by them thinking that if I did one thing wrong they could easily kill me.)
Oh, that’s interesting — I don’t remember anti-terrorist stuff in London airports (probably because I’m from America), just how astonishingly efficient the security queues were. But when I went on a three-day tour of Ireland, I remember seeing armed military guards in the streets. (This was spring 2008 — I don’t know if there were major incidents, but our dour tour guide told us stories of bloody violence in Belfast.)
Depends where you are I guess, The North is a bit of a different kettle of fish, and then there’s Limerick which is just an entire county of gangs, and if it was the army then its different; But I’ve never seen an armed police officer in Dublin (Although gun crime has been on the rise), and I remember when they began introducing armed units and it was very controversial! (And then they shot a disabled man. So controversy proved right!)
I forget which town it was where I saw the guards (who were most likely part of the army), but we didn’t enter the North. We probably passed through Limerick, though!
I flew into Shannon, Ireland in…2003? And I remember it feeling like I was flying into a tiny rural U.S. airport. I mean, the airport was SO tiny and almost empty. There were literally dudes in folding lawn chairs outside that I could see drinking/watching the planes fly in as we landed.
When I flew in to Rome several years ago, the Italian border security was so nonchalant. I was not asked any questions when they stamped my passport, and the security beyond that point involved walking past two customs guards who didn’t even look at us because they were so involved in conversation with each other.
I’ve seen police officers with huge guns at Euston station a few times, and I find it really unnerving – I had also thought that armed police were only present for very serious stuff, not just generally patrolling the station.
I’m already nervous of police, so seeing them with massive guns skeevs me out.
I had thought that maybe there was a threat or heightened security for some reason. I really hope its not becoming common policy to have heavily armed guards patrolling, its bad enough that they all walk around with stab vests on all the time
I find armed police really unnerving (at least we rarely see them here – when I went to the US it was very alarming to see so many guns). Stab vests don’t really bother me, though, as they’re a defensive thing rather than an offensive one. (I am the daughter of a retired police officer, though, so my baseline level of comfort around police is pretty good. He says that armed police being present at stations, etc., is probably the result of a particular incident rather than the standard thing.)
I think it shocked me more because I’ve never seen guns like that in real life, and just so casually around the place!
Stab vests I understand, but it saddens me that there’s enough of a probability of being stabbed that they feel they are a necessary precaution!
An old boyfriend of mine got deported from Ireland once (after working illegally as a waiter for a few months), and he said the two men who found him and escorted him back to the US were incredibly nice to him the whole time. Twinkly, like you said.
As deportations go, it sounded like a relatively pleasant experience for all concerned.
That article gave me serious anxiety; how are you expected to build a life if at any time it can be whipped away from you?
As an immigrant I already know how hard it is to start again in a new place, not knowing anyone and with no stability, but to have that hanging over your head?! I enjoy a serious level of privilege when it comes to migration, especially within Europe and in particular in the UK; Being an EU citizen and Irish means that I am free to move here, live, work and vote here without any restrictions. UK immigration control is terrifying and I’m very lucky to be able to bypass it completely; A white American friend of mine was not so lucky, after living here for 3 years, they put her visa under review in January, meaning she could not work or study, and then she had to wait until July for a hearing (meanwhile paying for lawyers and pushing all this through), then after two weeks of waiting they just said ‘No you can’t stay here anymore’, she had 30 days to get out of the country and is not allowed to return for a year, and thats still a good outcome. If she was African or from The Middle East who knows what they might have done!
Yeah, someone I knew through academia was told she had 30 days to get out of the country, after a really long time – at least 10 years, I think longer maybe even? She had to go back to Malaysia and figure things out from there.
Its a deliberately soul crushing process too, I’m convinced they try their hardest to make you just give up; Being told you’re no longer allowed to work, but if you want the visa you have to stay in the country, there’ll be a hearing at somepoint, but they don’t tell you when; and when you do finally get a date it’s likely they’ll push it back multiple times.
I’ve dealt with some shit bureaucracies (Living on social welfare is not fun), but I think Border Control has to be the worst; they literally control you’re entire future.
I know a few Irish people who over-stayed their US visa’s and lived there for years, built an entire life, but then took a trip home (usually for a funeral or something) and that was it, they weren’t allowed back in. They had to leave spouses, property, CHILDREN. (I know, I know, over-staying a visa is not smart in the first place, but these are Irish people we’re talking about. They wouldn’t be Irish if they didn’t think they could be cheeky and get around the law, sure it’ll all be grand in the end.)
Holy crap, that’s awful! It’s been a long dream of mine to live in the UK for at least a year, but man, unless the political environment changes, it may not be possible or worth the stress.
I’ve been told its particularly difficult for Americans for some reason, something about giving as good as you get 😉
If you go through all the right channels, and particularly if you have a company sponsoring you or are married to someone that does, I don’t think that its any harder than any other country. The issues start when your situation changes, i.e. my friend was married when she arrived (so came in on his visa) and has since gotten divorced and then re-applied for a visa extension with her change in circumstance; She tried to claim domestic violence was the cause for the change (which it was), but the judge ruled that they couldn’t prove DV or didn’t have enough evidence or something stupid like that.
Apart from border control though, the political landscape here is getting a bit scary, there’s some serious Orwellian shit going on with all this terrorism prevention (aka being super racist and punishing thought-crimes) and ill-will against immigrants. Although as usual, if you’re white and western people will forget that you’re even an immigrant, when they say immigrant they mean people of colour. (Again, ITS SUPER FUCKING RACIST HERE.)
Uggggh, how horrible. I don’t know which country is more racist or xenophobic right now, the US or the UK. Thank you for all the info. I really enjoyed the four months I studied abroad in Lincolnshire in 2008.
I still have the Hamilton soundtrack on loop, and I realize I’m kinda clinging to it like a mental teddy bear as I read the “London Lost” article, the NPR one on mass Mexican deportations in the early 20th century, and all of this.
My experience with Australia was basically the same. 30 days to leave, do not pass go, forget the many dollars you spent on the visa in the first place.
Eta: law abiding, job holding taxpayer, etc.
I was hassled coming back to the US at the Lewiston Queenstown bridge after driving through Ontario from Michigan. I was visiting friends in Ann Arbor, and they gave me a hard time for having Colorado plates on my car. I guess in New York State Colorado is a foreign country.
I got a Nexus primarily for Global Entry privileges on an overseas vacation this summer, but I feel this huge sense of smugness now like YOU ASSHOLES GOT YOUR CLAWS IN MY PRIVACY NOW LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE.
The difference between entering the U.S from Canada and vice versa is amazing. Going into the U.S., it’s like their default mode is suspicion.
Yes, exactly this! My fiancee and I drove across the country a few years ago (along with a car full of stuff as we were also moving), and the Canadian response to ‘our car is packed to the gills because we are moving but we would also like to see your big waterfall and maybe have lunch?’ was a cheerful ‘Welcome to Canada!’ while trying to reenter the US became ‘why would you bring stuff with you if you’re moving/how can you only spend four hours in Canada/what do you mean you had lunch there?’
Lunch? Sounds like a Moslem thing to me.
Oh lord. Once upon a time, my ex and I were coming back to the USA after nearly two months bicycle touring in Canada. We came through the border into rural Minnesota. And the border patrol person was just….abrasive.
“Are you bringing back any narcotics or tobacco? What’s the relationship between you two? How did you meet? Where are you going in Minnesota? How do you know that person?” like, if you’re genuinely suspicious just search our damn things, but we’re American citizens with valid passports–what are you going to do, make us stay in Canada?? Was he just bored because we were the only people to come through the border all day?
On every trip I’ve taken to Canada: the Canadian border people have been polite and lovely, and the Americans have been unfriendly at best.
Wow, that SJS testing thing is amazing. I know medicine is far from perfect, but sometimes modern advances just leave me on the floor. I hope testing becomes more widespread and that alternative drugs become more easily available for those who are at risk.
Kind of related: the first time I had heard of SJS (related to lamotrigine) was in this amazing webcomic “that aims to spread awareness about epilepsy by vividly depicting the daily life of a young, Arab-American epileptic named Isaac, who struggles maintain a balancing act between his normal life and his abnormal condition.” Check it out!
Holy crap this comic! I have had very similar experiences with terrible neurologists and drs writing stuff off as panic attacks or innocuous migraine symptoms – not to mention getting treated as drug-seeking all the damn time. This is great and super relatable – it’s good to not feel like the only person on earth who has (and is continuing to FFS) put up with this much bullshit over their seizures.
I wasn’t even aware that Carry On existed/was going to exist until yesterday– and now I feel like the fact that I don’t have a copy yet and can’t read it is in some weird way acting as consolation for the fact that I also don’t have a copy of Ancillary Mercy and can’t read that either.
kindle! i started it last night, i’m so excited
I knowww…I think that cutting my obsessive fannish teeth on Harry Potter back before you could buy an e-book as soon as it was released fixed indelibly my response to highly anticipated new releases. Namely, that it must be a physical copy, however long it takes to get there. (I don’t live in the US or the UK). That said, I just joined joined my library’s e-book hold list for Carry On, so I’m not sure why I couldn’t just buy it… On the other hand, what book *more appropriate* could there by for insisting on a physical copy in the grand old Harry Potter tradition than this one? Maybe I need to cancel my hold and order a paper copy.
