Minor Voices

DOGE just froze funding to vital Federal and Indigenous conservation programs devoted to supporting the very delicate and tenuous existence of the black-footed ferret.

I fell in love with these animals as a kid traveling to our National Parks. Their rarity and ferocity made me sharply aware, even as a child, of just how much of a responsibility we have toward our environment. I can't bear the thought of them being a fucking casualty of Trump and Musk.

And yeah, given that the left and right are more divided than ever it is kind of strange to assume that a male feminist is going to be hanging out with a bunch of sexist dudebros who will take it to heart when they make a rape joke and he says, "dudes...that was fucked up." That's not how it works.

(Also, yes, I realize that "the right" and "sexist dudebros" are not really the same thing but there's an area of overlap that is specifically being focused on in a lot of this discourse.)

I've been in sort of the Mirror World version of that scenario: being in heavily left-wing spaces, hearing people say fucked up shit about men and being the one who says, "uh that's kinda fucked up why would you say something like that?" and can confirm, yes, this kind of pushback does not work in that context. They just ridicule you and double down on whatever they were saying. Pushing out dissenting voices is a time-honored bonding ritual for these types of groups.

On the other hand, when I am alone with an actual friend, someone I care about who also cares about me, and they say something fucked up and I respond with shocked silence or a quiet "hey now," they usually backpedal pretty quickly.

“But shrimp!! Kill shelters are evil!!”

No, shut up, listen to me for a second.

“Kill shelter” is a colloquial term used primarily for Town/City (aka municipal) shelters that rely on incredibly limited government grant funding to operate.

These shelters, by the very nature of their existence, DO NOT HAVE the funds to operate like private rescues do.

On top of this, they’re also *legally required* to take in ANY animal that comes to them. Even if they’re full. Or they’ll lose all of their funding.

This is what leads them to needing to euthanize for space. Is euthanizing for space sad? Yes. But due to the current crisis, it’s also NECESSARY.

These shelters are constantly overfull. They’re STRUGGLING. They don’t have the funds to operate properly. And yet these municipal, government funded, struggling shelters are the same ones that are most likely to be providing care for owned animals in the community

Municipal (“kill”) shelters are the ones hosting low cost spay and neuter clinics. They’re the ones discounting vaccination appointments and microchipping. They’re the ones that have pet food banks so struggling pet owners can feed their pets that week.

These shelters are not evil. They’re doing the absolute best they can with the bare minimum funding they get.

These people are incredibly resourceful and care very deeply about the animals in their care. It breaks their heart every time they have to euthanize an animal that couldn’t get adopted.

These underfunded shelters need your money significantly more than that fancy private rescue you see on TikTok or instagram that has a beautiful facility and has never had to euthanize an animal ever.

Support your local shelters and they will give back to the community thousand fold.

This is one of those things where the discourse is just completely broken. Both of these takes are shit and no one is concerned about the actual problem.

Republicans want to bring back incandescents because they just want to trigger the libs and have decided light bulbs are woke.

And the "LEDs are fine" crowd are throwing people with flicker sensitivities under the bus. And, no, you don't have to be "pretty far on the spectrum" to notice a difference. And even if you did... why in the world is this person so dismissive of the millions of autistic folks?

LEDs, for the most part, are superior to incandescent bulbs. Collectively they save people billions of dollars in energy costs and greatly reduce fossil fuel use. You have more options for color and brightness. You can control them with your phone. LEDs are fantastic.

Unfortunately there is a design flaw that makes LEDs hard to use for certain people. Due to AC power, most LEDs have a 60hz refresh rate. Meaning they turn off and on 60 times per second. With incandescents this didn't matter because the filament didn't have time to lose its glow between cycles.

Most people cannot see this flicker in LEDs. But there are millions of people who are sensitive to it and it can cause migraines and discomfort.

The solution is definitely not to go back to incandescents. There are flicker free LEDs and I think with some regulation we could make sure all LEDs are flicker free or at least make sure flicker free bulbs are easy to find and not priced at a premium.

Thankfully there is a group testing bulbs to find the ones that will most likely cause no discomfort. They call themselves the Flicker Alliance and their website has a pretty decent selection of tested and approved bulbs.

In Walter Benjamin’s essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, he writes that an oppressive structure “sees its salvation” in allowing the masses to express themselves freely in lieu of granting them their rights. Similarly, the mainstream MeToo movement offered temporary catharsis in place of systemic change; Hollywood play-acted a revolution so that its men could keep up their abuse unscathed. There is something phenomenally painful in watching a material backlash erupt in response to a movement that was never allowed to be anything more than aesthetic.

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Now that the state of discourse has moved forward without bringing women’s material conditions with it, men like Johnny Depp are able to benefit from violent systemic misogyny while posturing themselves as radical, anti-establishment activists. Recent events are not so much a pendulum swing as they are a pendulum being repeatedly beaten in one direction for fear it might one day gain a centimetre of ground.

It’s exceptionally clear to me that ever since the advent of the mainstream MeToo movement, the public (even women, even some so-called feminists) has been foaming at the mouth for a neat, uncomplicated example of an evil woman publicly conspiring to bring a good man down. The problem, of course, is that an instance of that is hard to actually find, and so — to paraphrase Voltaire — it became necessary to invent one.

