Caroline

I am making a zine* for my final project in Women's and Gender Studies 300: Service-Learning Seminar on Gender and Violence. Lovely! Now I just need a subject, a title, a budget, creativity, innovation, and imagination!


*
1. "Questions and Answers About Zines" from Action Girl Online
2. "ZINES - zine history, the zine network, topics, and teaching zines in classrooms" from GrrrlZines.net
3. "About Grrrl Zine Network" from GrrrlZines.net

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, COURTNEY LOVE!

"Directions:
1. Open up the music player on your computer.
2. Set it to play your entire music collection.
3. Hit the shuffle command.
4. Tell us the title of the next thirty songs that show up (with their musicians), no matter how embarrassing. That's right, no skipping that Carpenters tune that will totally destroy your hip credibility. It's time for total musical honesty.
5. If you get the same artist twice, you may skip the second (or third, or etc.) occurrences. You don't have to, but since randomness could mean you end up with a list of ten song with five artists, you can if you'd like."

The Carpenters are not embarrassing. No music is embarrassing. If some self-conscious idiot thinks certain types of music are "embarrassing" because name-dropping the band doesn't make one cool enough, that person is stupid and has perverted the purpose of music.

( Now for my results. )

Mailed on Thursday, April 27th: one $300 deposit for a place in the Wellesley class of 2010.

The Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition held the Southern Regional March for Peace in Iraq and Justice at Home yesterday. Chessa, Margie, Kristina, Maggie, Lee, Coralli, Emily Saad, Emily Saad's mancandy, Kristina's friend Sophie, I, and several hundred other folks marched. Kristing hooked us up with Sophie's group, who painted buckets black and painted "oil" in red paint. We hung them around our necks and beat them with sticks and some of the drummers wore scary white masks. Maggie and I held a banner for the first half mile or so, and then some other people wanted to hold it.

The march began at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center. We marched about 2 miles to Piedmont Park. Hereien lies the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's coverage.

A photographer took 2 pictures of Maggie and me holding a sign for the Atlanta International Action Center.
Here they are. He gave me his card after he took his picture.

When I traded shifts at work so I could march in the protest, my boss said "Protests don't get anything done. Riots do."

He has a point: politicans would be much more motivated if mobs took over the streets. But he's not totally corret. Nonviolent protest enabled India to evict the British colonial power from their land and poor black people to conquer Jim Crow.

Some people say that protesting is anti-American, but they're wrong. The United States fucking began because those white men didn't want to pay their taxes, so they protested and distributed pamphlets and rioted until they gained independence.

I love America, despite its many faults. I can march in the protest if I want to, and the lady who sat in her van with Bush/Cheney '04 stickers can wave her American flag out her window if she wants to. Exercising my right to free speech is not anti-American, and keeping our government accountable is not anti-American.

We walked through some downtown neighborhood, right by somebody's Hummer H3 in the driveway. Irony. I heard some folks yellin' "Move, Bush, git out tha way" to the tune of Ludacris' song, so later I started that when we were just walkin' along.

Allow me to say: One of Sophie's demonstrator acquaintances was mighty cute. He was a fierce brown activist with some nice percussion instruments. MMPH.

Barnard: Waitlisted
Bryn Mawr: Accepted
Mount Holyoke: Accepted
Smith: Accepted
UGA Honors: Accepted
Wellesley: Accepted
Princeton: We'll hear soon Rejected

I know that my entire LiveJournal consists of either: 1. strange links, 2. political bulletins, or 3. announcements of bands that play near where I live. To continue in this grand tradition:

The Smoking Popes have reunited and will play in Heaven at the Masquerade at 19:00 for $10 on Tuesday, February 28. This has only been my favorite band since 7th grade. Wow!
( Warning: File under 'Pointless' )


So I celebrate by eating frosted whole grain cereal and watching Masterpiece Theater's presentation of Bleak House starring Gillian Anderson / Scully from X-Files.

Today would have been Langston Hughes' 104th birthday if he was still alive.

I know all you poets reading this love Langston.

Mayor Shirley Franklin came to my high school today! If you love Shirley, and you know you do, show some love.

¡Happy Chinese New Year!

I'm'a register to VOTE tomorrow! What now!

Chile and Liberia elected presidents recently. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is Liberia's and the entire continent of Africa's first female president. Her inauguration ceremony was yesterday. Michelle Bachelet, declared the winner yesterday, is the first woman to win the Chilean presidency.

Get ON it, U.S.! We're gettin' shown up!

