An Open Letter to Supporters of Julian Assange,

I too, am a supporter of Wikileaks and the work it is doing.

I too, believe that governments around the world, including our own, are not doing the right thing. And doing the 'right thing' is something that matters deeply to me.

There is one thing, however, that I would like people to shut up about. The rape allegations.

Nice guys rape, smart guys rape, guys who have nice conversations and make girls laugh at the party rape them afterwards, and perhaps even guys who want to change the world might rape.

In fact, most rapes occur by perfectly "nice" guys who disguise that it ever happened by
offering a cup of tea or asking the woman he brutally raped out for dinner.

So, before calling her a liar because she allegedly removed some tweets where she said she was having a good time at a party, just remember that having a nice time at the party doesn't mean a woman wants to have sex. I think every woman is cognisant that any indication that a woman did have a good time prior to being raped is used as evidence that she "wanted it". See: any comments section following an article in the mainstream media about footballers raping women who "had a good time".

Let me be clear, I am not saying he did, I am not saying he didn't. That's for a jury to determine on the basis of evidence presented. Evidence that none of us have seen.

eta: Hoyden About Town has a round-up of links to this very topic.

New Astrophysics!

Once upon a time a fiend of mine accidentally presented a conference poster about The Search for Charmed Hardons. I don't know that it ever made it onto arxiv (an open access site for papers in physics, maths etc.).

Unlike this one from Ehud Nakar.

What do we know about gamma-gay bursts?


...


...


BWAHHAAHAHAHAHAHAetc.

You know one thing, in all my reading, the doctors and head doctors, that no one ever said about depression? That, in the end, it's just boring.

You know it will pass, you know what you have to do to get better, you do all that stuff, and it's hard work, it takes concentration and it's boring.

Today, I am drafting frock patterns and distracting my brain by reminding it how good it feels that my cat chooses to hang out with me often, and how excited i am about one of the bestest ladies in the world coming to visit soon.

yes, i am.

never read the comments section.

This week, again, it seems that there's another round of lady-hating in disguise; from 'femmoz get out ov tha dark ages', to breast cancer awareness(tell me, how does updating your facebook status to "i like it..." bring awareness to breastcancer??? It seems to me more like you're being an active participant in portraying your only worth as being a
object for men's sexual satisfaction - did you see anyone write that they 'like it' somewhere not on display? I didn't think so), via degrading and objectifying women in solar panel advertising.

This article in this morning's Age Gail Dines, author of Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality is starting well - women like teh pr0nz too!, "fundamentalist" and backward author blah blah heard it all before - in what promises to be a lesson on why one should never read the comments section.

kitten riding a totoise

My new favourite thing.

on the weekend I...

made this peanut butter and chocolate slice or bars/slab/crack/however you want to cut it and eat it.



I recommend you make some too. They're really easy, full of natural ingredients (like two types of sugar, two types of butter, chocolate, and oats) and more addictive than crack.

Then you can cut it and photograph it and show it off.



Like so.

But be quick, or the plate will be empty before you make it back with your camera.

contains traces of nuts.

look! It's a monkey in a suit riding a goat.

(via BoingBoing)

dear man in the elevator,

you don't need to dash across to bang on the 'close door' button. by the time you make it over there and press on the button, the doors will start closing anyway.

informatively,

elaine

an idle thought

i don't think it's just facebook that's been responsible for my lack of blogging.



it's bloody google reader. i lost the sense of community i felt from doing the daily rounds and made it a less instant way for me to talk to you. i had to really feel het up enough to follow three links. aren't i lazy!

Transactions

So I don't think I've ever made a secret of the fact that I've spent time on a pscychologist's couch. I've also seen an otolaryngologist and a myotherapist.

One of the things we talked about was relationships. It seemed that I was, actually, doing it wrong. That I needed to start acting in a more transactional manner; I do this for you, you do that for me. If you stop doing things then I do too. That I should ask you to do things for me that it's easier to do myself just to keep the scales balanced.

This seemed, to me, so cold. But I can be good at following instructions, if I choose to be. So I did. Instead of feeling cared for and respected I felt nothing. Then I felt disgust.

