Well, the good news is that I’m heaps better but the bad news is that I’m not quite there and keep backsliding. I’m going to try to take this long weekend off to rest and recuperate, and catch up on assignments; I’ll be back next week with more.
One of the depressing aspects of this post-election slump is the extent to which everyone, liberals and lefties, now seems bent on, first, forgetting that a lot of the horrors faced by the most vulnerable amongst us have come about because of collusions between liberals and lefties. I wrote briefly about the necessity of letting defeat sit in our bones and the current will to amnesia, in a Facebook post, and will expand more on all this soon.
And in light of all the continuing blather about how “identity politics” is bringing us to the edge of disaster, I wrote a short update on why “Whiteness Is An Identity.”
I absolutely promise that linking to FB posts is not going to become standard practice for me — it’s just that, as I try to regain my energy, it’s sometimes easier to put together a few somewhat coherent thoughts on social media than to write a longer post. But I detest that as a regular practice, and I think such work should be more carefully teased out — rest assured that this is a temporary practice.
Here’s something I wrote for Current Affairs, on Arianna Huffington’s current obsession with sleep. This was easily among my most fulfilling pieces to write — and I was able to incorporate an analysis of my beloved Alien films into it. You can read the piece, “Killing You Softly With Her Dreams,” here.
I’m also happy to announce that I’m now an Editor-at-Large with Current Affairs. I agreed not just because it’s always a pleasure writing for them, but because I strongly believe in their mission and work. Most importantly, the small but dedicated crew believes in treating writers fairly. We have ongoing discussions about how to engage with and in a publishing world where the pressure is always to produce mindless content over excellent, original work that takes risks.
If you’re able to, please subscribe so the magazine can keep going (and, yes, subscribing also indirectly supports my and other writers’ work).
Here’s a report back from the Gender JUST event, “Radical Strategies in Electoral Politics.” If you’re in Chicago and are interested in learning more about our work and getting involved, please contact us.
Some excellent news for the San Antonio Four, who have been cleared of all charges. For more background, here’s Debbie Nathan, whose reporting inspired much of the media coverage on the case (Nathan’s one of my journalist icons).
For more, here’s Chase Madar.
We need to celebrate this outcome, of course. But as we move forward — and as these women finally move away from a long nightmare that has defined their lives for so long — I hope we can also think about ending things like sex offender registries and, more importantly, consider what we think is justice when it comes to those who are not considered “innocent” in such cases.
For some perspective, here’s something I wrote a few years ago, on queer sex offenders and the law, “Bars for Life: LGBTQs and Sex Offender Registries.”
Here’s Judith Levine and Erica Meiners in Baffler, asking “Can Sex Offenders Be Human?”
When Tulsi Gabbard came out in support of Bernie Sanders, a few of us pointed to her troubling alliances with Hindu Nationalists. She’s now openly cosying up to Donald Trump, as is made evident in this piece here. And here’s a longer piece about Gabbard’s awful, opportunistic politics.
In the years to come, trans and gender-non-conforming youth in particular will be faced with legal and cultural challenges. Here’s Liza Featherstone with some advice for parents when faced with a particular situation.
My friend and comrade Gautham Reddy co-wrote, with Alex Shams, a piece about beef-eating in Hyderabad, India, that complicates all our conventional notions about what’s going on there: “Welcome to the Beef Capital of India.”
I’ve long had a complicated relationship with social media, and this piece, “Quit Social Media: Your Career May Depend on It,” gets at the issues a lot of us face.
There’s been a lot of fuss about the supposed act of defiance and dissent that occurred when Hamilton’s audience booed Mike Pence and its actors delivered a little speech to him. This Current Affairs piece, “You Should Be Terrified That People Who Like Hamilton Run Our Country,” points out that the musical is not exactly a progressive/left vision of race relations.
And speaking of liberal twaddle: Remember all the brouhaha over Aaron Sorkin’s letter to his daughter following Trump’s win? My Aussie twin Helen Razer wrote a direct response, “A Letter to My (Fictional) Daughter about the U.S Election.” Helen’s absolutely worth following everywhere and reading, a lot.
From the archives: Here’s a piece I wrote about “Bars for Life: LGBTQs and Sex Offender Registries.”
It’s sometimes easy to forget that I’ve been talking and writing about the problems with the gay agenda for as long as I have. Here’s an earlier piece I wrote for Public Research Associates,
“Do We Have to Be Equal?”, with a focus on the gay community and its rush to foster and adopt the “unwanted” children of Black single women in particular.
Here’s a reminder from The Washington Post, about “Four Ways The US Is Already Banning Muslims.”
What’s Thanksgiving without this clip from The Addams Family, featuring the immortal words and actions of Wednesday?
And as we listen to Obama’s empty rhetoric about indigenous peoples, we might recall that Dakota Pipeline protesters are facing, mace, rubber bullets, and water cannons.
And in case you missed it, here’s my roundup piece from last week, “Welcome to The Morning After.”
Don’t plagiarise any of this, in any way. I have used legal resources to punish and prevent plagiarism, and I am ruthless and persistent. I make a point of citing people and publications all the time: it’s not that hard to mention me in your work, and to refuse to do so and simply assimilate my work is plagiarism. You don’t have to agree with me to cite me properly; be an ethical grownup, and don’t make excuses for your plagiarism. Read and memorise “On Plagiarism.” There’s more forthcoming, as I point out in “The Plagiarism Papers.” If you’d like to support me, please donate and/or subscribe, or get me something from my wish list. Thank you.
