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On celebrating the death of bin Laden

Mel Green — Wed, 04 May 2011 18:02:18 +0000

Since Sunday night’s announcement by President Obama that U.S. forces had killed Osama bin Laden, I’ve read a lot of stuff about whether or not it’s okay or moral to be glad about his death or to celebrate it.

My own reaction was a combination of glad he can no longer bring harm, but also pensive & mournful about the harm his followers & sympathizers, as well as his detractors & enemies, have already caused & will continue to cause. That, or something like it, seems to have been a pretty common reaction… a sense of relief or release coupled with sadness, as at the end of a long ordeal. One of Andrew Sullivan’s readers:

You know the odd thing? I’m not feeling … ecstatic. I’m just feeling a kind of sad relief. I recall reading Miep Gies‘ book about her role in hiding the Frank family. When it was declared that there was victory in Europe, she said that people in Holland were hysterical and tearing into the streets to celebrate. But her husband, who’d risked so much working in the resistance movement, just sat quietly. She asked if they should go out and celebrate with everyone. He said no. It seems too much had happened. Too much pain witnessed. Too much death as a result. He was tired. It was enough to just know that it was finally over. I think I know what he meant.

Andrew Sullivan himself:

I pray tonight for the souls of the departed who died that awful day, and all their family members and friends. I pray for the souls of those great Americans who resisted on Flight 93. I pray for all those who have died in the two wars that followed this atrocity. As a Christian, I am also required to pray for the soul of Osama bin Laden. Yes, even him.

Some conservative Christian leaders quoted a biblical caution:

Do not rejoice when your enemies fall, and do not let your heart be glad when they stumble. (Proverbs 24:17)

(Never mind that there are also biblical verses that celebrate the deaths of enemies.)

Quote added 12:05 PM: His Holiness the Dalai Lama today in Los Angeles, per the Los Angeles Times:

As a human being, Bin Laden may have deserved compassion and even forgiveness, the Dalai Lama said in answer to a question about the assassination of the Al Qaeda leader. But, he said, “Forgiveness doesn’t mean forget what happened. … If something is serious and it is necessary to take counter-measures, you have to take counter-measures.”

Here’s my take.

In 1979 I wrote a paper in college in which I quoted an article from a Japanese academic journal from 1970. (In translation — I didn’t know Japanese then, & I don’t know it now.) The article was “Religious Consciousness and the Logic of the Prajnaparamita Sutra” by Nishida Kitarō (1870–1945), an important Japanese philosopher. I still have my college paper somewhere hereabouts, but damned if I’m going to track it down in the middle of the night. However, I still have the quote handy because I wrote about it on an email discussion list I was part of in 1998.

(Yes: I have email archives that go back that far — as far back, in fact, to 1994. Besides having an MFA in Creative Writing & a B.A. in Religion, I am also a geek of the email-retentive variety.)

Let’s assume that there is not only Him and man represented in the quote which follows herewith, but also Her and woman:

The absolute God must include absolute negation within Himself. It must be God who can descend into absolute evil. It is a truly absolute God by being God who saves the wicked and the immoral. The highest form must be one which transforms the lowest matter into form. Absolute Agape must reach even to the absolutely evil person. In the relationship of inverse polarity, God must be hidden even within the heart of the absolutely evil man. A God who merely judges is not an absolute God. But this does not mean that God looks indifferently at good and evil….

I don’t have any illusions of being absolute God in my abilities or desires to love, agape-wise, the absolutely evil person. Yet to the extent that I can recall my own wrongdoings and, by extrapolation, imagine my way into the skin of someone further along the spectrum towards evil than I (presumably!) am — well. I’m not sure how far I can go. But I can go at least a ways in that direction. Usually I can find there a person who is recognizably human, and recognizably suffering, and recognize my own humanity and suffering in that person.

Sometimes I can’t imagine that far. Yet I’m certain that illimitable god, the truly absolute God by being God, can.

I have been a universalist (in a nondenominational sense) for a long time, in at least some degree since late junior high when I put behind me the belief that there is only one way to God. Universalist: someone who believes that all will be reconciled to god: in my case because if, as I believe, god is the universe and everything in it, then no one is completely separable from god. God is in our breath & our bones, our very substance — body, mind, & spirit.

Nishida Kitarō (1870–1945). Via Wikimedia Commons.

I think that conviction was implicit in my understanding as early as back then, in late junior high; but it was probably my 1979 encounter with Nishida Kitarō which brought it explicitly to my consciousness. (A big thank you to my professor, T. James Kodera at Wellesley College, who put Nishida’s article, & so much else, in my hands.) I don’t have that article still, but I recall Nishida saying something about how (in the Christian scheme of things) God is seen as absolute good, Satan as absolute evil: but that by virtue of them being absolutes in opposition to one another, that also puts them in relationship with one another. They are not, in other words, flung off from each other, but are inextricably tied to one another, like the two ends of a ruler, or two ends of a rope in some cosmic tug-of-war. With God, of course, on the winning side, such that even Satan will ultimately be pulled over to the side of good.

Actually, I can learn much more from Nishida now, because I recently ordered a couple of books by/about him, which are sitting at my bedside as part of that rather large pile of books to be read. And in fact one of these books, Last Writings: Nothingness and the Religious Worldview, appears to incorporate Nishida’s discussion in the article I encountered in 1979.

But I’ll get to that later. Right now its enough to know that in 1979 I found Nishida’s argument persuasive, and I still find it so today.

In the relationship of inverse polarity, God must be hidden even within the heart of the absolutely evil man.

And so it was with a sense of recognition that I read a blog post that a Facebook friend linked to yesterday. It’s a post by Susan Piver called “Osama bin Laden is dead. One Buddhist’s response.” Here’s the passage that particularly stood out for me:

Was there even a hint of vengefulness or gladness at Osama bin Laden’s death? If so, that is a real problem. Whatever suffering he may have experienced cannot reverse even one moment of the suffering he caused. If you believe his death is a form of compensation, you are deluded.

There has been an outpouring of misdirected jubilation, as if a contest had been won. Nothing has been won. Unlike winning a sporting event, this doesn’t mean that our team has triumphed. Far from it. There is only one team and it is us. When those of us (especially our leaders) who now foment violence choose instead to try to create peace, then we will truly have cause for celebration.

One of us is gone, one apparently horrific, terrible, vicious one of us…is gone. I don’t feel regret for him or about this. I’m regretful for the rest of us who are now left thinking that this is a cause for celebration. It is not. It is a cause for sorrow at our continued inability to realize that there is no such thing as us and them; that whatever we do to cause harm to one will harm us all. [emphasis added]

There is only one team and it is us. Not just a Buddhist sentiment: I agree with her. For whatever reason, some twistedness took hold of Osama bin Laden, & in thus he wrought evil upon evil. All the same, he is — he was — one of us, as much as were all the people who lost their lives or loved ones in consequence of his twistedness.

But while I myself can’t bring myself to celebrate bin Laden’s death, precisely, nor do I regret it. Nor do I begrudge or judge those who do celebrate it.

A God who merely judges is not an absolute God. But this does not mean that God looks indifferently at good and evil….

That’s all the further I got with the quote when I cited it in an email in 1998. But what’s Nishida say after the ellipsis? In Nishida’s Last Writings, the same or a similar passage (with some differences — whether because Nishida refined his language, or because it had a different translator, I don’t know) reads:

A God who merely judges the good and the bad is not truly absolute. But this does not mean that God looks indifferently at good and evil. To conceive of God as a supremely indifferent perfection does not square with the testimony of our spirit. [emphasis added]

It’s the testimony of our spirit that leads some of us to raucous celebration of the death of the terrorist who did so much evil — just as many must have celebrated the death of Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot.

As for me, the testimony of my spirit is that doing good — being in right relationship with and taking right action toward myself and others and this grand and infinite universe of which we all are part — is reward and motivation in itself to continue to do good. I feel at peace & easy in my skin when I do good. Whereas to do wrong is its own punishment: it makes me feel horrible to hate, & even worse to harm others — to harm is a hell that also harms me: it twists me, it makes me ugly, it makes me a stain on the face of creation & a stink in my own nostrils.

That’s what Osama bin Laden did to himself, however much he may have rationalized that such twistedness was demanded of him by God. Few of us who suffered from the evil he did will ever be able to forgive him. If illimitable & absolute god is not merely a judge — yet god does judge. And so, part & parcel of god, do we.

And sometimes the testimony of our spirit demands that we take ruthless action against those whose evil would continue to spread, if we did not stop them.

In that sense, I am glad that Osama bin Laden is dead. I find myself untroubled to know it.

Meanwhile, I also agree with what my niece, who’s living in New York City now, wrote on her Facebook wall yesterday:

maybe folks think it’s tacky to be happy about bin Laden’s death, but I think it’s even tackier to criticize the NYC folks’ feelings about it.

Obama 1, Osama 0. Photo by Dan Nguyen taken at Ground Zero in New York City after the announcement of Osama bin Laden's death. Photo used per Creative Commons license.

Rollins trial, day 12: Jury hears closing arguments

Mel Green — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 17:45:00 +0000

The trial in Case No. 3AN-09-07868CR, State of Alaska v. Rollins, is being heard before Anchorage Superior Court Judge Philip R. Volland. Today, closing arguments from the prosecution and the defense were heard, and the case went to the jury.

My tweets today were a mix of Rollins trial & Valentine’s Day. Today in Anchorage Superior Court, closing arguments were heard in the case, and then it went to the jury. We might hear a verdict as early as Tuesday. As has been the case through most of the trial, Grace Jang and photographer Ken Fankhauser of KTVA Channel 11 were in the courtroom livetweeting. (Eventually KTVA’s Twitter feed even got Fankhauser’s Twitter name spelled correctly.) See their Twitter feeds for a full account of the day’s events, or read/watch media coverage (links posted at the bottom of the post). Casey Grove of the Anchorage Daily News has also been doing some find reporting on this case.

Closing arguments were made for the state by Deputy District Attorney Sharon Marshall, for the defense by Fairbanks attorney Susan Carney. An excerpt from Casey Grove’s ADN piece on today’s events:

Marshall [for the state] at one point focused on Rollins’ position of authority.

She said one of the women, in her statement, spoke for all of the alleged victims regarding their feelings toward the officer.

” ‘He has so much power, he could cause problems for me,’ ” said Marshall, reading the woman’s words projected on a screen in court.

“When somebody stands in front of you with a badge and a gun, you’re supposed to respect that,” Marshall said. “He’s on official duty every time this happens.”

