This time last year, I wouldn't have believed anyone if they had explained in reasonable terms what the social and political landscape of now would look like.
Our government on the run, radio silence as they continue to push through harmful legislation, picking apart the NHS before something happens to end their mandate - a rebellion, another election, a referendum on leaving the EU.
The calls for a second referendum are loud, too. I agree with them. There's a lot of facts in the open, now. A lot of the lies have been kicked into the long grass where they belong, leaving only the economic certainties that are already coming true.
You know what I wouldn't have predicted happening?
The Nazi march in Charlottesville.
I'm not so naive as to assume there aren't neonazis in the United States, or here, or in most countries. There's a lot of racism drifting about, often kicked up as a way to consolidate or fabricate political support. As a general populace becomes less bigoted and less prone to hatred, there will always be the echelons of that society that kick back and hate more.
Back in August 2016 though - I didn't think the orange wonder would win the presidentail election, and usher in his little cadre of white supremacists and general scumbags. Nor did I think that he'd appeal in such a base way to violence against those who oppose him, or this whole Alt Right thing, which as best I can tell is the "moderate Right" telling the world: yeah, we may be ultracapitalists who hate women having rights, but at least we're not antisemites and racists.
And I didn't think I would see a bunch of people claiming against all evidence that they are the superior gene pool, marching through a town, holding tiki torches and loudly proclaiming that Jews wouldn't replace them.
Even just...paying attention to the whole thing...watching how people treat each other, and how those who stand up against the Nazis get painted with a very ugly brush...
It's enough to exhaust you.
I know that is a big reason why some people just avoid politics and social issues altogether. I also know that's a privilege. I can't pretend that the current economic or political situation won't affect my life, and almost always in negative ways. I don't earn enough money to just wave off news that workers rights are being tested or that the economy is slowing down at record rates. Likewise my friends and loved ones who are any kind of minority - how can any of my people of colour ignore the fact that Herr Drumpf only gave vague lip service to opposing these Nazi assholes? Or ignore that our own government is still okay with this Nazi sympathiser coming to visit sometime in the near future?
Nonetheless. Paying attention, seeing the ugliness that human beings are capable of enacting on each other - it is draining, and I won't deny it.
On Friday I felt a deep and keen sympathy with this tear-jerking scene from The Green Mile.
Because it would be so easy...so easy for these things to not happen. Surely, it takes more effort to be an evil fuck than it does to just not. When you get home from work at the end of the day, from giving up your daylight hours to have enough paper just to make it to tomorrow with shelter and food - do you have the time or the energy to actively try and make the lives of innocent people worse?
Wouldn't it just be so much less hard, so much less taxing, to just...not?
Maybe it's just the chronic health conditions I carry around with me that makes me feel that fatigue. Maybe most people get home at the end of the day and they DO have that energy. Maybe it's just the mindset I lack - I don't feel terribly accomplished or refreshed when I get myself furious at poor people or sick people or old people or disabled people or people of colour or LGBTQA folx.
Maybe it's because the hate I have in me - and I do have hate in my heart, I'm no sinless wonder-child - is reserved for specific individuals. Bastards. Racists. Sexists. Bigots. Too busy hating on people for something they actively do, to hate people for something they are.
Because here's the thing: you can choose to not be a Nazi. You might have a deep and abiding resentment inside of you, but you're the one that chooses to walk out to a march, to buy a tiki torch and a red MAGA baseball cap and stupid cream chino pants, to chant the same things as the other Nazi scumbags. The people you loudly and angrily hate can't stop being what they are. YOU can. You're the one putting in the effort.
And then being really surprised when you get fired, or lose social privileges, which is weird. I mean, you'd expect some flashback from being a Nazi, right? Even peaceful unarmed protesters get the shit beat out of them by riot cops, and all you got was escorted around by the boys in blue. Surely your workplace suddenly remembering that they shouldn't employ members of hate groups is a thing you expected?
After all, you took the effort to not go to your little private social event. You took the effort to stand around a statue, wearing clothes imported from other countries, holding a torch made popular by an entirely different culture, and loudly brag about your supremacy, with the symbols of more than one failed government.
When I take the time to call out bullshit, I expect people to remember that and treat me as such.
Even if it would be easier if I didn't.
So yes, I am tired. I am tired of these twerps thinking it's unfair that they suffer repercussions for being racist shitlords. I am tired of people who act against these scumbags being called out and torn down because activism makes people uncomfortable.
But they aren't going to stop.
So we can't either.
Fuck 'em.
Sunday, 20 August 2017
Saturday, 12 August 2017
A Hell Of A Time
Nine Worlds 2017 was a blast.
In a world populated by a significant amount of unpleasantness, of bad things happening to good people, Nine Worlds has become a thing that I look forward to. People have holidays and regular things - some people look forward to Christmas - but I have Nine Worlds.
I'm getting better at the convention thing. Better at knowing that it's okay to pass on doing things if you are drained, to rest and chill. To just enjoy hanging out where you can and chatting to the people around you. Just be easy, yo. Everything good will come of that.
To that end I only felt slightly rubbish at myself when I had to spend the Saturday pretty much on my ass, in a painkiller coma, as my left ankle had decided to give up the ghost. It didn't like the travel and a full day of stomping from panel to singalong to bar. It did not like that one bit, no sir.
I still had fun. I saw people that I haven't seen in a long time. Chatted to folks I had only just met. I sang along to Steven Universe songs, with a bunch of like-minded individuals. I learned how to beat writer's block. I learned which beer goes with which burger. I watched more Supernatural than I have ever had the inclination to watch - and kind of enjoyed it, though not enough to actually get down to watching it.
I had sushi. It was good sushi.
But there were things I WANTED to do that I did not do, and I regret that. If only because I wish I'd managed my meds and my fitness better. I still have yet to attend any of the late-night social events - in particular the Bifrost, which I am ashamed to admit I have never even set foot in once.
But hey. You know what that means?
I just have to get in early and get my tickets for next year.
Then I came home,, got a new tattoo, and went back to work. Con Crud hit me, a nasty cough with a couple of other minor bits and pieces. Life goes on, and it is weird that it has been less than a week since I was in that place with those people.
I miss it. Already I miss it, badly.
Soon, again.
Soon.
In a world populated by a significant amount of unpleasantness, of bad things happening to good people, Nine Worlds has become a thing that I look forward to. People have holidays and regular things - some people look forward to Christmas - but I have Nine Worlds.
I'm getting better at the convention thing. Better at knowing that it's okay to pass on doing things if you are drained, to rest and chill. To just enjoy hanging out where you can and chatting to the people around you. Just be easy, yo. Everything good will come of that.
To that end I only felt slightly rubbish at myself when I had to spend the Saturday pretty much on my ass, in a painkiller coma, as my left ankle had decided to give up the ghost. It didn't like the travel and a full day of stomping from panel to singalong to bar. It did not like that one bit, no sir.
I still had fun. I saw people that I haven't seen in a long time. Chatted to folks I had only just met. I sang along to Steven Universe songs, with a bunch of like-minded individuals. I learned how to beat writer's block. I learned which beer goes with which burger. I watched more Supernatural than I have ever had the inclination to watch - and kind of enjoyed it, though not enough to actually get down to watching it.
I had sushi. It was good sushi.
But there were things I WANTED to do that I did not do, and I regret that. If only because I wish I'd managed my meds and my fitness better. I still have yet to attend any of the late-night social events - in particular the Bifrost, which I am ashamed to admit I have never even set foot in once.
But hey. You know what that means?
I just have to get in early and get my tickets for next year.
Then I came home,, got a new tattoo, and went back to work. Con Crud hit me, a nasty cough with a couple of other minor bits and pieces. Life goes on, and it is weird that it has been less than a week since I was in that place with those people.
I miss it. Already I miss it, badly.
Soon, again.
Soon.
Wednesday, 2 August 2017
Power On Through
Today has been agonising. Lots of joint pain and breathing difficulties. It's been hot, sticky, and rainy. Nothing is great, and my body is reminding me of that.
You know what? Usually I would stop, take pause, take a few days to myself.
Tomorrow...is Nine Worlds. I can't afford to stop.
And if I need to arrive like a Zapain zombie, I will.
Because Nine Worlds is home.
Expect a far bigger blog on my return. LOVE YOU
You know what? Usually I would stop, take pause, take a few days to myself.
Tomorrow...is Nine Worlds. I can't afford to stop.
And if I need to arrive like a Zapain zombie, I will.
Because Nine Worlds is home.
Expect a far bigger blog on my return. LOVE YOU
Sunday, 30 July 2017
Queue And Ayyy
It's that time, folks. Real life and the global situation got saturated with nastiness and bullshit, so I decided to avoid all of that nonsense by doing a blog with topics provided by you, my favourite audience.
Presented in order, names removed to protect the innocent.
Boobs - It's a perennial favourite. And in fairness I did ask for it. Pretty much. Yes, very good.
What is the best or your favourite movie ending of all time? GO! - So there's a lot of good choices for this one, including the real ending of Blade Runner that doesn't answer any questions, and Arrival's amazing ending that I can't discuss with you because it's big old spoilers. If I had to pick but one? It would be Donnie Darko; a gut punch of an ending that leaves you reflecting on what you just watched, and wondering if this was really how it should have been.
Famous people you have met. - Like MET met...I dunno. Not many. Like I guess Bear Grylls counts, he came into the library once and was just super-chill and down to earth. Dave Grohl ran into me at Reading 2000 and didn't have time to stop. And I used to live next to Meridian Dave, the news reporter.
And how can this be? - For he is the Kwisatz Haderach!
Theresa May is doing a great job. She seems to have everything in hand and has the best interests of the country at heart. Discuss. - We're on a roller coaster. The track ahead is broken as fuck and not all of us are strapped in. Theresa May is sat in the booth, texting her mates to borrow money and try and get someone to cover her shift, while the rest of us hurtle into oblivion. She's asleep at the fucking wheel, and you can't trust the bunch of charlies that she calls a party or a cabinet to be of any use either.
Do you feel like Literature and it's inherent escapism can have a damaging effect on young People? (A watered down dissertation question.) - Fuuuck okay. So I think that too much escapism can be harmful - to everyone, not just young people, I mean we all know someone that spends every free moment drinking and partying. But I also think that NO escapism can be harmful, because this world is filled with shitty things to deal with. I think that as long as your way for getting by doesn't stop you getting by, it's probably okay. Moderation in all things - including moderation. So, yes, I think it can have a damaging effect, but probably less than just...being alive in this day and age. And that's even assuming I mean this society, which is less harmful than a great many.
Victor's Secret - Like Victoria's Secret but for dudes? Sure, suits me. I mean - suits me if it also takes on board the incredible bevy of problems I have with the clothing industry in general and the lingerie industry in specific. (Almost all of them involve pockets and sizes.)
Stargate sg-1 - This was great. Proper saturday-evening style watching. A bit cheesy, super-nineties, with a fantastic cast. I find it hard to watch too many episodes of ANYTHING in a row, as I begin to notice the formula and get annoyed by it, but SG-1 is fantastic viewing. Anyone ever notice how the guy who played Te'alc wrote a bunch of episodes, and in every single one, Te'alc got some play?
Boots - Excellent as an item of footwear, reasonable as a shop on the high street, fucking awful as a character in children's television.
Tardigrades - I love these little bastards. Like what the hell are they? What the hell even are they? Little eight-legged bastards half a mil long at their biggest that can survive in apparently literally any environment and are found in every biome on the face of the earth. I really hope that in a few million years, when we've fucked it all up and the human race is resigned to the Ozymandias shelf of the history books, that the tardigrades get their title shot. They'll do better than we are.
The perfect mech for you. - It's the HeavyArms Custom, as seen here:
I got this picture from here; great build work you did on this bad boy. And why would this be my perfect mech? Look at all that firepower. It's not slow, it's not ponderous, but it carries enough megatonnage to flatten an entire city. I love it.
Dealing with pain? Or not, if you don't want to talk about it. - I'm almost always okay to talk about this, cos I deal with it...like...all the time. In the end, though? It just becomes a part of your day. Like it is just another thing to contend with. I need to go to the bank, I need to eat something later, I need to book an appointment, and I hurt. It's often bad enough that I have to cry off doing tiring or stressful things. Sometimes, it's bad enough that I have to cry off doing reasonably basic or simple things. Sometimes it doesn't bother me at all, and that's the worst time, because I get a lot done and then I feel it in the morning. The best way to deal with pain? Respect your painkillers, only take what you need, and don't push yourself more than you can handle. Your body will have its vengeance threefold.
