General Election 2016

For those in the Central Seattle area – here’s who and what you should be voting for.  The bold and indented ones are non-negotiable.  Do the right thing (that means you everyone east of the mountains):

  • Initiative 1433 Labor Standards – YES
  • Initiative 1464 Campaign Finance – YES
  • Initiative 1491 Extreme Risk Protection Orders/Firearms – YES
  • Initiative 1501 Vulnerable Victim Identity Theft – YES
  • Initiative 732 Carbon Tax – YES
  • Initiative 735 Constitutional Amendment RE: Campaign Finance – YES
  • Advisory Vote 14 on HB 2768 Insurance Premium Tax – MAINTAINED
  • Advisory Vote 15 SEB HB 2778 Clean Alternative Fuel Vehicle Taxes – REPEALED
  • Proposed Amendment to State Constitution SJR 8210 Redistricting – APPROVED
  • King County Charter Amendment 1 Non-Partisan Prosecuting Attorney – YES
  • King County Charter Amendment 2 Gender-Neutral Language – YES
  • US President and Vice-President – Jill Stein and Ajmu Baraka (G) OR Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine (D)
  • US Senator – Patty Murray (D)
  • US Representative District 7 – Brady Piñero Walkinshaw (D)
  • Governor – Jay Inslee (D)
  • Lieutenant Governor – Cyrus Habib (D)
  • Secretary of State – Kim Wyman (R)
  • State Treasurer – Michael Waite (R)
  • State Auditor – Pat (Patrice) McCarthy (D)
  • Attorney General – Bob Ferguson (D)
  • Commissioner of Public Lands – Hilary Franz (D)
  • Superintendent of Public Instruction – Erin Jones (NP)
  • Insurance Commissioner – Richard Schrock (R)
  • Legislative District 43 Position 1 – Nicole Macri (D)
  • Legislative District 43 Position 2 – Frank Chopp (D)
  • State Supreme Court Position 1 – Mary Yu (NP)
  • State Supreme Court Position 5 – Barbara Madsen (NP)
  • State Supreme Court Position 6 – Charles (Charlie) Wiggins (NP)
  • Court of Appeals, Division 1, Position 1 – Michael J Trickey (NP)
  • Superior Court Position 14 – Nicole Gaines Phelps (NP)
  • Superior Court Position 26 – David Keenan (NP)
  • Superior Court Position 31 – Helen Halpert (NP)
  • Superior Court Position 44 – Eric Newman (NP)
  • Superior Court Position 52 – Kristin Richardson (NP)
  • Superior Court Position 53 – Mariane Spearman (NP)
  • District Court, West, Position 1 – Lisa Paglisotti (NP)
  • District Court, West, Position 2 – Gregg Hirakawa (NP)
  • City of Seattle Initiative 124 Hotel Labor Standards – YES
  • Sound Transit Proposition 1 (aka ST3) Light Rail Expansion – APPROVED

Conflicted Grief

I have been having something of an existential crisis lately.  Last Thursday, 18 August 2016, my father’s father Walterpassed away after a long battle with lots of things – the least of which being his personal demons.  Being this was my grandfather, and “family”, I feel like I should have had one reaction – sadness, grief, etc.

My reaction though was something quite contrary.  I felt nothing for the first few moments after the news reached me.  Then I realized I was decidedly bothered by the news.  Not bothered as in some inconvenience sort of way, and not bothered as in irritated way.  Just bothered.  I was more understanding of my nothing feeling as I was not close to this person personally.  I knew who he was, that he was my grandfather, and all that, plus I have no personal negative memories about the man – but all in all, fairly much a stranger to me – mostly because of my choice to not be connected to either of my respective families in any less-than-superficial ways.

First some family background though to explain myself.  I have to disclaim the following as merely hearsay spoken to me over the years by my mother so I can’t say for sure any of its true.  However, she has no reason to tell untruths and the evidence is clearly there that some or all of it had to have happened.

Long story short – my father and his four siblings (and as far as I know, his mother as well) were raised in an extraordinarily abusive way – both mentally and physically and verbally.  Even though it was the late 40s through the late 50s, I have come to recognize the abuse as being even beyond the pale for the time period.  That isn’t an excuse but it is the reality of the situation.  Some of the stories related to me by my mother (which had to have originated with my father) are so painful to listen to, as a person a generation later in time, that I wonder why nothing criminal was ever brought up.  That’s the level of abuse we are talking about.

Then when my father and mother got married in the early 70s, my mother and my father’s mother discovered that they could go have pizza from time to time with each other and just decompress.  My grandmother having to deal with this monster of a man (how and what activated Mr. Hyde has never been discussed but I can presume it was alcohol – though the possibility does exist that he was just that level of bastard naturally) and my mother having to deal with the product of the monster (namely my father).  It worked out well for both of them and wasn’t hurting anybody.  Then Walt found out and that was the end of that.  This led to the complete ostracization of my mother from that side of the family and by extension my father was written out of the family narrative for a great deal of time because he, rightly, chose his own young family over the mess that was his parents.

My mother has stated on more than one occasion that if my father had just gotten help, they would probably still be married.  He had a terrible rage that, I’m sure, was fed from the lifetime of abuse at the hands of my grandfather that manifested itself in horrible arguments late at night with my mother – nearly every day for the first twelve years of my life.  Things have gotten way better with my father since my teenage years as I believe he at least has come to recognize the beast and knows to stow it instead of lashing out.

Basically, my grandfather ruined five people from the start and gave them no tools for successful living to keep them for the rest of their eternity.  It is nearly 100% his fault alone that all of them have had their problems with alcoholism, etc. as they have moved through time.  Its a fucking miracle that all of them made it alive and continue to be alive as well as mostly successful in their own ways, given the shit cards all of them were dealt.  That’s a testament to the willpower and strength that I inherit from my father’s side of the family.  No one, I mean NO ONE, that doesn’t have the Hansen Force of Will would have made it out of the storm.

While none of them have killed anybody or anything, there is lasting damage that is present in each and every one of them.  And while they all can, and probably have, done what my father did – meaning coming to personal terms with it – that isn’t healing.  That is only slightly more healthy then the abusive relationship in itself.  To really heal, they all needed my grandfather to really own up for what he did, take responsibility for it, and ask forgiveness in the most deep and honest way from each and every one of them individually and as a group.

Somewhere in the past 10-15 years, as my grandfather inevitably realized his own mortality was going to become an issue, and perhaps even as he began wondering what was going to happen to his soul after his demise, a letter was circulated to the kids from my grandfather, in which he came part of the way down the road.  But it wasn’t a full accounting of his misdeeds, and while it was more than superficial, was less than adequate in my mind.

However, the family seems to have taken it as full accounting and forgave him and they’ve been a great set of good buddies ever since.  Again, that isn’t healing and is only slightly more healthy than the previous change.  And to me, who knows the stories and knows what needed to really happen emotionally and not seeing it at all, I did not accept it as taking responsibility for the truly horrible things my father had to endure as a child because of this man.

If my father wasn’t going to hold his own father to the coals for his behavior, I most certainly had no problem doing so.

As such, I became more and more estranged to the family as time went on.  One, because I didn’t care to make those connections with them, and two, because I didn’t want to be seen to be endorsing this daydream they’ve all accepted as the salve for their nightmares.

I certainly was not of the “good riddance” mind when I heard the news.  But I felt grief in one moment, and anger that he was never held to fully account in the next – which I classified as “bothered” in oscillation.  I believe that The Almighty will judge him now and take whatever steps necessary to purify/scourge his soul – but I honestly have a hard time believing that the pearly gates are my grandfather’s next destination.  Perhaps God is more forgiving than I, but I think not.

That all aside, I had another feeling also come to the surface during those first few minutes.  I am not afraid of death or dying and I don’t even think about my mortality that often.  This is, I realized, because I spent most of my life with a buffer of 3 generations between me and my death (meaning my parents, grandparents, and 2 great-grandparents were still living).  Than, as they are wont to do as time marches on, they started dying one by one over the years but from 2010 through now, I still had at least that second buffer generation still out there as my grandfather hung on.

That layer has now been washed away and I’m left with just my parents as the mortality buffer.  Both are in decent health mostly and I don’t foresee either of them dying any time in the near or medium future.  But it became painfully aware to me all of a sudden that I need to come to terms with the fact that my parents are in Act III of their lives and at some unknown time in the future, Act IV will begin and will lead to their exit.  

And while I know Act III, that I am now entering, is where all the good stuff happens in this play called Life, the fact that my own closing night is now in the distance (it being over the horizon) before.

So its just been very weird – grief, mixed with anger, mixed with a touch of personal selfishness.   I haven’t been there for my father like I probably should have been either.  But I have my reasons, mostly because he himself has yet to reach out to me (I found out via Facebook messenger from my step-mother, which I can understand doing and I would probably do the same thing because it allows for non-confrontation, but it was also cold and callous at the same time.)  I missed the family gathering that was previously scheduled this past weekend which would now have the feeling of a memorial because I don’t really know or like these people to which I am genetically attached and I just feel, given the bits I mentioned above, would have been a maudlin affair.  So yes, I admit, I’ve been a crap son on this but, given the circumstances as they exist currently, my grandfathers death was dealt with emotionally in a short period of less than an hour and I moved on.  If my father needed me, he would let me know, and since he hasn’t I assume that he’s dealing as he sees fit.

Do Not Vote for Republicans

I’ve had a few days now to reflect on recent things happening in the legal realm that affect the country as a whole and I’ve come to realize just how disgusting the hypocrisy of some of the responses to the results is. I am speaking specifically of Supreme Court decisions but my feeling applies to all levels of judicial jurisdiction.

We live in a country where 9 people are set as the highest level of appellate jurisprudence, the final arbiters of dispute. These people are not always at the top of their game going into their lifetime appointments but working together as a body, they represent one of the most august founts of legal interpretation the world has ever known. They are certainly not infallible but they are, for an amazingly high majority of their opinions, the most well-versed and most well-informed people on the planet.

That being said, the fact that all the Republican presidential candidates had something mean-spirited to say about the Court after their most recently rulings about the ACA and same-sex marriage is so maddeningly disingenuous that I can’t believe any right-minded, moral and ethically sound, and decent human beings could come to these conclusions. When you file a lawsuit, you walk into that court room with a 50/50 shot of winning. You are going to win or you will lose – but you filed that lawsuit with the belief that the system will dispatch your lawsuit in a manner that is equitable for society (in other words, the right of the law will be had, even if its not in your favor). To come out blazing when things don’t go your way and start calling that system names and being generally belligerent and irresponsible in your flippancy is so totally fucking juvenile that it should disqualify you from running for the Leader of the Free World.

Why can’t you just say “Hey, I disagree with the Court’s opinion but I respect their judgement.”? Instead pulling the weightless and empty “judicial overreach” (or any other variety of stupid comments).

Conservative Americans are not stupid or insane or vapid or hypocritical by and large. At least, I like to believe that people I politically disagree with a lot of the time have a brain in their head. But why on earth would you allow the people that represent your party of choice to be so resoundingly stupid? Stop voting for these people who are clearly so way off in left field (well – right-field in this case) that they should probably be locked up and not lauded as the next great conservative movement.

I urge each and every one of you to tell the GOP that enough is enough and not vote for ANY of their shithead loser assholes that don’t have an honest atom in their body. Vote Libertarian. Vote Green. Vote for yourself. I don’t care. Just don’t vote Republican until they wake up and start acting like adults in the modern world instead of sniveling, petulant children that need to be told to go draw their own switch and have their asses beaten bloody.