So let’s imagine I gather a group of other militant vegetarians, and we all agree that it is morally wrong to consume animal products. We decide that it is so wrong that we want to ban everyone – everyone in the world – from doing so. So we form a group, and we speak to society and our spokesperson says: “We believe that it’s a sin to eat animal flesh and to wear leather! Animals are creatures capable of pain and should not be killed!” Yeah, you know what would happen. We’d be laughed off the stage. People would refuse to even entertain the idea of eschewing meat just because one group of people believed it was wrong. I would be told “You think it’s wrong, don’t do it. Don’t force your beliefs on everyone else,” So why does society even give anti-choicers a platform to speak? Why is it not saying the same to them?

• There's two great sets of photos by photographer Dulce Pinzon: Superheroes, looking at some everyday migrant Mexican and Latin@ super heroes in the US, exploring the idea of the hero; and Multiracial, a series of portraits seeking to challenge the concept of race. Both of these collections are very cool.


• Forthwritten hosts a discussion on some of the issues regarding steampunk, talking about questioning the ideology and whether the distinction between the superficial steampunk and the actual Victorian history is important.

  In celebrating the figure of the adventurer and explorer, steampunk buys into certain assumptions. One: that there are places to explore and discover - the idea that a land can only be discovered by your culture, and has been previously unexplored even if people have been living there for centuries. Two: that, as naraht points out, "deep down, or perhaps not so deep down, there's a sense in steampunk that having an empire must after all have been rather fun".



• Yeloson talks about the Ever Moving Goalposts of Legitimacy, about all the things we have to do when we're talking about race before we can be considered legitimate, otherwise, TROLLTIME. I was thinking about this idea yesterday, that we have to consider all possible issues, that we have to prove ourselves, and above all that we're supposed to be polite, before we can be considered legitimate, when the truth is our concerns are illegitimate no matter how we frame them, and no matter what 'controversial' topic we're discussing.


• I am a big fan of growing your own food, or buying from farmers markets, or going for it yard-share style, and I'm a big fan of reducing the consumption of heavily processed goods, but I've never really understood the attraction to heirloom varieties of vegetables. Reading this report by the US Organic Consumers Association, Industrial Farming is Giving us Less Nutritious Food, has definitely given me something to think about in regards to all kinds of fruit and vegetable production.


• There is an interesting ad campaign coming out of Portugal, with the tag "Sedentary People Can't Run Away from Diseases. Exercise." The campaign features people looking sad, with their lower bodies transformed into chair legs. Whilst I like the pictures, and I understand the sentiment, at the same time I'm not completely comfortable with it, because it seems to give the idea that all diseases are related to exercise, whereas the truth is, no matter how much you exercise, there are some diseases that just don't care.


• Laura Agustin has a post up called Exotic Sex: Diversity, Ethnicity, Whiteness and Local Prices, looking at some signage in HK and the representation of ethnicity in selling for sex.


• After last week, when I mentioned the PSA on web-accessibility, I was lead to Accessibility is a Harsh Mistress, a post which talks about some web-accessibility stuff and whether it actually makes a difference, particularly in regards to the work of readers (tech, not people).

• Brown Betty writes Space: One More Imaginary Frontier, on the myth on which much SF is based: that of Terra Nullius.


• a nerdy PSA by angstslashhope on making your webpage more accessible


• Renee at Womanist Musings talks about activism as being what you can manage, not what you have to do.


• Appetite for Equity at Racewire: Do we care more about the chemicals on the tomatoes in the produce aisle than the people who pick them?


• Seen at Land of Meg: Plant Me, Then Eat Me


• an interesting post (and comment discussion) by Julia Serano: FAQ on cissexual, cisgender, and cis privilege, looking at language and privilege


• Mysterious Letters is a project to send a letter to every person in a small village


• An old article, by Samit Basu, The South Asian Diaspora and speculative fiction, looking at the barriers to South Asian writers in breaking the SF market, and the role that diaspora members have in that.


• Firefly has a great blog post talking about the new environmental campaign 'one million women', and I accidentally waffle a bit in the comments.


• An article in The Age, Is your boss your friend or foe?, on the blurring of lines between work and friends and the role that social media plays in that. The article also talks a little about workplace bullying.

If women want to be sexually indulgent with their lovers, they must also beware that the acts captured on videos and cameras may one day end up on the Internet. MCA Public Services and Complaints Department head Datuk Michael Chong said there had been six reports of such cases in the past 10 months. He said none of the women who complained to him was drugged or forced into sexual acts; they were all willing partners.

These days, the old west rail hub of Las Vegas, New Mexico, is little more than a dusty economic dead zone amid a boneyard of bare mesas. In national elections, the town overwhelmingly votes Democratic: More than 80 percent of all residents are Hispanic, and one in four lives below the poverty line. On February 5th, the day of the Super Tuesday caucus, a school-bus driver named Paul Maez arrived at his local polling station to cast his ballot. To his surprise, Maez found that his name had vanished from the list of registered voters, thanks to a statewide effort to deter fraudulent voting. For Maez, the shock was especially acute: He is the supervisor of elections in Las Vegas.

The U.S. State Department is supposed to issue passports to people who can provide documents showing they were born in the United States. But it has begun rejecting birth certificates, mostly belonging to Latin@s born in the Southwest, that were signed by midwives—in other words, if the applicants were born at home.

A new poll has found Australians' attitudes towards the United States are improving, but they are becoming more concerned about China's growing influence.

