And So It Begins

Please help UK trans people! Our right to use the bathroom of choice is under threat! Less than 1% of trans people in the UK have a gender recognition certificate due to gatekeeping. This would mean I and other trans men would be barred from basically any male gendered space and trans women would be barred from any female gendered space. 

Donate here, please if you can. This is the Good Law Project- they’ve fought and won the last 2 threats against trans people. They can do it again if you share this and donate. 

Please, for my sake, help the UK trans community today.

So apparently a coalition of European LGBTQ+ groups are trying to report the EHRC to the United Nations, in hopes of the EHRC being stripped of its Equalities and Human Rights role, since it clearly isn’t fit for purpose.

I want to have faith in this coalition, but itis being led by Stonewall UK, a charity that has a long history of not being an effective lobbying power. E.g. they were against civil partnerships originally and didn’t allow trans people in until 2015. Stonewall also has a knack of taking the credit from all of the grassroots orgs that do all the legwork. I’m hopeful that the coalition *as a whole* will be able to do something about the EHRC, but let’s just say I’m a little skeptical due to Stonewall’s involvement as a trans person. They’ve let us down and been deliberately transphobic so many times. So I have my doubts on them specifically. All the other orgs are fine though.

While I understand this meme might make me seem like a really callous person who cares more about animals than people, that isn’t at all what this is about and I think I should try to make it more clear that this sentiment is coming from another place entirely. Human health is inextricably linked to ecological health, and unfortunately for us that sometimes includes some really gross animals. Advocating for further study and a more nuanced understanding of these animals does not mean I want humans to suffer, because improving our knowledge of these species is in fact one of our best ways to figure out how we can minimize their risk to people!

Mosquitoes are pollinators. Ticks are a critical food source for many animal species. Some studies suggest that people infected with helminth worms experience fewer symptoms of IBS, Crohn’s disease, and even arthritis. Would eradicating these parasites and the threat of vector borne diseases outweigh the benefits they provide to humans and the environment? Due to the extraordinary complexity of the natural world it’s impossible to speculate in good faith, and the extinction game is a dangerous one to play.

I’m not saying anyone has to like these critters because honestly, it’s normal and healthy to show a natural aversion to these potentially deadly disease vectors! I live in an extremely mosquito dense area of my country and if I had a nickel for every one I’ve squished I might actually be able to pay off my student loans (probably not though). I’ve also lived in a country in the tropics where Dengue and Zika are endemic, so I do understand at least a little that in many places a bug bite bears much greater threat than in the USA, though of course I do not claim to fully understand your experiences and the nuance in your own country. I did recently read a really fascinating essay by Dr. Marcos Andre Vannier-Santos (a parasitologist who works at the IOC in Rio de Janeiro and studies parasitic disease in Brazil) and I think it’s a great place to start in better understanding why anyone would want to improve the perception of animals that can cause such harm to human populations. Dr. Vannier-Santos even advocates referring to parasites as “cohabitants” instead in order to reflect the way these animals and their hosts adapt to one another. I’m probably personally gonna stick with “parasite” but the article is amazing nonetheless and I really recommend it to anyone struggling to understand why scientists would want to protect these organisms- “Parasites or Cohabitants”

Wrong. Okay, picture this–

So there’s the prince, okay? He’s like, smack dab in the center of the ballroom, and he is like, horrifically aware that this whole ball thing is a result of his dad falling into a panic about the royal lineage or whatever and he’s stuck listening to highborn girl after highborn girl, all lined up, introducing themselves like, “Oh yeah my family’s been a longtime supporter of the crown, and I think you’re cute, *cough* I’ve been told I have child-bearing hips *cough* Who said that? Anyway–” and Princey boy is just smiling through it, he has been the center of attention for entirely too long, he misses his emotional support horse, and is just internally like “Someone please kill me now.” And then… he sees her–This isn’t a love at first sight thing, this is a ‘what the hell is going on over there’ thing, because this girl has not gotten into the Debutante line for a solid 45 minutes. 

She’s just at the hors d’oeuvres table going HAM on the prosciutto-wrapped asparagus, and like, she’s polite about it, she’s happy to move aside for other people grabbing punch and canapes (and she’s really so sweet with the wait staff, it’s kind of cute because they’re like… definitely not used to being acknowledged) but it’s like, “Damn girl, did you not eat today?” and then the prince is kind of stuck with the uncomfortable thought of ‘how many girls starved themselves to fit into a corset for this.’ And then the Prince realizes he’s missed the past 4 Debutante introductions because he’s watching Mystery girl hork down crab rangoons. So he’s like, “Excuse me” and manages to break free from the never-ending parade of girls who will hop on his dick for status.