Yesterday was my birthday, and Aaliyah's too. She would have been 27.

Aaand I'm legal.

German Youth inspired by *NSync, 98 degrees.
Gellie Man's stunning version of "Aicha" is a cover twice over. The English-language song "Aicha" comes from the German hip-hop band Outlandish's 2001 release "Outland's Official".
Outlandish themselves wrote English lyrics for and covered the song "Aiysha" by the Algerian musician Cheb Khaled. Here's a video clip.

Our friends over at the Internet Movie Database have revealed the aliases of the band members, and behold: it contains the bassist and lead singer from Pulp (Steve Mackey and Jarvis Cocker respectively), the lead guitarist and drummer from Radiohead (Jonny Greenwood and Phil Selway), and two random electronic artists: Jason (aka JP) Buckle on rhythm guitar and Steve Claydon on keyboards. I didn't even notice all those people on the stage, just the strange upright bass and the lanky gray singer. Then the camera went and focused on Stanislav Ianevski's hellagood dance moves.

And he got hot. And Harry takes off his shirt for an extensive amount of time, and thereby made me blaspheme out loud. Not to worry, my Catholic schoolmates just sunk lower into their seats.

Some songs I like are
1. "Shave Yo' Legs" by Keb' Mo'. I bought his album Keep it Simple because I heard this song during Good Morning Blues on 89.3. It's stunning.
2. "Emiliano y Jovita" by Cordero
3. "Make Me Smile" by Chicago (they play it all the time at my job)
4. "For Julia" by Sanjay Mishra
5. "We Are Family" (originally by Sister Sledge) covered by E.V.E. (Ebony Vibe Everlasting) on the Spirit of '73: Rock for Choice benefit compilation.
6. "Black Heart Today" by Amy Ray featuring the Rock*a*Teens
7. "Are You Gonna Move It For Me?" because the Donnas own you.
8. "Vamos Nenas (en vivo)" by Cordero
9. "Oh!" by Sleater-Kinney

Hey, what songs do y'all like? Do any of them coincide with the aforementioned? I demand answers from you all.

My stepmother paid this lady to cut my hair and it's LOOKIN' GOOD.

"PLEASE SEND YOUR COMMENTS BEFORE TOMORROW!
(from the National Women's Law Center)

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has once again postponed its decision about whether to allow emergency contraception, Plan B, to be sold over the counter (OTC). This latest setback follows more than two years of delays, despite a consensus of support in the medical community and overwhelming support within the FDA’s own advisory committee for such a change to Plan B’s current prescription-only status.

The FDA claims that it delayed its decision once again so it could gather comments from the public on the legal and practical repercussions of making Plan B available OTC for adults while maintaining prescription-only status for younger women.

The FDA provides space for the public to submit general comments about making Plan B available OTC. This is an excellent opportunity for you to explain why this change is necessary for women’s health.

The deadline for comments is November 1--TOMORROW!

Go here to submit your comments. Enter your information on the first screen. On the second screen, scroll down to the bottom where there is a field for general comments."

If you want some information on emergency contraception before you go tell the FDA to make it available over the counter for everybody, go here. It's not abortion, and FDA over the counter status would help to prevent over 1.7 million unwanted pregnancies and 800,000 abortions per year. Eat that.

"'You know you're having a bad day when your tampon is behind your ear and you can't find your pencil.' Y'all haven't seen that bumper sticker?" -M. M. Spear.

I love that woman and her class. She asked everybody why they voted me Most Unforgettable for Senior Superlatives and so folks shared their Caroline stories. Lauren L. recalled in 9th grade how I had a huge box of tampons in my locker and how it fell out and on my head once. Somebody said, "Ha, that's so funny!" and I said, "What's so funny? Must I bleed alone?" All the boys got all freaked out because of their weird little misogynist hatred of women's bodies, but I GUAR-AN-TEE, if straight men had a period, you would NEVER hear the end of it.
Then Mary Martha relayed that little anecdote and my classmate Emily remembered how once I overheard her say to someone that she was wearing tights because she hadn't shaved in a few days and I came up to her and said, "You don't have to shave your legs if you don't want to. SOLIDARITY, SISTER!"

I don't remember that, but I'm not surprised.

So my idiot dog tried to attack a raccoon for the second time this month. Damn dog. And the fat cat tried to stalk it but I grabbed her tail and pulled her punk-ass inside.

All y'all who attend my school BEST attend the marching band performance tomorrow evening.