Civility in Politics

Monday, February 29, 2016

My friends and family are a Motley Crew. Some are so far left in their politics they can rightfully self-identify as Socialists.* Some are so far right they make William F. Buckley look like a Progressive.

Taken as a whole, these are decent people. Each in their own way believe they are patriots, working to build the kind of country they want and believe in. In some cases, we have a fundamental disagreement about the role government should play in our lives. In others, we agree fundamentally, but disagree about which candidate is best suited to execute on that vision. In still others, I consider their political belief system to be fundamentally immoral due to its roots in sexism, bigotry, or homophobia, and in those cases, I sometimes wonder why they're in my Crew to begin with. I'm still working on that one.

And I still struggle with the issue of civility in politics.

How can those I disagree with be so blind, I think, to not see the negative consequences of their political choices? How can they ignore the plight of the poor, the disenfranchised, the downtrodden, smug in the knowledge that they're not the ones who suffer under an unfair system?

As American politics becomes more and more polarized, it's becoming harder and harder to see the opposition as adversaries worthy of respect, people with whom I may fundamentally disagree, but who love our country as I do, and want what's best for all of us. When their front-runner is a self-proclaimed racist, misogynist, bully, xenophobe - someone who holds not the slightest shred of compassion or empathy for other humans, but only sees others for what they can do for him, it becomes easy to paint them with the same brush.

Intellectually, I know that's unfair and wrong. Not every conservative or Republican supports Trump. I know this, just as I know that they probably have the same questions about my own opinions. But I also know that if Trump gets the nomination (as seems likely at this point unless the Republicans engage in some shenanigans at their Convention, which is also a possibility), there will be a significant portion of the right who will vote for this ass-clown rather than otherwise because they'd rather see the United States burn to the ground or be humiliated on the world stage than to vote for a Democrat. 

I don't get it. If the Democrats nominated somebody like that, I'd hold my nose and vote for John Kasich, or Jon Huntsman, or even Mitt Romney, for Christ's sake, rather than allow someone like Trump access to the Oval Office.

What do you do when someone's political opinions are so repellent that they start to make you wonder about the quality of the person who holds them?

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*I mean real Socialists, not what conservatives think President Obama is.

Random Thoughts and Rules to Live By, Part 5

Friday, February 26, 2016


Helping others is the best anodyne for grief.

Link Me Up, Scotty - Working from Home Edition

Thursday, February 25, 2016

The IT guy at Hogwarts is a Muggle, and his job really, really sucks.
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Matt Taibbi on Donald Trump. TL;DR: We're doomed. And we deserve to be. I found the part where he compares supporting Donald Trump to a fixation with autoerotic asphyxia especially scary, because I think it's true.
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This is why there's a serious problem with medical research in this country. Negative results are still results, and provide valuable (if not sexy) data.
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What it's REALLY like to work from home. I have worked from home full time for over a decade, and I have to say there's a grain of truth to these. Just this week, in fact, I contracted the Plague and I've ended up working even MORE hours than normal because I haven't felt up to going to the gym. So instead I...worked. And then felt guilty when I laid down for 1.5 hours on the day I felt the worst.
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Ontario is now offering free university education to low income students. Canada's looking mighty good these days. I wonder if my company would sponsor a "corporate move?"
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Video of my Heart: This 2006 FedEx commercial. Because I've actually heard less reasonable corporate positions than "you're fired for not using a service that hasn't been invented yet."


Advice to Our Younger Selves

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Late last year, the indomitable Helen Mirren, professional badass, hottie, and Academy Award Winner, gave an interview to the Daily Mail and said, "At 70 years old, if I could give my younger self one piece of advice, it would be to use the words 'fuck off' much more frequently"

Like I said - a complete badass.

So I started to wonder, what advice would I give my younger self, now, at age 50? I'm quite sure it will be different than the advice I'll give when I'm Dame Helen's age, but I think it's productive to look back and try to determine what I've learned.

So here's my advice to my younger self:
  • Pay attention only to what you expect from yourself. Other people's expectations should inform your own, but they should not be the driving force behind your decision making or life choices. 
  • Don't apologize for doing what you want. Don't apologize for communicating what you want. Don't apologize for saying "no" when that's the answer you want to give.
  • Engage in self-examination, but at the end of the day, trust yourself. 
  • Make every effort to be a good friend. It's worth it. 
  • If there's a problem in a relationship, don't always assume it's your fault.
  • Understand that other people have no obligation to meet your expectations. They have agency, and the right to do as they will. 
  • Let go of guilt. 
  • It's not your job to do all of the emotional labor in the world. Keeping the peace, maintaining distant relationships, caring for the egos of strangers - these are not 100% your jobs, and in many cases, they're not your job at all. 
What advice would you give your younger self?

