![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
* "Children hit by Yemen diphtheria outbreak:" http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-middle-east-42561563/yemen-children-hit-by-diphtheria-outbreak
* "Trump dissolves voter fraud commission:" https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/03/politics/presidential-election-commission/index.html
* "White House officials discuss removing Katie Walsh from outside group:" https://www.axios.com/scoop-white-house-officials-discuss-removing-katie-walsh-from-outside-group-2522396631.html
* "Sessions announces end to policy that allowed legal pot to flourish:" https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/04/jeff-sessions-marijuana-policy-us-attorney-enforcement-324020
* I want to thank the folks who kicked in towards kibble etc.. I'll know where I am financially Mondayish, but I have hopes of doing a proper kibble/litter/tp/gas run after Monday forage, or later in the week if I'm not up to it then. I definitely have enough for the weekend of everything except possibly litter. (I for sure have enough for one box, but not the others.
* Progress continues with the Beasties. Tavy is mostly letting her sleep with him on top of me as long as I am also asleep, but continues to object to her attempts to curl up with him on me while I am reading or the like. I keep kicking him off for assholery in a no conflict zone, but this process tends to scare her off too. Today she was clever and after two attempts at cuddle naps, she cleverly curled up on the other side of the barrier pillow within pettin reach and had a good love and a nap. I keep hoping she'll figure out Hector's old trick of curling up on my pillow while it's still cool enough.
Today she stopped playing to let Squirrel bend down and pet her even though humans are huge and scary when they walk. her Host human said she like shoulder cuddles, but no sign of it yet, though she does nap on my desk and has seen Tavy signal for them and get them. I still have hope.
We're just generally working on no conflict zone training, which is working out better on my desk than the bed so far though not perfectly. Mostly the issue is 1. Tavy not wanting to share me in particular situations. 2. Tavy responding to her signals that she's done being groomed now by intensifying rather than backing off, which I am also working on gently but firmly. To be clear, she really does like him grooming her, and arrives already purring like a motor cycle engine rolling carefully into grooming position. It's just him not knowing when to stop.
As I typed this in the late afternoon, they were hanging out on the living room window sill peacefully watching the birds etc..
* I've been really annoyed with myself the last few years for how many fewer books I read than I used to. I love reading, I love learning things, and was honestly starting to low key worry about mental deterioration. A couple of months ago, a friend referenced how many articles I read a day and I was like, "Oooohhhhh! I'm likely reading a similar page count, it's just instead of reading a book or two a day, I'm reading 2/3-3/4 of it in a form where I can't see the progress. I did, in fact also read approximately 2 1/2 feet of ILL books in the last two months, plus various non-ILL library books, library graphic novels, and the like. I am not in fact suddenly stupid, although I seem to have undergone another of those shifts in the way one's brain stores and processes data again, sort of like happens in one's mid-twenties, and that other one I noticed last time I was taking university courses for teach certificate renewal and one of the early twenty something's turned to me after the Prof used one of my exam answers as an example for the class in a YA for teachers class and asked, "How did you know all that and put it together that way?" and I said, "Oh, I cheated; I'm carrying an extra decade of knowledge around in my head." Which got me noticing and I realized I was chunking data way more efficiently with geometrically more cross connections than I had in my twenties. I am not convinced this more recent change in the way my brain organizes information is in any way an improvement. It's more like that thing when I was working on my first Master's degree in my twenties and I noticed my brain was full and I was losing information like what I'm meant to be doing Wednesday to make room for long lists of ale brewers and malefactors of the Marsh in early 14th century court rolls. Unfortunately I am losing a bunch of useful historical information i very much wanted to keep in favour of things like election details for four or five key countries in Africa, where and what epidemics and outbreaks are going on, what wars, the pipeline of horror out on Moscow and DC, a like a hundred terrible things I track in Ukraine, Yemen, Syria, the Philippines, Australian detention camps, etc.,etc.. Hence me flipping out and going to town on high medieval social, economic, and political history refreshers because forgetting shit I used to know like my own name pisses me off.
So I'm feeling a lot less stupid, even if this is a bit of aging I'm not liking.
