Affinity

Art, Fun, & Nonsense.

Your Children Will Be Commies! Er, Wait, They’ll Be Transgendered Commies!

Oh, The Red Menace™! Ever present in my life. “America’s” biggest fear and greatest propaganda, the communists under the bed, oh my! Every single time I have thought that the whole fear of a commie had finally died off, it managed to appear again, ever a revenant. There was always a religious zealot or a bigoted conservative willing to reach into the closet and dust off the Red Bogeyman, conveniently updated with whatever was current or trending in culture for any given year. Today, I see absolutely nothing has changed. Seriously, all you bigoted, hateful, conservative Christian asswipes need to come up with a new shtick. The whole red menace thing is unbelievably old, and it’s now incredibly inaccurate, ennit? Really, at least try to keep up with the news, and please, not Fox.

Kevin Swanson has decided that the current Red Bogeyman is Transgendered Commies! Yes, that’s right. All children in public schools will be transformed into transgender commies, this is the new agenda™. I hadn’t received any agenda update, perhaps this one is only going out to idiots.

“The state has an agenda with your children,” he warned. “I realize that this may sound a little bit hyperbolic, it may sound [like] a little bit of an exaggeration—I don’t think it is, because I think if you begin to see the trajectory of where things have gone and you just draw it out for the next five, six, eight years, you’re going to find this is the agenda.”

“The goals of the educational program for your kids in the public schools,” Swanson continued, “the goals of the world for your children is that your kids be transgendered and communist by 20 years of age.”

“Of course this is the agenda,” he said. “Parents, just get serious about it. Do you want your kids transgendered and communist at 18 years of age? Is that your goal? If it isn’t, then maybe you ought to bring a different vision into the education of your children.”

Why yes, that does sound hyperbolic, Kevin. It also sounds downright moronic. You won’t be finding cis children wanting to be anything other than what they are, and you won’t find trans children wanting to be anything other than what they are. It’s quite simple, really. I do think you need to be a bit more specific about the whole transgender-communist connection, what exactly do you have in that department? How does the ever evil transagenda aid in creating more commies? I ask, because I don’t know if you have noticed, but trans people haven’t exactly had an easy time when it comes to being accepted, on both an individual and societal basis. I really don’t think this would be the communist plot of choice.

I remember when there was an attempt to paint The Beatles, and rock and pop music generally with the communist brush, but at least they had a veneer of a connection – mind control! Looseness, immorality, *gasp* sex! I am not getting the connection here. I think it will be a very long time before there are sufficient numbers of transgender commies to make up a conquering army, if that’s what you had in mind. Also, Kevin, make up your fucking mind, from one sentence to the next – are the kids going to turn evil when they are 20 years old, or 18 years old? Details matter, y’know. Also, it’s rather convenient you put the line at adult ages. I really think you ought to just stick with the immoral, godless commie thing. It’s worked for all these decades.

Via RWW.

Word Wednesday.

Ambit

Noun.

1. Circuit, compass.

2. The bounds or limits of a place or district.

3. A sphere of action, expression, or influence: scope.

[Origin: Middle English, from Latin ambitus, from ambire.]

(1597)

“And you do not?” Andso said, straightening. The captain was edging into blasphemy, and that, at least, was in the priest’s ambit. “Do you doubt the Bishopry, Captain?” – The God Engines, John Scalzi.

Word Wednesday.

Recondite

Adjective.

1. Hidden from sight: concealed.

2. Difficult or impossible for one of ordinary understanding or knowledge to comprehend: deep.

3: of, relating to, or dealing with something little known or obscure.

– reconditely, adverb.

– reconditeness, noun.

[Origin: Latin reconditus, past participle of recondere to conceal, from re– + condere to store up, from com– + –dere to put.]

(1649)

“The Anarchist Cookbook, with its dangerously flawed bomb formulae, hasn’t maimed half so many hands as HPL’s mythos. His writings look more like fiction than allegorically-described recipes to most people, which is a good thing; but every so often a reader of his more recondite works becomes unhealthily obsessed with the idea of the starry wisdom behind it, starts thinking of it as something real, and then tries to reverse-engineer the design of the pipe bomb he’s describing, not realizing that Quality Control was not his strong point. – Equoid, Charles Stross.

Word Wednesday.

Götterdämmerung

Noun.

A collapse (as of a society or regime) marked by catastrophic violence and disorder; broadly, downfall.

[Origin: German, literally, twilight of the gods, from Götter (plural of Gott god) + Dämmerung twilight.]

