( simplified 11 minute workout )

Tags: exercise, health

This is a response to Yeshe Rabbit's post about the conflict between trans gender and cis gender women at PantheaCon this year. This isn't the first time the issue has come up at PantheaCon. The Wild Hunt has more background.

Disclaimer: I'm cis-gendered and I wasn't at PantheaCon this year. Having said that, I'm afraid that this blog post sounds patronizing to me. I have no doubt that it's well-intentioned but it hits too many points on DerailingForDummies.com.

Some examples
Commitment 1: Denying people the right to express their anger at perceived injustices, or circumscribing their anger with unrealistic rules.

Commitment 2: Leading with study material for the relatively under-privileged group, even though they are likely to know much more about us than we do about them.

Commitment 3: The under-privileged need to be patient.

Ending: Denying the reality of trans people by individualizing their perceptions.

I have no doubt that Rabbit wants to work toward healing but when we're the relatively over-privileged group in a conflict, we need to take more responsibility for moving toward a solution than the relatively under-privileged group. That includes becoming aware of common pitfalls in this type of asymmetrical power conflict.

My impression is strengthened by the fact that others who were present perceived the attempt at witnessing very differently from the intent.

 

Tags: feminism, paganism, relationships, religion

Gordon White said:
"Whatever happens to the world happens to London. Terrorism, banking crises, racism, class battles, wealth, food trends, art, immigration concerns."

Look at British stamps. Notice anything? Anything missing? It doesn't say "United Kingdom." There's not even a little "GB" in the corner. The reason is that the British were first with that too. No need to put the name of the country on the stamps if you're the only country that makes stamps. Gordon is spot on about that.

On a less trivial note, riots happen in London and the UK with disturbing frequency. As much as I agree with Gordon's socio-political sentiments, this isn't the first time it's happened and it won't be the last time either. If it's not income disparities worthy of the Middle Ages, it's institutionalized racism, poll taxes, miners' strikes... you can take it back through the decades. There's always a reason and often a good one.

But after a couple of years they all blur together unless you were affected directly, or you only lived in London when a riot happened. I think this time Twitter is exacerbating the effect. That is a pattern. The immediacy of other large-scale events at certain junctures was sharpened by new-for-the-time technology. First it was the telegraph, trains, radio, TV, color TV, mobile phones. The Loma Prieta earthquake was televised because there was a baseball game of national interest at a San Francisco ballpark at the time.

My point is that riots don't achieve anything. They make for dramatic pictures on the telly but they are soon forgotten. As Gordon is saying "Rioting is terrible magical target selection."

How many riots did it take before the Met learned that a largely white police force engaging with criminals of other skin colors was a recipe for "community tensions?" Have they even learned it today? I doubt it. The higher-ups say the right things, most of the time. But your local plod? White. His ideas about race? Not pretty.

Remember the Broadwater Farm Riots? Chances are, you don't. According to Wikipedia, they took place in October 1985. They were also in Tottenham and were sparked by similar incidents to the Mark Duggan shooting. The only reason I know about them is that Broadwater Farm is always mentioned when discussing how to police rioters because at that riot a police officer was killed by rioters. The officer was trying to keep firemen safe from rioters while they (the firemen) were putting out a torched building.

Lingering tensions from a riot the previous week in Brixton contributed to the Broadwater Farm Riot.  The Brixton riots were also caused by a similar incident involving white police officers and black people being treated like criminals for being black and living in a poor neighborhood.

(This is one of my rare public entries. As this is a sensitive issue, I'm screening all comments. If that bothers you, feel free to link to this entry and comment in your own blog.)

I liked Duff McDuffy's entry called How to Remain Equanimous in a Difficult Situation. It is based on physiology -- how our bodies react when we feel stressed. No woo-woo, just science and experience.

Based on my own experience, I would add two things.

1. In step 1, when you relax your facial muscles, make sure you also close your mouth. Closing your mouth has many, many advantages. Here are a few:

• You lose less water by breathing through your nose. In dry environments that can be a life or death decision.
• You don't get a dry mouth, so if you need to say something, you'll actually be able to speak right away.
• By not babbling you do not distract yourself from your feelings and/or thoughts.
• By not babbling, you do not distract other people who may be in a better position than you to fix the problem.
• By not babbling, you appear cool. Appearing cool not only gives you higher status and makes people pay attention when you do actually say something. In many cases, appearing cool and alert is all it takes to fail a criminal's victim interview.

2. To Duff's point #4, I would add that in many cases simply to watch the situation unfold and remain aware of your surroundings, as well as your own process, is what it takes to "win" in an incident.

Granted, there are situations in which swift action is required to stay alive. Sitting in a car that's about to plunge into a lake, is one example. But there are many more situations that are improved by simply doing nothing and paying attention. It also has the added bonus that it drives jerks crazy when you don't react to their BS by bouncing off the walls. :-)

Tags: psychology

There are more on the Itty Bitty Kitty Committee Blog.

