This Is Also Old

This Is Very Old

A Full Pardon

So Alan Turing was a mathematical genius who helped the British win World War II for The British with his codebreaking skills. However, after the war he was indicted under public indecency laws of the time because of his homosexuality. He was sentenced to have to take female hormones to blunt his sex drive and he killed himself a few years later.

The government of Britain officially apologized to Turing and pardoned him in 2013. Now, a new bill will be introduced by Prime Minister Theresa May to pardon another 49,000 men who were indicted under public indecency laws before they were repealed in 1967.

I always wonder if it’s worth it for a government to take time to redress something that’s long since over. On the other hand, in 2003 the United States Congress renamed french fries “freedom fries.”

Actually, one guy changed the congressional cafeteria menu, but it counts.

Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/alan-turing-law-government-pardon-rachel-barnes-historic-crimes-a7370621.html

They Don't Want Us to Exist

Kim Davis, a clerk in Rowan County, Kentucky is in jail right now for contempt of court. She refused to issue marriage licenses because she objected to the recognition of same-sex couples, despite a US Supreme Court decision that she should.

Less than a month ago, a Colorado court of appeals ruled against Jack Phillips for refusing to make a cake for a gay couple. Like Kim Davis, he cited his strong religious feeling as his reason for his discrimination against gays.

Putting aside for a moment three things:

1. If your religion demands that you sacrifice a child every full moon, you could not do that in America, because your religious beliefs do not allow you to break the law.

2. If you are of a pacifist faith, join the army, and then refuse to fight; you'd be in trouble not for your faith, but because if your job requires you to violate your faith, you should resign.

3. The United States does not give out permission slips from the Christian God and if you don't understand the difference between God and The US Government, you don't understand either very well. 

I'm Not Really a Ballet Guy

Honestly, it's one of those things I put in the "Yeah, it's hard to do. Good on you for doing it. No, I don't appreciate it" category.

But still, this is pretty boss.

And the original:

Klickstein, Phil Robertson, and the PC Police

So, last week Nickelodeon alum Mathew Klickstein had an interview with Flavorwire. In it, he talks about how Pete & Pete was the best show in Nickelodeon because it was a white, male cast, how Clarissa Explains it All was only successful in hindsight because of Melissa Joan Hart and "feminist bloggers," and how Sanjay and Craig's Indian lead is unnecessary and equivalent to blackface.

I don't know much about Pete & Pete, but Clarissa Explains it All was an objective success, and there's no need to justify a non-white character created by a multicultural staff in a multicultural country. Reasonably, folks have been angry at him. The result is that the event he was promoting, "Nite of Nickelodeon Nostalgic Nonsense!" was scuttled. The rest of the attendees scheduled a new event without Klickstein. He cited "PC Police" in his cancellation notice. But is there such a thing as the PC Police?

LGBT Characters in Action Films

So the other day I was talking with friends online. One o' them mentioned that there are a lot of homosexuals in comedies, but not so much in action films. I did one of those "comments so long people have every right to remind you to get a blog" thing and figured, why not put them on my blog?

Just like in the rest of society, it's easy to get people to focus on the relationship side of homosexuality. Accepting that non-heterosexuals are real people that do more than have sex and relationships with people of the same sex is a bit more difficult for some. It's hard for people to see that we are just as capable of headlining an action movie as anyone else, technically speaking.

Denver 5 Snag

Hey, don't have a Denver 5 thing today. Having a problem working the next storyline out. Rest assured I'm reading tons of webcomics and regular comics as, um, research for how to approach it.

As a side note, I was looking up Neo's name because of reasons the other day, but all I knew was that his real last name was Anderson (somehow). So I googled "Neo Anderson," and it turns out that's the name of a pretty hot model, so sometimes I have very, very good reasons why I don't get things done.

Bitching about blogging

Sometimes, having a professional blog means I can't use lines like, "Members of organizations like One Million Moms are the only women with a valid groupon good for one suck on my dick, but they have every right to participate in the national discourse."


It's a hard-knock life.

Timewalking Archive Trap: Not Helping

Like anyone whose desire to say something is matched only by their desire to waste time saying it on the internet, I've been blogging for a while. Timewalking Archive Trap is presents select treasures (for very liberal definitions of "treasures") from yesteryear for the sole enjoyment of my readers.

So, you've probably heard about the Women in Refrigerators trope. I guess some guy was inspired to write a version for gays. The gay version was interesting because I've never heard of most of these characters and I haven't been able to keep up with the rest (not really too interested in buying a comic just because some of the ensemble are gay, especially since I bought the book with Freedom Ring to see what the fuss was about and it turns out it wasn't very good.).

Put Down Your Champagne and Revolvers

Look you guys, about three weeks ago, some serious shit happened and now I'm seeing Republicans declaring that America is dead and Democrats kicking back like the grasshopper before winter coming and the worst part is that there's a part of my mind that wants to be the tiniest bit shocked everyone's acting like children about all this but I can't because I possess both a memory and the ability to look a the mythical realm that exists beyond the end of my own nose.

I like Barack Obama. He is a likeable guy, and if you say differently then you could get Slider-ed through a dozen different realities where he runs for President of the United States, and you will be equally shocked each time he gets elected.

I like that Maine, Washington, and Maryland voted to legalize gay marriage. It's great that Minnesota voted down a same-sex marriage ban. I think it's a fine thing that Maryland passed the legalization of medical marijuana. I support Montana working to responsibly legislate medical marijuana in their state. Oregon and Colorado legalized marijuana. Just marijuana.