Why am I talking about this? Because there's been all this stuff in the news about how much TV 45 watches. People are acting as if it's the number that is the problem. I watch lot of TV. I spend several hours in bed each day trying to do things like getting all my body parts to cooperate (which works better if I go slow), doing meds, getting dressed, petting and playing with cats, plus the wind down process involving putting things away, last meds, playing with and/or petting cats, re-configuring the bed so the prop pillows hold everything in place to minimize pain and damage before settling in to read and sleep. Like, between bed time and decanting from bed I watched the whole first disc of Stranger Things which Netflix finally released and came from the library yesterday, so that's like 4ish hours of TV right there, plus a whole episode of superstition during food and lungs, plus hours of assorted news programs that help me figure out what key words to be searching on top of the obvious ones, plus the commentary and assorted fun stuff I often have on in the background, but I also read three chapters of 15th century land disputes and the early battles of the Wars of the Roses plus associated English politics before I got up. I will likely read another chapter of that or another two of the painfully lyrical, charmingly literary, and utterly devastating AIDS memoir I am reading. If I take a bath that's a chunck of a graphic novel, plus the news fire hose from which I condense the best into links for y'all. I'm guessing I'm in the 8-12 hour range, which makes me WORSE than 45 on paper, and yet I'm damned sure I've a far greater grasp of what's going on in the world than he does despite me not having a daily intelligence briefing and access to the experts at the State Department, CIA, etc..
I think quality matters, which is not to say that I don't read and watch a lot of fun stuff. It's just my diet of information is reasonably varied, I read as well as watch, and I think as well as consume. I'm making analogies between the way Detroit is changing with certain ancient and medieval cities that experienced traumatic population contraction and resulting chaos and how they ultimately adapted. I'm taking in modern economic policy news and plugging it into my knowledge of micro and macro economics and several thousand years of historical knowledge about how economies and economic policies tend to effect each other. I'm taking current Jeff Session news and matching it up with a rich racial, political, and economic context from the whole of colonial and US history and how shit tends to go and why and what it actually means for human type people having to live with those decisions. I don't think any of that is true of 45. I don't think anything even vaguely like that goes on inside his head. I'm not convinced he's capable of imagination, empathy, or long term strategic thinking.
Every time this sad little word pictures of how 45 spends his days turn up in the news, a picture of President Obama working pops into my head. I think of him, jacket off and sleeves rolled up working hard at his desk, reading dispatches and briefs and legislation and treaties. I think of him in meetings paying attention and asking astute questions. I think of a man with the imagination and intellectual curiosity to ask what trans folk really needed in this country and get actual answers from transfolk that led to him improving our lives in 150+ small, unglamorous, utterly crucial ways that hardly anyone noticed because things like stopping a W era policy of having Homeland security automatically out trans job seekers to potential employers on;y matter to the transfolk who'd been denied jobs because they'd been outed and then weren't next time they applied somewhere. I picture him and Michelle propped up in bed at night with books and papers scattered everywhere, trying their damnedest to work out on a practical level what is best for the country and the world.
Look, I didn't always agree with President Obama, but I could look at any given decision he made and follow the basic decision making process and rationale based on publicly available knowledge, and with the understanding there are like a million things I don't know due to not having a massive staff of experts and access to State department and intelligence agency resources, etc.. I could have faith that he really thought shit through before deciding. I could see where he was trying to make the best of a no win. I quickly got a feel for his style of risk taking and was comfortable with it, even when I didn't agree. I knew that there was a first rate mind who had traveled to other countries and practiced constitutional law bringing all resources to bear on massive problems, and there was comfort in that.
For the last year I've watched BBC anchors and exports trying ever more frantically to find and assign some sort of thought or strategy to 45's actions and words while trying to disguise what I strongly suspect is rising panic. I DON'T THINK THERE IS ANY TO FIND, beyond self interest, tantrums, and a hunger to cause as much chaos as possible to get ratings. That's it. That's all there is. No deep thought or strategy, no three dimensional chess; just random impulses, greed, a toddler screaming "Look at me" while he loses at tic tac toe because he can't think even one move ahead.
* Me watching Superstition: That is the best sweater! You aren't going to do experiments in that sweater are you? Aiyeeeee! Stand back! You'll get blood on the best sweater ever! Is the sweater okay? I can't see! Shit, there's blood on her face! They got the sweater, didn't they. Damn.
