laceblade

Finished Reading
Kitty Takes a Holiday by Carrie Vaughn - This one is my favorite of the 3 I've read so far! ( Cut for discussion of suicidal character, which was a main plot in this book )
UGH I LOVE IT. ty again to littlebutfierce for talking these books up <3 <3 <3

Kaze Hikaru 11 & 12 - Wow, ( so spoilers )
It was all very dramatic & makes me excited for how this series will continue the intense events yet to come!!
I love every character and UGH JUST SO GOOD, I really did not expect to like this series as much as I do. I've been aware of it for some time but I'm glad I finally picked it up.

Shinjū by Laura Joh Rowland - Christ there's a lot of suicide in the books I read this week! ANYWAY, the novel begins with a double-murder that was arranged to look like a shinjū, or "lovers' suicide," in which two people are bound together & throw themselves in the water to drown because they're unable to marry - in this case, due to familial class differences. Sano Ichiro is a new yoriki working for the shogunate, & he ends up violating bushido to keep investigating this weird case, even after repeatedly told not to.
The writing doesn't do much for me, & the characters are pretty rote BUT there were a number of plot progressions that came totally out of left field for me, & I couldn't put the second half of the book down.
This is the first in a long series, so I'm willing to stay with it & see if the writing improves. I've got the next book on hold at the library.

Unico by Osamu Tezuka - I don't know why I keep Tezuka manga, as I always hate it. It had such an adorable cover!!! But I think I'm finally done for good.

A View From the Interior: Policing the Protests at the Wisconsin State Capitol by Sue Riseling - There have been a number of books published about the Wisconsin union protests. I doubt I'll ever read John Nichols', as I find him pompous & stupid. The ones written by the protestors don't really interest me either. HOWEVER, I have two checked out & this is the first one I've managed to read, written by Sue Riseling, Chief of UW-Madison Police.
The book is entirely focused on how the protests were policed, & why certain decisions were made. Riseling's style is pretty straightforward, but I found the book fascinating. The breakdown of clusterfucky project management was very intriguing, & it didn't hurt to have a book filled with characters who are super familiar to me.

Her insights into policing are great. When it's first suggested to clear out the entire building with no warning, here's her thought process:

The thought of abruptly switching gears and having uniformed police clear people out for no particular reason except "today is the day" struck me as fundamentally wrong. It is a lesson I learned a long time ago and try to continually teach to new police officers: "Can I?" and if yes, "Should I?"
Can I muster enough police officers to empty this building by 6:00 tonight? You bet. The mass arrest plans were in place, the civil disobedience plans were in place, the hard (riot) gear for police was on-site and ready for use, and the University Police force's Police Extraction Response Unit was here, along with the EOD canines. Unlike last Friday or Sunday, today I had everything I needed to make this happen.
Should I? No. It would be a ridiculous tactic, bad philosophy, and constitute an egregious use of power. The Assembly was still meeting and the building had to remain open. There was nothing to be gained from the spark that would ignite or the firestorm that would follow if we forced people out of the Capitol today. If we thought the crowds were big now, imagine how large they would be if we proceeded to shatter the trust and evict protesters without warning. Just to achieve the goal of clearing the building because we can made no sense.

Once the Assembly session was over, of course, then there WAS a reason to clear the building (the building had hours - staffing it with police was costing tens of thousands of dollars - cleaning crews couldn't do their jobs & the whole building smelled like BO & human waste - capacity hazards, etc.

She makes clear things that those within the building understand, but people tweeting to #wiunion usually did not & lots of people usually don't - that things that look like dramatic progressions have actually been agreed upon by both sides ahead of time to make more political theater.
One example is the part where Ted (full confession: my former boss & friend) is asking for troopers to accompany his staff to visit the houses of a few senators after they'd skipped town (preventing the Senate from voting on the "budget repair bill" due to a lack of quorum). Ted relays to Riseling that "conversations were occurring between various leaders and a few of the missing senators. Some of the senators had intimated that if they were found in the state, they would return to the Capitol."
Purposely concocted political theater, & yet I remember people totally losing their shit when the pages & troopers went to knock on doors.

Riseling steps into a power vacuum of controlling various police agencies (excluding the city & county cops, who refused to enter the fucking building, jackholes). The daily meetings are almost painful to read, especially the actions of Capitol Police Chief Charles Tubbs. The power structure and decision-making authorities are unclear, which is never good.
Once they decide to close the Capitol at 4pm on a particular Sunday, Tubbs pushes for voluntary compliance, meaning that while most of the protestors leave the building when asked, everyone's aware that a few of them will stay behind & refuse to leave.
DOA & Tubbs & others basically state that once this happens, they will refuse to open the building on Monday as usual, until those people leave.
Of course, this is never explained to protestors, & since Tubbs & the majority of the committee refuse to allow Riseling & her officers to simply arrest these protestors and physically remove them from the building (a process with which they're really familiar!!), Tubbs allows the actions of a hundred or so people to close access to the building for thousands of others, pissing everyone off.
Riseling asks lots of questions related to this - if we don't arrest the protestors who refuse to leave the building & they stay over night, then what happens Friday morning? If we only allow 354 people into the building, are these protestors counted in the 354 figure? At what point will they actually cut off people from sleeping inside the Capitol? Nobody answers her questions - always a sign of shitty management & a totally dysfunctional workplace, in my experience.

