Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

The willow is too close to the house.

Thanks for reminding me that Van Jones needs to be slapped.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

No Justins, No Peace

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Republicans don’t trust women.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

We’re not going back!

People are complicated. Love is not.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

You are here: Home / Humorous / Late Night Open Thread: Unionize the Serving Wenches!

Late Night Open Thread: Unionize the Serving Wenches!

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True story: Since a lot of our friends were serious Society for Creative Anachronism people, I’d been joking for years that if we ever *did* get married, I’d insist on a SCA-themed gown so that I actually could wear it again. (This had not yet become a cliche, in the early 1990s.) When the Spousal Unit’s dad finally called our bluff with an offer we couldn’t refuse, of course we planned to pay for the wedding party’s outfits: plain shirts and dark trousers with brocade vests matching his tunic; plain shifts & skirts with bodices from the same brocade as my dress.

The doyenne of our friend group was mildly horrified: “You’re dressing your escorts as serving wenches?!?“

Reader Interactions

55Comments

  2. 2.

    eclare

    One of my cousins is in SOLAR, not SCA, because SCA requires charitable duties.  He bought land to host whatever they do.  It all seems weird to me.

  3. 3.

    oatler

    I remember Medieval Times in Orlando in the 90s.and its “Arabian” variation.

  6. 6.

    prostratedragon

    A friend who had a scholarly interest in medieval culture sometimes went to SCA gatherings. Her detached amusement was kept at the ready, and occasionally deployed.

  7. 7.

    Narya

    The wife of a friend of a friend does SCA. I got major points the first time I met her by knowing what it was and asking interested questions about her character, activities, etc. I have no interest in doing it but am genuinely interested.

  8. 8.

    NotMax

    BTW, 522 error notice reared its head once more at approximately 2:40 to 3 a.m. blog time.

  10. 10.

    Tony Jay

    Snigger all you want, Modtards, but when either the Y2K(+22) Bug brings down e-civilisation or a solar flare fries all the power grids or the microchips they put into bullets are activated or something equally bonkers happens, it’ll be the people who know which end of a falchion goes forwards and how to weave a superb cotehardie that bestride the fallen world like Cnihts of old.

    History as it was meant to be, bicces.

  13. 13.

    David ☘The Establishment☘ Koch

    Happy anniversary to Elizabeth II, who was crowned Queen of Great Britain and the Commonwealth 70 years ago, today.

  15. 15.

    Geminid

    @Baud: Yesterday someone brought up a recent retightening of Virginia’s cannabis laws, and I think you asked if some Democrats in the state Senate had defected on this issue. I read about this yesterday evening, and while the Washington Post article did not cover the actual vote, it detailed the retightening. Last spring the General Assembly kept possession of over a pound of cannabis a felony; anything under carried a civil penalty only. Under the revised law, possession of between 4 and 16 ounces will be a misdemeanor. Possession of 4 ounces or less will still carry only a civil penalty.

  16. 16.

    David ☘The Establishment☘ Koch

     Five dead after shooting at Tulsa medical facility

    Multiple people are also injured as the facility has been described as a “catastrophic scene,” according to The Associated Press.

    Now, more than ever, we need gun door control

  19. 19.

    David ☘The Establishment☘ Koch

     In a new video clip released on February 6, the Queen is shown reading documents from her iconic red dispatch box at Sandringham. Sir Edward Young, the Queen’s private secretary, can be heard saying: “There are some really nice comments, including one from President Biden.”

    The Queen then reads the message and says, “Oh, that’s very kind, isn’t it?” The contents of Biden’s message remain private.

  20. 20.

    Kay

    Timothy Burke
    @bubbaprog
    20h
    The Republican-funded fake news network that has been spreading the false “students should be graded based on their race” hoax uses names and images of college athletes to fill out their staff directory pages.

    Most of them are African American, two of them are wearing team jerseys.

  21. 21.

    MisterDancer

    As someone who spent 20-something years in that “Medieval-esqe” space, I can go on at lenght about the difference between the SCA, Medieval Times, (most) Renn Fairs, etc. until your ears (rightly!) drop off.

    I will say that being in the SCA directly led to me exploring my ability to research and think critically — including, eventually, about the SCA. And, to be frank, about my own history.

    I think having spaces like that, where you’re encouraged to do layperson research and thinking, really makes a big difference — as flawed as the SCA can be.

    We need more of them, in today’s world.

  24. 24.

    David ☘The Establishment☘ Koch

    @Baud: ​  I swear I avoid TV trials, but after six weeks of ignoring it I got sucked in last week by the darling alpacs that showed up to court dressed like pirates (photo). So I’ve been binge watching the last week and Depp’s attorney Camille Vasquez is a rock star (video)​​

  25. 25.

    Kay

    @Baud: 

    Depp is a hero on the Right now. Everyone from Kyle Rittenhouse to the cast of Fox News to the House GOP have adopted him as their standard bearer.
    Look for tens of appearances on Hunter Carlson, Joe Rogan and the anti-woke substack industry pages.
    Gross.

  26. 26.

    Baud

    @Kay: 

    I haven’t really followed the trial. I can see how Depp is a hero on the right. I don’t know if he has embraced that though. It would seem to be a bad move for him, but what do I know.

  27. 27.

    Kay

    Felicia Sonmez
    @feliciasonmez
    “For their part, Depp’s fans seem to not so much deny Depp’s alleged violence against Heard, but to approve of it. ‘He could have killed you,’ says one viral Tiktok supporting Depp … ‘He had every right.’ The post has more than 222,200 likes.”

  30. 30.

    Geminid

    @Baud: I did not follow the debate, if there was one. It could be that legislators were looking ahead to the establishment of licensed recreational cannabis stores, and wanted to defend the Commonwealth’s monopoly and tax revenues. I think the presumption was that anyone with more than a quarter pound of weed does not have it for personal use only and probably is a seller.

  32. 32.

    David ☘The Establishment☘ Koch

    @Kay: ​
      Once they get pass the verdict, they’ll get back to hating him.

    Actor Johnny Depp is under fire for jokingly referring to assassinating President Trump at a music festival in the U.K.

    I’m surprised then didn’t support Amber Heard considering her relationship with wingnut Elon Musk

  34. 34.

    Kay

    In an interview with The Washington Post, McLaughlin (R) said he rushed to Hillcrest Funeral Home about 15 minutes after “the first call” reporting that 18-year-old Salvador Ramos had crashed his pickup truck nearby. He found himself standing near an official he identified only as “the negotiator,” while frightened parents gathered outside the school and police waited well over an hour to storm the classroom.
    “His main goal was to try to get this person on the phone,” McLaughlin said in the interview, which was also conducted by Telemundo San Antonio. “They tried every number they could find,” but the gunman did not pick up the phone.

    Now there’s a negotiator. Perhaps another lie – the mayor seems especially unreliable- but isn’t this something Texas state investigators would have found out immediately? They left out the whole negotiator part of the timeline?

  35. 35.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    I don’t care about who celebrities back politically. That was a disgusting pile on and I loathe pile ons. His idiot, misogynist fans savaged her. If he’s anything like them the Right can have him.

  36. 36.

    debbie

    O/T: Am I the only one who can’t find the “Contact a Front Pager” or even that hamburger thing where I think that used to reside?

  37. 37.

    BellyCat

    @debbie: “hamburger” shows up in mobile (upper right), but no “contact a front pager” yet.

    Bells and whistles to come, no doubt, amid this amazing rebuild.

  38. 38.

    MisterDancer

    @Kay: His idiot, misogynist fans savaged her. If he’s anything like them the Right can have him.

    Fucking Goddamned Agreed. I wrote a comment elsewhere here on this asswipe of a situation:

    This whole business has me so enraged that I cannot see straight.

    We treat this as spectacle, like the OJ Simpson and so many other cases. And it’s more like how we treated Britany Spears, how we fail to see the larger societal issues to these situations — especially in an age where we know political/media manipulation is rife and sophisticated.

    Depp didn’t land in a courtroom that televised by accident. We didn’t see waves of social media by accident; hell, I’ve been seeing “people” on Reddit attacking Heard for years, in ways very similar to Bot activity on so many topics we discuss here. That the raging media coverage, including social, was not an accident, but deliberate — and involves a lot of the same assholes, like Tucker Carlson, that we rightly excoriate daily, here and elsewhere.

    Bothsiderism, now weaponized for more than just political apathy.

    Legal issues and right/wrong of the people aside, this was a Trap. And I hate that so many of us — including myself, for a time — fell into it.

  39. 39.

    Tony Jay

    @raven:

    ‘Celebrating’ is perhaps the wrong word to use.

    Loathing, maybe? Despise? That’s closer. Let’s use it in a sentence.

    “I despise cold-blooded racists who exploit a glaring weakness at the heart of British democracy to amass vast wealth and unmatched privilege while tens of millions of ‘her subjects’ live squalid lives of hopeless misery.”

    Yeah. That works for me.

  40. 40.

    Kay

    @MisterDancer: 

    I feel like it’s special treatment for celebrities too. He’s a public figure. Isn’t the standard for defamation supposed to be incredibly high? How did this case even get this far?
    Well, now he’s the poster boy for a rabid band of online misygonists, so I guess he “won”. Couldn’t he have just written his own op ed in the Washington Post in response?

  41. 41.

    Tony Jay

    @MisterDancer:

    Seconded. I ignored the whole shitshow for the longest time because, what the fuck did I care about the marital problems of two pampered Hollywood celebs?

    But the cynical, exploitative methods used by Depp’s team to basically relitigate the case he lost in London (minus any of the inconveniently damning evidence that won-by-proxy that case for Heard) have tipped my scales.

    Basically, they went with a “if the bed was shit, you must convict” strategy to counteract the fact that Heard was a… how shall I put it… ‘physically sympathetic’ victim of spousal abuse, and it worked.

    Fuck him. And fuck anyone I hear going on about “Johnnnnnnny”.

  43. 43.

    debbie

    @MisterDancer:

    You can carry this same sort of thing back to prurient trials in the 1930s and 1940s. It’s something about celebrity, maybe wanting to witness others’ fall from grace just to feel better about yourself. Only recently (relatively speaking) has it been weaponized for politics.

    It’s not politics so much as it is us ourselves.

  44. 44.

    MisterDancer

    @debbie: Only recently (relatively speaking) has it been weaponized for politics.

    I can always do history, I promise. :) What I’m saying is, this is a political blog. We’re at a critical, make-or-break point for American Democracy. We discuss here, daily, how media ignores much of what’s critical, and distorts too much else — when “media” isn’t being outright manipulative.

    I feel like saying “oh, this is just how celebrity trials have worked since X” without understand how things are playing into the above, would be doing my role here, on this political blog, a disservice. We need to see how this specific trial has been used and abused for political gain and cultural setbacks, and not just shrug and go “welp, celebrities suck”.

    So I ask some space and grace to let me, and others, process our anger on this, because it’s real. And the fears that this will have a chilling effect on abuse survivors is also real, and also part of why this specific trial has played out, in the way it has.

    I get what I think you’re trying to say. And I’m saying there is a much bigger picture that needs to be addressed, and not just shuffled off into the “gossip” pile.

  46. 46.

    MisterDancer

    @debbie: I’m gonna set this aside as well. I’m not in a great headspace on any of this, and I’m clearly not understanding something about your approach.

  47. 47.

    Kay

    @MisterDancer:

    For me (and for you too, I suspect) it’s bigger than even abuse survivors. It’s my fear of a Rightward cultural shift that will be very bad for women. Just the glee in her public humiliation feels to me like more than this woman, or this set of facts. I don’t even follow celebrities and I barely watch movies- I watch tv shows, mostly. I’m raw from the rollback of basic legal rights- autonomy for women and now I get to watch this fucking witch burning greeted with absolute delight that he “won”.

  48. 48.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @David ☘The Establishment☘ Koch:

    Pedant here. She was crowned 69 years ago today (June 2, 1953), not 70. But she became Queen the second her father died, on February 6, 1952. Because February weather isn’t conducive to outdoor celebrations, her Official Birthday and Silver-Golden-Diamond-Platinum Jubilees always take place in early June.

    Assuming she is still around a year from now, there will almost surely be a 70th anniversary of the Coronation itself — just a whole lot lower key than this weekend’s events.

    I adore these big spectacles. Loved today’s Trooping the Colour. Loved the fly-past.

  50. 50.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    @Kay: This.

    The mob-like savagery of the anti-Heard, anti-woman contingent was fucking scary. I get that it’s the internet and all, but this stuff absolutely bleeds into real life.

  52. 52.

    Evinfuilt

    I had a nice SCA wedding back in ’98, last time my wife worse some of her wedding “garb” was about five years ago. Now it’s all much too big for her (and I transitioned gender, doesn’t help as much…)

    Still, really did enjoy getting a lot of use out of our wedding clothes. and gifting my garb a decade ago to others.

  54. 54.

    J R in WV

    It will be a very cold day in Hell the next time I watch any vehicle with Depp in it. From Medicare policy commercials (Hi Joe Namath!) to TV reruns of his movies. Nothing, ever. Evil bastard to have gone to court over it, after having mistreated her.

    So disappointed to see people celebrating his lawyer, his “victory”, everything. A sick bastard.

  55. 55.

    WaterGirl

    @debbie: @BellyCat:

    Uh oh.  I knew on Sunday that I still had to do the mobile menu but I wanted to get the site up.

    Then it promptly fell out of my head until I read your comment.

    It’s back on my list, toward the top.  Sorry about that.

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