The Battle of Words

 "She became the first openly queer woman of colour and only the second Latina to ever win an Oscar."

My brother sent me this absurd phrase taken from an article in The Guardian which maintains the most ridiculous gender politics at every turn. They weren’t finished, not by a long shot:

“Troy Kotsur also won best supporting actor for his role in the film, making him the second deaf actor to bring home an Oscar”

“Sian Heder, Coda’s writer-director, also won best adapted screenplay becoming the first woman to bring home the award by herself since Emma Thompson in 1995”

“Campion is only the third female director to ever win the Oscar for best director”

 “Riz Ahmed also became the first Muslim and first person of Asian descent to win live action short for The Long Goodbye”

 I guess that when we finally run out of these categories, we will all be free, finally. Hallelujah! Until then, I can't wait to hear what other boxes they will put people in while building their fortress of inclusion. Midget Mexican rodeo clown? Asian transgender Amway salesperson? Aboriginal bi-curious stockbroker? When they have completely exhausted their list—and don’t hold your breath because they seem to have a bottomless reservoir of groups in peril—I guess we will just start all over with white dudes. I'm already dizzy just considering it.

 I don’t know about anyone else, but I really don’t need a lecture on inclusion from a dude whose normal beat is slobbering over the latest Batman movie. In fact, I don’t need a lecture from anyone, not on this topic. The people who may need educating are being pushed further away by this constant and silly torrent of gender and race politics while pushing the focus away from what really matters: economic equality.

 I can’t imagine a worse place to learn about that issue than Hollywood and the filth they shove down our throats on a daily basis, mostly propaganda about rich assholes, as if the lives of the working class hardly amount to a story worth telling. I’d guess that about one hundred percent of the folks gathered for the awards had been on a private jet in the last week, and then they want to lecture us about climate change, the second biggest issue facing the world today (the only reason why climate change isn’t more important than income equality is because if we don’t reign in the hyper-rich oligarchs of the planet, we’ll never effectively battle climate problems).

More of the Same

I'm not the broken record around here, it's the forecasts. I haven't been able to hang clothes outside in a few weeks, not even for a few hours without risking it getting rained on.
 

Fallas During Monsoon Season

I was pedaling around for the first day of Fallas and happened upon this scene a block from my house. It made me laugh that they included an ambulance in the tableau, as if to warn kids of the dangers of bulls in the street, which, if you haven’t heard or seen, is actually a thing in Spain.

There were kids dressed up as doctors and nurses standing by, and one little guy in a suit told me he was the coroner. I thought that was going a bit too far, especially when he kept saying, "Forget the ambulance; call the meat wagon."

 

Perhaps my favorite Falla ever.

 The weather is still horrible.

Antediluvian photos:

 

Felices Fallas to All!

 I've never seen a forecast like this in all my years in Valencia. I was able to get in some bike rides over the weekend, but today is looking pretty grim as I look outside.

Observations on Facial Hair

 The only thing required to have a mustache, a goatee, a van dyke, or any other variation is to simply not do something that I don’t like doing, namely, shaving. This is no “win/win” situation because now I have something on my face 24/7 that I don’t want there, like a big scab.

March 2022

 I realize that the weather is the last rung on the conversation ladder, but the rain is keeping me off my bike and I have a lot more free time to cook, the opposite of exercise.