Dressing a BOUS: Part Two

Barbie Of Unusual Size, in case you're wondering.  I have two:  My Size Barbie (Redhead) and Supersize (18 inch) Pocahontas.  Both of them came in the original clothes.  Pocahontas in a halter and mini skirt.  Rusty (the My Size) in a huge, fluffy bridal gown. 

I found a regular-size boy doll on one of my yard sale/thrift store jaunts and his clothes were way too big.  On impulse, I tried them on Pokey...  they fit!  So she had at least one wardrobe change. 

Mattel says Rusty can wear 4T size.  Mattel isn't wrong, but the clothes hang on her and waistbands need taken in.  That much sewing I can do.  Some experimentation tells me the best fit for her is actually 18 months, if you don't mind miniskirts. And she's Barbie, so we know she can rock the miniskirt.

A regular Barbie comes up to Pokey's boob and Rusty's knee, so they can't really play together.  So Pokey and Rusty are largely decor items and I am trying to dress them seasonally.  For Rusty,  I grab the markdowns after the holiday in question.  She does need short sleeves.  Her Halloween shirt was made to look like layers and I snipped off the long portion. 

Pokey required more research and creativity...  both my strong points!  Turns out a woman's knee sock, cut off at the heel and trimmed around the hem with lace (to hide my clumsy stitching) makes a strapless dress for Pokey.

Rusty's set for Valentine's Day, Halloween, patriotic holidays, football season, and even "dress-up" occasions.  Pokey has Christmas and Valentine's Day, along with a classic "little black dress".  But now that I've figured this out, they'll be set in no time! 

The Lazybones Guide to Doll Customization

I've been looking at DIY Barbie videos on You Tube.  My favorite is My Froggy Stuff.  She is into doll photography and creates dioramas for them.  The only problem with her crafts is that she intends them for much gentler play than my dolls get.

A good bit of the things I've done with/for my dolls, though, has been inspired by her.  I just have to find ways to make it sturdier and less complicated.  She creates rooms - bedrooms, kitchens, classrooms, even grocery stores - from cardboard boxes and various craft supplies.  That's too much like work for me.

Instead of doing all that, I invested in a strong dollhouse.  It's meant for American Girl type dolls, which gives me huge rooms for my Barbies.  On their scale, we're talking 8 X 16 rooms with eleven or twelve foot ceilings.  (A fashion doll house usually gives them  8 by 8 rooms with very little overhead clearance.)  

Unlike the interior walls of many dollhouses, these are not printed with pictures of furniture.  Just "wallpaper".  Wall art in the kitchen consists of dollar-store coasters and stickers.  Small decals (human scale) make for large wall art (doll scale). The back of a calendar of old-fashioned pin-up girls - the area that shows all twelve months' pictures - is a poster in the boys' room.  Some other things you can find on their walls are logos from Nerf gun packaging, an educational card about a fish called the sarcastic fringehead, and stickers.

The only furniture I've made myself is a pedestal bed made from a storage box.  I just covered the lid with fabric and added a colorful head board.  Nothing nearly as complex as some of those DIY videos do.  Most of the other furniture is Barbie or Monster High brand.  Very little of it was purchased new.  I love my yard sales!

The dolls themselves I don't do a lot of work on.  What I do is usually rebodying. For example, a doll with a very interesting face but a non-articulated body meets an articulated doll with a Vapid Face and a matching skin tone.  I pop the heads off and switch them!  Very few dolls the size of Skipper or smaller are articulated, so my younger set remains stiff-armed.  At least the legs are usually bendy. 

I don't try to reroot hair or repaint faces.  I have been known to trim hair if the hair is impossible to comb out or if it combs out unevenly, but that's the extent of it.  I'm amazed at the work I see in the videos and blogs, but I just do not have those skills or that much patience.  

White Privilege Revisited

I wrote a previous blog on the subject, which I'll summarize here.  In the previous blog, I took the position that white privilege does not exist.  I have since rethought the issue, learned more about it, and have relaxed that position.

My previous position came from having only been exposed to the issue by the polarized.  The fanatics, if you will.  As a result, the issue was not clearly explained and I felt attacked.  Cooler heads have since prevailed. 

