I Wish It Was Easier To Talk About Mobile Phone Addiction Without Sounding Like A Boomer

The water ain’t the only thing that’s high in that image.

starting a collection

Black Friday (Starkid, 2020)

beastie baby

Rating band names based on their accuracy:

(I keep updating this list so check back later)

The Beatles: 0/10. None of these people are beetles, they’re just a bunch of fruity guys from Liverpool with matching haircuts

Pink Floyd: 4/10. There is not a single person named Floyd in the band, but some of the members do arguably look kinda pink

Nirvana: 10/10. Getting high and listening to Nirvana is roughly what I imagine actual nirvana to be like

Foo Fighters: either 0/10 or 10/10. I have never seen foo in real life so either they’re pretending to fight a problem that doesn’t exist or they’re doing an absolutely fantastic job of fighting it

The Eagles: 0/10. Same as the Beatles, there is not a single eagle in this band. The name is misleading and we have all been lied to

Queen: 6/10. Partial points for Freddie Mercury

Led Zeppelin: 0/10. I don’t think any of these guys have ever even seen a zeppelin, let alone one made of lead. A lead balloon would crash faster than my hopes and dreams

The Rolling Stones: 3/10. There is not a single stone in this band. Some points added because I’m pretty sure they rolled quite a few

U2: 0/10. Despite what the name says, I am not a member of this band

Metallica: 9/10. Naming a metal band “Metallica” is like naming your dog “doggy”

Red Hot Chili Peppers: 2/10. These guys are not chili peppers. They’re not even that hot, let alone red hot

Guns N’ Roses: 0/10. How the fuck could a gun or a flower play music

Backstreet Boys: ?/10. Depends entirely on their current given location

Simon and Garfunkel: 10/10. No notes

The Doors: 1/10. Jim Morrison is kinda shaped like a door tho

Chicago: 4/10. The number of people in this band does not come even remotely close to the population of Chicago. Points added because it originated in Chicago

Earth, wind, and fire: 2/10. This is even more innacurate than Chicago. Points added because wind instruments were often used

Def Leppard: 3/10. There is not a single leopard in this band. Some of the members are probably kinda deaf by now tho

The Beach Boys: ?/10. Accuracy depends entirely on location

The Black Eyed Peas: 6/10. Not sure what the hell an ‘eyed pea’ is but the black part is pretty accurate

Imagine Dragons: ?/10. Depends entirely on whether or not they’re thinking about dragons.

Cage the Elephant: 1/10. Why would you do that. Let the elephant go

Green Day: 0/10. They’re not even green

The Police: 0/10. There is not a single cop in this band

KISS: 5/10. I’m sure they probably kissed sometimes

The Monkees: 0/10. Are you fucking kidding me

We Butter the Bread with Butter: 8/10. I can’t verify this but I have no reason to suspect that they’d lie. Butter seems like the most logical thing to butter bread with

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard: 0/10. I got really excited about the concept of a lizard wizard only to be let down. My disappointment is immeasurable

They Might Be Giants: 5/10. I googled everyone in this band’s height, the tallest guy’s only 6’1 so I wouldn’t exactly consider him a giant. Then again, I can’t really argue because the claim was only that they MIGHT be giants

The Presidents of the United States of America: 2/10. None of these people are Joe Biden nor are any of them former presidents. This is incredibly misleading. I’m pretty sure “Lump” was written about my first girlfriend tho so I’ll give them a point or two

Gorillaz: 2/10 Not quite but we’re kinda close genetically so I’ll give them partial credit

The Killers: ?/10. I have no way of verifying if they’ve actually killed before but the fact that they’re not in prison tells me probably not

The Offspring: 10/10. These guys are definitely somebody’s offspring

Arctic Monkeys: 1/10. They are neither monkeys nor are they from the arctic

Thirty Seconds to Mars: 1/10. It takes WAY longer to get to mars than that

Beastie Boys: 8/10. They’re pretty beast on the guitar

Jimmy Eat World: 1/10. Slow the fuck down Jimmy, you’re biting off way more than you can chew

Hole: 9/10. One point deducted because I’m pretty sure they had more than one hole

Rage Against the Machine: 10/10. They did exactly that

Alice In Chains: 0/10. This is illegal. Let Alice go

The Band: 10/10. This could not possibly be more accurate

Nine Inch Nails: 1/10. I can’t find any good pictures of their feet but from what I can tell their fingernails definitely aren’t nine inches long

