The Doom That Came to Cowtown

There's a submarine that takes people to the wreck of Titanic. Three hours down, tool around for bit taking pictures, three hours up. A friend said "The CEO is an aerospace dudebro who seems hell-bent on 'disrupting' the submersible industry and being the underwater version of Elon Musk." Anyway, it's been missing for two days now.

I get that tech bros want to innovate by moving fast and breaking things, but in this case, the thing your breaking is your submersible. Which is bad if there are people on it. I mean, at least one of those people is the CEO, making this whole thing a lesson in hubris. But there were innocent people and a billionaire on board too.

At this point there are three possibilities:

1) They're bobbing around on the ocean surface somewhere, where hopefully someone spots them before they run out of air (the ship bolts shut from the outside and they only have 96 hours of air).

2) They're sitting on the ocean floor, out of power. They'll likely run out of air before rescue comes, if they don't freeze to death first.

Aside: Not a lot of other ships can even reach that depth, much less have the equipment to raise a 9-ton submarine. For reference, look at what it took to raise the Big Piece. The nearest one is in France, and I doubt it can get to the site in the time frame needed.

2.5) They lost power and hit the ocean floor with enough force to trigger #3 below.

3) The ship imploded on it's way down to the wreck, about 2/3 of the way there. Not only would no one have survived, it's unlikely they knew what happened. Implosion at that depth has the potential to be quicker than your nerves can transmit signals to the brain.

My theory: Repeated dives on an experimental vessel causes stress fractures to develop, likely between the porthole and the hull, and the whole thing just got flattened like a tin can. This happening directly over Titanic, so we'll likely find it at some point. In the next two years, someone will haul it up, assuming it didn't punch a hole in Titanic on the way down.

Among Titanic fandom, there's two schools of thought: 1) Visiting the wreck sounds cool as fuck, and I wish I had the money to do it. 2) The wreck is a gravesite that is showing extreme wear from all the people visiting it. We should restrict dives to the wreck except for legitimate research. I suspect people in the first camp are reevaluating their positions.

Would I do it? Not on OceanGate's equipment. At least one person (with enough direct knowledge about diving and OceanGate) would kick my ass if I did. Maybe if I was insanely wealthy, and I could use stuff like the Keldysh (the real world ship they used in Cameron's movie, as well as his deep sea documentaries) - or a more modern equivalent from a country not currently invading Ukraine. But even then, I'd donate an equivalent amount to charity so I wouldn't feel guilty.

Which does lead us to another more general problem. OceanGate was charging $250,000 for a dive. A quarter million dollars!. This (and things like space tourism or climbing Everest) suggest that tax rates on the ultra-wealthy are too damn low. Nothing takes the air out of space ship trips and giants yachts that carry their own, smaller, yachts, like a 90% tax bracket. More of that please. This has the added advantage of keeping the Elon Musks of this world in their place. Seriously, what's next? Bond villain lairs? They at least have the advantage of taking out their creators with them. Maybe that's what happened here. Shame about the regular folk involved though.

So the Alberta government tested out its emergency alert system today. If you're in Alberta you'll already be aware of that. Well fucking aware. It went off eight times in ten minutes. At first I was bemused then annoyed by this. "ha ha, someone must be leaning on the button!" "Jeebus, was eight tests enough?"

Then I remembered this was a test. The whole point was to see how it worked in the real world. And sometimes tests don't work. Or rather, tests always work, but sometimes they don't succeed in showing you everything works as expected. That's a good test

Maybe they were testing different geographical areas, and discovered that all of the tests went everywhere. That's something you'd want to know and fix in the future. Maybe they were testing different cell phone hardware, or compliance from every service provider? And doing that meant multiple alerts. Like, maybe I got the "all of Alberta" alert, as well as the "all of Calgary", "Samsung devices", and "Koodo network" alerts. All of those would overlap for me. Heck, maybe I got a "Telus network" alert thrown in there for good measure because Koodo is an affiliate. Maybe it just took eight tests, and you getting all of them means there's no holes in their coverage.

