Kim Davis Jokes

Joke 1.

Kim Davis wept.

Joke 2.

Kim Davis finding out she can't ruin a bunch of marriages this morning (only her own): 😭

Joke 3.

Every time a gay couple gets their marriage certificate, Kim Davis divorces her current husband and remarries.

Joke 4.

Every time a judge in Texas refuses to marry a gay couple, Kim Davis is forced to stay with her current husband.

Joke 5.

Just wanted to send out my heartfelt congratulations to Kim Davis on her most recent marriage. I’m sure husband… (checks notes)… number 22 is the one. I’m so happy she could rinse and repeat as many marriage licenses as she wants for herself. That’s her right. Good for her. Now if only she could stay more focused on her own marriage and ignore everyone else’s maybe she could make it work this time around. Otherwise we’ll be congratulating her on graduating from a Clark to a Jordan.

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Which joke do you like most? Sound off in the comments.

Don’t hate what you don’t know

From the New York Times podcast about how women ruined the workplace, Andrews says, “So, I don’t know — I don’t want to say that we all know what wokeness is.”

Conservatives still can’t define woke. If you can’t define what you hate, maybe don’t hate it. 🤷‍♀️

Publisher Robin Taylor on growing up trans in the Midwest during the 1990s, queer representation in media

Under Donald Trump’s second term as president, there is a movement to remove or restrict LGBTQ+ literature and knowledge from the public sphere, which can lead to making it difficult for younger generations to have access to the literature and resources they need to learn about such topics as gender and gender identity.

Previous generations have had similar knowledge gaps when it comes to information about gender. Owner of GenderWild Press, Robin Taylor, a transgender man, discusses what it was like growing up in the Midwest in the 1980s and 1990s, and the lack of literature that was available to him, where he found representation, and how he’s trying to preserve the voices and stories of transgender, nonbinary, genderqueer, and intersex writers.

When Taylor was just six years old, growing up in Indiana, he had a comfort blanket in the form of a sleeping bag. He remembers wanting to give it a name, but didn’t want to choose a gender for it, because he somehow knew that would be wrong. That the sleeping bag would have to discover its own gender someday, so he gave it the gender-neutral name of Sam.

“It could be boy Sam or girl Sam,” he said. He went on to explain that he knew then that he was different, “I knew I really wasn’t a girl, but it wasn’t acceptable to be a boy.”

When asked what sort of LGBTQ+ literature or media was available to him in the 1980s and 1990s, Taylor initially said, “None.” But thought about it some more and found that he did find some queer representation in strange places, “It’s actually not entirely true that there was none, but everything that was presented was done so in a negative fashion.”

He found queer representation in the characters of Radar and Clinger of the TV show “MASH,” as well as “Xena,” which he said was “queer bating” the queer community and that, “we loved it, because it was all we had.” He also found himself wanting to know more about the men on “Jerry Springer” who had transitioned to women.

“Those were the little places we lived,” Taylor said, “there were no books that I had, that I was aware of. There were certainly no medical books. As a matter of fact, I didn’t know transmen existed until Chaz Bono came out.” Chaz Bono is the only child of Sonny Bono and Cher, who came out publicly as a transman in 2009.

Taylor started his publishing company GenderWild Press this year, and has signed his first writers, though he hasn’t released the first book yet. The goal of his company is to focus on authors and poets who are transgender, genderqueer, nonbinary, and intersex. He wants to tell their stories, so people still struggling to find themselves can find their stories in others.

“There were just no stories to parallel my own,” he said of his own journey, “I felt a sense of direction, something I needed to do.” That’s when he realized he wanted to start a publishing company for queer voices, “I had a bit of an ah-ha moment, ‘Oh, I need to tell these stories.’”

“What we need is a conduit for those stories to be told and be readily findable by a community of people who need to find them,” he said, “including people who are not trans, who are not queer.”

When asked if he thought the current political climate could take us back to the knowledge drought of the 1980s and 1990s, Taylor thinks that we can’t undo the progress that has been made in his lifetime, “It was leaking through then, because it can’t be contained.”

“The truth is you can take the T out of Stonewall but it’s too late,” he said. “The genie is out of the bottle; you can’t put it back. I think we are a little too wise to our history. You can’t make these things go away.”

You can find and follow Robin Taylor on Substack, where he publishes multiple newsletters.

Listening to Frost/Nixon interviews

I’m listening to the Frost/Nixon interviews and at the 25 minute mark I’m stopping for the night. It’s so hard to listen to Nixon. What an insufferable sack of shit. I’ve listened to him before but not for this long.

Modern politics be like…

A lot in modern politics hinges on one political stance:

I’m pro-your-healthcare-choices-are-none-of-my-damn-business.

Thanks for coming to my NatTalk.

“That’s our war criminal.”

Fun fact. I came into adulthood as Bush and Cheney committed war crimes and nothing was done. They were not held accountable. Anyone remember Kissinger? Yeah, it was a hard lesson to learn as a young adult, but it made me realize we don’t hold ourselves accountable. Ever.

The way I likened it at the time and it’s still true was that if Bush and Cheney had done what they did for some other country, we would have invaded to stop them. But when we do it, “That’s our war criminal. It’s fine.”

When it reality, that should be backwards. We should always hold ourselves accountable first. We should always be striving to keep our house in order. To not do so, and then point fingers at another nation, is hypocrisy.

We need to stop fawning over Newsom

We need to stop fawning over Newsom. He’s a transphobe. I absolutely do not want him to be president.

Ignoring his transphobia because people running his social media accounts are pissing off other bigots is lame.

Support trans people more than memes. 🏳️‍⚧️

Prompt: Should the phrase “under God” be included in the Pledge of Allegiance?

In short, no it should not be. America is not one nation under a Christian god unless we are a Christian state — which we are not. Or at least, we weren’t supposed to be. We were supposed to have the freedom to choose our beliefs, not have them court ordered or government mandated.

Even longer version is that we probably shouldn’t even have a Pledge of Allegiance to begin with. Blind allegiance to a government or nation ain’t it. We need to be critical of our nation when we need to be, and it needs to allow it by order of free speech. I would rather we taught kids to think critically about their nation, their government, and their patriotism than have them pledge an allegiance.

Feel free to answer the prompt yourself in the comments.

Fake Abraham Lincoln quotes

Sometimes I make fake Abraham Lincoln quotes as a means of satire of how people just reshare whatever imagery with quotes or tidbits of news on them without vetting the info or the source.

Too often we take for granted what we see on social media is accurate, if it reinforces our world view or it sounds “about right.” But we live in a time of propaganda and so much garbage is circulating. It’s important to check information before sharing. I’ve also taken to sourcing with a link to a reputable source if I’m posting about something political or whatever. The classic “Google it” or “do your own research” doesn’t always end well for some folks.

Feel free to download and share these, if you want. Even if it’s just for the laughs.

Which fake quote is your favorite?

How do you handle political divisiveness within your friend/family group?

This is the first anonymous question for Weaver’s Deep Thoughts and of course it’s a heavy one, an extremely difficult question to answer. An arguably impossible question to answer. There just is no cookie-cutter solution to this dilemma. I will do my best to explain my thoughts on this difficult scenario we all seem to run into these days and provide some decent tips, but there really is no simple answer.

First, I’m working under the assumption the person who asked this doesn’t mean they want to know what I do personally in my personal relationships when they say “you” but rather generally how does one handle a situation like this. To that end, here is my response.

I personally believe political views absolutely should not cause division in a family or friendship, and if it does one or both parties need to reevaluate their political views, because if their political views demand such loyalty that they have to disrupt and possibly cut off family, there is something wrong with someone’s political beliefs in this relationship that is pushing someone away. The same is true of religion and in religion we would call this a cult. That said, this is an ideal, and we don’t live in this ideal. Current politics is very divided and for good reason as some political views and decisions are causing real-world harm to people. For example, a recent study has found that anti-transgender laws have caused an uptick in suicide attempts by 72% among transgender and non-binary youth. Anti-transgender political views are not a political issue that is passive or easily overlooked as lives are at stake. That’s just one issue that can be a deal-breaker for family members and friends, when people’s very existence is politicized to extreme levels.

All of that said, how does one handle it when this is happening in their family or friend circle? My first suggestion would be to talk. In the past, there have been times when I thought trying to keep the peace by avoiding political discussion was helpful, and in some cases it could be, but oft times it sends a silent message that the family or friend is doing fine and that you even agree with them. So, talk. Could be a simple conversation, could be a full-on trying to discuss it out with each other. Gauge it and choose your battles. I hate the word debate. If you are “debating” your friends and family, you’re already in a bad place with that relationship. If someone uses that term, remind them it isn’t a debate, it’s two friends or siblings or relatives or whatever talking. There’s no reason why it should have to be an official thing with a name.

The other tip I would give is to consider your boundaries. If you don’t know much about setting boundaries, and maintaining them, look into that. You may find some handy suggestions and techniques. I’ll put it this way, if being with a person and their political beliefs is toxic, harmful, and even abusive, than you should probably set some boundaries. Maybe it’s a time-based one where you all take a break from one another. It could be that you put some distance between each other or cut back on communication. As someone who is bipolar, I’m a big fan of self-care. Take care of yourself, and possibly even your other loved ones, if the person or persons takes their political beliefs too far.

Sometimes, of course, someone can take things too far and a relationship has to end. Back to my point about my ideal scenario with politics, I really don’t think it should have to be this way. We should absolutely be able to hold different political views and get along fine. But when those political views are violent, harmful, racist, sexist, phobic, or exist to tear down other groups and strip them of their rights, it’s different.

This is a way longer answer than I wanted to give, and I assume future ones will be more concise. It’s just that this is such a complex question with no singular answer.

I hope whoever submitted this question finds this helpful. I think almost all of us are struggling with this question these days.

Please provide your thoughts or tips to this difficult question in the comments below.

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