Cthuhlu, Evil beyond imagination or just misunderstood? - Beyond imagination. Evil to us. He has a totally different morality system, he's not like us at all. If a human acted the way Cthulhu does, he'd be evil, so to us, he's evil. We have no idea about morality where he came from, if they even have any. So I guess, to call him evil IS to misunderstand him. I don't even know if he's a he.
Sense of belonging - This is a rare thing for me but a very welcome one. It doesn't happen often, not even when I am in a place wherein you'd expect to feel it. When it happens, though; oh, so sweet. That moment of not feeling like you're an outlier on the graph. That sudden rush of social acceptance and a belief that you're actually doing okay. You pass it off all the time as just something that other people chase, and then it happens, and you understand why it can be such an addictive thing. Because it's beautiful, to have that moment, where you take a breath and just...belong.
Favourite craft - Star. IDENTIFY TARGET! DELIGHTED TO SIR!
Obvious one- Trump's banning of transgender army personnel - This motherfucker here...okay. So this guy is basically trying to carve the White House and the nation into a big old statue of himself, because he's a child who has failed at most things he's attempted in life, but never had to really suffer any consequences for it. So he wants to obliterate the stuff that came before, to make room for his own statue. What was one of the last things Barack Obama did? Pardon Chelsea Manning, a trans member of the US army. That made Dumpy look bad. Dumpy hates looking bad. So he turns those little eyes and that tiny mind on Chelsea, and on the people decrying him, and he puts two and two together and ends up with...two. And in a genius move, to save the military not very much, he decides to announce a policy change that he can't actually make, which would save a fifth of the money used to provide military personnel with Viagra, which the Pentagon then has to clarify isn't actually their policy - he reveals he's a bigoted douche, the trans individuals in the military feel markedly less safe, and fuck-all else changes. Pretty par for the course, really. Which is an appropriate metaphor, given how much time this prick spends playing golf. I HATE golf. I fucking hate it.
Semiotics in superhero fiction - Let's be real. It's hard to imagine any kind of superhero media - comics, books, TV, movies, cartoons, anime - that isn't up to its neck in semiotics. The very concept of there being a hero, of there being a person better than most who is willing to stand up and do right, is a semiotic concept. There's an entire swathe of shit I could go through here but I will address one thing I find really, really cool. The Sentry - arguably Marvel's most powerful hero, who isn't a literal deity - has his greatest enemy locked up in a vault, sealed tightly away. Somewhat late in the run of the comics, a character enters this sanctum in order to confront the Darkness, as he calls it. When they get into the vault, they find no incredible monstrosity, no infinitely powerful enemy. Only two objects: a chair, and a mirror.
Favorite sci-fi tropes. - Power armour, humans not actually being special, blue collar space travel, practicality over flashiness, other races being weirdly inexplicable in some ways but utterly relatable in others.
Resident Evil - First two games, awesome. First movie, passable. Literally everything else needs to fucking do one. It's over. The franchise is over. The only way they could get away with Resident Evil 7 even existing is basically making it a first person Silent Hill game that only becomes Resident Evil-esque close to the end. Let it go, guys. You had a good run. It's over.
Butts - I like them. Especially if they are large. To this end, I can offer you no falsehood, and my other friends and peers couldn't possibly refute this statement.
Bardic elves - Fuck them. BARDING elves, elves used as armour for horses or other mounts, could be useful. Bardic SHELVES could possibly save a lot of space in a party - don't take up a slot with a glorified folk singer, pop him on the shelf and bring along another Fighter or a badass Rogue. Bardic elves? Do one.
The existential belonging of unicorns to soviet Russia, and the impact of the war of centaurs on the inherent global unicorn populations... - Look, it's been roundly proved that the war of centaurs had literally nothing to do with the unicorn populations. In fact there was a very tiny spike at the beginning of the war, and that was so small that it wasn't statistically relevant. Correlation, not causation. Now if you want to talk about a real serious threat to the unicorn population globally, you need to look beyond soviet Russia. As it doesn't exist any more, the things that replaced it are inherently difficult for unicorns to survive in. They are often hunted by the Ukrainian griffon, or the lesser spotted toxic Urals bear. Most importantly? Every time someone believes in unicorns, a unicorn dies. That is a terrifying epidemic, and threatens their very existence. It's this kind of thing that the biologists and zoologists of the future will strive to solve as best they can, and god speed to them, every last one.
...and then there was another thread where people posted a lot of gifs about boobs, which was nice.
Thank you, folks. This one was fun. We talked about serious things and silly things. Just how I like it.
If you have any more ideas for things for me to chat shit about? Write it down somewhere - cos I do these on the fair regular.
Thanks for joining in!
Presented in order, names removed to protect the innocent.
Boobs - It's a perennial favourite. And in fairness I did ask for it. Pretty much. Yes, very good.
What is the best or your favourite movie ending of all time? GO! - So there's a lot of good choices for this one, including the real ending of Blade Runner that doesn't answer any questions, and Arrival's amazing ending that I can't discuss with you because it's big old spoilers. If I had to pick but one? It would be Donnie Darko; a gut punch of an ending that leaves you reflecting on what you just watched, and wondering if this was really how it should have been.
Famous people you have met. - Like MET met...I dunno. Not many. Like I guess Bear Grylls counts, he came into the library once and was just super-chill and down to earth. Dave Grohl ran into me at Reading 2000 and didn't have time to stop. And I used to live next to Meridian Dave, the news reporter.
And how can this be? - For he is the Kwisatz Haderach!
Theresa May is doing a great job. She seems to have everything in hand and has the best interests of the country at heart. Discuss. - We're on a roller coaster. The track ahead is broken as fuck and not all of us are strapped in. Theresa May is sat in the booth, texting her mates to borrow money and try and get someone to cover her shift, while the rest of us hurtle into oblivion. She's asleep at the fucking wheel, and you can't trust the bunch of charlies that she calls a party or a cabinet to be of any use either.
Do you feel like Literature and it's inherent escapism can have a damaging effect on young People? (A watered down dissertation question.) - Fuuuck okay. So I think that too much escapism can be harmful - to everyone, not just young people, I mean we all know someone that spends every free moment drinking and partying. But I also think that NO escapism can be harmful, because this world is filled with shitty things to deal with. I think that as long as your way for getting by doesn't stop you getting by, it's probably okay. Moderation in all things - including moderation. So, yes, I think it can have a damaging effect, but probably less than just...being alive in this day and age. And that's even assuming I mean this society, which is less harmful than a great many.
