hold on tighter with my lighter shining through

The Supreme Court of the US has decided 5-4 to block TV broadcasts of the current trial regarding the legality of Prop 8. (Reminder for those who aren't American: Prop 8 is an amendment to the constitution of the state of California that bans gay marriage.) This is not necessarily the stupid.

The problem is that the majority opinion (PDF) uses as a justification the fact that Prop 8 supporters might be subject to harassment if the trial is televised. And those of us who are familiar with the sort of harassment that queer people face on a daily basis are, well, less than impressed.

The harassment that a small group of Prop 8 supporters might face, according to the brief, includes:
---confrontational phone calls and e-mail
---being forced to resign from jobs
---boycotts of businesses
---vandalism
---threats of physical violence
---actual physical violence

The harassment that a large group of queer people will face includes:
---confrontational phone calls and e-mail
---being forced to resign from jobs
---boycotts of business
---vandalism
---threats of physical violence
---actual physical violence
---the acquittal of your murderers because of a "gay panic" defense
---denial of medical care
---lack of access to public services
---and a denial of various and sundry civil rights.

So Prop 8 supporters might face what we've faced all this time because of people like them? Fuck them. They deserve it.

Every now and then I get linked to some kind of disability-activism blog (like FWD). And every time, I get pissed off, because they tend to focus on how terrible and horrible it is that doctors are looking for cures. And then we get people in the comment section saying "I don't want to be cured, my disability made me who I am today!" and thousands of other people saying "Why, yes, certainly!"

Well, great for them. If they want to live with their disability, more power to them. I want to be able to hear 10 years from now. I want to knit with small needles. I want to go jogging. And to do any of those things, I'll need medical treatment. For some of those things (like the essential tremor), there really isn't an effective medical treatment yet. And I don't think having screwed-up kneecaps, or anxiety disorder, or hearing problems, or essential tremor is really an essential part of my identity, or that it shaped the way I see the world, or that it made me who I am today. These are problems. I want them fixed. I understand that other people don't see their disabilities as problems that need fixing; that's fine. That doesn't mean that looking for a cure, or even wanting one, is necessarily ablist. There is a lot of ablist language in "looking for cure" research; that's bad. But goddammit, I want to be able to hike again. I want to keep playing the guitar. I don't think wanting those things is ablist. And it will take medical intervention to get me there again.

"It's about fMRI scanning on a dead fish, specifically a salmon. They put the salmon in an MRI scanner and 'the salmon was shown a series of photographs depicting human individuals in social situations. The salmon was asked to determine what emotion the individual in the photo must have been experiencing.'"

The conclusion is "hey guys, error correction is good" but boy do I love these people.

Genderbent Nutcracker is awesome.

( cut because macro is 600x900 )

Edit: NOW WITH ICON VERSION ZOMG

I have a friend who you could describe as "too nice." I've been trying to find a way to explain to him exactly what I mean when I say "you have to come first." I have found it in the most unlikely of places: airline safety briefings. When the flight attendants are talking about the unlikely event of cabin depressurization, during which oxygen masks will drop from the panel above your head, they say this:

"Please secure your own mask before assisting others."

The flight attendants aren't telling you not to help other people. They're not telling you to make sure you're good and comfortable before helping other people. They're telling you that before you help others, you should make sure you're capable of helping them, even if it takes longer than you think, or if it's more difficult than you expected. And they're making sure that you'll still be OK even if you're not able to help someone else at all.

For some reason, people value sort of absolute selflessness that demands you make sure everyone else on the plane is wearing an oxygen mask before you put on your own. Quite frankly, that's stupid. You cannot take care of everyone else, especially if you haven't taken care of yourself. That doesn't mean you should go take a nice, long, relaxing bubble bath before you help anyone, but it does mean that you have to ensure that your basic needs are met before you try to help other people. If you're desperately in need of something---food, affection, oxygen---you're likely to have trouble helping anyone else.

You can't help other people with depression if you haven't slept for days. You can't help your friends with a difficult breakup if you never give yourself time to relax. You can't be there for your friends if you never let anyone be there for you.

You can't help someone else with their mask if you yourself can't breathe.

source.

THANK GOD. Because here are all of the conversations I've ever had about Dollhouse:

Whedonite: HAVE YOU SEEN DOLLHOUSE??? BEST SHOW EVER!!!!! IT'S ON TONIGHT YOU SHOULD WATCH!!!!!
Me: Yeah, I saw an episode. It was kind of mediocre and really boring. I have no interest in seeing it again.
Whedonite: BUT OMG!!!! YOU JUST NEED TO SEE ANOTHER EPISODE BEFORE YOU SEE THE TRUTH!
Me: Funny, because when I was refusing to watch the show out of spite, you said I just needed to see one episode and I'd be hooked.
Whedonite: COME ON, JUST WATCH A DIFFERENT EPISODE! THE OTHER ONES ARE ALL MUCH BETTER!
Me: I HAVE NO INTEREST IN WATCHING THIS SHOW FURTHER. I HAVE NO INTEREST IN WATCHING ALL 12 EPISODES JUST BECAUSE YOU KEEP INSISTING I JUST NEED TO WATCH ONE MORE TO LIKE IT. SERIOUSLY, SHUT THE FUCK UP.

and hopefully with the show being cancelled the crazed fanboys will just let me hate the show in peace, and I won't have to hear how OMG AWESOME!!!!! the last episode was or how people OMG CAN'T WAIT!!!! for the next one.

Dear Congress:

You write a bill containing language banning medical discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and/or gender identity, but you claim you need to ban insurance covering abortions to get a bill to pass? Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

It probably says something about my sexuality that I think this:

( cut for large picture, bandwidth, etc. )

is pretty attractive.

From research done by dragonnite55555 (with eir permission):

Let's suppose you went to the store and bought a 12 pack of spiffy Trojan condoms for $20 (according to a quick look on Amazon, this a high estimate for cost, but that's ok). Now let's suppose that you plan to have sex 36 times a day (3 packs a day or $60, not including tax), every day for a month. Let's assume this is a long month (31 days). That's 93 packs a month or $1,860, not including tax. If the sale's tax is 10% (another high estimate for most places), that brings you up to $2,046.

You will still have $54 more than you would if you decided to take anti-HIV medication for that month.

In conclusion, use a condom.

Brought to you by the Fuji Is Disturbed by Her HIV/AIDS Research Foundation

Sources:
http://www.usa-sales-use-tax-e-commerce.com/table_sales_rates.asp
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/11/02/health/webmd/main2146532.shtml
(even if the second set of data is kind of old, it's probably not old enough to affect my point)

Conclusion the second: anti-HIV medication is far too expensive, and something should be done.

For those of you who don't keep up with my other journal, I have managed not to fail out of school. My two closest friends at school did not.

Angst over this has been consuming much of my time that is not consumed with queer peer mentoring, homework, or jazz musicianship.

Edit: Ahaha, I just got the best banner ad ever on my LJ:



WHY, I DO NOT KNOW! I THINK I SHALL TALK TO MY BOYFRIEND AND SIGNIFICANT OTHER AND EX-GIRLFRIEND REGARDING THIS MATTER.

I am unreasonably amused because I named a dragon that lives "deep within caves" after Tulkinghorn. Heee.

I'm a-breakin' it.

Message me and I'll tell you my nation name/world if you want to find game-breaking bugs too.

After the discovery of Leechblock I will probably be spending a lot less time on the Internet.

This is probably a good thing.

I found examples of sci-fi/fantasy writing that remind me of how Terry Brooks would write.

Do not read unless you hate Terry Brooks
or if you have no sense of humor
or it you don't laugh at bad writing.

Enjoy!