Forum Replies Created
-
AuthorPosts
-
December 5, 2019 at 6:40 pm in reply to: The Divide: Global Inequality from the Conquest to Free Markets #108998
Billy_TParticipant“…All the bragging about the supposed reduction of poverty is based primarily on manipulation of statistics by western institutions at oh so convenient times. They’re jiggered to show improvements when, in actuality, poverty levels have increased, and the floor is set far too low to begin with…”
—————————-Yeah. Just pause and think about how hard it really is to get something approaching ‘unbiased’ information in a Corporotacracy. In ANY field.
There’s a reason Westerners keep repeating the same myths and keep voting for the same assholes every election.
w
v
===
“A hierarchal society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance…” -George OrwellAgreed. And the tragic thing is, books like this one will largely be ignored. Same with Grandin’s and Immerwahr’s. But every American should know this history. Perhaps if we all did we’d stop believing in the myths that are literally killing us.
. . .
My own starting place, as you know, is the total acceptance of capitalism as the one true god. That there can be no other alternatives. That it represents “freedom and liberty” and came into the world to provide all of that, without any costs of any kind, naturally. Supposedly, it was all good, from Day One.
In reality, it could not have happened without mass violence, coercion, plunder, genocide, slavery and the total destruction of formerly independent, sustainable ways of life. Enclosure, for example, one of the earliest forms of privatization, killed subsistence farming as a way of life, and came directly from “the State.” In Britain, it was primarily Parliament that enacted these laws, dominated as it was by landowners who wanted even more control. So small farmers were forced into the factories for slave-wages, and little by little, people stopped making their own clothes, housing, etc. etc . . . and lost their independence on all fronts.
“Freedom and liberty” for whom? No system in world history has ever been so (perversely) successful in its total domination of life. It’s literally totalitarian, and all too few people see this.
-
This reply was modified 6 years, 11 months ago by
Billy_T.
December 5, 2019 at 10:43 am in reply to: The Divide: Global Inequality from the Conquest to Free Markets #108980Billy_TParticipantAnother important point:
All the bragging about the supposed reduction of poverty is based primarily on manipulation of statistics by western institutions at oh so convenient times. They’re jiggered to show improvements when, in actuality, poverty levels have increased, and the floor is set far too low to begin with.
Hickel thinks the rock-bottom minimum (standard for poverty) should be $5 a day, and even that is much too low for most parts of the world. It needs to be many times that if we want to add basic human decency and dignity to the mix. But it’s been stuck in the $1 a day range for some time, only recently being revised to nearly $2. He talks about how propaganda is being used to rationalize the continued existence of a system that can never adequately allocate resources, much less be even remotely “fair.”
(If it’s set at $5 a day, 4.3 billion humans currently live in poverty.)
Another section of interest is his discussion of the Global South’s embrace of Keynesian ideas (for a time) and their relative success during the 1950s thru early 1970s . . . which helped spark the neoliberal counter-revolution to crush it. Hickel says that even with all the coups and the crushing of leftist movements, “developmentism” survived . . . It was the manipulation of debt, primarily by the World Bank and the IMF that finally destroyed it. Forced austerity, privatization and deregulation — the trifecta for the neoliberal project — did what all of those coups couldn’t quite do.
Again, the book is well worth the read.
Billy_TParticipantThe problem with tax cuts is, as mentioned, they have to be paid back. The federal government has to borrow money to make up for the revenue losses while it maintains the same levels of goods and services — or increases them. And because it’s deficit spending, an interest payment is tacked on too. It’s also pure economic illiteracy on Trump’s part to cut taxes while the economy is doing okay. Keynes was right. Stimulate the economy in down times; pay off the debt in relatively good times.
The deficit problem created by the tax cut is part of the republican evil genius. You know who is voting against this enormous federal deficit? Republican representatives and senators all around the country.
The gov’t couldn’t continue to function and increase the deficit without Nancy Pelosi and the democrats continuing to choose to run the gov’t this way.
Republican representatives and senators get to have it both ways: the economy is great AND we are working to oppose those dumb democrats who are always spending money they don’t have.
Trump, of course, should have a more difficult argument to make. But the democrats seem like they don’t want to hammer the stupid economic predicament Trump has created. Or maybe they do and I missed it.
At the start I was excited about the possibility of a strong rebuke of Trump from the Democrats during the debates, but I’ve pretty much tuned out the Democratic primary nonsense at this stage.
Good points, Cal.
The Dems should also remind people about the major flip-flops by the GOP on deficits and debt. They screamed bloody murder when Obama ran them, and he ran them when they were actually needed. During a recession, that’s what you do. You run deficits to dig your way out of that recession. We’ve always done that.
But as soon as Trump took power — and he inherited a recovery, unlike Obama — they turned on a dime and signed off on massive deficits and new debt.
The pattern’s pretty clear throughout recent times. When a Republican is in the White House, they don’t care about deficits. Reagan tripled the debt; Dubya doubled it. When a Dem is there, however, Republicans suddenly remember to be “fiscally conservative” again.
The Dems dropped the ball on that hypocrisy and so much else too.
Billy_TParticipantWell, i have no doubt I’m a hypocrite in a gajillion ways, and i dont have any clear, unified, solutions-thots on this stuff, but when i talk about a dummed-down public i AINT talkin about the Trump Voters. I’m talkin about the Harvard PHDs as well.
For example, if i was doin a video like that, mine would be about how dummed down the college-educated folks were AS WEll AS the never-been-to-college folks. My vid would be about how dummed-down you have to be to vote mainstream-DEM as well as how dummed down you have to be to vote Republican.
That video seemed to me like the usual stuff we get from libs about how smart the libs are and how dum the Reps are.
In my view things are way worse than just dummed-down-trump-voters. Thats only half the story.
Having said that, I like that guy in the vid. This is just my usual magnifying minor differences, probly.
w
vI agree with all of that. Tried to find a way to express that above, but added a bit as well. I may be alone on this, but I think a huge problem is that even with a ton of “education” in whatever form . . . streets, formal, school of hard knocks, etc. etc. . . . we humans have our blind spots, our allegiances, our prejudices, and there’s no arguing us out of them. In fact, there have been all kinds of recent studies that show people digging in the more they hear those arguments. The attempts to change minds actually cement those views, etc. Push people up against a wall, and they cling even harder to their stances.
So one possible recourse is a very dark one, and it’s one “the other side” saw long ago. They see it and implement it every chance they get.
Power. Taking power and maximizing it while they have it. No holds barred. Pushing through their agenda without apology or hesitation, hyper-aggressively.
You can’t fight the unabashed pursuit and use of power with “good arguments,” generally speaking. Exceptions, of course. But they’re rare.
. . . .
One more ugly quandary for leftists of the radical egalitarian, small “d” democrat variety. Even moreso, perhaps, for those of us who also lean left-anarchist.
Billy_TParticipantZN,
That’s twice now. Did a post, hit submit, and couldn’t see the result until later.
The software must be trying to teach us patience.
;>)
Edit: And I just now see this one, which I did after posting a response to Cal, which hasn’t shown up yet.
It’s being marked as spam. From my end it means I go into the inner board only mods see, and find a post that is “pending.” I then “approve” it.
This happens sometimes. Don’t know if there is anything we can do about it, but as I said the worse alternative is to NOT have a spam filter (as I’ve learned the hard way).
I appreciate your patience.
No worries. I see the post now.
And the spam filter is a must. Without it, what’s to stop WV from spamming the board with his diehard Vikings propaganda?
Billy_TParticipantZN,
That’s twice now. Did a post, hit submit, and couldn’t see the result until later.
The software must be trying to teach us patience.
;>)
Edit: And I just now see this one, which I did after posting a response to Cal, which hasn’t shown up yet.
Billy_TParticipantHa! Pakman is talking about uneducated voters supporting Trump and Pakman doesn’t even have an educated opinion about Trump’s tax cut.
Trump and the republicans did a good job of targeting white working class voters without a college education with their tax cut. Part of the tax cut included doubling the child tax credit which reduces the taxes for anyone with kids.
I would guess most of those voters have children they can claim and saw a big reduction in their tax bill after the tax cuts.
Pakman’s explanation doesn’t even come close to explaining the savings that millions of tax payers realized with the tax cut.
Pakman’s solution of using education by teaching critical thinking earlier in schools is so perfect as it represents the mainstream Democratic solutions.
Instead of more education, how about giving these people more time off work, higher wages, and standing up to a system that tries to extract an extra dime from working class people at every opportunity.
The problem with tax cuts is, as mentioned, they have to be paid back. The federal government has to borrow money to make up for the revenue losses while it maintains the same levels of goods and services — or increases them. And because it’s deficit spending, an interest payment is tacked on too. It’s also pure economic illiteracy on Trump’s part to cut taxes while the economy is doing okay. Keynes was right. Stimulate the economy in down times; pay off the debt in relatively good times.
Of course, the real reason for these tax cuts is too obvious: Make rich people richer. This is one place where serious math education would really help:
Give someone a 10% tax cut who makes 30K a year and they’ll pocket an extra few hundred a year. Give that same percentage to someone who makes 10 million and they’ll pocket many hundreds of thousands of dollars more. If they have good tax lawyers, more than that.
Percentages. This means every time we include rich people in with any tax cut, the government is radically increasing income and wealth inequality. It’s doing “social engineering” for rich people.
Why this doesn’t piss off the poor, the working class and the middle class is baffling. It’s one more of those blind spots I mention above.
Oh, and Trump gave himself and his family a massive tax cut in the bargain — corporate and personal.
Billy_TParticipantEnh. I guess what i object to (mildly) is the use of the term “educated.”
I would have phrased it “college-educated” I suppose.I was bothered a lot by the “uneducated” thing.
Point taken.
Yet we ourselves talk about the corporatitized dumbing down of the public.
Things have been dumbed down for a long, long time. But I wonder if our crises are really amenable to improved “critical thinking” skillsa. What if society really has made a critical turn beyond all of that, and we really are in a “post-truth” era?
Boiled down, I think people can and do have the ability to “think critically,” with or without college, but in certain areas of life, they choose not to use those skills. Not consciously, necessarily. It’s likely not a conscious decision. But we all have blind spots to one degree or another — different ones, sacred and profane spaces that we just know 2+2=5 and won’t brook those arguing otherwise.
The usual areas, of course, are politics and religion. And they’re the biggies. But this kind of irrationality can rear its ugly head in all kinds of different places, and more “higher education” may just not be able to address it. I don’t think it really can. Otherwise, we wouldn’t see so many absolutely brilliant people believing in crackpot nonsense like apocalyptic religions, seances, or fascism, etc. etc.
I have no idea what the answer is. And while I’ve always been a huge believer in university education — I paid off three rounds of student loans in support of that — I think we’ve reached a time when Yeats’ widening gyre.
Billy_TParticipantI was bothered a lot by the “uneducated” thing. Once was too much, but he kept saying it.
Even the polls he showed had enough common sense to use college or non-college, or something to that effect.
Ironically, Trump said he “loves the poorly educated!” so he has a bit of the same problem via college or non-college.
Also, Pakman, when he discussed the tax cut issue, forgot to mention that it has to be paid back, and with interest. Media forget to mention that too. They should always bring that up when people say how happy they are to get a tax cut. That they’ll be paying it back plus interest . . . and, of course, how the rich make out exponentially better whenever those tax cuts occur. Percentages. Math, etc.
Oh, well . . .
Billy_TParticipantHey, ZN,
It shows up like this on the forums page.
https://theramshuddle.com/forums/
I just posted in the football and public forums, and still shows much older pasts as the most recent.
Likely just needs an update to the CMS or to the cache plugin. Maybe both.
Or, if it’s going through a CDN, could be a problem on their end, but the owner of the site no doubt has access to make corrections there, too. Could be a cache issue for CDN as well.
(Don’t think it’s on my end. I have my browser set to automatically clear everything when I close it)
Billy_TParticipantGoff also doesn’t have sharp enough mechanics to get away with throwing in a hurry — his motion takes too long to come around, and he does not have the raw arm strength to overcome that.
