March 8, 2021

OANN: women should stay home & homeschool, take billions from schools, spend it on militarised cops

That all in only 45 minutes or so of torture I subjected myself to by watching OANN for only the second time in my life.

March 8, 2021

options for filibuster reform

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/03/02/manchin-filibuster-never-sinema/

Instead of naming and shaming them, Democrats might consider looking at what Manchin and Sinema like about the filibuster. Sinema recently said, “Retaining the legislative filibuster is not meant to impede the things we want to get done. Rather, it’s meant to protect what the Senate was designed to be. I believe the Senate has a responsibility to put politics aside and fully consider, debate, and reach compromise on legislative issues that will affect all Americans.” Last year, Manchin said, “The minority should have input — that’s the whole purpose for the Senate. If you basically do away with the filibuster altogether for legislation, you won’t have the Senate. You’re a glorified House. And I will not do that.” If you take their views at face value, the goal is to preserve some rights for the Senate minority, with the aim of fostering compromise. The key, then, is to find ways not to eliminate the filibuster on legislation but to reform it to fit that vision. Here are some options:

Make the minority do the work.

Make the minority do the work. Currently, it takes 60 senators to reach cloture — to end debate and move to a vote on final passage of a bill. The burden is on the majority, a consequence of filibuster reform in 1975, which moved the standard from two-thirds of senators present and voting to three-fifths of the entire Senate. Before that change, if the Senate went around-the-clock, filibustering senators would have to be present in force. If, for example, only 75 senators showed up for a cloture vote, 50 of them could invoke cloture and move to a final vote. After the reform, only a few senators in the minority needed to be present to a request for unanimous consent and to keep the majority from closing debate by forcing a quorum call. The around-the-clock approach riveted the public, putting a genuine spotlight on the issues. Without it, the minority’s delaying tactics go largely unnoticed, with little or no penalty for obstruction, and no requirement actually to debate the issue.

One way to restore the filibuster’s original intent would be requiring at least two-fifths of the full Senate, or 40 senators, to keep debating instead requiring 60 to end debate. The burden would fall to the minority, who’d have to be prepared for several votes, potentially over several days and nights, including weekends and all-night sessions, and if only once they couldn’t muster 40 — the equivalent of cloture — debate would end, making way for a vote on final passage of the bill in question.


Go back to the “present and voting” standard.

A shift to three-fifths of the Senate “present and voting” would similarly require the minority to keep most of its members around the Senate when in session. If, for example, the issue in question were voting rights, a Senate deliberating on the floor, 24 hours a day for several days, would put a sharp spotlight on the issue, forcing Republicans to publicly justify opposition to legislation aimed at protecting the voting rights of minorities. Weekend Senate sessions would cause Republicans up for reelection in 2022 to remain in Washington instead of freeing them to go home to campaign. In a three-fifths present and voting scenario, if only 80 senators showed up, only 48 votes would be needed to get to cloture. Add to that a requirement that at all times, a member of the minority party would have to be on the floor, actually debating, and the burden would be even greater, while delivering what Manchin and Sinema say they want — more debate.

Narrow the supermajority requirement.

snip

March 8, 2021

options for filibuster reform

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/03/02/manchin-filibuster-never-sinema/

Instead of naming and shaming them, Democrats might consider looking at what Manchin and Sinema like about the filibuster. Sinema recently said, “Retaining the legislative filibuster is not meant to impede the things we want to get done. Rather, it’s meant to protect what the Senate was designed to be. I believe the Senate has a responsibility to put politics aside and fully consider, debate, and reach compromise on legislative issues that will affect all Americans.” Last year, Manchin said, “The minority should have input — that’s the whole purpose for the Senate. If you basically do away with the filibuster altogether for legislation, you won’t have the Senate. You’re a glorified House. And I will not do that.” If you take their views at face value, the goal is to preserve some rights for the Senate minority, with the aim of fostering compromise. The key, then, is to find ways not to eliminate the filibuster on legislation but to reform it to fit that vision. Here are some options:

Make the minority do the work.

