It still amazes me how quickly phone technology has advanced over the last decade. My first cell phone was a hand-me-down Nokia 3210 which I used to text and make the occasional calls, as well as play the snake game on it. When I put it in the skirt pocket of my school uniform,  the weight of the phone would pull my skirt lopsided.

obviously, this is fucked-up on every level you can fuck a thing up. She’s trivializing childhood sexual abuse, by using it as a way to spice up what would otherwise be a still-pretty-ridiculous concept band; she’s trivializing the way disabled people are marginalized, stared, mocked at, and defined as Other, which would appear to be the entire concept of the concept band; she’s releasing a song “by conjoined twins,” which is a cover, and which would appear to be “Love Will Tear Us Apart.”

[...]

This project, however, is really kind of over-the-line in a more obvious way than, say, LOST, because of how it exploits that “circus freaks” trope – the characters of Evelyn and Evelyn ARE PRESENTED to the audience as a one-of-a-kind freakshow, and their disability and its “weirdness” are kind of the entire point.

Source: AMANDA PALMER WANTS TO SHOCK YOU. Just Don’t Get Upset About It, ‘Kay?

Yes, AFP, you are an artist, but that does not grant you with the right to exploit people’s experiences. Experiences you have never gone through and don’t own. People with these disabilities and traumatic experiences are not one-dimensional cartoons you can simply adopt, and it is not cool to casually use them as token special gimmicks in your art.

I wouldn’t be so disgusted if the whole Evelyn Evelyn project had not been branded as Amanda Palmer and Jason Webley saving a pair of poor, sad unfortunate twins from a life of misery. Or had they not deliberately answered interview questions in a childish tone of voice that implied that the twins don’t have distinct, separate identities, and are possibly mentally disabled as well.

‘Art’ like this reduces these very real, marginalized people to something less than human, reinforces stereotypes about them as freaks, as The Other. They are used only as a cartoon, a caricature. It’s ignorant and harmful. What makes my stomach churn are the implicit assumptions behind all this: 1) that people with disabilities are only worth that one single ‘freak’ quality, be it used for entertainment or use to create an image of a tortured artists; 2) your art is not good, or ‘real’ if you do not appear to be a suffering-insane-genius-prodigy-artist who shocks and offends people.

I just can’t respect artists who reinforce that bullshit. I don’t buy the argument that art is subjective, it’s not the artist’s fault you’re offended, either. Art should not be put on a pedestal out of reach of criticism and discussion simply because it is Art. Discourse is important; criticism is not censorship. I can accept shocking art if it has meaning and depth, if the artist uses it to challenge us and our perspectives — and this doesn’t. It’s a cheap, lazy gimmick that isn’t even fresh; a mere reiteration of a tired cliché.

In addition, the way Ms Palmer responded to the criticisms? Ugh. Huge load of ‘Why is everyone hating on me?’ (oh woe, suffering, pain!) but very little done to address the legitimate concerns. The manner in which she has framed legit criticisms from concerned fans as little but ‘drama’ is nothing short of disappointing, and shows just how much she missed the point.

Really, I mean, check out the awesome lyrics:

The shoes on my feet
I’ve bought it
The clothes I’m wearing
I’ve bought it
The rock I’m rockin’
I’ve bought it
‘Cause I depend on me
If I wanted the watch you’re wearin’
I’ll buy it
The house I live in
I’ve bought it
The car I’m driving
I’ve bought it
I depend on me

All the women who are independent
Throw your hands up at me
All the honeys who makin’ money
Throw your hands up at me

– Destiny’s Child – Independent Woman

Like time stopped; like I was unplugged for months and now finally plugged back in. I still have difficulty coming to terms with this feeling.

There Are No Small Promises:

Even when we realize that we’ve made shortsighted, foolish, or difficult promises–it’s doesn’t nullify the promise. If we could retroactively change every promise we didn’t like or wish we hadn’t made—a vow wouldn’t mean anything at all. Of course, it’s hard to learn to not make those promises in the first place. Maybe that’s even harder than keeping a promise, learning the gravitas of our words. But when you break them, no matter how foolish they might have been–if you don’t at least regret it and ponder it, you haven’t yet learned anything. And ultimately that lack of regret makes a person untrustworthy and prone to do it again. People remember every missed appointment, every casually promised thing not delivered, or book not returned. Just as they remember every little favor you have done, or kindness you have bestowed upon them, or little promise to them that you kept.  These all add up when we judge a person and ourselves and how others judge us as well.  And if they don’t, they should.

