Links to various things of interest

[sunnyskywalker]

In case you're wondering about 2009's continuing campaign to annoy me to death, let it be known that I have a cold. An irritating, perfectly ordinary cold. I blame the youth. As one of the teachers at the school says, the students are plague rats. (If you feel like you're fighting off a cold for about two days, this means you will be slammed with the full-blown cold shortly. Just to warn you.) On the bright side, my sister came home to visit, and she's awesome and we had a great time.

Okay, links. I would love to talk at length about Tobias Buckell's Ragamuffin and David Anthony Durham's Acacia: The War with the Mein, but I need to use all my critical thinking skills for writing a sample grant proposal for a class. (I'm learning all about web accessibility issues, the subject of my pretend grant. I can use some of this at work!) So file those under "Coming Soon."

From Feminist SF - The Blog!, the post I Will Not Die For Your Amusement. Yonmei reacts to the trailer for Lesbian Vampire Killers. This is not, as it might sound, a movie about Willow Rosenberg and friends killing vampires. Read that imdb synopsis and Yonmeis post and join me in saying, "Seriously? Someone actually made that movie?"

Using Willow as a transition, next is Willow (from Buffy) on Columbus Day and Thanksgiving. It's about that awful Thanksgiving episode where some an Ancient Indian Curse^TM releases vengeful Chumash ghosts on Sunnydale just in time for Thanksgiving. Willow points out that the Chumash have good reason to be upset and doesn't want to kill them. But as it turns out, there's no other solution to save the town from the marauding ghostly horde - they're just forced to kill them all, because the Chumash can't be reasoned with and have no motive but killing white folks who just want to have a nice turkey dinner. Forced, I tell you!

Waaaay back, a Jewish woman named Eliza Davis called Charles Dickens on his anti-Semitic portrayal of Fagin in Oliver Twist. He eventually tried to do better. I did not know that! (I also imagine a lot of this soon: "If Charles Dickens can pull up his pants and make the effort, you can too!")

Expanded Horizons A webzine I sadly don't have time to read just now, but will soon. From their "What We're About" section: "The mission of this webzine is to increase diversity in the field of speculative fiction, both in the authors who contribute and in the perspectives presented. We feature speculative fiction stories and artwork, as well as essays about speculative fiction and fandom from diverse points of view."

Vatican Defends Brazil Excommunication Dad rapes 9-year-old daughter. Mom helps daughter get abortion (of twin fetuses with very little likelihood of surviving) to save daughter's life. Catholic Church excommunicates mom and doctor; calls abortion a "more serious" crime than the rape. Depressing situation all around.

Comments

[4thofeleven.livejournal.com]

I have the vague urge to write an 'Iron Dream'-esque parody, with the story being presented as an artifact from an alternate timeline... it'd revolve around a group of German settlers in the Lebensraum, dealing with evil Slavic spirits bent on revenge and ruining Reich Victory Day... Obviously, the Germans would be vaguely apologetic throughout for the historical necessity of depopulating Eastern Europe.

Is it just me, or does it seem like the Catholic church's current policy is to distract attention from their current controversy by doing something even worse? You'd think one controversial excommunication related issue a year would be enough...

[sunnyskywalker]

Write it, write it!

I am not sure what the Catholic Church is thinking. "If we kick out all the people who want to be Catholic but aren't totally committed to policies we made up piecemeal over the centuries (but we won't actually tell you about all the times we've changed our minds about stuff, mind), maybe everyone else will be inspired and come back all reformed!" doesn't sound like it would convince anyone. I mean, talk about alienating your user base.

[plasticinecupid.livejournal.com]

If nothing else, that Buffy episode is an illustration of how people stereotypically view Natives. The characters' reactions might have been merely realistic, but the portrayal of the Chumash was awful- painful to watch if you're coming at it from the perspective a Native viewer. But I guess the Buffy writers and producers were thinking of Natives in past tense, not considering them as viewers, or as sources/authors who could contribute to the show's authenticity.

[sunnyskywalker]

Mm, yes. The main cast was convincing as a group of liberalish people who consciously think genocide is wrong, but don't know what they're talking about and have absorbed a bunch of stereotypes in childhood without ever going back and interrogating them. Unfortunately, the episode supports that viewpoint as the "most right" one. About half the problems that episode has might have been solved if the writers had spent another ten minutes researching the Chumash to find out about little details like them not all being dead after all.

Although it does seem like they should have known better, considering they actually had a line about how this wasn't the homestead being attacked (or maybe they said Alamo - totally the same groups involved, right?), and then led the episode to exactly that conclusion. How much more blatant can you get with the "actually, the stereotype is totally true!" moment than that?

[plasticinecupid.livejournal.com]

Don't remember the homestead thing, and I really don't want to re-watch it. But it was amusing when Spike kept getting skewered by arrows while tied to the chair.

Speaking of pain, I meant to say that I hope you're getting over your cold. It seems like everyone's sick and gloomy. We all need to snap out of it soon.

[sunnyskywalker]

Spike getting beat up and shot never gets old, man. He acts like you stole his cookie and gave him a papercut.

I'm improving, thanks :D I'm mainly just irritated because I got so far behind in my first quarter of library school due to little things like this - not what I had in mind!