Formulas. Speaking in formulas. Speaking in dopy unreasonable unexamined formulas. It doesn’t make for good thinking.

It’s a scientific and medical fact that men can get pregnant and also have abortions. Trans men and non-binary individuals are human beings who deserve to be acknowledged by society. They choose their own identity—not me, not you, not any doctor, and certainly not any politician.

— Eugene Gu, MD (@eugenegu) July 12, 2019

Of course “trans men and non-binary individuals” are human beings. That’s not in question and never has been. Shouting that they’re human beings is answering a question that was never asked.

But as for “they choose their own identity” – that’s where the mindless formulas fall apart. We don’t get to “choose our own identity” in every sense. We can choose the aspects that are subject to choice, and not the others. We don’t get to choose to be raccoons or toothbrushes or planets. We can pretend to be those things, if we like, but we can’t literally choose to be those things or billions of other things like them.

“Identity” is a very baggy word, and it has become more baggy than ever with the new move to claim that sex is a matter of identity as opposed to material fact. It’s being used as a kind of magic wand to entitle people to claim to be something they’re not and physically can’t be, and the results are turning out to be less than salubrious.

Setting aside the fact that these four congresswomen are American citizens and three were born in Ohio, Michigan and New York – there are few statements in this country that invoke its long, deep and hateful history of racism more than “Go back to…” pic.twitter.com/DiMTOI9a10

— Kimberly Atkins Stohr (@KimberlyEAtkins) July 14, 2019

These Congresswomen are my fellow Americans. They’re from America. I don’t have to agree with every single thing they say to deeply appreciate their service to this country in a deeply troubled time. https://t.co/RXmbmoqyKY

— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) July 14, 2019

When Trump tells 4 Congresswomen to "go back to their countries" (of the 4 — AOC, Tlaib, Omar and Pressley — only Omar is an immigrant) he reaffirms that his plan to 'Make America Great Again' is about making America white again. Below contemptible. https://t.co/ylaq4dOK7w

— Robert Reich (@RBReich) July 14, 2019

The President of the United States telling minority AMERICAN Congresswomen to go back to the countries they came from? This is a new, terrible, racist, sad low, even for Trump. https://t.co/feIZKNerrJ

— Josh Rogin (@joshrogin) July 14, 2019

Of course three of the four Democratic Congresswomen whom Trump is attacking were born in the United States. The other came here at age 10. https://t.co/MoBsYaT4aR

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) July 14, 2019

Trump tweets racist attacks at progressive congresswomen – CNNPolitics https://t.co/CswlgT5ANJ

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) July 14, 2019

NOW can we start the impeachment hearings? Finally?

Money and power and status and malehood combined: one of the male royals may be unable to keep denying his part in Jeffrey Epstein’s hobby.

Prince Andrew faces further embarrassment from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal after a judge ordered thousands of secret documents relating to an alleged “sex slave” of the tycoon to be released.

About 2,000 files from a defamation case involving Virginia Roberts, an alleged trafficking victim, are due to be unsealed following a ruling by the US court of appeal this month. Roberts claims she was forced by Epstein to have sex with the Duke of York in London, New York and the Caribbean. Prince Andrew has strongly denied the claims.

Well he would, wouldn’t he.

In 2015 Roberts, now 35 and a mother of three, claimed she had been recruited as a “sex slave” by Epstein, a billionaire financier who was charged last week with trafficking girls as young as 14. Roberts alleged that she had been “procured for sexual activities” by Ghislaine Maxwell, who worked as a personal aide to Epstein and had been a friend of the duke.

Maxwell then called Roberts a liar in an interview, and Roberts sued her for defamation. The case was settled, but we’re not told what that means. Most of the court documents were sealed.

In a ruling this month, Jose Cabranes, a US appeals judge, said the public’s right to know outweighed the privacy rights of people who wanted to keep secrets. Days later Epstein, 66, was charged in New York with trafficking a “vast network of underage victims” between his homes in Manhattan and Palm Beach, Florida. Epstein denies the charges.

