Category Archives: burn the patriarchy

freedom to think for…themselves?

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Here, listen to this:

“When children are told what and how to believe whether in verbal, in writing or through visual symbols, they miss out on the freedom to think for themselves and use the skills they are learning in the classroom.”

That sounds pretty cool, doesn’t it. Obviously, we DO NOT want to tell our children what and how to believe. We DO NOT want to limit their freedom to think for themselves. Right?

Except the woman who said that, Melissa Dungan, a trustee of the Conroe, Texas Independent School Board, totally wants to tell children what and how to believe AND limit their freedom to think for themselves. In a recent meeting of the school board, Dungan brought up an ‘incident’ in which a child in the first grade was so traumatized by seeing a poster of people of different races holding hands they had to change classrooms. I am NOT MAKING THIS UP.

Who the hell is Melissa Dungan? This is how she introduced herself when running for the position of school board trustee:

“I am first and foremost a Christian. My faith guides every aspect of my life including my roles as wife and mother – and will also influence my decisions as a school board trustee.”

As we all know, Jesus didn’t want little kids of different races holding hands with each other. Dungan’s Christian values also means she wants to ‘keep personal ideologies out of classrooms‘ and limit flags in schools to ‘the American flag, Texas flag, school flags and college pendants.’ Pride flag? Nope. Environmental justice flag? Nope. Because those flags inject a personal ideology, unlike the flags of the US and Texas, which, of course, are ideologically neutral. Not only can classrooms display those flags, they’re actually required to display them. Because those visual symbols surely don’t tell children ‘what and how to believe.‘

Does Melissa Dungan actually represent the community of Conroe, Texas? Well, consider that in 1922, when a 20-year-old Black man, Joe Winters, was accused of sexually molesting a 14-year-old white girl, the citizens of Conroe chained him to a post in the courthouse square and burned him alive. And in 1941, when African-American Bob White was accused of having a sexual relationship with a white woman, he was not allowed to have a lawyer and was tortured into giving a confession, and the all-white jury convicted him. He actually won an appeal based on the lack of legal counsel, but was convicted again. That conviction was overturned because the confession was a result of torture. During his third trial, White was killed by the alleged victim’s husband–shot in the back of the head IN THE COURTROOM in front of the judge, jury, courtroom personnel, and witnesses. The husband was arrested and tried the following week, and was acquitted.

So yes, maybe Melissa Dungan does, in fact, represent Conroe, Texas. The people of Conroe who elected her are apparently terrified by the notion that their children might be told that it’s okay for people of different races to be friendly with each other. That’s certainly an improvement over those earlier Conrovians who felt racial relations were best handled by non-judicial immolation.

Baby steps.

in a small town

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I wouldn’t know Jason Aldean from Adam’s off ox, but he’s stirred up a fuss with his song Try That in a Small Town. I say ‘his song’ as if Aldean wrote it. He didn’t. The song was actually written by four guys: Kelley Lovelace, Kurt Allison, Neil Thrasher, and Tully Kennedy. Aldean just recorded the song.

Anyway, I listened to it. I sort of assumed it would be a traditional country-western song. You know…simple form, folksy lyrics, standard country music instruments (like fiddles or banjos or a steel guitar). But it’s not. Musically, it’s rock. Fairly hard rock at that. But the lyrics are sung in a sort of semi-traditional nasal country voice. Like a lot of country music, though, it’s short. Three minutes. Which is plenty long enough.

It’s the lyrics, of course, that make this song controversial. The lyrics were clearly intended to be controversial. The lyrics were meant to make everybody angry–to get folks to argue about it. It’s not so much a song as it is a musical grift. Get folks pissed off, keep the song in the public eye, put some coin in pockets.

It’s basically a cartoonish MAGA anthem made up of racist right-wing nightmares, faux tough guy attitude, hollow patriotism, all backed up with threats of violence. It’s a classic MAGA conglomeration of self-pity, masculine insecurity, misogyny, and free-floating resentment and rage. It’s a song written by assholes, recorded by an asshole, meant to be consumed by assholes.

