vagabond filmmaker

“The top-line outrage here is clear but it’s so astounding that it bears repeating: The president is using the powers of his office to settle not just political but private scores against someone adjudged by juries to be a victim of his sexual abuse and defamatory attacks. Carroll, 82, has been awarded nearly $90 million by juries in the two Trump cases, whose verdicts he is still appealing. It is abuse heaped on top of abuse.”

"All I know is that I've wasted all these years looking for something, a sort of trophy I'd get only if I really, really did enough to deserve it. But I don't want it anymore, I want something else now, something warm and sheltering, something I can turn to, regardless of what I do, regardless of who I become. Something that will just be there, always, like tomorrow's sky."

“Stop thinking about saving your fragile face. Tell us your particularized world. Make up a story. Narrative is radical, creating us at the very moment it is being created. We will not blame you if your reach exceeds your grasp. We will not blame you if your words go down in flames and nothing is left but the raw-scald. We will not blame you if, with the reticence of a surgeon’s hands, your words suture only the red places where blood might flow. We will not blame you because we know you can never do it properly: once and for all. Passion is never enough. Talent is never enough. Skill is never enough. But try. For our sake and yours. So. Forget your name in the street; tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light. Don’t tell us what to believe, what to fear. Show us belief’s wide skirt and the stitch that unravels fear’s caul. You, so blessed with occasional blindness, can speak the language that tells us what only language can: how to see without pictures. We tell ourselves stories in order to live.”

I just had an argument with someone who was like “why would we settle for food stamps when we could have universal basic income?”

People get pissed at me for being a pragmatist in my political ideals but I’ve been in the position where I was out of food right now.

two spirit is not a "native version" of anything

“As for the disappearance of norms for generations to come, that’s not true. Democrats allow too much by accepting that blasé condemnation of all sides in equal measure. Democrats have and continue to support a national anti-gerrymandering law, one that establishes a uniform set of standards which places the interests of voters first. This race to bottom ends the moment Republicans and Donald Trump agree to back the fair set of rules Democrats are already on record backing. Again, the two sides are not on equal footing. One supports uniform and fair rules, putting the bacillus of partisan gerrymandering and neo-Jim Crow Republican politics back in its bottle. This is not some distant aspiration. It can be done by a vote of Congress and a presidential signature. The corrupt members of the Supreme Court may again abuse their power and claim that such a law is unconstitutional. That only demonstrates the need for reform of the Court. The aims of the two sides here are not equal. One embraces democratic practice, the other doesn’t. We don’t have to bemoan a “race to the bottom” in which there are no good guys and bad guys. The right path forward is a national, uniform set of standards putting voters of all stripes first. The only question is whether Republicans and their corrupt allies on the Supreme Court will let that happen.”

Mother's Day can be a painful reminder, so here's a salute to all the kids and adult children who grew up with absent mothers, angry mothers, negligent mothers, abusive mothers, overly-critical mothers, codependent mothers, overwhelmed and struggling mothers, mothers who ignored your cries for help, mothers who sacrificed your happiness to placate others, mothers who tried to do better but failed, and mothers who didn't try quite hard enough.

Research has revealed that, while rituals are universal across human cultures, the content and actions of those rituals vary widely even when they have the same intended purpose. This suggests that it is not the actions that matter, but that you are taking any action at all and naming it ritual. It can be an elaborate ritual with dozens of moving parts and participants, or it can be as simple as lighting a candle alone with the intent to remember someone.