My boyfriend sent me this super cool vintage brooch for Valentine's Day. It got here a bit late. I love it!
Monday 27 February 2012
Hello
My boyfriend sent me this super cool vintage brooch for Valentine's Day. It got here a bit late. I love it!
No offense!
I love Glee. I think it's awfully problematic in a lot of respects, and it rubs me the wrong way when the show presents itself as being somehow outside of, and above, stereotypes and prejudices, without really doing anything to prove that claim. The treatment of Artie (a paraplegic student who uses a wheelchair) is particularly bad - but I could get into that another time. Nevertheless, I love the show. Look, a recent episode featured rival glee clubs settling a score via a Michael Jackson showdown. For that alone, they kind of own me.
However, I just watched last week's Valentine's Day episode, and I can't stay silent. A very brief plot point involves a religious student confronting his latent homophobia. Sounds great, certainly topical, but unfortunately the show, like so many other cultural products, refuses to make a firm statement on the matter, retreating instead to classically postmodern relativism and weak-kneed resistance. In the episode, a new student at McKinley High, a formerly homeschooled, guitar-playing, hippie-Jesus freak boy who is the son of a Bible salesman, joins a group called "The God Squad," made up of himself and three other students, all glee club members. They decide to raise money for charity by performing singing telegrams for kids at the school. When asked by a female student to perform a romantic song for her girlfriend, however, the Christian student is given pause. He doesn't know if it's appropriate, with his religious beliefs, to sing for gay students, as he's "never met any gay people before." The other three "God Squad" members tell him that their version of Christianity is not homophobic. The group's leader has the final word when she states that she "doesn't want to hurt anyone," but she also doesn't want to "make anyone uncomfortable by forcing them to do something they don't believe in," so maybe the group shouldn't sing for Santana and her girlfriend at all. This is a problem.
This line of 'argumentation' is nothing more than the expression of postmodern liberalism, which when forced to confront a situation instead ducks uncomfortably from side to side, claiming that it only wants to avoid causing offense. Homophobia is not okay. No matter what the justification. It is offensive. It is more than okay, it is in fact absolutely necessary, to make unequivocal statements against it. It is okay to say, firmly and loudly and over and over, that it is wrong to treat some people differently because they are gay. It is okay to say that it is wrong to be homophobic, and that your friends who feel differently will not accommodate you if you are a homophobe, even when you claim religious justification. The goal is to destroy and eradicate homophobia, not to make a world where almost everyone is 'okay' with gay people, but where those who are not are never made uncomfortable for this position. It is okay to make homophobic people uncomfortable, because there is no place for homophobia in our world, and how else are we going to change it if we're afraid to "cause offense"?
In the end, the new student, thanks to "thinking and praying" realizes that it's okay to sing for gay people after all. And the song was great. Nevertheless, a culture which tells us, over and over again, that all opinions are equally valid, that's afraid to make too many strong statements, lest we exclude those perfectly good people who just happen to hold one or two deeply objectionable opinions, is a culture in trouble. Glee is not the only example of this. You can find it almost everywhere you look.
However, I just watched last week's Valentine's Day episode, and I can't stay silent. A very brief plot point involves a religious student confronting his latent homophobia. Sounds great, certainly topical, but unfortunately the show, like so many other cultural products, refuses to make a firm statement on the matter, retreating instead to classically postmodern relativism and weak-kneed resistance. In the episode, a new student at McKinley High, a formerly homeschooled, guitar-playing, hippie-Jesus freak boy who is the son of a Bible salesman, joins a group called "The God Squad," made up of himself and three other students, all glee club members. They decide to raise money for charity by performing singing telegrams for kids at the school. When asked by a female student to perform a romantic song for her girlfriend, however, the Christian student is given pause. He doesn't know if it's appropriate, with his religious beliefs, to sing for gay students, as he's "never met any gay people before." The other three "God Squad" members tell him that their version of Christianity is not homophobic. The group's leader has the final word when she states that she "doesn't want to hurt anyone," but she also doesn't want to "make anyone uncomfortable by forcing them to do something they don't believe in," so maybe the group shouldn't sing for Santana and her girlfriend at all. This is a problem.
This line of 'argumentation' is nothing more than the expression of postmodern liberalism, which when forced to confront a situation instead ducks uncomfortably from side to side, claiming that it only wants to avoid causing offense. Homophobia is not okay. No matter what the justification. It is offensive. It is more than okay, it is in fact absolutely necessary, to make unequivocal statements against it. It is okay to say, firmly and loudly and over and over, that it is wrong to treat some people differently because they are gay. It is okay to say that it is wrong to be homophobic, and that your friends who feel differently will not accommodate you if you are a homophobe, even when you claim religious justification. The goal is to destroy and eradicate homophobia, not to make a world where almost everyone is 'okay' with gay people, but where those who are not are never made uncomfortable for this position. It is okay to make homophobic people uncomfortable, because there is no place for homophobia in our world, and how else are we going to change it if we're afraid to "cause offense"?
In the end, the new student, thanks to "thinking and praying" realizes that it's okay to sing for gay people after all. And the song was great. Nevertheless, a culture which tells us, over and over again, that all opinions are equally valid, that's afraid to make too many strong statements, lest we exclude those perfectly good people who just happen to hold one or two deeply objectionable opinions, is a culture in trouble. Glee is not the only example of this. You can find it almost everywhere you look.
Sunday 26 February 2012
Sunday.
Wednesday 22 February 2012
Shorts: 1942 edition
Today I started sewing a pair of shorts for my boyfriend on his birthday. The pattern is from 1942! It has the coolest buttoning-waistband detail.
This is the first time I've sewn with a non-printed pattern. Instead of printing the markings on the tissue (such as where darts go, etc) they put small perforations in the paper and you copy these onto your fabric. I think it's actually a bit easier than using printed patterns, as transferring the markings is just a matter of using a sewing pencil or tailor's chalk to draw them on, rather than having to use tracing paper, tailor's tacks, or any of the other ways to do it.
I'm planning to make a post in the future about sewing with vintage patterns! It's not very much different from modern patterns, but I do have a few tricks up my sleeve to share! Plus I just want an excuse to show off my old patterns and the things I've made with them!
fettisdagen
Monday 20 February 2012
Monday in instagram
Today was a sort of holiday, I have the week off school!
When I got up I baked these superb muffins (in the Guardian, here). I used chopped bacon instead of ham, as that's all I had home, but I think they'd be so lovely with leftover Christmas ham. (That is certainly the most goyish thing I've ever said. Also, is it odd that I already long for Christmas again?) Ate them while reading the third Millenium book as slowly as possible. I want to know what happens so much, but I also never want the books to end! I can't stand the thought of not having any more to read about Lisbeth Salander and Mikael.
Afterward I did some reading for school.
Then I drew a card, which is also a puzzle, for my boyfriend's birthday next month.
I found these blank jigsaw puzzles a few months ago at an art supply store and have been waiting for the occasion to use it!
Later I sewed a new blouse while catching up on How I Met Your Mother. The last couple of seasons have not been so great, but I feel obligated to keep watching, now that I have seen all the other seasons. Sort of in it for the long haul now, and after all, I need to find out who the Mother will be!
For dinner I made my current favourite kind of omelette: spinach, bacon and blue cheese filling, three foods which are definitely best friends. And dead easy!
1. Cut two strips of bacon into small bits (or use lardons) and fry them up. Drain off the fat, but save some to fry your omelette.
2. Chop the spinach roughly, and wilt it in the hot bacony pan. (Bacon fat and spinach love one another).
3. Meanwhile cook your omelette. I use two eggs and a quarter cup of milk whisked together, for one person. Add a tiny bit of nutmeg to the eggs for extra deliciousness (nutmeg also loves spinach - I mean really, who doesn't). If you have the skills to flip omelettes in the pan, by all means do so! It is an art. I just let mine cook all the way through while resting, leisurely, on one side. A lid helps, but don't leave it on the whole time or your eggs will cook too quickly and get too bubbly.
4. When the omelette is almost done, add your crumbled blue cheese (a tablespoon?) to the spinach and mix the bacon back in, if you haven't already. Just before filling the omelette add a tiny tiny dash of mild vinegar to the spinach mixture, to brighten up the flavour.
5. Fill and eat. Yum!!
And that's Monday through the eye of my mobile phone!
1. Cut two strips of bacon into small bits (or use lardons) and fry them up. Drain off the fat, but save some to fry your omelette.
2. Chop the spinach roughly, and wilt it in the hot bacony pan. (Bacon fat and spinach love one another).
4. When the omelette is almost done, add your crumbled blue cheese (a tablespoon?) to the spinach and mix the bacon back in, if you haven't already. Just before filling the omelette add a tiny tiny dash of mild vinegar to the spinach mixture, to brighten up the flavour.
5. Fill and eat. Yum!!
And that's Monday through the eye of my mobile phone!
The secrets of the world, via google maps
Saturday 11 February 2012
Lördag frukost
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| 70-talet katalogstilen ungefär! |
Müsli med fil (hemmagjorda förstås, från en liten bunke med fil som jag smugglade hem från sverige i somras - den lever forfarande!), kaffe, och havtornssaft. Härligt början till en snöig dag!
BTW - - - Bloggen kommer att flytta i närmaste dagarna - jag håller inte på med att vara en del i den googleimperiet, och så ska jag flytta.
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