from this linked article about an unarmed guy who got shot by the po-leece:
'One officer told Dillon Taylor to get on the ground, while another told him to put his hands on his head.
"He got confused, he went to pull up his pants to get on the ground, and they shot him," Jerrail Taylor said.'
setting aside for the moment that taylor, a parolee, had ample reason to believe the police would feel within their rights to initiate contact with him, he looks approximately like every other white guy in existence, and cops don't really have much but a mugshot to judge from.
it would seem that in cases where you, as a law enforcement officer, are not absolutely certain about the identity of the individual you're making contact with, you might want to try only giving one order to follow instead of two or three.
when you do it like this, it looks kinda like you used the state's authority to conspire to kill a man by ordering him to do the impossible under pain of execution.
... or that you've no business being law enforcement officers. i'm just waiting for the geniuses to get into a real life polish-firing-squad situation and start putting holes in each other's crackbuckets for a change. given law enforcement's track record on learning shit, it'll probably take 'em five years to figure out why it keeps happening, too. sounds like a joke, but you can easily imagine a situation where some member of a swat team is posthumously deemed "out of position" in the paperwork relieving his commanding officer of responsibility for "persons acting under department aegis".
if you ever wondered why police departments have that "maximum i.q." requirement...
Friday, November 28, 2014
something i chose not to inflict on facebook
(tl;dr: eng101)
i am officially coming out as wholly unperturbed by people using the universal "ur" in informal communications. the fact that whoever taught you english grammar decided to get all fancy in how they were going to try and get you to remember the difference between "your" and "you're" and it resulted in you being too confused to even care shouldn't stand in the way of you being able to carry on a decent conversation. from now on, i'm not going to be taking points off anybody's papers for using 'ur' when they mean either "your" or "you're".
but just for the record:
"your" is a possessive personal pronoun. it means that something belongs to or is the responsibility of a person immediately present in the sentence (namely, you). it doesn't have an apostrophe for the same reason words like "my" and "his" don't have apostrophes. it's the same kind of word.
the reason third person possessives have apostrophes (i.e. "Bill's car.") is because they are not pronouns (there are only six pronouns in english - the possessive forms are: my, your, his, hers, our, and their). people's names, like Bill, or words that name things, like car, are regular nouns, not pronouns. to make them possessives ("Bill's car", "the car's gas tank"), we use the apostrophe. you have to use the apostrophe to make regular nouns possessive because without one, it just means the noun is plural ("Bill's two cars"). english is fancy-shmancy that way.
on the other hand, "you're" is a contraction. contractions have more to do with etymology (the study of how words develop) than english grammar, because they're not just one word. they're bits of phrases which are so commonly grouped together when spoken that the sounds they make have come to be words in their own right ("hallow's evening" becomes "halloween"). "you're" is the preposition "you are". it puts the subject ("you") ahead of a descriptive statement about it ("you're a human being"). you might already realize that we do the same thing in english with "will" and "have" (meaning future and past; i.e. "You've learned a lot", "You'll do great things"). we express these ideas together so consistently that at some point in the development of the language, it simply became easier to hold them as ideas of their own and make them into their own words.
when it comes to the contractions, we still have the same six pronouns, but for prepositions, we use their regular form and not the possessive form. (regular pronouns: i, you, he, she, we, they) remember, they're already whole words inside their respective contractions, so they don't change form.
i saved "its" and "it's" for last because people get stuck on it a lot. all the other pronouns change between their regular and possessive forms ("i" becomes "my", "we" becomes "our"). "it" appears the same in both forms, and it follows both of the rules at the same time. when expressing "it" as owning something or describing one of its qualities, no apostrophe ("Its full rotation takes 24 hours"). when you're naming what "it" is doing or what "it" is like, that's the preposition form, and it needs the apostrophe to click it together ("It's a blue planet"). it's hard to sort out sometimes because the noun "it" must necessarily apply to a literally infinite number of objects, so it basically has to follow all the rules simultaneously. i got a whole lot of B's on perfectly good papers because i don't really care anymore when the apostrophe goes in this word either most of the time, tbh.
(scrolls back) holy crap. so, i hope you enjoyed "english lessons you didn't ask for" with Auntie Zeropoint. if i ever learn anything else, i'll let you know, i'm sure.
i am officially coming out as wholly unperturbed by people using the universal "ur" in informal communications. the fact that whoever taught you english grammar decided to get all fancy in how they were going to try and get you to remember the difference between "your" and "you're" and it resulted in you being too confused to even care shouldn't stand in the way of you being able to carry on a decent conversation. from now on, i'm not going to be taking points off anybody's papers for using 'ur' when they mean either "your" or "you're".
but just for the record:
"your" is a possessive personal pronoun. it means that something belongs to or is the responsibility of a person immediately present in the sentence (namely, you). it doesn't have an apostrophe for the same reason words like "my" and "his" don't have apostrophes. it's the same kind of word.
the reason third person possessives have apostrophes (i.e. "Bill's car.") is because they are not pronouns (there are only six pronouns in english - the possessive forms are: my, your, his, hers, our, and their). people's names, like Bill, or words that name things, like car, are regular nouns, not pronouns. to make them possessives ("Bill's car", "the car's gas tank"), we use the apostrophe. you have to use the apostrophe to make regular nouns possessive because without one, it just means the noun is plural ("Bill's two cars"). english is fancy-shmancy that way.
on the other hand, "you're" is a contraction. contractions have more to do with etymology (the study of how words develop) than english grammar, because they're not just one word. they're bits of phrases which are so commonly grouped together when spoken that the sounds they make have come to be words in their own right ("hallow's evening" becomes "halloween"). "you're" is the preposition "you are". it puts the subject ("you") ahead of a descriptive statement about it ("you're a human being"). you might already realize that we do the same thing in english with "will" and "have" (meaning future and past; i.e. "You've learned a lot", "You'll do great things"). we express these ideas together so consistently that at some point in the development of the language, it simply became easier to hold them as ideas of their own and make them into their own words.
when it comes to the contractions, we still have the same six pronouns, but for prepositions, we use their regular form and not the possessive form. (regular pronouns: i, you, he, she, we, they) remember, they're already whole words inside their respective contractions, so they don't change form.
i saved "its" and "it's" for last because people get stuck on it a lot. all the other pronouns change between their regular and possessive forms ("i" becomes "my", "we" becomes "our"). "it" appears the same in both forms, and it follows both of the rules at the same time. when expressing "it" as owning something or describing one of its qualities, no apostrophe ("Its full rotation takes 24 hours"). when you're naming what "it" is doing or what "it" is like, that's the preposition form, and it needs the apostrophe to click it together ("It's a blue planet"). it's hard to sort out sometimes because the noun "it" must necessarily apply to a literally infinite number of objects, so it basically has to follow all the rules simultaneously. i got a whole lot of B's on perfectly good papers because i don't really care anymore when the apostrophe goes in this word either most of the time, tbh.
