not taking a side, is taking the side of inaction, which will inevitably result in oligarchy. You can say you don’t care, withdraw, and refuse to participate, but don’t pretend like it’s not an active participation. You’re actively in this life, you’re just choosing to let the wrong team win.
If you went to any other coffee store that isn’t a mcdonalds-ified chain, they would have given you what you wanted.
This is like you complaining about not getting a medium rare burger from mcdonalds.
When I visited Europe, I had a great time talking with strangers there. One in particular said something similar, in that he thought Americans were just inherently more violent.
Listen, the reality of the situation is that we’re just as friendly and kind as we ever were. Americans are literally the most charitable population. But we’re also living in times of great wealth inequality, while our health insurance is still tied to employment. Something like half a million of us go bankrupt every year from medical debt. We are also all uniquely aware that some people will randomly get lucky, and get a massive windfall of money. Money here doesn’t just mean comfort, it means security, because if ever our luck runs out, there is no social safety net waiting to catch us. People can and often do go from the highest echelons of the social ladder, to living under a bridge, dying of some easily cured disease.
In America, it’s dog eat dog. It’s a zero-sum game. Whatever money you make, is money that I won’t. And when money = security, it means that however secure you are, is how less secure I am. 300 million of us all playing the prisoners dilemma. If we work together we could all have a good outcome, but there are so many of us that have fully bought into the me vs. everyone mentality, that it’s a near impossibility of getting all us prisoners to work together.
But a big mistake, is looking at boomer news (fox news, newsmax, oann) and thinking it reflects reality. It doesn’t. That is 100% hateful news for hateful people. If you like getting a dopamine rush from looking down on others, or doomscrolling, or in being afraid, then faux news is what you watch. Don’t mistake it with America, because it isn’t. It is actively poisoning Americans, but if ever you were to get an active faux news watcher to turn it off, sit down, and have a chat, you’d be surprised at how friendly they were. They are people who bought into the zero sum game, but even they know how/when to be charitable.
When I was a kid, I couldn’t help but intrinsically understand that the bible is not some literal document, but a collection of fables with metaphors for life. Because way back then, without a civilized society, you needed a bit of fire and brimstone to help keep would-be evil-doers at bay.
The only stuff I ever enjoyed, and still carry to this day, were the New Testament teachings of Christ. Love thy neighbor, feed the hungry, shelter the poor, care for the sick, welcome the immigrant.
Oddly enough, along with the current pope, those seem to be the only lessons that most modern day “christians” have done away with. They’ll use electron microscopy to read between the lines to demonize gay people, but when their Lord and Savior explicitly says “it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven,” all of a sudden they’re stricken blind deaf and dumb.
I follow the teachings of the brown socialist who spent his time caring for and conversing with the lowest on the social ladder. The man who overturned the money lenders carts in the street. I dunno who the fuck everyone else is following, but it ain’t him.
AP, Routers, BBC, Al Jazeera.
Whenever I want to know the facts without any editorializing, I go for AP.
Yeah, you’ve definitely cheated before
Considering that rich boomer parents are almost exclusively fucking terrible, I’d say having to grow up with them makes it more palatable. They may get some money, but they never got love.
“built like a brick shit house”
“Off-season body builder”
“strongman”
I have a disabled neighbor that I help out around the house every now and then, she’s been a smoker for decades. Long enough that she had to get tracheotomy so she breathes through a hole in her neck. Hasn’t stopped her from smoking like a pack a day. Because of her disability and advancing age, a very kind neighbor built her a house and gave it to her for free. Her smoking has ruined that cute little two bedroom, to the point that everything in there is stained nicotine yellow, and reeks. That house will just have to be torn down when she leaves, because they’d have to gut the entire thing just to get rid of the smell. It’s disgusting, and the fact that she got that house for nothing makes me all the more pissed about it.
After Sriracha stopped producing, I found a big ol’ bottle of the sauce I had accidentally hidden behind some protein powder in my pantry. I enjoyed the hell out of it. slathered pizzas, spiced soup, made sriracha aoli for sandwiches. Just ran out the other day. The new tobasco brand just doesn’t have the same balance between sweet and spicy that real sriracha does. It’s a shame. I enjoyed it while it lasted, at least
of course, they all said yes. invited 20-ish people, hoped for 7-10, got none. They started bailing about a day before, but only 4 definitively said they couldn’t make it.
My last party went much like this. First party thrown since the divorce, went all out on a halloween costume party. Was hounding my best friend about it for months, only for him to flake saying he didn’t want to drive the 40 minutes to my house. Nobody came, spent over $1000 on decorations alone. I’ll throw another party at some point, but I’ll need to find some new friends first.
