And, while I've nothing against the diversity of sexual expression, I can't help but wonder at all this "normalizing" of LGBTQ.
I think it's important to accept people regardless of their sexual orientation, don't get me wrong. But to "normalize" it? Meh. And why should - really - anyone's sexual orientation or predilection be any of my business?
It used to be we "normalized" things like owning a house, having a job, children. And we accepted people who chose differently. But it seems that as this becomes less and less of a possibility we've come to embrace "the alternatives" as the new normal - which they are not, they are compromises to an increasing fractured and divisive economy and society. Which - to an extent - might explain the rise of the far right in the USA and elsewhere.
Wanting to own a house, settle down, have children? This is the new "perversion".
And - note - it's in every wealthy persons interest to "normalize" settling for less - lower wages, higher prices - anything that brings money into their pocket has to be legitimized and regarded as "normal".
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Seeing it juxtaposed with Confederate flags, Nazi flags, American Flags, flying off the back of trucks, always trucks, the worst sorts of people...
Honking, yelling, drawing attention to "Their Cause", not a single participant could articulate with any certitude what, exactly, their cause is, vocal about their own freedoms, but they seem to take everybody else's freedom as an affront, a challenge to their own...
It's becoming less a point of pride (was it ever?) than a point of shame. Maybe it's time to come up with a new flag, that right-minded people can display without embarrassment.
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This age, era, it lakes an appropriate title.
By which I mean "Holocene" or "Anthropocene" are fine, but they don't define the culture. There was the Renaissance, there's been Modernism, and Post-Modernism, there have been any number of movements that specifically try and describe the culture that we live in.
For the moment, there is nothing. And so I propose we call it the "Post-Satire". By which I mean that any Satire - no matter how outlandish, preposterous, or ridiculous - is outstripped by the reality of the time we live in and the principle players.
Think of "Space Force" - perhaps funny - a satire on the ambitions of the former President Trump - but - somehow - not so funny. Because no matter how hard it tried, if you were following the news you knew that the reality was far more absurd and preposterous. Or the latest movie "hit" - "Don't Look Up" - which (I haven't seen to be fair) - fails because it comes too close to home. This isn't a dumbed down version of the world we live in - it's a world in which we somehow portray everyone in power as having the faintest glimmer of intelligence that's somehow overruled by self-interest.
You can't make fun of this, and you shouldn't be trying. It's long overdue we started to take things seriously, because - indeed - things are about to take a very serious turn.
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The app on my phone, it tells me it's sunny, 20 degrees. Meanwhile there's a gale force wind whipping up the lake, mangling the pagodas, tearing up the umbrellas.
Check the app on your phone again. Oh, now it's updating, rain.
Every day, the forecast dictating where I'll be working, the forecast off - invariably - by an average of 10 degrees above or below the target.
You want to know the weather? Look at your phone - then take your best guess. Whatever it is it won't be that.
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