Yes, I and my white brethren do get bullied (by civilians and by cops).  We do have to pay a debt to society if we break the law.  We did have ancestors who were mistreated and sometimes even enslaved.  We've had to work crappy jobs, live in crappy homes, and had folks misjudge us by appearance.   

American society has largely been shaped by rich WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) males.  Anyone who fails to meet that criteria automatically becomes somehow lesser.  The more of that criteria you fail to meet, the lesser you are.  The non-whites who get away with shenanigans that I mentioned in my previous blog do meet some of the criteria.  (Looking at you, Cosby.) 

The way history has played out, most non-whites are still struggling with poverty.  They are not WAS, even if they are P.  Half of them aren't male.  This is what folks are really referring to when they talk about white privilege. 

For example, it's against federal law to deny someone a job because of their race or sex, but it still happens.  The guy doing the hiring may not even realize it.  We're taught to prefer "normal" and that's usually based on the WASP model.  We are not doing it on purpose - at least not most of us - but we do it.  Even those of us, like me, who feel that being called a racist is a most vile insult.

I use race as a shorthand descriptive device.  What's Bob look like?  He's a skinny black dude.  Where'd we park?  Over by where that Mexican lady is loading groceries into her car.  Strictly speaking, that's racist.  Why is their race what makes them stand out to me?  Because I've been socialized to think of WASP as the norm. 

That doesn't make me a racist in the general meaning.  It just means we all, as humans, need to work harder on seeing what we have in common.

Triggered

I've seen a meme of C-3PO shutting down after Luke and Obi-Wan start talking about Luke's father labeled "Triggered".  On one level, it struck me as funny.  On another, thought provoking... can an artificial life form be triggered in that sense?  But..  The maker of the meme was mocking the mentally ill!  What a horrible person!

I once got an email urging me to boycott the T-Shirt I was actually wearing.  It was, like the meme, mocking the mentally ill!  Those who made it, those who laugh at it, and those who wear it are all horrible people!

Today I was reading a news story about a famous murder case and the comment section was full of condemnation for the reporters.  By writing a story which sells (the entire purpose of most mass media), they were propagating the horror the victim's family has gone through.  This struck me as very like the reaction to the meme and also quite hypocritical.

Why hypocritical?  Two words: Nine.  Eleven.

Every year on that date, one of the most horrific things that ever happened on American soil gets revisited ad nauseam.  This is a very real psychological trigger for countless people.  To this day, I can still hear the voice I think of as the "Oh my god" lady.  

In 2011, I was working in the Discharge Office of a local hospital.  I collected co-pays and screened patients for possible bill assistance.  I also sat less than fifty feet from a television I could not turn off, one that replayed the footage repeatedly for weeks after the event. Thank my god, I couldn't see the screen, but I could hear it.  "Oh my god" lady and all.

I was fortunate.  My nephew was on his honeymoon in the DC area, but he wasn't near the Pentagon that morning.  I didn't know anyone who died that day.  I may not even know anyone who knew someone that did.  But thousands of us are walking around with psychological scars simply from witnessing it on the television.

The only way to avoid it is to pull the plug on everything, including your phone.  For those of us who work or go to school, that isn't possible.  The same people who get mad over a meme, a T-shirt, a news story, are getting mad if you neglect to trigger the thousands of victims of 9/11.  Social media, including emails and text, is flooded with detailed photos of the towers going down.  The mass media runs commemorative stories, usually with the same detailed photos or (worse) video.

The C-3PO meme is mocking those who think everything they don't like is a trigger.  My crazy aunt T-Shirt is whistling past the graveyard.  I will continue to enjoy those things at least as long as giving me a week's worth of nightmares every fall is encouraged.  God only knows what it puts those with real trauma from 9/11 through.

I Confess - I Don't Deserve Motherhood

Another tragic baby death in the news.  Another wave of judgement on the parents, who are already suffering the worst fate I can imagine.  But I guess now I know why God, or the Fates, or whoever you want to blame, denied me the one thing I wanted most out of life.

I'm not worthy of motherhood.  I've lost track of children in public places, which makes it very possible that one could have fallen into the Gorilla Enclosure.  I've forgotten the baby in the car because I wasn't used to having a baby in the car or because my mind was otherwise occupied.  It truly is a miracle that the dozens of children I helped raise lived to puberty.

