The Wordsmith's Forge

So there's a petition to set up the new MCU Spiderman as Miles Morales.  It's a longshot, but I am so rooting for this.  I haven't even bothered to watch the latest Spiderman movies, the trailers looked so awful; I prefer the earlier ones.  But if we could have Miles?  TAKE MAH MONEY!

I will never cease to be impressed by the fact that Miles came out of someone at Marvel saying, "I wonder what the demographics of New York are like today," looking up some actual facts, and then responding to the huge mixed race population by giving Miles an African/Hispanic heritage.  :D  

The Speculative Literature Foundation is offering a grant for working-class and impoverished writers.

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 bookblather is playing Poke a Bigot in the Eye in honor of this douchenozzle minister.  Give a gay or lesbian pairing, get ficlet.

Community Supported Agriculture is a way of eating local, independently produced food -- mainly vegetables but some CSAs also offer fruit, herbs, even animal products such as dairy, meat, honey, or wool.  Usually the signup season is winter or early spring, so now is the time to look if you are interested; here's one example of a price list based on time and share size.  Consider the pros and cons, and how to choose a CSA.  Search for a CSA in your area.

Today I found this speech from Ursula K. LeGuin:

Mall of America oppressed protesters recently.  My thoughts ...

* Yes, protests can be inconvenient and troublesome, but they are necessary  to a healthy society.  Protests happen when purely rational methods of conflict resolution have failed.  If peaceful protests are suppressed, then violent ones are the next step, and so on down the line until the problem is solved or society comes apart at the seams.  And oh, the irony of Mall of America  oppressing protesters, when freedom of assembly and petition are among the things that the founding fathers went to war to secure.

* If you are a protester targeting a commercial installation, you get the most bang for your buck from hitting them on a day they can't recover from, such as Black Friday or right before Christmas.

* If you're caught up as a bystander in a situation like this, one safe and legal option is to put down whatever you intended to purchase, and leave.  If the establishment is a luxury stop like a mall, refuse to go back.  If it's necessary like a grocery store, you can still deny them your willing support by instead supporting petitions and other actions against them.  Tell the store why they've lost your business.  In this particular case, you might want to spend your money at a black-owned business instead.  Since the only thing some people care about is money, hit them where they live by diverting your funds from them to the people you support.

* This moves Mall of America from my list of places it would be fun to visit, to my list of places I actively disrecommend.

This poem is spillover from the July 1, 2014 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from LJ user Laffingkat. It also fills the "myth / fable" square in my 6-1-14 card for the genprompt_bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by stardreamer.

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This poem was written outside the prompt calls, inspired by a discussion with dialecticdreamer. It also fills the "face to face" square on my 9-29-14 card for the origfic_bingo fest. It has been sponsored by stardreamer. This poem belongs to the FORK thread of the Polychrome Heroics series, following the events of the story "Keeping Warm" and demifiction "Corporation Sues Man."

WARNING: This poem features bigotry and hateful slurs.  If these are sensitive topics for you, please consider your mindstate before deciding whether you want to read further.

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This poem is spillover from the December 2, 2014 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from alexseanchai and dialecticdreamer. It also fills the "bluffing" square in my 9-29-14 card for the origfic_bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by Anthony & Shirley Barrette. It belongs to the Antimatter & Stalwart Stan thread of the Polychrome Heroics series.

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America currently condones torture, as revealed in a recent report. (That link is fairly graphic.)  They prefer to call it other things, and to purport that it is acceptable. However, it goes on causing all the problems that torture naturally causes, such as breaking people and inciting hatred of the torturers ... and frequently anyone associated with them, like their entire country. But let's look at a dictionary:

torture
noun [C/U] /ˈtɔr·tʃər/ US
› an injury or severe mental pain:
[C] All drivers suffer the tortures of traffic and bad weather.
› Torture is also the act of injuring someone or making someone suffer in an effort to force that person to do or say what you want to be done or said:
[U] The museum has many examples of instruments of torture.
torture
verb [T] /ˈtɔr·tʃər/ US
› to cause great physical or mental pain to someone:
She was tortured by the memory of their last argument.

Yes, the actions described in the report are torture.  Now consider that the people who ordered these heinous acts, and those who performed them, are walking around free.  Having done these things, how do you think they view their fellow human beings?  Do you think they treat others with dignity and respect?  Or are they out there verbally, physically, and sexually abusing more people because they think it is somehow okay  to do these things?  This doesn't make anyone safer.  It makes the world an uglier and more dangerous place.  Justified?  Let me tell you this:

The end does not justify the means.  The means determine the end.