The iTunes franchise has quietly launched a totally free new section in their store. Nestled between Podcasts and iPod Games.

It’s called iTunes U and it contains (free) video and (free) audio courtesy of major universities, PBS and cultural institutions (like MoMA).

Meet iTunes U.

It might be the robber baron business model, but for now I’m giving them three gold stars.

Have you tried it? Is iTunes U the new wikipedia for time suckage?

Choice listserves are abuzz with the news that Stephen Harper and company recently decided to drop the notoriously anti-choice Bill C484 or the “Unborn Victims of Crime” act which threatened to give fetuses personhood status, as a backdoor way towards repealing abortion rights.

Instead they will draft a new bill that they say focuses more on punishing the person actually committing the crime against a pregnant woman (whoa so wait, did they just admit Mr. Epp tried to punish women more with his bogus bill? Nah, I’m too hopeful.)

It’s only too obvious that this is conveniently coming at a time when an election is looming this Fall, and we know only too well that the Conservative government can’t hide from it’s long anti-choice roots. They still won’t say anything about their support for abortion rights or do much anything to protect them.

I have to say that it was quite a good reminder this year that we all need to pay more attention to the scary anti-choicers out there and the sneaky ways they try to take away choice for what’s best for our own bodies, but we musn’t rest for too long.

There are a multitude of attempts going on every day that threaten us.

(Someday soon, Apple will teach us how to construct whole books out of one long amalgamated word.)

Sure, the word “etiquette” does bring to mind a world of doilies and curtsies. But that frilly frouffy word and what it represents can be the soft oreo centre between us crusty cookies.

We’re all squished up against each other on this tiny little interweb. And everybody’s got peeves (maybe the word “interweb” is one of them). What follows are some of mine. Or rather, not just a list of my peeves, but my peeves metamorphosed into a few of my personal rules for navigating this big bad abstracted world.

1. Remember the human
This phrasing is taken from elsewhere (though I forget where). And if I were going to rely on only one rule, this would be it.

The internet gives people anonymity, and people behave differently when they’re anonymous. You can’t even get anyone to come out to this lecture anymore, because we all think we know it off by heart.

And yet.

(more inside…)

I have the pleasure and privilege of being part of this amazing project, and I encourage you all to come out and have your senses disrupted at the launch party, tomorrow night!

Tomee Sojourner’s Embracing Intersectional Diversity Project explores living expressions of intersecting identities through the visual ‘essence’ of marginalized workers, activists, students, and community members. The EID Project aims to open spaces for critical intervention/disruption and dialogue around what we ‘see’ and understand about intersectional identities, and the underlying assumptions that surface in our multicultural framework where difference is acknowledged, and mainstream representations of diversity still compartmentalize people into immutable ethno-cultural identities.

Join Tomee Sojourner and the Embracing Intersectional Diversity Project Crew as they launch Phase I- 2009 Calendar and Posters.

Date: Thursday, 28 August 2008
Time: 7:30 p.m. until the last dancer out!
Venue: Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, 12 Alexander St, Toronto

(more inside…)

Ads plastered in subway stations and a provocative television preview (above) have alerted me to the fact that a new version of Beverly Hills 90210 is about to air. While the original show, which ran for 10 years in the 1990s, had a massive impact on television and teen culture—see, for example, the slew of academic discussion analyzing the show—I’m guessing 90210’s revival has a lot more to do with the success of recent teen drama hits The O.C. and Gossip Girl.

Which means, as the trailer for the new show suggests, that the new version of 90210 will have to be way more sexy than the original to keep up with our current lust for consumerist, celebrity-crazed, sex-saturated culture.

Shayla Thiel-Stern has an interesting article up at FlowTV, a site that takes a critical look at television. She argues that comparing the bodies of the women in the first 90210 to the bodies of the woman in the show’s current incarnation reveals a great deal about shifting cultural ideas about adolescent female bodies.

As she writes,

“…the women from both shows demonstrate how in a very short but increasingly mediated point in history, women’s and girls’ bodies are shaped and inscribed by the culture surrounding them. Through pilates, cosmetic surgery, low-carb diets, hair straightening, skin lightening, Botox, and so many other means, women have mirrored media representations of “perfect” women and shaped their bodies to fit the representation. While Photoshop almost certainly plays a role in the perfection process of promotional photos, however, it does not stop women and girls in reality from attempting to alter their bodies and faces to conform to this fantasy portrayal. The old and new versions of 90210 exemplify this idea perfectly.”

Here’s the rest of the article.

Last Saturday night was the soaringly splendid anniversary splash of the Toronto Women’s Bookstore which is celebrating its 35th year.

A cornerstone in many feminists’ literary ventures, TWB has broken many barriers and set an international example of what being an inclusive feminist is all about (and it doesn’t only have to do with gender y’all).

A fantastic night was had by all with praise and hope for another 35 years of this necessary store remaining open.

Do you have any memories of TWB you’d like to share?

My sister Jennifer and I with the super-incredible Sto:lo/Métis writer Lee Maracle who was on hand to perform her magical works. She was a huge influence on me to identify as an Indigenous feminist.

Our very own fantastic Anna Leventhal has just released a brand new anthology with Invisible Publishing, titled The Art of Trespassing, and we here at Shameless recommend everyone use this handy link to get themselves a copy. We’re certainly not alone in our endorsement:

“An anthology of new writers that sparkles with imagination, energy, and flashes of poetry. And perhaps most importantly, it’s an awfully fun read.”
-Jonathan Goldstein, Author of Lenny Bruce is Dead

Here’s some more info about our beloved Anna and her brand new book:

The Art of Trespassing explores the systems and structures that frame our everyday lives. Contributors imagine networks, neighbourhoods and relationships, exposing them as both confining and liberating.

Anna Leventhal’s fiction has appeared in Geist and will be published in the forthcoming anthology Journey Prize Stories 20 from McClelland & Stewart. She lives in Montréal.

So, I’m really usually not the type to read young adult romance novels. Don’t get me wrong, if that’s your thing then that’s great, but it’s not generally mine. Also, at 23 I’m slightly stretching the definition of “young adult”. But we all need holiday reading and last weekend when I was readying myself to lie on a beach for a couple of days I picked up Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the series (which hit #1 on the NY Times Bestseller list and is soon to be made into a movie), it’s about a 17 year-old girl who moves to a small town and falls in love with a vampire. Right from the beginning, it began ringing alarm bells in my feminist consciousness.

At first, I thought I was being over-sensitive. It’s really about a woman who’s submissive, and that’s not necessarily disempowering. But my list of complaints with it are stacking up, so it’s time for a rant.

Almost the first thing Edward the vampire boy does is save our protagonist Bella’s life, which would be all well and good except that he then saves her from distress every few pages throughout the first book. For reasons that have yet to be explained, Bella is so clumsy that she goes wide-eyed with fear at the prospect of running, walking or anything that requires basic motor skills. Her car is this bitchin’ pickup truck, which would be totally awesome except that once she and Edward start dating he jumps in the driver’s seat every time they go anywhere together and refuses to let her drive.

In fact, Bella is so helpless she can’t even figure out how to buckle her seatbelt in Edward’s jeep and he has to help her (after he helps her get in by lifting her bodily into her seat), all the while chuckling condescendingly at her.

And so far, everything Edward does to show his love for Bella is completely creepy. After a while, he reveals that he’s been watching her sleep from outside her room every night since they met. Her reaction? Embarassment that she’s been saying his name in her sleep. Not for a second does she chew him out for invading her privacy.

The really supremely icky thing about the book though is the root of Edward’s desire. From the second he first sees her, he’s consumed by lust for her blood. At first he can’t even get close to her because he’s so overcome by fear that he won’t be able to control himself. Instead he finally settles for telling Bella repeatedly, “I’m really dangerous. Really, I could totally kill you and you wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it. You should stay away from me.” Instead of backing the hell off and getting as far away from him as possible, Bella quietly decides that if she dies, she dies - at least she’ll get to be with this boy. Argh.

Give me Buffy the Vampire Slayer with its powerful female characters, sharp dialogue and singing demons any day.

Don’t school administrations ever learn? 12-year-old Amelia Robbins has been suspended after dying her hair pink as a tribute to her late father who died of cancer.

Broadsheet sums it up:

Administrators argue that the dye job is a “distraction” to other students, but with the full support of her mom, Amelia’s choosing to fight the suspension rather than adopt a more conventional hair color. “I don’t feel like I should have to, because i’m expressing myself as an individual. Because they constantly tell us be different, don’t follow the crowd.”

Nice one, kiddo! It’s never too early to start calling out your superiors’ hypocrisy!