“The unknowness of my needs frightens me. I do not know how huge they are, or how high they are, I only know that they are not being met. If you want to find the circumference of an oil drop, you can use lycopodium powder. That’s what I will find. A tub of lycopodium powder, and I will sprinkle it on to my needs and find out how large they are. Then when I meet someone I can write up the experiment and show them what they have to take on. Except they might have a growth rate I can’t measure, or they might mutate, or even disappear. One thing I am certain of, I do not want to be betrayed, but that’s quite hard to say, casually, at the beginning of a relationship. It’s not a word people use very often, which confuses me, because. By betrayal, I mean promising to be on your side, and then being on somebody else’s.”

-Jeanette Winterson, Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit

I was called “bamboo pole”; adults often exclaimed at how skinny I was to my mother, and it would inevitably be followed by some sort of advice on feeding me the “right food” to fatten me up.

I was a quiet kid but never stupid; I would pretend not to know what was going on while silently observing the adults. I hated these conversations and I hated how many people saw it fit to comment on my weight in a manner that insinuated that my mother must have been incompetent or a neglectful parent.

In primary school, I always wished I was average-built. I didn’t enjoy being singled out for being one of the few underweight students and having to sit through school-sanctioned dietary talks with my mother. These talks were supposed to be for all students whose weights were out of the healthy weight range, but always geared towards those who were overweight. I always had to sit at the back of the class due to my height, and this arrangement often made me feel as if I was punished for being tall.

I hated how the school uniforms looked on myself — I never fit into them properly, and looked gangly and awkward. When I first met a girl who was of similar build as myself in primary five, we hit it off almost immediately and became best of friends. There was something we shared and understood about each other — how we got teased, how people made comments about our height and weight — that others did not. Finally, I had someone whom I could talk about these issues and feelings freely, someone who understood.

As I grew older, the nature of the comments I received changed. It used to be “Wah! You so skinny! And tall!” in the same tone one would point out an alien UFO, and it started to change to one of envy when I was in secondary school. People would start suggesting that I should work as a model because I was skinny and had long legs. I hardly believed them, because to myself I still saw this gangly, awkward girl.

I never considered myself superior in terms of physical looks to the other girls, who looked prettier with their figures that filled out the school uniform nicely, with curves in the right places. I looked like a bamboo pole with a sack wrapped around it. I still disliked my height for making me stand out, although I was beginning to enjoy being seated at the back of the class (more leg room and room for mischief.)

Eventually, my height and weight became less of an issue to me in my late teens, especially in junior college, where I met many girls who were much taller, and similarly built, that I didn’t stand out so much any more.

I started to see my height as a positive thing. The turning point was when I started attending rock gigs and getting into the mosh pits. It was so much easier to see the show and to actually breathe, because I was about the same height or not significantly shorter than most of the guys in the pits.

And while others started dieting to attract boys, I found myself being thankful that despite all the teasing I got as a kid, the tables are now turned. I didn’t, and still don’t find that being thin is “better”; but I am glad that I am no longer being picked on for it.

I have received so many comments of “Oh my god you’re so skinny and tall! Are you anorexic?” all my life that I have developed a finely tuned set of automated responses. I often rattle off the stock “No, I’ve always been skinny. I have fine bones and a high metabolic rate. I do not have an eating disorder.” without a second thought.

It is often considered acceptable to comment on someone’s weight if they are thin because being thin is seen as desirable. What people don’t realise is making comments like that is as insensitive and rude as going up to an overweight person and saying “Oh god you’re fat! Do you eat fast food burgers all the time?”

Because really, anyone who is thin must have an eating disorder. Why do I have to defend my physical build to random people?

I don’t fault most people for making comments on my weight because most of them don’t realise what they’re doing. But some people can be unusually obnoxious and rude, and for them I have a set of sarcastic responses, crafted and refined through my teens. All-girls’ schools can be vicious, nasty places for an awkward teenager:

“I am not anorexic. I eat three grains of rice a day.”
“Well, I survive by eating air.”
“Me, tall and thin? Nah, it only looks that way because you’re short and fat.”

It breaks my heart that the clinics needed to do this in the first place. I feel for each woman who has had to deal with abuse directed at them. Getting an abortion is a difficult decision and stressful enough, they do not need the added trouble from these anti-choicers. Many of those women were not even going to the clinic for abortions, but for other medical services.

