opinion

Stranger? Things

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It’s been more than six weeks since the final, final chapter of Stranger Things, and I thought I’d think about the discourse surrounding the Stranger Things fandom at that time that’s been bordering on psychosis. According to people on the internet, January 8th was the day that the “real” series finale was supposed to drop – episode 9 because the New Year’s Eve finale didn’t give the fans what they wanted. I hate to break it down into a generational thing but kids today…

I mean dude can you be any more self involved and relishing of your main character syndrome? This show, the entire decade of five seasons was a true love letter to Gen X, those of us who grew up without the internet, dragging the ridiculously long telephone cord into a closet to talk, sneaking in after a showing of Rocky Horror and diner dessert.

Watching the discourse about continuity errors and plotholes that didn’t exist, the theory that the whole thing was a dream – been there, done that thank you very much Bobby Ewing; that it was a failed Dungeons & Dragons game or in someone’s head – again been there done that, thank you very much St. Elsewhere. We’ve lived through it all, and those of us who did, knew the Duffer Brothers wouldn’t do us dirty like that.

Google is free. It wasn’t available in the 80s, but it is available now. Please use it and stop driving those of us who were there crazy. We are becoming impatient with you. We are begging you – get some media literacy.

I can’t believe I need to explain that there was a world of experiences before you were born, before streaming, before reboots, so here’s a rundown that even my kids got:

  • Godzilla came out in 1958. Black and white. In Japanese. Dubbed.
  • Mission: Impossible was a very popular television show in the late 60s, mid 70s. Peter Graves, Steven Hill, Leonard Nimoy – yes, Mr. Spock.
  • Big Brother has been a thing since 1948 and George Orwell’s 1984. We read this in high school, and if you didn’t, please read it now.
  • It’s 10pm, do you know where your children are? Yes, we were never home.
  • Skateboards were totally a thing.
  • Yes, suburban moms went to the pool, worshiped the sun with oil and reflectors, and flirted shamelessly with the jacked up lifeguards.
  • My parents’ house cost $48,000 in New York, on Long Island. Yes, Mike’s family could afford that house.
  • Steve could be a coach/sex ed teacher easily without college. My friend substituted in his small town with a high school diploma. A coach was hired for his coaching skill and given a class, usually health or whatever was considered sex-ed at that time. Hell, I taught biological reproduction as a substitute with a high school diploma in 1987!
  • We played D&D in school and in our parents’ basements. However in my case we did not use little figures – it was all books and papers, graph paper, and homemade maps.
  • We lived on TV dinners and Tang.
  • We called the corner store a luncheonette. There was a counter and real glasses for milkshakes and egg creams. It was right next to Kenny’s. When Kenny retired form the drug store, we still called it Kenny’s. Same with the deli. Hell, it’s a baby furniture store now, and I still call it Kenny’s!

And another thing do you think if it weren’t actually the finale that the Duffer Brothers and Netflix would have paid Prince’s estate for the use of not one, but two songs?! He licenses nothing – this was a big deal.,

Take your theories and write some fan fiction.

In the immortal words of Ferris, it’s over. Go home.

Election Connection – The Disgrace at the White House

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Not my photo. (c)2025

This is both a week early and a week late. Next Tuesday is Election Day.

A lot of people still think that off-year election days are less important that presidential or mid-term years. There are no more off-years. We need to be done with that nonsense. Just look at the past year to know the truth in that. Trump should not have won. I don’t say that as a conspiracy theorist, and I don’t know if anything untoward with Elon Musk caused the obvious change in the election, but what I do know is that if you look directly at Trump and his allies, he was losing and he knew he was losing. By the end of the campaign, he could barely stand up or string two coherent words together. And then someone “tried to kill him” in Butler, Pennsylvania. Do I think someone tried to kill him? I don’t know, but I’ll let my quotation marks speak to that. What I do know is that a man who is still whining about an escalator and toilet water has said not one word about his “assassination attempt.” So you tell me, what part of this man’s personality allows him to let this go?

My next point is that Congressional Republicans and the Supreme Court have completely shirked their responsibility and their obligation to their oath with the embarrassing failure of keeping the checks and balances on the Executive Branch. Almost none of his executive orders are legal. His tariffs most certainly aren’t. His murder of fishermen in the Caribbean is absolutely illegal and extrajudicial. His indictments of Comey and James are the pathetic cries of his own incompetence, and I swear on all that is holy that if the Justice Dept gives him one penny of the “settlement” he’s asking for, I will not be held responsible for my actions.

