Dispatches from the other side of the “war on Christmas”: today, my four-year-old daughter and I pass a barber shop, all decked out with Santa etc. She asks, “Mommy, are Jewish people allowed to go in that store?” I reassure her that we are. It takes a little while.

Barney Frank still has it:

What would be the nicest thing I could say about Newt Gingrich? He may be one of the great supporters of the humanities, because you have people who don't want to study the social sciences, because it's not profitable, and now Newt, as the highest-paid historian in American history, may be an encouragement to people to study history.

… So none of those people [Republican presidential candidates] I would want to be on a desert island with, unless one of them, as I said, had skills in catching fish or whatever I don't know about.

My favorite Barney Frank story, because it also uses my favorite joke form: Barney Frank is on a panel at Yale with Peggy Noonan, who gets asked a question she doesn’t want to answer immediately. To stall for time, she asks, “Why is [noted conservative and killjoy] Bob Bork smiling down at us?”—indicating a portrait of him in the room. Frank instantly replies, “Because it’s a painting and not a photograph.”

Also, because it amused me, the following exchange, at the start of oral argument, between the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court and counsel for a fortuneteller who was challenging a local ordinance that prohibited fortunetelling within city limits on First Amendment grounds:
Chief Justice: Counsel, you have us at a disadvantage.
Attorney: Why, Your Honor?
Chief Justice: Well, hasn’t your client told you how this case will ultimately turn out?
Attorney: No, Your Honor, you must remember I did not consult my client for advice. She consulted me.

Also, this RPF reminds me of the glory days of popslash: a meditation on celebrity as a mask that eats into the face.

I am now 4 episodes behind in SPN.  Maybe I'll get to them on my cross-country flight.  I've just realized that through the magic of timezones plus daylight saving time I get four hours to sleep in on Sunday.  Ecstasy!

For Ada Lovelace day, I can't do better than lucyp's amazing ode to lim. But I want to add in a bit about Corynne McSherry, the Intellectual Property director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Like it or not, for tech to do what we want it these days we need lawyers who understand tech, and she's one of the best. Like your DMCA exemptions in the US? We're going to have to ask for them AGAIN, because they don't last, and we have a new Register of Copyright making the calls so all bets are off. The EFF, with Corynne at the helm, and the OTW are going to be working together on vidding exemptions, and the EFF is also responsible for the "jailbreaking" exemptions that let people install the software they choose on their own iPhones. I'm grateful for the incredible work of the AO3 coders, testers, and sysadmins; I'm also grateful that we're not alone in recognizing that fanworks are worthy of respect. Go EFF!

I leave you with the image on my EFF T-shirt, courtesy of xkcd:

( rat alert )

Okay, look, have a funny Onion story!

Last night I went to bed at 8:30 and slept through to around 7. Whoops.  So instead of reviews or fic, I have links.

G-Male: why the effect of Google Plus has been to make me check Facebook more often.  Also, if you haven’t left Plus yet, as I just did, here’s a great reason: if you delete your Plus account after getting tagged for a name violation, that might not save your other services, despite the explicit promise that it would!  I’m pretty disgusted by the whole thing.

A lot going on here, but consider how Jason Lanier’s argument feels as applied to the care you get from or give to your parents or children:What would it mean to respect free stuff? Lanier thinks it’s impossible; I don’t.

Here’s a great example of book review as takedown (the book promotes charter schools as the answer to America's education woes): all the snark comes in the delicacy of the cuts.

This story  is about the relationship or lack thereof between oxytocin, orgasm, and emotion, but what I really liked was an aphorism I’d never heard before: “It may be logical, but it’s not biological.” Neat!

I was just reliably informed that I have one setting, and it's not "gentle."  I prefer to think of myself as "intense."

Here in Chicago for a conference that's not Vividcon.  I hope you guys are having fun!

I now have a Google+ at Rivka T and at my pro name; feel free to add me there or not.

Blurbs gone wrong--Thanks for these nightmares, LibraryThing:

( I would not even make rachelmanija review this )

( Brust, Sanderson, Star Trek novelization )

I’m interested in the “people who can verify I’m real” meme I’ve seen going around, connected to the Gay Girl in Damascus hoax. I’m trying to sort out my thoughts about it, because in many fannish cases I’m not sure why it’s relevant. ( Sometimes yes, sometimes no? )

My next exam should be entirely populated by characters played by Mark Sheppard and Gina Torres.  Fun is hard to come by in grading, you know.

Taken from boxofdelights: My books stacked up would be taller than the Great Pyramid!  (Now, that includes some that are deaccessioned and others that are audiobooks/ebooks, so I guess I need to keep going to really make it.)