Some non-Christmas-celebrating friends and I are getting together today and we are in search of some good take-out food. Preferable Chinese but we know our choices are limited.

If anyone knows of places that are open today, I would love to know about them!

Finally!! he is done, after weeks of working on other plushies and trying to figure out gloves and pouch and all sorts of other crazyness that comes with a kangaroo lol

He is made out of minky which is soooooo nice and soft but my machine didnt really like it. Sooooo with that being said, this little guy is COMPLETLY HAND SEWN. @_@
You can imagine the irritation everytime something went slightly wrong. But i learned alot from all those mistakes, so it worked out haha.

it was fun putting his little boxing gloves on :)
OH and get this, the little guy in the pouch .. he is in fact a finger puppet!! Smiley
hmm i wish i took better pictures of the little guy. but i was in a rush to the post office, had to make sure he go there just in time for christmas!

anyways.
( Enjoy )

It's the only movie I've ever seen that needs to be seen in 3D. I'm almost curious as to what it would be like in standard format.

PWDs vs. disabled people:
It’s well know in this community that the preferred way of speaking of people’s certain identities is “people of/with…” instead of “ –ed people”. When it comes to my own use, the term I have used to describe PWDs (the term I will be using generally here because, well, it is faster to type) has gone through a couple evolutions. The term I first used in my life, both before and after I became disabled, was “disabled people”. After I had spent some time in this community, however, I began to see the logic and value in using the term “PWDs” instead. The thinking goes that when you use “person with a disability” you are putting “person” first, which is a signal that the person you are speaking of is human, is a person, and the disability comes second because it is not the primary identity.

I have recently been reading this book for a research project, however, and the author has an interesting view on these terms that has just about changed my mind. The book is Geographies of Disability, by Brendan Gleeson. Like most disability scholars he has the view that disability is a social construction, which is what I talked about in my last post in this community. Because of this, he believes that the term “PWDs” erroneously attributes the disability to the person: a person with a disability. “Disabled people”, he feels, acknowledges the fact that people with impairments are disabled by the world they encounter. They are not inherently un-able to participate in life, they are simply un-able to participate in a world that does not account for different bodies and minds.

Another reason that the term “disabled people” is preferable, he writes, is because “PWDs” seems like a token gesture. It is a bit of political correctness that really doesn’t do much to change the world PWDs live in. On the other hand, the term “’disabled people’”, he says, “serves a political purpose by foregrounding the oppression…that bears down on impaired people.”

I found this a fascinating argument, and I may find myself using “disabled people” more in the future, perhaps interspersed with “PWDs”. I can see the value, and the drawbacks, of using both. So, which term are you supposed to use now? I can’t answer that, sorry! I myself don’t have a solid opinion on it (anymore). I just wanted to put a different spin on things to get people thinking about the terms we use for cultural identities, how important they really are, and what we expect to accomplish by using them when describing ourselves or others. Or maybe I just wanted to mess with you a little :).

Does anyone know of anything truly spectacular going on tomorrow night that begins before 10? I am searching through Entertainment News Northwest and Take 5, but I thought I would see if the community had anything they thought was a must see or do! Its my husband and my 2 year anniversary and I want to find something amazing for us to do. We are open to pretty much anything. Thanks!

Hey Everyone! Just wanted to share what i have been working on with you guys! :3 ( Cuteness!! )

Livejournal to Enforce Binary Oppression

"For those of you who may not be aware, LiveJournal , a community blogging and social networking website, is preparing to release a new code update which will force users to register a binary gender: male or female. Users will not be able to opt out of selection, as this step in the registration process is mandatory -- a step that is not only invasive to a user's privacy, but also advocates for the erasure and disavowal of all transgendered, intersexual, and/or genderqueer people.

What troubles me about this move is that LJ has always had a good dialogue and good rapport with the trans and genderqueer communities in the past."

"The systematic oppression and erasure of transpeople, genderqueer, and intersexual individuals is a feminist issue that calls for immediate action. The next code push will most likely occur as early as this Thursday or next , at which point, users will be forced to select a binary gender. Please spread the word and raise awareness about this issue.

If you are not a LiveJournal user, please send emails of your disapproval to Anjelika, the general manager of US operations: anjelika@livejournalinc.com."

[edit]Edit 12/15 1017 EDT: As mentioned in the responses many people have received, the code has now been rolled back and will not be pushed with the next codepush.

Sorry about that, I had no idea there had been as much of a response to this when I was shown the information. Thanks to those who commented for prompting me to double check.

Sorry if I've been posting too much lately. I've just been making so many of these little guys :)



( Humphrey and Ophelia )

I've had some mismatched Christmas toesocks that I've been meaning to make monsters out of, but had been putting it off until the Christmas season...

