Let's try something new:

US POLITICS!

So a (regular, I think) anonymous poster left a link in an unpublished comment* that I was going to publish as I thought the questions for Hillary were answered really well by the first commenter, but then I read the rest of the comments (I know, I know.)

I do not think you are stupid for voting for Obama. I am scared by reasons from *some* people that I am given as to why someone is voting for him, but I do know many knowledgeable people with good reasons to vote for Obama as well. The fact is, their platforms are very very similar, but one cannot just be "present" when one is president, one *must* make decisions. I'm going to side-step and come back to the topic of the vile being spewed in these comments to post what is (in my opinion long overdue) a very good article on why I am not supporting Obama. (I'm quoting it here since you have to register and I know some people don't like that or else I would have just kept going with my original train of thought.)

THE LONG RUN
Obama in Senate: Star Power, Minor Role

By KATE ZERNIKE and JEFF ZELENY
Senator Barack Obama stood before Washington’s elite at the spring dinner of the storied Gridiron Club. In self-parody, he ticked off his accomplishments, little more than a year after arriving in town.

“I’ve been very blessed,” Mr. Obama told the crowd assembled in March 2006. “Keynote speaker at the Democratic convention. The cover of Newsweek. My book made the best-seller list. I just won a Grammy for reading it on tape.

“Really, what else is there to do?” he said, his smile now broad. “Well, I guess I could pass a law or something.”

They were the two competing elements in Mr. Obama’s time in the Senate: his megawatt celebrity and the realities of the job he was elected to do.

He went to the Senate intent on learning the ways of the institution, telling reporters he would be “looking for the washroom and trying to figure out how the phones work.” But frustrated by his lack of influence and what he called the “glacial pace,” he soon opted to exploit his star power. He was running for president even as he was still getting lost in the Capitol’s corridors.

Outside Washington, Mr. Obama was a multimedia sensation — people offered free tickets to his book readings for $125 on eBay and contributed thousands of dollars each to his political action committee to watch him on stage questioning policy experts.

But inside the Senate, Mr. Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, was 99th in seniority and in the minority party his first two years. In committee hearings, he had to wait his turn until every other senator had asked questions. He once telephoned reporters himself to draw attention to his amendments. And some senior colleagues were cool to the newcomer, whom they considered naïve.

Determined to be viewed as substantive, Mr. Obama kept his head down, declining Sunday talk show invitations for his first year, and consulted Senate elders for advice. He was cautious — even on the Iraq war, which he had opposed as a Senate candidate. He voted against the withdrawal of troops and proposed legislation calling for a draw down only after he was running for president and polls showed voters favoring it.

And while he rightly takes credit for steering through an ethics overhaul that reformers called a “gold standard,” like most freshmen he did not play a significant role in passing much other legislation and disappointed some Democrats for not becoming a more prominent voice in other important debates.

Yet Mr. Obama was planning for the future. He spent much of his time raising money for other Democrats, which helped him build chits and lists of potential voters. He tended to his image, even upbraiding a reporter for writing that he had smoked a cigarette (a habit he later said he gave up for his presidential bid).

Early on in his tenure in Washington, he concluded that it would be hard to have much of an impact inside the Senate, where partisan conflict increasingly provoked filibuster threats, nomination fights and near gridlock even on routine spending bills.

“I think it’s very possible to have a Senate career here that is not particularly useful,” he said in an interview, reflecting on his first year. And it would be better for his political prospects not to become a Senate insider, which could saddle him with the kind of voting record that has tripped up so many senators who would be president.

“It’s sort of logic turned on its head, but it really is true,” said Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the former senator and Democratic leader who has been a close adviser to Mr. Obama.

“Two things develop the more time you spend here,” Mr. Daschle said. “One is a mind-set that we did it this way before, we should do it this way again, and I think that’s a real burden. More importantly — and Hillary and McCain are the perfect examples of this — the longer you are here, you take on enemies. And these enemies don’t forget.”

Rising to Stardom

If freshman senators arrive as celebrities, it is usually because they are “dragon slayers,” having ousted big-name incumbents. Mr. Obama was not one of those; two serious opponents in Illinois self-destructed, smoothing his path to election in November 2004.

He had been anointed his party’s rising star after delivering a soaring speech at the Democratic National Convention the previous July. His fresh face that fall cheered Democrats demoralized by their failure to win the White House and the defeat of Mr. Daschle, the party’s Senate leader.

But Mr. Obama knew the Senate scorns a showboat. He had waited to crack open “Master of the Senate,” Robert A. Caro’s book about the legendary legislative career of Lyndon B. Johnson, until after he was elected, wary that he would be photographed — and seen as presumptuous — reading it during his campaign. After he was on the cover of Newsweek the same week President Bush appeared as Time’s Man of the Year, his fellow Democratic senators gently ribbed him at their first weekly luncheon of the new Congress.

He met with nearly one-third of the Senate, from both sides of the aisle, including his future rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, to learn about the institution and solicit advice on how to succeed. That shaped a strategy: work hard, tend to your constituents, and, above all, get along with others. He spent many weekends traveling across Illinois for town-hall-style meetings.

Mr. Obama’s advisers referred to it as “the Hillary model,” patterned after Mrs. Clinton’s approach when she joined the Senate in 2001. But while Mr. Obama expressed admiration for her at the time, he dissuaded reporters from making too close a comparison. AHA! (just found that interesting)

“I wasn’t the first lady, and I didn’t have some of the political baggage of eight years of hand-to-hand combat between the White House and the Republican Congress,” he said soon after he first arrived. “In that sense, she had a harder task.”

Knowing he needed insider help, Mr. Obama cajoled Mr. Daschle’s former chief of staff, Pete Rouse, to lead his office. Mr. Rouse advised Mr. Obama about managing relationships on the Hill and helped engineer hefty assignments, including a Foreign Relations Committee seat. He sought out senior colleagues, traveling to Russia with Senator Richard G. Lugar, Republican of Indiana, an advocate of nuclear disarmament. (Later, they passed legislation to reduce stockpiles of conventional weapons.) Mr. Obama also sought tutorials from Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, considered the Democrats’ master legislator.

Some colleagues found Mr. Obama remarkably well prepared, even more so than longtime staff members, in discussions. And his role as the good student earned him the affection of some fellow lawmakers. “I don’t think you can be around him and not come to the conclusion that this is a person of rare quality,” said Senator Kent Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota.

Mr. Obama had visited Washington only a handful of times before taking office, and he was fresh enough to its ways that he bubbled over about his first trip on Air Force One in June 2005. He fretted about getting lost on his first trip to the White House, for a reception the day he was sworn in, and later marveled that there were flat-screen televisions in the Lincoln Bedroom.

But he remained ambivalent about the city and its institutions. Unlike many senators with young children, he did not move his family to the capital. He rarely spent more than three nights in Washington — aides would reserve tickets on several flights to make sure he got home to Chicago after the final Senate vote of the week.

Mr. Obama found the Hill a difficult place to fit in, and it was not always clear that he wanted to. He was 43 when he arrived, younger than most of his colleagues — whose average age was 60 — and even many senior staff members. Unlike senators who come up through the House, he did not have an existing network of friends, and while some members of Congress bunk with others, he lived by himself in one of the nondescript new boxes along Massachusetts Avenue. On the nights he was in town, he typically went alone to a Chinatown athletic club — not the Senate gym — or attended events on the Hill.

And for all his efforts to play down his celebrity, Mr. Obama was exceptional, and it was hard for him or anyone to ignore the aura and sense of history around him. He was only the third black senator elected since Reconstruction. His memoir was on The New York Times’s best-seller list for 54 weeks. And Washington society was eager to embrace him — a Capitol Hill newspaper ranked him as No. 2 on its list of most beautiful people.

Etching a Path

Mr. Obama was also pulling in big money. He created a political action committee, the Hopefund, to increase his visibility and help other Democrats. It raised $1.8 million the first year.

In the Senate, meanwhile, he was discovering the realities of being a senator — that not every bill is perfect (or perfectly unacceptable) and that most votes required balancing the good and bad. Mr. Obama wanted to vote to confirm John G. Roberts Jr. for the Supreme Court, for example — he thought the president deserved latitude when it came to appointments — but Mr. Rouse advised against it, pointing out that Mr. Obama would be reminded of the vote every time the court made a conservative ruling that he found objectionable.

Mr. Obama took few bold stands and diverted little from the liberal orthodoxy he had embraced in the Illinois Senate. His voting record in his first year in Washington, according to the annual rankings by National Journal, was more liberal than 82.5 percent of the Senate (compared with, for example, Mrs. Clinton’s 79.8 percent that year).

He worked with Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma and one of the most conservative in the chamber, to establish a public database to examine government spending after Hurricane Katrina.

But for the most part, he stuck to party lines; there were few examples of the kind of bipartisan work he advocates in his current campaign. he's a uniter, you say?

He disappointed some Democrats by not taking a more prominent role opposing the war — he voted against a troop withdrawal proposal by Senators John Kerry of Massachusetts and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin in June 2006, arguing that a firm date for withdrawal would hamstring diplomats and military commanders in the field. again, all this "HRC voted for the war!! Well he wasn't in the senate then, but look what he's done since!

His most important accomplishment was his push for ethics reform. Party leaders named him their point person in 2006, and when the Democrats assumed the majority in Congress in January 2007, Mr. Obama and Mr. Feingold, a longtime Democratic proponent of ethics reform, proposed curtailing meals and gifts from lobbyists, restricting the use of corporate planes and requiring lobbyists who bundle donations to disclose individual donors.

Colleagues fought back hard.

Mr. Obama’s determination not to back down, Mr. Feingold said, “struck me as an example of someone showing real guts.”

Of course, he added, “He was not any freshman. He was Barack Obama.”

To others, though, the mismatch between Mr. Obama’s outside profile and his inside accomplishments wore thin. While some senators spent hours in closed-door meetings over immigration reform in early 2007, he dropped in only occasionally, prompting complaints that he was something of a dilettante.

He joined a bipartisan group, which included Senator John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, and Mr. Kennedy, that agreed to stick to a final compromise bill even though it was sure to face challenges from interest groups on both sides. Yet when the measure reached the floor, Mr. Obama distanced himself from the compromise, advocating changes sought by labor groups. The bill collapsed.

To some in the bipartisan coalition, Mr. Obama’s move showed an unwillingness to take a tough stand.

“He folded like a cheap suit,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, a close ally of Mr. McCain. “What it showed me is you are not an agent of change. Because to really change things in this place you have to get beat up now and then.”

Laying the Groundwork

Early on in his tenure in Washington, Mr. Obama began meeting every few months over late-night pizza with a handful of classmates from Harvard Law School and a couple of senior advisers to discuss his future. Being a 2008 presidential candidate, participants said, never came up. The only race mentioned was for Illinois governor in 2010 — the year Mr. Obama’s Senate term ended — but the group decided to put off considering the idea until at least his fourth year in the Senate.

Mr. Obama chose Hurricane Katrina in September 2005 to step into a more prominent role, speaking to his party’s caucus about the importance of using the disaster to focus the party’s efforts toward ending poverty.

The next February, he appeared on several Sunday shows in a row. “People are getting tired of me already,” he said in an interview.

In fact, outside Washington, people were clamoring for more. He was received like a returning hero in Africa in August 2006. On a book tour two months later, crowds mobbed him, and people urged him to run for president.

During the midterm elections that year, Mr. Obama was his party’s most sought-after campaigner — he helped raised nearly $1 million online in a matter of days that spring for Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, the institution’s senior member.

His appearances on the trail helped lay the groundwork for a possible presidential campaign. He earned the good will of some Democrats who have now endorsed him. And most campaign events required tickets, so his staff members collected names and addresses of potential supporters.

Finally, Mr. Obama did what he had done when he first arrived in the Senate, quietly consulting those who knew the institution well — Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Daschle — for advice on whether to run.

They told him that these chances come along rarely. His celebrity was undeniable. And yes, he was green, but that also meant he did not have the burden of a long record.

“For somebody to come in with none of that history is a real advantage,” Mr. Daschle said. “I told him that he has a window to do this. He should never count on that window staying open.”

Carl Hulse contributed reporting.

Since the platforms are so close, THESE are the reasons why I'm scared of Obama getting the nod. That, and the fact that he is an uber-politician by continuing his state senate record of not voting on potentially controversial issues so that he could secure a more powerful government position. Wow, I'm just bloody speechless. I don't think HRC's perfect. In fact, my perfect candidate will never get elected in this country and is substantially left of the ruling socialist party in Spain, fyi.

She's made mistakes, but she's also demonstrated that she has learned from them. Health care failed in the US? Well she got it to work for people, but they were in Puerto Rico so what do US voters care? (I do, however.)

Back to the vile comments in the link I will not post:

It was a list of questions for Hillary. Whatever. THIS one got me going:

4. Are you okay with the Clinton campaign darkening Sen. Obama's complexion in its ads and would you be okay with it if that's what it took to win the GE

WHAT? Hmm, well let's see what factcheck.org says:

Summary
Obama supporters on the Internet are agitated over the apparent darkening of Obama's image in a Clinton attack ad.

Our video team took a look. Our conclusions:
The Obama frames from the ad do appear darker than other video of Obama from the same event.

However, the YouTube copy of the ad, on which the bloggers base their conclusions, is darker overall than other copies of the ad. We obtained a digital recording of the ad as it actually appeared on a Texas TV station, and it is lighter.

Furthermore, our analysis of the Obama frames, using Photoshop, shows a fairly uniform darkening of the entire image including the backdrop. It is not just Obama's skin color that's affected.

Also, nearly all the images in the ad are dark, including those of Hillary Clinton. And dark images are a common technique used in attack ads.
Others will speculate about the Clinton campaign's intentions and motives, as they already have. But without further evidence to the contrary, we see no reason to conclude that this is anything more than a standard attempt to make an attack ad appear sinister, rather than a special effort to exploit racial bias as some Obama supporters are saying.

And you can see the comparison images for yourself at the link above. Anon: *THIS* is why the link goes unpublished.

Now for the comments:

I support Hillary. Unless you have something better to say then tell me I'm a "Hillbot" or that I'm "drinking the kool-aid" or telling me all the ways her HUSBAND screwed up (now I'm not an idiot and I know he will be involved to some extent but how sexist are you to think that she's just running so he can be president again?) They ARE NOT the same person for fuck's sake!

How do you think calling her a monster or mcclinton and me an idiot for supporting her makes me want to support your candidate? It makes me want to kick things. You talk about how democracy's great because we can all make up our own minds, but to mean that means the ability to have reasoned (which doesn't exclude heated, mind you) discussions and debates about politics. Give me reasons to want to support your candidate, and give me actual reasons why you don't support mine. WHen we ask a question, please respond with something other then one of the aforementioned insults. (This happens from Clinton supporters to, but on this website it's like 4:1, though possibly b/c I'm getting the idea that this is a very staunch "We love Obama" website.) Also, CLinton isn't the only one saying not so nice things about her opponent so shut it. He should not be held to a different standard.

Here's another thing that pissed the hell out of me:
I believe that bringing up his past drug use, as some Hillary supporters did in the thread discussion was a low blow. He's been open and honest about it. I would think that a better way to show that he doesn't have good judgement is to look at the people he surrounds himself with, because they have been doing some pretty not good things. The drug use thing means nothing to me. It was in the past. Doesn't it show VERY GOOD judgement that he got clean and worked with his church to clean up his neighbourhood which would also mean getting rid of the drug dealers who prey on lower income neighbourhoods. (Yes I read his book.) How is drug use from over a decade ago relevant? DOes he do it now as he's running? No? OK then. Non-issue. That was just disgusting


You know what's going to happen? Everyone will keep ripping each other to shreds until we get a candidate and then we'll look horrible because half the party will hate the other half. Bah. I'm starting to agree with my math geek, primaries are not good.

*It was left in this post where I was not talking about either Obama or Clinton but rather a badly written article in the NY Times that implied that people with the luxury to attend caucuses are more dedicated then primary voters. Which is classist and sexist and generally fucked up. (though in theory, I think they're an awesome idea. But I think anarchy is a good theory to. You don't see me advocating for that at this very moment now do you?)

PARTY!

I know I shouldn't, but how could you not party with this guy? Yep, it's that time of year again. The "Just for the Hell of it Party" will be at the Cameo Club in Vancouver tonight. Just a reminder (not that any of you who know Duncan could have forgotten.) Even though my math geek's being a jerkfacehead and not coming I will be there ready to dance my ass off!

See you at the party!

It's not like it's Shakespeare

I wrote a letter to the editor of the NYT today, because I was mighty pissed off at a line from an article on the primaries (included in the letter):

I was disturbed by a line in the article that referred to people who went to caucuses as "more committed voters." This is unfair to all those voters who are lower income and do not have the luxury of setting aside what can be up to several hours (as my caucus in Washington was) for something where childcare is not offered for free. There is also the problem of those who are unable to take off work, especially in jobs that are blue collar and have shifts and it is hard to get someone to switch shifts with you as your entire schedule is predicated upon whether you work day, swing, or night.

Calling people who have the luxury of being able to attend a caucus more committed to the democratic system is akin to saying that those who have more means care more about the fate of our country, which in my book, is against what this country stands for.

Let's see if it gets published.

EDIT: I overlooked the fact that Obama tends to take caucuses (note that Hillary's support base is generally lower income) and that line implies that Obama voters are more committed the HRC supporters. The anger just keeps coming. Supporting Obama is fine, but saying that people who support him care more about the fate of this country then I and other Hillary supporters do is just plain fucked up.

oh my good god

1) I have an algebra assignment I haven't touched, but at least it's due Tuesday.

2) Due to all the stress this quarter I have missed 99% of the deadlines for my REUs, but I'm sure my prof's sent off their rec letters since they're awesome (I did plan ahead and talked to them all at the beginning of January and what I was missing were mostly the essays). There aren't many that start mid-June or later. Damn quarter system. There is one I didn't miss at UIUC (FIghting Illini, my dad's alma mater and only 3 1/2 hours from Chicago, huzzah!) on groups and I've all ready talked to the professor leading the REU on groups who encouraged me to apply even though I will be missing the first few days due to finals. (I did mention in the email how excited I am by groups and we have corresponded about her research which I hope will be helpful in getting into the REU).

3) I have half finished my take home physics exam, but I just have to call some of the other kids in my class because my prof conveniently forgot to lecture on it, though the second problem is missing 2 important ingredients to find the equilibrium temperature and pressure, the change in internal energy, and the change in entropy, namely the initial temperatures and pressures of the 2 systems. I emailed him about this, though.

4) I LOVE The West Wing. It's awesome.

5) My loverly math geek got up this morning and cleaned up the biohazard that was my kitchen sink. Have I mentioned how much I love my math geek lately? Anxiety severely reduces the amount of spoons (which has nothing to do with dishes) I have and my dishes have not been done in about 5/6 weeks. He is very brave and oh so awesome for doing that. *sigh* I'm so lucky.

6) I SLEPT! and I feel rested! (One does not necessarily imply the other.) I did my physics!

This is kind of cool: why anxiety means homework goes unfinished

My kick-ass rad fem therapist today and I were talking about (what else) the overwhelming anxiety I am having from my proofs class which is coupled with the fact that I went to see him today to ask for help and he just stared at me. (You should listen to him when people who are doing well in the class go in for help, he's super-helpful. All other C students like me say the same thing: when you ask him something he stares at you, but he'll help the people who all ready get it. Being one of 3 resources for the class (another one being his crappy definitions and the third being me, who can't figure out the definitions and is therefore struggling to stay afloat) this SUCKS.)

ANyway, back to my story. There is, of course, some PTSD triggers thrown in there as well. So much about this mirrors being in a house with my abusive mom: having to be somewhere I hate while being helpless and having no one to turn to (b/c yes I *can* get a tutor, but all the math fellows either a) tell me they did horribly at the class, b) took it from someone else and every prof covers different material, or c) blocked it out of their memory), and then there's the constant replays of my mom's voice telling me I'm stupid and a litany of other similar things. HOORAY! Isn't my head a fun place to be these days? My best friend begged me to leave the class (we have similar mental health (dis)Abilities and are always watching out for one another, but I can't. I have 2 friggin' quarters to go and I will have that BS in my hands. Can't change now, don't want to either. Like math, want to continue doing math for a very very long time. Must push through even though b/c of this class they've upped my Xanax AND my Lamictal. Heh. (and I had to double my xanax dose yesterday b/c one just didn't work)

SO, here's the cool part. My therapist likes to explain how these things work inside your brain by modeling it for me. I really like this. SO today she showed me how anxiety and PTSD affect the entire brain, not just how PTSD traps you in your midbrain (and how the techniques we use like EMDR try to put these things into words instead of just emotions which move them out of your midbrain and make them something that is easier to deal with and not an automatic reaction.)

She held out her hand in a closed fist: this is your brain (I know you probably all pictured the frying pan, but shake it out), she then opened her fist and pointed to the middle of her hand and said "this is your amygdala" and then to her thumb and said "this is your hypothalamus" and re-closed her hand. She then said "this is normally how your brain is, but when you get activated, or in a manic state, or in a mixed state (which happens to me when I get activates), or have anxiety this happens" and she opened her hand (which makes sense since in PTSD the midbrain takes over) "and your neocortex is unable to function properly."

I all ready knew that anxiety meant that I was not going to get anything done, but it's nice to have an idea of *why* nothing gets done. Although I'm sure if I had a more technical explanation I would just be confused.

Finals start the 17th, we don't have a final in this class, just a 2 hour class period of, yay, proofs that Wednesday. Everyone keep their fingers crossed that I don't have a nuclear meltdown before then, because it really feels like I am heading for a major one and I really REALLY hate the idea of having one because of something that I put myself through.

*sigh*

I had an anxiety attack talking to my prof trying to do proofs. (He is only helpful to those who are doing well in the class, this has been confirmed by many classmates, the asshole.) SO I left. This period of the class I have only done 2 proofs, I hope that's enough for a C, I did one hard proof so I hope that counts for something. That and I've done a couple of unsuccessful proofs so it's obvious that I'm trying. The 1 mg of Xanax made it kind of hard to finish the proof I was working on since it makes my brain all floaty. *sigh*

Tonight's trivia night and one of two nights a week I get to spend with my math geek and I can't seem to get off the couch. UGH. I don't know what to do. *sigh* Having an anxiety disorder and an anxiety inducing class sucks. A LOT.

My semi-weekly bah

Why I can't wait to get the hell out of the Pacific Northwest:

1) I need a *REAL* distinction between seasons, not that one is a little less grey or a little warmer. I want a few feet of snow and a summer that is 80F/27C/300K on average and a nice crisp fall and a wonderful thawing that occurs slowly and beautifully in spring. Not grey and spitty all year round and where I have to carry long sleeves with me all summer because it's cold in the shade and at night. I want warm summer nights. I'm sick of getting spit on and seeing nothing but clouds and grey and an average of 50F/33C/283K all friggin' year. HATE IT!

2) I never EVER knew that there was such a thing as a non-kosher hot dog. Granted, I'm a vegetarian, but still the point remains. It was fairly mind-blowing, just like how white it is here, even in the lower income areas of Vancouver. (This ties in with #3)

3) This is bar none, the WHITE-IST place I have ever lived. EVER. Although I am used to living on the east coast: Philly/NYC or Chicago and always in low income areas (since that *is* my income) to give you something to gauge that off of. (Though even in Seattle the lower income neighbourhoods are drastically split between African-Americans and whites) I miss people speaking Spanish and the local Bodega and I hate people looking at me funny whenever I use Yiddish. (Though my friend who came out here and is currently teaching at local suburban college has taken to using yiddish curse words since no one out here knows what she's talking about.)

4) I crave a city that's an actual city. (And don't tell me that Seattle, Vancouver, or Portland qualify as cities, they're too suburb-like). I like being able to hop on a train with my bike and get everywhere in appx 15-20 minutes (though in Chicago *everything* is 15 minutes away whether it actually is or not, we're weird like that). I hate having a car, but it'd be damn hard for me to get to all the things I need to get to without one here. And public transport that runs ALL NIGHT LONG to ALL places, not just particular routes once a friggin' hour (the night-bus in Vancouver is an annoying nightmare sometimes.)

Though I love being somewhere where there is a plethora of really good vegetarian food, there are really nice places in the cities, mostly ethnic places, so it's not like I'll want for good food I can eat. It is nice to have Bollywood theatres and lots of Indian culture, but I miss my old Puerto Rican neighbourhoods. That is something I haven't come across before, but it still isn't the whole mix of cultures that NYC or Chicago are.

I guess what brought this on is that it's been sunny, and that's nice and everyone's chirping about spring, but it just doesn't feel like spring, and there will be no thunderstorms to solidify it's springness. *sigh*

Go vote for me!

I've made it into the top 5 for the Canadian F-Word blogger awards.  You can votes here from midnight tonight (the 22nd) until midnight the 23rd (PST). So go vote!

(I'm just happy to be nominated and now in the top 5. Thank you everyone, and may I recommend Black Looks for best Int'l Feminist Blog and Brown rab girl fish for best WOC blog.)

In light of my last post

My abstract algebra midterm had a delightful question on it that was just too easy:
If G is a group in which every element is its own inverse, then G is abelian.
(HA! Too easy. I LOVE proving that things are abelian, and this is super easy. Wanna see? Too late!)

NOTE: I am not saying that if you can't do this you are not smart, but compared to other things in group theory I think this is one of the easiest things to do.

NTS. If G is a group in which every element is its own inverse, and then G is abelian.
Proof:
and



We can do the same for b.

Since we can cancel and therefore which shows that G is abelian.
QED.

I also finally just got latex for blogger to work and wanted to use it. Also, I just really liked doing this proof. It's fun, and did I mention easy?

Wow, this explains A LOT!

So, thanks to wonderful women science bloggers from my blogroll (like Science Woman and Mad Scientist) I have found an article about Imposter Syndrome that is in this week's Science Careers.

"Impostor syndrome" is the name given to the feelings that Abigail and many other young scientists describe: Their accomplishments are just luck or deceit, and they're in over their heads. The key to getting past it, experts say, is making accurate, realistic assessments of your performance. Perhaps equally important: knowing you're not alone. Abigail thinks that sharing her feelings with other people is how she will eventually come to grips with her sense of feeling like an impostor. "It's fantastic to hear other people say, 'I've felt that way, too.' "

It's a feeling I get often, thinking that I have somehow gotten this far in math and physics by dumb luck or cheating, though I have never EVER done the second one, but I still feel that somehow I *must* have done something to warrant it. Example: For abstract algebra we get notes for a test, and I know there will be T/F problems on it, and I have space left on my sheet because I've all ready written all the definitions, proofs, and theorems that I can not easily remember or access (my brain looks just as messy as my work space), so I type up all the T/F questions with the answers (I've had the prof before and know they'll be the same questions). I got them all right when I answered them on the homework, and I have horrible test anxiety, but it feels like I'm cheating, even though I know the material well, having A's on the homework and knowing that other people in the class (who are mostly math fellows and grad students) are doing the *exact* same thing that I am doing. It feels like cheating, but I'm still doing it, because I know it's a big portion of my grade and to be honest, I can do homework, I can help people, I know the material inside and out, but I bomb on tests. ALWAYS. It's why I've gone from an A to a B in some of my classes. The damn final.

I get extra time on tests because I have a severe anxiety disorder. I am getting a tutor for my proofs class because (dis)Ability resources stepped in and intervened because I was having anxiety attacks every time I did the homework and even one in class the other day. This is the class we're supposed to do Moore Method though the way it is described in the link sounds wonderful compared to the way my class is run. *I* do not learn well this way, not at all. A few of my classmates told me that they are fine with this and expressed concern over my anxiety problems (it's a small department and one of them is a math fellow and I tried to keep this away from them since I didn't want to lord it over them, but they found out). This is obviously something that is warranted due to my disability, but it still feels like it's an unfair advantage over others (though I'm sure that they don't have to get up and take a walk around the building to calm down during a test as to keep from having a full blown anxiety attack.)

I have passed classes I've never studied for, and actually done really well. So why do I feel like I somehow don't deserve this? Like I won't be able to survive grad school or post-grad school research (I want to go into research) because somehow someone will discover that I can't do it, that I'm incapable, that I don't know what I'm doing, that I'm horrible at math and physics. I'm 2 1/2 quarters away from completing an undergrad degree in mathematics (the last quarter being computer programming and math history being the only required classes, so really only one more quarter of real math classes (I am also taking quantum mechanics b/c I'm a geek and may be going into mathematical physics)) and I have to constantly remind myself that I AM smart, that I DO know this.

It's strange that I have to continually remind myself of these things so close to my goal. I am passing my proofs class, even through all the anxiety (which up until I was told I could have a tutor was giving me such horrible anxiety I was unable to sleep for the first 6 weeks of the quarter), and I am IN LOVE with my abstract algebra class. It was really tough for the first assignment, but the last one was easy, I was helping other people out with their homework, and I was LOVING it. I'm confident that I will do well on the test tomorrow. I love this stuff and am seriously considering going to graduate school for it. It's fun and it comes really easy for me. But I still feel like there's a catch. But I'm just going to try and beat it out of my head. I may not be a grad student or a professional, but knowing that other people feel this way is v v helpful. I CAN do this, and I AM good at this.

