No, I did not watching the “debate.”
I don’t know about you, but I have exactly zero interest in what politicians say—ever. They’re fucking politicians, ferchrissakes. Politicians will say anything.
I am, however, very interested in what people do. What people do speaks their truth. And these two candidates? Everyone knows how they roll.
As it turns out my amazing sister surprised me with a visit today. Already my stomach hurts from laughing.
Life is short, people. Choose your moments wisely.
I especially love the part where the enemy rodent tries to gnaw the eyes out of the fucking head. And terrorizes a cat that is easily ten times its size—twice.
See, this is the kind of slick PR campaign the squirrels are running with the eager assistance of their human slaves 27/7/365. Shit like this shows up in my feeds on the regular, with little smileys and winkies and hearts and quips like “This may be the cutest thing you see all day!”
Sure. If I thought spreading the Black Plague to innocent stuffed animals was “cute.”
#wakeupsheeple #deathtosquirrels
[h/t Simon]
Yesterday I read about a new study—I cannot read the actual paper itself of course because it is behind a fucking paywall—that examined non-academic characteristics of a sample of incoming freshman to see which factors might predict their success or failure at college. High school grades are the single best predictor of college grades, but they still only account for about 20 percent of the difference between students’ ending up with good or bad college GPAs. The new research focused on outliers: the “thrivers” and “divers” who did much better or much worse in college, respectively, than would be expected based on their high school grades. [Read more…]
Please enjoy once again the beautifully expressed thoughts of my friend Ian. (Posted with permission.)
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We often quickly forget – perhaps because history focuses on the individual, rather than the conditions of a culture and society at any point in time and space – that no singular individual has themselves actually threatened the stability of of a country, or single handedly destroyed the moral and ethical fabric of a government.
This has never occurred in all of human history. We have no “supermen.”
Instead it has always been the hundreds of millions that stand behind a demagogue, and willingly do his bidding; willingly imprison, marginalize, institutionally enslave and murder the innocent.
Mobs of psychopaths; throngs of the fearful that turn as quickly as the undead into mindless monsters that violently consume anyone unwilling to submit to their narrow and bigoted view of existence; vast gangs of greedy, self-righteous insanely uneducated or willfully cognitively dissonant and yet mindful monsters that would be kings…. So many angry and poisonous weeds growing and choking out the splendor of human kindness…
It has never been just one man,… And if your only goal is preventing one man from becoming president while ignoring the hordes at his back….
I feel sad for you and the day you realize how short-sighted you were.
Fascism doesn’t knock at the door… It is a disease that you can’t see until half the body politik is coughing up blood.
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Today’s report in Most US Citizens Have No Idea What Our Government Does Or Who It Serves (#muschniwogdowis) follows.
The United States violated its ceasefire commitments with Russia, flew four military aircraft and a drone out of Iraq and bombed the shit out of a fragile Syrian Arab Army position at Deir ez-Zor, killing over 60 soldiers and injuring more than 100 others. Earlier in the day, Syria announced the arrival at the base of 1,000 additional soldiers to help liberate the surrounding region from ISIS control. A statement from US Central Command said “U.S. surveillance had been ‘tracking’ an Islamic State fighting position ‘for a significant amount of time before the strike.'” [<- o.O] An anonymous US official from the Department of Defense said the US strike “appears to be an intelligence failure.”
Whoops?
150,000 civilians (still) live in the Deir ez-Zor region, which has been held under ISIS control. While the Syrians and Russians have been hitting ISIS targets in the region for some time, the US had done absolutely nothing about that until yesterday.
For a…slightly different view, let’s hear what Russian envoy to the UN Vitaly Churkin had to say:
Amazon.com has new recommendations for me based on items I purchased or told them I own. That last bit is odd though, because I don’t remember telling Amazon about any of my stuff. But let’s see what they’re recommending just for me, shall we?
OMG OMG OMG. And no, it’s not squirrel-related. Not this time.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
On behalf of the entire management team, staff, interns, volunteers, fans, friends and menagerie here at Death to Squirrels central, I hereby offer heartfelt congratulations to the Okie Squirrel Busters from Norman, Oklahoma, winners of the 2016 World Championship Squirrel Cookoff.
A few weeks ago commenter “permanganater” took time out of his busy schedule to mansplain to me why, how and what I “should be focusing on tackling” on my own blog. I mocked him for that (per #deathtosquirrels protocol), then Brony took him apart for completely misreading the very post he was complaining about. He floundered on, and I ignored him.
Also relevant: readers here will no doubt recall with great reverence and awe my brilliant new hashtag #muschniwogdowis, an acronym for Most US Citizens Have No Idea What Our Government Does Or Who It Serves.
Well here comes permanganater again on a #muschniwogdowis post to say this:
I wasn’t going to write anything today about September 11, 2001. I haven’t done so for the last few years, and before that I never said much about it anyway.
But just so you know: I watched the towers burn and then fall that day. I helped my work colleagues evacuate 30 Rockefeller Center that morning, when we still weren’t sure how many hijacked planes were still flying or what landmarks they might still target. I breathed the acrid, yellow air that hung over Manhattan for days. I brought flowers and candles to my local fire station in Hell’s Kitchen, and I wrote sad and grateful messages in a big book they kept there on the sidewalk.
From a high floor at 30 Rock, I heard bagpipes day after day after day after day. The funerals at St. Patrick’s cathedral—so, so many goddamn funerals— could only be seen from the north side of the building, but it seemed no matter where you were, you could always hear those bagpipes. I still recall those days vividly whenever I hear bagpipes.
I find this subject very, very difficult to write about, talk about or think about, and I’m pretty sure I know why. It’s that I am still processing the events of that day, and the wars, opportunistic power grabs and unconscionable greed unleashed over the last fifteen years. It was and still is traumatic.
But it’s a different kind of trauma than any I’ve every experienced, before or since. All of the others were strictly personal. September 11, 2001, and my government’s actions since that day, have profoundly affected not just me, but my city, my country and much of the world. And I have come to realize that the way I am dealing with the grief, the rage, the insights and revelations that come later whether you want them to or not, is much the same: I make art. I make a life. I write.
It is not lost on me that when I write about abortion rights and feminism and rape and abuse, I am also saying something about my own life. And when I write about politics, war, religious conservatives and conservative Democrats, I am also saying something about September 11, 2001.
If I have learned anything on my journey that I can share with you, it’s this: find joy in your day. Today and every day. Bring joy to others where you can. Otherwise, the terrorists really do win.
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Justice is the only worship.
Love is the only priest.
Ignorance is the only slavery.
Happiness is the only good.
The time to be happy is now,
The place to be happy is here,
The way to be happy is to make others so.
–Robert Green Ingersoll
PEACE.