Good morning!
Welcome to Digestable, your mouthful of things happening in the world.
Today’s ferments:
The idea of ‘two wrongs not making a right’ is on my mind today. In superhero movies, sometimes the two villains just go after each other and cancel themselves out. So, can two problematic entities, until now allies, do the same when pitted against each other?
I’m reading Political blackmail, which is about the backlash against Disney in Florida. After the crucial vote on the “Don’t say gay” bill, Disney then came out (lol) against it, but hasn’t of course done anything substantial to address its impacts. Now, Republicans are looking to retaliate in all kinds of ways, from revoking Disney’s special development privileges around Disney World to not allowing the renewal of the Mickey Mouse copyright.
Over here, I’m scheming about a disgraceful political party and a dominant producer of problematic content that raises America just exploding each other.
If this makes you want to Do Something and not just scheme, you can submit testimony today against a similar bill, HB 7539, in Rhode Island (yes, this is happening in “liberal northern states,” no, it is not ~over there~). For a striking account on the impact of this kind of legislation, read this piece by a young Rhode Islander.
Here are some slipper snails, which can change sex every time they get a new member of the stack. Nature was trans first!
*Hot Goss*
Brought to you by the superb Latifah Azlan.
You guys! It's real! Love is real!
Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez are engaged for the second time! The pair famously dated back in the early 2000s and called it quits nearly twenty years ago, only to reunite last year to a flurry of excitement. As you can see in the link above, JLo teased the news via a short video posted onto her Twitter page, in which she directed fans to check out her OnTheJLo website to find out about the "major announcement." Hours later, the engagement was confirmed by multiple news outlets! Plus, her sister posted an Instagram story showing off JLo's rock -- a massive green diamond with a silver band.
To be honest, I actually kind of forgot that Ben and JLo were dating again. They've been surprisingly low key for the last several months and haven't been photographed together that much compared to when news first broke of their recoupling. So I was kind of surprised to remember that they were back together and are now getting married. But going back into the gossip archives, I realized that many of the stories about Bennifer 2.0 in the last year have been speculation around their engagement, with most stories taking an air of "not a matter of if, but when." Ben locked it down almost a year into their reunion though, so I guess this time is the real deal. And I'm so here for it!