Really though? This show is ridiculously good. I think I finally convinced Squirrel to try it. *fingers crossed* It is definitely the best new show this fall season and I'm really worried not enough people are watching it. (And Exorcist and Ghost Wars). Where are all the people who loved first season Sleepy Hollow and the first five seasons of Supernatural? Why aren't they mobbing social media with fic and art and ships and speculation? I really, really don't want this thing cancelled because the people who would like it never heard of it.
*****
* Full list of Resistance and charity links has been migrated to my profile as it was getting out of hand.
* "Help us stop the humanitarian crisis on Manus:" https://www.asrc.org.au/donate-now/
* "RISE (Refugees, Survivors and Ex-Detainees):" https://www.givenow.com.au/riserefugee/donate
* How to help Rohingya refugees: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/29/world/asia/rohingya-aid-myanmar-bangladesh.html?emc=edit_nn_20171012&nl=morning-briefing&nlid=50784086&te=1&_r=0
* A list of organizations to help you run for office: http://lovingmyselfishard.tumblr.com/post/167330144634/psst-hey
* Trans Lifeline is one of those organizations you can call at (877) 565-8860 in the US and in Canada (877) 330- 6366.
* The Trevor Project has a 24 hour hotline geared toward helping our youth, and you can call it at 1-866-488-7386
* Resistance links for the tax cuts for the rich: http://gwydionmisha.tumblr.com/post/166977878817/fullhalalalchemist-the-gop-is-aiming-for-a-65vc
* Scripts for resisting the Tax Bill: https://laughingacademy.tumblr.com/post/168175070608/the-tax-bill-just-passed-the-senate-heres-what
* Call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to be connected to the representative of your choice.
* This App phones your rep for you: http://takeastance.us/
* Here is one that will send your reps a fax: https://resistbot.io/
* Help pay for cat food, litter, meds, medical copays: Paypal [email protected]
* Birthday/Solstice master list: https://gwydion.dreamwidth.org/1925021.html
* Want Game of Thrones without the creepy? We need new players. We are very inclusive. "Game of Bones MUSH:" gobmush.wikidot.com
* "Trump dissolves voter fraud commission:" https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/03/politics/presidential-election-commission/index.html
* "White House officials discuss removing Katie Walsh from outside group:" https://www.axios.com/scoop-white-house-officials-discuss-removing-katie-walsh-from-outside-group-2522396631.html
* "Sessions announces end to policy that allowed legal pot to flourish:" https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/04/jeff-sessions-marijuana-policy-us-attorney-enforcement-324020
* I want to thank the folks who kicked in towards kibble etc.. I'll know where I am financially Mondayish, but I have hopes of doing a proper kibble/litter/tp/gas run after Monday forage, or later in the week if I'm not up to it then. I definitely have enough for the weekend of everything except possibly litter. (I for sure have enough for one box, but not the others.
* Progress continues with the Beasties. Tavy is mostly letting her sleep with him on top of me as long as I am also asleep, but continues to object to her attempts to curl up with him on me while I am reading or the like. I keep kicking him off for assholery in a no conflict zone, but this process tends to scare her off too. Today she was clever and after two attempts at cuddle naps, she cleverly curled up on the other side of the barrier pillow within pettin reach and had a good love and a nap. I keep hoping she'll figure out Hector's old trick of curling up on my pillow while it's still cool enough.
Today she stopped playing to let Squirrel bend down and pet her even though humans are huge and scary when they walk. her Host human said she like shoulder cuddles, but no sign of it yet, though she does nap on my desk and has seen Tavy signal for them and get them. I still have hope.
We're just generally working on no conflict zone training, which is working out better on my desk than the bed so far though not perfectly. Mostly the issue is 1. Tavy not wanting to share me in particular situations. 2. Tavy responding to her signals that she's done being groomed now by intensifying rather than backing off, which I am also working on gently but firmly. To be clear, she really does like him grooming her, and arrives already purring like a motor cycle engine rolling carefully into grooming position. It's just him not knowing when to stop.
As I typed this in the late afternoon, they were hanging out on the living room window sill peacefully watching the birds etc..
