Peter Parker, a Gen Z kid, screws up: Fuck, guess I’ll kill myself.
Steve Rogers, an artist during the 30’s and a soldier during WWII who knows full well what Dadaism and fatalistic humor are: There’s bleach under the sink–
Bucky Barnes, the guy who listened to Steve’s art rants in the 30’s, watched his back in WWII and went through 70+ years of shit: –And a rope in the supply closet if you want options.
Rest of the Avengers: ?????!!!!!!!?????
Shuri, also a gen z kid: don’t be a coward, jump out the window. Have some style would you
Vision, the human internet who knows what Gen Z humor is: do a flip
Thor, who deals with Loki “fake my own death to beat a parking ticket” Laufeyson on a daily basis: i can strike you with lightning if you want
Tony, not the right generation but is the king of smartassness: Jump out the west side, will you? I don’t want police tape blocking my street entrance.
Natalia, can pick up on a joke or is dead serious, hard to tell: Jump into the wind if you want to land in a certain spot.
Bruce, just wanting to be normal and views life as precious: *looking at them all in horror*
“If you want to write a fantasy story with Norse gods, sentient robots, and telepathic dinosaurs, you can do just that. Want to throw in a vampire and a lesbian unicorn while you’re at it? Go ahead. Nothing’s off limits. But the endless possibility of the genre is a trap. It’s easy to get distracted by the glittering props available to you and forget what you’re supposed to be doing: telling a good story. Don’t get me wrong, magic is cool. But a nervous mother singing to her child at night while something moves quietly through the dark outside her house? That’s a story. Handled properly, it’s more dramatic than any apocalypse or goblin army could ever be.”
My boyfriend is trying to explain cricket to me again. “He’s only got two balls to make 48 runs”, he says. The camera focuses on a man. Underneath him it says LEFT ARM FAST MEDIUM. A ball flies into the stands and presumably fractures someone’s skull. “There’s a free six”, my boyfriend says. 348 SIXES says the screen. A child in the audience waves a sign referencing Weet-Bix
The first time he showed me this I assumed he was pranking me
if people haven’t been exposed to cricket before, here is the experience. The person who likes cricket turns on a radio with an air of happy expectation. “We’ll just catch up with the cricket,” they say.
An elderly British man with an accent – you can picture exactly what he looks like and what he is wearing, somehow, and you know that he will explain the important concept of Yorkshire to you at length if you make eye contact – is saying “And w’ four snickets t’ wicket, Umbleby dives under the covers and romps home for a sticky bicket.”
There is a deep and satisfied silence. Weather happens over the radio. This lasts for three minutes.
A gentle young gentleman with an Indian accent, whose perfect and beautiful clear voice makes him sound like a poet sipping from a cup of honeyed drink always, says mildly “Of course we cannot forget that when Pakistan last had the biscuit under the covers, they were thrown out of bed. In 1957, I believe.”
You mouth “what the fucking fuck.”
A morally ambiguous villain from a superhero movie says off-microphone, “Crumbs everywhere.”
Apparently continuing a previous conversation, the villain asks, “Do seagulls eat tacos?”
“I’m sure someone will tell us eventually,” the poet says. His voice is so beautiful that it should be familiar; he should be the only announcer on the radio, the only reader of audiobooks.
The villain says with sudden interest, “Oh, a leg over straight and under the covers, Peterson and Singh are rumping along with a straight fine leg and good pumping action. Thanks to his powerful thighs, Peterson is an excellent legspinner, apart from being rude on Twitter.”
The man from Yorkshire roars potently, like a bull seeing another bull. There might be words in his roar, but otherwise it is primal and sizzling.
“That isn’t straight,” the poet says. “It’s silly.”
“What the fucking fuck,” you say out loud at this point.
“Shh,” says the person who likes cricket. They listen, tensely. Something in the distance makes a very small “thwack,” like a baby dropping an egg.
“Was that a doosra or a googly?” the villain asks.
“IT’S A WRONG ‘UN,” roars the Yorkshireman in his wrath. A powerful insult has been offered. They begin to scuffle.
“With that double doozy, Crumpet is baffled for three turns, Agarwal is deep in the biscuit tin and Padgett has gone to the shops undercover,” the poet says quickly, to cover the action while his companions are busy. The villain is being throttled, in a friendly companionable way.
