Elizabeth Moon's Blog, page 5
July 20, 2016
Simple Food
Part of the process of getting healthier after hitting The Wall is trying to eat better. Having been eating on the run and grab-and-go even with foods in the house for too long, this is getting back to my kitchen roots, with some enhancements learned from cooking shows on PBS. I used to be able to throw together whatever was in the fridge to make a satisfying hot meal (with weekly additions to the fridge, of course) with things I called "concoctions" that were never quite the same twice. And I'm working on that model again.
Last night's supper comibined the last of the package of small Polish sausages with various vegetables, a can of Ro-Tel with lime & cilantro, and rice. It went sort of like this:
Dice about half an onion, two ribs of celery, a largeish carrot, about 1 1/3 green Bell pepper. Throw (gently) into saute pan with a couple of tablespoons of bacon fat already good and warm, but not smoking hot. Hot enough to sizzle. While those are sizzling along and becoming tender, start cooking the rice in separate pot. Start slicing the sausages into thin slices. Add sausage to the mix in the saute pan. After a few minutes, add the can of Ro-Tel to the saute pan. Stir around, consider. Dig some veal demi-glace out of its jar and add that. And some Worcestershire sauce. Put the lid on and turn it to low, while waiting for the rice to finish. I knew the sausage had garlic in it, so no additional garlic. Later wished I'd added about a clove, minced and put in to gentle with the rest.
When the rice was done (about 20 minutes) everything was ready. Put rice in bowls, put the mix from the saucepan on top. Needed tiniest touch of salt.
Today's lunch. Summer lunches in brutally hot weather need to be cool lunches. Cottage cheese with diced raw vegetables are always a good bet, but I had been seduced by the summer sausage all too visible in the fridge. Diced a little of that, and celery (two ribs) and mixed them with cottage cheese with some medium grind black pepper and a shake of paprika. Other days I've put in diced carrot and diced celery, or diced carrot and diced Bell pepper, or diced Bell pepper and diced celery. Something crunchy and cold. If there's one slice of some deli meat left, I'll dice that and throw it in too.
Tonight, if there's enough, the leftover rice and sausage, with added sliced black olives. If Someone hasn't eaten them all. If someone has, or has eaten last night's leftovers already, there's the quick chicken soup--defrost a quart of homemade chicken stock, and a package of cubed chicken, and throw in diced (same stuff as above) that's been sauteed or not depending (interesting both ways), some yellow corn and some chopped frozen spinach. And maybe that last bit of pasta from the sack with the bread tie on it.
Last night's supper comibined the last of the package of small Polish sausages with various vegetables, a can of Ro-Tel with lime & cilantro, and rice. It went sort of like this:
Dice about half an onion, two ribs of celery, a largeish carrot, about 1 1/3 green Bell pepper. Throw (gently) into saute pan with a couple of tablespoons of bacon fat already good and warm, but not smoking hot. Hot enough to sizzle. While those are sizzling along and becoming tender, start cooking the rice in separate pot. Start slicing the sausages into thin slices. Add sausage to the mix in the saute pan. After a few minutes, add the can of Ro-Tel to the saute pan. Stir around, consider. Dig some veal demi-glace out of its jar and add that. And some Worcestershire sauce. Put the lid on and turn it to low, while waiting for the rice to finish. I knew the sausage had garlic in it, so no additional garlic. Later wished I'd added about a clove, minced and put in to gentle with the rest.
When the rice was done (about 20 minutes) everything was ready. Put rice in bowls, put the mix from the saucepan on top. Needed tiniest touch of salt.
Today's lunch. Summer lunches in brutally hot weather need to be cool lunches. Cottage cheese with diced raw vegetables are always a good bet, but I had been seduced by the summer sausage all too visible in the fridge. Diced a little of that, and celery (two ribs) and mixed them with cottage cheese with some medium grind black pepper and a shake of paprika. Other days I've put in diced carrot and diced celery, or diced carrot and diced Bell pepper, or diced Bell pepper and diced celery. Something crunchy and cold. If there's one slice of some deli meat left, I'll dice that and throw it in too.
Tonight, if there's enough, the leftover rice and sausage, with added sliced black olives. If Someone hasn't eaten them all. If someone has, or has eaten last night's leftovers already, there's the quick chicken soup--defrost a quart of homemade chicken stock, and a package of cubed chicken, and throw in diced (same stuff as above) that's been sauteed or not depending (interesting both ways), some yellow corn and some chopped frozen spinach. And maybe that last bit of pasta from the sack with the bread tie on it.
July 18, 2016
Well, yes. Then again, no.
Two things from Sunday's Twitter stream left me somewhat frustrated, as
I agreed a lot with one part of a discussion, and disagreed a lot with another.
Very different topics.
One was a familiar plaint that women writers are, in general, not reviewed as much, reviewed rarely by men even when they are reviewed, and receive less honor (defined in multiple ways, including being short-listed for awards, winning awards, being on lists of "100 best" or any other number of best [whatever] books, having their work used in schools/colleges, etc.) And that's true. It's also true that the same element is reviewed differently in a woman's book as in a man's book (what is considered "typical women's topic" and "too touchy-feely" in a woman's book is likely to be praised for rich characterization and emotional resonance in a man's book), and that more men than women read (or claim to read) only books by their own sex. As a woman writer, I know that; I've experienced that; I've discussed the problems (in terms of the practical matters that related to a writer's career, from submissions to communications with editors, to cover design, etc.) with other women on panels at conventions, etc.
However, the writer also complains that women whose books ARE reviewed or win awards, etc., write too much like men, about men, or with "masculinized" women characters, with the strong implication that women who are interested in what this author considers topics, tropes, ideas appropriate only to men are inferior as women, and women writers, and shouldn't be the kind of women they are.
And I can't go along with that at all. It's one of the reasons that, though I consider myself a feminist (in terms of wanting equality of opportunity for women, equality under the law, reproductive choice, etc.) I am not in accord with the purity-politics side of feminism, and strict feminists don't consider me a feminist. To me, recognizing that women are fully human means recognizing that women exist in a range of abilities, skillsets, talents, and interests just as wide as men's--that the distinction between "women's interests" and "men's interests" is culturally based, part of the patriarchal setup feminists claim to want to get rid of. I don't want to trade "a man's world" for "a woman's world" in which women are now allowed to have "masculine" interests, to be engineers, adventurers, field scientists, etc--still denigrated for being too "masculine." I want a HUMAN world that recognizes all humans as intrinsically and fully human, and opens all opportunities to those who find them attractive. Sexual identities are biological, derive from individual biology; feminine and masculine are cultural assignments, not derived from biological reality at all. I want women (whether they're anti-feminist or feminist) to quit trying to make all women fit their particular ideal mold of womanhood.
Ref: http://lithub.com/on-sexism-in-literary-prize-culture/
Second topic. A writer I follow on Twitter and admire often puts up a list of "10 Things about [X]" and these are usually witty, insightful, and well worth reading. Sunday's "10 Things" list was about play--its importance in development, in creativity and flexible thinking, etc. So far so good, and although I don't really like "play" being treated as a form of therapy (as in being touted for its benefit to the aging mind in stavig off dementia--when it works as therapy it's because it's spontaneous and fun, not because it's a prescribed activity.) I was nodding along, retweeting all and commenting on some.
But down my Twitter feed a ways was the apparent causus belli for the "10 Things" list. Someone had posted (not on Twitter; it was way more than 140 characters) his frustration and annoyance with people playing Pokemon Go and trespassing on his property in the process. The writer's response was (as typical for Twitter but not for her) to exaggerate what he really said, and attack him for being against a "harmless" activity that was at worse merely childish and playful. And there again I came to a mental standstill and was unwilling to go along. Yes, he thought the game was stupid. But what really bothered him, it was clear, was that the Pokemon Go players were trespassing, a lot of them, at all hours, on his property, which apparently maintains a small recreational space for tenants of the building. And that is not necessarily "harmless," to the property or to the persons who live there. To accuse him of saying "Burn, burn, burn them" is wild hyperbole; to accuse him of opposing "harmless play" is incorrect because trespassing and making a ruckus is not always harmless. Unusual for this writer, who--though she clearly has a temper--is usually very fair in her expression of it.
So while I agree that play is important, and adults should maintain (or re-acquire) the ability for spontaneous, unstructured, play, I do not agree that adults should, in the process, ignore the rights of other people who maybe have a need for their private space in which to daydream or chat quietly without being invaded by boisterous strangers. Who may have their own forms of play, not compatible with something basically commercial and run by a corporation. And I particularly do not agree that every activity someone calls "play" is in fact healthy play, for themselves or others. Children playing spontaneously in a field, perhaps with a ball, are playing....children on a team with an adult coach, either in practice or competing against a rival team, are not "playing" in the same sense. They may enjoy that; I have enjoyed team sports. But it is not play. Similarly, children making up their own make-believe, acting out their own story, are playing--those taking part in a school play they didn't make up, at the direction of adults, are doing something else. The effect on the body, mind, and spirit are not the same.
So...what's made you say "Well, sure, this...but then again, that bit there, no" lately?
I agreed a lot with one part of a discussion, and disagreed a lot with another.
Very different topics.
One was a familiar plaint that women writers are, in general, not reviewed as much, reviewed rarely by men even when they are reviewed, and receive less honor (defined in multiple ways, including being short-listed for awards, winning awards, being on lists of "100 best" or any other number of best [whatever] books, having their work used in schools/colleges, etc.) And that's true. It's also true that the same element is reviewed differently in a woman's book as in a man's book (what is considered "typical women's topic" and "too touchy-feely" in a woman's book is likely to be praised for rich characterization and emotional resonance in a man's book), and that more men than women read (or claim to read) only books by their own sex. As a woman writer, I know that; I've experienced that; I've discussed the problems (in terms of the practical matters that related to a writer's career, from submissions to communications with editors, to cover design, etc.) with other women on panels at conventions, etc.
However, the writer also complains that women whose books ARE reviewed or win awards, etc., write too much like men, about men, or with "masculinized" women characters, with the strong implication that women who are interested in what this author considers topics, tropes, ideas appropriate only to men are inferior as women, and women writers, and shouldn't be the kind of women they are.
And I can't go along with that at all. It's one of the reasons that, though I consider myself a feminist (in terms of wanting equality of opportunity for women, equality under the law, reproductive choice, etc.) I am not in accord with the purity-politics side of feminism, and strict feminists don't consider me a feminist. To me, recognizing that women are fully human means recognizing that women exist in a range of abilities, skillsets, talents, and interests just as wide as men's--that the distinction between "women's interests" and "men's interests" is culturally based, part of the patriarchal setup feminists claim to want to get rid of. I don't want to trade "a man's world" for "a woman's world" in which women are now allowed to have "masculine" interests, to be engineers, adventurers, field scientists, etc--still denigrated for being too "masculine." I want a HUMAN world that recognizes all humans as intrinsically and fully human, and opens all opportunities to those who find them attractive. Sexual identities are biological, derive from individual biology; feminine and masculine are cultural assignments, not derived from biological reality at all. I want women (whether they're anti-feminist or feminist) to quit trying to make all women fit their particular ideal mold of womanhood.
Ref: http://lithub.com/on-sexism-in-literary-prize-culture/
Second topic. A writer I follow on Twitter and admire often puts up a list of "10 Things about [X]" and these are usually witty, insightful, and well worth reading. Sunday's "10 Things" list was about play--its importance in development, in creativity and flexible thinking, etc. So far so good, and although I don't really like "play" being treated as a form of therapy (as in being touted for its benefit to the aging mind in stavig off dementia--when it works as therapy it's because it's spontaneous and fun, not because it's a prescribed activity.) I was nodding along, retweeting all and commenting on some.
