(4 Dec., 2022)
1) I was really dismayed by this story:: www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAvchkZq_WQ
I voted for the use of psilocybin as a tool for addressing certain mental health issues. Ones that psilocybin has been shown to have a positive effect on recovery. I did NOT vote for recreational use. I don't think we know enough about psilocybin to say "its cool to just grab some at the store". This isn't alcohol or marijuana. I agree with the idea of guided sessions with a licensed professional to target certain conditions in which psilocybin is deemed effective treatment. I also agree with shutting down stores that sell shrooms, much in the same way that I agree with arresting and prosecuting big cartels selling prescription drugs on the street (oxycontin, ketamine, etc).
People are going to find a way to get shrooms and pcp and heroin and all that no matter what. You can't stop that at the street level. You'll never make a dent. So you decriminalize personal use amounts so the police can focus on suppliers and manufacturers. IMO, the shroom store qualifies as a supplier. I don't think it's necessary to .go into a full trial thing., but I do think the city/state should levy a huge (like, massively huge) fine on the owners, block them from being eligible to own any store selling vice (booze, weed, tobacco, vape, etc.) products., and seize all the goods. Maybe the confiscated shrooms can be given to researchers for further studies into psilocybin therapy. Or use them to research the actual physical properties of the mushrooms (variations in concentrations of psilocybin in individual species as well as across other species, differences in chemical properties across different psilocybin producing species, etc). Get something positive out of it, remind people that decriminalization and medical exceptions aren't the same as recreational status. I'm sure there's all kinds of legal ramifications for this store on both the state and federal level, so... as much as I don't really think the owners (and certainly not the employees), I'm guessing some people are going to be doing a few years over this. Both Portland and the state could use some cash, so I'm more concerned about making the fine as gigantic as possible than I am with incarceration.
(update: 8 Dec: They closed it down. I see that as a good thing.)
2) Yes, as someone who has Jewish, Nubian, and various European ethnicities in their DNA, I'm shocked and appalled by Kanye "Ye, oh" West and his entire existence and every word that comes out of his mouth and all of that. But real things are going on in the world. I don't know fi this is a mental health breakdown, if he's serious, if he's like doing performance art, or what. I just think you need to shut down his avenues to revenue and let him deal with the consequences. Do a couple of think pieces on it if you must. But maybe don't make it a bigger story than the protests in Iran, or the problems in Ukraine or the myriad problems we face at home.
Personally, I've never been a fan of his. Not as a media personality, nor as an artist. I used to enjoy the sort of edgelord "push the boundaries" antics and stuff in my teens and early 20's., but it's corny when you're still doing that in your 40's.
If it's a mental health break, I honestly think his people need to intervene, and that he needs to be held for a few months.
But, dear news sources, maybe leave 9 of the 10 Kanye stories on your front page in the "drafts" file.
I'm a little more indifferent to Kyrie. He suggested a movie. There's apparently anti-semitic speech in the movie. Obviously (I hope it's obvious, anyway), I would disagree with that point of view. And I would debate against it. But at the end of the day, Kyrie didn't really do much beyond recommend watching it. I recommend a lot of things I don't particularly agree with. I think it's important to read religious works even though I'm an atheist (for example). I recommend it because it's important to know what you're disagreeing with. Lawyers need evidence to convict a criminal. They can't just say "I believe this person is a criminal, therefore they are guilty". The same way, if you disagree with someone's opinion, you should understand what you're arguing against, find real evidence (without cherry-picking specific examples to bias evidence in your favour), and debate from an informed opinion. Expect the same from the person you're debating. I dunno. I didn't follow the story much because why do I care what Kyrie Irving is watching. But all I really got from what I read was that he made a recommendation and that was it. He just talked in vagaries and never really gave any actual opinion of his own on the movie beyond stuff like "I thought it was interesting". Which...is pretty vague.. Kidney stones are interesting, but in general actually getting one is not something I agree with. And I do think if what he was trying to do was spark conversation and debate on the movie, then he should have said and done that directly instead of being all coy about it. There's a difference between getting riled up in a conversation and trying to start a conversation by riling people up. The latter never works, and it's (IMO) a weak form of conversation/debate. It's really only acceptable when you're a teenage/early 20's edgelord being edgelord-y.. If you haven't outgrown it by your 30's, you're doing it wrong. If Kyrie is really an anti-semite, fuck him. But I just never got the impression that he was saying anything beyond "I watched it. I thought about it." period. I don't know if that's enough for me to put him in the same boat as Kanye West, who just outright says stuff like "I like Hitler" and "I'm going deathcon 3" on Jewish people.. To me, there's a difference. Definitely end Kanye West's career. But just cancelling someone for recommending an (admittedly horrible) book or movie starts crossing the same line that banning/burning books based on ideological differences does.
