-- Broward County, FL, Sheriff Scott Israel had better have made some really good investments. For one, the problems his department had in properly responding to February's school shooting continue to mount. So he is unlikely to win re-election if he runs in 2020. Plus, it's tough to see a law enforcement operation or consulting firm hiring him if he doesn't run; I can't imagine that his name on such a company's organization chart would be a big draw for business.
-- USA Today ran a map showing where authorities had intercepted shipments of marijuana coming from Colorado. It highlighted the different states which had caught the smugglers, indicating them with a light blue color. Colorado was indicated by a dark blue color. Except it wasn't actually Colorado, it was Wyoming. In the graphic designer's defense, both states are square.
-- Man, who could have foreseen that Roseanne Barr would say something racially charged and completely offensive in a public forum?
-- Comedian Samantha Bee used one of the language's ugliest words to describe Ivanka Trump in a segment suggesting that her photo with her son was in poor taste given the way her father's immigration policy has been separating families who have come to this country illegally. She's apologized for that. As for the suggestion that Ivanka dress in something "tight and low cut" to talk to the president about that policy? The crickets rage.
-- An article at the pop culture site Pajiba suggests that the word Bee used should be reclaimed by women as a means of self-empowerment, the way many African-Americans have reclaimed the so-called "n-word" which had been used to degrade and insult them. Since men have often directed that word at women with a similar intent, women should feel free to use it themselves to demonstrate that their would-be belittlers do not have the power to do so. Thus, the writer says, Bee should be supported for...using the word as a way to insult and belittle Ivanka Trump. There must be a paragraph my computer doesn't show. Either way, the article won't be linked here; feel free to look it up yourself if you have a high tolerance for writers who think profanity is shocking or more authentic than other words.
I have sympathy for the map designer, as my family and I were just working on a blank map for fun to see if we remembered all the states and where they go, and when I got to the blank for Wyoming, I thought someone made a mistake on the map because there wasn't another state there.
ReplyDeleteBut I'm not paid to be right about things, so.
Also, please nobody tell McGehee.
As a frequent errer, I am always sympathetic to members of the tribe ;-)
ReplyDeleteBut as you say, there is erring and there is you-got-paid-to-get-it-right erring...
"Women should reclaim that word as a term of self-empowerment"
ReplyDeleteCan we not? Can we please not? Or, if "women" decide to use it, I shall declare myself a "lady" and refuse.
Maybe I'm insufficiently woke, but I'm tired of truly ugly words being "reclaimed" and used. I get the whole "it's thus defanged" argument, but it still means we all have to hear coarse words a lot of us were taught growing up NEVER to use.
Something else that would defang it: Letting it fall into complete disuse and oblivion. But then we couldn't be edgy...
ReplyDelete