When The Lights Go Down

Responses to what I’ve seen on Social Media, in no particular order, and with no particular judgement beyond that which is blatantly embedded in my word choices.

• Black lives matter.
• Any good cop who turns bad after all this was never a good cop in the first place.
• To the cops in Buffalo: maybe it was an accident you pushed down the old man. Maybe. But you refused to render immediate aid. One or two of you, just one or two, could have stayed with him to render aid until medics arrived. You weren’t repelling an invasion spilling over the Canadian border like a swarm of maple-maddened beavers.
• Never confuse protestors with looters. Looters should go to jail.
• Which doesn’t mean that all violence is mindless or without a message.
• But don’t listen to me; listen to the people who need violence to be heard.
• That doesn’t include the Proud Boys; they’re privileged fucks who don’t want to share their toys with others. They don’t need violence to be heard; they just like it.
• Everyone, though, deserves a chance to be better and learn. Just don’t punch down while you’re learning.
• And yes, if you’re white, you’re most likely punching down.
• Drew Brees: all the money you give isn’t the same as listening. You only listened when you realized your reputation was on the line. Do more.
• Small towns are wonderful – years later, students will gather from every corner of the Internet to offer tributes to a beloved high school teacher, someone who lit the way for them, whether they wanted to stay in a small town or whether they wanted to go far and wide. Which teachers will you thank? (Hi, Mrs. Steele and Mr. Roth!)
• Small towns are also where a small County Commission can reject federal funding for women’s health care because they “don’t want government to tell us how to spend money”, which is the equivalent of telling your dad you don’t want the $20 he gave you to buy your mom a nice Mother’s Day gift because you “don’t approve of chocolate.”
• Conservatives are wary of taking federal funds, spending taxpayer dollars (which is why roads are often pothole-riddled in Montana, but that’s another story). And I do get that; there is a valid question about what is needed and who should pay for it. But funding health care options, especially for those underserved by insurance, seems like a conservative investment to prevent emergency costs down the road.
• I could reach for some low-hanging fruit here, like ridiculing the rejection of women’s reproductive rights … actually, let’s just go with that. It was 2013, Ravalli County. Get your heads out. Your religion is not the law of the land; isn’t that what you fear Sharia wants to be?
• Yes, I still have lingering irritations with my hometown, my home valley, some justified, some not.
• My allergy to country music is probably not justified. Probably.
• Bluegrass music is pretty wonderful. I have clear memories of my cousins, the Neaves Family, playing at the County Fair. Lovely, simple, perfect.
• Friends of mine remaining in Ravalli County: did we find funding for women’s health care? The latest I can find on Google was a hope for a new clinic with private funds to open in 2014. Is there a GoFundMe? A Patreon? Anything? What’s the model for sustainable health care for all without getting help from the government?
• You complain about communism, you complain about socialism, but really, it’s just about helping people who need help. Isn’t that what we all want?
• I miss Montana; I miss my hometown, and the quiet streets, and the soft sunsets. I miss walks by the river and hours in the bookstore. I miss junior year art class, the girls I crushed on, the blue skies, and the chance to grow up in a peaceful valley where I knew where my next meal was coming from. I miss attending parties with my friends from another town, hanging out with the drama kids who could laugh and have fun and watch crazy movies without playing sports.
• That being said, I don’t miss small towns where religion matters so much that you’re told to conform to a certain way of life.
• Worst memory of a small town? Going to the wedding of a friend of a friend from a neighboring small town, and in the ceremony, the preacher talked about the ‘baton of authority’ being passed from father to husband, and if that doesn’t make you want to break something or vomit all over a pew, I don’t know what will. Unrelated: hi, Jenna!
• I went to school with one of those County Commissioners who didn’t believe government should be involved in health care; I can only assume he’ll be declining any Medicare or Social Security benefits when he retires. Kudos to him if that’s the case. Sticking to your principles is always a good thing.
• Rejecting money from the government because you don’t like them telling you how to spend that particular sum is rather a weak excuse when your job is to provide services and health care to as many residents as you can. You’re not the shepherd of their immortal soul. And $50,000 in funding for health care? That’s not even a drop in the bucket for a country that subsidizes billion-dollar oil industries.
• Not that I would want the job of County Commissioner, mind you.
• On the other hand, there are limits. Everything needs to be paid for. There’s a well-intentioned bill in California that would let all borrowers suspend payments on home loans, car loans, for up to a year; that sounds great, but in the context of a credit union, a financial cooperative, if no one repays loans for a year, what happens to the cooperative as a whole?
• Full disclosure, I work for a credit union; the hardest part of some specific interactions is balancing the benefit of the individual against the needs of the entire membership. It’s not always clear cut.
• No, I don’t have all the answers. I never claimed to have them, presence of a blog notwithstanding.
• Black lives matter.