Month: February 2024

#ThursdayThoughts: How to shut down talk of Pres. Biden’s “age.”

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Ok so it’s as sunny as it was on Monday, but half the temperature, which is weird because it looks the same. It certainly wouldn’t feel the same.

I had some real life conversations in which the topic of conversation was Pres. Biden’s age. Not concern about trump saying he would be a dictator. Not concern about trump saying he would use the position for revenge and claiming he could assassinate his political enemies if he wanted.

Not concern for a party that says its goal is to end democracy.

But Pres. Biden’s age.

It’s really easy to end it, though, because that conversation is a game of let’s pretend, it’s shutting a door on a raging fire and pretending that the problem is the thermostat.

So here is how you fix that. “Pres. Biden’s age.”

Now you might be tempted to talk about how trump is the same age, practically speaking. And you can throw that in there. But the key is to control the parameters of the discussion. That is what that person is trying to do by limiting it to Pres. Biden’s age as an issue.

So reject it.

“Pres. Biden’s age.”

“Or you have fascism.”

This point is easily demonstrable and most people know it. At this point it’s very difficult to argue it’s hyperbole to call someone who has declared his intent to create a fascist state fascist. Examples abound. This way you have changed the subject to what really matters.

“But what if something happens?”

“That’s why we have a vice president.” Now this is definitely an end to that because few people will admit their real concern is a president who is a Black and Asian woman. But no matter what their objection what is your answer?

“Fascism.”

There’s another tactic. “Aren’t there better nominees.” This one is also easy. “No there aren’t, and Pres. Biden will be the nominee so here we are and either we can get on with it or…”

You can say it with me this time.

Fascism.

No one wants to include this reality in the conversation because then there is no conversation. The consequences are beyond dire at this point, there is no choice, no dilemma, only an America in the future or not.

You are going to annoy people. You are going to make them mad, or maybe you will simply make them think by framing it in a way they haven’t considered it before because everyone professionally framing leaves the hard truth out of the picture.

Whatever the issue, the alternative is fascism from a man no one can any longer say to take “seriously but not literally.” From a party who is making that intent clear with legislation all over the country.

Because we know he means it. We know they mean it. They already tried to overthrow the Constitution on January 6.

That’s it for today, have a great Thursday.

Check out  my full-length novels (affiliate links): 
Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   
Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 
Her Cousin Much Removed
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s quick and weird!
Peruse Montraps Publishing
See what I’m writing on Medium.

#WednesdayWisdom: If such a thing is possible.

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It’s been a wild weather ride these last few days. Yesterday it was in the 60s; today it’s 26.

Well, what can you do at the end of February? Even a leap year February?

One old but enduring nugget of wisdom is not to say anything if you have nothing to say, and I find myself in that position today with this post, though much is happening in the world.

Maybe my brain is trying to process it.

And also when you haven nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all, but I’m afraid I can’t stick to that in the face of Mitch McConnell retiring from leadership, and hopefully soon also the Senate. I mean I’m glad he’s going, I guess that’s nice, but he is a monster of epic proportions who drove the fascist agenda of the GOP to this edge of no return.

You’d think he’d want to push it over the precipice himself but he’s always tried to avoid getting the full blame for his horrific, terrible, heartless, evil actions.

On the plus side, he doesn’t seem to have a clear successor.

I wish him every ounce of the misery he has heaped upon others in his too-long career; I wish him the kind of healthcare dearth he created; I wish him the health and ease of his constituents forced to live under his self-serving policy. May his fetid soul eventually depart this earth to the fiery climes it deserves.

If such a thing is possible.

Turns out I had more to say than I thought. And with that, I wish you a lovely Wednesday.

Check out  my full-length novels (affiliate links): 
Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   
Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 
Her Cousin Much Removed
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s quick and weird!
Peruse Montraps Publishing
See what I’m writing on Medium.

#ChatTuesday #TuesdayThoughts: I never said I was a nice person. I’m not.

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It’s sunny and warm and there is no sign of those thunderstorms they said we would have. Just gone from the forecast like they never were.

Today I’m going to say something I need to say, consider this a heads up. In the coming months, I may write something that strikes a nerve, even when I’m not talking to or about you.

Please feel free to examine why that is and how that is. But what is happening right now is FAR too dangerous to couch our words for fear of hurting feelings.

I am a porcupine absolutely packed with quills, and my only objective this year is to dig my feet in and hold on to that fraying rope that’s only just keeping us from tumbling over the edge of the abyss.

So I do not write things with the intention of hurting feelings.

But I also will not censor myself on the off chance someone might feel slighted, when that person is not the topic in the first place. Because then suddenly we’re not talking about the issue, but how people feel about how you are talking about the issue.

There’s no time or room for that.

Sometimes people mistake my commitment to justice and equality for a kind of softness, a niceness, a perspective borne of empathy and feeling for others. And I do have empathy.

But I am not a “nice” person.

That’s not the source of my words. That’s not the source of my fight. My fight comes not because I am soft-hearted, but because my heart is unmovable, as rigid as a diamond. My fight comes from my moral beliefs and what is right and wrong, what is good, what is bad, what is true and what is not true.

And make no mistake, all of that is on the line. Democracy itself is on the line, republicans have said as much. This isn’t a season of American Idol, this is the final battle, it seems, for the soul of our nation.

So if I say something that you take personally, first, please ask yourself, did I say it to you directly? Was I talking about you?

If the answer is yes to one or both of those, and sometimes it is, then you probably should take it personally, and perhaps clarify whether my intention was to upset.

But if something is not said to you and not said about you, and this is a broader lesson in social media, you have some options. You can scroll on. You can say something, if you want, I’m not the boss of you, but unless what I said was problematic in a way I hadn’t considered, you may not get the response you want.

Or you can take the opportunity to think about why you took something personally that was not personal.

Anyway, that’s enough of a rant for today, have a great Tuesday.

#MondayThoughts: Let’s not be that guy.

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Today it’s sunny and warm, or it will be. Tomorrow, thunderstorms; Wednesday, snow, supposedly. Winter isn’t done with us yet. Wait, correction, it WAS sunny, and now suddenly, less so.

If you haven’t yet read my piece, “Tom Woods is the Real Filth,” over at Medium, talking about the Oklahoma law maker with the monstrous reaction to Nex Benedict’s death, please do, and please share it. There’s no paywall, and everyone should know what a terrible, terrible person he is and why we can no longer act like it’s just a “point of view.”

We’re back around to Monday, in that endless belt on a loop kind of way, and whether you like it or not, I am going to get “more” political. I use the quotes because I am never anything but; it’s only in this space I can be less so, depending on my mood.

There’s no room for that now. We are right on the edge of something truly terrible, and pretending it’s not a possibility won’t help when the fascists start rounding people up. And before you dismiss that as hyperbole, just catalog all the things you’ve thought were hyperbole up to this point, and discovered were not.

Maybe listen to us now, this time, before it happens.

I saw someone yesterday who said he’d finally canceled his New York Times subscription, that he thought people were overreacting before when they canceled, but now, he saw whatever it was that was his tipping point.

I asked him directly if it changed his perspective on the things he thought were overreacting and if he’d be more apt to listen, but I heard nothing back.

Odds are he blocked me.

I’m not sure I could find the spouts even if he didn’t.

Let’s not be that guy. Let’s not allow horrible things to happen to people because we are certain we won’t be the people to whom they happen. Though I can tell you outright, I don’t have that luxury, so that “we” doesn’t actually include me.

Lots of people think that they will be on the right side of a regime, and they can stay there forever. As I’ve said many times, there are plenty of window-falling heart attacks in Russia to dispute that theory.

Trump is telling us loudly, unequivocally that he wants power to hurt people, and if given it, he will not relinquish it again. Republicans are telling us, loudly, unequivocally, that if they remain with any power they will hurt people and they want to end democracy.

Also not hyperbole. Someone I described as “if toilet water was a person” said so aloud at their nazi-wannabe conference. The interesting part is if you google it, you’ll see how media tries to distance him from republicans, tries to wall him in as “far-right wing” or “MAGA,” or something else to make you think there are any republicans who think differently.

There aren’t. There aren’t and it is time you simply believe us as we’re saying it and not when it’s too late.

Unless that’s what you secretly want.

Anyway, that’s it for me today, have a great Monday.

Check out  my full-length novels (affiliate links): 
Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   
Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 
Her Cousin Much Removed
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s quick and weird!
Peruse Montraps Publishing
See what I’m writing on Medium.

#FridayThoughts: Life & Everything Approval Committee

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It’s sunny and chilly and perhaps I started the day with my personal red thermometer level right near the top.

Or maybe, maybe, some things are simply irksome. Like, for example, the tone some straight white cisgender men take when talking about something they don’t like. It’s as though they are on a panel where their opinion means everything, where it is the final word on the matter, like we’ve been waiting to find out if things are OK or not OK or acceptable.

I have dubbed it the Life & Everything Approval Committee.

They do this on a range of topics, from the appearance of women, to how people should talk about their very own human rights, to choice of language, to whether anything less than unwavering perfection is acceptable in something someone else built that they have nothing to do with.

These opinions are offered with a tone of finality and the weight of fact, sometimes couched in “reluctant” language as though they don’t like having to deem things unsatisfactory, but it is their burden, their lot in life.

Some of you may be reading this and saying “oh yeah, I know exactly what you mean.” And some may be reading this and saying “umm I think you’ve called me out on this specifically,” that is if you haven’t blocked me.

And some may be reading this and saying “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” and in that case, I have some bad news for you. You probably do this without a clue that’s what you’re doing. You also probably think people who are not straight white cisgender men are too sensitive, or touchy, or you can’t understand why people get annoyed.

Today, I will solve the mystery: it’s your self-appointed position as head of the committee.

Let me be clear; obviously it’s not ALL men, which is something no one should have to say, but people are often more concerned with how hearing things make them feel than how they make other people feel.

But it is an awful lot of men. Enough men and so frequently you would think they really have committee meetings.

So if this is your habit, unhabit it. If someone does this to you or someone else, don’t hesitate to point it out.

And above all, have a lovely Friday and a wonderful weekend.

Check out  my full-length novels (affiliate links): 
Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   
Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 
Her Cousin Much Removed
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s quick and weird!
Peruse Montraps Publishing
See what I’m writing on Medium.

#ThursdayThoughts: The change that never changes.

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We’re at Thursday already, on this day with a patchy sky, and I didn’t sleep well last night. My thought speed is showing it.

Still it’s a February day where Spring is no longer unimaginable, where all of outside looks ready for something else to happen.

Something new and bright and full of fresh energy; something that will send tiny birds flitting into the air in their first attempts at solo flights; something that will gently warm the omnipresent chill until, without noticing, there is no chill at all.

Every year, it seems impossible until it happens.

That rhythm of the seasons, the change that never changes, the renewal of possibility is too much for even nature to resist.

So let’s not resist it, let’s notice it, let’s savor it in every tiny detail we can find. Winter will end and Spring will arrive, whatever the days that came before it.

Have a great Thursday.

Check out  my full-length novels (affiliate links): 
Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   
Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 
Her Cousin Much Removed
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s quick and weird!
Peruse Montraps Publishing
See what I’m writing on Medium.

#WednesdayWisdom: If you’re wrong say you’re wrong and properly apologize.

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It’s a cloudy sunny day, bright but most of the sky is covered in those thin clouds like dingy torn sheets of paper. It’s been an eventful week in the realm of social media and it might surprise you I have things to say.

You know how rarely I express my opinion.

So that was a joke if you are new to me, also hi. Onward.

I’ve noticed a spate of people who, when confronted with something problematic they’ve said, they try to pretend they didn’t say it, or they indignantly act as though the confrontation itself is the problem. This isn’t new, of course.

But we can see it far more clearly now on Spoutible than we could on previous social media. Why?

On other sites, you get a rush of trolls who change the subject and obscure the original point. They disagree in a way that makes it difficult for other to agree and not fear a similar onslaught. This is done through a lot of awful people but also several people with slews of accounts who amplify themselves and support themselves.

That’s not the case on Spoutible.

So when someone tries to say they didn’t say what they said, or deletes it to lie more emphatically, people can see the person saying here is the proof that you said it. And that person is not met with a rancid inbox full of vile hatred.

That old coping method simply doesn’t work. The becoming the victim by claiming the criticism isn’t a criticism but something else doesn’t work for the same reason, proof is either there or it isn’t.

And in this way, Spoutible demands maturity from its users. How to handle a situation like this?

It’s not hard.

Admit what you said, admit it was wrong, and apologize sincerely. To me that sounds easier than days and weeks and months of feuding.

Even if you don’t believe what you said was wrong, it is possible to reach common ground if you are willing to listen to other people. And maybe if you do, you can understand how it is harmful and hurtful to others. Maybe you can see how stigmatizing people or demanding to marginalize marginalized people leads to real world consequences and attitudes.

Or maybe you’re just a jerk, but if that’s the case, essentially any other social media platform is there to allow you to be as horrible and awful and bigoted and “ist” as you want to be. Any other social media platform lets you stay exactly who you are, even when that’s not someone a lot of people would like to know.

Only Spoutible challenges you to learn and grow.

That’s it for me this Wednesday, have a great day.

Check out  my full-length novels (affiliate links): 
Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   
Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 
Her Cousin Much Removed
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s quick and weird!
Peruse Montraps Publishing
See what I’m writing on Medium.

#ChatTuesday #TuesdayThoughts: Spend your day so 12 year old you…

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It’s a sunny one, a chilly one, and a not very wordy one, it seems, so I think I’m going to give my brain a break and make this a quick Tuesday hello.

Hello!

Most of my thoughts are mired in manufactured drama, and I can’t, for the life of me, understand why actual adults want to pretend to be in middle school. So instead of extending that, I will offer you this:

Spend your day so 12 year old you would imagine things have changed.

Have a great Tuesday.

Check out  my full-length novels (affiliate links): 
Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   
Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 
Her Cousin Much Removed
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s quick and weird!
Peruse Montraps Publishing
See what I’m writing on Medium.

