US CE Spring 2022: I'm convinced it's useless which is why I argue about it all day every day

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > US CE Spring 2022: I'm convinced it's useless which is why I argue about it all day every day

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Ciprian Maricon: Feb 27, 2006

Rigel posted:

The word has a very clear meaning which some people itt just don't want to accept because its a cool word they want to use. Authoritarian requires a widespread and harsh crackdown on every citizen who merely expresses an illegal political opinion

We're less than 2 years removed from one of the largest public political demonstrations in recent history, a movement which the government brutally dismantled, jailing thousands and thousands of demonstrators, murdering organizers, and provided more and more money to continue the murders with impunity.

When China jails protestors its authoritarian and evil, when the U.S. does it, its regrettable but, those are the rules.

# ? May 22, 2022 19:18

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# ? May 25, 2024 23:45

BiggerBoat: Sep 26, 2007; Don't you tell me my business again.

Money definitely outweighs and supersedes votes. I don't know the precise math on it but there's an equation somewhere out there that might measure the amount of popular votes someone receives versus the amount of lobbying money that compares the weight of both. I don't know how to explain it but let's say everyone's regular vote is worth one dollar.

If you happen to rich and start spreading x amount of cash around, donate and old fundraisers, you're vote may as well be x(1000), or however it works out. Other people have pointed it out but it's a lot like how the energy and healthcare fields prevent widely popular policies from even seeing the light of day, let alone coming to a vote. Something having to do with money equaling power.

It's similar to what the tobacco, pharmacy and meat/agriculture industries were able to do defending their products against harm, pushing what constitutes a "balanced diet" and getting poo poo like Oxy to be labeled non addictive - also to largely get away with it. Why energy companies and corporations like Nestle or Coca-Cola can get away with all the horrible poo poo they get up to.

# ? May 22, 2022 19:26

Bar Ran Dun: Jan 22, 2006

BiggerBoat posted:

And I still think that's largely true but the door is closing way too loving fast and with too huge of a lock on it for my liking. It's like watching a boat capsize or flood waters rising to me where all I can really do is maybe find and grab a bucket. But the buckets are too expensive and controlled by a monopoly.

�The world is like a seesaw out of balance: on one side is a box of big rocks, tilting it its way. On the other side is a box, and a bunch of us with teaspoons, adding a little sand at a time. One day, all of our teaspoons will add up, and the whole thing will tip, and people will say, 'How did it happen so fast?�

# ? May 22, 2022 19:38

Yeowch!!! My Balls!!!: May 31, 2006

Rigel posted:

The word has a very clear meaning which some people itt just don't want to accept because its a cool word they want to use. Authoritarian requires a widespread and harsh crackdown on every citizen who merely expresses an illegal political opinion (not counting things like terrorist threats or plots) In Russia, China, North Korea, etc you can be grabbed from your apartment and thrown in jail for posting criticism of the government on the internet, not by a rogue cop, not against a small group but as a matter of government policy against every person. THAT is an authoritarian government.

I know you want to use the word, but its simply not applicable to the United States right now.

did you miss the summer of 2020, when cops were throwing people in unmarked vans for the crime of presumably showing insufficient respect to the government

we have long since passed that part of the program, but if it makes you feel better, the cops in question are insistent that the people they kidnapped constituted a terrorist threat or plot, and as such have been subject to no reprisals.

this is the problem with using a term popularized by libertarians: the inchoate nonsense that constitutes 'good' under libertarianism is matched by an equally inchoate nonsense evil in authoritarianism. you get people insisting that no, really, as long as you're only black-bagged for expressing counter-regime thought ~some~ of the time, no authoritarianism is occurring.

e. what was the joke about the Chicago Boys and their take on Pinochet? the line about "well, disappearing dissidents is just politics; the important thing is that the markets are free?"

Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! fucked around with this message at 19:59 on May 22, 2022

# ? May 22, 2022 19:53

Willa Rogers: Mar 11, 2005

Speaking of political failspawn offered do-nothing jobs, NBCNews reports that Hunter Biden earned $11 million in five years for his work with a shady Chinese businessman and a Ukrainian firm accused of bribery:

quote:

The documents and the analysis, which don�t show what he did to earn millions from his Chinese partners, raise questions about national security, business ethics and potential legal exposure. In December 2020, Biden acknowledged in a statement that he was the subject of a federal investigation into his taxes. NBC News was first to report that an ex-business partner had warned Biden he should amend his tax returns to disclose $400,000 in income from the Ukrainian firm, Burisma. GOP congressional sources also say that if Republicans take back the House this fall, they�ll demand more documents and probe whether any of Biden�s income went to his father, President Joe Biden.

�No government ethics rules apply to him,� said Walter Shaub, a former director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics who is now an ethics expert with the Project on Government Oversight. Shaub added, however, that �it�s imperative that no one at DOJ and no one at the White House interfere with the criminal investigation in Delaware.� Shaub had previously raised questions about Hunter Biden�s new line of work, selling his own paintings, which created the potential to purchase a painting to buy perceived influence, and also because the White House became involved in the transactions, arranging that none of the buyers� names be known to Biden, the White House or the public.

Frank Figliuzzi, the FBI�s former assistant director for counterintelligence, said there is a national security risk when foreign powers like China see an opportunity to get close to someone like Biden. �It�s all about access and influence, and if you can compromise someone with both access and influence, that�s even better,� said Figliuzzi, now an NBC News contributor. �Better still if that target has already compromised himself.�

The documents and the analysis indicate that few of Biden�s deals ever came to fruition and shed light on how fast he was spending his money. Expenditures compiled on his hard drive show he spent more than $200,000 per month from October 2017 through February 2018 on luxury hotel rooms, Porsche payments, dental work and cash withdrawals.

***

The documents and the analysis, which don�t show what he did to earn millions from his Chinese partners, raise questions about national security, business ethics and potential legal exposure. In December 2020, Biden acknowledged in a statement that he was the subject of a federal investigation into his taxes. NBC News was first to report that an ex-business partner had warned Biden he should amend his tax returns to disclose $400,000 in income from the Ukrainian firm, Burisma. GOP congressional sources also say that if Republicans take back the House this fall, they�ll demand more documents and probe whether any of Biden�s income went to his father, President Joe Biden.

�No government ethics rules apply to him,� said Walter Shaub, a former director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics who is now an ethics expert with the Project on Government Oversight. Shaub added, however, that �it�s imperative that no one at DOJ and no one at the White House interfere with the criminal investigation in Delaware.� Shaub had previously raised questions about Hunter Biden�s new line of work, selling his own paintings, which created the potential to purchase a painting to buy perceived influence, and also because the White House became involved in the transactions, arranging that none of the buyers� names be known to Biden, the White House or the public.

Frank Figliuzzi, the FBI�s former assistant director for counterintelligence, said there is a national security risk when foreign powers like China see an opportunity to get close to someone like Biden. �It�s all about access and influence, and if you can compromise someone with both access and influence, that�s even better,� said Figliuzzi, now an NBC News contributor. �Better still if that target has already compromised himself.�

The documents and the analysis indicate that few of Biden�s deals ever came to fruition and shed light on how fast he was spending his money. Expenditures compiled on his hard drive show he spent more than $200,000 per month from October 2017 through February 2018 on luxury hotel rooms, Porsche payments, dental work and cash withdrawals.

***

Biden wrote in his book about how few of his business deals brought tangible results. He said he wasn�t �desperate� before he landed a position on the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma in 2014 but that the money was �helpful� and that it came at a �fortuitous� time. He said it meant he didn�t have to work so hard to find clients, �the most time-consuming part of my work � drilling twenty dry wells to finally hit pay dirt,� and that it let him spend more time with his dying brother, Beau.