Bush: ?/10. Not quite sure about this one, felt uncomfortable asking

The Who: 2/10. I’m not dealing with this “Who’s On First” bullshit

Radiohead: 0/10. Not a single person in this band has a radio for a head

Queens of the Stone Age: 0/10. This band should be called “five random dudes from the modern era” but FRDFTMA is a bit of a mouthful

Soundgarden: 2/10. Sound does not grow in the garden

Sonic Youth: 5/10. They’re not exactly youth anymore but the sonic part checks out

Talking heads: 8/10. There’s more to the band than just a bunch of disembodied heads but the heads do tend to talk

The Cranberries: 0/10. Decent music but I only added them so that the Beatles and Freddie Mercury weren’t the only fruits on this list

The Wiggles: 8/10. They do tend to wiggle a lot

I missed most of the Iraq war due to being a baby, but every time I read about it I start wondering why we aren’t all talking about it all of the time

i don’t think there’s anything funnier than saying “god forbid women do anything” in response to women doing the most objectively horrifying actions possible.

Sooooooo

Lemme get this right. We can’t house the homeless population in SF, Oakland, and other cities but we can build “nap shelters” for our poor exhausted eviction enforcers??? Is that right????

I was playing the new Pokémon game and I found fucking MoistCritikal

I don't know why folk aren't immediately talking about this but. The "professors" aren't named after trees, are split into the game versions theme, and seem to have tie-ins aesthetically to the legendaries. Pretty sure they're the Scarlet/Violet villains unless pokemon is really changing things up

How to Talk About Abortion

Republicans are losing on abortion. They’re losing elections, from the midterms to red state ballot measures. They’re losing public opinion: 78% of Americans believe abortion should be a decision left to a woman and her doctor, with support for reproductive rights the highest it’s ever been. 

Given all this losing, how is it possible that the GOP is still framing the debate on abortion? It’s absurd that the national conversation has become a question of when it’s fair to legislate someone’s body. With voters more furious and pro-choice than ever, the most effective message is also the only appropriate answer: never.

Yet while Republicans frame their bans as reasonable compromises, pro-choice politicians have been inexplicably taking the bait. Democrats continue to cater to an imaginary middle out of fear that they’ll be labeled extremists, even though conservatives will attach the label to them regardless. And to prove the horror of abortion bans, they’re focusing almost exclusively on the extreme stories they believe will be most sympathetic—sexual violence victims, for example, and women with wanted pregnancies denied abortions despite the risk to their lives. 

It’s vital to highlight all of the harm caused by bans, and stories like these undoubtedly demonstrate the horror of these laws. But concentrating on the few experiences that Democrats believe are most palatable at the expense of the majority of cases is a grave moral and strategic error.

Every abortion denied is a tragedy. You don’t have to go into sepsis to be forever harmed by an abortion ban. You don’t need to be raped to have control of your body stolen from you. 

And while the most extreme consequences of abortion bans do happen with shocking regularity, they are still outliers: Most people seek out abortions because they don’t want to be pregnant. And that’s okay—in fact, it’s critical. 

Reproductive rights and justice isn’t about who ‘deserves’ care, or who has endured enough suffering to have earned an abortion. Forcing anyone to be pregnant against their will, for any reason, is immoral and cruel. Yet somehow in the hubbub of polls and bills, talking points and politics, the power of this fundamental truth has been pushed aside. 

That’s why Republicans need the public debate on abortion to be distracted with fights over 12 weeks versus 15 weeks, or what medical conditions should be listed in so-called exceptions. They want Americans to forget the central compelling reality of what these bans really do: legally require pregnancy. They take away a person’s ability to control their own body and life. It is a profound existential harm.

The national conversation on abortion may be neglecting that fact, but Republicans haven’t forgotten. They know exactly what’s at stake and have planned for the suffering their laws will cause—suffering they know won’t just impact those forced to carry doomed pregnancies or victimized children, but all women and girls.  

Tucked away in most abortion bans is language on medical exceptions that anticipates precisely what happens when you force people to be pregnant against their wills:   

“[N]o condition shall be deemed a medical emergency if based on a claim or diagnosis that the woman will engage in conduct which would result in her death or in substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function.” (Senate Bill 20, North Carolina)

The wording shifts slightly from state to state, but the mandate is the same: pregnant people will be made to stay that way, even if a doctor believes they will kill themselves. 

