Original message: January 15, 2004
Edited: January 11, 2005
Edited again and stickied: March 18, 2006
Fourth incarnation: July 16, 2006

Friends only, etc. Comment if you're interested.

You may want to know:
- I talk mainly about certain political issues (mainly GLBT rights/women's rights), sexuality, legal issues that interest me, very occasionally fandom (QAF/AtS/BtVS), and my personal life. I never expect people to agree with me because this is "my journal". I will never defriend/refuse to friend because someone has different views. [For people here from q_r, my journal is NOT a personal safe space, and I am willing to be strongly challenged on anything I might post.] Civilized discussion is one of the finer things in life.
- I don't post a lot of graphics and I almost never do memes, but I do have long posts, and I rarely LJ cut. If this is going to be a big problem for you, then...don't add me to your flist.
- If you friend me without letting me know, odds are high that I will not notice and will not friend you back. You may defriend me at will. I may do the same to you. It will not be ugly, and there will be no drama or discussion about it.

Before I put an end to this strange Saturday night insomnia (seriously, every other night I'm in bed by midnight, but Saturday, if I'm not out, I can't seem to get to bed), a comment on this whole LJ thing:

When I started with LiveJournal six years ago, my purposes were to (1) see if I could keep a diary in this format (I've never been able to keep a traditional paper diary) and (2) try out new ideas that I wasn't comfortable sharing with the entire world, but was somehow okay with sharing with a select group of virtual strangers (e.g. new thoughts about Judaism, thoughts about my then-crush, etc.) It was like that from 2001 to 2003. In 2004, I discovered Queer as Folk, then Buffy and Angel...and the purpose of my journal suddenly shifted. All of a sudden, I had a friends list of several dozen to a hundred people (I always tried to cap it around 100), and most of us had Interests (read: Obsessions) in common. Suddenly, every post was about Brian and Justin or Brian and Michael or Buffy and Spike, and those that were not were about a few of my non-fandom passions, law, Judaism, and (ultimately) civil rights issues with a strong focus on gay rights. (The last issue was a passion shared by the QAF fandom, broadly speaking, so even that seemed to tie into fandom.)

As with all communities created by fandom, the QAF fandom in due course sailed into the West, and I was so late to BtVS and AtS that I never tried to join their fandoms. For a time, I lived at the edges of fandom, vicariously delighting in the vidding efforts of kitkatbyte, f1renze, sockpuppett, sisabet and so on - but as I was never destined to complete a vid with Premiere, that quasi-fandom sailed into the West for me, particularly when the wonderful f1renze and I both finished our graduate programs and got swept up into the wonders of post-degree living (she was really my link into that world.)

In time, I added my good friends from HoF and b77, eagerly anticipating that they would be my continued link to LJ. But the reality is that I already see them on our native messageboard turf, and though it is always a delight to see them in multiple locales, they don't link me to LJ (in the sense that I don't need to come to LJ to see most of them, if that makes sense.) In the meantime, my QaF friends - those who are still on my flist and vice versa - have moved on to a wide variety of fandom endeavors.

And here is where I feel - in those few moments I have to browse my flist - a wave of nostalgia, a twinge of angst, a sensation of being left behind. You see, these few works of entertainment - from LOTR (in a class of its own, the books that is) to QAF/AtS/BtVS - they were special to me. The truth is that I am not cut out to bounce easily from fandom to fandom. I do not lightly fall head over heels for a TV show or movie (the truth is that I have probably been to the movies roughly 5 times since *QAF* ended, and have not gotten into ANY other TV shows, unless you count TDS/TCR. And even there, I cannot relate to the fangirlish enthusiasm of the fandom, though I do watch those fake news shows religiously.)

So for me, the moments that I spent playing within these fandoms on LJ were special. To write QAF meta, eagerly wait for the next vid collaboration from f1renze and kitkatbyte, receive an outpouring of hundreds of comments in a "love meme" responsive to fandom drama, argue over whether Gale/Randy RPS was ethical, stand in line for hours to OMG MEET BRIAN - er, Gale ;), wait for the next spoiler installment from bigboobedcanuck...these moments were at once fun, childish, light-hearted, immature, and just plain "oh hell, you're only young once, why not be a fangirl."