Tags: other cats

This conversation started with a quote of the Religion News Service on the Wild Hunt. The subject was the Unitarian Universalist Association and an article by Daniel Burke about the denomination. The headline asked "Can a creedless religion make it another 50 years?". Despite the provocative headline, the article was billed as a news story. (In most news organizations it's not the author who writes the headline, so let's not blame Daniel Burke for that.)

Just like Jason Pitzl-Waters, I was pleased that the article highlighted the Pagan involvement in UUA. But what surprised me was that the religion wasn't capitalized. Laurel Mendes was called "neo-pagan" in an article that capitalized other religions: "Christian, Buddhist, Islamic and Jewish" and "God". This kind of selective capitalization is usually employed when a writer wants to convey that Paganism, or Neo-Paganism, isn't a Real Religion™.

So I commented on the Wild Hunt article.

Assuming that Daniel Burke and the Religion News Service wouldn't find and reply to a comment buried in a blog, I tweeted @ReligionNewsNow and asked for a reply:

I was pleasantly surprised that I got a reply the next day:

I was surprised again for several reasons:
1. The reply came in the form of a Direct Message. DMs can only be seen by the sender and recipient. They're used for conversations that you want to keep private. Why would a news organization send me a private message about their capitalization style guide when I had asked them about it in two very public places? Is their style a secret? My guess would be that they're not aware of Twitter etiquette regarding @-replies and DMs.

2. A news organization that only reports on religious news cites the AP style guide for how it capitalizes religions. I would expect a skateboarding news venue to have its own capitalization and spelling style guide for anything to do with skateboarding, too. In fact, the online version of the AP Stylebook has functionality so that specialty news outlets can add terminology within their field to the stylebook.

Some more surprising finds:
Daniel Burke wrote a news roundup on March 15 in which the Theodism  is capitalized. Full text of the RNS item:

The cynic in me suspects that some of these inmate First Amendment claims are desparate attempts to avoid prison food. The hobby horse? Who knows."

Burke is following the capitalization in the AP piece that is quoted by the First Amendment Center. But the snark in the second paragraph is not present in the AP article, it's Daniel Burke's alone.

On the other hand, the lack of respect for some religions is apparently not new to Religion News Service. In a brief article from June 2 about RNS' move from for-profit to non-profit, a charity law blog quotes the RNS mission statement:
Notice anything missing there? Truthfully, I don't know where the Nonprofit Law Prof Blog got their quote from. I left a comment on the blog. Maybe there will be an answer next week or so. I'll update here when/if I find out.

Tags: paganism, religion

This was originally a reply to a blog post entitled Self-Respect: Come to Your Success by Pagan mystic and teacher Thorn Coyle.

For me the biggest obstacles to coming to my success are old commitments and convictions that I've outgrown. Take my bedroom curtains for example.

My current level of success means I have less time and more money but I still hold on to the belief that I am a crafty person so I should hem my own curtains. Why else do I have a sewing machine?

So for over a year I had half a hemmed curtain hanging in my bedroom window. The other half lay, unhemmed, in my crafts box. I finally took down the hemmed half a month ago. The next step is to take both halves to a seamstress and say "Hem this one so it looks the same as the one I've done."

I think I need to let go of beliefs that served me when I had more time than money. Then I'll be ready to hand over my bedroom curtains to a professional. I used to take pride in sewing and other creative, time-intense skills. I don't feel pride in throwing money at a problem, even though the reason I have the money is that I'm skilled at my own profession. Somehow I need to resolve that.

The fact is that I use the limited time I do have for furthering my own healing, as well as the healing of other people. That's something I need to learn to place a higher value on.

Tags: diy, money, recovery, religion

If you want to tweet a link to your own, original content more than once, you can do it like this:
1. Make it obvious that this is not a new link, e.g. in the evening you want to make sure that the late risers didn't miss your morning blog post so you tweet: "Linking again to this morning's blog post for my fellow insomniacs..."
2. Add something new. This is even better. Still talking about an 8pm repeat tweet of this morning's blog post "My recovery buddy @Mjausson commented with some neat tips on my blog entry about meditation"

The problem with simply automatically tweeting the same thing twice or more is that some people click on most links in their Twitter stream. When they've clicked on your links a couple of times and realized that they can't tell if the link is to something they haven't seen yet, they unfollow.

