trouble at home

I have been blogging semi-regularly at the music blog.  Last week I went to see Major Lazer kick off their tour in Kingston.. I wrote a review of the show, in probably wayyy too ethnomusicologically-exhaustive detail - that's up there now.

Let's not go back to the days of Operation Rescue terrorism..

http://www.kansas.com/news/breaking/story/833730.html

Now is a good time to call and see if clinics need support/defense

or donate - here's the Planned Parenthood office for the region Dr. Tiller worked in
http://www.ppkm.org/donations.asp

and there's also medical students for choice
http://medicalstudentsforchoice.org/index.php?page=support

Simon Reynolds has a nice little piece up in the guardian, and he shouts out my research (not by name, O for some print legitimacy). Anyway I decided to engage with it on my music blog.

you can check it out here

from Ballastexistenz:

a woman with physical and psychological disabilities is being driven to suicide through denial of care. Amanda Baggs' take on it is better than mine could ever be. Here's an excerpt:

"he truth is that many physical disability agencies don’t want to provide services to people with developmental or psych labels — they figure that’s someone else’s problem and they think they’re above having to deal with us. So those of us with combinations of developmental, psych, and physical conditions (the strict divisions between such being largely societal anyway — with some conditions even seeming to have more than one different name depending on which branch of medicine claimed them first) often end up falling through the cracks and dying as a result.

Last I heard, nursing agencies are not allowed to administer the death penalty for having a bad attitude or unusual social skills. But this is exactly how many of them handle people they consider problematic. I have watched other such agencies, as well as staff in nursing homes and mental institutions, fail to provide necessary services for survival, to people who needed them, because they did not happen to like the person. There is a reason that serial killers and other people of questionable conscience like such jobs — they can characterize someone as a problem, or as “dying anyway”, and get away with this crap, especially because there are double standards where if we are violent, or even possible to mischaracterize as such, then it’s because we’re defective and if other people are violent to us then it’s also because we’re defective.

Don’t let the newspaper fool you — it talks about Minna “ending her suffering” which is a classic code phrase (I am terrible at using those, but can certainly often detect them in others) designed to call forth images of her disability as the main cause of suffering, and all the injustice she is suffering as incidental, or even inevitable. It isn’t. Severely disabled people are not committing suicide in droves, most of us are still around. What drives people to despair — and, often, suicide — is having crappy care (often includng abuse) and neglect be the only two options that seem to be available."

--apparently there are protests:

We Are Protesting:

FRIDAY JANUARY 23rd from 8AM until NOON in front of MPP Rick
Bartolucci’s office located at 93 Ceder st, corner of Ceder and
Lisker, the Canada-Broker Building.
Then at NOON we are Marching to the Community Care Access Centre
which is located in the Rainbow Centre 40 Elm St, Suite 41-C the
north east corner of the mall at the corner of ST Anne Rd and Notre Dame Ave.

For Further and Updated Information:

Facebook Group: Minna’s Hunger Strike - Call to action for an ALS patient denied care

The Sudbury Star article

Youtube: Sudbury CCAC Exposed

 

"At some point, we are completely encircled by riot cops, but they are a decent distance away from us. Everyone is ignoring them, and focusing on the mayor. A paramilitary tank rolls up. A brotha shouts "Oh look, democracy has arrived!""

5 things you can do about the Oscar Grant shooting

25th ways someone has suggested you can take action for peace & justice in Gaza (some of them seem a bit odd (wear a keffiyeh? been to the LES lately? or the mall? but if they feel it helps, maybe that's cool).. http://nosnowhere.wordpress.com/2009/01/03/25-ways-you-can-take-action-to-bring-peace-with-justice-to-gaza/

(on that note, Matisyahu added me to his twitter feed. ?? when I read his feed it was all ridiculous stuff about the brave IDF soldiers protecting the state of israel. feh. just feh. what an ass)

---

OK bye america. gone to JA for six months. will post a link to my JA blog when it goes up!

How come I missed this? I mean it's the holidays (happy holidays y'all) but this seems pretty important. Students there also calling out the protests in Greece and elsewhere..

And it looks like they have won a lot of concessions as of today! Including "an agreement not to press charges or impose academic punishments for students involved in the protest, the implementation of a Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) committee within the university, more autonomy and power for Student Senate to communicate with the student body, more representation on the Board of Trustees for students and faculty, and finally the creation of more student study space on campus."

