I know it's been quiet on the blogging front lately, but something ruffled my feathers and I'm going to rant about it. My apologies if my ranting bugs anyone, but honestly I'm going to rant anyways, like it or no.
A friend of mine shared a well-meaning link on their facebook wall this evening. I got annoyed. Here's why.
It was a link to a petition asking the Canadian government to require all Internet Providers in Canada to block all pornographic content, and that such content should only to be allowed if the particular household authorises it.
Now this is very well-meaning indeed.
I fully agree that porn as a whole is thoroughly harmful both to the viewer and to the actor. There have been several articles out of the UK in the last couple weeks showing how porn twists young minds, and the problems that it creates.
In principle, I am all for such (specific) censorship.
However - and here's where I get pissed off -
That's basically giving the government all the censorship privileges it has ever wanted. It will start with blocking the obvious sites (XXX anything), and then, oh then, they'll go after filesharing sites and torrent sites like the Pirate Bay. This was exactly what SOPA/PIPA were after. Granted, that was the States, but we've had similar attempts at censorship. And I do not like censorship of any kind.
A friend told me yesterday that they saw me as a person who's very genuine and can't stand bullshit. Well, censorship is bullshit. It allows others to decide what you should or should not see. While I'm all for No More Porn, that sets a precedent for hiding other stuff. Such as, governmental actions, for instance. Anti-WikiLeaks, if you will. So yeah, let's go all 1984 on our own selves.
Great idea.
Not.
So, I will not be signing that petition. Nor anything like it. Ever.
I might be overreacting. I'm perfectly willing to admit the possibility. But I still won't sign.
Much love to all.
Showing posts with label rant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rant. Show all posts
26.7.13
Too many shows.
My friend got me hooked on Supernatural.
This would normally not be a bad thing, except that I'm also trying to watch Torchwood.
However, I just finished episode 12 of season 1. Yes, I know, I have a lot to catch up on. The point being, I predicted the plot of this one well before half of the show was over.
(Warning: I'm going to start ranting about plot, and if you've never seen Supernatural and you plan to, you might want to stop now and go somewhere else until you get past ep. 12. Unless you don't care about silly spoilers. In which case, be my guest. Because I'm going to pretty much tell the story here. Although I guess this show is now a good seven years old, so while I'm late to the party, I guess that means that a spoiler warning is technically pointless.)
So. Summary of plot.
Dean gets all electrocutey, gets heart damage as a result. Sam is desperate to save him, and drags him off to this blind faith healer (who himself had been miraculously healed of cancer, after which he can apparently heal others) in Nebraska. Dean gets healed, but some other kid dies of a heart attack for no reason - at exactly the same moment. They figure this out, and figure out who's to blame, stop the culprit, blah blah blah, happy-ish ending.
I say "ish" because the nice cute blonde chick with brain cancer and six months to live never gets healed. Sadface for Dean, who has a crush. Well -- he kind of has a crush on every cute blonde they find in terrible danger, just saying.
Now here's where I start ranting.
Halfway through, they start suspecting that the healer guy isn't all he's cracked up to be. They think he's got a tame Reaper that he uses to mess with life & death. Well, that requires a binding spell. So they go snooping in his house and find...
A spell book. With a binding spell in it. Yay. But...
Dudes. Think a minute.
The blind guy is reading a book, now?
And yet they still think it's him.
Use your brains; it's his wife, numbnuts! The one who went totally desperate when she saw her husband dying? Seriously. As obvious as a pie in the face. But I digress.
So then Dean stops one of the meetings. The healer guy's wife says, and I quote, "The Lord will deal with him as He sees fit..."
Like, really? Sam, Dean - you guys don't see what she's saying? That phrase there means that you're the next victim, Dean, and that she's the one playing God with a Reaper on a leash.
Winchester must be another word for blonde, I swear, because these guys seem to be a special kind of clueless in this episode. They made it past at least 11 other monsters (including a Norse Vanr) and they can't freaking figure this out. Although I suppose they could be PMSing. Yeah, that's gotta be why they're so far off their game.
Anyways. Entertaining episode, and not as freaky as Bugs, or as heart-stopping as The Hook Man, or as disturbing as the scene from Home with the plumber in the kitchen (seriously, by the way, was I the only one who could see that coming a mile away? Poltergeist + plumber + "backed up" garburator == very bad things) ... but predictable-as-hell plot.
