Page 86 of 166
Re: The Dictator observations thread.
Posted: 08 Jan 2018, 1:52pm
by JennyB
Dr. Medulla wrote: ↑08 Jan 2018, 1:50pm
JennyB wrote: ↑08 Jan 2018, 1:47pm
Have I ever told you I am friends with his daughter?
Obligatory "all know each other" reference and I assume she isn't batshit and incompetent like her dad (or just batshit like her grandfather)?
Ha! I was her advisor when I volunteered for a student group when she was in college here in STL. She is very smart and very sweet. We did not talk politics.
Re: The Dictator observations thread.
Posted: 08 Jan 2018, 2:01pm
by Dr. Medulla
JennyB wrote: ↑08 Jan 2018, 1:52pm
Dr. Medulla wrote: ↑08 Jan 2018, 1:50pm
JennyB wrote: ↑08 Jan 2018, 1:47pm
Have I ever told you I am friends with his daughter?
Obligatory "all know each other" reference and I assume she isn't batshit and incompetent like her dad (or just batshit like her grandfather)?
Ha! I was her advisor when I volunteered for a student group when she was in college here in STL.
She is very smart and very sweet. We did not talk politics.
The old "skips a generation" phenomenon. I don't care for his politics one iota, but Irving Kristol was as important a public intellectual as any in the second half of the 20th c. The American right is a playground of drooling mouthbreathers now, but for a period in the 70s and 80s, he was key to actually making neoconservatism an intellectual force.
Bill Kristol, it cannot be emphasized enough, is five shades stupider than a nitwit.
Re: The Dictator observations thread.
Posted: 08 Jan 2018, 2:17pm
by Flex
I like Oprah just fine (actually, she's pretty incredible in many way), but I'm also into the idea of not electing any more millionaire television personalities to be President.
Re: The Dictator observations thread.
Posted: 08 Jan 2018, 3:25pm
by JennyB
Flex wrote: ↑08 Jan 2018, 2:17pm
I like Oprah just fine (actually, she's pretty incredible in many way), but I'm also into the idea of not electing any more millionaire television personalities to be President.
I agree with this post.
I also think we need a robot president. Or at least member of congress? DO EET.
Re: The Dictator observations thread.
Posted: 08 Jan 2018, 4:49pm
by Dr. Medulla
Flex wrote: ↑08 Jan 2018, 2:17pm
I like Oprah just fine (actually, she's pretty incredible in many way), but I'm also into the idea of not electing any more millionaire television personalities to be President.
Ugh, I seriously disagree with you on Oprah. She used her show to promote all kinds of junk science and medicine and she was more than cool with music censorship when she covered those issues. Her constituency, at core, is the same as Hillary's—rich, coastal liberals, Hollywood. A better self-promoter and campaigner than Hillary, but you'd be getting the hideous Democrat crap that's been standard since Bill.
Edit: Also her horrible hyping of
The Secret. That shit makes her more of a Trump fantasist that a Clintonite.
Re: The Dictator observations thread.
Posted: 09 Jan 2018, 2:19pm
by Kory
Dr. Medulla wrote: ↑08 Jan 2018, 4:49pm
Flex wrote: ↑08 Jan 2018, 2:17pm
I like Oprah just fine (actually, she's pretty incredible in many way), but I'm also into the idea of not electing any more millionaire television personalities to be President.
Ugh, I seriously disagree with you on Oprah. She used her show to promote all kinds of junk science and medicine and she was more than cool with music censorship when she covered those issues. Her constituency, at core, is the same as Hillary's—rich, coastal liberals, Hollywood. A better self-promoter and campaigner than Hillary, but you'd be getting the hideous Democrat crap that's been standard since Bill.
Edit: Also her horrible hyping of
The Secret. That shit makes her more of a Trump fantasist that a Clintonite.
Oprah? More like No Hope-rah!
Re: The Dictator observations thread.
Posted: 09 Jan 2018, 2:25pm
by Dr. Medulla
Kory wrote: ↑09 Jan 2018, 2:19pm
Oprah? More like No Hope-rah!
Your sample reel for headline writer at Fox News is coming along nicely.
Re: The Dictator observations thread.
Posted: 09 Jan 2018, 2:40pm
by Kory
Dr. Medulla wrote: ↑09 Jan 2018, 2:25pm
Kory wrote: ↑09 Jan 2018, 2:19pm
Oprah? More like No Hope-rah!
Your sample reel for headline writer at Fox News is coming along nicely.
I dunno. I should have gone with "Nope-rah."
Re: The Dictator observations thread.
Posted: 09 Jan 2018, 3:00pm
by Dr. Medulla
Kory wrote: ↑09 Jan 2018, 2:40pm
Dr. Medulla wrote: ↑09 Jan 2018, 2:25pm
Kory wrote: ↑09 Jan 2018, 2:19pm
Oprah? More like No Hope-rah!
