Happy Christmas Everybody!

Only three weeks to Christmas! 'Ray 'ray! Christmas wishes to all at the Untrusted and whoever else potters past...

Christmas cards

Aliens have landed!

Or, alternatively, if there are any ento... enty... etomol... erm... bug-people out there who know what this is, I would appreciate it...

The Ownership of Language

In the ongoing debate about ‘hate speech’ and the limits that can legitimately be placed upon freedom of speech, there is a sub-debate about song lyrics.

Earlier this year Deborah Finding wrote about OrelSan(1), the writer responsible for the charmingly named Sale Pute (Dirty Slut), drawing a line to lyrics by other artists such as Eminem, who have exercised both feminists and the right with their musings on life, love, bitches, bling and weaponry. She noted, however, that:

Outrage about violence and misogyny in music is almost always confined to rap and hip-hop, despite there being much to engage with elsewhere.

There are three issues here. The first is the evaluation of different types of lyrics that have a sexist / homophobic / violent edge, the second is to look at why certain styles of music seem more prone to outrage than others, and the third is whether we can differentiate between lyrics apparently similar in content based on the identity of the person delivering them.

Snow Day (short story)

http://rapidshare.com/files/294103340/Snow_Day.pdf

Why I'm confused

Ah, what on earth. Anyway - four hours after querying the deletion of my post on CIF, it has been reinstated. Thank you mods!

Why I'm here

In response to an article on Comment Is Free, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/13/bidisha-poetry-sexism-misogyny

I posted this at 13 Oct 09, 9:36am:

...sigh...
I...
...sigh...

Ducking a lot

Yes, that's largely, sadly, what feminism - or at least the debate in the mainstream media relating to feminism - means to me. But there's more to an idea than it's quasi-coverage in the press, so here goes.

Ooh, new toy, new toy

Well, here I go. Several years late for this 'blogging' thing, but that's not unusual (I have no i-pod, no camera phone, I still have a record player and write letters to people for christ's sake). But one's inherent sense of self-importance (snarf) means that this seems a natural step. Also place to post pictures. Once I work out how to do that.

did that work?

Anyway. Someone on CIF's WDYWTTA suggested a thread on 'what feminism means to me', and having just been modded from a CIF thread on, er, the 'anti-woman society', maybe that's a good place to start. Will therefore go for a walk, have a bit of a think, and see if I can string a sentence together that doesn't use the phrase 'outlying wackoes', 'hollowed-out volcano', or 'not bloody helping'.

I can't promise anything. Except that I do really try to be nice.