The Severus Snape Newsletter

bewarethesmirk @ 10:30 pm: There's a an enjoyable short piece over at snarry_holidays, posted tonight. It's a crossover, but don't let that scare you away. ;-) Bouncd and Chained (To You) (PG) has great writing, it's cute and Snape is wonderfully snarky.

Tags: fandom: hp, fests: snarry_holidays, pimpage

bewarethesmirk @ 04:17 am: snarry_holidays starts today!!
As some of you know, I'm a co-mod for snarry_holidays (an exclusive Snape/Harry holiday exchange) and posting starts tonight at 9pm EST. :) Here are details re: the fest.

Please go enjoy and leave feedback, if possible. :D We're posting on IJ, DW, and LJ.

lesyeuxverts @ 12:03 pm: In which Lyv is a needy, needy thing...
...errr. Anyone enjoying the holiday weekend enough to want to do some beta work for me? You need a break from eggnog and Christmas shopping, riiight? *puppy dog eyes*

These are the things wot I might need a teensy bit of help with:

1. a Kirk/Spock
2. a Remus/Sirius
3. a Sheldon/Leonard

Umm, so these are all for fests, except #3, so I can't give tons of details, but they're like, not at all scary, really. Nothing terribly squicky or sad or scary or anything. I can e-mail you details if you wants them.

Also, there is something that I am midway through writing (well. Not midway. but started, at least) and could use some cheerleading help on. If anyone is extra specially helpful, and wants to have capslocky chat conversations with me. Because capslock is love, and you know, I just need someone to help me focus on ficcage instead of pumpkin cheesecake.

Pleeeeeease? I will <3 you forever!

Tags: beta, help me i love you, pumpkin cheesecake, where is my coffee?

cardigrl @ 08:22 am: Adam Lambert...
or since when does a kiss equate to sexual violence?

Adam Lambert has basically said he got carried away at this year's American Music Awards, but that if people were offended, that's because they're bigots. 

Consider these quotes:  "I admit I did get carried away, but I don't see anything wrong with it." . . . "If it had been a female pop performer doing the moves that were on the stage, I don't think there'd be nearly as much of an outrage at all.  I think it's because I'm a gay male."

GLAAD has complained that any criticism of Lambert reinforces a double standard against gays, and uses as an example the kiss between Madonna and Britney Spears at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards, which was controversial, but was also replayed,  And, honestly, I'd be sympathetic to that argument except for two things:  The MTV awards were on cable, specifically MTV, which is not exactly known as sedate.  But the bigger issue for me is that Lambert did not just kiss a guy on stage.  That would be entirely analogous and I suspect that, while some people would have complained, there would not be much of an uproar.

No, the issue is that, among other things, Lambert dressed his backup dancers in BDSM-like gear and forcibly pushed the head of another performer into his crotch and rubbed it in his crotch (although as I understand it, people on the west coast did not see that -- it was edited out).  It is really more analogous to the Timberlake-Jackson Super Bowl furor, when Timberlake ripped off part of Jackson's clothing.  And don't tell me that did not cause an uproar.  Of course, I must confess that I have often disagreed with people about the Timberlake-Jackson issue.  The two of them claimed it was just a wardrobe malfunction, and that Timberlake's ripping her clothes off was just supposed to reveal a lacy red bra, rather than her bare breast.  But my question was and remains:  WHY did they think it OK to be showing for titillation and supposed entertainment a white man ripping the clothing off a black woman to leave her in underwear?

The bottom line is that both Lambert's shoving a man's face into his crotch and rubbing it around, and Timberlake's ripping off Jackson's clothing were mimed acts of sexual violence, played out before children on major TV networks.  Well, so maybe Lambert's wasn't was mimed; apparently he was getting some stimulation there.  I cannot see why Lambert thinks that is OK.  I cannot see why GLAAD thinks that is OK.  And I am horrified that Lambert and GLAAD are perpetrating the stereotype of gays as people who equate sexual violence with a kiss.

lesyeuxverts @ 11:03 pm: The Continued Adventures of Lyv in Cookery
Because I have been baking a lot lately (and am still baking for Thanksgiving, currently, as we speak), and have not had a lot of sleep, and have had a lot of caffeine, and need to come up with ways to amuse myself, such as creating silly polls

Because I have been baking a lot lately, and have been wondering about the ways in which other people bake, and thinking about food in general, because food is good

And because I am procrastinating on writing, because I cannot and will not manage to write anything coherent for NaNo or any other story, when I am this sleep-deprived:

( I present to you, dear flist, the following poll )

Tags: adventures in cookery, happy thanksgiving to all, omg why is sleep, pumpkin cheesecake

cardigrl @ 09:00 am: Federal Criminals
The New York Times today has an article on how both sides of the political spectrum are challenging the increasing federalization of criminal law.  It's an interesting read.  But the bizarre thing about it is that it describes a revolt in legal circles against federalizing criminal law, traditionally the province of the states; yet the comments picked as Editor's Selections all rail against state drug laws.  It makes me wonder if their own editors read the story.  And it kind of confirms my increasing lack of respect for the editors of the NYT, given their sympathy for those irrelevantly whining in the comments that it was unfair they went to jail for state drug charges or California's three strikes state law (the problem with which -- and there most certainly is one -- is that is inappropriately applied).  I mean, if they are going to whine, at least make it relevant to the topic of the article.

The whiny sense of over-entitlement in the comments reminds me of a guy who called my office the other day and said he was going to be all responsible now and clean up a warrant for an old drug charge (we're getting that a lot these days, and what it really means is he can't get a job now because the warrant turned up in a background check).  When I told him that was no problem:  he just either needed to come back to enter a plea and pay the fine, come back to contest the charge, or get a lawyer to do one of those for him, his response was to scream obscenities at me about how the state had an obligation to take care of it for him.  He wanted me to pay his mileage to drive to court.   The fact that I was agreeing not to charge the jerk with criminal failure to appear charges apparently escaped him. 

Then there was the guy who drove through the state doing drugs and, when he got picked up, wanted us to transfer his case to an adjoining state, because it "wasn't fair that I have to drive all this way to come to court."  Anyway...

The other somewhat strange thing about the article is its claim that nobody on the "right" has complained about this before now.  Yet, I remember clearly in the years before his death, Chief Justice William Rehnquist -- constantly criticized for being too far to the right -- repeatedly warned in speeches that Congress was exceeding its grasp -- because it was criminalizing conduct that had never been illegal; because it was increasing the power of the federal government and usurping the ability of states to prosecute (a favorite topic of mine, as you know); and because it was increasing the complexity and breadth of the federal criminal laws without any concurrent increase in budgets for the federal district courts.  As a result, putting aside the philosophical issues, the federal courts are overburdened and simply do not have the resources needed to handle the increase in caseload.  And I clearly recall contemptuous dismissals of Rehnquist from the NYT and others when he gave those warnings.