Back in 2015 you demanded that the FCC adopt strict net neutrality rules and establish a free and open internet. And you won.
That should’ve been the end of it. But apparently not.
The new head of the FCC wants to undo the net neutrality protections you fought so hard for.
His proposed changes open the door to your web traffic being slowed down, or even blocked altogether. You could be forced to pay extra to use your favorite apps. You could even be prevented from getting news from the sources you trust.
Title II protects consumers and democracy by ensuring all voices can be heard.
You know the drill. Here’s what to do:
The FCC is taking comments from the public, and dearfcc.org is making it as simple as possible for you to make your voice heard.
You’ll just need to provide a name, an address, and then say a little bit about why rolling back Title II protections is a bad idea. If you’re not quite sure what to write, here’s something to get you started:
I’m writing to urge you to keep our Open Internet rules based on Title II in place. Without them, we could lose the internet as we know it.
The proposed changes to FCC rules would allow fast lanes for sites that pay, and force everyone else into slow lanes. We’ve already seen access to streaming services like Netflix, popular games like League of Legends, and communication platforms like FaceTime slowed down, or even blocked. Conditions like this hurt businesses large and small, and penalize the users who patronize them.
The changes also open the door to unfair taxes on internet users, and could also make it harder for blogs, nonprofits, artists, and others who can’t pay up to have their voices heard.
Please leave the existing net neutrality rules based on Title II in place.
fucked up how the folks pushing to get rid of net neutrality probably 100% realize what theyre gonna be doing to ppl who rely on donations boosted thru social media just to stay alive
ofc this isnt anything new, huh? thts just capitalism, killing off anyone unable to contribute to the growth of the dumbass economy or w/e, it might seem subtle but thts whats going on- theyre cutting off the means of survival for ppl they view as unproductive and therefore unworthy of living
Chinese emperor Ai of Han, fell in love with a minor official, a man named Dong Xian, and bestowed upon him great political power and a magnificent palace. Legend has it that one day while the two men were sleeping in the same bed, the emperor was roused from his sleep by pressing business. Dong Xian had fallen asleep across the emperor’s robe, but rather than awaken his peaceful lover, the Emperor cut his robe free at the sleeve. Thus “the passion of the cut sleeve” became a euphemism for same-sex love in China. — R.G.L.
get you a dude who will fuck up his own clothing for you
NO OKAY THIS IS REALLY COOL SO SHUT UP AND LISTEN KIDS. Ancient China was super chill about homosexuality okay. Like we have gay emperors and feudal lords, lesbian princesses who were girlfriends with their serving maids, gay ass poets who wrote lots of poems about that one courtesan who played the guzheng so well.
In fact homosexuality was so okay that in Shiji, which is basically the Bible of Ancient Chinese history, there is an entire section dedicated to the gay lovers of emperors. What’s the best part? All the laws and criticism about homosexuality in Ancient China were all about shit like prostitution and rape. These laws were outlawing homosexual stuff were all very specific.
For example, there were laws banning male prostitution, but no laws against homosexuality. These laws were passed to stop the spread of prostitution and laws targeting prostitution in general were pretty common in Chinese history. There were also really strict laws about male rape. Rape was punishable by death, regardless of the gender of the victim. Rape a girl, you die. Rape a guy, you die. Have sex with a minor, you die regardless of whether it was consensual. The lightest sentence you could get was slavery where you were bound to the army.
Also scholars wrote essays criticising the boyfriends of emperors, saying that they distracted the emperor from work blah blah blah but THEY ALSO DID THE SAME FOR THE CONCUBINES. That’s right - the issue wasn’t homosexuality but rather the hormones of the emperor. They didn’t care about the gender of the emperor’s favourite lover but rather the fact that the emperor was too horny to get shit done.
“But WAIT, Modern China is a hardass about homosexuality!!!! How do you explain that!”
Yes. That. That’s because of the late Qing years where Western influences entered the country and brought their gross ass homophobic attitudes with them. And the Qing government was so anxious to seem modern and be seen as equals to their Western counterparts. So they adopted Western ways and discarded their previous attitudes about homosexuality. Hence you have Modern China.
So the next time someone tries to tell you that being LGBT is wrong because it goes against traditional Chinese values, tell them to go fuck themselves with 3000 years of Chinese queerness.
Unanswered questions have been nagging at me. Kim is like so many other women, it seems to me, who have grown up with trauma. And yet there is no talk of the long-term effects. I decide to put the question of sexual abuse to her plainly. She tells me that yes, something did happen in the home of a relative when she was a girl, but she doesn’t want to get into the details. She has never talked about this before. She doesn’t want to dwell on the pain. I am saddened by her admission, and the fact that so many years later, she is still so clearly devastated.
And I am saddened that even here, in a place for relaxation and nurturing, she is unable to divest herself, even for a few hours, of the blue contact lenses and blond wig.
“Think about it,” she confesses when I ask her to talk about her experience of skin color. “The girls that [men] dated when I was younger were light-skinned and tall. I’m short and brown-skinned. And I always wondered … how do I fit in?”
Did she ever overcome the feeling of being ugly?
“I really haven’t,” she admits. “Honestly, though, I think being Lil’ Kim the rapper helped me deal with it better. Because I got to dress up in expensive clothes, and I got to look like a movie star or whatever. I think doing photo shoots and seeing all the people respond to me has helped. [But] I still don’t see what they see.”