Link Me Up, Scotty - Sharing Your Love Edition

Tuesday, February 23, 2016
The expression of empathy provides an anodyne for grief. This has been my experience, as well.
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How friendships - and the rituals that define them - improve our life, our health, and our happiness.

H/T Sister Stacey
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An artist draws hi-larious and offensive Harry Potter comics. SNORT.

H/T Brother Juan
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A funny (and utterly NSFW) story about finding yourself. The money quote: "In a triumph of feminism, I didn't apologize." Like Elana, who pointed me to this story, I want to have that tattooed on my FACE.
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Americans study in Germany for free. Smart of them to offer this to foreign students in order to attract additional highly educated talent to their work pool. The Smart Sailor is considering this himself for his post-graduate work, since his GI Bill will only cover his undergraduate degree and he's considering a career in Europe.
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The U.S. Navy has decided to restart their celestial navigation training for Naval officers.  I was not aware that they had stopped doing so (it was about 10 years ago, after my time), and I'm glad they're going back to it. Part of my own Surface Warfare Specialist training included the use of a sextant, which is why I can navigate a ship at sea - at night - but can't find my way out of a paper bag in a car without GPS.
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Video of my Heart: Choral students say "thank you" to a teacher that made a difference in their lives. Telling people what they meant to you matters.

12 Days of New Year's - Taking Better Care of my Body

Monday, February 22, 2016

I don't remember much about the first year after Moe died. It's mostly just a big blur of misery and pain, and I consider myself lucky that I survived it, with a great deal of help from those who love me past all reason.

The second year, I tried to concentrate on getting my mind right. Learning to concentrate again, learning to enjoy the things I enjoyed before her death, learning to channel my grief into productive things while still protecting my mental health and paying attention to my own grief journey.

This is the third year since we lost her. And this year, I want to make more of an effort to take care of my body.

It's not that I completely let myself go after Moe died. I still exercised on a fairly regular basis. I made an effort to eat balanced meals, even though I wasn't paying very much attention to quantity, calorie count, or fat content. I made an effort to stick with a routine. But I wasn't really taking care of my body in a way that was mindful.

So this year, I want to do a better job of being mindful about what I ask my body to do, and how I support it meeting those goals. I want to get my weight into the "normal" range, and take some strain off my joints and organs. I want to improve my nutrition, and give my body the fuel it needs to remain strong for many years to come. I want to work on strengthening my muscles, so that I will be strong and fit enough to do the things I want to do well into my senior years. I want to develop and maintain a lifestyle that allows me to maintain these changes, without it becoming so much work that I abandon the changes because I'm so tired of thinking about it.

I have confidence that I can do all those things, with the exception of the last one. I've never been very successful in maintaining food-related lifestyle changes, although I have the exercise and fitness changes licked. So my challenge will be to manage my food, long term, without allowing myself to go back to eating whatever I want, ALL THE TIME. There's a part of me that thinks, "If I can survive the death of my child, I can do this." And there's another part that thinks, "I survived the death of my child, I want to eat doughnuts EVERY SINGLE DAY."

We'll see which thought wins.

Link Me Up, Scotty - Celebrating Death Edition

Saturday, February 20, 2016
An interesting take on the topic of whether it's "right," "wrong," or "neutral" to be glad Justice Antonin Scalia is dead. For myself, I never wished him harm, but I'm glad he's no longer in a position to do harm to others.
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A book about being The Only Woman in the Room, by a woman who's been there. I'm still the only woman in the room, so I'm not sure if reading this will make me feel worse, or better.
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Brother Eric - an attorney - on the legacy, or lack thereof, of Justice Antonin Scalia.
I'd just also like to observe, though, that those effects were diminishing over time, and that Scalia's statements in public and from the bench became harsher the more diminished he became, as if Scalia was aware (and surely he was aware) of how far out into the periphery of public discourse he was being swept and was becoming increasingly frantic for someone, anyone to pay attention to views on race and class and sexuality and culture that were no longer contemporary, modern, or even particularly relevant.  He was already drowning in his own obsolescence, don't you know?
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Animals in the News.
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The VA's suicide hotline goes to voicemail. And then no one called them back. That is the most shameful thing I've heard in a long, long while.
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Harper Lee, famed author of To Kill a Mockingbird, has died. To Kill a Mockingbird is one of those rare, precious books that changed my life and expanded my world. Fair winds and following seas, Ms. Lee.
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Video of my Heart: A Doritos commercial that's worth watching.

