A Door on Other Time

Title is from Tolkien's "On Fairy Stories". Handle means "storyteller" in Nahuatl. This'll mostly be about pop culture, linguistics, philosophy, history, and other things that interest me, but also about writing.

[tlaquetzqui]

[timelord-of-the-moon]

[nonevahed]

[bambamramfan]

Look. I am very supportive of the goals of the prison abolition movement, and am not worried about what a post-prison society will look like.

But "let's name our project a very deceptive name that sounds extreme and simple, and then condescend to people when they ask what is up with that" is the very definition of a political own goal.

Like no, there is no praxis that benefits from "refuse to explain what your movement is about and patronize people who even ask." It's just emotional self-indulgence and in-group politics.

[samueldays]

A non-cartoon version of this happened recently, which may be of interest to some people curious about the long-form non-answer.

The New York Editorial Board: Darializa Avila Chevalier on Housing, Immigration, & Her Run for Congress in New York's 13th District (Substack)

Nicole Gelinas Just speaking of human rights and human dignity, you’ve been a prison abolitionist, a decarceralist. What should happen to somebody who has killed somebody else? I mean, I went to a sentencing last week, a man killed another man, didn’t know the person, just sitting on a stoop, got a 18-year prison sentence. Should that person not go to prison? And what should happen instead?

Darializa Avila Chevalier So, you know, for prison abolitionists, I think a lot of folks misunderstand what that vision of the world actually is. And it is one that actually centers this question of harm. At the heart of what we’re asking is: What, why is it that there is so much harm in our society?

She dodges the question at length. One of the journalists presses "But what do you do to the murderer though?" and Chevalier dodges it again, and a third time, and a fourth time, and her closing remark on murder is "I have always focused my attention on how do we create systems where that’s not even the possibility."

[lordascapelion]

“Oh, I think they should be executed on the spot.”

“Well that was a bit more based than I was expecting.”

[robin-hood-for-freedom]

In my experience most self-proclaimed prison abolitionists really just want to reform the prison system to be more humane and focused on rehabilitation(goals I can generally get behind btw)Those who actually DO want to abolish prisons fall into one of two categories:

-The incredibly naive who think people will just stop committing crimes if we just implement their preferred social policies

-Sociopaths who want to be able to curb stomp people they dont like 'nazis' without repercussions.

People in the first(and largest) group have developed a complex set of mental gymnastics to gaslight themselves into believing that 'abolish prisons' doesnt actually mean 'abolish prisons' and so anybody acting like it does just causes them to blue-screen out.

People in the second category think questions like 'what about murderers?' are self-evidently stupid because 'there wont be murderers in my perfect prison-free utopia'(They are, as I said, incredibly naive)

People in the third group know that nobody would support them if they gave an honest answer, so they just dont.

[yetanotherdayofdrudgery]

One of the problems with the second category is the problem common to all Utopians: when reality fails to live up to their expectations, what will they do? Will they attempt to adjust their ideas to match reality? Or will they punish people for not being able to achieve The Impossible? Unfortunately, historical patterns suggest that the second is more likely.

[nonenosome2]

Considering the 2nd group really idolizes the Reign of Terror, I have a feeling you are correct.

[euronymous4e]

I think I can get behind prison abolition, if punishment was mapped from what the standard sentence was to a number of lashes or execution for sentences above 5 years.

And we would need to ensure that the right to a speedy trial meant 1 day court cases. Murder on Monday, trial on Tuesday, firing squad on Wednesday.

[generallemarc]

Such edge. Much emo.

[siryouarebeingmocked]

Ace Attorney is supposed to be satire. Not a game plan.

[tlaquetzqui]

I would actually support replacing prison with community service, fines, flogging, and execution. You only need temporary lockup.

Hell bring back moderate amounts of caning and people would confess to crimes they didn’t even commit just to get out of the legal system faster.

[tlaquetzqui]

The real first days of the seasons are not the equinoxes and solstices, but the points halfway between them. They roughly correspond to Candlemass, May Day, Lammas, and All Saint’s—early in February, May, August, and November, the second, fifth, eighth, and eleventh months. The solstices and equinoxes are the midpoints of the seasons—in fact the former are called Midsummer Day and Midwinter Day, in many eras and societies.

Incidentally, the first Chinese solar term, Lichun or “Establishment of Spring”, roughly corresponds with Candlemass.

[yetanotherdayofdrudgery]

You are speaking the truth, sir.

The summer solstice isn't the start of summer, unless you mean Second Summer like the Hobbits have Second Breakfast. Anyone who thinks that summer starts in July has never been to the South or the Southwest.

[tlaquetzqui]

Even in Northern Europe the older tradition has spring start at Candlemass. E.g. the Groundhog Day tradition, originally a hare because it comes from Germany, was “Okay the calendar says it’s the first day of spring, but will the weather agree? Let’s find a burrowing animal and see what it thinks of the weather.” A cloudy Candlemass, and the shadows of the onlookers not sharp enough to spook the hare (or marmot), meant spring thaw: a clear Candlemass, and sharp, alarming shadows, meant everything was still frozen.

[binturong-of-the-day]

The binturong of saudade

[mister-merica]

[1americanconservative]

[tlaquetzqui]

Bad neighbors make good fences.

[redwhtnblue2020]

[tlaquetzqui]

All they have to do is get rid of the AI part. They’re in public so privacy isn’t a factor, but currently the AI hallucinates reasons to hold people suspect. Get rid of that and it just becomes an adjunct to cops following the normal rules—if you have a reason to stop someone, you have a reason to check the video of them. No psychotic chatbot imagining you have a reason, though.

[basedererer]

[traveler733]

The Diversity Blindspot

The Arday illusion: academia’s shameful infatuation with the diversity poster boy.

[retired-extremely-dangerous]

[diversityland]

"White" male Kaleb Turkustani (Saudi Arabian) was charged with killing Louijice Camille, a 17 year old black male, during a sweet 16 birthday party in Boynton Beach, Florida. This will appear in future state and federal crime statistic polling as a white on black murder.

[tlaquetzqui]

Government definition of “white” explicitly includes Middle Eastern (as it should), so this one isn’t an example of misclassifying nonwhite criminals.

[diversityland]

"Results from the study suggest whites are disproportionately portrayed as criminals five to eight times more often on police dramas compared to actual crime statistics for the city of New York, and exposure to police dramas leads to elevated perceptions of white criminality among non-whites.”

[diversityland]

Rep. Emily Randall (D-WA): “White men are committing disproportionate rates of violence in this country.”

[tlaquetzqui]

…Disproportionately low?

[diversityland]

"56-year-old husband and father Fredrick Lytton was working alongside 23-year-old Devin Rice at a U-Haul facility in West Nashville.

The two men were reportedly arguing about a soda when Fredrick Lytton walked away from the verbal dispute, returning to his work station. Moments later, Devin Rice walked up behind Lytton, pulled out a handgun, and emptied it into Lytton's back, killing him. Point blank murder, on the job, in broad daylight, over an argument about a soda that Lytton had already walked away from.

It's been a week since the murder and, as usual with white victims, there has been zero national coverage. Numerous local media have covered the story. Zero have published the victim's photograph."

[diversityland]

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

"Trust the Experts" This 2020 headline is from a "Science" section of a New Media outlet. I see no science here.

This is what a fucking cult looks like.