Here is something you need to know about me: I care about this community and the people in it.
This is not a flippant statement. Its brevity does not subvert the enormity of its meaning.
It is also not a passive statement. I actively care about the people who spend time here, and I do the business of caring on-blog and off. I mentor Shakers just starting their own blogs and seeking advice; I commiserate with Shakers who are established bloggers and share ideas; I communicate privately, in email threads that can last for weeks, with Shakers who have lost a loved one, have lost a job, have suffered an injury or trauma, are going through a relationship crisis, are having surgery, have just come out, have just had a baby, have just gotten engaged, are considering an abortion, a divorce, self-harm, need advice or just a sympathetic ear on any one of a million different subjects. I have reviewed résumés and served as a reference. I have found local (to them) psychiatrists, victims' advocates, a gay-friendly wedding planner, a trans-friendly doctor, a tax attorney, plus-sized clothiers.
Caring about this community is not an abstract concept to me. It is concrete and it is personal and it is an active practice.
Here are some other things you need to know about me: I make mistakes. I feel shitty, really shitty, when I make a mistake that hurts someone in this community.
I convey all of the above as preface to this: Because I care about this community as I do, it is singularly infuriating and hurtful that I am repeatedly accused of acting in bad faith when I make a mistake. Or just do/say something with which someone disagrees. The overt accusations or veiled implications—deliberate or otherwise—of bad faith, deliberate cruelty, hidden agendas, indifference, etc. are profoundly demoralizing.
And I am demoralized.
I, and the other contributors, are axiomatically assumed by many Shakers to be acting in bad faith if we err (or even if we are perceived to have erred, but haven't), even as we are simultaneously expected never to err at all. Shakesville was founded by a person, and it is managed and nurtured by people. And the continual proclamations that "I can't believe this would happen at Shakesville, of all places!" every time I, or one of the contributors, makes a mistake, necessarily implies that perfection is expected of us, as if Shakesville is a magical kingdom created of pixie dust and not a virtual space made possible by the hard work of people who are flawed and fuck up just like any other people. Our charter specifically provides room for us—and everyone else to inhabits this space—to fail, as we inevitably will. If you won't support the provision of that room to fail, then you're not providing a safe space for us.
I understand the impulse to react viscerally to something one of us posted, especially if it's hurtful. And I also understand that no one thinks it should be a big deal if they comment before thinking, just this once. But you are not alone. And if only an infinitesimally small percentage of this readership reacts viscerally by making the accusation that I was deliberately hurtful, that still makes about 20 times every single day I am being told, on the blog and in my inbox, that I act in bad faith.
It is eminently possible to bring to my attention a mistake, or register a disagreement, without engaging in ad hominem attacks, using silencing tactics, jumping to unfounded conclusions about allegedly reprehensible motives, or in some other way accusing me of acting in bad faith. Failing explicit evidence I have acted to the contrary, I expect to be afforded the benefit of the doubt that I move and act in this space with good faith. I believe I have earned that after five years.
The other contributors have earned it, too.
We are here in good faith, and that is not an opinion and it is not up for debate. Those who make accusations to the contrary are fundamentally undermining the safe space for me and the other contributors. That is not to say that dissent is prohibited or that our mistakes should not be noted or that we don't expect to be held accountable if we have erred.
It is only to say that we are expected by this community to think extremely carefully about every post, every comment, every image, every link, every word we post (and we do), and I am asking that our readers who communicate with us hold themselves to the same standard.
And, you know, that's really just a fancy way of asking people to be a little nicer, a little more thoughtful. Which I don't think is a totally unreasonable request.
Moving forward, if and on the occasions that doesn't happen, threads will be closed. (Which, as an aside, is not an invitation to take the accusations of bad faith to my inbox.) Shakers who are rightfully angry that legitimate debate is then quashed should direct their anger in the appropriate direction—at the bullies who decided it was more important to be hurtful and undermine the safe space for the people who make this space possible, and not at me and the other mods who sometimes need to protect ourselves from unfounded accusations. This stuff takes a toll.
I am flatly not going to, I can't, continue to allow myself (or any other contributor) to be endlessly berated as someone who doesn't care about this space or the people in it anymore, or I'm going to flame out.
I'm taking the rest of the week off. See you Monday.
[Commenting Note: If you have the inclination to use this thread to provide examples of something I did once upon a time that makes you totally sure that I am acting in bad faith, you have seriously missed the point. And if this thread turns into a referendum on how much I suck, it will just be closed.]
Community Note
Uh-Oh
For some reason, my formspring.me updates posted here rather than my own blog. I debated, but was uncomfortable leaving them up. Still, I wanted to apologize to the Shakers who took the time to share their answers to the questions, only to have them now deleted.
Question of the Day
What do you do when you can't sleep?
To pass the time, to help you get to sleep, or whatever... I usually turn the light back on and read until my eyelids get heavy. Granted, that can take quite some time.
Daily Kitteh and Puppeh
My sister adopted a seven-month-old cat on Sunday. He is a litter-mate of our niece and nephew's kitty, Oron.
Welcome to the family, Roland!
Roland had his first-ever vet visit this morning. The vet said to my sister, "That's a pretty sweet-lookin' cat!" Indeed.
Roland's signature "dozing with one eye open" attitude. I captured this nap after Dougie exhausted himself and Roland by dragging the stuffed monkey around the living room, tempting Roland to attack. These fast friends also like to nap together in a chair by the fire. It's only been four days, and they already have their rituals.
Next week, Roland is going back to his buddy the vet to "get tutored".
NQDTR Discussion Thread - M100111
Hiya, Shakers, time for another Discussion Thread for the Not Quite Daily Teaspoon Report!
This is the thread in which you may offer congratulations or admiration for a teaspoon or teaspooner. If you're posting with just congrats or admiration, though, do take a moment and check the thread to see whether other people have said so a number of times already. Remember that no one is required to read here just because they posted over there, so there's no guarantee you'll get a response to a given comment.
The Not Quite Daily Teaspoon Report - M100111
Time for another Teaspoon Report, brought to you by Shaxco, now introducing a new line of Shaxco™ brand Anal Millinery. Our celebrity spokesperson, Rush Limbaugh, says "Bigger asshats now, ask me how!"
Leave comments here that describe an act of teaspooning you encountered or committed. They don't have to be big, world-shaking acts; by definition, a teaspoon is a small thing, but enough of them together can empty the ocean.
If you would like to discuss the teaspoons here reported, or even offer congratulations or your admiration to a fellow Shaker, we ask that you do so over here in the Discussion Thread for today's NQDTR.
Shaker bgk has been kind enough to get a Twitter-pated version out there for you young twittersnappers (and by the way, get off my lawn, you meddling kids! *shakes cane*). You can find the details about the Tweetspoons project right here. That runs all the time, as far as I'm aware (*grumblenewtechnologygrumble*), and we encourage you to let other people know that there's at least one tweetstream talking about just going out and doing good things for the human species.
Teaspoons up, let's hear 'em, Shakers!
ô,ôP
More Random "Funny"
After stumbling across this, I've made a habit of looking at Yahoo's featured comic. Oddly, none of them are attributed or titled, so I've no idea what I am looking at. I don't know that having the title or artist responsible would help any. I wonder, sometimes, if it's the lack of context that makes these befuddling. Then again, as with the above, a lot of this stuff is just aggressively unfunny.
I sent the above to Liss this morning, as the cream in her proverbial coffee. She was as dumbfounded as I, replying:
I mean, it's literally the guy calling his car a traitor because it — what? — allowed itself to be fixed by a woman. Is she a woman he likes? Was he pretending to have a broken-down car to get her attention? Or is he just mad that she could do something he couldn't?I'm pretty sure I could post one of these up every day, that's how prevalent this dreck is in the funny papers.
It's completely dumb, either way.
The other thing I noticed was that comic strips seem to be divided up into three groups now: Second-rate Far Side knock offs, absurdism without Larson's wit and charm; unfunny, tired schtick, like the above; and "the classics," those zombified strips that have been around since forever (hey, in case you hadn't heard, Marmaduke is one big dog!) and are likely to shamble around until the Rapture.
As a kid, the comics page was the only part of the paper I'd read. Now I avoid it like a papercut.
[Cross-posted.]
Senators Dodd, Dorgan Not Seeking Reelection
Democratic Senators Chris Dodd from Connecticut and Byron Dorgan from North Dakota have announced they will not be seeking reelection next year.
Senator Dodd, who ran for president in 2008 and has frequently been a great ally to progressives, is leaving after a financial controversy which left him vulnerable as a candidate; though it was determined by the Senate Ethics Committee that there wasn't any credible evidence Dodd had violated ethics rules, the appearance of impropriety was enough to put his reelection in question. Stepping down makes way for Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal to take the Democratic nomination, and he is favored to win against a Republican challenger.
Senator Dorgan is more socially conservative, and has frequently not been a great ally to progressive women in particular. He was, however, as Think Progress recalls, totally right in 1999 during the repeal of the Glass-Steagall financial regulatory reforms in order to break down the barriers between investment and depository banking:
Upon passage of the bill in 1999, Dorgan predicted, "I think we will look back in 10 years' time and say we should not have done this but we did because we forgot the lessons of the past, and that that which is true in the 1930's is true in 2010."Because of the demographics of North Dakota, we're unlikely to see someone with radically more progressive social politics elected to Dorgan's soon-to-be-vacated seat.
Update to Cold War Relic as Summer House
We had an interesting comment on quixote's post about a guard tower on the former East German border, which has been turned into a summer home, and I thought it might be interesting to those who don't read the comment threads.
The person who took the pictures in the photo gallery (Paul Kaye, commenting as pavolk) linked there commented, to point to some other work he'd put up online about the same topic. There's a book which can be looked at free online here.
RIP Mary Daly
Mary Daly, radical feminist theologian and philosopher, has died at age 81. The Globe's obit is here.
Fiercely and playfully -- often at the same time -- Mary Daly used words to challenge the basic precepts of the Catholic Church and Boston College, where she was on the faculty for more than 30 years.RIP Professor.
Dr. Daly emerged as a major voice in the burgeoning women's movement with her first book, "The Church and the Second Sex," published in 1968, and "Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women's Liberation," which appeared five years later. That accomplishment was viewed, then and now, as all the more significant because she wrote and taught at a Jesuit college.
"She was a great trained philosopher, theologian, and poet, and she used all of those tools to demolish patriarchy -- or any idea that domination is natural -- in its most defended place, which is religion," said Gloria Steinem.
..."Ever since childhood, I have been honing my skills for living the life of a Radical Feminist Pirate and cultivating the Courage to Sin," she wrote in the opening of "Sin Big," her New Yorker piece. "The word 'sin' is derived from the Indo-European root 'es-,' meaning 'to be.' When I discovered this etymology, I intuitively understood that for a woman trapped in patriarchy, which is the religion of the entire planet, 'to be' in the fullest sense is 'to sin.'"
UPDATE: As Shaker IraeNicole first noted in comments, Daly's work was unfortunately marred by a streak of transphobia. Wikipedia summarizes its emergence in her work, including her assertion in Gyn/Ecology that transgender people are "Frankensteinian." While we want to honor her contributions to feminist thought, we also want to note the limitations of her brand of feminism, which deemed some women monstrous, a view that Shakesville endeavors quite fervently to counter. Cait and Shaker just_some_trans_guy also note she was challenged on her racism as well.
[H/Ts to Shakers Leigh, caseyOR, Sarah, and Phyllis. More here.]
Question of the Day
What's your favorite snack food?
I'm not a very "snacky" person, but when I do get the urge to munch on something between meals, I prefer savory to sweet. Gimmie pumpkin seeds, or Pringles. (Especially salt & vinegar.)
Support for Death Penalty Waning
Just a quick one because I'm totes snowed under with work just now, but this put a happy smile on my face: American Law Institute drops support for capital punishment.
It's about time the US joined the rest of the Western democracies in dropping this barbaric practice from its justice system, and brought a little more justice into the system. It has far too long been used against society's marginalized people, in the US most notably black Americans and Americans with cognitive impairments and/or mental health issues. Illinois' governor imposed a moratorium on further executions in his state because he had come to believe there were insufficient safeguards to ensure an innocent person wasn't subjected to this irrevocable and most cruel punishment. It's good to see important legal bodies coming to the same conclusion.
