I wrote this on Facebook about two weeks ago. I’m sharing it here because it’s easier to link to this blog and have things seen than it is to link to Facebook and, frankly, I’ve gotten tired of writing and rewriting even the much shorter explanations.
Yes, there is a valid need right now for a Pride Month and Pride events. No, there is no valid need for Straight Pride events. Here’s why.
When people do something in a monumentally stupid way, I usually have no issue pointing out that they just did something in a monumentally stupid way. When people do something in a monumentally stupid way and then follow that up by doubling down in perhaps an even more monumentally stupid way, I usually have no issue with pointing that out. Occasionally, when someone doesn’t end up doubling down in ways that makes them come off as a bit of an ass, I’ll even try to be fairly polite about it. Blunt honesty about how someone is behaving might not come across as “polite” in a way Miss Manners would endorse, but, hey, she occasionally over the years came across as less than polite and sometimes even more than a tad condescending.
However, one thing I do hate to do is to punch down. A few days ago, a statement- perhaps in the eyes of some even a borderline challenge -was directed at me where I just rolled my eyes, joked with a few friends about it, and more or less decided to leave it alone and move on. At the time, as the person seemed to be desperately trying to sink himself and a project he wanted to launch, it seemed like responding in the way he suggested I do so would be a little bit like me punching down- in this case punching down on a guy barely holding onto a life preserver in shark-infested waters while simultaneously dumping chum all over himself.
It’s a few days later. I’ve thought about it. Not all that much, mind you, but enough. Just enough to realize that something I said to this fellow was fairly accurate and worth following up on. His actions and his reactions to the fallout from his actions are worth noting and discussing if for no other reason than they are a “How To” guide for everyone else out there. However, in his case, he is and seems to be intent on becoming even more so a “How To” guide on everything you want to not do if you’re hoping to do a project along the lines of his proposed project.
I’m going to work very hard to rein in my natural tendencies towards sarcasm here. There are three reasons for this. First, this is the kind of mistake many fans or fan/pros out there could easily make in this day and age. Second, while the man is acting in a damned fool way, he hasn’t exactly (yet) struck me as someone trying to be a jackass. That could change based on things he’s already expressed on the matter, but I’m going to give him some benefit of the doubt for now. Third… Well, I’ll touch on that reason towards the end of this.
Actually, I’ll add a fourth reason why I’ll rein in my natural tendencies towards sarcasm here. He may very well be a nice guy who doesn’t act like this very often. I don’t know. I have no real way of knowing that. He may normally be a nice, fairly on top of it guy who is just acting in an extremely poor manner here.
Oh, also… If the individual in question sees all of this and feels it puts him in a poor light or that my using him as an example for others of what not to do casts his recent actions in a negative light… Well, there’s a part of me that’s at least a little sorry for that. However, keep in mind; he basically suggested I do this.
Science And Mechanics – What turns you on? (Feb. 1970) – LINK
This old article was recently dug up and shared by some friends. I both hate and love these, but not quite for the reasons you might think.
One of the more scam-like things from science (junk science) from the end of the 1960s and the start of the 1970s could be found in things like this. Sadly, it’s a kind of scam that still lives on now. A husband and wife team of psychologists, Jerry and Nancy Wiggins, tested the proposition that the measure of a man can be worked out by looking at his girl friend’s measurements. They even got a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health for this mess.
Okay, now that I’ve gotten to laugh my ass off about Huckabee and crew’s hypocrisy for the weekend… Some (mostly) more seriously constructed thoughts.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders got requested to leave a restaurant called Red Hen this weekend because the owner felt that she wasn’t simply an average person with opposing points of view, but rather a public figure and representative of an administration that has been hostile to various minority groups that included her staff and that Sarah Huckabee Sanders worked in the service of an “inhumane and unethical” administration.
This is certainly going to be one of the more… different… pieces I’ve ever written for Needless Things. I’m usually fairly direct when it comes to things I’m writing about, but, at least right now, I’m being courteous about the matter. I’m not going to risk stirring up a hornets nest for someone/a group of people by addressing the matter directly and in detail. I will, it’s just going to have to wait a half dozen or so Thursdays before I can. In the meantime, I’m going to comment on various groups of people out there, sadly some in fandom, by discussing their mindset. Well, discussing might be the wrong word…
