Today’s Cultural Warfare Update, for 6 March 2023

There’s too much duplication in these updates now. Now that Republicans are actively calling for genocide, and introducing bills to take queer children away from parents and put them in custody of the state, with felony charges possible for adults… well… there’s no more line. It’s all fascism now.

So I’m not going to eliminate the CWU, but I am going to trim it extensively. If there’s legal force, or intent of imminent legal force, then it’ll go into the Fascism Watch. If it’s social updates, warnings, and explanations, it’ll be here. Otherwise there’s just too much overlap.

With that said, the lead story should continue to be speaker after speaker at CPAC rallying the troops against trans people, including full-on calls for genocide. If you ignored everything over the weekend – and who can blame you, really? – go read it. The word they used was “eradication,” not “genocide,” but it’s the same fucking thing.

They’re not fucking around. They mean it.

So. In today’s probably-shorter-than-typical-even-now Cultural Warfare Update:

It’s not your imagination – Twitter is much, much worse than it was before Musk. Particularly in misogyny, which has been allowed to run rampant, as you’d expect from Musk Twitter. It is, as always, a good day to leave twitter.

Minnesotans, you’ve got a bill under consideration to protect LGBT refugees fleeing to your state, but in particular, trans children and their supportive parents. It would be a direct response to Florida’s plans to seize queer children from supporting mothers and fathers. Give it a look, support it if you can.

Aja Romero – who I really wish would come over to Mastodon – has a big article out on Vox that is, as she puts it, an exhausting but not exhaustive timeline and rundown of J. K. Rowling’s anti-trans activity.

“Dude, stop saying dab!” Young Republicans fully support the culture wars, but want Boomer Republicans to talk about it in different, less cringe ways – and in particular, to stop saying “woke.“

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Fascism Watch for March 6, 2023: Florida wants to take your children away

Florida Republicans have introduced a bill to take trans children away from supportive parents – it’s literally on suspicion of possible medical support, not even actual medical support – and charge the parents and doctors with felonies if supportive medical care is provided.

Taking children is classic fascism, once in power. Nazi Germany did it, Russia’s doing it in Ukraine, etc, etc, etc.

Also, if you missed it, the lead story should continue to be speaker after speaker at CPAC rallying the troops against trans people, going into full-on calls for genocide. If you weren’t paying attention over the weekend – and who can blame you, really? – go read it. The word they used was “eradication,” not “genocide,” but it’s the same fucking thing.

They’re not fucking around. They mean it.

So… is it fascism yet?

Iowa Republicans have introduced a bill to defy the Supreme Court ruling legalising same-sex marriage and ban our marriages in the state entirely. They see the opinion on overturning Roe v. Wade as an invitation, and they’re absolutely, positively right.

In a race to a bottom that’s already been reached, at least one South Carolina Republican wants the death penalty for abortions, and introduced a bill to legislate exactly that. That isn’t very likely to pass, I’m told – but it’s extremely important now to be aware that the entire drug-war apparatus will now be turned against women and other people who can get pregnant and seek abortion. Including your social media accounts.

I’m a little hesitant to include this, because they’re taking things as certainties which I absolutely am not. But I’m still going to include it as a worst-case scenario, because as that, it’s pretty accurate: DAME Magazine’s article, Trans People Are in Grave Danger.

There’s almost certainly more, but it’ll have to be in tomorrow’s update. The weekend was much busier than usual and today is very busy for me – and it’s very important, I think, to get the calls for genocide out there again today. Good luck out there. We’re all going to need it.

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Project holder project project update

Which is to say, a project update on the project wherein I am designing a project holding system – or in a broader sense, a storage system for anything which needs first- or second-order-of-retrieval access. Stuff you don’t want on your desk, but which you want to be able to grab quickly and easily.

For me, that’s basically “projects in progress,” which is how the project holder project got its name. I also wanted something that would fit on scarce wall space, in small vertical areas.

Short form: it’s working! This past week alone I cleared three projects off of it, one by successful completion, one by sadly failure, one by deciding I didn’t actually want to do it anymore, but I’d save the parts if I changed my mind about that.

I’ve also been watching for any signs of plastic deformation – some of these items I’m storing have at least a little weight to them – and so far, I’m not seeing it. So I think I engineered it out strong enough even for basic PLA – stronger materials would, of course, do even better.

A week and a half ago, I added an updated wall attachment unit to the project. This one has pre-existing holes for two nails to be inserted at 45°. I’d been trying to use various removable adhesives for a single-mount-point installation, and when all of those failed due to the adhesives peeling off the PLA (at well under their rated strengths, I stress), I thought “let’s try two thin nails at the right angle, and some removable poster tape for stability.”

I was fairly confident this would work and I’m making a note here: huge success. With minimal wall impact, of course, as they are pretty small nails. I haven’t had time yet to design a screw-mount plate, but I think I will.

Also considering making a hook plate. I’m thinking that’d be a nice accessory. You could set a short stack of these up on the way to a front door, maybe beside it, have a hook for keys, have a bin for change and wallet, whatever. It’d be easy to design and should be handy.

It also occurs to me that while I’ve been thinking vertically this whole time, there’s no reason you couldn’t do a horizontal version of this system too. I don’t think that’s as useful in general, but.. it should be fine. The kind of thing maybe you could use in a classroom, particularly with bins. I can see a classroom of little kids picking the bin colour they liked most and storing their crayons or pastels or whatever in them, for art time. Stuff like that.

I’d also like to add some sort of front label space for the bins in particular. I think that’d be a big improvement. I mean, it’s a blank face, it’s not like you can’t put on a sticker or something. But it’s something I’m thinking about, particularly in some sort of removable context.

I think I might be trying to provide hashtags in physical space. #art #electronics #mending lol.

Anyway, I think this project is going pretty well. If you’ve got a printer and want to poke at it yourself, the link is above.

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