I’ve had a rough night week month couple years. I’m feeling particularly exhausted and listless today, and yet strangely motivated to post something here. What’s a chemo-brained blogger to do?
Steal. OBVIOUSLY.
Further to my earlier, exceedingly long-winded and probably pointless rant about why I detest The New York Times, I would be remiss if I did not mention that I also despise The Washington Post, and for exactly the same reasons.
I just received a “news alert” via email from The Post, and once again we find that critical information is missing, with duplicitous drivel in its place. [Read more…]
Hey, remember that one time I invented the world’s bestest ever and also most useful ever acronym ever? You know: #muschniwogdowis?
Of course you remember! It is simply unforgettable! And, it just rolls off the tongue like the smoothest chocolate ganache. Prediction: #muschniwogdowis will continue to be of critical importance to our national discourse until it is no longer true that Most US Citizens Have No Idea What Our Government Does Or Who It Serves.
There are many reasons for this sad state of affairs. One of them is, indisputably, the fucking New York Times. [Read more…]
Before I got sick, I would post every year on this occasion my favorite speech of King’s, that I know of or have ever heard, in its entirety. It was delivered by Dr. King in my much loved, adopted home town at Manhattan’s Riverside Church on April 4, 1967, and entitled Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence. When I last wrote about it here in 2017 I said this:
It has become my tradition on this day of remembrance to post the text of a speech delivered by Dr. King on April 4, 1967 at Manhattan’s Riverside Church entitled Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence (audio recording here), along with a short commentary about why I believe these words are so important. The speech is truly magnificent, yet it tends to be given short shrift relative to other works of the slain civil rights leader.
King’s “I Have A Dream” speech is of course his most well-known and celebrated. He gave it from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963, at the closing of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and major television networks broadcast it live. The text is short (by King’s standards) and is notable for, among other things, painting a vivid picture of what racial justice looks like.
“Letter from a Birmingham Jail” is also frequently cited. He wrote it in response to an April 12, 1963 open letter by eight white Alabama clergymen, who took issue with King and his tactics. Its central focus is a beautiful, powerful defense of non-violent activism. But what always strikes me most about it is King’s crushing disappointment upon learning that the greatest enemies to social progress are not, in fact, those who are openly and hatefully opposed to it, but those “allies” who rend their garments and advocate moderation, patience and gradualism in the face of immediate, deadly and enduring injustice. King held up a mirror, and in doing so, he showed us what ally-ship looks like.
Four years later, he spoke the words of Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence. Here, he showed us exactly how inextricably linked are the battles against discrimination, oppression, poverty, injustice, and many other social ills to the evils of war. This is a broader, much more sweeping vision; in my opinion, these are his finest words. Yes, there are religious references. Yet King tethers these to his eloquent defenses of secular ideas of justice, compassion and love to make the same case; in this way they function to bolster his arguments (for the religious-minded) instead of standing in for them.
As King said in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
We have a lot of work to do.
PEACE.
__________
I have nothing to add to that today (nor, apparently, the energy and focus to do so even if I had wanted to. *sigh*). Speech below the cut. [Source.]
Why, this just might be the best xmas present I’ve ever received!
Since there are currently no pressing problems facing our great nation, the US House of Reprehensibles has just passed HB 36, a national ban on abortions after 20-weeks. Charmingly entitled “The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act,” the legislation would force a pregnant patient who is carrying a fetus that is dead, dying, or incompatible with life to carry it to term and give birth, unless the patient is in grave danger of death or “substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function.”
According to reality, fetuses are not capable of feeling pain until at least 28 weeks. But since conservatives are highly allergic to reality, perhaps Your Liberal Media™ might helpfully report on this egregious tripe from another angle. Let’s say, just for the sake of argument, that a fetus is indeed capable of feeling pain at 20 weeks.
SO FUCKING WHAT?
You know what’s really painful? Giving birth. (So I’ve heard – I personally dodged that bullet thank Vishnu.) I would like my legislator to promptly propose a bill entitled The Pain-Capable Pregnant Person Protection Act, which provides free abortions on demand to anyone who wishes to avoid the pain of childbirth. The bill should have no problem passing in this congress, seeing how the majority is so concerned about sparing citizens from painful medical procedures.
After his grandson tweeted this photo of his grandfather kneeling in solidarity with NFL protests against racist police violence, John Middlemas, a white, 97-year-old World War II veteran, became an instant social media star. He said he wanted to join athletes who knelt in protest during the national anthem. Middlemas also had this to say: [Read more…]
As I’ve mentioned, I loathe U.S. men’s sportsball with the burning intensity of ten thousand suns. #yesallmenssportsball. The reasons are legion, but a big one is the cloying stench of jingoist militarism that pervades the realm. And of course that is no accident: a 2015 Senate report released to little fanfare detailed U.S. military contracts worth millions of taxpayer dollars with pro sports teams for “paid-for patriotism,” from solemn “salutes to service” to flag-waving pageantry to ceremonies honoring hometown war heroes on the field. Worse still, the NFL alone receives about $1 billion a year in public subsidies to build and operate stadiums and other handouts, thereby enriching obscenely wealthy team owners at taxpayers expense.
