Google isn't the only search engine in the whole internet, there are others! And we need to diversify our search engine usage or we're gonna end up where we were a decade and change ago with the Internet Explorer issue. We can't let a single brand monopolize everything! This is why Google Search can afford to suck so hard: because people use it regardless! And there are alternatives.
A little bit about search engines, there are 3 types: crawlers, which work by scraping the web and developing their own indexes; metas, which get their results from the crawler-type search engines and therefore depend entirely upon them; and mixed, those which have their own (small) index but also pull results from the crawlers.
Right now, there are a couple of independant crawlers apart from Google, Bing (from Mycrosoft) and Yandex (the Russian one): this are Mojeek and Wiby.
Supporting independant crawlers is the easiest way to fight the shittyfication of the internet.
Mojeek.com is an independant british search engine with its own growing index commited to fighting internet censorship. It's small, and therefore it's usability isn't as good as that of the Big Three, but it doesn't censor, it's fairly respectful of people's privacy, and it doesn't drown you in adds. For those old enough to remember, it's a lot like early 2000s Google: you can find what you need, but if you write "dig shelter" instead of "dog shelter", that's what it's gonna search for. That said, please try to use it and support it as much as you can before we end up entirely dependant on Google, Bing and big corps adds. [click here to go to Mojeek]
Wiby.me is a new indie project that is literally dedicated to bringing back the old-school web. It's goal is to index as many personalized websites as possible, and NOT commercial sites. So, for those of you who can't find any answers to technical questions beyond highschool level because Google buries them under a gazillion commercial sites and other meaningless shit, keep an eye on this project! It has a lot of potential. And, if you know of any personal websites that have great stuff but have been murdered by Google, you can go over to Wiby and submit it to their index. [click here to go to Wiby]
Aside from those, there are also meta search engines you can use to ween yourself off Google and search for random, day to day stuff.
Qwant.com is my go-to hereâit has its own index and pulls from Bing, has relatively little censorship, and is fairly private. This is the one I use on my phone for everyday stuff. [click here to go to Qwant].
Historically, DuckDuckGo has always been a go-to for those who want a search engine that respects your privacy and doesn't censor. Personally, I've never been a fan, and there have been a LOT of scandals in recent years. It supposedly has its own index and pulls from Bing, much like Qwant, but I don't know. I just don't like it. Still, I've added it here for completeness' sake.
If you have Firefox Mobile browser, you can set any of these search engines as your default search engine and you can also add the others as secondary search engines and switch quicky from the navigation bar. If you don't have firefox mobile though, what are you doing with your life??? Go get it!! It is So. Much. Better. You can have add blockers and watch YouTube add free, for free! You can have reader mode and dark mode add-ons! You can have the world oh my goshhhh, drop Chrome!!
4get.ca is my last recommendation: it works a lot like SearX, but honestly better. It doesn't have its own index, but pulls from many others. I think it's the best for reaserch, since it allows you to search for answers from different indexes, is easy to configure, add free, and avoids censorship as much as it can. It's also very privacy conscious, so that's an other plus, and it has that late 90s / early 2000s vibe that I totally dig. [click here to go to 4get]
If you wanna learn more about the topic, you can over to the Search Engine Map [click here] which shows you a bunch of Search Engines and how they relate to each other. Or you can also go over to this one dude's personal website whose done A Lot of reaserch into the topic (way more than me) and seems to be pretty legit, if a little extra. [click here to go to digdeeper.neocities.org] Hope this infodump is useful to someone =D
PS: here's to hoping all the links work!
EDIT: eliminated the "read more". Figured there are enough mega long posts in tumblr, one more won't make no difference lol (tho the version w the read more has been reblogged already, in case you'd rather)
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There's a lot of good comments and tags in the notes, but this one is very important, I feel like it deserves some emphasis.
Part of how authoritarianism works is telling you that you can't stop it. And you can't stop it by yourself. But it wants to stop the train of thought there and let you fall into despair.
You need to remember the next part: you don't have to stop it by yourself.
You're not alone. Take care of your community and let your community take care of you. Supporting each other is so vital.
Ok so my kid had an ear infection, right? As kids often do.
The doctor scraped out a bit of earwax to have a better look inside.
I was sent a bill for $200 PER EAR for this 5 second procedure which I did not give permission for them to do.