(scrolls back) holy crap. so, i hope you enjoyed "english lessons you didn't ask for" with Auntie Zeropoint. if i ever learn anything else, i'll let you know, i'm sure.
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
"freeze! or everyone will know what you had for lunch!"
great idea for awesome cop weapon:
soundguns. the military has been screwing around for the last couple decades with sonic weapons, and really loud low-frequency sound directed straight at someone can make them dizzy to the point of throwing up. if we could somehow develop a handheld version of this that works with any kind of predictability, i would be in favor of airlifting crates of them in all shapes, sizes, and colors directly through the roof of every cop-shop in the world. if i ran the universe, police departments everywhere would be up to their asses in pukerays.
think about it; it's the best option for everyone's interests. first, i think there would be a lot fewer repeat offenders for nonviolents like property crimes and drug nonsense if getting caught and arrested also meant a round of involuntary public vomiting. plus, if the cops just wanted to shoot people for nonsense like "failing to comply with police commands" (which is a "crime" they made up because they're tools, by the way - the police have no more "command authority" over you than i do), they could do that to their heart's content and in a way that i'll bet would be deeply satisfying to their inner bully. i reckon making someone who pisses you off by not doing what you tell them to puke by remote control is the next best thing to putting their head down the toilet, and i'm okay with cops having nonlethals that still let them be the enormous, cheese-stank knobs we pay them to be.
because you know all the kind of people you wish you could be a jerk to because they've hurt someone or they're doing damage? wouldn't it make you feel better knowing the cops could still be total dicks to them? who doesn't want to see some corrupt wall street banker who thought he'd just take all your money and shoot his way out of the country when the feds finally caught up with him getting handcuffed facedown in a pile of his own vomit on national television?
soundguns. the military has been screwing around for the last couple decades with sonic weapons, and really loud low-frequency sound directed straight at someone can make them dizzy to the point of throwing up. if we could somehow develop a handheld version of this that works with any kind of predictability, i would be in favor of airlifting crates of them in all shapes, sizes, and colors directly through the roof of every cop-shop in the world. if i ran the universe, police departments everywhere would be up to their asses in pukerays.
think about it; it's the best option for everyone's interests. first, i think there would be a lot fewer repeat offenders for nonviolents like property crimes and drug nonsense if getting caught and arrested also meant a round of involuntary public vomiting. plus, if the cops just wanted to shoot people for nonsense like "failing to comply with police commands" (which is a "crime" they made up because they're tools, by the way - the police have no more "command authority" over you than i do), they could do that to their heart's content and in a way that i'll bet would be deeply satisfying to their inner bully. i reckon making someone who pisses you off by not doing what you tell them to puke by remote control is the next best thing to putting their head down the toilet, and i'm okay with cops having nonlethals that still let them be the enormous, cheese-stank knobs we pay them to be.
because you know all the kind of people you wish you could be a jerk to because they've hurt someone or they're doing damage? wouldn't it make you feel better knowing the cops could still be total dicks to them? who doesn't want to see some corrupt wall street banker who thought he'd just take all your money and shoot his way out of the country when the feds finally caught up with him getting handcuffed facedown in a pile of his own vomit on national television?
Thursday, November 13, 2014
Twentyfirst Century Vanity : PHOTO
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| Twentyfirst Century Vanity
i created this image to make a statement on what constitutes social popularity on the internet. thank you.
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Thursday, October 30, 2014
ruleout: gaslighting
researchers discover correlation between increased exposure to psychiatry and increased incidence of suicide.
my reactions to my own failure to release preconceptions about people when i meet them is my issue, not theirs.
i wonder how much of the "behavioral illness" in the developed world is the result of a handful of people insisting that someone in their group isn't "like them good enough", and the person they're singling out, of course being precisely and predictably exactly like them... and you, and me, and every other human being... and wanting so much to belong that they end up letting themselves get put through the wringer? i'm not saying mental illness isn't a thing. i'm saying i'd like to know what the ratio of "i think there's something wrong" to "everyone keeps telling me there's something wrong" is. no mental health professional is even going to suggest "maybe they're wrong", either for pride or liability's sake. that's a blind spot in therapy, and when it's the truth (which it has a good chance of being. people are wrong all the time), it's a tragedy.
the only mental health condition someone being coerced into mental health treatment should be presumed to have is ptsd, because you do not want to know what i been through to get here.
my reactions to my own failure to release preconceptions about people when i meet them is my issue, not theirs.
i wonder how much of the "behavioral illness" in the developed world is the result of a handful of people insisting that someone in their group isn't "like them good enough", and the person they're singling out, of course being precisely and predictably exactly like them... and you, and me, and every other human being... and wanting so much to belong that they end up letting themselves get put through the wringer? i'm not saying mental illness isn't a thing. i'm saying i'd like to know what the ratio of "i think there's something wrong" to "everyone keeps telling me there's something wrong" is. no mental health professional is even going to suggest "maybe they're wrong", either for pride or liability's sake. that's a blind spot in therapy, and when it's the truth (which it has a good chance of being. people are wrong all the time), it's a tragedy.
the only mental health condition someone being coerced into mental health treatment should be presumed to have is ptsd, because you do not want to know what i been through to get here.
Saturday, October 25, 2014
"hey, wanna hear the most annoying sound in the world?"
"Talking While Female" - NPR video
they left out "argumentative" and "yelling". if a woman's voice isn't "squeaky" or "childlike" enough, everything she says gets interpreted as "aggressive". it's why i don't use capital letters in my informal writing anymore. i'm honestly just that tired of being told how i'm "yelling" all the time.
and people, i'm sorry to say, aren't kind about it either. people seem to decide that since i continue to sound like me even though they've randomly chosen to believe i'm yelling (seriously, i've been told i was yelling when i was whispering, and i wish i were exaggerating about that), i'm being purposely antagonistic with them. it's actually quite scary for me to initiate conversations with people i don't already know well because i never know how "threatened" they're going to decide to be, and i don't really want to get shot over the length of my vocal cords.
i'm not the only woman with a deeper voice that i know of, but we all tend to use the same tactic to "diffuse" the "threat" we "impose" on people by... idunno, existing? we talk like we're mildly retarded. we all take on that forrest gump inflection and hope that if people think we're kinda stupid, they won't feel "threatened" enough by our voices to attack us.
they left out "argumentative" and "yelling". if a woman's voice isn't "squeaky" or "childlike" enough, everything she says gets interpreted as "aggressive". it's why i don't use capital letters in my informal writing anymore. i'm honestly just that tired of being told how i'm "yelling" all the time.
and people, i'm sorry to say, aren't kind about it either. people seem to decide that since i continue to sound like me even though they've randomly chosen to believe i'm yelling (seriously, i've been told i was yelling when i was whispering, and i wish i were exaggerating about that), i'm being purposely antagonistic with them. it's actually quite scary for me to initiate conversations with people i don't already know well because i never know how "threatened" they're going to decide to be, and i don't really want to get shot over the length of my vocal cords.
i'm not the only woman with a deeper voice that i know of, but we all tend to use the same tactic to "diffuse" the "threat" we "impose" on people by... idunno, existing? we talk like we're mildly retarded. we all take on that forrest gump inflection and hope that if people think we're kinda stupid, they won't feel "threatened" enough by our voices to attack us.
