This may be an unfounded opinion, but I think a major reason for why Prop 8 was affirmed by a slim majority of the California population is because you don’t have that equal of a distribution of local/municipal LGBT community centers within the state. Continue reading Raising LGBT consciousness and friendliness through community centers
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Freemasonry, religion and Furry fandom, race and culture
Reading Lewis Lofkin’s writings on American Deism, I thought over the night about how English (or "Regular") Freemasonry maintains a ban on religious or spiritual discussion – save for (upon initiation) whether an initiate believes in any Supreme Being – inside a lodge. I think that this ban on religious elaboration places a mask on possible religious expressions, intrigues and possible bigotry.
Maybe it is a good idea, and perhaps this is comparable to how the furry fandom has placed such a heavy and long-standing emphasis on disguising one’s own ethnocultural or ethnoracial identity under a fursona (be it manifested on a furry media archive via an avatar or in the average real-life furry meetup/convention via a fursuit). By hiding such distinctions under the furry equivalents of tribal initiation masks and nomens mysticums, the more divisive flareups around race and ethnicity are, theoretically, avoided or subsided.
Multiculturalism, cultural integrity/sovereignty, and social progression
In light of both
- the Swiss referendum-based ban on further building of minarets on mosque edifices in Switzerland
- the European Human Rights Court’s ban on displays of the crucifix in Italian public schools
I think that it is time to highlight the growth of an strong pan-European movement of anti-triumphalism and laicite, one that doesn’t ignore any religious or spiritual belief system in its wake. Furthermore, I would also recommend to the Europeans (and even the Turkish people, if Kemal’s legacy is to be continued in that country) a further logical expansion of a further pervasive regulation of religious triumphalist displays in public:
- church bells and bell towers
- stripping explicit references to unique churches or religions from constitutions and other public documentations
But ultimately, the argument in the Global North over the clash between the religions of Christianity and Islam (and Islam vs. Judaism) and secular Humanism is cultural, as the ideas of law and custom which are embedded within the cultures whose members also subscribe to the religions tend to widely differ on their views (or their capability to modernize their views) regarding concepts of rights and liberties.
I’ve come to the conclusion that multiculturalism – a well-intentioned idea – is very much pinned, in its current implementations, between the rock of social progression and the hard place of cultural integrity/sovereignty. Multiculturalism, as it stands, has not been engaged in a significant attempt at demonolithization that let’s at least one school of multiculturalist ideology try to remove itself from attempting to actively embrace claims to cultural integrity or sovereignty.
I think it would be better to say that multiculturalism respects the rights of multiple cultures to exist, but does not respect the right of a culture to make claims or moves for "integrity" or "sovereignty" against those – within or outside the culture’s main grouping – who syncretize with other cultures or interpretations. Instead, those who do syncretize should also receive the same support and standards of judgement as any other culture if they so apply for such treatment.
Hence, I agree more with Anne Phillips’ book Multiculturalism without Culture, particularly in its feminist angle (since feminist and LGBT organizations have had the hardest time with current multiculturalist models).
Gay werewolves: a compendium
Being in the furry thing for a bit, I think that the idea of the gay werewolf is a perfect androcentric counterpart to the lesbian vampire, which is why I’m surprised that the gay werewolf hasn’t been as fully utilized as an exploitation trope as the lesbian vampire in the 20th century.
So I’m glad that someone outside of the furry fandom has gone through the trouble of creating an imaginative painting of Obama turning into a werewolf while playing basketball.
Thankfully, there’s a queer werewolf anthology, a list of gay werewolf works on another LJ, a gay werewolf on Flickr, and (I’m certain) plenty of other extra gay werewolf content to be found through Google.
On “Summer Wars”
I can say that Summer Wars, Mamoru Hosoda’s 2009 film, was decent. I can’t say that it presented anything startlingly new (other than the family angle and the consistently-amazing animation style that I can expect from few other directors besides Mr. Hosoda) because, after finishing the film, I (and a few others: here, here and here) realized that the plot for this film was a latter day revisitation (not necessarily a rehash, but a timely revision) of his 2000 Digimon Adventure film, Children’s War Game.
I can name a few differences in the technological/industrial aspect between Children’s War Game and Summer Wars:
- Children’s is much more replete with A.I. vs. A.I. (in the form of the Digimon characters), while a form of A.I. is mostly posited as a world-eating antagonist vs. the whole of humanity.
