yonmei

12:45 am: Prime Minister to Alan Turing
(See Orson Scott Card, meet Alan Turing for some backstory.)

10 Downing Street, Thursday 10 September 2009:

Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time and we can’t put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted as he was convicted under homophobic laws were treated terribly. Over the years millions more lived in fear of conviction.

I am proud that those days are gone and that in the last 12 years this government has done so much to make life fairer and more equal for our LGBT community. This recognition of Alan’s status as one of Britain’s most famous victims of homophobia is another step towards equality and long overdue.

But even more than that, Alan deserves recognition for his contribution to humankind. For those of us born after 1945, into a Europe which is united, democratic and at peace, it is hard to imagine that our continent was once the theatre of mankind’s darkest hour. It is difficult to believe that in living memory, people could become so consumed by hate - by anti-Semitism, by homophobia, by xenophobia and other murderous prejudices - that the gas chambers and crematoria became a piece of the European landscape as surely as the galleries and universities and concert halls which had marked out the European civilisation for hundreds of years. It is thanks to men and women who were totally committed to fighting fascism, people like Alan Turing, that the horrors of the Holocaust and of total war are part of Europe’s history and not Europe’s present.

So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan’s work I am very proud to say: we’re sorry, you deserved so much better.

The petition is still open (30,816 signatures so far) and John Graham-Cumming was hoping Turing could get a posthumous knighthood...



Tags: *bounce*, evil british politics, imagine better

11:10 pm: Harry Potter and dragon and Quakers ARE COOL
I think I'm going to be in transit when this little dragon dies.



I booked a ticket for Harry Potter on Sunday night. 8pm. It's a goal to have done all my packing by then. Besides, Worldcon's going to be intolerable if I have to keep avoiding being told what the movie was like.

Also: Quakers ARE COOL:

Minute 25, Britain Yearly Meeting 31 July 2009

Further to minute 17, a session was held on Tuesday afternoon at which speakers shared personal experiences of the celebration and recognition of their committed relationships. These Friends had felt upheld by their meetings in these relationships but regretted that whereas there was a clear, visible path to celebration and recognition for opposite sex couples, the options available for couples of the same sex were not clear and could vary widely between meetings. Friends who feel theirs to be an ordinary and private rather than an exotic and public relationship have had to be visible pioneers to get their relationship acknowledged and recorded.

This open sharing of personal experience has moved us and added to our clear sense that, 22 years after the prospect was first raised at Meeting for Sufferings we are being led to treat same sex committed relationships in the same way as opposite sex marriages, reaffirming our central insight that marriage is the Lord’s work and we are but witnesses. The question of legal recognition by the state is secondary.

We therefore ask Meeting for Sufferings to take steps to put this leading into practice and to arrange for a draft revision of the relevant sections of Quaker faith and practice, so that same sex marriages can be prepared, celebrated, witnessed, recorded and reported to the state, as opposite sex marriages are. We also ask Meeting for Sufferings to engage with our governments to seek a change in the relevant laws so that same sex marriages notified in this way can be recognised as legally valid, without further process, in the same way as opposite sex marriages celebrated in our meetings. We will not at this time require our registering officers to act contrary to the law, but understand that the law does not preclude them from playing a central role in the celebration and recording of same sex marriages.

We have heard dissenting voices during the threshing process which has led to us this decision, and we have been reminded of the need for tenderness to those who are not with us who will find this change difficult. We also need to remember, including in our revision of Quaker faith and practice, those Friends who live singly, whether or not by choice.

We will need to explain our decision to other Christian bodies, other faith communities, and, indeed to other Yearly Meetings, and pray for a continuing loving dialogue, even with those who might disagree strongly with what we affirm as our discernment of God’s will for us at this time.

I love Quakers. So calm, so quiet, so stubborn, so intrinsically rebellious.

Tags: imagine better, quakers

12:02 pm: Did you vote yesterday?
Apparently England did better than Scotland because England had the local elections happening the same day, but it looks like Scotland did appallingly - down to 25%.

( A very European poll )



Tags: eurovision, evil european politics, imagine better, polls, scottish politics

04:06 pm: How To Handle A Homophobe


Good advice for people whose friends are bigots, any flavour:

You know a few. Don't try to tell me you don't. And you even get along with some of them, because many homophobes have other fine qualities which make them hard workers, good friends, and charming dinner guests. So there may be a couple lurking around in your party. If they rear their ugly heads, it is your responsibility as the host to gently push their snouts back into the mud and filth from which they have truculently emerged.

The rebuff should match in tone, severity and intensity the nature of the offense. If your guest has committed an accidental heinosity out of thoughtlessness or ignorance--for instance, saying, "Oh, why didn't you bring your wife along?" to Alan after he mentions that he's married, simply pointing out the error politely is the most appropriate response. After that, the response elevates with the level of intentional offensiveness. A sample graduated scale is appended below:

"Y'know, I don't see why they think they should be able to get married just like normal people."
- "Well, Joe Bob, there are some folks who would say the same about rednecks like yourself."

"So these two lesbians walk into a bar..."
- "So these 50 bigots walk into the Republican convention..."

"Why should we fund AIDS research when it's clearly God's judgment on revolting perverts?"
- "I'm sorry, did you not see the NO ASSHOLES sign as you came in? I displayed it clearly above the door..."

"Sorry, I can't sit next to him, faggots make me sick."
- "Well, I'm afraid the only way I can accomodate your disability is by hog-tying you and tossing you out into the barn, where you will eventually be able to enjoy the dinner when it arrives in the form of pig slop."