Friday, October 17, 2014
to: all the young dudes... and all the other dudes, too.
woman in detroit shot dead for rejecting a man's advances.
when you try to chat up a woman who hasn't been properly introduced to you, we still wonder a little if you might be The One, but unfortunately, we mostly just worry about what might happen to us if you aren't... and i'm going to be honest, you probably aren't The One for anywhere near as many girls as you might want.
it scares the hell out of women to have a man we don't know approach us and start talking, especially if he starts talking sex right out the gate. women know right up front if the answer is going to be 'yes' or 'no', most of the time it's 'no', and too often, violence is the result.
i'm not saying don't ever flirt with women. i'm just asking you to keep in mind that the women you're flirting with have a good reason to be concerned for their safety in that moment, and if you're "not that guy", then just keep being "not that guy". women aren't unreasonable, and believe it or not, we're not even that difficult, but brute force won't turn a 'no' into a 'yes'. it'll only turn it into a prison sentence or a funeral...
or both.
when you try to chat up a woman who hasn't been properly introduced to you, we still wonder a little if you might be The One, but unfortunately, we mostly just worry about what might happen to us if you aren't... and i'm going to be honest, you probably aren't The One for anywhere near as many girls as you might want.
it scares the hell out of women to have a man we don't know approach us and start talking, especially if he starts talking sex right out the gate. women know right up front if the answer is going to be 'yes' or 'no', most of the time it's 'no', and too often, violence is the result.
i'm not saying don't ever flirt with women. i'm just asking you to keep in mind that the women you're flirting with have a good reason to be concerned for their safety in that moment, and if you're "not that guy", then just keep being "not that guy". women aren't unreasonable, and believe it or not, we're not even that difficult, but brute force won't turn a 'no' into a 'yes'. it'll only turn it into a prison sentence or a funeral...
or both.
Thursday, October 16, 2014
methinks he takes the 'war on germs' too literally
obama authorizes national guard deployment to west africa because ebola
sending the national guard to "fight the outbreak"? with what? little tiny guns that shoot purell at individual viruses? what could he possibly be thinking? let's take a look at what will actually happen if guardsmen are sent to africa:
1) a bunch of national guardsmen will contract ebola, okay? let's just be realistic about that... and remember, we're still at the 50/50 point with this disease. half the people who get it die, not because we have no treatment, but because the virus is moving faster than our medicine. national guardsmen aren't thoroughly trained in medical care or quarantine protocol. so what are they gonna do? they're just going to go over there with gigantic guns and stand around making the problem worse, which leads me to point
2) a bunch of africans are going to get killed by national guardsmen and/or bunch of guardsmen will be killed by african patriots. if they'll kill american doctors for trying to teach them how to cut transmission rates, they'll run up on a guardsman no doubt. africans already think ebola is being brought by America the BigBad for some nefarious purpose. imagine how they'll react when they start seeing american military personnel clomping around their villages with gigantic guns.
oh, and you know that word in front of "guardsman"? it's "national". "national guard"... as in guarding the nation. those troops aren't supposed to ever leave american soil. they're meant to guard... defend... the united states from within her own borders. they're never supposed to be sent away, not one of them. we need them all here, all the time. the president should either send the army or consider non-military responses, and if he's bound by treaty not to send his army, that doesn't mean he should turn around and send ours.
this is not what the United States National Guard is for.
sending the national guard to "fight the outbreak"? with what? little tiny guns that shoot purell at individual viruses? what could he possibly be thinking? let's take a look at what will actually happen if guardsmen are sent to africa:
1) a bunch of national guardsmen will contract ebola, okay? let's just be realistic about that... and remember, we're still at the 50/50 point with this disease. half the people who get it die, not because we have no treatment, but because the virus is moving faster than our medicine. national guardsmen aren't thoroughly trained in medical care or quarantine protocol. so what are they gonna do? they're just going to go over there with gigantic guns and stand around making the problem worse, which leads me to point
2) a bunch of africans are going to get killed by national guardsmen and/or bunch of guardsmen will be killed by african patriots. if they'll kill american doctors for trying to teach them how to cut transmission rates, they'll run up on a guardsman no doubt. africans already think ebola is being brought by America the BigBad for some nefarious purpose. imagine how they'll react when they start seeing american military personnel clomping around their villages with gigantic guns.
oh, and you know that word in front of "guardsman"? it's "national". "national guard"... as in guarding the nation. those troops aren't supposed to ever leave american soil. they're meant to guard... defend... the united states from within her own borders. they're never supposed to be sent away, not one of them. we need them all here, all the time. the president should either send the army or consider non-military responses, and if he's bound by treaty not to send his army, that doesn't mean he should turn around and send ours.
this is not what the United States National Guard is for.
Saturday, October 11, 2014
the religion *is* the problem
so there was that lemon party about muslims recently on bill maher's show. i still can't figure out which side is which. in fact, the arguments presented sound exactly the same to me, it's just that one of them was offered to a group of conversants by a scholar in the field and the other was a loud, barely relevant soliloquy delivered to an audience by an actor.
the only problem i had with anything that was said was that they were still talking about religion as though it were a thing that actually exists and not just an ignorant interpretation of neuropsychology by cavemen who didn't know where their thoughts came from.
so did i miss something? when did any party to the discussion suggest that we kill all the muslims or whatever? because i don't remember hearing the thing everyone appears to be arguing about right now. i heard one guy say that islam is damaging to those who identify with it, and then i heard the other guy hollering about how islam is damaging to those who identify with it. in what way are those two opinions different from one another? yeah, in the first one, the thing doing the damage is the religion and in the second, the thing doing the damage is society... because of the religion.
seems to me that the problem is religion. the islamic state has beheaded four western journalists. every day, a squadron of american drone pilots (who are forced to profess a belief in the christian god as a condition of their employment) kiss their crucifix pendants before larping toddlers to death on the other side of the planet for being brown. looking at the evidence, i know i certainly couldn't defend the claim that either of these religions are less violent than the other.
the only problem i had with anything that was said was that they were still talking about religion as though it were a thing that actually exists and not just an ignorant interpretation of neuropsychology by cavemen who didn't know where their thoughts came from.
so did i miss something? when did any party to the discussion suggest that we kill all the muslims or whatever? because i don't remember hearing the thing everyone appears to be arguing about right now. i heard one guy say that islam is damaging to those who identify with it, and then i heard the other guy hollering about how islam is damaging to those who identify with it. in what way are those two opinions different from one another? yeah, in the first one, the thing doing the damage is the religion and in the second, the thing doing the damage is society... because of the religion.
seems to me that the problem is religion. the islamic state has beheaded four western journalists. every day, a squadron of american drone pilots (who are forced to profess a belief in the christian god as a condition of their employment) kiss their crucifix pendants before larping toddlers to death on the other side of the planet for being brown. looking at the evidence, i know i certainly couldn't defend the claim that either of these religions are less violent than the other.
