Opinions, art, debate
I’m not seeing much of a difference. Both dislike America. Both are opportunists and dishonest. Both promise a neoliberal future where the state plays on the side of transnational corporations and is comically inefficient in everything except policing speech.
Both are better than AOC who is a moron but that’s a low bar to cross.
Once again, I want to point out that I should have listened to my instincts and never agreed to have the union negotiate for us with the administration. What the union got for us at the end of several months of negotiations is hugely, painfully and shockingly worse than what the administration originally offered.
Before you blame me for agreeing to accept the union’s help, please remember that I have colleagues and the decision was collective. I agreed a regañadientes, and now I’m too mad to remember how to describe my agreement in English.
Many people watch, listen, and read to hear their own half-formed thoughts given back to them in a more completed form.
This is not bad. People are busy. They can’t dedicate all their time to formulating ideas and pondering how best to express them. Their primary responsibility in life is different. And it’s all good. They kind of know where the answers lie and they look for books, podcasts, blogs, and articles to arrive at the verbal expression of what they intuit.
I, on the other hand, am one of those people whose whole job is to express thoughts. I know my own ideas because I literally sit at work for hours thinking about how better to express them. I don’t need help. Not because I’m superior. The guy who is doing my oil change as I write this is not superior to me, doing something I can’t. He’s doing his job. Thinking and formulating ideas is mine. The oil change dude and I are both important to society in our different roles.
Because I know exactly what my ideas are, I don’t seek out information sources that tell me what I know. I get tired from the contents of my mind because I spend so much time with it. Usually, people are distracted from the contents of their minds for hours a day by their jobs and other obligations. They seek information that brings them closer to their thoughts. I do the opposite. I try to take a break from mine.
Do I need to repeat that this doesn’t make anybody better or worse? It’s simply material circumstances of life.
I’ll continue later because the oil change is done.
People are divided into those who do and those who don’t understand why Newsom’s post is terrible:
What a shit person is writing his social media posts.
It looks like Republicans are overall a happier bunch:
Democrats don’t even go to seventy, let alone eighty, when their dude is in the White House. The reason is that they want too much from their guy. What they want, he can’t give because a politician is not the source of it.
Happy long weekend to those of us who like to be happy, whatever our political persuasion.
N and I loved the first part of the movie and decided to see the sequel. I mean, I think we loved it. N says so, and I uncovered a post from back when I saw it and the post confirms.
The problem is, I discard information I deem unnecessary with extraordinary celerity. I have no memory of the movie, and couldn’t even identify its genre. Reading my own review of it brought no clarity.
The sequel is fine. It’s a healing fantasy for American masculinity. N says that the original movie was better, and I trust him. But it was such a great, peaceful time at the movie theater today, in the deep leather seats that spread out almost like beds. The first two weeks of class have worn me out, and not because there is any actual complexity at work. It’s my sixth year as department Chair, and at this point everything runs almost by itself. But these have been two weeks where people have sought me out much more than I need. I need barely any human contact outside of my family, so I wasn’t necessarily entertained by having people come to me one after another, crashing through a wall in the dark lounge where I went to spend a quiet half hour (true story), trying to wrestle away the office door that I was attempting to close for some privacy in my office, and asking in hushed voices “Is she in there?” every 15 minutes. And this isn’t even counting a strange child who got into my car and refused to leave for 15 minutes (true story). This is why the mountains of evildoers that Bob Odenkirk murders in creative, limb-tearing way in the movie felt quite soothing.
I so love daytime showings at American movie theaters. And American movies. I love pretty much everything and everybody now that I have several days ahead of me when I don’t have to be available to people. I don’t mean you, readers. You are all great and I love all your comments always. I mean people at work and strange children who breach the perimeter of my car.
Here’s today’s video:
I look a thousand years old because it’s the second week of the academic year, and I’ve just about depleted myself. But I do introduce an aphorism of my own creation that’s really cool. Plus, if it’s humanly possible to be kinder, more respectful and polite to trans people than we are on this show, I don’t know how that could be achieved.
We’ll still be censored because we get banned for using terms like “the black market” and “I went yellow with anger” (it’s a calque, just accept it as it is.)
This is not my house. I have traumatic childhood memories of these things on the ceiling, I forget what they are called. I’d never want something like this. But the image does reflect the contents of my mind pretty well, which is why I’m posting it.
Freedom of speech doesn’t mean a guaranteed audience for your speech. For example, if people decide not to watch my videos (I’m taping one on the Minneapolis shooter today, by the way), they are not infringing on my freedom of speech. They are simply exercising their freedom not to listen.
What I do in such situations is adopting what somebody recently aptly called “the dotty aunt act.” When people start on their ideological trip, I chime in with a beaming look, “Oh, and I’m sorry for interrupting but I keep wanting to ask, how is your daughter doing in her first weeks of college? That’s so exciting!” or “Oh my God, and sorry for interrupting, but you won’t believe the funny thing that the Dean said.”
I have this perfect little anecdote about how the Dean said in a meeting, “Our university has many delayed maintenance obligations in the amount of a billion dollars”. And as he said that, pieces of stucco started falling from the ceiling right on his head. I already interrupted half a dozen unnecessary conversations with this story.
I understand that this strategy works for some personalities and not others. If you don’t have the dotty aunt look, it might be harder for you.
Does anybody have any suggestions for more seriously looking people?
Trump’s peacemaking efforts are having as much success as his deportation policies.
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