The Supreme Court has heard several cases about gerrymandering. The consensus is, basically, that political gerrymandering is okay (redistricting based on whether the house is Democratic or Republican), but racial gerrymandering is not okay – regardless of whether it’s meant to help or hinder minority voters. “Wait, help minority voters?” I hear you asking. Yup! Historically, some districts have been made all-black specifically because a racially-mixed district would never elect black politicians, and would essentially nullify the votes of any black voters. When the district was divided up for those reasons, a Republican majority has struck it down for being racist. But Hunt v. Cromartie (2000) says, basically, that if all the Democrats just happen to be black, then it’s okay, because it’s on political lines, not racial ones.
Okay, but that’s gerrymandering. What about other tactics to suppress your opponent’s vote that’s not gerrymandering?
The case quoted above is a case from 2016. After Shelby County v. Holder, which struck down parts of the Voting Rights Act that required some states to ask permission before changing their voting laws, North Carolina’s Republican government (including then-Governor Pat McCrory) basically set about undoing as many things that helped black voters as possible. Are there IDs that mostly black people use? They’re no longer valid. Do black people tend to both register and vote early? Eliminate early registration and early voting. Do black people tend to vote more on Sundays because of their church’s help (such as carpooling from the church parking lot)? Get rid of that, too!
And when asked about it, their justification is essentially the same as the one in Cromartie. “It’s not racist, it’s anti-Democrat. We’re just trying to keep Democrats from voting, and they just happen to be black!”
The Fourth Circuit (it never got to the Supreme Court, thank God) says, basically:
Your reasoning is bad and you should feel bad;
There’s no way you can justify this with “trying to stop the Democrats” when everything you got rid of was aimed at hurting the black vote;
Even if you were trying to stop the Democrats, having race as a factor at all lets us infer that you intended to be discriminatory;
Actually, wait, we don’t even have to infer it, because you fucking told us with your actual mouths that you intended to discriminate against black people, you literal dumbfucks.
I’m writing all this out partially because I’m a nerd who likes context, but also partially for this reason:
There is legal precedent that can, under certain circumstances, allow racially-biased voting laws so long as no one says they’re racially-biased. This is a major hurdle to pretty much any legal challenge to discriminatory voting laws.
Despite this, you can still take down those laws – it’s never impossible to overturn a bad law, even if there’s not a lot of evidence, though of course it’s easier if you have evidence that good on your side (THEY SAID IT. OUT LOUD. IN COURT).
A really good way to get rid of bad laws if you aren’t up to suing the government (though please, please, sue the government)? Fucking vote. The original omnibus law wouldn’t have been passed if Republicans weren’t in office.
me, drinking tea: pls leaf water….sage my body of the demons of my past…steam my colon…let me know peace
me, drinking coffee: I beg of u bean juice….cleanse me of the curse of sleep….make my heart beat like a tribal drum in ceremony….let me conquer this building
i saw this post earlier about therapists and it reminded me of my old therapist paul, who in my opinion is one of the greatest men alive and who did not put up with my bullshit for even one second
anyway i go in to see paul one week in the summer of 2016, and i’m doing my usual bullshit which consists of me talking shit about myself, and paul is staring at me, and then he cuts me off and says that he’s got a new tool for helping people recognize when they’re using negative language, and gets up and goes over to his desk
and i’m like alright hit me with that sweet sweet self-help article my man, because i’m a linguistic learner and whenever paul’s like here i have a tool for you to use it’s pretty much always an article or a book or something
paul opens a drawer, takes something out, and turns back around. i stare.
i say, paul.
is that a nerf gun.
yeah, says paul.
i say, are you gonna shoot me with a nerf gun in this professional setting.
he happily informs me that that’s really up to me, isn’t it. and sits back down. and gestures, like, go ahead, what were you saying?
and i squint suspiciously and start back up about how i’m having too much anxiety to leave the house to run errands, like it was a miracle to even get here, like i’ve forgone getting groceries for the past week and that’s so stupid, what a stupid issue, i’m an idiot, how could i–
a foam dart hits me in the leg.
i go, hey! because my therapist just shot me in the leg. paul blinks at me placidly and raises an eyebrow. i squint again.
i say, slowly, it’s– not a stupid issue, i’m not stupid, but it’s frustrating me and i don’t want it to be a problem i’m having.
no dart this time. okay. sweet.
so the rest of the hour passes with me intermittently getting nailed with tiny foam darts and then swearing and then fixing my language and, wouldn’t you know it, i start liking myself a little more by the end of the session, which is mildly infuriating because paul can tell and he’s very smug about it
anyway i leave his office and the lady having the next appointment walks in and i hear what’s all over the floor? and paul very seriously says cognitive behavioral therapy tools.
The “I won’t hesitate, bitch” vine but @ friends who don’t love themselves
The United States Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) said Friday it was responding to a data breach that exposed the files of about 75,000 people.