#MondayThoughts: On those things that needle us.

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It’s sunny and chilly and Monday kind of just hit me in the face this morning. I’ll spare you the details, because nothing was serious, but more like a thorn in my shoe, which actually might have been what was in my shoe when I started my workout.

After trying in vain to figure out what was pricking the bottom of my foot, I changed my socks and got on with it.

That worked.

One day or another, we all have things in our socks. Not literally, though maybe literally, come to think of it, but something–or someone–that needles you and cannot be ignored. You don’t have to ignore it.

Being told we have to ignore things that harm us is, itself, often harmful. Why shouldn’t we advocate for ourselves and others? Why does the thing or person doing the harm get more freedom than we do?

The assumption, I suppose is that that behavior has its own consequences. But that’s not always true.

So the one thing we can do?

Change our socks.

Ignoring is not the same thing as not caring. Removing the problem is not the same thing as ignoring. Whatever that thing was in the sock, it turned out it didn’t have to be the center of my universe as I tried to get a workout in.

I just made it vanish, poof.

Well hopefully, hopefully, no matter what it was, it will come out in the wash like so many things do.

So whatever kind of Monday your Monday is morphing into, whatever might be there, lurking in the fibers, you don’t need to give it your focus.

Change your socks. Just change your socks.

And have a good Monday.

Check out  my full-length novels (affiliate links): 
Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   
Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 
Her Cousin Much Removed
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s quick and weird!
Peruse Montraps Publishing
See what I’m writing on Medium.

#FridayThoughts: The treatment of DA Fani Willis should have you at a tungsten boil.

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Back to gray this morning, and chilly, as we swing around to Friday. It looks like the sky might do something, but they haven’t told us it would.

I’m sitting here trying to wrap my head around the upside-down nature of the “misconduct” hearing against District Attorney Fani Willis, who will not be called to testify again today. DA Willis, of course, said it best:

While I’ve yet to find a firm rule DA Willis is alleged to have broken, outside of the people she is prosecuting claiming “suspicious relationships and transactions,” here is this matter, being treated like it’s actually a thing, in a courtroom, while people who tried to alter the outcome of an election cast aspersions.

So if you are not yet furious about it, it’s time to get furious. I’m talking a full boil.

And I mean tungsten at a full boil.

A woman, who is not married, and a coworker, who is separated, had a relationship. That is it. There is nothing coercive about it. They both consented. What, on earth, would be “suspicious,” about that?

There are people questioning her in that courtroom, people listening, people sitting smugly at a table because they are white and connected and truly believe they cannot be touched who have done more and worse than have a completely consensual relationship with a coworker.

But the sexualization of Black women has been a tool of oppression for centuries in this country, and it’s a form of sexual violence used to put Black women, especially successful Black women, in “their place.”

The same thing was done to Vice President Kamala Harris.

If you are not familiar with the hypersexualization of Black women as a tool of oppression, educate yourself. Because I want to talk about the patriarchal tools fully on display in this hearing.

There is no cause of action here, there is absolutely no credible claim of misconduct that should have gotten beyond an immediate dismissal. Unless there is some quirk of the law in Georgia that requires a full-blown hearing on every claim of misconduct, the fact that this hearing is happening at all is ludicrous.

Beyond that, there was an access to personal information beyond belief. You’d think DA Willis had been accused of sexual assault, only sexual assault isn’t treated as vigorously by the system. This is a waste of public money and court time if you look at it like a normal person.

But if you look at it like those smug defendants, it is the court system doing exactly what it’s supposed to do: protect them, and act as a weapon against “others.”

The people prosecuted by DA Wills had the gall to try to overthrow an election. They tried to change the results of an election. And they do not think they did one thing wrong, because they believe they are fully entitled to do whatever they want. The law isn’t there to restrain them.

It’s there to restrain people who look like DA Willis.

And here is the entire court system, playing along.

Now I hope the judge proves those people wrong. I hope the prosecution continues with these entitled insurrectionists a little bit cowed. In fact, they should be embarassed.

I hope someone is working on bringing their personal lives into full public view.

But do not lose sight of the real dynamic here, the real purpose of this hearing here. It is an all-out war over who the law protects and who the law punishes.

And while this particular incident magnifies the circumstances through national coverage, spare a thought for the Black women you know, the Black women you encounter every day, the Black women you see from afar. This is a reality every single one of them deals with, but often the only eyes on it are their own.

Have a good Friday and a great weekend, and DA Willis, we see what you’re dealing with, with mastery and skill, but still dealing with, and shouldn’t have to.

Check out  my full-length novels (affiliate links): 
Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   
Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 
Her Cousin Much Removed
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s quick and weird!
Peruse Montraps Publishing
See what I’m writing on Medium.