But down my Twitter feed a ways was the apparent causus belli for the "10 Things" list. Someone had posted (not on Twitter; it was way more than 140 characters) his frustration and annoyance with people playing Pokemon Go and trespassing on his property in the process. The writer's response was (as typical for Twitter but not for her) to exaggerate what he really said, and attack him for being against a "harmless" activity that was at worse merely childish and playful. And there again I came to a mental standstill and was unwilling to go along. Yes, he thought the game was stupid. But what really bothered him, it was clear, was that the Pokemon Go players were trespassing, a lot of them, at all hours, on his property, which apparently maintains a small recreational space for tenants of the building. And that is not necessarily "harmless," to the property or to the persons who live there. To accuse him of saying "Burn, burn, burn them" is wild hyperbole; to accuse him of opposing "harmless play" is incorrect because trespassing and making a ruckus is not always harmless. Unusual for this writer, who--though she clearly has a temper--is usually very fair in her expression of it.
So while I agree that play is important, and adults should maintain (or re-acquire) the ability for spontaneous, unstructured, play, I do not agree that adults should, in the process, ignore the rights of other people who maybe have a need for their private space in which to daydream or chat quietly without being invaded by boisterous strangers. Who may have their own forms of play, not compatible with something basically commercial and run by a corporation. And I particularly do not agree that every activity someone calls "play" is in fact healthy play, for themselves or others. Children playing spontaneously in a field, perhaps with a ball, are playing....children on a team with an adult coach, either in practice or competing against a rival team, are not "playing" in the same sense. They may enjoy that; I have enjoyed team sports. But it is not play. Similarly, children making up their own make-believe, acting out their own story, are playing--those taking part in a school play they didn't make up, at the direction of adults, are doing something else. The effect on the body, mind, and spirit are not the same.
So...what's made you say "Well, sure, this...but then again, that bit there, no" lately?
July 14, 2016
Police Behavior & Response to Criticism
In the aftermath of several police killings of black men in questionable circumstances, the overreaction to peaceful protests against same (in Baton Rouge and other localities) and the subsequent widespread public criticism (including on social media), and the shooting of several police officers in Dallas after a peaceful demonstration, many police departments have begun arresting people who post anti-police comments on social media. Others (including a NYC police commissioner) have called for "dialling down the rhetoric" of criticism of police. These are tactics that will not succeed in lowering the tension between police and those who criticize them (black OR white) and will instead make an already bad situation worse. Here's why.
Police misconduct antagonizes not merely those directly harmed, but other citizens as well. When police act like gangs of thugs, when they act dishonestly, when they hurt and kill innocent people, when they are not protecting, not serving, but harming citizens--and particularly when they then position themselves as victimized innocents and make excuses--they create the very antagonism they are now complaining about. When they then attack those who are critical of their misconduct, they harden the attitude of citizens who see--not protectors at all--but predators out of control.
I am not saying citizens should kill police or threaten the families of police. But I am saying that what police have been doing, the face they are showing to us, citizens, is harmful not only to us, but to them. Things are bad enough now that citizens alone--those who want peace (and protection from predators) cannot accomplish the needed changes themselves. Nor can police just vaguely admit to "a few bad apples" and think that covers the rest of them with glory. The rhetoric that needs to be "dialled down" is the rhetoric of police, the persecution by police of racial minorities, protestors, and activists who are exercising their legal, Constitutionally guaranteed right to disagree, to protest bad behavior, and to criticize, the many excuses made for bad, harmful policing.
I am opposed to violence against police officers for two reasons. First, killing people (including police) is wrong. Not just illegal (bad laws can make good things illegal, as some cities have made feeding the hungry illegal) but morally wrong. But the second reason is this: intentionally harming police officers only reinforces their paranoia and gives them the excuse to claim that they are the victims. They already have highly emotional ceremonies celebrating the deaths of their fellows who are killed "in the line of duty," with pomp and circumstance and dramatic speeches about their "ultimate sacrifice" and their "putting their lives on the line." These ceremonies, which are always featured on the media, intensify and perpetuate their sense of being special, braver and better than anyone else, and also saintly victims. Anything non-police do that increases this attitude is harmful.
Police need to realize that they now look like (in those black riot outfits, with their big armored vehicles and assault rifles and grenade launchers) like enemy troops, not the hometown policeman that many people my age grew up with. They look scary, mean, unreasonable, unapproachable. When they use foul language, threaten and posture and declare they have a right to "blow you away"--when they break down doors (too often of the wrong house), shoot the family pet, throw a flash-bang grenade into a baby's crib (and then refuse to acknowledge their resposibilty for the baby's life-changing injuries), scream at people, throw them on the ground and punch and kick them, shoot without warning and after someone is down, lie (until a videotape proves it) about a citizen attacking them, sexually assault those in custody (and lie about that)...it is no wonder that many people who have not even been arrested see them as little more than thugs in a protection racket. Of course they're not all like that (just like not all Christians hate gays, not all Muslims are terrorists, not all black men are criminals) but enough are--enough data are out there, to make the "friendly policeman on the corner" a very distant memory, almost a ghost.
Until police can see themselves as they are seen--until they can realize, admit, and hold themselves accountable for the harm they have done, and understand that this image of hulking enemy soldiers in black eager to beat up on and kill citizens will never accomplish what they claim to want--a better relationship with those they protect and serve--the situation cannot really improve.
There are two ways to accomplish this. In some jurisdictions, police chiefs have changed their policies to emphasize peace-keeping, de-escalation rather than violent intervention, and have recruited officers who want to do community policing, want to work with a community, and be part of it, rather than glory-hounds who hope to star on a new COPS episode. Police academies could do a much better job training officers in human-scale policing, in understanding that "protect and serve" does not mean "protect and serve people on the right side of the tracks" but *everyone*. All races, all religions, all social and economic classes, all kinds of family. That a missing black girl is as important as a missing white girl. That the murder of a trans woman is the same--legally and in importance--as the murder of a straight white man. That "takedowns" and door-bashing are not the high end of police work. The high end is regaining trust from those who have been most mistreated, so that they will do their part in making the community safer for all.
But if police will not step up and clean their own dirty linen--get the bad apples out of policing permanently, not let new bad apples in, hold themselves to a higher standard of behavior--then it will be necessary to change laws (and I think it will take both, to get it done in what's left of my lifetime.) At the state and federal level, laws need to be changed to a) demilitarize the police--remove from them military equipment that should not be used in domestic policing. Having such equipment is like having a gun--it tempts the owner to find a use for it (to justify having it.) Moreover, it tempts police to think of themselves in a war setting--as soldiers with an enemy--rather than as police with citizens to protect. And this very attitude creates a corresponding attitude of resentment and fear, rather than healthy respect, further polarizing the community. SWAT teams, originally organized for very specific unusual situations, became a kind of status symbol for departments, and then (since they were rarely needed) new uses for them were thought up that had previously been handled perfectly well by ordinary police (or for that matter process servers.) And they have become more aggressive, more eager to use violent means before attempting de-escalation in too many cases.
Laws--not local policy--should set standards for the use of lethal force, what constitutes police misconduct and unnecessary violence--and should require evidence other than an officer's word that the officer was justified in using it. Right now many state laws protect police from the consequences of misconduct--are more lenient in how police behavior is judged than in how non-police behavior is judged. (E.g. if an officer claims to have been in fear of his life lethal force may be justified--even if the person he killed was unarmed, in a wheelchair, a child, or merely opened the door at police demand. But the same is not true of a woman in fear of her life from a battering husband or boyfriend: the burden of proof is higher for her.) That needs to change; police officers should not be able to claim a lethal threat where non existed. Laws should require independent investigation of all cases of police-involved shootings, with the local department barred from collecting evidence or interviewing witnesses (since it's clear that evidence can be tampered with by those with an interest in the case.) Laws should set forth requirements for providing medical care for anyone injured by police (including those shot. Leaving someone twitching in the street and not calling an ambulance is visible, obvious intent to be sure they're dead. Very bad public appearance.
Since the police have shown extreme resistance to transparency (don't want to be filmed, don't want to be watched, inevitably claim that "the video doesn't show the whole story") while at the same time public recording has proven repeated dishonesty in reporting and bad behavior, the law should require police on duty should be officially observed (dashcams, bodycams) and all such records should be made public. I've heard police say that "you don't have anything to fear from surveillance if you're not guilty"...well, that should apply to police as well. Failure of a dash-cam or body-cam should be treated in the same way as a criminal spraying paint on a store's security cam or breaking it, creating suspicion of guilt. Confiscating or destroying a citizen's recording equipment, be it audio recorder, cellphone camera, other camera, etc. should be illegal and punishable. Arresting citizens for watching and recording police behavior is wrong--their right to do so has been upheld by the Supreme Court. Does this make policing harder? It makes bad policing harder. It should not have any effect on good policing, the kind of policing that builds trust and cooperation in a community.
Power is a temptation. Privilege is a temptation. Police are given both power and privilege...and thus are tempted to abuse them both. Some do--and will--abuse them both. Abuse of police power and privilege does great harm (to the citizens first, but then to the police by backlash against them.) Thus police need more watching so that abuse can be stopped in its tracks and punished if it's bad enough. That is only fair. And it is what we, the citizens, deserve: fair, impartial, knowledgeable, competent, fully adult peace officers who really are committed to serving and protecting entire communities: every race, every religion, every one. If the police will not do it themselves, then it is up to us, as citizens, to be the guardians of the guardians, the watchdogs of the watchdogs. And as a good shepherd will not tolerate a sheepdog who harms some of his sheep, citizens should not tolerate bad policing even if we are not the sheep who are bleeding or dead.
Police misconduct antagonizes not merely those directly harmed, but other citizens as well. When police act like gangs of thugs, when they act dishonestly, when they hurt and kill innocent people, when they are not protecting, not serving, but harming citizens--and particularly when they then position themselves as victimized innocents and make excuses--they create the very antagonism they are now complaining about. When they then attack those who are critical of their misconduct, they harden the attitude of citizens who see--not protectors at all--but predators out of control.
I am not saying citizens should kill police or threaten the families of police. But I am saying that what police have been doing, the face they are showing to us, citizens, is harmful not only to us, but to them. Things are bad enough now that citizens alone--those who want peace (and protection from predators) cannot accomplish the needed changes themselves. Nor can police just vaguely admit to "a few bad apples" and think that covers the rest of them with glory. The rhetoric that needs to be "dialled down" is the rhetoric of police, the persecution by police of racial minorities, protestors, and activists who are exercising their legal, Constitutionally guaranteed right to disagree, to protest bad behavior, and to criticize, the many excuses made for bad, harmful policing.
I am opposed to violence against police officers for two reasons. First, killing people (including police) is wrong. Not just illegal (bad laws can make good things illegal, as some cities have made feeding the hungry illegal) but morally wrong. But the second reason is this: intentionally harming police officers only reinforces their paranoia and gives them the excuse to claim that they are the victims. They already have highly emotional ceremonies celebrating the deaths of their fellows who are killed "in the line of duty," with pomp and circumstance and dramatic speeches about their "ultimate sacrifice" and their "putting their lives on the line." These ceremonies, which are always featured on the media, intensify and perpetuate their sense of being special, braver and better than anyone else, and also saintly victims. Anything non-police do that increases this attitude is harmful.
Police need to realize that they now look like (in those black riot outfits, with their big armored vehicles and assault rifles and grenade launchers) like enemy troops, not the hometown policeman that many people my age grew up with. They look scary, mean, unreasonable, unapproachable. When they use foul language, threaten and posture and declare they have a right to "blow you away"--when they break down doors (too often of the wrong house), shoot the family pet, throw a flash-bang grenade into a baby's crib (and then refuse to acknowledge their resposibilty for the baby's life-changing injuries), scream at people, throw them on the ground and punch and kick them, shoot without warning and after someone is down, lie (until a videotape proves it) about a citizen attacking them, sexually assault those in custody (and lie about that)...it is no wonder that many people who have not even been arrested see them as little more than thugs in a protection racket. Of course they're not all like that (just like not all Christians hate gays, not all Muslims are terrorists, not all black men are criminals) but enough are--enough data are out there, to make the "friendly policeman on the corner" a very distant memory, almost a ghost.
