Pause for Station Identification

Whuf. I was going to do the weekly blogging challenge today, but it's about shows you've binge-watched and... y'all, I'm at the point in my ADHD where I cannot binge-watch shows. I can barely keep up with a series, even if I love it. So... maybe not doing that. 

The news stream is unrelentingly bleak, so maybe we're not going to talk about that either.

I'm still writing my meandering way through the Horny Superteens book, and letting all the funky background thoughts spill out here; that's not too bad. 

We have a new kitten; that's a bright spot in all this. Secondborn is currently in the kitchen assembling a cat tower for him. He seems to be getting along reasonably well with the dog, too. (The cat, I mean. Secondborn has always gotten along well with the dog.) So... here, have some pictures of our new kitty:

There. Isn't that much more cheery?

Still trying to find a rhythm

First up: No new scenes for Dark Armor today, no new scenes for Into The Black tomorrow. It's just not going to happen.

So we're... trying to keep everything going, but it's hard. Beautiful Wife and I are both still employed, at least, but that's hard too in its own way. (Though admittedly, a lot less hard than not being employed would be.) The boys are doing their schooling at home, which makes it hard for Beautiful Wife to get her work done -- Firstborn has pretty well organized himself and is getting his work done independently, but Secondborn still needs to be prodded and monitored. I'm not sure what I can do to help with that; I'm still going into work, but having me work from home (even on the limited basis that I'd be allowed to do so) really just makes our house more crowded, which hurts more than it helps. And, of course, it's hard to stay focused what with the sense of impending doom hanging over everything and the federal (and state, to a somewhat lesser extent) government's absolute clusterfuck of botched responses and counterproductive messaging. Even my own workplace (municipal government) which I normally think of as fairly sensible and proactive seems to be making financial and economic decisions when it needs to be making medical and humanitarian decisions instead. And trying to be on a regular schedule at work is all sort of detached and surreal; I would have missed a meeting yesterday if somebody hadn't skyped me a "You're late, are you coming?" reminder... either because I'd lost track of the fact that it was Wednesday, or I'd lost track of the fact that we have this meeting every Wednesday, or maybe just because I'd lost track of the fact that I'm me and therefore supposed to attend.

We're doing what we can to stay sane. I'm running the Firstborn-and-friends DnD game on Saturdays and a Saltmarsh campaign for some of my friends on Tuesdays, and playing in a Curse of Strahd campaign on Saturday nights and (starting tonight) (I hope) an old-school Vampire: The Masquerade campaign. This is good for my emotional health, but it's not helping me be productive on my writing projects since I'm putting those energies into creating new characters and getting a feel for them instead. Beautiful Wife is experimenting with online movie nights and just talking on the phone a lot. But all that requires new arrangements, and a different rhythm for our weeknights.

We're doing all right, I think. I'm sure we're doing a lot better than a lot of people, and I feel a little self-conscious about pointing out that despite that, it still sucks. But I'm going to bring dinner home with me tonight (and I cooked dinner for everyone the last two nights - yay me!) so that Beautiful Wife doesn't have to worry about that; and I'm going to try to put away some laundry; and then I'm going to try to play Vampire: The Masquerade.

We do what we can.

How are the rest of you holding up, gentle readers?

Evaluating Black Lives Matter, step 2

Note: When I say "evaluating", what I'm actually trying to evaluate is a series of claims that Black Lives Matter is -- let me go look -- immoral, evil, anti-police, pro-violence, anti-white, and pure Marxism -- quite possibly all at the same time. What I've seen so far is largely what the organization presents itself as being: a response to a genuine problem of injustice, focused primarily but not exclusively on the racial imbalances in our justice and law-enforcement system(s), and promoting its aims through peaceful (if sometimes disruptive) means. So I'm not "evaluating" the organization, the movement, or even the slogan in any sense that resembles "making sure they measure up to my high (and self-righteous) moral standards". It's just that I've been told that I don't understand that these are Bad People, and I clearly haven't done my research -- so I'm doing my research by taking a closer look.

So, if you want to know whether or not I'm approaching this question with a bias, well: I am. And that's what it looks like.

Next up in the Things I should really know about Black Lives Matter: the founders are bad people. Alicia Garza apparently said: "[BLM] is an acknowledgement Black poverty and genocide is state violence." She blames Black community problems on the state, and she (and her organization) promote hatred and violence as a way of attaining their goal of a separate Black nation. Garza's inspirations come from militant leaders of the 1960s and 70s rather than from the non-violence of Dr. Martin Luther King.

I, um, yeah. I suppose you could argue that "genocide" and "state violence" are loaded terms, except that as far as I can tell they're also accurate terms. And there are any number of examples of various aspects of "the state" creating problems for black communities and even "the black community" overall, insofar as there can be said to be a single black community. None of that seems poorly grounded or even particularly controversial -- at least not unless you assume that it must mean that the entirety of the United States government at all levels (Federal, State, County, and Local) was at all times hostile to black people and always out to kill as many of them as possible, which I'm pretty sure is not what Black Lives Matter and its founders are trying to say here.

