For those who haven't heard the news, Ammon Bundy (son of deadbeat rancher Cliven Bundy, the Fox News-promoted lunatic who orchestrated an armed standoff against federal Bureau of Land Management employees with the help of many of America's most well-armed archconservative chuckleheads) and perhaps a dozen-ish fellow militia-minded cranks have "taken over" the administrative buildings at the Burns, Oregon Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, and have vowed to start murdering people if law enforcement officers attempt to dislodge them. They claim they are doing this in response to two ranchers being sentenced to prison after being convicted of arson, but also want the federal government to close down the wildlife refuge and, of course, whatever other federal lands the group demands they relinquish. Why did they choose the wildlife refuge? Because it was nearby and unoccupied when they were looking for something to take over—these are not masters of planning we're dealing with. How long do they plan on staying? They say "years", although the withering mockery the group is receiving on Twitter already seems to be taking a toll.
Is it very, very hard for the rest of us to take America's Dumbest Militia Group seriously? Yes. Yes it is. But we shall muddle through.
The White House has declined to weigh in on the sit-in (it's not really a "standoff", regardless of what the headlines say, because nobody is "standing off" against them—law enforcement is leaving them to their own devices for the time being), calling it "a local law enforcement matter".
The group posted a video asking like-minded patriots to come join them "armed or unarmed" in order to "prevent any bloodshed". They also claim they are going to use the refuge as a base of operations to return public lands to private citizens. Somehow. In theory.
The two ranchers convicted of the original arson have turned themselves in and will begin serving their five year sentence, as they previously said they would.
Unlike the original Bundy Ranch standoff, conservative politicians are being quick to distance themselves from the armed group, with even Rand Paul and Ted Cruz calling on them to stand down. This is possibly because of lessons learned after supposed patriot Cliven Bundy started lecturing America on live television about the blacks, and possibly because the group who has taken over the wildlife refuge is so nuts that even their fellow militia members have been wary of backing them up.
The Harney County Sheriff (in the Bundy version of the militia movement, county sheriffs are the ultimate legal authorities and can and should overrule federal edicts at will) kindly requests the group of yokels get the hell out of his county.
I mentioned that we are trying very hard to take these people seriously, because they are unhinged lunatics threatening to shoot any federal agents who come to dislodge them. But they are not making it easy for us.
"The Black Lives Matter movement, they can go and protest, close freeways down and all that stuff, and they don't get any backlash, not on the level that we're getting," said the man, who identified himself as "Fluffy Unicorn."
Fluffy Unicorn, who calls himself a "bodyguard" for the group, sounds like he's resentful of all the free tear gas and National Guard troops that peaceful black protesters can garner. By all means, law enforcement, feel free to spread the love.
That's all for now. Tune in tomorrow when we'll see if Captain Dumbass and his fellow would-be revolutionaries have murdered anyone yet.
Always take the skittles, kids. ALWAYS. For bonus points, take the skittles while focusing the... unsettling... stare on them. You know the one.
not being sure whether to take the skittles and tiny toys and rewards they give you because it’s demeaning but you don’t have any other way to get them
When you say things like “If you think you have a mental illness and are trying to self-dx, chances are you probably don’t. You’re just making it up for attention and you aren’t actually suffering so shut up”
what you think you’re doing: Stopping NTs from pretending to be mentally ill online so they feel special
what you’re actually doing: Causing mentally ill people to doubt themselves and go into depressed or panicked moods where they think they’re lying even if they aren’t. Preventing mentally ill people from having the courage to seek out help. Hurting mentally ill people.
I’m a therapist and I just want to say that if people do things for attention, that means they NEED help and support. I get really tired of healthcare professionals, family members, etc. using this as an excuse to minimize what someone is going through. Love and support are human needs, and if I wasn’t getting them, I’d sure as hell be doing things “for attention.” Besides it’s usually more complex… No behavior can be boiled down to just one cause. P.S. Love this blog
“My fervent hope for 2016 is that there are fewer articles and tech hacks preaching at women — particularly young women — about how they should be speaking, writing and presenting themselves to the world. Maybe if their communications weren’t constantly picked apart, even by well-meaning observers, they’d have more of the deeply felt confidence they need to succeed.”