I had to epurchase it but now I am looking for a box set with Fangirl.
I pick up my Kindle to download Carry On for the plane tomorrow. “It’s 11 PM. I should definitely not start reading this at all,” I think. “Don’t even tap into it and look at the first page,” I tell myself as I tap into it and look at the first page. “Remember how you couldn’t put down Fangirl until it was done and it was very long for a YA?” I scold me as I begin reading. I may be doomed.
There are few hills I will die upon in this life, but one of them is the belief that in NY is everything south of Albany is downstate. But I would also love a version of that cartoon with recent transplants to Syracuse, or even better, the North Country. Just a picture of an arm holding aloft that ergonomic shovel, buried in a six foot high mound of snow that the plow just shoved in front of their driveway.
Buffalo gal here. I’m from WNY, still nonplussed when I hear someone refer to where I live as ‘upstate’. Upstate means the North Country to me.
You ain’t kidding about the six foot snows. My husband went to Clarkson and he made it sound like it was the North Pole.
I’m from Syracuse, and also consider upstate to be the North Country, but I went to college on Long Island and lived in NYC for a little while and it’s just one of those things that will always bug me, because whenever someone talked about upstate new york, they meant, like, Kingston or Westchester, and never actual upstate.
Now I live in DC and two inches of snow is considered a disaster (which, rationally I know it’s a disaster because they allocate their resources differently and do not budget for snow removal because it is DC, BUT STILL, IT SNOWS EVERY YEAR PEOPLE) and it just makes me want to cry.
I am from the North Country–though living in NYC now–and I really didn’t realize until just now people from other parts of the state also refer to us as the North Country. I really thought it was a regional term.
(But what did I think you guys called us? I dunno, Canada I guess?)
Yeah, I’m from Utica, and I have hard time with the idea of Kingston as “upstate”.
Seriously. I looked around that site and I was like “why are all these events in the Catskills? That is not upstate?” I’m in Syracuse.
I’ve gotten tricked by that site more than once thinking that it was going to be about places/things in upstate. I just get so excited at the prospect of a whole site dedicated to writing positive things about places in new york outside the city, from transplants no less!
I grew up on Long Island, where everything north of Westchester is “Upstate.” Now I live in the northernmost reaches of the North Country, and I’m like…you knew nothing of Upstate, Jon Snow.
Right? When I was a wee lass I lived in the Hudson Valley, and my LI relatives came “upstate” to visit us. And then we moved to the North Country. And they were like… oh. Oh, I see.
P.S. Hi other North Country Toastie! 🙂
Hi!
Gah, yes. I went to a SUNY in the Hudson Valley and everyone kept calling places like Westchester and YONKERS “upstate” and I just kept correcting them every single time.
(Really I’m just here because you used the phrase “North Country”. You pinged my upstater-radar and I had to respond.)
Just last night, my friend made up the term “outstate” to describe NY-state-that-is-not-NYC, because we were discussing how the normal usage of “upstate” is totally inaccurate and does not usually describe anything up from NYC, but it is still useful to have a word for the part of the state that isn’t the city.
I’m pretty sure the state government officially calls it ROS in at least some contexts — there’s NYC and then there’s the Rest Of [the] State.
In my class at grad school (in SF), we have a girl from Buffalo, a girl from Rochester, a girl from Rockland, and me, from Putnam county, and we regularly get into heated discussions about the definition of upstate. It’s the easiest way to get New Yorkers fighting! (Putnam county is NOT upstate, metro north still goes to my town.)
I’m from Rockland, and my mom is from queens and so I have grown up with the definition of Upstate=not The City*. once had an entertaining argument with my Binghamton cousins who insisted that they did Not live upstate because they were barely north of the border with Pennsylvania.
*I also describe my home region as “not in the city, but close enough that ‘the city’ always means NYC.)
I read that deportation essay a couple days ago, and I am still at near-panic about it. Nothing quite that extreme ever happened to me, but the idea of that is honestly what keeps me up at night.
FREE JESSICA JONES COMIC CONNECTING THE SHOW TO THE DAREDEVIL SHOW AND IT’S BY THE ORIGINAL ALIAS TEAM
I AM FREAKING OUT YOU GUYS THIS IS EVERYTHING I HAVE EVER WANTED
Thank you for alerting me to this! I love love love Alias (and am pretty pissed it’s not on the Marvel Unlimited app), so this is fantastic.