Thinking about some of the stuff that goes at the clinic, it seems impossible to see where the protesters are coming from. Today, as a family walked away from the clinic after walking in with a client, a protester told a 5 year old that her mom was a murderer. Is this supportive, empowering, helpful, necessary, appropriate, and does it contain a shred of decency? No. Is that rude, insensitive, and incredibly small-minded? I think so. I also see it as inexcusable and unforgivable. For an adult to act that way is simply ridiculous. It seems like such an immature, below the belt low-blow sort of choice to make, something that any sane person would feel totally ashamed for having said. But to the protesters, that’s just another Saturday. This is just one example of how the protesters fail to provide support, or even be decent human beings.

I blanched and physically flinched at the photograph near the top of the blog with the huge photographic standee of an aborted foetus. I was furious that they had the bloody gall to print that and use it in their protest… furious, because it is a dirty tactic, horribly insensitive and damaging, not to even mention, without a single shred of compassion.

I had no idea that image triggered something in me that I did not know still existed; until I had an extremely vivid nightmare that very night about mutilated fetuses.

When I was a teenager in an all-girls’ public secondary school, a “family-counselling group” came to my school to educate us on sexuality issues. I remember that all of us were ushered into the school hall as usual for the weekly assembly; we were introduced to the counsellors who talked to us about abstinence, then launched into the main highlight of their talk.

It was a 10 minute video consisting of nothing but continuous images of aborted fetuses set to dramatic music. It was shown on the large screen and we were given no prior warning except “this may make you uncomfortable; if you are scared, close your eyes.”

We were not warned of the graphic content of the film. We were never given an option to miss the talk (unless you counted “close your eyes”) which was during school hours. My parents were not notified. We were even encouraged to watch the film because it was something we needed to know, “for our own good”. I kept my eyes open out of curiosity and because we were urged to, and I found myself unable to turn away because I was so completely shocked I could not react.

I remember freaking out when mid-way into the horror montage, a pink plastic model of a foetus was passed around and my classmate put it in my lap. I did not scream because I was so shocked I had no voice to scream but to hand off the plastic model to the next girl like a hot potato.

To this day I can still remember it so vividly that my stomach churns at the recollection — no other gore or horror film could do that to me. There was just something about the whole experience that affected me at a deeper level that other gore, shock, or graphic violent  images I’d been exposed to, did not.

Perhaps the counsellors, if they are reading my blog now, would be proud to learn how their “education programme” had been so memorable that I could vividly remember it even after a decade. Perhaps they thought the only way to “save” us hormonal 13-16 year old girls from the taint of pre-marital sex and losing our virginity was to scare us.

I remember exiting the talk not remembering anything of the abstinence information but with the firmest conviction that I will never, ever get pregnant, nor have any children. The first thing I said to my friend when it was all over, was, “It didn’t scare me off abortion. It scared me off babies. Forever.”

As an adult I still have occasional nightmares when I see such triggering images. I am angry, because infants are cute, beautiful, darling creatures, and yet that brief 10 minutes have completely ruined it for me. Today, I cannot look at a baby and not think of the horrific images in that film. I can’t look at someone’s ultrasound image of their baby and not think of dismemberment. I know deep down that I cannot picture myself being a mother, going through pregnancy, because I know I will always associate foetuses and unborn children with gore and horror and mutilation.

It is irrational, I know, but I cannot shake it off. Perhaps the majority of my classmates were unaffected and soon forgot about it. But the shadow of fear and disgust will always linger for me in the back of my mind.  They may not know what they have done, but I cannot forgive the people who condoned such a horrid tactic in the guise of “sexuality education”. It is most ironic that the same such groups often also call for greater censorship of media to protect children and teenagers from images of gore and violence.

I hesitated before writing the latter half of this entry, because I was afraid. But I made myself do it because being silent doesn’t help anyone. It’s surprising how much an impact such abstinence-only programs had on me, even though I was a cynical teenager and fairly rebellious and anti-establishment about things. There is a sort of psychological pressure at play that makes you swallow things hook line and sinker, especially if they were sanctioned by teachers and educators you respect in a school environment.

Why kill a cat over scratches on car? – AsiaONE Motoring

Paint on a car is manufactured to withstand the tremendous force of the gravel missiles as it speeds along the road, otherwise every car will be pitted all over as it speeds along the highway!

A paint technologist on this website (www.flippyscatpage.com/carpaint.html) wrote: “The worst a cat can do to in normal circumstances is leave cute little muddy cat prints – annoying but not inherently damaging.”

High ground

Cats, by nature, like to rest on “safe” high ground or seek the warmth radiating through the car bonnet.

Being animals, cats don’t know that it is “wrong” to do so.

So, in all likelihood, the cats did not even cause the scratches. Humans who insist on applying human notions of “right” and “wrong” to animals’ instinctual behavior, are, IMHO, a little wrong in the head.