the spectrum of peace: what my father taught me

In the 1960s, my father's heroes and mine included two men. One said, "Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him. "



The other said, "I don't call it violence when it's self-defense, I call it intelligence."



My dad thought Martin Luther King was one of the bravest men alive, but for pursuing justice, Dad preferred El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, the former Malcolm X. When Mom taught me Jesus's advice to turn the other cheek, Dad taught me Gene Autry's Cowboy Code: "The Cowboy must never shoot first, hit a smaller man, or take unfair advantage." Dad believed that if someone hit you, you hit back. If you couldn't win, you made losing so hard for your enemy that he would never want to win again.

Dad was a civil rights activist in Florida. When the word came that the Ku Klux Klan planned to burn our home, Dad let people know he had served in World War II and Korea, and anyone who wanted trouble would find it if they came. Dad taught me how to bring the shotgun to him, but I never had to. Maybe the Klan's threats had been bluster; they did not always follow through. Maybe Dad's shotgun made the difference.

But when I think of meeting violence with violence, I remember something that happened years later, when my parents had moved to northern Ontario to run a trading post near an Ojibwe reservation, and I had come to work for them. One day, two drunken white men, hunters or fishermen on vacation, drove up to the store. They didn't have time to get out of their car before Dad told them to come back when they were sober. The men started yelling that they only wanted to buy a few things, but they finally drove up to the road, and I, having run up when the yelling began, thought it was over.

But then their car turned down our second driveway, coming back fast, swerving on the gravel. Dad jumped out of the way as they braked. The men were cussing him for not selling them the little things they wanted, some cigarettes and bread, I think. The passenger began opening his door, saying he was so going to get served, that he had a right to be served.

Dad shoved the car door, telling the men to drive away. The passenger pushed back hard, still swearing, and the driver leaped out of the car and started running around it. Dad yanked the passenger door wide. As the passenger, off-balance, came forward, Dad threw him to the ground.

I was maybe a hundred feet away and running toward them without the slightest idea what I would do. I can't remember exactly what happened next. Maybe Dad hit the driver. Maybe he shoved him hard, knocking him down. All I know is by the time I was close, the second man was on the ground, and Dad was yelling at them to stay down and yelling for Mom to call the Ontario Provincial Police.

In some part of his mind, Dad had to be flashing back to something that happened to him thirty-some years before in Germany, just after World War II: two Germans jumped him, and Dad got on top of one, holding him by the neck while the other kicked Dad's head. Every time the one kicked him, Dad slammed the other's head against the ground. That ended, I think, with soldiers dragging the fighters apart.

So as the driver tried to rise again, Dad shoved him down again, and yelled at me to make sure the passenger stayed down, too.

That's probably when Dad saw what I saw. The passenger lay on the ground, unable to get up. His legs were twisted, maybe from birth, maybe from something that happened to him long ago. I can't remember if there was a cane by the passenger seat or crutches.

The driver was saying something about how they didn't want trouble, they only wanted some groceries. The passenger was begging for his cane or his crutches.

I've never asked Dad about that day. I just remember his face as he saw the crippled man, and the story changed in our heads: the men were drunk, and the car was being driven too quickly, but the yelling was only bravado, a drunk's sense of entitlement. When the driver came around the car, he wasn't coming to attack Dad. He was coming to help his crippled friend.

Today, I can't say anyone is wrong to defend themselves. I believe the spectrum of peace includes those who think like Malcolm X, Gene Autry, and my dad. But I know those who think like Martin Luther King, Thoreau, and Gandhi never have to wonder if they went too far.

—cross-posted from paxpac and it's all one thing

free fiction: "De La Tierra" and "Secret Identity"

"De la Tierra" by Emma Bull

"Secret Identity" by Will Shetterly

James Madison explaining the undemocratic Senate

"Should Experience or public opinion require an equal & universal suffrage for each branch of the Govt., such as prevails generally in the U. S., a resource favorable to the rights of landed & other property, when its possessors become the Minority, may be found in an enlargement of the Election Districts for one branch of the Legislature, and an extension of its period of service. Large districts are manifestly favorable to the election of persons of general respectability, and of probable attachment to the rights of property, over competitors depending on the personal solicitations practicable on a contracted theatre." —James Madison, Note to His Speech on the Right of Suffrage

via A Tiny Revolution

US caste system and why dictionaries matter

Two comments I made elsewhere that I may expand on someday:

1. At metafilter: Ten Dollars an Hour, buzzman said, "I can not discourage enough a belief that if you are born poor you will remain poor. What kind of image is that for people to read and believe in? A veritible caste system via reasearch?