Ugh, SAME. I have gone on for HOURS about how irritating it is to have to spend $55+ on it because you can’t get it on the app.
If anyone is interested in using gaming to better their lives, I just started using Jane McGonigal’s SuperBetter app which is free and awesome. Essentially you use all the great psychological stuff you call upon to win a game (optimism, creativity, courage, determination) to better your real life. And it’s been studied and validated by two clinical studies!
I just ordered this book! I am super interested into this idea. I started Habitica a few months ago and it is both fun and also super helpful. Going to download that app now!
The Losing London article was beautiful, and this in particular made me cry: “To journey is to be human. To migrate is to be human. Human migration forged the world. Human migration will forge the future. We will sooner stop the tides in the oceans than the migration of people around their planet.” So much of what is beautiful in the world happens when people move from place to place; it’s such a bittersweet process, leaving something behind, ending up somewhere where the welcome feels conditional. My heart just breaks for him and his family. I hope that this attention helps speed up whatever visa processes need to happen.
I will also be reading The Silent Minaret now.
I love the feeling of clicking on a gofundme link and seeing the numbers go up (by eight whole donors!) just in the time it takes me to read the description and fetch my wallet.
My friend Libby’s puppy Marilyn Monroe (/Em/Skittles) is very tiny and likes laps:
I think we actually met that same guy in Vermont on our way back East from our honeymoon.
“Why did you get married in Michigan?”
“Our family is there.”
“But this says you live in Massachusetts.”
“Yes, we moved.”
“So why were you in Michigan?”
“For our wedding.”
etc etc etc. The real exchange was actually more ridiculous but I seem to have blocked the details. It also involved some discussion of the fact that my husband was originally from out west, which just complicated things further.
To those who don’t know what this kind of probing interrogation feels like, one curious effect is that somewhere deep inside one begins to doubt oneself. That must be part of the interrogator’s intention, and it left me feeling violated.
Although I am fortunate enough never to have endured official interrogation, I have been in situations where I had to justify myself and my experiences to people who had power over my future and this is exactly what it feels like.
That was such a powerful and beautiful article – thank you for sharing it.
Carolita! Her upstate journey is making me really excited for the day when I come to my senses and move the hell away from NYC.
You and me both!
We’re budgeting hard this month so I’m trying not to buy books new, but I feel guilty taking Rainbow Rowell’s books out of the library — as badly as I want to read them, I feel like there are several dozen teens who need them more.
But if you take her books out and the teens want to read them and put themselves on waitlists, or the circulation dept sees a lot of check-outs of her books, they might prioritize ordering more copies sooner, so the teens won’t miss out for long! 😀
This is true!
That’s why you only get to keep them for a couple weeks! 😛 And unfortunately, I don’t think there are hordes of teens clamoring for them yet. Hopefully they’ll discover them, though.
True story: I picked up Eleanor and Park because a teen evangelized it to me. (I responded in-kind.) So there is some local demand, at least!
I’m a teen librarian, and at a high school book club last week, the two book releases the kids were most excited about were Carry On and the upcoming Welcome to Night Vale book. Eleanor and Park and Fangirl have both been on the state high school book awards list, so there are a lot of Rainbow Rowell fans around here among the bookish teens!
That’s excellent! I’m glad to hear it. I was mostly thinking of the furor over Harry Potter and Hunger Games, which isn’t a fair comparison.
This article is also relevant, for US attitudes when it comes to immigration: http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/09/08… Especially relevant to me, as my grandparents immigrated to Texas from Mexico in the 1910s and lived through this period of extreme xenophobia.
ETA: And there are current issues, such as attacks on birthright citizenship and deportations that happen from hospitals and clinics. The US certainly has it’s own share of blame.
I am really curious to read the gender-swapped Twilight but I don’t want to pay for it (I think the first Twilight is the only one in the series I own, in paperback, bought at a grocery store). I shall wait until it is available from the library (preferably in ebook, because those are easier to borrow/return and also that way no one knows what I am reading)
I’m just following along with Jenny Trout’s live-tweeting of the book. All the snark, some of the text, much better than actually buying the book
TOASTS! I saw Neil Gaiman speak last night (he read “The October Tale” and I almost cried with happiness because it is one of my favorite sweet bits) and he talked a bit about his new baby who is still very new at three weeks old. Baby Gaiman is already being read Shirley Jackson, so that’s good. Gaiman generally spoke about the importance of stories and how genres often really just help you decide what not to read and what is age appropriate? and how he wrote Coraline for his daughter when she would come home from nursery school telling terrifying stories and he could not find any horror stories for five year olds at the book shop. Gaiman also said the American God television series is on track to come out at the beginning of 2017 AND THEN he did something that maybe he should not have: with some moderator prompting he confirmed that he is working with the BBC to adapt Good Omens and he promised Terry he would do a good job and then I actually teared up and am now listening to Good Omens again at work and looking forward to a weekend morning of tea and a revisiting of Discworld.
