Wanting a better world, or, confessions of a queer nerdy survivor
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It’s really hard to remain respectful in some arguments. For instance, I fully support the proposals of several progressive politicians that we make university education free. Every other industrialized country in the world does it, so why can’t we? Well, one argument that comes up again and again is, “But won’t that make all the people who had to pay off huge college debts angry?” My first response is, speaking as someone who spent many years trying to pay off his education loans, and only managed it because he was lucky enough to be an early employee of a tech start up that succeeded (so guess where 90% of my stock option earnings went?), “No, I would not be the slightest bit angry if no one else had to go through what I went through!”
My middle school wrestling coach (who was also my 8th grade math teacher) was old enough that he nearly died of polio as a child. He had to wear a leg brace the rest of his life, among other negative health issues left over from that ordeal. And while the anti-vax movement hadn’t reached its current level of penetration in society, back when I was in school the early stirrings of the movement existed. There was a story in the news about someone urging parents not to get their kids vaccinated for reasons that indicated they didn’t understand how vaccines or the immune system worked while I was his student, and so one day before we had our math lesson, we were treated to an impassioned talk from Coach about how 1) he wished the vaccine had existed when he was a child, and 2) how could any parent be so irresponsible as to not want to spare their child the pain and suffering or a preventable illness?
Almost every year during Pride Month I wind up writing at least one blog post where I say I am proud of myself and my fellow queer survivors because we survived the bullying, gaslighting, abuse, and oppression and have managed to create beautiful meaningful lives. But while I’m proud of having survived that, I don’t think any less of anyone who didn’t get bullied as much as me. What kind of psychopathic monster would wish that kind of pain on another person?
Part of the answer, I know, is that most of us have been taught from a very early age that misery builds character—that we become a better person by enduring these experiences. It’s reasonable to infer that I believe that from my comments such as that in the previous paragraph. But that isn’t quite what I mean. Misery doesn’t build anything.
It’s like exercise: you’re probably familiar with the notion that engaging in exercise which stresses the muscles will stimulate the body to increase muscle mass. That’s true enough, as far as it goes. But it isn’t the exercise which is building the muscles. It’s your body that is building extra muscle mass, and it can only do that if your diet includes enough protein, and if it has time to rest in between periods of exercise. Exercise is a specific type of stress placed on your muscles. It isn’t random. Beating a person will also stress the muscles, but that kind of stress doesn’t elicit the muscle-building activity at a bio-chemical level.
Similarly, it isn’t the bullying to built character, it’s several other things. One factor is how the person experiencing the suffering responds to it. Some survivors of abuse become abusers themselves later in life. That isn’t what people usually mean by “building character” even though it is a perfectly predictable response to being abused. Another factor is whether the person had other positive things in their life. Were they getting emotional support? Did that have someone in their life who loved them unconditionally? Were the places or times when they could escape the abuse?
I’m proud of people I know who survived bullying and worse not because of the bullying, but because they have embraced kindness and compassion despite the bad times. It’s what they did with it that matters.
Life will always have challenges. But some challenges are artificial. People forget that the very notion of money and private property are things humans just made up. They aren’t like laws of physics. We can change how the system works. And it isn’t that hard, because we do it all the time. Every time we change a tax (whether an increase or a decrease), we’re changing how the financial system works.
We live in a world where nearly 40% of the food we produce each year is just wasted. Yet there are people who can’t get enough food (or enough nutritious food) to survive. We’ve reached the point where large financial institutions are starting to panic a bit because of the sheer volume of wealth that is being hoarded in non-productive ways by the billionaire class. People are finally beginning to realize that the old truism (usually attributed to Henry Ford—hardly a progressive icon) that if workers are not paid enough to afford whatever products industries are producing, those industries will collapse.
I want the world to be a better place. I want people who are small children now to grow up and not have to struggle against problems that are entirely arbitrary and artificial—problems that we know how to fix—even though I had to fight those problems. I’m perfectly okay with them growing up in a better world than I did.
Don’t you agree?
Friday Five (quid pro quo edition)
“The biggest change in the 18 years since 9/11 is we no longer need to import our terrorists.”
I’ve continue to be crazy busy at work. The weather service is predicting a bit of a cold snap for the weekend. And some members of Congress seem to have come to their senses, at last.
Anyway, welcome to the Friday Five. This week I bring you: the top five stories of the week, five stories of interest to the queer community, five stores about science, five stories about the Impeachable One and related deplorables, and five videos (plus things I wrote and notable obituaries).
Stories of the Week:
Saints and people who do not think like us (Fantasticon 2019).
Why Are So Many Democrats Considering Ending The Filibuster?
