As insomnia likes to point out, LiveJournal is shrinking. Many blame SixApart and SUP for this decline, and it true that the actions of those corporations have contributed to the slow bleed of users. However, I believe the root cause is much deeper.

The tone of the LiveJournal community has changed. It has become more vicious, more snark-centric, more hateful and cliquish. There has always been drama on LiveJournal, but it has not always been like it is now. Often now one misspoken word in a community or the mention of a viewpoint out of the mainstream will be taken out of context and a flood of mean-spirited attacks will flood the comments of a post from users mobbing in from any one of the countless snark communities that have cropped up.

I've been on LiveJournal almost 7 years at this point, and this increasing ugliness has me more concerned for LiveJournal than anything SixApart did or SUP is doing. Neither SixApart nor SUP are LiveJournal, LiveJournal is the community that inhabits this virtual place and that community is decaying. I'm sure I'm far from the only long-time user who is disenchanted by the current LiveJournal environment and I don't see what the motivation would be for many new users to become part of it.

I have not been involved in any drama around here recently, so this post hasn't been triggered by a specific event. The problem is that LiveJournal doesn't seem like a community anymore, at least not a communities that I want to consider myself part of. I don't intend on leaving completely, but I've been spending a lot less time here. I've got other things to do.

If you use X to insult someone, you aren't just insulting that person — you are insulting X. You are saying that X is something worthy of being insulted. It doesn't matter if you think they are a horrible person. If you don't think that X is something horrible about them, then insult the reasons you do think they are horrible.

I've seen far too many homophobic, racist, misogynistic, misandristic, transphobic, sizeist, anti-disabled and anti-semitic slurs "justified" by assertions that person being insulted doesn't personally deserve respect or that they fit some bad stereotype. Use something as an insult and you are saying that it is something worth of admonishment. Your words can say a lot more about what you think than you intend them to.

found via rm:

Known for gliding along local waterways with statuesque grace, the mute swan is rarely thought of as an environmental hazard. Wildlife experts in Connecticut say that mute swans, like these at Holly Pond in Stamford, devour shoreline vegetation, displace waterfowl and other creatures, and can even attack people. But wildlife experts say that the swan’s elegant facade conceals an ecological menace that devours shoreline vegetation, scares away other waterfowl and can even attack humans. The bird is now a target of a campaign to reduce its numbers in the state’s delicate coastline habitats. The leaders of the effort are conservationists, including the Connecticut Audubon Society, which in the coming months will intensify a campaign to urge state officials to control the swans’ population, which stands at about 1,100. ... Kathryn Burton, president of SaveOurSwans U.S.A., a nonprofit organization in East Lyme, Conn., said the group would actively oppose the Audubon campaign as well. “I’m not going to let it go,” Ms. Burton said. “They really don’t care about the birds. It’s just unjust.” Connecticut’s swan population has more than doubled in the last three decades. Mr. Bull said that one idea for reducing the number of swans was to disrupt the nesting birds’ eggs to limit reproduction, a tactic known as addling. He said the Audubon Society was not suggesting that any of the 1,100 swans in Connecticut be killed — though other states have taken that step. full story

Humans are far more of a threat to the environment than swans. There are only 1,100 mute swans in Connecticut, if the human population of the state were only 1,100 the humans would still have more of an environmental impact, especially if those humans were typical modern Americans.

Environmentalists wanted to kill of the cherry-headed conures in San Francisco, the monk parakeets are always under attack even though they are essentially a replacement species for the extinct Carolina parakeet. Even here in Arlington, the Friends of Spy Pond still hate the geese.

The Audubon society wants to get rid of swans, well in this world nothing should surprise me anymore. Sometimes things still do, but they shouldn't.

i hate how angry i can get
i've been wearing the demon eyes too much lately
and i've lost that place of center again
i need to work back to it or i am going to drive myself... i don't know
i was going to say "crazy"
but i've always been crazy
and one cannot drive oneself to where one already is
but i need to find that spot again
i know that it is possible
i know that i can
i just need to
i get here every now and again
and i suppose i always will
the path of life is windy
and getting lost every now and then is a bit inevitable
the point is to not give up when your lost
the point is to keep moving
always keep moving
find the path again

I'm back in Boston. I had a great deal of fun with My sister, niece, brother-in-law, and mom. Maddie is a little ball of energy. Well, not little, she's quite big for a 7 year old. Smart and creative, but I just can't keep up with her.

