The starred word above is "Jokes." A circle joke is a joke told amidst others in a circle of joke-tellers, in which all of the listeners stare at each other, half-embarrassed to be there but they find they just cannot leave it alone. Circle-jokers get competitive about something that was never meant to be competitive in the first place. Sad. You'd think if they just found the right person, they could all have good, non-competitive humor in private....
This is a re-publish - on the request of a prior non-sockpuppet commenter - of a diary that I published at perhaps a bad time two weeks ago. The topic is sexual violence, predation, harassment and intimidation of women both online and in so-called real life. If you know about either the Take Back the Night Marches, OR last year's Take Back the Blog 2007 event, OR would like to learn more, read on.
I run Crablaw Maryland Weekly, or perhaps more accurately it runs me.
In response to some events here that I simply lack the will to recite, I organized a Take Back the Blog 2007 event last April to stand up for the rights of women to full citizenship online and in so-called "real life" without intimidation, harassment, violence, stalking or sexual predation. It was modeled after the Take Back the Night marches which many of us may know from college campuses or otherwise. It went pretty well, with a lot of participation from bloggers ranging from the Ecumenical Matriarchs of the feminist blogosphere through B-list, C-list, D-list, etc. all the way down to "Avenue Z-list" bloggers (like me.) Not only did the issues of women bloggers get some important exposure, but women bloggers themselves got some exposure as well.
Only one problem. The "dude" hosting this event was a "dude." While this was not a fatal weakness, and was mitigated by the fact that I was actually willing to get the job done despite my numerous gender- and non-gender-specific limitations, it stuck in my craw a bit that I could not "be" the revolution that I was trying to promote - women's greater participation online in the face of both "ordinary" harassment (WTF??) and some pretty extraordinary nastiness specific to that time and year. Ultimately, I knew I wanted TBTB to continue, but with a woman blogger leading the charge.
SO ... who better to ask than the fantabulous blogger who was kind enough to submit the gentle, subtly-titled TBTB submission, "You Bet Your Ass We're Taking Back The Blog!" I am quite happy to announce that the awesome, counter-theocratic and panty-laden Blue Gal has agreed to host the Take Back the Blog 2008event, scheduled tentatively for April 28th, 2008. I am quite happy about this, and grateful to Blue Gal.
SO - here's where you come in. Just get out to the polls in East D- oh, wait, this is a NON-candidate diary! Sorry....
Please promote the heck out of this. Please forward this to your friends in the feminist Mafia. If you are IN the feminist Mafia, I come to ask a favor of you on the day of your daughter's doctorate degree.... Please promote this on any group blog in your community or ideological preference, with my gratitude. I have submitted a number of diaries on this general topic over the months since last year's TBTB event, but it is in the interest of all of us that this event get promotion. Even if it means that we have to tear ourselves away from candidate diaries, and now who knows what else, oh the agony, oh the humanity....
Thanks very much!