Some links, or how I wasted my whole day (and now, you can too!)

[kalichan]

First, there were the PUMAs. Have you guys heard about these folks? PUMA apparently stands for Party Unity My Ass, (??? Really?) and they seem to be American feminists women of a certain age who feel utterly betrayed by the election, and spend a lot of time totting up grievances about who has suffered more, people of color, or women? (And what

Comments

[kel_reiley]

ok, i only skimmed through a few of those but holy shit
i am going to bookmark this for later

[kalichan]

seriously, it ate my whole day. Like, whoa! Welcome to crazytown!

[askeladden]

When I was in high school, I found the webpage of a woman who was in college, but she was queer and liked opera and Latin (okay, yeah, I have a type), and so we had a brief correspondence. When I came to the city some ten years later, we met briefly over dinner (I think she got a little upset because I got antipasto with cold cuts and I hadn't realizes she was a somewhat militant vegetarian, but wasn't a huge jerk about it or anything), talked about Latin and opera, and parted with the intention of getting back in touch and hanging out sometime. It never really happened, but we exchanged a few friendly emails, and then she moved to California to be with her new girlfriend. I subscribed to her blog because I thought it might be interesting, though she rarely posted, and that was pretty much it

[kalichan]

Oh wow. Yeah. This one's even more disturbing as the person doesn't seem to be crazy except... well, wow.

But that it turned an extremely left-wing feminist lesbian into a raging, frothing Sarah Palin supporter? WTF? Seriously. WTF.

Yeah, I mean, there's not enough WTF in the world.

Also, I'm sorry, but what is it with the the Hitler comparison meme?

Like, I just don't understand it. Both charismatic public speakers, with ardent followings, I guess, but really??? And if you're a Clinton supporter/feminist, it's like the holocaust?! I just... words fail.

[magnetgirl]

All of this just makes me even angrier that no where in a high school standard education is there anything resembling civics classes anymore, nor the increasingly important skill of being a critical receiver of information.

I can smell bullshit in a news story or on tv with a pretty high success rate. Obviously you can too. Most of the country? Not so much.

NY1! NY1! Why I won't switch to direct tv because then I'd lose the only news channel I trust.

[kalichan]

Word. Everyone should have at least a basic understanding of how this shit works. Like, come on.

Anyway, wasn't it bizarrely fascinating?

[jackarono]

I suspect that PUMA is more a matter of the media's constant focus on what's of minor conflict and basically trivial. Focusing on the small percentage of Clinton voters who didn't (or said they wouldn't) vote for Obama-- most did, and, after all, Hilary campaigned very hard for him-- means they didn't have to focus on important issues that actually had some importance to the voting public. (Fortunately, this election, Americans decided not to be diverted into caring more about the trivial than the important.)

More women than men voted for Obama. Many, many more Clinton voters supported Obama. But today's media really can't help themselves. The exception is always more fun to them than the rule, and that's why so often they give this skewed version of reality, the kind that has people saying, "You know, I don't know anyone like that... I guess I only know boring people who never get written up in the newspaper." :)

[kalichan]

No, I totally agree. I was merely surprised/mesmerized by the quality of the response, not thinking they were actually important. And none of these sources were even in the mainstream media, thank goodness. Just the little dark corners of the internet. It is so nice to look at the fringe lunatics, and not have to think, "and they're the ones in charge!"