Friday Five (mass anomaly edition)
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We had record-breaking heat on Wednesday. The official National Weather Service temperature for Seattle was 90 degrees, which may not seem like too hot, until you find out that the previous record for June 12 was 78 degrees. That’s quite a jump!
Anyway, welcome to the Friday Five. This week I bring you: the top five stories of interest to queer folks, the top two stories of the week, five fantasy and science stories, five stories about homophobes and hate, five stories about the impeachable one, and five videos (plus notable obituaries and some things I wrote).
This Week in News for Queers and Allies:
Americans’ perception of LGBT+ rights under federal law largely incorrect: poll. For instance, 45% Wrongly Believe LGBT Americans Already Have Federal Anti-Discrimination Protections.
Not All Queer People Feel Like They Were “Born This Way”.
In ‘Love Calls Back,’ LGBTQ People Find Acceptance Doesn’t Come Easy.
It will take more than apologies to ease the tension between LGBTQ people & the police.
Embassies worldwide are defying Trump & flying the Pride flag without permission.
Stories of the Week:
The FBI Lost Track Of 62 Foreign Cooperators In The US, According To An Inspector General Report.
Vancouver grocery store shames customers with embarrassing plastic bags.
U.S. firearms distributor files bankruptcy as gun sales fall under Trump. As on old friend used to say, “My heart bleeds purple peanut butter for them.”
Opinion: Why do rich people lie, cheat and steal more than those on low incomes?
YouTube continues screwing up its own policies on racist content & anti-gay harassment.
This Week in Fantasy and Science:
Good Omens’ Production Designer Reveals a Hidden Message He Built Into the Set.
‘Lucifer’ Renewed for Fifth and Final Season at Netflix.
Mass anomaly detected under the moon’s largest crater.
This Week in Homophobes and Hate:
Hate Crime Charge For Man Who Screamed Death Threats, Vandalized Home Over Rainbow Porch.
Chicago White Sox To Celebrate 40th Anniversary Of Homophobic And Racist “Disco Demolition”.
Franklin Graham Goes on Anti-Gay Rant, Says ‘Gay Pride Flag Is Offensive to Christians’.
Preachers are having a ‘Make America Straight Again’ event in Orlando & they’re praying for violence, but it isn’t call bad news: Florida Cops Refuse To Provide Security For “Death To Gays” Christian Conference Celebrating Pulse Massacre.
This Week in Impeach the Mo-Fo Already:
How Trump Snookered His Cultist Base On Mexico.
Trump’s Current Average: 12 Lies Every Single Day. I’m frankly surprised it’s this low…
Impeach Trump and don’t worry (much) about President Mike Pence. We already have him.
Republicans lash Trump for being open to foreign oppo.
In Memoriam:
Dr. John, Legend of New Orleans, Dead At 77.
Sylvia Miles, flamboyant scene-stealer with two Oscar nominations, dies at 94.
Things I wrote:
Weekend Update 6/8/2019: Hate is an ugly look.
Sunday Funnies, part 35: Casey at the Bat.
Confessions of a packrat-haunted packrat.
Competing narratives, or, how can we tell the good guys from the bad guys?
Reminder: colors don’t have gender.
Videos!
Frozen 2 Official Trailer:
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Elton John & Taron Egerton – Your Song (Brighton & Hove 2019):
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Kevin McHale – James Dean (Official Video):
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Legion | Season 3: Official Trailer:
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Alfie Arcuri – Same:
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Reminder: colors don’t have gender
Favorite colors. Source: https://www.livescience.com/34105-favorite-colors.html
I man walked past—then stopped a few feet away and turned in my direction. Since my head was down and I had the hat on, all I could see was his legs and feet. It’s a busy sidewalk and busier bus stop, so nothing seemed odd. I was standing close enough to the kiosk that lists the routes that stop there that if I gave any thought to him at that point, I thought he was looking at the sign.
He walked back the other way, passing only a few feet past me before stopping and turned to me again. I looked up just as he started walking his original direction. But he wasn’t randomly pacing. He was staring at me as walked by. And he stopped again a short distance to my right and turned his whole body toward me.
And stare isn’t the right word: it as a glare. Such an intense glare that you would think we had been mortal enemies for years—but I didn’t recognize him at all.
I smiled.
His glare became a sneer, and he looked me up and down before he said, “Nice hat,” in a very contemptuous tone.
I nodded and said, as neutrally as I could, “Thanks.”
He snorted, did the look up and down thing again, then said, “No, I mean a really nice fucking hat.”
The hat isn’t just broad-brimmed, it is very broad-brimmed. It casts a shadow that completely covers my face. And it is purple (two different shades!) and grey. This guy was hardly the first strange man to make less than friendly comments on the hat. Not wanting to escalate any things. I nodded again and said quietly, “Okay.”
He snorted again. He looked me up and down again. He muttered something with a very disparaging expression, then turned away and walked about a dozen feet further down the sidewalk (presumably) to wait for his bus in another part of the crowd.
I had my headphones on listening to an audiobook, so I literally didn’t hear what his last contemptuous muttering was, but it was clearly two words, two syllables each, both starting with F.
It wasn’t until I had gotten on my bus and settled into a seat that I noticed that I also happened to be wearing a purple polo shirt. Which isn’t a surprise, because last time I counted, exactly half the shirts that I think are suitable for the office are one shade of purple or other. At least two-thirds of the t-shirts I own are purple. I own several more purple hats. During sunny weather I often wear a Hawaiian shirt (often unbuttoned over a t-shirt), and most of them have purple as a prominent color.
