anansi133

Well, on the plus side, Thursday's commemorations went off pretty well, all things considered. I served my brother's legal papers to him and only spent 8 hours getting there and back. The awkward dead silence of two moping teens and a family unable to think of anything to say... That seemed more honest somehow, more true to our lives, than the hypocrisy of previous years. And dare I say it? In all of that 'normality' I was able to find some grace. My mom has never looked grey to me before- but now that I'm aging noticeably, I'm able to see it in her as well. My nephews have bolted like volunteer beanstalks gone to seed- and that's not a surprise either. It just is. I guess I've stopped judging life for when it fails to meet my expectations.

The *real* celebration was to have been today. And I played some role in messing that part up, but mine was not the largest part. And that's not my story to tell. Point is, even if the Sunday feast turns out to have been a disaster, I definitely don't feel alone in it.

And in a sick twisted way, the holiday is fulfilled! We are supposed to feel not alone on thanksgiving, and I definitely feel like I am not alone. It would be unsporting to quibble about words like 'community' and 'functionality'. The despair floating around in this house is a very American despair. We are upholding a fine tradition of family disappointment. This would be a very good day to watch Running with Scissors. That may become a tradition too, but I hope not.

I am thankful that it isn't any worse than this. Let that be enough.

Several years ago, (2006? Yikes!) I came back from burning man and saw all the corrugated plastic signs on the side of the road and said to myself, "This is a wasted resource, it should be built with". And I gathered up a bunch of them and discarded the lumber elements and used only the cut signs.

...which made perfect sense to me at the time. The job then was domes, and to have used the sticks would have meant sawing those sticks with annoying precision into weird angles, and I was all about using the carpet knife. So I used a special kind of expensive tape to hold it all together.

...and then I got discouraged and distracted and gave up for a while, and managed to forget my enormous stockpile of around 400 signs I had stacked up in the back yard.

But then somewhere along the line I stumbled onto the hexayurt and it got me to thinking about using those signs for something again.

And I really started to kick myself for having burned up all those sticks as firewood. I realized that if I designed the thing correctly, I could make a shelter out of nothing except the sticks and panels and screws that came off the signs themselves.

The first version took the better part of a week to bang together. I had gone to the hardware store to buy new wood, but then chickened out when I saw they wanted $1.50 per stick! Instead, I bought a bunch of furring strips for about twelve bucks. they are as long and as wide as the sign posts, just not as thick.

the mark 2 shed took two days to build. I could have done it in one day, except I ran out of sign material and had to go gather stuff. both the mark 1 and the mark 2 I took to Occupy Seattle to show them off and hopefully give people ideas. I don't know if either are still standing now.

And somewhere in all of that I came down with a cold, and I just couldn't get out there like I wanted to. And the election came and went, and just when I wanted most to be zipping around scooping up road spam, I was home resting. Yesterday I tried to go out and gather signs, but the weekend had passed and the political volunteers had got there before me. My total haul was something like 6 signs.

That's OK. I have enough material to build a mark 3 if I want. And it was a really good lesson in design. I thought I could bang together something that would work in the field and be easy to move. But it's harder than it looks! Each piece of wood needs at least 2, often 4 precision cuts if they are to go together smoothly. While I'm happy to do that in my nice dry garage, I don't know how much fun that will be for someone on out there on their own.

if this idea were to catch on, it might involve a group of do-gooders gathering the signs, taking them back to a shop and fabricating a bunch of sheds at once, and then going out and deploying these things where they'd be useful. Which is a bit bigger than a one man operation. (not that much bigger. three people could do a *lot*)

There may yet be a no-saw design waiting to be discovered. If all you needed was to drill a few holes, this could be done out in the rain by one person by themselves. I just need to re-think the geometry some more.

And it sucks that I don't have any pictured to post. The object I'm talking about is the size of a tent, there's room to stretch out on the diagonal, and almost enough to stand up. without a coat of oil paint to cover up the graphics, it's ugly as hell. But then, that's part of the point, to embarrass the political class.

I've got the blueprints all in my head, though. Maybe next time I can get someone with a camera to follow along.

where do you stand in the class struggle?


I had read that "top one percent" really is only a symbolic marker. the people who *really* run the show, the ones who wield the most control- they are more closely the top 1/2 of 1%. Though it's hard to imagine any serious disagreements erupting between the 99.5%ers and the 99.9%tile.

What I found surprising is my own meteoric rise up the social class ladder. Just 5 years ago, my income was in the lower 14% of American households. A brief windfall put me in the 30% for a couple of years, and I was able to play for a bit, and eventually move in with someone in the 35% slot.

But I notice that my spending habits and my attitudes are still quite a bit different from my housemates. And I have to wonder how much of it stems from family history, especially, how much money we grew up with.

