My Dad Wants Me Dead

And so we are still here. We erect our camps of sustainable solutions. We cook our vegan food and hold our assemblies. We march, we block, we stage theatres, we hand over lists of demands to ministers, we chain ourselves, we march the next day too. We are still perfectly, immaculately peaceful. There are more of us now, by orders of magnitude. There is another pitch of desperation in our voices; we talk of extinction and no future. And still business continues very much as usual.

At what point do we escalate? When do we conclude that the time has come to also try something different? When do we start physically attacking the things that consume our planet and destroy them with our own hands? Is there a good reason we have waited this long?

Calvin's last name has never been given, and neither has any of his parent's names. This was actually why his uncle Max only showed up for a brief storyline; the creator of the comic, Bill Watterson, ultimately felt that while it was fine to have him as someone for his parents to talk to, it felt far too awkward to never have Max refer to them by name and he never made a return appearance.

The general tone of the comic is fairly light-hearted, with a big emphasis on goofy slapstick comedy contrasted by clever wordplay and often surprising adult-centered jokes that'll hit you like a slap. A big part of the comedy is, as Watterson put it (paraphrased) "It's really funny to me when people express deeply stupid ideas with really fancy terminology." One notable example you might have seen is that one bit where Calvin asks his mom for money to buy a Satan-worshiping rock album and his mom replies that there's nothing genuine about them and they're just putting on the attitude for shock value, and comisserates with Calvin as he deplores that mainstream nihilism can't be trusted. He concludes that childhood is disillusioning.

There is a LOT of criticism of the extreme materialism and selfish mentality of the late 80s, when the comic was initially written. This may go a long way to explain how its aged so well; much of what it criticizes resonates well with people today.

Bill Watterson views comic strips a legitimate form of artwork, and repeatedly fought to have more space to draw more beautiful and artistic backgrounds, which was a very hard fight and unpopular even with other comic strip artists. He eventually did win some compromises and a lot of Calvin And Hobbes' artwork shows it, with the use of space to indicate time as well as a sharp contrast between the often plain environments of mundane life contrasted by the wildly beautiful imagery of Calvin's imagination (which often sports realistic depictions in an art shift of sorts).

Hobbes is explicitly not an imaginary friend, by word of Watterson himself. We don't know WHAT he is exactly, and Hobbes is apparently unaware of the strange nature of his reality; people look at him and only see an ordinary stuffed tiger plushie, but he has a tangible effect on the world that would be physically impossible for Calvin to do on his own. He's apparently been around for a while, and was apparently around when Calvin was a young baby.

On that note; Hobbes has implicitly killed (notably treated as both a gag and also with the vibe of 'he's a tiger, duh') and while he doesn't do it again on-screen, he doesn't have any moral issues about it. Calvin claims that he's never had trouble bringing Hobbes to school because the last time he did, Hobbes killed and ate a bully named Tommy Chestnut and simply comments that it was gross and he needed a bath. Calvin's tried to repeat this again, but Hobbes was grossed out at the thought having to eat a kid raw and not being allowed to use an oven first, or complaining that children are too fattening.

This is frustrating.

I love the comparison, but I hate how they are comparing.

They are acting like she is using optics to give herself an advantage. But the device she is wearing is just for comfort and essentially does the same thing as closing one eye and squinting the other.

The little thing over the left eye is basically like an eye patch.

And the thing over her right eye is a mechanical iris, like in a camera lens, but it is NOT a lens.

Different lighting environments are going to be brighter or darker and you may have to squint more or less to let in the same amount of light into your eye. Squinting allows the shooter to get the sharpest possible vision in order to shoot a bullseye the size of a 12-point Times New Roman period.

But if you have to squint for hours for practice and in competition, this can strain your face muscles and become uncomfortable. So this iris basically squints for you.

It's more like wearing comfortable shoes so your feet do not hurt than a lens magnifying the target and giving an advantage.

Both athletes have access to these items. One felt more comfortable without them. The other didn't feel like getting a muscle cramp from squinting all day.

Either would have shot the same if they had or had not used these devices.

Just a funny difference in gear preference.

The gold medal winner in the women's air pistol finals was adorable and a bit overshadowed.

Oh Ye-jin, who is only 19, won gold and set an Olympic record with her final score.

Kim Yeji is her mentor and seems very supportive of her.

Also, Oh Ye-jin added a little heart to the barrel blocking thingie.

I mean, it's like she got lost at summer camp and just wandered into the Olympics to win gold.

And then the commentator said the bullseye was literally the size of a period—smaller than the actual pellets they are shooting. And that the entire target was the size of a coin.

They'd have to set up a macro lens next to every target for you to see them.

Pretty much every shot lands within the 3 inner circles. And if you hit the 3rd circle your shot is basically garbage. Like you'd see the shooters grimace and do an angry little foot stomp if they hit it there.

Like, if you get a 7 you might as well go home.

And the best shot possible is a 10.9—which would be hitting as close to the bullseye as can be measured.

This was Oh Ye-jin's final gold medal winning shot.

A 10.6!

It's absolutely bonkers how precise these shooters are.

I mean... look at this period...

.

Now imagine trying to shoot it from 30 feet away.

The ear protection in air rifle competition is just to block out distractions. The guns are very quiet and not a danger to anyone's hearing.

Describing the wave of Eastern European gay pornography that flooded the US market following the dissolution of the USSR, Jones said: “They were products of a crude imperialist enterprise: cheap and nasty looking, with an atmosphere of coercion and cultural misunderstanding pervading them. Customers adored these videos, and expressed their breathless admiration whenever given the chance”

It gets pretty rough from here onward.

The Fall… opens with a short clip of a young man in profile, undressing. He looks uncomfortable, alternating between staring forward and glancing in the direction of the camera, his eyes showing a mix of discomfort and contempt. Jones’ voiceover states: “even in an unlikely place, it is possible to find traces of recent history” followed by b-roll taken from the aforementioned porn films including maps of the former USSR, market scenes, beggars and street footage. Their purpose in the aforementioned films appears to be part exoticism and part poverty fetishism, attempting to show the former glory of the Eastern nations as an emphasis on their subsequent fall. They’re an essential part of the set-up, speaking directly to what made this genre of pornography appealing to a western, primarily American, market. It’s easy to comprehend the mixture of exploitation and exoticism that made these videos popular in the US, but Jones goes further, aiming to establish a firm link between the booming Western economy and a more global, less visible form of exploitation.

The latter half of the film compounds the atmosphere of coercion, focusing specifically on the casting and screen tests of performers. The voice from behind the camera probes the subject on their sexual preferences, their motivations for being filmed: “I’m doing it for the money” “That’s a very good reason” Western audiences were turned on by the idea that the performers were under some form of duress—the ostensibly straight man either consuming their sexuality through the guise of pornography, or in the case of several scenes, the performer showing visible discomfort at either the sex or the presence of the camera. The films are low budget, low production value and low brow—by intention, rather than necessity. Jones speculates that the developing Eastern European sex industry, with the influx of Western producers and a Western market in mind, could be seen as an indicator of fertile ground for fascist ideologies—an aspersion confirmed by the global rise of far-right ideologies in tandem with the economic pressure of late-stage capitalism, a point at which more contemporary comparisons can be made.

The brief conclusion on the contemporary form of this exploitation aesthetic is also noteworthy:

ID: [A person with shoulder length brown hair. Text in front of them reads “Hi again!”. The video changes to show them pointing to more text on screen that reads “A lot of you have been asking me how I got top surgery covered when I’m not trans masc or on hormones”. They point again to more text that reads “Its because WPATH standards of care says a diagnosis of gender dysphoria is valid enough reason to need top surgery without HRT and most insurances use this as a guide”.

Another change where they are holding their foot upside down with text above reading “I want to share this amazing resource with folks - its how I got two therapist letters diagnosising my dysphoria FOR FREE”. The video changes to a laptop screen with the text “Thegalap.org”.

The website loads and more text on screen reads “These therapists have pledged to write low cost and free letters to trans folks to get rid of some of the stress and lame gatekeeping we have to deal with when getting our nexessary precedures covered. They are all around the country and will see you remotely, usually over the phone or video.”. athe cideo cuts to the same person, this time giving a thumbs up.