DOTA 2 is my primary time waster, have over 3000+ hours on it. It’s endlessly entertaining, because there is so much variability in the games. You have 4-8 spells depending on the hero, with 6 active item slots, which means once your team has leveled up, team fights can be a burst of seconds, or a 5+ minute long affair, with each tank employing different survival strategies to block damage, heal, or escape, just to heal and get right back in it. There are multiple different game modes, but are a little challenging to find and play. Still, it is the one game I play with the steepest learning curve. I don’t think I saw myself as “good at the game” until I was around 1000 hours in 😶
Smite is the only other game I have 1000+ hours in. I started playing it as a break from DOTA 2, and as a way to connect with my little brother. It’s a lot like DOTA 2, but far more simplistic. Each god has 4 spells, with no active items. Instead of left-clicking for movement on a map, you use WASD to maneuver your god. It’s fun, and you can pick it up after like 30 hours. The different game modes are a lot easier to navigate than in DOTA, but it’s also a lot less engaging. The updates and quests are all very simplistic. I was going to try out the new Smite 2, but after watching some game play, it looks… exactly the same as Smite 1.
Honestly, if it was any other kind of car, I would have been impressed at their ingenuity and railed against the wildlife expert who outed them. But people who waste money on expensive luxury cars don’t get sympathy from me. A fuckin Rolls Royce? You thought you could get an insurance company to write off a fuckin rolls royce? If you already have the money to obtain that kind of car, you get no sympathy from me.
Remember when she called Bernie “anti-woman” and made some claim that he had said a woman can’t be president? I lost all respect for her after that.
When I was working as a line cook in college, I was one of two white guys behind the line, with the rest of our BOH (Back Of House) crew being black. One day on the line we were all joking around like we always did. One of the black cooks, named Rose (he was an older guy, with coke-bottle glasses and strong, thickly calloused hands. He had a snaggle tooth and a big ol’ pot belly), was regaling us with stories about how he has a veritable harem of women at his beck and call. He told us he was supporting like 5 different women, and all of them were entirely devoted to him.
I thought that he was being hyperbolic, and decided that I would poke fun. I was going to say something like “Rose, I can’t believe for a second that even 1 woman would be after your ugly mug.” But my midwestern-whiteness shone through, and before I could deliver that absolute blister of a line, I decided to use an exclamation so as to punctuate my lack of belief in his statement. I started with “Ooh boy,” and didn’t get to finish.
I was immediately accosted by Rose, his spatula gripped tightly, and he was mad as hell. The other line cooks were instantly aware of the situation and reacted to hold him back, as Rose was about to knock my befuddled ass into next week. Eventually they were able to calm him down, and explained to my dumbass that calling a black man “boy” was explicitly racist, and derogatory.
We were fine once he realized I had no idea it was racist, I just thought of it as an exclamation along the lines of “Boy howdy!” or something.
It was a very eye-opening moment.
no, he had just won two primaries in a row. Everyone but Biden, Bernie, and Warren dropped out. Warren was just as beholden to the DNC as the rest of them, but she stayed in specifically to split the progressive vote, in order to catapult the flailing Biden into pole position. It was clear as day, a coordinated effort to stop Bernie from being the Democratic candidate.
I loathe trunk or treat. It’s not the same as trick or treating, it’s cheating. When I was young the only way I got a bunch of candy was to run all over the neighborhood, and then run to the other neighborhoods to squeeze in more. I was out and about, acting the fool, where chicanery abounds. I’d end up at home, exhausted at the end of the night.
Today’s kids walk around a parking lot. It’s just not the same.
When we were kids halloween was the best. As an adult, there was nothing more I looked forward to than handing out candy, seeing costumes, scaring some kids with all my decorations. But now it’s all sanitized and boiled down into the something as ludicrous as walking around a parking lot asking for handouts from cars. What, are they just prepping the nations children for a life of panhandling? Joking aside, it’s just not as fun for anyone involved. I don’t want to drive somewhere and decorate the fucking trunk of my car (especially when I decorated my house already?), and the kids don’t want to walk around a parking lot!
Trunk or treat is the worst solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.
I like to do that with great albums. I’ll listen to the whole thing, just, over and over and over again. Until I’ve got pretty much the whole thing memorized. Then I go on to another one. I’ll only do it that way if the whole album is banging, though.
Past examples include:
EDIT: couldn’t find the full Tweedy Album, so just linked my favorite song from it
If you took away the internet and TV, People would riot like they never have before. You hit the nail on the head, enough of us who would do something are just comfortable enough not to. We have comfort food, alcohol, weed, TV, video games, and movies. All distractions. Take away the comfort, take away peoples last remaining reason not to revolt.