Native American Heritage Month 2016 - Synergy

I have made peace with how susceptible I am to mission creep, especially when it comes to studying.

That is partly just because I really like learning, but also I have come to see that often things fit together well. The extra book rounds out the total picture, or it simply brings one corner more into focus.

Sometimes it is just that part of a topic is more familiar. That can make digesting the material easier, but it can also have pangs. Every time I see the name Black Kettle now there is a drop in my stomach, because it means Sand Creek is coming.

There were things that worked together well this time around, sometimes in unexpected ways. I did not expect reading up on Native American history to get me compulsively reading Hellboy comics, but that is all right. Here are other things that were unexpected.

Around the middle of the reading I read Full-Rip 9.0: The Next Big Earthquake in the Pacific Northwest, by Sandi Doughton. I did not expect that to relate at all. If anything, pending cataclysms feel more and more likely, and I like reading about things to be prepared. I didn't expect how many Indians would appear, but there were all these tribes I had just been reading about, because they had stories of the last great quake and tsunami. I knew that - the Coos retelling affected me deeply - but I hadn't been thinking about it.

The book I finished right before Sisters in Sprirt: Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Influences on Early American Feminists was Why We Lost the ERA, by Jane J. Mansbridge. It was not intentionally related. The blog series that I started on the Constitution back in March had expanded to include failed amendments, and when I got to the Equal Rights Amendment I thought I needed more knowledge. I had added Mansbridge's book to my Goodreads list a while back, so that was the obvious place to go. Together that was a good block of feminist history, and that perspective does not hurt for someone trying to find her way as an intersectional feminist today.

(There were interesting correlations to how conformity could be expected in movements. It hadn't really been that long since I had finished Utopia either.)

Deciding to read The Invention of the White Race, Volumes 1 and 2, by Theodore W. Allen, was more deliberate. Actually, it came from a Black History Month. In 2014 I read How the Irish Became White by Noel Ignatiev, and it was terribly disappointing (boring in its execution and concluding ridiculously). Someone suggested Allen's book to me then, and it occurred to me now that this was the time to read it, though that is no small undertaking.

What Allen says about race is important, but he spends a lot of time establishing groundwork, including a lot of time on English oppression of the Irish. It had many corollaries with treatment of indigenous people by colonists in the Americas. One interesting aspect of that is that there are ways in which taking over a society with its own hierarchies goes more smoothly than with a more communal society. Given capitalism's relationship with colonialism, that makes sense, but again it was something I hadn't really thought of.

What you may not know is that I am also working on a gardening reading list. I have been even worse about adding things to that, but a couple of books may relate.

The potato monoculture in Ireland left the Irish vulnerable to famine, which is well-known. It may be less understood that centuries of persecution and theft had left the Irish vulnerable to a monoculture. The potato kept them from starving when there were few other options. (That is lightly covered in Michael Pollan's The Botany of Desire, but there is much more about that in Allen's book.)

Many of the circumstances that favored the imposition of chattel slavery (an evil in itself) and caused a great deal of hardship even for the free was focus on tobacco monoculture in colonial Virginia. People couldn't eat it, but it was still all they wanted to plant because money could be made. (Though with everyone planting it, prices went down.)

Allen spends a lot of time on the capital investments necessary for sugar production and tobacco production, going over economic development and the growth of slavery in the West Indies and Virginia, and their similarities and differences. The most glaring similarity was that these were cash crops that were labor-intensive and planted by people that didn't want to do the work themselves.

Tobacco has the added perk of being poisonous, which is still an issue for farm workers who are often minors (something I was reminded of when researching the Child Labor Amendment).

But here's the other thing I know: the natives farmed! They practiced animal husbandry. In some areas they had summer homes and winter homes. They worked and played, but it wasn't recognized as such by the colonizers. Some of that was because they were looking for profits in a cash economy instead of a subsistence economy, but some of that is not recognizing easier, more natural systems. This brings me to Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture by Toby Hemenway, which showed me a lot about how we fight nature when we should be learning from it.

So the path of success for the Virginians was that you had to do back-breaking work of breaking sod, hoeing, planting, weeding, and harvesting a crop that could sicken them, and they could starve with a barn full of it, in the hopes of becoming rich and living a life of leisure, for which they killed and chased out people who were already living a better life. Plus they enslaved others.

"Civilization" doesn't seem like a good word for that.

Native American Heritage Month 2016 - Overview

Actually being able to start my reading in November did not lead to actually finishing in November, but I don't feel horrible about the time involved. There was a lot of reading, some of it quite challenging. While various concerns came up during the reading, solutions arose as well.

Last year I reviewed one Native American artist each week in November, but I hadn't started the reading quite yet. This year not only did the reading sync up with the listening, but I only reviewed indigenous artists.

One of the concerns - which I mentioned in another post - was this feeling of being rushed. I only reviewed Native musicians not only for immersion but also because I wanted to make sure that I got everyone who was waiting. I read more books because I wanted to be sure to read all of the books.

I can think of some possible reasons (possibly reflecting a sense of foreboding related to the election) for a sense of urgency, but then there was also the thought of another year coming, and what would I do then? Part of the answer came through a completely different concern.

Previously many of the Native American musicians I reviewed came through a special I had watched, For the Generations. I had a list of artists left from that, but as I was getting ready to check out one of the artists, Dawn Dumont, she turned out to be more of a standup comedian than a musician. Well, comics go on tour too.

I didn't want to ignore her, and reviewing standup comedy was an intriguing idea, but I did not see any upcoming performances that I could get to or archives of recorded performances. However, she did have a book. I added that to my reading list, and next year I will read Nobody Cries at Bingo.

The artists themselves provided solutions for me. I have had a hard time finding poets, but one of the books, Dreaming the Dawn, included interviews with poets. I have several more names to check out now. Tracking down their individual work may still be difficult, but it helps.

It seems that they are never only artists. Two of the books I read were by musicians (Robert Mirabal and Jana Mashonee) I had reviewed last year. Many of the musicians also make instruments or weave baskets or make jewelry, and the poets also draw and sculpt. Because creativity is so important to me, I take inspiration from that.

I will have more to say about how they worked together, but here is a quick overview:

Musicians reviewed:

Davidica Little Spotted Horse

Michael Bucher

Wayquay

Pura Fé

Tracy Bone

Martha Redbone

Ulali

Litefoot

Books read:

Sisters in Sprirt: Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Influences on Early American Feminists, by Sally Wagner Roesch

Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide, by Andrea Lee Smith

Skeleton of a Bridge, by Robert Mirabal

To the American Indian: Reminiscences of a Yurok Woman, by Lucy Thompson

American Indian Story - the Adventures of Sha'Kona, by Jana Mashonee

Dreaming the Dawn: Conversations with Native Artists and Activists, by E. K. Caldwell

Seven Hands, Seven Hearts: Prose and Poetry, by Elizabeth Woody

Halfbreed: The Remarkable True Story of George Bent -- Caught Between the Worlds of the Indian and the White Man, by David F. Halaas and Andrew E. Masich

Related Posts:

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2016/02/native-american-heritage-month-2015.html

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2017/01/a-year-for-comics.html

Band Review: No Devotion

No Devotion is a mostly Welsh band that I was checking out based on the recommendation of Gerard Way. They turned out to be surprisingly familiar.

Singer Geoff Rickly is formerly of the band Thursday, whom I had just been listening to because of something else I was working on. The other band members - Stuart Richardson on bass, Jamie Oliver on keyboards, and Mike Lewis and Lee Gaze on guitars - had previously been together in Lostprophets. Their band's dissolution shattered many of my younger friends. While there's no question about whether that breakup was the right thing to do, it's nice to know that it wasn't the end.

One possible band influence listed is The Cure. I can kind of hear that, but right as I was typing that I am listening to "Stay", and the way the beat tracks, and I just think No Devotion is funkier.

Where I can see the resemblance more is in an often similar sense of yearning, which is there. Still, without being so completely grounded in Robert Smith's psyche, No Devotion ends up sounding a bit more extraterrestrial. My mental image was that these are sounds carried over space winds to your cosmic radio, which may make the yearning more poignant.

Permanence is a very good album, but don't neglect checking out "Only Thing" which appears to be the B-side for "10,000 Summers".

http://nodevotion.com/

https://www.facebook.com/nodevotion

https://twitter.com/nodevotionband

Band Review: The Old Days

The Old Days is a modern pop band that I came to via member Scott Chesak, who also plays keyboards for The All-American Rejects.

"Modern" pop is the band's chosen descriptor, while their name implies something opposite of that. Musically, they are equally tricky to place.

At times there are echoes of something that I think is familiar but can't identify. It's almost like in the '90s when some bands got kind of hippie-ish, but not really. Like, they don't sound like Natalie Merchant, but I think she might enjoy listening to them.

Their sounds often build in a way that sounds triumphant, but it never becomes loud. It's almost like there is a distance of time, where these are good memories and going over them brings the feelings back, but I can't really say it sounds nostalgic either.

I guess that leaves the music as intriguing.

https://www.facebook.com/TheOLDdaysmusic

https://theolddaysmusic.bandcamp.com/album/the-old-days-ep

https://www.youtube.com/user/theolddaysmusic/

https://soundcloud.com/the-old-days-music

https://twitter.com/TheOldDaysMusic

Reasons to see Hidden Figures this weekend

I saw a tweet from LeslieMac about who would be willing to plan something on a city level to give this movie a good opening. That sounded like something I could possibly do.

Shortly after I post this, I am going to add all my Facebook connections to an event that does already exist for reminding people to go. This post will come first to explain why.

https://www.facebook.com/events/185411138543402/

The first obvious reason is to encourage young people interested in STEM. While I believe we have made some progress, both gender and race bias exist in education, and that especially occurs in math and science.

We also know that there is potential to be good at math and science everywhere, and that people with those skills are often able to figure out how to make things happen. Sometimes it is getting a man into orbit, but an understanding of physical properties, natural laws, and how to calculate their interactions can take us many other places.

The movie is not directed at children, but they can enjoy it. Rated PG for mild language and thematic elements, it should be suitable for older children. I was just watching a segment of cast member Taraji P. Henson's guest appearance on the talk, and Julie Chen said her 7-year old son loved it and wanted to see it again.

I was surprised to see that the resources on the movie site do not capitalize on inspiring young people - especially those who might be otherwise discouraged from it - in math. Local resources may vary, but at least for my area, the Washington County Museum's exhibit on the Silicon Forest included a segment on women in technology, and a trip there could be a way of extending the conversation.

http://www.washingtoncountymuseum.org/home/

The movie resources include on PDF on faith and one on family. The family one is a lightly changed version of the faith one, and it doesn't focus as much on family as on community, but I like some of the questions it asks about what you might not be noticing. That capitalizes on the theme of "hidden figures", which represents both the solutions to be uncovered for solving their physics problems, and women themselves, relegated to the basement, could enough to do the work but not to be seen.

http://www.hiddenfigurestickets.com/resource-materials/

Inspiring people of all ages to believe that they can do things that defy the expectations of others, inspiring people to not allow the judgment of others to pigeonhole them, is reason enough to buy a movie ticket. It might not be reason enough to make an event and focus so hard on the opening weekend, even if there are some really good actors in it (which there are). Here are some reasons for the push:

Hollywood still likes to pay women less and pass over movies with women in the lead. They have often overlooked actual data in order to stick with that nonsense, but it still doesn't hurt to have such a movie report good box office sales.

Hollywood does the same thing with Black people. And they do this with other people of color. Then it becomes a reason to cast Tom Cruise and Keanu Reeves as samurai, or make the live-action Mulan about a white guy, or have a Hawaiian native played by Emma Stone. I could go on, but I think the point is clear.

Sometimes Hollywood seems to think that only really loud movies sell. And then a cozy little book like The Hobbit becomes a convoluted, bombastic, three-part movie. Action films can be great, and broad comedies, but there should be lots of different types of movies out there, and part of making that happen is to go see them.

Because bigots are already trying to sink the movie. The IMDB board for it is full of people questioning that it happened, calling it PC revisionism. It's not getting as much publicity as the backlash against the new Ghostbusters but it's the same concept: sad people clinging so tightly to white supremacy that any acknowledgment or credit for any other race or gender cannot be allowed. It's pathetic, and it becomes more important to fight it every day.

So I will post this, and I will invite, and in my post I will also tag mothers of smart little girls and people I know who are good at community organizing. And also I will go see a movie.

Something better out there

Two of the books that I read were good, and I enjoyed them, but since then I have read books that I found more helpful.

The original two were numbers 16 and 17 on the Long Reading List:

Columbine, by Dave Cullen (2009)

The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through The Madness Industry, by Jon Ronson (2011)

More recently I have read these two:

The Psychopath Inside: A Neuroscientist's Personal Journey into the Dark Side of the Brain, by James Fallon (2013)

Rampage: The Social Roots of School Shootings, by Katherine S. Newman, Cybelle Fox, David Harding, Jal Mehta, and Wendy Roth (2005)

I believe I found out about Rampage through the notes in Columbine; the books are not competing with each other. If they were, I gave both of the previous books higher ratings on Goodreads. I don't think I have become meaner in my ratings, but for readability, the less enlightening books were more gripping.

I also can't rule out that at least part of the helpfulness of the later books came from the foundation laid by reading the earlier works. There are things that I understand better and get faster when they are in areas where I have spent more time. That's one reason I never consider any reading wasted. (Well, unless it's a really terrible book, but none of these were.)

So that was just something that was interesting for me. Some sources of knowledge are more helpful than others, but you may not know about them. If it's still moving forward, that's worth something. That can be true of books, and courses you take, and assignments you give yourself, and the people you spend time with. They say when the student is ready the teacher will appear, but I think there are teachers everywhere if we are open to them.

As fascinating as all of that is, it would feel unfair to not explain the differences between the books.

Columbine told the story of one shooting, and it had some basic elements of school shootings, but was very specific to the situation there. In significant ways it ended up being more about law enforcement, media, and their failings in this situation. Rampage compared two shootings for a government commission where they were trying to get to the roots. They did a lot more statistical analysis. I suspect these factors explain why the one that answered the most questions and the one that read better were not the same, but they both have important information.

The Psychopath Test started with a mysterious book arriving anonymously and tracking down the puzzle, which seemed to be the work of someone who was mentally off. That led to questions about the nature of sanity, and the book is kind of a romp as it explores that topic, and what it means to be a psychopath. It is very interesting, and it does talk about the test, but it is much fluffier than The Psychopath Inside.

There a neuroscientist accidentally discovers that scans of his own brain are remarkably similar to the brain scans of diagnosed psychopaths. He doesn't always do a great job of making the more scientific parts comprehensible, and he often comes off as kind of a jerk (which makes sense in light of the brain scan), but it is fascinating. There is a much deeper understanding of how the brain works, how different areas associated with psychopathy work together, and - although he does not realize it - he really helped my understanding of what's wrong with libertarianism.

One thing that I am seeing a lot of through other sources is how psychopathic behavior is learned, which is not so present in these books. I believe Ronson addressed that some psychopaths do seem to grow out of it (at least they decide there is a value in ending their antisocial behavior and are able to go with it), but from these books alone it is easy to imagine that with the wrong combination of nature and nurture there is no hope. I suspect that is not true, and that society can do better.

Perhaps that is one of the books I will find this year.

Related links:

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2014/09/a-very-long-reading-list.html

A year for comics

I wanted to start writing about my Native American Heritage Month reading this week, but I am still finishing two of the books.

That is after already reading six, plus some others that we will get to. Last year I ran into an issue with having a hard time finding books I had planned to read through the library. I had to completely rearrange my intended reading, but then I also added the books I could not find to my Amazon wish list so I would remember that at some point I needed to buy them.

I felt a sense of urgency with both books and music this year, which will also get more time later, so I ended up buying all of the Native American books except for one, Native Americans in Comic Books: A Critical Study. That was partly price, because in the first round I bought the four least expensive ones, and then I added some, but I kept holding back from that one, without being sure why.

Along with more historical books, I like reading some poetry and comics on the subject, though they can be hard to find. Reading material with stereotypes can be educational, but it wasn't necessarily the way I wanted to go. I was looking at Rob Recommends on Blue Corn Comics:

http://www.bluecorncomics.com/

Various titles that I searched for were not available through the library, and even hard to find to buy, but when I searched one title, Darkness Calls, that showed up as a Hellboy arc. Not only that, it was in my digital library. All right!

It started in the English countryside, which did not seem promising. He was quickly transported away from that, but then he was traveling through Russian folklore. I reached the end, and read into The Wild Hunt to get some resolution, and still no Indians. Upon further searching, there is a completely different, anti-suicide themed comic with a similar title, and that's what I should have been reading.

I kept thinking that I should just get that last book from my wish list, and it would give me ideas for comics to read, but it still didn't seem right.

Two things became clear from this, and Hellboy was important in both of them because of the way I devoured those arcs.

One is that when I do read that critical study, it is going to send me off down some path that I do not have the free time for right now. Next November it will be my first book.

Also, I have a lot of comics that I have been neglecting to read. My Dark Horse bookshelf has 172 titles, and 196 on Comixology. Okay, I have read a lot of them, especially on Comixology, but sometimes there were great offers that I only had time to accept, not to read. That includes an amazing Hellboy sale Dark Horse had.

In addition, a lot of them were free introductory volumes, many of which I have read but where I wanted to get back to the series because it seemed promising. Sometimes I read all of the series that was out up to that point, but more was going to come out. It's time to circle back.

So in 2017 I am going to read a lot of comics. The next two library request batches will include Hinterkind and Amulets and I will be making my way through my Hellboy backlog one or two (and maybe sometimes three) issues per day.

That leads to another thing: there are individual issues on Goodreads now, at least for some of them. I mean, I am used to trades being there, and I have sometimes marked a trade as read and written a review even if I only read the individual issues (despite missing out on bonus content like sketches and essays).

It is very hard to write a review of a single issue. If it makes you want to read the next issue it did its job, but to speak coherently about themes and impact without having the full storyline is not something I am used to. At first I was writing inadequate single phrase reviews, which did not feel right. Then I left no comments, and that did not feel great, but it was better than a pointless review. Then a friend saw one of the blank ones and asked for a review!

I figured that out. I will mark the issues as read, and then when I complete the arc I will post review comments on the first episode of the arc. (Hellboy arcs are more clearly delineated than lots of books.)

I am not going to put reviews up for Darkness Calls and The Wild Hunt until I get back there and look back over them. As tempting as it was to go on, I went back to the beginning and I will be getting the full view this time.

Continuity is exceptional in Hellboy.

Band Review: Hidden Hospitals

Hidden Hospitals is a Chicago rock band.

I have a hard time thinking of similar bands. At times they remind me a little of Taking Back Sunday. Hidden Hospitals has toured with The Used, who have also toured with Taking Back Sunday, so maybe that gives an idea.

While they just released their first album, Surface Tension, last year, they have had two EPs previously.

I am most drawn to EP 001, from 2011. Distortion is used effectively, giving the songs an emotional heft. I like the sequence of "One to Ones" and "Controlled Chaos" there.

It's not that I don't hear those same elements on the album (the intro on the second track, "Rose Hips", really caught my ear), but there is enough of an emotional component to how we connect to music that it is not always predictable (or logical).

On a philosophical level I appreciate the band's biography, though it really reads as more of a definition for Hidden Hospitals:

“Places revealed to those seeking resuscitation, rejuvenation, decompression, atonement.”

It is hopeful to believe that healing spots are available when needed, and can be found. I think many people can connect to that.

So a good place to start is probably "Rose Hips", the second track on the album. There is a video, it is probably the emotional powerhouse of the album, and the guitars on it are pretty good.

http://www.hiddenhospitals.com/#weare

https://www.facebook.com/hiddenhospitals

https://www.youtube.com/user/HiddenHospitals

https://twitter.com/hiddenhospitals

Band Review: Rick Rocker

I found a disconnect with Rick Rocker. The name sounds cheesy, as if it's meant for a parody of an '80s DJ. The page statements about instant anthems seems to continue with that.

That led me to go in with lowered expectations, but I found the music enjoyable, sincere, and in the case of "Into Your Arms" absolutely beautiful. The guitar is pretty well-executed too, especially on "Lady In Red".

Music videos have a little bit of that cheese as well - "Say What I Say" gives us a day of frolicking at Coney Island and more cowbell - but they appear to come from an honestly good-hearted person who is good at music.

Rocker has lived in New York City all of his life, so maybe the positivity is his way of rebelling. I think what he is doing works.

http://rickrockermusic.com/

https://www.facebook.com/RickRockerMusic

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmTVqHgNhLW08vMXDStHfWA

https://twitter.com/RickRockerMusic

Perilous times

I don't always remember how a book gets added to either a specific reading list or to my general reading list, but I know with this one.

The Vertigo Years: Europe 1900-1914, by Philipp Blom

I had seen an article mentioning the book. This was in 2013, and the book was published in 2008, so I don't think it was a regular review. However, there must have been buzz about it for some reason. I know because I was out with my sisters and a friend of theirs and the friend was talking about the time period, and how it felt like everything was on the edge of disaster.

That caused me to go back and find the article, both to send her a link to it and to find the name of the book to look into it myself. Then it was kind of a disappointment.

My former government teacher gave it a really good review, and I respect that. Part of my feeling was that it didn't really connect the dots and make a case for itself. As it covered various changes that were going on in society, they all felt separate, and I don't think they were. However, I also felt like I needed to know more about some of the topics, so maybe if you are already well-informed on this time period, then this book ties it together really nicely.

It is also possible that I was caught up so much in individual issues and problems that a focus on the zeitgeist was not what I was looking for. (Though I still feel the zeitgeist is precisely what was not captured. Maybe there were too many changes for there to have been one.)

I don't rule out learning more things and then going back to this book. That could end up being very helpful.

And I cannot rule out us currently being on the brink of terrible things either. Perhaps the book will resonate more now.

Field study

Right now I appear to be choosing the books that did not seem to relate to the key topic at the time I was reading them, but they have other purposes.

Best Friends, Worst Enemies: Understanding the Social Lives of Children, by Michael G. Thompson, Lawrence J. Cohen, and Catherine O'Neill Grace

While there were some chapters on older children and peer pressure, a lot of the book focused more on early childhood development. I was not having much contact with children at the time.

That changed as I got called into nursery. I am in junior nursery. That is technically supposed to be 18 - 24 months, but because there were so many children in the senior nursery (2 years old to 3 years) I got to spend more time with many of the children.

This is such a rich developmental age. They are learning to play, and they can be at the stage where they start forming friendships, but they aren't necessarily. Sometimes this results in side-by-side play, and sometimes the preferred method of interaction is snatching toys from someone else. And sometimes it is selecting a toy, bringing it to me, and repeating.

Not everything that I observed came from this book. Sometimes there were things that people I know had mentioned about their children. That stage where little boys always have their hands down their pants? Psychology 101. (I am not a Freudian, but he did observe real things.)

There are personalities that emerge, but there are also phases that are not a part of the personality. This one will get over hitting people. That one may not stop being bossy any time soon.

One girl initially wanted to spend a lot of time cuddling, but it gradually became less and less as she would play more. She would still run back sometimes to recharge. She had cuddling relapse the day we had extra children and extra noise. I realized that I was providing a sense of security so that she could feel safe to go out into the world. If there was ever a time when I wondered if what I was doing was important, that settled it.

One thing that I knew and was reminded of was how much parents worry. Yes, some are worse, but worrying is still pretty normal. And one thing that was in the book, but that is also observable, is that a lot of the worry is unnecessary. A lot of these things are really very normal, and they end.

Of course, I never expected a year where there has been such sharp veering from normal; I may end up becoming more pessimistic. But if there are things where I can know that it is okay, and channel my energies elsewhere, I will take that.

Homework

I think I am going to try and blow through some of the books from the Long Reading List this week.

Behind the Mask: Adolescents in Hiding, by Dennis Rozema.

This book was not as good as some of them. It resonated because there are many quotes from teenagers that sounded like my teenagers. That's probably the issue right there; I knew it was for some people, but it was not for me.

If I had read it when I was in high school - when I had put up those walls and they hadn't started getting any cracks yet - well, I might not have accepted it anyway. As it was, I read it in 2013, after I had spent years of becoming more open, first in conversation and then via the blog. I don't have much left in the way of disguise. That's intentional, and it sounds scarier than it is, because maintaining the facade is no fun.

I did appreciate that the book had assignments. None of them ended up being particularly relevant for me - that happened with a different book - but for its target group they were probably good exercises.

I'm thinking about that now for two reasons. That starts with an awareness of the practical side of my progress. Yes, writing about everything so much has played a role, and the reading, and those have been assignments in themselves. Beyond that, the things that put it into practice make everything so much more concrete. Taking selfies, and trying to dress up, and forcing myself into social situations, and all of these tasks that I have given myself matter. They translate the cerebral into the tangible. The body doesn't automatically follow the mind but you can make it happen.

The other reason I am thinking about it is the question of what I would recommend. When I see people going through issues that I at least partially relate too, despite our differences, well, what would be a good map? If I were to write a book, what would be in the book? This has been a pretty messy process, and it's available on the blog, but that could take a lot of digging.

It could be fair to say "Think about the thing you would most like to change about yourself, and then think about a step you can take in that direction." People should be able to get some ideas from that, and surely some of the ideas would be good ones, but there are probably more effective paths.

Band Review: Duncan Hendy

Duncan Hendy is a composer and does soundtracks.

Soundtrack compositions can be difficult to review. Separate from the work it accompanied, you cannot assess how well it supported the work. Because it was written to complement and not distract, it may not stand apart well.

Within this context vacuum, there are some very modern and abstract sounds that art rock fans could enjoy, especially on "Persistence of Sound and Vision". Whovians may appreciate "Tempus Atque Relativae Dimensiones in Spatio". Those references to time form an acronym, and faint echoes of "Tomorrow" within the piece seemed clever and appropriate.

The most memorable piece for me was "Silent Sirens", which created a nice tension that seemed appropriate for the title.

http://www.duncanhendy.com/

https://www.youtube.com/user/sydswine

https://twitter.com/DuncanHendy

Band Review: Season of Ghosts

Season of Ghosts does its music on a grand scale.

The band is driven by singer Sophia Aslanides, formerly of Blood Stain Child. Sophia keeps in touch with her metal roots, but accompanied by orchestras and synthesizers and done at higher octaves, Season of Ghosts is not metal. They self-describe as intergalactic.

Looking at recent bands reviewed, Season of Ghosts seems like the natural result of combining Orisonata with Samantha Scarlette. There are gothic elements combined with cuteness, but the incorporation of mythic themes and push of large sound sets everything on a grander scale.

(Also, there is not the morbidity that would make sense with Goth.)

One frequent shortcoming for these types of projects is that songs may run together and not be easily distinguishable from one another, even though there is a sense of beauty with the individual tracks. As it was, the one that stuck in my mind the most was the instrumental, "There and Back Again", simply because the lack of vocals made it different.

That being said, there is a performance video of their song "Dream; Paralysis" available if you want to get an idea of what they would be like in concert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_nGz_I4MMU&feature=youtu.be

http://seasonofghosts.com/

https://www.facebook.com/seasonofghosts/

https://www.youtube.com/user/seasonofghosts

https://twitter.com/sophia_sog

Seeing and hearing each other

I want to go back to that Cracked article I posted earlier:

http://www.cracked.com/blog/how-men-are-trained-to-think-sexual-assault-no-big-deal/

David Wong makes a lot of good points, and there is room to expand on the reasons, but what is missing is the female perspective.

This makes sense based on the article, its purpose, and conception. When he acknowledges what he once thought women thought, it is clear he is not saying that we think like that. It would probably be overly presumptuous for him to speculate now, but I am still struck by the difference between the perception and the reality.

This is what the author wrote that he would have said at 20, which should have been around the mid-90s if I am understanding correctly:

"In this modern world, the quality of a woman's life is overwhelmingly dependent on what kind of man she can attract -- a woman married to a capable man is simply going to have a higher standard of living, period. Her self-worth is thus based largely on how desirable she is to men, and on how many men are pursuing her at any given moment. The need for more suitors is due to the law of supply and demand. It is to her advantage to create competition by tempting as many men as possible, then making it difficult for any single one to gain her attention.

Thus, women gain power through rejecting men, and those rejections have nothing to do with how they truly feel."

The first sentence has more truth than it should. Woman do not receive the same level of compensation as men, regardless of their skills, abilities, and labor.

That should be an indictment of society, but it ends up being something that makes a woman more likely to be a trophy. Just that her financial worth is seen as less supports the belief system that women don't deserve as much. Prejudices are good at self-enforcing cycles.

" Her self-worth is thus based largely on how desirable she is to men..."

Yeah, that has been pretty true, though not necessarily the way he thought. I grew up feeling like it was practically a duty for a women to be attractive. I'm not sure that it even occurred to me that it was for the purpose of attracting men - it was just something you needed to do, and I couldn't do it.

It took a while to begin to see it, but over time I found it really hard to find any women who felt like they were pretty enough. Some of the most beautiful women I have seen have never felt it. Okay, tastes vary, and maybe there would be others that would be more generally regarded as beautiful, but it is amazing how aware of their flaws they are. Girls who seemed so popular and confident worried about things that never would have occurred to me about them. Advertising certainly knows that there is always something else that you need.

Many women do work very hard at being attractive, but it is not so much scheming to attract more men as it is giving in to pressures to look a certain way and be a certain way just to be good enough to avoid mockery. Present the right style to be worth something!

There may be a potential power rush in rejecting men, but a lot of women find it terrifying. They have good reason for that. Women get verbally abused and beaten and killed for that. There are always moments when you realize how vulnerable you are, and how little your desires matter to the other person.

I did not get asked out a lot, so there weren't a lot of opportunities to reject, but I can look back now and see times when what I thought of as teasing could have been flirting. For example, one guy once made a polygamy joke: I could be his third wife but he would have to be my first husband - stupid joke, or also an expression of interest?

If someone was interested and I stayed closed off, I suppose that could have felt like rejection. If so, I guarantee it was never about power. I never saw myself as desirable and it was too humiliating to risk any openness or vulnerability.

So when the author says that he never forced himself on a girl because he would have to lose weight or make the football team to do that, well, you can and should note the problems with that mindset, but I can also take a moment to appreciate that in this toxic culture it is not just the girls and women who are made to feel like they are less. It's not good for anyone.

I do have one story about being hit on. I met Chris through a good friend, from whom he got my number. He called and was asking me questions that were leading to sex, which I explained was something that I felt belonged inside of marriage, thus killing all of his interest in me. The next day I asked my friend about this creep, and what I had not realized the day before was that they were going steady, but now they weren't. She had similar views on chastity, so he clearly started off in the wrong area, but he just kept asking girl after girl until he found a girlfriend, and they stayed together at least through the year.

