Rachel Manija Brown's Blog, page 129
November 29, 2018
Clabbered Dirt, Sweet Grass, by Gary Paulsen
By the author of Hatchet and about a bazillion other wildernessy books.
I read it while staying in a cabin in Mariposa which was heated by a woodburning stove. Since I was alone except for my cats and a truly astonishing number of bugs, I lit the fires myself. This was a new experience as normally I stay in my parents' house and Dad has charge of their stove. (My parents plus nine relatives were all staying in the main house. The cabin is about a 6 minute walk or 1 minute drive down a steep grade, and used to belong to their caretaker. He once opened the window and saw a bear staring back at him.)
Due to a combination of my lack of fire-starting experience and a shortage of kindling other than paper (the logs stayed dry in their shed but most of the kindling got left outside and rained on - the rain is also what caused the bugs to seek dryer homes), I frequently needed to make multiple tries before the fire took. It was a very pleasant, meditative, connect-with-your-ancestors activity, as was staring into the resulting fire. Since the cabin lacked internet, cell phone service, and TV, my activities while inside were limited to reading, writing, playing with my cats, and studying the behavior of fire. It was very satisfying.
To bring this back to the book in question, the other reason my stay was relaxing was that the way I was providing for myself was by writing, and that was the only paying work I did. My only chores were caring for my cats, sweeping the floor, my own laundry, dealing with the bugs, and pitching in a bit with cooking and dishwashing at the main house. I had modern conveniences like a propane lighter, and the logs were already cut. I was experiencing the idealized vacation version of country life, not the version where your survival depends on the work you put into your surroundings.
Clabbered Dirt, Sweet Grass is a lyrical account of the work of a Minnesota farm, arranged by seasons, at some unspecified point in the past; based on Paulsen’s age, I would guess the 1950s. Paulsen’s emphasis is on the unrelenting, backbreaking ceaselessness of the labor, and on how it gives the workers a sense of purpose and connection to the natural world. It’s all about the men’s work, though Paulsen does periodically note what the women are doing and that they’re working as hard as the men but at different tasks. But they seem to lead very separate lives.
It’s written in a very rhythmic, poetic style, which gives it a cyclical, almost Biblical feeling: “to every season…” Though nostalgic, it doesn’t portray the old times as a golden age. The book is interspersed with regular mentions, not detailed but horrifying, of farm accidents, often befalling very young children. The work that gives lives meaning is also necessary for survival, and doesn’t allow for enough rest to prevent accidents due to exhaustion, or to keep an eye on children to make sure they don’t fall into the machinery.
It’s very atmospheric, needless to say. It also has the implicit tension that most of this sort of book has, in which the entire book is an elegy for a way of life that has now mostly passed, by one of the people who didn’t go on to live it. Paulsen became a writer, not a farmer. The people in the book may hate certain tasks or long for more sleep, but nobody ever says they want something different out of life, some other meaning and purpose, or a job that doesn’t require eighteen-hour workdays or risk the lives of their children. And yet some of them must have, because not everyone got forced out of farming. Some people saw a chance to get out and jumped at it.
The book’s introduction is about Paulsen’s encounter with an old farmer mourning his inability to pass on his farm to his children, as his son is dead and his daughter doesn’t want to get married. It doesn’t say whether the daughter can’t keep it up by herself or doesn’t want it and that’s why she won’t marry or whether she does want it but her father won’t give it to her unless she has a husband. The same social forces that made it possible for the people who wanted to get off the farm to do so also often made it impossible for the people who wanted to keep things the way they were. Paulsen’s book gives the old farmer’s point of view on the work; the daughter’s is unspoken.
Clabbered Dirt, Sweet Grass[image error]
[image error] [image error]
comments
I read it while staying in a cabin in Mariposa which was heated by a woodburning stove. Since I was alone except for my cats and a truly astonishing number of bugs, I lit the fires myself. This was a new experience as normally I stay in my parents' house and Dad has charge of their stove. (My parents plus nine relatives were all staying in the main house. The cabin is about a 6 minute walk or 1 minute drive down a steep grade, and used to belong to their caretaker. He once opened the window and saw a bear staring back at him.)
