This is not a Nicky post.
I don't have time right now to write as long a post as I'd like right now, so the short version: Pretentious, self-righteous whinging and strident claims of sexism and misogyny where it does not appear to exist only damage real discussions about such issues. Posts like this give feminists a bad name.
(found via this post which came in through my Twitter feed.)
Showing posts with label miscellaneous. Show all posts
Showing posts with label miscellaneous. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Spring Update
Yes, I'm still here. However, Nicky has been quiet these last few months and has not threatened anyone I know or spouted off hate speech. As long as he continues to behave, I won't rip into his writing or personality.
Hope you all are having a nice spring so far. My fruit trees are almost in full bloom, and we're on our second blooming of iris. Happy days!
Hope you all are having a nice spring so far. My fruit trees are almost in full bloom, and we're on our second blooming of iris. Happy days!
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
WNEP: Another Kind of Asshat
I'm taking time out of my normal coverage of Nicky to discuss several women who have Nicky beat for narrow-minded vitriol.
Yesterday, Kena Vernon, a reporter at Pennsylvania TV station WNEP, ran a story about high school teacher Judy Buranich who writes erotic books for Ellora's Cave under the name Judy Mays. (I quit purchasing books from EC some time ago for several reasons including their business practices and their inability to consistently deliver decent prose at a reasonable price; however, that has nothing to do with their authors who should not be tarred with the same brush as EC's owners).
Ms. Buranich had apparently kept her writing life confidential from most students and parents. The gist of the story was how three parents had found out about Ms. Buranich's writing and were upset because OMGWTF it has SEX in it. And she's teaching KIDS!! Oh the controversy. And oh the backlash.
Three women - yes, a whole three - were quoted in the story. The first two women - Wendy Apple and Deanna Stepp - simply come across as narrow-minded asshats who still believe that women can't or shouldn't enjoy, discuss, or write about sex. And yet they have kids. Unless the stork dropped off some babes in diapers, this makes them hypocrites as well.
Ms. Apple is quoted in the article as saying:
And I've got news for her. Her son is a teenager; sex is pretty much all he's thinking about right now.
Elsewhere, Ms. Apple is claims that people are attacking her on Facebook for speaking out. Yup, this is America, where you have the right to say narrow-minded, sexist bullshit...and people have the right to tell you that you're saying narrow-minded sexist bullshit.
But the stupid stick today really goes to Kelly Hornberger, who says in the video version of the story (emphasis mine):
And let's not forget Ms Vernon's and WNEP's role in all this. By airing the pedophile implication and by not presenting any balance - or even any fucking common sense - to the claims made by these women, they are in effect endorsing the message in the story. I hope that WNEP has a good lawyer. I hope Ms. Buranich has an even better one.
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A cool Youtube video by someone who professes to be a former student of Ms. Buranich. Go watch it!
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Smart Bitches cover the story
Dear Author covers the story
WNEP's Facebook page is getting hammered
The Support Judy Mays Facebook page has 3719 likes (and it's still increasing)
Yesterday, Kena Vernon, a reporter at Pennsylvania TV station WNEP, ran a story about high school teacher Judy Buranich who writes erotic books for Ellora's Cave under the name Judy Mays. (I quit purchasing books from EC some time ago for several reasons including their business practices and their inability to consistently deliver decent prose at a reasonable price; however, that has nothing to do with their authors who should not be tarred with the same brush as EC's owners).
Ms. Buranich had apparently kept her writing life confidential from most students and parents. The gist of the story was how three parents had found out about Ms. Buranich's writing and were upset because OMGWTF it has SEX in it. And she's teaching KIDS!! Oh the controversy. And oh the backlash.
Three women - yes, a whole three - were quoted in the story. The first two women - Wendy Apple and Deanna Stepp - simply come across as narrow-minded asshats who still believe that women can't or shouldn't enjoy, discuss, or write about sex. And yet they have kids. Unless the stork dropped off some babes in diapers, this makes them hypocrites as well.
Ms. Apple is quoted in the article as saying:
"Now my son knows so how is he thinking when he's sitting in her class knowing what she does on the side"Does this woman also think that pregnant women shouldn't teach because her son might imagine how the teacher got pregnant. Didn't we leave this type of sexist thinking behind sometime in the first half of the last century?
And I've got news for her. Her son is a teenager; sex is pretty much all he's thinking about right now.