Seriously, it would be comical if it weren’t so stupidly hateful and transparently phony. Try This in a Small Town is the musical version of a dentist buying a Harley and wearing leathers. It’s a mall security guard who joins a ‘militia’ and wears camo with his ‘warrior’ buddies on weekends. It’s the appliance store assistant manager who believes he was passed over for promotion because he’s white and male.

Try that in a small town
See how far ya make it down the road
Around here, we take care of our own

That’s the ugly heart of the song, right there. We take care of our own. If you’re not one of our own, you don’t belong and you’d best get the fuck out of town.

And hey, people have done just that. Folks who don’t fit in their small hometowns have always packed up and left. That’s one of the main reasons small towns are failing. The kids who are bored have left. The creative people have left. The curious people have left. The people who ask too many questions, they’ve left to find answers. And most of them don’t come back.

I recommend you don’t
Try that in a small town
Full of good ol’ boys, raised up right
If you’re looking for a fight
Try that in a small town

The ONLY people looking for a fight in a small town are the ones who are so absolutely certain they’re right; the ones who get to define ‘our own’. If you’re in the minority, you’re looking to avoid a fight. You know you’re not welcome, you know you’re outnumbered, and you know there are folks in your community who hate you and are actually eager to kick the everloving shit out of you. So you leave the first fucking chance you get.

And hey, that’s what happens. The people who don’t fit in, they leave. The young leave. The creative people leave. The curious people leave. The people who get bored leave. The people who want more from life, they leave. The people who want to try new things, they have to leave. The people who write songs, they leave.

There are actually a LOT of good songs about small towns. Songs that aren’t specifically designed for rage-grifting. Songs in almost every musical genre. Songs that look realistically and honestly at life in small towns. Some of them are celebratory, some are nostalgic, most of them are sad.

And over a double Bourbon
He said “I’ll tell you man to man,
This town died forty years ago.
Son, get out while you can.”

You want to know about life in small towns? Don’t look to assholes like Jason Aldean.

gender bullshit

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There’s a long…and I mean seriously long, as in Please babby Jeebus, is this thing ever going to end long…opinion piece on the meaning of masculinity in this morning’s Washington Post. It’s entitled Men are lost. Here’s a map out of the wilderness, and frankly, that title alone would normally be enough for me to ignore it. Except it was written by Christine Emba, whose opinion I value. So what the hell, I read it.

And hey, she does a good job of examining the ways people are trying to define masculinity these days. The piece is well-researched, thoughtful, well-written, and determinedly even-handed (which is probably why it’s so fucking long). But as I continued to read it, I kept asking myself the same question: who the fuck cares?

There are some really really really broad categories of being that are ultimately undefinable. They resist definition because they’re so broad and vague and elastic. Who is a man? Who is Black? Who is an artist? Who is a parent? Who is a Red Sox fan? Who is a healer? Who is an athlete? Who is an influencer? Who is a cook?

I mean, it’s possible–even necessary–to organize a specific set of requirements necessary to meet professional standards to define some roles. There are prerequisite training and skills to become, say, a licensed hair stylist. But that’s an administrative thing; if you style your own hair, then hey bingo, as far as I’m concerned you’re a hair stylist.

But trying to define these broad generic categories is basically bullshit. Don’t nobody get to set any goddamn rules on who is (or is not) a man or a woman. And why the fuck would anybody want to? Why would anybody waste a single fucking moment fretting about it?

Toward the end of her opinion piece, Emba writes this:

For all their problems, the strict gender roles of the past did give boys a script for how to be a man. But if trying to smash the patriarchy has left a vacuum in our ideal of masculinity, it also gives us a chance at a fresh start: an opportunity to take what is useful from models of the past and repurpose it for boys and men today.