Until police can see themselves as they are seen--until they can realize, admit, and hold themselves accountable for the harm they have done, and understand that this image of hulking enemy soldiers in black eager to beat up on and kill citizens will never accomplish what they claim to want--a better relationship with those they protect and serve--the situation cannot really improve.
There are two ways to accomplish this. In some jurisdictions, police chiefs have changed their policies to emphasize peace-keeping, de-escalation rather than violent intervention, and have recruited officers who want to do community policing, want to work with a community, and be part of it, rather than glory-hounds who hope to star on a new COPS episode. Police academies could do a much better job training officers in human-scale policing, in understanding that "protect and serve" does not mean "protect and serve people on the right side of the tracks" but *everyone*. All races, all religions, all social and economic classes, all kinds of family. That a missing black girl is as important as a missing white girl. That the murder of a trans woman is the same--legally and in importance--as the murder of a straight white man. That "takedowns" and door-bashing are not the high end of police work. The high end is regaining trust from those who have been most mistreated, so that they will do their part in making the community safer for all.
But if police will not step up and clean their own dirty linen--get the bad apples out of policing permanently, not let new bad apples in, hold themselves to a higher standard of behavior--then it will be necessary to change laws (and I think it will take both, to get it done in what's left of my lifetime.) At the state and federal level, laws need to be changed to a) demilitarize the police--remove from them military equipment that should not be used in domestic policing. Having such equipment is like having a gun--it tempts the owner to find a use for it (to justify having it.) Moreover, it tempts police to think of themselves in a war setting--as soldiers with an enemy--rather than as police with citizens to protect. And this very attitude creates a corresponding attitude of resentment and fear, rather than healthy respect, further polarizing the community. SWAT teams, originally organized for very specific unusual situations, became a kind of status symbol for departments, and then (since they were rarely needed) new uses for them were thought up that had previously been handled perfectly well by ordinary police (or for that matter process servers.) And they have become more aggressive, more eager to use violent means before attempting de-escalation in too many cases.
Laws--not local policy--should set standards for the use of lethal force, what constitutes police misconduct and unnecessary violence--and should require evidence other than an officer's word that the officer was justified in using it. Right now many state laws protect police from the consequences of misconduct--are more lenient in how police behavior is judged than in how non-police behavior is judged. (E.g. if an officer claims to have been in fear of his life lethal force may be justified--even if the person he killed was unarmed, in a wheelchair, a child, or merely opened the door at police demand. But the same is not true of a woman in fear of her life from a battering husband or boyfriend: the burden of proof is higher for her.) That needs to change; police officers should not be able to claim a lethal threat where non existed. Laws should require independent investigation of all cases of police-involved shootings, with the local department barred from collecting evidence or interviewing witnesses (since it's clear that evidence can be tampered with by those with an interest in the case.) Laws should set forth requirements for providing medical care for anyone injured by police (including those shot. Leaving someone twitching in the street and not calling an ambulance is visible, obvious intent to be sure they're dead. Very bad public appearance.
Since the police have shown extreme resistance to transparency (don't want to be filmed, don't want to be watched, inevitably claim that "the video doesn't show the whole story") while at the same time public recording has proven repeated dishonesty in reporting and bad behavior, the law should require police on duty should be officially observed (dashcams, bodycams) and all such records should be made public. I've heard police say that "you don't have anything to fear from surveillance if you're not guilty"...well, that should apply to police as well. Failure of a dash-cam or body-cam should be treated in the same way as a criminal spraying paint on a store's security cam or breaking it, creating suspicion of guilt. Confiscating or destroying a citizen's recording equipment, be it audio recorder, cellphone camera, other camera, etc. should be illegal and punishable. Arresting citizens for watching and recording police behavior is wrong--their right to do so has been upheld by the Supreme Court. Does this make policing harder? It makes bad policing harder. It should not have any effect on good policing, the kind of policing that builds trust and cooperation in a community.
Power is a temptation. Privilege is a temptation. Police are given both power and privilege...and thus are tempted to abuse them both. Some do--and will--abuse them both. Abuse of police power and privilege does great harm (to the citizens first, but then to the police by backlash against them.) Thus police need more watching so that abuse can be stopped in its tracks and punished if it's bad enough. That is only fair. And it is what we, the citizens, deserve: fair, impartial, knowledgeable, competent, fully adult peace officers who really are committed to serving and protecting entire communities: every race, every religion, every one. If the police will not do it themselves, then it is up to us, as citizens, to be the guardians of the guardians, the watchdogs of the watchdogs. And as a good shepherd will not tolerate a sheepdog who harms some of his sheep, citizens should not tolerate bad policing even if we are not the sheep who are bleeding or dead.
July 13, 2016
A few cooking bits...
This is a scattershot sort of post, because we had a wonderful Houseguest for 10 days (she's been gone over a week now, but the 10 days were memorable) who cooked, and then I cooked, and then we cooked, and lot of cooking-type stuff happened. She wanted to watch me make chili, and chicken stock, and apple bread pudding, and bean soup. I wanted to learn more about Italian cooking, at which she is excellent (OMG her chicken piccata! My mouth was dancing in the streets with glee!) Then there was the after-cooking with the leftovers after she left. The only picture I have of the whole cooking extravaganza is the bread pudding one she took.
That's right before half of it disappeared
So: She learned to tell when chili's done by the shift in color from orange-brown to brown-brown and the thickness (chili needs no thickener if you simmer it long enough.) This chili included garlic from our back yard, which had helpfully turned ready to pull that week. Chili is a meat dish. I use onions and garlic and tomatoes in mine; some people are opposed to the tomatoes, but I like them as long as they have time to cook down and disappear into the thick stuff between the meat chunks. Chili done well is not fast food. It is not even medium food. It is "get it on by 8 am and you can eat it at 6 pm." Yes, that's ten hours. Most of which time you're ignoring it and doing other things. (It's not horrible at lunch, but it's not really chili yet--the liquid is way too thin, the color way too orange, the tomato pieces can still be distinguished, etc0. This is the point at which people are tempted to do silly things like "thicken the broth" because it's not thick yet. Nope. Leave it alone. Trust that moist heat will move more and more meat fibers into the broth and it will thicken by itself. On a low fire, it won't stick to the pot or burn because it doesn't have beans in it. All you have to do during the day is check it every hour so you can feel like you're being a cook, and put the top back on the pot. Around 3-4 pm it's beginning to "turn" and from there it matures steadily and obviously. Leave the top half off or completely off if you accidentally put too much liquid in to start with, and check it every half hour until it's nine hours in; from there give it a stir every 15 minutes. If you cut the meat into small pieces (as I do) instead of using a coarse grind, the chunks should be spoon tender (press the side of a spoon against a chunk that's next to the pot side and it should immediately break.) Range beef takes longer getting to that stage than supermarket beef. Chili was a dish made with tough, lean beef--you won't get the flavor from prime.
Bean soup. Since I don't put beans in chili (but keep reading, there's an exception) I make beans to have *with* chili if you want. If you mix them into your bowl I won't make a face. I like a mix of beans; not everyone does. But pinto beans, traditional and tasty as they are, can be a bit "flat" (esp. after we started growing bean varieties and I started using a mix of what we grew.) Now I buy a pound sack of each of the easily-available beans, pour them all into a big pickle jar (BIG pickle jar) and stir them up. I could stir them up first, but it's fun to pour them in the jar layer by layer until the first batch of soup--they're pretty. Red beans, often two sizes. White beans. Black beans. Pinto beans. Anasazi beans. Black beans. 4 cups of mixed beans soaked overnight in cold water and rinsed. One very large, or two smaller onions, diced. Bay leaf. A garlic clove or several if you have them. Ham bone or (even better) about a half pound of smoked ham hocks. Water to cover, bring to boil, simmer until the black beans are tender all the way through (they cook the slowest.) Add a little water if it gets too low. The white beans will have melted into the pot likker by then. That's fine. The pot likker should be opaque, not translucent, when it's done, and medium-thick.
From bean soup comes bean dip. Take a cup of two of the bean soup, mostly beans, and blend it (I put it in a narrow container and use a stick blender) until as smooth as you want it. That thickens it enough. You can go through a whole sack of corn chips with this homemade bean dip in nothing flat. If you want a hot bean dip, toss in some diced jalapeno. Not too much; the salt of corn chips will hurt if you burn your lips on the bean dip.
Or...if you happen to have, say, a cup of chili left, and two-three people to feed, this is the one time I put chili and beans together. Leftover chili with leftover bean soup heated up togeher are great as a dip, or a meal, and of course the addition of diced onion, and/or shredded cheese, is great. Yes, we did that. Yes, we liked it. With corn chips and without. Liked it a lot.
Chicken from the stock-making project. Well, you can't go wrong with boiled chicken from the stock-making. Soup--some of the stock plus a couple of cups of chunked chicken, a can of Rotel, some pasta or rice or other starch, some capers, some lime juice. The leftovers of that can be "freshened" with 1/2 to 3/4 of a jar of commercial pasta sauce, and another batch of pasta, and some sliced (or whole) black olives. Homemade pasta sauce is great, too.
Chicken from the stock-making project also produces chicken salad. Husband and I like slightly different recipes (and why not) and Houseguest suggested using half sour cream and half mayonnaise for the "glue." YES. Great suggestion. (My lazy way had been sometimes using Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing.) I like my chicken salad to have crunch things in it: diced celery and diced green pepper. I like the chicken to be in small lumps, not reduced to chicken-flavored mush, and just enough of the mayonnaise/sour cream to coat the other ingredients, not them floating in a sea of white stuff. Sliced black olives in it brings it up a notch. Husband likes diced raw onion in his and tried capers this time. Both of us happy.
That's right before half of it disappeared
So: She learned to tell when chili's done by the shift in color from orange-brown to brown-brown and the thickness (chili needs no thickener if you simmer it long enough.) This chili included garlic from our back yard, which had helpfully turned ready to pull that week. Chili is a meat dish. I use onions and garlic and tomatoes in mine; some people are opposed to the tomatoes, but I like them as long as they have time to cook down and disappear into the thick stuff between the meat chunks. Chili done well is not fast food. It is not even medium food. It is "get it on by 8 am and you can eat it at 6 pm." Yes, that's ten hours. Most of which time you're ignoring it and doing other things. (It's not horrible at lunch, but it's not really chili yet--the liquid is way too thin, the color way too orange, the tomato pieces can still be distinguished, etc0. This is the point at which people are tempted to do silly things like "thicken the broth" because it's not thick yet. Nope. Leave it alone. Trust that moist heat will move more and more meat fibers into the broth and it will thicken by itself. On a low fire, it won't stick to the pot or burn because it doesn't have beans in it. All you have to do during the day is check it every hour so you can feel like you're being a cook, and put the top back on the pot. Around 3-4 pm it's beginning to "turn" and from there it matures steadily and obviously. Leave the top half off or completely off if you accidentally put too much liquid in to start with, and check it every half hour until it's nine hours in; from there give it a stir every 15 minutes. If you cut the meat into small pieces (as I do) instead of using a coarse grind, the chunks should be spoon tender (press the side of a spoon against a chunk that's next to the pot side and it should immediately break.) Range beef takes longer getting to that stage than supermarket beef. Chili was a dish made with tough, lean beef--you won't get the flavor from prime.
