December 24, 2020

Fine I shouldn't try to comment when I'm also at work.

June 27, 2020

Defund the police by 33.8%

Oppressed groups are frequently placed in the situation of being listened to only if we frame our ideas in the language that is familiar to and comfortable for a dominant group. This requirement often changes the meaning of our ideas and works to elevate the ideas of dominant groups.

Patricia Hill Collins

December 1, 2019

For those critical of Art/History Degrees...

Frequently it is said that pursuing a liberal arts or fine arts degree is a waste of time because it will not likely result in gainfull employment. I hope that even if one only views a college degree as a way to maximize earning potential they can still see some value in exposure to art and literature. I present this fable to stir some thought about not just how one may make a living, but why might they want to.

Once upon a time, there was a very industrious ant and a frivolous grasshopper. They lived near each other in a fine meadow. Everyday the ant would venture from his nest and collect food to save for the winter. While he made his rounds he would hear the beautiful music the grasshopper was playing on his fiddle. The ant would continually admonish the grasshopper "you must gather food for winter will be upon us and food will be scarce". The grasshopper would answer "I have always found enough and without my music the world would be so dreary".

The winter did come and as the ant had foretold there was not a morsel of food to be found. Since he had no stores the grasshopper soon grew hungry. Having gathered and saved all summer and fall the ant had larders a brimming, but when the grasshopper came asking for some small sustenance the ant briskly reminded the grasshopper of his laziness when there was food to collect and refused to assist the grasshopper. Soon the grasshopper perished from his hunger.

That is the part of the story everyone know, but what happened the following year is just as important.

In the spring the ant emerged from his nest prepared to gather food to save for next winter as before. What he found as he toiled was the air was silent unlike when he had been gathering last year. The silence held no comfort and no joy. As the ant worked he began to feel a profound sadness and before long he laid down and died of a broken heart.

June 21, 2019

Can we at least admit he misspoke?

in regards to VP Biden's remarks that have aroused at least a little controversy, I understand he wanted to illustrate that it is possible to work with politicians with whom you strogly disagree. It seems to me it would be a stronger yet safer argument to use Republican Senators he has worked with rather than a Democrat who was still fighting for segregation, but it still works with his message. In answer to a legitimate complaint that there are too many controversies around Biden the remarks I am referring to are these:

Mr. Biden, speaking at a fund-raiser at the Carlyle Hotel in New York City on Tuesday night, stressed the need to “be able to reach consensus under our system,” and cast his decades in the Senate as a time of relative comity. His remarks come as some in his party say that Mr. Biden, the former vice president, is too focused on overtures to the right as he seeks the Democratic presidential nomination.
At the event, Mr. Biden noted that he served with the late Senators James O. Eastland of Mississippi and Herman Talmadge of Georgia, both Democrats who were staunch opponents of desegregation. Mr. Eastland was the powerful chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee when Mr. Biden entered the chamber in 1973.
“I was in a caucus with James O. Eastland,” said Mr. Biden, 76, slipping briefly into a Southern accent, according to a pool report from the fund-raiser. “He never called me ‘boy,’ he always called me ‘son.’”

If he is going to continue to tell that story he should work really hard to get all the words right. The word swap that caused this to be an issue is substituting boy for Senator. Biden has been telling this story of his prowess at handling virulent racists for a bit of time now, but it never hit the big time until what I believe is an unacknowledged misstatement. In the past he has said that Senator Eastland never called him Senator always son. That makes a lot more sense and is a lot less controversial than he never called me boy he always called me son. In the first example it is clear Eastland was seriously disrespectful to Biden who was a fellow Senator. In the second example son seems like it could be an endearment in comparison to the alternative. It also causes one to wonder if Biden understands who Eastland would call boy.
At this point Biden and his campaign have not acknowledged the misspeaking and I think that is giving this story more legs than it might have. Nobody has actually called Biden a racist, but that is what him, his campaign, and his supporters have been arguing against. This could have been put to bed quite quickly if the boy-son part would have been handled.

February 15, 2019

I apparently was given...

three hearts from anonymous. Thank you if you gave me a heart and are seeing this.
-Tony

October 15, 2017

Fearless girl...

is facing the fucking bull, a symbol of Wall Street, the one that is screwing us all to hell. That doesn't work anywhere else. Bull had no right to be there, but it worked so it won a spot. Fearless Girl is equally deserving for the way she represents we the little people against Wall Street.

April 14, 2016

Do Corporate Whores run on...

CP Time? Of course I mean Corrupt Politician Time.