Due to a combination of my lack of fire-starting experience and a shortage of kindling other than paper (the logs stayed dry in their shed but most of the kindling got left outside and rained on - the rain is also what caused the bugs to seek dryer homes), I frequently needed to make multiple tries before the fire took. It was a very pleasant, meditative, connect-with-your-ancestors activity, as was staring into the resulting fire. Since the cabin lacked internet, cell phone service, and TV, my activities while inside were limited to reading, writing, playing with my cats, and studying the behavior of fire. It was very satisfying.
To bring this back to the book in question, the other reason my stay was relaxing was that the way I was providing for myself was by writing, and that was the only paying work I did. My only chores were caring for my cats, sweeping the floor, my own laundry, dealing with the bugs, and pitching in a bit with cooking and dishwashing at the main house. I had modern conveniences like a propane lighter, and the logs were already cut. I was experiencing the idealized vacation version of country life, not the version where your survival depends on the work you put into your surroundings.
Clabbered Dirt, Sweet Grass is a lyrical account of the work of a Minnesota farm, arranged by seasons, at some unspecified point in the past; based on Paulsen’s age, I would guess the 1950s. Paulsen’s emphasis is on the unrelenting, backbreaking ceaselessness of the labor, and on how it gives the workers a sense of purpose and connection to the natural world. It’s all about the men’s work, though Paulsen does periodically note what the women are doing and that they’re working as hard as the men but at different tasks. But they seem to lead very separate lives.
It’s written in a very rhythmic, poetic style, which gives it a cyclical, almost Biblical feeling: “to every season…” Though nostalgic, it doesn’t portray the old times as a golden age. The book is interspersed with regular mentions, not detailed but horrifying, of farm accidents, often befalling very young children. The work that gives lives meaning is also necessary for survival, and doesn’t allow for enough rest to prevent accidents due to exhaustion, or to keep an eye on children to make sure they don’t fall into the machinery.
It’s very atmospheric, needless to say. It also has the implicit tension that most of this sort of book has, in which the entire book is an elegy for a way of life that has now mostly passed, by one of the people who didn’t go on to live it. Paulsen became a writer, not a farmer. The people in the book may hate certain tasks or long for more sleep, but nobody ever says they want something different out of life, some other meaning and purpose, or a job that doesn’t require eighteen-hour workdays or risk the lives of their children. And yet some of them must have, because not everyone got forced out of farming. Some people saw a chance to get out and jumped at it.
The book’s introduction is about Paulsen’s encounter with an old farmer mourning his inability to pass on his farm to his children, as his son is dead and his daughter doesn’t want to get married. It doesn’t say whether the daughter can’t keep it up by herself or doesn’t want it and that’s why she won’t marry or whether she does want it but her father won’t give it to her unless she has a husband. The same social forces that made it possible for the people who wanted to get off the farm to do so also often made it impossible for the people who wanted to keep things the way they were. Paulsen’s book gives the old farmer’s point of view on the work; the daughter’s is unspoken.
Clabbered Dirt, Sweet Grass[image error]
[image error] [image error]
comments
November 28, 2018
At Amberleaf Fair, by Phyllis Ann Karr
Here is a fantasy novel completely out of step with nearly every other American fantasy novel I’ve ever read, a very low-key, low-stakes mystery set entirely at a fair and revolving around a valuable pendant which was either magically transformed into a fruit or else switched for one.
The mystery is nicely constructed and the characters are likable if lightly sketched, but the real star here is the equally low-key but intriguing and original worldbulding. The culture, economics, family structures, assumptions, and history are unobtrusively presented when relevant rather than info-dumped, so if you pay attention, you get a fascinating portrait of a very different world and can take some guesses as to how it came about. In the Kindle edition, Karr has an afterword where she confirms some of my guesses about what she calls “The Gentle World,” and leaves other aspects unexplained. She mentions that parts were inspired by an obscure musical, but doesn’t name it. If anyone ever reads it and figures it out, let me know.
It is indeed a very gentle novel, a mystery without murder, a portrait of conflict and its resolution in a world that lacks the worst elements of ours. There are a ton of fun and inventive details about culture and magic. The main character, Torin, is a toymaker (this includes ritual objects like “marriage toys,” which are offered as a proposal) who can imbue some of his creations with temporary life; food can be temporarily transformed into something more appetizing, but as it will revert inside your stomach you need to make sure that the original was edible and not something you’re allergic to.