THEEND.
Having Good Omens come out on BBC is everything I always knew I ever wanted.
Right? My husband and a friend I was there with are more excited for American Gods, which I will of course devour, but Good Omens is one of my all time favorites. Gaiman spoke about working on Good Omens with Pratchett and how he (Gaiman) would roll out of bed at one in the afternoon to an answering machine tape full of Pratchett saying “Get up, you bugger, I just wrote a really good bit!” and then they would talk for a few hours and go back to writing, racing to see who could get to the next really good bit.
Did you listen to the radio adaptation they did on BBC Radio 4 by any chance?
Crowley was played by Peter Serafinowicz and Aziraphale by Mark Heap. It was beyond marvelous and the most British thing ever.
YAAAAAAAAAAAS.
Good Omens was my introduction to both of them, and my copy is the battered, dog-eared type that I’m told they love(d) seeing at signings.
So psyched about the American Gods series, too. Supposedly Neil is writing a sequel (a true sequel, one about Shadow) just so the series will have more material. I am ready.
Whoa, the dementia piece is really good.
I am very excited for Carry On! I started it yesterday and it is a delight. If things start being published under Cather Avery or Magicath I will immediately buy them, but also of course everything by Rainbow Rowell.
I want a Lego TARDIS! I want to display it in my office and see who admires it. And I especially want the wee little Lego Daleks, which are ADORABLE.
I just gave a few bucks to that GoFundMe for books, and I am so mad. What good did local control / financing ever do for a school system? I meant, besides help keep rich people rich? Seriously, is there any other point at all? It’s a disgrace.Teachers should not be begging for books in the richest nation on earth. If anything, poorer students should have *more* classroom materials, since they probably don’t have many resources at home.
Now I guess I’ll go look at the dog and cheetah to calm myself down.
Speaking as the son of a teacher,
I work at a reception desk in the front of a lobby such that my back is wide open to everyone (there’s no back wall or anything). Sometimes patrons or faculty or co-workers will come up behind me and touch my shoulder in a friendly gesture, like a hug? which I usually jump and shout and am like “oh, geez, you startled me! please don’t come up behind me like that again!” because these people mean it kindly and don’t realize that when they’re on the carpet and I’m focused on something in front of me, I just don’t realize how close they are, and also they don’t necessarily know that I don’t like being touched.
(I mean, dude, don’t touch people from behind, even if you’re friends, unless they’ve made it clear that it’s cool to do! but i can’t exactly yell at one of my favorite teachers from 10 years ago who looked up my personal records to find my parents’ phone number to call when she was worried that I’d missed class a lot and was really depressed, not when she still remembers me and speaks proudly about the art contest i won while in her class whenever she brings students to the museum and I’m here)
Digression aside, it’s a hazard of working in a customer-facing job, especially as a woman, and with a desk with no back wall.
The details are in a reply, because I need to get some empathy from people but I don’t want to make anyone read it.
BUT YESTERDAY EVENING this older guy (50s?) that I barely know except that he comes to a lot of events came up behind me while I was working on a spreadsheet and copying numbers to tally, so really super focused on my task, and he’s in sneakers on the carpet, and i heard his group enter the lobby but no clue how close he was to me, and he suddenly started massaging my neck and shoulders with both hands and it was so disgusting and creepy and eurgh.
I sort of froze in shock, then lifted my arms to push his hands off and said “Please don’t touch me, this is inappropriate, don’t touch me please” and he was like “Oh, I thought you heard me coming!” like that was any kind of defense or excuse or reason to touch me around my neck without my permission when I barely know him! One of his companions kind of laughed “when people do that to me, I startle and shriek!” and i hated it, like I should have shouted instead of freezing up? But his hands were around my neck!
Anyway, I feel kind of guilty for telling my manager/HR person about what he did, because it’s not really that big of a deal (except it is!) and also he is a minor patron, not just some random visitor. He’s not a huge patron (and even if he were, it was completely inappropriate!), and it wasn’t as offensive as some other jerks I’ve dealt with, but he touched me, put his hands around my neck from behind without warning. Even if he stopped, he didn’t apologise, was like “it’s your fault for not realizing I was there”, which is completely wrong.
