Nice blog post – specifically about how officials in Australia’s Army are changing things for women in the army, but broadly about women and their place in the world, and about power and how it should not be built on humiliating others.
Nice quotes in the post:
No-one has ever explained to me how the exploitation or degradation of others enhances capability or honors the traditions of the Australian Army.
and
The standard you walk past is the standard you accept.
also
NCOs and officers who cannot keep their own troops from victimizing each other have not achieved the necessary unit cohesion to expect troops to operate effectively in the field.
The characters in these lists are main characters and key secondary characters in these stories. In some cases there are additional secondary and minor characters not listed here. This list may be updated periodically with additional famous novels and their character lists.
The Great Gatsby Characters: 10
Nick Carraway
Jay Gatsby
Daisy Buchanan
Tom Buchanan
Jordan Baker
Myrtle Wilson
George Wilson
Owl Eyes
Klipspringer
Meyer Wolfsheim
Treasure Island Characters: 11
Jim Hawkins
Billy Bones
Black Dog
Squire Trelawney
Dr. Livesey
Captain Smollett
Long John Silver
Ben Gunn
Pew
Israel Hands
Tom Redruth
The Sun Also Rises Characters: 12
Jake Barnes
Lady Brett Ashley
Robert Cohn
Bill Gorton
Mike Campbell
Pedro Romero
Montoya
Frances Clyne
Count Mippipopolous
Wilson-Harris
Belmonte
Harvey Stone
Moby-Dick: or, The Whale Characters: 16
Ishmael
Ahab
Moby Dick
Starbuck
Queequeg
Stubb
Tashtego
Flask
Daggoo
Pip
Fedallah
Peleg
Bildad
Father Mapple
Captain Boomer
Gabriel
To Kill a Mockingbird Characters: 18
Jean Louise “Scout” Finch
Atticus Finch
Jeremy Atticus “Jem” Finch
Arthur “Boo” Radley
Bob Ewell
Charles Baker “Dill” Harris
Miss Maudie Atkinson
Calpurnia
Aunt Alexandra
Mayella Ewell
Tom Robinson
Link Deas
Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose
Nathan Radley
Heck Tate
Mr. Dolphus Raymond
Mr. Walter Cunningham
Walter Cunningham
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Characters: 25
Huckleberry Finn
Tom Sawyer
Widow Douglas and Miss Watson
Jim
Pap (Huck’s Father)
The Duke and the King
Judge Thatcher
The Grangerford family – Bob, Buck, Charlotte, Col., Emmeline, Sophia, Tom
The Wilks family – Harvey, Joanna, Mary Jane, Peter, Susan, William
Silas and Sally Phelps
Aunt Polly
Anna Karenina Characters: 26
Anna Arkadyevna Karenina
Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin
Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky
Konstantin Dmitrich Levin
Ekaterina Alexandrovna Shcherbatskaya (Kitty)
Stepan Arkadyich Oblonsky (Stiva)
Darya Alexandrovna Oblonskaya (Dolly)
Sergei Alexeich Karenin (Seryozha)
Nikolai Dmitrich Levin
Sergei Ivanovich Koznyshev
Agafya Mikhailovna
Countess Vronsky
Alexander Kirillovich Vronsky
Varvara Vronsky
Prince Alexander Dmitrievich Shcherbatsky
Princess Shcherbatskaya
Countess Lydia Ivanovna
Elizaveta Fyodorovna Tverskaya (Betsy)
Marya Nikolaevna
Madame Stahl
Varvara Andreevna (Varenka)
Yashvin
Nikolai Ivanovich Sviyazhsky
Fyodor Vassilyevich Katavasov
Landau
Related Reading:
Book Magazine’s The 100 Best Characters in Fiction Since 1900
Book Magazine, now defunct, compiled a panel of 55 authors, literary agents, editors, and actors in 2002 to “rank the top one hundred characters in literature since 1900.”
This is one I didn’t draw myself, but found an old wood carving image (copyright free, of course) and scanned and cleaned it up in Illustrator. I’ve had it around a long time; years ago I had desktop wallpaper of a version of this design.
The Circle City Pride Celebration is a week of events, culminating in the Pride Parade and Festival on Saturday, June 8th. Visit their site for a list of the events; there’s lots to do this year throughout the week. But definitely the highlights are the parade and festival on Saturday.
