Opinion-y stuff, and links, and opinion-y stuff accompanied by links.

ARGH. Last night I tried downloading the latest WoW patch so I could get on, but it screwed over my internet and everything was being really unresponsive and blargh blargh blargh long story short, this is the earliest I could post. So I'm putting up Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and maybe Tuesday at the same time..

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Oh. Wow. I just heard about the Kevin Smith / Southwest fiasco. I'm..kind of disgusted, honestly, and not just because I'm rather a fatass as well. It's mostly the comments below the Southwest blog post that irk me.

"Allowing large people on can cause a huge problem when a quick evacuation is necessary." So fat people shouldn't fly, obviously.
"Kevin is just being unreasonable by kicking and screaming in public... he should probably channel his energy by going to the gym."
"Thanks, I've sat next to seem really fat people on airlines. I appreciate you enforcing this for us all! If anything, I think most people should be required to run a mile in under 15 minutes to fly southwest. Can we get this imposed?"
"I am very glad Southwest chose to remove the man. People in this country are too fat and need to start taking better care of themselves. Its not fair to have people extra close to me because there body is larger then the seat."
"Kevin, wake up and get on a treadmill or you won't have anything to Twitter about. Seriously, this happened for a reason, get healthy."
"The real victim is not the oversize person but the person that is required to sit next to them."
"The fact remains, people in the North America are getting fatter and fatter. Very few can blame genetics and should instead look in the mirror and admit they are lazy. If we stop rewarding their behavior (by refunding tickets) maybe they'll go put down the bacon and go for a walk." Put down the bacon..and go for a walk. Wow. This one takes it, I think.

In opposition:

"By the way...can I get you to kick a thin passenger off a plane because he falls asleep and impedes MY PERSONAL SPACE by falling over and drooling on my shoulder?"
"I would also suggest that SW and all other carriers remove the seat reclining option as most times the person in front of me will be sitting in my lap if they choose to recline and that hasn't much to do with size."
"You stupidly claim that your goal was to get the plane off the ground and into the air as quickly as possible. Does it not take MORE time to force a passenger who is already seated and buckled, with his bag stowed, to get OFF the plane instead of simply taking off? To say nothing of the humiliation and embarrassment it clearly caused?"
"In digging into this story I came across countless other blogs about people who have been humiliated in a similar way by this airline. And yes, they have a policy - but it's a ridiculous policy; in Canada the Supreme Court ruled last year that the practice of forcing someone to buy 2 seats is discriminatory."
"I understand folks not wanting to sit beside bigger folks. I really do get that. But did you think for a minute that SW crammed all of you into a tiny little box in the first place with virtually no room to move? SW has pitted passengers against one another by putting this rule in place, and slotting it under the guise of "safety" is insulting."
"Southwest - You claim that the policy is partially a "safety" measure. When I fly with my wife and only "impede" on her comfort, you always ignore this policy. But if I travel by myself and another customer is seated next to me, suddenly I'm a safety threat and you enforce the stupid policy. So I'm not as dangerous when I'm not bothering other passengers?"

My family flies Southwest because it's cheap and lets you choose your seat. I have no problem fitting. I have no plans to boycott, like half of the commenters on that blog; it's not worth it. The only fat-humililation I get on planes is the same I have everywhere else, and usually it's mostly self-consciousness. But the issue still pisses me off.

Discrimination ticks me off no matter what its root. Nowadays even sexual orientation is fought for as an equal-rights-type matter. (That's good. There's still problems, of course. But it's getting better.) But people are still allowed to make comments like this because it is a socially acceptable opinion.

This whole situation has a feeling of caricature. People talking about being squeezed between lardbuckets on flights. You can see it, right? A little cartoon broomstick-man helplessly squashed to the window by a guy whose body fat is pouring into the surrounding seats. His shirt probably doesn't fit, either. He's probably munching noisily on fried chicken and has grease stains on his clothes.

Obviously, fat people aren't human. We're monsters.

Jeez, rest-of-world. Have a heart. Suck it the fuck up. Not everyone can be normal.

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I just watched Aladdin, and now I'm watching Aladdin and the King of Thieves for the first time in..forever. Ten years or something. I don't know. But I'm only half a minute in and already there's such a drastic difference in the animation. It's terrifying. I mean, I've long known that the direct-to-video Disney sequels are shitty, and I'm really really glad they weren't able to force Pixar into making a half-assed Toy Story sequel, but..wow. I never looked at this movie from an animation standpoint before. This is just atrocious. It's like the Disney Channel shows based on The Little Mermaid, or Buzz Lightyear. Oh my gosh. Art, of any kind, is supposed to be always moving forwards. Not backwards. This is ridiculous. I'm so glad they're not pulling this shit like they did in the bad years.

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Hum. In my acting class Sam and Kay and I were talking during the break, and conversation turned to Valentine's Day, and then their relationships, Sam's with her fiance, Kay's with her long-time boyfriend. It was strange to be included in a conversation to which I could offer no input. I think it was easier to talk to them because we don't know each other extremely well.

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This is an article someone I know wrote for..I dunno, his town's newspaper? He writes a teenager's opinion column for them, under a pseudonym.

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This is interesting. Someone posted it on my Twitter feed (Amanda Palmer's assistant, actually, who is very cool). I don't like the label 'feminist' for myself because..I don't know, there's some negative connotations in my head. I think this comment sums up my train of thought:

"Feminist comes from a Latin word meaning woman, I think. So you could also say "woman-ist". That's why I don't like the word and don't identify with it. Why not gender equality-ist?
In fact I don't like anything that ends with "ist" because it draws a separating line between you and others. "You are with us or against us!" I don't like to see activism as a perpetual war. If you don't make other people into your enemy, they are more open to listening to you.
I really do believe in gender equality though and hate to see sexism. I also believe in equal treatment for animals, children, old people, homosexuals, immigrants, and members of all and any religions, philosophies and worldviews.
Actually, I believe in love."

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Some links I'm just posting for myself for future use; I haven't finished reading through the articles, or comments, or whatever, and I want to. My computer is a dumbass who doesn't want to cooperate, so I can't use bookmarking at the moment.

Skinny bitches.
Google 'It's okay to be an -ist'.
Whoa, dude.
Both interesting and sad. One of my reasons for being pro-choice is that I don't think adoption should be a woman's only option ( - because really, who honestly believes that abstinence will fix it?), but I've never actually heard a birth mother's first-person view. Uh..except Juno, but that doesn't count.

And now, not so serious.

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I don't know why fairy tales interest me so much. They just do. Same with Greek mythology.

I'm starting a new series of short stories. They're based on fairy tales that everyone knows (mainly because of Disney), but mostly from the villain's perspective. Hard to explain. I'm not including the Frog Prince, and probably not Beauty and the Beast; they don't really have villains. I'm still on the fence over Briar Rose.

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Well. Gotta restart my computer. He's freakin out on me. Good night. Hopefully I never lose internet ever again ever.

Olivia

PS. Just came across this comment on the Southwest blog:

"Having a Customer Of Size policy is unconscionable.
Substitute Color - Gender - Faith - Sexual Orientation.
Imagine a Customer of Color policy.
A Customer of Gayness policy.
You would be run out of business.
Size is the last acceptable (and shouldn't be) prejudice.
A person's size is NOT something within their control. Weight is no more truly controllable than height (which is also an issue of size - what do you do with really tall people, SW?)."

That's what I mean. It's still 'acceptable'. Discrimination is disgusting anywhere it's found. So why don't we stop encouraging and applauding it?