An intern apparently brings a message scrawled on a scrap of paper like a courier sprinting across a battlefield. “Reddy has rolled a nat 20,” the poet says with barely contained excitement. “Australia is both a continent and an island. But we’re running out of time!”
“Is that true?” You ask suddenly.
“Shh!” Says the person who likes cricket. “It’s a test match.”
“About Australia.”
“We won’t know THAT until the third DAY.”
A distant “pock” noise. The sound of thirty people saying “tsk,” sorrowfully.
“And the baby’s dropped the egg. Four legs over or we’re done for, as long as it doesn’t rain.”
The villain might be dead? You begin to find yourself emotionally invested.
There are mild distant cheers. “Oh, and with twelve sticky wickets t’ over and t’ seagull’s exploded,” the man from the North says as if all of his dreams have come true. “What a beautiful day.” Your person who likes cricket relaxes. It is tea break.
The villain, apparently alive, describes the best hat in the audience as “like a funnel made of dove-colored net, but backwards, with flies trapped in it.”
This is every bit as good as that time in Australia in 1975, they all agree, drinking their tea and eating home-made cakes sent in by the fans. The poet comments favorably on the icing and sugar-preserved violets. The Yorkshire man discourses on the nature of sponge. The villain clatters his cup too hard on his saucer. To cover his embarrassment, the poet begins scrolling through Twitter on his phone, reading aloud the best memes in his enchanting milky voice. Then, with joy, he reads an @ from an ornithologist at the University of Reading: seagulls do eat tacos! A reference is cited; the poet reads it aloud. Everyone cheers.
You are honestly – against your will – kind of into it! but also: weirdly enraged.
“Was that … it?” you ask, deeming it safe to interrupt.
“No,” says the person who likes cricket, “This is second tea break on the first day. We won’t know where we really are until lunch tomorrow.”
And – because you cannot stop them – you have to accept this; if cricket teaches you anything, it is this gentle and radical acceptance.
Until proven otherwise, I must assume this is correct.
Anyone still unsure of how (or even whether) they’ll vote in the midterms should consider this: All three branches of government are now under the control of one party, and that party is under the control of Donald J. Trump.
With the addition of Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court is as firmly Republican as are the House and Senate.
Kavanaugh was revealed as a fierce partisan – not only as a legal advisor who helped Kenneth Starr prosecute Bill Clinton and almost certainly guided George W. Bush’s use of torture, but also a nominee who believed “leftists” and Clinton sympathizers were out to get him.
He joins four other Republican-appointed jurists, equally partisan. Thomas, Alito, and Roberts have never wavered from Republican orthodoxy. Neil Gorsuch, although without much track record on the Supreme Court to date, was a predictable conservative Republican vote on the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit – which is why the Heritage Foundation pushed for him and Trump appointed him.
Even under normal circumstances, when all three branches are under the control of the same party we get a lopsided government that doesn’t respond to the values of a large portion of the electorate.
But these are not normal circumstances. Donald Trump is President.
Need I remind you? Trump is a demagogue who doesn’t give a fig for democracy – who continuously and viciously attacks the free press, Democrats, immigrants, Muslims, black athletes exercising First Amendment rights, women claiming sexual harassment, anyone who criticizes or counters him; who treats the executive branch, including the Justice Department, like his own fiefdom, and brazenly profits off his office; who tells lies like other people breathe; and who might well have conspired with Vladimir Putin to swing the election his way.
Trump doesn’t even pretend to be the president of all the people. As he repeatedly makes clear in rallies and tweets, he is president of his “base.”
And his demagoguery is by now unconstrained in the White House. Having fired the few “adults” in his Cabinet, Trump is now on the loose (but for a few advisors who reportedly are trying to protect the nation from him).
All this would be bad enough even if the two other branches of government behaved as the framers of the Constitution expected, as checks and balances on a president. But they refuse to play this role when it comes to Trump.
House and Senate Republicans have morphed into Trump acolytes and toadies – intimidated, spineless, opportunistic. The few who have dared call him on his outrages aren’t running for reelection.
