Joy in Comments.

James Charles.

James Charles.

It’s a good way to start a day when you can take joy in comments, where you get to see people standing up against bigotry, fear and hate. Cover Girl recently featured their first male model, James Charles.

When 17-year-old James Charles was named the first male ambassador for CoverGirl this month, the company’s message was simple: “All of our CoverGirls are role models and boundary-breakers, fearlessly expressing themselves, standing up for what they believe and redefining what it means to be beautiful,” the makeup brand said in a press release. “James Charles is no exception.”

Mr. Charles is gorgeous, and no doubt has quite the career in front of him. There always has to be someone though, who just has to have a near heart attack about it all. In this case, a mother of a six year old, who wrote a long, hand-wringing screed on the awful at Homeschool Base. Outside of a bible thumper or two, the comments were filled with people who made one excellent point after another, many of them pointing out that answering the question of “why doesn’t daddy wear make-up?” being the easiest ever: “because he doesn’t want to.” Generally speaking, most children don’t have trouble happily accepting such things, and then they won’t be concerned about who wears cosmetics, because some people like to, and some people don’t. Of course, that wasn’t the problem troubled mom was worried about. It’s danced all around, but of course, the main worry is “oh god, what if my 6 year old son wants to try make-up?” To which, my answer would be “let him.” On with the screed!

Mommy, why doesn’t daddy wear makeup?

This is the question my 6-year-old asked me on Friday afternoon. We were watching Countdown to Christmas on ABC, and a commercial came up in between watching Toy Story.

A commercial for mascara.

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McCrory, Please, Just Leave.

Credit: Youtube.

Credit: Youtube.

Pat McCrory has been hanging onto his office like grim death, refusing to believe that voters want his sorry arse out of office and gone. It’s voter fraud! It’s every conspiracy in the world! I won’t leave! I’m afraid his toddler act is beyond tiresome at this point, and it’s quite clear it’s tiresome to everyone else, too.

The North Carolina State Board of Elections Monday issued an order dismissing keys election protests from Gov. Pat McCrory’s campaign, dealing a harsh blow to the incumbent governor’s hope for reelection.

ABC 11 reports the decision affects 52 counties where Republicans filed protests alleging people were ineligible to vote. The board of elections instructed those counties to dismiss any protest that “merely disputes the eligibility of a voter.”

McCrory’s challenger Roy Cooper called the decision a “devastating blow” to the incumbent governor’s campaign. Cooper currently leads McCrory by over 9,000 votes.

So, McCrory, get the bloody message already, please. Exhibit a bit of maturity for a change. No one wants a governor, not even a former governor who does nothing but have one juvenile tantrum after another. Via Raw Story.

Temper, Temper! (Continuation 10).

racist-teacher

That lovely screed was written by a pre-Kindergarten teacher. Make that former pre-kindergarten teacher.

The Democrat & Chronicle reports that the Children’s School of Rochester has fired substitute teacher Cassandra Elizabeth Sutton after discovering that she wrote on Facebook that she “caught a n*gger” who was allegedly “armed and hiding behind the shed in my neighbor’s back yard.”

[…]

“She was immediately terminated as soon as we saw the posting,” Children’s School of Rochester Principal Jay Piper told the Democrat & Chronicle. “We pride ourselves on our diversity. They were very offensive and hurtful remarks.”

TES Staffing, a staffing agency that connected Sutton with the school, also said that it would no longer employ Sutton after her racist rant.

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A Line in the Snow.

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No DAPL: Drawing a Line in the Snow.

And because I was at the Oceti Sakowin camp last Thursday, this year’s Thankstealing:

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Seeing Through The Distortion.

CREDIT: AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko.

CREDIT: AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko.

It’s not a simple matter, cutting through the constant distortions and lies which characterize the new administration here in uStates. There’s a strong inclination to simply dismiss Trump as an irrelevant blowhard, but that’s not the smart thing to do, because whether or not Trump has the slightest idea of what he’s doing (not much, in my opinion), the people behind him, those appointed and who now have unprecedented power, they do know what they are doing. They also know what they want. There are certain similarities to the Bush Jr. regime, but there’s much more “baffle ’em with bullshit” and “give them a reality show!” going on here. With Bush, there was a deadly calculation put into the manipulation of the public at large. Fear was whipped up to a point that people were willingly signing their rights away. I’d like to think that isn’t going to happen again, but it’s already in process. Whatever rights we thought we had are being carved away in great swathes, there’s no subtle whittling away here. Too many people simply want a ‘good’ show to watch, and Trump is capable of that much. What’s shameful here is that so much of the public doesn’t seem to want much more than that. If they ever do wake up, it will be much too late.

If Bush and Rove constructed a fantasy world with a clear internal logic, Trump has built something more like an endless bad dream. In his political universe, facts are unstable and ephemeral; events follow one after the other with no clear causal linkage; and danger is everywhere, although its source seems to change at random. Whereas President Bush offered America the illusion of morality clarity, President-elect Trump offers an ever-shifting phantasmagoria of sense impressions and unreliable information, barely held together by a fog of anxiety and bewilderment. Think Kafka more than Lord of the Rings.

It is tempting to suppose Trump built this phantasmagoria by accident — that it is the byproduct of an erratic, undisciplined, borderline pathological approach to dishonesty. But the president-elect should not be underestimated. His victories in both the Republican primary and the general election were stunning upsets, and he is now set to alter the course of world history. If he does not fully understand what he is doing, his advisers certainly do.

Steve Bannon, former head of the white nationalist outlet Breitbart News, is Trump’s Karl Rove. He knows. In a recent interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Bannon suggested that the key elements in his strategy are dissimulation and “darkness.”

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The Disavowal That Wasn’t There.

President-elect Donald Trump, left, gestures as he talks to the media as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie looks on at the Trump National Golf Club Bedminster clubhouse, Sunday, Nov. 20, 2016, in Bedminster, N.J. CREDIT: AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster.

President-elect Donald Trump, left, gestures as he talks to the media as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie looks on at the Trump National Golf Club Bedminster clubhouse, Sunday, Nov. 20, 2016, in Bedminster, N.J. CREDIT: AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster.

I remember talking with Rick about all the white nationalists and supremacists embracing Trump, and he said “but he disavowed them”, and I said “no, he didn’t”. People might think Trump did disavow all the racists and nazis worshiping at his feet, but he really didn’t, anymore than he disavowed and condemned all the acts of hate which started during the election process, and continue. A weak and muttered “Sad. Stop. Don’t do that.” doesn’t mean a thing, and all the white supremacists and every other brand of racist and bigot well know that. They also know his supposed disavowal doesn’t mean a thing. If you’re someone who did vote for Trump, and has been trying to salve your increasingly uneasy conscience, at least be as smart as all those racists you “didn’t vote for”, and understand that it’s not what Trump sort of says that matters, it’s what he does, and what he’s doing is appointing white supremacists and zealous racists. Think Progress has a very good article about that so-called disavowal.

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Tech: Stop Normalizing Alt Right.

altright3

As President-elect Donald Trump assembles his administration, one theme is becoming clear: he’s surrounding himself with white nationalists.

The media, as a result, has been fumbling with how to cover Trump and his transition team, often downplaying appointed individuals’ white nationalist ideological views as “controversial” or “outsider.” This tactic has drawn criticism from journalists and the public, who have condemned the use of “alt-right” as a sanitized term that obscures racism.

But one man is using technology to hold the media accountable. He created a Google Chrome browser extension “Stop Normalizing Alt Right” that replaces any mention of the term “alt-right” with “white supremacy.”

[…]

“No one’s going to tell Mark Zuckerberg what to do or the media what to do,” he said. And if the recent controversy over Facebook facilitating the spread of fake news teaches us anything, he said, it’s that “you can put something out that gets attention and potentially change outcomes, it shows the power of independent creators…If I’m not doing anything to fight this or push back beyond a retweet, then I am part of the problem.”

In addition to the Chrome browser extension, George is also working on a version for Firefox and a Twitter bot that “corrects” media organization’s tweets.

“We’re engaged in lots of little acts of defiance around this to help change things, change narratives, and help people realize what side they’re on,” George said.

Think Progress Story. * Stop Normalizing site.

One Gigantic Eyeroll.

eyeroll

There’s nothing quite like the self-absorption of hipsters, so constantly desperate to be on the edge of cool, while attempting to appear bored with it. For all the attempts at coolness and self definition, it’s a constant fail. Here’s another one. What good is all that Jesus stuff unless it reflects your self-centered naval gazing and dependence on stereotypes? I’m surprised there isn’t a a stack of Pabst cases somewhere, but perhaps that’s in one of the Amazon boxes. I’d dearly like to think this is a huge poke in the eye of all those who style themselves a “hipster”, handily stripping $130.00 out of their wallets, and perhaps it is, because there’s no gullibility quite like that of hipsters whose eyes are constantly clouded over in their utter concentration on their own egos.

You can see more of this here.

I thought I might have to watch a Star Wars flick…

rogue-one-a-star-wars-story-youtube-800x430

I thought I might have to actually watch a Star Wars flick, because Alan Tudyk. Unfortunately, he just has a voice part in this rehash, so I’ll be able to spare myself. (Not that he won’t do a brilliant job, I know he will.)

Apparently, people are going to continue to be drowned in Star Wars flicks for the next, fuck, who knows, it looks like decades more. I haven’t seen a Star Wars movie since standing in line at the Cinedome in SoCal back in 1970something. I think I saw three of them, I don’t remember. I gave up on the appearance of the teddy bear beings, there’s only so much eye-rolling I’m willing to pay for. For all the fans though, Raw Story has a good run down on what’s happening with the next however many movies it is coming out.

Star Wars goes Rogue – but will this risky move backfire?