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The Shows and Movies We Love, Part Two

Posted on July 18th, 2024

Dave!Yesterday I blathered on about asshole movie studios depriving customers of what they paid for... access to movies and shows that were sold to them. But that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Something I cannot fathom is how studios will sit on shows they own and not release them for people to enjoy. This was something that hit me pretty hard after Stephen Dunham died in 2012. He was the star of Oh Grow Up! (from 1999), a series I loved that can't be watched anywhere. It was never released on DVD, was never offered digitally and, from what I can tell, has never been shown on any network after its original run. I have it recorded on 8mm tape somewhere, but don't know that I have a player capable of playing them even if I could find the tapes. You can tapes to be converted to digital, but companies won't do it because they're copyrighted material.

What a waste. Dunham was a good actor and his work deserves to be seen. The pilot episode is on YouTube, but not much else...

Sometimes you can get lucky. There was a show called The Palace Guard (from 1991) which I loved that was eventually released as a part of a Stephen J. Cannell DVD collection set (and I've seen it on some free-view services from time to time... it's currently playing for free on Plex). It was a fun show about a cat burglar that becomes a security expert for an international chain of hotels. But I don't know how much longer those DVDs will even work, if they haven't crapped out already (see yesterday's post)...

Other times you can get... kinda lucky. A Connie Sellecca and Greg Evigan vehicle I liked called P.S.I. Luv U (also from 1991) was never released for home video in any format... but some kind soul uploaded all episodes to YouTube nine years ago, albeit in atrocious quality, and I have watched through them all a couple times...

No idea how legal it is, but if the studio who owns it isn't going to do anything with the show, somebody has to. It's one of six series I would very much be thrilled to purchase (and there's plenty of others)...

  • P.S.I. Luv U (1991)
  • Strange Luck (1995)
  • Cupid (1998)
  • Oh Grow Up! (1999)
  • Now and Again (1999)
  • The American Embassy (2002)

The frustrating thing about all this is that it costs practically nothing to convert a show to digital format. It's all automated. You put the tapes in the machine and push a button. The software which encodes it and cleans it up doesn't require any technical expertise. Just a person to load/unload.

You'd think with streaming networks desperate to have content for their services which are exceedingly cheap, this would be a no-brainer. But it's not like you could accuse studio executives of having a brain.

   

The Shows and Movies We Love, Part One

Posted on July 17th, 2024

Dave!I own a bajillion DVDs and Blu-Ray Discs. I love movies and television. I love owning my favorite shows so I can re-watch whenever I want. When digital streaming came along, I made the switch happily because I simply didn't have the space to store all that physical media. But then we all found out a sad truth... shows and movies you bought and paid for can be taken from you with absolutely no recourse. You pay for the right to stream something, and that right can be stripped from you at any time when a studio removes it from Google Play or iTunes or wherever.

So back to buying physical media, right? The studios can't break into your house and take those back!

Except they don't have to. Because physical media isn't made to last, and some studios know that... but don't give a shit. They got your money, and that's all they care about. Something this video talks about in depth, mostly focusing on the abomination that is Warner Bros., who is a fucking shitty company for many reasons, and this is a big one...

It's absolutely bonkers that those of us who do the right thing and pay for the stuff we want to own get punished for it. And yet here we are.

Buy physical media? It rots and no longer works.

Buy digital copies? Studios can strip them from you at any time.

Subscribe to a studio's streaming service directly? Studios can remove those shows even more easily.

The only option left is to buy physical media, then "back it up" by ripping it to your computer. Legally, you do have a right to have a backup so long as you continue to own the original media. Which is to say that you can't buy a DVD, rip it, then sell the DVD. Except... it's illegal to circumnavigate copy protection to actually make the backup. And of course DVDs and Blu-Rays have copy protection.

It's a total load of shit. Personally I am of the belief that once you buy a DVD or Blu-Ray or digital copy of something, you should maintain the right to view it regardless of what happens. If a DVD rots, you should have the right to purchase replacement media at cost or get a digital copy for free. And once something is sold digitally, studios don't get to take it back from you. They must provide a way for you to get what you paid for. Or else they shouldn't be allowed to sell it in the first place.

