- Nick_326
- Nov 3, 2011
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History's Latest Monster
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Grand Theft Autobot posted:
So Tim Phillips, President of an organization that produces nothing of value, is complaining about waste and inefficiency? 
This is kind of off topic, but I realized that not everyone is aware of the fact that Phillips is an absolutely evil bastard.
I'll let David Wong explain:
quote:
Well, not too many years ago somebody was trying to figure out how to make cheap textiles with foreign child sweatshop labor, while still putting “Made in the USA” on the tag. They had the ingenious idea of setting up factories in the U.S. commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in the North Pacific.
They imported Chinese labor, where, without the protection of any US labor laws, there was forced prostitution for women and children both. Women were given forced abortions.
When somebody in the government saw that what could be considered “atrocities” were going on under the “Made in the USA” label, they introduced legislation to protect the island workers by requiring that they be covered under US labor laws.
This brings us to Tim Phillips, and his group.
They mailed letters to Christians in the districts of key legislators saying that congress was trying to pass a law and that they, as Christians, needed to stop it as part of their duty to the Lord. The mailings claimed the law would prevent the teachings of Christ from being brought to the fine Chinese laborers in the Northern Mariana Islands. If you love the lord, and want to see Christianity brought to these poor Chinese heathens, please contact your congressman and tell them to stop this legislation. Oh, and ignore anything you hear about “labor laws” or “raping children for money.”
So yeah, gently caress Tim Phillips. Just wanted to point that out.
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May 7, 2012 06:34
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May 10, 2024 07:59
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- Nick_326
- Nov 3, 2011
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History's Latest Monster
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Some condescending bullshit, courtesy of the Wall Street Journal.
quote:To the Class of 2012 by Bret Stephens
Attention graduates: Tone down your egos, shape up your minds.
Dear Class of 2012:
Allow me to be the first one not to congratulate you. Through exertions that—let's be honest—were probably less than heroic, most of you have spent the last few years getting inflated grades in useless subjects in order to obtain a debased degree. Now you're entering a lousy economy, courtesy of the very president whom you, as freshmen, voted for with such enthusiasm. Please spare us the self-pity about how tough it is to look for a job while living with your parents. They're the ones who spent a fortune on your education only to get you back— return-to-sender, forwarding address unknown.
No doubt some of you have overcome real hardships or taken real degrees. A couple of years ago I hired a summer intern from West Point. She came to the office directly from weeks of field exercises in which she kept a bulletproof vest on at all times, even while sleeping. She writes brilliantly and is as self-effacing as she is accomplished. Now she's in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban.
If you're like that intern, please feel free to feel sorry for yourself. Just remember she doesn't.
Unfortunately, dear graduates, chances are you're nothing like her. And since you're no longer children, at least officially, it's time someone tells you the facts of life. The other facts.
Fact One is that, in our "knowledge-based" economy, knowledge counts. Yet here you are, probably the least knowledgeable graduating class in history.
A few months ago, I interviewed a young man with an astonishingly high GPA from an Ivy League university and aspirations to write about Middle East politics. We got on the subject of the Suez Crisis of 1956. He was vaguely familiar with it. But he didn't know who was president of the United States in 1956. And he didn't know who succeeded that president.
Pop quiz, Class of '12: Do you?
Many of you have been reared on the cliché that the purpose of education isn't to stuff your head with facts but to teach you how to think. Wrong. I routinely interview college students, mostly from top schools, and I notice that their brains are like old maps, with lots of blank spaces for the uncharted terrain. It's not that they lack for motivation or IQ. It's that they can't connect the dots when they don't know where the dots are in the first place.
Now to Fact Two: Your competition is global. Shape up. Don't end your days like a man I met a few weeks ago in Florida, complaining that Richard Nixon had caused his New York City business to fail by opening up China.
In places like Ireland, France, India and Spain, your most talented and ambitious peers are graduating into economies even more depressed than America's. Unlike you, they probably speak several languages. They may also have a degree in a hard science or engineering—skills that transfer easily to the more remunerative jobs in investment banks or global consultancies.
I know a lot of people like this from my neighborhood in New York City, and it's a good thing they're so well-mannered because otherwise they'd be eating our lunch. But if things continue as they are, they might soon be eating yours.
Which reminds me of Fact Three: Your prospective employers can smell BS from miles away. And most of you don't even know how badly you stink.
When did puffery become the American way? Probably around the time Norman Mailer came out with "Advertisements for Myself." But at least that was in the service of provoking an establishment that liked to cultivate an ideal of emotional restraint and public reserve.
To read through your CVs, dear graduates, is to be assaulted by endless Advertisements for Myself. Here you are, 21 or 22 years old, claiming to have accomplished feats in past summer internships or at your school newspaper that would be hard to credit in a biography of Walter Lippmann or Ernie Pyle.
If you're not too bright, you may think this kind of nonsense goes undetected; if you're a little brighter, you probably figure everyone does it so you must as well.
But the best of you don't do this kind of thing at all. You have an innate sense of modesty. You're confident that your résumé needs no embellishment. You understand that less is more.
In other words, you're probably capable of thinking for yourself. And here's Fact Four: There will always be a market for people who can do that.
In every generation there's a strong tendency for everyone to think like everyone else. But your generation has an especially bad case, because your mass conformism is masked by the appearance of mass nonconformism. It's a point I learned from my West Point intern, when I asked her what it was like to lead such a uniformed existence.
Her answer stayed with me: Wearing a uniform, she said, helped her figure out what it was that really distinguished her as an individual.
Now she's a second lieutenant, leading a life of meaning and honor, figuring out how to Think Different for the sake of a cause that counts. Not many of you will be able to follow in her precise footsteps, nor do you need to do so. But if you can just manage to tone down your egos, shape up your minds, and think unfashionable thoughts, you just might be able to do something worthy with your lives. And even get a job. Good luck!
This was posted on another forum I hang out at and got some good responses:
quote:"Oh, you don't know who the president was in 1956? You must be a total moron and wasting your life. You don't matter to anyone. gently caress you."
quote:The thing about youth is that every single characteristic of a new generation can be laid at the feet of the old generation. Every single negative thing you have to say about these lazy, uneducated, self-entitled kids is undeniably the responsibility of you and your generation.
You raised them. You taught them right from wrong. You taught them in school. You set the educational policies and curricula that their mental state is a product of.
If you have a problem with how the current generation turned out, then look in the mirror dipshit. If a car come off the assembly line looking more like a bicycle, you don't start screaming at it and bitching about the choices it made along the way, you fire the moron that built the factory.
quote:I had to stop reading at this point:
durrrr posted:
Now you're entering a lousy economy, courtesy of the very president whom you, as freshmen, voted for with such enthusiasm.
This guy would blame students for 9/11 if he could figure out a way to do it.
quote:To top it off, the dude is only like 40 and is all up in "KIDS THESE DAYS SURE ARE STOOPID"
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May 14, 2012 05:22
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- Nick_326
- Nov 3, 2011
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History's Latest Monster
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From the Wall Street Journal.
quote:What Is the American Creed?
If we forget our basic ideals or shrug them off, we no longer deserve to be great.
By DAVID GELERNTER
Presidential elections are America's season for serious chats around the national dinner table. The sick economy, health care and the scope of government are the main issues. But another is even more important. Who are we? What is the United States? Recently Gov. Mitt Romney urged us to return to "the principles that made America, America." But too many of us don't know what those are, or think they can't work.
Yes, Americanism evolves, and by all means let's change our minds when we ought to. We should always be marching toward the American ideals of freedom, equality and democracy, as we did when we ended slavery, granted women the right to vote, and finally buried Jim Crow. But if we forget our basic ideals or shrug them off, as we are doing today, we no longer deserve to be great. Without our history and culture, we have no identity.
Almost no one believes that our public schools are doing a passable job of teaching American and Western civilization. Modern humanities education starts from the bizarre premise that students must be cured of the Europe-centered, misogynist, bigoted ideas of the past. Many American children have never heard a good word for the United States, the West, Judaism or Christianity their whole lives.
Who are we? Dawdling time is over. We have failed a whole generation of children. As of fall 2012, let all public schools be charter schools, competing for each tax dollar and student with every other school in the country. Of course this is a local issue—but a president's or would-be president's job is to lead. There are wonderful teachers, principals and schools out there, and a new public-school system based on the American ideal of achievement will know how to value them.
