Notices by timberwraith (timberwraith@mastodon.social)

As for Jon Stewart and his boneheaded remarks/"joke" about masking...

I have few friends who bother with masking at this point and they're left of center. Presumably people who *should* care but mostly don't.

And this is one reason why I don't put much effort into maintaining a social life at this point. It's fucking stressful being surrounded by people (most people) who just don't give a flying fuck about this stuff.

But I'm certain he can do better than once a year. He's a talented guy.

I guess it's essential for Jon Stewart to remind us that he's still a big weenie at least annually.

Oh hey, here's a thread that reveals some of Ken White/Popehat's shenanigans that have earned him a reputation for being an ass.

https://bsky.app/profile/jane.meangirls.online/post/3jzsl2ulpkl2t

I don't know the details. I'd have to wade into reading NaziBarStack blog articles for the background info and I'd just rather not.

Hmm. Looks like that Popehat guy is having some weird kind of libertarian meltdown entwined with being cryptically trans-antagonistic over at the other place.

I remember blocking Poophat when he was here in the fediverse. I don't even remember why but I do remember that he has a gift for being a bit of an asshat.

When prejudice and bigotry are normalized by the larger culture as everyday, acceptable ways of seeing and treating others, "common sense" will automatically incorporate that normalization of harm into what feels "logical" and "familiar."

Or, put another way, "This person is making trouble by opposing common cultural understandings that support oppression. It's OK to dismiss their objections because the culture you have known your entire life supports mistreating this person or group of people."

"Common sense" references that entire unspoken subtext. It does so obliquely by encouraging a person to just go with whatever flawed assumptions they might already have which allow them to feel comfort in the familiar.

When you see someone appealing to "common sense" when defending prejudice/bigotry, they're encouraging people to suspend thought or criticism that might challenge prejudice, and instead, retreat unthinkingly to the comfortable inertia of the social norms which establish the prejudice in question.

"Common sense" is a thought-stopping phrase and concept. It is the same as saying, "Just go with cultural traditions which support prejudice and oppression because those are familiar and comfortable."

Many people tend to just go with whatever "feels right" to them. Challenging them to examine their prejudices and bigoted behaviors is a challenge to what feels comfortable and normal because that harm was normalized from the time they are children onward to adulthood.

Retreating to "common sense" is a self-soothing act in the face of one's normalized harm toward others being called out and opposed.

People who tell marginalized groups that the world is not as prejudiced as they think it is are generally a subset of the same people who make the world a deeply prejudiced place.

There are those who consciously and openly pour abuse and ignorance into the world and then there are those whose ignorance enables them to unwittingly pour abuse and ignorance into the world.

The first are openly proud of abuse while the latter feel compelled to gaslight others into believing their false innocence.

I have not been paying much attention to current day movie releases since COVID hit five years ago. So many movies shifted away from theaters to streaming and I'd rather pull my toenails out than give money to steaming companies.

BUT the performances of the various characters were hilarious and engaging.

So, it was a pretty good movie in that respect but still very much in the "Huh. That could have ended better." category of flicks that I've watched.

Aaaanyway...

I didn't know that Ethan Coen had split off from his partnership from Joel Coen to make... A series of lesbian themed movies.

I discovered that purely by accident when I watched "Honey Don't" (2025) earlier today.

The movie was quite entertaining although its plot was poorly developed, having a "WTF?" ending that failed to tie the various threads of events in the movie together in a satisfying or coherent way.

I dunno. Netflix's turn toward supporting transphobic bigoted performers kinda set the mood for me on all of that.

Plus, I hate subscription fees.

That person also mused upon the phenomenon of queer/lesbian women unwittingly dating trans women before either realized they were queer, lesbian, and tranfem.

The person mused upon the possibility that Ethan Coen might be an egg.

THAT got my attention, LOL.

I thought about the Wachowski sisters starting their careers with the movie "Bound" (1996). Sooooo, maybe? Anything's possible.

I'm not really expecting Ethan's theoretical egg to crack but at this point, nothing would really surprise me.

I was perusing Crapsky for the opinions of people on the movie I had just watched and stumbled upon someone mentioning that Ethan Coen's wife had identified as lesbian before marrying him, and their assumption was that his wife helped in crafting a movie that avoided having offensive portrayals of lesbians.

That's a curious thing. I had not known that either.

I think I'm going to give "Drive-Away Dolls" (2024) a watch next. The same actress, Margaret Qualley, plays one of the lead roles just as she did in "Honey Don't" (2025) and I thought she did a great job in that movie.

https://www.autostraddle.com/drive-away-dolls-review/

But seriously, I do like men who are outwardly feminine or have a feminine "vibe." And by "like," I mean, "major instant heart-throbby crush."

I'm guessing that at least some of those men from across the years probably turned out to be women.

Which I think is kinda cool.

"...the men I find myself most deeply attracted to would probably have a high likelihood of coming out as tranfem at some point..."

To be clear then, those folks weren't actually men but only mistaken as such. My phrasing there does hold a certain level of misgendering and that's not really my intention.