Many years ago I was on a high school field trip, sitting on a bus, when I noticed the two girls in front of me were discussing “Little Women.” I eavesdropped on their conversation because even though I thought “Little Women” was dull as hell (I’ve always been more of a “Lord of the Rings” fan) I was interested in why so many of my friends really liked the book. The girls sitting in front of me were obviously fans. They talked about their favorite March sisters, how many times they had read the book, and how stupid it was that Jo and Laurie never ended up together. Both girls lamented that last plot point heavily. Their shared moment of disappointment is familiar to masses of Louisa May Alcott fans. “I don’t understand why they didn’t get married!” one girl said. “I know!” the other girl agreed, “And I can’t believe that Laurie ended up marrying Jo’s Stupid Bratty Little SISTER!” The first girl nodded vigorously. “And THEN!” she said, “And THEN Jo had to marry that boring German tutor, Professor Bhaer. I mean, come ON!” Both girls sighed. “Yeah,” the second girl said, “I didn’t get that at all.” The pain and indignation in my classmates’ conversation continued on in an energetic manner. One girl talked about her own “Little Women” fan fic where she retconned Louisa May Alcott’s classic to include a romantic conclusion for Jo and Laurie. I don’t remember what the plot was exactly, only that it involved Jo writing Laurie a letter confessing her true love for him. Laurie misinterpreted the letter but it all got straightened out in the end and MOST IMPORTANTLY Jo and Laurie ended up falling into each other’s arms and living HAPPILY EVER AFTER! TOGETHER, DAMMIT! My classmates were not the only adolescent girls left bewildered and unsatisfied by the Jo storyline in “Little Women.” A quick search on Amazon has turned up at least one published novel re-writing Alcott’s original characters so that the romance all her young readers craved finally comes to fruition. Here’s the deal though. Louisa May Alcott knew exactly what she was doing when she lead her young readers to believe in the blossoming romance between Jo and Laurie…. and then dashed their hopes into a thousand pieces. She was being a troll. You see, Louisa May Alcott was gay. In an interview in 1883, Alcott stated “I am more than half-persuaded that I am a man’s soul put by some freak of nature into a woman’s body….. because I have fallen in love with so many pretty girls and never once the least bit with any man.” That’s extremely straightforward, especially by 1883 standards when anti-homosexuality laws were sending people to prison. Despite the anti-sodomy laws (which, as can be seen by their name alone, were mostly targeting gay men and not gay women) it was still common to see winks, hints and nods towards lesbianism in 19th and 20th century literature. Lesbianism was the love that dare not speak its name but it could sure HINT pretty loudly. I mean, people weren’t even trying to pretend with the term “Boston Marriage,” a 19th century slang term for two women of means living together in a household. Legally, being gay in 1883 could send you to prison. Practically- for women at least- being gay could be done almost out in the open with few repercussions. No wonder Alcott was so comfortable stating her preferences during that 1883 interview. It’s well-known that “Little Women” is based on Alcott’s own adolescent experiences. The March girls are Alcott’s sisters and Jo March is Louisa May Alcott herself. Jo, with her masculine-sounding name and non-feminine habits (at one point Jo laments “I can’t get over my disappointment in not being a boy, and it’s worse than ever now, for I’m dying to go and fight with Papa, and I can only stay home and knit like a poky old woman.”) would have been recognizable to Alcott’s gay readers. The lack of a romantic conclusion between Jo and Laurie puzzled Alcott’s straight readers but her gay readers understood the conclusion very well. There was no way Jo could ever love Laurie as anything more than a friend. She was gay. Marrying a somewhat asexual person like Professor Bhaer was probably a safer path for a young gay woman in 19th century America than marrying a man who truly loved her romantically. At least with Professor Bhaer the risk of dying from childbirth was lower!
More importantly, Louisa May Alcott made Jo marry Professor Bhaer because Louisa May Alcott was a troll. A century and a half before social media, Alcott gleefully crushed all her readers’ expectations by making Jo marry a dull old man. According to Alcott’s letters at the time, she took a great deal of pleasure in how enraged her readers were. “”Jo should have remained a literary spinster,” Alcott wrote in 1869, “But so many enthusiastic young ladies wrote to me clamorously demanding that she should marry Laurie, or somebody, that I didnt dare to refuse & out of perversity went & made a funny match for her. I expect vials of wrath to be poured out upon my head, but rather enjoy the prospect.” See? What did I tell you? Total troll! What would Alcott think of our world now with its armies of trolls and laughing cretins hiding behind their keyboards and laughing at the anger of others? She’d probably be horrified like the rest of us. Or would she be joining in the fun? I honestly don’t know. One thing is for sure, however: Alcott would definitely have been chuckling with glee over the disappointed conversation of my classmates on that school bus. Louisa May Alcott was a troll, and those “vials of wrath” the two girls were pouring on Alcott’s head a century after her death would have delighted her.
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Sarah Isgur is a lawyer and a law professor at George Washington University. Isgur is also a commentator on CNN whose hiring caused controversy back in 2019 due to her conservative politics. Isgur is an anti-Trump conservative feminist who worked on Carly Fiorina’s campaign in 2016. Her politics appear to be firmly centrist with some conservative and some progressive elements.
Isgur and conservative columnist David French collaborate on a very good podcast called “Advisory Opinions.” Both Isgur and French are legal experts Their podcast episodes mostly deal with the intersection of politics and legal issues (a very large intersection) and some cultural topics. If you are a political wonk, Isgur and French’s podcast is fantastic. Being an anti-Trump conservative who is clearly knowledgeable about the law, Isgur’s analysis tends to be a refreshing change from the Democratic doom-and-gloom commentary and the GOP complete-denial propaganda. Isgur, in my opinion, is the main strength of the “Advisory Opinions” podcast. On October 15th, David French and Sarah Isgur aired an “Advisory Opinions” episode called “That Hunter Biden Story.” The bulk of their conversation was about the infamous news story concerning a mysterious laptop that was purportedly chock full of salacious emails and sex photos belonging to Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s son. French and Isgur’s opinions on the Hunter Biden story were not what truly captured “Advisory Opinion’s” audience’s interest, however. Towards the end of the episode, French and Isgur discussed Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination. Both French and Isgur are great admirers of Barrett. French talked about how Barrett showed that women in 21st century Christian America were now no longer stigmatized by fellow Christians for having a career outside the home. French: “I think the premise that- certainly in educated devout Christian circles- outside of a really narrow slice of that world that focusses very much on what I would call either Victorian leading up to the…. “Leave It To Beaver” era gender roles…. In professional life, outside of that very small slice, the parents I know would look at Amy Coney Barrett and say ‘I mean, I’m not gonna try to pressure my daughter to be a Supreme Court Justice with seven kids! That’s kind of a burden to put on somebody!’ But (Christian parents) are very pleased- very pleased!- when their daughters go to law school, go to medical school, and have marriages and kids. … There is a very strong- especially in educated Christian circles- bias towards adopting what I would call the general secular world’s view of ‘At the very least you’re going to finish your education before you get married!’ It may even be preferable to ‘Finish your education and get started in your career before you get married.’ And yeah, we might be more accepting than some other communities in saying ‘Well, once you have children, staying at home is a good choice or a viable choice.’ But even that pressure to stay at home after marriage (has) really dramatically loosened. Very much so. Even in my own lifetime. In fact, if anything the dynamic may have suddenly flipped to an assumption that you’ll keep on working. … And it’s one of the reasons why so many young Christian women reacted so favorably to Amy Coney Barrett. Not just her nomination but her family story. They were like ‘Yeah! You can do this! You can do this!’” There was nothing particularly offensive in what French said, in my opinion. I was surprised, therefore, when Isgur pounced. Isgur: “And that, listeners, is David’s very optimistic take. And I’m going to disagree with it strongly. French: (uncomfortable laugh) “Okay.” Isgur: “I think we are LYING to young women. We hold up Amy Coney Barrett and say simply: ‘She worked hard. She’s really smart, and that’s what made this possible.’ I do not believe that. I believe something my mother told me, which is the most important decision you make in your life is who you marry. There is no decision that even comes close.” At this point a lot of feminists listening to the podcast probably started bracing for impact. Oh Lord, here comes conservative Republican Sarah Isgur saying that the highest achievement that any woman can attain is a good marriage. Isgur is gonna rewind the clock back a hundred years just when male conservatives like David French were finally just starting to get it. Ugh. It’s always our own people- women!- who end up sabotaging feminism. But that is not what Isgur says at all. Quite the contrary, Isgur delivers some sad, hard truths (and some hope) about feminism. What she says next is devastatingly honest. Isgur: “(The person you marry) will control so much of your destiny from that point forward. When you look at Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sandra Day O’Conner and Amy Coney Barrett, there is a throughline. And it is their husbands. In a way that it is NOT the case for men. Men can marry many different types of women. They may be happier or less happy depending on their own personalities. But its effect on their careers is simply not as PROFOUND as it is on a woman’s career. “Now, some of this is that maybe it’s my age, maybe it’s simply my friend group, whatever it is…. But I have obviously very brilliant, high-powered, wonderful female friends. Two of them got married when they were the lesser or equal partner in their relationships and became the more high-powered partner (like) a Amy Coney Barrett, a Sandra Day O’Conner or a Ruth Bader Ginsburg. In one of them the marriage simply fell apart due to infidelity on his part, because he said he was not longer being appreciated in their marriage. I one hundred percent attribute that to him feeling — not no longer sexually appreciated but no longer appreciated because he was not the primary bread-winner (and) also not the primary-” French: “Alpha?” Isgur: “Alpha! Yeah! The other (marriage) became abusive. And uh, y’know, that has been really hard as a friend to watch. And I do think it’s related to the same idea…. That we have trained our women so well…. ‘Anything guys can do girls can do better. You can be anything you want to be. You want to be a doctor? A lawyer? An astronaut? Ladies, you are your own limitation as far as that is concerned.’ But what we have not done is trained our men to feel okay with that. And so what you see are men being a little confused, befuddled by these relationships where the woman is the one who is interesting at the cocktail party and people are walking up to her.” It is a powerful speech and a very true one. There is something so resonant with the way that Isgur says that- contrary to the inspiring, well-meaning propaganda that is fed to girls daily- women are STILL tied down due to their choice of marriage partner. In a way, the inspiring propaganda is backfiring. Women, pumped full of inspiration, are wondering five years into marriage why the hell they haven’t succeeded in their careers. If you can be anything if you work hard enough, then the fact that you’re a failure means you haven’t worked hard enough. That’s plain logic. You and only you are at fault here. A woman’s failure has nothing to do with her marriage dynamics. Her failure is due to her character flaws alone. It’s a poisonous conclusion. And false. David French deflected after Isgur’s speech (“We’re kinda talking past each other a little bit”) and said his point had to do with modern American Christian culture. French: “My argument is about what is the background culture of American Christianity and women’s careers, which is-” Isgur: “Yeah, but my point is that you can’t have that career unless you have the partner because- yes, these marriages are breaking apart. In the abusive marriage… thankfully, that marriage is going to end. But for a lot of women, they sense it early on and so they throttle themselves back because they realize that their marriage can’t last if they continue to push ahead of their husbands’ careers. So yes they’re hearing on the one hand ‘Go get that education! Go be a lawyer! Go be great!’ And on the other hand, they’re SENSING that that’s not gonna work out well.” David French at this point appears to agree with Isgur. French: “You’re describing a background cross-cultural, cross-religious male-female marriage dynamic that is a very real thing…. I’ve heard it many times, especially as women advance. They go to Harvard law School. They go to Yale. They get a Phd. Whereas a man advances the pool of eligible women grows.” Isgur: “Exponentially! It’s like going to Harvard Law is like being six feet tall as a woman. There are still men out there who you can date who are taller than you. But man that pool just shrunk, and you’re gonna have to potentially make some compromises on the other end. I obviously did not because (my husband) Scott is perfection. And six-three.” French: (laughs) “But yeah I think you’re 100% correct about that. As a woman grows more accomplished, her pool — the reality is — … My question for you though Sarah is: Are there a lot of women from your Harvard Law students who would be totally cool with marrying a guy who was a CPA, has a BA from a mid-level state school, making a good living as a CPA but it’s very clear from the get-go that her career … She’s got the dynamic career. She’s gonna be the breadwinner. How many-” Isgur: “I’m so glad you asked! No, no David. I will tell you about my friends… One friend married a lawyer who went to a local college. And that marriage ended in divorce. One friend married a police officer. That also ended in infidelity and divorce. One friend married… a CPA. That marriage has not ended but it is not a particularly happy one. So yes, many of my female friends have married quote-unquote ‘beneath their station.’ Whatever term you want to use. But again, I don’t think we’re preparing MEN for that. And so I don’t think it’s working very well. Because all these women were trying to find their Marty Ginsburg.” French: “Right.” Isgur: “And, you know, God bless Marty Ginsburg and Judge Barrett’s husband. There just aren’t that many of them out there who are that self-secure in their masculinity and their role in the household. (The majority of men) don’t have the emotional tools to deal with that. And I think we should be more honest with women about that because I think that by NOT being honest, they end up in bad situations. … It’s not that I think those women shouldn’t go pursue their educations but if we’re more HONEST with them I think they will have a better time discerning which men to marry. And which ones probably will not produce a successful marriage. Because as we have discussed marriage is hard and it’s full of compromises and people change and that’s both the fun of it and the drawback of it. (laughs) And we don’t talk to young people enough about marriage choices and instead we just let Hollywood show these romcoms. If you fall in love with someone, that’s gonna be enough to sustain the marriage. That’s obviously not the case! But we then don’t tell them how- what factors should they be considering? What are the trends in successful marriages v. the trends in not-successful marriages. Simply telling women to go follow their hearts’ content is only half the message. David French seems to mostly agree with this. He also says that in his long experience and his wide circle of friends, he only knows of one man who willingly gave up his career to look after his kids while his wife’s career took off. Their marriage, according to French, “has thrived… But that’s one example.” Isgur: (laughs) “So I just think when we look at Amy Coney Barrett, and we see seven children, a successful marriage, and being nominated to the Supreme Court….. Instead of saying ‘Look ladies! You can have it all if you shoot high and try hard and are smart,’ I would like to see a little more breakdown. And yeah, the message isn’t gonna be as sunny. But you can’t have it all at once. Your marriage is the most important decision that you will make. If you want a successful career and a family, the MARRIAGE is what makes that. Not you. Not your IQ. Not whether you went to Harvard Law. So do some studying. Do some reading into the types of marriages that make that work and the types of people in those marriages who can make that work. Isgur’s speech on marriage is not perfect. Her privilege is a little glaring. She bemoans the not-very-common problem of how a woman attending an Ivy League school has difficulties finding a husband who is accommodating of her intellect. She talks about telling girls to research carefully and choose who they marry, not realizing that marriages don’t often occur quite like that. Marriages can be hasty because of a pregnancy or because a boyfriend is about to be deployed to Iraq. The bones of Isgur’s argument, however, are very real. Women, unlike men, are at the mercy of their marriages when it comes to how successful they will be in their careers. This is only true for women, not men. And Isgur was absolutely right when she said that woke society is lying to women by saying that only intellect and hard work and sheer willpower was necessary for a woman to reach the highest offices in the land. Women need good husbands if they want to succeed in their careers, or women need to simply not marry at all. Find that rarest of rare men willing to marry you, or make peace with the fact that you will never have a family. Isgur’s speech comes at a very poignant and unhappy time for women. 2020 has been devastating for so many people but women had an extra dollop of misery. Even before the COVID19 pandemic the scourge of a lack of daycare and a generalized acceptance of misogyny after Hillary Clinton’s defeat in 2016 crashed down on career-seeking American women like a ton of bricks. Already for decades most women looking for jobs have been expected to drop their own careers and move out of state if their husbands got transferred. After COVID19 hit, women left the workforce in droves, giving up careers to stay home with the children while their husbands continued to work. PBS called it the first female recession. Jessica Valenti plainly stated the cause of widespread female unemployment in her article: “The Pandemic isn’t Forcing Moms Out of the Workforce- Dads Are.” When school was cancelled, husbands simply told their wives to quit their jobs to stay with the kids all day. Women found themselves in career limbo, unable to work a full shift because they were working around shortened school schedules. They were working around daycares with no pick-up service from school. They were working around their husbands who worked until eight and then were too tired to watch the kids over the weekend. And through it all there are the girl power slogans that Isgur rightfully calls lies: that women can be ANYTHING if they just possess the smarts, work ethic and drive. Women sit at home with their kids as the months pass by and they are unable to scrabble back into the work force. “This is my fault. I’m being lazy. I don’t have the drive to make this work.” Isgur’s conclusion that we have to stop counseling women so much and start counseling men to respect their wives careers is a bit optimistic. She is not off-base, however… and perhaps being an upper-middle-class law professor with a loyal husband and a new baby has made Isgur a little too rosy when it comes to how possible it is to change male society’s conception of the unimportance of women. Isgur, however, for all her privilege, is not wrong. Men must adapt to the new reality that their jobs are not more important than their wives’ jobs and they need to sacrifice too to make sure their wives can keep working. More men need to accept that they must stay home and take care of the children, sometimes full time. Taking care of children does not emasculate men any more than being a lawyer or a doctor de-feminizes women. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had two children and this world desperately needs more Marty Ginsburgs to take care of them. Sarah Isgur is a lawyer and a pro-life advocate in the US. She worked on Carly Fiorino’s campaign in 2016 and pushed the line that Planned Parenthood was selling chopped up baby parts. Isgur also recently revealed on the podcast “Advisory Opinions” that she had had an ectopic pregnancy in 2021. Before I go further, let me explain what an ectopic pregnancy is. An ectopic pregnancy is when a fertilized egg implants in a fallopian tube instead of a uterus. The fallopian tube connects the ovary to the uterus. It is far too small to accommodate a fetus, so if a woman has an ectopic pregnancy and doesn’t know about it until the fallopian tube ruptures after the embryo grows too big…. the woman will hemorrhage to death. Isgur chose to reveal her experience with ectopic pregnancy publicly while discussing the new anti-abortion law being passed in Missouri. “When it comes to ectopic pregnancies, they’re just tragic. … This isn’t like a cancer diagnosis where you’re choosing between the life of the mother and the life of the baby. Unfortunately there is no ‘life of the baby’ option. But the life of the mother is very much in danger,… It doesn’t take a very large set of cells to break the fallopian tube, at which point the woman will hemorrhage and — potentially but also kinda likely- die.” I will add that it is interesting to see a devout pro-life advocate refer to an embryo as a “set of cells” when pro-choice advocates are slammed by pro-life advocates for using the exact same term for the exact same, well, set of cells. Suddenly the pro-life advocate is using less emotional (but more accurate) medical rhetoric to describe a “baby” (blastocyst, set of cells) when she is describing her own experience with terminating her pregnancy. I will not slam Isgur too much here because now, in 2022, she is fighting the good fight. She is realizing that the “pro-life” movement has become corrupted and extreme. “Pro-life” advocates are pushing bills that will literally kill women. It is hard for an anti-abortion woman like Isgur to reveal her ectopic pregnancy story publicly (actually, that’s hard for any woman regardless of her views on abortion). It is also hard for Isgur to slam her pro-life colleagues like she did in the recent Advisory Opinions podcast “Baby Got Brief.”
So I will just make that quick observation. Moving on…. “If you go into your doctor, um, as I did at one point David (French).. and, um, you know, they say that you on the ultrasound that you have an ectopic pregnancy, they’re generally asking you to go into emergency surgery. Like (nervous laughter) you walk into your OB/GYN’s office for, like, a no-big-deal thing. You usually don’t even know you’re pregnant. Just like, ‘Something’s not quite right,’ And you’re being whisked off to emergency surgery at a nearby hospital.” I’m putting in Isgur’s “ums,” and nervous laughter because it was clear at this point that Isgur was having some emotional reaction to telling this story. Which is understandable. “It’s miserable. It’s heartbreaking. It’s scary, like all the feels. And at no point is there any hope- like you were willing to risk your own health, that you could have this baby. And that sucks. It just sucks David. …” At this point Isgur’s voice audibly quavers and you hear her fight back her emotions. She pushes on. “This happened a year ago last week actually, “Um, so that’s what they told me. They’re like, ‘Please walk down the hallway to the surgery center.’ … I asked if they were 100% sure that it was ectopic. And they said, y’know, ‘We can never be 100% sure.’ And I said ‘If we waited 48 hours and we had then blood results to compare, another ultrasound to compare after 48 hours, what would we know then?’ … I was like ‘I want to wait the 48 hours, just in case.’” I will break in here again and say that as a medical professional patients like Isgur drive me nuts. They have life-threatening conditions that need immediate intervention and they pretend they know more than the doctors (or the paramedics in my case.) Listening to Isgur recount how she argued with a doctor trying to save her life gave me hives. I got PTSD flashbacks to my EMS days. An average shift involved me arguing with an old man with clear subdermal hematoma symptoms who refused to go to the hospital. “Sir, you lost consciousness after smacking your head on the windshield in that wreck. You don’t want to just go home and go to sleep.” “Listen lady, no offense, but I know my own body better than you do!” Sigh. Back to Sarah Isgur’s story. “They were like, ‘Okay, let us walk you through this. How far away do you live from the hospital?’ “I was like, ‘I dunno, like fifteen minutes.’ “They were like, ‘Nope. How far away from the hospital to you live exactly?’ “And I was like, ‘I live eleven to seventeen minutes away from the hospital because there’s a contraflow bridge that sometimes you can’t take.’ “They’re like, ‘Okay. From the second you feel any pain, you have thirty minutes. Because you are hemorrhaging at that point. You have thirty minutes to get to the surgical center. If you want to wait forty-eight hours and you understand that, you can wait forty-eight hours.’ “So I did. I waited the forty-eight hours.” Jesus Christ. “The cells at that point weren’t growing anymore. I didn’t hemorrhage, and everything turned out fine.” Isgur then turns her rage on the Missouri abortion law that outlaws abortion even in cases of ectopic pregnancy. “When I see something like this, it’s enraging. Because it is shown as a ‘pro-life bill.’ It’s not pro- anyone’s life. … Certainly not the life of the baby. And it’s certainly not ‘pro-life’ for the mother… I am sitting there being told that I have thirty minutes to get to a hospital…. Y’know. Give me a break….. “I did not end up having surgery David. I was monitored every forty-eight hours with ultrasounds for six weeks because I didn’t want to remove a fallopian tube…. As with most things with medicine, you would like a doctor to deal with this. Not a (pro-life) lobbyist. Isgur doesn’t reveal how she was able to resolve her ectopic pregnancy without surgery. She doesn’t owe us that information, of course, but I was curious. A quick google search showed me that an early ectopic pregnancy can be resolved through an injection of methotrexate, a chemotherapy drug that has also been shown to dissolve blastocyst cells that are stuck in a fallopian tube. I’m guessing that that was the course of action the doctor had prescribed for Isgur. Isgur goes on about the Missouri abortion law. “This whole thing is so frustrating when the pro-life community says that they are looking out for women, and writes a law like this. I can’t help but think that the (pro-life community’s) sloppiness reflects the lack of interest (they) have in the mother’s health.” Isgur brushes against a theme that I have seen reoccur again and again in American politics: hatred of women. I talked about this when discussing “MAGA Hat Romance” and how the Trump administration was essentially a celebration of male anger towards women. Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, the Squad, the Women’s March, Elizabeth Warren…. the targets of the far right during the past six years have been disproportionately women. Now, there are bills targeting public school teachers (disproportionately women) and pregnant women in red states across the US. The last six years have been American women growing more and more dispiritingly aware of how much men hate us. Marriages have dipped steeply since 2017. Women have lost faith in men ever having our best interests in mind. It’s a sickening feeling to know your gender is alone in the world. What happens when conservative pro-life women like Sarah Isgur share extremely painful stories of miscarriage and having to terminate pregnancies? Well, in the case of Missouri, lawmakers finally altered the bill to allow women with life-threatening ectopic pregnancies to be treated. (Gee, thanks). There are still problems with the bill, of course. It severely limits not only a woman’s right to an abortion in the state of Missouri, but also makes it punishable under the law for the woman to go out-of-state to get an abortion. And anyone who helps a woman get an abortion, even the Uber driver who just drives the woman to the clinic, can get sued into poverty. For now, at least, after considerable outcry, Missouri lawmakers have agreed that women shouldn’t be forced to hemorrhage to death internally. And how sad it is that we had to fight so hard to get even that small grace. I am a simple woman. I don’t demand much in life. All I need is food on my table, a roof over my head and not having to read about Rudy Giuliani’s erect penis. I don’t think that’s too much to ask. 2020 was three years ago. Can we please at least open the papers or scroll through Twitter and NOT read about Rudy Giuliani’s penis? Whelp. Nope. Sorry. 2020 is that ex that refuses to believe the relationship is over. And that includes reading about Giuliani’s penis. Again. I know I’m old but I remember when Rudy Giuliani was a figure of great respect. Giuliani was the guy who cleaned up New York. He was the dude who got the subways to be less hellish, guided New York through 9/11, and was the leader we all needed in 2001. It was a different time. I mean, it’s not that there weren’t warning signs. Activists in the 90s were talking about how Giuliani’s over-incarceration of black offenders would lead to a generation of traumatized youth and broken families. The mostly-white media ignored them. Papers were celebrating how much less graffiti there was in Times Square. And nobody had to think about Giuliani’s penis. The good times, however, did not last. We all know the complete clown show Giuliani has become. We saw Giuliani’s press conference beside a sex shop in 2020 when Giuliani was helping Trump overturn the election. We saw the hair dye melting off Giuliani’s head as he bugged out his eyes and ranted. We heard Giuliani pass gas loudly as he testified in front of Michigan state officials. Oh, plus Giuliani was caught on camera by Sasha Baron Cohen allegedly masturbating in front of a young actress, Maria Bakalova. The whole scenario was part of a prank orchestrated by Cohen and Bakalova where Giuliani apparently thought Bakalova wanted to have sex with him. Cohen had to rapidly intervene before Bakalova was put in a bad situation. Giuliani later stated that he was the real victim in Cohen’s prank. Giuliani insisted that he had not been masturbating but instead was untucking his shirt. It was branded as an “October Surprise” in the 2020 presidential election, as Giuliani was a top Trump campaign adviser.
Still, whether untucking his shirt or masturbating, Giuliani’s dick was supposed to remain firmly in 2020 where it belonged. Seriously. But no. We can’t have nice things. It’s 2023 and we’re going to have to hear about Giuliani’s dick. Again. A former aide to Giuliani, Noelle Dunphy, has just filed a 70 page complaint against him, seeking 10 million dollars in damages after allegedly suffering sexual abuse, rape and trauma while working with Giuliani. The complaint is full of really lurid, upsetting accusations. While working with Ms. Dunphy, Giuliani would look to Ms. Dunphy, point to his erect penis, and tell her that he could not do any work until ‘you take care of this. Ms. Dunphy was frightened. She said she wanted to get dressed, unpack and settle in. She asked for privacy. She said she would meet him in the living room when she was ready. But Giuliani would not leave. He sat on the bed and pulled down his pants. The following screenshot from the film “Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm” depicts Giuliani acting in a similar manner to how he acted with Ms. Dunphy. “Giuliani then pulled her head onto his penis, without asking for obtaining..” etc. etc. Ad nauseum. And I do mean ad nauseum. So I must now ask, as an exhausted woman, can we PLEASE stop reading about Rudy Giuliani’s penis? Please? It’s 2023. Masking is no longer mandated. COVID has mutated to basically a bad cold. “Woman” is now a dirty word that promotes genocide. The times have CHANGED folks! So I am all ready for the detumescence of Giuliani penis-related news headlines. That’s just fine. Please. Can 2020 finally just be over? So Rolling Stone has decided to boost Jeffrey Marsh. Which is just…. Who is Jeffrey Marsh you ask? Jeffrey Marsh is a highly controversial nonbinary Tiktok influencer who makes rather creepy videos that encourage young people to go “no-contact” with their families. Marsh has come under heavy scrutiny lately because Marsh recently made a video encouraging young people to chat privately with Marsh on a Patreon. While Marsh’s allies insisted that this video was targeted for adults, it must be noted that Tiktok is an app with a lot of adolescent users. The largest proportion of US Tiktok users are between the ages of 10 to 19. Thus it’s a little disconcerting to see Marsh, a 40-something adult, tell this large audience of children to disconnect from their parents and chat with Marsh privately. Before we go on however, I need to make one thing perfectly clear: No one has ever accused Jeffrey Marsh of doing anything illegal. No one has said that Marsh has physically or sexually harmed an individual. No accusers have come forward. I’m not going to go down that well-trodden road of calling Marsh a pedophile (absolutely zero evidence of that!) or a “groomer.” Instead I want to discuss how Marsh is dangerous in that Marsh promotes vulnerable young people separating themselves from their families. And that’s dangerous. Families are often the most secure form of support young people have these days. The latest stats show that almost 20% of US teenagers have had suicidal thoughts. When it comes to people vulnerable to suicide, family may make all the difference between life and death. And yes, that includes family you may have conflict or disagreements with. Let’s go over this pro-Jeffrey Marsh Rolling Stone article that was, um, totally and absolutely not a terrible idea on the part of the magazine’s editorial team. First of all the Rolling Stone headline looks like this: The only way to interpret this headline is that the far right says that wanting “This LGBTQ TikToker Dead” is only making the far right stronger. That is literally the ONLY interpretation! But actually what Rolling Stone’s headline is saying is that the Far Right wanting Jeffrey Marsh dead is only making Jeffrey Marsh stronger (according to Jeffrey Marsh). Cuz Jeffrey Marsh is nonbinary and uses “they/them” pronouns. As a singular pronoun. For Jeffrey Marsh. Totally clear, right? Now, let’s move on to the meat of the Rolling Stone article. You don’t have to tell Jeffrey Marsh (that Marsh makes) a certain portion of the internet upset. (Marsh is) well aware — (Marsh) just won’t let it stop (Marsh) from helping people. Well, in my opinion, Marsh doesn’t really help people. Marsh seems to be more interested in encouraging mentally vulnerable young people to sever relations with their families. Let’s look at this one video Marsh made. In the Tiktok video Marsh grins directly towards the viewer and says “It’s that time of year again when you start thinking about going no contact. I want to encourage you and say something you may not have heard before: You’re going to love it.” Psst. You’re not going to love it. I already tried that thing where I wanted to cut all “toxic” people out of my life. I didn’t love it. I just grew more bitter, hateful and toxic myself.
Marsh goes on. “I know right now all you have is a world and a wall of guilt and every time you think about going no contact you just feel this thing in your chest and in your stomach. And you don’t want to be that person. And how could you. But she’s your mother. And all that stuff that culture tells you.” Nope, that’s not what culture tells you. What Marsh is describing is colloquially called a “gut instinct.” It’s when you feel something is wrong but you can’t specifically say why it’s wrong. Psychiatrists don’t know what causes a “gut instinct” but it may be your subconscious picking up on signs that are too subtle for your conscious eye to observe. Psychologists generally recommend that if your gut is warning you against something, trust your gut. No therapist would recommend going against your gut which is why it’s so strange that Marsh is doing exactly that. Remember young people, don’t listen to your family and your feelings! Listen only to Marsh’s ersatz Tiktok psychobabble! Marsh then says that “the joy” that cutting contact with your family will bring “will make everything not only worth it but it’ll make you content, happy, calm and in love with life.” It won’t. Trust me, it won’t. Chopping away your family and setting your emotional sensibilities to such a sensitive level that the least amount of disagreement will cause you to cut ties and further isolate yourself is DANGEROUS. Family separation is often a coercion tactic among cult leaders and abusers. Scientologists are (allegedly) infamous in mandating that all their members sever ties with their families. It’s called “disconnection” and Scientologists (again, allegedly) frequently demand disconnection by saying any critic of the Scientologist movement is a “Suppressive Person.” Domestic violence counselors also advise that a partner who wants you to sever all contact with your family is showing danger signs for future abuse. Never, ever, ever trust someone who tells you to sever contact with your family. Unless your family has done something outright illegal to you (like physically abuse you or steal from you) going no-contact with your family is never good. Okay, back to the Rolling Stone article. Long before trans star Dylan Mulvaney‘s collaboration with Bud Light lit a portion of the right’s brains on fire, Marsh was making videos about love. Actually I think a more accurate statement would be that Dylan Mulvaney kinda lit Bud Light on fire. In a bad way. Like, the company is literally buying back cases of their beer now. While many of (Marsh’s) followers appreciate Marsh’s soothing tone and bright demeanor, Marsh’s content, and its pro LGBTQ+ message has made (Marsh) a longtime target for criticism, threats, and daily, constant harassment on social media. Marsh uses (Marsh’s) own story of growth and struggle to encourage readers to give themselves the kindness they usually reserve for others. Marsh encouraging other people to “give themselves the kindness they usually reserve for others” is a flowery way of saying that Marsh encourages a lack of empathy in our society. And frankly a sharp decrease in empathy or even just the willingness to weather personal discomfort for the sake of others is a problem right now in the US. It’s resulting in a worrying amount of social decohesion. (Marsh tells) Rolling Stone that there are days when (Marsh’s) husband, Jeff, has to stand in the gap for (Marsh) when negative backlash is louder than (Marsh’s) inner peace. But (Marsh’s) years of being a vocal advocate for self-love mean that now, even when there’s pushback, Marsh is staying focused on (Marsh’s) mission: helping as many people as possible. That’s so awesome that Marsh’s husband helps Marsh. That’s so cool that Marsh has a family member that Marsh can rely on as a source of support when the world becomes too hard. It’s almost like preserving family ties is a net psychological good. The rest of the interview is pretty dull. It’s mostly ass-kissing and straight-up dishonesty regarding the toxicity of Jeffrey Marsh’s messaging. This last question, however, caught my eye. Rolling Stone: What inspired you to write your second book? And what message did you want to send to readers? Marsh: I was a poor, very queer kid, who grew up on a farm. I talk about in the book about childhood trauma, about my dad being violent. I talk about an incidence of sexual assault that I suffered. I don’t know if these belong in the same category but I talk about being a guest on Newsmax, which was also traumatic. And all of those mentions are in service of helping people heal. I’m sorry, but did Jeffrey Marsh just compare being a domestic violence victim and assault victim to being a guest on a conservative news program? Don’t get me wrong, Newsmax is hot garbage, but come on! Being roasted by the far right is NOT the same as living in fear of domestic violence. I’ve experienced DV and I was also completely shredded online by the far right when I wrote an article about my experiences joining a far right moms group. Tim Pool did a video mocking me and the video got over 700K views. Yeah, it sucks. But it’s NO WAY even REMOTELY the same as experiencing domestic violence. The deviousness of Marsh implying that criticism and abuse is equally traumatizing is gross. Seriously. Tim Pool can devote his entire channel to calling me a pathetic man-hating feminist and I would watch it every day rather than endure DV again. It’s. Not. The. Same. In closing, Rolling Stone has made a dreadful mistake platforming a toxic person like Jeffrey Marsh. In this day and age of spiking mental health problems, it is necessary to hold your loved ones close even if you do disagree with them. They will be the ones who, on your worse days, will be pulling you back from the brink. You’ve seen that “Midol” commercial right? It’s the one that’s been annoying right wingers because it shows a trans man (or maybe a gender non-conforming woman or AFAB nonbinary person) having period symptoms. I’m exhausted already. Okay, I have no argument about the commercial showing someone with facial hair having period symptoms. Hell, I’ve got upper lip hair myself and I also get period cramps. It happens. I just have an argument with the commercial itself. It’s so damn cringey. I hate the “Midol” commercial. I hate it so much that I’m starting to wonder if any women were actually involved in its making. The whole vibe of the “Midol” commercial is all “Women are superheroes cuz we can still do our jobs and do grown-up stuff even when we have cramps.” And yeah, it’s called being an adult. It’s not just period cramps, it’s back pain and arthritis and bad allergies and chronic mental health and etc. etc. … stuff that affects both genders. Every adult who feels like crap some days still gets up and goes to work. It’s not a “Wonder Woman” thing. Putting up with discomfort so we can do our jobs and put food on our tables is LITERALLY the human experience! Anyway, let’s get into the commercial. So we open onto a woman seeing menstrual blood on her underwear and realizing that she’s started her period. And here is the first and last positive thing I’m gonna say about this commercial: I’m glad they’re showing menstrual blood. Menstruation is a normal thing women go through every month. It shouldn’t be seen as shameful. As someone who was used to that euphemistic blue dye shown in “Kotex” commercials in the ’90s it’s nice that we have progressed enough as a society to show actual menstrual blood in a commercial for menstrual products. Cool. But then the commercial goes from matter-of-fact to cringe in a hurry. After realizing that she’s suddenly started her period, and washing her hands at the sink, the woman has this bona-fide slo-mo hero’s entrance back into the club. It’s like she just came back after taking out an enemy tank or winning a national election. She didn’t accomplish anything folks! She’s…. just coming back out of the bathroom after finding out she started her period. She overcame a mild annoyance! Round of applause! “Midol” is literally applauding women for using the potty all by ourselves. Like…. can we not? Then the commercial cuts to a red-haired waitress starting to get menstrual cramps while working. It’s very relatable and very understandable that “Midol” wants to market their product to women who experience cramps during work. The waitress then turns to the camera. In a rational world, she would then talk about how “Midol” really helps give her relief so she can finish her work day. Instead the waitress says “We’re pretty freakin’ resilient.” She doesn’t say “We women are pretty freakin’ resilient” because the word “women” is now forbidden and can cause genocide. Nah. She just says “We’re pretty freakin’ resilient.” But we all know she’s talking about women because only women are seen as so weak by society that we need to be given a trophy for accomplishing very normal adult tasks. The whole thing reeks of condescension. Sigh. Lemme do a dive here. Who the heck is running “Midol?” I know it’s not a woman. Hmmm. So “Midol” is a subsidiary of “Bayer Pharmaceuticals.” And the person running “Bayer Pharmaceuticals” is Stefan Oelrich, who is…. … not a woman. Thought so. Anyway, so the commercial goes on to show a really dark, muddy, depressing view of what it’s like to menstruate. Women are fighting a battle here folks! And the visuals alone are pretty grim. One shot shows a woman rolling around in agony on her bed while wearing a “Midol” disposable heating pad on her lower abdomen. That shot confused me. If anything, it showed that “Midol” products don’t even work when women use them. That woman in bed is still in agony despite using a “Midol” heating pad. What’s going on “Midol?” Are you saying your products are useless? Do you even want to sell your products? And then, and THEN, we get the closing shot. This closing shot my friends, this closing shot is what made me actually burst out laughing in disbelief. So we get to a shot where one woman hands another a “Midol” pill for her cramps. Again, very relatable. Y’all have to share if a woman is suddenly caught short. Aaaand then we get this closing shot. Why…. why are these women hugging like the Berlin Wall just fell? What? No! Seriously, I have given out pads, tampons, “Tylenol,” all sorts of things to women in public restrooms who ask me if I can spare something. You do what you can. But no way in hell is anyone hugging me after I hand out a menstrual product! Seriously, if you’re a strange woman who wants to hug me after I give you one of my purse tampons, please back away. My first thought will be that you’re trying to steal my wallet. Honestly even the tampon commercials back in the ’80s didn’t have women hugging after they gave each other tampons. When one teen girl hands another a tampon in a 1989 “Tampax” commercial, the reaction is fairly normal: A slight smile and a “thanks.” No hugs.
Women are “pretty freakin’ resilient,” yes. There is a reason why we have longer life spans than men and are statistically more likely to survive a famine. We are resilient. Working through cramps and discomfort, however, and acting like we are winning a monthly battle by doing so is not a good way to showcase female resiliency. The “Midol” commercial makes women look like affirmation-seeking drama queens. And honestly unless the company is trying to cause cringe-induced cramps in viewers, “Midol” has done no one any favors. Yeah, I’m still angry at Dylan Mulvaney. This is going to be a rant, so just be prepared. And the reason it’s going to be a rant is that Dylan’s toxic video lying to women is still up on Tiktok. It’s still getting views. It’s still helping to expand Dylan’s brand. It’s still telling women that all criticism is bullying and anything but unmitigated praise for Dylan Mulvaney is horrifying transphobia. In this essay I’m going to be reacting to Dylan Mulvaney’s video addressing the backlash Mulvaney received after Mulvaney made a Tiktok playing with tampons. So let’s start. Yeah, women never have valid complaints. We just pop off whenever we plain don’t like someone. We’re so mean and shallow! All women know that when a person with a penis addresses a group of us as “ladies,” we are in for some Category 5 condescension. Buckle up. So Dylan had a hysterectomy? Dylan was born with MRKH syndrome? Or was Dylan born a perfectly healthy individual with a perfectly healthy reproductive system who is now appropriating the infertility issues of women? Oh, it’s the second part? Sigh. Okay, moving on…. It’s the world’s fault! It’s OUR fault. It’s never Dylan’s fault. Remember that phrase “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions?” Man, that sure does apply here. Or would except frankly I don’t think Dylan had any good intentions here. Dylan just wanted clout. And it failed. MAYBE Dylan could have gotten that one million dollar sponsorship from Tampax but a bunch of vagina-havers on Twitter ruined that. Dylan is so tired of “sticking up for myself” ladies! So, so, so tired! Oh sorry, are you women tired of people with penises using trans activism to demonstrate the worst sort of misogyny? YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO BE TIRED! Dylan is the ONLY victim in this situation!!!!! So, an apology? Even a pseudo apology, like “I’m sorry you felt that way?” Let’s watch. Oooooo, Dylan is PISSED! A bunch of women on Twitter got a massive corporation mad at Dylan and now Dylan is gonna unload back on the women critics! Prepare for Passive Aggression Defcon 1! “I never made any money! I never got anything good! So, *sniff* I hope that makes you vagina meanies happy!!!” Man, Dylan is so angry. You can feel the rage boiling behind the tight face and false eyelashes. I think Dylan wanted some clout and was hoping to exploit actual issues involving period activism (like the affordability of period products for low income women) to gain a few more corporate sponsorships. And it failed. MAYBE Dylan could have gotten that one million dollar sponsorship from “Tampax” but a bunch of vagina-havers on Twitter ruined that. And now “Tampax” is making Dylan put some distance between Dylan and “Tampax.” Oof. LOL. Yes. Please don’t bring the innocent corporation into this! Please! The only people suffering here is multimillionaire influencers like Dylan and multi-billion dollar companies like “Tampax.” Please ladies! You’re not the victims here! “Tampax” and Dylan are the real victims. Please shut up. And stop wrecking Dylan’s bag with corporations who potentially could be giving Dylan money for shout-outs. This is a bit of projection on Dylan’s part here, frankly. Nothing that Dylan does is a threat to my womanhood because I know I’m a woman. It’s just a fact. It exists. It’s unchangeable. Is a helium balloon a threat to the people who believe gravity exists? No. Gravity just is. It exists. Nothing can threaten an immoveable fact Okay, so here we go. Dylan immediately refuses to do ANY self-examination. Regardless of intention, if a massive group of people say you are being insulting towards them, then you are being insulting towards them. You need to examine your own actions, change your own actions, and apologize. Dylan knows this. But of course since Dylan is a toxic person, Dylan prefers to gaslight the critics. “Nah, it’s all your fault that you’re so angry at me. I’m a perfect angel.” Hm. Interesting choice of words there. “Gush.” Okay. I’ll be real. If I found a box of tampons at my boyfriend’s house I’d assume he was cheating. Men just don’t keep tampons on hand unless they live with a woman or women. And even then men don’t carry tampons unless their girlfriends ask them to. It’s seen as a little creepy for a guy to offer you a tampon. Okay, you see, this is ONCE AGAIN Dylan thinking that a stupid misogynistic stereotype is genuine womanhood. Dylan, none of us are fucking going to brunch on Sundays. We’re working on Sundays. Or taking care of our kids. Or juggling part-time work and childcare because so many women are still struggling to get back on our feet financially after the “shecession” of 2020 where women had to leave work in droves to take care of kids after the pandemic shut down the schools. Seriously, Dylan Mulvaney is disgusting. Maybe Dylan has this fetishistic fantasy of being a cute little kept 1960s housewife for some handsome square-jawed cis straight guy… but that’s not reality. That’s never reality. And that sure as fuck isn’t womanhood. Nah, it’s because you’re misogynistic Dylan. “We” gotta work through this? Okay. You first Dylan. I have yet to hear an apology from your end about you mocking female genitalia and menstruation. Yaaassss Dylan! The only thing that matters is YOUR feelings and YOUR self-esteem. You just have to “get over” the fact that you have insulted women. It’s never about anyone else. It’s never about honest self-examination. It’s all about Dylan baby! Yes, because women are awful shallow beings that just want Dylan to feel sad. No. We’re not bullies Dylan. We just want you to stop being misogynistic. That’s all. Please stop playing with tampons. Please stop calling vaginas “Barbie pouches.” Please stop acting weak and embodying the most foul anti-woman stereotypes and saying it’s genuine “girlhood.” That’s all we want. We want you to STOP that crap. And act like, you know, a real woman. Plus an actual apology wouldn’t hurt. You’re gonna apologize Dylan? You’re gonna stop acting like some musical theater version of a bimbo and pretending that’s just as valid a form of womanhood as what Margaret Thatcher, Sally Ride and VP Kamala Harris present to the world? When you criticize Dylan for misogyny or mocking female genitalia, you’re just a big bully who wants to make Dylan sad. Dylan is never in the wrong or never the person who needs to reflect and then apologize. Never. And no, that’s not gaslighting or narcissism on Dylan’s part. Not a bit. How dare anyone even suggest that. And, you know, get paid 50 grand a post on Instagram by “Nike” and “Ulta” to platform their products. And honestly I don’t blame Dylan for that. Get the money Dylan. You built the platform, you should be able to benefit from it. But don’t get angry at women when you blow up your own bag by insulting women while trying to snag a sponsorship from “Tampax.” That’s on you. That’s not on women. Also, seriously, please talk to a professional about your feelings of depression. What you’re describing with trying “to find the will to wake up every day” is not normal. Well Dylan, if you’re trying to threaten me it’s not really working.
In fact, considering what’s been happening with “Bud Light” (STILL losing money btw) it’s really Dylan who needs to be careful. Frankly it’s not just women. Trans women are also sick of Dylan’s misogynistic garbage. And corporations are watching Bud Light’s stock in free-fall and backing off. Not even Judy Blume seems to be ready to save Dylan Mulvaney. Blume did a little community service sit-down with Mulvaney after Blume was caught in an interview saying she admired JK Rowling. As we all know, saying you like JK Rowling is genocide-apologism so naturally Blume needed to make amends. In closing, we need to fight a culture where emotional abuse is applauded. Valid criticism from women is not transphobia. For the love of God folks, self-examination is a good thing! Sometimes you have to check yourself before assuming that the whole world is simply against you. The perpetual victim act can only last for so long until your audience starts to get tired of the constant demand for affirmation. And they will start to leave. And that will be one gush no tampon can stop. I found this “Dunkin Donuts” coffee cup on a hiking trail a few days ago.
It was literally just sitting by the side of a hiking trail. Some hiker just put it there and then continued on with his day. That annoyed me. I hate seeing litter in beautiful places like the hiking trail I was on. But somehow- SOMEHOW- the label on the coffee cup just made the whole situation worse. Small Iced Original Coffee, one Butterpecan Swirl, 2 Oat milks. Why the oat milk pal? Why the oat milk? You didn’t want to support the factory farm industry so you loudly told the Dunkin’s worker that you wanted *oat milk* that had not come from some poor exploited cow? You wanted to do your part for the Earth as long as people NOTICED you were doing your part for the Earth. Yeah, I see you pal. But then, when you were through with your coffee while on the hike, you didn’t just hold it until you got back to the parking lot. No, nobody would SEE you putting the coffee cup in the trash can and give you a round of applause. Nope. No audience, no good deed. Sorry Earth, but that cup is getting tossed by a tree while Mr. Oat Milk finished his walk unencumbered. Damn, that coffee cup is everything wrong with 21st century morality. It’s only a good deed if people notice it. Good deeds done in private are no longer worth it. Of course then, when I mentioned it, someone suggested that the guy never even pretended to care about the Earth. He may have just ordered oat milk because he was lactose intolerant. By way of supporting that argument, this commenter then pointed out that the coffee was from “Dunkin’ Donuts,” not “Starbucks.” No true SJW poser gets his coffee at “Dunkin Donuts.” And apparently “Dunkin’ Donuts” does not actually have a lactose-free option for milk. They just serve oat milk, coconut milk and almond milk if you are lactose-intolerant. Hm. So maybe the person who littered actually isn’t a hypocrite. He wanted coffee. He wanted to hike. And he didn’t want to carry his coffee during the hike. He didn’t care about the Earth and he didn’t care about people approving of his pro-Green choices. So he littered. Well, I guess that’s less hypocritical. Still terrible though. Folks, it doesn’t matter what type of coffee you drink. Please don’t litter. My “Medium” drafts folder has been nothing but me grumping and whining and complaining. I don’t like Dylan Mulvaney. I don’t like Jeffrey Marsh. I don’t like the “Midol” commercial. I don’t like that guy who threw a “Dunkin’ Donuts” plastic coffee cup on my hiking trail. Grump. Grump. Grump.
It’s a lot of complaining on my part and I do apologize for that. So now, dear reader, here is an essay about something that I like. It’s the newest cover of the “New Yorker.” The illustration is called “Perennial” and it was created by R. Kikuo Johnson. I love it. The cover, as you can see in the pic, shows a humble tree in New York City. The tree quietly changes as the seasons change. I love the botton right pic the best. We see the tree in winter mode. The leaves are gone. We see a shred of shopping bag, a bit of balloon and an old, abandoned bird’s nest. It would have been very easy for Kikuo to portray the litter in the tree as a commentary about how awful humankind is to nature. Look at this poor tree, choked with our garbage as we wander zombie-like around it with our noses in our phones! Kikuo doesn’t do that. In fact, Kikuo portrays the detritis in the tree branches rather affectionately. It’s almost a positive to see the cheery balloon caught in the tree branches. It has the same right to be in the tree as the old bird’s nest. The people Kikuo illustrates passing the tree are illustrated with positivity. The little girls is carrying her yellow balloons and enjoying her day with her mom. The dog is walking cheerfully by its owner. The fall picture shows a woman with that characteristic brisk New York stride carrying her groceries home to cook. And the deflated balloon is still happy enough to catch a child’s eye in the winter scene. Humans and birds and trees are all part of the same world. That’s not a bad thing. It is difficult to illustrate a picture of such quiet happiness and not have it come off as saccharine. The fact that Kikuo was able to do so for the newest issue of the “New Yorker” is a testament to his incredible talent. Honestly, it’s just nice to see a picture of humans and nature interacting where humans are not seen as destructive garbage monsters. Brightens my evening! A few days ago AP News released a photo of President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy meeting in the Oval Office. Biden and McCarthy are in the middle of negotiations to raise the debt ceiling. Long story short: if the debt ceiling is not raised then the US will default on its debts and we will tumble into a Second Depression. And we have until June 5th to get the shit done. So what’s the delay? Well the GOP (who control the House) refuses to raise the debt ceiling unless a whole lot of limits on spending are added to the budget, including work requirements for Medicaid and Medicare. That’s a non-starter for Democrats and frankly the majority of the American public. Nothing the Democrats propose will be good for the GOP, however. A few people are darkly whispering that the GOP deliberately wants the nation to default because nothing less than economic chaos can bring Trump back to power in 2024. Everyone is tense and on edge. Should Biden invoke the 14th Amendment? Should the GOP just let the country burn? What will happen if the US defaults? Amid all this anxiety, AP released a photo on May 22nd 2023. GOP House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Biden are sitting in the Oval Office. McCarthy looks awful. His face is tense. His shoes are scuffed. He practically has beads of sweat on his forehead. Biden, however, looks like he’s at a family barbecue and his son has just come home from deployment. Biden is grinning widely. The old man looks like he’s genuinely enjoying himself. Joe Biden has large bright white teeth. When he smiles those white teeth flare out like a spotlight and immediately grab the attention of anyone watching. It’s the smile of a joyful warrior. It’s a deeply masculine grin that seems cheerful but barely disguises the knife edge of a skilled political fighter. Biden’s smile as a political weapon was first seen at the Vice Presidential debates in 2012. When Joe Biden debated Paul Ryan, Biden’s smile was seen as a negative at the time. NBC’s David Gregory said “Biden’s smile is out of control.” Politico ran an article titled “Twitter Frowns on Joe Biden’s Laugh.” Biden’s laugh, however, turned out to help Biden a great deal. Viewers of the 2012 Biden/ Ryan debate considered Biden to have won the debate and helped clean up after Obama’s disastrous debate performance with Mitt Romney. Kathleen Parker said it best in her piece “Joe Biden’s Vicious Smile.” “Like the Cheshire Cat he smiled…. It was a tactical weapon intended to intimidate and out-psych his wonky opponent.” Joe Biden deploys that “tactical weapon” of a smile often during debates, especially when his opponent is talking. When Senator Bernie Sanders became angry during a Democratic Primary debate in February 2020, the camera angle caught Biden laughing during Bernie’s uproar. Biden’s teeth were full ablaze. It did not go unnoticed. After the end of a long and bitter primary, Biden defeated Bernie Sanders and ended up winning the Democratic nomination. On September 29th 2020 Joe Biden debated Donald Trump. In one of the debate’s most frightening moments, Trump refused to condemn white supremacy. The rather chaotic exchange went like this: Wallace: “Are you willing, tonight, to condemn white supremacists and militia groups-” Trump: “Sure” Wallace: “- And to say that they need to stand down and not add to the violence in a number of these cities as we saw in Kenosha and as we’ve seen in Portland?” Trump: “Sure, I’m willing to do that.” Wallace: “Are you prepared to do that specifically?” Biden: “Do it.” Trump: “I would say- I would say almost everything I see is from the left wing, not from the right wing.” Wallace: “So what are you- what are you- what are you saying?” Trump: “I’m- I’m willing to do anything- I want to see peace.” Wallace: “Well, then do it, sir.” Biden: “Say it. Do it. Say it.” Trump: “You want to call ‘em…. What do you want to call ‘em? Give me a name. Give me a name.” Wallace: “White supremacists and right wing militias.” Biden: “Proud Boys” Trump: “Proud Boys? Stand back and stand by. But I’ll tell you what- I’ll tell you what. Somebody’s gotta do something about Antifa and the left.” It was a chilling a moment. Trump, instead of condemning the far-right neo-fascist militia Proud Boys, appeared to be giving them orders to stand by and prepare for violence. Twitter recoiled in horror. Biden, however, had a different reaction. Biden smiled. Biden’s smile during that horrible moment was strategic. He knew that Trump was trying to intimidate America. He knew that Trump wanted Americans to be scared. Biden knew that Trump’s most powerful weapon was fear. So Biden countered that weapon with his own attack: his grin. Biden deployed his smile not only to blunt Trump’s intimidation tactic but also to convey reassurance towards the viewers watching their debate. “He’s an idiot, a stupid idiot,” Biden’s smile said, “And he’s going to be easily defeated by me.” And Biden is still using that smile as a reassurance tactic when meeting Kevin McCarthy. It’s a powerful message. Biden has been in Washington longer than I have been alive, and I am middle-aged. You don’t survive that long in DC without knowing how the game is played. You don’t become president without knowing the rules.
Rule number one: Teach your enemies to tremble when they see your smile. |
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