Victor's Secret - Like Victoria's Secret but for dudes? Sure, suits me. I mean - suits me if it also takes on board the incredible bevy of problems I have with the clothing industry in general and the lingerie industry in specific. (Almost all of them involve pockets and sizes.)
Stargate sg-1 - This was great. Proper saturday-evening style watching. A bit cheesy, super-nineties, with a fantastic cast. I find it hard to watch too many episodes of ANYTHING in a row, as I begin to notice the formula and get annoyed by it, but SG-1 is fantastic viewing. Anyone ever notice how the guy who played Te'alc wrote a bunch of episodes, and in every single one, Te'alc got some play?
Boots - Excellent as an item of footwear, reasonable as a shop on the high street, fucking awful as a character in children's television.
Tardigrades - I love these little bastards. Like what the hell are they? What the hell even are they? Little eight-legged bastards half a mil long at their biggest that can survive in apparently literally any environment and are found in every biome on the face of the earth. I really hope that in a few million years, when we've fucked it all up and the human race is resigned to the Ozymandias shelf of the history books, that the tardigrades get their title shot. They'll do better than we are.
The perfect mech for you. - It's the HeavyArms Custom, as seen here:
I got this picture from here; great build work you did on this bad boy. And why would this be my perfect mech? Look at all that firepower. It's not slow, it's not ponderous, but it carries enough megatonnage to flatten an entire city. I love it.
Dealing with pain? Or not, if you don't want to talk about it. - I'm almost always okay to talk about this, cos I deal with it...like...all the time. In the end, though? It just becomes a part of your day. Like it is just another thing to contend with. I need to go to the bank, I need to eat something later, I need to book an appointment, and I hurt. It's often bad enough that I have to cry off doing tiring or stressful things. Sometimes, it's bad enough that I have to cry off doing reasonably basic or simple things. Sometimes it doesn't bother me at all, and that's the worst time, because I get a lot done and then I feel it in the morning. The best way to deal with pain? Respect your painkillers, only take what you need, and don't push yourself more than you can handle. Your body will have its vengeance threefold.
Cthuhlu, Evil beyond imagination or just misunderstood? - Beyond imagination. Evil to us. He has a totally different morality system, he's not like us at all. If a human acted the way Cthulhu does, he'd be evil, so to us, he's evil. We have no idea about morality where he came from, if they even have any. So I guess, to call him evil IS to misunderstand him. I don't even know if he's a he.
Sense of belonging - This is a rare thing for me but a very welcome one. It doesn't happen often, not even when I am in a place wherein you'd expect to feel it. When it happens, though; oh, so sweet. That moment of not feeling like you're an outlier on the graph. That sudden rush of social acceptance and a belief that you're actually doing okay. You pass it off all the time as just something that other people chase, and then it happens, and you understand why it can be such an addictive thing. Because it's beautiful, to have that moment, where you take a breath and just...belong.
Favourite craft - Star. IDENTIFY TARGET! DELIGHTED TO SIR!
Obvious one- Trump's banning of transgender army personnel - This motherfucker here...okay. So this guy is basically trying to carve the White House and the nation into a big old statue of himself, because he's a child who has failed at most things he's attempted in life, but never had to really suffer any consequences for it. So he wants to obliterate the stuff that came before, to make room for his own statue. What was one of the last things Barack Obama did? Pardon Chelsea Manning, a trans member of the US army. That made Dumpy look bad. Dumpy hates looking bad. So he turns those little eyes and that tiny mind on Chelsea, and on the people decrying him, and he puts two and two together and ends up with...two. And in a genius move, to save the military not very much, he decides to announce a policy change that he can't actually make, which would save a fifth of the money used to provide military personnel with Viagra, which the Pentagon then has to clarify isn't actually their policy - he reveals he's a bigoted douche, the trans individuals in the military feel markedly less safe, and fuck-all else changes. Pretty par for the course, really. Which is an appropriate metaphor, given how much time this prick spends playing golf. I HATE golf. I fucking hate it.
Semiotics in superhero fiction - Let's be real. It's hard to imagine any kind of superhero media - comics, books, TV, movies, cartoons, anime - that isn't up to its neck in semiotics. The very concept of there being a hero, of there being a person better than most who is willing to stand up and do right, is a semiotic concept. There's an entire swathe of shit I could go through here but I will address one thing I find really, really cool. The Sentry - arguably Marvel's most powerful hero, who isn't a literal deity - has his greatest enemy locked up in a vault, sealed tightly away. Somewhat late in the run of the comics, a character enters this sanctum in order to confront the Darkness, as he calls it. When they get into the vault, they find no incredible monstrosity, no infinitely powerful enemy. Only two objects: a chair, and a mirror.
Favorite sci-fi tropes. - Power armour, humans not actually being special, blue collar space travel, practicality over flashiness, other races being weirdly inexplicable in some ways but utterly relatable in others.
Resident Evil - First two games, awesome. First movie, passable. Literally everything else needs to fucking do one. It's over. The franchise is over. The only way they could get away with Resident Evil 7 even existing is basically making it a first person Silent Hill game that only becomes Resident Evil-esque close to the end. Let it go, guys. You had a good run. It's over.
Butts - I like them. Especially if they are large. To this end, I can offer you no falsehood, and my other friends and peers couldn't possibly refute this statement.
Bardic elves - Fuck them. BARDING elves, elves used as armour for horses or other mounts, could be useful. Bardic SHELVES could possibly save a lot of space in a party - don't take up a slot with a glorified folk singer, pop him on the shelf and bring along another Fighter or a badass Rogue. Bardic elves? Do one.
The existential belonging of unicorns to soviet Russia, and the impact of the war of centaurs on the inherent global unicorn populations... - Look, it's been roundly proved that the war of centaurs had literally nothing to do with the unicorn populations. In fact there was a very tiny spike at the beginning of the war, and that was so small that it wasn't statistically relevant. Correlation, not causation. Now if you want to talk about a real serious threat to the unicorn population globally, you need to look beyond soviet Russia. As it doesn't exist any more, the things that replaced it are inherently difficult for unicorns to survive in. They are often hunted by the Ukrainian griffon, or the lesser spotted toxic Urals bear. Most importantly? Every time someone believes in unicorns, a unicorn dies. That is a terrifying epidemic, and threatens their very existence. It's this kind of thing that the biologists and zoologists of the future will strive to solve as best they can, and god speed to them, every last one.
