Many years ago, writer Jim Macdonald postulated “Yog’s Law,” a handy rule of thumb for writers about the direction money is meant to flow in publishing:

“Money flows toward the writer.”

This is handy because it will give the writer pause when she has a publisher (or agent, or editor) who says that in order to get published, the author needs to lay out some cash up front, and to that publisher/agent/editor. The author can step back, say, huh, this is not how Yog’s Law says it’s supposed to go, and then surmise, generally correctly, that the publisher/agent/editor in question is a scam artist and that she should run away as fast as her feet will carry her.

But does Yog’s Law apply in an age where many writers — and some even successfully — are self-publishing via digital? In self-publishing, authors are on the financial hook for the editorial services that publishers usually do: Editing, copy-editing, page and cover design and art, marketing, publicity and so on. In this case, unless the author does everything (which is possible but not advised if one want’s a professional-looking product), money is going to have to flow away from the writer, as he hired people to do work for him.

Does this mean Yog’s Law is now dead? Author Harry Connolly, who has published traditionally and also self-publishes, thinks so; a summation of his argument (presented in .jpg form because he did his own screencap of a Facebook comment on his site, and I’m too lazy to retype, although apparently not too lazy to to a screengrab, edit it down and then upload, which probably took even more time) is here:

Connolly is correct that the rise of digital self-publishing puts a new wrinkle on things. I disagree, however, that it means Yog’s Law no longer generally holds. I think it does, but with a corollary for self-publishers:

Yog’s Law: Money flows toward the writer.

Self-Pub Corollary to Yog’s Law: While in the process of self-publishing, money and rights are controlled by the writer.

Which is to say that when the self-published writer pays for editorial services, she’s at the head of the process; she’s employing the editor or copy editor or cover artist or whomever, and she’s calling the shots. If she’s smart she’s listening to them and allowing them to the job she’s paid them for, but at the end of the day the buck stops — literally — with her. This differs from the various scammy publishers, who would take the money and the author’s work, and then would effectively disappear down a dark hole, with the writer entirely out of the loop on what was going on (what as going on: generally, almost nothing).

This corollary, I think, is useful for self-publishers because there are still lots of ways for self-publishers to use their money foolishly, primarily by losing control of how it get spent and by whom. If at any step the self-published author asks, who controls this money I am about to spend? and the answer is not “me,” that’s a flag on the field. Likewise, if control of the work is somehow compromised by the process, that’s another flag.

And of course outside the self-publishing process, i.e., when the work is out there in the world, Yog’s Law continues to apply. It continues to apply however the work is published, actually.

So, Yog’s Law: Still not just a law, but a good idea. The self-publishing corollary to Yog’s Law: Also, I think, a good idea. Let me know what you think.

 

That's a picture of one of the biggest stars in American history, Bing Crosby, in the 1942 film Holiday Inn. In case you think otherwise, Crosby was a white man wearing blackface in this scene, a celebration of Lincoln's birthday where Crosby and others, some in blackface, some black (and still in blackface), sing the praises of "Abraham." Holiday Inn was a hit, and it was nominated for three Academy Awards, winning one for "White Christmas" (yes, it is ironic). It is a beloved classic, something that plays around Christmas and, often, the "Abraham" scene is cut out.

The funny thing about this is that in 1942, very, very few white people would have thought twice about Crosby acting like a black man. In fact, it was still seen as a mighty fine form of entertainment. It was acceptable. It was the way things were. Casual, quotidian racism was everywhere; it was a part of the American cultural landscape as much as it was part of the American sociopolitical landscape.

Advertising was filled with unsubtle racist caricatures. Tom and Jerry cartoons, into the 1950s, featured a Mammy who was constantly reacting to Tom's behavior. Aunt Jemima? Uncle Ben? Rastus, the Cream of Wheat chef? This shit was America, inescapable, insidious, and ubiquitous.

Times change, good people of the USA. Aunt Jemima got a makeover. Tom and Jerry was redubbed. We warn people when something awful from the past is going to be shown. And General Electric doesn't advertise its products like this:


You don't hear much from anyone about how much they miss having smiling, chicken-eating boy in their advertisements. Very few people are wistful for do-rag wearing Aunt Jemima (except in a kitschy way). Oh, sure, sure, when the change first happened, you heard idiots talk about "tradition" and "oversensitivity" and some such shit. But now who cares? Gone and good riddance.

So it must be with the Washington Redskins. We are long, long past the time when the name and logo should have been changed. To believe otherwise is to stand with the blackface performers and the Aunt Jemima originalists. "Redskin" is an insult, purely and simply. That this is even a debate is ludicrous, and, frankly, it speaks to the fact that Native Americans lack even minimal power in the nation.

This is one of those "controversies" that the Rude Pundit simply doesn't understand. You're a business. Your name pisses people off. You fucking change it, especially when representatives of the group you're offending say things like, "We have to be careful about making another human being a mascot of anything...We’re no one’s mascot.” You change it because, if you don't, your business will suffer. Or, fuck it, you can go down with the ship.

