picked a handful of violets in my name

melannen

One thing I love in a good SF story is ways of doing love, marriage, and romance that don't buy in to our society's idea of love+romance+sex+monogamy all on one single person as the only way to do it.

denise

I've seen people wondering why imports are taking so @)#$(*& long. This might help shed some light:

synecdochic

So, people who grumble about "the Russians" taking over LJ should remember that in Russia, LiveJournal isn't just the top blogging platform, it's the blogging platform. It is Russia's free press. It is the tool being used to fight corruption and advance the cause of democracy. And, more practically to LJ users, the Russian-speaking sector of LJ is the reason LJ is still there at all.

helens78

I am in favor of tickys because tickys are a form of communication. They can help engender community and relationships in a way that can enhance comments rather than replacing them or taking away from them. When someone isn't commenting, it's impossible to know if it's because they're lost for words, aren't on a platform suitable for lengthy comments (how many users read the site from smartphones now?), don't have a lot of spoons, have to conserve typing time... or aren't reading and don't care. Seeing people's names crop up repeatedly in tickys helps us discover who out there is giving us their time and attention, and can be a greatly-appreciated form of support, even or especially in times when hearing many individual comments -- and feeling obliged to respond to each of them -- can feel overwhelming.

charmian

Currently there's a notifications problem at LJ, which apparently has something to do with a third party [EDIT: possibly Spamhaus]. People are getting fairly upset about it in the comments of the news post (well, also because of the banner color scheme).

Also, LJ is currently blacklisted with Spamhaus.

azurelunatic

LJ has been listed by Spamhaus, which has likely got a decent amount to do with the notifications some people aren't getting. I propose a plan of action for users to help the Abuse Prevention Team squish as many spammerbots as humanly possible.

Let’s compare and contrast a few female leads and see if we get a pattern. As I said above, we don’t have enough to consider this statistical, but we’re just looking for a starting point. Besides Aliens, I can think of one other female-led action movie that was successful enough to at least spawn a franchise: Underworld (Kate Beckinsale). And two female-led movies regarded as financial disappointments would be Aeon Flux (Charlize Theron) and Catwoman (Halle Berry) – neither of which even made back their budgets on the gross revenues.

But here’s the thing. Here’s why I’m not deleting Tiger Beatdown: They only do it if you’re good. Seriously. They only do it if your work reaches people, and convinces people, and if they literally cannot frame an opposing argument that they think might have any chance of winning. They can’t beat you in an argument; that’s why they abuse you, that’s why they try to make you feel as worthless and self-loathing and incapable of self-defense as any other abused person, that’s why they abuse you till you can’t work or even think about anything but being abused, that’s why they try to make you believe that it won’t stop till you stop publishing or die. That’s why they make you want to stop publishing. Or make you want to die. Because after all of it, after all the “bitch” and “cunt” and “die” and “dyke” and “ugly” and “smoker” (???) and “I’monna rape ye, woman,” there is actually one threat scarier than ALL of that: The threat that you’re right, and you’re going to win. And that’s the threat that you pose.

Unfortunately, after six months of Skype and e-mails, and spending quite a bit of money to visit him, I began to get the feeling that while things had improved somewhat over the past three years, they hadn’t improved enough. He says he wants to move back to New York soon…but, well, he told me the same thing three years ago. His shit is slightly more together, life-wise, but it turns out he’s not a whole hell of a lot more emotionally available. I kept extending myself, but he was doing a pretty crap job of meeting me halfway. He tends to be a brooder, and while dealing with his issues, likes to retreat into complete radio silence. Being met with a week or two of zero communication feels horrible when you’re in a long-distance relationship—especially when you notice that he updates his FB page, thus eliminating the possible explanation that he has died or is trapped under something heavy and can’t get to his computer.

tim

The conspiracy of silence in which Chua participates, and which psychologist Alice Miller (for example, in her book For Your Own Good) has written about, involves perpetuating this myth: What adults do to you is for your own good. Be grateful for it, and suck it up, cupcake. It's a politically useful myth. Kids who internalize it turn into obedient workers (bosses naturally replace parents) and into supporters of authoritarian politicians. They also tend to turn into bullying parents themselves. And the cycle goes on. But people like Chua aren't helping break it. Read Chua's essay while asking: "What is it doing for her to treat her children in all of the ways she describes?" This is a question she never seems to ask herself. But it's a question that would decenter her perspective and show that claiming that coercion is "for your own good" is the act of psychological coercion that enables all others.

flourish

Here is a summation of this: Schizophrenia may have been one of the factors leading to Jared Loughner's actions - I don't know - but it is not enough to say "well, he had schizophrenia," and shrug it off, as though there are no other factors. That's like saying of a rapist, "well, he's a man," and considering that the end of the discussion - no, actually, it's even worse. 99% of rapists are male. In comparison, only about 10% of people who commit homicide have schizophrenic disorders, or possibly less. And yet, if I were to make a statement like "Oh, well, he's a man - probably completely pumped with testosterone - that's all we need to know to explain why he's a rapist," people would (rightly) have my head on a pike. If I make a statement like "Well, she's schizophrenic - probably having delusions at the time - that's all we need to know to explain why she's a murderer," nobody gives a damn.