That one moment that one time

I’m not certain, but I think that the Facebook Memory above turned out to be of the last time Nigel and I ever went out for lunch. I had no idea that could’ve been the case—of course: We almost never know that some ordinary time will turn out be the last one ever. It’s probably better that way, but why is it so hard for us to cherish every moment as if it could be the last one of its kind? This one day, at least, I did.

If I should die

The harsh, cold reality most of us choose to ignore is that we’re all going to die. It’s the only thing that’s certain about life: Birth itself isn’t a certainty, and neither is anything that follows it except for death. We’re all in a long queue leading to the exit from life, but we just don’t know where it is or how soon we’ll get there. As it should be. But maybe we should not just acknowledge the reality, we should embrace it.

I wasn’t always so relaxed about the prospect of my own death. I didn’t fear it, even though I became increasingly aware of my own mortality the older I became (especially when I neared and passed 60). What I definitely didn’t want is to die and leave Nigel alone to, once again, rebuild his life alone. I knew it was unlikely we’d both die at the same time, so one of us would eventually leave the other behind, and I really hoped for his sake he would be the one to leave me behind—just not so goddam soon.

Now that the one thing I dreaded about death—going first—is gone, I’m onto other common things, like, hoping it’s in my sleep, quick and painless, with no suffering or lingering. There’s also a new addition to my hopes, one that came about because of my situation, and that’s that I’ll leave my affairs neat and tidy so no one else has to deal with the mountain of stuff I still haven’t managed to climb and conquer. I’m keenly aware that I may not get that last wish—Nigel didn’t—but it’s nevertheless my hope.

Dying itself, though, is something I couldn’t possibly care less about, a fact I’ve never really talked about because it’s so open to misunderstanding and misinterpretation. I know that some people will assume it’s because of my loss, and it partly is: Nigel’s died so I don’t have to worry about it anymore. It’s also true that I have no life of my own yet, not with half of me ripped away, so, in a sense, I don’t have anything within myself to live for, either. All of that means I’m indifferent, not desiring any particular outcome.

People who haven’t had to deal with profound grief cannot possibly understand what this feels like—and they should be grateful every single moment that they can’t understand. There are people in my situation who sometimes long for death so they can be reunited with their lost love. I’m definitely not one of them.

Neither Nigel nor I had any religion whatsoever, and he was actually more hostile to organised religion than I was. However, he also felt there “must be something more” to the universe, maybe a plain of existence beyond what we experience in the physical world; I was always more dubious about that prospect. All of which means that I don’t long to “join” Nigel because I don’t believe that actually happens, even as I hope to be proven wrong—someday.

Many grieving people also long for death not for its own sake or for a mystical reunion, but just so that their pain will end. I completely get that feeling. There have been plenty of times over the past 14+ months when I felt exactly the same. There’s no loneliness like that of missing the love of one’s life, there’s no pain like that which comes from death separating us from our soulmate. There are times that pain, loneliness, and despair can seem all-consuming, inescapable and never ending. It’s actually none of those things.

For me, and only me, it’s mainly meant waiting out the inevitable bad times, or maybe filling up my mind and hands with activities to keep me moving forward. Sometimes, I honestly don’t know what makes me move forward—it may just be stubbornness or pigheadedness (Nigel would probably agree with that…), or maybe it’s just the way I’m wired, but no matter how much pain, loneliness, and even desperation I may feel in a particular moment, I’ve never wished for anything more than for the pain to end.

Which is why I’ve never seriously considered ending matters on my own. I say “seriously” because it’s obviously crossed my mind as it has a great many people in my situation. However, one important thing I’ve learned in my life is that the ideas we suppress often harm us far more than the ones we kick around in our heads. Thinking is not the same as doing, after all—and for both big and small things. For me, thinking about something every now and again is all there ever is to it.

All of which means that I’ve never particularly desired death, nor have I seriously considered jumping the queue to the exit (while this may be an unpopular opinion, I also don’t condemn people who do—their life, their choices). At the same time, though, I’m also not afraid of death itself, just maybe the specific way that dying comes about. My life may still be a mess and shambles right now, but I own it in all its messy glory, and I’m quite happy to continue with it, thank you very much.

Tomorrow I go in for a procedure that could kill me, as highly improbable as that may be. I’ve been waiting so long for the procedure that I’ve had plenty of time to think things through, and to realise, for the first time in my life, that I’m totally at peace with my life and its eventual end. I hope my life will be long, and I hope its eventual end will be peaceful and easy, but the fact it could happen at any moment doesn’t terrify me—it just makes me more determined to try and squeeze more out of whatever life I have left.

I went through most of my life with no real regrets, as I’ve talked about in the past. That changed when Nigel died, and for the first time in my life I began to have deep regrets. Mainly, I wish I’d told him more often how much I loved him, and how important he was to me. I wish I’d spent every moment with him in his final week: Rather than thinking about the needs of others, I wish I’d focused more on his needs—and mine. But none of us can change the past.

The only thing any of us can do is determine the course of our future through the choices we make, however, the end result is always the same. And that’s the important thing. No one gets out of life alive, as the saying goes, and I think—for me, anyway—the important thing is to accept that reality, and to make peace with it.

The procedure tomorrow might make me a bit sore for a couple days, but it almost certainly won’t kill me. But, if it does, I’m completely at peace with that. For me, being at peace with the inevitable end of life is probably the most important lesson I’ve learned, and, in a way, Nigel gave that to me.

We’re all in a long queue leading to the exit from life, but we just don’t know where it is or how soon we’ll get there. As it should be. I think that maybe we should not just acknowledge the reality, we should embrace it.

Forgiveness is a gift

I posted the above to the AmeriNZ Facebook Page yesterday. The questions raised by the linked article are simple: Can we forgive those who have caused us grievous harm? Also, should we?

The story is about a man who promoted the myth that gay people can be “cured” though so-called “conversion therapy”, which is also known by the colourful phrase, “pray the gay away” and the more pointed, “ex-gay torture”. His work harmed countless vulnerable LGBT+ people over the 20 years he promoted that nonsense. Can they forgive him? Should they?

By promoting the ex-gay myth, he also harmed the friends and families of LGBT+ people, not merely through giving them “false hope”, but especially by putting them through it all for nothing. Moreover, it also gave people without LGBT+ friends or family members reason to hold onto their anti-gay animus: They could continue to believe that “change” was possible, that gay people who lived their lives with honesty, integrity, and authenticity were being wilfully sinful and disobedient, instead of the reality, namely, that they were being themselves. Can they forgive him? Should they?

People like this guy harmed specific LGBT+ people and their family and friends, and he hurt us all by providing a sort of moral cover for his kindred religionists to cause us great harm. That can’t possibly be undone merely because he’s repudiated his past and come out as gay.

The now openly gay former “ex-gay” torturer was part of a whole system that leads to hatred and violence against LGBT+ people. He cannot escape his role in that. So: Can we forgive him? Should we?

I think that the answer is entirely personal: We each must decide for themselves. But we also have to realise that there are no easy answers, that each instance is unique and requires thought and reflection.

Personally, I think the “ex-gay” torture guy could merit forgiveness if he sincerely and appropriately atones for his wrongdoing—and merely turning away from it or saying it was wrong isn’t enough. Similarly, the fact he’s now out doesn’t absolve him of his duty to atone. Because he did such enormous damage to individuals and to an entire community, he has a moral obligation to try and make up for that. Then we might be able to talk about forgiveness.

People often say, “forgive and forget”, as if they’re the same thing, or at least connected. They’re neither. We can forget about grievous wrong done to us without ever forgiving the person who did it. Basically, we move on with our lives. Or, maybe based on our personal belief structure we forgive such a person, despite the fact we can’t forget what they did. Others can’t do either.

It is a rare person, I think, who can do both. Forgiveness really is a gift of sorts, as I said in the Facebook post. It’s something that many of us can never quite achieve when it comes to the big wrongs done to us individually or as part of a larger community. I think that’s okay.

I stand by what I said the other day, that when people do or say bad or stupid things, they need a path to redemption. I’ve laid out one path the “ex-gay” torture guy could take, but, obviously, that path won’t please everyone. Ultimately, he needs to choose his own path to redemption, and leave us to decide for ourselves whether he’s earned forgiveness. Or not.

Forgiveness is a gift. The people who have caused us harm are the best ones to give us that gift. The choice on forgiveness, ultimately, is theirs well before it’s ours.

A path to redemption

We need to talk about redemption, and of scale. This is about more than just politics, it’s also about the way we treat other people, especially prominent people, who are accused of misdeeds of one kind or other. We need to accept that not all of these transgressions are equal, and also that we need to find a way to allow people to redeem themselves. Our common humanity requires us to gain some perspective. Which is why we need to talk about it.

During the height of the “MeToo” frenzy, there was a simple equation: Accusation meant guilt meant certain punishment. There was seldom any chance to evaluate the allegations, nor any opportunity for the accused to receive a fair hearing, much less do anything to redeem themselves. I talked about this in an answer to an “Ask Arthur” question back in 2017:

The problem is, first, not all allegations are equal, no matter what the Left says. There’s a HUGE difference between someone accused of rape (actual or attempted), child molesting (actual or attempted), and someone accused of making sexually-suggestive remarks/propositions. Yet at the height of the frenzy, they were all treated as if they all carried exactly the same seriousness and had to be punished equally seriously.

That attitude set the stage for several high-profile cases. I talked about that in that 2017 post:

The allegations against Conyers were very serious, and his resignation seems like a good outcome. But unless there were more allegations against Franken that we weren’t told about—which is absolutely possible—forcing him to resign seemed excessive (I certainly raised my eyebrows at what seemed like an over-the-top response from Kirsten Gillibrand). Still, maybe there’s more that we don’t know about, but, if so, forcing him to resign seems like a good way to prevent those allegations from being reported. Which is why I have my doubts that forcing him to resign was the right move. But, I can certainly be persuaded.

We’ll probably never know if there were more allegations against Franken that justified the harsh reaction to the ones we knew about, but, at the time, the response seemed all out of proportion to the alleged transgressions. However, we do know that we’re still dealing with the consequences of that saga, with Gillibrand’s role in it being part of the reason her presidential campaign never got anywhere and she had to drop out.

The issue that became obvious is that there was no permitted way for Franken (or anyone else) to adequately apologise or to find a path to redemption. The equation created in those fevered days, that allegation = guilt = need for severe punishment, is with us still, and it’s a huge problem.

The first problem with the harsh punishment that results from allegations alone is that it could make victims of behaviour that, while objectionable, was neither violent nor criminal, and that fact could easily make them refuse to come forward because doing so could destroy someone who made a mistake. That, again, is because the perpetrator could have no way to apologise or atone. So, this determination to punish at any cost can actually discourage victims from coming forward.

There’s a bigger problem, though, and it’s this: If we’re forever trapped by the wrong things we’ve said or done, we’ll never have any incentive to do better or become better.

I doubt very much that there are or ever have been any humans who haven’t said or done something they later regretted. Many people have even done or said things that they’re later ashamed of. Were they prominent, their transgressions may become public, and their chance to atone could be taken from them.

But suppose, for example, a perfectly ordinary, non-famous person made inappropriate sexual remarks. Later, they realise how wrong they were, and they try to educate other people about how bad that sort of behaviour is. Maybe they also donate to charities that deal with victims of sexual assault. As a perfectly ordinary, non-famous person, that would probably be the end of it. They would have come to the realisation that they’d behaved inappropriately, they’d learned from that, and they tried to atone for it.

In recent years, when has any famous person ever given the chance to do anything similar?

And that gets to the third problem: It’s bad politics. That sounds crass, absolutely, crude, sure, and it’s even more than a little cynical. But, it’s also true: That vast majority of voters who are not “woke” don’t care that someone made inappropriate sexual remarks, and they’re not interested in seeing such a person harshly punished for their past, especially if the person had come to the realisation that they’d behaved inappropriately, they’d learned from that, and they tried to atone for it. “Move on,” ordinary voters would say.

One of the things driving ordinary voters away from the Left are those demanding harsh punishment for even the smallest transgression (that's not the only factor, obviously). That happens, first, because they perceive the reaction as an overreaction and as grossly unfair. Part of that reaction is because they’re well aware that there are not now, nor have there ever been any humans that haven’t said or done something they later regretted, and that many people have even done or said things that they’re later ashamed of. Perhaps they have, too. By demanding harsh punishment for even minor transgressions, plenty of ordinary people will see themselves in the crosshairs, and that makes progress on the larger issues unlikely or impossible: They've not only stopped listening, they've tuned out completely.

None of which is to say that we shouldn’t punish crimes like sexual assault and rape—of course such charges should he heard in court and, upon conviction, the person should be punished. But that relies on due process, a fundamental concept underlying everything democracy is built on.

A person is presumed innocent until proven guilty, and that’s the same for any alleged crime. Their guilt must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt before they’re punished, and that’s what’s been missing from all this.

On the other side of the equation, we’ve been told we must believe the women, always, and without question—a standard we’d never accept for any other alleged crime. We must listen to the women, and also take their allegations seriously—but we’re under no obligation to assume that allegation = guilt, regardless of whether the accused is famous or not. This isn’t because of the myth of “false rape accusations”, which are so statistically insignificant as to be pretty much irrelevant. Instead, this is about due process, the fundamental concept to which everyone, accuser and accused alike, is entitled.

If we’re forever trapped by the wrong things we’ve said or done, we’ll never have any incentive to do better or become better. We must always strive to be better people, and for most of us, that will mean attempting to atone for the things we’ve done or said that we’re now embarrassed by or ashamed of. How can that ever happen if there is no path to redemption?

We need to talk about this a lot more.

So, I got curious about something

There’s a small word that infuriates some people, but it’s also quite common: The word so has become ubiquitous, and not just for its normal function as a conjunction. Lately, it seems some speakers use it a lot. So, what’s that all about?

I recently listened to a podcast and the interview subject began every answer with so. Since then, I’ve become aware of how often people do that. Not surprising, probably, I noticed that most of the people who do that don’t answer questions as part of the normal lives. However, even politicians, who ought to be good at being interviewed, do it a lot, too.

The word is usually referred to as a coordinating_conjunction, that is, words that, as Wikipedia puts it, “join, or coordinate, two or more items (such as words, main clauses, or sentences) of equal syntactic importance.” They point out that the words can be remembered as the acronym FANBOYS: For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, and So.

That’s what the word is, but doesn’t even touch on why it ends up in as a “sentence opener”. Wikipedia says that the use of so as a sentence opener is VERY old, dating back (at least) to Chaucer in the 14th Century. They also list several theories as to why the word is used this way, each with its own merits:

As a coordinating conjunctive to refer backwards to something previously mentioned. This is common enough, and one I use the most. In my case, I could substitute something like “to sum up” at the start of a sentence, though that’s more stilted than my natural speech pattern.

As a discourse marker. This is the usage I hear the most often, and is rhetorically similar to people saying “you know”—that is, it doesn’t change the meaning of anything being said, but provides a verbal link. I sometimes use it this way in spoken speech, but very rarely in anything written.

To signal that the following words are chosen for their relevance to the listener. This usage infuriates some people. For example, back in 2014 Fast Company published a piece called “How A Popular Two-Letter Word Is Undermining Your Credibility” by Hunter Thurman. In it, he declares that using the word to open a sentence “insults your audience”, it “undermines your credibility”, and that it “demonstrates that you’re not 100% comfortable with what you’re saying”. So, that seems a bit harsh.