Also, a Faculty vote of no confidence in Kerrey at an emergency meeting.
AND>.. UNITE HERE Local 100 (who represent the cafeteria workers) have refused to cross the barricade!

~ Demands of the Occupation ~
• The removal of Bob Kerrey as president of our university

• The removal of James Murtha as executive vice president of our university

• Students, faculty, and staff elect the president, EVP, and Provost.

• Students are part of the interim committee to hire a provost.

• The removal of Robert B. Millard as treasurer of the board of trustees.

• Intelligible transparency and disclosure of the university budget and investments.

• The creation of a committee on socially responsible investments.

• The immediate suspension of capital improvement projects like the tearing down of 65 fifth Ave.

• Instead, money towards the creation of an autonomous student space.
• Instead, money towards scholarships and reducing tuition.
• Instead, money for the library and student life generally.

So I sold my old laptop on craigslist. I had 3 emails within 3 hours of posting it yesterday.
this morning I had back and forth with two people. One couldn't come today and said we could talk tomorrow. The other could. So I sold it to person b. YAY!

then I thought I'd be considerate and tell person A. "sorry it's been sold. good luck"

then I got this email from person A

"why did you waste my time then"

heh. I'm usually super-polite by email but hey it's craigslist. So I wrote

"because someone COULD come tonight, dumbass. it was sold AFTER you
said you couldn't come.

why did you waste your own time complaining about it?"

AND they WROTE BACK

"You are such an inconsiderate idiot. Don't have any common sense or courtesy!!!

Stop wasting people's time.

What's wrong with tomorrow? You need the money for drugs tonight?"

Although I don't want to take away from the importance of the sit-down strike (links for donations below)

I did want to post an RIP for the creator of the Clangers, the Soup Dragon, and other amazing kids stuff on TV. Oliver Postgate has died

RIP Oliver Postgate - I loved your seriously weird kids shows.



--in other news you can donate to support the strikers via paypal here (thanks everyone who is also posting the link)

or mail donations to

UE Local 1110 Solidarity Fund,
UE Western Region,
37 S. Ashland,
Chicago, IL 60607

Mumbai Twitter feed: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=mumbai+OR+bombay+OR+%23mumbai
A Flickr stream just posted (haven't been through it all so I don't know how graphic it gets): http://flickr.com/photos/vinu/sets/72157610144709049/
A Google Map of the attacks so far: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=106719836142005814567.00045c9d9d0c959a84c6e&ll=18.938763,72.816267&spn=0.052607,0.11158&t=h&z=14

It looks really scary. I don't know what else to say but I hope the damage is limited and that as many people as possible make it through ok.

I don't know much about this blogger, and I am only reprinting this post because it is AWESOME (and I just saw Quantum of Solace and was interested in its discussion of US attitude  towards South American dictators.. as well as daniel craig in his underwear, true), but anyway you should all start reading BoRev on South American politics..

(quote)

Again With The Venezuelans And Their Stupid Happiness

It's here again. Every year the Chilean polling firm Latinobarometro releases the latest round of public opinion polling data from 18 Latin American countries, and every year Venezuela comes out on top in all the democracy and quality of life categories, and every year the press has no idea what to do with that, so they cover some marginally relevant data point en masse, and ignore the rest. It's become a Thanksgiving tradition, like triptophan! Here's the PDF of the results if you read Spanish. If not, allow me. Venezuelans:

• Are more likely to support democracy than any other nationality surveyed.

• Are the most likely to say the best way to change things is through voting.

• Are most likely to say that democracy has decreased social inequality in their country.

• Are least likely to say youth are politically apathetic

• Are less worried to be worried about high prices than anybody else.

• Are most likely to have access to the internet .

• Are the third mostly likely to say that their countrymen are treated equally under the law, and

• Are the fourth most likely to say their democracy functions better than the rest of Latin America

Anyway, whatever. These are the same results that they get every year. The sport of it is in guessing which weird angle the media will focus on this year. Last year it was that support for Chavez was on the decrease...outside of Venezuela. The year before that it was that Venezuelans disliked Bush (therefore maybe America hmm??) more than everybody else. The press stories are just starting to come in, so there's still plenty of time for wild speculation in the comments section.

