My scrap of dirt

Via Felicia Day's twitter:

This made me tear up instantly. What a nice place the internet can be. RT: @popurls Help me fix my last picture of mom http://pop.is/qb4

I teared up, too, and I can't decide if it's out of sadness or from being touched by people responding so positively. There's just something that gets to me about this photo and the smiles and the thought that it's gone forever, and that on top of people being genuinely nice and helpful even though they have not a thing to gain from it - it's a little much to handle after the long week I've had.

Some funny to balance it out a little: Why Breaking Dawn must be made into a movie.

"You can't ask questions such as whether or not we have enough time. We all have to act to the best of our ability. The issue is not whether or not we make it. The important thing is that we have to try."

This a David Suzuki quote (I am more and more convinced that ecologists are the true visionaries that walk this earth), and it reminded me so much of Stephen Lewis's message back in January.

The issue is not whether or not we make it.

whedonesque.com has been distributing flyers and pizzas on the picket lines, which I think is awesome and I really wish I was down there right now to take part in that, share that "giddy first burst of solidarity and fear".

More importantly, Joss posted on whedonesque.com about the strike. Not that it comes as a surprise, but I truly love and admire this man. He's articulate and socially-conscious and he's got the exact right reasons for striking.

"Sounds pretty damn pompous, no? “Generations to come…”? Yeesh. But it’s true. Our culture, our government, our corporate structures have all gotten pretty used to taking care of ourselves at the expense of our children and their children. Part of this is simple greed, part is immediate practicality trumping long-view perspective, and part is perfectly understandable fear. It’s easier to take what you’e given, not protest, not make a fuss. A lot of people will suffer grievously if this strike isn’t quickly resolved, and the men and women who voted for it know that. But like so many things – our eco-system being the most obvious – if we don’t make it work now, what’s to come will be much worse."

"I watched my Father strike, back in ’88. It was hard. But I was proud. I’m proud now."

It's silly, but I'm pretty proud too.

As for Aly and Alexis coming down to show their support for the writers? Bless them.

Keith Olbermann on Bush's commutation of Lewis "Scooter" Libby's prison sentence.



That man just fascinates me. For his contained anger, eloquence, intelligence, he's definitely a hero of mine.

I actually got out of bed today because I couldn't wait to hear what had happened with Non-Flan and the Flan 500 yesterday. I'm vicariously living this weekend through them and there's no best way to start the day than to read up on what amazing things the Backup Bash organizers and other Browncoats have come up with. And it only gets better if you put Dan Sehane on and sing along with him, for the record.

There are some reports floating around and I'll do a more general post compiling those sometimes next week, but some things that need to be said :

- Michael Muhney (Sheriff Lamb on Veronica Mars), who was supposed to show at the Charity Auction during Flan, contacted the Backup Bash people as soon as he heard the con had been cancelled and proceeded to ask how he could help. So he was there yesterday at what had been planned. He's not even in the fandom. Can you feel the waves of love I'm sending his way?

- Clare Kramer (Glory on Buffy) has a bar opening next week in L.A. but she opened it up so the Flan 500 and guests had somewhere to hang out Saturday afternoon. Clare was in no way affiliated with the event to start with, and isn't exactly in the fandom either. Yet she donated time, space, possibly money to make Non-Flan a positive experience. How amazing do people get, seriously?

- The Big Damn Heroes. The huge, fucking brilliant BDHs. On top of Nathan, Jonathan, Mark, Christina, Greg Edmonson (music composer for Firefly) who were all there on Friday and showed up again on Saturday, Ron Glass attended the events on Saturday, along with Michael Fairman (the torturer Niska) and Morena Baccarin.

- And by the way, Morena was never scheduled for the event. And still she came. Out of the nine actors from the main cast, five of them have showed so far out of goodwill and the goodness of their hearts. Out of the four still missing, one of them we know is stranded in Canada (Jewel), and another is Gina Torres. So by this point, amusingly enough since neither of them were scheduled for the convention, I end up wondering what's keeping Summer Glau and Sean Maher from joining the fun, because having heard about them and having met both (though mostly Sean), it's definitely not the fact they're not kind-hearted. Not hoping, because they might very well be working / have other commitments and that would be absolutely understandable, but who knows what the Backup Back guys have planned for today (Sunday). Honestly, right now they could get SANTA CLAUS to show up and I wouldn't be surprised.

- Forgot to mention this yesterday: let it not be forgotten that the Backup Bash guys opened a paypal account for donations to help make something happen and that people not going to Flan raised the first $3,200 by 11:00 AM Friday morning, which was maybe 14 hours (and overnight hours) after information about being able to donate had circulated widely. Last I know $4,500 has been raised.


May this event be a lesson to all in generosity and kindness.

On forgiveness, by squiddity, found on metaquotes, originally from this entry :

"A gunman entered a school in Pennsylvania and methodically shot 11 young amish girls through the head.
When we had Dunblaine we screamed and shouted and banned things and blamed people and worried about how our children may be next.
When America had Columbine they screamed and shouted and blamed things and spectacularly failed to ban anything and instead put metal detectors in schools.

The Amish community invited the wife of the killer to the funerals, because they knew that she had her own grief to resolve.
They set up a fund for the families of the children, just like any community would do, but at the same time they set up a fund for the family of the killer, who have lsot their husband and father in a way that will be at least as hard to deal with.
They have sent flowers and condolences to the family.
The parents who lost both their daughters brought round food and told the wife that they forgave her husband.
These were the two daughters who asked to be shot first in the hope that the extra time bought may save one of the others.

I am not a Christian, but I really really hope that if something like this happened to me, I would be strong enough and understanding to do exactly the same thing.
I don't know these people, I never will, but I love them.
And if there is a heaven, I'll expect to see these people there."



It reminded me of a beautiful text my mother read to me once, a text written by Julos Beaucarne after his wife was stabbed to death at the age of 33. He's a Belgian singer and I'm not sure there are any translations of the text, so I'm gonna have to copy/paste it in French. I wish I could translate it, but I'd be afraid not to be able to render the strength of the words he chose. It made me cry the first time my mom read it to me - and still now, I well up just talking about it. The strength, the heart, the love you must have to be able to not resent the whole world, to not resent the murderer, when a loved one has just been taken away from you boggles me. Makes me humble.

These are the people are I truly admire.



"Amis bien-aimés,

Ma Loulou est partie pour le pays de l'envers du décor, un homme lui a donné neuf coups de poignard dans sa peau douce. C'est la société qui est malade, il nous faut la remettre d'aplomb et d'équerre par l'amour et l'amitié et la persuasion. C'est l'histoire de mon petit amour à moi, arrêté sur le seuil de ses trente-trois ans. Ne perdons pas courage, ni vous ni moi. Je vais continuer ma vie et mes voyages avec ce poids à porter en plus et mes deux chéris qui lui ressemblent.

Sans vous commander, je vous demande d'aimer plus que jamais ceux qui vous sont proches ; le monde est une triste boutique, les cœurs purs doivent se mettre ensemble pour l'embellir, il faut reboiser l'âme humaine. Je resterai sur le pont, je resterai un jardinier, je cultiverai mes plantes de langage. A travers mes dires vous retrouverez ma bien-aimée ; il n'est de vrai que l'amitié et l'amour. Je suis maintenant très loin au fond du panier des tristesses. On doit manger chacun, dit-on, un sac de charbon pour aller en paradis. Ah ! comme j'aimerais qu'il y ait un paradis, comme ce serait doux les retrouvailles.

En attendant, à vous autres, mes amis de l'ici-bas, face à ce qui m'arrive, je prends la liberté, moi qui ne suis qu'un histrion, qu'un batteur de planches, qu'un comédien qui fait du rêve avec du vent, je prends la liberté de vous écrire pour vous dire ce à quoi je pense aujourd'hui : je pense de toutes mes forces qu'il faut s'aimer à tort et à travers."



EDIT : Fan', because she's brilliant and I love her, has translated the text into English in the comments.

"Why do you write these strong women characters?
- Because you're still asking me that question."

Joss Whedon is seriously my god. Here's the video of his speech at Equality Now, as a Men On The Front Line Honoree. It's amazing, just - so much like Joss. Funny and touching and true and brilliant. Every point he makes, so true. The last part of it in particular, he's so absolutely right.

We need lots of baby Whedons running this world.

Seen first on fan_elune's LJ :

Julie Banderas VS Phelps matriarch

What sickens me most with people from the Phelps Church is that they will never lose. You can never achieve a perfect nation, so they will always have something to complain about. And since they will never actually rule (thank God), they will always be able to say we got it wrong and they would have gotten it right. How easy and righteous their position is.

And forever, they'll keep on spreading hatred.

But hey, we'll be spreading tolerance and respect right back at them.


And I am totally in love with Julie Banderas.



The... strength and emotion of her reaction, how much it mattered to her, and how she would not let herself be overwhelmed. She had a reply for everything, she knew her Bible by heart and she would not yield or capitulate in any way. And she comes out so much stronger than Phelps by suggesting respect is stronger than hatred.
I just love how intense she was about it. Me thinks we need many, many more people like that. (But WTF is she doing working for FoxNews?)

I just went to see on the Apple Education Store, and the 30 go iPod is 299 euros.

I really, really want it now.

...

That said, I'm not buying just yet, but I'm extremely serious considering this. Do we have any idea when Apple is going to get a new version of the iPod out and therefore probably take this one off the market?

Also, if I'm going to do this, I would really like to make sure my current mp3 player isn't just going to sit on one of my shelves getting dusty. So is anyone around here interested in a 6 Go Sony NW-A1000 mp3 player? Or know someone who'd be interested? It works perfectly, battery length is very good, you can recharge it on a wall plug (or on your comp, obviously) and it's pretty. ;) The software is a bit annoying but it works. It also comes with the Fnac warranty, which is only a couple of months old I think. Right now I'm thinking I'd sell it for 50 euros. But hey, if you introduce me to a sweet teenager who feels excluded because he doesn't own an mp3 player yet, I might very easily be convinced to sell it for less.

Otherwise I guess I'll just go on Amazon or PriceMinister or something.


Anyway, so I'm already thinking about the quote I could engraved on the back, so here is an awesome quote spam. In bold are the few ones I'm currently thinking about using, but if you have any idea, please feel free to share. :)

( A lot of funny and some serious ahead! )

Can you tell I'm basking in Bill Bryson love right now? God I would do anything to be there when Joss Whedon and him meet. This would be like my personal little heaven.

How much do you love Joss Whedon? Hehe.