Rant over :)
Oh yes, and I almost forgot. The dodgeball tournament I was supposed to be in this weekend? We had to drop out. Not enough players. Just as well, I don't think we were quite prepared.
And my pinky finger that I jammed on a ball during dodgeball practice two weeks ago? Pretty sure I must have fractured it, because it shouldn't still be this painful/swollen, although the swelling did go down some, but it's not down fully. Maybe I should go to a clinic... *shrug*
Toodles, love you all!
This would normally not be a bad thing, except that I'm also trying to watch Torchwood.
However, I just finished episode 12 of season 1. Yes, I know, I have a lot to catch up on. The point being, I predicted the plot of this one well before half of the show was over.
(Warning: I'm going to start ranting about plot, and if you've never seen Supernatural and you plan to, you might want to stop now and go somewhere else until you get past ep. 12. Unless you don't care about silly spoilers. In which case, be my guest. Because I'm going to pretty much tell the story here. Although I guess this show is now a good seven years old, so while I'm late to the party, I guess that means that a spoiler warning is technically pointless.)
So. Summary of plot.
Dean gets all electrocutey, gets heart damage as a result. Sam is desperate to save him, and drags him off to this blind faith healer (who himself had been miraculously healed of cancer, after which he can apparently heal others) in Nebraska. Dean gets healed, but some other kid dies of a heart attack for no reason - at exactly the same moment. They figure this out, and figure out who's to blame, stop the culprit, blah blah blah, happy-ish ending.
I say "ish" because the nice cute blonde chick with brain cancer and six months to live never gets healed. Sadface for Dean, who has a crush. Well -- he kind of has a crush on every cute blonde they find in terrible danger, just saying.
Now here's where I start ranting.
Halfway through, they start suspecting that the healer guy isn't all he's cracked up to be. They think he's got a tame Reaper that he uses to mess with life & death. Well, that requires a binding spell. So they go snooping in his house and find...
A spell book. With a binding spell in it. Yay. But...
Dudes. Think a minute.
The blind guy is reading a book, now?
And yet they still think it's him.
Use your brains; it's his wife, numbnuts! The one who went totally desperate when she saw her husband dying? Seriously. As obvious as a pie in the face. But I digress.
So then Dean stops one of the meetings. The healer guy's wife says, and I quote, "The Lord will deal with him as He sees fit..."
Like, really? Sam, Dean - you guys don't see what she's saying? That phrase there means that you're the next victim, Dean, and that she's the one playing God with a Reaper on a leash.
Winchester must be another word for blonde, I swear, because these guys seem to be a special kind of clueless in this episode. They made it past at least 11 other monsters (including a Norse Vanr) and they can't freaking figure this out. Although I suppose they could be PMSing. Yeah, that's gotta be why they're so far off their game.
Anyways. Entertaining episode, and not as freaky as Bugs, or as heart-stopping as The Hook Man, or as disturbing as the scene from Home with the plumber in the kitchen (seriously, by the way, was I the only one who could see that coming a mile away? Poltergeist + plumber + "backed up" garburator == very bad things) ... but predictable-as-hell plot.
Rant over :)
Oh yes, and I almost forgot. The dodgeball tournament I was supposed to be in this weekend? We had to drop out. Not enough players. Just as well, I don't think we were quite prepared.
And my pinky finger that I jammed on a ball during dodgeball practice two weeks ago? Pretty sure I must have fractured it, because it shouldn't still be this painful/swollen, although the swelling did go down some, but it's not down fully. Maybe I should go to a clinic... *shrug*
Toodles, love you all!
31.5.13
In which Lizzi goes on a feminist rant. [long ranty post warning]
I had an exchange with someone this morning after I heard him complaining about the lady who had made him pasta for lunch. Please bear in mind, this is an adult male, forty-plus if he's a day.
"She's a real Italian," he said, "got a moustache and hairy armpits and hairy legs... disgusting."
At which point, I piped up and said that I have hairy armpits and hairy legs - so what? And then I explained that it's cold out still (oh, BC how I love thee), I'm covered up, so why am I going to care about something no-one can see when it takes an extra ten minutes in the shower and I could be doing useful things in those ten minutes like making a lunch or whatnot?
His response was that I disgusted him. That it's gross. That sure, I can do what I want to, but it's revolting.