...She (and her organization) promote hatred and violence as a way of attaining their goal of a separate Black nation. I'm now up to about fifty-six hours of following the Black Lives Matter feed on Twitter. (Again: their feed. Not the hashtag. Not any apparently-related groups or individuals. Just their feed.) Plus, as I was advised to do, I've been looking at their website. And let me tell you, if they're promoting violence, they're doing an extremely good job of hiding it. I can't find a single call to violence. I'm not even finding anything that I can unquestionably count as hostile towards police. And I can't find anything about creating a separate black nation. I remember some calls for that sort of thing back in the sixties and seventies; I don't see anything of the sort here.

There's more. Of course there's more. But this is all I'm looking at tonight. I'm going to set this to post, and then I'm going to do some writing on the Dark Fantasy project.

Evaluating Black Lives Matter, step 1

So... over on facebook, in the wake of the death of Philandro Castile, I posted on my Facebook timeline a graphic from the Huffington post, which was basically just the phrase "Black Lives Matter" over and over until the bottom, where it says: "It must be said until it's heard."

I wouldn't have thought that this was controversial -- or rather, I would have; but I wouldn't have thought that this should be controversial. I mean, even if you firmly believe that All Lives Matter, clearly Black Lives would, by extension, Matter too... right? It seems fairly clear to me that there's an imbalance in our justice system, where law enforcement is more likely to accost blacks and other minorities; where law enforcement (overall, not necessarily everyone or always) seems to use a very different scale of threat assessment where blacks and other minorities seem are concerned; and where police misconduct, especially in cases involving minorities, is punished far more lightly than it would be for a civilian, and frequently isn't punished at all. My impression is that Black Lives Matter -- either the slogan, or the movement -- is aimed primarily at convincing people that this situation really exists, and needs to stop. Again, not the sort of sentiment that I really expected people to argue with; we may disagree on specifics, but as a general thing we're all pro-Justice, and this seems to me like a pretty clear-cut case.

Instead, within a short time it had escalated to a major argument, which is now in its third day. Admittedly, it's been a fairly civil argument as these things go (note: that is not a high bar, since the usual course of these arguments is to dissolve into name-calling incoherence and wild accusations within the first twenty minutes). Still, I have Facebook friends on both sides -- and, oddly, not some of the people I was expecting -- accusing each other of ignoring the evidence, not supporting their assertions, and generally failing to make a persuasive case for their views. Complicating the issue is an imbalance of numbers, since at the moment I have one person arguing that Black Lives Matter is a dangerous and immoral movement that I shouldn't be supporting... and a fair chunk of the rest of my feed arguing that that isn't true and quite possibly doesn't make sense.

Regardless of the merits of either side, that isn't a comfortable situation, and it isn't likely to promote actual dialogue. It's too easy to get frustrated. It's too easy to pile on.

{And here there was a twenty-minute interruption where I went back to Facebook to look for the links I needed to look at, found that the argument was devolving, and asked everyone to hold off for a bit. We'll see how that works.}

Anyway, here's the first of the anti-Black Lives Matter responses: "Black Lives Matter on their twitter feed are mainly antagonistic toward the police, such as, 'sign the petition to oppose Blue Lives Matter ordinance in Chicago'. Yet, over 60 people were murdered in Chicago over the July 4th weekend, and not one by a cop. This is a ramped up organization that promotes violence against cops, other races and our government. One of their slogans is, 'Pigs in a blanket, fry 'em like bacon.' Really?! Also, if you go to their website, you will notice that they are promoting to rebuild the Black Liberation Movement."

So, the first point: antagonistic towards the police. I've started following the official Black Lives Matter feed -- not the hashtag, which could contain anything, not some apparently-related feeds which may or may not share their goals -- and after about thirty-two hours, I'm just not seeing it. Protests, yes; people getting arrested, yes; anti-police or pro-violence messages, no. Signing the petition to oppose Chicago's Blue Lives Matter ordinance doesn't strike me as "anti-police", for somewhat complicated reasons; essentially, the ordinance looks less like it was designed to protect police and other first responders (who are fairly protected already, legally speaking) and more like something that could easily become a legal and financial cudgel to use against protestors and even random citizens.

Over sixty people murdered the weekend, and not one by a cop? I'd have to say that's irrelevant. For one thing, that has nothing to do with the question of whether, among the people who are killed by cops, blacks and other minorities are far more likely to be the victims, and far more likely to be unjust victims. Black Lives Matter isn't making the argument that cops kill people (or kill black people) more than anyone else does. It doesn't appear to be promoting the view that police, on the whole, are the enemy. If they were, this would be a reasonable point.

One of their slogans is "Pigs in a blanket, fry 'em like bacon." I can't find this anywhere on their website, and I can't find this anywhere on their Twitter feed. Apparently one of the groups at one of the Black Lives Matter protests managed to get themselves on camera while chanting this; but what I'm hearing from people I know who have attended these protests is that this isn't typical, doesn't represent the aims of the official Black Lives Matter movement or the majority of the people involved with the protests. And really, I have no problem whatsoever believing that some media outlet caught a fringe group of protestors chanting this, and blew it way out of proportion. (I don't subscribe to the idea of the "liberal media", but I sure as hell subscribe to the idea of the "profit-driven media".) I'm not surprised that there might be more extreme and violent view hanging around the edges of a call to fight injustice; on the contrary, I'd be surprised if there weren't. But "this is one of their slogans" is simply wrong.

