betsy's fair and balanced stuff

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Thu, 15 May 2008 17:59:00 +0000

woohoo california! woohoo!

from the sf gate article on the supreme court decision:

(05-15) 10:31 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- Gays and lesbians have a constitutional right to marry in California, the state Supreme Court said today in a historic ruling that could be repudiated by the voters in November.

In a 4-3 decision, the justices said the state's ban on same-sex marriage violates the "fundamental constitutional right to form a family relationship." The ruling is likely to flood county courthouses with applications from couples newly eligible to marry when the decision takes effect in 30 days.

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Wed, 07 May 2008 02:14:00 +0000

i hab a code.

and i also hab a convention that i'm running in aaaaaagh holy fuck two weeks.

so it's not that i don't love you. it's just that given the new job, the cold, the convention, and everything else, time to update the blog is a little hard to find.

if my head falls off or anything, i'll let you know, though. i promise.

Jim C. Hines - Thoughts on Men and Rape

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 13:43:00 +0000

over on my corner of livejournal, we're having a bit of a goround (again) (and doesn't it just piss me off that this is still necessary) about women as people, instead of women as objects. (feminism, the belief that women are people.)

jim hines gets quite a few things right here.

Jim C. Hines - Thoughts on Men and Rape:

But of course, that's not our problem. So long as none of those girls try to punish us by playing the rape card, we've got nothing to worry about. Besides, I'm no rapist, so what more do you want? Teach the girls not to get drunk or walk alone or lead guys on, and they'll be fine.

I love that logic. I never raped anyone, so it's not my problem, and I don't have to worry about it. But have you ever wondered why such an overwhelming majority of rapists are men? Ever wonder where guys get the idea they're allowed to do that to another human being? I'll give you a hint. Step one in learning to rape? Learn to see your victim as a thing, rather than a person.

But like I said, none of this is our problem as guys. None of us have ever contributed to the idea that women are objects, things to be ogled and grabbed and used. None of us have ever laughed along with the demeaning jokes, or watched one of our buddies work to get a girl drunk in order to get her into bed. None of us have made excuses for a man who grabs a woman's breast without permission. Oh, no. None of us have done a damn thing.

Forgive me if I sound a little bitter. Let's just say that after you sit there in a closed room with one of your best friends who's screaming because she just bumped into her rapist a few minutes ago, it becomes harder to worry about the guys feeling picked on because I was so rude as to suggest maybe this is our problem too.

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 03:11:00 +0000

so! are you going to fourth street fantasy con? i am.

it is, for the record, not invitational, and not sold out.

elizabeth bear is the guest of honor. many other fine people are coming. there will be a chapbook published with pictures of my friend elise's jewelry, with things written by people about the jewelry. there will also be the traditional things at a convention, including food, drink, and good people to hang out with and talk to.

i never went to the original set of fourth streets. i had just resigned myself to the fact that i was not going to invent a time machine in my spare time and go back and make one of them. and then lydy, bless her, decides we should have another one. so here we are. and here i am, registered.

it's going to be a very fun time. you should come.

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 17:24:00 +0000

went to applecon this weekend, and it was fun. i was not certain i'd love it, as while i think that convention music, pie, and card games are all fine things they are not my favoritest.

however, it was good. there was tasty tasty food (olives and cheese and crackers and um, other things, but i like saltiness so that's where i went), and good people to talk to, and more pictures taken of me (this being friends with photographers stuff is okay by me) and staying out too late and chattering animatedly on the way home with my friend rachael who i gave a ride to. also, i totally lost a game of wizard, which i had never played before.

now i just have to go to bed at a reasonable hour so that getting up early to go to my new job in the morning will be easier. note that i did not say easy. oy.

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 05:45:00 +0000

i just realized i am about to have a pants crisis. my size has changed drastically over the last three years or so, and at the same time, evil jeans manufacturers have put spandex in everything. i like spandex. spandex has many fine uses. but not in my jeans.

my current solution to this is to buy used pants off of ebay, but eventually, other people will run out of pants to sell me.

i suspect a conspiracy. darn those pants manufacturers. darn them to heck.