And after you've changed your name, Washington football team front office, which you know you're going to do and are just fucking around with people to sell more of your shitty merch before it's all history, maybe you could get around to getting rid of this Robert Griffin III mask:

"Why was [Obama] elected? Again, it comes back to who he was. He was black, he was historic. And there’s nothing racist about this." Racist Scumbag Joe Walsh in 2011.

Driving along the Tri-State I am constantly assailed by billboards for Where does Chicago go for Answers? AM560 The Answer. Portraits of the on-air *cough* talent *cough* are displayed on the billboard. Besides the big lights in toxic conservative talk radio, Sean Hannity and Dennis Miller, a headshot of former Congressman Joe Walsh is also displayed.

Well, Joe Walsh has always been a charlatan as well as a racist scumbag jagoff.

Walsh has been pulled from the 560AM lineup indefinitely because he kept trying to say the racist insult of African-Americans on live air.

It's always aggrieved white conservatives who are just infuriated they can't scream that word out loud whenever and wherever they wish.

So, they invent ways around the societal ban on the word. One way conservatives circumvent the societal taboo on the word is the fabrication of quotes.

The classic Tea Party fabrications involve the Founding Fathers having agreed with the Right-Wingers on every issue. But, when it comes to racism Tea Party types slander President Lyndon Baines Johnson.

The fake quote every duplicitous evil lying conservative believes LBJ said and of which there is no evidence other than the incestuous right-wing internet fart bubble but which they repeat so the can scream the taboo word is, I'll have those [redacted] voting Democrat for 100 years.

This is a maliciously fake quote. It's easy to tell because of the use of term Democrat. But, man do Tea Baggers love to spew it forth. It confirms so much for them and swaddles them in the righteousness of their bigotry.

Ah, but Joe Walsh was such a special Congressman. His putrid record was on par with several of the worst Tea Party bozos.

During the Glorious Clinton Era, Joe Walsh ran for office twice as a 'Fiscally Conservative/Socially Liberal' Illinois Republican, Walsh even went so far as to use President Clinton's phraseology on abortion, declaring he wanted it safe, rare and legal. But, in 2010 he saw an opportunity with the rise of the Koch-funded Tea Party and attached himself to them the way a louse attaches itself to a horse's ass.

Joe Walsh was beloved by Tea Parties across the Nation, of course inside his district Illinois residents knew he stood for nothing, had no ideas and only ran for office in order to free-government supported healthcare coverage and to enrich himself at the taxpayers expense.

Here are some of the disgusting lowlights of despicable Joe's two years in office;

"[T]oo many American Jews aren’t as pro-Israel as they should be."

The October 2011 Chicago Magazine showed the average sale price for the suburban homes around Chicago. Municipalities, like Palatine, Vernon Hills, Mundelein, Lincolnshire, Lake Zurich, in Joe Walsh's former Congressional District all saw their 2011 housing value drop from 2010. Walsh did nothing while the savings of his erstwhile constituents plummeted. Well, he did blame Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the poor for the housing bubble.

However, here is the truth, Deregulation and Private Sector Banks not Fannie and Freddie caused the Housing Bubble:

During those same explosive three years [2004-2006], private investment banks — not Fannie and Freddie — dominated the mortgage loans that were packaged and sold into the secondary mortgage market. In 2005 and 2006, the private sector securitized almost two thirds of all U.S. mortgages, supplanting Fannie and Freddie, according to a number of specialty publications that track this data.

Barry Ritholtz has an excellent dissection of the Big Zombie Lie. But, the Republicans and Wall Street Thieves will never let go of the Big Zombie Lie and will never let the truth about the effects of their negligent deregulation schemes be spoken.

In March 2011 Joe Walsh and the other 235 Republicans in the US House voted unanimously to continue giving US Taxpayer dollars money to Multinational Oil Companies, while complaining about the budget and blaming President Obama

"You've spent money like a drunken sailor for 3 years," - Joe Walsh. Like most conservative Joe Walsh never spent a day in uniform. But, you know who did? R. V. Burgin, a famous Marine who fought at Peleliu and Okinawa, and who joined the US Post Office after the War in The Pacific.

One of the tasks Joe Walsh's rich masters assigned him was voting to destroy the USPS. "If the Postal Service can't compete in the marketplace," then Congressman Walsh shouted. "I am tired of propping it up!"

Of course, conservatives only support Veterans if that Vet recites the Ultra-Reactionary Conservative Agenda of Intolerance, Oppression and Adulation of the Rich. Any deviation and even cowards like Walsh feel safe insulting Veterans in front of their duped conservative drones, 

"I was marching in a parade in Schaumburg (IL), Sunday, two days before the Democratic convention, when Tammy Duckworth was on a stage down in Charlotte (NC) — if you can look at the picture — picking out a dress for her speech Tuesday night.”