But powerful studios own our politicians, so that's expecting too much.

THEY doing illegal shit to strip you of what you bought is forgivable. YOU doing illegal shit to have access to what you paid for is not.

Typical.

   

Sonos is Killing Sonos and It Deserves to Die

Posted on June 14th, 2024

Dave!Another day another way Sonos is screwing their customers. I am so fucking sick and tired of this shit.

First Sonos forces you to upgrade to a new piece of shit controller app that's missing features and is badly unintuitive. But they dumped it on us before it was ready so they could release a new pair of headphones that requires it. And while I can forgive a lot, having to constantly wait for playlists to load is driving me up the fucking wall. This is what I see ALL THE FUCKING TIME NOW...

Fuck Sonos

And it gets worse. Playlists constantly, unrelentingly pause to buffer. If you've got a lot of songs in a list, scrolling is absolute agony...

Fuck Sonos

I'm guessing this is because you can no longer control your speakers locally, and have to go out on the internet through the shitty fucking Sonos servers to access the shitty fucking speaker sitting in the same room with you.

Then today it was revealed that Sonos removed the line from their user agreement saying that they won't sell your data. It's still in the agreements outside of the USA but, because this fucking country cares more about corporations than people, Americans get fucked by Sonos. Again.

So what's next? Sonos starts charging you a subscription fee to use their idiotic fucking app that's required to control the speakers you bought? At this rate, it seems not only possible, but expected.

Sonos should be forced to allow local control of their gear by consumer protections... because that's how it was when we bought it. Now it's just an internet device that puts you at the whim of Sonos's fucking stupidity, and I would have never signed up for that.

   

Bullet Sunday 854

Posted on May 5th, 2024

Dave!I'm in full-on construction mode here in my home, but have no fear... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Shield Gate! Yesterday I mentioned that every time I watch Rogue One: A Star Wars Story I go running to the internet to watch the super-cut of all the space battles because they're just so cool and amazing to look at. And here you go...

You're welcome! Dang pushing the Star Destroyer into the Shield Gate was brilliant fun.

   
• Acolyte! The big news out of yesterday was that Star Wars gave us a peek at new Star Wars on Star Wars Day...

Looks darn good! But I'm so used to being shown the best bits of the show in the trailer, then finding out that it's nothing like what they showed us. So I guess we'll see.

   
• Mazes Got Nuthin' on This! I fell down a rabbit hole of videos of crows being geniuses. Then octopi. And then... rats?!?

Rats driving a car. Who knew?

   
• Dementia Village! The dementia care home I found for my mom wasn't a sterile, boring, hospital-like place. It looked more like a home with different textures and colors and interesting things to look at... other patients to visit with. Her room was likewise nothing like a hospital room, and could be filled with all her stuff so it felt familiar. The hallways was in a big loop so she couldn't get lost. For what it was, I thought it was quite nice. The only thing missing was a way for her to wander outside and look around. And idea which was has been explored by this Dutch facility, which is incredible...

As happy as I was with the facility I found for my mom, I would have been thrilled if she could have stayed in a place like this. So much more friendly. I really hope these "dementia villages" catch on.

   
• Hulk Smash! The Incredible Hulk Coaster at Universal Studios Islands of Adventure Orlando is hands-down my favorite rollercoaster. I rode it the year it debuted, then rode it plenty more times over the years (one visit to the park I rode it five times!). This video talks about the coaster, and I've skipped past all the non-Hulk-Coaster crap at the beginning...

I did ride it after the refurbishment, and was impressed. They kept the classic coaster everybody loves... just made the experience better from start to finish. No other coaster I've ridden since has compared to it. Not bad for a coaster 25 years old!