It's semi-hilarious to read about protestors sitting in the Rotunda with messages they wanted to give to the media upon their arrest, & having already discussed their techniques/etc., while unknown to them, no arrests were going to occur.

Riseling is frustrated with this, realizing that the overall goal is a political desire to limit overall access to the building, rather than to keep the peace (p. 249). Riseling's goals are safety balanced with facilitating people's rights to exercise their First Amendment rights.

It's hilarious later on, when the overall goal is to close the building, & Chief Tubbs suggests an exchange of people, allowing protestors inside to go home & shower/change, while allowing someone outside the building to come in & take their place. Riseling says that their repeated goal is to return the Capitol to regular business hours, with nobody spending the night inside the building. Given that goal, exchanging people one-to-one runs right contrary to that - the total # of protestors in the building would never decrease!

15 days into the protests, Riseling figures out that the Capitol Police's secretary has solely been in charge of logistics, which was why logistics had been failing. tbh, Capitol Police in general came off as a complete shitshow in this book.

UW Police was way more open to logical suggestions & rolling with the surroundings of reality, & also accepting leadership & pointed questions from a woman. It's clear that a lot of dudebros are not down with this.

Several times, it's clear that Republicans put themselves into dangerous positions by not being open with the police about their plans. They'd pull surprises & erode the trust with the public, & every time the police would have to come running.

Her reflections on how policing can help facilitate people exercising their rights is pretty enjoyable to read, although it's clear it's something an officer & manager must actively think about & work toward.
Passively having ideas like "let's get this shit & lockdown" & then executing plans that don't actually facilitate your overall goals ruins the settings for everyone. Overall, I liked this book quite a bit.

Tears of a Lamb, vol. 1 - I randomly picked this up from the library while home for the holidays at my home!library.
It starts off with Hasumi inexplicably having a strong desire to enter the apartment of her classmate, Kanzaki. She never explains why, so they just have nonsensical & epic arguments in front of their classmates. I almost stopped reading it after a chapter two, but I'm so glad I continued!
It turns out that Hasumi is trying to locate a ring that she thinks is in the apartment from the person who lived their two-tenants ago, who was her friend. Hasumi's also dealing with an eating disorder caused by stress, & I guess I just imprinted on her pretty strongly. I'm interested in seeing where this goes, although I think I'll need to use our library's outer-loan system to obtain future volumes.


Currently Reading
I'm kind of skimming through Brian Jacques's Loamhedge. Later Redwall books don't really do it for me, even though the earlier ones were pretty formative! I've always been a little interested in Loamhedge, though. It's the original abbey from which Abbess Germain & the other mice came, running from a plague, back in the days of Martin the Warrior.
I wanted to learn more about it, but the plot of the hare who uses a wheelchair & is seeking a magical cure to be able to walk again is making me really uneasy.
I'm heading back to Madison in a few hours, so I'll likely just skim this to see wtf happens.

Because bibliofile is evil knows me well, she forwarded me DPW's survey about the gubernatorial recall election in Wisconsin.

The top of the survey claims that they will "put Tammy Baldwin in the Senate," which I kind of doubt.

Regardless, here's the answer I gave to their most important question:

What do you think the Democratic Party of Wisconsin could have done differently to change the outcome of the election?
Find and cultivate better candidates; run more effective/put-together campaigns.

Barrett might have been our best option out of what was available in the debates, but he pretty much sucked as hard as he could have, to convince people who hadn't already made up their minds. When asked about his economic plans for WI, he gave some anti-Walker bullshit, and Walker basically cake-walked through to election day. The plan to convince undecideds/conservatives obviously failed abysmally.
Even in a recall election, you can't campaign solely on, "The other guy sucks."
Couldn't he have at least dug up what his economic plan was from 2010? It was cringe-worthy. Walker didn't even have to try.

There was an opportunity here, and people were fired up. It's a shame that the opportunity was wasted.

I half-apologize to my Twitter followers, as I retweeted the shit out of election coverage, ;_; At least the blog entries were way fewer?!


I do agree with this tweet. For those who don't want to click-through, it's Alex Burns of Politico saying, "I really don't see how you can say that money alone buys a 7-point win in a polarized, highly informed electorate."

And...yeah.

There is no question that Walker out-fundraised Barrett by a massive margin.
But I'm really suspicious of all of the cynical "this election was bought!" statements.