To provide a small amount of extra thinking time. To me, this seems like the best explanation most of the time. It’s very similar to a discourse marker, but completely devoid of any actual meaning. This usage is actually most similar to saying “um”—a mere sound, giving the speaker a brief time to get their thoughts in order, to remember the answer to a question, and so on. This can be as annoying as when people say “um” a lot, but it’s pretty harmless.

All of that explains what the word so is and how it’s used, however, none of that really answers why people seem to be using it more these days. Back in 2015, npr offered a possible explanation:

So, why the recent hue and cry about those sentences beginning with "so"? In part, you could blame the quirk of perception I think of as the Andy Rooney effect, where you suddenly become keenly aware of a common word that's always been part of the conversational wallpaper. Somebody says, "Have you noticed how everybody's saying 'OK' before they hang up the phone?" and all at once the word starts jumping out at you, even though people have been using it that way forever.

The npr piece talks about other explanations for the origins of the current usage, and ways in which it’s typically used.

Overall, I tend to agree that it’s not really new or used being used more extensively now than in the past, and that we just sometimes notice things more frequently than we used to—like I did when an interviewee on a podcast began every answer with so.

So, to sum up, I now know a lot more about so than I need to, but my curiosity has been satisfied. Isn’t that one of the main reasons for having the Internet?

So, that’s it for this look at so.

So is also the name of a hit 1986 album by Peter Gabriel. The album cover is up above.

Hope and optimism these days

This is obvious to anyone who really stops to think about it, but hope and optimism are different things. They’re closely linked to each other, and sometimes they’re spoken of as near synonyms, but they’re still different. These days it’s more obvious than ever.

In basic definitions, hope is merely “a feeling of expectation and desire for a particular thing to happen,” while optimism is “hopefulness and confidence about the future or the success of something.” Optimism is implicitly based on hope, but one can have hope without necessarily feeling optimistic that “a particular thing” will actually happen. The difference is that word confidence: Those with optimism think “a particular thing” probably will happen, while someone with hope but no optimism may not expect it to actually happen, even though they wish it will.

This trip though lexicography gives us a way of looking at how people can approach the same thing from very different reactions, even while desiring the same thing—like in politics, for example, and the future one may be facing.

In the United States, the difference between those with hope alone and those with optimism couldn’t be more stark or consequential. But it’s also more complicated than it may seem.

The supporters of the current regime controlling the White House are loudly optimistic about what their guy will do, regardless of the fact that the evidence contradicts that belief and, in fact, shows more betrayal than fulfilment of promises. To those fervent believers, no facts can possibly change their mind.

On the other side, there are those who are pessimistic about the future. They see the current occupant of the White House “joking” about remaining in office for “10 or 14 years” (as he did just today), and they hear him constantly attack the free press as “the enemy of the people” and “fake news” because it won’t be a sycophantic propaganda voice for him. They see him idolising brutal dictators. They see him defying the rule of law and the US Constitution. And, because of all that, there are those who have no optimism that the USA even can get out of the mess it’s in.

In between them are people who don’t support the current regime—and the majority of Americans don’t, of course—but who are nevertheless optimistic about a return to the norms of government and the rule of law. Such people are clear-eyed about all the bad stuff the current regime is doing, but they remain optimistic that the republic will overcome all that and move back toward normality.

What gets forgotten in talking about these divisions is that even the pessimists can remain thoroughly hopeful about the future, and, just like the optimists opposing the regime, they desire that the republic will overcome all the bad the current regime is doing. The difference is that the optimists have confidence that the USA will inevitably move back toward normality, while the pessimists are afraid that it can’t.

At this point, we have no way of knowing who will be proven right, however, the omens and portents clearly aren’t good, no matter how much people truly want them to be. All we know for certain is that there are two opposite possibilities: Things MAY get better, or it all MAY get very much worse. That means, then, that opponents of the current regime who are pessimistic may actually turn out to have been hopeless about the future and may be cynical, despairing, or despondent—or realistic. At the same time, the optimists who oppose the regime could be feeling not optimism, but delusion, self-deception, and/or fantasy. Or, they could be sensible.

Between now and the 2020 US elections, it’ll become clearer which future—return to normality or collapse—the USA is headed toward. Until then, there will be no shortage of opinions on which view is most “realistic” (a word too often used to dismiss those with opposing views).

In the meantime, sure, it’s obvious that hope and optimism are different things, and that people can look at the same situation and have very different reactions. Hope? Optimism? These days the difference is more obvious than ever.

Stonewall 50

Today is the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion, which launched the modern LGBT+ movement for equality. It profoundly changed things in the USA and around the world because it meant that for the first time in the modern era, LGBT+ people were standing up to discrimination and oppression and asserting their right to be fully human and to live authentic lives. That struggle isn’t over yet.

I don’t remember hearing about the events of June 28, 1969 and the days following until I’d been at university for a few years, possibly as late as 1981. That was 12 years after the rebellion, and the following year I took part in my first LGBT Pride Parade in Chicago, and the year after that my real activist career began. All of that happened because of those June 1969 events, even though I couldn’t know that until I came out, more than a decade after Stonewall.

It’s not unusual for people not to know their own history, or the names of the trailblazers who came before them to clear the path. Each of us has to find our own path through life, after all, and that’s as true now as it was in my day or in the aftermath of the Stonewall Rebellion. The important thing, I think, is that when we find out what we didn’t know, we look for more of the story that we never even knew existed.

When I came out, I had a friend who gave me lots of books to read, especially history and fiction. I practically inhaled it all. Part of me was angry that all of that had been hidden from me—essentially denied to me—by a society that not only saw the stories and histories of LGBT+ as unimportant, but even as illegitimate. But I was also thrilled and excited to discover the stories of people who were like me, the first time in my life that had ever happened.

When I became an activist, I had two motivations. First, to make life a bit easier and safer for me and the rest of the LGBT+ communities. My other goal, or maybe my hope, was that doing so might one day mean that other LGBT+ youth wouldn’t discover their true nature and think they were the only one in the world. Much of the first part was successful, the second part somewhat, but more so after I left activism.

While I was proud of what I accomplished in my activist years, I was also keenly aware that I was standing on the shoulders of those who fought the battle years before I came on the scene, the people whose stories I’d finally learned. Those who began their activism after me have done and are doing the same. We are all inextricably linked, and always will be—even if sometimes it’s in spite of ourselves—in a great chain linking us all back to Stonewall, and to all the pioneers in the many decades before that.

So Stonewall is, for me, an intensely personal anchor, of sorts, a touchstone, even. The courage of those who struggled before me gave me strength to continue the fight, but they also helped me keep things real: It was never about me, it was never about my ego, and it sure wasn’t about what I could personally get out of it all. Other people, with the same general starting point I had, took a different path, and many became professional activists or politicians. That just wasn’t my path.

I’ll admit, there were times I regretted not becoming a paid activist, even though comparatively few actually did that in those days. The people who rebelled in June 1969, most of them, never made a professional career out of what they did then, and I didn’t from my time, either. That doesn’t make me (or them) “good” or whatever, it just means I was true to myself, to my nature, and to my path in life. I was being the most authentic me I could be—the very lesson I’d taken from my predecessors in activism.

At this major anniversary, as probably seldom before, I’m keenly aware of the tenuousness all the progress we’ve made over the past 50 years. Even now, there are people who want to turn back the clock and force us all into closets (or worse…), and some of them are very powerful, and some are even succeeding in starting to undo our work.

That’s precisely why it’s so important to remember Stonewall, and all the people who struggled before it and since, all working for the simple justice that LGBT+ people should have had as a birthright. Remembering them and what they did is one way to keep their work secure, and to honour the struggle that continues to this day.

That struggle isn’t over yet.

