(no subject)
Dec. 18th, 2016 03:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwydion* The Trump Team argument for why the constitutional bar against Trump and his family profiting from gifts from foreign government does not apply to them, is that they are openly breaking the law which means it is magically not illegal. by the same logic, if you rob a bank in broad daylight without a mask it is not only not illegal, but you get to keep the money and murder as many people as you like in the process, since according to them if you openly break a law instead of doing it furtively it is not illegal. I do not understand how one can have a functioning society based on this principle.
* "My President Was Black:" https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/01/my-president-was-black/508793/
* "Ta-Nehisi Coates - Reflecting on the Obama Years in "My President Was Black":"
* "Backlash against North Carolina GOP power grab:"
* "Bureau of Justice Statistics release new, accurate police killing numbers that are double the historic estimates:" https://boingboing.net/2016/12/17/bureau-of-justice-statistics-r.html
* A reminder about my position on GMOs: My objection is to Monsanto’s business practices, such as suing small farmers over cross pollination and making it illegal for farmers to save “seed corn” for next year as farmers have been doing throughout the history of agriculture as it is suddenly, somehow “copy right infringement.”
I DO favor accurate labeling, as I always do for pretty much everything, as I feel like people should be allowed to make informed choices, but at the same time pretty much everything we eat is genetically modified because at some point humans tinkered by selecting for traits. Eat a banana? Radically modified over the course of human history. Eat any kind of grain pretty much? Modified by our human ancestors since before agriculture for increasing digestibility, yield, etc... This is why the paleo diet is a fiction: you literally can’t eat as pre-agriculture humans ate as the species have changed to much and anyway, which early humans, when, and where.
I feel like we need to be objecting or not objecting to things on a rational basis. anti-science bias is not helping us fix problems we rather desperately need science to solve like hunger, epidemics (anti-vaxxers), climate change (climate deniers).
* Victim Blaming and Policy: (TW: Abuse)
The classic story of my generation at school goes like this:
Someone is doing something horrible to you: beating you up, threatening you, using racist/homophobic/sexist taunts, threatening to or actively trying to rape you. The adult punishes you for telling, and lets the abuse continue.
Every Xer pretty much has stories like this. If they don’t, odds are, they were part of the problem.
I discovered later that that was deliberate. They turned schools for our generation into a shark tank under the theory that kids should work things out for themselves and that kids being bullied did something to deserve it. It was systematic and on purpose. A whole generation of teachers were trained that way.
It was just laziness in my opinion. It takes actual effort to properly monitor and intervene, and Boomers were all about not malign neglect. My Mother was trained this way, and hated it, because it went against all her instincts, and was why she ended up spending only two years in the classroom. It defies logic too, of course. If you reward instigators and bullies by heaping punishment on their targets, it just encourages more cruelty and bullying.
In the long run, it’s less work to nip that shit right in the bud. You consistently punish the people causing the bulk of the problems, you support kids apt to intervene for justice and model how to do it, and make things fair for the kids being hassled, you get a lot less trouble in your room generally, the kids are happier and safer, and they are apt to grow up into decent human beings instead of sociopaths, but humans are terrible at logic and picking the long term benefit over the immediate. As a result our generation were guinea pigs for the me generation’s collective decision not to protect children from each other.
This turns out to be one of the areas where doing the ethically correct thing is also the pragmatically correct thing. (Another area like this is raiusing the minimum wage. you make the minimum wage a living wage and design the tax code, etc. to limit extreme inequality, the economy booms. you do what we’ve done since 1980, and fix the tax code to reward wealth and punish work, while letting wages for the working and middle classes erode, you get things like the Great Depression or W.’s economic crash. The ethical thing is the pragmatic thing, but we;ve put the bullies in charge.)
* "Trump Lets the Truth Come Out Post-Election:"
* "Ohio's Shady Abortion Compromise:"
* "The Gift of Reproductive Rights:"
* "Jordan Klepper Fingers the Pulse - 2016: The Year of the Trump Supporter:"
* "Good Grief, It's A Stephen Colbert Christmas Special:"
* "Trump And Kanye Meet To Discuss New Collaboration:"
* "Introducing: The Forever Times Infinity Ring:"
* "It's The Late Show Claymation Christmas Special!:"
* "Putin Hacked The Election Because Of A Vendetta Against Clinton:"
* It turns out that my sister was the Ball faerie. It was the birthday present that got lost back in October. By itself, it's the best present she's gotten me in years. Omnomnom.
* I need to talk to you about toasting marshmallows again. At some point in my teens I realized that my way of toasting marshmallows was a nigh perfect symbol for my core approach to living. No really, hear me out. When I became Buddhist, I'd refer to this as "zen marshmallow" as a sort of in joke with my friends, but it is serious to me. (I’m not a zen Buddhist, but it makes a fine short hand.)
I am that person who slowly turns the marshmallow, attempting to toast it a perfect shade of brown on all sides. This is pretty much impossible to do. There may be a bit of bubbling or a pale line where the fire didn't evenly cook. The perfectly toasted marshmallow is not a thing you attain, but that doesn't mean it's a waste of time. The journey matters. The sitting and chatting with friends, family, and/or lovers; the staring meditatively into the fire, the warmth on your face and the sparks in the dark, the patient process of cooking are all valuable. They are every bit as much of the why of it as the moment one slides the toasted skin into one's mouth.
It is good practice for being present in the moment. It is good practice for stillness and patience. It is also very much about the fundamental principal that just because it can never be quite prefect, doesn't mean it's not worth doing. I apply that to pretty much everything in life. It works for love or policy or activism or teaching or gardening or baths. The Spirit of the Journey is the point. The marshmallow itself is a delightful extra.
Carry this with you as we attempt the marathon that is resisting and surviving the next for years. Carry this with you as you travel forward. It doesn't have to be a marshmallow, but the attempt is worthy in itself.
* The Monster Under the Bed: http://satyrday.tumblr.com/post/152195680731/fairlyfunctioning-gabbyzvolt25#notes
* I think what is needed is a quality revival of the French Antigone with Hamilton style casting.
*****
* Suicide Crisis numbers: http://gwydionmisha.tumblr.com/post/153016816845/non-us-crisis-line-list
* Victim of a Hate Crime? Report to the police first, but also report here to help the SPLC track incidents: https://www.splcenter.org/reporthate
* Trans Relief Project: http://transrelief.com/
* "Donate to the SPLC:" https://donate.splcenter.org/sslpage.aspx?pid=463
* "A List of Pro-Women, Pro-Immigrant, Pro-Earth, Anti-Bigotry Organizations That Need Your Support:" http://jezebel.com/a-list-of-pro-women-pro-immigrant-pro-earth-anti-big-1788752078?rev=1478710019591&utm_campaign=socialflow_jezebel_facebook&utm_source=jezebel_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow
* General Charities list to help groups being targeted in Trump's America: http://lovingmyselfishard.tumblr.com/post/153111297079/charities-that-may-need-some-love-in-the-upcoming
* Where to donate to help Immigrants: http://colinfirth.tumblr.com/post/152963467726/carecen-la-center-for-community-change
* Ways to protest: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/174f0WBSVNSdcQ5_S6rWPGB3pNCsruyyM_ZRQ6QUhGmo/htmlview?usp=sharing&sle=true#
* More ways to protest "So here’s the deal:" http://the-cimmerians.tumblr.com/post/153516131819/so-heres-the-deal
* "10 ways we can help Standing Rock Indian Reservation.:" http://browngurlwfro.tumblr.com/post/153755459138/dooder-tooder-this-is-a-photo-my-friend-posted
* "List of Standing Rock Resources:" https://laughingacademy.tumblr.com/post/152671392633/list-of-standing-rock-resources
* "How to help Flint, Michigan:" http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/how-help-flint-michigan
* Help pay for cat food, litter, meds, medical copays: Paypal Lethran@gmail.com
* Organizations helping with the refugee crisis: http://captainofalltheships.tumblr.com/post/128790538169/an-updated-list-of-organizations-to-donate-to-help
* Want Game of Thrones without the creepy? We desperately need new players. We are very inclusive. "Game of Bones MUSH:" gobmush.wikidot.com
* "My President Was Black:" https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/01/my-president-was-black/508793/
* "Ta-Nehisi Coates - Reflecting on the Obama Years in "My President Was Black":"
* "Backlash against North Carolina GOP power grab:"
* "Bureau of Justice Statistics release new, accurate police killing numbers that are double the historic estimates:" https://boingboing.net/2016/12/17/bureau-of-justice-statistics-r.html
* A reminder about my position on GMOs: My objection is to Monsanto’s business practices, such as suing small farmers over cross pollination and making it illegal for farmers to save “seed corn” for next year as farmers have been doing throughout the history of agriculture as it is suddenly, somehow “copy right infringement.”
