On the Disempowering Demise of Penny Dreadful

For nearly three seasons, Showtime’s lush, mesmerizing, and beautifully acted Penny Dreadful focused on a choice between submission and self-determination. The show’s female protagonists, Vanessa (Eva Green) and Lily (Billie Piper), were singular portraits of women struggling to take control of their destinies, standing up to their abusers and demanding to be treated as equals. But while the audience rooted for their heroines, finding empowerment in their struggle, the show’s finale demolished its female protagonists, leaving them on their knees at their abusers’ feet and invalidating all that came before.

Hymn for the Weekend, or Bowie Does It Right

So I finally watched that Coldplay/Beyonce video that apparently everyone but me is talking about, Hymn for the Weekend. I won't bother linking to it. Apparently, some people are complaining that Beyonce is appropriating Indian culture, and others say a Black woman can't engage in cultural appropriation.

So fine, here's my two cents (Canadian, so their value is negligible). Beyonce might be Black, but she is still a representative and beneficiary of America's cultural colonialism - so of course she can and does engage in cultural appropriation in this video. But that's not what people should be worried about.

Rasul Guliyev Accuses Azerbaijan Government of Pilfering Billions

Former Speaker of the National Assembly of Azerbaijan Rasul Guliyev has written an interesting analysis (translated by yours truly) of the current state of Azerbaijan in the context of the Arab Spring.

I don't always agree with Rasul - for example, I think any discussion of per capita budget numbers is pointless without taking into account how the budget is actually distributed: even the most generous per capita numbers lose their significance when the majority of funds ends up in the pockets of a small elite. But despite our disagreements, Rasul's works are always thought-provoking, and very educational. Every time I work with him, I feel like I should be getting a college credit just from all the research I have to do!

You can read the article here.

Torchwood: Miracle Day - All About Ianto?

One of the first things a writer (or a keen reader) realizes is that everything is autobiographical. Some writers wear this fact proudly; others like to hide it under layers and layers of distancing tricks; but the fact remains: a careful reader can always pick up the fictional threads that lead back to the writer's reality.

Digging through my favorite writers' heads is one of my favorite pastimes. As such, Russel T Davies has a wonderfully big one to roam around in. Brash, outspoken, confrontational, Davies wears his convictions on his sleeve, unapologetic about his radicalism. People (like myself) whose politics are in line with his might see him as an activist, a champion who screams the things too many people are afraid to whisper. Others wish he'd just shut the hell up.

An interview with Bi Women

Bi Women is a quarterly journal published by the Boston Bisexual Women's Network. A few months back, Editor Robyn Ochs interviewed me for the Bi Women Around the World column.

You can read my interview - and, in fact, the entire issue - here.

Check out my short story Changes at SexLife Canada

SexLifeCanada.ca, the home of The National Sexlife Journal, recently started a new fiction section. My hardcore short story Changes is one of the first two pieces of fiction ever featured on the site! You can read it in the Hot Words section.

Changes was first published in Men Magazine in March 2006, along with a very explicit full-page illustration. Can we have a vote on whether or not I should scan it in? ;P

Who you callin' a zombie? AMC's The Walking Dead Join the Tea Party

Zombies are not exactly the darlings of serialized television. While the recent years have seen a great deal of excellent (and not so excellent) zombie movies, weekly TV has mostly steered clear of the subject. It’s easy to see why: unsexy, dull and slow, devoid of motivation and unable to deliver snappy one-liners, zombies might just be the most two-dimensional villain a show can have.

So why, then, do I find AMC’s new weekly drama The Walking Dead - a wall-to-wall zombiefest the likes of which serial television has never seen - so damn irresistible?

Read an excerpt from Against the Tide by Rasul Bayram

Rasul Bayram's book Against the Tide, translated by yours truly, has been doing respectable business on Amazon. You can now read a four-page excerpt on Rasul's official site.

US Religious Knowledge Survey Proves What Atheists Have Known All Along

I see it all the time: to illustrate why she can't believe in her parent's religion, an atheist or agnostic kid quotes the ignorance, cruelty, or plain old contradiction contained in the parent's holy book - only to have the parent argue that the book doesn't really say that. The proof, of course, is easy to come by: the kid simply pulls the holy book off the parent's shelf, opens it to the right chapter, and points to the quote.

It's been a long-running joke among the nonbelievers that atheists know the holy books better than the faithful. For many people born into religion, a study of their family's religious text becomes the first step towards atheism. And it's no wonder: it must take some seriously dedicated willful ignorance not to notice the fact that the god of the book behaves more like the book's own devil, killing and torturing saints and sinners alike - or, at best, a petty warlord with a tiny penis, unsure of his power and terrified of the vagina.

A new study by the Pew Research Center gives credence to what the unbelievers have known for a while. A survey of nearly 3500 people in the US – the only developed country in the world in which religion still plays a significant social and political role – shows that atheists and agnostics know more about religion than the faithful, even – or should I say especially – when it comes to the faithful’s own doctrine. To the nonbelievers, this is a case of stating the obvious. We have long known that ignorance, willful or otherwise, is a necessary ingredient of religious faith.

When, at 17, I was transplanted from the atheist Soviet Union to the alien (and heavily religious) culture of the United States, I, like many other people, went looking for a Meaning. I read all three books of the Abrahamic religion, studied Buddhism and Hinduism, and even invited a Jew for Jesus home for dinner, to mostly hilarious results. To my shock, every page I read seemed to strengthen my familial atheism. Hinduism seemed like a quaint throwback to the simpler times (which might or might not have existed); Buddhism was useful but completely secular; and the Abrahamics – America’s scam of choice – seemed as idiotic and heavy-handed in their lies and cruelties as L. Ron Hubbard’s Scientology. Far from being touched by the mystery of organized religion, the only mystery I saw was that of seemingly reasonable people believing such obvious bullshit.

Unexamined atheism might be as dangerous as any unexamined ideology – my birth country’s history certainly makes a strong case against it. I’m happy that I had the opportunity to study religious texts and history. It’s made me a better, stronger atheist. Today, I consciously know what I might, unconsciously, have felt all along: that life is too complex for a Meaning. Instead, it’s full of meanings, coming together and breaking apart in a beautiful and ever-changing dance of exuberant complexity that can’t be quelled by simplistic human faith.

Here's to Perfection

Perfection comes in many forms. Shouldn't something perfectly awful be celebrated as much as something perfectly beautiful? Absence of talent can be just as monumental as its presence! So here's to the Mona Lisa of What the Fuck:



Once the initial spasms of laughter subsided, it occurred to me how closely the song echoes patriotic praise of Israel. In the mythologies of both Israel and Saudi Arabia, "no office were in desert no park were in desert no roads were in desert no cars were in desert" until the respective country turned things around. It's always interesting to see the similarities in the ideologies of sworn enemies.

Favorite line, because it's both poignant and hilarious: "students were zero now they are the million, hospitals were zero now they are the hundred"

Against the Tide by Rasul Bayram, translated by Polina Skibinskaya

Xlibris Book Publishing Company has published Against the Tide by Rasul Bayram, translated from Russian by yours truly. The book follows two dynasties - a Lebanese Muslim family and a family of European Jews - through the creation of Israel after World War II and the escalating tensions in the Middle East. The story of two families, whose paths cross through several generations, is a crash course in proxy wars, identity politics, religious nationalism, and the transnational human toll of the Middle East conflict.
When it comes to politics, Rasul and I don't always see eye to eye. But while I don't share his respect for Reagan , I can't help but relate to the relationship at the heart of the book. The story of the two families trapped on the opposite sides of the conflict asks the simple, but necessary question: when superpowers collide, who pays the price?

Happy Draw Muhammad Day!

Today, May 20th, is the first annual International Draw Muhammad Day. Here's to freedom from fear!

I must not draw Mohammed by Plantu, Le Monde

For those of you who, like me, can't even draw a stick figure, here is a wonderful archive of Muhammad images by people who can:

Mohammed Image Archive

The Limitless Spirituality of Atheism

I believe that what we call spirituality is a natural extension of recognizing (consciously or subconsciously) that we are all part of a larger whole. The laws of physics tell us that everything is interconnected; everything impacts everything else. Whether we realize it or not, we feel a physical connection with the earth, the air, the tree under our window and the stars a billion light years away - we feel it because it is PHYSICALLY there. When we are conscious of this feeling, it becomes the basis for our own atheist spirituality which informs our ethics, completely divorced from the imposed, politically motivated fairy tales of religion that seek to limit (and often contradict) the limitless world around us.

