It's all about the dots.

My reflection and life philosophy.
Fair warning: I abandoned grammar some hours ago and am now going for broke.


I honestly loved this class. I know I dropped off the face of the earth halfway through and was kinda craptastic about regular upkeep but I still loved this class and I loved the chance to really examine something I see as on the rise and important- blogs in the context of activism.

I see the human spirit as having so much potential. My entire life philosophy is based on the painting "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte" by Georges Seurat. This idea doesn't make a lot of sense until you know what the painting is made of . The painting is made up of tiny individual dots of paint, millions of them. There isn't a single brushstroke on the canvas.

My theory is that life is a canvas and each of us is a blank dot. As we live our lives we fill our dots up. We can either have our dots be beautiful and contribute to the end result being beautiful or we can contribute to the painting being ugly. What will your dot look like? What can we do to make the dots around us more beautiful? What can we do to make the whole painting more beautiful?

I also feel that each act in our lives is a dot within our dots. Our lives add up to those things we accomplished and those lives we touched and those people we loved and were loved by. All of these things are part of the picture.

It's hard to create change more than a few dots beyond yourself but with blogging and the internet we are starting to reach a point where entire portions of the picture are able to shift quickly to being more beautiful, more loving, more accepting. The ideas and changes and words move quickly across the globe.

In this class I enjoyed reading as people grew and changed and became more comfortable with themselves as bloggers. I'm excited to see where everyone goes from here. The potential is just mind blowing.

I want to thank everyone for being supportive and amazing and really building a blogging community. It rocked and I hope everyone continues their blogs because I'll keep reading them...




PS: I apologize if "the dots" analogy got long winded and weird and incomprehensible. I'll try to explain it more clearly at a later date.

You guys rock!!

E-PWND: the new york times gets schooled.

(I've completely lost count of my reading responses. It's the one about the NYTimes and the Dating a Banker Anonymous group.)

When I first read about the NYTimes getting punk'd I nearly did a spittake. I found it hilarious that with things like blogs coming into prominence, even a company as vast as NYT was failing to watch their sources closely and double and triple check their authenticity. With media sources jumping at the first story they get they tend to skip the whole vetting process that used to go on.

This is the double edged media sword of blogging.

As much as I love and advocate for the blogosphere I also understand that it's very difficult to keep readership when the newscycle is going 24 hours a day 8 days a week (when you use that much caffeine a mystical 8th day appears in the haze of all that sleeplessness). This causes three things to happen.

1. sourcing get's dodgy- with less time people tend to vet their sources less and their reliability can be shattered horribly if their source turns out to be a complete liar. It's a gamble: if you win you break a huge story and everyone cites you, if you lose your credibility is gone and your readership is gone with it.
2. people go for the sensational- it's something that happens in all of life. In the game of blogging and reporting people are presented with a choice between the safe and consistent which can keep them going at a relatively low level for a long period of time or they can shoot for sensational and hope they make it big. It's like the difference between lighting a long burning fire or a short fused firecracker. With the long burning fire you get a little light for a long time but with a firecracker you can either get a spectacularly bright display that will get a lot of attention all at once or it can backfire and end rather horribly.

I thought it was interesting that while the NYT had the first problem the women of "DABA" had the second. The women were willing to go for broke and misrepresent their purpose in order to get a media boost. It seems to have paid off but with more negative backlash than they were expecting, I reckon. As for the poor NYT, they were expecting to be able to do this article with genuine interest and excitement but have come out of it looking like fools. I think it's probably worse that people pity them rather than just being mad at them.

If a blog want's to make it as a big blog it needs to maintain its credibility by ensuring legitimate sourcing. In the world of information the stakes are getting continually higher. Rule one of serious blogging or journalism or even argument says always make sure your sources are strong enough to back you up.

When "Sorry" isn't nearly enough: a reading response

(reading response to Baghdad Burning readings)

I feel like a horrible person for wanting to say that I viewed the lives of most Iraqis as less advanced than the average American. I wanted to believe that the tiniest bit of good had come out of the US presence. In reading

I think that's why blogs like Riverbend's are so crucial. So many people assume so many things. We let the Mainstream Media (known as the MSM in some blog circles) tell us what to think and give us hand picked facts. As much as I <3 href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/">Rachel Maddow I know that she has editorial control over the facts and quotes being used.