Was it irritating? Sure, but in the end it's ten minutes out of your day, and as a computer programmer, I'd rather QA found my bugs then the end user. For something like the alert system, the bugs could mean kids being abducted, or trailer parks not being evacuated before the tornado arrives. That being the case, I'll suck up the alarm.

Back in the before times, when SCA feasts were a thing, I have a friend who did something a little odd before each one. When the organizers were making their attendance lists this person would always ask to be "the first on the waiting list", and not on the reserve list. That is to say, if there was 100 seats available, they wanted to be person 101, even if the organizers had only reached 50.

You see, they have a medical condition that dictates what they can or cannot eat on a daily basis. And while they wanted to participate in the feast, they couldn't guarantee that they could, because maybe that was a bread and water day. They didn't want to reserve a spot and then bail at the last minute, when that spot could have gone to someone who would have definitely gone.

On the other hand, by being "first on the waiting list", if they were in a position to eat rich foods, they could take advantage of someone else not showing up.

I think it shows a remarkable social efficiency. On on hand, you're not wasting resources you can't use; on the other hand, you're giving an opportunity to others to not waste their resources.

So what does this have to do with COVID? Here is what Israel is doing.

Here is a prime example from today to Israel "organized chaos". End of the day in a vaccine center. A few doses left and will expire. Nurses go out, spot a pizza delivery guy, call him "pizza guy wanna vaccine?", jab, and another person has spike mRNA!

I don't think Canada needs to do "organized chaos", but I would love to see something like the airline boarding method. If you're high priority, you board first. But they don't hold up the line for economy just because one dude in first class hasn't boarded yet. You keep loading the plane, and when tardy first class dude shows up, let him on right away.

There are several tiers for Canada as I understand it (no cites, just hearsay):

High risk patients, old folks, primary health providers.

health care "adjacent" and front line workers in vital retail (grocery store clerks and such).

Everyone else. Note: This is where I am.

I worry that we'll get so caught up making sure that undeserving people don't skip the line that we waste vaccine to bureaucratic timing. This won't be a problem right away, because the capacity for high priority patients is much larger than our current capacity. But there will come a day in a few months, where that dries up. This is especially true here in Alberta, where the Conservative government will always do things in the worst possible way. Especially for anything that smacks of socialism - like vaccinating for the common good.

In the mean time, I just want to put a bug in the ear of anyone I know in health care. If you find out that vaccine doses are going to be wasted, give me a call. I'll drop what I'm doing and head to where you are. But it has to be a true waste. if you've got someone - anyone - handy who needs it more than me, give it to them. But if that vial is going in the trash, might as well stick it in my arm instead. I'm happy to be first on the waiting list.

The annual is Baby It's Cold Outside rapey debate has begun. I'll likely blog about it in a few days after I've read this year's crop of for/against pieces. For the record, I'm solidly of the belief that it is (the mouse never gives clear consent). However, the debate has spawned an interesting sub-debate: Is it a Christmas song.

Now the only thing it has going for it is that it's clearly set during the winter. In the context of 1948, it's likely set during the holidays. Brad Hick's made the case that that's the only time an unaccompanied woman could visit a man's bachelor apartment in a socially acceptable way.

So let's assume Baby It's Cold Outside sneaks in on that basis, how about Let it Snow, the somewhat more chaste version of Baby It's Cold Outside? It also doesn't mention Christmas at all, but the presence of a fireplace suggests they're in a proper home and not a bachelor pad, so presumably there'd be entertaining and visiting all winter and not just the holidays.

How about Frosty the Snowman? Again, Christmas is not mentioned. But I think on the sliding scale of Christmas song or not, it be firmly on the yes side.

Hypothesis: All winter songs are Christmas songs. That seems like a good first-order approximation, but is it good enough?

Hounds of Winter by Sting is definitely not a Christmas song (It's a great song, but also a real downer - it's the sort of song you play when you just need a good cry).