Tags: internet

Pagan/Buddhist
http://www.pagandharma.org/2011/05/blog-repost-a-pagan-buddhist/

Seed Scarification, Seed Stratification & Seed Soaking (gardening)
http://mrbrownthumb.blogspot.com/2011/05/seed-scarification-seed-stratification.html

The Obama Deception: Why Cornell West Went Ballistic (race)
https://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/05/16-1

Geronimo, code name for Osama bin Laden, problematic from Native American standpoint (race, privilege)
http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/politics/4581/american_indians_irate_over_bin_laden_code_name_%E2%80%9Cgeronimo%E2%80%9D

Analysis of public narrative of IFM boss' rape accusations (rape culture, feminism)
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2011/05/18/dsk-saga-is-not-just-a-french-thing/

What makes a body obscene? Who has the right to declare something obscene/titillating? (gender, body image, sex, feminism)
http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/05/18/what-makes-a-body-obscene/

UK Rape laws clarification (rape culture, feminism)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13440222

The Science of Why We Don't Believe Science (psychology, persuasion)
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/denial-science-chris-mooney

Richard Hofstadter, 1964 article about conservative rhetoric (politics, persuasion)
http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/conspiracy_theory/the_paranoid_mentality/the_paranoid_style.html

The Christian Nation “debate”, application of two links above (dominionism, persuasion)
http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/politics/4589/selling_the_idea_of_a_christian_nation%3A_david_barton%E2%80%99s_alternate_intellectual_universe

Tags: linkage

Just dumping some links. No opinions about credibility are expressed or implied.

http://times.am/?s=livejournal
http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2011/04/04/livejournal-under-ddos-attack.html
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/04/05/who_was_behind_the_russian_livejournal_attack
http://www.panarmenian.net/eng/it_telecom/news/66202/Livejournal_subjected_to_DDoS_hack_attack

This rant was triggered by a friend's retelling of an earlier experience with talk therapy.

The relationship between a client and a professional talk cure person (therapist, counselor, psychologist, whatever label) is not one of equals. One of the ways that it's not equal is that the professional has most of the responsibility when it comes to maintaining boundaries between the two ^# people in the room.

If the client already had good boundaries and could easily and appropriately enforce them with an authority figure whose good graces they are dependent on, they likely wouldn't be in the room to begin with^*. Maintaining both their own and the client's boundaries is one of the things that professional training prepares the professional talker for.

This is also one of the reasons why talking to an average pro yields more healing than simply talking to a friend. Talk therapy can be frightening and painful but it's the pain and well-supported fear of opening up to healing. It's not supposed to be the pain and fear of fending off codependent mothering, rescuing or sexual advances.

Really all that's required of the client is that they try to engage with their own process and that they don't get aggressive or threatening toward the talking cure pro.

#=In group or family therapy the pro also needs to keep an eye on the clients' boundaries with each other.
*=Doesn't necessarily apply to supervision, ie when two or more pros talk to each other.

Tags: recovery
mood: angry

This was originally a response to an LJ entry by a friend. It got way too long and too important to be buried in a comment to a f'locked entry. The original entry contrasted how the poster and her brother were treated by their mother when ill.

What I'm hearing here is that you and your brother were treated very differently by the female authority figure in your home when ill. Your brother got a lot of positive attention, emotional support and help. You got a lot of negative attention, emotional abuse and no help.

I can see three possible reasons for that: gender, illness type and parental dysfunction. None of these are valid.

Treating a sick son differently than a sick daughter because of gender is sexist.

Heaping emotional abuse on a child with emotional symptoms is counter-productive in itself. Treating another child in the family with physical symptoms with kindness and consideration may also cause the first child to develop somatisation of stress symptoms.

Parental dysfunction isn't valid by definition. Being a parent means having a moral and legal obligation to take care of all one's children, regardless of health status. If a parent can't cope, they are in a position to seek help outside the family. Children aren't.

I'm coming to the conclusion that if I often feel guilty after interacting with a specific person, it's usually because they manipulate me. There is genuine, healthy guilt, eg if you've terrorized a family pet. But when a person feels guilty for having normal needs such as needs for medical attention, there's manipulation and probably emotional abuse involved.

Tags: health, recovery

This was originally posted as a response to a friend's reaction to a nasty piece of relationship advice by Tracy McMillan on Huffington Post. I'm screening comments from people who aren't on my LJ friends list. My usual comments policy applies. Don't comment here if you don't like it.  

Tracy McMillan has a book to sell. That's why she's writing this stuff. It's classic marketing: create a need, sell your product that just happens to fulfill that exact need. It has nothing to do with us.

You, me and other single women are just the marks. McMillan and the commenters judge us because they get something out of it. Some are pushing their products (Neenah Pickett is one of the first commenters and she just happens to have a web site that will help you find a husband called 52Weeks2Fi­ndHim.com), others just like to feel superior, and some like to beat themselves up.

That doesn't mean that it's wrong for us to react. This stuff is written to get us to react, ideally with a credit card number or self-flagellation. It's meant to hurt. McMillan is a professional writer, she is constantly trying to get better at eliciting specific emotions through her writing. In other words, she's constantly trying to become more hurtful and less _obviously_ manipulative.

