As a late night cab driver, if you’re ever wondering why I’m on the street rather than the driveway in your sketchy, pickup truck filled suburban neighborhood, this is why.
Give me a shady looking industrial district or run down residential neighborhood over semi-rural suburbia any day of the week. I feel much safer.
I mean, to me the meaning of that juxtaposition is pretty clear.
The Gadsden flag highlights individual primacy, but the thin blue line sticker makes it clear that it’s his individual primacy that he’s concerned with. For an anti-authoritarian evoking that symbolism, the ‘me’ refers to the general autonomy of humanity or at least Americans, but in this case it probably literally refers to that specific individual’s autonomy or to the autonomy of the United States as a country in a nationalistic sense.
He’s basically just representing his subculture and thumping his chest about how nobody better tell him what to do or get in his way, while also showing that he’s affiliated with a big gang. Whether he’s aware of the racist speech the symbol is referencing or the symbol’s deeper meaning is kind of up in the air, but it still probably wouldn’t produce much conflict with his sense of nationalist autonomy in an authoritarian context regardless.
Honestly, it’s that context that I think makes the association with Punisher inevitable. Whether the character supports the current gang in charge or not, he clearly believes in an authoritarian model of crime and punishment; that’s the lens he views the world through and the impetus for his actions. If it’s satire, it certainly doesn’t read that way. Though, to be fair, the show is probably a lot more egregious in that regard than the comic (while also likely being more widely consumed).
Frank Castle supports authoritarian measures so much that he goes beyond what the legal system allows for. He literally names himself after an action designed to reinforce authoritarian hierarchy. Sounds pretty on the nose to me.
I mean, obviously birth control is cheaper and easier for everyone, but that aside there should be as many as there needs to be. No one should have to carry a pregnancy to term against their will, and that shouldn’t be anyone else’s business or a political bargaining chip.
Don’t get me wrong, I definitely think the stronger argument to sway those on the fence is to emphasize that better access to birth control decreases abortions and banning abortion doesn’t actually reduce the abortion rate, it just makes it more dangerous. But like, that’s not why I take that position. Personal bodily autonomy is plenty of reason in my book, and I don’t feel a particular need to try to bring the number of abortions down.
But yeah, I’m sure it’s not a particularly fun medical procedure either.
A fifteen year old version of myself somewhere inside just screamed in iptscrae induced frustration.
With the level of technical knowledge we’ve achieved, there’s no way we’re going back to doing things exactly the way they used to. One example that jumps out at me is the method this primitive technology guy on youtube uses to stoke his furnace. He’s basically made a little manual turbine out of leaves and vines to push his air rather than one of those little squeeze box things.
Obviously I’m not a blacksmith or historian so I don’t actually know how common something like that might have been, but I’m guessing it’s not super old. In any case, I’m sure there are other ways that we’d apply our more advanced knowledge to tackling the sorts of problems we’d be looking at with a collapse of manufacturing and shipping infrastructure.
Honestly, a technologically adept but non-industrial society of artisans sounds kind of cool.
Pretty sure this is super common on some equipment. The ellipticals at the gym I used (before it moved) had them , but I never bothered.
To be fair, I can close my eyes and just sort of flail on an elliptical in a way that would absolutely hurt me if I tried it on the ground. It’s also a lot lower impact and when I’m done I can just stop.
This is real. I’ve had folks in my cab that clearly were trying to probe my boundaries to see if I’m an easy target who immediately switched gears the moment I showed my personality. Just because someone is desperate doesn’t mean they want to fuck over someone who’s cool with them and is real. The way you carry yourself makes a difference.
It’s pretty obvious if you meet me in person that I’m a broke artist who cares about real people and detests fake corporate bullshit. That’s not really an appealing target and I have fuck all to give them anyway.
But if some fuck shoots me for being on their street while being trans, or literally just someone they don’t recognize, I don’t get the chance to show how I carry myself.