Thorns

Crime Against Nature Kids book about same sex and other "unnatural" relationships in nature. Not sue it works as a kids book but still interesting! Couldn't get it to download though.

When Depression is Contagious Captain Awkward post about how to draw boundaries and look after your own emotional well being when in a relationship with a depressed person.

Say hello to The Old Republic's gay planet All the same sex content in Bioware's Star Wars: The Old Republic MMMORPG is on one planet. Uh huh.

AMAZINGLY OFFENSIVE: On Stephen Hawking, Vader and Being More Machine Than Human Inspired me to make a More machine than man shirt because screw you, self obsessed technophiles.

Why I play violent video games Not the same reasons as me, but still an interesting read from another woman who likes violent video games (and no, not despite the violence)

The secret life of them: What it takes to shift class in Australia Quite different to my experience as an upwardly mobile child of downwardly mobile ex-middle class white people, but that's what you'd expect.

the positive side of socialism

Health Panics in Historical Perspective

“Oh, You Sexy Geek!”: “Geek Girls” and the Problem of Self-Objectification

I've been reading through Pervocracy, I particularly liked
Using my vagina about the validity of having unsexy sex if that's genuinely what you want.

From a different POV, You Need Help: Let's Talk About (Having More) Sex

Conservatives can be persuaded to care more about the environment, study finds

Multiple Sclerosis, Kepral’s Syndrome, and Why I’m Glad Thane Dies The importance of illness narratives with no magical cure.

Bullying & Goodreads I found this interesting because it's such a blatant example of people using "bullying" (aka criticism) as an excuse to be actual bullies.

On being considered a Fake Geek Girl I like this in particular (as opposed to various other similar essays by geekier women, which make different but equally valid points) because she really ISN'T a "real" geek by some definitions, but that doesn't mean she's fake. She's just who she is, with the interests she has (which are kind of geeky and kind of not), and she can't help it if people insist on a false Geek/Mundane dichotomy and then complain when she doesn't fit.

In general I've been thinking about "real fans". And as much as part of me kicks and screams that they are Not Real Fans and Don't Love Canon Like It Deserves, I think I have to accept that people who are only into (a)Jane Austen through the adaptations or (b)That Popular Thing I Love (Homestuck, for example) for the generic slash are totally justified in their tastes. Especially since there are plenty of books I'm only into from the adaptations, and canons where I vastly prefer the OOC schmoopy fanfic (sometimes even the juggernaut slash pairing! I find fanon John/Rodney way more entertaining than Stargate Atlantis the actual show, for example. YES, I KNOW, I AM PART OF THE PROBLEM) How the different forms of fannishness can coexist without stomping all over each other quite so much I am less sure.

The golden age Interesting take on how to head towards a truly equal society. I think that even if we ignore global warming and other similar practical hurdles, it glosses over how and why public attitudes have changed worldwide, it's not ALL The Capitalist Conspiracy brainwashing us with Fox News etc, and also seems focused on the abstract instead of looking at various approaches to social democracy worldwide (OUTSIDE EUROPE/THE US EVEN OMG). He does update with, for example, an acknowledgement that childcare is work too, but I think a more thorough analysis of disability theory etc would greatly benefit the analysis. One thing I've heard is that a more heterogeneous society erodes public support for egalitarianism, because people think "I'm ok supporting people like me, but not people like them" Not sure how to combat that, beyond trying to fight racism etc (which are obviously good goals regardless :)) Still, becoming disabled has really made me notice and question the emphasis on "being productive".

Indigenous tent embassy turns 40

I plan to spend Invasion Day indoors keeping out of the sun. (Of course, that's what I do most days)

Barred CHOGM protestor 'not a threat' The Queen is visiting, better lock up the environmentalists! On the plus side even commercial FM radio news was talking about it.

Rio Tinto accused over Bougainville 'genocide'

Housos: a tv show making fun of disabled people living in public housing. As a disabled person who grew up in public housing around a lot of disabled people my response was nostalgia coated in a heavy layer of "Fuck you"(*). Here's the first episode of Housos, I only got three minutes in, maybe it suddenly becomes SUPER AMAZING after that but somehow I doubt it.

(*)Given that my childhood involved a lot of people swearing and resentment towards middle class(**) wankers who thought they were better than us I guess it's appropriate.
(**)I tried to look up about the guy who made this, but once I hit "He won the Tropfest award…although he had submitted the film under the pseudonym Laura Feinstein in order to appeal to the sensitivities of the judges" I decided I'd hit my loathing limit for the day.

1. Invade country. Murder/enslave/displace etc. local inhabitants.
2. Wring hands about how sad it is that this proud savage race is doomed to die out in the face of civilisation. Bar locals from actually joining "civilisation"/earning money etc.
3. Wring hands about lack of education/food etc for the children. Steal them and attempt to raise them to be a submissive underclass.
4. Wring hands about how social problems and disconnection from their Authentic Culture makes them a Doomed People. Refuse to give basic government support to those who continue in the traditional lifestyle.
5. Wring hands about poor outcomes in remote communities and lack of approved engagement with government programs. Send in army, dismantle local solutions, cut/restrict welfare.
6. Wring hands about widespread starvation and unsustainability of remote communities. Cut welfare altogether, force people to live in the cities.
7. Profit!

nb I don't mean to do that thing of acting like any Indigenous person who lives in the city is Totally Inauthentic and doesn't count. But they shouldn't be forced to live there, and I think some of the power of this form of cultural genocide is the combination of not counting anyone who's too "inauthentic" and refusing to support remote communities. Also I know this is just some guy with no real power, but it was such a perfect example of this historical pattern I felt like highlighting it.

Maliciousness in memes: #boganmovies and #tightsarenotpants

I always feel a bit self conscious ranting about class, since the more I think about it the more I realise that for all their left wing ideals my parents are basically middle class bohemians slumming it because they find the rat race too stressful. I never entirely fit in to the working class culture I grew up in, and have few connections to it now. Plus being a "working class" Australian in the suburbs in the 80s was in some ways less difficult than, say, what a lot of ostensibly lower middle class Americans are experiencing now.

Then again, I guess the fact that despite these cushioning effects I've still experienced enough classism to feel pretty angry about it is testament to how totally not class free Australia is.

Anyway, yes. The cheerful way that ostensibly left wing middle class people mock and belittle the working class and people from rural areas is gross. (And I wish this went without saying, but I don't want to see any of it in my comments)

Some interesting posts by other people about safe spaces and accessibility at Swancon:

• An open letter to the Australian SF community The post itself is about the lack of ramps at the awards ceremony, but there's more (sometimes frustrating) general discussion in the comments
  
• Swancon 2011 - Hyatt Mobility Issues firvulag has offered to help future committees with this stuff because he is awesome.
  
• In Which I Learn Things About Safe Spaces
  

Those not subscribed to alias_sqbr may be interested in my (not very good) panel notes.

• Disability and social media, AI and the human mind
  
• Great women in comics, New Who, This Spaceship has cooties (feminism and sff), Emotion and attachment in video games, Politics of fanworks, Conversation with Artists: Technique, Gynaecon discussion on accessibility, food and food ethics
  
• Galactic Suburbia podcast recording, How to write fight scenes, Religion Creation in fantasy, Classic Doctor Who, female characters in the background, 2012 launch, vidding
  
• Social media and science fiction fandom, Comics you should be reading, closing ceremony
  

So I was reading ‘Too Asian’? which says The upshot is that race is defining Canadian university campuses in a way it did not 25 years ago. Here's a post about it by angry asian man.

I have encountered anti-Asian attitudes a lot as a maths major and tutor, I think the dynamic here is moderately similar to Canada.

It would be nice if instead of handwringing that Asian kids are getting BETTER GRADES THAN WHITE PEOPLE OMG anyone cared about the fact that rich white kids remain and have always been SIGNIFICANTLY overrepresented at universities in Canada/Australia etc.

I hope I'm not being derailing bringing class into it, but I think it's worth bringing up as part of the same overall imbalance.

I imagined how it would look if it was about rich kids in Australia, since that inequality struck me going to a private school and then uni as a white working class kid. Obviously you could do the same thing with race, but I didn't trust myself to do so myself without going to a weird place. Also rich people are a minority who do not fit in with the values Australia was founded on (as a penal colony)
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Because it is 3am and I have insomnia and this is the only thing on my to-do list I feel awake enough for.

One Nation Victoria State President promotes gay bashings on Twitter Normally "One Nation politician says terrible things" isn't newsworthy, but dear god.

GetUp ad of appalling things Tony Abbot has said (mostly but not all about women)

Also, for those who may have missed the not-horribly-conservative minor parties: The Sex Party seem pretty decent on a surprising number of issues. The secular party are, alas, in favour of banning the burka.

Don't vote above the line, it may be easier but your preferences may go somewhere unexpectedly crap! I really should figure out my preferences at belowtheline.org.au.