Linkstorm: Gays and Science

Gay Stuff
God bless South Korea. If you have a hard time remembering which Korea is the "good Korea," South Korea has the bars where you can platonically rent attractive young men.

It's no surprise that in its waning days, the regime of Husni Mubarak used sexual harassment and rape in an attempt to silence female protestors. What's exceptionally shameful is the way that Egyptian citizens have continued this practice after his removal. Say some of the offenders, "It's the way girls dress that makes guys come on to them. The girls came wanting it - even women in niqab" before continuing to explain that a tight niqab indicates a woman wants their attention.

Geeks and Sports

The craziness that is the conversation about the ability of athletes to speak their minds is still ongoing.

What's weird is that, after watching a few episodes of The I.T. Crowd, I realized what a fucked up status symbol it is for nerds not to like sports and sports fandom. T. Campbell was ahead of the crowd by about a decade when he termed what was then the narrow sub-culture of science fiction and fantasy "fandom." Now, we refer to "geek chic" when we talk about people who love everything from Cougar Town to Twilight, and man, neither of those two things are geek as I understand them. Hell, check out this Comic Critics from a few days ago. Same fucking thing, but from a different angle. Yes, I know that sports, as an interest, is more mainstream than comics or sci-fi and that there are a lot of loud, obnoxious idiots who like sports and can't wrap their heads around why anyone would not love it, but fuck, that sentence is also an exact description of people who like Star Wars so fucking much they reciprocate those feelings towards sports fans.

It's the Magic: Golgari/Izzet

I did and blink-and-you'll-miss-it review of Izzet vs. Golgari last week. That's my full review. It's pretty straightforward. The only other notable thing about Izzet vs. Golgari is how incredibly homoerotic it is. You doubt me? Check below the cut (NSFW. I mean, there aren't any dicks, but if someone sees you looking at this, they'll think it's your thing and nothing you can say will change their opinion.)

Unfathomable Expectations

I didn't write much on this one. I mean it's a lot of writing for me, but it is a long one. Long because I've got links like crazy and if you care about this kind of stuff, if you want to read this whole thing, you gotta click all the links and read all the reads. It's a big time investment and if you don't wanna, then don't; no harm no foul.

You should read it; not necessarily what I've put down, but what everyone else has in the links. They're stories that everyone benefits by reading.

Massive Mass Effect Week: Gaaaaaaaaay

I mentioned Monday how high the expectations for Mass Effect 3 are. The quality of its predecessors poses a challenge for the series' third installment, not just to carry the torch forward  or raise the stakes, but to cap all the details and plot threads of a game that's known for its nearly-inexhaustible supply of detail and dozens of responsive, interwoven plot threads.

I'm often careful about not creating too many expectations about things. If The Avengers is great, that's fine. I'm not anticipating "that scene between The Black Widow and The Hulk" or "the reveal of the alien menace." I'll experience these things in time. I don't need to go hoping for my perfect Hulk/Black Widow scene that Joss Whedon would never want, think, or choose to make. I will rip on how much better it could have been and/or write fan fiction about it later, but I'll give the vetted creative professional first swing at it.

So I had no expectations of Mass Effect 3 until I heard male Shepard could have a relationship with a guy in ME3. And it was a dudes-only guy. This was a teaser that engaged me and I wanted to know who the other man would be. If it was a new character, I couldn't really speculate and my engagement ended. If it was an old character, though, I could go wild. It couldn't be a character that was available to femshep in a previous installment (sadly, no Garrus). I never explored romantic options in ME, though I maintained healthy bromances with Garrus and Mordin whenever possible. I floated the possibility of Mordin past my boyfriend, and he countered with a jaw-dropping surprise: Joker.

Linkstorm: Civil Libertarian Roundup

Civil authorities are pressing for expanded domestic use of drones. I'm sure it's perfectly innocuous.

Errol Morris points to the Umbrella Man theories surrounding the JFK assassination as proof that you can never trust your own judgement as to whether or not something you see is truly sinister. Rather than giving up your own sense of reason to a man who looks like he's wearing an old man makeup, maybe there's another way. A way where you critically analyze facts and discrepancies without regard to how "sinister" they are or how desperate you are to prove a conspiracy.

Linkstorm: The Quick Melange

On the sixth, Alan Turing, who's kind of a big deal in the two worlds of computers and beating Nazis, was denied a pardon for his 1952 conviction of being a homosexual. I don't have to like it, but I can understand it; you can't redefine a pardon just because someone was wronged, especially if it doesn't do anything more than Gordon Brown's official apology.

Field Manual Kris: A Certain State to the West: The Trip East

So Josh and I exchanged Minecraft worlds and eve mad ea server on his PC to we couldn't work together to make a common (badass) world. Despite his earlier bad experiences with multiplayer servers, we hatched some grandiose schemes involving his ridiculous, massive building style and my sprawling and--let's call it "rustic"-- construction proclivities.

"Rustic" is a synonym for "haphazard," right?

Results

Results for doing a YouTube search for Ezra Miller (reason isn't important!):

Videos of interviews with Ezra Miller: 10,278 average views

Videos of movie clips and trailers with Ezra Miller: 12,059 average views

Videos of other people talking about Ezra Miller: 3,150 views

That one video that's just stills of Ezra Miller set to obnoxious music: 396

Video with the clip from the movie where he's making out with another dude: 26,807 (well, 26,808 now)

Thank you, internet. I will never feel alone with you around.