The Cadillac Barbie Pride Parade kicks off at 10 am on Massachusetts Avenue and winds through downtown to the festival site at the American Legion Mall. There are over 100 groups marching in the parade and thousands of spectators. Come early to get a good spot – people begin assembling for the parade at 8:30 am. (I’ll be marching with city-county council member Zach Adamson’s group this year).
Over the 25 years that this event has been going on, the Pride Celebration has been transformed from a small community event to a diverse state-wide gathering of thousands of people from all walks of life. Today the parade and festival have an estimated attendance of 80,000 people, with events going on all week long. The Indianapolis Star as a nice article about the 25 year history of the pride celebration that’s very worth reading. I was one of the attendees at the first pride celebration on the circle in 1988. I drove down with friends from Ball State to set up a booth for Ball State’s LGBT Student Association, now called “Spectrum.” It was held on the Circle the first few years, attended by several hundred people and lots of protestors.
I think the Pride organizers have done a fantastic job of growing the festival, and of making the event worthy of a city the size of Indianapolis. I’ve been a part of organizing events like this in the past – it isn’t easy and there are lots of details to chase down. I have a lot of respect for what the organization has been able to build over the years. I’m excited for this year’s event; it promises to be bigger and better than years past.
After meeting with concerned LGBT citizens and with the two churches who had purchased vendor booths for the 25th Circle City Pride Festival this year, the organizers of Indy Pride have decided to return their booth fees and decline their attendance at the festival.
I’m very glad that this has been worked out, and that these two churches will no longer have a platform at the Indy Pride celebration to promote a “convert or go to hell” religious agenda. That was my main concern in writing about this issue. So often when LGBT people come out of the closet, they lose their spiritual anchor at the same time because their church doesn’t support who they really are. For those folks who might seek out other religious organizations to be a part of, they should have a reasonable expectation that churches with booths at the Pride celebration would be nurturing and supportive of them as LGBT people. And most of them do fit that criteria – but these two organizations skated under the radar, unfortunately.
Yesterday, members of the Indy Pride, Inc. Board of Directors along with a former Board Member, met with representatives of Castleview Baptist Church and A.C.T for the Gospel, Inc. along with concerned citizens who have raised questions about the participation of these organizations as vendors at the Circle City IN Pride Festival.
It was a very cordial discussion where the remonstrators were able to present their issues, and then both organizations were able to respond. It was then followed by a wide ranging discussion that was very insightful and reached beyond the narrow focus of the meeting, and in the end, everyone involved was grateful to be able to have the opportunity to sit down and discuss this matter at length.
After careful consideration and the exercise of due diligence in making our decision, the Board of Directors of Indy Pride, Inc. has decided it is in the best interest of the patrons of our Festival, the vendors themselves, and the Board to terminate the registration of these two vendors.
This decision is not one we have made lightly. Our mission is one to both honor the history of and celebrate the diversity in the LGBTQ community, so that we can create unity between members of our community and beyond. This sometimes means we allow in voices that may not be in agreement with our own. However, in the end, we made a decision based on the safety of everyone involved, and we are making steps to formalize a process to handle these matters in the future.
Nicholas A. Murphy,
President,
Indy Pride, Inc.
I’m a little concerned that some board members are framing their decision as a public safety issue, rather than as a decision based on the incompatibility of these two churches with the fundamental meaning and goals of the Pride celebration. There was an implication that threats of violence were coming from people inside the LGBT community, which is disappointing, to say the least. I hope that if there were overt threats that they’ve been passed along to the police department to deal with.
I also hope that festival organizers will consider putting in place the suggestion of a “core beliefs” document that vendors would have to sign with their booth application, so that groups that have an agenda harmful to the LGBT aren’t able to get booth space in the future.
The issue was recently brought to the attention of the gay and lesbian community by Rev. Marie Siroky, a minister in the United Church of Christ and leader of Interfaith Coalition on Nondiscrimination (ICON), a multi-faith organization of faith communities and leaders advocating for LGBT equality and justice in Indiana. Siroky raised the issue on the facebook page for the group Indiana Equality, where she shared some examples of the two churches problematic beliefs.
June 9th, 2012 we had a booth for the second year at the Indy Pride Festival. We had great conversations with several people. We focused on heart issues rather than singling out any specific sin. Our goal was not to win arguments, but to win souls for the kingdom. That does not mean that we affirmed any sin, but we lovingly addressed what we all have in common (our need for a savior).