 And as he’s approaching Mystery Girl, it’s kind of hitting him that something’s not quite natural about her. Not fake, but not quite real. But at the same time this whole evening’s been just a whole circus of people acting fake as hell, so like, someone seeming a little off doesn’t seem bad, necessarily. And he sidles up to her like, “Hi,” and she’s like, “Oh–hey, have you tried the tapenade?” and she points to one of the plates, and at this point, he could hit her with the “You don’t know who I am, do you?” deal or the “Very funny, I see your play” deal, but at this point it occurs to him that, no, he hasn’t had anything to eat throughout this whole damn ball, partially because of being stuck in the debutante parade, partially because of nerves, and there’s something so disarming about the question that he grabs a crostini and she still seems so food-focused that it doesn’t seem possible that this is a play. So they both grab little plates and ditch the party.

She pretty much clears her plate in under two minutes and then has half of his plate, he’s cool with it, mostly he’s just absolutely fascinated listening to her.

See here’s the thing about Cinderella:

1. She doesn’t know he’s the prince. Like yeah, he’s been at the center of the room, but she’s kind of spent half the party eagerly looking around everywhere she’s allowed to go (”Have you seen rose garden? Have you seen the solarium??” further confirmation that she doesn’t know who she’s talking to) and the other half stuffing her face with food. 

2. She assumes she’s never going to see anyone here tonight again, and no one recognizes her, so she has no filter.

So she’s just talking about whatever with this guy. He seems cool. She talks about her friends, who are rats. She makes little outfits for them. Sometimes they bring her little gifts. She is already the coolest person the prince has ever met because of this. She pretty much offhandedly talks about whatever is fucked up about the kingdom that would take his advisors two hours of hemming and hawing and watering down to address. She just says it like it’s nothing, just funky little things she’s observed, and again, she’s not aware that he’s the prince, but it’s still pretty damn bold to bring up at a literal royal ball.

She… seems to have the majority of graces that lots of girls from Respectable Families™ have, but there’s something strange about it, something simultaneously broken and hardened, like the way you can see where ice has thawed and re-frozen. Also the way she talks about her family, and the way she avoids talking about her family– is raising several red flags, not in the “Oh this is another person trying to take advantage of me” sense, but in the “Oh fuck, something’s gone really wrong and you need help” sense and also lowkey a ‘damn is she even getting fed?’ sense. But he can’t say, ‘Hey, that’s not fucking normal for people to say that to you or treat you that way. We need to get you out of there,’ without sounding crazy himself, so for now, he’s just going to chill, make sure she’s comfortable, and keep enjoying the evening. She’s somehow befriended like 4 of the waitstaff so they’re willing to cover for them while they disappear for a little bit, and they get plenty of time to talk, but eventually it hits her that she hasn’t danced yet and she’s like “Come on! I bet we can make the prince jealous!” and he just bursts out laughing at that like “hell yeah, let’s make the prince jealous. He’s a real asshole.” Like clearly she’s having a good time, so who is he to make it weird? So they head back to the ballroom and they dance. And our girl, Mystery Girl, Cinderella, while they’re dancing, becomes acutely aware that everyone is staring. That doesn’t seem quite right. Like, yeah she’s hot, she knows she’s hot, but at least a good third of the party should still be focused on the prince, right? Where is that guy, anyway?

Oh.

Oh wait.

Oh shit.

And Princey Boy actually picks up on her realization and they whisper argue for like 3 minutes. “Why didn’t you tell me?! Now I feel like a goddamn idiot!” “I dunno it was nice being treated like a normal person” “Well me treating you like a normal person makes me a goddamn felon or something did you consider that?!” “Hey–Hey–it’s cool–you’re cool–I think you’re amazing, and if anyone says shit about you, I can shut it down.” “Well I don’t like that! That’s fucked up!” “I agree. It is fucked up, but I believe in you, and I think you should have a chance, and I’m here to back you up. I know power is fucked up right now. I know. But are you cool with working with me to change that?” And our girl Cindy pauses on that for a couple seconds, because.. she’s just spent hours with this guy and like.. she knows he’s a good guy, she knows he means well, so she’s like, “I don’t know how long I can actually work with you.” and the prince is like “Look, I know your home situation is complicated right now, but I really think we can–”

And then the bell starts ringing.

It’s midnight.

In even more terrifying internet news, long story short, there’s a big committee happening in the US Copyright Office to try and talk about whether they should expand Content ID to the entire internet, and they’re asking for public input.

So, tell them how much automated Content-ID-type systems suck and how Copyright enforcement needs to be relaxed not tightened.