Jesus Wades Into Seattle Politics. “Jesus H. Christ, in full robes and a staff, strode up in flip flops and urged the city council to pass legislation establishing an oversight board for the Green New Deal, a resolution to implement greener policies in Seattle. He did so by reading a letter from his dad…”
U.S. Military Warns Troops About Violence at Joker Screenings. The actual warning comes from the FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Force which has monitored a lot of disturbing discussions on InCel and Neo-Nazi chat rooms. These following two stories are related: Joaquin Phoenix Stops Joker Interview Over Violence Questions and Batman shooting victim’s family ‘horrified’ by Joker film’s violence.
Long-lost Italian painting could fetch $6 million at French auction.
This Week in News for Queers and Allies:
Challenge to Maryland gay conversion therapy ban dismissed.
Billy Porter Is First Openly Gay Black Man To Win Emmy For Lead Actor In A Drama .
An origin story for the queer community.
Angelica Ross Leaves Twitter After Abuse by Trump, Sanders Supporters. Such fine people…
Mattel Introduces World’s First Gender-Neutral Doll.
This Week in Science:
Submerged for Decades, Spanish ‘Stonehenge’ Reemerges After Drought.
Face of long-lost human relative unveiled.
Most massive neutron star ever detected strains the limits of physics.
North America Has Lost More Than 1 in 4 Birds in Last 50 Years, New Study Says.
Charts showing gender analysis of SF&F award finalists.
This Week in the Impeachable One and Other Deplorable People:
Trump’s $28B Bailout Of US Farmers (With More To Come) Is Over Twice Obama’s 2009 Bailout Of Detroit .
Trump’s Ukraine gambit could be another campaign finance crime.
Whistleblower says many other national security officials can confirm details on Ukraine call.
Evangelical right-wing groups show themselves to be hypocrites about impeachment.
Trump’s Latest Threat Called Witness Intimidation.
In Memoriam:
‘Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’ actor Aron Eisenberg dies at age 50.
A life for space: Sigmund Jähn, Germany’s first cosmonaut, dies aged 82.
Things I wrote:
It’s good to be prime again—birthday thoughts from a homo devil.
Videos!
Stephen Colbert – Trump-Ukraine Call Log Clearly Demonstrates Quid Pro Quo Demand:
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Seth Meyers – Trump Releases Damning Ukraine Memo Amid Impeachment Inquiry: A Closer Look:
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1 Giant Monster Neodymium Magnet vs 1,000 Small Neodymium Magnets in Slow Motion:
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La Bufadora – Tom Goss (Starring Daniel Franzese) [Content Warning: Song is about domestic violence]:
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WIG by Todrick [NSFW lyrics]:
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It’s good to be prime again—birthday thoughts from a homo devil
Today is my birthday. If you want to know which birthday, let’s just say that I am the only prime number less than 60 and greater than 54, okay? When I was a kid, my birthday was early enough in the school year that I often seemed to catch teachers by surprise. It was late enough in September that, under the rules of the school district we lived in when I turned five years old, I wasn’t allowed to be enrolled until the next year. So I was usually older than the rest of the kids in my class. There were some downsides to that, but also a few upsides.
The other thing that used to be more of an annoyance when I was younger was how crowded the birthdays were among my extended family. I was born 39 days after my Mom’s 17th birthday, and only 6 days before my Dad’s 18th birthday (yes, my parents were 16 years old when they got married!). I was also born 8 days after one of my cousins (the one that has been called my almost twin since we were infants, because when Grandma was babysitting both of us strangers would think we were twins). I was born two weeks before one grandmother’s 38th birthday and ten days after one grandfather’s 40th birthday. Also within a few weeks of my birthday were the birthdays or two uncles, and a whole bunch of other cousins (and demi-cousins, and step-cousins, and cousins-once-removed and so on).
During my teen years, when we lived in the same community as most of my mom’s siblings and other extended family members on her side, from the middle of August through Christmas there were one or two birthdays every single week. And my grandmother on that side (who was emphatically the ruling matriarch of the clan) insisted that everyone needed to show up and celebrate everyone else’s special day. Which didn’t really feel all that special when it was the 6th or 9th extended family get-together of that month, you know? Not that I have a right to complain. My one cousin whose birthday is two days after Christmas would be the first to point out that there are worse times to have one’s birthday than late September.
Which is sort of a convoluted way to say that while I have always enjoyed those times that we have gotten together with a bunch of friends to have a blow-out birthday, I’m also perfectly happy to spend the day lazing around the house, reading, and enjoying the well-wishes from friends; and then celebrating with a dinner with my husband.