I tried again. And the only thing that grew from those initial good feelings was the opposite.

And again. Nothing.

Now, after one more conversation, I think I understand. There is only one transaction. The rest is putting up with your demands and your crap whilst occasionally picking a fight to make you feel that I'm not. Then, one day, if I'm lucky, you might be generous enough to 'give me a baby'.

Those exact words. "I don't know what she gets out of it but one day I'll give her a baby"

It's nice to know my 'choices'.

untitled

Get over it.

(open in a new window or tab to view ful sized, Graphic by Robert Corr)

'Boat people' are not the communist hordes sweeping down from Russia to take over Australia.

oops that was the reason behind the Vietnam War.

There are not hundreds of thousands of 'boat people' coming to invade our country and destroy our way of life. (however, if by 'destroy it is meant 'make wonderful contributions to our culture and society' then I'm ALL FOR 'EM).

on the dampening of toes.

i feel weird about this dipping my toe in the blogging water thing.

but, well hi!

i feel like there's a lot been goin' on. in all the nooks and crannies of my life. it has to make its way to the outside somehow.

i'm kicking ass at work, but i'm working hard too. and its noticed by people, you know. and i made it there through the midst of having to try hard to keep my mental health in check. it's not easy, sometimes, for me. but i won this round. hurrah &etc.

i went to morocco. and had an astounding experience. the place. the people. the land itself. i got fucking rained on in the middle of the Sahara desert. i almost posted a picture of myself to prove it but i'm too vain to post the only one i've got (it's SO DORKY). it was surreal. and super fun. i feel relaxed travelling in Islamic countries, the ones i've been so far, anyway. that's one reason i find myself choosing to travel there, i guess.

instead you get this shot taken in the Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca. pretty, no?

and you may like to know that street art exists everywhere. even in Essaouira, a gorgeous town on the Atlantic coast. i strolled along the beach there and in the old fortified city, arm-in-arm with a terribly handsome man. we feasted on seafood caught off the beach and drank copious quantities of coffee and mint tea.

and now i am home. with new dreams in my heart to shield me from the cold.

the beginning, the end, and everything in between.

i heard from him last week.

an unwanted and panic inducing event on a friday that had begun with missing the bus. it was earlier than i to the bus stop and i wasn't late. for the first time that week!

i couldn't breathe.

not a good look in my new job. i'm smart and together and professional there. not...the lingering vestages of who i once was. not the result of nervous shocks in someone recovering from ptsd. something he contributed to. by taking advantage of the fact that my decision making processes were so impaired to think not as bad as that other one meant a good thing.

anything he could have wanted to say to me would have meant somefuckingthing if he paused long enough to respect my parting wishes to (and i quote) never, under any circumstances, contact me again.

what that meant then as now, is that i know i deserve(d) better - especially from him - because i wised up, too late, to what he did. that he'd finally found the end of my good will. there's always that point with me and there's no coming back. not for him. not ever. i don't need his apology because i don't need or want him in my life. it's irrelevant. one day he may be sorry, maybe not. it doesn't matter. from that point forward it had nothing to do with me. no matter what he could have to say to me became irrelevant. how can interaction be relevant to people who don't exist to each other.

it's not.

but the worst thing. for me. is that i'm raw to it all over again. and i hate it. i hate that i'm having a perfectly sunday and i put on brian eno to help me sort my washing and i'm transported back to that time blissed out on some other sunday morning a lifetime away. but it was all a lie. it wasn't real to him. even after he left. even as he transmitted the words we can't be friends for now. no. if you do that. we can't be friends ever. that's your choice.

and i severed that part of myself and set about healing the void. on my own terms.

right up until the nadir, i had narrative in my life. even if i didn't like the way things were or ended up or turned out, things made sense. a so b so c. well, shit. that stopped. somewhere along the line. i had a thought this morning, earlier, that perhaps i feel less narrative in my life because i don't write about it anymore. not here, not on paper. i used to do both.

it got to a point where i stopped. i couldn't put pen to paper because nothing made sense. i had no way of processing what i was feeling. it was too hard. so i made things. endlessly. i make things. endlessly. one craft project blends into another.

they start to feel good again.

VERY IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

via i fuck and i vote