   
• AI FAIL! I had the same thing to say about both the Humane AI Pin and the Rabbit R1: "Once Apple & Google unleash AI assistants on their phones, all these additional gadgets are toast." But this was before either of these devices were released to horrific reviews. They're useless. Snazzy Labs has a great overview of both devices at the same time so you only have to watch one video...

The Humane AI Pin was fucking useless on paper and is worse than useless in practice. I was a little more bullish about the Rabbit R1 because it at least had a screen to interact with stuff and sounded like it had a better service. But it turns out that it's worse than useless too. Which is to say that Apple & Google are winning before they've even released anything. How boring.

   
• Fuck This Fucking Fuck! I gotta say... watching puppy-killing piece of shit Kristi Noem getting dragged from one end of the internet to the other is the best thing ever. She murders animals not because she needs food or is in danger... but because she just fucking loves to kill (surrendering your "problem" puppy to an animal shelter means you can't kill it, so she must love it)...

I hope her political career is truly toast, because a sadistic fuck like this has no business holding any political office. If she thrills to kill a fucking puppy... can you imagine what she would do to make lives harder for people she doesn't like? And now she's blaming all her lies and bullshit on her ghost-writer. Which is hilarious given that SHE NARRATED HER OWN AUDIOBOOK AND KNEW FULL WELL WHAT IT CONTAINED! That happened after she fucking lied about staring down Kim Jong Un. Jesus what a dipshit asshole.

   
And now back to construction, already in progress.

   

Bullet Sunday 853

Posted on April 28th, 2024

Dave!I woke up mostly pain-free, so my ambition was to clean my frickin' home. But I can't let cleaning get in the way of my Sunday obligations... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• Dead! I enjoyed Netflix and Neil Gaiman's Dead Boy Detectives. Though it really makes me want a Death: the High Cost of Living series even more. But anyway... the one thing that disappoints me is that in the original comic books, they were dead BOY detectives. Young boys. 12-year olds I think. These "boys" are in their twenties. Not really boys at all. This changes the dynamic of the story in a kinda weird way. But they did keep the random weirdness that makes the comics so good, so there's that...

I really wish that they had cast young kids, but I guess that wouldn't work if we get a second season because they would age out when they're not supposed to age at all? But odds are we won't get a second season because Netflix gives all their money to Zack Snyder for his shitty fucking movies (Rebel Moon Part 2: The Scargiver was BEYOND shitty). Oh well. Netflix keeps this up and I won't have a need for their service. One more streamer in the toilet.

   
• Street! My favorite YouTube rabbit hole this week was courtesy of Printographer. He takes street photos of people... then prints out a photo to give to them. The results are sometimes pretty great...

 

Public employees like police officers and public workers seem like the best candidates for this. I'm not sure how I feel about snapping random women... and especially kids? Seems like an invitation to trouble? I'm too cynical, I guess. I hope that all these people (public or not) give their permission to be posted to YouTube.

   
• NEWSFLASH: Many people say their Apple IDs were inexplicably reset last night. — I was one of the people affected, and it fucking sucked. All my app-specific passwords now have to be reset. Does Apple know how much time that takes? DO THEY GIVE A SHIT?!? And of course Apple's promise to kill having to enter passwords is fucking bullshit, because NOT ONCE was FaceID or TouchID used for anything. It was just an endless loop of entering fucking passwords. Assholes. Jesus Christ and I sick and fucking tired of Apple's hypocrisy cycle.

   
• FUCKING ARREST HER! I don't give a shit if if this psychotic asshole is the D.A., why the fuck wasn't she treated like ANY OTHER PERSON would have been if they acted this way during a valid traffic stop? Why wasn't she dragged the fuck out of her garage, slammed up against the back of her fucking vehicle, fucking handcuffed, THEN FUCKING ARRESTED?

