Life, not War

Maite ("MITE-aay") was 10 years old. She loved animals. When she grew up, she was going to be a marine biologist, working in oceans with the animals that she so loved.

Maite's favourite colour was green. When she got shoes, she chose a pair of high-top converse sneakers. Then she added a red heart to the white toe of each shoe.

Let's talk about oranges. They're such handy things - literally. One fits right into the hand. Kids tend to love them, too. This makes it easy to do a comparison. Hold an orange up next to a 10yo child.

Up here. Over there. Too cute!

Or maybe not.

Bullets designed for AR15 semi-automatic war rifles are generally high-speed. As a rifle, the AR-15 has a long barrel. This makes a bullet fly even faster. This is important.

When a high-speed bullet hits something soft like a human body, it begins to turn, or yaw. "Yaw" is a funny word, and it sounds like nonsense. It is about angles, though. A line running down the length of a bullet is part of this angle. The direction in which it is moving is another line in the angle. Flying through the air, both lines are one and the same. As it turns inside the body, though, an angle opens up. That is the yaw.

As that angle opens up, tissues are torn. Muscle is shredded. It isn't merely cut, like when a knife is passed through. Pieces of muscle are frayed here and there in different directions. Tendons and ligaments, necessary for holding muscles and bones together, are shorn apart.

Then there is the energy. Something moving as fast as a high-velocity bullet from an AR-15 causes shock waves of energy. These waves push tissue out of the way. All tissue, soft and hard, is pushed. Muscle is pushed aside. Bones are shattered, their shards acting like jagged biologically hazardous missiles piercing nearby tissues.

If a body organ is in the way of that shock wave? It is rendered into pulp. Liver? Kidney? Spleen? It might as well be pudding now. Unless a child is shot at the doorstep of a hospital, they will likely bleed to death before they can receive life-saving surgical care in that case.

And then the bullet finally leaves the body after leaving a trail of destruction inside. The exit wound is a hole, but not merely a hole. It is a gaping cave the size of an orange.

Where have you been holding that orange? It is gone now. Shoulder? Shards. Gut? Shredded, spilt, gaping. Back? Great open hole. What have you sacrificed? Bones? Muscles? An entire body organ?

The AR15 is not merely a gun. It is a weapon of war. That is why it creates these life-defying wounds.

After the school shooting in Uvalde, families gathered. DNA collection kits were passed around. Moms, dads, families swabbed their cheeks and deposited q-tips, then handed the baggies back.

Their children were so taken over by those "oranges" that they were no longer recognisable.

Maite's shoes were green high-top converse sneakers with red hearts on the white toes of each shoe. That is how her family identified the once-future marine biologist. The wee precious babe who loved animals, knowable only by her shoes.

There are some things that are far more precious and valuable than a gun. Life, the beating of a heart, the fulfillment of development of embryo, then fetus. Life is more important than a gun. Science, the love of living creatures, the dedication to learning about them and studying them - that is also more important than a gun.

An AR15 was developed for use on the battlefield during war.

A school is not a battlefield. Science is not war.

And Maite - beautiful, precious young Maite, who so longed to care for marine animals - was not an enemy combatant. Maite was life.

More Than Just a Movie

What is your dedication to the Democratic principles of national autonomy and representational government? Foreign aid? Rationing and inflation? Years of military conflict?

Hitler was elected in 1933. Nazi Germany took over Austria in 1938. The German resistance consisted of small, isolated groups and was unable to conduct widespread political opposition. Resistance was more organised in occupied countries. Hundreds of thousands of them were murdered. The Allies won WWII in 1945 with the military involvement of several world powers.

Ukraine will require foreign aid in order to keep a democracy in place for as long as possible. Then military assistance will have to be funnelled to guerilla groups resisting Russia. Money and material aid will need to be entered to a variety of underground resistance organisations.

Here at home, there will be more inflation. More shortages. Outages. More and larger public programmes will be needed, else many will suffer immeasurably.  People will die in zones of military conflicts and occupation.

So. Many. People. Will. Die.

