Here’s how some people might think of today.
Here’s another legitimate perspective.
All true. But this is where my head is at.
Peace out, everyone. No fireworks please.
I’m going to rip off the bandage over the bad news: Bill Cosby has been released from prison. He was accused by 60 women of drugging and molesting them; he even confessed, in the most chillingly reptilian way, that yeah, he doped them so he could do whatever he wanted with them, but he made that confession after a prosecutor promised him immunity, so it was obtained under false pretenses, and now he’s been set free. I think it’s good that bad lawyers get their tactics rebuked, but yikes, they let a monster out.
At least he won’t be making any more puddin’ pop commercials, I hope.
In other bad news, Britney Spears has been living under a repressive conservatorship for well over a decade (I don’t care what you think of her music, whether you love it or hate it, this is a human being we’re talking about.) Why, I don’t know. She’s a grown-ass woman, pop stars have a long history of making fools of themselves without getting all their rights stripped away, but this seems to be one of those situations where a greedy family has a grip on the one money-making talent in their midst, and are squeezing her for all that she is worth. She’s been trying to get out from under their control, and unfortunately, a judge has ruled that her father will continue as her conservator. Leave Britney alone!
Now for the happy news. Nikole Hannah-Jones has been awarded tenure after all! This should have been a no-brainer, considering her immense accomplishments and standing in the intellectual community, but it took a second closed-door meeting and tremendous public pressure to get the board of trustees to do the right thing. Opponents just needed money. It turns out that a man who donated $25 million dollars to UNC thought that gave him the power to pressure the university to deny her tenure because he didn’t like her opinions.
Some of that opposition came from Walter Hussman, a UNC donor and Arkansas newspaper publisher whose name adorns UNC’s journalism school. Hussman, who is also an alumnus, told NPR he was given pause by criticism of prominent scholars that Hannah-Jones distorted the historical record in arguing that the protection of slavery was one of the primary motivations of the Founding Fathers in seeking independence from the British. (Hannah-Jones has recently tweeted that she will be able to back up that contention in her forthcoming book.)
You know, that doesn’t even sound that controversial to me. The British had outlawed slavery in their country, and we can see right there in the US Constitution all the compromises the founding fathers had made to convince the slave-holding states to join in their rebellion. I’d be curious to see her argument that this was a primary motivation, but I don’t find it at all implausible. Also not implausible: that a rich conservative Republican would try to silence a valid criticism of the history of this country.
But wait! We need more good news! How about the beginning of the end of the Trump grifting empire?
A grand jury in Manhattan filed criminal indictments Wednesday against former president Donald Trump’s company and its longtime chief financial officer, according to two people familiar with the indictments.
The indictments against the Trump Organization and its CFO, Allen Weisselberg, will remain sealed until Thursday afternoon, leaving the specific charges against them unclear. Earlier Wednesday, people familiar with the case said the charges were related to allegations of unpaid taxes on benefits for Trump Organization executives.
Weisselberg is expected to surrender Thursday morning at the office of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. (D), two people familiar with the plan said. He is expected to be arraigned later in the day in front of a state court judge. The Trump Organization will also be arraigned, represented in court by one of its attorneys.
Trump himself is not indicted, yet. They’re going after the Trump hotels and golf courses, which probably hurts him more.
It’s also cute that they’re going after him on tax evasion, like Al Capone. The lesson I take from this is that when I become an evil overlord, I will be meticulous in paying my taxes. Either that, or I will buy a bunch of congresspeople and get legislation passed to give me plenty of legal loopholes.
I can think of a few other scumbags from that era whose demise would prompt me to break out the Macarena, too.
I got an offer to see a picture of a scorpion yesterday, which is neat, but we don’t allow pictures in comments because we want to be kind to readers’ bandwidth and because there are trolls who would abuse it. But then I thought…hey, you know that Freethoughtblogs has a Discord server? That would be a perfect place for that sort of thing. I even created a #photos channel within it, awaiting your submissions.
I suppose I could create a spider-free channel if people demand it. But why wouldn’t everyone want to see spider photos? (Don’t bother answering, I know.)
Ah, the benefits of being hated. My phone beeped at me this morning to let me know I’ve got an Important Text Message incoming. Here it is:
Huh? Who dis? I was curious about what I had done to annoy this stranger, so I looked him up on Facebook. He is a 37 year old who owns a construction company in Orlando, Florida, and he’s an anti-masker, anti-vaccine, COVID denying, BLM opponent who supported Trump, so that didn’t help — I think there’s zero common ground there.
Suggestion to all you anonymous critics: do try to be a little bit specific. I can’t possibly correct my repulsive behavior, or even feel a little bit chagrined, if you don’t declare what’s bothering you, beyond my simple existence. As it is, it just looks like you might have had a bad day, and instead of feeling hurt by the pettiness, I’m more like to feel sorry for you.
In case anyone is plotting to disrupt my sleep with a flood of late night hate texts, don’t bother. I’ve got them disabled until my wake-up time, so I hardly need an alarm — the phone lights up and makes a little chime and I can look over on the nightstand and see the pile of abusive messages. It’s an incentive to get up and face the day. Which is always unremittingly hostile in stupid, trivial ways.
Happy Father’s Day to all of you who had fathers you want to honor!
It felt good. The Morris Theater has re-opened after a long pandemic hiatus, so I actually went to a movie! I love just going to a movie theater, and I’ve missed it.
In case you are concerned because the pandemic is not over yet, I was sensible about it. I’m vaccinated, I wore my mask while interacting with the box office clerk, and, well, this is Morris. I was the only person in the theater! I would like to complain to the management that they could have stayed open all through the past year if they had only allowed one person, me, to attend each showing.
Oh, the movie? Cruella. If I’d had a lot of choices, it’s not one I would have picked, but well, this is Morris. You take what is offered. It was an OK bit of fluff, it’s main virtue is that it gave two Emmas (Stone and Thompson) an opportunity to chew the scenery as over-the-top villains. I like them both as actors, so I’m not going to complain that they got paid to have some indulgent fun.
I also have low expectations for summer movies. The previews were a blur of car chases, superheroes, and random explosions.
I find I’m only able to read it in short bursts, so it’s taken me a while to finish it. Stollznow’s On the Offensive: Prejudice in Language Past and Present is a catalog of slurs. It’s fascinating, but every page is basically, here’s a hurtful horrible word. Here’s where it came from. Here’s why it’s so awful. Here’s the context where it’s sometimes used in a non-awful way. So sure, you’ll get a few pages of thoughtful discussion of the various permutations of the n-word, which is useful to know, but it’s sort of exhausting as well.
It’s organized by category, so it’s easy to get your surfeit of racism on one day, and sexism the next, and ableism after that. The chapter on ageism was personally useful, at least. It provides a guide in how to address me.
Elderly person and elderly people are commonly used as polite terms. As a noun, elder has positive connotations and suggests seniority rather than being old. The word implies a sense of dignity and respect, and even power, influence, and authority, in phrases such as our elders and betters, elders of the tribe, the village elder, and elder brethren. (Ironically, in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, elder is the lowest ranking in the priesthood and typically refers to younger men.) In early English, elder was the comparative of old, while eldest was the superlative form (i.e., old, elder, eldest), so elder was equivalent to modern day older. The comparative adjectives older and elder are generally perceived as more polite than the unmarked adjectives old or elderly. While elder has retained positive connotations, elderly has now acquired ageist associations. Older is relative; everyone is older than someone else, so it has become the preferred term that is used in phrases such as older person, older people, older adults, or older Americans, as a general descriptor for people in later life.
Unfortunately, I lived in Salt Lake City for too long, and the Mormons, as usual, ruined everything. “Elder Myers” is a name that would be embossed on a plastic tag over the pocket of a starched white shirt on a beardless guy wearing a black tie, not me. I guess you’re just going to have to address me as that cranky geezer.
Oh, hey, geezer isn’t in the book, but silly old fart is.
One big announcement is that I got home safely, and now get to relax after a long day of travel.
That isn’t what you expected? Not enough?
In June of 2016, almost exactly 5 years ago, our legal saga began when we announced an investigation into one of our bloggers, Richard Carrier, who’d just been banned from a conference for slimy sexual behavior. Then he announced that he was quitting before we could investigate, so we said fine, bye. Then more scandal erupted as other orgs followed suit, in particular SSA. Carrier then, in September of 2016, shrieked that he was going to SUE everyone for $2.1 million and a bunch of us got lengthy legal documents in the mail. We hired a good lawyer. Alarums and excursions followed until finally, in November of 2019, Carrier’s stupid lawsuit collapsed, he retreated in ignominious defeat, and we were victorious. There’s a timeline, if you want the details.
We celebrated a grand victory, but then we had to pay the lawyer. We had to pay the lawyer about a quarter million dollars, which is less than $2.1 million, but still a fine big chunk of change. James and Rebecca Hammond came to our rescue and paid off the lawyer (Hooray for the Hammonds!) and then basically gave us an interest free loan and divvied up the debt among the various victims of the wretched Carrier. We’ve been plugging away at out part — witness the various fundraisers we’ve put on — and then, in the last few weeks, we received some substantial donations from various anonymous and wonderful donors, including one for $8K, and … we paid off everything we owed.
THANK YOU EVERYONE!
It feels great to have that burden off our shoulders, but we aren’t quite done yet. There are other defendants in this suit, and we figure we can still help them out, and we’ll have more to say about that later.
For now, though, Freethoughtblogs is 100% debt free!
And I get to take a shower and go to bed early and get back to work tomorrow morning.