The day I arrived, Thursday, we pretty much stayed around the house and relaxed. My mom had already been there for several days and was already settled in.

Friday, Christian stayed home while Maddie, Bridgette, my mom, and I went down to Georgetown. We hit Lush and Godiva and went to Dean & Deluca for lunch. While I've seen central meter machines in parking lots, I'd never seen a central machine for street parking before. I guess it is more efficient than having a separate parking meter for each spot, I'm just not used to it. The biggest disadvantage I see with the central machine system is that if it breaks down it disrupts the use of a number of parking spots at once.

Saturday we drove into Virginia through wine country and went to Linden Vineyards (nothing to do with Second Live). That was my favorite part of the trip down. Relaxing doesn't even begin to describe the place. Surrounded by rows of grapes and vine watching the clouds shadow-dance on the Blue Ridge Mountains. The cigar Christian gave me to smoke at the vineyard not only went perfectly with the cheese and wine, but also with the surrounding tranquility.

Sunday, I got up later than I had planned, but not so late that it caused any hassle in catching my flight. Upon leaving, Christian gave me some cigars, along with a 15-pack of Rocky Patel vintage 1992s, one of my favorites. My mom gave me a wonderful dragon cane when I arrived at the house and I was a bit worried about getting on the flight with 2 canes, but I didn't have any hassle and the return trip from Reagan National to Logan went smoothly.

I had hoped to get some good bird pictures, but unfortunately my birding camera is not working. I noticed it my first day there. It seems to be a connection problem with the battery prongs, which should be repairable. But, I was glad to see that Maddie loved birds and birdwatching despite her father's hatred of them.

In the United States, the Republicans often complain that sex scandals involving Democrats don't tend to have the same level of fallout as ones involving Republicans. In fact, sex scandals involving Democrats sometimes end up burning Republicans who make political hay out of it. Liberals, on the other hand, dislike the joy right wingers find in accusing the left of being intolerant of Christianity, even though many members of the right have no problem being intolerant of religions outside their own.

Pro-abstinence Republicans are more vulnerable to sexual misconduct scandals because it directly contradicts their message of morality, liberals are far more vulnerable to accusations of intolerance because it contradicts their message. For the most part, the hardline right makes little claim of tolerance and the hardline left makes little claim of sexual chastity. The double standard in both of those cases is due to a general dislike of hypocrisy throughout the political spectrum.

The message is: keep true to your message or adapt your message to what you really mean.

Last week, purpleglitter and I found that the landlord at her old place had murdered a nest of starlings, ripping apart the nest and throwing the babies down to the ground like they were worthless. Just getting their down in, eyes never opened. They never saw the sun. We buried them in the back.

Today, the tree cutters came to the back yard here. Supposedly just to cut the branches overhanging the neighbor's, they instead cut main branches which may have had one or two subbranches overhanging the neighbor's yard, but most of which were not over the fence at all. Renting, I have no real control over any of this.

I don't understand the reason people need heavily nitrogenated death-yards. "Kill everything but grass. A dandelion! Kill it! Kill it! No flowers here! Nature is just weeds. Throw on more chemicals on... pesticides, herbicides, fertilizer... everything! It surely won't run off anywhere. Must have that perfect patch of stale green nothing, because lord knows if anything wild and free grows it'll be anarchy! Nature is ugly and must be controlled, but oh yeah, save the rain forests — nature is only ugly if it's where I can see it."

We damn ourselves when we live through demon eyes. No higher power need intervene, we are fully capable of our own downfall. When we act as demons, we create our own hell. No divine judgement or arbitration, it is simply a matter of causality.

This is the nature of sin. This is the nature of good action verses bad action. When we act with anger and hate and greed rather than with love and compassion and understanding, that is sin. When our actions increase the suffering rather than diminish it, that is bad action. And what we reap is a world of pain and hate and mistrust. We are all connected and we share in what we bring forth.