Pride and parades

LGBT+ Pride is about a lot of things, and even within our LGBT+ communities we don’t always agree with each other about what those things are. In fact, we have people in our communities who reject the very need for Pride Parades at all, or who say they’re “embarrassed” by them. Even so, it’s neither kind nor helpful when our adversaries belittle our very right to feel pride or to have a parade, and they often do that. One of our adversaries’ favourite old stunts is about to be revived, yet again, and it’s as offensive as ever.

In August, Boston may have to endure a “straight pride parade”. It is a massive trolling operation, stupid, childish, and offensive. As a veteran of the fight for social and legal equality for LGBT+ people, it would be natural to expect that I might be deeply offended by the whole “straight pride” nonsense, but I’m not. I feel sorry for them, sure, and shake my head at their shallowness, but if they want to act like idiots, that’s their business—and their own idiocy to wear—as long as they act entirely within the law, of course.

In the case of the “parade”, the city has no choice but to issue a permit for the “parade”. Boston’s mayor, Martin J. Walsh, explained it on Twitter:

I know everyone has read the news about the "Straight Pride Parade" group that's looking to host a parade in Boston. We want to clear a few things up.

First, Boston's values are clear: respect, diversity, and acceptance of all. As Mayor, I'm proud to host our annual Pride Week, where our city comes together to celebrate the diversity, strength and acceptance of our LGBTQ community.

Second, permits to host a public event are granted based on operational feasibility, not based on values or endorsements of beliefs. The City of Boston cannot deny a permit based on an organization's values.

This "Straight Pride Parade" doesn't yet have a permit, but is working to amend their application for permits to host a public event.

Whatever outside groups may try do, our values won't change. I invite each and every person to stand with us, and show that love will always prevail. Join us in celebration this Saturday for the @bostonpride Parade and in the fight for progress and equality for all.

Case law—including some very recent cases—is very clear on this: No unit of government can suppress free speech unless they can prove it poses the risk of imminent lawlessness. The possibility that the "parade" might inspire people to go out and commit acts of violence against LGBT+ people—as long as it's outside the "parade"—is not risking imminent lawlessness, and so, cannot legally be suppressed.

However, that doesn't mean that the phoney “parade” has to be treated as legitimate, and the city is free to ignore it after the permit, if any, is issued. There was separate talk by the organisers of having a "straight pride" flag, whatever that is, and having it flown from Boston's city hall, but doing that or not is clearly discretionary under law, and the city doesn't have to fly whatever flag they come up with. City decoration, as a nonofficial flag actually is, can be whatever the city wants.

The organisers know all this, and they're trying it on to push the city as part of what's actually a massive trolling operation (as they always are), and it may very well never happen (they usually never happen—have they ever?). Most of the time the sorts of people proposing a “straight pride” parade are merely seeking publicity and attention, giving the middle finger to LGBT+ people, and/or trying to cause trouble, probably for the first reason.

We know that this is just a stupid stunt because the reason there’s no such thing as “straight pride” is obviously that it’s completely unnecessary: Straight people don’t risk being fired or evicted from a rented home if someone finds out they’re in a relationship with or even—gasp!—married to someone of the opposite gender. Gay people still face that sort of discrimination in most of the USA and most countries in the world (not in New Zealand, not legally, anyway). Straight people are never beaten up or killed for being straight, but that happens to LGBT+ people throughout the world, including New Zealand (and trans* people are murdered at a much higher rate). Straight youth are never rejected by their families and churches merely merely for being straight, but LGBT+ youth often are because they're LGBT+.

All if which is why LGBT Pride is actually about celebrating the fact we’ve survived despite all the attempts to keep us down—or even to kill us. Sure, we’re as proud of living genuine and authentic lives as anyone else would be, but the main thing we’re proud of is that they haven’t defeated us. Straight people have never experienced anything similar.

Having said all that, the reason I’m not offended by the “straight pride” bullshit is simple: I fought long and hard and sacrificed WAY too much for one simple thing, namely, the absolute right of people to live their lives authentically. My fight was to make the world safer for LGBT+ people so they could live their true lives. All of that would be for nothing if I didn’t back the right of pathetic losers to act so petulantly and childishly.

They're definitely “pathetic losers”, too, because we fought hard for our rights, and we paid in blood, sweat and tears—and too often our lives. They had those rights handed to them at birth. They fought for absolutely nothing, but they get all weepy because an oppressed minority fought for and managed to win some of the rights straight people were born with, and because we dare to celebrate what we’ve achieved and our freedom to be fully human. It's their own shallowness and bigotry that makes them pathetic losers.

As the saying goes, though, instead of asking why there’s no “straight pride”, they should thank the universe every damn day that they’ve never needed it, and never will. We can't say that we don't need it, because our rights exist on the edge of a knife.

And THAT is why we march in parades, and why still we need to.

This post is a revised and greatly expanded version of a comment I left on a friend's Facebook post. The graphic up top is a meme that pops up on social media from time to time.

That we be not judged

It seems obvious that one thing we humans are extremely good at is judging other people. We have all sorts of reasons, ranging from religious or political belief, to the pack mentality of social media, to matters of personal taste. The thing we judge can be serious, like moral or political choices, or silly and trivial like pop music choices—or even people who use the products in the photo above. Whatever the reason we judge other people, we inevitably will be, too. We need to stop being so stupid.

The products above features three different pre-prepared vegetables promoted in a supermarket’s circular we got at our house the other day. I’ve seen people mocked for using such products, called “lazy”, or “stupid”, and, to be honest, I judge the people who say that for being self-righteous pricks.

People are busy these days, and if we want them to cook rather than buy frozen, prepared, or takeaway food—and we do—then we shouldn’t begrudge them taking a few shortcuts with products that are still vegetables. One thing I noticed in the photo (maybe not as obvious in my photo of the flyer) is that the products all use New Zealand grown vegetables.

Several years ago, I bought a bag of frozen diced onions precisely so it could speed up meal prep time (and because onions were often too big for just the two of us, and if I bought a bag of them, some would inevitably rot). However, it turned out the onions came from Europe, which I thought was dumb. Nowadays, when I chop an onion, I take the half I usually don’t need and freeze it, ready for the next dish that needs chopped onion. But to get to that point, I first tried the prepared pre-chopped version.

I share my experience because it’s an example of something we always forget: People evolve and change all the time: Opinions, attitudes, and the way people do things all change. How do we know that people who buy those products won’t eventually do it for themselves? And, if they don’t, why is it any of our business?

We see the same sort of thing on social media nearly every day, when people judge others for the movies, TV shows, music, or books they like. But it didn’t start with social media.

When I lived in Chicago, for a time I had a job that had a combined commute of more than an hour. I saw people reading books all the time, and I’d see some of them reading what I decided were “trashy” novels, and, for a time, I judged them for it as I smugly looked up from the book of Kafka stories I was reading at the time. One day it suddenly dawned on me: They were reading. I realised that a book doesn’t have to be literary for it to benefit the reader: Even “trashy” novels helped expand the reader’s vocabulary and world, it gave them broader horizons than they otherwise might have had. That’s a good thing. I learned my lesson.

Decades later, I was living in New Zealand and (somewhat sarcastically) created Arthur’s Law:

Everything you love, someone else hates; everything you hate, someone else loves. So, relax and like what you like and forget about everyone else.

That originated because of judgemental behaviour I saw online. It annoyed me that some people felt that simply HAD to publicly tell other people how much they hated the thing the other person liked.

I’m no saint, and sometimes my human nature comes galloping through and I’ll judge someone for not measuring up to my view of what is Correct™. When I do it, I’m an arsehole. Anyone else who does it is one, too. I don’t want to be an arsehole, so I try to just accept people and their choices at face value. I’ve learned that I don’t need to be “right”, I can choose to be better than that.