Turning to face Rollins later, Marshall raised her voice almost to a shout, saying he was so arrogant he thought his alleged victim wouldn’t go to police.

“This was all soft, subtle power abuse, situational force,” Marshall said.

Carney [defense attorney] said Rollins loved being an officer.

“He was handsome, a dashing figure in his uniform,” Carney said.

Carney implored the jurors to look at each case separately.

“It’s a credibility contest,” Carney said. “It is literally a ‘she said, he said’ situation.”

Which drew this comment from ADN reader Just_Sayin2011:

No, that statement is wrong. The correct statement is:

“It is literally a ‘she said, she said, she said, she said, she said, AND she said vs he said’ situation.”

(I made a similar comment in my tweets.)

Late in the day, Matthew Felling of KTVA tweeted,

Attn, Anchorage – Keep an eye out for @GraceJangKTVA for Rollins verdict info. She is *the* point of contact with Anchorage court.

That’s where I’ll be looking.

My tweets

Closing arguments in Anthony Rollins trial: ex-APD officer accused serial rapist. @GraceJangKTVA & @photogfank in court livetweeting. #fb #
Anthony Rollins trial: @RebeccaPalsha of KTUU also in courtroom. #fb #
RT: @KTVA: Closing Arguments happening now in Anthony Rollins Trial. Follow @GraceJangKTVA and @photogfrank / Hey KTVA it’s @photogfank no R #
Photo from @NASA shows the Moon wishing us all a Happy Valentine’s Day! http://go.nasa.gov/hf7cNp #
Note to Valentine celebrators: candy/chocolate is not a gift that says “I love you” to me — it says you want me to become diabetic. #
Rollins trial — RT: @GraceJangKTVA: Defense: It’s a “he said, she said” situation, so need to look at evidence #
(but actually it’s a “she independently said x 6″ / “he said” situation, and all 6 of the “she saids” say much the same thing) #
Colbert Report’s Most Golden Standard Ron Paul Moments: In honor of Paul’s v. meaningful victory at CPAC http://bit.ly/giaVF5 #
RT: @GraceJangKTVA: Rollins case now goes to jury #fb #
RT: @shannynmoore: Happy Single Awareness Day, Tweethearts! #VD // gee, I don’t want VD whether I’m single or not! #
RT: @adndotcom: The sexual-assault case of ex-APD officer Anthony Rollins is now in the hands of the jury. http://bit.ly/eM4Nxy #fb #
RT: @richarddoetsch: ♞The writer you wish to be like the most? // A cross between Ursula K. Leguin & C.J. Cherryh. #
@Scallywag195 Write another one, of course! in reply to Scallywag195 #
RT: @matthewfelling: Attn, Anchorage Keep eye out for @GraceJangKTVA for Rollins verdict. She is *the* point of contact with ANC court. #fb #

Media coverage

14 Feb 2011. “Rollins’ jury hears closing arguments on sexual assaults: CLOSING: Deputy DA says alleged sex acts all about ‘power abuse’” by Casey Grove (Anchorage Daily News).
14 Feb 2011. “Jury Hears Closing Arguments in Rollins Sexual Assault Case” by Rebecca Palsha (KTUU Channel 2 News).
14 Feb 2011. “Rollins Day 12: Defense Says He ‘Sinned,’ Committed No Crime” by Grace Jang (KTVA Channel 11 News).

Here’s Grace Jang’s story broadcast on KTVA. KTVA summarized the defense and prosecution arguments on what kind of man Anthony Rollins is: “A God-fearing man or wolf in sheep’s clothing?”

Rollins trial, day 11: Rollins claims he’s a sinner, but not a rapist

Mel Green — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 17:45:00 +0000

The trial in Case No. 3AN-09-07868CR, State of Alaska v. Rollins, is being heard before Anchorage Superior Court Judge Philip R. Volland. The case will go to the jury on Monday, Feb. 14, after closing arguments from the prosecution and the defense.

Today in court, cross-examination of Anthony Rollins, the former Anchorage Police Department officer accused of serial rape while on the job, concluded. Rollins continued to claim that any sexual contact he had with alleged victims was consensual in nature. Rther than a rapist, he claimed he was an adulterer who had violated his marital oath:

I made some bad choices, I’m sorry I sinned against my god and against my family, and I’m, I’m sorry. I let a lot of people down.

As KTVA Channel 11 summarized its story on the day’s proceedings (video at the bottom of this post),

As a married man and former Anchorage police officer, Anthony Rollins took two oaths both of which he admits on the stand to violating.

Those oaths were his marital oath and his oath as an Anchorage police officer. Rollins took a third oath on the witness stand to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. By denying that he sexually assaulted his accusers, did he violate a third oath as well? That’s the implication Deputy District Attorney Sharon Marshall left us with as she concluded cross-examination.

Rollins testimony was followed by the state calling back to the stand an APD officer who clarified on proper police procedure on how DUI’s are booked & processed, the proper use of APSIN (Alaska Public Safety Information Network) record checks, etc.

Judge Volland then told the jury he needed to meet with counsel (both defense & prosecution) on jury instructions. Final arguments will be heard on Monday, 14 February. 14 jurors have sat through the trial; 2 will be dismissed and deliberations will begin with 12 jurors on Monday after final arguments.

Today’s tweets

Anthony Rollins trial, day 11: @GraceJangKTVA and @photogfank in court livetweeting. Rollins cross-examination to continued. #fb #
Rollins trial: People livetweeting trial can be followed here: http://twitter.com/#!/list/yksin/rollins — so fa todayr just KTVA folks. #fb #
@KTVA – you do know don’t you that any attempt to visit your website right now results in “Server not found”? #
@KTVA DNS servers seem to be wrongly pointing requests for ktva.com instead to http://search.kvta.com/ (note transposed letters). #
Rollins trial via @GraceJangKTVA: Judge to work w counsels on jury instructions, closing arguments on Monday. #fb #
Rollins trial via @GraceJangKTVA: Jury will begin deliberations Monday afternoon. #fb #
Thanks again to @GraceJangKTVA and @photogfank, both of @KTVA Channel 11, for keeping the twitterverse informed in Rollins trial. #fb #
RT: @adndotcom: Ex-cop Rollins continues to deny sex assaults but admits he ‘sinned’ on the job. http://bit.ly/ifoa1C // [shaking head] #fb #

Media accounts of today’s testimony

11 Feb 2011. “Rollins sorry for ‘bad choices’ but maintains his innocence — SEXUAL ASSAULT TRIAL: He sticks to denials under cross-examination” by Casey Grove (Anchorage Daily News).
11 Feb 2011. “Rollins Trial Day 11: Final Day of Testimonies” by Grace Jang (KTVA Channel 11 News).

Video from KTVA (story by Grace Jang, photography by Ken Fankhauser):

Rollins trial, day 10: Rollins takes the stand

Mel Green — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 17:45:00 +0000

The trial in Case No. 3AN-09-07868CR, State of Alaska v. Rollins, is being heard before Anchorage Superior Court Judge Philip R. Volland in the Nesbett Courthouse at 4th & I in Anchorage.

Wednesday, February 9 at the trial of Anthony Rollins: before a packed courtroom, the ex-Anchorage Police Department officer accused of serial rape while on-duty took the stand in his own defense.

Cross-examination by the prosecution is expected to resume on Thursday morning. Yesterday I created a Twitter list of people who are in the courtroom livetweeting the trial: go to http://twitter.com/#!/list/yksin/rollins to follow. So far, the list includes @GraceJangKTVA & @photogfank of KTVA Channel 11 News and @CarolynHallKTUU & @RebeccaPalsha of KTUU Channel 2 News.

Also Wednesday, my blog post of February 2, “Why I’m following the trial of alleged serial rapist Anthony Rollins”was crossposted as a “Voices from the Flats” feature at The Mudflats. The Mudflats gets a good deal more traffic & discussion than Henkimaa does, and there was some good discussion there yesterday. I made some comments there too, including my summary of Rollins’ defense strategy:

Rollins’ defense goes like this: “I had sexual relations with other women outside my marriage, which was wrong, & I did so while on duty, which was wrong, but I didn’t sexually assault any of the women: they came on to me, at least two of them told me I was ‘cute’ [he testified that this morning about victims 1 & 2], & sex that we had was consensual. So while guilty of betraying my marital vows and of doing so while on the clock, I am not guilty of these crimes I’m charged with.”

Per the tweets from KTVA & KTUU journos in the courtroom, Rollins’ victims & their family members hearing his testimony are very agitated about his testimony — shaking heads, rolling eyes, tears, anger, upset. APD officers in courtroom near one journo also agitated. Analysis: they believe he’s lying. Well, so do I.

My later summary as the trial recessed:

Trial recessed just before 1:00 PM Alaska time & will continue tomorrow. The D.A. questioned Rollins about three so far of his accusers. I tell you that it’s pretty hard just to read the tweets; I can’t imagine how much harder it must have been for victims & their family members to sit in court & listen to Rollins claim that he took a 24-year-old DUI suspect in pajamas in handcuffs to a police substation, calling her mother to let her know where he was, & then proceeding to have sex with her from behind — where he was the one to pull down her pants — was “consensual” & was “invited” by her.

That’s the kind of stuff people have been hearing him say today.

D.A. also questioned him about how many women he’s had sex with outside marriage since he married his wife (also an APD officer) in 1987. “I don’t know. More than once.” He apparently regards his contacts with these young women who were under his police authority as being “affairs.”

One’s gorge rises.

For the full comments, go to The Mudflats. Further down this post, links to media coverage of today’s proceeding. But first,

My tweets

RT: @adndotcom: Ex-officer Rollins expected to testify in own defense today in sex assault trial. http://bit.ly/fCmDym #
Featured today on The Mudflats: my 2/2 post on why I’m following trial of alleged serial rapist Anthony Rollins http://bit.ly/exEPff #fb #
In court: @GraceJangKTVA & @photogfank again livetweeting. Rollins to take stand; courtroom packed incl. Rollins’ wife & APD cops. #fb #
Also livetweeting Rollins trial: @CarolynHallKTUU & @RebeccaPalsha. #fb #
Anthony Rollins trial: follow http://twitter.com/#!/list/yksin/rollins to see KTVA & KTUU livetweets. #fb #
Rollins claims: all 4 victims he testified about so far flirted w/ him, 2 said he was “cute”. Serial rapist/serial liar both. #fb #
Anthony Rollins trial: State now cross-examining Rollins. See http://twitter.com/#!/list/yksin/rollins to follow tweets of KTVA/KTUU. #fb #
RT: @NathanFillion: Orbis book & Spidey are dead on, but what’s Amazon trying to say with this other “suggestion”? http://yfrog.com/h46wysmj #
Rollins: RT: @GraceJangKTVA: Trial in recess until tomorrow. Attys expected to finish evidence tomorrow. Closing statements Fri or Mon #fb #
RT: @GraceJangKTVA: Side note: Do not ever get on Chief Asst. District Attorney Sharon Marshall’s bad side #fb #
@celticdiva Thanks! in reply to celticdiva #

Media accounts of today’s testimony

9 Feb 2011. “Former APD Officer Accused of Sexual Assaults Testifies” by Rebecca Palsha (KTUU Channel 2 News).
9 Feb 2011. “Ex-officer Rollins testifies sex acts were consensual — ON THE STAND: Former cop admits to some encounters, denies others” by Casey Grove (Anchorage Daily News).
9 Feb 2011.“Was it Rape or Consensual? Anthony Rollins Takes the Stand” by Grace Jang (KTVA Channel 11 News). (Video below.)

Rollins trial, day 7: See Ivan Moore’s column on “consent” in rape cases

Mel Green — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 08:45:00 +0000

The trial in Case No. 3AN-09-07868CR, State of Alaska v. Rollins, is being heard before Anchorage Superior Court Judge Philip R. Volland in the Nesbett Courthouse at 4th & I in Anchorage. The trial resumes Monday, February 7.

Once again the trial of Anthony Rollins, the former Anchorage Police Department cop accused of serial rape — was livetweeted by Grace Jang of KTVA Channel 11 News, Christine Kim of KTUU Channel 2 News, and photographer Ken Fankhauser in livetweeting the Anthony Rollins trial. Once again, I didn’t do much retweeting, so see their Twitter feeds for complete coverage. Or, follow the links below to media stories on today’s (Thursday, February 3) day in court.

You’ll also want to take a look at Anchorage pollster Ivan Moore’s column which was posted online today at by the Anchorage Press (to appear also in tomorrow’s print version). Moore wrote about “consent” in rape cases — from former Anchorage School District music teacher Satch Carlson (after whom the eponymous “Satch Carlson” law) to Anthony Rollins. I still harbor some anger at Moore for his suggestion in 2009 that we should throw transfolk under the bus if we wanted to get an equal rights ordinance in Anchorage (I wrote about the issue here and here), but on the topic of rape, consent, Satch Carlson, & Anthony Rollins — he’s spot on. Thank you, Mr. Moore.

The Rollins trial will resume on Monday, February 7. The state is expected to complete its case that day, at which point the defense will take up its case. Until then, I’ll try to think up other stuff to tweet about.

RT: @adndotcom: 5th alleged victim testfies against former Anch. cop in sex-assault trial. http://bit.ly/f4Boql // Anthony Rollins trial #
RT: @SciInMyFi: Coffee #science for the morning office crew? Roast ark brown for antioxidants: http://bit.ly/hfjyKp // mmm French roast! #
RT: @SciInMyFi: Coffee good for women but bad for men in stressful situations? http://bit.ly/eeXprH #science #sff #
Anthony Rollins trial day 7, ex-APD cop accused as serial rapist: being livetweeted by @GraceJangKTVA @christineKTUU @photogfank #fb #
Guardian (UK): Are science fiction and fantasy poised to break into the literary canon? Man Booker Prize nominees? http://bit.ly/fC8As3 #
Anchorage Press > Ivan Moore on “Defining “consent” in rape cases, from Satch Carlson to APD officer Anthony Rollins http://t.co/L3zrVXx #
Per @GraceJangKTVA: Anthony Rollins trial resumes Monday. Judge says state will rest case on Monday; trial progressing quickly. #fb in reply to GraceJangKTVA #
@exart @audioleo OK just what the heck is Thunderant & Portlandia? in reply to exart #
@audioleo @exart Thanks! in reply to audioleo #
@10ch Oops! Getting a lot of wrong email, hey? in reply to 10ch #
Via @adndotcom final alleged sex assault victim testified at Anthony Rollins trial earlier today. http://bit.ly/dMaNAt // #fb #
Here again, my Henkimaa post from yesterday: Why I’m following the trial of alleged serial rapist Anthony Rollins http://t.co/MR74Kah #

Coverage of Day 7 in the press:

3 Feb 2011. “Phone calls by police led to 6th alleged victim in Rollins case” by Casey Grove (Anchorage Daily News).
4 Feb 2011. “The Moore Report: Defining ‘consent’” by Ivan Moore (Anchorage Press).

(I’ll add the KTUU & KTVA stories when they become available.)

Rollins trial, day 5: 2 women testify (& other daily tweets)

Mel Green — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 07:45:00 +0000

The Andrew Rollins trials was again livetweeted by Grace Jang of KTVA Channel 11 News. See her Twitter feed for details, as I did not retweet. But, I did embed her report from tonight’s KTVA broadcast below; the video from yesterday’s broadcast is embedded in yesterday’s Daily Tweets post.

Day 5 of Anthony Rollins trial – ex-APD cop accused of multiple sexual assaults while on duty. @GraceJangKTVA is again livetweeting. #fb #
Also, @GraceJangKTVA‘s report last night on @KTVA : Details of Texts, Condoms Emerge in Day 4 of Rollins Trial http://bit.ly/etMgUJ #fb #

See also the story now posted overnight at the Anchorage Daily News website:

1 Feb 2011. “Witnesses describe encounters with Rollins in substation — SUBSTATION: 2 women tell jurors of unwanted sexual experiences with officer” by Lisa Demer (Anchorage Daily News).

Choosy bloggers choose GIF

RT: @haronno: Settle a debate: is .gif pronounced “gif” or “jif”? // GIF (hard G). Avoids confusion w a really crappy brand of PB (Jiffy). #
@haronno: I mean Jif (brand of crappy peanut butter). But the real truth is: choosy bloggers chose GIF. #

And then, (mostly) writing….

RT: @jodotha: Tonight is #writeclub! Meeting at Sugarspoon at the usual time. Yay! // Looking forward to it – after I get my teeth cleaned. #
Best hopes & prayers for Queenslanders as they brace for Tropical Cyclone Yasi. Stay safe. http://bit.ly/fLwTKv #fb #
Heading out to get my teeth cleaned… I mean, beyond normal post-meal toothbrushing. Tonight my teeth will sparkle. Don’t get blinded. #fb #
@exart Fever much better to have than super depression, most def. Take care, hope you feel better soon. #
@sandykidd Buncha us in Anchorage #amwriting too — #nanowrimo types at regular Tues #writeclub gathering. Good luck unblanking that novel! #
Reorging 4 years worth of @NaNoWriMo writing using @ScrivenerApp – best writing software I could ever have hoped to find. #
@basiaak You did it! (replied to tweet). No worries, there will be other days my laptop comes to work w/ me. #
@sandykidd That’s what a lot of us do! Well, except when we have to go to & from work. #
Writing Raven @ Alaska Real nails it on religious bigotry from right re: Carlos Gonzales’ blessing for Giffords http://bit.ly/hY9GWe #fb #

Good for my worldbuilding, bad for my world

Mel Green — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 09:08:30 +0000

Mars mosaic from a compilation of images captured by Viking Orbiter 1. At center is the entire Valles Marineris canyon system, over 3,000 km long and up to 8 km deep. To the left are a volcanoes of the Tharsis bulge — Ascraeus Mons to the north, Pavonis Mons in the middle, & Arsia Mons in the shadow. Photo credit: NASA/USGS (via JPL Photojournal)

Worldbuilding, Wikipedia helpfully tells us, is

the process of constructing an imaginary world, sometimes associated with a fictional universe.

The Wikipedia article focuses on the creation of worlds & the cultures that live in them by writers of science fiction & fantasy — for instance, Tolkien’s Middle-Earth in The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings trilogy, or the planet Cyteen in C.J. Cherryh’s novels Cyteen and Regenesis, to name but a couple of my favorite imaginary worlds.

But to my mind, worldbuilding isn’t restricted only to completely imagined worlds & people — really, any writer of fiction engages in worldbuilding, even when writing the most mainstream fiction that takes place in a world looking “just like” the world you & I live in, because any fiction involves presenting the particular world(s) & worldview(s) of the characters that inhabit it.

As if you & I actually lived in the same world. Because isn’t your worldview, no matter who you are, so much different than mine? Yet there are some things we can agree on, at least most of us can — if only that rocks are hard to the touch, & water is wet. Consensual reality, it’s called. And that’s the point, at least in these coupla paragraphs of this blog post: there are some things a writer can generally assume her audience is familiar with, so that she doesn’t have to explain them; but other things that exist outside your normal frame of reference — that she has invented — yeah, of course she’ll need to explain. (Or show. As that familiar writer’s proverb goes, show don’t tell — though, as with all rules, there are exceptions.) Mainstream fiction, so-called, differs from science fiction & fantasy mainly in how closely it adheres to consensual reality, how much worldbuilding it has to do.

I could go on a lot longer about my thoughts about the different types of worldbuilding in different types of fiction (or, arguably, nonfiction), but then I’d never get to the point of this post — which is my worldbuilding, & how the recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC — along with everything else in U.S. & international law & custom that grants undue influence in how our governments & economies & lives are run to the fake persons known as corporations — is really really really good for my worldbuilding.

But really really really sucko for the world I actually live in.

Good for my worldbuilding

Artist's conception of Mars in process of terraformation from Wikimedia Commons. Used in accordance with GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2.

In early 2007 I decided that to jumpstart my writing after “life,” as usual, had decided to interfere with it, I was going to do National Novel Writing Month that November. The good people of NaNoWriMo itself suggest that it’s best not to do NaNoWriMo with a project one already has underway — which in my case would have been Mistress of Woodland — so I pulled an idea off the backburner of my mind & decided to work on a new project, Cold, which would be about two young women on a planet in the late stages of terraformation.

I told my friend Chris about it, & he told me I should read Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy — Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars. My brother Dave had previously recommended those books to me too. So, over the late winter & spring of 2007, I read them.

Good call, guys.

If I were to summarize the story of Robinson’s trilogy in one sentence, I’d say, It’s a science fiction story about terraforming Mars. Hence Red Mars — what the colonizers of the planet find when they get there; Green Mars — how it becomes green with growing plants; Blue Mars — how it becomes a second blue marble in the sky, like our own Earth, rich with liquid water on its surface & in its atmosphere.

