Blog Archives - Jay Peterson

Facebook changes

9/30/2020

So,
It got pointed out to me that tomorrow, FB's TOS changes to let it take down whatever it wants in the hopes of keeping the torch and pitchfork mob off the backs of it's officers.
I don't personally think I'm gonna vanish from here tomorrow. I don't have a big following, I've never been in FB jail, and radical moderates don't bring in the clicks.
That said, it's no secret I've dared to harbor wrongthink on multiple occasions and without a scrap of remose. I figure I got nine in ten to still be here tomorrow. And assuming I don't do anything stupid like speak my mind between now and the election, I got seven in ten I'll be here by year's end.
So I spent last night watching cheesey movies and collecting pictures.
I don't particularly care about being kicked off this wretched site. I'm findable anywhere the words "Jay The Barbarian" are used, with my trusty black-and-blue banner behind it.
The thing is, your dead don't follow you to the next platform.
And I've been around long enough for quite a number of friends to have fallen by the wayside, and here being the last platform we've shared.
Picking up a few pictures to spark the old memory in days to come seemed as good a use of my fucking around before finding out time as any.
If I don't see you tomorrow, I'll see you anon.
Take care of yourselves out there.

Early Autumn cleaning

9/28/2020

I've reached the "hard drives and websites" portion of purging and tidying up my life, which is leading me into some weird reminiscence.
I've spent the past few years setting my personal boundaries with emotional defense in depth in mind. A memory from a week ago reminded me how I'm rating acquaintanceships on the guillotine scale now. (Who'd drag you to the guillotine if their tribe demanded it? Who'd be in the crowd cheering them on? Who'd be in the crowd not looking you in the eye or saying anything? And who'd be smart enough to not show up that day?) Which is disheartening, for someone who's spent most of his life trying to get along with everybody, but keeps me honest.
Earlier I checked Twitter for the first time in ages. I never use it. I'm just there to protect my brand. But going through the old following list gave me a couple instances of "oh, honey, I dumped your ass years ago for a reason!"
You can't satisfy everyone, although trying to be good to everyone can make it feel like you've come close sometimes.
For a long time, I was the type that tried to be good to everyone. Wound up putting a lot of good energy after bad that way.
These days, I'm more satisfied being as good to people as I'm able, and letting people have an easy path if they choose to take it.
If not, well, that's what my personal boundaries are mined at intervals for.

Marines gonna Marine

9/27/2020

So among all the hustle and bustle, same old arguments.
The Marines are working on having boot gender integrated at the platoon level. By law, they have within five years to make it happen at Parris Island, eight years at San Diego.
One of the new wrinkles mentioned this week is the possibility of closing down both bases and building a single new one, with integrated facilities from the ground up.
Honestly, if that's what it takes, why not?
I love my miserable PI memories, but let's face it, between the heat and the hurricanes, training time is only gonna be more difficult to execute going forward. San Diego has the heat problems plus California's laundry list of usual bullshit.
And we can train recruits anywhere. PI and San Diego are both tiny. Shut down San Diego, and the only thing the locals will notice is more parking at the airport.
Wherever gets used needs to be south of the old mason-Dixon line just to allow for more training in the winter, which makes me think of 29 Palms first off. Unfortunately, while it's great for making recruits miserable, logistics and infrastructure down there has to be a stone bitch.
The Times suggested buying parts of Ft. Leonard Wood from the Army, and the more I look at it, the more I like it. Closer to a highway than Lejeune, two MOS schools already there, winters cold enough to make recruits miserable but not so cold as to interrupt training... if we gotta go that route, Ft. Lost in the Woods may be a winner.

The Taylor case

9/25/2020

played out pretty much how I expected it to.

"Murder" is a legal term. And if the facts don't fit the definition, that charge ain't gonna be pressed no matter how loud it's yelled.

Louisville held the investigation open all summer (the FBI and IA investigations are still going on), avoiding both premature judgement and making a decision they knew wouldn't be welcomed in the middle of a long hot summer.

(If you're going to go on about Taylor's supposed misdeeds, fuck off. It's true that associating with professional criminals is one of the more effective ways to get yourself killed in this country. Doesn't mean I have to host people crowing over the corpse of a woman who by all accounts was busting her ass trying to turn her life around.)

