Toxic masculinity is boring

Other things to bring to your attention:

To honor Martin Luther King on his 90th birthday Bill in Portland, Maine, a Daily Kos regular contributor, posted a few MLK quotes:

The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character---that is the goal of true education.

"When evil men plot, good men must plan. When evil men burn and bomb, good men must build and bind. When evil men shout ugly words of hatred, good men must commit themselves to the glories of love. Where evil men would seek to perpetuate an unjust status quo, good men must seek to bring a real order of justice."

Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.

Morals can’t be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. The law cannot make an employer love me, but it can keep him from refusing to hire me because of the color my skin.

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville writes a lot about toxic masculinity. She offers another take on the subject: toxic masculinity is boring.

Defending one very specific and limiting and impossibly rigid notion of masculinity is like arguing that there shouldn't be greyhounds or dachshunds or keeshonds or mutts because EVERY DOG SHOULD BE A LABRADOR. AND NO HORSES, EITHER!

Why would anyone want that kind of world? And the assholes who do don't even have the sense to realize that it's their fiercely guarding an oppressively stifling set of dehumanizing rules that makes them aggressive and resentful and cruel.

The evil of banality makes them vicious.

Stop being boring. Be creative. You don't have to be a labrador! Go be a poodle!

(My apologies to labradors, who are very accepting.)

Sarah Kendzior has quotes from another episode of her Gaslit Nation podcast:

We discuss Trump's conception of death: "He's like a caricature of baby boomer narcissism: he literally cannot imagine the world continuing without him. He's so resentful of death that he needs to take everyone else down with him.

Trump has always believed that the world will end in nuclear war. But what started out as a desire for non-proliferation turned into a desire to use nuclear weapons. Trump can now assauge his life-long fear by being the one who pushes the button.

Trump is surrounded by religious fanatics obsessed with the rapture: Pence, Pompeo. When it comes to things that might really end the world, like climate change, they won't act. When it comes to nukes, they might use them.

I guess one would have to listen to the podcast to find out how she knows that.

For those not familiar with this use of the term rapture, it is a part of a conservative Christian belief that that there is an End Time for the world that would be a massive battle between Good and Evil. Just before this massive battle begins, true Christians would be raptured, they would be pulled from earth up to heaven to protect them. Some of these people believe they can make the rapture happen sooner by encouraging catastrophic war to happen. All of it is based on them being better than everyone else, being at the top of the hierarchy. They get to escape the chaos they inflict on the rest of us.