But, Joe Walsh outdid himself by going on a screaming red-faced tirade at Melissa Rakestraw, an Illinois resident and Postal worker, who dared to ask him questions. In response, Walsh screamed, "DON'T blame the Banks! I am tired of hearing that crap!" The "crap" being the truth about how the Banks and Wall Street collapsed the US housing market and turned the US economy into a giant gambling ring.

After video of the ignorant puerile Walsh came to light, Rakestraw told interviewers, "[E]arlier I had told him if he supports Darrell Issa‘s bill to reform the Post Office that 200,000 jobs could be lost. 20% of those employees are veterans. Mr. Walsh came up to me and said, ‘I do not care about the loss of public sector jobs.’"

There’s a lady lawyer in Minnesota whose long-game is to serve on the US Supreme Court but, for the time-being and God-willing, she will hone her judicial skills on the Minnesota State Supreme Court.  The state Republican Delegation took a good 30 minutes to endorse Michelle McDonald after she gave a rousing, Bible-waving speech in which she promised to base her judicial opinions on Biblical principles. [First Amendment be damned!]

And, in a nod to the Founding Fathers, Ms McDonald wound up with the theocrats’ favorite spurious quotation of George Washington:

“. . . it is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible.”

One of the ways that Ms. McDonald hopes to impress future SCOTUS-scouts is her “radical belief that the family courts should be abolished” the result of an epiphany she experienced after serving 25 years in family court.

As Mike Mosedale on politicsinminnesota.com reports:

Citing inspiration from her clients, grandson, the film “Jerry Maguire” and Pope John Paul II, McDonald then composed a “Miracle Mission Statement” toward making that belief a reality.

Asked to elaborate on those views during the interview, MacDonald was soon overcome by emotion. “These [issues] are of great interest to me,” she said, pausing to wipe her tears, “because families are being ripped apart by our court process. I’ve seen it over the last 27 years.”

After composing herself, MacDonald confidently asserted that her latest legal salvo — part of a long and bitter custody fight between a client and her ex-husband — will be “the case that eliminates courts for families all together. It will happen in [this] case.”

Or, maybe not, if one takes into account some of the legal hijinks and courtroom histrionics that have taken place during that trial to include:

. . . a judge ha[ving] her removed from the courtroom and placed in a cell.

According to the documents, MacDonald was handcuffed, placed in a wheelchair, and then returned to the courtroom, where she continued to argue on her client’s behalf. She was, however, jailed for multiple days, though never charged.

Meanwhile, there were a series of adverse rulings in McDonald’s case, one of which was an unsuccessful bid for the case to be heard by SCOTUS.  Failing that, McDonald brought a federal suit against the presiding judge seeking more than $330 million dollars in damages for her client and her client’s five children.

Not to mention:

She further claimed in the suit that John and Mary Does 1-20 — unnamed government employees who work for police agencies and the courts — “have a secret agenda intent on family annihilation, societal breakdown, intimidation, emotional abuse, isolation, using children, economic abuse, coercion and threats.” The suit does not specify the damages sought from those parties.

That suit was dismissed by a US District Judge while McDonald was auditioning for the Republican endorsement.

So, far Ms. McDonald looks like a perfect fit for the Minnesota [cough, Bachmann] GOP.  More of an Orly Taitz than a Clarence Darrow . . .  so, it comes as no surprise that we have an alert state Republican, Doug Seaton, of the Judicial Election Committee, telling McDonald that he was concerned:

“that we’re going to have a situation where the party’s endorsement process is going to be held up to ridicule, and you’re going to be held up to ridicule, and attacked in a campaign as not having judicial [comportment] and not being neutral and being a little bit of a wild woman.”

“How on Earth can a person who is a zealous advocate, maybe pushing the line, be suitable for a judicial position? And how is that going to reflect on the party’s endorsement process, the other statewide candidates…is that going to be a problem? How are you going to respond to it?”

McDonald demurred from answering Seaton’s questions but agreed that his concerns were valid.

And, all of that, of course is incidental to McDonald’s recent DWI arrest, trial still pending.  As briefly as possible, McDonald was pulled over for speeding by police, refused alcohol testing, told the officer that she was a “reserve cop, a lawyer and would walk home” but vigorously protests her innocence.

Personally, I don’t find it astonishing that a lawyer, or a supreme court justice for that matter, might have a DWI in his/her closet. 

The point here is what Michael Brodkorb says:

MacDonald’s candidacy should have raised numerous red flags. But in a rush to endorse a judicial candidate, the warning signs were missed and now people are pointing fingers.

Keith Downey, chairman of the Republican Party of Minnesota told the Star Tribune last week, “none of us, including the convention delegates, were aware of this information about the candidate.”

Contrary to the statements made by Downey, MacDonald’s arrest was known by numerous Republicans, including the person appointed by Downey to oversee the committee to determine if the convention should endorse a judicial candidate – Doug Seaton.

As the former Deputy Chair of the Republican Party of Minnesota, I will state without hesitation that MacDonald’s endorsement proves the current party process of endorsing candidates is fundamentally flawed and in desperate need of reform.

