SOPA Thoughts

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and it's handmaiden The Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) have been widely discussed and denounced.  Others have discused the details better then I could. The main point is it makes it easy for a company to get a court order to disrupt or shutdown an offending site. The accused would have only five days to appeal before sanctions are invoked.Theoretically these provisions would only be used against sites hosting copyrighted material without authorization. The problem here is that the definition of intellectual property is a bit vague.

Remeber Lotus makers of the 1-2-3 spreadsheet? They were notorious for suing rivals for infringing on the 'look and feel' of their software. More recently Apple and Amazon have brought a number of similar lawsuits. Now instead of going to the trouble of filling a lawsuit and the attendant messy trial just get a nice court order and in five days your rival is out of business.  The burden of proof is shifted to your target, they have to prove their not guilty. It's a nice way to strangle a rival in their radle so to say.

It's a nice way for the big guys to stay big. Now what was that nonsense about a free market?

The 'T' Word

Yes I mean tranny. It should be clear by now to everyone that the word is a slur. Worse as pointed out by voz Latina it is a slur thrown just before violent attacks on trans women. It is used as an insult as in 'Hot tranny mess' by pipsqueak no talent cis gays. Yes I use it in referring to myself , telling myself to get my tranny ass moving in the morning. This does not mean you may use it around me ever or you will have one very angry trans woman on your ass. I don't care if RuPaul says it's ok to use tranny, he isn't a trans woman so he has NO standing on the issue. Which brings up the point that the community that seems most reluctant to give up the word is not the bible thumpers but the cis gays. Tranny is an insult and a call to violence against us so just stop using it. And no I'm not going to 'lighten up' or 'get over it' so just fuck off and die.

Depression

I suffer from clinical depression, mostly in remission now. I will never be rid of depression, it will always lurk in the background. Depression can still lay me low without enough energy to get out of bed or even eat. It can still trigger self destructive behavior like smoking and drinking to excess. What has changed is now my depressive episodes last hours or a day at most. They used to last for weeks.

It's taken a lot of therapy (thank you Dr. Cooper) and work to get to this point but I have managed to avoid anti-depressants. For those who are on anti-depressants and whom they help, good for you and I wish you the best.

Depression is a very real, debilitating and sometimes fatal illness. No one in the grip of a depressive episode wants to hear 'get over it', 'pull tour self together', 'turn that frown upside down' or any of the many variants of these. Believe me if we could just pull our selves up by our bootstraps we would. We can also mange our illness so we don't need to be treated as useless and fired or not hired because of it.

In the meantime I live with my depression knowing anything or nothing at all can trigger a depressive episode. As Christine Smith says, for us pessimism is easy, it's optimism that's hard.

Rock and Roll is my Religion And My Law

Well not really as I have no religion but pretty close. Rock'n' Roll is what first gave me a sense of the widder possibilities in life. That white middle class button down values weren't all there is. While it took 45 years to finally break out of the last pieces of repression and realize that I was gender queer it all started with Rock 'n' Roll.

So all those bible thumpers were right Rock 'n' Roll is a threat to their way of life, ain't it great?




Oh, and I would have so done Bon Scott had I ever had the chance.

Random Late Night Stuff

Nope not sure I can call these thoughts as I'm not sure I'm actually thinking any more.

So I've been on Estrogen patches for about 18 months, I really like this. The physical effects haven't been all that great though I do have boobs now, very sensitive boobs. What I love are the effects the estrogen and the reduction in testosterone have had on my mind. I am in touch with and can actually experience my emotions, I was very closed off before. So even though I'll never pass as the woman I am I'll never go back ever.

No I'm Not A Liberal

For all the must-vote-Democrat crowd you would do well to remember the good liberal Democrats escalated the war in Vietnam, voted for both Iraq and Afghanistan, urged Dr King to go slown and not rock the boat and have never even tried to repeal Taft-Hartley. For all of you this song from  Phil Oachs;

Yes I Am An Anrachist and A Atheist

A few quotes for the redoubtable Emma Goldman,

If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal

 The philosophy of Atheism represents a concept of life without any metaphysical Beyond or Divine Regulator. It is the concept of an actual, real world with its liberating, expanding and beautifying possibilities, as against an unreal world, which, with its spirits, oracles, and mean contentment has kept humanity in helpless degradation.

