feminist blogs

*A very few worthy anti-war blog links are cited here. Submit your recommendations in comments if you wish.

Please check out Dulce Et Decorum Est, a “A collection of anti-war cultural artifacts” compiled by the same cool dude who graciously set up feministblogs.org, and whose Rad Geek People’s Daily has been regular reading for me for years now. (This was the first post with which he earned my respect.) I might not have run across this blog if he hadn’t linked to an old post of mine (featuring the searing words of Otep Shamaya when we were merely a couple of years into the recent Iraq imbroglio).

I tend to avoid blogging extensively on the war, or about any among the specific idiocies of the Bush administration because I find the exercise heartbreakingly redundant, but others have a better grasp on the material and can make constructive use of it in their works, for which I’m grateful. If you’ve seen Dr. Violet Socks’ Just Impeach the Stupid Freak category at The Reclusive Leftist, then you know what I mean. Also, for the record, the Iraq category at Appletree is handy one-stop repository of war-specific If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention material.

I’m leaving tons of worthy sites out, mostly on account of my own hazy, persistently traumatized feelings about the subject, but for now this will have to do.

Now, for those inclined to offer them, your “Best of anti-war blogging” link recommendations are welcome in comments.

That’s right folks, I’m caving in to the trend of blog roundups. Because what’s been happening so far is that I fall hard in love with particular blogs, immerse myself in them, respond to them at length and in detail and then go off-radar again because no sane human being (not that anyone’s accusing me of being sane) can take in that much information, much less respond to it in a sensible and productive manner.

So this is me trying to cover in less detail more of the awesomeness recently encountered in the ’sphere:

• Lauren at Faux Real Tho! states that “If Courtney Love becomes the next judge for American Idol,” she “will watch every single episode. On principle.” On principle, I have thus far refused to ever watch American Idol, but too, if Courtney Love gets involved with this damned thing, then I will finally force myself to watch it, because (I don’t care what anybody says) Courtney Love is fucking awesome.
• There is a remarkably apolitical post thread (outside of some tangential discussion around sustainable fishing practices) at Twisty’s, which I successfully (albeit not intentionally) derailed into a tangent concerning embarrassing childhood pronunciations of terms encountered previously only in the pages of books. I am a nerd. (For fun, I will add one more example here: Intrigue. IN-TRIG-YOU. Intrigue. It was a common word in all the Nancy Drew books.)
• Chris Clarke at Creek Running North has several deeply touching posts about the life of his dog Zeke, who not long for this world. I cried my eyes out. (See especially these two, or just peruse the whole Zeke category.) As it happens, I’m at the very beginning of my first life-journey with a dog; I can’t imagine what the whole, rich adventure will be like, but for these graceful and moving glimpse Chris offers.
• At Observe But Do Not Interfere, deaf issues Virginia blogger Ridor made my jaw drop with his post about a recent flight to Denver, near the commencement of which a flight attendant asked him if he would be needing use of a wheelchair. Because, you know, he’s deaf. This is at least as brilliant as the time I was at MCV Hospital for temporary hearing loss (oddly enough, due to loss of cabin pressure during a flight), where, during my check-in, I told the nurse they would need to come and get me when it was my turn - rather than just calling my name - because I wouldn’t be able to hear! An hour or so later, after noticing that several other patients who’d arrived after me had been seen, I inquired about my status and was told, “Well, we called your name, but you didn’t say anything.” After this happened two more times and I had been in the ER waiting room for more than 6 hours, a brilliant employee offered that she could arrange for an ASL interpreter. Because, you know, since I had temporary hearing loss, obviously I had instant knowledge of ASL! I mean, damn.
• Via Terrance at The Republic of T, comes news that the Bishop Desmond Tutu is condemning homophobia in the strongest terms: “To penalize someone because of their sexual orientation is like what used to happen to us; to be penalized for something which we could do nothing (about) — our ethnicity, our race… I would find it quite unacceptable to condemn, persecute a minority that has already been persecuted.” Whoa. Maybe when it’s a Nobel Peace Prize winner of the Bishop’s unassailable stature, folks all over the world will listen?
• Then again, in his last post before taking a hiatus, Dave at Quaker Agitator brings us news of homophobia (with bonus Anti-Semitism!) in his New Jersey neighborhood. Needless to say, I appreciate his sadness, and his need to get back to Meeting for Worship (which I missed too, this week in Richmond - though that was due to still recovering from my surgery. But I’ve said quite enough about that.)
• Meanwhile, the ever-awesome Jane at Hillbilly, Please publicly damns me for hipping her to Wordie (’Like Flickr, but without the photos’), then lists hundreds more words on her page in a period of 24 hours than I’ve posted all this week. (So I damned her right back.)
• Speaking of my favorite Hillbillies (and their allies), Eric Drummond Smith at Hillbilly Savants calls bullshit on some classist foolishness found at HuffPo. (Come on, HuffPo. I want to keep liking you!)
• Anji at Shut Up, Sit Down has a long, thoughtful post about the complications of bisexual and queer identities. (Personally, I’m still going with ‘undeclared,’ though not to the exclusion either of ‘queer’ or ‘woman-identified,’ which in my life is strangely congruent with my monogamous, deeply loyal marriage to an individual with the dreaded ‘broken X’ chromosome. More on that some other time.)
• Finally, I read about the passing of Molly Ivins first at Feministe, and have since read many wonderful tributes all around, to which I have not much to add at this time, beyond my comment at the aforementioned post.

In other news, I’m still fixing the !@#$% blogroll. Really. I’m slow as constitutional law reform, see? But I’m working on it, I swear, and if you were linked here before you most likely will be again, once I get some asinine structural bugaboos dealt with. Your patience is warmly appreciated.

*Note: As I am posting this, it appears that some blogspot-hosted pages are currently down. They should be back again soon - I hope!

Tags: animals, Anti Semitism, Blog Roundups, classism, Courtney Love, deaf issues, Desmond Tutu, disability issues, language, Molly Ivins, Overtly Political, queeranimals, Anti Semitism, Blog Roundups, classism, Courtney Love, deaf issues, Desmond Tutu, disability issues, language, Molly Ivins, Overtly Political, queer