UGH. I hate this ridiculousness.

How it works from xkcd

*sigh*

I've been nominated for a Canadian F-Word blog award!

Apparently someone nominated me (THANKS!) and there will be the first round of voting the 15th and 16th, so vote for me! You can vote for me here in the "Best Canadian Feminist Blog" category. I'm really excited to check out the other nominees, maybe my reading list will grow.

GO VOTE!!! (I think it's on PST, since it's almost 11 here and voting hasn't opened. Remember, voting closes at midnight PST February 16th.

Valentines Day is important (sorry it's so late)

Every year in the DTES of Vancouver there is a march to bring light to and remember all the women that have gone missing and/or have been killed. This is the 17th year, and is something I always participate in

Here's the info (found here

17TH ANNUAL DTES WOMEN’S MEMORIAL MARCH
Starts indoors @ Carnegie Centre (Main and Hastings)
Followed by March through the DTES and lunch and circle at Oppenheimer Park.


Call Marlene George at the Carnegie Center if you want to help out. (604) 665-2220

Much financial support is required to make this march happen. Please make cheques payable to Women’s Memorial March c/o Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre Assn. (DEWC) 302 Columbia Street, Vancouver, BC, V6A 4J1. All donations over $10.00 will be gratefully be acknowledged with a charitable tax receipt.

The tragedy of the disappearances and heinous murders of so many women from the downtown eastside community continues to affect every member of this community and has a wide reaching impact on our society as a whole.

It may not be a surprise to you that even though there has been an arrest and a recent conviction there continues to be women who have gone missing and who were murdered. Their lives matter to us and more importantly they matter to their children, mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters. Who will seek justice for them?

This is an opportunity for our communities to support us by coming together in this public way to bear witness, to grieve the loss of our beloved sisters and to remember the lives of those who are still unaccounted for.

Please respect the march and do not bring agency banners to the event. The women are at the centre and the Women’s Memorial March carries five banners to honour the women.

The itinerary is as follows (in case you can't meet at the Carnegie center):

12:00 PM Family members speak in remembrance of their daughters: Carnegie Centre Theatre
1:00 PM March begins with a circle at Main & Hastings
2:00 PM Community activists speak outside the Vancouver Police Station
2:45 PM Healing Circle at Oppenheimer Park Memorial Pole, Candles of Remembrance
3:00 PM Feast at the Japanese Language School 475 Alexander St.

We ask that media interested in attending the event please arrive at Carnegie Centre by 11:15 am.
Media Protocol will be available in the library.

For more information please contact: Marlene at (604) 665-3005 or Carol Martin at (604) 681-8480 x 233

You can read about the history of the march here.
Excerpt:

The February 14th Women’s Memorial March is organized and led by women because women, especially Aboriginal women, face physical, mental, emotional and spiritual violence on a daily basis. We invite the whole community to join us in the spirit of the march. We ask that men share their grief and show their support by respecting the structure of the march

The DTES is the poorest neighbourhood in Vancouver, so it should comes as no surprise that the people there, especially the women are some of the most disenfranchised. I encourage everyone to go and hope to see you all there.

There will also be marches in Toronto and Edmonton if you are in those areas.

Don't count Hillary out yet

States where Hillary is leading in the polls:
Texas: 228 delegates (large latino backing...see previous post)
Ohio: 161 delegates
Pennsylvania: 188 delegates
Puerto Rico: 63 delegates (she's done amazing things for health care in Puerto Rico)

Not to mention presidential candidates that have lost the majority of states in the past: Bill Clinton, most recently, and Jimmy Carter who, incidentally, lost 23 states.

Anxiety attack in math class today

I almost started screaming at someone in class today (do you *really* need to prove 3 things in one class when you were the one who proved the most proofs for the "first 3rd". You only raise the bar for the rest of us who were ecstatic (and I'm not the only one) of proving 3 in the last period, now we'll have to do more. We're 2 weeks in and I have none, but then again every time I try to do a proof I have an anxiety attack.) But (thankfully) instead I had a *quiet* anxiety attack and cried for the last 30 minutes of my class. It was AWESOME.

So here's the email I just shot off to my advocate at disability resources:

I have a math class in which my anxiety has got progressively worse in as
the quarter goes on. It's Math 312, Intro to Proofs via Elementary
Analysis. The style of the class is "teach yourself." We are given
definitions and sometimes theorems that, frankly, I do not find
illuminating or helpful and I do not find the prof helpful either. We're
not allowed to use any other resources, other people, books, etc.

Prior to today I was only having anxiety attacks every time I attempted to
do a proof, but today I had an anxiety attack during class. I am having a
horrible time and this class has just made my depression and my anxiety
worse. I can't get myself to school sometimes because of this class. And
I know it's going to get worse. I don't think I will be able to make it
through this class, but it's a requirement.

Is there anything you can do? I have to pass this class, but I don't
think I'll survive this and with only 2 quarters left, and full with the
rest of my requirements I don't think I'll be able to fit it anywhere else
(and everyone teaches the class this way).

Need I say again that I think this class is incredibly unfair to people with anxiety disorders (like me).

Oh and for good news, 48/50 on my Abstract Algebra homework (both points lost were ridiculous, they were things I knew that I forgot to put into my proof. ARGH!) Pure mathematics ROCKS!

i will, i will, i will

I WILL leave the house in time to go to school tomorrow.

I WILL go to EVERY class, even if one of my prof's doesn't lecture on the material (our test on Wednesday had questions from 3 chapters ahead of what we were assigned to study. WHo does that? No reading, no lecture, no homework. I have no idea how the hell we were supposed to know that. I just looked up temperature in the index and read EVERY section on it until I got to the relevant one.) , the other prof lectures straight from the book, and the last class is the evil proofs class where I desperately feel as though I will fly into a blind rage or cry at any given moment.

I WILL finish that damn proof I've been working on for 3 hours. (mixing delta/epsilon proofs with cluster points and continuity (but at least it's a closed set and I *know* how to do it in a hand wave-y way, but not a "rigorous" way *sigh* I can explain the concepts and how it will work, but how to put it all together to form that whole crappy rigorous proof thing, bah. Have I mentioned lately that I hate this class? He doesn't like it when I turn in proofs written in the style that my 401 prof likes them to be written. ARGH. At least I get A's for those assignments, so it's not that I can't write proofs, just not these (since I can't use a damn book)))

I WILL get up 2 hours early to go to my prof's office hours so I can finish said proof.

I WILL do my physics homework tonight, even though I will have an hour between office hours and class tomorrow.

I WILL drink that glass of wine tonight so that I can make sure I will actually sleep so I can get #' 1, 2, and 3 done.

I WILL FINALLY call the doctor's office and make that appointment to up the dose on my medication that I so direly need since I've had a "low mood" (nice euphemism for depression) for the past 3 weeks.

Ugh. *fingers crossed* these things actually happen.

huh

Somebody asked why does she have so much of the latino vote? Short answer: Cesar Chavez's union, United Farmworkers, endorsed her, and I believe she'll do well in TX because she has been endorsed by the Tejano Democrats for work she's done in TX (also there are a large number of union members in TX as well). mmmmm, Cesar Chavez.

Also, my friend in Spokane pointed out that the Hillary/Obama split was divided strictly by class, with the working class voting for Hillary, which, unfortunately, in our society affects many latino/latinas

WA Caucus Obama v Hillary

SO today were the WA caucuses. I was caucusing for Hillary. Of course I knew that there would be plenty of Barack supporters in attendance and I was sad that they were the majority in my precinct (9 delegates to 2), simply because of the reasons that they gave for supporting him.

1) I hate Hillary.
Ok, why? Nothing concrete, of course.

2) He's not a politician, he doesn't "play the game."
Oh yeah? He's slagged off the other candidates just as much as they have slagged off each other. And just because he doesn't appear to play the game, he *IS* a politican and he *WILL* be making compromises and deals. If he's elected, boy will you be disappointed.

3) He'll change the system.
Not even superman can do that. People don't seem to understand how the system works. We need someone who can change things from the inside out, someone who knows how to work and manipulate the system. B/c there's that whole checks and balances thing.

4) Hillary's voting record shows she makes compromises.
See #2, also he abstains from so many controversial votes, which is something he won't be able to do as president. Aren't you scared that you don't know what he's going to do when faced with a hard decision? It terrifies me.

5) He inspires young people
Well, we not only had the *youngest* people in our precinct, but when we broke up into candidate caucuses we also had the majority of young people, funny how that works, eh?

6) He's a uniter.
A) Bush said that *shudder*, B ) if he's such a uniter then why was it not unanimous? Also how much uniting do you think he'll be able to do without making compromises?

Also, I got up to give a speech for why the undecideds should vote for Hillary (or Obama supporters should change their votes) and I was visibly shaking. Never done that before. Shaking and my voice was quivering, but even Obama supporters told me I did a good job, so I guess it wasn't that bad, but I'm finally starting to calm down, 5 hours later.

Pure awesome

I've been re-watching Heroes on DVD and I totally forgot about the part where Claire almost gets raped (but doesn't because she gets killed) and just tells everyone that nothing happened until another classmate comes up and tells her that she once went off with the quarterback and "nothing happened" and Claire decides to take things into her own hands (having regenerative powers and all so she doesn't have a scratch on her and the fact that even if she had stayed dead it most likely wouldn't have been pinned on him.) And drives his car into a brick wall with the two of them inside of it, because she knows that he'll just keep doing it again to more women. Go Claire. Granted, not the best way of dealing with things, but deciding to take action when she knows that women have been and will be raped by him, pure awesome. I love it.

Sleep

Wine, 50 mg of Topomax, and 25 mg of Seroquel.

