I've added a whole parcel of wonderful wimmin to my blogroll, for no other reason than I wanted their links handy so I could find them very quickly. Some of my newcomers: Unapologetically Female, Snowstorm, The Pursuit of Harpyness, Transgriot, snow piled up in a silver bowl, Female Impersonator, What Tami Said, Katha Politt, three rivers fog, Future Feminist Librarian-Activist, Aunt Jemima's Revenge, Fourth Wave Feminism, Look left of the pleiades, Everyday Stranger, Elderwomanblog, Uncooler Than Thou, Kikipotamus the Hobo, Marge Twain, Pink Scare, Shapely Prose, and the most fabulously-named blog ever, Kittywampus!
Welcome to Dead Air, yall!
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Guess who's back? Kyle Payne, self-styled "male feminist" who was convicted of being a sexual predator and nonetheless continues to present himself as a dedicated freedom fighter for us ladeez. (Do you BELIEVE this guy?!?)
Renegade Evolution and Natalia Antonova share their incredulity with us, that Kyle won't just go away.
Sometimes, all you can say is: GOOD LORD!
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Mista Jaycee writes about Los Angeles Sparks forward Candace Parker's pregnancy.. The WHOLE CONCEPT of a visibly-pregnant professional basketball player is probably the most wonderfully feminist news I've heard in awhile! GO CANDACE! ~*~
Callin from the funhouse...I had not heard that Stooges guitarist Ron Asheton passed away from a heart attack at age 60 until reading a two-month-old Rolling Stone obituary. (Yeesh, I am so OUT OF IT!)
This is particularly sad to hear...Ron was most assuredly one of the great unsung heroes of the genre. Lots and lots of modern rock guitarists were deeply influenced by Ron and don't even realize the immense musical debt they owe him.
Goodbye dear friend. (And thanks for enabling Iggy all those years--somebody had to do it!)
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Private email lists are currently under fire, since Politico's Michael Calderone just outed Ezra Klein's little (large, actually) private club, named JournoList (JList for short). All the cool kids like Paul Krugman and Eric Alterman are on it. With so many bigshot liberal/radical bloggers on the email list, doesn't this make it something of a left-wing echo chamber?Well, duh! Ya think???? (Ezra responded in a flip, rather fuck-you fashion.)
Many people are weighing in, and I personally vented on a thread at Lean Left:
And with this revelation, we see that much of Leftist/Feminist/Progressive Blogdonia continues its march towards replicating middle-class high school cliques and attendant juvenile idiocy.
[KTK posted] And there is a kind of exclusivist quality to them that can be troubling, especially if they become a kind of quasi-official, but walled-off, function of a larger group. Many list members recognize that, and there are ways to deal with it.
[I replied] If they want to. Do they?
The “gang pile” syndrome is one unfortunate facet of these lists; and yes, I’ve been on them too. People who lack nerve require posses, that herd of independent minds, all covering/saying the same thing. Rather than develop individually, lots of these people are carbon-copies of each other and all report/pile on the same things, the same week. And now we know why–it’s coordinated and it’s an echo chamber. The same thing happens in Blogdonia, where certain controversial posts/threads are red-flagged, email lists pass the word, and there is a sudden unbelievable swarm of comments and fevered linkage. (Sometimes, if you are hip to who is on a list, you can tell who first thought up the talking points.) This can and does turn into simple bullying.
In addition, the I-brought-my-posse effect breeds stupidity and cowardice. Learn to defend yourself without being in a horde. Learn to find your own issues, not just follow the frat house gang/mob to the next Big Thing.
Also, there is the matter of blacklisting. If XYZ, your buddy and email droog, says “Daisy’s a real bitch” on your beloved email list, are you going to tell me that you won’t be prejudiced by that, even before you know me, or my comments/behavior on your blog? Because you know, that is thoroughly unfair and just generally poisons the waters. Example: I might be purposely antagonistic on a blog in which I think the blogger has, say, made fun of vegetarians. If you haven’t, that has nothing to do with you. But because this person doesn’t like my political message, they call me a bitch and without MY knowing why, you–third party to this feud–will be hostile to me immediately. Or at least, you will be unlikely to give me a fair hearing. (And yes, I do think that is how human beings are. We are easily prejudiced by those we respect and admire, our peers.) I’ve seen this phenomenon happen from both sides–as the victim AND as the person on the list, watching it happen.
It is tantamount to blacklisting; it freezes people out who have particularly radical or unpopular opinions.
THOSE are a FEW of the problem with these lists.
As one of my favorite modern philosophers once said: Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss.
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EDITED TO ADD:
Speaking of being out of it, I forgot to add a tribute to Ron!
Gimme Danger - Iggy Pop & The Stooges