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Mad Dogs and Englishmen
“Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.”
~Rudyard Kipling, Gunga Din
With apologies to Kipling, the need to describe the word “mad” has come up as of late.
When I was a boy, my mother said something to me. “People don’t get mad. Dogs get mad. People get angry.” My mother is very well versed in the structure and word usage of English, and she is quite Victorian in her tastes, though from time to time when she does become quite angry, the Scottish in our family starts to come out. But she’s got a very valid point regarding the word “mad”.
Mad is a word that has a connection to insanity. And thanks to Kipling’s Gunga Din, the word can be equated to dogs. Mad, or madness, equals insanity or rabid, as in what a dog goes through when inflicted with rabies.
And I’ve heard the word used in media outlets to describe the protestors in Ferguson and other areas of the States, if not in different parts of the world. “Protestors are mad” some news reports say, and by doing so, they underline their own feelings about those who are protesting their for their rights to be recognized and for their lives to matter. By equating those protestors with the word “mad”, media outlets are doing their best to have viewers who aren’t directly affected by the events in Ferguson to think of those protestors in one light.
Insane. Inhuman. Mad. Dogs.
Darren Wilson, the officer who murdered teenager Mike Brown, has already helped dehumanize Brown by calling him “it” and describing him as demonic. Which is a tradition used by those who ally themselves with extremist groups like the Klu Klux Klan. They enjoy hearing the word “mad” to be used against the protestors, because the word itself dehumanizes them. The mostly black protestors are, in their opinion, insane. Inhuman. No better than dogs.
The protestors are angry. They’re frustrated. And they’re furious. But they aren’t mad. Their reaction to the killing of Mike Brown, along with the killing of other black youth by police officers around the States (along with the assaults committed by the police against, essentially, children), is not something irrational. It’s not something insane. It is completely justifiable. These are people fed up with the justice system that gives huge breaks to white people who break the law by murdering a black person (or other person of colour). They are frustrated by a system that vilifies black teens who have been killed, who are victims of crime often committed by white men in authority, yet white criminals who kill numerous people in a shooting rampage are called quiet, an honourable student, and given the boy next door treatment.
The use of such words is coded language, make no mistake of that. Calling the predominantly black protestors mad is not by accident. It’s not even the “new” use of English. It’s coded language to call them insane. It’s coded language to dehumanize them, just as language has been used to dehumanize black and brown people for hundreds of years.
Of mad dogs and Englishmen indeed.
Before we start saying “That doesn’t happen here”
A lot of Canadians right now are looking at Ferguson and saying “thank God that doesn’t happen here”. Stop saying that right now. Because, in this country, we’ve got a history that may not involve African Canadians, but there is another group which does have a history of such conflicts. And it dates back to before the Battle of the Plains of Abraham.
In more recent history, First Nations people in Canada have had clashes with the police as they protest to demand the same rights that every other Canadian has.
The Oka Crisis
Beginning July 11, 1990, a 78 day armed standoff took place near the town of Oka, Quebec. Between Mohawk residents of Kanesatake, the Quebec provincial police, and the Canadian Armed Forces, Mohawk leaders demanded that developers stop a planned expansion of a golf course on land that had been disputed for over 300 years. Deemed a sacred burial ground, Mohawk people began with peaceful barricades which were met with armed police and soldiers.
The Innu occupation and blockade of the Canadian Air Force/NATO base at Goose Bay, Labrador
Largely started by Innu women to challenge the further dispossession of their territories and the destruction of their land-based way of life by the military industrial complex’s encroachment onto the Innu peoples’ homeland of Nitassinan.
The Lubicon Cree struggle against oil and gas development on their traditional territories in present day Alberta
The Lubicon Cree have been struggling to protect a way of life threatened by intensified capitalist development on their homelands since at least 1939. Over the years, the community has engaged in a number of very public protests to get their message across, including a well-publicized boycott of the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics and the associated Glenbow Museum exhibit, The Spirit Sings.
First Nations blockades in British Columbia
Throughout the 1980s, First Nations in B.C. grew extremely frustrated with the painfully slow pace of the federal government’s comprehensive land claims process and the province’s racist refusal to recognize Aboriginal title within its its borders. The result was a decade’s worth of very disruptive blockades, which at its height in 1990 were such a common occurrence that Vancouver newspapers felt the need to publish traffic advisories identifying delays caused by First Nation roadblocks in the province’s interior. Many of the blockades were able to halt resource extraction on Native land for protracted periods of time.
The Algonquins of Barriere Lake
By 1989, the Algonquins of Barrier Lake were embroiled in a struggle to stop clear-cut logging within their traditional territories in present day Quebec because these practices threatened their land and way of life. Under the leadership of customary chief, Jean-Maurice Matchewan, the community used blockades to successfully impede clear-cutting activities affecting their community.
The Temagami First Nation blockades of 1988 and 1989 in present-day Ontario.
The Temagami blockades were set up to protect their nation’s homeland from further encroachment by non-Native development. The blockades of 1988-89 were the most recent assertions of Temagami sovereignty in over a century-long struggle to protect the community’s right to land and freedom from colonial settlement and development.
To the more recent activities of the Idle No More protests, First Nations people in Canada have been met by armed police and military walls. Go back further to 1885 when Louis Riel organized First Nation and Metis people against the federal government when land settled and farmed by Metis settlers was being taken away for the more European settlers the federal government was trying to get in the territory which would eventually become the Province of Saskatchewan. Or years earlier, when Riel began his organized protests that helped usher in the Province of Manitoba.
We live in a country where Aboriginal women don’t grow up with the fear of if they are ever raped but when they are. Aboriginal women suffer and massively disproportionate amount of violence, with the largest perpetrator of that violence being white men. Called a silent genocide, Aboriginal women suffer the most of any violence that is inflicted against First Nation people.
Don’t get me wrong, we have a problem with an anti-black attitude in Canada as well. Alberta has a high number of organized KKK. In 1991, Leo Lachance was shot and killed by Carly Nerland outside a pawn shop in Prince Albert. Nerland, a member of the KKK and lead of the Saskatchewan branch of the Church of Jesus Christ Christian Aryan Nation. There have been white supremest groups in Canada identified with names like Heritage Front and Final Solution.
Almost one hundred years ago, in 1919 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, The Halifax Race Riots began as a group of drunk men with nothing better to do, and ended up with a two day charge of destruction. The targets were mostly Chinese, Jewish, and black owned businesses. Decades later in 1991, a similar event would happen as young black men believed they were targeted by a white bouncer who would not allow them to enter a night club in Halifax.
So we have this problem in Canada. The main difference being it doesn’t happen as often. But it does happen. It may not be as extensive as what is going on in Ferguson right now, but it does happen. We’re on the cusp of something like Ferguson happening in this country with First Nation people. They have been frustrated ever since the Meeche Lake Accords excluded Aboriginal people. They have been frustrated with the lack of protection and the lack of interest in solving the disappearances and murders of Aboriginal women. There is also the racially charged attacks against those people who are identified as being of Middle Eastern ancestry. Ever since 911, these attacks, whether considered verbal or physical, have happened in this country.
So do not look at Ferguson and say “thank God that doesn’t happen here”, because we’re not without blame for our own misgivings.
It’s colder
It’s colder outside. Couldn’t think of anything witty to write. So in lieu of writing something, here’s a photo dump of foxes.
Hope that helps keep everyone warm.
The monstrous hipocrasy of GamerGate
GamerGate has become a monstrous thing. It says it is a attempting to clean up corruption in journalism. If that was the case, one of their biggest targets should be Fox News. On the face of it, cleaning up journalism and forcing it to be fair and balanced is a good thing. But in all honesty, GamerGate really doesn’t have a firm or solid philosophy.
At it’s birth, it began as one guy whining about his ex-girlfriend, who just happened to be making a video game. He whined so much, he wrote a 10,000 word rant (which is a really big waste of time). With that kind of energy, he could have used that to make a really awesome first draft of a novella, but no, he used it to complain that his ex-girlfriend cheated on him.
From there, it went into something else, as members of this “movement” attempted to give it solid ground. GamerGate is against corrupt journalism. But what they view as being corrupt is opinionated reviews of video games. Which is impossible to make a review of a video game without being opinionated. The reviewer plays the game, the reviewer has an opinion on everything in that game from story, to graphics, to game play, and even box art if he or she so chooses. That’s how a review goes. If you disagree with the review, that’s fine. No one’s saying you’re stupid (or they shouldn’t) because you find a review that doesn’t match with your feelings on a game (or movie). Hell, there’s games and movies I loved playing that reviewers tanked on.
GamerGate has recently said they are anti-harassment. Again, this is fine on the surface. But many of the more outspoken members of this movement also happen to be serial harassers. Several have targeted known feminist and pop culture reviewer Anita Sarkeesian. They have done so with death threats and rape threats. And she’s not alone. Some of the more outspoken members of this “movement” have gone on to make parody video games where Anita is beaten bloody. I use parody with tongue in cheek. And it’s constant harassment. If GamerGate is so against harassment, why isn’t it, as a “movement”, attempting to filter out these negative elements and moving away from them.
But GamerGate has allied themselves (or has received alliance from) some major Men’s Right Activists. Some of whom are outspoken haters of reviewers like Sarkeesian.
If GamerGate does anything, it’ll be to make mainstream media take several awkward steps away from the video game industry. Throwing it back into the stone age of media and ignoring it completely. GamerGate has accomplished to make themselves look like right wing extreme radicals who want education stripped away from women (the Taliban), who want the rights of women’s health scrutinized by legislative law (several right wing legislatures in the United States), and close off equal opportunity to everyone (many States which have but a ban on gay marriage or made it impossible for trans*gender people to get jobs or living accomodations).
There’s going to be those who will say comparing GamerGate to the Taliban is extreme. Normally, I would agree, but one GamerGate individual has already proven that comparison is dead on. Of course, it could also be compared to the Montreal massacre at Ecole Polytechnique in the late 80s. A message was sent to USU which stated “Feminists have ruined my life, and I will have my revenge, for my sake and the sake of all others they’ve wronged”. It was signed Marc Lepine, who is ironically, the name of the individual who killed a number of women at Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal in 1989. One individual, basically a murdering psychopath. But GamerGate has a whole host who have proven they are ready, willing, and able to issue death threats, rape threats, to dox, to form hate filled diatribes of women, and blame it all on some fantasy called misandry (which DOESN’T FUCKING EXIST!). So I think the comparison of GamerGate champions to the Taliban is pretty dead on.
I do apologize if the comparison has triggered anyone who has actually been affected by the Taliban, as they as a group have committed atrocious acts of violence, have committed acts of rape and murder, and have used their version of ideals to commit crimes in the name of God. Those who have felt the effects of the Taliban, and other organizations like them, I do apologize because your suffering is very real, and we should take care when mentioning it.
But GamerGate, you’re on the cusp of becoming that. You are driving people from their homes with real fears that you will enact violence on them. You are very close to becoming a terrorist organization, leaderless or not. You, GamerGate, are a new brand of evil.
Summer ends on September 21st
This morning as I woke, at 5:30, I checked the weather app on my phone. It read 4 degrees Celsius. Which means overnight it could very well have hit zero. This is technically still summer.
But the darkness and the impending cooler weather says otherwise.
Just two days ago, the temperature got up to 26 Celsius. It was hot. Not a wickedly stifling hot, but a nice hot that you can relax in outside in the shade. The next day began with a temperature of 7. I think it only reached 10. Summer is not over yet. It doesn’t technically arrive until the 21st of September. I’m not backing down on that one at all.
The days are growing increasingly shorter as well. This morning was a little bit harder to get out of bed. I managed, even with it being dark outside at 5:30. A month ago, while I was enjoying my two weeks off, the sun was shining at 5:30. Although, I’d merely get up to use the bathroom, then immediately crawl back into bed. That’s what one does when on holidays. Now, back at work, the weather has taken a turn from the pleasurable warmth to something a tad more cooler.
On the different social media networks there’s already discussions of what to do for Halloween. Which is over a month away. I shouldn’t be too surprised, after all Christmas is celebrated with such vim and vigor in the preceding weeks before the December 25th arrival.
But I’m standing firm. Until the 21st arrives, it’s still summer. I don’t care if I have to wear a sweater, it’s still summer.
Dammit.
Masterpost for writers creating their own worlds, or even just characters
This came across my Tumblr dashboard, thanks to ealperin for posting it.
names that have specific meanings
feel free to add in any links!
Has Star Trek taken a step back
From the outset, Gene Roddenberry’s vision of the future was a very progressive one. I know there was problematic things that Roddenberry did, but he also paved the way for a television series that broke boundaries.
From the fact that the Enterprise crew was a diverse collection of individuals, to the fact that a black woman was featured as a standard bridge officer, right up to television’s first inter-racial kiss, Star Trek’s early days pushed the envelope and didn’t budge when the envelope attempted to push back.