That's the magic of the internet. suddenly people are able to go to the original sources, to see the tables and studies, to read the documents, and to draw their own conclusions from them. We are able to read accounts from people on the ground so we can gain new perspectives. We can see what it's like for a regular Iraqi woman but they're not the only people trying to survive. I think the flipside of this blog is something like "My War: Killing Time in Iraq" which is the war from an Army grunt's point of view.


I have a friend on the ground in Iraq right now. Some thirty miles outside of Baghdad he works his ass off every day and I'm proud of him for having the balls to willingly sign up to try to make things better in Iraq, his honest intent in joining. I'm not conservative but I have a problem with people who blame the guys on the ground just trying to stay alive.

I'm sorry that things are the way they are. I'm genuinely sorry to all parties who are suffering for it, the people of Iraq, the soldiers who have been wounded, the soldiers who are serving multiple tours, the people who have died on both sides of the conflict. I'm sorry that war has gone the way it has. I'm sorry that we invaded for empty lies. I'm sorry that we've started to build a wall to divide the city. I'm genuinely sorry for all of this but I can't help feeling that someone, somewhere in Iraq is better for Saddam not being in power.

That's why blogs like this are important: we are forced to view the war as not just two nebulous entities fighting in a way only visible on paper but as a person to person conflict. These are real people who are fighting for their lives. The world needs to realize that. The army isn't just GI Joes in straight lines firing their guns with no emotion or remorse at generic stereotypical Iraqi citizens dressed in traditional arab garb, toting rocket launchers. We need to stop missing the human element.



Stay safe Eric. I owe you a beer when you get home and you'd damn well better make it back to drink it with me.

Frak YOU Amazon.com!!

So apparently Amazon.com managed to drop it's LGBT books from the ranked lists as they are now classified as "Adult Material". WTF!?

This post from the blog Jezebel possibly sums up the outrage of the community the best. It includes a list of the books stripped of rankings and those allowed to keep them. It's slightly mind blowing.

All Things Digital is suggesting that what Amazon did was an accident but the #Amazonfail hashtag on twitter would indicate that it's a little late. Over the course of a weekend an entire movement has started and spread to thousands of people on the internet. Where does Amazon base its entire business? Online. Not only does Amazon now have a problem with people mobilizing on the net pushing for boycotts and demanding an apology, Amazon itself is remaining very quiet about the whole ordeal. Bad Move.

The new consumer has every peice of information at their fingertips. Our main source of information is not a library; it's an opensource encylopedia that is both free and constantly updated and sourced. We are able to track packages from the minute we place the order to the minute they arrive at our door. We want to know what's going on and if we don't then we want a reason. Keeping quiet about something this big could potentially cost Amazon a noticeable amount of business.


This whole thing pisses me off supremely because I just ordered three books from them: My Gender Workbook, GenderQueer, and Nobody Passes. I have a huge project for my Contemporary Sexualities class due on Thursday so I'm scrambling to get the last few pieces lined up. My ducks are rarely in a row; I'm lucky if my ducks stay in the same vicinity. So I ordered these books for my project and now I find out that in doing so I'm supporting a company that is undermining the validity of the LGBT community.

What does it say about our society that a story concerning corporate discrimination against an entire community gets broken on twitter?



Side Note: I discovered that it is possible to set bread on fire using only a toaster oven and a lack of understanding of said toaster oven. On the plus side I know that my smoke alarms work. Betty Crocker Homemaker of Tomorrow I am not.



(In case your wondering this is what "frak" means.)

Genderfork: a blog response

One of the things I enjoy most in the world is peoplewatching. I like imagining myself as an outside observer in the world like Jane Goodall among the chimps or Birute Galdikas among the orangutans, perched with a notebook and pencil. I tend to peoplewatch with an unnerving intensity because I often do not understand how I am "supposed to act" and I never have. I often watch to see how other people interact. I'll try to discern patterns of behavior and understand them. I suppose it's quirks like this that cause my love of more abstract blogs like Genderfork.