Surprisingly, perhaps, this doesn’t mean self-censorship or keeping silent. For example, when someone tells me how much they love a movie that I didn’t like, I can say simply, “I didn’t really care for it, but I’m glad you enjoyed it.” This can lead to a discussion where we can talk about the movie in some detail.

Still, it’s not usually personal, one-to-one conversations where the worst behaviour is displayed; it’s on social media. There, I seldom respond when someone talks about liking something I don’t like, but I’ve been known to stick up for them when others have a go at them over what they like. I don’t have to agree with their choices or likes to not be an arsehole, just accept they have every right to like something I don’t. My approval is never required, and my expression of disapproval is never necessary. Ever.

There are times when judging is perfectly valid. Considering all the terrible things going on in the world, especially the stuff done by people who claim to be doing it in our name, we have every right to judge them for their behaviour, what they’re doing. That’s fair. But why on earth would be bother judging people for liking a pop song? Just because it’s easier than tackling those big problems?

This is a lesson life has taught me, but I actually learned the gist of the message as a child in a simple proverb: Live and let live. The idea it expresses is contained within the entire passage I was referring to in the title of this post, Matthew 7:1: “Judge not, that ye be not judged.”

I think we should treat other people with more kindness, and less judgement about trivial stuff. Basically, we need to stop being so stupid.

Still, people have to make their own decisions, and some people seem to need to be judgemental. I wish they wouldn’t be, but if they are, that’s their choice. I won’t judge them for it. Live and let live.

Sunday morning break

View this post on Instagram

Late breakfast today at a favourite haunt. Simple and good. We used to go out for breakfast or lunch on Sundays all the time, but not so much the past few years. It was nice, and so were the rural views. 🙂 ☀️ 🌞

A post shared by arthur_amerinz (@arthur_amerinz) on Feb 9, 2019 at 3:33pm PST

Sometimes the things we do a lot become the things we seldom do. We may intend for that to happen, but other times it just happens. The photo above is really about the latter, about realising a change had happened, and about changing that for one day.

As I said in the Instagram caption, we used to got our to breakfast or lunch (or a combination) fairly frequently. And then, we didn’t. It wasn’t on purpose or planned, it just happened. Or, it didn’t happen. Either way, this isn’t a return to our former ways, unless it turns out to be, of course. That’s the thing about this sort of situation: If we didn’t plan to end it, we don’t necessarily plan to resume the things we did before.

One reason I think today’s outing may not mean a resumption of weekend meals out is that it’s more involved now than it used to be. At our previous house, we had dozens of cafes with a few minutes' drive of our house. At our current house, we have four within 15 minutes. Add another ten minutes and the number jumps pretty dramatically, but that would be a bigger trip: We’re unlikely to make a 50-minute (give or take) round trip just for a meal. We might, but it’s more likely we’d do that only if we’re going shopping or something.

This means that over the past two years, our lack of a trips out just for breakfast/lunch is mostly because it’s not a simple thing anymore. On the other hand, when we do make one of these quick(er) trips, we’re supporting truly local businesses, and that’s a good thing.

Obviously, whether we go out for a meal or not isn’t important. At all. The world will neither thrive nor perish because of that, though local businesses might benefit a little if we go out. The point here is merely that there are times when the things we do a lot become the things we seldom do. Most of the time, we’re not aware of that, but sometimes, like I did today, we suddenly realise it.

And it really was a nice rural view we had today, on a warm, but not hot, brilliant summer day. That’s something I'll (probably?) never stop enjoying.

Unexpected wager

As we get older, it often becomes rarer for truly new experiences to pop up. However, today brought a first, and one even more unsusual because it related to religious belief, not a topic I encounter very often these days. It was… unexpected.

I was reading comments on a Facebook post (always a risky thing to do…) and there was a comment by a conservative Christian preachifying to other commentators. Several comments in, and the person offered Pascal's Wager as a reason to accept their preachifying. They didn’t call it by name, but it was their argument for why others should go along with admonitions to believe that made up most of the preachifying.

This was the first time in my life I've ever seen anyone use Pascal's Wager for real, and until today I always thought doing so was largely mythical, that no one actually used it.

Pascal's Wager basically says that if somone believes in a god (usually the Christian one), but it turns out the god doesn’t exist, nothing much is lost. But if one doesn’t believe in such a god and it turns out to be real, then they’re screwed for not acting as if they believed in it. So, the wager goes, it’s better to act as if you believe, just in case.

There are a LOT of obvious problems with this, starting with the lack of honesty and integrity that’s being advocated. Theologically, it’s unsound because it presumes that the god in question is utterly incapable of being able to tell the difference between real belief and faked belief, which doens’t sound plausible: If they’re a god, surely they know the difference?

Another problem is more doctrinal: Most Mainline Protestants believe that a person who leads a good life but is not a believer won’t be automatically damned merely because of their non-belief (and Mainline Protestants’ concept of “hell” is often completely different to that of fundamentalist Protestants, too). Instead, a non-believer who is a good person is actually similar to a person who never heard of the god in the first place. That means, adherents say, that their god won’t damn someone merely for honestly disbelieving if they otherwise lead a good life—though that doesn’t guarantee “forgiveness” of that non-belief, and so, “salvation” isn't automatic.

Obviously no one alive knows for sure who’s right and who’s wrong, because unless the god they’re talking about is a sort of Schrödinger's God, it can’t both exist and not exist. So, we can’t know whether honesty and integrity really matter more than pretending and pretense, but all things being equal, being honest and living with integrity must be the better option.

It’s not about whether the lack of proof that any of earth’s thousands of gods and goddesses did or do exist is a good reason for lack belief. Instead, it’s that, for some, proof is irrelevant, and those who don’t accept belief based on faith alone must be punished in this life. It’s what leads to repressive regimes, the oppression of those with different beliefs, forced conversions (in which the victims are really making a Pascal's Wager, since personal safety is the motivation for their newly professed belief), and genocide.

In a perfect world, people would believe or not, and that would be the end of the story. But after centuries of religion-based wars and pogroms—and those were just between different kinds of believers!—this problem seems unlikely to ever go away. How we feel about and react to these divisions probably says more about us than the quality of our beliefs, whatever they are.

Personally, I’d rather a person be an honest believer or non-believer. I can respect honesty and integrity even when I don’t share the beliefs, but I’d find it very difficult to trust someone whose professed beliefs are based on a silly “better safe than sorry” bet. Trouble is, how can we be sure of the sincerity and honesty of someone’s beliefs unless they tell us?

Most of the time, a person would never actually tell us their religious beliefs are based on a Pascal’s Wager. Today, for the first time in my life, I saw someone use that as an argument that others should adhere to the same religious beliefs as that person making the argument. I doubt it persuaded anyone, but it sure destroyed that person’s credibility in a hurry, and seeing that happen in that way was definitely unexpected.

The unhinged busy unhinging

It’s no secret that social media, particularly in the USA, has become a polarised, extremely toxic place, especially over the past couple years. It seems to be getting worse, if anything, with unhinged comments popping up all over the place, often in very unexpected places. It’s getting so the only logical solution is to block unhinged commenters.

Yesterday evening I checked Facebook, and my timeline had a post to a Facebook Group I’m part of, one on print advertising from the middle of last century onwards. I enjoy that subject for multiple reasons—the evolution of graphic and advertising design, nostalgia, even for seeing ideas I can adapt for modern ads. It’s all a bit of fun, really, and nothing serious.

Until last night.

Someone that I do not know—an American or someone pretending to be an American—posted an especially unhinged rant complaining about Leftists commenting that ads are racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. From there he devolved into a smears and defamatory nonsense about Leftists more generally. It was all WAY over the top, and totally inappropriate for a forum that’s just not that serious.

I checked out the guy’s profile to try and work out if he was serious or trolling, something I’ve always done in such cases, and nearly all his posts were either general pretty far rightwing memes, support for the current regime, and various attacks on “the Left”. It seemed to me he was another easily-triggered rightwinger who couldn’t stand the fact that someone somewhere might see the world differently than he did.

