Fergison

Just before I sat down to write this I, on a whim, looked at my other subscribed blogs.  Just about all of them stopped 4 years ago like some mysterious force swept across the land leaving only a few scattered survivors in its wake.

I have annihilation fantasies.  It is one of those things.

So that Fergison thing is happening.  I've wanted to write about it ever since the first night of protests but I couldn't quite grapple onto what I wanted to say.  After all it would be easy to just go the, "pigs bad.  toys bad. capitalization and proper punctuation bad. lootars bad. everything bad."  But that's not what I do.  Well okay I do that sometimes but it isn't something I wanted to do right now.  To be honest I still want to write about the topic and yet I don't.  Well not really.  Instead I want to pull the camera back and take a look at the broader picture cause that's where its at.

Mostly though I want to talk about the problems with the police.  There are certain things that once you see them you remain effected by them for the rest of your life.  For me that is the French film La Haine which is about the day after a race riot in Paris and three unusually racially divers friends living out their day.  The movie has a lot of messages in it but the biggest one is the utterly unbalanced power relation between people, particularly poor people, and the police.  The other big issue is what to do about that power imbalance.  The movie doesn't give out any easy answers on everything and as the years roll by I find that the movie itself remains distressingly relavant.  I'm going to get back to this.

I'd like to pull back even further and talk about the Police's role in society.  Were I to ask that question to the class someone would shoot up their hand and say, "To serve and protect".  That's not really their role in society though.  That is how they achieve their role in society.  There is a difference between the two.  Their actual role in society is to preserve the order of that society.  That may seem strange but I'll break it down a bit.

The idea behind the police is that they will act as a neutral third party for when you've been wronged and they are the first step in the process of making it right.  So if I were to get robbed the police would dedicate resources to finding my stuff, returning it to me, and punishing the wrongdoer.  This work on all levels from robbery up to murder.  It is the comfort that there are people out there who possess the resources and the training to help me so I don't "have to take matters into my own hands".  We may give cops a lot of shit, hell even to much shit if that will make you feel better, but a cops response is almost universally better than taking matters into your own hands.  Look up the Hatsfields and McCoys feud that went on for years and caused a lot of death all because outsiders couldn't maintain order.  Or there is this wonderful man.  The point I would like to emphasize in this article is that he shot them while they were trying to flee.  They were running he was in no danger.  The woman surrendered and he decided to shoot her anyway.  Speaking of which to find this news story I googled man kills thief.  I had plenty of stories to choose from.

This is why we need the police.

The police may do some crazy shit.  But it isn't anything nearly as bad as what we would do to each other without them.  The interesting thing about the police is that we don't seem to need that many of them  On average we only have 17 police per 10,000 residents.  That's mostly for larger cities for smaller ones the ratio is even lower.  If we were to all violently rise up the cops would be fucked.  Even if we were to half assedly kinda rise up but not very violently we get things like Fergison.  However, in general we like our order.  It brings us comfort and security and the police are supposed to be here to help maintain comfort and security.  When things like Rodney King, The Zoot Suit Riots, Fergison happen it is because there is no longer any faith that order can be maintained.  When this happens it is a result of a cascade failure on the officers to do their job properly.  They have one job.  To maintain civil society.  To aid in the maintenance of civil society they both serve the citizens and they protect them.

So why does it go so fucking wrong?

I have opinions on answers!  YAY!

Lets do the easiest one first.  We need to stop using Police Officers as nannies.  This is a pro police officer point!  I wanted to start with it because it think it is the most critical.  Police Officers joined the force to uphold the law.  Yet they spend most of their time sitting around writing speeding tickets, checking for seat belts, telling kids to turn their damn music down, shuffling around drunks, and parking tickets.  This helps no one.  It doesn't help the public because it means that the public will be subjected to a parade to tiny annoyances that are going to fester until it turns into "fuck the police".  Our very own Gulf Breeze brags about how they gleefully pull over people going less than 5 miles over the legal limit and you know what?  Everyone hates them and their asshole cops.  Cause lets face it officers went through about two years of training.  They are men and women who are willing to put their lives on the line for us.  They will try their damndest to keep us safe and sitting around doing shit work isn't one of those things.

It eats at you.  Worst it eats at us.  After enough traffic stops, trumped up moving violations, or someone tut tutting us because our tags are expired we can't help but think that cops are not here to serve and protect but instead to harass and annoy.  Our respect for them wanes.  There are any number of ways to deal with this problem everything from a separate force akin to meter maids to a probationary period that officers go through before becoming full fledged officers.  The point being is that the people who enforce silly bs nanny laws can't be the same people who will be showing up to domestic disputes, helping car accident victims, et cetera et cetera.  These people are supposed to be professionals give them the respect they reserve and maybe they won't feel the need to take their frustrations out on us.

