Damn, Erin. You are gifted at not just saying, but actually illustrating, what the actual F is going on! I wonder if you ever consider submitting pieces like this to any larger, national publications like NYT, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, or any others? I’d love to see you reach even more people who, like me, will appreciate your wake up calls to snap us out of our numbed minds.
Popeye Segar (EC Segar, original 1929 author) "That's all I can stands, 'cause I can't stands no more!" just [EDIT: had first said "five years", but Zamyatin's novel was first published in 1921 so it should have said EIGHT] short years after Zamyatin's novel "We" though that USSR-like setting had already quashed (almost) all non-conformity. Huxley's BNW is off-topic, so jump right to "1984"; (summation, not actual quote) "You've had your Two-Minute-Hate, now back to your remaining 23 hours 58 minutes of Conformity." Dunny's advert is rather blatant about using the film-version's Big Brother imagery; first thing learned in Psych class "sex & death sells" so though his eyes are scary, his abused cultists see that as "love" (don't say Stockholm, that fable is just copaganda). More prescient is Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron", (again, summary) "There was some event on the tele... what kind of tea would you like today?" Re-read the Wp page to remember the story of network and my brain kept looking up at the year it was made, since it's been the same ol' horror show for rather a few deca... centuries.
News anchors these days are so generic as to be inoffensive- vanilla, bland, devoid of unique and/or potentially offensive or off-putting personal qualities. Meanwhile, we chase the latest consumer goods as our democracy, once the world's greatest, limps to its denouement like an addled, syphilitic old man.
It's been a good run, but then all empires come to a conclusion eventually. Perhaps it's out time to be tossed on the scrap heap of history. This just wasn't how I saw Pax Americana grinding to a halt.
And he told me all romantics meet the same fate someday
Cynical and drunk and boring someone in some dark café"
Joni Mitchell, 1971
The view from Birmingham, Alabama after attempting data based conversation about Trump...
"I'll tell you this...The country was much more prosperous when he was President. We were safer."
On the heels of James LePage, et al. v. The Center for Reproductive Medicine and Mobile Infirmary Association in which Chief Justice of The Alabama Supreme Court Tom Parker repeatedly cited the "Holy Bible" (Christianity primary text) to create a new life form "extrauterine children", never before observed in nature, with most of the electorates approval.
Lot of well educated, scientific types in that district. Space and Rocket Center, University of Alabama/Huntsville. Still, that's not new. We'll see. GOTV.
Funny how I've been hearing rants like Beale's just recently, all of them pretending as if we have no memory at all for how things -really- used to be.
I'm sure he's thoroughly inured to it by now, lol. Probably fireproofed his ears a decade-plus ago.
But if you've seen the recent hysteria over the "teenage gang" on the Near West side (which has had teenage gangs of one sort or another for well over a century), that's what I'm talking about.
Damn, Erin. You are gifted at not just saying, but actually illustrating, what the actual F is going on! I wonder if you ever consider submitting pieces like this to any larger, national publications like NYT, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, or any others? I’d love to see you reach even more people who, like me, will appreciate your wake up calls to snap us out of our numbed minds.
I have not (maybe I should), and I sure appreciate the vote of confidence.
Popeye Segar (EC Segar, original 1929 author) "That's all I can stands, 'cause I can't stands no more!" just [EDIT: had first said "five years", but Zamyatin's novel was first published in 1921 so it should have said EIGHT] short years after Zamyatin's novel "We" though that USSR-like setting had already quashed (almost) all non-conformity. Huxley's BNW is off-topic, so jump right to "1984"; (summation, not actual quote) "You've had your Two-Minute-Hate, now back to your remaining 23 hours 58 minutes of Conformity." Dunny's advert is rather blatant about using the film-version's Big Brother imagery; first thing learned in Psych class "sex & death sells" so though his eyes are scary, his abused cultists see that as "love" (don't say Stockholm, that fable is just copaganda). More prescient is Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron", (again, summary) "There was some event on the tele... what kind of tea would you like today?" Re-read the Wp page to remember the story of network and my brain kept looking up at the year it was made, since it's been the same ol' horror show for rather a few deca... centuries.
Hey J.K. thanks for dropping in. I am so damn exhausted and the recent events just make me want to collapse.
Keep the faith.
I think you're doing just fine, J. K.
News anchors these days are so generic as to be inoffensive- vanilla, bland, devoid of unique and/or potentially offensive or off-putting personal qualities. Meanwhile, we chase the latest consumer goods as our democracy, once the world's greatest, limps to its denouement like an addled, syphilitic old man.
It's been a good run, but then all empires come to a conclusion eventually. Perhaps it's out time to be tossed on the scrap heap of history. This just wasn't how I saw Pax Americana grinding to a halt.
All good things must come to an end. Why the hell did It have to be on our watch?
I know, right? And just when we were finally getting some good shows on Netflix....
"The last time I saw Richard was Detroit in '68
And he told me all romantics meet the same fate someday
Cynical and drunk and boring someone in some dark café"
Joni Mitchell, 1971
The view from Birmingham, Alabama after attempting data based conversation about Trump...
"I'll tell you this...The country was much more prosperous when he was President. We were safer."
On the heels of James LePage, et al. v. The Center for Reproductive Medicine and Mobile Infirmary Association in which Chief Justice of The Alabama Supreme Court Tom Parker repeatedly cited the "Holy Bible" (Christianity primary text) to create a new life form "extrauterine children", never before observed in nature, with most of the electorates approval.
I'll buy you a Shirley Temple.
I'm hoping Marilyn Lands isn't a fluke.
Lot of well educated, scientific types in that district. Space and Rocket Center, University of Alabama/Huntsville. Still, that's not new. We'll see. GOTV.
Funny how I've been hearing rants like Beale's just recently, all of them pretending as if we have no memory at all for how things -really- used to be.
As I wrote this, I kept thinking the poor ol' Goat hears a Howard Beale rant damn near every morning.
I'm sure he's thoroughly inured to it by now, lol. Probably fireproofed his ears a decade-plus ago.
But if you've seen the recent hysteria over the "teenage gang" on the Near West side (which has had teenage gangs of one sort or another for well over a century), that's what I'm talking about.