For all its extremely small scale and placid surface, this is an understatedly ambitious book, though in keeping with its world where people can get physically sick from too much pride or at least believe they can, it presents itself humbly.
If this sounds like the sort of thing you would like, you will like it. Out of print, but available on Kindle for $2.99.
Many of Karr's other books are now available on ebook. I like her swords and sorcery Frostflower and Thorn and Frostflower and Windbourne novels, which also have a small scale and understatedly unusual worldbuilding. (Note: they are not that dark overall, but they do involve rape of both men and women as it's believed that sorcerers lose their power if they lose their virginity.)
At Amberleaf Fair[image error]
[image error] [image error]
comments
The mystery is nicely constructed and the characters are likable if lightly sketched, but the real star here is the equally low-key but intriguing and original worldbulding. The culture, economics, family structures, assumptions, and history are unobtrusively presented when relevant rather than info-dumped, so if you pay attention, you get a fascinating portrait of a very different world and can take some guesses as to how it came about. In the Kindle edition, Karr has an afterword where she confirms some of my guesses about what she calls “The Gentle World,” and leaves other aspects unexplained. She mentions that parts were inspired by an obscure musical, but doesn’t name it. If anyone ever reads it and figures it out, let me know.
It is indeed a very gentle novel, a mystery without murder, a portrait of conflict and its resolution in a world that lacks the worst elements of ours. There are a ton of fun and inventive details about culture and magic. The main character, Torin, is a toymaker (this includes ritual objects like “marriage toys,” which are offered as a proposal) who can imbue some of his creations with temporary life; food can be temporarily transformed into something more appetizing, but as it will revert inside your stomach you need to make sure that the original was edible and not something you’re allergic to.
For all its extremely small scale and placid surface, this is an understatedly ambitious book, though in keeping with its world where people can get physically sick from too much pride or at least believe they can, it presents itself humbly.
If this sounds like the sort of thing you would like, you will like it. Out of print, but available on Kindle for $2.99.
Many of Karr's other books are now available on ebook. I like her swords and sorcery Frostflower and Thorn and Frostflower and Windbourne novels, which also have a small scale and understatedly unusual worldbuilding. (Note: they are not that dark overall, but they do involve rape of both men and women as it's believed that sorcerers lose their power if they lose their virginity.)
At Amberleaf Fair[image error]
[image error] [image error]
comments
November 27, 2018
'Salem's Lot, by Stephen King (Unabridged Audiobook, read by Ron McLarty)
This is a 17-hour audiobook and I enjoyed every minute of it. I kept catching myself making excuses to take long drives so I could listen to more of it, or finding household chores I could do while listening. McLarty’s narration is great, with unobtrusive but well-done different voices for various characters. He also really brings out the humor. I nearly had hysterics at his rendition of the word “E-vap,” the foaming cleaner Father Callahan uses in a hungover attempt to remove liquor stains on the rug.
In the introduction (read by King), he discusses his childhood reading of Dracula, trashy novels, and pulp horror comics about vampires whose victims shriek things like “Eeeeegaaaah!” After he wrote Carrie, he mentioned to his wife Tabitha that if Dracula had survived into modern times, he wouldn’t settle in a city, but in a small town like the European ones he’d come from. Like the ones King knew in Maine…
‘Salem’s Lot was written long before the current flood of vampire novels, let alone sexy vampire novels, and draws on older tropes. Some aspects of it have appeared a lot since then, but many have not. For me it had the perfect blend of originality and familiar tropes done extremely well.
It begins with an unsettling prologue involving two unnamed survivors of Jerusalem’s Lot, a man and a boy, and a lengthy newspaper article explaining that it’s now a ghost town for unknown reasons.
It then goes back in time to the arrival of Ben Mears, a writer who lived in Jerusalem’s Lot as a boy and has returned as a widower, intending to write a book about the Marsten House, an abandoned house with a bad history where he may have seen a ghost as a boy. But the house has just been bought by a mysterious man from Europe, Mr. Barlow, who no one has met and who seems to communicate solely through his creepy agent, Mr. Straker. Ben wanders around the town and has a sweet meet-cute with Susan, a fan of his books.