H/T Brother Burgess


Random Thoughts and Rules to Live By, Part 4

Friday, February 19, 2016

If someone supports racist, homophobic, or sexist politics, it doesn't necessarily mean they're racist, homophobic, or sexist. But it's probably the way to bet.

Link Me Up, Scotty - Losing Their Damn Minds Edition

Monday, February 15, 2016
For the first time, sex slavery is being tried as a war crime.
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A list of Supreme Court candidates who are fully qualified, should the President choose to nominate them. Of course I'm quite sure the Insane Clown Posse that is the current Republican establishment would block each and every one. Which, according to some, means Obama wins anyway.
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Matthew Yglesias writes a fascinating article contending that American Democracy is doomed. He makes the very valid point that Parliamentarian systems have a way to resolve gridlock, and Presidential systems don't, leading to the most ineffective legislature in history. Perhaps it's time for Americans to go back to our roots and revamp the system before it implodes. But I don't think Americans have the political will or courage to make such hard choices.
The idea that America's constitutional system might be fundamentally flawed cuts deeply against the grain of our political culture. But the reality is that despite its durability, it has rarely functioned well by the standards of a modern democracy. The party system of the Gilded Age operated through systematic corruption. The less polarized era that followed was built on the systematic disenfranchisement of African-Americans. The newer system of more ideological politics has solved those problems and seems in many ways more attractive. But over the past 25 years, it's set America on a course of paralysis and crisis — government shutdowns, impeachment, debt ceiling crises, and constitutional hardball. Voters, understandably, are increasingly dissatisfied with the results and confidence in American institutions has been generally low and falling. But rather than leading to change, the dissatisfaction has tended to yield wild electoral swings that exacerbate the sense of permanent crisis.
H/T Brother Seth
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If you're a singer interested in Virtual Choruses, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir is working with Peter and Evynne Hollens and others to sing the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah
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Our good friends the Grabills are once again participating in the annual Type 1 Diabetes walk for charity in honor of their T1 son. Please consider supporting TEAM IAN-CREDIBLE HULK and supporting the JDRF in their work to cure and control this life-threatening auto-immune disorder.
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And....cue the right wing whackadoodles who believe the President and his liberal lackies murdered Justice Scalia in order to swing the court left. Because Scalia couldn't possibly have died from natural causes, him being an overweight, out of shape 79 year old man, THAT'S JUST CRAZY TALK.
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NPR with a decent article on Next Generation 9-1-1 technologies, and how Massachusetts is helping to lead the way with this new technology.

Personal note: The company that won the Massachusetts RFP is my former employer, and I was the Principal Engineer in their NG911 practice when I was employed there. Important and meaningful work, but when Moe passed, I didn't have the emotional wherewithal to continue in that job and needed to leave. While it was the right decision at the time, it's one of my few professional regrets.
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Video of my Heart: SNL hits a home run with their new trailer, The Day Beyoncé Turned Black.

 

Link Me Up, Scotty - Majority/Minority Edition

Saturday, February 13, 2016
From the "people are awesome" files: Apple employee provides a little human kindness when providing service to a special needs kid and his mother.
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A wonderful rebuttal to the "Why isn't there a 'White History' month" dumbasses.
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The best explanation I've read so far about why young women don't feel they owe Hillary Clinton (or any older feminist) a damn thing.

H/T Rivi
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NASA's new Space Tourism posters. Neat!
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Video of my Heart: A Capella Science addresses the Science of Love.

 

Random Thoughts and Rules to Live By - Part 3

Friday, February 12, 2016

Intense, committed love with a non-family member isn't just for romantic partners.

Honoring the Fallen

Thursday, February 11, 2016
On Monday, a Mesa County, Colorado Deputy Sheriff was shot while trying to apprehend a suspect. Deputy Derek Geer was placed on life support, and subsequently removed the next day after the organ donation process was completed.

I come from a family with a tradition of service. My father was a Deputy Sheriff. Whenever these things happen, I experience a "there but for the grace of god go I" type feeling. My heart aches for this man's family and colleagues.

Which is why it makes me apoplectic with rage when - inevitably - people start using this tragedy to justify the police killing unarmed black people.

"Where's the outrage NOW," they cry. "Why isn't everyone up in arms NOW that a police officer has been killed in the line of duty?" they ask.

Have these people been living under a rock? Have they missed the dozens, hundreds, THOUSANDS of shootings in this country over the last decade? Weren't these the same individuals who refused to consider any kind of gun control measure? Of course people are outraged over this officer's death. Of course people grieve for the loss of this officer, and wish the outcome was different. Of course they want the perpetrator punished to the fullest extent of the law.

