…is not dead, or even relegated to bands hailing from the early 90s.
I went to a concert the other day – The Two Funerals – and the lead singer introduced the most of the songs in this fashion:
“This song’s about how fucked up racism and sexism is.” *feedback* *feedback* *powerchord* *scream*
I feel… elated.
Having just watched the season finale, I’m really confused about Glee. It’s supposed to be one of those show, you know, ‘On the surface, it’s all song and dance, but deeper inside lies a heartwarming story about growing up, family, et cetera’ With added campiness, of course.
Or something.
I’m beginning to think it’s just the opposite. On the surface, it’s trying to be slightly revolutionary – the first musical show that’s really made it big, a ‘realistic’ portrayal of teenage pregnancy, a gay kid with a supportive jockish dad, Idina Menzel as a surrogate mother for two gay dads.
Wait a second…
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This is going to be slightly cynical and depressed, as I’m very tired, but continuingish from last time:
See, the problem is that most people thinks their own problems are the biggest. Not consciously, of course, but they still think so. And the people who are most like them have the second biggest problems, etc.
Most people (all people) ultimately think this way. I know I do – whatever cause I’m currently worried about (or worse, whatever personal problem I have) is of course the one I care about the most. It’s self-fulfilling.
And self-defeating.
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Minor rant alert: I just started a summer internship, hence the minor lack of posting. It’s with a non-profit organization working with intellectually disabled persons, so on the first day we of course had a long discussion on proper terminology and respect for ID persons. Reasonable enough. A particular emphasis was placed on not using the word ‘retard’ – it’s one of this organization’s big things, it seems.
But that’s where it became… odd. According to this organization’s ideas, ‘retard’ is the most offensive thing anyone could ever say, and in a larger sense they believe that discrimination against ID people is worse by far than discrimination against any other group. At some point it was even said that insulting a Black person wasn’t so bad – after all, a Black person can more easily punch you in the face! Yeah….
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There’s been a lot of talk about Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell lately, thanks to the recent Congressional vote. This being Memorial Day, I’d like to share a few thoughts on the subject.
Specifically, I keep hearing misunderstandings about to what repealing DADT means. The core of the issue is this:
Repealing DADT will not allow gay people to serve in a hitherto straight military. Instead, it will merely allow formally closeted gay people to serve openly in the military.
This is a vital distinction, especially in light of some of the bizarre garbage (read at your own risk) that has been written about DADT.
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sleater-kinney.net, the best fan site of the coolest band ever, has been an ‘account suspended’ page for quite a while now.
If you’ll indulge me a moment, this is exactly the sort of thing that bothers me about the internet. Yes, all that information is great. But what happens when the a site owner loses interest or runs out of time or money? Stuff goes away. Huge portions of the internet are just dead links, more and more every day. If it gets too bad, the internet could become almost useless for anything except for the latest couple of years worth.
So far, it’s been containable – archive.org has help that a great deal (s-k.net is on it, for instance). Even the closing of geocities went mostly unnoticed. But I’m not sure archive.org will work so well with modern, ‘Web 2.0′ style sites. What happens when, say, a livejournal-type shuts down? Or worse yet, youtube? Archive.org doesn’t cover videos… It’s kind of depressing, in a it’s-might-be-better-sticking-with-dead-trees sort of way.
In any case, I’m going to try and see if the owners of s-k.net would mind if I opened a mirror/rehosted their site – if anyone knows how to get ahold of them (as whois info is often so out of date), I’d love to know!
You’ve seen what I’m talking about: the kitten blog. Like here, or here – or even vote on the cutest kitten here.
Now, I’m the sort of person who tends to be very harsh on the kitten-blogging crowd.. Or I used to, anyway.
The way I see it, here you are. You have the most powerful communication system ever created. Do you use it to do something unique and worthwhile? No! You post pictures of kittens. Kittens! And not just the occasional kitten – kittens every day. What a waste.
I’m just a big hypocrite, of course. I’ve spent plenty of time writing about TV shows and movies, etc. While some of it is honest cultural analysis, plenty is just pointlessness. Kittens are no different.
But I think I understand more now. Kitten pictures, you see, are perhaps the purest form of escapism imaginable. A real kitten isn’t – you have to take care of a real kitten. But when you look at a picture of a kitten, you see a kind of distilled combination of cuteness, wonder, and innocence all rolled up in one ball of fur. People don’t like kitten blogs because of the kittens per se, they like them for the distraction from reality, for the wonder of the animal world without the animal. Other escapist media shrinks before the power of the tiny kitten.
Or something.
Net Neutrality is perhaps the strangest political issue around. And by strange, I mean that most people don’t seem to know what exactly it’s about, and practically nobody knows which people are on which side.
The short version is:
For Net Neutrality –> For FCC regulation of internet service providers
Against Net Neutrality –> Approximately for the status quo
Most neo-cons are against, liberals are divided, the usual.
The weirdness starts when the libertarians get involved. Their position?
Screw the politics –> develop an independent, near-unregulated internet
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I’ve been a reasonably big fan of Sick of Sarah since, well, a while (probably since ‘Not Listening’ became the theme for Brunch with Bridget), but hadn’t seen them live until several weeks ago (one of the downsides of living in a small metro area…).
I wasn’t really sure what to expect. Their online videos sound decent, but not incredible, and the album is processed enough that you might question whether they could pull it off live. Besides, even really excellent bands with years and years of experience often sound less than perfect live. It’s just the nature of rock music.
Not to worry – I was completely blown away.
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…while listening to Pat Benatar. ‘Hell Is For Children’ make me cry every time, dammit…
So I disappeared again, real life exploded on me, blah, blah, blah. I could go on and on about why, or why not, but not only does nobody care, it wouldn’t even really be true. The truth is, I got a bit fed up with the Internet, blogging, everything computer-related (rather ironic for someone whose future career relies almost entirely on computers…). I burnt out without the excuse of having burning sufficiently beforehand.
About three months ago, I even made a blogging schedule – one day I was going to write about technology, one day politics, one day crosspost from Fourth Wave. It lasted for one day. Lovely. General weirdness/fights across teh interwebs only made things worse, first with a bunch of feminist blogs shutting down or going on hiatus (I know, I know…), and secondly the weirdness surrounding the lesbianish web-sphere (someday I’ll put all my feelings on Afterellen vs. Shewired vs. Autostraddle vs. the world down, but not now…)
I still haven’t completely gotten over it all, either, but I also miss writing rather badly. So here I am.
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