Forget Elon Musk, who is nowhere in my circle of concerns — Atrios speaks of me.
Is there anything so tedious as boomers dropping Monty Python references? Wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more? It’s time to refresh our cultural references. To what, though? Game of Thrones? The Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul oeuvre? Marvel comics movies? PEN15? You can never catch up with the new — there’ll always be someone too young to get it. Best go back, not forward. Way back: Shakespeare. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Better a witty fool than a foolish wit!
I started reading a young adult book about Chinese immigrants who manage a seedy California motel for a rapacious Chinese-American owner. The book, Front Desk by Kelly Yang, has been challenged by rightwingers as “antiracist,” which you’d think would be a good thing but which to that crowd stinks of critical race theory and wokeness. In fact the parents of a student in our daughter-in-law’s fifth grade class in Las Vegas protested its use as a class reading and discussion assignment, demanding their kid be allowed to read another (presumably whiter) book instead. All of which I’ll discuss in my review of Front Desk once I finish it, but what I want to say now, before I lose the thought, is that Kelly Yang reinforces the stereotype of Asians as money-mad Scrooge McDucks through her portrayal of the villain, Mr. Yao. I don’t know if that’s intentional or what, but it sure strikes an unwoke note!
Do the people who try to ban books ever read them? Well there’s a silly question. Of course they don’t. Unless you count the out-of-context quotes book banners share via chain email and wave around at school board meetings. Those they read. While moving their lips and tracing the print with their index fingers. Oops, now there I go with the stereotypes!
This is one of three rose bushes clinging to life in our back yard. There were six when we moved in 23 years ago. Of the three, this one blooms first. Fritzi is always at my feet when I’m in the yard, hoping I’ll play fetch with her.
Donna got her second Pfizer booster yesterday. Neither of us had plans to fly anywhere, but we’re for sure not flying now the mask mandate is gone. It’s not hard to predict the anti-maskers’ next move will be to harass those who still mask up in public, and in fact there are already reports of it happening. We’re just a hop, skip, and a jump away from being accused of hiding our faces because we’re pedophiles. Think I’m kidding? Just wait.
What a terrible era in which idiots govern the blind (wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more).