How about this: A cheerful winter song is also a Christmas song. That cuts out songs that use cold weather as a metaphor for isolation. It's certainly not an exclusive definition - Do They Know It's Christmas and White Wine in the Sun are neither winter nor cheery (the latter is still a joyful song though). It helps that they mention Christmas though ;)

So how about it folks, any other cheerful winter songs that you'd consider to be Christmas song? Any counter examples?

I read an interesting thread on Stackexchange. The poster posed the scenario where everyone on Earth vanishes except for 35 people, distributed randomly. How long would it take to encounter another person. Most of the commenters addressed this from a mathematics perspective - as a sort of an insane, geographically distributed birthday problem. I'd like to look at it from a personal one - where I am one of the survivors, and don't actually know if there are any other survivors but me.

Scenario: At noon tomorrow (Thursday) everyone vanishes in a Thano's-like finger-snap.

Immediately, I will likely witness the two coworkers I routinely go to lunch with get dusted. This will freak me out, especially when I realize I'm the only person left in my building. Simultaneously with that, I'll hear the cacophony of all the traffic on Crowchild Trail (One of Calgary's major freeways) suddenly being driverless.

Being in the upper floors of a building that, despite it's proximity to a major road, isn't in imminent danger of being hit by a vehicle, I hunker down and decide my course of action. My immediate needs are: 1) Survival. 2) Check for local survivors. 3) contact non-local survivors. 4) Move to somewhere with infrastructure where I can live long-term since cities aren't going to be hospitable in the short term.

Day one: Get supplies and find a place that's safe to stay the night. This likely won't be my house, since I have a neighbour with a giant ham tower in their back yard, and I want to give that a go. Part of the supplies will be a honking big truck. Load the truck up with food/water/fuel and some cherished possessions. Find a loudspeaker for hollering. Get a sledge hammer and bolt cutters so I can get into locked places easily. A couple of fire extinguishers, since there's likely lots of fires. A ham radio for communications with potential survivors. A gun, to protect myself from wildlife.

Get drunk and cry myself to sleep, mourning all the people I've lost.

Day two: tour the city. My goals here are threefold:

1. Check on anyone I know, whose address I have. I can't exhaustively check the whole city, but I can at least look for my friends/family.
2. Check hospitals and prisons for people who may be trapped.
3. At the base of the Calgary tower, leave a message - dated - saying I'm alive and heading west on highway one. Hang a banner out several windows at the top of the Calgary tower as an obvious signal. Do the same for the Bow, since it blocks the view of the Tower for the northern half of the city.

Day three, assuming I have all achieved my goals from day one and two, later otherwise: leave town, heading west. This will be a three fold process that take weeks.

1. Use a bulldozer to clear vehicles off the highway. Do this for a few kilometres. Bring a dirt bike with me.
2. Ride the dirt bike back to the truck.
3. Catch the truck up to the bulldozer.

At the end of each day, leave an obvious sign describing who I am, what I'm doing, and where I'm going.

I'm aiming for 30km/day. This should get me to the West Coast in about 33 days. This is slow enough that a person walking can catch up with me. Clearing the road also acts as giant sign that someone survived, and they're going this way! I'm basically scrapping a giant line across the mountains.

I should be good for shelter and supplies since I don't have to share. While there's plenty of areas along the highway where it's long stretches of no towns/cities, there's almost always a farm or cabin somewhere.

In my down time, I'm playing with the ham radio, or searching libraries/stores for things I think I'll need. At this point I'm long-term planning. What can I grow to survive. How do I dress game I hunt. How can I set up and maintain things like water pumps and solar cells.

When I reach the coast, I spend some time learning how to pilot a boat. My goal is to get to one of the larger Gulf Islands. Salt Spring or Galiano for example, or possibly Vancouver island. I want to find a home that is completely off the grid, in an area that is ecologically rich enough to sustain people after the supplies run out.

Once I'm settled, I continue to play with the radio, and write messages in public that could conceivably be found by others in the same boat I am. Once I'm able to travel, travel up and down the coast leaving visual messages in Seattle/Portland/San Francisco/etc. I probably won't be able to do this much past the first two years since the fuel will start to go bad by then, and I doubt I'll be able to successfully learn how to run a sail boat by myself.