I DO favor accurate labeling, as I always do for pretty much everything, as I feel like people should be allowed to make informed choices, but at the same time pretty much everything we eat is genetically modified because at some point humans tinkered by selecting for traits. Eat a banana? Radically modified over the course of human history. Eat any kind of grain pretty much? Modified by our human ancestors since before agriculture for increasing digestibility, yield, etc... This is why the paleo diet is a fiction: you literally can’t eat as pre-agriculture humans ate as the species have changed to much and anyway, which early humans, when, and where.
I feel like we need to be objecting or not objecting to things on a rational basis. anti-science bias is not helping us fix problems we rather desperately need science to solve like hunger, epidemics (anti-vaxxers), climate change (climate deniers).
* Victim Blaming and Policy: (TW: Abuse)
The classic story of my generation at school goes like this:
Someone is doing something horrible to you: beating you up, threatening you, using racist/homophobic/sexist taunts, threatening to or actively trying to rape you. The adult punishes you for telling, and lets the abuse continue.
Every Xer pretty much has stories like this. If they don’t, odds are, they were part of the problem.
I discovered later that that was deliberate. They turned schools for our generation into a shark tank under the theory that kids should work things out for themselves and that kids being bullied did something to deserve it. It was systematic and on purpose. A whole generation of teachers were trained that way.
It was just laziness in my opinion. It takes actual effort to properly monitor and intervene, and Boomers were all about not malign neglect. My Mother was trained this way, and hated it, because it went against all her instincts, and was why she ended up spending only two years in the classroom. It defies logic too, of course. If you reward instigators and bullies by heaping punishment on their targets, it just encourages more cruelty and bullying.
In the long run, it’s less work to nip that shit right in the bud. You consistently punish the people causing the bulk of the problems, you support kids apt to intervene for justice and model how to do it, and make things fair for the kids being hassled, you get a lot less trouble in your room generally, the kids are happier and safer, and they are apt to grow up into decent human beings instead of sociopaths, but humans are terrible at logic and picking the long term benefit over the immediate. As a result our generation were guinea pigs for the me generation’s collective decision not to protect children from each other.
This turns out to be one of the areas where doing the ethically correct thing is also the pragmatically correct thing. (Another area like this is raiusing the minimum wage. you make the minimum wage a living wage and design the tax code, etc. to limit extreme inequality, the economy booms. you do what we’ve done since 1980, and fix the tax code to reward wealth and punish work, while letting wages for the working and middle classes erode, you get things like the Great Depression or W.’s economic crash. The ethical thing is the pragmatic thing, but we;ve put the bullies in charge.)
* "Trump Lets the Truth Come Out Post-Election:"
* "Ohio's Shady Abortion Compromise:"
* "The Gift of Reproductive Rights:"
* "Jordan Klepper Fingers the Pulse - 2016: The Year of the Trump Supporter:"
* "Good Grief, It's A Stephen Colbert Christmas Special:"
* "Trump And Kanye Meet To Discuss New Collaboration:"
* "Introducing: The Forever Times Infinity Ring:"
* "It's The Late Show Claymation Christmas Special!:"
* "Putin Hacked The Election Because Of A Vendetta Against Clinton:"
* It turns out that my sister was the Ball faerie. It was the birthday present that got lost back in October. By itself, it's the best present she's gotten me in years. Omnomnom.
* I need to talk to you about toasting marshmallows again. At some point in my teens I realized that my way of toasting marshmallows was a nigh perfect symbol for my core approach to living. No really, hear me out. When I became Buddhist, I'd refer to this as "zen marshmallow" as a sort of in joke with my friends, but it is serious to me. (I’m not a zen Buddhist, but it makes a fine short hand.)
I am that person who slowly turns the marshmallow, attempting to toast it a perfect shade of brown on all sides. This is pretty much impossible to do. There may be a bit of bubbling or a pale line where the fire didn't evenly cook. The perfectly toasted marshmallow is not a thing you attain, but that doesn't mean it's a waste of time. The journey matters. The sitting and chatting with friends, family, and/or lovers; the staring meditatively into the fire, the warmth on your face and the sparks in the dark, the patient process of cooking are all valuable. They are every bit as much of the why of it as the moment one slides the toasted skin into one's mouth.
It is good practice for being present in the moment. It is good practice for stillness and patience. It is also very much about the fundamental principal that just because it can never be quite prefect, doesn't mean it's not worth doing. I apply that to pretty much everything in life. It works for love or policy or activism or teaching or gardening or baths. The Spirit of the Journey is the point. The marshmallow itself is a delightful extra.
Carry this with you as we attempt the marathon that is resisting and surviving the next for years. Carry this with you as you travel forward. It doesn't have to be a marshmallow, but the attempt is worthy in itself.