I can't wait to get to the doc as this is not a promising long term solution.

Looks like it's time for a med update

I've had insomnia for the past 2/3 weeks, bouts of depression and mania, and it is seriously interfering with school. I got 3 1/2 hours of sleep last night and I have a test tomorrow and can't fall asleep now and just want to cry. I want to go to the emergency room as I can't get in to see my doc during office hours until next week b/c they'll give me some valium and I'll be able to sleep at the very least which will make everything SO much more bearable. It'll just screw up my school stuff, and I really can't afford that, but if I don't get any sleep tonight I will definitely have to go tomorrow or Thursday b/c I don't think I could wait for Thursday, and it would be nice to *actually* be able to hang out with my partner.

copperboom

Finished abstract homework, evil moore method class taken today, and my thermal physics prof told us that the test is "you can use anything except the person next to you."

Not so stressed anymore.

Moore method sucks, but...

SNOW!!!!!!!!!!! SNOWSNOWSNOWSNOWSNOWSNOWSNOW 1-2 inches tonight predicted.

You know what, Rice's applied mathematics programs look AWESOME, but I don't know if I can handle more years (what 5, 6 for a PhD?) without snow. Or tons of leaves and brisk weather in fall or thunderstorms in spring. Hot summers they do have. Nothing makes me happier then taking a nice long snow walk.


Oh, and SNOW!!!!!!!!

EDITED TO ADD: I just saw the forecast for tomorrow!!!! Scattered snow showers with snow becoming steadier and heavier late in the day. Thunder possible. High 37F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of snow 80%. Snow accumulating 1 to 2 inches.

Did you see that! Snow AND Thunder! I will be in HEAVEN!!!! There will be dancing and rejoicing and I will be able to (temporarily) forget the evilness of my math classes.

Fighting mental breakdown

OK, so I have 2 math classes. One is a 400-level abstract algebra class that I am doing well in. The second is a 300-level proofs class where I am given a page of shoddy definitions and remarks, am not allowed to talk to anyone, even people in the class, or look at any other books on the subject. Most our grade is from presentation of correct proofs in class, I, of course, am not very confident in my proofs since I am so confused by his notes and talking to the prof is NO HELP whatsoever. It's not like I can't do proofs, 401 is all proofs and I am doing very well in that class. Everyone else has presented 3-4 proofs, and I presented a whooping 1.

I missed class on Tuesday because of a migraine, and I have gone to class with a migraine before, but the way I deal with the inordinate amount of stress is by avoiding the class. I missed class today b/c I missed my first class (she lectures straight from the book, though) and I just couldn't move to get to the proofs class. That's how I deal with anxiety (thanks PTSD), by freezing, or in this case avoiding. I know it's not helping, especially since on Fridays I have to turn in correct forms of all the proofs presented in class (25% of my grade).

ARGH! I need a better way to deal with stress, I know this, hence all the therapy and meds and accupuncture. I would drop this class (never have so many tears been shed over a class) except it's a requirement.

How can I do proofs for my 401 class but not for this one? (Although I have a sneaking suspicion it's because I am able to talk to people and get a better grasp on the material. Group theory, check. Whatever the hell we're doing in 312, definitely not a fucking check.) ACK!

The Moore method sucks. And you know what I remember from my last class that was Moore method? Nothing, except the extreme desire to throw the prof out the window.

I like it

I have just treated myself to an Arthur Dent day and I highly recommend it. People may look at you funny, but it just feels so good.

I will be having more of these in the future, especially since I live in the land of eternal spring/fall. mmmmmmmmmm

"A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men." *wink*

Did you know

that Winston Churchill was agnostic?

And most Americans wouldn't vote for an atheist/agnostic.

Genderberg

Where art thou? You won't load and it's driving me insane.

To those who say "If not Kucinich then Ron Paul"

Have you looked at any of his other stances past that of the Iraq war?

Do you know how many people will die if he overturns Roe v. Wade?

Are you that stupid to trade THOUSANDS OF WOMEN'S LIVES (because let's be honest, with the Supreme Court how it is now and the political outlook bleak do you really think that if it gets overturned we'll get it back in the next few decades? century? centuries?) for what is certain to be a disastrous withdrawal?


Now let me clear things up before you jump all over me. Yes, I am against the war. Yes, I think we should pull out, but everyone right away? We fucked things up, and while I admit we need a MAJOR overhaul of how we are conducting ourselves over there (it's appalling atm), we can't just abandon what we fucked up. I would prefer to see peacekeepers brought in (which we will never be seen as: destroying their whole society for nothing more then revenge for what happened to poor little Georgie's daddy), and preferably ones who understand the culture, again NOT US. But we need to facilitate that, or the UN, or SOMEONE. and as I see it neither Kucinich or Paul has any plan to make things better for the Iraqis while bringing home the troops. It's not just about us people, it's about us being responsible for our messes.

Yeah, Ron Paul has some policies I think are great, but he has A LOT that are scarier then hell, especially the fact that he thinks that I shouldn't have control over my own body.

I posted about how to induce a miscarriage using only parsley and vitamin c and I am SHOCKED and TERRIFIED of how far women who do not have access to abortion are willing to go to abort an unwanted baby. They willingly and knowingly put their lives in jeopardy. Is that what you want? Because that's what I'm hearing.

Do women's lives not matter to you? Or is this something you just didn't know about, because I kinda hope that people research their candidates.

And to people who commented before about my choice of who to caucus for: weighing ALL the pros/cons (and Kucinich doesn't even enter into the picture anymore, first for endorsing a misogynist and racist rag (and there is a difference between saying that something has a right to exist and endorsing it), and secondly for even musing about teaming up with Ron Paul, but in reality I could have forgiven him that one) I've re-reviewed stances and will probably caucus for Edwards.

But to be completely honest I have not voted anything but 3rd party ever since I could vote (every voting year has found me in a blue state: Washington, NY, Illinois......etc). So whatever flack you want to give me about who I support in the primary just understand that I won't be voting for them, but instead be voting for some radical leftist who never stands a chance of getting elected anytime soon. Now if we went by *popular* vote instead of the ridiculous and outdated electoral college I would probably be more likely to vote democrat, these days anyway. *sigh*

Even if you don't follow US Politics

and if you're a Buffy fan, I think that this short explanation of the GOP (Republican) presidential candidates as Buffy villains will be very enlightening and funny (or depressing).

It will really bring you up to speed on the scariness of who might be the next president (not if I have anything to say, but that didn't really matter the last two elections......)


And I have PROOF! that Ron Paul is Moloch. Seriously: The town I live in is super-super liberal. Last election we had the *largest* (not kidding) caucus for Kuchinich and now the people you see at the weekly protest and who I saw at the caucus last year have RON PAUL BUMPER STICKERS!

See...the Corrupter. Can we bind him in something, because before I knew he had Moloch's powers I just could not for the life of me understand what the hell was going on.




And doesn't Huckabee look insane in that picture?

Please

Can the incessant migraines please stop? Please?

Hehehehe

I'm worth 3 points! Hurray!

Presidential primaries

So here in WA we caucus. Last time I caucused for Kucinich. But now I find out that not only is he a friend of Larry Flynt, but that he supports his misogynist ways. More on the second point below.

As a feminist who is against the exploitation of woman I can no longer support Kucinich. So I guess I will be backing Hillary. I did vote for her for Senator in NY ages ago. Barack scares me. His voting record tells me nothing, and he has not done anything to distinguish himself in any way that's satisfying to me.

It really saddens me about Kucinich endorsing Hustler (article by Jackson Katz *sigh*). No matter how much I agree with the other things that he stands for I cannot support someone who supports a woman hater and rapist.

From the article:

For those of us who cling to the quaint notion that any progressive politics worthy of the name must be anti-sexist by definition, this is truly deflating news. After all, we're in the 21st century. The days when prominent men in the progressive movement would dare to associate this openly with the likes of misogynists like Larry Flynt were supposed to be relegated to the mists of memory, before the modern multicultural women's movement came along. In fact, one of the catalyzing forces in the rise of feminism in the 1960s and 1970s was women's experience of sexism on the left and in the civil rights, anti-poverty and anti-war movements.

....

Let's be clear about who Flynt is. He's not some run of the mill good ol' boy with political passions and deep pockets. Please spare us the "First Amendment hero" platitudes. On the contrary, Flynt is a wealthy capitalist who for years has been one of the most notoriously sexist figures in American public life. His signature publication, Hustler magazine, has published some of the most misogynist and racist photo layouts and cartoons in the history of mass-distributed porn magazines. He has been accused of incest by his now-grown daughter. He repeatedly dismisses women with the gumption to challenge his raging sexism as "anti-sex bitches" and much worse.

It is willfully naïve for any self-respecting "progressive" to dismiss Flynt's pornography as harmless "adult" entertainment. How can it be considered harmless to consistently portray women and girls in a sexually demeaning and degrading manner? Flynt hasn't built his porn publishing empire in a vacuum. Our society has some of the highest rates of sexual and domestic violence in the world. The numbers are staggering: one in four women will be raped or sexually assaulted. One study showed that one in five teenage girls has been in a physically or sexually abusive relationship. Most women won't even walk alone after dark. Whenever we discuss the effects of pornography -- and regardless of how one feels about people's right to produce or consume it -- anyone with a minimal sense of social responsibility has to examine the relevant context, including where and how it is produced and its relationship to social reality.

....

Hustler cartoons are also notoriously saturated with images of racism and sexual cruelty. As the media scholar Gail Dines points out, the cartoons can be even more overtly offensive than the photo layouts because they carry a "humor license" and hence avoid critical scrutiny. One result is that men of color -- especially African-American men -- are routinely presented in the most reductive racist stereotype: as brutish rapists of white women. Women of color are caricatured with animal-like qualities -- or as non-hygienic slobs. One characteristic cartoon depicts a school science fair. A white boy proudly stands in front of his project, next to a big sign that reads: "ant farm." Next to him is a large Black girl, naked from the waist down; under her the caption reads: "crab farm."