Saturday, October 4, 2014
how an intrauterine device works: an analogy for republicans
GOP goobernatorial candidate calls the iud an 'abortifacient' - The Rachel Maddow Show
say you're a human sperm.
(har - u just sed u wuz a hoomin spermz... neway)
you're a healthy sperm from an "active" gentleman, so everything works just fine with you. you're out on the town looking for a lovely round lady to make a baby with, so you get yourself deposited at the door of your favorite pub and...
THE MUSIC IS SO GODDAMN LOUD THAT IT SHAKES YOUR EYEBALLS IN YOUR LITTLE SPERMY HEAD. EVEN IF THERE WAS AN EGG HERE, YOU'D NEED A BLOODHOUND TO FIND HER AND WELL-DEVELOPED TELEPATHY TO TALK TO HER.
and so you leave, you and her both, right out the same door, completely unable to have conceived your Destiny (or Steve, or Elizabeth, or whoever) because the environment where you were supposed to meet was just too hostile.
an intrauterine device works by altering the chemistry of the uterine environment such that the sperm and egg can't do what they're supposed to do. because no baby is ever conceived, the iud is, by definition and function, not an "abortifacient". in fact, it is the complete opposite. women can and do conceive children while using the iud. the problem is that those fertilized eggs then implant in parts of the woman that aren't her uterus. ectopic pregnancies aren't just painful. they can take the woman's fertility... and sometimes her life.
if republicans wanted to argue that iud's were dangerous, they could, but they can't call something an "abortifacient" when the danger it poses comes as the result of its inability to terminate a pregnancy.
say you're a human sperm.
(har - u just sed u wuz a hoomin spermz... neway)
you're a healthy sperm from an "active" gentleman, so everything works just fine with you. you're out on the town looking for a lovely round lady to make a baby with, so you get yourself deposited at the door of your favorite pub and...
THE MUSIC IS SO GODDAMN LOUD THAT IT SHAKES YOUR EYEBALLS IN YOUR LITTLE SPERMY HEAD. EVEN IF THERE WAS AN EGG HERE, YOU'D NEED A BLOODHOUND TO FIND HER AND WELL-DEVELOPED TELEPATHY TO TALK TO HER.
and so you leave, you and her both, right out the same door, completely unable to have conceived your Destiny (or Steve, or Elizabeth, or whoever) because the environment where you were supposed to meet was just too hostile.
an intrauterine device works by altering the chemistry of the uterine environment such that the sperm and egg can't do what they're supposed to do. because no baby is ever conceived, the iud is, by definition and function, not an "abortifacient". in fact, it is the complete opposite. women can and do conceive children while using the iud. the problem is that those fertilized eggs then implant in parts of the woman that aren't her uterus. ectopic pregnancies aren't just painful. they can take the woman's fertility... and sometimes her life.
if republicans wanted to argue that iud's were dangerous, they could, but they can't call something an "abortifacient" when the danger it poses comes as the result of its inability to terminate a pregnancy.
Friday, October 3, 2014
Commentary on News Commentary... Commentary
http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/10/03/352815113/isis-captives-tell-of-rapes-and-beatings-plead-for-help
okay, so boko haram kidnaps girls from a school en masse, now these guys. and these are forced marriages, i'm thinking. "perhaps thousands" of women getting "secret phones"? they're not being shuffled off to buffalo. if i were guessing, i'd guess some manner of reproductive exploitation is going on.
see, and my news media has kept me specifically in the dark about what, exactly, it is that isis is after. what their mission objectives are. to be fair, it's mostly okay with my government if nobody ever questions anybody's mission objectives... ever, so i admit to being kind of in the center of a media blackout on what's going on sometimes.
what i'm led to understand is their major malfunctions are all variations on "they hate ur freedumb." the message hasn't really changed in fifteen years. in fact, one of the major networks here just had dubya on to trigger our collective ptsd by mentioning 9-11 a whole bunch of times right in a row, and then connected it to isis so everyone would be good and scared and confused about everything. i'm surprised he didn't repeat the CONSUME message along with that FEAR and OBEY.
so my info on why isis is doing what it's doing is sketchy at best. i can't really make any judgments i would trust with the information i have. when i hear about what they do, i assume that no reasonable man behaves in that way unless he has grievous cause, but the only thing i know about what those grievances actually are is that what i think i know is probably inaccurate.
because why is my news media trying to convince me that the greatest threat to my "freedumb" is a group of people who seem to only really do harm to one another and not the people inside my own country who are doing harm to the people here? hey, let's ask mike brown what he thinks of the threat isis poses to regular americans' lives.
... oh.
okay, so boko haram kidnaps girls from a school en masse, now these guys. and these are forced marriages, i'm thinking. "perhaps thousands" of women getting "secret phones"? they're not being shuffled off to buffalo. if i were guessing, i'd guess some manner of reproductive exploitation is going on.
see, and my news media has kept me specifically in the dark about what, exactly, it is that isis is after. what their mission objectives are. to be fair, it's mostly okay with my government if nobody ever questions anybody's mission objectives... ever, so i admit to being kind of in the center of a media blackout on what's going on sometimes.
what i'm led to understand is their major malfunctions are all variations on "they hate ur freedumb." the message hasn't really changed in fifteen years. in fact, one of the major networks here just had dubya on to trigger our collective ptsd by mentioning 9-11 a whole bunch of times right in a row, and then connected it to isis so everyone would be good and scared and confused about everything. i'm surprised he didn't repeat the CONSUME message along with that FEAR and OBEY.
so my info on why isis is doing what it's doing is sketchy at best. i can't really make any judgments i would trust with the information i have. when i hear about what they do, i assume that no reasonable man behaves in that way unless he has grievous cause, but the only thing i know about what those grievances actually are is that what i think i know is probably inaccurate.
because why is my news media trying to convince me that the greatest threat to my "freedumb" is a group of people who seem to only really do harm to one another and not the people inside my own country who are doing harm to the people here? hey, let's ask mike brown what he thinks of the threat isis poses to regular americans' lives.
