Elizabeth Moon's Blog, page 20
October 1, 2014
The Sporty Short Sock Recipe
This way I can just refer people to this link.
The Sporty Shorty socks are a simple revision of whatever sock pattern someone already likes. They are knit top-down, but could be knit toe-up by a toe-up sock knitter. Colors--if you want striped socks, this is a way to use up leftover yarn from other projects. I like to use the same color for the rolled top, the leg below the ribbing, the heel flap, and the toe, as well as some of the foot stripes. This gives a designed quality to the socks, even though the foot striping is random (though in the same colors--though it doesn't have to be.) If I have only a small amount, enough for one stripe, of a color (and it's enough for 3/4 inches of ribbing) I use it for the ribbing. The other colors are used in at least two stripes each.
Cast on with one or two-size larger needles than you'll use for the rest of the sock. I use worsted-weight yarn, and size 5 US double-pointed needles. Use whatever you prefer. Cast on as many stitches as you use around your ankle (56 for me) and if you're not used to making socks, cast onto a circular needle so you can wrap the cable around your ankle and see if what you've got is right for you. You do not want the rolled edge to be really snug.
I use DPNs; if you like magic loop, set it up your way. Join the cast-on stitches into a round, and with your chosen needle size, knit four rows.
Begin ribbing on row 5. I like 2x2 ribbing; the book I was looking at used some other kind. If you're going to make the sporty shorties multiple colors, change colors for the ribbing. Make 3/4 inch (or thereabouts) of ribbing.
Change back to Color 1, and knit for 1/2 inch. Put your foot through the knitting and see if you like the way the rolled edge sits on your ankle, and if the stockinette part is long enough to reach the heel bump at the back of your heel. I need 5/8 inches of stockinette; you might need less.
Transfer half the stitches (on needles 1 and 2 if using DPNs) to one needle and begin heel flap, using whatever reinforcement pattern you like (or none--it's your choice.) (For those unfamiliar with flap heels, they're knit flat, knit pattern on the right side (outside) and purling every row on the inside.) I've used both straight Heel Stitch (where every row is slip one, knit one) and Eye of Partridge (where alternate rows offset the slipped stitches to make a sort of diamond waffle). Remember to slip a stitch at the beginning of each row. Checking on your own foot, continue heel flap to the desired length--I use 2 " on these short socks, and 2 1/4 on other socks. Even if you have a high instep, as I do, you don't need it as high here, because of the very short top, and also for that reason you want the sock a little snugger past the heel, through the arch (esp. if you have a high arch.)
Turn the heel and pick up stitches along the side of the heel flap to rejoin with the top of foot. On the next row, begin gusset decreases, making sure the decrease leans the right way: right on needle 1, left on needle 4 (if using 5 dpns.) Depending on the shape of your foot, you can decrease every other row, every third row, or two rows out of three (what I use: high instep and high arch both.) For more comfort, continue the reinforced heel pattern, if used, under the heel. A row of straight knitting replaces the purl rows of the heel flap, and produces a thicker, cushier fabric under the ball of your heel. Takes longer, uses a little more yarn, but feels really good. It can be hard to keep track of whether you're on a decrease row, and whether this is a pattern row or a straight knit row...pencil and paper are handy here, but a pattern "mistake" on the bottom of your heel isn't a disaster.
If you are striping your socks, join new colors on the bottom somewhere, and make sure you're not leaving gaps. I make a stitch or two with both yarns to be sure of this (after having to go back ad sew holes together.) Unless you like weaving in loose ends, try to carry your colors forward for more than one stripe, making a two-yard stitch to anchor the floater at least every third row. If you like weaving in ends you can drop the yarn after each stripe, cutting a several-inch tail to be woven in later. A two-color sock is easy to handle--just use both yarns ever 2-3 rows, switching which one is the stripe however it pleases you. You'll have two more tails than a one-color sock, but that's not a problem.
Reduce to the number of stitches that feel right on your foot (maybe a hair snugger than you usually knit socks, maybe not) and continue with the foot. Work the toes as you prefer. I have long pointy toes, so I always knit toes shaped to my foot--there's a left and a right sock. If your feet aren't that pointy, the symmetrical toes are faster to do. If you're striping your socks, change to Color 1 again somewhere along the side of your little toe, and (if you want) add a contrasting one-row stripe after 3-5 rows of Color 1.
Left: Color 1 is gold, Color 2 is deep rose: ribbing, stripe and toe-accent on each sock. These socks have five colors: gold, deep rose, turquoise, dark purple, green.
Right. Color 1 is medium blue, Color 2 is a variegated yarn, used for ribbing and stripes, but not toe accent because couldn't match from sock to sock. So used yellow instead. These socks have four colors; the variegated yarn, when used as a single or double stripe, can look solid over the top of the foot. It has red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple in it. So medium blue, variegated, green, and yellow.
September 11, 2014
In Work: Socks Again
Both blue and green socks are on the gusset decreases but not far along. One shows the heel reinforcement pattern they both have. The feet of these will be striped in emerald green and royal blue because--not enough royal blue to finish. (It's not a bug; it's a feature.) I hope to finish the gusset decreases today and get on to the race for the toes.
As soon as the blue/green pair come off the needles, I'll cast on a pair of Herdwick wool socks for the coming winter (Yeah, I have only enough #5 needles for two pairs of socks at once...) The Herdwick yarn's a little harder to work with, so when the red/purple come off the needles, a more ordinary yarn will take their place. I think I'll alternate Herdwick and ordinary yarn (defined as other than Herdwick, for now) through the winter, and then switch back to shorty socks with the leftovers of the winter's knitting for another week's rotation of summer bike socks.
September 9, 2014
Brief Sock Report
The variegated red/purple socks, from Mountain Colors "Indian Paintbrush" colorway, are both at least two inches into the cuff ribbing. This is a very light worsted weight yarn (250 yards to 100 gram skein) but has a lovely hand. I could wish it fit in with the more robust worsted yarns, which run 200-220, but I'm using it just the same to see how it does. That's fine on the ribbing, but I might switch to smaller needles below the ribbing to give it more substance. Will see.
Better Late Than Never? You Decide
The first thing to know about my DragonCon this year is that after having not flown for some years (because I always got sick after flying and not always after driving or riding a train) I was flying to DragonCon, courtesy of the convention and thank you VERY much. I needed that. I carefully looked up current travel regulations online, reading and re-reading the TSA and airline guidelines several times (both to remember them better and because of my vision problems.) I packed very carefully, checking to be sure that everything that shoudln't be in carry-on was in the checked bag. Over and over. I checked my pockets, my purse, to be sure that I hadn't forgotten anything in either that should not be there. Over and over. I was going to be, I was sure, the Practically Perfect Senior Citizen Traveler.
You see where this is going? Of course you do. As a result of all that checking and re-checking and being careful...or in spite of it...I ended up at the Delta counter at the airport Thursday about noon, 60 miles from home and having been dropped off by a friend....without my driver's license. Thus no government-issued photo ID. There was a frantic time at the counter, pawing through everything for something I knew--when it wasn't in its place right next to the credit card--had to be 60 miles away. There was a frantic phone call home, where the person at home was unable to find the driver's license in the only place I could think of its being, on my desk. Nor was it on the kitchen table, where I had been carefully taking things out of hte purse that would not make TSA happy. My husband found the driver's license (which had been on my desk, had become involved with other papers there, and had eventually ended up on the floor in the midst of scattered papers) too late to drive it down to the airport before I boarded my flight.
An adventure, we explained to our son when he was very small, is when things go wrong and you have to figure out what to do about it. This qualified as an adventure sustained over the next five days. Because although the Austin end of things quickly decides that I was going to be allowed to fly to Atlanta (albeit with a thorough patdown and check of everything in my carry-on, including two half-knit socks and their related balls of yarn) I knew that Atlanta's airport would be much busier--and potentially less helpful--on the way back on Labor Day. (By the way, the ID I did have--both the voter's registration card and my Medicare card, along with the credit card--were, I was told, next best fo the photo ID.)
So off I went on my flight, having calmed down in the waiting area (with the aid of a really good brisket sandwich from the Salt Lick outlet at the airport followed by knitting on the socks.) I was met by the lovely DragonCon folks at the Atlanta airport, then whisked to my hotel, the Westin.
The Westin, of course, expected to have not just my credit card but my driver's license (or other government-issued photo ID) on file, but I didn't have it. Having already spilled my travel woes to my DragonCon minder, she backed me up on the ID thing, and I was shortly installed in my room. Er...make that suite. I had been upgraded. (Talk about stupidity being rewarded!) Whew! Time for shower and change and dash to other hotel to check in, get my badge, and get going. I ran into people I knew, of course, on the run to/from the badge-picking-up place, as well as all the happy incoming DragonCon attendees I didn't know. Bill Fawcett and Jody Lynn Nye walked back to the Westin with me (showing me a Sekrit Route along the way that I would never have found on my own!) and Jody came up to my palatial suite with me before heading off for a party I was too wiped out to attend. For someone who spends most of her time in a very small quiet town, writing and riding a bike and walking around the land, the combination of my own stupidity, the noise and crowding, had worn me down. Early to bed.
Friday I had actual programming, but also wanted to make an early start--zipped over to the Hyatt to start relearning the layout of rooms (I'd been away from DragonCon for a few years while supporting LoneStarCon) and ran into (almost literally) Lee Martindale, who was on her way to find breakfast. We ended up in the food court where we ate and talked and talked and ate for longer, I suspect, than either of us planned. Then it was off to do writers' track programming, and the day alternated between that and the vast (VAST) dealers' room in America's Mall (with the worst teeny-tiny escalators to move people up and down into and out of the vast spaces...I never did see everything) and a signing at Larry Smith's big three-table booth. I tried to spot booths to visit later, but I'm sure I missed some great stuff. I don't remember if it was Friday or Saturday that I visited The Armory to see the displays (changes each year and is one of the delights of DragonCon for those of us who are not weapon-averse. One of its strengths, IMO, is that it includes tools-that-can-be-weapons--very useful for writers whose characters may need to use them. Got good advice and a bit of hands-on with a few of those.)
It turns out that if you don't have a photo ID, and the people you're dealing with don't know you, some things become less available. For instance: DragonCon has a lovely guest lounge for its guests, and I've enjoyed using it, meeting new people there, listening to other professions' trade talk, etc. But...this time they wanted a photo-ID as well as a convention badge. No exceptions, said the instructions in the booklet. I might (given who I know and who knows me) have been able to make it in anyway, but as self-punishment I decided not to try. This gave me more time out in the open, more time to observe costumes and overhear discussions (yes, writers are notorious for listening to people...writing good dialogue requires developing awareness of how people really do talk, then figuring out how to write it so it reads like natural speech, but minus nearly all the ums, uhs, and most of the other verbal tics.)
Saturday involved a quick trek back to my hotel for a shower and change between an early afternoon and later-afternoon panel, so I'd be dressed for the banquet and award ceremony. Weather got involved--as I was changing, rain storms were moving in (and I had a great view of that) and I was rewarded for good packing (though not good documentation) because I had my umbrella along, one that collapses quite small. So I went back out from the Westin to the Hyatt with my strong but compact umbrella and it did NOT turn inside out like some I saw on the way. Lee Martindale did a splendid job of moderating the Politics in SF panel, in spite of the hitch that meant there was no ramp for her power chair to get up to the dais. We panelists came down (tables and all) to the floor level and worked the panel from there. Then it was time for the banquet (well, almost time) and by the time that was over, I was ready for bed. Negotiating the Saturday night crowds in the hotel and on the street was...interesting, but successful.
Sunday was my autographing session, shared with Todd McCaffrey, who has definitley inherited his mother's charm as well as a lot of her talent. Then I had a reading, which went well, I thought. I chatted with a woman who had come to the reading about bobbin lace (among other things, but bobbin lace is something I know nothing about and a new craft to learn about is like the scent of a fox to the foxhounds.) Then back to my rooms, and packing, preparing for checkout and the trip home the next day.
Monday I faced the crowded halls of the Atlanta airport (and they were crowded) and the understandable annoyance of officialdom at someone who left her driver's license at home. By then I'd realized that I did have a government-issued photo ID of sorts: an Austin Metro Senior Citizen Discount card. It had my picture on it--a tiny picture, but it was clearly me. Same glasses frames, same hairdo. It led to rolled eyes (O LORD, these old women!) and a supervisor looking at me, at the rest of the lines, at the Medicare card again, at the Metro card again, and then deciding that their life would be easier if they let this old lady in her sock feet unlike any other sock feet they'd seen (handknit socks of a striking mottled blue and ribbing down the arch) through. So in time I was through the long, long lines, the scanners, the checkers, etc. and in plenty of time for my flight. I ate a light lunch (half of a regular lunch--when did chicken quesadillas get that big???) and settled into my seat for the flight home, knitting part of the time and writing a little the rest. My throat got sorer and sorer, so by landing I knew I was sick and getting sicker.