My own opposition comes from this simple axiom: "It is better that ten guilty persons should go free, than that a single innocent should be falsely convicted." It seems to me this can only be more true for a punishment which can never be revoked, by its very nature. Until we achieve perfect wisdom, I cannot see how we can ever feel certain enough that a given human has done what they are accused of having done to impose a penalty which can never be undone. Bad enough to jail someone; inadequate though it is, compensation can be offered for a false imprisonment. How much blood money will we have to pay when we find out irrefutably that a person has been killed who simply did not do the crime?
Have at it, but be nice to one another in comments, or verily the mods will spank thee most righteously. That doesn't mean don't disagree. Shakesville has never been about silencing dissent. It means disagree respectfully. And don't feed the inevitable trolls, kthxbye.
Bread and Teaspoons Nineteen
Good morning (unless it isn't where you are, in which case I wish you Good $TIME_PERIOD), and welcome to this week's installment of Shakesville's networking post, Bread and Teaspoons*. My apologies for missing a couple of weeks - I ran into rather a fierce painstorm, which is now past, so I'm working on tidying up and rebuilding out of the wreckage.
This is a weekly post, usually Tuesdays, providing a spot for Shakers to network a little with one another, see if we can help each other out some.
Also remember, if you’re running or part of a small business, you’re encouraged to drop links here for that. I’m happy to see Shakers makin’ their own way in whatever manner that is.
Here's how it works: There should be four sorts of comments here.
1) You comment here with any details of work you're seeking: where, what, that sort of thing. You give an e-mail address at which you can be reached - feel free to set up a special e-mail for it, if you don't want to post your regular one for the world to spam - and if another Shaker has a lead, they can contact you directly to pass it along.
A work-seeking comment should include:
Please do NOT include information such as your full name or telephone number, as this is and will remain a public post, and once posted, there's no taking it back (because it'll be spidered by a search engine, not because we don't want you to).
It is explicitly alright to comment to this each week with similar info.
For example, I might post a comment saying:
I'm a professional translator of French, German and Russian, with nearly 17 years of experience. I'm looking for basically any translation job, academic, commercial, personal, genealogical, you name it, with one exception: I do not currently have certification, so if you need a certified translator (usually for legal docs: birth certificates, divorce decrees, wills), you need someone else.
I am also available as a writer or editor, for academic, journalistic, creative, marketing-oriented or any other type of written communication. Basically, if you'll pay me, I'll write or edit it. My company website is found here.
You can contact me for business purposes through my business address, cait@cogitantes.net.
2) The second type of comment would be task offering: if you've got a job you think might suit someone here, consider posting it as a comment. Use the same guidelines as above: give general information here, and specific information when you exchange e-mails. An offered task might look something like this:
I have a doctoral thesis which needs proofing and editing by Thursday, is anyone available? You can reach me at ABDShaker@shakesville.miskatonic.edu.
3) The third kind of comment I'd love to see is success stories! We’d love to know when this works out, and people actually find some employment through our efforts. If you feel like sharing, tell us how it worked out for you. :)
**NEW CATEGORY ADDED**
4) If you’re a progressive working for or running a small business and would like to include a pointer to your business, you may do so. If you’ve never otherwise posted before here (i.e., you’re a lurker), I may check in with you to be certain you’re a Shaker and not a spammer. If it turns into a spamfest, or we start getting businesses that are of dubious progressive credentials, we may need to revisit this one, but let’s give it a try.
So, that's what we'd like to see.
What we do NOT want to see:
So there. Have at it, Shakers, for Bread and Teaspoons!
Important disclaimers: Shakesville makes no endorsement or claim as to the capabilities of anyone commenting to this post, and anyone considering hiring someone should be prepared to treat it like any other business situation: DO YOUR DUE DILIGENCE. We're not doing any screening of this, so you'll want to make sure you check references, use safe-payment procedures (e.g., ask for a deposit), all the things you'd do when working with any stranger on the Internet. While this is intended for Shakers in general, remember that there is no real obstacle to being able to comment here, and do the things you need to do to keep yourself safe.
* As might be evident, this is an intentional reference to Bread and Roses, a longtime slogan of the left. In this case, though, my hope is that if we achieve steady bread, we will use it to power our teaspoon use.
The last several Bread and Teaspoons: Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen.