Biden�s addition to the company�s board as head of legal affairs was reported in a news release in May 2014. At some point from May to December 2014, Burisma allegedly paid a bribe to a Ukrainian official to help stop a joint British/U.S. money-laundering investigation into Burisma�s top executive, according to a State Department email that quotes a Ukrainian prosecutor.

# ? May 22, 2022 20:18

Willa Rogers: Mar 11, 2005

theCalamity posted:

https://twitter.com/christianjhall/status/1527693064197881858?s=20&t=agWmY57LX3sPOIMbgwTk0Q

Glad they're calling out that he can do it by executive action, instead of waiting for Congress to pass legislation.

# ? May 22, 2022 20:21

FLIPADELPHIA: Apr 27, 2007; Heavy Shit; Grimey Drawer

Rigel posted:

Authoritarian requires a widespread and harsh crackdown on every citizen who merely expresses an illegal political opinion (not counting things like terrorist threats or plots) In Russia, China, North Korea, etc you can be grabbed from your apartment and thrown in jail for posting criticism of the government on the internet, not by a rogue cop, not against a small group but as a matter of government policy against every person. THAT is an authoritarian government.

I know you want to use the word, but its simply not applicable to the United States right now.

There is no one definition for authoritarianism, and I don't buy the definition that handwaves away the avalanche of oppressive poo poo the US does to focus on domestic political speech only. It seems handcrafted to avoid incriminating the US. The right to verbalize dissent is just one right among many, and it's arguably not even the most important.

Sure we can talk poo poo about the government but the right to actually protest its actions is frayed to the point of not existing meaningfully.

Sure the cops can murder you with no reprecussions, landlords can throw you out into the street or cut off life preserving utilities, healthcare companies can execute you legally by withholding life saving treatment, and vigilantes can murder you as long as no one gets it on camera. And sure the government actively aids and abeds all of this. But we're not authoritarian because I can call Biden a piece of poo poo?

Nah. That's not a useful definition of authoritarianism at all, and is more like a rhetorical weapon specifically to defend the US empire from criticism.

# ? May 22, 2022 20:21

Civilized Fishbot: Apr 3, 2011

BiggerBoat posted:

Money definitely outweighs and supersedes votes. I don't know the precise math on it but there's an equation somewhere out there that might measure the amount of popular votes someone receives versus the amount of lobbying money that compares the weight of both. I don't know how to explain it but let's say everyone's regular vote is worth one dollar.

If you happen to rich and start spreading x amount of cash around, donate and old fundraisers, you're vote may as well be x(1000), or however it works out. Other people have pointed it out but it's a lot like how the energy and healthcare fields prevent widely popular policies from even seeing the light of day, let alone coming to a vote. Something having to do with money equaling power.

You seem to have the correct political understanding but mathematically this is nonsense (that's why you don't know how to explain it). There's no process in which votes are one input and donations are another; if you get more votes, you win, regardless of how many donations you got. Donations are valuable only in their capacity to buy advertisements, which produce votes. That's why Jeb! couldn't beat Trump, because he couldn't turn the money into votes and Trump was great at getting free advertising so he didn't need as much oney.

As you describe, rich people are unfathomably more powerful than poor people, because a rich guy's money can buy a ton of votes. In 2020, for Trump, the rate was $11.20 per vote. For Biden, the rate was $14.85 per vote. So if you donate $1,485 to him, that's like casting 100 votes for him, because you helped him buy 100 votes.

To say "money outweighs votes" is to visualize some alternative election framework where money has power outside its capacity to buy votes. In reality, campaign donations warp American politics because they buy votes, not because they outweigh votes.

To say "money outweighs votes" is like saying "home runs outweigh points." The reality is that home runs get you a lot of points, but they have no value independent of the points they produce.

Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 20:32 on May 22, 2022

# ? May 22, 2022 20:29

BRJurgis: Aug 15, 2007; Well I hear the thunder roll, I feel the cold winds blowing...
But you won't find me there, 'cause I won't go back again...
While you're on smoky roads, I'll be out in the sun...
Where the trees still grow, where they count by one...

Money and the ability to ruthlessly aquire it is the point. If you get in the way of that you're toast politically. It doesn't even need to be corruption. Sure, our courts make corporations people and money speech, but it's not some weird hiccup. The whole point of all this is to stabilize things well enough to keep making money.

It brought us here. Where are we going now?

# ? May 22, 2022 20:37

BiggerBoat: Sep 26, 2007; Don't you tell me my business again.

Civilized Fishbot posted:

You seem to have the correct political understanding but mathematically this is nonsense (that's why you don't know how to explain it). There's no process in which votes are one input and donations are another; if you get more votes, you win, regardless of how many donations you got. Donations are valuable only in their capacity to buy advertisements, which produce votes. That's why Jeb! couldn't beat Trump, because he couldn't turn the money into votes and Trump was great at getting free advertising so he didn't need as much oney.

As you describe, rich people are unfathomably more powerful than poor people, because a rich guy's money can buy a ton of votes. In 2020, for Trump, the rate was $11.20 per vote. For Biden, the rate was $14.85 per vote. So if you donate $1,485 to him, that's like casting 100 votes for him, because you helped him buy 100 votes.

To say "money outweighs votes" is to visualize some alternative election framework where money has power outside its capacity to buy votes. In reality, campaign donations warp American politics because they buy votes, not because they outweigh votes.

To say "money outweighs votes" is like saying "home runs outweigh points." The reality is that home runs get you a lot of points, but they have no value independent of the points they produce.

Maybe I worded it badly but I'm saying that the wealthy and their vested interests that they use to buy politicians far outweighs the ability of voters to influence legislation. I wasn't trying to say that more money = winning more elections. Maybe more like more money = more laws once the elections are over. I'm not saying more money gets you elected. I'm saying that more money shapes the things you do once you are and, as we've seen time and time again, overrides the will of the voters.

This is also secondary to the idea that you need a tremendous amount of money to start with just to even get on a ballot and have a fighting chance. Never even mind what those stacks of cash mean (many of which come later) to the legislation you introduce, how bills are written and which way you vote on them. We saw it with the ACA, for instance. Americans overwhelmingly supported M4A and a public option but the big bucks insurance industry were allowed to write the bill and kill that poo poo before it started.

# ? May 22, 2022 20:55

Civilized Fishbot: Apr 3, 2011

BiggerBoat posted:

Maybe I worded it badly but I'm saying that the wealthy and their vested interests that they use to buy politicians far outweighs the ability of voters to influence legislation. I wasn't trying to say that more money = winning more elections. Maybe more like more money = more laws once the elections are over. I'm not saying more money gets you elected. I'm saying that more money shapes the things you do once you are and, as we've seen time and time again, overrides the will of the voters.

Maybe this is a wording thing but where I disagree is that money doesn't override the will of the voters, it shapes the will of the voters. It shapes the will of the voters by affecting who votes and by affecting their attitudes around candidates and referenda.

# ? May 22, 2022 20:58

Solkanar512: Dec 28, 2006; by the sex ghost

I really hope you folks don't mind me interrupting yet another uninteresting slapfight over definitions to post some actual news.

https://twitter.com/spulliam/status/1528426381360746501?s=20&t=e-8r0tv_uRGXnMlq-A6RRQ

Sarah Pulliam Bailey, The Washington Post posted:

Southern Baptist leaders covered up sex abuse, lied about secret database, report says

Leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention on Sunday released a major third-party investigation that found that sex abuse survivors were often ignored, minimized and �even vilified� by top clergy in the nation�s largest Protestant denomination.

The findings of nearly 300 pages include shocking new details about specific abuse cases and shine a light on how denominational leaders for decades actively resisted calls for abuse prevention and reform. They also lied to Southern Baptists over whether they could maintain a database of offenders to prevent more abuse when top leaders were secretly keeping a private list for years.