Well, she’s right that the past DID give boys a script for how to be men (and for girls to know how to be women), but isn’t that the source of the problem? A script is just the written text for a performance. We don’t need no script to be who we are. We are already who we are. People need to stop acting and just fucking relax.

(Engraving by Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc)

Emba also mentions that ‘trying to smash the patriarchy has left a vacuum in our ideal of masculinity.’ Well, yeah. That’s the whole fucking point, isn’t it. Scrap that shit. Scrap the ideal of femininity too. Scrap the concept of ideals, because they’re imaginary. There IS NO IDEAL man or woman. No ideal cook or artist or Red Sox fan or parent or Black person (and stop thinking of Idris Elba, okay, just stop it). There’s only somebody’s bullshit notion of what they think is ideal.

Here’s another part of the problem. If we smash the patriarchy and replace it with the matriarchy, would that be better? Well, yeah, probably. But that has its own set of problems, and eventually we’d need to smash that as well.

Emba ends her opinion piece with this:

The old script for masculinity might be on its way out. It’s time we replaced it with something better.

This is just my opinion: if you define yourself as a man, then you’re a man. If you refuse to define yourself along any gender line, ain’t nothing wrong with that. Because the problem isn’t gender, really. The problem is the script. Emba got that point right.

People are comfortable with a script. A script tells them what to do, how to behave, where to stand, what to say and when to say it. People like a script. So yeah, maybe Emba is right that we need to replace it. Not just the ‘masculinity’ script, but the gender script. Maybe all we really need is a script that says this: Don’t be an asshole.

That’s a good script because asshole is also one of those categories that resist definition because they’re so broad and vague and elastic. If the script is don’t be an asshole, the actor would have to consider their entire galaxy of self-defined asshole behaviors. And then NOT do those things. That would solve a whole lot of problems.

bluesky smilin’ at me

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I’ve been asked to give my initial impression of Bluesky, the social network. I was invited to join about a month ago (courtesy of Bryce Fields, an old Flickr friend), and I have to say, it’s not quite what I expected it to be. But it is pretty much what I hoped it would be.

I was reluctant to leave Twitter because it fed a lot of my niche interests. Yeah, it was messy and ugly and getting more hateful by the hour, but it also allowed me to get a regular info-fix of crows, politics, archaeology, William Gibson fashion views, lizards, peculiar chunks of history, the US Women’s National Team (soccer), mortuary symbolism, and lots of other stuff. Twitter was like a Big Box store unfortunately staffed by Nazis but well-stocked with a lot of weird shit I wanted to know. I didn’t think there could be a venue where I could find all of that in a hate-free environment.

Twitter, as awful as it was (and still is), was also incredibly useful for real-time news. If something newsworthy was happening somewhere in the world, it was happening on Twitter. I’m talking about anything newsworthy–whether it was a riot or a natural disaster or some guy who found a human toe in a can of soup. Sure, you had to be alert for massive amounts of misinformation and even deliberate hateful disinformation, but Twitter served a purpose.

So here’s the question: does Bluesky work well enough to replace Twitter? Yes, it does. Bluesky isn’t quite there in terms of newsworthiness…yet. But it shows real potential in regard to my niche interests. And best of all, it’s virtually Nazi-free. Hell, it’s actually (and I hesitate to say this for fear of jinxing it) very pleasant. It’s comfortable without being ‘safe’ if that makes sense.

It’s important to remember that Bluesky is still in Beta, which means that a number of things we take for granted on other social media are missing. Stuff like hashtags or the ability to construct long discussion threads or DMs. Maybe those things will come later, I don’t know. At this point, their absence only marginally detracts from the experience.

