Sardonica

WWII Commemorative Statue Unveiled In San Diego
SAN DIEGO (NNS) -- “Unconditional Surrender,” a 25-foot, 6,000 pound statue by world-renowned artist J. Seward Johnson commemorating a famous World War II photo was unveiled Feb. 10 at Mole Park in San Diego.

Unconditional Surrender is a three-dimensional interpretation of a photo taken by Alfred Eisenstaedt of a Sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square, New York City on Aug. 14, 1945, following the announcement of V-J Day.

From: http://www.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=27774 (also has a photograph of the statue, though I bet we all know the original photograph of the sailor kissing the nurse)

There's something about this photograph that bothers me, and having read this article, it bugs me even more. From what I know about the circumstances surrounding the taking of the famous photograph, the couple on it were not a couple - the beauty of it is that people were so overwhelmed by happiness, they did things they normally wouldn't. So you had a young sailor grab a young nurse and kiss her passionately. I'm irked by the fact that it's okay and that it turned out to be one of the world's most famous images, but I am looking at the context in which this happened, and yes, given the circumstances, I'm being lighthearted about it.
But Ms. Shain's words (Ms. Shain is the nurse in the photograph) bothered me much more. About the moment of the kiss she says, “I closed my eyes and enjoyed the moment like any woman would have done.” And I stripped the moment of the context and thought about the pure facts: here you are, walking down the street, suddenly this man grabs you, bends you over his arm, and kisses you. At any given day, this is called sexual assault and is a traumatic event. (On a personal level, ...been there.) I am bothered by Ms. Shain's saying that any woman would have enjoyed that because I guess I'm extending it over other cases of assault and no, I do not think a woman should believe she ought to enjoy such things.
I am also a little bothered by the statue's name - Unconditional Surrender - I know it refers to the circumstances surrounding the kiss, but there's something about these words being a title to a kiss - and notice the woman's position in the statue - that rubs me the wrong way.

Am I over-reading and over-interpreting this? Am I going to far? Am I messing with a holy cow here?
Please let me know what you think.

 

Hi all, I just wanted to advertise that I'm selling a U2 POPMART TOUR SHIRT.

( Click to see pictures... )

Great condition - no holes, tears, or stains. Slight cracking of print. Has U2 POPMART tag, size medium - must be girls' medium, although it isn't a fitted tee.

MEASUREMENTS: pit to pit = 18", top to bottom = 24.5".


Asking $10.

http://i4.democracynow.org/2008/7/4/july_4th_special_readings_from_howard

On July 4th, we feature a Democracy Now special–a dramatic reading of legendary historian Howard Zinn’s classic work, “A People’s History of the United States.” First published more than a quarter of a century ago, the book has sold over a million copies and is a phenomenon in the world of publishing–selling more copies each successive year. Howard Zinn gathered with a group of actors, writers and editors for a public reading of the book at the 92nd Street Y in New York. The cast included Alice Walker, Kurt Vonnegut, Danny Glover and many others.

Can't get enough talk about books?

Join bookcafe & talk about recent books, book news, poems, essays, plays etc etc you've read or heard about.

I hope that this isn't considered spam, but if it is I'll be glad to delete or have it deleted. Besides teaching anthropology at a community college, I do cultural resource management. I have had the same set of questions rolling around in my head for a while so I thought I'd set up an online survey to see how other practitioners around here feel about these things. Questions about the problems inherent in doing CRM, the future of CRM, etc.

It's a quick and dirty survey. I've never used surveymonkey before so I hope it works reasonably well. If I get any kind of response to the survey, I'll post about it on my LJ eventually.

Here's the link to the survey: Click Here to take survey

Thanks!

*Cross posted in a few anthro/archy places.

I've had some questions rolling around in my head about cultural resource management for a while. Any of you who are doing it, or have done it and maintain any kind of interest in it, could I interest you in taking a quick and dirty online survey about current CRM? It's anonymous - I just want to explore the lay of the land. I've never used surveymonkey.com before but it was easy to set up - here's hoping it works, somewhat.

Here's the survey (it's short) : Click Here to take survey

Thanks for helping!


*Cross-posted in a few commmunities and on my own LJ

We apologize in advance for the length on this.

Ideally, this should be one in a series of "FAQ" posts. We have been working for some time to lay out various policies and concepts in depth for everyone. Hopefully we will be able to post a few more before the end of the year.

Please email us if you have any questions. Thanks!

-feminist mods

Membership FAQ - with tiny updates
( cut for length )

Hi everyone,

The mod team has changed our primary email address from feminist.mods at drunkenatheist dot com to ljfeminist.mods at gmail dot com. Please send email to this address in the future. The userinfo has been changed to reflect this.

Thanks!

itihasa, on behalf of the mod team

Today is Sunday in 24 hours time we will either have stopped a piece of draconian EU legislation coming to effect or soon all of us, in my opinion, will suffer. Please see boingboing for details

my last post here was removed, which is fine I am trying to take notice of the moderators comments and attempting to comment.

It is intresting I have found that people don't think that access to the net is a feminist issue. That if an issue effects everyone then its not a feminist issue. So equal pay cant be a feminist issue since it effects everyone. Education cant be a feminist issue since it effects everyone. What can only be about women? Equal rights - nope. basically anything about equality or gender freedom cannot be a feminist issue. I guess abortion under that view could be seen as a single gender issue. Personally I think its hog wash. But it was an opinion expressed on my last post.

I wrote about how as an activist I felt it was my duty to tell people about things that may not be directly relevant to them, for example talking about feminism in SF spaces. About being a feminist, when playing shared space computer games. There are plenty of times I have been asked to "shut up" because people didn't think it was relavent. But I take my activism from other feminists before me, who went to places and talked or took action about feminism, where others felt it had no relevance - like interfereing in a horse race. I gave an example: that I would talk about removal of abortion rights in other forums, if time was of the essence, to spread the word.

I wrote asking people to challenge an attempt by big business to write into law, removal of privacy laws, remove of net access from people suspected of doing something illegal.

Why is the relevant, because it means that your net supplier in europe will be required by law to spy on you and give information about your activities to anyone who is intrested. So if a woman is running from an abusive relationship: information about where she is and what she is doing; will be required to be handed over to; for example companies examing her activities on behalf of say her ex-partner. Annother example, say your son has downloaded something legally from the net, this can be used to remove access to the net from your whole family. So that you cannot now read about birth control methods, or use the net to fight for feminism. It gives a powerful stick to anyone who wants to censor anything that is considered imoral by them.

This is not about file sharing this is about controling what can and cannot be said on the net, and that is as far as I am concerened a feminist issue. Just as much if wal-mart banned any magazine that talked about abortion rights in a postive way.

(and if you need me to modify this futher, so be it)

more information here
http://blogscript.blogspot.com/2008/07/three-strikes-and-youre-er-confused.html
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2008/07/urgent_phone_your_mep_now.html
http://www.openrightsgroup.org/2008/07/02/write-to-your-mep-say-no-to-3-strikes-through-the-backdoor/

I just picked up GH Aerosmith its rather good so far. i was thinking would be neat if U2 said sure to this game and came out with Gutar Hero U2

Hi everyone.

I just started playing WoW again a few days ago. (I haven't playing in years so I feel pretty much like a total noob again, heh.) Anyhow, I'm looking for a good RP guild or just a good server to RP on since RPing is 2/3 of the fun for me in playing an MMO. I'm open to pretty much any side or class since I am just getting restarted.

I have a character on Kirin Tor at the moment just to get back into the swing of things.

Anyhow, I thought I would join the community and inquire about finding some fun RP on here since lj is my main online social... er... thing.

@U2 reports that the new album is done \o/

I just hope they're basing the news on something more than this guy's article, cos he's not exactly the world's most reliable source.

That being as it may, it must be time for another round of New Album Speculation. Anyone want to take a punt on a title? Tracklisting? Personally, I'll be happy if Mercy isn't on it (not that I think it will be) and I wouldn't be surprised if the album title had an African flavour.

Thoughts? Facts? Wild flights of imagination?

**Possible spoilers in comments**

When I come to think of it, I don't read a lot of police procedurals, but I've heard great things about Ed McBain's '87th Precinct' novels; so, when I saw this omnibus of the first two in a discount bookshop, I thought I'd give it a go. And... well, I'm not sure. McBain's prose (especially his descriptive passages) can be excellent; it's the mysteries themselves that I'm undecided about.

The titles of the two novels sum up their plots: in the first, someone is shooting officers of the 87th Precinct dead; in the second, a purse-snatcher is at large -- one who goes too far, leaving a woman dead. The solutions to these mysteries are fine; it's just that they seemed to me to be solved almost entirely in the last few pages... Reading that back, it sounds a really naive complaint (because aren't most mysteries like that?); but that was my reaction when I'd finished -- that one minute we were nowhere near cracking the case, and the next minute it was all solved, without enough sense of build-up. Perhaps I'm not appreciating how the police procedural genre works; perhaps the later 87th Precinct novels (of which there are over fifty) are different -- I don't know.

One thing that did strike me about these novels was how contemporary they seemed. I've read two other books this year that date from the 1950s (I am Legend and The Broken Sword); and I didn't have to keep reminding myself that they were fifty years old, as I did with these books of McBain's. Not that I could mistake them for contemporary works -- things like the street slang used made sure of that -- but there was often just a little jarring moment of realisation all the same. Since McBain continued to write 87th Precinct novels into the present decade, I'm curious to know whether the setting remained in the 1950s, or whether it mirrored the passing of time.

Looking for a recommendation of a book set against a backdrop of a circus. Maybe a mystery (Agatha Christie would be a perfect style) or something more sinister. What would you recommend?