I’ve been saying this for some time, and it’s always bugged me. I really don’t like the “way” he throws the ball. It can work if he has extra time, or doesn’t hear footsteps, or when play-action to Gurley gives him extra time . . . but that hasn’t been the case recently.
Watch most QBs in the league. Watch Lamar Jackson, for instance. He gets the ball out, fast, and most of that is mechanics. No real windup. He just sets up and fires. No wet towel process. Football up near his ear, fire!!
(It’s much better for ball security too.)
I’d bet a billion virtual dollars that Goff could shave off a significant amount of time on each passing play if he could just do that. No more windup. Just set up and fire. And this would obviously have secondary advantages with the secondary. Far less time for them to adjust on the ball. Less time for them to see what’s he’s about to do, etc.
This off-season, he needs some serious redoing of his mechanics. It’s probably not a good idea to try it in the middle of a season.
Billy_TParticipantBoiled down:
All it takes for a viewer to stop thinking of MSNBC as “the left’s” network is watching it. It was never the lefty alternative. Not even close.
Yeah, they have three (perhaps) center-left hosts in prime-time — Hayes, Maddow and O’Donnell. But during the day, it’s mostly Republicans or centrist to conseradems.
(Matthews is hard to pin down. Changeable. But on balance, I’d say he leans center-right on most stuff outside “culture issues.”)
. . . .
The left needs to create our own media. We need something much, much bigger than youtube channels to compete. It needs to be major networks, with high production values and lotsa reporters, analysts and staff, etc. We need something like a Jacobin Mag, but for TV, and with all the bells and whistles.
Billy_TParticipantFalling off my “let it be” wagon for a moment . . . :>)
I understand the anger regarding coverage of Sanders. If folks want to boycott MSNBC because of that, more power to them. But then they’d have to boycott pretty much every news channel, cause none of them give him a fair shake. They never have.
To me, it’s not that some people on MSNBC “hate” Sanders. It’s that they ignore him. They only mention his name when the polls include him, or when they rip into M4A or “socialism” more generally. And even then, if it’s possible, they won’t mention his name.
The real issue with MSNBC is its takeover by Republicans. In that clip the host showed, you have Jennifer Rubin, Susan Del Persio (sp?) and Nicolle Wallace — all Republicans. Wallace has her own show at 4pm. Bill Kristol, the second-gen Neocon, was in one clip — he’s a frequent guest during the day — plus Michael Steele, the former Republican Party chairman. On Morning Joe (Scarborough), which runs 3 hours, the host, a staunch conservative, has Republicans on all the time.
The ticket for being a guest or a host on MSNBC isn’t being a Dem, and certainly not “liberal”; it’s a willingness to criticize Trump.
As I mentioned before, it will be interesting what the network does once Trump leaves office. Will it continue to welcome literally dozens of Republicans throughout the day, or will it go back to hiding its normal center-right agenda via Democrats alone?
Billy_TParticipantYeah, last time I checked, it wasn’t showing up in the forum update sections.
And I have noticed it slowing down lately, especially on mobile.
Hope all is well, ZN.
Not clear. That WAS the post and it’s fine now?
No. It still shows a WV post from 20 hours ago as the latest.
Billy_TParticipantYeah, last time I checked, it wasn’t showing up in the forum update sections.
And I have noticed it slowing down lately, especially on mobile.
Hope all is well, ZN.
Billy_TParticipantSorry to break the flow here, but if you can do it yourself, or contact the Site Admin, looks like it needs a CMS update.
Not showing newest post in the forum section.
Thanks in advance.
November 27, 2019 at 10:24 am in reply to: Humans Aren’t Inherently Destroying the Planet — Capitalism Is #108685Billy_TParticipantThis was like finding the Rosetta Stone for me. It just made so many things click, fall into place. Yuval Harari’s eye-opening TED talk (and book) on Homo Sapiens.
Boiled down, the thing that got us over the hump was our belief in (shared) fictions. This allowed Home Sapiens to go beyond the barriers of kinship cooperation and the outer limits of our “natural” sense of extended empathy, even unity. Some scientists place this at about 150 people, max.
