Go forth and fill your libraries with media.
Seriously, thanks to everyone for being so amazing and patient. You are the reason I love Vox.
I was just told that the Amazon Conduit will be fixed by tomorrow. I will post here as soon as I get word that it's back up and running.
I know this has been frustrating and I am sorry there wasn't more I could do to make it less so. I really appreciate your patience though.
Cheers,
There is an amazing episode of "Batman: The Brave and the Bold" coming out this week, of which I've seen a preview. Neil Patrick Harris as the villainous "Music Meister" is simply brilliant. I had no idea he has such a fantastic singing voice. I think it is premiering on Cartoon Network tomorrow (Friday, 10/23, 7:30 p.m.) night.
I've been watching this because Ethan is obsessed with CartoonNetwork.com, and turned me on to this preview, which I viewed a couple of days ago with him.
Bad news. As many of you have probably noticed, the Amazon Conduit was not fixed in the last week's release. Unfortunately, there was an undetected bug that is preventing the conduit from working.
We are working on this bug fix and hope to have the Conduit back up and running this week.
I will keep you posted.
Thank you for being so patient.
Blog Action Day is every October 15th, when blogger are asked to post something about a single issue to show our strength and conviction as an online community. It's a great way to feel connected to the greater good, and the participation of so many bloggers to support the world's leading non-profit organizations is something you can do to help, right now. By blogging today, you're supporting some of the world's leading non-profits and sharing your voice for change.
This year's topic is climate change, and we'd love to read your thoughts on the topic. If you participate, leave us a link to your post in the comments, so we know to check out your post!
Go to www.blogactionday.org to learn more, get a badge for your blog showing your participation, and see some ideas for your post on climate change.
Can't wait to read your posts!
~ daisy
Truth: I was stunned to hear that President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize this year. I mean, has he actually done anything worthy of the Peace Prize yet? I think not. Which makes one wonder why he was awarded this most prestigious prize. I've heard pundits say it's because of the promise that he shows. Okay. I kinda get that, although I don't agree with it.
What I think is that we of the isolated United States of America have seriously underestimated how much the rest of the world absolutely despised President George W. Bush and his policies. And they are so ecstatically happy that his administration is no longer in power that it's possible the Nobel Peace Prize would have been awarded to any U.S. President who followed GW Bush. Yes, I believe the sentiments were that strong around the world.
Women have sexual power. Men do, too, but for some reason, women's sexual power is threatening to men. I'm speaking in generalizations, of course.
I've read hundreds of historical romances over the past 9 months, mostly taking place in England or Scotland. They usually play out thusly: Girl and boy meet, sparks fly, passion ensues, boy can't live without girl because of her newly discovered wanton ways (she was a virgin, of course, or a previously unfulfilled widow), boy desperately desires to possess girl, girl succumbs and marries boy, now she's his property and gestating his babies, the end.
What's up with that?
I totally understand that in the period settings of these books, when a woman married a man English law decreed that the woman and all of her worldly goods became the property of her husband. And I think this possession primarily had to do with the sexual power that men felt that women held over them. So men, who always held the political power, used whatever means necessary to make sure that women never held any real power. The society matrons in these books always have the power to decide who's allowed to enter the hallowed upper echelons, but this kind of power seems petty and meaningless to me. In some of these books, there are wives of political men who delicately and cleverly manipulate situations to benefit their spouse or political party, but they usually have to resort to flirting, sexual innuendo and outright affairs in order to get what they want.
And this pisses me off. I've heard a statistic that the romance genre is 40% of the consumer book market in the U.S. Here's one that seems more reasonable to me -- "Romance fiction was the largest share of the consumer market in 2008 at 13.5 percent", according to the Romance Writers of America. And something like 78% of the readers of romances are women.
Historically, men can't stand women having any kind of power. Women are physically weaker than men. Before the 20th century, women weren't permitted to become educated; if they pursued knowledge through books and formal education, they were derided and often outcast from society. Nevermind that there have been female British monarchs who often turned out to be far stronger than the male monarchs.
So a woman's power often is reduced to the only thing she does have control over, and that's her sexuality. And sexuality is definitely a powerful weapon, when wielded or used as a deterrent. I think most women still feel as if their primary power is their sexuality, which is why romance books appeal to women. They're looking for strong female characters, which abound in romance books; it's unfortunate that many of these female characters primarily use their sexuality to achieve their ends.
Which makes me think about what exactly is sexual power. I'm starting to believe that sexuality may be the greatest power of all. Men have created and used an abundance of killing machines, they've wielded intellectual and political power to make others bend to their will, but it's sexual power -- whether used by men or women -- that dominates all other powers. Maybe it's the drive to procreate, the perpetuation of the species, that propels us to brandish our individual sexual powers.
And now back to men wanting to control women's sexual powers. They feel threatened by this weapon of mass destruction and will do anything to tame those holding the power. The irony is that it's only a threatening weapon if one treats it that way. Take the Taliban. They will do anything to subjugate women, take away their sexual power. They (and other religious zealots of all persuasions) are terrified of women's sexual power. So they resort to desperate and, frankly, immoral measures to keep women down. But they're validating women's sexual power by their actions.
Hmmmm.
OK. I'm definitely going to see "Bright Star", a film by Jane Campion about John Keats. Can you believe that he died at age 25? I have read bits and pieces of his poetry, but am now committed to reading "Endymion".
The Amazon Conduit will be working again on October 15, 2009. Thank you to everyone for your patience.
Have a great weekend,
daisy, Team Vox
In my last Team Vox post, I let you know that we're aware that the Amazon conduit is broken and that we're working to fix it. Many of you want to know when it's going to be fixed and I'm so sorry I haven't gotten back to you about that sooner.
Unfortunately, I don't have an exact date to give you, but rest assured, the Amazon conduit will be fixed in the coming weeks.
In the meantime, I'm about to finish my latest book and I could use a few suggestions as to what to read next, so... if you don't mind, let me know in the comments what's on your nightstand and/or what book you think I absolutely must read next.
Thanks! :)
