Long Summer Night Miscellany

[jesse_the_k]

Great creative thinking at work over at cripchick's blog re: all the programmatic elements of accessiblity

I'm kvelling re coffeeandink's Ablism: Comment policy clarification. I think the ground is being made ready to address some of the deeper issues: interdependence, disability hierarchies, the tyranny of "normal."

MyGuy and I celebrated our 29th anniversary on Sunday night. I'm proud that we've made it so long together, and that we had the good sense to choose each other. There was some accessibility fail at the first restaurant, but I grit my teeth and got some good eats in the end.

Tapas at The Icon: tasty and not that expensive. Marinated Spanish White Anchovies, Marcona Almond Parsley Pesto, with Chocolate Espresso Crema Catalana. And room for popcorn at home later!

Comments

[were_duck]

\o/

Congratulations on the anniversary! I've never been to the Icon, it sounds quite tasty. I'll just have to avoid their "Little Black Dress Night", which skeeves me out.

[sasha_feather]

Agreed!

[catechism]

Congrats on the anniversary! I do love a good tapas place.

And thanks for linking to coffeeandink's post; I'd missed it. I'm going to pay close attention to the way I speak and write over the next week or so and see where I am. I already know I'm in trouble with "lame" -- moreso in conversation, I believe, than in writing -- so I'll for sure work on that, but I think I'm okay in other areas. Maybe. Obviously, this is a creative challenge to come up with horribly insulting things to say to people that do not insult anyone else. We must all be insult snipers!

Insult Snipers FTW!

[jesse_the_k]

How cleverly you picked up on elisem's reminder to "avoid collateral damage in our insults"!

(Err umm, next project is demilitarizing our metaphors, but one mountain at a time.)

Re: Insult Snipers FTW!

[catechism]

Yeah, I was just thinking about this, actually, because I work for a marketing company and there is all this language around 'targets' and 'bullets' and 'price wars' and so on and on. And very few people think about it, or possibly even notice it, and it makes it... I don't even know. I feel like these pervasive metaphors -- which may or may not be useful or appropriate -- make it very difficult to think in new ways about ongoing problems. And, especially given the current economy, it seems that finding new ways to think about issues is really important. Like, I was reading some article about how if the dominant metaphor for housing projects is that they're a disease, then everyone assumes they need to be eradicated, whereas if the metaphor is that they're a neighborhood, then they need to be improved and nourished. And which one is used actually makes a difference in the types of renewal or improvement projects that city governments undertake.

...which is only a little related to demilitarizing our metaphors, which I agree would be a Very Good Thing. It doesn't make any sense to me that we're always at war against drugs or poverty or some disease. It's just not a very useful framework, and we get stuck in these ruts where the only answer to some issue is KILL IT.

(As for my own self... I assume I need to work on this, like I need to work on many other things, but I try to avoid larger war or battle metaphors and use military speak for very individualized things. (Like insult sniping.) I don't know if that's better or more useful or whatever; I think sometimes a military metaphor can be okay, but figuring out when requires a lot more thought.)

...um, wow, I didn't mean to ramble at quite that length. Apologies if it's inappropriate.

Re: Insult Snipers FTW!

[jesse_the_k]

Thinking out loud is always appropriate :,)

[trouble]

Happy Anniversary!

I really want to start talking about things at a deeper level. I'm tired of this 101 stuff.

Amen

[jesse_the_k]

Shall we create a filter/comm to strategize, or continue to think aloud in public? On the one hand, I want to welcome people in; on the other, I don't want to waste time doing 101 ed. I'm a relative LJ newb, so don't know the most effective way to implement this.

[littlebutfierce]

Congratulations on your anniversary!