05/25/23

Good morning! It’s Thursday, May 25th.

National Bath Bomb Day.

I love a bath bomb. As many of my friends know, I’m in my bath era. Salts, bubbles, a candle and a bath bomb and… boom! You’ve got yourself a very relaxing time.

And now, the news.

Target Moves Pride Merch

-via NPR

Due to extreme reaction from people who have been threatening employees and throwing displays to the ground, Target is removing some of their Pride merch, and moving other merch to the back of the stores.

And listen… obviously workers should feel safe at work. But you know who else deserves safety? The LGBTQ+ community who is watching their very humanity be litigated and debated and questioned and made illegal.

When questioned by NPR, the company did not confirm whether they would be increasing security at the stores. Which would cost money. So it remains to be seen what they’ll actually do, but I really hope their response to a bunch of hate-filled bullies isn’t to just… give them what they want.

Inauguration Poem Banned in Florida

-via CNN

After one person complained and sent it to the board for review, Amanda Gorman’s inauguration poem, The Hill We Climb, has been removed from the elementary and middle school section of a Miami-Dade public school.

First of all, they listed Oprah as the author, so they very clearly did their work. They also listed, as the reason it should be banned, as (and this is a direct quote): “is not educational and have indirectly hate messages.”

The specific pages noted are 12-13, which say this:

“We’ve braved the belly of the beast, we’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace, and the norms and notion of what “just is” isn’t always justice. And yet the dawn in ours before we knew it. Somehow, we do it. Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed, a nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished.”

One parent. An inaccurate form. And yet, the book is still banned.

Ron DeSantis’ Florida, folks.

May his candidacy be embarrassing, and may his political career come to an end as soon as possible.

Texas Approves Schools to Replace Councilors with Chaplains

-via Washington Post

Brace yourself for this story because it is… wild.

The Texas State House, immediately you know it’s not going to be a good kind of wild… the Texas State House approved a bill that would allow uncertified chaplains to replace professional councilors.

Yeah.

It’s part of a package of bills that would have all but disintegrated the separation of church and schools. Luckily, the clock struck midnight, literally, and the bills were not able to be voted on. But those bills included a requirement that schools to set aside time for staff and students to pray and read religious texts, another that that would allow public employees to “engage in religious prayer and speech,” and the most visually stunning… requiring that a version of the Ten Commandments be hung in every classroom in the state.

And when I say visually stunning… the ten commandments would have to be at least 16 by 20 and “in a size and typeface that is legible to a person with average vision from anywhere in the classroom.”

What an absolutely bizarre timeline we find ourselves in. More technology in our cell phones than what took us to the moon, and southern state legislatures doing everything they can to woosh us into the 1940s.

Dunkin on DeSantis

-via Twitter

I know I said I wasn’t going to talk about the DeSantis presidential announcement unless it made news, which it didn’t but… I also can’t not talk about it, because it’s funny.

The Twitter launch went TERRIBLY!

Less than 200,000 people listened in, it crashed a bunch of times, and it wasn’t even interesting. It was just him reading his stump speech.

Truly remarkably awful… for someone who has clearly been planning this for months, it’s hard to imagine a presidential launch going worse.

Tina Turner

-via Reuters

And we’re ending on some sad news – Tina Turner, who, in her career, won eight Grammys and was sometimes called “The Queen of Rock n Roll,” died on Wednesday.

She was 83.

And that’s it. That’s the news.

I’m proud of bath bombs. Let me tell you about my favorite brand – It’s a brand called Da Bomb and it was founded by two teenage sisters. They smell so good and have fun little surprises in them!

They’re great very fun.

Listen – the rest is a part of the work, you know?

But more than that… more than the flower bath bomb, which is my favorite because it smells SO good… because you are also very relaxing… sometimes… but even if you aren’t… which isn’t a bad thing, it’s just that we all contain multitudes… anyway, the point is… I’m proud of you.