The 35th Precinct

Net Neutrality is dead; long live Net Neutrality. I have no doubt that this will be a long and ugly fight draped in noble principles and lofty sentiment. The states are already filing lawsuits and injunctions, and smart money says the issue will end up before the Supreme Court, where it will have to decide between free speech and corporate greed, and between states' rights and the scope of federal supremacy and the government's right to prohibit states from enacting laws in the interests of their inhabitants. This will drag on for years, and the ramifications of the rulings that issue herefrom will have far-reaching implications and consequences in areas of life that we cannot yet see. I can only hope for the best, but common sense and decency haven't been in the best of health of late.

Of course Netizens are aroused and vowing action, from protests to petitions to threats to cancel their Internet service and hit the ISPs where it hurts. It sounds good, it inspires, and it's pure bunkum. Americans are pure bluster and meaningless fury. They'll scream and bitch and make idle threats, but in the end, when push comes to shove and they are asked to choose between what is right or what is easy, they will wilt and show their bellies and bitterly pony up for premium-tier service. They always do. And the broadband corporations know it because they've been providing them with the opium of the digital teat for twenty years. They know people will bitch and moan and keep right on paying. Nothing will change unless and until the lost of net neutrality threatens corporate profits in other sectors. Money talks, and despite the chorus of online rah-rahing and roistering by keyboard warriors safe on their parents' insurance plans and snug in their basements, the megacorporations are the only ones with the balls and the clout to effectively oppose this.

Our future and freedom are now in the hands of corporations, and we have to hope that the greed of one will overpower the greed of another. God help us all.

Good Christ, but when did people become such onion-skinned fainting violets on the Internet? "Oh, no, someone said they were glad Joe Mantegna replaced Gideon! Basher!" And of course the mod trips over herself to rebuke the poster for posting an opinion that "might" be considered offensive by Gideon fans. "Of course you're entitled to your opinion," she twits so magnanimously, but then she goes on to say that the poster wasn't allowed to express that opinion(in a comm where all fannish opinions are purportedly welcome, mind)because it might offend other CM fans.

Fuck that noise. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and no one has a constitutional right never to be offended. If you go into a fannish space, then you have to accept the fact that not everyone is going to think like you do or love your woobie or approach the fandom for the same reason or in the same manner. As long as their opinion isn't actively infringing on your basic civil liberties in the real world, i.e, "I hate gay character X because he's gay, and I think gays should be sterilized or executed," then you can goddamn well shut up and cope with the fact that the world isn't a Disney theme park that exists solely for your edification.

It's similar to the prescriptivist, silencing garbage that plagues so much of Rammstein fandom. I wouldn't say it's the same, because Rammfen's social politics stem from a powerbase as opposed to a base of inclusivity. If your opinion falls in line with the established norms of a particular forum, then it is permitted and lauded, and you are treated warmly, but if it falls without those parameters or you aren't sufficiently obsequious in its presentation, then you are quietly stonewalled. On everyone's favorite Rammforum, for instance, you can be as big a douchebag as you please as long as you support animal rights, fawn over the admin's pets, and guffaw over her captions lampooning "retards" and other undesirables, but if you disagree on any of these issues or refuse to toady to the elect clique of sycophants that run that forum, then you are in for a rough ride, and if you protest too loudly, you will find yourself unceremoniously ejected therefrom. I firmly believe that if I had never dared challenge their rampant ableism and homophobia, if I had simply toed the party line and dutifully laughed at her nasty, spiteful captions, then I would still be there, though I grant you that I would likely be an innocuous presence of little consequence. a wallflower with no pleasing perfume to attract notice.

The situation with SMM more closely mirrors the attitude of, "OMG, no one can disagree with anything ever. Every post must be happy happy joy joy and lick the feet of Rammstein and their management, and if you ever do anything other than blow smoke up their collective asses, you are a BAD fan. And if you disagree with TPTB on any issue pertaining to them, even offsite, then you will be shunned because you are clearly a troll bent on harshing everyone's fun."

This rampant kumbayaism wasn't present to such a large degree when I entered the fannish arena ten years ago. There were pockets of it, of course, but by and large, most fans understood that if they wanted to play in the fannish sandbox, then taking their lumps was a hazard of the pastime. They understood that disputes would happen, and though some of these scraps got quite savage, no one screamed, "Oppression! Trolling! Oh, God, I've been triggered, you miserable shit!" just because Poster A declared that Snape was a tool or Harry was a spoiled wunderkind prick. They might have rolled their eyes and called you a tinhat or a delusional shitweasel, but no one accused you of fannish tyranny or questioned your worth as a human being because it took a different fannish kink to reach satisfactory nerdgasm. If fans really couldn't stand to have their fannish point of view questioned, then they created squee comms with moderated membership and squeed behind locked doors. Even than, they realized that that safety did not extend beyond the confines of that safe space.