Bean soup. Since I don't put beans in chili (but keep reading, there's an exception) I make beans to have *with* chili if you want. If you mix them into your bowl I won't make a face. I like a mix of beans; not everyone does. But pinto beans, traditional and tasty as they are, can be a bit "flat" (esp. after we started growing bean varieties and I started using a mix of what we grew.) Now I buy a pound sack of each of the easily-available beans, pour them all into a big pickle jar (BIG pickle jar) and stir them up. I could stir them up first, but it's fun to pour them in the jar layer by layer until the first batch of soup--they're pretty. Red beans, often two sizes. White beans. Black beans. Pinto beans. Anasazi beans. Black beans. 4 cups of mixed beans soaked overnight in cold water and rinsed. One very large, or two smaller onions, diced. Bay leaf. A garlic clove or several if you have them. Ham bone or (even better) about a half pound of smoked ham hocks. Water to cover, bring to boil, simmer until the black beans are tender all the way through (they cook the slowest.) Add a little water if it gets too low. The white beans will have melted into the pot likker by then. That's fine. The pot likker should be opaque, not translucent, when it's done, and medium-thick.
From bean soup comes bean dip. Take a cup of two of the bean soup, mostly beans, and blend it (I put it in a narrow container and use a stick blender) until as smooth as you want it. That thickens it enough. You can go through a whole sack of corn chips with this homemade bean dip in nothing flat. If you want a hot bean dip, toss in some diced jalapeno. Not too much; the salt of corn chips will hurt if you burn your lips on the bean dip.
Or...if you happen to have, say, a cup of chili left, and two-three people to feed, this is the one time I put chili and beans together. Leftover chili with leftover bean soup heated up togeher are great as a dip, or a meal, and of course the addition of diced onion, and/or shredded cheese, is great. Yes, we did that. Yes, we liked it. With corn chips and without. Liked it a lot.
Chicken from the stock-making project. Well, you can't go wrong with boiled chicken from the stock-making. Soup--some of the stock plus a couple of cups of chunked chicken, a can of Rotel, some pasta or rice or other starch, some capers, some lime juice. The leftovers of that can be "freshened" with 1/2 to 3/4 of a jar of commercial pasta sauce, and another batch of pasta, and some sliced (or whole) black olives. Homemade pasta sauce is great, too.
Chicken from the stock-making project also produces chicken salad. Husband and I like slightly different recipes (and why not) and Houseguest suggested using half sour cream and half mayonnaise for the "glue." YES. Great suggestion. (My lazy way had been sometimes using Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing.) I like my chicken salad to have crunch things in it: diced celery and diced green pepper. I like the chicken to be in small lumps, not reduced to chicken-flavored mush, and just enough of the mayonnaise/sour cream to coat the other ingredients, not them floating in a sea of white stuff. Sliced black olives in it brings it up a notch. Husband likes diced raw onion in his and tried capers this time. Both of us happy.
June 22, 2016
Your Morning Laugh: Factoid v. Fact
According to someone with inadequate internet research skills, who published a post on Ten Things You Didn't Know About Gordon Lightfoot, I was his second wife. He married his second wife (I looked it up in several places) in 1989 (when I'd been married to my actual husband for 20 years) separated from her in 2003, and divorced in 2011.
It would have been an interesting exercise in bigamy if I had managed to marry someone I'd never met in 1989. I think my husband and son and mother would have noticed if I'd run off to marry a musician/songwriter. My mother was beginning her final decline, our son was in the most difficult (for me) period of his childhood as an autist, and I was writing as fast as I could in the midst of everything else. I didn't have time or energy for a clandestine romance.
But since everything on the internet lives forever, I'm sure that this will make its way into multiple other sites before it can be corrected other than by my stating plainly in every venue every time that I was never married to Gordon Lightfoot, was married only once, in 1969, and someone just mistook me for someone else. I filled out the "responses" form on the Fraze Pavilion site, but have no idea if they even look at their mail, let alone correct their errors. It's funny (R- and I laughed over it this morning) but it's also another proof that not everything on the internet is true.
It would have been an interesting exercise in bigamy if I had managed to marry someone I'd never met in 1989. I think my husband and son and mother would have noticed if I'd run off to marry a musician/songwriter. My mother was beginning her final decline, our son was in the most difficult (for me) period of his childhood as an autist, and I was writing as fast as I could in the midst of everything else. I didn't have time or energy for a clandestine romance.
But since everything on the internet lives forever, I'm sure that this will make its way into multiple other sites before it can be corrected other than by my stating plainly in every venue every time that I was never married to Gordon Lightfoot, was married only once, in 1969, and someone just mistook me for someone else. I filled out the "responses" form on the Fraze Pavilion site, but have no idea if they even look at their mail, let alone correct their errors. It's funny (R- and I laughed over it this morning) but it's also another proof that not everything on the internet is true.
June 19, 2016
80 Acres: New plant for the list, June 18
R- found a tall blooming plant Saturday, June 18, that he didn't recognize: a colony growing in the creek woods, in the 'swamp' area, now very wet again. There's a kind of "sandbar" (except it's not sand, but alluvial mix from flash floods including black clay) that gets midday sun. He found a colony of these, 4 feet and more tall, and pulled the shortest one to bring back and show me. It was about four feet. By the time it got back to the house, it was fairly limp, the main stalk actually broken. I snipped it short enough to fit in a pitcher, hoping it would perk up. Some of the pictures were taken shortly after that; over time it did regain turgor so this morning I set it outside for a bit and took more pictures.
Clearly Mint Family--square stem, opposite leaves, flower shape.
The color appears pink in some lights, lavender in others; this image was taken in late afternoon.
Here's some flower detail taken in the same session.
I started looking for ID with my old Peterson Field Guide to Wildflowers of North-eastern and North-central North America, Ajilvsgi's Wildflowers of Texas (and could not find my Peterson for Texas & the Southwest, which I didn't put back on the shelf the last time I used it (DUh!) I've found the Peterson useful even when it's not this region, as this is a transitional region. Looking there, I was leaning toward Stachys tenuifolia. It was getting late, but even so I pulled out the monster, Correll and Johnston's Manual of the Vascular Plants of Texas and looked at the various Stachys entries...S. tenuifolia was listed for east fourth of Texas, which we aren't, but I've found eastern plants in various nooks and crannies here, esp. in the creek woods. (American elm, for one.)
This morning the cut end in the pitcher had soaked up even more water, and twisted its spike round to point at the window of the back door. Many of the flowers had dropped, but it looks like more may open further up the spike. I set it outside on a stump and took some more pictures, first of the entire plant, then the flowers, then the leaves. I measured the leaves on the original stem, now very limp, as well.
All three stems with buds are now more upright (the "side" ones completely so)
Flower detail showing stages of bloom
Leaves are lanceolate, toothed, slightly rough. Down the stem they're 3.25 inches long plus a 0.5 inch petiole. One
leaf (lower right) clearly shows the petiole.
This morning, I tried to look up this and possibly related plants on the National Wildflower Research Center's database of plants. There's not an easy way to do a side-by-side comparison of closely related species, and the information needed for working up an ID isn't always in the plant description (missing for many plants, including the tall ones like this, is height. There's generally less information than in a field guide.) Anyway, going to bed I'd been happily thinking S. tenuifolia, but the images at the Wildflower Center and the references they gave suggested that that plant had more brightly colored flowers, and more obvious on the stalk, than the one we have here. So I went back to Correll & Johnston, but....uncertainty still there.
Need a solid ID to put this plant on the 80-Acres list. And of course I'd like to know how close I came to the right ID.
Clearly Mint Family--square stem, opposite leaves, flower shape.
The color appears pink in some lights, lavender in others; this image was taken in late afternoon.
Here's some flower detail taken in the same session.
I started looking for ID with my old Peterson Field Guide to Wildflowers of North-eastern and North-central North America, Ajilvsgi's Wildflowers of Texas (and could not find my Peterson for Texas & the Southwest, which I didn't put back on the shelf the last time I used it (DUh!) I've found the Peterson useful even when it's not this region, as this is a transitional region. Looking there, I was leaning toward Stachys tenuifolia. It was getting late, but even so I pulled out the monster, Correll and Johnston's Manual of the Vascular Plants of Texas and looked at the various Stachys entries...S. tenuifolia was listed for east fourth of Texas, which we aren't, but I've found eastern plants in various nooks and crannies here, esp. in the creek woods. (American elm, for one.)
This morning the cut end in the pitcher had soaked up even more water, and twisted its spike round to point at the window of the back door. Many of the flowers had dropped, but it looks like more may open further up the spike. I set it outside on a stump and took some more pictures, first of the entire plant, then the flowers, then the leaves. I measured the leaves on the original stem, now very limp, as well.
All three stems with buds are now more upright (the "side" ones completely so)
Flower detail showing stages of bloom
Leaves are lanceolate, toothed, slightly rough. Down the stem they're 3.25 inches long plus a 0.5 inch petiole. One
leaf (lower right) clearly shows the petiole.
This morning, I tried to look up this and possibly related plants on the National Wildflower Research Center's database of plants. There's not an easy way to do a side-by-side comparison of closely related species, and the information needed for working up an ID isn't always in the plant description (missing for many plants, including the tall ones like this, is height. There's generally less information than in a field guide.) Anyway, going to bed I'd been happily thinking S. tenuifolia, but the images at the Wildflower Center and the references they gave suggested that that plant had more brightly colored flowers, and more obvious on the stalk, than the one we have here. So I went back to Correll & Johnston, but....uncertainty still there.
Need a solid ID to put this plant on the 80-Acres list. And of course I'd like to know how close I came to the right ID.
June 16, 2016
80 Acres: June 16, 2006
The rain stopped a week ago; the winter grasses are brown or browning, the early wildflowers have gone to seed. But soil moisture is still good. The tallgrasses (switchgrass, Eastern gama, Indiangrass, big bluestem) are doing very well (switchgrass in the secondary drainage is taller than we are.) There's an area in the east grass we call "The Bowl" because it's a roundish area that seeps in wet weather as it slopes down to the old drainage line. It stays green longer. When we got the place, it was covered with broomweed (non-native), bare under the broomweed with a few scattered grass plants, not doing well because of the chemical defense of the broomweek. Today it looks like this:
You can see the upslope edge (pale beige of dry grass)
Every different shade of green, every native plant, reveals something about the soil where it is.
I took that picture sitting on one of the little lawn tractors at the bottom end of the bowl, the much wetter end (just dry enough to drive on now.) In the foreground are large flowering sedges mixed with meadow dropseed. Under them are small flowers, such as meadow pink (Sabatia campestris) and coreopsis and prairie bluets (ranging from white to light lavender.) You can't really see the scattered taller Texas bluebell (actually a gentian, Eustoma exaltatum (prev. grandiflorum) in this image (there were two, but too far away to show.) It was very bright, hot, and breezy, which made photographing individual flowers...tricky.
The lower end of the Bowl is now rimmed with switchgrass (mostly) and Eastern gama that we planted for erosion control (along with the checkdams.
A mowed maintenance trail across low end of The Bowl; R-pic shows the SW corner of the bowl--see brown grass beyond; secondary drainage turns left at clump of trees. We spooked a bird from the switchgrass that then perched in the tree to the L. More on that later.
We have four gentian-family wildflowers in wet years like this, but I don't usually find three of the four in the same general area. Sabatia campestis, the meadow pink, likes wet soil and is found only in wet years in the lower to mid-Bowl, peaking in late May. Texas bluebells (not bluebell, but since there aren't any real bluebells here, that's what pioneers called the gorgeous big gentian, Eustoma exultatum, was E. grandiflorum) likes areas that have been wet, or are moist, but I've seen it flowering in the worst soil in a dry August. I was told by several "grandmother" age women, when we moved here, that these used to be so common that girls cut them to make wreaths for their hair and used them for table decoration. And the tiny Centaureums (two species, one "clumpy" and one "straggly") grow on various thin, unpromising, well-drained and even dry soils when they feel like it, any time from late April into July. But today I found all three in bloom in the Bowl in mid-June. In fact, in one "corner" of the bowl, I found the wet-loving Sabatia within two feet of the dry-ground Centaury.