But to get back to the cluster of family birthdays and why I mention being a homo in the title of this post: one of the step-cousins I mentioned in passing above had his birthday just a couple of days before mine. He was the step-son of one of my dad’s siblings, and therefore didn’t join the family until I was about 11 years old. When I was in middle school he was in college, and whenever we were visiting his family, or if his family came to visit the grandparents (and therefore we all had to show up for at least part of the visit), he always found a way to tell me that I was a freak.
By which I mean he would literally say, “You are such a freak!” or “God, you really are an over-educated freak, aren’t you?” He only called me a faggot to my face once that I recall, but years later I learned that my aunt (his step-mother at the time) was constantly admonishing him for calling me a faggot while talking about me with other family members. And I want to emphasize here, he was 20 years old and when I was 13—so this wasn’t a child being cruel to another child, but rather someone who supposedly was an adult being cruel to a child. Anyway, it should come as no surprise that I didn’t shed any tears when said aunt divorced his father when I was in high school. I thought I would never have to deal with his nonsense for the rest of my life, right?
Well, now we live in a world that includes Facebook. I typically log in to Facebook no more than about once or twice a month, and only then because for some family members I care about, Facebook is the only way to reliably get news about what’s happening in their lives. And so a couple weeks back when I logged in to ping some of my fellow Seahawks fans, what did I find but a friend request from this jerk…
Now, to be fair, he wasn’t the only person during my childhood who found ways to point out that I didn’t conform to societal expectations. I spent most of my childhood trying to figure out why so many of my classmates, public school teachers, Sunday School teachers, and pastors thought that there was something wrong with me. Specifically, why so many classmates, teachers, adult relatives, and at least one pastor kept calling me a “pussy,” “sissy,” “homo,” “faggot,” “weirdo,” et al. Once puberty hit in full force, I finally knew and all of that energy was redirected to trying to convince myself that I wasn’t gay, but that somehow I could thread the needle between my sexual orientation and the expectations of both society at large and the evangelical church in specific.
So, he wasn’t really that much of an outlier among the folks I had to deal with back then, but still, I look at that friend request and have to ask, “Why?” Because when I look at his timeline, it is all pro-NRA and pro-Trump memes. Therefore I can’t imagine that he is reaching out to apologize and say that he wishes he had been more supportive of my non-conformities when I was a kid. Maybe he is, but even looking at his current photos all that comes to mind is all of those times he called me a freak and how he used to disparage me to other family members. So, no, I am not going to accept his friend request.
I spent too much time as a child, teen, and young adult trying to accommodate haters like him. As an adult, I’ve forged a life with friends who love me and accept me (even though I am far from perfect) for who I am. I don’t feel any need to make time for people who couldn’t do that when they had the chance.
I usually end my birthday posts with some words of wisdom about some lesson I have learned. This year I’ve going to paraphrase/mangle Harvey Fierstein:
There is nothing you need more from other people than love and respect. Anyone who couldn’t give you that when they had a chance, doesn’t deserve a place in your life.
Hey, y’all, it’s fall!
Yesterday was the autumnal equinox, which means that in the northern hemisphere summer is over, and fall is here! I love fall. I sometimes have described fall as my favorite season. Though I have also said that here in western Washington state we have only two seasons—Rainy and Road Construction. And I’ve also joked about Decorating Season. Regardless, I really enjoy the fall. I don’t deal well with hot weather, so even when we have a slightly milder summer as we did this year, I’m always super happy when the weather people start saying things like we aren’t likely to break 80º F this year. Besides the cooler temperatures, this also means that it starts raining more regularly, and I love the rain.
Fall means more than just a change in the weather. Until well into my twenties, fall also meant the beginning of a new school year. And while as a child the restarting of school meant dealing with bullies, it also meant new text books and new teachers. And I’m a big book-loving nerd who enjoys learning new things. So the arrival of autumn makes me think about new project, or gives me inspiration to work harder on unfinished stories and the like.
Fall is also the kick-off of Decorating Season, as mentioned above. I don’t do quite as much elaborate decorations for the various holidays as I used to, but I have hung up a glittery Happy Harvest thing on the front door, and I have a bunch of window clings of autumn leaves and pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns and black cats. So spooky things will be going up in the next few days. Then after Halloween I’ll swap out for more generic harvest and Thanksgiving stuff.
Which means that Christmas isn’t far around the corner. Which means I need to start doing a better job finding presents for people on my list!
But for now, I’m just happy that it’s finally Fall!
“Hello Autumn”
Friday Five (double videos edition)
Here we are at the third Friday of September.
I’m still sick. My husband is still sick. When I told a good friend that I had more than ten videos that I was trying to choose from for this week’s Friday Five (where I traditionally only post five videos), she suggested that I do a Vidoes section and then a Second Videos and make a Hobbit Second Breakfast joke… then I realized that I had five music videos and 7 non-music videos, and once split apart like that, it was much easier to pick only five of each kind, so…
Anyway, welcome to the Friday Five. This week I bring you: the top five stories of the week, five stories about sf/f & fandom, five stories about deplorable people, five non-music videos, and five music videos (plus things I wrote and notable obituaries).
Stories of the Week:
Why Don’t Police Catch Serial Rapists?
I Went to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. This is What I Saw..
Piece of missing sculpture resurfaces in antiques store 50 years later .
This Week in Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Fandom:
LET’S FRIGHTEN CHILDREN! Vincent Price & Scooby-Doo.
Letting Go of Our “Heroes”: Ongoing Humanist Training and the (Ex-)James Tiptree, Jr. Award.
How Scooby Doo Revived Gothic Storytelling for Generations of Kids.
Truck Carrying Gaming Dice Spills Onto Highway, Rolls A Perfect 756,000.
Deplorables of the Week:
Republican state senator who blocked LGBTQ rights charged with sexual abuse of a minor – As a powerful committee chair, he had blocked LGBTQ rights legislation for years. For the umpteen-millionth time: if a politician is vehemently anti-gay, journalists should dig into their background! You will always find some scandal or crime. Always!
Kavanaugh ‘should be impeached’ just like Trump. He lied to the Senate under oath. Hell, yes, he should be impeached!
In Memoriam:
Cokie Roberts, Pioneering Journalist Who Helped Shape NPR, Dies At 75.
Eddie Money, ‘Two Tickets to Paradise’ Singer, Dies at 70.
Ric Ocasek, frontman of new wave pioneers the Cars, dies at 75.
Things I wrote:
The Parable of the Speck and the Log, or, telling others how to love sf/f will never work.
Tuesday Tidbits 9/17/2017: On the taxonomy of devils….
All generalizations are dangerous* — especially about generations!
Newsy Videos!
Out Celebs Have a #BiWeek Message for Bisexual+ Youth: You Matter:
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James Corden Responds to Bill Maher’s Fat Shaming Take:
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Filibuster: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver:
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Trump Threatens War with Iran on Saudi Arabia’s Behalf: A Closer Look:
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Beto O’Rourke: Current approach to guns no longer works:
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Music Videos!
Charli XCX – 2099 [Official Video]:
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PJ Brennan- Bones:
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Keiynan Lonsdale – Rainbow Dragon (Official Music Video):
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Kezar – Don’t Touch The Queen (Official Music Video):
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Cher Performs “Waterloo” LIVE On America’s Got Talent! – America’s Got Talent 2019:
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The importance of being seen
Frequently, Bisexual Awareness Week is the same week as my birthday, so I had been planning a post about bi-erasure, the importance of bi visibility, and so forth for next week. Then I saw a link on a newsblog that this week is it.
I often quote the study completed by the Centers for Disease control in the early 90s whose conclusions included the line, “Americans would rather admit to being heroin addicts than being bisexual.” I’m not bisexual, but my husband is. A lot of people leap to the conclusion that because he’s a man married to another man that he is gay. He’s not. A have several other friends who are bisexual who have ended up in long-term relationships with opposite sex partners and people assume that that means they are straight. They aren’t. And that’s just one aspect of bi-erasure.
One of the reasons I take bi erasure a bit personally is my husband: I love him, and being bisexual is part of who he is. It’s not that I only love his “gay half” (as if that even existed), I love all of him. Because he’s awesome.
I have to admit that another reason I take it personally is because I owe bisexual people an apology, because I’m one of those gay guys who—during the time I was struggling with coming out of the closet—lied and said I was bi. I was lying to myself at least as much as I was lying to anyone else, but it was a lie. It wasn’t a transitional phase on my way to being gay. The complicated forces of internalized homophobic and the tremendous social pressure that defines adulthood, in part, on getting married to a person of the opposite sex and starting a family cause us to do some stupid things. And unfortunately, the existence of exclusively gay or lesbian people who falsely identified as bisexual for a time while struggling with their identity contributes to another aspect of bi-erasure.
Bisexual (and pansexual) visibility is important. There are people out there—many of them young people—who aren’t out yet. They may be struggling with even understanding what their sexuality is. And the more examples they can see of adults of all sexualities — bi, pan, ace, gay, lesbian, queer — the more they will know that they aren’t alone and that they can have a future full of love.
