Author Archives: naomikritzer

Election 2022: Minneapolis School Board At-Large Primary

Posted on by
5

There are two vacancies, and no incumbents are running. School Board member Josh Pauly (elected in 2018) resigned in March during the teacher’s strike and Cindy Booker was appointed to serve out his term; she is not running. Kimberly Caprini stepped aside when she was not endorsed by the DFL.

Here’s who’s running:

KerryJo Felder
Lisa Skjefte
Harley Meyer
Jaton White
Collin Beachy
Sonya Emerick

ETA 10/27 — I want to note this post was written in the primary season. I am working on a post for the general election and my recommendations will not be the same.

KerryJo Felder (DFL-endorsed).

While there are no incumbents running, KerryJo has served a previous term on the school board, as the representative for North Minneapolis; she lost to Sharon El-Amin in 2020. While on the board, KerryJo was a strong advocate for the Northside schools and opposed to the CDD (comprehensive district design), and in particular, opposed to pushing it forward at the beginning of the pandemic.

With the school board, I tend to have a bias in favor of incumbents who are running for re-election, because I’m pretty sure serving on the Minneapolis school board is one of the worst elected jobs out there — you work extremely long hours for very little money and part of your job is to listen politely when people show up to say that you hate children. And that was true before the right wing added “go to the nearest school board meeting, spew transphobia” to everyone’s to-do list. It’s an extremely hard, literally thankless job, and very few people want to do it more than once, which means chronic problems with a lack of institutional memory.

I have a generally favorable impression of KerryJo. She’s also endorsed by the DFL and by the teacher’s union. I would cast one of my votes for her.

Lisa Skjefte

Lisa Skjefte is a staff member at the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center and has been in the news for things like overseeing the Native Prom. However, she has no campaign website of any kind that I could find, and her Facebook page does not reference her candidacy in public posts. I think she considers herself to be running, but it’s unclear how I would find out more about her goals if elected. I would not vote for her.

Harley Meyer

Harley Meyer spent about a decade living in Thailand and teaching there; he developed a proprietary method for teaching ELL students English and (he says) for teaching high school algebra to second graders, and he is running for school board because he wants to put his personal research into practice in Minneapolis schools.

Do I sound skeptical? Here’s the thing: the vast majority of the time, when people think they’ve discovered an easily replicable magic to teaching kids some skill that’s typically hard-earned, they have not. I would also, honestly, really question the value of teaching high school algebra in elementary school. What elementary schoolers are often learning is a bunch of math-related skills that are in fact a lot more broadly useful than algebra: they’re learning arithmetic, fractions, decimals, all the foundational pieces that they’ll hopefully draw on for years to come to know why a sign offering something for “$2.33 each, or two for $5!” is funny. My older kid did an enrichment program with algebra in early elementary school that was pretty great, and that was something more kids should have access to, but it also wasn’t high school algebra, it didn’t replace Algebra 1 and 2 later on.

I sent everyone an e-mail about reading instruction (phonics vs. “balanced literacy,” basically) and got back a prompt response in which he expanded on his educational theories, which includes a dismissal of “the philosophical debate between ‘Whole Language’ v. ‘Balanced Literacy’ v. ‘Phonics'” as ” a debate created by textbook publishers to sell their materials. It has nothing to do with helping people to learn to read.”

Here’s the thing about curricula, basically just across the board: they kind of all suck but I really do see them as a necessary evil, because kids are not taught by one person from K through 8th grade, they get passed from teacher to teacher, and if you don’t have some sort of guide to what they cover when, important stuff get skipped or else taught over and over.

(Edited to clean up some stray text, and can I just say, I AM VERY FRUSTRATED WITH WORDPRESS THIS WEEK. ***heavy sigh***.)

little arithmetic, a little geometry and a little statistics, a little algebra, etc.

I kind of think Harley Meyer should write a book about his educational theories and approach, and sell it, because then people could try it out and see if they thought it worked well for other people or just for him. I do not think he should be elected to the Minneapolis school board, though, so I wouldn’t vote for him.

Jaton White

When I started this writeup Jaton’s website wasn’t working, so I did some Googling and turned up some news articles about the Northside Achievement Zone (she’s Director of Wellness). She now has a website up, but there isn’t a whole lot there. (A video that looks like it should have sound but does not, a couple of goals that suggest you can click for more info but nothing loads.) I would not vote for her.

Collin Beachy (DFL-endorsed)

Collin Beachy is one of the two candidates endorsed by the DFL (the other is KerryJo). He’s a special ed teacher who works at Transitions Plus (a school that helps students with significant disabilities with the transition to adulthood).

His “Why I’m Running” page is interesting, because it’s stuff I broadly agree with but a lot of it is teacher-centered. His first priority is doing an examination of why the strike happened and how to avoid a strike in the future. His second listed priority is “high expectations and clear goals,” but this doesn’t talk about goals regarding student achievement, this talks about getting money from the state. Third is “accountability and focus,” but I’ve read that set of bullet points three times and I’m still not sure what he actually wants to do. He mentions “vetting the flow of information coming from the administration” and “enacting more oversight of the administration and their cabinet” which honestly sounds to me like adding yet another layer of administration, this one to oversee the administration. The next point, “equitable programming,” is fine, as is “recruit and retain BIPOC staff.”

He genuinely strikes me as a lovely person, and maybe a teacher-centric perspective on the school board would add something we need post-strike? I like him, but I think right now he’s my #3. (You get two votes.)

Sonya Emerick

Sonya Emerick is the queer nonbinary autistic parent of a disabled child, and is on the MPS Special Education Advisory Council. Their website is fairly spare, but their Facebook and Twitter have more details on their priorities. I e-mailed everyone a question about reading instruction (phonics vs. “balanced literacy,” basically) and got back a prompt answer from Sonya that made it clear they (a) pay attention to the science, (b) know exactly which curricula use it, and (c) pay attention to the weaknesses of phonics-based curricula (“I do believe that [Science of Reading] informed methods need to be delivered in culturally sustaining ways, which requires thoughtfulness across instructional design, environments, materials, assessments, and requires actively recruiting educators of color and supporting and valuing those we already have. I also think increased partnership with families and communities around literacy would benefit some of the students facing real belief gap barriers at school.”) Anyway, I was impressed with their response and their knowledge about the issue I asked about, and I think MPS would benefit from having a school board representative with personal expertise on accessibility issues. I would vote for Sonya Emerick.

In addition to writing political commentary, I write science fiction and fantasy. My book that came out in April 2021, Chaos on CatNet, takes place in a future Minneapolis. It’s a sequel to Catfishing on CatNet and signed copies of both books are usually available from Dreamhaven. You will also be able to get them from Uncle Hugo’s when it reopens at 2716 E 31st St! (and maybe by mail order now? I’m not sure how much mail order Don is doing while getting ready to re-open.)

I do not have a Patreon or Ko-Fi, but you can make a donation to encourage my work! I get a lot of satisfaction watching fundraisers I highlight getting funded (or, in the case of the Movement Voter fundraiser, continuing to raise money past their goal). I explained back in May why I’m fundraising for the Movement Voter PAC and that fundraiser is still active. (Also, I owe some embarrassing readings of my juvenalia to the Internet.)

I also went looking and found two DonorsChoose fundraisers for classrooms at Bethune Community School in North Minneapolis: math manipulatives for pre-K students (this is such a good idea) and a nice book organizer for a first-grade classroom where the shelving is coming apart.

