Showing posts with label transphobia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label transphobia. Show all posts

Thursday, December 12, 2024

Nancy Mace in a Brace

 


Rep. Mancy Mace of South Carolina apparently experienced the "Handshake from Hell" at the hands of a foster care advocate who was (checks notes) concerned about trans children. The man was arrested, and our fearless Potty Protector is now seen wearing a brace. Some people who were present at the alleged arm-spraining fracas claim they observed nothing unusual about the vigorous handshake. Other observers suggest Mace might avoid injuries by eating something containing calcium (like food). 

(Me. I am a concerned bystander who thinks ravioli and chicken cutlets might make at least some of her problems less so.)

Am I claiming bullshit on her claims of assault? No, I was not there and there is no video that I know of, so I am only saying, based on eyewitness testimony, it might not have happened. And she may very well have received death threats, last month, too. And of course her house was once grafitti'd by antifa:


Saturday, November 23, 2024

Nancy Mace is not Okay

 

This picture is a screencap from Rep. Mace's own Twitter-feed (I'm still not calling it "X") and this is s few days in to her manic posting about bathrooms and there being a transwoman in Congress now, and this is not okay. I think (I hope) she Photoshopped this, because this is the cap I took from her own feed. What the hell is going on with these angles? 

This is pro-ana ideation, and I am worried about this woman. I get that attention whores and bullies try to do DARVO and present themselves as victims, and Rep. Mace's grown woman response to whether she is bullying soon to be Rep. McBride is very much to claim she is the victim here because she was a former victim of rape and assault. But she also is telling us she lost 30 pounds because of a traumatic event that triggered her PTSD, and I am not going to front that I know what's up with all that. 


She has claimed that she was threatened as a rape victim by even being asked why as a rape victim she supported Trump and other rapist candidates and political figures. And received threats, because I guess that is a thing. 

Tuesday, November 19, 2024

Nancy Mace and Her Personal Space

 


Nancy Mace would like to not share a bathroom with Sarah McBride, who is the first transgender member of Congress. I truly don't know how much time pick-me pygmy Mace spends in the bathroom at work, but because there are stalls in public bathrooms, McBride would never see Mace's ladybusiness in a shared bathroom and Mace would never satisfy her probable curiosity about trans bodies. 

I would prefer not to share public bathrooms with those weird people who, in a bathroom with several empty stalls, have to sit in the stall RIGHT NEXT to mine. I don't want to share a bathroom with those bitches who can't sit their ass down and pee on the seat. I hate those heifers who assume automatic flush is going to zhush all their mess away--and it does not when you are that messy! Hit the button, nasty!

Friday, October 25, 2024

If Fascism is Baked in, Why Choose Fascism?

 


So, I wanted to get this off my chest--fascism being "baked in" is the reason you REJECT a candidate, not the reason you support him. 

I might charitably presume Chris Sununu thinks this is Trump saying "extreme things" that he does not mean, and that he can differentiate the extreme things Trump says from what he intends to do, and from what those who surround him want to do. If this is how he is looking at it, he is deeply stupid, because people who support extreme words do so because they like them and want them to be so. Trump says them because he gets away with saying them and presumes that he can do what he likes later on, because he has persuaded enough people that the previously unthinkable is permissible. 

Sununu tells himself this is the direction that he believes people are going. So--he is following a multitude to do evil?  He is being a go-along-to-get along, imagining someone else will fix the problem of fascism? Or is he willing to get his hands dirty, too?

Wednesday, October 23, 2024

TWGB: This Polished Coprolite

 


So, Monday I found myself thinking about Trump wanting and accepting Purple Hearts even though his probably fake bone spurs prevented him from actually serving our country when young when Trump stood in front of a backdrop of ruin and disaster and human tragedy--and accepted a french fry pin for doing a dopey photo op in a swing state from someone who for some reason decided that the way to handle Trump is to go the "Dear Leader" juche approach. Trump, while there, having disrupted relief efforts, defended his lies about FEMA that already resulted in the arrest of a man who threatened violence. 

It's really, really hard to imagine a shittier human being--but just watch! He gets shittier!

