lennysundahl

[lennysundahl]

So I’ve been enjoying the Disney vs. DeSantis memes as much as anyone, but like. I do feel like a lot of people who had normal childhoods are missing some context to all this.

I was raised in the Bible Belt in a fairly fundie environment. My parents were reasonably cool about some things, compared to the rest of my family, but they certainly had their issues. But they did let me watch Disney movies, which turned out to be a point of major contention between them and my other relatives.

See, I think some people think this weird fight between Disney and fundies is new. It is very not new. I know that Disney’s attempts at inclusion in their media have been the source of a lot of mockery, but what a lot of people don’t understand is that as far as actual company policy goes, Disney has actually been an industry leader for queer rights. They’ve had policies assuring equal healthcare and partner benefits for queer employees since the early 90s.

I’m not sure how many people reading this right now remember the early 90s, but that was very much not industry standard. It was a big deal when Disney announced that non-married queer partners would be getting the same benefits as the married heterosexual ones.

Like — it went further than just saying that any unmarried partners would be eligible for spousal benefits. It straight-up said that non-same-sex partners would still need to be married to receive spousal benefits, but because same-sex partners couldn’t do that, proof that they lived together as an established couple would be enough.

In other words, it put long-term same-sex partners on a higher level than opposite-sex partners who just weren’t married yet. It put them on the exact same level as heterosexual married partners.

They weren’t the first company ever to do this, but they were super early. And they were certainly the first mainstream “family-friendly” company to do it.

Conservatives lost their damn minds.

Protests, boycotts, sermons, the whole nine yards. I can’t tell you how many books about the evils of Disney my grandmother tried to get my parents to read when I was a kid.

When we later moved to Florida, I realized just how many queer people work at Disney — because historically speaking, it’s been a company that has guaranteed them safety, non-discrimination, and equal rights. That’s when I became aware of their unofficial “Gay Days” and how Christians would show up from all over the country to protest them every year. Apparently my grandmother had been upset about these days for years, but my parents had just kind of ignored her.

Out of curiosity, I ended up reading one of the books my grandmother kept leaving at our house. And friends — it’s amazing how similar that (terrible, poorly written) rhetoric was to what people are saying these days. Disney hires gay pedophiles who want to abuse your children. Disney is trying to normalize Satanism in our beautiful, Christian America. 

Just tons of conspiracy theories in there that ranged from “a few bad things happened that weren’t actually Disney’s fault, but they did happen” to “Pocahontas is an evil movie, not because it distorts history and misrepresents indigenous life, but because it might teach children respect for nature. Which, as we all know, would cause them all to become Wiccans who believe in climate change.”

Like — please, take it from someone who knows. This weird fight between fundies and Disney is not new. This is not Disney’s first (gay) rodeo. These people have always believed that Disney is full of evil gays who are trying to groom and sexually abuse children.

The main difference now is that these beliefs are becoming mainstream. It’s not just conservative pastors who are talking about this. It’s not just church groups showing up to boycott Gay Day. Disney is starting to (reluctantly) say the quiet part out loud, and so are the Republicans. Disney is publicly supporting queer rights and announcing company-supported queer events and the Republican Party is publicly calling them pedophiles and enacting politically driven revenge.

This is important, because while this fight has always been important in the history of queer rights, it is now being magnified. The precedent that a fight like this could set is staggering. For better or for worse, we live in a corporation-driven country. I don’t like it any more than you do, and I’m not about to defend most of Disney’s business practices. But we do live in a nation where rights are largely tied to corporate approval, and the fact that we might be entering an age where even the most powerful corporations in the country are being banned from speaking out in favor of rights for marginalized people… that’s genuinely scary.

Like… I’ll just ask you this. Where do you think we’d be now, in 2023, if Disney had been prevented from promising its employees equal benefits in 1994? That was almost thirty years ago, and look how far things have come. When I looked up news articles for this post from that era, even then journalists, activists, and fundie church leaders were all talking about how a company of Disney’s prominence throwing their weight behind this movement could lead to the normalization of equal protections in this country.

The idea of it scared and thrilled people in equal parts even then. It still scares and thrills them now.

I keep seeing people say “I need them both to lose!” and I get it, I do. Disney has for sure done a lot of shit over the years. But I am begging you as a queer exvangelical to understand that no. You need Disney to win. You need Disney to wipe the fucking floor with these people.

Right now, this isn’t just a fight between a giant corporation and Ron DeSantis. This is a fight about the right of corporations to support marginalized groups. It’s a fight that ensures that companies like Disney still can offer benefits that a discriminatory government does not provide. It ensures that businesses much smaller than Disney can support activism.

Hell, it ensures that you can support activism.

