2020: Men with more money, hate, and self-loathing than sense

March 7, 2020newsalt-right, anti-gay, bigots, haters, nazis, news, religious wingnuts, rightwingfontfolly

It is time once again for another of my Saturday posts where I talk about news stories that either broke after I finished this week’s Friday Five, or a story having been linked and/or commented upon in any of my previous posts has had new developments. Let’s go!

So, yesterday I included a link to a story where a guy who is frequently on CNBC as a financial expert said that it would be better for the economy if everyone just got sick the people who are going to die from COVID-19 just did so and got it over with so the rest of the world could get on with business. He didn’t literally quote the line from A Christmas Carol where Scrooge tells the two well-meaning gentleman taking donations for the poor that people who would rather die than go into the debtor’s prison that, if they would rather die, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population,” but he came close. Well, since then he has tried to backpedal a bit: Rick Santelli Sorry He Said You Should Get Sick And Die, For The Economy. Of course, since this is hardly the first time he has said that we shouldn’t care about people who have had bad things happen to them, I rather doubt his sincerity.

Let’s move on.

Earlier in the week I logged into the blog to work on a post, and I saw that my clicks were way, way up. So I looked at the list, and two old blog posts about disgraced former Congressman Aaron Schock (and self-loathing closet case) were getting a whole lot of hits. I had already seen the news stories where he finally came out of the closet (again, I’ll get into that), so I shouldn’t have been surprised—yet I was. Anyway, because one particular old Weekend Update post on the subject always gets lots of hits whenever Schock is in the news, I have taken to adding updates to the bottom of said post rather than keep making new posts just for him. I did so again. I’m gonna just quote it here for starts:

Update 7: Now, here it is March 2020, and Schock has decided to really come out. He means it, this time, because there is a really long post about it on his Instagram. As Joe Jervis notes on Joe.My.God: “The post goes on for several self-pitying pages.” He still doesn’t apologize for all his anti-gay votes and campaigning. The closest he comes is saying if he were in Congress today he would vote differently on LGBT issues. But he also reaffirms several times that he still supports the rest of the Republican agenda. In the self-pitying parts he blames his anti-gay votes on feeling the need to fit in with his Republican colleagues, which I’m going to give myself a silver star for, as I have predicted on this blog that Schock would eventually come out and blame the pressures of being closeted for all his hateful speeches and votes.

Since making that update, I keep seeing news outlets carrying the story of Schock coming out, and a lot of them are reporting it as if it’s just a sort-of-famous person coming out and isn’t he brave? Except, of course, he isn’t.

Those self-pitying pages of his really long Instagram post are filled with, “woe is me, my bigoted parents/friends/former colleagues have all rejected me” since he was caught on camera making out and groping guys in public, and his really bad attempt at coming out last August by actually asking a couple of other gay republicans to pretend to leak some of his pictures and conversations trying to hookup with men for sex online (and then renouncing it).

Millions of queer people have been rejected by family members. Some of us even had close family members threaten to beat us or worse (even if we came out after moving out on our own and becoming productive members of society). But most of us didn’t run for political office on extremely anti-gay platforms, vote against LGBT rights, give hateful speeches in Congress and on the campaign trail calling for rollback of what rights we had clawed out in some jurisdictions at the time. And most of us weren’t so comfortably well off that we could afford more than one multi-million dollar homes. I’m sure he’s not quite as wealthy as he used to be, but he has the funds to go to across the continent to attend the music festival where he was groping those guys, and later to Mexico where he was videoed putting money into the g-string of a male stripper. So I’m having trouble feeling sorry for him right now.

During each of the six years he was in Congress (from 2009-2015), several hundred kids were bullied because people suspected they were queer to the point that they committed suicide. Even more kids each of those years were thrown out on the streets by religious parents. Speeches Schock made in those years and votes he took contributed to the hostile homophobic environment that causes that bullying and rejection. So he has to do some atonement before he’s entitled to any sympathy.