L: Meadow pink growing in among large sedges; they grow scattered in grass, sedges, and young Maximilian sunflowers.
R: One of the Centaureums, the same pretty rose-pink as the meadow pink.
Eustoma exultatum varies in color, but always some shade of purple, often with white
Now about that bird. I saw three birds fly out of the switchgrass as I drove past, two one way and one the other. After I stopped the tractor and got off to take pictures, I began to hear what I thought was a dickcissel calling. We have them only on wet years. When my husband joined me, the bird flew from a different clump of switchgrass to the top of the little "bodark" (bois d'arc, Maclura pomifera) and there I was with camera in hand. I mentioned quite breezy, right. The top twigs of the tree were moving around some, and I was not in the best position (sun-wise) but I did have a zoom lens, my usual "out for a walk in the field) lens, so I did the best I could. And when put in the computer, brought up to 1:1, and then run through a histogram adjustment, this showed up:
At full size in the computer, the black V collar, yellow in the front and cheek, confirm the IDMale Dickcissel, and given the date, probably breeding here this year.
If you have any kind of photo-manipulation software, it's alway worthwhile to take catch pictures of birds and other wildlife, because about half the time I can get an ID even if it's a very imperfect picture in terms of bird photograph (as this is.)
Also tucked in under the sedges and grasses were other wildflowers than the gentian relatives: small coreopsis (not sure of species), prairie bluets, "leftover" gaillardia stunted by too much water (!). Toward the edges of the bowl, on the east, more and more leftover gaillardia and lemon horsemint. Only one or two flowers were left on any gaillardia plant, but the lemon horsemint is still holding on well.
From the bottom of the Bowl, I turned up its east side, and from there followed the mowed track around the dry woods. The seepage-watered "dry-woods swale" is now filled with Coreopsis instead of Goldthread. But now I need to resize and crop more of the images I took this morning, so that part of the day will be in a different post.
You can see the upslope edge (pale beige of dry grass)
Every different shade of green, every native plant, reveals something about the soil where it is.
I took that picture sitting on one of the little lawn tractors at the bottom end of the bowl, the much wetter end (just dry enough to drive on now.) In the foreground are large flowering sedges mixed with meadow dropseed. Under them are small flowers, such as meadow pink (Sabatia campestris) and coreopsis and prairie bluets (ranging from white to light lavender.) You can't really see the scattered taller Texas bluebell (actually a gentian, Eustoma exaltatum (prev. grandiflorum) in this image (there were two, but too far away to show.) It was very bright, hot, and breezy, which made photographing individual flowers...tricky.
The lower end of the Bowl is now rimmed with switchgrass (mostly) and Eastern gama that we planted for erosion control (along with the checkdams.
A mowed maintenance trail across low end of The Bowl; R-pic shows the SW corner of the bowl--see brown grass beyond; secondary drainage turns left at clump of trees. We spooked a bird from the switchgrass that then perched in the tree to the L. More on that later.
We have four gentian-family wildflowers in wet years like this, but I don't usually find three of the four in the same general area. Sabatia campestis, the meadow pink, likes wet soil and is found only in wet years in the lower to mid-Bowl, peaking in late May. Texas bluebells (not bluebell, but since there aren't any real bluebells here, that's what pioneers called the gorgeous big gentian, Eustoma exultatum, was E. grandiflorum) likes areas that have been wet, or are moist, but I've seen it flowering in the worst soil in a dry August. I was told by several "grandmother" age women, when we moved here, that these used to be so common that girls cut them to make wreaths for their hair and used them for table decoration. And the tiny Centaureums (two species, one "clumpy" and one "straggly") grow on various thin, unpromising, well-drained and even dry soils when they feel like it, any time from late April into July. But today I found all three in bloom in the Bowl in mid-June. In fact, in one "corner" of the bowl, I found the wet-loving Sabatia within two feet of the dry-ground Centaury.
L: Meadow pink growing in among large sedges; they grow scattered in grass, sedges, and young Maximilian sunflowers.
R: One of the Centaureums, the same pretty rose-pink as the meadow pink.
Eustoma exultatum varies in color, but always some shade of purple, often with white
Now about that bird. I saw three birds fly out of the switchgrass as I drove past, two one way and one the other. After I stopped the tractor and got off to take pictures, I began to hear what I thought was a dickcissel calling. We have them only on wet years. When my husband joined me, the bird flew from a different clump of switchgrass to the top of the little "bodark" (bois d'arc, Maclura pomifera) and there I was with camera in hand. I mentioned quite breezy, right. The top twigs of the tree were moving around some, and I was not in the best position (sun-wise) but I did have a zoom lens, my usual "out for a walk in the field) lens, so I did the best I could. And when put in the computer, brought up to 1:1, and then run through a histogram adjustment, this showed up:
At full size in the computer, the black V collar, yellow in the front and cheek, confirm the IDMale Dickcissel, and given the date, probably breeding here this year.
If you have any kind of photo-manipulation software, it's alway worthwhile to take catch pictures of birds and other wildlife, because about half the time I can get an ID even if it's a very imperfect picture in terms of bird photograph (as this is.)
Also tucked in under the sedges and grasses were other wildflowers than the gentian relatives: small coreopsis (not sure of species), prairie bluets, "leftover" gaillardia stunted by too much water (!). Toward the edges of the bowl, on the east, more and more leftover gaillardia and lemon horsemint. Only one or two flowers were left on any gaillardia plant, but the lemon horsemint is still holding on well.
From the bottom of the Bowl, I turned up its east side, and from there followed the mowed track around the dry woods. The seepage-watered "dry-woods swale" is now filled with Coreopsis instead of Goldthread. But now I need to resize and crop more of the images I took this morning, so that part of the day will be in a different post.
June 14, 2016
Things Jesus Didn't Say: "Hate Gays and Be Glad When Someone Kills Them."
Just to be perfectly clear about this, and the easiest way to check up on what I'm saying: Read the Gospels, in a good translation (avoid the so-called "Conservative Bibles" that are not accurate to the existing oldest texts.) King James is OK, not the best, but OK. My desk Bble is The New English Bible, the New Testament part coming out first in 1961, benefitting from additional scholarly study and the discovery of older texts than were available to those working in the 17th century.
Jesus did not say (or, if you're not convinced the Gospels come remotely close to what the historical Jesus said, Jesus has not been claimed to say) that homosexuals were sinful and deserved death. Jesus did not say to hate homosexuals. Jesus did not say to attack homosexuals. Jesus did not mention homosexuals male or female. The only types of people whose sexual behavior Jesus commented on were 1) men who divorced their wives, and 2) men and women who committed adultery (that is, they were married and they willingly had sex with someone other than their spouse. And that is why I think so-called Christians (individuals, church leaders, entire congregations) who say that some sexual identities (gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, whatever) are totally evil and deserve death and it's OK to rejoice at a massacre in a nightclub...are wrong, and not acting as Christians at all. Because the essence of Christianity is following Christ and that's not where Christ went.
So where did all the anti-gay rhetoric come from? Not from Jesus Christ, the person on whom Christianity is founded, and the Person Christians are told to emulate....but from the Old Testament strictures on male/male sex (where female/female sex isn't mentioned) and from other people, specifically Paul in the various Letters to this and that group of Christians. And from an attempt to separate Christians from pagans, some of whom were "openly" gay because only Jews and Christians (some Christians) cared. Yes, there are passages in the Old Testament declaring that sexual acts between men are wrong and God will smite (them, a city, a nation) for doing it.
There are also passages in the Old Testament that define clean and unclean foods and required rules for living a holy life than 99.999% of Christians never even think about. Including some of the most gay-hating. (Chicken-fried steak with cream gravy...not OK. Hamburger and milkshake, not OK. Baby back ribs, pork chops, pork sausage, ham: not OK. Crawfish and crab boils, not OK. And lots more.)
In the New Testament, we mostly have Paul, formerly Saul, who converted from a self-righteous Pharisee persecuting the early Church--a well-educated, high-ranking religious lawyer, thoroughly familiar with Jewish law--a group most eager to destroy this (to them perverted and disgusting) new branch of their religion. He had a religious experience on the road to Damascus, he changed his mind...but he carried with him all the scholarship and deeply engrained beliefs of his former occupation--rooting out heretics. So OK, now he believed Jesus had been the Messiah, and had been raised from the dead...but he hung onto a lot of things familiar to him (not surprising) and added them in, from his own certainty (which never wavered) that Jesus would have said that if only Jesus had thought of it, or had time. Including a lot of his own certainty that God was more concerned with sexual behavior than with all those things Jesus actually said.
So if Jesus didn't say anything about homosexuality in the Gospels, what was he spending time talking about and teaching about? The abuse of worldly power by judges, priests, tax collectors, soldiers, rich people, proud people...and the connections between worldly power and money, the way money corrupts human interactions, warping them and leads to abuses of power. Greed, cruelty, scoffing and ridicule (verbal bullying), dishonesty and cheating (especially the poor), quarreling and fighting. The duty of everyone to love not just friends, not just the person next door, but strangers, people outside the family, neighborhood, village, town. That love isn't just a word, but a series of acts: feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, clothing the naked, giving water to the thirsty, visiting the sick and imprisoned, noticing people in need (any need) and providing it. Not labeling people as evil (not judging) because human judgments are skewed by human faults that those who have them often don't recognize.
Parable after parable. Sermon after sermon. One on one, one on a group, one to a vast audience: the same basic messages: don't be greedy, don't be cruel, don't value money, clothes, jewels over the life that comes with living in the spirit of love, don't huddle up in safety and let others suffer, don't spend all your time criticizing others when you're imperfect yourself. Make your life of value by investing in generosity, kindness, gentleness, love, using the talents you've been given to make things better for others as well as yourself. Feed, clothe, house, heal, visit, encourage, help...love. That's what love is. And love casts out fear.
It's not easy. He knew it wasn't easy; he flat said it wasn't easy and his followers could expect persecution because they would be going against the flow. It's easy to be scared--it was easy then and it's easy now and it's always been easy to be scared. And scared people curl in on themselves, huddle up, form tight little groups to keep others out, to keep the resources for themselves. They make up reasonable sounding reasons not to share, not to help others ("It teaches them to be dependent. It's bad for their character. They don't deserve it.") Fear convinces them there are more enemies, more dangers, than they can handle, so they must be hard, cruel, selfish, and show anger and hatred to anyone who's not in their group.
They "love" only their own, but their love isn't the free-flowing love Jesus was talking about. Love cannot take away fear unless it is allowed to grow, and push fear out because there's no room for it--and to grow, it must be acted out as Jesus said to act it out. Now some hate-preaching churches do have outreach--but it does not extend past their familiar comfort zone. They will feed the deserving hungry. They will house the deserving homeless. They may at the same time be turning away those they feel aren't deserving (I've run across churches unwilling to help alcoholics or drug addicts or people not of their denomination or gays, just to start with.)
So...when a church says gays are evil and against God and deserve death....they are teaching hatred, not love, and that's not Christian. Same if they say that about any group. They're wrong. And yes, that's a judgment. And I am, God and I both know, fallible and biased. But for those who care about Scripture, I have Scripture on my side, and a whole lot of better scholars than I am in my denomination. I am not trying to make new doctrine: I am sticking to what Jesus taught. "I give you a new commandment: Love one another as I have loved you."
