Month: June 2020

george savile first marquis of halifax wrote these words in the character of a trimmer

just prior to 1700 ce

he was a byword for ease of address, wit, charm and political astuteness; he’s all over William and Mary like a dirty shirt. Enought background

 

IT must be more than an ordinary provocation that can tempt a Man to Write in an Age over-run with Scribblers, as Egypt was with Flyes and Locusts: That worst Vermin of swall Authours hath given the World such a Surfeit, that instead of desiring to Write, a Man would be more inclin’d to wish, for his own ease, that he could not Read; but there are some things which do so raise our Passions, that our Reason can make no Resistance; and when Madmen, in the two Extreams, shall agree to make common sense Treason, and joyn to fix an ill Character upon the only Men in the Nation who deserve a good one; I am no longer Master of my better Resolution to let the World alone, and must break loose from my more reasonable Thoughts, to expose these false Coyners, who would make their Copper Wares pass upon us for good Payment.

Amongst all the Engines of Dissention, there hath been none more powerful in all Times, than the fixing Names upon one another of Contumely and Reproach, and the reason is plain, in respect of the People, who are generally uncapable of making a Syllogism or forming an Argument, yet they can pronounce a word; and that serves their turn to throw it with their due malice at the head of those they do not like; such things ever begin in just, and end in Blood, and the same word that maketh the Company merry, grows in time to a Military Signal to cut one anothers Throats.

These Mistakes are to be lamented, tho’ not easily cured, being suitable enough to the corrupted Nature of Mankind; but ’tis hard that Men will not only invent ill Names, but they will wrest and misinterpret good ones, so afraid some are even of a reconciling sound, that they raise another noise to keep it from being heard, lest it should set up and encourage a dangerous sorts of Men, who prefer Peace and Agreement, before Violence and Confusion.

Were it not for this, why, after we have play’d the Fool with throw∣ing Whig and Tory at one another, as Boys do Snow Balls, do we grow angry at a new Name, which by its true signification might do as much to put us into our Wits, as the other hath done to put us out of them?

lovely, amusing, deadly earnest

Have some clinical humour.

I know I complain but I’m not a Black trans man from a religious Windrush family forced to live with his rellies during COVID in the UK. I sent him a message of support this morning, because whatever my life looks like it doesn’t involve being misgendered by my close relatives first thing in the morning.

Jeff and I took our lives in our hands AND ATE AT IHOP THIS MORNIN’

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I handed out Cap Shields.

whining

so allegra has been arguing for the decertification of police unions and the stripping of pension funds for quite a while.

In the UPSUN books, when the elders formally get the land back, they have already brought the Vancouver Police Department to its knees.

  1. they’ve presented the VPD with a much abbreviated code of conduct and a list of all the infractions which are actually supposed to be attended on by the police hint hint it doesn’t line up with the CCofC (the sixers stole all the private police documents about disciplinary hearings and community relations, too and published them on the main sixer site, so the cops start off their relationship with Stô:Lō MST Country on their back foot)
  2. a lot of cops left town at the hand-off…. they saw the writing on the wall. between 1/4 million people fleeing the lower mainland convinced that the takeover will ruin the city (besides destroying their investments) and the news that violent cops will be disciplined, much yeeting occurs. which means there are fewer police
  3. they’ve instituted dismissal proceedings for every cop with a misconduct complaint involving custodial and domestic violence, stalking, racism, sexism, homophobia and misuse of public funds, and you get two flavours of dismissal; one involves getting your police pension, and the other involves trying to sue the city, in which case you don’t get your pension and you get fired, ha ha ha. NEXT!
  4. Even if you aren’t dismissed, you have to RESWEAR YOUR OATH OF OFFICE to the people of Stô:Lō MST Country, NOT THE QUEEN, NOT THE ELDERS
  5. Most police are disarmed. They have pepper spray and truncheons, and thasssallll folks. Armed police must requalify every sixty days and stay clean as a whistle in terms of public complaints. Police are not required to carry weapons. Police not carrying weapons who are injured in the course of their duties get all medical expenses, no questions asked.
  6. All police have their names, stations, photos in AND out of uniform and badge numbers available to the public for reference purposes (the idea of a perp book for cops was too delicious to resist)
  7. The pension plan is now controlled and directed outside of Canada so the feds can’t fuck with it (Iceland, gotta love Iceland).
  8. Police are no longer required to wear full uniforms to work. They need a hat and a badge for identification. (beaded badges come into fashion, and indicate various things about the specific police)
  9. Police are allowed to take second jobs, mostly training cops from other police forces about how to deal with sixers. They are not allowed to provide security services for pay, though.
  10. There are number of places, including the expanded Chinese embassy grounds, where the cops don’t go.
  11. AND OF COURSE, if you want to complain about it, you get to go to the Justice Longhouse of Stô:Lō MSt country, where two of the judges are elders and one of them is a sixer, and court runs 24/7 and you have to stay put until your case is called, and there are no lawyers who understand how the court works who aren’t Indigenous, so best of colonial luck with that, pal.

still super sleepy

I’m sleeping less at night and more during the day, which isn’t particularly healthy. Jeff’s sleep cycle is a bit jarred from normal as well.

Forgot to mention with yesterday’s walk there was so much cottonwood fluff in the air I’m glad I was wearing a face shield.

I am SO GLAD I don’t live in downtown New West.

The NOISE this will generate, my god. Because of where we live we get to listen to the trains, especially where they cross the water at Annacis Island (the echoing and banging is quite something).

so sleepy

So one of the things that I read about COVID is that even people who only get mild cases get a bounceback, often a month later, often with an attenuated version of the symptoms, almost always accompanied by exhaustion.

I slept about 12 hours yesterday and was moving through a fog the rest of the time. We did get a walk in, though, and that set the day at a slightly higher energy level …. somewhat.

Minneapolis council members are talking about disbanding the police.

crappy until almost sunset

Managed not to sleep the entire day away but that hardly constitutes an accomplishment.

two blonde caucasian children pose on a balcony in Scarborough in 1964
europeans don’t understand why we don’t bury our hydro poles – a winter dawn
Paul in profile during a foggy day at the Quay
a furball named Miss Margot
although it looks shiny here it’s now been on my front porch so long it no longer has any colour

this n that n this

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Another bad day for me yesterday, spent a lot of time sleeping. Weather AGAIN is atrocious, will it ever be summer?

Couple of loads of laundry, made some banana bread which as far as I can tell got demolished over the Castle and Time Teams we watched yesterday. LET’S JUST EAT BANANA BREAD AND IGNORE THE SHIT SHOW of american cities catching fire because the cops are assholes

WE MUST GO WALKING TODAY we need to get out the house.

the boys

So I spent money on line again, but I got TWO unboxing experiences, one with Paul and one with Mike.

The device is called a GoSun Go and it’s a 2 pound solar oven. Paul and I boiled water for tea and shared a cup. It was most pleasant. Later on in the afternoon I asked Mike if he wanted it, he said yes but he didn’t want to have to lug it back since he walked over, so we pretended to unbox the previously unboxed one and he started thinking about what he wants to cook on the beach.

Jeff and I went for a walk in Hilda Park yesterday morning. I wore my face shield, but there was nobody in the park and with the wind and sun, which was continuous, I didn’t really feel scared of no virus.

Rex Murphy talking about how Canada is not a racist country when every inch of it is built on land stolen from the Indigenous nations is quite the thing.

one little hug

I am slightly less touch deprived than I was yesterday because Katie gave me a hug when she came by on Sunday. Alex didn’t want to visit, but I got that photo…

Weather is horrible for May. We’re getting a summer that wasn’t, our first in about ten years.

My racism, inherent in not wanting to get lumped in with all other white people, still exists because based on my life and works I’ve been an ally for about 4.5 seconds. My moral disgust with whiteness takes the form of mild inconvenience, not an ongoing threat to my life.
 

I want to avoid the dangers inherent in ‘being a white person working on my anti-Blackness’ but as far as I can determine, the biggest one has always been becoming too numb to support anti-racism with daily, concrete, considered and faithful action.

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