{"id":23713,"date":"2019-04-11T12:23:25","date_gmt":"2019-04-11T19:23:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=23713"},"modified":"2020-01-28T21:00:27","modified_gmt":"2020-01-29T04:00:27","slug":"bettie-pages-hips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=23713","title":{"rendered":"Bettie Page’s Hip"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IMG_8724\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In the ninth grade, in Laramie, Wyoming, I took typing, probably\u00a0the most useful class I ever took. To this day I view touch typing as an essential skill, right up there with readin’, ritin’,\u00a0and rithmetic. After I learned to type,\u00a0apart from filling out forms and signing my name, I avoided writing anything in longhand.\u00a0Learning to type changed my life and helped define who I am today.<\/p>\n

Now I’m trying to\u00a0re-learn the art of writing by hand, in grade-school cursive yet, using a fountain pen my father gave me 29 years ago. Be patient, I tell myself. It’ll be worth it.<\/p>\n

I don’t know\u00a0anything about Julian Assange’s writing habits, but if he\u00a0has a mind to\u00a0work on his calligraphy he’ll soon have plenty of time to do it. I have mixed feelings about\u00a0Assange\u00a0being remanded to U.S. custody for prosecution, which I’m pretty sure will be the upshot of his arrest this morning in London. Yes,\u00a0he did Trump a solid by publishing stolen Democratic Party emails in 2016, but muzzling\u00a0the press is far more important to Trump than protecting\u00a0a supporter who hasn’t done anything for him lately, and\u00a0making a show of locking Assange in prison\u00a0will give\u00a0his administration the excuse and precedent\u00a0it needs to go after media outlets\u00a0who cross Trump. By, say, publishing a leaked copy of the Mueller report, or his tax returns.<\/p>\n

Most of us have by now been exposed to the right wing claim that Hitler’s Nazis\u00a0were socialists.\u00a0It’s right there in the name, they say: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei<\/em>, the National Socialist German Workers\u2019 Party. “Socialist” and “Workers,” two words forever associated with Karl Marx and the Soviet Union. This in spite of the fact that the people making this claim are generally\u00a0fine with anti-Semitism, white nationalism, and authoritarianism, three\u00a0central features of Nazism. So how to make sense of something like this, posted to Facebook yesterday by an old friend?<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

Because I can’t even. One, the Dutch resistance fought the Nazis, not “the socialists.” Two, there’s no “resurgence” of socialism there … the city of Arnhem, along with the rest of the Netherlands and other Northern European nations,\u00a0has been progressively socialist since the 1950s (“failed idea,” my ass). Three, my old friend is an\u00a0educated man, far too\u00a0sophisticated to fall for the infantile “but it’s right there in the name” argument. He knows better.<\/p>\n

Here’s what I think: he\u00a0sees himself as a social media influencer. By\u00a0pushing the Nazis=socialists\/socialists=communists meme to\u00a0a right wing audience,\u00a0he’s helping the ideologues he supports\u00a0strengthen the weapon\u00a0they’ve always\u00a0deployed against\u00a0progressive Democratic Party candidates running for\u00a0office. Kamala Harris? Beto O’Rourke? Elizabeth Warren? Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? Socialists! Just like Hitler! (and never you mind there are\u00a0plenty of things about Hitler these people admire).<\/p>\n

Nice touch, though, throwing in a photo of Audrey Hepburn. She sure\u00a0draws the eye, doesn’t she? I wonder what she would have thought about all this. I also wonder what’s going on with her hips. Bettie Page’s hips didn’t stick out like that, is all I’m sayin’.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bettie Page’s hips didn’t stick out like that, is all I’m sayin’.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[250,10,16,27,2,8,827],"tags":[2724,2726,2727,2725,145,2024],"class_list":["post-23713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-wars","category-current-events","category-media","category-memes","category-personal","category-politics","category-social-media","tag-assange","tag-audreyhepburn","tag-bettiepage","tag-socialmediainfluencers","tag-facebook","tag-trump"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23713"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25352,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23713\/revisions\/25352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}