things to stuff

Those dates you go on with your partner? They’re in public. Unmasked. Your server smiles at you. Everyone feels safe.

You can hug your friends.

You can see a movie. The people in the movie are gay people of color and they kiss and live happily ever after.

Cities and government agencies HATE bad press. This story that was told to me by the journalist that covered this, and he showed us the piece:

There was a traffic light that was set up on the far side of an overpass, but it was improperly hung so you couldn’t see the light until it was too late. There were accidents there EVERY SINGLE DAY and calls to the city did NOTHING.

Someone had the idea to call the local news station and this dude went out to see. As he was interviewing someone, there was a wreck.

Guess what happened after that piece aired?

Suddenly the city had the time to lower the traffic light and the accidents stopped.

Journalists get a bad rep, and while big stations like Fox deserve it, I think more thought should be given to who you’re actually shitting on when you say “I hate journalists.” Because we’re overworked, underpaid, constantly shit on, but we still do the job because we want to help people. All professional, prestigious journalists that I’ve met hate the government and will do whatever they can to get the information and change that’s needed. Being a journalist is a dangerous profession: at every professional convention I’ve been at there’s a fund for the families of journalists that have been killed (there’s a lot!) and a long memoriam roll.

When I was in high school, a man who I’d thought was the parent of a school friend followed me out to the grocery store parking lot greenhouse where I worked. It was dark, and late, and it was me, alone, in a chain link enclosure with one exit and a register full of cash. He called me up to the fence and asked if I wanted to get dinner, or go dancing. I was scared and shaking and told him no several times, and he only left when I falsely said I had a boyfriend. I was very aware that if he were to come over the fence, or just wait at the exit until I eventually had to leave, I could do nothing about it.

When my hair was very short, a hairdresser sent me to the barber’s side of the store so they could get the back of my head with clippers. The barber followed me out to my car to ask me out afterwards. I was very aware that we were the only people in the parking lot when it happened, and that the lot itself was tucked behind the building with no clear visibility to the road.

Today, a man I’ve met once made it very clear he knows where I live, and used that knowledge to express a romantic interest. If he ever decides that he’s unhappy with how I responded, he knows where I live. He knows what my car looks like. It is impossibly easy for him to determine when I’m home alone, and now I have to live with that knowledge.

Every woman I know has at least one story like this. My roommate had to be escorted to her car every night when she was a waitress, in case some man was waiting for her or a coworker’s shift to end.

If the person you want to ask out cannot physically run away from you when you are asking, YOU CANNOT ASK THEM OUT. You cannot ask someone out if they are at work. You cannot ask someone out if you’ve followed them to a remote/unoccupied/enclosed area. You cannot GO TO SOMEONE’S HOME UNINVITED to ask them out. You are not being romantic. You are not “taking initiative”. You are terrifying the person you want to woo. If they say yes, it is not because they want to, it is because they are terrified of what might happen if they say no.

Richard Gottfried, 65

Rose Mallinger, 97

Jerry Rabinowitz, 66

Cecil Rosenthal, 59

David Rosenthal, 54

Bernice Simon, 84

Sylvan Simon, 86

Daniel Stein, 71

Melvin Wax, 88

Irving Younger, 69

—

Awaiting Election Spanking From Angry Liberals, Conservatives Whine After Kavanaugh Win

I’m just going to highlight this, because it’s so important to remember and to understand: 

His 50 votes may have represented in this case the bare majority of the Senate, but the senators who voted to confirm him do not represent 50 percent of the country. It isn’t even close. Assigning half a state’s population to each voting senator and doing a little rounding produces the result: Senators who voted for Kavanaugh represent around 145 million Americans, while senators who voted against him represent 181 million. That’s 56 to 44 percent, with the will of the majority brazenly thwarted by the most unrepresentative legislative body in the democratic world.

Anyway, the running gag was that the king (an old Power Rangers knock-off doll) had absolute and unwavering faith in Evil Chancellor Traytor, who basically comported himself like a mix between Grima Wormtongue and Jafar from the Aladdin movies. Everyone was always sure that Evil Chancellor Traytor had something to do with the nefarious scheme of the day. The dude even carried around a poisoned knife called ‘the kingslayer’.

The additional twist on the joke, though, was that he never was behind anything. The king was actually right. Evil Chancellor Traytor was the most devoted civil servant in the entire Action Figure Dystopia. He spent his nights working on writing up new legislature to ensure that broken toys had access to mobility devices, was always on the lookout to acquire new shoeboxes for expanding city infrastructure, and drafted a proposal that once got half the ‘settlement’ in my sister and I’s closet moved to the upper shelf so that vulnerable toys were less likely to be snatched up by the dog.

The knife, as it turned out, was as symbolic as the ‘evil’ in his name. See, Action Figure Dystopia had a long history of corrupted monarchs getting too big for their thrones and exploiting the underclasses. The job of the Evil Chancellor was to always remain vigilant, and loyally serve a good ruler - or, if the regent should became a despot, to slay them on behalf of the people.

But since killing the king would be a terrible crime, the Evil Chancellor had to be the kind of person who would willingly die to spare the people from the plight of a wicked leader; because the murder would be pinned on them, in order to keep the ‘machinery of politics’ working as smoothly as ever.

Anyway, Evil Chancellor Traytor had a diary, in which my sister I would take turns writing out the most over-the-top good shit he’d done behind the scenes. Usually after everyone else had finished talking shit about him. I don’t know why but we got the biggest kick out of being like:

Barbie With the Unfortunate Haircut: Oh that Evil Chancellor Traytor! Why can’t the king see how wicked he is?!

Charmander From the Vending Machine: Char!

Jurassic Park Toy of Jeff Goldblum With Disturbingly Realistic Face: At least if someone puts a knife in the king’s back, we’ll know where to look!

Evil Chancellor Traytor’s Diary: Today I was feeding ducks at the park when I noticed another legless action figure sitting by the benches. I put a hundred dollars into his bag while he wasn’t looking. I really need to increase budgeting to the medical treatment centers. If only we had enough glue, I think we would see far fewer toys trying to get by without limbs… *insert iconic evil laugh*

Anyway, Evil Chancellor Traytor eventually fell victim to one of my mom’s cleaning sprees, and she decided he was too busted up to keep and tossed him out. My littler brother, who tended to follow my sister and I’s games like he was watching a daily soap opera, cried so hard that we had to do a special ‘episode’ where one of the toys found the Evil Chancellor’s diary, and so he got a big huge memorial and the king threw himself into the empty grave and then ordered the toys driving the toy bulldozer to bury him so that ‘Traytor’s grave would have a body’ (this seemed very important for some reason).

I run downstairs, thinking someone has died or something and see THIS: