Category: Athenae

Athenae, So Called Liberal Media2 Comments

Not Everything Sucks

Allison Hantschel

God, I love it when fascist amateurs fall on their keys like this:  Unions for city police officers, firefighters and corrections officers have sued New York City to stop the disclosure of most of these and other disciplinary records. The unions objected to the release of any cases other than “proven and final disciplinary matters.” That would exclude the vast majority of complaints against officers. “We are defending privacy, integrity and the unsullied reputations of thousands of hard-working public safety employees,” a union spokesman said on the filing of the lawsuit. On Wednesday, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order, blocking the city, … Continue reading Not Everything Sucks

Athenae, Congress5 Comments

Ted Yoho’s Daughters

Allison Hantschel

Ted Yoho is a dick, okay, and everything that could be said about AOC pretty much has been, except that I kept thinking about this story:  Christine’s own parents and siblings — the Blaseys — have not released any similar statement of support. As their daughter and sister has become the country’s most talked-about woman for accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh of sexual assault while both were in high school, the Blaseys have strategically avoided the press. Voice mails, texts, emails and letters from reporters have gone unanswered. Friends have politely declined to comment on what the family … Continue reading Ted Yoho’s Daughters

Athenae7 Comments

Who’s going to stop him?

Allison Hantschel

This is one of those things everyone gasps about, like HOW DARE HE and THIS IS FASCISM PEOPLE WAKE UP and A NEW LOW FOR TRUMP and it just makes me tired.  President Trump and top White House officials are privately considering a controversial strategy to act without legal authority to enact new federal policies — starting with immigration, administration officials tell Axios. Between the lines: The White House thinking is being heavily influenced by John Yoo, the lawyer who wrote the Bush administration’s justification for waterboarding after 9/11. Yoo detailed the theory in a National Review article, spotted atop Trump’s desk in … Continue reading Who’s going to stop him?

Athenae, So Called Liberal Media1 Comment

Young People Need MONEY

Allison Hantschel

I know, I know it’s Douthat, but for fuck’s sake:  The scholar Peter Turchin of the University of Connecticut, whose work on the cycles of American history may have predicted this year’s unrest, has a phrase that describes part of this dynamic: the “overproduction of elites.” In the context of college admissions that means exactly what it sounds like: We’ve had a surplus of smart young Americans pursuing admission to a narrow list of elite colleges whose enrollment doesn’t expand with population, even as foreign students increasingly compete for the same stagnant share of slots. Then, having run this gantlet, … Continue reading Young People Need MONEY

Athenae, Television

Not Everything Sucks, Succession Edition

Allison Hantschel

Gerri and Roman, our Success May-December romance, exist:  “To be honest, it’s very tough. Because you want it to ring true, and, I don’t know. I think she’s too savvy to do anything too messy like that. I think she’s way too careful a person,” she said of her mixed-up relationship with Roman. “But on the other hand, he makes a good protege. Right? Maybe. I don’t know. I’m just thinking of it in the back of my mind, she’s like, ‘This is a diamond in the rough. Maybe this is the start of a beautiful friendship if I could … Continue reading Not Everything Sucks, Succession Edition

Athenae, Elections1 Comment

We Gotta Get Rid of the Whole Lot

Allison Hantschel

This is all very true:  McConnell and the Senate Republicans will put the brakes on every meaningful policy initiative that Biden advances. Hundreds of measures that have been approved by the House since the Democrats took over in January 2019—including the Heroes Act package of Covid-19 relief measures that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her colleagues passed in May—have been laid to rest in what Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer describes as “Leader McConnell’s legislative graveyard.” The Republican lawmaker and his cadre of obedient partisans have made it perfectly clear time and again that they will not be moved by … Continue reading We Gotta Get Rid of the Whole Lot

Athenae, COVID-191 Comment

No Good Choices

Allison Hantschel

If we wanted the schools to be open, we should have left everything else closed:  I want schools to open. I’ve got a five year old and a fifteen year old in a 900-square-foot house with only two bedrooms, and I’d love to have them literally anywhere else. And we’re among the lucky ones. Public schools don’t just teach. They provide subsidized breakfast and lunch for many of their students, plus access to counselors, community, and nurses. Figuring out how to deliver food and healthcare to these children is more important than how to stagger classes. But it’s time to … Continue reading No Good Choices

Athenae, Current Affairs

Things We Learned in the Fire

Allison Hantschel

HEY C’MON COME OUT WHEREVER YOU ARE WE NEED TO HAVE THIS MEETING AT THIS TREE AIN’ EVEN BEEN PLANTED YET — June Jordan, Calling On All Silent Minorities I’ve written before about how Mr. A has been nesting. He’s mostly done now. The yard is enclosed by a 6-foot fence with a double-lock gate; Kick can leave her toys absolutely everywhere and I don’t have to yell at her to bring her scooter or her ponies or anything else inside every night. I forget to lock doors, still, so we bought a family “calendar” to assign chores and one … Continue reading Things We Learned in the Fire

