We Found Them!

The Guardian went looking for the dumbest fucking people on planet earth, and quelle surprise, they found them at a Trump rally. (Why is Trump having rallies in the middle of his presidency? That is very weird and fascist and... I think I just answered my own question. NM)

You can read the whole thing here. Or if you prefer to avoid exposing yourself to infinite quantities of abject stupidity, maybe skip it.

I Believe Her

This is the face of a man that attempted to rape a 15 year old girl. He was 17 at the time. The incident itself happened a long time ago, way back in 1982, when both of them were at a high school party.

Memory is famously unreliable. However, the woman remembers the incident, and (significantly) told her peers about it when it happened, told her therapist about it not long after that, and suffered sufficiently lasting emotional trauma that she later told her husband about a few times, most recently when this man appeared on a shortlist of nominees for the Supreme Court.

The man claims that none of it happened, and that all of it is a complete fabrication, and that they were never even at any party together, ever. He probably believes it, so he is not lying, as such, but it does raise questions about how cavalier one has to be about sexual assault in order to attempt to rape a girl and then completely forget about it.

Let's come at this from a different direction: What does the woman have to gain by coming forward? She can prevent this man from getting a promotion. What does she have to lose? Her life as she knew it has already been irrevocably altered. So if you believe that a successful professional would willingly perjure herself, sabotage her career, AND expose herself, her family, and her loved ones to a lifetime of unprecedented levels of vile hatred, harassment and ugliness from the reactionary supporters of this man just to prevent him from getting a promotion, then you must be the dumbest fucking person on planet earth.

The other issue here is the idea that the man should be held accountable for something he did 38 years ago. Does his attempt to rape a girl when he was a minor disqualify him from getting a promotion? Intent matters, and this man has never apologized, shown no remorse, taken zero ownership, and worked as hard as he can to deny, distract, and deflect. So too have his supporters. Only a rich white man, enabled and supported by other rich white men, could behave in this way and actually expect to get promoted.

Whether or not this man gets his promotion the most compelling thing we learned during the process is how the GOP treats women: terribly. You would think that alone would disqualify someone from the Supreme Court, but then you remember that it does not disqualify you from the office of the president of the United States, and it all makes perfect sense.

Not for nothing, but this guy also lied under oath, which, what the hell?

Please Stop Buying Bottled Water

Plastic Trash in the Pacific is a Bummer

I am wasting my time here but what else is this thing for but to complain to people that don't care about stuff they will not change?

Please stop buying bottled water by the truckload. Seriously, it's the worst. Almost all of the United States has ready access to fresh, clean, cheap drinking water. We have so much that people use drinking water to wash their cars and water their lawns and fill their swimming pools. Bottled water is too cheap, in that the cost it does to the environment is not reflected in the purchase price. This is true of a great many things: meat, corn, soybeans, and much else. But water, which is available almost for free from your own home, is still purchased in vast quantities by people that really should know better, and they bring it TO THEIR HOUSE TO DRINK. If you cannot handle regular tap water then give some real thought to the fact that you have been shamelessly brainwashed into an absurd fallacy and then buy a brita, or buy a portable water filter that people use for camping. Stop being an asshole and buying bottled water. Please.

There's all this fuss about straws now. Straws are only a tiny fraction of the problem. How can I drink boba without a straw? Do I have to bring my own? I guess I can do, if necessary. I'm happy to, if it means you will stop it with the bottled water nonsense. Or just keep doing what you're doing. Sea levels are going to rise and the economies are going to collapse anyway. : (

What the hell have you been up to?

It's been a long time.
Since we last visited some stuff has happened, but other stuff has not happened, and here we are. I still have not written about going to Copenhagen. Who goes on a multi-week, multi-city European journey and doesn't go on and on about it when they get back? I did!

Here's a photo from a famous location in Copenhagen. It was postcard-perfect weather the several days that I was there, and the biggest challenge in the very long days was working around the outrageously bright sunshine. And also not having a real camera, because carrying a real camera around is exhausting.

Copenhagen was great. Very bike friendly. I did not ride a bike there. The bike lanes are insanely crowded, and riding in town the bikes are much like cars, with traffic lights and stuff. It is intimidating. So we walked a lot. It was good. You should go.