That was key- they did not ASK me if they could do this "procedure". And, as I OWN a medical practice (it's me. The medical practice is me, sitting in my house on video calls) I knew to call them when this bill came in to be like "You did not obtain informed consent for this procedure, and it was not en emergency procedure. You had full ability to gain my consent and didn't. I'm not paying."
And the massive hospital who owned the bill said "yuh-huh you do have to pay."
And I said "I own a practice. I know these laws. I do not owe you money for this."
And they conducted an "internal review" and SURPRISE! Decided I totally owed them money and they had never done anything wrong ever.
And so I called my state's Attorney General office, and explained the situation because, as I mentioned, I know the law. The AG got in touch within a couple days to say they were taking the case and would send the massive hospital conglomerate a knock it off, guys letter.
Lo and Behold, today I have a letter where said hospital graciously has agreed to forfeit the payment.
"How not to get screwed over by companies" should be part of civics class.
Know your rights and know who to call when they're infringed on. This whole process cost me $0 and honestly less effort than I would have expected.
May this knowledge find its way to someone else who can use it.
This post is super cute and all but like.... This isn't practical advice. I called the AG???? And they got involved over a $200 bill. Maybe because you yourself are a medical practitioner. Not just your knowledge but also your status.
Civics class wouldn't help most people in this case because the AG will not take on all these cases and most people cannot afford an attorney in this instance or more importantly, the hit to their credit.
The issue is not education over the system, it is the system
I agree the system is a mess but I think education does matter because people seem not to know that this is actually perfectly routine AG office stuff. Iâm not the only person whoâs done this- this is just what they do?
Were they going to get into a lawsuit over my $400 bill? No obviously not. But they printed up a letter on fancy letterhead to say to stop and it worked. They followed up with me the next day to be sure, and so ask how much money they had saved me.
They use dinky cases like mine to track habitual misbehavior of large scale companies to build cases they could actually go to court over.
And because people are shocked- I never spoke to the AG of my state directly. He operates mainly by overseeing a whole crew of people. And this is what those people do.
This didnât happen because Iâm special because of my tiny therapy practice.
This happened because this is what the AG office is for.
âThe problem is systemicâ doesnât mean âand thereâs nothing you can doâ.
This is a systemic problem but that doesnât mean there are no resources to help.
Thank you for clapping back on this. I'm here to reinforce. Yes, you CAN call your state Attorney General office when an entity is doing something illegal, even if it's "only" for $400. You think they don't care a hospital is doing a crime because it's not a big enough crime?
Then you've been trained well by "The System".
Yes, that System you say can't be fought? Where did you get that idea, huh? Who taught you that "small" acts of illegality don't matter? Who made you think that there's no point in fighting back because it will all come to nothing?
Might it be the same entities that benefit if you believe all that?
Gonna pause and let you ponder.
Never. Ever. EVER.
EVER.
Let companies or corporations or hospitals or organizations or any business big or small get away with screwing you over without a fight. Maybe you personally don't win every fight, but you lose 100% of the time you don't try. You'll win more often than you think you will. I know cuz I've done it.
So have others. Attorneys General offices bring lawsuits against businesses all the time. They do so because citizens contacted them to say "someone is doing a crime" and the crime doers did not stop when told and got into way more trouble than if they'd just stopped. FAFO. The Find Out can't happen if you don't even bother to report the Fucking Around.
On that note, as OP said, please know your rights! And, in a situation where you don't but suspect something is hinky, ask! The people of the internet can help! So can librarians! So can many others. Find out what is and is not okay for them to do. If it's not okay, report them! See something, say something.
Additionally, pay attention to State Attorney elections! Here in Minnesota, our AG Keith Ellison has made it a POINT to go after slumlords, has created an entire UNIT in the AG office dedicated to wage theft, and gone after debt relief for people who were conned by those scummy fake universities. And despite MN being a blue state, one of his elections was a fucking NAIL-BITER.
Absolutely fight the system, absolutely go to your AG office if youâre being screwed over, and also pay attention to the people running for AG in the first place.
Government of the people, by the people, and for the people only works if the people make it work. That's you! You're the people.
