Obsidian Wings

An amuse bouche

by liberal japonicus

Since twitter is apparently pain grillé, I felt like I should serve up this morsel.

Maricopa County, AZ Board of Supervisors were called on to resign, nullify the election, use paper ballots & more

Here’s a quick 2:20 video compilation I did of the 1st public meeting post Election Day

This went on for over an hour, so did a quick montage of public comment ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/T4BvYUtivo

— Nicole Grigg (@NicoleSGrigg) November 16, 2022

I think my favorite is at 0:42. We are doomed.

What it means

by liberal japonicus

A thread for everyone to talk about election aftermaths. I realize that in a lot of places we still don't know, such as Georgia (runoff), Alaska (ranked voting) and counting mail-in ballots (Nevada, California, other places), but certainly a lot to mull over.

The thing that I'm wondering about is how much of this loss is predicated on the Supreme Court dumping Roe. If the conservative judges had know how much it was going to backfire, would they have done it?

It also gives me a lot of pleasure that so many pundits got it wrong. Almost as much as thinking how Musk, Zuckerberg and Bezos are going to lost their shirts. Unfortunately, neither the pundits nor the three stooges are going to see it as I do, as a sort of karmic payback.

Also, a shout-out to Russell, who identified Fetterman a long time ago. I've been trying to find his comment just to see if I or others gave him the 'yeah, right' treatment. If anyone can remember about when it was, post a note in the comments and I'll see if I can find where it came up.

Anyway, have at it!

Toward a better discussion about fear of violence

--by Sebastian

There are a bunch of media discussions about various voters being inappropriately afraid of violence in cities that I am deliberately not going to link because focusing on per capita numbers doesn't get to the way our brains work.  We want to get to them eventually, but I don't think you can without talking about a bunch of things about how fear of violence operates.  

1. Fear operates spatially.  I live in a medium density portion of a big city.  No one has been murdered within 10 blocks of my dwelling in the last year.  Everyone in NYC lives within 10 blocks of a murder within the last year.  Even if the per capita rate is higher where I live, the spatial sense is important.  So if you want to talk about fear of crime, you need to acknowledge the spatial sense.
2. How much mind share crime prevention/avoidance takes up is important and it is different in a big city.  You can see it as bars on first floor windows, or the need for a doorman.  You can experience it as more concern about where your purse is right this moment, or whether or not you can leave your phone on the table in public.  There are dozens of little things that take up mind-space in a bustling city that isn't needed in many places.  This can aid to the idea that crime is more prevalent than it 'really' is on a per capita basis.  
3. How much control you think you have is also a concern.  You are most likely to be murdered by your spouse.  But you take your spouse with you, and you believe (even if wrongly) that your selection of spouse and your knowledge of their behaviors is somewhat under your control.  Things that are out of your control are scarier.  So you are more likely to have a fear of being killed by a stranger (more likely in a denser place where you encounter more people) than by your spouse (who is your spouse whether in the big city or in the countryside).  The known risk remains constant.  

 

It is important to eventually get to the per capita statistics, note that they aren't that high compared to recent US history, that some cities are much safer than commonly believed, and that the US is ridiculously unsafe compared to many developed countries.  But trying to have that discussion without dealing with how the fears actually operate is almost impossibly difficult.  

New Open Thread

by wj

We are overdue for a new (and hopefully working for a while) Open Thread. So here it is.