He since went on to say, in all sincerity to a person asking about what he would do regarding education that he would end the gender re-assignment surgeries that absolutely are not happening in schools. You can't get Tylenol in a public school without a permission slip. Teachers are buying crayons and construction paper out of pocket. And this deeply disturbed person thinks hours-long surgeries are being given out for free to minors? With no parental consent? And he said it all to demonize schools, teachers, trans kids. To spread hate as fertilizer for his own benefit.

It's beneath contempt to think that anyone takes this seriously. It's "children who identify as cats use litter boxes at school" level stupid. Anyone with a modicum of critical thought would understand why you don't say something that weird and wrong out loud where thinking people could hear--

Sunday, October 20, 2024

A Whiff of Musk

 

For some reason, Elon Musk has decided to ally himself with a white nationalist supposed billionaire US candidate for president, which just seems so out of place for a billionaire silver spoon immigrant from South Africa who thinks he wants to be DD Hariman and probably just wants a Space Force uniform. Is it the fascism? Is it the gimmicky anti-trans scapegoating that tries to amplify a """"problem"""" where no real problem exists? 

Is it the desire to keep really lucrative government contracts that might be in doubt because of various levels of fuckery? 

Shit I dunno. But instead of thinking about that really hard and popping a blood vessel about what he's done to Twitter, which is where I live, and which I will never call "X: because that is stupid, and undoes a really great cohesive social media theme, with the birdhouses and "Tweets" and other things that all kind of were bird-related, he just made everything dumb and generic and let Nazis post everywhere--I'm thinking about how Musk might be inviting himself to go to prison.

Because he's trying to buy votes and also has manufactured a fake Harris website and has also, too, has some kind of dumb lottery going and his GOTV thing is also not even effective and is really stupid.

No. Really. 

Thursday, September 19, 2024

You Know They Knew About Mark Robinson

 

This man's public comments were already a damn disaster: let's take us to before women were voting? Some people need killing?  His household has been sued by Girl Scouts and massively screwed up daycare . He said heinous things about civil rights. And we knew he was on the downlow and sleazy but we didn't know how downlow and sleazy. 

And now we have a very good idea what this man was about, and it was calling himself a "Black Nazi" and being down with golden showers and porn regarding the trans people he would oppress or even persecute right now. I don't know much, but I know one thing, Mark Robinson isn't too diverse to the NC GOP. They are, as a popular song once had it, standing by their man. 

Sunday, September 8, 2024

Little Jimmy and the Operation: A Trump Fable

 

The school nurse can't even give out aspirin*, and now kids are supposed to be getting "a brutal operation" in school? What "brutal operation"? Are they handing out appendectomies? Emergency tracheotomies? Is there a full surgical theater in your son's or daughter's school you need to worry about? (Are they more likely to be slapping on tourniquets in the case of an actual bloody emergency--all too probable.)

Long story short--Little Jimmy is not going to get his Liitler Jimmy whacked off while at school. Teachers are paying for glue sticks and dry erase markers out of pocket and supposedly school districts are doing bottom surgery on your precious wee manlet? You would think Trump of all people would be skeptical about the promise of free vaginas being handed out. And it's not escaping me that he is afraid for little Jimmy, not little Agatha getting a double mastectomy. 

This is not happening. This is on the "furry kids using a litter box at school" level of not happening. It's simply nucking futz. It's on the same level of not-happening as the supposed latest term-post-birth abortion. He's now said it more than once, and maybe that means it's going to be a part of stump speeches, now. And it speaks to other fears parents might have: their boys aren't transgender--but just a bit queer. Maybe they are autistic, artistic, kind, sensitive, don't do sports, respect women, aren't about to grow up and ride a Lingam-1500 male-insecurity wagon with truck nuts and a Trump flag to their he-man signifying maleness job. Maybe they just have to also compete with girls who are smart as fuck and might be better at them in things. 

Monday, August 5, 2024

Does the GOP Know What a Woman Is?

 


As of Saturday, JD Vance and Donald Trump were both still misgendering Imane Khelif, an Algerian boxer who was born female and was raised female. There is no good reason to believe that she either does have elevated testosterone or is chromosomally XY. She seems to just be a hard-working girl with a heck of a punch who is living her dream and representing her country in a sport she loves. 

This is why I insist transphobia is in part, misogyny. And delusional. Imagine the contortions your mind must go through to suspect the "woke" government of Algeria sending a trans boxer to the Olympics. Imagine being so careless about facts that you would say this not caring what kind of blowback falls on that young lady, who is just trying to do her best? 