Athenae, Television

Not Everything Sucks

Allison Hantschel

Michaela Coel exists, and is astonishing:   When she first began pitching the concept for I May Destroy You in spring 2017, Netflix offered her $1 million upfront — $1 million! But when she learned they wouldn’t allow her to retain any percentage of the copyright, she said no. No amount was worth that. She fired CAA, her agency in the U.S., too, when it tried to push her to take the deal after she learned it would be making an undisclosed amount on the back end. Throughout the fallout with Netflix and CAA, Coel asked questions relentlessly. She is eager, almost giddy, to … Continue reading Not Everything Sucks

Athenae, COVID-19

Solidarity and What It Gets Us

Allison Hantschel

I’ve been thinking about this since reading this tweet: The Iraq and Afghanistan war dead, too. Once it became clear the wars were going badly and also were never going to end it became convenient to act like "we" were no longer at war. https://t.co/YyuOV3Qj9C — Allison Hantschel (@Athenae) May 24, 2020 That every movement turns on itself eventually, that every fire burns out, that nothing can be sustained forever, are I think things we all know. That you can’t stay in the middle of the war forever, or it wins. But Jesus, this, we barely tried. A month ago … Continue reading Solidarity and What It Gets Us

Athenae, Bigotry, Guns, Race1 Comment

Racism is for the Rich

Allison Hantschel

https://twitter.com/AmandaMarcotte/status/1277565303216537600 The reddest parts of any purple state are its suburbs. Fight me.  Suburbs, and exurbs, really. Not that there aren’t racist assholes in cities, she says, two blocks from the city that perfected redlining. But the white-flighters are something else, not just racial hatred but the very specific fear of a black invasion of “their” neighborhood. They’ve had stories handed down to them through two generations now about the beautiful places their grandparents and great-grandparents grew up in, that were “ruined” by “those people.” That those neighborhoods were ruined by deliberate and malicious government policies to devalue the property, … Continue reading Racism is for the Rich

Athenae, COVID-19

‘As Leadership on Virus Fails’

Allison Hantschel

Jesus Christ, we STILL can’t name the problem:  Coronavirus Live Updates: U.S. Cases Soar Past 2.5 Million as Leadership on Virus Fails With new cases of the coronavirus suddenly surging across multiple states that had low and manageable caseloads just months ago, confusion and anger is swirling among those who obeyed lockdowns and drastic social measures out of a sense of civic duty to help bring the U.S. outbreak under control. Nationwide, cases have risen 65 percent over the past two weeks. On Friday, the country reported more than 45,000 new infections, its third consecutive day of record new cases, … Continue reading ‘As Leadership on Virus Fails’

Athenae, Big Damn Heroes

Not Everything Sucks

Allison Hantschel

Labor is fighting like labor has always fought:  On June 19, a group of workers plans to picket outside an unlikely location: Union Jacks strip club. It’s the only club out of nearly 30 Portland establishments that won’t agree to demands to ensure fair treatment of black dancers. “Who’s gonna cross a strike line of angry-ass strippers?” says Cat Hollis, a dancer who organized the Portland Stripper Strike. The picket line is a signal that the national movement for racial justice has extended to the quintessentially Portland institution of strip clubs. More than 100 dancers have issued the following demands … Continue reading Not Everything Sucks

Athenae, Race, So Called Liberal Media, Stupid Republican Tricks2 Comments

‘Aggravated Battery’

Allison Hantschel

Of course he’s white, you knew that from the convention of referring to him as something other than a THUG or a TERRORIST:  A judge has released the man accused of opening fire and shooting a protester. Police say Steven Baca is the man seen on video opening fire at last Monday’s protest regarding a statue of conquistador Juan De Oñate, sending one man to the hospital. Much of the District Attorney’s case was centered around 10 primary witness videos, one of which shows the moments leading up to Baca firing his gun. While Baca is most known for firing shots, he is … Continue reading ‘Aggravated Battery’

Athenae, Race1 Comment

To Rally

Allison Hantschel

We were planning on being in the parade until my husband dropped a whole ass IKEA shelf that weighed about 20 pounds and had a sharp metal edge directly onto his own head somehow. Two hours and seven staples and diagnosis of a mild concussion later, we decided he should not inflict his really gnarly head wound on a COVID-paranoid public. So, to still participate somehow in the local Juneteenth parade my neighborhood decided at the spur of the moment to throw, Kick and I got busy making signs and recruiting friends to come watch from the sidelines, masked and … Continue reading To Rally