The Bluesky experience is relaxed and welcoming. Some of this may be because it’s still fairly small. But, at the risk of sounding sappy, the users make a genuine effort to get along with each other. I’ve seen very little drama or rancor. There’s almost no indication of the sort of asshole culture that thrives on Twitter. I’m not saying there aren’t any assholes on Bluesky; I’m saying that assholes are handled better on Bluesky. There’s a relaxed Don’t Feed the Asshole vibe. Instead of trading insults or entering into pointless arguments with transphobic Nazis, users on Bluesky tend to just mute or block them. You can’t own the libs if the libs just ignore your existence.

It’s also nice to see Big Hat users (you know what I mean…folks who are well-known or famous in certain circles, and have hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter, folks who wear a Big Hat) interacting with new users, especially when those users don’t know they’re Big Hats. On Twitter, you probably wouldn’t see Neil Gaiman helping a new user learn how to change his Bluesky handle to include his personal domain name. On Twitter you probably wouldn’t see somebody tell John Scalzi, “I followed you because you were kind and funny; I didn’t know you were famous.” That’s one of the things I’ve enjoyed the most about Bluesky–how accessible everybody is. It doesn’t mean people will pay attention to what you post (very little of what I post gets any attention), but it means you can easily find yourself asking questions about blue crayfish of somebody who turns out to be the Research Curator of Non-molluscan Invertebrates at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences.

My only real complaint with Bluesky is that I occasionally encounter users whose sincere preachiness I find mildly annoying…even when they’re right. There are folks who seem to seek out images posted without an Alt description in order to remind them (gently and with respect) that they really really should include Alt descriptions of images out of courtesy for visually impaired or autistic users. But even though I find it annoying, that’s probably the best way to change online culture. The sad fact is, some folks need to be reminded to be decent people. And (confession time!), I have to admit I never gave much thought to Alt descriptions before. Now I’ve set a filter on Bluesky that won’t allow me to post an image UNLESS I include an Alt description. That’s how Bluesky works; it encourages you to be decent.

I’ve been asked if Bluesky is supportive of LGBTQ+ communities. And the answer is no. It’s not merely supportive; it’s fucking celebratory. I’m not saying it’s an ongoing party, but there are corners of Bluesky culture that would make homophobes and transphobes really uncomfortable. Which, in my opinion, is another mark in its favor. It’s also nice that you can set filters that allow you to choose whether or not you want to see images of somebody wearing ass-less chaps and a sailor hat.

Also, there are lots of photos of dogs and cats (and sometimes the people associated with them). And for some reason, I see a lot of potato recipes. I’m okay with that.

Bluesky isn’t perfect. For example, there’s a noticeable absence of crow discussion. But the people here are tremendously enthusiastic, and that sort of makes up for the lack of crows. It’s that universal level of enthusiasm that makes Bluesky so attractive to me. Everybody here seems to be enthusiastic about something (like, say, star nosed moles). They’re also enthusiastic about creating a social network that is tolerant and accepting of almost everything except assholes.

As the site grows, it’ll change. It’s to be hoped that it will get even better, but that’s a gamble, isn’t it. For now, I’ve found it to be the most comfortable, welcoming, easy-to-use social network. It won’t suit everybody, of course, but I feel at home here.

EDITORIAL NOTE: Don’t forget, we need to burn the patriarchy. Burn it to the ground, gather the ashes, piss on them, douse them in oil, and set them on fire again. Burn the patriarchy, then drive a stake directly through the ashes where its heart used to be, and then set fire to the stake. Burn that fucker one more time. And keep burning it, over and over. Burn it for generations. Then nuke it from orbit. Then have tea.

asshole alert at the farmers’ market

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It’s really really really hard to pick the worst thing about Trumpism, but certainly one of the top five worst things is Entitled Aggressive Assholism.

