Return of Rapists Rallies Cancelled! (I clicked on the page so you don't have to.)

Here's a screencap and transcription of the message from Return of Kings "author" Roosh V that you can share without driving traffic to his site. 

"I can no longer guarantee the safety or privacy of the men who want to attend on February 6, especially since most o the meetups can not be made private in time. While I can't stop men who want to continue meeting in private groups, there will be no official Return of Kings meetups. The listing page has been scrubbed of all locations. I apologize to all the supporters who are let down by my decision. "

If you were already planning a counter-rally, go. Odds are pretty good they'll all show up anyhow, giggling about how they "pulled one over" on us by cancelling the public rallies and meeting anyhow.  Turn up no matter what.  Show the world this shit isn't acceptable. If you were going to make a big, visible scene, make it.  If you hired that tuba player, keep them on. Have a fundraiser and donate the money to a women's shelter. Do SOMETHING. Don't waste this momentum. We haven't "won" this one yet. 



Before the whole mess was cancelled, a post discussing private meetings with "higher security" was kicking about:

"The world is moving against us. I’ve gotten reports of over a dozen organized protests at our meeting points.  Dozens more are being organized privately. Since this meetup was never intended as a confrontation with unattractive women and their enablers, I’m moving to save as many of these meetups as I can before Saturday so that men can still meet in private away from a loud, obnoxious, dishonest, and potentially violent mob.

If you take a look at the full listing page, you’ll see that some meetups have had their location removed and have instead been replaced with an email address or two to contact. If you want to attend one of the newly private meetups, send an email to the address(es) proving that you’re one of us. These are the three ways that you’ll be about to do that:

• If you’ve left a non-hater comment on ROK or RooshV.com using your Disqus account before January 15.

• If you have an active account on RVF that is at least three months old.

• If you can provide a screenshot receipt of one of my books (Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, Paypal, etc) that was purchased before January 15."
  
  (The post then further details how to provide "proof" of being "one of them" that is no longer relavent.)

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Toothpaste Shoepolish, or, Own your Shit

So, I was pretty damn hard on several of you guys last night about your responses to the #BayBridge action by black.seed  along the lines of "hey, I'm an ally, but I don't have to agree with every action, that doesn't mean I'm not well intended"

The dialogue went pretty much like it always does:  I'm hard on you because I believe in you, I know you're one of the good guys, you're just not yet aware of your own priveledge and need some more work on intersectionality. Here are some resources, I know you'll get it. How do I know you'll get it?

Because every argument you've ever used has come out of my mouth too.  And I had some folks who love me enough to thump it into my head when I was being stupid, superior, and privilege-blind without even realizing it. I've often been known to mutter "I should just put toothpaste in my shoe polish so at least they're minty fresh when I shove my foot in my mouth."

And last night, I fucked up too.  As I was having social justice conversations in half a dozen places, I committed a doozy myself. 

I came across this amazing album of the protest, shot by Brooke Anderson Photography: Stills of Our Stories & Struggles and just flipped my shit over this photo

I saw it, it resonated powerfully with me, I could relate to it,  and given the lack of data I could find, I made a stupid assumption:  that this was a white individual offering support to a BIPOC protester. I went on to wax poetic about how perfect an analogy it was for being a white ally. One some level, I *wanted* him to be white so I could better relate. 

Yeah, I was wrong as can be.  I was contacted privately and let know (more politely than I deserved) that both individuals in the photo are black, and were both active participants in the protest. I made an assumption about the racial identity of the masculine-presenting individual based on the color of his skin, and assumed he had to be 'just' an ally.  I am in the wrong, and I apologize.

I was wrong, and I'm owning up to it. I fucked up, there's no other way to put it. I'm pulling the essay I wrote yesterday about the photo series, and I'm correcting the misinformation anywhere I posted it.  This is how we do it. Because it's not "if" we're going to fuck up, it's "when".

How we handle it when we DO fuck up is what matters. That's where we're tested, and have to overcome our own defensiveness, desire to blame it on ignorance, and talk up how good of an ally we are the rest of the time.  If we get our feelings hurt for being thumped, start tone policing, and talking about "why are we being attacked for our good intentions" and take our ball and go home, we've failed.  We have to stand up, brush off, accept what our mistakes were, learn from them, and move on with the intent to not make that mistake again and learn how we can apply it to avoid other pitfalls.  That's the mettle of an ally

Check out the album. Donate to the black.seed legal defense fund to get these folks out of lockup and back into action. Own your shit and keep on fighting.