We had a button this year that helped start conversations. You can click here to see the art work. We addressed the heart issue of pride and our need to humble ourselves before the almighty God. There were at least four people that prayed to be born again, confessing Jesus as their Lord and asking Him for victory over their sin. {emphasis added}
There were many other great conversations. Our Lord was lifted up.
Note the fine print – “Pride goes before destruction”
The video referenced in the blog post quoted above is this one – on it you can see why this organization isn’t friendly to LGBT people.
Eric Bancroft, senior pastor at Castleview Baptist Church in Indianapolis, also has a problematic paper trail on the internet that illustrates why this church shouldn’t be marching in Gay Pride Parades or having outreach booths at our Festival. Bancroft participated in a Prop 8 panel discussion at Southern Baptist Thelogical Seminary called Marriage in a Post Prop. 8 Culture and shared some thoughts on gay marriage that are very disturbing to say the least. There isn’t a transcript and I wasn’t able to embed the video, but you can view it at the link. I’ll watch the whole thing in the morning and transcribe Bancroft’s remarks and add them here. The video is 48 minutes long, so be prepared for a long and painful slog as you watch it. Wear some teflon.
I can see how these problematic churches would slip by Pride Organizers. They probably don’t have time to vet every single booth, especially groups like these two who are being fairly subtle about their anti-gay messages to the public, but open about it to their own church members. It’s interesting that in A.C.T.’s blog post they mention having been at Indy Pride two years previously, though. At some point no one brought this anti-gay group to anyone’s attention?
Update: apparently, this was brought to the attention of Pride organizers last year, according to a post by Marie Siroky on ICON’s web site. But organizers took their money and accepted their application again this year, knowing who they were. I have a real concern, given that ACT has claimed that they have four converts to their preaching last year.
From what is being discussed on the Indiana Equality page, Pride organizers have told members of the LGBT community that they are planning to have vendors sign a Core Beliefs document next year when they apply for booth space, along with a method for lodging complaints, but the two churches will still have booths in place for this year’s pride festival.
Where these two churches are on the festival map, in case you want to check out their booths. What I’m going to do – recruit a camera person (my wife) and visit the booth, introduce myself, and ask them some questions about what their outreach to LBGT people is about. I want to specifically ask “Do you believe homosexuality is a sin?” and get a filmed response. I’m good at parsing what people are saying vs. what they really mean, and teasing out ambiguity, so I think I can get them to say the truth on camera. Which I will promptly post on my blog, of course.
Other people are suggesting “Angel Protests” where folks dress in angel costumes and shield the booths from view. That’s an interesting idea, but not one I really know how to organize.
A.C.T. for the Gospel is at booth #52, along the side of Meridian Street, just south of the beverage tent. Castle View is at booth #116 on the same site of the event site, but far south, just near the festival security operations booth.
05-23-2013 Sheila Kennedy: Ship to Shore
Apologies to Sheila for quoting such a large chunk of her article (please read the whole thing):
The only thing worse than a chief executive who knows very little is a chief executive who knows very little but thinks he knows a lot.
We had a chance last year to replace Ballard with someone who actually knew what a city was, but for a variety of reasons (including but not limited to gender) we re-instated Mr. Clueless.
So we have a Mayor who is absent from the legislature when that body is debating issues of great importance to Indianapolis. We have a Mayor who sees no reason to communicate with the City-County Counsel (conveniently, his cronies in the General Assembly have now relieved him of that obligation).
We have a Mayor who relishes traveling with an outsized entourage but who can’t be bothered to supervise—or even understand—what city departments are doing.
We have a Mayor who hires people who are too young and inexperienced to know what they’re doing, or to recognize what their boss doesn’t understand.
We have a Mayor who insisted on controlling all public safety personnel, but then lost interest in the hard work of actually providing for the public’s safety–a child Mayor who has ignored a soaring crime rate while focusing on fanciful (and costly) projects like Cricket fields. (China Town didn’t pan out.)
We have a Mayor who is selling significant pieces of the City–making complicated deals with implications he clearly doesn’t understand—deals that benefit clients of cronies at the expense of taxpayers.
We have a Mayor who is not being held accountable for any of this, because local media is effectively AWOL.
So while Ballard sells the city off, unsupervised city employees are selling the city out.
