It would be embarrassing to try to comment on James Baldwin; he’s so brilliant, so articulate, so absolutely ruthless, and so fucking right.
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It would be embarrassing to try to comment on James Baldwin; he’s so brilliant, so articulate, so absolutely ruthless, and so fucking right.
I used to enjoy Mehdi Hasan’s work at The Intercept. He’s incredibly articulate, he does his research and all that thinky stuff, and he does not tolerate “both sides”-ism or bullshit. He’s climbing his way up the ladder of the media heirarchy, so he’s moved on from The Intercept to his own show on MSNBC.
One of the flaws in the concept of “History” is that important events trigger other important events, but that’s circular; it’s how we define “important.” Something is historically significant because a historian pointed at it and says, “See? Here is where that sequence of events got rolling.” That’s a conceit. Causality is real, in that events cascade in sequence and if one of them didn’t happen, subsequent events wouldn’t happen either, but human attempts to frame it are mostly an exercise in self-importance. In case you’re not up on it, that’s Michel Foucault’s main point: our interpretation of causes is always seen through a lens formed by existing power relationships.
When you’ve got search-strings in place for F-35 news, you can’t avoid the chest thumping regarding Israel’s F-35 and their proven effectiveness.
Pretty much: everyone. I wrote about it in 2016, when the scam was already under way with a full head of steam and an infinite budget [stderr]. It’s F-35 time!
Just a quick update about how my leg is doing.
My projects, I realized, define my life and separate me from reality. When I am working on something, I am totally focused and nothing else matters, so all the evil of the world temporarily fades from my mind. Although, that’s not entirely true. When I am thinking about an article, I often read and re-read sources, and I sometimes mutter under my breath as my subconscious formulates my viewpoint. I am careful not to have one of my creative avenues bleed over into the other and destroy it – imagine if I started trying to make art that represented how I feel about the Palestine situation; it would not be pretty. I want to make elegant-ish cooking knives, not killing tools.
What he’s doing is a bit more important than comedy. In my opinion he’s a better version of John Stewart, who was sometimes distractingly funny. Oliver, unlike Stewart, has never managed to get Tucker Carlson even the least bit cancelled, whereas Stewart went into the belly of the beast and revealed him to be such a helpless hack that Crossfire was, actually, cancelled. Oliver’s funny, to be sure, but I worry that he’s mostly funny to my demographic: nerdy ageing white guys.
From the “lesser of two evils” department, we have Joe Biden’s deep thoughts about Israel’s crimes against humanity.
The US wants to pretend to be a good broker, regarding Israel, while simultaneously offering unilateral and complete support. That’s a bad look when Israel is committing crimes against humanity.
This tidbit was on Al Jazeera but not the New York Times. We live in a high level of propaganda.