Monday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Monday, April 17, 2023
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82 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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We were in Boston for the ballet yesterday and emerged from the Boston Common garage to this, 250 or so Golden Retrievers and assorted hangers on. And not one dog fight, but lots of play wrestling.
Okay… I know we joke about the weather in Wisconsin (Dont’ like the season? Wait a couple hours, it’ll change.)… but this is ridiculous!
Saturday: 85° & sunny
Today: 25°, up to an inch of snow, and ice-covered roads.
@Mu Yixiao: Whoa!
@Mu Yixiao:
Hope you didn’t start for work this morning in shorts, flip-flops and your favorite Hawaiian shirt.
There is a lot of discussion about the optics and ethics of Dems demanding Feinstein resign. One of the things I’ve been watching for is any actual comments from Feinstein herself. As of yesterday there hasn’t been any, aside from written statements under her name but issued from her office. The claim is that she is recovering from shingles. While those who I know who have had it have told me that it is incredibly painful, it doesn’t keep you from speaking. This leads me to be highly skeptical that she is coherent. If she could speak for herself, all of this speculation would have been put to rest weeks ago.
So, Starship did not launch today. No estimate so far as to when launch might be attempted again.
I watched ep. 9 of Picard season 3 yesterday, and it left me baffled.
Did season 2 never happen?
I watch little live TV besides sports but I do watch a lot fo youtube now. Mostly history stuff, science and lots of for porn. However, I have come to also enjoy the SNL weekend update guys. Not everything is funny but they are pretty good. They cross some perceived boundaries but dont do it in a mean way.
Steve
@steve:
“Lots of for porn”?
@steve: From comments Jost and Che have made on late night talk shows, they deliberately slip jokes into each others scripts that paint them in a negative light – Jost as a racist Staten Island stereotype and Che as a shallow misogynist. They are taking a big risk in this day and age.
About yesterday’s comment son airline diversions, I’m not too clear how they are handled.
I know the reasons for diversions, but not how or who decides where and when to divert. The pilots have a lot of discretion, to be sure. Faced with an emergency, they will request directions to and permission to land in the nearest airport.
But absent that, such as in cases of closed airports, minor medical issues, low fuel, bad weather, etc., the airline’s dispatch may weigh in. This is where it matters whether an airline has facilities, employees, and a relationship with a particular airport.
There are also matters of scheduling and positioning. Some planes fly from A to B and back, sometimes several times through the day. others may fly A to B to C to D (more so for airlines that eschew the hub and spoke model). That’s why dispatch would get involved.
And that’s why sometimes a diversion may result in a return to where the flight started, as happened to Jet Blue the other day.
@Kathy: There was a line of dialog earlier in the season that acknowledged what happened in s2 but also left the(red) door open to what happened in ep 9.
I see the FOX/Dominion trial is paused for a day with rumors of settlement talks. I don’t see how FOX can avoid a very expensive settlement. If it goes to trial even their viewers might find out about it. IANAL. There are a couple of legal questions that have bothered me. This may be my last chance to ask before they become moot.
I keep hearing about malice. Everybody keeps saying that FOX knowing statements were false proves malice. But democracy isn’t suing them, Dominion is. Wouldn’t relevant malice have to be malice toward Dominion? That sounds like a reach as FOX doesn’t care who gets hurt. However reckless indifference seems easy. If relevant malice must be toward Dominion, is reckless indifference sufficient?
Everybody also keeps saying if FOX settles they’ll have to admit to lying. Really? In a civil suit? Wouldn’t FOX insist on confidentiality? People keep saying Dominion wants to nail FOX to the wall. I somehow suspect what they really want, push comes to shove, is a big chunk of the 1.6 billion they’re talking about.
@gVOR08:
Because it’s generally hard to show actual malice, you can prove it by showing that the speaker knew it was false, and kept lying and defaming anyway, especially when it’s profitable to you to keep defaming.
I’m the Fox case, I think the just should have ruled there was actual malice since Fox knew it was defamatory and a lie, kept aggressively spouting it and there are internal communications noting that they have to keep lying or they will lose viewers. I think the only reason the judge didn’t give Dominion full summary judgement was to make it harder to overturn.
I also think that Dominion wants more than the money. They need this to stop or it’s going to keep coming up and eventually ruin them. Given that they caught Fox’s lawyers lying, the first thing I would demand is a vociferous public apology and acknowledgement from their major stars during their regular programming. Fox should have settled immediately months ago. This would be memory hole’d by now.
@gVOR08:
This is totally idle speculation, but given the incredible damage to their reputations it seems to me that Dominion would only to be willing to settle for a boatload full of money and total admission of wrong doing from each and every Fox host, publicly and repeatedly on their respective shows, OR, a skyscraper full of money, enough that they can close their doors and still have a handy profit for their investors.
@gVOR08:
@Beth:
I would dearly love for Dominion to pursue this in court to the end.
The first and most important reason, is to air out in court all the lies and deceptions of the FOX hosts and personnel.
This may be accomplished, as Beth suggests, by on air, primetime, apologies and admissions.
The second is to give a jury the chance to impose punitive damages.
@Steven L. Taylor: I have no recollection of that line. Even with a one line explanation though, it definitely feels like they ignored Season 2, unless Season 3 is wrapped up with a deus ex half-machina.
They have a lot to wrap up in one episode. More than I think they can wrap up satisfyingly.
Also, the show really annoyed me by using the same cliffhanger for Eps 7 and 8. Somehow that burnt away my patience for the show more than Seasons 1 and 2 did. Especially since the revelation was obvious, quick and would have made a better cliffhanger itself than dangling the mystery at us a second time.
The whole show has made some deeply odd choices, but they had been well meaning deeply odd choices up until that.
@Gustopher: Shaw makes a comment in Ten Forward before he talks about Wolf 359. Plus, s2 didn’t change the timeline in a way that erased Wolf 359, et al., so I don’t think it is contradictory.
I 100% agree they stretched out eps 7 and 8 in particular and should have started wrapping things up an episode or two earlier to give themselves more time. I also agree about the cliffhanger.
On balance, I have been pleased, but also could very easily identify a number of things that I wish had been done differently or better.
But that is true of almost all entertainment. I love, love, STII:TWOK but given Starfleet’s technology, there is simply no way that they would have gone to the wrong planet.
@Gustopher: @Steven L. Taylor: Something Wrath of Khan and Picard s3 have in common is that I find the whoopsie pregnancies to be a bit of a stretch. I am finding it hard to believe the 23rd and 24th-century birth control wouldn’t have been a bit better than that.
@Steven L. Taylor: I think I’m going to add this to my memory bank as a variant of “The idiot plot” (plot where the conflict would be easily solved were not everyone acting like an idiot.)
(Overly Sarcastic Productions has a good explanation of The Idiot Plot in one of Red’s Trope Talks.)
@grumpy realist: Part of how I can deal with the idiot plot, among other storytelling problems, is that people actually do often act like idiots, and the world, in general, is frequently far less logical than I would prefer 😉
@Gustopher:
@Steven L. Taylor:
I’ve quoted LaForge as saying discussions of time travel give him nose bleeds. That line is from a book, Imzadi, where Data and Riker travel back in time to the present of the TNG series. At one point, Data turns off his past self. He realizes he has no memory of that ever happening, then recalls Geordi’s line.
Well, I’m at that point.
I expect this week’s finale to either 1) bring in the Jurati Borg Queen ona dramatic deus ex machina rescue, or 2) render season 2 entirely irrelevant.
I lean towards two, because they wouldn’t have brought back the Enterprise D if she wasn’t going to save the day.
BTW, did anyone notice they resurrected Majel Barret’s voice as the Enterprise D’s computer?
This Dallas Morning News piece on Harlan Crow has me contemplating the difference between corruption and evil. To me, if someone is evil they probably have always been evil, or at least from a young age. But “corruption” implies something was once good, but it began to rot and fester. In the article Crow comes across as sincerely aggrieved, at least to my ear, as he seems to believe he is one of the good guys, a simple man at heart. Would a cunning or duplicitous man have really gone to the same well as Thomas when he claimed, after all that had come to light, that he preferred Arby’s to fancy meals after it was widely circulated that he has a private chef and kitchen staff on his $10M private yacht? And is the private chef and staff that he has at his gigantic luxury estate in the Adirondacks the same people or different ones?
I have met people in the past who seemed to sincerely believe in their own basic goodness and justified their copious bad acts and bad faith as somehow forced upon them by circumstances. Whether it is fruit or people, corruption starts around the edges, growing inward slowly, then steadily, until finally all is consumed.
