I have $1000 to donate to charity. I’d like to split it among 3 or 4 charities. Could people please make suggestions?

Obviously, charities that relate to this blog’s themes (anti-racism, feminism, disability rights, cartooning, etc) are of special interest to me, but that’s not a hard and fast rule.

The current episode of PodCastle features “Run Of The Fiery Horse,” by Hilary Moon Murphy, read aloud by our own Mandolin. Plus, the intro is by science fiction and fantasy writer K. Tempest Bradford, who is probably better known to “Alas” readers for her blog “The Angry Black Woman.”

Check it out!

PodCastle is the world’s first fantasy audio magazine. Each week we bring you short stories across the spectrum of fantasy from leading authors and new discoveries. Like our sister podcasts, Escape Pod and Pseudopod, PodCastle is entirely free to listen and share.

Podcastle is also edited by noted fantasy writer Rachel Swirsky, aka Mandolin. I regularly listen to Escape Pod (which is science fiction focused), but I’m really more a fantasy reader, so I’ve been looking forward to this.

The premiere podcast features one of the biggest names in fantasy fiction, and a short story I was once obsessed with: “Come, Lady Death” by Peter. S. Beagle.

1) I have mono.

2) The rough draft of my thesis is due in two weeks.

An invitation to feminist and anti-racist commenters only:

Say what’s on your mind that’s against the moderation rules.

For now the only caveat is no Amp-bashing, please. If you feel you really, really need to do it, write about it on your own site and post a link here.

The “Contact Us” forms, which have been AWOL for a while, have been repaired.

Just lettin’ folks know.

Once you take either of these positions, you lose all rights to be treated as if you might possibly have anything interesting to say. You lose all rights not to be cursed at. You also lose all rights for others to assume that you are a human being and not, say, a shit-covered paramecium.

1) Homosexuality is linked to pedophilia.

2) Black people are less intelligent than whites.

Feel free to comment on this, but guess which two positions you shouldn’t take unless you want to be banned? Pleas for civility will also be ignored.

As folks may have noticed, there’s a problem with the “Blog and the Bullet” posts. I’ll get it fixed soon, I hope. In the meanwhile, each post does contain a link the same post on “The Blog and the Bullet,” where you can actually read the whole post!

Barry

Hey dudes and dudettes,

I’ve got a lot of grad school work to get done in the next couple weeks, so alas, my writing for Alas must suffer.

I’ve got a couple posts that are half-written, so I may be able to touch those up and get them online over the next couple weeks. There are also a few queer-centered writing projects I wanted to link to, so I may be able to get that done.

But on the whole, I’m going to be working on exams, non-fiction articles, critiques, and lesson plans, with a teaspoon of fiction writing on the side.

Former “Alas” blogger Bean is interviewed by Amanda Marcotte (of “Pandagon”) in this week’s edition of Amanda’s weekly podcast at RH Reality Check. Bean discusses the myths and realities of domestic violence and barriers facing American abuse survivors abroad.

Check it out!

As folks may recall, last year “amptoons.com,” the domain that hosts “Alas, a Blog,” was sold to someone whose business is “optimizing search” results on google. (His clients are mostly porn sites. Details about the sale are here.)

The sale required “Alas” to remain on the “amptoons” server for at least a year. Although that initial year has passed, I’ve decided to keep “Alas” where it is. Staying on “amptoons” means the owner of “amptoons” will pay me $500 every three months. These payments will be donated to charity. (I’ve exchanged emails with my co-bloggers about this plan, and we’ve all agreed to it.)

I know it’ll disappoint some folks that we’re not leaving the amptoons.com domain. I’m not looking to rehash those arguments. I am posting about this decision publicly because I think the worse mistake I made, when I sold “amptoons,” was initially keeping the sale a secret.

I have recently received the first two payments in a $1000 lump (the next payment is due in March). The $1000 has been donated as follows: $333.33 each to Women For Women International, the American Domestic Violence Crisis Line, and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Women for Women currently is advertising a matching gift program, so the $333 donated translates to $666 for them, in theory. They seem to do a lot of good work empowering women at a grassroots level, including (to relate it to current news) victims of rape in the Congo.

The American Domestic Violence Crisis Line is a non-profit that former “Alas” poster “Bean” works for; they aid American women living abroad who are victims of abuse. Many worthy organizations help victims of domestic violence, but ADVCL is especially appropriate because of Bean’s history with “Alas.”

And I assume that the Southern Poverty Law Center, one of the leading anti-racist organizations in the US, is familiar to most “Alas” readers.

All of these organizations do crucial work, and I hope “Alas” readers who can afford it will consider donating to them as well.

(Update, April 27 2008: The next $1000 payment got to me late. It will be donated to charity in May or June, after I’ve had time to figure out which charities to donate to.)

I’ve decided to take a leave from blogging so that I can spend more times on other things in my life.

Partly, I’m taking more time for my health. I’ve been exercising about 43 minutes a day¹, but once you include the time spent preparing, showering afterward, etc., it’s over an hour a day no longer available for blogging.

Mainly, though, I’m spending more time cartooning. I could say I’m more valuable as a cartoonist than as a blogger — and that’s probably true — but I don’t really choose my priorities that way. The truth is, after years of feeling more driven to blog than to draw comics, I’m now feeling the reverse.

I’ll still post my political cartoons here on “Alas.” And occasional cartooning-related posts. But although I won’t disappear from “Alas” entirely, I won’t be writing any non-cartooning blog posts. Nor will I be fully participating in the comments, because that turns into a huge time-suck. (But I do read all the comments left about my cartoons, and I really appreciate the large majority of them.)

It’s been a delightful five years (!) of blogging; I thank everyone who’s made it so great. And maybe I’ll feel like blogging again, someday. But for now, I’m more excited by the prospect of a good ink line than a good link farm.

1. Precisely the length of an hour-long TV show once the commercials are cut out — what an amazing coincidence! (back)

In a previous post, I attributed a concept that’s presented in Writing the Other to the writer Nisi Shawl. Shawl did not write the book alone; she collaborated with another writer, Cynthia Ward. I should have attributed the concept to both of them. I apologize for my error.

(I actually misremembered the concept as having been attributed specifically to Nisi in the book, but having gone back and reread, I see my memory was faulty.)

Anyway, Writing the Other is an amazing book. I refer to it all the time in my writing and teaching. If anyone hasn’t read it, I recommend recommend recommend.

Again, apologies to Ms. Ward.

I’ll be in New York City — specifically, Manhattan — in a few days. This is a relatively low-key visit; I’m not planning to organize a big dinner, and I’ll only be in town Friday morning through early Tuesday afternoon. (Well, I actually get in Thursday, but I’ve already made plans for Thursday evening — some friends and I are going to see Company.) On parts of Saturday and Sunday I’ll be attending The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art Art Festival (no, “Art Art” isn’t a typo).

And I might be having dinner with some folks Monday night, but that’s still up-in-the-air. Friday during the day is open, as is Tuesday early lunch, and parts of Sunday.

So if you’re in Manhattan those days (or could be) and you’d like to have a meal or hook up at the MoCCA Artfest, get in touch.

So I have a pain in my left arm, and until the doctors figure out where it’s coming from I have only two states: unable to concentrate because of pain, or unable to concentrate because of pain-killers. In either case, not going to be doing much blogging.

I’m sure things will be fine, but in the meanwhile, I’m taking a hiatus.

Mwah! Love you all.

Bean’s workplace — and, with luck, Bean herself — will appear on tomorrow’s Today show. Bean has the details.

UPDATE: In comments, Bean writes:

Well, I made it in…for about 1 1/2 seconds, and I didn’t say anything. But that’s ok. I thought they did a great job telling Paula’s story and about the agency. And we definitely got noticed — lots of calls. But so far none from Oprah and none offering huge checks. [sigh]

Anyway, if you want to see it, you can watch it here.

Okay, so we’re making a few changes around here.

First of all, as many folks have noticed, there’s now a “report this comment to the moderators” link at the bottom of every comment. The link leads to this form; complaints put into that form are emailed to all the moderators. Hopefully, this will allow all of the moderators to be more aware of and quicker to respond to problems.

Second, we’re increasing the number of moderators. We now have five moderators: Rachel, Maia, and myself, and also two reader-moderators, Mandolin (welcome, Mandolin!) and Charles. If you’d like to be a moderator as well, please let me know; being a moderator is limited to feminists only, and only to those who aren’t opposed to enforcing moderately polite behavior on “Alas.”

Third, we’re adding a “progressive anti-racist commenters only” checkbox for some posts about racism. The goal of this is to prevent almost every discussion of racism from being turned into endless repeats of the same discussion (to paraphrase what someone said, “Rachel posts that something is racist, Brandon argues that it isn’t racist, repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.”)¹

Fourth, we’re resolving to do a better job moderating out the Chrises and the Stevens and so on.

Let’s give it a couple of months and see how things go.