My luggage arrived safely. Friends picked me up at the airport, and I picked up the car at their house, starting on home to get there before full dark. I stopped once to pick up supper at the drive through of a Whataburger (I wouldn't contaminate anyone's interior) in the hope that enough salt on a plain burger and fries would dispel the sore throat, but it was not to be. I didn't even want all of it. I came home, unpacked the dirty clothes, announced return home in at least one online venue and fell into bed.
A lot of good stuff is missing--other writers I got to hang out with at the banquet (Mike Resnick and his wife among them) and elsewhere on panels, but my brain is still not clear. There was a guy in the dealer's room who carved wonderful designs on horn. A dealer in bronze stuff that I've always liked. Books I bought from Larry Smith and read happily (well, except one mystery--I read it all through wishing I had the writer in a writing class), some really tasty meals, fans I had good conversations with...I wish I could write a better con report, but it's been hazed over by the con-crud and the passage of time. I've always had a great time at DragonCon, and this was no exception.
A comment on comments
In January 2013, the Guardian had an article on the statistics of online commenting, showing that most readers don't comment, and those who do comment have an online footprint (and thus influence) out of proportion to their actual numbers.
In 2013 and 2014, as online discussions of abusive commenters increased, more posts showed up on commenting--whether to quit allowing comments, whether comments should be moderated and if so, how to do it, appealing to trolls and other abusive commenters to shape up (which had the predictable effect of having them spew even more venom), and so on. Spam (which is also a problem in comment streams) was mentioned less often and attack comments were mentioned more often. More blogs closed down comments. More blog owners began to end, or more stringently moderate, comment sections.
Barry Ritholz, for instance, in February 2013, wrote a post about problems with comments, titled as if he was considering ending all commenting, but then stating his intent to separate the goats from the sheep and refuse to publish those comments he felt were abusive: selective comment control.
Selective comment control requires moderation--which doesn't work well with automated systems (as shown by the attempts of large social media sites to police by algorithm and their insistence that their key words prevent abuse...the evidence is that no, the rape threats still get through.) Moderation also takes time and effort and the moderator is exposed to the venom even if not the target of it. Independent blog owners end up spending time checking through comments that would be better spent doing something else (research, writing another post, doing the housework and laundry, etc.) Many independent blog owners do moderate comments (Scalzi, for instance) and (like him) post advice to commenters, hoping to teach people how to be better commenters. In some venues this works, if the blog owner is willing to spend the time reading every comment, strictly enforced his/her own guidelines, and occasionally posts reminders that the guidelines are there and transgressors will be deleted before they appear.
Katherine Aragon, on her advice blog for bloggers, posted recently on whether you should close comments on your blog, offering examples of others who had (or hadn't) done so. She links to other examples of blogs that no longer accept comments, and their reasons for making the change. Among other things, she points out that though allowing comments may drive traffic to your blog, increased traffic can be used by "loud" commenters to drive more traffic to their blogs. Self-promoting comments, with links to the commenter's site, are a problem on some business sites where the commenters may be competitors. You don't find a flashing Ford ad hanging over a Toyota dealership.
And not all blogs need (nor their owners want) huge amounts of traffic anyway. A small town librarian's blog on what books are new at that library and how the bake sale did is intended for the amusement/education of people who use that library--not the whole world. (It's also unlikely to garner a lot of hate commenters if the librarian never mentions race, sex, or environmental issues.) Blogs that are intended to build a brand or platform, on the other hand, are intended to draw increasing traffic over time, and the early advice to such bloggers was to have a comments section and engage with all the commenters. Lively discussion, it was said, drew more people to the blog than the contents of the blog itself.
From my first online presence, in my SFF.net newsgroup, I've moderated fairly firmly to keep the "tone" where I liked it. It's my space; I pay for it with my own money, so I perceive it as "my" space, not a public square. Anyone's welcome to read there, but no one is entitled to transgress the house rules. It's a virtual "fishing cabin on a rock-bottomed river" where friends can drop by and relax and discussions stay polite. When I added this platform some years later, I had pretty much the same attitude (I pay for it; it's my space) but loosened the "good behavior" somewhat, with mixed results. First off, minus the much better spam control at SFF.net, I had to watch out for straight-up spam arriving in batches, and attaching to older posts without any notice to me. Posts advertising knock-off shoes, purses, watches, etc, etc, are a time-wasting nuisance. Second, LJ was better known and more widely accessible, so more trolls and more hornet swarms (people who follow trolls and flood a venue with angry, abusive comments) found me. Moderation was necessary (is necessary) and trying to make a place for well-written, rational, polite comments on all sides of a question, while pruning off the abusive, irrational, threatening, foaming-at-the-mouth ones took time (lots of time, in some cases.) My experience has been that many people prefer to read and comment in an environment that is not too loud and not at all abusive, where they can feel heard, if not agreed with, and not fear the attacks of trolls and hornets. (There are always some who don't want any moderation and insist they're happy in the midst of angry chaos. Tough luck.)