8 Dec
3) Genuinely glad Brittney Griner is free, but I wish they could have brought back more Americans, especially considering who we gave back to the Russians.
4) I'm disturbed by the attacks on power grids in various states, apparently by domestic terrorists. I saw the news about North Carolina, and saw some other reports that similar attempts were made in Oregon, Washington, and South Carolina. I definitely hope that this is handled quick, and that everyone involved is brought to justice. This kind of thing absolutely cannot exist. We cannot harbour domestic terrorists who are willing to put millions of American lives at risk.
5) Glad to see the Respect for Marriage Act is law now. I'm guessing it's not even a question of Biden putting the final signature in place, so I think we can say it's a done deal.
6) I was watching this video:
a) it's sort of insane that only 20 years ago, they were using overhead projectors with the transparencies at a lecture of this stature.
b) it's sort of insane that this work is only 20-ish years old. It seems like Voevodsky and Morel''s work should be from much further back, since it comes up so much in talks I've attended. And it usually comes up in a way that just feels really fundamental, like the way Categories are fundamental to modern theory and research across all fields of mathematics.
I think the video was a little more intuitive than I was hoping for, but it's a nice accessible video for anyone who's had an undergrad background in math. I enjoyed it.
7) Congrats to Jaylen Smith, the newly elected 18-year old mayor of Earle, Arkansas. (story/interview: www.youtube.com/watch?v=18E3NUH2Pt0 ). I was impressed by his emphasis on getting a grocery store in the town. Food deserts are a real thing, and it's important to have a source of healthy food in any town. A lot of us take for granted the ability to be able to buy actual groceries in our own town/immediate vicinity. Some towns only have a dollar general and a corner store/gas station and some fast food joints. And that's it. I think it shows a real maturity on his part. He saw a real, local issue and is making it a point to address it. I hope he succeeds in al things, but especially on this issue. Best of luck, young man.
15 Dec, 2022
8) Ngl, this was pretty rough to get through (www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcnQJd_XRQQ). I definitely feel bad for the gentleman. He lived through hell on Earth (a real Depression, followed by fighting in a World War). But at the same time..... unless you think government sanctioned racism was awesome, and forcing LGBTQ+ people to live the unhappiest of lives in the proverbial "closet" was a good look, and living unsustainable lives without considering consequences on the environment and long-term economy was a chess move, and blaming women for getting raped when they got raped is a whole vibe, and sweeping centuries of injustices against Native American/First Nation folks under a rug is totally rockin'... things weren't really that great back then. We have to accept that we're in the midst of giant cultural shifts from the neighbourhood-level to the global-level. Things HAD to change, and change is not easy. It's rarely smooth and comfortable, and it rarely lets rose tinted glass remain unshattered. I (still) just can't bring myself to believe that the world isn't in any worse place than it was in generations prior. I (still) believe that we're simply more aware of the problems now than we used to be.
9) I'm a little disappointed in the outcome of this case: www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTzr9XrYulk
Ms. Jefferson had every right to be armed when there was an eminent threat against her and hers. I personally favoured guilty on the charge of murder, but I guess I can understand the choice to call it manslaughter, all things considered. But when sentencing comes around, we better be seeing something a lot closer to a maximum sentence than not. This is beyond gross negligence, especially in a state with such a hard-on for "good guy/gal with a gun" bs. You can't say "we support good people with guns protecting their own against threats" and then have your law enforcement decide to kill someone for....using a legal firearm for the sole purpose of protecting their own against a threat. Anyway, I truly hope he gets all the years behind bars.
(1 Jan, 2023)
10) I thought this (www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfLxnIqi4Uc) was an interesting watch. I think Ms. Chihombori-Quao pretty much lays it down in no uncertain terms. From what I can gather, there's a lot of similar sentiments in Africa regarding Europe-Africa relations. There seems to be some confusion by Europe and North America regarding relations with Africa. Telling someone "Do as we say, or go f**k youself." isn't good foreign relations. And being that Africans are proud people who know they have more to offer than subservience, they're going to have relations with countries/continents that respect their agency. It was nice to hear the African perspective.
11) Speaking of African events, I thought this (www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUmu_sAaE04) was a cool story. It's not only a great way to cut down on waste created from unwanted (but not unusable) devices, it's a great way to get those devices into the hands that need them most. Access to technology opens a lot of doors and offers a lot of opportunities. I think its cool that Ms. Cheboi and her organization are getting the attention they deserve, and hopefully that attention helps their cause.
(4 Jan, 2023)
12) This (www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCv6Gel_Kmo) was refreshing to see. I'm not a super-duper huge fan of either Biden or McConnell, but it's good to see co-operation across the aisle on something that's actually helpful. After years of petty, divisive squabbles and "gotcha" bullshit political maneuvers, something like this feels like a moment of sanity.
(5 Jan, 2022...oops, 2023)
13) Shoutout to Sec. Buttigieg for letting 'em know (twitter.com/i/status/1611151176447164418)
You like to see someone hold it down like that when they're being unfairly attacked by people with obviously bigoted agendas. A spouse is a spouse is a spouse (as long as they're of consenting age). Apparently same-sex marriage STILL isn't normalized enough for certain people. Hopefully this is one of those landmark moments people will look back on and say "That was the moment where I realized I was being a bigoted a-hole, and it helped me realize that there's more than one acceptable definition of marriage". Eventually we WILL have an LGBTQ+ president, and this is something we WILL have to accept. I'm glad Sec. Buttigieg kept it stern yet classy. I'm still a little sore about the way he tried to sweep some of the racist actions of people who served under him during his tenure as mayor, but I do appreciate the strong stance he took here, and I respect him more for it.
(10 Jan, 2023)
16) I was reading this (www.cbsnews.com/news/biden-center-classified-documents/) and I definitely think it has to be looked into. I think that's what's happening, and that President Biden is being fully compliant with the investigation. So that's good. But I do think that the investigation should be thorough and unbiased. I think that's an important test for the integrity of both the President and the DOJ. Since there's so much scrutiny of the classified documents the 45th president had, it seems sort of logical to handle this with equal scrutiny if the classified documents are of the same classification type. (I imagine that withholding classified documents of a higher level carries a more substantial penalty.).
If the Democrats are really serious about showing they're the equality party, than the scrutiny should be equal and the Democrats should embrace the scrutiny. Anything else smacks of hypocrisy.
PS: As far as the whole Biden laptop thing... that's been so tainted by so many conspiracy theories that I never even started following that story. I have absolutely no opinion on that.
(14 Jan, 2023)
17) As described here (www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYH-NShTIn417), the Greater Idaho movement is a preposterous demand. I doubt Idaho bites, either. The land grab alone is enough to kill this on any floor. The amount of money the State of Idaho would have to give to the State of Oregon is insane, and I don't see Idaho biting. Eastern Oregon isn't (for better or worse) exactly known as the Land of Endless Profits. Poverty is pretty high out there.
I think a better idea is something like this:
Keep Oregon's outer border as-is, but change the structure of the government. Let the Cascades serve as a band of "purple" between Red/Conservative Eastern Oregon and Blue/Liberal Western Oregon. Let the East and West and the "purple" band have their respective regional governments, with a statewide blanket government that is neutral and acts more as a mediator between the regional governments on issues that concern the state as a whole (highways, wildfires/natural disasters, etc). Each side of the state gets one Senator, and congressional districts still essentially remain the same (though intra-state population shift would be inevitable and would eventually cause a shift in district lines).
It's essentially just adding a tier to the local/state/national division of politics. Instead you get local/regional/state./national.
What the guy in the video is suggesting is just a pipe dream, though.
18) Also fileable in the "preposterous" category is the death of Keegan Anderson at the hands of police in Los Angeles (https://www.npr.org/2023/01/14/1149132089/keenan-anderson-patrisse-cullors-lapd-body-cam-footage). I refuse to watch the (incomplete) footage. But I can't imagine, by all I've read, that there was anything that man could've done that warranted his death. Being shook up after a car accident isn't punishable by death. A past (evidently non-violent) criminal history isn't either. Even being the at-fault-driver in an accident where no one died (or evidently sustained injuries) is still just a violation, not a capitol offense deserving of a death sentence. I believe that these officers escalated a situation that could've been put to bed with a crash-site investigation, a citation, and a glass of water. No one should be killed in the street for a fender bender.