Genderfork is mostly photos including images of androgyny and profiles of people who defy gender norms in some way but it also includes quotes from commenters and contributors. These quotes are my favorite parts because they are often thoughtful, thought provoking, insightful and in some ways beautiful. When I found the following quote I nearly cried because I felt suddenly less alone in my somewhat scary and liberating realizations about gender. I think people often underestimate the comfort provided by gender roles.

The small question at the bottom of the quote pushes people to start interacting and asking questions. If you hadn't guessed by now, I firmly believe that opening up a dialogue is one of the best ways we can improve our world in all ways.

Teh Intarwebz, they are awesome: a reading response

If I'm numbering correctly this should be week 4 in reading responses.

I will not lie; I had to google the word "foment" to find out exactly what it meant because the image in my mind had more to do with coffee than activism.

In thinking about spaces used to generate and promote activism and participation the first thing that comes to my mind is the internet. The techniques and finer points may vary but the basis of so much social organizing and debate is based on the internet.

I could bore people with the specifics but if you look back at my post Infinity and beyond from March you will see an image which is a graphic representation of the internet as of sometime in 2005. The entire world is connected instantly and with the meteoric rise of Google the information is no longer difficult to access.

Blogs like Feministing, Racialicious, Jack and Jill Politics, and others are able to use the internet to stay on top of information and keep up with their communities. They also have the ability to use seach engines like Google and Yahoo! to draw more readers to them. The way the blog system is built with reciprocal linking, blogrolls, and instant sourcing via hyperlinks is inherently designed to grow.

I don't at all doubt the ability of bloggers and vloggers like Sarah Haskins and Smart Girls at the Party to use the frameworks of Web 2.0 to their advantage.

I will say that many of these people have the Howard Dean campaign to thank for this framework as they were the first to prove that it could be done on a national level. Despite the fact that Dean did not win the primary, his campaign manager Joe Trippi's book The Revolution Will Not be Televised explains how Dean's campaign which was based heavily on web support and participation succeeded in proving that political challenges could be brought directly to the people. Suddenly political organizing and activism was no longer people in high places talking at people it was webmasters and bloggers talking to and with people.

The same is true of activism. For so long activism was something that lobbyists did: someone set the agenda and a limited group of people were sent out to do something about it. Feedback was complicated, difficult, and extremely limited. When web 2.0 concepts were introduced the model was changed so that people are now often given direct links to contact people in places of power and let their opinions be known.

Getting something done is generally a question of knowing how to properly disseminate your information. Should you use Twitter or Facebook or a more complex tagging system for your blog?

In working on the obama campaign I watch some of the most amazing things happen using Web and communication resources. Canvassing and phonebanking organized over the internet. Peopler could print their own lists without ever having to come in to our office. Sometimes organizing can be spontaneous and other times Webmasters and bloggers such as those at Feministing can encourage their audiences to get involved thus spreading a cause far quicker and further than word of mouth or other conventional methods such as chalking a campus or flyering a neighborhood could.

I think that the claims made in the articles are valid. Everyone has a voice and deserves to have that voice heard. Attention needs to be drawn to certain issues. A huge benefit of using the web for organizing is that people are not limited in the content they choose to work with. They are not sending out a topical newsletter that will require all 15 articles to be based around the same things. Each post can be hugely different, organizing efforts can be very specific and targeted. This can, in some ways, streamline the processes surrounding organizing.

Blog Response 3: blogging bipolar for the females

I believe most people have their own brand of crazy and mine happens to be Bipolar II with a mix of other lovely things including Ovarian Cysts and Fibromyalgia. Why am I telling you all of my medical problems? Because sometimes the best cure is a really good blog.

After looking around at various male oriented bipolar blogs I decided to see what technorati could find about blogs that included the words "women" and "bipolar" the results? Not much. At this point I turned to Feministing and discovered the joyous wonders of The Trouble with Spikol, a blog by Liz Spikol about her struggles with life, mental illness, bipolar disorder, and mops. Feministing featured one of her YouTube videos in a post about "Mad Pride" several months ago.