And that means that the rest of us in the queer community need to do what we can to make our bi+ siblings feel welcome in queer spaces. If someone tells you they are bi, believe them. Don’t argue with them. Don’t tell them that they may feel differently later. Recognize that they are trusting you with information that makes them vulnerable, and be the kind of ally you wish your straight friends and family members had been for you when you came out.
“Your sexuality is valid.” (click to embiggen)
All generalizations are dangerous* — especially about generations!
Click to embiggen. Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, Pew Research Center
In one of those conversations a person made a comment about how some Baby Boomers don’t understand technology, and while it turned out to be a bit tongue-in-cheek (the person followed up by speculating that the person being clueless was actually a ghost from the 18th Century misunderstanding modern copyright law). Anyway, it reminded my that I keep meaning to follow up on the post I wrote three years ago about the cavalier way some people use terms such as “Baby Boomer” and “Millenial.”
Some folks want to list anyone who is over the age of, say, 35, as a Baby Boomer. I’m seen just as many older folks insist that everyone under 30 is a Millenial. Which makes any commentary about the social and economic issues faced by people who grew up in different time periods meaningless.
The term Baby Boom originally referred to the significant uptick in the birth rate when World War II came to an end and when the world economy recovered from the Great Depression. Contrary to over-simplified understandings of history, those two events weren’t the same—the U.S. domestic economy was noticeably improving before the U.S. even entered the war, and the birthrate started picking up during the war itself (though not as dramatically as it did a few years later). So some sociologist and economists tagged the beggining of the Baby Boom in 1945, while others in 1942 or ’43.
Similarly, the birthrate’s rate of increase started slowing down in the U.S. (though not dropping) in the mid-fifties. Later, when social scientists started talking about the Baby Boom generation, many of them placed much importance upon the attitudes and expectations of that cohort based on their formative years being in the 1950s, where, in the U.S. at least, there was an exuberant economic boom and no war. I was in my late teens when I first started reading articles about the Baby Boom generation, and those articles defined is as people born between about 1942 and 1955. Which meant that my mother and father were both Baby Boomers.
Which is one of the reasons I sometimes have a negative visceral reaction to the more current definition, which is people born between 1946 and 1965. Because that makes me a Baby Boomer… and because I spent years thinking of my parents as Baby Boomers and that just seems wrong. Also, I was born after the 50s ended, and by the time my formative years were going, the U.S. was at war in Viet Nam and the Civil Rights movement was causing many to feel that the world was changing for the worse. So I think my assumptions about life are a bit different than those who grew up in the 50s.
The chart that I reproduce above shows only one of the many possible definitions of generational groups. I believe for broad discussions about economics, sociology, politics, and the like that it is useful to make some generalizations about the broad societal conditions that people of different ages grew up under. A lot of people of my mother’s generation (The Silent Generation, people born between 1925 and 1945) supposedly don’t understand computers and modern technology. My mom has very strong feelings about several parts of Quantum Mechanics (word to the wise: if you don’t want to find yourself cowering in a corner, saying you are sorry and will never stray again, do not mention Erwin Schrödinger or his thought experiment about a cat and an atomic trigger within earshot of my mom, okay?). Once, when her computer had been misbehav ing for several months she told me that the reason she hadn’t called me was because none of the errors had risen to the level fo “kernal panic” and she had been able to get everything working again on her own.
Let me repeat that: my 76-year-old mother knows what a kernel panic is and is able to solve a lot of her computer and related problems on her own. So, just because they are a member of the generation before the Baby Boomers doesn’t mean they don’t understand technology.
Punch-card to enter Fortran commants into a computer, circa 1976, when I (a computer professional with more than 3 decades experience) took the only computer science class I ever had…
And no one should be surprised that most of Generation X (whose original name was Gen X Atari Wave) understands technology, but I’ve noticed that a lot of member of both Gen Y (the original Millenials) and Gen Z don’t really understand how the technology works. They both understand many of the implications of the internet, but to varying degrees, they don’t understand how those things actually work, because it’s no longer necessary to understand things happening below the Presentation layer to use the technology. This isn’t a bad thing, per se. Just as you don’t need to know how to machine a piston in order to operate a car, you don’t need to understand all of that other stuff in order to be active on social media.
Unfortunately, that means that you have situations such as the one that started one of the comment threads I mentioned above: folks who don’t understand what a hyperlink on a web page actually is, will get upset and file a DCMA take down notice on someone who is linking to someone else’s publicly accessible page. But a hyperlink isn’t content, it’s a pointer.