But really, that’s only one theme of the trilogy. There’s also an ecological theme: is it right & ethical for us, humans from planet Earth, to remake another planet — even a presumably “dead” planet like Mars — into a second Earth? And meanwhile, what’s happening environmentally on the real Earth? — climate change, global warming, melting of Antarctica, rising seas, continuing overpopulation & pollution… in short, planetwrecking, at least in terms of keeping it habitable for human beings & numerous of our fellow species.

There’s also a third dominant theme: the long & arduous struggle of Robinson’s Martian colonists for freedom from the political & economic domination of Earth. Freedom not only from Earth’s numerous governments — but especially from Earth’s corporations, which have become so powerful that they are in many ways more powerful than governments themselves, both on Earth & on Mars.

Sound familiar?

Robinson isn’t, of course, the first SF writer to extrapolate from the scary situation we’re already in today vis-à-vis corporate power into some even scarier futures, with megacorporations having for all intents & purposes replaced any semblance of government of, by, & for the people. (Unless, of course, you persist in perversely insisting that corporations are people, like the U.S. Supreme Court does.) The science fiction subgenre called cyberpunk comes particularly to mind.

My imagined science fiction future is already extrapolated from the present, & the power corporations have is part of that. During NaNoWriMo 2007, for Cold, I started inventing a government called, simply, Consensus, which really is a government of, by, & for the people, but it was during NaNoWriMo 2009, for Long Dark, that I discovered how Consensus came into existence. I was writing stuff in the same story universe as Cold, but about three centuries earlier in the timeline; there, it became more apparent that the Consensus government came out of particular (invented) historical circumstances: namely, a rebellion by people living & working in the Asteroid Belt & outer solar system against the tyranny & exploitation of corporations, which, as usual, cared more about the corporate bottom line than about the welfare of their workers & their workers’ families.

So you see, that’s what’s so great about the Citizens United decision, & other corporate-power related phenomena. Here’s another word for you: verisimilitude: the appearance of being true or real. The more our public officials hand over the reins of government to corporations, the more plausible the story world I’ve built becomes. Wow, thank you Supreme Court!

Except, uh… like I said. This shit is —

Bad for my world

No, corporations aren’t the only things — er, I mean “people” — whose greed, thoughtlessness, short-sightedness, stupidity, self-aggrandizement, etc. etc., are bad for the world. They’re just on the current cutting edge of it. And the more we, or public officials supposedly acting in our name, hand political power to them, the more deeply cutting their edge is. The Citizens United ruling is just another step in that direction.

And nice as verisimilitude in fiction is, what would be even nicer would be to live in a world in which, for instance, we could trust that our elected officials were really responsible to us, instead of to corporations whose paid propaganda (so called “free speech”) put them in office.

In May 2007, when I was an active Wikipedia editor, I spent lots of time researching the career of Tom Anderson — in fact, I wrote most of the article about him in Wikipedia. Alaskans will recognize Tom Anderson as the first of our former legislators to be tried and convicted in the federal probe into political corruption in Alaska. I wrote the article in my typically geeky, super-detail-oriented style, with lots & lots of cites… & it took a lot of energy & effort. It’s certainly a lot more detailed article than you’re typically going to find in Wikipedia on a two-term state legislator, corrupt or not.

But for me it was well worth it, because compiling that biography, based solely on the written record (mostly articles from the Anchorage Daily News and the Juneau Empire) really brought home the lesson: whenever you bring corporate money into contact with public elections & officials, there are inherent conflicts of interest for those public officials which will erode their ability to serve the people who elect them. Sometimes, a public official will be so bollixed up by the conflict that they won’t even recognize it. Tom Anderson’s case is particularly illustrative.

For example, consider this instance from Anderson’s career, involving his relationship to Northeast Community Council, the council for the same part of Anchorage that Anderson himself was elected to represent in the Alaska House of Representatives. (Note that I’ve removed the citations contained in the article for ease of reading; see the article for citations.) —

Anderson played a significant role over two years from 2002 to 2004 in changing the composition of Anchorage’s Northeast Community Council to reflect more conservative political and economic views. Anderson encouraged friends and allies, including pastors and members of the locally influential Anchorage Baptist Temple, to pack the town meeting-style community council elections. By May 2004, six of the nine community council board members, including its president, were friends and political allies of Anderson. While Anchorage’s community councils have no real authority, they are influential with the Anchorage Assembly because, according to Dick Traini, then chair of the Anchorage Assembly, “they are the active people in the community that choose to be involved.” Community council involvement has been a first step in the political careers of several Alaska politicians.

In July 2004, Anderson was criticized in an Anchorage Daily News editorial for signing a $10,000 contract in 2003 with the Alaska oilfield services company VECO Corporation to consult “on local government and community council affairs.” Anderson had earlier told the Anchorage Daily News that he’d been approached by VECO after the end of the 2003 legislative session because it was aware he’d done similar consulting work before he became a legislator. He told the newspaper that most of his work for VECO was in seeking out civic and charitable events for the company to get involved in, and that he also monitored Anchorage’s community councils to see if there were zoning cases or other issues under discussion that might affect VECO. The newspaper noted that Anderson had received about $4,000 in campaign contributions from VECO employees or their spouses in the 2002 election that won him his first term in the Alaska House. By July 2004 he had received at least $3,500 in VECO-related contributions for his 2004 reelection bid.

Members of the community council later recalled Anderson attending all their meetings during 2003, and assumed he was attending as their representative in the state legislature. They did not learn he was there as a consultant for VECO until 2004, when his state financial disclosure form was filed with the Alaska Public Offices Commission, as required by law.

By the April 2006 election for Northeast Community Council, the effects of the 2004 takeover had been partially reversed, leaving the council nearly half and half liberal and conservative.

Indeed, who was Anderson representing when he attended community council meetings — his constituents in the Muldoon area of Anchorage (including my brother’s family)? or VECO, which was not only lining his pockets as a supposed “political consultant,” but also helped fund his election in the first place? (Some folks might also have interest in the connection between Anderson & Jerry Prevo’s megachurch the Anchorage Baptist Temple.)

Here’s another instance, from a couple years later —

In July [2006] Anderson was hired by the Anchorage Home Builders Association for $2,500 per month. The following month he testified before the Anchorage Assembly in favor of two stores that Wal-Mart wanted to build in his legislative district. The Northeast Community Council opposed the stores. At the Assembly meeting, Assembly chair Dan Sullivan introduced Anderson as “Representative Anderson,” but Anderson corrected him, stating that he was at the meeting in representation of the home builders association, which favored the Wal-Mart stores.

Again, who was Anderson representing? His legislative constituency? Or the home builders association & Wal-Mart? Obviously, he believed all that was necessary to keep himself in the clear, ethically, was to take off his “Representative” hat & put on his “paid consultant” hat, & magically the two roles would be kept completely separate. Right. Based upon the law as written, Anderson was not acting illegally. But the presence of conflict of interest is obvious — however oblivious he himself was to it.

Anderson was ultimately convicted of seven counts involving extortion, bribery, conspiracy, and money laundering after taking $26,000 worth of bribes funneled by Anchorage lobbyist Bill Bobrick through a sham corporation that Anderson was supposedly “consulting” for. The scheme was supposed to be for the benefit of a private prison company, Cornell, which was reportedly unaware of any of this; one of its employees, Frank Prewitt, was funneling the money as a confidential informant for the FBI.

I ran out of steam to write more detailed coverage on Anderson’s trial & its aftermath, but I remember quite well that his obliviousness to his ethical lapses extended into his public statements about his conviction. He still (or so he claimed) believed he’d done nothing wrong. Other former lawmakers convicted out of the same federal corruption investigation seemed similarly oblivious. Vic Kohring, Ted Stevens (who in my opinion is guilty even if his conviction was set aside because of prosecutorial misconduct) — all of them claim I did nothing wrong — even Pete Kott still claims this in spite of being caught on camera taking a bribe. I did nothing wrong. They take it as a given that it’s okay to take money, gifts, not to mention campaign donations, which will now be supplemented by unlimited campaign advertising from corporations so long as the corporations like them.

A lot of members of the public take all this as a given too. A lot of the public is going right along with the Citizens United decision, stating it as a great victory for “free speech.” Uh, s’cuse me — don’t you mean paid-for-with-megabucks speech?

Why do they take it as a given? Name your own theory, but here’s mine:

Most of us have become desensitized. We’ve grown so accustomed to the power of corporate money in every aspect of our lives that we take it for granted. It’s the famous “boiling frog” thing all over again. Over the span of many years — more than a century, now — as our lawmakers & law interpreters (the courts) progressively hand more & more power over to corporations —

corporate “personhood”
privatization of government functions — e.g., prison privatization, use of corporate private armies (mercenaries) like Xe (formerly Blackwater), etc.
deregulation
granting corporations “ownership” over segments of nature, like water, genes, microorganisms, etc.
unlimited corporate “free speech”
etc.

— we’re gradually, just like that frog, having the heat on us slowly turned up higher & higher & higher.

Okay, so the Citizens United case was a bit more widely noticed. See how many people are looking around and asking, Whoa… how’d we get here? This is fucked up.

Most of us do know that something is wrong, but we can’t seem to agree what the problems are, & therefore their solutions. And thanks to the power our government has handed over to corporations, they are free to use their “free speech” (that is, their money) to influence & distort our perceptions about what the problem is. So we continue to point our fingers at the wrong causes, propose the wrong solutions, fight about it all — & the heat keeps turning up, & corporations continue to enrich themselves at our expense, & accountable honest government slips ever further out of our hands.

Big Government (the kind the Tea Party folks don’t like) & Big Corporations are just two different faces of the same phenomenon: the fading away of democracy. The replacement of government of, by, and for the people with government of, by, and for the powerful few in order to control & exploit all the rest of us.

You know what I’m saying — that psychopathy thing I talked about a couple of weeks ago with reference to corporations. But y’know, psychopathic Big Government like, say Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union under Stalin, or a theocracy like those which Christianists are aiming for — in which anyone who doesn’t agree to toe the line of whatever arbitrary set of rules established by whatever arbitrary set of preachers or priests who claim to hold the blueprints of the heavens of some arbitrary bully-god — none of that crap is exactly desirable either.

What is desirable? Real democracy, of course. Real government of, by, and for the people. Government in which every stakeholder has a say and every stakeholder’s rights are protected and honored. Every stakeholder means every single person (real persons, that is, not fake “corporate persons”) who has any stake at all in how we operate our society. Which is to say: every. single. one. of. us.