I love what Spikol has to say about life and bipolar disorder because it is what I live every day and being bipolar is sometimes a very, very lonely existance. The advantage to having resources like this on the internet is that they allow me stay within the comfortzone of my corner of the couch while allowing me to reach out to the world. Not only does Spikol blog about her own life she also talks about medications, treatment options, and the realities of ECT or electro shock therapy as it's better known.

I particularly appreciated her post on her recent move to a new apartment talking about how she was coping with the massive change: "Dealing With Life? Yes and No". Does it say anything particularly profound? Not really, it's just nice to not feel alone in struggles like this. I also think it's a huge help to have a resource that keeps tabs on the new information that emerges about the effects many of the psych meds used to tread bipolar disorder have such as her post informing people of a new required label for certain meds including Lexapro, Cymbalta, Prozac, Celexa, Paxil, and others.

I've come across blogs about many things such as PTSD and Post-Partum Depression but this was the first really good blog about being a female with bipolar disorder or really any mental illness that I've found yet. It's brilliant.

Reading Response II: why I love "teh intarwebz" and Rachel Maddow

A few weeks ago I was trolling technorati for information on how PCOS influences the likelihood of self-identification as some form of transgender when I stumbled upon the S&F Online. I was excited to discover it but only book marked it as I was working on a project for my sociology class and was trying to stay focused. When I clicked on the link for our reading and saw what came up I literally laughed out loud. Never think you're the first person to discover something on the internet.

One specific article I enjoyed reading was "Blogging Was Just the Beginning: Women's Voices are Louder Online" which I found fascinating. One of the most interesting things I noticed when reading this article was how very specifically dated it was. Without knowing when this was published I can tell you it had to have been written sometime after Feburary of 2007 and sometime before August of 2008. How do I know? Feburary of 2007 is when the Edward's campaign bloggers were fired and August of 2008 is when Rachel Maddow became the first openly gay, female, primetime cable news host.

I'm a dorktastic Maddow fan and would like to believe she has had a huge impact on the media just by being out there. There's a primetime cable news host who is openly gay and plainly butch. That's slightly huge for the average babydyke watching at home. I am aware that one cable news host does not a paradigm shift make and despite being a butch lesbian Rachel has many attributes that more than qualify her for the job.

Rachel is not just a woman with a journalism degree; she is a Rhodes Scholar who recieved her Doctorate of Philosophy in political science from Oxford. She is literally Dr. Maddow. She also has a long history of working in politics, HIV/AIDS activism, and prison reform. That's an impressive if not excessive resume for someone hosting a cable news show.

One interesting thing I did notice is that Nolan never mentioned Katie Couric who took over as the anchor of CBS Evening News in 2006. I would think that the inclusion of Couric in this article would be something of a big deal. Not only is she the first solo female anchor of the weekday news but she is also the highest paid news anchor and faced tough criticism when she was awarded the position. It just seemed odd that Couric wasn't included.


Looking at women in journalism and the blending of journalism and the blogosphere was interesting for me as I'm intensely passionate about the blogosphere. I feel many bloggers like Mayhill Fowler, whom I mentioned in an earlier post, are legitimate journalists breaking big stories. I still think there's a lot of room for improvement and women like Arianna Huffington and Rachel Maddow and Katie Couric are starting to change the game bit by bit. I'm really excited to see what happens next with women in the blogosphere.

Fun Fact: Rachel Maddow beat juggernaut Larry King in the ratings and has topped Countdown with Keith Olbermann as the highest rated show on MSNBC on several occasions.

Blog response 2(?): why tautological observations are pointless.

*I seem incapable of writing a short blog. I suggest you settle in.*

I'll admit I had strong hesitations about working in a department or even a class full of feminists because I consider much of the approach to academia to be pointless. I'm not saying this is isolated to feminism and women's rights. This trend is present in all cases of inequality that are studied formally. But while I was looking around Finally, a Feminism 101 blog I came across a post explaining why the feminism is the way it is: more argument than movement and realized that it's okay for me to define feminism differently than other people and that open honest debate is not necessarily a bad thing.

