There’s something about roller derby…

Aoife is talking roller derby.

I play roller derby. Wait- let me say that properly: I skate motherfuckin’ ROLLER DERBY, beaaaatches. That’s more like it. Y’see, roller derby isn’t something I can talk about neutrally. This is a game where “derby saved my (metaphorical) soul” has gone from a common statement to a boring-ass cliché. Practically everyone I know who plays this game says it’s changed her life. It’s helped her find her confidence and her grit. It’s shown her how to love the body she has and appreciate it for what it can do, not how conventionally attractive it is. It’s given her a community, friends and role models. It’s taught her how to (literally) get beaten down and (literally) get back up again. In this game I’ve gotten bruises and sprains. I’ve seen people break bones more times than I care to remember. Far more important than that, though? They get those bones healed and put their skates back on. I see us getting knocked over and getting up again and knocked down again until our muscles will barely obey us when we stand again, and I see us doing it again and again until finally, somehow, we break through.

I have this fond memory of roller derby back in the 1960s and 1970s. I’d visit my great grandmother, who was very old and frail and had this almost incomprehensible Minnesota/Scandinavian accent, and roller derby was her thing. She couldn’t do it — she could barely hobble, and was mostly confined to her chair, crocheting away, but she was fanatical about watching roller derby. She clearly saw it as this remarkably empowering activity…women aggressively competing in sports. I think I saw a lot of hours of competition just sitting with her. That’s still how I remember her: a little old lady, eyes sparkling and chuckling, and occasionally saying “goot vun!” at a solid check.

Life goes on

When I stepped off the plane at Heathrow the other day, my phone pinged, and I got a message from my daughter: “We’re getting hitched.” Very efficient. Brevity is a virtue. It reminds me of me: after Mary agreed to shackle herself to me for life, I mentioned it to my parents as we were going out the door — “By the way, we’re getting married.” We didn’t have email in those days, or I would have used it.

I’ve since gotten a few more details — I had a good idea who “we” were, but it was nice to get confirmation — and she’s now publicized that thing newly engaged women all do.

hitched

That’s one down. Now I must mention that I have two sons who are eligible bachelors…if anyone is interested, contact me.

One would have thought instruments of torture were illegal in modern Britain

I spent quite a few hours today in the Sheldonian — an utterly beautiful building, a masterpiece of 17th century architecture designed by Christopher Wren, and clearly built in an age before anyone had ever heard of ergonomics.

sheldonian

This morning I got to hear Gululai Ismail, Asif Mohiuddin, and Agnes Ojera talk about how atheists are oppressed in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Uganda. Then this afternoon I came back to listen to Philip Pullman talk about writing. And let me tell you, it was worth it, but all that time on hard flat benches with straight backs or no backs at all, less legroom than on the cheapest airline ever, and narrow little spaces that weren’t quite wide enough to accommodate modern feet (17th century students must have tottered about on tiny little pegs rather than real feet), mean I’m now feeling a bit wrenched and sore.

Most of the panel discussions were held in the Examination Schools with rather significantly more modern seating, and there I listened to Babu Gogineni, Leo Igwe, Valentin Abgottspon, and Bob Churchill talk some more about oppression and efforts to fight it, and then a spectacularly fiery conversation between Alom Shaha, Maryam Namazie, Maajid Nawaz, Kenan Malik and Jim Al-Khalili on the topic of Islam. Islam is very complicated, did you know that?

The rest of the evening was spent socializing, hanging out with Norwegians, I broke down and had a beer, and had a delicious dinner in which I was deeply offended as an American by being seated directly under a gigantic portrait of George III. Then more socializing. And a bit more.

By the way, Gululai Ismail was awarded Humanist of the Year. Well deserved!

Now sleep. I see on the schedule I’m expected to show up at the Sheldonian again first thing in the morning…I may just have to pass on that.

We had a makeover for our birthday

Freethoughtblogs is three years old today, and still growing (we’re adding three new blogs this weekend). To celebrate we’ve put on a fresh coat of paint, with a few changes under the hood. I think we’ve also added a few new glitches, and your party game is to find them all and tell us how to fix them.

Poke around and tell us what you think!

Metamorphosis tonight

Just so you know, we’re rolling out a major site redesign in the middle of the night tonight. Alex, our tech guy, is doing it in a smart way by getting it running on a shiny new server first, and then swapping in the IP address of the old one to bring it all live quickly. As with any new design, I expect gasps of horror tomorrow that it’s different — but it’s happening anyway, and productive suggestions to tweak it will be just fine. You’ll just have to adapt.

Most importantly, once we get the redesign out of the way, we’ve got a great big backlog of new additions to the roster who’ve been waiting for this obstacle to be cleared. Expect great new content to follow!