And if trampling over the Constitution and using its parchment to wipe his and his sycophants’ asses wasn’t enough, last week (it is hard to believe that it’s only last week) he took a bulldozer to the East Wing of the White House. No permits filed. No money disbursed by Congress. Private companies don’t get to work on an historic building, one that is one of the foundations of our capital city without the proper protocols in place: environmental impact studies, historic preservation, toxic safety. A wing of the building built in 1942 will certainly have asbestos in those walls they just ripped down. I’ve read that the company doing the destruction doesn’t have a permit or a hazardous waste certificate to clear asbestos, but what do I know. The East Wing also rests atop the secure bunker where the President goes when there’s a credible danger or threat. I guess not anymore, right?

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Election Connection – Opinion

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Should military honors be given to traitors?

What about settlement money? What if we call it reparations?

Ashlii Babbitt was a traitor. Full stop. No question. She was killed after she didn’t comply with officers’ instructions to stand down while breaking into the Capitol building. She was attempting to overthrow the government, and she (and her fellow traitors) nearly succeeded.

In the video of her death, she pauses at the broken window, then proceeds to go through. She briefly hesitated, and then followed through on her attempts at overthrow. She knew exactly what she was doing, and after the warnings, she knew the risks.

Was she an Air Force veteran? In her past, yes. But at the time of her death, she was an insurrectionist. She was trying to stop the legitimate certification of our elections. She was impeding the work of the government. Had she lived, she’d be in jail after her arrest and due process.

She absolutely does NOT deserve reburial with full military honors any more than Nathan Bedford Forrest, Robert E. Lee, or Benedict Arnold deserves it. Let her family bury her with respect; that’s their job.

A $5 million handout to her family for her death is outrageous! Where is the compensation for the families of the Capitol police who died that day?!

I could go on with a rant, but there isn’t anything else to say – traitors do not deserve compensation. It goes against everything this country used to stand for, and should stand for.

Election Connection – Rant Incoming

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[Caption for above photo: Your Voice, Your Vote: Many forgot this. Yes, use your voice, but also use your vote. Look at the big picture, not just the soundbites. Pay attention. We’re running out of time to make this right. (c)2025]

Everyone online has all the answers, don’t they? Our current president certainly thinks he does. And the “journalists” flocking to twist and pretzel themselves into sycophants for him is truly astonishing, a little disheartening, and a lot disgusting that in my lifetime we’ve gone from Woodward & Bernstein, Ben Bradlee, Katherine Graham to Jake Tapper and Hamas terrorists. That’s not to say W&B were perfect; no one is, but the hit job Tapper did on President Biden while ignoring the dwindling mental capacity of the current occupant of the White House is not only repulsive, but journalistic malpractice. And don’t think I forgot about you Pod Bros, a big fuck you to you.

But…this isn’t about my grievances against the “fourth estate”. Republicans and far-left “progressives” are equally responsible for this shitshow. Ratings and money. That’s all that matters to these cult members.

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Election Connection – Breaking News: Librarian of Congress Fired

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Carla Hayden, who was set to complete her term next year has been fired by the President as part of his rampage against “DEI” and “woke ideology”. [Those terms are in quotations because I feel the White House and many Republicans in Congress do not understand what those words mean, nor do they understand the function of the LIbrary of Congress.] The White House Press Secretary claimed it was for putting inappropriate books on the shelves for children. Anyone who understands how the Library of Congress operates (clearly not the Press Secretary or the President), understands that the LIbrary of Congress is not a circulating library. Research is done there, books do not leave the building, and children do not use the library other than to visit and see how the library operates.

The Library of Congress is responsible for receiving two of every book published. Every. Book. This is a function of its role in administering copyright law. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country, and has been known to be apolitical to the point that Ms. Hayden is only the fourteenth librarian since 1802.

Library of Congress Carla Hayden fired.

Library of Congress, official

Library of Congress: Ask a Librarian

Library of Congress, wikipedia

Election Connection – DEI Edition

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What DEI is. And what it isn’t.

It is: a reminder that this world is not monolithic. It is diverse, and our workplaces and museums and schools should reflect that.

It isn’t: a club to bludgeon. It isn’t taking your job or your space on the wall.

The Merriam-Webster definition is:

1: a set of values and related policies and practices focused on establishing a group culture of equitable and inclusive treatment and on attracting and retaining a diverse group of participants, including people who have historically been excluded or discriminated against [1]

Everyone should feel and be welcomed.

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[Reflection on the Anniversary of Roe v. Wade]

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Yesterday was the fifty-second anniversary of the Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade. On June 24, 2023, the Supreme  Court held in Dobbs that the “Constitution of the United States does not confer a right to abortion”, overruling Roe and Casey, and reversing forty-nine and thirty years, respectively of precedent, not only in law, but in women’s physical safety.

When I was born, Roe didn’t exist, but do you know what did? Women dying from blood loss, sepsis, and incompetent medical persons (I hesitate to use the word “professionals,” who either weren’t proficient in women’s reproductive health care or didn’t care and were only there to make a quick buck off the backs of desperate women and girls.

There is no such thing as banning abortion. Abortions have been happening since pregnancy; since the dawn of time, whether elective, medically necessary, and/or spontaneous (what is sometimes referred to as a miscarriage). I would suggest that Dobbs is a not-so-spontaneous abortion – a miscarriage of justice. A step away from women’s bodily autonomy. A step in the wrong direction. It should not be dismissed that in Alito’s opinion, he quotes Sir Matthew Hale, a long discredited abusive misogynist and witch trial judge, and someone excoriated in his own time (the 17th century).

When then-Senator Kamala Harris asked then-nominee Brett Kavanaugh if he could think of any law restricting a man’s medical decisions, he thought for a moment and said no. The moment he “thought” about it was performative. No one needs to think about the answer to that question: it is most definitely no, there has never been a law that restricts a man’s bodily autonomy.

Women have died.

Women are dying. Right now.

Women are being arrested for having a miscarriage, and that’s after attempting (more than once) to get medical care.

Women are being lied to about what is and isn’t physically possible. For example, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard politicians tell women that for an ectopic pregnancy, the fetus can be replanted in the uterus. This is NEVER the case.

Another example is the disgusting rhetoric surrounding “post-birth” abortion. There is NO SUCH THING! No one is killing babies in the maternity ward after they’re born. NO ONE. Who believes this nonsense?!

The biggest problem is that politicians are not doctors. They don’t know how women’s bodies work, and they prove that every time they open their mouths to debate and pass legislation against women, and let’s be clear – that is exactly what it is; it’s not anti-abortion or “pro-life,” it is anti-women and girls. Even the trans bigotry shows this. They don’t care about the safety of girls or the “sanctity” of girls’ sports.

If you don’t believe that, just look at the ignorance at the most recent executive order claiming that there are only two genders, but then in the same order requiring that people identify their gender as the one they had at conception. The new president (and his cronies) just made the male gender illegal since biologically we are all female at conception.

How many other laws are being passed that violate our rights because of the ignorance of right wing no-nothings?!

Abortion bans at six weeks when most women don’t know that they’re pregnant.

Heartbeat laws when there is no heart.

They want to ban abortion from the moment of conception.

Roe v. Wade saved women’s lives.

Dobbs is killing women.

It really is that simple.

And if you can’t see that, I ache for the future of such an ignorant world, and hope to all that is holy that my daughter’s generation is paying attention, and can reverse this misogyny which has been built into the fabric of our country from the beginning.

Gender Queer: A Review

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After all the Republican outrage over banning books, I thought it was time to read one of the more “controversial” ones for myself. I already knew from previous experience that once these book banners got it into their heads that a book was “inappropriate”, there is usually no going back for them. One thing that I’m proud about myself is that I’m willing to make mistakes and apologize for them, and even, heavens to Betsy, change my mind as I grow and evolve. That doesn’t seem to be the case for the immediate future.

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Fees, Fees, and More Fees

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I have a pet peeve that’s been gnawing at me lately. This has come up before, but then (many years ago) there was a law that prohibited this kind of thing, and apparently that’s not a law anymore, because it’s back.

What is this horrendous affliction that causes a disruption to my peeves?

Fees on a credit card charge.

What the hell?

I’m not talking about late fees, although those are out of hand, and I’m not talking about an automatic 18-20% gratuity added on for large parties, although six is NOT a large party.

