Kavanaugh stop * Make America Dinner Again * The last desperate fart of a dying corpse * The Pillsbury Proud Boys * Scatological snob * Measles Are Here Again
The Phrases, With Context
But first: New-To-You Changes
Ugh, that’s a terrible heading and I’m sorry. But my brain is so full of work and life stuff that we’re gonna let it slide. I’ve been working behind the scenes on some big changes to this newsletter and its archive, along with a related project based on it. I can’t wait to share it with you!!! I’m hoping to be ready for 20261, including some fun new bonuses for paid subscribers to say thanks for helping to keep this project going.
If there’s anything I don’t offer here that you’d like to see, please let me know - post a comment, send a DM on Substack, or reply if you’re reading via email. Look for a survey soon so you can give more feedback on how to make this project even more awesome!
And now it’s time for some fresh phrases, with a bit of a “smash the oligarchy” theme. I know politics can be exhausting (and for too many, actually scary and life-threatening), and this project is supposed to offer a respite from that. But being able to laugh about the bad stuff is also vital, so these are shared in that spirit, with an important break to talk about highbrow farts.
1. Kavanaugh stop
I’ve started seeing this phrase pop up after a recent Supreme Court “emergency” (also called “shadow”) docket ruling on racial profiling by federal agents - here’s a summary via the American Bar Association:
The Supreme Court’s . . . order temporarily stayed a federal judge’s decision that barred U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from making investigative stops based on four factors, alone or combined. They are:
Presence at particular locations, such as car washes, day laborer pickup sites and agricultural sites
The type of work that a person does
Speaking Spanish or speaking English with an accent
Apparent race or ethnicity
It wasn’t enough that the conservative majority of the court felt that this sort of profiling is a-ok. Kavanaugh went and wrote the only concurring opinion to say that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents can consider race or language spoken as a “relevant factor” when stopping people to check their citizenship status. He also frames these stops as NBD, they’re not at all traumatizing or logistically difficult to be taken at times several states away based on racist vibes.
There’s currently a lawsuit over Kavanaugh stops filed by U.S. citizens who were detained for hours or even overnight because they were Hispanic. I hope this phrase haunts Kavanaugh for the rest of his days, long after this ruling is overturned when we get a functioning Congress.
2. Make America Dinner Again
I found this site via the Americans of Conscience Checklist (that I highly recommend).
MADA is a project started by two friends in 2016 to try and get people of diverse viewpoints and backgrounds actually talking instead of posting memes at each other. There are planning guides to host a dinner in your own community and virtual events you can join.
3. The last desperate fart of a dying corpse
I’ve been mulling a move from Spotify to Apple Music for a while now. I tried that a few years ago and there was something about Apple Music I hated—I think it kept replaying certain songs in mixes. I don’t like that they replaced their curation team with AI and are filling the app with AI slop music, or their platforming of misinformation dim bulb Joe Rogan, or that their founder and CEO Daniel Ek is investing in AI-driven military drones, and most of all I don’t like how they treat the artists that form the basis of Spotify’s business by paying them next to nothing in royalties. That’s a pretty long list of gripes against the machine.
Right now I’m in that special circle of hell involving having both a shared family Apple account for apps and an individual one, and I need to get those sorted before I can do a family plan because the signup keeps pushing me to my individual account. Annoying and time-consuming stuff, so I’m staying put for now.
I found this quote in a Guardian piece on a growing movement against the company. Thom Yorke called Spotify the last desperate fart of a dying corpse before removing his solo music from the platform. He later restored it, as have several other artists who pulled their catalogs in recent years, including Taylor Swift, Joni Mitchell, and Neil Young.
If you’d like to learn more, there’s the Guardian piece linked above and a book called Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist by Liz Pelly.
I share this with the caveats that I know migrating platforms is a huge pain in the ass (see my lament above), we only have so much time in our lives, and if we want to only be on ethical platforms and work only with ethical companies, frankly, the pickins are slim. Less ideological purity and more voting with our dollars when we can and when it makes sense, please.
