you won't make yourself a name if you follow the rules

the United States Marine Corps is requiring the removal of all Confederate flags it's within USMC authority to order removed (bar ones in like museums and stuff, or on state flags or license plates or other reasonable-I-suppose exceptions)

1) wow

2) surprised I can't hear the screaming from the Marines stationed in Pensacola from here

3) now do the Army and Air Force

(also the President's Own United States Marine Band rebroadcast a 2019 concert in which they performed pieces related to Langston Hughes, Walt Whitman, and the French Revolution of 1830)

This afternoon, azurelunatic was reading Red, White, & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston. Azz convinced me to put a library hold on this fluffy m/m romance novel by detailing the potentially-reelection-campaign-derailing scandal the first female US President would face the moment certain events became known. This scandal, should it materialize, was expected to be headlines for weeks.

The PR lady dressing down the President's son over this potential scandal is apparently, in the same scene, witness to the visual pun of the English prince stumbling out of the President's son's closet, halfway into a borrowed pair of boxers.

Yep. The President's son is not straight, and a visiting diplomatic-type guy got into the President's son's pants.

That's the news story the PR lady, with (to all appearance) good reason, thinks will scandalize the American public for weeks. Nothing involving breaking laws, nothing involving hurting anyone, and no expectation of anything more significant chasing it out of the news cycle in the next month, never mind the next day.

I asked how much it would cost to move to that America.

Just now I opened a tab to my Facebook feed. I was required to log back in, and I was not able to access the site until I either accepted Facebook's decision on a post of mine they hid from view or requested manual review of that decision.

The post in question is my share, without comment, of a blog post entitled "She's Fucking Nine", by Sunflower Punk on the Orbit. Content notes: the post describes an unnamed man sexually harassing Sunflower Punk's nine-year-old daughter.

( image )

Facebook community standards, as cited in this screenshot, suggest Facebook wishes to create an atmosphere free of "intimidation and exclusion", free of bigoted attacks based on such characteristics as race and gender. Facebook is also, I'm certain, an organization with children's safety as a core value. Sunflower Punk attacked no one in this post. They only discussed an incident of gendered, likely race-based (Sunflower Punk and their daughter are Puerto Rican) harassment directed at a nine-year-old. Since Sunflower Punk did nothing wrong here, only called attention to this incident, I am at a loss for what I did wrong by sharing the post.

I requested manual review.

(If y'all want to show support for Sunflower Punk and their daughter, their Patreon &c are linked from that post. Signal boosting this or any other of Sunflower Punk's work is also great.)

"She Stands In New York Harbor"

Online storefront for disabled activist merch. Raising funds for ADAPT, which has been in US news recently doing sit-ins at senators' offices till either the senator in question opposes Orangecare or the cops haul the activists away.

I need ALL those shirts.

Police are literally dragging people away [from the protests at Sen. McConnell's office over Trumpcare], including those who are disabled or in wheelchairs, leaving the hall of the Senate offices streaked with blood.

*flails in fucking useless disabled who rapidly losing all words*

#CorpsesDontVote

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2015/09/24/why-intersectionality-cant-wait/

"Intersectionality is an analytic sensibility, a way of thinking about identity and its relationship to power. Originally articulated on behalf of black women, the term brought to light the invisibility of many constituents within groups that claim them as members, but often fail to represent them. Intersectional erasures are not exclusive to black women. People of color within LGBTQ movements; girls of color in the fight against the school-to-prison pipeline; women within immigration movements; trans women within feminist movements; and people with disabilities fighting police abuse — all face vulnerabilities that reflect the intersections of racism, sexism, class oppression, transphobia, able-ism and more. Intersectionality has given many advocates a way to frame their circumstances and to fight for their visibility and inclusion." --Kimberle Crenshaw

I don't suppose Cheeto reads poetry. Having been reminded of John Donne, I wish Cheeto and all his ilk to internalize it.

John Donne
Meditation 17
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions

"No man is an iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee...."