But here's the thing - on the occasions when the police behave badly, when they shoot the innocent and kill unarmed citizens, people also want the perpetrators held accountable.

These are not mutually exclusive positions, and as a society, we can demand both.

I wish those complaining about Black Lives Matter and other civil rights groups would just shut the fuck up. They're using this officer's death to cry about how unfair it is that a significant portion of the population wants the police to stop killing them. Seriously - that's what they're complaining about. They think that a criminal shooting and killing a police officer justifies police officer shooting and killing an unarmed civilian, and their thinking is sloppy and indefensible. Do they really expect our law enforcement officers and criminals to hold themselves to the same standards?

Law enforcement should hold themselves to a higher standard than the murdering criminals they pursue. Why is that so hard to understand?

Honor the fallen. Celebrate his service. Support his family and brothers and sisters in arms. Admire his sacrifice, and his last, life-giving act. And keep your logical fallacies and knee-jerk emotional responses out of it.

Link Me Up, Scotty - Let's Pick the Leader of the Free World Edition

Saturday, February 6, 2016
A psychologist's suggestions for picking the next leader of the free world. I love this, since he freely admits that only someone with narcissistic tendencies would run for president in the first place. We just need to make sure the winner is an emotionally healthy narcissist.

H/T Debbie the Librarian
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America's most hated douchecanoe has taken the Fifth in front of the House Hearing on drug prices. How shocking. Not.
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Evolution is COOL.  BUZZSAW TEETH, BABY!
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And the Confederate apologists are at it again, this time by deliberately baiting an HBC with their shenanigans. But they're not trying to antagonize, nor are they racist assbags, oh, no!
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Things to say (and not to say) if you're pulled over by the police. As much as I support law enforcement, I hope I never, ever forget that they do not have my best interests in mind when we're in a confrontational scenario such as a traffic stop.
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Alternatives to resting bitch face. I have made ALL OF THESE FACES.
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The NEJM has a study on the effects on Medicaid of Texas defunding Planned Parenthood. How utterly unsurprising.

H/T NeuronDoc
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This Toronto-based all-female boxing club will be "crashing" the pro-rape meet-up organized by professional douchenozzle Daryrush Valizedeh entitled "Return of Kings." I wish to fuck I was making that up, while simultaneously wanting to don my my own gloves and go punch this motherfucker and his dude-bro friends right in the head.
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I admire Temple Grandin tremendously. The money quote: "I consider being well-known a responsibility," says animal behaviorist Temple Grandin. "I want to see the geeky, different ones—labeled autistic or dyslexic or ADHD—become successful." ME, TOO.

H/T Robin
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Video of my Heart: The theme from The Last of the Mohicans on acoustic guitar by Luca Stricagnoli.

H/T Brother Juan


Random Thoughts and Rules to Live By - Part 2

Friday, February 5, 2016

Sometimes people judge me harshly and find me wanting, but their real motivation is to justify their own bad behavior. This is not my problem, although it may be hurtful.

Link Me Up, Scotty - Bring on the Cookies Edition

Wednesday, February 3, 2016
A young trans girl sells a butt-ton of cookies in response to a nasty neighbor who told her "no one wants to buy cookies from a boy in a dress." Fuck you, nasty neighbor. Stormi sold over 3,000 boxes, most of which she'll be donating to other foster children. Go, Stormi, go, and thank you to foster mom Kim for being AWESOME.

H/T Brother Steve
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Just when you think people suck so much that the earth may disappear from the displacement, they surprise you by spontaneously doing the right thing again, and again, and again. THERE'S SOMETHING IN MY EYE.
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And then there's this. What. The. Hell. The hubris of white men when it comes to women's bodies - especially the bodies of women of color - is ASTOUNDING.
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But then there's THIS! Dr. Leila D. Denmark practiced medicine for over 70 years before retiring at the age of 103. MIGHTY GIRL.
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Bios of famous male scientists written as if they were women. Tell me again how women in STEM aren't discriminated against due to systemic sexism.
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Why American Muslim women wear (or don't wear) the hijab. I tend to think of this a very personal choice, and it's not up to me to tell some Muslim woman whom I've never met and whose life I don't know how to symbolize her faith or what they should or shouldn't wear. For me, being a feminist means respecting other women's choices, especially when they don't agree with my own.
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A conversation on the value of an education in the humanities. I myself believe a Liberal Arts education has incalculable value (please note I said "liberal arts," not "liberal," as the two are not the same thing).
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Video of my Heart: The Piano Guys mash up Adele and Mozart with lovely results.