Best protest banner ever: “@rmathematicus: RT @youredamned pic.twitter.com/AH6wudR0KF” love this #policynerds”
— anita anand (@tweeter_anita) June 21, 2014
Really digging these two protest posters — presumably from the anti-austerity protests in London, but I’m not sure — posted on Twitter by Anita Anand, known over there as a presenter on the telly but who describes herself initially in her profile as “Mum to small person and wife to taller variety.”
I especially like the rushed, anarchic penmanship of the “evidence-based change” sign. Contrasts so deliciously with the mock moderation of the message…
Another corker mt @christlet:pic.twitter.com/ucHwIDHR7m
— anita anand (@tweeter_anita) June 21, 2014
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Hmm… that convention of listing oneself as mum and wife first seems common among presenters of her generation. I started following Ms. Anand, and Twitter suggested I also try Jane Garvey (“Increasingly incompetent Mother of two daughters, part-time Radio 4 presenter”) and Victoria Derbyshire (“Mum of 2 boys, partner to Mark. Journalist. 5 Live.”).
I DO so hope that “Victoria Derbyshire” is her real name, don’t you?…
One wonders if she isn’t the Something of Derbyshire, Duchess, Countess, who uses the Derbyshire for a surname,
Wikipedia would indicate not. She was born in Ramsbottom, Lancashire. Indeed.
Re time travel. My favorite Steven Wright: I went to a restaurant that offered breakfast any time, so I ordered French toast in the Renaissance
They did a variant of that in “Swingers.” Jon Favreau orders “the pancakes in the Age of Enlightenment.” He then frets about having made a joke the waitress wouldn’t get (“Like a Las Vegas waitress is gonna get an obscure French philosophical reference”). A few seconds later, he tries to get the waitress’ attention, and without looking at him, she says with a world-weary tone, “Hang on, Voltaire…”
My favorite Steven Wright is similar. It’s from the early ’80s, when microwaves were still sort of considered miraculously fast: “Last night I put some instant coffee in the microwave oven. I went back in time…”
The top photo (Evidence-based change!) is from Jon Stewart’s “Rally to Restore Sanity” in DC a few years ago. It’s been on my bulletin board ever since!
What do we want?
LITERACY
When do we want it?
NOWE!
I particularly like it because as you know, I tend to take a dim view of street protests. They just sort of leave me jaded, particularly the highly-indignant chanting bits. For the most part, an idea that can be reduced to a lowest-common-denominator chant that a whole mob is willing to recite fervently and earnestly together is not really an idea worth having. It’s like an out-loud bumper sticker.
But an ironic protest that doesn’t take itself seriously? THAT sounds like a demonstration I could get behind.
I
I BELIEVE
I BELIEVE THAT
I BELIEVE THAT SUMMARY JUDGMENT IS HARD TO GET