A compendium of things I have been meaning to link...

I love lawyers. Go, mycrazyhair!

A year ago, I started negotiating a special agreement about employee
benefits between the company I work for and the company that owns it.
Today, I finally received the final signed copy of the contract.

And there is it, in black and white, that one little word that I made sure
we changed. Not "either". "Any".

That's CONSTABLE Outside Agitator to you...

Within activist circles, people have been pretty much certain since Quebec City at least that at least a substantial number of the truly violent protesters who "mar" demonstrations are in fact undercover police provocateurs, based on a number of factors -- the fact that nobody ever knows who they are, that often people who have been seen instigating violent acts never have charges pressed against them, and that nebulous feel that can never quite be substantiated.

But at Montebello, they screwed up.

BATS!

For those (many) people who asked me how one counts bats, the Guardian has a feature on bat conservation efforts, including this video of bat counting at dusk.
ETA: I forgot that iclysdale had posted that locked. Link now goes to Guardian article.


C'mon, people now, smile on your sister...

I suspect that there is an element in the LJ feminist discourse where we sit around doing the Man Comes Around thing: we take names, decide who to free and who to blame, etc., and everybody won't be treated all the same. I think a chunk of the discussion around making SFF a more egalitarian place on grounds of gender has taken a turn into labelling people as sexist or not-sexist: on our team or the other team, and then it stops there.

Where do I derive this? My copious internal struggle in this case -- dealing with people I know -- versus my lack of said struggle in the case of the F&SF and sexism discussion -- dealing with people I know less well or don't know. I had people in the Good! box and am asked to move them to the Bad! box, which is harder than moving people from the Neutral! box into Good! or Bad! boxes. I think that's what we do. Move people into and out of boxes.

This is a bad thing.

Crystalisation

Or possibly cristalia-isation. Indirectly, anyway. She makes me thinky.

If someone[1] expresses to you that your opinions and/or behaviours[2] are coming across as racist, sexist, homophobic, classist, or whatever, and your immediate impulse is to feel attacked, assaulted, insulted, personally blamed for the injustice of the universe, all that, there is a point perhaps worth considering before you go down that path:

They thought you'd want to KNOW.

Which suggests that just possibly, their point was not that you are a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal[3] not fit to be let indoors, but in fact, the reverse.[4]

[1] At least where 'someone' = 'person with whom you are not already locked in a grim, bloody mutual loathing', and possibly even then.

[2] BTW, if anyone knows how to explain to LJ's spellchucker that "not spelled according to US spelling conventions" != "misspelled", I'd be grateful if they'd tell me before the day comes when I finally run amuck because I've had 'honour' or 'flavour' or 'realise' or 'behaviour' flagged one too many times...

[3] Now that I think of it, it seems improbable that Neanderthals were afflicted with racism, classism, homophobia, or even sexism-as-we-know-it. But YKWIM.

[4] Yes, even if they're kind of snarky about it. Tact, politeness and even-handedness are fine things, but they're not the only things. "Be conservative in what you generate and liberal in what you accept" applies.

GIP

Because I needed a cooking icon, and angevin2 randomly quoted Psalm 62 at me today...

Also, if you have a Very Sore Foot? Which possibly contains a broken bone? Arranging your life so that you do not STUB IT HARD is good. *ow ow ow*