Thursday Link Encyclopedia

~ Clarissa

Given that Obama is still alive, could we hold off on the hagiography for the moment?

I’m all for maternity leave, but the following is wrong: “Allowing women to breastfeed at work and therefore skip maternity leave is like allowing workers to eat at their desks and therefore skip a lunch break. It’s not a victory; it’s a defeat.” Many people will cause way too much harm to themselves and their babies if forced to stay away from work. Maternity leave is great but it can’t be obligatory. People are different.

The family of Angolan rebel sues the makers of Call of Duty.

Echidne is surprised that Michael Moore is oblivious towards sexism. She must have missed every one of his documentaries and books where Moore expresses profound nostalgia for the 1950s family model. He has repeated ad nauseam that he can’t imagine a greater abomination than a mother who works.

Amazon is planning to open up to 400 real bookstores! This will be do great.

A disgusting anti-Semitic gathering in Chicago.

“What people on the right and the left are arguing against are the hardline tactics progressives (and this is one area where liberals and progressives really need to be separated) take policing speech: labeling certain opinions as completely off-limits, words being refashioned as “violence,” deplatforming those who fail to fall in lockstep, going after some nobody’s employer because they said something idiotic on their Facebook page, etc.” Exactly. That’s precisely why I detest the professionally outraged Schmindies who pollute public space with their fake self-righteousness.

Cuban political prisoners condemn the Obama policy on Cuba. I understand their outrage completely but, to me, the goal of thwarting Putin that the policy achieved still matters more. Other than that, the rapprochement with Cuba is, of course, shameful.

Like this blogger, I also love writing in books. By looking at my books, you can easily spot my favorites because they have the most marked up pages.

The problem with Jewish museums. A very good, insightful article.

The refugee crisis allows for massive amounts of public money to be transferred to big business.

We, the highly qualified, highly educated immigrants, are used to being hated by the Lefties. But it seems like it’s getting popular among the Righties to hate us, too.

And here is yet another case of a person hiding from her individual problems behind fake political rhetoric.

“Look, I love Bernie Sanders like a play cousin. While I’d like to support his candidacy to be the Democratic nominee, I just can’t. Again, it’s not that he has bad ideas, it’s just because there’s no way in hell we’ll see any of his proposals become reality. There’s no political will on the Hill to make any of this happen. And, I’m sorry: Bernie Sanders may be Jewish but his name ain’t Jesus.” Exactly. And of course, Bernie finds support among the very young. They can easily waste 4 years on chasing after a silly dream and not feel it. The older we are, though, the more wasteful this seems.

A truly pathetic wedding trend.

Is Bernie’s famous sense of decency cracking under the pressure of the campaign?

And yet another study proving that life experiences of parents define the lives of children. Consider the horrible damage done to people who are not allowed to have the information about their real parents, grandparents, etc. They have no way of figuring out what’s happening to them.

After Iowa, everybody is rushing to point out how disorganized and underfunded Trump’s campaign is. That, however, makes things really scary because if Trump got such amazing results without investing money and effort, what can’t he do with a bit of both?

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Published by Clarissa

22 thoughts on “Thursday Link Encyclopedia”

  1. I know the benefits of writing in books. I’ve tried. I’ve got books where I’ve got writing all through the first couple of chapters. But every single time, I find I just can’t continue.

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  2. Not writing in books is something that’s been ingrained in me (and most Indians, I would guess) since childhood. In most households with multiple children, class textbooks are meant to be handed down to the younger siblings. My brother kept his books pristine because those books would’ve been used by me four years down the line. And after me, those books would either go to younger cousins or kids in my neighborhood.

    When I came to the US and saw undergrads writing in INK on their books it used to piss me off to no end. It’s still jarring to me after all these years.

    I get the idea behind it but I just can’t do it.

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    1. I specifically learned to write in textbooks from school and also because they wouldn’t be passed down. But yes, the old textbooks in my grandfather’s house were spotless and covered in brown paper.

      This <a href=”https://www.pinterest.com/chpl7npr/fun-things-to-do-with-old-books/’>pinterest page for example, bothers me to no end.

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  3. “Look, I love Bernie Sanders like a play cousin. While I’d like to support his candidacy to be the Democratic nominee, I just can’t. Again, it’s not that he has bad ideas, it’s just because there’s no way in hell we’ll see any of his proposals become reality. There’s no political will on the Hill to make any of this happen. And, I’m sorry: Bernie Sanders may be Jewish but his name ain’t Jesus.”

    See, I’d agree with you if this was eight years ago. And it’s true, it’s highly unlikely that Bernie could get any of his agenda passed. Honestly though, no Democratic president will get much of anything done with a Republican congress. They impeached Bill for lying about a blowjob; they kept threatening to shut down the federal government multiple times; and now they’re blabbering about indicting HRC over emails. I think they’d spend the next four years flipping out over any Democrat no matter how centrist.

    And yet another study proving that life experiences of parents define the lives of children. Consider the horrible damage done to people who are not allowed to have the information about their real parents, grandparents, etc. They have no way of figuring out what’s happening to them.
    Have you read The Girls Who Went Away

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    1. Obama got an enormous lot done. But his goals were always realistic. Everything Bernie is offering is a pie in the sky fantasy. Yes, tiny incremental steps are annoying bit that’s the only way. Bernie is supported by kids who dream of recording a hit and becoming a superstar or writing a bestseller in the fantasy genre. But eventually they will grow up and realize that patient plodding is the only winning strategy.

      I only hope they don’t saddle us with 4 years of Ted Cruz in the process. It won’t hurt them but for us it might be more painful.

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      1. If you can’t even envision it, if you can’t even discuss it, there’s no way you’d get even the centrist stuff people want.

        There’s also something to be said for actually starting left of what you want or what you think is feasible so you end up with something centrist. With a ridiculous insane bunch of right wingers it’s the only way to get closer to something you want. Endless compromise just means progressive achievements get chipped away into nothing. I just don’t buy the idea that young people are wholly unrealistic. Now if they think they’ll get single payer with Bernie they’re mistaken.
        The<a href=”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window’> Overton Window is real.

        Aren’t all of these right wing promises equally fantastic? But yet these people managed to get a lot of their ridiculous fantasies into law.

        Further notice that the most left-wing candidate is the oldest person running. I’d argue that younger people have more time to waste on patient centrist fantasies and plodding. :-p

        Bernie is supported by kids who dream of recording a hit and becoming a superstar or writing a bestseller in the fantasy genre.
        So? :-p They have a better chance when they’re young than when they’re old to try to run up the side of a mountain.

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        1. He’s not running for an envisioning position. He’s running for an executive one. In the legislative space, yes, Bernie definitely has a great role and he’s been fulfilling it for years. But executive means you need to execute. And execute begins with and ends on a compromise, buttering people up, making friends, smiling, agreeing, nodding, begging, and cajoling.

          Of course, if there were a large Dem majority in the Congress and most of the states were Democratic, then sure enough, let’s give Bernie a try. But that’s not the case and there is zero chance that this will be the case any time soon.

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    2. “Honestly though, no Democratic president will get much of anything done with a Republican congress”

      This. I don’t understand this narrative that Clinton will get things done while Sanders won’t. The only way Clinton will ‘get things done’ is if she makes deep, deep compromises in order to work with the Republicans, in which case getting things doesn’t sound like a very attractive idea for her base.

      Remember the failed ‘grand bargain’ of Obama in 2012? If substantially cutting medicare, medicaid, and Social Security is what’s needed in order to ‘work’ with the Republicans and ‘reach across the aisle’, and ‘not be divisive’, then I’m all for being partisan and divisive. Fuck that shit. Thinking that you can do politics without any conflict is a fantasy.

      Also, I don’t like how she dismisses Sanders’ ideas of, say, public option or single payer. This’ll never happen, she says, so why even bother trying. But she’s actually campaigning for gun control, which is orders of magnitude harder than healthcare reform. What the fuck? Where’s her sense of pragmatism now?

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      1. You are absolutely right, Hillary will get things done by asking not for the sun and the moon but for teensy little things. And then for a few more teensy little things and so on. And that’s the only way, as frustrating as that is.

        Look at Obamacare. We all know it’s deeply deficient, it’s a gift to the vile insurance conpanies, etc. But I just met a fellow on Uber who is 48 and who got insurance for the first time in his life on Obamacare. And got treated for cancer. He’s voting for Trump, of course, but he’s alive to do it thanks to the deeply deficient Obamacare. Would it have been better if Obama had stuck it out for single payer, refused to compromise heavily, and got nothing?

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  7. Black Caribbean men are best at sharing the housework but married white men are the worst, new study reveals

    Women across all ethnic groups spent more hours on housework than men

    Study found that black Caribbean men do 40% of chores in the home

    Each week they do on average more than seven hours of cleaning

    The average white man does around six hours a week of chores

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3436043/Black-Caribbean-men-best-sharing-housework-married-white-men-worst-new-study-reveals.html

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    1. I absolutely insist that, today, the only women who do more housework than their partners are the ones who passionately want to. This is the greatest non-issue of all non-issues.

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  8. Have been reading Yuval Noah Harari’s (he is a lecturer in history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem) “Sapiens: A brief history of humankind.” A nice book, but you, I suppose, know all this already, being an academic. For instance, he talks about imagined communities, the marriage of science and empire, the problems in searching for some pure ‘authentic’ cultures or in viewing the empires of the past as “evil”.

    A few nice quotes anyway:

    “It is telling that the first recorded name in history belongs to an accountant, rather than a prophet, a poet or a great conqueror.”

    “The average Christian believes in the monotheist God, but also in the dualist Devil, in polytheist saints, and in animist phosts. […] It’s called syncretism.”

    “The [capitalist-consumerist ethic] is the first religion in history whose followers actually do what they are asked to do.”

    (Harari talks about humanist religions: liberal humanism, socialist humanism and evolutionary humanism, “whose most famous representatives are the Nazis.”)

    When I read the following Harari’s passage, I thought about you mentioning your demand for consistency in one’s positions / ideology:

    ” Just as medieval culture did not manage to square chivalry with Christianity, so the modern world fails to square liberty with equality. But this is no defect. Such contradictions are … culture’s engines, responsible for the creativity and dynamism of our species. […] discord in our thoughts, ideas and values compel us to think, re-evaluate and criticise. Consistency is the playground of dull minds.

    It tensions, conflicts and irresolvable dilemmas are the spice of every culture, a human being who belongs to any particular culture must hold contradictory beliefs and be riven by incompatible values. […] Cognitive dissonance is often considered a failure of the human psyche. It fact, it is a vital asset. Had people been unable to hold contradictory beliefs and values, it would probably have been impossible to establish and maintain any human culture.”

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    1. It’s consumerism, pure and simple. A consumer feels entitled to possess an incongruous feel-good hodgepodge of “beliefs” – religiously, politically, culturally, etc – and feels mortally offended by the suggestion that s/he should invest any effort into sorting them out. Consumers don’t make efforts, they enjoy immanent possession.

      I often encounter this in class when students say, looking deeply wounded, “But that’s my opinion!” The idea that an opinion has to be justified, explained, defended, etc actually hurts their feelings. “That’s my opinion” to them is equivalent to “that’s my iPod!”

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    1. Rights don’t exist without responsibilities. If we control our reproductive choices, we need to be responsible for the products of our reproduction. Otherwise, we end up with a situation where the reproductively irresponsible are rewarded at the expense of the perennially punished reproductively responsible.

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