Here Is The Democracy Progressives Imagine

JK Rowling voted person of the year by Guardian newspaper readers, but then the newspaper suspended the contest.

The Best Perspective on China

Will probably come from the Japanese, their longtime rival. 

I suspect this analysis is largely right: the Chinese are dangerously overconfident and with power shifting towards 1 guy away from a group, the risk of miscalculation on their part is high.

A thing I didn't know: Xi knows very little about the West - even less than Kim Jong Un. That's a worrisome thing. At the highest levels, they probably analyze the West through social media -- a huge mistake.

George Constanza Cultural Politics

Thinking of becoming socially conservative and fiscally liberal.

Prediction

Any sentence using the words "people of color" will some type of obfuscation. 

Return to Normal

I basically think we ought to return to normal re: COVID. So does this guy and he seems smarter than me. It does not seem feasible to me any of us can permanently escape COVID. But it does make sense to be extra vigilant if you have a thing you really want to do: like Christmas with family or a vacation.

Health Equity

A somewhat interesting Kareem rebuttal to LeBron's COVID meme (can't believe I just wrote that).

“The overrepresentation of African Americans among confirmed COVID-19 cases and number of deaths underscores the fact that the coronavirus pandemic, far from being an equalizer, is amplifying or even worsening existing social inequalities tied to race, class, and access to the health care system.”

How come when these type of statements are written the proper context never accompanies it? So for instance, among vaccinated African Americans, is the coronavirus still more deadly? Or are these numbers simply reflective of how aggressively different communities use vaccinations? For instance, Asian people have the lowest death rates and highest vaccination rates. Coincidence or a cause?

And similarly with respect to educational achievement-- all we hear about is equity, equity, equity. But me wonders what happens when you look at another variable: time spent studying. Asian students do better on SATs but also spend the most time studying for the SATs. What happens if you equalize study time - do racial disparities still exist?

Doesn't anyone concerned with actual health and educational equity want to know the answers to these questions?

Logging

Film: Matrix Resurrections

Dead on arrival...too bad. Because Keanu plays depressed middle aged man incredibly well. And damn, if Carrie Ann Moss still doesn't command the frame. Some of the new cast was fine to look at. But the writing and story design lacked. Did every proper scene need to be a total info dump? Was it too much trouble to bother creating character chemistry? Why didn't they scrap the entire beginning and enter on Keanu as a depressed middle aged game designer seeing a shrink, etc. Incorporate clever nods to the past movies and how the memories lurk within Neo...

And the meta sequel stuff was annoying.

UPDATE: The only thing worse than watching the Matrix is reading The Ringer commentary on it.

Good God!

Irma Kostroski is played by Tracey Ullman! 

I didn't realize. I thought LD had found gold...

Vaccination

For good or bad, I pretty much don't know anyone who refuses to get vaccinated. The most vaccine skeptical I come across are children who resist needles. What I do come across are the people who insist everyone must be vaccinated and have basically no limit on what type of policies they'd support to push those vaccine hesitant or anti-vax into getting the vax. I find this position rather equally puzzling. The way I see it: you're getting vaccinated with this thing in one of two ways - via naturally getting the disease or getting a shot. And I suppose I don't mind if someone opts to just get the disease instead -- stupid as it may be.   

Logging

TV: S11 Curb

The times and television have gotten worse around it, so Curb gets progressively better. Irma Kostroski one Larry's very best foils. 

Film: Home Alone

The kids loved it.

Emblematic of the Times

Just got a notice about a COVID contact in a classroom for my kindergartener from 7 days ago because it went to spam folder. 

He's fine, fyi.

"Privilege"

Is it possible that when we dismiss arguments for things like SAT testing, following instructions by police officers, and paying back your own student loans as being "privileged" that we are in fact confusing cause for effect? Might it be that certain thoughts and behaviors lead to "privilege" as opposed to being "privileged" leading to certain thoughts and behaviors?

Student Loans = Policy Violence

A member of the house of representatives calls out non-government repayment of student loans "policy violence." 

Does she realize the Federal Government sponsors student loans? Wouldn't the first step against this awful policy violence to stop the Feds from sponsoring student loans in the first place? 

Thanks Internet

So apparently I misunderstood the Sex in the City reboot pilot. The Asian girl didn't kill Mr. Big with her piano playing, but rather the Peloton killed Mr. Big by pushing him too hard to be in good shape.

The 52 Genders

A thought on the 52 genders - this sort of categorization somewhat resembles Pokemon and other anime "world creation" as we call it in screenwriting. Could it be all this gender stuff - at least for some people - is just one giant attempt to turn life into a cosplay?

What The Actual fuck?

3rd graders reenact the Holocaust at a DC public school? 

DEI

All liberal minded people should push back against everything labeled DEI. Suspend all support for any DEI initiatives, any foundations seeking $ that have DEI initiatives or statements. 

DEI stole right from the LGBT++---1224 playbook -- meaning, an initially OKAY idea - more diversity has been subsumed into the most terrible of all ideas - equity. These are not the same things nor do they belong together. The concept of equity ruins and corrupts everything.

And there is my rant of the day.

White Supremacy 

Rears it's ugly head: 70 attacks in Bay Area against Asian women. 

Coming Around

I'm beginning to come around to Trump and his people deserving some culpability in the January 6th chaos. I don't think their incompetence and disorganization ought to diminish the fact they were flirting with treason. They couldn't offer any proof of election malfeasance. They had no grounds.

Indoor Mask Policies

CA abruptly announces a mask mandate. Guess what? No one's listening anymore. Not in LA, at least. I was at the Glendale Americana yesterday day drinking and movie watching -- hardly anyone was wearing a mask. Certainly no one was enforcing it. Masking is defacto optional now. 

Legacy of Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris, etc

Their left wing policies and cultural advocacy during a time of enormous wealth creation in the Bay Area turned SF into shit. 

Now they are spreading it to a state and national level. Great job guys. Worst politicans ever. 

Ah Ha Moment

I should've understood this earlier, but listening to Bari Weiss podcast on the Smollet hate crime hoax had a lightbulb moment about why this kind of shit keeps happening. Why are the national media obsessed with race? Why are there so many fake hate crimes? Why do we give so much oxygen to morons like DiAngelo, Kendi, Nicole Hannah Jones, etc. And I finally understand it: it's an industry.

BLM alone raised 10 billion dollars. Prior to BLM, there are roughly 70+ organizations with over 10 million dollars in assets pledge to "fight racism." And the reality is that we fought and defeated what we'll call "Racism Type A" in America, these organizations remained (like the military industrial complex post WW2) and now these organizations - in order to continue to exist - have sought out and frankly, made up "Racism Type B."

So why do we have do all this? Because it's an industry and billions of dollars are sloshing around, making it happen.

Logging

TV: And Just Like That... Pilot

Icing my knee, my wife turns on the Sex and the City reboot. My favorite part was when the Asian teenager kills Mr. Big with her piano playing. 

The certainty is a pathology. https://t.co/xOBkVCFrmx

— Andrew Sullivan (@sullydish) December 10, 2021

Actors be actors, but the people who ought be the most ashamed are those clapping hysterically for they are the mob that does nothing in the face of lies and will be the ones history asks "how come you just stood around when the horror happened"

Racist House Appraisal

It's a good headline, but of course, also incredibly misleading. Couple hides their race, house appraises for more, etc. 

Things to note:

1) House prices change. And things have gone up for anyone paying attention.

2) Staging in general matters 

3) Appraisals mean very little -- houses sell for what they sell for

4) If such disparity was a real thing, the easiest buck to make in the world would be white people buying black homes and flipping them. Are people doing this? Does anyone put any of the actors in the real estate world above this?

The news media is gaslighting our country. 

Google

I just had a notion and googled Mickey Rourke. Here's what I found.

Re: Marvel, Iron Man 2: Rourke added, “At the end of the day you’ve got some nerd with a pocketful of money calling the shots. You know, Favreau didn’t call the shots. I wish he would have.”

Good God

Our freaking government sounds so goddamn incompetent and China and Iran are filling the vacuum. We just appear to be utterly lost with no sense of who we are or what we stand for nor how to win. A football team without an identity...

Italian Lives Matter

Left wing Italian newspaper chastises the NY Times. I've said it before, I'll say it again: we saved the world in the 20th century. In the 21st, we need the favor returned. A ridiculous spell has been cast across our society -- we're lead by incompetent fools who know only how to scratch, claw, and whine for power and then break things that work. 

CA Public Schools

Are trying to remove 8th grade algebra. What a joke. It's almost as if the goal of these "progressive" educators is to make us dumber.

Dems Sour on Mask Mandates

Is a sign some sanity remains.

Good Line

News stories make it seem like wet streets caused the rain. 

Unfortunately 

All the evidence points this way:

The key insight I had as a historian working on the totalitarian regimes of the mid-20th and late 20th century was that, however possible it may be to live as an atheist, as a family, as an individual, it is a very unsatisfactory operating system for a society. Regimes that proclaim themselves atheist and seek to eradicate Christianity, have been among the worst regimes in history. It's really important to understand that, to see why the most anti-clerical regimes were also very, very wicked. This is I think a very important lesson that I learned. I came to realize, reading Tocqueville as you mentioned, that it would actually be very, very difficult to make a stable and harmonious society without some religious cement, some religious glue to hold it together. Atheism does not provide that; it's not actually a viable operating system for a stable society.

It'd be nice if someone was working on how to reconcile this issue as I fear we're pretty much headed into an ugly direction without some sort of reconciliation. 

Denying Service to Cops

A SF restaurant refuses services to cops. The cops ought to return the favor. 

Logging

Film: Spencer

Turned off after the scene when Kirstin Stewart began speaking to a jacket. One of the plusses and minuses of watching things at home, I suppose.

Boycott White Companies

Add it to list of beyond dumb (and overtly racist) ideas espoused by the BLM movement. 

BLMs ability to squander goodwill is almost impressive.

Abortion

It seems the Supreme Court will be limiting abortion. I can only imagine this will throw fire back onto the culture war. Ross Douthat makes a pretty compelling case against abortion and specifically abortion laws in the Times this week. It's a strange subject for myself as I get older with kids of my own. What I suppose has changed in my thinking is that it's become pretty undeniable to me that a fetus at an early stage - from any rational way of thinking - must be considered a form of life. The position that I might've considered as a younger person - that a fetus unable to survive on its own isn't life yet, does not hold up to rational scrutiny. If any one of us were on some form of life support for 9 months knowing we would be "alive" after the support - would we opt for non-existence? 

And Douthat makes the point that if we want to lower abortions performed (an admirable goal for pro life or pro choice folks) that laws against it actually work. Supposedly, Texas has seen the number of abortions cut in half since enacting their own draconian law? Not that I support the law, but the overarching point he makes holds.

But I still can't imagine an America where a scared, not-fully-developed brain-wise 17-20 year old girl who gets pregnant from a boyfriend or a fling is expected to suddenly drop her life plan to raise a child. We must consider this situation realistically - is this a good life for the child? Is it good for society? Good for the mother? The reality is that many women in this situation opt for abortion - whether legal or not. I don't think we can consider these women murderers - do you? Does anyone?

It's not an easy issue.