NEXT! I just flipped a coin and we got the brotherhood of silence thing that cops do.  The vast majority of cops are good people who are good at their jobs...even if you are black.  There is a long history in this country of cops abusing their power and these cops in particular have always been.  Nothing new.  Even if you were to take my above example you'd still get the bad eggs.  However, cops are hesitant to rat out other cops.  This is for two reasons.  One good one bad.  The bad reason is that it makes other officers not be able to trust you yadda yadda yadda I shouldn't have to spell it out.  The good reason is because officers are under an unreasonable amount of regulations.  Those regulations don't fit reality.  They don't even come close and hey sometimes shit gets a little bit to real and you gotta take actions that don't exactly fit within the regulations.  Me?  I'm a dishwasher at a corporate owned retirement home.  There are all sorts of silly rules that I should follow that I don't.  The difference is that officers literally make life and grievous bodily harm and possibly death choices.  They do so quickly and being raked over the coals for doing so sucks.

However, there is a cynic in me and I can't help but think that the "brother hood of silence" thing is mostly pushed by shit cops.  Just a gut feeling.  It also doesn't help that cops have no incentive to tell the truth.  Traditionally it comes down to the officer's word versus mine and he's been entrusted with the authority to maintain the peace soooo why would he lie?  It is his job not to!  Officers need a better way of reporting misconduct and police departments need more tools available to keep cops in line.

There is the training issue but I don't feel like going into that.  Police need to be trained better.  They need to be evaluated more often, and blah blah blah.  The media has latched onto this point you don't need me for it.

Lastly, there are quite a few cops out there who need a fucking attitude adjustment.   Do what I say and you don't get hurt is what a mugger say to a victim.  Also he "gaurntees that we will come out alright but it might involve some forced cavity searches.  Cause you know forced cavity searches.  I could go on with the butt stuff (which is sad) but the point is that this is not something an officer should say to a citizen.  It is time for Cops to relearn that they are not the boss of us.  We are allowed to film you no matter how much you may not like it.  You are not allowed to search my bag, my car, my house, or me without a warrant.  If we aren't breaking any laws and I mean real laws then back off and go do something important.  It is not up to us to just curl up in a ball and take it so that we can go through the proper channels later because it is your sole job to make sure that this doesn't happen in the first place.  It is not my job to placate cops with attitude problems.

Most officers are good people who do a good job.  However, sometimes they make mistakes, sometimes they are thrust into situations that they are under trained to handle, and sometimes they look the other way while their co-workers commit monstrous injustices.  When I originally was going to write this blog I was going to say if you look the other way while something horrible happens you are no better than a nazi but that's a rather pathetic take on a complex issue.  None of us know how we'd react until we are in that situation.  That said they need to do better because the buck stops with them.

Let's Switch Gears Pathfinder time!

Originally when I was going to write this post I was going to write about something serious like depression, suicide, Gaza, the flood of refugees hitting our boarders and how we are still calling them immigrants, how frustrated I am with President Obama, or racism.  Then I realized deep down that I didn't really want to write about any of these topics and so I am going to switch to Pathfinder.

I've been into roleplaying games in one form or another my entire life though it wasn't until middle school that I got to take my first hesitant steps into running a game.  I've both run and played games on and off ever since.  I'll be perfectly honest I haven't run as many games as I liked and I certainly haven't played as much as I want to but it is hard when most of the people my age still don't work 9 to 5 jobs, myself included.  One of the most important things for a roleplaying game to work is everyone being on a set schedual so you can reliably tell who is going to show up.  I understand that life happens but god damn.  So there is it.  Currently I am running nothing.  I was preparing to run a Pathfinder game when a friend of mine declared that he is okay with running it and so I rolled up an alchemist and I find myself very much looking forwards to game night Friday.

It still doesn't stop me from coming up with campaign ideas some of which I am gleefully still kicking around.  I kinda want to start writing up rpg materials and start selling it for "what you think it is worth".  That thought has lead me to start writing again in this blog because I need the practice.

Anyway one of the things that I love about Pathfinder is that it seizes my imagination.  When I look at 4th edition it does nothing for me.  I see stale stat blocks and characters that slot together with little independent choice for the end user.  It just doesn't strike up my imagination.  Whatever this is old territory and I wanted to write about the stuff I had kicking around for the current game.

One is a Crusader Kings style courtly maneuvering.  Crusader Kings has provided just about everyone in my play group with a crash course in medieval politics.  What a duchy is, cassius belle, getting claims killing children you know the deal.  Throw some monsters, magic, gods, and player characters into the mix and you got the potential for a pretty rocking campaign.  The obvious parallel is Game of Thrones but this game would have fewer wars and more boarder skirmishes IE high crown authority.  However, the vassles could be plotting to get the crown authority reduced and should that happen all hell would break loose.  I really like that idea it would suit a group of rouges and bards really well.

On a similar tangent either the players themselves or the Player's duke have all recently served with distinction in a war that struck deep into foreign lands.  The king to show his gratitude forms a new dutchy with either the players of their duke in charge depending of the level we settle on.  Of course in Crusader Kings terms this is the equivalent of taking Jeruselem in a crusade while you are playing Spain and you dump off one of your least favorite vassals in the foreign land grant him independence and watch his ass get eaten.  I've done that before and it is fun.

On a similar vein but not quite.  The idea that a new continent has been discovered!  A ship got blown off course, and stumbled upon a landmass of indeterminate size.  Everyone from the great wizard colleges, to the various kingdoms want to explore the strange new island and learn its secrets.  This would give the players a chance to play honest to god explorers.  Not only would they be forging new paths and making bold new discoveries but they would also be helping to build up the settlement, fending off the natives, and generally being important.  It would be less "Heart of Darkness" and more Alan Quatermain/Indiana Jones.  I think that would be super fun.  There would be a little bit tensions like when they have to save clerics from being chucked into a volcano but in general I want it be more of a grand adventure than post colonial finger waving.

Going back to Crusader Kings and medieval politics I find it interesting that there is so much hand waving that happens with that stuff in most games, mine included.  The idea that the players just kinda get randomly hauled before the king who then tells them to go do something is kinda silly.  It is romantic in a, "Are you bad enough to rid the hills of goblins and save my daughter" kind of way but realistically the King is busy doing other things.   And there is plenty of time for swords and sorcery.  Like in order to get a claim on a neighboring country the players need to explore an ancient crypt and recover an amulet once thought to be lost but whose previous owner is the rightful air to the county and thus they go to war.  Hell the orcs could stand in for the norsemen and I mean damn there is just so much that can be done with the setting and a small dose of complexity of the government.  For example the possessed trait could take on a whole new meaning and a witches coven with a little bit of access could seriously fuck some things up.  Like one of the witches has access to the King's son due to his penchant for "ladies" who aren't his wife.

The last idea I was kicking around was SPAAAAAAACE.  A proper space sourcebook for pathfinder is coming out next month.  Until then to get reading the world the players would be playing on would be getting ready for something call the bazzar of wonders.  Once every 300 years their planet gets visited by the bazzar.  The people of the players planet have the opportunity to trade away their crafts and treasures for great secrets, powerful items, or exotic pets.  The bazaar is a grand event felt the world over.  During that time no war is allowed and even the Orcs and the barbarian tribes hold true to this tradition because the bazzar's wrath is something no one wants to behold again.  For one month Drow walk among their elven kin, Drugar with the Dwarves.  The great dragons of the world awaken from their slumber and liches from their studies.  All are welcome at the bazaar, assuming they do no harm to anyone else during the course of the week.  Dwarven kings spend decades on crafts, Elves create incredible works of arts, Dragons bring their most valued treasures, and humans innovate at a breakneck and reckless speeds.  That isn't to say that just before the bazaar there isn't some old fashioned score settling and hey sometimes tensions boil over.  The idea is that the players do something to distinguish themselves during the bazaar and they are offered passage on the ship and are allowed to see the stars.  I think that could get awesome real quick.

I have other ideas too but those are the main ones and my hour is up.

Writing, Superman, and wanderings.

Today Robin Williams died a city is rioting over the questionable death of black youth at the hands of a police officer, someone somewhere is falling in love and I've decicded while taking a shower that it is high time I start writing in my blog again. Much like Amilie on that fateful day temporarily blackened by the death of Lady Di but with less drama, I've decided to change my life. Here it goes.

The idea is to dedicate an hour of my time before I go to sleep to writing at least on the days where I am not doing anything like a game night. I don't know if I will publish every night. Maybe I'll select the “best of the week” and publish it all over the weekend. Maybe I'll publish everything. Publishing isn't the important part. The writing is.

