Dog Island

Chandless Estate Gateshead (by Richard Hook)

Mon, 27 May 2013 20:37:51 +0200

Chandless Estate Gateshead (by Richard Hook)

abandonedography: Wreck of the Hans Egede, a 1927 Danish...

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 23:09:57 +0200

abandonedography:

Wreck of the Hans Egede, a 1927 Danish schooner ship. Cliffe, United Kingdom - via

"In a perfect world Rom-Com would be a genre of romantic communist films."

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 17:58:13 +0200

“In a perfect world Rom-Com would be a genre of romantic communist films.”

- (via communistsextips)

I just found the name of my genre.

(Reblogging for awesome links below about women...

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 22:58:11 +0200

(Reblogging for awesome links below about women miners!)

femignome:

jenniferswag:

womanontheedgeoftyne:

nextyearsgirl:

nothatsstupid:

stfumras:

gummogoth:

That asshole better get home and unload the dishwasher!

The truth… The truth isn’t popular at all… Society hates the truth, and that truth is that men were and still are slaves to ungrateful women.

A voice for men . Com

This is hysterical

Men created the draft

Men also run the coal industry

and - in many countries - banned women by law from working in coal mines (where until the early to mid 19th century women had done heavy, underground work). And these laws weren’t always overturned when sex discrimination legislation was put in place - for example Sandra Collins from Queensland Australia was only able to work in the mining industry after a court case in 1985, in the USA women were only allowed to become miners in various states from the early 1970s to late 1980s, and in the UK Elaine Mormon was only able to become a “free miner of the Forest of Dean” in 2010 after a 2-year court battle, and women miners in Bolivia have had to struggle for their right to be employed in 2001, and have formed their own mining co-ops. Also, I think that there are many women miners in some parts of the world.

and I can almost guarantee that most women who work in mines also have to cook and clean.

The moment you come back from war, you are showered with accolades. The dominant national feeling toward soldiers is very positive, while the dominant national feeling toward women is still quite negative.

Really, though, the military is more of a way of destroying poor people than it is a way of destroying men. I’m not sure how that isn’t painfully obvious to the people who design images like this. Historically, women were seen as so NON-human that they weren’t even seen as valuable for battle. Now, yeah, women are allowed in, but again, it’s predominantly poor women forced into that situation because they have few other economic options—and the promise of “honor,” etc is given to them. The military is class warfare, not anti-man warfare.

Also, is this not more a case of rich men exploiting poor men? Women did not benefit from men being sent off to work in dangerous conditions.

Patriarchy is still a hierarchy. Not all men are equal within it. Especially not if they’re poor. The way people misconstrue and misunderstand privilege is truly deplorable.

blushisthecourt: Sketch of Mackerel, Joseph Mallord William...

Sun, 07 Apr 2013 23:04:08 +0200

blushisthecourt:

Sketch of Mackerel, Joseph Mallord William Turner, c.1835 - 1840.

anabkuhnen: beach dog..

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 10:08:19 +0200

anabkuhnen:

beach dog..

POC Bechdel test

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 00:24:00 +0200

I’ve been catching up with Feminist Frequency, and in one video Anita Sarkeesian talks about the Bechdel test, and also goes on to apply it to characters of colour.

So let’s do the POC Bechdel test on Driftwood/Dog Island and see what happens …

The rules are:

- At least 2 POC among the characters
- Whose names are given
- Who talk with each other
- About something other than a white person

So, let’s see …

Definitely POC:
Samona
Erlik
Anammelek
Kim
Bijou
Temcheng
Chief Razor Clam
Major Suthidamrongsawadi
Liutenant Suriyan
Lady Long
Ju-Tsang
Hai-Long
Janeta (though she hasn’t appeared yet in person except in the “non-canon” short story Mother of Pearl)
And many more minor but still named characters …

Okay, so far, so good … Most people in the comic are actually POC. Just for fun I’ll include the following list:

Mixed/questionable:
Eva (pretty much passes for white except maybe in Western Europe)
Aeron (maybe doesn’t pass for white not least thanks to having a deep tan from working outside in the sun all the time …)
Their parents Natasha and Oleg
Seraphine
The Ghost (not really named, either)
O-Poh
My author-avatar :op

Onwards!

Characters of colour who talk to each other:
- Bijou & Temcheng talk about each other
- Kim and Bijou briefly talk to each other about Willie and Aeron who were looking for Eva
- Kim, Bijou and Temcheng talk about the (white) sailor whose head Kim just bashed in
- MAYBE you could count the silent conversation that Erlik and Samona are having at the end of chapter 7.
- There was a scene in chapter 6 where Kim and Bijou were talking to each other about each other, but I deleted it.
(Of course, if you count Eva and Aeron as POC it gets a lot better, but let’s be strict here and not do that.)