King then proceeds to a long, bravura sequence in which he introduces us to a huge number of the inhabitants of the town, hour by hour in the course of a single day from midnight to midnight. By the end of it, you feel like you’ve lived in the town yourself. It also puts you about a quarter or third of the way through the book with no clear signs of vampire activity. If you were reading the book with no idea what it was about, you would know something sinister was afoot but not what.
The town is an incredibly vivid character in its own right. There’s rot beneath the surface, but goodness as well. The Marsten House is imbued with evil, but Jerusalem’s Lot is just a small town like many others, with child abusers and bullies and wife-beaters, but also dedicated teachers and doctors and random people who manage to rise to a situation requiring extraordinary courage. You get the sense that the group that ends up going after the vampires contained some special people, but not that they were the only ones. Had some of them chosen to confide in a different set of people, there were probably others in the town who would have stepped up.
I have no idea how I missed reading this before, because it’s King’s second novel and a quite famous one. However, I was almost entirely unspoiled for it, other than knowing that it’s about vampires and that one character survives as he appears in another King book I’d read. It’s a purely enjoyable read on every level, with good writing with some very beautiful passages, very atmospheric with a fantastic sense of place, a compelling story well-told, and a whole bunch of memorable set-piece scenes.
( Read more... )
'Salem's Lot[image error]
[image error] [image error]
comments
In the introduction (read by King), he discusses his childhood reading of Dracula, trashy novels, and pulp horror comics about vampires whose victims shriek things like “Eeeeegaaaah!” After he wrote Carrie, he mentioned to his wife Tabitha that if Dracula had survived into modern times, he wouldn’t settle in a city, but in a small town like the European ones he’d come from. Like the ones King knew in Maine…
‘Salem’s Lot was written long before the current flood of vampire novels, let alone sexy vampire novels, and draws on older tropes. Some aspects of it have appeared a lot since then, but many have not. For me it had the perfect blend of originality and familiar tropes done extremely well.
It begins with an unsettling prologue involving two unnamed survivors of Jerusalem’s Lot, a man and a boy, and a lengthy newspaper article explaining that it’s now a ghost town for unknown reasons.
It then goes back in time to the arrival of Ben Mears, a writer who lived in Jerusalem’s Lot as a boy and has returned as a widower, intending to write a book about the Marsten House, an abandoned house with a bad history where he may have seen a ghost as a boy. But the house has just been bought by a mysterious man from Europe, Mr. Barlow, who no one has met and who seems to communicate solely through his creepy agent, Mr. Straker. Ben wanders around the town and has a sweet meet-cute with Susan, a fan of his books.
King then proceeds to a long, bravura sequence in which he introduces us to a huge number of the inhabitants of the town, hour by hour in the course of a single day from midnight to midnight. By the end of it, you feel like you’ve lived in the town yourself. It also puts you about a quarter or third of the way through the book with no clear signs of vampire activity. If you were reading the book with no idea what it was about, you would know something sinister was afoot but not what.
The town is an incredibly vivid character in its own right. There’s rot beneath the surface, but goodness as well. The Marsten House is imbued with evil, but Jerusalem’s Lot is just a small town like many others, with child abusers and bullies and wife-beaters, but also dedicated teachers and doctors and random people who manage to rise to a situation requiring extraordinary courage. You get the sense that the group that ends up going after the vampires contained some special people, but not that they were the only ones. Had some of them chosen to confide in a different set of people, there were probably others in the town who would have stepped up.
I have no idea how I missed reading this before, because it’s King’s second novel and a quite famous one. However, I was almost entirely unspoiled for it, other than knowing that it’s about vampires and that one character survives as he appears in another King book I’d read. It’s a purely enjoyable read on every level, with good writing with some very beautiful passages, very atmospheric with a fantastic sense of place, a compelling story well-told, and a whole bunch of memorable set-piece scenes.
