One of the things that this brings to mind is that self-care is an important part of successful long-term resistance. You fundamentally cannot help if you have crashed and burned.

If you didn't play this as a kid, I shall describe it. Two teams of kids face each other across a wide space (wide enough to get up some momentum if you run across it). Each team stands side-to-side in a line, holding hands. One team chants,

"Red Rover, Red Rover, send [name] right over!"

Whereupon the named kid runs across the space and tries to break through the line of kids holding hands on the opposite side.

If s/he succeeds, s/he gets to pick one of the two people whose grip broke, and take them to join the other team. If s/he fails, s/he joins the opposing team.

The more kids on the team, the harder it is for opponents to break the chain--BECAUSE, the more kids on the team, the easier it is to yield slightly, transmitting the force of the attack along the length of the chain.

Like a lot of people, I was a gibbering wreck for the first few weeks after the election, but weirdly enough it was the announcement by the CIA about the Russian hacking that helped me to feel better, because it was a reminder that there were people out there doing their jobs. I disagree with a huge proportion of what the intelligence community does, but there are, nonetheless, huge numbers of people in the intelligence community who are concerned about the future and doing what they can to stop things from getting worse. And because of the nature of their work I will probably never know what it is, but it's happening anyway. I don't have to do everything, because there are other people in the world also trying to stop this trainwreck. (See also, my newfound appreciation for Lindsay Graham, John McCain, and Evan McMullen.)

Or, as the tumblr post says, "pick your battles. pick… pick fewer battles than that. put some battles back. that’s too many"

There are enough of us that we can all fight different battles in the same war, and lessen the burden on each other.

Memorial Wall

I did share with others Mr. Ford's Winter Solstice: Camelot Station because it needed being done. And it fit my mood.

Ooh, sounds like fireworks are going off.

Close enough, Happy New Year's, folks. Persevere and do good. Be kind to one another.

I'll do other things as well, as I've tried to do this past year. But since I have particular expertise in librarianing and computering, it seems like a good focus for my energies. And I'm happy to work with anyone else here, and to hear what else folks are planning on doing.

John Scalzi's New Years' post is also well worth reading.

Wishing everyone a fruitful and joyful new year.

Patronize things and people that bend the arc. For me, most obviously, that's things like:

• Star Trek (Where I got my SJW start.)
• Playing for Change
Sense8
• Cloud Atlas
• Mad Max: Fury Road
• The Force Awakens

What's on your list?

Ursula K. LeGuin's Always Coming Home, for envisioning a sustainable society that could be built on the ruins of this one, if necessary.

Terry Pratchett's writing, for its deeply humane quality.

And the odd catch I get in my throat from watching movie credits (especially credits for animated films) and symphony orchestra performances: the sense of "look how many people had to cooperate for a long time to make this happen".

(Scalzi underplays, I think, Parker's sense of urgency, but that's a minor point.)

I'll second all of the above. I'll add "The Memory Palace." If you haven't heard of it, start with these two:

Notes on an Imagined Plaque.

The Wheel.

UrsulaV 21: And failure. And conflict. And tragic disease and death.

No, those aren't criticisms. It made it so very real, and showed how the society dealt with those things. "Living with my husband is like eating unleached acorns," says one character, and it's pretty clear what she means.

I loved ACH. Next time I was at a Pagan gathering after reading it, I was in a long toning circle (singing long notes without words), and mine kept coming out "HEYahhhh." Afterwards, a woman came up to me and said "Another person who read Always Coming Home and liked it." We've been friends ever since.

LeGuin has a contentious relationship with religion. The Telling reads to me like a thought-experiment: can I invent a religion I respect?

Oh, hey, I want to recommend some reading to all and sundry for this year: A Paradise Built in Hell, by Rebecca Solnit. This is a book about five natural and man-made disasters, from the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 to Hurricane Katrina.

What she finds again and again is that a whole lot of people come together in crises. We share and cooperate when there's such visible need, and help keep ourselves and each together in the midst of the mess. She also finds that the most likely perpetrators of violence and chaos are the people who've been accustomed to thinking of themselves as the bosses and are now cut off from their usual chains of command; they lash out in fear and rage. But they are very much the minority.

There are some thoughtful criticisms of some parts of Solnit's work here, particularly in slighting how much difference good rather than bad civic government matters: building codes, emergency preparedness systems, and the like. She admits to anarchist orientation, and even some ideal observer couldn't get everything relevant into one volume. But it's worth noting that the most thoughtful-sounding, careful critics all say "Nonetheless, you should read this, since it's a fine book bringing important truths to light." And it is.