Belief in fictions like religion, nation-states, capitalism, money, etc.
Obviously, for good and ill. It’s complicated, as the kids used to say.
So aside from capitalism itself being a fiction, there are all kinds of smaller fictions in day to day operation of a business, and we “cooperate” together because of that. Unfortunately, under capitalism, this is primarily in the service on one person’s dream, one person’s accumulation of wealth — or, at most, several. One of those fictions as that we’re all in this together, to our own benefit too.
If we’re going to have a unifying fiction, shouldn’t it be cooperation that benefits all of us, in a relatively equal way, instead? A bi-product of that fiction would be actual, real, tangible benefits for all.
Billy_TParticipantInvader,
Hopefully, you know I was joking.
I don’t want them to blow the whole thing up, but I do think they need some major changes. For instance, it’s time for Philips to go, IMO. I’d love to see the Rams go back to a 4/3 and find a young, innovative, smart as a whip coach to implement it. I also want them to find a huge, space-eating DT to pair with AD, and move him back inside. Play tough, close to the line, man to man corners, and get bigger and more athletic at safety.
I’m in favor of being experimental in drafting and finding positions for great athletes. For instance, I would have drafted this guy and tried him at multiple positions, including strong safety:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo_Scarbrough
He’s a running back now, but his freakish athleticism just sings Box Safety to me. But the point would be to cross-train and find where he fits in best.
I’d also find a new O-line coach, and focus on building a much better line. Trade Havenstein for picks, if doable. Catch up with the rest of the league by starting athletic tackles, left and right. Gone are the days when teams could get away with having a lumbering, bumbling mauler at RT. They’re getting rushed by super-athletic ends and edge guys too.
Offensive play-calling should change as well. Play a sixth lineman and move him around, including into the backfield, as lead blocker or runner.
And they need to find a big, tall receiver who wins 50/50 jump balls consistently. There is no one on the team that does that right now.
For starters . . .
Billy_TParticipantI’m usually not the kind of fan who goes ballistic after a loss and pounds the table for a complete rebuild.
But that’s how I felt after the first half. I was almost numb by the end of the game, and couldn’t even watch the last minute or so after Kupp drop-tipped the pass for a Ravens’ interception.
After some time to calm down, reflect, burn off some of the alcohol, do some Zazen . . . I can see much more clearly now:
Tear this #$@&%*! down you #$@&%*! I’m NOT PUTTING UP with this #$@&%*! any #$@&%*! MORE this #$@&%*! YEAR or next #$@&%*! YEAR!!! You #$@&%*! #$@&%*!?#$@&%*!!!
November 26, 2019 at 9:03 pm in reply to: Humans Aren’t Inherently Destroying the Planet — Capitalism Is #108674Billy_TParticipantThe trick is to get 99% of society to believe that they’re just like the 1% at a human level (sociopaths), so that we’re totally confused about our “nature” and assume the folks at the top are just like us and we’d act the same if we were on top.
In reality, 99% of the population lives communally, cooperatively, selflessly, to the degree possible under the system in place, in its modern context. Roughly 1% lives selfishly, hyper-competitively, aggressively. They hope we never, ever figure this out. They hope we never, ever figure out we don’t need the 1%, we don’t need bosses, we don’t need the overhead/overlords . . . and if we lived as we do now, but without them? If we did our normal “collectivism” but shared its fruits amongst the collective itself, instead of allowing the 1% to steal our work?
Capitalism can’t escape being collectivism. It collectivizes workers, consumers, resources. But instead of the collective working on behalf of the collective, it works for the capitalist class.
When you stop and think about who does the vast majority of the work, and who has ALWAYS done the vast majority of it, isn’t it insane that we allow this system to exist . . . ?
Not to mention that it’s killing the planet (as the article describes).
November 26, 2019 at 8:53 pm in reply to: Humans Aren’t Inherently Destroying the Planet — Capitalism Is #108672Billy_TParticipantCapitalism actually couldn’t work, at all, without cooperation. Massive cooperation, at all levels — for good and ill. Mostly the latter. That’s the major irony whenever the topic comes up. Every business of any size requires it, and business to business activity requires it, and business to consumer and business to public sector require it. Take away cooperation and the entire system collapses.