( Read more... )
'Salem's Lot[image error]
[image error] [image error]
comments
November 15, 2018
More info on Paradise Fire alert and evacuations
I'm cutting this for c&p-ing some news articles behind paywalls. Nothing graphic described. Two medium-length articles explaining some of what went wrong and why, plus some highly dubious-sounding justifications from city officials. Plus commentary by me. Please chime in with thoughts or further info, if you've found any.
To be clear: I think some people probably would have died in Paradise even under perfect emergency management. That was a horrific fire that moved incredibly fast. But it should been a person or two who fell through the cracks the way people do - an isolated person who got missed, someone who ran back to fetch something, etc. It should not have been, as is looking likely, over a hundred.
( Read more... )
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To be clear: I think some people probably would have died in Paradise even under perfect emergency management. That was a horrific fire that moved incredibly fast. But it should been a person or two who fell through the cracks the way people do - an isolated person who got missed, someone who ran back to fetch something, etc. It should not have been, as is looking likely, over a hundred.
( Read more... )
comments
November 14, 2018
Help CA Wildfire Survivors
The small town of Paradise was completely destroyed. Many of the survivors are senior citizens with disabilities or illnesses, and didn't have much money to begin with. Here are some links for helping them.
I'm only linking to local efforts, not large national organizations. I used to do disaster relief for the American Red Cross and while they did a lot of genuinely good work, there was also a lot of financial mismanagement, waste, and poor use of resources. I find that local organizations, while they may have the same problems, tend to have a better sense of what's actually needed and get it to people faster.
North Valley Evacuation Relief Fund.
Butte Humane Society Amazon Wishlist. People in Paradise mostly had only minutes to flee, and some either couldn't catch their pets in time or weren't home. People have been going around and catching loose animals, which are then taken to various animal rescues and held to be released to their owners. There's a number of places doing this; warning if you search for it, there are often photos of injured pets.
The current death toll for the wildfires is 50 and climbing. A third body was discovered at the Woolsey fire, but the rest are from Paradise. There are about 100 people still missing from Paradise, and given what happened there, most of them are probably dead. That fire was moving at a pace of one football field per second.
I've lived in Southern California for almost thirty years and I've seen lots of fires. The light turns an eerie, over-saturated orange, and ash falls from the sky. I've been caught on the freeway when the hills were burning on either side of me, and I've watched the blackened hills turn green again the next spring. My parents have been evacuated repeatedly, and I've sat at the table listening to the radio or poring over a paper map to see where I need to go if I have to go.
I once was driving in the country, alone on a two-lane road, when I saw a wildfire that had just caught on the side of the road. It was very small. I pulled over, called 911, got my fire extinguisher from the trunk, and ran to put it out. In the minute that took, it had grown too big for my extinguisher; I put out a little patch of it, no more. I ran back to my car, grabbed my water jugs and a sheet, doused myself and the sheet, and ran back to try to beat it out with the sheet. The water on my skin dried instantly. I tried for maybe another minute. Then the heat drove me back. I was drenched in sweat from head to toe. My hair was soaking wet.
I stepped back to take in the larger view. The entire hillside was on fire, a nearby tree was a pillar of flame, and sparks were drifting across the road and setting hundreds of fires on the hillside on the other side, beside my car. I dropped my stuff, bolted back to my car, and peeled out just as a fire truck arrived. I know they put out that fire, or I would have heard. But it gave me a visceral understanding of just how fast a fire can blow up. If I'd arrived thirty seconds earlier, I might have had a chance.
We live in a fire ecology. But what's been happening over the last couple years is completely unprecedented. It's not normal.
There are a lot of things that could be done to abate the fires and their damage. The Paradise warning system was a disaster; people had to individually opt in for it, and these were largely very elderly people who were independent and didn't like being bothered, and also were not all very tech savvy. Additionally, it didn't even work for all the people who did opt in. I think CA needs a statewide system of fire alerts that can be sent to everyone, with no opting in or out, and blast an alarm even if your phone is silenced. (Or turned off, if this is possible.)
Possibly the most significant fire reduction action would be burying power lines rather than having them overhead. Controlled burns are obviously very risky but it's looking like they're better than the alternative. That being said, all this is happening because of global warming. Vote.
comments
I'm only linking to local efforts, not large national organizations. I used to do disaster relief for the American Red Cross and while they did a lot of genuinely good work, there was also a lot of financial mismanagement, waste, and poor use of resources. I find that local organizations, while they may have the same problems, tend to have a better sense of what's actually needed and get it to people faster.
