(no subject)

[usullusa]

• More fiction from the ever impressive gomichan. Have some hilariously meta, gay henchmen.
  
  
• A filmmaker is looking for funding to finish a really fantastic looking animated film version of Neil Gaiman's story "The Price". At the very least watch the video and experience the awesome.
  
  
• I got into an debate with somebody at work today over whether or not teachers at private schools needed certification in order to teach. I contended that teachers at private schools absolutely do not need any kind of teaching degree. (I was right, in most states it's not.) I know it's really weird that private schools let adults with absolutely no teaching qualifications or training instruct students, but this was the environment I grew up in. Teachers didn't have to know how to teach, but most of them were Yale graduates and several had PhDs. So I grew up with none of my teachers being qualified to instruct me but all of them being ridiculously intelligent and overeducated. It's given me some very strange expectations of myself, and of people in general.
  
  
• Had an argument with my classmates today. They tried to tell me that it was perfectly okay to dress up as "an asian" for Halloween. (This came up after our teacher told us that she saw four people in blackface on Halloween.) That it is absolutely not okay to dress in black face, yellow face, or anything else along those lines goes without saying. But it's also absolutely not okay for people to put on a kimono and call it a costume.
  
  No.
  
  Do you know what Halloween costumes are? They are portrayals of the other. Costumes are costumes because they are different enough that they are either funny or scary, and they always other the subject which they imitate. Even if some Japanese people think it is okay, I can guarantee you that there are others that get upset when they see their culture aped. Especially on Halloween. Halloween is supposed to be about monsters! How do you miss the implications?
  
  
• WTF has Obama done so far?
  
  
• One of the awesome parts of my internship? They let me take home all the books I want. Our bookshelf has exceeded capacity...