"Let me call my supervisor." Good Lord. She's a D.A., so she gets to drive 55 in a 35mph zone? Fuck that. Fuck her. She's absolute garbage, and the fact that she thinks people like her are above the law means she has NO FUCKING BUSINESS BEING A D.A. OR EVEN NEAR THE D.A.'S OFFICE. I hope she gets fucking fired from her job and thrown IN FUCKING JAIL. You know... LIKE I WOULD BE IF I WERE TO ACT LIKE THIS DURING A FUCKING TRAFFIC STOP. And can you imagine if this was a Black woman pulling this attitude? D.A. or no D.A., she would be lucky to survive it. "I had a bad day." Yeah, that's a valid excuse to get out of speeding. Seriously, public officials who exploit their office for personal gain need to be in jail.

   
• On the Tip! TLC Forever is on Netflix. I've seen TLC documentaries before, but this one seems different? Not sure if I saw it when it was released last year. They just got to the part where they are shooting the making of the video for Waterfalls where they are out in the middle of a giant water tank. I was there at Universal Studios California while they were shooting it...

I even took a photo, but I have no idea where it is because I'm pretty sure it was taken on film. Regardless, they have a heck of a story.

   
• NEWSFLASH: Vaccine breakthrough means no more chasing strains. This... this right here... is a miracle. The ultimate goal of RNA vaccines since the very beginning. And yet there will be people who would rather suffer and die (or, tragically, rather their child suffer and die) than accept this gift from science... or gift from God, if you're so inclined. I will never understand where this world went off the rails. We used to embrace science. It used to not be all absurd religious drama and conspiracy theories. Maybe Satan does exist, and this is his handiwork?

   
• Full-On Drag! Glorious. Everybody already knows my thoughts on Jamie Oliver, so you'll understand why I loved this video...

It's always nice when I'm not alone in my loathing of public personalities!

   
And now back to cleaning up. Can't somebody buy me housekeeping services? Is that really too much to ask?

   

Bullshit Political Tactics

Posted on April 25th, 2024

Dave!Anybody who supports revoking Net Neutrality either has no idea what the fuck they are talking about... or they run a Big Cable or Big Telco company and lust over the idea of controlling the internet for a buck... or are politicians sucking Big Cable and Big Telco dick for cash. There's seriously no other options here. Revoking Net Neutrality is a seriously bad move from every possible angle when seen from the perspective of the American people. Period.

And now that the FCC isn't being raw-dogged by eternal piece of shit Ajit Pai, the commission agrees. Because Net Neutrality has been restored. Granted, it was in a 3-to-2 split vote along party lines (apparently Republicans are really into sucking Big Cable and Big Telco dick for cash all the way down the line). But who cares? The right thing finally came out on top. So now we don't have to worry that Comcast will throttle certain sites that might be competing with their interests... and Verizon won't charge extra if you want to stream movies from a company that's not paying them a bunch money. The list of good things go on and on. It's a free an open internet the way the internet should be.

At least until another Ajit Pai ends up in the FCC to fuck things up again due to some bullshit tactics by politicians who don't mind selling out the American people for cash.

And speaking of bullshit political tactics...

Biden just signed a bill that could ban TikTok. His campaign plans to stay on the app anyway.

OF COURSE the fucking Biden campaign is still using TikTok after he signed a bill that could ban TikTok! Did you honestly think they wouldn't?

This possible ban conveniently takes place AFTER the election, so that was likely the plan all along. Hypocrisy. It's what's for dinner. And breakfast. And lunch. And dessert. And brunch. And snacks. And... reason No. 1,756,342,456 that I loathe our fucked-up political system in general and oh-so-many politicians specifically.

It continues to blow my mind that people are into politician worship over common sense, and we allow a system of having to vote for the lesser of two evils be the system we keep allowing to happen.

   

Say No More, Mon Amour

Posted on April 8th, 2024

Dave!UPDATE! If you have eclipse glasses you will be throwing away, donate them instead! This is so great.

The first eclipse I remember viewing was the Great Eclipse of February 1979. We were right on the edge of the "Totality Zone," which means that everybody in the region was eclipse-crazy. "We don't even have to travel to have the best seat in the house!" Except... Central Washington in February (especially back then) is usually overcast skies, so nothing (especially the "best seats in the house") was guaranteed.

But then the Big Day arrived and, miracle or miracles, the skies were not terrible. It was a school day, which meant that our science teacher showed us how to view the event with a piece of paper with a hole in it casting the shadow of the sun onto another piece of paper. AKA the shittiest way to view an eclipse. You'd think for this monumental event, the Washington State Department of Education would have sprang to give us all safety glasses, but it was what it was. We all went outside with our papers, and I remember a lot of it very well despite my being 12 years old (almost 13) at the time. But mostly I remember how thrilled I was to get out of science class.

The next eclipse was only 92% where I lived back in 2017, but I had great equipment to view it and take photos, which made it a heck of a lot more memorable than looking at a shadow on a piece of paper...

Total Eclipse Uneclipsed Sun Shot!

Plus... my cats had fun because I was staying home with them, so there's that.

The eclipse today wasn't that eventful... we were told it would be just a small chunk out of the bottom. I brought my glasses to work to have a look since the skies weren't too terrible, but then forgot. Oh well.

INTERESTING TO NOTE: My last kidney stone was in 2017. The date of the last eclipse here was 2017. — OBVIOUSLY NASA IS CAUSING KIDNEY STONES WITH THEIR WOKE "ECLIPSES," WHICH WE ALL KNOW IS REALLY JUST THEM REPAIRING HOLES IN THE FIRMAMENT DOME! I DEMAND THAT MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE USE HER FULL POWER IN CONGRESS TO INVESTIGATE IMMEDIATELY!

IN OTHER ECLIPSE NEWS: No wonder people thought that The Rapture was going to be today. It happened on Rex Manning Day! (happy Rex Manning Day to all who celebrate)...

I can't celebrate Rex Manning Day without looking up this awesome commercial that Ryan Reynolds gave us last year...

I will spend tonight watching Empire Records for the hundredth time, of course. Such a classic.

IN OTHER, OTHER ECLIPSE NEWS: So how about that Rapture? A ridiculous number of people were coming out of the woodwork claiming that the pending eclipse was clearly a sign that the End of Days was here because they were "activating" the CERN Super Hadron Collider to open a portal and invite the devil to invade so his demons could collapse society and power off the grid (or whatever dippy shit they came up with). Did God change His mind? Shouldn't all these false prophets be getting stoned to death? I'm not holding my breath that the same people posting this shit to social media are going to recant and say they were wrong. Oh hell no. They're already off to the races on whatever other stupid crap they can dream up. Like blaming President Biden for the high cost of shit while corporations are reporting record high profits. Almost as if the corporations are using inflation as an excuse to raise their prices to all-time highs so they can make billions upon billions of extra dollars without getting blamed for it (thus driving inflation even higher). Imagine that! Nope. BIDEN DID IT! And it's like, come on. The Biden Administration has done plenty of actual fucked up shit without having to push stuff like this. But, it's an election year, and high prices are an easy campaign talking point for people to understand, so here we are.

IN OTHER, OTHER RELIGIOUS NEWS: Today The Vatican took time away from their busy schedule of passing around photos of altar boys to declare that surrogacy and gender-affirming care are on par with euthanasia and abortion when it comes to being an affront to human life and a violation of God's Divine Plan...

First of all... if God didn't want surrogacy to produce life, he wouldn't allow it to be possible. Period. My theory is that Catholic priests just find confessional stories about surrogacy to be boring, and would rather hear about a parishioner confessing to getting raw-dogged by a football team because it gives them something fun to beat off to (because they're not having sex... right? RIGHT?!?). Otherwise, why are people who can't have children weighing in on how other people have children? It's insane. You'd think that they'd love the idea of the new Catholics this might create. That's just sound financial sense when it comes to the number of donations on the plate.