I come into your store (or restaurant), and I pay your overpriced prices. And yeah, it doesn’t cost $20 for a cheeseburger and fries. Then tax is added on. If it’s a restaurant, a tip is added on. And then if I use a credit card, I’m charged a percentage of the total. I understand the reason – the business is charged by VISA or whomever for each transaction, but that’s not my problem.

That’s the cost of doing business.

As I said, a cheeseburger and fries are not $20, but I do understand that I’m not just paying for the raw materials of the edible food, I’m also paying for the table and the linens, the waitstaff, and the utilities, and whatever other overhead the restaurant has. Same for a stationery set for $12.99 in a boutique.

The fee charged by the credit card company to the business for the convenience of using a credit card is another expense, just like the electricity, the rent, the cleaning service, delivery and shipping costs, and anything else that costs you money to keep your business in business. I’m already paying for those things. If the lightbulb blows out over my table, will you charge me to replace it? I really hope not, but chances are that no, you wouldn’t because that’s part of the business supplies that you need to buy to run your business, just like the credit card fees (which are tax deductible by the way).

Or…don’t take credit cards. If I’m in a store, and I’m already paying $79, I don’t want to pay more than that. And let’s be honest, I don’t even want to pay that much.

Now, you could say that by offering purchases through a credit card, it is a convenience for me, or that the convenience goes both ways, and that may be true in the semantics, but if you don’t take credit cards, and I have no cash, then I can go somewhere else. It’s much more of a convenience for you to accept them rather than to lose a customer. And with these fees, I’m going to think twice about frequenting your establishment.

If you want more money to cover the cost of fees for you, raise your prices. People annoyingly did it politically by “claiming” to raise prices because they were now required to pay health insurance or when the minimum wage went up even if the business was already paying more than that or when eggs and tomatoes go up in price, they go up on the menu.

If you want to give a cash discount (like they do at the gas station), then offer a 10% cash discount for people paying cash instead of punishing the folks who use their credit/debit card.

/End Rant

Mourning

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I have come to realize that “pro-life” is a misnomer. The people who espouse it, who embrace it, who shout it from the rooftops, don’t actually know what it means. When I hear the phrase “pro-life” I’m supposed to think that the person shouting it believes in life. But they don’t believe in life when the life is gay, when the life is Black, when the life is an immigrant or someone who’s accented, when the life is poor or homeless or addicted to drugs. They don’t believe in life when they allow three people, three human beings, a mother and her two small children drown while watching, and actively stop help from getting to them. They don’t believe in life if they are killed by guns, which are more sacred to them than the life it takes. They claim to care about the life of people who aren’t people yet, still unborn, still getting their life from their host woman, but if that woman dies because she can’t receive a lifesaving abortion, well, that’s life. But it’s not pro-life.

They lie about the services at Planned Parenthood.

They lie about the activities inside “crisis pregnancy centers.”

They lie about women’s* bodies or they simply don’t understand how women’s bodies work, which should be the first clue that they shouldn’t be legislating on women’s bodies.

I’ve seen legislators who don’t understand the basics of puberty or menstruation or how babies are conceived, thinking that the only party is the woman who holds the responsibility for her actions and the future of three people.

They sound pathetic and stupid, and it’s embarrassing.

On this anniversary of the now reversed Roe v. Wade, I’m in mourning. I’m in mourning for what pro-life people did to Roe, the person: manipulating, gaslighting, and abandoning. I’m in mourning for my daughter. I’m in mourning for her friends. I mourn for the residents of Texas and Florida especially.

The only pro-life option is safe and legal abortions for anyone who needs one.

Why is there upset and indignation when the “pro-life” set is called pro-birth or forced birth, but what else are they if not that? No one comes to pray outside of social services or the WIC offices for the children once they are born. No one prays outside of counseling centers, real counseling centers for victims of sexual assault and incest. The only prayers are for doctor’s offices and clinics that offer full service reproductive health services. Why is that?

How can you be anti-abortion and pro-death penalty?

How can you be pro-war?

Things to think about because your hypocrisy is showing, and it has been for a very long time. With the Dobbs ruling, women are dying, women are being prosecuted and persecuted for having miscarriages, women are being denied life-saving care, women are left to die of sepsis, are left to infertility, and families are just left.

*When I say women, read: all child-bearing people.