"Don't bother doing anything because nothing will happen" confused cause with effect: it's really "Nothing will happen if you don't bother doing anything." Yeah, I know, it's a travesty that they don't hand you psychic powers when you take your oath as a civil servant, but until we fix that clear defect in our democracy: you're serving the public, too, when you report fuckers like this.
My insurance denied a claim for a thing I've needed my entire life. I tried talking my way past th he agent and the only thing I got close to was tears of frustration.
My mom didn't start with the bottom rung of the insurance company. She started with an email to the state insurance commissioner and the state health care authority. And CC'd the governor.
I got a call from the health care authority the next day, I didn't have to pay the ~$350 bill, and they used me (with my permission) as an example to fix a contract problem the next time they negotiated gov worker insurance coverage.
Aim high and let them delegate. There are while departments to take care of shit, and they can do more when people report it.
#i HAVE to include context as a classical musician who is *almost*in these spaces #this is from the schleswig-holstein music festival #(presumably faculty????) #which is probably The most selective classical music festival in the goddamn world #these people are some of the best you will ever hear on their respective instruments #this was literally posted originally by the goddamn schleswig-holstein music festival #these are their dudes #classical musician me is being shocked by seeing them on tumblr #yâall donât even know how insane this is #yâall are just enjoying chickens playing saxophone and cornet (via @clockworkouroboros )
#he's so good damn#obvs he doesn't have the same athleticism as the students#but he's so much more in control of his body#he moves much more self assuredly#and doesn't exaggerate the way the more inexperienced ones do#he knows exactly what to do and how to do it naturally#wow
Oh so that's what books mean when they talk about seeing a swordperson or a martial artist move and immediately knowing you're fucked. If I saw someone handle a weapon or switch martial art stances that smoothly and with that economy of motion, I would immediately know I was going to die.
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I read a study once on the fuel efficiency of various types of commuter vehicles (car, bus, train) on a per person basis and the number of people needed riding public transit to match the "efficiency" of cars is shockingly low. A bus needs to carry like 3-4 people to be fuel efficient, and trains require 2-3 per train car. Both often carry two dozen or more during peak hours, more than justifying any perceived requirements for efficiency for the train or bus to provide service the entire day.
"I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues,
"And I'm asking you, sir, at the top of my lungs:
"Stop planting invasives, they're tacky, they're smelly
"They're sticky and messy, they fill folks' noses with jelly!
"Stop planting the Bradfords, the gums, the juglone!
"Stop planting the Eucalyptus--that colourful fire-bomb!
"Please!" said the Lorax, eyes full of tears,
"I haven't seen Chestnut in many long years!
"I haven't seen Sycamore, the Sequoias are wee,
"And as for old Pando, that marvellous tree
"You've built a great fence right across his fine face!
"You've split him in pieces--as though it's your place!
"If the trees were there first, then--yes--leave them be!
"But those no-good invasives planted well after me!
"They were planted by settlers, who razed the land first!"
And he jumped up and down, "They're truly the worst!
"So chop down that Bradford, and chop it down good!
"And plant there a native that you always should
"Have left alone in the first place!" And so saying, he
Picked up my axe and he chopped down that tree!
And he gave me a seed, and said, "Treat him with care!
"Feed him clean water, give him fresh air!
"Grow a forest. Protect them from axes that hack.
Then the Lorax and all of his friends may come back."
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Twenty years ago, February 15th, 2004, I got married for the first time.
It was twenty years earlier than I ever expected to.
To celebrate/comemorate the date, I'm sitting down to write out everything I remember as I remember it. No checking all the pictures I took or all the times I've written about this before. I'm not going to turn to my husband (of twenty years, how the f'ing hell) to remember a detail for me.
This is not a 100% accurate recounting of that first wild weekend in San Francisco. But it -is- a 100% accurate recounting of how I remember it today, twenty years after the fact.
Join me below, if you would.
2004 was an election year, and much like conservatives are whipping up anti-trans hysteria and anti-trans bills and propositions to drive out the vote today, in 2004 it was all anti-gay stuff. Specifically, preventing the evil scourge of same-sex marriage from destroying everything good and decent in the world.
Enter Gavin Newstrom. At the time, he was the newly elected mayor of San Francisco. Despite living next door to the city all my life, I hadnât even heard of the man until Valentines Day 2004 when he announced that gay marriage was legal in San Francisco and started marrying people at city hall.
It was a political stunt. It was very obviously a political stunt. That shit was illegal, after all. But it was a very sweet political stunt. I still remember the front page photo of two ancient women hugging each other forehead to forehead and crying happy tears.
But it was only going to last for as long as it took for the California legal system to come in and make them knock it off.
The next day, weâre on the phone with an acquaintance, and she casually mentions that sheâs surprised the two of us arenât up at San Francisco getting married with everyone else.
âEveryone else?â Goes I, âI thought they wouldâve shut that down already?â
âOh no!â goes she, âThe courts arenât open until Tuesday. Presidents Day on Monday and all. Theyâre doing them all weekend long!â
We didnât know because social media wasnât a thing yet. I only knew as much about it as Iâd read on CNN, and most of the blogs I was following were more focused on what bullshit President George W Bush was up to that day.
"Well shit", me and my man go, "do you wanna?" I mean, itâs a political stunt, it wont really mean anything, but weâre not going to get another chance like this for at least 20 years. Why not?
The next day, Sunday, we get up early. We drive north to the southern-most BART station. We load onto Bay Area Rapid Transit, and rattle back and forth all the way to the San Francisco City Hall stop.
We had slightly miscalculated.
Apparently, demand for marriages was far outstripping the staff they had on hand to process them. Who knew. Everyone whoâd gotten turned away Saturday had been given tickets with times to show up Sunday to get their marriages done. My babe and I, we could either wait to see if there was a space that opened up, or come back the next day, Monday.
âIsnât City Hall closed on Monday?â I asked. âItâs a holidayâ
âOh sure,â they reply, âbut people are allowed to volunteer their time to come in and work on stuff anyways. And we have a lot of people who want to volunteer their time to have the marriage licensing offices open tomorrow.â
âOh cool,â we go, âBackup.â
âMake sure youâre here if you do,â they say, âbecause the California Supreme Court is back in session Tuesday, and will be reviewing the motion that got filed to shut us down.â
And all this shit is super not-legal, so theyâll totally be shutting us down goes unsaid.
00000
We donât get in Saturday. We wind up hanging out most of the day, though.
Itâs⌠incredible. I can say, without hyperbole, that I have never experienced so much concentrated joy and happiness and celebration of othersâ joy and happiness in all my life before or since. My face literally ached from grinning. Every other minute, a new couple was coming out of City Hall, waving their paperwork to the crowd and cheering and leaping and skipping. Two glorious Latina women in full Mariachi band outfits came out, one in the arms of another. A pair of Jewish boys with their families and Rabbi. One couple managed to get a Just Married convertible arranged complete with tin-cans tied to the bumper to drive off in. More than once I was giving some rice to throw at whoever was coming out next.
At some point in the mid-afternoon, there was a sudden wave of extra cheering from the several hundred of us gathered at the steps, even though no one was coming out. There was a group going up the steps to head inside, with some generic black-haired shiny guy at the front. My not-yet-husband nudged me, âThatâs Newsom.â He said, because he knew I was hopeless about matching names and people.
Ooooooh, I go. That explains it. Then I joined in the cheers. He waved and ducked inside.
So dusk is starting to fall. Itâs February, so itâs only six or so, but itâs getting dark.
âShould we just try getting in line for tomorrow -now-?â we ask.
âYeah, Iâm afraid thatâs not going to be possible.â One of the volunteers tells us. âWeâre not allowed to have people hang out overnight like this unless there are facilities for them and security. Weâd need Porta-Poties for a thousand people and police patrols and the whole lot, and no one had time to get all that organized. Your best bet is to get home, sleep, and then catch the first BART train up at 5am and keep your fingers crossed.
Monday is the last day to do this, after all.
00000
So we go home. We crash out early. We wake up at 4:00. We drive an hour to hit the BART station. We get the first train up. We arrive at City Hall at 6:30AM.
The line stretches around the entirety of San Francisco City Hall. You could toss a can of Coke from the end of the line to the people whoâre up to be first through the doors and not have to worry about cracking it open after.
âUh.â We go. âWhat the fuck is -this-?â
So.
Remember why they werenât going to be able to have people hang out overnight?
Turns out, enough SF cops were willing to volunteer unpaid time to do patrols to cover security. And some anonymous person delivered over a dozen Porta-Poties thatâd gotten dropped off around 8 the night before.
Itâs 6:30 am, there are almost a thousand people in front of us in line to get this literal once in a lifetime marriage, the last chance we expect to have for at least 15 more years (it was 2004, gay rights were getting shoved back on every front. It was not looking good. We were just happy we lived in California were we at least werenât likely to loose job protections any time soon.).
Then it starts to rain.
We had not dressed for rain.
00000
Here is how the next six hours go.
Weâre in line. Once the doors open at 7am, it will creep forward at a slow crawl. Itâs around 7 when someone shows up with garbage bags for everyone. Cut holes for the head and arms and youâve got a makeshift raincoat! So youâve got hundreds of gays and lesbians decked out in the nicest shit they could get on short notice wearing trashbags over it.
Everyone is so happy.
Everyone is so nervous/scared/frantic that we wont be able to get through the doors before they close for the day.
People online start making delivery orders.
Coffee and bagels are ordered in bulk and delivered to City Hall for whoever needs it. We get pizza. We get roses. Random people come by who just want to give hugs to people in line because theyâre just so happy for us. The tour busses make detours to go past the lines. Chinese tourists lean out with their cameras and shout GOOD LUCK while car horns honk.
A single sad man holding a Bible tries to talk people out of doing this, tells us all weâre sinning and to please donât. He gives up after an hour. A nun replaces him with a small sign about how this is against Godâs will. She leaves after it disintegrates in the rain.
The day before, when it was sunny, there had been a lot of protestors. Including a large Muslim group with their signs about how âNot even DOGS do such things!â Which⌠Yes they do.
A lot of snide words are said (by me) about how the fact that weâre willing to come out in the rain to do this while theyâre not willing to come out in the rain to protest it proves who actually gives an actual shit about the topic.
Time passes. I measure it based on which side of City Hall weâre on. The doors face East. We start on Northside. Coffee and trashbags are delivered when weâre on the North Side. Pizza first starts showing up when weâre on Westside, which is also where I see Bible Man and Nun. Roses are delivered on Southside. And so forth.
00000
We have Line Neighbors.
Ahead of us are a gay couple a decade or two older than us. Theyâve been together for eight years. The older one is a school teacher. He has his coat collar up and turns away from any news cameras that come near while we reposition ourselves between the lenses and him. Heâs worried about the parents of one of his students seeing him on the news and getting him fired. The younger one will step away to get interviewed on his own later on. They drove down for the weekend once they heard what was going on. Theyâd started around the same time we did, coming from the Northeast, and are parked in a nearby garage.
The most perky energetic joyful woman Iâve ever met shows up right after we turned the corner to Southside to tackle the younger of the two into a hug. Sheâs their local friend whoâd just gotten their message about what theyâre doing and she will NOT be missing this. She is -so- happy for them. Her friends cry on her shoulders at her unconditional joy.
Behind us are a lesbian couple whoâd been up in San Francisco to celebrate their 12th anniversary together. âWe met here Valentines Day weekend! We live down in San Diego, now, but we like to come up for the weekend because itâs our first love city.â
âThen they announced -this-,â the other one says, âand we canât leave until we get married. I called work Sunday and told them I calling in sick until Wednesday.â
âI told them why,â her partner says, âI donât care if they want to give me trouble for it. This is worth it. Fuck them.â
My husband-to-be and I look at each other. Weâve been together for not even two years at this point. Less than two years. Is it right for us to be here? Weâre potentially taking a spot from another couple thatâd been together longer, who needed it more, who deserved it more.â
âDonât you fucking dare.â Says the 40-something gay couple in front of us.
âThis is as much for you as it is for us!â says the lesbian couple whoâve been together for over a decade behind us.
âYou kids are too cute together,â says the gay coupleâs friend. âyou -have- to. Someday -youâre- going to be the old gay couple thatâs been together for years and years, and you deserve to have been married by then.â
We stay in line.
Itâs while weâre on the Southside of City Hall, just about to turn the corner to Eastside at long last that we pick up our own companions. A white woman who reminds me an awful lot of my aunt with a four year old black boy riding on her shoulders. âCan we say weâre with you? His uncles are already inside and theyâre not letting anyone in who isnât with a couple right there.â âOf course!â we say.
The kid is so very confused about what all the big deal is, but thereâs free pizza and the busses keep driving by and honking, so heâs having a great time.
We pass by a statue of Lincoln with âMarriage for All!â and "Gay Rights are Human Rights!" flags tucked in the crooks of his arms and hanging off his hat.
Itâs about noon, noon-thirty when we finally make it through the doors and out of the rain.
Theyâve promised that anyone whoâs inside when the doors shut will get married. We made it. Weâre safe.
We still have a -long- way to go.
00000
Theyâre trying to fit as many people into City Hall as possible. Partially to get people out of the rain, mostly to get as many people indoors as possible. The line now stretches down into the basement and up side stairs and through hallways Iâm not entirely sure the public should ever be given access to. We crawl along slowly but surely.
Itâs after weâve gone through the low-ceiling basement hallways past offices and storage and back up another set of staircases and are going through a back hallway of low-ranked functionary offices that someone comes along handing out the paperwork. âItâs an hour or so until you hit the office, but take the time to fill these out so you donât have to do it there!â
We spend our time filling out the paperwork against walls, against backs, on stone floors, on books.
We enter one of the public areas, filled with displays and photos of City Hall Demonstrations of years past.
I take pictures of the big black and white photo of the Abraham Lincoln statue holding banners and signs against segregation and for civil rights.
The four year old boy we helped get inside runs past us around this time, chased by a blond haired girl about his own age, both perused by an exhausted looking teenager helplessly begging them to stop running.
Everyone is wet and exhausted and vibrating with anticipation and the building-wide aura of happiness that infuses everything.
The line goes into the marriage office. A dozen people are at the desk, shoulder to shoulder, far more than it was built to have working it at once.
A Sister of Perpetual Indulgence is directing people to city officials the moment they open up. Sheâs done up in her nun getup with all her makeup on and her beard is fluffed and be-glittered and on point. âOh, I was here yesterday getting married myself, but today Iâm acting as your guide. Number 4 sweeties, and -Congradulatiooooons!-â
The guy behind the counter has been there since six. Itâs now 1:30. Heâs still giddy with joy. He counts our money. He takes our paperwork, reviews it, stamps it, sends off the parts he needs to, and hands the rest back to us. âAlright, go to the Rotunda, theyâll direct you to someone whoâll do the ceremony. Then, if you want the certificate, theyâll direct you to -that- line.â âCanât you just mail it to us?â âNormally, yeah, but the moment the courts shut us down, weâre not going to be allowed to.â
We take our paperwork and join the line to the Rotunda.
If youâve seen James Bond: A View to a Kill, youâve seen the San Francisco City Hall Rotunda. There are literally a dozen spots set up along the balconies that overlook the open area where marriage officials and witnesses are gathered and are just processing people through as fast as they can.
Thatâs for the people who didnât bring their own wedding officials.
Thereâs a Catholic-adjacent couple there who seem to have brought their entire families -and- the priest on the main steps. Theyâre doing the whole damn thing. Thereâs at least one more Rabbi at work, I canât remember what else. Just that there was a -lot-.
We get directed to the second story, northside. The San Francisco City Treasurer is one of our two witnesses. Our marriage officient is some other elected official I cannot remember for the life of me (and I'm only writing down what I can actively remember, so I can't turn to my husband next to me and ask, but he'll have remembered because that's what he does.)
I have a wilting lily flower tucked into my shirt pocket. My pants have water stains up to the knees. My hair is still wet from the rain, I am blubbering, and I canât get the ring on my husbandâs finger. The picture is a treat, I tell you.
There really isnât a word for the mix of emotions I had at that time. Complete disbelief that this was reality and was happening. Relief that weâd made it. Awe at how many dozens of people had personally cheered for us along the way and the hundreds to thousands whoâd cheered for us generally.
Then we're married.
Then we get in line to get our license.
Itâs another hour. This time, the line goes through the higher stories. Then snakes around and goes past the doorway to the mayorâs office.
Mayor Newsom is not in today. And will be having trouble getting into his office on Tuesday because of the absolute barricade of letters and flowers and folded up notes and stuffed animals and City Hall maps with black marked âTHANK YOU!âs that have been piled up against it.
We make it to the marriage records office.
I take a picture of my now husband standing in front of a case of the marriage records for 1902-1912. Numerous kids are curled up in corners sleeping. My own memory is spotty. I just know we got the papers, and then weâre done with lines. We get out, we head to the front entrance, and we walk out onto the City Hall steps.