Even though executives attempted to get Nichelle Nichols fired and off the show, making her working life difficult, to the talk she had with Martin Luther King Jr. about black representation on television. At the time, George Takei wasn’t out as a homosexual, but he is not only recognized as being the dependable helm officer of the Enterprise, but also a bold and positive representative of the LGBT+ community.
The only way that Star Trek at the time could be stopped was through it’s cancellation. After less than 100 episodes, Star Trek came to a close, and many thought that was it.
Until the late 70s.
The original motion picture wasn’t anything to write home about, and in all honesty it was the start of a curse that Star Trek motion pictures began to undertake. The odd number horrible curse (with the exception of II, III, and IV, that all created a seamless narrative). But even with the successes of the motion picture universe, there were very few who thought that the Enterprise would fly through space on the small screen once more.
Until 1987.
With the original air date of September 26, 1987, a new Enterprise with a new crew began to take to the final frontier. They did take some getting used to. Trekkies (or Trekkers) had grown used to Kirk as the captain, and weren’t exactly sure how to view this older captain with a British accent and a French name.
But the Next Generation picked up in attempting to produce progressive and envelope pushing episodes where the original series had left off. From creating a race of beings who were androgynous to showing a good representation of the effects of torture.
That continued when Star Trek Deep Space Nine aired. Though not a captain at first, Benjamin Sisko was the first black commander of a space station, and eventually the first black captain of a starship in the television series (it must be pointed out, that does not include those characters who had bit parts and cameos). Avery Brooks took the role of Sisko and ran with it.
Deep Space Nine was also a series which put a lot of emphasis on women, and even women of colour. From Keiko O’Brien to Cassidy Yates, from Major Keira to Lt. Dax. Deep Space Nine was a very character driven series that explored the lives of the crew of DS9 and the Defiant, whether that be through the good times or the bad times. And it showed that while these were good people, they have made some questionable choices and decisions throughout their lives.
Deep Space Nine even explored, but did not fully invite, the lives of LGBT+ onto the screen, with the airing of Rejoined (Season 4, Episode 6), where Dax is reuinted with a past lover from a previous host.
By this time, The Next Generation had moved into the realm of motion pictures, and while DS9 was slowly coming to an end, the creators took another bold move. They began a fourth series, but instead of a ship with the safety of the Alpha Quadrant and the Federation close at hand, a ship thrown to the other side of the galaxy and left to defend herself.
But this ship, Voyager, would have a marked difference from the past Enterprises and Defiant. This ship would be the first in network television to be in command by a female Captain.
Captain Kathryn Janeway may have fit the motherly role, trying to get her crew to work with a Maquis crew as they attempted to get back home, but she also made hard decisions. Janeway and the crew of Voyager have run into the Borg more times than Picard and the Enterprise. They’ve discovered more new species and made more first contact scenarios than any other since the first Starfleet vessels began exploring. It might be said that Voyager might only be second to the NX-Enterprise for number of first contact missions.
As with the predecessors, Voyager had an equal mix of male and female officers (though, it did still tip toward the male side). B’Lanna Torres was the first female chief engineer (Scotty, La Forge, and O’Brien being previously seen on past series). Seven was an expert in not just the Borg but astrometrics, science and engineering. Kess was a compitent nurse, though left when her psychic abilities began to threaten the ship (though she did return in later seasons). Even the difference of “good guy” and “bad guy” had the roles filled with both men and women, as Seska became a thorn in Voyager’s side.
NOTE: Seska began the early seasons wearing a blue uniform for science, later episodes until she was revealed to be a Cardassian spy, she wore gold of engineering. Also, actress Martha Hackett appeared in DS9 as the Romulan officer in charge of the Defiant’s cloaking device. Lost opportunities as I thought that would have been an interesting addition.
When Voyager ended it was a while before the last Star Trek series appeared on air. Instead of progressing forward in time, the idea was to look back at the history of Starfleet. The NX-01 Enterprise was launched with Jonathon Archer as her captain.
Even though the show was set in the 22nd Century, it still had a progressive feel to it, as it showed how the Enterprise and her crew dealt with each situation and became leaders to pave the way for a unified and peaceful Federation.
During the more than 28 seasons of Star Trek, there was just one regret voiced by those who had a hand in bringing it all to the big screen. That was there was no permanent LGBT+ representation on board any of the vessels.