My other blogs all have a comments guideline section and it's enforced firmly but not always rigidly. The most active of those blogs has a reasonably active commenting community that nearly always stays on topic and behaves well to one another (I see all new commenters in moderation and have sometimes contacted one in email to point out that a comment isn't acceptable but they're welcome to try again. Only one of those has calmed down and joined the group. If it's really nasty, I just trash it without responding.) This venue, LiveJournal, remains the odd one out. SFF.net isn't an infinitely large group, and I enjoy being there--I have friends whose newsgroups I read, and I sometimes get into the open discussion groups. People there know what I will and won't tolerate, and it's a rare thing anymore that I have to issue a Buzz Off notice. But LJ is well in the radar scan of generalist trolls and hornet swarms, so saying anything at all controversial (and I do, and will again, in amidst the posts on knitting socks, making soup and other cooking neepery, and innocuous posts on writing) is likely to bring down the proverbial shitstorm. And though I enjoy comments on my other posts, it still takes time to engage with every commenter--time I often do not have.
So far, what I've tried is disabling comments for posts likely to have this problem. I'm not ready to disable comments altogether, here or elsewhere. But as life goes on and time grows shorter (staring at he next birthday with the big 70 on its face does make one think of how one wishes to spend remaining time) answering every comment, and plowing through spam and trollspew to separate the good stuff from the slush is less appealing. I have friends with serious problems I should be helping and comforting (this one has cancer, that one was widowed, that other one was fired unjustly...) and though I'm glad to know someone's reading the online stuff...I cnanot possibly fulfill everyone's desires. So if you find comments disabled on a given post, it's because I figured it would be too high-traffic for me to deal with in the time (and energy budget) I have. I wish LJ had a way to disable comments when a post is a given # of days old (because dealing with packs of spam that arrive to clutter much older posts is a real PITA, and because sometimes everything worthwhile is said within the first 5 days.)
It's not a swipe at anyone here. It's practical--there's just one of me, and I have urgent stuff to do that is not involved with blog comments.
September 2, 2014
And home...
August 27, 2014
Heading Out to DragonCon
Meanwhile, writing and knitting continue. I'm taking knitting, but not writing, on the trip. And now--back to packing, the final cleanup, and the running through checklists in the hope of not forgetting anything this time--either things I need, or things I should not have in my carry-on. Deciding which socks to wear tomorrow, since they'll be on view when my shoes are in the container. The TSA rules SAY that knitting--needles, yarn, tools and all--is OK, so I'm taking the current pair of socks-in-progress and my knitting kit to ease the misery of spending several hours in the airport. A friend's dropping me off and we have to work around her doctor appointment. Better earlier than later.
Back Monday night if all goes well. Not taking anything to go online with, as I'll be too busy and frazzled anyway.
August 21, 2014
Adventures in Cooking
Usually.
Last night the unexpected happened. The food co-op made its usual delivery sometime in the day, as it does, but...no co-op members showed up to pick up their share. At least not that anyone saw. There the vegetables were, out in the hot (and it was HOT) sun, wilting by the hour. And when the choir emerged from rehearsal and started to leave, the church receptionist said "Nobody picked up the food from the co-op today...go for it." The alternative was binning it, because leaving it out there overnight would have made the rats happy, but no one else.
And some of us did. It was dark out there, only a little light from the spotlight near the sycamore tree, so we were pulling things out of boxes and having to smell and feel them to figure out what they were in the dimness. (The hoped-for bunch of basil was something no one recognized, but Julie took home.) Tomatoes, if any, had vanished before I got there, but I came home with things I've cooked a lot with (various peppers, a cucumber, a zucchini, three sweet potatoes, a small onion, a little bag of purple carrots) and something I hadn't: eggplant. My husband had previously expressed a dislike of eggplant, so I just never cooked it (I didn't much like it myself, the ways I'd had it.)