It will be hell. Are you at all ready for this?
#MoreThanJustAMovie

Foot Cramps

 

My feet are cramping really terribly. I've drunk some chocolate milk (potassium) and am considering sugar-free Powerade. In the meantime, this friend is keeping me company.

Shocks of pain fresh out of the GD blue. Need relief.

The Problem Is That America Is Back

My post on twitter in reply to President-elect Joe Biden, with Biden's tweet first.

Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) "America is back."

Freedom2B (@Freedom22BB) Replying to @JoeBiden
"Well-hidden detention centres are still concentration camps. Silent deportation is still expulsion of immigrants. Unacknowledged cop murders of Black People are still state-based lynchings.

"The problem is precisely that America is back.

"Make America More Just."
3:59 PM · Nov 24, 2020

Election-Day Sunrise 2020

Sunrise on election day, Tues 03 November 2020.

Line of orange rests atop dark horison. Hidden sun casts off a layer of deep yet brilliant yellow. Clouds lie above that layer, containing dark grey with highlights of dark, dusted rose pink. The sky above the clouds blends from a light dusty purple to a cold, oceanic blue.

The Insulting, Disenfranchising Filth of Clinton's Anti-Poor Policies

Mum worked a full-time service sector job that broke her body, furthered her path towards diabetes, damaged her mental health (fatphobic and sexist management), and ate into the time that she could have spent in class or studying for her Bachelor's degree. She survived multiple instances of severe suicidal ideation by the skin of her teeth and because a professor cum friend leveraged her status and privilege to help Mom get access to mental health care - all whilst Mom was working a back-breaking service sector job, raising three children, and going to college.

Clinton's destruction of aid to the poor kept my family in extreme poverty for the entirety of my childhood. We went without electricity several times, for days and weeks at a time. We went without heat. Our water well dried up because of the filthy racist/labour trafficking I'm sure sexually abusing agricultural entrepreneur across the road, and of course we had zero financial means of digging a new well. We drove two miles up the road once or twice per week to fill pails and jugs with water at my aunt's place so that we could drink, cook, bathe, and drink.

I learnt nothing of the appreciation for work that those wealthy conservative white male policymakers thought that they would teach me. I learnt resentment for the entire capitalist system. I learnt how exploitative it was of BIPOC and the poor.

Clinton and his many racist, disenfranchising policies can rot in hell.

Slavery Is Today's Living Memory

Today's StoryCorps episode, as aired on NPR's NPR Morning Edition, a woman of grandmotherly age described learning from her great-grandmother, Sylvia, about Sylvia's experiences gaining literacy after attaining freedom subsequent to the Civil War.

That is to say, there are Black People ALIVE TODAY who PERSONAL KNEW formerly enslaved people.

Don't let anyone say anything to you about how the chattel enslavement of Black People in the States is all in the past. It isn't. It is directly part of the stories of people who are alive today.

Michigan Republicans Have No Integrity

Do you know which party the KKK took over here in Michigan as it swept county party to county party to county party? Republican. This was before even the 1948 walkout of the Dixiecrats. It was all the way back to 1924, when we whites issuing history revisionist apologia like to claim that It WaS dEmOcRaTs WhO sTaRtED tHe KkK!

Now, we have a party that actively colludes with white supremacist militias which take part in terrorist activities. They go to protests held by those militias. They get their photos taken when them. They support their political agendas. Nothing has changed in this state. White supremacist violence continues to control our politics.

Michigan's history of Republican collusion with white supremacists stretches back for nearly a century. There is no way that anyone here can convince me that they have had any integrity.

Stop (Mis)Diagnosing Trump

Hi. I am mentally ill. Here are some things that I am not:
* capricious
* greedy
* self-centred
* wilfully racist
* a proponent of libertarianism
* unfair, save to the wealthy and powerful
* inspired by autocrats

trump Is not guided by any mental illness. Racism is not a mental illness. Neither is greed. Nor is obsession with autocracy. None of these things or other behavioural problems present in That Man can be found in the DSM.

Please. Stop equating his disgusting ideology with mental illness. There is a canyon of a difference between the two.

He makes choices. We live with monsters in our heads.

GIF: Cats Rock-Climbing Walls, Hanging from Ceiling

On White Gayness in the 2010s

One of the ways that I remember the 2010s is how we white gays ignored Black People. We won a victory at SCOTUS whilst Black People's voting rights were decimated. None of us noticed. None of us cared.

Mass incarceration continued to spiral out of control. Black Children were killed by cops and lay-folk alike. More power has been added to the police state. Yet whilst Black People's have been struggling for their very lives, we have been trumpeting laws and court cases that would improve our own lot in life.

Black transgender women are slaughtered in this country. We white gays react after the fact, but we do nothing to ensure that Black Transgender people are stably housed, gainfully employed, given access to nutritious foods, or provided healthcare - all of which are necessary to remain more out of the reach of bigoted murderers.

May we begin to care - to really and truly care - in the 2020s and beyond.

Gay Males' Eight Layers Showing Again

I cannot remember the year; but within days of dismantling the VRA, SCOTUS granted the right to gay marriage. I think that there was also an affirmative action case, but for the life of me, I cannot remember how it went.

All of the white gay males were all over their little victory. They demanded that transgender people wait their turn. They whined and threw tempter tantrums whenever the VRA was discussed. I had been interacting with the movement in the lead-up to these rulings. Some weeks before the rulings were delivered, I washed my hands of cis white gay males, because their racism and transphobia were coming undeniably into the light. They revealed themselves for what they are. I declared that gay marriage didn't need my help. It had plenty of supporters.

Voting rights have once again been thrown into the ditch with the Ohio gerrymandering case, but all that the cis white gay males can talk about is their rights to work and such.

Whenever anyone posts about this case, my silence is my answer. I will be with transgender people and Black People as much as I knownhow, reading what they are reading and acting, to the extent that I know how, in accordance with information that I gain.

Again: Cis white gay males have a huge problem with racism - especially misogynoir.

On 9/11, This Day in 2019

I remember that day. That was my first year of being Muslim. On that day, I was beyond Muslim, beyond American. I was a human overwhelmed with the knowledge that other humans were enduring every sensation and emotiin that surely they must have been experiencing. I knew it in those moments, and I felt so fucking sick.

To return to classes the next day and face the hatred - granted, mild and never with threats or acts of violence as was visited on Muslims of Colour - was confusing and painful. I've grown numb to realising what victims of terrorism endure by now, but hearing about events like the homophobic terrorist attack on Pulse or the white supremacist terrorist attack in Christchurch, NZ still makes me feel sick. Now that I know how certain whites react to certain acts of terrorism, I also feel dread.

What benefits me the most is to experience community reach out and holding each other, sharing love with each other, shutting up the bigotry that happens in their social circles, sharing meals, holding game days, going to movie-watching gatherings, making music together, building communities based on love. When love builds, I feel less of that tight nausea in my gut.

I call for that kind of community as often as I do because I want others to experience that same release - that same relaxation from tension, that same sense of security with others, that same rise in oxytocin and dopamine and other biochemicals of love. We all deserve to feel good with each other.

White Gays

Post an article a out white gays to an LGBT discussion forum inhabited by white gays and watch the whinefest begin. Exhibit A:

Maher Is a Bigot

On 17 August 2019 at 6:43 pm, US Rep Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) shared a tweet by Mehdi Hasan along with her own comment.

Mehdi Hasan's tweet reads, "Maher rails against BDS, Palestinians, and Omar/Tlaib with an all-white panel featuring no Palestinians, no Arabs, no Muslims, no people of color. 'Liberal' Maher."

Hasan then included a link to a news article by The Hill.

Rep Tlaib added, "Maybe people should boycott his show. I am tired of folks discrediting a form of speech that is centered on equality and freedom. This is exactly how they tried to stand up against the apartheid in S Africa. It didn't work then and won't now."

Get Out the Vote

Getting out the vote starts now. It means going to the "other" side of town. Meet people where they are. Volunteer. Patronise a business there. Attend an event there. Do this until y u stop thinking of the place as "there" and the people as "them," until it becomes "here" and "we."