In all honesty this is being caused by a couple of things. The desire to run a roleplaying game, the excitement of being able to play in one, the proximity to NaNoWriMo, and some other stuff that is harder to put a specific name on. I've been thinking a lot about NaNo, what I want to write about and stuff like that. The current front runner is a sequal to what I wrote last year which I never published but whatever. It is set in the Eclipse Phase universe and it is actually my second favorite thing I've ever written. It also feels a bit like cheating. I like to try to do something different every year, to exparament. NaNo is by and large a judgement free excersice for me so I feel like if I am not trying something new and different I am wasting the opportunity. My first novel blended aspects of magical realism, Twin Peaks, and melocholic reflection and it turned out great. It remains my favorite thing I've written. The year after I wrote about a support group of people who tried to end the world at the turning of the milenium, failed, and now are adrift in a world that is not supposed to still be here. This book still has potential and I want to redo it. As is it didn't turn out all that great. The lone female character feels tacked on, the ending was forced, and some other things. It was my first time writing using a large group of people and it turned out strangely. I'd also like to talk about how dour and grey America became after 9/11. It isn't so much that we've gone mad. We are America we've always been a little bit crazy. It is just that after 9/11 we started to let the crazy off the leash and that's a bad thing.

Trying to recapture my previous glory I decided to write a sequal to the first book I wrote. The first book ended in the main character's suicide cause that was always gonna happen. As soon as I hit 50k words he was gonna pull out a gun and off himself. I was kinda hoping he'd be just walking down the street or something but no he was in the middle of an epic battle. It still worked and it even looked a little bit like I planned it. Go me! The sequal was going to be about the characters getting on with their lives. It was horrible. I want to rewrite it. I really do but not this year.

Last year my book was about a guy who everyone in power hates but he's to dangerous to kill and to useful to cut loose. He is the enemy that the keep closer and the only man for the job. He's old, mean, and haunted by his past. Trying to make up for his mistakes he joined Firewall to do good but he keeps ending up on their bad side. I loved it. It was actually a very plotty novel. Most of my otherones have a lot of navel gazing which is code for, “I have a daily word count to meet and I have no idea what to do next so we are going to stand around and think about life”. I really like doing things like that so it doesn't bother me.

It is nice to remember what you wrote. All my characters are very much outsiders, like myself. Sometimes they have a tight knit group of confidants. Sometimes they are utterly alone. Sometimes they struggle to be alone and sometimes they just struggle. Go with what you know I suppose. The thing I currently have on the burner is something that is very much along the same lines of what I've done before. The idea is that a small group of American teenagers have turned into people with low level super powers. There is a secret family of assasins who have sworn to protect such people but they can't operate in America because, well, America sees and hears to much and this group is supposed to be invisable. One of the group sets off to guard these kids anyway even though the partiarch of the family has ordered their deaths. He's alone, he's one of the most dangerous men in the world even amongst his family, and he's gotta keep these kids alive, out of the hands of the military, and away from the various groups who might want to capitalize on them. It came from the idea of, “Just because you can life and throw a car doesn't mean you can fight”. It has been knocking around in my head for a very long time. Originally I wanted it to be part of a serialized fiction thing I was going to do but it never got off the ground. However, I kinda want to do something different this year. Something new.

I'd like to write something about someone who is comfortable with his otherness. They know they are different and they are okay with it. Think of Superman without Clark Kent. Kent is more than just a secret identiy. It is a security blanket or if I am feeling uncharitable it is a type of madness. Here is a person who in modern comics could cure every disease on the planet, create and infinite clean powersource that could power the planet forever, to give us interstellar travel and to introduce us to the multitudes of alien life out there and instead he runs around Metropolis getting into trouble and pretending to be a bumbling do gooder from Kansas. Clark is Superman's insistance that he is human. That he belongs on our planet, that he thinks, feels, and looses just like the rest of us do. The crazy thing is that it works. He needs Clark to be Superman. Without him he is something differen. Something other. I find that it is this distinction that causes people to not understand the recent Man of Steel movie. That is what Superman looks like without Clark. He still loves his mom but he is torn between his Kryptonian heritage and the life built on earth. As the movie went on he piece by piece lost his connection with Kypton until there was nothing left but he and Zod. I think that even at the end Zod would of accepted him if he submitted to his will and let Krypton be rebuilt. Instead he chose us and at the very end of the movie we saw the half joking mischevious man of steel we know and love from his best comics. It was a very subtle journey. Sublety isn't something the internet is capable of.

I want someone with a confidence to be different. The modern day retelling of Sherlock on BBC is a good example. The big thing is less the character but what are they going to do? One of the most brilliant things I've ever read on the nature of heroism is, “Only villians try to change the world...” I wanted the exact quote but I couldn't find it. It is in the Runaways somewhere after they defeated the Pride. I don't need a whole lot of excuses to reread it I'll find it later. The point is that just about all my character's have ridden the line between heroism and villiany. I am okay with that I did it on purpose most of the time time especially with my first and last books. I don't know. I do know that I want to do something different this year. Maybe something truly reflective. Like a magically realistic memior. Actually that sounds really good. I might do that. The completely true story of my life. It would be more emotional than literal. Actually that wouldn't be very happy so I'd use my life like a model. Take some things fictionalize others and create something new. I like this. Imma do that. There is a 99% chance that it will turn out horribly. However, it has been an hour and I need to sleep.

Pet Politics

Today I was reading around the internet and I came across this gem, "Today I was reading and I came across this, "The group, alarmed by a resurgence of the GOP establishment in recent primaries and what activists view as a softened message, drafted demands to be shared with senior lawmakers calling on the party to “recommit” to bedrock principles.  Some of those principles laid out in the new document — strict opposition to illegal immigration, same-sex marriage and abortion"

It is in this article here.  I  like the Washington Post.  They do a pretty good job of getting information across.  And they are my "go to" starting point for learning about American politics.  In all honesty I hate following American politics.  They are so petty and mean and sometimes when I watching them try to deal with things like Bengazi or the Snowden revelations I can't help but think they are way out of their depths.  The sad thing is that ultimately same-sex marriage isn't important.  In terms of nation building, giving Americans the ability to put food on the tables, to come up with a better solution than just putting everyone in jail, to keep our infrastructure well maintained, to head off problems before they happen these are the things congress should be focusing on.  The problem is that they aren't sexy.  They don't grab headlines.  They don't sell.  So instead congress spends its time on idiot distractions like same-sex marriage while our roads fall apart and our education system crumbles around us.  Yes thank you for focusing on the important issues.  

I am fresh off of watching a pile of Ted talks.  I saw the CEO of Google's hopeful vision of the future.  I learned about the art of asking, about the importance of reclaiming yourself from your surroundings in any way you can, to new studies on how to help diagnose autism.  On the one hand we have Google wanting to launch balloons that will help spread the internet to every corner of the earth and on the other we have a young man in Seoul who decides to make the perfect bow as a way to deal with modern urbanized society.  Over 1700 talks on over a hundred subjects all about how we could become better.  It is always a little inspiring to go there.

Then I come back to the portion of out congress who is obsessed on issues that are little more than distractions.  For every minute people spend needlessly dicking around with same-sex marriage is another minute that actual important work isn't getting done.  For every minute we spend haggling over what women can or can't do with their bodies is another minute we aren't spending on dealing with the fact that we still haven't properly reformed our financial sector or that we haven't broken down the to big to fail problem.  By the way it turns out no one knows what "to big to fail" means.  "To big to fail" doesn't indicate that the institution is invincible but rather that if the institution does fail it will cause a cascading effect through out our economy that would be far more devastating than the housing collapse.  Nope none of this is more important than preventing gay people from getting gay married.  

Setting my temper tantrum aside it is funny because Marriage is one of those things that is important to our country and there are some pretty important institutional reasons as to why our government rewards people for getting straight married.  See much of our countries ability to function relies on producing good functioning workers.  We need two types of workers.  We need people to haul garbage, wash dishes (me!), and do various shitwork.  We also need people who can innovate, create, and teach.  Every day highly skilled workers leave the workforce due to retirement and every day new people need to replace them.  But new people can't replace them right away because there is no replacement for experience.

So yeah people have got it into their heads that straight marriages will produce stable healthy new workers into the workforce.  Gay marriages can't do that.  Cause they can't make new things.  Abortion can't do that either cause there is no more baby.  So by upholding traditional marriage values we ensure that there will always be enough people to fill up jobs and pay taxes because our country is really isolated and no one wants to move here.  Yep no one.  It is up to straight married people to replenish our workforce because...

Oh people against gay marriage you're so stupid.  I can respect both sides of the debate about abortion and illeagal immigration is a crazy complex issue mostly because we were really short sighted and didn't build cheap housing for lower income families and made the only way to get to work be a metal machine that just sucks money away at over 30 bucks a week but gay marriage come on.  

Problems are hard.  

This is a logical stopping point but I'd like to continue...in a new post.

