The other day I told a guy I was working with: "The only thing stopping me from being an assassin is my terrible sense of direction."*

The only thing keeping me from world domination is my inability to get myself started. Not in an ADD, Katie-you-need-medication way, because I'm already on medication for that and it is a beautiful, glorious thing. Just a personality trait. I am absolutely horrible at motivating myself.

This is roundabout excuse-filled explanation for why 'History Weighs In' is going nowhere fast.

And I don't know what to do about it. There's enough going on in my life - complete and utter chaos at work, an upcoming international trip, possibly moving in with not_as_it_is sometime this summer, and, of course, the never-ending joys of mental illness - that I'm legitimately busy. But as Lifehacker points out, we can always make time for things if they're enough of a priority. And History Weighs In just isn't enough of a priority for me. Energy is an even more precious resource than time for me, and there's nothing in my life right now that I'd be willing to abandon to make the energy for this project.

But I don't want to dump it. The 2012 election does seem like the perfect time for such a project. And I hate being a quitter. It's an aspect of my personality I haven't made my peace with yet.

The point of this post? Full disclosure, I guess. I've been feeling really guilty about not putting any work into HWI, and like the good ex-Catholic I am, I figured confession would be good for the soul.

So yeah, I don't know. Maybe things'll calm down and I'll be hit with "DO ALL THE THINGS!" and start getting things done. Probably it won't.


Hyperbole and a Half is always relevant.

Excuse me while I go eat dinner, watch DS9, and continue to ignore the many other non-HWI things that I've also been ignoring.



*Watch the series Murder She Solved, episode "A Deadly Turn." It'll make sense.

As I am one of those people celebrating the birth of a new year tonight, you'd think this would be a year wrap-up post, or a resolution post. It would be the thematic thing to do.

Maybe later.

My wonderful awesome parents got me the first two seasons of Community for Christmas, and I have been blasting through the special features. The commentaries aren't really like any others I've heard before. They demand 80% of my attention instead of 50% (very, very few things in life get 100% of my attention), and the cast & crew have a strange dynamic for reasons I can't put my finger on.

But it's reaffirming one of the things I really love about the series, which is how savvy it is to social justice issues, and to an extent how seriously they take them. They do their best to be inclusive without getting into after-school special territory.

Which is not to say I always agree with the conclusions they reach or that they always get it right. Dan Harmon made a comment in one of the season 1 commentaries that is still irking me, about Danny Pudi being Indian/Polish but Abed being Palestinian/Polish. He gave the usual excuse of the realities of casting and sometimes the person who's perfect for the part doesn't always line up racially. Which is true, but the details of a character are not set in stone. There is nothing about Abed's character that requires him to be of Palestinian descent; they could have very easily made the character Indian/Polish once they decided to cast Pudi. They could have easily kept all of Pierce's anti-Muslim racism - for one thing, there are Muslims in India, and for another many white Americans can't visually tell the difference between someone who is from India and someone who is from Palestine. (At least, I can't, and considering Pierce can't tell two black women apart, pretty sure he can't either)

So yeah, not buying that excuse, sorry. Especially when it's paired with "I'm sympathetic to your perceived dehumanization". "Perceived" has a kind of innate condescension to it, since the implication is "the way you see it is not reality". That's not exactly conducive to genuine sympathy.

But I do feel like I could plop down on a couch with them and have a fun, funny, intelligent discussion about these issues, which is not really a sense I get from any other show. (Not even my beloved Parks & Recreation)

I also love how much they love their fans. The producer paid $35,000 out of his own pocket to license "Gravity" for the clip show episode, because he had seen a Jeff/Annie music video to it and that was the first time he had realized people really do watch and love the show. That made me go d'awwwww.

-----

Work also continues on "History Weighs In". I've kind of changed the breakdown of the first episode, on income inequality. I think I'm going to start with a discussion on Occupy Wall Street with Lucy Parsons, a badass socialist-anarchist. I've been reading some of her speeches and she's just amazing. I'm really looking forward to learning more about her.

Then I think it will be a moderated debate between Ronald Reagan and Joan Robinson, with Adam Smith possibly calling in like they do on radio shows, on taxes and regulation. I almost had it as a debate between Adam Smith and Joan Robinson, but I figured it was important to include at least one historical figure who you didn't have to take an advanced placement history class to know.

With my guests selected, I now have to just read. And read. And read and read and read.

-----

Considering the target demographic, I think it's downright idiotic to charge $40 just to download a single season of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. (Well, $30 for season 1 and $40 for season 2) If that was how much the box set with tons of special features cost, it would still be expensive but less of a rip-off.

I am peeved mostly because I've fallen so behind that they've taken a lot of the episodes I still haven't seen off the website, so I have no legal way of catching up without spending a week's worth of grocery money.

Dear Hub/iTunes: Your target demographic is not the 1%. You are marketing to the parents of small children and to people who are probably still paying off student loans. Please remember this when deciding how much you're going to charge.


This transitional period between old and new business models for the entertainment industry is a pain. With also some deeply troubling elements, but in this circumstance, it's just a pain.

Context is everything. Literally. One of the painful things about being a history nerd who keeps up with current events is seeing historical figures taken out of context and used to advance agendas that they would have vehemently opposed. (Considering that several of the "Founding Fathers" were either atheists or deists, I really don't think their ultimate plan was to make America a Christian nation.)

For awhile I've thought "Wouldn't it be cool to have historical figures comment on US current events?" They could explain the context surrounding the statements that they made and how it either is or isn't relevant to the modern world. But I never really knew what to do with it beyond a few vague thoughts like "Wouldn't it be amazing to watch George Washington and Theodore Roosevelt debate foreign policy?" I wasn't sure if anybody would be interested other than me and my mom anyway, so I put it aside and then kind of forgot about it.

I was reminded of it when thinking about the madness of the United States' current political climate. So many of the problems we're facing today are the result of decisions made decades ago, and out of context quotes from men long dead are used to justify solutions that are failing. It seems more important than ever to understand the context of the decisions that have shaped today's world.

So fuck it, I'm making a podcast. Two episodes before November 2012, and possibly more after that if there is sufficient interest. The episodes will be approximately 40 minutes long and in a similar style to shows such as Rachel Maddow and Anderson Cooper 360. They will have a mix of one-on-one interviews and debates, with a host that gives context to the current issue and how it is relevant to the historical figures.

My goal is not only to clarify the philosophies of people who are well-known but frequently misunderstood. I also want to highlight the philosophies and accomplishments of people who have had a major impact on American history, but who are left out of our white, hetero/cis-sexist, male-dominated textbooks. I want to show that they were not just a narrow portion of their identity (First Nations activist, civil rights activist, transgender activist, etc), but they were powerful thinkers who advocated for a number of intersecting causes.

Beneath the cut I have the topics I want to cover in the first two episodes and the people I am considering to include. I would love input and suggestions on this list. Who is missing that I should consider? Is there anyone I should eliminate? Do you know a really fantastic book about a particular person I should include in my research?

( Topics and Guests )

For those of you who are interested in/concerned about what my process will be ( , I have an explanation behind the cut )

If you are or know a historian/expert who is willing to help fact-check my work, please email me. In the interest of full disclosure, I am a white, middle-class, queer, cissexual woman. I studied screenwriting & playwriting in university; I love history, but I do not have any sort of degree in it.

If you'd like to be involved in any other way, let me know! Right now I am very much in development/pre-production, but there will be a multitude of opportunities further down the line.

Eventually this project will have its own website, but for now you can keep up with updates by tracking this tag.