• 0 Posts
  • 13 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: July 8th, 2023

help-circle

  • I’m bothered when ever I hear someone use females as a collective noun for women. Not necessarily because it offends me or because I’m offended on behalf of someone else, but because it sounds so strange to me and the context where it is used is often wildly inappropriate.

    The usage is odd; in my experience people who refer to women collectively as females often do not refer to men collectively as males which is often telling about other beliefs and ideas. Also, male/female and man/woman are dichotomies, and using men/females sounds really off.

    Referring to people using technical terminology feels reductive and weird to me. Replace female with any other technical identity term and use it the same way: it will get really awkward really fast.

    I am aware that the majority of people who use females collectively are not doing so to offend. Hell, the other day, I heard a teacher refer to the girls in her class as females. I doubt she was using it as a pejorative, but she referred to the boys as… boys. The whole thing was weird to me.







  • The larger context of why anyone is talking about what is sung at the Super Bowl should have been enough of a set up, but apparently not.

    This entire stunt is predicated on the right’s frustration that they couldn’t do anything about black athletes and allies being disrespectful during the National Anthem (a legally defined song with etiquette spelled out in the US legal code), which is protected speech.

    Now, in my opinion, they have a Super Bowl to posture about eight months before a presidential election. They want sound bites and over-the-top reactions so that they can paint themselves the victims of a hypocritical, leftist, anti-freedom conspiratorial media machine. This part of that “projection” plank in the modern GOP.

    My original post was simply outlining that no matter how you slice it, there is nothing to be mad about them “protesting” the Black National Anthem. I added in a rhetorical refrain to drive home the point while beating a dead horse for effect.


  • This is such a non-thing that it hurts to even consider how stupid it is.

    But, let’s consider:

    1. The Super Bowl is a private corporate event; any song may be performed ceremoniously. That’s protected speech.

    2. Not standing up for the Black National Anthem is whatever. That’s protected speech.

    3. The Black National Anthem is a colloquial title and has no legal status. That’s protected speech.

    4. While there is a statute outlying etiquette for performances of the National Anthem, there are no penalties for not adhering. That’s protected speech.

    5. “America the Beautiful” was also performed and there’s no legal basis for etiquette or participation. This song also has a long history of being performed alongside the Star-Spangled Banner to the point that it’s sometimes referred to as the National Hymn, even though that is a colloquial and non-legal designation. That’s protected speech.

    6. This is apparently the fourth year that “Lift Every Voice and Sing” has been performed at the Super Bowl. That’s protected speech.


  • From the Wikipedia entry on the cyberpunk genre:

    a dystopian futuristic setting that tends to focus on a “combination of lowlife and high tech”, featuring futuristic technological and scientific achievements, such as artificial intelligence and cyberware, juxtaposed with societal collapse, dystopia or decay.

    Using that broad definition, this seems to “fit” into cyberpunk due to AI + societal collapse.

    I haven’t seen this, but I’m always on the lookout for cyberpunkish anime, so thanks for the accidental recommendation!


  • The all rights reserved line confuses me the most here. Where and to what are they asserting copyright?

    Are they claiming copyright on all that gibberish that they copied from a webpage somewhere or are they claiming that MDHS and the Census Bureau are violating copyright by printing their name and address on the letters?

    Without a treaty with Mississippi (which I don’t think a state can enter into an international treaty to begin with) or the US Government, this chucklefuck can’t really assert that they want their copyright protected and enforced by the US when they are claiming that the US violated that copyright (still don’t know what is supposed to be copyrighted).

    Another thing always frustrates me with this stuff is that anyone who has watched the news in the past 40 years should be well aware that the US and plenty of other countries don’t really give a shit about sovereignty unless there’s a treaty, a bunch of nuclear weapons, a big ass military, or a powerful economy protecting it.