{look upon my works, ye mighty}

Link: Delta Makes Woman With Muscular Dystrophy Crawl Off Plane

"On July 20th, Julianna's (delayed) Delta flight landed in Atlanta at 7:30pm, with a connecting flight scheduled for 8:05pm. Julianna, who has muscular dystrophy, missed the connecting flight because nobody came with a wheelchair until 8:05—the same time the connecting flight took off. To make matters worse, the plane crew told Julianna she might make the flight anyway if she stopped waiting for help and got off the plane right now, so she crawled down the stairs on her own. When the wheelchair came she was "wheeled into a back room and advised" that her plane had taken off. But that was just the first half of her ordeal, and the next eight hours only got worse."

Delta can't be allowed to just brush her off with a meal voucher that she wasn't even able to use.

If you have a Yahoo account, Buzz it up. If enough people Buzz it, it might make front page news and put more pressure on Delta to compensate her adequately and change their policies so nothing like that happens again. If you have a Digg account, Digg it. The more negative publicity, the better the chances of Delta being shamed into acting.

And finally, spare a couple of seconds to go complain directly to Delta here. I know it looks intimidating because they're asking for all that RL info, but all they really need is a name and an e-mail address, if you checked the asterisk'd fields. In the comment box, link to the news article in question so that they'll know what you're talking about, then tell them exactly what you think of their behavior.

If anyone's got any further ideas on how to make the story more visible, drop me a comment. A public apology is the least of what they owe her, but it's something that can be achieved through the pressure of public opinion if enough of us actually put our outrage to good use and do something about this.

Apathy is not cool. Political apathy is even less cool. Yes, being indifferent and saying you don't give a damn might be easier, but this is your world. Either be part of the process that decides how it's run or -- there is no 'or'. Because you live here, you are subject to its laws, and you need to be part of the process that decides how you will live your life.

The other option is just letting yourself be herded and exploited, and as a free human being, that is not what you are meant for.

This journal is going to have a lot of public, political entries that urge you to sign petitions or fill out pre-written e-mail forms and send them off. I know it already does, but instead of just telling you what's going on, I'm now going to start telling you what you can do about it. To the people that don't live in the US, I'm sorry your flists are going to be clogged up with US politics, but let's face it, the US has an unprecedented level of impact on the rest of the world -- if the US is rotting, you can bet that other countries are being infected too.

Today's cause is Bush's Contempt of Congress, and how he urges his staff to defy Congress as well.

Harriet Miers, the former White House counsel, outright skipped a House Judiciary Committee hearing because they'd ordered her to testify about her role in the months-old U.S. Attorney mess. Likewise, Josh Bolton who is the current Chief of Staff, disobeyed a subpoena when he refused to give up White House documents that Congress had demanded by law. Bush, in the meantime, is the one who ordered them to do so and is trying to claim "executive privilege" so that the public won't have to know what he's doing in the White House.

This is wrong.

We have a right to know what he's doing. We have a right to know what his staff are doing.

And perhaps most importantly, we need to know that President Bush can be held accountable for his actions. The American people should be the jury, but apart from that, Congress needs to be respected. Bush cannot be allowed to run America any old way he feels like that; we have a system of checks and balances for a reason, and that reason is that America doesn't need a President with ultimate power -- or "executive power" -- over the whole country.

Sign the petition to have Congress fight executive privilege. Miers and Bolton have to be held in contempt. If this was a court, any judge would hold them in contempt for withholding evidence and refusing to show up. There is no reason for them to get special treatment just because Bush is scared that the truth will come out.

Sign the petition. Take a stand. Care. Do something!

Edit: YES! Citations! There IS justice in this world!

No charges pressed!

I have to admit, I really love the idea of a guy defending his ex-girlfriend's privacy by throwing a can of baked beans at a reporter.

Of course, I'm also one of those people who think that celebrities and their lives aren't interesting in the least and the paparazzi should just back off already, but still, Hugh Grant managed to both amuse me and make me feel vaguely proud of him for standing up for his ex.

...Please note, throwing a baked bean can at a reporter for trying to spy on your ex-girlfriend is different to spitting on one for trying to take a photograph of you. I'm still disgusted with Avril Lavgine for the latter, but I have to admit, Hugh Grant's coming off as pretty chivalrous in my eyes right now.