The fact that Downey, the top elected official of the Republican Party of Minnesota, claims he was unaware that a candidate with a pending criminal trial was endorsed for the Minnesota Supreme Court, is the best evidence I can point to that Republicans need a new process to select candidates for office.

Amen!

Welcome to 2014 folks, where even Christianity is beginning to realize that the battle to stop marriage equality is a losing one. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) voted at its General Assembly on Thursday to change its constitution’s definition of marriage from “a man and a woman” to “two people,” and to allow its ministers to perform same-sex marriages where it is legal.  Both measures,

Monday marked Bloomsday, the annual celebration of James Joyce’s 732-page day-in-a-book, Ulysses. While this is hardly short fiction, Joyce is also often credited as one of the earliest practitioners of the epiphany, a technique that still burns bright in short fiction (and at times too bright as some have told it). As a toast to our Irish friend this Bloomsday week, a few pre-epiphanic thoughts from Gabriel in Joyce’s famous story “The Dead”:

Like the tender fire of stars moments of their life together, that no one knew of or would ever know of, broke upon and illumined his memory. He longed to recall to her those moments, to make her forget the years of their dull existence together and remember only their moments of ecstasy. For the years, he felt, had not quenched his soul or hers. Their children, his writing, her household cares had not quenched all their souls’ tender fire. In one letter that he had written to her then he had said: “Why is it that words like these seem to   me so dull and cold? Is it because there is no word tender enough to be your name?”

The past few months, Nate Brown has been having interesting conversations with American Short Fiction web contributors such as Kim Addonizio and Keith Lesmeister. On Tuesday, Brown spoke with Alison McCabe about her story “Heirloom,” which tells itself in a little under 850 words, but still delicately manages decades-long leaps in time and startling shifts in language.  Of her writing, McCabe said, “Most of my characters are a cocktail of different personalities I’ve encountered.”

On Thursday, Midnight Breakfast introduced a new recurring feature on their website called “Small Plates,” which will publish excerpts from new books that they’re excited about. Midnight Breakfast Editor-in-Chief (and former Rumpus Interviews Editor) Rebecca Rubenstein explains the “Small Plates” concept: “Why keep something so good to yourself when you can share it with others?” The first Plate is the short story “His Days,” a spiraling study in tight sentences and fraught relationships. Originally published at Necessary Fiction, the piece now also lives in Lauren Becker’s novella and flash collection If I Would Leave Myself Behind, recently released by Curbside Splendor.

Related Posts:

• One Hundred Years of Dublin
• Happy Bloomsday!
• American Short Story Writers Are Taught To Do It Wrong
• Happy Bloomsday!
• Famed Ulysses Pharmacy Faces Taxman

Big fan of Baseball here, and I was always a fan of Tony’s, a class act who rarely struck out, and during the strike shortened ’94 season finished with a .394 batting average.

Also, too, something I did not know before, but we share a Birthday, so during the beginning of every new trip around the sun, I will hoist one in his honor.

Dude played for 20 years and struck out only 434 times in 10232 plate appearances, and during the ’95 season only 15 times in 535 at bats. Dude was a machine.

I’ll let Greg Maddux finish it off:

First, Maddux was convinced no hitter could tell the speed of a pitch with any meaningful accuracy. To demonstrate, he pointed at a road a quarter-mile away and said it was impossible to tell if a car was going 55, 65 or 75 mph unless there was another car nearby to offer a point of reference.

“You just can’t do it,” he said. Sometimes hitters can pick up differences in spin. They can identify pitches if there are different releases points or if a curveball starts with an upward hump as it leaves the pitcher’s hand. But if a pitcher can change speeds, every hitter is helpless, limited by human vision.

“Except,” Maddux said, “for that fucking Tony Gwynn.”

Gwynn had a lifetime .415 average against arguably the greatest pitcher in his generation.

I deal with it generally by not being around them anymore if I can (sometimes I can’t :\ ) and talking to friends who will tell me they’re wrong.  But it’s not fun, because I have a lot of doubts myself and tend to blame myself so it ends up poking at those doubts and making me worry it was my fault, even if I know it wasn’t, and if it happened to somebody else I would 100% with total certainty say it wasn’t. :\  thank you for the digital hugs and stuff :)

tupacbakaveli:

ami-angelwings:

summer-of-supervillainy:

Once upon a time, Stan Lee, a rabid misogynist, invented the Fantastic Four. I’m gonna be honest, the writing was pretty shitty, but the premise was awesome - a team full of superheroes with different powers and opinions about superheroism. A variety of relationships - siblings, friends, lovers. A pretty damn good rogues’ gallery and some decent adventures.

Overall, the team was pretty good, and defeated a ton of baddies in their early issues. Except for Sue Storm. Sue was undeniably the weakest link of the team. She spent her time crying, saying her powers were useless, and getting kidnapped by villain after villain.

This is not an exaggeration in any way.

Stan Lee wouldn’t give her any chance to shine. He kept writing her as an insecure, self-hating, ineffectual crybaby, and wouldn’t let her take credit for even her few victories. He couldn’t even think of any good uses for invisibility, for crying out loud.

Pictured: Sue not even getting any credit for beating up Doctor Doom.

She was a really lousy superhero, and a drag to read about. She didn’t get any good lines or get to do anything cool. So naturally, fans hated her guts. And they wrote in and told Stan Lee so.

What did he do in response?

Did he decide to take Sue off the team and stick to writing male characters because he couldn’t write women who weren’t offensive stereotypes? Nope.

Did he decide to put some effort into writing Sue as something besides an offensive stereotype? Hahaha no.

He did this:

That’s right, a fourth-wall-breaking mailbag issue where the readers learned that their mean, mean letters made Sue Storm cry, and they should just learn to appreciate her the way Stan Lee’s sockpuppets the rest of her team does!

So, why exactly should we continue to read the adventures of Sue Sadsack Storm?

You wanna see women kicking ass? Go watch women wrestling! Superhero comics aren’t about that sort of shit! I hope you picked up this action-packed superhero comic for something besides people doing cool shit with their superpowers, because Sue won’t be doing any of that! The guys will, though. 

Why is she even on the team if she’s not going to participate at all?

That’s right. We should read the adventures of Sue Storm because even though she doesn’t get to do any of the adventuring, her teammates value their relationships with her and she totally adds a lot to the team offscreen!

And also this one time she got to go invisible and toggle a switch in the middle of an exciting action sequence!

This reminds me of the arguments I’ve seen that fans just have to try harder to appreciate female characters as much as they appreciate male characters. It’s bullshit. Sue Storm was a shitty, shitty character throughout Stan Lee’s run. Because he wrote her that way. He gave her all of those character traits, he put her in situations where her powers were useless, he gave her that dialogue, he made her lose fights, he kept her from any chance of heroism and being an enjoyable character fans could identify with. 

The writer was the one who needed to change. Not the fandom.

The writing was sexist. It was bullshit to create an unlikeable character and then blame fans for not liking her. We’re not obliged to happily accept any slop thrown our way, even if female characters are rare.

I really do like subsequent incarnations of Sue, but it really, really depends on the writer, and how much they’re willing to develop her character, give her good lines, and let her shine. 

Sue Storm isn’t inherently a bad character. She isn’t inherently an interesting character either. It all depends on how she’s written. Characters aren’t real people. They aren’t naturally who they are. They are written deliberately. That writing can be critiqued. And making your characters cry into their mail is just cheap emotional manipulation to avoid engaging actual critiques.

I bolded part of this for emphasis.  This isn’t specifically about Sue Storm but an example of what Summer’s been saying about how people treat characters like they’re real people in order to dismiss criticism of how they’re written/portrayed and put the blame on the reader for not trying hard enough to like them.

Also, I’m amused that Stan Lee’s response wasn’t even to really address his critics as much as be like “you’re being MEAN to her, don’t you feel bad now?”  And look the character I’m writing is crying!  And the characters I’m writing like her!  It’s almost like this weird fictional peer pressure thing. -_o  Plus, I’m not even sure how that’s an argument.  All the villagers in Beauty and the Beast liked Gaston.  Did we have to like him too?  And he’s not even supposed to be a hero we’re supposed to associate with and enjoy reading about.

His “behind every great man is a great woman” argument is hilarious too.  Not just because that argument is often used to dismiss arguments about lack of representation of women in the workplace or in power (“oh but my wife, she’s the REAL boss of the house!”) but also, they’re not real, so Sue isn’t actually doing anything for them behind the scenes.  Nor is Stan Lee interested in writing the amazingly useful things she apparently is doing for them, he’s just using it as a handwave and attempting to put the onus on the readers for his own writing limitations and sexism.

(It’s also not a particularly great response to make her helpless in the comic that’s about how she’s not useless and helpless.  She’s just crying and saying she should quit and it’s the guys making the arguments to defend her.)

Just out of curiosity why are you guys making a big deal over a comic from 50 years ago written by a guy who is almost dead when there’s plenty of modern instances of sexism in writing and art within comics?

yeah, you’re right

one of us should really start a blog all about the sexism in art of modern comics and pop media

your insightful critique was so cutting it traveled back through time

amazing

Congratulations, you just killed Sailor Moon.

"Ami, it’s FREEZING, can you just google maps us the nearest hotel already!?"

"Hold on, I have to check the baseball scores first."

megthebrennan:

Basically Luna is my favorite.

Accurate.

Notice how happy Ami looks?

Notice Makoto isn’t in her bed?

>_______________________________>

buy this print!

Ida! If she's not your hero, she should be. She's mine.

I gave an interview for the Appendix Journal, and cited her as a figure I'd like to make a comic about, but found it a hard thing, so that it never happened. The reason is easy - if you read about the things Ida Wells fought against, you won't laugh. You'll cry, I guarantee. And I thought, well I can't touch that woman with my dumb internet jokes, she's serious business. And she is.

