Amazon reclassifies LGBT & other books as "adult"

WTF is up with Amazon hiding/unranking LGBT and feminist books as "adult" today? I learned about it via Twitter #amazonfail while in the midst of framing the BattleStar Galactica propaganda poster ("Mechanics! ... Those Vipers Won't Fix Themselves!") I got for Chanukah/Christmas last year.

According to one tweet I saw, affected books included such titles as The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk.

Now I am just going to sit here and be embarrassed at how often I have shopped on Amazon.

Random Dr. Who Love and Imminent Battlestar withdrawal

So while I was stuck lying on the couch with my broken foot in the air at a 60-degree angle for the last three weeks, there wasn't too much I could actually do--I'm a knitter, but I can't knit due to my carpal tunnely issues. So it was all about the book, audiobook and DVD consumption.

Now, I don't have television service, so Masheka and I generally only watch TV via DVDs or Hulu, etc. For the past 6 months we worked our way through The Wire (so good!), got started with Buffy (we're on the sixth season now, and I have to thank Barry for getting me addicted to this show) and segued into Angel (on Season 2 now). I watched a bit of Weeds but lost interest partly into Season 1. Anyway, I want to give random shoutouts to some of the things that kept me really entertained while I was horizontal:

• Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse books (aka the Southern Vampire Mysteries). I ripped through all eight books available so far in about a week, half via paperback and half via Audible.com download. The audiobooks were particularly great, as the actress who reads them does the perfect Southern accent and pacing for the stories. They're fun and inventive and smart and good stuff like that. Anyway, immediately after finishing the books I watched Season 1 of True Blood, which is also fantastic but not identical to the books (a good thing, as there were still surprises).
• Veronica Mars, Seasons 1 and 2. Again, totally addictive fun with a smart and kickass heroine. (Although, as when watching Buffy, I kept wishing the star actress would eat a few sandwiches.)
• Doctor Who Seasons 1-3 (the new ones): I have to admit I was skeptical. I used to watch Dr. Who with my dad and didn't really get it at the time--I had vague memories of scantily clad women and men in scarves bumping into badly-put-together sets and not-so-convincingly scary aliens. And the first few episodes didn't really grab me. But by half-way through Season 1 I was sold, and I was way MORE sold when the bisexual immortal Captain Jack showed up and the Doctor regenerated into the fabulous David Tennant. I still think Daleks are ridiculous, but I think that's part of the fun. I plan to check out Torchwood as well. I also didn't realize when I first started watching the new Doctor Who that it was spearheaded by Russell T. Davies, the writer of the wonderful British TV series Queer as Folk.
• I also reread some old sci-fi favorites, including Octavia Butler's Fledgling and Marge Piercy's He, She and It.

Anyways, I can't wait to actually get up and use my feet again, but all this media consumption HAS been fun.

Finally, I just have to say that the last episodes of Battlestar Galactica have been great so far, especially the premiere! I am going to mourn that show in a serious way when it ends.

OK, back to your regularly scheduled political cartooning...

Random Battlestar Galactica Love

Words cannot describe how much I love the brilliant, complex, thrilling and soon-to-be-over new Battlestar Galactica television series.

I don't even have cable TV (or any TV, beyond what the internet so generously provides) and I'm not a big TV fan in general. Lost is sort of OK but I won't cry if I miss an episode or ten or twenty. Arrested Development was hilarious and awesome but is long over.

So yeah, I don't care much about TV. But I DO love well-crafted science fiction, especially dark and gritty post-apocalyptic science fiction featuring complex characters, political intrigue, stolen elections, resistance movements and fundamentalist religious robots bent on total human genocide. Battlestar Galactica is without a doubt the best television show of all time (or is at least MY personal favorite show of all time). And it's much more politically gripping than the real-life primaries we're currently enduring.

I even considered braving the horrible heinous crowds at New York Comic-Con this weekend just to see some of the Galactica cast-members.

OK, I just had to share that.