I'm always weirdly pleased when people stand up for each other. If nothing else, lj strikethrough '07 was awesome because of how quickly the el-jay users banded together to coordinate things like keeping track of deleted journals/comms, spreading the word, starting up protest memes, switching userpics, etc. Newsies has a special place in my heart because it taps into the 'people really can do good together!' idea that I not-so-secretly love, especially because I think it's so unrealistic.

Oh, and a note on userpics -- I didn't change mine for the strikethrough protests, and I rarely do change mine to jump on bandwagons, but I do think that userpics are an effective way of getting a message across. Meaning that if people want to make/use icons about strikethrough '07, I think they should go right ahead.

On el-jay, they're the equivalent of someone's t-shirt to me. If I see a political icon, I react to it the same way I would if they were wearing a political t-shirt, either with a mental sigh or by making a casual comment like 'nice t-shirt' or 'icon love!', depending on the situaton.

If I had more of an interest in how societies work (or, alternatively, more time!), I'd probably spin off onto a tangent about how my flist is like a microsm of el-jay. There are the people who are still wary of Six Apart, the people who are backlashing into being anti-fandom, the people who think they're safe now and it's over, and the people who are completely indifferent to it.

I probably fall in the category of 'still wary', just because as long as I have a paid account, livejournal remains a product to me. If I buy a book, I expect it to still have all its pages, not have some ripped out for having inappropriate material. If I'm given a new book by a friend, fresh from the bookshop, and it's missing pages, then I'd complain to the bookshop or the company that printed the book (obviously not the friend's fault). If I'm given a second-hand book by someone, then fine, it's a freebie and I know it's going to be used already so no complaining about its quality.

Please note, I'm not saying that free users don't have the right to complain about changes they dislike to livejournal, but my point is that if Six Apart wants to run livejournal like a business, then they need to listen to their customers.

In this case, they're doing that a little late, but they are listening, so I'm pleased with them for that but still definitely wary. Especially because of the rumors that they're thinking about becoming an IPO.

...And wow, this entry rambled. In conclusion, have some bullet points!

1. Hugh Grant is awesome for defending his ex-girlfriend.
   
2. People are awesome when they look out for each other.
   
3. Userpics do matter.
   
4. My flist is very diverse.
   
5. Six Apart needs a better PR department, if nothing else.
   
6. Passion is ♥.
   
7. Apathy doesn't just kill. Apathy kills excruciatingly slowly.

China takes 'Net addiction very seriously.

The part that killed me was:

Addiction to the Internet is blamed for most juvenile crime in China, a number of suicides, and deaths from exhaustion by players unable to tear themselves away from marathon game sessions.

In 2005, a Shanghai court handed a life sentence to an online game player who stabbed a competitor to death for stealing his cyber-sword -- a virtual prize earned during game-play.

SUICIDES. DEATH FROM EXHAUSTION. Holy fuck, guys. I mean, I've stayed up for 40+ hours from insomnia but that's not the same as not being able to tear myself off the Net. I stay on the Net because I'm awake, not stay awake to be on the Net.

And apart from which, boot camp? BOOT CAMP? Some of my closest friends are people who I know because of the Net. How does that equal sociopathy due to not enough interaction with other humans? Gah. Who gets sent to boot fucking camp to cure Net addiction?

Not to mention that I'm exhausted enough to picture a camp full of shoes, pumpin' it to the max. High heels working that spine, sneakers flapping their tongues, laces really testing how much weight they can take, etc. It's a rather amusing mental image, though it does absolutely nothing to alleviate the absolute horror of being sent off to BOOT CAMP for Net addiction.

Really. BOOT CAMP. And in case you haven't got the point already, BOOT CAMP. Boot freakin' camp, man.

Edot: Okay, so this has nothing to do with Internet addiction at all, but for all the short, gorgeous girls on my flist who hate their height, here's an interesting little snippet about heights and celebs.

Christina Aguilera (5'2")
Eva Longoria (5'2")
Rachel Bilson (5'1")
Hillary Duff (5'2")
Britney Spears (5'4")
Kate Bush (5')
Jessica Simpson (5′4")
Jada Pinkett Smith (5′)

I'm the same height as Britney Spears and have better hair. Cool.