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Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category

Social Media Cleanse

Posted in Culture, Politics, tagged , , , on 19 Nov 2015| 10 Comments »

Radcliffe Camera

Remember what I said about that first type of reaction to the Paris attacks? The xenophobic rants against Muslims specifically and refugees in general? Remember how, in Monday’s post, I said that this kind of reaction had, “for the most part subsided from the social sphere“?

Well, never mind.

Tuesday and Wednesday saw a resurgence, and my social media feeds were filled with these memes of bigotry. I ended up spending all of my social media time either arguing with the posters of those rants or trying to ignore them entirely.

I failed. At both.

Some people are so willing to hate other groups of people, so eager to hate our government and all it does, that it is pointless to argue with them. No amount of factual reportage in support of my position nor any amount of factual refutation of their opposite stance make any difference. I truly was in a “fact-free zone.”

By yesterday, noonish, I felt ill. My guts were churning. My head ached under a sharp vise-like grip. I could feel the blood pounding in my neck, hear it in my ears.

I had a clear case of social media poisoning.

So I shut it down.

I am now “dark” on social media, and now, less than eighteen hours in, I already feel much better.

Instead of spoon-feeding facts to wailing, hate-filled tantrum-throwers, I am learning how to repair fountain pens (Sheaffer vacuum-fill models, specifically), preparing meats for a long cure (bresaola and capicola), working on my bread-making skills (dough: check; baking temps/times: needs work), and getting Pepper back from our new mechanic (he’s a bit of a goofball, but excellent work).

This “social media cleanse” will last through the weekend, at least. At the end of it, I may have to “cleanse” my friends list as well.

I recommend it.

k

1962 TR3B

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Changing the Conversation

Posted in Politics, tagged , , , on 08 Apr 2015| 3 Comments »

La Sainte MadeleineThe USA is beginning another of its quadrennial conversations.

Whassat? You weren’t aware that we had regular national conversations? Not to worry; most folks aren’t aware of it either, but we do have them. You probably know them better by their more common name, the General Election, where every four years we have this big national discussion in which we ask questions, listen to opinions, and (in theory) provide answers in the form of votes.

The problem: We’re not all asking the same questions, and in my opinion, we’re not asking the correct questions, either. (more…)

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Let Me Get This Straight

Posted in Culture, Politics, tagged , , , , on 28 Mar 2015| 1 Comment »

I’ve been on vacation/sick as a dog for the past week, and a ton of topics have stacked up, but this Indiana…thing…has taken up all my thinking time and must be addressed first.

If you’re not aware, this week, Indiana’s governor Mike Pence signed a law that will allow businesses to turn away anyone if serving that customer would place a “significant burden” on the business owner’s religious beliefs. Setting aside its incredibly vague and non-quantifiable language, the context and timing of this bill–as well as that of similar laws/bills in nineteen other states–is squarely aimed at allowing businesses to discriminate against members of the LGBT community. In the wake of the SCOTUS Hobby Lobby decision, so-called “religious freedom” is being used as a holy cudgel with which to beat secular society over the head, and give religious zealots carte blanche to foist their particular beliefs on non-believers.

Here’s the thing: You have a right to your religious beliefs–undoubtedly and without question–but you do not have a right to run a business in any way you see fit. Your faith is your own, but your business is a secular enterprise, and if it is open to the public, that’s with whom it must treat: the public.

All of the public. Not just the part of the public you like. (more…)

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An Act of Courage

Posted in Culture, Politics, Writing, tagged , , , , , , on 09 Jan 2015| 2 Comments »

Pup Dog SpeaksWednesday, in the wake of the terrorist massacre at France’s Charlie Hebdo, Jon Stewart of The Daily Show said that comedy “shouldn’t be an act of courage.”

I’m not so sure he’s right. Comedy, it seems to me, often is, and more so than we might think.

A week before Wednesday’s murders, in an example of pure coincidence, I found myself pondering this very idea while reading one of the books I received. I was reading Through the Wild Blue Wonder, Volume I of the complete collection of Walt Kelly’s classic, brilliant comic strip, Pogo, which ran in daily and Sunday form for a quarter century during my youth.

Originally, I was simply going to review the book and wax nostalgic about what is without doubt my favorite comic of all time, but after the senseless stupidity that played out this week (and is still playing out) in Paris, my feelings about the book have a deeper resonance that I can’t ignore.

The truth is, comedy often is an act of courage, especially when satire and lampooning are employed.

Pogo began as a cute comic about anthropomorphic animals living in the Okefenokee Swamp of the American South. Quite soon, however, Walt Kelly–who drew and scripted Pogo from 1948 until his death in 1973–began to introduce caricatures of real life personalities to the swamp’s denizens. As early as 1949, Kelly began to lampoon publishing magnates and political figures in the panels of Pogo, drawing fire from such iconic personages as publisher William Randolph Hearst. In this way, Kelly’s lovable, innocent, brown-eyed Pogo ‘Possum faced down social and political foes, from Castro to Khrushchev to JFK to LBJ to the John Birch Society.