But I'm a firm believer in the power of major soup to overcome any ingredient that doesn't make me sick (as broccoli, for instance, does. Or cabbage. About fifteen years or so ago, cabbage in soup turned from a perfectly reasonable addition to a stick of dynamite in the innards.) I had some other vegetables handy, and just last week had made a fresh batch of chicken stock, that superb base for so many soups.
The rescued vegetables:
To these will be added more onions, diced tomatoes and green chilis, a yellow and a green sweet pepper, spinach, corn, some white beans (soaking now), celery, and garlic. And of course bay leave and thyme and basil and peppercorns and...whatever else strikes my fancy. My soups tend to be free-form--whatever's around goes in them, the more the merrier. Some of these will get a pre-soup-pot roasting. My guess is that we will decide we like eggplant in soup.
I'm sorry the people who should have picked up this produce didn't--clearly they missed some good stuff--but I can't help being glad of the chance to try out eggplant in soup without investing in it.
August 19, 2014
Jesus Wept
One of the ritual questions is this: “Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?” To which the answer is “I will, with God’s help.”
On Saturday, August 9, Michael Brown, an 18 year old African American, was walking with a friend when confronted by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson. Witnesses say that Brown was unarmed, standing in the street with his hands in the air, begging Wilson not to shoot him when Wilson fired multiple rounds and Brown fell down. Other police officers arrived shortly thereafter. None of the police officers checked Brown’s pulse to see if he was alive and they refused to allow a nurse to do so or anyone to start CPR.
Instead, they left Michael Brown’s body lying in the street for four hours, without even the decency of a sheet over it, thus angering the community by showing contempt for the victim and potentially contaminating and/or destroying evidence.
Stop a moment and think about that, about the level of arrogance and contempt that reveals. It’s not normal procedure. I was in EMS for almost six years, and saw deaths both natural and traumatic, including violent deaths from shootings and stabbings. In every case the law officers on scene quickly collected the evidence they needed; they called the correct official (it varied with where we were—inside or outside city limits) to certify death; the body was then removed in a respectful and proper way. In cases of delay, one of us on the team would sit with the body and a family member if available.
Imagine if it was your son: shot down, but no medical assistance allowed…no one checking his pulse, medical help refused, his body left lying there in the street for four agonizing hours while (I have no doubt) flies buzzed around it, drawn by the smell of blood and death. Imagine seeing the police confiscating cellphones but not taking down witness statements, making it clear by word and deed that their intent was not to find and punish your son’s killer, but to protect the killer and disrespect your son, your family, your community.
The police concealed the shooter’s name for almost a week, while allowing Darren Wilson to leave the scene of the shooting with his weapon and his car (shattering the chain of evidence.) He was allowed to leave town with his family (his name was not released until after he had left town) further supporting the claim of a cover-up. As the growing crowd and Brown’s family demanded answers, they were instead given threats and intimidating tactics, including what amounted to a military invasion of their neighborhoods, even shooting tear gas into private back yards. Heavily armed police officers were caught on TV cameras yelling “Bring it, you fucking animals.”
“Fucking animals.” These human beings, these black citizens, these residents of the city, these people with minds, hearts, souls, with thoughts, emotions, dreams, fears. These parents, children, students, relatives, friends, elderly. Classmates of Michael Brown’s—he had just recently graduated from high school. These are people who deserve to be treated with basic respect, whose dignity had already been shredded…and the police referred to them, addressed them, as “fucking animals.”
Was the crowd angry? Yes, with good reason. They had seen yet another black male killed by a white policeman who had no reason at that moment to fire his weapon other than…he wanted to shoot a black kid. They had seen the police attack reporters, arresting them on trumped up charges, confiscating their recorders and cameras, in some cases roughing them up. They had been called “fucking animals” and had been vilified by the police in interviews. Their questions had not been answered, except (a week later) with the police chief’s assertion that Michael Brown had robbed a convenience store of cigars and pushed a clerk—showing a video that purported to be Brown to the media. At no point in the situation has any shred of compassion been shown by the police or any other official to the grieving family of Michael Brown, not any acknowledgment been made that Wilson’s shooting of Brown was unjustified, illegal, and that the police department’s subsequent actions—including the police chief’s yammering—had inflamed the situation beyond repair. The police chief even spouted praise of Wilson while blackening Brown’s name, saying that Wilson was gentle, a good family man, a gentleman.