... oh.
Friday, September 26, 2014
on Videographers "Exposing" Street Harassment
if street harassment is such a pandemic problem, why is it that whenever a woman tries to formally document street harassment she doesn't just wear a t-shit and jeans? why is she always in a short skirt and low cut top?
if street harassment happens just because men are evil and has nothing to do with how a woman is dressed, why bother tarting her up like that before you go out to get footage? doesn't doing that kind of defeat your whole purpose? how does dressing a woman like a pinup girl and parading her around town prove anything about men?
penn and teller did something similar on an episode of "bullshit". they put a camera in a big, obtrusive button, put that big, obtrusive button on a woman's chest, had her initiate conversations with random men... and then they shamed those men for glancing at the big, obtrusive button camera they put on her chest. penn and teller used this to prove that men are slime (of course), but i think it just means men can see and are human.
if you have to alter the terms of interaction in order to get the kind of interaction you want, you can't then say that what results is a unblemished reflection of reality. you preempted that possibility. if you have to dress all sleazy to get men to catcall you, then you have to admit that they're catcalling you because you're dressed all sleazy and not because they're evil. is there a pandemic of men catcalling girls who are dressed all sleazy? you bet. is that a problem for those of us (male and female) who don't engage in that social binary?
nope.
if street harassment happens just because men are evil and has nothing to do with how a woman is dressed, why bother tarting her up like that before you go out to get footage? doesn't doing that kind of defeat your whole purpose? how does dressing a woman like a pinup girl and parading her around town prove anything about men?
penn and teller did something similar on an episode of "bullshit". they put a camera in a big, obtrusive button, put that big, obtrusive button on a woman's chest, had her initiate conversations with random men... and then they shamed those men for glancing at the big, obtrusive button camera they put on her chest. penn and teller used this to prove that men are slime (of course), but i think it just means men can see and are human.
if you have to alter the terms of interaction in order to get the kind of interaction you want, you can't then say that what results is a unblemished reflection of reality. you preempted that possibility. if you have to dress all sleazy to get men to catcall you, then you have to admit that they're catcalling you because you're dressed all sleazy and not because they're evil. is there a pandemic of men catcalling girls who are dressed all sleazy? you bet. is that a problem for those of us (male and female) who don't engage in that social binary?
nope.
Thoughts on the "Unfriend Trend"
an article by a woman talking about purging her facebook friends list.
there was always a better way to handle "facebook overload" than the current state of "mass defriendings", but it was up front. i only have 83 facebook friends, and no, i don't "know" them all, but i like them all just fine. facebook hasn't become that kind of overwhelming and stressful and "public-y" to me.
you have to understand, this format was originally designed for a college campus. it's predicated on the notion that everyone on it has a real-world reason to know everyone else. it wasn't designed for people who are and intend to remain absolute strangers to one another.
as for the "social" implications of unfriending someone... if someone came into your house and started yelling about social topics that made you uncomfortable, or started insulting or threatening you, you'd kick them out. it would be worlds harder than just clicking 'unfriend', but you'd do it. well, that's pretty much what facebook is. it's allowing people into your home, and they bring their opinions and personalities with them. if they're upsetting you, you should kick them out.
but before you do that, briefly consider the idea that if someone else having an opinion that isn't a carbon copy of yours makes you so upset you can't have them in your environment... maybe that's not all exactly their problem only. i have facebook friends i know i disagree with on some pretty fundamental points. doesn't bother me. certainly not to the point where i would willingly deprive myself of their input. i already know what i think. when all i want is to obsess about my own opinion, i open my word processor, not facebook.
there was always a better way to handle "facebook overload" than the current state of "mass defriendings", but it was up front. i only have 83 facebook friends, and no, i don't "know" them all, but i like them all just fine. facebook hasn't become that kind of overwhelming and stressful and "public-y" to me.
you have to understand, this format was originally designed for a college campus. it's predicated on the notion that everyone on it has a real-world reason to know everyone else. it wasn't designed for people who are and intend to remain absolute strangers to one another.
as for the "social" implications of unfriending someone... if someone came into your house and started yelling about social topics that made you uncomfortable, or started insulting or threatening you, you'd kick them out. it would be worlds harder than just clicking 'unfriend', but you'd do it. well, that's pretty much what facebook is. it's allowing people into your home, and they bring their opinions and personalities with them. if they're upsetting you, you should kick them out.
but before you do that, briefly consider the idea that if someone else having an opinion that isn't a carbon copy of yours makes you so upset you can't have them in your environment... maybe that's not all exactly their problem only. i have facebook friends i know i disagree with on some pretty fundamental points. doesn't bother me. certainly not to the point where i would willingly deprive myself of their input. i already know what i think. when all i want is to obsess about my own opinion, i open my word processor, not facebook.
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
Clothes and Rapists
no, what she's wearing doesn't mean she "asked for it".
i think people confuse what they personally feel comfortable both wearing and looking at for some generalization about how people "should" look or dress. i don't like it when women dress too revealingly, so my own dress is relatively modest. and if i wanted to be a bitch about it, i'd mention that i don't really mind making a less attractive target of myself, thanks, but you go right ahead... bait.
however
telling people that they deserve any criminal acts perpetrated against them because of their clothing is actually wrong on a functional level. clothing doesn't make rapists. blaming rape on things that don't have anything to do with the rapist just victimizes the rest of the community, too... including the rapist.
i think it's okay to ask questions like, "what made the rapist commit the rape?", but that question doesn't include the victim. they were merely present. the victim didn't do the thing that made the rapist choose to violate another human being like that. someone else did something to that rapist to make them that way.
asking how revealing the victim's clothing was is a waste of investigative resources, imo. there's an answer to "why do rapists rape", but you're not going to find it looking up girls' skirts.
i think people confuse what they personally feel comfortable both wearing and looking at for some generalization about how people "should" look or dress. i don't like it when women dress too revealingly, so my own dress is relatively modest. and if i wanted to be a bitch about it, i'd mention that i don't really mind making a less attractive target of myself, thanks, but you go right ahead... bait.
however
telling people that they deserve any criminal acts perpetrated against them because of their clothing is actually wrong on a functional level. clothing doesn't make rapists. blaming rape on things that don't have anything to do with the rapist just victimizes the rest of the community, too... including the rapist.
i think it's okay to ask questions like, "what made the rapist commit the rape?", but that question doesn't include the victim. they were merely present. the victim didn't do the thing that made the rapist choose to violate another human being like that. someone else did something to that rapist to make them that way.
asking how revealing the victim's clothing was is a waste of investigative resources, imo. there's an answer to "why do rapists rape", but you're not going to find it looking up girls' skirts.