Mintily yours,

D.

"Medicare for All" highlights

For those of you about to watch the Democratic debate, Bernie's newly released "Medicare for All" plan is likely to feature prominently.  Here's the quick and dirty of this extremely clean plan.  It looks so workable.

Highlights: 
- 6 TRILLION dollar savings over 10 years compared to the current system

- A family of 4 earning $50,000 saves about $5800 a year from the current model.

- Businesses would save about $9000 a year per employee from the current model.

- No income tax increases on households earning under $250,000/year


There are numbers for everything. At a cursory glance, it looks MORE than sound, and is fully funded in decreasing order by:

- $630 billion per year: a 6.2% income-based health care premium paid by employers per employee. However this replaces their internal costs and saves businesses money.

- $320 billion per year: eliminating tax breaks for subsidized healthcare systems  that benefit pharmaceutical companies and health care corporations and hurt patients

- $210 billion per year: 2.2% income-based tax on all households. However, this replaces an average household healthcare cost of about $6000/year. A family of 4 earning $50,000 would pay $466 for all healthcare needs including dental, vision, prescriptions, and no provider restrictions.

- $110 billion per year: raising income taxes on the top earners (ONLY those that earn $250,000 year or more, and capping at 52%)

- $92 billion per year taxing capital gains and dividends at the same rate as earned income

- $21 billion per year closing estate tax and inheritance loopholes that benefit the super-rich

There's no damn reason we don't have this in play NOW.

Candlelight

 This is my tribute to all the victims of all of the terror attacks by Da'esh (ISIL/ISIS) and their allies including Boko Haram, who joined forces with Da'esh in March.
 
Back row: Afghanistan, Kuwait, Tunisia,  Libya, Egypt, Syria, Niger, Yemen, Turkey, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia
Front row:  Chad, Cameroon, Iraq, Lebanon, France, Nigeria

Pen and paper are not my usual medium, but this piece felt like it would rip me apart unless I got it out.  I am very distressed that I actually had to change it mid-creation .  A marketplace in Dhaka was bombed today by Boko Haram with at least 32 casualties, so Nigeria had to be moved up to the front row on the fly.

   Original art, please share with attribution.

#BlackLivesMatter #NativeLivesMatter SF Pride 2015

#BlackLivesMatter #NativeLivesMatter

The Bay Area American Indian Two Spirit (BAAITS) contingent from SF Pride 2015
 
Finally sorting through my Pride 2015 photos. I'll be highlighting some of my favorites here. (You can check out the whole album too)

I actually use "this strange blanket". What weighted blankets are, aren't, and actually do.

"This Strange Blanket Helps Insomnia and Anxiety"  has suddenly popped up in my facebook feed five times slo far today.  It's a very short, misleading, and frankly terribly article about weighted blankets.

The most important thing to know about them is entirely overlooked: they are medical devices.
Weighted blankets were developed specifically for children on the autistic spectrum and other sensory processing disorders.  They are meant to help non-neurotpyical individuals manage meltdowns and episodes, relax, stop self-harmful behavior, and sleep more comfortably.

They are currently experiencing some popularity for other medical issues, and some neurotypical, able-bodied individuals are finding them soothing as well. (I'm going to use the word "healthy" in this article when referring to people who are not using them as a treatment for a medical issue.)

There is substantial anecdotal evidence that they help with some mental disorders such as severe anxiety disorder, panic attacks, emotional dysregulation, borderline personality disorder and other disassociative disorders.

They are also sometimes used for pain and nerve disorders such as fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, and neuropathy (diabetic or otherwise), although there is a lot less data for this use.  

Since this is a medical device, there are warnings.  They should never be used on children under 2, never be put over the head or neck, and the blanket weight should never exceed 1/10 your body weight plus 1 pound. 

 If you are "healthy" and just want a comforting, heavy blanket, you want to go with one about half the medical use weight, which for most adults is 9-14 lbs.   That's about the weight of one standard housecat, spread across your entire body. 
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Many people find anything heavier than for non-medical use distracting, disturbing, disruptive of sleep, or even painful.   The original article's guideline of a 15-30 lb blanket for a "healthy" adult with insomnia is downright dangerous.  (Most manufacturers don't even offer blankets over 25 lbs.)

