strange-wanderings

[strange-wanderings]

In a protest against censorship, photographer A.L. Schafer staged this iconic photograph in 1934, violating as many rules as possible in one shot.

[strange-wanderings]

Absolute bullshit that you're not allowed to loiter under the pier. That's a prime summer loitering spot right there.

[strange-wanderings]

Genuinely, what do you think we should do in regards to breeds with an oppressive history? Until we have the genuine change in the global political landscape, they're just going to breed new dogs to hunt down BIPOC. Can a breed be repurposed, reshaped, given a new purpose despite its history and its lack of direct attribution to most actively living dogs and their upbringing and training, or is it better to modify the breed as a whole, or even let certain breeds go extinct entirely?

And more importantly, how do I, as a white person with a working line GSD, make BIPOC feel more safe around her? She's anxious and her leash manners leave a lot to be desired, but we've been working on that and otherwise she's a huge derpy goofball who seems to think she's a cat a good 60% of the time and is exceedingly affectionate and friendly to most strangers of all walks of life as long as they don't show actively malicious intentions (we lived in the projects for awhile and she stopped someone who tried to break into the apartment to rape either myself or my partner, considering the stalking behavior that had been going on for weeks at that point and the amount of catcalling we both got). Is there anything I can do to help people feel safer around her?

As in my discussion with @grison-in-space- I don't really know that there is a good answer to this question. I am a BIPOC who has a breed of dog that was objectively used to oppress people as a tool of fascism- not just in Nazi Germany, but also here within my own country while they were still used as police and military dogs, as well as in countries such as India and Peru where they are still used by military and private security. I engage in a practice that, at its very early roots, was at least in part about siccing a dog on someone for my own gain. I think there will always be a level of cognitive dissonance and managing that with today's expectations of what a protective dog even can look like in this era is going to be a delicate balance at best and an active minefield at worst.

This sort of discussion is where I tend to disagree with many leftists on an issue that continues to come up again and again. I am a pacifist and, in a perfect world, there would be no more war and no more killing and no more violence and thus no more need for weapons outside of what is required to hunt and gather food. But we don't live in a perfect world, and we live in a world where the honest answer is that some people will always be treated violently. If we remove the means to defend ourselves from everyone's hands except the morally corrupt- we have condemned entire peoples to die horrible deaths (such as being torn apart by dogs). On the other hand, the presence of a weapon automatically escalates a situation, even if said weapon is never removed from holster or deployed within the situation.

I have a doberman that is taught biting is acceptable because I have survived a home invasion while I was home in part because I had a dog that made every indication that she was ready to defend her home with everything she had. My parents are pacifists who refuse to own weapons. The dog was why the guy decided he no longer wanted to be present in our house. I have had attempted break-ins while I was home, following this event. I did not have a dog at the time, and was living alone as a college student, pre-T and only sort of socially transitioned. The statistics of black people- and especially black women- suffering violence at the hands of those who desire to hurt them are bleak. So I got a dog, and I stopped going anywhere unarmed, and both of those things have protected me in the exact situations I got them for.

It is simply not lost on me that the appeal of a doberman for me, is also the appeal of a doberman for your average cop or soldier or authoritarian. A big fuck-you dog that hates everyone but its master is the wet dream of baby fascists everywhere. My dog chasing a would-be car thief down my driveway certainly solved the problem of repeated car breakins and theft, as well as some creeper behavior after said car thief was also caught peering into windows of houses, and my equally poor, but white, neighbors thanked me for the service and in fact adore my dogs as a result. The qualities that make her good at this also make her really good at being used as a weapon by those who wish to turn her against marginalized people for entertainment or profit, rather than to keep someone from taking more of my possessions out of my car when I am not in a financial place to continuously replace them.

Getting rid of these breeds- either by mass culling, legislature, or simply allowing them to go extinct- does not solve the problem of fascism, because even if we do succeed in ridding ourselves of the legacy of the German Shepherd, there are other breeds who can and will do the same thing, or a new breed will be created to do so. After all, using dogs as weapons is something we've known about since before the birth of the Roman empire, and has continued long past that empire's demise. Roman war dogs are largely extinct and their remnants (neas, corsos, etc) exist as incredibly changed from what they once were- so we just hopped to herding breeds instead of molossoids to accomplish the same task. As the existence of the doberman proves- even without the herding breeds, we can just use terriers sized up to do the same thing.