North Valley Evacuation Relief Fund.
Butte Humane Society Amazon Wishlist. People in Paradise mostly had only minutes to flee, and some either couldn't catch their pets in time or weren't home. People have been going around and catching loose animals, which are then taken to various animal rescues and held to be released to their owners. There's a number of places doing this; warning if you search for it, there are often photos of injured pets.
The current death toll for the wildfires is 50 and climbing. A third body was discovered at the Woolsey fire, but the rest are from Paradise. There are about 100 people still missing from Paradise, and given what happened there, most of them are probably dead. That fire was moving at a pace of one football field per second.
I've lived in Southern California for almost thirty years and I've seen lots of fires. The light turns an eerie, over-saturated orange, and ash falls from the sky. I've been caught on the freeway when the hills were burning on either side of me, and I've watched the blackened hills turn green again the next spring. My parents have been evacuated repeatedly, and I've sat at the table listening to the radio or poring over a paper map to see where I need to go if I have to go.
I once was driving in the country, alone on a two-lane road, when I saw a wildfire that had just caught on the side of the road. It was very small. I pulled over, called 911, got my fire extinguisher from the trunk, and ran to put it out. In the minute that took, it had grown too big for my extinguisher; I put out a little patch of it, no more. I ran back to my car, grabbed my water jugs and a sheet, doused myself and the sheet, and ran back to try to beat it out with the sheet. The water on my skin dried instantly. I tried for maybe another minute. Then the heat drove me back. I was drenched in sweat from head to toe. My hair was soaking wet.
I stepped back to take in the larger view. The entire hillside was on fire, a nearby tree was a pillar of flame, and sparks were drifting across the road and setting hundreds of fires on the hillside on the other side, beside my car. I dropped my stuff, bolted back to my car, and peeled out just as a fire truck arrived. I know they put out that fire, or I would have heard. But it gave me a visceral understanding of just how fast a fire can blow up. If I'd arrived thirty seconds earlier, I might have had a chance.
We live in a fire ecology. But what's been happening over the last couple years is completely unprecedented. It's not normal.
There are a lot of things that could be done to abate the fires and their damage. The Paradise warning system was a disaster; people had to individually opt in for it, and these were largely very elderly people who were independent and didn't like being bothered, and also were not all very tech savvy. Additionally, it didn't even work for all the people who did opt in. I think CA needs a statewide system of fire alerts that can be sent to everyone, with no opting in or out, and blast an alarm even if your phone is silenced. (Or turned off, if this is possible.)
Possibly the most significant fire reduction action would be burying power lines rather than having them overhead. Controlled burns are obviously very risky but it's looking like they're better than the alternative. That being said, all this is happening because of global warming. Vote.
comments
November 13, 2018
Update on Ballot Monitoring
Since I'd driven all the way down to Norwalk, I decided to stick around for the training and tour, out of curiosity. The facility and employees for processing and counting votes was extremely impressive. They have multiple mechanisms to count and verify votes, ensure their Scantrons are reading votes accurately, etc. Everyone working there seemed serious, dedicated, and competent, insofar as a non-expert could tell. If there were any shenanigans going on, I don't think they were going on there.
The standing rule turned out to not be an actual rule (and was never mentioned by anyone at the registrar - it was told to me by the person from the campaign I was working on). The actual issue is that the area we were supposed to be observing was crowded and busy, and if we wanted to be close enough to see the screens of the people working, we had to be in the aisle behind them. Putting a chair in the middle of the aisle would block it, while a standing person could just step aside. As it turned out, so many people had showed up that we were verging on blocking the aisles anyway, so the supervisors limited us to six per aisle. Which meant I couldn't get into the aisle anyway. (That's also why people couldn't move around much - it was at maximum capacity).
So I just sat down in a chair beside the aisle, and nobody said a thing. However, I wasn't doing anything particularly useful there, so I eventually took off and suggested to the campaign guy that he put me on ballot chasing instead. He took down my number, but I have heard nothing and after the snippy message I sent as soon as I arrived and discovered the situation, I don't expect to.
