From Twitter 11-22-2010

( Tweets. Scintillating, innit. )

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Doctor Who and the Links of Doom

Doctor Who is one of my favorite things in the world. New or classic, it doesn’t matter. I’m ridiculously fond of it. It brings me joy.

On this date, 17 years before I was born, the first episode of the first serial, An Unearthly Child, aired in the UK. It was then re-aired the following week because news coverage of the Kennedy assassination was so thick that there was concern people had missed it.

(My mother, incidentally, tells an excellent story about how she was home sick from school on November 22nd, and was watching on television when JFK was shot. She then promptly called my grandmother, who worked on Ft. Leonard Wood, and told her. Of course, nobody believed her…)

Tonight, to celebrate, I watched through that first serial. I always forget that the first episode of the first serial features some real gems, like the first use of the name “John Smith” (albeit not in the same way we’re used to these days), Hartnell himself being the first to mutter the words “Doctor Who?” when Ian calls him “Dr. Foreman” (and then Ian says it later), and of course the first time the grinding scrape of the TARDIS engines sounds.

Oh, and then there’s that whole business with the cavemen and fire and — whoops! — sort of missed taking those coordinates down on the way out. Ahem.

So yes. Happy Doctor Who’s Birthday. It’s an excellent time.

~*~

- While I’m on the topic of Doctor Who, the BBC has some of the original notes and format outlines available on their website. Suffice to say the story changed quite a bit before we got the show that aired.

- Oh hey, happiness may be a psychological disorder. Bonus points to io9 for the reference to the Cybermen. Very festive.

- I didn’t post about the Transgender Day of Remembrance last week. I’ve been feeling pretty raw in places and wasn’t keen to bleed these things out onto pixel or page. I’m grateful, though, that others were willing to.

- According to the FBI and the SPLC, people are still being targeted at an alarming rate because of their sexual orientation. When you take into account that LGBTQ people make up about 10% of the population (at wildly optimistic maximum), but 18% of reported hate crimes are against us, that’s…not comforting. It gets worse when you look at how many of those are assaults on individuals.

Memo to LGBTQ-friendly folk in the mainstream, in churches, etc: STOP LETTING THE BIGOTS CONTROL THE DIALOGUE. Whenever I complain about Evangelicals creating an environment where bullies can drive kids to suicide, or that gets us hurt and killed because people are taught that we are inherently bad, wrong, or less than human, someone inevitably says, “But most of us don’t feel that way!” Awesome. Now start acting like the majority you say you are and start standing up for us and our civil rights instead of letting these incredibly misguided people speak for you.

- Like, for example, Dave Welch of the Houston Area Pastors Council who thinks transwomen shouldn’t be able to use women’s restrooms, or the unnamed grandmother in Queensland who wants to remove a child from foster care because one of the individuals parenting is transgender. Or the Salvation Army.

- Speaking of rights, the TSA demoed their “enhanced pat-down” on Capitol hill and it made some House staffers so uncomfortable they had to look away. Meanwhile, Adam Savage apparently made it through TSA security with two 12″ razor blades by accident. Over at the NYT, some interesting perspectives on the whole thing. And, since apparently none of us were paying attention in 2007, an article with more info on the difference between backscatter x-ray (the possibly carcinogenic and more pornographic option) versus millimeter wave scanning (the less pornographic but still picks up on things like prostheses option).

- Which brings us to the issue of flying while trans, and how terrifying, demeaning, and potentially dangerous it is to be outed at the wrong moment, to or by the wrong people. Arjache made a brilliant post about this and said I was welcome to share. Also, the National Center for Transgender Equality has offered some useful info for those who may be flying while trans.

- After all that, you should probably check out this ZOMG ADORABLE BABY BULLDOG to cleanse your palate.

- And then you can read Lee Harrington’s amazing keynote about how our small communities here in the shadow of the mainstream are so amazing and overlap, and how awesome and beautiful our complex social ecosystem could be. I have met the man once, and only briefly, and have a total nerd crush on him. He makes my life better by existing.

- A short and interesting article about how social mobility and income equality go hand-in-hand (and how the current UK government and the entire US apparently missed that memo). Me? I’m humming Leonard Cohen.

- Except when I read about acts of fabulous philanthropy. I wish I could give my old hometown a proper library.

- Here. Have an article about self-branding. Er, the image variety, not the sort that involves burning the skin to create an artfully shaped scar. (I sort of love that I’m the sort of person who sometimes needs to make that distinction.)

And with that, I’m off to annoy my dogs and then fall over.

This post has been mirrored from Christian A. Young's Dimlight Archive. To see it in its original format, visit dimlightarchive.com