Small Narrow Heart = Small Narrow Mind

Cut by the area's wealthy man.

Today's post is all over the place. I'm going to just label the photos; you're smart enough to click them for larger reading and study.

The Egyptians said we thought with our hearts. We say we feel something in our guts because "having bowels" was an old English phrase for pity.

Speaking to a Clallam Bay librarian. Of COURSE, the Affordable Health Care Act came up.  

She said she was talking to a friend from Sweden. She thought the reason socialist health care works in Sweden is because "it's a much smaller country." I pointed out that that was "apples and oranges," and the reason it works in Sweden is, it's single payer and there are no corporate middle-men involved.

I was explaining socialism and capitalism to her (and some people up here DO get it): how S is for neccessities, C for luxuries. I offered, for example, the roads - and the bus system. 

Indica? Sativa? No - carpet fluff! :D

Immediately, she said the buses were too expensive, cost too many taxes, and "I might as well take a taxi for what they cost me." She then added that the buses went by her house all the time with only one person on them. I tried to explain that I often ride the busses and they're packed, and load and unload completely depending on the route. She kept saying she saw only one person on them. 

I couldn't understand what she was trying to prove. I didn't think she was lying - I thought she might honestly think she saw that. I got home, described this to Dan, and got a real facepalm moment.

Dan, "She sees them at the beginning or end of the run. They don't fill up until further along the route."

God, I feel stupid, for not thinking about that at the time. But he's right.

The shadow remainder of a beach-flea kelp feast.

Now, what have I said about the library hiring from logging families? Resource workers, and many people in uniform, think they're the point. They can mourn a community cat - but not even recognize the clearcut the dear animal was buried on is ghosted with the dead and refugee spirits of the animals that had to run or die. They have no mirrors, they cannot think out side themselves. They can't understand how everybody needs certain things, and they truly seem to believe that anyone who can't keep up should be allowed to fall by the wayside. When did we start ascribing to the morality of the Bataan Death March?

I told her the day would come when people in my age group our her age group would not have cars. Not everybody up here has an extended family. Not everybody can afford the $30 in gasoline it takes just to drive to and from the only large city on the peninsula, with the only vet's outpatient clinic - the very people who need to go there. I told her we all pay taxes so we can ALL use the buses or roads - nobody is denied their use. I told her that her own kids can buy a cheap summer bus pass, and a full day on Clallam County busses - to anywhere - was $3.00. How is this NOT a good investment?

Now, did I not say she worked at the library? According to her idea of how this works, if she goes into the library at night and nobody's there, then all the libraries need to be shut down. And libraries are expensive, so everybody should just buy their own books and media. Of course, she'd be out of a job - but it's always somebody else's life that doesn't count to the logger tribe.

I should have pointed out the Quilleute run a free bus on the hour to LaPush. The native peoples understand that everybody needs transportation. And you do know who's helping fund that - Ms. Stephanie Meyer, and her Twilight series.

Ghosts on slip point. Gone, or going.
So much for their real future of beauty
and health in media and tourism.
They've cut their own throats.

Now, I thought about writing about the local communities and the local tribes, except I felt that would be presumptuous (I'm talking the tribes - you white folks have SO not earned my consideration). Ms. Meyer, like so many fan writers, just slogged ahead, with no thought for anybody's feelings. The Quilleute understandably blew up over her mistreatment of their culture; just another white person sticking feathers in a character's hair and getting the names wrong.

BUT - let's hear it for her or her agent. They sucked it up, worked with the Quilleute, and made sure the tribe benefited from the series. Which is a lesson for all of us; just because you fuck up, just hand over your head on a platter and apologize and try to fix it. Bad can become good. Evidently, vampires have more humane consciousness than loggers. Oh - is that why loggers hate the vampire people? They make them look bad? They make their horrible history look bad? 

Hmmm... I know a WHOLE lot of crap about local tribes I shouldn't have access to. All kinds of screwy stuff has happened to put me in the know about things I shouldn't know.  Maybe I should be looking at zombies.... :D

Yeah, I'm talking to you, Makah tribe, with your "Rayonier Logging Company cooperated with us" down on your hatchery sign. What was THAT about? Or was it another case of, "We get our fish back, or you LEAVE"? Because those treaties are loans. Based on contingencies. 

Tomorrow, I'm going to start the campaign to really go after Hunting-For-Fun. And starting the process for pointing out which candidates are posting photos of themselves with dead animals as trophies. You know who you are. And White-out for writing on photos? Do you NOT have children who know how to use Photoshop? Or GIMP?

Twilight and Immigrants

Okay, so far on this situation.  An immigrant man was killed during a Border Patrol stop outside Forks.  The Forks mayor was startled when fans of the Twilight books and movies were horrified and started writing and showing up (in "droves" -- but in Forks that means there's 50 or so girls and their bored but patient parents in couple of Twilight stores and the van).

Local papers claimed the story hit The New York Times because Forks was so important now.  Maybe so, but not in a way they may want to be.

The mayor of Forks was startled.  I recognized an obvious outcome to the local Invader Americans' terror of the Other.  I know the writer-and-fan culture from long experience, just from my books.  So I posted a head's-up on this blog.

Seattle's Weekly was next to write an article about the incident.

The Forks Forum is a little free country weekly I freelance for. because, to survive, everybody up here has six hats.  I often have to tell people I'm interviewing that I'm willing to leave out bits of information that would get them in trouble with the county -- and the county doesn't want to know either.  They know people have to play with loopholes to survive up here.  My line is, "This isn't an exposé."  So, yeah, sometimes my reports are not quite as complete as they might be, just to keep the local businessfolk, volunteers and artists out of trouble.  Nobody wants to know; this is just a restaurant-and-post-office handout. 

Of the paper's admiration for my work I have no illusions -- I'm the person who saves them gasoline or emergency time up here. They don't pay much, but they pay their bills, and they don't keep me in the dark.  I try to return the favor.

The editor wrote an editorial and posted the cover picture, interpreting what the Weekly did as an attempt to grow its readership.  This is probably a publisher decision (for whatever reason) and my editor is a good, quiet workhorse.  I figgered I might as well put in my two cents so he'd know where I stand.  Least I could do -- the guy is decent to me.

So I dropped him an email:

"Um... just a passing note (with the recognition that editors gotta listen to the publisher):The Weekly isn't a "free tabloid."  It's got some of the best investigative journalism around, and it's only "free" because it gets a LOT of advertising, especially from the club, band and entertainment scene.  It pays its people quite well, too.  They don't need Twilight to up their readership -- their readership really doesn't follow the girl's romance market.  Their readership makes fun of Twilight, when they think of it at all (which is not fair, because we all have our manias and movies).  The movie at San Diego Comicon would take up its own booth and fandom in the midst of a literal small city of booths.At best, The Weekly using the logo to ironically introduce a "dark underbelly" article.  At worst, they're making fun of it.  

 The Border Patrol isn't going to scare anybody outside the area with the "illegal immigrant" boogieman.  Least of all the Twilight readership, who are all about the girl getting hooked on the unusual stranger.  The Weekly people are like bloodhounds -- they can find out everything, and they WILL.Many Hispanics also have the blood of native peoples in them.  It's gonna happen..."

He knows this, but papers here are the toys of the publishers, and an editor's gotta eat, too. 

Just sayin'.   We have real, live tribes up here, and we're not the only ones.  The first time an "illegal" immigrant raises his or her hand and claims tribal membership, all hell is going to break loose.  This is not over.  It's been four (five?) hundred years coming.

My readers know how I write -- I know a snowball and an avalanche when I see one.

Forks, Washington, lets the border patrol sit on the highway outside its town and try to catch naughty Hispanics.

Forks is the scene of the Twilight novels.

The novels portray Indians as cool people.

Lower-income Hispanics tend to be Indios, or First Nations.

The New York Times reported on a murder of a local Hispanic man.

Now the Forks mayor is wringing his hands and going, "Whad we do?  Whad we do?" as the nasty emails from appalled fans come in.

Maybe they'll think again before letting the border patrol run through town like wild dogs.