I think people in capitalist societies misunderstand its nature to a tremendous degree, and that’s what the powers that be want.
To me, if we really were all selfish and self-absorbed, it couldn’t possibly work, because we’d all act at cross-purposes, on the job, as consumers, as citizens. We’d all demand the highest pay, the top job, the finest goods and services, and we obviously don’t. Most people accept crappy pay, lousy jobs, poor goods and poor services. We adapt and accept massive inequality and injustice. We accept hierarchies where the top acts selfishly, even socipathically, and we’ve been brainwashed into thinking this is normal, because it’s normal for everyone.
If humans were as selfish and aggressive and violent as we’re supposed to be, that wouldn’t happen, and we would have killed each other off tens of thousands of years ago.
November 25, 2019 at 9:46 pm in reply to: It’s not thanks to capitalism that we’re living longer, but progressive politics #108622Billy_TParticipantThanks, Nittany. Great article.
I looked up the author’s book in our local libraries. Will definitely put a copy on hold to read soon.
I get sooooo sick of people saying “Capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty” blah blah blah. No. It. Hasn’t. It put billions into poverty, as the author explains. Forced them into deadly factory work. Forced them to work for pennies. Destroyed their previously independent, local markets and home production, etc. etc.
The thing that lifted folks up was and always will be democracy, and leftist programs . . . or, as they say in Britain, programmes.
Capitalism, if left unfettered, is basically slavery. That’s been its history and its present tense. See Thailand’s fishing industry and Burma’s mineral sector for great examples.
Again, thanks for the post.
Billy_TParticipantIs that snow scene, um, real?
Because of the angles, it’s tough to be sure. But looking at the cars and guestimating the heights . . . that’s either 16-20 feet of snow, or someone bulldozed their way through the world’s biggest vanilla pie.
Billy_TParticipantI love finding out more and more about “pagan” culture..
==============
Well, I’m still trying to wrap my head around the notion of Nero’s “artistic” competition in the Olympics. How does an ‘artistic’ competition work, i wonder.
w
vThe Greeks and Romans were highly competitive peoples. The Greeks in more areas of life, but the Romans too. They turned anything into a contest. One might say, they were the first culture to want to rate things, thumbs up, thumbs down . . . and with the Romans, especially, this could be a life or death decision.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, the so-called Protestant work ethic has no real connection to biblical times and ways. Wandering, nomadic tribes weren’t really all that hopped up to be competitive in any modern sense of that word. They wouldn’t recognize the connection or the religion(s) they supposedly gave birth to. Their Helenic neighbors, however, would likely see it.
There really isn’t any such thing as “Judeo-Christian” values or ethics to begin with, primarily because the two cultures diverged violently, almost from Day One, but especially from Constantine on. It makes no sense to hyphenate them, or to suggest we get our culture from that hyphen. We’re far more influenced by the Greeks and the Romans in their heyday, as empires, and then their impact on the later European empires that tried to copy them, once the ancient world was rediscovered, mostly after the Dark Ages.
As far as Nero goes, while he wasn’t as whacked as Caligula, any “contest” he set up was likely guaranteed to have preordained winners. That included plays, art-work, poetry readings, debates, athletic contests, etc. etc. Those who surrounded him knew what they needed to do to please him, so if Nero didn’t set things up, he was still the ultimate focus.
One could argue we’re not all that far removed from that sort of thing.
;>)
Billy_TParticipantQuick side-note:
Your commercial reminded me of something I’ve noticed, streaming British TV and movies.
They seem far more comfortable with mixed-race romantic pairings, especially in their Rom-Coms. Doesn’t seem to provoke so much angst, one way or another. And when it happens in the US, it’s generally white female, black male. In Britain, it seems, more often than not, to be white male, black female.
I have no idea what that means, if anything. Someday, it won’t matter an iota. It will just be another day, the sun rises, the sun sets, etc. Just like the subject of the Renault commercial. I think the world will be far better off for that evolution. Love is love is love, etc.