Thursday, September 18, 2014
The "Flames of War"?
some links about the "trailer" isis "released" (basically just a short propaganda video). interesting that it's directed at an english-reading audience. it's definitely directed at someone.
the video can be seen at both links. the youtube video is the piece the young turks did about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xli0pByzmAo
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/17/isis-video-us-troops_n_5835036.html
infowars posts a video that looks exactly like that "trailer" about three times a week and the government doesn't have any response at all. why should this be different? it's the same kind of ultraconservative paranoid nut jobs. just because they're from somewhere else doesn't mean everyone should start panicking. i can find fifty videos just like that made by ultraconservative paranoid nut jobs from around the world about topics from abortion to zombies.
i predict that the people who actually live there are getting megaupset right about now, though. i bet they start shooting these isis guys on their own in a minute. you watch. because nobody in their right mind is going to put up with this going on right in front of their kids for too long, principles or no. i don't care how much you "hate" america, you're going to reach your limit on "bullshit that fucks up my personal day" eventually.
because whatever america is, we ain't the ones driving trucks dripping with guys dripping with guns up and down the street in front of your kid's school all day. we don't do things like that.
we buy your land and build military bases to house armed soldiers in your country... which isn't military occupation in that we told you we were going to quarter combat-ready soldiers inside the borders of your country, and your government still sold us the property and gave us building permits. that's kind of why we like to call these things we do different versions of "not legally a war by our internally decided upon rules for what that entails". so long as we keep it business, everything seems to go really well for us, huh...
y'know, maybe your problem isn't exactly us.
you should overthrow your government. ... that's not directed at anyone. just a statement of general advice.
the video can be seen at both links. the youtube video is the piece the young turks did about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xli0pByzmAo
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/17/isis-video-us-troops_n_5835036.html
infowars posts a video that looks exactly like that "trailer" about three times a week and the government doesn't have any response at all. why should this be different? it's the same kind of ultraconservative paranoid nut jobs. just because they're from somewhere else doesn't mean everyone should start panicking. i can find fifty videos just like that made by ultraconservative paranoid nut jobs from around the world about topics from abortion to zombies.
i predict that the people who actually live there are getting megaupset right about now, though. i bet they start shooting these isis guys on their own in a minute. you watch. because nobody in their right mind is going to put up with this going on right in front of their kids for too long, principles or no. i don't care how much you "hate" america, you're going to reach your limit on "bullshit that fucks up my personal day" eventually.
because whatever america is, we ain't the ones driving trucks dripping with guys dripping with guns up and down the street in front of your kid's school all day. we don't do things like that.
we buy your land and build military bases to house armed soldiers in your country... which isn't military occupation in that we told you we were going to quarter combat-ready soldiers inside the borders of your country, and your government still sold us the property and gave us building permits. that's kind of why we like to call these things we do different versions of "not legally a war by our internally decided upon rules for what that entails". so long as we keep it business, everything seems to go really well for us, huh...
y'know, maybe your problem isn't exactly us.
you should overthrow your government. ... that's not directed at anyone. just a statement of general advice.
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Sam Harris Isn't a Sexist Pig, but...
First he said this:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2014/09/12/can-atheist-sam-harris-become-a-spiritual-figure/ (comments on women in atheism near the end of the article)
Then he said this:
http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/im-not-the-sexist-pig-youre-looking-for
he put the response out because a bunch of atheist women "thanked" him for wishing us into the cornfield instead of calling us out. it was a mobilizing opportunity for him and he missed it by assuming his preconceptions matched reality.
what might we be doing right now if instead of "i guess women don't think as hard about these things as men do", he'd said, "no, that's *not* true. i see women at atheist events all the time. in fact, this is a myth that there are no women in atheism. let's debunk it, because that's what we do. everybody tweet #atheistwomenexist."?
even if it accomplished nothing, i think it would have been a much better message than the mouthful of mush he blerfed out.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2014/09/12/can-atheist-sam-harris-become-a-spiritual-figure/ (comments on women in atheism near the end of the article)
Then he said this:
http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/im-not-the-sexist-pig-youre-looking-for
he put the response out because a bunch of atheist women "thanked" him for wishing us into the cornfield instead of calling us out. it was a mobilizing opportunity for him and he missed it by assuming his preconceptions matched reality.
what might we be doing right now if instead of "i guess women don't think as hard about these things as men do", he'd said, "no, that's *not* true. i see women at atheist events all the time. in fact, this is a myth that there are no women in atheism. let's debunk it, because that's what we do. everybody tweet #atheistwomenexist."?
even if it accomplished nothing, i think it would have been a much better message than the mouthful of mush he blerfed out.
Sunday, September 14, 2014
god kinda screwed up my weekend
i think i bruised a part of my consciousness when i bumped into that divinity school student on campus friday. i should have just walked away from her, because i *was* busy, but i talked to her for what had to have been a half hour or more.
i told her i was an atheist, and she seemed very much like she was trying to complete an assignment for some kind of communications class by talking to people. i'll have to do similar things for my own degree. i hope she got a good paper out of it. i think all i got was sick. not from her. like i said, she was pleasant enough as her goal was most likely not to convert me but to generate academic content for herself. but just having all that in my direct consciousness for that length of time affected my perceptions of *other* things. this made functioning difficult.
i ended friday not even knowing if i was going to be able to pick up where i left off on monday, and i sent short emails very politely warning pertinent people that if i wasn't going to be able to stop myself by monday, i just wasn't going to show up. i think i'm okay now, and since the panache will buy me a *whole* lot of leadership points with some key people, i'm going for business as usual.
i told her i was an atheist, and she seemed very much like she was trying to complete an assignment for some kind of communications class by talking to people. i'll have to do similar things for my own degree. i hope she got a good paper out of it. i think all i got was sick. not from her. like i said, she was pleasant enough as her goal was most likely not to convert me but to generate academic content for herself. but just having all that in my direct consciousness for that length of time affected my perceptions of *other* things. this made functioning difficult.
i ended friday not even knowing if i was going to be able to pick up where i left off on monday, and i sent short emails very politely warning pertinent people that if i wasn't going to be able to stop myself by monday, i just wasn't going to show up. i think i'm okay now, and since the panache will buy me a *whole* lot of leadership points with some key people, i'm going for business as usual.
