Wow, World

First of all I want to thank everyone who gave their sympathy when Shadow died. It means a lot to me. Especially Julie who got me flowers XOMGSQUEE I love that girl! It's easier now, but it's still weird and hurts to think that he's gone.

*sigh*

Anyway. So obviously there's been a lot of news the past week or so. Some good, some bad, some just LOL.

Like, I dunno, Dumbledore being GAY?

Muah-hahahaha! Oh man, can't you just feel the fundies' heads exploding?

I wish she'd put it in the book, though. I don't understand all these people who are saying "oh it's such an advancement for children's literature," because no, it's not, not unless you come right out and say it in the text. It's not enough to state it after the last book has come out--in fact, it's cheap.

But it's still fun news, lol.

Lots of less fun news, though. So, most people by now have heard about this Jena 6 issue. But I think that Jena 6 and all the publicity it's been getting has been a catalyst for something a lot bigger. Stuff like this is starting to crop up all over the country. Even in Ithaca.

Anyone who lives here--well, anyone who goes to college here, anyway--would tell you how crazy that is, because Ithaca is supposed to be this bastion of liberalness and equality and awesomeness in an area that's got an incredible reputation for racism and bigotry. But, nope. Turns out that Ithaca is no better than the little rural towns around it.

Pretty much what's been going on is, recently (within the last year that is) this high school girl was on the bus to school and was being harassed. Now, the girl was black and her harassers were white boys, I think. I guess it got to be enough of a disturbance that the bus driver, in an amazing display of racial equality, decided to put the girl--the victim--off the bus. That pretty much blew things up, and now there's an incredible degree of racial tensions in the Ithaca High School. It's gotten to the point that people are hanging nooses above black teacher's classrooms, and people who have friends across ethnic lines are no longer allowed to sit with those friends at lunch. There's a constant rumor circulating that there's going to be a school shooting.

It's been pretty amazing though, because the high schoolers rose up in response to all this bullshit and led a major protest against the whole thing. The school board has been dragging their feet and generally not helping at all, so lately people have been rallying at school board meetings on the subject to try and wake people up (the most recent one was last night). Ithaca townies and students/professors from the colleges have gotten involved too.

I haven't heard specifics, but I guess this is happening across the nation. I'm kind of worried for Foothill. Over the four years I was there you could just feel things getting progressively worse, with the administration cracking down, with fights happening more often, with divisions cropping up between races and most notably the burning down of one of the portable buildings, and also with the general lack of things for teenagers in Pleasanton to do. I really, really think that something awful is going to happen in Pleasanton in the next few years. Hell, if tensions are heating up across the nation, we could have a serious incident pretty soon.

The good that's coming out of this, though, like with the high schoolers in Ithaca, people are starting to become aware of the egregious inequalities and racism still present in this country. I guess people thought that those things had gone away with Civil Rights. Noooo, darlings. We've got a lot of work to do.

Oh, and meanwhile, California is burning to a crisp. Apparently because some jackass freakshow thought it would be a good idea to light some dead grass on fire. Whoever you are, you little shit, I hope you burn in your own fire for this. People are dying, homes are being destroyed, pets are being lost, and this little fuck obviously doesn't care.

The fires are nowhere near my house, so I'm not worried about my family or anything, but still. How can someone knowingly cause a natural disaster? How do you live with yourself?

*seethes*

And in the rest of the world, well, they're still killing monks in Burma, though of course we'll never know about exactly what's going on since they freaking cut off the Internet in the country. Any figures that come out will come from independent journalists or from the country itself, the latter of which certainly can't be trusted. Oh, and people are blowing themselves up in Pakistan again, and racial tensions are flaring in Turkey to the point that some people are considering invading Iraq. Hoo-boy.

So, general chaos, mayhem, death, doom, destruction. What else is new?

Well, at least the Red Sox have come back to the Series. Game 1 tonight. Haven't had much else to cheer about lately, so I'm excited.

Oh, and I'm rolling again on Mot. To the degree that I think I'll have it done before the end of the year. *crosses fingers*

And I have some new characters to introduce you to, eventually.