(1909)

“The story he could have summarized if he had to. There was no need to read those last five chapters. The First Heaven was about the world before there were people in it. No people, no animals, and no birds, only sea creatures and insects, the whole ruled over by gods and goddesses, some with well-known names, some invented, but all with an Old Testament flavor. These deities behaved like human beings in that they loved and hated, committed crimes and performed heroic deeds, but were apparently immortal and therefore could watch the process of evolution, the gradual change of the tiny swimming things into land creatures and flying creatures. As the millennia passed, the gods foresaw the appearance on earth of man by a process of evolution but were powerless to stop it, though they knew it would mean an end to their immortality. It would mean a Götterdämmerung.” – Not in the Flesh, Ruth Rendell.

The Problem of Prettifying Trump for Children’s Books.

Michael Ian Black and Marc Rosenthal, A Child’s First Book of Trump.

Unfortunately, when it comes to history, there’s a long, ugly history in the U.S. of lying to children. Books are filled with euphemisms and omissions, desperate to find any way to praise past politicians and their acts. This is quite the problem with presidential bios, going all the way back. People were considered courageous to mention that the oh so holy Saint Jefferson was a slaveholder. They omitted the rapes, subsequent pregnancies, and those inconvenient little slaves Jefferson fathered. You don’t find sections or books on just how genocidal presidents were when it came to Indians, or how they spent time and money on being devious bastards, making promises they fully intended to break. Nothing about the rapes, murders, and stealing of children, no. There’s very little action across uStates to undo all the whitewash. That much has not changed, but even in an industry well practiced in the art of whitewash, Trump is presenting special problems.

…Rosman catches the Scholastic folks red-handed as they rewrite history to try to prettify Trump for their audience. In a prepublication draft of the book, under the heading “Troubling Statements,” its authors initially explained: “Some of Trump’s biggest supporters were white nationalists. Their comments and actions during and after the campaign were racist and often dangerous. Trump did little to speak against them.” But in the final version, we get, instead, a page called “Campaign Statements,” which explains that, “Some of Trump’s critics felt he did not speak out against prejudicial people and groups strongly enough.”

[…]

The problem with Trump is not that he did not denounce the racism, much less the fact that some people might have felt this way. It’s that he actively encouraged not merely racism but a particularly violent strain of it; one that helped create an atmosphere of menace toward almost all people of color among his most virulent supporters. What’s more, this racism, according to the best data we can find, was central to his appeal both in the Republican primaries and in the general election. The fact that he is now president of the United States presents an additional ideological problem for children’s book publishers. Not only must they find a way around the fact that their subject is a racist, sexist, ethnocentric, McCarthyite, lying con man, but also that nearly half the country’s voters knew all this and picked him anyway.

To be honest about Trump is to be honest about America, and right now, that is just not the kind of thing children’s publishers are set up to do. It’s not even the kind of thing The New York Times or The Washington Post is set up to do — at least not without blaming “both sides” for whatever crime against democracy, decency or common sense Trump has most recently committed. Joana Costa Knufinke, group editor for nonfiction books in Scholastic’s library publishing division, uses this time-honored excuse when she explains to Rosman, “We make an effort to show both points of view.”

[…]

The challenge regarding Trump, however, is not that he has flaws, as men and all presidents do. The problem is that he is all flaws and that it was these flaws that got him elected president. Without those flaws — the racism, sexism, jingoism, dishonesty, incompetence, ignorance and belligerence — there is nothing left to say about Trump… except perhaps to make fun of his hair. This puts the nice people in the children’s book business in the uncomfortable position of either ignoring the new president or running interference of his destructive qualities and teaching our children to, at best, ignore them, or at worst, emulate them.

An incisive look at how the children’s publishing industry is going to be very busy orange-washing and filtering all information about the current unpresident of uStates. Highly recommended reading.

Full article here.

Word Wednesday.

Fantod

Noun.

1. Plural a. A state of irritability and tension. b. Fidgets.

2. An emotional outburst: fit.

[Origin: perhaps alteration of English dialect fantique, fanteeg, perhaps blend of fantastic and fatigue.]

(1839)

“That damn creek water had given Grim a serious case of the howling fantods, and every bit of reason that he could cling to was welcome indeed.” – Hex (U.S. Version), Thomas Olde Heuvelt.

New York: Tuition Free 4 Year College!

Gov. Andrew Cuomo says in New York we have rejected the politics of division.

New York will be the first state in the country to cover four-year college tuition for residents after the program was included in the budget package approved Sunday night.