So, who knows, maybe the documents show that Andrew never did shtup underage Roberts. Or maybe they don’t.

Andrew is not the only illustrious acquaintance to be embarrassed. Trump described Epstein as a friend in 2002, adding: “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.” Bill and Hillary Clinton are also known to have been associates.

However, none of the investment banker’s friendships has raised more eyebrows than his relationship with Andrew. Epstein attended the Queen’s birthday party in 2000 and visited Sandringham, Balmoral and Windsor Castle.

The Times gives details on how their movements track during the relevant time slots. Maybe Andrew just kept being in the same place as Roberts for no particular reason, or maybe not.

More on Pence’s brief visit to Theresienstadt a border detention center yesterday:

Agents wore face masks, and video showed detainees packed into their holding areas surrounded by chain-link fence, the concrete floors littered with silver thermal blankets. Reporters accompanying Pence described the facility as smelling “horrendous.”

A group of men detained behind chain link fencing shouted to news cameras, “No shower, no shower!”

I wonder if this “no showers” thing is even more sinister than it looks at first blush. It’s bad enough if it’s just a matter of imprisoning non-criminals without sufficient planning and organization to provide humane conditions, but it’s worse if Trump and the gang are doing it on purpose. If the detainees smell horrendous then doesn’t that just do more to make onlookers think they’re bad smelly dirty people who should be punished for trying to get asylum here? Doesn’t it choke off fellow-feeling and empathy and replace it with revulsion?

I leave it to your wisdom to determine.

Pence said afterward that what he saw was evidence of a “system that was overwhelmed.”

The experience did not appear to temper a statement he made earlier in the day that reports of mistreatment, filthy conditions and lack of basic necessities were “slanderous.”

Yes, that’s the problem here, “slanderous” reporting as opposed to the horrific conditions being reported.

The remarks were made during a roundtable discussion held after Pence toured a temporary holding facility near Donna-Rio Bravo International Bridge in Texas.

At the 1,000-capacity facility in Donna, Texas, most of the detainees were lying on mats on the floor. The location held about 800 migrants.

“I couldn’t be more impressed with the compassionate work that our Customs and Border Protection are doing here at this border facility,” Pence said.

What a warm, compassionate, generous man he must be.

He said President Donald Trump sent him so “the American people could see what’s happening here.” A reporter on the tour was not allowed to speak to children or adults being held.

“It’s time we moved past the harsh rhetoric of the American left,” Pence said at the roundtable held in McAllen.

It’s the left’s fault for objecting to the bad conditions, it’s not the right’s fault for imposing the bad conditions. Shoot the messenger; that will fix everything.

“Every family that I spoke to told me that they are being well cared for,” he said.

Which is not at all because they’re afraid of the guards. Definitely not. It’s slanderous to say it is.

Hope Frye, a San Francisco immigration attorney who said she has toured all the federal migrant facilities in the Rio Grande Valley, was adamant that conditions have been deplorable.

“The idea that this is false or exaggerated is really offensive to me,” she said. “It’s like saying migrants’ voices are untrue. It all paints the same picture — depraved indifference to the safety and welfare of children who come to us and are put in our care.”

Depraved but Republican, so that’s ok then.

Lindsey Graham wants them to be tortured more.

“The problem we have here can be fixed, literally overnight,” Graham said.

He sought support for his own legislation that seeks to force asylum seekers to apply for American safe harbor at home, immediately deport unaccompanied minors and increase detention time for migrant children.

We’re a light unto the nations.

Here’s the young woman who lost the gold medal to a man who changed his name to Laurel and competed against women:

Samoa’s new golden girl, Feagaiga Stowers, is not just a Commonwealth Games Champion. She is an overcomer and a conqueror of unimaginable odds.

But that wasn’t always the case.

