Tegan and Sara

Tuesday kicked off SXSW Music, the world's biggest urban music festival. Bitch is in Austin for the festival all week, covering bands we love and think you'll love too! On our first day alone, we saw four shows from all different countries! Read below the jump for highlights from our first of many 12+ hours days on the streets of Austin.

Links, links, links!

• Salon explores the implications of the fate of the Wonder Woman show described in Jennifer K. Stuller's podcast. (Spoiler alert: It's not going to air.)
• Muslimah Media Watch writes of Arab women and democracy.
• ColorLines speaks of CNN anchor Don Lemon's coming-out (good for him!) and their hopes that analysis of the intersection of racism and homophobia will go further.
• In the gross-but-perhaps-unsurprising file: ColorLines also discusses Ron Paul's stance against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Meanwhile, Mother Jones compiles his "15 Most Extreme Positions."
• In better news, Truth Wins Out founder Wayne Besen provides numbers indicating increasing support for QUILTBAG rights, even in conservative circles, for HuffPo.
• Liz of Our Turn proposes a Bechdel Test for politics.
• On AlterNet, Bitch contributor Brittany Shoot interviews Will Potter on his new book about the law's disproportionate punishments for environmental activists like himself.
• TransGriot shares author Janet Mock's "It Gets Better" video.
• Bitch contributor s.e. smith unpacks the victim-blaming media surrounding the leader of the International Monetary Fund's arrest for sexual assault on Tiger Beatdown.
• The divine Kate Harding blogs about this same IMF coverage, the media surrounding Schwarzenegger, and what it all implies about the USA's troubling confusion between consensual affairs and assault. (via AlterNet)
• AfterEllen relates Tegan and Sara member Sara Quin's response to rapper Tyler the Creator's misogyny and homophobia.
• Ms. speculates on why vibrators still aren't mainstream.
• Are you in NYC? Mark your calendar for next weekend's release party for Original Plumbing's Green Issue!

Et tu?

A look back at Degrassi: The Next Generation's season two episode "Shout," and how Paige Michalchuk uses rock music to work through the trauma of date rape.