EVPs

So, now that I have my new microphone, I tried doing some more EVP's in my room. Remember last time how I said I got a weird tapping noise like I was fumbling with the microphone or the computer? Well, it happened again this time, except moreso, despite it being an external mic that I didn't touch the whole time. And I'm still not getting these noises anywhere else in the house. WEIRD, RIGHT?

Well, at some places it became obvious this was actually some sort of electrical interference/feedback. The position of it was still odd enough (often coming right after questions, and not occurring during the 5 minutes I spent talking to Amanda on Skype rather than asking questions) that I investigated further; did some non-EVP recordings in here today. Well, it seems to just be electrical issues, probably because of dad's huge-ass home office setup in here. Which upsets me because it means I probably won't be able to get any EVPs in here at all, since the interference makes it hard to hear anything else :C

So yeah. In other creepy news, after I explained One-Man Hide and Seek to Derek, he got super excited and wanted to do it again right away. Like, Saturday night. When I told him I wouldn't do it again until we burned the first doll, he vowed to burn it despite the fact that it was raining outside - and also to make a new doll while I was at work. Neither of those things happened, although he managed to burn it yesterday after much struggle with Dad's help. So, I am considering doing it again this Friday, with both Paige and Derek this time.

Today also looks like a good day to take my camera out into the woods and try to get faerie pictures, as it is heavily overcast. My plan is to ask nicely if I can photograph them and see if the pictures then turn out. At the very least, I can try to get a collection of the photos as they usually come out, to demonstrate what I mean by 'visually confusing'.

I haven't tried directly addressing them face-to-face; to get them to stay off our property I basically left a note requesting as much and defining the yard. Their adherence to that request, though, and some of their other behaviors make me think this should be safe enough.

ETA: No success; I didn't see any of them, and it was much lighter than I thought it was outside. I'm starting to think I might just have to go out around twilight, since that's when the most activity is (barring at night - not going out at night because I'm afraid of panicking). Some odd stuff did happen though - basically, I always walk the same way in/out of the woods; and on the way out, I got really confused, because it seemed like there were things in the way (trees, bushes, logs on the ground) pretty much directly in my path, when I didn't remember having to navigate around any of these obstacles on the way in. I also noticed interesting plant growth patterns around certain places.

When I came back inside, Paige was home, and Tripper and I ended up chilling in her room. We showed him some of her large rock collection, and to our surprise he started taking them (very gently) from our hands and making a pile of them. He played with them for a very long time, making them into a pile and then scattering them and then piling them again; and then he started separating particular rocks from the others. If we moved them he put them back again lol. It seemed like some sort of organizational game, he got pretty excited about it. The most interesting thing was that he didn't try to show anybody the rocks; usually when he's excited about a toy or a bone he'll show it off to everybody, but dad had to ask him a few times before he showed him one of the rocks.

Vague conclusions: Most of his play is socially oriented; in this case, it was individual in nature and probably some sort of organizational or puzzle play, similar to ring games and shape puzzles we give to toddlers?

"Politically Correct"

Yes, I just made a post like an hour ago. Oh well :D Double the posts, double the fun, right? Anyways, this is about something completely different. One of the queer issues topics I said I wanted to talk about awhile ago...although it's a bit more broad than that. Anyways, the reason it's taken me so long to get back to these topics is because I'm still debating on whether or not to make a separate blog. But I've decided to just keep going here for now, and make a separate blog only if I feel like I'm flooding my LJ.

Okay so what I wanted to talk about was the term 'politically correct' or PC. I'm sure we've all heard the term before, right? You are all probably aware in at least a vague sense of what the term means, but I'm going to examine it in detail here, from the origins of the term to how we most often hear it.

When someone is being 'politically correct', they are purposefully speaking in such a way as to avoid contradicting their political ideals. For example, it would not be politically correct for a person running for office as a conservative to speak about the evils of the free market, or for a libertarian to talk about how wonderful big government is. Now, when we talk about it in these terms, its original meaning, there is no moral polarity attached to being politically correct/incorrect; it is a part of politics, to say things sometimes that you do not quite believe to avoid alienating your perhaps more extreme constituents. There is probably a lot to be said on the actual morality of a political system that encourages this sort of dishonesty, but political correctness is more a result of the system than of individual 'liars'.

That is not, however, the way that most people will hear the term most often. As I'm sure you're all aware. Especially online, you're more likely to hear about 'the PC police' and so on. Basically, the idea that people who speak out on social justice issues are being politically correct when they refuse to use slurs or say they don't believe the majority of people on wellfare are purposefully having more children to get more benefits. Basically, that they are ignoring basic truths and/or censoring themselves just to appear as a stronger or more righteous leader within their political cause or party (generally, liberals).

Basically, the idea that SJ warriors (is this a good term?) really "know" that certain stereotypes are true, but perpetuate that they are not, simply as a way of pandering to minorities and shifting blame off of themselves if they are minorities so they can gain power or at least popularity among people of a certain political persuasion.

First of all, the biggest problem with this that I have is that I still do not understand how social justice has a political polarity to it. I do not think it should by nature be 'liberal'. As we've seen (for example, The Govinator's speech on Prop 8) being pro-social justice does not in fact conflict with being politically or fiscally conservative. So why is social conservative/liberalism so conflated with fiscal and political conservative/liberalism? I really don't know. There are probably people who do know. But my point is that the idea that social justice, feminism, etc. are necessarily liberal, confounds me.

This kind of brings me to my second point. I do not consider myself a political person. I am not a political activist, nor do I think I will ever be. Politics confound me on the best of days, and I'm just the kind of person who would rather deal with what the political climate throws at me than try to make change in it, because I don't have any confidence in my ability to tackle political issues. I do have a personal political orientation, but it's not relevant to my life because it is not and probably will not in my lifetime be compatible with the politics of the country I live in; to put it plainly, I am a socialist, and the 'liberal' party in America is pretty much dead center.

Alright, I kind of got distracted there. My point was this: nothing I do is politically motivated. My involvement in politics is absolutely 0. I don't vote, and that's not because I'm too lazy to do so. Nothing I do is in the interest of being politically correct; I don't seek the attention of other socialists or liberals, nor am I concerned with being the perfect little liberal. TBH, I am not even sure what that would be.

I avoid using slurs out of empathy; I know it hurts me when people casually throw around words like tranny. I don't want to be so callous about others' emotions; I want to be a respectful person. I search for the truth about people because...well first and foremost, I know enough about statistics and interpreting statistics and social psychology to know that most stereotypes are simply not true; and second, again, because I am more interested in being respectful towards other people.

Now, I'm not saying that there's nobody out there who's involved in social justice and considers it a political 'thing'. I understand that there are a lot of people for whom politics is a part of their identity. I'm not saying that's bad, either; I think it's wonderful! Any way a person can find to be and define who they are, what they need and what they want, I think that's great. My point is not that social justice and "PC language" are always divorced from politics - but rather that they do not have to be, nor are they always, related to politics at all.

This whole post didn't come out as well as I wanted it to, I think, but I don't think I can do any better either. Hmmm. :C