How did Josh survive those repeated vacations with me?  What were his parents thinking, to allow him to travel farther than fifteen yards with such a terrible caretaker?  And then - horrors - Josh allowed his child to fly cross-country in my care!  Well, the grandparents went, too, but...   you know, the same folks who let Josh travel with me...  

My minions "know better" than to wander off.   But they still did and they still do.  I worry about children who don't simply forget the rules in exploring the wonders around them.  By the time they hit double digits, my minions know what to do if lost - or if grabbed.  Yes, I teach them of the dangers.  These things, apparently, render me unsuitable for parenthood.

As for the car, I guess my minions have been lucky that I had other people around to call me on my negligence.  The toddler who interrupted me (even though she knew better) to remind me about the baby - she saved Baby Sister from being MURDERED.  

I'm stunned that my flouting of gender roles for children hasn't resulted in a Pride Parade at family reunions.  And don't even get me started on the heinous crime of letting them have dirty faces or mismatched clothes.  But, thank the Higher Powers, my baby-forgetting and child-losing uterus produced nothing larger than that damn fibroid.  

Appropriation or Appreciation?

We hear so much about Cultural Appropriation like it's a bad thing.  Appropriate can mean steal or usurp, but it can also mean borrow or adopt.  Borrowing and adopting come from appreciation.  The Great American Melting Pot is and was all about appropriation - we borrow ideas from one another. The whites came here from Europe and took some ideas from the folks that already lived here.  Those folks took some ideas from the Europeans.  Corn for metal tools, maybe, or booze for tobacco. Italian immigrants traded recipes with their German neighbors.  

My own lineage is mostly German and Irish.  I have a friend who is Sioux.  Are we not allowed to celebrate Christmas because it's largely based on Mediterranean traditions?  Of course we can - we appropriated it because we appreciated it.  The Mother Earth/Father Sky motif reflects my beliefs much more accurately than anything else.  Ethnic foods are just plain yummy.  I am not victimizing anyone by braiding my hair.  No one is being hurt because my names are (in order of appearance) Latin, French, and German.  

That's not to say it's never a problem.  Plagiarism is a form of appropriation and the only people that approve of it are the plagiarists.  Eminent Domain is appropriation, but every time a government uses it, there is an outcry.  But it's hardly the problem it's made out to be.

A white dude that wears dreadlocks is not appropriating black culture.  Many European cultures (and some native to the Americas) wore similar styles or maybe he just appreciates the look.  There are legitimate reasons why a non-Asian might wear a kimono.  

Most Americans, regardless of race or religion, start the day with a cup of coffee.  Coffee was invented by Arabs and adopted by Europeans.  Sometimes they have grits, made from corn and borrowed from the natives of North America, for breakfast.  If they eat spaghetti or pizza, they're appreciating Italian food.  Maybe they have popcorn in the evening (see previous mentions of corn) for a snack.  

Think for a moment of all the things you enjoy that came from a different place than your DNA. Those things were all appropriated, borrowed, adopted...  because they were appreciated.  Some of the things others enjoy were benignly filched from your ancestors.  And that's okay.  No harm, no foul.  Usually.  

Tarred With The Same Brush

My mother warred with the school, usually for justifiable reasons,  But there were times... like when my sister didn't want to take a required class or the English teacher who punished my brother for saying "ain't".  A few of my siblings were trouble-makers and the ones who weren't, Mother made up for.

I was the seventh Schmidt to go through that school.  Very few of the faculty saw me as the quiet, scholarly thing I was.  I was a trouble maker from the moment they saw my name on the roll.  One teacher even confronted me the first day of class to tell me as much.  That would have been bad enough, but the class in question was something I was looking forward to.  Eagerly.  Like Christmas. 

Creative Writing.  A subject already near and dear to my heart.  On one assignment, my character was meant to be brutally honest but came across - in the words of a classmate - like "an asshole."  I asked for advice on how to write the character better and the boy responded with something along the lines of "stop being stupid".  She ignored the vulgarity and the verbal abuse.  She had a student, near tears, in her class room and did nothing. 