But then, people use my comics as a launching device to learn history, and I would hope that part of what I do is to celebrate history, not just poke fun at the easy targets.

Anyway, I first saw a picture of Ida B. Wells at the Chicago History Museum. She was protesting the lack of African American representation at the Chicago World's Fair. And I am not sure what it was, but the image stuck with me. You could feel a power in the presence of the lady with the pamphlets. I found out later that she was also handing out information on the terrible truths of lynching in America, a crusade that she is best known for, and rightly so. Her writing on the topic is readily available on the internet, and if you read it, well you'll spend a good deal of time wondering at the terribleness of humanity, but you'll also note that she knew how to handle a volatile topic like that with an audience who didn't want to hear it. But, Ida fought against injustice wherever she saw it. You'll be happy to know, that at the 1913 Suffragist Parade in Washington, she was told to go to the back, but joined in the middle anyway.

I'll leave you with this, a review of Paula J. Giddings' Ida: A Sword Among Lions, from the Washington Post. Go forth, marvel at this woman, who was the best. Did I mention she was one of the first women in the country to keep her name when she married? A founding member of the NAACP? Ida! Just pioneer everything.

floridafox:

Accurate.

My mind can’t stop holding my mind-hand to the hot memory-stove until I admit that the anxieties are real. :(

summer-of-supervillainy defending me from TERFs.

Certain male feminists. >_>

If my particular personalized spiritual tradition … and for that matter, neo-paganism itself, was to be given an animal archetype or totem, what would it be?  I would say it would best be represented by a magpie.  “Ah, yes the “Ooooh, SHINY!”  habits of neo-pagans,” you say.  Ahem, well, yes — I admit that was my first thought as I considered this post; but I utterly defend my “M” for magpie and spiritual theft syncretism.  I did, for instance, NOT steal an image of a magpie, but hoisted a youtube musical piece with the needed photograph since magpies are not local here.

I have known magpies since first seeing them in Idaho during my forced conversion to Mormonism.  I admit, I did not swipe very much from Mormonism — a taffy recipe, the idea that unpaid clergy is best, and that putting your money where your mouth is makes for sound practice. (The Mormons ‘tithe’ 10% to their church — I find this admirable because they used such money generally to take care of their own members in trouble; only recently must I assume that stupid political things like Prop 8 are thus paid for as well.)

After leaving Mormon territory?  Well, then, I admit, I was like the racehorse who threw her jockey after leaving the gate.  And like the infamous magpie, I took whatever appeared spiritually, emotionally, mentally, or philosophically ‘shiny’ to add to my very own dragon’s horde of beautiful and  functional ideas.

I have (rarely) been accused of cultural appropriation. And I’m not a very repentant thief when that happens — I feel the world is too small to set up boundaries that seem so permeable in practice.  I find the negative connotation of that phrase is often applied with a self-righteous priggishness that makes me want to steal a sharp stick to poke BACK.  After all, my very bloodline is not a pure little untouched petri-dish, is it?

I’ve genetic components from all over Northern Europe, some from the Balkans, some Amerindian as well — as a Chinese professor once told me, winking, “Oh, yes — you have ALL the barbarians!”  If I am genetically entitled to take from those areas, how does one draw the map?  Those parts of Europe, for instance, are largely Christian — but THEY “appropriated” the Old Testament from the Jews?  Should they therefore be happy I’ve disposed of much of THAT pile of baggage, then?  From my attempt at Christianity, I kept a love of incense and candle-light — and those were NEVER theirs first anyhow, right? From Judaism, well, I kept the idea that it is wrong to presume to know the nature of the Divine completely.

I am a polydeist.  This means I posit the existence of many (actually all or none) gods — but I believe they don’t really concern themselves with our daily lives.  They handed us a planet and said “Play nice, now, Children.”  (We obviously didn’t listen too well.)  But in practice, this means I consider family deities from many cultures: ancient Greece (possibly by way of Rome), Wales/Britain, Scandinavia and yes, even from the indigenous cultures of North America.  So, yes, I get told — how DARE you claim that god when you are not ‘from there’! I have toyed with the idea that ancestry and genetics can make one susceptible to one form of spiritual practice over another — but that is a hard case to prove.  So I experiment, just like those clever corvids who steal, use tools, and recognize themselves in a mirror.  

Generally, I respond to those beings called deities IF and only IF I feel something reaching to me — if one posits the mystical experience, please to tell me how does one say “NO” politely to a deity?  What do you say, “Oops, sorry, I don’t think I ever had any family from _______, so, no, can’t play with you Lord ________.”  So which is it, then, in responding to a cue from a Welsh deity, who may actually be an Indo-Aryan/Indian deity, when I have never been Hindu — am I being culturally insensitive, merely syncretic, or actually OBEDIENT to mystical inspiration?

