The right to call oneself Lesbian

Residents of the Greek island of Lesbos have launched a legal action to demand the exclusive right to call themselves Lesbians.

The inhabitants of the island are attempting to ban the Greek Gay and Lesbian Union from bearing the name "lesbian".

Residents of Lesbos now suffer "psychological and moral rape" from the "seizure" of their island's name by gays, according to the complaint by Dimitris Lambrou, a local activist.

He has set out his argument in "The Misfortune of Being Lesbian", published on his website, reports the Daily Telegraph.

more at Ananova.

Via Scribal Terror

If I ever see Craig Ronalds again

(which is unlikely, since he disappeared in Mysterious Circumstances), I am going to have to make exaggerated gestures of gratitude and adoration.

Good things Craig Ronalds has done for me:

* carefully annotated all the way through Fisher's copy of Die "Institutes of Polity", translating relevant bits of German and scribbling down which MS Jost has put where, every time the layout gets confusing.
* marked off useful articles in England Before the Conquest.

and best of all (not that I cared at the time...)

* taught me functional grammar. Which, as a philological tool, is aggravating and not fun at all. But he was the first person to get me to engage with the words on the page, so to speak, to get me thinking about the way grammar encodes certain things about a character. Particularly verbs. Perhaps Craig can ultimately be blamed for my obsession with verbs of thought (I remember analysing the lack of thought-verbs assigned to the character Phuong in The Quiet American, for his class).

now I have awesometastic thoughts about Sir Gawain and grammar, and I wonder if, without Craig and his stupid functional grammar course, I would be thinking these thoughts now?

Well Hello, Mr Sweden

Have I mentioned how awesome college is?

Tonight's exhibit: wing movie night. It was decided to watch Eurovision 2005, because it'd be 'easy to get up and leave' (and we all stayed, fascinated, like spectators watching a train wreck).
( Mr Sweden... sigh... )