Exit polls from last night showed that 90% of the electorate had its mind made up over a month ago. That is a huge percentage for any election.
I literally cannot think of a single person in my life who has not formed a strong opinion about Walker and his policies. People who agree with Walker's policy aren't misinformed, I don't think. Misguided, sure, but I don't think a saturation of Barrett TV ads would have swayed the people I know in my own life.


For me, the "election in miniature" moment was during the last debate, when Barrett was asked about his economic plans for Wisconsin by the moderator. Barrett spouted off some anti-Walker rhetoric.
Walker: Just to be clear, so everybody's clear here: The Mayor doesn't have a plan, so all he's got is to attack me."
And....yes. Running against rockstar Scott Walker, who's claiming to have economically save the state, our Democratic candidate couldn't make his own fucking economic plan. Somehow, nobody viewed this as a problem!

I'm more angry at the Democratic Party of Wisconsin than I am at Walker, for running such a shitty campaign.
Then again, I might have my own opinions about the DPW, :)

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My own personal conclusion from the election: Trust the polling data pre-election; deeply distrust the exit polls. THE EXIT POLLS WILL ALWAYS BETRAY YOU.
My favorite Marquette Poll, conducted by one of my former favorite professors, predicted the final results right on the nose, I think.

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Walker's union-busting isn't about the philosophical "right to collectively bargain" discussion. It's about taking away the financial power of unions, who previously donated to Democrats on the same level as GOP millionaires.
Between this and Citizens United, the GOP and their Super PACs have shit in the bag. It is purposeful, and to be honest, masterful.
It is as systematic as the way that Voter ID laws disenfranchise people who are likely to vote Democratic, while making people like my father believe that voter fraud is rampant.

It is sobering, and I for one feel just about wholly incapable of doing a damned thing about it.



ETA: Taking a step back, looking at this post, it might seem incoherent, like I'm saying, "Money doesn't decide elections....except that it does!"
I guess what I mean is that money did not decide this election. People who think it did are looking for something to blame, in my opinion. It's hard to accept that so many people support Walker and/or don't think his actions are worthy of being recalled (that the recall should only be used for misconduct, etc).
I do think money can make the difference in closer races, and it absolutely determines the types of candidates we have in the first place - faceless jackholes, instead of real, authentic people.

For people who read me for Wisconsin politics, I do that way more frequently on Twitter, as ribbonknight lately.

THAT SAID, SOME PREDICTIONS:
Scott Walker will win the recall election.
Democrats will take back the Senate in June, and then lose it again in November, much to the woe of the Senate pages who will have to rearrange offices twice in a single year.
I do think Obama will win re-election, though. I don't know enough about the federal legislative races to make any predictions there, :[

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I know one of the tags says 'locked,' I just need to change the tag, sorry.

Since the inception of the Wisconsin Protests, people have had fun with the drama, in addition to reporting actual news.

Most of this takes place on Twitter. There are countless fake accounts for Governor Walker, his SUV, etc.

When the Senate Democrats left the state to prevent the Senate from achieving a quorum (and therefore stalling the vote on Walker's budget repair bill, which all but erased the rights of state employees to collectively bargain, among other things), a Twitter account was created to detail their imagined antics in Illinois.
A response account was made from the Senate Republicans, left behind. Their Twitter tag line was something like, "We're just some guys trying to vote."
The tweets were hilarious, and sometimes disturbingly accurate when describing the personalities of various senators/legislative staff, causing rampant speculation about who was behind them.

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In Wisconsin, officials must be elected for a year before recall efforts can begin.
So, we've collected over 1,000,000 signatures to recall the Governor.

Normally in a recall, under Wisconsin law, it is up to the opposing side (i.e., GOP) to look at recall signatures, and challenge any signatures they find suspicious, for example if someone signed twice, or if someone signed as "Mickey Mouse."

The GOP took the Government Accountability Board (non-partisan agency that oversees elections in our state) to court in Waukesha (a conveniently conservative community). A judge in Waukesha ruled that it should be up to the Government Accountability Board, not the GOP, to screen for any fraudulent signatures.


The GOP, probably fed up with accusations of their partisan nature, have set up a webcam of the temp employees they have hired to scan in & analyze the 1,000,000 recall signatures. The webcam's feed is online, and available for public viewing.
This is also because the scanning of signatures is taking place at an "undisclosed, secure" location (adding to everyone's general amusement).

I'm sure the GAB thought that only watchdogs from either party would watch it vigilantly.
Instead, the webcam has attracted tens of thousands of hits since its debut.

And here is where the RPF comes in.
RecallCam is narrating the webcam, giving backgrounds and identities to the silent temp workers on-screen, imagining relationships that happen between them, publishing fake poll results for changes in hairstyles in the temp workers.

RecallCamHaiku also narrates the webcam feed. While it delves less into the area of RPF, the account does its narration in haiku.


Whether it's called "fanfiction" outright or not by its authors, I think that RPF has been a fantastically amusing addition to political issues in Wisconsin for the last year.

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Other coverage specific to the Twitter accounts:
LA Times
Madison AV Club
The New York Times's Lede blog