I chose not to answer aloud. This is my answer.
I don't shave my legs or my armpits when I don't have to, but I don't know a single man who shaves his legs if he's going to be wearing shorts, or going swimming. There is no earthly reason why I am therefore more disgusting than my imaginary example man. I shower regularly, I wear clean clothes. I am not gross.
So why am I disgusting if I choose, for practicality, to abstain from an optional step in the hygiene procedure? And why is a man who chooses not to shave his face (oh, another optional step!) not equally disgusting?
Is it perhaps, then, that I am disgusting to you because you feel that I should conform to your ideals of what a woman should be like? Well, let me go back to an earlier post to remind you that no-one should come from a cookie-cutter. Just as we're different sizes, we're different people. My sister wants to be a homemaker, and doesn't want a career. I am not my sister. I'm actively pursuing a career. Neither opinion is wrong, even though they're nearly polar opposites, and I have to say, I don't always understand my sister's opinion, but I can allow for a difference. In the same way, just because you have a certain idea of what womanhood and femininity should be, doesn't mean you get to invalidate my understanding of what womanhood and femininity are for me.
Actually, if you think about it, men should have less opportunity to criticise these things, because they are not women. Let's put it in very ridiculous terms, overstating the concept for clarity.
Take, for example, an orange and a fish.
The orange could say to the fish, "You are not swimming properly. Don't they teach you these things in school?"*
Or the fish could say to the orange, "You're not juicy enough. Try harder."
Neither of these things make sense, because the orange is not the fish, and therefore cannot determine between proper swimming and useless flapping about in the water; but neither is the fish the orange, and therefore cannot see what difficulty it would be to change its very nature and makeup.
I use the analogy both ways, because women equally ought not to tell a man what manhood and masculinity are made up of, but the issue under scrutiny right now is chiefly men specifying womanhood and femininity. Because to be honest with you, I see the latter much more than the former.
And one of the things that really tweaks me the wrong way is the act of womanhood being defined on my behalf. I am a woman and therefore I have womanhood; I am a female and therefore I am feminine. My understanding of that cannot be thrown out as being outlying data. Doing so would negate the fact that I have a gender, whether or not my femininity is different from your perception of what it ought to be. And this holds true for every other woman you will ever meet, even if we all approach womanhood from our own angles and viewpoints, it's still womanhood because we are women. So even though my sister and I are very different in what we want from life, I cannot say she's more or less feminine than I, or that she's more or less of a woman than I.
Anyway. Wasn't intending to make this a full-on rant, but it sort of turned into one. My apologies. And semi-congratulations, if you read the whole thing. I won't judge if you didn't, though. Also, I didn't realise I was this emphatic of a feminist. Heh.
Oh, and for the non-redditors, yesterday's post title beginning with TL;DR - it's shorthand for Too Long; Didn't Read. You're welcome.
Toodles.
*pun very much fully intended.
"She's a real Italian," he said, "got a moustache and hairy armpits and hairy legs... disgusting."
At which point, I piped up and said that I have hairy armpits and hairy legs - so what? And then I explained that it's cold out still (oh, BC how I love thee), I'm covered up, so why am I going to care about something no-one can see when it takes an extra ten minutes in the shower and I could be doing useful things in those ten minutes like making a lunch or whatnot?
His response was that I disgusted him. That it's gross. That sure, I can do what I want to, but it's revolting.
I chose not to answer aloud. This is my answer.
I don't shave my legs or my armpits when I don't have to, but I don't know a single man who shaves his legs if he's going to be wearing shorts, or going swimming. There is no earthly reason why I am therefore more disgusting than my imaginary example man. I shower regularly, I wear clean clothes. I am not gross.
So why am I disgusting if I choose, for practicality, to abstain from an optional step in the hygiene procedure? And why is a man who chooses not to shave his face (oh, another optional step!) not equally disgusting?
Is it perhaps, then, that I am disgusting to you because you feel that I should conform to your ideals of what a woman should be like? Well, let me go back to an earlier post to remind you that no-one should come from a cookie-cutter. Just as we're different sizes, we're different people. My sister wants to be a homemaker, and doesn't want a career. I am not my sister. I'm actively pursuing a career. Neither opinion is wrong, even though they're nearly polar opposites, and I have to say, I don't always understand my sister's opinion, but I can allow for a difference. In the same way, just because you have a certain idea of what womanhood and femininity should be, doesn't mean you get to invalidate my understanding of what womanhood and femininity are for me.