Am I the only person who thought this was really fucking funny
A lot of the really funny moments in Lord of the Rings come from Tolkien playing with language like this, where we have relatively formal, archaic, “high” language responded to with informal, modern, “low” language.
another hilarious example:
my absolute favorite example of tolkien switching registers in this way is
You, an atheist, have died. All the gods that have ever been line up to offer you their version of heaven if only you believe in _them_. Turns out souls are currency and yours is up for grabs.
There are many Gods. They speak, and I am tired. A mass of voices coiling around me, each telling their own tale. They speak over one another, they talk to me, they do not listen. And I am tired.
Currency. Is this what I am to them?
They will not stop speaking. They offer me things. They will take me to my loved ones. They will gift me joy and music. They will have me serve, in their armies, in their choirs. Some tell me stories of how they made me. From clay. From nothing at all. Some tell me they love me, small as I am, that I am their creation and so their child.
Above all, they repeat their stories. They talk incessantly of their power, their battles, of the ways and reasons they are feared. How long will they talk? Time does not happen here. It is so much effort to stay. Effort to maintain. Effort to exist.
So many Gods. Gods whose names I had already heard. Modern Gods whose human disciples still speak their names. Obscure Gods whose stories were written on tablets, on scrolls, thousands of years before, whose only proof and records were discovered underground, in caves, in ancient lands. Every God there ever was. They are all here with me. They have been talking for years. They repeat their stories. Their stories are important to them. They demand, plead for my attention.
I died knowing I was dying. I died as I lived, believing in no Creator, no great demiurge, and no final salvation from death. Knowing that gods were stories we told. I believed only in the universe. That it existed before me and would continue without me.
And it has.
The voices scream their stories. Why are they so desperate for me? Despite their insistence, I know what I knew before. My truth is unchanged. My truth is of the universe, of its physics and particles, of its probable beginnings, of its possible ends. Of the simple fact of existence.
These gods are not my creator. I was created by a long line of life, of unlikely Life happening and colliding and continuing. Eons. Three, four eons, billions of years all lined up behind me, all of my predecessors, their lives and their stories, they are my chapters and I am their sum. I am the story of Life, in all its improbably glory. And gods are as old as humans, but I am as old as Life, and Life is much older.
I think I’ve solved it. I think I know why they seek us. They want what Life wants. To exist. To continue. They need their legends told, at any expense, because:
We wrote them. I said before: gods are stories that we write and tell. We are their Creators. And this is why they scream for me, for my ears, for my attention. Stories exist only so long as they are told. Gods exist only so long as they have a listener. And I know they have nothing to offer me. There are no rooms, there are no gates, there are no hallways, no crowds for me to join. They only keep me here to listen. If I accept an offer, what then? Will they stop speaking, disappointed, and leave me? Will they keep delaying? Will the god of my choice sweep in, desperate, and keep me here as long as I can be convinced?
All of my being is tired. Life is not meant to persist this long after it is through. My presence and existence, temporary from the start, is loosening and loosening. All of my pieces beg to be released. I was not made to last.
I am through. I have given these voices enough.
So I do what life does when it is finished. I dissolve, and return to the world.
A strict all girls boarding school is across a river from a strict all boys boarding school.
Boys and girls are forbidden from fraternizing, but they find sneaky ways to form friendships and even date. I assume there is heavily monitored internet and phones are for emergencies only so they have to resort to more unconventional methods of communication. (Messages in bottles, a system of mirrors, writing on chalkboards and putting them in the windows ect.ect.)
Until one day a shy boy at the boys boarding school tells his best friend (and the leader of a resident well meaning boys gang) that he actually feels more like a girl.
The gang leader contacts the leader of a girl gang across the river and they begin to plan an overly elobrate heist to smuggle the shy trans girl across the river in exchange for a chill tomboy and the two will assume each other’s lives until they graduate.
Hijinks ensue as they pull a ‘Great-Esacpe’ style mission to avoid detection from the overly strict headmasters and an overly passionate team of campus security guards.
Friendships are tested, there is lots of home-alone style logic to outsmart the adults, and there is romantic tension between the leaders of the gangs as they put aside their differences to help their two friends find a place to be themselves. It is light-hearted in tone but is also over the top and everyone plays it way too serious to the point of comedy. The two kids swapping places have classic “parent trap” style hijinks pretending to be the other person and avoid detection.
Think “kids next door” + “recess” but shot like a heist movie.
Add a funny character actor as a dopey but well meaning janitor and you got a stew going.
As a parent of two young impressionable children I 100% would take them to see this movie.
The most worthwhile thing about eating brocolli is pretending that they’re trees and you’re some planet-sized being of ultimate power devouring a forest as the puny beings down below search desperately for a hero that can defeat me and save their broccoli forest.
