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In a recent development the estranged daughter of the Oath Keepers founder has been leading protests in favor of abortion rights , in Montana. Yet another example of the children of fundies successfully making a life apart from their upbringing.

I recently rewatched the 1997 Sci-Fi film Contact. Directed by Forrest Gump's Robert Zemeckis (among many, many other well known films), Contact was a film that I had mostly forgotten about. Sure, everytime a new sci-fi film came out in the past decade, it was mentioned. But mostly I remembered it as kind of weird Jody Foster film that I saw in high school. (Now you know how old I am!) Contact, despite being 23 years old, is still incredibly relevant to this day. Dr. Ellie Arroway works for SETI, a scientist in a single minded pursuit to find evidence of alien life in the galaxy. David Drumlin, science advisor to the President of the United States, pulls her funding in the most condescending, sexist, garbage way. Seriously, this guy showed up and was a literal cigar smoking, mustache twirling, villain. He ignores Dr. Arroway, talks over her in meetings, dismisses her, and his final words to her were basically "I won, because the world sucks." Tom Skerrit is the perfect foe for this film. He talks over Dr. Arroway. He takes credit for her work. He is a glimpse into the real life dynamics that exist in most industries, including government and science. (And probably every board room that every existed.) He is frustrating and awful, and that is in no small part due to my own experience with the low rent versions of David Drummond. After Drummond pulls her funding, Dr. Arroway and her partner/friend Kent (played by William Fichtner, who you've seen somewhere but can't quite figure it out) move on to finding funding through non-governmental sources. Eventually Arroway gives a rather cliche speech to a giant board room with three people and a camera and secures funding from a secretive billionaire. When her team finally finds a signal, coming from the star system Vega, there is the expected fight between government agencies over who should be in charge. It's all very frustrating and annoying and realistic. Why would anyone want the scientists in charge? What if the aliens intend to do harm? Meanwhile, Dr Arroway continues to do her work, with her team, and attempts to navigate the politics the best she can. Into the fray comes the everpresent "religion" which throws yet another attempt at breaking the unbreakable Dr. Arroway. Before long, the film dives into a rather shallow religion vs science debate, with some dubious statistics (or is it true that 95% of the Earth's population in 1997 believed in a God?). Contact isn't perfect. But the politics, the feminism, the clearly cyborg Rob Lowe who does not age, Matthew McConaughey as a Christian Philosopher (who seemed to actually be hurt by a woman treating him the way many, many, many McConaughey characters have treated women), James Woods, and Angela Bassett make this an 8/10 for me. Other notes: Alan Silvestri does the music and it's on point, though the sound mixing is pretty dated and really annoying (very very quiet, then LOUD then quiet then LOUD.) Technology! I loved watching everyone run around trying to wake up these huge computers by smacking the space bar. The office that Dr. Arroway works out of in New Mexico is way too cluttered and dirty for 2020, so much paper. I think I mixed this up in my head a bit with frequency, because I kept thinking she was going to hear a message from the dead father, played by David Morse. Dr Arroway, with everything shaking and crumbling around her, no idea if she's about to die, be sent to space to die, explode, or a million other possibilities, just keeps saying "OK to Go." That's strength and that's a thirst for knowledge. Is anyone really surprised that the Christians want to shut it down? BTW, the preacher is played by Gary Busey's son, which is why he looks familiar.

Everything is terrible and I want to get off this surreal crazy train we're living in. https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/09/roman-polanski-new-movie

Gabrielle Blair, mother of six and a blogger, recently tweeted a remarkable thread that went viral. In it, she makes the case that men, as opposed to women, are at fault for unplanned pregnancies because of their irresponsible ejaculations and failure to use condoms, which are more readily accessible than birth control for women. This has obviously caused a lot of consternation with many men on Twitter. I mostly created this thread because it's amazing and everyone should see it. https://www.designmom.com/twitter-thread-abortion/

