Just Another Day in America (Rise Again)

#trumpswindle | #MakeTheConfederacyGreatAgain

Who:	Tanda Gmiter (MLive)
What:	“Police officer under investigation after flying Confederate flag at Trump protest rally”
When:	12 November 2016

Via MLive―

The Traverse City police chief says the department will launch an internal investigation after a longtime officer was seen revving the engine of his pickup truck and flying a Confederate flag, as he drove past a black family participating in a rally at a city park.

Marshall Collins Jr. and his relatives were at Friday’s gathering where people were protesting Donald Trump’s election when he said the truck’s driver came by once, then sped back past where his family was standing.

“As he came back by, I kind of stood out and I held up my fist very quietly. For me, that’s a sign of solidarity and black pride. So that’s what I did,” said Collins, a father of two and an instructional services health coordinator for the Traverse Bay Area Intermediate School District.

He said the officer made a show of grabbing a beer and joining a small pro-Trump group in a parking area. That’s when Collins said he decided to address the issue.

―and with a tip o’the hat, or pint salute, or simply a quiet, thankful nod unto the one and only Michael Moore, who reminds that not every Like is likeable, nor every note appreciated itself appreciable. Welcome to America. This is actually how it’s always been; it’s just going to be a little more apparent for a while.

Ah! the luxury of being glib.

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Image note: Help! ― Anarchy Panty. Click for Anarchy.

Gmiter, Tanda. “Police officer under investigation after flying Confederate flag at Trump protest rally”. MLive. 12 November 2016.

Moore, Michael. “Where I live in Michigan”. Twitter. 13 November 2016.

A Public Service Announcement: For the Boys

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that if a woman’s got headphones on, she doesn’t want to talk to you.”

―Jenna Amatulli

The only problem with that sentence, brothers, is that quite clearly someone is willing to disagree. Don’t be that dick.

No, seriously: You should not need to be told.

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Image note: Just say no ― Suou rejects street harassment. (Detail of frame from Darker Than Black: Gemini of the Meteor, episode 4, “The Ark Adrift on the Lake …”.

Amatulli, Jenna. “Wondering How To Talk To A Woman Who’s Wearing Headphones? Don’t.” The Huffington Post. 30 August 2016.

Musical Existentialism (Box of Noise)

Ladies and gentlemen, Lilly Wood and The Prick.

No, really, I’m not certain what else goes here.

If I am ever stuck in silence, please kill me; for I would rather die than hear nothing. When I attempt to sleep, I get scared of the emptiness; I am so afraid of disappearing. If so, kill me. And if I feel like I am losing it―if so, kill me, kill me. If there is no reason to be, then kill me. Please put my body in a box, in a box of noise. Please don’t write anything on my box, on my box of noise. If they ever find a way to happiness, please wake me from this sleep. I can’t stand this: Is it bad to say that I am okay with numbing through this all? I won’t stand this: Could we please admit that nothing will fix this? I can’t stand this; I won’t stand this. Please put my body in a box, in a box of noise. Please don’t write anything on my box, on my box of noise.

―Lilly Wood and the Prick, “Box of Noise” (2016)

‡

What It Comes To (Par Excrement)

So ....

If it seemed strange enough that Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump should hit Marco Rubio for sweat, and Mitt Romney for bowel control, and that Sen. Rubio should respond by mocking Donald Trump’s sweat and bladder control, then I have no idea what to tell you about what comes next.

Marco Rubio again unleashed an array of sharp attacks on Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, jabbing at his “small hands” and “spray tan.”

In response to the property mogul calling him “little Rubio,” Rubio conceded that Trump was taller than him. However, the Florida senator suggested Trump had small hands for his height.

“And you know what they say about guys with small hands,” Rubio said with a smile, prompting stunned laughter from the crowd.

The report from Alex Jaffe of NBC News is not exactly encouraging insofar as anyone might care about pretenses of dignity. This is your Republican Party.

It is one thing to wonder how low this can go. It is another to grab the popcorn and enjoy the spectacle. But while this is reality, it is not reality television proper.

Here is a question: How low do we have to search in order to find an upside? Because it only gets worse.

The Requisite Post About That Movie

I did, in fact, see the film last night; Star Wars: The Force Awakens is unquestionably a marked improvement over the infamous episodes 1-3, though all I might say in specific review is that I am not ready to echo a friend who declared that Star Wars is back. Nonetheless, it was indeed better than I expected.

Meanwhile, a bit of something interesting, as Melissa Dahl at Science of Us explains why BB-8, the strangely adorable white and orange droid capturing consumers’ hearts everywhere, is “basically the textbook definition of cute”.

What is it about BB-8 that makes it so freaking cute? As it turns out, the little robot is practically a textbook example of Kindchenschema, or baby schema, the reigning theory describing just what features it takes to make someone or something appear adorable. This is something that scientists have been theorizing about since at least the 1940s, when ethologist Konrad Lorenz introduced the concept in a landmark paper.In his words — quoted later in an essay by popular science writer Stephen Jay Gould — for a creature to be considered cute, it must have the following: “a relatively large head … large and low-lying eyes, bulging cheek region, short and thick extremities … and clumsy movements.”

BB-8 nails every one of these characteristics. Its “head” is relatively large in proportion to its spherical “body,” and its “eye” — the black eyepiece, rather — is also pretty huge when compared to the size of the head. The area surrounding either side of the eyepiece bulge out like chubby cheeks, and while it doesn’t exactly have extremities, its rounded lower half definitely adds to the chubby effect. When it moves, it bobs and wobbles a bit as it rolls, making it look a little bit clumsy. In short, it’s got everything required to be scientifically classified as a total cutie pie.

Which sounds about right.