I do not consider myself truly a "feminist" or a "queerist" or even "leftist" so much as I consider myself to be an ACTIVIST (who happens to be on training wheels at the moment). I believe in action. This action should be well informed, yes, but there should still be action.

I am deeply frustrated by people who point and say "That's wrong because it is." Such tautology is not only non-sensical, it's literally pointless. I personally feel that much academic observation is of this kind. In reading articles about women in various situations of opression or hate crimes that have been committed I have noticed that very few people stop to answer the question of "Why?"

Why do these things happen?
Why have these problems not been fixed?
What could be done about it?
How can we enact these ideas?
What would be the effect?

I feel that people who don't bother answering these questions shouldn't be throwing around accusatory statements.

One example I remember witnessing was a friend who was a self-proclaimed "feminazi" stated rather bluntly "I have a right to bitch because as a woman I'm oppressed by men."
This was something of a pinnacle WTF? moment. "How are you oppressed?" someone asked.
"I'm oppressed by men, that's how." she snapped back.
"okay... You're not answering the question and if you're so oppressed what are you doing to change it?" I asked.
"I did answer the question and I'm not doing anything. I have other things to do." she sighed and the subject was changed.

This exchange stuck with me because I remember feeling that despite her oppression she was free to express discontent and was also free to try to change things. Yet she didn't. So many people aren't willing to make that move from the anthropomorphic world of written word wars to the real world where people slam doors in your face and your car gets keyed and sometimes you really reach someone and change their mind and improve the world just a little bit.

I feel that if more people associated with civil rights causes spent less time writing papers about the way things are now and started thinking about the way things could be and how we can change them then we really can change the world for the better.

In the words of John Lennon, "You may say I'm a dreamer but I'm not the only one."

My Hair = My Gender Identity

Right about now someone reading this blog is saying wtf? And to be honest I completely understand where they're coming from.

It's hair. It grows. You cut it. Other than styling it to look one way or another what possible effect could your hair have on your life?

I can't speak for other people but for me it turned out to be a huge piece of who I am and my gender identity. I didn't realize just how huge until today when I was having difficulty coming up with a good way to style my hair so my sister recommended that I style it a certain way which feels particularly femme: the front half of my hair plastered down and the back a little spiky and teased. It's still short and still too butch for my mom (but what isn't?) but it felt wrong.

My hair felt wrong and it bothered me all day. I felt physically uncomfortable because my hair didn't match how I feel about myself, about my gender, about my sexuality, about how I feel about how I look.

I've spent a lot of time over the past few months thinking about my gender and who I am. This is probably because I'm in a Contemporary Sexualities class that addresses gender within sexuality but there have been a lot of other things. Needless to say I've been looking for resources to help me sort out exactly who I am or come to terms with not knowing the answer.

In this quest I have come across two invaluable tools.

• The first is the gender pioneer Kate Bornstein who authored the amazing "My Gender Workbook" which I feel should be required reading for the world. It pushes people to completely re-evaluate the way the gender dichotomy works and how we exist within it. I consider that to be somewhat profound.
  
  As I learned about Bornstein I wanted to read more of hir work and sought hir out on the internet and discovered ze has a blog! It's updated sporadically but the observations ze makes are well worth the wait. http://katebornstein.typepad.com/
  

• The second resource I discovered was a random blog I found through a Google search, The Sugarbutch Chronicles. Authored by Sinclair Sexsmith, the observations about gender from the perspective of a butch lesbian versus someone who is transgender or non-gendered are a brilliant reference. I will warn that gender is not her only focus. The blog can be very sexually explicit and involves reviews and discussion of sexual topics. It's definitely an 18+ blog but that doesn't detract from it's brilliance.

Without these two blogs I would undoubtedly be wandering around with my hair in an uncomfortable ponytail not knowing why I was unhappy with the world.

It turns out it starts with my hair.

Infinity and beyond

The way the web is built completely blows me away every time I try to really wrap my head around it. It's like trying to think about the size of the universe and then something beyond that.

I'm going to throw down a HUGE g33k reference now and invoke the japanime films and cartoon series "Ghost in the Shell" based on the manga of the same name. One of my favorite aspects of the GitS (Ghost in the Shell) universe is their conceptualization of the future of the web. It's all very sci-fi and bizarre but the gist is everyone has the capability to link directly to a massive net via a neural implant referred to as a cyberbrain. There is a visualization of the net that is shown in multiple episodes and consists of many linked minds sharing ideas and information. As a complete G33K I find these images strangely moving and beautiful. My real point in bringing up something as bizarre and obscure as GitS is that we have no tangible proof that the web exists, that it connects people across continents. It just does.

Think about that for a second. There is something that is a near living entity as it depends entirely on living beings to create and update and change it. It connects millions of people around the world and it just works. It is never the same from instant to instant. It is music and visual art and movies and arguments and manifestos of every variation and breaking news. That little icon on your desktop gives you access to almost the entire world. This may not seem like much but when you're someone in need of a community to belong to and be accepted into then it is everything.

I am Bipolar II. It's the less severe sibling of what people normally think of when they hear the word "Bipolar." Interestingly I had more issues coming to terms with being Bipolar than I did coming to terms with being a lesbian. I spent a years struggling with mental health and then my diagnosis. It wasn't until I discovered a web community known as "The Icarus Project" dedicated to providing people with Bipolar Disorder resources about treatment options, outlets for creativity, support in difficult times, and information in general. It was through this community that I came to understand that having Bipolar Disorder doesn't mean you become a disheveled homeless person screaming at a trash can outside of McDonald's the minute you have a manic or depressed episode. It gave me the confidence enough to own my illness and start doing something about it. And the community is still there anytime I need them.

It's not just me. It's women who've had abortions or transgender kids or activists or women who are pregnant or transgender individuals who are pregnant or people living in Gaza.

One of the reasons I enjoy the term "the net" is because if you fall a net will catch you and many times the internet provides the information and resources to help you save yourself. Not always, but often.

In using the web and blogs in particular people aren't limited to sharing a message or an idea with just the people in their community or people they call or the people they can get to read a pamplet or news article in a paper. People have the means to organize movements across countries and around the world using just an idea and some web savvy.

How crazy is that?

Welcome to the Jungle

I would like to send a shout-out to all the 3rd graders at Gladys Wood Elementary
make that a shout-out to all the folks from W S 450: Cyberfeminism!
Welcome to my blog!

In case you hadn't guessed, I like exclamation points and dislike grammar and fight with spelling- and often lose.

I'm a government major who still hasn't gotten over how awesome the 2008 election season was. I am very, very progressive in my politics but have a strange place in my heart for the 2nd amendment and think people in the army should be respected and recognized for their humanity. I thought they were ruthless, heartless pigs until I read "My War: Killing Time in Iraq" about an army grunt deployed to Mosul, Iraq who starts blogging about serving in Iraq.

My first real exposure to blogs and blogging was the blog feature on Myspace at least 5 years ago. I used it to post random wibblings and angst-filled poetry. I kept this up until I switched to Facebook during my senior year of high school and essentially stopped blogging as Facebook doesn't really have that feature.

My blogging was sporadic until I took English 211 and our special topic was 'Zines and Blogging. We dedicated the second half of the semester to building up and using blogs as a way to express ourselves and our opinions in a valid and somewhat public way. I loved it. Because of this class I started my first real blog: Leftisting.

Now that I am involved in Cyberfeminism I have founded this blog as well. I'm excited about both keeping up my blog as well as reading what everyone else has to say.


*Notes on my actual blog*
I apologize in advance for poor grammar or spelling. I have dysgraphia which makes it difficult for me to sucessfully express my thoughts while still obeying the rules of grammar and punctuation.

I am aware that because I have interests including gender and sexuality some of my material may not be "appropriate" to some people. I would ask that people try to keep a sex positive attitude and an open mind.

I am also keenly aware that not everyone will agree with my politics, I welcome a lively debate including all viewpoints but ask that you not flame me or anyone else. If you do flame your comments will be deleted.

Other than these things I hope you enjoy!

Let's Rock!!