I answered, "We do have a caste system in the US. It begins with inferior schools and worse health care for the 40% who own none of the US's wealth. Its markers include bad teeth and dialects that are mocked on television."

2. At whatever: A General Observation, John Scalzi said, "The Internet does seem to be full of people whose knowledge of complex concepts appears limited to a dictionary definition. Some of them seem to be proud of that."

I answered, "When the Bush regime says something is “extreme interrogation” and not “torture,” I’m not happy. Yes, definitions evolve, but the motives of those who reject dictionary definitions should always be questioned."

it's Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov Day!

Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov saved modern civilization. (Okay, maybe that was a mistake, but I'm grateful.)

Carol Swain on who can be called racist

Dueling 'racist' claims defuse once powerful word:

"We need to rethink what is racist and who can legitimately call whom racist," Swain said, citing the argument that blacks can't be racist because racism requires power.

"With a black president, a black attorney general, and blacks holding various power positions around the country, now might be a time when we can concede that anyone can express attitudes and actions that others can justifiably characterize as racist."

and now, it's all one thing lite

I need to get a novel done, so future posts should be short, infrequent, and focused on Emma's and my professional lives.

Keep it copacetic!

Will

ETA: "should be" does not mean "will be".

skillet pizza: roasted chiles

I've been making pizza in a skillet lately because I'm lazy:

1. If you use commercial pizza dough (cheap and good from Trader Joe's), set it out to warm up about half an hour before Step 2. I flatten the dough in the bag so it will begin to relax.

2. About half an hour before you want to eat, start heating the oven to 450 degrees F.

3. Spread olive oil in the bottom of the skillet.

4. Put the dough in the skillet and flatten it.

5. Cut open the awesome roasted chiles that you got from a chile festival (or roasted outdoors on a grill) and wash them, rubbing away the burned bit and seeds.

6. Chop the chiles.

7. Flatten the dough in the skillet again.

8. Pour on spaghetti or pizza sauce. Add your favorite seasonings; I usually go with garlic powder, black pepper, and cayenne.

9. Add your toppings. In this case, I just went with one or two chiles and a few handfulls of cheddar and parmesan soy cheeses.

10. Bake for about eight minutes, look in the oven so you feel responsible, then bake for a few minutes more to get a nice crust.

Nomnomnom!

P.S. Make sure your skillet is safe to use in an oven! I use cast iron, so I don't have to worry about that.

NED funds press censorship

The Democratic Party turns draconian:

G17 was one of the "pro-democracy" organisations supported by the US's National Endowment for Democracy in its push to topple Slobodan Milosevic's regime in the 1990s. That yesterday's "democratic" opposition is now acting like an authoritarian group is an irony not lost on Serbs.

“In the 1990s I wrote many articles attacking Milosevic and the government," says Dragan Milosavljevic, a journalist. “It is much harder to criticise the democratic government today."

crossposted to Watching the NED.

The only woman in the French Foreign Legion

The only woman in the French Foreign Legion

quote of the day

“Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.” —Bertrand Russell

racist? not racist?

"Hey, that's RACIST!"

Richard and Mimi Fariña, plus Bold Marauder (Frenchman's Creek) fanvid

At Metafilter, I made this post:

Richard and Mimi Fariña. I doubt I'll ever forget his song, Bold Marauder, or his cult novel, Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me. He and Mimi, Joan Baez's sister, made three fine albums before his tragic death. Youtube has a live version of "Bold Marauder." Also, a nice cover by Kendra Smith , and a fanvid for the pirate romance, "Frenchman's Creek," using a cover by John Kay of Steppenwolf .

 Here's the fanvid:



Frenchman's Creek looks like a stupid must-see. Netflix has it. If I catch it, I'll review it.

another reason torture is a bad idea

Torture Interferes with Memory.

American Chairs, v.1.1

American Chairs, v.1.1 from will shetterly on Vimeo.

If America's wealth consisted of ten chairs. Emma Bull sings the end credits. (This is a minor revision of a video I made a while ago.)

rice cooker meal: faux-chicken or tofu veggie curry

This is a two-pot recipe. I like frying onions and spices because it brings out the flavor.

The general recipe:

1. Chop up some of your favorite veggies (I used carrots and broccoli, but potatoes and yams would also be great) and some fake chicken (like Morningstar Farm Chick'n Strips) or cubes of firm tofu. Cook them with the rice.

2. Chop up onions or garlic. Fry them with your favorite spices. I used curry, garlic powder, pepper, and cayenne.

3. Combine and enjoy!

Yeah, you could make this a one-pot meal, but the sauteed onions are nice.

today's thought

Plan to live forever. Prepare to die today.

voting by class in 2004

Somehow, I missed this a few years ago. It's the 2004 presidential election results by class from Some cool graphs of rich states and poor states:

I found them hunting for Krugman's Bubba Isn’t Who You Think. Dunno why I never linked to them before.

Malcolm X on white people without racism

“Most of the countries that were colonial powers were capitalist countries, and the last bulwark of capitalism today is America. It’s impossible for a white person to believe in capitalism and not believe in racism. You can’t have capitalism without racism. And if you find one and you happen to get that person into conversation and they have a philosophy that makes you sure they don’t have this racism in their outlook, usually they’re socialists or their political philosophy is socialism.” —Malcolm X / El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz

A few points about this quote:

• Some people say all whites are racist. Clearly, he disagreed.

• Some people say he only believed that white muslims could be free of racism. Clearly, that’s not so.

• Some capitalist antiracists claim him for their side. Clearly, he would reject them. (He once said, “It is impossible for capitalism to survive, primarily because the system of capitalism needs some blood to suck. Capitalism used to be like an eagle, but now it’s more like a vulture. It used to be strong enough to go and suck anybody’s blood whether they were strong or not. But now it has become more cowardly, like the vulture, and it can only suck the blood of the helpless. As the nations of the world free themselves, the capitalism has less victims, less to suck, and it becomes weaker and weaker. It’s only a matter of time in my opinion before it will collapse completely.”)

• I think he was right that all capitalists in his day were racist, but there are individual capitalists today who are not racist in any meaningful way. They will happily embrace rich people and exploit poor people of any hue.

• I don’t know if he was right about whether capitalism can survive without racism. Capitalism only requires cheap labor. Modern capitalists are trying to build post-racial capitalism. All I know is that a racially-proportionate economic pyramid would still be a pyramid.

Where did I deny that racism exists?

Some people keep saying I don't believe racism exists, or something equally silly. I've been beaten up by racists. That's reality with fists attached.

If anyone can cite an example of me saying I don't believe racism exists, I'd be grateful for the opportunity to correct a typo or point out a false quotation. I believe oppression is complex. As I've said before and may say again, discussing racism in the US without discussing class is like discussing bicycles as if they only have one pedal.

racist drug war even corrupts the US Forest Service

US Forest Service apologizes for linking tortillas, Spanish music to armed pot growers

quote of the day

"Did you ever expect a corporation to have a conscience, when it has no soul to be damned, and no body to be kicked?" —Edward, First Baron Thurlow

great Vietnamese insult

"I see you live near the market but far from the school."

From Vietnam, the perfect place to ride out the recession

A Song In Time of Depression

I found the art here. I have no idea how accurate the translation is; the "transcriber" is Mary Hunter Austin.

A SONG IN TIME OF DEPRESSION

FROM THE PAIUTE

Now all my singing Dreams are gone
But none knows where they are fled
Nor by what trail they have left me.

Return, O Dreams of my heart,
And sing in the summer twilight,
By the creek and the almond thicket
And the field that is bordered with lupins!