I’ll let someone else say it: A Message to Former Congressman Aaron Schock — Welcome, I guess?

I will admit, at first I wanted to rant, “Girl, bye. Take your Republican, anti-LGBTQ ass outta here and go rub suntan oil on some WeHo dummy who doesn’t know he’s sleeping with the enemy.” But I thought better of that. I thought, “No, I should take the high road. What Aaron needs is help, because attractive, rich, gay, white celebrities never get help.”’

…So Aaron, I want to help you. I want to offer you the help you don’t deserve and that you never gave anyone else you oppressed. Privilege, right? It’s great.

It’s funny, and he has some good suggestions.

And now, for a different kind of self-loathing gay man: Ex-Judge Guilty Of Buying AR-15 For Nazi Boyfriend. I tried to follow the link that is inside that story to read the longer piece at the Pittsburgh Gazette, but the website asked me to whitelist the site to proceed. So I did, and in order to whitelist you have to then refresh and guess what, they then tell me that I have exceeded my free stories for the month. That is a really badly programmed paywall. Anyway, to avoid a paywall you can get some more details here: Retired Judge Admits To Buying AR-15 For Felon With Nazi Obsession.

It’s not crazy enough that a retired federal judge, of all people, illegally bought at least one semiautomatic rifle for the convicted felon who also happens to be a neo-Nazi. It’s that the judge, who is a man, and the neo-Nazi, who is also a man, are in a romantic relationship. Why do so many self-loathing gay white guys embrace Hitler? The original Nazis hated the gays (please go google “night of long knives” and “history of the pink triangle” if you’re not familiar). And neo-Nazis hate the gays, too. WTF?

The feds found a rather large cache of weapons, ammunition, and Nazi memorabilia. Some people just have way more money than sense, I guess.

Anyway, I wanna close this by quoting a hilarious tweet from more more than a year ago which explains why the image I linked above recommends composting rather than eating the rich. Take it away @Foone:

friendly reminder since this is going around again: DO NOT EAT THE RICH!
it’s called bio-magnification, people! the rich are at the top of the food chain, so they accumulate toxins from their food at a greatly increased rate.
Instead, /compost/ the rich.

Friday Five (what peace accord? edition)

March 6, 2020bloggingfriday, friday five, friday links, links, newsfontfolly

We’ve reached the first Friday in March, and I wish I was feeling a bit more upbeat about it.

Not to focus too much on one news event, but it just so happens that I live in the same county where nearly all of the coronavirus deaths that have happened in the U.S. thus far have occurred. I worked from home the first couple of days of the week because I was having a few bad hay fever days, which means I was sniffling and sneezing and occasionally coughing. Since I have remained fever free all week, I do not believe that I am sick, however, right now nobody wants to be around anyone who is coughing or otherwise seems to be sick. Then, the county health department recommended that anyone who could work at home should, and my boss and her boss asked all of us to work from home for the rest of the week. Since then the state health department has made the same request, and the executives at my employer have asked us all to keep working from home for the foreseeable future. So I have not witnessed for myself much less crowded the buses and lots of public places downtown reportedly are. I do happen to be in an age bracket that is considered at higher risk for having severe symptoms if I do get sick, and I have one of the longterm health issues that is also on that list. And I come from a long line of Professional Worriers™, so while my usual optimism is still intact, there are moments.

Meanwhile, welcome to the Friday Five. This week I bring you: the top five stories of the week, five stories of interest to queers and our allies, five stories about the possible pandemic, five stories about the deplorable thug occupying the White House, and five videos (plus notable obituaries and some things I wrote).

Utah’s coronavirus response team accuses Trump of spreading misinformation. I think the word you’re looking for isn’t “accuses” but rather “points out” …

In Memoriam:

Freeman Dyson, Math Genius Turned Visionary Technologist, Dies at 96.

Rosalind P. Walter, the First ‘Rosie the Riveter,’ Is Dead at 95.

