we got hacked, and we got hacked bad.
the database of all the posts is gone, empty, zero.
betty has a backup at work from a few months ago, which we’ll eventually put back up as a searchable database, and in the meantime, we’re going to use the opportunity to change the software for the forum to vBulletin, which updates its software more often (which makes it more impermeable to hackers).
betty has been struggling to fix what she could, find out what they did, & all with a migraine. she rocks. we had hoped there was more left. the user list remains, and ironically, the private messages. but everything else is gone.
i will put up a skeleton of the former boards so that people can post, and gather, while we get the new version ready – hopefully by tonight.
helen & betty
While the Boards are Down…
… you can check out this new project by the Museum of Sex. Intriguing, and nice piano music while it’s loading. It’d be a great idea to get some samples of trans/crossdressed/genderqueer sex into the story collection.
Here’s more about the project from the folks at the Museum of Sex:
We are about to launch a new online interactive installation entitled “Mapping Sex in America.” This ‘art-slash-anthropology’ project collects stories submitted by visitors and plots them geographically on a map of the US. In addition, historically significant points are “flagged” for
additional visitor enjoyment and enlightenment.
http://museumofsex.com/USAmap/
“Mapping Sex in America” takes its inspiration from the Works Progress Administration (WPA) of the 1930s, through which oral-history interviews with everyday Americans across the country were recorded; StoryCorps, a national project whose aim is to record peoples’ stories in sound with ‘StoryBooths’ in places like Grand Central Station, NY; and the work of Alfred Kinsey, whose documentation and analysis of America’s sexual histories and practices transformed America’s understanding of itself forever.
Conceived and designed by award-winning web artists Auriea Harvey and Michael Samyn, “Mapping Sex in America” is based on a previous onsite/online installation launched for our inaugural exhibition “NYCSEX” which focused on the New York City region alone. With “Mapping Sex in America” we have broadened the concept to cover the entire geographic US; it will remain online permanently as well as onsite in our Spotlight gallery.
Hacked Again
I think the MHB message boards have been hacked again. Stay tuned for more details, and apologies. I hate these creeps.
Lambda Literary Awards – Finalist Reading
I’ll be reading this Thursday, May 19th, as part of the Lambda Literary reading for Awards’ Finalists, starting at 7 PM, at the Center.
Here’s the complete bill:
Mickey Small – Up All Night
Perry Brass – Serendipity
Gary Zebrun – Someone You Know
Kristie Helms – Dish It Up, Baby!
Damian McNicholl – A Son Called Gabriel
Laurinda D. Brown – Fire & Brimstone
Aaron Krach – Half-Life
Helen Boyd – My Husband Betty
Han Ong – The Disinherited
Alison Smith – Name All The Animals
I’ll be reading at around 8 PM, but the event starts at 7 PM.
Location: New York Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Center, 208 West 13th St.
Please Donate
If you can, please donate this month to help keep the boards running.
I’m also still collecting money to help buy Lambda Lit Gala tickets for us and James Green and his partner Heidi.
Helen
Happy Birthday to Us!
Betty and I are both turning 36 today – yes, same day, same year. Us, and Little Stevie Wonder. So go on, put on a copy of Sir Duke, really loud, and sing along:
Music is a world within itself
With a language we all understand
With an equal opportunity
For all to sing, dance and clap their hands
But just because a record has a groove
Don’t make it in the groove
But you can tell right away at letter A
When the people start to move
Music knows it is and always will
Be one of the things that life just won’t quit
But here are some of music’s pioneers
That time will not allow us to forget
For there’s Basie, Miller, Satchmo
And the king of all Sir Duke
And with a voice like Ella’s ringing out
There’s no way the band can lose
Can’t you feel it all over?
& for those of you who notice, here are the boys, looking bored that it’s not their birthday:
Rape Crisis Center fights judge's order to talk about woman it counseled
Rape Crisis Center fights judge’s order to talk about woman it counseled
Last Update: 05/08/2005 2:46:35 PM
By: Associated Press
SANTA FE (AP) – A New Mexico judge has ordered two rape crisis center workers to reveal information about a woman they counseled. But rape crisis center operators say the order is alarming.
Operators say if they can’t guarantee confidentiality, victims won’t turn to them for help.
The Albuquerque Rape Crisis Center is asking the state’s Supreme Court to overturn the order issued by state District Judge James Blackmer.
The woman says she was raped in January 2003 by a former boyfriend.
The man’s public defender, Sophie Cooper, says she wants conversations between the center workers and the woman disclosed.
She says the center workers played an important role in convincing the woman she had been raped.
The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case Tuesday.
Reported by KOB-TV, and thanks to Lynne for bringing it to my attention.
Apologies Again
Apologies once again for not being where I was supposed to be; I’d been looking forward to being on a plenary panel this morning with Eli Clare, Yosenio Lewis, and Betsy Driver to talk about “Alliances, Umbrellas, Coalitions?” in the trans community. I had a lot to say, too – since there were no other workshops that discussed either crossdressers or partners in the rest of this weekend’s conference.
I’ll eventually put my thoughts together and post them here, since once I thought about the subject I realized I had quite a lot to say.
In the
meantime, I fear I’ve managed to get Betty sick as well, and we’re not sure either of us is going to make it to the scheduled party for the NCTE tonight; nor will I make (I doubt) the screening of Susan Stryker’s documentary Screaming Queens, which I was very much looking forward to seeing (as we’d seen a teaser cut of it at Fantasia Fair last year).
On top of everything else, I’ve gotten worse, not better, as my stomach is now in revolt (from all the painkillers, aspirin, and anti-biotics.) The cats, however, encourage me to nap, which is about the only time I don’t feel like hell.
(^ Me with the cats, on a day where I felt much better than I do today.)
CLAGS Conference
Tomorrow and Friday are the CLAGS (CUNY’s Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies) Conference on Trans Politics, Social Change and Justice:
May 6-7, 2005
Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies (CLAGS)
Graduate Center, CUNY
New York, NY
Join us to for two days of plenary sessions, workshops, roundtables, caucuses, films, and performances that will strengthen activist networks, incite dialogues, share resources, and create social change.
I’ll be speaking at the 9:30 am Plenary on Umbrellas, Alliances, and Coalitions?.
Apologies
Apologies to Lambda Lit, my fellow readers in DC, and anyone who intended to go/went to the reading tonight to see me: I’ve spent the day in our local emergency room trying to find out what’s wrong.
I’m about to crash on vicodin, but thanks to all for your good wishes, and apologies again for not going to tonight’s reading. I’m terrifically disappointed that I couldn’t be there.