I was working on a more ambitious post, but I don’t have the requisite coherence at the moment, so here are some conversation starters instead. First up, I keep laughing and thinking, “This is the best New York Times Pitchbot tweet ever!” And then Doug tops the previous entry with a gem like this:
We wanted to understand why Critical Race Theory was being taught in Middle Earth schools. So we talked to three Orcs at a Panera Bread in Mordor.
— New York Times Pitchbot (@DougJBalloon) September 6, 2022
Context: conservative morons are freaking out because there are people of color in “Rings of Power,” a Prime video series based on JRR Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings.” Same with “House of Dragons,” a “Game of Thrones” prequel spinoff. Apparently there are lots of stupid people who can suspend disbelief for fantasy worlds that include hobbits and elves and dragons and nazgûls, but the magic spell breaks if someone who doesn’t have white skin appears onscreen.
Some dumbass who criticized the “Rings of Power” casting said that since Tolkien infused his work with Northern European mythology, the people should be white, and casting people who aren’t white is like white people appropriating African or Asian mythology and casting white people in the films. (And we all know that never happens!) Someone on Twitter said the person making this argument probably has a painting of Jesus that looks like Bradley Cooper. Sounds about right.
In other news, Peter Thiel has got to be on any short list of the creepiest fucks on the planet:
Peter Thiel is backing a "femtech"/wellness firm that is against birth control pills and women "working out like men," and is harvesting period-related data: https://t.co/HMdKBeoi6D
— Tim Marchman (@timmarchman) September 6, 2022
Every billionaire is a policy failure, but they are also potential case studies in how unaccountable people with vast piles of cash can twist society to reflect their own bizarre worldview. The corrupt SCOTUS shows how that works. Also the MAGA judge in Florida with her dumb “special master” ruling. We’ll be feeling the effects of a corrupt judiciary for the rest of our lives. I hope the radicals will experience Cat 5 blowback, but in the meantime, real people will suffer and die, and our ability to deliver justice is further compromised.
The linked Vice article says Thiel “reportedly expressed an interest in having young people’s blood transfused into his own body as a potential fountain of youth.” He is also trying to infuse the body politic with younger reactionary elites in Trump’s faux-populist mode, including Blake Masters and JD Vance.
It’s not going well according to Politico (no linky for the stinky, but you can copy-paste the text below into Google to find it). As one GOP strategist quoted in the article put it, “they’re getting killed among women:”
In Arizona, for example, men and women had very similar preferences in the last two Senate races in 2018 and 2020, according to exit polling by TV networks and the Fox News/Associated Press exit poll. But in Fox’s latest 2022 survey, GOP nominee Blake Masters led by 8 percentage points among men but was trailing overall because he was getting crushed among women by 22 points.
The article notes that GOP candidates like Masters, Laxalt and Vance are creating ads featuring their wives to “soften” the candidates’ image as hard-right radicals who don’t believe women deserve recognition as fully equal human beings. You can see how Thiel might have overlooked that minor detail.
BTW, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is showcasing his wife and female lieutenant governor these days, and I assume it’s for the same reason. I don’t think hiding behind skirts will help any of them. The question is will the non-reactionary electorate show up in November. We’ll see.
Open thread.
coin operated
Bringing out the wives is the misogynist version of “but I have a black friend”
sukabi
be a shame if Thiel was innundated with used feminine products….
what a creep. ugh
sukabi
@coin operated: yep
zhena gogolia
Speaking of orcs and cultural appropriation, the 1976 Russian film about Pushkin’s African ancestor stars Vladimir Vysotsky in blackface.
Jeffery
I have watched The Sandman on Netflix twice now. I never read the comics. I like Gaiman’s work. I sort of knew parts had been changed for the cast on the show. Gaiman approved all the changes. I had no trouble with it. It didn’t add or detract for me. The fan boys aren’t happy about it. The changes probably broadened the appeal of the show to a world wide audience. If anything they should probably make even more changes.
eversor
Theil is pro Christianity and was raised Christian. You need to bring this up because that evil fucking ideology ruins everything.
Baud
It’s the first step in his plan to harvest women.
eversor
@zhena gogolia:
Orcs have some good points, Christians have none.
eversor
@Baud:
He’s a CHRISTIAN
Baud
@eversor:
Your screeds against Christians remind me of young people who hate Boomers. It’s a deflection from the demo that’s the biggest problem of all — white men (a group that includes Thiel).
Of course, even condemning white men is too broad, as evidenced by our president and a few jackals as well.
eversor
@Baud:
No, wrong. We call out conservatives, trumpers, Republicans, even white men, but we will not call out that vile and evil religion which is what fuels all of this. Do it or vote team R. If violence is required so be it.
Baud
@eversor:
We often call out right wing Christianity too. We just don’t make hating each and every Christian our raisin d’etre, like you do.
Omnes Omnibus
@eversor: No, you need to bring it up because you are obsessive.
zhena gogolia
@eversor: nice to hear since I’m a Christian
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Sour grapes?
Omnes Omnibus
@zhena gogolia: To be fair, we all know you are evil.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: I like “raisin d’etre”
zhena gogolia
@Omnes Omnibus: true
p.a.
Welllllll… if the wives are on stage and in commercials they are legit targets for questions abt their beliefs and THEIR knowledge of how the laws affect the availability of various medical procedures.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Sometimes, autocorrect works for you.