Second of all... as a former Catholic, I feel that I'm completely within my right to say that I don't give one single solitary fuck as to what these assholes think is "dignified" about "life." They continue to protect their priests who routinely abuse and sexually assault children. They continue to exploit people in ways that are in direct contradiction to the Bible. They are a monstrous corporation masquerading as a church. Until they clean their own fucking house, they have absolutely ZERO authority to even have an OPINION about what people do with their lives (especially when it comes to gender-affirming care, which can literally saves lives... lives that they don't give a fuck about in the first place, mind you). And even if they did clean house, they can still fuck off with their bullshit, because unless somebody CHOOSES to turn to them for guidance, their OPINION is worth less than jack-shit. Keep your idiotic bullshit within the walls of your fucking child indoctrination camps for the benefit of sexual predators, AKA "Catholic Churches."

I realize that my time as a youngster spent with the Catholic Church was me wearing rose-tinted glasses... but it still pains me to be gunning for them like this because, for better or worse, it was an important part of my life. Particularly when it comes to my grandmother. In all honesty, I don't think the majority of Catholics approve of how The Church deals with many things, but they need their Faith in their lives, so they continue to look past all the heinous shit out of self-preservation. And honestly? I don't blame them. This world is a cesspool, so whatever you need to get through the day is what you need to get through the day. I just wish that more Catholics would hold The Church accountable so that it wouldn't get to keep abusing people and ruining lives without consequences.

Now... I'm off to make dinner and get ready to Say no More, Mon Amour with Rex Manning!

I should have baked cupcakes.

   

House of Clowns

Posted on October 20th, 2023

Dave!I used to vote for candidates independent of party, mixing Democrats and Republicans on my ballot depending on which one I felt was best for the job. The Republicans lost me during the Trump Years, so now I just leave a candidate blank if I can't find a Democrat worth voting for. Something that happens more often than it really should.

It would seem that I've landed on a "I don't really give a shit about politics because the vast majority of politicians are assholes" platform. I'm sick and tired of career politicians who don't give a fuck about anything except money and power for themselves. The only time they ever do anything for anybody else is when they are trying to win votes.

But anyway...

Given the insane idiocy that's permeating the House of Representatives right now, I keep seeing this image being shared around...

Clown Politicians of the House of Representatives LITERALLY painted as clowns.
Original artist unknown. Believe me, I looked.

Accurate.

The Republican Party is massively fractured, and Democrats are having a laugh-riot fanning the flames of their destruction. What's hysterical is that Republicans are blaming Democrats for the madness of not being able to elect a Speaker of the House despite the fact that they hold a majority of seats! That's right... it's the House Minority Democrat's fault because they keep voting against candidates that are put up for the job, and Republicans can't get their shit together to do it themselves. And it's like... shocking! Senator Mitch McConnell famously said that he would make it his mission in life to deny Democrats absolutely everything when he was running the show in The Senate. Then proved he was serious by voting against absolutely everything, even Republicans are in favor of it, just so he could deny Democrats a win at all costs. That's the level of petty we're working with here.

So why the fuck would Republicans ever expect Democrats to respond in any other way? They sure the fuck don't.

Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy bashed Democrats every chance he got. It's being reported that before the vote on whether to oust the guy, Democrats were played a "greatest hits" collection of McCarthy being an asshole towards them over and over again. Hmmm... I wonder why they wouldn't vote to save his job?

This is just example #42,543,238 of why I wish our complete shambles of a political system could be rebooted and started over. It's not working any more. The entire country is "Us Against Them" even though there LEAGUES of common ground that could be covered which would benefit everybody. But nobody's interested in that. It's all about fucking over the other side and then blaming them when nothing works. All in the name of worshipping a bunch of millionaires who don't give a single fuck about them.

Abolishing money in politics, initiating ranked voting, and establishing term limits would be a good start in American Government 2.0... but, alas, everybody would rather fight amongst the ruins over which politicians get the priviledge of fucking them over.

So we get the government we deserve, I guess.

   

The Future of Advertising is Stupid

Posted on October 17th, 2023

Dave!Hulu forces me to choose between commercials for KitKat or Reeses... then, after I finally choose one so I can get to my fucking show... THEY SHOW ME A COMMERCIAL ABOUT BOTH BECAUSE "I DESERVE BOTH!"

