eruthros

1) Most hilarious typo in a pseudo-professional news story: "Only about 6 percent of dog owners and 4 percent of cat owners are bought from pet stores, according to the most recent statistics."

That's from a salon.com article about pet ownership in the recession. (I'm trying to avoid salon.com these days for various political reasons, but I read their magazine for years and I still sometimes accidentally load it in the morning. Changing habits is hard, but I guess this is a nice side benefit. Srsly, dog owners are bought from pet stores?)

2) Most ridiculous higher-education move of the week: Georgia Republicans attempt to ban (graduate) courses in queer theory. They claim that universities are supposed to "educate people in sciences, business, math," apparently taking a stand against all liberal arts ever! They are now claiming that their statements were blow out of proportion, and that when they tried to get rid of all classes with the word "queer" in the title they didn't really mean it, or something.

3) Most awesome news of the week: thingswithwings and I finally signed a lease for an apartment for next year and it is awesome. And cheap. And AWESOME. \o/

4) Most baffling javascript bookmarklet tool: Cornify, a bookmarklet that I SWEAR TO GOD covers web pages in unicorns and rainbows. Sparkly unicorns and rainbows. Like, I have a bookmarklet to zap colors to black and white -- this does the exact opposite. I am baffled and amazed.

Rest in peace, Del Martin.

And ... thanks.

Video of the steps outside the CA Supreme Court as the decision was announced: here.

Video of Mayor Gavin Newsom's press conference here. It's hard to hear, but look at that crowd, look at the reaction, man. (You remember him; he was the one who told the city of San Francisco to issue same-sex marriage licenses in 2004 -- the film crew that was around that day made a video called Pursuit of Equality, trailer available here; it also makes me sniffly.¹)

There's a neat slideshow at the San Jose Mercury News here; picture 15 is the SF City Hall, filled with people.

And I dunno if you remember this, but this past winter New York ruled that all out of state marriages must be recognized in New York. Which means, if you're a New York resident, and you get married in Massachusetts or California or Canada, your employer here in NY has to give you benefits.

Dear San Francisco City Attorney, dear Lambda Legal, dear ACLU, dear NCLR, dear Equality California: thanks. You guys are awesome.

***
1. For maximum sniffles: Vienna Teng's City Hall (here), a narrative song about a couple getting married in San Francisco in 2004. And it's topical, because the 2004 marriage in SF led, over the last four years, to this: many of the couples who got married then brought the suit against the state that resulted in this overturn. Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, the very first couple to be married in San Francisco in 2004 (in the first picture under Thursday here), were part of the suit.

So I was reading a New Yorker article about Krystian Bala, a Polish author accused of murder, and I came across the following paragraph and was just -- boggled. One of these sentences is not like the others, guys:

Bala cast himself as an enfant terrible who sought out what Foucault had called a "limit-experience": he wanted to push the boundaries of language and human existence, to break free of what he deemed to be the hypocritical and oppressive "truths" of Western society, including taboos on sex and drugs. Foucault himself was drawn to homosexual sadomasochism. Bala devoured the work of Georges Bataille, who vowed to "brutally oppose all systems" and who once contemplated carrying out human sacrifices; and William Burroughs, who swore to use language to "rub out the word"; and the Marquis de Sade, who demanded, "O man! Is it for you to say what is good or what is evil?" Bala boasted about his drunken visits to brothels and his submission to temptations of the flesh. He told friends that he hated "conventions" and was "capable of anything," and he insisted, "I will not live long but I will live furiously!"

Now, okay, I'd like to smack the author of this article for other reasons, yes, but the sentence there that begins "Foucault himself?" Dude, what does that have to do with this paragraph, which is about things-Bala-read-that-he-liked? Did he READ about Foucault's sex life? No evidence of same here! What then does Foucault's sex life have to do with Bala reading about limit-experiences? Nothing, except that this is already an article about the ways Bala was influenced by postmodernism to ignore "truth" and "morality" and only do language games and thus kill people, and sadomasochism seems similarly edgey, dubious, and weird.

So, you know, I've been crap at updating LJ. And the thing about not updating for weeks is that then you go "omg! but there is so much to say!" And that sounds like a) work and b) a really long, boring post, so you don't say any of it. ON THAT NOTE: forget the last couple weeks! Probably they were mostly boring, except for Doppelporner. (Dopornganger? Pornelganger? graycastle and I can't decide which is correct.) And my family was here this weekend. That was cool.

So! Onward, we find ... look, guys, it's Tom Lehrer in his youthful misanthropy! Before his full-blown misanthropy!



Aaand? The guy who uploaded that to youtube? Also uploaded a bunch of other songs from the live performance! Awesomeness!

AND and... apparently Tom Lehrer is on myspace. I have hope that it's entirely an impersonation. Remember: he liked that people thought he was dead! So it had better be an impersonator.

Otherwise, fiatlouis and I have no excuse for not being on myspace.

***

Other news: I now have a purple, white, and gold striped flag with purple and gold stars hanging in my office. It commemorates the nineteenth amendment in the US (women's right to vote) and comes from the Seneca Falls museum, which I visited on Friday with the family. I am quite happy with the placement above my desk, because it makes me slightly less cranky about articles like the one apple_pi talks about here.

I'm also cranky, speaking of cranky, about the whole Dumbledore thing. Once again, other folks have said it way better than me: toft_froggy, here, and marythefan, here. Suffice it to say that "Celluloid closeting" appeared as a verb when I sputtered at m_shell about this. I mean. GOD. Hey guys! I've decided that Dumbledore is gay, had a big tragic gay affair that blinded him to Grindelwald's faults, and never loved again, and then died! That's novel and innovative and freeing and will lead to the acceptance of gay people, especially the part where I didn't put it in the book!

In short, I am wearing my crankypants.

***

My family was here this last weekend; we went out to dinner rather too many times, really. And we ran around a lot. And looked at fall color, and went to ABC, and went to the farmer's market, and walked at Taughannock Falls and Buttermilk Falls, and went to Seneca Falls and the Erie Canal and I took redphotoframe out to the awesome espresso that is Gimme! Coffee. (She was like "okay, so, how can we get their coffee again tomorrow?") Also, my dad and sister took many photos of campus and of downtown and of fall color and waterfalls and things, which I hope they will post so I can continue lazy.

We also discovered, in the process of driving the two extra miles north of Seneca Falls that you need to drive to see the Erie Canal? That there is an amazing wildlife preserve up there! It's called the Montezuma Wildlife Refuge (no, really). It's this amazing, huge wetlands restoration and protection project, through which the NY Thruway and the Erie Canal run (weird!). We saw a ridiculous number of birds, including a pair of extremely well-fed hawks. (They looked kinda kestrely, but it was a long way off.) And apparently in the spring they have ospreys, and bobolinks, and tons of other cool things like muskrats. And they have islands! And canals! I am charmed by marshes, if not by mosquitoes.