Anger is a very appropriate response to that. That's why making you wrong for being angry, no matter how legitimate the reason, is her first point. McMillan knows that we've been trained to see our anger as damaging to relationships.

But what if she's wrong? What if showing up as an authentic person in relationships is the only way of allowing our true selves to be loved? Even if that sometimes means we're angry or insecure or flawed in other ways? Just like the "messy, farting, macaroni-and-cheese eating man" she thinks we'd like to marry?

Oh wait, I forgot, the first rule of relationship advice to women is that women who don't take 100% responsibility to keep their relationship going R DOIN IT WRONG. That's why "working around a man's fear and insecurity is big part of what you'll be doing as a wife." Does that sound like a relationship you'd like to have? Yeah, me either.

Tags: feminism, relationships

For some reason, Gordon White's blog post about authenticity reminds me of some of my Swedish friends and how they use quotes from English-language movies. We'll be having a normal conversation in Swedish and all of a sudden they'll throw in a sentence in English. "I'll call you tomorrow" or "Could you pass the salt, please" or something as ordinary as that.

( it's not about shopping )

Tags: paganism

Soft scented stillness that warns of the storm
Whisper of wisdom full living and warm
Breathe into us wonder at all we may know
Welcome, wise wind, from wherever you blow.

Bright spark of courage, blaze of desire
The passion for change is a wild, raging fire
Kindled by will, it burns in our veins
Welcome within us, our hearts are your flames

Power of water, power to feel
Rising within us, ancient and real
Soothed into softness or tossed to extremes
Welcome, wild waves from the depths of our dreams

Mother in waiting, child in the womb
Newly strung thread waits the night on the loom
Earth that we come from, Earth where we go
Welcome, as you welcomed us long ago.

This is by far the most poetic circle casting I've ever found. The correspondences are:
East=Air
South=Fire
West=Water
North=Earth

Feel free to use them. Hilda Marshall gave permission to spread them back in the nineties when she published them on a Pagan mailing list. Just give her credit.

Tags: paganism, poetry

This should be common sense but: Please don't cross-post your comments in my LJ to Facebook or Twitter. This applies regardless of flocked status.

I promise I won't cross-post my LJ comments to Facebook or Twitter.

*goes off muttering about Frank being off his meds again*

Update Just found a link to a GreaseMonkey script that will give you back the old comment form. It doesn't address any privacy concerns, just removes the Twitter and Facebook checkboxes for you. It works brilliantly for me.

Photo essay in my other LJ about the Lake District. My day started in Keswick and finished in Buttermere, via Grange. 26 photos of lakes, sheep and hills.

Tags: mjausson.org

Dramatic photos of incoming weather over Derwent Water and the fells. From a hike up on Castlerigg Fell.

Tags: mjausson.org

I went to Palo Alto and visited Elizabeth Gamble Gardens and Stanford University. Elizabeth Gamble was married to one of the founders of Procter & Gamble. 12 photos, including one of a flower I haven't been able to identify.

Tags: garden, mjausson.org

I posted my photo essay of the recent trip to Calistoga and back. There are 18 photos and 4 panoramas, so it's more substantial than many other entries.

Hope you enjoy it!

Tags: mjausson.org

Two panoramas and six photos from a recent rainy day drive over Mount Hamilton and into the remote valleys beyond. Puzzle included.

Tags: mjausson.org

I've published all hikes from 2009 on mjausson.org now.

Most, 5 hikes out of 7, are from Rancho Cañada del Oro. One is from Mount Madonna County Park, one from Henry Coe State Park.

Six of the published hikes include one or more panoramas. One of those is from 2010, though.


One of my favorite photos from last year.

As usual, feel free to grab the large versions from Flickr. Please let me know if there are any typos or bugs.

Tags: mjausson.org

The domain registration for mjausson.com lapsed and a cyber squatter snatched it up. So mjausson.com is dead. :-(

I tried using Flickr for a while but it doesn't really fit my needs. I'm trying to tell a story. For that to work the reader needs to be able to see the photos on a single page and they need to be big enough that you can tell what they show.

So I've started another LJ instead, mjausson. Feel free to friend me there too.

There are currently 7 hikes there, all from California. The photos are hosted on Flickr and if you click on the photo, you get to the desktop-sized version. As always, feel free to snag these for your own use.

Tags: mjausson.com

I went hiking at Mount Madonna in the Santa Cruz Mountains yesterday. It takes about an hour to get there from my new place and there were hardly any people there. The other photos from the hike are on Flickr.

( scrolling panorama )

Tags: panorama, santa clara

I shot another panorama on the way down, mostly because I liked the watering hole in the middle.

( scrolling 360 panorama )

Tags: panorama, santa clara