Political News

[lykomancer]

I might do this more seriously if I know that anyone's reading it. The news is freaking wacky shit, kids.

Let's start with this dude-- Allen Quist, a Republican who is seeking to defeat Rep. Tim Walz in southern Minnesota’s First Congressional District, who claims that liberals-- NAY! RADICALS!-- are a bigger threat to this country than terrorists.
...god damn it. Stop trying to out-crazy Michele Bachmann, people. This is not a contest where anyone wins.

Then there's Sarah Palin, who is still talking for some reason. She thinks that having an expert in Constitutional law as commander-in-chief is dumb. Also, apparently she "forgot" that the Shoe Bomber was tried in federal courts during the Bush years.

Republicans don't think Obama says the word "terror"...which is just false. And meanwhile, this jerkass is trying to raise campaign money by using the fear of terrorism renewed by the would-be Underpants Bomber.

This is also pretty ridonkulous: sending female soldiers lipstick and Cosmo-- really? That seems a little, uh, generic. And insulting.


Probable triggers in these*:
The battle for reproductive rights is ON in Wisconsin.
That article brought my attention to this little gem of WTFry from the Human Life Alliance: “I am familiar with no case of incest-related abortion that did not make matters worse for the victim.”
Really? No case? None? Ever? REALLY?


And a just and righteous skewering:
Brit Hume claims that the only way Tiger Woods can make any (emotional/professional/etc.) comeback is to drop Buddhism and convert to Christianity. Jon Stewart and Aasif Mandvi take this on brilliantly.


EDIT: This snarky ridicule bothers me. Maybe it's because I'm a great, big, fat, raging GEEK with pre-existing clinical depression, but I admit that I often feel upset/sad/depressed to realize that the fictional worlds I love don't exist and never will.


__
* I'm guessing; I admit that I actually have no idea what triggers other's traumas. But it's better to be safe and label it, right?

Comments

[maxxim-huzzah.livejournal.com]

I love it when you post about politics and news! (I've started checking out Religion Dispatches after you posted about them here.) Seriously, everyone needs to know the deals going down in states besides their own, and the more outrage and lols fostered, the better.

(Way for Aasif Mandvi to skewer Hume! It hurt to lol because it was so true.)

*shakes head* The idea of being shamed into carrying a rapist's child. I can't fathom it! As a Catholic (until some other god claims me XD), I will always support the woman's choice, for or against abortion. Because I know that I'm not raising the child, nor is anyone else from the church or conservative family agencies who belittle a woman enough just for existing. I liked one of the commenters who mentioned how hospitals used to ask what the woman wore/acted/said to 'incite the rapist': Imagine saying the same thing to someone who got robbed, beaten, or kidnapped.

Keep posting these, Lyko-chan!

[lykomancer.livejournal.com]

Unf, I kind of love RD even if I haven't read anything on there recently, and I really, REALLY miss the "News from The 'Net" posts that Street Prophets used to do.

An average day of American news is on par with the most awesome day Fandom Wank could ever dream of having. Rivalries and backstabbing and wankers and wingnuts, oh my! I've only been really "into" the news for a year and a half, and I honestly don't know what I did before that.
Although it sometimes takes some effort to appreciate the funny under all the "HOLY SHIT MAN, THAT'S MY LIFE YOU'RE FUCKING WITH!" and "WHO VOTED FOR YOU!?"


In other news: Vocab is easy; verb conjugation is hard. D: How is it I can hear a sentence (in Japanese), understand all the words in it, and yet not understand the meaning?

Also, reading kanji's freaking hard. How the hell am I supposed to know which part of that motherfucker is the radical? Or how many strokes it takes? sl;dkfjdglfdg.
(I've been "studying" by trying to translate my doujinshi. I'd like to hope that my handwriting-- my foreign, uneducated, American handwriting-- is more legible than whoever's I've been trying to read for the last hour.)

[na-no-nai.livejournal.com]

I'm saving the links for a time when I'm okay with flying off into a rage. lol Just wanted to say I saw the Daily Show last night, and yes, that segment was So Much Awesome! I laughed so hard I woke up my husband. XD

[lykomancer.livejournal.com]

Understandable. Like I said to maxxim_huzzah up above, it takes a certain mindset to find the interesting or funny or useful in stuff that's generally enraging.

YAY, DAILY SHOW. ♥

[lykomancer.livejournal.com]

Yeah, those articles were more than a little enraging. I won't lie. Shit like that pisses me off so badly I can barely think straight.

[yuri-shoujo.livejournal.com]

D: .... the care packages to female soldiers horrifies me. AAGH.

[lykomancer.livejournal.com]

I know, right?

[helicopini.livejournal.com]

"I'm afraid of Americans, I'm afraid of the world." :/

NPR tends to file down the ragged edges of crazy, so I hadn't heard all of this. I did hear about the Tiger Woods religionfail, though. Brit Hume is one of those publicity hound professional christofascists, right? There's so many of them, it's hard to keep them straight.

I'd imagine the forced-birther idiot from HLA ia alluding to the 'fact' that no woman *really* wants an abortion, we're all just too ninny-brained to understand that it's termination, rather than a day at the spa. That's one of their cherished myths.

Also, re: the geek link. For some reason, certain breeds of geek seem to enjoy going off on other geeks. I guess it makes them feel like better people in comparison?

Though it seems to me that the depression itself would be the real issue there, not what media-tinged flavor it took on.

[elanivalae.livejournal.com]

My feeling is that if I'm not at least a little depressed or wistful when I finish a work of fiction -- particularly sci-fi and fantasy -- then the author hasn't done his or her job. Sometimes it's about missing characters that have become friends; sometimes it's about missing places and circumstances that have really spoken to you; sometimes it's like a bucket of ice water to the head to come out of a story where right and wrong are delineated so clearly, where there's a sense of purpose, into our crazy, fucked-up reality where nothing is ever truly that simple.

I think most of us just pour that emotional response into fanworks to try to stretch the high out a bit more. ::shrugs::

Also, that care packages thing makes me want to vomit. Ugh. But, then, I'm just getting touchier and touchier on the gender police as the years go by, so that's no surprise.

[lykomancer.livejournal.com]

That's exactly how I feel about fictional worlds I read about or otherwise "experience". If I don't feel a little sad when I close the book or end the movie, then it obviously wasn't very satisfying.


What are you doing tomorrow? Anything?

[elanivalae.livejournal.com]

I have a planning lunch for a volunteer thing, but nothing after that. You off work tomorrow?

[lykomancer.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I actually have a Saturday off. If you feel like hanging/doing anything, just give me a call. I'll try to remember to keep my phone on hand. (If you don't feel up to it, that's cool too.)

[elanivalae.livejournal.com]

Sure, sounds good. ^_^