I would take people out at the knees with a baseball bat to get front of the line access to a remote cabin in the woods where no one knows where I am and can’t contact me, all for a $100k reward after the fact.
I’ve seen this floating around my FB and so many of the comments on it are smug and holier than thou and “oh, the REST of you plebes can’t survive without your precious Internet and television but I would be fine, because I’mjust that not attached to technology.” And it’s like “bro, I love FB, I love Tumblr, but give me 100K and I’mma take a box of books, a notepad and some pencils, and be golden.” I really don’t think there’s many people who wouldn’t take that option. Shut up. You’re not special.
…and…like…it doesn’t even say NO TECHNOLOGY, just no real-time-access-to-outside-world tech. If there’s electricity, you can have a non-networked computer–work on writing, illustrating, composing music, watch movies, play games, bring Arduino stuff and hack to your heart’s content…
If there’s not electricity, there’s probably not plumbing, either, which might be a bigger deal breaker for some people than lack of electronics. And, some of those people…well, there’s technique involved in keeping a fire going… (Is there a stove at all?)
My point is, as @geekygothgirl pointed out, of course people can survive without the internet for a month, especially if they’d get $100,000 for it…but…living in a small isolated cabin in the middle of winter might require doing without more than just an internet connection…and that’s where all those smug ‘not attached to technology’ people might realize that…yeah…they are…
Also, this sounds like the premise of a bad horror movie.
When “Just wanted to get away from it all” goes too far…
...and Carrie Fisher gets dumped on for not fitting the right mold, while Harrison Ford doesn't get criticized for his appearance...
“This time around, a scorching sketch about a game show called “Meet Your Second Wife”— in which adult male contestants meet their current, far-too-young, future brides — drew gasps from HuffPo over whether it, too, went “too far.” Entertainment writer Cole Delbyck pondered, “Did the sketch need to go that young to prove its point?” I don’t know; I’m guessing when you’re one of the most powerful women in American comedy and you’re working in an industry in which Johnny Depp is married to a woman who was one when “21 Jump Street” premiered and George Clooney’s wife was in high school when he became a star on “ER” and Han Solo is 14 years older than Leia, maybe the answer is yes.”
I think what probably gets me deeply into my feelings about this “JKR should have just made her students Of Color to start with, she can’t ret-con and pretend she did it right the first time” is that I grew up with Anne Rice and Anne McCaffery, two female fantasy writers who hated headcanons and fandom and sued people for deviating from their original vision or doing any kinds of derivative works without their express contractual permission.
I feel like people who get irritated with her about defending black!Hermione don’t appreciate how much healthier JKR’s attitude toward the inclusivity movement in her fandom is than theirs was. Or Moffat’s is. Or Gatiss’s. Or Whedon’s. Or Green’s. Or even, until very recently, Lucas’s.
She’s not a PCR, but goddamn, at least she’s passing us the milk rather than pissing in our cornflakes.
Jo is actually almost entirely responsible for fanfiction being what it is today.
BUT WAIT, I hear older fandomers cry. X-Files, Star Trek, Xena, how dare you. And yes, I say to those fandomers, you held those banners first! Be proud of the paths you forged. But Jo–
Jo did something no author or creator had ever done before.
She was a household name who encouraged fanfiction.
When I first began writing fanfiction in 1998, it was common practice to preface your fic with this massive disclaimer about how you weren’t selling it, and it was for fun, sometimes quoting the Fair Use part of the Creative Commons act, and even begging authors not to sue. Because in those days, that was a very real danger. Eleven-year-old me had reams of fanfiction on floppy disks I didn’t dare send to archives because I might get arrested and taken to Plagiarism Jail.
And then there was Jo. And no, Jo said, this is not a private amusement park at which you may stare longingly from the other side of wrought-iron gates. It is a giant sandbox. Here are my pails, here are my toys. Come sit and play with me. Eventually you may decide you like some other sandbox better, and all I ask is that you leave my toys here for others to play with, and not try to take them with you. But why should I lock you out of my sandbox? It is, after all, far more fun to play in a sandbox with many people than by yourself.
People were boggled. They didn’t get it. They thought she was crazy. And the fans? They kept loving, and writing, and drawing, and creating, and Jo kept loving them back. Potter Puppet Pals, A Very Potter Musical, Potter!, Remus and the Lupins, all stuff Jo just kind of went “whatever, they’re having fun.”
And attitudes began to change. And then someone else threw her lot in with Jo, someone who doesn’t get a lot of credit for contributing something massive to fandom culture and should:
Stephenie Meyer.
Yeah, you read that right. The goddamn author of Twilight, who refused to sue teenage girls who just wanted Bella to end up with Jacob. (And who is way more gracious than I would be about Fifty Shades.) She actually has a fanfiction archive right on her website! I’m serious: Smeyer has links to a personally-curated list of Twilight fanfiction she personally enjoyed or found interesting. Whatever you may think of her writing, that loving attitude of “we’re all here to have fun, I love that you love my world and my characters, please enjoy” was such a departure from the days of C&D letters and page-long disclaimers.
These two women changed the face of how fandom works forever. Yes, their work is flawed. They are products of their time and upbringing. But just the fact that they embrace the concepts of “my world as I see it and my world as you see it are not the same, and that’s not just okay, that’s good” is something to be celebrated.
I have a lot of issues with Meyer, but her treatment of fans is not one of them.
This is fascinating and all credit to Meyer and Rowling for being so instrumental in changing the culture. I do just want to add that the producers of Xena actually hired a fanfic writer to scriptwrite on their final season. As it often did (with a female TV action hero, with a musical episode), Xena helped to point the way.
Allow me to throw my two cents into the mockery of Adam Driver’s looks.
Just don’t. Make fun of Kylo Ren’s asshattery all you want, but leave Driver’s looks out of it. He seems like a thoughtful, awkward guy who has expressed hating seeing or hearing himself in interviews and his performances. He’s a former Marine. He runs a non-profit organization. He did a great job acting wise with Kylo.
“I’m like a sight gag, I have this really big face…I don’t totally get it. I mean, when I read for Girls
(2012) I was, like, the script says ‘Handsome Carpenter,’ so someone
else is going to get the part. They’ll have someone handsome, not me. I
mean, I’m not in any danger of getting leading-man parts”- Adam Driver
Just…leave him be if you don’t like his looks.
He’s also said in interviews he’s terrified of the internet for the comments he could get, and that’s why he doesn’t have any web presence.
never being able to participate in group conversations because by the time you have processed what people have said and thought of a response the opportunity to say it has passed and you are on to the next thing
“Because when I was five, my kindergarten classmate told me I couldn’t be the princess in the game we were playing because black girls couldn’t be princesses. Because I was in third grade the first time a teacher seemed shocked at how “well-spoken” I was. Because in fourth grade I was told my crush didn’t like black girls.
Because I am not seen as a woman. Because I am not allowed to be fragile. Because the nurse that checked me in at the hospital to deliver wouldn’t look my husband in the eye. Because the vast majority of people won’t look my husband in the eye. Because when the doctors put my son in my arms and I saw that he was as dark as his father, I knew life would be even harder for him.
Because I am trapped here. Because the playing field isn’t leveled. Because I love my skin. Because I love being a woman. Because not hating myself is considered radical. Because I’ve been called racist for defending myself. Because all the major protests are for cis black men. Because I’ve been told that talking about the women who’ve died is taking away from the real issue.
Because I get no break from fighting. Because everything is a struggle. Because my anger isn’t validated. Because they don’t care about my pain. Because they don’t believe in my pain. Because they forgive themselves without atoning. Because I’m not free. Because the awareness of it permeates everything. Because it’s not ending. Because they teach the children that it’s already ended. Because someone will assert their supremacy over me today. Because they’ll do it tomorrow.