If you're reading this, I'd really appreciate it if you read it to the end, and didn't comment on it until you've given what I write some thought. Really go over what I'm saying and try to understand why, rather than just having a knee-jerk negative reaction to it. You don't have to agree with me, but I like to think that if you're reading my blog, you're someone who won't just poo-poo what I write.

One of the things that I've known imperfectly over the years, and have been trying to get better at, is that when people say they've been hurt, you should believe them. If I tell you I got mugged, or my car was stolen, or my house burgled, your default reaction should be that these things have happened. You shouldn't immediately be thinking that I'm making it up, or that I'm exaggerating, or that it doesn't matter, because I've got plenty of money and I won't miss it. Maybe you would be skeptical, if you had good reason to be, but lacking that, you should believe me. Me being robbed is not a far-fetched claim - people get robbed every day.

Similarly, if a woman says she was raped, you should believe her. That shouldn't be a controversial statement, but I often find that it is. Yes, we have courts for determining legal guilt, but only some ridiculously small percentage of rapists are ever convicted. In the face of that, the least I can do is believe the women who tell me this. We know women get raped all the time. The #MeToo movement should have told you all that, but it shouldn't have had to. And I can do more than simply make a mental note of it - I can try to make the world an easier place for them in some microscopic way by, say, not inviting her rapist to a party I know she's going to be at. "Why are you punishing him?" I hear you cry. Well, I'm under no obligation to invite anyone to a party I'm throwing, or have a party at all. There's over seven billion people in the world, and I'm not punishing them by not inviting everyone. So I hope that clears up the idea that me not inviting someone to a party is some kind of punishment. I do know that I'm not contributing to someone's victimization though.

Maybe you see where I'm going with this. The Edmonton Pride parade was disrupted by protesters who didn't want police participation. The demanded that the board listen to the four demands they have, and when the board said they'd do so, they got out of the way.



I think it's worth remembering that the protest was entirely peaceful, and ended when the board agreed to listen. Not to do anything mind you, just that they'd give it a fair hearing. For the board's part, they did this and agreed to the four points after the protest ended. And I'm happy they did - the four points are perfectly reasonable demands.

But I bet a lot of you object to the first point: That the Pride Society uninvite the Edmonton Police Force, RCMP and military from marching in future parades. Give a little thought as to why that is a demand. It's because for a lot of LGBT folk, the police are not their friends. They've been beaten and harassed by the police. Hell, Pride started as a protest against police brutality to the LGBT community. And this isn't ancient history, you could find LGBT folk who will tell you personally about how they've been mistreated by the police recently. And you should believe them. No seriously... take a deep breath, don't immediately jump to defend the police (they can cope, I assure you), and believe them.

Now, if a bunch of people tell you they don't want their abusers present at their party, do you really want to object? Would you do that for a group that's not the police or military? Should neo-nazis be able to crash the local synagogue's picnic? It's in public after all, and we don't want to exclude anyone*. If your objection is but they're the police, then you're missing the point. The police shouldn't be exemplified, they should be questioned more than any other group. Because we've given them a lot of power that the rest of us don't enjoy. They need to constantly earn that power - they need to demonstrate every day, that they've earned our trust. And if one trans kid has gotten harassed by some bully with a badge, then no, the police don't get to participate in the Pride Parade. No, #NotAllCops harassed that kid, but the system made it so that that one cop got away with it. That cop might just be one "bad apple", but the point of the adage about bad apples is that if you let it stick around it will spoil the bunch. If they want to claim they're all individuals, then they can leave their uniforms at home and attend Pride as individuals, if it's so important to them. I bet there's cops who do exactly this now.

They wear their uniforms every day, and they are praised everyday, as demonstrated by the number of people who have lost their shit over this issue. Do they have to be praised in the Pride parade too? Do they have to be everywhere? Is their no space where people can just be without having to genuflect? Isn't it all a little greedy?

Pride has told groups to take a hike before. To participate, you really ought to support LGBT rights. It's why the Conservatives weren't allowed in. Do you really think a political party that is demonstrably against LGBT rights should be allowed to participate. The New Democrats have new Trans-friendly drivers licenses, and the Conservatives voted (in caucus) to effectively neuter Gay-Straight Student Alliances. If Pride wants the NDs there and the UCP to take a hike, I frankly can't blame them. And if they feel the police and the military are only claiming to be pro LGBT-rights, but don't actually deliver in their daily behaviour, then I can't blame them for not wanting them there either.

"But it's such a little thing", I hear some of you say, "Can't they just let the police into the parade, as a sign of goodwill?". Well, yeah, they could. But let me turn that around - if it's such a little thing, why can't the police just let it slide? Why can't the police say "Ok, we respect your wishes and we won't make an issue about it"? Why is it always the victims that have to be infinitely tolerant? I mean, you believe them, don't you?

Maybe there will come a day when the police are welcomed back into the Pride parade. I think they have to be on good behaviour for a long time before they even ask, frankly, but that's me. When Pride feels the cops are their friends, they'll invite them back. I hope that day comes sooner than later.

*Aside 1: Tolerance movements don't have to be tolerant of groups who are intolerant. There's plenty of good philosophical reasons why, and you can go look them up if you care to, but I want you to just accept that as axiomatic for now, because I'm not having a debate about it here and now.

Aside 2: I'm a cis-white-straight-middle aged-male professional. I'm soaking in privilege. If you've listened to this whole piece, and think I have a point that you didn't see before, ask yourself why you believe me and not them. And as a privileged male, yeah sometimes it hurts my feelings when people tell me stuff like this. But I cope because all it does is hurts my feelings. People with less privilege than me are getting more than their feelings hurt.

Aside 3: If I got some pronouns or acronyms wrong, please be forgiving.

I don't normally remember my dreams. When I do, they often feature pieces of my childhood - specific rooms of the house I grew up in, or the lot the house was on. Often, it only bore a symbolic likeness to these places. For example, it would always be a house that was the second to the corner, but not the actual corner. Or it would be a room very like the back room of our basement, but not actually that room. Still, I recognized it for what it was.

My mom and dad would often be a part of these dreams, but my brother and sister would not. I'm not sure why that is - perhaps they simply didn't make as big an impact on my life. However, that's changed over the last few months. Recently, my brother has started appearing in my dreams. However, the fact of his death was usually a component of the dream. Like, I'd be talking with Bill, and it would occur to me, "How can I be talking to you? You're dead." was one thing I thought in a dream.

On the other hand, my still-living sister has not been in any of my dreams of late.

I suspect my subconscious is working through thoughts of my mortality and using my dead family members as a proxy for my own death. It will be interesting to see if Trish appears in these dreams when she goes. However, I hope she has a long and healthy life, so I'm not anxious to find out.

Today is Pi(e) day - which we celebrate because March 14th can be represented as 3.14. Presumably we take a moment to reflect on the irrational perfection of pi at 1:59, because 3.14159~. Though I was sleeping at two in the morning, so that didn't happen.

March 14th is also noteworthy for being Potato Chip day, Learn About Butterflies day (aka Moth-er's Day), Science Education day (though I think that's every day), Legal Assistance day, Crowdfunding day, Organize Your Home Office day, and International Ask a Question day. Who came up with that last one?

Every year seems to bring a new reason to celebrate some random day because of the Internet. At first it was Talk Like a Pirate day (September 19th), then Kiss a Ginger day (January 12th). The Star Wars pair, May the Fourth (be with you) and Revenge of the Sixth (of May) have been added.

The latest seems to be Nintendo day, celebrated on Mar 10th, because Mar10 looks like Mario. This was the first year I've heard of it.

Sometimes they have really good causes, like Pink Shirt day (last Wednesday in February) to but a spotlight on the negative effects of bullying. Or International Women's day (March 8th), who's reason for being should be self evident. Or not, if you're the sort of person who hears that and immediately gets indignant and asks why there isn't an International Men's day. It's November 19th, BTW.