She is tough, strong, muscular. Calling her "male" is saying women cannot be these things. Suddenly, people who insist on anatomy being destiny started to ask whether, like Caster Semaya, this woman might be intersex. Transphobes understand gender exists on a spectrum after all, when it suits them, but only when it comes to trying to exclude someone. They seized on this woman for no good reason other than they needed someone to "other" at the moment. 

Monday, July 29, 2024

The Weird Problem

 

Some conservatives are pushing back on claims that JD Vance and Donald Trump and maybe a lot of other Republicans are "weird"--but I'm sorry, it is what it is. I get that Republicans have put a lot of stock in saying they represent "Real America (TM)" and the cosmopolitan Big City Lefty Liberal Arugula-Eaters with Their Fancy Brown Mustard and Priuses and pronouns are oddball hippie Comsymps or whatever, But right off the bat, deciding lettuce, Grey Poupon and parts of speech are weird--is weird.

Being really mad at the Olympics because you were told Christianity was being insulted when the opening show had nothing to do with Christianity and demanding others agree with you--is weird.

Smashing coffee makers or shooting cases of Bud Lite because a talk show host told you to be mad is weird. 

Pretending to be a party of small government but wanting to track women's menses, stop them from travelling, or wanting to take inventory of people's pee parts before they can use a public restroom, is weird.

Wanting women to carry dead fetuses is weird, and ghoulish. 

Sunday, March 31, 2024

TWGB: We Need the Wood!

 


There's hardly anything wilder to me than Trump fluffing up his crucifixion narrative while being literally the most un-Christlike person you could think of. Turn the other cheek? Love thy enemy?  Forgive others as you would also be forgiven? Oh, that stuff is crazy. He sure does try it though. He's being persecuted for taking what he hast (overleveraged) and using it to get more rich (or at least, pretending he is).  He's being crucified (being prosecuted, not persecuted) for his hush money arrangement--a business fraud, based on an election fraud, based on an illicit sex fling--selling himself as a better man than he actually is. 

So how does this modern-day martyr show his Christ Consciousness? You know, the way Christ did, by letting his disciples know what Pilates' family members look like, so they could...use their imaginations. Who wants to tell me where in the Bible Jesus would have done anything of the sort? 

Trump is no Jesus and Judge Merchan is no Pontius Pilate--what the hell? This is where my blog title comes from--get on down off that cross honey, we need the wood! 

Sunday, March 3, 2024

Did You Raise Your Kids Not to Kill?

 

I wanted to talk about the deaths of two children, but for a while I wasn't sure how. 

Brianna Ghey was murdered by teenagers because she was a trans girl. Nex Benedict died after an assault after a year (at least) of bullying because he was trans masc/binary. There are people who would claim that these children somehow died because of something called "gender ideology".  If some "force" didn't make them think they were trans--wouldn't they have just not stuck out and then been killed for that? 

The so-called "gender ideology" people are pissed off about is the idea that you are okay to be yourself. The gender ideology that they say is so fucking stringent and dogmatic is--let people live being what they feel they are, and don't fuck with them for it. They can express femininity or masculinity or not really identify with either. They can dress how they will and express their feelings about who they are and what they like without oppression.  How they dress, and whether they are gay or straight or ace or what they want from their one, great beautiful precious life is up to them.  

That life is theirs, and they should be able to live it to the fullest. 

And all society has to do in return is not punish them for existing as themselves. Call them by their names.  Let them live. Let them tend to their bodies as their own vehicles for living in. Just don't oppress. The same rights you would extend to anyone else and not one different thing. 

Sunday, December 3, 2023

The Freedom Mommies are Being Weird Again

 

So, one of the co-founders of Moms for Liberty, Bridget Ziegler and her husband, who happens to be the chair of the Florida GOP, were in a relationship with a third party, a woman who claims she had been sexually assaulted by the husband, Christian Ziegler. If there was a book about this, no one in Florida would be allowed to read it. 

I don't find it hard to believe a GOP official is capable of sexual assault: my word! I'm not the one who will pretend for a minute Republicans are actually moral exemplars--actually, they are kind of fucked up. Just a little bit ago, it was revealed that a spokesperson for the Freedom Mommies in Philadelphia (my home!)  was a registered offender

Look, the sexual morality thing is just a grift. Take poolside threesome aficionado Jerry Falwell Jr. as an example. "We're saving kids from being sexually tempted and confused--like we are! So ban books!' 

