Ethan Pants (he/him)

a cartoon character with a red beard and a red hat is holding a hammer Alt: a cartoon character, Yukon Cornelius , with a red beard and a red hat is holding a hammer

No one knew who I was.

I’m dressed like Yukon Cornelius from Rudolph. But gay(er).

I went to queer Halloween party tonight so it feels like *I* won the World Series.

Heck yeah @workingfamilies.org sweatshirt!

I need to learn things the hard way sometimes.

And miss the chance to stroll around my own pace? Never!

I did pull them off. They stuck to me. Never again.

Don’t rank a Republican!
@mayorjacobfrey.bsky.social is the Republican candidate!

Rank Democrats:
#Davis
#Fateh
#Hampton

Minneapolis public schools has free breakfast and lunch for all, not just those who need it.

Caught a 1-star review of the bookstore on google last week complaining that "almost all the non-fiction showed a clear left-wing bias" and I was offended because so does our fiction, if you'd bother to look. 😠

I was recently in a local bookstore that still requires masks. An older man came in, noticed the masks, and got angry, asking if it was a “Marxist bookstore” The owner pointed to the door as neighbors gathered to help escort him out.

“I finally believe everything you told me the past 5 years. Slate wiped clean!” is not really how it works.

(That’s a parody account, the real (parody) account is mayorjacobfrey)

Grey and white tabby cat sits in a fabric cave, looking at the camera.

This gets a LOT of use in our house October-March.

I suggest you try this at another party!

Time to get offline and read a book! 🙃🙃🙃

Heard, will do.

I’m sorry if it felt like a pile-on of other things you’ve experienced.

I can’t imagine being a famous author, I believe you.

I was the only one who said anything about the website being difficult to read, so I assumed you were referring to me.

My post wasn’t about you, or being ungrateful for you sharing it. Just tired of how info is delivered in this age.

Maybe it’s not about you?

Thank you Mario!!

a cat is laying on top of a woman 's shoulder . Alt: a cat is laying on top of a person’s shoulder, aggressively rubbing against them.

If you ever hear of me dying while making coffee, please know that it was my cat-who aggressively tries to rub/swirl around my legs in the morning.

It’s frustrating when it’s so obvious, yet people continue to give them space and time to talk nonsense.

Obsessed with the PBS version (which is where I saw it)! Bernadette Peters, 😮‍💨

“We need a mayor who works as hard as we do!”

Good dog!

“IoLICaLonS”

a black and white photo of a person standing next to a railing . Alt: Creepy gif of Dracula from 1922.

Nosferatu (1922) played by Max Schreck!

Three smallish pumpkins, each lying sideways on cement steps. The top one says "DON'T", the second one says "RANK", and the bottom one says "FREY". DON'T is in big block letters, RANK in curly capitals, and FREY in kind of jagged slashy letters.

To Minneapolis residents: Only days after publishing a front-page puff piece on Mayor Jacob Frey that literally devoted three paragraphs just to describing how cute his kids are, the Minnesota Star Tribune followed up today with a column by Eric Roper on the "slate for change" strategy in the mayoral race, in which Omar Fateh is described as an un-"palatable" "far-left candidate." Is even a single actual policy position of Fateh's described or analyzed? Of course not. There's just the name calling, using words that are only slightly more Minnesota nice than Trump's descriptions of anyone who opposes him as "nasty" and a "far left lunatic."

Why does this kind of branding of candidates like Fateh always vaguely conjure a Cold-War era socialist boogeyman but so rarely engage the actual policies the candidates propose? Can it be because those policies in fact have broad support from ordinary people, so it's better not to tell readers what they are but instead to just go through the usual red-baiting routine? Roper's discussion was ostensibly about the more "palatable" challengers to Mayor Frey who are part of the "slate for change" alliance, DeWayne Davis and Jazz Hampton, so what exactly separates them from Fateh in terms of policy (setting aside the very obvious other factors that may make them more "palatable" to some voters in terms of religion or skin tone)?

At the recent debate hosted by the Star Tribune, the only thing that came up as a very clear policy difference was a $20 minimum wage, which only Fateh supports. Well, in summer 2017 Minneapolis passed an ordinance to raise the minimum wage to $15, which then City Council member Jacob Frey voted for. If you run $15 in July 2017 through an inflation calculator, guess how much that is today? $19.83. So does the difference between an ostensible "far-left" radical and a more "palatable" candidate amount to just 17 cents?

I will not only follow the "don't rank Frey" strategy on my ranked choice ballot; I will enthusiastically rank Sen. Omar Fateh #1 for the very simple reason that he is the one most focused on making a real material difference in people's lives and also BY FAR the one with the strongest record of concrete political accomplishments (free college tuition for families making less than $80K, a living wage for rideshare drivers, now widely available lifesaving fentanyl test strips, etc. – all statewide laws passed that he spearheaded). Frey has the developers' and landlords' money and the Republican-owned Star Tribune solidly behind him, but Fateh has the support of the people because he has the policies that will make a difference and a strong record of political effectiveness.

I thought of sending this reaction to the Star Tribune's latest scaremongering about Omar Fateh as a letter to the @startribune.com, but they wouldn't even publish my online comments calling out their puff piece on Frey a few days ago, so I just made it a social media post instead.

They asked nicely, I guess?