Flying Shortbread

I haven't checked what the real etiquette is, but I think it should be... You send the spam through to the person's email and include the covering note: "Do you mind if I send you emails now and then on this Religious / Funny / Feminist / Racist / Political theme?" Then I can politely answer... "No thanks." Then, you must create a Distribution List (people who don't know how to create Distribution Lists should not be sending out spam) that excludes my address. From now on I send no spam without a covering letter - and you know we have all done it. This is the advice I would give someone receiving spam: "Reply on the email and say, "No thanks". If they send it again, "I said.... No thanks." If they send it again, "Did you not fucking hear me?... No thanks." If they send it again, "I have put a filter on your email address that will return anything you send me with a reply that say, "I SAID, "NO FUCKING T...

Yes, I guess there is absolutely no bestiality and incest going on in the world, legal or otherwise. I guess the straights aren't responsible for that in any way shape or form. It's all the fault of gay people. The logic that homosexuals are responsible for bestiality and incest escapes me. Heterosexuals' legal marriages have not rid the world of bestiality or incest. Where have you ever seen that crimes against others get legalized? Only crimes against self have been legalized. Are we crimes against humanity ? ARE HOMOSEXUALS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE BESTIALITY AND INCEST IN THE WORLD ? Is the the issue around gay marriage being equated with legalising perversion. Is the underlying issue that gays are still a buncha perverts? A buncha criminals? And what are you suggesting - that governments/Christians/heterosexuals get rid of them altogether? Are gays vermin? Is apartheid based on sexual orientation OK? Come out and say what you want to say... I am inviting you out of your c...

Flashback Friday, a column on feminist notions... Danny falls in love with Sandra. She is sweet and lovely and believing and innocent (virgin). He loves her. When he gets to school and sees her through the eyes of his friends, he rejects her because she doesn't put out (whore). She realizes that unless she puts it out there that she wants him, and everyone knows she wants him as a boyfriend, now they need to know that he's the one whose body she wants. She needs to flash her body sexually and be very very thin and wear very very clingy clothes and speak very very dirty(ish) then she will get her man. She does. He is pleased that he can have the nice girl, who will put out, who realizes that virginity is lousy. Sadly, I know every millimeter of this movie by heart. This film tells me, that I can be virgin and whore and I will get the guy, but he gets to tell me what he wants and I must be that. If I choose to do as he wants, I will be cool. ... Cinnamon Gurl sparked thi...

The war years. Men are fighting, women are cooking. There are women who have been 'encouraged' to join the workforce - temporarily - please toodle off back home when we don't need you anymore, make some more babies. Toe, toe! The ad's copy reads: "She has the same spirit as her grandmother who crossed an ocean or a continent to build a good life in a new way. She has replaced the words, "I don't know," with "I'll learn." Instead of saying, "My family doesn't like that," she says, "I'll cook it so well they will like it." While cradling a pack of meat like a baby. This ad is testimony to how women have changed. I would be horrified to see this in contemporary media. Source: TheScienceBookstore

Hackerspaces always have a fantastic vibe, a palpable buzz that you get from gathering a lot of smart, passionate, creative people inside each others' spheres of attention and set them to work, a cross-pollinated vigor. Hackerspaces tend to be loosely organized, governed by consensus, and infused with an almost utopian spirit of cooperation and sharing. Sounds like everyplace should be a hackerspace. I am going to start turning the space around me into a hackerspace, starting with the first three feet. A howto at Make, Technology on your Time . You need 2+2 people. Two idea people for scheming and and two implementation people to get real work done. Don't start until you have 4 and then once you've got it going, expand to 10 to start off.

The perpetrator spent the day drinking and taking drugs in a gay bar with the victims and then, when they invited him to their home, he stabbed them 57 times, killed them, covered up his actions. He was acquitted. Some of the facts: Triviño and Luciano lived together in Spain were planning to get married. They were stabbed to death by Jacobo Piñeiro Rial in their apartment on 13 January 2006. The bodies showed a total of 57 stab wounds After killing them, Piñeiro took a shower and cleaned himself up. He filled a suitcase with some of their belongings to make it look like a robbery and then spilled clothing all over the place. He poured alcohol over everything, including his victims' bodies, turned on the gas spigot on the stove, and set everything on fire. The local fire department said that little evidence would have survived if it wasn't for their prompt response to the 5-alarm fire. Piñeiro hardly knew the men. Testimony revealed that Piñiero had spent the previous afte...

A Vatican representative claims that HIV can pass through condoms. The World Health Organisation refutes. Head of the Vatican Pontifical Council for the Family, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, said, in 2003: "The Aids virus is roughly 450 times smaller than the spermatozoon. The spermatozoon can easily pass through the 'net' that is formed by the condom ." The World Health Organization assured us this was nonsense. People vested with the power to influence large numbers of people should be well educated in their field of influence. Cardinals are not scientists, but they are central to the Condom / Abstinence debate. This was reckless. But don't worry, he died a year ago.