This year at worldcon I spoke to someone who admitted quite freely that she votes in her own best financial interest. If a measure comes up that impacts her income, she'll vote in the way that maximizes it. And I was stunned at how simple she made it sound. It still sticks in my mind, the implications of that statement.

Now, being a fiscal conservative doesn't mean that one is a social conservative as well. Just because she votes her pocketbook doesn't mean that she'll necessarily vote against the gay right to marry, for example. And it's hard to imagine any sort of measure coming up in her ballot box that would let her directly steal from the people below her on the income scale.

Indirectly, though, I think it sends a message. When an Oakland cop is throwing grenades at people, he's responding to social pressure that's built up over many years- this is how hard we are supposed to protect the social order- no matter how morally indefensible that social order may be.


I'm also thinking about this guy- who, before #occupy came to town, probably never had a reason to consider his role in the food chain.

These are the conversations we need to be having with each other. Otherwise I can't blame the 1% for ignoring the rest of us.

When supposed grownups try to teach kids not to do drugs, or not to have sex, their credibility vanishes if they don't acknowledge that sex and drugs are fun. If you or i manage to find a happy relationship with these influences where we're not doing as we're told nor are we being hurt by it- then it's pretty obvious that we got here despite the helpful advice, not because of it.

There's another dynamic like that one, that's not as obvious. In Star Wars the Jedi are supposed to do what they do out of love, not hate. In the matrix, Neo kicks ass for the sake of his human family, not merely in opposition of agent Smith. Frodo manages to destroy the ring without hsving a personal relationship with Sauron.

I think the closest these movies come to what I'm getting at, is the Harry Potter films- our hero is very intimate with his opponent, and the shape of his life is hugely impacted by Valdemort.

So the dirty little secret is this: having an enemy gives a person energy. You gain a huge amount of narrative with such an opponent, and a certain amount of rage is necessary. It gives you a lot of strength just knowing that you can't afford to let the bastard win.

And yet, you also can't afford to drink too deeply of this succor. *that's* really what Kenobi was trying to teach Luke, That is the truth that drives Batman crazy. And in this other, somewhat less imaginary world, I often hear stories of the struggle between the FBI and organized crime turning into a war narrative, and agents choosing sides that don't properly exist. They'll shield one mafia figure in order to do damage to another mafia figure, in hopes that the balance of terror will shift in their favor. And in so doing, become a mafia agent in their own right.

Though I have high hopes for the occupation of wall street, it won't be nearly enough to simply defeat the worst of capitalist greed. It's going to take another paradigm. And all the enemy needs to do to defeat this, is successfully distract us with a fake target.

It almost seems like a kind of zen arhery practice: to defeat one's enemy not through direct confrontation, but as a side effect of getting your way. The goal isn't to win this two sided struggle, the goal is to get your way, live the life you need to- and the enemy loses through lack of attention. The cartoon version of this was realized in the classic Trek episodes, "Wolf in the Fold" and "Day of the Dove".

It's a compelling image that's only hinted at in The Matrix trilogy: Antagonist has his sights zeroed in on the hero, while the hero is only marginally aware of the enemy's agenda. The bad guy can still lose if the good guy gets obsessed, but good only wins if there's some innocence left over after the battle is done.

Despite my urge to go be someplace to hold a candle up, all the people I know are trying to forget what say it is and think about something else. And I can certainly roll that way.

I remember now that the local Aug 6th event, Hiroshima to Hope, came from a tradition that didn't catch on until some time after that bombing. I expect this event to take a while to settle in.

One thing that ten year's time has done, it's given me some time to digest some of the unthinkable. I know why the videos of the jumpers looked so unconvincing to me at the time: they censored out the ones where the fallen were still pinwheeling on their way down.

And the suspicious part of the building 7 collapse? Usually, fires are not allowed to burn unchecked. Once they stopped fighting the fire in building 7, the collapse was inevitable. I can see now how fire by itself can cause a building to fall.

But, um, not bringing Bin laden in for trial? Shooting him in cold blood? That was an asshole move, America. Even Hitler's boys got a trial.

The bad guys won that day, and the good guys haven't shown up yet. I miss my American Dream.

It's a well established legal doctrine that contracts made while under duress are not binding.

So, what does that mean with all that fucking paperwork you're supposed to sign in the emergency room of the hospital? Of course you're going to sign whatever they hand you: you're in life threatening pain!

And from the supply side of things it makes even less sense. Capitalism presupposes competition, things like price and quality of service. But at the time these services are needed, the consumer is in no condition to shop around. Even if one is looking around ahead of time, it's not like there's any meaningful competition from these providers against each other.

I'd say medicine in the US is fundamentally broken, and will remain so as long as it's a for-profit venture.

This is the first year I remember people telling me to "have a happy 4th" I'm sure it's come up in previous years, but I just don't remember noticing.