It's almost 3PM.
00000
There are cheers, thereâs rice thrown at us, there are hundreds of people celebrating us with unconditional love and joy and I had never before felt the goodness that exists in humanity to such an extent. Itâs no longer raining, just a light sprinkle, but there are still no protestors. Thereâs barely even any news vans.
We make our way through the gauntlet, we get hands shaked, people with signs reading âCongratulations!â jump up and down for us. We hit the sidewalks, and we begin to limp our way back to the BART station.
Iâm at the BART station, weâre waiting for our train back south, and Iâm sitting on the ground leaning against a pillar and in danger of falling asleep when a nondescript young man stops in front of me and shuffles his feet nervously. âHey. I just- I saw you guys, down at City Hall, and I just⌠Iâm so happy for you. Iâm so proud of what you could do. Iâm- Iâm just really glad, glad you could get to do this.â
He shakes my hand, clasps it with both of his and shakes it. I thank him and he smiles and then hurries away as fast as he can without running.
Our train arrives and the trip south passes in a semilucid blur.
We get back to our car and climb in.
Itâs 4:30 and we are starving.
Thereâs a Carls Jr near the station that we stop off at and have our first official meal as a married couple. We sit by the window and watch people walking past and pick out others who are returning from San Francisco. We're all easy to pick out, what with the combination of giddiness and water damage.
We get home about 6-7. We take the dog out for a good long walk after being left alone for two days in a row. We shower. We bundle ourselves up. We bury ourselves in blankets and curl up and just sort of sit adrift in the surrealness of what weâd just done.
We wake up the next day, Tuesday, to read that the California State Supreme Court has rejected the petition to shut down the San Francisco weddings because the paperwork had a misplaced comma that made the meaning of one phrase unclear.
The State Supreme Court would proceed to play similar bureaucratic tricks to drag the process out for nearly a full month before they have nothing left and finally shut down Mayor Newsomâs marriages.
My parents had been out of state at the time at a convention. They were flying into SFO about the same moment we were walking out of City Hall. I apologized to them later for not waiting and my mom all but shook me by the shoulders. âNo! No one knew that theyâd go on for so long! You did what you needed to do! Iâll just be there for the next one!â
00000
It was just a piece of paper. Legally, it didnât even hold any weight thirty days later. My philosophy at the time was âmarriage really isnât that important, aside from the legal benefits. Itâs just confirming what you already have.â
But maybe itâs just societal weight, or ingrained culture, or something, but it was different after. The way I described it at the time, and Iâve never really come up with a better metaphor is, âItâs like we were both holding onto each other in the middle of the ocean in the middle of a storm. We were keeping each other above water, we were each otherâs support. But then we got this piece of paper. And it was like the ground rose up to meet our feet. We were still in an ocean, still in the middle of a storm, but there was a solid foundation beneath our feet. We still supported each other, but there was this other thing that was also keeping our heads above the water.
It was different. It was better. It made things more solid and real.
I am forever grateful for all the forces and all the people who came together to make it possible. Itâs been twenty years and weâre still together and still married.
We did a domestic partnership a year later to get the legal paperwork. Weâd done a private ceremony with proper rings (not just ones grabbed out of the husbandâs collection hours before) before then. And in 2008, we did a legal marriage again.
Rushed. In a hurry. Because there was Proposition 13 to be voted on which would make them all illegal again if it passed.
It did, but we were already married at that point, and they couldnât negate it that time.
Another few years after that, the Supreme Court finally threw up their hands and said "Fine! It's been legal in places and nothing's caught on fire or been devoured by locusts. It's legal everywhere. Shut up about it!"
And that was that.
00000
When I was in highschool, in the late 90s, I didnât expect to see legal gay marriage until I was in my 50s. I just couldnât see how the American public as it was would ever be okay with it.
I never expected to be getting married within five years. I never expected it to be legal nationwide before Iâd barely started by 30s. I never thought Iâd be in my 40s and itâd be such a non-issue that the conservative rabble rousers wouldâve had to move onto other wedge issues altogether.
I never thought that I could introduce another man as my husband and absolutely no one involved would so much as blink.
I never thought Iâd live in this world.
And itâs twenty years later today. I wonder how our line buddies are doing. Those babies who were running around the wide open rooms playing tag will have graduated college by now. The kids whose parents the one line-buddy was worried would see him are probably married too now. Some of them to others of the same gender.
I donât have some greater message to make with all this. Other then, culture can shift suddenly in ways you canât predict. For good or ill. Mainly this is just me remembering the craziest fucking 36 hours of my life twenty years after the fact and sharing them with all of you.
The future weâre resigned to doesnât have to be the one we live in. Society can shift faster than you think. The unimaginable of twenty years ago is the baseline reality of today.
And always remember that the people who want to get married will show up by the thousands in rain that none of those whoâre against it will brave.
If you feel ashamed of getting government provided assistance
whether that's Snap, or cash assistance or housing or insurance or WHATEVER.
I just want to say- I am a tax paying middle class person.
For the love of whatever you find holy, TAKE THE HELP. Seriously. Please. I am paying these taxes, and I am begging you to use that money to make your life better.
I find it tremendously depressing when my tax money goes to tanks for cops or subsidies for billionaires or general colonizing bullshit.
I want my tax money to improve your life. I do not give one single shit what you do with your cash assistance. I don't care if you think you maybe possibly could have gotten by without SNAP. If you can qualify TAKE IT. Eat as well as you can. Live as well as you can.
If you feel bad, picture me, cheering you on with every single choice you make that brings you comfort, stability or joy.
You are not a burden. You are my neighbor. There is enough to go around and I want us all to thrive.
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there was a great study a few years that went into the whole "ppl online are bigger jerks than irl cuz theres a virtual wall and no repercussions" and the researchers were expecting to see that be the case but it turns out that people who were really angry or argumentative online were also found to just be assholes in person and people who were pretty patient and nice online were found to be patient and nice in real person as well
and it just debunked that whole cynical idea that people will naturally be mean if theres no punishment for it
the researchers found that being online didnt make people more hostile, but that being online allowed already hostile people to dominate forum conversations, and the less aggressive people were much less likely to reply or engage, ending in just the aggressive people bickering at eachother
every so often a study comes out that confirms what "everybody knows," and people say "ugh, science proves water is wet," and then we talk about the reasons you might actually want a proper study that you can cite in an argument.
this is the flip side: "everybody knows" that the anonymity of the internet makes ordinary people act like assholes, except when we actually look into the matter, it doesn't. conventional wisdom is quite often wrong! examine all assumptions!
(in all honesty, facebook blew this theory out of the water a while ago. people been losing their goddamn minds on facebook with their real names and photos attached and everybody they know reading their shit. if they act like they don't expect to face consequences, it's less because they're on the internet and more because people like that never expect to face consequences.)
MSNBC canceled the only news shows hosted by non-white anchors, including Joy Reid's incredibly popular show The Reid Out. Rachel Maddow has thoughts on that and the massive changes happening behind the cameras that we knew nothing about. As someone said, she has 'FU money'. She's daring them to fire her, and she has nothing to lose if they do. So why not air all their shit live on air? I love it. First Jim quits live on CNN, and now this. I hope it's just the start of some radical transparency from legacy media.
I haven't seen it here, but on Twitter, a lot of people are like "But she didn't quit, though".
Look, I get it. The idea is if you stay, then you're complicit in their actions, right? But there's another thing to consider: stop giving up real estate to people who do Trump's bidding. We need anyone in legacy media who is committed to telling the truth and not kissing Trump's ass to stay RIGHT where they are if they're not being actively pushed out.
Rachel is a ratings darling for MSNBC. She's got a lot of leeway and can say pretty much whatever she wants. That is more valuable to the cause than her walking away.
Remember that part about not preemptively doing the work for your opponents?
Don't quit the gig. Do the gig loudly in opposition to the management's bullshit and make the HR rep who'd rather you quietly went away have to earn their pay cheque the hard way.
Active ongoing visible resistance force the people who want the benefit of the compliance and the plausible deniability when the pendulum swings back to have to say the quiet bit out loud, and on record.
There's been an expectation that honourably resigning your post, falling on your sword and conducting yourself out will spark the change in heart of the opposition, when really, they're not going to do that in the reverse position, and they're relying on your acts of good honour to be compliance to their asshole agenda.
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