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 Person Alert

We are asking that this information be shared as much as possible regardless of whether you live near Missouri or not. This is my niece* Brittanie’s mom. The family is very concerned that Angie has been out of touch for 8 days. Angie’s vehicle was found in a conservation area north of Columbia, Missouri on December 31, 2021, the location of the vehicle was not close to where Angie was last seen and had no reason to be in that area. The keys to the vehicle as well as Angie’s cellphone were found inside, but her purse was not (the battery in the cellphone was dead). The vehicle was found in working condition.

If you click the download button below, it will download a clean copy of the flyer you can post on social media. We appreciate your assistance in spreading the word.

Angie Rice Missing Person FlyerDownload

*I am not biologically related to Brittanie, any of Brittanie’s siblings, or Angie. I “adopted” Brittanie as my niece because my family has known hers for most of the last two decades and she gave birth to my great nephew Jude (Jude’s father is my biological nephew, but since he is not involved with Brittanie or Jude due to his own choices, I claim Brittanie now instead).

Celebrating

My best friend did an analysis of my writing on Lyrica v. not on it. I shared some of her results in a blog post. On Friday night, she got her grade. It was a 3-man (well woman team). They aced the paper which was for big data analysis.

Not only did they ace it, their professor recommended they do some more polishing and consider publishing the paper. I’m hoping when she talks to her partners they agree to work on it a little more and publish it.

Interestingly, her analysis did support one of my chief complaints. It felt like I had aphasia while on Lyrica and she found the books I wrote while on it, had far less variety in my vocabulary.

I am so proud of her and her hard work. I hope her partners agree to polish and publish. I was surprised and pleased when she asked permission to do the analysis. I know she picked it because she knew I’d struggled so much for all those months. Knowing that they knocked it out of the park, makes me even happier for them.

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).

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.

The Glamorized Serial Killer

The serial killer in literature is an interesting thing. Recently, a reader shared an opinion article that writers like myself were glamorizing serial killers. But I beg to disagree. I don’t think most fictional crime writers think about their serial killers after the book ends. And of all the literature I’ve read featuring serial killers only two stand out in my memory.

The first is Hannibal Lecter, because Anthony Hopkins brought that role to life. The book version of Hannibal is interesting, but he isn’t as appealing as the version played by Sir Anthony. And if you doubt that, watch the movie Manhunter from 1986. It is based on Harris’ first book Red Dragon. Hannibal Lecter is played by Brian Cox. I remember it so well, I had to Google it to figure out the name of it.

The second is Alton Turner Blackwood the killer in What the Night Knows by Dean Koontz. But I don’t remember him because he was scary or glamorous, I remember him because Dean Koontz had him demonically possessed into being a serial killer.

As for the serial killers in D&R (there have been more than 14 of them at this point), I don’t remember the names of any of them except the one from Ritual Dreams. Did you catch that? Even though I am currently writing Anonymous Dreams, I can’t remember the name of the killer even as I write this post. This is partly because I have a terrible memory and partly because in D&R the serial killer is a device. They exist solely so Aislinn, Gabriel, Xavier, Lucas, and Fiona can do something beyond sitting around having conversations over cups of coffee. Well, that and people enjoy reading serial killer thrillers/horror.

I think most writers are like me. Their serial killers are devices to give the story a plot, not a creation meant to make serial killers seem cool or glamorous. However, I will say if every fictional serial killer was below average intelligence and had trouble functioning in society, the serial killer thriller genre would quickly die away.

Trivial Pursuit

The game of Trivial Pursuit is often about luck just as much as knowledge. My best friend and I play a long distance “point” game of Trivial Pursuit. Between us we have 10 genuses or so (maybe more). When she moved to Indiana for work some years ago, we opened two of the genuses and she took one box from Genus III and one box from Genus V and we began playing over email.

How does this work? We are playing from Genus V at the moment. She keeps track of the scores. Each weekday morning, we email each other all the questions off a card. We trust each other not to cheat (no Googling answers). She answers the questions I send and I answer the questions she sends. Then we respond with “correct” or the right answer if the one they gave was wrong.

One morning, I missed all but 1 question on my card and it was definitely luck that I got it right. However, I knew the answer to all but one of her questions. This means, if she had asked me the questions from the card I gave her, I would have pulled ahead. Which is why I say it’s just as much about luck as it is trivial knowledge.

This was the question I got correct:
AE: Who paid his dues on the Today show by serving as a guest host 150 times? I have no clue. I only know one male host on the Today show for eternity, Matt Lauer and that’s what I put with a question mark after it. Which much to my surprise turned out to be correct.

One of my other questions was about the Teletubbies and TV evangelists. This is how my brain works… Well, I know one TV Evangelist “Billy Graham” oh wait, there was that other one that was arrested, his wife had really big hair and I believe she was a blond. Jimmy Stewart? No that was the actor that talked slow, played in several John Wayne movies. The Barkers? No, they were a gang. Wife had two first names. Tammy Faye Barker? Was his name Jimmy Barker? Tammy Faye Baker? Was his name Jim Baker? So I sent Jim Baker, because I was pretty sure it wasn’t Billy Graham. Then I Googled Jim Baker… and it’s Jim Bakker, but the answer wasn’t correct even without the spelling error.

Then she sent the answers back: who the hell is Jerry Falwell?

Most days we are pretty evenly matched getting 3 or 4 a piece correct, and oddly we usually get nearly the same 3 or 4 correct. Our worst categories are Sports & Leisure and Arts & Entertainment. I got 1, she got 2 that day. But there’s the luck bit. If she had asked me her card, I would have gotten 5 out of 6 correct.

Also, when one of us can get a Sports & Leisure or an Arts & Entertainment question correct, it’s usually one we both know. One of hers was about Soundgarden, which we both knew and this day her Sports & Leisure was about General Patton which we both knew.

And that is how you play Trivial Pursuit long distance. I’m never sure which one of us is in the lead, but I don’t figure it matters.

The Dopplegänger

Germanic mythology states that every person on the planet has a dopplegänger. However, the purpose of it, depends on which myths you look at. A doppleganger is a double. And there may be some truth to it.

I have some personal experience with a doppleganger. As does my mother. I have not met my doppleganger nor my mom’s, which is probably good because it’s considered bad luck to meet your double. My story:

I was in a restaurant for lunch one day with some coworkers. I was 17 at the time and I was enjoying fajitas. When a woman suddenly came up to our table and said my first name and asked what I was doing there. I had never met this woman in my life, so it was odd that she knew my name. I explained I was having lunch with a coworker and she asked why we had come all the way to Columbia for lunch. Um, we work in the Columbia office of the Missouri Department of Health, it’s really only a couple miles from here to our office. After a few more confused sentences we realized I must not be the woman she thought I was as the woman she thought I was worked for a doctor’s office in a town called Montgomery City.

The woman was insistent that we could pass for twins and it was stranger that we had the same first name. After the woman left my coworker commented that the woman must not spend much time with the girl she mistook me for. I agreed and we continued on with lunch.

Some years later while shopping with a friend, a man came up to me and started talking to me like he had known me my entire life and yet, I had never met him. He asked how Holly was… I asked who was Holly and he got a strange look and said “your mom.” Um, no, my mom’s name is Mollie, not Holly. We realized he was looking for the girl that worked at the doctor’s office in Montgomery City and we went our separate ways.

Total I’ve had five or six of these encounters with people from Montgomery City being surprised by my presence in Columbia. The two places are only 51 miles from each other, really not that far.

Perhaps the oddest part of these encounters though is that my mom apparently has a doppleganger named Holly from Montgomery City and over the years, she’s had a dozen or so encounters with people who have mistaken her for Holly from Montgomery City. Is it possible that my mom’s doppelganger Holly is the mother of my doppelganger that shares my name?

My mom’s maternal side of the family hails from Montgomery City. Meaning it is possible that Holly is a distant cousin of my mother’s. How on earth that lead to my mom’s doppelganger giving birth to a daughter that would share my name and have her genes express in such a way that we can pass as twins, is beyond me. Especially since I have been told all my life how much I look like my father who does not have any distant relations in Montgomery City.

My story is less unique than one might think. If you spend some time on Reddit searching for stories of doppelgangers, you’ll find plenty. And while my doppelganger is apparently a nurse in a much smaller town, some consider doppelgangers to be sinister apparitions. Some stories of doppelgangers make them demonic beings who are trying to steal the lives of their doubles. Others say they’re an omen of death and that meeting your doppelganger foretells that one of you will die soon.