The report � the first investigation of its kind in a massive Protestant denomination like the SBC � is expected to send shock waves into a conservative Christian community that has had intense internal battles over how to handle sex abuse. The 13 million-member denomination, along with other religious institutions in the United States, has struggled with declining membership for the past 15 years. Its leaders have long resisted comparisons between its sexual abuse crisis and that of the Catholic Church, saying the total number of abuse cases among Southern Bapitists was small.

The investigation finds that for almost two decades, survivors of abuse and other concerned Southern Baptists have been contacting the Southern Baptist Convention�s administrative arm to report child molesters and other abusers who were in the pulpit or employed as church staff members.

The report, compiled by an organization called Guidepost Solutions at the request of Southern Baptists, states that abuse survivors� calls and emails were �only to be met, time and time again, with resistance, stonewalling, and even outright hostility� by leaders who were concerned more with protecting the institution from liability than from protecting Southern Baptists from further abuse.

�While stories of abuse were minimized, and survivors were ignored or even vilified, revelations came to light in recent years that some senior SBC leaders had protected or even supported alleged abusers, the report states.

While the report focuses primarily on how leaders handled abuse issues when survivors came forward, it also states that a major Southern Baptist leader sexually assaulted a woman just one month after he completed his two-year tenure as president of the convention. The report finds that Johnny Hunt, a beloved Georgia-based Southern Baptist pastor who has been a senior vice president at the SBC�s missions arm, was credibly accused of assaulting a woman during a Panama City Beach vacation in 2010.

The report states that Hunt, in an interview with investigators, denied any physical contact with the woman but acknowledged that he had interactions with her.

Sex abuse survivors, many of whom have been sharing their stories for years, anticipated Sunday�s release would confirm the facts around many of the stories they have already shared, but many were still surprised to see the pattern of coverups by the highest levels of leadership.

�I knew it was rotten, but it�s astonishing and infuriating,� said Jennifer Lyell, a survivor who was once the highest-paid female executive at the SBC and whose story of sexual abuse at a Southern Baptist seminary is detailed in the report. �This is a denomination is through and through about power. It is misappropriated power. It does not in any way reflect the Jesus I see in the scriptures. I am so gutted.�

The report also names several senior SBC leaders who protected and even supported alleged abusers, including three past presidents of the convention, a former vice president and the former head of the SBC�s administrative arm.

The third-party investigation into actions between 2000 and 2021 focused on actions by the SBC�s Executive Committee, which handles financial and administrative duties. Although Southern Baptist churches operate independently from one another, the Nashville-based Executive Committee distributes the $121 million cooperative program budget that funds its missions, seminaries and ministries.

For decades, Southern Baptists were told that the denomination could not put together a registry of sex offenders because it would go against the denomination�s polity � or how it functions. What the report reveals is that leaders maintained a list of offenders while keeping it a secret to avoid the possibility of getting sued. The report also includes private emails showing how longtime leaders such as August Boto were dismissive about sexual abuse concerns, calling them �a satanic scheme to completely distract us from evangelism.�

In an April 2007 email, the convention�s attorney sent Boto a memo explaining how a SBC database could be implemented consistent with SBC polity, saying �it would fit our polity and present ministries to help churches in this area of child abuse and sexual misconduct.� The report states that he recommended �immediate action to signal the Convention�s desire that the [executive committee] and the entities begin a more aggressive effort in this area.� That same year, after a Southern Baptist pastor made a motion for a database, Boto rejected the idea.

For a denomination designed to give more democratic power to its lay leaders or �messengers� who voted to commission the third-party investigation, the report shows how lay Southern Baptists allowed a few key leaders, including Boto and the convention�s longtime lawyer, James Guenther, to control the national institutional response to sex abuse for decades.

�The report is going to validate so much about how they really blindly chose to stay on the same path all these years,� said Tiffany Thigpen, whose story of sexual abuse in a Southern Baptist church is detailed in the report. �It buoys what we�ve been saying all along. Now Southern Baptists have to carry the weight.�

During Executive Committee meetings in 2021, some members argued against waiving attorney-client privilege, which would give investigators access to records of conversations on legal matters among the committee�s members and staffers. They said doing so went against the advice of convention lawyers and could bankrupt the SBC by exposing it to lawsuits.

The debate over waiving privilege upset a large swath of Southern Baptists, causing some to believe the Executive Committee was not doing the �will of the messengers,� or following the lead of lay leaders who had already voted in favor of doing so. It also led to the resignation of the EC�s head, Ronnie Floyd, who also once served as SBC president and was on President Donald Trump�s evangelical advisory council. The decision over attorney-client privilege also led to the resignation of the convention�s attorneys, who are named throughout the report.

According to the report, Floyd told SBC leaders in a 2019 email that he had received �some calls� from �key SBC pastors and leaders� expressing �growing concern about all the emphasis on the sexual abuse crisis.� He then stated: �Our priority cannot be the latest cultural crisis.�

Christa Brown, who told SBC leaders that she was abused by a youth pastor that went on to serve in other Southern Baptist churches in multiple states, has long advocated a churchwide database for years and was met with hostility. The report states that when she met with SBC leaders in 2007, a member of the Executive Committee �turned his back to her during her speech and another chortled.�

�The Executive Committee betrayed not only survivors who worked hard to try to make something happen, but betrayed the whole Southern Baptist Convention,� said Brown, who is a retired appellate attorney in Colorado. �They�ve made their own faith into a complicit partner for their own decision to choose institutional protection over the protection of kids and congregants.�

The report, which was requested by Southern Baptists during its last annual meeting, comes just weeks before its next gathering in Anaheim, Calif., where members are expected discuss next steps. Recommendations by Guidepost include providing dedicated survivor advocacy support and a survivor compensation fund.

�We must be ready to take meaningful steps to change our culture as it relates to sexual abuse,� Ed Litton, the current SBC president, said in a statement.

Since decades of sex abuse and coverups in the Catholic Church were reported by the Boston Globe in 2002, some U.S. dioceses have published lists of priests they say have been credibly accused of sexual abuse to prevent the transfer of abusers to other churches. Unlike the Catholic Church, the SBC has a non-hierarchical structure.

In March 2007, the Rev. Thomas Doyle, a priest and canon lawyer who first warned of the looming Catholic sex abuse crisis, wrote to the SBC and Executive Committee presidents, according to the report. He expressed his concerns that SBC leaders could be falling into some of the same patterns as Catholic leaders in not dealing with clergy sex abuse, and he urged that Southern Baptists should learn from Catholic mistakes and take action early on to implement structural reforms so as to make children safer.

The report states that Frank Page, who was leading the Executive Committee at the time, responded to Doyle in a short letter that �Southern Baptist leaders truly have no authority over local churches� but that they would attempt to use their �influence� to provide protections. In an article, Page accused a survivor group of having a hidden agenda of setting up the nation�s largest Protestant body for lawsuits. Page later resigned from his position in 2018 over a having �morally inappropriate relationship.� Page did not return a request for comment.

Rachael Denhollander, a former USA gymnast who outed Larry Nassar�s serial sexual assaults, is an adviser on a Southern Baptist task force on the issue and said that the report shows a need for institutions like the SBC to seek outside expertise on sex abuse.

�It shows a level of coverup and harassment and resistance to reforms on an institutional level that has led to decades of survivors being victimized and hurt,� Denhollander said. �The question Southern Baptists have to ask is, �How could this happen?��

The issue of sex abuse was a prominent theme in leaked private letters written by Russell Moore, who left his position in 2021 as head of the SBC�s policy arm, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. Moore said that he expects Southern Baptists to receive Sunday�s report in a similar way to how Nikita Khrushchev shocked the Soviet Union when he detailed Joseph Stalin�s crimes in a speech in 1956.

�The depths of wickedness and inhumanity in this report are breathtaking,� Moore said. �People will say, �This is not all Southern Baptists, look at all the good we do.� The report demonstrates a pattern of stonewalling, coverup, intimidation and retaliation.�

Moore said that he hopes the SBC will consider replacing a statue of evangelist Billy Graham, which was moved from Nashville to Graham�s home state in 2016, with a statue of Christa Brown, the abuse survivor who spent the past two decades fighting for reform.

Pretty sure this is going to shock no one but maybe folks will start to tone down the "groomer" bullshit. Likely not, but who knows.

Solkanar512 fucked around with this message at 21:25 on May 22, 2022

# ? May 22, 2022 21:21

BiggerBoat: Sep 26, 2007; Don't you tell me my business again.

Ah, yes. Let's protect the unborn children. And abuse the ones who were born.

I've known this poo poo about churches for a long loving time. My best friend's dad growing up I found out later successfully sued his local church for sexual abuse and exposed these creeps in Delaware. I was googling my childhood friend's name and stumbled upon his dad, read his story and was loving blown away at all the pushback and smears he received.

These motherfuckers pay no taxes, preach politics to their pulpit and lobby for laws while being probably the single largest organized group of people that rape kids outside of pimps. This is my childhood friend's dad:

https://bishop-accountability.org/news2008/07_08/2008_07_17_Miller_DelawareDiocese.htm

https://www.bishop-accountability.org/news/2005_11_20_Church_DioceseKept.htm

I never tracked down his son but really admired his father's bravery and helping to take these loving creeps down. I wish I believed in hell so I could think that these people who abuse their power under the auspice of being godly might burn in it.

# ? May 22, 2022 22:08

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Here's a direct link to the report.

I'm very curious about the specific provenance, since the Wapo article says it was compiled at the request of the Southern Baptists, but at least the beginning report isn't written as if there's an internal client or audience. So far it's looking like the report was commissioned by the board of trustees to focus on actions by the executive committee (and, in so doing, potentially shield the trustees). That said, I don't have time to really read this thing tonight.

edit: ah, it's specified as a task force motion from 2021; more details are available for those with time to go through them at page 9.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 22:54 on May 22, 2022

# ? May 22, 2022 22:49

Bel Shazar: Sep 14, 2012

Civilized Fishbot posted:

Maybe this is a wording thing but where I disagree is that money doesn't override the will of the voters, it shapes the will of the voters. It shapes the will of the voters by affecting who votes and by affecting their attitudes around candidates and referenda.

Money buys politicians, politicians consistently act against the will of the people. Money both shapes and overrides the will of the voters.

# ? May 22, 2022 23:36

DarkCrawler: Apr 6, 2009; by vyelkin

Bar Ran Dun posted:

Nah it�s representative democracy with many many problems. The list of problems is long, the two party system, structural inequities, a lot of of issues coming from federalism (which has imploded in other places), gerrymandering, voting friction, etc.

We still (though barely now) accept the results of elections. And organizing can still change our circumstances even if it is made much harder than it should be.

Something occurs to me. Do you live in the states or are you looking at us from outside?

Even working as intended, a system where routinely the party with less votes win is not a democracy, and where Wyoming gets as many votes as California is not representative. I don't have an exact name for it. It's neither of those things.

And yes, I am looking at you from the outside but I don't think "If you have more votes you win" or "one person one vote" is too much of a demand for a representative democratic process no matter where you are from. To me it's a much more simple determination to make then "authoritarian".

# ? May 23, 2022 04:14

Bar Ran Dun: Jan 22, 2006

DarkCrawler posted:

Even working as intended, a system where routinely the party with less votes win is not a democracy, and where Wyoming gets as many votes as California is not representative. I don't have an exact name for it. It's neither of those things.

Historical anachronism . We are burdened with an already existing system that carries the choices of the past in its structure.

DarkCrawler posted:

And yes, I am looking at you from the outside but I don't think "If you have more votes you win" or "one person one vote" is too much of a demand for a representative democratic process no matter where you are from. To me it's a much more simple determination to make then "authoritarian".

There�s a reason federalism went out of fashion and why it�s bad when other countries copy the US system. But it isn�t arbitrary, it still functions within its own rules (though just barely now.)

# ? May 23, 2022 05:00

TheIncredulousHulk: Sep 3, 2012

I think it's questionable whether a "will of the people" actually exists in any meaningful sense. Kinda feels like it's just ad copy

Bar Ran Dun posted:

Historical anachronism . We are burdened with an already existing system that carries the choices of the past in its structure.

There�s a reason federalism went out of fashion and why it�s bad when other countries copy the US system. But it isn�t arbitrary, it still functions within its own rules (though just barely now.)

The continued misrepresentative nature of the Senate isn't an accident and simple inertia isn't what preserves it. If it worked against the interests of the ruling class, it would have been changed. Instead, it's been made even less representative thanks to the invention, expansion, and reification of the filibuster

# ? May 23, 2022 06:40

Bar Ran Dun: Jan 22, 2006

TheIncredulousHulk posted:

I think it's questionable whether a "will of the people" actually exists in any meaningful sense. Kinda feels like it's just ad copy

The continued misrepresentative nature of the Senate isn't an accident and simple inertia isn't what preserves it. If it worked against the interests of the ruling class, it would have been changed. Instead, it's been made even less representative thanks to the invention, expansion, and reification of the filibuster

There has been significant expansion of who is represented in general and specifically in the senate over time in the country. I mean poo poo the senate wasn�t even really an elected branch until what 1913.

Here�s another way to think about it. When you have revolution what is always inevitable? Counterrevolution.

# ? May 23, 2022 07:07

TheIncredulousHulk: Sep 3, 2012

Bar Ran Dun posted:

There has been significant expansion of who is represented in general and specifically in the senate over time in the country. I mean poo poo the senate wasn�t even really an elected branch until what 1913.

Here�s another way to think about it. When you have revolution what is always inevitable? Counterrevolution.

And yet it mysteriously continues to function as a brake for the more representative chamber just as well as it ever has

# ? May 23, 2022 07:40

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

At least the Catholic church was smart enough to not keep an electronic database of all of the people they molested.

That story is horrible and wild.

Since the "total number of people abused was small" according to them, then it seems insane that they would spend decades building a database to organize those and move people around to prevent them from doing it again instead of just cutting those people loose.

# ? May 23, 2022 13:38

Ghost Leviathan: Mar 2, 2017; Exploration is ill-advised.

One of the things it's really hard to get people to understand is how much of your political vocabulary, let alone your beliefs, was designed specifically to make you reflexively punch left while having no meaningful arguments to make against fascists. 1984 was very much projection.

Language that equates fascist and communist ideas is inherently on the side of the fascists. They're not the ones who believe in words and definitions, after all.

Ghost Leviathan fucked around with this message at 14:26 on May 23, 2022

# ? May 23, 2022 14:22

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

NYC is up to an average of 3 people shot and killed per month on the subway this year.

105.2 average shootings per month total.

https://twitter.com/harrysiegel/status/1528559395424157697

Mike Pence is running in 2024 whether Trump runs or not.

https://twitter.com/jmartNYT/status/1528702039362002944

Also, Guy Fieri (and Jose Andres) may be going to the White House to receive a Presidential commendation this year for his food charity work during the pandemic.

Leon Trotsky 2012 fucked around with this message at 14:39 on May 23, 2022

# ? May 23, 2022 14:27

Dietrich: Sep 11, 2001

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

Also, Guy Fieri (and Jose Andres) may be going to the White House receive a Presidential commendation this year for his food charity work during the pandemic.

Guy Fieri is finally going to meet with the president of Flavortown.

# ? May 23, 2022 14:29

Blue Footed Booby: Oct 4, 2006; got those happy feet

Ghost Leviathan posted:

... 1984 was very much projection...

George Orwell was not a liberal.

# ? May 23, 2022 14:30

Lib and let die: Aug 26, 2004

Dietrich posted:

Guy Fieri is finally going to meet with the president of Flavortown.

Funny way of spelling "ascend to"

eta: and if we're gonna do Orwell chat, I'd argue we have landed squarely at the intersection of Orwell and Huxley - so long as the tap of Disney Marvel Slop never gets turned off, America at large will continue to happily sacrifice its liberties. We're already watching free speech and free assembly being eroded, something every authoritarian-tending empire engages in during its collapse and/or white-knuckle dive into full-blown authoritarianism. But hey, that Mama June lady is out of jail again, let's turn on the tee vee and see what whacky hijinx she's getting into!

Lib and let die fucked around with this message at 14:34 on May 23, 2022

# ? May 23, 2022 14:32

Sir Lemming: Jan 27, 2009; It's a piece of JUNK!

For all the noise being made lately about "the death of #MeToo", the SBC investigation/report seems like a pretty big-deal consequence of it. And it's only the latest. No, it's not the silver bullet that kills Christian Nationalism, but it's definitely gonna leave a mark.

# ? May 23, 2022 14:40

Ghost Leviathan: Mar 2, 2017; Exploration is ill-advised.

Blue Footed Booby posted:

George Orwell was not a liberal.

He was a snitch. There's a reason that verse in in the song, and that's just hoping the cops take down your name, rather than personally giving it to them.

Ghost Leviathan fucked around with this message at 14:46 on May 23, 2022

# ? May 23, 2022 14:44

Xombie: May 22, 2004; Soul Thrashing
Black Sorcery

POWELL CURES KIDS posted:

I am proposing, as are others, that the United States is a de facto authoritarian state, and the trappings of democracy it hides behind are just that--trappings.

I heard you, understood you, and am saying you're wrong for all the reasons I stated.

quote:

The way our government operates is effectively identical to that of a one-party system, offering only marginal differences of choice;

The fact that the party you would support doesn't have power doesn't make the status quo a one-party system.

quote:

the protections afforded by our laws exist only until the authorities decide they don't,

That's literally just describing how the concept of law works in an indirect democracy.

quote:

which is consistently at the exact point they threaten the interests of the political class and the wealthy;

Once again: this is just describing corruption, not authoritarianism.

quote:

our courts are patently unfair, functioning less as a justice system than as an exercise in punitive social engineering;

This still is not the difference between democracy and authoritarianism.

quote:

and our law enforcement, instead of protecting us, exists almost exclusively to subdue and oppress the lower classes, with utter impunity and with powers that let them operate somewhere between "secret police" and "open political enforcers". (Fred Hampton, Gary Webb, countless other activists, brutalizing some political demonstrations and protecting others with a clear ideological agenda.)

This is, as local police acting in the capacity of decentralized power, not authoritarianism.

quote:

Slamming a dictionary on the table is not responding to any of the above. Our limited democracy is an apology for the authoritarian state we actually live under.

I don't understand why you think I need to respond to "any of the above". If you want me to prove that none of what you're talking about is happening, you're not going to get it from me. You're looking to argue with someone with different opinions I.

My point is, and never wavered from, that the US's "limited democracy" as you're describing it, doesn't constitute authoritarianism. And using that word for the sake of drama doesn't make a salient point. In fact it weakens your point simply by being objectively wrong.

# ? May 23, 2022 14:49

Xombie: May 22, 2004; Soul Thrashing
Black Sorcery

Flying-PCP posted:

I get your point, but it's also not a binary state or a switch that gets suddenly flipped. I hate to tell you, we're not going to stop authoritarianism by nuancing it to death. Acting like authoritarianism is always right around the corner is probably wiser than you think.

What we really need are mutual aid networks based around getting people out of red states. We are going to get a lot more people killed if we keep treating "save the entire United States" as the only possible goal.

I didn't say it's a binary state, I said that what people are describing isn't authoritarianism. There are many types of unfair, lovely, oppressive government systems that simply are not authoritarian. You can have a democratically elected government who oppresses some of its people at the behest and consent of its other people, which can also be subject to democratic removal.

Pretending that the policies haven't been elected in place simply for the sake of drama isn't productive.

cat botherer posted:

One weird trick to not be authoritarian: Launder your oppression through subservient levels of government.

Yes, decentralizing the government is "one weird trick" to not having a centralized government, I guess.

Timeless Appeal posted:

Beyond local police often being indistinguishable from an occupying force in some areas, you're memory-holing Trump literally sending Federal agents into Portland, and a very really call from the right to send in armed forced to quash the 2020 protests. That was absolutely an authoritarian power play.

You're correct. And then he got voted out of office.

There is a difference between stating "The United States has authoritarian politicians and a party that aspires to be authoritarian" and saying that the US is an authoritarian state. If the former can get voted out of office in an election, the latter is necessarily false.

Koos Group posted:

This is a small point, but in the interest of civility, it would be better to restate how this doesn't apply to your point rather than accusing another user of moving goalposts in thread. If you believe someone is doing a bait-and-switch of argumentation maliciously, you can also report them.

I did literally this in another response.

# ? May 23, 2022 14:49

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

Biden hoping to announce finalized version of student loan forgiveness plan in the next week or two.

Goal is to release it by the 28th when he gives a commencement speech at the University of Delaware, but it may not be ready by then.

So far, the only details are:

- It will be less than $50k, but likely more than $10k.

- Won't have any restrictions based on what type of school you went to (public, private, trade school, etc.)

- Considering a reverse means-tested benefit where everyone would get $10k forgiven, but people farther down the income scale and people who have had low incomes longer would get larger forgiveness. They are also considering scaling back the benefit for people who have made over $125k (gross adjusted income) for several years in a row. But, still undecided about whether to do any income separation because of legal and logistical reasons.

- Preparing to do it through some kind of administrative action that will stand up legally because they expect a court challenge.

https://twitter.com/janetadamy/status/1528696144435597314

quote:

CHAPEL HILL, N. C.�President Biden in the coming weeks is expected to decide whether to put forward a student-loan forgiveness plan aimed in part at motivating young voters to cast ballots in November�s elections.

At the University of North Carolina, and in neighborhoods across the surrounding Research Triangle area, there are signs that whatever approach he takes could leave swaths of voters dissatisfied.

Students and recent graduates with heavy debt loads worry that Mr. Biden�s plan will be too weak, after the president and his advisers signaled they are considering relief that could be far less than the $50,000-per-borrower sought by prominent Democrats. At the same time, voters who tightened their belts to pay off their loans or didn�t go to college say it would be unfair to make taxpayers subsidize school debt for Americans whose education can boost their earning power.

quote:

Mr. Biden is considering executive action after it became clear that there wasn�t enough support in Congress to pass debt-forgiveness legislation amid opposition from Republicans and some moderate Democrats.

The debate in North Carolina mirrors one taking place inside the White House. Some of Mr. Biden�s advisers have warned of blowback from voters who didn�t go to college, don�t have loans or already paid them off. Others have countered that loan forgiveness would energize young voters and provide an economic boost to low-income and minority borrowers, according to people familiar with the discussions.

quote:

The Justice Department and Education Department are weighing whether Mr. Biden has the legal authority to unilaterally wipe away loans through executive action. Former President Barack Obama�s top Education Department lawyer wrote in a confidential memo that Mr. Biden would be on shaky legal ground if he were to pursue broad-based student debt cancellation by executive action.

Some administration officials said they had hoped to announce the final plan in conjunction with Mr. Biden�s May 28 commencement address at the University of Delaware, but they cautioned the timeline could slip because the president had not yet made a decision.

quote:

At UNC�s graduation ceremony this month, students worried Mr. Biden is backpedaling on campaign promises he made about student-loan forgiveness.

�We chose Biden in the hopes that he would do something. We feel he�s kind of ineffectual and we�re still waiting for things to happen,� said Geselle Marquez, a 22-year-old liberal, who was seated in the front row at graduation and said she received need-based financial aid to help cover tuition.

Graduating senior Ali Floyd, 23, said she has about $17,000 in student debt, but felt it was unfair for taxpayers to cover the cost of loans that students took out with the understanding that they would be on the hook for paying them back.

quote:

Just 25 miles away, in Cary, N.C., an affluent Raleigh suburb, many voters expressed opposition to forgiving student loans.

�I think it�s a bad idea. If you committed to the loans, you have to pay them,� said Liz Moran, 34, who described herself as an independent voter. She added that the U.S. government doesn�t widely forgive loans other Americans take out, so it shouldn�t do so for students either.

�College is a choice. When people take out loans, they know that they�re supposed to be paying them back,� said Marc Beard, 52, who said he isn�t affiliated with either main political party. �You have all these people who have taken out loans and work really hard to pay them back. It teaches you responsibility, that nothing is free in life and that hard work is a valuable thing.�

Leon Trotsky 2012 fucked around with this message at 15:08 on May 23, 2022

# ? May 23, 2022 15:05

Xombie: May 22, 2004; Soul Thrashing
Black Sorcery

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

quote:
�College is a choice. When people take out loans, they know that they�re supposed to be paying them back,� said Marc Beard, 52, who said he isn�t affiliated with either main political party. �You have all these people who have taken out loans and work really hard to pay them back. It teaches you responsibility, that nothing is free in life and that hard work is a valuable thing.�

I really, really, really want one of these reporters to ask the people like this "so what do you think about your tax bracket going up when you get a raise?"

Also, the median income for Cary, NC is $106,304. Every single one of these "unaffiliated" and "independent" voters is straight-ticket republican.

Xombie fucked around with this message at 15:12 on May 23, 2022

# ? May 23, 2022 15:09

BRAKE FOR MOOSE: Jun 6, 2001

Graduating senior Ali Floyd, 23, has scholarships or rich parents.

# ? May 23, 2022 15:15

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

NYT has a profile on Guy Fieri's rising philanthropic and cultural influence in light of the news about his possible Presidential commendation.

Calls him the "Elder Statesman of Flavortown."

https://twitter.com/mattfleg/status/1528739588944035841

quote:

Guy Fieri, Elder Statesman of Flavortown

TV�s spike-haired rhapsodist of roadside eats is still playing it for laughs. But he�s also winning food-world respect as a sort of graying eminence.

MIDDLETOWN TOWNSHIP, N.J. � Guy Fieri looks as if he has prepared his whole life to be a middle-aged rock star.

He has grays in the famous goatee now, a faint tan line beneath his chain necklace and a pair of hulking middle-finger rings that do not slow his incorrigible fist-bumping. He talks about the higher purpose of his �namaste� tattoo, and feigns outrage when no one recognizes his Dean Martin references. He revels, still, in conspicuous consumption, double-fisting naan and tandoori chicken during a recent television shoot here at a strip-mall Indian restaurant tucked between a nail salon and a wax center.

�I want to chug the chutney!� Mr. Fieri said, daring someone to stop him. �One little bump.�

It was 9:33 a.m.

But somewhere on a rickety highway near the Jersey Shore that afternoon � past the Jon Bon Jovi restaurant he said he needs to come back and visit; beyond a seaside bar called the Chubby Pickle, where he congratulated himself for not making any R-rated puns, before making several � Mr. Fieri caught himself in a reflective mood.

For nearly two decades, since before he mailed a reality-show audition tape to the network, Mr. Fieri has plainly believed he was a real musician, contributing worthy entries to the canon.

What is striking now, long after the parody seemed to congeal, is that the wider food community stands ready to believe him.

Mr. Fieri has emerged as one of the most influential food philanthropists of the Covid age, helping to raise more than $20 million for restaurant workers. He has established himself as an industry mentor among chefs who may or may not admire his cooking but recognize his gifts as a messenger, which have boosted business for the hundreds of restaurants featured on his show. He has won the blessing of the white-tablecloth set through sheer force of charisma and relentlessness, coaxing a reconsideration of how the food establishment treated him in the first place.

�I don�t think he had the respect of people like me or people in the food industry,� said Traci Des Jardins, an acclaimed Bay Area chef who has become a friend. �He has earned that respect.�

�An amazing individual,� said the philanthropic chef Jos� Andr�s, recalling how Mr. Fieri churned out plates of turkey for wildfire evacuees in 2018.

In the 15 years since he began �Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,� his Food Network flagship, Mr. Fieri, 54, has become perhaps the most powerful and bankable figure in food television, the �minence grise of the eminently greasy. And by dint of that show�s success � and Mr. Fieri�s runaway celebrity, and that golden porcupine of hair, and maybe that one review of his Times Square restaurant a while back � certain perceptions have attached to him through the years, perpetuating the caricature he still often seems eager to play.

He would like a word about all that.

�If you only hear Metallica as a heavy-metal band, then you are not hearing Metallica,� Mr. Fieri said, riding shotgun after a day of filming and charity work. �Now maybe you don�t like that style. But they�re real musicians.�

�Whether he likes it or not,� said Andrew Zimmern, a fellow food-television veteran, �he has become an elder statesman.�

In that case, Mr. Fieri said, he looks forward to the initiation ceremony.

�Don�t you think there should be some kind of a cloak?� he asked, imagining luminaries fitting him for a tweed jacket with elbow pads over his tattoos. But, he added, �I guess I�m kind of becoming one of the guys now.�

His point, as ever, was that people are complicated, including Guy Fieri, professional uncomplicated person. Maybe especially Guy Fieri, whose very surname (it is �fee-ED-ee,� he reminds audiences, nodding at his Italian roots) demands fussiness from a man who says things like �flavor jets, activate!� for a living.

He is at once sensitive to the exaggerated persona he has embraced, challenging a reporter to name the last time his show recommended a hamburger, and acutely aware of his own ridiculousness. He calls himself semi-chunky as a matter of branding (�body by dumpling,� he said) but is actually quite trim in person, singing the praises of vegan food.

He is a son of Northern California hippies, with superfans across MAGA nation and what can seem like a bespoke set of personal politics, often using his platform to tell stories celebrating immigrants while lamenting what he sees as the country�s overreliance on welfare programs.

He can pass hours, by land or fishing boat, reflecting on life and family with a close friend, Rob Van Winkle, whom Mr. Fieri addresses as Ninja and most others know as Vanilla Ice.

�Some of us never grow up,� said Mr. Van Winkle, who attributed Mr. Fieri�s nickname for him to his rap in the 1991 �Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles� sequel, adding that he has been renovating the chef�s new home in Palm Beach County, Fla., a short drive from his own. �When Guy and I are together, we�re like the oldest teenagers in town.�

The tonal whiplash in Mr. Fieri�s company can be dizzying. He compares himself in one breath to Happy Gilmore, Adam Sandler�s rampaging golf star of the 1990s (�He�s a hockey player that makes money playing golf, and I�m a cook that makes money doing television�) and speaks in the next of his �fiduciary responsibility� to continue showcasing local restaurants.

He can edge toward profundity discussing the America he sees in his travels � comparing it to an overstuffed washing machine, clanking through its burdens � before defaulting to pablum about a national shortage of hugs.

He has learned that moderation has its place, he suggests, but only in moderation � a principle best expressed, perhaps inevitably, through the Tao of Lars Ulrich, the Metallica drummer.

Mr. Fieri was filming at the Chubby Pickle, in Highlands, N.J., when a chef preparing pork tacos seemed to skimp on the salsa. Mr. Fieri objected.

When Metallica cuts an album, he asked, doesn�t the band go heavy on the high-hat? Don�t they give the people what they want?

