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Cake day: January 30th, 2025

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  • I was a fan of the 60s Batman (no, I’m not that old, I was just introduced to the classics at a young age). Adam West and Burt Ward were my Batman and Robin.

    He was a millionaire in the 60s.

    Here’s the really funny part. In the 1960s Batman Movie, Julie Newmar plays the Catwoman (she’s one of my favorite Catwomen because of this role, but Eartha Kitt will always hold a special place in my heart.) In this edition, Catwoman decides to go undercover as a journalist for the Moscow Bugle. Her legend for the mission is that she is a Russian Communist, during the height of the USSR’s economic and military threat level against the US.

    Bruce Wayne falls madly in love with her. Catwoman, being a consummate espionage artist, snaps the trap and kidnaps Bruce Wayne. Bruce, as Batman, later finds out this woman who stole his heart was one of his sworn enemies. Literally as he’s chasing her, trying to find Miss Kitka, because he thinks he hurt her. Only for her mask to fall off, to find out that he got, well… catfished. Adam West deserved an Academy Award for those tears of shock and grief.

    The subtext at the time was that the US was starting to try to repair its bad relationship with the USSR, and push forward with nuclear disarmament. It was a reflection of the betrayal of the first failed nuclear negotiations that were hanging so heavily in the public mind.

    Batman has always been complex regarding the role of the rich in politics. Really, it depends entirely on who’s writing the story how that context is approached and how Bruce uses it. It isn’t consistent because the writers have changed as much as the world has. I’m glad to see Absolute Batman subverting the traditional Batman mythos by making him a working class hero and putting the Joker in front of the bank vault this time.





  • I appreciate your request for clarification. Political liberalism, economic liberalism, libertarianism, and anti-authoritarianism are three rings on a Venn diagram.

    Anyone more fluent in the issue, please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.

    Anti-authoritarianism is a component in a vast swath of political ideologies, and by itself is as meaningless as half of an address on an envelope in Hong Kong’s biggest post office.

    Political liberalism typically bears features typically associated with the center-left; a lukewarm or even ambivalent stance on the nationalization of important strategic resources, and a penchant for permissive social and cultural dynamics (common sense civil rights like gay marriage and racial justice). Unfortunately, it lends itself to complacency and the paradox of tolerance, (or even outright allying with the political right for the sake of upholding the status quo) hence why leftists tend to barely tolerate or even dislike liberals on principle.

    Economic liberalism is essentially laissez-faire Keynesian capitalism. Corporatism thrives under these conditions, leading to the exploitation of the working class by political bodies compromised by their economic power brokers. This in turn leads to corruption, the erosion of human rights, and other awful shit that should be avoided.

    Social liberalism is (usually) an anti-authoritarian stance wherein democratic values are openly espoused and this attitude is applied to economic functions. This is the most common political orientation in continental Europe.

    Libertarianism is a political orientation which combines an (ostensibly) anti-authoritarian leaning with fanatical devotion to capitalist economic models. This can range from corporatism to anarcho-capitalism. In their eyes, the free market is the greatest thing ever invented. All hail the almighty and benevolent coin. /s /s /s

    The typical sentiment behind ‘liberal grifter’ is an individual who claims affinity to political liberalism co-opting disestablishmentarian sentiments for the sake of improving personal public image. They larp as an anarchist for the cameras, but really they’re just as invested in maintaining the status quo as any other economically-minded political liberal with capitalist leanings.



  • Speaking as someone with ASD with features typically associated with the former name (we decided as a group that we didn’t like having our mental status named after the Nazi scumbag that tortured us to come up with our diagnosis), I really think that this isn’t necessarily a perfectly good idea.

    I appreciate where this is coming from, and the sentiment it represents. I wish I was as badass as Greta Thunberg, but I’m not. A democracy needs every voice. Especially the sane ones.


  • A nothic that has discovered a ring of invisibility and a ring of mind shielding. It lives in the walls of the king’s palace, and wears the rings to listen in on war meetings and diplomatic visits.

    The king has no idea how state secrets keep escaping his confidence, and he’s begun to turn paranoid and anxious, firing and exiling advisors left and right. The nothic is taking advantage of this, and is gleefully driving an entire nation into ruin and revelling in the fact that this secret belongs to it and it alone.


  • The culture I grew up in was as a Mormon in the Rocky Mountains. They don’t do matchmaking per se, but the Mormon church has specific congregations for specific phases of life. There are “family wards”, for Mormons who are married with kids, “seniors’ wards” in nursing homes and retirement homes so elders don’t have to travel as far for church on Sunday, and “Singles’ Wards”.

    As soon as you turn 18, you basically get sentenced to Singles’ Ward until you manage to get a girlfriend/boyfriend. The cultural expectation is heavy enough that you’ll get a lot of weird looks if you’re still going to church with your parents as a 19-year old. Mormon churches are very activity-heavy, so during the week there will be a ton of church-sponsored group-date and double-date events. And because Mormons are really serious about the premarital chastity thing, they usually get married before they ever realize just how big a commitment that is.

    I found out I was gay while I was in Singles’ Ward. Mormonism is a VERY homophobic religion. Things got awkward really, really fast.