The state’s Excelsior Scholarship program will be rolled out in tiers over the next three years, starting with full coverage of four-year college tuition this fall for students whose families make less than $100,000.

The income cap will increase to $110,000 in 2018 and $125,000 in 2019.

“With this budget, New York has the nation’s first accessible college program. It’s a different model,” said Governor Andrew Cuomo Saturday in a statement. “Today, college is what high school was—it should always be an option even if you can’t afford it.”

This is amazing and wonderful news. NYS has become a great model in these dark times, and it would be fantastic to see other states pick up this model as well, as our current regime would never do anything so positive and *gasp* socialist.

Via NBC and NY Daily News.

Word Wednesday.

Chthonic

Adjective.

Also Chthonian.

Of or relating to the underworld.
Of or relating to the deities, spirits, and other beings dwelling under the earth.

[Origin: from Greek khthonios in or under the earth, from khthōn earth.]

1840-1850.

“What’s bi-sub syndrome, anyway?” “Don’t know. I tried to look up some of Dr. Abraham’s work and found something titled ‘The Evolution of Hierarchical Behavior Expressed Through Chthonic Fetishization,’ and gave up after that. I don’t speak academic fluently enough.” – The Killer Wore Leather, Laura Antoniou.

Pres. Pussy Grabber Declares April To Be…

Hundreds of thousands of women marched on Washington to protest Donald Trump’s presidency. CREDIT: AP Photo/Alex Brandon.

Hundreds of thousands of women marched on Washington to protest Donald Trump’s presidency. CREDIT: AP Photo/Alex Brandon.

National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month! Yep, you read that one correctly. If the Tiny Tyrant was remotely intelligent, I’d be very suspicious. He isn’t remotely intelligent though, and apparently he’s untouchable when it comes to irony poisoning. He’s also not doing anything remotely new. April has been Sexual Assault Awareness month since 2001. So, we basically have a known bullshit move on the part of Donnie. He picks up something that’s already in place, ignores the decades of hard work put in, so he can pretend he’s oh so great, and lookit, I’m doing something presidential! Don’t swallow the shit. This is not Donnie doing something right, this is Donnie grabbing onto the coattails of others, for the sole purpose of feeding his monstrous ego.

Nearly six months after tapes were released of him bragging about sexually assaulting women, Donald Trump declared on Friday that April is officially National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month.

Citing the 300,000 people who are sexually assaulted or raped every year, Trump also proclaimed that his administration — specifically the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice — is stepping up to assist victims and prevent future attacks.

The bulk of his proclamation is a series of platitudes rather than a substantive plan to address rampant sexual violence and rape culture. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has reportedly been told to establish a crime reduction and public safety task force to “develop strategies to reduce crime and propose new legislation to fill gaps in existing laws.” Trump also noted the importance of speaking out against sexual violence among peers, “mobilizing men and boys as allies in preventing sexual and relationship violence,” and showing women and children more respect.

:chokes, sputter: Excuse me? Nice talk there, to be sure, and as for standing up and doing the right thing, you’re going to turn yourself in over the rape and sexual assaults you committed, right?

“Together, we can and must protect our loved ones, families, campuses, and communities from the devastating and pervasive effects of sexual assault,” he said. “In the face of sexual violence, we must commit to providing meaningful support and services for victims and survivors in the United States and around the world.”

That might have warmed the black cockles of my heart, coming from anyone else. From the Tiny Tyrant? No, no. How in the fuck could anyone take that at face value from a man who views women as chattel, as a commodity, along with convenient holes just walking around, free for the grabbing? As for respecting women, oh please. The Tiny Tyrant has a long record of demeaning and disrespecting women.

But it’s difficult to take this proclamation seriously, coming from a man who was filmed suggesting celebrities “can do anything” to women — such as “grab them by the pussy” — and who has a long, documented history of the type of misogyny that allows sexual violence to thrive. He routinely reduces women’s worth to their looks, implying that women who have publicly accused him of assault are too unattractive for their stories to be true. “Believe me, she would not be my first choice, that I can tell you. Man, you don’t know, that would not be my first choice,” he said during a campaign rally. On the campaign trail, Trump also argued that women who are sexually harassed at work should quit, shortly before hiring serial sexual harasser Roger Ailes.

It’s also hard to treat seriously Trump’s plan to protect victims in the U.S. and worldwide. His proposed budget threatens funding to uphold the federal Violence Against Women Act and bolster support for survivors. One of his first acts as President was to reinstate the global gag rule, gutting foreign aid to much-needed health service providers if they offer abortions — the very types of providers who assist survivors of sexual violence.

Trump’s Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, also donated to FIRE, a group that purportedly fights for individual’s freedom on school campuses and allegations of sexual assault. The group once wrote:

“Unfortunately, much of the feminist ‘war on rape’ has conflated sexual assault with muddled, often alcohol-fueled, sexual encounters that involve miscommunication, perhaps bad behavior, but no criminal coercion. As a result, the drunken hookups all too common on today’s campuses can lead to devastating charges and penalties.

Full story at Think Progress.

Let’s [Not] Talk Gibberish.

gibberish-meaningful-blabber

Seeing as it’s Word Wednesday here at Affinity, what better day to review the atrocious mangling of language Trump indulges in? Todd Gitlin has an excellent article and review up of the Tiny Tyrant’s Art of the Non Sequitur, along with his working vocabulary, which is more suited to a toddler.

Once upon a time, there were presidents for whom English seemed their native language. Barack Obama most recently. He deliberated. At a press conference or in an interview — just about whenever he wasn’t speaking from a text — his pauses were as common as other people’s “uh’s.” He was not pausing because his vocabulary was impoverished. He was pausing to put words into sequence. He was putting phrases together with care, word by word, trying out words before uttering them, checking to feel out what they would sound like once uttered. It was important to him because he did not want to be misunderstood. President Obama valued precision, in no small part because he knew he lived in a world where every last presidential word was a speech act, a declaration with consequence, so that the very statement that the sky was blue, say, would be scoured for evidence that the president was declaring a policy on the nature of nature.

That was then. Now we have a president who, when he speaks, spatters the air with unfinished chunks, many of which do not qualify as sentences, and which do not follow from previous chunks. He does not release words into a stream of consciousness but into a heap. He heaps words on top of words, to overwhelm meaning with vague gestures. He does not think, he lurches.

Here are some examples from TIME’s transcript of their cover story made out of their phone interview with the president of the United States. I have italicized the non sequiturs, incomplete propositions, indefinite pronouns and other obscurities that amount to verbal mud.

I used to have sequential eyerolls over Bush Jr’s mangling of language: uninalienable, subliminabable, resignates, disregardered, impedent, misunderestimated, and so forth. Well, at least Bush tried for the big words. That’s better than a basic vocabulary of “bad, sad, bigly!”

Click on over for the full gibberish analysis!

And here’s a fine example of the Gibberish Takeover:

“I think the president is very well steeped in world affairs, especially Europe, NATO, all of the issues,” Spicer declared. “He was a leader in the effort to call Brexit, as you know.”

Spicer, however, did not explain how Trump led the “effort to call Brexit.”

“So, I think both on the EU and that, that’s that,” Spicer concluded.

How, exactly, does any of that answer the charge that the Tiny Tyrant is ignorant when it comes to world affairs? We are talking about the fucking idiot who presented Ms. Merkel with a bill, for fuck’s sake. He also didn’t have the slightest idea of what NATO is, or how it works. He was not a leader in the effort to call Brexit, although he did plenty of cheerleading for it. And what we get is: “So, I think both on the EU and that, that’s that.” WHAT IN THE FUCK DOES THAT MEAN? Is everyone getting so damn stupid that such shite gets a pass, or worse, knowing nods?

Word Wednesday.

Words1Atrocious

Adjective.

1 : extremely wicked, brutal, or cruel: Barbaric.

2: Appalling, horrifying.

3a: utterly revolting: abominable. b: of very poor quality.

– atrociously, adverb.

– atrociousness, noun.

[Origin: Latin atroc-, atrox gloomy, atrocious, from atr-, ater black + –oc, –ox.]

(1658)

“Robespierre had paused briefly to finger his jabot.

‘I tell you that anyone who is trembling at this moment is guilty. Because innocence never fears the public gaze.‘

‘That’s atrocious,’ Adamsberg whispered back. ‘The most terrible of all, in my view.'” – A Climate of Fear, Fred Vargas.

As our quote finds us in the time of Robespierre, a bonus phrase: Sneeze into the sack:

“‘Hébert was famous for writing “fuck this” and “fuck that”, ever two lines in the paper, and Gonzalez liked imitating him, they were stirring sessions. “Let those toads in the Plain go and sneeze into the sack,” he would say. Robespierre was very shocked by Hébert’s vulgar language.’

‘Sneeze into the sack?’ asked Adamsberg.

‘A contemporary expression for being sent to the guillotine.'”

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