Previous: An Open Letter to Our Concerned Citizen
After all our big talk of snipping our Citizen’s invisible thread & throwing it in the trash, we annoyingly found one strand still clinging to us. Here is the strand.
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We, before packing up & moving to our magical land, grew up in the firmly un-magical land of Massachusetts, in a household w/ lots of arguments. Most of these arguments were aimed at us.
According to these arguments, we could do no right. According to these arguments, we were incomprehensible, overwrought, unhinged, malicious, scheming, & nobody would ever give a damn what we cared abt, or what our opinions were on most subjects. We were talked over, ignored, out-shouted, &— to add insult to injury— then told we were misremembering or inventing all of the above (MOIAOTA).
Why were we MOIAOTA? Bc we were overwrought & unhinged— & possibly scheming to boot. 🤷🏻♀️ It is from these bitter experiences that we forged Our Philosophy:
It’s useless to hide your true beliefs & opinions in hopes of winning over those who are in bad faith (TWAIBF). TWAIBF will be determined to misunderstand you. If you hide one part of yourself, they will simply find another to wave around as evidence that this is why you should be dismissed. Writing in fear of TWAIBF is folly. It doesn’t just lead to your own madness— it leads to dishonest writing, which is of no help to anyone. TWAIBF will always be on hand— but that is okay. They are not your audience. They are free to stew in their juices, & to tie themselves up in a cat’s cradle of invisible threads.
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W/ that off our chest, we have come into the News on News studio today for a little Somni Special.
It’s hard for us to pick our fav “Zizian”— Gwen is firmly ensconced in our heart of hearts, but sthng abt Miss Somni just gets to us.
We think it’s a combo of her persistence in the face of ☠️the U.S. legal machine☠️, + the fact that the press looooves to hate on her: they looooove being mean to her & using the specter of her to hype up their dry-as-dust courtroom reporting. They loooooove calling her “incomprehensible”, which, each & every time, makes us want to reach out & give her a big hug, from one member of the Incomprehensible Club to another.
This is a spur-of-the-moment, after-hours taping from our little studio 🎥 We apologize for coming in our robe & slippers,
but, as they say, it is our studio & not yours 😉
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Before we get into it, we wanted to mention a tidbit which an eagle-eyed member of our studio audience has brought to our attention.
Who but Michael Vassar is up tweeting that reporter from 😮💨 Wired’s doomèd zarticle (Ziz article) 🤭 He is congratulating Wired’s journalist— Evan Ratliff, whom you might remember from this little number— for bringing to his attention some New News: that Gwen, not Ziz, was the leader of “the group”.
Now, first of all, Evan does not say this in his zarticle. To our knowledge, no one has ever said this— Michael is blazing new trails 🥾 Regardless, we tweeted Evan as soon as we heard Michael murmuring, & begged him not to accept the “help” that Michael was generously offering him.
We begged him— however short he is on leads— never to let the likes of Michael “help” steer the ship of these girls’ story. It may not occur to Michael that, when Evan posts a link to his zarticle, that means he is *done* w/ his zarticle 🤷🏻♀️ Anyway, on the off-chance that Evan has dreams of writing a sequel— or, heaven forbid, a book— we simply couldn’t remain silent.
We confessed to Evan that this maneuver by Michael caught us in a strange mood, since we had written so recently abt the hijinks Michael played w/ Ziz & Emma. We ofc admitted that Michael’s hijinks may not be New News to him: he has, famously, printed out the whole of Ziz’s blog & read it multiple times from cover to cover. At any rate, we sent him the post as either a reminder or a revelation.
What are the odds that a high & mighty Wired reporter will listen to a plebeian like ourself? Zilch, we think. Nonetheless, we are a sworn Press Interventionist 🆘— & if this doesn’t cry for an intervention, what does?
Then we addressed Michael, & said we were surprised at him. The Rationalists have made so much hay out of “deferential”, “impressionable” (“D”, “I”) Gwen. Why is one of their greatest pooh-bas changing his tune now? We conceded we’d prayed for a shift in their “D”, “I” gossip, but this shift caught us out of left field. We considered snapping at Michael: “Who is the ‘leader’ of your friend-group?”— then remembered that, in Michael’s eyes, it is Michael 💀 Anyway, we said that, if he wanted our advice, he’d consider the rebranding work they’d be signing up for. The Gwenians? We told him to run it past some focus groups before he continued barking up this tree any longer.
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W/ that off our chest, let’s start our Somni Special. This Special was inspired by an Open Vallejo byline which mentioned Somni once learned Elvish! Savhalla, 'ma falon Somni ☺️
We ofc never had the patience to learn Elvish— but our best friend did, when we were 11, & we thought that was rlly cool. We wonder if Somni would be a Rivendell elf, a Lothlórien elf, or some other kind of elf of whom we, being too impatient for the Silmarillion either, are ignorant? We would guess a Rivendell elf, bc Rivendell elves seem like loyal friends. We ofc would be a Lothlórien elf, so that we could live in a treehouse w/ Christmas lights up the stairs, survey the whole of Middle Earth in our magic bowl of water, & be played by Cate Blanchette.
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Open Vallejo will be our dessert course. We’re going to start w/ a little amuse-bouche. We invite you to stare into our magic water bowl; &, as the ripples clear, you may see a headline from The Toronto Sun:
You may look up again, & tell us, “Drosselmeyer, I see nothing… but same-old, same-old transphobic clickbait.” We will meet your gaze- silently, then look down once more towards the waters. If you do as well, you may see a montage of the following published quotes, slowly dissolving into one another:
They [meaning Somni] are in the hot seat for allegedly attempting to murder her [also Somni] landlord in 2022.
Zizians were an unknown quantity before Jan. 20
One month later, detectives traced Zakjow [sic] to Delaware, where they were arrested, along with fellow cultie Daniel Blank and the bizarre sect’s leader
Lind told cops he was inspecting a leak in Dao’s [sic] trailer when he was clobbered in the back of the head.
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Wrenching yourself away from these visions, you may flip backwards onto the ground, as smoke rises from our magic water bowl. 🤣🤣🤣🤣 Who is writing this???? Who is getting paid $ to write abt hotseats & culties & clobberings? 🥲 Oh goodness, oh gracious, oh— come back, come back, don’t be scared. Peer into the waters one more time, & you may see the author’s face flash before you:
🤣🤣🤣🤣 Ofc! Who but this man! His name is Brad. Brad Hunter. Who but a man named Brad Hunter could make us freak out so hard? 🥲 That’s all, really. He used to be a senior writer for the NYPost. He has 552 pages of articles for the Toronto Sun. He has been paid by them for about 5,520 articles. & yes: the other 5,519 have headlines that are just this silly, & just this… just this Brad.
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Okay, okay: time to Open Vallejo! Here is some sorbet to clear your palette of Brad, & here is some rosewater for your fingertips. Here comes the News on News crew w/ our long-awaited dessert course. Time to learn all abt Somni’s melmë lambëo Eldarinwa 😊
...We’ll be honest: the icing on this item doesn’t look too appetizing—
How a California math genius spiraled into Zizian ideology and violence
—Kinda gritty & slimy. Anna Bowman is tn’s patissière— a 🤔 “former” investigative reporter for Open Vallejo, who, as of 3/12/25, was def still at it: she has written one, two… six “Zizian” articles! Was this Somni spiral too much for her editors to bear?
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Anna opens w/ a classic twist: calling Somni “a… transgender woman”, while simultaneously deadnaming her! What is the purpose of this? What info, Anna, does this give us abt your subject? What character sketch have you rendered? None, you have given us one outdated piece of info, & one piece of info that is not yet relevant. It would have been relevant if you’d opened by describing the transphobic exclusion Somni suffered, or if you’d opened by describing the media’s ongoing transphobic inclusion of her. As it is, Anna, there are doubtless many other Somni characteristics which more vividly sum up her personality than the simple fact that she is trans. In Somni’s own words:
After promising us an article abt Somni’s math & Elvish skills, Anna, what is the first scene you stage her in? It is in this scene: where Somni says, to the court, that unforgettable line (UL)— “This is a show trial to coordinate the genocide of transgender people!” You describe Judge Ellis “seem[ing] unfazed by the disturbance” as he mutes her, & describe Somni’s UL as an “outburst” ⛈️
If you had asked our advice, we might have whipped out our red pen, made a bunch of scratch marks over your opening, & written in the margins:
Somni, who is herself trans, said in court: “This is a show trial to coordinate the genocide of transgender people!”
& might have added a caret after Ellis’s muting:
Nonetheless, Somni’s repetition of this phrase remained faintly audible through the rest of the hearing 😈
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Next we learn two nice things abt Somni: her “court filings highlight her devotion to veganism and advocacy for her rights as a transgender woman”.
These are two wholesome things— we feel you’re trying to frame them as two wonky things, but have no clue why & will move right past that. You tell us her court filings “also demonstrate an apparent refusal to recognize the legitimacy of the California justice system” (AARTRTLOTCJS)— and that they “raise questions about her mental competency (RQAHMC)”.
How do they RQAHMC? She once called a judge “evil”, & once lamented that she was forced “to pretend that I believe this is a real justice system”. Both of these, to us, read as AARTRTLOTCJS, which, for you, seems to = “questions about her mental competency”.
It may seem strange to question the legitimacy of the “justice” system (“J”S), Anna— for those of us whom this “J”S has mercifully overlooked. Angela Davis’s book “Are Prisons Obsolete?” is an excellent primer on the topic, & light googling has revealed 3 more books that may shed more specific light on Somni’s situation:
1. Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex- Edited by Eric A. Stanley and Nat Smith
An anthology of essays from activists, scholars, & incarcerated people. It critiques the prison system through a queer & trans lens, & includes firsthand accounts from trans prisoners.
2. Trap Door: Trans Cultural Production and the Politics of Visibility- Edited by Reina Gossett, Eric A. Stanley, and Johanna Burton
Includes work on the violence trans people face in carceral systems, & questions whether increased visibility leads to justice or deeper marginalization.
3. Reform or Revolution: Beyond Reformism in Trans Politics- by Dean Spade
Examines how trans people are policed & criminalized by the state. While not prison-focused exclusively, it is said to provide a strong framework.
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Finally, we learn sthng of kid-Somni: when she is described by a fellow math camp attendee as “kind, quiet, and apparently neurodivergent”. We next see teen-Somni, at another math camp, described by a program director as “quiet and polite”, & as getting along well w/ her fellow math whizzes. We finally get a drive-by glimpse of the Elvish, & learn that indeed, she was “a big fan of the Lord of the Rings”.
Next we notice Anna is aware that Somni, way back in 2017, had “started going by… Somni”; but, seeing as Anna immediately gestures to “[Redacted] LaSota, who wrote a blog under the nickname Ziz”… 🤷🏻♀️ we just dk. Surely cis ppl, who go by *actual* nicknames, get called those nicknames by journalists? Does Joe Biden get called, “Joseph, who signed his name Joe”? Does Bill Clinton get called, “William, who started going by Bill in 1960”? It’s just v. strange.
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CFAR is, like Somni, introduced w/ all its meaningful characteristics removed: as “😇 a Berkeley nonprofit that trains people to overcome cognitive bias”. Anna Salamon pops up for an interview— it still surprises us that she had no time, in her busy CFAR life, to hear *her* own cognitive biases pointed out by Ziz, yet has oodles of time to talk to the media abt Ziz & co.! She says nothing of interest.
We learn abt the protest, learn nothing abt its motives, & then learn sthng “BIZARRE”: that Somni, according to Anna (our reporter, not our busy CFAR Anna), entered the building & startled a lady so much that she dropped a call to 911. From everything we’ve heard, this would later be disproven in court, but Anna presents it as fact: as one of the more vivid facts from this entire protest scene.
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We see a lovely pic of an officer who arrested Somni et. al.— receiving, w/ his adorable German Shepherd, the Officer of the Year award from his local Elks Lodge…
…& we hear this officer describe Somni’s reaction to getting arrested as “extremely dramatic”. Was law enforcement’s response to the protest— cops w/ their guns drawn; a SWAT unit; an armored car; a bomb squad; dogs; & a helicopter— not “extremely dramatic”? 😮💨 We bit into Anna’s concoction expecting Elvish! We have instead found a king cake riddled w/ our least-favorite trinkets. We are pushing aside our plate, seizing the king cake, ripping it apart in all directions, & lining up the trinkets:
1. Omitting mention of what Somni *actually* experienced in jail, while saying that she said it was “torture”
2. Undercutting Somni’s words w/ a quote from the jail’s public information officer: “jail staff treat all inmates with ‘dignity and respect.’”
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Oh, & here are 5 trinkets which come directly from Somni. We cannot say we *enjoy* them, but we’ve carefully cleaned them of cake & set them apart from the rest:
1. Somni caught COVID, & failed to show up for a hearing in 2022. The judge asked if she was perhaps trying to deliberately delay the case. Somni responded that she was homeless: “Maybe I’m exposed more than you,” she said, “because you live in a house.”
2. Here is the note Somni sent to her judge in 2023:
3. Somni, in a civil rights complaint, says that a deputy said she deserved her gunshot injuries from Lind, “for being a woke who thinks he can change from being a man to a woman”.
4. She describes guards in Solano County Jail (SCJ) pressing her against the floor, cutting off her clothes, & staring at her naked body.
5. When brought to SCJ, even tho her ID lists her gender as “female”, she was housed in the men’s unit. When she refused this, she was kept in a “medical isolation cell with no outside window or light switch for roughly four months”.
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Friends, this is a mess. We expected to find nothing but ghoulish trinkets based on the first half of Anna’s cake— instead, we find them quite outnumbered by our Somni trinkets, which were all hidden in the bottom layer.
Does Anna perhaps have a shoddy mixer? Did they sink in the oven? Why would she not have opened w/ this vital information? If she had, she would have had cause to make “trans” one of her first adjectives when introducing Somni! We are baffled. We are sticky, we are sweating under the studio lights, we cannot believe we invited you all for this disastrous affair.
Give us 15 for a shower. By way of an apology, you will once again see our News on News crew walking down the aisles— w/ vouchers for Coldstone Creamery. Their smoosh-ins are always well-distributed. Here comes the crew now— w/ members of our archival division to rescue Somni’s trinkets, ty so much boys. If you wish to join us at Coldstone, our studio vans will be parked out front. Ty all for coming: we hope to see you there, & we hope this may bribe you to erase almost all of what you have witnessed tn, save for the Somni trinkets. Sen naen News on News.
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