Another Friday in the year of our Lady Beyonce 2020. Lockdown easement is paused in the UK because cases are rising, Trump is floating the idea to delay the election (thus far a nonstarter, but let’s be honest this year is already a mess and nothing surprises me anymore), and the sea is rising.

It’s a lot. It’s a helluva lot. But today we’re going to educate ourselves, enjoy some social commentary, media discourse, and hilarity. Love you all, kittens. Check in the comments. 

Femaleness, male incivility, and how our reactions are often scrutinized more than their behavior. Traister strikes again.

Ooh, speaking of, let’s delve into this more, shall we? “Evangelical support for Trump was no aberration, nor was it merely a pragmatic choice,” Du Mez writes. “It was, rather, the culmination of evangelicals’ embrace of militant masculinity, an ideology that enshrines patriarchal authority and condones the callous display of power, at home and abroad.”

Using wealth for good.

The thrill of free fall has worn off, replaced by the general sensation of crashing. Ultradomesticity was comforting for a while — we should seize this opportunity to slow down, I read, way back in April — but now I would like to leave my house without weighing the potential consequences. I would like the freedom that comes from knowing I can go anywhere, or do anything, without the constant specter of disease. That’s a lot to ask of any hobby.

Her comedy genius is that she simply repeats him, word for word. No polite editing, no attempts to make full sentences out of discombobulated thoughts, just redelivering the exact same words without the benefits of his office. And yeah, it sounds ridiculous because it is.

Ah yes, more fun in the world of communicable disease. It’s history but a timely reminder that we basically continue to exist thanks to a matter of cosmic luck and nothing is certain.

In my personal experience, the venn diagram of people who don’t believe in climate change and those who are anti-immigration is a circle. One of these perspectives is going to have to give before the cognitive dissonance cripples their neurons.

A depressing but not unbelievable argument.

I think about this a lot as an expat. My passport has made my life and movement very easy and it’s almost impossible for me to conceptualize a world in which it doesn’t give me the freedom I’m used to. But that world is fast approaching and is one of many reasons Jeff and I are considering dual citizenship at some point.

Problematic allies are still allies…but stay wary.

Something about barn doors and horses. But seriously, until we come up with a better way to categorize and contain the publishers of misinformation, we’re going to struggle. Side rant, this is the benefit of professionalized media and proper journalism. And we’re long past the point that social media should be considered just a platform instead of a publisher of some kind with editorial liability.

I’ve not become a knitter in lockdown, but X has and I’m going to benefit from her artistic labor.

If you’re not angry about this, you’re not paying attention. Also, once more for the cheap seats in the back, anyone who ranted to me for the Obama years about impending martial law or Jade Helm conspiracy theories or any assorted government abuses had better be speaking the fuck up now. Because the silence I’m getting from those voices is really, really telling. The problem was never authority, the problem was always authority that you perceived to be “not on your side.”

“Demon sperm” and “astral sex” started trending this week in politics, because we live in the dumbest and most infuriating timeline.

Art from pain. Timely.

Representative Lewis was laid to rest and eulogized by calls, not to lionize his work, but to keep marching. His posthumous essay is worth your time.