* I've been really annoyed with myself the last few years for how many fewer books I read than I used to. I love reading, I love learning things, and was honestly starting to low key worry about mental deterioration. A couple of months ago, a friend referenced how many articles I read a day and I was like, "Oooohhhhh! I'm likely reading a similar page count, it's just instead of reading a book or two a day, I'm reading 2/3-3/4 of it in a form where I can't see the progress. I did, in fact also read approximately 2 1/2 feet of ILL books in the last two months, plus various non-ILL library books, library graphic novels, and the like. I am not in fact suddenly stupid, although I seem to have undergone another of those shifts in the way one's brain stores and processes data again, sort of like happens in one's mid-twenties, and that other one I noticed last time I was taking university courses for teach certificate renewal and one of the early twenty something's turned to me after the Prof used one of my exam answers as an example for the class in a YA for teachers class and asked, "How did you know all that and put it together that way?" and I said, "Oh, I cheated; I'm carrying an extra decade of knowledge around in my head." Which got me noticing and I realized I was chunking data way more efficiently with geometrically more cross connections than I had in my twenties. I am not convinced this more recent change in the way my brain organizes information is in any way an improvement. It's more like that thing when I was working on my first Master's degree in my twenties and I noticed my brain was full and I was losing information like what I'm meant to be doing Wednesday to make room for long lists of ale brewers and malefactors of the Marsh in early 14th century court rolls. Unfortunately I am losing a bunch of useful historical information i very much wanted to keep in favour of things like election details for four or five key countries in Africa, where and what epidemics and outbreaks are going on, what wars, the pipeline of horror out on Moscow and DC, a like a hundred terrible things I track in Ukraine, Yemen, Syria, the Philippines, Australian detention camps, etc.,etc.. Hence me flipping out and going to town on high medieval social, economic, and political history refreshers because forgetting shit I used to know like my own name pisses me off.
So I'm feeling a lot less stupid, even if this is a bit of aging I'm not liking.
Why am I talking about this? Because there's been all this stuff in the news about how much TV 45 watches. People are acting as if it's the number that is the problem. I watch lot of TV. I spend several hours in bed each day trying to do things like getting all my body parts to cooperate (which works better if I go slow), doing meds, getting dressed, petting and playing with cats, plus the wind down process involving putting things away, last meds, playing with and/or petting cats, re-configuring the bed so the prop pillows hold everything in place to minimize pain and damage before settling in to read and sleep. Like, between bed time and decanting from bed I watched the whole first disc of Stranger Things which Netflix finally released and came from the library yesterday, so that's like 4ish hours of TV right there, plus a whole episode of superstition during food and lungs, plus hours of assorted news programs that help me figure out what key words to be searching on top of the obvious ones, plus the commentary and assorted fun stuff I often have on in the background, but I also read three chapters of 15th century land disputes and the early battles of the Wars of the Roses plus associated English politics before I got up. I will likely read another chapter of that or another two of the painfully lyrical, charmingly literary, and utterly devastating AIDS memoir I am reading. If I take a bath that's a chunck of a graphic novel, plus the news fire hose from which I condense the best into links for y'all. I'm guessing I'm in the 8-12 hour range, which makes me WORSE than 45 on paper, and yet I'm damned sure I've a far greater grasp of what's going on in the world than he does despite me not having a daily intelligence briefing and access to the experts at the State Department, CIA, etc..
I think quality matters, which is not to say that I don't read and watch a lot of fun stuff. It's just my diet of information is reasonably varied, I read as well as watch, and I think as well as consume. I'm making analogies between the way Detroit is changing with certain ancient and medieval cities that experienced traumatic population contraction and resulting chaos and how they ultimately adapted. I'm taking in modern economic policy news and plugging it into my knowledge of micro and macro economics and several thousand years of historical knowledge about how economies and economic policies tend to effect each other. I'm taking current Jeff Session news and matching it up with a rich racial, political, and economic context from the whole of colonial and US history and how shit tends to go and why and what it actually means for human type people having to live with those decisions. I don't think any of that is true of 45. I don't think anything even vaguely like that goes on inside his head. I'm not convinced he's capable of imagination, empathy, or long term strategic thinking.
