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  • Trigger warning

    It’s time to repeal the Second Amendment.

    There, yes, I said it. It’s a poorly-worded, grammatically ambiguous (at best) concession of a “right” that is neither inalienable nor logical, written into the Bill of Rights by white men of privilege who also believed it was acceptable to own other human beings (who they didn’t even conceive of as fully human).

    This is the text of the Amendment:

    A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

    Annotated Constitution on Congress.gov

    This is some bullshit. It’s about protecting the “right” of (white) people to own weapons so they could constitute a “Militia,” on a state level as opposed to a federal military. Do you know what the purpose of the militia was, at that time?

    The answer you’re taught in school is to be a check against government tyranny, fresh on the minds of those who oh-so-recently threw off the yoke of British rule. Sure, sure, maybe.

    The real purpose of the state militias was to suppress insurrections. But, hmmmm, what sort of insurrections could they possibly have been worried about?

    Slave rebellions, of course. The white population lived in fear of insurrection from a subjugated Black population that vastly outnumbered them.

    (Naturally, there are going to be those of you who immediately try to counter with “But Shays’ Rebellion…” or “But the Whiskey Rebellion…” Don’t. Just don’t. Go read your history.)

    The main function of the militia, particularly in the southern states, was to police the slaves. Slave states were worried that without such a right spelled out in the Constitution, they would be unable to prevent insurrections by the enslaved, which to them posed the gravest threat. So the Second Amendment was adopted as a concession to the slaveholders and to preserve slavery.

    It’s a racist artifact that should have been omitted.

    Ohhhh look out, did I just engage in CRT???

    I’ll be clear: there is no inherent, inalienable right to own a gun, especially not a military-grade automatic weapon, despite what the gun perverts will tell you and despite what a bunch of racists insisted get codified in the Bill of Rights.

    The Second Amendment today is used by the gun perverts and Republicans as a shield, enabling them to do what they do best—enable (if not outright perpetrate) the mass murder of children in schools. And people in shopping malls, grocery stores, churches, at concerts, on the street, and so on. It’s sick.

    It’s time to repeal the Second Amendment.

  • There’s a Steampunk Festival in Weed, CA

    There’s a Steampunk Festival in Weed, CA

    Chalk this one up under “events I did not expect”: Weed, California has an annual Steampunk Festival, and it returns this year on May 21-22. Yep, the same town that hosts an annual 420 Festival (on April 20, naturally) somehow has a festival celebrating steampunk. Because of course it does.

    Weed has about 2,900 people, give or take, and is located in the far north end of the state, near the base of Mt. Shasta. It’s a relatively diverse town, compared to the rest of that region of northern California, but geographically speaking this still seems unlikely.

    If there weren’t still a pandemic, I’d consider checking it out.

  • Pandemic life

    You know, up until a year or so ago, reading about the global Spanish flu pandemic from a century ago seemed like so much abstract history, like something that couldn’t possibly happen in this age of modern medicine and advanced technology.

    So… that happened.

    I’ve been fortunate; Friday, March 13, 2020 was the last day I worked in the company office as we transitioned to remote work, and I’ve been working from home since. It’s worked out better than I’d hoped, so I count myself very lucky in that regard.

    But like so many, we haven’t gone anywhere, done anything for a year. Just the essentials: grocery shopping (when we can’t shop online), doctor or dentist visits, necessary errands, helping my mom out. Occasionally “dining out” by picking up food to bring home. Wearing masks always, always when out. All the measures that have kept us safe and healthy.

    And we’ve gotten vaccinated, which is a huge relief! But we’re still laying low until more people get theirs, of course. Until case counts stop rising, and until epidemiologists deem it safe. No, we won’t stop wearing masks.

    The collective PTSD we’re all going to suffer from this—are suffering—is going to be staggering. I often wonder how this is going to be reflected in creative output for the next few years; what sort of psychic imprint and influence will the pandemic have on the literature written over the next decade, for instance? If the patterns are traceable. And I wonder the same thing about the Spanish flu, if we can trace how the collective psyche changed by tracing its influences in literature and art. (Spoiler: yes, we can.)

    This Mother Jones article tackles just this topic in an interview with Elizabeth Outka, author of Viral Modernism: The Influenza Pandemic and Interwar Literature.

    Did you ever predict that this would come out during a pandemic?

    No. I started working on this book about five years ago. I’m a scholar of modernism—end of 19th century, early 20th century British literature, for the most part—and I’ve done some work in trauma theory. I had never heard of the influenza pandemic. When I started to read about it, I thought, huh, that’s odd. It’s right in my period, 1918-1919. Fifty million to 100 million deaths. Which means the United States lost more lives in the pandemic than we lost in World War I, World War II, Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan, and Iraq combined. I know enough about trauma to know that you can’t kill off 100 million people and not have it have an impact on the art or the culture.

    Then I started to wonder why, in modernist studies, we don’t study this right alongside the war, as two big mass death events of the early 20th century?

    We do a lot with World War I, but nothing with the pandemic. It began with that mystery, and then I started to find [the 1918 pandemic] everywhere.

    What are some of the examples? Any that people could read now?

    If you are interested in pandemic literature, there’s a lot of great things. I think Katherine Anne Porter’s novella Pale Horse, Pale Rider is one of the best pieces of literature we have specifically on the 1918 pandemic. It’s absolutely terrific. William Maxwell’s They Came Like Swallows is a short, beautiful, elegiac novel about the 1918 pandemic. It’s quite sad but it’s really beautiful. I think reading things like W.B. Yeats’ “The Second Coming” or Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway or T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land”—these are difficult texts, but this is a moment where you could see that they do match our mood.

    We’re seeing some of this already with television shows set concurrently with the pandemic, with people wearing masks and doing the quarantine shuffle (those shows that deign to portray this, anyway), and I wonder in however many years’ time when people are binge-watching this or that particular series, what will they think? Will it be a reminder? Traumatic, or taken in stride? Regarded as historical curiosity?

    Anyway. Right now I’m at the same stage as everyone, experiencing pandemic fatigue (covid cabin fever?), with a fuzzy sense of times and dates, general ennui, general distrust of and disdain for the anti-mask, anti-science, anti-vax idiots out there who don’t seem to understand there’s a deadly disease running rampant through the population.

    Otherwise, besides working, there’s been a lot more reading, watching more TV, baking bread (just standard white bread for sandwiches, nothing fancy), noodling around with potential beer writing ideas, life with cats (a different experience when you’re always around), cooking more (a lot more)… pandemic life.

    But! We’re healthy, and vaccinated, and many of those close to us are too. I realize we’ve been very lucky with me being able to work remotely and staying safe and generally getting through this; so many haven’t and it’s hard to get a handle on that to a certain extent. We’re all going to need support groups or some sort of therapy or other coping strategies when this is all over, that’s for sure.

  • If you’re a Trump supporter, you might as well unfriend me now.

    Pretty much what that says. I’m done with it. Everything just keeps getting worse; every bad instinct we had, every worst case scenario we predicted about the little dictator occupying the White House has been proven true—and then some. The Oval Office is occupied by a racist, anti-Semitic, illiterate, ignorant, criminal, compromised, fascist, rapey pedophile who’s managed to kill more than 200,000 Americans, and every single Republican in office is a traitorous accomplice and probably a racist as well.

    If you continue to support Trump and are planning to vote for him on November 3rd, then just go away. At best, you’re incredibly ignorant and just hopelessly stupid. At worst, you’re a racist and likely a fascist too. Probably all of those. There’s no quarter any more; no pathetic “But her emails!” moments for you to desperately cling to. You know who supports Trump? Racist pieces of shit. Guess what.

    And there is NO WAY this is a “both sides” issue, no possible way to spin a “but both candidates are equally bad!” argument. Just, no. One side is racist and fascist. That’s all. That’s all you need to know, and there is no coming back from that.

    So vote on November 3rd like your life depends on it, because—this is not an exaggeration—it does. And if you’re voting for Trump? Lose my number, unfriend me, don’t talk to me ever again, because that’s all I need to know.

  • Silo

    Silo

  • The end of the Middle Ages

    The end of the Middle Ages

    Today, May 29, is the anniversary of the end of the Middle Ages. I know, I wouldn’t have thought you could pinpoint a time period like that so precisely, but this reasoning makes sense:

    On this day [in 1453] the city of Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Empire after being under siege for almost two months. So, why is this specific turning point significant? Because of the fall of Constantinople, the Byzantine (Greek) scholars migrated away from Constantinople which had been their political center. This scattering encouraged studies of Greek culture outside of the Byzantine Empire and began a revival of learning based on classical Greek sources, which began the Renaissance.

    The Wikipedia article on the Middle Ages gives some commentary as to the start and (variously considered) end dates:

    The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, first used by Bruni. For Europe as a whole, 1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. Depending on the context, events such as Christopher Columbus’s first voyage to the Americas in 1492, the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453, or the Protestant Reformation in 1517 are sometimes used. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period. For Spain, dates commonly used are the death of King Ferdinand II in 1516, the death of Queen Isabella I of Castile in 1504, or the conquest of Granada in 1492.

    Happy 565th anniversary of the End of the Middle Ages!

  • No.

    With the inauguration making it official, and “real,” I had to write something.

    Right now we are in the midst of the strangest, most ridiculous moments in United States history that I’ve experienced in my lifetime—and, some say, maybe ever. I don’t know about “ever” but it certainly feels unprecedented. Perhaps people living through the Harding administration of the 1920s, or Nixon in the early ’70s, or hell even Prohibition experienced this same feeling of unreality, unease, and vaguely impending doom that we (the sane ones, anyway) are experiencing now. I don’t know.

    What I do know is, somehow we now have a “president” that I don’t believe can or should be considered legitimate. He’s a serial liar, a failed businessman, a misogynist, not terribly intelligent, (probably) a sexual predator, a racist, an Islamophobe, and generally a fascist, with the thin skin of a temperamental four year old desperately craving attention and lashing out when spurned. On top of all of that, he is very likely compromised by a foreign agency.

    He has refused to divest himself of his business interests, particularly as they relate to other countries, which raises numerous conflicts of interest and violates the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution. He has not nor never will release his tax returns.

    He lost the popular vote by the largest margin in history, three million votes, and only squeaked into the office by the loophole provided by the electoral voting system. He now takes the oath of that office as the most unpopular incoming president in history. And now day one has been marked with a flagrant lie about the size of the inauguration crowds, quivering in the shadow cast by the Women’s March, exposing the “president’s” shambling insecurity.

    His cabinet is full of crony millionaires and billionaires, racists, extremists, and neo-Nazis with little to no real world knowledge of the jobs they have been selected for, or an active interest in tearing them down. He himself has no grasp of the magnitude of the role nor the knowledge and skills necessary to be the president, and his blundering ignorance and corruption will likely get many people killed.

    There is nothing legitimate about this presidency, the campaign of which was run on a platform of racism and lies. The interference from Russia in the process alone should have been enough to overturn the entire election, and the strong possibility of Trump being compromised and under the influence of Russia and Putin should have disqualified him completely and brought him under intense investigation. If there were enough Republicans left with any kind of a spine who weren’t desperate sycophants for power, that might have been the outcome.

    Which is why this is so surreal. It was surreal when he announced he would run, but I have to admit I enjoyed watching the Republican party tear itself apart in paroxysms of hypocrisy and degradation as he stood among them, and won. But who would have thought he would actually advance all the way to the general election and have a chance at winning? Well, the racists and the Nazis, I guess.

    But had anyone tried to pitch this entire election and outcome as a fictional plot—for a movie or a book or a TV series—it would have been instantly rejected as too implausible, too outlandish, too ridiculous to be believable. But wait! There’s a twist! There are many twists! There’s an endorsement by the KKK! The Nazis are back! The main character is stupid enough to admit to sexual assault while wearing his own wire! Wait, wait, you’re gonna love this one—it’s the Russians and they’ve successfully planted their agent in the White House with the help of hackers and—what? Too contrived?

    Except apparently it’s not, and it’s happening now. If you voted for Trump, then you’re complicit in all of this. If you didn’t vote at all, you’re complicit in all of this.

    There is no “making America great again” under Trump because he is completely out of touch with the America he is supposed to lead. His “great America” is one where the rich get huge tax cuts while the poor shoulder their burden and die for lack of healthcare. One where the rights of women and minorities are rolled back so that affluent white men won’t feel threatened. This fantasy by the way, one apparently shared largely by the Republican party, is the desperate fever dream of a scared minority of aging rich white men seemingly unable to grasp that the world is moving on without them.

    (Alternatively, the desperate fever dream of insular, under-educated whites scared to death of diversity and obsolescence.)

    I mean, listen to the rhetoric—“We’re taking America back!” Back from what? From whom? From progress? Prosperity? Oh I know—not back from, but back to… to the dark ages. Anyone who seriously thinks that things were better 50 years ago should immediately lose their computer, their phone, access to the internet, their medicine, their big screen TV and video games and everything else they take for granted that didn’t exist 50 years ago.

    And really, I’m worried that Trump will say something crazy on Twitter (again) that will have catastrophic results—or worse, his account will be hacked (again) and someone else will do that. I’m worried about the lack of concern and outright lies about a massive security breach and intrusion by Russia. I’m worried that the country as we know it—this entire grand American experiment—may well be at an end. It’s certainly not the same as it was even a year ago.

    So no, I can’t look upon this new administration with any sense of legitimacy. No, I will not look past the flagrant lies. No, I will not accept nor respect the authority of the office that respects neither the people nor the office itself. No, I will not accept the hypocrisy of people who for eight years degraded and disrespected President Obama and now demand respect and civility for their spray-tanned elderly reality TV star.

    I recognize the divide in this country, it’s very real, and divisive. But it was also heavily exploited during this election with lies and manufactured hysteria, and now the bill is coming due.

    No, I don’t want to be that America. We can do better.

  • Moon and Mountains

    Moon and Mountains

    Moon and mountains from the Old Mill District.

  • Mountains

    Mountains

    Three Sisters and Broken Top.

  • My Douglas Adams year

    A few weeks ago I turned 42, which prompted my friend Paul to declare I was entering my “Douglas Adams year.” (Though somewhat worryingly, one of his other analogy-years was 33, because that’s how old John Belushi and Chris Farley were when they died… Douglas Adams died at age 49. Hmmmmm.)

    Bend Beer: A History of Brewing in Central Oregon2014 was an eventful year, primarily because I wrote a book! The contract was signed around December of 2013, and I began researching and interviews in earnest in January, with a deadline of mid-July. Meaning, I had about seven months in which to complete it—pretty quick, by publishing (and writing!) standards. Following the submission of the manuscript were rounds of edits and proofing, with a publish date of October 21—at which point the rest of the year was a whirlwind of signings and publicity, including the Big Time—a talk and signing at Powell’s Books in Portland!

    So now I am the authority on Bend beer and its history, for better or for worse. But that’s okay, because now I have a published first book under my belt, from a real publisher, which opens doors to a second, and third, and more books. For which I already have ideas.

    But 2015 is (mostly, since the majority of the year I am 42) my Douglas Adams year, which means I need to be well on my way to figuring out the question to the question of life, the universe, and everything. Or at least inventing a computer to do so. Hopefully that means 2015 will be eventful too!

    (So far, so good—mostly with events stemming out from the beer writing, which is a good thing!)