Athenae, Music, Uncategorized

Not Everything Sucks

Allison Hantschel

Nina Simone existed, and her music still does:  Looking at Nina Simone’s statue in downtown Tryon, I recite the end of Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem, “Archaic Torso of Apollo,” which reads, “for here there is no place / that does not see you. You must change your life.” Rilke wrote the poem while staring, entranced, at a headless statue from Auguste Rodin that dazzled him to the point of imperative transformation. Now, almost exactly one hundred years later, I am standing in front of the eight-foot bronze statue of Nina Simone. I find most of the music I really love … Continue reading Not Everything Sucks

Athenae, So Called Liberal Media

Fox Gonna Fox

Allison Hantschel

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA: ⁦“Fox News has “a responsibility to their public. It’s one thing for their opinion hosts to state whatever opinion they have, but for their online news platform, they have to follow the ethical norms of any news organization,” said ⁦@NPPAExec⁩ https://t.co/lBaTyhk9dY — NPPA (@NPPA) June 13, 2020 They really, really don’t have to “follow the ethical norms.” This is the goddamn problem. We’ve been over here having a journalism seminar, a well-catered affair with skirts on the tables and nice labeled name tags, and they’ve been having a dogfight. I am not DEFENDING the dogfight, mind, but let us … Continue reading Fox Gonna Fox

Athenae3 Comments

Just Stop It

Allison Hantschel

I’ve had it. I’ve had it with arguments over “defund the police” “no, that’s a bad slogan” “no it’s not.” THE GOP IS FIGHTING OVER HOW MANY MORE WATER CANNONS AND “RUBBER” BULLETS TO SHOOT AT PROTESTERS. I’ve had it with white liberals clowning on Nancy Pelosi for wearing kente cloth. The Congressional Black Caucus gave it to everyone, it’s not like Nance went to JoAnn Fabrics and decided to make herself a costume. Should she have refused to wear it on the basis of Red Rose Twitter being primed for dunks? Where does THAT end? there anything we’re NOT … Continue reading Just Stop It

Athenae, Stupid Everything Tricks, Stupid Republican Tricks1 Comment

The Courage of Republicans

Allison Hantschel

Wow, Bush and Romney won’t support Trump for re-election:  WASHINGTON — It was one thing in 2016 for top Republicans to take a stand against Donald J. Trump for president: He wasn’t likely to win anyway, the thinking went, and there was no ongoing conservative governing agenda that would be endangered. Yeah! Why bother calling out fascism if it was just gonna go away by itself? That’s usually how that kind of thing works, and better to hide in a conference room and pretend your party isn’t burning around you. The New York Times cannot get over the courage of … Continue reading The Courage of Republicans

Athenae, Bigotry, Current Affairs, Race1 Comment

The Riot Control Bees

Allison Hantschel

From Paul Ryan’s old stomping grounds comes today’s example of someone who has, and I do not say this lightly, COMPLETELY LOST THE PLOT:  Greg Hoeft of Janesville brought 12 boxes of bees to the event. The bees were on a trailer that he towed into the post office parking lot, just behind the protestors. Hoeft, whose name was on the side of the bee boxes, posted his plans on Facebook: “The riot control bees are in their holding yard waiting to clear the streets of Janesville and keep peace to this county. I’m willing to bring them in and … Continue reading The Riot Control Bees

Athenae, Current Affairs, Uncategorized2 Comments

A Product of Their Times

Allison Hantschel

Apropos of being reminded of the existence of an acquaintance I’d memory-holed but apparently forgotten to unfriend, nothing makes me crazier than the idea that someone was just A PRODUCT OF THEIR TIME. Oh, he’s an old man, let him be racist and sexist and garbage and shitty to you and in front of you, he’s a product of his time. You know who else was a product of their time? Sophie Scholl. Sojourner Truth. Fred Hampton. Every single goddamn Freedom Rider. Ida B. Wells was a product of her time. Nellie Bly, too. Every last one of the Tuskegee … Continue reading A Product of Their Times

Athenae, Current Affairs

The Sound of Kids on the Streets Outside

Allison Hantschel

I know people who were there in ’68, and not just there as in lived through it, but THERE there. A friend who spoke at my wedding was in the National Guard during Kent State, left soon after. Colleagues were in the streets, getting beaten and gassed. I know people who fought in Europe in World War II. I knew, many years ago, a man who went to Spain to fight the fascists there after writing about it for years. Their eyes go somewhere else when they talk about it. When they gather, and someone takes a photograph, it’s not … Continue reading The Sound of Kids on the Streets Outside