Yesterday morning at the farmers’ market…wait. First, let me say that one of the many things I love about both my small local farmers’ market and the larger Des Moines Downtown Farmers’ Market is that they bring so many different communities together. There are Amish farmers selling rye bread next to some Salvadoran immigrants selling pupusas and some second generation Laotian-Americans selling sien savanh. There’s a young Black man with orange hair playing an acoustic guitar and singing old Beatles songs and just down the street is an old white guy with a ridiculously small electric organ playing Muzak versions of Bob Marley tunes. There are young couples with kids, old folks with walkers, dozens of breeds of dogs (and by the way, I’m always worried about the small dogs; I’m afraid they’re going to get stepped on in the crowds), gay couples holding hands, teens wearing Future Farmers of America t-shirts, cyclists in their helmets and spandex, suburban goth eye-shadow junkie kids, folks handing out flyers letting us know Jesus forgives us or that pollinators are at risk because of chemicals or reminding us that one of the voice actors from Pokemon will be signing autographs at the event center where the comic-con is taking place.

What I’m saying is that the farmers market is all about different folks coming together and getting along. And then there’s the guy wearing a t-shirt that says Transgenderism is a Mental Disorder. My phone was in my pocket, so I didn’t have time to get a photograph of him. But he was a classic Entitled Aggressive Asshole, a prime example of asshole culture.

The ONLY reason to wear a t-shirt like that in public is to provoke a reaction. This asshole deliberately set out to offend others, knowing he was unlikely to be seriously challenged about it. Unlikely to be challenged because those of us who are offended also believe in the right to free speech, and the right to believe in things others find objectionable, and the right to move around freely in public without somebody knocking you flat on your ass for being a colossal dick.

One of the worst things Trump released on the world is the fierce joy bullies and cowards find in the freedom to punch down without consequence. Right now, trans folks and drag artists have become primary targets of that twisted joy. I see articles complaining that Link (from the Legend of Zelda games) is trans-friendly, I see drag shows under attack by asshole politicians, I see concentrated efforts to prevent trans kids from getting the medical care they need. A year or two ago, none of this was much of an issue. Trans-hate has been largely manufactured for political purposes (and, of course, as another conservative grift).

My guess (and I have no actual evidence of this) is that a year ago, that asshole at the farmers’ market probably didn’t give a moment of thought to trans folks. But now that they’ve become a popular MAGA-target, he 1) found a vendor who was happy to make and sell the objectionable t-shirt, 2) spent his money to buy one so that he could 3) wear it in public in a place that encourages diversity in order to 4) offend the fuck out of people who are 5) too decent to knock him on his ass.

To be clear, I’m NOT an advocate of knocking people on their ass simply because they’re assholes (even if they deserve it–although I’d consider buying a t-shirt that says Vertical assholes deserve to be horizontal). And I’m not suggesting folks accept that asshole’s challenge and confront him in public. I mean, these assholes LIKE pretending they’re victims.

What I am saying is that it’s no longer enough for us to be silent allies. I suspect most of the folks who’ll read this have taken a relatively laissez faire approach to trans folks. Trans folks exist, not a big deal, end of story. But the movement to prevent trans folks from existing, that IS a big deal. Trans folks can’t afford for us to maintain a laissez faire approach. We need to stand up, speak up, and keep it up. We can do that without being assholes ourselves.

EDITORIAL NOTE: We really need to burn the patriarchy. Burn it from stalk to stem, then gather the ashes, grind them into dust, dig a hole and chuck in the dust, piss on the dust, cover the hole, and salt the earth over the hole. Then have tea and some nice cookies.

please tell me this doesn’t say what i think it says

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Two semi-related things. First, I have a new bike (about which I will almost certainly write, because that’s the sort of thing I do), but I’ve also been uncharacteristically busy, so unable to ride it as much I’d like. I’ve done a few short jaunts around the area, but that’s it.

Second, over the last couple of years, I’ve developed a habit of stopping when I see bike path graffiti. Sometimes the graffito is chalk art, sometimes it’s bits of philosophy, sometimes it’s a sort of editorial opinion. Regardless of what it is, the notion that somebody has deliberately made their way down a bike path and stopped to express themselves pleases me. I keep telling myself I should start photographing all those graffiti; it might make an interesting project.

So last Thursday, when I took a short ride, and saw some bike path graffiti, I did just that. Stopped, read it, photographed it, then went on my way. I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the graffito itself since a) my mind was largely occupied by what I’d been working on before I went for a ride and b) a word in the graffito had been smudged out.

This greenspace is located between a commercial area and some townhomes.

It wasn’t until later, when I actually looked at the photo, that I tried to figure out what the smudged word was…and why it had been smudged out.

The [blank] never happened… but it should have!!!

Google Lens has an image-to-text application, so I tried that first. It suggested The halogen never happened, which didn’t make a lick of sense.

I tried to think of things that should have happened but didn’t. Because a lot of bike path graffiti deals with either matters of the heart (you know, stuff like Chad hearts Becky) or inspirational comments (like ‘Life is Good’), I initially focused on words that would make the phrase sweet or celebratory. The first smudged letter seems to be a ‘b’ or an ‘h’. Boyfriend…no. Backstory…no. Bahamas…maybe? The Bahamas never happened, but it should have. Possible.

Then I just tried to find words that would fit. Hangover…possibly, if the writer was into self-punishment. Harlequin…unlikely. Horseplay…don’t think so. Hologram…probably not. Holo…oh, fuck.

I’m hoping this isn’t as ugly and hateful as I think it might be.

Holocaust? The last smudged letters COULD be and ‘s’ and a ‘t’. And Iowa has increasingly become a Red-MAGA state. Our governor and legislature have been actively encouraging and passing more hateful, authoritarian policies. So this sort of irrational hate is very possible. It doesn’t matter that Jews make up less than 1% of Iowa’s population; antisemitism is never based on reality.

As much as I hate to say it…or even think it…holocaust seems to fit.

In the first photograph, you can see there’s another graffito just a few feet away. One word, maybe one short line. I didn’t even stop to look at it. Again, my mind was largely elsewhere when I stopped. But tomorrow, weather permitting, I’ll get back on the bike and ride this path again to see what it says. Maybe it’ll add some clarity.

I’m really hoping somebody can decipher that smudged word in a more positive way. But even if there IS a better interpretation, I’m disheartened by the fact that my worst-case rendering seems so very possible.

EDITORIAL NOTE: We must burn the patriarchy. Burn it to the ground, gather the ashes, piss on them, douse them in oil and set them on fire again. Burn the patriarchy, then drive a stake directly through the ashes where its heart used to be, and then set fire to the stake. Burn the fucker one more time. And keep burning it, over and over. Burn it for generations. Then nuke it from orbit. Then have tea.

Also? Include antisemitism.

ADDENDUM: I went back yesterday to look at the other graffito. It’s also been smudged, which leads me to assume it was equally ugly. I can’t make out the word, though it seems to start with ‘JE’. Here it is:

small-town life at its best

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Keene, Texas. It’s a small town about 30 minutes south of Fort Worth. The population is around 6500, about half of whom identify as white and a third are Latino. Maybe the only surprising thing about Keene is that the town has a semi-pro soccer team. According to the local Chamber of Commerce, Keene “offers residents and visitors the charm and warm hospitality of small-town life at its best.”

That might actually be true. If you first accept the fact that in modern America, small town life includes occasional gun violence. Last Saturday, at Keene’s Sonic Drive-thru burger joint, a 12-year-old boy shot and killed a 33-year-old man with an AR-15 semi-auto rifle.

Sonic, 301 South Old Betsy Road, Keene, TX

Sonic is an old school drive-in restaurant chain, with over 3500 locations in the US. You want to eat a burger or hot dog without having to leave your car? Sonic is for you. You literally drive into a parking bay, order your meal over an intercom, and a carhop will fetch it for you. On roller skates. I am NOT making that up. Sonic is very determinedly 1950s.