Now is my refuge to seek
In the hollow of friendly shoulders,
Since the singing is stopped in my pulse
And the earth and the sky refuse me;
Now must I hold by the eyes of a friend
When the high white stars are unfriendly.

Over sweet is the refuge of trusting;
Return and sing, O my Dreams,
In the dewy and palpitant pastures,
Till the love of living awakes
And the strength of the hills to uphold me.

Emma Bull performing at Oddcon 2009

Emma Bull @ OddCon 2009 from will shetterly on Vimeo.

why insurance companies are fighting the USA

It's Simple: Medicare for All by George S. McGovern:

As matters now stand, the insurance companies claim $450 billion a year of our health-care dollars. They will fight hard to hold on to this bonanza. This is a major reason Americans pay more for health care per capita than any other people in the world.

We're Number 37! It rocks!

at youtube: We're Number 37

my Sony Reader Pocket Edition: first impressions

1. Too much packaging. Especially when bought from Best Buy: a plastic bubble case in addition to a paper sleeve, a SECOND paper sleeve, and a cardboard box with padding inside.

2. The reader looks nice. Its black foam sleeve is good enough for my needs, I think.

3. Not the greatest quick start guide. Apple would do better. But they'd also charge $350 instead of $199.

4. That flicker when you turn pages? I'll get used to it.

5. Slightly annoying interface for downloading books. You have to use their eBook Library program to move books onto the reader. Still, it converts my files just fine.

6. The eBook Library program seems slower than Firefox for browsing the eBook Store.

7. Sony's store has a few free books. Interesting. Grab China Mieville's Perdido Street Station. Have to go through the checkout process even though the price is "0". Well, it's quick.

8. Time to see what public domain books are available through Sony's arrangement with Google and OMIGODOMIGODOMIGOD! BOOKSBOOKSBOOKSBOOKS! FREEFREEFREEFREE! WANTALL!

9. Get Austen's Emma for a test. Odd that it's filed as a "purchased" book when it's free.

10. Stare at the first line of the downloaded book: "MMA WOODHOUSE, handsome, clever, and rich..." Huh? Oh. The illustrated "E" is floating up above "CHAPTER 1." There are a few bugs to be worked out in converting from Google's scans to the Reader.

11. But I got Emma for free! With grayscale scans of the original art! MUST. DOWNLOAD. EVERY. FREE. BOOK. NOW!

12. Remind myself to stop being a book geek. My responsible advice to anyone considering an ebook reader is wait and see what Asus comes up with. But having decided that I have a professional need to learn about ebooks now...

13. OMIGODOMIGODOMIGOD! Hundreds of books in a doohickey I can easily hold in one hand! Access to more free books than I can hope to read!

14. Yeah, it's going to be old tech in a few months, but I think I'll get my money's worth from it.

oatmeal in a rice cooker

Friends have said for decades that Emma and I should get a rice cooker. As a rule, I prefer one thing that does many things to many things that do one thing, but we got a rice cooker last week, and I must say, I like it. We decided against the larger, more expensive model that had an oatmeal setting, but today, we tried making oatmeal in our rice cooker, using the quantities described on the box of oatmeal.

I think it took a couple of minutes longer than it would've if we'd cooked it in a pot on the stove. But it may have been the best batch of oatmeal that has ever been made in our kitchen.

update: US poverty and health insurance

The number of people living in the United States without health insurance rose to 46.3 million in 2008. (Reuters)

...the poverty rate rose to 13.2 percent in 2008..."There were 39.8 million people in poverty in 2008. (Reuters)

is the drug war the most racist thing in the USA?

When I ran the numbers in 2005, poverty in the US looked like this:

Asian persons in poverty: 992,856
Black or African American persons in poverty: 8,549,879
Hispanic or Latino persons in poverty: 7,703,925
non-Hispanic Whites in poverty: 16,723,778

Which gives these percentages for the racial makeup of poverty:

Asian persons in poverty: 3%
Black or African American persons in poverty: 25%
Hispanic or Latino persons in poverty: 23%
non-Hispanic Whites in poverty: 49%

Prisons are primarily filled with poor people, so, if there was no racial component to the drug war, the percentages for drug war prisoners would be similar. But according to Race and prison, the racial makeup of the 253,300 state prison inmates serving time for drug offenses in 2005 looked like this:

Black or African American drug prisoners: 44.8%
Hispanic or Latino drug prisoners: 20.2%
non-Hispanic White drug prisoners: 28.5%

When I ran for governor of Minnesota in 1994, ending the drug war was one of my campaign issues. I don't think Obama has mentioned it.

If you've got a candidate for something more racist than the drug war, please leave a comment.

ETA: White House drug czar, Gill Kerlikowske called for an "end to the war on drugs" and said the drug problem in this country should be a public heath issue and not a criminal justice issue. Maybe Obama will get to it when he's done with health care.

"No’m. Killed a nigger."

From the thread at Louis Proyect's blog, another point that some readers fail to grasp:

What happens in a novel does not necessarily represent a writer’s belief.* For example, some anti-racists misread Huckleberry Finn because it uses “nigger” and has this scathing bit of dialogue that demonstrates the thorough racism of the South in that time: 

“We blowed out a cylinder-head.”
“Good gracious! anybody hurt?”
“No’m. Killed a nigger.”
“Well, it’s lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt.”

Huckleberry Finn is the story of a boy learning that “niggers” are people. There have been cases of black anti-racists** demanding that it not be taught in school and calling for its removal from libraries because it is “racist.” It is not racist. It is challenging.

* There must be a lit'ry term for this, but it's escaping me at the moment.

** I'm sure a little googling would turn up white anti-racists trying to prevent the teaching of Huckleberry Finn, too. But the comment was made in response to a post citing an African-American anti-racist's partial reading of a story.

The color of eloi and morlocks

Walter Benn Michaels has another essay, What Matters, about the way people confuse diversity with equality. I agree with what I've read of him. A diverse ruling class is still a ruling class.

His position troubles people who think capitalism and racism are forever linked. I'm sympathetic to Malcolm X/Malik El-Shabazz's "You can't have capitalism without racism," but I think what he said was true for his time. We had capitalism before we had racism; we may have it when the idea of race is as antiquated as the idea of aether.

Louis Proyect responded with A critique of Walter Benn Michaels, and I've been generally enjoying the discussion in the comments. I just made a point there that I want to include here, a point that I've tried to make several times, but may finally have in a clear form:

Because Americans are so reluctant to talk about class, 37% of blacks think there are two black “races”, one rich and one poor. They’re using “race” to describe class because our culture refuses to admit that class prejudice exists.

I find it astonishing that the capitalist anti-racists of the science fiction field ignore this development. We’re witnessing the birth of eloi and morlocks.

P.S. I should add my standard disclaimer here for people who think recognizing class prejudice means you're blind to racial prejudice: Racism will die someday, but it hasn't died yet.

This looks useful for web comics fans

From here:

Have you ever found an interesting looking webcomic, looked at the archive, and thought:

I can't start reading this! There are hundreds of strips to catch up on!

At Archive Binge you can create a custom RSS news feed for a webcomic, which will take you through the archive, at a rate faster than the new comics update. ... Rather than spend a whole day or more bingeing on a comic archive, set up an Archive Binge feed. You can start from the beginning, or wherever you're up to. You can set your custom feed to deliver a strip every day, 4 strips every weekday, or whatever you want, up to 10 strips a day.

Disney's Song of the South

Disney's Song of the South should not be avoided because it is racist. It should be avoided because it has one good song in it. Otherwise, it's the worst thing art can be: boring.

This is as good as it gets:



I kept wishing it had been made by the Looney Tunes crew.

permanently deleting a Facebook account

I've deleted mine, because I'm a lemming in search of the new cool. Uh, no. Because it's distracting. Life may be long, but the time to make art is always short.

I seem to have found the secret directions for permanently deleting a Facebook account here:

Go to this page:
http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account

Click "Submit" and follow the instructions.

Your account will be deactivated for two weeks, and if you don't log in during that period, your account is permanently deleted.

This method is official and should be complete, i.e. no need to delete individual photos, comments, messages or items from your profile or anywhere else on Facebook!