Primary Elections 2022: US House 05

Posted on by
1

The good news for me with this post is, I already kind of did the homework on this one back in February when Don Samuels first started exploring a run.

On the Democratic primary ballot:

Ilhan Omar (incumbent)
Don Samuels
Albert Ross
AJ Kern
Nate Schluter

Nate Schluter
I initially thought he had no website, but one of my Twitter followers found it! It … doesn’t really help much. He likes football metaphors, is susceptible to scams, and expresses some really gross nativist bullshit on his blog. He does at least appear to be a Democrat.

AJ Kern
AJ Kern is a “Conservative Christian” and right-wing asshole who wants “standing” to question Ilhan Omar’s citizenship. Did you know that when you sign an Affidavit of Candidacy to file as a party candidate in a major party, you affirm, among other things, “I either participated in the party’s most recent precinct caucuses or intend to vote for a majority of that party’s candidates at the next general election.” When you sign in at a caucus you affirm that you are broadly in agreement with the principles of the party. What I’m saying is, AJ Kern blatantly perjured herself, and I know it’s not worth anyone’s time to pursue it, but it’s garbage she’s even on here. Oh, she’s challenging Don Samuels’ citizenship, too. What a profoundly toxic asshole (and liar).

Albert Ross
Albert Ross has an unreadable, largely content-free website. (“Driven by making an impact and inspiring change, our Political Movement is always expanding our understanding of contemporary issues and developing our campaign to push for positive solutions. Learn more about our focus below.” Narrator voice: there’s nothing below this.) He does at least appear to be a Democrat.

Don Samuels

I was talking to a St. Paul friend about this race and summed up Don as a buffoon with a body count.

In 2005, he explained that his family (he’s from Jamaica) had a leg up on everyone else because they were descended from house slaves rather than field slaves. (“The reason that my family got a leg up on the people in our village in Jamaica is that we were in the big house. We saw homework done. They saw books read. They saw the piano lessons. And that’s why my wife and I say, ‘we want our house to be the big house on our block.’ And we’re going to open it up to every kid on our block.”)

ETA: he also sat for an interview with the late Sarah Janacek and in his discussion of Katrina’s aftermath he said the following: “Those were dark faces on those women, almost bizarrely unblended. They looked like they were from Haiti or Africa. This is part of the unspoken evolution of race. We cannot seem to talk about the reality that lighter- skinned black people are more likely to escape poverty.” The “unspoken evolution” line made me flinch because I don’t think he was just talking here about the damage done by colorism, especially given his comments (that came at the same time as that “big house” line) about being descended from mixed-race people. (That line is making me cringe so hard I’m just going to link, not quote, but I’m going to say, I find it kind of shocking that the 2013 mayoral profile that I linked earlier excises that line?)

In 2007, while a City Council member, he said that he thought North High should be burned down. Worth noting that this hyperbole was part of a push for vouchers.

In 2012, he had an op-ed published in which he described confronting someone for public urination, who then stole Don’s phone, only Don used the Find my IPhone feature plus the services of the cops to retrieve it and have the thief arrested, at which point he delivered a long lecture to the thief. (Two notes about this. First, I have known a ton of people who’ve had Apple products stolen, have known exactly where they are thanks to Find My iPhone, and usually have had zero luck getting cops to help them get their devices back. Second, there are multiple spots in this story that had a distinct “AND THEN EVERYONE CLAPPED” vibe.)

Don was a Vikings stadium supporter and after voting to approve it in 2013 (overriding the law that was supposed to require a municipal referendum) he had this comment about being surprised to be handed “an envelope with … a couple grand” from trade unions. This was at least less corrupt than his giddy comments made it sound. Overriding the will of the people to build a giant sports palace was, and remains, bullshit.

In 2014, he called the cops on a hot dog giveaway being run by a neighborhood organization trying to encourage people to vote. He said he thought they were selling the hot dogs illegally. They had a large sign saying “Free Hot Dogs” and were doing this right outside their organization’s office, which Don had been to. (There’s a video of the conversation between the organizers and the cop that includes the cop saying in a slightly confused tone, “I’m here … for the grilling of the food,” which clarifies that Don literally called 911 over this.) (In 2021, he claimed in a Facebook thread about this that there had been repeated grilling incidents and it was a fire hazard.)

Last year, he endorsed Mickey Moore and only retracted his endorsement because it turned out Mickey didn’t live in the district. He also went driving around in his underwear to pursue a guy who was rifling his car for change. And having sued in 2020 to force Minneapolis to hire more police, he sued in 2021 to have the public safety charter amendment tossed off the ballot. This was in cooperation with the (right-wing) Center for the American Experiment; additional friendly ties to CAE are documented here (or see this Twitter thread).

All of this buffoonery pales next to the incident where he and his wife took some neighborhood kids on an outing and let everyone go wading in the Mississippi River. Don can’t swim. When two of the little boys lost their footing and were pulled away by the current, Don’s wife Sondra was the only one who could go after them, and one of the children drowned. This happened in the summer of 2020 and was a heartbreaking, awful accident.

Which Don joked about earlier this year. (In response to someone talking about the incident and the incredible hubris involved in running for office a a year and a half after a child died because of your poor judgment, Don tweeted, “Can’t swim but can govern.”)

When I first saw that tweet, I honestly just assumed that “donsamuels49” was a satirical troll with extremely bad taste. I was absolutely flabbergasted to find out this was actually Don joking about the death of a child who was in his care.

Ilhan Omar

At this point, you probably know whether or not you like Ilhan Omar. Or maybe it varies by week. (There are definitely weeks I am annoyed at her but this week I’m a fan.)

I would absolutely without hesitation vote for her in this race!

On the Republican side there are three people running:

Royce White
Cicely Davis (GOP endorsed)
Guy T Gaskin

It literally does not matter which of these people you vote for because none of them have any chance, at all, of winning, and they’re all awful. I guess the fact that Royce White’s website uses the term “globalist” (an antisemitic dogwhistle) in practically every sentence makes him extra awful, so if you’re voting in this race for some reason, go with Cicely Davis.

Post-primary, be sure to tell your Republican family members in other states how extremely worried everyone here is about Ilhan losing, so they send their money to her opponent rather than Republicans running in actual swing districts.

In addition to writing political commentary, I write science fiction and fantasy. My book that came out in April 2021, Chaos on CatNet, takes place in a future Minneapolis. It’s a sequel to Catfishing on CatNet and signed copies of both books are usually available from Dreamhaven. You will also be able to get them from Uncle Hugo’s when it reopens at 2716 E 31st St! (and maybe by mail order now? I’m not sure how much mail order Don is doing while getting ready to re-open.)

I do not have a Patreon or Ko-Fi, but you can make a donation to encourage my work! I get a lot of satisfaction watching fundraisers I highlight getting funded (or, in the case of the Movement Voter fundraiser, continuing to raise money past their goal). I explained back in May why I’m fundraising for the Movement Voter PAC and that fundraiser is still active. (Also, I owe some embarrassing readings of my juvenalia to the Internet.)

I also went looking and found two DonorsChoose fundraisers for classrooms at Bethune Community School in North Minneapolis: math manipulatives for pre-K students (this is such a good idea) and a nice book organizer for a first-grade classroom where the shelving is coming apart.

Primary Elections 2022: Hennepin County Attorney

Posted on by
10

This is a nonpartisan race, which means that if you live in Hennepin County you can vote in this race regardless of which partisan primary you voted in, and the top two vote-getters will go to the general election ballot in November.