Billy_TParticipantGood commercial, great song.
I like this one too, from France:
November 23, 2019 at 1:35 pm in reply to: on the Weddle controversy (ie. Weddle won't share knowledge of Ravens w/ Rams) #108527Billy_TParticipantI am not too big a fan of Weddle. I don’t think he will be back next year. Just my opinion. I really like Matthews.
The guys on Pardon the Interruption made the comment that former Baltimore players seem to do this, and that they’ve never heard of any grousing about their former team. Their deduction was that the entire franchise was thought to be a good one, from top to bottom.
Ironically, it’s the original Cleveland Browns franchise.
As for Weddle: When you say you don’t like him, do you mean his play on the field? I haven’t focused on safety play this year, so I can’t say one way or another. Definitely agree about Matthews. That was an excellent pickup. He really wants to prove Green Bay wrong, and he has.
Billy_TParticipantI love finding out more and more about “pagan” culture. During my trip to France in 2007, it was so cool to see Roman ruins — colosseums, amphitheaters, aqueducts and temples, especially. There’s a beautiful temple in one of my favorite French city/towns, Nimes. Arles has all kinds of Roman ruins too. But they’re all over France.
Of course, all of that came at great cost to the ethnic tribe I’ve always identified most with, the Celts. Caesar almost wiped them out.
Some recent reads tell the story of early Christian efforts to wipe out pagan culture itself, including Greek, Roman and pretty much any culture that did not embrace “the one true god.” These continued in many forms for centuries. Literally millions of books, statues, buildings . . . One of the reasons why we have “ruins” is because of Christian zealots doing their damndest to tear them down, burn them up, “disappear” them from history.
Catherine Nixey’s The Darkening Age is excellent corrective history on this topic. Stephen Greenblatt’s The Swerve is as well. The Map of Knowledge, by Violet Moller, deepens the history, concentrating more on Islamic contributions.
(I read these books last May)
Thanks for the post, WV.
November 23, 2019 at 12:49 pm in reply to: on the Weddle controversy (ie. Weddle won't share knowledge of Ravens w/ Rams) #108520Billy_TParticipantI’ve never heard of this ever being a quandary for a player. Though I likely missed it happening over the years. You switch teams. You help them any legal way possible.
It’s probably not a real factor, one way or another. Kinda sorta a “slow newsday” thing.
But on a related issue, having to do with that particular morning show on NFL Network:
I can’t stand their setup and “vibe.” For me, it’s far too frenetic, seeks laughs all too often, wants to entertain us above all else. There’s no seriousness about the game itself when I’ve tuned in to watch it.
Yeah, this is probably when I get an “Ok, Boomer” reaction. But I really miss the days when Frank Gifford used to preview games — before he was on MNF — and the games themselves were narrated by people who thought they mattered, a lot. Summerall, Brookshiser (sp?) come to mind. Some of the folks on the old AFL games too, which escape me at the moment.
As a youngin, the dramatic aspect of NFL football was heightened by the TV coverage, by the way those games were covered. The NFL Network’s morning show deflates that drama for me. It’s more about the TV personalities themselves than the games.
Oh, well.
Billy_TParticipantWell I didnt check but i suspected it was in their style section. But I still think it reflects something about the Times. I dont think its an accident they blasted Tulsi’s fashion sense. I think the Times reporters know who they are supposed to target and who they are supposed to support. I assume its not direct orders from the top. Nothing that crude and blunt. But they know. Etc.
w
vThe attack was absurd. I agree with the panel about that. I just think it’s disingenuous for Ball to frame it as if it were an NYT editorial position, politically.
You may be right, though. It may be a top down thing. But that’s conjecture at best. Should we be fighting absurdity via conjecture? Or should we strive for solid ground instead?
Anyway, as always, I appreciate your responses, and you putting up with me being a nudge.
;>)
I keep telling myself I’m gonna stop this, and just let things be. Go back to my old apolitical self, listen to music, read, etc. And then I fall off my own wagon, so to speak.
It’s all Joe Kapp’s fault!!
-
This reply was modified 6 years, 11 months ago by
-
AuthorPosts