�You get as much Lars,� Mr. Fieri said, �as Lars wants to give you.�

Riding the �Fame Rocket�

The red bowling shirt was probably a giveaway.

But for the first 25 seconds of his 2005 audition reel for �The Next Food Network Star,� Mr. Fieri presented himself as a proper snob. He welcomed viewers to Sonoma County and pledged to prepare a dish �not in fusion but in con-fusion� � a Gorgonzola tofu sausage terrine over a �mildly poached� ostrich egg, with Grape-Nuts (this was wine country, after all) and pickled herring mousse.

Mr. Fieri shivered at his own faux brilliance. He clasped his hands and stared, as if waiting for his audience to agree. And then: �Ha, ha, haaa. No, seriously, folks, real food for real people. That�s the idea.�

Mr. Fieri proceeded to make something he calls the jackass roll � rice, pork butt, fries and avocado � so named, he said, because a friend told him he looked like a jackass preparing it. He described his parents� macrobiotic diet in his youth, saddling him with �enough bulgur and steamed fish to kill a kid� and leaving him no choice but to cook up alternatives.

He ticked through his well-curated biography � a year studying in France; a hospitality degree from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas; a stab at his own casual restaurants back in California � with such conviction that it almost made sense watching a man lay fries and barbecue over sushi rice.

Revisiting the video, what stands out is how fully formed Mr. Fieri�s public image was before a single television producer could think to meddle.

His hairstylist friend gave him the bleached spikes on a lark one day, and they stuck. His buddies knew his talents for table-to-table rat-a-tat, and urged him to make a tape. The ethos was effectively airlifted to �Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives� shortly after he won the next-food-star competition, and has never much changed.

�It�s been super-hard to rip off, and I�ve tried numerous times,� said Jordan Harman, who helped develop the show in 2007 and is now at A+E Networks. �You can redo the same beats, the same kind of places, the same kind of food. But there�s a magic that he brings that is really not replicable.�

Mr. Fieri took to fame quickly, hustling as though the window might be brief. He appeared at local fairs and casino shows that seemed beneath him (Mr. Harman thought), because they invited him. He autographed spatulas and bell peppers because fans asked him to. He toured the country in a flame-painted bus stocked with Pabst Blue Ribbon because what better way to travel? He wore sunglasses on the back of his head because sure, why not?

Friends say Mr. Fieri expanded his empire with almost clinical resolve, tending to a portfolio that came to include books, knives, a winery, a line of tequilas and several shows. Today, his name graces dozens of restaurants across six countries and more than a few cruise ships.

�This guy don�t sit down,� said Mr. Van Winkle, who traced their friendship to a chance encounter years ago at an airport Starbucks in Charlotte, N.C. �I don�t sit down a lot, too, and I look at him and go, �Bro, you don�t sit down.� �

Mr. Fieri remarked in 2010 that his �fame rocket� would shoot skyward for only so long, reasoning that he must �do what I can for the program while it lasts.� (By �the program,� he meant his wife, Lori, and two sons in Santa Rosa, Calif., along with his parents and a cast of tag-along pals with names like Gorilla and Dirty P.)

His Times Square restaurant, Guy�s American Kitchen & Bar, can feel in hindsight like an exercise in overextension, an assumption of manifest destiny powered by swagger and a signature Donkey Sauce.

�Like, �Oh, yeah, I�m going to do this, and it�s just going to be another big success for me,�� said Mr. Zimmern, summarizing Mr. Fieri�s confidence. �But you need to make sure that the food is absolutely perfect.�

It was not.

And that blazing New York Times review in 2012 (�Guy Fieri, have you eaten at your new restaurant?�) dovetailed with an already-rolling sendup of Mr. Fieri across the culture. He was skewered on �Saturday Night Live,� preparing Thanksgiving �turducken-rab-pig-cow-cow-horse-nish-game-hen� fried in J�germeister. His likeness became fodder for undercooked Halloween costumes nationwide.

He was invited to a Manhattan roast of Anthony Bourdain, a frequent antagonist who once said that Mr. Fieri appeared �designed by committee,� and often took more incoming than the honoree.

�The guy who just dropped a 500-seat deuce into Times Square,� Mr. Bourdain called him. (The restaurant closed in 2017.)

Lee Brian Schrager, the founder of the South Beach Wine & Food Festival, remembered the evening as �the single most uncomfortable night of my life� � and, looking back, a snapshot of a distant time.

�He went through the war,� Mr. Schrager said of Mr. Fieri. �He won.�

New Context, Same Shtick
So, has he changed, or have we?

Mr. Fieri appraises himself now as �a little more mellow, a little more methodical� � and maybe a little likelier to prize mentorship of the next class of television chef, including his son Hunter, over his own celebrity.

The moment has likewise tilted his way, at a time when there can seem to be less cultural currency in sarcastic detachment. �Can someone please explain to me what the hell Guy Fieri ever did to anyone?� the comedian Shane Torres asked, earnestly, in a 2017 routine. �As far as I can tell, all he ever did was follow his dreams.�

It has helped that Mr. Fieri is well suited to the modern internet, a TikTok regular and walking meme who generates headlines that can register as Onion-ish absent close inspection.

�Is Guy Fieri to blame for Dogecoin�s latest record high?� Fortune wondered last May.

�Amid Ukraine-Russia war,� read a Fox News web piece in March, �Guy Fieri�s new season of �Tournament of Champions III� provides comfort, unity.�

Yet the likeliest explanation for his durability, for his heightened esteem among some peers, is deceptively simple.

�He seeks to understand rather than be understood,� Mr. Zimmern said, �which I think is as high a compliment as I can give.�

For all the tropes and totems on �Diners� � the loud shirts and little hoop earrings; the adult baby talk (�me likey wingy�); the red Camaro whose driver-side door he opens and shuts at every stop for the cameras, without necessarily hopping inside � he is, at core, hosting a travel show.

Viewers see a culinary backpacker cosplaying as the ugly American, a man always seeking, even if all roads lead to ambient comfort. The episodes blur, their locations at once distinctive and indistinguishable. California and Wyoming and Maine do not seem so far apart.

�He goes to all these diners, drive-ins and dives,� said one fan, Jim McGinnis, 77, explaining the show�s appeal as Mr. Fieri administered handshakes and how-ya-doing-brothers at a charity event for New Jersey veterans. �It�s just a pleasure.�

It helps that no one wrings more theater from the preordained: Mr. Fieri arrives at a chosen spot. He seems excited. He riffs, a little uncomfortably, to make the jittery proprietors more comfortable. (The stop at the Indian restaurant, Haldi Chowk in Middletown Township, N.J., included nods to �Wheel of Fortune,� �Forrest Gump� and �My Cousin Vinny,� with a brief meditation on the differences between I.T., iced tea and Ice-T for reasons that eluded the room.)

Eventually, a chef has walked Mr. Fieri through the preparation of a favored dish. The host takes a bite � in this scene, it is the tandoori chicken � and shifts his weight a bit. He stands back, silent. His eyes dart mischievously, as if he has just gotten away with something. He wanders off, pretending to collect himself. The chef smiles. The big reveal only ever goes one way.

�Not good, chef. Not good at all,� Mr. Fieri says, the oldest left turn in the TV judge�s manual. �Fantastic.�

Rachael Ray, a friend whom Mr. Fieri cites as an influence, compared his people skills to a game of tag: You will like him. Denying as much midpursuit only wastes everyone�s time. �He just keeps chasing you,� she said.

Mr. Zimmern described him as a politician, �always talking to his base,� forever the person he told them he was.

And if Mr. Fieri has carefully avoided the public politics of some Trump-denouncing peers, a day on the road with him during filming can feel something like a campaign swing before the Iowa caucuses: an hour in each ZIP code, a quick check with an aide to make sure he knows what town he�s in, an inveterate fondness for name-dropping.

