lotusland - nervous politics from a laid-back city

kinky didnt win

please suggest a new cause celebre for my sidebar

id say posting a meme is worse than not posting... so readers, please take this bitchslap from me in stride

this meme is old but i dont care:
A new tag game about “five things feminism has done for me” is going around the net. The purpose of the game is to raise awareness against federal conserative efforts of eliminating the status of women commission.

All you have to do is name five things feminism has done for you.

let me begin by saying that this project of feminism was formalized and codified by my mothers generation and all my generation has done is absorb it uncritically as a meaningless catchphrase.  we suck.

so here are five things i may like about feminism initially but serve to establish how much we suck:

1. free birth control.  if you happen to know any of them men ive had the occasion to boink, youll note that the world has been spared the belligerent and numerous superbreed that would have resulted if i was crossed with burly musclemen and science nerds.   my brood would be singularly equipped for world domination, people.

yay for science and funding those people who improved the iud.  now its the most popular birth control in the world (except in retarded ass north america where most girls i know who are on birth control are choosing the pill because they just want to take what everyone else is taking, theyre too fucking pathetic to just endure menstruation, and they uncritically accept that we live in a pill-popping culture.)

2. separating the men from the boys on the left:  its popularly accepted that the left is a nice political home for feministas, but this is not the case.  marx discussed economic class societies and exploring racial and gender inequality was also articulated as this type of critique as well.  needless to say, the folk who resist, whether revolutionaries or incrementalists, have this stupid tendency to ignore or mock feminist issues because they characterize the movement as a way for hypereducated bourgeois daughters to stop thinking critically and just blindly accept oppressed status despite their privileged backgrounds.  there is also criticism of the judith butler type feminist who engage in pedantic bullshit about 'performing gender' that only speaks to the proverbial hypereducated bourgeois daughter, which diverts academic resources from valuable emancipatory projects to this indulgent crap.   also, we find criticism of the martha nussbaum incrementalism type feminism that relies on man-dominated electoral structures to advance its goals (which is apparently proof women are not oppressed since we can force men to listen to us). 

so when some dude goes on and on about non-gender forms of oppression and how people need to be empowered and given a voice and how we cant decide for others and in the same breath decides for all women that feminism is now useless, this is your cue to lean back in your chair and silently scoff at the person who (probably hasnt been laid in yonks) refuses to accept that sometimes women see things that he does not and that he is not some fucking transcendental  prophet who he can decide what women require.

3. stupid spoiled whores:  women are hoes these days, and feminism approves.  too bad that for every delectably skankalicious jewel of womankind who is out there half-naked performing gender and emasculating all the stupids who buy her drinks, there are 20 insecure little tarts who are hating on her skankpower (while dressed just as whorish) and throwing themselves at mates in vain hopes that such contact may result in marriage and personal validity. 

its ok if men like us for being sexy but we should like it more than they do.

4. coochie wipes and other reasons women spend ridiculously more money on shit than men:  while feminism has demonstrated what can be achieved by pushing for reform within the system, the failure of feminism to engender critical womanhood has kind of left women slaves to the market.  we are so stupid and we spend so much money on shit and trinkets as a source of identity-affirmation, fun, and freedom and men are usually the ones being paid for this at the end of the day.  this is why things like individually-wrapped moist towlettes attached to pads which help you get rid of your awful lady smells exist and  individually-wrapped disenfectant q-tips for the dick do not.  men dont get off on buying things to solve their problems the way we do.

the 'freedom' to express yourself through consumer goods (which makes you work more and subsidizes some rich wanks leisure) does not sit well with any definition of freedom worth my time.

5. as a kid i had a lot of female figures to look up to.  maybe it was tokenism but there were women in charge, from people in my community to famous folk.  there are groups of people who still lack representatives in the public sphere and that shit is just wrong.  its evidence of my privilege and this age that i could go to the library in elementary school and see history books with female figures and content about female life.  and yeah, i dont find jeanne sauvee and kim campbell inspiring anymore, but there is something to be said for going to the library, getting a book called 'prime ministers of canada' and finding at least one representative of my gender in there.  yeah, its tokenism, but symbols can be powerful in their own limited way.

math tutoring racket... ha!

i thought this would be of note to all the parents out there.  my sister was always into the slack now/pay later, quick fix method of education and was constantly pestering my parents to get her tutors.  she found some great ones through word-of-mouth, and the endorsements were genuine as nobody was making commission on the transaction.

seriously, hiring grade 12 kids to pimp your seminar out to their classmates for commission? 

omg, can it be true... RIP, homie

even the lame deserve to be mourned

in case youre wondering what happened to the canadian alliance

they moved to mexico

hat tip to sven, who recently admitted he has been lying to me about being swedish

best. popup. ever.

of course stephen harper threatens gays and women... now, wheres my free ipod at?

i wasnt browsing disnys.com for any other reason besides the fact jerry jackson links to it.

tagged by daveberta!

so, ive returned to the vancouver.  i cant say dick about shit, because its been a week since ive read the news, or any of your lovely blogs.  ill brief myself tomorrow morning or something.  sure, im on the internet now, but im in an insomniac daze.  i lost my new book and i was only 1/8 through the damn thing, and i believe it is being pissed off over this that has rendered me sleepless.  that, or this is a symptom of mezcal withdrawal.

i think i can handle a meme right now.

