Who talks in riddles, who talks in reasons?

Climate Camp:

• "Climate Change Casino" set up in the City - with at least one police officer joining in!
  


• Climate Camp Day 2 live blog


• Climate Camp in pictures


• Labour Mayor of Lewisham condemns the camp as "patronising and selfish" ...


• ... whereas the local Lib Dem and Green councillors are supportive.
  
  (photo by dennyd!)


• Corporate lobbyists sow doubt about science in their clients' minds. Climate Camp is teaching the skills to expose them.


• Contrary to popular belief, Climate Camp is not about fighting the police – it's about fighting climate change - the article I would have written yesterday if I hadn't been distracted by trying to make this point in the comments on LibCon.


• Revolting Peasants - Whitechapel Anarchist Group's version of their clash with police in the camp on Wednesday night.


• As a result of this, the WAG were politely asked to leave the camp, and the camp decided it would be less disruptive to meet with police outside the camp in future, given how many of its members are victims of police brutality. Click here to read their press statement.

jacinthsong

• A Few Things To Stop Doing When You Find a Feminist Blog by Fugitivus, whose writing I am devouring at the moment.


• Misogyny: up close and personal on CiF, originally posted as The terrible bargain we have regretfully struck" on Shakesville. Delighted to see it on the Guardian, but I'd recommend not reading the comments.


• No more Mr. Nice Guy - analysis of the Sodini shooting by Kate Harding.


• Standing Out in the Crowd: on women in open source; and in a related note, click here if you feel like explaining to a clueless open source dude what that's like.


• Women in fiction: why more awesome women in fiction makes for better fiction as well as gender equality.

• 18th Century humour by the inimitable cavalorn. E.g. "AMERICAN: Yonder House is Tiny & we have Thrice its size at Home ENGLISHMAN: No doubt Sir for 'tis the BEDLAM-HOUSE."


• A giggle-worthy tale of Dragons, Knights, and the cancellation of Big Brother by John Q Publican


• Men at their most masculine: a photo-essay


• Inspirational Blind Photographers and their Portfolios

• Intelligent, inspiring articles, and no fashion, celebrity gossip or diets


• Erotic photography of men based on research about what women think is sexy.

LJ has had some great writing lately on confronting one's own privilege, particularly in the context of conversation or debate. Here's two that I've bookmarked:

Don't be That Guy by synecdochic, writing in the aftermath of the Open Source Boob Project
Being an ally part 1: listening to anger by sophiaserpentia

The comments on the latter are particularly worthwhile. This, by sammhain struck me as summing it all up pretty well:

"If it's more important for me as a white hetero male to assert how i'm not "like that" than it is for me to shut the fuck up and consider the perspective of someone other than me, then functionally I'd rather have my privilege than work for a more fair society.

This doesn't mean you don't get an opinion if you're part of an oppressive social caste, it just means that you have to take things into consideration that are bigger and more important than your personal comfort when you address them."

The first sentence can be applied to any of us. My version would be, I guess, "If it's more important for me as a white, middle-class, able-bodied, straight-seeming bisexual female to assert how i'm not "like that" than it is for me to shut the fuck up and consider the perspective of someone other than me, then functionally I'd rather have my privilege than work for a more fair society."

I think I might write that out on a post-it note and stick it above my computer. I can think of lots of people I would want to see confront that. Which means, of course, I should start with myself. Easier said than done, but here's to trying.

While I'm busy doing frantic last minute writing and editing and cutting and re-writing and deleting and footnoting and formatting and re-rewriting to my thesis, and therefore CLEARLY will not be on livejournal tomorrow, I would like to direct my readers' attention to this rather wonderful little snippet:

commonplacebook (during a discussion about zany NaNoWriMo tactics):

Maybe I'll adapt Chretien in the style of DeLillo:

The knight rode to the castle. It was nice, this, this riding to the castle. Inside the castle smelled of what? He could smell the immutable mysteries, old socks, women's Haines undergarments, all the frangible incense of huge vastnesses beyond him, this castle, this kingdom. Like castles held the religious impulse, held the clatter and echo of blood-rusted swords unavailable now.

He heard King Arthur and the Queen.

What? Arthur said.

I feel so I don't know, she said.

Sir Kay, he's so, you know, brittle.

She said, I feel like I need something else.

I say one thing and he pops off.

I feel like the castle isn't enough, like all the stones can't hold the caroming of this immense desire, this need to feel the blood, you know, the fucking pulse.

I don't know, Arthur said. Are you all right, Guin?

You should be more, what's the word I want, more accommodating to Sir Kay, she said.

Perhaps adapting myth into post-modern Western novelistic prose is my way forward, since I seem to be able to string sentences together with moderate facility (although I'm not a patch on commonplacebook, whom you should all read, incidentally) but can't tell a good story for the life of me. After all, if your sources are Classical, then it's not plagiarism, it's intellectual literary reference.