Your sample reel for headline writer at Fox News is coming along nicely.
I dunno. I should have gone with "Nope-rah."
Nah, Fox News wants to be clever but just misses.
Re: The Dictator observations thread.
Posted: 09 Jan 2018, 3:01pm
by BostonBeaneater
Her fault.
Re: The Dictator observations thread.
Posted: 09 Jan 2018, 3:02pm
by Flex
Re: Oprah, I was more referring to bringing some choice literary picks to folks through her book club, some good choices in film material, and her production company which has championed film directed by female POC (such as Selma). Radical black liberation it is not, but she seems like she's used her fairly immense wealth and power to create opportunities for talent that would probably have a harder time getting developed/hired. I don't think I've ever seen an episode of her TV show, so I can't really comment on it. I agree the pseudoscience nonsense is no bueno.
Re: The Dictator observations thread.
Posted: 09 Jan 2018, 3:18pm
by Dr. Medulla
Likewise:
Re: The Dictator observations thread.
Posted: 09 Jan 2018, 3:21pm
by Dr. Medulla
Flex wrote: ↑09 Jan 2018, 3:02pm
Re: Oprah, I was more referring to bringing some choice literary picks to folks through her book club, some good choices in film material, and her production company which has championed film directed by female POC (such as Selma). Radical black liberation it is not, but she seems like she's used her fairly immense wealth and power to create opportunities for talent that would probably have a harder time getting developed/hired. I don't think I've ever seen an episode of her TV show, so I can't really comment on it. I agree the pseudoscience nonsense is no bueno.
I suppose, and I don't want to piss on either promoting literacy or applying one's wealth to giving people opportunities, but it's pretty boilerplate celebrity liberal activity. It's commendable but not exemplary either.
Re: The Dictator observations thread.
Posted: 09 Jan 2018, 7:10pm
by Dr. Medulla
I don't want to bump Mensa Steve's odious Sept 11th thread, but I'm writing a lecture that covers the attacks. Several things have hit me. First, except for any "mature" students, none of my students will have a conscious memory of the attack, which seems impossible to me. Second, I really can't think of much to say about the day other than the blandest facts and some of my own memories (the rumours of other hijacked planes and more conventional attacks, the bleakest dread that some kind of reckoning was at hand). And third, I've gone back to look at footage of the second plane hitting—mind-numbing angles because by then everyone had their cameras trained on the area—and then the buildings collapsing—again, so many angles. The screams of disbelief from the onlookers is chilling. They're trying to process something that shouldn't be happening and yet the terrifying nature of physic writ large is playing out before them. Stranger yet, if anything, watching the footage now (minus the audio) feels detached from reality. It's too sensational, the narrative too bizarre. There's no way a fucking jet plane flew full speed into a building. There's no way these 100+ story buildings fell down like they were made of sand. This happened and I have a memory of it, but there's such a disconnect for me now, that this didn't actually happen. And I can only speak from that universalist or humanist angle—Americans have that extra level of assault on their identity that I can't know.
I've said before that if you have a conscious adult memory of something, it's never history, and this is proving the point (if only to me, perhaps).
Re: The Dictator observations thread.
Posted: 10 Jan 2018, 2:11pm
by Kory
Dr. Medulla wrote: ↑09 Jan 2018, 7:10pm
I don't want to bump Mensa Steve's odious Sept 11th thread, but I'm writing a lecture that covers the attacks. Several things have hit me. First, except for any "mature" students, none of my students will have a conscious memory of the attack, which seems impossible to me. Second, I really can't think of much to say about the day other than the blandest facts and some of my own memories (the rumours of other hijacked planes and more conventional attacks, the bleakest dread that some kind of reckoning was at hand). And third, I've gone back to look at footage of the second plane hitting—mind-numbing angles because by then everyone had their cameras trained on the area—and then the buildings collapsing—again, so many angles. The screams of disbelief from the onlookers is chilling. They're trying to process something that shouldn't be happening and yet the terrifying nature of physic writ large is playing out before them. Stranger yet, if anything, watching the footage now (minus the audio) feels detached from reality. It's too sensational, the narrative too bizarre. There's no way a fucking jet plane flew full speed into a building. There's no way these 100+ story buildings fell down like they were made of sand. This happened and I have a memory of it, but there's such a disconnect for me now, that this didn't actually happen. And I can only speak from that universalist or humanist angle—Americans have that extra level of assault on their identity that I can't know.
I've said before that if you have a conscious adult memory of something, it's never history, and this is proving the point (if only to me, perhaps).
The time between the two planes was so weird because at first I thought "man, the pilot and co-pilot BOTH blacked out?"
