Frogs and Ravens

Healthy Frustration

If nothing else, the primary run between Clinton and Obama has, I believe, been useful for opening dialogs among progressives about sexism, racism, and other forms of embedded privilege.

I'm not going to deny that it has been ugly.  Some "progressive" sites have proven to be anything but, instead being rabid partisans defending their candidate against all comers, as if that candidate is the second coming.  The disconnect between the means and the stated ends of getting a "progressive" (which in this case gets reduced down to "not Bush" or "not the GOP") candidate in office is shocking and brutal.

Yet it also seems to me that I'm seeing something good emerge from the fray - at least on blogs like Shakesville.  What I am seeing is a massive cluesticking of progressives about the extent of their privilege, about where their blind spots lie, and so on.  I see men being startled to realize that, yes, they are feminists.  I see straight people learning to see homophobia - and learning to respect the experience and wisdom of their GLBT allies when those allies call out homophobia that these straight progressives don't see.  And I see white people learning to admit their privilege and racist blinkers, and to listen when people of color explain what they see.

I generally think I'm pretty good on the feminism thing, and on the GLBT issues, and with issues of classism, or ageism, or fat-phobia.  I am learning, however, that I have much farther to go in terms of racism, particularly the racism that is directed towards black men and women.

#1 on Google Meme

Here's a new meme (generation string: The World's Fair --> Pharyngula -->  Creek Running North):  Find five search strings that return your blog as the number one hit.

Here are mine:

Frogs and ravens (or ravens and frogs, frogs ravens, ravens frogs, etc.)

Post-academic stress syndrome

Herb sweater

Dog-paddling upstream

The rushing of squirrel feet

Unread Books Meme

Pica offers up the following meme:

These are the top 106 books most often marked as “unread” by LibraryThing’s users (as of yesterday). Bold what you have read, italicize what you started but couldn’t finish, and strike through what you couldn’t stand.

(It's sort of embarassing to realize how many of these works I haven't read, though I can console myself with the thought that when I do read a book, the vast majority of the time I finish it. I think it comes down to not being the sort of person who reads popularly acclaimed book-club books, and to not being interested in most of the classics; if I didn't read them in high school or college, I'm unlikely to have been interested in them on my own. And, of course, this list says little about how well I actually remember the books that I did read...)

Encyclopedia of Life

The Encyclopedia of Life project looks deeply cool.  I hope that they are able to pull it off!

This is its goal:

Ultimately, the Encyclopedia will serve as an online reference source and database for every one of the 1.8 million species that are named and known on this planet, as well as all those later discovered and described.

Think about it...  The whole concept just makes me hug myself with glee!

Thinking Blogger

I'm really flattered.  Two people have named me a Thinking Blogger this week!

Thank you, Jill and Christine!

Now, one of the things you have to do if nominated is list five bloggers who you consider "thinking bloggers," or, put another way, thoughtful bloggers who make you think.

Here are some that came to mind, in no particular order:

Beth of Cassandra Pages

Chris Clarke of Creek Running North

jo(e) of writing as jo(e)

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville (There are a lot of other great bloggers sharing this group blog with Melissa, btw.)

Lance Mannion of Lance Mannion

Twisty Faster of I Blame the Patriarchy

(Whoops.  That's six.  Oh well!)

Updated to add:  Christine made the very good point that, being nominated twice, I ought to be able to nominate 10 people, so I'm in fact four short.  So...

digby of Hullabaloo

butuki of Laughing Knees (he doesn't write frequently, but always well)

Nancy of Nancy Nall. com

Orion (this isn't a blog, or a blogger - but the writing and production values of this publication are so uniformly excellent that I can't recommend it highly enough)

Number 11:  who would YOU nominate, if you had the chance?  Feel free to add your own nominations in the comments!

(Thinking Blogger participation rules below the fold.)

Three Sentences

Pilgrim/Heretic recently attended a recognition ceremony at her campus, and was struck by how little the dedications ended up saying about the people who'd been working there for twenty or thirty years.  So she posed the question:  In three sentences or fewer, how would you like your work and yourself to be described in a similar situation?

I'm very intrigued by the question, but more than a little daunted when it comes to thinking up an answer.  For one thing, I don't really have a career at this point.  So I have to think about might-bes in more than one way.  But here's one attempt:

During the last 30 years, R has written numerous articles and books, many of them exploring the themes of home and our connections to the non-human world. Despite her success as a writer, what we wish to celebrate most today is her success as a human being and as a friend.

I guess that's only two.  But there's only so much head-swelling I can manage in one day.  (I can't tell whether this is a crisis of confidence, or a lack of imagination.)  I'd like to think that 30 years from now I will be a warm and humane person, with a good sense of humor, lots of stories to tell, and a number of intriguing adventures and quiet satisfactions to look back on and forward to.  But that's more about me and less about my "career."  I want to be published, and I want people to read my work, and I want approval.  (I've given up on the idea that I could change the world.)  But that's pretty vague - which is why I'm sceptical about my ability to turn those speculative sentences into reality. 

Still, it'd be something, if I managed it, wouldn't it?

Google-Bombing for Jill

From tigtog: This is a crosspost to effect a Googlebomb, correcting an injustice against a fellow feminist blogger. Jill Filipovic, who blogs at Feministe and Ms. JD, is a NYU law student who has been the subject of cyber-obsession on a discussion board allegedly populated by law students. The discussions regarding Jill Filipovic (and many other female law students) are sexist and sexual in nature, rating the women’s physical attractiveness and fantasising about sexual contact, both consensual and non-consensual. Neither Jill Filipovic or any other of these women contributed, or gave their permission to be discussed, to the discussion board in question. Jill Filopovic’s name and class routines etc have been regularly posted to this board, and at least one of the pseudonymous board-members claims to be Jill Filipovic’s classmate. Photos that Jill Filipovic posted (with full rights reserved) to an internet photo-storing and sharing site have also been posted to the sleazy discussion board without her permission. This is a horrendous invasion of Jill Filipovic’s privacy, a violation of copyright law, and calls the ethics and character of the alleged law-students participating in these discussions on the discussion board into question. A major side-effect of an already nasty situation is that the sexist, objectifying cyber-obsession threads come up on the first page of internet search results on Jill Filipovic’s name. To an inexperienced user of the internet, it may even look as if Jill Filipovic and other female law students chose to compete in these Hot or Not rating competitions, instead of having their pictures posted without permission.

This post is an attempt to balance those internet results to point to the significant writings of Jill Filipovic instead, using the Googlebomb tactic and also linking this post to social networking sites (eg. del.ici.ous, Stumbleupon). Please feel free to copy any or all of what I’ve written here to your own blog in order to help change the top-ranked search engine results for Jill Filipovic. If you don’t have your own blog then please at least link to one of Jill’s this post[s] listed below at your preferred social networking site and give it the tag “Filipovic" (as well as any others you think appropriate). I have linked to these sites in this post:
Jill Filipovic’s bio page at Feministe
Jill Filipovic’s blog posts at the Ms. JD blog
Jill Filipovic’s article about these scummy lawschool sleazebags at Feministe
Jill Filipovic’s article at Ms. JD: When Law Students Attack If any of the other female law students stalked by the same sleazy site wish to copy this text with names altered, you hereby have my full permission to do so. All other rights reserved. (C) 2007 tigtog

See Chris Clarke in his comments for the html for this post.

Random Links

A blog of squid-related art and pop culture: http://squid.us/

A blog devoted to cutesy animals. Awwwww. AdoraBlog

Fundraising for a Family in Need

I don't know that I have the right words for this, since I don't know the family in question that well myself, but it's hard not to feel concern and sympathy for them. Also, a number of my blog friends are friends with this family, and so I'm doing this for them as well.

The short version: Annika, a delightful little girl, has been hospitalized recently for issues related to a liver transplant, and her mother Moreena and her husband have just learned that her expenses have exceeded their yearly allowable allotment (according to the insurance company) and a huge hospital bill is looming on the horizon.

So her blog friends are trying to set up some sort of fundraising to help. You can go here, here, here, or here for more information. This could be any of us -- so please consider taking the time to see what you might be able to do.

Endorsement

I just got around to printing out Chris Clarke's e-book The Irascible Gardener. Wow. I found myself actually wishing the printer printed more slowly, because it requires you to clear the pile of printed pages when it gets too tall, and each time I did I found myself starting to read the top sheet, getting caught up in the story, and having to put it down unfinished in order to clear the next pile. This happened every. single. time. I had to clear the pile. It's that good.

It looks nice, too.