| Friday, November 20th, 2009 |
| 8:43 pm |
|
| Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 |
| 10:35 pm |
|
| Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 |
| 9:41 pm |
|
| 9:40 pm |
|
| Sunday, November 8th, 2009 |
| 6:09 pm |
'How It Is' by Miroslaw Balka
In an almost unprecedented break with tradition I find myself actually liking the latest Turbine Hall installation at Tate Modern. Since the sun was taken away I've generally only managed to work my way up to not violently hating what various artists have done with the place, Rachel Whiteread's 'I'm Really Not Trying Am I/One Trick Pony' will live in infamy, or there's Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster's piece 'Stealing Bits From Other Artists Works That Are Popular With the Public' last year. But Balka's 'How It Is' is a simple idea well executed, namely a big empty box that is so dark that you can barely see your hand in front of your face once you step inside. Immediately you are forced to navigate by sound, the sound of other people's footsteps on the floor, their nervous giggles and sounds. I want to go back there with a broom so I can go underneath, hit the floor above me and make fifty visiting tourists soil themselves. Technically speaking it's breaking the unwritten 'rules' for the Turbine Hall in that, like Whiteread, it's not really using the space available. While it is refreshing to see the Tate continue their tradition of installations that break health and safety laws and will probably lead to them being sued, as they were by dullards on the slides or who got stuck in Doris Salcedo's crack I was imagining beforehand that the entire hall would be enclosed and the lights turned off, but I suppose the Tate will only go so far in the name of art. |
| Thursday, November 5th, 2009 |
| 7:22 am |
I would prefer an alternate reading of the film of 'Fight Club' where it turns out that 'Jack' and 'Tyler' are indeed seperate people, it's just that everyone has given themselves brain damage by punching one another in the branez so their visual recognition bits are so blasted that, yes, they see 'Jack' as 'Tyler', but then they also see 'Jack' as the President, Ronald McDonald and Summer Glau. |
| Sunday, November 1st, 2009 |
| 4:49 pm |
|
| Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 |
| 7:20 pm |
|
| 7:00 am |
Carter-Ruck the Unstoppable Sex Machine.
The Spectator, of all magazines, is reporting that the Guardian has been prevented from reporting on a question asked in Parliament, including who asked it, who will answer it, who injuncted them and why. Never mind, other people not yet having had proceedings taken out against them seem to think it's Carter-Ruck, a collection of lawyers that, as regular Private Eye readers will know, make Wolfram and Hart look like fucking Aslan. The article reports this as being their best guess at being the offending question. From Parliament.uk, “Questions for Oral or Written Answer beginning on Tuesday 13 October 2009″
(292409)
61
N Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura.And here is the Guardian article on that Minton report. So yeah, Carter-Ruck seem to have managed to stop a newspaper reporting on business in Government about press freedoms to report when big companies massively fuck-up and then try to hide the evidence. Let everyone know, yeah? |
| Monday, October 12th, 2009 |
| 6:51 am |
Aaah, the Polari Bible from the ever fabulous Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. Now the birth of Josie Crystal was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Josephine, before they trolled together, she was found up the duff of the Fantabulosa Fairy.and, of course: Thou shalt not lie with homiekind, as with womankind: it is dowry cod. |
| Sunday, October 11th, 2009 |
| 10:27 am |
Posting this on behalf of others, so I am not one of the 'we', though I know some of them and support all of them: London trans activists call for boycott of sham demo on October 17th
We are a group of trans activists who wish to make known our concerns about a demo, claiming to support the depathologisation of trans people, in London on 17th of October. The facebook group for the demo can be found here:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=147494409183
The description of the event reads:
"Being transgendered is not a mental illness. We are simply part of the diversity of humanity. Gender Identity Disorder is therefore not a valid diagnosis. Homosexuality we removed as a mental health diagnosis diagnosis in 1987. For us to achieve true liberation and recognition we need to throw off this unjust stigma. We are not ill, just different"
A large number of people were invited by the demo organiser, a non-trans man by the name of Dennis Hambridge, and some of us were initially concerned by the rationale for the demo. In particular, we were worried that campaigning for the removal of Gender Identity Disorder as a medical diagnosis without proposing an alternative mechanism by which transsexual people would be able to access medical transition resources was premature and dangerous, especially in a climate where NHS primary care trusts need only a minimal excuse to deny funding for our hormonal and surgical procedures. We do not support the labelling of our gender identities as disordered, and realise that our relationship with the medical community is far from ideal, but do not wish to support a movement which may give the impression that we seek complete divorce from the medical community.
These concerns were put to the Facebook group by a number of trans activists. Rather than address them, Mr Hambridge entrenched his position, making claims that gender dysphoria was an artefact of society and the medical community, and that removal of any form of classification of gender dysphoria by the WHO was "non-negotiable".
In moves more reminiscent of the actions of transphobic radical feminists than supposed allies of trans people, Mr Hambridge started deleting some of the comments from those trans people who were concerned about our future access to hormones and surgery. Subsequently he banned a number of those trans people from the group, silencing them in that space.
To reiterate - Mr Hambridge, who is organising a demo which is allegedly supporting the rights of transsexual people is using his position as a group organiser to silence and shut out the voices of the very people he claims to support.
In light of Mr Hambridge's intransigence and refusal to listen to the voices of actual transsexual people, we are calling on all activists who support the concept of transsexual people having a say in our own medical care to boycott this demo. We further call on Mr Hambridge, who is not trans himself, to stop claiming to speak on our behalf when he is ignoring our protestations and silencing our voices, and to call off his demo.
Please spread this open letter widely.![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) rozk has more information here and auntysarah here. |
| Friday, October 9th, 2009 |
| 7:08 am |
|
| Friday, October 2nd, 2009 |
| 6:21 am |
|
| Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 |
| 11:12 am |
|
| Saturday, September 26th, 2009 |
| 7:13 am |
After this it does seem as though Stonewall have announced their nominees for other categories at their awards thingy in November, those up for journalist of the year are the Indy's Janet Street Porter and Johann Hari, Times columnist Joan Bakewell, Phil Reay-Smith of The Times and Diva editor Jane Czyzselska. No Bindel anywhere! Huzzah! |
| Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009 |
| 7:37 pm |
|
| Thursday, September 17th, 2009 |
| 7:42 am |
A Religious Question.
The Book of Genesis says that God created the Earth. Does it say anywhere that God created the rest of the universe too? Current Mood:  curious |
| Tuesday, September 15th, 2009 |
| 9:12 pm |
I notice that Stonewall seem to be playing it close to their chest about who is up for which award in their little November party this year. Which is not to say I think they are planning to give Bindel the award she didn't get last year, more that I have an attack of the giggles that we must have irritated them so much that they aren't going to risk making most of the details public so far in advance that anyone who takes offence could start organising a protest. |
| Monday, September 14th, 2009 |
| 9:54 pm |
|
| Wednesday, September 9th, 2009 |
| 10:51 am |
|