What better proof is there that conservative lawmakers know how vital it is to one’s humanity to have control over your own body? How ‘reasonable’ and ‘commonsense’ can a law be that predicts women becoming suicidal as a result? 

That’s why it’s so important that Democrats focus on more than just certain tragic stories when talking about abortion. Every case is an extreme case, because every woman’s life and free will is important. 

Besides, by paying disproportionate attention to the experiences that strategists believe are the most sympathetic, Democrats are giving the GOP a critical political opportunity: the ability to avow that they’ll tweak abortion bans to account for those particular cases. In fact, Republicans have already started doing this—using exceptions and amendments to claim they’re making their laws more lenient. 

The truth, of course, is that these are changes in name only. When Idaho Republicans added language to their abortion ban to “clarify” allowances for medically-emergent abortions, for example, doctors in the state were furious over the farce. Boise-based maternal fetal medicine specialist Dr. Lauren Miller said that politicians were “trying to make it look like something happened, when in fact, this makes no meaningful change.”

But even if Republican exceptions were genuine, and allowed for abortions in certain cases—what about everyone else?

Before Roe was overturned, one in four American women would have an abortion in their lifetime. That’s a huge portion of the population now without care. To abandon them, even in our talking points, is unthinkable. 

It also doesn’t make any political sense. Support for abortion rights is the highest it’s ever been—why would Democrats cede anything at all? 

We know why Republicans are framing state bans as sensible middle-grounds, despite all evidence to the contrary. They desperately need voters to believe that they’re not extremists. (A tall order when the nation’s leading anti-abortion groups want to make birth control illegal.) And in a moment when Americans are really unhappy with abortion bans, the hope is that painting 12- and 15-week restrictions as a concession will make voters feel as if Republicans have compromised or lost something. 

But the strategy isn’t working. A recent poll from NARAL Pro-Choice America showed 70% of respondents don’t buy the idea that a 15-week ban is a “reasonable compromise.” And an ABC/Washington Post poll reports that only 18% of Americans believe abortion should be regulated by law at all. 

And so remaining on the defensive—whether it’s allowing conservatives to define what a ‘middle ground’ is, or fighting solely to restore Roe and nothing more—only gives credence to one of the biggest abortion lies of all: the notion that Americans are split on the issue.

In a moment when Republicans across multiple states are working to stop citizens’ right to vote directly on abortion, there is perhaps no myth more important to debunk. Because if Americans believe that the country is evenly divided on abortion, they’re much less likely to ask questions when restrictions are passed against voters’ wishes. 

That’s the same reason conservatives are pushing for a national abortion ban by calling it a ‘national standard’ or ‘national consensus’. Anti-abortion activists won’t use the word ‘ban’ because they need federal abortion legislation to sound like something everyone agrees on. Otherwise, voters might be reminded that a small group of extremist legislators are enacting bans that Americans decidedly don’t want.

For years, the conventional wisdom was that conservatives won the messaging war on abortion. Whether it was true or not then, it’s certainly not the case now. That’s why there’s no reason for pro-choice politicians or mainstream activists to mince words or tiptoe: If the GOP isn’t winning the debate, why in the world would we let them frame it?

Anytime an anti-abortion activist or lawmaker starts to talk about their ‘reasonable’ abortion bans, they need to be asked why a so-called moderate bill needs to anticipate women becoming suicidal. If they talk about ‘exceptions’, demand that they produce a single person who was able to obtain an abortion using one. And when Republicans argue that Americans want a ‘compromise’ on abortion, ask why, then, they’re so afraid of letting voters have a say. 

Let them attack us, let them spin and lie. Because it’s not “extreme” to believe no one should be forced to carry a pregnancy against their will. It’s not “radical” to point out that pregnancy is too complicated to legislate. How do we know? To start, because these beliefs are the norm.

And that’s what Democrats need to be reminding the public of every day. These are bans being passed against our wills, laws that are hurting people every single day. Not just those with tragic stories—but anyone with the ability to get pregnant. It has never been more important to lead with the truth instead of responding to their lies. 

Abortion rights has historic support, it’s time we all talk like it.