In addition to being π day, it's also Steak and a Blowjob day (because romantic dinner and flowers day was a month previous). That was all over the Internet a few years back, but now seems to have vanished. I suspect because that joke is funny once, then starts to seem a little desperate if you harp on it year after year. I may be guilty of that myself.

I wonder if the joke would have died on it's own, or if Pi day did it. I suspect it supplanted it precisely because S&BJ day has a limited audience. Anyone can celebrate Pi day, and more importantly, help the idea spread virally on the Internet. Your teenage son might joke about S&BJ day among his friends, but if he makes a public Facebook post about it, you're likely to have a word with him about inappropriate humour. And let's face it, it's a joke that appeals to our inner-teenage-boy, which makes promoting it troublesome. No such problem with pie. Everyone loves pie.

Mmmm, pie.

Montengarde 12th Night 2017 was a good event. Overall, I enjoyed it. First, a quick GBU:

Good

• Got a decent last-minute deal on a hotel room, which meant I had a bolt-hole I could use.
  
• Hung out with some lovely ladies on Friday night.
  
• Saw some nice presentations during afternoon court.
  
• Wasn't terribly interested in either the rapier tournament (though I'm happy to hear S and J did well enough to get into the semi-finals, and that T had won) or the Meet-the-geese meeting (I've already met them all). Instead, I left the event for a few hours to go to the Woman's March.
  
• Following the march, I hung out with thebrucie and conejita_diabla at a late lunch at The Guild.
  
• Court was mostly good. Watching Kraig and Una step down, and Peter & Bronwyn, jointly (hereafter referred to as PBJ) step up was the highlight.
  
• Cookies and conversation that evening were both well-received.

Bad

• I've decided I simply cannot watch any part of court involving the OGGS. For my own mental health, I fucked off whenever they were called up. More on this below.
  
• Had at least one person try to glad-hand me - which is a pet peeve. For reference, glad-handing is something I view as different in intent from merely shaking my hand. Though I acknowledge that they'll look the same to an outside observer. It's like art - hard to define, but I know it when I see it.

Ugly

• No ugly! Yay!
  

Meh

• Some SCA-exclusivity, but for this event, I was expecting it and it makes perfect sense. Still, the feelings are there, whether they're rational or not.
  
• Remarkably low amount of snubbing this time around. Partially this was because I actually had some positive, non-snubbing interaction with some of the folks I expect it from, and partially because I simply didn't interact with other folks I expect it from. I may have to consider that I've over-estimated the issue. Confirmation bias with regards to nobody loves me everyone hates me; going out to the garden to eat worms is strong with anxiety and depression. Not currently depressed, but the mental ruts remain.

That I went to this event at all was mostly because I wanted to see PBJ step up. I'm finding that without an archery focus, it's harder to justify going. Mostly that half my friends are in the SCA is what's keeping me going.

Archery Drama

So why no archery? Well, In the immediate term, I wasn't interested in Friday night's archery social because we were having an event at a local hotel! What's the point of socializing there when we should have been socializing there. I mean, I'm happy they still had some archery for the event, even though it wasn't super official. But since I wasn't shooting, why would I socialize there when I could socialize here?

I'm not shooting for two reasons. First, I've been fighting a persistent repetitive stress injury in my right shoulder for awhile now, I want to give myself time to heal. Second, I burned a bridge, so archery practice has felt hostile. Is it actually hostile? eh, probably not. I can be civil.

Background: For several years, I've been kinda-sorta nursing a hope for becoming a member of the OGGS. And then for years, whenever the Geese would gather at court, I'd get my hopes up. And it was never me. Then, early on when I was kingdom champ, I had an encounter that convinced me I was never getting it. That really soured the whole idea in my mind. Later, when I saw others get it, that underlined the point further. While I'm happy that some of those people got it, it was still heartbreaking.

This all came to a head at the previous event, where I encountered the person who convinced me I wasn't getting it, and I told them, fine, don't give it to me. Some will call that burning-the-bridge. I prefer acknowledging-there-was-never-a-bridge.