Currently, it takes 60 senators to reach cloture — to end debate and move to a vote on final passage of a bill. The burden is on the majority, a consequence of filibuster reform in 1975, which moved the standard from two-thirds of senators present and voting to three-fifths of the entire Senate. Before that change, if the Senate went around-the-clock, filibustering senators would have to be present in force. If, for example, only 75 senators showed up for a cloture vote, 50 of them could invoke cloture and move to a final vote. After the reform, only a few senators in the minority needed to be present to a request for unanimous consent and to keep the majority from closing debate by forcing a quorum call. The around-the-clock approach riveted the public, putting a genuine spotlight on the issues. Without it, the minority’s delaying tactics go largely unnoticed, with little or no penalty for obstruction, and no requirement actually to debate the issue. One way to restore the filibuster’s original intent would be requiring at least two-fifths of the full Senate, or 40 senators, to keep debating instead requiring 60 to end debate. The burden would fall to the minority, who’d have to be prepared for several votes, potentially over several days and nights, including weekends and all-night sessions, and if only once they couldn’t muster 40 — the equivalent of cloture — debate would end, making way for a vote on final passage of the bill in question.

Go back to the “present and voting” standard.

A shift to three-fifths of the Senate “present and voting” would similarly require the minority to keep most of its members around the Senate when in session. If, for example, the issue in question were voting rights, a Senate deliberating on the floor, 24 hours a day for several days, would put a sharp spotlight on the issue, forcing Republicans to publicly justify opposition to legislation aimed at protecting the voting rights of minorities. Weekend Senate sessions would cause Republicans up for reelection in 2022 to remain in Washington instead of freeing them to go home to campaign. In a three-fifths present and voting scenario, if only 80 senators showed up, only 48 votes would be needed to get to cloture. Add to that a requirement that at all times, a member of the minority party would have to be on the floor, actually debating, and the burden would be even greater, while delivering what Manchin and Sinema say they want — more debate.

Narrow the supermajority requirement.

Another option would be to follow in the direction of the 1975 reform, which reduced two-thirds (67 out of a full 100) to three-fifths (60 out of 100), and further reduce the threshold to 55 senators — still a supermajority requirement, but a slimmer one. Democrats might have some ability to get five Republicans to support their desired outcomes on issues such as voting rights, universal background checks for gun purchases or a path to citizenship for Dreamers. A reduction to 55, if coupled with a present-and-voting standard would establish even more balance between majority and minority. In a 50-50 Senate, and with the GOP strategy clearly being united opposition to almost all Democratic priorities, Biden and Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) need the support of Manchin and Sinema on a daily basis. They won’t be persuaded by pressure campaigns from progressive groups or from members of Congress. But they might consider reforms that weaken the power of filibusters and give Democrats more leverage to enact their policies, without pursuing the dead end of abolishing the rule altogether.

March 7, 2021

How Los Angeles is bringing high design to the granny flat -- while saving time and money

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2021-03-05/new-city-program-brings-high-design-concepts-to-granny-flat



Before there is architecture, there is red tape. That’s certainly the case in Los Angeles, where the simple act of securing permits to build an average granny flat in an average backyard can turn into an epic back and forth with the city’s Department of Building and Safety over tweaks to drainage and electrical systems. A new initiative organized by Mayor Eric Garcetti’s office in collaboration with Building and Safety aims to change that — while inserting a bit of high design into a housing stock whose aesthetics generally lie somewhere on the continuum between box and shed. Imagine, instead, a playful studio in the form of a flower, or a contemporary two-story apartment that offers minimalist chic at a backyard scale — all available as designs that have been preapproved by the city for construction, thereby shaving weeks off the permitting process.



More than a dozen designs for accessory dwelling units, known as ADUs, will be offered through the city’s ADU Standard Plan Program, set to launch Friday. The small-scale, stand-alone residences are generally tucked into properties zoned for single-family homes. The idea, says the city’s chief design officer (and former Times architecture critic), Christopher Hawthorne, is to take a weeks-long permitting process and “turn it into an approval that is over-the counter.” In its initial incarnation, the program will feature designs by a range of architectural studios, from the well-established to the up-and-coming, including Escher GuneWardena, Fung + Blatt, Taalman Architecture, Design, Bitches and wHY, the Culver City-based firm led by Kulapat Yantrasast that has had a hand in numerous museum expansions — most recently, the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. The New York-based SO-IL, the designers behind the well-reviewed Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at UC Davis, contributed the flower-shaped-studio concept. “We want to solve the housing crisis; we want to stabilize our neighborhoods,” says Garcetti of the initiative. “But we also want to see beautiful design.”



The Standard Plan Program, which was organized, in part, by a team within the mayor’s office led by Hawthorne, along with the mayor’s planning and development manager, Theadora Trindle, accomplishes several goals. First, it simplifies the construction of ADUs — a critical form of housing stock — in the midst of a housing crisis. Second, it supports the work of forward-thinking architectural firms at a time in which many of these firms have been financially hammered by the pandemic. (Architectural billings have plummeted since the pandemic began last year, according to a monthly index published by the American Institute of Architects.) “Smaller types of construction,” says Hawthorne, “can be a lifeline for smaller firms and practices.” Neither the quaint term “granny flat” nor the more clinical “ADU” gets at how critical this form of housing has become in Los Angeles over the last few years.

State legislation enacted in 2017 led to an overhaul in the ways ADUs are regulated in the state. The measure allowed for the construction of ADUs in municipalities that had previously prohibited them (such as Newport Beach) and made it easier for city planning departments to approve their construction provided that terrain and design met certain basic conditions. This has made it easier to insert additional housing into single-family neighborhoods in which high-density projects can trigger planning battles. Plus they are generally more affordable than the market-rate housing produced by developers. According to a 2017 study by UC Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation, 58% of ADUs are rented at below-market rates. In 2017, the city of Los Angeles received 1,980 applications for ADU construction. Last year, that figure was 5,374. With single-family homes making up more than 56% of the state housing stock, according to the Terner Center, the creation of additional ADUs could “contribute meaningfully to California’s housing shortage.”

snip

March 7, 2021

How Los Angeles is bringing high design to the granny flat -- while saving time and money

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2021-03-05/new-city-program-brings-high-design-concepts-to-granny-flat



Before there is architecture, there is red tape. That’s certainly the case in Los Angeles, where the simple act of securing permits to build an average granny flat in an average backyard can turn into an epic back and forth with the city’s Department of Building and Safety over tweaks to drainage and electrical systems. A new initiative organized by Mayor Eric Garcetti’s office in collaboration with Building and Safety aims to change that — while inserting a bit of high design into a housing stock whose aesthetics generally lie somewhere on the continuum between box and shed. Imagine, instead, a playful studio in the form of a flower, or a contemporary two-story apartment that offers minimalist chic at a backyard scale — all available as designs that have been preapproved by the city for construction, thereby shaving weeks off the permitting process.



More than a dozen designs for accessory dwelling units, known as ADUs, will be offered through the city’s ADU Standard Plan Program, set to launch Friday. The small-scale, stand-alone residences are generally tucked into properties zoned for single-family homes. The idea, says the city’s chief design officer (and former Times architecture critic), Christopher Hawthorne, is to take a weeks-long permitting process and “turn it into an approval that is over-the counter.” In its initial incarnation, the program will feature designs by a range of architectural studios, from the well-established to the up-and-coming, including Escher GuneWardena, Fung + Blatt, Taalman Architecture, Design, Bitches and wHY, the Culver City-based firm led by Kulapat Yantrasast that has had a hand in numerous museum expansions — most recently, the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. The New York-based SO-IL, the designers behind the well-reviewed Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at UC Davis, contributed the flower-shaped-studio concept. “We want to solve the housing crisis; we want to stabilize our neighborhoods,” says Garcetti of the initiative. “But we also want to see beautiful design.”



