An Aspiration For the New Year

Now the holidays are over and the new year’s on its way, its time for that Janusian moment, where we look back over the year that’s passed and look forward to the year to come. And while much electronic ink will be spilled on retrospectives and top whatever-number lists, I find myself more inclined to look ahead, and to, if not resolve, then at least aspire to make improvement to myself and my way of being in the world.

Number one on my list of aspirations for 2016 is to project my best self in my online and social media presence.

The internet is a wondrous and enchanting place (at least it can be). But it’s also, thanks to the distance it puts between people, a really easy place to give your worst intincts free rein. It’s easy to say things online, in comment threads or tweets or blog posts, that you’d never say to a person’s face. It’s easy to let your anger get away from you, or hell, just say some nasty shit just to get a reaction out of somebody. It’s easy to call people who don’t agree with you idiots, and to denigrate their intellect, parentage, and character, largely consequence-free.

It’s easy, in short, to be an asshole.

And it’s not like I haven’t done it. Among folks who know me I am famous for anger management issues, and I have always loved a good argument.

But arguing rarely convinces, and being an asshole doesn’t do much but make the folks your sphincter is pointed at unhappy. Maybe some people may deserve that kind of treatment, but on the whole it’s not particularly productive or helpful. It certainly doesn’t do anything to make the world a better place.

So, for my part, I’ve decided to trade argument for discussion, insult for empathy, and superiority for conviction. I aspire to reflect my best self, not only in real life, but in my online incarnation, too. I hope other folks will choose to do the same.

Santa Claus and the American Dream

I thought of this the other day, but I didn’t want to harsh anyone’s mellow this holiday season, since there are lots of folks I know who genuinely love the holidays, especially Christmas, and I respect that.

But it occurred to me how the mythology surrounding Christmas, at least the American conception of it, kind of encapsulates us as a nation in a less-than-entirely flattering way.

Think about it. The Christmas myth is, essentially, that if you behave yourself and do as you’re told by authority while being surreptitiously surveilled by an invisible judge given to binary distinctions (you’re either on the nice list, or the naughty list), you’ll be rewarded with material goods. If you don’t behave, bam! Coal in your stocking (which does at least beat having Krampus). Or fewer presents. Or none.

The worst thing is that the kids who actually receive this punishment aren’t necessarily misbehavers: they’re just poor. The mythology connects material prosperity with virtue and obedience to authority. I don’t mean to take too jaundiced a view of the whole thing, but it’s a hell of a thing to teach little kids, never mind that it sets them up for the inevitable disappointment of learning that Santa Claus is actually just their parents, and that the volume of material love under the Christmas tree has more to do with their parents’ wealth than anyone’s virtue or behavior.

Every year there’s noise made about a War on Christmas, and as far as I can tell, the folks making the noise think the war is on the Christ part. Maybe for some folks it is. For my own part, I’m pretty down with JC. But if we wanted to declare war on the crass materialism that we’ve come to celebrate alongside his birthday party, I’d be inclined to join up.

Why I’m Voting for Kshama Sawant

I’ve been meaning to write this for a few weeks now. And while mail-in ballots have been out long enough that some folks have undoubtedly already cast their votes, I still think it’s worth chiming in to say that I whole-heartedly support Kshama Sawant’s bid for re-election to the Seattle City Council.

This is not to say that I whole-heartedly agree with her every position and precept. And to be clear, I am in no way affiliated with her campaign (though I am personally acquainted with some folks who are). I haven’t volunteered or worked for them, and though I still intend to donate money, I have not yet done so.

But whatever our (minor) differences of opinion on policy, I find a lot to like about Councilmember Sawant, both in terms of her accomplishments and in terms of the policies she’s currently pursuing. Continue reading “Why I’m Voting for Kshama Sawant” →

In Case You Missed It: Weekend Reading 10/23/15

Another eventful week, full of domestic terrorism, Hillary Clinton’s Benghazi testimony, a new Star Wars Ep 7 trailer, some helpful life advice, and, for those in the know about how awesome she is, a new Kelly Link story for our Fk Yeah! finisher.

Short on time today, so let’s get down to it. Continue reading “In Case You Missed It: Weekend Reading 10/23/15” →

Fourteen Years After

I wanted to write something about 9/11 today, even though most anything worth saying has been said and said again many times over the years. I think in the end my hero Charlie Pierce got it right when he wrote that “the sad, lasting legacy of that day 14 years ago today, and of all the different things that have been made of it since then, is that it is the day that America finally went mad.”

It’s hard to refute that, from where I sit. Like a nose-punched bully, we ran rampant, and the damage we did to ourselves and the world will take a very long time to repair. We are now an America that’s tortured, that’s executed our own citizens by drone strike without due process of law. We spent a trillion dollars to go to war with a nation that didn’t have anything to do with the attack (and continued our strong alliance with the nation most of the hijackers were actually from), and made room for the Islamic State to come into being when we left at the behest of the government we installed. Domestically, we went from a proto-fascist state where folks with the wrong t-shirts were escorted away from political rallies to a failing state whose political process has been hijacked by a faction who doesn’t believe government should be allowed to govern. And those are just the highlights.

Despite the patriotic memes in my facebook feed, I don’t want to remember 9/11. I don’t want to remember the fear and the pain and the determination to exact vengeance.

No, I want to remember the days and weeks after, when the divisions between us fell away. When we weren’t Democrats and Republicans and liberals and conservatives but Americans united by grief, shocked out of our petty disputes and tribalism by this unthinkable enormity. I want to remember how we all came together, how the world was ready to rally behind us. I want to remember the moment when it seemed possible we could make something good out of this horrible tragedy, when our common humanity united us and we were kinder and more real with each other.

A lot has happened in the fourteen years since then, and those days when what united us was stronger than what divided us seem very far away now. But it’s important we remember them. It’s vital to our well-being, both as a nation and as individual human beings. Because we’re all in this together, whether we remember it or not.