(22 Jan, 2023)
19) The mass shooting in Monterey Park, Ca. is gut wrenching (as all shootings are). We routinely keep coming back to this point, where we're faced with the reality of the darker side of guns in America. I don't think there's one catch-all law or ban that will solve this problem. Even if we banned all guns in America, people will find ways to get guns. That's just the reality of a world that's (almost) totally connected; where a few clicks on the internet can get you pretty much whatever you want. At the same time, you can't just do nothing and expect the problems to resolve themselves.
I'm not sure what can be done, but we have to start somewhere. These mass shootings need to be stopped. "Good people with guns" or whatever isn't stopping it. The current laws aren't stopping it. So we have to start finding a new, effective way to address the issue. Hopefully with minimal infringement of peoples liberties and privacy.
20) The protests-turned-riots in Atlanta were/are also...disheartening. I was hoping this kind of thing was kind of petering out since the peak in 2019/2020. I agree with the sentiment that violent protests against the police are counter-productive, as it just invites more police presence. and encourages further militarization of police forces. Stop turning peaceful protests into violence.
(24 Jan, 2023)
21) The fact that we have more mass shootings in the last week than I can even keep track of, and the simultaneously true fact that the news media and even politicians devoting even a second of their time to fucking anthropomorphic candy mascots..... we're absolutely doomed. We devote time, money, resources, and energy (both physical and intellectual) to candy with animated faces. While we face so many existential issues (poverty, violence, racism, sexism, homophobia, cultural shifts and assimilations in an increasingly global community and the inevitable backlash to that, food scarcity in the face of over-production and waste, climate change, etc). Like how do you even begin to inspire people to care about real issues when world leaders and major news sources are tweeting and reporting about animated candy? And people go on social media and argue about it, and make jokes about it, and *ahem* blog about it.... If our leaders and sources of events have neither the attention span nor the desire to focus on real issues, how do you inspire the people to do anything when government and media are just extensions of the entertainment industry? We've prioritized popularity over doing even the most basic groundwork for change. We've prioritized reality show-style dramatics over making real inroads to finding ways to have a country where we can live and let live, to each others mutual benefit. But as it looks from where we are now? We could get invaded by a foreign power tomorrow, and people would be too busy having meme-based arguments to care. And all the news outlets would be too busy reporting on the meme-based arguments to report on the invasion. And the politicians will all be too busy posting memes and making tik toks and shit to mobilize resistance..
(1 Feb, 2023)
22) In general, I agree with this (link) bill. It makes sense that public servants live with the public they serve. And if they choose to live in another state while in service to the people of Oregon, they should pay their own travel fees.
I do think there should be exceptions. One big example would be continuing education, especially in fields relevant to the public servants work. For example, with the general state consensus being a preference for green energy, if some engineers working for the state have the opportunity to attend a long term workshop on advances in solar energy... it makes sense to pay for their travel. They're out of state in a capacity to better serve the state by learning and bringing what they learned home.
If someone's living outside of the state just because....that's the kind of thing I'm against. And that's the kind of thing that makes me support this bill. Hopefully there are provisions for reasonable extended absences wrt day-to-day residency.
23)Glad to see that pos torturer in Grants Pass, OR is no longer a threat to anyone.
24)I'm sort of extremely confused about what Ron DeSantis and Florida are doing, especially regarding education. I feel like there are a lot of vague buzz words like "woke" and "intersectionality" and a lot of policy is being made in response to these vague buzz words. I still don't get why the state just decided to set every marginalized groups rights back like 50 years. All of that "don't say gay" bullshit, and now the railroading of an AP African-American Studies class (link).... I'm not super big on conspiracy theories, but I do feel that dehumanizing the marginalized starts with ignorance. And it feels like the Florida government is making a concerted effort to make its children ignorant. It's not 1950 any more, it can never be 1950 again, and we all have to learn how to live in the modern world. Fucking deal with it.
Part of me just wants to tell every person from every marginalized group living in Florida (and the allies) to just uproot and leave the state, but I know that's not possible for everyone, for various reasons. I understand the desire to keep education politically neutral, but just outright blacklisting education on everything that isn't Cishet White Christian Nationalist Whatever is very non-neutral. Race, identity, gender, sexual preferences, and so on...these are all inherently politically neutral concepts. Repressing education on these subjects is the only thing that's not politically neutral in this particular situation.