The "Asshole" incident was only the most egregious example - in that class and in others.  Because I was a Schmidt, I deserved it.  It's on a much smaller scale, I admit, than racism or homophobia or religious prejudice. But the principle is the same. 

I've also been on and off Welfare all my life and been on the receiving end of "Get a job" (usually when I was already employed).  I've had people make snide comments to me because there's no way that lady using Food Stamps is not the mother of those kids that are with her. (I'm The Aunt.) 

I don't get offended at jokes about stereotypes.  I see them as a useful tool against ignorance. I will, however, give you the sharp side of my tongue if you believe those stereotypes.  Most of any given group are good people.  If I defend whites against being tarred by the same brush as the KKK, it is not because I'm white.  I'm just as likely to defend Muslims against the ISIS brush. 

Because no matter who you hit with it, no matter how small it is, that brush bruises souls.

Keyboard Vigilantes

This isn't about Keyboard Warriors - that would be a case of the pot calling the kettle black.  A good Keyboard Warrior is civil, respectful, and logical.  This is about individuals who think they have the right to censor what other individuals say or do.  Not by reporting the offensive thing to the service provider, but by attacking the speaker and anyone who agrees.

Two pictures have sparked outrage and even gotten me unfriended:  Section Eight Barbie and Welfare Barbie.  Section Eight Barbie was the standard blonde - but pregnant, with two or three toddlers around her, and leaning on the wall of stereotype Project Housing.  The children were not the same race as their implied mother.  Welfare Barbie is also the pregnant blonde, but she's pushing a shopping cart full of beer, cigarettes, and toddlers.  None of these toddlers is the same race as their implied siblings.

While no one said in so many words that I wasn't allowed to share or laugh at them, the implication was there.  We who shared the joke and anyone who didn't respond with moral outrage was a racist snob - never mind the fact that many of us have "dated outside our race" and/or are, ourselves, drawing government benefits. Never mind an established pattern of behavior that showed how non-racist and non-snob we are.

In the case of Section Eight Barbie,  the "racist snob" didn't even notice that the children were of a different race.  She saw someone making fun of the official version of Barbie and shared it with me, her favorite Barbie Girl.

I often share Welfare Barbie myself, usually in response to jackasses who believe the Welfare Stereotype. I see the white mom with three kids - one Asian and one black - as nothing more than visual shorthand for promiscuity.

I'm in a Facebook group about The Walking Dead.  You know, that TV show with zombies being the nicest of the bad guys?  Someone there posted a pun about if Judith (a baby) had been caught by the cannibal bad guys she'd be Baby Back Ribs.  You can probably guess the rest.

So...  here is a list of the things I find offensive.  Polarized politics, Willful Ignorance, Thinking men should be able to read women's minds instead of taking them at their word, Looks taking priority over Heart and Brain, Religious fanaticism.  I do not attack people for these things, particularly if they are obviously mocking them.  But I'm the crazy person.

That Neighbor

We all have one.  That neighbor who we want to kick every time we see them.  The one who constantly complains.  "Someone reported me for a minor issue."  My father was one.  My former roomie was one.  When I got my apartment, I vowed not to be That Neighbor.

I can shrug off the kinds of things they raged over.  The neighbors don't pick up after the dogs?  I just watch my step.  Downstairs beats on the ceiling to shush me but plays their TV awfully loud at three in the morning?  I roll my eyes and move on with my life.  I did yell at kids once for playing in the dumpster area.  Once.  For safety reasons.

The apartment down the hall from me belongs to a heavy smoker.  The smell - not actual smoke - permeates, so I just go the other way.  Use the stairs instead of the elevator.  No big deal.  I think the former occupant of my unit smoked, but lots of home remedies took care of the worst of that smell.

In the spring, butts started appearing in the hallways and  the stairwell is often full of smoke. Someone has even taken down the legally required signs.  Over a week after reporting the situation to management, I replaced the signs (printed a photo of the sign by the elevator) even though it's technically against the rules for me to post signs in the public areas.  My signs also vanished.  

Smoking has always been a major bone of contention for me. Smoking is unhealthy, expensive, and just plain stinks.  I went hungry as a child, but my mother always had her cigarettes.  She died a slow, lingering death.  Cancer - started in the lungs.  I don't allow it inside my home and constantly encourage my smoking friends to quit.

Disrespect is also a bone of contention.  I will defend your right to fly a flag others find offensive, for example.  Accidental disrespect happens all the time.  Blatant disrespect - like flying said flag for the sole intent of offending others - is an entirely different thing.

I'll defend your right to have the unhealthy, expensive, and stinky habit.  Smoking while walking down a hallway is accidental disrespect.  (Some smokers light up and don't even realize it.)  Tearing down a No Smoking sign, however, is blatant disrespect.  Smoking in an enclosed area long enough to fill it with smoke is blatant disrespect.  If the same person does both, which seems logical in this context, I don't even have an adjective handy.

I've called the number on the No Smoking signs. I'm still worried about becoming That Neighbor.  I would much rather pack up and move again than do so, but just thinking about doing that makes me want to cry.  Except for this issue, I'm happy here.  

Someday

Head's up, y'all...  this one's gonna ramble.  Something happened this week that touched a couple of nerves.  Not physical nerves, or literally a couple (you know who you are), but a few figurative ones.  

I blogged in the past about empty buildings and the homeless.  Just a few days before the event in question, I was discussing the same with a nephew.  I mentioned The Bodmer, a historic hotel here in my adopted hometown.  It was built in the 1930s as a hotel.  Beautiful architecture, massive building.  And it's been sitting unused for 30 years.  It's a local landmark.  Well, it was.  Turns out I was wrong when I told the nephew it was structurally sound.  One wall collapsed and took out another empty building next to it, which may have broken a third building (which is in use).  Both empty buildings were uninsured and neglected.  Why own them if you aren't going to take care of them?!  Likely response - "I was gonna fix it up someday."

My mother had a car.  It spent most of my childhood in the back yard, weeds grown up around it.  She did get it barely running from time to time.  But most of my memories of that car involve weeds and wheel-well wasps.  She had intentions of "fixing it up someday".  She eventually lost the house and the car went with it.  I have a few things I want to fix up someday, but I find a use for them and take care of them to the best of my ability in the meantime.  I don't park them in the backyard and let wasps live in them.  I don't let them collapse into Second Street and maybe bust another person's head or property.

I have a little table, for example.  The legs are wrought-iron or look like it.  I've painted them with Rustoleum just in case.  At some point, the glass top broke and my grandmother covered it with shelf liner so she could continue to use it.  Right now the top is a shelf from a broken TV stand - ironic, since I still think of it as Mamma's TV table.  My printer sits on it.

We had a lot of antique furniture when I was a kid, and some of the pieces are still around (I have seven siblings, after all) but far too many of them rotted away as they waited for Someday.  The legs broke off one of them - a huge, heavy buffet table - and I improvised legs for it and still used it. Looked awful, but damage was being minimized and it was still in use.  Eventually, it got "put away" for the proper repairs it would get Someday.  It's gone now.

I always said I'd hike the Appalachian  Trail... Someday.  I didn't stay in shape, I didn't save my pennies for gear, and now I know it's never going to happen.  Even if I come into millions, my poor ole body couldn't take it.  The owners of those buildings and my mother never got their Someday, either, at least in part because of their own lack of forethought.

If you want to do it, and you can't right now, take steps to make it possible if Someday ever comes. Don't let your Bodmer rot away because you can't fix it perfectly right now.  Upkeep, to the best of your ability, will make Someday much easier if it ever comes.

You can't write that!

Over the years, I've gotten grief for writing about characters that are different from me.  The main one has been racial - I have no right to use Cherokee characters because I am not Cherokee.  Never mind my deep respect for all native cultures, the things all humans have in common, and mere fact that I love these fictional people.

Using the same logic...  Stephen King shouldn't write about all manner of supernatural creatures, rabid dogs, or gunslingers.  The Hillerman Navajo Tribal Police books should not exist.  JK Rowling should have never written the Harry Potter series.  Entire genres of fiction should not be - in fact, fiction itself should not be.

A wise man once said a writer should take "write what you know" with the widest possible interpretation.  He also said that every character you create is partly you.  I don't remember if it was from the same wise man, but another good rule is "write what you are passionate about".

My Cherokee character started out in a tertiary role.  I made him Cherokee simply to add some diversity to the setting.  Once he grew on me, I learned as much as I could.  And that was when the grief-givers appeared.  I'm willing to bet those are the same people who complain about all white folks thinking the Cherokee live in teepees.

I've gotten praise from lesbians for my portrayal of a lesbian relationship - and I all I do is write them like any couple. Olivia is surprised when they get invited to Ann's ex-husbands wedding.  Ann thinks Olivia is too frugal.  They don't bicker over the teenager's curfew, but only because it never comes up.  My characters "of color" have never drawn criticism for being inaccurate.  Granted, I'm writing in a modern setting, but still...

I write what I know, what I'm passionate about.  Olivia, despite having a Korean mother and a wife, is probably the most like me.  A large part of Megan is based on my brother-in-law.  I will not apologize for having characters that are not small-town straight white girls.  I will ignore you if my attempts to accurately portray a world in which I never lived are met by contempt.  I will embrace you (maybe even literally) if you help me do it!

Confederate Statues

There's an old saying "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it".  This is one of the reasons I oppose removing statues of Confederate heroes.  How are people supposed to learn from history if  everyone is pretending it never happened?  We should emulate Germany - they start teaching kids young about the Nazis.  It's virtually impossible for that to happen again.

The men being memorialized in these statues do have redeeming qualities, too.  Some of them were military geniuses.  Many of them lost everything for The Cause, misguided as that cause may have been, and some of them were even against slavery.  The old chestnut about the Civil War being about State's Rights does have a basis in reality.  Robert E. Lee was a slaveholder, yes, but he fought on that side because Virginia left the Union.

White Supremacists look up to them for all the wrong reasons, and I understand that this is a problem.  How is tearing down these statues and banning a flag going to stop them?  It isn't.  It's like forbidding your teenager to date someone you disapprove of - it will just make them more determined to do it.  A far better course, in both cases, is patience and respectful communication.  The days when the scientific community believed one race was better than another are gone.  The days when people shrugged off hatred are gone.  Today, a business that refuses service to someone (except troublemakers) is vilified.  White Supremacy is on the way out.

We can learn from history.  We can look up to Lee for reasons that have nothing to do with race relations, or even take into consideration the times in which he lived.  But not if we pretend he never existed.  Not if we insist upon focusing on his faults.

By today's standards, Lincoln was a racist.  Grant owned slaves.  Most of our founding fathers owned slaves, as far as that goes.  Several past presidents, including some scarily recent ones, allowed cultural and physical genocide of indigenous peoples.  Shall we tear down all those monuments?  Ban all their flags?

Leave the statues where they are.  Erasing the past is incredibly dangerous.  Stop ignoring the strengths and contributions of these people.  Don't ignore the faults but look at all sides of the proverbial coin.  And let them rest in peace.  Even the worst of them deserves that.

Owning My Weakness

That meme is going around again.  The one that says people suffering from Depression are not weak. What's so wrong with being weak, anyway?  The thin crust of ice that forms on a puddle is weak, but it is beautiful.  Everyone has a weakness.  We can all learn to work with our weakness, to compensate for our weakness.  It's rather like an architect putting arches in to strengthen a cathedral ceiling.  Which is - what's the word - oh, yeah, beautiful.

We don't see memes that say "people with diabetes are not weak".  Why is Depression any different?  I think it's because of ignorance.  The old chestnut about every one gets depressed - OK, next time you catch a cold, just put on more clothes.  Everyone gets cold.  Mental illness cannot be willed away any more than physical illness can.  Who would claim that a chronic physical illness is something we fake for attention?

My specific diagnosis is Dysthymia - a Depressive disorder.  One of the problems caused by this weakness is poor memory.  I've learned to write things down and to use mnemonics.   I'm too weak emotionally to have a healthy romantic relationship, so I don't date.  I accept my weakness, I built around it, and focus on my strengths.

Most mental illness is caused by a combination of brain chemistry and past events.  I'm not going to get into the details of my own case.  It is sufficient to say it runs in my family and it doesn't just manifest as Depression.  A lot of mental illnesses share symptoms with, or are diagnosed right alongside, Depression.  Sometimes Depression is a symptom.

