Which Bathroom Again?
Politico has the inside skinny of how a lawsuit over a teen spurred Florida Republicans to pass the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law.
“On that September day in 2020, after Littlejohn picked her teen up from school, she was struck by an offhand comment the 13-year-old made: The teen said ‘it was funny’ when school staffers asked what gender restroom they preferred to use in response to their new name. This conversation proved to be a tipping point for the Littlejohns, who sued Leon County Schools in 2021 claiming that school officials helped their child transition to a different gender without informing them.”
Why does it always seem to come down to where people take a dump?
Traumatized Into Plugging Her Show
Schumer began her post by plugging her new Hulu show, Life & Beth, before sharing her thoughts about Sunday’s ceremony. “Still triggered and traumatized,” wrote Schumer. “I love my friend @chrisrock and believe he handled it like a pro. Stayed up there and gave an Oscar to his friend @questlove and the whole thing was so disturbing.”
Schumer continued: “So much pain in @willsmith anyway I’m still in shock and stunned and sad. Im [sic] proud of myself and my cohosts. But yeah. Waiting for this sickening feeling to go away from what we all witnessed.”
She used all the correct buzzwords, didn’t she? “Triggered.” “Traumatized.” “Shocked and stunned.” Also, “Please watch my show despite the knowledge that I am a notorious joke thief.”
In China, They’d Just Disappear You
'Biggest fraud in a generation': The looting of the Covid relief program known as PPP
They bought Lamborghinis, Ferraris and Bentleys.
And Teslas, of course. Lots of Teslas.
Many who participated in what prosecutors are calling the largest fraud in U.S. history — the theft of hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer money intended to help those harmed by the coronavirus pandemic — couldn’t resist purchasing luxury automobiles. Also mansions, private jet flights and swanky vacations.
They came into their riches by participating in what experts say is the theft of as much as $80 billion — or about 10 percent — of the $800 billion handed out in a Covid relief plan known as the Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP. That’s on top of the $90 billion to $400 billion believed to have been stolen from the $900 billion Covid unemployment relief program — at least half taken by international fraudsters — as NBC News reported last year. And another $80 billion potentially pilfered from a separate Covid disaster relief program.
And I thought the guy who sold those tiny American flags the day after 9/11 was a scumbag…
Masculine, Hyper-Masculine, or Toxic?
Much hay has been made in recent years about this thing we call ‘toxic masculinity’ without a lot in terms of defining what makes some masculinity toxic but some not so.
Bill Maher does a New Rules on the idea and sounds just a bit whiney about it. He used Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and men taking up arms to defend Ukraine from the Russian invasion as examples of how masculinity can be anything but toxic.
“If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the crisis in Ukraine, it’s that everyone loves, and the world still needs, grown-ass men.”
Maher noticed that American women are obsessing over Zelenskyy, who the New York Post enshrined as a “sex symbol” earlier last month. Maher's point? Progressives can’t consider Zelenskyy a sex symbol while also denouncing masculinity as intrinsically toxic.
“Could it be that as much as women may want to create the perfect man there’s always going to be a little bit of toxic mixed in with our masculinity and no amount of training will turn us into your favorite ‘Twilight’ character."
With the whole was The Slap justified or over the top or ‘a black thing white people shouldn’t comment upon’ or a prime example of toxic masculinity it seems that Maher has a point. I’m not a proponent of just walking up and smacking anyone without a physical provocation. As I wrote the other day, Will Smith was just a garden variety bully.
Being the new kid in school in perpetuity growing up, I had my fair share of bullies. I learned a lot of things being bullied consistently for seven years in a row.
I learned how to take a punch.
This seems like a life skill that shouldn’t have to be learned but it is the same lesson as when I was a kid learning to play baseball. I was put in center field because I have almost no athletic ability and possess no grace at all. But I was afraid to catch pop flies. I didn’t want them to hit me in the face like an ordinary human.
The coach came over, threw a ball at me. It hit me in the mouth hard. I cried. He said “That was rough, kid. Probably hurt. But you’re still standing, yeah? You’re OK, right?” I was. “Now you know what it feels like. It’s better to catch the ball than let it hit you in the face but if it does, you’ll survive.” I caught more balls after that.
Anthony Jackson taught me to not fear being punched in the face.
I learned how to take an insult.
When I hear people today cry out “Your beliefs are cancelling my existence” and “hate speech is violence” I can’t help but shrug. What I hear is people unable to handle ideas that are in conflict with their personal agenda.
The argument that words are the same as getting punched in the face could only be made by someone never once punched in the face.
In terms of the three generations following me (Three? What the hell?) the trend has been to continuously dress down any form of masculinity as if being a dude is simply a gateway drug to toxicity. Like we’re each of us with a penis just one moment from becoming Harvey Weinstein.
First, realize that you are not Harvey Weinstein. You’re not mega-wealthy. You’re not a Hollywood power broker. Even if you’re a heavy, older white guy with all the aggressive tendencies associated with that classification, unless you try to get women to have sex with you to get a job, you aren’t even in the same Triathlon. Even if you’re just a regular white/black/brown guy (with all of the societally frowned upon traits that guys have had for centuries (I mean, the Patriarchy isn’t a sports bar or a metal band, right?), unless you’re a rapey kind of guy who sees women as objects to conquer with your skeevy charms the only thing you have in common with Harvey is a tendency for back hair and a dangly mushroom cap.
Second, understand that all of those folks complaining about your "manspreading" and "mansplaining" as if those things are hangable offenses rendering you the “Harvey Weinstein of the local Starbucks,” are nothing more than assholes trying to inflate their sense of offense to the same level as a woman forced to watch you jerk yourself off in a bathroom. Feminism has bigger fish to fry than you being an inconsiderate butthole on the L. You know, like guys who force women to watch them spank their pud.
Third, stop with the virtue signaling already. If you aren’t a creep, most women in your life already know it. If you are, they know that, too. Your impassioned Faceborg posts about how outrageous it is that people who had little to nothing to do with Harvey except do some movies with him aren’t disavowing him publicly is just another way to gin up some more outrage for the Rage Profiteers. And the opinions of your exes are just so much butt-hurt gossip unless you stalked them or forced them to watch you pop your dongle.
Generally speaking, unless you forced or coerced a woman to do something she did not want to do, you aren't Harvey.
But are you Will Smith? Was The Slap an example of the hyper-masculine into toxic overdrive?
Maybe.
In his memoir, Will, Smith starts things off with this:
"What you have come to understand as ‘Will Smith,’ the alien-annihilating MC, the bigger-than-life movie star, is largely a construction—a carefully crafted and honed character—designed to protect myself. To hide myself from the world. To hide the coward."
I’m thinking that toxic masculinity is blind to its existence.
I also know the difference between a slap and a punch (remember those bullies I mentioned? Not the slapping types). Smith didn’t go at him like the baby mamma to the girlfriend on The Jerry Springer Show, after all. He slapped him. A slap only hurts in the surprise and is generally intended as a rebuke rather than an act of destruction.
In the past, I've ruminated on What Makes a Man? The best I came up with was a list:
1. A man protects those in need of protection.
2. A man is not petty.
3. A man is a source of safety in an unsafe world.
4. A man makes mistakes, admits them, and learns from them.
5. A man is not selfish or filled primarily with self interest.
6. A man picks her up at the airport without being asked to.
7. A man asks questions about others and follows up by LISTENING.
8. A man will fuck you but make sure you cum, too.
9. A man never throws the first punch and NEVER hits a woman.
10. A man holds open the door for everyone.
11. A man trains those younger than he to replace him.
12. A man treats every woman as he would have others treat his mother and treats everyone the way he would expect to be treated himself.
13. A man tips well.
14. A man is rarely offended by personal slights or insults.
15. A man takes responsibility for what he does and says.
Not a bad list as these things go, I suppose.
That’s the weekend!
As always, thank you for reading, thanks for subscribing, thanks for sharing. In this over-glutted economy of attention, that stuff means a lot.
Be good.