Remember Prop 8? For me, the wounds are still raw (current status: overturned but implementation stayed; trapped in the appellate process [English: not legal but in effect]). I went to a school that threw its 501(c) out the window in the name of religious zealotry and continues to treat some of its students as second-class.

Well, the human-rights-refusing fever has reached Minnesota—and, surprise surprise!, it’s excessively entangled with religion…again.

Go read this. My friend says it better than I could.

These words make me cringe. As though that’s a compliment. As though the opposite is an insult. But I ran across this recently and it struck me as being a perfect sentiment:

I’d do her.

If, like, she were still alive. And would have me.

[Obviously, this was about a historic figure.]

“And would have me.” is the pertinent point. But it changes the whole sentiment from, “I am in a position of power and deign to choose her,” to “We are equals and I would like her if she agrees.”

It’s all about consent.

[Source: Balloon Juice on "Emma Goldman", trying hard to make fun of the amazing and awesome Take Back Halloween, and failing miserably.]

The awesome Cobwebs over at Art of Darkness (she also runs a fantabulous store at Shadow Manor) is hosting the 3rd annual Secret Santa Can Suck It, a virtual gift-swap. It’s not the swap that’s virtual, it’s the gifties.

Last year, I got an amazing Cthluhu Makeover (I’m virtually wearing my tentacle dress right now) from Cobwebs herself and gave a belated Mustache Kit to one Inveigh.

This year, I pulled WitchArachne’s name out of a witchily webby hat. [Read more →]

The above photo is mine, from a Prop 8 protest. I post it because of my description: “I got a little freaked out at one point when I realized the cop to protester ratio was pretty dang high.” This defined the police action last night against #OccupyLA

Many police officers must experience a powerful tension between their priorities to protect individual rights and to enforce the law. Civil disobedience lives in this hazardous borderland where rights and laws do not always play nicely together. Even when it is non-violent, effective protest provokes those who defend the status quo, and officers often have to rely on a different approach than what they seem to typically rely on when apprehending law-breakers–especially those who resist arrest. The media plays an interesting, complicating role in all of this.

I haven’t read any news analysis of the LAPD’s massive sweep of Occupy LA’s encampment last night and this morning, but I’m going to attempt to figure out the LAPD’s motivations behind their methods.

The operation was huge. Perhaps it is the largest in the Department’s history. Los Angeles has the third largest police force in the nation, and it looks like they mobilized anywhere from 1500 to 2000 officers last night–from 15 to 20% of the police force. And the operation seemed to progress in careful steps: police in riot gear assembled at Dodger Stadium around 8:30pm; a perimeter was secured around City Hall and no one was allowed in by 10:30 or so; by daybreak 1400-2000 officers (according to one major news outlet) had formed a human noose around City Hall and were arresting protesters.

This show of force takes place in multiple contexts, but there are two I’d like to highlight: 1) recent incidents of police brutality have reflected poorly on New York City, Oakland and UC Davis’s police forces in particular, and eroded public trust in American law enforcement as a whole; and, 2) Rodney King. This was an opportunity for the LAPD to polish the image of both the city and its controversy-laden police department.

I think that this is one the main reasons the LAPD took the two extra days past the eviction deadline to carefully orchestrate this operation. I imagine that at least this much time was needed to plan, train, and mobilize the force. Because all it takes to descend into PR hell is one photo or video capture of the disproportionate of force by one rogue/stressed officer, I’m sure that every individual was told not to fuck this up. Finally, they took the additional step of heavily restricting which media sources got to go in and what they were able to report. For example, KTLA (CBS/Time Warner) reported that they weren’t showing news copter footage of the riot police moving in as part of their agreement.

I have no illusions that there is probably daily abuse and mistreatment of individuals by some fraction of the LA police force. Most of these victims are probably brown-skinned and/or impoverished. The public and the media aren’t interested in them.

Ultimately, OccupyLA’s protest and the LAPD’s response are performances. Without the media–mainstream and social and viral–there is no audience. This isn’t to devalue the motives behind these performances, but it shows how dependent citizens in any democracy are on the media to foster an environment in which political change can occur, and how much power the media also has to curb the excesses of use of force by the police.

Last night, both groups knew we were watching, and were subsequently on their best behavior. Kudos to them both.

Many of us have mixed feelings about Occupy Wall Street. I personally get excited at any signs of life in America’s normally apathetic citizenry, but have been confused and maybe a bit turned off by the festival atmosphere and the initial incoherence of the movement and its participants. We expect sound bytes: where’s the political platform that I can fit on a bumper sticker, or in a pithy, provocative tweet? Instead we get a cacophony of clashing, inarticulate opinions to the beat of drums and peace songs. And what the hell is this “We are the 99%” all about?

But you know, more I look, the more I listen, the more I realize that dismissing the entire movement because these individual voices seem unimpressive is like dismissing twitter because no one wants to know what you had for breakfast. Mass protests are like the screen on which you read this post: the picture emerges in the combination of all the individual pixels. The global Occupy Movement is a pointillist painting, each protester shivering in her tent right now is a dot of color, and all together you have a dramatic picture condemning universal frustration with economic inequality–inequality driven by corporate greed and unaddressed by representative democracy’s standard channels.

The Movement is Reason Enough

Occupy Wall Street will be two months old in two days. It takes some serious organization and dedication to maintain an encampment and to keep spirits up in the face of serious, sustained opposition. These folks consciously choose to risk injury, insult, arrest and lost opportunities and suffer from cold, boredom, frustration, and the lack of warm meals and facilities. However the media chooses to portray the movement, this is no Woodstock. I feel like they’ve at least earned the right to be heard through their determination.

Most of us have democracy handed to us on a platter. Maybe a couple of times per year we go to a local polling station, have a convenient menu of multiple-choice or true-false options presented to us, and in a few minutes we’ve done our duties as members of a representative democracy. But who picks what goes on the menu? And what happens if this manifestation of democracy doesn’t represent you? We can call or write our MPs or congresspersons. Or we can take to the streets. As Emerson said, “Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis.” (and this regarding his protest of the contemporary American genocide of the Cherokee nation known to us as the Trail of Tears)

“We are the 99%.”

This is the main sound byte to emerge from Occupy Wall Street, and it’s as powerful as any campaign slogan prepared on a ten million-dollar budget (this started as a free tumblr).

I’m going to let a couple of graphs talk for me here (click on the images to see the source articles):

Share of wealth held by the Bottom 99% and Top 1% in the United States, 1922-2007, from article by UCSC Professor.

From the Economist

The message is less about policy, and more about setting priorities. The protesters are saying to their government and to the wealthy: “We’ve gone along with your schemes for long enough now. We, the 99%, are tired of offering our backs to carry the richest 1%.”

Where do you stand?

I’m a Quaker now, and no longer Mormon, for a number of reasons, but one of the main ones is that the Society of Friends have generally stood on the right side of history, even when things were tremendously unpopular. Quakers fought against slavery a century before it was popular to do so in Britain, which was another half-century before Americans abolished it. Mormons were slow to support Civil Rights, while Quakers were helping to lay the groundwork in the Fifties. I went to a Quaker meeting in LA this weekend and listened to OccupyLA protesters and fellow Friends ask for bottled water and for people to help train protesters in peaceful conflict resolution. One guy was tired, haggard. These are not clueless, partiers with nothing else to do.

Occupy Wall Street is history in the making. And even if it fails utterly, I want to stand on the right side history. I want to say that when shit got serious, I wasn’t on the sidelines. I’m not sure yet what I’m going to do, just how I’m going to support this movement, but I’m in.

Um. This is why teh intarwebs were invented (yes: this counts as national security).

After having watched that, you’re allowed to watch the original. But I will bet money you won’t be able to.

Because Sinfest is that awesome, Tatsuya Ishida just did a sequence on the patriarchy and male privilege. They start here. Thumbnails and commentary below the fold.
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(Though Steve might suggest that we reboot.)

To the man who made this anti-consumerist feel less guilty about buying some products, and to the Buddhist who made me feel more attached to these possessions more than any other. He gave me the tools that I use to connect with other souls, to create and convey the visions in my heart, and to build community.

Sure, there are other tools, but I chose his.

Here’s to you, Steve Jobs. Thank you.

Two recent internet interactions:

Atheists express their rage against God although in their view He does not exist. -C. S. Lewis

My reply:

Funny, I don’t feel rage-filled. Maybe C.S. Lewis was projecting.

Don’t you think this might have something to do with women’s biology? It would seem that men will always have the luxury of being more relaxed about marriage and family regardless of socio-cultural stereotypes. We can make babies when we’re 90 years old; women can’t. If I had an internal clock telling me I have a 40 year window to make babies, I might be paying more attention to it at age 20 or 30 too. The article talks about barbies not encouraging girls to pursue math… maybe so, although its not like all popular boys’ toys are either. I played with legos and hot wheels, and ended up getting a law degree. And our society is as open to girls pursuing careers and education (in whatever field they desire) as ever–I believe females are the majority in undergraduate enrollment. But advanced degrees in science and careers in those field eat up some of those baby making years.

Just saying, biology may just be having its say here, regardless of any social goal we have of more women in the sciences.

If its any solace, any daughters of mine will have to play with the toys I want to play with. That means legos, electrosets, and ant farms.

My reply:

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This is my live-blogging post for my attempt to produce a comic in 24 hours or less. Mainly, I’ll share tweets and images here.

05:45am: I had planned to start at least two hours earlier. I’m getting coffee, and then clock starts at 6am.

Good morning.

24-Hour Comic Day: join in via Google+ hangout here: http://is.gd/rCObok or follow via blog: http://is.gd/IkBREw or here on twitter.

07:00am progress update: Basic layout and script essentials sketched out:

10am: Disappointed that I’m photoshopping images again, but I have a story to tell & don’t have the chops to tell this any other way. #24HCD:

02pm: Eight hours in and this is what I’ve got:

05pm: Jesus Christ vs. The World. Where is this going?

06am: And here is the “final” version. My story is less than half-way done, but gonna post what I’ve got. It’s in Prezi/Flash, which gave me the flexibility to structure layout in unique ways.