Now, you can't throw a rock without some fragile snowflake wringing their hands and declaring that any negative opinion was an anathema that threatened their wellbeing. It reminds me of an episode of some milktoast sitcom where a conflict-resolution self-help counselor was abjuring the characters to resolve arguments without using words like "No, not," or "don't".

Her example? "How do you tell someone not to park in a particular spot without using those words?"

Her solution? "Park elsewhere."

Why was this better than "No Parking"? Because negativity was hurtful, and it made people sad.

I say again, fuck you. Being told you're wrong or that not everyone agrees with you is often a letdown, but like it or not, it's a part of dealing with other people, of life, and it should be because it keeps your head from getting too swollen. Or it used to, before well-meaning twits decided that no one should have their views challenged, lest their delicate sense of self-worth evaporate like powdered milk in a dust storm. It's enraging and embarrassing, and I fear for future generations of coddled individuals who will be utterly unable to deal with conflict on even the most basic level. How sad and swaddled is your life if you can be brought to frothing outrage or wounded butthurt because someone said they were glad one actor replaced another?

The world has become a ridiculous funhouse of self-indulgent stupidity and saelf-absorption, and I want to get off.

And this is why language-policing is absurd and counterproductive and why online disability crusaders are seldom taken seriously. "Horrible" is not an ableist term. It might be unkind depending on its context, but saying that someone has horrible communication skills is not ableist; critical, certainly, and mayhap untrue or unfair, but not ableist. When someone says that Person X has done something horribly, my mind does not immediately leap to the possibility of mental or cognitive handicap or conjure images of frail, moon-faced waifs sobbing in frustration before their keyboards because their impairment stymies their efforts to communicate. Most often, it drifts to the obnoxious dillhole who's never been told their wants and worldview aren't the fulcrum on which the universe rests, and who loudly proclaims their rhetorical prowess despite all evidence to the contrary and a portfolio of lame cat macros.

Yet these self-appointed Internet warriors persist, and while they're busily expurgating and whitewashing language, disabled folks struggle with more pressing and farther-reaching problems like poor accessibility, few job prospects even with university educations and marketable skills, uninsurability because of pre-existing conditions, few opportunities for socialization and meaningful activism and social contribution, and high rates of abuse, sexual assault, depression, and suicide.

But who cares about that when someone used an ableist word like "horrible" on the Internet?

I am not going to argue with Kilton about whether or not R+ or its management touted MSG as its only US show. It doesn't really matter, and I can't seem to find the official announcement of the show in the archives because the archives are oddly jumbled, and I'm tired of getting into fannish squabbles with anonymous assbunions. It's a waste of my time and energy.

I will repeat this to myself until it sinks into my thick skull.


I'm nearly done with my Flack/Stanhope cracknum opus. I'm not going to set a date for its completion or unveiling because the second I do, Flack will decide he needs to burble on and pontificate for a further twenty pages or my laptop will spontaneously combust or a tornado will relocate my home to Bumfuck, Alabama. But the end is in sight, and I am well pleased, and it feels so good to be writing regularly again.

Since LJ is making ominous noises about erroneously blocking innocent IP addresses in its fight against the recent DDoS attacks, it might behoove me to collect alternate contact information just in case of a worst-case scenario. I have a backup blog on several sites. If you would like that contact information or an email address, PM me for it.

I still don't know if my Fictional!Richard will marry his beloved bookworm, but if he does, she most certainly will not be wearing this:



I know it's a beach wedding, but that gown is just...gauche. And that veil is stubby and too short, IMHO.

And yes, that is a photo of his wedding, but it's not a bit of skulduggerously-obtained privacy invasion. It's a photo that ran in People, so I'm assuming he or Caron approved its use.


Does anyone know why Imageshack would be asking me to create a username every time I upload a photo? I've been a member for a long time and am constantly logged in, but where my username should be, it says "Create a Username", and a box abjures me to create one now. I can still access my photos, and if I log out and back in, my username suddenly appears. I wonder if the site and NoScript are having a dickfight. Maybe I just need to clear the cache.

Behold this glorious video of two drunken homophobes receiving a well-deserved drubbing from two MMA fighters who dressed in drag for a friend's stag night.

I love the Internet. And the British police.

My exodus from apartment hell has been delayed until Thursday because my mother wanted to wait until Papa Chris came home from a family trip, so here I still am. I wish I wasn't. I'm ready to be gone. I'm tired of the constant anticipatory adrenaline buzz, and of living the bizarre half-life of the U-Haul People. Most of my favorite things were packed days ago, when the move was supposed to be over by now, and so, I've been watching Court TV for want of something more entertaining. I would clean or sort or pack, but my mother swore up and down that I didn't need to buy more storage bins because she had plenty. Well, yes. But she is there. I am here. Unless she's mastered Star Trek technology, her plenitude of storage bins is of no use to me. But I can't bring more than one giant bin home on the bus, and even that earns Roomie the bus driver stinkface, and thus, I'm half-packed and unable to make headway because I have no boxes. And Son of Himmler could be here for his inspection any time between tomorrow and Friday.

I hope it's Friday. I want to see him try to intimidate my hardass mother with his middle-aged building-inspector wang. She's remodeled dozens of houses during her lifetime and knows exactly what it costs to maintain and repair a residence. She can also tell the difference between reasonable wear and tear from ten years of use and gross negligence. Let him try to overcharge me for "damages" I incurred.

Speaking of Son of Himmler, the building crew will be here tomorrow to repaint the wall cut open by the gas company, which means I will have to vacate the apartment from eight until four. Mind you, I'm on a ten-day deadline to clean up the apartment or else. I had to vacate today so they could patch the wall. I lost three days last week to the actual gas line retrofit. I will lose tomorrow to the paint job. That has left me five days to return the apartment to its pre-lease splendor. As if. Five weeks, maybe, but five days is a goal that would make Jesus pull a hamstring.

And my mother, bless and damn her, is shifting the goalposts. For two years, she's enticed me to move to the North Carolina Mayberry by promising that the three-bedroom, two-bath home would be "just right" for me, a handicap-accessible nirvana where I could live out my days rent-free. This is the same home into which I was told I would be moving at the beginning of the week.

Last night, she begins her all-too-familiar bait-and-switch dance. The home that was formerly so "perfect for me" suddenly has corridors that are too narrow. Maybe I'd like to live in HUD-sponsored limper housing instead. In an apartment commensurate in size to the abode in which I currently reside. Since I'm so impoverished, it would only cost me $180-400 a month, depending on their income-based accounting voodoo. Plus, it would be right in the "center of town", right next to the Subway and across the street from the hospital. She informed me of this last with the hysterical cheer of an L.A. realtor trying to close on a roach-infested condo just ten miles from the beach, as if the hospital were limper code for swinging singles bar.

I don't want to live in HUD housing. I'm tired of listening to my upstairs neighbors fart and snore and fuck, and of being awakened at the buttcrack of dawn because maintenance just had to see if the weedeater could be powered by the engine from a garbage truck. I wanted space and privacy and goddamn quiet. It's not the rent that bothers me; I offered to pay her up to $500 a month for the three-bedroom. I agreed to move there because she promised me I could have what I've always wanted: a permanent sanctuary from the world. Now, she's waffling, and it's raising red flags and my blood pressure. If she never thought the house was right for me, she never should have used it as an inducement to lure me to North Carolina. I feel like Charlie Brown lining up to kick the football.

Not only that, but I've discovered that AOL doesn't have an access number for my area. Hence, I'm faced with the potential loss of my online identity as well. My mother swears on a stack of Bibles that she'll make sure I have high-speed Internet ASAP, but how can that be when I'm no longer certain of where I'll be living? ISPs require an address before they can hook a sister up. Hell, I can't even change my government paperwork until I have a fixed address. I'm unsurprised, but angry. She asked me to trust her and uproot my entire life, and when I did, she changed the agreed-upon gameplan. Just like always.

I don't know when I'll be back because I'll be living in her basement for the next few weeks while she wastes a desperate realtor's time and drags me all over town in pursuit of "the perfect place" for me. On top of that, she's unilaterally declared that I'm applying for food stamps and SSI and Medicaid and having a physical and wheelchair evaluation and going to the dentist and opening multiple bank accounts, all before August 6th, which is when she must return to her job as a school custodian.

