Tag Archives: Politics

Updates

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Please, for the love of everything, confirm that you are registered to vote, and haven’t been removed from the rolls. It will take only moments, and may save your vote.

Writing the No Man’s Sky fan fiction feels good. I am definitely exercising muscles that have been dormant for a while. This will get me ready for writing the next draft of the next chapter of Adam’s Name. And by chapter, I mean book. And by book, I mean… book. Dangit.

The school year has started back up, and we opted for fully virtual, rather than a hybrid in-person and virtual setup. Neither their mom nor I felt or thought that it’s safe enough for anything else. The old adage of schools being petri dishes is incredibly apt right now, no matter how much sterilization or separation that they’re able to pull off. I am more than happy to put up with complaining about the kids missing their friends in exchange for being sure they’re not going to be involved in an outbreak.

The Razer laptop’s battery expanded, contracted, and has been replaced. Kudos to the third party battery company for not abandoning their customer after ten months. Free replacement, no ridiculous hoops, and the new one does the thing. If you’re looking to replace a laptop battery, check out ANTIEE.

Local Politics

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I’ve voted in the primaries, and here’s a quick breakdown of who and why:

Lansing Mayor – Andy Schor. Not only does he have a plan, he has a downloadable PDF on his site detailing his plan. DETAILS. Twenty-three pages of details!

City Council, 4th Ward – Brian T. Jackson. He wants to focus on social justice. He has a practical, straightforward outlook that appears to me.

City Council, At Large – Kathie Dunbar, incumbent. I like what she’s been doing, and I want her to keep it up. Kyle Bowman. He wants to focus on police relations with the community, and police accountability to the community, including measures like personal cameras.

This fear is no accident.

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The Culture War is not a real thing. There is no army of alt-right Pepes, and there is no army of SJWs.

There are people.

Some people believe that there is finally a chance that their way of life might not be constantly threatened any more. Some people believe that their way of life has suddenly come under threat. Some people are gradients between, or completely outside.

Scared people.

Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is so strong that conversation, rather than shouting matches, is incredibly difficult. It doesn’t even matter where the fear came from any more. We have allowed ourselves to be whipped into a frightened frenzy that rather than hearing what others are saying, we’re repeating self-contradictory talking points that range into objectively nonsensical.

What is happening isn’t noble. None of us are soldiers on the battlefield. None of our clutching of pearls or name-calling or looking down our noses is winning anything. It’s telling others that their fear and dismissal is founded.

Afraid people becoming entrenched in fear.

Fighting fear is exhausting, but important. I want to keep trying.

Net Neutrality… again.

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Net neutrality is under fire again. The FCC is reviewing whether Title 1 (before, trust that net neutrality is in the ISPs’ shareholders’ best interests) or Title 2 (current enforceable regulation) is the best way to achieve an open and free internet. This time, the public commentary is pretty hidden, so John Oliver helped out:

Equal access to online information is once again under serious threat. John Oliver encourages internet commenters to voice their displeasure to the FCC by visiting www.gofccyourself.com.

The VA our veterans deserve

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I want every veteran of the United States military to have medical, dental, vision, mental health, and life insurance fully covered. I don’t want them to have to pay a cent for their health for the rest of their lives. They should have excellent doctors, who are compensated competitively. These human beings were, and are, willing to risk their lives for ours. This seems like a no-brainer.

I wonder, if we took away the lifelong insurance plans we give Federal Senators and Congresspeople, and limit those benefits to the length of their terms, how much would that help?

Daddy Power

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This post was partially inspired by this blog entry, as well as this one.

I’ve been reading a lot of blog posts, news articles, social media freakouts, and the like about what this election means to women. I’m ashamed to admit this, but it means more to me than it has in the past. I have a daughter now.

Sure, these issues mattered to me in the past. I have a mother, a wife, a might-as-well-be-genetically-related sister, and female friends. We’ve talked about the issues that single them out, that take away their control over their health and bodies, that reduce their pay, that can push them into a life of fear. This has been important to me since I began to understand that I wasn’t the center of the universe (not as far back in my youth as I’d like, mind you).

At that point, I was only back-up. My Mom can vote. My wife can vote. So can my sister, and so on. Whether or not they chose to go to the polls, they had a voice. A say. So, my voice, my vote, was cast in support.

My daughter is sixteen months old, and there are people in our government that say that she should not be in control of her body. They want her to be paid less than her brothers for the same work. They want to control not just her, but all women. They want to put women, my daughter included, back in their place.

Acelyn doesn’t have a say about what rights will be left to her when she comes of age. She doesn’t have a voice, or a vote. I will be damned if I let her rights and her control over her own body be taken away from her without a fight.

This Daddy votes. And in this election, he votes for his daughter.

EDIT: Also, this blog post.