On a much happier note, it’s the 35th anniversary of the movie Clue! Celebrate with these 10 quotes (and if you’ve seen it, yes, you know what is number one!).
Here’s the trailer for The Watch, the BBC show based on the City Watch books of the Discworld series:
New Looney Tunes are coming to HBO Max and this is making me want to subscribe:
The PG (granted, it’s become a right-wing rag on the editorial side) has a neat interactive site about the bridges of Pittsburgh. Note this may be behind a paywall, I think it was one of my three free articles when I read it.
The Atlantic has a great piece about pandemic fatigue, how we should approach it both in ourselves and others. The article also covers the similarities between COVID and the HIV pandemic: they’re very, very similar, just on a different time scale. Be kind to yourself and others, be as smart and safe as you can.
Also in Pandemic related content, CGP Grey’s new video about it. While I will disagree, I think that for many, just surviving is enough (instead of creation of coming out ‘better’ in some way), this video has great tips about how to survive our new reality:
There were so many things I loved about Mayor Pete (and of course, things I didn’t), but his representation matters so, so much. Here is just one example of it, something I would have never dreamed of seeing growing up.
Thank you, to Garfunkle and Oates for hitting it out of the park with this song:
This makes me laugh, but it’s what we deal with all the time. A person makes some bigoted remark about how he thinks gay people are going to hell and then gets all upset when the pushback happens. The hypocrisy is staggering.
Let’s talk about gun control. Thankfully, America’s Best Christian, Betty Bowers is here to have the conversation:
In case you forgot, PA state Rep (from north of Pittsburgh, so not my elected official) Daryl Metcalfe is a bigoted, misogynistic,, racist waste of oxygen. He’s also been single handedly holding up the bills that would give me some equal rights in the Commonwealth.
Alright, let’s see what we have today. First up, in a great bit karma, a man who was refused a legal marriage license by Kim Davis is running to unseat her. And she had to watch him fill out the paperwork.
The trailer for season 3 of Eastsiders looks great (and even includes a stop in Pittsburgh)! But sadly, Colby Keller is in it, so I may not watch it because of that (although I think this was filmed before he was doubling down on his white privilege):
If you haven’t been convinced that ‘gay conversion’ torture is real, or harmful, new, horrific recordings have surfaced thanks to investigative journalism.
A new reality show is coming to (British) TV, and I certainly want to watch it: Bromans:
Some big news from the BSA: Both Train and Carly Rae Jepsen have cancelled their concerts at the National Jamboree because of the membership ban. Jepsen has been welcomed by the Canadian Scouts (she’s Canadian, by the way), and the world jamboree is a joint effort by the scouts of the USA, Canada and Mexico (but hosted here in WV), but here’s the bigger question: Did anyone at national even watch the “Call Me, Maybe” video to the end? The guy Carly is drooling over is gay. You’d think that would have tipped them off that she’s interested in equality.
Also in BSA news, petitions were delivered to the National Geographic channel, asking them to cut “Are You Tougher Than a Boy Scout,” or at least put a disclaimer before it. Personally, I don’t really care either way, I can’t imagine it’s going to get great ratings, only based on the fact that I don’t think Nat Geo is included in many cable packages (but I may be wrong).
As Conclave approaches, I have a new candidate I want to support:
Quick update for everyone, let’s see what we have. First up, an awesome mash-up for NES/SNES games and Google Map locations:
An awesome follow-up that I’ve been meaning to share about the Dan Savage issue. Slate nails it:
The American right is undertaking a huge project of trying to put right-wing politics beyond criticism by shouting “religious bigotry” any time someone gets in the way of their political agenda. If they can create a consensus that it’s somehow off-limits to criticize teaching that gay people are subhuman as long as you wrap it up in religion, that gives them a huge political advantage. Taken far enough, merely stating out loud in public that you don’t believe gay people are evil could be cause for the fainting couches to be pulled out and accusations that Christians are being oppressed. Sounds ludicrous? Well, consider that we’re currently debating whether or not it’s oppressing Christians to accurately state what’s in the Bible. Anyone who is actually supportive of gay rights shouldn’t be playing along with this feigned umbrage. It won’t stop until opposing anti-gay actions is considered completely off-bounds on the grounds that it’s an attack on religion.
Dan also weighs in here about the North Carolina amendment which passed yesterday.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Christianist have taken over the Republican party: and that’s a shame. We need to be able to have rational discussion, that is how we will solve our problems, by working together. But if one side just shuts down and cries out when someone disagrees with them or calls them on their bullshit, then we can’t have meaningful governance.
I went backpacking two weeks ago, and rightly so, I was a bit sore afterwards. We did the first part of the LHHT, which is just up and down and up and down. Here is the elevation profile. Check out my pictures here (and thanks to my friends for always making sure to be in them) if you’re interested, including awesome panoramics:
