Here, Bunny Bunny

I think rabbits are great. We had one for a while when I was in college, and a white lab rat. I got cats after moving into my own pad, so....*ahem*...were I to bring home an animal of the lepus or rattus persuasion, I'm afraid the cats would be -- well, quite pleased, I'm sure they'd want me to bring home dinner on the paw every night if I did that.

So, rabbits and certain other animals are not the pet for me, alas.

But, in the interests of furthering YOUR education (I'm such a giver), I present, to you, "How To Say 'Rabbit'". A collection of, you guessed it, the word for "rabbit" in various tongues. Fascinating.

Won't You Just Be Out For Blood?

Jane Elliot says in a PBS interview, among other things, that the fear of being oppressed helps drive the continuation of oppression.

"Every time I do the eye-color exercise, that very fear is expressed. Some white person will say to the person of color sitting beside him or her, "If people of color get on top, aren't they going to want to treat us the way we've treated them?" And every time it's over, some male turns to the female beside him and says, "If you women get power, aren't you going to want to do to us what we've done to you?" Isn't that interesting? We know what we're doing and we fear the consequences."

Speaking for me, no, I don't want my freedoms and to be treated like a first class citizen so that I can oppress you. I want them so that I can be free.

Sigh, sigh, sigh

Of all houseguests, death comes to you with the hardest of gifts to accept.

Curses, again!

Apparently, I'm still extremely amused by An tInneal Mallachtaí - The Curse Engine, because here I am, posting about it again. I just love it. No, really.

May a pack of drunken Fomorians destroy your ill-gotten wealth.

becomes

Go scriosa scata Fomhórach ólta do chuid airgid caim.

giggle

that's guh SHKRIH-suh SKAH-tuh FO-wohr-ukh OLE-tuh duh khwihj A-rih-gihj KAH-ihm.

Mwahahahahahhaha

Villain Supply -- Your Online Source for Everything Evil.

<Foghorn Leghorn>Mwa ha, I say, mwa ha.</Foghorn Leghorn>

Busy Bee

Buzz, buzz, buzz. Ate lunch with a fellow wannabe-filmmaker (a misnomer for me, anyway, but, there you have it -- I do want to write scripts, and I am focusing on fiction at the moment instead. It's a win-win, so long as I'm writing) and we dished Corporate Filmmaking and Hollywooooood Blockbusters™. Janis told 'em all about the gender-reversed ***** idea of hers, and I have really got to pick up a copy of the script for ***** so I can parody it. Why? Because I think it'd be even funnier as a straight parody, if I can use such a phrase.

Saw Two Towers again, swept up my brain on the way out of the theatre.

Saw, oh thank God and U.K. le Guin, the 1980 PBS production of "The Lathe of Heaven". A much, much, much, much, much truer adaptation of the book. I wonder if anyone's ever thought about Earthsea films. Maybe animated? There is a fantastic interview on the DVD with her and BIll Moyers. Ooo, ooh, ooh.

Curses!

...foiled again [oh, yeah, like I'm gonna resist that line -- dream on, friend].

In lighter news, Diane Duane has a weblog, which I didn't know until today, and in even less-weighty news, she links to An tInneal Mallachtaí, the Irish Curse Engine.

So, if you ever wanted to know how to curse someone, saying,

"May a pitiless bureaucrat gnaw at your good reputation",

it's

"Go gcreime maorlathaí míthrócaireach do dhea-chlú.".

Now you know. You lucky dog, you.

Phonetically: "guh GREH-muh MWEER-lah-hee MEE-hro-kwih-ruhkh duh YAH KHLOO"

A Note On Grief

Grief is a deep pool, clear and sharply cold. When thrown into it for the first time, we flail, panic, and struggle to reach the surface and air. Sometimes you can't even see the light, you get thrown down so deep and so dark.

That very first dunking results in complete destruction, or, a gasping breaching of the surface.

Gradually, flailing about, we learn to tread water, a little, though the cold never stops pricking at your skin.

The water in the pool is salty, like tears, but not buoyant, and there is only ever a little numbness from the cold. The pool is refreshed with each new tragedy, each new loss, layer upon layer of new waters.

Over time, the deeper, older griefs grow dark and still upon the rocky bottom of broken hearts and promises, and are only rarely disturbed by our passage through the fresher waters.

When thrown in, there is no telling from the surface if the deeper waters have been disturbed this time, that time, until we breach once more, gasping for air and tasting old salt on our lips, or feel the deep, deep cold curl around a naked limb, a dark weed from the heavy places.

The pool never goes away. In time, perhaps, we become better swimmers.