Just because it wasn't legally a murder doesn't mean it wasn't a horrible fuckup that shouldn't have happened. Louisville has done about all they can at the local level to ensure that, with the passage of Breonna's law, it won't happen again. Unfortunately, it can't be used retroactively against her own killer.
The city's response to protests wasn't Lancaster PA's "not fucking around" model, but it was solidly in place and kept the violence to a minimum. With two officers wounded and $12M in what's effectively wergild, Louisville got off light but seems to be diligently applying lessons learned. I can only hope more of the country does so, but we'll see what happens.

Cats can be trained, they just have to see the benefits.

9/22/2020

Mine are bounty hunters.
Living in the south, you get bugs. No matter what you do, they'll show up.
Which makes them instant prey when you've chosen to share your home life with 8lb apex predators.
(Beatrice in particular is a barn cat sadly lacking in a barn)
That said, letting them eat cockroaches is a bit hazardous for their health.
So we started following hunts, taking away the corpses and struggling mortally wounded to be yote into the backyard, then coming back with treats.
And when I'd come home late, I'd start finding bodies left where they'd fallen. They'd be duly collected and treats appeared.
As of this morning, they've learned to go see me instead of bothering Abby when she's working. And sure enough, my routine today was pants, corpse disposal, treats, and then caffeine.
This is the way.

workout change

9/22/2020

Replaced my elliptical with a rower. I'm not quite up to speed with it, but I'm glad I made the switch.

Police reform

9/20/2020

Ultimately, any nationwide reform to police use of force law has to have four components.

One,
It MUST NOT be suicidal.
Nothing in said reform can put the officer at unnecessary risk to their life. You won't find officers you want who will follow it. You'll just find officers that will lie and falsify about it and prosecutors who will nail anyone they catch, not anyone conducting themselves wrong.

Two,
It MUST be consistent.
The ROE of our military during GWOT shifted with the political winds, to a tune called by the 24-hour news cycle. That CANNOT be allowed to happen with whatever statutes we end up in. Any needed changes must be examined, tested, trained, and THEN implemented.
No officer we want with a badge will work under conditions where one political decision will turn the legit action they did yesterday into something that will see them imprisoned tomorrow.

Three,
It MUST stand alongside our scrutiny of self-defense.
Right now as regards to legitimate shootings, there's a massively lopsided law and precedent disparity between the citizenry and the police. The badge should hold an officer to at least an equal standard, if not a higher one, not less stringent scrutiny.

Four,
It MUST be publicized to hell and back.
The proliferation of body cameras proved that having video doesn't mean shit if you don't know what you're watching. The public needs to be informed about the honest truth of deadly encounters to the police and what they entail. And by now we know damned well they're not going to get it from the press. Whatever it is, it needs to be known better than "just say no" or "only you can prevent forest fires. That's the level of publicity that needs to happen here. Nationally funded PSA's and such.
And that doesn't even get into the state and local political reforms that have to be enacted in order to make police reforms even feasible. The use of police as a revenue source is a real big turd in that punchbowl. And floating next to it is the rapidly growing segment of the population that simply cannot afford any encounter with the police.
It keeps on going.

Oh, it's that day again.

9/11/2020

No, I haven't forgotten. I don't think anyone who was alive and grown enough to pay attention can forget, however much they wished to. Almost three thousand souls in a single day, to applied hatred.
Nor am I forgetting now.
Where on average in this country, every day, of every week, for over twenty-five weeks, over a thousand people a day have died.
Alone.
Of a plague we have little inclination to fight but every inclination to use to whatever advantage we can.
A day where everyone from chest-thumping wannabe patriots to hand-wringing professional victims wants to remind us of death and our responses.
And I just want to shake my head. Death? I haven't just flirted with her. She's come out of a crowd to sit in my lap and play with my hair. She's spent the night more than once, and sometimes I made us breakfast.
Death doesn't just come en masse, when it's loud and bright and even sexy in a way you probably won't admit to yourself. She comes in the quiet times, the cold times. She's dressed for comfort and she's come from wherever else she is. She tries to be polite, because it's not often that people like her when she's working.
No, I haven't forgotten at all.
But I also remember how remembrance only takes us so far.