It's just anti-intellectualism with a spicy homophobic and sex-negative twist, It's not new, and it's dumb. But just so I can sort it out in my mind--is it not queer for the same-sex business to be happening so long 2/3rds of the people are openly Christian and straight-married? Is it less than two mommies queer? Is it more than two daddy penguins raising a baby penguin queer? 

Or is it Anne Frank wants to compare breasts with another adolescent female queer? Because teenagers are curious, but banning Anne Frank's diary has farther reaching concerns. Anti-Semitic ones. Because despite their vehement protestations, The Freedom Mommies are associated with Proud Boys. Though they want to sink that connection. But they stay "Klanned Karenhood" in my mind and so many others.

Monday, October 30, 2023

PSA: You Are Not a Cat

 

There is a phenomenon that has been well-documented on the internet, the place where people document things happening to cats: when you place a cucumber behind an unsuspecting cat, it will lose its ever-loving little furry shit. Multiple gifs and YouTube videos of this phenomenon exist. Cat + cucumber= YIPES!

For most people (not Mike Johnson or Ken Hamm or assorted creationists) this can be explained by evolution. Cats only have so much bandwidth in their little brains and some snakes are DANGEROUS. They aren't hardwired to leisurely inspect long green things to figure out whether they are snakes or inoffensive vegetables. They are hardwired to get away from the weird thing sort of shaped like a snake that seems to have just slithered up to them. 

That's cats. They don't do a whole lot of thinking. If you've ever pulled one out of blinds, or a Christmas tree, or unhooked their claws from your pants leg, you are aware that despite their occasional grace and agility, they can be weird little clowny guys. They literally bite the hand that feeds them. They try to fit their whole behinds in a Kleenex box. They evolved to be a better mousetrap, not to build one. 

There is a phenomenon that has been documented on the internet, and all of recorded history, of human beings making a categorical error of confusing identities with morality. Individual humans make decisions and take actions that may be morally sound or not. Whole groups of people do not become suspect because of the individual behaviors of other people based on their identities: not their ethnicity, their nationality, their religion, their gender-identification, their sexuality, their political affiliation (for the most part) or what hand they use to eat with. (Is that last thing still a thing?) 

Monday, July 24, 2023

Makes You Wonder (UPDATED)

 

Although the video with the above fascist symbolism with Ron DeSantis superimposed was posted by, and then deleted by, a fan account, the troubling specter of That Gay Ad having been produced by a staffer with DeSantis' campaign does make me wonder. 

See, we've seen this before. Fascist imagery just showing up at random starts to show a pattern that doesn't really feel all that random at all, but more like a test-balloon. The atmosphere in Florida is a bit cozy for the Nazi-lovers, and the GOP in Florida seems kind of okay with their existence (and assistance). 

It's how I feel about the history curriculum in Florida whitewashing slavery. If it can be called ignorance, it's ignorance of a very deliberate kind (a kind Ron DeSantis himself is very much in step with.) Radicalization is a choice. (I don't even know where to begin with the idea of the Chiclet-heads of Prager U having anything to do with school curriculums.)

It's not just DeSantis, it's the party. It's just not usually as ham-fisted as the above, and of course, it was posted by a fan. (My gut says "Plausible deniability" after the Pride month ad.)  But whatever it is DeSantis seems to be doing, it looks like telegraphing to the white supremacists and Christian nationalists to get onboard with him. And that test-balloons like these are flying is a four-alarm fire.

UPDATE: And it was apparently right to wonder- the person (now fired) who made the video was...an aide with the campaign.

UPDATE: This piece by Tim Miller describes just who this Nate Hochman is--a Generation Z edge-lord who considered Nick Fuentes "based" and was going to be putting the words literally in DeSantis' very large (I think his jaw unhinges like a boa constrictor!) mouth.  But here's the part that sort of reveals what the game is:

He went on to discuss the merits and demerits of one of America’s most vile humans, saying the fact that he has said “super edgy things means that there’s a pretty strong ceiling to what you can actually accomplish in politics.”

“Edgy” is definitely one way to describe Holocaust denial!

When the Dispatch asked him about his Fuentes remarks, Hochman acknowledged that he said some “really stupid things, which I don’t actually believe”—but did not apologize.