There’s a problem with this sort of car-centric dining, though. Bathrooms. Sonic restaurants have bathrooms for their employees, but whether those bathrooms are also available to Sonic customers depends on the individual location. Some Sonic bathrooms are open to the public, some aren’t.

I don’t know the actual policy of the Sonic in Keene, Texas. However, when Angel Gomez of Fort Worth arrived with a full bladder, he chose to relieve himself in the back parking lot.

Yeah, that’s tacky. But if you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go. There’s no reporting about whether or not he tried to use Sonic’s bathroom. Maybe he did and was told it was for employees only. Maybe there was an ‘Employees Only’ sign on the bathroom door. Maybe Gomez simply didn’t care and decided to take a leak outside because fuck you, this is America. We don’t know.

What we do know is this: Sonic employee Matt Davis went to Gomez and spoke to him about the propriety of publicly pissing in the parking lot. Apparently, this started an argument. Again, we don’t know the nature of the argument. Maybe Davis interrupted Gomez mid-micturition, which Gomez resented. Maybe Gomez expressed an opinion that Keene, Texas isn’t communist Russia and he had a Constitutional right to piss wherever he wanted. Maybe Davis was unfamiliar with Sonic’s bathroom regulations; he’d only moved to Keene and started working at that Sonic only a couple of weeks earlier. Maybe Davis was rude, maybe Gomez was rude, maybe both were rude. We don’t know.

All we know is that they argued. And that argument upset the 12-year-old boy who’d accompanied Gomez to the Sonic. So he decided to interfere in an effort to stop it.

There are lots of mature ways to interrupt and end an argument. You can suggest each party step back and take a deep breath. You can find areas of agreement between the two parties, and emphasize those. You can encourage both parties to communicate respectfully with each other, and avoid using personal attacks or derogatory language.

But that’s asking a lot of a 12-year-old kid. In this case, the boy took a more direct approach. He chose to interrupt the argument by shooting Davis. Multiple times. With an AR-15. Because this is Texas and in Texas people routinely drive around with unsecured, fully loaded semi-auto assault-style firearms.

Gomez and the boy fled the scene after the shooting, but eventually returned and surrendered themselves to police. Gomez has been charged with tampering with evidence (by fleeing the scene with the AR-15); that charge may be amended later. The boy is being held in a local juvenile facility. Who knows what the fuck will happen to him. Since this is Texas, they may decide to charge him as an adult.

First responders called for a Care Flight helo to tranport Davis to a nearby hospital. But the characteristic wound ballistics of an AR-15 aren’t always amenable to treatment. Davis died. He had a son two years younger than the boy who killed him.

A whole lot of lives were massively fucked up in Keene last Saturday. Some folks will blame it on a lack of civility or respect–if Gomez hadn’t decided to take a leak in public, this never would have happened. Some will blame it on the lack of public restrooms–if Sonic (or the town of Keene) had provided adequate bathroom facilities, this never would have happened.

And some will acknowledge the obvious and blame it on the simple fact that there was a loaded AR-15 lying about unsecured in a vehicle where a 12-year-old boy could grab it and shoot the shit out of somebody over an argument about pissing in public.

Somebody had to hose off the mess in the parking lot before the carhops could safely resume roller skating meals to Sonic customers. You don’t want to get blood and bits of bone in your polyurethane wheels. It gums them up.

It’s all part of the charm and warm hospitality of small-town life at its best.

the names don’t even seem real

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Yeah, I don’t quite know why I subject myself to this. I like to think it serves a purpose, but that might just be wishful thinking. Regardless, every so often, after a mass murder event, I’ll stick my beak into FreeRepublic to see what the ‘patriots’ there have to say about it.

Their first priority, of course, is to assure themselves that the person who committed the mass murder is not/was not/never had been a MAGA conservative. Because MAGA conservatives are responsible gun owners who only use their weapons for 1) target practice, 2) maybe hunting, or 3) self defense against a) thugs, b) crazy people, and/or c) a tyrannical government bent on depriving them of their freedoms. Also? MAGA Freepers are keenly aware of the overwhelming difficulties facing White Hetero Christian Men these days. BUT they don’t have a single racist thought, because they understand they occupy their place in society because they’ve earned it.