Fuck Hulu for wasting my time with a non-choice. And definitely fuck the assholes at KitKat and Reese's for coming up with a stupid-as-shit ad campaign which wastes people's fucking time and actually makes me hate products I used to love.

Fire your fucking advertising agency for being obscenely fucking stupid. Who thought this was a good idea?

   

Miss Me With Your Anti-Trans Bullshit

Posted on September 19th, 2023

Dave!This morning I checked into Facebook, which is a morning habit I can't seem to break. After scrolling for a minute, a friend posted this...

"I have a trans friend who lives in Chicago who was working as an aide in an after school program. The company she worked for was contracted by the school district and they were based in Indiana. As a result, she just got fired for being trans, because that's the law in Indiana now, even though she works in Chicago. She was legally fired because she is trans, and for no other reason. She has no legal recourse for this. This is the country we live in."

After reading it, I commented thusly:

American Freedom: where you’re free to be who we say you can be, not who you are.

I've written a few times about my friend Margot... who is one of the most funny, generous, kind people I know. She's a good member of her community. She works hard. She pays her taxes. She never had a bad word to say about anybody. And she's donated tons of her times to causes she believes in. By every metric you can throw at her, she's a model American citizen. And proud to be one.

Margot isn't a close friend. But we do keep in touch. We exchange memes. We share life's happenings. We talk about our hopes and dreams. I love her as I love all my friends. She is inordinately special to me because of who she is as a person.

Which happens to be a trans woman.

I'd say that this has absolutely no bearing on our friendship, but how could it not? Her being a trans person has shaped her into the person I care about so much.

She's been physically assulted twice. That I know of. The last time, she had to be taken to the hospital. What made her deserving of the attack? She was walking home after meeting up with friends. She got assaulted for merely existing. All she's doing is playing the cards she was dealt to the best of her ability, and that was enough reason for her to be beaten. And this doesn't even account for the number of times she's been verbally assaulted, which I'm sure is a lot. I know how people are.

Which is to say that I know how society has conditioned them to be.

And it starts from the very top.

Anti-trans legislation is spreading like a plague, and good people just trying to live their lives are suffering because of it. People hate them, and want to write that hate into law, so they do. It's not just Indiana, just look at this map from TrackTransLegislation.com...

Anti-Trans State Map USA.

So, yeah, our laws are conditioning our citizens to hate Margot for absolutely no reason. They don't care who she is as a person. They don't give a shit what's in her heart or how much she does for others. And yet they elect people who do heinous shit (like passing laws against her) just because they can. She's done nothing to anybody, and yet here we are.

God bless America. This is the country we live in.

And of course the excuse is always about "protecting women" or "protecting children" or some such bullshit. If "protecting women" were true, they'd be passing laws guaranteeing women's right to abortion care, but instead women's lives are in mortal danger because if something has gone wrong with their pregnancy it's illegal to help them in places. If "protecting children" were true, they'd be passing laws against churches having access to children, but instead kids are being sexually assaulted in record numbers by churches. Every time I've seen an anti-trans argument comes up, it's easily refuted. There are still people out there who believe that a seven-year-old can walk into a hospital and demand sex-reassignment surgery and get it, which is a lie. And despite the fact that hormone blockers have been used since the 1980's... for forty years... for all kinds of reasons (and are reversible) there are people who believe that they are dangerous instead of saving the lives of trans kids.

So miss me with your anti-trans bullshit.

Because all of it is just people being suckered into a huge misdirect. They don't want to persecute the untouchable politicians, pastors, and priests who have actually been sexually assaulting kids, so they blame it on trans persons and drag queens so people have a place to focus their faux outrage.

Which is grounds for actual outrage.

And yet an awful lot of the 99% of people who aren't trans persons don't give a shit. On the contrary, they actively participate in the massive misdirection going on, gleefully and willfully ignorant of the fact that it protects those who are the real danger to others.

It seems to be the new American Way.

And what American Freedom has become.

   

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