Trapping Sunshine in a Jar
i think this is fabulously beautiful in so many ways

More Macaca-gate: Allens’ racist “wink”?
george allen finds it necessary to wink at his all-white audience during his apology speech

George Allen, Republicans, and Racism towards Indian-Americans
from the same blog, a great piece on attitudes towards Indian-Americans being verbalized in campaign speeches

Yaknow, I really wasn’t that struck by the whole incident. It was terrible, awful, bad, horrible, all that, but it was life. Any non-White immigrant to America can tell you that they’ve heard it before: in forms obvious and subtle, tokenizing and attacking. But the follow-up is disgusting. Disgusting.

Hostage Horror
gunman takes schoolgirls hostage today, kills one

Male Terrorism, Today’s News: Colorado Gunman Wanted the Girls
a blogger on the ordinariness of this killer:

“The fact is, these are everyday acts of everyday terrorism committed
against women by everyday, ordinary men. And so, as women, we are
made to fear men, serve men, we are kept subservient to them.”

“If I had it in me to kill someone/I would kill you./Instead, I’ll curse you./And my curse will haunt you forever./If you ever return, my curse will savage you to death./If you return,/my hate will destroy you./For the rape of a child.” -Antonia’s Line

(thanks to Woman’s Space/The Margins)

Are American Newlyweds Blending Their Last Names?
tracking the “trend”

The name question jumps at me - there are a number of phases of my life where I’ve had mutually exclusive opinions on this issue. I remember being young and wanting to marry someone with a simple last name. In retrospect, it seems like this would have been a deal-breaker for me at the time. Now it doesn’t make any sense to me to take another name, both practically and politically. On the other hand, I am scared that my parents will feel that this decision reflects my disapproval of their own, and that saddens me. What really scares me is this thought: for a long time, I thought things would be perfect if my partner took my last name. Then I realized that the world would just assume that I had taken his if our names were the same. I don’t want that. It makes me wonder if and when my thoughts on this will develop past representation.

Euphony
an analysis of sounds in determining name popularity

3-year-old buys $16,000 car on eBay
uh.

Studley Friend Finds Jesus In Ultrasound
exactly what it says

Is it Racism, Or Am I Just Paranoid?
what i feel too often.

There are just those days when I wonder - am I even oppressed? A good friend mentioned the Oppression Olympics the other day - the ongoing tensions between communities of color and the underlying dialogue of ‘who’s more oppressed?’. I feel today - as I sit here reciting litanies of racist and sexist incidents that have happened to me - that I’m in the regional qualifying championships, crossing my fingers and hoping my stylistic achievements will compensate for my underwhelming routine. All so I can compete for my team (and who the heck is that?) against others who have been through these grueling years of practice, practice, practice. It shouldn’t have to be like that.

Hair
my most favorite entry on my most favorite blog

I am a 2nd generation South Asian American woman. I cut my hair almost exactly 10 months ago today. I cut it from waist length to pixie cut. Even today I am ashamed that I use my hair to speak for my politics in places where I don’t have the strength to speak. And a little tiny part of me is proudashamedliberatedchained about the assumptions that I think other South Asian American women of my generation make about me.

Ikea Hacker
who knew ikea could get better?