The Standard Plan Program, which was organized, in part, by a team within the mayor’s office led by Hawthorne, along with the mayor’s planning and development manager, Theadora Trindle, accomplishes several goals. First, it simplifies the construction of ADUs — a critical form of housing stock — in the midst of a housing crisis. Second, it supports the work of forward-thinking architectural firms at a time in which many of these firms have been financially hammered by the pandemic. (Architectural billings have plummeted since the pandemic began last year, according to a monthly index published by the American Institute of Architects.) “Smaller types of construction,” says Hawthorne, “can be a lifeline for smaller firms and practices.” Neither the quaint term “granny flat” nor the more clinical “ADU” gets at how critical this form of housing has become in Los Angeles over the last few years.

State legislation enacted in 2017 led to an overhaul in the ways ADUs are regulated in the state. The measure allowed for the construction of ADUs in municipalities that had previously prohibited them (such as Newport Beach) and made it easier for city planning departments to approve their construction provided that terrain and design met certain basic conditions. This has made it easier to insert additional housing into single-family neighborhoods in which high-density projects can trigger planning battles. Plus they are generally more affordable than the market-rate housing produced by developers. According to a 2017 study by UC Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation, 58% of ADUs are rented at below-market rates. In 2017, the city of Los Angeles received 1,980 applications for ADU construction. Last year, that figure was 5,374. With single-family homes making up more than 56% of the state housing stock, according to the Terner Center, the creation of additional ADUs could “contribute meaningfully to California’s housing shortage.”

snip

March 6, 2021

For top budget job, Biden hesitates at naming a candidate who has bipartisan support

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-young-omb-budget-tanden/2021/03/05/f7c39ba4-7dcb-11eb-85cd-9b7fa90c8873_story.html



As the White House seeks to fill a critical vacancy, there’s a clear public front-runner to be President Biden’s budget chief: Shalanda Young, a widely respected former congressional aide who has been endorsed by Democrats and Republicans, and who would make history as the first woman of color to lead the Office of Management and Budget. But after wasting weeks backing a candidate who had limited political support, the Biden administration is now hesitating in naming someone with nearly universal support. Meanwhile, advocates for racial diversity are pressuring the White House to look beyond old hands such as Gene Sperling, who would add little in the way of diversity to a West Wing filled with White male policy advisers. Young, who is Black, is backed by a powerful mix of allies, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the Congressional Black Caucus and some prominent conservative Republicans.

But her prospects appear to be colliding with the Biden team’s resistance to public pressure for high-level posts, for which the president has often tapped allies and other known commodities. People close to the White House say some aides have been turned off by the overt campaigning on Young’s behalf, which began before the White House formally withdrew the nomination of Neera Tanden earlier this week. At the same time, the White House is grappling with concerns about racial diversity in senior administration positions, as Tanden was one of just two Asian Americans nominated for Cabinet-level jobs. Even though Young — like Tanden — would be a historic pick, the relatively paltry Asian American representation in the Biden Cabinet is increasingly infuriating lawmakers and advocates who worry that their community is being left behind in an administration that has proudly touted the most diverse Cabinet in history.

“We’re extremely frustrated to see a lack of Asian American representation at high levels in this administration,” said John Yang, the president and executive director of the advocacy group Asian Americans Advancing Justice. “On one level, we are happy about the administration’s efforts at diversity elsewhere, and they are clearly nominating people that are very qualified.” Yang continued, “Likewise, there are many Asian Americans who are very qualified.” Though mostly obscure outside Washington, the OMB job shows how dynamics such as personal loyalty, ideological diversity and a commitment to racial representation can end up competing with one another in an administration that prizes all three of those goals. It is a separate agency, but the OMB is often seen as a direct extension of the White House. The OMB is also facing a critical juncture, particularly with a massive coronavirus relief package on the verge of approval and a presidential budget to draft.

White House officials initially discussed releasing a budget this month, which would have been later than usual, but now Democrats think it could come as late as April or May, according to two people familiar with the discussions, who spoke about the private talks on the condition of anonymity. That would be a significant delay and a setback for an administration trying to leave its stamp on the federal budget. Biden’s OMB officials were slowed down by their predecessors’ refusal to turn documents over during the transition. Among people mentioned for the role are Sperling, the former economic director in the Clinton and Obama administrations and a favorite of liberals, and Ann O’Leary, a former top aide to California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) who is an ally of White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain. Others floated for the job include Sarah Bianchi, a longtime Biden policy aide, and Sonal Shah, an Obama alum who was policy director on Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign. Shah, who is Indian American, is being promoted by Asian American and Pacific Islander groups that are raising alarms about the lack of representation in the Cabinet. The White House has signaled that a permanent nominee to lead the OMB could be some time away.

snip

March 6, 2021

I do not think many understand how bad these variants are. We here in the EU are ahead of the US

curve, and they are FUCKING the EU up. It is bloody madness that all these 'Murican Red' death cult-run states are basically going full bore 'it's over!!' mode.

I truly think they are working two angles

1. Kill off as many PoC as possible (as the death rate for PoC are so much higher than whites)

2. Make Biden and the rest of us Dems look as ineffective as possible.


Fucking bastards! Murderers!

March 6, 2021

Brian Williams on MSNBC: sometimes the gaslight's so brightly lit you have to wear a welding helmet

Talking about the Rethugs whingeing about lack of bipartisanship from Biden. Lindsey Graham was complaining about Dems asking Manchin to work with us, not the Rethugs.

March 5, 2021

Facebook And Instagram Just Disabled My Accounts For No Reason

I am completely powerless to do anything about it, and it scares the hell out of me.

https://thebanter.substack.com/p/facebook-and-instagram-just-disabled



A recent experience with both Instagram and Facebook has left me shaken and deeply worried about the future of our society if these companies are left unchecked. Recently, both my personal and Banter related Instagram accounts have been disabled. Days later, Facebook stopped me being able to post to our page that has almost 40,000 followers. No warnings given, no reasons given other than a message saying Facebook cannot determine my location (this despite me going through all their security checks multiple times). When I try to log into Instagram (which is owned by Facebook) I now get a message saying that my account has been “disabled for violating our terms”. My personal Instagram account only has personal photos, and the business account only has links to articles on The Banter Newsletter. No hate speech, no conspiracy theories, no fake news, and no nipples. For the past two weeks I have gone through endless loops trying to reactivate my accounts. I’ve reset passwords, enabled location services on my phone so they can see that it is me posting, contacted support, sent tickets, and been put in touch with Facebook employees through friends. No one anywhere has done anything about it. A contact at Facebook finally messaged me telling me it is likely Facebook cannot determine my location and has suspended access to my page. Given I’ve never had any location determination issues in the 14 years I’ve been using Facebook and have verified my company and personal identity info whenever they’ve asked me to, this explanation seems unlikely. I have gone through the verification process (again), but have no visibility whatsoever as to when I might be able to use the page I have spent nine years building.