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 17:00:00 +0000

this is probably tmi for some of you, but you're all strong and smart and can deal. (hi mom! hi dad!)

dear katherine kersten: you are a pinhead.

Here's another myth: that young women are as eager to hop in the sack as young men.

based on my own personal experience, which is a sample size only one less than the one ms. kersten draws from, i would say that women are *more* eager. because hello, have i ever been turned down a few times.

Surely, lots of women remember fighting off groping guys in high school and mashers at college frat parties. Sex with the average hormone-driven guy -- who sometimes can't wait to brag about "scoring" -- is supposed to be enticing or empowering to women? Give me a break.

it is neither enticing or empowering. however, i happen to think reasonably well of most men, unlike ms. kersten, and think that while hormones are a strong driver of people in general, it is in fact possible to be reasonable, adult, and caring in one's sexual relationshps, regardless of one's hormonal load or one's set of wiggly bits.

also, if having sex with "the average hormone-driven guy" is supposed to be unappealing, why in the hell would i want to marry him and *then* have sex with him?

ms. kersten, if you don't want to have sex with people you're not married to, that's fine. don't. and i am perfectly fine with providing support for other people who would rather not have sex until they're married.

however, i continue to believe that you do not get to enforce your viewpoint, and that people, especially young people, who do have sex when you'd rather they not, need support and help as well, and i am committed to providing it for them.

you go ahead and have your knitting instead of dating parties, and i'll keep volunteering at planned parenthood.

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 05:58:00 +0000

pimentos for gus has two albums out that i don't own.

when i am employed i will remedy this.

(did i not mention that part? not currently employed. pesky state budget.)

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 03:54:00 +0000

i have the absolute fucking best friends ever. okay? okay. you included, you reading this.

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 05:38:00 +0000

alstromeria. i like alstromeria. a friend had other pictures of other types of lilies up and it reminded me that i liked alstomeria and also for once i remembered what alstromeria are called, whereas usually i have to refer to them as "those ones that are on the tables at restaurants".

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 21:02:00 +0000

lystrosauruses are adorable. who knew?

i want one as a pet. they're even herbivores! which is nice, because i suspect that having a carnivorous dinosaur as a pet would likely be disappointing in that whole "hey! i was using that limb!" sort of way.

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 06:02:00 +0000

it's been far too long since i inflicted random[1] song lyrics on everyone. so here, have some!

we lost sight of everything
when we have to keep checking our backs
i think we should all just smile
come clean
and relax

[1] well, i got here in a perfectly reasonable fashion. am talking to someone in email about how not particularly subtle at all i am, which led to "um, what's that one ani song again?" which leads to looking up the lyrics to anticipate. ta-daa!

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 08:29:00 +0000

i am home from minicon. i likely should have left earlier, but i was having fun and involved in good conversations. the dogs are lying on the bed waiting for me to come over there.

there were some pretty good pictures of me taken at the convention; i have hopes of getting copies of some of them.

um. also, in other news, it's four am. so i think i'll go to sleep now.

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 17:24:00 +0000

since last we left our intrepid hero...

my mom's surgery went really really well. it was last friday. she came home the next day, is up and around, and is feeling good. we (that would be myself and the squirrel in my pocket) are all astonished and relieved and grateful.

hm. nothing else that eventful going on here.

it's finally spring. spring spring spring spring spring wheeee spring! so very excited.

this morning, my garage door opener broke. actually, it broke last night, but it was dark and there was no way anyone might come out to try and fix it, so i left it alone over night. this morning, i was trapped. trapped! but lt came out and helped me get untrapped, and we have secret plans involving bolts and me buying her dinner to get it fixed.

my air and phone supplies are fine, though.

what else. i am reading charles stross' _singularity sky_, and i adore rachel mansour. adore. stross is good for stretching out my brain and also making me laugh. space lobsters, for example.

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 16:00:00 +0000

presented without further comment, shocking photos of barack obama in the native dress of his country.

tsk. what is this world coming to, i ask you.

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 04:46:00 +0000

bravery isn't not being afraid. because lord knows, only the crazy and the really not very bright aren't afraid.

bravery is being afraid and doing it anyhow.

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 19:21:00 +0000

while i am trying to take comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe (and not that this is happening because of any of us deserve it), it's a little tricky this week.

my mom's cancer has recurred.

the plan is for whatever combo of surgery/chemo/radiation to get rid of it, and for her to spend another seventeen years in remission; that being how long it's been since the last time.

i'll let you all know how that plan works.

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 21:16:00 +0000

i was raised in the wild by infp's, but here i am as a grownup, and i'm an isfj.

You Are An ISFJ

The Nurturer

You have a strong need to belong, and you very loyal.

A good listener, you excel at helping others in practical ways.

In your spare time, you enjoy engaging your senses through art, cooking, and music.

You find it easy to be devoted to one person, who you do special things for.

In love, you express your emotions through actions.

Taking care of someone is how you love them. And you do it well!

At work, you do well in a structured environment. You complete tasks well and on time.

You would make a good interior designer, chef, or child psychologist.

How you see yourself: Competent, dependable, and detail oriented

When other people don't get you, they see you as: Boring, dominant, and stuck in a rut

What's Your Personality Type?

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 21:56:00 +0000

health care costs per capita, graphed against life expectancy. the united states is pulling really very high numbers in one of these!

sadly, it's high health care costs.

as far as life expectancy goes, we're slightly ahead of cuba. which spends less than we do by at least one possibly two orders of magnitude.

(hat tip to the old hippie, whose blog i got to via avedon carol's sideshow.)

(edited to add: sorry about the ugliness of the graph; i had to mess with the size of it to get it to fit.)

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 22:30:00 +0000

stuff white people like. funny, and so. so. so. true.

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:41:00 +0000

the secret lives of badgers

we are, as you already knew, houseproud, have a tendency towards chewing on things, and scared of thunderstorms.

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 21:01:00 +0000

this result reflects the fact that there's a decent chance i'd kill and eat you, if i could catch you to do so, which mostly i can't. oh, well.

39%

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 23:38:00 +0000

Moon in the Window

I wish I could say I was the kind of child
who watched the moon from her window,
would turn toward it and wonder.
I never wondered. I read. Dark signs
that crawled toward the edge of the page.
It took me years to grow a heart
from paper and glue. All I had
was a flashlight, bright as the moon,
a white hole blazing beneath the sheets.

� Dorianne Laux
from Facts About the Moon

(my parents let me use my bedside table light instead of a flashlight. but, yeah.)

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 20:48:00 +0000

as a feminist and beginner anti-racism activist, this election season has aggravated the heck out of me. there is a plausible woman candidate. there is a plausible candidate who is a person of color.

and here i've been, rooting for the old white guy.

i think that it's important to elect people of various genders and races and orientations and sizes and abilities.

but i also think it's at least as important to elect people who will *work for* people of various genders and races and orientations and sizes and abilities.

and john edwards has been singing out about the economic inequality in our current system, and how to make it better for everyone.

And we will lift you up with our dream of what's possible: one America -- one America that works for everybody; one America where struggling towns and factories come back to life, because we finally transformed our economy by ending our dependence on oil; one America where the men who work the late shift and the women who get up at dawn to drive a two-hour commute and the young person who closes the store to save for college, they will be honored for that work; one America where no child will go to bed hungry, because we will finally end the moral shame of 37 million people living in poverty; one America where every single man, woman and child in this country has health care; one America with one public school system that works for all of our children; one America that finally brings this war in Iraq to an end and brings our servicemembers home with the hero's welcome that they have earned and that they deserve.

(from his speech today, in new orleans, ending his presidential bid.)

thank you, senator edwards.

now i'm going to go sniffle some and write some more analysis documents for work.

noreply@blogger.com (betsyl) — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 15:37:00 +0000

in the spirit of asking for what i want:

Get your own valentinr

valentines!

you can either sign up, or else do anonymous ones.

but i like valentines, i do. i like getting them.