- Unlike the less-likely scenario presented in Children’s at the time of its release, Summer was more reflective of the very-likely integration of pervasive Internet-based social network accounts with more superfluous user avatars and persistent virtual environments (like, say, integrating Facebook or Myspace with IMVU or Second Life)
- Because of the lack of a large A.I. population in Summer‘s virtual world (known as "OZ"), the story line is driven more by the contributions, conflicts, hopes and fears of the human participants than in Children’s.
But if Summer Wars is a more timely revision of Children’s War Game, then it is (IMO) logical that a sequel to Summer would be a more timely revision of his last Digimon Adventure film, Diaboromon Strikes Back. This time, the fight (and whatever such a fight would be over) would take place in the real world and after a few years post-Summer Wars, just as in Diaboromon; the key ingredient of such a sequel would be augmented reality (and AR/VR glasses), just as in the 2006 series Dennou Coil.
I just hope that the plot for Summer Wars II isn’t as lightweight terribly composed as Diaboromon. It might need more A.I. than Summer Wars, but I hope that it doesn’t rely as much on its predecessor in order to wow and entrance theater-goers.
So many eclectic religious/spiritualist/mystic groups on Tribe.net
See underneath "back up on Ning if Tribe fails again was recommended for:".
“Altered States”: a terrifically trippy TF film
I watched Ken Russell’s 1980 film Altered States tonight, and I was astounded by all that occurred in it.
But I was surprised about the lead character’s (played by William Hurt) temporary transformation into an earlier ancestor of homo sapiens that then goes romping through the city for a night. I was surprised because this clearly reminded me of Whitley Strieber‘s 1990 novel The Wild, which follows alot of the same path of plotline as Altered States up to very close to the last scenes of the film. The "hallucinatory" degeneration of the lead character’s sense of reality, the physically-manifested changes of his own body, the near-breakdown of his (ex-)wife’s sanity at the sight of his situation, the involvement and intervention of his closest colleagues, all of these elements are present in both Russell’s film and Strieber’s book, both with equally-vivid description and elaboration.
Either way, I love both works.
A rat in the house
Well, it came uninvited, and it continues to come inside uninvited, but a brown rat has frequented the house (both beneath and inside our living space) for the last two or three weeks. It scurries away when it detects movement or is frightened (and I can be similarly startled in return), but it has already aroused Mom’s ire after it did a number on a pack of soy sauce in the pantry.
So we’ve battened down the hatches in the kitchen over the week, and we haven’t seen it (him?) inside that particular area since, but now it comes inside through an unenclosed space in the bathroom closet behind the shower. I’ve swept up its pellets from that area, but I’m still reluctant to have Mom sic a peanut-buttery trap on him. It seems inhumane, IMO, even if he is an undesired guest.
I’m going for a live trap, or even this DIY idea, instead.
EDIT: This is a rather dandy website (in Russian).
On “Regular Freemasonry’s” argument against atheism
I think it is unfortunate that advocates of the Grand Lodge of England’s positions on regularity generally take an attitude on atheism and irreligion which, in various ways, smells of unnecessary condescension.
While the GLOE has been in a long-running dispute with the Grand Orient of France (the flagship advocacy organization for Liberal/Continental Freemasonry) for the last century and a half over the discussion of members’ religions and the status of women, those derivations of Freemasonry which do include the participation of women and the irreligious are scorned with heated fervor as displayed here. Atheism, in particular, is scorned by dedicated Freemasons as "immature" and lacking in "morality".
I’m not going to dispute their points of contention with atheists (or the validity thereof), but I also don’t want to fall into the trap of stereotyping Freemasonry’s approach to irreligion as an Enlightenment-era prejudice that arose out of a general lay fear of godless moral degradation during the period; at least Freemasons (both Regular and Liberal) have extensively contributed to the various separations of church and state (i.e., United States s.c.s. vs. France’s laicite). I just don’t think that the condescension towards irreligion is necessary in such volumes as are used by Freemasonry’s advocates on the Internet.
An appraisal of “Until the End of the World”
Wow………just WOW.
Right now, I’m finishing watching Part 3 of Wim Wenders’ film trilogy Until the End of the World (Bis ans Ende der Welt), and I can honestly say that all three parts are just phenomenal. The acting, the multilingual proficiency, the plot, the sci-fi, the music, the drama, the comedy, the pathos…..EVERYTHING. JUST PERFECT.
Continue reading An appraisal of “Until the End of the World”