Change Comes Slowly

So I've been changing thing around about how I live my life and stuff like that.  I do this from time to time.  Hell most times I don't go more than 6 months without trying to change something.  I've come to learn that big dramatic gestures don't work.  Oh they'll work for a bit but eventually I just go back to the way I was.  Other times I would drastically upset my routine for awhile just to see what would happen.  Usually nothing.   For a time I was satisfied by this but I'm not anymore.  So I tried to change little things and see what comes out of it.  So far I've had the most success with it.  Currently I am of the like mind that I need to take better care of myself.  Not for any specific reason but simply because I am getting older and I am entering into the "use it or lose it" phase of my life.  It is nothing to be afraid of unless you ignore it.

So this means exercise.  This is the thing I want to do the least.  It is also something I've realized that most people have a ludicrously unhealthy relationship with.  Exercise regimens swing wildly between super intense boot camps that try to cram years worth of work into a couple of weeks to fat burning simple workouts that claim to just take minutes a day.  I see so little about just general health and doing things because they are good for you.  Overwhelmingly the message is loose weight!  Look better!  Be better!  Rawr.  I do my best to not let the vulgarities of the capitalistic society that I live in get me down but sometimes it is very difficult.  Our health has been commercialized.  Oh well.

I set out to make three small changes, drink less soda, start waking up earlier, and daily streaches.  So far I've done all three which is kinda astounding to me.  I was expecting maybe one of three, two at best but the fact that I've been doing all three for awhile now is surprising.  Not only that but I've made progress.  I can now bend at the waist and touch my toes for the first time in my life and this blog is the product of waking up earlier.  Waking up earlier is more of a means to an end rather than something that will make me healthier.  For exercise I've settled on Yoga.  It can be done without equipment, it uses the body as resistance, it builds flexibility, which are all the things I want.  For awhile I got it into my head that I would just be doing these things after work but that's simply not happening.  It hasn't happened yet and I don't have faith that it will happen any time in the future near or far.  So I decided to wake up earlier and I decided that instead of just playing video games that I will do productive things with my mornings, for the most part, from now on.  Before I start in on yoga I do have to clean up my house quite a bit.  I kinda need to clean up my house anyway but you know how it is.  Once I do that I can begin in earnest.  Which is nice.  I plan on using my mornings for other things too, writing here for example and....well that's it at the moment.  I figure between writing and cleaning up the house and starting yoga I'll have my work cut out for me.  Not that I'm afraid of this mind you but it is something that needs to be done.  It is the next step towards a better future.

Gender!

There are certain things that Forgein Affairs, as a publication, just does badly.  One of them is issues about technology.  The articles are either to basic, explaining concepts that I already understand, or just dull.  Just a couple of issues ago there was a coverstory about the rise of big data.  Big data is really boring.  This issue is devoted to technology articles and some were better than the average.  However, I've already read the whole thing and I still have a month to go so I had to shlep out of Barns and Noble to pick up another Journal so I'd have something to read during lunch.  The alternative is un-fucking-aceptable.  I decided on the Journal of International Affairs.  This quater's issue is about the gender issue which is a clever play on words cause this is an issue of a...yeah never mind.

I haven't read anything from it yet but all the other choices were about regions of the world I'm not particularly interested in.  Then again I am not particularly interested in the gender issue either.  The issue of gender is one of those things that is so needlessly over complex that I find myself baffled as to how we could of possibly of gotten this way.  I can already tell that the journal doesn't even attempt to integrate trans issues and that might be for the best.  I mean there are people out there who still believe it is their god given right to beat their wives.  There is just so much baggage wrapped up in women's issues and so much of it doesn't matter.

So lets keep this Amerocentric because that's where I am and I am going to talk about a few things.  In no particular order.

Man: Will you sleep with me?
Woman: No.
Man: You are a slut

Variations of this exchange keep happening and it is one of those things that deeply upsets me.  It isn't just because the exchange itself makes no god damned sense but it still happens.  However, it has less to do with actual gender and more to do with stupid pride.  To explain.  Since the guy just got turned down he's hurt and prolly more than a little embarassed especially if his friends are around.  So he says something hurtful.  He doesn't go full bore by saying cunt because that might make matters much worse for him.  Instead he opts for a middle of the road gender specific insult.  The fact that his insult doesn't make any sense is irrelevant.  All that matters is that he needs to snap back, maintain pride and walk away.

Does this make it any less hurtful?  No.  Does this excuse his behavior?  Actually it makes his behavior even worse.  To just offhandly snap back at someone who turns you down is the behavior of a poorly raised child.  Instead of exercising self control and conducting ones self with a little bit of dignity the man just says something offensive even if it is, linguisticly speaking, gibberish, it still has the intended effect of keeping himself feeling good at the expense of someone else.  The problem is that this response demonstrates a complete lack of respect for the woman to begin with.  It is the, "I am willing to be marginally nice to get what I want and then we are done".  The woman represents a potential for physical satisfaction and little else.   Which is why she is so easily discarded.

It is also hurtful because she is the one who is approached and then is essentially thrust into a no win situation.  She is provided with two options that she may or may not have been asking for.  She could of just been minding her own business which ends in unwanted attention.

Unwanted attention is actually the thing that made me realize that I could never ever properly be a feminist.  There are things that I take for granted.  Simple things that are regularly denied women.  Take sovereignty over one's physical space.  It is a simple matter for a guy to not deal with unwanted physical contact.  After all for the most part it simply doesn't happen.  When a man wants people to back off it generally happens. The most frequent argument I hear about not wanting to go to a gay club is, "I don't want some dude to hit on me".  Essentially they don't want to be treated the way they treat women and I mean I don't blame them.  Who would want that.  As I watched women receive unwanted attention time and time again I realize that if it we me I could just shout "fuck off" and it would work.  Most women aren't so lucky.  Most of the women I've talked to about this topic tend to just brush it off.  Just like I take my physical sovereignty for granted most of them believe that being pestered constantly is just the part of being in the world.   As a result I can be at most a male dissident.

When I first heard the term it pissed me off to no end.  He it still does.  Male Dissident makes me sound like a second class citizen in a movement about equality.  I mean how fucked up is that?  The truth is that it is fucked up.  However, part of making the world a better place is to recognize where the problems are and just not pretending that everything is fine.  No I can not nor will I ever truly be able to understand what it is like to be a woman.  At best I can make an educated guess and that guess is so narrow that it is all but useless.  Women are a gender.  The take up a little bit more than half of the population.  Any number of them will react in different ways to any number of things.  They all have different priorities, wants, needs, goals, problems, and their own versions of solutions.  Coor it is almost like they was people yeah?  See that's the problem with things like Women's Studies writing about gender, and discussing the topic in general.  The human mind's ability to reduce complex problems into manageable parts is astonishing.  However, this isn't always a good thing.  It is how we get conspiracy theories after all.  It is also how we loose a lot of detail.  The problem with women's issue is that the details are the most important part.  The more we reduce the worse our arguments get but we can't make arguments without reduction and around and around it goes.  Part of it an inherent flaw in the essay format.  Part of it is an inherent flaw in the way we think.

Over the years I've solved most of my moral/ethical quandaries by putting the people first.  If I have a friend in front of me who needs help with something then I am going to help my friend before I spit my beliefs in their face.  The individual is more important than a series of abstract ideals.  Let's take trans folk because they always get left out of gender conversations because as I said earlier there is a fanatical need to reduce the complexity of ideas.  I meet a guy they prefer to be refered to as she...well why the fuck not?  I mean it costs me literally nothing to change their gender pronoun and it makes them happy and more comfortable to be themselves.  There is no reason not to do it other than, "It is weird..." however, does that mean that you should prioritize your discomfort over their's?    To me the answer is overwhelmingly no.  I am not religious.  But I do know that I was not put here on this earth to make it a worse place for other people.  With that as a core belief I move forwards and I let it dictate my actions.  When it counts I am kind, even to those who don't deserve it.  And if I need to do something simple like change a pronoun to make someone happy then I am more than willing to do it.

I want to touch on the pay gap really quick before eating frosted flakes and watching star trek.  The pay gap is a hold over from our bosses screwing us over.  At work, at any work talking about pay is a firerable offense and rightly so.  After all then the corporate structure doesn't have to fess up to the massivily shitty way they treat their employees.  This is something that crosses gender lines however, the gender pay gap is what brought the issue to light.  I know that there are people who have been hired years after me who make as much or more than I do.  However, I can't call my bosses on it because if I did then it would demonstrate that I've been discussing pay which is a firable offense.  See how that works?  It gets much nastier on the lower end of the scale like retail jobs where raises are mostly just cost of living adjustments and nothing more.  Taking down our bosses is a discussion for another time though.  I think I am finally hungry.  Fuck body get an eating schedule.

Holy Ghost People

I still have the aborted topic of Christianity's culture war to deal with but I think I am going to let that simmer for just one more day before I dive back into it.  Part of the problem is that I wanted to do two things at the same time.  Talk about Holy Ghost people as a movie and talk about Christianity's culture war.  One can lead into the other and ultimately this is going to be part one and the culture war post is going to be part two.  Or something like that.  Anyway for those looking for a review go see Holy Ghost people it is pretty fucking fantastic.