Some have distanced themselves from a few of his most incendiary tweets or racist rantings, but most are obedient lapdogs on everything else, including Trump’s reluctance to protect the integrity of our election system, his moves to prevent an investigation into Russian meddling, his trade wars, his attacks on NATO and the leaders of other democracies, his swooning over dictators, his cruelty toward asylum-seekers, and, in the Senate, his Supreme Court nominees.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has emerged as Trump’s most shameless lackey who puts party above nation and Trump above party. The House leadership is no better. House intelligence chair Devin Nunes is Trump’s chief flunky and apologist, but there are many others.
Now that Kavanaugh is on the Supreme Court, you can forget about the Court constraining Trump, either.
Kavanaugh’s views of presidential power and executive privilege are so expansive he’d likely allow Trump to fire Mueller, shield himself from criminal prosecution, and even pardon himself. Kavanaugh’s Republican brethren on the Court would probably go along.
So how are the constitutional imperative of checks and balances to be salvaged, especially when they’re so urgently needed?
The only remedy is for voters to flip the House or Senate, or ideally both, on November 6th.
The likelihood of this happening is higher now with Kavanaugh on the Court and Trump so manifestly unchecked. Unless, that is, voters have become so demoralized and disillusioned they just give up.
If cynicism wins the day, Trump and those who would delight in the demise of American democracy (including, not incidentally, Putin) will get everything they want. They will have broken America.
For the sake of the values we hold dear – and of the institutions of our democracy that our forbearers relied on and our descendants will need – this cannot be allowed.
It is now time to place a firm check on this most unbalanced of presidents, and vote accordingly.
This is so important. I am not American but as somebody who has studied politics and as a German growing up with the history of my country let me tell you – never take democracy for granted, you gave to fight for it. Democracies don’t always die with a big bang bloody revolution, more often they are slowly sabotaged by people in power and they die if the majority stays silent. Vote. Demonstrate.
This means you vote the Democratic party ticket, for the record. The time to shift the party to the left is during the primaries. Right now? You vote the goddamned ticket. Even if that means voting for Manchin, or some equally despicable Democrat.
Because let’s be very, very clear about this: if Manchin isn’t re-elected, it’ll be Patrick Morrisey in that seat: a Republican, who will vote the Republican party line on basically every fucking issue (because Republicans tend to have better party discipline than Democrats, at least at the Federal level), and a Republican who helps keep committee control in the hands of the Republicans and procedural control in the hands of the Republicans, instead of a Democrat who helps shift both those things into the hands of a group of people who actually want to block Trump’s agenda. By all means, vote Manchin out—but we cannot afford for you to do it right now. Do it in the primaries in 2024. Right now? You show up to vote, and you vote the goddamned ticket.
Yes, political parties suck. Yes, they force you, frequently, to gather with people who don’t believe 100% the same things as you. Suck it the fuck up. Sometimes compromise is necessary in adult life! That’s just how it works! This isn’t about one Democrat. It’s not about your Democrat at all. It’s about blocking the Republicans. And the only way to do that effectively at this point in time is to vote the Democratic ticket. Top. To. Bottom.
Reblogging for the @greywash comment especially. Vote like a grownup.
Thank you for saying this! Yes, it has to be democrats! Third party cannot win this one guys!
because the Republican he’s running against is far worse and Democrats need to retake the Senate, period. You can’t do anything without a majority, that’s just how the whole thing works
Normally I would very much agree, but like…if a “Democrat” habitually votes with the Republicans, then how are they actually Democrat? Manchin’s voting recording is scarcely better than that of Rand Paul and Susan Collins. If you can’t rely on a politician as a Democratic vote, then you don’t have them as part of your potential majority. What good is a vote you can’t rely on?
The Democrats having a majority means they control all committees, which means they control what legislation comes *out* of committees and gets a vote, and what never comes to the floor. They have final say over the rules of parliamentary procedure. They can block Presidential nominees. Controlling Congress, even because of one shitty conservative Senator, basically gives the Democrats the institutional advantage and ability to influence legislation that they completely lack right now, which is why we’re in such constant crisis. People are constantly urging them to fight harder, as if this will materialize a majority out of thin air. If they don’t control either the House or the Senate, they are virtually powerless.
Manchin represents a state that voted 68.5% for Trump, which was literally his largest margin of victory. In West Virginia, Manchin is consistently attacked for being “too liberal.” And like, let’s not forget that “scarcely better” than Rand Paul and Susan Collins still means something, because there’s still a lot of room between the most conservative Democrats and “moderate” Republicans these days. Last summer, Manchin voted against the ACA repeal, while Paul voted for it. Manchin voted against the tax bill while Collins voted for it.
Also, the primary is over. In November he’s up against a Republican, not a more progressive Democrat. It’s going to be one of them seated in the Senate in 2019. Even if control of the Senate were not in play, there is no way anyone on the left could honestly look at his opponent Patrick Morrisey’s positions and conclude it would be better to have him in the Senate. I hope that Manchin gets sidelined in a Democratic controlled Senate, but I’m not willing to risk everything just to punish him for this cowardly, disgusting vote.
Kids, this is strategy not philosophy. You need to look at this at a very, very base level, and that base level is: every red tick in the Houses is an obstacle, every blue tick in the Houses is, at the very least, A LACK OF OBSTACLE.
This is called “hold your nose” voting. Hate Manchin a lot? That’s totally legit. If you’re in the appropriate area, right now it is absolutely also a good idea to start looking for a Democratic challenger to get rid of Manchin for NEXT time. And you should do that now, because it may well TAKE all the rest of the time working to get the right momentum to unseat Manchin. But that’s next time.
For this time, you don’t have another Dem option. You have Manchin, or a red tick. A red tick is REALLY. REALLY. BAD. Manchin is kinda crappy.
If it’s NOT MANCHIN then it will be THE RED TICK. There is no “neither” option. That option is not available to you. There is no “neither”. There is Manchin, or part of the GOP machine.
Is it crappy that this is where things are? For sure. Should it be different? Yes. It will take a lot of work to make it different, and that work does not start by handing that seat to a Republican because Manchin sucks. In fact, that will prevent the work from being done.
Triage. Prioritize. You are trying to get to a point where you will have the breathing room to do real work: to try and bring the landscape up to where you can have better options than Manchin. If a Republican takes that seat, YOU WILL BE FURTHER FROM THAT PLACE.
Voting Manchin in DOES NOT MEAN you’re saying “I approve of everything they do and think shit is solved if Manchin gets elected”. You can (and SHOULD) vote Manchin in AND THEN KEEP PUSHING.
But in this mid-term you have two choices. One of them adds strength to the GOP machine that is a problem. One of them doesn’t.
One of them means your bigger project of Changing Things stops dead in the water or worse, gets pushed backwards. One means it doesn’t, even if it doesn’t help.
That’s a no-brainer.
Please do not let Evil win because Good is too effing stupid to be able to set up a long-term ongoing strategy to effect our goals.
people on the left love the concept of “harm reduction” when it comes to public health, but often struggle with embracing it when it comes to voting.
You don’t run a needle exchange for addicts because you think it is awesome that people are injecting themselves full of dangerous narcotics and you think the opioid epidemic is neat. Running a needle exchange isn’t a mark of fealty for intravenous drug use. It just means that you know running a needle exchange means fewer people die than NOT running a needle exchange, and evidence shows that it helps more people get into addiction treatment, and addicts using them are more likely to get other kinds of healthcare, and it reduces used needles in public, and it reduces overdoses, it saves a TON of money, it reduces the burden on first responders, and in general it is still not the best case scenario (no one being addicted to drugs) but it is light years ahead of the alternatives (HIV/AIDS/Hepatitis outbreaks, spikes in ODs, people dying of preventable conditions bc they are scared of going to health care providers, hospitals being overwhelmed with drug cases they have a limited ability to treat, etc etc).
You don’t vote for a Manchin because you think it is awesome that he sucks so much of the time or because he is your ideal candidate. You vote for a Manchin because even as bad as he can be, he is still light years ahead of what his Republican opponent would be and would cause and would enable. You vote for a Manchin so that someone can primary him next time, instead of losing YEARS to more Republican fuckery. You vote for a Manchin because Republicans are literally pro-rape fascists running concentration camps for children at this point, and keeping ANY more resources out of their hands is actually a moral imperative, way more so than whether or not you get to vote for someone you think is a “good” candidate.
Harm reduction is not a strategy for living in a perfect world, but it is one that works to mitigate damage and destruction in the broken systems that we actually have. It is one that gets us closer to building a world we want, and where you actually get to vote for people who represent you.