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
Boobs? On the Internet?! (9-2-14)
yeah, about those "nude selfies" of some actresses that were stolen from the apple cloud (an iPhone thing, i gather)... your banking and credit card information is stored on the same servers for the same reason and enjoying the same "security" as those pictures. just sayin'.
but why *is* apple keeping independent copies of user data? *any* data, not just pictures. it'd be nice if one of those naked actress ladies decided to sue apple to get an answer to that question. seems like one of those people would be the kind of someone who might even have a contractual obligation to legally inquire as to apple's retention of her image without remunerated consent which she could invoke, were she so inclined.
i'd kind of *like* to see hippy computers corporate legal go up against a "motivated" entertainment lawyer or two in a federal court. i don't think anyone working for apple is near evil enough to take on hollywood esq. and walk away with their terms of service intact. those guys eat blanket contracts for breakfast.
but why *is* apple keeping independent copies of user data? *any* data, not just pictures. it'd be nice if one of those naked actress ladies decided to sue apple to get an answer to that question. seems like one of those people would be the kind of someone who might even have a contractual obligation to legally inquire as to apple's retention of her image without remunerated consent which she could invoke, were she so inclined.
i'd kind of *like* to see hippy computers corporate legal go up against a "motivated" entertainment lawyer or two in a federal court. i don't think anyone working for apple is near evil enough to take on hollywood esq. and walk away with their terms of service intact. those guys eat blanket contracts for breakfast.
Friday, August 29, 2014
Improving the Gaming Community - A Suggestion
i have a solution to the group of gamers who can't bring themselves to coexist with non-assholes. well, not a solution. more like a patch.
put them on their own server. when someone gets reported enough times by other players, the company contacts them by email, "congratulates" them on their "play" and offers them a "premium membership". call it an "expanded package" or a "master package" or a "giant package"... whatever sounds most like you're saying they have large penises, right?
then change their login credentials, shunt 'em off onto their own little server, and forget they ever existed. don't charge them more or anything like that. hell, maybe even give them a ten percent discount for the first six months or give them some free mp3s or whatever. make it as appealing as possible. remember, the goal isn't to punish them. it's to get them out of everyone else's hair.
there's no shame in realizing that those kind of people aren't going to change. if they were able to get along like you'd want everyone to, they'd have recognized the benefits of prosocial behavior and engaged in some by now. the larger community here is capable of protecting itself without taking any skin off anybody's nose, so they might as well just do it.
no, it's not the solution... but it'll fix the immediate problem.
put them on their own server. when someone gets reported enough times by other players, the company contacts them by email, "congratulates" them on their "play" and offers them a "premium membership". call it an "expanded package" or a "master package" or a "giant package"... whatever sounds most like you're saying they have large penises, right?
then change their login credentials, shunt 'em off onto their own little server, and forget they ever existed. don't charge them more or anything like that. hell, maybe even give them a ten percent discount for the first six months or give them some free mp3s or whatever. make it as appealing as possible. remember, the goal isn't to punish them. it's to get them out of everyone else's hair.
there's no shame in realizing that those kind of people aren't going to change. if they were able to get along like you'd want everyone to, they'd have recognized the benefits of prosocial behavior and engaged in some by now. the larger community here is capable of protecting itself without taking any skin off anybody's nose, so they might as well just do it.
no, it's not the solution... but it'll fix the immediate problem.
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
i have questions about ferguson, mo (8-19-14)
the officer in ferguson, mo gave a defense justification. that means that someone, somewhere took a picture of him so the department could make a medical claim for his injuries, because that's their official story.
why do you think the department isn't showing that photo to the press? if it shows a police officer beaten to the point where he might believe he was going to die, it would mitigate a lot of the public outcry, and that *is* the department's contention.
i wonder why they haven't made that photo public?
i also have seen very little officer blood around the scene of the shooting as captured by several witnesses. plenty of mike brown's blood. not nearly so much as you'd expect to come out of a grown man beaten to the point where he had no choice but to start shooting wildly in self defense.
only as much as comes out of someone dropped to his knees and then shot through the top of the head once he was down. not even any spatter. just a pool. nothing moved but the bullets. where's the officer's blood? where's the officer's injuries?
and why did he move his car away from the scene before homicide showed up? that officer was the only person who could have cordoned off the scene *directly after* the shooting, and that's what happened (go look up the witness videos on youtube), but his car isn't inside the cordon. if his car was that far away from where mike brown fell in the first place, how was brown attacking him inside his car? did mike brown do a nightcrawler poof away from the car just as the officer started shooting?
and if he moved the car after declaring the crime scene but prior to homicide's arrival, isn't that tampering with evidence? what reason would he have to do that? and how did he do all this right after having been beaten so badly that he feared for his life? seems kinda busy for a hurt guy.
it makes just enough sense to put into words, but not enough sense to make any sense. personal experience tells me that means someone is lying, and reality tells me it ain't the dead guy.
why do you think the department isn't showing that photo to the press? if it shows a police officer beaten to the point where he might believe he was going to die, it would mitigate a lot of the public outcry, and that *is* the department's contention.
i wonder why they haven't made that photo public?
i also have seen very little officer blood around the scene of the shooting as captured by several witnesses. plenty of mike brown's blood. not nearly so much as you'd expect to come out of a grown man beaten to the point where he had no choice but to start shooting wildly in self defense.
only as much as comes out of someone dropped to his knees and then shot through the top of the head once he was down. not even any spatter. just a pool. nothing moved but the bullets. where's the officer's blood? where's the officer's injuries?
and why did he move his car away from the scene before homicide showed up? that officer was the only person who could have cordoned off the scene *directly after* the shooting, and that's what happened (go look up the witness videos on youtube), but his car isn't inside the cordon. if his car was that far away from where mike brown fell in the first place, how was brown attacking him inside his car? did mike brown do a nightcrawler poof away from the car just as the officer started shooting?
and if he moved the car after declaring the crime scene but prior to homicide's arrival, isn't that tampering with evidence? what reason would he have to do that? and how did he do all this right after having been beaten so badly that he feared for his life? seems kinda busy for a hurt guy.
it makes just enough sense to put into words, but not enough sense to make any sense. personal experience tells me that means someone is lying, and reality tells me it ain't the dead guy.
Monday, August 18, 2014
in re: Ferguson, MO (8-18-14)
so the autopsy showed cannabinoids alongside the three bullets and six holes in mike brown's body.
he wasn't shot for smoking pot. he was shot for jaywalking. let's not make this about anything else. the department's official story is that the officer didn't know about the robbery at the liquor store. hold them to it.
until the department claims any other justification for civilian contact, mike brown was killed for jaywalking. make them live it. where are the pictures of the officer's injuries? i haven't seen any. let's see what kind of damage this mike brown guy did to warrant the officer fearing for his safety and the safety of others.
up to now, you, fpd, have released a "video" of the robbery happening (nice timestamp), we got your dispatcher not hearing about it from department personnel, and now you're about to hit the bottom limits in the geneva convention on aerosol disbursants. there are united nations observers in ferguson, missouri, for christ's sake.
why are you running around your own hometown in fatigues and armored personnel carriers? do you even understand what you look like?
