Opopanox, Home of the Arrogant Worm

Wish me luck, there’s a Trojan horse on this poor pc, it’s ill. Titled ‘Virtumonde’, it apparently takes a qualified professional to remove it. I’m having help from a friend by the name o’Doug later, hopefully it works out. Might be a while if it doesn’t, as the Trojan has the habit, I hear, if not removed properly, of totally destroying your pc.

Hello humor! We’re onto Alternate Blog Titles t’day, Natalia compiled a list of Radical Right Radfem blog titles. Y’know, in case they ever want help when they delete their blog cuz they’re looking bad and create new ones.

Link to first located here

Link to second located here

Examples of Awesome-ness:

Alas, Poor Patriarchy. I Knew Him, the Bastard.

All Womyn, Except for You

Apolitical Lesbian-Sister Love (But Not In That Way)

Appalled By Your Vulgar Language

Brave Sir Robin Bravely Erased the Dissenting Comments from the Moderation Queue

Clutching My Pearls In a Pale Gothic Deathgrip

Where the New Blogs O’Righteousness, incidentally, they look just as bad. Anyway. Belledame has followed up the lists with a compilation for the MRA’s, because really, what – about – the men? With such gems as

Condoms Are For Girls

Every Sperm IS Sacred

Fuck Me I’m Awesome (Please)

How Big’s Yours, Then?

I Can Piss Standing Up!! And Other Brilliant Accomplishments

I couldn’t resist posting it

Onward ho!

Link located here

In other news, I ate too damn much, and yet – the mini eclairs and that fancy $3.99 port wine cheese log is – still – harassing me.

Edited to add list examples for Natalia’s – can’t believe I missed ‘em, and to break the huge block of dark font, hard to read.

For the love of Christ would that damn med. application pretty please go through and get approved? My tooth’s starting to get antsy again (y’know, the one the dentist was supposed to pull months and months and fucking months ago?, and the other one where it turns out I have a cavity that he insisted I didn’t cuz he couldn’t see it (well, you can damn well see it – now -) isn’t doing so hot either. Damitdammitdammit.

‘Alas a Blog’ has a civics quiz link up,

link located here

I answered 24 out of 33 correctly — 72.73 %

Average score for this quiz during November: 78.1%
Average score: 78.1%

In other words – time to study. I didn’t expect a particularly high grade, considering I’m not in college and my last firm brush with civics information was about seven years ago in high school during Bush’s era no less(not counting one of my sibling’s homework once in a blue moon). Which frankly seems to have seeped into my poor brain on what the branches can and cannot do/are for. Repetition of the vaguely informed and trying not to pay attention, I suppose. (can you tell I’m not fond of politics?) I suspect if I took it Way Back When the score would’ve been quite a bit better. Also, I just woke up – no sense in not hedging my bets with a still muddled brain. But yes, study time; I dislike being unprepared. I mean, I figured it would be low-ish, but that’s a bit much even for me. If only it was about literature and general history instead!

Edited for additional link to Daily Kos,

Link located here

which claims there’s a conservative bias on the civics’ test with what the other possible answers implied. I did notice something odd, as I never learned about NOW in civics class and a few of the Q’s were rather particular on information that might and might not have ever been said depending on what school you went too. The tax question answers were oddly phrased, too. Then there’s what FDR did in the recession versus what a latter Q said would be the best policy to do in recession, (Like, oh, OUR current economic crisis, hm?) which was the most blatant next to the NOW inquiry. Still a bit miffed about my score, though. Survey’s have bias, especially online surveys, so really, not much of a surprise.

Also from Alas, a post about White Culture(s) (b’cause myself, I think there’s more than one of it, intersectional blending, at least, – I – can’t separate most crap).