This is a pretty complicated race. Seven people are running; all are serious candidates who are basically qualified for the job (in the sense that they all have law degrees, in contrast to the candidates for Attorney General, which include several people who do not). On the ballot:

Jarvis Jones
Tad Jude
Paul Ostrow
Ryan Winkler
Saraswati Singh
Mary Moriarty
Martha Holton Dimick

In researching this race, I looked at everyone’s website and social media, I sent everyone a question (mostly by e-mail), and I watched the LWV forum (which I highly recommend as a source). I read a long Facebook post by a local defense lawyer (Jordan Kushner) who’s been in practice for a long time, and some of the questionnaires at People Over Prosecution. And a bunch of other stuff. There’s a lot of information out there. So much information. I want my faithful readers to know that I have absolutely missed stuff in this race because unlike some races, where you have to dig and dig to turn up much of anything, this is a race where you can drown in information.

Putting in a “read more” break because this one’s going to run long.

Continue reading →

Primary Elections 2022: Minnesota Attorney General

Posted on by
3

I actually got an e-mail from someone asking about this one this morning so I’m going to do it quickly (it’s another very straightforward race.)

DFL Attorney General Primary

Keith Ellison (incumbent, DFL-endorsed)
Bill Dahn

I am really pretty happy with the job Keith Ellison has done in the last four years, and I will talk more about this when I write about this race in the general election. In the primary, though, your options here are Keith, and … uh, this other guy. Bill Dahn’s website that he linked from his affidavit doesn’t work. I found another website here but it actually seems to be maintained by Sharon Anderson (also running for AG but on the Republican ticket, see below) and that may explain why so many of the documents on there seem to have literally nothing to do with him? Or possibly not. He has a Twitter on which he airs his two primary grievances, police officers with ‘roid rage and Jesse Ventura having paid the filing fee for him so he could re-register in the GOP primary race for governor instead of the Reform primary race for governor in 1998. (You can find area weirdo Leslie Davis explaining that controversy at great and extensive length here.) To sum up: Bill Dahn is a guy with a list of extremely niche grievances and he doesn’t belong anywhere near the AG’s office. Vote for Keith Ellison.

GOP Attorney General Primary

Jim Schultz (GOP endorsed)
Doug Wardlow
Sharon Anderson

Doug Wardlow is a far-right extremist who pals around with traitors, spreads Trump’s Big Lie about the election, and would one HUNDRED percent do anything he can think of to persecute anyone who comes to Minnesota to get a legal abortion. (Note that his website emphasizes creating a “human trafficking unit” and let’s just be clear about this: the right wing is already working on ways to use human trafficking laws to stop people from crossing state lines in order to get an abortion.)

Jim Schultz is a fellow far-right extremist who’s doing his best to keep his views under wraps by responding to questions about abortion by saying that no one cares about abortion and responding to questions about whether he thinks our elections are fair (n.b.: they are) by just not answering the questions at all (although he has a shout-out to the people who think there was fraud over on his website). Wardlow, of course, calls him a RINO. Schultz is running on crime, crime, and crime, with a website that as close to content-free as he could get it. I just want to note, though, that I really vehemently disagree with his theory that no one actually cares about abortion because we’re all more focused on crime. I care deeply about abortion, and while I think it’s unlikely to be made illegal in Minnesota in the next four years, I absolutely think that the rights of women to engage in interstate travel are going to be up for debate, and the prospect of an Attorney General who’d be tempted to side with the forced-birth legislators in Arkansas is completely unacceptable to me.

Sharon Anderson, okay. I’ve written about her before, a couple of times, but here’s a quick C&P from what’s currently at the top of her blog-slash-election-site. I’ve pasted as plain text to remove all the weird formatting and also the links, go on over to see the original if you want the full effect.

Sharon must because of Medical Malpractice must citre Keith Ellison as the Minnesota AntiChrist.
magner v. gallagher – Google Search
Affiant Widow,White Whistleblower state and alleges re penalty of perjury free speech that in her humnble, opinion Keith Ellison is the Anti Christ, further complicit with former Dnc Chair Tom Perez to Q
Minnesota Attorney General election, 2022 (August 9 Republican primary) – Ballotpediauid Pro Quo dismiss ussc 10-1032 titled Magner vs Gallagher
files Consumer Complaint vs. Facebook, Zuckerberg with her opponent for MN
Jim Schultz (Minnesota)AG Muslin Keith Ellison, who answers to Quran
and not the State and Federal Constitution.
Today
FB exploiting Blindness You Zuckberg are conflictig, arbitrarily, discriminating vs Affiant Sharon Anderson with manulipating e address etc.
THEREFORE: Legal notice to opponent mUSLIN kEITH eLLISON MN AG RE http://sharon4mnag.blogspot.com

Ha ha ha yeah anyway. This lady? WON the Republican Primary back in 1994. She was the Republican candidate in the general election in 1994. (Minnesota politics in the 90s were wild.)

Absolutely any of these candidates would be a disaster as AG but in Sharon’s case the Republican party would be unlikely to rally behind her (they didn’t in 1994, they just pretended that race wasn’t happening) because there’s “saying the quiet part loud” and then there’s … whatever this is. So if I were going with the Chaos Option and voting for Bobagain at the top of the ticket, I’d be tempted to vote for Sharon next. But not because I think she should be AG, just to be clear. I am absolutely voting for Keith Ellison in the general election regardless of who his opponent is.

In addition to writing political commentary, I write science fiction and fantasy. My book that came out in April 2021, Chaos on CatNet, takes place in a future Minneapolis. It’s a sequel to Catfishing on CatNet and signed copies of both books are usually available from Dreamhaven. You will also be able to get them from Uncle Hugo’s when it reopens at 2716 E 31st St! (and maybe by mail order now? I’m not sure how much mail order Don is doing while getting ready to re-open.)

I do not have a Patreon or Ko-Fi, but you can make a donation to encourage my work! I get a lot of satisfaction watching fundraisers I highlight getting funded (or, in the case of the Movement Voter fundraiser, continuing to raise money past their goal). I explained back in May why I’m fundraising for the Movement Voter PAC and that fundraiser is still active. (Also, I owe some embarrassing readings of my juvenalia to the Internet.)

I also went looking and found two DonorsChoose fundraisers for classrooms at Bethune Community School in North Minneapolis: math manipulatives for pre-K students (this is such a good idea) and a nice book organizer for a first-grade classroom where the shelving is coming apart.

Primary Elections 2022: Governor

Posted on by
1

So I know I said I was just going to leave this for later but I did the thing where I e-mailed a bunch of candidates (in other races, not this one) and now feel duty-bound to actually wait until they’ve had a reasonable amount of time to get back to me (especially the one whose campaign manager e-mailed me back and said he’s out of town) and anyway, this one is straightforward and I can feel like I’m accomplishing something because I’ll have another post up.

In the Governor’s race, there are contests on the ballot for Republicans, Democrats, and both weed parties. Here’s how primaries work in Minnesota: you get a ballot and it’s divided up into sections by party, and you have to pick a party to vote in. You can vote in all the Republican primaries, or all the DFL primaries, or all the Grassroots primaries (there’s only one), or all the Legal Marijuana Now primaries (again, there’s only one). You can also vote in all the nonpartisan primaries regardless — those are typically on the other side of the ballot. If you vote in multiple party primaries (even if you pick different races) you have spoiled your ballot and it will not be counted. (If you’re voting in person, the machine will spit your ballot out and you can trade it in for a fresh ballot and try again.)

DFL: Tim Walz and Peggy Flanagan vs. Ole Savior and Julia M Parker.

You know who Tim Walz is and you probably know if you’re happy with him or not. But even if you’re not happy with him, your alternative on the primary ballot is Ole Savior, this guy whose long-time hobby is running in elections. He ran for governor, also in the DFL primary, in 2018, when I described him as the “quintessential flake candidate.”

Here’s the thing that’s kind of weird: I swear I remember that he died. Like I saw a news story about Ole Savior, long-time perennial candidate, dying, and thinking, “gosh, one fewer person on the ballot next time!” and … apparently I hallucinated this? Or dreamed it? It only counts as the Mandela Effect if other people remember it (like the Berensteain Bears) but seriously Ole turning up on the ballot felt like a glitch in the Matrix. I am going to vote for Tim, because there’s an actual primary in the DFL congressional race in 4 and so I’m voting in the Democratic races, and I’m not unhappy enough with Tim to risk even the narrow possibility of an Ole win. (It’s a very, very, very narrow possibility but you never know.)

GOP: Scott Jensen and Matt Birk vs. Joyce Lynne Lacey and Kent Edwards vs. Bob “Again” Carney Jr and Captain Jack Sparrow

Scott Jensen is the right-wing ghoul, forced birther, antivaxxer, ivermectin promoter and provider who got the GOP endorsement. He’s probably going to win the primary.

Joyce Lacey has an impressively pointless website. She has a section labeled “blog” and if you go there, you’ll see a photo of her with a sign saying “viruses come and go, loss of freedom is forever” and the post title “Defending our Freedom” and a photo of her with a sign saying “Life Is For Everyone” with the post title “Defending the Right to Life for All Ages.” If you click on either post, you will find that neither post has any text — they’re just the photo. She does have a Twitter on which she mentions some activism around abuse of guardianship, but her website doesn’t mention it.

BobAgain is another perennial candidate, as is Jack Sparrow, and I’m amused by the team-up. Bob is also running in the First District congressional district special election primary (because of course, this means he can run for two things back to back! presumably if he wins that one he’ll withdraw from the gubernatorial primary but the risk here is not high.)

My favorite bit of Bob’s website is that he has a secret plan for a Viking Super Bowl victory. (This is from his application form for a running mate, which is still up):

Dr. Scott Jensen, one of the GOP candidates, has selected former Viking Matt Birk as his running mate. If they’re endorsed, I’d like to be able to roll out a plan for the Vikings to win the Super Bowl by 2025 – if you know a lot about football, I’ll give your candidacy preferential consideration. To be blunt – winning the Super Bowl is something a lot of Minnesota voters may be more interested in than anything some politico says! This is all part of a general effort to encourage people to think differently – and to begin talking when that otherwise might not happen. (I actually do have a “secret plan” for how to do this – if Jensen/Birk is nominated at the convention it could be rolled out in book form during the campaign – you could possibly help write it and be a co-author. There is an admittedly lighthearted aspect to this. There would be some “serious side effects” from following the plan – that would be worth discussing too – but… bottom line… it could be done.)

If I were voting in the Republican races, I would absolutely vote for Bobagain to be the Republican gubernatorial candidate.

Grassroots – Legalize Cannabis: Darrell Paulsen and Ed Engelmann vs. Steve Patterson and Matt Huff.

It took a lot of digging to find Darrel Paulsen’s website. Googling got me to his LinkedIn, which pointed me to the Facebook of his company, Paulsen and Company, which had a link to his Twitter, which when I scrolled down a bit had a link to his website. He’s a disability advocate and wheelchair user (his website had a link to this really interesting article from a few years ago about his and his wife’s parenting experiences). Anyway, he came to cannabis legalization via disability advocacy, I think.

Steve Patterson’s issues page starts out with a whine about the COVID lockdown (“My business partner Brian Miller and I were on pace to open Prime Stein Brewery in Rochester in June of 2020. That plan was derailed by Governor Walz and he created his first of several overly aggressive executive orders stating that no one could leave their home unless they were going to work.”) Moves on to the statement “I also do not believe in free healthcare as I think if it was free it should be abused” and wraps up with him wanting to enact the “Castle Doctrine” in Minnesota. Whee. I look at people like this and wonder why they’re not running as Libertarians? I assume it’s because the Libertarians aren’t a major party and Grassroots is at the moment.

If I were voting in this primary, which to be honest I have no idea why anyone would, I would vote for Darrel Paulsen.

Legal Marijuana Now Party: Chris Wright and L.C. Lawrence Converse vs. James McCaskel and David Sandbeck.

Chris Wright is one of the founders of the Grassroots party so I find it very funny he’s now running in the LMP primary. His issues page is a mix of “sure, that DFL proposal sounds great” and “I don’t know enough about monetary policy to truly evaluate your proposal but I’m pretty sure you don’t either.” He doesn’t comment on the accidental legalization of THC (none of the weed candidates do, that I saw) but he does have a long rant about why the other legalization bill proposed by the DFL and shot down by the Republicans is basically just as bad as keeping weed criminalized (because there’s a licensing requirement and taxes and stuff.)

Much like how Patterson is a Libertarian running on a weed party ticket because it’s a major party, James McCaskel is a Green running on a weed party ticket because it’s a major party. The text on his Platform page is bold, underlined, and centered, and thus really difficult to read, but they’re basically the Green Party’s Ten Key Values.

If forced to choose between these two people, I guess I would go with Chris Wright on the grounds that at least with him, weed is genuinely central to his political philosophy, he’s not a Green who’s hitchhiking on the LMP because they’re a major party right now and the Greens aren’t.

Honestly, for anyone who’s embracing chaos in their approach to the partisan primaries, you’re not going to beat Bob Again as an option.

In addition to writing political commentary, I write science fiction and fantasy. My book that came out in April 2021, Chaos on CatNet, takes place in a future Minneapolis. It’s a sequel to Catfishing on CatNet and signed copies of both books are usually available from Dreamhaven. You will also be able to get them from Uncle Hugo’s when it reopens at 2716 E 31st St! (and maybe by mail order now? I’m not sure how much mail order Don is doing while getting ready to re-open.)

I do not have a Patreon or Ko-Fi, but you can make a donation to encourage my work! I get a lot of satisfaction watching fundraisers I highlight getting funded (or, in the case of the Movement Voter fundraiser, continuing to raise money past their goal). I explained back in May why I’m fundraising for the Movement Voter PAC and that fundraiser is still active. (Also, I owe some embarrassing readings of my juvenalia to the Internet.)

I also went looking and found two DonorsChoose fundraisers for classrooms at Bethune Community School in North Minneapolis: math manipulatives for pre-K students (this is such a good idea) and a nice book organizer for a first-grade classroom where the shelving is coming apart.

Primary Elections 2022: Hennepin County Sheriff

Posted on by
2

I’m starting with an easy one — though, hmm, how should I say this, this is one of those races that feels jinxed for me personally because I strongly supported Dave Hutchinson four years ago and while I do in fact think he was the lesser available evil compared to having Stanek in office from 2018 through 2022, the guy also drove while absolutely hammered, crashed his car while going 126 mph, and lied to try to cover it up. (Modern cars are a wonder of technology.) (And then yesterday another story about Hutch hit, which was about him appearing to engage in a pattern of deliberately overspending because the county was garnishing his paychecks to cover the cost of the car he crashed while shitfaced, and when I went just now to look for that link I found a NEW story about him sending racist and homophobic texts to subordinates.)