Today here it's a day of Festa Nazionale or as you say a bank holiday. That must be the reason my daughter felt the compelling need to wake me up at 6am . Anyway this year's Festa della Repubblica is particularly felt because it marks 70 years since we got rid of the Savoia, elected a committee to write our Constitution and Italian women finally perused their right to vote. With this voting sheet we closed forever a chapter of our history not many are proud of. It was bilingual to accommodate Südtiroler German speaking citizens. 70 years ago started the process that in 1948 gave us a new Constitution, a new government and a new National symbol: the Star of Italy, a symbol strictly linked to our Risorgimento, the olive branch symbol of peace, the oak branch symbol of the unity of Italian people and the gearwheel symbol of the work of the people that is the foundation of our State as explicated by the first article of the Constitution. Honestly I am not much of a patriot, for many reasons, but I think that that day of 70 years ago our people did something right. I am quite proud of the first part of our Constitution, that deals with the principles of our State. And I am proud that five women were very vocal members of the Constitutional Committee, their names: Maria Federici, Angela Gotelli, Nilde Jotti, Teresa Noce, Lina Merlin, are probably unknown internationally but are easily recognisable to Italian citizens because of some very important laws that were named after the women who proposed them and in particular Nilde Jotti was the first woman President of the Camera dei Deputati the third highest rank in our State, position currently held by Laura Boldrini. Sadly it's still the highest position ever held by women in our Establishment. Reading FJ made me research more about USA Constitution and history. Today I wanted to reciprocate the pleasure for whoever may be interested. Here is the original writing of Italian Constitution as was approved by the Constitutional Committee in 1947 translated in English. It's under spoiler because it's composed by screenshots. Changes have been made over time ie Military Service isn't compulsory anymore. But the parts I am proud of are still unaltered. This is only the first part of the document as you can see from the Table of Contents. The second part designs the structure, the power balance and the functions of the different parts of the State. It was crafted carefully doing everything to prevent the possibility of another dictatorship in the future. Unfortunately this requirement makes for an extremely bureaucratic State that in hindsight is the principal cause of the political mess and stagnation of the last 70 years. But that's another very very long story for another day.

Why is it, that if you call out men for being misogynistic, racist, ableist, or any other kind of problematic, violent, sexually predatory behavior, or even just generally being an asshole, why is it suddenly about the guy being called out? Like, I could politely ask someone to exhibit common decency, but suddenly, I'm being just, so fucking mean. And I'm like, I'm sorry, I wasn't raising my voice, cussing, or anything, and you're acting like I'm suddenly doing SO MUCH for telling you that taking advantage of girls (often to the point of assault/rape), telling racist jokes, disrespecting women in ways you don't men, being ableist about women who claim you're problematic because they have a mental illness/are on the autism spectrum/whatever, being fatphobic/body shaming, etc etc etc is a shit thing to do and maybe you shouldn't. If you are being called out, and you think it's TOO MUCH and it's coming from a woman, especially a woman at one or more other intersections of oppression (ie a queer, black, disabled, poor,whatever woman) and or who doesn't otherwise conform to societal expectations of femininity (keeping sweet, wearing makeup, pretending to be stupid, looking "pretty") then maybe you should question whether you are really so egalitarian as you think you are. I have seen this way too much, men who will be like "I'm a feminist/ally" or some other kind of thing, and then engage in misogynistic, (in the case of a few of my peers, rapey/assaulty behavior) or racist, or some other kind of fucked up behavior then get super butthurt about being called out for it... I'm not even super radical feminist- I don't engage in political lesbianism, and I still have a lot of male friends that I adore, etc, and I'm not about the "the government is inherently patriarchal" shit...I just voted for Hillary Clinton for christ's sake. But I don't think it's my job to coddle men through being fucked up, especially if they show no real desire to change, or want to blame it on women, and quite frankly, I don't have the time or mental health to do that. I know there's a lot of people that are okay with doing that, great. But it's not up to me, and I'm done arguing with misogynists. First of all, I feel like I'm well within my rights to cuss someone out if they're being rapey and assaulty, full stop. But even with lesser behavior, which I politely(most of the time) call out why am I being rude? No, you're being RUDE for being problematic! Don't try to deflect the blame! And this is not to say, that ShepherdontheRock is never wrong, or ShepherdontheRock doesn't have priveleges she needs to check...shit, I could write an entire 10-page or longer essay on priveleges I have that I need to be checking, and even post it up on here, if you care to read it. I mean, I definitely don't have a problem talking about that. But I'm not going to be, when calling someone out, "well I'm sometimes wrong" because that's besides the point. The point is YOUR fucked up behavior. I'm not having something be derailed by deflecting blame. And, I am always open to having conversations with men about how to be a better ally/less fucked up, and we can even have a conversation about all our priveleges...but they don't want to talk. So what's the point about being nice to some of these men when they're just misogynistic af? I'm not going to do the whole respectable, ladylike bullshit when they can't even be decent human beings. So, no not being nice to misogynists ANY more.