"Edgy" is like "ironic" or "just kidding" or "sorry, not sorry". Walk-backs and obfuscation are tactics.  In the meanwhile, while we're just shitposting on the good old socials and all, just making our memes, some of the message gets through, and some more people are just a little radicalized. It's incremental and excremental. 

It's why I'm not putting all my hope on the youth--some of them are already on a pretty shitty path and after all, there were Boomers who were radical liberals and "didn't trust anyone over thirty" and my generation X had its share of folks who were about to "sell out" and some but not all millennials count as "woke". Grown people are supposed to demonstrate leadership and set examples. Just like we've got a lot of Gen Z young folks who are fed up with the system that put them through shooter drills and told them to expect less bodily autonomy than previous generations, we've also got some racist incels who legit think Elliot Rogers had a point. And that current is what deeply concerns me, because the pose of irony and the dismissal of actual empathy as "virtue-signaling" and "shitlibs" and being "snowflakes" is all a way of keeping the baby Nazis from wandering off and trying to be human.

But to bring it back to Meatball Ron--back when he was a teacher, in addition to getting history wrong, he was fraternizing with the kids and trying to be cool.  That's him also in this campaign--extremely online and led by callow youth instead of being capable of "leadership" until forced to fire an alt-right dickhead in the midst of also firing 1/3 of his campaign staff. (Which is still not leadership.)

What I'm saying is--I really don't wonder. The GOP invited the alt-right in and that's what they are going to be. 


Monday, July 3, 2023

DeSantis' Campaign is Not Queer Friendly (UPDATED)

 


They are trying to tell the heteros something, but I feel like the message is for queers everywhere--Ron is not our friend. His ad plays club music and he wants to project so much butchness, but his actual history in Florida is killing our stories by not letting queer people be out loud, and he wants to eliminate trans people everywhere. Imagine just being the kind of douchebag who wants to determine that people who go to the potty whenever one is in public is an occasion to have everybody play pin the gender on the donkey? 

Pete Buttigeig is the exact respondent this bullshit requires: he points out that De Santis is running some people down, but who is he ever uplifting? Who does he want to serve? Who does DeSantis think he is doing all this for? It is obviously for very few people. Or wait:

No one but Desantis. And I don't even think Trump wants to compete with DeSantis in this homophobia. Because Desantis seems to want to be eliminationist, but pretend someone will still vote for him. For non-eliminationist reasons. Like what he's done for Florida, like their insurance and disaster protection and how they are still at or near the bottom for student performance or...

Saturday, July 1, 2023

SCOTUS and the Ghosts

 


I wonder about SCOTUS mostly because I'm a non-lawyer, but I do watch the odd law-related television and follow a bunch of lawyers on Twitter, and it really feels to me like one doesn't have standing over imaginary shit?  Like, it's bad enough that student loan forgiveness seems to have been struck down because of political beef because not even the banks were mad about it, and I'm still not sure who affirmative action hurts. (Because AA only gets someone in the door, but they have to do the coursework. Save your money. Do excellent at your B or C school and transfer in if the big ol' name brand of the school means that much to you. Or whatever. I went to the school that was only one bus route away, myself. And I am definitely a white privilege kid. I'm an English major. I lack vision and purpose. Or so I've been told.)

Anyway--this woman's case was picked up by the ADF--that is, the Alliance Defending Freedom, because of course it was. I don't know whose freedom the Alliance is about--it just looks like Christian supremacy to me.  (And homophobia, transphobia, and the denial of reproductive health freedom. They descend from Dobson and Wildmon--that's all I need to know, fam.) Deep down, I don't love the idea of people discriminating against real people because of what they want to believe their imaginary friends have to say. (I have seen gay folks. I have never seen your god. Sorry if this offends.)

But anyway, this woman was just thinking about going into web design when the horrible thought hit her--what if she was FORCED to support a gay wedding? By making a website about a "happy" same sex couple! The idea! The scary idea! Of having compelled speech in her mouth! 

Friday, June 16, 2023

Faith With Only Signifying Indignant BS Works is Dead

 


The LA Dodgers decided to recognize the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence for Pride, and then they didn't, and then they belatedly did. The decision to support the Sisters is the right one, even if it's getting stupid flack, and here's why, from me, the erstwhile Catholic-adjacent agnostic.