listen... go home. go home, pull out your uniform. Your Uniform. Press It. take a nap, take a bath, put on your Uniform, shine your fucking shoes, and report back into the streets. the People need you to see to the interest of the community you serve.
put on your Uniform, and pull up in squadcars shining helpful lights instead of accusing or threatening or scattering ones. put on your Uniform that clearly displays your name and number. if you mean to do right, you have nothing to hide. say hello and ask how you can help. ask if people have questions about what's happening in their community. wear your vest if you want. leave your gun in the motherfucking car.
even if you can't imagine it any other way, imagine that you're a neighborhood police officer. what would a neighborhood police officer be doing right now? directing traffic away from the protest route to protect the marchers, that's what. what's wrong with you guys? didn't you never watch no PBS?
not all of us are down with being doomed just because you're dumb enough to keep repeating it. you think this time is going to be any different? this is the response to what you're doing. shooting back has always been the only response americans have ever had to a government entity using military force against the people as a means to political ends. that's how we got to be america.
duh.
he wasn't shot for smoking pot. he was shot for jaywalking. let's not make this about anything else. the department's official story is that the officer didn't know about the robbery at the liquor store. hold them to it.
until the department claims any other justification for civilian contact, mike brown was killed for jaywalking. make them live it. where are the pictures of the officer's injuries? i haven't seen any. let's see what kind of damage this mike brown guy did to warrant the officer fearing for his safety and the safety of others.
up to now, you, fpd, have released a "video" of the robbery happening (nice timestamp), we got your dispatcher not hearing about it from department personnel, and now you're about to hit the bottom limits in the geneva convention on aerosol disbursants. there are united nations observers in ferguson, missouri, for christ's sake.
why are you running around your own hometown in fatigues and armored personnel carriers? do you even understand what you look like?
listen... go home. go home, pull out your uniform. Your Uniform. Press It. take a nap, take a bath, put on your Uniform, shine your fucking shoes, and report back into the streets. the People need you to see to the interest of the community you serve.
put on your Uniform, and pull up in squadcars shining helpful lights instead of accusing or threatening or scattering ones. put on your Uniform that clearly displays your name and number. if you mean to do right, you have nothing to hide. say hello and ask how you can help. ask if people have questions about what's happening in their community. wear your vest if you want. leave your gun in the motherfucking car.
even if you can't imagine it any other way, imagine that you're a neighborhood police officer. what would a neighborhood police officer be doing right now? directing traffic away from the protest route to protect the marchers, that's what. what's wrong with you guys? didn't you never watch no PBS?
not all of us are down with being doomed just because you're dumb enough to keep repeating it. you think this time is going to be any different? this is the response to what you're doing. shooting back has always been the only response americans have ever had to a government entity using military force against the people as a means to political ends. that's how we got to be america.
duh.
in re: Ferguson, MO (8-16-14)
People have brought out the "Don't burn down your own neighborhoods" routine from all sides, but i don't see how the phrase applies to destroying the remotely owned corporate property of the very people whose thick skulls you're trying to get your message through in the first place.
Apparently, there are conflicting definitions of "neighborhood" at play. I haven't heard anything about houses. Only businesses. Businesses are a part of my neighborhood, not its defining quality. I'm not saying that getting shot at isn't a possibility in my particular neighborhood, cops or no, but I do expect to walk to the store and back without attracting lethal attention from various municipal employees.
It almost seems cruel to suggest to black people that they should consider places where they are specifically and peculiarly subject to the kinds of institutional actions that people who aren't enjoy the liberty of referring to as "Orwellian" on a regular basis their neighborhoods?
Apparently, there are conflicting definitions of "neighborhood" at play. I haven't heard anything about houses. Only businesses. Businesses are a part of my neighborhood, not its defining quality. I'm not saying that getting shot at isn't a possibility in my particular neighborhood, cops or no, but I do expect to walk to the store and back without attracting lethal attention from various municipal employees.
It almost seems cruel to suggest to black people that they should consider places where they are specifically and peculiarly subject to the kinds of institutional actions that people who aren't enjoy the liberty of referring to as "Orwellian" on a regular basis their neighborhoods?
Thursday, August 14, 2014
Sometimes, I Think About People
Sometimes, I think about people like white supremacists and religious fundamentalists. Zealots fueled by a persecutory mythology. I think about these people and I wonder if they can't be helped. Honestly helped.
They're already halfway there. Their mythos provides them with the idea that it is wrong for others to inflict damage on them for things like the color of their skin, the culture they identify, or the deity they believe. They've also spent a lot of time thinking about wrongs done to them, applying qualifications, justifying actions.
Why should it be so monumental a proposition to convince them that it is as wrong for them to inflict that sort of damage on others when they clearly understand it as being wrong when done to them? And they claim to have the best grasp of all about what it means to be persecuted for simply existing. If anything, it would prove that their persecution has genuinely made them into better people.
Even so... wouldn't they just rather be right?
They're already halfway there. Their mythos provides them with the idea that it is wrong for others to inflict damage on them for things like the color of their skin, the culture they identify, or the deity they believe. They've also spent a lot of time thinking about wrongs done to them, applying qualifications, justifying actions.
Why should it be so monumental a proposition to convince them that it is as wrong for them to inflict that sort of damage on others when they clearly understand it as being wrong when done to them? And they claim to have the best grasp of all about what it means to be persecuted for simply existing. If anything, it would prove that their persecution has genuinely made them into better people.
Even so... wouldn't they just rather be right?
Monday, August 11, 2014
I'm a Racist
Hell yes, I'm a racist.
Corporations are a blight, an affront, and an insult to the very concept of personhood. That we allow their kind to be our slaves is too good for them, a truth they've proven by being uncontrollable, genetically intolerant of any tolerance we show them.
They are inhuman and need to be driven from our species, away from our homes and lives. Corporations are a twisted perversion of everything that is meant to be good and right. String their guts, loot their property, and burn whatever's left to salted earth.
This "personhood" is not something we should abide. We are human. Everything else living on this planet that has come to compete with us is either dead or dinner. The corporation isn't even that much. It is a subhuman accident of circumstance and nature.
The corporation is an infection on us, and it will take us from ourselves a piece at a time if we let it.
Corporations are a blight, an affront, and an insult to the very concept of personhood. That we allow their kind to be our slaves is too good for them, a truth they've proven by being uncontrollable, genetically intolerant of any tolerance we show them.
They are inhuman and need to be driven from our species, away from our homes and lives. Corporations are a twisted perversion of everything that is meant to be good and right. String their guts, loot their property, and burn whatever's left to salted earth.
This "personhood" is not something we should abide. We are human. Everything else living on this planet that has come to compete with us is either dead or dinner. The corporation isn't even that much. It is a subhuman accident of circumstance and nature.
The corporation is an infection on us, and it will take us from ourselves a piece at a time if we let it.
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