No Facebook, no traffic

Most of our referral traffic still comes through Facebook despite our best attempts to have nothing to do with the platform. Without access to our page our traffic is suffering. Less traffic means less readers, and less readers means less revenue for our already bare bones business model. Instagram was a new avenue for us, and I was quite excited to start promoting the newsletter and our podcast on the more visually slanted platform. While we didn’t have a huge number of followers, those followers were interacting with the site and signing up for subscriptions. That has all disappeared. Facebook abuses publishers. In 2018 I had to close down The Daily Banter and move to a newsletter format precisely because Facebook decimated all of our traffic. Having allowed right wing militia groups, Russian bots, and conspiracy theorists to hijack the network during the 2016 election, Facebook turned around and destroyed the vast majority of small to medium sized publishers who relied on their referral traffic to stay afloat. We have slowly managed to build back up, but we are still dangerously reliant on them for exposure to new readers and contact with our current readers. Facebook is of course well aware of this, and yet is threatening further decimation of the news industry by slowly thinning out political content on the network. Mark Zuckerberg is not willing to do the heavy lifting of vetting media outlets properly, so he is using an algorithm to arbitrarily “reduce” political content on people’s newsfeeds. What say do publishers have in Zuckerberg’s latest about-face? How can one company destroy thousands of media companies and news organizations around the world with completely random algorithmic changes? Why can these tech companies boot users off their platform with no warning, no reason, and no way to find out why? These issues are important to all of us. Facebook harvests our data for financial gain and gives us little in return for it. I have given them years of my data and had my business destroyed several times over in return. I cannot even get an answer as to why I have been kicked off of the platform I have been forced to rely on to keep my business going.

A one way relationship

This grotesquely unfair exchange that many of us have experienced, along with the company’s disastrous impact on civil discourse has destroyed trust in Big Tech and created a nightmarish dystopia that is increasingly difficult to extricate ourselves from. From communication with family and friends to what we see, read and hear about the world around us, Facebook is an all knowing, all powerful Big Brother that controls every aspect of our lives. It has consumed the internet and turned it into a data harvesting machine that makes millions while we click away. Author of ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’, Shoshana Zuboff offers a bleak assessment of the future we have unwittingly signed up to. “Right now, however, the extreme asymmetries of knowledge and power that have accrued to surveillance capitalism abrogate these elemental rights as our lives are unilaterally rendered as data, expropriated, and repurposed in new forms of social control, all of it in the service of others’ interests and in the absence of our awareness or means of combat,” writes Zuboff. We pay for Facebook, Instagram, Google and Twitter by letting them monetize every aspect of our lives. Whether we like it or not, social media networks are here to stay. They have created huge business opportunities for millions of people, fostered interesting and innovative communities, helped take down authoritarian regimes around the world, and allowed us to stay in contact with friends and family. Social media is a powerful tool that can be used for good, but as the platforms have grown in size and power, that tool is now being used against us.

While some activists demand complete freedom on social media networks as a human right, I think this is a huge mistake. I am in favor of social media platforms kicking off users who engage in hate speech, incite violence, or spread demonstrably fake news and conspiracy theories. Tech platforms are private companies, and when you sign up to use them you agree to abide by their terms of service. If you break them, you deserve to get booted off. However, tech companies must also be required to give users detailed, specific reasons as to why they are being removed from their platforms. If tech companies are making money off of your data, they at least owe you an explanation. What is clearly necessary is the strict regulation and break up of big tech companies, particularly Facebook. Society must determine how much data these companies are allowed to harvest and what recourse we have when they abuse our trust. Media companies must also be freed from their extraordinary grip. It is not fair that responsible publishers can have their businesses decimated and access to their followers shut down with no warning and no reason given. Social media has become the portal through which most people get their news. As a result, social media platforms have outsized influence over the news. They determine what you see, when you see it, and whom you see it from. Publishers like us then have to close our eyes and hope the tech giants are looking favourably upon us on any given day. Will anyone see this article outside of our email subscriber list? I now have no idea, and that frightens the hell out of me.

snip

March 5, 2021

Fisher-Price Has Turned Our Remote Work Hell Into a Toy

”My Home Office” for kids lands somewhere between dark satire and a meme

https://marker.medium.com/fisher-price-has-turned-our-remote-work-hell-into-a-toy-99d6eaa481b4