And we don't even really need dogs to do so. In videos of amazing stupidity with animal handling, I have 100% seen people using hyenas, baboons, and even male lions as animals being trained to attack, complete with the same sleeves and suits you see with dogs. The glimpses I've seen have not appeared particularly successful, of course the lack of domestication and willingness to work for a human gets in the way when dealing with wild animals, but to me that says even if we got rid of every single dog and wolf tomorrow... people would find a way to utilize a predator as a weapon. The Romans also used to use lions and bears and even boar to kill political prisoners and people who were undesireable to the empire. Not only do I think fascists would hop breeds, I think they would quickly and easily hop species if they had to.

I've also touched on this in other posts- but the question of changing a breed's purpose also comes up often in a breed that I care a lot about due to its proximity to racial prejudice. When a breed has been developed for blood sport, and blood sport has rightly been criminalized, what do we do with the dogs that are left? Do we let them die out? Do we legislate them out of existence? Do we change them entirely? Do we give them a new purpose? The relationship of black people and pit bulls has been discussed again and again by people who frankly are way smarter and better informed than me- and the way that we police and discuss pit bulls and pit bull ownership is so contingent on antiblack racism, which fascinates me as many of the original hands within the old bull-and-terrier used for blood sport were not only white but actively racist against black people themselves.

Truthfully, I don't think we have a good answer, because the solution to the problem is not the dogs. I think because the problem is not, and has never been, the dogs. Dogs are merely the vehicle for the larger societal problems of racism, fascism, authoritarianism, dictatorship, colonialism, and xenophobia. It's not about the dogs. So changing the dogs does nothing to the system, which will simply replace the dogs with something else if that option is removed from the toolbox.

As for your specific situation- take your dog to training, and be respectful of people's space when you're out and about with her, and accept that some people simply will never like her.

[strange-wanderings]

Remember, if you're going to be out in the sun for a few hours in the early afternoon, ONE APPLICATION OF SUNSCREEN WON'T BE ENOUGH. REFRESH YOUR SUNSCREEN PARTWAY THROUGH. Don't be like me (overconfident) (in pain) (sports bra sunburn lines).

[strange-wanderings]

[strange-wanderings]

[strange-wanderings]

Me after an exhausting two weeks that fucked up my sleep schedule, doing something unpleasant with no results, then watching an upsetting video about current events near me: why am I feels bad

[strange-wanderings]

Ever feel like you're ready to acknowledge your fear/hopelessness/etc but not ready to sit with it enough to be comforted?

[strange-wanderings]

[strange-wanderings]

My best attempt at a description under the cut.

[Video description: footage of a city at night.

Comment shown: "Burning cars, buildings, and bricks at officers is enough for arrest!! Hope that helps kid!!"

Caption: "A woman just trying to get home"

Additional text: "This is what fascism looks like. Plain and simple. It is not "allowed" in the United States of America, but this is the part where we learn that laws don't mean shit during an authoritarian takeover."

Camera pans to a group of police officers.

Narrator: "so, we've got trigger happy fucking bitch over here."

Camera pans to unarmed woman walking towards the officers.

Narrator: "lookit. And they're telling her to move, but that's a public sidewalk."

Caption: "she was just trying to get to her apartment."

Indistinct yelling from the police.

Narrator: "they're telling her to move. Watch. If they shoot her..."

An officer shoots the woman, who stumbles backward. The narrator gasps. The woman starts to limp back the way she came from.

Narrator: "holy fuck."

The narrator freezes for a few seconds, then runs across the street to the injured woman. The woman is crying when the narrator reaches her. We can now see the face of the narrator, a black woman.

Narrator, to woman: "come here. Sit down, sit down. Where did you get hit?"

Narrator to police: "literally fuck off, she's not doing anything!"

Narrator to woman: "come on."

Narrator to police: "we're moving, asshole!"

Narrator to woman: "we got it. (Indistinct ) out of their sight. Here, I got some supplies in my bag. Sit down."

