This Week's Writing 6/22/23

Sex workers and twitter blue, Indy Jones punching fascists, and more!

This week’s whiskers! Also writing.

If You Read One Thing By Me this Week, Read:

Twitter Blue and the censorship of sex workers. (Index on Censorship)

Politics

Accepting a debate with RFK is a sucker’s bet. (Public Notice)

No cis isn’t a slur. (Independent)

Bill Barr’s partisan hackery looks almost principled compared to the rest of the GOP. (Independent)

Do we need more empathy for billionaires? (EIH)

A politics centering purity leads to fascism, anti-vax, and other bad things. (EIH)

Cultural Criticism

No Hard Feelings is a sex worker romcom that doesn’t want to talk about sex work. (CNN)

Indiana Jone: Dial of Destiny punches Nazis, but not very effectively. (MSNBC)

The Diplomat is an authoritarian liberal fantasy. (EIH)

Big Brother doesn’t see race. (EIH)

The only good thing about Extraction II is that III can’t be worse. (Chicago Reader)

Bobbie Nelson’s Loving You with Amanda Shires is a lovely career capstone. (No Depression)

The Eternals show that trolley problems make bad movies. (EIH)

Star Trek: Who Mourns for Adonais? shows that gods are boring. (EIH)

Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2022 is an atrocity. And not in a good way. (EIH)

Poetry

I’m too old for this poem. (Five Fleas)

Too Old

I think I’m too old
to get someone to teach me.
Not because I’m too old
for someone to teach me
but because when you’re old
you don’t want someone to teach you.
You know everything: that you’re old.

Jason Bourne poem for secret agents. (Five Fleas)

The screen flickers.
I keep forgetting
that I'm a superspy.