Background Research (with cute gifs); Girlettes on the Go

I complain about not having learned new things.
Then I need to learn new things, and I complain.

Ha.

In fact, I've learned a ton in the past couple years--haven't we all, at some level?––but mostly experientially for me, not so much by book learning...

I. Background Research

Now I have/need/want to study... for our upcoming city elections.
We will vote on three charter amendments:
to allow rent control;
to replace the police department with a public safety department;
and to give the mayor more power (than the city council).

Daughter of a father who taught political science whines,

I don't wannnnnnnna....

But yeah, I do.

(I shall reward myself with looking for cute GIFs.)

DEFINITELY I want us to re-form (replace, whatever) the police!
Murdering bastards. ("Not all of them." No, of course not.)

But who has the best ideas, and how could that happen?
How can I judge which candidates (for mayor & city council) have good plans?

I must study up.

Sister sent me this Atlantic article, to start: "How to Actually Fix America's Police".
"Elected officials need to do more than throw good reform dollars at bad agencies."

For myself (and other locals):

Naomi Kritzer writes sci-fi, . . . but also poli-sci about Minnesota elections: she provides weblinks and analysis on her blog.

Downtown Plymouth Congregational Racial Justice Initiative (RJI) is hosting discussions on the amendments over three Thursdays and posting them on their site. The first one is up:
plymouth.org/act/advocate/rji

(Plymouth is a big, wealthy church that does good social work, but are they ever white.
Not their speakers––they invite and PAY great speakers from across the board––but the RJI's stated first goal?
It's "to deepen our personal awareness of white advantage in systemic racism".

Really? Do people of color need to deepen their awareness of white advantage?

This is a club for Nice White People.
I'm a nice white person, but I don't want to hang out with nice white people who can't figure out what's coming out of their mouths.
That's the NORM. I hardly need exposure to more of it.

II. Girlettes on the Go

In other matters...
The number of girlettes here has magically increased.
"We are not too many," they say, but a few of the dolls are peeling off to have adventures on their own.
They love it!

Last week, two went with a woman and her daughter at the store--regular customers––and another has just gone to live in South Carolina.
Here she is on the bus going to the post office. She is excited:
"I'm going to live with a parrot," she says. (True.)

And we've had a report from two who went to live with Kirsten in Kansas, where they get to sit in trees!

This one below, Tod, came to work with me and put together a Carmen Miranda outfit from the toy donations. She zoomed around like Stuart Little, but came back home at the end of the shift.

I've had a couple days off work. I'm condo/cat sitting this week, and on purpose I didn't see or hardly talk with anyone on my days off, except the mammogram staff (and the cat).  It was pretty great, aside from a few moments of panic (I'M ALONE).
I had to remind myself, "It's all right to feel uncomfortable."

And then I settled in and read the condo-owners New Yorkers.

III. "Don't Engage"

Today it's back to work--we're having a staff meeting this morning.
I'd actually suggested we have one again, so we can see one another, all together-- but I'm wary now that management has actually set one up.
Why? What nonsense are they going to hand down?

Maybe it's just a check-in. That would be welcome.

My workplace veers from no-management to heavy-handed pronouncements from the top. Heavy handed, and not necessarily broadly well-informed. Big Boss's management model is Moses.
My Cashier Friend with the PhD tells me she's been too depressed to read anything in years.
Some read murder mysteries.
Mr Furniture is visionary, but not political.

Sometimes I LOVE being in this back-water. I never have to discuss pronouns with people! Can I just sit this one out?

In fact, I am sometimes relegated to the back anyway.
The other day at a hip café where the staff wear pronoun pins, one young server called me and my two coworkers--all of us around sixty years old--ladies.
"Can I get you ladies anything else?"
Yep.
Age remains a big, big barrier.

Hm. I see I am definitely feeling touchy and impatient.
Two days off did not change that.
I would skip this meeting except I was pointedly told about it (and I did request a meeting, after all...).
Maybe it'll be fine--I do love my coworkers, as individuals.

Let me set my dials to...
INTENTION: Woo-sah, & stay well back.

Penny Cooper says, Think about something else, think about nice things.