The ministry of the Sisters has gone among the people and held them up and comforted them and tried to teach them to be considerate and do no harm to one another, It has used satire of organized religion, but that's because those memes are accessible and subject to very real conversations about the actual harms that bigotry in religion causes, and that the failure to be real and upfront about sexuality in education perpetuates. 

Marco Rubio can pretend that the Sisters are anti-Catholic because of their criticism of a faith that hasn't delivered for the downtrodden--he can pretend LGBT sexuality is a choice and a sin for whatever deflection from his lived reality floats his boat, but in the real world, you either serve one another or you will be marked by the master you actually serve. And Marco serves himself. For all I can tell. And the people who wanted to protest the Pride celebration the LA team held are so dumb

Wednesday, June 7, 2023

Pride is a Riot

 

There have been some pieces of good news to report this month, like the court's rejection of the Tennessee drag ban, and the utter rebuke of the Florida denial of trans treatment. But this year has faced extraordinary challenges to the trans community, and often using the same tired tropes as have always been used against the gay community--recruitment because "they"* can't reproduce, focused on the youth, etc. The bigots still insist on their supposed right to bigotry to deny the actual rights of marginalized people to be and feel free in public. 

That's why Pride as a riot and a protest is still ongoing. Because contention over whether gay rights and human dignity can be publicly admitted results in scenes like this:



It doesn't hurt anyone for kids to know LGBTQ people exist, that they have rights, that they are not, despite radical right-wing ideology, weirdo sex fiends but are just people. And it serves the dual purpose of ensuring that marginalized and targeted gay and trans children are understood and not victimized in their schools. We've been telling these kids since a dozen years ago "it gets better" and the trolling haters kept hating. The fight doesn't end. (And the LGB without the T jackasses in the sainted names of Marsha Johnson, Sylvia Rivera and Brandon Teena can fuck off the planet. Or better yet, learn history.) 

Be allies not shall-I's.  Bonds, bunks, mutual aid and speaking up accepted everywhere anti-LGBTQ lies are being pushed,

* Right handed people give birth to left handed babies. I never understand the "LGBT people don't reproduce" thing. Of course, the bits work. The glowing and enormous pictures of transmen enjoying their pregnancies exist. IVF exists. How can this dumb trope still exist? And don't get me started on the "rounded up and put on a deserted island" thing. Um, everyone would be too busy looking for a way off Stunad Island to worry about making a new generation of coconut eaters, thanks...

Sunday, June 4, 2023

Nikki Haley Has No Clue

 

Is it the trans girls in the very rare locker room that are causing the suicidality of cis girls in general? How can this be? Trans people are less than one percent of the population. What the fuck?  You know what made me feel shitty and not want to be alive and want to cut school all the time as a teen--being weird and bullied by other cis girls. I didn't know a single trans kid. 

Nikki Haley is not a serious person. Oh she's ambitious, but she isn't serious. Or she would be capable of taking serious positions. She had a serious position on Trump the racist. And then she threw it away

The fucking last nerve of this inept dumbass to pretend she didn't mean "align with Russia" against Iran, when, if you are dumb enough not to know how Russia, Syira, Iran work, having been exposed to foreign policy (except in a very dumb way) in the Trump Administration because she is too mushy to punch up, but is exactly down to clown in this attack on trans kids--whose suicidality clearly and truly eclipses their peers, isn't a political failing. It's a human one. These are the people whose human rights she feels fine optioning away for her outsider 1-3% shot, not at the general election, but the fucking GOP primary. 

Let me clue Haley in--teen girl suicidality has a lot to do with our bodies. We're not curvy. We're too curvy. We've got bad skin. Boys don't want us. Boys do want us, but it's a whole lot to deal with. Other girls are mean. Being in school is not a choice and there are no selective vacation days. You've got cutting or actually being sick to not do this mandatory-ass shit. All our clothes are, however carefully selected, not in style and are very dumb, because we are not making having really cool clothes money at the babysitting/fast food/grocery bagging thing. We have periods and gym class and would really rather not. Also someone might be abusing us sexually, an adult, and we can't even say shit about it. 

TWGB: It's Raining Shoes!

  It certainly has been a minute, hasn't it? So, what brings me out of self-imposed blogging exile, if not something very relevant to my...