#Couchgate: The View from On High

So apparently the big news story this week is that a woman sat on a couch in a funny way, and we're outraged over it.

I refuse to cover this story. Here's my hot take: It's a goddam couch. Shouldn't you be more worried about the meeting that's going on than the fact that there's a woman on a couch?

And stop making Brazzers jokes. You know there'd be a race to see if HuffPo or Jezebel or Refinery bloody 29 would call it slut-shaming if it were Debbie Wasserman-Schultz instead of Kellyanne Conway on the couch.

So instead, I bring you mountains. Gaze upon them, breathe in, breathe out, and bask in the tranquility.

Two miles above sea level, the air is very cold and very thin. You find yourself light-headed, and the cold doesn't bother you as much because of how dry it is. In the off-season like this, it's incredibly quiet. Nothing but the wind passing between the branches and leaves of the trees, and you can see forever. And yes, that's my finger in one of the shots. Sue me, I'm not a professional photographer.

A Quickie from Salem

Guh.

I feel terrible. Doctor says I have piriformis syndrome, which means, in layman's terms, there's a muscle somewhere in my hip that's squeezing a nerve that causes pain anywhere between my groin and the outside of my left hip.

I am on medication for pain and relaxation at the moment, and can barely concentrate, so my commentary on the Sanders/Cruz Healthcare debate will have to wait.

In the meantime, someone forwarded me this, which is a screengrab of a page from All New Fathom by Aspen Comics, and you're right, progressives. We do need more women writing comics. Gail Simone can't hold up her gender all by herself.

Thankfully, we have Blake Northcott:

Panel by panel, that's InfoWars's Paul Joseph Watson, Cenk Uygar and Ana Kasparian of The Young Turks, Anita Sarkeesian, Youtuber Chris Ray Gun, YouTuber Shoe0nHead, and Milo Yiannopoulos's Twitter account being banned (link unavailable for obvious reasons).

Don't believe me?

@SM117H @ChrisRGun @HiTechControl @shoe0nhead I can neither confirm nor deny that was a reference to @scrowder's allegedly hilarious video.

— Blake Northcott ✨ (@ComicBookGrrl) February 10, 2017

Not what you were hoping for? Oh... well you go tell her that she's womaning wrong. It's not my place to, and the meds are kicking in. Knock yourselves out.

Note: Erin may have already gone to bed. If so, any mistakes are purely mine and do not reflect our glorious editor. 

A Short Thought and a Shout Out

I'm mulling over some news from a doctor, and also have no real, tangible thoughts on anything this week (and there's Rifftrax Live tonight!), but I do have a small, important thing I'd like to say on a topical issue. And after we've got the serious thing out of the way, I'll end it on a fun note.

Bathrooms
They're a big, nasty topic these days. There's a lot of misinformation and a lot of anger. Personally, I'm unconcerned with who uses what bathroom. I'm not sure why there's a differentiation, anyway. Bathrooms are bathrooms to me, and the only real difference is the number of stalls and presence of urinals. That said...

• To the extreme far left: moderate conservatives are not calling trans women men in dresses.They're expressing a concern, perhaps poorly worded, that actual scary cis-het males are going to dress in drag to assault women and children in restrooms. Given your usual statements regarding cis-het men, I'm surprised you aren't more aligned with them.
• To the extreme far right: please calm down. Who is allowed in the toilet probably isn't going stop a predator from entering a restroom just like a gun-free zone isn't going to keep a badguy with a gun out. In fact, the this fear of cis-het men entering restrooms dressed like women is starting to sound a lot like the androphobia expressed regularly by radical feminists.
• To the moderates on both sides: Talk to each other, for crying out loud.

Something a little more upbeat
Remember when I said I wasn't really a Star Wars fan? I've sort of softened a bit, mostly in part to The Force Awakens. So, even though I was posting the Fourth Doctor like a jackass yesterday, here is a concession. May the Fourth be with you, even if I'm a day late.