Marry, Shag or Cliff? Sean Bean edition
Remember the rules? It’s been a while: you must choose one of each of the three candidates to match each fate. No skipping any.
Or you could just talk about your favourite entertainments, since this is just a hook to hang some pop culture on. How about this awards season, eh?
Moral panic stifles useful dialogue on social media “trolling”
From work I’ve been doing for a forthcoming book on new media and Australian politics, I have some useful data that may partially inform this discussion in the form of Facebook wallposts from 600 Australians collected before this recent debate took off (late 2011). In recent days I’ve reanalysed this dataset to shed some light on the treatment of women in the social media space.
Utopia Girls: I’m disappointed
Guest Blogger Alex “Skud” Bayley reviews a documentary aired on the ABC about women’s suffrage in Australia, Utopia Girls: How Women Won the Vote.
Friday Hoyden: Joanna Russ
Guest post from Tansy Rayner Roberts: Joanna Russ is one of the mighty legends of the science fiction field that everyone needs to know about. As well as writing many important novels and short stories, she was a brutal literary critic, a brilliant academic, an unflinching feminist, and a devastatingly articulate commentator on gender, not only in science fiction but in the history of culture.
My rant on The Hunger Games
Here be SPOILERS!!!
I’m interested in addressing it as an instance of popular culture that again has kids tearing through books, hungry for more, at the controversy and ‘moral panic’ that it seems to be creating, and in looking at the elements of what, for me, made it something out of the league of the ‘Twilights’ of the world.
Being an Asexual Ally
Being an ally means talking to people about asexuality and accepting their identity as they describe it. It means asking questions only when you’re genuinely interested in hearing the answer. If your mindset is already fixed at “I don’t quite understand x, therefore asexuality cannot be valid,” then do everyone a favour and just walk away.
Weekend Womenscraft: baking for AdaCamp
The Ada Initiative, a group promoting women in open source and open culture, had their first AdaCamp in early January. In order to save some money, and because I like food to be inclusive for everyone, Brianna and I volunteered to do all the baking ourselves.
“But it’s Christmas!” “But I don’t care!”
This is a Summer Slowdown Guest Post (thanks again, QoT!) – a repost of a blog post from last year.
I don’t intend to hassle the Vegetarian Society here as I think they’re offering some good, calming advice to their members. I just want to provide the more bolshy advice on stuff like this:
Guest BFTP Post: CLITORIS CLITORIS CLITORIS!
This is a Summer Slowdown Guest Post (thanks QoT!) – a repost of a blog post from earlier this year. Clearly the media meme of the month is “won’t someone think of the children, and the imaginary innocence we ascribe to them in order to justify our lack of openness about basic anatomy because it’s ~icky~?”
Friday Hoyden: Emilia
In Othello, it is Emilia, unfortunate wife of the villainous Iago, who delivers the woman’s equivalent of Shylock’s more famous “Has not a Jew eyes?” speech.
Such is the focus on the central couple that it is easy to forget that two husbands kill their wives in this play.
Parking Permit scheme collecting sensitive medical information – for no reason
It is a violation of Australian privacy law to collect private medical information, which is specifically designated “sensitive information”, without a damn good reason. Is anyone making a noise about this?
Repost/Crosspost: because this PSA is still needed: “Can I talk to you?” troll
If you have recently received a random message or contact from an unknown person containing text similar to the title, it may be a troll.
Border Gimps: Living on the Border
Over the last many years I have struggled with physical limitations. I and a few friends like me, have come to call ourselves “Border Gimps”, especially since society not only loves to have a name for things, but also to help sort through the current “P.C. phrase of the month”. Now I know there are as many thoughts on that sort of thing as there are people to think them, but here is how I and mine define it.


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