Why would anybody think this guy was a white supremacist?

Once the innocence of MAGA conservatives has been established to their satisfaction, Freepers always, without fail, tend toward two broad general theories about just what the fuck happened. Either the shooting was a result of drugs/mental illness OR it was a federal false flag operation. These false flag ops are designed to destroy the republic, usually by creating a situation that would allow the government to implement a firearm seizure plan.

Here are some examples from one thread, which indicated the shooter MAY have expressed an extreme white supremacist ideology (which, by the way, suggests there’s a white supremacists ideology that ISN’T extreme) on a Russian social media site:

I wonder which F_I dweeb was role-playing online as this nut? I don’t believe a word of this.
by Major Matt Mason

I looked.. the names don’t even seem real.
by momincombatboots

Now, Russia? This is sounding all too neat, all too programmed. He has touched EVERY ONE of the left’s talking points. Call me paranoid, but I wonder if the Deep State is somehow controlling these people. Experts say that mind control is now a possibility. Stopping short of that, who knows who was influencing his views online? The FBI has a history of manipulating unstable people into crime.
by Steve_Seattle

Who was his FBI handler?
by Jim Noble

Heh, that’s hilarious
Too bad it is so close to the lies and spin from the government / Media.
by LegendHasIt

This story is an FBI fabrication and spread widely by the MSM. These are the same people who said that Trump colluded with the Russians, the events of January 6th were on a scale with Pearl Harbor, COVID was the new Black Plague and required crippling business, the George Floyd riots were “mostly peaceful”. Meanwhile, not a word from the FBI about the rantings of the shooter who.killed six people at a Christian school in Nashville.
by Wallace T.

Rumor was going around that the Buffalo shooter and the Uvalde shooter were, both, talking to “Armand”, a “retired” member of a three letter agency.
by Eagles6

It has been reported that a particular FBI agent had been in contact with several these kill-crazy mental cases each in the month before the shooting. For someone who is already depressed and paranoid subtle and not so subtle suggestion can channel the insanity into desired directions.
PM by arthurus

The Buffalo shooter used very unusual language to describe what he was doing. It seemed like he was replaying a plan given to him from someone else.
by freeandfreezing

It is my FIRM BELIEF the the FBI is on line chatting up these unstable people in some damn chat rooms PUSHING THEM into these dastardly deeds so OUR firearms are removed from us!! They have NO WAY to control the masses as long as we are armed!! SOME unstable people seem to become MORE paranoid with psychotropic medications!!! If someone online is chatting them up consistently the paranoia could become much worse!!!
by Trump Girl Kit Cat

Why that ‘deep state’ plan to seize all the guns has never been implemented is a mystery. I mean, consider how many mass murders have been committed since the Columbine High School murders in 1999. We’re talking about almost a quarter of a century of high quality false flag operations. Yet when it comes to actually seizing the guns, the ‘deep state’ refuses to pull the trigger. So to speak.

It’s easy to write these people off as harmless cranks…because, for the most part, they really are harmless cranks. As individuals, they’re harmless. But as a collective, they propagate a culture that undermines the notion of verifiable fact. I’m going to quote Maria Ressa here:

“If you don’t have facts, you can’t have truth. If you don’t have truth, you can’t have trust. Without these three, we have no shared reality. We can’t solve any problems. We have no democracy.”

It’s wise, I believe, to question authority–to be cautious when it comes to accepting the claims made by the people in power, regardless of their political persuasion. It’s wise to ask for–and even demand–evidence. But it’s also important to accept verifiable evidence, even when it contradicts your beliefs or preferences. It’s their insistence that belief is as valid as evidence that prevents Freepers from being simple harmless cranks.