So, I posted a comment that was dripping with sarcasm:

Fun (apparently little known) facts about Facebook:

Membership in all Groups is optional. So is clicking “Like” for any page.

Leaving a comment or making a post is optional.

Reading a comment on a post is optional.

Bothersome posts can be hidden.

Triggering commenters can be blocked.

All groups can be left at any time, and any Page can be un-Liked.

As Captain Planet used to say, “The power is YOURS!”

If I’d been making the comment on a computer, rather than my iPad, I’d probably have edited that to make it punchier, but that’s not easy to do in a Facebook App, and, besides, comments were coming thick and fast and I wanted to get in before, I assumed, group Admins deleted the post.

Someone responded to my post saying something about people really making political comments like the rightwinger suggesting they did, but I responded basically saying that I didn’t know because I almost never read the comments on posts in that group. But that doesn’t change the truth in my sarcastic comment, the power really is ours to get rid of obnoxious comments.

The qualifiers I used in the previous paragraph are for a very good reason: I can’t remember precisely what was said, and, as I thought would happen, Admins deleted the post in question. The only reason I know what I said is that I got an email notification of the comments, and that included the full text of mine. Lucky me.

Someone else left a totally irrelevant ranting comment about how they’d once believed in “socialism”, but they’d supposedly studied the UK’s health system, and voila!, they abandoned Progressivism and support for Bernie Sanders to vote for the 2016 Republican nominee. I didn’t consider that comment to be legitimate.

And this is a constant problem with comments on posts to groups, media outlets’ pages, etc.: There are comments that may not be from real people, and we have no way of knowing. My standard response has been to block people leaving unhinged comments in such places, some Leftwing (or pretending to be), but mostly Rightwing (or pretending to be).

Today, however, I saw that a person I actually know posted an admittedly political post, so pushback from those who disagree isn’t a surprise. One hopes they’ll stick to facts and reason and be rational, though these days that’s often too much to hope for. It certainly was today: The guy commented making yet another unhinged rightwing rant, full of spittle-flecked rage at those with whom he disagreed, rather than even trying to engage in a discussion.

I checked out his profile, since it was a FB friend of a FB friend, and found that he posted rightwing things, including some anti-gay stuff. I blocked him. Then I commented, again, sarcastically:

Well, a good thing came from this post: One more racist, sexist, anti-gay far-right ranter with a hair-trigger is now blocked on my Facebook so I’ll never see his erudite, correctly spelled, rational comments again.

In reply to another comment, I added:

I had to check out his FB page, which was public enough, and most of the posts were aggressive rightwing memes. But there were also ones that seemed to be him talking (well, yelling…) to himself (apart from someone posting on his page “racist” in all caps).

The thing is, I can’t tell anymore who’s trolling, who’s real and disturbing, or who’s just personally disturbed. The only rational option is to block such people, real or not, so I don’t have to see their unhinged rants. It seems to be something that’s becoming more frequent, sadly.

And that’s the problem: Who is real? And, what comments are real and sincere, and which are faked and trolling? We know that political operatives attempt to game social media all the time, and we know that bots really are a thing, especially on Twitter. Does it make any sense to assume a comment we encounter on Facebook is from a real person?

Honestly, I don’t think it matters. There’s a huge difference between comments left by rational people with whom we may disagree, and irrational people being offensive, confrontational and divisive apparently for its own sake. When the person is rational, we can learn something, including how “the other side” thinks. But when the person is irrational, there’s nothing to be learned or gained.

Instead, I think we have both the right and even an obligation to ourselves to remove those irrational—and possibly fake—people from our attention so that we can better focus of things said by rational people. That’s why I block people on social media so frequently: If they’re irrational, overly aggressive, and offensive for its own sake, they’re gone. I do this mostly on Twitter where I can block 10-20 “people” whenever I visit. I block people on Facebook far less frequently, but I don’t hesitate to do so.

Twitter has become a highly toxic place, so much so that I seldom use it anymore. Facebook’s public pages can be every bit as bad, like, for example, rightwingers (or accounts pretending to be rightwingers) going to Left-leaning pages just to stir shit (all Facebook Pages are public, but Groups can be private). A rational person wouldn’t bother because they wouldn’t care.

Life means disagreement—sometimes heated disagreement. We need to be able to deal with that. But when someone becomes aggressive and ugly in their comments, we don’t have to tolerate it, and I don’t. It’s unusual for two examples to pop up so close to each other, but that’s precisely why I’m mentioning them.

That and, all joking aside, the power really is ours.

Becoming a digital near-native. Or not.

It’s interesting how people of different generations react and adapt to technological changes, especially relating to the digital age. Young people—Millennials especially—have never known a world without digital devices and technology, but some Gen Xers, as well as Baby Boomers and older generations, have had to adapt. How much they do that varies, and that is what’s particularly interesting.

Roger Green recently blogged about technological issues, including choosing analog (non-digital) solutions for everyday life. For example, he recently started wearing a wristwatch because:

Sometimes, when I needed the time, and no one has a watch, it seemed laborious for people to pull their various devices from their pockets.

A commenter on Roger’s post had similar issues. To say I couldn’t relate, is a bit of an understatement. With respect specifically to getting the time from phones, I said:

…I don’t get the problem seeing the time on a smart phone. Mine, and every one I’ve ever seen, display[s] the time when the phone is simply raised or, at most, touched. Before I started wearing a smart watch, it took me at most 2 seconds to see the current time on my phone.

Even now, I often check my phone for the time rather than my hand-me-down Apple Watch. My phone is always in my pocket, so I never have to hunt around for it, which is why takes me “at most 2 seconds to see the current time on my phone.”

What this touches on is the difference between digital natives and digital immigrants, something I talked about several years ago. However, there are no guaranteed indicators of how digital immigrants will approach technology.

One thing that’s an example is that I’m often frustrated by websites that aren’t mobile-friendly, ones that can’t change the way they’re displayed from regular websites like one would access on a desktop computer (for blogs, a simple plug-in fixes that problem, and it’s automatic for Blogger blogs like this one). It’s an issue because a website that doesn’t display properly is one that probably can’t be used properly—for example, links to other pages on the site are often flaky or don’t work at all. I expect any website I access to load quickly, operate easily, and produce the same results as a desktop website will, but optimised for the smaller screen on my phone.

I access websites most often through my iPad, sometimes later accessing the same site on my laptop if I’m going to blog about it. So far, I’ve done all my online ordering through a desktop/laptop browser and not on my pad or phone because I find that harder.

Like younger generations, I’d rather text than email or phone, or I’ll use a messaging App. But I don’t use all the same Apps as younger people do, partly because I feel I have more than enough Apps already.

We don’t currently have a DVD player—it’s stored away somewhere (not quite sure where at the moment), and our computers don’t have DVD/CD drives. All our CDs and DVDs are boxed up and stored away, and our CD music is digitised. But we don’t use digital services like Netfix or Spotify (though we both have free Spotify accounts).

Our TV comes through an open-source receiver for our free-to-air digital TV service, Freeview. It also receives some radio stations, though we don’t listen to them. I subscribe to the Washington Post digital edition.

We have a three stand-alone clocks, two of which are ordinary clocks with hands, and one is digital. Our stove/oven has dials (nothing digital), and the washer and drier are hybrids, with electronic controls using an analog metaphor (for lack of a better word).

What all this means is that our day-to-day life is somewhere between being digital natives and digital immigrants: We choose to use digital technology most of the time, but some of our stuff is still analog, and we certainly know how to use the technology.