Through all of this, right up through last night, the harassment of black citizens, the abuse of their rights, the contempt, arrogance, cruelty have continued from Ferguson’s police force. It has become clear that they wanted to make the situation worse, were actually trying to stir up enough anger that some people would respond violently. Because then, that’s the excuse for anything the police did. Because a broken window, in their mind, justifies shooting an unarmed person standing with his hands up. Because they feel no remorse, no compassion at all. Because they are white, and have badges, and that make everything they do OK and no one—not black people, not journalists, not anyone-should ever criticize them.
And yes, some people—a small minority of the black people in Ferguson, did break windows and loot stores. Is that illegal? Yes. Were there repeated incidents? Yes. When people are abused, when they are not respected, when they are not listened to, when their questions are not answered—and when, most of all, they see yet another one of their sons shot down and nothing being done to capture and charge the shooter, their anger may escape their control. This isn’t the first case of a black male being killed by a white law officer when unarmed, not committing a crime, not being a clear and present danger to anyone, including the officer. So some property was damaged, some items stolen.
Does this excuse the shooting of Michael Brown, the tear gas, the rubber bullets, the attacks on citizens and reporters? No. Not in any way whatsoever. To think so is to value property above human life, above human dignity, above the respect due every citizen and the compassion due Michael Brown’s family and friends after his death. Where, in any act of the Ferguson police force this past 10 days, has been “respect for the dignity of every human being?”
Nonexistent. Nowhere. His parents, his family, his neighbors, his community, have been further traumatized further by police actions that were unnecessary, disrespectful, dishonest, and quite likely criminal.
This Sunday, the priest in the church where I sing, just back from a three month sabbatical, made a brief reference to the “race riots” in Ferguson. I was astonished and ashamed, to hear no mention of the unjustified murder of a black teen, or the dishonest and brutal behavior of the Ferguson police force, or the Missouri governor’s imposition of a curfew on the community that had been victimized for days, nor to the repeated attempts to ignore the primary cause of the whole debacle: a white policeman’s willingness to shoot a black teenager with his hands up begging not to be shot. And the subsequent causes that drove a black community frantic with grief and rage: the disrespect, the lack of common compassion for those grieving, the dishonesty, and attempt to smear the dead man and by implication justify the shooting.
But that’s one problem our denomination shares with many others. We value law and order. It’s usually on our side. We like living in peaceful communities because it’s more comfortable. We value gentility (Jesus said nothing good about gentility.) Though we are criticized by fundamentalist churches for being too liberal we are still enculturated to see certain class behaviors as good and worthy, and others as unruly and less worthy. We forget that the Jesus we claim to follow caused some riots in His day, that He overturned tables in the forecourt of the Temple, driving out the moneychangers. We forget that our baptismal vows say nothing about having good taste in clothes, or wearing the right shoes under our choir robes, or knowing how to give a proper dinner for twenty at short notice, or being on first-name terms with a millionaire or a politician.
But we are faced, again and again, with this question: “Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?”
What does that mean, in daily life? Many things, small and large. It means that when I was angry this Sunday morning on the way to church, already reacting to yet more details of what was happening in Ferguson, I should not have snarled curses at the guy in the pickup tailgating me—he couldn’t hear me, but my family had to hear the F-bomb and a few other terms learned in the Marines. It means more listening and less talking, more patience and less hurrying on to something else. Do I always succeed? No, as I didn’t this morning with that pickup truck. But I’m required to “strive” even when I fail, and fail again. And it means that when I see gross injustice blossoming out of an incident like the death of a teenager—when I see the cause ignored, and the whole reduced to “another race riot”, I must speak out. And I have, not only here.
If even for a moment we hear “race riots” and think of black people without thinking of the white mobs that attacked the Freedom Riders in the Deep South, of the white men in riot gear aiming loaded guns at a black youth in the street—if even for a moment we think of the value of the broken windows and stolen items, and not the anguish, frustration, anger and grief and terror that causes them, then we are a bigger part of the problem than we may have realized. If we think for an instant that condemning looting but not simultaneously and more sternly condemning the conditions that led to the looting is acceptable to God, we are very much mistaken.
Who violated the justice and peace of Ferguson? Those who should have been protecting it—-the police, the city and state government. Whose dignity has been violated? Michael Brown’s, both in his death and in his dead body being left untended, disrespected, for hours. The dignity and peace and justice of his parents, his family, his friends, his neighbors, his community, when their natural and entirely reasonable anger and grief were treated as criminal acts.
“Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?
I will, with God’s help.
(Crossposted at http://www.elizabethmoon.com/pol-fergusonmo.html yesterday when I was having trouble posting here. Comments disabled.)
August 16, 2014
Governor Perry's Indictment
Austin, Texas--the seat of Texas' state government--is located in Travis County. The Travis County DA's office is tasked with not only prosecuting crimes committed by ordinary Travis County, but with investigating and prosecuting criminal activities by state officials--corruption, particularly--all over Texas, via a state-funded "Public Integrity Unit. Travis County--despite redistricting that split it into pieces as an attempt to overcome its own citizens' will--is basically Democrat territory, but the governor is Republican, as is the state Attorney General, and also the majority of the legislature. The present DA won the election and she is a Democrat, Rosemary Lemburgh. Under a succession of Republican governors, attorneys general, and legislatures, oversight of their activities has been minimal, and therefore the only hindrance to their desires has rested on the Travis County DA's office. Within the past few years, for instance, complaints have been made about the management of tax funds intended for one purpose and either being wasted or diverted to another; the DA's office was in fact investigating some of these complaints, as it should. In addition, charges were already pending against Tom De Lay for corruption, and a then-possible GOP candidate for attorney general was being investigated for violation of state securities law. The GOP has been...let us say...unhappy with any investigations into current corruption and has been griping about them as "politically motivated" since long before the current mess.
One night in April 2013, Ms. Lemburgh was arrested for drunk driving, proving to have way more than the legal limit of alcohol in her system. She pled guilty, served her jail time, and paid her fine for that offense. Governor Perry, eager to get rid of her and appoint a Republican to the Travis County DA position, wanted her to resign. Everyone in Texas knew that if he could get a Republican in, all the corruption investigations would disappear, along with the evidence so far collected. Charges against DeLay would be dropped. And a Republican DA would immediately start indicting Democrats in the state senate. However, Perry did not have the power to remove her from her position, so he tried to pressure her into resigning. He threatened her that if she did not resign, he would cut state funding to the public integrity unit in her office--state funding intended to allow the Travis County DA's office resources for investigating corruption. THAT is the offence for which he was indicted. She did not resign, and he vetoed the funding, knowing that the legislature would not overturn his veto. Later in the summer of 2013, when the Republican Lt Gov obviously falsified time documents following the Wendy Davis filibuster, that too would have been buried had Perry been able to put a Republican DA in the Travis County office.
Note: as governor, he has the right to veto funds for any project in the state--line-item veto is legal here. What he does NOT have is the right to threaten/coerce a state employee. That is a crime. That is what he has been indicted for. Perry is attempting to convince the public that he's innocent because it was legal for him to veto funding for corruption investigation...as if that were the reason he was indicted. That is a lie. Furthermore, the indictment clearly states what the cause is: so he knows damn good and well what he did wrong. He just doesn't think he's wrong. He never thinks he's wrong. That's a dangerous attitude for anyone, and for a person with political power, a danger to everyone he has power over.
Perry has wasted millions of Texas taxpayers' dollars on himself, demanding extra protection, a big fancy rented house (the Governor's Mansion wasn't good enough; he decided it had to be redone--which led to its being burned down.) In 2010, when he'd been in the rented house (base cost: $10,000/month) since 2007, the Dallas Morning News reported that he had spent at least $600,000 of taxpayer money already in living expenses. The Perrys moved back into the restored mansion in mid-year 2012, by which time the rental alone would have added another $240,000 to the cost of keeping a roof over his head. All his security is paid by taxpayers, of course, and that includes $2.9 million since 2010 for travel outside the state, much of that cost coming when he decided to run for President. But why does the governor of Texas need to run off to London, Las Vegas, New York, San Diego, and (most recently) Iowa? (Other parts of his travel cost are covered by his campaign or "another entity like an economic development group"...in other words, people who want to influence him. He's for sale, that's for sure.) In addition to that, Perry receives both state retirement and his governor's salary. (And this is a guy who claims to be committed to lean government. Oh, he did economize at one point--let one of the two housekeepers go, and put one of the two cooks on part-time work.) And then there's his mobilization of the Texas National Guard to the Border, at a cost of $12 million a month. Which he wants the feds to pay for (or it will have to come out of the state budget, which doesn't have it.)
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