Hello. Let us begin with a graphic story about wealth inequality, and the ways that the people who are best positioned to raise objections about it are often the ones who feel they have the most to lose by doing so. (And sometimes, in the States, the ones who are "made an example of" when they do so that everyone else is too afraid to also speak up about the inequality.)
The conception of self-love as something more akin to lovingkindness, at least, as described in this letter. I'm more used to self-love as the concept of putting your own oxygen mask on before trying to help others, rather than ascending to a state of loving everyone and the small things just stop being important.
Returning to the idea of a quick coffee or event to suss out whether someone's going to be dateworthy material before committing to a longer date. Apparently as opposed to doing all of the things online and then finding out that someone isn't nearly as good in person as they are online. Perhaps I am An Old, but I have always thought the idea of finding people through shared activities as a better way of finding potentially compatible people rather than expecting two strangers to have a romantic encounter. If for no other reason that if you are both doing something you enjoy, even if you think there may not be romance involved, you have found someone to hand out with that likes some of the same things you do. Of course, there's also the destructive potential of a person being an absolute tool and making that activity less doable because they'll want to be there at the same time you are.
Perhaps I am more inclined to seeing it because it's getting toward Srs Bzns Politics Season where I am, but I have been subjected to a fair number more of people putting their politics on their vehicles, and almost all of them have been advertisements that whomever put the stickers on the vehicle is living in an alternate universe, rather than the one that they need to be in for effective engagement. The persons adopting fascist symbology and a willingness to allow those charged with keeping "law and order" to disregard both are, for the most part, so common as to be part of the backgound. But one vehicle had two stickers on it, one stating "Hate America? Vote Democrat!" and the other "Vote Conservative! If liberalism worked, you'd still be in California." which both made me smile at their unstated assumptions. (And not least because I wanted to stay where I was, but the dictates of paying off my student loans meant I had to go elsewhere to get a salary high enough to live and make it work, so it wasn't liberalism that failed me at all, but the consistent belief that people who perform public services are little more than parasites on "real" people and should be paid accordingly. (And the consistent belief that a job that mostly women do deserves a pocket money salary because all women are already married to high-powered money-making executives who are the real breadwinners.)
The one I had to laugh about, however, was the person in the lift-kitted truck (for those unfamiliar, U.S. car culture often likes to customize their vehicles in one of two directions - sufficiently low to the pavement that traversing bumps in the road could result in serious undercarriage damage ("lowriders," usually associated with Latine and Black cultures (and the racist assumptions about gang membership and antisocial behavior that accompanies)) or as high as the suspension can be raised without causing serious structural damage or risk of being blown over in a stiff breeze (using "lift kits" that essentially create a gap between the body of the vehicle and the wheels)) that was raised very clearly to "my car is the externalization of the lack of confidence I have in my masculinity" levels of height, with two flags attached to the back of the truck bed, one that was a large U.S. flag (there are, theoretically, regulations on the display of the flag which this setting almost surely is in continual violation of) and the other displaying a banner supporting the twice-impeached previous administrator's run for the next election cycle, with the subtitle, "Fuck Your Feelings." The juxtaposition of the person who feels the need to externalize and broadcast their insecurities in the guise of macho bravado and their banner declaring that the feelings of the observer don't matter was certainly worth a laugh. (I realize in practice, it's a declaration of "only my feelings matter, but I wish that person a very much people making fun of them without any consequences.)
As for a certaiin amount of smugness and also the understanding that one does not mess around with the record-keepers, after getting into trouble with the National Archives and Records Administration for destroying or hiding documents that are properly part of the record of his administration and therefore not his to take or destroy, and returning back several boxes that had been brought improperly to his Florida residence earlier in the calendar year, and then again supposedly returning all of the documents that might still have been at the administrator's residence in June, the Federal Bureau of Investigation executed a search warrant against the previous administrator and his property and retrieved several more boxes worth of records and information, many of which contained classification markings still upon them, which could very well lead to charges under the appropriate statutes about the mishandling of national defense information or other applicable actions. While the previous administrator is claiming that he has privileges over the documents (he does not) or that he declassified the information contained in the documents (without going through the appropriate procedures to do so that would avoid any concerns about the classification status of the documents), a redacted photograph released in a Department of Justice filing suggests that not only were the documents clearly marked with their classification markers, they were present in materials that suggested there was intent to conceal the documents from investigators. There is significant speculation about who else may have been able to see the information during the time that it was outside of the appropriate Secure Compartmentalized Information Facilities and what kinds of secrets may have been revealed by a now-former official who had a penchant for revealing that kind of information in his dealings with others, or in conducting national and international business in public spaces, even if the business itself was not for public consumption.
Mostly, though, there's a lot of wondering whether this might be the time, the action, that actually qualifies as a crime and can be proven sufficiently that the previous administrator would not only be put on criminal trial, but convicted and sentenced to jail in such a way that would prevent him from being the frontrunner of the same party that nominated him the previous time around. Which may be a bit more of playing Whack-A-Mole, as I'm sure there are people who would spring up into his place were he to be barred from running for office, but at the very least it would prove there are limits to what you can get away with.
( And More Inside! )
Last for this entry, the changing nature of the swear word in the 16th century CE, and how some things that are vulgarities now were simply part of the vulgar language then.
Additionally, Netflix allegedly courts binge-watchers to the point where they make decisions about renewals and additional seasons based on how many people watch the entire thing in the first week after release. For MegaCorp A, they wait an entire month before deciding whether a show gets another season. As someone who is An Old and grew up in the realm where, even though we had cable, new shows released in one episode a week, rather than whole seasons at once, the idea of having to watch an entire multiple-episodes season within a single week (or month) of release for it to count is extremely NO. I have to do stuff like work, y'know?
Admittedly, with this kind of metric idea in mind, it could certainly promote more shows that have the advantage of having representation and being entirely mediocre. I'm watching a show that's like that right now, aggressively mediocre but with lots of representation of people and situations you wouldn't usually see.
To play us out, a rather lovely concertina and band performance from Talisk and Mohsen Amini.
(Materials via![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
adrian_turtle, azurelunatic, boxofdelights, cmcmck, conuly, cosmolinguist, elf, finch, firecat, jadelennox, jenett, jjhunter, kaberett, lilysea, oursin, rydra_wong, snowynight, sonia, thewayne, umadoshi, vass, the ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
meta_warehouse community, and anyone else that's I've neglected to mention or who I suspect would rather not be on the list. If you want to know where I get the neat stuff, my reading list has most of it.)
The conception of self-love as something more akin to lovingkindness, at least, as described in this letter. I'm more used to self-love as the concept of putting your own oxygen mask on before trying to help others, rather than ascending to a state of loving everyone and the small things just stop being important.
Returning to the idea of a quick coffee or event to suss out whether someone's going to be dateworthy material before committing to a longer date. Apparently as opposed to doing all of the things online and then finding out that someone isn't nearly as good in person as they are online. Perhaps I am An Old, but I have always thought the idea of finding people through shared activities as a better way of finding potentially compatible people rather than expecting two strangers to have a romantic encounter. If for no other reason that if you are both doing something you enjoy, even if you think there may not be romance involved, you have found someone to hand out with that likes some of the same things you do. Of course, there's also the destructive potential of a person being an absolute tool and making that activity less doable because they'll want to be there at the same time you are.
Perhaps I am more inclined to seeing it because it's getting toward Srs Bzns Politics Season where I am, but I have been subjected to a fair number more of people putting their politics on their vehicles, and almost all of them have been advertisements that whomever put the stickers on the vehicle is living in an alternate universe, rather than the one that they need to be in for effective engagement. The persons adopting fascist symbology and a willingness to allow those charged with keeping "law and order" to disregard both are, for the most part, so common as to be part of the backgound. But one vehicle had two stickers on it, one stating "Hate America? Vote Democrat!" and the other "Vote Conservative! If liberalism worked, you'd still be in California." which both made me smile at their unstated assumptions. (And not least because I wanted to stay where I was, but the dictates of paying off my student loans meant I had to go elsewhere to get a salary high enough to live and make it work, so it wasn't liberalism that failed me at all, but the consistent belief that people who perform public services are little more than parasites on "real" people and should be paid accordingly. (And the consistent belief that a job that mostly women do deserves a pocket money salary because all women are already married to high-powered money-making executives who are the real breadwinners.)
The one I had to laugh about, however, was the person in the lift-kitted truck (for those unfamiliar, U.S. car culture often likes to customize their vehicles in one of two directions - sufficiently low to the pavement that traversing bumps in the road could result in serious undercarriage damage ("lowriders," usually associated with Latine and Black cultures (and the racist assumptions about gang membership and antisocial behavior that accompanies)) or as high as the suspension can be raised without causing serious structural damage or risk of being blown over in a stiff breeze (using "lift kits" that essentially create a gap between the body of the vehicle and the wheels)) that was raised very clearly to "my car is the externalization of the lack of confidence I have in my masculinity" levels of height, with two flags attached to the back of the truck bed, one that was a large U.S. flag (there are, theoretically, regulations on the display of the flag which this setting almost surely is in continual violation of) and the other displaying a banner supporting the twice-impeached previous administrator's run for the next election cycle, with the subtitle, "Fuck Your Feelings." The juxtaposition of the person who feels the need to externalize and broadcast their insecurities in the guise of macho bravado and their banner declaring that the feelings of the observer don't matter was certainly worth a laugh. (I realize in practice, it's a declaration of "only my feelings matter, but I wish that person a very much people making fun of them without any consequences.)
As for a certaiin amount of smugness and also the understanding that one does not mess around with the record-keepers, after getting into trouble with the National Archives and Records Administration for destroying or hiding documents that are properly part of the record of his administration and therefore not his to take or destroy, and returning back several boxes that had been brought improperly to his Florida residence earlier in the calendar year, and then again supposedly returning all of the documents that might still have been at the administrator's residence in June, the Federal Bureau of Investigation executed a search warrant against the previous administrator and his property and retrieved several more boxes worth of records and information, many of which contained classification markings still upon them, which could very well lead to charges under the appropriate statutes about the mishandling of national defense information or other applicable actions. While the previous administrator is claiming that he has privileges over the documents (he does not) or that he declassified the information contained in the documents (without going through the appropriate procedures to do so that would avoid any concerns about the classification status of the documents), a redacted photograph released in a Department of Justice filing suggests that not only were the documents clearly marked with their classification markers, they were present in materials that suggested there was intent to conceal the documents from investigators. There is significant speculation about who else may have been able to see the information during the time that it was outside of the appropriate Secure Compartmentalized Information Facilities and what kinds of secrets may have been revealed by a now-former official who had a penchant for revealing that kind of information in his dealings with others, or in conducting national and international business in public spaces, even if the business itself was not for public consumption.
Mostly, though, there's a lot of wondering whether this might be the time, the action, that actually qualifies as a crime and can be proven sufficiently that the previous administrator would not only be put on criminal trial, but convicted and sentenced to jail in such a way that would prevent him from being the frontrunner of the same party that nominated him the previous time around. Which may be a bit more of playing Whack-A-Mole, as I'm sure there are people who would spring up into his place were he to be barred from running for office, but at the very least it would prove there are limits to what you can get away with.
( And More Inside! )
Last for this entry, the changing nature of the swear word in the 16th century CE, and how some things that are vulgarities now were simply part of the vulgar language then.
Additionally, Netflix allegedly courts binge-watchers to the point where they make decisions about renewals and additional seasons based on how many people watch the entire thing in the first week after release. For MegaCorp A, they wait an entire month before deciding whether a show gets another season. As someone who is An Old and grew up in the realm where, even though we had cable, new shows released in one episode a week, rather than whole seasons at once, the idea of having to watch an entire multiple-episodes season within a single week (or month) of release for it to count is extremely NO. I have to do stuff like work, y'know?
Admittedly, with this kind of metric idea in mind, it could certainly promote more shows that have the advantage of having representation and being entirely mediocre. I'm watching a show that's like that right now, aggressively mediocre but with lots of representation of people and situations you wouldn't usually see.
To play us out, a rather lovely concertina and band performance from Talisk and Mohsen Amini.
(Materials via
adrian_turtle, azurelunatic, boxofdelights, cmcmck, conuly, cosmolinguist, elf, finch, firecat, jadelennox, jenett, jjhunter, kaberett, lilysea, oursin, rydra_wong, snowynight, sonia, thewayne, umadoshi, vass, the meta_warehouse community, and anyone else that's I've neglected to mention or who I suspect would rather not be on the list. If you want to know where I get the neat stuff, my reading list has most of it.)
