MAGA Hats, White Hoods, and Swastikas: One Big Happy Family

How many of you have ever heard of J. Kenji Lopez Alt? Personally, I’m a pretty big fan. His Food Lab column at Serious Eats, and his Food Lab book (I promise that’s not an affiliate link… I make $0.00 USD if you click that and order the book; I do highly recommend it, however), have been hugely influential on me as a cook. He’s the Jimmy Page of food, as far as I’m concerned (and if you know how much I love Led Zeppelin, then you know how much of a compliment that is from me). He’s opened up his own restaurant in the Bay Area, as well.

Called Wursthall, it’s definitely a restaurant I desperately want to check out. Having made many of Kenji’s recipes in my own home, I already know the food is good. It’s just a matter of getting out there to try it… and I don’t have the money to do that.

Another reason I’m a big fan of Kenji is that when his politics creep into his food, it’s absolutely awesome. Just look at his Twitter bio…

Full-time Dad. Author: The Food Lab (I don’t control @TheFoodLab). Chef. Feminist. Atheist.

Yeah I know… we don’t love men who proclaim themselves to be feminists. I don’t call myself a feminist, not because I don’t wholeheartedly support feminism (I very much do), but because of how many “feminist” men have shown themselves to be anything but… causing, obviously, a distinct lack of trust in men who make that proclamation. That said, having followed Kenji for years, he’s shown that he doesn’t just talk the talk… he walks the walk, as well.

Nathan. What does any of this have to do with MAGA hats, white hoods, and swastikas?

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Turns Out Pixar’s Toxic

Note: Trigger Warning for discussions of sexual harassment and assault, especially for Cassandra Smolcic’s article linked below, which I am going to quote from. I will quote the less triggering stuff, but even still, the warning applies. And if you do choose to read Cassandra’s entire article, this Trigger Warning applies even more, as she discusses what happened to her before she got to Pixar, and it’s…. disturbing. That said, I do recommend reading Cassandra’s article; just keep this Trigger Warning in mind if you do.

Earlier this month, John Lasseter left Pixar and Disney amid “vague” accusations of sexual misconduct (note: I don’t think they’re so “vague”, personally… and I believe them).

John Lasseter, Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios’ chief creative officer, will leave both companies by the end of 2018, following revelations last year that he sexually harassed employees, according to The New York Times. Lasseter has been on a leave of absence from the studio since November, when he first acknowledged what he worded as “missteps” that left his employees feeling “disrespected and uncomfortable.” In the months since, media organizations and entertainment industry critics widely speculated on whether he could return to Pixar, or whether Disney would force him to resign.

…

“I’ve recently had a number of difficult conversations that have been very painful for me. It’s never easy to face your missteps, but it’s the only way to learn from them,” Lasseter wrote employees in a memo in November, when he started his six-month leave of absence. Not coincidentally, the memo and Lasseter’s decision coincided with the publication of numerous misconduct allegations by The Hollywood Reporter, which published its story on Lasseter as part of dozens of others accounts of harassment and assault that came to light during the beginning of the #MeToo movement last fall.

Cassandra Smolcic, a former Pixar employee, published a tell-all in Medium’s Be Yourself on June 27, highlighting the frankly disturbing reality of what it was really like working there as a woman…

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I. Hate. Republicans. With Every. Fiber. Of. My. Being. (Health Care)

(Content warning: rape, rape survivors… and also a lot of strong, angry, ranting language)

So the fucking Rethuglicans in the fucking House voted to replace sections of the ACA, including doing away with the stipulation that health insurance companies can’t deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions… and one of those fucking conditions was fucking rape.

When House Republicans passed the American Health Care Act on Thursday, many Americans likely thought of their family and friends living with cancer, diabetes, or heart disease. These diseases are commonly referred to as “pre-existing conditions” – conditions which, under the Republican health care bill, could result in them being denied health insurance.

But another, less publicised group of people were also concerned by the bill’s passage: rape survivors.

Before Obamacare, some insurance companies considered rape and domestic abuse pre-existing conditions. One woman, Jody Neal-Post, says she was turned away after telling a potential insurance that she was a domestic violence victim – despite otherwise being perfectly healthy.

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Yet Another Man Who Called Himself a Feminist and Clearly Wasn’t

(Content note: discussion of abuse)

I started listening to Citizen Radio back in, I think, 2012… or possibly earlier. It was the very first truly left-wing podcast I had ever heard. In fact, I think it was the first podcast I ever listened to at all.

At the time, I was still pretty right-wing/Libertarian in my thinking. I found them while looking for something that would challenge my thinking/worldview, and, as should be obvious by now, it worked. Through them I found Radio Dispatch, Democracy Now, Tell the Bartender (and through that podcast I found The Struggle Bus), and Best of the Left. Through Best of the Left I found This Week in Blackness Prime, and through them I found The Black Guy Who Tips, The Read, the Three Fifs podcast, Keith and the Girl, Applying it Liberally, the Friend Zone, and many more.

So I always rather loved Allison Kilkenny and Jamie Kilstein. I even saw Jamie live at one of his improv shows in NYC.

So maybe that’s why, despite the fact that, in hindsight, I really shouldn’t be surprised, this was like a punch in the gut to me:

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Rapist Tries the “I Have a Big Dick” Defense

(Trigger Warning: This is about an asshole who raped someone, and his absolutely terrible excuse. I will be quoting from part of the article. It doesn’t go into horrible detail, but still…

Also, I’ll put a content note for incoherent rage and language from me because… this is just…)

I really don’t have words for this, but it needs to be highlighted, because… I just…

Stockbroker accused of rape says he thought woman was crying because of his penis size

A London stockbroker accused of rape says he thought his alleged victim was crying because of the size of his penis.

Daniel Green is accused of raping a woman in her 20s in the offices of StratX last May when she crawled under a desk to go to sleep after a party with drinking and cocaine.

The 26-year-old testified that the two remained in the office after most others at the party had left, and began to have consensual sex, according to The Mirror.

“I looked up and I see a tear on her face. So I sat back. I said, ‘F–k you are crying,” he said, adding that she then told him, “Can you leave please, just go.”

Green said in court that he thinks the woman may have been crying because his penis, which he claims is 10 inches long with a four-inch girth, hurt her.

AAAAHHHH HAHAHAHAHAH AHHAHAHHAHAHH HAUHUDBWIHSJBNXIO SUDBWJIHWBXSJ YOUAREAFUCKINGRAPIST AG_RHUBKJBROIH

*cough*

Sorry. I had no choice but to repeat my Facebook reaction. I just… how… why… you…

Leonardo Dicaprio screaming in anger...

We Are Not Allies

Decided to move this post from my old blog to here. Been wanting to include it for a while…

I was 21 when I first realized I was an atheist, and the same age when I told my mom and brother. I told my dad only a few months later, but after I turned 22.

During this period, it was all I was. I was just an atheist. I wasn’t anything else. I lived and breathed atheism, searched for atheists and atheist stuff online, and my antitheism came screaming out like never before. Because I was an antitheist first. Bill Hicks indulged my antitheism long before I realized I didn’t even believe in a higher power or powers. I realized I was an antitheist when I was 16 and started hating authority. It was only natural that I’d abhor religion, while still believing in a living god who’d talk directly to you, without the aid of some pathetic book or middle-man (clergy).

But then I read The God Delusion, and then the Bible. And I was an atheist.

And for years, I was happy with anyone who was an atheist. I didn’t care if they were feminists or misogynists. I didn’t care if they tried to fight patriarchy and rape culture or denied their existence. But I would only fight alongside atheists and I would never fight alongside a theist, because theists were crazy/delusional and faith was a virus… and “The God Delusion” was my bible.

So it’s safe to say I did the whole “critical thinking” thing wrong.

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Why (We) Believe Victims Don’t Lie (with Special Guest Iris Vander Pluym)

(Please note: the amazing, snarktastically awesome Iris Vander Pluym [read her blog here!] contributed to this little blog post of mine. Her part will be in the color of royal purple [because that is the color of royalty and, apparently, sarcasm, so…].)

Also content warning for discussion of rape culture and victim-blaming. Same content warnings, as well as trigger warnings for direct discussion of rape, apply to all links here, as well.)

Very recently, I put up a post declaring my support for Amber Heard. You can read the post if you don’t know what I’m talking about, and you should. One of the things I said was this:

I am on record as saying that I will always believe and stand with the victim until evidence comes out that they’re lying, because them actually lying is so incredibly rare that there’s no reason to entertain it; in our culture of victim-blaming, I do not believe that most people would think lying like this would be worth it.

In response I got a… fascinating comment, permanently languishing in moderation:

What make you think lying is rare among human beings in such situations as this?

Why didn’t you link to the police report?

Let’s start with that last one… Iris?

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