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Folk Puritan Mary Jane Watson

@bettybitter.bsky.social

150 followers 170 following 1.6K posts

Journalist writing songs for a better world. Re-cancelling Bob Dylan. She/her, Popular Front TradWife (in waiting). Join a union.

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Folk Puritan Mary Jane Watson @bettybitter.bsky.social · May 15

Say hi to Ralph again. Ralph is 5 years old. He has been reposted endlessly across reddit, facebook, twitter, and every memedump clickfarm you can imagine. He was made to inspire existential dread, but our empathy for him keeps him alive as we continue to bring Ralph into each others' minds.

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Reposted by Folk Puritan Mary Jane Watson

Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 18h

Okay this is a good headline

Guardian Australia @australia.theguardian.com · 18h

You won’t believe what degrading practice the Pope just condemned

Communication must be freed from clickbait and misguided thinking, head of Catholic church tells journalists The Pope has condemned clickbait as a “degrading” part of journalism, at a private audience with global newswires. Australian media representatives were among those to hear directly from Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican on Thursday with about 150 members of newswire alliance MINDS International. Continue reading...

www.theguardian.com

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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 16h

www.wweek.com/culture/2025...

Can you put into words what that purpose is? You and the frog have really become icons of this protest.

There’s been a nice overall whimsy that has shown up. The frog is amazing. We had a bunch of other inflatable people here last night, too. I saw people playing Twister the other day.

What they rely on is fear. So by coming out in an absurdist manner, it speaks to them, to some extent, that we’re actually not that afraid.

It also dismantles their narrative a little bit. When they try to describe this situation as “war-torn,” it becomes much harder to take them seriously when they have to post a video saying [U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security] Kristi Noem is up on the balcony staring over the Antifa Army and it’s, like, eight journalists and five protesters and one of them is in a chicken suit.

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delrayser @delrayser.bsky.social · 16h

everything is on fire these days, sure, but how is it that 50% of all news stories are not about how I just spent $20 on a bag of store brand coffee at fucking costco

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Folk Puritan Mary Jane Watson @bettybitter.bsky.social · 16h

IDK if it's just cause I never watched Conan but I cannot imagine Max Weinberg being cool. Clarence was definitionally cool, Van Zandt had a good run of being cool, but Southside Johnny was more cool than Max could ever pretend to be.

Reposted by Folk Puritan Mary Jane Watson

Angus Johnston @angus.bsky.social · 18h

I KNOW this is clickbait, but the thing that's wildest to me about it is that its premise—that Cash is uncool but his music is underappreciated—is pretty much completely upside-down.

Cash was one of the coolest cats who ever lived, in spite of the fact that a lot of his music was corny as hell.

The Wall Street Journal @wsj.com · 20h

Compared to Dylan and Springsteen, country-music legend Johnny Cash can seem deeply uncool. It took time for me to appreciate his profound, plainspoken strength, writes Jon Fasman.

Essay | Can We Finally Give Johnny Cash His Due?

Compared to Dylan and Springsteen, the country-music legend can seem deeply uncool. It took time for me to appreciate his profound, plainspoken strength.

on.wsj.com

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Folk Puritan Mary Jane Watson @bettybitter.bsky.social · 17h

The thing is when Bruce most convincingly plays cool he brings a goofy himbo sheen to the whole performance (see his adorable gaybait duet on a song he wrote for Elvis to sing with Ann Margeret below). I absolutely adore it but it's not a Cool(tm) kind of cool.

Bruce Springsteen - Fire (The River Tour, Tempe 1980)

YouTube video by BruceSpringsteenVEVO

youtu.be

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Folk Puritan Mary Jane Watson @bettybitter.bsky.social · 19h

@swiftonsecurity.com do you have any insights as Bluesky's preeminant expert on corn facts?

Folk Puritan Mary Jane Watson @bettybitter.bsky.social · 21h

I hope they change the usual cat-based halftime show for a group of nefarious rabbits. Let TPUSA get absolutely dwarved by two different types of bad bunnies.

Reposted by Folk Puritan Mary Jane Watson

John @johnbull.wtf · 22h

Puppy Bowl is going to cook TPUSA in ratings

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Folk Puritan Mary Jane Watson @bettybitter.bsky.social · 21h

Charlie Pride is super cool if only because nobody else is in both the Country Music Hall of Fame *and* the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Honestly typing that out I'm realizing how definitively Americana Charley Pride is...

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Brendel @brendelbored.bsky.social · 21h

This isn’t just “Charlie Brown had hoes” levels of wrong it’s “Charlie Brown never had a dog” levels of wrong

bendwalsh.bsky.social @bendwalsh.bsky.social · 22h

wtaf are you talking about

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Folk Puritan Mary Jane Watson @bettybitter.bsky.social · 21h

Tryna figure out what ideology would believe this to be its nemesis...

Bo Obama Receives Visiting Dognitaries From Furuguay

Jan 30, 2013

WOOFINGTON, DC - Aiming to strengthen yiplomatic relations with the nation of Furuguay...

https://theonion.com/bo-obama-receives-visiting-dognitaries-from-furuguay-1819574451/

Folk Puritan Mary Jane Watson @bettybitter.bsky.social · 1d

Jesus was also very very clear that one must serve God before any worldly authorities (Mt. 6:24) so the parables about slaves and masters have to be interpreted as being between humans and the Holy Spirit, not any worldly authority that reduces humans to property.

Folk Puritan Mary Jane Watson @bettybitter.bsky.social · 1d

This also comes up a lot when talking about the transatlantic slave trade. Many victims of that practice were slaves in Africa but African slavery was nowhere near as degrading and dehumanizing as the chattel slavery that was pioneered during the colonization of the New World.