Jesus did not say (or, if you're not convinced the Gospels come remotely close to what the historical Jesus said, Jesus has not been claimed to say) that homosexuals were sinful and deserved death. Jesus did not say to hate homosexuals. Jesus did not say to attack homosexuals. Jesus did not mention homosexuals male or female. The only types of people whose sexual behavior Jesus commented on were 1) men who divorced their wives, and 2) men and women who committed adultery (that is, they were married and they willingly had sex with someone other than their spouse. And that is why I think so-called Christians (individuals, church leaders, entire congregations) who say that some sexual identities (gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, whatever) are totally evil and deserve death and it's OK to rejoice at a massacre in a nightclub...are wrong, and not acting as Christians at all. Because the essence of Christianity is following Christ and that's not where Christ went.
So where did all the anti-gay rhetoric come from? Not from Jesus Christ, the person on whom Christianity is founded, and the Person Christians are told to emulate....but from the Old Testament strictures on male/male sex (where female/female sex isn't mentioned) and from other people, specifically Paul in the various Letters to this and that group of Christians. And from an attempt to separate Christians from pagans, some of whom were "openly" gay because only Jews and Christians (some Christians) cared. Yes, there are passages in the Old Testament declaring that sexual acts between men are wrong and God will smite (them, a city, a nation) for doing it.
There are also passages in the Old Testament that define clean and unclean foods and required rules for living a holy life than 99.999% of Christians never even think about. Including some of the most gay-hating. (Chicken-fried steak with cream gravy...not OK. Hamburger and milkshake, not OK. Baby back ribs, pork chops, pork sausage, ham: not OK. Crawfish and crab boils, not OK. And lots more.)
In the New Testament, we mostly have Paul, formerly Saul, who converted from a self-righteous Pharisee persecuting the early Church--a well-educated, high-ranking religious lawyer, thoroughly familiar with Jewish law--a group most eager to destroy this (to them perverted and disgusting) new branch of their religion. He had a religious experience on the road to Damascus, he changed his mind...but he carried with him all the scholarship and deeply engrained beliefs of his former occupation--rooting out heretics. So OK, now he believed Jesus had been the Messiah, and had been raised from the dead...but he hung onto a lot of things familiar to him (not surprising) and added them in, from his own certainty (which never wavered) that Jesus would have said that if only Jesus had thought of it, or had time. Including a lot of his own certainty that God was more concerned with sexual behavior than with all those things Jesus actually said.
So if Jesus didn't say anything about homosexuality in the Gospels, what was he spending time talking about and teaching about? The abuse of worldly power by judges, priests, tax collectors, soldiers, rich people, proud people...and the connections between worldly power and money, the way money corrupts human interactions, warping them and leads to abuses of power. Greed, cruelty, scoffing and ridicule (verbal bullying), dishonesty and cheating (especially the poor), quarreling and fighting. The duty of everyone to love not just friends, not just the person next door, but strangers, people outside the family, neighborhood, village, town. That love isn't just a word, but a series of acts: feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, clothing the naked, giving water to the thirsty, visiting the sick and imprisoned, noticing people in need (any need) and providing it. Not labeling people as evil (not judging) because human judgments are skewed by human faults that those who have them often don't recognize.
Parable after parable. Sermon after sermon. One on one, one on a group, one to a vast audience: the same basic messages: don't be greedy, don't be cruel, don't value money, clothes, jewels over the life that comes with living in the spirit of love, don't huddle up in safety and let others suffer, don't spend all your time criticizing others when you're imperfect yourself. Make your life of value by investing in generosity, kindness, gentleness, love, using the talents you've been given to make things better for others as well as yourself. Feed, clothe, house, heal, visit, encourage, help...love. That's what love is. And love casts out fear.
It's not easy. He knew it wasn't easy; he flat said it wasn't easy and his followers could expect persecution because they would be going against the flow. It's easy to be scared--it was easy then and it's easy now and it's always been easy to be scared. And scared people curl in on themselves, huddle up, form tight little groups to keep others out, to keep the resources for themselves. They make up reasonable sounding reasons not to share, not to help others ("It teaches them to be dependent. It's bad for their character. They don't deserve it.") Fear convinces them there are more enemies, more dangers, than they can handle, so they must be hard, cruel, selfish, and show anger and hatred to anyone who's not in their group.
They "love" only their own, but their love isn't the free-flowing love Jesus was talking about. Love cannot take away fear unless it is allowed to grow, and push fear out because there's no room for it--and to grow, it must be acted out as Jesus said to act it out. Now some hate-preaching churches do have outreach--but it does not extend past their familiar comfort zone. They will feed the deserving hungry. They will house the deserving homeless. They may at the same time be turning away those they feel aren't deserving (I've run across churches unwilling to help alcoholics or drug addicts or people not of their denomination or gays, just to start with.)
So...when a church says gays are evil and against God and deserve death....they are teaching hatred, not love, and that's not Christian. Same if they say that about any group. They're wrong. And yes, that's a judgment. And I am, God and I both know, fallible and biased. But for those who care about Scripture, I have Scripture on my side, and a whole lot of better scholars than I am in my denomination. I am not trying to make new doctrine: I am sticking to what Jesus taught. "I give you a new commandment: Love one another as I have loved you."
June 7, 2016
Purity Politics--Making a Religion of Opinion
This year's political campaigns have offered many examples of Purity Politics, with multiple candidates claiming that they are "against the system," and their fans determined that they won't compromise on any point, and hate the candidates who have, or say they will. They want *their* values/thoughts/opinions/ideals to be carried through--100%, no compromises.
And that's a bad thing. Purity Politics is exactly akin--in the claim of Rightness, moral superiority--to the narrowest of religions, where there is only One Right Way to think and act. And that's a bad thing. No single human individual is entirely right, and the claim of being, the belief in being right, means that individual cannot learn, cannot compromise, cannot cooperate with anyone else who does not hold exactly the same opinions and beliefs. As a result, that individual cannot cope with the inevitable change that comes to us all, because he or she insists that change can only be met with rigid resistance or active conflict. As such individuals aggregate into defined groups, groups that demand purity of opinon and belief, they feel strong bonds between them (the more alike they are, the more the bonds feel strong) and are more likely to restrict their opinions and define themselves by what they are against, creating an ever deeper gap between themselves and others. Fear of the outsiders, fear of outside ideas, is typical of Purity Politics as it is of many religions. A group of any kind that believes it is entirely right can only rule as a tyranny (if it has the power) or endure as an obstruction to everyone else (if it's not in power) and its apparent strength is brittle--not tough and resilient--because of the inability to recognize that it lacks perfection.
The strength of a representative government--even a half-sick one, let alone a healthy one--is that it contains diverse individuals, with diverse talents, knowledge, skills, and opinions, so that where one person has a gap in knowledge or skill, someone else can fill that gap. Where one person's understanding of a topic is insufficient or clouded, someone else can share their understanding. Everyone has a chance to benefit from everyone else, and to benefit many others--there's reciprocity and appreciation of diversity and reciprocity. The greater the willingness to learn from one another--and to contribute to others--the stronger the state as a whole. The more resilient it is, the more able to meet new challenges, manage disasters, maintain infrastructure, and provide a social, economic, and physical environment in which its members thrive.
.
Purity Politics exists on every definable node on the political continuum from extreme right to extreme left. Wherever it exists, from one individual to a group or a movement or a candidate's backers, it divides, it spreads fear and unwillingness to work together. Purity Politics wants its own way--all of it. It's like the tantrum over whether the red shirt asked for is the right shade of red, or whether the new shoes aren't the right brand or the right model of the right brand, or, in business and politics, that the compromise worked out between opposing groups isn't acceptable because one side didn't get all it wanted while the other side groveled. And so those committed to purity politics--those who want it all now, or (having it all now) don't want to share any of the power or wealth--those convinced of their own perfect knowledge and understanding and thus convinced their opinons are 100% correct--do great harm. They prevent the healthy reciprocity, the back and forth sharing of knowledge, skills, opinions, ideas and restrict the state's resources and options to their own, ignoring the reality of change and variability.
(Note: disagreeing with someone--about anything--is not the same as refusing to work with them, discuss with them, and consider that that person may have something to contribute. Since we are not all alike, and no one is perfectly right, disagreement is inevitable and in fact opens the door to increased understanding and learning on both sides, if both are willing. It is not necessary to agree after discussion, either, but both sides should be willing to learn--to find out why the other side thinks or does what it thinks and does. The Purist only wants to find out if the other person is Pure enough to be allowed into the Purist's group.)
Good governance--from the parent with a child, to a teacher or coach with a class or team, to a small town's city council, or a state's legislature or a nation's national government--requires flexibility, responsiveness to changes in circumstances of all kinds, awareness of all available resources, including human. It requires the strategic ability to set elastic goals, goals that will inevitably change with the changing circumstances...the ability to *enlarge* the goals as needs and resources change. And that, at root, means the ability to learn, to grow, to change, while still pursuing the appropriate goals for that level of governance. A rigid parental idea of what their child should be (go into father's business, make a million dollars, become a football player) may not work for an individual child--may be impossible--and what then? Flexible parents have viable goals for the child they have. Flexible teachers have viable goals for the class they have. Flexible coaches make a team out of whoever shows up. In my opinion, as a non-perfect person who has reached this opinion only after many years <G>, true maturity includes this kind of flexibility, this acceptance that one might be mistaken, that someone else might have a better answer.
(Note again: flexibility does not mean having no values, or no real goals...but it means if you work with what you have, and when you're working with people, your higher goal is to increase their abilities, not destroy them. I tutored math and science for awhile, and learned that just repeating what the textbook said did not work with every kid. They all learned--but my methods varied for every student, because my goal was for them to learn, not for me to feel smarter than them.)
Comments are disabled.
And that's a bad thing. Purity Politics is exactly akin--in the claim of Rightness, moral superiority--to the narrowest of religions, where there is only One Right Way to think and act. And that's a bad thing. No single human individual is entirely right, and the claim of being, the belief in being right, means that individual cannot learn, cannot compromise, cannot cooperate with anyone else who does not hold exactly the same opinions and beliefs. As a result, that individual cannot cope with the inevitable change that comes to us all, because he or she insists that change can only be met with rigid resistance or active conflict. As such individuals aggregate into defined groups, groups that demand purity of opinon and belief, they feel strong bonds between them (the more alike they are, the more the bonds feel strong) and are more likely to restrict their opinions and define themselves by what they are against, creating an ever deeper gap between themselves and others. Fear of the outsiders, fear of outside ideas, is typical of Purity Politics as it is of many religions. A group of any kind that believes it is entirely right can only rule as a tyranny (if it has the power) or endure as an obstruction to everyone else (if it's not in power) and its apparent strength is brittle--not tough and resilient--because of the inability to recognize that it lacks perfection.
The strength of a representative government--even a half-sick one, let alone a healthy one--is that it contains diverse individuals, with diverse talents, knowledge, skills, and opinions, so that where one person has a gap in knowledge or skill, someone else can fill that gap. Where one person's understanding of a topic is insufficient or clouded, someone else can share their understanding. Everyone has a chance to benefit from everyone else, and to benefit many others--there's reciprocity and appreciation of diversity and reciprocity. The greater the willingness to learn from one another--and to contribute to others--the stronger the state as a whole. The more resilient it is, the more able to meet new challenges, manage disasters, maintain infrastructure, and provide a social, economic, and physical environment in which its members thrive.
.
Purity Politics exists on every definable node on the political continuum from extreme right to extreme left. Wherever it exists, from one individual to a group or a movement or a candidate's backers, it divides, it spreads fear and unwillingness to work together. Purity Politics wants its own way--all of it. It's like the tantrum over whether the red shirt asked for is the right shade of red, or whether the new shoes aren't the right brand or the right model of the right brand, or, in business and politics, that the compromise worked out between opposing groups isn't acceptable because one side didn't get all it wanted while the other side groveled. And so those committed to purity politics--those who want it all now, or (having it all now) don't want to share any of the power or wealth--those convinced of their own perfect knowledge and understanding and thus convinced their opinons are 100% correct--do great harm. They prevent the healthy reciprocity, the back and forth sharing of knowledge, skills, opinions, ideas and restrict the state's resources and options to their own, ignoring the reality of change and variability.
