Slouching Towards Oblivion

Showing posts with label optics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label optics. Show all posts

Saturday, June 12, 2021

Weird Optics


So - I guess the G7, which used to be the G8, is now the G9 - but they forgot to tell the marketing people, and there just wasn't enough time to update the graphics?

I get so confused.

Friday, July 26, 2019

Part Of The Bernie Problem

Mimi Rocah's taking some heat about her comments on MSNBC, saying "Bernie makes my skin crawl."



That seems a bit harsh, but there's something that's always bugged me about Bernie too. 

I voted for him in the Virginia primary in 2016, but the bloom is off that rose now. It's not that he's become something bad, it's just that I think he's served his purpose - he's made it OK for Dems to show themselves taking the "lefty" positions they need to take.

That's what I've always thought Bernie's job was. It's what I think Hillary and Debbie and Donna figured would be part of a good way to move "left", but maintain the option to do the usual "hippie-punching" whenever they needed to calm the more conservative elements of the Dem Party - the Claire McCaskills and Joe Manchins.

Anyway, I think it mostly worked, even though the Bernie Bros wouldn't let it go when it was time to get back together and make things happen in the general election.

BTW - we know now that a lot of those Bernie Bros may well have been largely spurred on by Bernie Bots, assuming most of them weren't actually Bernie Bots and Trolls and Ghost Accounts.  We don't know nearly enough about that shit yet.

But back to Mimi and the "something ain't quite right with that Bernie guy" meme.

Behold, a GIF:



Bernie gets all gesture-y and Abby Huntsman tries to get him out of her space. Bernie's reaction to her objection has the earmarks of a guy who's being dismissive of her, as he seems to be playing the victim, and then trying to recover by blowing it all off with a smile - almost like he's trying to be self-deprecating, but failing at it.

It ends up as: Bernie, rebutting some nonsense from Stephen Moore, and basically telling Huntsman she doesn't matter.

It's a very bad look in retrospect. I didn't see it that way at the time. Rocah's tweet prompted me to go back and re-watch some stuff, and apply some context.

We're in a different place now. Our "manly" behavior is far more closely scrutinized, and we're just gonna hafta get used to the fact that women aren't putting up with that shit now, and many more of them are willing to get in your face because of it.

On the whole - I'll call it progress and try to figure out how to go with it.

Sunday, August 26, 2018

Yes, He Did

45* needs all the humanizing he can get - but he just can't stop stepping on his own dick.

Slate:

President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump visited children at a hospital in Columbus, Ohio as part of an effort to call attention to the way the opioid crisis affects infants. Plus, it’s always a good idea to have a photo-op with kids at the end of a no good, very bad week. For politicians it’s “a time-honored tradition,” writes Esquire, “sitting in tiny desks alongside adorable kids in hope that the guileless innocence on the little faces surrounding them will take some of the heat off of their craven politicking.”

Yet things didn’t go so well for Trump this time. The president and his wife joined the children in an arts-and-crafts activity that involved coloring in the American flag. But it seems Trump didn’t quite color his flag right. A photo posted on Twitter seems to show that the president colored in a blue stripe on the U.S. flag.



I think it's possible one of the kids tried to tell him he did it wrong(?)

Tuesday, April 18, 2017

Oops

"Well, you know - he's gettin' on in years..." Wink wink. Nudge nudge. Say no more.

NO.

This is what's normal now. Just going thru the motions by rote, with no regard for the substance underpinning the symbolism.


But it won't matter. The Right Radicals will rationalize it as another well placed jab at the Libtards. Anything that makes The Left crazy or mad enough to cry is a good thing. Anything.

For a large contingent of GOP Wingnuts - mostly driving that party now - there is no longer any clear delineation between their leader and the country he's leading. And that's a very bad sign.

This shit just gets worse.

Friday, November 02, 2012

Leadership

Yeah, OK - Obama has an unfair advantage because he's the Prez and Willard's a silver-spoon legacy puke who apparently doesn't recognize canned food when he sees it, or can't imagine people actually eating that stuff - "why don't they just take a little vacation for a week or so while the service people clean up?"

Leadership
Jag off douchery

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Differentiatin'

I've been watching politics for a while now, and one of things that's been hard to miss in the last 25 years or so is that Repubs and Dems are a lot more sharply divided.  (Brilliant observation, Mikey - please tell us more)  Right.  No news there, but the way it's evolved into the current depiction of GOP=Man, and Dem=Woman is pretty interesting.

It was there back in the 90s when the narrative was "Dad's the hard-working Republican who puts food on the table and protects the family, while Mommy is the Democrat who spends all the money."  We've heard that repeated in one iteration or another for what's getting to be a long time.  Hell, Ahnode Schvartzenbooger said it straight out when he called the California Legislature a bunch of girlie men.  It could be that the Dems now have a chance at turning it back on the Repubs.

So here's what we should all push the Repubs to ask of their candidates:  I'd like to see Gingrich shoot a few baskets, and I wanna see Romney throw a football.  Seriously, take a look at how these guys carry themselves some time and then try to convince yourself you're not thinkin' about the kid in grade school who always got picked last when you were choosing up sides for kickball - even if you do feel a little guilty when you're thinking it.

The point is that the rubes are so macho-centric, I'm thinkin' it won't take more than 30 or 40 seconds of Newt and Mitt playin' a little catch on YouTube to make sure nobody ever hears from either one of those buttheads ever again.