Monthly Archives: June 2021
Saturday Five (community, truth, strength, love edition)
It’s Pride Weekend! This Sunday is the 52nd Anniversary of that fateful night in Greenwich Village. Time to celebrate!
I’m on vacation to both attend the virtual Locus Awards Weekend and celebrate virtual Pride. I worked Monday through Wednesday, and as usually happens when I’m going to take some time off, they were extremely busy days. So I was exhausted, and have been sleeping in a lot. Add to that the heat wave that was been roasting most of the country finally hitting us, and well, I’ve been having trouble being productive. Which is why this post is a day late and will be a bit different than usual.
So here is this week’s day late Friday Five: one headline I felt needed it’s own topic, the top five stories about Pride, five stories of interest to queers and our allies, five stories about queer milestones, and five stories about everything else (plus some things I wrote plus a notable obituaries).
This Week in It’s About Time:
This Week in Pride:
The Untold Truth Of The Stonewall Riots I’m not sure "untold" really belongs in the headline. I’ve linked to similar stories that do their best to sort out the myth from the verifiable regarding the riots over the years, but still a good story.
British, Canadian and US embassies fly Pride flag in Russia, where ‘gay propaganda’ is illegal
This is America: ‘If your Pride isn’t intersectional, it’s not Pride’
Stories of Interest to Queers and Our Allies:
Louisiana Governor Vetoes Anti-Trans Sports Bill
Study: Most LGBTQ+ Adults Have Faced Threats of Violence
Stonewall Inn Says No to Anheuser-Busch After GOP Donations
America’s Got Talent auditions “the world’s gayest boy band”
This Week in Milestones:
Carl Nassib’s Coming-Out Is a Gay NFL Fan’s Wish Come True
Valley athlete to be first female LGBTQ wrestler in Olympic history
Other Stuff This Week:
Scientists hail stunning ‘Dragon Man’ discovery
Police search for clues after body of missing local artist was found in popular Seattle park
In Memoriam:
Joanne Linville Dead: ‘Star Trek’ Romulan Commander Was 93
Things I Wrote:
Loki is Set on the Trail of ‘The Variant’
The Vaccine is Free – Let people know!
Why Coming Out and Being Out Matters, or, Homophobes react to Carl Nassib’s coming out
Why Coming Out and Being Out Matters, or, Homophobes react to Carl Nassib’s coming out

play to come out while he is still active in the league.
Carl Nassib—former All-America football player for Penn State, who has since played in the NFL on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Cleveland Browns, and currently the Las Vegas Raiders—came out as gay earlier this week in a video in which he also announced he had made a large donation to the Trevor Project, and explained why people ought to also donate to the largest non-profit organization dedicated to the prevention of suicide among LGBTQ youth.
Members of his own team and leaders within the National Football League management immediately chimed in with messages of support and congratulations. The internet erupted with other people reacting with encouragement—given that other gay NFL players have never felt it was safe to come out, and the only gay player who was out before he was drafted was not met with anything that could be described as a welcoming attitude from the league just seven years ago.
So it was a bit of a surprise that the league seemed to be reacting supportively.
Not everyone reacted quite so well: While NFL player Carl Nassib comes out, homophobes go overboard pretending that they don’t care.
All of those homophobes have been screaming that they don’t care, and then making the angry bad attempts at sexual insults. Coincidentally, on one of my other blogs, another homophobe sent me some angry messages in response to my posting of several Pride Month images. The phrase, “No one f—ing cares!” was repeated several times in those messages, too.
First, anyone who angrily yells or posts a comment asserting that “No one cares” when a queer person expresses anything about their lives, has just admitted that they care entirely way too much. They have also admitted that they are hateful bigots who lose their temper any time they are reminded that not everyone is straight.
Nassib responded to the people those (disingenuous) questions asking why he has to make an announcement. “Studies have shown that all it takes is one accepting adult to decrease the risk of an LGBTQ kid attempting suicide by 40%. Whether you’re a friend, a parent, a coach, or a teammate — you can be that person.”
One of the first studies to show that was published by the George H.W. Bush administration. Bush tasked the National Institutes of Health with determining how to reduce teen suicide, and the conclusion was that the most teen suicides would be if parents were encouraged to tell their children that they would still love and accept them if they were gay.
This is one of the reasons I say every year around National Coming Out Day and during Pride Month that queer adults should be out. It makes your life better not to constantly hiding a secret and fearing discovering, but it also makes it more likely that younger queer people will live—period.
So, I’m happy for Nassib. Even if it does mean that I have to reinstate the search on my DVR to record Raiders games, again.

The Vaccine is Free – Let people know!
This story is from March, but apparently it is still believed to be an issue: Nearly 7 million Americans might not get a COVID-19 vaccine because they don’t know it’s free
In another story I read (and now I can’t find it), some people still don’t believe it’s free specifically because certain pharmacy companies are saying, "Free with insurance." But that isn’t exactly the truth. By law in the U.S. no one is allowed to charge anyone for the vaccine. The government is paying for the vaccine. Unfortunately, while the same law says that they are not allowed to even charge patients any fee to cover the administration or other costs of delivering the vaccine, the law does allow them to charge your insurance a fee to cover the administering process.
But only if you have insurance.
They are legally barred from charging you anything for the vaccine.
I wish that the law had barred them from charging the insurance companies, too. Not to protect those for-profit companies, but because studies have shown that, for instance, if a municipality or county adopts a policy of trying to recovery ambulance costs from insurance companies while allowing the uninsured to get ambulance service free, people in critical health situations try to get themselves to an emergency room because they believe they will be hit with a very large bill if they take an ambulance.
Anyway, get the word out! Places providing vaccine shots are legal barred from charging you for the vaccine or any administrative fees related to getting the shot.
Get your shot!
Loki is Set on the Trail of ‘The Variant’

The second episode of Loki dropped last week and I quite enjoyed it again. The first episode spent so much time setting up the premise of the Time Variant Authority and establishing where in the sequence of the existing Marvel movies and series this story sits on the timeline.
The dialogue was fun. Owen Wilson is a good foil for Hiddleston’s Loki. The other Time Agents remain entertaining in their lack of being impressed or awed by Loki. And Loki is his tricksy self.
If they can keep this chemistry going, I think the series will be just fine even if it turns out to be a typical kind of timey-wimey battle of wits adventure. I can’t say much more without spoilers, so…
There Be Spoilers Hereafter!
Turn back now if you don’t want to be spoiled.
I noticed that several reviews of the first episode of Loki called it a “clip show”which is slang for one of the cheap episodes that television series sometimes do where they film only a small amount of framing material and spend most of the episode showing scenes from previous episodes.
I think that’s an oversimplification.
To be fair, the reviews that I saw make this claim have also said that it makes sense to do that since the Disney+ shows have (thus far) attracted an audience that includes lots of people who have seen either none of the MCU movies, or very few.
But…
There was a substantial amount of episode one that was new material. Some of it quite well-done, such as the Miss Minutes narrated orientation cartoon. One bit of it looked like it was a clip from something else (the DB Cooper Escape bit), but wasn’t. And also, the number of clips they picked were not focused on recapping Loki’s entire life, but rather to set the stage (and allow the audience to see how devastated Loki is to learn that not only does his mother die, but he is somewhat to blame).
That said, by episode two they are done with the set-up. Loki knows his only hope for any kind of continued existence is to keep being useful to the TVA. And right now the TVA is trying to capture another Variant of Loki that not only broke the timeline, but is out to do something else—we just don’t know what. There is a lot of fun back and forth as Agent Mobius tries to manipulate Loki, and Loki literally replies to one such attempt, “It’s so adorable you think you can manipulate me.” And Mobius demonstrates that he is good at sniffing out Loki’s lies.
Loki figures out that the other Variant Loki has been impossible to track down because they’re hiding inside Apocalypses. Not full-on end an entire world Apocalypses, but moments in history when no one in a particular region survives. The reasoning being that the presence of the time-hopping variant can’t leave any ripples in the time line, because none of the people the Variant interacts with has any impact on the future.
I want to note that as Loki explained this I had a flashback to Connie Willis’ 1992 science fiction novel, Dooms Day Book, as that bit about a time traveler’s presence at a point just before everyone dies can’t change history is an important plot point. I’m sure Willis wasn’t the first person to do this, but I was thinking about the time traveler who was trying to figure out why she landed an English Medieval village just weeks before the entire village will be wiped out by the Plague when the time machine was supposed to take her to a different period.
Anyway, there is a hilarious scene where Loki proves his theory by getting Mobius to take him to Pompeii moments before the volcano erupts, and he jumps up on a cart and shouts out in Latin that he’s from the future and they’re all going to die. And his actions don’t cause Mobius timey-wimey tricorder like thing to register anything.
They next pick a spot based on the pack of bubblegum that The Variant had given a little girl in the scene from episode one, and they find themselves a few decades in our future in a kind Walmart with a hurricane bearing down about to kill everyone.
Loki finds The Variant, has a bit of a fight and some banter. The big reveal here is that this Loki is female. Our Loki doesn’t bat an eye, but anyone really familiar with Norse Mythology knows that Loki as swapped genders a few times as part of a scheme in some of the old legends (in one of them he even gets pregnant, and gives birth to a magical horse). So this isn’t some newfangled woke thing that SJWs are forcing onto Marvel. (I’m sure somewhere out there people are writing angry tweet about it).
The Variant escapes and Loki leaps through the time portal after here, apparently leaving Mobius and the other Time Agents behind. Oh! And The Variant has built a bombs or bombs out of all those Reset Charges earlier, and may have just broken the Sacred Timeline altogether.
And I’ve been on the edge of my seat for days waiting for episode three!
Friday Five (Juneteenth edition)

It’s Pride Month, y’all! We’re at the third Friday in June. Happy Pride Month!
I went into the office for the first time in 16 months this week. The place was almost completely deserted. The corporate overlords are limiting us to coming in no more than every other day. I’m a member of team "B" by the way. It was very strange to ride the bus for the first time in so long. My current plan is to go in about one day a week just to start getting used to being out and about. Before the pandemic I worked from home two days a week. I might eventually work back to that schedule. We’ll see.
Meanwhile, we have this week’s Friday Five. This week I bring you: one headline that brought tears to my eyes, the top five stories of the week, five stories of interest to queers and our allies, five stories about Pride Month, five stories about seditious traitors, five stories about deplorables, and five videos (plus some things I wrote plus a notable obituaries).
This Week’s Headline That Made Me Tear Up:
Single gay man who ‘always dreamed’ of a big family adopts six children with disabilities
Stories of the Week:
Supreme Court Rejects GOP Challenge to Affordable Care Act
Biden Signs Bill Making Juneteenth A Federal Holiday
Most top hospitals charge a more than 5x markup
What the Supreme Court Ruling on Foster Care Means for LGBTQ+ Parents
Stories of Interest to Queers and Our Allies:
Congresswoman is shredding companies celebrating “Pride” while supporting anti-LGBTQ politicians – Companies that change their logo to include a rainbow are finding out that isn’t good enough when they’re funding the onslaught of anti-LGBTQ legislation we’ve faced over the past years Not just any Congresswoman, but my Congresswoman. I’m so proud.
Charles M. Blow on Bi Visibility and the Debt We Owe as Queer People
This Week in Pride:
Kamala Harris Becomes First Sitting V.P. to March in Pride Event
‘The Colors of Pride’ Is a Celebration Beyond Parades and Parties
This Week in Seditious Traitors:
Riot Suspect Collared After Boasting Post: I’m On TV
Ted Cruz Talks to Flag While Texans Don’t Have Air Conditioning
This Week in Deplorables, Haters, and Hate Crimes:
A gay couple endured years of anonymous hate mail. Then they found out who was sending it
High court rejects 2 Virginia white nationalist rally cases
Muslim family in Canada killed in ‘premeditated’ truck attack
In Memoriam:
Things I Wrote:
Five years after the Pulse massacre, what can we do?
Loki Loses His “Glorious Purpose”
Videos
Click on the image to be taken to the video!
No One Knows How to Behave in Public Anymore | The Daily Show
460 Days Later, Stephen Colbert Returns To THE Late Show Stage With A Full Audience
Mitch McConnell Shamelessly Says ‘The Era of Bipartisanship Is Over’: A Closer Look
"They Are Going To Kill Us All’ – Jon Stewart Declares His Love For Scientists
DC’s Stargirl Season 2 Trailer – Brec Bassinger Superhero series
Loki Loses His “Glorious Purpose”
So I’m watching Disney+ series, Loki and the second episode is about to become available any minute, yet I haven’t posted a review.
The series, what it seems to be tackling, and what if delivered in the first episode gave me a lot of things to write about, and I’ve started, scrapped, and re-started this review several times.
It’s too much.
So, first, let me sum up: Fun! Funny!
Some more details would be nice, and I’ll try to do that in a reasonable word count below. I must warn you: *After this there be SPOILER!
So turn back now if you don’t want to be spoiled.
First, want to say that I’ve enjoyed the way that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has handled the elements of Norse Mythology they’ve used for the Thor and the Avengers movies. Often when American producers delve into mythology they go the cookie cutter route of portraying the leader of the gods as the Good Guy, kind and wise and so forth, one of the other gods as the Bad Guy (usually a take on the Devil), and the other gods are mostly sorted into the two camps of the good gods and the bad gods.
Therefore, Odin is the leader of the good gods, Loki is the equivalent of the devil, and Thor is the loyal son of the leader of the good gods.
If you’ve actually read Norse mythology, you know that this isn’t how things are. Odin in wily and is not above cheating another supernatural being out of an agreed upon payment for a large job, just to get one example.
Some of the most interesting of the Norse stories involve Loki very cleverly getting Thor or the other Asgardians out of trouble that their carelessness or arrogance get them into.
Particularly in the move Thor: Ragnarok we saw that Odin has definitely not always be a "good guy" and that when push came to shove, Loki will do the right thing.
It is true that Loki is often portrayed as a master of deception, and clearly he’s never going to be a Knight in Shining Armor, but the way he’s been portrayed in the movies by Tom Hiddleston over the last decade or so has always given us moments where you feel for the guy.
In Avengers: Infinity War Loki died trying to kill Thanos and save the remnant of Asgard’s population. In the next Avengers movie, End Game the surviving heroes pull of a series of Time Heists to get the Infinity Stones (which Thanos destroyed after using them to kill half the population of the universe). And during one part of that heist they jumped into a portion of the very first Avengers movie, but things don’t go according to play, and the Loki of that time period (who had been captured and was in restraints) grabs the Space Stone (aka the Tesseract) and escapes.
Thus messing up both the plans of the heroes (who later in the movie put all the stolen stones back into the place and time they had come from).
The series picks up moments after that Loki vanished. He finds himself in the Gobi desert. Some kind of portals open up and heavily armed people come out, incapacitate him, make some comments about the broken timeline, then set something called a "reset charge" and take the captures Loki through the portal.
Loki has been arrested by the Time Variance Authority (TVA). The TVA appeared in a lot of Marvel comic books over the years. They are, essentially, an extra-dimensional time police. And look for events that break what they call "the sacred timeline," they find the person who caused the change in history, (who they call "variants") they prone the branching timeline, and bring the Variant back to their extradimension city/giant burueacracy to be tried and then erased from reality.
Most of this is explained in a very cute orientation video that Loki is forced to watch early in the first episode.
Pruning the branches from the timeline isn’t always as easy as the opening scene of the episode makes it appear. And the viewers learn that there is someone who is ambushing the crews of heavily armed time agents, killing them, and stealing the reset charge.
But much of this episode involved Loki trying to figure out how to get out of this predicament. One of the best recurring bits is he keeps making his grand eloquent speeches about how he is the God of Mischief and to be feared, and absolutely none of the bored looking pencil pushers he keeps meeting even bats an eye.
One time agent, Agent Mobius, wants to spare Loki from immediate erasure because he thinks Loki might be able to help them with the new problem. Mobius is played by Owen Wilson, and he seems to be the perfect foil to Hiddleston’s Loki in this episode.
Mobius tries to explain how in the main timeline, Loki did not escape, and he is destined to go on to inadvertently cause his mothers death (Thor: The Dark World), and die by Thanos’ hand without ever achieving the glory he’s always believed was his. The title of the first episdoe, "Glorious Purpose" is a phrase Loki used in the first Avengers movie when he began his attempt to conquer the world.
Hiddleston isn’t limited to generating laughs. There’s a point in the episode where he tries to escape, and winds up hiding out in the room Mobius had been briefing him in earlier. He watches those parts of his future Mobius told him about that he didn’t want to believe. The look on his face when he sees his mother’s death, and then later is own was just heart wrenching.
Loki realizes that he is powerless in that place, that the infinity stones are also powerless, and that the glorious purpose he always believed was is is just a pile of bitter ashes.
Before the episode ends, we see one of the groups of time agents get ambushed and killed, and we see a mysterious cloaked figure take the reset charge.
Presumably Mobius is about to try to pit Loki’s wiles and scheming against the mysterious cloaked figure. How will that work?
I’m really looking forward to finding out!
Some reviews you may find useful:
Loki Finds His “Glorious Purpose”
Review: Loki Episode 1, Glorious Purpose (Disney+)
What is the TVA, the Time Variance Authority in Marvel’s ‘Loki’?
Five years after the Pulse massacre, what can we do?

49 people were murdered that night. Don’t forget them! https://people.com/crime/orlando-pulse-shooting-tributes-to-49-victims/
Mayor Dyer: Honor Pulse victims by making Orlando more inclusive
Joe.My.God – My Pulse Memory: Their Phones Kept Ringing
Pulse Shooting Survivor Brandon Wolf on the Meaning of June 12
It’s the fifth anniversary of the worst mass killing of queer people in U.S. history. Before the 49 victims of the Pulse massacre, the worst single event had been the UpStairs Lounge arson attack on June 24, 1973 in New Orleans.
I see that certain news sites and deplorables are once again trying to push the narrative that this event was a hate crime directed against queer people. I explained why they are wrong last year: Four years after the Pulse massacre and don’t feel the need to re-hash everything, other than to point out the the shooter’s own father was one of the people who thought the club had been picked because of how much his son hated queer people and that his son had ranted a lot the week before the shooting about how marriage equality was proof that American culture had embraced evil.
On this night five years ago, a lot of people were at Pulse celebrating Latinx Night as one of several Pride Month activities at the bar. They went out to have fun, to dance, to be with other queer people. To celebrate life. To celebrate Pride. To celebrate the concept that love is love.
Forty-nine of them never came home that night. I don’t personally know any of them, but when I am reminded of that night, I cry just as hard as a did when I was first reading news reports of the even the next morning. Because queer people are my tribe. Queer people are my community.
And the biggest fear I have had since realizing I was gay, is that some day a hater is going to kill me or someone I love because we’re queer.
Four years later, the Pulse massacre is still a gut punch.
Friday Five (over abundance edition)
It’s Pride Month, y’all! We’re at the second Friday in June. Happy Pride Month!
I reached full vaccination last week, and now my husband is fully vaccinated, as well. That means I’m starting to try to clean up the house that we’ve let get taken over by piles of things so that we could invite some fully vaccinated friends to visit in the near future. I am quite happy with that development!
Meanwhile, we have this week’s Friday Five. This week I bring you: one headline that is extremely sobering, one headline that should have made me laugh instead of cry, the top five stories of the week, five stories of interest to queers and our allies, five stories about Pride Month, five stories about seditious traitors, five stories about deplorables, and five videos (plus some notable obituaries).
The Story of the Year, Perhaps:
This Week’s Headline That Made Me Cry But Not In A Good Way:
Stories of the Week:
Forty years after first documented AIDS cases, survivors reckon with ‘dichotomy of feelings’
The rise and fall of Chrissy Teigen shows how drastically Twitter changed in 10 years
Stories of Interest to Queers and Our Allies:
Candidate Biden said he’d overturn the Pentagon ban on Pride flags. Will President Biden do it?
Depicting LGBTQ+ People in the Media, Without Stereotypes
Biden Recognizes 40th Year of HIV, Calls for Billions to End It
11-year-old trans girl sues her state because they’re banning her from cross-country
10’s Across the Board: Why ‘Pose’ Deserves Every 2021 Emmy Nomination
This Week in Pride:
Secretary of Defense celebrates LGBTQ+ military members at Pentagon Pride Month celebration
Texas Bakery’s Pride Cookies Sparked Backlash, Now Customers Are Lined Up Down the Block
Record-High 70% in U.S. Support Same-Sex Marriage
Tiresome debate around kink at Pride sends worrying message about sex and sex workers
This Week in Seditious Treason:
Trump Appointee Riot Suspect Rejects Plea Deal Offer
Riot Suspect Collared After Mom Shares Boasting Posts
This Week in Deplorables, Haters, and Other Evil People:
‘Ex-Gay’ Organization Gathers Paltry Group for Sad D.C. Rally
State GOPs Can’t Explain Millions in ‘Trump Victory’ Cash
In Memoriam:
Honoring Chief Crow Dog, His Many Gifts, and Wishing Him A Peaceful Journey
Lakota Spiritual Leader Leonard Crow Dog Walked On at 78
Videos
Click on the image to be taken to the video!
The World’s Biggest Asshole – Funniest Commercial Ever
Why No Progressive Agenda Can Survive the Senate Filibuster
Vaccine Magnetism? These Anti-Vax Theories Come Straight From Crazytown
Bezos’s Space Trip, Manchin’s Break from Democrats & Nigeria’s Twitter Block | The Daily Show
The GOP’s Insane Election Conspiracy Theories Now Include ‘Italygate’: A Closer Look
Friday Five (lies biting the dust edition edition)
It’s Pride Month, y’all! This is the first Friday in June, which means that we are well into Pride Month!
This Friday marks two weeks since my second COVID vaccine shot, so in theory around the time many of you are reading this I will technically be fully vaccined. My husband’s second shot was some days after mine, so he won’t be fully vaccinated until next week, and I feel like I shouldn’t consider myself out fo the woods until we’re at a point where is is least likely to suffer ill effects if one of us brings the virus home. And that’s a point a lot of people elide over: even when we are fully vaccinated we can still carry the virus. We won’t show any symptoms, and some of us won’t be contagious… but there isn’t an easy way to tell whether we are, so we can still be a danger to anyone we know who isn’t fully vaccinated for any reason. So think about any of your loved ones (such as children who aren’t old enough to get the vaccine) and keep being careful, okay?
Meanwhile, we have this week’s Friday Five. This week I bring you: one headline that made me laugh, the top five stories of the week, five stories of interest to queers and our allies, five stories about Pride Month, five stories about deplorables, and five videos (plus some things I posted and some notable obituaries).
This Week’s Headline That Made Me Laugh:
Stories of the Week:
Almost all new COVID cases in King Co. are from unvaccinated people, experts say
What the JBS cyberattack means for your meat supply
What is ‘race-norming’? NFL blasted after admitting racist concussion policy
Stories of Interest to Queers and Our Allies:
Wisconsin Governor Stands Against Conversion Therapy, for Trans Youth
Meet the queer mechanics working to repair a ‘toxic industry’
Safe/Haven: Gay Life in 1950s Cherry Grove
It is nearly Pride month, y’all:
The ‘Kink at Pride’ Discourse Needs to Retire
This Week in Deplorables, Haters, and Other Evil People:
Christian Billionaires Are Funding a Push to Kill the Equality Act
New York AG Petitions Kodak CEO To Testify On His Stock Buys After Secret $655M Loan Deal With Trump
Riot Suspect Charged With Attacking Female DC Cop Has Long Criminal History Of Brutalizing Women
In Memoriam:
Gavin MacLeod, ‘Love Boat’ Captain and ‘Mary Tyler Moore Show’ Star, Dies at 90
Things I Wrote:
Videos
Click on the image to be taken to the video!
Texas valedictorian goes viral after using speech to talk about abortion rights in her state
No. 45 Sweats As Cable News Speculates About Criminal Charges And A Flipping CFO
A Daily Show: How Is Trump Handling Retirement?
Cereal: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
Selfish Americans Delay Herd Immunity, Drunk Politicians & Can Anyone Identify Dr. Jill Biden?