Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. How Emojis Have Become a Language Within a Language in China (June 9) Ah, yes, many layers of memes in Chinese internet culture.

My husband knows all about this, and told me another example: In comment sections, people will say they are 盖楼 [gài lóu] (adding to a building), because a long thread of comments is like a tall building, and the OP is 楼主 [lóu zhǔ] (owner of the building). If people don't like OP, they will write 楼主傻逼 [lóu zhǔ shǎ bī], "OP is a dumbass", but a lot of internet platforms will censor 傻逼 [shǎ bī], so people will just write lzsb instead (write the first letters instead of the characters themselves). But then, some people have a keyboard which will autocorrect lzsb to 兰州烧饼 [lán zhōu shāo bǐng], which sounds like the name of some kind of flatbread from the city of Lanzhou. My husband tells me that he has met people who think there really is a special traditional food in Lanzhou called 兰州烧饼 [lán zhōu shāo bǐng], and he has to tell them it's not a real thing.

"But," he says, "this meme is from 20 years ago."

2. Meet Splash, a furry detective solving underwater mysteries (May 29) Wow, this otter is trained to search for human remains in the water.

3. Elephant Bananza || Donkey Kong Bananza (Original Soundtrack) (2025) My kids have been watching my husband play this Donkey Kong game, and they are all so into it. And now we also listen to the soundtrack all the time- apparently in the game, Donkey Kong can turn into different animals, like an elephant or a zebra, and there's a different song for each. My toddler is getting really good at hearing a song and identifying what animal Donkey Kong would turn into at that part of the game.

---

Links related to the antichrist:

1. All Americans Need Pride Now (June 8) "At the moment, the focus of MAGA’s sexual oppression is on trans people. But what happens after they have been suppressed, and America still has problems? If you draw the conclusion that we’re still not pure enough, who do we go after next? Gays and lesbians, I suppose, and then women who have gotten abortions. And promiscuous women. And then straight men and women who don’t act masculine or feminine enough."

2. Jesus loves me, this I know, for Pete Hegseth tells me so (June 8) 

3. "Fascism"—New Federal Rule Would Require Federal Funding Recipients To Deny Trans People Exist (June 9) "If finalized, the rule would reach every hospital, university, school district, state government, nonprofit, and homeless shelter that receives federal funding, effectively requiring much of American institutional life to discriminate against transgender people as a condition of receiving federal money."

Also from Erin in the Morning: Mamdani's New Trans Direct Clinic Will Deny Care To Those Under 19 (June 9) "When Zohran Mamdani ran for mayor, he promised to fight back—showing up to protests outside NYU Langone, pledging $65 million for gender-affirming care, and vowing to use every lever of city power to protect trans New Yorkers from federal intimidation. Since taking office, those promises have largely gone unfulfilled: no enforcement action against the hospitals that shuttered their programs, no fines from the Commission on Human Rights despite complaints open for over a year, and no public accounting of the promised funding."

Cleveland Clinic Establishes Second “Detransition” Center in the Country After DOJ Settlement (June 10) "'Detransition services were always a part of gender affirming care,' Adkison continued. 'There continues to be no increased need, and it is a bigoted, sad performative farce the Clinic is choosing to promote.'"

Yes, exactly. If people want to detransition, for whatever reason, they should have access to medical care related to that. But, wouldn't that just be a normal part of a hospital's gender-affirming care/ hormones/ gender-related therapy? Making it into a separate thing only makes sense in the political fiction where trans-affirming doctors are out to get you and want to make you trans against your wishes, and the MAGAs who have common sense are heroically coming to save those victims and establish the opposite kind of clinic, where we help them get back to their correct gender. That's not how it works at all.

4. Judge blocks Trump’s sweeping freeze on immigration benefits for 39 countries (June 5) "The 135-page ruling, from U.S. District Judge John McConnell in Rhode Island, opens the door for hundreds of thousands of people with pending immigration-related applications to have these benefits unpaused. These immigrants were following the rules, McConnell wrote, but were nonetheless unlawfully targeted by the government because of where they came from."

5. Federal judge blocks Trump admin's effort to move 14 trans women to men's prisons (June 9) "Ultimately, Lamberth found that the mandatory transfer to men’s prisons 'was not a reasonable response' because 'it is fundamentally unreasonable for prison officials to respond to serious risks such as mental health deterioration, self-harm, and suicidality by intentionally creating those risks and offering to treat them after they predictably occur.'"

6. Scott Pelley on the Bari Weiss Era and His Last Days at ‘60 Minutes’ (June 7, via) " So, we work on all of these things. We get the piece approved by everyone. And about four hours after our deadline, Bari Weiss sends an email to my boss, Tanya Simon. Two of the things in the email include, can we make the protesters look more violent? Now, I’m paraphrasing. I don’t have the quote, but that’s what was communicated to me. And the other thing, Renee Good’s car. You need to describe her as driving toward the officer."

7. White House response to hantavirus and Ebola contrasts with COVID criticisms (June 11) "'The administration is trying to look tough,' Gostin says. 'And that's just no way to deal with an infectious disease that really doesn't know borders. We need to use science and public health rather than political theater and overkill.'"

8. Trump’s Name Is Removed From Kennedy Center Facade (June 14, 1-minute video) Hooray!

9. A plan to get lifesaving food to hungry kids was working well — until it wasn't (June 13) "'This place used to be full,' he says, able to store about 4,000 boxes — enough to feed over 4,000 kids for several weeks of treatment. 'But since USAID left, since the start of the problem with Trump, UNICEF has become weaker,' he says, gesturing at the empty space."

10. Ms. Rachel meets children with parents in ICE custody (June 10, 1-minute video)

Ms. Rachel brings children’s letters from ICE custody to Capitol Hill, including those from Colorado Springs family (June 11) "Mothers of some of the over 3,500 children cycled through the facility told investigative publication ProPublica that children were so distraught they cut themselves or talked about suicide."