And then, since syncretic habits have been with man as long as any sort of social blending has been around — precisely how does one draw a line between syncretism and ‘appropriation’?  If I’m culturally insensitive and a thief for using a fan of feathers with sage to smudge, is an Amerindian ripping off my culture when he or she wears a pair of Levis?  Nonsense, right?  Now, naming a four-wheel drive vehicle a “Cherokee” without paying royalties to the tribe of that name?  That is MY idea of theft and cultural appropriation!

As for my own magpie ways?  Don’t leave your shiny spiritual stuff lying in the open if you don’t want to tempt me! ;-)  What I “take” generally has a potent, if subjective, reason behind it.  I am not random, but nor do I back down and ‘put back’ something I’ve adapted to my practice merely on the accusation that I am not entitled to it. But it is odd, don’t you think, how even in dreams Someone whispers in my ear that “The truth is not found ever in only one source — but everywhere, everywhere.”

BTW, to find all my PBP posts, for I’ve not missed a week — navigate down the right hand column of this blog to the “Tag Cloud” — click that!  All of the pagan blog project posts will be arrayed for easy access by date.

 

 

 

Tagged: mysticism, pagan blog project, polydeism, symbols, syncretism

The news is here.

If you’re an author with either of these two imprints, I would check your contracts for reversion clauses.

Likewise, if I were the folks at Angry Robot, and were putting the books in these imprints into “out of print” status, as it seems likely they are from the announcement, I’d be thinking of immediately reverting the books back to the authors, so they can either find them new homes or self-publish them. Because that seems the decent thing to do after cutting the legs out from the income potential of those books for those authors.

There’s the possibility that the latter of these might be complicated by Angry Robot’s parent company having problems of its own. In which case: This is why you have writers’ organizations, folks.

The long-rumored campaign finance corruption case against Wisconsin GOP Gov. Scott Walker has finally been unsealed, and it's a doozy. Prosecutors allege that Gov. Scott Walker was at the center of an effort to illegally coordinate fundraising among conservative groups to help his campaign and those of Republican senators fend off recall elections during 2011 and '12, according to documents

Tonight, there was a special treat in the skies- a flyover by the International Space Station. I took an opportunity to watch it hurtle overhead- it appeared as a bright white dot moving at a decent clip from the northwest to the southeast, where, unlike an airplane, it gradually faded from view rather than disappearing over the horizon.

At least, I think I saw the ISS, though it could have been swamp gas. On a serious note, besides a beautiful sight in the night sky, visible even in the suburbs of the earth-bound constellation that is New York City, the ISS is a symbol of the heights humanity can attain at its best- one of the pinnacles of human ingenuity and international cooperation (CERN being another). There is a lot of horrible stuff happening on the surface of the planet, but a simple glance upwards can be sufficient to rekindle hope in our species.

The DJ on the local radio station played David Bowie's Space Oddity at 9:36, the song ending shortly before the station popped into view. Well played, Mr Arrow, well played. I think I'll embed the video for Astronaut Chris Hadfield's version, with its beautiful views of and from the station:

Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many. 

This one sentence encapsulates the entire pathological evil which drives the chicken hawk cowardly warmonger criminals who infest the Republican Party. Republicans are everything they claim they hate and are the antithesis of everything they claim to support.
The Bush/Cheney Crusade in Iraq has resulted only in the destabilizing of the region. Everything which has happened in Iraq, happened because of deliberate lies and ignorant fantasies, from W(orst POTUS Ever) and his staff of NeoCon war criminal buffoons stated Casus Belli (Smoking Gun=Mushroom Cloud, Saddam's connection to Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden), the ever rotating reason for remaining, all the lies of progress we were making, all the fallout, the loss of American lives, the destruction of thousands of families, a million dead Iraqis and $5 Trillion stolen.

Of course, as Dick Cheney would say, "So?"

President Obama announced today that the US would be providing 300 advisors and established JOC (Joint Operation Centers) in Baghdad and Northern Iraq. Additionally, surveillance elements would be dispatched and re-tasked to provide US additional intel on the situation involving the ISIL/ISIS.

The President also declared he would make Congress take the lead in determining a further course of action. Congress, of course, wants nothing to do with Iraq and will demagogue hoping President Obama will choose an official course of action which, either way they can attack as wrong.

The Bush/Cheney Crusade was naught but a massive list of monstrous crimes against Humanity which continue to this day.

The Nations of Iran and Turkey now must turn a large amount of their attention and resources towards containing the violence unleashed by Cheney's Evil.

The continuing Civil War in Syria will create a stable of potential fighters. Additionally, thousands of displaced innocent people are in a humanitarian crisis.

If the Kurdish People begin a push for an independent state, the Turks and the Persians aren't just going to let the areas of their countries slip away. As late as the 1990's the Turkish Government made the Kurdish language, Kurdish names and Kurdish newspapers and radio illegal.

In Iraq, families haven't yet recovered from Bush's War of Lies and now they face a tripartite Civil War, which will eventually end a mess of semi-functioning states. So, the Middle East will be a cauldron of Death and Mayhem. All thanks to the despicable evil humanoid creature Dick Cheney.