Anyway. In 2022, there are three people running, two of whom will advance to the general.

Jai Hanson
Dawanna Witt
Joseph Banks

Jai Hanson

Jai Hanson is a Bloomington police officer who was adopted from India as a child. Two minutes of reading his website made it pretty goddamn clear why I don’t think anyone should support him.

Hanson was disgusted by the video of officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck, and he was disgusted at the destruction.

THESE TWO THINGS ARE NOT THE SAME AND EQUATING THEM IS HORRIFYING. (And yes, this framing absolutely suggests that these are two things of equal weight.)

Later, he drove to his parents’ house, and in their front window he saw a big sign. “SAY THEIR NAMES,” it read, listing people killed by police. Anti-police sentiment was everywhere. Now it felt like it was in his childhood home.

And Jai Hanson was furious. […] The sign felt flippant and anti-law enforcement. He drove off in a huff. Later, he wrote his dad an e-mail that the sign deeply offended him. In 14 years in law enforcement, he’d never heard his parents express sadness about a police officer getting killed.

His snit over this sign was less than a week after George Floyd was murdered. And regarding memorializing police officers: there are multiple big stone memorials on the capitol grounds and another one at the airport and that’s off the top of my head, I’m pretty sure there are others around the area. When Ron Ryan Jr. and Timothy Jones (and Jones’ dog) were murdered in 1994, the city mourned and their murderer was swiftly sentenced to life in prison.

And honestly: this is all I really need to know about Jai. He’s a police officer who immediately made a crime committed by a police officer all about his hurt feelings as a police officer. I would absolutely not vote for him, regardless of his other positions.

Today I saw a news story about a Somali woman who was named teacher of the year in 2020 who is now leaving teaching. One of the incidents mentioned in her reasons why: after she read the picture book Something Happened In My Town, which was written specifically to help young kids process the trauma of high-profile police violence happening in their community, Jai condemned this on his blog, inciting a huge amount of harassment. (And also, you know, complaining about reading a book that was written to help kids process trauma that the kids in our community experienced and his rationale for his bitching about this was, “it’ll teach them to be afraid of police.” Jai, kids in the Twin Cities are afraid of police because a police officer murdered a man in front of cameras while three other cops stood by, and then another police officer murdered a man because apparently she couldn’t tell her taser from her sidearm, and then a SWAT team murdered a man after breaking into his house in the middle of the night. Kids in the Twin Cities are afraid of police because the police have demonstrated that they’re really fucking dangerous to the community.

Dawanna Witt

Dawanna Witt works in the Sheriff’s office; she’s a Black woman who’s spent 22 years working in law enforcement. Her website emphasizes public safety and restoring trust. She’s endorsed by the DFL and I think all the DFL electeds who have endorsed in this race have endorsed Dawanna.

Worth noting for those who want someone law-and-order-y — Dawanna is endorsed by the DFL Senior Caucus, LaTrisha Vetaw, and Dean Phillips. She starts out by talking about prioritizing violent crime. So like: you’ll get that. There’s no option that isn’t that. With Dawanna you can have that but without the whining and “actually, it’s police officers who are the real victims” bullshit of Jai.

Joseph Banks

Two weeks ago, a friend noticed that Joseph Banks had an events calendar on his website that had zero Joseph Banks events but was displaying all upcoming Yankees games. He’s now fixed that, but the “Become a Volunteer!” button on his Get Involved page says, “I’m a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It’s easy. Just click “Edit Text” or double click me to add your own content and make changes to the font. I’m a great place for you to tell a story and let your users know a little more about you.”

Joseph ran four years ago and my main comment on him at the time was that he hadn’t seemed to get much traction. That seems to be true this time, as well. I watched the LWV forum for Sheriff candidates and Joseph seems smart and committed, but so does Dawanna.

I would vote for Dawanna in the primary and I would vote for whoever isn’t Jai Hanson in the general election. Fingers crossed that the next Hennepin County Sheriff is smart enough to stay at the hotel instead of driving home shitfaced and also won’t be a racist Trump supporter! Seriously the lowest of low bars. The absolute lowest.

In addition to writing political commentary, I write science fiction and fantasy. My book that came out in April 2021, Chaos on CatNet, takes place in a future Minneapolis. It’s a sequel to Catfishing on CatNet and signed copies of both books are usually available from Dreamhaven. You will also be able to get them from Uncle Hugo’s when it reopens at 2716 E 31st St! (and maybe by mail order now? I’m not sure how much mail order Don is doing while getting ready to re-open.)

I do not have a Patreon or Ko-Fi, but you can make a donation to encourage my work! I get a lot of satisfaction watching fundraisers I highlight getting funded (or, in the case of the Movement Voter fundraiser, continuing to raise money past their goal). I explained back in May why I’m fundraising for the Movement Voter PAC and that fundraiser is still active. (Also, I owe some embarrassing readings of my juvenalia to the Internet.)

I also went looking and found two DonorsChoose fundraisers for classrooms at Bethune Community School in North Minneapolis: math manipulatives for pre-K students (this is such a good idea) and a nice book organizer for a first-grade classroom where the shelving is coming apart.

Election 2022: Primaries

Posted on by
4

I’ve started getting e-mails asking if I’m going to write about the primaries, so it’s probably time to write about the primaries. Minnesota’s primary election this year will be on August 9th.

On everyone’s ballot in the state of Minnesota:

Governor
Attorney General
Secretary of State

In addition to multiple DFL and Republican candidates for Governor, AG, and SoS, there’s a contested primary in the governor’s race for both weed parties. In Minnesota, you can vote in whichever party primary you want — but you have to pick one and stick with it in all the partisan races on that year’s ballot. If you vote for Ole Savior for governor in the DFL primary, you can’t then vote for Sharon Anderson for AG in the Republican primary.

Both US House MN-04 (the seat currently held by Betty McCollum) and US House MN-05 (the seat currently held by Ilhan Omar) are having primaries — again, both DFL and Republican candidates are on the ballot. (There are primaries in lots of other districts but I only write about the races people vote on in Minneapolis and St. Paul, so like, local to us + statewide.)

In Hennepin County, there is a primary for County Attorney and one for County Sherriff. (This is a non-partisan primary: the top two vote-getters in each race advance.)

In Minneapolis, there is a primary for School Board At-Large and also for Minneapolis School Board District 5. The other Minneapolis school board seats up for election this year aren’t having primaries because not enough people are running to require them. These are also non-partisan and the top vote-getters advance (but it’s the top 4 for School Board At-Large because there are two open seats).

The following metro-area State House seats are contested, I think:

62A: Aisha Gomez (incumbent)
Osman Ahmed

65B: Anna Botz
Maria Isa Pérez-Hedges

66A: Leigh Finke
Dave Thomas

67A: John Thompson (incumbent)
Liz Lee

And the following metro-area State Senate seats are contested, I think:

62: Omar Fateh (incumbent)
Shaun Laden

63: Zaynab Mohamed
Todd Scott

65: Sandra Pappas (incumbent)
Zuki Ellis
Sheigh Freeberg

And there’s a Ramsey County Board race. At least one.