You cannot understand a person's illness unless you have suffered from it yourself - and even then, there is a limit to how much you can understand.  I've known lots of addicts and cancer patients. I've known other Dysthymics. But I can only identify with them for part of the struggle because it's different for everyone.

Speaking as a person with Depression...  Yes, I am weak.  But I own it.

Nothing New

I don't remember how the conversation started, as it is with conversations, but my nephew and I were talking about how people like to label something a rip-off.  The example he used was within the sci-fi genre, specifically Star Trek's phasers and Star Wars' blasters, but then he moved on to another genre - the romance novel.  They all seem to start with the main characters hating each other but then they fall in love.  My response: "The Walking Dead totally ripped that off."

That was about the entire exchange, but it got me thinking.  Don't most iconic relationships, in any genre, follow that pattern?  Not just romances - buddy films come to mind.  The relationship in which you meet, are compatible, and remain friends just isn't compelling storytelling.  Even Han Solo and Chewbacca are more entertaining when bickering.

People who do what Josh and I were talking about don't understand a few things.  "Ray guns" are a staple of science fiction.  Sharing a staple with something else in the same genre is not ripping it off.  Using a tried-and-true storytelling technique is not a rip-off of anything that's used it before.  

If I were to write the story of an ordinary young man who finds himself swept into an epic adventure, I would not be ripping off Star Wars.  Or The Legend of Zelda.   It's a classic story called The Hero's Journey.  

There is nothing new under the sun, as the saying goes.  Everything is derivative of something that's gone before.  So what makes a rip-off?  That's a difficult thing to explain - ask any judge asked to decide a plagiarism case. As another saying (sort of) goes, I may not know what a rip-off is, but I know what it ain't.

My Problem With Anarchy

I have, among my friends and family, a handful of Anarchists.  They run the spectrum from the ones who live by the Non-Aggression Principle to the ones who would be okay with rioting in the streets and burning down government buildings.  Like so many other schools of thinking, there are a million subcategories.  Anarchy, for the purposes of this blog, is defined as a lack of government and an anarchist is someone who believes that would be a good thing.

My issue with Anarchy really does boil down to definitions, so bear with me while I supply a couple of others.  Government: The governing body of a community.  Govern (verb): To conduct policy, actions, and affairs of.  Strictly speaking, according to these definitions, a mother is the governor of her child.

I am aware that the scenarios I'll be using are fictional.  I've chosen them because the characters are very realistic, and act as I believe nonfictional people would in similar situations.  The scenarios in question?  Lost and The Walking Dead.

Lost gives us the ole desert (actually jungle) island story.  When it becomes evident rescue is not coming, what do they do?  They look to a leader.  Jack makes and enforces policy.  He decides what actions the survivors will take.  He even handles "affairs" like another man's refusal to turn over medical supplies looted from the wreckage. These people are dropped into a totally anarchist (no government) situation and one of the first things they do is appoint a leader.  A government, by the definition given above.

The same thing applies to The Walking Dead.  Thanks to a zombie apocalypse, the characters are living in anarchy.  So what do they do?  Look to leaders:  Shane, Rick, Hershel, Gareth, Dawn, Deanna, Negan, Ezekiel, Gregory, some whose names escape me.  Every one of them makes and enforces policy for his or her community.  Every one of them decides the actions of the larger group.  Every one of them deals with "affairs" like whether or not to merge groups.

Going from there, it seems to me that nonfictional people would do the same.  Yes, there would be the loners like Lost's Sawyer who are a community unto themselves. But humans, for the most part, are social creatures.  We group.  We look for guidance, for leadership.  Thus my problem - anarchy is not the natural state of the human being.

Small, local government is the natural state of the human being.  The United States of America got its name from that very notion.

The Brains of The Young

Got into a discussion the other day, if you can imagine such a thing happening to me.  The topic at hand was the apparent homosexuality of a Disney character, but it rapidly became about something very different.  The other party insisted repeatedly that children are not capable of understanding homosexuality.

I've been a very hands-on aunt for most of my life.  My minions count in the dozens.  I've never come across a subject that children could not comprehend on some level.  You "dumb it down" for them, but they are capable of understanding.

