Looking at the results for WI, Trump won by 0.9%. Jill Stein got 1% of the vote and Gary Johnson 3.6%. Argh. Why have people not learned from 2000?

Watching a cat special on PBS. Apparently cats have stronger bites than dogs, because of shorter muzzles.

A mental palate cleanser.

Looking at the results for WI, Trump won by 0.9%. Jill Stein got 1% of the vote and Gary Johnson 3.6%. Argh. Why have people not learned from 2000?

Or 1992 (was that the Perot year?)

Dropped Noah off at Boy Scouts and had to leave. Nope. Not today. Thanks.

Or to quote U.S. Grant: "Retreat? No. I propose to attack at daylight and whip them."

I needed a quote like this now. If I can find or make an arty image of it, it may replace "Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief..." as my new desktop background.

I'm heartsick and enraged. All day I walked around looking at my friends and coworkers who are immigrant, Latinx, Muslim, LGBT, etc. and all I could think was, "Half the country hates my beautiful city and the lives we live in it." And since Annabel recently came out as agender, my fears are so, so very personal now.

So I'm about to become a card-carrying member of the ACLU. And I'm going to try to be more activist and less slacktivist from now on. I got an email from a group I donated to once that's trying to bring greater accountability to police here in WA. They're looking for donations and people to gather signatures for a ballot initiative to increase civilian oversight of policing. That's a fight I can join. And we live a few blocks from the largest mosque in Seattle, and a lot of Annabel's classmates are Muslim. I feel like reaching out to them somehow, but I'm not sure how. "Hi, I'm you're white Episcopalian neighbor up on 105th. If you need anything, I've got your back" sounds a little awkward. Oh, and speaking of being Episcopalian, I'm going back to church. I've been skipping out of depression-fueled extreme introversion since Easter, but that church is on the side of social justice and is a community I'm already sorta involved in.

Kalshane, I'm so deeply glad your wife and son are okay, but ye gods and little fishhooks what a worst possible week of all weeks for it to happen.

{{{All my Buffistas}}} And, fuck, here come the tears again.

I just unfriended a bitter sulky Jill Steinbot friend from high school. Nothing she'd posted had scrolled along my feed yet, but I didn't want to see it at all. She hates and fears Trump, depends on the ACA, *knows* that Hillary would have made preserving and improving it a priority, and was absolutely depending on her mainstream-party friends to do the heavy lifting of canvassing and texting and volunteering and donating and getting out the vote and making sure Hillary made it into office so she could still cast her precious unicorn vote for Stein because her woobie had the nomination stolen from him -- it was crystal clear that she desperately wanted Hillary elected but wouldn't lift a finger to facilitate that.

And I know that she's just post a traumatic breakup and has a chronic pain disorder and has only had it medicated and treated for just this last year and is facing a lifetime of intractable pain, but I cannot find any charity in my heart for her. I won't always, but right now I fucking HATE her. I could cry with hating, and with how shitty it feels to hate someone racked with pain this way. But I can't, right now. So, unfriend.

And meantime there are Buffistas and others unfriending family members, and how can I whinge about this bullshit?

FUCK. I wanted to think better of us as a country. I was never a rah-rah patriot, but I thought we could be better. This week put paid to that delusion.

White people interested in racial justice work might look into SURJ: [link]

I found this Cracked post that one of my friends shared today a little reassuring: [link] Still pissed/saddened/shocked/what-have-you, but feeling mildly reassured.

Has anyone worked with SURJ? I started looking into some kind of working group on race early this year but couldn't find anything that I felt ready to go with.

Coincidentally I just posted this today to another board I'm on:

I'm going to ask something I'm scared to ask. I'm asking it here even though the type of politics it is is not writing reps. I'm asking it here because my feed is too small for the Q to reach anyone. I know that I struggle with the racism I've taken in just from growing up in a country of institutionalized racism. I'm one of those people who "means well" but likely has tons of blind spots as well as prejudices that have grown as a result of having bad experiences with individuals that get generalized to whatever group they're a member of when those experiences rack up. I have been making an effort but I want to do better. And I don't think a working group composed entirely of white liberals is going to cut it. Yet I also know that people of color and other marginalized groups are sick to death of feeling like they have to educate. But I really feel a need to have dialogue. To listen and be listened to and to try to improve myself. Is there any interest in participating in such a group if it existed here on _________? Or is this a nuts idea and I should just keep working on stuff on my own...

Thanks for that, Kat. That's good to read.

I just did another nextdoor wine night and it confirmed once again. Lots of hugs, new people old and young to the hood. And lots of how do we fix this? This ain't right, how do we reach out?