Athenae, COVID-19, Race1 Comment

The Long Tail

Allison Hantschel

One legacy, leading to another and another:  The era of slavery was when white Americans determined that black Americans needed only the bare necessities, not enough to keep them optimally safe and healthy. It set in motion black people’s diminished access to healthy foods, safe working conditions, medical treatment and a host of other social inequities that negatively impact health. This message is particularly important in a moment when African-Americans have experienced the highest rates of severe complications and death from the coronavirus and “obesity” has surfaced as an explanation. The cultural narrative that black people’s weight is a harbinger … Continue reading The Long Tail

Athenae, COVID-194 Comments

Selfishness

Allison Hantschel

Yeah: In retrospect it’s clear that the biggest mistake public officials made in the early weeks of this pandemic was to ask the public to be considerate of other people. All the safety measures should’ve been framed as selfishness. — Matt Zoller Seitz (@mattzollerseitz) May 23, 2020 I mean, as much as anything would shut the NRA crowd up, maybe a message of WEAR A MASK SO A FOREIGNER DOES NOT GIVE YOUR WHITE DAUGHTERS THE PLAGUE would have helped. These hissyfits almost never make sense, though, so I’m hesitant to attribute the behavior of the president’s fanclub to actual … Continue reading Selfishness

Athenae, On Wisconsin, So Called Liberal Media, Stupid Republican Tricks5 Comments

You Don’t Understand, or You Do, And in Either Case We’re All Dead

Allison Hantschel

The Journal Sentinel’s editorial board:  But it’s not the court’s fault that the governor and top lawmakers can’t work together for the common good. Nor is it the court’s job to set public health policy in Wisconsin. That’s the job of the governor and Legislature. So do your jobs, Gov. Tony Evers, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos. Adopt clear rules for the state moving forward. Do so now, so the novel coronavirus is contained. The governor issued rules and Republicans and the State Supreme Court blew them up. Yelling at them all to do their … Continue reading You Don’t Understand, or You Do, And in Either Case We’re All Dead

Athenae, COVID-195 Comments

I Don’t Know What To Tell You if You Are Still Surprised

Allison Hantschel

Roger Cohen, who like most of the New York Times has come to the conclusion that the president enjoys stirring shit and encouraging violence: Nobody foresaw what a pathogen about one-thousandth the width of an eyelash could trigger in a society where truth itself has been obliterated by President Trump, day after lying day. If he could deny the visible, like the number of people at his inauguration, imagine what he could do with the invisible. Or don’t imagine it, just look around. Trump, in a tweet last month, urges his tens of millions of followers to “LIBERATE” Virginia from … Continue reading I Don’t Know What To Tell You if You Are Still Surprised

Athenae, COVID-193 Comments

This Wasn’t The Apocalypse They Were Promised

Allison Hantschel

These idiots resisting masks, these idiots screaming I WANT A HAIRCUT, these idiots just generally: “FREEDOM AIN’T FREE! THESE COLORS DON’T RUN! RESPECT LAW AND ORDER!” “Sir, could you not go to Pizza Hut for a bit so your parents don’t die? You can still take it home and eat it there.” “I AM HISTORY’S GREATEST VICTIM! NOW I KNOW TRUE PAIN.” — Jason McGrath (@JasonMMcGrath) May 3, 2020 They were promised an end of the world they could shoot their way out of. They were promised an end of the world in which they were kings because they had … Continue reading This Wasn’t The Apocalypse They Were Promised

Athenae, COVID-19, Diary, Fuck The Mommy Wars, Uncategorized3 Comments

Distance

Allison Hantschel

Here are some numbers. My mother had me when she was 21 years old. I had my daughter when I was 38. For most of their lives, my mother lived six blocks away from her mother, who was 35 years old when my mother was born. Since I turned 17, I have never lived closer than 70 miles from my mom. This past fall I flew 800 miles to be at the wedding of a girl I love like my own daughter. I left my own daughter behind, in the care of my mother. For four days we were those … Continue reading Distance

Athenae, COVID-19, Urban Hellhole2 Comments

Shelter

Allison Hantschel

Mr. A is nesting. Mr. A, bless him, is always possessed of an endless list of things about our current domicile that annoy the living daylights out of him. The door squeaks. You have to kick that cabinet or it won’t close. The light switch doesn’t dim, or doesn’t dim properly. The local handyman and I exchange glances (from 6 feet away, masked) as he is explaining his projects: a label on every switch, motion-sensor lights, ceiling fans in every room. The handyman is there because, although Mr. A has a list of endless things to fix, he doesn’t trust … Continue reading Shelter