Unlike other temporary expenditures on infrastructure or even businesses in which state and local governments might invest to ultimately benefit the public and/or their treasury’s bottom line,
[p]ublic handouts for modern professional football never end and are never repaid. In return, the NFL creates nothing of social value—while setting bad examples, despite its protests to the contrary, regarding concussions, painkiller misuse, weight gain, and cheating, among other issues.
Other issues indeed. Like, oh, say, sexual assault and domestic violence, for which career-ending consequences are virtually unheard of. But a player sitting out the national anthem to protest racism and police murdering people of color? GAME OVER.
Now I don’t know about you, but I always have to wonder: what does our Sexual-Assaulter-In-Chief think about all of this? Fortunately for inquiring minds like mine, he has not shut up about it since his Nazi-fest on Friday night.
Trump told the Republican rally that such actions “disrespect our heritage.”
“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, out, he’s fired. He’s fired,'” Trump said… He went on to encourage spectators to boycott games where national anthem protests take place.
He’s been completely obsessed with these anti-racist NFL protests for three days now, tweeting yesterday:
“If a player wants the privilege of making millions of dollars in the NFL, or other leagues, he or she should not be allowed to disrespect our Great American Flag (or Country) and should stand for the National Anthem,” Trump wrote. “If not, YOU’RE FIRED. Find something else to do!”
And this morning:
If NFL fans refuse to go to games until players stop disrespecting our Flag & Country, you will see change take place fast. Fire or suspend!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 24, 2017
…
…NFL attendance and ratings are WAY DOWN. Boring games yes, but many stay away because they love our country. League should back U.S.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 24, 2017
Can I tell you how much I looooove all of this? Because the backlash is just a beautiful fucking thing to behold. Ever since Commander Cheetohead started his fascist little crusade on Friday, NFL players, coaches and even team owners – who collectively contributed $7 million to Trump’s campaign and some of whom are his personal friends – have responded overwhelmingly, negatively and vociferously. Yesterday, the protests spread from the NFL to major league baseball when some d00d who plays for the Oakland As knelt during the national anthem. And this just came over my news feed, just as the Sunday games begin to get underway:
SOMERSET, N.J. — As President Trump called for NFL owners to suspend or fire players who protested the national anthem, players and coaches answered defiantly Sunday morning, with most members of the Baltimore Ravens and Jacksonville Jaguars either standing with their arms locked in solidarity or taking a knee on the field.
Ravens Coach John Harbaugh joined his players, locking arms, and Jaguars owner Shahid Khan, a Pakistani American billionaire and businessman, joined his players before the game’s kickoff at 9:30 a.m. in London’s Wembley Stadium. Ravens Hall of Famer Ray Lewis also took a knee during the anthem.
Most members of both teams, the Ravens’ coach and the Jaguars’ OWNER. On an international stage, no less.
LOLOL!
Keep it up, Mr. President! Heckuva job! Now if we could just get you to piss yourself silly over all the sportsball players kneeling to protest domestic abuse and sexual violence against women, that would be super.
Oh wait. There aren’t any.
[edited because rage typo.]
Today is primary day in NYC, and in a happy turn of fate, my polling place happens to be the amazing Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center on 13th Street. As soon as I exited after voting, I spotted one of those big package drop boxes plastered with a graffiti tag and a big blue sticker with white block lettering:
[CONTENT NOTE: casual ableism]
Our troll story today begins as they almost always do: with an unprompted comment on an oooooold post. Behold my Facebook status from November 10, 2016:
Iris Vander Pluym
November 10, 2016JUST TO BE CRYSTAL CLEAR: If you voted for Donald Trump, or you live in a swing state and voted for a third party candidate or declined to vote entirely, UNFRIEND ME. You are now and always will be dead to me.
Now I thought I was being clear and fair. Kind, even, if not particularly nice. I felt that not only was I was doing a service to myself and my own online spaces, but to those who would interact with me, or decide not to. I then went ahead and proactively blocked some people, and apparently I did a pretty good job since only one Trump voter slipped by:
[Former IRL “friend”] Really
Iris Is a dead person trying to communicate with me? No, that cannot be. I don’t believe in ghosts. (Unfriended/blocked)
THE END.
Oh, wait no. NOT the end. Eight months later:
