fetid putrefaction

Regardless of who you are or where you come from, if you do not feel outrage, anguish, and grief for these innocent lives lost, something is amiss, and you must consider why you lack the drive to take action.

Puppy netsuke PNGs.

Interview With Jamison Green. Originally posted on Youtube, by Dr. Lindsey Doe.

TRANSCRIPT: [Jamison Green sitting on a couch, being interviewed by Dr. Doe. He is wearing a suit shirt and a black jacket, and has a grey beard.] JAMISON: When I first transitioned, I thought I was going to go get a sex change, then go home and mow my lawn. I did not ever imagine that my life would change at all, because already people- at least half the time, sometimes more- thought I was male. And so, I figured nothing was going to change, I would just feel more comfortable in my body. I realised that there were all these other people out there who were living in fear and shame, because of their differences. And I thought, that is not right. And so I said to them, I’m going to start using my full name in public, and I’m going to start talking about who we are. Don’t be afraid to change in all kinds of ways. Your self can change. [Jamison and the interviewer high-five.] INTERVIEWER: I’m impressed by what you’ve done. JAMISON: Thank you. END TRANSCRIPT.

Jamison Green was born in 1948. He came out as a trans man the late 1980s and made his transition public, for the benefit of others. He has been an activist since then, and led the FTM community after Lou Sullivan's death.

His contributions to trans rights have been largely erased by mainstream narratives around trans history.

i. Frontline Might.

ii. Monarch.

iii. Fencer's Pride.

iv. Whatever It Takes.

v. Shadow Arts.

anyways.

(link to the archived page with the original headline)

The task of the Palestinian is to be palatable or to be condemned. The task of the Palestinian, we’ve seen in the past two weeks, is to audition for empathy and compassion. To prove that we deserve it. To earn it.

In the past couple of weeks, I’ve watched Palestinian activists, lawyers, professors get baited and interrupted on air, if not silenced altogether. They are being made to sing for the supper of airtime and fair coverage. They are begging reporters to do the most basic tasks of their job. At the same time, Palestinians fleeing from bombs have been misidentified. Even when under attack, they must be costumed as another people to elicit humanity. Even in death, they cannot rest — Palestinians are being buried in mass graves or in old graves dug up to make room, and still there is not enough space.

If that weren’t enough, Palestinian slaughter is too often presented ahistorically, untethered to reality: It is not attributed to real steel and missiles, to occupation, to policy. To earn compassion for their dead, Palestinians must first prove their innocence. The real problem with condemnation is the quiet, sly tenor of the questions that accompany it: Palestinians are presumed violent — and deserving of violence — until proved otherwise. Their deaths are presumed defensible until proved otherwise. What is the word of a Palestinian against a machinery that investigates itself, that absolves itself of accused crimes? What is it against a government whose representatives have referred to Palestinians as “human animals” and “wild beasts”? When a well-suited man can say brazenly and unflinchingly that there is no such thing as a Palestinian people?

It is, of course, a remarkably effective strategy. A slaughter isn’t a slaughter if those being slaughtered are at fault, if they’ve been quietly and effectively dehumanized — in the media, through policy — for years. If nobody is a civilian, nobody can be a victim.

…

Take it from a writer: There is nothing like the tedium of trying to come up with analogies. There is something humiliating in trying to earn solidarity. I keep seeing infographics desperately trying to appeal to American audiences. Imagine most of the population of Manhattan being told to evacuate in 24 hours. Imagine the president of [ ] going on NBC and saying all [ ] people are [ ].Look! Here’s a strip on the edge of the Mediterranean Sea. That’s Gaza. It is about the same size as Philadelphia. Or multiply the entire population of Las Vegas by three.

This is demoralizing work, to have to speak constantly in the vernacular of tragedies and atrocities, to say: Look, look. Remember?That other suffering that was eventually deemed unacceptable? Let me hold it up to this one. Let me show you proportion. Let me earn your outrage. Absent that, let me earn your memory. Please.

…

Here’s another thing I know as a writer and psychologist: It matters where you start a narrative. In addiction work, you call this playing the tape. Diasporically or not, being Palestinian is the quintessential disrupter: It messes with a curated, modified tape. We exist, and our existence presents an existential affront. As long as we exist, we challenge several falsehoods, not the least of which is that, for some, we never existed at all. That decades ago, a country was born in the delicious, glittering expanse of nothingness — a birthright, something due. Our very existence challenges a formidable, militarized narrative.

But the days of the Palestine exception are numbered. Palestine is increasingly becoming the litmus test for true liberatory practice.

In the meantime, Palestinians continue to be cast paradoxically — both terror and invisible, both people who never existed and people who cannot return.

When i was a little kid, i had a "4d puzzle" of new york city.

You built the cardboard jigsaw base, then the foam island, and then you had plastic buildings and bridges.

And it had instructions to place the buildings in chronological order, as well as a timeline, hence "4d".

And i just fucking remembered. In 2001 on the timeline a step was "remove buildings #xx and #xy (World Trade Centers)" with no other explanation.