Hm.

But on Sunday, Ravelry, a popular website for knitters and crocheters, took a political stand when it announced that it was banning content that supports President Trump, in what it said was a resolution against white supremacy.

You can still participate as a Trump supporter if you hide your political affinity for Donald Trump…

who, in his defense… unlike his immediate predecessors, hasn’t started a new war (even against John Bolton’s urging) and has tapped down a few existing ones… even as polling a indicates currently Democrats are more hawkish on foreign policy than Republicans…

Can I hurl a pro-Trump statement like that on the knitting board?

… though, naturally, we throw in a weird factoid the other day from someone on a brief anti-Trump tirade that I intuitively know is probably true — 40 percent of 45’s supporters polled support the bombing of such and such a foreign sounding place…

Of course, none of that has anything to do with knitting, but one can possibly arrive at a sanguine view of our politics in various manners.

“There are people who have been talking down to other people because they can’t afford anything better than craft yarn from Michael’s,” she said. “Knitting has always been political, whether you believe it or not.”

Having looked at a lot of my mom’s quilting correspondence about a year ago, I can suggest that the apolitical way that would work is to pitch in to throw some higher quality materials for them.  But that’s a form of socialism.  Having read the rules of some quilting forums she participated in, they will always just shove politics aside with a nod.  I don’t know where everyone is on “pussycat hat” projects, but I imagine opting in and out won’t accrue horrible retribution.

The problem pokes is round about here:

But she also noted that Ravelry had a monopoly on the market — it has been described as the Facebook of knitting — and was in a position to take a chance.

The dilemma would be that a new participant in the game popping up — nature abhors a vacuum and all– will necessarily be tedious… you don’t necessarily want to hang around the totally like-minded, do you?  My gauge is that on a totally free Trump Republican forum, that’s where things will slide into getting scary.

But I wonder … What if they post their Maga Knits elsewhere, and this is discovered even as they post nothing political on this forum?  I call slippery slope.

Item #2:  U.K. Court Says Mentally Disabled Woman Must Have Abortion

… because the woman has the mentality of a young child, this goes against the wishes of her family though apparently not the state, all very sympathetic to the family struggling with this, but there’s this line that grabs me…

A spokeswoman for the British group Abortion Rights, which she said campaigned “to keep options open for the many women who willingly choose to end their pregnancies,” described the case in a telephone call on Sunday as not unprecedented but “really sad and complex.”
The group’s chairwoman, Kerry Abel, said in an email statement: “As heartbreaking as this case is, it is opportunistic for antichoice organizations to use it to attack a woman’s right to choose. One in three women will have an abortion in the U.K. for many, many individual reasons, and we shouldn’t undermine free, safe, legal abortion based on one difficult case.”

And yet there it is.  A case study for opponents of abortion to oppose and for supporters of abortion rights to… well, have to make a stand somewhere.  It’s somewhat glib to dismiss it totally and cry “The anti-abortionists/ pro lifers are just using this!”, which denies that they have a premise for their position they’re standing on.

Item #3:  In Streaming Age, Classical Music Gets Lost in the Metadata.

Another one of those blind spots for the paragons of computer social media empires.  Or… monetary slices.  Music means pop, it’s what we’re selling.

Item #4:  North Korea Says Kim Jong-un Received ‘Excellent’ Letter From Trump.

Sure, I think it’s ultimately a whole lot of running in place.  Probably.  And it’s predicated on a lot of domestic policy round about Japan and South Korea — who are seeking some kind of rapprochement with that regime.  But I do hope that when Trump’s presidency expires, this is one thing his successor won’t rip up as a matter of course when they deign to rip everything else up.

A statement I guess I can’t make on knitting forums these days.

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