It looks like a parody, and a rather dark one at that: The Fisher-Price My Home Office play set includes a fake laptop, headset, latte cup, pretend phone, and “4 fabric ‘apps’ that attach to computer screen to ‘work’ on different projects.” It’s intended for pre-schoolers, ages three and up. The obvious takeaway: Once upon a time, children might pretend to be an astronaut or a superhero before the educational system disabused them of all their dreams. Now, apparently, a toy inspired by the Covid-19 remote-work boom, which has converted so many homes into offices and schools, will teach them to just skip ahead and start fantasizing about a soul-draining life of Slack banter and Zoom meetings. This flew so close to satire that truth-on-the-internet arbiter Snopes.com weighed in on the matter, confirming that the eight-piece play set is perfectly real and carries a suggested price of $24.99. In fact, according to its Amazon listing, it’s been available since August. But it’s only in the past week that the kit seems to have made a splash on social media, where it was described as “bleak” and evidence that “we’re all living in hell now.”

https://twitter.com/drewharwell/status/1366394023234174978
https://twitter.com/mkramer/status/1366390537411047428

As Snopes pointed out, fake play set parodies are actually a meme-world trope: “In recent years, Fisher-Price toys have formed the basis of popular online parodies and pastiches, such as ‘Tiny Toker,’ which included toy marijuana paraphernalia, ‘My First Vape,’ and a ‘Happy Hour Playset,’ complete with toy stools, tiny beer bottles, and a kid-sized bar.” Another example: the (fake) “Fisher-Price Work From Home Playset,” which appears to have made the rounds in July. Allegedly aimed at kids ages three and up, it promised a pretend laptop, crying baby, an uncomfortable-looking kitchen table and chair, and a couple bottles of wine. “The perfect toy for 2020 doesn’t exist,” announced a meme-spreader site. That was not true for long. The Toy Insider noted the popularity of the fake-product meme in mid-August and observed: “It’s funny because it reflects the strange limbo we’re living in right now — a pandemic-fuelled era where home is work, home is school, and there really isn’t an ‘off switch’ anywhere to be found.” But then the publication revealed the plot twist: Life appeared to be imitating a rejected Black Mirror episode, and a real version of the same basic idea was now available for purchase.

Sadly, it seems impossible, given the timing, that Fisher-Price literally got the idea from a meme. And it’s not clear how the design and specific components of the actual play set were directly shaped by and meant to respond to work-from-home pandemic culture. (Parent company Mattel did not respond to my inquiries.) Presumably the point is not, in reality, to train kids to join the boundaryless, claustrophobic delirium of the work-from-home, teach-from-home workforce. But what is the point? It turns out that, Twitter wits notwithstanding, a toy that seems like a set of grim training gear for a world without work/life boundaries does have its defenders. Kids love to pretend and enjoy imitating the adults in their lives, Motherly pointed out, and there are plenty of work-related play sets and toys already, so why not have one that normalizes the home office? Several commenters on the economics-focused Marginal Revolution blog made similar points: “Children process complex ideas through play,” one said. Indeed, several reviews on Amazon — where the product has 3.9 out of five stars, based on about 600 ratings — note examples of kids already imitating remote-working parents, often wanting to poke at their actual laptops. (Most of the negative reviews are focused on the physical quality of the objects, not their sociological implications; also, the top positive review involves using the set to distract a cat.)

In other words, maybe this toy merely responds to and formalizes, or just tries to cash in on, behaviour that’s already happening anyway. That’s why my favourite detail of the play set is the image on the wood-block “phone,” which shows what appears to be a conference call among several dogs. Critics quote the first bit of Fisher-Price’s product description — “Better grab a latte to go, that report is due this morning” — as particularly depressing. But it’s worth considering the rest: “and there’s a call with the dog across the street after naptime.” Hey, now — that actually sounds like a pretty good agenda to me! The description adds: “Your pre-schooler is the boss of their own workstation at home, the local coffee shop, or the moon.” Perhaps part of what kids will learn here — and what I’m willing to bet not a few of them are observing first-hand — is how to totally blow off that spreadsheet, goof around, and enjoy some cute dogs every so often. By accident or intent, maybe Fisher-Price’s seemingly weird and dark toy also cues up some of the subversiveness that makes play valuable. If you’ve never learned how to spend some part of your work day on the moon, I recommend you give it a try. Ask a toddler for advice.

snip