OCD!strangerface has been going through the tags and removing/renaming some. I'm trying to make it easier for people to find stuff. If you have suggestions for a tag, please let me know.

Also, I found a lot of tags that could have been interchangeable. I removed SVT in favor of Sweet Valley Twins and SVH in favor of Sweet Valley High (only SVU remains in acronym form, since that's what it says on the cover).

Reminder: There is no "Lila Fowler" tag because she demands respect. She is "Miss Lila Fowler."

There is one tag issue that I thought I'd put to a vote. There are two tags for "Saint Elizabeth of Sweet Valley." One spelled out and one abbreviated. I'd like to combine them, but don't know which to make standard.

Poll #1507808 [What?] Elizabeth of Sweet Valley
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 75

Which should it be?

( Some tag instructions for those who need them )

I suspect that a lot of people here may have already seen this, and if it's been posted here before, I apologise, but in case some folk haven't, Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Villifies A People. It's quite long, at 50 minutes, but is a really good, sharp and unrelenting depiction of how Arabs have been negatively depicted in Hollywood films, pretty much since Hollywood began.

It's a spin off of the book, Reel Bad Arabs, in which over 900 depictions of Arabs in film were examined, with only 12 positive ones being found.

If you've got the time, and haven't already, do go and watch it.

2amtomorning
If you find yourself at the crossroads of insomnia and insanity, this is the place to channel those demons that keep you sleepless. Vivid pictures, poetry, ruminations, and confessions from the nether hours between dusk and dawn. Originally formed to celebrate the city at night, there's a strong urban theme.

green_future
Dedicated to promoting global sustainability, this community offers a forum for discussing current environmental news, research, and issues with tips on how to make positive, pro-active changes to reduce carbon impact. You'll also find information on how to get involved in eco-activism and learn about events near you (i.e., act local; think global). Offering a wealth of data on earth-friendly products and practices, you'll be inspired to don an organic bamboo cape and save the planet.

wtf_sexism
Self-described as "a little community with a lot of rage," you can soak up impassioned vibes and read blistering exposes detailing sexist attitudes in the news, pop culture, and science! A must-join community if you are, or love, a feminist. (NB: the topic of whether a "man" can be a feminist is outside the scope of this spotlight, but will probably wind up on the Writer's Block.)

Sweet Valley Kids #17: Caroline’s Mystery Dolls

I love the title of this book. LOVE IT. I mean it’s, well, mysterious. Caroline has dolls? What kind of dolls? Why are they a mystery? I don’t get it!

Check out the cover! Jessica is wearing some kind of horrid red spangled top and it’s tucked into her Mom jeans. And their faces! They look like they found a BODY in that box! Perhaps one left for them by a tiny Crazy Margo? LET US HOPE.

...

You know? I’m really starting to wonder about Tiny Crazy Margo. She’s the same age as the twins. What was she doing when all this happened? What aliens visited her for advice? That’d be an awesome book series. If you’re out there, Francine Pascal, you should get on that. It’d be like Dexter for the grade-school set! A market that is yet to be cornered!

( Okay, now for the actual book. )

So, I am doing a ten point OU course on the arts.

Part two is about Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of Aung San, who led the anti-British movement towards Burmese independence. Aung San Suu Kyi is an activist from the country currently known as Myanmar. (Burma and Rangoon are referred to as Burma and Rangoon throughout the course material. The names used by the current administration are Myanmar and Yangon. Deciding which terms to use is a political statement in itself.)
Aung San Suu Kyi moved to the UK to study, married a white Brit and had children there then came back to Myanmar/Burma to head a pro-democracy party. She's been under house arrest and had her movements curtailed for a long time.

Much of the material at the start of this section is interviews and parts of a documentary by John Pilger, a British journalist.

One question during the course asks if Buddhism has informed her political views regarding the role of violence or non-violence in resisting authority. We are pointed to the first five verses of _The Dhammapada_, a Buddhist text (I've chosen the online translation which is closest to the one we are given in the course). The particular translation we are shown is the one that is published as a Penguin Classic, and is by Juan (Joan) Mascaro, a Spanish man who spent a while as VP of a Sri Lankan university then came to Cambridge University and where he wrote his translation of _The Dhammapada_ from Pali to English. Mascaro's original interest in texts stems from his interest in occultism.

We're shown these five verses and told that they preach non-violence, and they are Buddhist thought, and Aung San Suu Kyi is a Buddhist and therefore thinks this way and thus preaches non-violence. This is backed up by other quotes and materials, I hasten to add.

So we've got an English-educated activist, seen through the eyes of a British journalist, and whose religion is being judged by popular UK-published English translation by a Spanish occultist. I can't help but feel that the Burmese point of view is missing - but then Aung San Suu Kyi *is* Burmese, so I am discounting her just for going to Oxford University and living in England for two decades. I think it's the choice of translation of the Dhammapada verses, and the focus on John Pilger that make things feel 'off'.

So, does anyone know more about Aung San Suu Kyi and/or Buddhism who might be able to help me untangle all of this? It's *not* helping me do my homework: examining the lens that Aung San Suu Kyi is being viewed through would almost certainly cause me to fail that part of the course. My job for the course is to ingest, digest and tidily regurgitate the John Pilger point of view.

so what do you do when a person of color is in a public venue claiming that "everybody does it" (referring to being racist)?

tonight i saw an indian (as in originating from india) on the canadian comedy channel minimizing white racism by comparing it to bigotry within his own ethnic group between indians from different parts of india, or between chinese from different parts of china and ending with: "its all the same. white people, dont feel bad. brown people are the biggest racists toward their own."

how do you deal with that kind of distortion and gross lack of understanding of the dynamics of race coming from a brown person? how do you read it?