Sticking To A Media Diet

More than ever, it's a cinch to avoid consuming anything from the usual suspects. What I do take in comes via those bloggers with strong stomachs, and with the talent for evisceration that the major outlets offerings deserve.

Shakezula, for instance; all her stuff is must-read, in full.

This, on Nick Kristof's post-election column—

Abusers are horrible people, but their enablers are almost as bad, and with the I like to watch vibe thrown in as a nightmare bonus.

And on that topic, here's the NYT's human rights, women's rights, health, global affairs concern troll to explain why we'll feel so much better if we give our lunch money to the class bully.

Yet, like it or not, we Americans have a new president-elect, and it's time to buck up. I've seen past elections that were regarded as the end of the world — including, in many Democratic circles, the Reagan triumph of 1980 — and the republic survived. This time as well, our institutions are stronger than any one man. We are not Weimar Germany.

We are not Weimar is an awesome rallying cry. If you're a moron. And it is not a comfort to be reminded various concepts survived Reagan. Unlike the NYT's human rights columnist, I'd don't think that makes up for the many living, breathing human beings who didn't survive Reagan, in part because Smilin' Ron was one of the many malicious homophobes who convinced themselves that there could be such a thing as a virus that only killed gay men.

As an aside – when talking about actual human beings, the verb survive is a very chilly one. Thanks in part to people like Trump, we know human beings can survive – that is still have vital functions – all sorts of horrible things. Torturers rely on the durability of the human body. In America, people have developed bizarre, psuedo-evolutionary theories about the mental and physical durability of African-Americans that combines with a number of other biases to lower the quality of health care they receive, even when they can afford it. That people will survive should be so basic an assumption that it doesn't warrant mentioning. When it does warrant mentioning, it should be a cause for alarm.

Or to put it in terms Mr. Attitude of Platitude might understand, at least explain why the standard dropped from Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness to You'll live.

Here, she's only getting warmed up in delivering the "Buck you, Nick Kristof" the column deserves.

This. If it is still publishing David Farenthold, the WaPo is nevertheless poised for its most natural role: shamelessly floating along in the whirl of a pussy-grabbing new Gilded Age.