Recently, I explained the transgender thing to a child.  I "dumbed it down" to having a girl brain in a boy body.  His head did not explode and he now understands the basic issue. We do have to be careful with our terminology - lesbians don't just love women, it's the getting-married kind of love.  We don't want little Suzie to decide she's clinically depressed because sometimes she feels sad.

Something else I've noticed about children is that they are more receptive to difference.  Race or religion are good touchstones here.  At a park, the kids all run and play together and it's no big deal if this one's a different color or that one won't eat a ham sandwich.  In fact, a conversation about those differences might start - thus they learn something about each other.  Adults could take a lesson.

It infuriates me that people so readily dismiss the brains of the young.  I have to laugh at some of the things I read in parenting magazines because otherwise I'd cry.  So much of that advice is stuff I've always done, without effort.  "When in the park, talk to the child about the various animals and plants you see."  WHO NEEDS TO BE TOLD THAT!?

Note I did not mention my position on having a girl brain in a boy body, or of wanting to marry a member of the same sex.  That all is really beside the point of this post.  The point here is simple.  Children are not stupid.  Simple, yes, but not stupid.

The Wall

Building a wall along the Mexican border is a waste of money, time, and resources.  It would violate the rights of at least one reservation and God only knows how many property owners.  It would disrupt ecosystems for thousands of miles.  While there is definitely a problem with illegal immigration from Mexico, there are better ways to deal with it.

Let's look at why these folks are coming here.  They are poor, hungry, maybe in need of medical care they can't get in Mexico.  In the same situation, would a wall stop you?  Even one as big and ugly as being proposed?  Would you dig a tunnel? Take a plane or boat?  I know they aren't going to build a wall along the Gulf coast.  Too many communities along there depend upon the tourism a wall would kill. Or will they build it a few miles out and only kill wildlife?

The Mexicans are coming for work they know they can get.  We need to start punishing those hiring them.  Get INS workers out in the field (sometimes literally) and jail the ones taking advantage of the desperate.  Why are we punishing them for accepting an opportunity when offered?  For doing the same thing we might, in the same situation?

I'm willing to bet my solution would be a lot less expensive than a wall.  The only rights being violated would be those of criminals and, as far as I can tell, no damage would be done to any ecosystem.  But, ya know, I'm nobody.  Just another freeloader.

Am I Better Off Than Eight Years Ago?

"Are you better off than you were eight years ago?" is the recurring theme on my social media, with the transfer of Presidents happening today.  It's more of that ridiculous thinking that the President has The Power Supreme, that everything that's happened during his term is his doing.  So...  lets look at where I was eight years ago.

I was living with my nephew, his wife, and their toddler son.  I don't remember if I was still working, but if I was it was at McDonald's.  I have an Associate's Degree and I was flipping burgers.  (In the years since getting my degree, I had one job that sort-of fell into the area of Social Work and none that I couldn't have gotten just with my diploma. But I digress.)

I had, besides the ones I lived with, a slew of minions and grandminions.  In the years Obama was in office, those numbers increased.  Pretty sure he wasn't at any of those weddings or conceptions.  I made some new friends, mostly on-line, and developed new interests.  Don't remember Obama introducing me to any of that.  My father died in 2010, but that was cancer, not Obama.  But that's all personal stuff.  Let's look at the financial scene, which is what the question really refers to.

Now I'm on Disability and Welfare.  It's not much, but it's a steady income and I now have a little apartment of my own. My degree is framed on the living room wall.  So in that aspect, am I better off?  Is a steady income "leeched" off the government better than unsteady income from part-time low-wage work while I'm expected to pay back Student Loans?

I think it is.  Vindication is a wonderful thing.  I value the fact that finally, after all these years, someone in authority has recognized my problem.  If someone in authority had done so thirty years ago and given me the help I needed then, maybe I'd be working today.  But Obama did not do that.  The system that did that was in place before Obama was elected.

Obama did good things.  Obama also did bad things.  Everything he did, however, was within the system created centuries ago.  Yeah, it's been fine-tuned since then, but it is basically the same.  I'm better off than I was eight years ago, but Obama didn't do that.  I did that, with the help of the system that was around before Obama took office.