That’s not how the U.S. government was set to operate, unfortunately. Our Founding Fathers did their best according to their own lights, I suppose, but they left a lot of stakeholders out of the loop. Women. Slaves. Children. Etc. Some of these oversights have been partially corrected through constitutional amendments, but the fact remains that real franchise — real ability to have a say in how society operates, & to have one’s own rights to life, liberty, & the pursuit of happiness — is still heavily restricted according to various kinds of status. Most of us still live under other people’s thumbs in one way or another. Some people win. Some people lose: their jobs, their homes, their families, their lives.

It’s just the way of the world, you say. But why? Is there another choice?

So here we are, back to worldbuilding

How can a society that is based on “some people win, and so does everybody else” be built?

That’s in essence what I’m trying to do in inventing the government of which my characters are part in Long Dark & Cold, which I named, simply, Consensus.

Notice that I said the government of which my characters are part. Not, by which my characters are governed. Because in this government, being a part of the government & being governed by it are one & the same thing. Nobody is not a member of the government. It truly is of, by, for the people.

Whoa, now, but wait a minute. Isn’t that pretty damn unrealistic? What about, y’know, that big word I used earlier? Verisimilitude.

Well, that’s the thing. I think it is realistic. Not only that, but just as the corporate exploitation against which my characters’ ancestors rebel can be easily extrapolated from the stuff we’re already living with in the world we live in here & now, so can I extrapolate my society’s Consensus government from forms of governance that already exist & are used successfully in the world we live in here & now. There are places, there are people, who are doing it now.

So nowadays I’m reading a lot about consensus, sociocracy, collective intelligence, & related ideas, on top of all the thinking & writing about this stuff I did on the fly during NaNoWriMo 2007 & 2009. I’ll be writing more about this in other blog posts.

Meanwhile, may these ideas be the foundation of more worldbuilding in the here & now of 2010 planet Earth. I see little hope for the old tried & untrue methods of adversarial & often antagonistic systems of governance that we’re more accustomed to. Health care reform debate, anyone?

How very pretty & hopeful our world looks out of the hostility & namecalling between political rivals these days. Not.

My story of 2009

Mel Green — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 08:19:28 +0000

And so I begin the new year by coming out of a period of silence.

A silence, to be sure, less profound than the one I inhabited this time last year. And for different reasons. In the last month or so, mainly I’ve just needed a break.

1. The cave

But on New Year’s Day 2009, I was living in a kind of emotional cave, with no desire or wherewithal to communicate with anyone outside my day-to-day life except immediate family. Especially my dad, who I’d learned just a couple of weeks before had been diagnosed with a terminal lymphoma. That news came on top of stuff I’d already been struggling with for some months, after my then-partner, Rozz who is now Ptery, made the decision while in school in Seattle to transition as a female-to-male (FTM) transsexual, & made accompanying decisions that have essentially ended our partnership as-it-was.

Thus, the cave, about which I wrote on April 2, a few days after coming out of it,

I seem to be have come out of the cave now. Not just feeling better — I’ve felt better a number of times (only to then go back into the grey again) — but actually able & willing to communicate. Maybe it was that I’m finally accepting the inevitable with my partner. Maybe it was finally getting the plane tickets bought to fly down in late April to see my dad. Maybe it was taking enough 5-HTP to keep the serotonin cooking in my brain. Maybe it’s the light coming into the days after a looooooong winter. Maybe it’s all just been perimenopause. Anyway… seems I’m back in the world again.

Now, before I go on, let me explain: this post isn’t just about the history of what I did or experienced in 2009: it’s also about what it meant. Or, better yet, the meanings I’ve made of it — because that’s what it’s all about, for me — the story, the stories each of us make of our lives. And this is my blog, of course, so this is my damn story.

And the story of coming out of the cave also has these meanings attached to it:

(1) The cave itself became a new term, describing a new form, of that rather large aspect of my life popularly known as depression (or, sometimes, despair): along with the grey, along with the pit, along with limbo — all of which are described in my late 2006 post The grey — the newly-discovered environment of the cave can include any one of the first three, or exclude all of them; it is chiefly characterized by that deep inability & lack of motivation to communicate. Big whooptie, a new term — but I do find the language useful in understanding myself around this stuff. Since, hey, halfway through my life give-or-take, I don’t see the depression/despair gunk suddenly evaporating from my life. It’s a part of who I am. I’m just lots better at handling it than before, & part of that is in refining my understanding of how it works in me.

(2) If I were to mark the exact date the cave walls dissolved around me, it would probably be March 30, 2009, which coincided with some important phone calls with Ptery, & also with my brother Mark & I buying our tickets to Spokane to see our dad for what we both understood would probably be the last time this side of our own deaths. And also on that day, I wrote a lengthy post in memorial to Nicholas Hughes, a fisheries biologist formerly at University of Alaska Fairbanks who had taken his own life the previous week. I hadn’t known him, but he was the son of the poets Sylvia Plath & Ted Hughes, & Plath especially had been an significant figure in my life. Not for the right reasons, initially — but the post explains that: it was my effort to honor Mr. Hughes not as mere adjunct to his famous parents’ biographies — as many of the news accounts of his death seemed to view him — but for who he himself was & for what he brought to all the people in his life, who were mourning him that day.

(3) My dad knew I’d been having a hard time. He was at peace with his own approaching death, & wanted us to be too. But beyond that, he wanted our happiness. He was so glad when he heard I’d come out of the cave. That was one of the very best things about it.

2. Lima beans against WAR

Wow, after the Summer of Hate experienced by the Anchorage LGBT & allied community over Anchorage Ordinance 2009-64, one almost forgets its political prelude, when then-Gov. Sarah Palin named Wayne Anthony Ross — widely known by his license-plate acronym as WAR — to succeed the disgraced Talis Colberg as Alaska’s Attorney General. Alaska’s top LGBT blog Bent Alaska informs us that its post about WAR, “Palin’s AG Pick Called Gays “Degenerates” (3/29/09), was one of its two 2009 posts to go viral — & that was even before he compared gays to lima beans, a vegetable that he “hates” but still claimed he could represent if he were, say, the lawyer for “United Vegetable Growers.” We lima beans were, needless to say, not favorably impressed.

Ross also had a history of biased & even misogynistic attitudes in relation to domestic violence, sexual assault, & violence against women; hostility to Alaska Native sovereignty & subsistence rights; a mediocre reputation as a practitioner of law amongst his fellow members of the Alaska Bar Association; & a pretty shaky attitude about executive branch ethics. Bad news all around: it motivated me to spend a considerable amount of time & energy researching him, listening to legislative confirmation hearings, & writing a very long letter to legislators, which I posted on my blog — thus embarking upon a part-time career as an occasional political blogger. I wrote a few other posts about WAR, & commented on other sites’ coverage of him (especially Bent Alaska), & celebrated with most of the rest of Alaska when the Alaska Legislature rejected him by a vote of 23 yeas to 35 nays — an unprecedented rejection of a governor’s cabinet pick.

It took a day or two for the Alaska Department of Law to remove WAR from its website. This screenshot was taken on April 16. The red X is mine.

3. Dad

I flew to Spokane with my brother Mark in late April to visit Dad. We also saw my sister Mer & brother-in-law Julius, with whom my Dad lived, and my brother Dave drove over from Montana. Ptery hitchhiked up, at my request, so I got to see him too.

Dad was so happy to have all of us there. He had a lot of energy too, considering how ill he was; but near the end, as we began to return to our homes, he took a turn for the worse, as if he’d been holding to life so that he could see us all before he left us to be with Mom. She had died in November 2005.

I took this picture during that trip: Dad telling one of his wonderful stories about growing up in the lumber camps of eastern Oregon in the 1920s where Grandpa Claude ran locomotives on the Sumpter Valley Railroad for the Oregon Lumber Company; or about the bootleg operation he & his pals in the Army Air Corps had in England during WWII; or about how he met my mom when he was looking for a job, & guy at Ellingson Lumber Company suggested he head to Izee because the camp cook there had two beautiful daughters. It was the younger of the two daughters, my Auntie Pat, who actually introduced my parents after Dad gave her a ride into John Day, where Mom was then working.

That photo on the wall behind Dad was his favorite picture of Mom, taken by a professional photographer shortly before they met. When I look at this photo, I feel his yearning to be with her again.

I last saw him on April 29. He died not quite a month later, on May 27. My sister was with him.

I’ve been at peace about Dad’s death almost from the beginning, partly because the peace he himself had about it put me at peace, & partly because of what for lack of better words I will call the messages that came, three of them — two of them to other family members, & the last one to me. My message was from my mother, in the form of sunflowers. It told me that Dad was with her, & they are both okay.

On July 12, as many family members as could make it, including me & my sister & brothers, all gathered together in Spokane to remember Mom & Dad & to celebrate all that they gave us.

I love you, Mom & Dad.

4. Anchorage Ordinance 2009-64

The Anchorage equal rights ordinance AO 2009-64 was introduced in the Anchorage Assembly on May 12, & thus was my career as an occasional political blogger made much less occasional.

AO 64 would have added sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of personal characteristics in Title 5, Anchorage’s equal rights code, which prohibits discrimination based on those characteristics in employment, housing, financial practices, education, and practices of the Municipality of Anchorage. The summer of 2009 in Anchorage featured a protracted period of public testimony at the Anchorage Assembly, with accompanying sign-waving and letter-writing both by ordinance supporters and those who opposed equal rights — led in particular by Jerry Prevo of the Anchorage Baptist Temple, who used “perverted” and other hate-terms to describe LGBT people, hence the name given the summer by commentator at the Anchorage Press: the Summer of Hate.

Identity Reports (1989) and One in 10 (1986)

From May to September, I wrote in the area of 60 posts about the ordinance, including a number that delved into the background & prevarications of its most vociferous opponent, Jerry Prevo. I also testified in support of the ordinance on June 16 ( the second of five nights of public testimony). My testimony was based on two major research efforts in the 1980s for Identity, Inc. in which we documented the rampant discrimination in Anchorage & in Alaska based on sexual orientation. (Our research unfortunately did not cover discrimination on the basis of gender identity, which we knew little about at the time.)

The ordinance passed the Anchorage Assembly on August 11, 2009, but was vetoed the following week by Mayor Dan Sullivan — the third time in Anchorage history that equal protection for at least some LGBTQ people in Anchorage was first granted, & then stripped away again.