Is God benevolent or malevolent? Does God love us? Is God wrathful?

These questions are fitting to ask of some man with a flowing grey beard that lives in the sky, but they are unanswerable as to God as All.

God is not only the sky above and the ground below and all that dwells in those places. God is not only everything we can touch, God is more.

God is all creation all destruction. God is life and and God is death. God is the bleeding wound and the passionate kiss. God is the roar as well as the silence.

God is all beliefs and doubts. God not just the concept of heaven and hell, but the concept that there is an above and below. God is the ideas we think as well as the air we breathe.

God is all emotions. God is all love and all hate. God is all benevolence and all malevolence. God is all wrath and all forgiveness.

God is our mathematics and our law. Our fears and our courage. Our arts, our poetries, our languages and the metaphors behind them. The truth as well as the lie.

God is energy and matter. God is the motion of the falling rock as well as the rock that falls.

God is the Happening that is the Becoming. God is what was, will be, and has been. God is even that which is not, has not been, and will never be; if what is not, has not been, and will never be is but thought.

God is the All of Everything, the Universe of Universes. This is why there can be nothing greater than God. No threat needed, no coercion. There can be none greater than All that Is, because anything else is simply part of the Everything.

found through recoiling:

When radio host Jerry Klein suggested that all Muslims in the United States should be identified with a crescent-shape tattoo or a distinctive arm band, the phone lines jammed instantly. The first caller to the station in Washington said that Klein must be "off his rocker." The second congratulated him and added: "Not only do you tattoo them in the middle of their forehead but you ship them out of this country ... they are here to kill us." Another said that tattoos, armbands and other identifying markers such as crescent marks on driver's licenses, passports and birth certificates did not go far enough. "What good is identifying them?" he asked. "You have to set up encampments like during World War Two with the Japanese and Germans." At the end of the one-hour show, rich with arguments on why visual identification of "the threat in our midst" would alleviate the public's fears, Klein revealed that he had staged a hoax. It drew out reactions that are not uncommon in post-9/11 America. "I can't believe any of you are sick enough to have agreed for one second with anything I said," he told his audience on the AM station 630 WMAL, which covers Washington, Northern Virginia and Maryland ... "Because basically what you just did was show me how the German people allowed what happened to the Jews to happen ... We need to separate them, we need to tattoo their arms, we need to make them wear the yellow Star of David, we need to put them in concentration camps, we basically just need to kill them all because they are dangerous." ... Those in agreement are not a fringe minority: A Gallup poll this summer of more than 1,000 Americans showed that 39 percent were in favor of requiring Muslims in the United States, including American citizens, to carry special identification. full article

39% percent is a scary number. The Nazi Party never got 39% of the German vote before Hitler became Chancellor. In fact, in the election just prior to his becoming Chancellor, the Nazi Party received only 31% of the vote. The 39% of the American public supporting the marking and separation of Muslims does not necessarily mean we will have a repeat of the Nazi atrocities, but it does mean that we are closer to the edge of that precipice than we'd like to believe.

I'm rethinking the rant I wrote about a month ago rejecting labeling myself "feminist". Perhaps it is not a label I should so hastily reject. This brings to mind the question: "Why is a feminist?".

Yes, I've heard the simplistic answer many times: "a feminist is someone who believes women are people too" or any variation on that theme. But that dissolves quickly when one starts talking issues. The abortion, the rabid warthog of issues, easily breaks the illusion. Many pro-choice feminists declare that pro-life feminism is an oxymoron, and that legal unqualified abortion is the only true path of feminism. This clearly is an affront to pro-life feminists, who will inevitably tell you that they believe unborn women are people too. Whether or not pro-life feminism is valid, this conflict alone shows that a simple definition is not going to suffice in defining what feminism is.

Perhaps asking "what is feminism" is a bit like asking "what is goth" on alt.gothic (is that still regularly asked?). Done over and over again, there is no real definition. It is a political orientation, the same way socialist and populist are. If it simply a political orientation, why should I reject it just because some fanatical organizations such as the MWMF claim it as well? Perhaps it is just a word, perhaps my gesture has no real meaning, but I might just call myself a feminist again.