David Wise, writer of Emmy-winning Star Trek: The Animated Series episode, has died.

Comics artist Frank McLaughlin Dies at Age 84.

Things I wrote:

Weekend Update 02/29/2020: the Graveyard of Empires.

A Surfeit of Ex-Borgs: Jean-Luc Picard beams into the “Impossible Box”.

Tuesday Tidbits: Not the good kind of viral.

Drip, drip, drip— or, Showing up matters.

Videos!

Elizabeth Warren announces she is ending her presidential campaign:

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)

Trump Calls Criticism of His Coronavirus Response a “Hoax” as Concerns Grow: A Closer Look:

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)

Learn To Wash Your Hands The Right Way with Samantha Bee | Full Frontal on TBS:

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)

CONNECTED – Official Trailer (HD):

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)

ANY DEM WILL DO! – A Randy Rainbow Song Parody:

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)

Drip, drip, drip— or, Showing up matters

March 4, 2020newscandidates, human nature, news, people, vote, votingfontfolly

A drop of water falls into more water... — Credit: Pixabay

A few months before my 18th birthday, both my maternal and paternal grandfathers, independently, started asking me if I had registered to vote, since I was going to be eligible to vote in the upcoming midterm elections. They were both big believers that voting wasn’t merely a right, it is also a responsibility. My paternal grandfather, for instance, was the one who told me when I was much younger that I shouldn’t argue politics with my father specifically because Dad had never voted in his life and therefore didn’t have a right to express an opinion on such matter.

The main thing I remember about that first election was that the person I voted to represent me in Congress won, while the down ballot races were more mixed. My preferred party lost the majority in the state legislatures lower house, that year.

Two years later was the first time I voted in a presidential election, and I have much more vivid recollections of just what a painful election it was. The guy I least wanted to become president (Reagan) won. My choices for Senator, Governor, and state Attorney General lost. The both house of the state legislator swung heavily into Republican control. I was devastated. It was another 12 years before the person who I chose on the general election ballot would win the Presidency—and that person had not been the candidate I supported during the caucuses. Then another 16 years before the candidate I favored in the caucuses got the nomination (and went on to become President).

My point is, out of 10 presidential election cycles, only four times did the person I vote for win, and even less often did the candidate I favored in the run-up even make it to the ballot. And the way things look right now, the person I wish would get the nomination and become the next president has become quite a longshot. But at no point has it ever made sense to me that I shouldn’t vote.

I was reminded this morning—while I was looking at the demographic information about who actually turned out to vote in yesterday’s primaries (and the heated discussion from some quarters about the results)—of the Zen story about A Drop of Water:

A Zen master asked a young student to bring him a pail of water to cool his bath.

The student brought the water, and after cooling the bath, threw the remaining water over the ground.

“Think,” said the master to the student. “You could have watered the temple plants with those few drops you have thrown away.”

The young student understood Zen in that exact moment. He changed his name to Tekisui, which means drop of water, and lived to become a wise Zen master himself.

The usual lesson people take from the story is that it’s easy while struggling with big problems (the buckets of water), to become careless about more routine chores.

One of the most fundamental of chores is to show up. It doesn’t matter how pure or noble your intentions are. It doesn’t matter how many people you have ~~harassed~~ tried to educate on line. It doesn’t even matter if you have volunteered or donated to your great and noble candidate. If you don’t show up and vote, you leave the decision to other people. And yelling about conspiracies after the vote didn’t go your way, rather than admitting that the people who showed up (and thanks to voter suppression tricks going on in some states, stood in line for up to 7 hours before getting to cast their votes) just picked a different person.

If you did show up and vote, but the polling data indicates that a lot of people who claim to agree with you didn’t, those people are the ones you should be yelling at. They are the ones who have let you down. The other voters who maybe have your candidate as their second or third choice are not the problem.

