Basically all those who did not respond to my (friends only) poll were dropped. If I dropped you and you swear you did respond, or if you've just been busy, comment here. If you did not see it in the first place, that's fine, too. Just leave me a comment.

After reading the comments to this post, I decided I should probably have included my own opinion. But the reason I didn't is the same reason I sound wishy-washy and confused here. I see all sides of this pretty clearly and agree when them all to a degree.

The real question is: who is making the request? How do black people feel? The article makes it look like some white suit decided to have a cow over this. How arrogant of him to assume that he knows what is best for a group that he's not part of! Then again, how nice of him to be sensitive and not leave all the fighting up to a group of people that constantly have to fight for themselves anyway. Then again, how ridiculous is it to take offense at these terms. Then again, how do any of us--and by "us", I mean myself and the 3 people who commented on my original post so far--know what it feels like to be descended only a few generations from people who were enslaved on the same soil on which we live? All of us are probably descended from slaves at some point in our geneaology, but not in the same, immediate sense as black people today.

So I see all sides, including the one that is shaking their head and saying, "good lord, it's just a label for disk drives." My opinion is that this dude should have gone to an appropriate group that actually contained black people and given it to them to do with it whatever they wish, and then given his full support if they wished to act. That is both empowerment and sensitivity rather than paternalism.

Master and slave labels for computer drives unacceptable, say officials. (from eldergreen)

via watrfae

------------Quoted from www.whitehouse.gov 11/26/2003---

Colby, from Centralia MO writes:

Do you feel that Pagan faith based groups should be given the same considerations as any other group that seeks aid?

Jim Towey
I haven't run into a pagan faith-based group yet, much less a pagan group that cares for the poor! Once you make it clear to any applicant that public money must go to public purposes and can't be used to promote ideology, the fringe groups lose interest. Helping the poor is tough work and only those with loving hearts seem drawn to it.

---------------------end of quote------------------------------


So if you are a pagan, and you do community work, let this man know by way of holiday card, letter, fax or phone call. If you're not a pagan, and are as offended by his assumption as many are, contact him and tell him how you feel! I'm a pagan only in the sense that I am not Christian, Muslim, or Jewish, but I have enough friends who are actively practicing pagans in the typical sense and I have done enough study to know that this guy is dreadfully misinformed.

Jim Towey, Director, Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives
The White House
Washington, DC 20502
(202) 456-6708 (phone)
(202) 456-7019 (fax)
www.fbci.gov

( last wednesday )

Lots of stuff has happened, as always happens when I come here, but I'm too busy + tired to tell about it. The end result is this:

I have the most wonderful friends in the world.

Current Mood: sleepy

Glad KK said he'd take us to the airport tomorrow so that we then did not reserve a shuttle, and then disappeared off the face of the planet tonight. usually he's at least on AIM even if he's idle, and he's NOWHERE. I hope he's okay. I know he's around cause my friend said he saw him headed back towards the dorms from F lot this evening.

Fortunately a friend said if we needed it he'd get up at 7:30 and drive us there in exchange for gas money, but... sigh.

I'm also going to check on bus schedules, as much as that would suck.

powering down laptop in preparation for travel tomorrow. yay. bye.

I just stepped on a pin. In exactly the right spot such that my entire freaking foot and part of my leg hurts. Now I have to walk to work. I think it's less than a mile, but still. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow.


Fucking monkeys.

Current Mood: in pain

I don't get it. I swear, I went to bed at like 1, fell asleep by 1:30, and mmy alarm went off at 9:30. What is my problem?

Must sleep more. But I have appointments and then I have to tutor one student, have a preliminary meeting with a prospective tutoring student, work at my computer center job, come home, do laundry, clean Rikki's cage, write up a care sheet for his caretaker, confirm my ride to the airport tomorrow morning (Tomorrow! Morning!) and probably 10 other things I'm forgetting, all in preparation for leaving tomorrow morning. Tomorrow! Morning! I'll only be in Austin for like 3 days, 5 if you count the days I'm flying but I don't, so it's unlikely I'll get to see anyone but dementia138. I'll be back for winter vacation though, so anyone that still wants to see me, can. I have no idea who will want to though. I seem to have pushed everyone away.


Mmmm. Going to be a late night.

But actually, I've been posting at least once a day. So really, I've just not been posting anything meaningful. A small few of you know what I really have on my mind and where my alternate negativity and silence are coming from. For the rest.. I'm not sorry, but um, understanding, of the fact that my being so cryptic and closed-mouthed is annoying. It kinda sucks, and it's causing some people to consider me a negative and/or vacuous person. Which sucks for you, because I am neither. I might be inclined to be overly-negative at times but I am also able to deal with an amazing amount of crap without cracking and I'd really rather be resilient and occasionally a bitch than constantly cheerful til I crack.

God, I can't believe I made one of these announcements. Maybe I'll delete this right now. I don't owe anybody explanations. But I feel like giving them anyway.

So.. what do people normally post about? Things they do? Things they think? I've been making sock monkeys all night. The last one became a sock kitten. I just need to pick up some stuff for whiskers for it. They're really very cute. I really need to get my gallery put up so you can see my adorable sock animals.

Nelson complains that when I talk to him I don't talk about anything important. To be honest, I don't really talk about important stuff almost ever. I just write about it. The "deep" conversations I end up in are always brought up by other people and they are never about things I don't know a lot about. And I only know very specific things, none of which overlap with his specific things. I just don't do well with thinking and speaking on the fly, so I write more than I talk cause it gives me time to organize.

Merf. Friends just called looking for Nelson and now my feelings are hurt that they were uninterested in hanging out with me. I'm probably reading more into it than I should but as I said, I'm inclined to be negative lately. So I will eat tomato soup and make more monkeys.

The Mormons are making their rounds. I actually would have liked to talk to these particular guys for a while because they seemed totally knowledgeable and like I could get some good information and perspective from them, but then they'd just keep coming back. Plus I have to write my paper. Oooh and now they're talkin to the neighbors.

Okay, back to the paper.

Everything is now worked out with my host, but I haven't received any passwords from people in order to reinstate email accounts. Also, I'm going to have to instate a 20meg space limit, which shouldn't be a problem for anyone, I'm thinking. Except maybe saturnine who has a gallery. Also galleries are not working because I'm too lazy to do the installation stuff. Maybe over thanksgiving.


There really is more going on in my life than this, but I'm too busy to write about it. :P

I went to the Ceili. I danced my poor blistered feet off. Stopped by friends birthday party and found that it had become a sitting around drinking rum and playing video games party. Had some rum, got bored, came home. Now I am going to wrap the 2 winter holiday presents I have acquired (well 3 items for 2 people) and make sock monkeys.

Current Mood: tipsy

Okay, there were issues with nameservers. Within the next 48 hours everyone's email should exist BUT you won't be able to check it until you message me with a password. So do that.

Terribly, terribly sorry. Oh, and no galleries are working yet cause I have to reinstall them all. It'll all be fixed v. soon.

Hey, veg*ans! What's your favorite main dish recipe to prepare for Thanksgiving or harvest feasts?

Come on, you know you want to share. I'm going to be in meat-land for this year's genocide celebration and would like to prepare a lovely main dish that will entice the relatives. Plus Tofurky is okay but expensive and kinda boring.