The 11th is my father's birthday

[conuly]

I still miss him, but it's probably just as well he's not around to see the current political clusterfuck.

********

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Comments

[thewayne]

I often wonder what Robin Williams would make of our Dotard In Chief. He had so much fun with Reagan as POTUS.

[conuly]

I thought he was already suffering from depression at that point.

[elayna]

The 25th would have been my Mom’s... she would have been horrified at our current political situation.

[conuly]

*hugs*

[dark_phoenix54]

My dad would have had a fit over Trump.

[conuly]

Possibly we could generate electricity due to all the people spinning in their graves.

[sabotabby]

I feel like that about my step-dad. He was American and a Dem and he'd have been heartbroken.

[conuly]

I keep hoping there's a light at the end of this tunnel, but I'm not so sure it isn't a train.

[batwrangler]

My sympathies: the sixth would have been my Dad's.

[conuly]

*hugs*

[rhoda_rants]

I've seen this "But why do you love the bad guys?" take before, but it's infinitely more complicated than Character Good vs Character Bad. It's more like: Which of these characters has some traits that I relate to and identify with, as a woman, as a queer person, as someone who is marked as "Other?" And it is almost always the villains. Or at least people like Bucky or Wanda who start out in an antagonistic position and are embraced and supported by people who make an effort to put their trauma-induced villain-ing into context. (And by "people" here I of course mean Steve Rogers.)

I've talked at length about this on my own blog, but Loki's revelation in the first Thor comes across to me like a coming-out speech in reverse. Here's this guy who is going through a very painful identity crisis, and was raised to believe the people he actually identifies with are "evil" and "monsters," and all the while this mental bomb is going off, his father is standing there going, "I only lied to you because I *love* you and I wanted you to feel *normal.*" I'm not gonna attempt to justify all the things he does, but his ability to redeem himself is VERY important to me for that reason.

[ahavah]

My sympathies. *hugs*

[conuly]

Thanks.

[manoah]

I totally agree. My dad used to call people like "that" the 'American Taliban'. So sad.

[conuly]

It's just so unfair that that jerk is alive and kicking and so many other people aren't.

[dariaw]

*hugs* I know what you mean about your dad. I miss mine but he would have hated to see the world become this way. He wouldn't have believed it. Birthdays are hard, but I try to focus on being thankful for having him in my life and remembering to celebrate his life; he wasn't the type to want to dwell on being sad.

[conuly]

I don't know if he'd be more dismayed with the US situation or the international one, but he'd be so unhappy.

[pipilj]

Hugs birthday s and anniversaries are hard

[conuly]

Thanks.

[bibliofile]

Thanks for the link about the voting rights issues of Native Americans. Not that it's a big surprise, but it still sucks.

[conuly]

Yup.

[bibliofile]

Oh, and sites that may be of interest: the AP has a steady URL just for all its fact-checking, including a weekly piece on the latest fake news/rumors.

[siderea]

When abusers have the keys to your home

This was interesting to me because it was a Section 8 inspector, not a landlord.

I've been thinking for a long while now that a lot of different kinds of inspector have immense power and meet alone with the party requesting/required to have the inspection. And I was explicitly taught in a construction engineering class, when I was an undergrad, the going rate for bribing elevator inspectors was $50, so I've known the corruption was there.

So I've just been assuming, despite not having heard specific allegations, that extortion, including sexual extortion – which is a more accurate term for what that article describes, not just "sexual harassment" – during inspections and audits is a thing that happens, and is largely unchecked.

ETA: Also, the article isn't kidding about the victions rarely knowing they can complain beyond/above the agency. Knowing the power relations between agencies and parts of the government is, at best, book-learning of the sort blue collar, working class people are not likely to have and unlikely to have any way to get, and at worst is deliberately obscured by the agencies in question.

It's not like they're going to volunteer "And if you have a problem with us, you can take your complaint to..." (Which is why MA has a law at least for mental health clinics requiring we explicate the chain of authority for any patient with a complaint, in writing at intake.)

[conuly]

And I was explicitly taught in a construction engineering class, when I was an undergrad, the going rate for bribing elevator inspectors was $50, so I've known the corruption was there.

Useful information, to be sure.

Which is why MA has a law at least for mental health clinics requiring we explicate the chain of authority for any patient with a complaint, in writing at intake.

That sounds like a good idea.

[siderea]

Useful information, to be sure.

That's in 1990 dollars. Adjust for inflation if it comes up.

That sounds like a good idea.

Doesn't it just? And the nice thing is that by generally educating the public, even if bad actor fails to inform their clients, the clients are likely to know others who knows better.

But it doesn't solve the problem of insufficiently vigorous oversight. It works here, to the extent it works, because the government thinks that's stuff to stamp out. No point in reporting wrongdoing to a government operating on the principles of "that's not a real crime" or "bitches be crazy, what'll they think to say next".

[wpadmirer]

Everyone has some implicit bias. The point is to acknowledge it and not let it fuck with other people.

[conuly]

And not to get pissy about how you can't have it, you're a good person. God, I hate when people do that one.

[wpadmirer]

YES!

[greghousesgf]

Holy crap, I've had some shitty landlords but at least none of them sexually harrassed me.
I'm white and didn't get any racist crap from any librarians but one of them did try to prevent my taking out a book she was personally offended by.

[conuly]

You probably were in a better position to resist if they had, which means it's less likely to ever even come up.