Talking politics: social media snark (February 24-26, 2021)

It's a function of how catastrophically awful the Trump régime was that this is big news:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I know Dr. Levine has faced nonsense like this in the past, and was surely prepared for something like what Rand Paul, continuing to perfect his caricature of the loudmouth white ignoramus, delivered. But that still doesn't make it OK by any stretch. #TransRightsAreHumanRights

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Rep. Jordan acts like an idiot on a good day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The smugness of the gesture is beyond galling: a naked assertion of privilege that doesn't give a fuck how stupid it is—or who it hurts. #TransLivesMatter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

February 17, 2021

This gal (a female red-bellied woodpecker based on my research) visited the tree outside my apartment for a while this morning. She was pulling stuff out of the end of that broken limb—whether frozen grubs or simply pieces of ice for hydration, I couldn't tell.

 

February 13, 2021

Listening to the Trump defense counsel's closing argument, I'm reminded of the RNC last summer: the distortions and outright lies are coming so thick and fast, and are being presented with such apparent conviction, that counsel seems to be attempting to erect an alternate reality through the volume of misinformation c/w sheer force of will: Truth-by-Blitzkrieg.

January 21, 2021

So here's a bit of sexist marketing I just noticed. I was looking for socks on Amazon, and thought I had the search filter set to women's, but it evidently reverted to "all clothing," so that I was presented with a selection of men's socks. I reset the filter, and was struck by the difference in the mannequin's feet. For men, there is a slight angle, suggesting imminent action, like a sprinter poised to take off. For women, by contrast, the feet are set at a tip toe angle, denoting the kind of walking one is forced to do when wearing (quite high) heels: cautious and constrained. The plain contrast is men = agents, women = ornaments. It's the sort of messaging that's not really subliminal, since it's there in plain sight, but is nonetheless imbibed unconsciously for the most part, I suspect; and like so many other things, it reinforces (to the detriment of those of us who identify as female) the presumption that gender is a simple binary, and not a magically complex continuum.