Well there it is, Pepsi's latest ad campaign. What exec looked at this and thought gee what a great idea, trading a Pepsi for the opportunity to rape an unconscious woman.

It was a shocking incident. In 2006, three top administrators at a Toronto high school who learned that a 14-year-old Muslim student had been sexually assaulted in a school washroom did not report it to police. Although media reported that administrators thought there was “no evidence” of the crime, it was later revealed that the principal and two vice-principals feared that reporting the crime to police might trigger further punishment of the victim – a practice followed in some fundamentalist Muslim cultures. But a symposium held in Calgary on Oct. 4 by the Sheldon Chumir Foundation for Ethics in Leadership heard from experts who characterized that decision as either “racist”, “malpractice” or simple incompetence – a tragic illustration of the cultural ignorance of some school administrators.

Deep-seated racial misgivings could cost Barack Obama the White House if the election is close, according to an AP-Yahoo News poll that found one-third of white Democrats harbor negative views toward blacks--many calling them "lazy," "violent" or responsible for their own troubles.

The psychologists found that the participants, who were asked to answer quickly, were dramatically quicker to associate the American symbols with the British actors, and the foreign symbols with the Asian Americans. The results suggest that on a subconscious level people were using ethnicity as a proxy for American identity and equating whites -- even white foreigners -- with things American.

The majority appeared to accept most cultural differences however some felt that if an Islamic mosque were to be built in Ku-ringgai, the `call to prayer’ would impinge on residents.

Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of the Muslim month of fasting, provides an annual boost for the glass bangles' industry, but behind the glittering bangles lies another story - one of child labour, poverty, deprivation and hardship.

A 10-year-old girl sprayed in the face with a chemical Friday, Sept. 26, while at a local Islamic mosque was not the victim of a hate crime, police Chief Richard Biehl said...One of the men then sprayed something through the open window and into the girl's face from a white can with a red top, according to a police report. The girl said she immediately felt burning on her face and felt "sick to her stomach," the report stated.

• "Check my what?" On privilege and what we can do about it - if you only read one thing, read this one. I want to quote the entire post (A SUMMARY: you aren't bad for having privilege, but it's real and you have it (yes, even me))


• Fighting Through the Confusion of Anger


• Calling out Privilege is not an Attack


• Mind Your Language on the role that word choice plays in opinion and situation and feeling.

A list of things around the internet this week:

• The Crafty Crow - a blog filled with crafts to do with kids. It seems kind of fun, and I thought some of the parental types on my flist might like to have a look around (and some of the non-parental types, too).


• This is visually quite stunning - lost cities.


• Articles on steampunk: New York Times; The Phoenix.


• Rejecting the model in 'model minority,', a really interesting piece about stereotypes and staying quiet.


• A blog for old times: What Claudia Wore.


• Storm Troopin' - Storm Troopers just hanging around. It's an awesome flickr set.


• I would love these: Earth bowls.


• No Impact Man talks about the worst and the best of corporate efforts on climate change.


• Chinese airships on a mission of conquest at brassgoggles.


• On Indochic, and the sort of cultural appropriation that makes me get angry and also makes me question myself (and write long blog posts that I never post).


• Bush says he quit golf over the Iraq war, like maybe that's supposed to make people feel better.


• There is allegedly a Fraggle Rock movie in the works.


• Camouflage, a series of photographs by Liu Bolin. It wasn't until I was looking at this photo that I realised that the names of the five mascots together create "北京欢迎你“ which is so clever it's nerdy.


• Series of photographs of a guy hanging out of a skyscraper, and other awesome aerial tricks.


• I can't watch TCM presents "race and hollywood: asian images in film," but everyone who can should watch it and then should tell me all about it.

• If I'm writing in Chinese, turning the capslock on allows me to write in English. I am quite excited by this discovery! It means swapping between English and Mandarin is suddenly much faster and easier.


• A newish blog: Penang - My Everlasting Love, a daily photo blog. Bercinta <333


• I had no idea that Nanyang Technological University looked so awesome. One of the really great things about Singapore is that a lot of the big buildings really do look quite awesome, like all the architects have been given free reign and gone mad in a really cool way.


• This is my new favourite photo blog: One Love Photo, she does a lot of weddings but I love the lighting she uses and some of the ideas she has. She also has some engagement sets, and, as an aside, engagement photos are things that I don't really understand.


• Article: Penguin's wetsuit puts him back in the swim of things.


• Other article: Naked cop surprises NZ car thief.


• The weather is getting cold, and I'm turning more back to curries and cookies and things that heat the kitchen up, misting the windows and warming my toes. I will miss this kitchen when we are gone from here.


• I miss salads, but they just don't feel the same when I'm wearing a heavy jumper.

1. I have a new blog: Vegan About Town, specifically for talking about things I cook and restaurants at which I eat (mostly in the Perth metro area).
   
2. Shirts and Tie, fashion tips for men.
   
3. From SMH: They sought help, but got exorcism and the Bible.
   
4. 7 Reasons the 21st Century is Making You Miserable.
   
5. A recipe that I really want to try: Indian Watermelon Curry.
   
6. A blog that is new to me: Elana's Pantry. Gluten-Free blog, interesting stuff, easily modifiable recipes (not vego).
   
7. Davyd and I have been learning to swing dance through Swing It. Our current course (Lindy 1) has just finished, and due to the upcoming Really Big Party we can't start on Lindy 2 yet. But it would be awesome if some of our friends who wanted to learn Lindy Hop went to Lindy 1 next Monday (the 31st), and then joined us for Lindy 2. How exciting!