Narrator quietly to self: "fuck."

The camera is set aside while the narrator gets supplies out of her bag.

Narrator: "they shot her. Yeah. Point blank. I literally got it on video. They're gonna shoot. We're moving, we're moving! Stop! She's injured! Come on, we gotta get across the street.

The camera is picked up, showing the injured woman standing up and limping forward.

Narrator: "where are you going?"

Injured woman: "I live here."

Narrator: "come on."

The camera follows alongside the injured woman across the street, looking back at the police partway across.

Narrator: "they just literally shot her point blank. No, she's not okay."

Narrator to woman: "try right here. Let me just look at it. Unless you want to go inside."

A loud sound and men yelling off screen. The narrator looks back.

Narrator: "holy fuck guys. Okay."

The men yell the same thing again.

Narrator: "here."

Video ends]

SHOOTING CIVILLIANS POINT BLANK. SHE WAS TRYING TO GET HOME AND THEY SHOT HER FOR NO REASON. GET THIS FOOTAGE OUT!

[strange-wanderings]

basically, i think the general rule of thumb is: if someone REALLY wants the blood that’s inside of your body, and they’re like… a vampire, or a dracula, or some sort of mansquito, then that’s probably okay. a dracula and a mansquito are made for removing things like blood and swords from inside your body. that’s basically fine.

if something wants to get at your blood, and they’re, say, some kind of murdersaurus, or maybe a really big frog, that’s where the problems start to arise. a really frog is not made for removing blood, and your blood knows this, which is why it is so vehement about wanting to stay IN your body instead of coming out. 

unfortunately this will not deter a really big frog, because a really big frog is full of things like prizes, and value, and quite a lot of hatred, and it would REALLY rather like to replace any and all of those things with your blood, and basically by any means possible.

[strange-wanderings]

'dating rules' are so fucking stupid btw. "don't talk too much about your hyperfixation on a first date, it'll scare them off!!" it'll only scare them off if they're a coward. Someone worthy of my affections will listen to me talk about my goal of visiting every whale exhibit with a life-sized effigy of a whale in it in the world for a solid half-hour and come away from that experience desiring me carnally.

[strange-wanderings]

[strange-wanderings]

Crazy thing about #healing #recovery Small Victories is when you'll have some shit going on that's like, saying this would involve admitting how you used to be doing. You know? Like hey guys good news I'm gonna change my bedsheets this year

[strange-wanderings]

I just think everyone should take a moment to consider the question "what is your visual shorthand for cruelty?" and then follow it up with a critical "and who taught you that?"

specific examples include but are not limited to

why is an evil timeline character design disabled? (why do the heroes go through equally punishing battles and never lose an arm, a leg, an eye?)

why are the futuristic scifi terrorists uniformly darker skinned? (why are the heroes so much lighter?)

why is the greedy boss fat? (why are the heroes skinny?)

why is the criminal mastermind heavily scarred? (why is the brooding, traumatized hero unscathed?)

why is the predatory creep a bearded person in a dress and makeup? (why are none of the heroes trans women?)

who taught you that this is how things are?

how long do you plan on repeating it?

[strange-wanderings]

If you're struggling with the cost of living right now (reasonable), this is your PSA to...

Google universities/colleges near you.

If you can't get out to more than one, look up which one has the highest tuition.

Look-up when the graduation date is

Drive neighborhoods near the university the week before graduation

So much stuff gets left out on the curb. Wealthy college students tend to prioritize convenience over money, so instead of carefully reselling their perfectly good stuff, they frequently give it away or put it out with the trash because that's easier than moving, reselling, or donating. Take advantage of this.

I furnished pretty much my entire apartment from college giveaways and yardsales.

What I got for free:

Mattress and box springs

2 10 ft area rugs

The massive 9-drawer chest (that has a label on the back that it was custom-made and shipped across the country) that my TV sits on.

Two 13 x 2 ft raised garden beds

My desk - just sanded it down and refinished it.

Three short stools

An organizer rack

Watering can

Tommy Bahama outdoor cooler (retails for $350)

Chairs

Shelves

What I got for cheap:

Two futons for $50

Custom coffee table with storage for $25

Three tall stools for $30