Kelly may never have feared for his actual life in busting those powerful chops, but he did experience backlash. As a syndicated cartoonist, he felt the pinch financially when newspapers, in retribution for some of the strip’s more pointed social commentary, dropped Pogo from their pages. Also, it cannot be denied that in creating his wildcat, Simple J. Malarkey, an obvious caricature of the paranoid Communist-hunter Senator Joseph McCarthy, Kelly was poking the Big Bear, an act that could easily have gotten him blacklisted entirely.

Through satire, Kelly pointed out our foibles and challenged our fears. In reading Pogo, we grew braver and wiser, and could see more clearly the daily idiocy we so often ignore.

Kelly was not alone in his work, and is not alone. There is a direct line from Pogo that reaches back to the political pamphleteers of Elizabethan England and Revolutionary France. Likewise, there is a direct line that stretches from Pogo forward to The Onion, SNL, and yes, to Charlie Hebdo.

And so, I think Jon Stewart got it wrong. Comedy is commentary, comedy is brave, and in that, comedy is an act of courage, because in the end, one of the bravest things we can ever do is laugh at ourselves.

To the murdered tigers of Charlie Hebdo: Nous ne vous oublierons pas.

k

Kanji character Raku: happiness, music, joy.

Kanji character Raku: happiness, music, joy.

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Visiting the Echo Chamber

Posted in Culture, Politics, tagged , , , , , , on 09 Sep 2014| 8 Comments »

TFL ProblemThere are times when sticking your neck out can make a difference. Then there are times when all you get is your head handed to you in a burlap sack.

Last week, a Facebook friend began to post vitriol against ISIS (or ISIL, or the Islamic State…choose your moniker) and against President Obama. He started slow–a comment here, a flame there–but his rhetoric took an uptick when he posted a collection of presidential quotes that included old favorites such as Roosevelt’s “Speak softly and carry a big stick,” and Reagan’s Cold War strategy, “We win, they lose,” and ended with Obama’s recent faux pas: “We don’t have a strategy, yet.”

The gist of his posts: ISIS is super-bad, and Obama is doing nothing.

If that was all it was, I probably would have left it alone. I knew that Obama wasn’t doing “nothing,” and I agree that ISIS is super-bad and must be dealt with. But that wasn’t all it was. (more…)

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Seattle Cops and Bad PR

Posted in Politics, Seattle, tagged , , , , , , on 01 Aug 2013| 3 Comments »

Sgt. Saulet of the KCSO

The Seattle Police Department (SPD) has had some bad PR lately. The King County Sheriff’s Office (KCSO) has had its share as well.

That’s assuming, of course, you call punching, kicking, and killing citizens “bad PR.” In fact, they’ve received so much of this “bad PR” that the SPD were investigated by the Department of Justice, and the KCSO was the subject of a scathing internal audit. They have repeatedly used excessive force, and have a reputation for “escalating ordinary interactions into volatile, sometimes violent, situations.” That, my friends, is bad PR.

And today, they got some more. (more…)

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Attention on Deck

Posted in Culture, Politics, tagged , , , , , , , on 05 Jun 2013| 2 Comments »

To the military command structure and certain senators ([cough-Chambliss-cough]):

Now Hear This.

If you are unable to safeguard our service-men and -women from sexual assault, rape, and forced prostitution from within our ranks then you should be tossed out on your collective brass.

If you refuse to drop the attitude and if you continue to blame the victims–see Gen Welsh’s tissue-thin excuse of the “hook-up culture” of American youth or Sen. Chambliss’s unbelievably ignorant comment about it all coming down to “hormones“–then you should not only be removed from the chain-of-c0mmand you hold so dear, but you should be brought up on charges for dereliction of duty.

Sexual assault and rape are not problems caused by the military “climate.” They are not the result of off-color jokes being taken too far or fraternization gone awry. They are crimes. They are crimes against the women and men (a large fraction of sexual assaults in the military are against males) under your command, by men under your command.

What is part of the military climate is the fact that your service personnel report less than 15% of the sexual assault crimes perpetrated against them. Thousands of assaults go unreported for fear of retaliation or for fear that, after you do nothing, the victim will be “marked” within the ranks (all as stated in your own Pentagon report).

Your past efforts to deal with this wave of assaults have proven ineffective, by any standard, much less a military standard. Your assertion–nay, your insistence–that the only way forward is the path we’ve already traveled flies in the face of reason.

So suck it up, soldier. Do your duty to the men and women under your command. Admit what has been proven already: that you are incapable of solving this through a simple chain-of-command reporting structure. Realize that in this case, if you aren’t part of the solution, you are definitely part of the problem.

That Is All.

k

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