Well, my usual "blame the Democrats for the Republicans" schtick isn't gaining much of an audience these days, so I thought I would press a topic that did have an audience; gun control.
From Columbia Journalism Review:
Billionaires Gone Wild
The set up:
In November, Joe Ricketts, the billionaire founder of online brokerage firm TD Ameritrade, patriarch of the family that owns the Chicago Cubs, million-dollar Trump donor, and father of the governor of Nebraska, shuttered DNAinfo, the local news startup he founded, and Gothamist, the network of city blogs he’d purchased just a few months earlier, in a fit of pique, after editorial employees organized a union. Shuttering the company meant nothing to him—DNAinfo reportedly lost money and the Gothamist network was not profitable enough to make an appreciable difference to a man with a net worth estimated at over $2 billion.
A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
~ Oscar Wilde
It took me a few years of teaching to fully understand that what you do...your habits and behaviors...carry more meaning and impact than what you say. It is the adage “Actions speak louder than words”. I think looking at what nation states do, not what they say, is an excellent strategy too. A couple of weeks ago we discussed the making of a more perfect oligarchy. I expressed amazement that the oligarchs no longer feel the need to hide behind purchased politicians, but are out front, self serving politicians for all to see. This week I want to make a similar point about our friends and enemies. Why is Saudi Arabia, the most oppressive monarchy in the world, our good buddy..., and nations like Iran, Syria, and Venezuela are so horrible that we feel compelled to ignore their international rights and assume that we must conquer and corporatize them?
Today's date is also Prickle-Prickle, Discord 11, 3184 YOLD (for you Discordians out there)
World History this day
Canada is following America down the Fascist rabbit hole:
In 'Affront to Freedom of the Press,' Canadian Journalist Faces Criminal Charges for Covering Protest
Press freedom advocates are raising awareness about the plight of Justin Brake, a journalist who is facing unprecedented charges in Newfoundland, Canada, more than a year after he covered a protest at a construction site for a controversial dam.
Recently, JtC had posted "Federal Judge Says Embedding a Tweet Can Be Copyright Infringement." That was a very interesting post, and I had commented on that, but, to me, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) was blowing the situation out-of-proportion. And just the other day, a commenter on reddit said something like, "Sometimes the EFF makes mountains out of molehills, but they are right in "How Congress Censored the Internet". Here I agree with the reddit commentator, and with the EFF article. This is bad, very bad.
So, I got this email last night:
(Subject: Update on Russian-linked activity on Tumblr)
Dear (my Tumblr name),
As part of our commitment to transparency, we want you to know that we uncovered and terminated 84 accounts linked to Internet Research Agency or IRA (a group closely tied to the the Russian government) posing as members of the Tumblr community.
"For behind all imperialism is ultimately the imperialist individual, just as behind all Peace is ultimately the peaceful individual."
Irving Babbitt
(Fuck you John Bolton)
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR2KQGSyjSU]
It doesn't do me any good anyway. Never has. Never will. I'm like this guy. Very little pleasure in doing most things and damned even when I try to do something 'useful'. It's all in vain.
So, like I said, I'll just shut up for a while.