@MarkedMan: Doesn’t prove anything about her, but when my dad had shingles at about the same age, Mom reported that he even less communicative and coherent than he already was from the Alzheimer’s dementia. She may well be too sick to be very engaged in the present, but we won’t know for sure unless someone makes a statement or a leak. (And even a leak might easily be suspicious as to veracity.)
@Steven L. Taylor: “I am finding it hard to believe the 23rd and 24th-century birth control wouldn’t have been a bit better than that.”
Clearly, you have underestimated the tenacity of evangelical conservatism. They actually run the universe in the 23rd and 24th centuries. 😉
I’m stunned the case of Ralph Yarl isn’t getting more play. This kid, this black kid, went to a door, knocked, thinking he was picking up his younger siblings. He was at the wrong house. A white man opened the door, shot him, then leaned over the young man and shot him, in the head, again. The kid is still alive, so what kind of shitty shot is the white man?
No charges. Released with no even a citation, and the prosecutors office say they’re waiting on a “criminal referral from someone”. to investigate the case.
“Stand Your Ground” now just means the opportunity to shoot n*****s if they approach your property for any reason.
I figure i’d move this over here:
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
I’m actually a part of a couple of Discords, which I really enjoy saying. It seems like a very useful platform. We tried a couple of different platforms for the group but Discord gave us the tools to really connect in a way that Facebook or slack didn’t.
About the only major problem I had with it was when my parasocial himbo dj boyfriend started his own, but opened it up to everyone before he understood the controls or even had any controls. 10,000 people flooded in and everyone got every single update message for about an hour before he was able to lock it down. My phone buzzed like mad for about an hour. I thought it was hilarious and adorable.
Also, that Mt. Dew thing looks amazing. Too bad I’m not allowed in Florida.
@Kathy: Enterprise D was brought back so the cast could fondle chairs and carpet. Which is a perfectly fine reason.
Each season has done something different with an apparently entirely different chunk of the Borg — a (perhaps accidental) through line for the entire series. If it was a well-planned show, it would tie this all together with some kind of meaningful statement on individuality and community. Not really possible in an hour, but I would be laughing if it ends with Juratti and ex-Borg saving the day.
DeSantis continues his personal vendetta campaign against Disney, threatening to build a prison in the Reedy Creek District.
He really is a small pathetic man.
Small pathetic men appeal to Republicans, apparently.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: I’m sure there are many diseases that behave differently in people with diminished mental capacity than in those with full cognitive functions. Towards the end, both my MIL and my mother experienced severe and frightening disorientation whenever they got UTIs and other people who care for elderly relatives confirm this as common. But a UTI in a normal person, while horribly annoying, does not have the same effect.
@Beth:
I’m not allowed either…a personal decision.
This is a bar my older brother frequents and that, consequently, I have been to several times.
Never again.
https://thespacecoastrocket.com/we-dont-serve-fggot-beer-grills-seafood-gets-rid-of-bud-light-at-all-locations-reportedly-destroys-inventory/
If they really had the courage of their convictions they would stop selling ALL InBev products…which include 8 of the top ten beers sold in the US.
Of course bigots lack any sort of courage. Indeed their bigotry is rooted in cowardice.
@Kathy: Alison Pill’s name was in the credits. They are connecting the dots.
@Kathy:
Everyone who was watching when the very first episode of Star Trek was broadcast raise their hand…
@EddieInCA:
The case is getting international press: BBC and Sky as well as NYTimes, WaPo, NYPost, CNN, ABC, NBC, People, Axios, etc.
@MarkedMan: My father also used to get profoundly disoriented as a symptom of UTIs to the point that I demanded the nursing unit taking care of him test him for a UTI when I found him confused (and I was correct). Anyway, that disorientation passed very quickly as soon as he was treated. It was not a long term issue.
@Steven L. Taylor: “I am finding it hard to believe the 23rd and 24th-century birth control wouldn’t have been a bit better than that.”
Well, after the (our version of the) Eugenics Wars, after the Forced Birthers were put on a slow ship to the center of the Galaxy, humans had to put together the lost secrets of birth control.
In terms of the Dominion lawsuit, IMHO Dominion has lost at least half of its business or more. No GOP state will use their services, and any GOP official in other states will make political hay out of Dems using them.
Fox New crippled, if not killed, Dominion’s business.