(27 March, 2023)
25) Regarding the school shooting in Nashville, a couple of things:
(a) We need to stop focusing so much on the identities of these shooters (race, gender, creed, political leanings, etc.) and focus almost exclusively on the question of how to stop it. It's something bigger than who there shooters are as individuals. These shooters aren't all from one group. The problem is their ability to easily access firearms capable of killing a large number of people in a short amount of time, their ability to enter places like schools, places of worship, rec centres, etc. with such ease while being armed to the teeth, and (more abstractly) the way we feed into the mass-shooter mindset by poor policy based on bullshit talking points from politicians, media, and people on social media who have 15 minutes of education on these subjects but pretend like they're experts.
(b) This isn't the time to sit around and argue about philosophy and how some guys in wigs a few hundred years ago meant in an extremely vaguely worded document that couldn't have possibly foreseen our current situation. Work on this problem we're facing. Stop being in denial that it's happening, because it's absolutely happening. It's not a conspiracy, it's a very real situation. Lawmakers either need to stop talking about their versions of utopia start working on realistic solutions to a very real threat to all Americans, or they need to vacate their fucking offices so we can vote in people who DO want to make America safe. Giving everyone a gun isn't a solution. Banning all guns isn't a solution. Somewhere between there is a solution.
(10 April, 2023)
26) You don't get to say this (video) and then turn around and pull this bullshit (article w/ video). This guy is definitely old enough to know what it's like to live under laws meant to prevent people like him from having equal rights. It's disgusting to me when people survive bigotry and hatred only to turn around an enact bigotry and hatred. I don't even know wtf is going on in Florida these days, to be honest. I don't get how a whole state can seem to be buying into this "freedom means depriving others of freedom" mentality on such a wide scale. I know there are sensible people in Florida, and I hope they find a way to get out. What's going on down there is just too toxic.
(11 April, 2023)
27) I totally support Gov. Kotek's move to with-hold Portland & Multnomah County's state funds for combating homelessness until a solid plan (or multiple plans) are formally presented. IMO, Getting money with no plan in place lends itself to reactionary spending, which will accomplish absolutely nothing. The homelessness crisis in Portland is bad-bad. When you can walk any regular-degular street (not just in "slummy" neighbourhoods) and there's a 50-50 chance there will be more homeless people than actual residents of the neighbourhood on said street...that's pretty bad. The crisis also brings out the worst in the housed population, which sometimes (too often, IMO) leads to violence. Mostly, I feel like there's a surprising civility between the homeless and the housed., but that feels more and more strained even in the 10-ish months I've been here.
Spending money on quirky light installations for Christmas didn't exactly revitalize downtown. Neither has "spot cleaning" camps, which just increases nomadism, which makes it even harder to address the problem. Portland needs a plan. I think the "drug city/sector" idea I floated in another post would be a good start. . But that's me.
(21 April, 2023)
28) I'm not sure how i feel about a=the expulsion of Liz Harris from Arizona's State House. I pretty much disagree with everything about her, but....if that's who her district voted for, that's who they wanted representing them. I dunno. Unlike the expulsions in Tennessee, the theatrics that led to the expulsion were to draw attention to conspiracy theories and not...you know.... the unprovoked slaughter of children that actually happened. I was certain the gentlemen in Tennessee were wrongly expelled. I'm not as sure in this case.
29) Glad to see the City of Portland and the Portland Police got the body cam agreement done and over with. It sounds like a good plan that everyone is on-board with. And I think this will be good for the protection of both innocent citizens and good cops.
30) I'm going to write more about this, but I wanted to address it now:
It was heartbreaking to read about the shootings of Andrew Lester (link) Kaylin Gillis (link), and the two cheerleaders from Texas (link) amongst many others. These shootings over the most innocuous of mistakes is exactly why so many Americans want reform (of one degree of strictness or another) of gun laws, especially regarding access to guns. No good guy with a gun was going to pop out of the bushes and stop any of these unwarranted shootings. No cop was going to time travel in from the next day to stop these shootings. There's simply no other way to stop this kind of senseless gun violence than to do our absolute best to make sure people like the shooters in all of these cases cannot so easily obtain firearms. No law will ever prevent 100% of the tragedies. Illegal channels will always exist. The Internet will always exist. All you can do is make it harder for people who shouldn't have firearms to obtain firearms.