(Note: disagreeing with someone--about anything--is not the same as refusing to work with them, discuss with them, and consider that that person may have something to contribute. Since we are not all alike, and no one is perfectly right, disagreement is inevitable and in fact opens the door to increased understanding and learning on both sides, if both are willing. It is not necessary to agree after discussion, either, but both sides should be willing to learn--to find out why the other side thinks or does what it thinks and does. The Purist only wants to find out if the other person is Pure enough to be allowed into the Purist's group.)
Good governance--from the parent with a child, to a teacher or coach with a class or team, to a small town's city council, or a state's legislature or a nation's national government--requires flexibility, responsiveness to changes in circumstances of all kinds, awareness of all available resources, including human. It requires the strategic ability to set elastic goals, goals that will inevitably change with the changing circumstances...the ability to *enlarge* the goals as needs and resources change. And that, at root, means the ability to learn, to grow, to change, while still pursuing the appropriate goals for that level of governance. A rigid parental idea of what their child should be (go into father's business, make a million dollars, become a football player) may not work for an individual child--may be impossible--and what then? Flexible parents have viable goals for the child they have. Flexible teachers have viable goals for the class they have. Flexible coaches make a team out of whoever shows up. In my opinion, as a non-perfect person who has reached this opinion only after many years <G>, true maturity includes this kind of flexibility, this acceptance that one might be mistaken, that someone else might have a better answer.
(Note again: flexibility does not mean having no values, or no real goals...but it means if you work with what you have, and when you're working with people, your higher goal is to increase their abilities, not destroy them. I tutored math and science for awhile, and learned that just repeating what the textbook said did not work with every kid. They all learned--but my methods varied for every student, because my goal was for them to learn, not for me to feel smarter than them.)
Comments are disabled.
June 5, 2016
Education Settings and Sexual Assault
Any time you're looking for it, you can find sexual assaults in the media, though most of them are simply a single mention in a local newspaper or TV about a teacher accused of "inappropriate behavior" with a student, or an "alleged" assault at a party or on a jogging trail...small notices that quickly fall off the radar, until in a few days another one shows up. The big-ticket, nationally known ones are rarer--but when they do cluster, they're a chance to bring up a fact that's often obscured--except to victims and their families.
Fact: Children and women are not safe in education settings, starting when children start school. Sexual predators exist outside school settings as well, but this post is specifically about the way that education settings provide a rich hunting ground for sexual predators, and why this isn't widely known and nothing much is done about it until there's a big stink about a particular case.
In preschool and elementary school, sexual assaults on children are committed by adults and sometimes much older children. The concentration of children, and the availability of children to adults who are faculty or staff, means that predators are attracted to the location of schools (watching playgrounds to pick out a vulnerable target) and to employment in a school environment. A predator of that age group typically looks just like any other adult--not like a monster, not weird. They succeed by being non-scary to children, by seeming to be friendly, interested in the children, just like many non-predator teachers are. But they are hunters, and they are looking for the child who needs more, is hungrier for, more affection than the average. Moreover, the younger the child is, the less likely they are to be able to report abuse (and be believed), to have the concepts and the vocabulary to express how the seduction was carried out and what the final acts were. This is particularly true of "at risk" children--who are already thought to be unreliable reporters. Children who have an open, easy communication with their parents, who are not afraid to report something that scares them or bothers them--not afraid of ridicule or parental anger--are the most likely to report and the most likely to be believed--and the least likely to be stalked.
Typical case: A 59 year old ordinary looking, "respectable" school principle, Ricky Delano Sheppard, was first reprimanded for inappropriate behavior with a child (a first-grader) in 1999, when he was 42. There is zero chance that he had not offended before, at that age; his "grooming technique" of the child showed experience. Nonetheless, he continued to work in schools, first as a teacher and then as a principle, before being arrested on child pornography charges recently. http://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/2016/06/03/brevard-principal-arrested-child-porn-investigation/85360658/ Sexual predators of children typically begin their predation early and continue throughout life as long as they are not stopped--which requires segregation from children. Since Sheppard was not investigated thoroughly at the time of his first discovered inappropriate behavior, and not identified as a likely (or known) sexual predator of children to later school employers, he continued undetected for years.
In junior high and high school, sexual assaults may be committed by both adults and students (typically older than the student who is assaulted.) Both students and adults use social media to stalk and contact their prey, via cellphones and other devices. Most of the teacher-on-student behavior that shows up in the news targets this age group; male and female teachers both are involved, and may target either male or female students. There's a distinct gender bias in how these crimes are viewed: male teachers have gotten off after proven allegations of abuse, because some judges assume that underage girls seduced the male teacher, who was incapable of resisting. Female teachers, however, are seen as pure predators, and underage boys are not seen as possible seducers. IMO they're both equally wrong, no matter how the student dresses or acts. Teachers and staff are supposed to be adults, and adults control their own behavior and take responsibility for it.
Example 1: This past week, Jake Fenske, a football coach and science teacher in Hutto, TX, was arrested on allegations of sexual misconduct with a student. Fenske admitted to having inappropriate social media contact with a girl in his science class (email and cellphone contact) and having sex with her in the classroom, in his truck, and in his home. Fenske characterized this as being "in love." He is ten years older than the girl involved. http://www.kvue.com/news/local/hutto-high-teacher-charged-improper-relationship/230429623 This is only one of several teachers reported in the past two weeks to have been accused of, or charged with, inappropriate behavior with a student. The Texas Education Agency, which has the power to recommend decertifying a teacher convicted of a sex offense, has been involved in over 100 investigations a year for several years.
Example 2: Tyler Reid Johnson, a teacher's aide at McNeil HS in Round Rock admitted to having oral sex with more than one teenage student, at least one of them at her house, and another on the playground. http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/crime/article/Police-Texas-high-school-employee-accused-of-7260047.php&cmpid=artem
Sexual assault by another juvenile in a school context is, and should be treated as, a crime, without regard to the assailant's grades, athletic ability, "potential," etc. Unfortunately, in many communities (and schools) sexual assault by a sports hero is treated very differently than the same behavior by a kid who's considered a loser by the school or community. And victims of sexual violence by other students are typically ostracized and threatened if they complain about the actions of a star athlete or team. Their potential is discounted to zero, along with their pain and suffering.
Example 1: The Steubenville, MO rape of a younger girl by football team members and the attack on her and her family for reporting it. http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/10/14/2777431/maryville-missouri-rape/
Example 2: Norwood, CO, a boy was bullied, bound and gagged with duct tape and then penetrated with an object by wrestling team members; because his father reported it to police the father lost his job, the boy was further bullied in school, and the town rallied behind the abusers. http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/06/21/2194281/colorado-town-hazing/
This kind of support for sexual abuse ensures that the abusers learn they can get away with abusing someone else and not suffer any consequences.
College and University: Sexual predators on college campuses include faculty, staff, students, and community "outsider" who are able to wander onto a campus at will. Sprawling campuses (often with labs and special facilities at a distance from the rest), buildings open day and night (offering abundant "private" spaces), off-campus work and study sites (field work in the sciences) where students are isolated from help, mean that sexual predators find both prey and suitable habitat for stalking them. Here are a few examples of the different kinds of predation that goes on.
Faculty on juveniles: The most famous case (made the national news over a long period) is that of Penn State's attempt at covering up coach Jerry Sandusky's repeated sexual abuse of young boys in order to protect their winning football coach and financial artesian well at the cost of the damage to those boys. Sandusky held the ultimate MaleCard: white, athlete, winning coach, wealthy, "respectable," bringing in money for the university from alumni and TV.
Faculty on students: 1) University of California at Berkeley famous astronomer Greg Marcy had been sexually harassing women undergrads and grad students for some time before the university took it seriously. He still denies that he "meant anything sexual" by his obviously sex-inspired behavior. 2) When I was taking my second degree at the University of Texas, I was warned about a senior professor in the Biology Dept, who was known for sexual behaviors both at the university and at parties at his home, to which he invited students. He had a daybed in his office with a bead curtain, and no other chair where a student might sit if they came in for office hours. I was told "If you sit down on that couch, be prepared to fight your way off." I went to his office on business, was invited to "relax" on the daybed, and didn't. (I was older, married, and an ex-Marine: situational awareness was solid by then.) 3) Northern Virginia Community College: calculus prof Youssef Taleb arrested last month for raping two female students. Note that the college's own police department is doing the investigation. This is not ideal; such police forces lack the expertise and resources of non-college law enforcement; many colleges have a "rape counselor" who basically tells students it's in their best interest to keep quiet.
Students on students: 1) Athletes again. A recent case is Baylor University's scandal involving football players sexually assaulting and raping Baylor undergraduate women, with associated coverup to protect their winning football team and the money a winning football team brings in. This current scandal has resulted in the firing of the head coach, the athletic director, the university president (demoted to chancellor and then resigned.) Athlete sexual predators are not unusual (athletes having been conditioned to believe they are special and above the law) and neither is the attempted coverup. http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/14675790/baylor-officials-accused-failing-investigate-sexual-assaults-fully-adequately-providing-support-alleged-victims for how not to treat rape victims. Another current case is that of Brock Allen Turner, a Stanford swimmer heading for the Olympics, who raped an unconscious woman behind a dumpster and received the extremely light punishment of 6 months in jail because, the judge said, the sentence the DA asked for the guilty verdict of three felony charges, would be "unnecessarily hard" and Turner had "a real record of accomplishment" (he could swim fast. Wow.) Again, a highlevel MaleCard: white, athlete, potential $$$. Coverups and light sentencing both increase the chance that athletes will continue to believe they are above the law, and that their careers are worth more than their victims' futures. 2) Science again. Starting several years ago, women scientists on Twitter began discussing sexual harassment and assault within their various fields and how it had impacted them. Here's one of the outcomes of that discussion: http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/anthropology-has-an-rape-problem. Both female and male students have experienced sexual harassment and assault during fieldwork in remote sites, but women have experienced more of it and more of the "assault" end. Faculty may also be involved (a prominent anthropologist has just recently been barred from work on a site where he was accused of harassment and rape.) 3) Student social life is the commonest source of student on student sexual assault: date rape, revenge rape, jealous rape, etc. Fraternities and sororities are implicated in an increased rate of rape. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/24/rape-sexual-assault-ban-frats Back when I tutored HS students, one of my students went up to a university for a weekend with the daughter of one of her mother's friends--and went to a frat party. She was viewed as "rape-bait" and barely escaped when one of the "boys" tried to drag her upstairs.
Community on students: A recent case at the University of Texas involved a 17 year old runaway from a juvenile home who raped and murdered a woman student. You can look it up, but since the assailant isn't a legal adult, I'm not putting his name here. http://crimeblog.dallasnews.com/2016/04/homeless-teen-accused-in-university-of-texas-slaying-said-grandmothers-religious-beliefs-forced-him-to-leave-home.html/ This is actually the least common sexual danger to college students, though it often generates the most media noise (it did here) because the perp is outside the community--the only harm that comes from finding the perp and throwing the book at him is the admission that the university cannot keep all students safe all the time. Most of the sex-related danger to college students comes from inside the academic community--from faculty, staff, and other students.
Victim-blaming is rife, along with the desire to cover up sex-related crimes in order to present the institution to potential students and their parents as safe. Sadly, religious-based institutions are just as likely to cover up sex crimes as secular ones, and even likelier to blame victims. Baylor is just the largest, best-known, and most recent example. (The link I posted above has more information about the prequel to the current scandal; later ones focus on Ken Starr, the coach, the winningness of the football team, etc.)
So it is clear that there is a culture of sexual assault and rape that leaves every student, of every age, at risk---and until we change that, which will mean changing attitudes at every level--it will continue. It is not acceptable. It is based on the devaluation of women and their futures, of children and their futures, and an inflated valuation of the abusers, predators, perpetrators--and their careers and futures. Why is it that a 17 year old football player's "future career" is more important than that of his 13 yo female victim's? Why the assumption that the girl is worthless--that her pre-rape potential is zilch, including that of any children she might have or not have and her competency as a mother? That the future scientist students and grad students should be silenced so a famous scientist can go on fondling students? That a fast swimmer shouldn't be treated "harshly" when his victim was brutally raped--bruised, scraped, hit, her clothes pulled off, and raped while unconscious. Take a look at this: https://www.buzzfeed.com/katiejmbaker/heres-the-powerful-letter-the-stanford-victim-read-to-her-ra?utm_term=.xpM177M8r#.ak2Ezz6pr
Frankly, we don't need rapists. We don't need to pay with the suffering and shame of girls and women and the boys that also get assaulted just to keep the non-raping talents of rapists.
What we're doing now, with our justice system, with our schools--especially universities--unwillingness to work to eliminate sexual misconduct and be open about it when it exists--is actually promoting sexual misconduct. That must change.
Fact: Children and women are not safe in education settings, starting when children start school. Sexual predators exist outside school settings as well, but this post is specifically about the way that education settings provide a rich hunting ground for sexual predators, and why this isn't widely known and nothing much is done about it until there's a big stink about a particular case.
In preschool and elementary school, sexual assaults on children are committed by adults and sometimes much older children. The concentration of children, and the availability of children to adults who are faculty or staff, means that predators are attracted to the location of schools (watching playgrounds to pick out a vulnerable target) and to employment in a school environment. A predator of that age group typically looks just like any other adult--not like a monster, not weird. They succeed by being non-scary to children, by seeming to be friendly, interested in the children, just like many non-predator teachers are. But they are hunters, and they are looking for the child who needs more, is hungrier for, more affection than the average. Moreover, the younger the child is, the less likely they are to be able to report abuse (and be believed), to have the concepts and the vocabulary to express how the seduction was carried out and what the final acts were. This is particularly true of "at risk" children--who are already thought to be unreliable reporters. Children who have an open, easy communication with their parents, who are not afraid to report something that scares them or bothers them--not afraid of ridicule or parental anger--are the most likely to report and the most likely to be believed--and the least likely to be stalked.
Typical case: A 59 year old ordinary looking, "respectable" school principle, Ricky Delano Sheppard, was first reprimanded for inappropriate behavior with a child (a first-grader) in 1999, when he was 42. There is zero chance that he had not offended before, at that age; his "grooming technique" of the child showed experience. Nonetheless, he continued to work in schools, first as a teacher and then as a principle, before being arrested on child pornography charges recently. http://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/2016/06/03/brevard-principal-arrested-child-porn-investigation/85360658/ Sexual predators of children typically begin their predation early and continue throughout life as long as they are not stopped--which requires segregation from children. Since Sheppard was not investigated thoroughly at the time of his first discovered inappropriate behavior, and not identified as a likely (or known) sexual predator of children to later school employers, he continued undetected for years.
In junior high and high school, sexual assaults may be committed by both adults and students (typically older than the student who is assaulted.) Both students and adults use social media to stalk and contact their prey, via cellphones and other devices. Most of the teacher-on-student behavior that shows up in the news targets this age group; male and female teachers both are involved, and may target either male or female students. There's a distinct gender bias in how these crimes are viewed: male teachers have gotten off after proven allegations of abuse, because some judges assume that underage girls seduced the male teacher, who was incapable of resisting. Female teachers, however, are seen as pure predators, and underage boys are not seen as possible seducers. IMO they're both equally wrong, no matter how the student dresses or acts. Teachers and staff are supposed to be adults, and adults control their own behavior and take responsibility for it.
Example 1: This past week, Jake Fenske, a football coach and science teacher in Hutto, TX, was arrested on allegations of sexual misconduct with a student. Fenske admitted to having inappropriate social media contact with a girl in his science class (email and cellphone contact) and having sex with her in the classroom, in his truck, and in his home. Fenske characterized this as being "in love." He is ten years older than the girl involved. http://www.kvue.com/news/local/hutto-high-teacher-charged-improper-relationship/230429623 This is only one of several teachers reported in the past two weeks to have been accused of, or charged with, inappropriate behavior with a student. The Texas Education Agency, which has the power to recommend decertifying a teacher convicted of a sex offense, has been involved in over 100 investigations a year for several years.
Example 2: Tyler Reid Johnson, a teacher's aide at McNeil HS in Round Rock admitted to having oral sex with more than one teenage student, at least one of them at her house, and another on the playground. http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/crime/article/Police-Texas-high-school-employee-accused-of-7260047.php&cmpid=artem
Sexual assault by another juvenile in a school context is, and should be treated as, a crime, without regard to the assailant's grades, athletic ability, "potential," etc. Unfortunately, in many communities (and schools) sexual assault by a sports hero is treated very differently than the same behavior by a kid who's considered a loser by the school or community. And victims of sexual violence by other students are typically ostracized and threatened if they complain about the actions of a star athlete or team. Their potential is discounted to zero, along with their pain and suffering.
Example 1: The Steubenville, MO rape of a younger girl by football team members and the attack on her and her family for reporting it. http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/10/14/2777431/maryville-missouri-rape/
Example 2: Norwood, CO, a boy was bullied, bound and gagged with duct tape and then penetrated with an object by wrestling team members; because his father reported it to police the father lost his job, the boy was further bullied in school, and the town rallied behind the abusers. http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/06/21/2194281/colorado-town-hazing/
This kind of support for sexual abuse ensures that the abusers learn they can get away with abusing someone else and not suffer any consequences.
College and University: Sexual predators on college campuses include faculty, staff, students, and community "outsider" who are able to wander onto a campus at will. Sprawling campuses (often with labs and special facilities at a distance from the rest), buildings open day and night (offering abundant "private" spaces), off-campus work and study sites (field work in the sciences) where students are isolated from help, mean that sexual predators find both prey and suitable habitat for stalking them. Here are a few examples of the different kinds of predation that goes on.
Faculty on juveniles: The most famous case (made the national news over a long period) is that of Penn State's attempt at covering up coach Jerry Sandusky's repeated sexual abuse of young boys in order to protect their winning football coach and financial artesian well at the cost of the damage to those boys. Sandusky held the ultimate MaleCard: white, athlete, winning coach, wealthy, "respectable," bringing in money for the university from alumni and TV.
Faculty on students: 1) University of California at Berkeley famous astronomer Greg Marcy had been sexually harassing women undergrads and grad students for some time before the university took it seriously. He still denies that he "meant anything sexual" by his obviously sex-inspired behavior. 2) When I was taking my second degree at the University of Texas, I was warned about a senior professor in the Biology Dept, who was known for sexual behaviors both at the university and at parties at his home, to which he invited students. He had a daybed in his office with a bead curtain, and no other chair where a student might sit if they came in for office hours. I was told "If you sit down on that couch, be prepared to fight your way off." I went to his office on business, was invited to "relax" on the daybed, and didn't. (I was older, married, and an ex-Marine: situational awareness was solid by then.) 3) Northern Virginia Community College: calculus prof Youssef Taleb arrested last month for raping two female students. Note that the college's own police department is doing the investigation. This is not ideal; such police forces lack the expertise and resources of non-college law enforcement; many colleges have a "rape counselor" who basically tells students it's in their best interest to keep quiet.
Students on students: 1) Athletes again. A recent case is Baylor University's scandal involving football players sexually assaulting and raping Baylor undergraduate women, with associated coverup to protect their winning football team and the money a winning football team brings in. This current scandal has resulted in the firing of the head coach, the athletic director, the university president (demoted to chancellor and then resigned.) Athlete sexual predators are not unusual (athletes having been conditioned to believe they are special and above the law) and neither is the attempted coverup. http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/14675790/baylor-officials-accused-failing-investigate-sexual-assaults-fully-adequately-providing-support-alleged-victims for how not to treat rape victims. Another current case is that of Brock Allen Turner, a Stanford swimmer heading for the Olympics, who raped an unconscious woman behind a dumpster and received the extremely light punishment of 6 months in jail because, the judge said, the sentence the DA asked for the guilty verdict of three felony charges, would be "unnecessarily hard" and Turner had "a real record of accomplishment" (he could swim fast. Wow.) Again, a highlevel MaleCard: white, athlete, potential $$$. Coverups and light sentencing both increase the chance that athletes will continue to believe they are above the law, and that their careers are worth more than their victims' futures. 2) Science again. Starting several years ago, women scientists on Twitter began discussing sexual harassment and assault within their various fields and how it had impacted them. Here's one of the outcomes of that discussion: http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/anthropology-has-an-rape-problem. Both female and male students have experienced sexual harassment and assault during fieldwork in remote sites, but women have experienced more of it and more of the "assault" end. Faculty may also be involved (a prominent anthropologist has just recently been barred from work on a site where he was accused of harassment and rape.) 3) Student social life is the commonest source of student on student sexual assault: date rape, revenge rape, jealous rape, etc. Fraternities and sororities are implicated in an increased rate of rape. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/24/rape-sexual-assault-ban-frats Back when I tutored HS students, one of my students went up to a university for a weekend with the daughter of one of her mother's friends--and went to a frat party. She was viewed as "rape-bait" and barely escaped when one of the "boys" tried to drag her upstairs.
Community on students: A recent case at the University of Texas involved a 17 year old runaway from a juvenile home who raped and murdered a woman student. You can look it up, but since the assailant isn't a legal adult, I'm not putting his name here. http://crimeblog.dallasnews.com/2016/04/homeless-teen-accused-in-university-of-texas-slaying-said-grandmothers-religious-beliefs-forced-him-to-leave-home.html/ This is actually the least common sexual danger to college students, though it often generates the most media noise (it did here) because the perp is outside the community--the only harm that comes from finding the perp and throwing the book at him is the admission that the university cannot keep all students safe all the time. Most of the sex-related danger to college students comes from inside the academic community--from faculty, staff, and other students.
Victim-blaming is rife, along with the desire to cover up sex-related crimes in order to present the institution to potential students and their parents as safe. Sadly, religious-based institutions are just as likely to cover up sex crimes as secular ones, and even likelier to blame victims. Baylor is just the largest, best-known, and most recent example. (The link I posted above has more information about the prequel to the current scandal; later ones focus on Ken Starr, the coach, the winningness of the football team, etc.)
So it is clear that there is a culture of sexual assault and rape that leaves every student, of every age, at risk---and until we change that, which will mean changing attitudes at every level--it will continue. It is not acceptable. It is based on the devaluation of women and their futures, of children and their futures, and an inflated valuation of the abusers, predators, perpetrators--and their careers and futures. Why is it that a 17 year old football player's "future career" is more important than that of his 13 yo female victim's? Why the assumption that the girl is worthless--that her pre-rape potential is zilch, including that of any children she might have or not have and her competency as a mother? That the future scientist students and grad students should be silenced so a famous scientist can go on fondling students? That a fast swimmer shouldn't be treated "harshly" when his victim was brutally raped--bruised, scraped, hit, her clothes pulled off, and raped while unconscious. Take a look at this: https://www.buzzfeed.com/katiejmbaker/heres-the-powerful-letter-the-stanford-victim-read-to-her-ra?utm_term=.xpM177M8r#.ak2Ezz6pr
Frankly, we don't need rapists. We don't need to pay with the suffering and shame of girls and women and the boys that also get assaulted just to keep the non-raping talents of rapists.
What we're doing now, with our justice system, with our schools--especially universities--unwillingness to work to eliminate sexual misconduct and be open about it when it exists--is actually promoting sexual misconduct. That must change.
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