Tuesday Tidbits: Not the good kind of viral

March 3, 2020newsflu, news, virusfontfolly

It didn’t occur to me at the time that I got caught in a traffic jam in a parking lot for more than 40 minutes this weekend that panicked-hoarding shopping might have been part of the problem. But based on the reports of stores being completely out of toilet paper, soap, cleaning supplies (especially hand sanitizer), and any and all kinds of breathing masks in the region, maybe that was a factor.

I know this is all over the news, and if you’re tired of reading about it, I strongly urge you to skip down to the hilarious John Oliver video. It’s got good information, but it is also funny, and I really need the laugh!

Yes, it is worse than the flu: busting the coronavirus myths – The truth about the protective value of face masks, the speed at which a vaccine could be ready and how easy it is to catch Covid-19.

Trump is ignoring the lessons of 1918 flu pandemic that killed millions, historian says.

It’s hard to know what perspective to take on any of this news, if for no other reasons than that a lot of people have trouble visualizing the numbers that may be involved. And even though I have been one of the people pointing out how many hundreds of thousands of people die from influenza each year, comparing it to the flu isn’t really a good analogy. Influenza has been infecting humans for generations, and we have flu vaccines. That means a large portion of the population already have anti-bodies that work against some strains of flu. Covid-19 doesn’t appear to be similar enough to any viruses most of us have ever encountered, so none of us have any resistance.

And speaking of people not understanding (or outright intentionally misusing) statistics: No, 38% Of Americans Probably Didn’t Stop Drinking Corona Because Of Coronavirus – When polling gets filtered through beer goggles and What the Dubious Corona Poll Reveals – Americans are desperate to believe the worst about one another.

And then there are the crazy conspiracy theories, some coming out of the mouths of Senators and White House officials: Trying to sum right-wing reactions to the Covid-19 situation.

Because: When a Pandemic Meets a Personality Cult.

Enough of all that. This video does a great job of summarizing facts, putting things in as much perspective as possible, with a lot of laughs (and part of it has a great beat that is easy to dance to) — John Oliver Warns Against Extreme Reactions to the Coronavirus: “Don’t be complacent, and don’t be a f**king idiot.” :

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)

A Surfeit of Ex-Borgs: Jean-Luc Picard beams into the “Impossible Box”

March 2, 2020science fictionsci fi, science fiction, sf/f, star trek, televisionfontfolly

My episode-by-episode reviews of Star Trek: Picard continue with the sixth episode, “The Impossible Box,” in which Jean-Luc returns to a Borg cube, is reunited with Hugh from The Next Generation and finally meets Soji. This was an extremely enjoyable episode. Not just enjoyable, it is very, very good. Episode six has it all: lots of wonderful character moments, both Jean-Luc’s and Soji’s plots advance significantly, the Borg concept is made to be frightening again while still showing the ex-Borgs as victims, there is intrigue and danger and consequences and action. Oh, and Elnor is becoming my new favorite as in this episode he gets to be extremely sweet and naive while still also being a relentless killing machine.

What more could you ask for?

Past this point there be plot spoilers. So if you don’t want to be spoiled, don’t read on.

Continue reading A Surfeit of Ex-Borgs: Jean-Luc Picard beams into the “Impossible Box” →

Weekend Update 02/29/2020: the Graveyard of Empires

February 29, 2020newsfox news, newsfontfolly

So many stories popped up during the lunchtime read yesterday, that I was contemplating a different format of a Weekend Update this time, with a lot less commentary and just a bunch of links. Then I woke up this morning to a really big news story, which was related to a link that didn’t make it into this week’s Friday Five… so you’re going to get some commentary, oh some commentary!

For some context: 133 years ago, when Arthur Conan Doyle’s very first Sherlock Holmes story (A Study In Scarlet) was published, he introduced the world to both Sherlock and Dr. John Watson. Watson, we learn in the first scene, was a British Army medic serving in Afghanistan where he was wounded so severely he was mustered out and has returned to England to try to get his life back together. The British spent decades trying to tame Afghanistan during the 1800s, and never did.