So, I actually don't think there were any shenanigans, and if I'd told any of the people actually working there about my situation, I'm sure they would have found a place where I could sit and generally observe, or showed me areas where it was fine to walk around. But I don't think they were obliged to accommodate specific requests by specific campaigns that conflicted with existing rules like not blocking the aisles. I lay this completely on the campaign, which should have notified us of the physical requirements so if we had a problem with it, we could've done something else. I'm also baffled by why they had so many people put on observation that it was literally maxed out, when presumably they had an unlimited number of ballots to be chased.
That was not how I'd have chosen to spend my day, but I did leave with a new respect for how Los Angeles runs voting and vote counting. Also glad I chose to work with the Katie Hill campaign rather than the Gil Cisneros campaign.
comments
The standing rule turned out to not be an actual rule (and was never mentioned by anyone at the registrar - it was told to me by the person from the campaign I was working on). The actual issue is that the area we were supposed to be observing was crowded and busy, and if we wanted to be close enough to see the screens of the people working, we had to be in the aisle behind them. Putting a chair in the middle of the aisle would block it, while a standing person could just step aside. As it turned out, so many people had showed up that we were verging on blocking the aisles anyway, so the supervisors limited us to six per aisle. Which meant I couldn't get into the aisle anyway. (That's also why people couldn't move around much - it was at maximum capacity).
So I just sat down in a chair beside the aisle, and nobody said a thing. However, I wasn't doing anything particularly useful there, so I eventually took off and suggested to the campaign guy that he put me on ballot chasing instead. He took down my number, but I have heard nothing and after the snippy message I sent as soon as I arrived and discovered the situation, I don't expect to.
So, I actually don't think there were any shenanigans, and if I'd told any of the people actually working there about my situation, I'm sure they would have found a place where I could sit and generally observe, or showed me areas where it was fine to walk around. But I don't think they were obliged to accommodate specific requests by specific campaigns that conflicted with existing rules like not blocking the aisles. I lay this completely on the campaign, which should have notified us of the physical requirements so if we had a problem with it, we could've done something else. I'm also baffled by why they had so many people put on observation that it was literally maxed out, when presumably they had an unlimited number of ballots to be chased.
That was not how I'd have chosen to spend my day, but I did leave with a new respect for how Los Angeles runs voting and vote counting. Also glad I chose to work with the Katie Hill campaign rather than the Gil Cisneros campaign.
comments
November 12, 2018
Cluster. Fuck.
After driving a pretty long way, then getting lost, then being unable to find parking, I finally arrived...
...only to learn that monitors are not allowed to sit down and must stand the entire time. I have a back problem which really rarely comes up because I am fine sitting or walking, or standing still for short periods. What I can't do: stand still for hours.
Nobody informed me of this is advance. Just sent very annoyed message saying so.This is not a common requirement of a volunteer office job, while that specific physical limitations is very common. WTF!
comments
...only to learn that monitors are not allowed to sit down and must stand the entire time. I have a back problem which really rarely comes up because I am fine sitting or walking, or standing still for short periods. What I can't do: stand still for hours.
Nobody informed me of this is advance. Just sent very annoyed message saying so.This is not a common requirement of a volunteer office job, while that specific physical limitations is very common. WTF!
comments
Further Adventures in Volunteering
What I thought I'd be doing today, tomorrow, and the next day: writing.
What I will actually be doing: Monitoring people counting ballots for the CA-39 Congressional election, which is still undecided.
If you live in SoCal and would like to get involved, email electionprotection@cisnerosforcongress.com. I believe they're also looking for ballot chasers to verify provisional ballots.
This is Gil Cisneros (Democrat, Navy vet, philanthropist via winning a $266 million lottery!) vs. Young Kim (Republican state legislator.) Young Kim is not the worst Republican out there - she supports DACA, for instance - but she also opposes the Affordable Care Act and marriage equality, so "not the worst" is a pretty low bar. Gil Cisneros has an excellent set of positions, comprehensive and specific - check out the detailed versions of his plans to protect the rights of women and LGBTQ people, for instance.