Every time this sad little word pictures of how 45 spends his days turn up in the news, a picture of President Obama working pops into my head. I think of him, jacket off and sleeves rolled up working hard at his desk, reading dispatches and briefs and legislation and treaties. I think of him in meetings paying attention and asking astute questions. I think of a man with the imagination and intellectual curiosity to ask what trans folk really needed in this country and get actual answers from transfolk that led to him improving our lives in 150+ small, unglamorous, utterly crucial ways that hardly anyone noticed because things like stopping a W era policy of having Homeland security automatically out trans job seekers to potential employers on;y matter to the transfolk who'd been denied jobs because they'd been outed and then weren't next time they applied somewhere. I picture him and Michelle propped up in bed at night with books and papers scattered everywhere, trying their damnedest to work out on a practical level what is best for the country and the world.
Look, I didn't always agree with President Obama, but I could look at any given decision he made and follow the basic decision making process and rationale based on publicly available knowledge, and with the understanding there are like a million things I don't know due to not having a massive staff of experts and access to State department and intelligence agency resources, etc.. I could have faith that he really thought shit through before deciding. I could see where he was trying to make the best of a no win. I quickly got a feel for his style of risk taking and was comfortable with it, even when I didn't agree. I knew that there was a first rate mind who had traveled to other countries and practiced constitutional law bringing all resources to bear on massive problems, and there was comfort in that.
For the last year I've watched BBC anchors and exports trying ever more frantically to find and assign some sort of thought or strategy to 45's actions and words while trying to disguise what I strongly suspect is rising panic. I DON'T THINK THERE IS ANY TO FIND, beyond self interest, tantrums, and a hunger to cause as much chaos as possible to get ratings. That's it. That's all there is. No deep thought or strategy, no three dimensional chess; just random impulses, greed, a toddler screaming "Look at me" while he loses at tic tac toe because he can't think even one move ahead.
* Me watching Superstition: That is the best sweater! You aren't going to do experiments in that sweater are you? Aiyeeeee! Stand back! You'll get blood on the best sweater ever! Is the sweater okay? I can't see! Shit, there's blood on her face! They got the sweater, didn't they. Damn.
Really though? This show is ridiculously good. I think I finally convinced Squirrel to try it. *fingers crossed* It is definitely the best new show this fall season and I'm really worried not enough people are watching it. (And Exorcist and Ghost Wars). Where are all the people who loved first season Sleepy Hollow and the first five seasons of Supernatural? Why aren't they mobbing social media with fic and art and ships and speculation? I really, really don't want this thing cancelled because the people who would like it never heard of it.
*****
* Full list of Resistance and charity links has been migrated to my profile as it was getting out of hand.
* "Help us stop the humanitarian crisis on Manus:" https://www.asrc.org.au/donate-now/
* "RISE (Refugees, Survivors and Ex-Detainees):" https://www.givenow.com.au/riserefugee/donate
* How to help Rohingya refugees: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/29/world/asia/rohingya-aid-myanmar-bangladesh.html?emc=edit_nn_20171012&nl=morning-briefing&nlid=50784086&te=1&_r=0
* A list of organizations to help you run for office: http://lovingmyselfishard.tumblr.com/post/167330144634/psst-hey
* Trans Lifeline is one of those organizations you can call at (877) 565-8860 in the US and in Canada (877) 330- 6366.
* The Trevor Project has a 24 hour hotline geared toward helping our youth, and you can call it at 1-866-488-7386
* Resistance links for the tax cuts for the rich: http://gwydionmisha.tumblr.com/post/166977878817/fullhalalalchemist-the-gop-is-aiming-for-a-65vc
* Scripts for resisting the Tax Bill: https://laughingacademy.tumblr.com/post/168175070608/the-tax-bill-just-passed-the-senate-heres-what
* Call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to be connected to the representative of your choice.
* This App phones your rep for you: http://takeastance.us/
* Here is one that will send your reps a fax: https://resistbot.io/
* Help pay for cat food, litter, meds, medical copays: Paypal [email protected]
* Birthday/Solstice master list: https://gwydion.dreamwidth.org/1925021.html
* Want Game of Thrones without the creepy? We need new players. We are very inclusive. "Game of Bones MUSH:" gobmush.wikidot.com