Posts by TracyMac
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You do not want to piss off female subs, as a generalisation. Those poor deluded degraded brain-washed chickies will hand you your arse and ask if you want fries with that.
So true.
As for the theory about sub/bottoms who had been physically punished as children, I always like to ask people who come up with that one if they were never smacked.
I know subs who came from families who were vehemently against corporate punishment of any kind. It didn't stop them from being delightfully kinky. And for me, who came from a family where physical punishment was handed out routinely, I'm afraid my wiring is pretty unidirectional - and not in the "give it to me" way.
As for the comment about "unicorns", I hadn't come across that usage before, but I'm pretty selective with my BDSM reading - I don't read kink stuff that doesn't have an underlying feminist perspective, as perverse as that may be to some (ho ho). I also haven't found the male bottom/female top paradigm being particularly disregarded, but perhaps Mistress Matisse, Midori and their cohorts give me a biased view. However, being polyamorous, I've heard it used when referring to the bisexual female lust-object who fancies both spouses in a heterosexual marriage. As in, those couples who are looking for their perfect little unicorn, who will also babysit the kids and help out with the housework...
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Urgh, thanks for mentioning the Leeza Gibbons/Chris Quentin Telethon - I had horrible flashbacks just then. That was definitely the jumping the shark moment for me.
As for Mt Eden Dubstep, thanks for the pointer! What I've heard so far is pretty classic dnb, but if the gent concerned wants to call it dubstep, I'm not going to quibble. Fine electronica sounds from the homeland.
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I like all the Maori vocab being highlighted here. I'd also like to propose turangawaewae, which is a concept very precious to me, having now spent a third of my life living away from home. Yes, I've been to the countries where my ancestors originally came from (Ireland, mainly), but they ain't my turangawaewae.
Oh, also, āwhina, a concept Paula Hypocritical Bennett could learn a bit more about. It really fucking gyps me when people like that were happy to accept the handouts when they needed them - and which were, surprise surprise, put in place by Labour govts in the main - only to yank them at the first opportunity when they get a bit of power of their own. Good on you for feathering your own nest first, eh, Paula?
As for you, Mark, take a jump. I left home when I was 17, in 1986, and it was fucking hard. However, I've repaid the govt's investment by several thousandfold, so I don't see what the fucking problem is with a hand-up at the right time (unlike dear old Paula).
[Excuse my ire about this topic - it's one I'm sensitive about, especially with relatives who love the ACT party, but didn't think of bailing out their nearest and dearest when we needed it.]
Also, I do like whakamā, since it really does a nice meld of the concepts of shyness/embarrassment/shame. It's certainly what I feel if I have to engage in any kind of public speaking!
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@Hilary
Yes, I got into making elderflower cordial while I was living in London, but apparently it wasn't actually the done thing to go to the local park and steal the flowers from the elder bushes there. Since it was Lewisham and not Mayfair, no-one actually bothered me about it.
But when I moved to Oz, I was amazed to find that the inner north suburbs in Canberra are coated with elder bushes! I live in a block of flats, and that's what they use for the hedging. So I still have a stash of cordial left from summer. - very nice with Hendricks gin. I should also acknowledge that that recipe came from The Guardian (left off the link in my original comment).
On another thread, bourgeois porridge makes me LUL. My wanky aspiring-to-middle-class touch is to buy trail mix (dried cranberries, various nuts and seeds) from the local health food shop and chuck a handful of that in. Not having a microwave, I still boil it up in a plebeian pot. Also, topped with coconut milk and palm sugar makes lots of NOMs. Must try the soaking-overnight trick (or soaking-during-the-day, since I have it for dinner at least once a week at this time of year).
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Shoutouts to the Sodastream massive.
Elderflower cordial = piss easy
25 elderflower heads (picked before they start going brown)
800g-900g granulated sugar
2 lemons
50g citric acid
3 litres of waterSterilise the bottles for the cordial (boil them, hot dishwasher, or beer bottle steriliser), and rinse the flowers. Boil the water and dissolve the sugar in it. Add the lemons and citric acid, then the flowers. Cover and leave for 24 hours. Strain through cheesecloth/muslin (actually, I use clean Chux cloths) and decant.