People are afraid to leave their religion for various reasons: some are afraid of being ostracized by their families and communities; some are terrified of losing the rigid rules that guide their lives and having to figure things out for themselves; and some simply can't imagine living a life devoid of spirituality. There's little we can do about people's fear of personal responsibility. But we can do something about the fear of ostracism by offering religious people a welcoming, loving community on the other side of the divide. And most importantly, we can do something about the erroneous belief that without religion, a person's life is empty, lonely and full of fear. It is exactly the opposite - and it is up to us to say that. When we discuss atheism with religious people, I think it is important that we talk about this atheist spirituality based on provable, observable laws of physics, and impress upon them the awe and joy we feel - not towards an impossible and often malicious entity, but towards EVERYTHING, without limits, without conditions, and without demands.

We could use a word of our own, an atheist version of "spirituality" - or we can just feel the sense of awe and connection implied by the word without the need to label it. However, when we are talking to religious people, I do think we need to use terminology that is familiar to them. When we're dealing with people's fears that an absence of religion equals an empty, lonely, miserable life, the word "spirituality," I think, goes right to the core of their fears.

Religion claims that it is the source of that awe and connection - and I think the key to wrestling control away from religion is exactly this: showing, by concrete example, that these feelings not only don't originate in religion, but can be stronger without it when divorced from the fear and shame of religion.

Emma Rosenthal Tells It Like It Is

Over the years, I've had many conversations with Jews and Gentiles, Zionists and anti-Semites, family members and strangers, trying to explain the -Zionist Jew phenomenon . The suggestion of our mere existence is often met with more disbelief than that of the Sasquatch.

But we do, indeed, exist. (The jury is still out on the Sasquatch - he might want to consider starting a blog.) Our existence is inconvenient, both to the anti-Semites who want to pretend all Jews think and act alike, and to the Zionists who want to do the same. What's more, our ranks seem to be growing. The more the Israeli government and Zionist organizations all over the world push to stifle criticism of their deplorable ideology and murderous actions, the more people push back.

Writer, teacher and human rights activist Emma Rosenthal formulates the reasons she is not a Zionist better than I ever could. She says:

I am not a Zionist because I believe in universal human rights and do not believe that the establishment of one more elite leadership based on nationalism, will bring about a more just world. I believe with all my being that an injustice to one is an injustice to all, that when one is oppressed, with each drop of blood that is shed, with each aspiration that is quashed, each of us is diminished in our capacities, each of us becomes more unsafe.

Read the rest of her excellent article Open Letter: Re: jewbitch ur a mental case? at Emma's Room.

Royal Shakespeare Company's HAMLET

I've been CRAVING the Royal Shakespeare Company's Hamlet... We've watched it 3 times now, and I can't wait to see it again. I've seen tons of Hamlet productions which I loved - but with this one, I actually RELATE, truly and fully. This Hamlet is not mopy, a gentle soul done wrong - he's a sarcastic, vicious, spoiled brat fully aware of his superiority. His story is not the story of weakness as much as it's a story of strength thwarted. And the bastard is FUNNY!

So if this, of all the countless stage and screen productions I've seen, is the one I relate to the most, what does it say about me?

I can't recommend this version highly enough. If you've never quite bought the hype around the play (like Kiran, who always found it pompous and boring, and is now completely and utterly in love with it), this production will convince you. And if you've loved Hamlet all along (like my mom, a theater connoisseur who was highly skeptical before seeing this version, only to call me at 4am after watching it, choking on her tears), it will convince you that there's always something new to be found, even in a play as over-performed as this.

Gay, Lesbian and Transgender Refugees in Canada

Canada is one of the few countries that recognize the danger gay, lesbian and transgender people of the world face on a daily basis. Long before the Canadian government legalized gay marriage, it began allowing Canadian citizens to sponsor their foreign same-sex partners for immigration the same way married and unmarried straight Canadians can sponsor their spouses living in other countries.

More importantly, the Canadian refugee claims system has long offered protection to gay, lesbian and transgender people fleeing persecution and violence in their native countries. Just like refugees escaping war and political violence, LGBT people from countries who practice institutionalized homophobia can come to Canada as refugees and enjoy the legal protection and financial help of the Canadian government.

Read more at Associated Content.

BLINK, and You'll Miss It: An Interesting Thought About the Ultimate Doctor Who Episode

To celebrate (read: mourn) the 10th Doctor's departure, we've been rewatching all Doctor Who episodes starring David Tennant. As always, four stories stand out as perfect examples of everything that's great about this show: Blink, Midnight, Silence In the Library / Forest of the Dead, and Human Nature / The Family of Blood.

The fandom behind the show is so huge, lasting and intelligent that it's near impossible to say anything that hasn't been said before. But one thing about Blink seems to have slipped under everyone's radar: the episode is subtly, delightfully self-referential.

Self-referential art calls attention to its artifice: in a self-referential play, a character might talk directly to the audience, shedding the play's realism and acknowledging the audience's presence; a self-referential book might discuss the reader's reaction to its own story; and a self-referential movie might center around the behind-the-scenes world of moviemaking.

Blink breaks the imaginary "fourth wall" that divides the audience from the action, making the audience part of the events. But it does this in such a subtle way that it's taken me two viewings and several days of contemplation to even notice it: this is easily the sneakiest example of self-referentiality I've ever seen.

So how does Blink make the viewers part of the action? How does the fact that we are watching the episode influence the way the action unfolds? Let me know what you think!

Eight Predators Die During a Northern Performance Tour

This morning, a friend from PETA contacted me and asked me to research the death of seven tigers and a lioness from a Russian circus. Exhausted after a long trip yesterday, I thought I'd do some quick research and go back to sleep. What I found out will keep me from sleeping for quite some time.

Here's a quick translation of the article that appears at Vesti.ru:

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In Yakutsk, posters and banners advertising a New Year show with tigers are being pulled down. The performance tour of Krasnodar tent circus “The Dream,” which has been selling out, has been cancelled. On the way to Yarkutsk, seven tigers and one lioness have died. The legal authorities are trying to find out why this happened and who is responsible. One version says that the circus animals might have died of hypothermia. Another says that they were simply poisoned.

… “We were supposed to meet them here,” says director of Saharcircus Sergey Rastorguyev. “They selected the car on their own and came over, and when they got here, they realized something had happened on the way. Right now, we can’t give you exact information.”

The animals had spent several weeks traveling successfully around the country. They performed to sold out crowds in the Middle Eastern city of Habarovsk and the town of Nerungy in Yarkutsk. The tour organizers, employees of the Krasnodar tent circus “The Dream” decided to go to the northern-most circus by cars. But the 800-kilometer trip in a heated Kamaz refrigerator truck were lethal to the predators.

Investigators and criminal authorities are trying to determine the exact cause of death. Nikolay Sizyh, deputy director of the press department of the police department of the Saha Republic (Yakutia) says the following:

“Right now, we’re conducting a special investigation, after which the cause of death of the tigers will be known. Seven tigers and one lioness were being transported. The preliminary version points to food poisoning.”

One of the versions under consideration is poisoning by exhaust fumes. The animals might have run out of air in the crowded container. The owners of the predators have refused to comment. This is understandable: they are, after all, being accused of blatant disregard of rules of animal transportation.

This would have been the first show of this type in Yakutsk with the participation of seven tigers and one lioness. The ticket sales were brisk. Now, the entire New Year’s entertainment program is quickly being changed. But a worthy substitute to the dead animals will not be found.

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Another article published by Maiak Radio adds that two of the tigers were protected Siberian tigers entered into the Red Book - Russia's registry of protected animals. It is against the law to use protected animals in circuses.

RIA News mentions the case in its Ecology section and links to a long, heartbreaking list of other cases of animals who've died in Russia during transportation. The article ends with these words:

“The exotic animals were transported in an unheated, unventilated container, and the personnel that was supposed to take care of the animals during transportation spent the whole trip getting drunk.”

Zombie Nazis or Nazi Zombies?

Zombie Nazis are Nazis who have, through an accident of fate, become zombies. Their basic nature is their Nazism. Their zombie condition is secondary to their Nazi worldview and attitude: i.e. what kind of Nazis are they? - they're zombie Nazis.

Nazi Zombies, on the other hand, are just plain implausible.

"I don't want to sound like a queer or nothing..."

Kiran has written a Facebook piece about the pitfalls of identification with sexual labels. Since she refuses to have a blog of her own, I'll just have to post it here. :)

"I'm Not a Queer Or Nothing, But..."

Have you ever said, "I'm not gay, but..." or "I'm not bisexual, but..." as a disclaimer before expressing how much you are attracted to someone of the same gender as you?

If you are progressive, liberal, and you stand for LGBT rights, have you ever wondered why you need to give a disclaimer like that before expressing feelings that might qualify you as being bisexual?

I have.

First of all, as a bisexual woman (I prefer the term queer) who has been in relationships with both men and women, and who is in a happy, long-term relationship with a woman, I find it hurtful when some of my friends still qualify their own sexual desires for people of the same gender by first separating themselves from people like me. There's nothing wrong with being heterosexual, but there is something very wrong with being heterosexist, which is the idea that heterosexuality is the default, natural, normal thing to be, and that it's a black or white area with no variations.

If you are telling someone how you support gay rights, you don't need to keep qualifying that with "I'm not gay or nothing, but...". Similarly, if you are telling people that you are bi-curious, or attracted to someone of the same gender, then those of us who have put our lives on the line to be honest about sexuality, would appreciate it if you could stop talking about this matter like it's a hot potato that you are willing to support in passing, but not willing to own, even when you yourself have feelings that would qualify you as bisexual.

Some might say that labels don't matter. While I agree with that, I have to wonder why the label "straight" matters, while "bisexual" or "homosexual" or "queer" don't. If none of them matter, why label yourself anything at all? Saying "I'm straight, but I'd totally do that guy/girl" is tantamount to saying "I'm not a transvestite - I just love wearing women's clothes." The first part of the sentence is only there as long as the speaker is assuming that something is wrong with the second part. No matter how progressive the speaker might be, the disclaimer unmasks the fact that heterosexuality is still the norm in the speaker's mind.

Labels define us only insofar as they stand for the feelings we experience. When people say "I'm not bi, but...", they are deciding that one set of their feelings (feelings of attraction to a person of the same gender) are less valid than others. The "gay" feelings they might be feeling are less important, less defining than the "straight" ones. What does that say about their attitude, invisible as it might be to them, towards those of us who own up to our "gay" feelings and act on them daily? This separation of feelings into more important and less important colors the progressivism of the speaker: instead of expressing true unity with the people he or she is claiming to support, the speaker is now simply expressing condescending concern towards lesser beings for whom he/she feels pity, but one of whom he/she can not imagine actually being.

Society has given "straight" a higher status than every variation of sexuality, and calling yourself "straight" gives you the social status of one who is privileged. So, by denying your own bisexual feelings, and by constantly stating that you are *not* bisexual (or gay, or trans), even though you have feelings that "those" people have, you may be perpetuating the same heterosexism that you as a progressive, liberal person claim to be against. Heterosexism, like racism and classism, is the idea that one group of people ought to be privileged above everyone else. And many people, while they may have good intentions, are afraid of letting go of that privileged status in society. But then, how progressive are we if we're not willing to live up to the principles we claim to uphold?

We need to start being honest with ourselves. And we need to think about the words we use to communicate, because that's how people know each other, especially online. When you claim that you are yourself, of course, obviously, "straight" but that you have these little feelings that come up towards a certain person you know, or someone famous, who is the same gender as you, then what you are saying is that the label "straight" is more important to you than your feelings. And that your heterosexual feelings are what define you and are what are *real* and *important* and that your bisexual/homosexual side can be dismissed as something fun, but meaningless. That does not help LGBT rights, and that's not what I would expect of someone who otherwise supports LGBT rights.

This is not to say that all progressives have a duty to identify themselves as bisexual. We can all recognize that sexuality is much more fluid than the narrow labels used to describe it. Identifying as straight in the context of admitting attraction to a member of the same gender tells us much more about the speaker's prejudices against certain sexualities than it does about the speaker's sexuality itself. The moment you have sex with, desire for, or fantasies about a person of the same gender as you, you are no longer fitting into the heterosexual definition, and by forcing that definition upon your multi-faceted and fluid sexuality and denying your sexuality and the sexual diversity of many others like you, you are actually helping the status quo, the privileged heterosexism that is the domain of religious fundamentalism.

So, the next time you want to express your bisexual tendencies while simultaneously denying that part of yourself, please try and think about who you are supporting and who you are dismissing.