I’m starting out this year already tired (I mean, have you seen a newspaper this week?) so I’m going to prioritize the downticket races and save the top for the end or if I’m feeling burned out and need a break. I mean, you know I’m going to say to vote for Tim Walz, Steve Simon, and Keith Ellison — Tim’s DFL opponent is Ole Savior! Steve’s being challenged in the DFL primary by a Republican! Keith’s opponent hasn’t got an actual website! — you don’t actually NEED my help there.

Fundraiser for the Movement Voter Project

Posted on by
1
One of my personal takeaways from 2020 was that donating to organizing was more effective than donating to campaigns. In Maine, people flooded Sara Gideon with cash and we got another six years of Susan Collins being very, very concerned; in Georgia, people donated a bunch of money to both Ossoff and Warnock once the runoff started, but I think it was clear that the battle was won by Fair Fight, Stacey Abrams’ organization. The Movement Voter Project is an umbrella organization that raises money to support small, local, progressive groups primarily in key states. (Including, but not limited to, Fair Fight.) I set up a recurring donation to MVP late last year. There are a couple of things about these groups I think are important:
  • They’re not just focused on big races like the US Senate but also on downticket races where we absolutely have to build power.
  • In addition to registering and motivating voters, they’re groups that will pressure the Democratic party to live up to the progressive values it claims to hold.
  • They are run by local people who know a lot better than I do which primaries matter and which candidates have a real chance. They’ll also work to elect the lesser evil, if that’s what’s on the table.
  • I generally try to avoid donating to primary races outside my own area (do I know who has the best chance at beating Marjorie Taylor Greene? I do not! You know who might? the Democrats in her district!) but post-primary is often really late to start fundraising for the general election. Funding organizing helps to provide a head start for whoever wins.
  • Let’s be honest about this: the Democratic party in some states is run by people who truly do not appear to know their ass from their elbow. I appreciate the opportunity to donate to groups that have some chance of filling the gap in states where the party is incredibly badly run.
Anyway: I created a fundraiser for the Movement Voter Project. I spent a lot of time thinking about what I could do as an incentive for a fundraiser, because the problem with offering stuff like Tuckerizations is that I have to keep track of whether I’ve actually fulfilled my end of the bargain — it’s fine if it’s just a few, but it doesn’t scale well. But! I have an entire box of spiral-bound Mead notebooks from my childhood, containing my creative writing from when I was as young as nine. I was a very enthusiastic writer from a very young age. I was not a particularly good writer. For every $500 raised I will read some of my deeply embarrassing childhood prose for you on video and upload it. The story in this notebook was my fourth grade attempt at a novel about a magical talking horse, if that gives you some idea of what to expect. If people have other ideas of things I could offer, feel free to leave them in the comments.

WorldCon 2021 Schedule

Posted on by
Reply

WorldCon is normally held in August, but this year is being held in December, because there were various catastrophes (aside from the Big Obvious Ongoing Catastrophe, the hotel they were planning to hold the con in closed down) and the convention organizers rescheduled it for December. It’s being held both virtually and in-person. I’m vaxxed, boosted, and going in person.

I am a finalist for two Hugo Awards this year: “Monster” is a finalist for Best Novelette, and “Little Free Library” is a finalist for Best Short Story. Both stories are up against an amazing set of fellow finalists; it’s an honor to be listed among them.

I’m getting in Wednesday evening, flying home Monday. Here’s my schedule:

Thursday

10 am: Post-Pandemic Aesthetics. Virtual Panel.
“The 1918 flu pandemic had huge impacts on culture over the subsequent decades, including significant changes to architecture and personal fashion. What kinds of long-term changes to our public aesthetic will we see in reaction to COVID-19? Will restaurants and other public spaces need to change their room layouts and building designs? Will branded, designer facemasks become de rigueur symbols of conspicuous consumption?” I am moderating. Other panelists: Ana Rüsche, Charlie Stross, Leonardo Espinoza Benavides, sandy manning.

11:30 am: Kaffeeklatsch – Suite 325 Main Room.

1 pm to 1:50pm: Signing at the SFWA table in the Dealer’s Room.

2:30 pm: The Fallout of Being the Chosen One. Forum Room.
“Being a Chosen One isn’t always happily-ever-after. The season-by-season model of television, and the multi volume novel,  allows viewers to explore the arc of the chosen one-type hero after the initial hero’s journey is complete. What are some of the emotional impacts and plot implications of the Chosen One’s story? What kind of generational trauma can being, or being near, the Chosen One inflict?” Ellen Kushner, Naomi Kritzer, Patricia A. Jackson, Sarah Guan, Hildy Silverman (Moderator)

5 p.m.: Hugo Nominee reception, Ambassador Ballroom.
This is a big public reception for people to meet the nominees from 2021 and the winners (and maybe also nominees?) from 2020 (which also includes me: I won the Lodestar Award for Catfishing on Catnet). How long I stay is going to depend heavily on whether I was able to find food between 12:30 and 1, and/or between 1:50 and 2:30, or if I’m running on pop and granola bars.

10 pm: Social Media: Making Enemies & Alienating People. Virtual.
“Social media can be an excellent place to find online community, especially during a pandemic, but it can also be a fraught world of vicious gossip, lip service activism, and whatever the Algorithm is. The panel will explore ways of using different forms of social media to connect with like-minded people, while providing tips to avoid falling prey to such platform’s worst aspects.” Elizabeth Hirst, John Wiswell, K.G. Anderson, Naomi Kritzer, Travis Tippens (Moderator)

(Yes, my Thursday is ridiculous. It was already ridiculous and then I added the signing at the SFWA table because the other available slots were problematic in other ways and I decided that I’d just come prepared to live on snacks that day if I have to. The 10 p.m. panel on social media dumpster fires should leave me thoroughly alert to go find people in the bar!)

Friday

10 am: Legal and Actuarial Supernatural Hypotheticals. Forum Room.
“What does a lifetime annuity mean to the undead? Are werewolves responsible for their actions during the full moon if they contracted lycanthropy by accident? Do mermaids have standing to bring citizen suits under the Clean Water Act? Do vampire thralls run afoul of anti-slavery laws? Not actual legal advice. Results may vary. Please contact your local coven before attempting to bargain with the fae.” I am moderating. Also on the panel: Alex Shvartsman, Andrija “Andy” Popovic, Pat Bahn, Tenaya Anue.

Saturday

2:30 p.m.: 2020 ruined my novel! Forum Room.
“2020 was a giant curveball for the entire world. Everyone was affected in one way or another. What about authors? Our panelists will discuss what changes they had to make to their 2020 work-in-progress to accommodate all the weird things that were happening in the real world.” Alyc Helms, Lindsay Ellis, Lisa Nohealani Morton, Naomi Kritzer, Sue, Victor Manibo, Wesley Chu (Moderator)

8 p.m.: Hugo Award Ceremony.
Definitely planning to go to this.

Sunday

I have nothing currently scheduled for Sunday other than being able to sleep in.

Anyway — for anyone coming, please say hi! Also please don’t be worried if I have to squint at your nametag to know who you are — I have always been bad at facial recognition, add masks and it’s just hopeless (but I’m strongly in favor of masks. Just, also nametags.) I am looking forward to the mix of in-person and virtual programming. If you want something signed and can’t make it to my signing or Kaffeeklatsch, feel free to just waylay me after a panel.

I went to Convergence this summer and in some ways, it was a very different con. It was smaller; a lot of stuff had been scaled back or cancelled either because they lacked volunteers to run it or because they couldn’t come up with a good way to make it safe. But it was still so great to see people again. I have missed conventions so much and I’m really grateful that WorldCon is being held.