For much of my life, the cliche was that older people didn’t know how to work new technological devices, and that the answer was to find a child who could fix things for you. Some of those “children”—the leading edge of Gen X—are 50 years old now. And some are now shaking their heads looking at the younger people who are much better at knowing how to make things go viral, for instance, but may not even know what HTML is.
* “All generalizations are dangerous, even this one.” ― Alexandre Dumas-fils
Tuesday Tidbits 9/17/2017: On the taxonomy of devils…
This is one possible list of the types of Republicans that exist. I’m going to suggest an alternate listing…
So first, the Greed Monger who Grifts Money from the Other Types of Republicans While Doing Everything He Condemns: At Liberty University, Jerry Falwell Jr. bets on big-time football, with a disgraced coach – how Falwell’s been staffing the Liberty athletics department with Good Christian Guys with recent sex scandals of different sorts in their immediate past. . Surprise, surprise, surprise… Remember the strange deals where he found ways to give a handsome pool boy $1.8 million for a real estate deal after mysteriously spending a lot of time with his wife at the young hunky pool boy at various expensive vacation spots. And the $2 million real estate deal financed by the supposed non-profit university to a young hunky personal trainer who he is known to have sent sexy pictures of his wife to. And, of course, colleagues and former employees coming out of the woodwork with evidence that he’s turned his late father’s ministry, the so-called christian university, and other non-profits into a fund to enrich himself, family, and friends.
So, the coach mentioned mentioned in the first link was “forced out at Baylor — itself a private Baptist university — following a wide-ranging sexual and domestic assault scandal involving football players.” But he isn’t the first that Falwell has hired for the university. There’s another coach Falwell insisted the university hire after he lost his job at Ole Miss because he used his school-sponsored cell phone to call an escort service, not to mention previous allegations of inappropriate behavior with high school girls when he coached at Briarcrest Christian School in Memphis, Tennessee. I guess all these sexual predators should feel right at home with Falwell, Jr.
Next, the Evangelical Literalist Who Takes Away the Rights of Women, Queer People, While Claiming He’s Not a Bigot: A thorough investigation just destroyed the White House’s attempt to rebrand Mike Pence as not anti-gay. Pence’s staff and the White House were claiming the Pence can’t possibly be homophobic, because he shook hands with the Prime Minister of Ireland, who is one of The Gays! See, he can’t be a bigot! Except that first article dredges up things Pence has been doing as an elected official for nearly 30 years to deny rights to LGBT people and/or take rights and healthcare away from them. Then, of course, there is this that happened just a couple days after is staff was trying to deny the bigotry: Mike Pence Spoke at Fundraiser for Anti-LGBTQ+ Hate Group. (Note: the organization is also anti-abortion, anti-birth control, anti-women’s equality, and anti-accurate sex education in schools, plus very pro-bullying of queer children in schools). Pence is sure to feel home with all that hate!
The next type of devil/Republican is The Clueless Homocon who Enables and Encourages Neo-Nazis in Hopes Ignoring that Fact that when They Get Power They Will March Him Off to the Camps, Too:Homocon Troll Milo Banned From Midwest Furfest. “Yiannopoulos was banned from Australia earlier this year “on character grounds” and nearly every social media company has suspended his accounts for violating community guidelines against hate speech. Since losing access to his social media pulpits—and, more importantly, his Mercer family funding—Yiannopoulos has fallen millions of dollars into debt and spent his time almost exclusively blaming his self-inflicted wounds on others.”
Milo is only one of a bunch of people in this category (cf Andy Ngo, the entire membership of the Log Cabin Republicans, Peter Thiel, et cetera). Since he’s currently millions of dollars in debt and was just a bit of a week ago whining to is ~400 followers on the only social media platform that hasn’t banned him that not enough of them are shelling out donations to him for him to pay his bills… yet somehow he found the funds to try to buy a membership at Midwest Furfest (a convention that not only have I attended and love, but have had the privilege of being a Guest of Honor). And even though the convention has since banned him, he’s claiming he already has a room at the hotel “booked under someone else’s name” so they can’t keep him out. Never mind that being a guest at the hotel does not give one access to convention space. Also, if the room is his but booked under someone else’s name the hotel can eject him for that and/or revoke his room discount because he isn’t a convention member. If his name isn’t listed as an occupant of the room the hotel can eject him for trespassing. If he is, given his already made public statements that he tends to disrupt the convention, the hotel can legally eject him for that.
