Category Archives: Random crap

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Some thoughts about June Osborne

June Osborne

June Osborne is my hero

I am obsessed with The Handmaid’s Tale and its angry protagonist, June Osborne. This is one show I would happily binge but the meanies over at Hulu are only releasing one episode a week so I have to wait. I seriously hate that.

If you have not watched the show, read the book, or seen the original film, and have lived in a cave under a rock, you may not have heard the story. It takes place after a second civil war where the nation of the United States is mostly taken over by right-wing nut job Christians. Fertile women are made into handmaids and sent to live with high-ranking commanders and their wives. They have no freedom and are raped once a month by the commander with the wife taking part. It’s just all sorts of messed up. When a handmaid gets pregnant (praise be!) they have to give up the child to the mistress of the household.

Meanwhile, June, now a handmaid, saw her daughter, Hannah, taken from her, and Hannah is then sent to new parents (a commander and his wife). June is also placed into the home of Fred and Serena Joy Waterford. In the “before” Serena Joy was an architect of what would become the new, religious state of Gilead. She’s not just another wife hell-bent on having a child through her handmaid, she’s a big driving force in the creation of this dystopian hell.

If you have watched that, I am sorry for wasting your time.

I love June. I love that she makes mistakes and is human. I love how far she is willing to go to save Hannah. Most of all, I love her anger. It is so rare for female characters to express fury. They can be sad, hurt, disappointed, depressed, etc. but they never seem to be truly angry. June Osborne is nothing if not furious. And she has every right.

Spoiler alert. Don’t read any more if you have not seen Season Four episodes 6 and 7.

Having said that, June can also be infuriating. Watching her fight with Moira about getting on a boat to Canada made me want to throw something at the TV. We get it. She feels guilty about Hannah but she was going to be tortured and killed by Aunt Lydia if she stays in Gilead. She’s no help to Hannah dead.

Serious question for other fans of this show… Is Janine dead? Please leave your answer in the comments or email me.

For no reason other than it helps with SEO, I am putting a link to reasons you should avoid squirrels.

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Q?

So, I watched “Q: Into the Storm“

My experience with Q is far from unique. I first learned about the whole thing from someone I know on Long Island. When my father died, I was in Florida and could not move back to New York right away. Someone I know from high school moved into my dad’s house to keep an eye on things.

Now, high school was a long time ago and I am not sure, we’ll call this person “Matt,” if he was into conspiracies then. I knew Matt was big-time into them now. He had told me about his views as a “truther.” That’s someone who thinks 9/11 was an inside job. Just watch the video, he would say. I tried to tell him that I can make videos that look like a kitten destroyed the Twin Towers but that meant nothing. One year, I put out an image of David Duchovny with my cat on his lap. Never mind that in his photo, he was outside in the woods, but several people asked, “How did you get a photo of David Duchovny with your cat?”

Fast forward to 2019. I moved back to Stony Brook. Matt was full-on into conspiracies. First, he was a vegetarian because “you don’t get life from death.” (Actually, that IS the cycle of life.) Then he thought vegetarians were part of a satanic cabal and anyone who is vegetarian is evil. He tried, and tried and failed to get me to try MMS. If you don’t know what that is, it is chlorine dioxide. Promoted by charlatan Jim Humble, MMS is sold as sodium chlorite, which people may confuse with sodium chloride (table salt) and said to be a wonder substance that can cure AIDS, malaria, Autism and just about everything else. When taken with an acid, which he sells (never mind that your stomach is full of acid) it turns into chlorine dioxide AKA industrial bleach.

So, Matt was drinking that every day and that is when he told me about something else. A cabal of lizard creatures from outer-space who worshipped Satan and were both pedophiles AND cannibals who ate children controlled the media, the government and big business (when we talked about the government and large corporations, Matt said, “They’re the same to me.”) It was all going to be brought down by someone named “Q.”

Matt didn’t go down to the rally on January 6th but I think that is just because he thought it was a waste of time, not because he didn’t support the rioters.

The HBO documentary seemed to indicate Q is one person, Ron Watkins. I find all of this fascinating but think Q is more than one person. I am sure Watkins is one of them. I do wonder why these theories are so appealing. Why do people want to think that Bill Gates is using the Covid vaccine to track us? Why do people think “pizza” is a code word for “sex with kids”?

If you know, please let me know.

Interested in what I’ve been doing? Check this out.

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27 years ago today, the Rwandan genocide began

Paul Rusesabagina with his daughters Carine and Anaise Kanimba

Twenty-seven years ago, one of the worst genocides since the Holocaust was perpetrated in Rwanda. Within a matter of weeks, at least 800,000 people were murdered.

Last year, Paul Rusesabagina was kidnapped and taken to Rwanda, where he was arrested. Today, as President Paul Kagame oversees reenactments of that horrible time, Rusesabagina sits in jail. He is on trial for a host of charges including terrorism and genocide denial. His real crime is criticizing Kagame.

I have been working with some other people to secure Rusesabagina’s release. If you are interested in helping, there are several ways to do that. Here are a few:

Some new articles have been released:

Here’s an older post I wrote on this.

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How do you not see the double standard? Are you fucking kidding me?

Credit: Crisp County Sheriff’s Office. The current best example of the double standards in the American justice system.

Breonna Taylor was shot sleeping in her bed. Sandra Bland was taken to jail, where she died, for changing lanes without signaling. Tamir Rice was shot for playing with a toy gun. He was 12 years old. I could go on. And on. And on. The double standard can be found everywhere.

Robert Aaron Long shot and killed eight people and how do the police respond? If he was black, he’d probably be dead. He’s not. As a straight, white guy, he was arrested and taken to jail. Keep in mind, he was on his way to Florida to continue his killing spree.

After he was caught, the local Sheriff, and what I am guessing is all-around jackass, Captain Jay Baker remarked, “He was having a really bad day.” Eight people are dead but the killer was having a bad day. Are you fucking serious?

Last week, Senator Ron Johnson (R-Stupidtown-WI) said he wasn’t afraid of the rioters on January 6 because: “I knew those were people that love this country, that truly respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break the law, and so I wasn’t concerned.” In your world, it’s not illegal to kill police officers or destroy government property? Captain jackass went on to say that had those protesters been from #BlackLivesMatter, he would have felt differently. When asked about his clearly racist statements, he said that his comments weren’t “about race” and wrote in a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) op-ed that he “won’t be silenced by the Left.” (Note to Senator Johnson, the WSJ is one of the most read papers in the world, he always has the Senate floor and I am pretty sure FOX News will put him on any day of the week and twice on Sunday. No one wants to silence you. As someone who doesn’t like you, I want you to keep talking. You make my point better than I ever can.

Black people are killed by police eating ice cream (Botham Jean), for breaking tax law (Eric Garner) or getting out his wallet (Amadou Diallo). When white people commit heinous crimes they are allowed to just walk away (Kyle Rittenhouse), brought food outside restaurants (Dylan Roof) or have the sheriff talk about their mental state (Robert Aaron Long). In the most recent case, police say that Long didn’t have a racial motive. Why? Because he told them he didn’t!

Tell me again that white privilege doesn’t exist. All this makes me miss talking about Qanon.