_____
I just started using google reader, and subscribed to this cat forthwith.

as my friend said, you know i dont usually do memes, but i like this one. Leave a comment here and I will:

a) Tell you why I friended you.

b) Associate you with something -- a song, color, photo, etc.

c) Tell you something I like about you.

d) Tell you a memory I have of you.

e) Ask you something I've wanted to know about you.

f) Tell you my favorite userpic from your list.

g) In return, you need to post this on your own Livejournal.

At least the news is reporting it. but then again, does it hurt as well as help? does it glorify

WASHINGTON – Two white supremacists allegedly plotted to go on a national killing spree, shooting and decapitating black people and ultimately targeting Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, federal authorities said Monday.

our car was stolen last night from where it was parked in the alley around the corner from our gig. (lots of other, nice new cars parked there, nothing visible in the car and on the seats)

crap. this sucks.
luckily our computers, phones, wallets and such were out of the car

but, housekeys & things like car registration (which I think has our address on it) were in there. do you think we have to worry about someone robbing our house? should we change the locks?

also gone - freaking expensive and awesome prescription sunglasses. ipod. newish favorite messenger bag.

blech.

at last the truth about acorn

I mean,

acorn revealed

You tell'em Miss Virginia!!

"They've done it. The McCain campaign has gone and pissed off Miss Virginia.

When McCain senior adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer divided Virginia into the DC suburbs and "real Virginia," Kristi Lauren Glakas felt extremely disappointed. Glakas, a recent three-time Miss Virginia title holder and whip-smart University of Virginia scholarship honor student, said the comments were divisive.

"What offended me and made me sad about those comments," said Glakas, a resident for many years in northern Virginia, "is that I've been to every county, every part of this state. What's best about Virginia is its diversity. The people, the geography. We have every class, every race, an amazing immigrant population... Virginia is the birthplace of America. To say that part of Virginia is not part of the real America is just offensive.""

" Saying she was doing her level best to push back against the stereotypes set by other former pageant contestants Miss Teen South Carolina and Miss Alaska entrant Sarah Palin (formerly Sarah Heath), she pointed out that Palin's hiding from the press was a giant turnoff and gave beauty queens a bad name.

"Even I've been interviewed by Chris Matthews.""

OH SNAP

from the addictive fivethirtyeight.com

I'm starting to get really concerned about voter intimidation, violence and harassment at the polls.

I'm thinking about registering as a poll observer. I couldn't do phone banking or convincing people to vote for Obama because I'm not good at that kind of argument with people I don't know. But I am pretty serious about the right to vote, and the latest news of violence and harassment of early voters is really bringing home to me what can happen as McCain's supporters get more desperate and the image McCain has built up of the Obama bogeyman really seems powerful to them

the harassment of black voters in North Carolina (http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2008/10/21/voter-suppression-has-already-begun/)

and the physical attack on a Obama volunteer in Wisconsin (http://www.democracynow.org/2008/10/21/headlines)

combined with the extra scary ramping up of police "preparedness for riots" (http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/police-prepare-for-unrest-2008-10-21.html) which the fuckers cast as something they fear black people will do. Who's threatening to "kill him" and beating up volunteers? white people.

My mister is from North Carolina, and although Nevada is a closer swing state, I also am drawn to the idea of observing polls more in the South. Well also his family would be very pleased if we came through. I dunno. hard to do so little around this election when it's so stark.

One of these men will be president of the United States

Joerg Haider died.

huh.

I'm embarassed that I was so annoyed by the Israel-cheerleading that I missed this very sensible point

"In 1945, a nuclear bomb caused destruction in a 4 mile radius of where the bomb dropped.  Modern nuclear weapons might reach 2-5 times that distance (anywhere from 8 to 20 miles).  So, where exactly would Iran bomb Isreal?  I mean, I don’t mean to be an idiot here, but, if your goal is to “wipe Isreal off the map,” it doesn’t seem to me like you’re going to bomb small towns and villages, right?  Why would you waste a nuclear bomb on an insignificant target?

So, you’re going to pick a significant target, right?  Okay, so what’s that target?

It’s not that big a country and the cities seem pretty close together.  Where do you bomb that doesn’t risk damaging the Dome of the Rock and the other religious sites in your target area?

Is there really a chance that Iran would drop nuclear bombs on a country within which are some of the holiest sites of Islam?  Or are we just being told that as some kind of boogy man crap to try to scare us into thinking that we have to deal with Iran right now and swiftly?"

indeed..

from tiny cat pants