If you think this addressed specifically to you, you're only partly right.

Covetcovetcovet

Someone, give me William Rubel's book as a gift! C'mon! *whine*whine*whine*

I could write a really long review, but I won't

I just can't do it justice. Do what justice, you ask? Sidra saw LOTR: The Two Towers on Sunday.

My mind still isn't sitting right inside my head.

There is, however, one moment that I'll share, that shored up my faith for a while in the basic goodness of humanity. Everyone in the movie theater held their breath -- every single one of us -- when Treebeard stepped out of the forest, carrying Merry and Pippin, and saw what Isengard had become.

That was a truly visceral and personal condemnation of blind progress for progress's sake, and one that completely stopped the audience in its tracks.

USA Patriot A*r*t

FREEDOM ILLUSTRATED -- The Art of Civil Liberties

"Artists have always been at the forefront of the global fight for free expression. Recently, they have pricked the nation's conscience in the face of Government assaults on individual rights in the name of national security."

"Beginning this month, the ACLU will present civil liberties issues online through the eyes of political cartoonists and other artists. This rotating feature will change periodically, and will cover breaking news on the full gamut of civil liberties issues. "

Go and look.

This is Sick

You sick, trigger-happy, pieces of shit. I hope you never enjoy a moment's peace. Tennessee police shoot family dog during erroneous pullover of North Carolina family. Idiots, idiots, idiots.

I am serious about my patriotism, which is why I get so angry, so worried about what's happening in my country right now. It's stories like this, and those of pregnant woman getting manhandled in airport security, of more and more mid-level authority figures over-the-fuck-reacting, as well as the Big-Time Fears™ of the US Constitution being fucking trampled on, that make me want to turn and RUN for the nearest border. Do not pass GO, do not collect $200. Just get out.

I am worse than appalled. I am flabbergasted and sickened.

Speaking of...

Lathe of Heaven films -- now on DVD, even the 1980 PBS one! Yes!

*click* *click*

Ordered. Ain't Amazon grand?

Define "wartime president"

Court Rules U.S. Can Hold Citizens as 'Enemy Combatants'

How Appealling scooped 'em all.

Grass-Roots v. National-Level Activism and the "Younger Generation(s)"

I was listening to NPR yesterday to a report on the students of a high school (either in Trenton NJ, or University City -- Philadelphia) who were participating in community service as part of their junior high/high school education. (Apparently it's the norm these days to require community service. I'm not so sure I'm happy with the mandatory nature of this, but that's not what I'm here to talk about.)

So, these kids are off developing great habits of helping members of their community, directly, individually, personally, and you know what the program is complaining about? That the kids aren't pursuing their activism at a national level.

Well, you can just cry me a river.

Honestly, I listened to this and said to myself, no matter what we "young people" do, the Boomer generation is always going to bitch about it.

Participating in grass-roots activism? Well, then why aren't you working at a national level?

Working at a national level? Well, then why aren't you serving your immediate community? There are soup kitchens that need staffing, dammit! (Be sure to accompany this with an outraged fist-on-the-table pounding.)

Why is individual activism attractive to people of my generation and younger? The post-Boomer era? I'll tell you why:

1. I can see the impact I have, right up front, and know that I'm truly affecting my community.
2. I've spent my entire life being yelled at by large blocs that my individual view isn't important, but hand over the money.
3. If I join a national organization, I'm furthering your agenda. If I lay my hands, money, and mind directly on the line, I'm furthering MY agenda. Given the ease of immediate, personal and direct speech, a la the Internet, why would I want 80% of my dollar to go to your ends? Sure, if I didn't have a closer, more direct outlet, I'd be pouring my heart and soul into NOW or the ACLU, trying to have an impact through that organization, and rightly so. But I don't need to.

Oh, poor you, big national structure suddenly abandoned. Gee.

So what. Who cares if we're the "Quieter Generations"? The ones who go volunteer in soup kitchens. Who fund scholarships at our local high school. Who buy books for the library one block over. Who give money to save the county animal shelter.

These are all things that need to be done, and they don't conflict with national activism. These high schoolers aren't going to skip voting because they're active on the local level. (No, they'll skip voting because they feel it has no impact. Recent presidential election a case in point). And as they get older, their idea of community, of local, will get much, much bigger.

So, be happy to see local activism. Because building a good world, and being a decent person is not just about federal legislation, about activism at the national level. Not just? More like hardly ever.

If you want to read an interesting book on the political activism of the "younger set", check out A New Kind Of Party Animal, by Michele Mitchell. The next time I hear someone lament about my slacker generation, I'm going to smack them in the face with a copy of it.