Now, we’ve had two new motion pictures in the reboots. While they were good and entertaining, they left a lot to be desired. There was no feeling of hope as the other series brought to the table. No feeling that the future was going to not only be okay, but better. More inclusive and more accepting. Lens flairs and over using tropes from the original series (which was only a very, very minor part of Shatner and Nimoy’s Star Trek).
While the adventure has been great in the reboot, is Star Trek taking a step back from what it was?
The whole thing about MRAs
Look, it’s MRAs personified.
ok so all these guys who are like “men have it hard too!!! we’re expected to be manly and emotionless, we have feelings!!!” do realize that it’s other men who enforce those standards on guys. literally guys created those standards to be more powerful than women. so maybe instead of getting angry at girls for talking about their oppression, realize that you should be fighting with girls against unfair gender expectations and inequality ~via this-tragic-affair
I sometimes get comments that I’m being overly generalizing when I make a small comment about MRAs (which from now on, is short for Misogynists Raging Absentmindedly… or something like that, someone can come up with something better). I’m told that the language I’m using is harsh and I shouldn’t use such language to battle ignorance and bigotry.
Well, screw that. I feel no problem with fighting fire with fire. MRAs tend to use cyclical arguments, No True Scottsman, and try to play devil’s advocate when there’s no need to play devil’s advocate. They’re given credence in media when they don’t even produce any viable solutions to problems that affect us all. You know what group does; feminists. I’m talking about all inclusive feminists, the ones who include trans men and women, women of colour, the plight of PSTD on inner city youth, the plague of stop and frisk laws, and stand your ground laws, the feminists who point out that while most talk about misogyny in rap music, they forget about the same thing in rock, pop, metal and country. MRAs produce nothing, they don’t stage rallies, try to raise awareness, try to raise money, or try to combat actual problems that affect actual people. Their entire existence is to shut up those who point out the incredible disparities and problems in society and attempt to make things safer for everyone.
I used to be ones of those idiots. To be honest, if my current 44 year old self would meet my 22 year old self, I’d have a broken jaw because I wouldn’t be able to hold back the urge to punch my younger self in the face because of how stupid he/I was.
So no, I don’t feel that being polite to MRAs should be considered. Get angry at them, make them feel small, make them feel stupid. Do all of those things until they decide that it’s time to actually open their eyes and see, crawl out from under the rock they’ve been living in.
MRAs don’t deserve politeness. Just like any other hate group.
The Wasp
No, I don’t have a dramatic piece of fiction entitled “The Wasp” to share (though, maybe in the future). This is something that happened yesterday after I got home from work.
It’s been getting warmer, and it’s been raining every so often here, which makes things nice and green, but also makes it very humid. Yeah, humidity in a land locked province with no major oceans. The only water ways are two massive river systems the join and flow into a series of lakes in Manitoba. Admittedly, Saskatchewan does have a large number of lakes as well, but the area I live in is predominantly agriculture. For decades it was known as the dust bowl, and a common phrase was “it’s a dry heat”.
Anyway, due to the fact that my apartment was a little warmer than I liked, I decided to get some air circulating. I opened a window in my office and one in my kitchen (kitchen first, then the office, in that order). When I opened the office window, I was a tad shocked at what I found. The window pushed a wasp into the open.
A big wasp.
In my apartment.
Sorry, no pictures, because the last thing on my mind was “let’s take pics of this evil thing that COULD FUCKING KILL ME”.
It looked a tad stunned as I opened the window, and it didn’t fly around to begin the ensuing attack which I anticipated. Quickly, I ran to the kitchen and retrieved a glass and an old envelope from a cell phone bill. I carefully lifted the blind and trapped the wasp inside the glass, then pushed the envelope to cover the opening.
Now what? I could have filled the glass with water and drowned the bastard, or dumped it in the toilet, but thoughts of it surviving suddenly filled my head. There was no way I was touching it, nor was I going to crush it’s body in a kleenex like what often happens to a fly that annoys me. This thing was four times bigger than a fly. And evil, did I mention that. So, I wanted to avoid zombie wasp coming back to kill me.
I did the only thing I knew; I went on my balcony and I set it free, kind of thrusting the glass to help push the wasp away. Maybe, in its evil way, it would be merciful and believe I was a minion trying to allow it to continue on with its evil ways.
Needless to say, having a wasp in my apartment was not the greatest thing in the world to have. It would have been nicer if it had been a bumble bee. At least then I could have coaxed it out and let its cute, fuzzy butt out into the world to pollinate and be free.
Wasps; those things are evil.
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