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Folk Puritan Mary Jane Watson @bettybitter.bsky.social · 1d

Always maddening when Right Wingers equate Classical Era slavery, where there was a legal path from slavery to citizenship and some protections for slaves from physical violence, with the most horrific and degrading legal instutution mankind has ever devised.

Julia Carrie Wong @joolia.bsky.social · 1d

Doug Wilson co-authored a (plagiarized) book that defended the institution of slavery *as it was practiced in the antebellum South*. This is how Douthat introduced the subject while providing him with the NYT's platform:

Douthat: So, just to take a related example, one of the controversies of many that you’ve been mixed up in has to do with slavery, and whether slavery is absolutely forbidden by the Bible, absolutely forbidden to Christians, or whether it is critiqued, but allowed for.

Wilson: Right.

Douthat: And you think it is critiqued, but allowed for.

Wilson: Right.

Douthat: On this, on a straightforward reading of the New Testament, I would agree with you. I would say, pretty clearly, there is a pretty clear path from the message of the Bible to the abolition of slavery. But there is no moment in the New Testament when Jesus insists on the manumission of slaves.

Wilson: Right.

Folk Puritan Mary Jane Watson @bettybitter.bsky.social · 1d

"I wear the black for the poor and beaten down/livin on the hopeless hungry side of town/I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime/but is there because he's a victim of the time"

Notice what color Johnny's wearing here...

Raider @iwillnotbesilenced.bsky.social · 1d

Country fans are upset with Zach Bryan after he criticized ICE in a song.

But don't let it be known that Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, and Johnny Cash all despised fascism and leaned heavily to the left.

Folk Puritan Mary Jane Watson @bettybitter.bsky.social · 1d

Looks like the cover for Weezer's "The Brownshirt Album"

Reposted by Folk Puritan Mary Jane Watson

Moley𝕋𝕙𝕖𝕄𝕠𝕝𝕖 @moleymole.bsky.social · 1d

Charlie Chaplin ‘distracted boyfriend’ 1919 [image reversed to match orientation] but distracted away from the 2015 stock image by a passing Punch cartoon ‘entente cordiale’ from 1904.

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Folk Puritan Mary Jane Watson @bettybitter.bsky.social · 1d

There's no doubt some "Leopards Eating Faces Party" shit going on but when Millennials and Zoomers are denied economic opportunities it leaves Boomers and Xers paying more for their family's wellbeing than they could've planned for 30 years ago when they started their retirement fund.

Folk Puritan Mary Jane Watson @bettybitter.bsky.social · 1d

This actually makes sense to me. The repeated cuts to social security take quite a toll on middle class Boomers and the recent campaign to raise the retirement age must be weighing heavily on people in their late 60s who waited on retirement for better benefits.

Rachel Cunliffe @rmcunliffe.bsky.social · 1d

Hollow laughter

Folk Puritan Mary Jane Watson @bettybitter.bsky.social · 1d

Anyone who's heard a Swiftie explain which of Taylor's exes their favorite song is about will know what I mean.

Folk Puritan Mary Jane Watson @bettybitter.bsky.social · 1d

Hoping that the Trump Admin opens a DHS investigation into locating the rogue Antifa operative Habeas Corpus if only cause I don't want SCOTUS revisiting that time Roger B Taney ruled against Abraham Lincoln and leaving us wishing they'd followed Taney's ruling...

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d

Q: Have you given any more thought to possibly suspending habeas corpus?

TRUMP: Suspending who?

Q: Habeas corpus

TRUMP: I don't know. I'd rather leave that to Kristi.

Folk Puritan Mary Jane Watson @bettybitter.bsky.social · 1d

Bouncing back and forth between Red Scare research and modern news like I do can be disorienting. The modern right wing is more delusional and detached from reality than it's 1950s ancestors but it kinda took even more audacity to do shit like this when most Americans still had scars from the war.

Folk Puritan Mary Jane Watson @bettybitter.bsky.social · 1d

From Bertolt Brecht's 1947 testimony before HUAC. Brecht had been subpoena'd as one of the 19 writers who were whittled down into The Hollywood Ten. The very next day Brecth boarded a plane for Switzerland and never returned to the States.

"Stripling - Uh, Mr. Brecht... is it true that you have written a number of very revolutionary poems, plays, and other writings?

Brecht - I am uh written a number of poems, songs, and plays, in the fight against Hitler, and, of course, they can be considered, therefore, as revolutionary, cause, I, of course, was for the overthrow, of that government.

Unidentified voice - Mr. Stripling, we're not interested in

Stripling - Yeah

Unidentified voice - any works that he might of written, uh, going for the overthrow of Germany,

Stripling - Yes, I,

Unidentified voice - the government there

Stripling - Uh well, from the examination of the works which Mr. Brecht has written, particularly in collaboration with Mr. Hanns Eisler, uh he seems to be a person of international importance to the, Communist revolutionary movement. Now Mr. Brecht, uh, is it true, do you know whether or not you have written articles, for

( Gavel bangs three times )"

Transcript from https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Brecht_HUAC_hearing_(1947-10-30)_transcript

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Folk Puritan Mary Jane Watson @bettybitter.bsky.social · 1d

Rest In Peace Karen Lebens you would've been the most entertainingly crotchety Boomer on Bluesky. One of these days I'll use that edible recipe in the '60s drug pamphlet and take them in your honor. I would try to connect with you via DMT but I'm pretty sure that recipe's dangerously bunk.