Food for thought, and action
Dec. 14th, 2009 18:47What an epic tale of near-disaster, close shaves, and epic logistical failure on the grad school application front I could unfold for you, dear readers. But the story's not finished yet, so it will have to wait until tomorrow.
In the meantime, via![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
inkstone on Twitter, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
holzman discusses the white privilege inherent in some permutations of the reaction to the Peter Watts imbroglio. I have not been following the matter at all other than noting that it happened, so let me be unequivocal, although a day late and a dollar short: What happened to Peter Watts happens to people routinely, but should not happen to anyone, no matter their race or citizenship. Nor should borders be places in which people attempting to cross them involuntarily and automatically surrender their rights, both civil, legal, and human (which they, or at least the U.S. borders, essentially are now).
On a tangentially related note, I received this holiday card from Delta Airlines today. I note that while other cities are represented by architectural landmarks, Johannesburg is accompanied by an image of a giraffe and Tokyo has an image, from the rear, of a Japanese woman in kimono amongst bamboo trees. Mm, stereotype much?Last year's card from Northwest was much better, but that was pre-merger.
ETA: Viasynecdochic, LiveJournal's next code push will a) make the gender field in the profile mandatory; and b) make the gender choice binary (i.e. either male or female). The post at Denise's journal has the relevant links to changelog and to the LJ feedback form.
Oh, LiveJournal. More and more I think that I'm just not comfortable giving them my business, let alone posting my content there (you'll notice I have never posted any fanworks to my LJ account; only links to them at other sites). I think 2010 will probably be my last year as a paid account holder.
ETA 2: I encourage people to consider DreamWidth as an alternative. There are invite codes available for the taking at![[site community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png)
dw_codesharing; no need to give anyone your email address.
In the meantime, via
inkstone on Twitter, holzman discusses the white privilege inherent in some permutations of the reaction to the Peter Watts imbroglio. I have not been following the matter at all other than noting that it happened, so let me be unequivocal, although a day late and a dollar short: What happened to Peter Watts happens to people routinely, but should not happen to anyone, no matter their race or citizenship. Nor should borders be places in which people attempting to cross them involuntarily and automatically surrender their rights, both civil, legal, and human (which they, or at least the U.S. borders, essentially are now).On a tangentially related note, I received this holiday card from Delta Airlines today. I note that while other cities are represented by architectural landmarks, Johannesburg is accompanied by an image of a giraffe and Tokyo has an image, from the rear, of a Japanese woman in kimono amongst bamboo trees. Mm, stereotype much?
ETA: Via
synecdochic, LiveJournal's next code push will a) make the gender field in the profile mandatory; and b) make the gender choice binary (i.e. either male or female). The post at Denise's journal has the relevant links to changelog and to the LJ feedback form. Oh, LiveJournal. More and more I think that I'm just not comfortable giving them my business, let alone posting my content there (you'll notice I have never posted any fanworks to my LJ account; only links to them at other sites). I think 2010 will probably be my last year as a paid account holder.
ETA 2: I encourage people to consider DreamWidth as an alternative. There are invite codes available for the taking at
dw_codesharing; no need to give anyone your email address. 