So now, when the OGGS gets called up, I'm just going to avoid it. I hope those chosen make Avacal proud. I just can't bear to watch.

In a few months, I'll start shooting again. In the meantime, I need to figure out what to do with my Friday nights. Perhaps some Call of Cthulhu.

On People Leaving the SCA

First, I'm not leaving. Just resting and picking-and-chosing which events to go to.

But I did have a conversation with an acquaintance about this and she had observed that there are stages when people are likely to leave the SCA, and what stage you're at informs why you're likely to be leaving.

one event. You had a taste and it wasn't for you. Nothing wrong with that.

three-to-six events. You probably like the idea of the SCA, but for whatever reason, you didn't make any inroads into joining the community outside of events. Really, events are just the tip of the iceberg - so much more goes on below the surface.

two-to-three years. You feel you're not being acknowledged by the community. My acquaintance opined this was because you need to work for it. I would agree, but add that some people simply might not have the aptitude, or they've pissed the wrong people off. That I got through this stage is largely due to becoming Seneschal ten years ago.

seven-to-ten years. You've maxed out your award path, and recognize that you're never going to get that next step. That's kind of where I am now. At this point you need to either accept it, or possibly change your focus. That said, I know a handful of people who redoubled their efforts and grabbed that brass ring. They're rare though.

She also suggested that there was another age, past this, where you have no more worlds to conquer - you've succeeded in all your goals. However, people who are capable enough to do this, are rarely the same people to be satisfied with this.

As I said, I'm not leaving, but I need to think about what I'm going to do in the future. Will I just be a fringer? Will I redouble my efforts simply for the joy of it? Will I find something new to do in the SCA context?

I had an epiphany about school administrators and their faulty advice of "just ignore it" in reference to the relentless bullying I suffered in grade school. It came from two odd sources.

The first was an ongoing bullying of a friend's son in junior high school. This has resulted in actual arrests, and requests for transfer to another school, which was denied. Why would anyone deny that? It seems self evident to me that, if a kid is being bullied so bad that it's resulted in the bully being arrested, there's a real problem here.

(my own advice would be for the kid to respond with sufficient violence to put the bully into the hospital, preferably with injuries that will take a long time and therapy to treat. I recognize that this isn't the best advice, but it comes from my inner lizard, and it's one of the few topics I let my inner lizard express an opinion on. Also, this is a big part of why I will never have children. I am incapable of dealing with this sort of thing rationally)

The second source was a thread on Captain Awkward. One of the mods of the site wrote this:

What they teach in schools is “just ignore it.”
“Just ignore it” = “Just shut up about it.”
“Just shut up about it” = “Shady, irritating people getting away with no-good.”

I got Just Ignore It a lot. A lot! It was years before I could put my finger on why this was bad advice (Captain Awkward nails it though), but I always recognized that it was bad advice.

And now my epiphany: It's actually great advice.

Oh, not for me, and not for any other kid being bullied. It's great advice for school administrators. After all, if the kid isn't bitching to them, they don't have to do anything. Doesn't matter that they may be enduring abuse that will lead to a lifetime of mental problems. What a great idea for avoiding work and responsibility - and it makes the victim complicit in their own bullying.

Remember, to a teacher, all kids are temporary. If you can stall long enough, even the worst cases of bullying go away as the kids move to higher grades or graduate. It might take a whole term for bullying to become a problem. Then another year of stalling tactics like telling the kid to ignore it, or to tell the parents that there's nothing they can do. Year three (for a junior high, or high school kid), you can just say "well, they'll be going to a different school/graduating, and you don't want to disrupt them at this late point, and it'll all be over soon anyway, why make waves". Boom, problem resolves itself and you didn't have to do anything. It's a wonderfully banal sort of evil.

My actual advice? Don't let them get away with it. Fight. Escalate. Don't give up. Make them understand that you're not going away, and follow through. They're counting on you giving up.

And again, I am so glad I'm not a parent.