On their website, Black Lives Matter is promoting to rebuild the Black Liberation Movement. This is where it gets a bit more complicated, and a lot more open to political and historical interpretation. The Black Liberation Movement is associated -- or deliberately conflated by its enemies -- with such organizations as the Black Liberation Army, which (if you don't care to follow the link) was a paramilitary, Black nationalist organization back in the 1970s. In the modern, post-9/11 world, they'd almost certainly have been called terrorists. However, there's a political dimension to that as well; I'm also seeing some fairly persuasive arguments that the overall Black Liberation Movement was far larger than just the Black Liberation Army, and included plenty of groups with more peaceful aims and approaches. In this view, the Powers That Be lumped the entire movement together and equated everyone involved with the worst and most violent of its elements.

Strangely, I have no trouble believing that this might well be the case. But even if it isn't, it still isn't unreasonable to assume that at least one of the founders of the Black Lives Matter movement might legitimately holds to that view. And that ambiguity seems like a very understandable explanation for why the Black Lives Matter websites adds parentheses when it talks about "(re)building the Black Liberation Movement". (The other likely explanation is that they feel that the Black Liberation Movement, overall, never entirely died away. This is not incompatible with the first explanation, and the parentheses may actually be acknowledging both elements of ambiguity. So far, I haven't found any definite statements from any of the movement's founders addressing the topic, but this may be a failure of research on my part.)

Look, this is just one guy trying to sort things out. And I'm a white, heterosexual, cisgendered, moderately-educated, middle-class guy. In other words, I'm trying to evaluate the claims and aims of a group that's addressing a problem that -- by definition -- not only doesn't affect me, but that I essentially never see. When a cop pulls me over, my first thought is never "Am I about to die?" And right now, I have a six-year-old and a ten-year-old who need my attention, and I'm out of time (and, if we're being honest, out of energy) to keep trying to research whether I'm being naively led astray, or whether the objections to the Black Lives Matter movement are mainly specious, if not actively deceptive. So far, I'm not seeing any indication that the Black Lives Matter movement is anything other than what it says it is.

Regardless of everything else, I have yet to see any compelling evidence that the fundamental problem that Black Lives Matter is supposed to be addressing is, y'know, not a real problem. So even if the movement somehow proves to be an issue, the sentiment is, I think, still well-placed. (Remember, "Black Lives Matter" started as hashtag -- as a slogan. It only became a movement later. Even if the movement proves completely corrupt -- and the evidence for that looks really flimsy -- there's still a legitimate issue there.)

So that's all for tonight. There's a mess of other stuff I still need to sort through and look at, but it's going to have to be another post.

Seriously, don't trust the early reports

As of this morning, the count appears to be five officers dead, seven more injured. The shots did not come from the protestors, but from elevated positions in a car park. Police cornered at least one suspect, who took his own life. What else do we know about this? Almost nothing. The "suspect" whose photo was released last night (A) turned himself in as soon as he realized he was being sought, and (B) evidently had nothing to do with it, and (C) will very likely have people who saw his picture and are still thinking that he was one of the shooters.

Most of what gets reported during and immediately after an event like this is speculation, not fact. News article this morning is reporting that the police aren't sure what prompted the attack, and aren't even sure they have all the suspects. So, please, PLEASE be very cautious about what information you pass along and what you take to heart. That's especially important in the midst of something as horrible as this.

EDIT: No sooner had I posted this than I saw another article indicating the suspect in the car park had not taken his own life; the police apparently killed him while using one of the bomb-defusing robots. So even the clearly-reported "facts" aren't always right.

We must copyright Brexit, of course...

Turns out that Sam Adams (the brewer) is seeking to do exactly that. Apparently they want to use Brexit as a name for a hard cider.

That's their business, I guess... but I'd have gone with a bitter ale, myself.

Just in time...

So, we came back from our Christmas trip just in time to hunker down through an evening of tornado warnings. We're safe, but the last count I saw said there something like eight tornadoes and at least eleven deaths. There are also a lot of people without power... or, very suddenly, without homes. The footage is impressive, but... FFS, couldn't we have had snow, instead?

The Red Cross is helping the victims, and the Mayor of Rowlett is also suggesting donations to the Salvation Army. This is also a good time to donate blood, if you can. Update: Rhoadan points out in the comments that, actually, donating in response to a disaster isn't necessarily all that helpful, as disasters tend to bring in a huge surge in donations and the Red Cross ends up having to turn people away. Donating regularly, as frequently as you can, is a much better way to help out -- particularly because they often don't have enough donors when there aren't any obvious recent disasters.

They aren't asking for volunteers in the area yet, but I'm sure that will also become possible very soon.

We're also seeing a lot of heavy rain (and apparently there was some hail, last night) so there's potential for more storms, power outages, and the added threat of flooding, flash- or otherwise. If you're in the area, be careful and stay safe.