Friday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
·
Friday, November 27, 2020
·
120 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
Follow Steven on
Twitter
Our parents warned us the internet would break our brains. It broke theirs instead.
Dang, first, hillbilly must have over slept!
@Sleeping Dog: I wish. I’ve been up since 1:28. surfing youtube 25 best/worst,trickiest/smartest plays of NFL/MLB/NBA and European Football.
@Sleeping Dog:
Read that yesterday. Good piece. Nice plug.
Early Friday Laugh
Trump’s itsy-bitsy-little desk.
What is American society?
Is it a suicide pact.
In yesterday’s SCOTUS Strikes Down New York Church Closures it was pointed out that religious conservatives – as with conservatives in general – are more than willing to put their wants above the needs and health of others. Yet the greater society is told to be understanding and forgiving towards their callousness. I don’t want to sicken and die, I don’t want my family or my friends or even some random stranger to sicken and die because some a$$hole decided his/her needs were more important than the health and life of others within our society.
When are we allowed to tell them no?
When are we allowed to tell them enough?
I’d forgotten about this. If not the greatest, maybe the most fun music video ever made. “Italian singer Adriano Celentano released a song in the 70s with nonsense lyrics meant to sound like American English, apparently to prove Italians would like any English song”
@Loviatar: Any time. I like to do it by quoting the Bible. They hate that.
@Sleeping Dog:
It can also help your brain. For example, most modern physics, engineering, and I think biology (just based on what friends say) is done with a large Internet component (targeted use rather than surfing of course).
Its like food, eating the right ones keeps you strong and healthy. Eating the wrong ones make you fat and unhealthy.
@sam: I’ve discussed this before here. I have several thoughts. First, it’s a weirdly catchy song in its own right. It also sounds a bit like a precursor to rap, though at the time (1972) he was probably aiming more toward funk (which itself had rap-like components). Several decades later he did a version with Italian lyrics, and the title translates as “The Origin of Rap”–which is a pretty ballsy thing for a European white guy to say, but I guess I’m looking at it through an American lens. I’m sure he didn’t mean any harm.
As for the nonsense lyrics, it’s in the tradition of Chaplin’s mock-French/Italian song from Modern Times. Except this time it’s from the perspective of non-English speakers imitating what they think English sounds like. When it’s your own language, you don’t generally think of the language as sounding any particular way–it’s like water to a fish. But to those who don’t know your language, all they hear is a string of sounds, and it often comes off sounding weird or amusing. When I was a kid listening to my grandparents conversing in Polish, it sounded to me like they were saying “mush mush mush.” I read somewhere (I don’t know of the veracity of this story) that some Native Americans referred to the British settlers as snakes, because of the preponderance of s and other sibilants in the English language.
Fun fact: Adriano Celentano’s daughter played Satan in Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Its not the red hats who are the only problem. Its also the naive minority who believe that the people willing to kill you for their own selfish wants are still a functioning part of the American society. America society is now a collection of; a selfish minority (red hats), a naive minority (decency police) and the rest of us prevented from doing anything while we stare down the barrel at our own death. Its an American suicide pact.
—–
An example from yesterday’s thread,
@grumpy realist commented:
@JDM commented:
@de stijl responded by admonishing both commenters to be more understanding and forgiving of their “neighbors” who are trying to kill them.
—–
How do you get through to @de stijl?
@OzarkHillbilly:
Ah, the Ronaldinho highlight reel…
I deeply regret that Pele’s career was not filmed in detail the way Ronaldinho’s and Messi’s were.
@Loviatar: Do you personally know any MAGA people among your friends, family, coworkers, etc.? How about anti-Trump conservatives?
@Loviatar:
Apparently, when they want to sacrifice live animals or marry more than one woman.
Yes, that says things about our priorities.
Israel (probably) assassinates the head of Iran’s nuke program
https://www.timesofisrael.com/head-of-irans-nuclear-weapons-program-said-assassinated-near-tehran/
@Loviatar:
You are the naive one.
Viruses do not fucking care what hat you wear or who you voted for or your seriously distorted moral compass.
You may not like them, but they our are neighbors. And those neighbors can infect can infect your loved ones, or you.
I sincerely apologize for not being a sociopath and wishing illness and death on my neighbors.
PS. I was not actually sincere in the previous sentence.
@DrDaveT: I watched a Maradona memorial bit and was very disappointed.
@Loviatar:
You are seriously line-stepping.
@Kylopod:
Yes to both.
I’ve seen up close and personal how the MAGA and anti-Trump conservatives treat people. Their aint much difference.
I took a walk this morning. For the first time since 11/2 if I recall correctly.
Went out just after sun rise. 27F is crisp but not cold once you get going.
My routine was 4 miles five times a week.
I was going to go easy on my first jaunt out in nearly a month. It was glorious. Not a cloud or a contrail. Golden, buttery winter sun.
I was going to do a mile, maybe two. Ended up doing four. I took a new route.
Found a gorgeous park not a mile from my house. Little gem of a stream in a sharp gulley and a billion bare oak trees. I shall return there.
My thighs and calves were fine throughout. My glutes got cranky at mile three but by then I was headed home. I have Hank Hill ludicrously bony butt syndrome.
I flagged a tad on the last half mile, but it was a great meander. I had missed the sky and the sun and the intoxicating smell of late autumn.
I’m going back to that park tomorrow.
@Loviatar: de Stijl didn’t say be understanding and forgiving. De Stijl warned that Covid wouldn’t stay restricted to the denialists, that they would spread it to family, neighbors, people at the grocery store, etc. Thus wishing for them to all die of Covid is also wishing for them to infect a lot of innocent people.
@de stijl:
I wrote what I wrote because these people are on a mission to kill me and the people I care about with their flagrant disregard for health regulations. In this case, I don’t give a flying FCUK about their voting record or their morality.
—–
They are not my neighbors. We may share a common physical space, but as they’ve made clear with their voting record and their morality they don’t consider me part of their society or neighborhood.
—–
And that is why I’m frustrated by the naive minority who argue for understanding and forgiveness for these callous, selfish people.
—–
And this is the part where you really don’t understand what I wrote. I am not wishing harm upon these people, but at the same time I don’t care if they die through their own selfishness. I also don’t want limited resources used on people who refuse to follow basic health regulations. That’s not sociopathy, its common sense.
—–
I can’t speak for others, but I’m tired, bone deep tired of catering to these people selfish whims. While it was previously difficult, now its down right deadly.
@Monala:
Oh, I think we all agree on this point. Where we differ is the consequences for the behavior of the denialists.
I believe if through your own reckless, selfish actions you become infected with Covid, limited support should be provided by the government. Support should primarily be to make sure you don’t infect others, i.e food drop-offs and body pickups. The limited medical care we currently have available should be allocated after all others have been treated. If through your actions you sicken and/or kill someone, you become liable under criminal and civil code. If through your propaganda you encourage others to become denialist, you also become liable under criminal and civil code.
@Loviatar:
Community spread is an actual real thing. Viruses do not discriminate.
They are our neighbors. THEY ARE OUR NEIGHBORS!!!!! People who can infect us.
Also, don’t be a sociopath.
You are wishing for an uncontrolled set of vectors to be released into the larger community shedding virus.
That line of thought is fucking insane.
In wishing for a narrow culling you would doom us all.
@de stijl:
In your opinion, would Samuel Pisar have been a neighbor of Rudolf Höss?
They both spent time at Auschwitz.
@Loviatar:
And I’ve seen up close and personal that many conservatives (pro-Trump and otherwise) are kind and caring people in their regular lives. I’ve also known many liberals who are assholes.
I’m not questioning your experience. I’m not judging you either. I share much the same anger as you, and I think a lot of people, including many liberals, are too quick to let anti-Trump conservatives off the hook. As I’ve gotten older I’ve increasingly moved away from the respectability politics where R’s and D’s are just rival sports teams, and describing “my” side as good and the other as evil means I’m just living in my own bubble. I definitely now think the R’s are a party of bad people with bad intentions. Trump only made this more visible and obvious. It’s been true for ages.
But I make a distinction between the people running things and their audience. A lot of the people who listen to right-wing media are at bottom just suckers who genuinely don’t realize they’re being duped. And there are more intelligent people who manage to talk themselves into supporting R’s, with the help of cognitive dissonance. None of this is meant as an excuse. Good people do bad things, smart people do dumb things. I once knew a guy who was one of the smartest people I’ve ever known. He died of lung cancer, literally going to his grave insisting the dangers of smoking were made-up. I’ve met people who rail against those with dark skin, who wouldn’t hesitate to help such a person in trouble.
Racism could be defined as a system for reducing people’s natural empathy. There are always psychopaths out there with no empathy at all, but there are a lot more people capable of empathizing with others, and who learn to suppress it by focusing on the things that make us different. And I’m not going to allow myself to do the same thing to them. When it was reported that Herman Cain had died, I felt a pang–not because I thought Cain was a great guy. Far from it. He was a symbol of everything wrong with the American right today. I felt that way simply because he was a human being, as am I, and as is his family.
Above all, I just consider the number of Americans with terrible beliefs to be a tragedy. I reserve my hatred for the people with actual power–the politicians, the media people–and even there, I focus on what they do rather than condemning specific individuals. Everyone else who gets ensnared in their web of lies, I just mourn.
@de stijl:
No. I’m wishing we all took this disease seriously and made a concerted effort as a country to control and eradicate it. However, I’d settle for controlling it by limiting it to those communities who refuse to follow health regulations.
How would I to do that:
– I believe if through your own reckless, selfish actions you become infected with Covid, limited support should be provided by the government.
– Support should primarily be to make sure you don’t infect others, i.e quarantining, food drop-offs and body pickups.
– The limited medical care we currently have available should be allocated after all others have been treated.
– If through your actions you sicken and/or kill someone, you become liable under criminal and civil code.
– If through your propaganda you encourage others to become denialist, you also become liable under criminal and civil code.
@Loviatar:
You are being such a total dick now.
I slept through most of November and when I was awake I hurt and sweated or shivered. My short-term memory was trashed. Except for garbage day I have not been outside in three weeks plus. I hate my bedroom’s four stupid walls with a burning passion.
What you are advocating is:
A. Morally monstrous
B. Epidemiologically ignorant
Done with you.
In your future endeavors try not to be ignorant and sociopathic.
The resentment COVID is fostering is going to be around for a long, *long* time, especially if we have a huge spike in deaths in the next few weeks. All those folks ignoring advice to spend Thanksgiving at home will inevitably end up killing some relatives just in time for Christmas. Families are already starting to break apart because covidiots that have brought home the plague refuse to admit they’re the reason Grandma’s chair will be empty from now on. Between this and QAnon insanity, we’re going to see deep cracks in the American family that won’t heal for years to come, if ever. When the bankruptcies starting piling up in the next year, we’ll see just how much damage tolerating COVID denial has managed to inflict upon our nation.
We can’t ignore this for much longer. We’ve always been a nation of self-centered asshats but we’ve destroyed ourselves catering to this nonsense.
@Loviatar: You don’t in this case. Instead, you just remember that he’s been sick with SARS CoV-2 for a couple of weeks and isn’t of a mind to wish that on anybody. Golden Rule, and all that.
@de stijl: Four miles! WA! It’s good to know that you are recovering so strongly. Keep taking care of yourself.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
I know!
My feets got antsy this morning.
I did a mental check every block. Can I do another block and get home safely? Yes. Well, push on, then.
I think some of it was just habit – my brain knows what four miles feels like. Regression to mean, kinda.
It was really cool. I love the way the earth smells this time of year. I found an awesome new park. Great morning.
Plus, new route means new stuff to look at. There is some seriously spendy real estate just NE of me.
@de stijl: That’s a very long walk for taking it easy! Four miles and a new route? You’re clearly not getting the sudden complete exhaustion my brother did recovering post-Covid, so good for you.
Four miles is a lot for me, three is about my limit, and that’s on a good day.
And thats the frustration. Here is a person who suffered/suffers from the ravishes of this disease, who with good heart doesn’t wish it upon others. Yet he rationalizes away and excuses those who through their reckless, selfish behavior truly do not care whether he or his loved ones die. These are not good people, they are not our neighbors.
Again, I agree @de stijl, you and most others here, I don’t wish this disease upon anyone. The difference is, I just don’t care if the denialist get it. And, I believe they should face consequences for their reckless, selfish behavior.
“Don’t talk to me that way. I’m the President of the United States. Don’t ever talk to the President that way”
Umm, yes we do and yes we should.
This is what an abuser or someone with NPD (or both) sounds like when someone challenges them on basic reality. They try to invoke authority and demand respect they don’t give when you point out their transgressions. They’re Right because they’re the Boss and who are you to question them?! He’s rambling on about how he didn’t lose during the Thanksgiving Address (supposed to be about blessings and uninity and wholesomeness) and gets pissy that someone called him out.
What a pathetic little man. What’s even more pathetic are the people who will praise him for this as showing off Alpha power moves. We truly have been diminished as a nation by this man’s odious presence…..
I have little to no pity for people who refuse to cope with reality and get sick or die as a consequence. Same as if someone gets lung cancer after a lifetime of smoking. And I’ll have that same lack of pity for myself when/if one of my many reckless choices kills me. But that’s me: I’m a prick.
@de stijl is not a prick. I admire the non-pricks of the world. Yes, I roll my eyes and snarkify, but the world cannot be composed of pricks alone. We are meant to be the hot sauce in the stew, not the meat or potatoes. I’ve found the last four years particularly disheartening because so many people – at least in social – are talking and behaving like pricks. I don’t like a lot of amateur pricks crowding into my territory, because they’re like cynics who never went through an idealistic phase.
A true cynic needs that lost idealism or he’s just a teenager. And a prick needs an appreciation of decency or he’s not just a prick, he’s a stupid prick and I cannot stand a stupid prick any more than I can stand a stupid psychopath.
TL;DR: people like me – pricks – are not the building blocks of a decent civilization.
@de stijl:
@Gustopher:
It was not planned. It was the exact opposite of the plan.
But the morning was gorgeous and crisp. And the smell was intoxicating.
My body is telling me I did not overdo it. My flat bony butt in cranky, but in a sore way not a sick way.
I knew I had a phone and could call a cab if push came to shove. Thankfully, not an issue.
Btw, Joe Henry’s Short Man’s Room is awesome late November walking music. Full album. I hit repeat on Diving Bell and One Shoe On and King’s Highway a lot. That whole album is so killer if you are into Americana.
Going back to that park tomorrow if this symptom cessation is not a blip. Going to bring a book and read for awhile.
@Kylopod:
I agree with everything you wrote. It was written with empathy, nuance and understanding. Thank you for so eloquently summing up America’s societal problems. I too mourn.
All that being said, I know what you wrote went out the window with the election of Trump. That was a declaration of war by the perpetual victims of our society. They’ve tasted power, they believe their victimhood has been validated. They have their talisman, their lost cause (Trump’s stolen election) and they will not be denied their “justice”. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but I believe sometime within this century the current cold civil war will become a shooting war.
What do we do as Americans?
@Michael Reynolds:
Michael, you said something, about 4 years ago, to the effect of…”I’m tired of defending/supporting people/programs that benefit groups that vote against their own best interest.
I’ve had thoughts like that for some time now. As a very recently retired physician (anesthesia), I grew tired of having patients who ranted against the government and socialist programs, all the while enjoying the benefits of Medicare, Social Security or a government pension.
I’m tired of the long nights and weekends with the vascular disease patients who continue to smoke, or the diabetics who refuse to eat a better diet and continue to smoke, while the surgeons valiantly try to save their ischemic legs.
I’m tired….. the list goes on and on.
Michael, you are not a prick. Like me, you just suffer from what I suffer from, excessive honesty.
@Loviatar: They are our neighbors. Even in bright blue Seattle, 30% or so voted for Trump. Many of them may be bad neighbors, but they’re still our neighbors, and we have to live with them. Or, you know, all die of covid.
They’re not trying to kill you. Don’t ascribe a motive that isn’t there. The likelihood of you dying is a secondary consideration for them at best. Many genuinely believe the virus is not as dangerous as it is, because the President has been telling them so.
And any solution involves your neighbors — all of them. So treating them with open contempt doesn’t help things, even if it feels good. Like it or not — like them or not — you have to treat them with respect.
The Supreme Court ruling wasn’t as bad as it sounds — religious services cannot be singled out for stricter restrictions than other similar activities. And New York was clamping down very hard on Churches while loosening up elsewhere.
And it’s not just the Conservatives. Way too many people of all stripes travelled for Thanksgiving and spent it with others. Even in blue parts of blue states.
My Governor has generally been doing a good job, but I think he did poorly on messaging thanksgiving. He told everyone to stay home, which is good for some people, but he gave no guidance to realistically minimize risk for those who weren’t going to — nothing about keeping to only mingle two households and not having your household split to mingle with multiple households.
WTF is all this ‘neighbors’ B.S.? Is it 1950 where you people live? Americans don’t know their neighbors, let alone respect them. Some couple lives one house north, some woman lives one house south, across the street there’s the young family and the older gay couple. One of those people is named Melvyn. Some other dude cut down a tree and now we get more noise off the 5. No idea who that person is. I don’t live in Mayberry.
@de stijl: Just put on Short Man’s Room and it definitely seems like it’s in my wheelhouse.
My walking music right now is often either My Chemical Romance (apparently I am an angsty teenager) or a playlist of of things like “Time Bomb” by Katalyst and “Yeti, Set, Go” by Polyrhythmics. The former samples the keyboard line from Deep Purple’s version of Donovan’s “Lalena”.
I think my ideal walking music would be mostly electronic, sampling songs that I know and love.
@de stijl: @Loviatar:
A lot of us condemned the right l as immoral when they pushed the herd immunity narrative as a reason to eschew basic precautions because it risked the lives of many for no reason. In a term: avoidable collateral damage.
But you are implicitly also tolerating the same consequences for those who took precautions. In a term: avoidable collateral damage. This was the key component of any criticism of the Trump administration’s response to the pandemic.
To not care (be okay with it now) because it’s the other side feeling the pain is an unnecessary contradiction. I prefer consistent moral behavior. And again, there will be collateral damage to this you would consider your neighbors.
Acting on frustration and anger at the expense of one’s moral compass is a poor choice.
“It’s impressive to see a man feeding off his emotions.”
Stop being a dick.
–Det. Somerset, Se7en
I haven’t been as glued to OTB as I was for a while. Had no idea, my dude de stijl got touched. Good luck on your recovery, my friend.
—
@JDM:
Please point me to the correct word for advocating that a huge swath of the nation should get sick and possibly die.
My Merriam-Webster fu points to rank sociopathy.
Amoral Stalinesque purge? Maoist Culrural Revolution? Khmer Rouge “re-education”? Help me out here.
Yesterday 11/26 at 21:14 you claimed to be giddy over the thought of thousands of religious conservatives spreading a deadly virus to each other. You especially noted old voters in Georgia with underlying health issues.
And how that could politically benefit your party.
In a strange way you are spot fucking on. Your comment was not just indifference to suffering, but actively advocating for it. More indicative of pyschopathy. You were giddy at something well beyond depraved indifference.
@Loviatar: de Stijl is not excusing their behavior! And when he calls them our neighbors, I don’t think he means the figurative sense of “non-family who we care about.” He means in the literal sense—these people live near us, what happens to them affects all of us.
@Michael Reynolds: Neighbor doesn’t mean buddy. It means “person you are stuck living near”.
And if you want them to help you with something, whether it is getting the hourly motel shut down, or stopping a pandemic, you have to treat them with something other than contempt.
@KM: one of my favorite lines from the movie “The American President” is when the aide played by Michael J. Fox rebukes the president for his relationship with a lobbyist. Another aide says, “You have no right to talk to him like that!”
Fox’s character responds, “Oh, yes, I do, I have every right! Because I’m a citizen and he’s my president!”
@Sleeping Dog: I don’t actually think that the internet broke anybody’s brains. The “broken” brains are brains behaving normally in response to stimuli that are highly tuned to getting them to react in a certain way.
When the writer refers to “that’s sketchy” he is reporting the result of a new apparatus that has formed in his own brain – a defense mechanism, a neural net (of the original kind) that has developed for the purpose of detecting when he’s being manipulated by the ordinary workings of his brain.
I happen to think this is a positive development, and wish I could figure out how to accelerate the growth of these defense mechanisms in people.
A very small town in Austria named Fucking is changing its name to Fugging.
Somewhere, Norman Mailer is smiling.
@JDM:
Many long years ago I managed slum properties in Long Beach, CA (home of Snoop Dogg, though not then – the LBC was white in those days.) I was 17, IIRC, collecting rents from junkies and prostitutes for my slumlord grandfather.
One day a woman with two young kids applied. We (my uncle by marriage and I) sat her down and said, no, are you nuts? Look at this neighborhood. Look at the schools. We’ve got people here I wouldn’t turn my back on let alone allow near children.
We found her an apartment in Lakewood. Much nicer, much safer, same rent. And she refused.
Years later my wife and I were in our apartment in Richmond. We heard yelling in the street. Went outside and saw a raging argument between a man and a woman, with the man slapping and shoving the woman. While my wife called the cops I went out into the street and got between them and practically hauled the woman into our apartment. Can you guess how that turned out? Of course you can: the woman would not wait for cops but went back out to her boyfriend.
A few years later nearly identical scene but in Portland, Maine. Same result, but with added death threats from the guy.
In other cases we’ve tried to help people with money. Money that we could have burned in the fireplace for all the good it did. I’ve tried helping writers with practical advice – pointless.
The hard fact is that most people who are fucked by life are fucked because of their own actions, and when offered a way out, they continue to fuck themselves. So then you’re down to this: Do I stop wasting my time and money trying to help people who cannot be helped? Or do I go on trying to help because the effort is what defines me as a decent human being?
I have a wife who makes those decisions for me, because she’s a better person than I am.
@Michael Reynolds: Perhaps the notion is derived from “love your neighbor as yourself” as suggested by well-known Objectivist philosopher, Jesus.
@Michael Reynolds:
They live next door. They exist. You may not like them, or even the thought of them, but they do exist.
It’s 2020 in the hills and hollers. We recently had a breakout of wildfires on a red flag day with 45+ mph winds. One was at least 600 acres and the one just to the south of us took out over a dozen structures burning 200+ acres. The one by my place was thankfully smaller and stayed that way because the 2 of the 3 couples living here were joined by deer hunters to keep it contained until firefighters were able to break from the other fires and get here. They were still working on it well after dark.
There is a fair chance I wouldn’t have a home if folks who were driving by hadn’t stopped to help.
@Gustopher:
As a rule the only thing I’d need my neighbors help with would be problems created by my neighbors.
I had a clarifying moment during my 11 days in jail. Parents did not come to see me. Girlfriend did not come to see me. Friends did not come to see me. You know who came to see me? A girl named Connie I’d slept with once. She was the only person in the aforementioned group who was not white, a Mexican-American girl who’d had the experience of having relatives arrested.
Go next door, tell your neighbor you need $500 to save the life of your beloved cat. Let me know how helpful your neighbor is.
@de stijl:
“They live next door. They exist. You may not like them, or even the thought of them, but they do exist.”
You really confuse me. I found this old post of yours about Trump testing positive for corona virus. You seem less concerned about his contacting coronavirus. Care to comment on it?
@Michael Reynolds:
Like the uncontrolled spread of a pandemic?
I think you’re pretty hung up on a definition of neighbor from 1950s tv. We don’t need neighbors to be our buddies. We need neighbors to stop spreading their Covid or to turn down the fucking music so we can get some sleep. That usually requires treating them with respect, even if we don’t actually respect them, just to avoid triggering the spite response.
Conservatives lament the loss of that 1950s tv neighborhood (did it ever exist), but lampooned Obama as a community organizer. Conservatives are idiots.
@JDM: People are complex creatures containing multiple contradictory beliefs at once? People don’t always live up to their best intentions? Trump dying of Covid would have changed our national response and save many more lives?
That’s too easy.
@Gustopher:
Fun fact 1: The Jayhawks are the band on Short Man’s Room. Also on his next called Kindness Of The World
Fun fact 2: Joe Henry is Madonna’s brother in law. Wrote a song on her Music album.
Fun fact 3: Dude is sorta a big ass producer now.
What is the difference between alt-country and Americana? Wilco vs. The Jayhawks?
Of course, Wilco + The Jayhawks gave us Golden Smog. And now I have my walking music for tomorrow – cool. Weird Tales.
EDM is flippin great walking music especially if you wanna get somewhere in a hurry. Crystal Castles is my go-to. David Guetta too. BPM’s is a real thing in terms of perceived energy and physical arousal.
@JDM:
Look up irony. And context.
Who let the 8 chan out?
@Michael Reynolds:
Many of my very best friends started out as neighbors. I’m still in regular contact with former neighbors from nearly 30 years ago. My former next-door neighbors moved in with one child and moved out with six and I saw all but the oldest and the youngest come home from the hospital. A few months ago one of our neighbors, a nurse, came by to ask us to witness her will because she’s a cancer survivor with asthma and they were going to put her on the COVID ward anyway.
A lot of us do know and like our neighbors.
What is a society?
Humans gather together in societies in order to benefit the individual by working together as a group towards a common goal. Within most societies there are usually acceptable free riders; the young, the elderly, the disabled, and certain individuals based upon their position within the community. Relatively recently in American society we’ve had individuals designate themselves as free riders, they want the benefits of a society without any of the responsibility.
Why is it difficult to understand that some of us are saying enough. ENOUGH
Why should we continue to support the free rider who only takes from society and is unwilling to give back to society.
@Gustopher:
Thanks for the defense, but I was not advocating for any of that. I was riffing on Trump’s previous comments about Covid and how that shoe no longer fit given his infection.
Everything he had said from February til then had been rendered moot and inoperable.
Hence the bleach, UV, the direct quote how it will all disappear.
Hyperbole never works in text. In the thread and in the context it made sense and was decidedly not risable.
@Monala:
I should hire you as my interpreter.
Thanks, btw!
@Loviatar:
Governor Kristi Noem is playing politics while Covid-19 burns through her state
.
ENOUGH
@de stijl:
” I had missed the sky and the sun and the intoxicating smell of late autumn.
I’m going back to that park tomorrow.”
Sounds like you are recovering nicely, glad you got to enjoy it!!!
@de stijl: Thanks for clarifying. Sorry, I have no idea of who or what 8 Chan is. But I’ve always been terrible at cultural and internet memes.
I’m just a 60 something guy who, like you, enjoys going outdoors trying to stay fit. Yesterday, I went out snowshoeing again for a couple of hours in the mountains. Too many folks at my favorite trailhead so I forged my own path. Now I’m paying the price with sore knees, quads and… everything. Staying fit might just kill me.
@Michael Reynolds:
No. See that’s the common misconception. Neighborhoods are larger because the world is smaller. You don’t know your immediate neighbors or the one six house down.
But we all come into contact with more people now than a citizen of Mayberry would.
They may know the names of half the people who live in their town, but even in less dense suburban areas, it probably takes a handful of days to exceed that number in contacts.
@Gustopher:
I love guilty pleasures.
The Darkness I Believe In A Thing Called Love is intentionally cheesy. Like Wisconsin × Vermont cheesy, but I love it.
Barbie Girl by Aqua (which does not sound at all like ABBA, wink) is a great karaoke song cuz I can nail the “come on Barbie let’s go party” bit.
Barbie Girl has 814 million views. I do not know how to process that.
@Loviatar:
“Why should we continue to support the free rider who only takes from society and is unwilling to give back to society.”
With all due respect, can you elaborate on who the “free riders” are. You have enlighted us rubes, about the purported undercover “hippie punchers” and nazi sympathizers, hiding here in OTB. Can it be you are finally completed the circle of straw man antagonists? You do sound fairly bright, maybe you can share some of your ideas in the future.
The 3rd circuit court of appeals rejection of Trumps appeal to invalidate millions of mail in ballots is brutal.
And written by a judge appointed by Trump with concurrence from judges appointed by Bush. Doubt the SC will accept this turd on appeal.
@Loviatar:
Gov. Reynolds in Iowa deserves as much scorn as does Noem.
Ostriched her way through the summer.
Municipalities and individual stores saved her bacon.
We must wear a mask or you must leave. Non-negotiable.
Infection spread like wildfire on a windy day anyway and now she is finally paying attention.
Willfully ignoring an issue is poor coping in general. In a governor, it is malfeasance, and in this instance, pretty close to manslaughter.
I hope voters remember in 2022.
@Loviatar:
Voluntary might not really be applicable.
We have to work for common ends or suffer the consequences.
I might redefine my notion of neighbors to this: “people you have to deal with unless you’re willing to physically relocate”.
Bosnia, 1990, Serbs, Croats and Muslims were neighbors. Bosnia, 2000, not so much.
Unless you’re willing to either pack up and move to a self-sufficient commune of likeminded people, or commit war crimes (one way of dealing with your neighbors), you need to find a way to live with them, even when they are being unreasonable. I don’t know about you, but my organizational skills are crap, so I’m not creating death camps, so it’s down to figuring out how to live with them.
Part of that is listening to them — really listening — to understand their concerns. And part of it is only making people do something they are going to resent when it’s absolutely necessary.
It means that sometimes we have to bend over backwards to accommodate something that we find stupid but they find dear. Some of our neighbors are Nazis, and others aren’t arguing in good faith, but most of them are basically fine people even if we disagree. If you treat them with respect, most of them will treat you with respect. Or death camps, but usually some attempt at respect.
New York did not do a good job of accommodating religious services. Nor has Washington state for that matter. That’s something that affects large groups of people, and which they resent not being able to partake in. And, even though it is stupid, religion is an enumerated right.
Don’t just say religious gatherings can be no more than N people. Restrict the singing because we have to, but keep bars closed since they have the same risk of transmission because of shouting to be heard. Require social distancing, but offer to help set things up outdoors — spillover areas, full services, etc.
Or learn how to run death camps and get to know how Bosnian Serbs cleansed towns of unwanted people.
Those are basically the options. My poor organizational skills lead me to prefer not having to keep lists of undesirables to be dealt with, but YMMV.
@de stijl: I was missing an “even if he means what you think he means” — I shouldn’t have accepted his attempt to define the meaning of your words.
@CSK:
There is an anecdote about Dorothy Parker or Tallulah Bankhead or entirely apochryphal witty woman when, upon meeting Mailer, exclaimed “Oh! You are the man who can’t spell fuck.”
In Mailer’s defense no publisher would print that word in 1948.
Not in his defense, Mailer was a dick.
The Gore Vidal / Mailer set-to on The Dick Cavett Show video is riveting.
@Gustopher:
No worries. Not a prob.
@de stijl:
Either I’m channeling you, or you’re channeling me. I was just about to retell the exact same anecdote.
And, just like you, I can’t recall if it was Tallulah or Dorothy who said this.
Thanks. It’s a good story.
@ImProPer:
Tuesday afternoon I felt like crap on toast.
Wednesday afternoon I wanted to free climb Yosemite and do the Usain Bolt pose on top.
I had not realized that my sense of smell was diminished until Wednesday when I woke up and odors were suddenly super intense.
You know how after swimming you sometimes get water trapped in your middle ear? Two days later it finally drains and suddenly everything is really loud?
Like that, but with my nose. Hadn’t noticed until it was back.
Yesterday I was awake for 16 hours in a row. Crazy! What the heck am I gonna do with all this spare awake time?
@Gustopher:
“Unless you’re willing to either pack up and move to a self-sufficient commune of likeminded people, or commit war crimes (one way of dealing with your neighbors), you need to find a way to live with them, even when they are being unreasonable. I don’t know about you, but my organizational skills are crap, so I’m not creating death camps, so it’s down to figuring out how to live with them.”
Well said. Speaking of someone who has experience in an area that was a meca of communial living, even for the most like minded of folks, the utopia rapidly decays into the reality of finding a way to live with one another.
“Part of that is listening to them — really listening — to understand their concerns”
This is key, still the best way for things like politics. There is nothing better than talking one on one. The internet with its mass, anonymous audience is actually a hindrance to good honest debate. While the last century of mass death and destruction had relegated the far right and left to their proper places in history, they are making a comeback, thanks to the cover the net can provide even the most of foolish opinions in the court of public opinion.
@ImProPer:
Edit button, my humble abode for an edit button.
@de stijl:
@CSK:
My Google-fu led me to Goodreads, which tells me it was Dorothy Parker
And from everything I’ve read about Mailer, certainly an apt put-down. Thus endith my contribution for the day. Thank you all, you’ve been a lovely audience.
@ImProPer:
See the thing about that reading subject we learned about in school, everyone remembers the reading part, but they always seem to forget the comprehension part.
Even though I gave what I believed was a sufficiently informative answer that any reasonable adult could understand, obviously I was wrong. So I’ll go into a little more detail.
—–
Is this first section of my response up to your level of comprehension or should I explain further? For now I’ll just leave it as is and come back later if you have problems.
I thought it was generally understood that we were referring to certain religious congregations who are attempting to roll back government health regulations despite society’s efforts to control the pandemic. Since you may be having trouble understanding this section as it requires a little imagination, I’ll go into a little more detail.
A few examples of America’s self designated free riders:
1) the various anti-maskers who while unwilling to abide by government health regulations are quite willing to take advantage of government healthcare/vaccines.
2) the various politicians who designate themselves above the laws they write to constrain the population; i.e insider trading (Kelly Loeffler/David Perdue).
3) the police who routinely flout and abuse the laws they’re sworn to uphold yet want to be protected from lawsuits.
4) the various Republican states who refuse to implement common sense tax policy yet exist on the tax transfers from blue states.
Is this enough for you to ruminate on or should I continue with the investment bankers, gun nuts, pro lifers and any of the various hive mind that constitutes the current Republican party?
—–
P.S.
I left out probably the largest self-designated free rider in American history. One guess, it rhymes with President Dump.
—–
P.P.S.
I’ll respond at another time to your false strawman statement.
I usually try to maintain my anonymity but I am breaking it out of necessity today. I was burned out of my home in an apartment fire on Monday. Everyone got out alive, but one of my neighbors was injured. She is the most in need. If an of you are able, will you read her story and consider supporting her GoFundMe? Thanks.
https://twitter.com/deborahkiro7/status/1332215339380215808?s=21
@de stijl:
Was glad to hear that you are recovering nicely. El Capitan in the future?
This virus has been so brutal.
My wife is very high risk, and I fly to and from work. This has led to me avoiding home almost constantly. Its been good for the pocket book, but rough on the important things. Boo hoo!
I sure do hope that the vaccine is available soon, and this nightmare comes to an end. Is it bad to be grateful for all the anti- vaxers, that we may get ours asap?
@Sleeping Dog:
Poor old Israelis.
Everybody assumes it’s them when this sort of thing happens.
His death was over-determined.
Look at the list of other countries who might prefer to have him nicely dead:
USA
Saudi Arabia
Turkey – You think they like the idea of a nuclear Iran? Turkey and Iran spent the best part of 300 years at war.
Russia – “…but the Russians sold Iran the S400!”. Pfui. Mainly to poke the US in the eye, and for the readies. You think Russia wants another nuclear armed neighbour with a history of bad relations?
China, perhaps? – Long odd, but they hate the thought of the Gulf going “boom” and taking their economy with it.
France.
Britain – Unlikely; too many issues, inability to keep things secret these days.
Emiratis – Willing the deed; probably not got the nerve to strike.
……. (Probably the Israelis, though.)
@de stijl:
Glad to hear you’re better.
@Monala: repeating my post so I can include the actual story link:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.kiro7.com/news/local/university-place-woman-jumped-her-life-burning-apartment/4WHX4VUSB5BZDBWHOUYMRWSJ7Q/%3foutputType=amp
@Gustopher:
You need to teach a class in calling-out.
That was a stiletto. In and out so subtly they didn’t know they were bleeding until they noticed the blood. Actually, I reckon they have not noticed it even now.
The off-handed way you introduced ethnic cleansing. I lack the skill to go that subtle.
@Loviatar:
Thanks for responding. So far it is not that you are using words that are to big or difficult to understand. I’m just confused as to you using a term like free rider, who if I am not wrong
would be something like an able body adult that is willfully unemployed, and living off the system. It just to big of a stretch for me as a description for what you are using it for. The English language is if nothing else, rife with words that can more accurately describe people and phenomenon.
@JohnSF:
Yes, they’ve proven capable of operating within Iran. Just in the last year or so, stole a bunch of Iranian nuke secrets and assassinated a senior Al Qaeda operative and his daughter.
It couldn’t have been the US, they would have used a cruise missile, we lack subtlety. Why use a stiletto when you can use a cannon.
According to LGM Sydney Powell has now filed her misspelled Kraken suit with the Federal Circuit for the Northern District of Georgia.
Hey, she’s coming off a win. Her client Flynn got pardoned.
@Michael Reynolds:
I take some not particularly small comfort in knowing that someone realizes this. I wish the number were larger because we’d save a lot of time arguing about the extent to which government can change society. And government might even be more effective in what it does to try to change society.
@ImProPer:
Maybe you’re more familiar with the term Privatizing Profits while Socializing Losses, which is also used to describe societal free riders. Or is the concept of treating anyone taking advantage of society while shirking their responsibilities limited only to welfare queens and young bucks.
Privatizing Profits And Socializing Losses
There has always been tension between individual rights and group rights, but this pandemic has exposed how incredibly selfish some people are…if I hear one more story about some idiot who pulled a gun on a business owner who asked said idiot to put on a mask when entering his establishment…
And yet, exposing others to a contagious disease seems quite sociopathic…it is one thing to wish illness and death on other people, it is quite another to actually spread illness and death on other people…
They won’t, which explains why people like Mitch McConnell are still walking the halls of Congress…
That reminds me of this, also fascinating…
@Monala: Thank you. I was just about to ask if you could send the GoFundMe link. Instead, I was able to send a donation.
@Loviatar:
“Maybe you’re more familiar with the term Privatizing Profits while Socializing Losses”
10-4, very familiar with the term, and we might find common ground on being frustrated with this.
“which is also used to describe societal free riders.”
That’s not the term I would use, but for what it’s worth, I find the former much more repugnant, and harmful than the later.
“Welfare Queens” and “young bucks” are buzzwords for disparaging some of my fellow Americans, I would ask that you please refrain from using them in future conversations. Thank you
@gVOR08:
“Release the Quacken”
@Sleeping Dog:
It’s a hard life being an al Qaeda leader.
Between the Israelis in Iran and the French North Africa(quite a few other instances as well, but my comment will get eat if I include more links) and others, what’s a poor salafist terrorist s.o.b. to do?
@Just nutha ignint cracker: thank you, much appreciated
@JohnSF:
Go to Disney World 🙂
@Gustopher:
Americans for all their talk of self-reliance and personal responsibility are some of the biggest wimps I’ve ever met.
—–
No one is being told to convert or die. They’re being told to follow government health regulations or accept responsibility for their actions.
—–
This whole section is so ass backwards I don’t even know where to start.
1) if they willingly risk you and your loved ones lives by refusing to follow simple government health regulations, then they are not good people and they don’t respect you.
2) it is absolutely necessary that they follow government health regulations otherwise they risk their health and more importantly risk the health of me and my loved ones.
3) no, I’m not going to bend over backwards for anyone who finds common cause with NAZIs. If they’re so confused that they find themselves in those circumstances, its not my job to educate them to the stupidity of the situation.
4) We’ve moved so far past disagreement with the current Republican party, that it is no longer viewable from DC. They tried a soft coup. If the vote count was any closer in PA, MI or WI they would be in the streets shouting 2nd amendment remedy.
—–
I didn’t think you could write a paragraph worse than the previous one, but you did.
New York state’s elected employees did their jobs. They assessed the health crisis using medical experts trained in the pertinent fields. Based upon those experts’ recommendations they established health regulations for the safety and welfare of their constituents. Yet you complain they did a bad job. Tell me, what is your expertise that allows you to make this assessment?
While freedom of religion is an enumerated right, restrictions for safety and welfare have been placed upon religious communities since before the writing of the constitution. So, even though disgruntled religious groups and an activist conservative court have temporarily conspired to disregard governmental health regulations, we know this won’t last.
—–
I thought I wrote in an over-the-top manner, but your death camp references takes the cake. My god they’re only being asked to follow government health regulations for their own health and safety. SMH
@JohnSF:
Thanks, man. You’re a mensch.
@Sleeping Dog:
Now there’s a road trip buddy movie waiting to be made.
“Maybe the real caliphate was the enemies we made along the way!”
@JDM: Or like the lung cancer victim who immediately after the operation continues chain-smoking.
There are certain operations that Medicare will not pay for unless you (quit smoking/quit drinking.)
@Loviatar:
Dr. Mary Fowkes, healthcare hero
.
ENOUGH
@Loviatar:
Dr. Mary Fowkes, healthcare hero
Dr. Mary Fowkes, 66yo Neuropathologist, Mt Sinai, NY, died 11/15. In Spring, only 4 pathologists were willing to risk their lives to autopsy covid pts; with protective equipment in short supply, she reused her n95 for a week at a time.
@An Interested Party:
See also, John Lydon vs. Interviewer. Any interviewer – pick one.
My favorite is really early with Bill Grundy.
Lydon has a superpower which saps all authority from any interviewer and redirects the interview.
He is extremely bratty but not a prat.
It’s like watching a child incinerate an ant with a magnifying glass.
Moderator,
Please delete the duplicate post.
Thank you
This thread reminds me of the scene where Sheen gets his mission brief in Apocalypse Now. (The one with a very young Harrison Ford and G. D. Spradlin as the creepy CIA dude with the undone tie.)
Yes, sir. Very much so, sir. Obviously insane.
Shout out to @Kurtz cuz it is appropriate.
@Kurtz. No worries. You are not totally insane. Nor are your methods unsound. I am not an errand boy sent by a grocery clerk to collect a bill.
@JohnSF:
So, basically the subplot to Don’t Mess With The Zohan.
Oof, that was a seriously shitty movie.
@de stijl:
Never seen it.
Your comment does not encourage further investigation.
@JohnSF:
Don’t bother it’s total shite.
Why does indie great John Turturro keep taking crap roles in Sandler movies? Baffling. He musta overbought and has a monster mortgage.
@de stijl:
“This thread reminds me of the scene where Sheen gets his mission brief in Apocalypse Now.”
I know I’ll have to bail before Cambodia
@gVOR08:
For Thanksgiving, Trump pardoned a turkey. And some poultry. [rim shot]
@ImProPer:
Laurence Fishburne was 14 when he played Mr. Clean – one the guys on the PBR going upriver. He lied about his age to get the gig.
@de stijl: you’re welcome. Sending good wishes for your healing.
Heart Of Darkness is one of my fave documentaries. That was one ugly shoot.
The scene where Sheen is in the Saigon hotel room freaking out and gargling booze was essentially real life. Sheen was freaking the fuck out and Coppola just filmed it.
Super dick move, but if you don’t know it was a real life psychotic break, it made for a really effective scene. Coppola was a bastard and a genius.
Talk about method. That is nuts – literal.
@de stijl:
“Laurence Fishburne was 14 when he played Mr. Clean”
Wow, I knew he was young, but not that young
“Heart Of Darkness is one of my fave documentaries.”
I’ve meant to read the book for some time, but haven’t got around to it. One of my favorite movies of all time.
@Loviater: Lov, we have to find common ground because our lives literally depends on it. That or remove them or ourselves from the picture.
Those are the options.
If there is another option, let me know. Because that is likely going to be easier than finding common ground.
Having a temper tantrum might feel good, but it does nothing. Hating them might feel good, but you’re still breathing the same air as them when you go to the supermarket.
And yet, they don’t do that even though it is “absolutely necessary”. Why is that? Can we hope to change their behavior if we don’t listen to them? And, in the end, accommodate where possible and give them a seat at the table.
I know New York and Washington did a poor job because these are the states I have lived in, have good friends in, and follow. I see it not working.
I have relatives and friends who aren’t sure what risks are too many, while the guidance they get from local health departments is not great at showing the balances. And completely at odds with the CDC and with what they hear from the Trump administration.
I know people who honestly believe that the government is overreaching and that they are being asked to sacrifice too much that they hold dear, and that they would rather hear that they don’t have to sacrifice anything. People who are semi-reasonable but pushed too far, who need a bit of coddling. People who need to feel that they have a say in what happens to them (if an emergency is going to last a year, you can start including people in the decisions)
Only about 20% of Republicans are Nazis who want you to die. Really.
But again, it comes down to this: we live with those people. We either find a way to live with them, or we leave, or we force them to leave, or we die with them.
The first is hard. The second requires finding a spot where they don’t live, so basically impossible in the US. The third seems violent, and will cause waves of covid infected refugees as we create a modern trail of tears. The fourth is terrible. And all of this has to happen now, otherwise we default to the fourth option.
Is there a fifth option?
@Gustopher:
Serious Question:
Do you have children? If so when raising them, did you cater to their every capricious whim? Did you cater to their every tantrum? How did you get them to take their medicine? How did you get them to go to church? What were your options for managing your household?