part-meming

[freckles_and_doubt]

There's a meme going around called "Twenty Things You Might Not Know About Me", and great is the tagging in cyberspace. wytchfynder set me off, and I started thinking about twenty things you witterers out there might not know about me. This was hard - I appear to wear my heart on my sleeve, generally speaking - but actually what stymied me was the first thing I thought up. I got this far:

1. I don't wear make-up, and haven't for about three years. I tried making myself up the other day, and it looked truly weird and unnatural. (This is only partly because I'm no bloody good at it). The only make-up I still own is over ten years old, including some St. Michael's pencils my dad bought me in England when I was 17. I don't believe in make-up. Apart from the fact that I think that the cultural space occupied by cosmetics is profoundly sexist, it's silly.

Then I stopped and thought, why? and, even remembering all my actually quite good and sufficient reasons, is that true? and does this mean that I necessarily condemn all those women out there who do wear make-up? and if so, am I a ranting feminist bigot? and even if that's the case, should I be condemning them anyway? And the whole process wound down in the usual self-doubt and honed ability to explode my own mind by seeing all the sides of the argument at once. Damned academic training.

Then I found this rather nifty post that articulates a lot of the actually quite complex issues, which at least means I'm not the only person worrying.

Then my attention was madly redirected by suddenly stumbling across this article about proposed legislation in Indiana which is actually using the term "unauthorised reproduction", and I was so overwhelmed by the sudden sense that we're living in a Sheri S. Tepper dystopian future that I completely forgot about make-up. Because, see, while I actually agree, as a drooling Tepper fan-girl, that we urgently need serious brakes on our population, I definitely don't think it should be the Republicans controlling it.

Comments

[bumpycat.livejournal.com]

Then you get awkward situations like in Singapore, where you get all sorts of incentives to have *more* children. Because they're running short. Maybe they should just start importing from China or something. China: world's leading supplier of *everything*.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Damn straight. One of the few upsides of globalisation is never having to say "underpopulated." We live in a grossly overpopulated and ecologically punch-drunk planet. I figure that if every woman in every country anywhere was immediately limited to one child only, ever, we'd still probably crash and burn in the next few decades.

Things You Might Not Know About Me, #2: I truly believe that the human race is collectively a disfunctional idiot egotist, that we have stuffed up our planet to the point where it is highly unlikely to continue to support us, and that we're headed for some kind of godalmighty crash in the next few decades. I try not to let this depress me too much, but it's uphill work.

Planet hopping

[(Anonymous)]

That is why we have to figure out how to make other planets habitable!
I also try not to think about how we've stuffed up this one - and I think it's getting worse and worse. I think the world we live in now, politically and economically, is a hell of a lot scarier and more dystopian than I expected.

On the funky side though ... Rocket Racing!! (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4307538.stm)

-stacey