Let me just say that it disgusts me how people sit on their butts and criticise people who actually get off their butts. Grr. Your colleague makes me ill. However, alongside that.... we Librans can maintain two completely contradictory conversations... it's a gift... The whole point of getting off your butt is to get the first version out there so that you can learn from it. There's a divine BBC documentary (surprise surprise) called The Ascent of Money. Several famous people have filed for bankruptcy and American laws recognise that those that take the risks (or get off their butts) don't always succeed.... AND BETTER YET.... they learn from failure. It's really hard to succeed, and it needs practice. I once heard that 3% of successful people just succeed right off the bat by having a great idea and doing it well and 97% of people take an old idea and do it better, some just add a simple ingredient like 'good service'. So in actual fact, it's the hu...

Write headlines explanatively: so that people know if they want to read it. Being honest with your reader means they will come back, if you are disrespect the reader (take them on a hunt for the post to rack up hits, treating them like sticky eyeballs, eyes for their ads) they won't come back. Post informative and densely factual posts: not in your own personal shorthand, but something someone can understand immediately. First sentence must describe whole article: readers will be grateful, attention-conservation notices. Link to extensive info: Give the short bit and link to more. Attention economy: treat your readers like their attention is valuable. Data Valdezes: personal data hemorrhaging from 'secure' databases. Try anything: because the cost of collaboration, creating info, experimenting is so low, people are more creative and progress is easy, e.g. blogging - try it, don't like it, leave it. Write what you find interesting: Boing Boing doesn't w...

Flashback Friday, a column on feminist notions... No other minority's human rights are voted on except gay people's human rights. No other minority's human rights, their actual day-to-day lives, are subject to so much pejoration - throw-away pejoration. Unthinking pejoration. Are gay people not human too? Are gay people less human than black people, less human than Christians, less human than any group you can mention? Every other human being on this planet, no matter their country, their skin color, their religious denomination, their language - no matter anything - they are allowed to marry. Like, the cheek, allowed ! Marriage doesn't belong to anyone, and no one can say, You may, or, You may not. Jeez! Religion doesn't own marriage, there are atheists marrying daily. There are rapists marrying daily. There are murderers marrying daily. There are animal abusers marrying daily. But gay people can't marry? Huh? ... Cinnamon Gurl sparked this off. Thanks....

Flashback Friday, a column on feminist notions ... The friendship pool was meager then. We kinda hadta get on with our neighbors - they were either far from us if we lived in the country, or were living 15 to a double dozen in the same room as we were and wondering where to throw their swill. Thank God we had all those institutions in the olden days that homogenised us. Church on Sunday was only one of the ways we were in a straight jacket then. Education was bare and unsophisticated for the wider population. Politics was Nationalism. Philosophy was a bore. And it worked for us. People lived too far away from each other, or too close, to not have a dozen mechanisms propping up their friendships. A dozen mechanisms brainwashing them into being too alike to be challenging. Communities relied on each other then, to fight the Plagues, to fight the Wars, to fight the Poverty. The more the same you are, the less conflict. So it was a good thing that we all salivated when we could unanimous...

Flashback Friday, a column on feminist notions ... BEEN READING: Jessica Valenti on Full Frontal Feminism Valenti is the founder of Feministing.com and says that the next feminist wave will be cyber. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071015/bennett ... I totally think that we are being bullied and emotionally manipulated into being terrified to not shave, terrified to call ourselves feminists, terrified to act. It amazes me that no one realises that the bullying in schools is a reflection of what happens in front of children's eyes everywhere they go. A doctor, doing a breast sonar, made a comment about my underarm hair, suggesting that I should get that shaved before I see him next. It's bullying. He used his position of power to make me afraid that he would not give me his services if I did not conform to his idea of womanhood. How shocking is it that my hair is more scary than his bullying. Those brats in American schools, giggling and laughing and intimidating their p...

23 people Centre for Conscious Leadership structure: introduce everyone, introduce organization what makes us proud, excited, fearful to meet each other excited: connection, part of queer community, possibility fear: challenged by others, revealing, reports to be made, names to be revealed, white space (not very black)  deep democracy: process of large group, diversity - careful of minorities, introduction to roles in groups, you can change roles during talk, not just a personal view. Hotspots - the facilitators will deheat-support for safety. Zuma said he would hit a gay man Qwelane's blog taken off Media 24 and being watched at work need a queer media forum, media is at talk Qwelane should be challenged by his peers need a reaction to hate crime, not just reaction to article the voice of dead gays, they live in a world where survival is more important than Qwelane's words do we want an apology is Qwelane's the majority view blase about homophobia, don'...

Facebook Weekly Enquiry: What or who do you depend on? ...if you don't mind me asking. My computer and my DSTV and my video machine. The people part is more interesting in terms of Goodness, me-to-me - how do I think? Hmm, I think I am very self-reliant. I ask people to do stuff, but if they don't I immediately swop over to You Do it Tanya. And I don't often feel like It's Their Job. OK OK, wait, I do rely on people for love. Loving myself definitely doesn't do the trick, I can tell you. [she exits < > ponderously]

I just need to share this very specific dream I had about you last night. Sigh. I have no idea where it fits into my framework, but perhaps it you may shed some light. We were invited to view your new home that you had built – it turned out to be a big cottage in the garden of your parent’s home. There was already an established garden with strange things like a large bread bush (made from white bread, that you could smell and taste). The kitchen was big! With a table in it, we sat down to a meal (unsure what that was) and your father had joined us. His face was clear in the dream – but I only know he was your father because you said so, not because I would recognize him if I were to find him in my soup. We were chatting. You were frustrated that your dad kept hanging around. Eventually you announced your wedding (or I asked and you confirmed) and your dad threw a fit. He made it clear that he did not mind you living on the property but not to go around telling people you were to marry...

Facebook Weekly Enquiry asks Who are the most interesting people you have met? Goodness. Is interesting synonymous with love!? Because I have come across stunningly interesting people and really been attracted to them, because that's HOW I become attracted to people. But in a way they aren't necessarily settling down with material. You can look up to people without wanting to climb into bed with them for a lifetime... See! OK, so now that's out of the way.... .... .... .... Dang! it still feels like I am going to list all sorts of people that are on the IN LOVE list. Because there are a few that I find interesting but am not attracted to, entirely. But I could've. But no that would be crazy. Conversely, I have been seriously ATTRACTED to people I didn't find interesting... .... .... .... where am I going with this? Ek weet nie! Source: Facebook Weekly Enquiry

Just so you know, this is email number three, following response from you number two. I am not upset, just alerting you to the fact that I am persistent and you have been so polite and helpful that I am not upset. It's a communication error. If it happens again, I would ask you to contact me by phone at [CENSORED]. I contacted you to ask you to reconsider the action you have taken against South Africa. I suggested another solution: that you give us the opportunity to waive our right to redress if our parcels get lost. You have decided to only offer us high-cost courier services. I have been using amazon for many years and I have never had a problem. However, when I sent this solution note through, I received a response from you that reiterated the problem and did not acknowledge my suggested solution. If you have considered this waiver option and rejected it, I would have wanted to at least find out what your reasons are so that I can think of more solutions that address your c...

"Here's a novel idea to save the planet: Remove the main cause of its woes - homo sapiens. The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (VHEMT - pronounced "vehement") proposes the phasing out the human race. "When every human chooses to stop breeding, Earth's biosphere will be allowed to return to its former glory, and all remaining creatures will be free to live, die, and evolve (if they believe in evolution)," offers the movement's website. But 'it's going to take all of us going'." See www.vhemt.org SOURCE: Email invite. I thought I was the only one who thought like this. Everyone I know thanks the universe that I didn't study microbiology. I would have developed a human-specific killer virus. WE are the vermin.

I was asked where my locus of control is, by an Afrikaans person, who said 'lotus van kontrole' by accident. 'Lotus', that's cute... In me... I take inspiration from people, 'God', Zen, whatever inspires me. But I direct the energy. I am not always perfectly in control of how I direct it, but I can see my efforts. The 'whatever' part I take very seriously. I don't confine myself to anything, but everything I draw inspiration from, while important in itself - it has it's own value - it's arbitrary. So, for example, I have two horoscopes that I read daily - one is the glass half empty and the one is the glass half full. I read the full one second and allow it to be a directive for my day - so if it says that I will have good advice for young children - I make a date to see young children. And then I make sure that my sieve brain gets no help - I don't reread the horoscope, I forget what I feel like and remember what I want to...

Flashback Friday, a column on feminist notions ... Many of my friends had such a big cadenza over being gay. I had absolutely none. I never had the notion that it was not OK and more importantly I never had the notion that anyone could tell me what I could and could not do or be. The Cheek! My sister didn't have to go to Daddy and say, Gee Dad, I am sorry, I am straight, why must I go to Daddy and say, Gee Dad, I am sorry, I am gay. Ag nee man! But my friends definitely suffered. And I have participated in Masters degree surveys and the girls definitely were surprised that I don't have issues. I am generally a confident person. No issues about being fat, or hairy, or butch or whatever. Shame, poor you, you probably just had a frisson of disgust. Yes, girls have hair... and it's OK you don't have to sleep with them. Giggle. I think it may be harder for guys, no pun intended. Girls' lesbianism is considered a latent sexuality, 'It's OK, once they have ...