It's too much to tackle at once, and I know it. I know that I'm going to crack under the pressure at the most inopportune moment--in the middle of the bank, like as not--and end up a sobbing, snot-faced embarrassment because my nervous system has reached its limit. I need time to adjust gradually and breathe and decompress. I need the security of knowing that my mother will listen if I say I need to stop for a minute or an hour, but I don't have that. She's so excited, so caught up in "taking care" of me that she's not listening anymore. It's the same old same old, and I'm bitterly disappointed.

In an effort to end on a proactive note, I'd like my flist to chime in with their thoughts on broadband versus wireless. Since I've so rudely discovered that AOL will no longer be my ISP, I've been eyeing the AT&T laptop connect cards and the like. Which is better for reliability--wireless or broadband? Is wireless really as simple as plugging in the connect card and surfing the Web? Is wireless secure?

I have the technological dumb. Please, won't you help me find the cure?

I finally bestirred myself to update Facebook just so I could friend Dug the dog from Up. While there, I noticed that Statler and Waldorf, those venerable Muppet hecklers, were also members, and I duly friended them. Yes, I am a sad specimen frozen in toddlerhood. I find comfort in these gentle, unassuming characters, especially waggy, slobbery Dug, who just makes you want to hug him and scritch his belly until his legs splay bonelessly and his eyes roll back in his head. Dug and his ilk keep me from washing my hands of the whole human species and declaring my independence thereof with the help of dual mounted machine guns and a bag of ammunition. Every time I convince myself that humans are nothing but a horde of irredeemable fuckwits, I just see Dug and Wall-E and Statler and Waldorf and remember that some humans are capable of great and wonderful imagination. I just wish there were more Jim Hensons and John Lassiters and Brad Birds and fewer Ann Coulters and Fred Phelpses and teenage girls who think it's funny to stuff kittens into ovens. Fewer bus drivers who take time from their day to ensure that I know what an irksome burden I am to transport. Fewer passengers who piss and moan that I should segregate myself to the exceedingly limited and cripplingly expensive "disabled transport" to save them five minutes. After all, haven't they be so gracious and accommodating to me, what with letting me live and allowing me to venture out in public at all?

He might be for children, but I need Dug's goofy sunshine, too. Does anybody know where I can find some LJ icons?


( The Next Food Network Star, Week 3--SPOILERS )

My predicted winner: Jeffrey, though his odds might be hampered by the fact that Food Network is rapidly becoming a sausage fest.


I managed to plunk out a few lines of my criminally-overdue spn_halloween fic. Not many, mind, but enough to rekindle the passion long enough to finish the fic, I think. I finally know how to get where I need to go.

Once I get it finished, I need to do the following:

-finish "C Is For Confession" and post it.

-start Stella's chapter of History Lessons.

-start Part XIII of Et Tu

-start that Dowdfic I've contemplated for years.

-either throttle or nurture the My Bloody Valentine plotkit that hopped into the hutch the day before yesterday.

-decide if I want to write the two ideas for Rammstein RPF that have taken root in my brain recently. While I wrote reams of dreadful New Kids on the Block RPF badfic during early adolescence, when the world began and ended at the end of my nose and celebrities existed solely for my amusement, I have since developed pangs of conscience when it comes to writing about living people who might be angered, hurt, or offended by what I wrote. Someone suggested that I write it for my private satisfaction, but I have discovered that when it comes to my writing, I'm a potty-training toddler. I just have to show someone what I made.

It appears that the Internet has a new shiny in Dreamwidth. Everyone is rushing to pimp out their asthmatic grandmother for an invite code because they're sure DW isn't going to be like that icky, profit-minded company of dirty Commies. They'll certainly never have offensive ads or succumb to the big-dicked incubus of profit margins.

My ass.

Look, I believe that Denise and Mark mean what they say. I don't think they're hucksters selling people a bill of goods. They truly think they can survive sans ad revenue and will never have to sell out to corporate America or crazy, sexually-repressed fundamentalists. Maybe they won't. I don't know them. Maybe they're steel-jawed idealists with Daddy Warbucks' wallet. Maybe DW will prove the egalitarian utopia that so many want it to be.

But I do know people. Most of them are lazy, entitled creatures of habit. If you offer them a choice between free merchandise or slightly shinier merchandise for which they must pay, most will choose the freebie and make do with their hobo bargain because it was free. They might bitch that it's not quite what they wanted or needed, or that the service sucks, but they won't give up their freebie, and if you dare suggest that they pony up for better service, they'll howl that they shouldn't have to and scream that such common sense isn't common sense at all, but a further insidious example of classism and privileged thought. Free stuff should be of the highest quality, and the fact that it isn't isn't a hard reality of production costs but a global conspiracy perpetuated by wealthy assholes who don't want the poor to do anything but make them wealthier. Cost for products and services is just another fascist tool of The Man.