Actually, if you think about it, men should have less opportunity to criticise these things, because they are not women. Let's put it in very ridiculous terms, overstating the concept for clarity.
Take, for example, an orange and a fish.
The orange could say to the fish, "You are not swimming properly. Don't they teach you these things in school?"*
Or the fish could say to the orange, "You're not juicy enough. Try harder."
Neither of these things make sense, because the orange is not the fish, and therefore cannot determine between proper swimming and useless flapping about in the water; but neither is the fish the orange, and therefore cannot see what difficulty it would be to change its very nature and makeup.
I use the analogy both ways, because women equally ought not to tell a man what manhood and masculinity are made up of, but the issue under scrutiny right now is chiefly men specifying womanhood and femininity. Because to be honest with you, I see the latter much more than the former.
And one of the things that really tweaks me the wrong way is the act of womanhood being defined on my behalf. I am a woman and therefore I have womanhood; I am a female and therefore I am feminine. My understanding of that cannot be thrown out as being outlying data. Doing so would negate the fact that I have a gender, whether or not my femininity is different from your perception of what it ought to be. And this holds true for every other woman you will ever meet, even if we all approach womanhood from our own angles and viewpoints, it's still womanhood because we are women. So even though my sister and I are very different in what we want from life, I cannot say she's more or less feminine than I, or that she's more or less of a woman than I.
Anyway. Wasn't intending to make this a full-on rant, but it sort of turned into one. My apologies. And semi-congratulations, if you read the whole thing. I won't judge if you didn't, though. Also, I didn't realise I was this emphatic of a feminist. Heh.
Oh, and for the non-redditors, yesterday's post title beginning with TL;DR - it's shorthand for Too Long; Didn't Read. You're welcome.
Toodles.
*pun very much fully intended.
17.5.13
On Roundabouts. [profanity warning]
Dear drivers,
You are all fucking idiots, and you have not got a bloody clue between the lot of you of what roundabouts really mean.
When I'm standing waiting to cross the fucking highway entrance, and you got there before I did, don't sit there at the top of the bloody on-ramp like a dumbass, ESPECIALLY when I'm motioning you on.
Because here's the thing. While you're sitting there, being a goddamn Canadian, three cars are lining up behind you and filling up the roundabout in such a way that no-one else can get into the roundabout. You really think that being polite in that situation will actually help anybody? I can wait; it takes, what? thirty seconds for the roundabout to clear? Your idiocy (under the guise of politeness) is actually more likely to get people hurt, as they pile up behind you.
Yes, I realise, it's not entirely your fault, it's the fault of the rules of the road. In North America, pedestrians come first. In the UK, they don't, and the UK was our wonderful roundabout inspiration. So we have two different rule-sets intersecting, and it makes for not a great system. So I understand that.
But please, for fuck's sake. JUST GO when I'm motioning that you should go. Because I can see the lineup forming behind you, and yelling at me about it won't help an ounce. JUST FUCKING GO. Don't be so stubborn about it.
Much love to you, idiot drivers. Try driving in the UK sometime.
Toodles.
[disclaimer: if you're not an idiot driver, this was not addressed to you specifically. but please treat roundabouts the way they're meant to be treated anyways, idiocy aside.]
You are all fucking idiots, and you have not got a bloody clue between the lot of you of what roundabouts really mean.
When I'm standing waiting to cross the fucking highway entrance, and you got there before I did, don't sit there at the top of the bloody on-ramp like a dumbass, ESPECIALLY when I'm motioning you on.
Because here's the thing. While you're sitting there, being a goddamn Canadian, three cars are lining up behind you and filling up the roundabout in such a way that no-one else can get into the roundabout. You really think that being polite in that situation will actually help anybody? I can wait; it takes, what? thirty seconds for the roundabout to clear? Your idiocy (under the guise of politeness) is actually more likely to get people hurt, as they pile up behind you.
Yes, I realise, it's not entirely your fault, it's the fault of the rules of the road. In North America, pedestrians come first. In the UK, they don't, and the UK was our wonderful roundabout inspiration. So we have two different rule-sets intersecting, and it makes for not a great system. So I understand that.
