Every once in a while, something comes along that restores my faith in humankind and makes me think that maybe some parents are doing an okay job with their kids.
The headline is kind of sensational but the video is of Lana Wachowski accepting the Visibility Award from the Human Rights Campaign. She talks about being accepted, coming out and that sometimes you need to do something for others. She's funny, even when relating the bad times and obviously uncomfortable . It's about a half hour long.
I'm in the middle of reading Cloud Atlas at the moment and recommend it to all. It's not your standard novel - the movie opens Friday.
Jennifer Finney Boylan writes in today's New York Times writes regarding her worries about "What kind of men would my boys become having been raised by a father who became a woman?"
An interesting essay by Gaiman about his stories and books having gender, and also a reflection about writing his book American Gods. I recently finished his kids book The Graveyard Book which won a Newbery Award this year. If you haven't read any of his work, I recommend it. He has a couple collections of short stories out may you wish to start with.
I suppose it had to happen sometime - body swaps hit the mainstream media. A Reuters news item entitled Swedish researchers create body-swap illusion tells how they fooled subjects into believing the image they saw on a video monitor was their own body. The last couple of paragraphs are intriguing:
Finally, they tried a full body swap between two volunteers and it worked.
I was talking with someone today about Jennifer Finney Boylan's book, She's Not There - A Life in two genders. The ending of the book bothered me a bit because I felt Jenny glossed over the affect her transition had on her wife Grace who stuck with him/her through everything. But that is not really the subject of this post. (Anyone who wishes to pursue a critique of the book, PM me or open a forum subject about it.)
Newsweek had a pretty good article on "The Mystery of Gender", as they called it. Their website has more associated stories than were in the magazine. However, while the stories themselves are well done, you should see the comments,(or maybe not)some are a very depressing view of intolerance.
I'm sure most eveyone has seen this before, perhaps many times. I was searching through my home directory at work and found the file (timestamped 1998) with the rules. It still gives chuckles. Enjoy!
Checks can be made out & sent to:
Joyce Melton
1001 Third St.
Space 80
Calimesa, CA 92320
USA
Note: $6000 is the operating, maintenance and upgrade budget. Amounts received in excess of the $6000 will be applied to long term debt accrued over the last 19 years.
