Riot.Jane is Writing Again!

In the event this feed is still in anyone's list ..... Good news! Riot.Jane is writing again! Find her at Cultural Dissidence.

Time to Defend Sluts

Riot.Jane

Yasmin Nair has a killer post at Jezebel in which she reminds us that sluts -- women who actually enjoy sex -- deserve to be treated with the same respect as anyone else.

Can we please remember that it's also perfectly fine that women need access to birth control because they really do like having lots of sex and being, generally, you know, sluts? For fuck's sake, we fought for the Pill and access to contraception because we once thought that boundless sex without consequences-whether with one person or with many, at the same time or sequentially, either way-is a pretty good thing.

Sing it, sister.

~Riot.Jane

Tech Curiosities: Boounce, ReadyBoost, and Fonolo

Admin.Jane

Three items have piqued my technical curiosity in the past week.  One I am excited about sharing because I had good results with it, one that I plan to try, and one I think is likely not ready for consumer prime time . . .

Boounce:

I heard about this on the local public radio community spotlight of a local techical start-up.  Billed by its producer as a low-footprint browser add-on that hyper-charges internet searching, Boounce (pronounced "bounce") returns searches from multitudes of standard and vertical search engines as well as niche websites concurrently.  With search results organized by clickable icons (when in "Toolbar" mode), Bounce claims to dive deeper and vastly outperform standard search engines in the amount and quality of results -- Because any given single

Happy Fathers' Day!

I wish I could see my father today.

Graphic courtesy of the AnimationLibrary.

~Riot.Jane

The Damage of Child Beauty Pageants

Riot.Jane

This is the first time I've seen a non-hysterical critique of the phenomenon of child beauty pageants.  Most of the time it seems like it's moon-bat crazy people throwing tantrums either for or against the concept. 

In this blog post Mary Jo Rapini, LPC discusses whether it's the contestant or the parent that is actually benefiting from the pageant experience.  She also suggests better ways to help children learn the lessons they need to be successful people than crawling the beauty pageant circuit.

Beauty Pageants For Toddlers; Who Are They For?

A Postcard from The Single (Mom) Life

Megan DaGata

I am not having a good day; it has been trying to say the least. There is still not much to do at work, so its always quiet. Which is a problem for someone whose mind is always on...I am constantly left to my thoughts. It makes the days long.

The nights are so short though, and I don't get to think. I get home at 7 pm, and I try to get the kids in bed by 9. I am not happy. I only get to spend 2 hours a day with my boys. No sir I'm not happy! A mother's place is raising her kids, and I don't get to do that. Right now I am paying someone more than half my salary to raise them, and get frustrated when things aren't done the way that I would do them. I say something and it's like I haven't said a word, which only pisses me off more.

Facebook Friending and the Art of Profile Pics

Just a thought here, fellow Facebookers . . .

That is all.

~Riot.Jane

Westboro Baptist "Church" vs. the KKK

Riot.Jane

The Westboro scammers were up to their usual shenanigans yesterday, Memorial Day (US), at Arlington National Cemetery. The latest twist? The Knights of the Southern Cross (KKK) responded in kind.
Westboro is, for the most part, a multi-generational family affair, with 11 of the 13 people in the second generation being practicing attorneys in the law firm  Phelps Chartered, LLC. 

What amuses me about the lawyering-up of the second generation is the fact that the State of Kansas Supreme Court disbarred the clan leader Fred Phelps in 1979 because of his "has little regard for the ethics of his profession."

In Honor of our Veterans (NSFW video)

Full Metal Jacket meets Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer:

~Riot.Jane

QOTD: The Internet Breeds Entitlement

Riot.Jane

Today's quotation:

The Web is truly customizable: You can listen to radios that play only your preferred tunes and read newspapers that cover only your favorite subjects. "We're used to having our tastes perfectly matched, whcih leads to entitlement," [Elias] Aboujaoude [author of Virtually You] says. If we don't experience novel things or sit through experiences we don't enjoy, we'll become a nation of spoiled, sheletered brats.

Bartz, Andrea. "The E-Ego." Psychology Today. Jun 2011: 25. Print

Today in 1945: Arthur C. Clarke Invents the Communications Satellite

Riot.Jane

If one particular man in history had died of polio as a child, you might not be reading this.  In fact, I daresay that modern Western life would indeed be very different.

On this day in 1945, Arthur C. Clarke began privately circulating his academic paper The Space-Station: Its Radio Applications.  (.pdf-page 34)

This privately-circulated paper and another published in Wireless World in October of the same year, Extra-Terrestrial Relays: Can Rocket Stations GiveWorld-Wide Radio Coverage? (.pdf-page 38), oth "discussed the special characteristics of geosynchronous orbit that would enable three satellites in that orbit to provide global communications." (.pdf-page 23.)