But please, for fuck's sake. JUST GO when I'm motioning that you should go. Because I can see the lineup forming behind you, and yelling at me about it won't help an ounce. JUST FUCKING GO. Don't be so stubborn about it.
Much love to you, idiot drivers. Try driving in the UK sometime.
Toodles.
[disclaimer: if you're not an idiot driver, this was not addressed to you specifically. but please treat roundabouts the way they're meant to be treated anyways, idiocy aside.]
7.5.13
REAL people...
Last night, I was scrolling through my facebook news feed, as one does, and I saw a photo someone had 'shared'. It was a photo of a woman's belly covered in pregnancy stretch marks, and it bore a caption that (summarised) called for people to post photos of themselves, no matter what they looked like, to fight the Photoshop culture of media.
It also included statements like:
"Real women have stretch marks."
"Real women have curves."
"Real people..."
Don't get me wrong, here. While I am all for resisting the prevalence of Photoshop in advertisements and the like, I cannot help but be equally resistant to campaigns saying that REAL people are a certain way.
"Real women have stretch marks." So, because I've never had a child and therefore have no pregnancy stretch marks, I'm not a real woman? I beg to differ. I have breasts and a vagina just like every other female on the planet. Just because I haven't had children yet doesn't make me less than someone who has. And what about those few women who get to have children without the stretch marks? Does that make them not real, somehow? No, they're real just as much as I am.
"Real women have curves." Don't hate me, but I'm 5'9"ish, and 120ish lbs. I have always been a stick, a bean-pole, a twig, tiny, skinny, thin, slender - there's no end to the words that get applied to my body type. I have a small chest and nearly no hips. I am under no misapprehensions about what shape and size I am. Yes, I'm very close to the magazine ideal. But. Phrases like "real women have curves" make me feel angry - that the idea that having fewer curves makes me less of a woman. I'm not this way on purpose, I am just the size I am and have always been. Am I inadequate simply because I'm thin?
"Real people..." I realise all these "Real People" campaigns that get started are an effort to help people's self-esteem by accepting and de-marginalising the larger/stretch-marked/what-have-you people, but the problem is, this re-marginalises those who are thinner/scar-less/what-have-you. I'm not less than human simply because of what I look like, but neither are you.
So, I'd like to argue, with all due respect and consideration, that REAL people are kind, REAL people are accepting, and REAL people are all different sizes and appearances. REAL people don't marginalise anyone, REAL people don't judge books based solely on their covers, and REAL people don't allow others to judge or bully anyone.
Real people love.
Toodles :)
It also included statements like:
"Real women have stretch marks."
"Real women have curves."
"Real people..."
Don't get me wrong, here. While I am all for resisting the prevalence of Photoshop in advertisements and the like, I cannot help but be equally resistant to campaigns saying that REAL people are a certain way.
"Real women have stretch marks." So, because I've never had a child and therefore have no pregnancy stretch marks, I'm not a real woman? I beg to differ. I have breasts and a vagina just like every other female on the planet. Just because I haven't had children yet doesn't make me less than someone who has. And what about those few women who get to have children without the stretch marks? Does that make them not real, somehow? No, they're real just as much as I am.
"Real women have curves." Don't hate me, but I'm 5'9"ish, and 120ish lbs. I have always been a stick, a bean-pole, a twig, tiny, skinny, thin, slender - there's no end to the words that get applied to my body type. I have a small chest and nearly no hips. I am under no misapprehensions about what shape and size I am. Yes, I'm very close to the magazine ideal. But. Phrases like "real women have curves" make me feel angry - that the idea that having fewer curves makes me less of a woman. I'm not this way on purpose, I am just the size I am and have always been. Am I inadequate simply because I'm thin?
"Real people..." I realise all these "Real People" campaigns that get started are an effort to help people's self-esteem by accepting and de-marginalising the larger/stretch-marked/what-have-you people, but the problem is, this re-marginalises those who are thinner/scar-less/what-have-you. I'm not less than human simply because of what I look like, but neither are you.
So, I'd like to argue, with all due respect and consideration, that REAL people are kind, REAL people are accepting, and REAL people are all different sizes and appearances. REAL people don't marginalise anyone, REAL people don't judge books based solely on their covers, and REAL people don't allow others to judge or bully anyone.
Real people love.
Toodles :)
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