If you hadn’t guessed, purple is my favorite color. And if the article from which I swiped the graphic above is correct, fully 12% of all men name it as their favorite color. Even so, this guy is hardly the first person to react this way to me wearing purple. Heck, about a year ago a very progressive co-worker, while we were discussing a book about racism in America, and while making a point about how different marginalized groups experience prejudice, he made the off-hand comment that if I just took off my hat and hid it, I could pass for straight.
And the hat that was hanging on the hook that he pointed to was not my big broad-brimmed two-shades of purple one. It was a much more subdued flat cap with a short bill. It just happened to be purple.
When I have told one of my other stories about a incidents similar to the bus stop encounter, sometimes someone feels the need to advise me to either, a) just ignore the glares and comments, or b) stop wearing purple.
To the first suggestion I have a few responses:
- Humans are social animals, and most of us are hardwired to pay attention to other people around us, particularly their facial expressions and tone of voice. Difficult to ignore.
- As a person who has been both verbally and physically assaulted by homophobes, I can’t help being vigilant. There is a part of my brain that is constantly looking for warning signs.
- Given that queer people still get attacked and murdered by homophobes in this country, it would be very unwise to suppress that urge to keep an eye on my surroundings.
As to deciding not to wear purple. Really? So it is my responsibility to try to guess what might set off a random bigot? That solution is to take away something that I love, something that makes me feel good, something that doesn’t hurt anyone else, just so a bigot feels comfortable pretending that gay people don’t exist? If you think that suggestion is a reasonable one, I have to ask: why would you want to make a bigot feel comfortable? Seriously, go look in a mirror and ask that question out loud: why would you rather a bigot feel comfortable than someone like me be happy? Think really hard about why that was your first response.
Colors don’t have gender.
And I find it particularly amusing in Seattle when some of these guys react to my purple garments. Seattle is the home of the University of Washington (among other colleges) home of the very popular Huskies football team. And the team colors are purple and gold. So you see people wearing purple sweatshirts, purple hats, or purple shorts adorned with one or more of the team logos on them all the time. They are so ubiquitous in clothing stores around here that I can’t count the times that I saw a purple garment out of the corner of my eye, only to see that it’s Huskies merchandise.
And no, I’m not going to replace all of my purple clothes with Huskies merch. For one, I attended a different university altogether.
(click to embiggen)
Competing narratives, or, how can we tell the good guys from the bad guys?
We haven’t quite got the technology this small, but…
What I wrote about instead was communications technology. How we were struggling even then to come to grips with how quickly news flew around the world and how quickly we were forgetting what we had all been upset/afraid of just last week. And because I am a big sci fi nerd, I speculated about what it would be like when people had devices in their pockets or strapped to their wrists or whatever that gave them constant and instant access to the 24-hour cable news slurry. The professor gave me a decent grade, but he couldn’t resist writing a few sentences explaining why nuclear weapons were a far graver threat to society than television ever would be.
I don’t believe I was being extremely brilliant pr prescient in that essay. People had been writing think pieces about the dangers of tabloid journalism taking over the then-new 24-hour news channels. And the notion of a TV on your wrist had been predicted in Dick Tracy comics decades before. But I still think I was correct that the proliferation of information, misinformation, has had a worse effect on society. Yes, we have terrible weapons of mass destruction that very well might wipe humans (and a whole lot of other species) off the face of the earth—but we’ve also been carrying out a mass extinction event without resorting to nuclear weapons.
However here we are, two decades into the 21st Century, and we have seen how social media bots have influenced the outcome of a U.S. Presidential election, have seen a number of people who have been dog-piled on social media driven to suicide, and seen more than one instance of on-line doxing sending SWAT team to the homes of law-abiding citizens. So I think my essay may have been much more correct that my university professor thought.
In the last week we have had two completely unrelated stories illustrate this point. First: Dallas Gay Bar Manager Fired For Refusing To Serve Transgender Woman. A lot of liberal and queer news sites shared the video of a manager of a prominent gay bar trying to eject some customers. And by the time many of us had seen the video, the corporate owners of said gay bar had already fired the manager.
Here’s the thing… when I watched the viral video, I found it far from conclusive in bearing out the transphobic narrative. There just wasn’t enough context. Clearly things had happened before the beginning of the video, and without knowing what those things were, it just isn’t possible to determine whether the manager’s actions were appropriate. Then once the scuffle began, things get even more confusing.
But, there is video, there is a scuffle, there is what appears to be a white cis man trying to kick a trans woman out of the club. And it is easy to imagine that his motivations weren’t pure.
A couple of days later, things get more interesting: Dallas Gay Bar Manager Speaks Out After Being Fired for Incident Involving Trans Woman. The bar manager’s story is quite plausible. But I understand how easy it is for bigots to construct alternative explanations that seem reasonable, so I’m not sure the manager’s story is true. Maybe he sincerely thought the ID was fake.
I am quite aware of how difficult official ID cards are to deal with. I am not trans, but back in 1992 I legally changed my name. There were several reasons for this: first, I really didn’t want to share the same first name as my viciously abusive father, but also, I had been being called a diminutive of my given middle name since I was a kid, and it just didn’t make sense for my legal name to remain a name that virtually no one called me. However, even though I legally changed my name 27 years ago, I still continue to run into situations where my birth name pops up on records, and I find myself constantly having to explain the situation. Which means that I find it very easy to believe that the trans person in this particular pair of conflicting narratives may be dealing with a simple issue of bureaucracy not keeping up with her current legal situation. There may be a reasonable explanation for why she would have several ID cards from different states at the same time.
Or maybe he only thinks the ID is fake because he’s got some unconscious transphobia going on.
The only thing that I think is clear is that his employer made the decision to fire him based on the social media uproar. The video went viral, and it seems that most of the queer news sites were leaning into the transphobia interpretation of the story, and that is bad publicity for a gay bar, particularly during Pride month (which often accounts for a significant part of the annual profits from bars and restaurants in queer neighborhoods).