Now, these responses may appear rude to you, but remember that your guest was rude first. Your job as host is to provide a pleasant and relaxing atmosphere for your guests, and if one of your guests is making it impossible for you to do that, well, it's polite to take him out behind the woodshed and give him a good hiding. Metaphorically speaking. Most 'phobes who trumpet this sort of swill do so because they assume no one will mind. If you make it clear that you do mind and you are offended, ten to one says your guest will back down and apologize. It's probably too much to hope for to think that this may also cause your 'phobe to reevaluate his opinion of gay people, but at least you can probably get him to shut up for the duration of the party. If not, it's hog-tyin' and eatin' slop in the barn for him. This is your party, and you'll tie if you want to. (From A Straight Person's Guide To Gay Etiquette, by the Plaid Adder)

Or, as another participant in the discussion said: "I think the big question of this particular imbroglio isn't "How do white folk write CoC well?" but 'HOLY SHIT did she really just SAY that?'"

Tags: howls of rage, imagine better, let's all be outcasts together, powerful speech vs. powerless silence

11:03 am: All alone at work...
( makes coffee )

Tags: coffee, evil american politics, evil awful mondays, imagine better, work, write write write

07:10 pm: For want of a tuppence... Or, how two little children caused a bank crash.
The Telegraph:

"The eyes of the world are looking to their governments to help restore confidence in markets.

"The most precious asset we have lost is confidence, something that we will restore through co-ordinated intervention."

Mr Brown's unprecedented meeting with the countries in the single currency was an opportunity to set out the terms of his own £500bn bail-out plan for British banks, announced last Tuesday.

Mr Brown said he had set out the terms of the UK deal - huge injections of liquidity into the banking system, a massive cash boost to prop up lending between banks, and incentives to kick-start investment and get bank loans to businesses and for mortgages moving again.

And The Times has (no doubt a completely unplanned coincidence) put their article about Gordon Brown's selling his bailout plan to Europe on the same page as a link to "70 years ago: the Munich Agreement. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returns from Munich September 1938 after talks with Adolf Hitler. PM meets Hitler: peace in our time". Yeah, I'm sure that wasn't planned.


( For want of a tuppence )

Tags: financial crisis meltdown whatever, imagine better

07:25 pm: The Sarah Palin Meme: Free People Read Freely
In the US, it's Banned Books Week. This is the ALA's list for top 100 Banned/Challenged Books in 2000-2007. "Out of 3,869 challenges reported to or recorded by the Office for Intellectual Freedom, as compiled by the Office for Intellectual Freedom, American Library Association. The ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom does not claim comprehensiveness in recording challenges. Research suggests that for each challenge reported there are as many as four or five which go unreported."

And, in the US, the Republican nominee for Vice President is someone who actively tried to have books banned from her local public library: "While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla [1996–2002] she tried to fire our highly respected City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin's attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the Librarian are on her enemies list to this day." - Letter About Palin

Usual rules:

If it's bold, I've read it.
If it's italicised, I've read part of it.
If it's underlined, I'd like to read it.
If it's strikethrough, I don't want to read it - but feel strongly that my dislike doesn't mean other people shouldn't be able to make that decision for themselves.

( The ALA's 100 Most-Banned Books List 2000-2007 )

Tags: angry queer, big read, books are what i read, evil american politics, evil awful mondays, harry potter, imagine better, let's all be outcasts together, lists, meme, outcasts should stick together, powerful speech vs. powerless silence

03:57 pm: Three gifts of words
One reason why I love words so much is that words can, unlike any other form of art or making, be made and kept by the maker, given to others and still remain the maker's, shared with still others by the recipient and still remain the same gift, enhanced by being given.

First, I found (via Feministe's great Sunday tradition of shameless self-promotion), this poem: "Don’t write a poem about rape" by Julie Buffaloe-Yoder, first published by Calyx: A Journal of Art and Literature by Women in summer 1992. I don't want to quote from the poem: I want you, if you can bear it, to go there and read it all. (And thank you, hysperia, for linking to it.)

Here's part of the background of how it came to be written:

During my second year as an undergrad, someone very close to me was raped. It was a horrific experience, complete with guns, knives, and torture, like a scene from a Law & Order SVU episode. She was, needless to say, quite emotionally scarred.

A few years later, I wrote a poem about it and submitted it to a literary journal. I received an unbelievable response from the editor. He took the time to type a six page, single spaced letter in which he ranted about how he would never, ever publish a poem about rape, because he was so tired of hearing women cry and moan about the subject. In his opinion, women who get raped usually “have it coming,” because of the provocative way they dress or act around men. In his words, he was “sick of wenchy women poets who are always bashing men.”

Then there's two excerpts from a recent speech by an author I thought I was familiar with:

"So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life."

I read that, and, knowing who the author was, was dumbstruck: because yes. Suddenly, I want to read her next book.

I stopped and thought about it, and did some other stuff, and then went on to read the rest, thinking that she could not possibly have anything to say that would resonate with me more than what she had already said, but, further down, after she spoke about her work with Amnesty International:

"If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped transform for the better. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better."

That would be J. K. Rowling, speaking at the Commencement Address to Harvard, June 2008.

Because, yes.

Tags: Pötterdämmerung, books are what i read, imagine better, poetry, powerful speech vs. powerless silence, write write write

12:52 pm: Lunchtime thoughts...
Mohammed Dica has been found guilty of biological grievous bodily harm for deliberately and knowingly infecting two sexual partners with HIV, by persuading them to sleep with him without condoms. ( discussion with self )

Tags: imagine better, rants