It's really drastically turned around my thinking about chaotic scenes of collapse and what to expect of them, giving foundation and confidence to what had been my occasional drifting hopes for people when all manner of things hit the fan.

Three (four?) letters written by class members were published over the last week.

I'm working on one about looming social security / medicaid gutting.

Should you have any questions re: the Social Security/MEDICARE gutting, I worked for SSA for the first three years of my Federal career.

Ryan doesn't want to gut Medicaid, he want to block grant it.

I'd like that "third rail" to get them now, please.

Ryan wants to gut AND block grant Medicaid. More precisely, he wants to block grant Medicaid in order to gut it.

We live in a blue state, where our Senators and Representative all understand the issues and are fighting as hard as they can. With luck the state will be able to pick up some of the slack. But our situation is not immediate, not the case for much of the country. I'm putting as much money as I can into national organizations like Planned Parenthood, and crowd-funding medical bills of people I know who are in severe straits.

Wow. I am very glad I was only on Benicar long enough to know it was a bad idea for me. Luckily my BP mods are all relatively cheap, it's the SSRI for my ADD that's so expensive. I'd love not to have to take it, but I'm scared of going back to the memory fog I used to be in. Also, taking it knocked me out of a years-long depression that wasn't diagnosed until afterwards; slipping back into *that* would be really scary.

Have my sign ready to go:

https://twitter.com/StefanEJones/status/822284213755908097

1. If you have a Nielsen box, turn on your TV before the inauguration and tune it to any channel that isn't covering That Thing Where Donald Unironically Copies Dear Leader.

2. If you have Twitter, spend the duration of the ceremony enthusiastically livetweeting something other than the ceremony that you're watching/reading/listening to.

3. Whatever you do, don't mention Donald's Big Show, even tangentially, or click anything about it.

http://copperbadge.tumblr.com/post/156144113406/a-reminder

The gist: If you can't participate in your local women's march tomorrow, watch/blog/tweet the hell out of it and keep not talking about Donald.

Also: if you've unfollowed @ POTUS & @ FLOTUS, doublecheck your follows. Not only was I set to follow (even though I explicitly unfollowed last night), but I discovered that @POTUS44 was set to BLOCK. (WTF, Twitter?)

I like Obama's most recent post:

"I'm still asking you to believe - not in my ability to bring about change, but in yours. I believe in change because I believe in you."

Which fits in nicely with Daphnis.

The Vietnam war.

I was five or so. I spent a lot of it hitching a ride on the back of a family friend's toddler's stroller.

Hoping for a really good turn-out in downtown Portland today, and that the black block jerks don't cause trouble.

Michael Bennet (D-Colo):

Cory Gardner (R-Colo) (Had to resort fo email; his phones have broken):

If I had a GOP Rep or senator, and their staff said they opposed the ACA, I'd demand that they provide details on their replacement . . . and if they don't have the details, ask what the people who were going to lose coverage supposed to do in the meantime.

Oregon Live has a nice photo gallery of Saturday's march:
http://photos.oregonlive.com/4450/gallery/womens_march_on_portland/index.html#/0
Doesn't quite convey the pouring-rain misery of the wait for the march to start. (But I'd do it again.)

Perhaps not surprising his phones broke. I detect a certain, um, defensiveness in the 9 reporter's tone. They may have a point about designating Gardner as the "face of" ACA repeal. But, dude, he is our senator, and he is "presiding over Senate discussions."

I hope Gardner's getting a clue that Colorado is not down with his objective, here.

Have sent additional email with your questions. Mwa-hah.

* Impressive work: this was back in the days when these were filled out with typewriters. The erasure and correction are absolutely invisible.

But I still write. They need to know we have their back.

(Potus45* = President with an Asterisk, which doesn't necessarily refer to a footnote but is just there to annoy Potus45*.)

An asterisk like this?

I am going to a Town Hall with Senator Merkley on Saturday. Tonight I will try to claw back to normal and build a rocket and do some lay-out work for my solitaire RPG adventure.

In response to "alternative facts" and yesterday's gag order on federal scientists, I'm finding that my personal hot button issues include truth and science. Looking for suggestions for not-for-profits that work in those areas.

This is almost science fictional.

I'd like to see more of those banners. Deployed where ever the POTUS shows himself.