Here’s the EFF Overview on this and why it’s so important, here’s the rules/guidelines for submitting your form (Pay special attention to the Statement of Interest Questions, because it’s those they’re asking about), and here is the form itself.

Transcription of Thread:

Your pal Jason has a Friday Writing Assignment for you. I am sorry about that, but it’s about the future of the Internet, so I hope you understand what’s at stake here. It’s for what seems like a very boring committee, but this committee is about to make some very big decisions.

Sen. Tillis, who is owned by the content companies (he’s the newest “Senator From Disney”, if you want to google that) is pushing a range of legislation to change ownership rights. He is the legislative side of a push to completely change what you think of as “digital property”.

I don’t want to flood you with paragraphs about NOTICE AND STAYDOWN, Universal ContentID, and a bunch of massive killing blows to fair use, sharing, plus the corporate takeover of the public domain and culture, but, well, you can find plenty tracked here: https://techdirt.com

So, we’re getting to the assignment part. There’s a committee meeting and zoom call coming now, where the pros and cons of what we call Content ID will be discussed. It sounds boring, and I’m sure it is, but what it is, is taking the steps towards passing legislation.

But I want it clear what’s really going on here. There is a coordinated attempt to use laws, crappy AI, incredibly intense fines and threats of jailtime to ensure that a tiny minority of companies REALLY control what’s on the internet.

Here is the form for submitting your comments. Please read it carefully, and respond using their instructions. I will not guide you on the form of your response. It does not need to be long.

ALL DOGS ARE PRECIOUS.

It is a weapon

look, when i was a kid i was passionately in love with the idea of robots--that humans would one day create another sort of intelligence to share our world with-- and believed very firmly that we should respect and protect all our robot friends from the start, so there would be no violent humans-against-robots revolution or anything.

anyway it turns out that the people trying to keep end-stage capitalism running are really banking on us feeling more love for the robots than for the kind of people they're going to be using the robots to oppress.

so like. maybe lets all agree right now that if a robot is being used to hurt a person, you need to smash the fucking robot. they're going to make the robots really cute. they're going to show us so many movies about how much robots need to be loved. and then they are going to use robots to hurt people.

however.

this has not been the case for the vast majority of time. this is not currently the case for many people on the earth right now. we evolved alongside earth’s ecosystems, as they evolved alongside us. we are part of it. we are embedded in the world. we have never been seperate from it, and the idea that we are – that our actions somehow could have no consequences for the world at large – is the mindset that allowed the current crisis to reach where it is.

it’s. hard to truly get a sense of the scale of humans’ existence on the planet– under the readmore i’ve drawn out a rough timeline for you. it is very long, so i’ll put it under the cut.

suffice it to say: humans, homo sapiens, have existed on the earth for 315,000 years. we did not invent agriculture until 11,500 years ago. the industrial revolution, the drilling for oil and dumping plastic? that has happened only in the last 250 years. 

we are part of the world. we are in the world. some of us have very, very recently forgotten this fact. but we are remembering, and remembering quickly.

the earth needs us. it needs us to fix the things we’ve gotten wrong, yes. but it also needs us to be humans. to hunt, to burn, to care for the forests and the fields and the grasslands. it has always needed us. we are not interlopers here. we belong. we have simply forgotten our manners.

when i started writing this comic, there were courses on duolingo for klingon and dothraki, fictional languages that are only spoken by characters on television shows who don’t exist, but the course for yiddish, a language spoken by jews – real, living, breathing people – for generations, didn’t exist until april 2021.

in 2017 a jewish employee at the anne frank museum was asked to put a baseball cap over his yarmulke. yeah, you read that right – an employee who worked in the house anne frank and her family hid for two years was asked to hide his judaism when he came into work. 

The Navajo have a unique tradition. When a baby is born, it is regarded as the ultimate, precious gift and must never be abused. From the moment of birth, the child is watched over continuously by family and friends, who patiently wait for the child’s first…laugh.

“Has your baby laughed?” is common question posed to parents who have infants around the age of three months. The first laugh of a Navajo child is a very significant event. It marks the child’s final passing from the spirit world to the physical world, meaning he or she is now fully human. This milestone warrants a party, and what a party it is!

Whichever brother, sister, parent, cousin, aunt, uncle, or passing acquaintance is present at the first laugh is deemed to have caused it.  The laughter instigator then receives the honored privilege of preparing a special ceremony to welcome the child into society.

Once a baby has laughed, training in generosity begins immediately—a value held in high regard among the Navajo people. At the party, where the baby is considered the host, the parents or person responsible for the first laugh help hold the baby’s hand as he or she ceremonially gives the rock salt, food, and gifts to each guest. There are also bags of candy, money, and other presents that the child “gives” along with the food. [x]