It should have come as no surprise, I mean, 2350 years ago Alexander the Great was busy conquering the Persian Empire, and pursued one of his enemies into what is now Afghanistan which seemed to him an easy territory to conquer. At first. Later historians described the guerilla style insurgencies that kept coming up there to thwart Alexander’s plan as a many-headed hydra: whenever they struck one group down, two more arose to take its place. 1500 years later, Ghengis Khan’s grandson was killed in the Mongol’s failed attempt to conquer the territory. A century and a half later, the Mughal Empire technically conquered it, but never really had control, either.

There are at least a dozen more of those attempted invasions that mostly failed during the times before 1650 AD, and that is part of the issue with the territory. Because most of those failed invasions left a small population behind that would become yet another ethnic group with its own religion and culture (Most of the inhabitants of the Hazar Valley now are believed to be descended from the Mongol garrison left behind to keep a trade route open, for instance).

The British tried many times between 1845 and 1883 to turn the territory into a stable country that could be either part of the British Empire or at least an allied nation. The Russian Empire first tried to pacify part of what is now Afghanistan in 1885 and the Russians and the Brits basically treated Afghanistan as a football to score points against each other for the next 60-some years. Then starting in 1979 the Soviet Union tried again, eventually admitting defeat after ten years of costly war.

In other words, Afghanistan has been called the Graveyard of Empires for very good reasons.

On an older blog I ranted about all of these things when George W. Bush decided to invade Afghanistan in 2001. Yes, we needed to take action after the 9/11 attacks, but trying to turn Afghanistan into a stable country that would be our ally? That was (and still is) ludicrously unrealistic.

Now we have a little background to tackle today’s news:

U.S. Signs Peace Deal With Taliban After Nearly 2 Decades Of War In Afghanistan.

Wonderful! Peace in Our Time (what could possibly go wrong?) So what is is in this agreement? There’s a pretty thorough break down here: What does the Taliban-US peace agreement say? – The long-awaited comprehensive peace agreement between the two sides is made of four parts.

Important points to consider:

This agreement is between the U.S. and the Taliban (aka the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, which is not recognized by the United States as a state). The current Afghan government (such as it is) was not involved in the negotiations directly.
Today we signed a separate agreement with them committing them to enter into a ceasefire and peace talks with the Taliban “and other involved Afghan parties” beginning on March 10.
Also on March 10, we and the Afghans will release about 5000 Taliban prisoners of war (and the Taliban and their allies will release about 1000 prisoners of war they are holding).
Over the course of the next 125 days the U.S. will pull about 3,400 troops from Afghanistan including closing down five bases.
Over the course of the subsequent 9 months, assuming the ceasefire holds up, and assuming that the negotiations between all the “involved Afghan parties” are fruitful, the remaining 8600 U.S. troops (and however many coalition troops remain) will leave.
The Taliban promises to ensure that the territory of Afghanistan will never again be used by groups to threaten the U.S. or its allies, and to help make Afghanistan a country where all people are equal and free.

Sounds good, right?

Well, except, that bit about if the ceasefire holds, all the groups come to an agreement. That’s another of the tricky bits: With Taliban Talks Soon to Start, Afghan Government Splits Apart – The Taliban gloat as Afghanistan’s chief executive refuses to accept the election outcome and vows to form his own “inclusive government”. The last couple of elections in Afghanistan have not gone smoothly. According to many within the country, the election in 2014 didn’t decided who the next President of Afghanistan was, but rather U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry did. And the same people are claiming the same thing but this time it’s Trump’s appointed envoy who decided which side of the disputed race to back.

