I was on the Prairie Dog Twitter last night, tweeting and retweeting stuff about the council decision against the strip club (which was super interesting, and which you can read about here and here). For a lot of people it’s an emotional issue and sometimes that leads to heated arguments. That’s okay. For others, it’s a chance to get on a soapbox and pretend they’re better than everyone else because their politics are so very enlightened. Less okay. I saw far more of both those things than I cared for last night. It was a good reminder why the political left has trouble winning fights. Too often they confuse an honest disagreement with a personal attack. Too often, they eat their own.
Fortunately, this chubby morsel is hard to digest.
Anyway! Day’s almost over! Let’s go!
1. KNOW YOUR DUDEBROS Over the years I’ve been called a lot of things I’m not: incredibly handsome; hard-working; a gay man; Whitmore. Until last night, I’d never been called a dudebro. But apparently I am, because I’ve assigned stories on reproductive rights issues to male reporters and I’ve written rants about right-wing politicians from Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth to Texas governor Rick Perry trying to strip rights from women. Apparently not okay. after a serious of escalating tweets, this happened:
@prairiedogmag And please, you have no legs to stand on when it comes to online etiquette. You basically run Dude Bro: Prairie Edition.
— TOPAZ! (@TheExpatterson) January 27, 2015
I’m far from perfect but I took the test and got zero out of 10 so I guess I’m no dudebro. Sorry TOPAZ but facts are facts. Not a dudebro! Shrug!
2. THE DEATH OF ALT WEEKLIES Here’s a long feature about the demise of the San Francisco Bay Guardian, and the state of the industry in general. No doubt some lefties are glad alternative newspapers die because they’re not left-wing enough and their skeletal staff isn’t diverse enough.
3. SAVAGE SITCOM Sex advice columnist and Steve-Hero Dan Savage just landed an ABC pilot! Savage is the author of the popular column Savage Love and several books including American Savage. He’s also the editorial director of Seattle alt-weekly The Stranger and founder of the The It Gets Better Project. But whatever you do don’t watch his show, because he has been criticized by some on the left for biphobia, transphobia, misogyny and eating raw babies.
4. GO WEST Another Steve-hero with Stranger roots is the brilliant and super-funny Seattle writer/comedian Lindy West. You should listen to her talk about Internet trolls, misogyny, “rape joke summer” and her evil zombie fake-dad on the latest This American Life. Here it is! Please forgive me for being a fan of Lindy’s before you’d heard of her, and for linking to this while male.
FUCK IT. SUPERHERO TRAILER. It’s the first look at the Fantastic Four reboot. What do you think? Sometimes I think I should put my energy into enjoying nerd shit rather than working at Prairie Dog. Not very often, though.