Clarification “Trans is Trendy” Post and my LGBTQ+ Support

Recently, someone commented on my Trans is Trendy post calling me an ignorant cunt. I admit the vitriol shocked me since someone who is trans read it over it for me to make sure I wasn’t unintentionally being an asshole and she was okay with it. The only way I know to clarify the post is provide the situations which triggered me to think deeply on the matter enough I wrote about it. There were 2 this summer. Before I start though, I feel you should know I don’t consider LGBTQ+ weird, horrible, or a choice. I consider it a biological determinate. I did not wake up on the morning of my first menustral cycle and decide I was going to find boys sexually attractive. It just happened. Since my body didn’t give me a choice in my sexual orientation, I don’t believe anyone else’s body is giving them the choice. I find the suggestion that sexual orientation or gender identity are choices we can make is absurd.

Situation 1: In March, I was messaged by someone claiming we went to high school together. I didn’t recognize their name, but their face looked sort of familiar. She and I get to talking and she tells me, I probably remember her as Robert. Ah, okay…. yes, I remember you. We’d always been friendlier than acquaintances, but not so friendly we were having sleepovers at each other’s houses. She tells me some years ago, she underwent gender reassignment surgery, which was why she struggled to come out of her shell in high school, which hey, I totally get. If you aren’t comfortable in your own body, it’s hard to make friends. She and I rekindle our slightly more than acquaintanceship and begin talking fairly regularly because her mom died of kidney failure almost twenty years ago and someone mentioned to her, my mom had suffered kidney failure and she reached out. In July she mentions her sibling’s teenager just came out as Trans and it was a little odd, because by the end of the week Teenager 1’s (sibling’s teenager), two closest friends also came out as Trans. All three have the potential to be trans, I won’t argue that, but the timing for all three seems convenient. Now, they could have all come out at once because there’s safety in numbers and maybe being “different” was the reason they were drawn together… but then I was given more information about a different situation.

Situation 2: Several years ago, my friend informed me a friend of her’ was having trouble because the friend’s teenager came out as Trans… as did a couple of friends. So in one summer, I’ve run across this twice with very different teenagers. As a society, we have not suddenly become more receptive to people being trans, which is why I find it odd two different groups of teenagers all came out as trans together, as if… it’s as if my teen years are being repeated, but with a different form of sexual expression.

In the 1990s, the teenagers of my era were coming out as bisexual in droves. I don’t think a single girl in my high school was “heterosexual,” they were all bisexual… at least for a while. By the time we graduated high school, most of them had given up the bisexual label and gone heterosexual. For us, it was exploration of our sexual orientation and sexual identity which all teenagers explore in different ways and as an added bonus we got to piss off and freak out the adults in our lives. For our parents that exploration was expressed during the late 1960s and 1970s as free love. But my generation was definitely the decade when being bisexual became trendy… even if you weren’t, you claimed you were because that was what the cool kids were doing.

However, I see problems with this scrambling to be trans. There are a lot of people who fear/hate trans people way more than they hate gays and bisexuals. So for me, I worry that in 5 years or 10 years when all these teenagers who came out as trans realize they aren’t and “stop,” it’s going to reinforce the ridiculous idea that gender identity is a choice… which will lead to even more hate/fear and rejection of the Trans community. Because all those haters will look at the Trans community and be like “I knew a girl who thought she was a guy, but she grew out of it. If you want to be accepted, don’t be trans.”

And that is a terrible thing. I know some part of the teenage community who are coming out as trans, are indeed trans, and I hope their family and friends support and love them. But for those who aren’t trans, but claim to be because it pisses off and freaks out the adults while providing support to their friends, may unwittingly be doing harm… and that worries me.

Violent Crime Trends

Recently, I wrote a blog post about rape and sexual assault historical crime trends. I enjoyed writing it and it reminded me why I decided Aislinn Cain needed a degree in historical crime. Today’s post is going to again tackle historical crime rates, but it’s going to focus on violent, non-sexually motivated crime.

The first step in this one is defining violent crime and as modern people; we fail to realize the definition “violent crime” is just as fluid as the definition of rape and sexual assault. This seems weird to us, because you know, violent crime seems self-explanatory and straight forward.

As with sexual assault and rape, we’ll start with the word “crime.” Not all modern day “violent crime” was historically a crime. Some of these historically questionable “crimes” included assault, battery, and murder… I know that seems crazy, surely the wonton termination of another person’s life has been murder since the beginning of time, but that’s not the case.

Until the 1900s the term “murder” only applied when there was malicious intent to terminate life. Also, it usually only applied to victims who were white. And until the 1800s in many places, it only applied to white men. And even after it began to include women, it only included certain women. Poor women, women with bad reputations, and women who excessively consumed drugs or alcohol did not count as murder victims unless their murder was committed in public in front of lots of witnesses willing to testify the woman did not deserve to be murdered. Yes, I really said that, in history women could “deserve” to be killed for poor/disreputable behavior in both North America and Europe.

The final group of people who could be killed without it counting as murder was the poor. The aristocracy wielded the power to kill the poor people who depended on them. They could also kill servants and slaves without consequence because life was considered a luxury, not a right. And before you think “oh, that was a long time ago” this was a major driving factor of the Russian Revolution in 1917.  Most of Europe had done away with allowing the lower class to be killed at will, but it was mostly for appearances. If an aristocrat in England in 1890 killed a beggar, chances of him being convicted of murder were very slim. Hell, this might be true in 1980 as well.

Dueling was also not considered murder nor manslaughter if someone died. I specifically did not say if one of the duelists died, because dueling wasn’t that simple. Dueling pistols are created without rifling (the grooves and ridges inside the barrel of the gun which gives the bullet spin and makes them more accurate). This was meant to lessen the chance of accurate shooting and therefore diminish the risk of death to duelists. But dueling was a bit of a spectator sport (it wasn’t made illegal until 1859 in the US). There was a judge who officiated the proceeding. Seconds, which helped the duelists and could step in for them if need be. Plus, friends and family of both duelists often showed up. Injuries to spectators and bystanders were common, as was the occasional death. Interestingly, even after dueling was outlawed in the US, killing someone in a duel (or a spectator) was still not always considered a murder, because you know, honor was at stake.

Speaking of honor and reputation being at stake, the formal duel has passed into obscurity replaced by a modern version. Rival gang members who shoot at each other on street sidewalks are essentially dueling, because the fight is likely to have erupted as a result of insults and the swiping of property, the most common cause of dueling in years past. Unfortunately, they use regular guns, not dueling pistols, and therefore, the accuracy of their shots is better, and they hit way more bystanders, but this is because they don’t formally set up an appointment to face off at dawn with a judge and seconds and instead ambush each other wherever their foe can be found.

The major driving increase in the violent crime rate in the United States wasn’t a crime until the 1970s (and some of this may shock you). This violent crime is of course domestic violence also known as intimate partner violence. It wasn’t until the late 1800s (1870 or there about) that American society decided “domestic violence” might be bad… but it took another hundred years before it became a crime. And horrifically, during the 1700s and 1800s in the United States a woman who injured or killed a man (particularly her  husband) while defending herself from physical violence, could be charged with a crime, either assault or murder.  Even if she was found guilty of the lesser charge of assault, she could be executed, because a woman who struck a man (especially her father, brother, or husband), was ill-mannered, ill-tempered, and deficient. Thankfully, juries during this time hated sentencing women to execution which prevented many from going to the gallows. To add insult to the injury, a husband could legally divorce his wife for “striking him” as she attempted to defend herself against him, but a wife could not easily divorce a husband who beat her. And despite all the laws and social reforms we’ve attempted in the last 50 years to lessen the rate of domestic violence, the rate of has remained high and is increasing.

And domestic violence should be considered a “gateway crime.” Partners who physically, verbally, sexually, or emotionally abuse their partners are more likely to commit other violent crimes such as rape, battery, home invasion robberies, and basic assault. Stats further show domestic abusers are the most likely “type” of criminal to shoot at police… Shootings of police officers by domestic abusers is higher than even shootings of police by serial killers, serial rapists, and gang members.

The second major driving factor for increased violent crime rates in the United States is mass murder. When a person can decide to shoot 10 people in a parking because the really hot girl who works at Applebee’s won’t go out on a date with them or because they felt slighted by not being invited to a party they wouldn’t have attended anyway, the injuries and deaths accumulate quickly. In 2022 there were 642 mass shooting incidents. On average a mass shooting leaves 3 dead and 5 injured, meaning if you multiple those averages with the number of incidents, the violent crime stats increase at an alarming rate. 

The third reason violent crime has increased exponentially over the last two centuries is the creation of investigative forces. If you examine historical court records, you’ll find a surprising number of “murder” cases fell apart or resulted in not guilty verdicts because it was hard to determine both why someone died and whether it was their own fault or someone else’s. For example, a drunk woman dies on the streets from a head wound. Did she stumble and fall striking her head on cobble stones which resulted in her death or was she attacked? The manner of death; accident or murder is impossible to determine without an investigation. Even if witnesses observe someone push her, the manner of death is still in question because while autopsy became normal in the 1800s, a coroner may determine she died as a result of her own drunken debauched immoral character because if she hadn’t been drunk, she wouldn’t have died as a result of the push because she would have been able to stop herself from falling, preventing the head trauma which killed her.   

The improvement of investigative techniques and the science related to it, further increases the rate of violent crime. Detectives and coroners in 1870 might miss signs a modern detective and medical examiner would find to indicate a death was suspicious with the potential it was homicide. The tricky part about this, especially as of 2023 is how fast advancements in science and investigative techniques are improving our ability to detect a crime has occurred. A friend of mine was a fire investigator in Kansas City from 1992 until 2007. He told me a story about a man convicted of murdering his children in a fire based on evidence an accelerant was used in the 1990s. He was freed in 2018 because modern testing of the evidence proved the “accelerant” the first investigators found was actually a combination of chemicals used to treat lumber mixed with the melting of polyester fibers in curtains, carpet, and furniture within the house. If modern science and investigative techniques can prove no crime occurred in an already “solved case” from the 1990s, logically it must also be able to detect crimes which occurred in situations where previous testing may have indicated no crime took place.

To top it all off, historical violent crime is further skewed by under reporting. Victims of domestic violence and rape are not the only victims to not report. In 1997, my boss went to a conference in New York City, he was mugged twice in one day. The first mugging happened at 6 am while he was jogging through a park (I don’t know which park). The group of thugs threatened him with a knife and stole his wallet. That evening he went out to complete his jog and was mugged by a different group of thugs. He didn’t report either because he claimed since he wasn’t hurt the chances of the police tracking down the thugs who stole his money were basically nil. Being mugged while threatened by a weapon, even if no one is hurt, is considered a violent crime. Fast forward 25 years and an increase in video surveillance has encouraged victims of crimes such as mugging to report because the likelihood of the police taking the report seriously and not only investigating but making an arrest are significantly higher.

Having said all this, violent crime is on the rise in the US, but only specific types of violent crime – domestic violence, rape, and mass murder. Car jackings, drive-by shootings, home invasions, and basic assault have all decreased over the last twenty years. Crime researchers claim if you remove victims of mass murder incidents, murder is also on the decline in the US.

There is no one single reason for an increase in violent crime and some of it is not so much an increase as better understanding and a firmer definition of what is or is not a violent crime. Because of this it’s problematic to compare crime rates in 2023 to crime rates of 1993 or 1893. Furthermore, these numbers fail to provide context and social mores. The most often perpetrated violent crime in 1993 was different than in 2023. This means comparing crime stats from previous years is unhelpful at best.

It is my opinion comparing crime stats further apart than 5 years, is pointless because society sees significant changes to technology, science, investigations, and social mores during a five-year period. For example, it’s only been 5 years since genetic genealogy identified the Golden State Killer, and several cold cases have now been solved using the technology, but at the same time major questions regarding the protection of a person’s DNA information has resulted in a clamp down on allowing law enforcement to access the profiles in the database. In response law enforcement has begun information campaigns encouraging users to allow them access again and state legislatures are attempting to pass laws to allow the law enforcement community access once again on a non-voluntary basis.

Missing History

There are a lot of things missing from history. It is written by those with the best publicists. And that tended to be the wealthy. Having said that, I think we often do ourselves and our history an injustice with some of filling in the blanks. The speculation often creates a sort of mad lib out of history. Almost no where is this more evident than the theory of ancient aliens.

If you believe mankind has been aided by alien intervention, fear not, this post isn’t aimed at making fun of you. While this isn’t my own personal belief, I can see why it is a popular theory and I even have head scratching moments when I consider some of the evidence in favor of it.

First and foremost, it is true that no mummy was found in the Great Pyramid of Giza and quite frankly, the interior words and artwork, don’t actually align with other tombs that have been discovered. We suspect it was used for the burial of Pharaoh Khufu (Cheops), but we don’t know that for certain. Even looted tombs, don’t really resemble the interior of the Great Pyramid, which is why there is some doubt on it being built for that purpose. However, it had to be incredibly important, which is what lead us to believe it was a royal tomb in the first place. You don’t spend that much time, energy, and money on building something unimportant. The problem, is, if it isn’t a tomb, we have no clue what it is or why it was built. We don’t even totally understand the engineering behind it.

In the last two decades, we’ve found an account about the building of it, and learned more about the engineering of the Great Pyramid, but learning it really lead to more questions than answers. And it didn’t explain why it was built. And nowhere did it mention the pyramid was intended as the burial location of Khufu.

Therefore, is it any surprise that, some have filled in the how and why with ancient aliens? And to add to the mystery, engineering experts don’t believe we’d be able to replicate the Great Pyramid today. Not the shape, that’s been done many times over, but the actual construction. The moving of the giant stones, setting them nearly perfectly, filling in the mortar, carving the outside limestone covering that once coated it, etc, etc. Even the cutting and transport of the stones is questionable for modern engineers.

This doesn’t mean it couldn’t have been done or would have required advanced technological help, it just raises the question “if we can’t do it, how did they?” I once heard this question asked in a class and there was a humorous answer. The professor quipped “We rely on the wheel far too much, it’s our undoing.” There’s truth in that statement. Moving massive stones via wheeled carts would have been impossible in the time and location of the Great Pyramid. But as I’ve said before, sleds with runners, not wheels would make it possible to move these stones. But it’s still a feat that’s hard to wrap the mind around.

Alien intervention seems just as plausible and probable as humans doing it all themselves without the aid of technology that include stone cutting saws, compasses, awls, and other items that make modern construction easier.

Unfortunately, I feel these theories do a disservice to human ingenuity. One of the things I enjoy about history is that humans do some amazing things. Now, being the jaded person I am, I tend to think humans are best at figuring out ways to kill other humans and well, a pyramid isn’t terribly helpful for that, unless it’s part of death ray (which seems unlikely). And yet, building a pyramid is in fact probably a great way to kill other humans, when you think about it. Heat exhaustion and sun stroke (it is Egypt), giant stones, massive sleds with runners, probably pulled by oxen, and suddenly, you have a construction project capable of mass human casualties.

Now, this is likely not the explanation for the building of the Great Pyramid, but it can’t be ruled out entirely either. However, building a pyramid in order to execute lots of people isn’t any more far fetched than believing it was built to provide fuel for alien spaceships and as I said, humans are really good at devising unique ways to kill other humans.

But Something Happened

Most of the time, when someone mentions something paranormal or exterrestrial, we all roll our eyes and have a decent chuckle. We often dismiss the situation completely at that moment and put it out of our minds. However, while these explanations seem ridiculous, we often forget that something did have to happen.

Take for example the 1908 Tunguska event. In 1908, a UFO (by the strictest definition, not necessarily aliens) exploded over a remote region of Siberia. We know of the explosion because it flattened trees and drove wildlife off. The most likely explanation is a meteor. Sometimes, after entering Earth’s atmosphere meteorites do indeed explode.

It’s Siberia so there weren’t a lot of witnesses. However, something obviously happened, trees were uprooted and laid down. Plus, for most of the last 100+ years, wildlife has avoided the area and nothing has really grown there.

So, while it is unlikely that an alien spacecraft exploded, there can be no doubt that something extraordinary happened. And that the something did involve radiation, probably from space. I point this out because we know that extreme radiation poisoning of soil does drive away wildlife. We’ve seen it at both Chernobyl and Two Mile Island.

It is easy to snicker and laugh when someone says “it might have been aliens”… But the possibility is less farfetched than we might think. Since the 1950s, humans have been littering outer space with junk in the form of defunct satellites, expelled rocket jets, and even tools lost during space walks and repairs to the ISS and shuttles.

It is illogical to believe we are the only intelligent life in the universe. And it is within reason to believe that other life is just as advanced, if not more so, than us. Is it not possible then that they also have space junk floating around just outside their atmosphere? And if their space junk was caught in the tail of a passing comet, it is possible it could travel millions of miles away from their own planet. Making it possible that some meteors could indeed be space junk from other advanced civilizations on distant planets.

And while I realize a lost wrench from Sirius B is not exactly a little green alien. It is still extraterrestrial. Essentially, the point is, we dismiss this stuff immediately and politely smile. But we humans only truly know so much about our planet and the universe. There are hundreds of things that could be beyond our current explanation, that eventually we’ll understand. This includes ghosts, aliens, and strange happenings like the Tunguska Event. If you had said 300 years ago, that invisible living things caused illness, you would have been snickered at. But today, we know that is the exact cause of most illnesses. Just something to consider the next time you hear Malachi talk about cattle mutilations.

The First Flood Warnings Issued

When you’ve been experiencing a massive drought (multiple years) and then suddenly have an exceptionally wet winter that leads to a wet spring, you get flash flooding. Most people don’t think of snow as rain, but it is and lots of snow equals lots of rain. How much exactly? For every 1 inch of rain, you get roughly 10 inches of snow.

Between November 2018 and March 14, 2019, my area of mid-Missouri received a total of 35 inches of snow. Or just over 3 inches of rain. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but we’ve been in a drought for the last 8 years or so. Plus, we normally only get 43 inches of rain in a year anyway. I’m fairly sure we got 9+ inches of rain before the snow started to fall.

And since the turn of the year? Just looking at 2019, we’ve had 23 inches of snow, which is just over 2 inches of rain. Then during the day of March 24, we got another inch of rain. So it’s March and we’ve gotten more than 3 inches of rain already and the “wet” season hasn’t even started yet, not really. Normally, April, May, September, and October are our wettest months averaging 5 1/2 inches of rain during each of these months.

That means those 4 months usually account for over half our rainfall in a year. While 3 inches in 3 months doesn’t sound like much, it is. Not to mention the dozen or so states that contribute water to the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. And all those states have gotten the same massive amount of snow that we have and are now getting pummelled with rain (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Illinois for the Mississippi and Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas, and Nebraska for the Missouri and the two rivers meet in St. Louis, Missouri). These rivers can’t be understood separately, they are the fourth largest river system in the world and the Missouri River is the longest in North America while the Mississippi is the second longest in North America.

And I’m not sure the drought cycle didn’t begin to end in August 2018. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a year as wet as this one. Not just the snow, but the massive amounts of rain. Even during the winter months, I remember thinking multiple times “at least it’s not so cold it’s snow”…

So why do flood warnings give me pause? Missouri doesn’t go underwater like coastal states such as Louisiana, but we are bisected by the Missouri River. In 1993 (the year of our last major flood) portions of Northern Missouri were cut off from portions of Southern Missouri unless you wanted to drive hundreds of miles out of the way. Even some minor flooding in 2001 created difficulties for me when I was living in Columbia, but working in the state capital of Jefferson City, just 37 miles from my driveway to my office building parking lot and minor flooding prevented me from going to work without driving either east or west 50 miles before heading south.

I don’t live close enough to the Missouri River (it’s 20 miles or so south of my house) to worry about it flooding us out, but I have a lot of friends in Southern Missouri and flooding could mean a separation that results in some changed plans. And we have a lot of friends in St. Louis. Our campground in Northern Missouri is 20 miles from Hannibal, Missouri where the 200th anniversary of the town is being celebrated this year and there is a lot planned for the celebration. Hannibal sits so close to the Mississippi River that the town has flood walls to help try and keep water out of the city. During major floods, the walls are useless.

Furthermore, tourism is a huge industry in Missouri and flooding affects it greatly, because the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers are part of it and so are three recreational lakes: Lake of the Ozarks, Mark Twain Lake (where our campground is) along with Table Rock Lake near Branson. Flooding could damage an economy that’s already struggling. Not to mention that we are supposed to be implementing medical marijuana. Jefferson City, our capital where all the paperwork for the medical marijuana industry is being processed, sits on the Missouri River. Massive flooding means lower tourism at towns like Hannibal, St. Louis, Kansas City, Branson, and the towns that surround Lake of the Ozarks. Not to mention the hundreds of millions of dollars in property damage.

Missouri isn’t California, Louisiana, Texas, or South Carolina. When we experience massive flooding, no one really notices the damage left in its wake. And flooding is often followed by more flooding. In 1993 we experienced the worst flood we’d ever had. It was followed up in 1995 by the fourth worst flood we’d ever experienced. However, because we aren’t one of these other massive tourist states, we don’t get federal funds very quickly. The flooding in 1993 was bad enough that it was declared a federal disaster, but it wasn’t until late 1994 that we got our first federal grant for clean-up and repair. The flooding in 1995 set all that back and it was another 2 years before the leevees and things could be rebuilt. Just because the water receded didn’t mean the crisis was over. But it was 1998 before we had a huge release of federal funds to assist with clean-up. I was working for the Missouri Department of Health by then and one of my first non-secretarial assignments was helping collect data on chronic illnesses related to flooding (there are a lot), but it took us that long to get the funding for the study from the CDC and NIH.

So, when the flood warnings start going out, I take a few moments to think about it. And it’s far too early in the year for flood warnings (the first is usually the end of April or first half of May).

Montverde

Many years ago, probably close to 2 decades ago, I had a discussion with my best friend about civilization in the Americas. I told her I thought the Bering Land Bridge migration was utter nonsense. Considering it was during an ice age, it would make more sense for migratory humans to cross via boat. Because the area where the Bering Land Bridge is today, would not be particularly hospitable, and because most Native Americans (both from the north and south) had folklore tales that were supposed to take place before the end of the last ice age but were obviously set in the Americas.

I’m doing a free trial of Great Courses Plus (which will be a seperate blog post). The first “lesson” I grabbed was on Pre-Columbian civilizations in South America. I admit, when it comes to history, South America and Africa are my weakest areas.

Essentially, I can talk a bit about Incas and the Nazca lines, but everything else going on in South America until Nazis start showing up there in the 1940s is out of my capabilities.

I binge watched the first 6 episodes in this lecture series while playing video games. And in lecture 2, there was discussion about Montverde. It’s an archaeological site in South America that dates to approximately 15,000 BP (before present). Meaning those guys didn’t get to South America via the Bering Strait land bridge. Total there are 5 sites in North and South America that date from about the same time period and they are all older than when we originally thought humans came to the Americas.

15,000 BP is roughly 13,000 BCE or BC. That is about the same time Gobekli Tepe was being built and used in Turkey. We were actually getting towards the end of the last major ice age which ends in 10,000 BCE (or BC). If these people had come across the Bering Strait land bridge, they would have had to do it around 25,000 BP or 27,000 BCE, because it takes a while to walk from Alaska in North America to Chile in South America. Then they set up cities (Montverde is a city of approximately 5,000 people, not a village). Which again takes times.

This means while there is evidence that people did migrate via Beringa (the area where ice would have connected land in Russia to Alaska), it is unlikely it was the only migration or migration point. When I was in high school, in the 1990s, we were still being taught that humans migrated only once to the Americas via the Bering Strait land bridge around 11,000 BCE. The working theory at the time was that they followed game through Beringia and then got stuck in the Americas when the ice began to melt, and spread out to the east and south.

I remember reading an article in either National Geographic or Archaeology Today (remember, I’m a nerd) when I was in high school about a place in South America that pre-dated all other human habitations previously found. It wasn’t Montverde, it was in North America, near the east Coast of the US, but I have forgotten the name now.

My guess is that as I test other courses (I have about 50 history courses along with some science in my watch list), I’ll end up doing lots of blog posts regarding subject matter that I have either been re-introduced to or exposed to for the first time. And less than 24 hours into my 14 day free trial, I’m in love, so I’m sure there will be a blog post in the future reviewing Great Courses as a whole.

The Normalization of Hate

Since the beginning of time, people have disagreed, about anything and everything. J and I can’t agree. B and I don’t always agree on how to approach and handle things. Mel and I never agree on how to approach and handle things. We all suffer from the human condition and this is one of the side effects: strong opinions and a line of thinking that says “this is how it should be done.” This is to be expected, because we are the sum of our experiences. And while these 3 people are the people I am closest to in the real world, they’ve had different experiences than me.

J and I have very different ideas on politics. Sometimes, he gets frustrated with me because I have liberal leanings and I am pro-Socialist Republic and to him “socialism” is a trigger word. Yes, I’m a liberal, I think most artists and creative types are. But don’t get me wrong, I’m all about the second amendment. I was given the right to bear arms in case my government needed to be overthrown.

Yet, day in and day out, I look at my social media pages and see things like “Every Pro-Socialist is a moron.” Really? No, they aren’t. Most of them are like me. They use their brains and see a Socialist Republic (which we already have in the US) as a form of government that assists its citizens. Yes, it comes out of your tax dollars, and no there are things I don’t like about it, but I’d rather accept those things I don’t like then let some poor soul fall through the cracks. What does that mean? It means, I’m not a fan of career welfare moms; the type of woman who can’t seem to keep her legs closed, has 5 or 6 kids and no job because it’s easier to not work. But we shouldn’t punish her children for her terrible decisions. It’s not their faults she gave birth to them. And if we start restricting benefits based on certain things, then how many women and children no longer qualify?

Jude’s mommy is a single mother. She works her ass off. When she moved to Kansas City at the end of January, she was out of work for two weeks. She told us it was the longest time she’d been without a job since she was 16. Yet, there were times when she still wasn’t making enough to feed Jude, pay her bills, and feed herself. When that would happen, she’d go without. She is doing exactly what we expect mother’s to do. Yet, when she applied for assistance, she made $2 too much and couldn’t get it. She is exactly the type assistance programs were meant for. But because of cuts to our social welfare programs, that created higher restrictions, she couldn’t get assistance because of $2. To ensure the people like her get assistance, I will pay taxes to go to the career welfare mom. Not because I like what their doing, but because I know when we start making cuts, it isn’t the career welfare moms that get hit the hardest, it is the mom’s like Jude’s. The mom’s that work every damn day, do the best they can, and are just not making it.

And I’ll pay my school taxes to make sure that a non-verbal autistic child attending a public school can be put into the special classes designed for their needs. Or to ensure that my neighbor kid’s school has enough money for textbooks. I’ll pay them without complaint even though I have not had a need for a public school classroom for 20 years. And I will keep paying them every year, because I know that my taxes ensure teacher salaries get paid and kid’s get to attend a day at school without having to carry $150 in their pockets to give to the school to pay for their day of education.

Yet, I’m a moron. I’m an idiot. I’m a liberal pansy. And so much more. Why? Because I want to help my fellow American. One of the biggest things I’ve seen in the last two years is the normalization of hate. Don’t like Liberals? Blame them for everything. It’s all their fault. Except that isn’t correct. We got here together. It’s not the fault of liberals or conservatives. Those are just labels we put on each other to make our hate agreeable to others. “Oh, I don’t hate Liberals, I just think they are destroying the world and we need to wake up to it, so I shared a post calling them morons.”

That is exactly what hate is. If I can be hated for being a pro-Socialist Republic liberal, without someone even knowing me, that boils down to the other person being so filled with rage that they have to hate someone. The Pro-Life meme you shared calling all Democrats murderers, is it accurate? Who have I murdered that wasn’t fictional? Am I pro-Choice, yes, and while I support a woman’s right to choose, I also believe high school students in this country should be able to walk into the nurse’s office and get contraceptive, because that would prevent some of the need for abortions. Oddly, I have learned that both of those options make me a “terrible person.”

And social media is normalizing that hate. Why am I a bad person because I think high school girls should be given better access to birth control to prevent abortions and teen pregnancies that force them to take on responsibilities for the next 18 years of their lives?

Because we have normalized that hate already. The Pro-Life/Pro-Choice stand off has been raging so long, I think people have forgotten what it was really about. Most Pro-Choice supporters are like me. While they support a woman’s right to control her body, we also see societal problems inherent in the system. Poor access to contraceptive leads to more pregnancies which leads to more abortions. Fix one and fix the other. It makes sense. But I’ve been screamed at by Pro-Life Supporters while getting my birth control from a Planned Parenthood. And those people are not nice. Their words are venomous and vitriolic. It didn’t matter if a woman was there for, they were monstrous baby killers. One-time a pro-life protesters took down my license number and found my car downtown and left me a note telling me I was a baby-killer. She had no idea what I was there for. Not one. But she didn’t care. She so hated everything Planned Parenthood stood for that even those getting birth control and STD tests and treatment were obviously baby-killers.

That is the normalization of hate. It terrifies me. It should terrify everyone. Because that is how concentration camps in Germany got the stamp of approval. Once hate becomes normalized, apathy begins to take hold of a population. We think, incorrectly “well, I’ll never be in a position where I might need services from some place like planned parenthood.” But this is a false sense of security. I never thought I would need Planned Parenthood. And then, I didn’t have health insurance and I had a medical condition that required birth control, and it was so problematic that Student Health couldn’t help me, so they sent me to planned parenthood. Me and probably a few thousand other students, because student health doesn’t cover well women’s exams and birth control at the University of Missouri. We were all sent to Planned Parenthood where we could get reduced price exams and reduced price birth control.

But when was the last time someone thought about a Planned Parenthood clinic and thought “Oh they must be getting birth control?” My guess, probably never. Instead, let the hate flow for all these baby killers. Most of whom are just women in need of birth control. During the 9 years I got birth control from Planned Parenthood, I sat in the waiting room with a lot of other women. Women who were just like me, they were in their 20s and weren’t covered on their parents’ insurance anymore, but still wanted or needed birth control to ensure they didn’t need the other services offered by Planned Parenthood. I’d put the number in the thousands. Do you know how many women came in seeking abortions? Maybe 20, probably less. I know this because those poor girls got different paperwork from those of us getting birth control or those getting STD tests and treatment. Yet, each and every one of the thousands I saw were subjected to the same shouting, the same vitriolic hate that those 20 were subjected to. All because we have normalized hate.

The point is, we continue to normalize hate and we are expanding on it. It’s not just a problem in the US either. I’ve talked to some Brits who say it is happening in the UK too, because of Brexit. It will eventually give way to something worse than shouted words. And when we share those memes calling people names for their beliefs or lifestyles, we are perpetuating the normalization of hate. I don’t share memes proclaiming all Republicans are stupid or all Pro-Lifers are rageful morons. Because while I didn’t enjoy being called a baby-killer every time I had to get a Depo Provera shot, I refuse to spread hate. I didn’t unfriend a single person during the political battle that ensued after Trump became president. Not because I agreed with them, but because “friendship” should transgress politics. Friendship is a form of love and only love combats hate. And while I despised the protesters, they had a right to be there and I would fight for their right to be there, even though I think they fail to understand the women they verbally abuse are not their real targets.

And god forbid the day a tyrant takes control of this country and begins the internment camps, I will stand up for my fellow Americans whether I agree with them or not, because next it could be me. That is the future I fear with our current normalization of hate.

A Poem From WWII

My soul is saddened because we Americans have never been so divided during my lifetime as we are now. So I’m sharing this as a reminder that we should always speak up for those that may not be able to speak for themselves.

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

The poem is titled First they came for the Socialists and it was written by Martin Niemoeller a Lutheran Pastor German living in Nazi Germany.

Think about it, if you let your neighbors be punished for believing differently from you. When you find you are in opposition with those in power, who will speak for you?

Booming Earth Phenomenon

On the morning of March 4th, while I was playing discussing Pablo Picasso via text message with my bestie, there was a loud boom. It was a little after 10 am. I was in the garage and the garage doors shook as did the walls of the house. Now, I live only a couple miles from the trash dump for my city as the crow flies and this wasn’t the first massive unexplained boom I’d heard nearby.

However, my first thought was less about the boom and more about Lola. Lola was outside and she, like most dogs does not handle loud booms very well. I raced upstairs and outside and sure enough, Lola was shaking and ready to come inside. I gave her a trazadone for her fear (she refuses to even try a Thunder Shirt, wearing clothing stresses her out). Then I sat with her, just petting her and letting her know it was okay.

About noon, my local news station popped up a report on the loud boom. It was being investigated because there was no definite cause and it hadn’t been heard just near my house, but in the towns to the north of where I live. My sister on the other side of the city had also experienced it.

I’ve read about booming Earth phenomenon before. This is just what it sounds like, loud booms with no definite source that seem to come from within the Earth. But I’ve never experienced it personally. I live close enough to Whiteman Air Force Base that I grew up with flyovers by Stealth bombers (the B2) and I’ve experienced plenty of sonic booms. It oddly didn’t feel or sound like a sonic boom. It sounded and felt like an explosion. In an ironic twist, the day before at 3:30 am, a natural gas line approximately 30 miles from me did suffer a catastrophic failure and there was an explosion followed by a fire. But I didn’t hear or feel that explosion.

I’ve read books about booming Earth phenomenon and it does appear in history records going as far back as Ancient Egypt. And with no other explanation handy, it was most likely an Earth boom that we all heard. They are becoming more common, but we don’t understand why they happen and we can’t predict them.

There are tons of theories about what causes an Earth boom, but so far, we’ve been unable to prove any of them. And their cause remains a mystery.

Socialism in the US

There are currently a lot of anti-Socialism posts on social media. Especially in the US. This is because people don’t realize how much we benefit from socialist programs. Does your child attend public school? Do you ever go to the park? As any of your family served in the military and now gets free health care through the VA medical assistance program for vets? You can thank Socialism.

Before 1930, in order for a child to attend a day at school, it cost money. Not like School taxes money, but physical money. The child had to show up with it that morning. It was usually between 10 and 50 cents per day. I’m not talking about lunch money, a child had to pack their lunch every day for school unless a parent was planning on bringing lunch in. I’m talking about a daily fee that was required to attend school. If a kid showed up without that money, they were sent home. This is why more kids worked than attended school. Most families couldn’t afford to pay to send their kids to the 3rd grade or 6th grade. Especially in rural areas where school fees were often the highest because of the small size of the school.

Do you visit National or State Parks? Ever seen the beauty of Yellowstone or taken pictures at the Grand Canyon? These places only exist because of Socialist programs that encouraged “free public use areas” that could be enjoyed by anyone, not just the rich who could afford to own those lands.

Over a million men returned from WWI suffering a disability whether that be a missing limb, shell shock, or shrapnel lodged near their spine removing their ability to walk. You know what they were given? A thank you. That’s it. Veteran’s benefits didn’t exist at the time. If you went to war and were disabled when you came back, shit happens, good luck with the rest of your life. The department of Veterans Affairs was created in 1930. And it oversaw death benefits as well as disability for veterans. It too is a product of Socialist thinking.

The idea of a Socialist Republic (which is what most “advanced” countries in the world are) was applauded for their progressive thinking and ideas of society not abandoning its citizens to the wolves should something happen to them. It only became “bad” in the 1950s, when the Cold War between the US and the USSR began. But here’s a secret the USSR wasn’t a socialist or even communist government system. It was an elected dictatorship.

Here’s what gets me. Americans want to talk about how generous we are, but they want nothing to do with socialist programs that benefit everyone. At some point, the life of every American will benefit from the Socialist Republic they live in. Yet, Socialism is “evil”. If you think you won’t, then don’t drive a car because the building and upkeep of roads is a Socialist program. As is public transportation.

If we want to remove Socialism in the US, here’s a short list of things that will go away. Transportation (roads, public transport), free education, disability for the disabled as well as Veterans. Death benefits paid to a spouse if their spouse dies. Free parks. Oh and the big one FIRE DEPARTMENTS! Prior to the adoption of socialist programs, you had to pay for Fire Security Insurance. If your house caught fire, there was a good chance it would still burn down, because only your company would respond. This means that six fire engines might respond, but only one would be from the company you paid for, so if it took a long time for that company to arrive, your house would burn down before they arrived, even though there were 5 other fire trucks there that could put it out. Our police force is also a Socialist program. You don’t pay a detective to take your robbery case, because it’s paid for by taxes. But prior to the adoption of socialist programs, if you were the victim of a crime, you had to pay to have it looked into. Also, our military is a Socialist organization. It is paid for by tax dollars, you do not have to pay for it individually. Meaning I don’t have to send a cash payment to Whiteman Air Force base every week to make sure that if Missouri is invaded I’ll be protected from the invaders by the military.

If you want to bash socialism, that’s your prerogative, but you should at least understand it completely. In the US there are more than 100 programs that benefit society that are based on socialist ideas. Other Socialist Republic countries are Germany, Canada, France, Australia, Italy, Russia, Spain, Mexico, South Africa, Japan, (nearly all of Europe). The UK is a Constitutional Monarchy that has adopted a Socialist Republic policy.

Socialism is about taking care of citizens, regardless. Even you’re vacation days from your job, is the result of Socialism. If you still think socialism should be removed, that’s fine. My tax dollars don’t need to pay for your child to go to school and if you become disabled and unable to work, well then you’d better hope your relatives can afford to take care of you, because disability (SSI) is a socialist program. And you may have to make some tough choices, because if you give birth to a disabled child (a child who will probably never pay into SSI in the US), you had better be prepared to pay for everything that child will ever need for their entire lives, because they won’t get disability payments, Medicare/Medicaid, or job training. Considering disabled children are often far more expensive than non-disabled children, we are talking about millions of dollars. And you can’t let them go into foster care or an assisted living program, because both of these are Socialist programs.