Slope of Hope Blog Posts

Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.

We Have a Winner

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The contest for The Dorkiest Image In Human History is one of the most widely-followed and hotly-contested of the 21st century. We have, at long last, a victor, and I present it to you below. It is a virtual Cramer and a virtual Zuckerberg talking in the metaverse, which Zuck claims will be the biggest thing ever. SPOILER ALERT: it’ll be every bit as big as 3D Printing and the Oculus headset.

Cancelling Calvin

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Everyone’s favorite comic strip, Calvin & Hobbes, ended on December 31, 1995. That was over a quarter of a century ago. I was thumbing through an old collection of those strips the other day, and it occurred to me how, in this day and age, the strip would get nuked for being so un-woke. At the risk of this being misused, consider this:

  • The family is a heteronormative, intact group of a husband, wife, and child;
  • There isn’t a single character in the entire series that isn’t white (with the notable exception of Hobbes, who is orange, black, and white);
  • There are no disabled (differently-abled?) characters;
  • There are no nonbinary-gendered characters;
  • Calvin’s father works, and his mother stays at home;
  • In the few instances that Calvin plays with Susie, she prefers to do things like have tea parties and dress their stuffed animals;
  • The only organization referenced in the strip (G.R.O.S.S.) is specifically misogynistic;
  • Almost all of Calvin’s fantasies contain toxic masculinity, as they are infused with violence.
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