4. The Pillsbury Proud Boys
If you haven’t read the Politico piece about a group chat among Young Republicans who repeatedly, and pointedly, shared horrific racist, Hitler-loving, rape fantasy comments to each other as part of their “banter,” here’s a link. Be warned that the things these fully formed adults (not “kids” as JD Vance tried calling them) wrote and laughed about are difficult to read.
Lyz Lenz at Men Yell at Me—which recently moved from Substack to Patreon!—wrote a very funny Dingus of the Week column about these vanilla pudding bags.
I saw this phase in a post by Canadian comic artist Ellen Woodbury. She has subsequently been banned from Threads for a joke suggesting we create conversion therapy for Nazis and had her Facebook monetization removed for making a comic about the Young Republicans. Yeah, Zuck has gone full fashy.
If you want to support this indie artist, here’s a link to the Pizza Cake Comics Patreon and Bluesky.
And look, I am not trying to body shame but if you see photos of the (fully grown, adult) white men who made most of these “jokes,” and how they all look eerily similar, like embryonic JD Vances, this phrase makes sense.
5. Scatological snob
This is a phrase coined by yours truly while talking with my friend Charlie, a talented artist who writes the brilliant and amazing Archive Report (among other things) that I really, really, REALLY (!!!) want him to start up again. Feel free to pester him about that.
Anyway, I was trying to describe my sense of humor to him and labeled myself a scatological snob. This is very much a Supreme Court “I know it when I see it” pornography test, but I don’t find just any fart, poop, or sex jokes funny. 99%2 of the many fart-themed board games out there? Not funny to me. Basically, you have to make an effort. I don’t know any other way to describe it. I do, however find it rather funny that someone owns fart.com.
My husband of 28 years doing a fake fart sound in response to me burping? That sounds similar to the burp? EXTREMELY funny and I laugh every time (I am both a great crowd and a cheap date). A 28-year bit! The time when my kids were little and heard a squeaking sound in a heat vent, so I told them to get closer and listen to see if there was a mouse in there, and as they leaned in and it got very quiet, I ripped a huge fart? That was very funny! The Thom Yorke quote above? Excellent! A gross, sick burn and I love it. Maybe I need to get on the Supreme Court so I can write a random concurring opinion and make my interns research funny and not-funny fart jokes.
6. Measles Are Here Again
Self-explanatory phrase as a suggested replacement for MAHA, or “Make America Healthy Again.” I’m going to start using it immediately and encourage you to do the same:
Bonus Bits
1. No Kings protest signs
I love a funny protest sign. The best one I’ve seen so far was from a Chicago protest before the No Kings one:
I also really liked one that just read, “FUCK YOU MAKE ME,” which is the ideal stance to take against this administration, because they’re bullies, and all bullies are cowards who back down when anyone pushes back.
Last but not least, the “Arrest me, Daddy” videos I’m seeing are very funny. Here’s one example. Make Cops Uncomfortable With Their Internalized Homophobia Again, or MCUWTIHA. And again and again, Daddy.
Did you march? What was it like? Did you see any good signs or costumes?
2. The Cheers cast was how old?
Found this via an ‘80s-themed Instagram account:
Look, if you’re too young to have seen Cheers, that’s fine. And I haven’t verified these ages because I needed a nap in my recliner after seeing it and then forgot all about it. Also, I don’t care. But whether or not you get this reference, the space-cadet elder bartender, “Coach,” was 58. 58!!! I turn 58 this month!! This is a crime against me specifically!!!
That’s it for this edition. Remember to keep making it weird, and stay furiously curious!
Readiness for change depends on my day job workload, which is pretty dense this season. Ever hopeful!
Always leaving room for the 1% chance there’s a funny fart-themed board game that exists. I’d love to be wrong here!
I hope it's a book. or an NTMP board game