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Much of the popular discourse acts as though there are only two feasible options when it comes to Heard’s (and, really, any woman’s) innocence: either she’s an evil, psychotic manipulator who’s guilty on all counts, or she must have to be a perfectly innocent angel who’s never done anything wrong. I don’t think Amber Heard is a feminist hero, and I’m not saying this to make my support of her more palatable or to perform impartiality — I’m saying it because she shouldn’t have to be. I think it’s essential to a much larger point (and, in reality, far more controversial) to believe Amber Heard is a victim while also acknowledging her wrongdoings. Once you start pushing the idea that a woman has to be perfect in order to be believed, you head down a road that ends with the systemic exorcism of any woman too human to be a good victim.

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This is a great contradiction of the internet age: the act of saying you’re a feminist and the act of engaging in feminism are two entirely disparate inclinations, sharing little in common when they’re not actively at odds with each other. Everyone thinks they’re a feminist now. Everyone thinks they believe women. Few actually are; few actually do. Believing women in theory is much easier than engaging with the messy realities of victimhood. The dissociation of political identity from material reality has become so essential to popular discourse that one can truly, genuinely believe they support victims of abuse while operating within a community that needs to be reminded via Jim-from-The-Office meme that not all women are lying psycho bitches.

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The cornerstone of Johnny Depp’s case is that Amber Heard fabricated the accusations against him in a carefully constructed plan to further her own career. He knows this is a lie, by the way, because the idea that any woman could get ahead in Hollywood by taking a vocal anti-abuse stance is a fabrication that only the most impressionable of celebrity sycophants could ever believe. Apparently, any woman who speaks a truth that threatens power is now at risk of being sued for defamation, so I’ll be strategic: I think Hollywood is run by rapists and womanbeaters. I think the commercial #MeToo movement served only to remove a few sacrificial lambs from the herd so the rest could continue business as usual unscathed, shaking their heads and tut-tutting at the few men who faced consequences before returning to business as usual. I think that women who speak out about sexual assault in Hollywood are immediately blacklisted from the industry with such swiftness and efficiency that we don’t even know (or remember) most of their names. And I know, deeply and ultimately, that the idea that any woman’s social standing within a violently patriarchal institution could possibly be improved by publicly fighting abuse is a collective fantasy-slash-delusion strategically sewn together by those in power.

I’ve been saying it since 2018: Powerful men don’t fear the consequences of committing sexual violence. They fear being one of the unlucky few who’s chosen to publicly face some degree of accountability so the rest can continue to violate women in peace. And now, the most influential among them don’t even fear that anymore, because Depp has proven that our culture will be far quicker to circle their wagons around a man whose image is under threat than to consider for a second that a woman might be telling the truth. There’s a reason why defamation suits in particular are becoming abusers’ first line of defence: a man’s reputation has always been considered more precious than a woman’s life.

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Trump will say something like "You know the Hispanics actually punch kittens, it's what they do."

And the news will be like "TRUMP SAID HISPANIC PEOPLE PUNCH KITTENS" for three weeks.

And while they're doing that the Republicans in Congress have quietly deleted healthcare.

"I’m very concerned about my client’s right to a fair trial in this case.  He’s being prejudiced by some statements that are being made by government officials. Like every other defendant, he’s entitled to a presumption of innocence. But unfortunately the way this has been handled so far his rights are being violated. And as you know, Your Honor, there’s a wealth of case law guaranteeing his rights to a fair trial, but none of the safeguards have been put in place yet here — in fact it’s just the opposite of what’s been happening. 

He’s a young man, and he is being treated like a human pingpong ball between two warring jurisdictions here.

These federal and state prosecutors are coordinating with one another at the expense of him. They have conflicting theories in their indictment, and they are literally treating him like he is some sort of political fodder, like some sort of spectacle. 

He was on display for everyone to see in the biggest staged perp walk I’ve ever seen in my career. It was absolutely unnecessary. He’s been cooperative with law enforcement. He’d been in custody for over a week. He waived extradition. He was cooperative at all accounts. There was no reason for the NYPD and everybody to have these big assault rifles — that frankly I had no idea it was in their arsenal — and to have all the press there the media there. It was perfectly choreographed. 

And what was the New York City Mayor doing at this press conference, Your Honor? That just made it utterly political. And as your honor knows under Loro v. Charles, the Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit has held it to be clearly established that these staged perp walks to the media unrelated to a legitimate law enforcement objective is unconstitutional. And I submit that there was zero law enforcement objective to do that sort of perp walk. There’s absolutely no need for that whatsoever. 

And frankly, Your Honor, the mayor should know more than anyone about the presumption of innocence that he, too, is afforded dealing with his own issues. And, frankly, I submit that he was just trying to detract from those issues by making a spectacle of Mr. Mangione. 

And there are consequences to this. 

He has a right to a fair trial. And I just want to put on the record statements that the mayor made publicly about my client. Nothing saying “alleged” for example. And he said “I wanted to send a strong message with the police commissioner that we’re leading from the front. I’m not just going to allow him to come into our city. I wanted to look him in the eye and state ‘You carried out this terrorist act in my city, the city of New York that I love.’” And he wanted to show symbolism. 

Your Honor, he’s not a symbol. He’s somebody who is afforded the right to a fair trial. He’s innocent until proven guilty. And the mayor was talking to jurors — future potential jurors that elected him. Those are the people that elected him that he is talking to and calling this man a terrorist.