Isolation

It's been a difficult day. A day of surprises, disappointment, frustration, and isolation.

And in the middle of all this, we learn that the brilliant Anthony Bourdain, suffering from the isolation of depression, took his own life.

Suffering from depression myself, I am familiar with that kind of isolation. Fortunately, I am surrounded by a strong support system consisting of friends, family, and loves, so I've always been able to pull myself back from the edge.

Maybe this one time, Mr. Bourdain was not able to claw his way back from the isolation that comes with depression. When you feel that cut off from the world, it is difficult to see clearly or even remember what the light looks like. Isolation is the killer. Being turned away, left out, cut off from those you depended upon.

I know we are all afraid and frustrated, seeking comfort, retreating to the safety of our tribes. But it is this kind of divisiveness that has led people to being so isolated that they voted out of fear, voted for a world that included them in a way that has recently left them feel excluded.

What we need now is more unity, more community, and more attempts to find the common ground that brings us together. If you can, please don't unfriend or cut people off to isolate yourself or them. If you fear for your safety, get yourself to a safe place at all costs, top priority. But if you have the spoons available, find new ways to invest in those who walk a foreign, even offensive path. It is through investment and understanding that we can fight those who seek to keep isolated, alone, and frightened.

Let's pull together to keep us all away from the edge. If that is the only thing we have in common, let it be enough.

Jesus Christ was a Brown Jew

Yoinked from lauralot89:

Jesus Christ was a brown Jew in the Middle East, conceived out of wedlock in an arguably interracial if not interspecies (deity and human) relationship, raised by his mother and stepfather in place of his absent father.  He may not have had a Y chromosome.  He spent his early youth as a refugee in Egypt, where his family no doubt survived initially on handouts from the wealthy (you think they kept that gold, frankincense, and myrrh from the wise men?  Hell no, they sold that stuff for food and lodging).  He later returned with his parents to their occupied homeland and lived in poverty.

The religion of Jesus’s people has no concept of a permanent hell and instructed its priests on how to induce miscarriages.  Jesus explicitly rejected the concept of disability as a divine punishment.  He spoke out against religious hypocrites.  He had enough respect for women to let his mother choose the time of his first miracle.  He blessed a same sex couple.  He told a rich man that he must give up his wealth to get to heaven, and also told a parable about a rich man suffering in agony in presumably Gehinnom (basically Purgatory) just to hammer the point home.  He told people to pay their taxes.  He declared “love your neighbor” to be one of the two commandments on which all laws hang.  He commanded his followers to help the poor.  He commanded them to help the sick and the needy.  He spent time with social outcasts.  He healed the servant of a high priest during his arrest rather than fighting back.  He was put to death by the occupying government because he was a political radical.

Trump and his administration are xenophobic, misogynistic, racist, fear-mongering, warmongering, tax-dodging, anti-Semitic, anti-choice, anti-welfare, anti-equal pay, anti-LGBTQIA+, anti-immigration, support tax cuts for the rich, support Citizen’s United, want to keep refugees out of this country, want to limit our ability to speak against the government, plan to abolish the Affordable Care Act, and they wrap all of that up behind a banner of “Christian family values.”  If you support them, you have no right to call yourself a follower of Christ.

Rebirth of the Print Media

I have finally finished listening to Trump's first Press Conference.

Unrelated: I am out of Gin. I need more Gin.

I might be going crazy here, but people were harping endlessly on Trump's seemingly non-sequitur of "The leaks were real, but the news was fake" (timestamp 00:44:40). It sounds crazy (and it is) and contradictory, but I think I understood what he meant.

Remember the whole Death Panels thing years ago? The Fox propaganda machine took an idea that had some basis in fact and tried to spin it into a wild breaking news story, and then did the same thing with every hot-topic news story that would make Obama look bad: take a small story and whip it up into a big news story to discredit the current Administration.

Trump's position here is that the media is reporting the wrong stuff. The news may be true (the leaks are real), but Trump doesn't want the media to report it because it would present the people with a message that he doesn't want them to hear. If the Trump admin wants to control how the people are informed, then they would have to power to define what is real (real news) and what is untrue or not in-line with the Admin's messaging (fake news).

In fact, he even refers to that idea in the same session: that the news sites are filled with hatred against him, which they shouldn't be doing because he won.

So when he says that CNN reports Fake News, what he means is that they are reporting news that he does not approve of. Trump wants his government to decide what the media reports on and what they get to say. When Kelly Anne Conway says "We might have to rethink our relationship with the media," this is what she means.

You know who does that? North Korea. China. Russia. It's fucking crazy, and if Trump attempts to shut down the Internet and Social Media the way he has talked about in the past, we might see the grand return of the underground Print Media.

Nostalgia

As I'm writing this article (which started out as a Facebook Comment and lengthened into an article because it turns out I have more to say), I am reminded of my College days when I wrote articles for my college newspaper The Broadside. At that time (1986-1988), the Student Council that was so incredibly corrupt that over half the council members were ejected for using Student Council funds for a Get-Rich pyramid scheme (you can actually read about this here, published by fellow writer Keith Waddington).

I personally sat in a Council meeting where they openly discussed using the college money to buy alcohol on a student trip and disguise the expense as getting theatre tickets. So when I wrote an article in The Broadside about what I witnessed, the Student Council demanded that they get to approve articles before they could be publish. We we refused this request, they defunded the The Broadside and took our room away. The College Administration was happy to see us go because we were critical of them as well.

But The Broadside didn't go away. We went underground and continued to publish the paper with a limited printing (funded by secret donors), and our supporters helped us with distribution by sharing the paper person-to-person. Any copy that the Student Council president found was ripped up and I was personally threatened with physical violence several times. Of course, this only strengthened my resolve and gave birth to my backbone.

With a dictatorial administration in power, this may be the rebirth of the Print Media industry with an underground, community-driven financial and distribution system. Mark my words.

Magical Resistance is Fertile

Reading the Social Media feeds, I'm seeing lots of fear, anger, and subsequent violence. In magical circles, I'm also seeing people demand that Trump be cursed magically and have some kind of ill-moment befall him (watch the skies for fallling pianos).

But quite frankly, lots of cursing and magical workings were going on during the election and they all seemed to fail. As much as I fear the next four years, this may be something that America needs to go through. Keeping a culture afraid for 15+ years (since 9/11) has consequences, and Mr. Trump being President is one of many consequences.

Right or wrong, the people put him there for a reason. It may have not have been the reason they expected, but it's lesson that will be taught (and learned, hopefully). After decades of deposing dictators in foreign lands, let's see how America deals with its own despots.

Rather than trying to get Mr. Trump out, this might be a good time to fix the system that put him in place (i.e. the demise of the Electoral College?). As revealed during his campaign, Mr. Trump does not follow the rules, which may then rupture the systems in place in a way that requires change and correction. It took the tragedy of the Titanic for ships to be required to have enough lifeboats for every passenger on the ship. From tragedy, good works can flourish. Lots of work to do in the next four years.

Going back to the point, if any magical workings are to be done, they should be made to support those who actively resist what is happening. Magic alone cannot bring about this kind of change. It requires boots on the ground, fists in the air, and voices in harmony. It requires physical presence, people getting their hands dirty, and physically working towards a better tomorrow. It needs people putting pressure on government, working with them to devise better solutions, demanding accountability when systems fail, and renewing the energy needed to demand positive change.

So be ready to get your boots and hands dirty, get on the phone to your reps, get yourself to the Statehouse to add your voice. But if you cannot do these things (your reasons are your own), send your magic to bolster those who can. Your magical workings should be directed to keeping these front-line people safe, allowing their efforts to be met with success, and to broadcast their message to bolster others. The magic could be used to awaken people's sense of compassion rather than give in to their fear (fear is definitely what caused this result).

Sure... it's not as sexy as cursing Mr. Trump himself, but it's a much more efficient and potentially effective use of energy. Support the people and they will bring about the change that's needed. Resistance is fertile, and from it, life will grow stronger.

Update

There have been articles floating around on social media about how a bunch of witches are going to perform a magic spell to bind Donald Trump. Personally, I think this is a huge waste of misdirected energy. Although the Trump admin needs to be opposed, its the people who are on the front lines that needs to be bolstered and protected.

When I've seen people raise this point, the come-back is something like "Well I'm glad the witches in the UK didn't think like that when they performed their spell to bind and stop Hitler."

The power of that legend is compelling, but it's wrong.

In World War II, Dion Fortune gathered a group of witches to perform a war spell, that's true enough. But their focus wasn't on stopping or binding Hitler.

What they attempted to do (and succeeded) was to bolster the soldiers' resolve so that they could push through the horrors of the war and exhaust Hitler's forces, keeping him away from Britain. By raising magic, they seeded archetypal visions, invoked angelic protection, and upheld British morale under fire.