@Steven L. Taylor: I can’t speak of Picard, but my take on Wrath of Khan is that Carol Marcus wanted to have the kid and just never told Kirk, because reasons…maybe she was protecting him, or thought she was. Or maybe she just wanted a kid and thought she could do worse than Kirk as father. I mean, that stuff happens in our world…
[I just deleted a very detailed and kinda weird theory. No need to go there.]
@Jay L Gischer: To me it strains credulity that in the 23rd century, there isn’t some near-perfect male-centric birth control and the James T. Kirk would most definitely be using it.
@Gustopher:
I expected Jean Luc to say he missed a well-lit bridge.
@Jen:
If they’re going with dueling collectives, they should have done it over two episodes. On the other hand, we may get to see simply a Jurati drone.
@anjin-san:
Before my time. I first saw it on reruns.
@daryl and his brother darryl:
Seriously? HA!
The moron realizes Universal just down the road and will be insanely unhappy about that too, right? Golden Oaks is full of millionaire Disney Adult who paid through the nose for the property values and will be PISSED. All the rental companies and hotels too will be after his blood. Reedy Creek going would (theoretically) just hurt Disney but a prison smack in tourist central?! Yeah, great plan Ron. Why not just light your money and presidential candidate paperwork on fire right now and be done with it?
@EddieInCA:
They had to either charge him or let him go after 24 hours, and they guy is 80, married/resident home-owner. Not a flight risk. I think it likely given the prognosis of the victim being very good they decided to hold off for the victim’s statement and get the charges exactly right. Odds are just another frightened idiot who thought he was defending his house from a thief and is now horrified by what he has done. There’s a lot of folks who’ve found themselves in that position.
I would like a statistic, probably impossible to compile, of how many people who have bought a gun for self-defence wound up ruining their life with it as opposed to the number of like-such who have actually defended themselves with one. Would not be surprised to find that ratio to be 100 to 1.
@anjin-san: I started watching TOS in syndicated reruns when I was probably 5 years old, but it is likely that I was an infant in the room when my mother watched it during the third season.
@MarkedMan: Most of the evil people I have known of thought they were on the side of the angels. Every KKK member certainly thought he was doing god’s work. Hitler thought killing all the Jews was fully justified. Pol Pot thought education was the bane of all.
@dazedandconfused:
Sorry, no.
He’s not horrified he shot an innocent, he’s horrified he might be held accountable for acting on his fantasy since the victim is still alive. One shot maybe MAYBE I could understand as a frightened person overreacting but two and in the back no less? He was trying to make sure Yarl was dead because then it was his word against a dead man’s. Double tap to make sure they stay down is not what a frightened person instinctively or accidently does, it’s what someone does to ensure you’re dead.
There was another death just like this reported a little while ago – a white woman and her friends drove up the wrong driveway and didn’t even get out of the car but got shot at twice. Again, not a warning shot, stray shot or initial attack, twice to put down a threat. These people are doing this because they’ve been told BAD PEOPLE are coming for them and “self-defense” excuses will protect them. If you’re so damn afraid, why are you answering the door or even approaching it?
@EddieInCA:
@dazedandconfused:
Plus the kid had to go to three houses before anyone would help him.
@Steven L. Taylor: @Gustopher: @Kathy:
I find writing gets in the way of enjoyment for a lot of shows, and now that I’ve started playing around with screenwriting it’s worse. I’m my own private Gogglebox grunting such brilliant insights as, “Padding,” or, “Lazy fucks didn’t want to have to write the scene,” and, “Seriously, that’s the line you came up with?” And occasionally, “Ooooh, that was nice.” And often, “OK, that guy has moves I do not.”
I wonder whether @wr has ever watched a TV show and been able to suspend disbelief. I imagine it’s a bit like doing stand-up in front of other comics – you don’t get laughs so much as, “Huh, that worked,” and, “OK, that was funny.”
Everything starts with the words. Picard Season 3 is excellent, the first two seasons were embarrassing. Andor was also excellent – cannot imagine how that got past the Disney/Lucas machine, the rest of Star Wars TV is pitiful stuff.
@KM:
Owning the libs isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.
Welcome to Florida, where Ron DeSantis’s dream of higher office went to die…
@Kathy:
There are at least a couple seasons that should never have happened… The bigger question is ‘When are these shows going to be written & produced by people who have a clue about the subject matter?’
@Michael Reynolds:
@Argon:
Season 3 of Picard is fan service in a 90% bottle episode (ie, 90% of the action takes place inside the ship).
The best moment so far is:
I am Worf, son of Mogh, House of Martok, son of Sergei, House of Rozhenko, Bane to the Duras Family, slayer of Gowron. I have made some chamomile tea. Do you take sugar?
Which I do know is 100% fan service.
@KM:
Has the shooter made any statements?
@MarkedMan: From someone who has to run straight catheters, a bad enough UTI in someone middle aged can make your brain pretty foggy. It is insidious too since you don’t realize how bad it is until you have had a day or two of antibiotics.
@Michael Reynolds: “I wonder whether @wr has ever watched a TV show and been able to suspend disbelief.”
Sure. Actually, I appreciate a lot of stuff more than I would have if I weren’t a writer. I think that what you’re going through is a pretty common stage in the life of an artist. To me, it’s like a new chef trying exquisite new food, and suddenly all he can taste is the individual components and the techniques used that he now recognizes. He thinks he can never go back to tasting the way he used to before he had this knowledge — and he’s right. But the next stage is even better — he begins to taste both the components AND the finished dish, and his enjoyment is more sophisticated because he truly understands what he’s eating.
I will always remember seeing “Edge of Tomorrow” in a theater and being simultaneously completely wrapped up in the story and being blown away by the perfection of the structure.
@wr:
The same thing is true of writing fiction and non-fiction: It makes you a better reader. You notice all sorts of things; when someone comes up with a great turn of phrase, you really appreciate it. Or you say: “Ah-hah. I see why she did that.”
@dazedandconfused: yeah. Because home invaders are well known for ringing the doorbell and waiting for an answer. I really, really, wanted to let this go but then you asked if the shooter made a statement. Guess that would be something for you to glomb onto for your schtick. Sweet Jesus, it is a pattern.
@daryl and his brother darryl: Sadly, that is not uncommon. Most people, when hearing gun shots, their instinct is to hunker down. Then when somebody comes pounding on their door 15-30 seconds later they hide behind the furniture. Does he have a gun? Not? Better to not open the door and avoid becoming the next victim.
I reacted differently in the murder suicide I witnessed. I’d like to say I would do the same today but I know that past performance is no guarantee of future behavior.
@wr:
Edge of Tomorrow was built. Bad title, but a fun movie.
If a show is good enough (House of the Dragon, Barry, Succession) I can zone out because I suppose I develop a level of trust in the writer. There’s a sweet spot where I can hate watch and get some mordant pleasure from that. (Blue Bloods comes to mind.) But sometimes I just can’t do it (Rings of Power) because I become consumed by contempt.
“The sea is always right!” Now let’s have all the characters shout it together, because we really, really want to punch that line. Add some vague hand gestures, that’ll make it even more special.
The best is when I think the writer cannot pull it off. . . and then does. The Good Place. No way that bullshit premise goes the distance. . . and yet.
@Thomm: They don’t ring the doorbell. They pound on the door screaming unintelligible words to terrified individuals wondering if they are next.
@Thomm: I think I misinterpreted what you were saying. My apologies.
@Michael Reynolds: I think Season 3 leans way too much into hiding everything interesting in a mystery box.
There’s something going on with the themes of individuality, community and belonging, particularly on the side of the villains (Changelings splitting off from the Great Link, now willing to kill each other? And then the big evil plan), but for the most part we merely see the heroes reacting to it.
I like seeing the old gang together, doing things, so they got that right, but it’s a little lacking on the made up moral issues that Star Trek does so adequately.
It would also be good if the big evil plan weren’t quite so evil, so there’s a dilemma on whether it even should be stopped. Giving humans a great link or collective, or simply making them more empathetic and less expansionist so the Changelings don’t have to fear them as much. Jurarti Borg might be on board with helping that.
@anjin-san: Hand up, watched the first episode of Star Trek in a dorm lounge at U of I, Champaign.
All this talk of Fox’s legal woes and Star Trek makes me think that “the Dominion lawsuit” has something to do with whether non-solid aliens can shape-shift into copies of real people. Can I sue a Changeling for impersonating me?
@anjin-san:
I’ve been saying Puddin’ boots has to run in ’24. Using the powers of governor to own the libs is all he’s got. And he’s term limited. Jan ’27 he’s out. Of course he may try to change the term limit.
@Kathy:
Yes, when a major airport goes down dispatchers are jugglers with 15 balls in the air. They are responsible for the grand strategy. The pilots can decide what are the viable alternate airports but the dispatchers have to find which, if any of them, have slots at the terminal to disembark the passengers. There may not have been a one with a major airport being suddenly closed in the area.
