Merry Christmas, if you’re into that sort of thing!

@Mish
Link’s not working for me.

@Brony
Sure, give me a bit to digest.

Sorry, kupo; linking on my phone is dodgy! Now I’m on the Surface – try this one, and also this one (an interview with the transwoman). The video footage of the encounter is seriously unpleasant.

@ Mish

Would you mind summing up the Rose McGowan thing for me? I’m a bit afraid of seeing for myself.
How bad was it?
Will it be perceived as just feminist infighting, or is this going to be the thing they use as an excuse to direct intense public scrutiny to her mental health and then somehow discredit the entire #metoo movement through misogynist, ableist attacks against her? Is this how the real backlash begins?

@Mish
Welp… Disappointed, but not surprised…

@Katamount, Jenora:

Yes, I heard about the Old City Hall Museum idea on the radio as well. As you say, there are a lot of stories about the city. Heck, there are a lot of stories just about that building, such as the way the architect pretty much bribed the stonemasons to sign his name under the eaves after he was denied a plaque due to a combination of delays, overruns, and apparently plagiarism accusations.

Or the time the building appeared on Star Trek, and thus implied that before it fell the Iconian civilization had a backdoor right into the heart of the Federation (but which they never used to attack the Federation):

@Z&T:

Here’s something else, rather odd and specific. Have you ever had an object move mysteriously, where a) you’re quite sure nobody else had opportunity to move it, b) the object ended up somewhere other than where you’d had it last, but c) it did end up somewhere you might plausibly have put it, in an alternative history where you made different choices? Ex.: you put a mug down at your desk. Later you go to take a drink from it but it’s missing. When you find it, it’s in the kitchen where you prepared the drink, or it’s on the endtable next to where you sit to watch TV, or in another location where you sometimes put mugs, and where you might plausibly have chosen to put that one that day except that you didn’t.

Often more specifically you take an object with you, then find it missing later, and it seems to have “snapped back” to where you initially had picked it up, or else to a location you could have conceivably chosen to place it. But never to any location along its backtrail that you would never have left it. So you pick a mug up off the kitchen counter, take it with you to the living room, watch TV for a while, go to take a sip, mug’s gone, and you find it back on the kitchen counter. Or on your desk, if that’s along the way to the living room from the kitchen. But not smashed on the floor having materialized in midair at a position you’d carried it through on your way to the TV.

Also the “object shell game”. There are, say, three locations you ever leave, say, your TV remote: by the exercise machine, on the end table, or on the coffee table. One day you want to change the channel and you check each location, but every time you check one of them the remote happens to be at one of the other two. Even after you have systematically gone to all three this remains the case. Eventually you “catch up with it”, and wonder how you could possibly have missed it the previous n times you checked that location, or else you stumble upon it at a fourth location you wouldn’t have left it at (e.g., on the kitchen counter where you normally place mugs but never the TV remote). Again with no opportunity for somebody else to have been playing a prank on you, e.g. you were home alone from before the last time you’d used the remote until the incident of it being abnormally hard to find.

@Shadowplay: Do you have a cat? A cork is small and light enough to be picked up and moved by a cat, and cats often like to play with such small objects (e.g. drop it and immediately bat it around the floor, etc.)

I seriously need to go find Big Boi and squish him. Not too hard, obv. But squuuiiissshhhh.

@dust bunny,

Apologies for the late (& lengthy) reply. You know, I hadn’t actually thought that far ahead. I was just feeling really sad – or, like Axe said, disappointed but not surprised. Those are disquieting questions you raise, and whatever happens, I worry that trans women might be forgotten, yet again. The issue shouldn’t be feminist infighting, nor McGowan’s mental health.
Anyhow, I’m kind of hesitant to sum up what happened because I’m nervous of mis-representing what was said and done. If you can, watch the video.
I’ll try a broad-brush approach. McGowan was giving a talk at a bookstore (a Barnes & Noble). Andi Dier stood up and asked about McGowan’s comments in a recent interview. It got ugly fast. McGowan repeatedly yelled over Dier, told her to sit down, then to shut up (several times). Dier was escorted out by security (who called her “sir”), and was lifetime banned from entering the store.
Update as I was typing: McGowan has claimed that Dier was a hired plant.
Pretty great summary from that Daily Beast article just linked to:

“Rose McGowan is clearly suffering after having long endured the kind of trauma I wouldn’t wish on anyone,” said transgender actress, writer, producer and activist Jen Richards, who voiced a concern that the confrontation is being used as just more sensational fodder instead of sincere efforts to heal divisions.
“The media’s fixation with her in particular does not seem motivated by a serious concern for the issue of systemic gender inequality and sexual harassment, much less the relationship of trans issues to intersectional feminism, but rather yet another instance of a preference for distracting spectacle. As with all women who have suffered at the hands of misogyny, I hope she finds healing and peace.”

Uma Therman now spoke about Harvey Winestein and Quentin Tarantino. She interviewed for the New York Times.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/02/03/opinion/sunday/this-is-why-uma-thurman-is-angry.html?referer=https://t.co/MBS47RXiAz

I disliked Quentin Tarantino for very long time – nothing individual but slowly, slowly I hate his movies and his attidue to racism and he says n***** for his enjoyment I believe, but pretends to fight for black people but only if they never make criticise of his movies.

So, I am not surprised about this. And I am very sad for Uma.

Hello, hello, hello! I haven’t been here in several months so I thought I’d come take a bit of a look-see into how things are over here. I’m glad to see that the community is going strong and I hope that David enjoys the much-deserved (and, let’s face it, -needed) time off. I’m still in the process of getting my apartment back into the shape that it was before the renovation last fall. It’s going slowly but steadily as I don’t want to try and do too much at once. As the cold winter time has set in here I haven’t been able to go on very long walks for a while, but I’m keeping to my resolution of walking at least a little bit each and every day. I don’t think that I’m losing any weight any more, but at least I’m not gaining any, either and the most important thing is that I’m feeling fit and able to enjoy the important things in my life.

@Skiriki: I hope that the new kitten is doing well and not getting into too much mischief! ^_^

Double-post Sunday morning for me!

@Valya,

Poor Uma Thurman. Thanks for sharing this; I know a lot of people have been waiting to hear from her since that powerful interview last year.

I’ve read the article twice so far, and I feel that it hasn’t done justice to Thurman’s ordeal. It’s such an important and horrifying story, but the article is all over the place. The timeline is a mess, and even the driving stunt loses impact because of the writing.

I don’t wish to come across as an armchair critic, or as needlessly nit-picking, so I’ll stop. For all I know, Uma Thurman was 100% happy with the piece.

The partner of a friend took their own life this week.

Depression sucks. Oppression of trans people sucks.

I’m far away, but there’s a strong group supporting each other over there I’m told.

Love to all.

@numerobis

I am glad your friend has a strong support system right now. Suicide is not easily dealt with and all the support is needed.
Look after yourself too, eh? Your friend’s friends have helping to help them cope with the shock and the pain – doing something, no matter how small, always helps.