Gifts for People You Hate 2021: Supply Chain Mayhem

Posted on by
5

Welcome, my friends, to my annual guide to passive-aggressive gifting.

In a better world, no one would feel like gift-giving was an unavoidable obligation, and certainly no one would find themselves resentfully shopping for someone they actively dislike, but we’re not in that world yet, and across the globe in December (or November, especially when Hanukkah comes early), people resentfully head to the mall to try to select something acceptable yet inexpensive for their mother-in-law, their neighbor, their obnoxious cousin, or their least-favorite coworker who they unfortunately drew for the office Secret Santa.

And I’m here for you! Once again, I have assembled a selection of inexpensive items that will look like you cared enough to send the very best, while in fact giving people the gift of wasted time, wasted space, frustration, annoyance, etc.

As always, I want to take a moment to emphasize that I don’t buy gifts for anyone I don’t like — if I’ve given you a terrible present, I like you and it was clueless goodwill and not passive-aggression (the very sort of clueless goodwill the rest of you can use as camouflage). I also do not scrutinize gifts I receive for hints that someone secretly dislikes me. (I cheerfully assume that everyone likes me, and occasionally discover that I’m wrong, and then usually forget that the person dislikes me and embarrass us both the next time I see them in public and give them a hearty hello while they’re trying to avoid eye contact.)

Anyway. I’m doing this guide very early this year for two reasons: (1) Hanukkah starts in November (we almost got another Thanksgivukkah) and (2) SUPPLY CHAIN ISSUES. As everyone knows, supply chain issues are wreaking havoc everywhere, on all the things, and this is a particular subtle bonus to passive-aggressive gifters as you could buy something completely bizarre, like you could give the person from your office gift exchange a Bob Ross Chia Pet or an Archie McPhee Yodeling Pickle and then shrug and say “you know, supply chain issues!” and they’ll be forced to assume that the shelves at Walgreens were otherwise picked bare and you did the best you could.

(The shelves are not actually going to be bare. There will be tons of stuff, you just won’t be able to find the item you want in your size, which is always true, but it’ll be more true this year. Also, print copies of your friends’ books may be hard to find, so if you haven’t bought all your friends’ books already, get on that or resign yourself to ebooks.)

Let’s talk about some bad gift options, shall we?

What you look like you need is a new hobby!

You know what your sister-in-law needs? Something more productive to do with her time than reading OANN links on Facebook. Maybe she could take up bonsai. Bonsai is a great hobby, but usually when you gift someone a bonsai, you give them a tiny tree that they can mold and trim. This kit gives you seeds. Do you know how long it takes to grow a tiny tree from seeds? It takes years.

Alternately, here is a kit where you make tiny bowls out of embroidery thread. Per reviews, the glue soaks right through the thread so it’s almost impossible to get it off the plastic shell included to form the bowls on. In the event that your recipient gets it to work, the result is a tiny bowl made from embroidery thread, which can’t be used for much of anything useful. So you can give someone both a time waster and a tchotchke.

For a mere $10, you can buy someone a reasonably nice pocket set of watercolors that comes with brushes and a brush holder. Of course, your recipient will need some watercolor paper. You can then buy them 14 sheets of high quality, large sheets of paper, so that they’ll worry endlessly about wasting it. Alternately, you can buy a similarly thin pad of large, cheap paper. (That one telegraphs “for kids!” though — for maximum psychological pain, a tiny high grade quantity of a key consumable is a good way to make a new hobby feel painfully high stakes.)

Or perhaps you can pretend that you think they’ll enjoy a paint-by-numbers technicolor Darth Vader. (There’s a whole range of paint-by-numbers kits, so if Vader is actually up their alley you could instead get them something with more of a Thomas Kinkade vibe.)

Gifts that seem useful, but really aren’t.

If you know someone who likes to think of themselves as a rugged, self-sufficient type, you could give them a survival kit. There are lots of pre-made survival kits with various types of gear; this one is very small, and very cheap. (A cautionary note for anyone thinking about giving it to a person they dislike but would rather not see actually die in an actual emergency: the flashlight comes without batteries.)

Speaking of batteries, apparently some people find it helpful to take them all out of their packaging and carefully load them into this elaborate case. Definitely give this to someone you don’t like who already has a perfectly reasonable battery storage solution.

There are many people who find compasses to be useful. They probably would not actually want to take this large, showy, decorative compass into any situation where a compass might be useful. (It weighs almost 12 ounces! Imagine using it to orienteer your way through the woods!)

Have you ever tried to fix something while holding a flashlight and encountered the “not enough hands” problem? Maybe you think this problem would be solved by building LED flashlights into a pair of fingerless gloves. According to several reviewers, this problem is solved a whole lot better by a head lamp, since that points where you’re looking and your glove flashlight might or might not.

Most people these days get the bulk of their weather forecasting information via a phone app. It can be nice to have an indoor-outdoor thermometer but the dial kind is a lot easier to read than the classic “mercury is rising/falling” style (which are made without mercury, FYI). You can also buy some very attractive barometers, at various price points, one of which seems to basically be a snow globe for grownups. In other words, a gadget that purports to be useful, isn’t particularly, but IS fragile and attractive so they can’t just shove it in a closet: the perfect bad gift, at least for someone who, if they need a weather forecast, is going to look not at their fancy glass barometer but at their phone.

Would your recipient enjoy owning a fitness tracker? I know a lot of people who enjoy fitness trackers but none of them have fitness trackers with an alarm that once you’ve turned it on, you will never be able to shut off or reset, which according to the reviews is a feature of this budget-priced model. It also only works in metric, and despite being mainly a step counter, is incredibly unreliable about counting steps.

(Almost forgot to include this one!) Via the Black Friday Sales, how about a toaster-style hot dog and bun cooker? All the counter space of a large toaster but so much more pointless.

Let’s Gussy Up Your Home Office

Is your gift recipient still working from home? A ring light is a gadget that lights your face so you look better on Zoom calls. There are plenty of inexpensive, reliable models, but this one is significantly cheaper, provides inadequate light, and will break almost immediately.

There are also a ton of desk accessories that could be either horrifying or awesome, it depends a lot on the recipient. For example, this tape dispenser with a monkey that claps cymbals as you pull out tape. (I love how product descriptions for this sort of thing always call a “conversation starter.” Entirely accurate for conversations that begin with, “what the hell is that?”)

“What the hell is that?” “Oh, that’s my tape dispenser with a monkey that claps its cymbals when you pull out tape.”

Alternately, you could get this kind of amazing skull desk organizer. It has two holes in the back of the head for you to put your pens and pencils in, but also the mouth is open and you can use it to store paperclips and stuff like that. If that’s just a little too far over the line, this motorcycle design is less gory but takes up way too much space for a pen holder. This dragon pen holder is also very large. The Knight Pen Holder is less overall bulky but it also holds a single pen.

There are a whole range of unique decorative staplers, including dragon, T-Rex, and carved wooden animals. None of them are particularly well-reviewed as a stapler, but the carved wooden deer looks particularly difficult to use because of how the head gets in the way of your hand, and it looks to me like the staples you’d have to use in that one are the mini kind, which are both harder to find and really useless.

Finally, let’s talk pens. Fountain pens can be really excellent gifts, and FTR, I’ve bought Jinhao fountain pens and despite their low price, they’re nice pens. But some really emphasize form over function, with sculptural decorative bits right where you’d kind of want to hold the pen. They have various sculptural rollerball pens as well as fountain. Oh, here’s another one that’s really neat to look at but has literal dragon spines where you’d be holding it? (If you’re in a situation where two people need to give separate gifts, you could pair the knight pen holder with a fancy, unusable pen!)

Magazines: The Gift That Keeps On Giving

A magazine you’re interested in is something you can enjoy all year. A magazine you are not interested in is junk mail that endlessly piles up and makes you feel guilty for not reading it!

Smithsonian magazine costs $12/year, comes with a tote, and supports the Smithsonian Institution. This would be a good gift to people interested in American history and historical research. This would be a terrific gift to people who have loud, angry opinions about “heritage” but mostly seem to have gotten their history education from right-wing Facebook memes. (ETA a quick warning: that subscription comes with auto-renewal! So be careful about that.)

The Nib sells print subscriptions that send out 3 issues per year. It’s a magazine that does comics and cartoons — who doesn’t like that? (You don’t have to tell your recipient that you do know it’s left wing comics and cartoons.)

There are several science fiction and fantasy magazines that still publish in paper. including The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction ($39/year), Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine ($36/year), and Analog Science Fiction and Fact ($36/year). If you’d prefer to clutter up their inbox, you could gift them a 12-month digital subscription to Uncanny, Magazine for $24, a 12-month digital subscription to Clarkesworld for $36, a 12-month digital subscription to Apex Magazine for $24… Just to be clear, these are only a bad gift for someone who dislikes science fiction and fantasy! If someone likes science fiction and fantasy and you want to give them a bad gift, look for a magazine that publishes something they don’t enjoy reading. For example, for $35 you can gift a year’s subscription to the Kenyon Review, which publishes literary fiction.

Finally, if you’ve got someone in your gift-giving circle who’s fond of the phrase “I’ve done my own research,” for $26/year you could support their research interests with a subscription to Scientific American!

From the Department of Either Nightmarish or Awesome, Could Go Either Way

Would you like to give someone a sweatshirt with a picture of a sloth riding a T-Rex with lasers shooting out of its eyes? Or maybe you’d prefer a housecat riding on the head of a swimming tiger? Or maybe you’re nostalgic for that old “three wolf moon” t-shirt design but you really want four wolves and also for it to be on pants (that one’s particularly great because there’s a wolf nose lined up with the crotch.) You could also get pants on which a cat in a cowboy hat is riding a shark that’s vomiting a rainbow.

This absolutely awesome t-shirt has cats striding across clouds out of some sort of orange whirlwind with a cat in the background that’s maybe supposed to look like a feline version of a wolf howling but instead kind of looks like it’s yakking. And I think this cat is doing “Warrior Pose 2” in a yoga class but I’m not 100% sure.

They’ve really expanded the stuff with this sort of hyperrealistic printing and you could also gift someone a laser-cat apron, a jumpsuit that looks like an astronaut’s space suit, a one-piece adult romper with a space kitten, and socks that looks like horse’s hooves.

All of this is the sort of thing that is perfect for some people, absolutely atrocious for other people — you could potentially gift the exact same t-shirt (or hoodie or apron) to your best friend and your worst enemy, and get the reaction you’re hoping for from both.

Finally, this one isn’t clothing, but is an object that would be delightful to the right person, horrifying to the wrong person: a glowing, color-changing dragon lamp. (They’re marketing it as a night light, but they also claim it’s a dinosaur. Anyway: someone in your life might need this, either because they’ll love it or because they’ll have to pretend to love it.) Llama and Unicorn are also available.

Charitable Gifts

One of my favorite passive-aggressive charitable gift options is to symbolically give someone an animal that offers a subtle negative comment on their looks, hygiene, or personality. This would be easier if more zoos included all their animals as opposed to just the notably cute ones. I did find a useful article that lists the 19 dumbest animals on earth, though, and there’s a decent chance that a zoo near you will have giraffes, flamingos, sloths, ostriches, komodo dragons, or slow lorises available for adoption. Great Horned Owls are also on offer — owls have this great reputation for wisdom but are incredibly dumb, kind of like certain conservative NYT columnists.

The Minnesota Zoo notes you can sponsor any animal at the zoo for $100 and get a certificate and a fun book if they don’t have the appropriate stuffed animal. Mystifyingly, despite having a “name a hissing cockroach after your ex for $10” promotion for Valentine’s Day at least once, they don’t list their hissing cockroaches. (I bet they’d do it for you if you called.) They do list giraffes, flamingos, and sloths, as well as porcupines, pigs, and sheep.

The St. Louis Zoo offers $25 adoptions and will also let you adopt any animal at the zoo (for $35, you get a picture of the animal), and in addition to the usual stuff (everyone has giraffes), they have tarantulas, a wild ass, and cobras.

Branching out from zoos, the Friends of Saguaro National Park will let you symbolically gift someone the adoption of a Saguaro Cactus! ($35, and you get a certificate.) And the Wetlands Institute of New Jersey lets you adopt a horseshoe crab. ($25 and you get a digital certificate and a digital photo of a horseshoe crab. You could always print it out for them.)

For more animal gifts with negative personality implications, Oxfam Unwrapped has sheep, pigs, and chickens, and they still let you give people manure, toilets, and highly-efficient stoves (if you’d like some symbolic coal). You could also suggest that someone is not merely annoying but potentially dangerous by gifting a mosquito net to prevent malaria in that person’s honor.

Have You Considered Giving Someone My Books?

I HAD A BOOK COME OUT THIS YEAR! Chaos on CatNet, the sequel to Catfishing on CatNet. I also have a short story collection called Cat Pictures Please and Other Stories. You can often find signed copies from Dreamhaven Books or Uncle Hugo’s, both of which do mail order (Uncle Hugo’s is currently exclusively doing mail order). When Amal El-Mohtar tweeted about Catfishing on CatNet she said, “Do you know a queer teen? Are you a queer teen? Are you an adult who misses an internet that felt kinder & purer? Did you love the Hugo-winning short story ‘Cat Pictures Please’? PLEASE do your heart the gift of acquiring & reading this beautiful book.”

So if you want a good gift you could totally give someone a copy of my book. And just from Amal’s description you can probably figure out exactly which of your relatives this would be a bad gift for. I’ll note that there’s nothing on the book jacket that will give away, for example, the scene where the main character and her friends hack an instructional robot to provide accurate sex ed, so if you want to pretend ignorance later, your plausible deniability is covered. You could also buy any or all of these for yourself — if you’ll be spending time this holiday season around highly stressful family members, there’s no escape like a good book. And if supply chain issues have made print copies difficult to find, I am just as happy when people read my books on their e-reader as when they read print copies.

Happy holidays!

Passive-Aggressive Gift Giving Guides from Previous Years:

2010: Beyond Fruitcake: Gifts for People You Hate
2011: Gifts that say, “I had to get you a gift. So look, a gift!”
2012: Holiday shopping for people you hate
2013: Gift Shopping for People You Hate: the Passive-Aggressive Shopping Guide
Gifts for People You Hate 2014: The Almost-Generic Edition
Whimsical Gifts (for People You Hate) 2015
Gifts for People You Hate 2016 (the fuck everything edition)
Gifts for People You Hate, 2017
Gifts for People You Hate, 2018
Gifts for People You Hate, 2019
Gifts for People You Hate, 2020: Pandemic Procrastination Edition