Link located here

Funnily enough a lot of the poorer and in-the-sticks people I know recognize they’ve a type of white culture (possibly because consumer culture isn’t kind to people with little funds, ime), but I don’t usually hear skin pigment invoked till later in the game, as it’s assumed to be a given. Which you’d think would make it easier for people to realize that if white’s a given, there’s racism, but, considering the particular duplicity in the North here makes m’head ache. At any rate, I think a lot of wealthy-er (think college grads or white collar jobs. Not sure about the pink collar jobs, haven’t talked with any people in those, I don’t think.) white people would be unpleasantly surprised to find there are indeed white cultures and that they’re also affected by it. Region also has heavy affects, obviously, as does particular customs, but still. Culture seems to be (according to the television, anyway) what one buys instead of what one lives, and a lot of white liberals, from my reading, fall into the “I have no culture” trap because Culture! = Consumerism! and also, if large bits of your culture are the default standard, you most likely won’t notice it. Here, a tiny example. I’ve spent an overly large portion of m’life so far in Pennsylvania. There’s regional food here I wasn’t aware was regional. Small example, yes. Speedies (I’m told), garlic pizza, scrapple – you get the idea. I figured scrapple was regional, since it took me a while to notice it – but spiedies and the regional garlic pizza, I thought, were everywhere. Apparently this isn’t so. Shame, too, since I adore garlic pizza. I’ll see if I can find a recipe and post it. The spiedies aren’t half bad, either, but you can make your own marinade for that.

Anyway, the extremely heavy tilt of consumerism-as-culture is, I suspect, largely American fault, I think, which leans heavily to teens, twenty-somethings and people with money. No, I’ve no statistics but visual there – s’just that around here, I don’t generally see thirty-forty somethings running out to spend hard-earned money on ‘culture’. They generally go in another direction, to buy youth in some form or another instead, (I wonder, should that be titled American Mainstream culture or should it also stand double time into white culture as well, since it’s so bloody prevalaint) since youth’s associated with being viable. Not all youth, obviously other factors to consider, but yeah, particular aspects are apparently something to be achieved. M’Not fond of popular consumerism, really. And I’m still quite sure that if you eliminate television people are much happier, on the whole, for not getting bombarded with negative stereotypes and expectations as much. But back to culture, m’liking La Lubu and Daisy Bond over there. Particularly this bit;

““3. That the folks claiming “no culture” are really making a statement about how emotionally disconnected they are from both consumer culture and their ancestral culture.”

Links -

Update on Ray Sandford’s fored electroshock located here at ‘The Gimp Parade’

Also found via ‘The Gimp Parade’, (you’ll have to sit down for this one – or perhaps not, if you’re used to not having transportation via a combustible engine – you might be surprised what some of the fuckers who drive pull) a woman who uses a wheelchair is getting sued for damage because the truck that hit her while crossing the street isn’t in pristine condition any more. Yes, you read correctly, and the comment’s section isn’t unusual, either.

Link to article located here

And as for this comment, and others’ like it -

plum lilly commented 2 days 11 hours 49 minutes ago

As politically incorrect as it may sound, this woman really had no business being on a busy street like that. I’m familiar with Gainesville, Hall County, and it’s high traffic and very fast paced. She was obviously endangering herself as well as others. With there being no intersection, this landscaping truck saw no reason to be looking out for a woman in a wheelchair wheeling rolling along. My mother is completely disabled and she wouldn’t dream of doing something like this. Most handicapped individuals know their limitations and rolling around in a wheelchair on a busy street is one of them. There is free transportation for situations like this.

S’not ‘their own limitations’. It’s you bastards who refuse to stop to let people cross the street. Not like we (that is, people who don’t drive) need you to get out and carry us across with flowers and a bottle of wine. I mean, My God, you don’t even have enough compassion to put in a crosswalk! Not that most of you don’t drive right over them without looking – anyway -, but due to the ‘Giving’ holiday season you could at least – consider – it. If you need to get across the street you …need to get across the street. There’s nothing left to – do – but move like hell when you greedy sonofa….won’t stop for a moment to let someone that I know damn well you probably see cross the street. Besides which, here’s a thought; If the car next and in front of you has, wonder of wonders, stopped, then perhaps you too should Slow The Fuck Down To See Why instead of speeding right along with a hearty ‘too bad, so sad’ in your heart of hearts.