*sigh* I REALLY liked Kucinich. I am really disappointed. I, like Jackson Katz and many of my feminist friends, took his very progressive politics to mean that he supported the equality of women.

Silly, silly me. I spent the years previous to my school as a traveling activist in anarchist circles. The, what many people call "manarchists," are misogynist, racist assholes, which is ridiculous because if you are advocating anarchism, as I understand it, you are advocating equality and freedom of all people, regardless of anything like race or gender. Why am I surprised? Dammit. I've been able to escape this heartbreak for the past few years by concentrating solely on my schooling. That and being on disability and having 3 cats makes it *somewhat* difficult to just hop on a train and go wherever I want whenever there's a campaign I want to work on. I don't miss it partially because I was so burned out by fighting the manarchists and the fact that almost all my sexual assaults have been by my 'fellow activists.'

I HATE THE SO-CALLED "LIBERAL" MALES WHO ARE MISOGYNIST JERKFACEHEADS. ARGH

Oh great science/math people who stop by here

HELP!!!!!!

I'm looking at grad schools, and I have no idea what to do with it. I've been putting it off because it is so overwhelming and this past quarter I've been struggling with so many health issues I just couldn't add more stress to my life.

I'm in love with Abstract algebra, linear algebra, and physics. I want to find a school where I could be a research assistant or at least be a TA that doesn't have to teach entry level math b/c my pre-calc is HORRIBLE. I'd prefer to start next winter/spring, but there are some places that only start in the fall (though one of them I'm going to apply for even though I don't think I'll get in, but hey, no application fee so why the hell not).

Any tips on researching grad schools? What I can find, or if you're in math what programs should I look into given what I like? My advisor is out of the country for the rest of the year and to be completely honest the closest person I have to an advisor is in the physics department whereas I'm in math.

Or should I just do a post-bacc and finish my physics degree too?

Thoughts? Ideas? Pointers, please. (I'll love you forever.)

I hate December

So if you read my last substantial post you know that I have been having a really hard time this month. And during my 16 hour layover (my flight got cancelled and they rescheduled it for 6 the next morning, blech. they had no pilots, isn't that great.) I was thinking and December has always been a bad month. Usually that means there's a trauma anniversary of some kind, and all I can come up with is stuff about having to spend a lot of time with my mother due to xmas break and all. And now I'm here, which I always dread. If my grandmothers weren't so old and in such poor shape I wouldn't come home at all. I just can't deal with my mother. It makes sense though, because I've been having my "mom tapes" playing constantly telling me I'm worthless. It didn't help that I had asshole prof who acted like I was using my migraines and disability to not take quizzes and a test. I got 100% on everything I turned in (no late homework, even for those of us who have documented disabilities and work with disAbility resources. And I got a B- in the class, which I think is bullshit. Once I have my hands on the final I will be appealing.) even though I ALWAYS had it done by the due date.

I'm just a ball of PTSD related depression and anxiety and I have been all month. I caught myself thinking that I should just end it with the first person I've ever loved. It's been that bad. Now that I'm in Chicago I just want to leave. Waiting for the plane filled me with anxiety and just made me want to ditch it and go home. I've been here 30 minutes and I'm crying.

I'll be back hopefully in a few weeks. I'm just overwhelmed with PTSD-related issues right now.

I hope you're all well and enjoy the holiday season (and for you students/profs I hope you enjoy your break.) I need to go now.

I FUCKING HATE DECEMBER (and can't wait until I can spend every December in my little repopulated ghost town in southwest Texas. Nothing gets to me there, I'm just filled with a sense of peace and joy at being alive. After I pay off my student loans I'll probably buy some land and move there for good. people survive down there by working as little as 2 nights a week (those that own land anyway.)

*sigh*

how I relieve stress (and keep from studying)

moar funny pictures

In the market for some art?

I just "opened" my store on Etsy.com, a place to buy all handmade items sold by the artists themselves. My store is here, and more prints will be added, as well as photos, and the photos will be $20 and under (depending on whether it's on fiber paper (which needs to be mounted) and RC paper, which doesn't. Price depends on size). So if you want to support me, but can't afford it just wait a little while. Knit items and hand spun yarn will be coming soon as well (though after the holidays)

Tell your friends! Support artists! (even if you choose not to buy from me, you should buy from the other artists. I buy almost everything from there!)

mmm Finals, and what other then anxiety!

So next week is finals week. Mine are on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday.

So I've been getting migraines 1-2 times a week where I used to get them 1-2 times a month. My doc put me on some preventative meds but they also lower your blood pressure and it lowered mine way to much. I've spent the past 3 days feeling all woozy, dizzy, and airheaded. It felt like watching something and someone kept shaking the camera, and everytime they did it was like my brain was an etch-a-sketch that got erased as well. It made doing my last physics assignment hell. It took me 4 friggin' days to do an assignment that would usually take only two.

Is it right that I'm a math major but I spend all my time in the physics building? We have couches in the TAs office and food. It makes it really hard to have an excuse to leave before you're done with your work.

I thought that I was being fired from my TA job, but really the guy who assigns labs has very bad people skills, because I brought it up with Andrew, actually he brought it up with me, who I'm rewriting the labs for and he was nothing but praise, he only brought up his concern over my health issues (1-2 migraines a week since September) and I was really happy because I learned that I'm very enthusiastic about the labs, I'm very approachable for the students and well liked, and that I am very helpful. He then said he would talk to the guy who hands out the lab assignments because he was worried that I wouldn't get a lab b/c he felt that there may have been a miscommunication. He asked me to do the 101 labs with him this winter and then another calc-based physics lab with him in the spring. YAY! I'm a good TA (so said the anonymous surveys we received about the labs this summer).

Well I'm glad to know that after spiraling into a depression cycle for the next 4-5 days. yippie. I missed another quiz. gah.

I waited until after we talked about the labs, because I didn't want to make him feel bad or anything and then I gave him a teddy bear I knit for his 6 mo and some shark mitts (pictured below) I made for his 5 year old. He loved the mitts and told me that his whole family would. He's been under so much stress this quarter I wanted to give him something to pick up his spirits a bit. I love the mitts and really want to try to make them in an adult size.



Wish me luck on my finals! I will be, surprise, surprise, in the physics library all day Monday. I would be there on Tuesday if I didn't have a final that afternoon. whoosh!

OH OH OH, socially concious hip hop!

Here's the blurb that accompanies the video:
Check out my full album: http://www.mrjmedeiros.com/
Visit the NON-PROFIT website inspired by this video: http://www.iamconstance.org/

Constance is a story about a girl in the Philipines victiminzed by Human Trafficking. It was created by Sam Sanchez of Stick Productions in 2006. Also special thanks to Nakeism Labs. It has spread like wildfire via YouTube, and has inspried an international human rights movement called the "Constance Campaign." Mr. J spearheaded the movement, And has partnered with Non-Profit's like IamComing.org, XXXChurch, and HumanTrafficking.org. In May 2007, Constance was featured on CBS Evening News in an expose' on internet pornography

NO WAY!

DSCF3860
Originally uploaded by ladyceres24

Must make now!

(hehehehe, extermiknits!)


I was just accepted onto Ravelry.com which is an awesome resource for knitters. All sorts of patterns, ways to organise your yarn stash and needles. I found a Gir pattern (from Invader Zim), a pattern for Mr. Pointy (the stake from Buffy), and Marvin (from Hitchhiker's Guide.) And I've only been poking around for about an hour! (I had to input all my needles first. Next the yarn!)

Happy plant blogging

Meet Harold, the first plant I bought for my apartment. I was feeling depressed and I thought, hey, I know what will make me happy: a rubber tree plant! I love them so much.


Plants I need to name. Anyone know what the name of the plant on the left? I know the other two are Hens and Chicks.


My New Guinea Impatiens. I haven't named it yet, but I think it needs one.


The Love Lies Bleeding (on the left) does not have a name because I like it's name so much.


This is Melvin, my birthday present. (I have a thing for carnivorous plants). I've been told that I like to name my plants "old man names," but I really like the names of my plants.


Happy day!

You will be exterminated.

Will it never end? Proposed brothel for the 2010 Olympics in VanCan

An article from todays Vancouver Sun. (Emphasis mine)

Coalition pushes for legal brothel during Olympics
Ottawa's support sought for safe, prostitute-run facility that would cater to Olympic visitors

Jeff Lee
Vancouver Sun

Sunday, November 11, 2007

VANCOUVER -- A group of Vancouver prostitutes wants to open a "co-op" brothel in time for the Winter Olympics, saying it would help sex-trade workers by providing a safer working environment when the world comes to visit in 2010.

Susan Davis, a working prostitute, said she envisions the creation of as many as five cooperative brothels if the B.C. Coalition of Experiential Communities -- which includes men, women and transgendered sex-trade workers -- convinces the federal government to permit the first brothel on an experimental basis.

The group has support from some politicians, including Vancouver East MP Libby Davies and Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan, who believe a brothel owned and run by sex-trade workers would help reduce violence against them.

Now Sam Sullivan won by some very shady stuff by having a candidate whose name was exactly the same name except he used his full name James Green instead of popular and former celebrated mayor Larry Summers endorsed COPE candidate Jim Green where people thoought they were voting for the COPE candidate but instead voted for James Green. I don't like the guy, and he wouldn't have been elected if it hadn't been for the multiple Greens who were running.

Davis said the group is weeks away from incorporating a cooperative corporation and is looking for a possible location in the city's east-side Strathcona area. But she said the group won't open the facility, complete with "quickie rooms" equipped with sinks and a bench, unless it has support from the federal government.