We weren’t real happy.

5. Friends & allies

The Summer of Hate wasn’t all hate & horror. There was also some really cool stuff.

Cool stuff was people like Vic Fischer, Jane Angvik, & Arliss Sturgulewski testifying for the ordinance — people with just a teensy bit more credibility than, say, self-declared homophobic Bible-thumping Nazi “rascist” Eddie Burke.

Cool stuff was the huge number of people who turned out on the lawn of the Loussac Library to dance, blow bubbles, & hold signs upholding equal rights for all. The second week of public testimony, on which testimony was heard on two successive nights (June 16-17), was also the run-up to PrideFest, & every time I stepped out of the Assembly chambers for a breather, I felt like PrideFest was already in progress (once, that is, I got past the ABT redshirts & their hot dog tables).

I remember going out there one day & seeing how everyone — members of the LGBT community, & lots of non-LGBT folks including my nephew Miles & some of his friends — was celebrating equality & love for their fellow human beings, as sour-faced, red-shirted opponents stood nearby with their preprinted “Truth is Not Hate” signs agitating against equality. I thought to myself, I’m so proud of my people — & I found myself for the first time consciously including in my people not just other LGBT people, but all the numerous non-LGBT allies who took it for granted that equality meant all of us. And were as dumbfounded as we were at the “Truth is Not Hate” hate speech dropping out of the mouths of red-shirts both inside & outside the Assembly chambers.

On a personal level, I was lucky to make some new friendships. John & Heather Aronno, both now of Alaska Commons, who I met a few days before the first public hearing, became my favorite folks to sit next to at Assembly public hearings: three bloggers, all in a row.

One of my other favorite new people was (& is) Janson Jones, whose fantastic photography at Floridana Alaskiana v2.5 (including of the ordinance battle) first drew my attention. He’s also an all-around cool guy who also became a new dad over the summer — & his photos of his precious daughter Aurelia are pretty wonderful too.

Thanks to the ordinance battle, I also got reaquainted with a friend from way back, Linda Kellen Biegel of Celtic Diva’s Blue Oasis, who I hadn’t seen in years. I’d known Phil Munger of Progressive Alaska through email, but not until this summer did I meet him in person. I’ve known M.E. Rider of Grrlzlist, E. Ross of Bent Alaska, & longtime activist (& maker of Equality Works buttons) Stef Gingrich for years, though it was only through the summer that we saw much of each other, since normally — yes, true story — I’m pretty much a hermit.

It was the ordinance that brought me out, for ill & for good. Despite the ordinance’s eventual fate — for me personally, thanks to people like these, it was mostly for good.

6. Palinesque

Somewhere in the middle of this was Sarah Palin’s announcement on July 3 that she would be resigning her position as Governor of Alaska. I don’t blog that much about Palin — there are other Alaska bloggers who cover her quite thoroughly (thank goodness!) — but within a few days after her announcement, I got fed up with how the national mainstream media was uncritically passing along what I dubbed the 2 million dollar meme: Palin’s claim that $2,000,000 taxpayer (or rather, oil revenue dollars — this is Alaska, after all) had been spent on responding to ethical complaints against her. So I started taking it apart, & continued to do so over at total of six blog posts.

Wow did that raise traffic on my blog. I got nearly 1,800 hits on the first post of the series the first day after it was published; to date it’s gotten 5,530 hits, making it the most read post on my blog. The pie chart I created for that post also proved to be pretty popular.

My stuff didn’t stop Palin from repeating her lie; but then, who expected that it would? I’m no fool. I just hoped the damn mainstream media would wake up & do the job they’re paid to do — so that bloggers like me wouldn’t have to do it for free. I am proud to say that my efforts, which Anchorage Daily News reporter Sean Cockerham picked up on, contributed to Linda Perez of the Governor’s Office being forced to admit there were errors in the hokey spreadsheet the Governor’s Office had cooked up in an incompetent attempt to back up Gov. Palinocchio’s claim. Cockerham’s story (posted, as far as I know, only on the ADN’s Politics blog, but not as a full-fledged ADN story) said that Perez was going to follow up on further questions he’d brought up — I’ve seen no sign that she ever did, or that ADN itself cared. I didn’t follow up further myself because by time Perez ‘fessed up as much as she did, I was in Spokane with my family remembering my mom & dad. I have a feeling everyone who had actual responsibility (because, of course, they were more than mere “community organizers”) decided to drop it. Gee. I wonder why.

7. I got a new couch

More properly, it’s a futon loveseat. Whatever. I got it in August, & I’ve been vegging more happily (when I vege) ever since. My cat loves it too.

8. An effort to up-end the Alaska Judicial Council

Other things were going on in my life too, of course. But the political stuff stands out, because political blogging is not my great purpose in life — writing my own stuff is. And yet, I kept doing it.

And so it happens that in late August I learned of a lawsuit by which certain Alaska conservatives, most if not all of whom have ties to the so-called right-to-life movement, had filed suit nearly two months before — a fact not covered at all by Alaska’s mainstream media in spite of all of them having received the press release when the suit was filed — which would, if successful, overturn major provisions of the Alaska Constitution with regard to the selection & retention of state court judges. The lead attorney for the plaintiffs, James Bopp, Jr., is a big name: he has litigated similar issues elsewhere. My own feeling is that this guy is more likely to have shopped around for the Alaskans who could be named as plaintiffs in this case, than that the plaintiffs shopped around for him. His agenda appears to be a nationwide effort to politicize judicial selection, so that candidates can be selected through popular vote based on litmus test questions on hot-button issues (“What is your opinion on abortion?” — “What is your opinion on same-sex marriage?”), instead of being selected for their judicial integrity & knowledge of the law.

Through my job on staff of the Justice Center at University of Alaska Anchorage, which I’ve held since 1990, I’d become very familiar with Alaska’s judicial merit selection process, & have a lot of respect for it too, & for the quality of judges we have in this state. Not perfect — but a helluva lot better than in states that have the politicized & often politically corrupt types of selection processes that Bopp seems to prefer.

So, I read about Miller v. Carpeneti, & I wrote about it, & I even took a day off work to attend the hearing before Judge John W. Sedwick in the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska on September 11. I’m not a lawyer, but I read through most of the briefings, & it didn’t seem to me that Bopp’s arguments held much water. Judge Sedwick apparently agreed: he heard arguments from both sides & then dismissed the case. His opinion was published on September 15.

But we haven’t heard the last from Mr. Bopp: he’s appealed the case to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and, last I heard, the last briefs in the case must be filed no later than February 10, 2010. Oral arguments might then follow. If Bopp fails at the Ninth Circuit, there’s every possibility he might appeal all the way up to the Supreme Court — he’s argued before them before, & won.

Meanwhile, I continue to wonder what in hell is wrong with the Alaska mainstream media, including our supposed paper-of-record, the Anchorage Daily News. First they all failed to follow up any further on Palin’s spreadsheet-of-hooey in support of her 2 million dollar meme-of-hooey; now it turns out they sat for nearly two months on a press release issued in early July about a lawsuit that could theoretically undermine our state constitution with regard to judicial selection. Phil Munger at Progressive Alaska has drawn attention to numerous other instances in which the press has sat on its duff instead of investigating & reporting stuff that in some cases is right in front of their faces — for instance, the numerous lies propounded throughout Palin’s putative “memoir,” which the ADN has yet to write any review on. What else are they sitting on? How are we to have democracy that way, if the MSM isn’t doing its job?

Oh yeah, I remember now. Bloggers like me are supposed to do that job nowadays. In our spare time. For free.

(All due respect to those reporters who as far as I can tell are doing their best to do their job — but are being shut down by management. I know you guys are out there.)

9. True Diversity Dinner

In the aftermath of Sullivan’s veto of AO 64, several of us bloggers who had been heavily involved in writing about it started talking about what we might do keep the flame alive. Several of us met at lunchtime one day, & out of someone’s suggestion — I don’t remember whose — next thing you know, the True Diversity Dinner was born. Its immediate impetus was that the upcoming Mayor’s Diversity Dinner, an event originally created during the administration of Mayor, now Senator, Mark Begich, had been renamed Mayor’s Unity Dinner by Mayor Dan Sullivan — the same guy who had just vetoed equal rights for Anchorage’s lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transfolk.

Instead of protesting, we decided to celebrate the rich diversity that the Mayor’s renaming of the dinner seemed designed to whitewash away. The True Diversity Dinner was our alternative, with the motto, “Because we all deserve a seat at the table.” It was organized by the bloggers of Alaska Commons, Anchorage Won’t Discriminate, Bent Alaska, Floridana Alaskiana v2.5, Grrlzlist Alaska, Henkimaa, and SOSanchorage.net — but especially by John & Heather Aronno (Alaska Commons & SOSAnchorage.net), who I fear fell far behind in their studies thanks to the dinner.

But it was well worth it, right guys? It was a tremendous event, with great speakers including my Assembly person Elvi Gray-Jackson, former Congressional candidate & longtime activist for Alaska Native rights Diane Benson, Rev. Marquita Pierre of the Center for Spiritual Healing, & radio host & blogger Shannyn Moore.

On top of that, I was honored to be the recipient of a True Diversity Award for Excellence in Online Media for coverage on my blog of the battle for the Anchorage equal rights ordinance. Booyah!

At the True Diversity Dinner. Photo by Janson Jones.

10. Hilton workers

And more occasional politics.

When the True Diversity Dinner was first thought up, I hadn’t known that Mayor Sullivan’s Unity Dinner was booked for the Hilton Anchorage Hotel — which was (& still is) under boycott by its workers due to the bad faith practices of its management on orders of the Hilton’s owners, Kentucky-based Columbia Sussex Corporation. A blog post by Shannyn Moore brought my attention to the fact that the Mayor’s Unity Dinner was also a union-busting dinner. I spent some time researching & writing about the labor dispute, & also attended the Hotel Workers Rising March from the Sheraton (which is now also under boycott due to similar management abuses of workers) to the Hilton two days after the True Diversity Dinner was held.

11. But I’m really about writing my own stuff, & that’s what I need to do now

I’d like to follow up on the hotel workers struggle, both at the Hilton & now the Sheraton. I hope someone will. But I can’t. Here’s the deal. There are people on this planet, there are people in this state, who thrive on political blogging, & what’s more excel at it. I think I’m pretty damn good at it when I’m doing it — but I don’t thrive on it. I start with enthusiasm, but over time… I wear down, my spirit flags, & pretty soon it winds right back into what I started this post with: depression & despair.