Elsewhere, Ms. Apple is claims that people are attacking her on Facebook for speaking out. Yup, this is America, where you have the right to say narrow-minded, sexist bullshit...and people have the right to tell you that you're saying narrow-minded sexist bullshit.
But the stupid stick today really goes to Kelly Hornberger, who says in the video version of the story (emphasis mine):
"Unbelievable. I can't even imagine somebody would write such stuff. I don't read it. I don't watch it. you know...that's just not how I want my children to be brought up. And I don't want my son sitting in her class thinking, "Is she looking at him, you know, a certain way..."Huh? Because Ms. Buranich writes erotica, she should be suspected as a pedophile? Under what rock does this woman live? This is so disgusting that I don't really have words to discuss my outrage.
And let's not forget Ms Vernon's and WNEP's role in all this. By airing the pedophile implication and by not presenting any balance - or even any fucking common sense - to the claims made by these women, they are in effect endorsing the message in the story. I hope that WNEP has a good lawyer. I hope Ms. Buranich has an even better one.
--------------------
A cool Youtube video by someone who professes to be a former student of Ms. Buranich. Go watch it!
--------------------
Smart Bitches cover the story
Dear Author covers the story
WNEP's Facebook page is getting hammered
The Support Judy Mays Facebook page has 3719 likes (and it's still increasing)
Sunday, April 24, 2011
The Rusty Nail Has Moved Again
The Rusty Nail has moved again. Once again, someone filed fraudulent and malicious reports with the blog's former host that The Rusty Nail was spam. So now the The Rusty Nail is here.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Friday, December 10, 2010
Friday Miscellaneous
It's Friday, and it's been a long week. I'm ready to go home, put my feet up, and have big glass of red wine. But first a few items:
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1. Go to Lulu and enter “lloyd phillip
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2. I've been hanging out over at Writerface the last couple of days. You guys all remember that place, right? The site where Nicky first made his appearance on the Ning network? So yesterday and today, spammers and scammers have been hitting the site pretty hard.
Yesterday, it was "Johhny Myers" and his Elvesonshelves.com, a web site designed to separate self-published authors from their money. He spammed five or six groups, and after I posted a (grantedly rather snarky) response, he deleted those posts...and my response along with them. Except for the one he forgot. I also e-mailed Victoria Strauss at Writer Beware because I think Elvesonshelves is a bad deal (although not necessarily a scam) and wanted them to have a heads up. I received a nice e-mail back.
Today it was "Ann Alloria"/"Annie Alloria"/Ari Hinnant/Cheryl Hinnant/??? who left an identical comment on a zillion different user profiles, hawking a web site she claims isn't hers. She also made several forum posts with the same information. I Googled her and found claims that "Ann Alloria" was an alias for the others I listed above. There's more to the sordid story than can be summarized here, and I've made a blog post over at Writerface. After I let "Ann" know that I Googled her, she changed her user name slightly and edited her profile settings so that I couldn't see her recent activity.
Why is it that the Nitwits seem to com out in force in December?
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3. I've been playing around with Wordpress recently. The problem is that I still haven't found a Wordpress theme I'm completely happy with. Blogger themes were more customizable, but the rest of the interface is not at as nice as Wordpress. Hm, maybe I'll have to cave and learn CSS, and then purchase the Custom CSS upgrade so that I can tailor themes to my liking. Any CSS wizards out there who would be willing to help me learn?
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Miscellaneous Stuff
Nicky has finally managed to really make me angry. His latest article at Associated Content (no, I won't link to it) is a long, whiny, self-indulgent rant about how he has to live with the stigma of being bipolar and how, by holding him accountable for his actions, we are denigrating all people who have mental illnesses. That's bullshit.
I've posted this elsewhere, but I work with someone who is bipolar. He treats his illness, he takes his meds, and he's a valuable and responsible employee. He has the occasional overreaction, usually to a stressful situation where he feels angrier at someone than the situation warrants. But he has come to realize when his reaction may be inapproriate, and he trusts those of us who work with him to give him feedback. More than once, he has said to me, "I think I'm overracting. How do you feel about this situation?"
Nicky's logic goes like this, however: I have a mental illness; they are mean to me; therefore, they are mean to all people who have a mental illness. Nicky is incapable of realizing that people are upset with his actions and statements because they are inappropriate in and of themselves -- not because he is a Republican or Christian or bipolar or any other label he chooses to apply to himself. I'm not convinced he needs to be institutionalized, but he definitely needs supervision and medication.
In other news:
Morning workouts suck. I just got done with a really great kickboxing class, but it wore me out. I'm just not at my best physically in the morning. When I was running a lot and entered a few races -- I'm a slow runner, but I like the energy and the fun of races -- they were always in the morning. It took me twice as long to get warmed up then as it did for later afternoon events.
I've been ramping up my workout schedule, though, because my martial arts instructor informed me several weeks ago that he wants me to test for my next degree of black belt before Christmas. Yikes. For the last test, I worked out several days a week for about four months to get in shape for the six hour test (and most of it was kicks, punches, sparring -- very aerobic). I lost about 10 pounds and was the lightest I had been since college. I rocked that test.
This time, the test will be more mental than physical, but I still don't feel ready for it. I've also had a couple of minor injuries since the last test that make if difficult for me to perform physically to the level I want. Tomorrow, I'm going to run a 5K and see how bad I feel at the end.
Also, thanks to those who have been visiting my Associated Content pages. My third article finally posted. It has nothing to do with Nicky, but now that I have three published pieces, all subsequent pieces will go up immediately. I have an estimated 262 page views as of this morning, which gives me a clout level of 2 and an estimated payment of $0.39. That's about half what I need for a cup of coffee. I'm living the high life now. Heh.
I've posted this elsewhere, but I work with someone who is bipolar. He treats his illness, he takes his meds, and he's a valuable and responsible employee. He has the occasional overreaction, usually to a stressful situation where he feels angrier at someone than the situation warrants. But he has come to realize when his reaction may be inapproriate, and he trusts those of us who work with him to give him feedback. More than once, he has said to me, "I think I'm overracting. How do you feel about this situation?"
Nicky's logic goes like this, however: I have a mental illness; they are mean to me; therefore, they are mean to all people who have a mental illness. Nicky is incapable of realizing that people are upset with his actions and statements because they are inappropriate in and of themselves -- not because he is a Republican or Christian or bipolar or any other label he chooses to apply to himself. I'm not convinced he needs to be institutionalized, but he definitely needs supervision and medication.
In other news:
Morning workouts suck. I just got done with a really great kickboxing class, but it wore me out. I'm just not at my best physically in the morning. When I was running a lot and entered a few races -- I'm a slow runner, but I like the energy and the fun of races -- they were always in the morning. It took me twice as long to get warmed up then as it did for later afternoon events.
I've been ramping up my workout schedule, though, because my martial arts instructor informed me several weeks ago that he wants me to test for my next degree of black belt before Christmas. Yikes. For the last test, I worked out several days a week for about four months to get in shape for the six hour test (and most of it was kicks, punches, sparring -- very aerobic). I lost about 10 pounds and was the lightest I had been since college. I rocked that test.
This time, the test will be more mental than physical, but I still don't feel ready for it. I've also had a couple of minor injuries since the last test that make if difficult for me to perform physically to the level I want. Tomorrow, I'm going to run a 5K and see how bad I feel at the end.
Also, thanks to those who have been visiting my Associated Content pages. My third article finally posted. It has nothing to do with Nicky, but now that I have three published pieces, all subsequent pieces will go up immediately. I have an estimated 262 page views as of this morning, which gives me a clout level of 2 and an estimated payment of $0.39. That's about half what I need for a cup of coffee. I'm living the high life now. Heh.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Nano is Over
Nanowrimo was over at midnight last night, and yes, I was still typing at 11:30 p.m. My hero was rescuing my heroine and a kid (well, teenager) from the bad guy's henchman. I got to write a kick ass fight scene with guns and knives. Yay! I made it to 39,700 words, which although not a winning 50,000, is still a new record for me.
I also got a great idea for the ending from a conversation with a woman in my critique group. I'll have to do a slight bit of research, but the bad guy is going to die in an awesome way based on something that really happened -- or rather that almost happened, since the person who survived it told the woman in my group who told me about it.
I also got a great idea for the ending from a conversation with a woman in my critique group. I'll have to do a slight bit of research, but the bad guy is going to die in an awesome way based on something that really happened -- or rather that almost happened, since the person who survived it told the woman in my group who told me about it.
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