The crane is not anywhere near the Trump hotel. (It's across the street from my office, as it happens; yeah, it's half a mile from the White House, but in a totally different direction.)

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/photo/protesters-hang-resist-banner-crane-near-white-house-n712056

Federal employees: If you've gotten directives from the Trump administration but have been told not to discuss them, there are ways for you to share informaiton with reporters anonymously. Here are some sites that may be useful:

- Associated Press: https://securedrop.ap.org/
- Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/securedrop/
- NY Times: https://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2016/news-tips/
- Buzzfeed: https://contact.buzzfeed.com/

Well, more like a franchise. You start a group, or register an existing group on their page.

In Oregon there's one for the state as a whole, and one for the second district.

Have some chocolate covered graham crackers...

I bought a membership to Merriam Webster (which also provides access to cool word-related stuff) and a pass for the national parks (as well as following a bunch of the radio-free-nps feeds).

Teen Vogue does not seem to have an online-only subscription option, so I'm holding off. I'm already getting hard copies of Rolling Stone that I seldom read, to support their political coverage.

That reminds me -- I should check to see if Rolling Stone has an online-only option now.

Interesting stuff. I don't have the social energy for canvassing and f-t-f organizing, but I'll see if I can do some writing.

https://www.wokegiant.com/

This latest one is a tribute for the non-censored shadow Twitter accounts for national science agencies:

https://twitter.com/blueshifter/status/824476181399433216

Which would be horrible, but not as horrible as having Trump/Pence/Bannon running things.

Tom, #75: I have a feeling that we're going to find out what having "a government small enough to drown in the bathtub" is really like. Which wouldn't bother me if the only people who were going to get hurt by it were the ones who voted for him, but they're not.

Stefan, #76: Yeah. One of the most nightmarish aspects of all this is that Paul Ryan as President would be less damaging than either Trump or Pence. They really did scrape the very bottom of the barrel for a candidate.

I actually don't think that Ryan would be less damaging than either Trump or Pence, at least if we're talking about a median presidency.

He is less likely than Trump to do something completely catastrophic out of ignorance. Although he isn't anywhere near as smart as the media likes to portray him, he is a lot more knowledgeable than Trump about most relevant matters.

I am wondering how many Federal employees are realizing their vote has cost them, at the very least, a pay raise, and, considering that Trump's choice for agency head wants cut the EPA workforce in half, might cost them a job.

Be careful what you pray for...

But the thing is, Trump is a swaggering, overbearing tin-plated wannabe-dictator with delusions of godhood and nobody to rein him in. Pence is a Dominionist looking to establish a religion-based empire. Ryan is an evil bastard, but he's an ordinary evil bastard.

It's like choosing whether you want to be ruled over by Doc Doom, Nehemiah Scudder, or the Kingpin. None of them are good choices, but one is less catastrophically toxic than the others.

Is there any information about how many federal employees voted for Trump?

They really did scrape the very bottom of the barrel for a candidate.

No, to borrow a quote from Charlie Stross: "They were fracking for oil in the basement."

I'm guessing a third of the Federal workforce voted against it's own interest, nor would I be surprised to find out that the number was higher.

The Catholic Church is extremely upset with Trump over immigration policy.

Casting ideas for the dark comedy, to be made in 2025 after Trump's miserable, sad burial on a golf course in Dubai, now open.

It's a good start. I'm hoping they keep going!

Andrew friggin' Jackson? That's who they're modeling themselves after?

The other thing (as the linked blog in a 1/21/17 entry makes clear) is that even Andrew Jackson understood that it's a bad idea to give the kind of inaugural speech that Trump gave.

Tolerance is not the core value of liberalism.

The core value of liberalism is participation - the idea that that ALL people deserve to be treated with equal dignity and politeness in their exercise of their rights as citizens and humans, and to be allowed to participate to their fullest capacity in the society in which they live.

Tolerance is a side effect. Touting tolerance as the be-all and end-all of all "liberal" endeavors wags the dog with the tail; it is wrong to "tolerate" behavior which fights AGAINST the primary goal of achieving equal participation in civic life without rudeness or discrimination against traditionally-downtrodden groups.

It should go without saying that in America, "traditionally-downtrodden groups" DO NOT include white people, men, straight people, or Christians, but I'll say it anyhow. The diminution of former levels of special privilege is neither bullying nor oppression.

Liberty is the freedom to have the government prevent your fellow citizens from depriving you of access to the same parts of society that they partake of as a matter of course.