No matter who was right, the mob won.
Snagged from the Motor City Pride website.
The most alarming part of these videos and pictures are that it appears as if the police are escorting the Nazis. It appears as of the police are trying to protect the Nazis (the ones with the guns and chanting about genocide) from the festival-goers.
The police are trying to spin the story another way: Detroit Police Claim to Quash Neo-Nazi Plot To Spark ‘Charlottesville No. 2’ At Pride Parade. So the police claim that they were there to prevent the Nazis hurting anyone. And they did arrest at least three of the neo-Nazis, though we don’t know what the charges are. And they claim that they warned the Nazis several times not to start burning rainbow flags, because they would have to arrest them. (I’m assuming that the act of setting anything on fire in a crowded place would be the reason for the arrest.)
I have several problems with the police narrative. For one thing, the police chief described “both sides” acting badly. Except he isn’t referring to the Nazis on one side and the queer people on the other. He’s actually talking about an organized anti-fascist counter protest group that was there to counter the Nazis… and therefore were also technically disrupting the Pride festival. But I’ve already seen the police chief’s comments being quoted by bigots as proof that the queer people at the festival were behaving just as badly as the Nazis. Also, when saying “both sides” the police chief is alleging that the anti-fascists were yelling racial slurs at any cop who happened to be African-American, similar to how the Nazis were hurling racial slurs at them. Besides not quite believing that, I also think that the people who were marching with guns while chanting slogans about genocide are still far, far, far more in the wrong than unarmed people yelling bad words.
Maybe this is a no-win situation for the police. Because Michigan is an open-carry state, they can’t arrest people for merely carrying guns, no matter how intimidating it may be. Michigan’s hate crime law doesn’t include sexual orientation, so technically carrying a rifle while yelling into a bullhorn about killing faggots isn’t a crime in Michigan. So the only way to prevent violence is to try to put themselves between the Nazis and everyone else. Unfortunately, that makes it look like they are escorting the Nazis. On the other hand, by appearing to escort the Nazis, it sure as heck looks like the police are supporting them.
Clearly, the Nazis are the bad guys, here. But if even the police officers who recognize the Nazis as bad guys also trot out “both sides” arguments, we’ve got a problem. Queer people holding a Pride parade and festival aren’t calling for killing anyone. Asking to have the same rights as other people isn’t an attack on those people. Celebrating the fact that we have survived despite all the attempts to erase and oppress us is not an attack on anyone. This isn’t merely a difference of opinion between two potentially valid points.
I suppose I should focus on the bright side: no injuries were reported, violence didn’t break out. And even Fox News reported the Nazi actions in a negative light. I think the latter only happened because a lot of people got a picture of the one Nazi urinating on an Isreali flag. So, maybe everyone having a camera in hand was a good thing.
Confessions of a packrat-haunted packrat
“We produce enough food for 10 billion humans to live comfortably, but capitalism throws almost half of it away for not being pretty enough, profitable enough, or because it simply rotted on a shelf. Scarcity, suffering are manufactured in order to maintain profitability.”
One reason those ghosts are so strong is because they are really a manifestation of anxiety. Spend any part of your childhood or young adult life where food and shelter were in jeopardy because of money issues, and those anxieties get a lot of power. And because we survived some of those situations thanks to some packrat in the family who kept that old appliance when they bought a new one which we can now use after ours broke until we can afford to replace it, well, those anxieties can rightly remind us that “You might need that someday!” is true.
To get out of the abstract for a bit: one of the tasks that has been on my list for a while was to go through the closet and my chest of drawers to purge clothes that I don’t wear anymore. We last did that seriously two years ago while preparing to move… and we did it again when we unpacked, because after all that packing and moving we were both feeling that we had not been ruthless enough in the purge leading up to the move.
But we’re both also busy with work and chores and so on, so it is easy to put it off. I have also learned that those ghosts will enlist the aid of my inner procrastinator in interesting ways. Usually I distract myself with another chore or project that is important, but manages to grow into something bigger. The trick, I have learned, is to actually say out loud, either to myself or my husband, “I really want to go through the closet and drawers this weekend to get rid of the clothes that don’t fit me any more.” And even though whether they fit isn’t the only reason I plan to get rid of some clothes, if that’s the only part I admit out loud, it’s harder for my to procrastinate.
Yes, I just admitted that I have to trick myself. The funny part is that it works.
Weekend before last I started at the closet. One reason it had become urgent is that the closet is so full of clothes that it is difficult to put clean clothes away after I do the laundry. It’s a struggle to squeeze things in. The side effects of that are that it is difficult to find a particular garment when we want and that a lot of shirts especially get weird creases because everything’s jammed in.
Because I had been doing other housework that day, I didn’t get started on the closet until nearly 2:30 in the afternoon. As I pulled things out of the closet, giving them a look over and trying them on, it was easy to toss things that don’t fit (or don’t fit comfortably), or if they have another physical issue (there was one really nice dress shirt that I really like that got a coffee stain on it that resisted all my attempts to remove, and it wound up being put back in the closet because the packrat ghosts in my head convinced me that I could think of something to remove the stain later.
It was more difficult to put things in the “get rid of” pile that had no physical problems, but that I just know I’ll never wear again. There are a few reasons that I know I won’t wear something ever again. Sometimes it’s something that I bought because I thought it would go really well with something else and I either no longer own that other garment or once the outfit was assembled it didn’t look good or it had a major impracticality or whatever. Other times it’s just that while it looked good in the store, later I didn’t like how it looked on me. And other times it’s just, I’m over that–whatever look it was.
If I keep it, it will just hang in the closet. It will be looked at from time to time while I’m looking for something else, but I will never pull it out and actually wear it. I know that. No matter how much I know that, I feel a tide of guilt rising inside as I contemplate tossing it into the “give away” pile.
The trick I have used in that situation is to ask myself, “If my friend Kristin were here, what would she ask me?” And what I imagine Kristin (who I sometimes call “the Ruthless One” in these circumstances) would ask me is, “Are you really ever going to wear that, or is it just going to take up space that you could put to better use with things you actually do use?”
And once I have imagined Kristin saying that (or similar), the guilt recedes and I can put the shirt or whatever into the pile.
A bit over two hours later, I had pulled every shirt, sweater, pair of pants, jacket, and so on out of the closet, tried it on, put it into a pile, and then had re-hung all the clothes that I was keeping. I had an embarassingly enormous pile of clothes to go, and an impressive mass of empty hangers. And I was tired and sweaty and felt grungy and grumpy.
I checked in with Michael about how many of the hangers to keep, I bagged up the clothes and the hangers, and I hopped in the shower to wash the grunge and (mostly repressed) guilt away.
I looked at the chest of drawers–three of the six drawers so overfull that they couldn’t be fully slid in, looked at the time, and decided that it was not procrastinating to put that off until next week if I loaded up the car and actually took all the stuff we had in the get-rid of piles away. And it wasn’t just an excuse, between that and the other housework I’d been on my feet and moving for many hours. Value Village was only open until 8pm, and we were now past 5.
So we loaded up the car (which took longer than I thought), drove up to the donation center, dropped the things off, did a quick run through the store on my usual quests (I am trying to replace one decorative plate that got broken while we were hanging the set on the wall at the new place, I keep hoping to find a matching sixth cut crystal wine glass for one of my sets, and I have slowly been acquiring semi-matching bone china saucers to go with a small set of teacups that belonged to my late first-husband’s grandmother — and which, yes, I actually use!). And then we stopped at a nearby sushi place for dinner.
Then, this last weekend, I went through the drawers. Since taking things off hangers wasn’t involved, it went a bit faster. The pile of things to get rid of wasn’t nearly as impressive as the one I’d had the weekend before. But now I am able to easily open and close all six drawers on my side, and there is actually room in the drawers for some new things when they come along (because they will).
Michael, on the other, spent something like five minutes going through his drawers, and all he did was move heavy winter things to the drawers drawers in the bed pedestal (we decided after the move that they only we we’d remember to use them at all was keep seasonal stuff in them), because as the hot weather had come on, he’d started pulling summer clothes out of the drawer, but hadn’t transferred. But all the drawers on his side now easily slide closed, so, win!
Of course, while he was a lot of packrat tendencies, his are focused differently than mine. And he doesn’t have the same habits I have of, for instance, if I have to toss out a couple of socks because they wear out, I will replace the two thrown out pairs with six… and then a month later not remember that I have already more than replaced those “bunch of socks I had to throw out” and buy another six-pack.
One last trick for dealing with all of those ghosts. Whenever I win a little battle with them, I make an extra donation to either Northwest Harvest or True Colors United–gotta use that guilt for something useful, right?
Sunday Funnies, part 35: Casey at the Bat
Another in my series of posts recommending web comics that I think more people should read.
Casey at the Bat by Bob Glasscock. 20-something Casey was dumped by the man he thought was the love of his life, then a friend convinced him to try out for a local gay softball league as a way to meet new people. And thus begins the comic. Casey At the Bat describes itself as a lighthearted slice-of-live romantic comedy, that just happens to start a young gay man. The strip is entertaining and does mostly stick to the less serious topics. Bob Glasscock, the creator of the comic, also often blogs on the site. If you enjoy this comic (which is more about romance and friendships than it is about sports—though there is some of that, too) you can purchase collection of the comics here.
Comics I’ve previously recommended: Some of these have stopped publishing new episodes. Some have been on hiatus for a while. I’ve culled from the list those that seem to have gone away entirely.
Check, Please! by Ngozi Ukazu is the story of Eric “Bitty” Bittle, a former junior figure skating champion from a southern state who is attending fictitious Samwell College in Massachusetts, where he plays on the men’s hockey team. Bitty is the smallest guy on the team, and in the early comics is dealing with a phobia of being body-checked in the games. He’s an enthusiastic baker, and a die hard Beyoncé fan.
“Manic Pixie Nightmare Girls” by Jessica Udischas is a hilarious web comic that tells of the adventures of Jesska Nightmare, a trans woman trying to make her way in our transphobic world. The comics are funny, insightful, and adorably drawn. The sheer cuteness of the drawing style is a rather sharp contrast to the sometimes weighty topics the comic covers, and I think makes it a little easier to keep from getting bummed out to contemplate that the strips aren’t exaggerations. If you like the strip, consider supporting the artist through her patreon.
Life of Bria by Sabrina Symington is a transgender themed comic that ranges from commentary to slice of life jokes and everything in between. Even when commenting on very serious stuff it remains funny—sharp, but funny. It’s one of the comics that I would see being reblogged on tumblr and lot and I’d think, “I ought to track down the artist so I can read more of these.” And I finally did. And they’re great! If you like Symington’s work, you can sponsor her on Patreon and she has a graphic novel for sale.
Nerd and Jock by Marko Raassina This is a silly webcomic about a Nerd and Jock who are good friends and like to have fun together. Frequently the joke of the strip is to take a cliché about jocks and nerds and twist it in some way. It’s cute. I happen to really like cute and low-conflict stories sometimes. If you like this comic, consider supporting the artist on Patreon.
Assigned Male by Sophie Labelle is a cute story about a transgirl (we meet her at age 11) and goes from there. Some of the strips are more informational or editorial than pushing the narrative forward, but they are in the voice of the main character, so it’s fun. The artist also has a Facebook page of the site, and is in the process of moving to a domain of her own (though currently it still doesn’t have the actual comic strips available). I mention this so you will not be put off by the words “old website” she’s added to the banner. If you like her comic and would like to support her, she has an Etsy shop were four book collections of the comics and other things are for sale.
Stereophonic by C.J.P.
Phoebe and Her Unicorn by Dana Simpson concerns the adventures of 9-year-old Phoebe Howell. One day, Phoebe skipped a rock across a pond, and the skipping rock hit a unicorn named Marigold Heavenly Nostrils in the face. This happened to free the unicorn from her own reflection, so she granted Phoebe one wish. Phoebe wisely wished that Marigold would become her best friend. If you like the comic, you can buy the books here and enamel pins and other stuff here.
Reading Doonesbury: A trip through nearly fifty years of American comics by Paul HébertThis blog is mostly about the Doonesbury comic strip by Gary B. Trudeau which has been being published for 50 years. Hébert looks at various sequences and themes and long arcs from the comic strip, writing essays analyzing how the story went, putting it in context of the time it was printed, and so forth. He also reviews other comics and graphic novels.
The Young Protectors: Engaging the Enemy by Alex Wolfson begins when a young, closeted teen-age superhero who has just snuck into a gay bar for the first time is seen exiting said bar by a not-so-young, very experienced, very powerful, super-villain. Trouble, of course, ensues.
Tripping Over You by Suzana Harcum and Owen White is a strip about a pair of friends in school who just happen to fall in love… which eventually necessitates one of them coming out of the closet. Tripping Over You has several books, comics, and prints available for purchase.
“Deer Me,” by Sheryl Schopfer tells the tales from the lives of three friends (and former roommates) who couldn’t be more dissimilar while being surprisingly compatible. If you enjoy Deer Me, you can support the artist by going to her Patreon Page!
Madeline McGrane is a cartoonist and illustrator who is from Wisconsin and lives in Minneapolis. She posts vampire-themed comics and other art on her tumblr blog. My favorites are the vampire comics about three child vampires. They’re just silly. Her black and white comics are minimalist and really work well with her style of humor. Her color work is a bit more complex. If you like her work and want to support her, she has a ko-fi.
The Junior Science Power Hour by Abby Howard. is frequently autobiographical take on the artist’s journey to creating the crazy strip about science, science nerds, why girls are just as good at being science nerds as boys, and so much more. It will definitely appeal to dinosaur nerds, anyone who has ever been enthusiastic about any science topic, and especially to people who has ever felt like a square peg being forced into round holes by society.
Scurry by Mac Smith is the story of a colony of mice trying to survive a long, strange winter in a world where humans have mysteriously vanished, and food is becoming ever more scarce.
And I love this impish girl thief with a tail and her reluctant undead sorcerer/bodyguard: “Unsounded,” by Ashley Cope.
Fowl Language by Brian Gordon is a fun strip about parenting, tech, science, and other geeky things. The strips are funny, and he also has a bonus panel link to click on under the day’s strip.
The Last Halloween by Abby Howard is the creepy story of 10-year-old Mona who is reluctantly drafted to save the world on Halloween night. This is by the same artist who does the Junior Science Power Hour. She created this strip as her pitch in the final round of Penny Arcade’s Strip Search, which was a reality game show where web cartoonists competed for a cash prize and other assistance to get their strip launched. Though Abby didn’t win, she started writing the strip anyway. If you like the comic, you can support Abby in a couple of ways: she has some cool stuff related to both of her strips in her store, and she also has a Patreon.
Last Kiss® by John Lustig Mr. Lustig bought the publishing rights to a romance comic book series from the 50’s and 60’s, and started rewriting the stories for fun. The redrawn and re-dialogued panels (which take irreverent shots at gender and sexuality issues, among other things) are syndicated, and available on a bunch of merchandise.
Sharpclaw by Sheryl Schopfer. The author describes as “fantasy comic that blends various fairy tales into an adventure story.” The first story is about twin sisters who both have the potential to be sorceresses. One pursues magic power, the other does not. If you enjoy her work, you can support the artist by going to her Patreon Page!
“Champion of Katara” by Chuck Melville tells the tale of a the greatest sorcerer of Katara, Flagstaff (Flagstaff’s foster sister may disagree…), and his adventures in a humorous sword & sorcery world. If you enjoy the adventures of Flagstaff, you might also enjoy another awesome fantasy series set in the same universe (and starring the aforementioned foster sister): and Felicia, Sorceress of Katara, or Chuck’s weekly gag strip, Mr. Cow, which was on a hiatus for a while but is now back. If you like Mr. Cow, Felicia, or Flagstaff (the hero of Champions of Katara) you can support the artist by going to his Patreon Page. Also, can I interest you in a Mr. Cow Mug?
Private I, by Emily Willis and Ann Uland is a comic set in 1942 Pittsburgh in which queer gumshoe Howard Graves is trying to sort out a collection of bewildering clues and infuriating eccentric suspects. It’s an interesting take on a lot of noir tropes. It handles the queer elements well—being outed or caught by the wrong people can spell the end of not just one’s career, but possibly life–without being all grim-dark. If you like the comic and want to support the creators, check out their Ko-fi.
The Comics of Shan Murphy As far as I can tell, Shannon Murphy doesn’t post a regular comic on the web. But among the categories of illustration on her site are comics. Her art styles (multiple) are really expressive. And she just writes really good stuff. If you like her work, considered leaving a tip at her ko-fi page.
Muddler’s Beat by Tony Breed is the fun, expanded cast sequel to Finn and Charlie Are Hitched.
The Young Protectors: Legendary by Alex Woolfson. This is just a new story arc for the Young Protectors comic recommended above. However, Alex is changing up the artists he’s working with in this arc, and the focus is decidedly different. This new arc begins by exploring the changed relationship between our protagonist, Kyle (aka Red Hot) and one of his teammates, Spooky Jones. The story is NSFW, although unless you are a patron of Alex’s Patreon, you see a lot less of the explicit artwork. It isn’t porn, per se, and it isn’t a romance. If you check out the page, you’ll see that Alex has written several other comics, some of which are available to purchase in hard copy. And, as I mentioned, he’s got a Patreon account.
If you want to read a nice, long graphic-novel style story which recently published its conclusion, check-out the not quite accurately named, The Less Than Epic Adventures of T.J. and Amal by E.K. Weaver. I say inaccurate because I found their story quite epic (not to mention engaging, moving, surprising, fulfilling… I could go on). Some sections of the tale are Not Safe For Work, as they say, though she marks them clearly. The complete graphic novels are available for sale in both ebook and paper versions, by the way.
Note: Usually when I do one of these posts, I include the slightly shorter reviews of all the comics I’ve recommended previously. I do periodically go through those lists and remove comics that have vanished entirely. For now, I’m leaving in those that have stopped publishing new episodes but still have a web site.
But the list is getting awfully long, and I’m not sure how useful the older links are. I’m still thinking about it. Feel free to comment if you have strong thoughts on the topic.
Weekend Update 6/8/2019: Hate is an ugly look
We will beat them again!
And now we have another round of me commenting on some news that broke after I composed this week’s Friday Five, or new developments in a story I’ve linked to and/or commented on before.
First, let’s talk some more about that so-called Straight Pride parade! So yesterday I linked to the story about how Brad Pitt disavowed the parade and threatened to sue the organizers if they kept using his name and image, right? That didn’t really surprise anyone. I was, frankly, confused as to why the organizers even went there—Pitt’s support of marriage equality long before it became legal was well known, for example. And clearly the only sort of people who even think a Straight Pride parade needs to be a thing are insecure homophobes, right?
We already knew that the leader of the group who applied for the permit was an alt-fight rabble rouser who has organized or been a featured speaker at various neo-Nazi/alt-right rallies over the last few years. And now we know what was up, because the group has responded to Pitt’s threat of legal action: ‘Straight pride’ group removes Brad Pitt as mascot after backlash, replacing him with Milo Yiannopoulos.
Before I go further, I want to give a tip of the hat to Joe Jervis of the Joe.My.God web site for correctly predicting predicting days earlier that Yiannopoulos had to be involved.
So now everything becomes clear. They knew that announcing a straight pride parade and applying for a permit would get them some news coverage. Mentioning a well-known celebrity like Brad Pitt as the parade’s “mascot” without Pitt’s permission served multiple purposes. First, it increased the odds that mainstream news sources would carry the initial story. Second, because they didn’t just name Pitt, but had pictures of him on their web site, it guaranteed a response from Pitt and/or his agent no doubt threatening legal action. Which git them a second day of being in the news. Then, they can announced the change in the mascot the next day, before any official cease and desist letters arrive, and get another day of press coverage. And they announced the change on their web site with some digs at Pitt (that aren’t actionable) that are phrased in exactly the way needed to appeal to any Incels/Men’s Rights Activities who weren’t already cheering them on.
This also explains why they are using the term “mascot” instead of “Grand Marshall” or something (I know there are headlines out there using saying Grand Marshall, but the official web site uses mascot exclusively). Because Milo isn’t just a neo-Nazi apologist who incites hate against muslims, jews, and trans people, he is also infamously gay. Which is a weird person to pick to symbolize and lead a straight pride march, but mascot? Sure, the lapdog gay boy—who loves to spout off the same genocidal racist, anti-semitic, sectarian, misogynist, transphobic nonsense that the rest of the organizers of the event believe—he can be a mascot.
Based on the past histories of all the folks we currently know are involved in this, the real point of the parade (beside publicity, which they hope will translate into donations) is to try to get a situation where protesters show up, one or two of whom might be provoked to take some action that will give the cops an excuse to go after the anti-fascists, as police are wont to do. So the purpose is to generate headlines and video that can be used to try to paint those of us who are opposed to the goals of the alt-right as the bad guys. And, of course, to provide money to Milo, who is deeply in debt.
With Milo’s involvement, the other thing we can expect is if the City of Boston requires parade permit holders to pay for police services, et cetera, those bills will not get paid (that’s how he racked up a couple million dollars of debt in Australia alone!).
One last thing before we change topics. The same group as officially announced a straight pride flag. They have had at least one made and, oh my goodness, is this the ugliest thing ever, or what? I understand that there are actual studies that show a high correlation between lack of cognitive skills and holding very conservative beliefs, but really, that attempt at symbolism is an insult to the intelligence of the people they hope to embrace the flag. Maybe they think they’re being ironic?
Okay, these don’t really need much in the way of commentary: to the surprise of no one with a functioning brain cell: State Dept Bans Embassies From Flying Rainbow Flag. It was only a week ago that the alleged president was tweeting about supporting LGBT people and joining the international fight against the criminalization and state-sponsored killing of LGBT people. And yet, this… I mean, compared to the very long list of anti-gay actions the trump administration as taken against us, this is pretty minor, but still!
Oh, well, let’s end on a better not, shall we? WISCONSIN: Dem Gov Flies Rainbow Flag Over Capitol For First Time, GOP State Rep Rants “This Is Divisive”. I suppose it is divisive: it divides the haters (so-called Christians like the GOP representative in question) from those who actually love their neighbors as themself.