However, I would note BB-8 is also incredibly impractical. Honestly, its appearance is one suggesting marketplace novelty, as if people in that galaxy far, far away, who had already mastered gravity only recently figured out some notion of maglev. This thing is rolling around in a desert and apparently suffers no ill effects of sand. The upshot, of course, would involve a counterspoiler, but if you simply don’t think about it too hard, and attend the script by Lawrence Kasdan and J. J. Abrams, there is at least one occasion that … well, something about predictability goes here. And expectation. And seeing the joke coming only raises expectations. We will get a payoff on this point sometime during the new trilogy. Rather, we should. It really does seem inevitable, so the only remaining question is a matter of execution, and if they cannot pull it off we will know they have failed.

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Image note: BB-8, impractical as can be, but cute as anything. Detail of image by Lucasfilm.

Dahl, Melissa. “BB-8 Is Basically the Textbook Definition of Cute”. Science of Us. 17 December 2015.

Malice and Aforethought

For some reason I find myself thinking of the Animaniacs sketch about “Good Idea/Bad Idea”.

Couldn’t possibly tell you, though, what Adam had in mind.

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Image note: Detail of Bug Martini by Adam Huber, 9 December 2015.

All Fun and Games Until … You Know, Never Mind

Yeah, you know … this can’t possibly end well.

Homer Simpson trivia is now in effect. Never mind.

So is the best bad pun you’re going to find all year.

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Huber, Adam. “The Friend Is Not Mightier Than the Sword”. Bug Martini. 28 October 2015.

The Current Earworm (Duvet)

And there really isn’t any need to ask why.

And you don’t seem to understand; a shame, you seemed an honest man. And all the fears you hold so dear will turn to whisper in your ear; and you know what they say might hurt you; and you know that it means so much, and you don’t even feel a thing. I am falling. I am fading. I have lost it all. And you don’t seem the lying kind; a shame that I can read your mind. And all the things that I read there, candlelit smile that we both share. And you know I don’t mean to hurt you; and you know that it means so much, and you don’t even feel a thing. I am falling. I am fading. I am drowning; help me to breathe. I am hurting. I have lost it all. Ia m losing; help me to breathe.

―Bôa

‡

Good Advice (Always Be Prepared)

“To talk to the government, you fill out a form―getting married is no different. Until today, only marriages comprised of a “husband” and a “wife” were eligible to fill out the papers, so the forms will be gender coded. It can be an uncomfortable moment when you’re standing at the clerk’s counter, pen in hand, one looking over the other’s shoulder, and that’s the moment you have to decide which name goes over “husband” and which goes over “wife.” In advance, flip a coin, have a heavy talk, allocate a gender between the top and the bottom. But, work it out on the way. Our clerk in Toronto picked for us, and I still disagree with his choice.”

―Coco Soodek

No, really. This is a moment to lighten up and enjoy that this is really happening. HuffPo blogger Coco Soodek offers some advice to red-state gay couples as they prepare to celebrate their love, and justice as well.

It’s almost enough to make me want to go get married, like in Kansas, or something. You know, just because.

And, no, nothing goes here about the sanctity of marriage. Rather, we might simply mutter something about how stupid the proposition of me getting married could possibly be, and still be making sense. But that’s the fun part; we wouldn’t have to fiddle around or flip coins over gender.

Good luck, everyone. And remember, we might chuckle at the thought of Justice Scalia insulting his own wife, but he does have something of a point. That is to say, you know, just not a useful one for a Supreme Court dissent. Still, though, I used to joke that all feminists were asking was that women be treated like shit in the same way as everybody else. And, you know, that’s kind of a joke we can make about gay marriage. What we won in Obergefell is the right to be just as miserable as our heterosexual neighbors. And, yeah, you know, don’t analyze that point too much; it’s a joke.

Be well, friends.

Congratulations.

And, you know, I owe generations who came before me an eternal debt. Thank you so much.

But, yeah. Here we are.

Stand. Speak. Love. Live.

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Image note: “Her plan is to penetrate us ....” Commander Amaro explains the trouble with Raharu. (Detail of frame from FLCL episode 4, “Full Swing”)

Soodek, Coco. “Open Letter to Same Sex People Getting Married in Red States”. The Huffington Post. 2 July 2015.

Prokop, Andrew. “Scalia’s same-sex marriage dissent blasts judicial ‘putsch,’ Ivy Leaguers, fortune cookies”. Vox. 26 June 2015.

The Supremacist’s Lament

“Public officials are ministers of God assigned the duty of punishing the wicked and protecting the righteous.”

―Win Johnson

The disgraceful derby scrambling in the wake of Obergefell has yet to settle out; with presidential candidates struggling to find ways to evade the U.S. Constitution, or taking up the notion of just calling the whole marriage thing off, an Alabama attorney named Win Johnson has appealed to Gov. Robert Bentley (R) to opt out of the U.S. Constitution. Mr. Johnson, for his part, is a state official, a director at the Administrative Office of Courts, which in turn oversees the courts for state Chief Justice Roy Moore.

It seems a striking letter; Charles J. Dean reported, for AL.com:

In harsh words and a lecturing tone, a lawyer who works for Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore has written a letter seemingly directed at Gov. Robert Bentley rebuking him for saying Alabama will obey the U.S. Supreme Court ruling declaring same-sex marriage legal.

More appropriately, it really is a striking letter, so wild-eyed and seemingly irresponsible that the Souther Poverty Law Center has called for Johnson’s resignation.

And let us be clear; part of the problem with excerpting the letter is that the whole thing really is a show and a half. Christian supremacism, abdication of duty, rejection of the Constitution, and hey, even a Godwin violation just to hit for the cycle. Again, let us be clear: All for hatred in Jesus’ name, amen.