Let Hate Die With Them

Donating to causes bigots hated in their memory when they die is one of my favorite things.

Mar 2

I’ve been up to a lot lately, and I haven’t sat down to write about it lately, but I got several new subscribers from my post around the holidays and promptly dropped off posting.

So here’s a run-through of some things I’ve been up to lately, and some promises about upcoming posts:

Decriminalize Psilocybin Mushrooms!

Okay, so I can’t embed my TikTok video, but click here to see it. I have about ten more days in petition gathering - March 15th is the deadline for us to get signatures to the State to hopefully get psilocybin decrim on the ballot. It’s CA-specific, but any registered voter in CA can go to DecrimCA.org, print the forms, sign it and send it to the Hollywood office, and we’ll submit them! If you happen to be (or know someone who is), please go to/send them to DecrimCA.org.

Get them in by the 12th at the latest please (arrival time, not in the mail by - mail by the 10th please). This initiative would decriminalize the cultivation, manufacture, sale, possession and use of psilocybin mushrooms for medicinal, therapeutic and recreational use in the state of CA. It’s not the same as our Cannabis decrim. It’s MUCH better.

Traveling!

I attended the Libertarian Party of California as photographer and delegate from February 18-20th. I’m editing those photos and I need to put out a convention report, but I’m already busy in prep for my next conventions.

Here’s my photo of Justin Amash addressing people at dinner:

I’m heading to Pennsylvania on Friday (March 4-7th) to attend and photograph the Libertarian Party of Pennsylvania convention. I’ll be in Philadelphia briefly Sunday night if anyone’s around.

I’m heading to the Libertarian Party of Minnesota’s convention April 2-3rd, to deliver a lunchtime keynote and photograph.

I’m headed to the Libertarian Party of Texas convention in Dallas April 8-10th, also for a lunchtime keynote and photographing.

I’ll be at the Libertarian National Convention in Reno May 26th-30th.

I’m also speaking at and attending FreedomFest in Las Vegas July 13-16th, and I have a promo code of $50 off if you enter LOOKGOOD50 upon checkout for your ticket. My photos from 2021 are coming soon.

I’m sure there will be other travel besides these, but I do believe this may be it for conventions for the year.

In Memoriam

Some who’ve followed me a long time may remember when Fred Phelps died, I donated to a number of LGBT organizations in his memory - I figure a fitting tribute to a hateful bigot’s death was to support that which he hated.

Last week a man named Gary North died. He was a man who for some reason was associated with people in the Libertarian movement despite being an advocate for murdering gay men and enforcing Biblical law in the US. He was full of hate, with a wicked desire to enact capital punishment (specifically stoning) on those who broke Biblical law (and had the audacity to love people of the same sex), which he justified claiming God hated the sin AND the sinner. Needless to say, his theocratic advocacy was NOT Libertarian, and his work, by being associated with us, did a disservice to Libertarianism in the eyes of reasonable people everywhere.

Anyway, he died last week and I can hope that the things which he taught and preached die too, but in honor of there being a little less hate in the world now, I decided to increase the love with a donation to help save LGBTQ lives.

So I donated to the Trevor Project in his Memory. There are a number of good organizations I actually listed during the Fred Phelps post here, if you’d consider donating.

War & International Politics

So much of recent news is confusing and contradictory stories coming from Russia and Ukraine about what’s going on, and it’s all a lot to think about, and I'll admit to not understanding a lot about the geopolitical anything about that area, including not having the information I would need to properly sort through propaganda in any direction to discern accurate facts and their importance. (See also: Covid).

What I do know is that I oppose war, I oppose US involvement, I oppose US sanctions as well (from a Libertarian perspective I believe they limit human freedom, harm the innocent people instead of their governments, and aren’t particularly effective), and besides that, I will continue to donate to AntiWar.com (which is currently having a pledge drive with matching donations!).

Recommendation: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

When I’m working (I do a lot of spreadsheet work/data collection & reporting) I continue to watch shows I’ve seen before, and I’m currently in a re-watch of Buffy the Vampire Slayer which I’ve seen literally hundreds of times. If you haven’t seen it, it may be hit or miss for ya, but for those who love watching a series evolve, with clever writing and TERRIBLE special effects, it’s very endearing.

The premise is that Buffy is a normal high school student except she’s the Chosen One, one girl in all the world called to slay Vampires. She balances her duty to save the world with her life in High School and it somehow manages to be funny and sweet and silly and stupid and make me cry every freakin’ time. It ran from 1997-2003. So it’s got some 90s TV vibes.

Season one is rough - it’s objectively not very good but sort of necessary for the reference points. Season two improves, and seasons three and four (college!) are really fun. Season five takes a more serious tone as Buffy grows up, and six and seven become mostly a serious drama with comedic bits instead of the early years of comedy with drama thrown in. I’ll admit to crying a bunch from season 5 onward, I’m a total sap, but it’s SO good.

Most of the people who would be interested have already seen it, but that being said, if you haven’t, and you have a tolerance for bad special effects, cheesy humor, fantasy (vampires, werewolves, demons) and a steadily improving, growing, evolving show, it’s worth checking out.

There’s Always More

I hate promising that I’ll keep up with blogging more regularly and then failing to do so, but I still plan to. As product launches later this month and/or next, I plan to be posting more about the exciting stuff I’m doing professionally.

I leave you with this.