The fight between weird Christian conspiracy theorists and Disney is not new, because the fight to prevent any tiny victory for marginalized groups is not new. The fight against the normalization of othered groups is not new.

That’s what they’re most afraid of. That each incremental victory will start to make marginalized groups feel safer, that each incremental victory will start to turn the tide of public opinion, that each incremental victory will eventually lead to sweeping law reform.

They’re afraid that they won’t be able to legally discriminate against us anymore.

So guys! Please. This fight, while hilarious, is also so fucking important. I am begging you to understand how old this fight is. These people always play the long game. They did it with Roe and they’re doing it with Disney.

We have! To keep! Pushing back!

[lennysundahl]

So poor people don’t deserve to have money?!

[lennysundahl]

No joke is one-size-fits-all, but adding "but I remain optimistic" at the end of any somewhat-speculating statement makes it funny, taking a different tone in each.

Adding it to the end of something positive gives it an unexpected twist - implying that whatever the good thing that happened was, it wasn't what you expected or hoped to happen, but you're yet to give up hope of whatever the fuck you've now vaguely implied towards might still happen. "He survived and is expected to make a full recovery, but I remain optimistic."

Adding it to a neutral statement implies that you think something can be done about it, funniest if the statement is something that obviously can't be affected. "Apparently it's tuesday tomorrow, but I remain optimistic."

And the bleakest, most hopeless statements just become bleakly funny by the grim absurdity. "About 30 seconds remain until impact, and the chances of any of us surviving the crash are zero. But I remain optimistic."

[lennysundahl]

The first anime club in the United States was the Cartoon Fantasy Organization in New York in the late 1970s, who met in the basement of the Polish Democratic Club. Anime tapes were so precious they could only be traded usually, not sold (and with translation scripts if you were lucky). The mascot of the group was a weasel named Fanta. 

If you were an anime fan prior to the 80s, you had to be in a club because anime was so rare that you could only get it at screenings in clubs and conventions. 

The Cartoon Fantasy Organization is also relevant to the history of Furries, as the founders of organized furry fandom initially met there in the late 1970s before starting the first true furry clubs and conventions in the 80s. Anime fandom and furry fandom have a “common ancestor,” and emerged from the same group. 

[lennysundahl]

a good day

[lennysundahl]

“Conspiracy theories about vaccines and other medical procedures are perhaps the inevitable output of a for-profit healthcare system where people perceive themselves not as patients, but as cash cows. High (and ever-higher) medical costs drive questions about the intentions of healthcare providers, which then spiral outward into full-blown conspiracy theories, a process that Marxist theorist Fredric Jameson describes as logical “slippage” born of the difficulty of articulating the inner workings of the complex systems that characterize late capitalism. And the intricacies of the for-profit healthcare system provide a site ripe for that slippage, in part because the profits of that system are partly contingent on people not understanding its intricacies, so that they can be charged the highest rates for the largest possible number of procedures.”

— How a For-Profit Healthcare System Generates Mistrust of Medicine

[lennysundahl]

[lennysundahl]

[lennysundahl]

Took some downtime to rewatch the Wing Pit ad and realizing that the point where I start to crack is the slurry of 40 liquefied chicken wings

[lennysundahl]

“Twitter is like a large café, well, almost. You can sit at a table & listen to Albert Einstein, Max Planck & Paul Dirac trying to have a conversation while being constantly interrupted by two loud truck drivers in MAGA hats.”

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb

[lennysundahl]

“Bottom line about LeBron and me: LeBron makes me love the game again. And he makes me proud to be part of an ever-widening group of athletes who actively care about their community.”

— What I Think About LeBron Breaking My NBA Scoring Record

[lennysundahl]

the hogwarts legacy discord is going well

[lennysundahl]

Going through our combined record collection and I’ve had cars that weren’t as valuable as all this vinyl combined

[lennysundahl]

A few months ago, I joined the staff of MotorLAT. A few weeks after that, MotorLAT announced they were shutting down.

This week, many of the exiles from MotorLAT launched Pit Debrief–myself included!

I’ll mainly be focusing on Indycar, including race recaps and maybe even some on-site work, but may also have a Formula 1 article here or there.

[lennysundahl]

Подстава

[lennysundahl]

Detroit was absolutely a playoff team this year. 
The only teams with better runs down the stretch (8-2) were the Bengals, Chiefs, and 49ers (9-1).


Their turnover ratio in those 10 games was +12.


After giving up at least 24 points in each of their first 7 games, they held six of their last 10 opponents under three touchdowns—the defense holding up when it mattered.


If not for that Carolina game, we’d be talking about the most dangerous team in the playoffs.

[lennysundahl]

I added pictures to try and explain the cartoon better!