Friday, May 29, 2009

You Took the Words Outta My Mouth: Immigration + Mental Health = EPIC FAIL

Thea Lim has this excellent post over on Racialicious, "When Systems of Oppression Intersect: Mental Health and the Immigration System." It details the story of Xiu Ping Jiang, a Chinese immigrant who has been caught up in the flawed deportation process, and whose situation is more compounded by a system that does not know how to properly treat for mental health concerns. This piece, which also cites other articles of note, captures what a horror show our immigration system really is. Being kept in solidarity confinement has ratcheted up Jiang's depression and suicidal ideations, thus it becomes increasingly more difficult for her to properly organize effectively for her case. Lim goes on to say:
It is impossible to disentangle the different strands of prejudice; where the psychiatric system is used to persecute people of colour, the justice system or immigration system persecutes people with disabilities, and inhumane systems in general combine to drive people to madness.
Read the full article here. As a crisis worker who has seen similar issues played out, let me just add that this problem is exacerbated when intimate partner violence or sexual assault is involved. This triad is unfortunately very common and there are not enough agencies with the appropriate resources available to aid these victims. This is the kind of problem that while not specialized, is treated as such, and I would love to see it addressed by our new administration.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Metric vs Married To The Sea

So other than biting my nails over the wait for the new HP movie, I've been obsessively listening to the new Metric album, Fantasies. Which, not to sound too over zealous, is completely perfect from start to finish. If you don't know Metric, check out that link above and give a listen, I doubt I'll like any album more than this one in 2009 (unless it's the new YYY which I haven't picked up yet).

One of my favorite parts of this album is the last song, it's upbeat, cute, and makes for a good visual. But more importantly, it makes me think Emily Haines (front woman) is really into the online comic, Married To The Sea. Which would be cool, because then we'd have something in common, and when we meet I could tell her I'm from Ohio just like Drew and Natalie who make MTTS, and she'd instantly want to be best friends with me because of my good taste in webcomics and midwestern states. So if you haven't already made the connection between these things, let me elablorate. The last song, Statium Love has lyrics like this:

Wanna make a bet
We'll be neck and neck
Taking off the gloves

Spider Vs Bat
Tiger Vs Rat
Rabbit Vs Dove

Every living thing
Pushed into the ring
Fight it out
To wow the crowd

The full song lyrics are here and you can listen to Statium Love on the site link up top. So the song has a deeper meaning about relationships (of course), but that's all lost on me, because everytime I listen to it, I think of this MTTS comic:

www.marriedtothesea.com
www.marriedtothesea.com

lolz...Moral of this tale? Listen to Metric, and read MTTS so you can wow your friends at parties with your inane cross references.

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Time Flies Like Magic

2001 - The Sorcerers Stone

Photobucket

2009 - The Half Blood Prince

Photobucket



Tuesday, May 19, 2009

There's Refuge in Corners, All My Posessions in Boxes

Moving sucks for many reasons, for me some of the suckiest highlights are

A) My couch not fitting through the door, thus it was trashed
- and -
B) Comcast's inability to pull their heads out of their asses long enough to fix the friggin' internet which comes and goes from my apartment like the wind

I choose to blame my major behindness in writing on these main factors. Having to write in a camping chair, bed, or atop a rubbermaid container is as easy as trying to tackle the task in a moving car...no impossible, just incrediably uncomfortable and distracting.

So why don't I stop bitching and instead catch you up on the real haps, eh? My thoughts are just as scattered as my possessions these days, as I try to gather and organize both, take a gander at some pop culture things I found fascinating or infruiating in the last few weeks:

Movies:

"17 Again" starring Zac Efron and the adorable Matthew Perry (does me thinking Perry is the cuter of the two age me, or make me ambrosial?) looks like your average, my-life-sucks-at-this-age-why-not-try-another-age-via-unnamed-magic fluff movie. But according to community blogger Lauren on Oh No They Didn't it's rotten with sexist absintence only messages. Efron makes impassioned speeches about girls respecting themselves, and preaches that peeps shouldn't sex it up until they are ready to have that baby. Yikes and ewww! Read full post here.