There was a time in the not-too-distant past when I thought that people were missing the point if they said "'feminists' should call themselves 'equalists' if they truly embrace equality." Now, I think I may have been missing the point. While I agree with most strong feminist concepts, I do not feel part of the feminist "community" nor do I longer want to be part of it any longer. This has been eating at me more and more the past year.

When I was homeless in the Northampton/Amherst area, I had just as much trouble with "feminists" as I did with frat boys, both groups being endemic to the area. I was refused housing on the basis of being trans by both groups. But I still identified as feminist.

Recently, I've become more and more dissatisfied with the drama and the readiness of many feminists to shout "You're not a feminist if you are X"; X being a sex worker, a transsexual, a pro-lifer, or someone who disagrees with them. It's interesting that the same people who would readily deny people the feminist label will also state "a feminist is anyone who believes in equality for women". I've known a lot of people who stopped identifying as feminist for this very reason. The exchange goes as follows: "You're not a feminist." "Okay."

I have also come to dislike the feminist community's knack for grabbing a concept because it sounds or feels good, not because it makes sense. Personal opinions and beliefs are fine and can be based on whatever you want to base them on, but policy and law should be based on reason and logic. Reason and logic are not inherently male concepts nor are they dirty words, as I have heard some "feminists" actually claim.

Reading the blatant hatred and nastiness on MichFest Boards the other day have sealed the deal: While I may agree with most feminist concepts, I no longer want to be part of the "community". Feel free to label me whatever you want based on my views or your views or whatever, but I will from now on be calling myself a There was a time in the not-too-distant past when I thought that people were missing the point if they said "'feminists' should call themselves 'equalists' if they truly embrace equality." Now, I think I may have been missing the point. While I agree with most strong feminist concepts, I do not feel part of the feminist "community" nor do I longer want to be part of it any longer. This has been eating at me more and more the past year.

When I was homeless in the Northampton/Amherst area, I had just as much trouble with "feminists" as I did with frat boys, both groups being endemic to the area. I was refused housing on the basis of being trans by both groups. But I still identified as feminist.

Recently, I've become more and more dissatisfied with the drama and the readiness of many feminists to shout "You're not a feminist if you are X"; X being a sex worker, a transsexual, a pro-lifer, or someone who disagrees with them. It's interesting that the same people who would readily deny people the feminist label will also state "a feminist is anyone who believes in equality for women". I've known a lot of people who stopped identifying as feminist for this very reason. The exchange goes as follows: "You're not a feminist." "Okay."

I have also come to dislike the feminist community's knack for grabbing a concept because it sounds or feels good, not because it makes sense. Personal opinions and beliefs are fine and can be based on whatever you want to base them on, but policy and law should be based on reason and logic. Reason and logic are not inherently male concepts nor are they dirty words, as I have heard some "feminists" actually claim.

Reading the blatant hatred and nastiness on MichFest Boards the other day have sealed the deal: While I may agree with most feminist concepts, I no longer want to be part of the "community". Feel free to label me whatever you want based on my views or your views or whatever, but I will from now on be calling myself a equalist.

After seeing the MWMF boards, it is pretty clear that the Camp Trans press release was inaccurate insofar as stating that there has been any change in the policies of the MWMF.

I share the view others who have expressed: even if the policy did change why would I want to be stuck for a week at a festival with such a tone of fear and hatred. And while the have just as much right as everyone else to single a group out for hatred and scapegoating, I don't really see how that would be in any way enjoyable or fulfilling for me to join in.

Poll #799024
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Abortion: 0 = abortion banned, no exceptions; 10 = abortion free & on demand, no exceptions

Gun Control: 0 = all weapons banned; 10 = military assault weapons and rocket propelled grenades for all

Marijuana legalization: 0 = heavy penalties for anyone caught with any quantity for any reason; 10 = anyone should be free to buy, grow and sell free from all restrictions or sin taxes.

Censorship: 0 = metering out and control all information by government is in the best interest of the people; 10 = no restrictions whatsoever on even the vilest types of porn and hate

Surveillance: 0 = government should keep no information on individuals without express written permission from the individual for each record; 10 = the government should have complete access to all records and should bug and/or tag private conversations