The fourth kind of devil is a bit more local, The Paranoid Anti-taxer Who Wants All the Benefits of Society as Long as He Doesn’t Have to Pay His Share of Taxes and THOSE Kind of People Do: Tim Eyman hit with new sanctions, ordered to disclose source of nearly $800K in donations. Eyman’s only income for a couple of decades are running various initiative campaigns to cut taxes, take away gay rights, prevent local tax payers from voting to raise taxes for services they want, and so forth. This is the second time he’s been on trial for mismanaging funds of this campaigns. The previous fines and settlements didn’t teach him a lesson. I hope he winds up penniless by the time this is over.
And now a Bonus category: White Supremacists Who Infiltrate Law Enforcement Institutions and Twist the Culture Until Ordinary Citizens are Perps by Default: Riotlandia: Why Portland Has Become the Epicenter of Far-Right Violence. “…on August 4, 2018, the police launched an unprovoked assault against peaceful protesters, nearly killing one when a flashbang grenade punctured his helmet, resulting in a brain hemorrhage. And on May 1 this year, 20 Patriot Prayer members led by Gibson and accompanied by Ngo attacked antifascists at a bar, fracturing the vertebrae of one woman (whose name was released by Ngo, leading to threats of violence against her, according to her friends). The bar owner claimed that it took police an hour to respond despite numerous emergency calls. The police released a lengthy statement seeking to justify why they didn’t respond until after the fight had ended despite knowledge of the attack as it was happening.” There’s more. So, so much more. Hit the link for the whole extremely well-sourced story.
The Parable of the Speck and the Log, or, telling others how to love sf/f will never work
Imagine that you, like me, were a fan of your local sports team. Imagine that you have watched their games for years—perhaps since childhood with fond memories of cheering the team on with your loved ones. Imagine that you wear the team t-shirt every Friday during the sports season. Imagine that when you see strangers on the street, or bus, or in the store also wearing the t-shirt (or hat, or scarf, or some other article of clothing with the team logo), you exclaim the team cheer (in my case it’s “Go Hawks!”), and the other person smiles and either repeats the phrase to you, or replies with another well-known cheer for the team.
Imagine that (perhaps because it was a time in your life when you couldn’t afford the official team merch) you made your own scarf or hat in the team colors. Or maybe you just couldn’t find the thing you wanted, so you made the banner or the sign or whatever about your favorite player or the team and put it out to share in the team spirit.
Year after year, game after game, you cheer for your team when they win. You are sad when they lose. You get ecstatic, jumping up and down and screaming, when they make it to the play-offs. When they don’t win the championship, you console your fellow fans, talking about how they were robbed and how next year will be different. Over the years you’ve bought tickets and attended games when you could afford to, you’ve bought the merch, you’ve organized viewing parties, you have screamed and hollered and been a fan.
Then, finally, imagine your team makes it all way to the top. They win all the games in the play-offs, they make it to the final championship, and OMG, they win!
Oh, the cheering and the screaming! Fans pounding each other on the back! Shouting “We won! We won! We are the champions!”
The team flies back home and there’s going to be a parade, so you put on your team jersey and your hat and scarf with the logo. You make a big sign on which you have painted the team logo and written the words, “We’re #1!”
And there you are at the parade, in a crowded sidewalk, holding up your signs, yelling happily as the team goes by on the vehicles of the parade. You’re excited and happy and everything is wonderful.
Except a guy walks up to you. You don’t recognize him. Maybe he’s wearing a button down shirt and tasteful slacks. He’s holding a clipboard. “No, you are not number one,” he says, angrily.
You’re confused “What? We won!”
He shakes his head, pulls out some identification that seems to say that he is an official of the league. “You did not win. They won. You are not a member of the team. You are just some wannabe who thinks that being a fan counts.”
And suddenly, everyone else on the sidewalk goes silent. Some of the people in the crowd say, “Technically, he’s right. We didn’t win. We cheered them on to the win, but that’s not the same thing.”
And someone else in the crowd points to the jersey and other gear he’s wearing and says, “I support the team with my money, too! I’m at least a part of the win!”
The guy with the clipboard and some others in the crowd shake their heads. “You can technically say that you contributed to an award winning team, but that’s it. Anything else is just a slap in the face to all those hard-working players who won this year and in the years before.” He takes your homemade sign away from you. “This is trademark violation. Don’t make us sue you.”
The parade is decidedly less festive after that.
Imagine a few months later, and you’ve tried to shake off the feeling you had when you were told that you, as merely a fan, have no share in the team’s victory. It was just some silly technical legal thing, you decided. That’s okay. You still love your team. You still wear your t-shirt. And when you see another person wearing their shirt and they exclaim the traditional cheer, without thinking you reply, “We’re number one!”
And suddenly the clipboard guy is there. “Okay, that joke might have been funny right after the win, but you have to stop. Every time you claim that you’re part of the winning team that is a slap in the face to all the actual winners. You are disrespecting the championship trophy. You are shitting all over the award. Don’t you see that?”