Friday Five (homophobes self-own edition)
“The Alliance Defending Freedom is once again misleading people about the financial impacts of our case. They claim the state’s lawsuit is ‘putting all her personal assets, including her life savings, at risk.’ That’s false. The sum total financial impact of the state’s lawsuit: A $1,000 court-ordered penalty, and $1 in attorney fees. We asked for no costs before either the state or U.S. Supreme Court. None. My office presented Mrs. Stutzman with multiple options, including delegating responsibilities for same-sex weddings to her employees, or simply declining to provide flowers for weddings aside from friends and family.”
(Click to embiggen!)
I’ve had sinus headaches and bad to awful hay fever for about three weeks, now. Not great. On the other hand, I’ve been getting many more birds at the bird feeder, so the local small bird population seems to be recovering from last fall’s obliteration at the talons of the young Cooper’s Hawk that was hanging out in the area. New species spotted this week at the feeder: a Savannah Sparrow!
Anyway, welcome to the Friday Five. This week I bring you: the top two stories of the week, the top five stories of interest to queer folks, and five stories about homophobes and hate, five science stories, five stories about the impeachable one, and five videos (plus some things I wrote).
Stories of the Week:
Veteran, 97, parachutes into Normandy.
Former Parkland school deputy arrested on 11 charges tied to shooting.
Half of LGBTQ employees say they have experienced verbal discrimination at work.
Queer stories of the Week:
Olivia Wilde’s Directorial Debut Is Changing The Game For Queer Teen Movies.
17 Pictures That Changed The Course Of LGBT History.
50 years later, NYPD finally apologizes for raiding Stonewall Inn. If ever a headline deserved the word finally… also, I’d be happier about this if there weren’t also frequently stories about current NYPD cops harassing trans people, you know?
This Week in Homophobes and Hate:
An HIV+ man was refused service at a barbershop. He just won $75,000 in damages.
Brad Pitt Warns the Alt-Right Homophobes Behind Straight Pride: Stop Using My Image.
Transgender woman’s body pulled from Texas lake is latest in string of deaths.
This Week in Science:
Dinosaur Bones Shimmering With Opal Reveal a New Species in Australia.
Researchers solve mystery of the galaxy with no dark matter.
See the funky double asteroid that zipped by Earth.
There Are Whales Alive Today Who Were Born Before Moby Dick Was Written.
This Week in Impeach the Mo-Fo Already:
Trump is angry he can’t watch Fox News in the UK. Fox News was de-licensed in the UK because it was ruled to be propoganda, not news.
Kushner’s Peace Plan Is Racist .
DOJ, Commerce reject Congressional subpoenas for census docs.
Impeach Trump. But don’t necessarily try him in the Senate..
Things I wrote:
Weekend Update 6/1/2019: Love is an action, not a feeling.
Sunday Funnies, part 34: Murphy’s Manor & the 30-year Wedding.
If he talks like a bigot, acts like a bigot, is loved and supported by the other bigots….
It’s okay to like things that make you happy: my review of Good Omens.
Midweek Update 6/5/2019: Images of Words.
Oppressed Oppressors: Angry straight white men.
Videos!
A Mysterious Object Punched a Hole in the Milky Way:
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The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance | Teaser | Netflix:
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Stephen Colbert – Trump Praised for Behaving with Queen, Plus Meets Irish Prime Minister in Airport Lounge, Rather than Castle as Irish Gov Suggested:
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Trump Hits the U.K., Beefs with London’s Mayor & Gets Negged by Buckingham Palace:
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Manila Luzon – “Gay Man” Official Music Video:
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Oppressed Oppressors: Angry straight white men
What-about-isms and false equivalencies abound. (Click to embiggen)
That’s correct! (click to embiggen)
And it isn’t even fair to say equally. There have been studies that show when women talk for more than 15% of a class or presentation or similar activity that the men perceive that the woman are dominating the conversation. Only 15%, the men describe it as “equal time.” I haven’t found similar studies about their perception of people of color or queers, but I have a life time of personal observation to say the participation of other marginalized people are perceived the same way. If queer characters exist in a story or movie or whatever in more than a restricted token manner, they scream “why are the gays ruining everything?!” And when it comes to people of color, well, a black actor was featured prominently in the first trailer for The Force Awakens and they lost their collective minds, calling for boycotts (and worse).
And I know it isn’t just angry straight white men. There are angry straight white women who make the same “why don’t we get a straight pride day?” arguments, too. Believe me, I know. I’ve had that one thrown at me by relatives at family get-togethers.
There are two different, completely true answers to the question of why there isn’t a straight pride day.
The first answer is: every day is straight pride day! Every day day society and strangers celebrate and cheer straight marriages. Every day society recognizes and approves of the existence of straight people. Every day thousands of television episodes are broadcast in which the straight characters are the protagonists and their stories and concerns are recognized, accepted, and celebrated. Every day little boys are described as future lady’s men, and little girls are called heart-breakers, and no one screams at the people who say it that the children are too young for that. 99% of all movies, books, songs, plays, and TV shows center straight people and their concerns.
(click to embiggen)
All that has happened is that when some straight people express bigoted opinions about queer people, society as a whole no longer chimes in to agree. Worse than that, some people actually point out the homophobia. In some circumstances the law doesn’t penalize queer people the way it used to. In some circumstances the law no longer privileges straight people to the detriment of queer people.
That isn’t the same as being oppressed. It isn’t the same as being bashed. It isn’t the same as being murdered. It isn’t the same as being forced into homelessness. You did not have to overcome adversity, bigotry, threats of violence, actual violence, family rejection, and more just to live as an openly straight person.
“Gay pride was not born out of a need to celebrate being gay, but our right to exist without persecution. So instead of wondering why there isn’t a straight pride movement, be thankful you don’t need one.”
Midweek Update 6/5/2019: Images of Words
I keep saving various images to possibly use to illustrate a Friday Five post or a political commentary, then wind up using only a fraction of them. So, here are a few of those memes and graphics you may find amusing, enlightening, or thought-provoking:
Bi, pan, tans, nonbinary, ace, and aro people (and allies!) all are welcome at Pride (click to embiggen)
“we produce enough food for 10 billion humans to live comfortably but capitalism throws almost half of it away for not being pretty enough, profitable enough, or simply because it rotted on the shelf. Scarcity, suffeering are manufactured in order to maintain profitability.”
“When your boss’s income has ristion 937% since 1978 and yours has incread by only 5.7%, it is time to stop blaming minorities for you woes.”
“Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) suggests former President Ronald Reagan was a racsit and claims he ‘pitted white working-class Americans against brown and black working-class Americans to screw over all working-class Americans.” “That’s unfair. He was also a homophobe who let thousands of Americans die of AIDS”
“I’m confused. My gay marriage is somehow your business, but your unvaccinated kids aren’t mine. Whaaa?”
“No one talks more of free enterprise and competition and of the best man winning than the man who inherited his father’s store or farm.” — C. Wright Mills, 1951
It’s okay to like things that make you happy: my review of Good Omens
(Click to embiggen)
Why I hadn’t at that point takes a bit of explanation. The year the book was published was a tumultuous time in my personal life.1 Some of my friends who were reading the book recommended it, but all of my attention was focused on other priorities. Then there were other issues for the next few years.3
The upshot of all that is: when Michael expressed shock that I hadn’t read the book, I had to confess that I barely even knew it existed. For the next several years it sat in my queue of books I was going to read someday. But there are always a lot of books in that queue, and I was busy reading new books from my favorite authors and only slowly making a dent in that other pile.
Then Terry Pratchett announced that he had Alzheimer’s disease. And some time after learning about that, I made a decision to set four of the Discworld books that I hadn’t gotten to, yet, and Good Omens in a different category: books I will read if I find myself feeling particularly sad that no new books would be coming from Terry.4
Once Neil announced that Terry had asked him, as his dying request, to make an adaptation for Good Omens to be made into a movie or television show, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to leave the book in that special queue. So earlier this year, as the date for the release of the series approached—not to mention the teasers and trailers and interviews for the series that kept crossing my social media feeds—I finally read the book.
Twice.
Then I downloaded the BBC radio play adaptation that was made before Terry died and listened to that. So, yes, Michael and all the rest of my friends who were flabbergasted that I hadn’t read it were right: it’s a book that I immediately loved.
This last weekend I binge-watched the series, and I can honestly say I love it, too. With Neil writing the script and acting as show-runner5, the series is faithful to the book. A demon and an angel who, rather than being immortal enemies, have forged a friendship during their millenia on Earth, and have grown quite fond of the world and the clever things people keep inventing, set out to stop the apocalypse. Complicated by the fact that they have mislaid the anti-christ. Plus, they don’t have access to the one and only existing copy of the book, The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch.
Most of the cast of thousands of characters from the book made it to the screen (many quite brilliantly cast). And the things that Neil added to keep the emotional arcs running through each episode6 fit nicely and do their jobs.
It’s a fun show. And it still gives you the same kind very wry and wise observations about human nature that Neil and Terry employ subtly in their other works.
I admit, I wish that at least one old trope that underlay the relationships of two pairs of the supporting characters had not remained faithful to the book. I speak of that tired old canard: the competent, accomplished woman who falls for the forlorn, bumbling man who has little, if anything, to recommend him. When I read the book earlier this year, this bothered me most with Madame Tracy—I mean, really, what does she see in Shadwell?
For the other relationship, the version of Witch-hunter Private Pulsifer in the book is given a little more time to demonstrate that he isn’t completely useless. So it didn’t annoy me quite as much as the other relationship–in the book. Alas, much of that is omitted from the series.8
But the central relationships: demon and angel out to save the world (and each other), and the 11-year-old anti-christ who just wants to have fun with his friends (and not understanding his new powers) work splendidly. And don’t let the summary that it’s a comedic look at the apocalypse fool you–the story explores some heavy questions.
The series tell a hilariously engaging story about some serious subjects (what really is the difference between good and evil, do the ends ever justify the means, how many forms that platonic love can take, and so on) without ever tripping over itself. Most of the jokes land as well or better than they did in the book.
I really liked it.
And at the end, just as the first time I reached the end of the book, I felt that if a demon, an angel, and a determined eleven-year-old can save that world, maybe there is some hope for ours.
Footnotes:
1. I had reached a point where I was no longer fooling myself that I was bisexual–but I was also married to a woman2 and there were many reasons that confronting that conflict was being avoided by both of us. I was also experiencing some really weird and frankly frightening health issues.
2. Who remains one of my best friends all these years later.
3. The subsequent separation and divorce, plus the social and financial fallout from that continued for a few years. Then my partner (we called each other husbands, but Ray never lived long enough for us to be legally more than registered domestic partners) was diagnosed with a terminal illness. Again, all my attention was elsewhere.
4. I hadn’t dipped into that pile before this year, though I have re-read a lot of my favorites more frequently than I used to.
5. A job that he said, since he’s never really done it before, he approached thusly: any time there was a decision to be made, he asked himself which choice would have delighted Terry, if he were here to see the final product. And that’s the one he chose every time.
6. Often either things that they decided just to allude to in the original novel, or in some cases sub-plots and characters from the sequel that they planned and plotted but never wrote.7
7. Planned title: 668: The Neighbor of the Beast.
8. The parts I’m thinking of mostly involved him reading more of the archaically worded prophecies from Agnes Nutter’s books and helping Anathema figure out what they mean. Since that kind of scene is difficult to make interesting on screen, I understand why they were minimized.