The Strathcona district is located in the Downtown East Side (DTES from now on) which is the part of Vancouver that is plagued with poverty, homelessness, drug addiction, and prostitution. It's also the area where serial prostitute killer Robert Pickton picked up his 46 known victims. Opening a brothel there is not going to help anyone in the area.

"What we'd like to see is an exemption given to us along the lines of what was given for the Insite safe-injection site," Davis said.

She believes tens of thousands of men who come to Vancouver during the Games will be searching for sex. B.C.'s booming construction economy has already brought thousands of workers, and along with them, prostitutes, she said.

"Just like the workers are coming from all over the world to build the city, sex workers are coming with them," she said.

Sullivan, who said the city needs a new approach to dealing with the problems of prostitution, doesn't object to the idea of a co-op brothel.

Again, Sullivan is an asshole. And rather then try to help the women currently on the streets in a productive manner he's buying in to the misconception that decriminalisation and legalisation *actually* make conditions better for prostitutes, which is patently false.

But he said he's more focused on helping so-called "survival sex-trade" workers find cures to their addiction.

"I believe we need to keep an open mind," he said. "But I don't believe it would address the needs of the survival sex trade. I don't think a brothel of this kind would even allow women like that into it, because they come with lots of problems."

It has been documented that many sex workers do not start out as addicts, but become addicts to deal with the abuse they suffer because of prostitution. Goldstein estimated that 40% to 85% of prostitutes were drug users; in addition, he reported that among higher class prostitute women, prostitution tended to precede substance abuse, while in lower class prostitutes, the reverse tended to be true (Goldstein, 1979). James, alluding to data from an unpublished 1976 manuscript, stated that "Prostitution follows addiction in 48% of the subjects, precedes it in 38%, and is simultaneous in 14%" (James, 1977).


Opponents of the brothel say it would only perpetuate the idea that prostitution is acceptable, and not solve the abuse heaped on women in an industry most of them don't want to be in.

"It entrenches prostitution as legitimate, and therefore legitimatizes pimps and traffickers," said Daisy Kler, a social worker with Vancouver Rape Relief. "I do not believe the public would agree that this is a good idea, to have some disposable women available for the Olympics."

Last week, Calgary-based The Future Group released a report warning that Vancouver's Olympics will be a target of human traffickers wanting to exploit prostitution. The report, titled Faster, Higher, Stronger: Preventing Human Trafficking at the 2010 Olympics, said the federal and provincial governments need to deter traffickers from using the Games to profit from human misery.

Janine Benedet, an associate professor of law at the University of B.C., said the city already has hundreds of brothels. The only difference is that they operate illegally. Bringing in one for the Olympics, she said, is wrong.

"To the question, 'Is society ready for this?' my answer is, 'I hope not,'" said Benedet, who lectures on sexual violence. "The notion that this is somehow different or better than any of the other brothels out there is simply false."

Studies show more than 90 per cent of women in the sex trade are not there by choice, but rather because of trafficking, drug addiction and societal problems such as incest.

Benedet said the majority of Vancouver's prostitutes are native women, and many of them suffer from deep psychological trauma. Davis said a brothel run as a cooperative would not turn away prostitutes looking for a safe and clean place to do their business.

From the article linked to above under the word "false" (though actually on page two comes these facts:
United States: 56% don't want it legal, 88% want out now.

South Africa: 62% don't want it legal, 89% want out now

Thailand: 72% don't want it legal, 94% want out now

Turkey: 96% don't want it legal, 90% want out now

Zambia: 92% don't want it legal, 99% want out now

Amazing that pro-prostitution people bandy about how "legal" means safer and is what prostitutes want. I'd say that the study shows that prostitutes *don't* want prostitution to be legalised.

The trial of Robert Pickton, who is accused of the first-degree murder of 26 women, all of whom were either survival sex-trade workers or addicts, amplifies that point, she said. (see above)

"It would be better to be working inside in a bad place than it would be to be outside and getting killed," she said. "Our main focus is to help the adult prostitutes. We're focusing on the Downtown Eastside first because that's where so many of them are getting killed."

So why don't we address the real problem: that these women are seen as disposable. Many cities do not even investigate missing prostitutes until the numbers reach the double digits, which shows just how much these women are valued in society, i.e. they have less value then an unprostituted people.

Davis said the co-op has the support of federal politicians, including Davies, Liberal MP Hedy Fry and Senator Larry Campbell, the former Vancouver mayor. Davies said she supports the coalition's idea of the co-op, and also wants to see prostitution decriminalized. (again, see above)

Society's prohibitionist stance against the sex trade hasn't solved the problem that men continue to seek out women for sex, she said. While she is opposed to child prostitution, she doesn't think adult prostitution should be illegal.

"Where there is sex between two consenting adults, even if there is money exchanged, I don't think the state should prohibit it," Davies said. "I think even the police would agree that the current situation is not tolerable, and that we need safer conditions for sex-trade workers."

But Vancouver police department spokesman Const. Tim Fanning said a brothel can't legitimize an industry that completely victimizes women.

"You can call it what you want, but prostitution is just a breath short of slavery," he said. "These women are not in it by choice. The police department would in no way support anything like a brothel."

WOOT WOOT! Unfortunately I am shocked that a Constable actually understands what prostitution does to women, but it is a very welcome surprise.

Davis said better "exit" strategies are needed to help prostitutes who want to leave the industry. But she thinks prostitution as a whole should be accepted instead of stigmatized. She said as an example, she services many elderly men whose wives either won't have sex with them or who are widowers and don't want long-term relations.

Isn't that sweet. A modern day Mother Theresa. *rolleyes*

But Kler saw Davis's proposal as a thinly disguised attempt to legalize an industry she sees as akin to slavery.

"Fundamentally, it's not the laws that kill, beat and rape women, it's men," she said. "The mantra in this city is that it's safer, it's safer, it's safer. We fundamentally see prostitution as a form of violence against women. If you are coming from a women's equality perspective, as we are, fighting for the equal status of women, we see that there is no benefit to women as a group to legalizing or decriminalizing prostitution." (did I mention that Daisy kicks ass? but then again, Vancouver Rape Relief also kicks ass)

The idea of brothels is not new to Vancouver. In 2005, then-councillor Tim Louis suggested the city should open one to support prostitutes as long as it didn't make money from it, prompting Sullivan, then a mayoral candidate, to say: "The goal should be to help these women get out of the survival sex trade, not keep them in it. I'm running to be mayor to help people, not to get into the business of being a pimp."

But the approach of the Winter Games has brought the issue to the fore again. The Olympics, like many major sporting events, traditionally generate a boost in prostitution.

Victor Malarek, author of the best-selling book The Natashas: Inside the New Global Sex Trade, said more than 40,000 women and girls were brought to Athens for the 2004 Summer Games.

For the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany, more than 20,000 women were imported. In both countries, prostitution is legal, but the vast majority of those brought in were foreigners from countries like Moldova, Romania and Ukraine.

While Canada's immigration laws and visa requirements will prevent many foreign prostitutes from being trafficked in Vancouver for the Games, Malarek says the reality is that the 2010 Winter Games will be no different than other Olympics.

"You're going to open up a Pandora's box if you allow even one legal brothel," he said.

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, the federal government's senior minister in B.C., and the Vancouver Organizing Committee declined to comment.

jefflee@png.canwest.com (to contact the author of this article)

To learn more about what pornography (taped prostitution) and prostitution are really like you should visit (for starters anyway):
Prostitution Research and Education
Against Pornography
Polaris Project
Factbook on Global Sexual Exploitation
Coalition Against Trafficking in Women International
Genderberg

Jersey Jaxin on why she left porn and the abuses of the industry

Yes I know, do we really need to keep posting things about how women in the industry are harmed? Well since a lot of people don't listen the answer is YES. I know I'll keep screaming until people actually hear me. My words and other brave bloggers words about their experience in the sex "industry" have been glossed over as "odd" stories, since everyone know that the sex "industry" is just good sexy fun, right?

Yet again a woman who worked in the industry tells us a resounding NO. Yet again I am silmultaneously moved to tears and angered beyond belief by the stories of another woman (and you know for all the women brave enough to speak out there are a cadre of women with the same experiences who don't (and I understand that...it's not easy to talk about abuse)) who has been abused, used, disrespected, and treated like nothing more then a few holes.

To all you "good sexy fun" believers AGAIN I ask: HOW MANY WOMEN WILL IT TAKE TO CONVINCE YOU THAT PORN IS HARMFUL TO WOMEN? HOW MANY? At least give me a number, I bet I could find that many women. Just tell me, WHAT WILL IT FUCKING TAKE?

Ex-porn star Shelley Lubben interviews Tanya W. (porn name: Jersey Jaxin) about her decision to leave porn and the horrible conditions that she was working in.

Part the first:


part the second:


From Shelley Lubben (now, I hate WalMart (and Target slightly less) but in this instance, if I could, I would send a gift card):

"I want to give Tanya some relief from the many years of suffering she has endured. She has only known pain and abuse since she was a little girl and now I want all of us to reach out to her. She is moving to another state where there are mainly Super Walmarts. If you would like to help Tanya as she begins her new life please send Walmart and Target cards to my PMB Box and I will forward everything I receive to her as soon as I receive them from you.

Let's keep helping the porn stars rebuild their lives! YOU are making a HUGE difference in the lives of women by your giving.

Tanya already sends a BIG THANK YOU to us for your support and love as she courageously rebuilds her new life.

You can send the Walmart cards here to my post mail box at:

Shelley Lubben
PMB Box 33
6077 Coffee Rd 4
Bakersfield, Calif. 93308

Or if you'd like to help in some other way please visit my web site here. (Also you can see the other women that Shelley is trying to help and lend some support or a hand (there are non-monetary things like finding lawyers, translators, etc)

Thank you SO MUCH for caring about the porn stars! Love, Shelley"

Now I know Shelley is one the Christ train, and I fear people will react by saying: "oh she's just religious right." To that I say, how many people in the religious right are ex-pornstars and how many actually want to *help* people leave porn? Seriously, what she's doing is wonderful for anyone. I don't care if she calls herself the one true god, she is doing much more then most people in our society, helping the abused and battered women get a life outside of the abuse (porn).