Subsole
As someone who loves ancient history, medieval fantasy, Tolkien and sci-fi, these jackholes really grind my gizzard.
Like. Guys. You think Europe was an island? Like, there was no cultural blending, whatsoever, at all…in Europe?
You don’t even need to know jack about history! Basic geography will suffice! Which terrae do these clowns think the Mediterranean sits in the medi of??
Look at the southern shore, Wilbur. Look very, very hard…
I mean, Jupiter, Mithras and Christ! There was an Emperor of Rome who was Arab! Which kingdom was Cleopatra pharoah of?
Reason 4.6 billion why the Victorians deserve to be broken on the wheel, sewn into a sack, and hurled into the Dnipro.
Suzanne
@Baud:
To be fair….. there’s a lot of overlap there. White + Christian + Boomer is kind of A Thing.
Thiel isn’t Christian, AFAIK. He’s a good old-fashioned misogynist, which manages to predate Christianity, and to be almost an interfaith position at this point.
Baud
We went through this same “controversy” with black Hamlet, black Santa Claus, and I’m sure countless others.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Oh I agree. But one’s choice of segmentation is revealing.
ETA: I have no idea what Thiel’s faith is.
WaterGirl
@Baud: This seems like the perfect opportunity for a whole bunch of young man on TikTok to sign up with all sorts of crazy fake data.
Omnes Omnibus
@Subsole: Let’s ask Henry VIII what he thinks.
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
Mmm, raisins d’etre. 😋
Betty Cracker
@eversor: I’m an atheist, but I know lots of Christians who are wonderful, caring people whose faith inspires them to act on liberal values. They are just as real as the evangelical assholes. I wish you’d stop denigrating them. It’s a form of bigotry.
Subsole
Hey. Remember when Republican presidential candidates got up on stage and accused us of chopping up babies for spare parts?
Wanna lay money Thiel ain’t stopping at blood???
Splitting Image
@Baud:
Like a lot of narcissists, he divides the world into himself and everything else.
I’d imagine that when he looks at the world around him, he doesn’t see any sign of god in it. But that doesn’t make him an atheist.
Suzanne
@Baud: I just don’t fucken get these people. Like…. literally all this shit is made up. It’s all pretend! And you just cannot pretend in your mind that an actor is a goddamn elf (not real, BTW) because he isn’t blonde enough? Like…. that is the hurdle to creating your fully realized dreamworld?
Geo Wilcox
@coin operated: Exactly, nobody’s political beard is going to convince me to vote for the trash behind the woman who wants to take away my rights as a human being.
ARoomWithAMoose
@p.a.: These candidates hold horrible positions and have trouble using even normal human body language (have you seen video of DeSantis?), no need to distract from that by putting their spouse or children on the spot.
Roger Moore
The whole thing about race in Middle Earth is very telling. Even the whiners who have obviously read some Tolkien haven’t read him carefully. He talks about men with different skin colors, and he specifically said the Harfoots had darker skin than other Hobbits. I’ll admit, I had always assumed that “darker skin” was within the range of European norms, but it’s still within Tolkien’s literal words that their skin was dark enough we would count them as black. It’s just those idiots’ imagination that can’t extend to actual black people in Tolkien’s work.
narya
@Jeffery: I’m about 5-6 episodes in, and I also never read it (and neither did the friend w/ whom I’m watching it). I’m not a fan of gore, so that can be a challenge for me, but otherwise I’m finding it interesting. I read enough SF/F that I know some of the rules/tropes about things–which I end up explaining (e.g., how to treat guests). I like it. And, more to the point of some of this thread, I like having a variety of people playing various parts. Though I now want to see NK Jemison’s trilogy brought to the screen . .
ETA, apparently it IS being brought to the screen, w/ her adapting it.
JML
@Jeffery: I liked the Sandman adaptation a lot, and I’ve read all of them. I quibbled with the gender flip of John Constantine to Johanna (even though I love the actress who played it), mostly because I think it confuses the narrative a bit with the historical Lady Johanna and the modern Jo being played by the same actress. (easy for people to think they’re the same person and they’re not supposed to be) Couple of spots where I didn’t think the effects kept up, and weirdly I didn’t love Patton Oswalt as Matthew the Raven (and I’m a fan of Patton) but those are pretty small fry complaints that did little to nothing to mar my enjoyment.
but dang if they didn’t nail all of the Endless we’ve seen to date and do a really impressive job bringing to the screen a series I rather thought was unfilmable. Did a great job on the creepy and weird, and generally just got the tone and look right, and weren’t afraid to keep Neil’s dialogue in the show, even though it was written for the page and not the stage.
I liked it a lot, hope we get more of it.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Right. It’s not like the show is portraying MLK as white or George Washington as black. It’s not even Davis Carradine pretending to be Chinese. I don’t even recall that the color of skin was central to the human like characters, although I suppose you wouldn’t have a white orc. But I’m not into Tolkien.
Subsole
@Baud: No clue. They don’t let me into the executive wing of our global asylum.
I would imagine he worships the boot which stamps eternally on a human face.
Suzanne
@Betty Cracker: I think there’s some often some value to discussing things in broad brush strokes — that’s often how power works. And I do find it a bit unseemly when a group is more concerned about protecting their reputation against attack than they are about fighting or recognizing a wrong. And I even think specific churches and denominational organizations deserve a lot of criticism hurled their way. I just think it’s fucken incorrect here. Thiel isn’t especially motivated by Christian values. He’s just a fucken dick.
Jay
Message from Ukraine’s Ministry of Tourism.
Link
ian
@eversor:
Did you miss the memo about all or nothing fallacies? There exists some huge middle ground between your I hate all Christians militant atheism and fuck it, lets just vote Republican.
On the note of Tolkien and LOTR, I think it should be noted that the LOTR trilogy had some kinda screwed up things going regarding race in it. The good guys were the men of the west, who were white. The bad humans were Southrons (black people) and Easterlings (Asians). This is somewhat understandable given that Tolkien was born in 1892, but I think that a retelling of Tolkien produced in 2022 does not need to share his societies prejudices. We can enjoy stories from the past without propagating their questionable beliefs.
Edmund Dantes
@Subsole: https://twitter.com/astroalysa/status/1566897114575241216?s=21&t=Suco1zsIUYGqB27MBzevTQ
“Some LOTR fans: THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE MEDIEVAL EUROPE WHY ARE THERE BLACK PEOPLE???
Me: WHY ARE THERE POTATOES???” – Alysa Obertas
Suzanne
@Baud: It’s literally all made up! It’s goddamn MAGIC! Like made-up beings who live thousands of years with magic fire and there’s things that defy gravity and trees that walk and talk….. and that’s all fine…. but one biracial dude and you can’t maintain the illusion?! That evinces some serious problems with how you conceptualize actual real humans here on not-Middle Earth.
MagdaInBlack
@eversor: You know, I’m no fan of organized religion either, but ffs, give it a rest.
tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat)
I also read that article Betty Cracker referenced. The whole thing quotes Republicans top to bottom. No push back on their premise at all. They seem surprised that abortion rights is a thing and they also seem deluded enough to believe that parading their female family members will make a difference. Why would it? If the guy said he wants to ban abortion, just because you say he’s a great husband/father doesn’t negate he’s a misogynist jerk who will do exactly what he said he would do once he has power.
Baud
@Edmund Dantes:
WHY ARE THEY SPEAKING MODERN ENGLISH!!!!
Brent
@Roger Moore: yhara zayd, a you tuber who makes a lot of really wonderful analytical essays on pop culture, once made one about a character named Rue from the Hunger Games. She is described in the book as black and cast as black but the supposedly hardcore fans thought this was some sort of violation of the integrity of the work. Nuts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ie9NOhSG6rI
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud:
Un-ironic use of “boomer”, to say nothing of “Boomer”, is one of those things that make me just scroll on. So is “eversore”
Booger
@eversor: You are kind of a one-note Charlie, ain’t you?
Speaking as an Evangelical Atheist.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I saw several of the Tolkein movies, I can’t remember if The Hobbit was one of them, they all kind of blur together, so I can’t say if this is accurate or not, but it made me laugh
Booger
Nobody experiences Cat 5 blowback these days! Everything has gone wireless!!
Scout211
Sure GOP, demeaning all teachers as groomers and passing laws to take away women’s healthcare choices is no big deal. The backlash from women voters can easily be fixed with a few of soft-looking photos of your wives. Sure. We women are so stupid that we would never catch on to that! We won’t even care about how you have treated women and taken away our rights. Because you have photos!
////
Roger Moore
@Baud:
Regardless of what he says it is, I believe his true faith is a man who believes he is self-made and worships his creator.
Suzanne
Peter Thiel is the underboob sweat on the body politic and I am ready for him to head down the drain.
Alison Rose 💙🌻💛
@sukabi: I don’t use one, but it would be a fun little science experiment for someone to take a few full Diva Cups, tape some Saran wrap over the top, and deliver them to him in one of those coffee cup trays.
Subsole
@Suzanne: Imagination has nothing to do with it. At least, not as you probably imagine imagination.
They don’t read fantasy to get lost in their mind for a few hours. They read it to indulge the ridiculous conceit that they could, under the right circumstances, be resilient.
Also, they don’t like it because networks don’t cast people they aren’t trying to sell to. If the networks are trying to sell to minorities, that means those communities have pull, and money. It is hard to beat down people with pull, and money. So when one of Gaiman’s Endless is black, that means it’s just that little bit harder to bully black folks in general.
It decenters them, AND spoils their IRL fun.
SpaceUnit
That empty feeling when you don’t know enough about LOTR to weigh in.
But I hope when they make the movie about trump they cast Jamie Fox in a shitty blond wig. That ought to make some MAGA heads explode.
gwangung
The racists complaining about non-white characters are amusing….but they also piss me off. Hollywood has a habit of casting Asian characters with white actors–and I’m talking recently, within the last five years. They called our complaints “woke”, too.
tokyocali (formerly tokyo ex-pat)
The concept of that wellness firm is frightening. Congress needs to get a handle on tech and data mining. We need more people in Congress who understand how new technology is being used, its potential for abuse, and its impact on society. Then we need laws to protect us before it’s too late.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Booger:
Not me, Cat. 5e wired home for hardcore gaming…
Old school internets!
UncleEbeneezer
So the party I played at on Sunday (I shared a music link in Cole’s open thread) is a tradition that a friend of mine started at his old house in Burbank that he shared with a couple Hollywood/industry friends. He had this one house-mate for several years who I never really liked. He was just an older, surly dude from Georgia who always gave off a very racist, good-old-boy attitude. Anyways, I just found out that he drown in a boating accident this weekend.
https://www.11alive.com/article/news/local/drowning-victim-recovered-lake-jackson/85-6f85827e-4bbc-42ff-b7c6-ce1c7b9eb642
kalakal
@Roger Moore: To paraphrase Twain.
“He is a self made man, thereby relieving the Almighty of a fearful responsibility”
Subsole
@Jeffery: I am in the inverse boat. I have read – and loved – the comics. Have not seen the show. I hear it’s great, but part of me just wants to keep it as it is in my imagination…
Also, lol at the idiots crying over a non-binary Desire. As if Desire could ever be bound by gender…or anything else, for that matter.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
You mean like the whole scene in The Two Towers (the book, not Peter Jackson’s power fantasy movie), were Frodo looks down at one of Saron’s solder killed in ambush and realizes to his horror the guy was just some black dude who was in over his head like Frodo.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@narya: now that (Broken Earth) I look forward to watching!
Subsole
@JML:
Did they handle the Corinthian correctly?
This is very, very important.
HumboldtBlue
@zhena gogolia:
I did too,now I want an oatmeal raisin cookie.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@eversor: So was MLK. Take your anti-religious bigotry elsewhere.
Betty Cracker
@Suzanne: Well, that’s a good point about Thiel specifically. I have no idea if he’s religious or not, but he’s a misogynist and a dick for sure. If the commenter believes Christians invented misogyny, I don’t know what to say to that except they should read up on human history.
I agree that discussions in broad strokes are useful for shorthand — it’s tedious to qualify every single statement. That said, I do think it’s a problem to do that too much, but I’m not sure it’s relevant in this particular case. The commenter isn’t using broad brush as shorthand — they mean to include every single Christian, and that’s just wrong.
Subsole
@Edmund Dantes: LOL
“Also, why are the carrots…orange?”
Subsole
@Baud: Speaking of The Sandman, y’all need to read the issue where Hob Gadling goes to the Ren Faire…
Suzanne
@Subsole:
Yes, this is true. Probably one of the saddest aspects of being not just a market economy, but a market society, is that your worth and status in that society is evinced by both how much (and what and where, etc.) you buy, but also by who wants you as a customer. That is a privilege that doesn’t really get discussed…. The privilege of assuming that there are people who cater to your tastes and desires. Many brands have realized that they can’t rally be for everybody, because then they don’t have an identity and they can’t get excitement around their brand. So they’re selective in choosing their customers and their employees. And that’s been incredibly destabilizing to a lot of middle-class white dudes who have lived their whole lives up to now in a comfortable position in that transaction.
Subsole
@UncleEbeneezer:
Damn. Condolences.
Ken
Oh good, comments on both Thiel and Tolkein, so I can drag out the John Rogers quote.
Though that project of Thiel’s makes me think he’s got a complete set of the Gor novels.
Poe Larity
@SpaceUnit: What would be funny is if they did that but Foxx method acted TFG and played it like Tina Fey did Palin.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
So… I saw this and figured Oz said something about Fetterman’s health and how a father owes it to his kids to take care of himself
I will provide the explanatory link. Click at your own risk. As FakeNixon says, My god. Did McCormick have anyone on staff who knew how to make a google?
Ken
I wonder if some of them got the pictures from Shutterstock.
azlib
I used to read LOTR about every ten years or so. I have also read the appendices and the Simarillion. Peter Jackson’s cinematic retelling deviates from the book in some significant details, but overall it is faithful to the original.
Tolkien was a devout Roman Catholic and in many ways his stories of MIddle Earth relate well to his own theology and also his experience in the trenches of WW I. I am still reserving judgment about the Rings of Power, but multiracial casting is not one of my potential complaints. I think it is wonderful we can cast competent actors in timeless roles regardless of their ethnicity as long as the story is compelling and entertaining.
The people complaining about the skin color of an elf are just being racist.
zhena gogolia
@Poe Larity: Did you see the video of Foxx imitating TFG? He was excellent.
UncleEbeneezer
Subsole
@Ken: Oh God, why did you have to mention the sweaty-handed Transdimensional Floriduh Man of fantasy literature???
Enhanced Voting Techniques
And it’s not like there was an active slave trade going both ways across the Mediterranean for couple of thousand years with law after law trying to stop people from banging their slaves from those places with funny sounding names.
Lyrebird
@Betty Cracker: Thanks Betty for all of this!
And I am sooooo sold on team White + Christian + Pro-Ice Cream BIDEN. (and Zhena G and maybe Omnes, too?)
Total respect to team Black + Christian + Pro-Puppies WARNOCK
etc.
ryk
@eversor: If you replaced the word Christian with liberal in your rants they would be indistinguishable from those coming from the hateful assholes on the right that everybody here despises.
Subsole
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Ah, but see, acknowledging that would also mean facing the uncomfortable fact that one’s Nordo Aryan ancestors were a lot more likely to be wearing chains than holding them.
If by some happy chance you dragged most of these clowns with busts of Caesar in their profile back through the Time Portal, they would be…surprised…at their status in the most Western of empires.
prostratedragon
@Splitting Image: He’d probably think it was like spotting the mark in a con.
WaterGirl
@Jay: Pretty sure that was breaking the margins on phones, so I edited that to add the link.
Wapiti
@Edmund Dantes: Yeah, I used to play in a medieval themed MMO. I suggested that maybe we should have different crops; get rid of the corn and potatoes and have something from old Europe instead. People were outraged.
Ken
Tell me you didn’t understand The Sandman without… etc.
Wait until they do the Nada scenes in Season of Mists. I wonder who they’ll cast as Dream? Maybe Idris Elba, if he’s not busy doing Bond movies.
Subsole
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I…
Uh.
Hm.
I, um…
Jimmy, what the fuck?
oatler
In the “Everything Wrong With…” review of Bakshi’s LOTR cartoon the guy observes in passing, “I’d love to know who’s taking the time to teach the orcs to carry a tune on these horns and why they think that’s good use of their musical skills.”
The Moar You Know
As far as horrific GOP men go, I at least understand Trump. Thiel is a whole different ballgame and frankly far scarier breed of awful.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Yep, if they have no problem having cast that aren’t white as the walls doing Shakespeare, then why not Tolkien?
SpaceUnit
@zhena gogolia:
Is it too much to hope that Mel Brooks has one more movie in him?
apocalipstick
I sometimes wish series like HotD and LoTR:tRoP (ha! ha!) would go the extra mile and, rather than just plopping POC into the shows, do a little world-building and explain how the people we see got where they are. The migration patterns from Africa up through Europe during the Roman Empire are rich and fascinating, and one of the best parts of the history. Even the impact of the Crusades is interesting, and pretty fitting for stories like GoT and HotD.
Shorter: all in on the inclusive casting, would like to see it woven into the foundation of the story.
Gin & Tonic
@MagdaInBlack: It’s easy enough to ignore him.
Subsole
@Ken: Honestly? I’d prefer the dude who played Killmonger. Michael B. Jordan. I think he’d nail that cold, imperious anger born of wounded pride that is so central to Dream.
Sucks that Chadwick passed on. He’d have absolutely killed it.
Ken
Ah, well, about that…
Subsole
@Ken: Also, too, wait until they meet Wanda…
SiubhanDuinne
@Subsole:
More to the point: One Corinthian or Two Corinthian?
WaterGirl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Repugnant.
Benw
Three Orcs and no Panera Bread? Why can’t I have no Orcs and three Panera Bread?
Subsole
@The Moar You Know:
He seems pretty straightforward. A small, terrible man who doesn’t know how to be human, because he doesn’t know how to envision a world that is perfectly capable of rolling on without him, long after he’s gone.
Which is to say, he doesn’t know how to die.
SiubhanDuinne
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:
And his fellow Georgian, Jimmy Carter.
HumboldtBlue
Having never read Tolkien, the uproar over imaginary characters and worlds never ceases to amaze me.
Subsole
@SiubhanDuinne: Ugh. I’m amazed the jackass didn’t say his Bible had Three Corinthians, just to put us peasants in our place…
PST
@Betty Cracker:
Amen. I do too. And it is very, very bad strategy to drive liberal Christians out of our camp by rejecting them, gratuitously insulting them, and labeling them as unredeemable enemies. That could be the margin between winning and losing.
HumboldtBlue
@SiubhanDuinne:
As is Biden, and Harris, and Pelosi, etc. etc. etc.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Ho. Lee. SHIT.
Omnes Omnibus
@apocalipstick: Vikings: Vahalla did a bit of that with a mixed race female yarl. She mention that her grandfather had come home from a long voyage/raid/trip with her African grandmother as his wife.
Jay
@WaterGirl:
thank you
Ihop
@Baud: countess bathory had the same ideas
SiubhanDuinne
@HumboldtBlue:
Yup yup yup.
For sure, a lot of evil has been done in Christ’s name, but the evil is not inherent in Christianity.
Miss Bianca
I got nothing to add here, I just had to see that particular gem again. Brava, Betty C!
apocalipstick
@Omnes Omnibus: I have not watched that. What’s your opinion?
Chris T.
There’s no “reportedly” about it: Thiel is the guy being parodied in the blood boy episode of Silicon Valley.
Omnes Omnibus
@apocalipstick: I enjoyed it. It’s not a masterpiece, but it’s worth your time.
BruceFromOhio
Never had to use the pie filter ever until
now. Much more pleasant ;)
livewyre
@ryk: All you have to do is replace Christian with Black to see what this character is actually doing with regard to Warnock, MLK, and the organizing base of the Democratic Party.
@Gin & Tonic: Accordingly, some things are dangerous to ignore.
wenchacha
“Every billionaire is a policy failure.” – Betty Cracker
I like this.
Miss Bianca
@eversor: Oh, for the love of the Christ who evidently gives you such heebie-jeebies that you CANNOT.SHUT.UP about it, everBore, will you just SHUT UP. You contribute nothing of value to the general discourse, and your endless banging on about how much you hate Christianity is making this atheist think about going to church again, on the theory that anything that triggers an asshole like you *that* much must have some redeeming value after all.
Will no front-pager rid us of this troublesome priest-basher? Seriously.
livewyre
@Miss Bianca: Yeah, the line between “incessant” and “organized” starts to blur after a while.
BruceFromOhio
@narya:
Stone the crows! Now THAT is gonna be something to see. Have it queued to re-read when the snow flies, it’s a dense read worthy or revisiting.
apocalipstick
@wenchacha: I think it originated with Dan Riffle, AOC’s senior counsel and policy advisor. It is a beautiful formulation.
prostratedragon
@Wapiti: Mmmmm, fried chickpea polenta! (I’ve made a version, you should try some.)
twbrandt (formerly tom)
@SiubhanDuinne: and Carter’s fellow Georgian, Senator Rev. Warnock.
Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
@Suzanne: @Subsole: I have Amazon Prime and I hadn’t decided if I was going to watch The Rings of Power or not. Now I’ve decided I wanted to because these assholes don’t like it because of the colors of the actor’s skin. I just watch episode one. I found that the black actors make the whole story more like a real world and less like an English/Irish folktale. So I’m going to keep watching.
munira
There are a lot of criticisms of Rings of Power that have nothing to do with race. I wanted to like it and I was disappointed that I didn’t. I’m happy to have characters of different races. In fact, the black characters were some of the better ones. Mainly, I didn’t like what they did to the character of Galadriel. She doesn’t come across as great sorceress, just a bad-tempered action hero. I found the whole thing pretty boring, and while I’m sure there are people who are objecting to the black actors from a pretty racist viewpoint, it does seem to me that Amazon is trying to say that if you didn’t like the show, it means you’re racist. That’s pretty offensive. Anyway, I’m happy that some people like it, but it just didn’t hook me. Maybe I know too much about Tolkien, but I think if they dropped any pretense that they were doing Tolkien, I still wouldn’t like it because it just isn’t interesting enough.
bjacques
A lot of Dr. Who fans eagerly followed the adventures of a space wizard with a magic screwdriver but couldn’t suspend their disbelief if the Doctor had a vagina.
Peter Thiel needs better blood. He’s getting jowly. Thiel, Musk, Bezos, MacInness, and the rest are a bunch of dorks. They dream of space colonies, bunkers in New Zealand, and manly revolution as their personal escape from the Apocalypse, but the worst outcome for them is also the most likely and awaits us: male pattern baldness, cancer, arthritis, diabetes, dementia, busted relationships, ungrateful and disappointing offspring, bad luck, and final obscurity. Like beige Furies, these ills will pursue the tinplated Tech Bros with delusions of godhead to the ends of the earth, but at leisure, because time is always at their side. People like Thiel make me appreciate Totentanzen and mementi (sp?) mori that featured in so many classical art.
UncleEbeneezer
@livewyre: Without Black Churches providing safe organizing spaces we probably would have never passed the Civil/Voting Rights Acts. More recently/locally, even in mostly-White Pasadena, All-Saints Church has been absolutely central to successful efforts to pass a Sanctuary City Law, create an Oversight Committee of the PPD, raise the minimum wage, support Planned Parenthood and put a Rent Control proposition on November’s ballot. When I look around at who is doing the heavy lifting on bringing progressive change to my neighborhood, the vast majority are believers of some faith (mostly, but not all, Christian). And I say that as full-throated Atheist who has lots of criticisms of every major religion.
trollhattan
Four o’clock and the local electricity utility cautions they might have to resort to rolling blackouts, on accounta it’s 113. Whee!
Eyeballing the electronics for which ones to shut down….
Billcoop4
@eversor:
Really, just fuck you. You have a very shallow understanding of Christianity. And that assumes you are able to understand…anything.
BC
prostratedragon
@apocalipstick: Spain!
SpaceUnit
@trollhattan:
Jesus, that’s kinda toasty.
geg6
@eversor:
Dude, give it a rest. I’m a lifelong atheist, resisting even as a child dragged to Mass every week against my will. But Christians are not all evil any more than all Jews or Muslims or Confucians or Wiccans or atheists are. I have a lot I blame region for but I don’t expect everyone to share my perspective on it, just as I don’t expect to share the same musical tastes as everyone else. I hate country music but I don’t think Garth Brooks is evil because he sings it. The very best person I’ve ever had in my life was my cousin, a minister who recently passed. She was in no way evil. Just shut the fuck up about it.
geg6
@Suzanne:
Yes, all of this.
Pennsylvanian
Yes, they sure don’t mind hiding behind skirts when they aren’t looking or groping up them.
evap
Was I the only one bothered by the Harfoots with their fake Irish accents and twigs in their hair? I actually had to fast forward through those scenes, I couldn’t watch them. I’m not sure if I will watch any more…
MagdaInBlack
@Gin & Tonic: you are correct and I have, now.
A Man for All Seasonings (formerly Geeno)
@SiubhanDuinne: Two Corinthians walk into a bar….
Citizen Alan
@Baud:
If Peter Thiel is a Christian, then Christianity is a lie and Jesus died for nothing. I don’t believe it is possible to be a billionaire and also be in any sense an ethical human being, let alone be someone who can even pretend to live in a Christ- like manner
A Man for All Seasonings (formerly Geeno)
@Ihop: There’s reason to believe Erszabet Bathory’s family was lying to take her lands away from her.
apocalipstick
@prostratedragon:
Yes! Exactly! Fantasy (and, honestly, SF as well) doesn’t do nearly enough to explore those sort of boundary states where cultures really interpolate.
Brachiator
Just watching Liz Truss taking over as Prime Minister.
One pleasant thing is that nobody makes any comments about her gender. Also, from this clip, nobody gives a crap about who her spouse is.
There will be more about her cabinet and I expect Tony Jay to come out swinging with scathing commentary, but I will note that putting Jacob Rees-Mogg in charge of Business or anything is a huge mistake. Huge. Monumental. He is the twittiest of upper class twits.
ETA. Queen Elizabeth is looking very fragile.
Uncle Cosmo
@Subsole: I wonder if the 13-year-old Thiel rummaging through the attic didn’t stumble upon a tattered copy of Bug Jack Barron that he read and mistook for an instruction manual…
Subsole
@bjacques: Upvote.
Uncle Cosmo
@Brachiator: …putting Jerkoff Grease-Smogg in charge of anything is a huge mistake…
FTFY!
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Even worse for Oz, apparently he just said that he would have certified Biden’s win in 2020. The GOP can tolerate incest, but this betrayal is a bridge too far.
geg6
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
He had Kellyanne I believe. So obviously she never dug it up. Jesus. WTF is wrong with that guy? WTF is wrong with Oprah?
Subsole
@Brachiator: Jacob Rees-Mogg? Good Christ, that discount-rack Mr. Peanut-looking motherfucker is still around???
@Brachiator: Re: your eta: To be fair, so is England at the moment…and we ain’t too far off the porch, either…
Ella in New Mexico
@JML:
How could you not like a guy with a funny voice playing a Raven?
I’ve loved him as a non-human sidekick ever since he was the little blue unicorn on Happy. I think he’s great on Sandman!
:-)
MomSense
Glenn Greenwald just posted a Twitter rant and it’s a doozy.
narya
@BruceFromOhio: It’s pinned to the top of her twitter feed! The books blew me away.
Subsole
@MomSense: Glenn Greenwald?!
Good Christ, that discount-rack Jacob Rees-Mogg -looking motherfucker is still around???
Raoul Paste
@bjacques: I enjoyed this comment, yet I initially read it as the billionaires being pursued by beige Furrys. Either one works
Geminid
@geg6: It took until today for Jezebel to publish the story, so it wasn’t exactly low hanging fruit.
But I’m glad tbe McCormick campaign missed it. He would have been a better candidate than Oz. I’m not saying McCormick could have beaten Fetterman, but he might have had an outside chance.
Oz has none. He’s terrible candidate, and Republicans can thank a certain stable genius for him.
prostratedragon
A little dinner music: Sketches of Spain, Miles Davis (Gil Evans, orchestrator)
prostratedragon
@geg6: Not a bad question about Oprah, who I’d have hoped could spot a charlatan better. But in her defense if Oz had got anywhere near gratuitous remarks about parental smells near her, she would have walked, or maybe run.
Brachiator
@apocalipstick:
Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, House of the Dragon, etc, are fantasy. They are not history, they are not retellings of history or allegories of historical events.
These shows should just hire actors to play the roles. And since they are playing characters who never existed in any real world, diversity should be taken for granted.
I remember years ago when a few diehard fans argued that Tim Russ could not play a Vulcan in Voyager because Vulcans were white. This nonsense even ignored attempts to show Spock with a green tint to his skin.
The crazy thing, of course, is that white actors have played every ethnicity under the sun, including John Wayne as Ghengkis Khan. But somehow, actors of color have to justify their existence.
And yeah, I note that TV and movies are burdened with expectations of naturalism, which is not the same thing as realism. A play can easily have a black Macbeth and an Asian Lady Macbeth. For some people, a movie has to be more “authentic. ” But this is just a convention.
ETA. Years and years ago, even though the credits crawl clearly noted “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,” I knew supposed big fans of Star Wars who would declare that it was obviously about human beings in the future, and make the movies mainly about white people in their head canon.
geg6
@Geminid:
I just saw a local news report that had Pat Toomey, standing there and speaking like a hostage, with Oz and agreeing with the idea that Fetterman is too fragile to be a senator. Yeah, because it’s such a tough job.
MomSense
@Subsole:
Is he ever.
Brachiator
@Baud:
Black Jesus.
Gin & Tonic
@MomSense: I, literally, could not care less.
James E Powell
@coin operated:
They are putting them out front, just begging for someone to say something shitty about them, to play the victim.
Ken
I’m keeping up through Larry the cat (Number10cat) and Jonathan Pie (JonathanPieNews). Neither seem terribly impressed.
(I was trying for British understatement with that last — both think she’s a disaster.)
apocalipstick
You don’t say! Wow, I did not know that.
Geminid
@geg6: Lying won’t help Oz. Fetterman has been speaking at public appearances. I think he started a month ago in Erie.
Oz is just trying to pressure Fetterman into debates, but he’s not entitled to even one. Oz will have to win this race on his own, and he knows he can’t.
Scout211
@MomSense: Okay, I had to look.
So it started this way: (Link)
And goes off the rails of “proof” from there.
Note: Anytime someone uses “regime” in a sentence to make a point, I tune right out.
OverTwistWillie
@Brachiator:
Black President
Tony Jay
@apocalipstick:
Martin himself is on record saying that he semi-considered making the Targaryens in GOT (and the entire Valyrian Freehold) black rather than Melnibonians-by-proxy, but eventually decided not to, and now he regrets it. He should have, just to hammer home the eternal truth that it doesn’t matter what colour you are as long as you’ve got a fire-breathing monster between your legs and the willingness to use it.
OTOH, I’m genuinely surprised that they made the decision to cast a black actress as Death in Sandman. The comic version of Death wasn’t just white, she was WHITE, like, iconically white. She was drawn as pretty much the definition of Hot Goth and a whole subculture emerged out of those pages in which she, rather than Dream, was the defining image. Ask ten comic book fans to draw a character from Sandman and nine of them will draw a bone-white chick with fantastic eyeliner.
Making her black, well, that’s a statement. No two ways about it. Far more of one than making Constantine female. The only issue I have with that is that Coleman played her way too nicely-nice.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
TurnItOffAndOnAgain
@Brachiator:
Yes and no. On the one hand yes, because there was no reason for a lot of these older media (LOTR, Star Trek, Star Wars, Harry Potter etc.) to be all white besides racism. So there is no reason that these fantasy people from fantasy places can’t be portrayed by people of color.
On the other hand, there’s something to be said about how even when we get a greater preponderance of people who are not able-bodied cis gendered straight white people in performing roles, we’re still going to have a disproportionate amount of stories written by the same types of people who’ve been writing them for decades, with people who are different from them slotted in and subjected to the writers’ blind spots in terms of privilege, identity and culture.
So basically we have to push for both more non able-bodied cisgender straight white performers as well as writers/producers/directors.
But maybe that goes without saying and I’ve wasted some pixels.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE!!!
Scout211
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Sure, sure. But leaking a document covered under “privilege?!” I hear that could cause reputational harm!
Ha ha ha ha!
RSA
@Edmund Dantes: Nice! Here’s Bob Newhart on the phone with Sir Walter Raleigh, talking about
pipe weedtobacco in the New World.Brachiator
@TurnItOffAndOnAgain:
Probably cannot be said too often.
Splitting Image
The thing about Tolkien is that he was getting close to retirement age when The Lord of the Rings came out, and he couldn’t relate very well to the young people of the day even then. He was born in the late Victorian age and still liked wearing ornamental waistcoats and carrying a pocket watch. The Beatle fans he taught at university mostly thought he was an old crank.
Tolkien actually understood that very well. The Lord of the Rings was written by an old white guy coming to terms with the fact that the world as he knew it was disappearing. One of the main themes of the book is the elves and the dwarves coming to terms with the fact that the world as they know it is disappearing. I mean, it’s true that time has moved on since the book was published and modern adaptations will cast the characters in ways the author might not have expected, but this is inevitable, Tolkien himself would not have been surprised by it, and it is literally the point of the entire book.
The “fans” complaining about the new TV series aren’t what you’d call careful readers.
Miss Bianca
@Tony Jay: Yeah, I have to say, that one – black lady Death, as opposed to bone-white Goth lady Death – surprised me. Because, as you point out, B-W GL Death was *such* an icon. Frankly, a black Dream would have surprised me less. (And excited me more, even more frankly, but who the hell consulted *me* on casting choices? No one.)
(Adam Silverman has been my conduit to All Things Sandman on Netflix, as a result of a conversation wherein I expressed my admiration for the comix. Thanks to the good Dr S, I have been kept apprised of all phases of the production’s process. Alas, I don’t have streaming and very much hope that Sandman comes out on DVD someday. )
Dan B
@Baud: Thiel’s faith is Libertarian Homocon. He’s rich Roy Cohn. Probably racist af.
Brachiator
@apocalipstick:
RE: Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, House of the Dragon, etc, are fantasy. They are not history, they are not retellings of history or allegories of historical events.
Ha! When the TV version of Game of Thrones was at its peak, there were reviewers, including highly paid journalists for glossy magazines and dazzling web sites who insisted on viewing the series as a retelling of the War of the Rose’s, or other periods of English history, and would regularly exhume the dried out corpses of historical figures to praise or blame the show runners for getting history right or wrong.
Needless to say, this shit was tedious and often wrong with respect to which historical events might have inspired novelist Martin.
Queen of Lurkers
@Subsole: Cleopatra was probably of mixed ancestry, mostly Macedonian (Greek) and perhaps some Egyptian.
https://blog.oup.com/2010/12/cleopatra-2/
Dan B
@bjacques: Dought Rothkof (sp?) has a book out about billionaires, especially tech billionaires he knew. Many of them have no empathy. MRI’s show no reaction in their brains when shown images of people suffering. I’m not certain how accurate this is but it’s interesting to speculate.
Fake Irishman
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I recall that scene; I think it was Sam. He was a bit eager to see a battle, and then he saw the result and wasn’t happy at all.
one interesting thing about Tolkien that always struck me as a kid was the relationship between the two brothers Faramir and Boromir. Interesting how the younger “weaker” brother who needed protecting and liked more cultural pursuits like scholarship, music, history, languages and other things regarded as, might we say, “feminine” or at least less manly, is the one with the balanced wisdom to both stand his ground in combat as well as resist the lure of the ring.
that, and how Galadriel, despite being one of a half dozen women who get speaking lines in the entire LTR, is low key one of the two most powerful characters in the story outside of Sauron.
bjacques
@Dan B: dead thread, but my rant was originally in response to a friend’s FB posting of this article Observer (Guardian) by Doug Rushkoff, who I wish had dropped the unkind truths above when he had the chance of an audience with a pack of these overgrown Enders.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/sep/04/super-rich-prepper-bunkers-apocalypse-survival-richest-rushkoff
Paul in KY
@evap: That didn’t really bother me. I thought of them as hippy-gypsies.
The dude in the meteor is complete WTF, however…
Paul in KY
@Citizen Alan: He can say he is a ‘christian’ all he wants. Now, IS he a Christian?
Paul in KY
@Tony Jay: Ha! ‘Melnibonians-by-proxy’ is inspired, Tony. Even Elric himself cracked a smile on that one. Stormbringer, however, was not amused.
Sasha
I’m not exactly a fan of the casting choices with the show, but fuck the assholes.
(I also haven’t seen the show yet so I reserve further judgement.)
Ol_Froth
They also freaked out about dark-skinned people being cast in leading roles with The Wheel of Time adaptation.