He's a great candidate and the only reasons I was primarily working for Katie Hill rather than him were that I thought Katie's was more of a tossup and so I could make more of a difference, her opponent was worse, and her district was closer to where I live.
Young Kim is currently leading by 2000 votes, but they still haven’t counted 83,000 ballots!
I have never been involved in this part of an election before, so hopefully it will be interesting, worth doing, and not a total clusterfuck. I will report back.
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What I will actually be doing: Monitoring people counting ballots for the CA-39 Congressional election, which is still undecided.
If you live in SoCal and would like to get involved, email electionprotection@cisnerosforcongress.com. I believe they're also looking for ballot chasers to verify provisional ballots.
This is Gil Cisneros (Democrat, Navy vet, philanthropist via winning a $266 million lottery!) vs. Young Kim (Republican state legislator.) Young Kim is not the worst Republican out there - she supports DACA, for instance - but she also opposes the Affordable Care Act and marriage equality, so "not the worst" is a pretty low bar. Gil Cisneros has an excellent set of positions, comprehensive and specific - check out the detailed versions of his plans to protect the rights of women and LGBTQ people, for instance.
He's a great candidate and the only reasons I was primarily working for Katie Hill rather than him were that I thought Katie's was more of a tossup and so I could make more of a difference, her opponent was worse, and her district was closer to where I live.
Young Kim is currently leading by 2000 votes, but they still haven’t counted 83,000 ballots!
I have never been involved in this part of an election before, so hopefully it will be interesting, worth doing, and not a total clusterfuck. I will report back.
comments
November 10, 2018
I have not been evacuated and am nowhere near the fires
In case anyone was wondering. I am in one of the most wildfire-proof parts of LA - no brush or forests anywhere near me. I do have an evac plan in place though. Just in case.
If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you can google "Woolsey Fire" and "Camp Fire." (There's also a third fire which forced the LA Zoo to evacuate some parrots and lemurs, but it seems less serious.) All three of these blew up yesterday. All of Malibu and 3/4 of Thousand Oaks has been evacuated. I can't stress too much how huge that is - those are both large areas, not small towns. Paradise, a small town, was completely destroyed.
The majority of the people who were present or lost someone at the mass shooting in Thousand Oaks the day before yesterday had to flee for their lives the next day for a completely unrelated reason. Unrelated, that is, except in the sense that both the regular mass shootings and the scope/frequency of fires are directly caused by political choices and are currently things our government is hellbent on making worse.
Apocalyptic photo of smoke over Malibu
Trump's response to 11 dead (and counting), thousands of homes destroyed, and a quarter of a million people evacuated was to blame California and threaten to withhold federal funding. FUUUUUUUUCK HIM.
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If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you can google "Woolsey Fire" and "Camp Fire." (There's also a third fire which forced the LA Zoo to evacuate some parrots and lemurs, but it seems less serious.) All three of these blew up yesterday. All of Malibu and 3/4 of Thousand Oaks has been evacuated. I can't stress too much how huge that is - those are both large areas, not small towns. Paradise, a small town, was completely destroyed.
The majority of the people who were present or lost someone at the mass shooting in Thousand Oaks the day before yesterday had to flee for their lives the next day for a completely unrelated reason. Unrelated, that is, except in the sense that both the regular mass shootings and the scope/frequency of fires are directly caused by political choices and are currently things our government is hellbent on making worse.
Apocalyptic photo of smoke over Malibu
Trump's response to 11 dead (and counting), thousands of homes destroyed, and a quarter of a million people evacuated was to blame California and threaten to withhold federal funding. FUUUUUUUUCK HIM.
comments
November 7, 2018
WE WON! WE WON! WE WON! WE WON!
I've spent the last six months or so registering voters and campaigning for Katie Hill, the Democratic Congressional candidate for my nearest swing district. The incumbent, Steve Knight, voted with Trump 98% of the time and is loathsome in every way. Katie is a staunch liberal who used to run an organization to help homeless people and veterans. She has solid values and admirable politics, and has lived in the district her entire life. She is also a 30-year-old bisexual rock climber who takes in rescue goats.
Steve Knight just conceded. Katie's going to Congress!
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Steve Knight just conceded. Katie's going to Congress!
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