Several years ago, Stowers’ young life hit a snag. The victim of abuse, she was among the survivors of sexual violence who sought refuge and [was] given a second chance at life at the Samoa Victim Support Group (S.V.S.G.).

She entered the Campus of Hope “shy and hopeless.”

Well that girl was not the one the world saw at Carrara Sports and Leisure Centre at the Gold Coast on Monday night.

When she stepped up to the competition platform in front of thousands at the stadium and millions watching from around the world, 17-year-old was smiling and confident, nailing the performance of a lifetime.

Stowers was up against the heavy favourite, New Zealand transgender athlete Laurel Hubbard.

But Hubbard dropped out because of an injury that time, so Stowers won the gold medal.

Yesterday, the President of the Samoa Victim Support Group, Siliniu Lina Chang, congratulated Stowers.

“Congratulations and best wishes Feagaiga.  We are so proud of you,” Siliniu said in a statement.

…

“At the Campus of Hope, Feagaiga was not into singing, dancing, sewing or cooking, but through weightlifting, she found a way to release her anger and her sense of hopelessness.”

“Under a partnership with the Samoa Weightlifting Federation in 2015, some of our girl survivors of violence took up weightlifting as part of their rehabilitation programme, included in them was Feagaiga.”

In 2018 she won a gold medal, but this year she lost the gold to a man. In a women’s competition.

More “this is all perfectly fine” reporting on “Laurel” Hubbard’s cheating.

New Zealand transgender weightlifter Laurel Hubbard clinched two gold medals as weightlifting competition concluded here today…

Hubbard was favourite to win the gold medal at last year’s Commonwealth Games in the Gold Coast but had to withdraw mid-competition due to an elbow injury, which later required surgery.

Her appearance in the Australian city divided opinion as Hubbard – born as Gavin before transitioning in her 30s – entered a female event.

Opinion should be unanimous: this should not be allowed.

Hubbard was eligible to compete at Gold Coast 2018 because she passed the International Olympic Committee criteria for transgender athletes after proving her testosterone levels stayed below certain levels in the 12 months leading up to the event.

The criteria are woefully inadequate.

I just cannot get over the fact that we are watching the destruction of female athletics and the people in charge are cheering it on.

Hubbard put the controversy behind her, however, going head-to-head with Samoa’s Feagaiga Stowers and Iuniana Sipaia in today’s final, with the former having won Commonwealth Games gold last year in Gold Coast.

Hubbard won the overall title with a lift of 268kg, with Stowers and Sipaia completing the podium on 261kg and 255kg.

There was a cheer from the local crowd when Hubbard failed at a final clean and jerk lift, enabling Sipaia to take the gold medal in the discipline.

Hubbard responded by blowing a kiss and waved to the crowd before departing the competition platform.

Tee hee.

Brace yourselves; this is horrendous.

New video shows severe overcrowding of men in cages at Texas detainment facility during VP Pence's visit Friday.

A group of men detained behind chain link fencing shouted to news cameras, "No shower, no shower!" https://t.co/iysmT8IUE1 pic.twitter.com/35KKyxb6w8

— NBC News (@NBCNews) July 13, 2019

At the end Pence just turns and walks away.

Man has deep thoughts on ethics – deep Catholic thoughts on ethics.

https://twitter.com/BrandonAmbro/status/1149727620038369281

A carrier. A carrier. As if that’s all it is, like carrying a bag of groceries.

https://twitter.com/BrandonAmbro/status/1149728207685345281

And yet all this constant thinking somehow doesn’t deliver up the thought that he shouldn’t refer to the prospective baby’s mother as a “carrier.”

https://twitter.com/BrandonAmbro/status/1149729525401628673

But it’s not just carrying that gestating women do. It’s far from just that. First of all she contributes the egg. The baby is hers as well as the father’s. I know it must be painful for same-sex couples that they can’t conceive together, but that’s just how it is, and calling the mother “the carrier” doesn’t change that.

And it doesn’t end with the egg, obviously. That “carrying” includes nourishing the baby for nine months, sharing her entire body with the baby, living with the baby at all times. That’s a big deal.

Then there’s the giving birth part. I understand it’s not entirely painless.

Calling a woman who does that for someone else a “carrier” is dumbfoundingly insulting.

“Ethcis” my ass.

Fascist president in action. (Yes literal fascist. This kind of open demonization of the press is right out of The Big Book of How to Fascist.)

TRUMP on the New York Times: "They have phony sources. They don't even have sources. They write whatever they want … what they do is a tremendous disservice to this country. They are truly the enemy of the people, I'll tell you that. They are the enemy of the people." pic.twitter.com/1QXu8ljpiJ

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 12, 2019

A lot of people are passing around this bit of genius:

https://twitter.com/laurenarankin/status/1149499575348035584

Would you like to try our Lobster Special today?

All-caps all you like, but that doesn’t magically make your claims true.

“Cis” just means you identify with the sex you were assigned at birth, she tells us. Yes, we know, and that’s why we reject the word. I don’t “identify with the sex I was assigned at birth.” I just am it, that’s all. It’s simply a fact. I don’t “identify with” it or embrace it or glory in it or anything else along those lines, I just have the humdrum normal awareness of the fact of it. It is what it is, as we so often hear about pretty much everything except what sex we are. It is what it is. We’re vertebrates, we’re mammals, we’re primates, we’re great apes. Those are all names, or labels, of course, but the criteria for them are specific and well known. What sex we are is like that. It’s not subjective, it’s not a feeling, it’s not like the soul, it’s not Spiritual.

I don’t identify with it, and I wasn’t “assigned” it. I understand that it’s A FLIPPING WORD but all words are that, and we’re allowed to say some of them are inaccurate or tendentious or venomous or any number of other things that cause us to reject them. We’re not required to call ourselves cis or to agree with the confused ideology that tries to impose the word on all of us. Shouting in all caps ain’t gonna change that.

Another successful theft of athletic glory:

Kiwi weightlifter Laurel Hubbard has won gold at the Pacific Games in Samoa…

Hubbard, a transgender athlete who is trying to qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, won gold medals at Apia’s Faleata Sports Complex to become the Oceania senior champion, the Commonwealth senior champion, and the Pacific Games senior champion.

The 41-year-old won with a total lift of 268kg in the women’s 87kg category on Saturday. Samoans Feagaiga Stowers and Iuniana Sipaia took home silver and bronze with respective lifts of 261kg and 255kg.

In other words a 41-year-old man competed against women in weight-lifting and thus stole a gold medal from Feagaiga Stowers and a silver medal from Iuniana Sipaia. And the story carefully says nothing about that – the story carefully pretends it’s all perfectly normal and fair and what everyone wants.

Hubbard wants to be on New Zealand’s Olympics team in 2020. These competitions are a necessary path to that. If Hubbard gets a place on the team that will mean a woman loses her place to him.

https://twitter.com/nzolympics/status/1149879157465108483

The 439 people talking about this are not doing so with warm congratulations for “Laurel” Hubbard.

Many are pointing out the non-celebratory demeanor of Stowers and Sipaia. The woman who should have been there for winning the bronze is not shown.

That doesn’t sound like a good plan.

It’s hard to overstate how insane, and how obviously illegal, this is.

Many men, women, and children will suffer horribly if it goes into effect.

We’re all overwhelmed with legal news but this is a *BFD* that deserves widespread attention, condemnation, and resistance. https://t.co/frrg55dcJe

— Joshua Matz (@JoshuaMatz8) July 12, 2019

Guatemala is a country people are fleeing from.

From @NewYorker: “More people are leaving Guatemala now than any other country in the northern triangle of Central America. Rampant poverty, entrenched political corruption, urban crime, and the effects of climate change have made large swath.”

— Joshua Matz (@JoshuaMatz8) July 13, 2019

Reading the UN Dispatch piece:

This is a guest post from Eric Schwartz,  the president of Refugees International. He previously served as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration

In a particularly egregious violation of law and common decency, the Trump White House is pressing U.S. diplomats to negotiate a “safe third country agreement” with Guatemala. This is a terrible idea which, if implemented, will put the lives of thousands of Central Americans at great risk. It is a violation so serious, that as a former assistant Secretary of State in charge of implementing refugee and migration policies,  I took the unusual step of writing a letter to the State Department’s Acting Legal Adviser Marik String, urging he and his office cease involvement in efforts to secure the agreement.

Homework assignment: explain how Canada and Guatemala differ as places offering safe refuge to asylum seekers.

A safe third country agreement is an exercise in responsibility-sharing between two governments on the handling of asylum claims, and the United States currently has only one such agreement—with the government of Canada. Under the arrangement, asylum seekers from any part of the world who enter Canada but then travel to the United States to seek asylum may be returned to Canada for asylum adjudications. Conversely, those who enter the United States and then travel to Canada to seek asylum may be returned to the United States. In other words, the agreement ensures that the asylum seeker’s claim is considered in the country that the asylum seeker has entered first.

People from south of Guatemala mostly go through Guatemala to get here, so the Trump people are playing gotcha.

[F]orcing asylum seekers into Guatemala would almost certainly run afoul of both U.S. and international refugee law, which specify that an asylum seeker may only be transported to a place where his or her “life or freedom would not be threatened on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” In fact, it is reasonable to expect that individuals being forced into Guatemala pursuant to a safe third country agreement would constitute a particularly vulnerable social group subject to grave risks at the hands of gangs and other criminal elements. Concerns on this score result from the extraordinarily high rates of crime, including homicide, in Guatemala, gang violence, and—perhaps most significantly—the absence of capacity of the government of Guatemala to provide even a modicum of services or security for returned asylum seekers—who would likely be in highly vulnerable situations for extended periods.

Which is why many asylum seekers are seeking asylum from Guatemala. Sending asylum seekers there would be like sending people who are fleeing an erupting volcano to the vicinity of a different erupting volcano.

Oh those zany wacky folks at Border Patrol. They’re at it again.

An unofficial commemorative coin has been circulating among Border Patrol agents at the U.S./Mexico border, mocking the task of caring for migrant children and other duties that have fallen to agents as families cross into the U.S.

On the front, the coin declares “KEEP THE CARAVANS COMING” under an image of a massive parade of people carrying a Honduran flag — a caricature of the “caravan” from last fall, which started in Honduras and attracted thousands of people as it moved north. (While the caravan included many women and children, the only visible figures on the coin appear to be adult men.)

The coin’s reverse side features the Border Patrol logo and three illustrations: a Border Patrol agent bottle-feeding an infant; an agent fingerprinting a teen boy wearing a backwards baseball cap; and a U.S. Border Patrol van. The text along the edge reads “FEEDING ** PROCESSING ** HOSPITAL ** TRANSPORT.”

Dara Lind/Pro Publica

People who have received or seen the coins

said the coins were promoted via the secret Facebook group for current and former Border Patrol officials that, as ProPublica recently detailed, included racist and violent posts.

The coin is part of a tradition of unofficial “challenge coins” — which generally outnumber official ones — which are common in the military and law enforcement as a way for members to celebrate achievements and build camaraderie.

But outside observers found this particular coin anything but harmless.

When you build camaraderie by mocking desperate people seeking asylum, you’re doing it the wrong way.

It turns out there’s a cost to internalized misogyny. Who could have predicted that?

The author is anonymous, fortunately.

I am 24, and have always been self-conscious of how I looked “down there”. Not enough to put me off having sex and I never had complaints, but it was always in the back of my mind that my labia were on the larger side. I’d previously had cosmetic surgery on my ears, which went well, and figured that labiaplasty could also boost my confidence.

