Monday, November 29, 2021
Salty
I think what depresses me most is that after witnessing various not minor catastrophes in my life, the speed at which "everyone" always reverts to normal, particularly the people in charge, is incredible.
Imagine that you are a politician, someone who made the effort to put yourself in a position of power, and you think in the Year of Our Gritty 2021, what you were put in office to do was protect pharmaceutical profits and devote your time and energy to making sure rich people in New Jersey got their big tax break returned to them.
That your response when the lobbyists come knocking isn't just, "Fuck you, assholes! Turn on the news!"
Novelization
Can't remembember what it was, precisely, have a vague sense that I read a novel about a global pandemic in which repeatededly the way through seemed in reach, but idiotic decisions by weak and corrupt leaders, along with a reasonable amount of stupidity from the general population, ultimately doomed civilization.
The Noble Humanitarian Mission In Libya
One wonders why I'm skeptical of such things.
(The instigators of our recent Libyan adventures were more France and the UK than us, but there didn't seem to be much arm twisting needed. Maybe we're just too trusting.)
In the past six years, the European Union, weary of the financial and political costs of receiving migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, has created a shadow immigration system that stops them before they reach Europe. It has equipped and trained the Libyan Coast Guard, a quasi-military organization linked to militias in the country, to patrol the Mediterranean, sabotaging humanitarian rescue operations and capturing migrants. The migrants are then detained indefinitely in a network of profit-making prisons run by the militias. In September of this year, around six thousand migrants were being held, many of them in Al Mabani. International aid agencies have documented an array of abuses: detainees tortured with electric shocks, children raped by guards, families extorted for ransom, men and women sold into forced labor. “The E.U. did something they carefully considered and planned for many years,” Salah Marghani, Libya’s Minister of Justice from 2012 to 2014, told me. “Create a hellhole in Libya, with the idea of deterring people from heading to Europe.”
This isn't obviously a direct consequence of that, but it's a reminder that the people who scream about the humanitarian justifications for bombing the shit out of people are rarely humanitarians.
I Guess Regulated Taxi Fares Were Good, Akshually
Now that Uber has moved beyond its "losing money on every ride but making it up on volume" business model, I regularly see people complaining about their extreme fares.
I tried to warn you.
Anyway, normal taxis still operate some places, especially at airports and similar, and those fares are generally regulated still...
One of those subjects that used to enrage some people. "Sorry, my man, I think offering fares below cost while not obeying any taxi or labor regulations might cause some problems down the line..."
Yes some places weren't previously well-served by taxis, but some were.
Sunday, November 28, 2021
What's A Good Outcome
It's rarely specified in The Discourse. What is a "good economy"? Mostly it's GDP/growth and the price of stonks, presented as if these are merely neutral measures, and that if you care about the distribution of gains you are a smelly hippie.
What does 'good' mean? Who is it 'good' for? Why?
Obvious questions and not difficult to answer if anyone cares to.
Copaganda
I get how local news gets snowed for breaking news crime events, but The Paper Of Record is just being an eager participant (twitter thread).
The made up stats don't pass a simple "does that sound like bullshit" test. Reporters can't be that dumb. Or can they?
Saturday, November 27, 2021
What The People Want
One of my opinions about politics is that there are certain issues that people care very little about until someone reminds them that they're supposed to be mad about them, then they get REALLY ANGRY. Immigration is the most obvious one. The places where people get really mad about immigration generally don't have many visible immigrants (this is a euphemism for "brown immigrants"), but they sure do get enraged about it when various Thought Leaders tell them to be.
Otherwise they have other things to worry about.
I'm not one who imagines an era of Good Republicans, but perhaps there was an era when if Republicans behaved just a little bit, and kept some of their Limbaughs in line (which they did sometimes), such bigoted rage could be sidelined for a bit. But that era is not now...
Sondheim
I was actually watching tick, tick, ... Boom!, in which Sondheim is a minor "character," last night when the news of his death broke. (tick, tick is a surprisingly well made movie based on a not very good musical. Miranda should direct more movie versions of musicals with better source material).
Sondheim's deserving of all the praise he will get from people better able to give it than me. I like musicals, but it is the case that not many of them actually get close to living up to the promise of what they could be, and many of those are by Sondheim. Not enough composers (the ones that get produced and therefore I know about) aspire to do what Sondheim aspired to do.
More an Assassins and Sweeney Todd fan than Company, though that's more about me not the relative quality.
Also mostly don't find his music that enjoyable as standalones, the songs are part of a bigger whole. Never really have an answer to, "What are you favorite Sondheim songs?" They're telling stories, not tunes to be belted out. Other people differ on this, of course.
Slightly strange being old enough to be just aware of a time when he hadn't quite achieved icon status, and he had his share of not very successful shows. Age is funny.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)