I love that green button! It's my last one...which is mostly the reason he has only one eye! None of my other green buttons worked as well as this one, and I didn't have any other buttons that went with it. That's the beauty of making monsters...you can get away with giving them only one eye!

( close up pic... )

I got a message from my brother a few weeks ago asking for a custom koala Nubbin with a red heart and blue eyes. And I've finally got around to making his Koala this week. It's a Christmas gift for his girlfriend (awwwww!). They have some inside joke about koalas.


( Close up pics )

Hi.

I am really, really, bad at dealing with issues of racism. I'm white, and I live in Vermont, which according to the 2008 census is 96.4% white. I've lived here for eight-ish years, and I've lived in almost equally as white rural New England for my entire life, including college. Just laying my cards on the table here. I'm going to try really hard not to say the wrong thing.

So, in my Meeting (I'm Quaker) we've recently been talking a lot about racism. Quakers have a difficult religious history with this topic. While the movement is often (accurately) associated with abolitionism, in most ways we're just as racist as anyone. A book on this topic has been the focus of our adult religious ed program for several weeks. Here's the blurb: "Fit for Freedom, Not for Friendship reveals that racism has been as insidious, complex, and pervasive among Friends as it has been generally among people of European descent. The book documents the spiritual and practical impacts of discrimination in the Religious Society of Friends in the belief that understanding the truth of our past is vital to achieving a diverse, inclusive community in the future." For the record, the book was co-authored by a team of two women, one black and one white.

Both in and out of classes, our Meeting has spent a lot of time talking about this. So, my initial reaction to all this is, "Yay, great! We need more discussion like this!" On the other hand, I am sometimes skeptical of our motives.

When racism is discussed in Vermont, it's usually less in terms of examining how we ourselves are racist (or any kind of -ist) and more in trying to prove that we AREN'T. Which I'm not so sure about (including me). My Meeting (and my college, when we inevitably discussed this there) was always trying to "attract diversity." When we tried to think of ways to do this, we didn't get very far, or we started stereotyping ("Well, maybe we should emphasize that it's only a few hour's drive to NYC . . . ")

It's kind of like all of us liberals feel really, really guilty about being so privileged, and we want to make ourselves feel better by 'reaching out.' And, yeah, OF COURSE I think reaching out is great. And OF COURSE when a group is very very small, they may be even more marginalized and we should be even more sensitive. But what can it really mean in a state like Vermont, besides making us feel better? Just thinking about people who identify on the Census as "Black," leaving aside other racial identifications, that number here is less than 1%. Thinking about numbers, that means that just due to random chance, 1 in 100 of the people who show up should be Black. And that's roughly accurate for who shows up.

Should I be really upset about this? Should I accept this as par for the course, living where I do? If I should be upset, what should I be DOING about it? If my college is right, and we should be attracting diversity, how do we do that without slipping into stereotypes?

I like all efforts to examine ourselves and be more inclusive, but I guess I wish we could do it in the areas where we could make a more dramatic difference living where we do. We've been reaching out to groups that are so tiny where we live that- I feel- AND THIS IS WHERE I WANT SOMEONE TO CORRECT ME- BIG FLASHING LETTERS HERE SO YOU KNOW I AM LOOKING FOR FEEDBACK- it's almost a cop-out. We never really have to face people who are different from us, because even if every single person of color in our area who is not already afiliated with a religious community (we DO have a relatively large refugee population here . . . but they are predominantly Muslim and trying to get them to come to Quaker meeting would be another sort of oppression altogether) started showing up, we'd STILL have barely any people of color. Thus no challenge to our ways of thinking.

I feel that sometimes we want to go through the motions of promoting diversity without doing the things that would really promote it. There are, for example, lots and LOTS of poor people here, whom, if we made a greater effort in reaching out, might actually show up in greater numbers. There's a vibrant GLBTQ community here that we could do a better job supporting. Etc.

Then, of course, because I read feminist, I start worrying that I'm prioritizing my oppressions. How DOES one have a good conversation about racism . .. when everyone in the room is white? Is that even possible? Does that mean that it's not worthwhile, or just that we should proceed with that awareness in mind? How do you go about acknowledging oppressed minorities in YOUR area if some of those populations are so small that they are even MORE invisible?

Hey everyone! Haven't posted anything in ages!
I've been crazy busy the past couple of weeks with sales and orders. Also, a local store is now carrying my little guys! So needless to say, I'm very excited.

Just finished another commission piece, the zombie narwhal!



( more pics! ^.^ )

Well, I haven't posted for so long, everything keeps getting in the way of plush-making.

So here is something to wish all you fabulous plush makers a Merry Christmas!

Enjoy:

My favourite part of him... =D

( Okay, no more teasing, here he is! )