Tuesday Blogwhoring

by matttbastard

This one goes out to my fellow bastard.logicians. Love.

(Melissa McEwan effin’ owns like Snorlax!)

Designated Protest Zone: Power, Privilege, and “Challenging Ourselves”

Intrapolitics: The Space Between Ethnocentrism and Race Supremacy (h/t Prometheus 6)

POGGE: On blood-drenched metaphors

thwap’s schoolyard: “Don’t Tase Me Bro” – Vancouver International Airport Edition

Shakesville: Killing Your Wife is the Best Gift You Can Give Yourself This Holiday Season

Hatewatch: FBI Releases Hate Crime Statistics

Culture Kitchen: Hate Crimes Rising in America

Birth Pangs: Be careful with my box! and Paternity Blues

Justice is a Woman with a Sword: Finally, an intelligent film with … um… bite?

The Newshoggers: Relative progress in Iraq

Feminist Peace Network: Unilever Ditches Self Esteem as a Marketing Concept in Favor of Good Ol’ Misogyny

Daisy’s Dead Air: Bob Jones and Billy Graham

Creekside: On cowardice

Too Sense: FBI Convicted Thousands On Faulty Evidence…Then Forgot To Tell Them

The Heathlander: Walled In

Feline Formal Shorts: Reactions

Zenpundit: Recommended Reading (update your bookmarks – the new digs look spiffy, Mark!)

Who Is IOZ? Aieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! She explained. (Yeah, that’s pretty much my feelings re: US presidential debates and Wolf Blitzer in a nutshell, too)

Politics ‘n’ Poetry: Nuclear Guardianship: We Need to Know

Recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers

PSA: Transgender Day Of Remembrance

by matttbastard

Feminist Daily News:

Today marks the 9th annual Transgender Day of Remembrance. The event was founded to honor Rita Hester, whose 1998 murder led to a candlelight vigil in San Francisco, CA, as well as the beginning of the Remembering Our Dead web project, which memorializes those who were killed due to anti-transgender hatred or prejudice.

The goals of the Day of Remembrance are to both raise public awareness of hate crimes against transgender people and to publicly mourn and honor the lives of those killed. According to the event website, more than one person per month has died over the past decade due to transgender-based hate or prejudice, regardless of any other factors in their lives. The murder [of] Rita Haster, which led to the creation of Transgender Day of Remembrance, remains unsolved.

The incomparable Lisa Harney has links galore over at her superlative site, Questioning Transphobia, including an amazing post @ Feministing by Julia Serano, There’s Something About Deception:

Much of the violence that is directed at trans people is predicated on the myth of deception. For example, straight men who become attracted to trans women sometimes erupt into homophobic/transphobic rage and violence upon discovering that the woman in question was born male. Perhaps the most well known of such cases is that of Gwen Araujo, who was bludgeoned to death by a four men, two of whom she had been sexually intimate with. Despite the fact that the men plotted her murder a week in advance, defense lawyers insisted that the murder was merely manslaughter because the defendants were victims of Gwen’s “sexual deceit.”

[…]

Few attempts to blame the victim are more blatant than when trans people are accused of “sexual deceit” or “sexual assault” simply because other people have chosen to express their attraction toward us. In reality, it is they who are guilty of cissexual/cisgender assumption (when one presumes that every person they meet is nontrans by default). Trans people simply exist, we are everywhere, and the rest of the world has to start recognizing and accepting that.

Also see Julia Serano again and Transgender Day of Remembrance Comics Project. Make sure to also check out quench zine (h/t Jessica Valenti) and to visit the Transgender Day of Remembrance website. And, of course, never forget, 24/7/365.

Recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers

Tragicomedy Without A Punchline: Polish Speaking Airport Worker Could Have Prevented Dziekanski Killing

by matttbastard

Noted without comment:

Minutes after Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski picked up a Vancouver airport computer and threw it at a glass wall, a Polish-speaking airport worker wandered into the facility’s operations centre to pick up some paperwork.

Slovakian immigrant Karol Vrba was in the room on Oct. 14 when the pair of calls came in reporting Mr. Dziekanski’s erratic behaviour, but was never asked to help, even though he is conversant in Polish and Russian, the language bystanders told authorities the 40-year-old Pole was speaking.

“I feel really upset because I saw that video of what they did to him and it could have been prevented. Definitely,” he said yesterday.”

h/t JJ Hippie and April Reign

Related:

• BC’s provincial government orders a full public enquiry into Mr Dziekanski’s death. Are you paying attention, Stockboy? (h/t Holly Stick)
• Dr Dawg expands upon his proposal for a new federal police force to replace the RCMP.
• Frank Frink gives TASER International some sincere, heartfelt advice with regards to bogus intimidation tactics and “electronic control devices™^SM®^{OMFGWTFBBQ!!!1}“.

  Related: The Canadian Press: “Three out of four suspects stun-gunned by the RCMP were unarmed, indicates a review of 563 cases that shows [electronic control devices™^SM®^{OMFGWTFBBQ!!!1}] are often used for compliance rather than to defuse major threats.” CP also notes that many of these cases ” involved First Nations.” (h/t pale)

Recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers