How To Live

In a world gone mad.

Do like Odysseus sailing by the sirens, and plug your ears to social media. It's actually not hard at all.

5% Off

CHOP disbands after convincing Seattle to cut 5% of their police budget.

Which of course, they will increase back up next year if need be and no one from CHOP will even notice.

And now back to coronavirus panic...

Counter Point

I quit academia pornography, with a random coda.

This did not apply:

The allegedly left wing excesses and ‘vicious environment of political correctness’ in academia. This is popular to talk about, but to me is coded language for one of three things: [a]‘I am incapable of navigating difficult conversations about sensitive topics without annoying people, due to either the imprecision of my language and/or my latent ignorance’, [b] ‘I require an opposition to set my ideas against, and vicious PC culture actually perversely supports my perpetual quest for attention’, or [c] ‘I am a big fat racist, and I wish it was more convenient to be a racist’.

Without question, I've noticed a bit of excessive PC-ness at my school, but nothing that isn't fairly easy to navigate.

I wonder if I'm a bit guilty of "b."

Amen

Funny video.

Logging

Film: Shawshank Redemption

Cheese dick or greatest movie of all time?

Film: The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

Inspiring, vivid, an incredible achievement. Why don't they make 'em like this anymore?

Film: Moana

Depressing, cheesy, derivative, full of cliches. For the proponents of diversity in storytelling, I'm often surprised by how much such films embrace underlying Western story norms.

Film: Da 5 Bloods

Weird to say, but the direction is clearly the weakness here. I turned it off.

Book: Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King

Great and still not as strong as the film.

Book: How America Lost Its Mind by Thomas Patterson

Ahead of its time. Good so far.

Book: Real Demonic Possessions and Exorcisms

Of questionable quality, but perhaps this is why its worth reading.

Book: Screenwriting is Rewriting by Jack Epps

I recommend very few screenwriting manuals, but make an exception for this one.

We Can Learn From The Rest of the World

A must read from an Iranian.

A must listen from a Venezuelan.

Not only can it happen here. It IS happening here.

Resist.

India-China

Chinese troops stunned by India's fighting prowess.

I know nothing about these things, but my impression is the Chinese are arrogant about their own power whereas the Indians are accustomed to co-existing with a hostile neighbor (Pakistan) so they cannot afford to be soft.

Just Another Thing Wrong With America

A 20 year old kills himself after thinking he lost hundreds of thousands of dollars on a brokerage trading account.

That a 20 year old is trading options and misunderstood how much money he had lost is a terrible story with or without the suicide.

Rather Good

Random interview with a financial writer.

BERNSTEIN: It’s fun, but if you’ve got kids to raise and colleges to pay for, I wouldn’t become a writer, I would choose a much more solid profession, live modestly and then you can kick back and follow your bliss and write if you feel like.

Knowing what I know now, I'd agree.

Basic Thought

We should basically quadruple the amount of money we spend on public education in this country.

If done well, it might end up solving a myriad of problems, including:

1) Prisons

2) Racial tensions

3) Future welfare obligations

4) Student loan debt

5) And we might actually build a competent future

Acts of Terrorism

Police poisoned at Shake Shack.

Find who did it. Send them to jail for attempted murder. This is evil.

UPDATE: This turned out to be a hoax. Just like the Bubba Wallace noose. Shows ALL sides of this thing are getting bad information.

Getting Masks Wrong

Taleb on how the government got masks wrong.

Strikes me that these people in positions of power only get the "right" answers when those answers somehow end up personally benefitting their status. And they are functioning in a backwards world where we confer status on those who are "ideologically" correct instead of those who are correct.

Corruption

Surprising exactly no one who pays any attention: 54 American scientists fired as a result of not disclosing funding from the Chinese government.

Improving Black Lives

Ideas.

And this is very true:

We started hearing calls from white Americans to do something to help ease the difficulties blacks are facing. On the surface, this seems good; the intentions definitely are good. The problem is that, with no context or reference to what is needed in the black community, and often with few black friends or colleagues to consult, many Americans—from those in corporate America to vocal social media consumers—are throwing support and resources behind Black Lives Matter, without considering carefully what the group actually stands for.

My suspicion about white folks who support BLM are that they know very few black people at all. I'd be willing to bet BLM has less than majority support within the black community.

Psychotic

Our community and culture has lost its mind.

SF Muni won't transport police officers to protests.

A Seattle neighborhood has turned into The Warriors.

Our irresponsible business, community, and political leaders have unleashed this madness and mob mentality. It's disgusting and inhumane and most "people of color" are abhorred by it but are first people silenced by this mob.

Black Lives Matter

Quote:

When you expose a racist student, you stop them from attending a university that will allow them to become a racist healthcare worker, teacher, lawyer, real estate developer, politicians, etc.

Just so you all know - this type of thing has been tried before. It was called the Cultural Revolution. Look it up. See if that's the world you want.

And if so inclined towards revolution, might as well check out: French Revolution, Bolshevik Revolution, and the Iranian Revolution just to again see how it all turned out.

Wokeness

Is one big giant lie.

Contrast This

A Georgia State Trooper responds to protesters request to kneel.

versus

How the Minneapolis mayor lets the protesters stand above him, point down upon him, and shame him like he's Cersai Lannister at the hands of the Sparrows.

One is a man, the other is not.

Impression

Social justice warriors are negging America.

Negging (derived from the verb neg, meaning "negative feedback") is an act of emotional manipulation whereby a person makes a deliberate backhanded compliment or otherwise flirtatious remark to another person to undermine their confidence and increase their need of the manipulator's approval.

And what do they want? Power.

All this effort to defund police...such a ridiculous cause. You want to defund police? Win elections. Persuade voters. By shaming and blackmailing those in power into these temporary salves, you only invite a backlash and a deserved one.

Everyone wonders why we have Trump. This kind of shit.

Message Received

Jemele Hill: "Journalism is a profession of agitation."

But consumers read the news when they believe it at least seeks to report the truth.

Speed

There's gotta be some word for the speed with which the world operates now - it's fast.

I went from thinking Trump just lost the election by threatening to bring in troops to the streets, to now being pretty sure he's going win because the protests are turning into "Defund the Police."

Maybe some Dems will find sanity. Their base will not.

Caution - Corona

The feeling of the moment leads toward letting go a bit, but of course this is the precise time we should probably be acting with the most caution.

But we won't because we are emotional and not rational creatures.

BLM - NY Chapter

I've criticized BLM before, but I'm 100% with what this guy is saying.

1) De Blasio should resign

2) Had he handled the Eric Gardner case better it would have set a national precedent. Amen.

3) There should be some type of guaranteed jobs program for African Americans. Now, I think this has execution problems but as an idea -- it's a good start and a place to work from.

4) Each state has their own issues, and he speaks only for BLM - NYC.

Hawk Newsome has my support.

"Peaceful" Protests

On my street, businesses are boarded up with "Black Lives Matter" signs in the windows and "Minority Owned" like lambs blood on passover.

Our babysitter drives an used, painted over police car. Don't ask me why. She's young and been getting flicked off all day by people. 

Maybe I can get on board with some of the stuff with protests - maybe I can even understand the rage - but don't bullshit me and say they're peaceful.

And as a side note, with respect the Black Lives Matter, etc. I notice the tenor of all conversations comes across as basically: shut the fuck up unless you 150% are with us. Just know, you are turning people off. They won't tell you. In fact, they'll agree with you. They'll post their stupid slogans on twitter, and black out social media, and pay you all the lip service in the world, even donate to your cause. But they'll hate you deep down and quietly move to the other room. BLM ain't winning hearts and minds unless they go in the Killer Mike direction. Channel the rage into patient, Count of Monte Cristo like action.

A Useful Word For the Moment

Catastrophizing.

Catastrophizing is an irrational thought a lot of us have in believing that something is far worse than it actually is. Catastrophizing can generally can take two different forms: making a catastrophe out of a current situation, and imagining making a catastrophe out of a future situation.

Logging

Film: How the Grinch Stole Christmas

The Ron Howard one. Oh boy. To be honest, I can't remember seeing a worse movie. I really can't.

Conflation Btwn Floyd and Kaepernick

The point of politics is to build coalitions to advance mutual interests. The problem with BLM and Colin Kaepernick: they don't build consensus, instead they conduct purity tests. They don't allow for disagreement, they state a position and make demands. Either you accept their demands or you are branded an enemy. If their goal was to reduce police brutality in actual practice, they could easily build a coalition to advance several causes:

1) Hold police who use excessive force accountable.
2) Encourage more minority hiring within police departments.
3) Get rid of lousy, sloppy DAs and police chiefs

Etc that could achieve widespread support and impact lives on the ground.

But no.

Instead, they protest the flag knowing full well it won't play. Instead you have LBJ calling out Drew Brees. Go after Trump, fine. But Drew Brees? Come on, man.

Maybe their point is that the problem is too big to be fixed. Well, then let's just take our balls home then, nothing left to say.

Policy Ideas - Bridging Left and Right Ideas

1) Some type of universal basic income that is instead an investment in the SP500 with required minimum distributions. This would give people more "skin in the game." Also, more sympathetic to business overall and less sympathetic to government unproductivity.

2) Let African Americans pay fewer taxes.

But Just So You Know...

...What the powerful "woke" people are going to do:

1) Voice support for the protest movement and donate money to the cause.

2) Move away from the masses.

3) Protect their major assets (most importantly, their reputations)

4) Throw others at the wolves and beg the masses to "take them first" (eg: Leah Michele, Donald Trump, etc)

The prospect of the masses won't improve unless the masses work to improve it themselves. Learning building, and demanding fairness and justice will achieve these things. Breaking shit and tweeting won't. Marching is a start, but only that.

Trump

Not that I ever supported Trump, but I've tried giving him the benefit of the doubt as the legitimately elected President with the potential to shake things up.

Well, he has. Not in a good way. He's not suited for a second term.

Do not interpret this in any way as support for the progressive project.

People Don't Need Donations or Black Outs

They need jobs.

Thought

It seems like everyone in America more or less agrees with idea of the protesters, which makes me wonder what the protests are actually about.

Ugh

Just sickened by all this. My disgust manifold.

Change

One thing that I can't imagine affecting change are mass emails.

Kids

My four year has figured out a good way to get away with mischief is to tell his 2 year old brother to say things like "naughty daddy" or "naughty baby" which sound innocent enough, but are actually quite provocative (hate speech) in children's lingo. They are meant to incite violent reactions from other children. So for instance, "naughty baby" said from 4 year old to 4 year old will draw out a reactive scream "I am not a baby!!!!" Followed by crying, etc. Actually, 2 year olds respond similar. So this is a real problem with young kids.

Anyway, I only point this out as a mirror to what we are experiencing in the streets of America (children are great mirrors to our own issues). The comparison, or metaphor I'm making here is how easily my 2 year old can be instigated toward misbehavior and the delight and cleverness with which my 4 year old does this mischief.

So is the main stream democratic progressive media (and you know what I mean here) the equivalent to my 4 year old and the antifa rioters the equivalent to my 2 year old?

And isn't Trump doing something similar by saying "naughty baby" to the rioters and MSM, etc.?

Sick of These Euphemisms

Pro life, pro choice, all lives matter, black lives matter. None are productive, they now simply mean fuck you to the other side. Is that not obvious?

Impeachment

Proceeding with impeachment was SO dumb. Congress lost the Damocles sword they had over Trump's head and now when we might really need impeachment they've lost authority and credibility.

Never fire your last shot and don't get into fights without a plan to win.

After A Weekend of Mayhem

And the stock market is up 1%. So many ways to interpret, I suppose mine would be:

The money thinks the protests are impotent.

A Start

Something to look into: how police unions protect rotten apples.