Four jobs you've had in your life:
sunday school teacher, law firm coffee and copies bitch, drummer, esl/fsl tutor

Four movies you could watch over and over:
the conformist, full metal jacket, do you remember dolly bell, what have i done to deserve this 

Four places you've lived:
burnaby and ottawa.  this is why i go on vacation, people.

Four TV shows you love to watch:
trailer park boys, reno 911, south park, this space for rent

Four places you've been on vacation:
italy, jamaica, spain, newfoundland

Four websites you visit daily:
detached observer, politicaltheory.info, stageleft, bbc world news
 

Four of your favorite foods:
is red wine a food?  i like roasted seaweed, salmon donburi, green beans, and daal

Four places you'd rather be:
berlin, pyongyang, boston, in mali waiting for the festival in the desert to start

Four albums you can't live without:
aphex twin - come to daddy
gogol bordello - multi kontra culti vs irony
adriano celentano - le robe che ha detto celentano
gustav mahler - death in venice

Four vehicles I've owned:
transit or bust, bitches.

So, assuming this is how it works, I tag the following four people for this meme:
I TAG YOU ALL!
 

lotusland family christmas card, 1984

who has bags under their eyes at age one?  future middle-of-the-night bloggers, that's who! merry christmas. 

update du jour

i havent been blogging lately.  i will list excuses/reasons

1. drinking and karaoke.  wednesdays and saturdays at the legion on main and 23rd.
2. readings
3. gaming

DO YOU UNDERSTAND?

i love rosemary, sasha, brian, aija, and everyone else.

UPDATE:  last night, philly c bought me multiple gin and tonics.  i did not pay him for them at all.  i also did not need said g&t's because i was already well soused thanks to the art of putting vodka and chaser in venti cups and drinking them on the bus with a "we're not yuppies, we're undercover winos" smirk on one's face.  anyway, the point of this update wasnt to make me sound like more of an ass than previously established.

the point of this update is to declare, with the blogosphere as my witness, that i officially owe two pitchers of delicious bzzr at koerners pub to one philly c, reppin the ubc projects. 

obviously im sharing the pitchers with you, hello.

best looking politician. ha!

you know you want to vote.

i couldnt bring myself to vote for any of the men.  the only hot men linked to politics are junichiro koizumi and mikhail khodorkovsky, oligarch.  koizumi rocks that 'do way harder than pettigrew, man.

OMG ITS AIRBRUSHEDZZZ!

if theres one thing that weirds me out, it's the public's obsession with pointing out flaws in pretty people so they can feel better about themselves.  oh, i mean, because it's interesting to see what someone can do with an airbrush tool.  this is very groundbreaking because nobody knows that airbrushes are used to conceal flaws and blemishes.  i mean, it's not the common usage of the word 'airbrushing' has become a verb specifically referring to that practice.

wow, who gives a shit?  oh, it's all us girls who are supposed to feel inadequate after looking at these ads and centrefolds.  oh, seeing those wrinkles and zits and folds of fat on a supermodel has really given me a sense of self-worth!  I HAVE THOSE TOO! 

when will people stop treating this sort of crap as truly interesting?  how dumb and delusional do you have to be to notice that the people you see everyday look nothing like models?

wow, the reason everyone in magazines looks perfect is because some dork spends hours fiddling with photo editing software!!  who knew!!

people who have anniversaries but arent even married or whatever

this is going to be a bullshit personal post.  it's just that this puzzles me.

i have been with lotusland boyfriend since... i dont know?  we met in january '04, we sort of became a nerd alliance in may?  (i think).  during this time, we managed to stay in love without having an anniversary.  this period of dating incorporated all the requisite sappy bullshit, like presents and restaurant dates and movies and walks in the park, etc.  if we had an anniversary, we wouldnt even know when it was. 

unless youre married or otherwise certified, why must you have dating anniversaries?  does it remind you that your relationship actually exists?  does it convince you the relationship is "going somewhere" (that euphemism we employ when we mean the relationship is terminal and marriage-bound)? 

warren kinsella is not old, ok?

to the globe reporter who made warren kinsella feel like a fossil:

yknow, when youre in the presence of people who have lived hippie/punk/new wave, you dont have to sit there and remind them you were non-existant/a fetus/an infant at the time.  its just not kosher.  yes, punk got off its feet in the 70s.  you didnt even have any.  we get it.  ok.  i dont know if you noticed, but punk is still happening (though some snobs will bemoan its current state and all that).  people dont find that 'ooh i wasnt even born yet' shit endearing until theyre like 80.  duh.

i dont see the need for ageism.  all my generation has managed to do in the rock department is bring us crappy emo.  show some shame!

the essence of blogging

we came to the buchanan c computer lab so she could write more of her thesis and i could sit around and blog, but instead of working on her thesis, my friend natalie-anne produced this work of ms paint art entitled "ainge's life in buchanan c," a beautiful jpeg which captures the essence of blogging.

russian math nerds are taking over the world

"Everyone knows that Russians are good at maths," said Lieutenant General Boris Miroshnikov of the division known as Department K. "Our software writers are the best in the world, that's why our hackers are the best in the world."

"It used to be naughty boys (doing this)," he said. "But now they've grown up. They realize if you are clever at something then you should use it to earn a living. They are hacking to get rich and uniting over networks."

 

be vigilant

and start being nice to grown-up 'naughty boys' like that... no names mentioned... no url's hyperlinked... oh, and in your face american college kids who read the holy scripture of huntington and say things like "new cold war" - it's still the russians we have to watch out for.