I don't necessarily think of this as a happy story, because I have to wonder about the self-esteem of the girl who chose that pimple-faced horn dog and the presumed teen sex that resulted. Despite that, when you told Chris "no" he backed off. He didn't stalk you, he didn't try and wear you down or make you feel guilty, and he didn't try and use physical force - he just moved on to the next girl.

His hitting on me while dating my friend does not seem like the act of a respectful person, and his preoccupation with sex certainly seems like he might be the objectifying type, but at least he was capable of hearing and believing "No". 

Bless him for that.

Why I never saw the movie

CN: rape

Yesterday's post concerned fairly trivial things, so when I identify male entitlement to women as a problem, that might seem like a stretch. So a girl gets kissed when she doesn't want it? Big deal!

We could argue over the size of that particular deal, but it comes up in other ways too. Yesterday, about the same time I tweeted out that day's blog, someone else was tweeting about a bar he knew being closed due to a fatal shooting. One guy was hitting on a woman, ignoring her rejection, and when another guy tried to back her up, the first guy shot him.

Comments were interesting. One person said it doesn't pay to get involved; just let women handle their own rejections. Of course, women get shot in a lot of those circumstances too. Sometimes it takes a surprisingly long time for any charges to be filed. How does that make sense if we believe women have the right of refusal?

There are a lot of directions we could go with that, but right now I want to talk about Nate Parker.

The release of Parker's film The Birth of a Nation was overshadowed by learning that he and his writing partner, Jean McGianni Celestin, had been tried for rape. Celestin was convicted and served some time. Parker was acquitted. The main difference appears to have been that Parker had previously had sex with the victim and Celestin hadn't.

When it was discovered that the victim had committed suicide, there were some expressions of regret, especially at the beginning, but Parker eventually became more frustrated, saying he was falsely accused and proven innocent.

It is possible that on one level he believes that. The jury appears to have believed that the woman's willingness to have sex with him one time vindicated him, and he could easily believe that. I have not read anything about him saying that Celestin should not have been convicted, but their continued association and collaboration may indicate that. Maybe the jury's disagreement was on whether Parker's continued right to sexual access included the right to bring a friend.

I was interested in the movie upon first learning of it but not sure if I would see it, wondering if the importance of the content made it worth seeing the violence that would be depicted. Then, learning of the rape, the question was whether it was more important to support a Black filmmaker or to not support a rapist. Those questions always wait for an answer until I see some reviews.

It quickly became apparent that I was not going to see it - that what was done with the material did not justify seeing it. I can't find the article that was most influential on me now, but here are two that cover some of the key issues.

http://www.vulture.com/2016/10/nate-parker-failed-birth-of-a-nations-women.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/movies/how-the-birth-of-a-nation-silences-black-women.html

It feels ironic that these two rapists made their characters' main motivation avenging rape, but if women are your property maybe it makes sense.

It is not surprising to me that they do not give fair representation or agency to the women in the film. That makes perfect sense.

I know I'm going long, and there is some awkward bluntness, and this is not a pleasant topic, here so close to Christmas, but it is a religious holiday coming up, so let me be a little religious.

In my church we go over the steps of repentance pretty regularly, which starts with recognition. You have to know that you did something wrong. There will be remorse where you feel sorrow for that sin, and then you will ask God for forgiveness. Also, you need to do restitution if possible, and turn from your sin, never doing it again.

I have criticized non-apologies before - "I am sorry if I offended anyone" - because it is not really acknowledging that something hurtful or damaging or wrong was done.

Looking at Parker, I see more how it holds him back. This should have been a great film. There are some decent historical sources for inspiration, there are current social ills that make it timely, and this nation needs to deal with its past. But Parker hasn't dealt with his. It holds back his art. It holds back his growth as a person.

What he should have said could have been something like this.

"At that time my friends and I were preoccupied with sex. It didn't just feel good; it felt like victory. In that pursuit, we did not think about the feelings or needs of the women around us. We did not intend to cause pain, but we did not care enough to think about whether we were. We only thought about ourselves and we caused irreparable harm. We were not unusual in those feelings, as shown by my acquittal, but they were wrong, and we were wrong."

That is a hard thing to say. It's hard to admit you did something criminal. It's hard to admit you did something ugly. It's hard to believe you did something cruel when you didn't feel cruel.

It's just needed. We spend too much time dehumanizing other people so we can get our way over them and not feel guilty about it. Something better starts with looking around and recognizing the humanity all around us, one person at a time.