Holy Ghost people takes place in an economically depressed area and up on the hill there is a group of people who make their own laws and it is a place were there police don't go.  It is a set up we've seen before in Winter's Bone and Out of the Furnace.  To a lesser degree Gummo shares the same setting but none of the same themes.  These are movies are examine the developing 3rd world that is happening in our nation and that we are doing fuck all to stop it.  These are people that are being relentlessly left behind.  Some turn to lives of crime and others to religion.  It is an interesting setting.  These movies all feature the desperate and fucked.  Holy Ghost People does so in particular.  The main character explains that the easiest way to find help is to find someone worse off than you are.  It didn't seem like she had to look that hard.

What's interesting is that the Church was a place of joy, laugture, and well it was an island of hope in a sea of utter disrepair.  Down in the city everything was falling apart.  The whole world looked like it was crubling but up on sugar mountain it looked more charmingly rustic than ruined.  These people made a life for themselves.  It is a weird life that involves them handing poisonous snakes every evening while singing hymns but a life nonetheless.  Taking a page from "Tod Browning's Freaks" notebook right up until the end of the movie the church was actually a really cool place.  The gentleman she brought with her for help got converted and not in a stupid fake way either.  His conversion was gradual and it felt right.  More than that though is that when the shit comes to light and hits the fan his anger is the anger of being betrayed.  He is a man who wanted to believe and  is instead let down...but not out.

The ending is interesting.  There is a mild firefight.  The preacher's muscle is killed.  The preacher kills himself.  The man takes the young girl who dragged him up to this damn church and another girl who is his blossiming love interest, puts them in a car and sends them away.  He could of easily of gotten into the car with them but he stayed with the other church folk.  I'm not sure what to do with this information really, no man is the center of the church and I imagine that a snake handling church has a relatively high turnover rate for preachers so maybe he'll be able to stay and live happily ever after.  Or not.  Characterization is one of the movie's great strengths and I can't help but care about the people who I spent the last 88 minutes with.

One of the youtube comments I read for the trailed expressed disappointment that there is yet another movie where Christians are the bad guys.  Yet I don't think it's so easy to make that distinction with Holy Ghost People.  Alright it is easy to write the preacher off as a villainous cult leader and the people of the church as a bunch of psychopaths.  It is super easy the last thing we see them do is tie a young woman to a post and they are about to stone her to death.  We know she isn't the first one, or the second.  However, as the camera pans over the crowd there is a lot of indecision as to what they are doing and if it is correct.  To break this moment down into bad guys and good guys is a gross oversimplification that may be convenient but it doesn't particularly capture what's going on.  The people going to this church aren't evil.  This isn't the Kill List.  Oh god that movie fucked me up for days.  However, well, guess there is no dancing around it but lets face it group think will fuck people up and religion can cause normal people who have all sorts of common sense to believe the stupidest things.  If anything the movie is a warning about letting your priest run away with the congregation and less about the condemnation of Christianity as a whole.  Heck the movie wasn't even interested in larger Christian themes it's just that the snake handling sect of Christianity makes for a sexy topic for a movie.

I'd even go so far as to say that the Preacher wasn't evil either, but he was lost.  Shortly before he tried to have the girl stoned to death he married her.  It is revealed that the same thing happened to her sister in the same order.  The marriage didn't seem like the end result was consummation (SEX) but rather it was a direct seguway into her stoning.  Previously when the preacher mentions his wife and her death he does so with sadness, and a bit of wistfulness.  Yes he lies but he lies just enough to keep things going and he only lied to the outsiders.  There is a great scene where the preacher gets called out for being a small man who is caught up on a power trip and his response is so down to earth and well adjusted that I'm still sold on it.  Even after I've found out that he had several girls tied to a stake and stoned to death.  The man they got to play the preacher has some powerful god damned charisma to him.  I'll give him that.  However, the movie also gives his character space and time to develop.  He's a complex man with a past that we don't get to learn in its entirety.  He could of been a great man and a true leader to those people and instead he lead them to ruin, simply because he didn't know any better.  His story is a majestically tragic one.

Why?  Religion makes people do some zany shit.  Religion has both its good sides and its bad but lets face it, it makes people do some strange things.  Things that they consider normal.  Things that become normal but when we get to the outside world they aren't normal at all.  They are horrible.  Imma stop here because I am staring to get into the culture war which is good!  But I want that to thoroughly be its own post.  DONE!