This journal is friends only, but I'm always game for making more friends. Pick which filters you want to be on with the poll, and then comment so I'll know you voted. That way I don't have to periodically check, because I = lazy bum.

Poll #1189806 What You Read
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

What filters do you want to be on?

What show(s) in the past decade or so would you consider cutting edge/defining feminist? As in, as a culture we have hyped it up to be feminist?

I'm looking for shows that have been obscenely popular and received critical acclaim, such as Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, Sex and the City, Ugly Betty.

Answer and pimp?

WGA and United Artists have made a deal!

Whether or not you suppor the strike, this is unacceptable behavior.

"I support the writers! They're 100% right! *crosses the picket line*

=_=;;

I do love the article's last little jab:

Apparently "unequivocally" and "absolutely" don't mean what they used to. Or perhaps "this show has an agreement, this show doesn't" is really, really, really confusing. Unlike less complicated issues such as foreign policy and the economy.

I almost wish I was a Republican, just so I could get the pleasure of actively NOT voting for him in the primary.

A deal might never be made.

I really need to stop letting these links pile up. @_@

Digital Media Law: WGA Strike: How to Restart the Talks, and Why -- a pretty balanced analysis that neither villainizes the AMPTP nor puts the WGA on a pedestal of virtue. A nice change of pace and a different perspective.


The AMPTP
Status of the Individual Corporations as of 12/18

Loads of interesting stuff

My favorite?

Why is the AMPTP negotiating with the WGA?

Competitors are not allowed to negotiate together, to even confer together. It's called collusion. When baseball owners merely created an "information bank" for offers being made to free agent players, they were fined $280 million. Two competitors cannot talk with one another if there's just a hint of agreement. Imagine ALL competitors in an industry getting together to set ALL wages and ALL labor conditions.

It doesn't happen. Anywhere. Not "anywhere in the U.S." Anywhere in the free world.

Except Hollywood.


Send a Letter to a Mogul via the Internet


The WGA

The Guilds are united

Writers and advertisers are talking

MoveOn.Org petition to bring back the Daily Show


Honoring Barbara Diamond and the Sacrifices of Strikes Past


The Reality of Reality and Animation

Weighing in on Animation and Reality


Old News
What the companies were up to as of 12/17

AMPTP Deja Vu

AMPTP Hissy Fits and Other Tactics

Fed Ex Worker on Strike

MTVN Freelancers Win One for the Little Guy! -- a great story! =D

This scares me

AMPTP Tactics Don't Fool Anybody

Jamie Leigh Jones was a 20-year-old woman working in Iraq for a subsidiary of Halliburton when she was drugged and brutally gang-raped by several co-workers.

The next day, Halliburton told her that if she left Iraq to get medical treatment, she could lose her job.1

Jamie's story gets even more horrific: For the last two years, she's been asking the US government to hold the perpetrators accountable. But the men who raped her may never be brought to justice because Halliburton and other contractors in Iraq aren't subject to US or Iraqi laws. They can't be tried for a crime in any court.2

This is one of the most disturbing stories we have come across in a while. We're calling on Congress to investigate Jamie's case, hold those involved accountable, and bring US contractors under the jurisdiction of US law so this can't happen again. If hundreds of thousands of us speak out against this outrageous story, we can force Congress to take action.

Can you sign the petition? The text is in the blue box at the right. Clicking below will add your name.

http://pol.moveon.org/contractors_accountable/o.pl?id=11800-6971756-2eJB6N&t=3

After you sign, please forward this email to friends, family and colleagues—we all need to speak out together.

When you get an email from us, it doesn't usually include a graphic description of a brutal attack. But when we heard this story, we knew we had to do something about it.

Here's how Jamie described what happened after the attack:

I awoke the next morning in the barracks to find my naked body battered and bruised. I was still groggy from whatever had been put in my drink. I was bleeding... After getting to the clinic and having a rape kit performed...I was locked in a container with no food, no way to call my parents, and was placed under armed guard by Halliburton.3

Jamie's attackers aren't the only ones exploiting a legal loophole to get away with their violent crimes. Another female employee of Halliburton says she was raped by her co-workers in Iraq.4 Employees of Blackwater, another private contracting firm in Iraq, were accused of killing innocent Iraqi civilians, and that incident turned into an international scandal. Worst of all, they may never be punished.5

Private contractors in Iraq are making massive amounts of money, operating above the law and are accountable to no one. This has to stop.

Congress needs to act now to bring these contractors under the rule of law. If they don't, nothing will prevent a case like Jamie's from happening again. No man or woman working in Iraq should have to fear that they can be attacked without consequences.

Please sign on to the petition: "Congress must investigate the rape of Jamie Leigh Jones and others, hold those involved accountable, and bring US contractors under the jurisdiction of US law." Clicking below adds your name:

http://pol.moveon.org/contractors_accountable/o.pl?id=11800-6971756-2eJB6N&t=4

Thanks for all you do,

–Nita, Wes, Karin, Marika, and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team
Friday, December 14th, 2007

Sources:

1. "Halliburton hit in rape lawsuit," New York Daily News, December 11, 2007
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3274&id=11800-6971756-2eJB6N&t=6

2. "Victim: Gang-Rape Cover-Up by U.S., Halliburton/KBR," ABC News, December 10, 2007
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Story?id=3977702

3. Jamie's Journal, The Jamie Leigh Foundation
http://www.jamiesfoundation.org/Jamie.htm

4. "Female ex-employees sue KBR, Halliburton—report," Reuters, June 29, 2007
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3275&id=11800-6971756-2eJB6N&t=7

5."Blackwater Probe Narrows Focus to Guards," Associated Press, December 8, 2007
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=3276&id=11800-6971756-2eJB6N&t=9

Which mostly means I've pruned the communities I'm a part of, but a few actual people have been cut because I never read your entries anymore, and you don't seem to read mine.

If it turns out you do and you would like to continue to do so, let me know. But if you don't, we'll just leave it as a friendly goodbye and continue our separate ways. =3

The Chairman of the FCC is pushing to allow big corporations to own multiple media outlets in the same city, despite public outcry.

Discussion of that and the writers' strike with three writers

EMAIL YOUR CONGRESSMEN. Tell him/her to support the bill that would stop the FCC chairman from accomplishing his agenda.

You only have until December 11.


EDIT: Joss Whedon fans, donate to pencils2mediamogels and be entered to win a Mutant Enemy tote bag.

Okay, so there's actually only one bit of non-WGA news. But it's pretty interesting.

Videos
The AMPTP explains their latest proposal

Cute internet animals are going on strike in solidarity

Negotiations

The WGA's suggested contract

A Modest Proposal: Reuse...for Advertisers!

The playbook of the AMPTP

Divisions in the AMPTP

The Strike

Misc. tidbits

Parisan writers support the strike...and are having problems of their own.

Daily Kos talks about how the WGA is winning the public relations war.

A Libertarian's experience picketing with the WGA.

Neil Gaiman talks about the strike. Little new info, but I know I have some Gaiman fans on the list, and thought you'd be interested.

Food for Thought

Patrick Goldstein of the LA Times suggests that writers eliminate the middleman -- aka the AMPTP -- completely and look for outside investors themselves.

Just what is entertainment worth?

On the surface, the impasse revolves around how to divvy up future Internet media revenues. But the real problem is that nobody knows the value of anything anymore.