"I Wonder If They Ever Ask Themselves How They Got Here, And I Wonder If Any Of Them Will Ever Feel Shame."

The one that gets me the most riled up is tRaNs WoMeN iN wOmEnS sPoRtS, period, but ESPECIALLY when combined with the MeN cAn DrEsS uP aS wOmEn AnD iNvAdE tHe pUbLiC bAtHrOoMs bullshit. Because I don't think there is any clearer sign that you don't actually give a single shit about women's safety than bringing up those two talking points in the same argument. Even IF either one of these things was a real concern for ANY cis woman, the idea that being beaten in a sport is on the same level as being assaulted is sickening. There is no faster way to show me you have zero understanding of the dangers that non-cis-men face or fear.

I realize that there is nuance in individual beliefs and that politics is a spectrum. But do you think JKR ever looks at the headlines and sees what Trump is doing on the day to day and thinks yeah, that guy is batshit crazy (or insert British equivalent) but, you know, he's right about trans people.

Rewatching YOU in anticipation of the final season, and season 1 is so damn good. The acting, the writing, the editing, the ACTING. Lail and Badgely are fucking phenomenal.

I'm definitely biased because I love the book so much but damn. There are so many bangers in this season.

"One day you won't need love anymore."

"It is EXHAUSTING being your friend."

"Get the batter off the ladle while it's wet."

"From every boy masquerading as a man that you let into your body, your heart, you learned you didn't have whatever magic turns a beast into a prince."

Anyway this show got real silly but the first season is amazing.

Some food for thought:

Voter turnout in US pres elections has been generally increasing since 1980. It has gone from a low of ~51% of the voting eligible population (VEP) in 1996 to the high of 65% in 2020. To reiterate, the election with the highest turnout since 1980 still had around 1 in 3 voting eligible people NOT voting.

It is true that 2024 was the first time the GOP candidate won the popular vote since 2004 (Bush-Kerry). The good news is that 2024 had the second-tightest margins of the popular vote between the candidates. The tightest was Bush-Gore in 2000.

In 2024, Harris actually won more popular votes than Trump did in 2020. Trump did better in 2024 than he did in 2020 or 2016, but he still didn't get close to Biden's 2020 numbers.

While the turnout has increased, the gap between winning and losing candidates has decreased since 2000. Before then, candidates in both parties won by anywhere from 5% of the turnout (Clinton-Bush in 1992) to 18% (Reagan-Mondale in 1984). Since 2000, the gap has generally been less than 4% of turnout, with the exceptions of Obama's first election (2008, against McCain--7%) and Biden in 2020 (4.5%).

Perhaps most interesting, the way all these numbers shake out is that our president is regularly elected by a mere 30% of the VEP. Sometimes (1992, 2000) they're elected by just 25% of the VEP. Rarely does a candidate on either side win more than 30% of the VEP vote, and Biden holds the record of largest amount of the VEP in 2020 (33.77%).

So, assuming we get to have another election, we need people to vote.

it’s crazy how grrm wrote the first woke beauty and the beast where a hot guy falls in love with an ugly woman and people will bend over backwards still to say brienne is actually attractive. like no she’s not and it’s not more feminist to say she is 👍

Due to some ✨childhood trauma✨ I used to be so anxious about having political discussions. I've always been interested in politics and that autistic boner for social justice, and I believed that by "winning" "debates" I could change the way the other person and/or audience thought, and ideally make them agree with me.

As I've aged the goal has been more to correct misinformation because obviously they've been lied to and don't have the right data or they would already agree? Possibly because I myself have always been learning, gathering more context, adjusting my ideas and beliefs, etc. (For example, as a teenager I didn't understand affirmative action, so I didn't agree with it. That has thankfully changed.)

There's a lot wrong with this approach and this thinking, which I'm working on (thanks therapy). But one of those things that is almost relieving is that data doesn't convince people whose egos are on the line, because nothing does. Once you have determined that your sense of self relies and self-worth relies on an ideology, nothing will sway you, because you'd have to admit you were wrong, or that you caused harm. (For some people, admitting the former is harder than admitting the latter.)

Did I mention that this woman is so beautiful but like not in a stalkery way?

Some info to remember later:

92.7% of households in the US make less than $250,000/year.

Half of American households make less than $75,000/year. (The median is $80,000.)

27% of households in the US make less than $40,000/year. (The poverty line for a family of 4 is $30,000.)

The income tax rate increases as income increases until $600,000, where it's capped at 37%.

This means that someone earning a billion dollars a year pays the same percentage in taxes as someone who earns a million in a year. And both of them are richer than 9/10 American households.

Another one of those things I feel like I should have already known and maybe did but didn't articulate before now:

The way people treat each other has way more to do with their subjective feelings and personal hangups/desires than anything else. To the point where most people don't even realize themselves that this is the case.

We say things like "this flower is pretty." But the flower is just a flower. Someone else could see it and say it's ugly. Neither one of those observations is "true" in an objective sense. And it may be true that humanity as a whole agrees more with one person or the other, but that also doesn't make the observation true.

And further, the goodness of importance or morality of the descriptor (pretty, ugly, stupid, wise, thin, short, useful, natural, cheap, tacky, fancy, special) is not objective or true in any real sense. A flower is not better because it is pretty.

I do think one could make observations about a person's thought process/perspective based on how they call out what they see. Are you someone who only calls out things you think of as negative? Or do you notice/call out things you think of as positive?

It has been helpful to me to mentally add a strong "YOU THINK" before anyone gives their opinion on anything. This is partly because I raised in a house where one person got to define objective truth and any opposing ideas were dismissed. I've spent decades dismantling the idea that there is always a correct or right or true solution and that I should try to align with that, that not doing so is __insert disparaging adjective here__ (stupid, naive, immoral).

I've also long noticed that how I feel about someone/something will change how I value what I observe. If I love someone, I usually think they are beautiful. I'm still puzzling out why beauty is so important to me, but right now it encompasses a host of ideas that I think of as positive. Maybe the association is more than I "like" them. I like sunsets and oceans and cats and flowers and therefore I use "beautiful" when what I mean is "beloved."

The flower is a flower. If you look at it and feel something positive, or even just something at all, then your life was made better by it.

Do you guys think that when he was recording "Whiskey for My Men, Beer for My Horses" Toby Keith had any idea that Willie Nelson would outlive him?