I doubt I'll leave over the removal of basic accounts. I've already stopped recommending this site to new people, so after grumbling and griping a bit, I'll probably just get on with my journaling. If there is a true mass exodus, I'll join it. But right now, as much as I dislike the direction LiveJournal is going, there still isn't anywhere good enough to entice me away from my permanent account. With all the effort involved in changing journal sites and moving my old entries, another site will not just have to be somewhat better — it will have to be a whole hell of a lot better.

This comment by Mary Sunshine to a rather sensationalized article by Anna Greer effectively illustrates why many women (and men) have given up on calling themselves feminist.

Well, yeah - but 99% of the other web-users are anti-feminist, either actively or passively. 99% of all women now would far rather be called bitches, sluts or hos than feminists. Extreme? Well, that’s what I get from my awareness that 99% of all females are of the “I’m a feminist BUT …” or “I’m not a feminist BUT …” or just plain old “I’m not a feminist” persuasion. And I’m not even counting all the women who say “I’m a FEMINIST !!! ” and then proceed to cheer wildly in favour of rape, porn, sadomasochism, etc.etc.

On one hand she laments that many women don't want to be called feminist and in the next breath denounces women who call themselves feminist but don't have the exact same views as her. While some people may resiliently stick to their guns and insist they are feminist and that no single ideology has a monopoly on the term, others will simply say "Oh, okay. I guess I'm not a feminist". I've known quite a few people who fall into the latter category. People who might otherwise have identified as feminists, now entirely estranged from the movement.

One way I've taken revenge on bandwidth thieves in the past is to change the name of the file they're leaching (as well as all references to the file on pages I own) and put an obnoxious file in it's place. I haven't done this trick in years, but it is oh-so-fun. What I put in the file's place depends on who's doing the leaching. For example, when a bdsm site was stealing my backgrounds, I changed the background of their site to a tiling high contrast "Jesus Saves" image with a large orange cross; when someone on a message board added the caption "He's so sexy" to a image they stole of John Koviak off a friend's site I was hosting, I replaced the image with a picture of Barney; when a conservative christian site was stealing another one of my backgrounds, I splattered their website with some, well, material they certainly didn't appreciate. The possibilities are endless.

I should check my logs, I bet I can find some people to have fun with.