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America The Current Situation

Deliver us from Karen, Amen.

Here’s an unsurprising response to the image above, which shows a more-accurate depiction of Jesus on the left, and the barista who works the evening shift at the Starbucks in Swede Hollow, Minnesota on the right:

When you see God as white, and people as being made in God’s image, it’s no surprise that non-whites are seen as a little less human, and it’s how you get ministers like Mike Huckabee.

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America The Current Situation

America *is* great, Mike Huckabee. Just not *your* vision of it.

Tweet from former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee on April 3, 2021: “I’ve decided to ‘identify’ as Chinese. Coke will like me, Delta will agree with my ‘values’ and I’ll probably get shoes from Nike and tickets to @MLB games. Ain’t America great?”
Tap to see the original, terrible, bigoted tweet.

Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, political commentator on his own show, and combination Fox News contributor and Southern Baptist minister (which should not come as a surprise), posted the tweet above yesterday.

As the Arkansas Times noted, he chose Christianity’s most important holiday to post a racist gibe. Attacks against Asians are on the rise, and Huckabee’s greatest concern is that people he thinks of as lesser and not American are getting treated like equals and Americans.

Thankfully, a number of people have called him out, including Representative Ted Lieu of California’s 33rd congressional district in this tweet that captures my sentiments perfectly:

Tweet from California representative Ted Lieu on April 3, 2021 in response to Mike Huckabee: “Hey Mike Huckabee, I asked around and Coke likes me, Delta agrees with my values, I wear Nikes and my hometown Dodgers won the World Series. But it’s not because of my ethnicity. It’s because I’m not a sh*thead like you who is adding fuel to anti-Asian hate. #StopAAPIHate”
Tap to see the original, righteous tweet.

The odds that Huckabee will listen to Ted Lieu are pretty low. He did get called out by someone he does listen to — author and evangelist Beth Moore:

Tweet from Beth Moore on April 3, 2021 in response to Mike Huckabee: “Mike, I’ve shared a meal with you at your beautiful table. I’ve heard you profess Christ as Lord. This is entirely antithetical to the gospel.”
Tap to see the original tweet.

His response was to deny he did anything bad, which is the first step of the DARVO tactic — Deny. I expect to see the remaining phases, Attack and Reverse Victim and Offender soon enough:

Tweet from Mike Huckabee on April 3, 2021 in response to Beth Moore: “Hi @BethMooreLPM I love you & appreciate your ministry. I don’t take Twitter or myself that seriously but I do take gospel seriously. I truly wish you only joy & continued blessings. May the power of the resurrection lift you to high places this Easter weekend my dear sister!”
Tap to see the original tweet.

More context on Huckabee’s tweet:


At a time when anti-Asian attacks are on the rise…

Graph: “Media reports of harassment against people of Asian descent”, which shows physical, verbal, and vandalism attacks against Asians in America from March 2020 to March 2021, with a big spike in March 2021.
Graph from Swelling Anti-Asian Violence: Who Is Being Attacked Where, which appeared in the New York Times on April 3, 2021.

…Huckabee’s statement shows his annoyance at a group of non-whites getting special attention because violence is being directed at them.

Some more context if you need it:


Postcard: “Greeting from Georgia - The voter suppression state”
Creative Commons image by Mike Licht. Tap to see the source.

Huckabee’s complaints about Coke, Delta, and Major League Baseball are about their opposition to Georgia’s voting law, which appears to be designed to suppress voter participation, especially among minorities. Even the act of giving water to voters in line is now illegal in that state.

All of this was in response to results from the recent election, when Georgia, for the first time in a very long time, voted Democratic in both the presidential and senate elections. The new law is an attempt to make sure that such a thing never happens again, and thus preserve minority rule — a oligarchy of upper-class white people.


Joey deVilla looks on a valley in an American flag shirt.
Yours Truly, on my move from Toronto to Tampa, 2014.

Back in 2015, a couple of weeks before marrying an American, I wrote:

In less than a fortnight, I’m marrying an American. As the husband of a U.S. citizen, I would be eligible for a green card, and eventually, citizenship. I’m also the direct descendant of a U.S. citizen, but I’m told it’s easier to get it via my wife rather than my great-grandfather, James O’Hara. One option is to stay here in the subtropical climes of Accordion Bay, which may mean that someday, I might apply for citizenship.

I come here bearing goodwill, skills in the areas of technology, writing, and rock and roll accordion, cultural and language skills that surpass those of many of the locals (it’s Florida, man!), and a jacket (pictured) that cannot possible be any more American than it already is. I have what it takes to be American. But the question lingers in my mind: will Americans ever consider me to be one of them?

It would appear that the answer is: “Not yet.”

Categories
The Current Situation

COVID-19 vaccination allegory of the day

Also: Gravity doesn’t cause your car to plunge into the water; 5G networking does.

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The Current Situation

They never give you enough

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Florida The Current Situation

Florida Vaccine Update

In case you haven’t heard, here’s the latest news on COVID-19 vaccine eligibility in Florida:

  • If you’re 50 or older, you’re eligible to get the vaccine right now!
  • If you’re between the ages of 40 and 50, you have to wait only a couple of days — starting this coming Monday, March 29th, the minimum age for eligibility drops to 40.
  • If you’re between the ages of 18 and 40, you’ve got just over a week to wait. Two Mondays from now, on Monday, April 5th, any adult will be able to get the vaccine.
Want to find out where you can get vaccinated? The Florida Department of Health has an online vaccine site locator.
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The Current Situation

Expect cringey apologies like this for the next few weeks

“In your heart?” More like up your ass.

In light of the increased violence against Asians, expect to see this sort of crisis-management mea culpa-ing over the next few weeks.

From Variety:

“At the time I did those jokes, I genuinely thought them to be harmless,” Leno said in a joint press release with MANAA leader Guy Aoki. “I was making fun of our enemy North Korea, and like most jokes, there was a ring of truth to them.”

Leno continued, “At the time, there was a prevailing attitude that some group is always complaining about something, so don’t worry about it. Whenever we received a complaint, there would be two sides to the discussion: Either ‘We need to deal with this’ or ‘Screw ‘em if they can’t take a joke.’ Too many times I sided with the latter even when in my heart I knew it was wrong.”

Word to the wise, Jay: Just say “sorry”, do better from now on, and spare us the “Deep down, I’m a good person” schtick. There is no “deep down” — it’s what you do that makes you good or bad.

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The Current Situation

Hey, envirodorks: You should’ve opened with THIS warning!

Talk about burying the lede! Had environmental scientists opened with a warning like “Human penises are shrinking because of pollution”, we would’ve been a zero-emissions, zero-waste, well-endowed world decades ago.