So, yeah, that’s kind of depressing. At least Bijou and Temcheng don’t talk about white people with each other, so Driftwood just barely passes the POC Bechdel test!

While most of the characters are POC, the main characters seem to be the whitest. Which is very typical and depressing. I may try to excuse it with the fact that I’m used to being the albino in my swarthy family, so that dynamic only reflects my own experience, but it still conforms with the “always a white main character” norm.

Dog Island is perhaps even more centered around Willie, so I wonder if it will be any better …

V`(oo)´V

* * *

Yeah, the topic of race easily gets you into really weird and uncomfortable territory. But it’s important to be aware of these structures and how they divide and oppress people.

The definitions of who is a POC and who isn’t vary over geographical regions. “White”, which in practise means “not the Other”, is something that you - as long as your skin is a little bit lighter than someone else’s - become by oppressing other people. I’ve mostly applied the definitions most common today in our North America-centric culture, where big-nosed and slightly swarthy Czech people like Willie are definitely white, and where Samona may even belong in the “mixed” group because what if Tatars are in fact white …? (Many Tatars in Finland, for example, surely want to be white and not at all like those Middle Eastern and African Muslims who immigrated more recently …)

But actually I’m from Sweden and Germany, where whiteness is defined a bit more narrowly. Instead of POC I could use the Swedish term “blatte” - a general (and sometimes derogatory) term for non-western European immigrants and their descendants, which may often even apply to immigrants from Finland, at least if we are working class. And that would dramatically change the perceived racial dynamics - the entire cast except maybe Shannon would be “blattar” if they were immigrants in Sweden …! V^(oo)^;V

(The Crying Game, trying to explain why it has been a fundamental influence on me)

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 18:38:00 +0100

[15:58:09] Tinet: Well, the Irish guy is obviously the kind of person I would like to be like … And at the same time I sympathise with Dil’s story. And there’s the whole political background and what’s right and wrong, etc. … I don’t know, it’s hard to explain. I first saw it when I was around 14-15 or so.

[15:58:44 | Edited 15:58:47] Ilan: I have to watch it again.

[15:59:00] Ilan: You want to be a guy?

[15:59:03] Tinet: …………………..

Is it because 99,9% of the stories in the world have male characters that the viewer/reader is likely to sympathise with, while 99,9% of female characters in the world’s stories just happen to not be characters that a reader/viewer would identify with (because they are sexualized, objectified or have specifically “feminine”, not universal, gender-neutral, issues)? So Ilan has never had the chance to identify with a fictional female character and feel like maybe he would like to aspire towards being like her? While I have actually quite rarely had a chance to read a story about a female character I could identify with and want to be like?
Also, who the hell would voluntarily want to step down from male privilege and be a woman even in their imagination …?

Update! Page 17 …

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 02:37:37 +0100

Update! Page 17 …

At least two extremely good comic books spotted at the library...

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 22:11:00 +0100

At least two extremely good comic books spotted at the library in Kallio/Berghäll, Helsinki/Helsingfors, Suomi/Finland … V^(oo)^V
(Photos by Ainur)

communistdog: dogs are important to the struggle and ill tell you why incorruptable great singing...

Sun, 24 Mar 2013 12:00:02 +0100

communistdog:

dogs are important to the struggle and ill tell you why

incorruptable

great singing voice

sometimes smell like cornchips

incorruptable singing voice

fun at parties :3

Photo

Sun, 24 Mar 2013 11:43:07 +0100

livelaughawesome: way better than the other one

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 15:55:36 +0100

livelaughawesome:

way better than the other one

luzfosca: Sergio Larraín Daughters of fishermen in the village...

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 23:13:09 +0100

luzfosca:

Sergio Larraín

Daughters of fishermen in the village of Horcones, 1957

Also

If anybody wants to know why there are no updates - BLAME THE POLAR VORTEX (Preventing me from...

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 18:47:08 +0100

If anybody wants to know why there are no updates - BLAME THE POLAR VORTEX

(Preventing me from moving out to my badly insulated trailer and forcing me to live with other people so I can’t draw)

firsttimeuser: The Larchmont Yacht Club, 1939 by Morris...

Sun, 10 Mar 2013 13:06:16 +0100

firsttimeuser:

The Larchmont Yacht Club, 1939 by Morris Rosenfeld

Serve the people wholeheartedly

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 20:50:50 +0100

Serve the people wholeheartedly

Update! Page 16 …

Sun, 03 Mar 2013 19:26:54 +0100

Update! Page 16 …

"Cirrus clouds mat the sky like shaggy white dog hair dropped from the heavens."

Sat, 02 Mar 2013 19:53:12 +0100

“Cirrus clouds mat the sky like shaggy white dog hair dropped from the heavens.”

- Steven Callahan - Adrift: Seventy-six days lost at sea

Epic wild piggy running (by ilan katin)

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 22:53:54 +0100

Epic wild piggy running (by ilan katin)