...and then there was another thread where people posted a lot of gifs about boobs, which was nice.
Thank you, folks. This one was fun. We talked about serious things and silly things. Just how I like it.
If you have any more ideas for things for me to chat shit about? Write it down somewhere - cos I do these on the fair regular.
Thanks for joining in!
Friday, 21 July 2017
Chris, Chester, and the Two Hundred Thousand
Content warning: what follows discusses suicide in a frank and open and honest fashion. It may well be upsetting. Hell, I think it probably SHOULD upset you. Please be pre-warned about that before you read on.
Chris Cornell, vocalist, songwriter and musician involved with a handful of the best bands on earth, committed suicide on 17th May 2017. He was 52. It was just over two months until his 53rd birthday, which would have fallen on 20th July 2017.
Chester Bennington, vocalist, songwriter and musician primarily involved with Linkin Park but who temporarily fronted the Stone Temple Pilots, committed suicide on 20th July 2017. He was 41, and he and Chris Cornell were close friends.
In the 65 days between the two tragically linked deaths, approximately 195,000 people committed suicide - damn near two hundred thousand - and perhaps three and a half million attempted it. I'm not trying to denigrate anyone, nor am I trying to make a point about celebrity and attention. I'm merely stating a fact - or a figure. A truly devastating figure.
These figures aren't precise, obviously, but the World Health Organisation predicts that they are conservative statistics. The rate is increasing yearly.
Yes. Enough people do it that it is considered a rate.
I wrote a blog in April last year about my own experience on the topic. tl;dr - I almost became one of those 3,000 people a day that take their own lives, a long time ago, in a different place.
Nobody wants to see suicide figures that high. It's a deeply upsetting thing. Whatever the reasons, we are left hurting inside, knowing that there's more than one person per minute who is so distraught and depressed that, for whatever reason, they decide to end their own existence.
I'm not going to talk about why Cornell or Bennington did what they did. Their reasons are their own. I know why I attempted. I know why I didn't go through with it. There might be similarities, there might not be. None of us are wearing each other's shoes, even if we're all wearing the same brand. Another way I have described it is as each of us having to sink or swim, even if we're in the same sea.
It is when someone like Chris, or Chester, or Robin Williams or Chris Benoit or Marilyn Monroe, takes their own lives - or someone that we know, even vaguely, a friend of a friend - that we ask why, and we ask what we can do to help stop it happening again.
Here's the thing. Speaking from my own personal experience? The way to stop it happening has to begin a long, long time before anyone is even in a bad enough mental place to consider it for more than half a second.
The world is a cold, hard and uncaring place with islands and pools of warmth and light in it. It's a forbidding desert by default, and the oases are irregularities. Human beings are imperfect and insecure by design. For the longest time, that insecurity and imperfection has been treated in the worst way possible: by denying its own existence and chastising those that address it or try and stop it. We build a fence around the hole in who we are and we yell at people to not come any closer, especially if they want to fix it, or help us in not falling into it. It's what we as a people have done for thousands of years.
Society isn't run for the benefit of the people who live in it. It's all trickle-up, and it has been built and reinforced for that precise purpose, like a continental pyramid scheme. Realising that, seeing it in action, is a very sobering thing - and worse, such a societal structure has no place for people like me, or people like the friends I've had that have gone the same route and not lived to tell the tale. We're not productive machines. We're "faulty".
Nobody wants to talk about it until it hurts them and then we don't have the language because we spend the rest of our lives not talking about it.
You can't identify or isolate why it happens. You can't put on magic glasses and spot everyone who is going to swim in that cold sea. You can't apply a litmus test and assign them counselling if the paper turns green. It doesn't work that way, because at some point in their lives - in everyone's lives - there will be a moment when the paper turns green, or close to it. Everyone has at least one single moment, where they plunge into the water, and they need to swim - but we never talk about learning how to swim. We just mourn everyone that doesn't make it back to the shore.
You stop it by making the world better.
Suicide nets and hotlines are treatments of secondary symptoms. If we really want to get the world into a place wherein more than a minute goes by between each suicide - and I am talking about almost halving the suicide rate, just to get to the point where there's only sixty an hour, down to sixty an hour - you treat the cause. You stop life being hopeless and hollow and cold. You do everything you can to pour light and laughter into the world, and you do everything you can to put up walls against the cold ocean. You reduce poverty. You increase support, physical and mental. You listen and you talk quietly but honestly. You learn empathy and sympathy. You hold hands. You help.
Every single person that does this helps. Every single person. If enough of us do it, if enough of us believe it can be done, then we can make things change. We can make things better. We can make life something that supports hope again. Re-prime the soil, so to speak. Plant the seeds.
So when the moment comes that we hit the water, and the cold rushes over us - we look back at the shore, and we want it so badly that we swim for it. We want our place in it, not because we're meant to, but because there IS a place for us.
So let's make a fucking place.
Because out of all the things that could have driven me to tears this week, I didn't want it to be knowing that almost six thousand people would have tried to take their own lives as I wrote this blog, and that almost three hundred of them had succeeded.
Listen, speak, care, change the world. It's all we can do. Maybe it's all we were ever meant to do. Maybe if we want purpose, that's the purpose - to make a world fit for purpose, not for profit, not for power, but for just wanting to live in it one more day than we did yesterday.
We can do that. I'm sure we can.
Chris Cornell, vocalist, songwriter and musician involved with a handful of the best bands on earth, committed suicide on 17th May 2017. He was 52. It was just over two months until his 53rd birthday, which would have fallen on 20th July 2017.
Chester Bennington, vocalist, songwriter and musician primarily involved with Linkin Park but who temporarily fronted the Stone Temple Pilots, committed suicide on 20th July 2017. He was 41, and he and Chris Cornell were close friends.
In the 65 days between the two tragically linked deaths, approximately 195,000 people committed suicide - damn near two hundred thousand - and perhaps three and a half million attempted it. I'm not trying to denigrate anyone, nor am I trying to make a point about celebrity and attention. I'm merely stating a fact - or a figure. A truly devastating figure.
These figures aren't precise, obviously, but the World Health Organisation predicts that they are conservative statistics. The rate is increasing yearly.
Yes. Enough people do it that it is considered a rate.
I wrote a blog in April last year about my own experience on the topic. tl;dr - I almost became one of those 3,000 people a day that take their own lives, a long time ago, in a different place.
