Over here in Oregon, we are bathed in ash and setting temperature records as fires rage in the Columbia Gorge, and I have soothed my sense of frustration a little by purchasing 150 tons in carbon offsets from Climate Neutral Now.

It is true offsets are not the best answer. Like geoengineering, they can make us feel like we're doing something when what we really need to do is reign in our own carbon emissions. But they do do something: these UN-vetted projects are not only reducing carbon emissions but helping create jobs, education, and healthier local environments in the developing world.

As opposed to REDD+, which has been widely accused of exploiting indigenous populations in the name of industry offsets, Climate Neutral Now favors local projects that return benefits to the local ecology/economy. I encourage folks to check it out.

We stayed home (in Oregon) for the solar eclipse. We weren't in the zone of totality, but it was still pretty awesome. Once the kids were pried away from screens, they enjoyed it. I really enjoyed seeing the crescent shadows in the tree shadows. And we did have a cricket come out.

I've been rereading Mirage 15, and there is much to love, but I'm going to zero in on Kagetora's thoughts about his own psyche, which capture so magnificently how the human mind works. (And with apologies, there will be some comparison to my own life by way of exemplifying the text's realism. Yes, God help me, my life is like Mirage of Blaze—sometimes.)

Spoilers up to volume 15…( Read more... )

Here was I feeling angry and self-righteous when Robbie Burns reminded me of this:

Then gently scan your brother man,
Still gentler sister woman;
Tho' they may gang a kennin wrang,
To step aside is human;
One point must still be greatly dark,--
The moving Why they do it;
And just as lamely can ye mark,
How far perhaps they rue it.

Who made the heart, 'tis He alone
Decidedly can try us;
He knows each chord, its various tone,
Each spring, its various bias:
Then at the balance, let's be mute,
We never can adjust it;
What's done we party may compute,
But not know what's resisted.

And I am rightly schooled. Thank you, Rab.

Crappy day. In addition to the Trump Administration's daily attempts to end the world as human civilization has known it, my best friend's brother-in-law unexpectedly died. I'm going to respond to all this by taking a leaf out of umadoshi's book and doing an inspiring linkspam (though short by her standards).

How to search for a socially responsible credit card. (Word to the wise: It ain't Credo/Working Assets. They sold out to Bank of America a long time ago.)

CarbonNeutralNow.org: the United Nations' program allowing individuals and businesses to purchase carbon offsets, supporting green projects in the developing world. Bloody awesome!

Carbon Offset Program in the Philippines. I attended a meeting featuring a speaker who had been on-site observing this reforestation program. It seems legit.

Green-e Energy: helping individuals and businesses buy into green energy. I never knew this existed till today and haven't fully vetted it, but I see no immediate complaints through the BBB or just posted online. My first impression is it's legit.

Top 25 Retail Electricity Providers in the US: not solely geared toward green energy, but this list does include the company's green energy options as well as regions served and other info.

Donate directly to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe: now more than ever, they need it.

Recently my uncle, Bill Sanford, passed away at eighty-two years old. Bill was a minister in the Methodist Church. He was also one of the most purely positive role models in my life. I am grateful to Bill in countless ways for his loving presence, but I want to focus on the impact he had as a Christian on me as a lifelong agnostic. What a beautiful example he is of living the loving teachings of Jesus.

To explain Bill’s influence on me, it’s necessary to talk a little bit about me. I have always been an agnostic. I learned agnosticism at my parents’ knees as others learn Catholicism or Judaism. If I asked my parents if God existed, they would reply with “I don’t know.” This belief system was ingrained in me by the time I was five years old. In the years since, my sense of what agnosticism means has grown more complex, but I have never had the desire to be anything other than agnostic.

Being an Agnostic Kid in the United States

Compared to many countries, the United States, blessedly, has a high degree of religious freedom. But it is a nation culturally dominated by Christianity, and it is not always easy to be an agnostic child among a Christian majority. Here are a few of my childhood experiences:

In kindergarten, I had a Jehovah’s Witness friend. While she and her family were always nice to me, I was not allowed to play with her outside of school: my mother explained to me that they thought I was a bad influence because I wasn’t a Christian.

When I was five or six and playing with a friend at my house, I mentioned that I didn’t believe in God. My friend burst into tears and started walking for home (three miles away). As I followed her down the road, she explained, sobbing, that she couldn't play with me because I worshipped Satan. Finally I told her I did believe in God, which cheered her up. I think this is the only time I have ever flat-out lied about it.

At eleven, my lifelong best friend, a Catholic, noted offhandedly that I was damned. There was no malice in the statement: it was just a fact. I wasn’t a Christian, and only Christians are saved. (I should note that today's Catholic Church has a more nuanced view than this child's understanding.)

With such experiences, reinforced by cultural narratives like televangelists’, it is perhaps not surprising that as a child I was afraid of churches and resistant to Christian teachings. My mother dragged me to church once or twice for my cultural literacy. I remember sitting in Sunday School, being forced to sing “Jesus Loves Me” with a feeling of dark detestation at the fact that I was supposed to believe Jesus loved me because “the Bible tells me so,” as if we should believe everything we read!

But these negative impressions of Christianity were not my only childhood experience.
( My Uncle the Minister )

I had my second adventure in Haitian cooking with my fellow parent-adopting-from-Haiti and neighbor, M. We had pretty good luck a couple of weeks ago making rice balls and this week made potato and beet salad, which also turned out well. I would never do such involved cooking on my own, but it's a great chance to get together and talk.

Earlier in the day, I was a grip on a film shoot for a sitcom pilot by Ariel Castle and Maurice Welch. It was fun to be out in the world of film production again. It makes me look forward to production on The Eater.

Happy Downfall of Sauron Day once again!

Once again, I have managed to make it back to California for the day, and (unlike the past couple of years) the weather has been lovely. It gives me a profound sense of spring, and I have been lucky to spend a great deal of time outside, as I hope to today. I think Middle-earth folk would approve. With the possible exception of Dwarves, they pretty much all like it outside on a nice day. I don't have anything in particular to say about LOTR this year. I should reread it.

I will likely be drifting away from LJ/DW.

I have been less active on LJ and DW than I once was for some time, and most of the core group of fellow fangirls I bonded with back around 2004 has moved on to disparate things, etc., so I don't really feel much community here anymore. I rarely comment on others' journals these days and, unsurprisingly, receive almost no comments myself, and it feels a bit like shouting into the wind.

Therefore, I have been and will probably be more actively transitioning to other outlets. My fic will probably become more centered on AO3 (where I'm also labingi). My fannish meta will likely stay here for now, but if AO3 continues to support essays, my more serious fan essays will probably drift there too. Reviews or more general meta will likely end up on my blog at Goodreads or my more formal posts at the Geek Girl Project. Daily life stuff and movie updates are mostly going to Facebook. This feels very fragmented, but it seems to be how things are panning out in terms of fitting the right material to the right audience.

I expect I'll continue at least posting links to other platforms here for quite a while, and I'll update as my move evolves. This is just my first heads up.

Thoughts on Romney's statements...

Romney: "There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what."

Boy, I hope so.

Romney: "All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government..."

Of course, we're dependent on government. A population of over 130 million people is far too large to organize without its being managed through some kind of government. Does Romney really believe we have no dependence on government, i.e. we need no government? Is he, in fact, an anarchist? If so, why is he running for President of a government he feels is not necessary?

Romney: "... [47 percent] who believe that they are victims..."

I do to an extent. It depends on what you mean by victim. I certainly feel victimized by a social structure that enriches a tiny majority with ridiculous profits at the expense of funding for things like my--socially very important--job so that I'm underpaid and constantly in fear of losing my job. I feel victimized by living in one of the richest nations in the world but being alone among developed nations in having no reliable access to a doctor, in having my access to a doctor contingent on staying in job that is underpaid and I may lose anyway in a few years because my other immediate options would certainly provide no benefits.

Now, if by "victim" one means a mindset in which one does not put one's back into hoeing one's row (however horrible the soil), then I hope I'm not a victim. I do work very hard and dream hard, too, about possibilities for building a life I'd like. I'm like most Americans I've met in this.

Romney: "... [47 percent] who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. "

"You-name-it," of course, has no content. To this list, I would add "education." Beyond that, I can't think of anything I feel financially entitled to, except perhaps fair remuneration for seizures for eminent domain or of property by the police.

I sincerely wish I lived in a country in which 47 percent of the population believed in these entitlements. If I did, we might be well on the way to a genuine social democracy, in which all people are granted a basic right to life with basic dignity. Alas, I don't believe Romney's numbers are correct here. I encounter comparatively few Americans who really believe in this piece of common sense (even in my mostly Democratic town, in my mostly Democratic state).

Romney: "These [47 percent] are people who pay no income tax."

Here's an interesting article on why people don't pay income tax.

The statement that this 47 percent is identical to those who believe in entitlements is false: I pay income tax and I believe in entitlements.

(Romney text via Mother Jones)