Archive for Politics
In our current social climate, it can be difficult to express dismay about atrocities and war crimes perpetrated by one organization or government without coming across as a partisan of an opposing one. For example, expressing dismay about Hamas killing people can easily come across as Islamophobic, or anti-Palestinian, or settler-colonialist; and expressing dismay about […]
Two 2021 articles about racial covenants and attempts to remove them. Background: In many places across the US, many many homes still have racial covenants, specifying that (for example) they can be sold only to white people. Those covenants are unenforceable, and have been since 1948. But they’re still listed on deeds and CC&Rs, and […]
I saw a list on CNN of “some of the major concessions and promises McCarthy has made over the course of the negotiations, according to CNN reporting.” So below is a different list: some of the major concessions and promises McCarthy has made over the course of the negotiations, according to JED reporting. Any member […]
Some thoughts: Yay! It’s good to see major news organizations projecting a Biden/Harris win. I said “Biden/Harris” above because I want to affirm Harris’s part in all this, but I’m going to just say “Biden” for the rest of this post for simplicity. It’s worth remembering still that the votes were all cast on or […]
A lot of the phrasing around election results uses a sort of shorthand/metaphor that makes it sound like more votes are being cast as time goes on. “[candidate] is catching up.” “[candidate] is ahead for now, but [other candidate] might pass them.” etc. So I think it’s useful to explicitly note that at this point, […]
When you’re talking about social-justice issues, and you want to refer to a particular group or kind of people, I recommend being careful to refer specifically to the kind of people that you mean, rather than just saying “people.” (…This note is primarily addressed to people who have relatively more privilege, and especially to us […]
I enjoyed the vid party at WisCONline last week. Here are half a dozen of my favorites—some sweet, some thoughtful, some angry. “Come ’Round for Tea” (2014), by Garrideb Showing female friendships in Marvel comics, with all the words in word balloons replaced by hearts. (song: “Baltic Sea,” by The Social Services) (2 min) “Pipeline” […]
Am reading Defiance #2: a paperback magazine of the US revolutionary left, published in 1971, edited by Dotson Rader. Pretty interesting stuff. Articles include: Rader’s introduction, which recommends abandoning electoral politics in favor of joining the imminent revolution. A piece by two young white men who were part of the NYC branch of Weatherman (aka […]
Our flight arrives at the gate over an hour late. Flight attendant asks us to let people through who have tight connections. As soon as the seatbelt lights go off, 3/4 of the passengers stand up and clog the aisle. Two fairly small passengers try to push through, a white woman and a black woman. […]
I just happened across Huxley’s 1958 Brave New World Revisited; specifically, part V, “Propaganda Under a Dictatorship.” It’s primarily an analysis of how Hitler influenced the masses. I’m dubious about some aspects of what Huxley says, but there are some elements that I thought were interesting in light of modern politics. One doesn’t have to […]
Yesterday morning, I attended the Families Belong Together rally at San José City Hall. It was pretty good, although it took me a while to find a place to stand where I could hear the speakers. Came home afterward. (Traveled to and from via light rail; took a lot longer than driving, but (a) could […]
In 2016, I finally read/skimmed A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. I had known the general story all my life—I think I first encountered it in a Classics Illustrated version at an early age—but had never read the book itself. For others who haven’t read it: I feel like basically the book is a […]