Rage Blackouts and Roman Polanski

I’ve been experiencing rage blackouts every time I’ve seen the Roman Polanski debate (why is this even a goddamn debate??) online, from the time he was arrested up to the outpouring of celebrity support until a few days ago when they announced that he might get off on the possibility of judicial misconduct.

People, this is a man, who, more than 30 years ago, used his position as a famous director to drug and force a 13 year old girl into having penetrative sex with him.

DRUGGED.

FORCED.

That means rape. What’s more, he admitted it at the trial. And yet some really famous Hollywood names have stood by him, as if to say that rape isn’t an issue because he also happens to have made Chinatown and a couple of other great movies.

Look, I’m not invalidating his achievements. But he committed a CRIME and was sentenced for it. His way of facing justice was to run away for more than 30 years, enjoying luxury and fame, and basically having all the amenities of upper class life at his fingertips. He had a wife and children, and possibly the only indignity he ever suffered was not being able to pick up his Oscars in person.

I’m sorry, what part of that was actually any sort of punishment for being a rapist?

If he’d already served his sentence and people were going after him in some witchhunt, I would understand everyone speaking up for him. BUT HE RAN AWAY.

And now they want him to face up to what he’s done, and like a coward, he’s staying at his chalet, waiting for a team of lawyers to rip into a woman who is so traumatized by the experience and the media’s derision that she’d much rather just forget everything and move on.

Yeah, good luck with that, Roman Polanski. You have money and fame on your side, but I hope you burn in hell.

—

I’ve maintained radio silence on the subject here because every time I try to write I end up with a bunch of capslock keymashing, not exactly conducive to uh, discourse. But really, I couldn’t stay silent anymore.

(And don’t get me started on Terry Richardson.)

Sources: Salon.com, Jezebel.com

Amazon Fail

… or why someone over at Amazon.com has utterly lost their mind. (Or never had one to begin with, we are not sure.)

In short: Amazon.com has seen fit to remove books from its ranking system, including but not limited to books on LGBT sex, feminism and just sex in general. This means that when you hit enter on your keyboard, these books will not show up. Apparently E.M. Forster has been removed. (WHUT?)

Interestingly, ‘books’ like Playboy, heterosexual erotica/romance and some other graphical stuff that sound barely physically possible are still showing up in searches.

Call to boycott Amazon, because I don’t even have words for how ridiculously censorious this is. (Lady Chatterley’s Lover outlawed but not Mein Kampf?)

So anyway, the ladies over at Smartbitches have come up with a Google-bomb campaign: Amazon rank ftw, everyone! (The more people linking to this, the higher the likelihood that google searches will yield this result, thus exposing the rectal-haberdashery habits of Amazon.com.)

You can also see people reacting on Twitter with the tag ‘#amazonfail’.

That’s it for now, though I am totally expecting the internet go ‘splodey. Needless to say, I will be watching from orbit.

Sources: here, here and here.

(I really should look into getting an outrage tag.)

I’ll Change My Name When You Change Yours

Betty Brown, prominent Republican lawmaker from beautiful Texas, says this:

“Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?” Brown said.

Brown later told [Organization of Chinese Americans representative Ramey] Ko: “Can’t you see that this is something that would make it a lot easier for you and the people who are poll workers if you could adopt a name just for identification purposes that’s easier for Americans to deal with?”

(Emphasis mine.)

Betty Brown has so far resisted all calls for apology.

My reaction:

OH HELL NO.

When I registered for elementary in small-town America, my principal kept nudging me to go for a more ‘American’ first name. (It didn’t work.) My mom’s boss actually assigned her a name, and then printed out the nametag without consulting her, so she couldn’t really insist on changing back without a fuss. (She quit after a few months.)

And let’s not go into the intentionally and sometimes sneeringly mangled name pronunciation. (Oh, schoolyards. How I love thee.)

I have not, cannot, and will not whitewash myself to make a bunch of lazy white asshats more self-satisfied. I will not give them more cause than the smallness of their own minds to sneer at us and say, “See? Those yellowfaces are only trying to ape us.”

Learning Chinese is hard. Learning common courtesy to your fellow human beings may also be hard, but it is absolutely necessary. Regardless of what language you and I speak, should you not at least respect the sanctity of my name?

Source: Texan Lawmaker thinks Asians should Americanize their names to make others’ lives easier

Hollywood is Racist… but you knew that.

I think I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

These both depict the main characters from the popular TV show Avatar – one from the original cartoon, and one from the feature film due to be released in 2010.

[Insert Asian outrage.]

If this gets to you, here’s a link to the petition protesting the Avatar casting.

Thank you.

Edward Body Glitter

GUYS I AM NOT KIDDING YOU, THERE IS TWILIGHT VAMPIRE GLITTER FOR SALE.

NOW YOU CAN HAVE THE SKIN OF A KILLER TOO.

*DIES*

ETA: OMFG NOW THERE’S A BEDSHEET SET. WTF WORLD. THERE IS NO DEGREE OF CAPSLOCKING THAT REPRESENTS MY CHAGRIN.

Sevenses

Attention aux Québecois!

Pour ceux qui ne savent pas déja: Des élections générales prendront place lundi le 8 décembre.

Allez voter!

Merci.

Sevenses

Twilight Post Mortem

Well… I am glad I didn’t contribute to that?

Twilight made more than $70 million in its opening weekend, beating back Quantum of Solace and Bolt to grab first place. This means that New Moon filming goes ahead – and if it does well, I expect that we’ll be subjected to the mania for Eclipse and Breaking Dawn.

My only consolation is that now we get to see Renesmee’s birth scene, because, daaaaamn if I can figure out a way for that part in the movie to be included without traumatizing all the tweens in the audience.

*sigh*

And this means that I will not be posting about Twilight for a long while, thanks be.

Sevenses

[In housekeeping: Was ambushed by molecular biology final exam in some random dark alley and beaten with an aluminum baseball bat. Will probably recover, and ... well. There are other exams. Right?]

Prop 8 Supporters to the Left

WORD.

Semi-Miraculous

I think you’ve all heard by now, but in case you haven’t, BARACK OBAMA IS GOING TO BE THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF THE USA! (Barring any disasters *knocking on wood with crossed fingers*.)

Now I think life will gradually slide back to normal (TV better, or I will change cable providers) and I do still have about 3 school projects to work on. However, this has made me so much happier, to see this happening, and know that sometimes people can be trusted to make the right decision.

Of course, we’re not done yet – there’s the economy, Iraq, and a plethora of issues, as well as the bridging of the two parties – because nothing gets done if neither party is on board (something we’ve all noticed these past 8 years or so). So now is the time to celebrate, and it’s also the time to deal with this like adults, and start actually being constructive.

*dives into her chocolate stash*

Love,

Sevenses (And when I say ‘we’, I mean ‘we’ in a global community sense, not just the Americans, who have gained a huge morale boost tonight.)

Paintings used in PotW

We’ve been seeing lots of beautiful, lovely paintings from Painter on the Wind, and being completely unacquainted with Shin Yoon Bok’s original paintings, I though I’d do a wiki trawl and see what I came up with.

Lo and behold! There’s a lot of stuff that they incorporated into the show. Needless to say, this contains spoilers.