So, everything will be fine until Mark and Denise realize that the number of freeloaders is far greater than the number of starry-eyed idealists willing to put their money where their convictions are. When that happens and they either need to eliminate free accounts to lower bandwidth costs or accept ad placement and reduce the services offered to cover the cost of keeping the freeloaders, the complaints and name-calling will begin. Malcontents will accuse DW of "selling out" the userbase for the almighty dollar and decry the corporate takeover of the Internet. How dare the DW owners value making the mortgage payment over the rights of the userbase not to be reminded that a world exists beyond the silicone sphere of the Internet, a world in which not everyone agrees. Mark and Denise will cease to be the rebels and will become the Empire simply because they needed to pay the bills and keep the dream alive.

No utopia has ever lived up to its ideal because utopias cannot sustain themselves in the face of reality. The resources needed to sustain the ideal simply don't exist in this world yet. Supply for it cannot meet the demand. Look at Haight-Ashbury. During the sixties, hippies extolled it as the perfect place to be, a communal enclave where anybody could be whoever they wanted to be, without interference from The Man. And it was, for a while, until so many idealistic, disenfranchised kids turned up in search of this Wonderland that the entire system buckled under the weight of too much idealism and too little experience with the real world. Those nose-thumbing kids who were so eager to piss on society and modern technology soon found out that living on the charity of brotherhood wasn't all it was cracked up to be when your brother didn't have a pot to piss in, either, or when you were lying on the sidewalk with a broken leg because none of your brothers had any medical experience. Idealism often dies an ugly death when the rubber meets the road.

We'll see, I suppose. Perhaps DW will be a success and I'll look like the village idiot, quacking ceaselessly from the puckered, toothless maw of my ass, but I'm in no hurry to leave LJ for greener pastures just because things might be better on the other side of the fence. And if I'm the last one to leave, I'll be sure to turn out the lights.

Oh, Internet. There are days that I tell myself that I don't need you anymore, that I have wearied of your fleeting attractions, that you've lost your luster.

And then, as I surf your endless ocean, I find something like this, a sentence so wondrous in its badness that I bow before its awesome power.

...my cunt makes a disappointed queeb sound as we separate.

No, this immortal nugget of prose springs not from bad fanfiction or from the blog of a horny but inexperienced teenager. It comes from published "profic," and there's more where that came from.

Behold Knight Moves.

Oh, thank you, Internet, for restoring my faith in your ability to make me laugh until my stomach hurts.


I'm dimly amused at the reaction to Flack saying, "Douchebag" in last week's episode of CSI:NY. He was referring to Timothy McVeigh, for Christ's sake, who blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City. As a victim of a much smaller bombing himself, it's hardly surprising that Flack would hold such sentiments. It's more surprising that he chose to lob such mild invective. As a seasoned New York cop, I'm sure he has access to choicer profanity.

Honestly; the man is an adult living in New York City. Why is it so shocking that he'd have a potty mouth? "Rush to Judgment" told us that Stella had never heard Flack curse, but that doesn't mean he doesn't. Maybe his mother told him not to curse when in the company of women. I'm sure he curses like a sailor when he's with friends. It's part of the fabric of city life. It's not a black mark on his character if he swears. I swear profusely, and I'm neither a man nor a resident of NYC. It's a natural byproduct of human language, as necessary and integral as idioms and regional colloquialisms.

But maybe I'm biased, because in my head, Flack curses like a longshoreman when he's mad or stressed and uses profanity to great erotic effect in bed. Who hasn't let a "fuck," "shit", or "pussy" fly when the sex is good? Not to mention the myriad of other slang terms for sex and its requisite equipment on offer?

Do people really think Flack goes through life like this?

Danny: Flack, the suspect's gettin' away!

Flack: I got him, Danno! Tip top!

(There's a feverish pursuit, during which the perp kicks Flack in the nuts.)

F(wheezing): Oh, darn it! That hurt like the dickens. Ouch. How aggravating.

D: He got away.

F: Oh, fiddlesticks. I'll get the hoodlum next time.

~Eyeroll~

Adults curse. Even articulate, smart, hot TV characters you want to hammer like a tenpenny nail. Put on your big girl panties and cope.