Out of interest

I think I posted this way back, but I can't remember, so I'm putting it here: the Toronto Guqin Society's Tutorials to Hanfus for future reference.

I actually want to make a samfu top but hanfus cannot possibly go wrong.

=(

Want a doggie. Can't have a doggie. I move around too much, I have no income of my own, my landlady doesn't like dogs, I'm no good at training dogs.

Sigh.

Sunday Linkfest!

Hi all. I've been bad with the Internet lately, spending most of my time on Tumblr. After this linkfest, I'm going to try quitting the Internet and keep reading Homi Bhabha.

So, some creative work first, just to shake things up:

Earlier this week, I shared this Lightspeed Magazine story with jaded16: Standard Loneliness Package

glass_icarus shared this amazing fake research paper on Fire Nation homogenization.

During #steampunkchat, @armyoftoys plugged their albums. You can listen online for free, or download.

A tutorial on how to make a parasol from an umbrella. Seems a lot of work to transform a functional thing into an decorative item, but I imagine one COULD create an umbrella that is BOTH decorative AND rain-resistant.

Shahid Afridi's Widyaan 2011 Collection

Call for submissions for OPEN MIC, a YA / humour anthology on race. In the editor's words: "You don’t have to focus specifically on racism, but your piece will explore or illuminate coming of age and/or growing up along the margins of race and culture in North America. Hopefully, it will also be funny."

ephemere is extended pre-orders for Kandila, her calligraphy poetry book, to October 3. Please check it out!


Here are some #OccupyWallStreet thingummies:
Jessica Yee at Racialicious tears it up pointing out how the occupation of Wall Street doesn't really speak to the occupation of Native lands, riffing off JonPaul Montano's Open Letter to Wall Street Occupiers.

Hena Ashraf reports on brown power at Occupy Wall Street, insisting on re-wording the Declaration, even if they have to give some basic Racism 101 education... to the OWS leader.

This hasn't been verified, but in5d reports that Army and Marine servicemen who are no longer on active duty are coming to help protect OWS protesters.

Here, Steal This Wiki, a riff off Abbie Hoffman's Steal This Book which is full of advice on dissidence, how to survival, how to resist.

Some more news:

Here is a petition by Alice N'Kom, a Cameroonian attorney who defends people who have been jailed for being gay. She wants to take this petition to the President of Cameroon, to demand the release of gay prisoners and a law protecting their rights.

Gas leak 'sploded in a mall near my home. (Subang Empire is literally a three minute walk from my house.)

Aboriginal survivors of residential schools step forward to tell their stories. Canadian residential schools only closed in 1997; FYI in case people think it's old history.

Alabama recently passed legislation that, much like Arizona's SB1070, allows law enforcement to stop anybody they think is an illegal immigrant, and requires schools to ask new enrollees for a copy of their birth certificate. As a result, Hispanic students come to school crying and afraid, or they're withdrawing, or just not coming to school. What kind of legislation actively discourages children who clearly want to go to school from doing so?

In slightly more cheerful news, a Filipina maid in Hong Kong won permanent residency, since she'd been there since the 80's. This landmark case is probably going to have effect on domestic workers and you know there's gonna be some anti-Filipina scare stories, but it's cool that Hong Kong is recognizing their human rights.

Academic tourists are now taking advantage of their First-World privilege to sight-see the Arab Spring.

Some commentary:

Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns and Money gives 10 reasons to not go to law school.

Anthony Alessandrini at Jadaliyya on missing the late, great Edward Said, his legacy of his brand of public intellectual work, what he still stands for.

At Al-Jazeera, an article about self-licking ice cream cones, "a programme or policy that costs money and resources, generating a great deal of activity; produces indicators of its own success, preferably quantitative; but does not actually achieve its announced goals." Coined during the Vietnam War, it now reflects perfectly what neoliberalism is doing to the States.

Luiz Rodriguez on Why We Need a Deeper Dialogue on Black-and-Brown Relations.

Media Indigena: An Open Letter To My Local Hipsters. Stop appropriating Native imagery, hipsters.

A historical figure: Diane Nash, who was a front line leader of the Civil Rights Movement. A kick-ass lady whose story you may wish to acquaint yourself with.

This article provides us with useful language to describe what Fox News does to its audience.

Debunked: 10 Myths about Affirmative Action in USA. Useful to know for those irritating conversations with racists who think affirmative action is racist.

Of further interest, there is a Fellowship for U.S. graduates to add an international and language component to their studies.

On lighter notes:

If you're an introvert attending a con? Some useful types to spare your internal batteries.

coffeeandink has a useful post on choosing and buying ereaders.

There is a thing as the Great Train Expo.

There are brave women who volunteer to support pregnant prisoners: the Prison Doula Project.

And finally, lookit this table! You plant fudz at the feet, and they creep up the legs, to bring you closer to your food. At least, your vegetables.

Hope you have a happy week ahead!

(no subject)

Guys, guys! I just thought of something! I know that the Eddingses' Belgariad and Mallorean are like, racist as fuck, but I just had this moment, where I wanted to cosplay Polgara someday, and what if someone got all POLGARA IS ALORN GARION SAID SO in my face? And then I could be like, well, who the fuck knows? Nobody knows what Belgarath's ethnicity is, given that his village disappeared when Torak cracked the world, a'ight? Nobody can place Belgarath's ethnicity; everybody just assumes it's Alorn, because Poledra took on the form of an Alorn woman and Pol kinda sorta looks like her? And Beldaran was blond? Well for all we fucking know, Pol has black hair because Belgarath could be Asian-ish. Or NDN-ish. I am DOWN with this. Whoever plays Belgarath in some future film media, better not be white.

Thoughts?