Assault at North Carolina yarn mill

I was just alerted to this by a crochet group I'm a part of. I'm absolutely horrified.


At North Carolina's Tuscaroro Yarns in late 2007, a factory manager sexually assaulted a woman in his office. After she reported it, an HR manager responded by suspending and disciplining her. Two months later, she left the factory in an ambulance after another, more brutal assault by the same plant manager.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed suit on March 30.

Here's the article from the Southern Poverty Law Center so you know this is not a hoax.
http://www.splcenter.org/news/item.jsp?aid=370

Here's the notice on the EEOC web site, also so you know this is not a hoax.
http://www.eeoc.gov/press/3-30-09.html

And here's the Tuscarora Yarn web site, in case you want to give them a piece of your mind.
http://www.tuscarorayarns.com/
Or their e-mail is imagine@tuscarorayarns.com.

I recommend writing the company letters. I wrote them a note to say I refused to patronize their company until I hear of a severe change in their policy and that both the man who attacked her and the person who chose to discipline her were fired. Please pass this on to everyone you know, and spread the word about this injustice.

My top five user-powered websites

Having your own website and keeping it updated can be hard. Case in point: it's been a couple of weeks since I've updated my blog (aside, of course, from keeping track of what movies I've watched in my post Movies I should see). The following blogs are a few of my favorite that have gotten around that troublesome area by being powered on the submissions of readers.

PostSecret - The most famous site for this. For those of you not familiar, this is Frank Warren's blog, and each weekly entry is comprised of art postcards sent to him from around the world, each bearing an anonymous secret from the sender.

Dear Old Love - The web owner describes the site as "short notes to people we've loved (or at least liked). Requited or unrequited." Basically, a one- or two-line note to an ex, with some sort of a confession or definition of the relationship.

FMyLife - Perhaps a little overindulgent sometimes, but kudos for people admitting embarrassing moments. Each describes an unfortunate incident that happened to the writer, such as incredibly clumsy or awkward moments. The format of the notes can get on my nerves (each one starting with "Today," and ending with "FML"), but the laughs are worth it.

Texts From Last Night - The largest portion of texts logged on this site are people either incredibly drunk or suffering from the next-day effects of such. Some just make you shake your head, but some of them are a great log of those one-liners you generally just throw out there and then forget.

I Can Has Cheezburger - I know, quite a bit different than the other sites, but still. It's mostly pictures of cats in funny or awkward positions, with an appropriate caption. I get caught up on this site sometimes and could look for hours (and I don't even like cats).

So, that's my top five. What are YOUR favorites?

Tharon Musser

I just found out via this blip article on IMDB that famed lighting designer Tharon Musser has passed away. I didn't know her... but then I kind of feel like I did a little bit.

I went to the same college as Musser. Everyone who's gone to Berea College knows that it is far more than a college -- it's an experience, a way of life, a defining factor. Once on choir tour with the college, I by chance was housed with an elderly couple who not only were in college at the same time as she was -- they knew her. They told me bits of trivia, like that she had an illegal car that she kept offcampus (cars are very strictly policed at Berea, and in her day would be absolutely forbidden). But most of what I heard of her was from my best friend Sarah, also a lighting designer and graduate of Berea, who closely followed Musser's career and tried to follow her example.

Musser made a splash on Broadway with designs such as the iconic "A Chorus Line", and really introduced computerized lighting as we know it today. There's a pretty good short article about her here, and her Wikipedia entry here.

Vampirates?

Okay, is this another one that I'm the last to hear about? I started reading Harry Potter after the 4th book came out, didn't even know Twilight existed until less than a year ago, and I didn't hear about "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" until this week. And now I hear about Vampirates. To quote the back of the book:

Well, if pirates are bad,
And vampires are worse,
Then I pray that as long as I be
That though I sing of Vampirates
I never one shall see.

Has anyone read this book? Or books, I should say, as I did a quick search and discovered there are at least 5 or 6 of these things out there. And if you have... are they as bad as they sound? Because while I love pirates, and am impartial about vampires, I think this may be the most intriguing young adult novel since 1980's teen hit The Mall.

"Come and get it, Potter!"

gryffindorscarf1
Originally uploaded by lauraejordan

Another recent knitting project. I knit both the sweater vest and the scarf. It's all in Lion Brand Wool-Ease (a wool\acrylic blend), lovingly knit by those two hands visible in the photo.

The sweater is actually the first garment I've knit, and I'm pretty pleased with it. I think if I was going to make another for myself, I would make the v-neck a little deeper, and add a couple more inches of ribbing at the hips, as well as narrow the shoulders at the sleeve holes.

Both of these items are available for purchase at my Etsy shop, and I'd be happy to answer any questions about the patterns or how to make the items. I'm all about sharing the love!

Cake or Death?

cakeordeath
Originally uploaded by lauraejordan

My latest knitting project: Cake or Death gauntlets. It's a heavy modification of a wristlet pattern I found a while back, with a little embroidery action. I know the Eddie Izzard reference is subtle (especially since it's not the most masterful picture of a slice of cake ever created), but I prefer small references rather than a big ol' shirt that says "Hey, I love Eddie Izzard, and he said 'Cake or Death' that one time."

Hollywood AD

MULDER: How come when people come back from the dead they always want to hurt the living?

SCULLY: Well, that's because people can't really come back from the dead, Mulder. I mean, ghosts and zombies are just projections of our own repressed cannibalistic and sexual fears and desires. They are who we fear that we are at heart-- just mindless automatons who can only kill and eat.

MULDER: Party pooper. Well, I got a new theory. I say that when zombies try to eat people, that's just the first stage. You see, they've just come back from being dead so they're going to do all the things they miss from when they were alive. So, first, they're going to eat, then they're going to drink, then they're going to dance and make love.

SCULLY: Oh, I see. So it's just that we never get to stay with them long enough to see the gentler side of the undead.

MULDER: Exactly.

Excerpt from "The X-Files" episode Hollywood AD (7x18), courtesy of Inside the X

A lot of people will tell a lie when asked what their greatest fears are. After all, why share your greatest fear? You never know who's going to use it against you. Well, I'm pretty honest about my greatest fear. It's zombies. I hate zombies.

I know it's irrational. Zombies probably don't exist... right? It's like Freddy Krueger and other imaginary terrors -- we're still afraid, though there's nothing there. But I'm not afraid of anything else -- not vampires, werewolves, Bigfoot, or any other manufactured creature. What is it about these freaking zombies?

I guess Scully's theory is one possibility. Do I fear that that's all I'm good for? Or is it an amalgamation of my own dislikes? I was not a child who ever bit other people, and I found it abhorrent when another child was a biter. I can be okay with blood in films, but not gore. And, of course, I'm a vegetarian. which began with a childhood "grossout" factor when it came to tendons and veins and all that stuff you relate between the animal and humans... which is the typical fare of zombies, of course.

I guess the best I can do is to hope that if zombies really *did* exist, it'd be more like Mulder says: they're just revived versions of ourselves, reveling in what they had lost. Regardless, I think I'll sleep with a blunt object next to my bed tonight.