This has been a crazy week. Work is nuts, the world is nuts, everything is nuts. But I remain thrilled about a few things, incensed about others. Share the news that made you sit up and take note this week in the comments, my doves. I love you all.

The Democratic Convention happened this week and it was surprising good given the myriad technical limitations, and downright creative in others. PBS NewsHour has the videos, including the speeches. The best piece of political theatre and sheer delight (thin on the ground in our current political times) was undoubtedly the rollcall!

Also, shoutout to Vote from Abroad for my fellow expats voting from afar – register, request your ballot, submit it early either by mail, email (if your state allows), or by checking out your embassy website.

What is COVID doing to the fashion industry? Lots.

Nope. Nope nope nope.

Several months old now, but I found this piece an interesting and bolstering read.

So all the obfuscations, the AG’s testimony, all the posturing…once again confirmed bullshit.

“While Mueller received all the hype, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence kept its head down.”

A few pieces on one of my favorite themes: you need to understand online, meme, and fan culture to understand almost everything about the modern media and political landscape
1. Gaming and conspiracy theories
2. The role of Instagram aesthetics in spreading disinformation
3. Algorithmic media and the spread of bad info
4. Algorithmic media and the bizarre cult of personality/conflict (and its limitations)
5. Shutting the barn door, etc. etc.

…these children look identical to me… (which is not at all the point of the story, but was a fact I got stuck on over and over again whilst reading the piece.

We’ve all but decided to pursue dual citizenship because we are increasingly persuaded that an American identity is more of an international hindrance than a help. Because yes, “America First” does kind of equate to “America alone” and I don’t trust enough of my countrymen to reach this conclusion quickly enough to avoid generational damage that I’d not to have to live with or pass on to any hypothetical children.

Most of the problems with our media landscape, summarized.

Hey look, some good news from the UK.

You love to see it. (ETA: IT WAS THE POSTAL SERVICE! THIS SEASON OF THE APOCALYPSE IS BRILLIANT!)

What is behind the “Karen” meme? An awful lot and understanding it is important. (Again, you HAVE to understand meme culture to understand any kind of discourse now.)

It’s been a while since J. Crew was in the news for a good reason, but more of this please, capitalism.

Eyes on Belarus, everyone, and support the citizens challenging the push of anti-democracy.

“You have a whole bunch of people in the Senate posturing for 2024 rather than governing for the crisis we’re in.” Yeah. I buy this take.

These cretins aren’t even trying to hide it.

London (and other cities) are gonna change.

Okay team, this has been a bit of heavy post so let’s end with our Pop Goddest Whomst We Stan Carly Rae Jepsen and this blessing of a summer bop!

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.

This was a rough week as some of the ripple effects of the pandemic continued to land closer and closer to home. We’re still okay for the moment, but several close friends have been intimately affected. I’m feeling a horrible mix of survivors guilt, selfish gratitude for not yet being hit by the waves, and a general uptick in the overall creeping sense of dread that basically every millennial I know enjoys. 

Staring down the barrel of the second major recession of our lives and basically all the same people are still in power. Love that for us! (screams into a cushion) 

Have some links, check in in the comments, and pour yourself something nice, my doves. 

Is the death of the It Bag on the horizon?

“The most basic definition of hate is personal animus, but there is a more useful, and frightening, description: Hate is a social bond — a shared currency — and it abhors a vacuum.”

“The largest issue seemed clear to me, in part because I was accustomed to it: that the letter, at core, was at once a theoretical defense of intellectual freedom and a carefully veiled invitation to use dehumanizing rhetoric under the bastion of ‘the free exchange of ideas.”

Oh look, another misogyny murder. 

How do we feel about pennies, team?

And I’m sure that any moment now, all the gun enthusiasts who’ve hoarded weapons in fear of the federal government, all the states rights activists, all the small government zealots, and all their kith and kin will rise up to denounce this, right? (Editor’s note: of course they won’t. Because with a few exceptions it’s never been about any of those issues. As a collective, these people are perfectly fine with overreach, size, and power so long as they feel it’s on their side. They aren’t opposed to it, they’re opposed to feeling like it doesn’t benefit them and their ingroups. Which is, of course, they hallmark of fascism: the worship, elevation, and triumph of the ingroup over one’s – usually falsely manufactured – enemies.)

Fire your branding people. While I applaud the direction overall, it’s been messy with its messaging. 

Fellow ladies, hands up if a man has ever called you a “fucking bitch.” Now again friends, hands up if a COWORKER who call you that in your workplace would at minimum face a disciplinary hearing. 

Support your locals!

Eurocentric history does not benefit us, we’re missing thousands of years of culture and human interaction because of it!

I’m too, um, endowed for this. Alas. Sounds restful.