I feel like I handled it correctly, and my manager/HR person was like “yeah, you did that right, and I’m going to think about how to deal with this guy in the future” but I still feel a little guilty for dwelling on it all evening, and not just brushing the incident off. And I think that’s what makes me the most angry/irritated, that I’ve accepted that I should just let something like this slide, because it’s not like he harmed me or anything, and it’s actually kind of minor compared to when we had to call the cops because of harassment.
Stupid stupid grr argh etc
Ugh what he did is so inappropriate and gross. And being bothered by it and making a thing of it is *totally correct and okay*. This guy invaded your personal space and touched you without your consent, and that is not okay. And you can’t control how your body initially reacts to these things–freezing is totally normal. As is still being bothered by it later, because your body, your space, your rules, and it’s not okay for other people to violate that space and those rules.
tl;dr You handled this and are handling this like a boss.
Thank you! This is exactly what I’ve been telling myself, but there’s that stupid undercurrent of “maybe I’m wrong?”
I really appreciate the validation for how I reacted, so I’m glad I posted here – plus venting a little always helps. 🙂
Nope, not wrong at all. Set that undercurrent free. That is wildly inappropriate behavior and you responded 100% appropriately considering that from what I’ve gathered there’s no flamethrower under your desk. Perfect response, professional response, and to something you never should have been confronted with.
Oh oh oh I HATE THAT. I have minor PTSD from a mugging so I can be really badly triggered by people touching me from behind — and even worse when it is so clearly inappropriate. Your reaction is valid in all of its forms. What a creep.
Thank you!
There’s a stupid undercurrent of “maybe I was wrong” even though I know I wasn’t, so I really appreciate your reply validating what I did.
I’m so sorry about your PTSD. I can’t imagine how much worse it would be with PTSD.
You were not wrong, you handled it LIKE A BOSS.
So post-mugging but pre-diagnosis, my first job out of college was working at a Hillel. During my last week, one of the guys came up behind me (as I was focusing hard on taking something down from the wall), suddenly hugged me, and said something to the effect of, “I really love you, Stirrings” — and then left, before I could even turn around and be sure of who it was. I freaked out and had a massive crying fit in my immediate superior’s office and could not explain why except “I don’t want to be touched unexpectedly!” And then I had to hunt down who it was and explain to him, no, you do not suddenly hug women without their permission (luckily, he apologized)…and it took me ages to realize he probably had a crush, which 100% DOES NOT EXCUSE HIS BEHAVIOR.
I’m a lot better now because I a) got treatment and b) don’t work in customer service, but NO ONE should have to handle inappropriate touch or feel like they need to have a certain reaction. Your reactions are natural and you are awesome. (Also, you also love Rainbow Rowell’s books, so you have excellent taste, too!)
You were not wrong. I think you should be super super proud of yourself for handling it so well!
Thank you!
It’s not funny, really, but I like to imagine that if you broke someone’s nose the rest of them would stop. Not your fault! You’re easily startled!
GROSS GROSS GROSS
Uninvited massage IS NOT A COOL THING.
I tend to jump like I’ve had an electric shock if someone touches me unexpectedly, this situation would freak me the fuck out. I physically have to stop myself from flinching when people touch me, even people I know or friends, I live alone and am single so don’t get touched a lot, so its usually a shock, especially if its unexpected.
I am ok with a tap on the shoulder to get my attention (I tend to have headphones in at the office), but I’d prefer a cough or something. I try to make a bit of noise as I’m walking up to alert people to my presence!
Good on you for reporting it, that is way over the line of any kind of decency. I don’t know how it could be handled, but I hope you find a solution (Would a sign on the back of your chair saying Dont Fucking Touch Me be inappropriate? How about an electric fence around you?)
Normally I jump like that, too! But the hands around my neck was a completely new and gross thing, more like an insidious thing than a shock.
I don’t like being touched at all, even by family. It was really weird when a coworker’s teenage daughter wanted to give me a hug as I was leaving the building. I thought it was sweet that she was so excited to see me, but at the same time this other thing with the guy had just happened and it was so awkward. I usually try to suppress my don’t-like-hugs thing for kids.
No, that’s an especially threatening thing. You protect your neck- so you don’t move when something is on it. Makes total sense.
Also- there’s a time when the kids are too old for little-kid-hugs and that’s tough.
Good point! I didn’t think that about the neck. I also have major issues with being restrained or even remotely feeling like I’m being held down, which probably hands around the back of my neck and shoulders contributed to.
Thank you for the replies, I really appreciate them!
I tend to duck if grabbed from behind, freezing is compleletly understandable!
I despise people who hug new acquaintances, luckily I don’t know any teens. I don’t mind kids, but again the only kids I know we’ll enough tomhug are family.
I’m not a hugger, and its always awkward when people go for a hug and I have to stop them, but I so much prefer it! At uni I got known as the weird girl who doesn’t hug, but then after people got to know me they understood that I do hug my friends, just not people I don’t know (and even then only if there’s a reason, hello\goodbye is not a good enough reason for hugging.)
Personally, I think hauling off and slugging him in the face, followed by an “Oh my god I’m so sorry, I have this nervous response to being unexpectedly throttled” would have been completely justified.
Haha, I think my manager/the HR person sort of thought the same thing. When I told her what happened, she got this absolutely appalled look on her face and was like “do you need me to kill him” (only politely and in an HRish kind of way)
But thank you for the reply! I appreciate the support, it’s really helping me with my self-confidence in the whole thing.
You know what, a coworker who I really like tried to give me a back massage while I was streching the other day, and when I was like “oh you know what my back has a lot of problems and massage doesn’t help” she was totally cool about it and apologized for touching me without asking and encouraged me to go back to stretching. AND she’s totally respected my boundaries since then (asked me if I wanted a hug, for example) even though she’s a very touchy feely person in general.
So basically, this dude handled everything wrong, and there are people who handle stuff right (even starting from uninvited massage!!!). You are 100% entitled to your genuine reaction and he is bad.
You are correct. You handled the sitch very well. He was wrong. No touching without consent! In any situation. And FFS, *never* at work.
It should not be your burden to solve the problem. But would a rear view mirror attached to your monitor be helpful for this job? http://www.amazon.com/ICU7-Personal-Safety-Securi…
THAT IS A FANTASTIC IDEA!
We’ve been talking for years about how annoying it is that my desk is in the front of the lobby, so that I can’t really see when people are messing around behind me, before my security cameras can pick them up. A little mirror to attach to the monitor to let me see the bathroom hallway or the stairs into the galleries would be great.
I’m going to bring it up with the head of security and our operations manager, to see what they think, and maybe if we already have small mirrors we could use.
Thank you so much for the suggestion!
Seconding the mirror suggestion! I’ve had one at my desk for the last two years and it’s an A+ arrangement.
I talked to our head of security who is totally in favor of a mirror. I just have to bring it up with the operations manager tomorrow to make sure it won’t be an issue.
I’m so glad y’all suggested it – we really have been needing something like a mirror for years, but it never occurred to us before.
Yes I was jsut coming down here to say the same thing! Tiny little fisheye mirror on the corner of your monitor. Also if for some reason a mirror is frowned upon, perhaps you could get a really reflective picture frame or something??
Also, you showed admirable restraint not elbowing this guy right in the balls (like, even after you realized what was happening – totally could have been a delayed response!)
Thank you for your reply! I really appreciate all the support. It’s helped a lot with the lingering guilt – it’s all gone now 🙂
And the reflective frame is a good idea. I’d be surprised if a mirror isn’t approved, especially with the many options for hiding it from plain sight, but it will be good to have ideas for other options just in case.
that massage business is a total invasion!
i’m actually a fairly happily touchy person — i like friendly touches and think of it is part of being human, you know, mammals — but there are definitely wrong ways to do it and iwhat you describe, well, doesn’t get much more wrong than that without becoming assault! jeez.
The rules would be: neutral part of body, only somebody you know well already, for a meaningful reason, in full sight of them so nobody is taken by surprise and you can gauge their comfort level with your pat on the arm or whatever.
Certainly not the *neck* — what an incredibly intimate place to touch someone! Intimate and also threatening, since we are so vulnerable in that part of the body! You definitely did NOT overreact and handled this very well.
Ugh. People suck. I am also a receptionist. Last year we moved our office, which was a nightmare, but it was worth it because I am now in an inclosed space. I have a large open “window” in front of my desk, but no more going around me to get to the offices, or coming in my personal space (although I did have to get an “employees only” sign for my door?) Sorry you don’t get to have a booth.
A booth would be so nice! I have a giant support column that’s behind me, but off to one side a bit, and I’ve been mentioning for years that if we ever wanted to upgrade my desk, shelves or a wall connecting it to the column would be greatly appreciated… 😀
Our lobby is weirdly open and I’m plunk in the middle like a little island.
Just want to add my voice to the chorus of those saying that your response was not wrong; you handled it as well as possible, and Jesus Christ on a cracker it would be nice if people had learned from the Bush/Merkel uninvited massage incident, if not from basic common sense, that you don’t fucking do that.