Strike up a conversation with someone. Introduce yourself, establish a common interest, follow up. Keep making these connections.

As next August approaches, reach out to your new contacts. Ask them if there is anything that they need only election day so that they can get out to the polls. Offer to help.

That's how to get out the vote. It has to start now. In November 2020, it might be too late.

Still a Concentration Camp

"If you improve the conditions of children in a cage, they are still in a cage."
-US Rep Ayanna Pressley

Let Me Go

(Note: As of 10:44 pm Wednesday 10 June 2019, this is not my state of mind. I am experiencing much difficulty, but not on the scale described below.)

There are monsters in my head. They are flashing images at me. Memories. My worst memories.

They remind me of the pain that I have endured, slashing me over and over again with their acid-dipped knives. If anyone looks me in the eye, I will fall out crying.

They remind me of my helplessness back then and convince me that I am helpless today. They remind me of how burdened I was then and then convince me that I am burdened today. They remind me of how emptied out I was of my self, how worthless I felt, and then convince me that I have nothing and deserve nothing today.

I can't fight them any more. I definitely cannot fight them and deal with the exhausting emotional stress of performing happiness in front of others. I am tired. I need my bed.

Let me go.

When the Call for Help Runs Dry (TW)

I was browsing social media when I encountered this post. I am placing it here in the glory of its original size because dammit, it is about time that you had to deal with even a small portion of the hurt that I experienced.

I do feel bitter. When I issued a cry for help, I got two responses.

TWO.

So look at that thing. Read it. AGAIN. And the next time that I ask for help, by God, *do* something.

When I fist saw that image, I started shaking. The shaking was the physical manifestation of the fact that I was suppressing screams, heaving sobs, curling up in a corner of the bed, etc. First of all, I was in the midst of a bad asthma flareup. It would have harmed me to give way to decompression and venting.

Secondly, I was not in a space that was safe for me to decompress like that. Others here would not understand the process and could become frightened by it. God only knows if they would have preserved my privacy, or told their entire congregation about it. I needed a safe space where my privacy, autonomy, and dignity would have been upheld.

The images in my head were historical: the chattel enslavement of Africans and their descendants by whites, forced imprisoned workers enslaved under convict leasing, enslaved sharecroppers.

What is in my heart and in my soul did not express itself in my head. Those memories of my past stayed right there, in the middle of me, waiting for the chance to explode and take me over for the next few hours.

I didn't let it happen - not because I am "strong," but because I do not have access to a safe space in which to let it all out.

I had been begging for exactly that space before I limited the privacy of the post. I am bitter. I see people post advocating for causes related to the very abuses that gave rise to the injuries which in turn continue to hurt me. It is easy to reach out to help a vague wounded entity. Here is a tangible, wounded entity right under your noses.

I re-experienced the emptying out of my own identity. The emotional pain. The weariness. Sleep deprivation. Brittle, rigid rules, moving goalposts, any chance to insult and punish. I re-experienced the abject fear.

But for a very few people who shared space with me and heard me out, I was alone with it. No-one should have to be alone with such monsters. No-one.

The causes that you advocate are under your noses. Open your eyes. Unplug your ears. Care for the people who are right there with you.

We Are Strong; Fake Bone Spurs Are Wimpy

I live with PTSD due to causes other than military service. I don't know what it is like to live with PTSD as a military serviceperson. I do know what it is like to live with PTSD as a result of severe abuse.

We are not weak.
We are strong.

Every day, we battle demons that others could not imagine and that would leave most everyone else flat on the floor. And yet each and every day, we choose to continue breathing. We continue to create, to work, to parent, to love our families - by birth and by choice - to lead, to add the richness of our experiences and personalities to this world. Even those of us who don't make it, whose pain is so great that they die from these horrible monsters - our siblings in survival fought it off for so damned long. So damned long. They fought. We all continue to fight. To breathe. To keep giving back.

THAT is the depth of endless bravery.

You know what's wimpy?
Fake bone spurs.