Victims and martyrs: a who's who of oppression

When it comes to keeping up with Our President's proclamations, the answer is simple:  it can't be done. As Trevor Noah has said, "Ain't nobody got time for that." Instead of blatting out responses of horror and doom every time, I have been noting the style and content of his and his supporters' complaints. Voter fraud, underreporting attendance at public rallies, sources of terrorist attacks, police-citizen violence, 'fake' news--all are important issues. What strikes me, however, is that the right has to dig for incidents, with disproportionate outcry, while the left points out actual events. No special inner-circle knowledge needed, no arcane interpretations or conspiracies. Just stuff that happened.

Voter fraud? The very few instances of someone voting under someone else's identity are mostly accidental--son (jr.) mistakenly signing in father's slot on the register (sr.) Voter suppression? Thousand upon thousand of voters turned away from polling places, guilty of voting while black or brown, or of being students living at their university, or not being able to afford a credit card.

Of the terrorist attacks in the continental US since 2001, the vast majority were carried out by individuals born in the US. Of those, most (can't track down the numbers on this right now--blood sugar dropping) were not Muslim, but were white anti-government, using their legally obtained assault weapons.

I hope--I desperately hope--that soon, actual deeds and events will matter again.

Incidentally, I obtained/created both these images when my camera battery was failing. Visions of the apocalypse.

Thoughts on Inauguration Day, January 20 2017. This does not violate Godwin's Law.

Cloud Rorschach

Back in the day when I worked as a psychologist, I performed psychological evaluations and
taught graduate students how to do the same. I know there is a bunch of fantasy out there about psychological testing and 'putting people in boxes' and such. Let me tell you that testing and evaluations can be individual, specific, and valuable.

Anyhow. The Rorschach Ink Blot Procedure was one of my favorites from early on. It has been the subject of a lot of research, and, if you stick to said research, you can draw reliable conclusions. Now, the Rorschach took off as a clinical instrument (that is, a procedure whose findings can be accurate and useful with troubled people) during WWII. As it happens, the Nuremburg Commission used psychological testing to have some independent measure of who the Nazi war criminals were, to understand better who they were dealing with. At the same time, testing was performed on rank-and-file Nazis in Denmark--self-identified active members of the Danish National Socialist Party who had not committed war crimes, but who had supported and furthered the Nazi activities. The history and outcomes of these assessments are detailed in an excellent book, The Quest for the Nazi Personality:  A Psychological Investigation of Nazi War Criminals, whose authors (Eric Zillmer, Molly Harrower, Barry Ritzler, and, Robert Archer) are extraordinarily competent and conscientious. It's a bit technical if you don't have the particular training, but it's a good read.

What were these outcomes? I will summarize. The Danish rank-and-file Nazis differed in some characteristic ways from non-Nazis. For instance, regarding problem-solving, they rarely possessed a dependable approach (e.g., "first things first" or "take the long view" or "practical answers" or "principled above all"). They tended to vacillate inefficiently, with great difficulty solving problems on their own. After such an inauspicious start, they tended to be easily influenced by others and then to adhere rigidly to approaches that had proved unsuccessful, rather than adapting their approach after failure. For all their expressed energy and outcry, they tended to be passive in the face of the actual problem.

Regarding their sense of self and of others, they were more likely to view themselves and others as objects to be manipulated and exploited or feared and hated (or all of these). They were not introspective and were likely to disregard feedback from real relationships--again, disregarding actual events and actual outcomes. Finally--and remember, this is from the Rorschach findings--independent of life events, they were likely to disavow responsibility for their actions and to see themselves as victims.

Does this describe any people you have seen or heard in the last year, interviewed on national television and radio at various rallies? Are you perhaps wondering how so many Americans can have voted for someone whose actions and statements were consistently--supply your preferred adjectives--without concluding that this person's claims were without supporting evidence?

Please understand:  I am not calling Trump or his supporters Nazis, except for the ones who call themselves Nazis. I am, however, struck (and discouraged) by certain similarities.

After the second debate. Warning: heavy irony ahead

Five reasons why I don't mind if Trumpkin gets elected:

1. His posture reminds me of a bear. That's good, right?

2. I grew up with people telling me lies that I was supposed to believe. Just like home!

3. I grew up with people threatening me with violence if I did the right thing. Ah, nostalgia...

4. Similarly, ad hominem arguments are reassuringly familiar.

5. I have always enjoyed Canada.

6. He reminds me viscerally of an abusive ex. It's *good* for me to deal with my PTSD on this.

Essentially, my husband and I are keeping as still as possible until Election Day. To change the taste in our minds after this debate, we watched The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari auf Deutsch. Nothing like a German Expressionist silent movie about a psychopathic director of an old-school insane asylum to lighten the mood.

Above, a friendly French poubelle on a Sunday morning after a solid night's entertaining in the quartier. Note how the bottles are helpfully stood up, rather than flung around to show how some people are too special to follow rules.

This is very very rude.

Fantastic mural in San Francisco summer 2016

Someone asked me if I had a lot of time on my hands. Not particularly, but I was trying to find a different title for a new chapbook, and thought maybe anagrams might loosen me up. They didn't, nor for the title, but while I was there, I tried out some other names, including Donald James Trump. More than 18,000 came up; these caught my eye:

Madam Splendor Jut
Dreamland Jump Sot
Mandates Lord Jump
Adman Retold Jumps
Madder Sunlamp Jot
Traded Salmon Jump
Majored Slant Dump
Laden Stardom Jump
Deals Mordant Jump
Modal Rants Jumped
A Rant Molded Jumps
Deadpans Jolt Mr. Um
Ram Pudenda, Jolt Ms.
Ram Dad Pen Jolts Um
Rump Adman Sold Jet
Rump Adds Mean Jolt

Damned Pol Arms Jut

...and...

Damned Pol Smut Jar