As for late opening, I'm all for it. I don't think music acts starting late is a justification though. I loved living in London, as someone else has observed, because concerts often start early so as to finish before the tube does. Of course, then you headed somewhere else to get munted.
But I loathe acts that don't grace us with their presence till around midnight. Seriously, what is the point of that? (unless it's some kind of cabaret, where the acts are running all evening anyway)
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Regarding ComicCon, EA certainly haven't done themselves any favours with their ridiculous "commit acts of lust with the booth babes" competition.
So they either assume all ComicCon attendees are just there for the "babes" and they're all men (well, I'm a dyke - perhaps I'm the target audience too), but if they're trying to move beyond insulting ideas of what demographics comic fans fit into, or encourage a broader range of participation, they are FAILing mightily.
Of course, when you encounter reactions like Randall Schwartz's (read comments) to the observation that booth babes really don't provide a welcoming atmosphere to most women (not to mention the men who find them unnecessary/distasteful), it's no wonder that there's a perception that certain events/industries are not exactly inclusive.
/slight off-topicness
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Russell, I tend to agree that NZ's farming practices aren't too bad in the industrial sense - but, yes, they could leave out most of the bloody superphos and do something with cow shit other than washing it into rivers. I was also shocked to learn recently there's a feedlot or two around the place. Disgusting. I don't want to see farming go the US route.
As for active deforestration and general shonky practices in non-Western countries, sure. And who set up many of those companies, who still runs many of them (look at the Aussies in PNG, for example), and who (in the main) continues to buy the shonky goods?
But yeah, it's difficult - Marilyn Waring was writing about environmental capital 20 years ago, and we still haven't got much of a clue about how to tackle those issues (her solution, as I recall, was recasting national accounting rules to value what was there rather than its exploitation). How do we reward "stewardship"/sustainability over slash/burn/pillage?
Hell, I'm far from pure myself, because here I am typing on my lovely computer in my Aussie flat, working for the aviation industry. At least I have soy milk in my latte. ;-)
And Logan, yep, seconded wrt single-issue campaigns - trouble is, they tend to be used because the punters find it easier to relate if problems are broken down into seemingly-manageable chunks. And maybe that's a perfectly reasonable strategy if there is some concern for the forest as well as the trees (not to labour any analogies or anything).
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Not my story, but close enough. Thank you for representing.
Thanks also for the heads-up about collection week - unfortunately, Refuges came along a bit late for my mother, but she managed to get herself out anyway.
I could do without the "nostalgic" family photo album viewings myself, though.
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Logan, I believe we can actually tackle more than one issue at a time. I agree that those who eat industrially-farmed steaks and lamb roasts every day who point fingers at palm oil producers are suffering from a huge outbreak of hypocrisy. Not to mention "eco-colonisalism", to coin a term for those sanctimonious twunts who think their own practices are fine, but those natives in furrin lands can't be trusted to manage their own affairs.
But for those of us who are trying, there is more than one area we can be conscious of. And even if we aren't trying particularly hard, there are areas of greater importance. I personally think wiping out an entire species of great ape has a little more priority in the short term than the over-fertilisation of NZ farmlands (but, still, both of these things can be tackled simultaneously, IMO, given however many billions of people there are in the world).
I also don't agree with those who try to characterise all meat consumption as intrinsically bad. I don't eat red meat myself, but I tend to wonder what you'd expect to grow on cold Scottish or Welsh highlands other than sheep. Sometimes a crop animal is a much more efficient converter of sunlight to energy for our purposes than the native vegetation. But I also agree that most of us could stand to eat a helluva lot less meat - but saying "All meat is EBIL" is patently false, and doesn't do the argument of "consume less" any favours.
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Following on from the comment above - if you're not the problem, you're not the problem ... but privilege can be a tricksy thing.