“On the larger side” compared to what? The women in porn? Who makes these rules? Who decided that chopping off bits of the genitalia should be medicalized into the official-sounding “labiaplasty”? What is wrong with people?

So she skipped out and had it done.

Straight away, I knew something wasn’t right. Instead of a reduction, it was clear that my labia had been completely removed. That first week was the worst of my life. I cried several times a day, and even considered suicide. The enormity of my decision sunk in – I could hardly walk and even sitting down was a struggle.

Now she’s terrified of ever having sex again.

Yep, internalized misogyny definitely extracts a price.

Susan Matthews at the Times Higher on Sally Hines’s Is Gender Fluid?: A Primer for the 21st Century:

Hines is interested in two different questions. Can an individual change their gender identity? And is the categorisation of biological sex really fluid?

Her key idea (drawn from Thomas Laqueur) is that binary sex difference is a cultural construction, cemented in the Enlightenment to underpin gender differences. From Anne Fausto-Sterling, Hines takes the claim that the existence of intersex people undermines the concept of binary sex differences. Cordelia Fine’s work allows her to argue that most claims for binary sex differences in the brain derive from cultural bias. What’s new is not the idea of gender fluidity but the claim that biological sex is a spectrum.

Most 20th-century feminists thought of gender as a social construction that lay outside the self, a kind of false consciousness that the individual could reject. Everything changed when gender found its place deep inside the self as, in Hines’ words, the “core part of who people know themselves to be”.

So is the anti-feminism plain enough yet? If gender finds its place deep inside the self then why bother with feminism at all? Why not just let everyone choose to be either dominant or subordinate and let it go at that?

In the new model, gender paradoxically becomes less fluid. Transgender is “an umbrella term describing people whose innate gender identity or gender expression is different to the sex they were assigned at birth”. Borrowing the language of intersex, sex is “assigned” whereas gender is “innate”.

Sex is mere superstructure, mere dross, while gender is the soul.

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Yes but if you switch the labels that changes everything.

The scene, an upscale RESTAURANT. ALAINA HYPE LEVITATE is shown to her seat. A WAITER fills her water glass and offers AHL a menu.

AHL: That’s okay, I know what I’m ordering. I’ll have the lobster special and a glass of the house white, please.

W: An excellent choice! Coming right up.

A few moments later, the WAITER returns with a glass of milk, and what looks very much like a plate of mashed potatoes.

W. Here you go, the special with house white.

AHL. Where’s the lobster?

W. It’s right there on the plate.

AHL. That looks very much like a plate of mashed potatoes.

W. This is what you ordered, the “Lobster Special.”

AHL. But that isn’t a lobster. I’ve had lobster before, and unless it’s buried under the potatoes, there is no lobster on this plate. (Digging with fork). Nope, nada, zilch. This is NOT lobster.

W. I assure you it is. It’s our speciality; nobody else prepares them quite the way we do.

AHL. Well I’m sure that everyone else is using actual lobster.

W. Well, I don’t know about the recipes used in other establishments, but ours is renowned for its bold, transgressive presentation. Cruelty free, too.

AHL. Only if you ignore the disappointment of those expecting, you know, LOBSTER!

W. (In full flight now) Our chef has gone beyond the mere shape and appearance of “lobster.”.Some people are so hung up on extraneous, picayune details-

AHL. The complete absence of lobster is not a DETAIL when you’ve ordered “lobster.”

W. -which channels their expectations and narrows the realm of possibility-

AHL. I EXPECTED LOBSTER!

W. Some people figure that lobster can only be one way. They’re stereoyping. Others are put off by the “big bug on a plate ” look . They’re lobster-phobic. Our Chef goes beyond both those who have particular expectations and those who are fearful of that expectation.

AHL. Your so-called “lobster ” was dug out of the ground and probably hasn’t even seen so much as a photograph of an ocean.

W. Oh, so you’re a biological determinist!

AHL. I”M A LOBSTER SHY OF A MEAL!

Out from the kitchen comes the CHEF.

C. Is there a problem?

AHL. (Pointing to the plate) THIS? THIS IS NOT LOBSTER!

C Oh, but it is. It came out of a bin. The label on the bin says “Lobster.” So, this is lobster.

AHL. Lobsters don’t come in bins.

W. Ours do.

AHL. SHUT UP! (WAITER withdraws to kitchen, muttering).

C. Great big bin. Big Label. Big red letters. L-O-B-S-T-E-R.

AHL. (Trying to speak calmly, but it’s clearly a struggle) I don’t care how big the bin is. I don’t care how big the label, or the size and colour of its lettering. I don’t care what the label says, the label on the bin doesn’t change what’s in the bin!

C. Nothing’s changed, it’s always been lobster. It’s on the bin. Big label.

Everyone likes our lobster. It’s won awards!

AHL. (Pointing at plate) This is potato. P-O-T-A-T-O. Mashed potato. Not lobster, L-O-B-S-T-E-R. It doesn’t matter if you carve them into the shape of a lobster, or put them into a great big bin with a great big label, or call them by another name. They will ALWAYS be POTATOS. They will NEVER be LOBSTERS.

C. Okay, for the sake of argument, let’s call it “mock lobster.” Better than lobster really, because it’s vegan.

AHL. You can call it bloody “mock alligator,” or “mock bicycle” or “mock otter” or bloody “mock POLAND,” but it’s still mashed POTATO!

C. You’d be surprised at how many genes are common between potatos, lobsters, and otters. To a visitor from another planet, they’d all be close cousins.

AHL. I’M not from another planet and I can distinctly tell the differences between all those things, and I’m not seeing a lot of lobster in the general vicinity. There’s a lot less lobster than I was led to believe I was going to be encountering. I see no crustaceans of any kind whatsoever on this plate or on this table.

C. You didn’t read the menu, did you.

AHL. I knew I wanted lobster. It’s on the sign outside.

W. (coming back from the kitchen with LOBSTER bin, brandishing a scoop of what looks very much like mashed potatos). On the bin, too.

AHL. SHUT UP! (turning to CHEF) Lobster is lobster!

C. Well, obviously your concept of “lobster” is really restricting and narrow, when it’s really a broad spectrum. Quite fluid, really. Delicious, too. Go ahead, have a bite!

AHL. You can’t just redefine “lobster.” A lobster is a particular creature. How the HELL can it be a “fluid spectrum?”

C. How do you know it isn’t? You’d never seen a vegan mock lobster until today, had you? Our lobster is not confined to your confining label. It yearns to be FREE, to be what it’s always wanted and felt itself to be!

AHL. Well it’s all mock and no lobster.

C Don’t forget the vegan part.

AHL. A lobster is an animal and can’t be VEGAN!

C. But there’s some right in front of you on your plate! You’re just too attached to your narrow dictionary definition “lobsterism” to admit it!

AHL. AAAARRRGH! I’ve HAD ENOUGH. I’m LEAVING. (AHL stomps out, muttering.)

W. (indicating plate of mock vegan lobster) Did you want a doggy bag?

W. (Turning to CHEF) You know at this rate, we’re never going to use up those potatoes.

C. Yeah, but isn’t this fun?

W. Sure! It’s a blast! It doesn’t help generate repeat customers, though. (Drinking from the glass of milk, then holding it up to the light, admiringly) Pity. She didn’t even get to the “house white.”

C Ha! Well at least it is actually white. (motions to the kitchen) C’mon It’s almost close. We’d better clean up.

WAITER and CHEF go back into the kitchen. The LOBSTER bin, which had been set down on the now vacated table, shudders and shakes as a huge LOBSTER starts to climb out of it…