Albatross and Lee: thank you for saying such kind and thoughtful things. I didn't especially like the attention I got at the time, so hearing people say that that post moved them balances out some of those feelings. In my favorite few comments, people have remarked that it gives them a new way to relate to a friend who does (or doesn't) want kids. I'm glad the post did something useful.
Maintaining kindness in my comments and myself turned out to be too demanding. I couldn't do it as I developed dislikes for a couple people and didn't trust my moderation. Maybe if I'd had an active practice in my real life (Buddhism or Quaker or something) I would have had worked through it. But in the end, I gave up on comments.
I'm writing in public again after closing that blog, back and forth the clearest, most beautiful voice on the internet. I don't think the form appeals to everyone, but I like the way it directs me. Having a co-blogger feels like shelter, too. The URL is under my name.
Anyway, thanks. (I've talked enough about myself, but also think maybe people who read that post would want to know that I've decided that I'll have children by myself, starting pretty soon. The prospect is daunting (and I may yet back out) but the fear I wrote about has left me.)
#s 36/43:
Oh, 'stop energy' is brilliant. Thank you. I'll be using that concept.
I find the headlines on Slate even more insulting than the ones on Salon. The Slate headlines are often tenuously connected (at best) to the story.
I don't want to be contrarian for the sake of being contrarian, and I do agree that the memo was code for "will the blacks riot again". I would hate for a police presence to make anyone feel intimidated to vote. But, I am also concerned about the ostensible reasons cited in the memo. I can see the possibility of huge, huge crowds at polling places, with tempers running high.
On Tuesday, going home at 9pm, my friend and I encountered an unusual traffic jam, which turned out to be caused by the end of voter registration here in Sacramento. The Secretary of State had tables set up for the length of a block to take registrations, all with lines, and police directing cars around the area. This coming after the Secretary of State reports getting twenty thousand new voter registration forms a day? Presumably they're aware of the problem, but I don't see how they can add enough capacity now to keep crowds from forming at polling places.
I love the idea of orderly, joyous, civic waiting to vote*, and like Jackmormon, I'm hoping to find spontaneous street parties. I'm not confused that those are riots. But since I'm a worrier, I worry also about crowds turning to mobs and can see an appropriate role for police.
*My sister hopes that going along to vote for Sen. Obama will be one of her son's earliest memories.
My poor state. It is only June.
(8) They celebrate their shared self-abasement, and pretend that blaming the victim and talking tough means they're hard men.
(64) that they fear two things: that the powers-that-be might come after them, and that the rules of the game might change. They're unsatisfied and unsuccessful members of a privileged class, and the status quo is most of what they've got going for them. They worry about that. I think the fear of being tunbled out into the harsh light of the real world is what turns some of them into survivalists.
I've been thinking for a while that what trolls are most scared of is that their own past behavior. I worry that they're in an escalating shame cycle, where stillness will force them to remember or confront their previous bad behavior. Since that is intolerable, they require constant reinforcement and worse, the stimulation of another round. If that causes more compartmentalized shame, a feedback loop gets going.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2009 | 3 |
| 2008 | 4 |
| 2007 | 1 |
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