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The so-called “pro-life” movement’s philosophy.

One of the best political cartoons that I’ve seen. 

You know what pisses me off about this?  Really, REALLY pisses me off?  That’s George (H.W.) Bush holding that umbrella.  He was president 1981-1989.  Do you get that?  

It means that the right have not budged an inch on their ridiculous pro-foetus, anti-actual-persons position in THIRTY GODDAMN YEARS. We should not still be having this argument! Thirty year old political cartoons should be bafflingly opaque, not crystal clear!

^ Reblogging again for that comment.

Kid Cudi on OTHERtone 🖖🏽🚀

 Kanye West - Dark Fantasy

Mark: Whether I’m gay or not has no reflection –

Owen: No, it does. Just listen –

Julia: I don’t think that you have ownership of horror of this crime.

Owen: Can I just say, I find this, I find this astonishing.

Julia: I’m not Jewish and I’m not gay, I’m not French, but I still am equally horrified by these crimes.

Owen: This was a – I’m being yelled at, which is incredible.

Julia: Stop talking so [we hadn’t do].

Mark: That’s the headline: ‘Isil wages war on gays in west’. Now you share that view, that basically this was deliberately targeted on one part of the community rather than the freedom to enjoy yourself no matter what your sexual orientation is.

Owen: What are you talking about?!?

Mark: I’m talking about the coverage in the newspapers.

Owen: It’s not some abstract, kind of, he just picked a random club out of nowhere. He picked a club because it was full of people he regarded as deviants. That’s why he attacked the club.

Julia: It’s a hate crime, this is an act of terrorism, it was an attack on gay people, absolutely, it was horrific. However, my mind guesses this man probably would be as horrified by me as a gobby woman as he would – genuinely, genuinely – this is the thing. We don’t know right now. We can speculate, but we don’t know how much of this is motivated by just his homophobia.

Owen: We heard from his own father about his revulsion – why are we trying to deflect? Why are you both pick-

Mark: We are not trying to deflect. We are trying to reflect what is being said by the authorities here and –

Owen: Can I ask, what argument are you trying to pick here?

Mark: I’m now going to quote from what The Telegraph is saying…’his father said…[he] may have targeted the gay community after becoming angry when he saw two men–’

Owen: ‘May have’? He did! Why are you saying this?

Julia: ‘After seeing two men kissing in Miami some months ago’ – he may have been angered by many other things since then!

Owen: I’m sorry. I just find this the most astonishing thing I’ve ever been involved with on television. If he’d walked into a synagogue, and massacred dozens of Jewish people, you wouldn’t be saying what you’re saying now.

Owen: This bizarre attempt to deflect from this –

Mark: We are trying to draw parallels in terrorist attacks on people who are being attacked whether they are enjoying rock music in Paris, whether they are gay people in Florida enjoying a night out.

Julia: I completely accept it, as [Mark] does, that it was a homophobic attack, but for me the issue is there are going to be homophobic people, there’ll be people who hate black people, or who hate gay people, or hate Jewish people. There are going to be people, who are lunatics, who are fanatics –

Owen: Who are “lunatics”! Stop using these words, Julia!

Julia: Is it possible for me to finish one sentence?

Owen: If you stop using words like “lunatic” to talk about homophobic terrorist attacks!

Julia: Well thank you. Whoever these people are, and whatever their motivations are, the key thing is we’re always going to have mad and bad people in the world.

Owen: Mad and bad people. Okay.

Julia: And the key issue is, that they can’t do too much or any harm. When you have free access to assault weapons in a country like America, then they’re able to put their hatred of other people –

Owen: Yes! Obviously!

Julia: – into effect, and do damage. That’s the issue for me.

(discussion between Mark and Julia on gun control and the U.S. …Julia: It is absolutely absurd, if America were not going to do something about gun control after Sandy Hook in 2012, if you’re going to watch six- and seven-year-olds being massacred and you don’t think you need to act, they are never going to act.)

Mark: There’s something else here in The Telegraph coverage, which I think we need to bring up, Owen, in relation to your point. And that is, I think that we’ve got at least a call from a spokesman for Stonewall saying that people would be feeling vulnerable, and basically indicating –

Owen: Oh, you’re going to have an LGBT voice talking about it. Interesting.

Mark: Sorry?

Owen: Nothing, carry on. Go on.

Julia: Owen, seriously.

Owen: I’ve had enough of this. I’m going home. Sorry. No way.

Julia: Owen, genuinely, we’re trying to have a civilized conversation.

Owen: I know you’re having it, I don’t want it!

Julia: I know you’re upset, you’re very upset –

Owen: Yeah, I am, I’m very upset. I’m very upset.

Julia: Everyone’s upset and angry about this, but storming off a TV set –

Owen Jones, Mark Longhurst, and Julia Hartley-Brewer discuss the Pulse nightclub shootings, 12 June 2016

#boycottskynews

I woke up Sunday morning and rolled over to look at Stacy, like I have been doing every morning for so many years and plan to keep doing every morning for the rest of my life. She was reading the news. She’s always reading the news when I wake up. I could tell by the huge red font on her laptop screen that something bad had happened, and when she noticed I was awake, she tilted her computer away from me.

“What happened?” I asked.

She kissed my forehead and said, “Your fever is back.”

“But what happened?” I asked again.

She didn’t answer right away. She rested her cool hand on my hot cheek. And then she told me 20 people had been killed in a shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando. That’s all she knew, that’s all anyone knew. 20 dead gay and trans people who’d been out dancing, celebrating Pride.

Stacy was right that my fever was back. I’d been fighting a cold for a week and I’d clearly lost the battle. She kissed me again and got up and got dressed and went out for supplies. She knew what I needed without me having to ask. She’s nursed my terrible immune system through plenty of colds and flus and fevers. Lemon-lime Gatorade only. When I woke up again, 50 gay and trans people had been pronounced dead.

Stacy and I spent the majority of our first date at a gay bar in New York City, out until 4:00 a.m. talking about our hopes and dreams and fears and favorite TV. And sports. The Miami Dolphins. Skins, mostly. Naomi and Emily. This new thing called Pretty Little Liars. We’d been shooed away from a press event by the NYPD and we found ourselves in the back of a cab together, hardly knowing each other, feeling like maybe we should find out more, like maybe this was our one chance. So we went a gay bar to sit in a corner and talk quietly, while people decked out in rainbows and glitter danced around us, all night long. Neither of us are loud places people; neither of us like crowds. Something drew us to that bar that night, though. Something about the safety of being with our brothers and sisters, our people, while this fragile, hopeful, unspoken thing buzzed between us.

The Orlando narrative was always going to take the form of Islamophobia, as soon as it was clear Omar Mateen wasn’t white. It was always going to take the form of hundreds of politicians erasing “LGBT” from the conversation to exploit our pain. Donald Trump was always going to find a way to congratulate himself for it, to double down on his racism and xenophobia, to appeal to fear to fear to fear, always to fear. (The irony of convincing straight white people they’re the ones at risk when nearly all the victims of the hate crime were gay and trans Black and Latino people.) It was always going to be a chance for the NRA to claim they’re the ones under attack.

But we know the truth: The shooting at Pulse happened because religious conservatives all over the world, and especially here in the United States – where this murderer was born and raised – have been scapegoating gay and trans people for decades, twisting the words of their religious texts to claim authority from gods for persecution and oppression. They have denied us our rights to marriage, to fair employment and housing. They have called us pedophiles and deviants, have taken away our children and separated us from our families. They have called for our execution, and recently. You remember Ted Cruz’s pastor who said LGBT people are “pawns of Satan” and lobbied for our death. That was November, six months ago. They have fought to keep our stories off of TV and out of movies, to have our books banned from libraries, and to boycott the businesses that would dare to treat us with respect.

The shooting at Pulse happened because millions of people have been taught to fear this one thing:

A woman in New York City saw her partner wake up on Sunday morning with a fever, and her instinct in that moment was to shield her partner from horrific news. For three minutes, maybe. Or even just thirty seconds. Not to reach for her partner for comfort. Not to pierce the quiet morning with a howl of rage. A woman in New York City saw her partner wake up on Sunday morning and her impulse was love. Love for another woman. Love.

Stacy brought me my favorite popsicles in order of the way I like to eat them: cherry, then grape, then orange. “Try to at least eat three crackers,” she said.

And that’s why 50 people died.

Cup noodle makizushi art by Takayo Kiyota