And a whole lot of people are having a very hard time, based on what the Taliban did when it took over the country in 1996, believing the promised to make Afghanistan a country where all people are equal and free. Back then, they made it illegal for girls and women to go to school. If women were found outside of their homes without a male relative as their escort and without wearing a burqua, they were subject to arrest and public flogging. Young women and girls of certain ethnic groups were abducted with government approval and sold into sex slavery. Then there were the targetting massacres of regions or some ethnic groups deemed as enemies of the Islamic state…

The truth is that if we stay there, we will continue to lose troops, and people within the country will be radicalized and become prime candidates for recruitment by terrorist groups. I completely understand that. And I understand that even if everyone plays nice until we exit, bad things will probably start happening all over again.

Trump needs to be able to claim he finally ended the war. You can bet that’s going to be one of the things he loudly congratulates himself on at his next rally and will continue to do so…

But you should also remember, that last summer he was proclaiming that an agreement to withdraw all troops was just around the corner. Then a car bomb killed a bunch of people, including one American serviceman, and Trump walked away from the agreement, and conveniently stopped talking about it…

So, no, I don’t really find anything to feel hopeful about in this mess at all.

Friday Five (schemes and denial edition)

February 28, 2020bloggingfriday, friday five, friday links, links, newsfontfolly

Here we are at the fourth Friday in February! And tomorrow with be the fifth Saturday!

We had another mostly dry week. Some days very cold, some not quite as bad. Meanwhile, the world continues to fall apart. Sometimes I feel like Nero with his fiddle.

Meanwhile, welcome to the Friday Five. This week I bring you: the top five stories of the week, five stories of interest to queers and our allies, five stories about deplorable people, five stories about the deplorable thug occupying the White House, and five videos (plus notable obituaries and some things I wrote).

Stories of the Week:

Earth has temporarily gained another moon.

Another Study Casts Doubt on Effectiveness of Trigger Warnings .

The Lost 110 Words of Our Constitution.

How the CIA used Crypto AG encryption devices to spy on countries for decades.

Coronavirus: The race to find the source in wildlife.

This Week in News for Queers and Allies:

Lesbian Teacher Wins $100K in Bias Case, Donates Thousands to Charity.

What the AIDS Memorial Quilt Means in 2020.

Men Are Tweeting #BisexualMenExist. Here’s Why That Matters.

Pentagon-funded study shows troops mostly oppose Trump’s transgender military ban – Trump said that trans military members undermines troop readiness, but this study suggests that his ban is actually undermining it more.

Disney+ scraps LGBTQ show ‘Love, Victor’ because it isn’t “family-friendly”. But movies were millions of people are killed are still deemed family-friendly?

This Week in Deplorables:

FBI Busts Atomwaffen Domestic Terrorists Around The Country – The foursome—Cameron Brandon Shea, 24, of Redmond, Washington; Kaleb Cole, 24, a former Seattle-area resident now in Texas; Taylor Ashley Parker-Dipeppe, 20, of Spring Hill, Florida; and Johnny Roman Garza, 20, of Queen Creek, Arizona—were arrested this week for targeting journalists and others with threatening posters delivered to them warning that “You Have Been Visited By Your Local Nazis.”.

2 Indiana pizza shops fined for not reporting delivery drivers’ murders.

Christian Men Behind Biblical Oil Scheme May Be Conning People Again.

Bernie Sanders Staffer Mocked Elizabeth Warren’s Looks, Pete Buttigieg’s Sexuality on Private Twitter Account.

Pete Buttigieg Denounces the Politics That Made Him Possible.

This Week in the Deplorable Thug Occupying the White House:

WH Moves To Screen Scientists’ Statements On Coronavirus. Should we be surprised given how anti-science this administration is?

Trump’s CDC chief faces increasingly harsh scrutiny – Early missteps on coronavirus, lack of a consistent message make the nation’s disease-fighting agency a focus of criticism.

Trump puts man who enabled Indiana HIV outbreak in charge of coronavirus task force.

Report: US health workers responding to coronavirus quarantine lacked training, protective gear.

Trump’s coronavirus lies: He doesn’t care if his fans get sick.