Midyear, in the post in which I claimed to be an occasional political blogger, I wrote,

The main reason I set up this site & blog was to help me get back into the flow of writing, of living my life as a writer. And while writing about politics is writing — well, it’s not my writing, the stuff close to my heart. Besides, I also work a full-time job.

Besides, sometimes the political stuff can really whack me out….

Another factor about how I handle political posts is that my style isn’t really amenable to fast-response writing, which is a feature of a lot of the best political bloggers I read. But me, I like to think a lot about what I’m writing. I like to go deep. I like to be thorough & as comprehensive as I can. I like to source all my references thoroughly. I like — apparently — to write term papers. (I sure never thought so when I was in college). And that takes a long time. Especially since, as previously mentioned, I work a full-time job. And I also need a certain amount of down time or I am liable to put myself into a depression.

Sometimes, writing my own stuff actually feels like down time. Reason: I said it above, it’s stuff that close to my heart.

So October saw me returning to writing — at that time, mostly background stuff or responses to stuff that I was reading in preparation for National Novel Writing Month 2009 (NaNoWriMo). In looking back, I remember that True Diversity Dinner month — that is, September — also saw a bit of focus on writing: a couple of politically-oriented pieces about homophobia in science fiction, including one involving a publication I was writing a story for. As it happened, I wasn’t far enough along on that story to meet the submission deadline of September 30 — so I picked up & polished an older thing instead.

And whaddaya know! in early October, I was told they wanted to publish it! Which did much to make me feel like a writer again.

“Cold” was published on October 31, 2009 in Crossed Genres Issue #12, the LGBT issue, & you can still read it online there. (When it’s no longer live there, & my contract with Crossed Genres permits, I will republish it right here at Henkimaa.com.) “Cold” was also selected for inclusion in Crossed Genres‘ first-year anthology, which will include one story from each of the magazines first 12 issues. I think it’s still on schedule for publication in February.

My username on NaNoWriMo: yksin.

November for me was the headlong hurry of NaNoWriMo. As a result, as anyone who knows this blog saw, I didn’t do much blogging at all. Such blog posts as got posted were mostly automatically generated “Daily Tweets” posts from my Twitter feed. And I haven’t done much blogging since NaNoWriMo ended, either.

But whoa! I did a lot of writing — 51,607 words worth of it in November, making me a NaNoWriMo winner this year…. er… I mean, last year. I was writing in the same story universe as “Cold,” which is about two young women on an extrasolar planet (that is, in another solar system) in the late stages of terraformation, which I’ve finally named Oikos — but my NaNovember 2009 writing was mostly about three centuries earlier in the timeline, before & around the time the ships that will eventually arrive at Oikos leave our solar system. I called it Long Dark.

And a lot of it was background writing, rather than the story itself. Because there is so damn much science that I need to have at least some kind of grasp on before I can do the story for real.

Though I came up with at least four stories over the course of the month that I know I can shape into good damn stuff. And I also discovered that a character of mine from a supposedly completely unrelated project is, whaddaya know, an important historical figure for the society in Long Dark and Cold. And since that character is very closely based on me… whoa, it’s an awful lot like, well, writing myself into history. How cool is that?

(Or how egotistical?)

12. Since then…

… that is, during December — what have I been doing? Not blogging, clearly. Except for one extensive rant about the leakage in various portions of my ceiling. (Now cured, but the holes in the ceiling still need patching.) Other than that, lots of vegging out, some writing, lots of reading — my latest topics have included atmospheric pressure, altitude sickness, & spacesuit design (background research for a story in the Cold universe) & how people with strabismus or amblyopia (the latter being the case for me), most of whom grow up stereoblind, might be able to develop stereo (binocular) vision. Even at 50 years old. Which is what I am now.

50 years old, soon to be 51. And now I reflect on where I was at when I turned 50, early in 2009. I was still in the cave. But there were inklings of possibility. I was still in the cave, for instance, when a confluence of ideas led me to decide how to go about my writing life, which included blogging & other forms of social media to get my stuff out there, instead of just through the old “send out craploads of query letters & get a shitload of rejection letters back before someone finally decides your stuff is good enough to publish” method that has been standard for a very bloody long time. I knew I’d feel a lot more at ease finding my own audience through social media than going through the query letter drudgery. It was still pretty remarkable that I made such a decision at such a time, though: social media? for someone who, at that point, was incapable & unmotivated to communicate at all? But then, I knew the cave walls would dissolve sooner or later. And they did.

I was also deciding, back in February of 2009 that age 50 was a good time to reach the milestone that I had apparently reached in the sorrows of that time. The boy that I & Rozz-now-Ptery raised from age 9 was now 21 (& now, some months later, is actually 22), & is setting out on his own course in the world. He’s in a residential job training program; I seem him some weekends when he comes into town. Ptery is embarked on another course, living a nomadic life mostly off-the-grid in the Lower 48; we are no longer partners, however much we still love each other. So, I am single &, except for my cat & the boy’s dog, essentially alone.

When I was in college & took a class on Hinduism, I learned that the traditional life path for very pious Brahmin males was supposed to consist of several stages — four of them, I think — with the third stage being that of husband, father, & householder. When the householding stage was over, these guys were apparently supposed to just up & lickety-split out to the forest to become religious ascetics. Or something like that.

And when I turned 50, I thought: that’s it, I’m no longer a householder. Well, I still have my apartment. And I don’t plan to go live in the woods as an ascetic. (Ptery’s path is a little closer to that, really.) But I no longer have the responsibilities of a spouse/partner or of a parent to a minor child. I can do what I want. And what I need.

Which is to write. But dang, it sure takes me a long time to get the politics out of my way to do it.

But I got to that point, & now I plan to continue.

That’s my story.

I’m such a cathead.

Lessons from Froomkin

Mel Green — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 05:54:12 +0000

Dan Froomkin, formerly of WashingtonPost.com, where he wrote a web-only column from January 2004 to June 2009 called White House Watch (originally White House Briefing). Modified from an original photograph by JD Lasica (jdlasica); used under a Creative Commons license. Click on photo to get full licensing info.

I’ve been catching up somewhat on stuff in the wider political world outside the Anchorage equal rights ordinance battle. Having been so focused on AO 2009-64, it wasn’t until early this morning that I learned Dan Froomkin had been fired from the Washington Post — more properly, from its online version at washingtonpost.com — & wrote his last White House Watch web column today.

I’ve followed Froomkin’s column, originally called White House Briefing, off & on since it started in January 2004, especially in the run-up to the November 2004 presidential election . I’m sad to see it go. White House Briefing/White House Watch was one of the most important watchdogs & fact-checkers on the numerous abuses and lies of the Bush Administration, & that kind of work is still needed. As Froomkin wrote in his final column,

Obama is nowhere in Bush’s league when it comes to issues of credibility, but his every action nevertheless needs to be carefully scrutinized by the media, and he must be held accountable. We should be holding him to the highest standards – and there are plenty of places where we should be pushing back. Just for starters, there are a lot of hugely important but unanswered questions about his Afghanistan policy, his financial rescue plans, and his turnaround on transparency.

There’s some disagreement as to why WaPo dumped Froomkin — with some saying it was for political/ideological reasons, & others say for economic reasons. The latter is the opinion of Erik Wemple of the Washington City Paper — Froomkin just hasn’t been generating enough hits since the end of the Bush Administration. Wemple writes:

The Obama administration has offered a less juicy target, in part because it hasn’t had quite as much time to screw things up. In the past six months, accordingly, hits on White House Watch have dropped to the point that Post officials cite traffic as a reason for bagging the column.

Though Wemple goes on to say,

The Froomkin axing is a red-letter event in Post history because it’s the first time that a major personnel decision has hinged so squarely on Web hits. For years, the orthodoxy from Post leaders is that the paper produces journalism that it believes in—mass popularity be damned. Perhaps that’s no longer the case. Questions on this matter were sent to newspaper spokesperson Kris Coratti but went unanswered.

So maybe Froomkin’s column was no longer journalism that WaPo believes in? — or at least not enough to overcome the paper’s economic considerations. If so, that argues for ideology being a component, if perhaps not the biggest component, behind WaPo’s decision to sack Froomkin.

Regardless, it wouldn’t be the first time that a newspaper’s overall excellence in journalism has leaked away due to decisions that are based in some part on economics. Witness our own paper-of-record, the Anchorage Daily News, which has lost a lot of ground both economically & in overall quality of coverage over the past few years. From stuff I’ve read over the last several months, both about the ADN in particular & the newspapers in general, the papers are being hit hard by loss of revenues from classified ads as more people turn to free online ad solutions like Craigslist, not to mention the public’s increasing dependence upon online sources — including blogs — to get their news. And then there’s just the economic downturn itself. And there’s blogs, many of which have stepped into the journalistic realm formerly reserved for traditional media like newspapers and broadcast news to take on stories that traditional media either don’t know enough about or don’t dare to report on. Think: who first broke the story last year about what became known as Troopergate? Not any of Alaska’s newspapers or news stations: it was Andrew Halcro on his blog. Who took the lead in giving the rest of the country needed perspective on Sarah Palin when she became John McCain’s running mate? It wasn’t the Alaska mainstream press: it was Alaska’s progressive bloggers. It’s been an adjustment, & the traditional media are still adjusting.

But wait: I was talking about Froomkin. “I remain a big believer in the ‘traditional media,’” he wrote in his final column, “especially when it sticks to traditional journalistic values.” But he also gave every evidence of respecting & making use of the new (blogger) media — at least when it adhered to the same values, identified in his essay Why “playing it safe” is killing American newspapers thusly:

The right way to reinvent ourselves online would be to do precisely what journalists were put on this green earth to do: Seek the truth, hold the powerful accountable, expose the B.S., explain how things really work, introduce people to each other, and tell compelling stories. And we should do all those things passionately and courageously — not hiding who we are, but rather engaging in a very public expression of our journalistic values.

His entire series for Niemen Journalism Lab on the future of news journalism is worth a read. For political bloggers, too.

Some quotes about Froomkin from other people:

Equivocation, hedging, shading, tiptoeing—none of those turn up in Froomkin’s toolkit.

— Erik Wemple, “Why Did the Washington Post Sack Dan Froomkin?” (Washington City Paper)

Providing ample proof of why he couldn’t coexist with the go-along ethos of High Broderism. He reads, and links to, bloggers! He’s intellectually consistent, willing to criticize both Republicans and Democrats! That’s perhaps the rarest commodity in a Village that seeks at all times a political equilibrium that won’t endanger its cocktail circuit invite.

— McJoan, “Froomkin’s Last WaPo Stand” (DailyKOS)

Hopefully, the next time the nation faces a grave national security crisis, we will listen to the people who were right, not the people who were wrong, and heed those who reported the truth, not those who served as stenographers to liars.

— Dan Froomkin himself, “White House Watched”, his last “White House Watch” column for WashingtonPost.com

What I found in Froomkin’s work was:

He researched thoroughly, gave his sources, & based his opinions on facts;
He was, as McJoan on DailyKOS said, intellectually consistent, & didn’t pull punches with what he saw.

Nor do I expect he’ll change in the future (he’ll be taking some time off, then launching in some new direction he’ll announce at whitehousewatch.com).

* * *

Plenty of lessons in how Froomkin for Alaska, I think.

For one: the Anchorage Daily News is Alaska’s principal statewide newspaper-of-record — Anchorage’s Washington Post, if you will. But for whatever reasons — & it seems ever more so over the past few months & years — the ADN often acts as the same kind of “stenographer to liars” that Froomkin criticized in his final column. Which isn’t to say the ADN is all bad — but it’s struggling in this environment, & all-too-obviously doesn’t have the first idea of what to do about the independent bloggers springing up all around it, or how to balance its own strengths with theirs.

Which is why, for Anchorage, the Anchorage Press, web-based newspapers like the Alaska Dispatch & Alaska Report and independent bloggers like the Mudflats, Celtic Diva’s Blue Oasis, Progressive Alaska, Shannyn Moore: Just a Girl from Homer, Immoral Minority, Alaska Commons, SOSAnchorage.net (the factchecker version) — just to names some of those I follow — are so very crucial. Especially if they do their jobs wisely & well, with the same kind of integrity that Froomkin displayed in his column.

I should say, if we do our jobs wisely & well, because I’ve become part of it too, at least when the public sphere of the polis is what I’m writing about, as with Wayne Anthony Ross’ nomination for Alaska attorney general back in April, as with the Anchorage equal rights ordinance & the activities of Jerry Prevo now. As I wrote in the introduction to my anti-WAR letter to Alaska legislators,

I’m a writer-blogger, not a political blogger — though I did try it out a little last fall after Palin became a vice-presidential candidate. But it proved too emotionally exhausting for me, & other Alaska progressive bloggers were doing it better. Sometimes, though, you gotta take a stand on something.

But I want to be honest & based in factual reality when I do.

Integrity is a big word with me — central to my own spiritual worldview. It’s what Job had when his friends so-called were “comforting” him in his losses by telling him that the horrible things that happened to the people he cared about, & to himself, wouldn’t have come down on him if he hadn’t sinned. Except that he hadn’t. I often think of integrity as being like a pole at the center of oneself — in one part a navigational aid, in another something to hang tightly to in the midst of the storm. If you let go of your integrity, you lose your way, you lose your Self. If you hold to it, you always know where you are & who you are. It can still be plenty damn painful, but it’s far less painful then letting go & losing your Self.

The hard part of doing what any of us who write about the stuff in the political world is knowing when to withhold judgment — because we don’t know all the facts — & when to apply judgment. “Stenographer” reporting is not so much reporting as simply copying: dutifully getting on record “both sides” of any question, but never having the moral courage to go in there & make a judgment: are the sources reliable? what might their agendas be? what’s the context, what else is in play? But then there’s the other bad way to do it: judging willy-nilly, without ever bothering to seek out the facts, depending only on what what feels or believes: truthiness not truth.

But then there’s what I believe Dan Froomkin did, & what we are all called to do: to ask questions. And, if necessary, to make judgments. To hold those who claim authority over our lives accountable. No matter how damn painful it is — holding on to our integrity all the way.

Here’s some good stuff I know about because of Dan Froomkin:

Niemen Watchdog: Questions the press should ask. A site for & about watchdog journalism, from the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Froomkin is deputy editor of this site.
Niemen Journalism Lab. “a collaborative attempt to figure out how quality journalism can survive and thrive in the Internet age.” Also from the Nieman Foundation’s
whitehousewatch.com. The site where Froomkin will announce what he’s going to do next. Also links to archives of his columns on the Bush Administration and Obama Administration.

Tip o’ the nib to Amanda Coyne of Alaska Dispatch, relevant discussion with whom coincided with news of Froomkin’s firing.

Publicity, publicity, publicity

Mel Green — Tue, 08 Jul 2003 23:22:39 +0000

[originally published at henkimaa.blogga.nu Tuesday 08-Jul-2003 3:22 PM. Some links have been updated.]

Publicity, publicity, publicity

The Anchorage Daily News, by the way, seems to be wrong about how many churches the Phelpists actually picketed in Anchorage on June 29. I daresay they mainly depended on the Phelpists’ published itinerary, instead of checking it out with the churches themselves. The exceptions — the churches the ADN reporter talked with — were Metropolitan Community Church, which was not picketed despite its lesbian/gay outreach, and Anchorage Baptist Temple, which was picketed, despite its prominence in Anchorage as a bastion of anti-homosexuality.

My own sources indicate that the only church besides ABT that the Phelpists made it to that fateful Sunday was Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church. The Phelpists apparently considered ABT and Elmendorf AFB more important than the smaller churches they’d originally targeted, because of course they had more people, & would more likely lead to the slaking of the Phelpist thirst for publicity.

They didn’t get much, all the same. A story in the June 30 Anchorage Daily News, which said far more about the June 26 U.S. Supreme Court decision than it did about the little contingent of “religious protesters.” Maybe a story or two on local TV news. Three letters to the editor published so far, & a Compass op-ed piece a couple days before Pride day.

There has been a bit of argument behind-the-scenes about whether it was good or bad to have been so very quiet about the Phelpists. “All the Phelpists want is publicity,” says once side, “& we shouldn’t give any at all to them.” “So what?” says the other side, “if more people knew the kind of stuff the Phelpists were spewing, it would gain sympathy for us.”

The Phelpists themselves bolster the “all they want is publicity” argument by having a page on their website about how “fags can make $millions” by taking pledges for each minute of a Phelpist picket. “[G]et people to send money for each minute that WBC pickets, brag to the local newspaper about it, and get our message that ‘God hates fags’ to everyone who reads the paper,” the Phelpists jeer. Consequently, “don’t give ‘em even the least bit of publicity” proponents urge targets of pickets not to do fundraisers.

But y’know, now that I’ve weighed the arguments, I don’t really think it makes a difference. The Phelpists will continue to picket with or without publicity. Very few people will have their minds changed one way or another. Those who agree with Fred Phelps & his family already feel free to say & do the same homophobic things they say & do irrespective of whether an occasional newspaper story says word one about them. Those who are unsure — well, most people I’ve met, even of the Jerry Prevo variety, think Phelpist tactics are disgusting. Such blatant idiocy, who knows, might actually drive some people into the arms of toleration & acceptance.

And if one can raise money for a deserving organization for each minute a Phelpist stands on a corner with a stupid sign, fine.

So lets ignore them even better by not even considering what they want, & should they come to your attention — well, have a chuckle. Or just blow your nose & continue on your way. It just ain’t worth agonizing over.

But I don’t mind that it went the way it did in Anchorage. The Phelpists publicity hounds just didn’t get much return for all the airfare they must’ve paid to get here, & let’s not forget hotel & per diem.

Thank you, Phelpists, for your generous contributions to the Anchorage economy.

Update/correction: 16 July 2003

I am informed by a correspondent that All Saints Episcopal Church was also picketed by the Phelpists on June 29. My correspondent points out that — unlike the other main Episcopal church in town, St. Mary’s — All Saints does not subscribe to “the acceptance and toleration of the homosexual lifestyle” but does accept “all persons have spiritual needs.” Obviously, my correspondent goes on to say, the Phelpists picked All Saints “out of the phone book” without bothering to learn about its beliefs. My correspondent also remarks that All Saints practices the teaching of love — contrary to the Phelps’ hate tactics.

Based on what I’ve learned about Phelps & Westboro Baptist Church, I agree 100 percent that the Phelpists don’t bother to learn the truth about what the targets of their pickets believe, or live. On the other hand, to teach love rather than hate in itself seems to be sufficient offense in Phelpist eyes to warrant their hatred.

6/20/2003. Fred Phelps coming to Anchorage. The “godhatesfags.com” followers of Westboro Baptist Church pastor Fred Phelps announce plans to picket in Anchorage during PrideFest 2003.
6/27/2003. Anchorage Pride 2003: Look how far we’ve come. A brief history history of the annual Pride parade in Anchorage from 1983, in which there were 19 marchers, to 2001, in which there were two to three thousand. Can the followers of Fred Phelps wreck that? Don’t think so.
7/8/2003. Those Phelpists aren’t too clever, are they? Why did Westboro Baptist Church, famous for their website “godhatesfags.com,” picket Anchorage Baptist Temple — famous in Anchorage as the very center of antigay attitudes in Alaska?
7/8/2003. Publicity, publicity, publicity. Which Anchorage churches during PrideFest 2003 did the Phelpists picket, & which not, & why?
6/12/2009. Billboards. While in 2003 Jerry Prevo decried Westboro Baptist Church tactics, in 2009 he & his allies didn’t hesitate to use children — even some younger then 10 — in a very like way, as billboards for their parents’ prejudices.

Henkimaa » Anchorage Daily News

On celebrating the death of bin Laden

Rollins trial, day 12: Jury hears closing arguments

My tweets

Media coverage

Rollins trial, day 11: Rollins claims he’s a sinner, but not a rapist

Today’s tweets

Media accounts of today’s testimony

Rollins trial, day 10: Rollins takes the stand

My tweets

Media accounts of today’s testimony

Rollins trial, day 7: See Ivan Moore’s column on “consent” in rape cases

Coverage of Day 7 in the press:

Rollins trial, day 5: 2 women testify (& other daily tweets)

Good for my worldbuilding, bad for my world

Good for my worldbuilding

Bad for my world

So here we are, back to worldbuilding

My story of 2009

1. The cave

2. Lima beans against WAR

3. Dad

4. Anchorage Ordinance 2009-64

5. Friends & allies

6. Palinesque

7. I got a new couch

8. An effort to up-end the Alaska Judicial Council

9. True Diversity Dinner

10. Hilton workers

11. But I’m really about writing my own stuff, & that’s what I need to do now

12. Since then…

Lessons from Froomkin

Publicity, publicity, publicity

Related: