1. There really is/was a supersecret feminist email list! Let me just state publicly that, if you were on that list, and I come to know it, you’re going to have to assume it will be very hard for me to take anything you have to say about feminism seriously ever again. Your credibility is shot and I will probably laugh at you. Seriously… No, I can’t even begin to lecture because it makes me laugh just to think about it. I don’t expect professed feminists to be perfectly feminist at every moment, but god damn, could you try not to be the enemy of feminism in your spare time?
2. Bredesen is threatening to not take the stimulus money. Easy for him to say. He’s got his party bunker and is term-limited and on his way out. And he’s rich. Rich folks turning down money that might help poor folks. How magnanimous! But, hey, folks, don’t worry if you’re out of work. Maybe he’ll open up the governor’s mansion and we can all live there until the economy turns around!
3. This is the freakiest disturbing thing. So when I get home, I hear the dog growling at the back door, not just her typical “Hey, I hear you” bark but a deeper bark coupled with a “Don’t fuck with me, stranger” low growl and I’m all, it’s just me, you doofus. And she’s all “So it is! Hurray!” And then I thought nothing of it.
And then there’s a knock on the front door and it is our neighbor, who came home to find that his back door was kicked in and all his musical equipment had been made off with. And his dogs were home!!!!! Y’all, my back door wasn’t even locked when I got home. We’re not missing anything, but I have to tell you that I have a suspicion, based on the dog’s behavior, that she had visitors this afternoon.
Anyway, my poor neighbors. The police aren’t very optimistic about their ability to find who stole their stuff, of course. But this is reason number one about why I will never go back to having a small dog. I don’t think I’ll have another terrier but I will always own a dog that makes a person think twice about coming in my house.
Oh, and their dogs are okay.
Tiny Cat Pants 
There really is/was a supersecret feminist email list!
only one? i would have guessed no less than half a dozen.
I had a German Shepherd/wolf mix that had the run of the yard (it was fenced). If I wasn’t home, he wouldn’t let anyone in the yard at all (he had this way of hanging his head between his shoulders and looking at you sidelong, growling, like he was trying to decide where he was going to take the first bite). Most of my neighbors and friends were scared to death of him, but as long as I was around, he was a big baby and wanted everyone to pet him.
If I lived alone, I would have either a German Shepherd or a red Doberman. Even if they’re big babies, their reputation alone is usually enough to make people stop and think before burgling a house.
That’s super creepy. I’ve been broken into several times. Once for some bizarre reason I decided to go home for lunch from my office, something I never EVER did. I got home about 10 minutes after the burglar had left my house, he was still in the neighborhood. He was going house to house, and the police were chasing him based on the house alarms that were going off.
Anyway, my cats were WAY freaked out. Totally. I thought he’d maybe kicked one of them or something, he was so scared.
The good news was, I got my stuff back! It wasn’t even anything valuable, just some cheap jewelry. But we got it back, so your neighbors might too. In the meantime, they should check all the local pawn shops … seems like that’s where stuff like musical equipment ends up.
And yes, the best reason to have a dog: home protection! No one would dare enter my house these days, I’ve got THREE of ’em and they are LOUD.
Oh, and WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING LEAVING THE HOUSE WITH THE DOORS UNLOCKED???!!!!!!
Being a giant dumbass, apparently. We live on a busy highway. And the outside door is locked (when it’s shut tight, which is the rub), so I never think about locking the door between the kitchen and the garage. Yet, clearly, we must start.
Remember, if they’re kicking it in, the door lock is only as good as the doorframe it goes into. (Around here, you get plenty of experience in learning safe doors from vulnerable doors. Glass bad; reinforced steel good.) I came home during a break-in once when I was a kid; it’s chilling to hear the back door slam as you’re coming into a supposedly empty house and stepping over what’s left of your parents’ stuff strewn ass-to-Christmas all over the floor. Good for Mrs. W for being willing to tear someone’s leg off if it came through over the threshhold.
And is this super-secret feminist list a “hey, you should see this article about the vibrator play!” sort of thing or a “let’s shut that bitch up!” thing? I mean, you and I e-mail off the blog and there’s nothing conspiratorial in it — we’re several witches short of a coven, even. Sometimes women with things in common want to talk out of the public view. But maybe I’m being too generous and naive.
No, apparently this is/was a “book discussion” list that was/is (I don’t know if it still exists; I kind of wish I didn’t know for sure that it ever existed) actually a space for some feminist bloggers to piss and moan about how much other feminist bloggers, who weren’t invited to participate in the list and didn’t even know about its existence, suck and aren’t good feminists.
What’s funny is that here I was all complaining about the chicks the other day who were all “blah blah blah mechanisms by which large feminist blogs prevent small feminist blogs from getting too big” and who weren’t being specific enough or willing to explain the mechanisms by which this happened.
And now I wonder if they were “not” talking about this list or, weirder still, if they didn’t know about this list but somehow sensed that there was something wonky going on and ascribed all that “colonialism” language to it because they didn’t know how else to talk about their feelings of dis-ease.
I almost feel like I should apologize for being too harsh on them.
And someday we will have enough witches for a coven and then… and then…
Okay, I don’t know what, but I’m sure we’ll make something up.
Yeah, I love Mrs. W. She likes everyone, but she has a low tolerance for weird shenanigans.
I’d always heard that a dog that barked was a deterrent but wondered about it – after all, dogs bark a lot sometimes.
But a good 85+ lb. dog who can sound like he or she is ready for some raw meat is something nobody wants to mess with and even the Dog Whisperer is cautious around.
Yapper dogs are cute and that’s about it. I want a dog that’s big, with a nice deep growl.
My poor airedale would probably lick them to death. She’s doesn’t dislike anyone.
Then she’d turn left. She only turns left.
and they’d laugh to death as she runs in circles.
… Sigh.
Also, not surprised about the list thing. Not one bit, I’ve seen it before, even in supposedly anti-authoritarian groups… It’s the nature of trust relationships that people would talk amongst people they trust.
Oooo. What a cutie!
Let me be clear–I don’t mind that there is/was some email list. I think that makes sense as an easy way to widely distribute information and strategies and to have a place to talk things out without the whole world looking on.
But once you add the “and folks are forbidden from talking about it” element…? I’m sorry, but I’m laughing. Long and hard.
I think there were/are several lists, which one did you have in mind?
Daisy, I’m trying to get by in the world without laughing until I cry. Are you telling me that there’s more than one supersecret email list that folks are forbidden from telling anyone who’s not on it about and upon which there are people who, out in the blogosphere appear to be enemies?
I mean, a girl can’t say, “oh not folks just getting together to talk feminism in an email exchange. I mean the one where they were ostensibly talking about feminism, but really bashing each other and non-participants and everyone was forbidden from telling anyone about the list.” and folks still aren’t sure which one it might be?!
Ha, ha ha ha ha ha ha. Oh lord.
Listen, I don’t know. I knew folks were emailing behind the scenes and I had no problem with that, because people email behind the scenes. I email behind the scenes. So fucking what, you know? That’s how stuff gets communicated. I don’t care.
It’s the “don’t tell anyone about this list or what happens on it or we will shun you” aspect of a certain list I have just heard about that cracks me up.
If that’s standard operating procedure among feminist email lists, well, I just don’t know what to say to that.
to my knowledge, there were two lists. The original involved the big bloggers – usual suspects and whoever they decided to invite: feministing, feministe, ilyka damen, pandagon, twisty, feminist pinko hellcat, sour duck, f words, rox populi, etc. it was originally set up as a way to communicate and help each other out, but as the feminist blogosphere grew, there was no way the original list could encompass everyone. there was also no way to keep adding people without the appearance of unfairness or of having nefarious goals, even if that hadnt been the intent.
the other list was created by belledame222 at fetch me my axe. it was primarily for belledame222 and her friends. it was called salon rose. originally it wasnt a closed list. the list owner closed it once radical feminists became aware of its existence and people worried that radical and other hostile feminists would subscribe and read their discussions.
there have been several purges of members since its inception. members of the list believe that they are purging members who have shown themselves to have unsound politics: they have engaged in what current members believe is racist, homophobic, and transphobic commentary.
i am unsure of the status of the “original” feminist list, but you can find reference to it here: http://ilykadamen.blogspot.com/2007/05/pseudocode.html?showComment=1179421200000#c389309126010702927
from reading that exchange in the comments section, i gather that this other list was also supposed to be kept quiet also. Or, at least, people expected that members wouldn’t blatantly advertise its existence.
All right. No, just please have some mercy on me! Forget I ever brought it up and let us never speak of this again. I am sorry, more sorry than I can say, to even know about this.
Don’t get me wrong. I find it hilarious, too, but no, just no. Someday people are going to write something that I need to read and take to heart and if I have to be aware of this kind of stuff, I won’t be able to do it.
So, let’s just chalk this up to “oddities” and not discuss it.
sure, you’ll be able to take it to heart. the rest of us have and do — read useful and important things written by people we are otherwise disappointed in over those incidents. it’s just life. :-)