�I learned this from Henry Winkler, one of my heroes ��

�My buddy, Sammy Hagar, who�s my business partner ��

That Mr. Fieri does not appear to have an off switch is consistent with the public record. Several friends compared him, warmly enough, to some natural disaster or another. �Hurricane Guy,� Mr. Harman said.

Reminded of his 2010 line about capitalizing before his �fame rocket� crashed to earth, Mr. Fieri insisted he still viewed his celebrity horizon as finite.

�There will be a time when the light doesn�t shine as bright on the golden locks,� he said. �Which is cool.�

He was not entirely convincing on either score. But until that day comes, he suggested, he would keep up appearances, with one exception.

�Everybody�s like, �You bleach your hair. Why don�t you dye your goatee?� � he said, rubbing at his grays. �I�m like, �You know what? Enough.� �

He smirked a little, raising his head in concession to the moneymaker atop it.

�This, I got stuck with,� he said. �This kind of happened.�

Leon Trotsky 2012 fucked around with this message at 15:21 on May 23, 2022

# ? May 23, 2022 15:18

Willa Rogers: Mar 11, 2005

Selfish boomers, taking up sidewalk space for their homeless tents. :argh:

quote:

America�s homeless ranks graying as more retire on streets

PHOENIX�Karla Finocchio's slide into homelessness began when she split with her partner of 18 years and temporarily moved in with a cousin.

The 55-year-old planned to use her $800-a-month disability check to get an apartment after back surgery. But she soon was sleeping in her old pickup protected by her German Shepherd mix Scrappy, unable to afford housing in Phoenix, where median monthly rents soared 33% during the coronavirus pandemic to over $1,220 for a one-bedroom, according to ApartmentList.com.

Finocchio is one face of America�s graying homeless population, a rapidly expanding group of destitute and desperate people 50 and older suddenly without a permanent home after a job loss, divorce, family death or health crisis during a pandemic.

�We�re seeing a huge boom in senior homelessness,� said Kendra Hendry, a caseworker at Arizona's largest shelter, where older people make up about 30% of those staying there. �These are not necessarily people who have mental illness or substance abuse problems. They are people being pushed into the streets by rising rents."

Academics project their numbers will nearly triple over the next decade, challenging policy makers from Los Angeles to New York to imagine new ideas for sheltering the last of the baby boomers as they get older, sicker and less able to pay spiraling rents. Advocates say much more housing is needed, especially for extremely low-income people.

Navigating sidewalks in wheelchairs and walkers, the aging homeless have medical ages greater than their years, with mobility, cognitive and chronic problems like diabetes. Many contracted COVID-19 or couldn't work because of pandemic restrictions.

Cardelia Corley, 65, ended up on the streets of Los Angeles County after the hours at her telemarketing job were cut.

�I�d always worked, been successful, put my kid through college,� the single mother said. �And then all of a sudden things went downhill.�

Corley traveled all night aboard buses and rode commuter trains to catch a cat nap.

"And then I would go to Union Station downtown and wash up in the bathroom,� said Corley. She recently moved into a small East Hollywood apartment with help from The People Concern, a Los Angeles nonprofit.

A 2019 study of aging homeless people led by the University of Pennsylvania drew on 30 years of census data to project the U.S. population of people 65 and older experiencing homelessness will nearly triple from 40,000 to 106,000 by 2030, resulting in a public health crisis as their age-related medical problems multiply.

Dr. Margot Kushel, a physician who directs the Center for Vulnerable Populations at the University of California, San Francisco, said her research in Oakland on how homelessness affects health has shown nearly half of the tens of thousands of older homeless people in the U.S. are on the streets for the first time.

�We are seeing that retirement is no longer the golden dream,� said Kushel. "A lot of the working poor are destined to retire onto the streets."

That�s especially true of younger baby boomers, now in their late 50s to late 60s, who don�t have pensions or 401(k) accounts. About half of both women and men ages 55 to 66 have no retirement savings, according to the census.

Born between 1946 and 1964, baby boomers now number over 70 million, the census shows. With the oldest boomers in their mid 70s, all will hit age 65 by 2030.

The aged homeless also tend to have smaller Social Security checks after years working off the books.

Donald Whitehead Jr., executive director of the Washington-based advocacy group National Coalition for the Homeless, said Black, Latino and Indigenous people who came of age in the 1980s amid recession and high unemployment rates are disproportionately represented among the homeless.

Many nearing retirement never got well-paying jobs and didn't buy homes because of discriminatory real estate practices.

�So many of us didn't put money into retirement programs, thinking that Social Security was going to take care of us,� said Rudy Soliz, 63, operations director for Justa Center, which offers meals, showers, a mail drop and other services to the aged homeless in Phoenix.

The average monthly Social Security retirement payment as of December was $1,658. Many older homeless people have much smaller checks because they worked fewer years or earned less than others.

People 65 and over with limited resources and who didn't work enough to earn retirement benefits may be eligible for Supplemental Security Income of $841 a month.

Nestor Castro, 67, was luckier than many who lose permanent homes.

Castro was in his late 50s living in New York when his mother died and he was hospitalized with bleeding ulcers, losing their apartment. He initially stayed with his sister in Boston, then for more than three years at a YMCA in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Just before last Christmas, Castro got a permanent subsidized apartment through Hearth Inc., a Boston nonprofit dedicated to ending homelessness among older adults. Residents pay 30% of their income to stay in one if Hearth's 228 units.

Castro pays with part of his Social Security check and a part-time job. He also volunteers at a food pantry and a nonprofit that assists people with housing.

�Housing is a big problem around here because they are building luxury apartments that no one can afford,� he said. �A place down the street is $3,068 a month for a studio.�

(from the AP last month)

# ? May 23, 2022 15:22

Failed Imagineer: Sep 22, 2018

Next cycle, Flavortown should be the first primary

# ? May 23, 2022 16:05

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

I don't see any stories up about this yet, but the Supreme Court just ruled (6-3, obviously) that Arizona can still execute a man who was convicted of rape and murder 27 years ago, but had new evidence come out that may have exonerated him.

The ruling is technically on whether new evidence can be introduced in death penalty cases many years later during a federal appeal because the evidence was not submitted previously due to ineffective counsel.

Thomas says that "innocence alone is not enough" to justify allowing new information into a federal appeal that was not part of the original trial.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-1009_19m2.pdf

# ? May 23, 2022 16:08

Bar Ran Dun: Jan 22, 2006

Ghost Leviathan posted:

Language that equates fascist and communist ideas is inherently on the side of the fascists. They're not the ones who believe in words and definitions, after all.

As is language that equates the liberals and the fascists.

We should be framing everyone as against the fascists / revolutionary romantics.

# ? May 23, 2022 16:15

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; I am interested in most phases of data processing.

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

I don't see any stories up about this yet, but the Supreme Court just ruled (6-3, obviously) that Arizona can still execute a man who was convicted of rape and murder 27 years ago, but had new evidence come out that may have exonerated him.

The ruling is technically on whether new evidence can be introduced in death penalty cases many years later during a federal appeal because the evidence was not submitted previously due to ineffective counsel.

Thomas says that "innocence alone is not enough" to justify allowing new information into a federal appeal that was not part of the original trial.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-1009_19m2.pdf

I really don't understand this conservative hard-on for executing/imprisoning the wrongfully accused. Just one of those situations where I can't put myself in their place well enough to understand their motivations. Is it really just to avoid making the justice system look weak?

# ? May 23, 2022 16:25

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 25, 2024 23:45

Failed Imagineer: Sep 22, 2018

People aren't joking when they call it a death- cult, yknow

# ? May 23, 2022 16:32

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > US CE Spring 2022: I'm convinced it's useless which is why I argue about it all day every day

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