But I also want to say that I understand your guilt and second-guessing your own response. I had a colleague who behaved inappropriately with me awhile back (kissed me on the top of my head at a work event, ran his hands slowly down my bare arms after going in for a hug at a different event) and I totally questioned whether my response was an overreaction, because it’s not like he was out-and-out grabbing my ass or anything. It’s so ingrained that if it’s ANYTHING other than the most obvious sexual assault/harassment, we’re not allowed to complain. But FFS, we have the right not to have unwanted intimate touching, and to feel violated when that right is not respected.
You handled everything right. Poor you, that is super creepy! You’re not overreacting at all!
UGH THAT IS SO GROSS OF HIM, I am so sorry. I would be dwelling on it too! I’m glad your manager/HR person took it seriously and I hope the creepy dude is vanquished. That is so incredibly presumptuous and rude and NOT OKAY of him.
i’m hours late to this party but in case you’re still wondering if you reacted badly…
your story put my shoulders up around my ears. totes grossssssss. i will never understand why anyone EVER thinks it’s OK to touch someone else without permission. eeeew.
Ahh, the article on gaming analogies in group therapy is so great! I hope everyone reads it – it’s funny, touching, informative, and not too long.
It really is!
Guys, last night I saw a production of Marat/Sade in Toronto that did not drop the mic so much as fling it directly at Stephen Harper’s head, and it was GLORIOUS. GLORIOUS, I TELL YOU!
And then I woke up this morning to discover that he wants to bar women who wear the niquab from civil service, and was enraged all over again.
Please feel free to expound on your first point! I am here for things being flung at that man’s head. *sits and waits expectantly*
Okay, so for those not familiar with Marat/Sade, the conceit of the play is that the Marquis de Sade is locked up in an asylum in 1808, and the guy running the place gets him to direct the other inmates in a play about the assassination of Marat back in 1793. It starts out well, but slowly descends into anarchy as the inmates keep going off-script and saying things that the asylum director/current government (Napoleon!) don’t want said. In the production I saw, the inmates were in a giant cage, and the asylum director and his security guard sat outside, occasionally rattling the bars and/or going in to beat or taser the especially outspoken actors. At the very end, the inmate playing the Herald (emcee/narrator) stands up to give a speech (while the other inmates hum “O Canada”) about how thankfully the events of the play are all in the past, and we now live in a more enlightened age where “our scientists are silent” and “if the world is burning, it’s just bad weather.” At this point, the security guard started banging on the door trying to get in, and the Herald wrapped it up with “if you’re one of us, then you’ve nothing to fear/if you’re one of them, then YOU’RE NOT WELCOME HERE” before hurling his script at the wall and escaping over the top of the cage while the other inmates were rounded up and marched offstage in a chain gang.
Apparently in the original script, the inmates are also supposed to riot/rebel at the end, but that script had them rioting over Napoleon, and the director wanted to make it more current. I think he succeeded!
I had not heard of this play and it sounds glorious. And yay for pointed political commentary!
I’m enraged for you.
I read all of Carry On basically nonstop as soon as I got home yesterday and stayed up late to finish it. And then this morning to deal with the resultant tiredness I got a pumpkin mocha from Dunkin Donuts because it felt appropriate to the spirit of the drinks in Fangirl, despite not being from Starbucks. I REGRET NOTHING.
It is my birthday later this week so I am trying to save it for a treat. Not sure if I can hold out!
Toasties, Bahar Mustafa, student diversity officer in London was attacked on social media for arranging an event for black and minority ethnic students. She got frustrated and tweeted #killallwhitepeople, and now she has been CHARGED with sending threatening communications and everyone involved in attacking her in the first place and those involved in the decision to prosecute need a great big whomping.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/bahar-…
Meanwhile, goddamned transphobe and whorephobe Julie Bindel is making a fuss because she’s been no-platformed by the University of Manchester Students’ Union, as if THIS is the biggest threat to free speech on campus instead of actually being an exercise in free speech.
It’s fucking disgusting.
That is awesome. I always love good ways to describe/explain privilege!
I'm already nervous of police, so seeing them with massive guns skeevs me out.
I had thought that maybe there was a threat or heightened security for some reason. I really hope its not becoming common policy to have heavily armed guards patrolling, its bad enough that they all walk around with stab vests on all the time
I think it shocked me more because I've never seen guns like that in real life, and just so casually around the place!
Stab vests I understand, but it saddens me that there's enough of a probability of being stabbed that they feel they are a necessary precaution!