* The Monster Under the Bed: http://satyrday.tumblr.com/post/152195680731/fairlyfunctioning-gabbyzvolt25#notes
* I think what is needed is a quality revival of the French Antigone with Hamilton style casting.
*****
* Suicide Crisis numbers: http://gwydionmisha.tumblr.com/post/153016816845/non-us-crisis-line-list
* Victim of a Hate Crime? Report to the police first, but also report here to help the SPLC track incidents: https://www.splcenter.org/reporthate
* Trans Relief Project: http://transrelief.com/
* "Donate to the SPLC:" https://donate.splcenter.org/sslpage.aspx?pid=463
* "A List of Pro-Women, Pro-Immigrant, Pro-Earth, Anti-Bigotry Organizations That Need Your Support:" http://jezebel.com/a-list-of-pro-women-pro-immigrant-pro-earth-anti-big-1788752078?rev=1478710019591&utm_campaign=socialflow_jezebel_facebook&utm_source=jezebel_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow
* General Charities list to help groups being targeted in Trump's America: http://lovingmyselfishard.tumblr.com/post/153111297079/charities-that-may-need-some-love-in-the-upcoming
* Where to donate to help Immigrants: http://colinfirth.tumblr.com/post/152963467726/carecen-la-center-for-community-change
* Ways to protest: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/174f0WBSVNSdcQ5_S6rWPGB3pNCsruyyM_ZRQ6QUhGmo/htmlview?usp=sharing&sle=true#
* More ways to protest "So here’s the deal:" http://the-cimmerians.tumblr.com/post/153516131819/so-heres-the-deal
* "10 ways we can help Standing Rock Indian Reservation.:" http://browngurlwfro.tumblr.com/post/153755459138/dooder-tooder-this-is-a-photo-my-friend-posted
* "List of Standing Rock Resources:" https://laughingacademy.tumblr.com/post/152671392633/list-of-standing-rock-resources
* "How to help Flint, Michigan:" http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/how-help-flint-michigan
* Help pay for cat food, litter, meds, medical copays: Paypal Lethran@gmail.com
* Organizations helping with the refugee crisis: http://captainofalltheships.tumblr.com/post/128790538169/an-updated-list-of-organizations-to-donate-to-help
* Want Game of Thrones without the creepy? We desperately need new players. We are very inclusive. "Game of Bones MUSH:" gobmush.wikidot.com
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(no subject)
Date: 2016-12-21 07:53 am (UTC)Like the marshmallow metaphor... I, too, historically have been a "slow roaster" at campfires. Except so many people have gotten so annoyed with my slowness over the years and made comments to me that even though I actually hate the taste and grit of char, I finally decided to start lighting them on fire like everybody else so people would just leave me alone. :/ I'm doing a lot of evaluating and reflecting on my life right now (post forthcoming) and hmm, you know, this story isn't really about marshmallow toasting at all -- it's about how my life has always needed better people in it.
As far as the metaphor, I'm also in 100% in agreement about the next four, eight, whatever years (the rest of our lives, really, if we're being honest). I'm already seeing people reaching burnout point - and it's only been two months, and inauguration day hasn't even happened yet. While I've thrown my hat in enough to start showing up at some immediate events/causes/gatherings, I know the only way my work out there will ever really be sustainable is if I'm careful about building something solid underneath to ground me, and it. Personally, I think anyone genuinely interested in getting to work in the coming years on justice/turning tides/facilitating transformation/performing public education should be taking this time now to do some conscious physical/mental/spiritual healing work for themselves in preparation. This could play out in a lot of different ways, but things like slowly starting to make changes in our eating patterns to help manage stress and anxiety would be one, or finding places for ourselves that provide us with a sense of safety, or sacredness, or renewal (whatever that means to each person -- whether that's a place in nature, a nook at the local library, or a place important to whatever faith we do or don't practice.) Etc etc. I do hope folks consider this route, rather than just quickly jabbing their marshmallow dramatically into the flames and hoping for the best!
(no subject)
Date: 2016-12-22 04:55 am (UTC)It's not their marshmallow. You eat it how you want. Fuck 'em. (And yes, I mean the metaphorical marshmallow).
I am conserving my strength for January and February, when there will be so much to do, I plan to stick with resisting, as long as it takes, and I do not want to burn out.
It's not their marshmallow. You eat it how you want. Fuck 'em. (And yes, I mean the metaphorical marshmallow).
I am conserving my strength for January and February, when there will be so much to do, I plan to stick with resisting, as long as it takes, and I do not want to burn out.