Ground disembarking with moving stairs has become something of the past for airliners, for emergencies only, and even then there has to be a place out of the way at the airport for the plane to be parked to do it. It’s the dispatchers who have to negotiate all that stuff with the airports, not the pilots.
@EddieInCA: @KM: @dazedandconfused: @Thomm:
The shooter has been charged with two felonies.
@gVOR08:
Allright! My brother and I were in grade school. My dad was pretty strict about what he would let us watch, shows he gave the thumbs up to had to have some redeeming qualities (absolutely no Batman). He liked Star Trek, and even gave us a dispensation to stay up late on a school night when they pushed it to a late time slot in the third season.
@dazedandconfused:
It’s the 21st Century. It’s ridiculous that we don’t have those numbers. Partly a function of the NRA blocking federal funding for gun research for so long. Also of the NRA and Federalist Society putting so much effort into cherry picked research on guns and gun rights. I’ve always read that having a gun in the house increases risk, but I don’t know of any hard numbers. All I know for sure is that I’m old enough to have seen Star Trek season 1, episode 1 in college and I have never had occasion to say to myself, “I wish I had a gun.”
@Beth:
I thought you went to a rage or something in South Beach last year. Something happen there?
@anjin-san:
Batman had several redeeming qualities!
(Nice car, lots of cute women, the Batusi, cheesey morals, …)
It also looks great in HD, so it’s never too late to watch it. (The high definition lets you really see how the sets are made, which boosts the completely straight faced camp)
@Just nutha ignint cracker: Her rage destroyed several counties.
(Either that or the state is run by a bunch of bigots who are intent on criminalizing her presence.)
@anjin-san: Actually can’t remember. But I’m old now and watched a lot of television over the years. Maybe what they say about the glow from the tube softening your brain is true.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Unfortunately, that was the last time I’ll be in FL for the foreseeable future.
https://www.eqfl.org/florida-travel-advisory
Particularly because of this:
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/30/florida-proposal-transgender-bathroom-use-00089689
The threat of getting raped, attacked, hassled or arrested for using the bathroom is too much. I can’t take that chance.
@Thomm: Be aware you’re bitter mind is concocting dragon/windmills out of thin air to tilt at.
@Gustopher:
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Lol. There’s a club in Miami called Space that I want to go back to so bad. It’s a magical club where the show’s start at 11pm and the headliners usually go on at about 3-5 am. There’s a glass roof so the sun comes up while you’re dancing. A true rager.
https://www.clubspace.com/photos
@gVOR08: I DID watch the premiere episode of ST:TNG in a dorm room where I’d gone to get my teaching certificate, though. Does that count?
Lol, here’s the Himbo at Space. He did a 7 hour set a while ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeUwuQK1cDs
@Beth: I feel sad for you about that. 🙁 Fortunately, the world is a large place and has a lot of places for ragers to go. You could even go to India and throw colored powder up in the air and at people (though I understand that’s not likely to happen soon 🙁 ).
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
It’s a huge bummer that people have so much hate that they have to make life hard for other people. There are a ton of places that I can go. There’s a cool club in NYC that I want to check out. A couple of festivals in San Diego and Vegas to check out. I’m going to Movement in Detroit next month.
Unfortunately I think things are going to get way worse in the Neo-Confederacy before they get better. I’ve been begging the LGBT people I know in those states to get out before they get purged.
@Beth:
We like to move. We’ve been in LA for 4 years and 5 is usually way over our limit. But I’m not going to live in a place where my daughter can’t safely visit. And actually, that excludes a whole lot of this country and the larger world. I won’t even visit Florida or Texas on the same grounds that I have refused invites to Dubai: I prefer the free world. Unfortunately much of the US no longer qualifies as free.
@Kathy: I hear you! What happened to Agnes becoming the Borg queen, and deciding to find ways to work with the Federation instead of against them?
So here’s an important Star Trek TOS question: Leila Kalomi or Rayna Kapec?
@Michael Reynolds: Yep, we would be going to Texas for Christmas, but I won’t subject my daughter (the one that doesn’t live in Texas and is trans) to the kind of harassment she experienced at IAH again.
No shade on the many, many Texans I know and have met who are friendly and sympathetic, by the way.
Florida has never been a super interesting place for me, though.