To sit in on the Security Council, Stephen Bannon would have to be confirmed by the Senate.

Meaning they could ask him about his white supremacist views, his waving around of the Confederate flag, his desire to be America's Lenin, his alleged wife-beating, and admiration for Darth Vader:

http://www.palmerreport.com/opinion/trump-apparently-didnt-realize-steve-bannon-will-need-senate-confirmation-security-council/1282/

This might be something to call your Senators about. I will.

1. If you can play the bagpipes, do so. This has proven effective both in the U.S. and in Scotland. I've seen the videos.

2. Find and blow a vuvuzela.

Make them look stupid.

(But if they dragged their kids along, do not so much as say boo to their poor kids.)

Start with the Netherlands. (Approximately 8:00 on the dial.) No particular order after that one, but that's the one you should watch first.

I found out about it because Elizabeth Bear mentioned it in her patreon.

I'm not sure which thread this belongs in. It might be sidebar fodder.

So far, very grim. I'm hoping to see a story about rebuilding, but not counting on it.

Is the current administration's worldview essentially hurt/comfort fic with America as the forlorn injured woobie?

There are a couple of sentences in the TV Tropes description that struck me, considering them in the context proposed by Julie L.:

"An important aspect of the Woobie is that their suffering must be caused by external sources. A character who suffers as the result of their own actions is a Tragic Hero and does not qualify."

and

"Woobification of a character is a curious, audience-driven phenomenon, sometimes divorced from the character's canonical morality."

And she doesn't even have a stepmother, until he convinces his target that she was really a founndling and her real mother had been murdered by that woman who is only pretending to have given birth to her. And also the dragon on yonder hill should be ardmired for the heat of the flames that it!'s been spewing at nearby villagers who probably deserved it anyway.

Or somethibg like that.

todr: it's just a variation on verbally degrading everyone else to artificially boost oneself?

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/03/opinion/a-great-new-accidental-renaissance.html

Heads will roll in the Trump administration over this one! It's such a lovely subtle way to get under his skin.

We need to start listening to white folks like this guy, who grew up in "Real America" and knows what the hell he's talking about -- and stop listening to pundits who say we need to "reach out" to the people this article describes.

The "reach out" thing is a bait. More to the point, it's a tactic that can be used to set progressives arguing with each other, because it appeals to our values -- fact-based reality, inclusion, consensus.

We've all encountered well-meaning people who are absolutely convinced that if they can just find the right words, the right argument, we'll understand (aka agree that they're right), while they argue a position that we know to be completely wrong. There is no magic sweet spot when you're the person being argued at this way -- and for those "Real Americans", WE are the well-meaning but completely wrong people.

We can either waste our time and energy trying to "reach" people who can never be reached by any argument at our disposal, or we can spend our effort toward creating the future we want, without reference to them. It's our choice.

This is something you run into with proselytizers of all kinds. (The world doesn't actually work that way.)

Mike Flynn Offers to Testify in Exchange for Immunity

If being given immunity indicates that you've committed a crime (as Flynn said about Clinton), does asking for immunity count as a confession?

I don't think the president (or in this case unpresident) can issue a blanket pardon. He's not Cardinal Richelieu[1] after all, and admitting to approving what he knows Flynn was up to might get him transferred straight from Trump Tower to the nearest Supermax facility. (Not a bad outcome, when you look at it like that.)

Cadbury.
[1] It is by my order and for the good of the State that the bearer of this note has done what he has done. 3 December, 1627 Richelieu

Yeah, it might result in Congress revolting (depending on what Flynn says) -- but it's still within his powers to do so, both by law and by precedent.

Carter also did a blanket pardon of Vietnam-era draft dodgers.

Nixon pardoned a single person for unspecified crimes; Carter pardoned unspecified persons for a single crime. Both blanket pardons, but different.

Pardon my French but . . . fuck that noise.

This is obviously a step toward organized voter suppression. At the very least.

It also opens up the possibility of using those lists, which include voting history, for organized FUD campaigns. Targeted phone calls and emails to discourage and confuse voters. Targeted advertising campaigns. Weaponized bullshit, like that used by the Russians in the 2016 election.

Many state officials, including those from "red" states, have already told Pence to pound sand.

If you are up to it:

Call or email your state's Secretary of State. Urge him or her to refuse the order.

Call or email your state's governor, your representative, and senators. Urge them to condemn this order.

Send a letter to the editor to your paper.

Get ready for a march. Hopefully the biggest, loudest march since January 21.