http://othermag.org/blog pop culture and politics for the new outcasts Mon, 04 Feb 2008 08:19:08 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en As many of you know, I'm on the steering committee of The Carl Brandon Society, an organization dedicated to increasing representation of people of color in the speculative genres. We've polled our members and come up with a recommended reading list of speculative fiction books by black authors for Black ... http://othermag.org/blog/?p=358 I once went to Australia to speak at a conference. (This is in a previous life, when I jetted all over the place talking about independent media.) The organizers put me in the same room as comic-book artist Madison Clell, who is now a good friend. At this time, however, she ... http://othermag.org/blog/?p=357 Okay. This is a good one. According to a British researcher JOKE article in a humorous year-end issue of the British Medical Journal, men are funnier than women because of testosterone, and this explains why there are fewer female stand-up comics. I'll wait until you stop laughing, because that's not ... http://othermag.org/blog/?p=356 It's been literal years since I posted anything on this here blog, but since both Annalee and Charlie have been hellaciously busy with all kinds of exciting top-secret life stuff, I offered to resurrect my beloved persona here (ha) and mention that Other 13, the Dead Magazines Issue, is finally ... http://othermag.org/blog/?p=355 Harry at Hyphen asks who you want to play the new "Kung Fu" guy in an upcoming film version. I'm annoyed that he didn't bother to mention that the Caine character in the series is hapa. Although I wasn't allowed to watch much tv as a kid, every time I came ... http://othermag.org/blog/?p=354 Don't miss the awesome other magazine anniversary party on Sunday! The magazine of pop culture and politics for the new outcasts is celebrating its fifth birthday. We're also releasing issue #13, the "Dead Magazines" issue. To celebrate both things, we're throwing a party, featuring: - Victor Krummenacher (Camper Van Beethoven) - Ukeapocalypse (Kelly McCubbin) ... http://othermag.org/blog/?p=353 I just finished a long essay for Public Eye magazine on the ideal and reality of Christian Right childrearing, which will be published sometime in the next month. I discovered that while Christian Right parenting ideals -- primarily about the supremacy of fathers, subordination of mothers, and inborn wickedness of ... http://othermag.org/blog/?p=352 I just voted, and it took literally two minutes from start to end. Let's just say there is no wait at the polling places right now. You can make it even faster if you skip the largely symbolic "mayor," "district attorney" and "sherrif" portions of the ballot. The main thing ... http://othermag.org/blog/?p=351 Remember those postal rate hikes you heard about last spring/summer? The ones which were going to put all the coolest magazines (Ms., The Nation, Mother Jones) out of business? The ones which Time Warner proposed, which give giant publishers a price break while punishing smaller ones? Well, all our protests didn't ... http://othermag.org/blog/?p=350 Folks on all ends of the political spectrum tend to think of gay and lesbian families as something totally new under the sun. But my landlady, Ruthanne Lum McCunn, an award-winning author of Chinese-American historical novels, says that it's more complicated than that. "Gay families may be new here in America," ... http://othermag.org/blog/?p=349