Random Wednesday: Leave The Lights On, Hating Yourself, and Cops For Criminal Justice Reform

Random Wednesday: Leave The Lights On, Hating Yourself, and Cops For Criminal Justice Reform January 18, 2017

Hail Eris, it’s Random Wednesday!

Leave the Lights On

Today I made the random decision to leave my holiday lights on until Imbolc. (It’s one string of LEDs, very little power.) I usually turn them off after my birthday party, which was Saturday, but I found myself depressed by the thought. It seems like we can use a little extra light right now. So it’s a little improvised ritual this year, to keep the lights on until — by some definitions — the start of Spring.

xmaslightsHating Yourself

This post by Brad Warner is very good and you should go read it:

I think the first thing we can do is to recognize that the phrase “I hate myself” makes no sense and that any solution based on that phrase can’t work. Suicide and self-improvement are both poor responses because they are based on the phrase used to describe the feeling rather than on the actual feeling.

In my own case, what I did was try to understand the feeling I described as “I hate myself.” I wanted to see that feeling as it exists before I use the words “I hate myself” to describe it. The best way I’ve found to do this was to sit very quietly and experience the feeling directly.

I don’t judge the feeling. I don’t say it’s a bad feeling and try to get rid of it. If I got rid of it, I’d miss the opportunity to study it. So I let it be there.

Cops For Criminal Justice Reform

For many years I’ve cheered on the effort of the group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, an anti-drug-war group. Now it’s evolving into a broader criminal justice reform organization, the Law Enforcement Action Partnership:

Criminal justice professionals know that with the right reforms, we can do better, for ourselves and for our communities. We can stop wasting time on problems that shouldn’t be criminal justice issues, free up law enforcement to focus on the most serious crimes, build trust between the police and community, and make our communities safer.

That’s why I’m proud to launch the Law Enforcement Action Partnership, giving criminal justice professionals a voice to call for solutions. This nonprofit has evolved from the former Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, a group of criminal justice professionals dedicated to ending the War on Drugs. While ending that destructive policy will always be a central goal, we can’t stop there when our speakers have seen so many other urgent opportunities for reform.

Their web page puts the Peelean Principles that we’ve discussed before front and center. As we enter what looks to be a dark time for criminal justice reform, it’s good to know that reformers on the inside are taking up the challenge.


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