-Edited to add; Free Transportation? O Rlly? Funny thing about transportation – It’s only free if you have a card, it generally does not, in fact, pick you up outside your door so you – still – have to go a few blocks to the bus stop. And! It doesn’t come whenever you want it to. Sometimes it doesn’t even show! Or they drive right by you, and isn’t that one always fun. Or it’s full. Or they say they can’t take you, that the bus you’re really looking for is the next one, and you get screwed because the driver turns out to be – wrong -. Heard about that last one last week, along with a few other choice stories – and believe you me, everyone’s got ‘em. “They have transportation for that” my ass.

From ‘Problem Chylde’ by Sylvia, Winona LaDuke’s house burned down due to electrical fire, family’s safe but house & contents are gone. Here’s how to help:

Link located here

Read an interesting post on disability access on ‘Three Rivers’ blog

link located here

Brought to mind my trip to T. town a few days back. Went by bus, yadda yadda yadda, but you know those signs on the windows across the aisle? Not the ones at the front of the bus declaring no smoking with other pretty pictures n’paragraphs, can’t see/read those from my seat (which is almost funny since I was up front-ish and musing on whether I should’ve taken said seat on an empty bus, baring what seemed to be a three passenger limit. S’a rare day when 4 or more people are on at a given time, you’d think more people would use the bus. Anyway). There’s these window decals across the aisle that you can see, if not read. There’s three seats on it, see, one contains a person sitting in it, one has a cane on the seat, and ..crap, what did the other contain? I misremember, but it – was – a little white symbol, at any rate, signifying a disability rather than a person. The larger caption read “please reserve these seats for the elderly and people with disabilities’. And you know, there’s a broad gap in that picture. First, it suggests only and all disabilities that would need to be accomodated are physically-viewed. It seems (to me) that it would be more beneficial to make, instead of the cane symbol et cetera on the seats, to just have people-figures using the seats to show they’d be occupied. Think of it as a bit of subliminal messaging too – looking for an aid isn’t reliable for checking if someone could use assistance. I can think of several things off the top of my head that would pose a problem that aren’t readily apparent with an aid on a bus, one of them being rather harsh pain from a menstraul cycle which I was also blessed with that day. And while the elderly get a stick-figure person, (the cynical part of me thinks it’s just because Society just hasn’t yet got up quite enough rudeness to (blatantly) put a tombstone on a seat for what they’re – really – thinking), everyone else gets an aid as a representation. Anyway, I spent most of the way there pondering on the signage (and some of the way back, but I was a bit out of it, brain kept trying to fall asleep while dragging me with it. Literally, I think a large part due to the heat of the bus and the general excitement of being out n’about, had an immense amount of trouble keeping my eyes at least halfway focused, payed for it later, damn migraine. Lemmie tell you I woke up after I got off to finish walking home though, friggen’ cold n’windy out. Ack, anyway. Ran through the usual “Do I really – need – to sit here” with little squiggles of vague unease winding. Also spent a bit of time giving the steps to the back section nasty looks. There’s a string of tiny lights on the the front edge of the back bus steps, as it turns out, but lights don’t tend to help, half the time I don’t see them (Odd angle, maybe? Tilt your head a fraction to the side and there they are, tilt it again and s’dark) and most of the time I’ve got some sort of glare problem going on. I loath missing steps or thinking something – is- a step, jars you good when you make a mistake, and there’s always the specter of tripping to contend with. Had that problem at the front of the bus’s platform where the door is. If they’d just choose different colors for lower sections it would save a lot of hesitation, would be -clear -. But no, everything’s the same blue-and-tin edging color, which suggests, yes, – steps -. At least to me. Which means I got to hover my foot and try to tap on it to see if it’s closer than it appears. Still not sure where the hell to sit on the bus, but I figured since I was there for paperwork w/job accessibility, wasn’t committing too much of a faux pas, especially as the great majority of seats were empty. did feel rather bad when two of the passengers who got on headed for the back though, as they seemed to resemble me. I mean, I could’ve walked up the steps and found a seat there. Might’ve had a problem, but then again, I might not’ve. Exactly how disabled does the sign mean, I’d like to know?

-Edited for grammar/spelling and clarity.

T’days’ the Day of Remembrance, dunno what to write. Really, everyone else has already spoken (quite well at that), there’s nothing much left to say. It’s not a time to dishonor the dead and the still living with an empty spot, let alone on the only day allotted for grieving and with the numbers rising so fast. This will be a bit of a link splurge to words better than my own.

Link to Transgender Day of Remembrance located here

Link to Drakyn located here

Link to Little Light located here

Link to Queen Emily Here

Link to Piny located here

Passing along from the comments from ‘Questioning Transphobia’,

We, the LGBT in Malaysia will be holding our first Transgender Day Of Remembrance on the first weekend of December. Please e-mail me any thoughts in writing to yukichoe@gmail.com so that we can share it on that day. There is a need for us to observe on what is going on at a larger scale beyond South East Asia. Drop us some reflections, so that we know we are not alone in this Muslim governed country – Yuki Choe

Dear Ocular Migraine Fairy,

Leave me alone, you complete and utter asshole. I just got done not ….alright, might’ve been about six…eight months ago, somewhere around there – insisting those damn things aren’t ocular migraines ‘cuz some things show in particular consistent circumstances, like tilting the book and watch the words change color. I’ve been under the impression that your headaches are things that affect, not things I can tweak the instances of, and there’s no way a migraine would slip ’round that fast and come back again in the perhaps a second and a half it takes to tilt a book and watch the color bounce around. However, the headaches around your eye sockets I’ve just heard are do to – you -? Those are, apparently, ocular migraines – And You, you little winged bastard, need to knock it off.

Doing paperwork for assistance in T. tomorrow, as I suppose I aught to try again seeing as I fear for the electric bill, among other things. Also trying something new, seems to be working out all right. I’ve mentioned ‘Duma Key’ by Stephen King before and that I liked it quite a bit due to the subject matter (art at an early age, it’s the first time I’ve seen a fiction story with it, even though it was brought about by a head injury) and since I dither like mad when depressed I’ve decided to re-create those paintings one of the main characters (Edgar, I believe) s’posedly did. I went and had a tour online, though, to make sure King wasn’t describing anyone else’s previous works (at least by the titles given) and seeing as I can’t find any, I thought it might be …beneficial, I suppose, to do a few paintings that have ‘already been done’. Sort of priming the pump, so to speak, since when I’ve been doing my own work I get stuck when not feeling well. This redoing-nonexistant-work, though, has been panning out nicely, the pencil has been skittering along at quite a rapid pace. ‘Bout a third of the way done with “Roses Grow From Shells” (detailed pencil sketch for form placement, something else I don’t generally have need of. But I started to rough it and the ..conch shell, I believe? was just begging for detail, so….any way) since I haven’t any oils it’ll probably be a watercolor or a soft pastel. I really should get some oils and get used to ‘em, been putting it off since the brushes are a pain in the ass to clean with the paint and there’s no sink in my work area. The ‘Girl & Ship’ series should be especially interesting. Also, can’t wait for the first decent snow, I’ve an idea for a painting but I need to see snow to paint it.

AHA! I have found a vision problem name to suggest to the eye doctor! higher aberrations, instead of the low ones they keep checking for. =/ Not exactly a stunning idea, but I’m desperate. Ack, back round info; Called G, have an appointment for Mid December when she’s in the area and we’re supposed to be setting me up an appointment with an eye doctor that will, supposedly, listen to me instead of claiming ‘migraine headache’ while shoving me out the door. Also have to call some guy so he can refer her to me like the system says? Weird, second person that’s s’posed to be able to have referral powers and yet – doesn’t seem to. If that works out I’m allowed to get job rehabilitation. If it doesn’t, I get to go back to being not hired / fired when they notice something’s wrong. Joy. I’m a bit leery considering the only doctor in the area that’s in her reportiore is in Gu. and I already know that lovely /sarcasm/ little hospital doesn’t do low vision testing, so I’ve doubts whether they can find the problem or, well, care to listen, considering the history there.