   Current Post On Trae’s Blog:
Tomorrow, April 1st 2025, we have a massively important State Supreme Court election here in the state of Wisconsin. It will decide the balance of the state supreme court, and it's vitally important that we get Susan Crawford elected. Elon Musk has literally poured millions of dollars into Brad Schimel's campaign, and we are fighting for our lives here. I've already voted, and if you haven't yet and you live here... make sure you do.
But no matter what happens tomorrow, no matter what the result is, the fight is far from over. ICE agents are grabbing people off the streets, our public institutions are being systematically destroyed, and our international and diplomatic relations with historically close allies are just, honestly, fucked right now. Today is Trans Day of Visibility, and trans and queer rights have been under steady attack by the right. As a nonbinary person and member of the trans community, I'm genuinely scared for a lot of my friends right now.
But we fight. We stand up. We survive.
If we accept defeat, we are handing victory to those who want us dead. By living and fighting, we carry on to the next day and then the day after that. I know I posted it right after the election last November, but there's a pretty famous Joe Hill quote everyone should keep in mind: "Don't waste any time mourning. Organize!"
Go out, hug your friends. Build a local community if you can, and get involved in your local politics. Make sure you call your Reps and Senators every day if you can, and for pete's sake fucking vote.
We can make it as long as we don't stop fighting.
Remember that on April 5th at 11AM Eastern/10AM Central you can join me for the Critical Thinking Witches' Collective's April Brew virtual event! Attendance is free, and you can register here!
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Yeah. As someone of Hispanic decent visiting up north that was fun trying to learn on the German names lol. And trying to watch all the yanks pronounce my last name!
Amazing how easily an ethnic name can trip you up, even if you think you’re ready for them. But Polish names seem to do it deliberately.
Or if you’re prepared for the wrong ethnicity. I knew an Indian kid named Tejas(Tay-jis) once. He lived in an area with a huge Hispanic influence. Literally everyone assumed it was Tay-has when they met him, even after he said it.
This was something I greatly appreciated with David Vincent, who MC’d Sakura-Con’s Closing Ceremonies this year. He made a point to meet with our cultural performers before the ceremonies to make sure he had the pronunciations correct.
One joy at Registration was people with a badge name of something like “Tigerfoxxx”. Your name would immediately be “Tiger Fox ecks ecks.” Every time.
I recall the time that David Gerrold was MCing a costume contest and was visited with so many unpronounceable character names (and NO phonetic breakdown) he finally gave up and started introducing people as “Fred. From the planet Fred”. No idea what the balance was between annoyed and amused on the part of the entries. 🙂