“But I’m just being a fan. This is what we do,” you explain. “We cheer when they win, we cry when they lose. We put in our time and money supporting them. When I say ‘We’re number one’ I know that I wasn’t literally out there on the field, but we’re still part of the team.”
The guy with clipboard sneers, looking you up and down. “Don’t be ridiculous. You could never be part of the team. Show respect for their hard work.”
“How is cheering not showing respect?”
“I never said that cheering isn’t showing respect. Check your notes. What I said was that when you shout ‘We’re number one’ and wave around your homemade sign that you are slapping them in the face.”
“But ‘We’re number one’ is literally a cheer—”
Clipboard guy leans in until his nose is practically touching yours and shouts, “Listen! Stop being an entitled, immature princess! Just sit over there and be quiet and wait until we tell you when you are supposed to clap and what you are supposed to yell and and stop trying to claim that you are something that you aren’t!”
You start to walk over to the designated fan place he has pointed you to. You see, among the other bewildered fans, one of the actual players from the team. “What are you doing here?” you ask.
The player smiles and says, “I’d rather share a space with a million silly people who think it’s awesome to be part of a win than one dour guy shrieking that people who love the team are entitled princesses.”
You don’t have to imagine, you just have to read the comments: ABOUT AO3’S HUGO AWARD.
Right after the Hugo awards ceremony, as part of my A Hugo of Our Own post I said:
I do have one quibble with some of my fellow members of AO3 (as we call it): you are not a Hugo Award-winner author. No matter how many of thousands of words of your fiction is in the Archive. Just as authors whose work was published in Uncanny Magazine this last year aren’t Hugo winners by dent of Uncanny winning the award; they are authors who have been published in an award-winning zine. Another way to look at it: Camestros Felapton compared the AO3 entity to a library: “It’s the library that’s being nominated, which includes its contents but which is not the same as its contents.” (emphasis added).
Yes, all of us who support, use, and contribute to Archive of Our Own should take pride in this win. But don’t go slapping a Hugo logo on your fanfic, all right?
I haven’t yet seen anyone grousing about AO3 winning. I saw a bit of that “Ew! Fanfic! ICKY!” when it was nominated. I saw more people trying to disguise their fear of fanfic cooties with arguments about why the Archive itself is not a “Work” in the sense necessary for the award.
I firmly believe that if someone seriously tries to claim to be a Hugo Winner because they have fanfic in the Archive of Our Own that they are making a fraudulent claim. I also fully support sending a cease and desist to the couple of people who are trying to sell unlicensed Hugo merchandise or running a kickstarter with unlicensed use of the Hugo logo.
But…
- Someone who changes their twitter handle temporarily to “Hugo nominated pornographer”, or
- someone else making a single comment on twitter being happy that Hugo voters have endorsed their man-loving-man slashfic, or
- someone else making a few comments on twitter that all the fanfic they love is now award-winning, or
- someone else making a single ‘I have written Hugo award winning porn, you’re welcome’ comment
…are clearly not literally claiming to be Hugo winners. What they are doing is precisely the same as fans shouting, “We’re number one!” after the team they love wins the championship.
That is not disrespecting the award, that is reveling in it!
And Clipboard Guy? It doesn’t matter if you are technically, pedantically, legally correct when you point out that the cheering fan isn’t actually a player who fought it out on the field and won the game—you’re still being a biased, dour jerk who is screaming in the face of some fans because they aren’t being fans in exactly the way you want them to. And it doesn’t matter if you don’t think you’re telling them to keep their fanfic cooties off their award, because sometimes our words have implications we didn’t mean—that you didn’t (consciously) mean them doesn’t mean they aren’t there.
Finally, you’re the only person who is disrespecting the spirit of the award.
Don’t be the nerdy bully… https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NerdyBully
As mean as a cornered ocelot
“Let’s be clear, President Trump will run a campaign as mean as a cornered ocelot and as fair as loaded dice. Which Democratic candidate do you think can best stand up and fight back?” – Dan Rather https://twitter.com/DanRather/status/1172592650202992640
I have a couple of half-finished Weekend Update-ish posts… but I keep thinking about this comment on twitter from retired news anchor, Dan Rather, the day after the third Democratic candidate debate.
And, yeah, every single one of those ten people have much better, smarter, and clearer policies to tackle real problems we face in this country that Trump or the GOP even wish to contemplate. We can’t lose sight of the fact that the first step to undoing all this madness is get Trump out of office. We can’t distract ourselves over subtle policy differences.