Thom Hartmann wrote a better take down of the War Criminal Cheney,

He lied his way into an illegal war, profited off that war, and shredded the Constitution. He's a war criminal and has the blood of hundreds of thousands of innocent people on his hands. 

Dick Cheney should be rotting in a prison cell at The Hague, not writing editorials for the Wall Street Journal.

Male Writer: Ah, anniversary jokes are so funny. Because chicks always hate it when you don't remember anniversaries! A plus gold very original
Male Writer: Mother in laws amirite?
Male Writer: My male character who is an author insert of myself pines after a woman I used to pine after in high school. Then they have sex. This is good literature.
Male Writer: Ugh female books are so romance filled
Male Writer: And girl fanfics, so mary suey
Male Writer: Now listen about this original middle aged man who is an expert in everything, suffers from ennui, looks like me, acts like me, and gets all the girls i want.
Male Writer: She was sexy in an alluring, boring way, filled with purple prose and riddled with objectification
Male Writer: If i make a female character parrot my misogynistic views, they cease to be misogynistic! Are you saying you don't respect my fake female characters opinions, feminists?
Male Writer: a good action girl is one who looks hot at all times
Male Writer: If the female main character got in an asskicking line, my work is Feminist with a capital F and no one can criticize me
Specifically White Male Writer: Heroic tropes are so overdone. I'm going to create a boring white guy with stubble to be a completely original antihero no one has ever seen before TM.
Same Guy: It's original because he is a jerk who gets away with bad behavior, just like I wish i could.
Another Specifically White Male Writer: It's in my universe to only have white men do things in my book. I mean, don't you care about historical accuracy
Same Guy: I mean, it's a generic fantasy verse with no real life time period equivalent and i haven't done any research, but i'm SURE that it's historically accurate. To that dark mideval dragon fighting europe period
Same Guy: Where in Europe? Who cares!
Male Writer: There is no better way to introduce a female character to a male character than by him saving her.
Male Writer: Characters hating each other is good sexual tension!
Male Writer: One female character and five male characters is a good team balance
Male Writer: If my female character chooses to act in a sexist tropey way, it's not sexist. In fact, because she CHOSE to do it, it is Feminist.
Male Writer: I am original

fandomsandfeminism:

leftbyrightbydumb:

Girl: *Wears a t-shirt that says “Rape Me” on it*
Girl: *Gets raped*
Feminists: She still wasn’t asking for it!

You know, if a guy was wearing a shirt that said “punch me” and you walked up and clocked him in the face, you can still be charged with assault right?

If a guy was wearing a shirt that said “murder me!” and you shot him point blank in the head, you’d still go to prison. 

Amazingly, clothing has absolutely nothing to do with being the victim of a violent assault.

What the fuck is wrong with you?

I was wearing a sweater that said “Don’t Touch” on it the night I was raped (it was a play on Von Dutch) and some people said that I was asking for it because the sweater was clearly teasing/taunting the guy to touch me.

"I can’t believe Ami dragged me out here to watch Makoto’s track and field meet.  It’s so hot.  I’m so tired.  I want to be in bed next to Minako."

— the word, that is, of a Wild Witch.  My heart breaks with recognition.

We are given sweetly couched words, LIES gilded with our own hopes.

And yes, if we complain too loudly of the wrack and ruin we witness, we are offered drugs to still us, betray us, silence our heart cry for a world in death throes.

And no, the sunny voiced ones saying “So what, it’s only man — the world will go on.”

It may…but why would you write off all of humankind?  And more than HALF of all other life as well?  Why would you consign it all to death rather than fighting for survival?

Our fire for the summer solstice comes…and I will bring to it the wildness, the grief in my heart.  Let the magic for the health of the planet and the people who need to save her fly wildly, with the embers.  And may it be so with you.

Tagged: ecology, extinct, magic, pagan life

pierregrassou:

collection of robots saying “fuck this shit”

twentypixels:

Why We Still Need Print Newspapers

It’s hard not to bask in the glow of the Internet when it provides you with such a convenient way to access such a vast amount of news and information. But here are some things that your digital news can’t do~

ungratefullittleshit:

Times Tumblr Raised Serious Questions About “Harry Potter”

flergleblergle, laugh with me

Ellis Hamburger, writing for The Verge:

At first, Facebook’s new ephemeral messaging app, Slingshot, feels like yet another Snapchat clone. The free app, available now for iPhone and Android, lets you take a quick photo or video, mark it up with some colorful drawings, caption it with big white text, and then fire it off to a bunch of friends. But then you receive your first message, and you realize this is something completely different.

In Snapchat or any other messaging app, you can view a message as soon as you receive it. But in Slingshot, you can’t view an incoming “shot” until you send a shot back to the sender. “It’s not just about telling your story, it’s about asking others for their story,” says Slingshot designer Joey Flynn. In other words, Slingshot makes you trade a photo of what you’re doing before you can “unlock” the picture of whatever your friend is up to. Huh?

If they give you phones in hell, this is the sort of app that’s on them.