And yet, for me, they represented a one time experience. I have a very clear sense that that part of my life will not repeat, nor would I want it to, despite the nostalgia. So why, then, do I feel this wistful sense of being "left behind" when I click over to the journals of my old QAF friends and see how they've found new TV shows to enthuse over? I don't know.

More importantly, LJ has always served various purposes in my life. So it could be that the time that LJ served as a fandom networking tool has come to a close. And yet I have struggled for months to return to viewing LJ as nothing more than a journal. Now that I have so many dozens of people on my flist, then surely I have an opportunity to touch on something relevant to their lives or interests. But what would that be? There is no longer a common thread.

And so I am forced to accept that the only common thread (such as it is), is that my (virtual or real) life intersected at some point with the lives of each person on this list. That is a tenuous thread indeed, and leaves me uncertain what to do with this journal that has served me so well over the past six years. So uncertain, in fact, that I contemplated closing or making the journal private on or immediately after my 21st birthday, closing this LJ chapter of my life at a coming of age moment. But that did not seem fitting; the end of fandom in my life does not mean the end of LiveJournal in my life (which, after all, predated fandom for me.) The only question now is, where to next?

As y'all very possibly know, both houses of the California legislator have for the second time in two years passed a marriage equality bill that would allow same-sex couples civil marriage licenses issued by the state of California.

Please take a moment to sign Equality California's "10,000 for Marriage" petition, which aims to deliver the names of 10,000 Californians who support marriage equality to the Governator in the very near future. (The Governator vetoed the first same-sex marriage bill in 2005, and months ago threatened to do the same this time. However, he has not recently commented on the bill, and common sense dictates that putting maximum pressure on him in every way possible is a plus.)
[If you don't live in California, you should still sign the petition, but you will have to identify yourself as a resident of a different state/country.]

If you have a bit more time, in addition to signing the petition, you should email the Governator, or write by snail mail (always taken more seriously).

...if anyone has any thoughts on this new series of ads brought to us courtesy of Sony, I'd be interested. If you look, two notes:
1. There are four images; look at all four.
2. Any image will become the large image if you click on it. Don't read too much into one image being larger than the others.

http://pspupdates.qj.net/cm/xml/image_list.php?aid=57882

Who still reads this journal? Any thoughts on it, me, the sky being blue, whatever? Any questions? Something you've been itching to say? I'm really good at not taking things personally, so feel free to say whatever you want.

Never done one of these before, so go for it - IP logging off, anonymous commenting enabled.

Took this picture while stopped at a stop light, so the glare makes it sketchy, but hey.

This business characterizes itself as committed to "innovative and progressive ideas" and resistant "to forces of conservatism and censorship". You mean this sort of place still exists in 21st century America?
[all joking aside, there are times when I seriously am startled to see American flags flying in San Francisco. And THAT bothers me more than I can express...I definitely didn't feel that way when I was here in October, and I'm certain that this is a post-November 2004 thing.]



City Lights Bookstore, 261 Columbus Avenue, San Francisco, California.

There, where the air is free, we'll be what we want to be...
Now, if we make a stand, we'll find our promised land...
Pet Shop Boys' cover of Village People, Go West (referring to San Francisco*)

Not *too* much this weekend. This was a solo SF run, so I didn't spend as long as I might have with friends. On Saturday, I didn't feel like going to the gym, so since I was in SF anyway, I walked along the Golden Gate Bridge instead. This might have been an adequate workout if I had not kept stopping to take pictures along the way.

Safe to assume that everyone knows what the Bridge looks like by now, so I'll start with the Castro "We Bring Gay Pride 24/7/365" District. For those new to my flist who might be bored and browsing LJ tomorrow (Monday) morning at work, I wrote some flocked thoughts on the Castro in October of 2004.

A flag flies tall above the Castro "The Word Straight Isn't Even In Our Vocabulary" District, at the intersection of Castro and Market. Although located in America, this District is the capital of a different sort of nation.
( Queer Nation, man )

Nor does the Castro "We Put the Fuck Back in Fucking Awesome, Mr. President" District make any secret of where its loyalties lie. As seen in A Different Light bookstore.
( Bush ain't our President )

It's a magical kingdom of sprites and faeries...
( Rainbows ahoy )

The historic Castro Theatre is the primary site for the upcoming San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival, the largest queer film festival in the world. This will be the first film festival at which I have volunteered (or even attended).
( All queer, all the time )

It's not all fun and games in the Castro, however. The Harvey Milk plaza commemorates the life of the first openly gay elected official of any large American city (no surprise that THAT happened in San Francisco). He was assassinated by a homophobic former city supervisor who had opposed the passage of a major gay rights bill. Milk said when he was alive, "If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door in the country." Twenty-seven years after his death, that vision has still not been realized, but who knows how many people were able to come out because of his political efforts - or at least find a home in San Francisco.
( Rest in peace... )

Black and white banners for the San Francisco AIDS Walk to be held in July fly in stark contrast to the rainbow hues of the Castro.
( Time is the space between me and you )

Also, I feel compelled to make a plug for a couple of mainstream businesses that have realized a basic truth: rainbow's got green. Queers are, by and large, better educated and have more disposable income than average, and I applaud the businesses that know how to take a stand based on principle (where principle is defined as "US currency"). I'm not stupid enough to think that any business actually gives a damn about any form of rights (Microsoft illustrated just how erroneous such a thought would be), but it's still comforting when businesses decide it's in their economic advantage to support queers rather than homophobic freaks, here in the Ho-Ho-Homo Capital of the Whole Wide World, as Mr. Brian Kinney might say.
( All hail Sprint and Bank of America )

Lastly, a few Golden Gate Bridge related shots.
I'm looking out over that Golden Gate Bridge on another gorgeous sunny Saturday and I'm seeing bumper to bumper traffic...
- Starship, We Built This City

The Golden Gate Bridge does fly an American flag, largely due to the Bush administration. San Francisco would actually fly only rainbow flags throughout the city, were it not for the fact that this would make the City a target of the "War on Terror". As the above pictures demonstrate, there is no greater threat to free people everywhere than the City of San Francisco, as long as you're defining "free people" as "sexually repressed prudes who have never had an orgasm because they have permanent chastity belts attached to their brains, and who want to make sure that no one else ever has an orgasm". There is nothing more scary than innocent, unarmed Iraqis...except for queers and their supporters. Really, it came down to Gavin Newsom not wanting to be sent to Guantanamo Bay. /unnecessary rant
(Alternatively, I choose to look at it as a reminder that there are some places in America still worth living in.)
( From sea to shining bay )

San Francisco is also apparently a great place to commit suicide. Disclaimer: if you are considering suicide, you should cease viewing all pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge immediately and contact a mental health professional. Alternatively, you should visit the Golden Gate Bridge and use these nifty little emergency phones they have on the Bridge itself to help people like you. Under no circumstances should you actually jump off the Golden Gate Bridge, and if you have to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge, please note that by viewing this post, you have consented not to include a link to this post in your suicide note. Or something like that.
( Taking the plunge...or not )

Walking North on the Bridge, you see Horseshoe Bay, which I believe is in Marin County, but I wouldn't swear to that. In any case, very pretty...
( Horseshoe Bay )

Walking South on the Bridge, you see none other than the infamous San Francisco. Also very pretty, if you're not tired of the full city shots I keep posting, and posting, and posting...
( Repetition makes it happen )

Last bonus shot of the Bridge from the Bridge. Taken facing South (towards San Francisco).
( Once more with feeling )

And that's all for now. Sorry that I'm so behind on comments. I will try to catch up...sometime.

* The Village People originally recorded Go West referring to San Francisco, but the Pet Shop Boys' cover refers dually to San Francisco and metaphorically going West to find peace, the latter meaning directed to those living with AIDS.

Dress the way you please and put your mind at ease
It's a city known for its freedom
- Village People, San Francisco

I've given up trying to apologizing for loving this city. I just do. No apologies, no regrets. Until further notice, that's the way it is.

First, Carnaval. Carnaval is an annual celebration of multicultural diversity that takes place in SF's Mission District. Although it is Latin American and Caribbean dominated, it also incorporates Polynesian, Asian, and African cultures. It was an interesting reminder of something that I love about big, diverse cities. Such cities are at once comforting and terrifying. Why? You're there, you're probably outside the norm in some way or other (who isn't?), and everyone has to tolerate you. It's ok that you're there. This is comforting. Simultaneously, everyone else is there, everyone else is outside the norm in *some* way that you might find bothersome, offensive, or scary - and you have to tolerate them. It's ok that they are there. This is terrifying. The internal dissonance produced by the joint feelings of comfort and terror (term used very loosely) is intense - and exactly what I think people should feel. The suburbs, in allowing some people to exclude others whose differences seem scary, only achieve monotony by virtue of their conformity. At least, this is my opinion.

In any case, Carnaval was an exuberant celebration of the melting pots that are America, California, and San Francisco. I do not think that the random pictures that I have selected for upload do it justice, but here they are, such as they are.

( Carnaval )

Afterwards, the three of us went on a driving tour. I only got a few pictures, but I'm pleased with how they came out.

From Twin Peaks, you can look down on the entire city.
( Including, as always, the Golden Gate Bridge )

In addition to thinking that it was a good idea to build a city on Mount Everest + fault lines, SF's illustrious founders had excellent foresight. They knew that inhabitants and tourists would have to deal with a great deal of fog, and that it would be wise to create a city in matching colors (not that I'd want to suggest that they were stereotype-fulfilling gay men, or anything >:) Accordingly, they paid people to spray paint the City gray.
( Or something like that )

After Everest, fault lines, and matching colors, the next ingredient in creating a desirable city is to locate it next to beaches that might kill people who want to swim in them.
( Ocean Beach )

Next, we went to Baker Beach, but we couldn't park, so we didn't stop. Sadly. There are great views of the Golden Gate Bridge from there.

So, it was on to Fort Point, where I was able to continue my love affair with the Golden Gate Bridge.

( Golden Gate Bridge - Fort Point )

After one last shot of SF, we headed back towards the Mission District for more roaming.
( San Francisco - Fort Point )

Definitely a fun trip, although the water at Ocean Beach was so cold that my legs/feet got numb. I'm repeatedly getting frustrated that my camera cannot do this city and surrounding areas justice. They are just so incredibly gorgeous.

In all honesty, I know that some portion of my appreciation for the SF Bay Area is because I've gone into it with an incredibly positive attitude. But then, I realize that that's not a reason to chastise myself *too* much. It's impossible to view every place in the world with the exact same combination of emotions, and if an positive attitude is causing me to appreciate any given place, then I'm not convinced that it's in any way a bad thing. I'm sorry that I can't see certain other places with the same exuberance that I see this one, but then again...oh well. I'm just interested in finding ways to continue to make this one work for me.

Wow, awesome weekend. Although, I'm so tired that Memorial Day itself will probably be spent being blissfully antisocial. I am an antisocial person who enjoys socializing by nature - by which I mean, I really like to spend time with friends and have fun, but I enjoy quietly thinking in some wonderful area by myself, even more. This entire week has been characterized by constant socialization, and as fun as it's been, I need to take a day off from it. (joesther - I haven't forgotten about the pictures/info you need - I'm actually planning on getting that for you tomorrow afternoon)

The weekend breakdown:
Yesterday: Went to Santa Cruz with a friend and three of his friends, who were awesome. Came back, found out that the gym I wanted to go to was closed, and used that as a convenient excuse to go to a San Francisco location of the gym. Came back, got some school related tasks done, and crashed.
Today: Went to SF with different friend for Carnaval - which was an exuberant display of multiculturalism - and then met up with one of her friends for the day. We drove through large portions of SF, then visited Twin Peaks, Ocean Beach, Baker Beach, Fort Point, and the Presidio. Best SF trip I've had yet. Then, drove back to the South Bay and went to Stanford Shopping Center for work clothes. Just got back. Sodeadtired.

Just a handful of pictures from Santa Cruz for now. I'm uploading today's Carnaval and SF pictures now, and will post later.

Quick thoughts on Santa Cruz: I'm not a "beach person", so although I enjoyed it, it's not a place to which I would return frequently, if at all. I'm not used to having a boardwalk right by the beach, and honestly, did not enjoy it that much. On the rare occasions that I enjoy the beach, it's when it's quiet, relatively deserted, and peaceful. I like to feel that sense of being "one with nature" - and you can't get that from a crowded beach with screaming children and boardwalk. Also, as the pictures show, it was an overcast and not-that-warm day, so even though I went into the water, it was not as nice as it might otherwise have been. The best part of the trip, IMO, was the drive there and back - you drive very close to the mountains, and there are some gorgeous views.

Without further delay...

( I have great respect for anyone who can build sand castles like this... )

( Santa Cruz beach )

( Santa Cruz boardwalk )

( Sailboats at Santa Cruz )

This summer, my main area-related goal is to get to know San Francisco as well as I possibly can. Really to come to know this city - not just see it, say "ooh, shiny rainbows and cool bridges", and proclaim my love on those grounds. As with most large cities, this one is deep. It has character. It is more than any one flashy area that stands out in people's minds. I've never cared enough about any big city to bother to come to know it well, but - as anyone who has talked to me in the past year knows - SF is different, in my mind. The only way I can begin to understand whether my thoughts on the city are justified, however, is to begin the process of acquainting myself with it. I am also going to try to document the process with pictures, something that I am ordinarily bad at doing.

The pictures that follow chronicle, by and large, an area of San Francisco that I would as soon not have visited. Immediately upon arriving in San Francisco to visit last October, I was advised by locals not to visit Fisherman's Wharf, as it was a waste-of-time tourist trap, and I agreed. I later realized, however, that it was rather pathetic to join the locals in laughing at something I'd never seen. I would have to pay my dues, see the tourist trap, and only then could I legitimately join the locals in scornfully thumbing my nose at the tourists and their haunts. Thus, I used the early afternoon hours to pay said dues, before a friend of mine from school joined me in the City. I also visited and explored the Financial District, although I did not take pictures there.

Although *admitting* to visiting Fisherman's Wharf will win me no SF street cred, it was an interesting experience, but one that I do not plan to repeat.

I began by parking a couple miles away, along the Embarcadero. I parked along the side of the road, in a gloriously rare free, on-street spot. I suspect I may have parked illegally, but I was not ticketed or towed. Here is a quick shot of a segment of the Embarcadero.

( Palm Trees! )

After walking for a while, the signs began to warn of the impending doomtourist trap ahead.
( Leave now, while you still have the chance )

And then, the doom was upon me.
( Fisherman's Wharf sign )

At first, all looked good - very pretty and calm, and I started to wonder whether the locals had been wrong.
( Ships at Fisherman's Wharf )

Then, I saw what I ran three thousand miles to avoid, and vowed never to disbelieve a local again.
( Colonial Williamsburg, meet San Francisco )

Apparently, the trick with tourists is, you stick "fisherman" or "fishermen" in the title, and they will come.
( Fishermen's Grotto )

Or, really, the name of a leading chocolate manufacturer will do the trick as well.
( Ghirardelli Square )

You know it's bad when a former federal penitentiary starts to look appealing...
( Alcatraz )

From down by the water, one has the opportunity to marvel at how SF's illustrious founders' minds must have worked. "Oooh, cool, we found Mount Everest!" "Awesome, let's build a city on it! Don't forget the fault lines..."
( Hyde Street )

Like a good faux-tourist, I had to check out the piers...
( Hyde Street Pier )

...and admire the bridges. And my love for the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges will remain true no matter how local or not I become.
( Golden Gate Bridge, from a distance )

The Bay Bridge sprawls out too far for my rather basic camera to get a good picture, so I focused on capturing a segment which had boats floating under it.
( Yay, suspension bridges )

And...the random bonus pictures:

( Transamerica Pyramid, from a distance )

( City on a hill - part of SF, as seen from down by the Embarcadero )

April 15.

To many people, at least in America, it's a day to think of the Internal Revenue Service. For some of us, though, it's a time to remember a historic moment, a legendary ship.

Ninety-three years ago today, April 15, the RMS Titanic foundered in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, vanishing at 2:20 AM that morning. Just five days previous, on April 10, she had departed Southampton to begin her maiden voyage. Her setting sail was a dream come to fruition, a fulfillment of the vision that Harland & Wolff and the White Star Line had conceived five years earlier. At 882 feet long, she was the largest ship in existence at the time of her christening. She was grand, luxurious, and patently unsinkable, as four of her sixteen watertight compartments could sustain complete flooding without sinking - prompting the now infamous quote, "God Himself could not sink this ship."

Titanic was a ship of Dreams. For the wealthy traveling in First Class, she offered the ultimate in splendor and comfort, providing previously unseen extravagance for maritime travel. For the working classes traveling in Second and Third Class, she offered the path to a new life, a new world, a place where the streets were reputedly paved with gold. For all, she offered the experience of a historical voyage on a ship of breathtaking proportions.

Titanic was a ship of Nightmares. She reflected much that was wrong with Western European society of the time. For the wealthy traveling in First Class, she offered strictly enforced gender roles and prescribed behaviors, preventing some from pursuing their ambitions and preferred living styles - preventing some from making the choice to live. For the working classes traveling in Second and Third class, she offered second-class status, inferior accommodation - and ultimately, a decreased valuation of life.

At her heart, Titanic offers us glimpses of humanity, showcasing simultaneously the best within us and the worst.
( Read more )
When I think of Titanic, I think of everything it means to be human. I think of class divisions and prejudice, of compassion and charity, of gender-prescribed roles, of defiance of those roles, of seeking a better life, of selfishness and inward thinking, of innovating, of arrogance, of humility, of pushing technology to its limits, of enjoying the finest things in life, of suffering and hardship, of contending with nature, of bigotry, of people making the ultimate sacrifice, of people displaying the ultimate selfishness, of people yielding to their best impulses, and people yielding to their worst. I think of people just living their normal lives, who found themselves stuck in a moment that calls on them to be great, and I think of their varied responses to this challenge.

Somewhere out there right now, more than thirteen thousand feet under the North Atlantic Ocean, the ruins of a once-great ship bear witness, now and for all time.

April 15, 2005. 93 years. Rest in peace, Titanic.

Disclaimer: This is intended for entertainment as a parody of two things: officially, it parodies "A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace", available here. Second, it laughs at the mass hysteria that occurred after Brad's announcement. No mutinies, revolutions, rebellions, exoduses to other blogging services, or sabotages are encouraged.

Six Apart, you weary developer of TypePad and Movable Type, I come from LiveJournal, the home of freaks, geeks, queers, wankers, and free thinkers. On behalf of our free community, I ask you of the restrictions and the high prices to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.

We have no elected government, nor could we create one without it exploding in wank, so I address you with no greater authority than that with which I daily yack on my LiveJournal. I declare our global social space - our flists, our communities, our syndicated feeds - to be naturally independent of the Terms of Service you seek to impose on us. You have no moral right to rule us, nor do you possess any methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear. With every suspension or deletion that you perpetrate against our ranks, we remember that GreatestJournal, with its 1000 icons, is but one click away.

Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. You have neither solicited nor received ours. We did not invite you. You do not know us, nor do you know our world. LiveJournal does not lie within your comprehension. Do not think that you can modify it, as though it were a public construction project. You cannot. LiveJournal is an act of nature, continually growing, expanding, changing through our collective actions.

You have not engaged in our great and gathering conversation, nor did you create the richness of our communities. You do not know our culture, our ethics, or the unwritten codes that already provide the LiveJournal family more order than could be obtained by any of your impositions.

You claim there are problems among us that you need to solve, improvements to our ways that you can provide. You use this claim as an excuse to invade our precincts. Many of these problems don't exist, and we question your ability to provide the improvements. Where there are real conflicts, where there are wrongs, we will identify them and address them by our means. We have already formed our own Social Contract of the people, by the people, and for the people of LiveJournal; no team of lawyers can make it perish from this earth. Our governance so arises to the conditions of our world, not yours. Our world, the world of LiveJournal, is different.

LiveJournal consists of relationships, interpersonal contact, and thought itself, arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our communications. Ours is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live.

LiveJournal has created  a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth.

LiveJournal is now a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.

Unlike you, we do not seek to obtain order through the coercions of any "Team" . We believe that from ethics, enlightened self-interest, and the commonweal, our governance can emerge . Our identities may be distributed across your wrongfully-possessed  jurisdiction. The only law that all our constituent cultures would generally recognize is the Golden Rule. We hope we will be able to build our particular solutions on that basis. But we cannot accept the solutions you are attempting to impose.

You have today created a law, the Terms of Service, which repudiates our own Social Contract and insults the dreams of Jefferson, Gandhi, Lincoln, Mother Teresa, Brad, and really, just about everyone except for Antonin Scalia. These dreams must now be born anew in us.

You are terrified of "your" own users, LJers, since we are natives in a world where you will always be immigrants. Because you fear us, you entrust your "Abuse Team" with the supervisory responsibilities you are too cowardly to confront yourselves. In our world, all the sentiments and expressions of humanity, from the debasing to the angelic, are parts of a seamless whole, the global conversation of bits. We cannot separate the air that chokes from the air upon which wings beat.

You are trying to ward off the virus of liberty by erecting content restrictions at the frontiers of LiveJournal. These may keep out the contagion for a small time, but they will not work in our world that is now, and will continue to be blanketed in truth-bearing posts.

Your obsolete industry would perpetuate itself by proposing laws, in America and elsewhere, that claim the right to control our speech itself throughout the world. These laws would declare ideas to be another one of your industrial products which are no more noble than pig iron. In our world, whatever the human mind may create can be reproduced and distributed infinitely at no cost. The global conveyance of thought no longer requires your overpriced subscription services to accomplish.

These increasingly hostile and colonial measures place us in the same position as those previous lovers of freedom and self-determination who had to reject the authorities of distant, uninformed powers. We must declare our virtual selves immune to your sovereignty, even as we continue to consent to your rule over our domain. We will spread ourselves across the Internet, creating backup journals where your authority does not reach, so that no one can arrest the development of our thoughts even where you would threaten the existence of our world.

We will continue to create a civilization of the Mind in LiveJournal. May it be more humane and fair than the world your government continues to make.

January 30, 2005
United States of America

After f1renze posted her latest vid, Such Great Heights, and I spoke with her about it afterwards, I realized that I wasn’t getting as much meaning out of my first viewings of vids as I’d have liked, and I thought it would be interesting to write I got from this particular vid. This is a combination of my own interpretations and what I discussed with her. Posted to LJ, because I know that most of my flist saw it – in case anyone’s interested in discussing further (about anything – the vid, its take or my take on B/J, etc). Again, if you haven't seen it and you like B/J in the least, I'd urge you to take the three minutes to watch; it's a heck of an awesome vid.

PS A year ago, I had never heard of what a vid was, and when I discovered the concept, I at first thought of them as nothing more than a way to stick clips to words and allow fans to relive their favorite moments. I want to thank f1renze for letting me glimpse into a world where vids run much deeper than that, capturing the essence of human emotions, themes, and journeys. It means a lot.

Such Great Heights (QAF B/J, PG)

I have two summaries for this vid, both with double meanings. One is Flo’s: “It’s written in the stars” – which evokes thoughts of the B/J relationship as destiny, an idea that emerges as the first major vid theme. It also describes the vid’s start, which flashes the highlights of the B/J relationship, in a manner reminiscent of stars. The second is “stairs to heaven”, which describes (perhaps sappily) the relationship through S1-S3, an uphill, steep progression that leads to a better place than where it started. Further, it is descriptive of the Premiere timeline for part of this vid! (see end of entry)

As we begin the vid, we learn that “it’s written in the stars” is literal: Flo literally uses the stars to “write” (portray) the relationship developing. First, we see shots of Brian and Justin individually, from early S1 scenes featuring both of them. The stars quickly move to show us scenes of them hugging, dancing, having sex – scenes from mid-season 1, as they begin to learn to turn to each other and their relationship deepens. The stars continue on to show the prom and its traumatic aftermath, and another series of clips shows them recovering, together, from the experience. After this, we see them continue into their negotiated relationship – happy and, for a finite time, together. As we move into the arc in which the negotiated relationship dissolves, we again see pictures of them sad, acting singly, and angsty – from Brian’s considering and then rejecting the purchase of flowers – or walking into an empty loft, to Justin’s pensive angsting. The stars conclude at 220, and we move to full screen.

The second theme of this vid is Brian and Justin developing their own, private world that exists even when they are in public. Flo clearly introduces this theme with the B/J full screen eyefuck, interspersing images of Brian and Justin right as the main portion of the vid begins. Even in the back alley behind Babylon, even when they are both tricking with other gay men, they create this world, this space, for themselves – a concept that we return to throughout the vid.
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( Stairs to Heaven: literally (the Premiere screencap) )