I am not-sick again, for however long this lasts. I had nearly forgotten how good it feels to not be ill. This isn’t terribly surprising, but before my past several months of back to back sicknesses I had stopped consciously appreciating how good being well felt.
In very similar ways I had failed to appreciate how good it was…
Continue readingWe are building a harm machine.
The harm machine is growing, and it is hungry. It needs people. It eats them.
Continue readingI feel sick. I know what my country is facing. I know what is happening in my home, my homeland, my America. I see this administration wielding the truncheon of “law and order” eagerly, craving any response that will let the insecure and desperate men at the top (and all the way down) feel like big fucking heroes as they club down their fellow Americans for daring to disagree. I see them chasing those who aren’t white, who aren’t Christian, claiming that they’re chasing those who aren’t “American” while they draw an ever smaller circle around what it means to be American.
My family comes from all over. Most of them are American citizens. I know that won’t matter when the administration’s circle slips a little tighter again, like a noose around our country’s neck. They’re going to go after my family, sooner rather than later.
Continue readingYour regularly scheduled programming has exited my brain stage right.
The wisdom I’ve found most useful this week comes from my similarly distressed elders: don’t borrow trouble. What I fear may yet come to pass, but it probably won’t look exactly as I imagine it. More importantly, I won’t gain anything from letting my dread wax eloquent—unless I’m imagining ways to create solutions that are within my power to work towards.
That’s all easier said than done. I’ve only managed to follow this advice some of the time.
I’ve been thinking about my current need for distractions, and for narratives that give me hope and feel empowering and encouraging. I’ve also felt a growing urge to make those narratives for myself and for others. But even as I feel the need to do that, and wonder about how I might do it, the task itself feels a bit like climbing out of a well without a rope.
I’ve been scripting a comic recently. Maybe that’s part of the recipe. It certainly feels like it hits some of the necessary notes. I’m meeting with the friend who came up with the comic’s original concepts today. I hope he likes where I’ve taken things.
Perhaps it’s also time to revisit my old Protectors stories. They feel especially timely once again. I just need to have them critiqued and rewrite them a bit more before I can shop them around… or find a way to publish them myself at this point. Maybe it’s time to push harder in that direction.
This election didn’t deliver what I’d hoped for. So far it’s doing a good job of delivering what I feared. Regardless, I hope you’re all ready to weather whatever storm is coming your way, and are enjoying your good times while you have them. Take care, and good luck.
It’s important to understand that we (the US) are in a tricky place right now. I doubt anyone reading this will be surprised by my saying that. But part of what’s tricky about our current political situation is that—categorically speaking—nonviolent protest is far more effective at achieving its aims than violent protest, and it’s relatively easy for violent instigators to cast doubt on nonviolent protests by engaging in violence around the edges.
If the President refuses to follow the process, it is vital that Americans partake in nonviolent protest and demand that the process be followed. This might be necessary, especially in light of this reporting (there’s far more than just this quote):
The stories we tell about this, before, during, and after, are critical. Our efforts here are to preserve our democracy, and to keep our democratic republic (to paraphrase the apocryphal words of Benjamin Franklin to Philadelphia’s political doyen Elizabeth Willing Powel). If there are calls to cease counting votes, or to ignore votes, we should call it what it is: an attempted coup, and a violation of the processes our elections rely on to maintain their legitimacy and the consent of the governed.
If we wish to keep our democratic republic, we can speak out and engage in nonviolent protest. We can engage with others, and call on them to protect American democracy alongside us. No matter how personal this may seem, this isn’t about an individual; this is about preserving the agreements and values which are the foundation of our democracy. This is something that anyone who believes in a democratic republic should support.
I suggest that you read about the Choose Democracy project, and plan to advocate for our democratic values and process.
This one’s a close follow up to last week’s post. Again: rough draft material, only partial, subject to change. This time, I’m diving deeper into the Rhean intelligence apparatus, and what influence it’s had on Rhea and beyond! Continue reading
While I’ve been working on writing a sequel to Bury’em Deep (yes, I changed the name), I started working my way through some background material that seemed important. This is all rough draft material, only partial, and subject to change… but I thought you might enjoy some of the details! Read on for tidbits of Rhea’s history and its place in the politics of Saturn-space. Continue reading
I spend a lot of time thinking about stories and what they offer us, their audiences and their authors.
It isn’t radical to describe a continuous circular relation between us and the stories we tell about ourselves. Nor is it radical to say that many stories we tell can be read as being about ourselves, whether they were intended to be or not.
Where am I going with this?
I’ve studied the creation and propagation of ideology through political speech. I’ve studied the creation of stories.
I don’t know why it took me so long to write something here about the political stories we tell ourselves.
Now, when I say political stories, I’m specifically talking about stories that are incorporated into political speech. I refuse to draw a line and say that these political stories are the only stories which are political—any story, like any art, is political. But I’m most interested in talking about the stories that we use, consciously or not, to ground our political arguments. I recognize that this is a somewhat mushy definition.
How much substance, and what sort, do I need before I’m willing to call something a story? Do I need to have an entire literal Horatio Alger novel about gaining wealth through the assiduous practice of Protestant capitalist virtue before I’m willing to call it a story? No. I’m willing to call most things that we tell ourselves about the world “stories” for the sake of this exploration. The important part, as far as I’m concerned, is that what we tell ourselves inform the way we see ourselves (or other people) and inform our actions going forward.
To clarify, “Some people have blue eyes,” doesn’t qualify. But, “People with blue eyes are good,” does. So does, “All men are created equal.”
Furthermore, you needn’t explicitly say “people with blue eyes are good” anywhere in your story if people are able to infer that from the text. And it’s possible to infer from a text stories that the author didn’t intend to include. Stories—and people—are tricky like that.
I suspect that’s part of why political ideologies aren’t static.
I’ve come to this late enough today that I’ll stick to this introduction for now. I already have some ideas of political stories I’d like to explore in more depth in the future, but I think any particular story I explore will deserve more time than I could give it today (and I want to post today). If you have a particular story you’d like me to write and think more about, feel free to leave suggestions in the comments below.
This week’s (second) flash fiction is brought to you courtesy of Chuck Wendig’s challenge on terribleminds. I rolled randomly and got “An accident occurs which may be no accident.” My first attempt started going somewhere but ultimately bored me. My second attempt was, I think, much better. Also potentially disturbing.
Enjoy.
There’s another big expansion coming out for Crusader Kings 2 on the 28th of May. So on Monday I sat down to bring myself back up to speed with the game and polish up my rusty politicking skills; several hours later, I remembered why it was that I had spent 100+ hours playing the game in the first place. CK2 is a fascinating look into the convoluted hearts of power-hungry medieval rulers, and in order to succeed you must become one yourself. I love it.
Fistful of Wits 