Sexy Sundays | "The Morning After" the "First Time"

Riot.Jane

A blog post by Mary Jo Rapini, LPC, caught my attention.  How you feel about losing your virginity depends...are you a guy or girl? begins with a discussion about the gender differences in the after-effects of the first sexual encounter as determined by a recent academic study (Body image and first sexual intercourse in late adolescence) and winds up with with the author's own views on the same.

[From How you feel] The morning after can be difficult no matter if you are a guy or a girl, but it seems to be more difficult for girls than guys. A study from researchers at Pennsylvania State University reports male university students' body images improved after having sexual intercourse for the first time, while the opposite pattern was found with females. The study which was published in the Journal of Adolescents and reported on 100 students from the university between the ages of 17 and 19 years of age who had sex for the first time during their time at the university.

Reason #9 I Love My Bestie

Riot.Jane

Conversation had this past Thursday afternoon whilst planning the lunch where she would meet my boyfriend for the first time . . .

ME: Okay, I have to ask you this because you're the only woman I could ever ask this of.
HER: Okkkkaaaaayyyyyyy.
ME: You have to not wear one of your plunging necklines.
HER: Ummmmmmm, what?  Oh.  Okay.  Sure.
ME: Great, you're awesome, thanks!
HER: Ummmmmmm, why?
ME: My boyfriend's a total perv!  And I want him staring at my chest, not yours.

A Crazy Woman in a Sporty Car

Riot.Jane

I recently had an interesting experience with a stranger in a strip center parking lot.  This strip center is probably 50 years old (no exaggeration), and the parking spaces are quite narrow.  The parking stops are actually integrated into the concrete in a large zig-zag pattern, not just lengths of concrete bolted to the parking surface (and therefore movable).  As a result, the parking spaces are really not reconfigurable.

I've visited this strip center often, as a friend works nearby and we've had lunch there on many occasions.  As a result, I'm familiar with the narrow parking spots.  I drive a small-model sedan, so the narrow spots hadn't presented a problem before the particular day I'm going to share with  you.

Sexy Sundays | 50% Off @ Adam & Eve! (Updated)

Riot.Jane

Use promotional code sexy28 for 50% off at Adam and Eve, plus receive free DVDs and a surprise mystery gift! (Seen on a television commercial.)

They're also offering $10 off if you sign up for their newsletter . . . I have no idea if these two discounts will stack. It's worth a shot, right?

Update: 05/09/11, 19:00 CST:

The e-mail list $10 off is not stackable with the above 50% off discount code.  I just placed and order, and here's what the discount code gave me:

Another Bill to Restrict Reproductive Freedom: HR 3 (UPDATED)

Riot.Jane

I just received the following e-mail, and the topic is news to me.  This is surprising because I'm usually pretty current on matters of reproductive freedom . . . More on this topic to come.

This is not an advocation that anyone should contribute, it's just the method by which I learned of the existence of HR 3.

The link in the e-mail: http://www.dccc.org/page/m/1d63cab1/1b83fc72/4a3c2f65/4e0ce84b/2346893725/VEsE/ .

Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish: Osama bin Laden

Riot.Jane

Everywhere I turned today, people were jubilant that Osama bin Laden is dead.  Watching news footage of the spontaneous crowds that gathered at the White House and in Times Square last night made me queasy.  It made me the same kind of queasy that the videos of Arabs chanting "Death to America" did when we saw that footage years ago.

I'm just not very good at processing that level of hatred.

Sexy Sundays | Pulling a Rabbit out of the Hat

Riot.Jane

Keeping one's sex life interesting over the long term is sometimes difficult.  Reading and hearing advice can help, but sometimes advice is of poor quality, poorly understood, or poorly implemented.  This can lead to bad experiences and devastating consequences.

The most common advice I've seen over the years runs along the line of thought of Do something new, Surprise your partner, Step out of the same-old stuff, Introduce some variety, et cetera.

While there's nothing inherently wrong with such platitudes as these, the practical implementation of them as suggested is fraught with danger.  Let's examine the potential complications with specific examples.

Honoring the Females in Your Life with GEMS

Admin.Jane

E-mail we received from the Girls Educational & Mentoring Service (GEMS):

Mother's Day is quickly approaching!

As an annual celebration of the women and girls in our lives, GEMS invites you to upload your favorite photos of you and your mother, daughters, or other amazing, influential women and girls in your life. Share your photos and stories with us as we honor women this holiday! We set up a special Shutterfly page so that supporters can easily upload your photos: http://gemsmothersday.shutterfly.com.

Very Old and Very Sexy…An Oxymoron?

Hattie RetroAge

There was a time when I would have judged that combination to be not only absurd… but totally repulsive. That’s no longer the case.

What happened to turn that around?

Here goes…

When I was about five years old, my immigrant mother took me to the Steam Baths in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. Just a mere pre-schooler, choking in the heat, I peered up with disgust at what I perceived to be “fat, old ladies”. Then and there I decided if that’s what being a lady looks like, I’ll never grow up.