It was the unrelenting sacrifice of the Commonwealth pilots that kept Hitler away from Britain. The witches supported the troops and kept them from panicking under fire.

With that success in mind, this is why I think it would be a better use of magical energy to bolster the protesters and the front-liners to defeat the Trump administration and restore some sense of normalcy and respect to the world.

You can read more about the Magical Battle of Britain here.

Tragedy in Ottawa 2014

Some people are suggesting that today's tragedies in Ottawa and St. Jean-sur-Richelieu are the fault of immigrants, and I absolutely agree. We need to dump the Harper government, put the First Nations Elders in charge, the rest of us must return to our cultural countries of origin, and then reapply for Canadian citizenship. We have clearly done enough damage to this country.

This is why the "immigrant problem" argument is such a crock. We are a nation of immigrants. Everyone draws the line at themselves and then points at others. "Our family is proudly Ukrainian-Canadian, but it's THOSE immigrants that are the problem!"

Preserving Quebecois Culture

So some of you may remember a graphic I posted last week on Facebook that mashed the OQLF and the new Google Word Lens Translator app. If you didn't see it, here it is on Facebook:

It generated some buzz and discussion, which was mostly positive and constructive. I was also called a bigot, told to "f off", and got unfriended by a couple of people. That's fair, I suppose. I don't enjoy being called a bigot, but if you don't like my politics or my sense of humor, then by all means, remove me from your feed. It's your Facebook experience, so do what you have to do.

For the record though, I must state that I do believe that the French culture in Quebec deserves to be preserved, nurtured, and allowed to thrive and evolve. I just don't think that the OQLF is the way to do it. If you want to preserve the art of dance, you can't just force everyone to learn the Charleston and expect dance to thrive. While some people will want to explore what other dance is out there, many people will resent the art of dance being forced upon them. What you want to do is invest in the dance community, allow it to evolve and develop, consume the art that is generated, and make it accessible to as many people as possible.

If it's important to you that Quebec culture should be preserved and allowed to thrive, you either need to personally invest in art and culture that reflects Quebec's cultural identity, past, present, and future, or you pressure government to fund it. Either way, this will allow Quebec art and culture to thrive in a way that can make it easier for the greater population to discover and learn from it.

If you truly believe that preserving Quebec culture is important, prove it by honestly answering at least two of these questions, ordered according to intensity (without looking them up on Google):

1. Name 3 to 5 French Quebecois artists (any genre) whose art you have consumed (purchased) in the last year.

2. Name 3 to 5 French Quebecois artists (any genre) who you know has released their art to the public in the last year.

3. Name 3 to 5 French Quebecois artists (any genre) whose art you have consumed (purchased) regularly in the past 5 years.

4. Name 5 Quebecois artists (any culture, any genre) whose art you have consumed (purchased) in the last year.

5. Name 5 Quebecois artists (any culture, any genre) who you know has released their art to the public in the last year.

6. Name 10 Quebecois artists (any culture, any genre) whose art you have consumed (purchased) regularly in the past 5 years.

How did you do? If were able to answer these questions truthfully and easily, then the artistic cultural community in Quebec thanks you for your support. They would not be able to do what they do without you, and you are actively nurturing Quebec's cultural identity.

But if you profess to value Quebec culture and art and yet you struggled with these questions, then I would suggest that you may not be really valuing Quebec culture in a way that is constructive and supportive. Culture and Art need to be supported and nurtured actively, not abstractly. You should be consuming it substantially and in a way that invests and supports the artists that produce it, which in turn, sustains Quebec's cultural identity.

Until you can honestly make this statement, you are not supporting your words with action. If there is any threat to the preservation of Quebecois culture, you may be actively contributing to its threat and demise.

In addition to personal support and investment, the Quebecois government should be doing more to support the community and contribute to its evolution and development. With government support, the arts and culture can then be made accessible to the general population, who in turn, consume it and support the artists, which allows the Quebec culture to survive and thrive.

Rather than having a narrow definition of culture being forced upon the populace, you can widen access to the culture that is already thriving and allow it to be celebrated.

SIDE NOTE: A few years ago, I was on a Facebook group for people who felt that Anglo language and culture was under attack in Quebec. When I asked these people these same questions but for Quebec Anglo artists, none of them could honestly name anyone local that they supported. I left the group soon after. Supporting our cultural and artistic pioneers is a problem for both Solitudes.