Read the rest of this entry »

1. I actually think it’s important to have that discussion over and over again — in my opinion, if we want to change society we have to be willing to repeat these and similar arguments a thousand times over — but that doesn’t mean everyone has to do it, and it doesn’t mean we have to do it in almost every racism-related thread. (back)

[Bumped to the top! –Amp]

5pm at Legin, located at 8001 SE Division Street (the cross is 80th Ave.) Legin features both dim sum and the more usual Chinese restaurant meals offered off the menu.

If you’re reading this blog post, you’re invited. There’s always a bit of uncertainty, but folks I’m expecting to attend include myself, Charles, A. J Luxton, Little Light, Cat, and perhaps (but perhaps not?) defenestrated, Bean, Raznor, Aaron, Ms Xeno, and others. Also, Sydney and Maddox and their parents will be in the house.

If you have a Portland-area blog, feel free to come, and feel free to post an invitation to your readers on your own blog, as well.

There’s an interesting discussion of “Alas” comments and moderation in an older post; the current round of discussion begins with comment number 297 by Mandolin. Here’s the complete text of Mandolin’s first comment in that discussion:

I know this has been said before, but I guess I feel the need to add my voice to the din. For whatever reason, Alas, which theoretically has an emphasis on civil discourse, seems to host more vile sentiments than any other blog I read regularly (note: I dropped Hugo from my reading list for similar reasons*).

I like being here, and I like reading the posts, but the way Ann and Pheeno have just been attacked — really, dramatically attacked — is kind of galling.

Why does the emphasis on civil discourse create this feedback loop? Is it because the posters on Pandagon, for instance, are more comfortable mocking the creeps before they get so creepy? Is it just a different bannination policy? Is it an illusion caused by the way comments thread here? Do the comments get as vile in other places, but the reaction of the population is just different, so the scary stuff isn’t as clearly delineated?

If no one else is interested in opening up this can of worms, it’s cool. And I appreciate that Chris has been asked to leave. But, it still happened.

–

(*Leading me to be curious about why it is that the feminist blogs hosted by men have such an infestation, but with a group of 2, it’s hardly a real pattern.)

There’s a lot more discussion there, which I’m not going to attempt to summarize. However, since loading over 300 comments is a pain for some folks, I’m starting this new post for continuing that discussion. (Admittedly, people will have to reload that page initially to read the discussion, but eventually we’ll be able to move the conversation over to this thread).

UPDATED TO ADD:

I do have several ideas of what we can do, some of which contradict each other.

1) Stop having comments on “Alas” at all.

This is actually pretty appealing to me, in some ways; I’d miss some of the discussion, but having comments is also a major pain in the neck. But I don’t think other people would love it. I certainly wouldn’t do this (or any of the other ideas, actually) if Rachel and Maia disagree.

2) Get more folks to moderate.

But they’d have to be folks who “get” the idea of the site, who don’t hate the idea of the site, and they’d have to be willing to volunteer. (Feminists only, natch.)

3) Put a “email the moderators about this comment” link with every comment that appears.

One thing pointed out in the discussion is that people tend to hesitate to report comments they’re concerned with — but in fact, I’d find it very, very useful if people emailed me right away when things go over-the-top. (Maia, Rachel, would you mind receiving such emails?) The problem, of course, is that I’m not online 24/7, and neither is Rachel, or Maia. This is an area in which having more moderators might help some.

4) Add a “progressive anti-racists only” condition to some posts, similar to the “feminists only” rule condition some posts have.

This will definitely happen — we just need to work out the wording. (Just saying “anti-racist posters only” won’t cut it, because everyone considers themselves to be anti-racist.)

5) More “progressive anti-racists only” posts. More “feminists only” posts.

6) Create an “Alas annex,” meant for polite debate between different idealogical views, and outsource most of the non-feminist, non-progressive comments to the annex.

That’s some of what I’ve been thinking. A number of folks suggested various technological solutions, but I’m not sure those solutions are things I’m technically capable of implementing.

I’ll post more later, but right now I’ve got to go get my teeth drilled. :-(

This wasn’t posed, honest! (Click on the image for a larger version).

Sydney had gathered up the bears herself (to keep Maddox from playing with them — “No, NO, Maddox, no!”) and then fell asleep like this.

By the way, I’m headed to Florida for a week to visit family (’tis the season to hold seders…). So I’m not sure how much I’ll be posting in the next week — we’ll see how it goes. And moderation may be slowed down, as well, so if you find that your comments are waiting longer than usual for approval please be patient.