Everyone is still gaga over Star Trek, as they should be, but in the hussle to call it the greatest prequel/summer movie/Star Trek remake everrrrr are we forgetting the women? Melissa over at Women and Hollywood ponders the insignificance of the three main female characters who can be broken down into little more than wife, mother, and girlfriend. Read full post here.

57 Days until Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince...OMFG...the wait is more painful than the Sectumsempra curse. If you haven't seen the full length preview yet, you must now at the official site here. I'm trying to remain cautiously optimistic becuase the last one was so not great, but holy cats, how can I not believe that this looks like the best and most amazing HP yet?! It seems to have everything. I'm surprised how much the preview showed of the end, and gaaaah...drool. I need to stop now.

Television:

Here is a super cute article I found in the New Yorker a couple of weeks ago about Amy Poehler and the unique quality she brings to all of her characters, "cockeyed optimism," they call it. If you feel bad from time to time about the lack of females in comedy (like I tend to) read this piece and savor this line:
"...you always felt in good hands during a Poehler skit; unlike some of the other performers—the men of recent years come to mind—she never seemed sloppy or on the verge of being downright awful." I feel a triumphent leap in my heart when I read it, I hope you do too.

Now use that power you harnessed by reading that last bit and try not to reach into cyber space with the intention of strangling Dirk Benedict after you get a gander at this piece titled "Starbuck: Lost in Castration" he wrote about Battlestar Galactica. Benedict played Starbuck in the orginal series, and he's back now to say a whole handful of pro-sexism shit and if you don't like it than tough, he's a cigar chomping, ass grabing man, and that's the way of the/his world. It's unbearable that such backwards talk is being bantied around about such a progressive and important show. Get a snifter of this: "There was a time – I know I was there – when men were men, women were women and sometimes a cigar was just a good smoke. But 40 years of feminism have taken their toll. The war against masculinity has been won. Everything has turned into its opposite, so that what was once flirting and smoking is now sexual harassment and criminal. And everyone is more lonely and miserable as a result. " Le Sigh.

Rabbit Write discusses the controversial Oprah episode that encouraged mom's to buy their daughters' vibrators in order to teach them about self stimulation. While I agree with Rabbit that actually buying the vibrator for your kid is over steping bodily autonomy boundries, I will argue that there is nothing unatural to using tools to get the job done. She posts, "...it would seem that masturbation would be a natural and personal discovery. Isn’t that precisely what it should be? Quick fixes won’t help your teenagers develop positive relationships with their bodies. The beauty of healthy sex cannot be taught by an orgasm machine." Au contraire, a vibrator or any other sex toy is not an unnatural quick fix, it's part of the whole fix. And of course these kinds of toys can teach healthy sex. Healthy sex comes when one understands their own body and what makes them feel good. It's important to learn about yourself in many different ways. Besides, orgasm machine? Really, that's the word choice we're going with? Vibrators only vibrate, the user is in control of the speed, penetration, weight of touch, where it goes, and how much interaction it has in the masturbation process. It's not like those fetish sites where the girl is sumissive to some bizarre contraption. Let's not be over dramatic here.

Okay, it's good to get some of those out of my system. Now, back to posting things on a more regular basis...




Tuesday, May 12, 2009

I've Been Writing for Another Blog...Jealous?

So I've taken a couple weeks off here to launch a new humor blog with a food focus. It's called What We Eat Is Laughable and 5 of my friends are also contributing to it. There are only a few posts so far, but you can expect (and you will find) product and restaurant reviews, comments on food culture, recipes, how tos, budget meals, cooking videos, entertaining tips, and baking stuff. It will be omnivore, vegetarian, and vegan friendly and will cover a wide range of items so there is something for everyone. Unless you are a serious chef, then perhaps our wackiness may not be your taste - ha! Get it?!!!?? Taste?!!! Food Blog?! Ho-boy, those are the kind of gems you can expect to find on our site. Nothin' but laugh after laugh. Go. Read. Now.