Hat tip and more info: Anti-Pornography Activist Blog

Cat owners: Does this happen to you?

Lazy Day posting continues

So my temperature has remained steady today at 96F/35.6C. Can someone tell me what a dangerous level is? I know that if my temp drops to 94.7F/34.8C that I should go to the doctor because that happened to me a few summers ago and I rode it out in bed under every blanket I could find in the house while it was beautiful and warm. All the things I look for online say "hypothermia" but how can I have hypothermia when I haven't been in any situation in which I would develop it. For the past 3 days when at home I am covered in blankets, with the heater on (I never use it), and wrapped in my lovely fleece robe and really warm clothes when I go out. Maybe I should see my doctor now because I'm continually fluctuating between being fine and too hot. Why can't I get a fever like everyone else and should I be worried?

I didn't go to school, didn't turn in my homework that I worked on for hours last night on and missed my lab meeting. Because I finally crawled out from beneath the covers so late I will still be running my lab tommorrow morning (didn't notify them in time today) and I haven't gotten a chance to go over it yet. Craptastic. Also, I still haven't gotten the grading guidelines for last weeks lab and I'm supposed to grade them by tommorrow at 8. Bah.

Yesterday the only time I didn't feel sick was when I was doing my homework. Gonna do some calculus homework now in the hopes that it will make me feel better. (Miraculously for the 10 minutes I took my quiz on Friday I did not feel my left frontal lobe trying to escape out the front of my skull. When the quiz was done my migraine returned full force. Yippiee.) Maybe I've discovered a new cure for pain and illness? Or maybe I was concentrating so hard on my work I didn't notice the pain and overwhelming crappy feeling of being sick.

I was going to post some links, but I of course closed the tabs they were in. But here's a funny one: Inky Circus on the Calculus of Saying I Love You

Enjoy.

I've been memed! (About a month ago!) And it's scientific-y!

I was tagged by Kate from A k8, a cat, and a mission somewhere in the beginning of October. Since I'm home sick today I thought that it is perfectly fine for me to catch up on my blogosphere business. So here is the randomly mutating meme:

First, the rules:

There are a set of questions below that are all of the form, "The best [subgenre] [medium] in [genre] is...". Copy the questions, and before answering them, you may modify them in a limited way, carrying out no more than two of these operations:
You can leave them exactly as is.
You can delete any one question.
You can mutate either the genre, medium, or subgenre of any one question. For instance, you could change "The best time travel novel in SF/Fantasy is..." to "The best time travel novel in Westerns is...", or "The best time travel movie in SF/Fantasy is...", or "The best romance novel in SF/Fantasy is...".
You can add a completely new question of your choice to the end of the list, as long as it is still in the form "The best [subgenre] [medium] in [genre] is...".
You must have at least one question in your set, or you've gone extinct, and you must be able to answer it yourself, or you're not viable.

Then answer your possibly mutant set of questions. Please do include a link back to the blog you got them from, to simplify tracing the ancestry, and include these instructions.

Finally, pass it along to any number of your fellow bloggers. Remember, though, your success as a Darwinian replicator is going to be measured by the propagation of your variants, which is going to be a function of both the interest your well-honed questions generate and the number of successful attempts at reproducing them.

So, without further ado:

My great-great-great-great-great-grandparent is Pharyngula.
My great-great-great-great-grandparent is Metamagician and the Hellfire Club.
My great-great-great-grandparent is Flying Trilobite.
My great-great-grandparent is "http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2007/10/the_pharyngula_mutating_genre.php"/>A Blog Around the Clock.
My great-grandparent is Primate Diaries.
My grandparent is Thus Spake Zuska.
My parent is A k8, a cat, a mission

The best novel collection in SF/Fantasy is: The Earthsea Chronicles by Ursula K LeGuin

The best scary movie in scientific dystopias is: The Handmaid's Tale

The best song in country music is: 2 Days Smug and Sober by Carolyn Mark

The best cult novel in pre-Victorian fiction is: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

The best high-carb food in Franco-Canadian cooking is poutine!

The best dissertation-related words I ever received from a scholar are: "I think you'll do fine writing a dissertation, don't let that scare you away from your goals."

I am passing this on to

I See Invisible People
Adventures in Applied Math (if she can take some time out from baking such wonderous cakes!
Laurelin in the Rain
Sparkle*Matrix? (are you around now?)
Library Tavern
Arooo

and of course anyone else who would like to join in. Remember, it's science!

Don't despair! The Carnival of Radical Feminists is here!

Welcome to my blog. Feel free to poke around, I have my best (and probably most radical feminists posts) in the sidebar under favourites. I'm a bit overwhelmed and having disability and health issues lately that I really don't have the time to sort the posts by topic. I guess this just means you'll have to read them all. *grin*

Also, if I missed any of your posts or didn't give you a detailed intro it's just because my health problems have been kicking my ass and I'm struggling to keep up with my 300/400 level math and physics classes. You all deserve better intros, but I just don't have the time or energy. Needless to say, there are a lot of really rad posts that I got to read for this carnival, and it's wonderful to be introduced to new radical voices. Thank you for this oppurtunity, you all should host once! It's amazing.

So, for my entry I reviewed Full Frontal Feminism and the inanity of the new "sexy feminism" and how this book buys into the corporate media's tactic of selling everything with sex. Oh, and I didn't get to write about it yet since I just heard about it but there's a new movie called Lars and the real girl about a guy and his real doll whose tagline is "The search for true love begins outside the box." and is called, i kid you not, a "heartfelt comedy" *puke* Thanks for normalising and glorifying Real Dolls. If you can stand it you can watch the trailer here. *blech*

Tracee Sioux muses about the devaluation of motherhood and its relation to the devaluation of women in Devaluation of Motherhood posted at So Sioux Me. She also interviews a woman and her family about a fellowship that required her to leave them for a year in So Sioux Me: Long Distance Mothering.

Ann Bartow talks about even when filtered through two judges prostitution is still as depressing as ever in Prostitution In Atlanta, As Described By the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals posted at Feminist Law Professors.

The Ghost of Dr. Violet Socks talks about the misogynistic bullshit of evopsych in her post Reclusive Leftist In which Dr. Socks becomes so disgusted with the casual ineptitude of the ev-psychos that she descends to name-calling and cursing posted at Reclusive Leftist.

Holly Ord brings talks about Love Your Body day and how hard it is for us to feel positive about ourselves in Love Your Body posted at Menstrual Poetry. She also hits home with The Truth About Planned Parenthood which has been an argument that I have been having with a lindyhopping friend recently. She also talks about the epidemic ofRape in Congo – A Weapon of War Becomes a Way of Life posted at Woman Tribune.

Heather Corinna talks about how all of sexuality and sex studies have been conducted with one group in mind, and not surprisingly that group is men in Disorders of Desire posted at heather corinna: pure as the driven slush. She also talks about how our sexuality is demonised still in One ring to rule them all | Scarleteen at Scarleteen Newswire.

Portly Dyke talks about Sexual Consent in A Modest Proposal: The Thorny Issue of Sexual Consent.

Womensspace presents a Radical Feminist Response to the proposed trans-inclusive addition to ENDA (Employment Non-Discrimination Act) in ENDA and “Gender Identity”: A Feminist, Woman-Centered Response. Also there is a post on the way Ken Burns completely ignored the "comfort women" in his 15-part special on World War II Where in gods name are the comfort women: an open letter to Ken Burns. Also she wants justice in Blog and website banners for the "Free the New Jersey 4" campaign.

Ginmar on a judge's ruling that the rape of a prostitute is a "theft of services" rape of a prostitute is a "theft of services". The ghost of Dr Socks also weighs in on this topic.

Two posts on sexual harrassment: one from Professor Zero and one from Kitty Glendower

River at Baghdad Burning writes about being a refugee from Iraq and her new life in Syria.

Marcella Chester points out the flaws in attacks which claim that focusing on men's violence against women proves feminist chick hypocrisy. Misunderstanding Of Gender In Sexual Violence posted at abyss2hope: A rape survivor's zigzag journey into the open. She also talks about teachers as sexual predators in Teacher predators and Resistance.

Debs talks about the importance of language in Wife, Mother, Sister, Daughter or Goddess? posted at Feminist Fire.

One Tenacious Baby Mama talks about homogeneity in political movements in Reloaded V & Don't ever, EVER assume we're all the same and don't try to force it, either....

Beautiful Also are the Souls of My Black Sisters writes about Black Women in White America.

Leisha on why it is important that "Take Back the Night" be a woman-only event.

Laurelin on "objectivity".

Eeni B. Bella Stinggrose on taking back Halloween and the sexism in mainstream children's costumes.

Maggie Jochild presents "THE WAR", OURS AND THEIRS -- PROPAGANDA AS BRAIN DAMAGE posted at Meta Watershed. She also wants you to read an excerpt from her novel at "THE WAR" -- EXCERPT FROM "GINNY BATES" and she talks about war in WHEN JOHNNY COMES MARCHING HOME AGAIN . I suggest you read her entire blog as she submitted a lot of things to me and they're all worth a read. (sorry Maggie that I didn't put them all in.)

The Goddess speculates on Condoleeza Rice's sexual orientation and why it matters.

La Doctorita on sexism in her med school classes.


Madeleine Begun Kane points out the insanity of thinking that women only want to shoot "cute" guns in Not Tickled Pink About Girlish Pink Guns posted at Mad Kane's Political Madness.

And to end on a happy note:
In awesome news SecondWaver talks about a movie that I really want to see in The Gendercator by Catherine Crouch

Do not fear

The carnival of radical feminists will be up this weekend.