RIP Dr. George Tiller

An act of terrorism was committed on American soil today.



Dr. George Tiller was an American Hero. May his murderer rot in jail forever.

Feministe has a list of links up to places you can donate in Dr. Tiller's memory.

**added** Read this commenter's account of a personal experience under Dr. Tiller's care.

Qte

Go ahead and squee. Abbie and Coco, my mom's new puppy.

Youtubing

The "Ahhh Summertime" edition.

For me, summer and music are linked. That's true for everyone, right? I mean, in summer you have the time to blast loud music and dance around in your kitchen or something. (Not that I've been wasting my time on that recently, not while I need to put together a CV and try to find a real job, no siree.) Summer needs a soundtrack. So, here goes.

Firstly, because it reminds me of my misspent youth, and driving around in blisteringly hot weather for no reason in a crappy car when gas was cheap with all the windows rolled down while blasting the radio, and maybe later drinking a slurpee with rum in it (or maybe a frosty with whiskey in it) while lounging about on the front porch.

The Clash - "Rudy Can't Fail"


This one's for Abbie, who continues her weirdo love for Kraftwerk and all things roboty and electronical.

Kraftwerk - "Music Non Stop"


And because it's a good song, and in honor of being suspicious of any government who so readily denies civilian death tolls without letting anyone investigate, (methinks the lady doth protest too much) there's this one.

M.I.A. - "Sunshowers"


I've been finally watching Battlestar Galactica on DVD this summer, and quite like it, but I really like the music, funnily enough.

Bear McCreary - "The Dance" (not a particularly exciting video though)


And finally, because its the best summer song ever, (although here they are performing it the year I was born...neat!) and also optimal for kitchen dancing purposes.

The B-52s - "Rock Lobster"

Apparently

I apparently actually graduated summa cum laude, not magna cum laude.

I promise to stop talking about graduating now.

Fascinating.

I'd known about the original Solomon Linda version of Mbube (or "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" for the culturally appropriative amongst us) but I'd never heard it. I had no idea it was an isicathamiya song (a la Ladysmith Black Mambazo). At least it seems to be that way to my Western ears.

Thought that was interesting, anyway. Just being an ethnomusicology nerd. Professor Feld (look, you're in wikipedia!)would be so proud.

Class Privilege Meme

From Daisy's, this is originally an in-class exercise that's been adapted to blogging.

For blogs, bold the following facts that apply to you:

Part I, when you were in college:

Father went to college
Father finished college
Mother went to college
Mother finished college
Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor. (Semi-estranged aunts and uncles.)
Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers
Had more than 50 books in your childhood home
Had more than 500 books in your childhood home
Were read children's books by a parent
Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18
Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18
The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively
Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18 (still don't have one)
Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs
Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs
Went to a private high school
Went to summer camp
Had a private tutor
If you have been to Europe
Family vacations involved staying at hotels
Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18
Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them
There was original art in your house when you were a child (by relatives, not by recognized "artists"--but it WAS original!)
Had a phone in your room before you turned 18
You and your family lived in a single family house
Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home
You had your own room as a child
Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course
Had your own TV in your room in High School
Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College
Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16
Went on a cruise with your family
Went on more than one cruise with your family
Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up
You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family

Part II, in childhood:

If your body does not bear long-term signs of malnutrition. (Like Daisy, I have major teeth issues)
If you had orthodontia.
If you saw a doctor for anything other than emergencies or school-mandated shots.
If you heated your home with clean-burning fuels or had properly vented heating.
If you grew up in a house without vermin.
If you had running water.
If you had a basement or foundation under your house. (sometimes yes, sometimes no)
If you had an indoor toilet.
If your parents and immediate family were outside the criminal justice system.
If you yourself remained outside the criminal justice system.
If your parents had a new car.
If you never went barefoot so that you could ’save your shoes for school.’ (I don't think my paranoid mother would have allowed going outside barefoot, lest we step on something fatal or something.)
If your parents never argued in front of you about having enough money for food to last out the month.
If you ate hunted and fished meat because it was a recreational activity rather than as the major way to stock a freezer.
If your laundry was done at home in a washer rather than in a lavandaria. (Laundromat)
If your hair was cut by a professional barber or hair stylist instead of your parent.

______________________________________________________

Counting correctly this time, I get eighteen. I don't know how I feel about this meme. I kind of feel it's too vague to really measure anything. I don't know that having books is a class privilege thing, honestly. I know plenty of upper class people who don't read, and plenty of poor people who obsessively collect used paperbacks (me, my father, my husband). And getting read to as a child also seems to have little to do with class (well, other than maybe working such long hours you don't get to see your children at all). Ditto going to museums and stuff.

While I think that it *is* a privilege to grow up in a family that cares about education and knowledge, I kind if think it tips towards negative stereotyping of the poor to suggest that caring about books and reading is something that only the middle class does. Is that good-parenting privilege, then? As a parent now, I can see the thousand little tiny ways my parents, who were both working and getting their masters when I was born, and who both came from working-class backgrounds (my father grew up in the projects of Spanish Harlem, my mother was the daughter of a plumber and a widow), must have busted their asses to provide the kind of culturally-rich childhood I managed to have.

An important one to unpack from your knapsack, sure. But not the same as class privilege.

**added** It occurs to me that this might be another one of those things that growing up in New Mexico, where we're all pretty much poor and the division between the classes isn't so sharp, and education at state schools is relatively cheap for residents (hell, you can get your pre-recs fulfilled for a couple hundred bucks for a few semesters at CNM, the local community college, like I did), might affect my worldview. I've found it also affects my point of view on race issues sometimes, as in New Mexico everyone is brown and race is not mapped so tightly to class (or education level) as it is elsewhere. Hrm.

Done!

Done for reals yo!

Long fricken day. I'm going to take a nap for the rest of the
afternoon, now that I'm officially unemployed and not just a student.

Woo-hoo!

So I took my last final today. I got a cap and gown (that fits - don't ask).

Woo hoo!

Now I just need to figure out what to do with the rest of my life.

For the moment, though, this sums up my mood.

Hey, I really do love college

So I'll finally have my BA in a few weeks. Anyone who knows me personally knows how hard it's been for me to get this done financially (it's taken several tries over a decade). I won't say that I'm not feeling a little maudlin about it, kind of like I'm getting laid off of my job or something.

But it does make me kind of want to give Asher Roth a spanking. Oh, for you college is just an opportunity to party while presumably living off your parent's dime? No trying to juggle a job, childcare, real bills, and a marriage with your freaking homework? How nice for you!

Although, come to think of it, I should thank Asher Roth and other peddlers of the drunken college student culture. Thanks to the fact that most of my classmates spend all of their time staying up all night partying, wake up late, then doing it again it's that much easier for me to make magna cum laude level grades. It'll be that much easier for me to make it in to grad school! So thanks, Asher Roth, for thinning out the herd a bit!

Republicans say the darndest things...

The stupid...it burns!!! I'll never understand why people who don't know what they're talking about think that if they just say something with enough arrogant conviction, it will make it true.

Via Pharyngula and Scanners.

RIP Bea Arthur

I can only hope that when it's my turn to go there's footage of me singing to drunken aliens to play at my wake.

YouTubing

"I'm feeling like it's Summer already" edition.

Cheb Khaled - Alech Taadi

(You might recognize this song from a certain late 90s Bruce Willis movie about an element.)

The Aggrolites - Banana

You might recognize this from a show with a magical orange D.J.

Dil Se - Chaiyya Chaiyya

Some Bollywood action for you.

Mahotella Queens - Umculo Kawupheli

I've posted this before, but I lurve it, so deal.

Desmond Dekker - The Israelites

Classic.

Hrm. Apparently I'm feeling international about summertime.

Hey, dumbass.

The problem, you see, and the reason why everyone is so up-in-arms about the whole issue, is that, with four exceptions, you don't live in a country where people can choose between same-sex marriage and "opposite marriage."

But you know, thanks for playing. Don't call us, we'll call you, etc., etc.

Lookout, the fat lady is pissed!!!

You know what I hate? Whiny skinny people complaining about sitting next to fat people on the airplane.

Because you know what? However uncomfortable those 700 complainers were that United Airlines is claiming to be fighting for with their new no-fatties policy, I can guarantee the 700 fat people they were sitting next to were about ten thousand times as uncomfortable.

Oh, maybe the fatties shoulda thought of that before they gained all that weight, eh?

Here's a similar argument: Maybe poor single mothers should have just kept their legs closed so teabagger taxphobes can avoid having to pay for their children.

Maybe Arab guys should just stay out of the sun until they're pale and can pass for Jewish, and not frighten the nice white ladies so much.

Maybe gay people who wanted to get married should have just acted straight!

Look, reality tells us that, for *whatever reason* there are fat people in this world. And if you really think that being fat is *just* a sign of overeating, sill, in the meanwhile, there are fat people who will need to travel for various reasons. And unless you want to invent a time machine for fat people to travel through at security, so they can stop themselves from getting fat before they get on the plane, then fat people deserve to sit on the plane just like the tall guy whose legs splay out into the aisle, or the broad-shouldered who have to put their arms over the seat, or they crying children who are just as uncomfortable as everyone else, or the cobags who recline their seats all the way back until they're looking up the noses of the people behind them, or the people who drink on the plane and then act really annoying, or the people who deign to be Muslim and obvious about it, or whatever.

Because let's face it, like the security checkpoint dance, this is theatre. The airlines are only doing this so they can continue their fucked-up business model where they fail to charge what their service actually costs and therefore have to overbook their flights and cram as many individuals as possible into every square inch of the plane in order to compensate. Because now, instead of begging for volunteers to give up their seats on overbooked flights, they can merely just point to the nearest fat person and have them removed, to everyone's relief.

Honestly.

How uncomfortable can it possibly be to remain in contact with someone's thigh and upper arm for a few hours of your life? As uncomfortable as having to slide your kneecaps slightly out of place so your long legs will fit in the tiny space left by Reclining Joe in front of you and sitting that way for six hours? As uncomfortable as desperately twisting your hips into the inexplicably immovable arm rest of the window seat (seriously, why does the arm rest in the middle raise up, but not the ones at the aisle or window? I'd bet the majority of the space issues would be relieved if people could raise those armrests if they needed an extra inch to spread in to) until you have an armrest-shaped bruise in your flesh, just because the dude sitting next to you keeps giving you a little dirty look every time your thigh deigns to brush his?

Please, 700 skinny whiny plane passengers, realize, you're being played. Your disgust at the existence of fat people is being used by the airline industry to hide their shady business practices. Soon, they'll shrink the seats even more and the only people comfortable will be Kate Moss and/or eleven year-olds. Don't come crying to me when that happens.

Also, airlines, YOUR FUCKING SEATS ARE TOO FUCKING SMALL AND PACKED TOO FUCKING TIGHTLY.

Rant over.

Totally Awesome

I thought this was cute. Also, I want that dress Joy Nash is wearing.

I wish I could make my mom sit down and watch every Joy Nash video on the internet. Every time I talk to her she insists I'm secretly dying of diabetes and won't admit it because I'm punishing her for being a bad mother.

Honest. She wants me to go on the Dr. Phil show with her. I'm half tempted.