 If I can't dance to it, it's not my revolution

May you all walk in beauty and harmony.

Politics, Big Whoop

Ah yes there is a presidential election going on. The Republicans having activly running since the middle of last year and now Romney has surged to victory in New Hampshire with a stunning 33% pf the vote. Put another way two thirds of the Republican voters in New Hampshire can't stand Romney's guts. Not so impresive a victory when looked at that way is it?

Not that any of this really matters much as the Republicans vary from very bad to the hideously awful and none of them should ever be allowed near the Oval Office. But more profoundly the whole election doesn't matter at all, the streets are where the future will be decided.

The Occupy movement for all it's flaws, it has many, has already had a major effect. The Democrats and the Republicans have been forced to at least pretend interest in jobs and economic inequality. Despite police raids and massed arrests the Occupy movement has not gone away and is instead forging new alliances with labor and other groups. The movement is also working to address it's problems such as lack of diversity,  sexism and trans misogyny.The Occupy movement is already widespread and is moving to increase it's depth.

Our current system is corrupt and broken, hopelessly so. I agree with Ted Rall in his The Anti-American Manifesto that we need a revolution and now. I'm hopefull that the Occupy movement is the beginning of that revolution because no matter who wins in November the 1% will still be calling the shots.

Late Night Depression (?)

I am depressed, clinically that is, but not nearly as depressed as I should be. My car has died and repairing it will cost almost all my money for the month leaving not enough to do things like keep the utilities on or get food. There may be ways around this and I'm working on it and that is what is different.

In the past I would have been too depressed to function but now I can. Oh I still have all the symptoms, tough to get out of bead, hard to concentrate and all the rest. But I can work around them now thanks to a lot of work with my therapist Dr. Cooper. This makes me feel very good.

So to all you suffering from depression I say it does get better. Yes it takes time and is a lot of work but with help you can overcome this.

Myths Debunked And Facts Given

The estimable Skepchic Natalie busts thirteen myths about trans women. She not only busts the myths but gives cold hard facts you can use to fight back against the bigots.

Extra special bonus, Natalie has started a new site, Queereka!

I Don't Identify As, I Am

The brilliant CN Letser has written a easy about why we need to retire the phrase 'self-identify' permanently. You really should go read it, I can wait so off you go. Back? Good so you can see why I'm dropping the whole 'self-identify' thing entirely. 

I AM a gender queer trans woman who sails the gender probability cloud.

Remember The Space Age?

Hey anybody hear old enough to remember the Space Age? What you say we are still in the Space Age, no not really. This coming December 19, 2012 will mark forty years since a human stood on another world. No nation can duplicate that feat now. Yes we can still get to low earth orbit, or at least China and Russia can. But we've been fooling around in low Earth orbit for a bit over 50 years now. The Apollo program was intended to lead to a space station and  maned lunar base but all that was canceled.

All the really important space science and discovery missions have been unnamed. Our robots have done wonders and could do much more if we re-routed the money from our maned space efforts. Think what we could have done with the money wasted on the now canceled Constellation program?
 Not that the U.S. space program is the only exercise in  futility, the russins have spent the last decade trying to come up with a successor to the Soyuz with out geting anything past the initial planing stage. As of now the only space program showing any real progress is the Chinese space program.

The whole concept of the Space Age was that orbital flights, space stations and lunar missions were just the first steps to Mars and beyond to a permanent human presence in space. We aren't even close to those goals. The ISS may be de-orbited as early as 2015 and won't last past 2020 in any case. If we're lucky China will be just starting to build their own space station then if their economy doesn't implode the way the west's has.

The Space Age was all bright and shiny when it started 50 years ago but that faded out in a little over a decade. If we're lucky in another decade or so we may have a new Space Age and this time the promise will be fulfilled.  But for now all we have are fading memories and some  Hollywood glitz, kind of sad really.