So, the good news: the Lansing City County unanimously voted this week to declare us an ``LGBTQ+ Welcoming City'', passing a resolution condemning all violence, harassment, or intimidation against the community and reaffirming the right for everyone to live freely and safely in the city. It's also resolved to protect gender-affirming care, to prohibit the use of city resources to interfere with people seeking that care, and to develop pro-LGBTQ+ ordinances and policies. It's a good declaration, the sort of thing you need to be a healthy community.
The bad news is why they were moved to make such a resolution, even past the criminal behavior of the disgraced national government. I'm hiding that behind a cut because you can imagine what might have gone on, but not why it's something that comes to me specifically.
So, bit over a week ago, some Charlie Kirk wannabe came to the hipster bar where we play pinball. It's not formally a gay bar, but, c'mon. On finding out that nobody was even talking about Kirk he kept elaborating his views until someone ``disparaged'' Kirk, according to the local weekly. At which point the Charlie fan said ``so you think that Charlie Kirk deserved to die, and therefore I have the right to kill all of you right now'' and began warning that something big was going to happen.
I learned about all this when we were on the way to a pinball event ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger was running there, by way of her explaining that there might be more security than usual. Indeed: they actually had you stop and get a (handheld) metal-detector scan before entering. It's a minor hassle to me, certainly, but jeez. And it must be a major hassle to the bar; the day we were there they were also hosting one of their biggest quarterly events and it can not help the place to have a lineup where people were, likely, finding out about all this for the first time.
The handheld scanner guy was there this Tuesday too, for regular league night. No idea how long it'll last; I suppose until it seems like things are calm again.
But, a small and better thing now. One of the members of our pinball league had been changing into dresses partway through, or after, the night, and this past week asked the league standings to reflect their new name, going from a male-coded to a female-coded name. Yeah, no trouble; it wasn't any work updating the spreadsheet for that, and calling her by the new name when drawing up groups for the night. And, goodness, but she was so grateful that we could be normal about this. It feels great right up until you examine why someone would think it worth saying how nice it is you call them by what they say is their name.
We're now getting into late November in photos and you know what that means: the eating holidays!
We had Thanksgiving at bunnyhugger's parents', so I'm sharing fewer pictures than usual to not give out too much of their lives like this. But here's the spread as we were getting ready for dinner. You understand why we brought A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. I forget why we brought the disc of 70s Charlie Brown specials, though. Maybe to have a backup copy of Thanksgiving.
Dinner started with potatoes!
Back home, Athena was curious what all this fuss was about.
She looks good loafing on the ground.
Or maybe she's decided there's something else she wants to do?
Yes: she wants to get underneath the sofa. She did not at this moment, nor for a while to come, but it's in her thoughts.
Trivia: ``Inane'' first appeared in English around 1662 as a serious term meaning ``empty, void'', as in the formless void of space; the word was borrowed from the Latin inānis ``empty, useless'', and often used as a noun meaning ``infinite space'' that century. Source: Semantic Antics: How and Why Words Change Meaning, Sol Steinmetz.
Currently Reading: American Scientist, July - August 2025, Editor Fenella Saunders.