Whether one is more comfortable with digital or analog technology may or may not say something about the user, I’m not sure. Those of us who are digital immigrants seem to mostly choose a blend of the old and the new, I think, influenced by our experiences, expectations, patience level, and so on. There’s no “right” or “wrong” choice, though our younger friends may be mystified when we don’t choose digital technology. So be it. Maybe there should be a technological version of Arthur’s Law.

The promise of new technology is that it will make our lives better, make it easier, and maybe make it cheaper, to do the things we want to do. It often does that, but when it doesn’t do that for us, for whatever reason, we have every right to choose the solution that does work for us.

Even in the digital age, to each their own.

Explaining things

One thing characteristic of this time of year is that it’s social. People get together and talk about things. Sometimes, that means talking about things that we’re told to avoid, like politics. That’s easier when it’s talk about another country’s politics, and who better to ask about US politics than someone from there originally? Well, that’s the way it’s been lately.

It’s not surprising that Kiwis would ask me about US politics, not just because I’m from there, though that’s the connection for people first meeting me. Those who’ve known me, though, know that I’ve been studying US politics and the Constitution for some 40 years, and was engaged in politics for much of that time. Besides, who else are they going to ask?

Kiwis have moved well beyond “how the hell did that man get elected?!” to “why can’t you get rid of him?” Most Kiwis understand that it’s extremely difficult in the USA’s weird system, but they don’t get why in practical terms it’s impossible. They also wonder, “why didn’t the Democrats mop the floor with Republicans in the recent elections?” and for that I have to explain how Republicans have rigged the system to prevent Democrats from winning, as we saw most obviously in the US House elections, which I talked about last month.

The one thing that Kiwis have said to me that I can’t argue with is that Democrats must choose someone with charisma if they have any hope of defeating the current occupant of the White House. I think they’re right, because nominating just any ol’ person won’t do, nor will nominating someone to tick off some sort of quota, because the Republican candidate will be a formidable opponent.

It’s a sickening fact that the current occupant of the White House is, at the moment, the odds-on favourite to win the 2020 election. At this point, after all his crimes and scandals, he ought to be less popular than syphilis, but that’s not how it is.

In his first two years in office, Gallup’s tracking of the current occupant’s approval ratings shows they ranged between a low of 35% approval to a high of 45% approval. That means that his approval ratings, while significantly lower than majority approval, are nevertheless more stable than any other president has enjoyed, according to Gallup.

So far, the current occupant’s average approval rating is 39%, which, coincidentally, is also his most current (Dec 17-22, 2018) approval rating. Opponents take comfort that the percentage who disapprove is always higher, but there’s a huge problem with that: Enthusiasm.

There’s no doubt that the vast majority supporters of the current occupant are unshakable. If that wasn’t the case, his approval rating would have plummeted each time there was a new scandal, or another of his close officials was indicted, fired, or resigned, but the rating remains stable. There’s no reason to believe that would change, even if the current occupant is indicted for his crimes—in fact, it may perversely actually firm up his support.

The flip side of his unwavering support is how divided his opposition is.

In 2016, part of the reason the current occupant was able to barely eek out an Electoral College win was because 79,000 votes in three states went to him. That can be partly chalked up to the pathetically stupid decisions made by Hillary Clinton’s campaign to not campaign in Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania in the closing days of the campaign. But the biggest reason was the Russian government’s successful propaganda campaign to elect their chosen candidate.

The Russian propaganda sought to rally rightwing support, and to depress the vote for Clinton. Their specific tactics were to build up and encourage votes for the truly loopy Jill Stein, and to discourage Black Americans from voting. The Russians didn’t need to win millions of votes for their chosen candidate; all they needed to do was win a few thousand more votes in just the right places—79,000 in three states, to be precise.

Absolutely nothing has been done to protect the US election system from foreign meddling. We know that the Russian government hacked into the election systems of several states in 2016, but we still don’t know what, precisely they did, nor whether the vulnerabilities have been closed. In Georgia they apparently haven’t been, as we found out this year.

All this matters because one of the lessons from 2016 is how susceptible to ideological pandering and propaganda the various factions on the Left are, and that hasn’t changed: Not only do the various parts of the Democratic Party not like each other very much, many of them hate other factions within the party. The Republican Party knows this, and having seen how effective the Republican government was in electing the current occupant, they will no doubt try to divide the Left. It’s easy to do.

If the current occupant’s approval ratings remain firm, he’ll start with a solid base of 39% of the electorate that cannot be persuaded to tell him he’s fired. All his campaign has to do, with or without Russian help, is divide the left. If they’re successful, part will go with the Democratic Party nominee, part will go for a minor party, and a large part will simply staying home—and that will be enough to re-elect the current occupant.

However, if there are more scandals, and if the current occupant himself is indicted for his crimes, whether or not they include his collusion with the Russian government, that could—could—inspire his opponents to turn out to vote against him. However, it has to be enough votes in the right states, and that’s where the candidate comes in.

The Democratic nominee can’t be so Progressive as to alienate moderates and conservatives, nor can the candidate be so Centrist as to alienate Progressives and Liberals. That balancing act may be impossible, especially given the stated determination of the Democratic Party’s leftwing to nominate a Progressive or else. Can there be a candidate who’s an acceptable compromise to the many kinds of Democrats? And, if so, can that candidate win over true Independents in a coalition to drive the Conman in Chief from the White House?

Which brings me back to those conversations I’ve had in recent weeks. Kiwis feel that the Democratic candidate will have to light a spark in voters. While many of them agree with me that the nominee could well be someone not currently being talked about much (or even at all), they nevertheless feel that without something that can take an energetic campaign to the Republican candidate, they can’t beat him, and I agree with that.

There are too many unknowns at the moment, but we know the system is rigged to elect Republicans. We know that the Russians and others will try to manipulate public opinion in favour of the current occupant. We know that Democrats, and the Left generally, are extremely easy to divide. We know that the current occupant has a stable level of support as his starting point. All of those are warning signs.

I pledged long ago that I will vote for the Democratic nominee in 2020, no matter who he or she is, and no matter whether I agree with that candidate on very much. I’m prepared to hold my nose, if necessary. I will vote against the current occupant rather than for the Democrat, if necessary. But there is no way I’ll sit out the election, and there’s no way I’ll vote for any candidate other than the Democratic nominee. The real problem we have is that not many Democrats, and very, very few on the actual Left, are willing to make that same promise to America. That may prove to be the biggest danger of them all.

Kindness matters

I am an idiot. I was diagnosed with gout some 16-17 years ago (don't remember when, exactly, but I do remember the doctor was dreamy…) and even now I forget about some foods that I need to avoid, especially if I don’t have them often. Like turkey.

Yesterday my troublesome ankle was really good, and by bedtime my ankle was pretty much normal. Then in the night—it's always in the night, by the way—strong pain hit in the same ankle. It was so bad that this morning I couldn't even stand. I took some paracetamol and went back to sleep, and later I was able to hobble. I had to—I was late feeding the dogs, and needed to take my own medicine, too.

In my extensive experience, even pain that bad—where I need to break out and dust off my crutches—diminishes once I'm up and moving around. But I couldn't figure out why it went from zero to 100kph. I thought about what I'd had to eat the day before, and the only thing that was unusual was the turkey I’d had for lunch. So I Googled that and, yes, it's high in purines (which is what I need to avoid). Crap. If I hadn't been getting over an attack, it's unlikely the turkey would have affected me at all, but things being as they were, it was like pouring petrol on a fire.

I was meant to go with Nigel today for the unveiling of the headstone for his auntie, but I couldn't even stand. I also know that cemetery well (too well, sadly…), and the ground is very uneven. Combined with all the rain overnight, it meant the possibility of slipping and hurting myself even worse was high. So, I stayed home, feeling sorry for myself, of course, which was the only rational thing to do. Fortunately, I worked out what the trigger was before having the rest of the turkey for lunch today.

But this isn't actually about my personal challenges. Even though it was a helluva lot of pain, all this, too, will pass. It was annoying, nothing more (“annoying” especially because it was accidentally and innocently self-inflicted). But it reminded me that each of us at any given moment may face challenges that are, in the overall scheme of things, trivial. Ultimately, we'll move past them.

We always know of other people who are far worse off than we are at any given moment, and maybe sometimes that makes us not share what we’re going through. Sometimes that also makes people judgemental about people sharing their small challenges on social media, precisely because of the fact that there are people doing it worse. But as we all know, when we're in the middle of one of those bad times, it doesn't matter how small it is, it can be huge to us. I can confirm that when the searing pain shot up my entire leg this morning, my first thought was NOT that others have it worse.

This morning, I checked my Facebook newsfeed and saw that a real-life friend, who has had a run of bad luck lately, shared yet more bad luck that happened over the past few days. What my friend is facing isn’t life-threatening in any way whatsoever, and it’s all resolvable, but that doesn’t make it any less of a challenge. My friend’s point in sharing was that it’s possible to rise above it all, to not be consumed by it, and they’d found a way to do that. But they also helped lighten their burden just a little by sharing it, and the least we can do is acknowledge it—even with just a Facebook “reaction”. That lets the person know that we saw their challenge, and we acknowledge it, even if we don’t know what to say. Most of the time, that’s enough.

I think we need to be a kinder to each other. It doesn’t matter what we think of the fact someone shared something with us that we think is trivial, even if it objectively is, because it mattered to them, and that should be enough. We should consider that instead of “attention seeking”, the person sharing may simply be asking people to help them lighten the load just a little bit by acknowledging they’re in a rough patch.

We don’t need to be “right” all the time, and we certainly don’t need to “correct” other people. Our approval or agreement isn’t necessary when someone is facing a challenge, just a simple acknowledgement that we see they’re in pain, they’re a fellow human being, and we hope things will get better for them. That doesn’t diminish the horrendous things others go through at all—it merely lifts up our shared humanity. Because we all know that one day we’ll be in bad patch, too.

Kindness matters.

Joy and celebration

These days, people don’t celebrate enough. Sure, there are birthdays, weddings—all sorts of things that people celebrate. But most of us ignore the little things, and not so little things, that go on all the time. We need to celebrate the little things, the small victories, because they make the bigger ones possible.

In the video above, John Green responds to his brother Hank by talking about feeling joy and the need to celebrate. I’ev been talking about that for years, so this was one of those times when I watched a video and said a silent “YES!”. Okay, technically that’s shouting silently. And I probably was.

It’s so easy, especially these days, to lose track of what’s good, what’s important to us and for us. And if we spend too much time holding out waiting for the Big Things to celebrate, we may miss out entirely, for any number of reasons.

That’s why I always talk about celebrating the little things and the small victories. They matter too, and sometimes more than the Big Things.

It’s good, too, to remember that this time of year.

This is Hank’s video that John was responding to:

Signalling virtue

The Left and the Right both have some similar behaviours, including branding their opponents with nicknames and reductionist words and phrases intended to insult and demean the opponent. Most of the time they’re just dumb, eye-rollingly so, even. But sometimes they’re worse, like when they create problems for bloggers.

One of the Right’s favourite insults of the Left is “virtue signalling”, which to them means empty, banal, superficial, and stupid public expressions to publicly prove not just one’s virtuousness, but also one’s fidelity to the accepted positions of the Left. Naturally, it’s not actually true, but it has enough truth in it to endure as a stereotype the Right holds about people on the Left.

People on the Left do, indeed, talk about the things they do that are consistent with their values, because living our values is part of what our tribe does. But we’re not alone: The Right does it ALL the time, too.

The Right’s social media “virtue signalling” in the USA includes things like using a “support the troops” hashtag, using patriotic motifs (like flags, bald eagles, etc) in their profiles, using religious imagery or words (especially about praying for something/someone), or posing with favoured talismans (like guns) or destroying whatever they’re currently boycotting at the moment (like burning their Nike shoes). In other words, they do exactly the same things the Left does—they just can’t see it, and even if they did, they’d see theirs as being sincere and real, while they see the Left’s as being faked, insincere, superficial.

The problem with “virtue signalling” isn’t that it exists, it’s that the Right can’t see they do it, too.

I’ve never cared about the Left or the Right engaging in “virtue signalling”, whether they realise they’re doing it or not. The whole point of sharing stuff on social media is to share what’s going on in our lives, and showing how we’re acting on our values is a bit more important than showing a photo of our lunch. Even for the Right. In my virtuous opinion.

This is a problem for bloggers who talk about life. It’s not possible to talk about some things without in some way “virtue signalling”. For example, when I talk about how we’re trying to live more sustainably, that’s “virtue signalling”, made only slightly less so when I talk about trying things that work and things that don’t work. But the reason I talk about the sustainably thing is to provide context for the products and methods I try, which I then write about.

As much as I don’t care whether anyone engages in “virtue signalling”, neither do I care what someone may think of me when I do it. It’s their issue, not mine. Besides, a blogger needs content!

So, we have the Left and the Right both engaging in “virtue signalling”, that fact doesn’t matter, and neither does the “virtue signalling” itself, and, anyway, bloggers are exempt from such concerns. This isn’t a matter of ideology or semantics or tribalism or even one of debate, in my opinion.

However, if “virtue signalling” really bothers you, that’s your choice. Not my concern. There are some times when someone just has to point out the emperor—or rightwing social media resident—is wearing no clothes.

And I’m stating that plainly, so no signalling is required.

September 12

Yesterday, a lot of Americans were posting on social media about September 11. A number of them also posted about “September 12”, the day in which, they say, Americans were kinder and nicer to each other than at any time before or after. Whether it’s true or just perception almost doesn’t matter: It underscores what it means to be human.

I wasn’t in the USA on September 12, 2001, so I have no way of personally knowing how much of what people recall about the time is true or merely believed to be true. However, it’s probable that there’s at least an element of truth to it, and for a simple reason: We’re human beings.

Whenever there’s a major event that affects a number of people, even some sort of family tragedy, people rally together for mutual support. When the event affects an entire community, the same thing happens, just on a much bigger scale. We humans evolved to interact in that way because it increases the odds of survival.

So, it makes perfect sense that the September 12 legends could be true, or largely true, because it’s consistent with the way humans act.

At the same time, we all know that jerks and arseholes were still around that day, but people may not remember that because of another thing we humans do: We minimise pain. This makes evolutionary sense, too, because dwelling on pain makes it difficult to move forward, and life demands that we move forward.

But that’s all about why the legends about September 12 could be true. There’s one final thing about it, and why the legend persists: We all need to believe that things can be better than they are—especially these days—and focusing on one day that was especially good, better by far than the norm, makes us believe that we can have it again.

There’s a dark side, too, though. Many of the September 12 memes I saw yesterday carried a judgemental undercurrent, implying that the reason there’s so much division now, as opposed to the legendary time, is because we choose to be that way. Specifically, we choose to be Republican or Democrat, Liberal or Conservative, just to be divisive. While none of the memes I saw explicitly said such a thing (of course they didn’t), it was the clear implication.

I think the truth is the exact opposite: To the extent the legend is true, it was an exception to the rule. Ordinarily, human beings are tribal, and in the modern world that shows up as political party, ideology, or religion—any number of things, actually. The peacefulness after September 11, 2001 was because of the events of that day, nothing more, and the eventual return to normal was about normality itself, and nothing whatsoever to do with September 12. Put another way, the fact that the nirvana didn’t last is a good thing because it meant people were returning to normality, and were moving forward as life demands.

I personally don’t care whether the stories of September 12 are completely true or not, because on some level, and to some extent, they are. What interests me more is how much it demonstrates how we human beings operate, that we rally together when we need it most, and, eventually, we move on. I think both things are worth celebrating on any day.