October 11, 2020

Source: Bigstock

The Week’s Most Eclectic, Anorectic, and Apoplectic Headlines

THE STUNNING AND BRAVE STATELY HOMOS OF TWITTER
Back when The Simpsons was still relevant (and funny), there was an episode in which the Springfield gay-pride parade marches past the Simpson home. Two of the marchers raise their fists in defiance and declare, “We’re here! We’re queer! Get used to it!” To which Lisa replies, “You do this every year! We are used to it!”

“Spoilsport,” one of the gayboys dejectedly whines.

That episode was from 2002. Which means that nearly twenty years ago it was safe and relatable to joke—on network TV, no less—about how acceptance of gay men had become so widespread and mainstream, queers who still saw themselves as edgy “rebels” were laughably oblivious morons. And this was before gay marriage was nationally legalized. And before there were gay Disney characters. And before Christians were prosecuted for not making gay wedding cakes. And before Chick-fil-A bowed to pressure and renounced its principles.

In other words, if being a gay man wasn’t “edgy” in 2002, it sure ain’t edgy now. These days, gay men are practically Norman Rockwellesque compared to the Pan(sexual)dora’s Box that’s been opened by “trans” ideology. Hell, compared to the tranny grotesqueries that haunt the administrations of Democrat mayors and governors nationwide, a gay man would be a welcome slice of normal pie.

Funny enough, though, as gays have won victory after victory in their crusade to mainstream their lifestyle, many have simultaneously refused to accept their newfound “establishment” status. Last week, mummified spaceship fairy George Takei, who is only slightly younger than Minatogawa Man, decided it would be a “devastating” prank to “mess up” the “right-wing Proud Boys” by appropriating the name as a gay meme:

I wonder if the BTS and TikTok kids can help LGBTs with this. What if gay guys took pictures of themselves making out with each other or doing very gay things, then tagged themselves with #ProudBoys. I bet it would mess them up real bad.

Within minutes, antique-shop patrons across the land inundated Twitter with gay photos, hashtagged #ProudBoys.

Oddly, nobody on the right was “messed up real bad.” Maybe it has something to do with the fact that arguably the biggest hero on the right at the moment is Richard Grenell, an openly gay man (the first ever to serve at the cabinet level in a presidential administration…damn that bigot Trump!). Not that this matters to Takei (who’s so fond of living in the past, he goes to bed in his Tule Lake internment PJs), or any of the other gay leftists who still can’t come to terms with the fact that the normalcy-upending freight train they set in motion decades ago has passed them by to such an extent, they’re now about as edgy as a book of dad jokes.

ANOTHER POSTHUMOUS DEMOCRAT VOTER
Boo, braaaah! Just in time for Halloween comes the bone-chillingest video of the season. In a year in which the word “cringe” has been so overused as to lose all meaning, get ready for the reanimated dead teenage gun control skater dude.

Joaquin Oliver was 17 years old when he was killed during the 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School mass shooting in Florida. And last week his parents, Manuel and Patricia, “resurrected” him as a deepfake ghost to lecture the rest of us on why we have to, like, vote, bro, for candidates who “care more about people’s lives than the gun lobby’s money.”

“We found a way to bring back someone that no one will ignore,” Joaquin’s dad somberly intones in the introduction to the video, as brooding, John Carpenter-ish mood music accentuates the spooky vibe. And, indeed, it is hard to ignore what has to be the creepiest campaign video since Michael Dukakis rode a tank.

“Just throw a white sheet over your head. No way that will be seen as racially insensitive by anyone.”

Wearing a hoodie, beanie, and earbud, and standing in a skate park, revenant Joaquin begins his plea to voters by exclaiming, “Yo, it’s me, it’s Guac,” as he stretches his arms as if to say “You all know me, right?”

“People are still gettin’ killed by guns, bro…what is that?” asks Ghost Dude, before barking at the viewers, “Replace my vote, bro!”

“Vote for people not getting shot, bro,” exclaims Skater Wraith as his CGI arms flail about, hip-hop-style. In a perfect world, at this point Zombie Reagan would enter the frame to calmly explain that the candidates who are for “not getting shot” are the ones running on a law-and-order platform who support the right of citizens to arm themselves against mass shooters.

But sadly, this is one postmortem casting call Reagan missed.

The efficacy of this deeply disturbing spot is yet to be known, but somebody should tell the Olivers that Democrats have worked very hard to make it possible for their dead son to vote, like, literally, bro, via mail-in ballot.

No AI required.

SHUT UP AND EAT YOUR FREE KLAN LUNCH
A few days ago, everyone’s favorite brainless Boricua Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted yet another pot-induced hallucination:

Did you know: If you or anyone you know ever benefited from free & reduced school lunch, you’ve likely benefited from the work and legacy of the Black Panthers? When local & federal governments refused to feed hungry communities, (especially hungry Black communities), the Black Panthers established the People’s Free Food Program to feed children before school. They consulted nutritionists and marshaled resources for community care. It was so popular that communities started to feel that in key areas like child hunger, the Panthers were caring for their children better than the government was.

Sadly, Vox’s resident stopped clock Matthew Yglesias pissed on AOC’s plantains by pointing out a most inconvenient fact:

Not only is it untrue that free & reduced price school lunch was inspired by the Black Panthers, the actual leader on the legislation was Richard Russell a really awful segregationist.

Matty’s right. The 1946 National School Lunch Act, signed by President Truman, was the brainchild of Senator Richard B. Russell (former governor of Georgia), arguably the most vocal and uncompromising segregationist and anti-civil-rights Democrat in Congress at the time. The dude was the literal architect of the Southern Manifesto. Yet according to historian James Thomas Gay of the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Georgia, Russell worked tirelessly to ensure that black children received equal benefits under the program (Russell was also responsible for the massive expansion of food stamps).

Funny enough, opposition to the School Lunch Act came from Congressman Charles Jasper Bell, another Democrat, who argued that poor kids shouldn’t accept handouts from the “White Father in Washington.”

In trying to spread “racial justice” pseudohistory, AOC ended up making the worst point a leftist could possibly make in these times: An unreconstructed Southern racist cared more for black kids than most “enlightened” Northerners.

AOC needs to be true to her party’s current mania: School lunch programs must be scrapped because they were founded by a racist. And nothing good has ever been founded by racists, right?

So toss those lunches in the trash, black kids. Ditch the “white father” and show up at AOC’s front door. If you can get past the armed security, surely she’ll be happy to feed you herself.

CARAVAN OF NO COMPRENDE
The first odd thing one might notice about the newest caravan of penniless starving oppressed Honduran “refugees” trekking their way to the U.S. border is that it was organized via WhatsApp. WhatsApp requires a computer or cellphone with internet access. The roughly 4,000 brown folks who’ve embarked on the arduous journey to get free stuff in America claim they can’t afford even the most basic subsistence foods.

But apparently they all have iPhones and wireless plans with crazy good roaming.

“We’re dying of hunger and are just looking for a country that can offer us life with dignity,” caravan leader Ariel told the L.A. Times. Then he went back to playing Fortnite.

The next odd thing is that caravan members have chosen this month to make their journey because prior to Oct. 1, the borders of their country were sealed to stave off COVID, an action the Times admits “may have spared Honduras from a mass outbreak.” So these “refugees,” COVID-free because their leaders kept the borders unbreached, are breaching borders in Guatemala and Mexico in order to breach borders in the U.S.

Our sealed borders saved our lives! Now let us demolish yours!”

The third odd thing is that caravan members told the Times that their desperate state is due in large part to the COVID-inspired “business closures and lockdowns” in their native land. Yet they’re counting on U.S. Democrats to let them in and give them better lives…even as those same Democrats push for exactly the “business closures and lockdowns” that supposedly drove them out of Honduras.

And the final odd aspect of the newest migrant caravan is the fact that after Guatemalan forces disbanded it a few days ago to prevent the spread of COVID, sending 3,384 of the 4,000 wretched huddlers punta-ing back to Honduras, North American human rights organizations complained that no COVID health regs should ever prevent people from living “a dignified life.”

Odd indeed that those “human rights advocates” don’t seem concerned with that “right to a dignified life” thing when it comes to Americans arrested for holding religious services, mourners unable to comfort each other at funerals, and restaurant patrons forced to keep their masks on between bites.

SAVING HALLOWEEN FROM WHITE PEOPLE
Pinterest is the bizarrely popular site where bored housewives and “mommy bloggers” obsessively collect recipes, craft ideas, decorating tips, and other outlets for killing time while whittling the day away on Merlot and Ativan.

Pinterest users are 71% female and 79% white. It’s the latter figure that’s created tension at Pinterest HQ as Halloween approaches. After all, with that many white users, what are the odds that a few of them might pin “racially insensitive” costume ideas? And while in normal years that would be but a minor irritation, in 2020, one “racist” mask could theoretically lead to an entire city being burned to the ground.

The topic of racially insensitive masks is an especially personal one to billionaire Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann, whose malformed half-Chinese half-Jewish visage is a vulgar insult to both peoples.

So this year Pinterest execs have alerted users that any attempts to search or pin culturally inappropriate costumes will be banned:

Costumes are consistently a top-searched term, but many people may not know that certain costumes are appropriations of other cultures. As a platform for positivity, we want to make it easy to find culturally-appropriate Halloween ideas, and bring awareness to the fact that costumes should not be opportunities to turn a person’s identity into a stereotyped image. Cultures aren’t costumes. Halloween should be a time for inspiration—not a time for insensitivity.

Starting this year, certain searches—like for “Day of the Dead costumes”—will show a Pin at the top of results with information curated by Pinterest employee group PIndigenous and experts like Dr. Adrienne Keene on how to celebrate thoughtfully and respectfully. Additionally, we’re limiting recommendations for costumes that appropriate cultures.

Additionally, the site has “prohibited advertisements with culturally inappropriate costumes,” and admins have “made it possible for Pinners to report culturally-insensitive content right from Pins.”

To avoid being “reported” on Pinterest, white users are advised to forgo Halloween masks altogether, and go back to that old standby, that most rudimentary of old-timey costumes, the ghost. Arguably the only Halloween character that’s allowed to be white.

Plus, it’s inexpensive. Just throw a white sheet over your head. No way that will be seen as racially insensitive by anyone.

RACIST RACER, EMOJI MISCEGENATOR
Of course, it’s not just masks that are unsafe in the hands of whites; emojis are a problem too. Last week, junior world champion American cyclist Quinn Simmons was suspended indefinitely by his team for the crime of using an emoji that didn’t match his skin color. It started when Dutch cycling journalist José Been, who is white, tweeted that Donald Trump is a “vile, horrible man.” She then told her followers, “if you follow me and support Trump, you can go.”

To which Simmons, a vocal Trump supporter who is also white, replied simply “Bye,” accompanied by a “waving hand” emoji.

Unfortunately, Simmons chose the brown hand emoji which, racing officials discovered, is several shades darker than his own skin.

So he was suspended.

The advocacy group “Diversity in Cycling” applauded Simmons’ punishment, claiming that when a white person clicks on a nonwhite emoji, “it’s a form of blackface—a means of racist oppression used by extremist groups.”

It’s unclear why sites like Twitter make any emojis available if clicking the wrong one can cause “racist oppression.” Surely federal legislation is needed to deal with such a horrendous problem.

Simmons’ team, Trek-Segafredo, released a statement explaining that Simmons “was not suspended because of his political views.” Because that would be nuts, right? Un-American. Fascist, even. No, he was suspended because he clicked on an emoji that doesn’t perfectly mirror his skin tone.

Because that’s an absolutely sane reason to destroy someone’s career.

A team spokesman told the media that 19-year-old Simmons won’t be blackballed for life. He’ll be allowed to race again in the future “if he can use this opportunity to grow as a person and make a positive contribution for a better future for cycling. We remain committed to helping Quinn as much as we can.’’

It can be argued that if anybody on team Trek-Segafredo needs professional help, it’s not Quinn Simmons.


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