Liz Henry

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  1. The Best Apps for BlogHer '11

    7/28/11 8:25am by Liz Henry
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    Photo of sticker-covered laptops.

    As you get ready for BlogHer '11, here are some good apps for your laptop, iPhone, or Android you might want to download and set up in advance. Usually I tell people before BlogHer to remember their gadgets, an extra power strip, an Airport Wireless and extra ethernet cable, and all their gadget chargers. This year I want to talk about software and apps! 1. A VPN client for secure network traffic over open wifi  Read more >

  2. Lesbian Blogger Hoax: Warnings & Questions About Paula Brooks

    6/17/11 8:12am by Liz Henry
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    Inflatable Flower

    Paula Brooks, lesbian blogger, mom of 4-year-old twins and an adopted baby from Belize, and Deaf person, stepped down this week as head of women's news site LezGetReal.com, claiming to have perpetuated an elaborate hoax for years. "Brooks" described himself to the Washington Post as an ex-construction worker and military man named Bill Graber. Hang onto your hats, because the unfolding story is one of the most tangled pieces of Internet drama and extended sockpuppetry I've ever encountered.  Read more >

  3. Gay Girl in Damascus Blogging Hoax: Chasing Amina

    6/13/11 10:14am by Liz Henry
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    Smokescreen

    I tried to persuade the Amina-blogger, who was emailing me, to step forward and make a public statement on the Gay Girl in Damascus blog, at the least to assure readers that she was not in police custody. The writer’s response was to continue creating new layers of deceit. We discussed postmodern constructions of identity and gender issues for several days. Meanwhile I continued digging into the backgrounds of the online identities connected with Amina, working with Ali, Ben, and keeping in touch with others working on the same story.  Read more >

  4. Everyone Knows Your Password: Lessons for Bloggers From the Gawker Hack

    12/16/10 7:00am by Liz Henry
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    Most common Gawker passwords

    If you've ever commented as a logged-in user on Gawker Media blogs such as Jezebel, Lifehacker, Gizmodo, io9, or Gawker itself, you need to change some passwords. Last weekend the entire commenter database from Gawker was hacked into, copied, and widely distributed. I'll go into depth for BlogHer readers about how to manage your passwords and what the hack means for bloggers.  Read more >

  5. Feminists Fighting for WikiLeaks

    12/7/10 1:00pm by Liz Henry
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    Wikileaks Juliane Assange

    Today's arrest of Julian Assange on rape charges is being framed by many people as a conflict between feminism and free speech. I support WikiLeaks and ALL the people who worked to create and maintain it, because it's important political work. I'm very concerned that once Assange enters the court system he will not be treated fairly.  Read more >

  6. How to Spy on Open Wifi Hotspots: A Security Warning!

    10/26/10 5:50pm by Liz Henry
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    Liz Henry

    A new Firefox extension, Firesheep, has been released that makes it much easier to spy casually on other people's network activity over open wifi. Here's what you need to know as a blogger and social media user to protect your privacy!  Read more >

  7. Obama’s Internet-Wiretap Bid: Secret Government Backdoor to Your Mailbox

    9/27/10 5:28pm by Liz Henry
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    Inbox

    We have a right to talk in private and that includes email and other online communication. I've written and spoken at BlogHer before about our right as women to speak and act freely in public. But we also need to keep in mind our rights to speak in private.  Read more >

  8. Domestic Violence: I Called the Cops. Where Were My Neighbors?

    9/17/10 10:36am by Liz Henry
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    Domestic Violence Hurts

    So I became a cop caller. That might sound strange to you. Maybe 90% of you reading would have called the cops at the first scream. Somehow, I could not. I thought she might listen and come in with us, while if we called the police, they would both be long gone. I have some measure of distrust for the police, as well, from past experience. Would they come? Would they care or dismiss it as a domestic dispute? Would calling them only put her at more risk -- once they got home? It was a dramatic escalation. Talking with them was working at first. You just want to say … man, really you don't want to go to jail! Please!  Read more >

  9. Dr. Laura, the N-Word, Gays, Lesbians, Autism: Bloggers on Everything She's Wrong About

    8/20/10 8:05am by Liz Henry
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    Dr. Laura Schlessinger

    Radio talk show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger melted down recently on the air and just couldn't say the n-word enough times to exercise her freedom of speech. Never mind that she has enjoyed freedom of speech enough to get paid to say that lesbian and gay people are a "biological error" and that all gay men are pedophiles.  Read more >

  10. Ada Lovelace Day: Some of My Best Friends are Unicorns

    3/24/10 1:44pm by Liz Henry
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    Haecksen at linux.conf.au

    For last year's Ada Lovelace Day, I wrote about a lot of women who are developers and programmers and geeks who inspire me. They still do. This year, I'm lucky enough to be able to add many more to the list: women who love to concentrate deeply, who learn new things all the time, and who make things with code or hardware; who clearly approach life by diving right into it; women who share my passion for free and open source software and free culture.  Read more >

Liz Henry

Full Name
Liz Henry
Member Since
January 2006
About Me: 

Contact: lizhenry@gmail.com

Street Art, 22nd and Mission

 

I'm a writer, literary translator, and long-time computer geek. I'll be writing here to give BlogHer readers an idea of what's happening in the women's blogosphere around the world; to cover technology events in relation to women in tech; and to highlight interesting bloggers in our publishing network.

Badgermama is my personal and mommyblog, where I often talk about being an "alternative parent". I blog on feminism, literature, and computer/internet stuff at Composite, and on the group blog at Feminist Science Fiction. You can buy my latest book, The WisCon Chronicles: Carnival of Feminist Science Fiction, from Aqueduct Press.  Some of my other published writing and translations are available in free downloads from bookmaniac.org.

 

You can contact me at: liz@bookmaniac.net .

 

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Two quotes from "New World Border" by Guillermo Gómez-Peña. One to be avoided, the other aspired to.

"Transculture" and hybridity have different connotations for a person of color than for an Anglo American. In the conflictive history of the North/South dialogue and the multicultural debate, Americans and Europeans have often performed involuntary colonialist roles. In their desire to help, they often unknowingly become ventriloquists, impresarios, flaneurs, messiahs, or cultural transvestites. Though painful, these forms of benign colonialism must be discussed openly..."

"An ability to understand the hybrid nature of culture develops from an experience of dealing with a dominant culture from the outside. The artist who understands and practices hybridity in this way can be at the same time an insider and an outsider, an expert in border crossings, a temporary member of multiple communities, a citizen of two or more nations. S/he performs multiple roles in multiple contexts. At times s/he can operate as a cross-cultural diplomat, as an intellectual coyote (smuggler of ideas) or a media pirate. At other times s/he assumes the role of nomadic chronicler, intercultural translators, or political trickster. S/he speaks from more than one perspective, to more than one community, about more than one reality. His/her job is to trespass, bridge, interconnect, reinterpret, remap, and redefine; to find the outer limits of his/her culture and cross them."

 

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