Nobody wants to see suicide figures that high. It's a deeply upsetting thing. Whatever the reasons, we are left hurting inside, knowing that there's more than one person per minute who is so distraught and depressed that, for whatever reason, they decide to end their own existence.
I'm not going to talk about why Cornell or Bennington did what they did. Their reasons are their own. I know why I attempted. I know why I didn't go through with it. There might be similarities, there might not be. None of us are wearing each other's shoes, even if we're all wearing the same brand. Another way I have described it is as each of us having to sink or swim, even if we're in the same sea.
It is when someone like Chris, or Chester, or Robin Williams or Chris Benoit or Marilyn Monroe, takes their own lives - or someone that we know, even vaguely, a friend of a friend - that we ask why, and we ask what we can do to help stop it happening again.
Here's the thing. Speaking from my own personal experience? The way to stop it happening has to begin a long, long time before anyone is even in a bad enough mental place to consider it for more than half a second.
The world is a cold, hard and uncaring place with islands and pools of warmth and light in it. It's a forbidding desert by default, and the oases are irregularities. Human beings are imperfect and insecure by design. For the longest time, that insecurity and imperfection has been treated in the worst way possible: by denying its own existence and chastising those that address it or try and stop it. We build a fence around the hole in who we are and we yell at people to not come any closer, especially if they want to fix it, or help us in not falling into it. It's what we as a people have done for thousands of years.
Society isn't run for the benefit of the people who live in it. It's all trickle-up, and it has been built and reinforced for that precise purpose, like a continental pyramid scheme. Realising that, seeing it in action, is a very sobering thing - and worse, such a societal structure has no place for people like me, or people like the friends I've had that have gone the same route and not lived to tell the tale. We're not productive machines. We're "faulty".
Nobody wants to talk about it until it hurts them and then we don't have the language because we spend the rest of our lives not talking about it.
You can't identify or isolate why it happens. You can't put on magic glasses and spot everyone who is going to swim in that cold sea. You can't apply a litmus test and assign them counselling if the paper turns green. It doesn't work that way, because at some point in their lives - in everyone's lives - there will be a moment when the paper turns green, or close to it. Everyone has at least one single moment, where they plunge into the water, and they need to swim - but we never talk about learning how to swim. We just mourn everyone that doesn't make it back to the shore.
You stop it by making the world better.
Suicide nets and hotlines are treatments of secondary symptoms. If we really want to get the world into a place wherein more than a minute goes by between each suicide - and I am talking about almost halving the suicide rate, just to get to the point where there's only sixty an hour, down to sixty an hour - you treat the cause. You stop life being hopeless and hollow and cold. You do everything you can to pour light and laughter into the world, and you do everything you can to put up walls against the cold ocean. You reduce poverty. You increase support, physical and mental. You listen and you talk quietly but honestly. You learn empathy and sympathy. You hold hands. You help.
Every single person that does this helps. Every single person. If enough of us do it, if enough of us believe it can be done, then we can make things change. We can make things better. We can make life something that supports hope again. Re-prime the soil, so to speak. Plant the seeds.
So when the moment comes that we hit the water, and the cold rushes over us - we look back at the shore, and we want it so badly that we swim for it. We want our place in it, not because we're meant to, but because there IS a place for us.
So let's make a fucking place.
Because out of all the things that could have driven me to tears this week, I didn't want it to be knowing that almost six thousand people would have tried to take their own lives as I wrote this blog, and that almost three hundred of them had succeeded.
Listen, speak, care, change the world. It's all we can do. Maybe it's all we were ever meant to do. Maybe if we want purpose, that's the purpose - to make a world fit for purpose, not for profit, not for power, but for just wanting to live in it one more day than we did yesterday.
We can do that. I'm sure we can.
Written in memory of Chris, Chester, and the two hundred thousand.
Sunday, 16 July 2017
Wight Rainbows
Yesterday was the first major Pride event on my tiny little island.
I've talked often about how the place is a little backward. Ten years ago I was fairly convinced that the rest of the world would be an egalitarian paradise before the Isle of Wight started properly accepting LGBTQA folks and issues - that's how you know that ten years ago I was naive as hell. The world, however, doesn't all get fixed at once.
The event yesterday was very popular, as best I can tell. The people who wanted to get involved, got involved. Haters didn't show up - as I say, as best I can tell. I only had to have the "But Why Isn't There Straight Pride" conversation once, and it was more a discussion of inherent issues than a shouting match with a gorilla. Everyone had a lovely time, everything was brightly coloured and happy, and visibility won against centuries of weirdly insular beliefs.
I'm pretty lucky on most counts. Half-Lebanese but white enough that I pass on that score, and me being bi hasn't actually caused me any negative consequences. I'm privileged to exist in the "passing" zone. I'm close enough to straight white male that I get to be one on most counts. I know a lot of people that don't fit within that particular zone, and their lives have not been pretty or easy.
One of my friends effectively came out, this morning - and I think it may have been as a result of Pride. The result which speaks for itself. I honestly hope and pray for the day when someone doesn't need to come out at all. I hope for the day when someone needn't fear being accepted for who and what they are.
It does feel a little weird to see all these businesses and organisations at such an event. Like, yes, demonstrating support is good. I am totally behind that, especially if the business is actually supportive and non-discriminatory. I do wonder at times, though. I wonder how much of the presence of a corporate entity at a Pride march is support and how much is advertising. That's just the cynical bit of me though - as much of me as that is, and it does run pretty deep.
I also both enjoy seeing our local police present at such an event in support, but I am probably not alone in hoping that the world doesn't forget where the first Pride marches came from. Maybe the world is truly changing - maybe it doesn't need to be a riot any more - but there was and is an apparatus of oppression that exists, and can be put to use. I think it is going to be a long time before we are free of that.
Our Prime Minister had the audacity to record a pro-Pride message, despite voting against LGBTQA rights whenever given the opportunity. Our last local MP was a homophobic bigot. I don't know our new one enough to know where he stands on the matter, though the Tory party were notably the only major local political party to not be present in the actual parade. I don't count UKIP in that number, besides.
We have it easier here than in the US, I know that for sure. Easier there still than in Chechnya and other places around the globe which go so far beyond passive hostility. Some of our so-called supposed allies in the Middle East have governments that treat deviation from the cishet norm as a crime punishable by mutilation and death. I know our government probably don't care, as long as they can keep flogging rockets and jet planes.
The rainbows are still around. We need to keep them. We need to cherish that rainbow, as a symbol of a world that we can live in, if only we have the will to pursue it. There are those that feel threatened by it, just the same as there are those that felt threatened by the end of slavery, threatened by women being allowed to vote and earn a wage, threatened by people having a bible they could actually read. It's not enough that we recognise that their attitude is one of the past. We need to condemn it to the past and then send it there, by making our future a better place.
I hope that we can. I really do.
For one day, though - for one day, it was real.
I've talked often about how the place is a little backward. Ten years ago I was fairly convinced that the rest of the world would be an egalitarian paradise before the Isle of Wight started properly accepting LGBTQA folks and issues - that's how you know that ten years ago I was naive as hell. The world, however, doesn't all get fixed at once.
The event yesterday was very popular, as best I can tell. The people who wanted to get involved, got involved. Haters didn't show up - as I say, as best I can tell. I only had to have the "But Why Isn't There Straight Pride" conversation once, and it was more a discussion of inherent issues than a shouting match with a gorilla. Everyone had a lovely time, everything was brightly coloured and happy, and visibility won against centuries of weirdly insular beliefs.
I'm pretty lucky on most counts. Half-Lebanese but white enough that I pass on that score, and me being bi hasn't actually caused me any negative consequences. I'm privileged to exist in the "passing" zone. I'm close enough to straight white male that I get to be one on most counts. I know a lot of people that don't fit within that particular zone, and their lives have not been pretty or easy.
One of my friends effectively came out, this morning - and I think it may have been as a result of Pride. The result which speaks for itself. I honestly hope and pray for the day when someone doesn't need to come out at all. I hope for the day when someone needn't fear being accepted for who and what they are.
It does feel a little weird to see all these businesses and organisations at such an event. Like, yes, demonstrating support is good. I am totally behind that, especially if the business is actually supportive and non-discriminatory. I do wonder at times, though. I wonder how much of the presence of a corporate entity at a Pride march is support and how much is advertising. That's just the cynical bit of me though - as much of me as that is, and it does run pretty deep.
I also both enjoy seeing our local police present at such an event in support, but I am probably not alone in hoping that the world doesn't forget where the first Pride marches came from. Maybe the world is truly changing - maybe it doesn't need to be a riot any more - but there was and is an apparatus of oppression that exists, and can be put to use. I think it is going to be a long time before we are free of that.
Our Prime Minister had the audacity to record a pro-Pride message, despite voting against LGBTQA rights whenever given the opportunity. Our last local MP was a homophobic bigot. I don't know our new one enough to know where he stands on the matter, though the Tory party were notably the only major local political party to not be present in the actual parade. I don't count UKIP in that number, besides.
We have it easier here than in the US, I know that for sure. Easier there still than in Chechnya and other places around the globe which go so far beyond passive hostility. Some of our so-called supposed allies in the Middle East have governments that treat deviation from the cishet norm as a crime punishable by mutilation and death. I know our government probably don't care, as long as they can keep flogging rockets and jet planes.
The rainbows are still around. We need to keep them. We need to cherish that rainbow, as a symbol of a world that we can live in, if only we have the will to pursue it. There are those that feel threatened by it, just the same as there are those that felt threatened by the end of slavery, threatened by women being allowed to vote and earn a wage, threatened by people having a bible they could actually read. It's not enough that we recognise that their attitude is one of the past. We need to condemn it to the past and then send it there, by making our future a better place.
I hope that we can. I really do.
For one day, though - for one day, it was real.
Sunday, 9 July 2017
Homo Ouroboros
This is Ouroboros, the serpent that eats its own tail.
It's quite an old idea - the earliest interpretation is from almost 3,500 years ago, in an Egyptian funerary text. It has all sorts of meanings attached to it, like life and death, creation and destruction, and other eternally cyclical things.
I see a creature eating its tail and it doesn't make me think of eternity.
I mean sure, if we're dealing with a mythical beast - like the world serpents of Nordic mythology or similar - then it could be something that literally lasts forever, locked in its shape. What I think about is something more prosaic: a living being, devouring itself to stay alive just a little longer. Autocannibalism.
I see the human race.
We feed on ourselves - as a mass, rather than individually. Doing so individually is a crime. Letting the species as a whole choke on its own tail is actually sort of encouraged.
How, I hear you ask? Let's take a look at feudalism.
We have the liege of an area, let's call him Lord Snakehead. Lord Snakehead has those lesser nobles that exist within his territory, the knights and so on that have a position of status over everyone else - let's call them the Order of the Belly. This would follow, in my rather blunt and obvious simile, to the farmers and workers of no social standing to be labelled as The Tail End.
I think it's pretty obvious how this works.
The Tail End works hard. They produce a significant amount of goods and material, more than they actually need to live - in fact enough to make them quite comfortable if they got to keep all of it. Obviously...they don't, because they are being fed upon by Lord Snakehead. He devours his fill from The Tail End, and in return provides the Order of the Belly with nutrients - though not as much as he gets, of course. Just enough to know that they are more important than The Tail End. The fact is, though - if The Tail End ceased to exist, the Order of the Belly would be next in the mouth of Lord Snakehead.
Because modern society is fairly feudal in and of itself - we might not use the same old terms, but we sure seem to have the same structure - it's easy enough to see how this example applies.
Of course there's more avenues and more structures than my example. More than one snake - more than one tail. Each individual business is an Ouroborean structure. Goverments, too.Large organisations. All snakes that feed on their own tails - there's always a head, and there's always a tail, and most people fight to be the belly.
"But John," I hear you cry, feathers falling out of your socks and pork pies in your hands. "But John, isn't that just the way life is?"
Well yes. It IS the way life is. It isn't how it HAS to be, but it IS how it is. Nobody who can change it has the interest in putting in effort to do so, because even if they wanted to eat less of the tail, their peers have interest in making sure they keep it up.
The problem is that every known case of autocannibalism has to draw a line somewhere - and the final line that is drawn is when enough of the eater has been eaten that they expire.
It's not sustainable, and I don't mean that in a sense of environmental collapse. That is happening, right now, and is indisputable. The science is incontrovertible. Denying it is like denying that the sun rises. I mean it in the sense I just stated: in the end, what happens if the serpent eats too much?
If we could trust Ouroboros to keep eating at a steady pace, then perhaps it could continue - and the mythic beasts of yore can be trusted with such things. They are beings of their nature, a nature they can't avoid or escape.
The problem is, Homo Ouroboros is a slave to its nature, too. That nature is inherently greedy - as I've previously discussed, humanity's inherent insecurity leads it to try and dominate its environment, and a primary method of it doing so is through acquisition of resource. It's what we do. So we can trust the serpent to constantly try and eat more than it was ten seconds ago.
Which, as we have ascertained, is unsustainable.
How does this work in practical terms? Well, you can see it every day in the way we live. People having to dip more and more into their savings as the needs and wants of those who feed from them - those who benefit from their work, via surplus value - drive them to raise prices and lower payouts. Trimming away the fat an inch at a time. Every way we look, we see businesses focusing on making cuts and savings - and do those ever result in lowered prices? Of course not, they aren't FOR lowering prices. It's the snake gobbling more of its tail.
It's been pointed out that the less the average individual gets paid, the less products they can afford to purchase, and the less companies get paid. I believe an accurate term for this is cost-push deflation. It's happening, right now - but as long as we keep cutting and keep kicking and do whatever we can to keep our heads above water, then we don't have to care.
You can see it at work in the wake of Grenfell Tower. Regulatory cuts and basic greed. Lives of the wealthy made easier at the cost of the poor - and for the victims of this travesty of justice, many of them paid the ultimate cost.
For a long time there has been a trend of demonising and persecuting the homeless. As society has...I hesitate to say advanced, so let us say changed, those trends have changed. The boundary has grown bigger. Those who require or receive benefits because they don't have a job were next. Following that, the victims became those who were poor. It won't be long until the next victims are those who are less poor. Inexorably, the serpent is devouring its tail - and soon, it will be the belly that is being fed upon.
How long until the head reaches itself?
How long until Homo Ouroboros autocannibalises to the point of its own demise?
More importantly...
How can we stop it?
It's quite an old idea - the earliest interpretation is from almost 3,500 years ago, in an Egyptian funerary text. It has all sorts of meanings attached to it, like life and death, creation and destruction, and other eternally cyclical things.
I see a creature eating its tail and it doesn't make me think of eternity.
I mean sure, if we're dealing with a mythical beast - like the world serpents of Nordic mythology or similar - then it could be something that literally lasts forever, locked in its shape. What I think about is something more prosaic: a living being, devouring itself to stay alive just a little longer. Autocannibalism.
I see the human race.
We feed on ourselves - as a mass, rather than individually. Doing so individually is a crime. Letting the species as a whole choke on its own tail is actually sort of encouraged.
How, I hear you ask? Let's take a look at feudalism.
We have the liege of an area, let's call him Lord Snakehead. Lord Snakehead has those lesser nobles that exist within his territory, the knights and so on that have a position of status over everyone else - let's call them the Order of the Belly. This would follow, in my rather blunt and obvious simile, to the farmers and workers of no social standing to be labelled as The Tail End.
I think it's pretty obvious how this works.
The Tail End works hard. They produce a significant amount of goods and material, more than they actually need to live - in fact enough to make them quite comfortable if they got to keep all of it. Obviously...they don't, because they are being fed upon by Lord Snakehead. He devours his fill from The Tail End, and in return provides the Order of the Belly with nutrients - though not as much as he gets, of course. Just enough to know that they are more important than The Tail End. The fact is, though - if The Tail End ceased to exist, the Order of the Belly would be next in the mouth of Lord Snakehead.
Because modern society is fairly feudal in and of itself - we might not use the same old terms, but we sure seem to have the same structure - it's easy enough to see how this example applies.
Of course there's more avenues and more structures than my example. More than one snake - more than one tail. Each individual business is an Ouroborean structure. Goverments, too.Large organisations. All snakes that feed on their own tails - there's always a head, and there's always a tail, and most people fight to be the belly.
"But John," I hear you cry, feathers falling out of your socks and pork pies in your hands. "But John, isn't that just the way life is?"
Well yes. It IS the way life is. It isn't how it HAS to be, but it IS how it is. Nobody who can change it has the interest in putting in effort to do so, because even if they wanted to eat less of the tail, their peers have interest in making sure they keep it up.
The problem is that every known case of autocannibalism has to draw a line somewhere - and the final line that is drawn is when enough of the eater has been eaten that they expire.
It's not sustainable, and I don't mean that in a sense of environmental collapse. That is happening, right now, and is indisputable. The science is incontrovertible. Denying it is like denying that the sun rises. I mean it in the sense I just stated: in the end, what happens if the serpent eats too much?
If we could trust Ouroboros to keep eating at a steady pace, then perhaps it could continue - and the mythic beasts of yore can be trusted with such things. They are beings of their nature, a nature they can't avoid or escape.
The problem is, Homo Ouroboros is a slave to its nature, too. That nature is inherently greedy - as I've previously discussed, humanity's inherent insecurity leads it to try and dominate its environment, and a primary method of it doing so is through acquisition of resource. It's what we do. So we can trust the serpent to constantly try and eat more than it was ten seconds ago.
Which, as we have ascertained, is unsustainable.
How does this work in practical terms? Well, you can see it every day in the way we live. People having to dip more and more into their savings as the needs and wants of those who feed from them - those who benefit from their work, via surplus value - drive them to raise prices and lower payouts. Trimming away the fat an inch at a time. Every way we look, we see businesses focusing on making cuts and savings - and do those ever result in lowered prices? Of course not, they aren't FOR lowering prices. It's the snake gobbling more of its tail.
It's been pointed out that the less the average individual gets paid, the less products they can afford to purchase, and the less companies get paid. I believe an accurate term for this is cost-push deflation. It's happening, right now - but as long as we keep cutting and keep kicking and do whatever we can to keep our heads above water, then we don't have to care.
You can see it at work in the wake of Grenfell Tower. Regulatory cuts and basic greed. Lives of the wealthy made easier at the cost of the poor - and for the victims of this travesty of justice, many of them paid the ultimate cost.
For a long time there has been a trend of demonising and persecuting the homeless. As society has...I hesitate to say advanced, so let us say changed, those trends have changed. The boundary has grown bigger. Those who require or receive benefits because they don't have a job were next. Following that, the victims became those who were poor. It won't be long until the next victims are those who are less poor. Inexorably, the serpent is devouring its tail - and soon, it will be the belly that is being fed upon.
How long until the head reaches itself?
How long until Homo Ouroboros autocannibalises to the point of its own demise?
More importantly...
How can we stop it?
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