Christmas Spirit, Pornography, Hair Sites, SAGE-AU, Xmas, Tsunami

[tcpip]

Here's a great example of the Christmas spirit (from rialian). N.C. Homeless Shelter Evicts Pregnant Woman, Three Sons: "The director of a homeless shelter says he was right to evict a 21-year-old pregnant woman and her three children after the woman violated one of the shelter's rules by allowing her children's uncle to visit in her room.

"We have to have order," said the Rev. Oliver S. Robinson, director of the Tabernacle of Faith Church Outreach Center...

Garland, eight months pregnant, began crying as she strapped her children into their car seats after loading the trunk of her car with belongings. She then left with Xavier, 1, Javonte, 3, and T'Keel, 5, still in their bedclothes....

"These people need tough love," Robinson said. "I don't feel comfortable with it. God don't get no pleasure punishing us. But he does it. Jesus would have done the same thing."

Once upon a time, I had a fleeting relationship with a person named Joyce. When it became clear to me that rather than being interested in human emancipation, she was more concerned with imposing her moral code on others, I called off the affair. Her reaction was to launch a public campaign against my defence of sexual expression and my suppport for the legal rights and working conditions of those in the sex/erotica industry. Recently I've discovered that an article written at the time (mostly about how I defend such morally objectionable ideas as human beings controlling their own body and workers having legal protection) has made it's way into Spinefix Press' Not for Sale: Feminists Resisting Prostitution and Pornography. My reputation improves even further!

On a sort of related note (because sensuality and style are related), designing James Nicholsons' website is proving a little more difficult that previously expected. Not due to the size or style of the website in questions, but because I'm working with a rather scattered collection of raw material, unscanned without proper documentation or temporal order. Of course, this shouldn't be surprising when dealing with a person who was the Australian Apprentice of the Year, an WA Government Sponsor for the Arts etc. More good news is that I'm conducting IT training for both James and friends and for Borderlands in the next two months.

Almost forgot. Sage Advice, the journal of SAGE-AU came out last week with two articles by yours truly; the interview with Richard Stallman and the article on webdesign standards.

Did the xmas thing with severina_242 and her family which was a pretty mundane affair, rather than being a day of horror which I'd been led to believe. severina_242 gave me "The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System" and caseopaya gave a flash looking filofax. I'll accept both as early birthday presents, 'kay? On a related note, a nice crate of wine is heading my way courtesy of money spent by my credit card over the past year or so.

The death toll keeps climbing from the tsunami. Early reports were around the 10,000 fatality mark, now we're looking at 80,000 or more. Next steps in the disaster will undoubtably be disease through lack of fresh water and then... then the mosquitos will breed, bringing dengue and malaria. I'm more than half tempted to ring up an aid agency and volunteer my Herculean energies, my sheer bloody mindedness and my modicum of technical skills.

Isn't that US election over? Then why is Kerry preparing grounds to unconcede?.

Boom-crash. That's how the real estate cycle goes when you treat land as a commodity. "The shake-out is going to be sudden and harsh." No shit, sherlock.

Amusing brainbreaker of the week goes to reddragdiva.
LARPing leads to furrydom!; "I don't know how people made interesting characters before templates and prestige classes"

Comments

[reddragdiva]

Nice book! How broad a hint did you have to drop?

[angel80.livejournal.com]

While I think that men who use prostitutes are probably rather pathetic, I cannot see why it is a less honourable form of wage labour than any other and I can't see the 'feminism' in trying to get it prohibited (i.e. driven underground where the women fall prey to real exploitation by the police and gansters).

Legalisation is very important if sex work is to be open (the customers probably don't want this). The women must be able to organise to protect themselves.

In Cambodia it is not illegal, but human trafficking is rife. The problem is not, however, in the legality or illegality, but in the underdevelopment of an economy and society in which gansterism is one of the principal means of capital accumulation. People who oppose prostitution in that context are not opposing the trade as such, but the form under which it occurs - namely, slavery.

[redcountess]

I'm beginning to think more and more that Bush, and other Fundamentalists/Rapturists are the "antichrist" mentioned in Revelations. Strangely enough, their efforts are making me more of a "christian" —in the true sense of the word, by following his teachings. I hope they all burn in hell!

[radiumlabs.livejournal.com]

Full legalisation for sex workers is only way the ppl who work will ever be given a full voice and coverage as far as legal and union rights are concerned. When australia decides to stop kicking the political football around and actually take action for the ppl in our communities that do work in the sex industry however is anyones guess.

I can see James site driving you insane very quickly. He has done so much.

I kind of go numb when ever i think tomuch about the suffering that must be going on after the tsunami. And yes it does not bode well for the long term if disease does take hold.
Very sad.