550

The degree of privilege involved in this project borders on obscene; an awareness of which is always lurking just beyond the margins.

Due to that fact, I ditch the smut and psuedo-prurience every 50th post to check in on how things are in the desert of the real.

Generally, things aren’t going especially well. But for this edition, shit is bleak as a fatherfuck.

• Someone inside the Canadian Department of Defense vandalized Rehtaeh Parsons’ Wikipedia entry with repugnant strain of rape culture denying/victim blaming.
• Speaking of rape culture: Paul Nungesser, who Emma Sulkowicz has accused of raping her, continues his run of being a tour de force exemplar of how not to respond to accusations of sexual assault/be a staggeringly tone dear asshole. He’s suing Columbia University for being “a silent bystander and then [turning] into an active supporter of a fellow student’s harassment campaign [e.d. reference to Sulkowicz’s senior performance art thesis Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight) by institutionalizing it and heralding it.”
• Here in the US, there have been a spate of states seeking to enact legislation to preserve religious freedom. Proponents of the laws argue that many states already have similar laws on the books. However, the new efforts to get these laws passed feature an implicit license to protect businesses from litigious reprisals for refusing to serve LGBTQQAI folk. (It’s also an effort to forestall the perceived threat of Sharia law–but really it’s just that Evangelical ass douche slurpees can’t stand competition.) It’s notable that Arizona governor Jan Brewer refused to sign a similar bill into law last year. Indiana–being far less sensible, somehow (than AZ, tho… come on IN) managed to push a bill through that was signed into law. The response was swift and furious. Thankfully, Indiana recanted. A few weeks later a similar resolution in Arkansas was sent back to clarify that it wasn’t authorizing discrimination. However, Louisiana toad/governor, and Republican presidential aspirant Bobby Jindahl has sworn to stand honorably against the homosex onslaught.
• Freddie Gray, a 25-year old black man, had 80% of his spine severed while in Baltimore, MD police custody. As has become standard, the police immediately and vociferously criminalized the victim and lied substantively about what transpired & when. Either through negligence or intent, Baltimore PD foments riots by shutting down transit and surrounding black youth. Typically, the media responds with the threats to property are more serious than threats by the police to PoC narrative. Surprisingly, the subsequent investigation rules the death a homicide. (A pertinent meta-critique is that of the six cops arrested in relation to the death of a suspect in custody all had bail set lower than an 18-year old black man accused of smashing police are windows with a traffic cone.)
• ISIL aligned Boko Haram is one the ropes after a coordinated military effort to eliminate them. Unfortunately, the extent of the continuing toil even if they are defeated appears to be just as devastating.

It’s not possible to touch on even a fraction of the stories I should but these are several stories I’ve been following with more focused attention.