I see people responding to the widespread despair and fear on social media with a positive message of strength and unity. Thank you to these people for responding in a positive fashion, and looking for what we can do to improve our world.

However I personally disagree with the idea of ‘unity’ on a national level being a solution. Take a look at this:

As it was in 2008 and ‘12, the map shows not red and blue states, as the media (due to the electoral college) talk about, but blue cities, and red rural areas. We should be starting to accept that there is not one America, there are two, and that this is ok. I talk frequently about ‘foot voting’, which is the idea that people can express their political preferences by moving to places that are are a better match for them. This has been happening for a while here, and around the world, younger more educated and liberal people are moving to the cities. When they join together in these cities, they change the cites to be closer to their ideal, through the local political process.

So, what should be done about our federal government? Which does have a large impact on us, even those of us in the cities? Well, I believe that a better result for ‘America’ as a whole, and certainly the cities, would be to reduce the power of the national government, to allow cities to diversify, and provide various options for people to vote with their feet. I provide several links talking about this idea in comments to this post below.

Does this mean we are ‘abandoning’ the poor folks in red areas to their terrible fate? No. I have seen some very disappointing articles linked on social media about how third party voters are operating out of white privilege, etc. If we only were at risk of the ‘consequences’ of a Trump presidency we couldn’t vote for anyone but Clinton. In my mind this is exactly the attitude that has gotten us here. That we only have two choices, and we all have to fall in line with one or the other, due to how scary the other side is! The fact of the matter is that to a large extent already, LGBT, people of color and others are already refugees from the red areas. Is this fair? That people should have to leave their houses, families, etc to go to the cities to be safe/express themselves? No of course not. I believe that everyone should respect each other for their beliefs, and be able to live free wherever they are. However this is not reality, and though I hope it will be reality in the future, it will surely be a slow process. How will this process take place? I believe it will be through competition between the cities and the rest of the world. This is how progress has always been made, people that believe in a better life going to a new area, making it theirs, and proving that it is a better way. See also my separate comment below about the rights of ‘red people’ to live as they please. (‘Red people’ of course being a label for people who voted for Trump, red on the map, nothing further is meant by the term)

So, we should work on unity at a local level. Act to make this city the best it can be. Welcome the refugees, provide them safety and a hope for a better future. And if you agree with me about an idea for a better world being a less powerful federal government, work to provide open immigration into your city from the rest of the country as well as the world. Will life here in Seattle become less safe for the people Trump attacked in his speeches, and threatens to do in in policies? I hope not! I hope that we can prevent that, but if it does seem to be happening here, let us gather together and fight it. And even Seattle today (yesterday) as we all know is nowhere near a safe place yet for marginalized people, there is much work still to be done here already.

Footnotes:

Freedom of red folks to live as they want to: The flip side of this, is to try and think about what the red areas are asking for. They went out and voted for Trump for a reason, their own reasons, and who are we to say that they are wrong. Trump seems to me to be a misogynist, and a dangerous person to women. I have a reaction that I should protect all the women of America by voting against him, to prevent him from coming to power. But, 62% of non-college educated white women voted for Trump. By voting against him I actually tried to overrule their stated wishes! I don’t believe in forcing my views on people, and a national election is just that: Me trying to force my views on a whole lot of people who don’t agree with me. I would much rather people in red areas that voted for the policies they desire be allowed to have them, even if the election had gone the other way!

Cities as a term: A city is currently the example of a progressive place in America, and also seems to me to be the future, for economical, cultural, and environmental reasons. However, I do not mean that rural places can’t also be progressive, or that rural places should not be able to take autonomy in a political sense. So I use cities here as a term to mean a self governed group of people. I hope that other places will also be able to self govern if we set up a system of government that would allow it.

Unity locally and tolerance: So what of those people who voted red right next to us, our neighbors and family, etc.? I think as progressive people, we already are aware of the value of inclusion and respect, but these trying times ahead will of course be challenging. They have “won” our national election, and we will have to forgive them some gloating, but do not need to accept their strategic attempts to take the national position of strength and use it locally. Respect, but not passivity!

Another view of the two Americas from the NYT

And a great counterpoint to the conventional narrative from WaPo called Election maps are telling you big lies about small things. Which I feel mostly reinforces what I say above.

It’s out.

Facebook video, also here.

Oakland is dangerous, just got hit in an airsoft drive by.

Sunglasses are earplugs for your eyes.

Boy those DJ's sure look happy don't they?

Here you can see a good example of the dutch "tekno" dance.

Check the girl rocking out at 4:10.

End of June - every year the same procedure… On a former Russian military airfield in the middle of nowhere in the fields of northern Germany FUSION arises, the biggest holiday and party camp all over the place. 4 days of holiday communism is the motto and as such the programme covers it all.

Where’s Waldo?:

Good overview of the camp and my favorite stage:

Rumor was 40k people by sunday.

Remute midnight friday:

Whoa:

Sunday morning, DJ Koze:

That's at Tsukemen Gonroku, a wonderful cold noodle shop, it's 20m left from exit A5 of Ryogku, go visit next time you are in Tokyo.

Here are more pics.

Went to the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography yesterday, and saw two of my favorite photos ever, and a contender for #3. They apparently own an amazing collection, many of my favorites were theirs.

Can't find anything by Keiichirō Gotō online, but his "Displaced History" is my new number 1. Saw a really good print of Bill Brant's "Portrait of Young Girl, Eaton Place, 1955"

The other was from Mario Giacomelli's "There are no hands to caress my face" series, a cropped to a very wide format shot of 3 seminarians compressed from background to foreground looking at a kitten climbing a tree.

Posted to Salon.com.

One of the better introductions to “Zoo” that I have read, though the interview is pretty lame (not the writers fault, heh)

I can understand anybody’s reluctance to engage with the issues raised in “Zoo,” a lovely, subdued film, washed in midnight blue, that flirts with the outer edges of documentary reconstruction and poetic license – and is certain to make you uncomfortable. But much of the outraged response to “Zoo,” almost all of it from people who haven’t seen the film (I heard a lot of this myself, after covering it at Sundance), is based on willful ignorance and incomprehension.

Posted by MANOHLA DARGIS to NYT > Movie Reviews.

“Zoo” is, to a large extent, about the rhetorical uses of beauty. It is, rather more coyly, also about a man who died after having sex with a stallion.

Opening in NYC this week, also a review in the The Village Voice

I hear a rumor that it has been accepted into Cannes, not sure if that means in competition, or what, but pretty crazy anyway.

A decent review in the NYT