With the encouragement of my therapist, I decided to invest in a weighted blanket about 6 months ago.  She uses weighed lap and shoulder pads in her office, and finds them very helpful for clients with borderline and emotional dysregulation.  We thought it might to help control my fibromyalgia pain as well.  I weigh roughly 250 and bought this 25lb blanket from SensoryGoods with the glass bead filling. (I have no connection to SensoryGoods except as their customer.) 

It took me about 2 weeks to get used to sleeping with it.  On nights I was having a lot of fibro pain, it felt wonderful, but on low-pain nights it felt oppressively heavy and constricting. Now,  I love it and sleep much better with it every night.

It has reduced my fibro pain at night substantially. I am awakened by pain much less, have far fewer random nerve pain episodes, and have almost no 'restless leg'-like spasms when using it.  The glass beads mold to my body very well and surround my joints and retain heat, so I wake with less stiffness and pain in my knees and back, too.

I have not noticed a substantial change in quality of sleep that isn't pain-related, but I do fall asleep much faster under the blanket, which is a nice change from years of long-term wakefulness when trying to sleep.

It has also been a very useful tool for my borderline and panic attacks.  Wrapping up in the weighted blanket has seriously reduced the severity of my disassociative episodes and panic attacks.  If I can get to it in time, I rarely fully disassociate or hyperventilate, and am able to calm down and normalize without having a full blown "episode" without the need to take any of my emergency medications.

They are a great tool for helping manage a certain subset of medical issues. They are NOT for everybody.  If you're considering one to help your sleep, try the simple route first:  pile 3-4 heavy blankets or coats or whatever on you when you take a nap or go to sleep. Does the pressure feel comforting, or constricting?  Is it soothing or unsettling?  If you don't like the feeling of that weight on you, you likely won't benefit from a weighted blanket. They don't magically fix all insomnia problems, nor cure lower-grade forms of anxiety that don't have panic attacks involved. 

If you find you do like the extra weight, some vendors do make standard-sized non-medical weight versions:  SensoryGoods has 9-14 lb blankets for adult 'casual' use.   These blankets are NOT cheap -- most of the online vendors are small companies making these to-order on demand.  Make sure this is an investment you think will help you before running out and buying one . A 25lb blanket runs about $200 on average.   You can DIY one, and there are plenty of instructions online.  This is one of the best.

Clocks and Callouts

Next person to say "oh, getting arrested was the best thing to ever happen to that kid with the clock, he has astronauts and the president tweeting him now" gets junk punched. NO one, especially not a CHILD, should have to go through a traumatic arrest to be afforded opportunities their upper class white peers take for granted. 

No question, I am thrilled Ahmed is now being offered these life-changing opportunities that have greatly opened up his personal future. But a child as bright as Ahmed should have MIT and NASA courting him *already*, not just the sudden interest as a gesture to make up for someone else's shit. And yes, now he has more opportunities than he can make use of in a lifetime - but he is an outlier.

For every Ahmed, when others make good on someone else's bad, how many poor, queer, disabled, non-neurotypical, non-white, children slip through the cracks? How many are met with, at best neglect, and at worst active hostility and legal action? This one moment of so many stepping forth - while excellent on the part of those that stepped forth - does not absolve us of every other child lost.

So NASA, Facebook, Twitter, MIT, UT, Col. Hadfield, Google, Box, etc: I call on you to do more than reach out for this one child. Create an engineering scholarship in his name for others like him. Reach out to the larger problem, not just this one young man.  

To all that have invited Ahmed to visit, compete, or tour: I hope the offer includes his travel fees and lodging, and if they don't, they need to. The majority of families aren't going to be able to afford to fly their child out to Silicon Valley for the weekend at the last minute. These are fantastic offers, and he absolutely should not have to turn any of them down for fiscal reasons. If the intent behind them is genuine, they've got to be ones he can realistically take advantage of.
On a related note, his is the ONLY official fundraiser for Ahmed: https://www.launchgood.com/project/istandwithahmed   and it warms my heart to see this wonderful young man has come to the same conclusion: that this is far, far bigger than just him.  So he's started a fundraiser where 50% of money raised will go to his college tuition, and 50% will go to giving other bright youngsters year-long memberships to MakerSpace to help build their own dreams. He's already giving from what he's getting, and I hope others follow his example.