So I saw district 9

I don't know if I'm going to spend much time really digging into why I was troubled by District 9, but I think a good part of it was just blind hope that this movie would be different, wouldn't make the same stupid mistakes that every other Hollywood movie does.

I was wrong. Yes, the aliens were a metaphor for apartheid, yes the movie tries to say "oooh it's bad to treat thinking beings badly!"


( Couple quick things, possible spoilers be warned. )

This doesn't even get into the gaping plot holes and disbelief shattering facets. Don't get me wrong, the special effects are awesome, and I forgot halfway through that the aliens were completely cgi. I don't generally do that.

I think that D-9 is just another decent sci-fi flick that shares many of the deep flaws that have been discussed at length in the racefail and other blowups. I was hoping that it might be slightly better. Silly me.

Well isn't that some shit

I don't generally post on Sex Worker rights here, simply because it's something I'm really just in the opening stages of learning about, but quotes out of context and guilt by association always pisses me off. Please give a read, and help call this shit out.

Troy davis gets another hearing

(Washington, D.C.) – Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) today welcomed a U.S. Supreme Court order mandating a new evidentiary hearing for death-row inmate Troy Anthony Davis. In today's ruling, the nation's highest court decided that Davis should have another chance to prove his innocence before the state of Georgia puts him to death.

http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?id=ENGUSA20090817001&lang=e

Good stuff.

From my own perspective.

One of the more interesting and telling comments I've read about race and fiction writing was, "Why do white people never write about race from their own perspective."

I think I figured out part of MY reason. Other than being a shitty writer who hasn't finished a single story that is.

I don't feel hopeful for real change on race issues any time soon.

Accepting that, perhaps I can go on to talk about things that happened to me as a kid, and how they affect my view of the world, what being white in a predominantly white culture really means. So much of that is subconscious though... it's the construction of the white experience as "normal" and everything else as "weird". Even though I do my best to question and understand what I and the people around me do, it's still just... my life.

How do you explore the air you breath?