It's getting harder and harder to feel OK about America for me these days. My nation is in trouble and I don't know what to do about it- but waving a flag and shooting off a bottle rocket doesn't feel like it.

Actually, my impulse for today is to go to an indian reservation someplace and volunteer to shovel the stables or dig a ditch, or scrub a toilet. Kind of like the thanksgiving impulse to volunteer at a soup kitchen. (and of course, the time to make such arraignments is long before the actual holiday.)

My primary un-partner (don't ask!) brought be back a quill pen set from Boston, and for herself she brought back a facsimile copy of the declaration of independence. Funny thing about that document, to read it feels *way* more subversive than the constitution. The laundry list of complaints seem kind of familiar- except that in this era, we don't have such a convenient target for such ire. Who's the bad guy in this era? It's a much more chewy question than in it was in that day.

I was thinking about what it would feel like to sign my John Hancock to a similarly risky document today... and I couldn't imagine it. This older document gives me all the permission I need to do what I feel necessary for my well being and that of my countrymen. What it does not do, is bind me to the corrupt political system, rigged elections, and power brokerage that I've inherited from my forefathers.

So the question that niggles at my mind today, is what kind of American do I want to be on a day like this? Something like the Move to Amend feels like a good start

http://movetoamend.org/

but by itself it seem like too little too late. there's the socialized medicine issue, everyone's heard about that one, but again, what good is medicine when I can't keep the air and water from being poisoned?

No matter what the problem you decide is most pressing, it's not feasible to do anything about it without a functioning political system. I don't know anyone who seriously believes that this is a real representative democracy we live under.

I don't know, it's hard to know what to say on July 4th, in the same way it's hard to mark September 11 or August 6 in a way that doesn't disrespect somebody. Today is complicated. I hope no one out there loses any limbs or homes to fireworks, and I hope no one gets thrown in the lake who doesn't want to be.

Dying is more work than you might think. You humans regard it as a place you fall to, to avoid it whatever the cost. But once you've been through it, it's actually quite an achievement.

Sure, vampires also stop being vampires, and stop sharing your world. But we can't die, that's already happened. Like you, we each only get one death per customer. What happens next is as much a mystery to us as it is to you. The main difference is by then, we're no longer afraid of it.

So I've been in a somewhat stable, somewhat happy, very fulfilling erotic relationship for about 8 weeks now.

And I just now realized that it's different from what I usually expect.

Most of the time I'm sex starved and I have a mental image of the erotic as the lifeline that could save me. As if everything else could sort itself out without a hitch, all I need is that connection.

But now that I've got something like that, it's hardly a lifeline, it's more like a boring old utility connection, one of several. I wouldn't want to yarf on it very hard, and it certainly wouldn't survive any sort of storm, not by itself.

It's hard not to want to file this away, for the next time I'm sex starved and desperate for a life line. But I have a hunch that more interesting problems are going to take its place.

I tend to want to not-take this guy too seriously. He can say something very wrong, and it's not that important.

Yet I remember him talking about what a bad idea that is- when his opponents on the right say something so wrong.

Here's essentially what he said: People who reenact the civil war are masochists who like to re-live a painful moment.

People who have attention for the confederacy's argument are racist


...because the civil war was really ONLY about slavery.

Because if there was anything else to it, we might have to think harder about why that struggle matters today.

Here's some other stuff the civil war was about:

The rise of the modern corporation

Abuse of federal powers, and the establishment of new powers.

I really want to know, how many southerners who fought and died in that war, were also slaveholders? That's probably written down someplace. Without knowing the number, I have to think it's pretty small. If they were rich enough to own slaves, they'd have an excuse to stay home and keep the economy running.

But if there's anything at all to the rebels' cause -other than their desire to enslave others- then that would make it inconvenient for the people who actually own the country. (and by extension, most of the people who live in it)

We might have to ask ourselves if the struggle in Wisconsin is actually about anything more important than some numbers on a balance sheet.

I'm in favor of a revolution. And if such a revolution can be waged in a manner consistent with the constitution, I want to find out. There's never been a constitutional convention since that first one- even though there's no set limit to how many we could have had by now.

What if there were a revolutionary struggle that could successfully work itself out- and not have it go to war? That's exactly what the people of Tunisia and Egypt and all the other Arab countries are beginning to find out.

It's certainly possible that I could be wrong, and that armed struggle must necessarily
follow a serious constitutional debate. Unless I take that risk, then I'm not much of a patriot. The more popular voice right now, mistrusts their fellow citizens. We can't be expected to find common cause with our opponents, because we'd risk losing what little we have.

I call bullshit, and I want to press the question: can this union survive the next hundred years, unless it makes a deliberate course change?

That's a question you get to ask no matter where you are on the political spectrum.