No principle is more American than equality. Every generation has strained closer to the ideal. We have seen the near eradication of race prejudice in a mere two generations—an astounding achievement. We are a nation of equal citizens, not of races or privileged cliques. Affirmative action has always been a misfit in this country. A system that elevates individuals because of the color of their skin, their race or their sex has no place in America.
Yet a boy born yesterday is destined to atone (if he happens to be the wrong color) for prejudice against black women 50 years ago. Modern America is a world where a future Supreme Court justice, Sonia Sotomayor, can say publicly in 2001, "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion [on the bench] than a white male who hasn't lived that life."
Once a justice has intuited, by dint of sheer racial brilliance, which party to a lawsuit is more simpatico and deserving, what then? Invite him to lunch? Friend him on Facebook? This is not justice as America knows it.
Next Independence Day let's celebrate the long-overdue end of affirmative action, and our triumphant return to the American ideal of equality.
Modern American culture is in the hands of intellectuals—unfortunates born with high IQ and low common sense. Witness ObamaCare, a health-care policy, now somehow deemed constitutional, that forces millions of Americans to buy something they don't want.
Bilingualism was the intellectuals' response to one of the best breaks America ever got, a common language to unite its uncommon people. Resolved: The federal government will henceforth conduct its business and publish its statements in English, period. There is plenty of room in this country for new immigrants of all races and religions who want to learn America's culture and be part of this people; none for those who dislike all things American except dollars. Resolved: The federal government will henceforth enforce its own immigration laws.
America's creed is blessedly simple. Freedom, equality, democracy and America as the promised land, the new Jerusalem. What Thomas Jefferson had in mind when he invoked "the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our fathers, as Israel of old, from their native land and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessaries and comforts of life."
President Obama rejects this creed. He doesn't buy the city-on-a-hill stuff. He sees particular nations as a blur; only the global community is big enough for him. He is at home on the exalted level of whole races and peoples and the vast, paternal power of central governments.
The president has revealed no sense of America's mission to move constantly forward "with malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right." Lincoln's sublime biblical English uses the parallel stanzas of ancient Hebrew poetry. That is who we are: a biblical republic, striving to live up to its creed. The dominion of ignorance will pass away like smoke and we will know and be ourselves again the moment we choose to be. Why not now?
Mr. Gelernter, a professor of computer science at Yale, is the author of "America-Lite," out on July 4 by Encounter Books.
"Smart people are ruining this country." -Yale professor.
Someone on another forum posted:In summation: We should uphold liberty, freedom, and equality, and we should uphold the most liberty, freedom and equality for white, upper-middle class English speakers.
Also, this Christian-majority nation doesn't say enough good stuff about Jesus.
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Jul 3, 2012 22:35
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- Nick_326
- Nov 3, 2011
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History's Latest Monster
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Holy christ this person is doubling down:
horrible person posted:Well, at least no one is calling for my “head on a stick” — but that’s probably because Prof. Erik Loomis of the University of Rhode Island is about the only person or entity that hasn’t denounced me for pointing out in NRO’s Sandy Hook symposium that the school could have used a few male teachers on the premises who might have tackled down the runtish Adam Lanza before he did the worst of his damage. It’s no small thing, of course, to stop a gunman, whatever his size, but there might have been more of a chance with a few men on hand. I asserted that the “feminized setting” that prevails at elementary schools and the education schools that train their personnel creates a culture of “helpless passivity” that puts women and small children at risk when a psychopath like Lanza decides to blow out the doors.
I’ve been reviled by the Holy Trinity of online liberal journalism: David Weigel (Slate), Alex Pareene (Salon), and Jessica Valenti (The Nation). Also: Daily Kos, Media Matters, and Mediaite, just to name a few spleen outlets (you can Google my name plus “Sandy Hook” to see the links to dozens of others). At Esquire’s Politics blog, Charles Pierce gave me the McArdle Award, named after the Daily Beast’s Megan McArdle for suggesting that gang-rushing the shooter would work better than gun bans to avert mass murders or minimize their deadly damage. (Since I wholeheartedly agree with McArdle — and I suggested that very tactic in my NRO symposium piece–I’m honored to accept the award.) One of Pierce’s commenters wrote that someone ought to “beat the stupid” out of me. Remarks like that are the way that liberal guys demonstrate that they, too, possess testicles.
Finally, even Jonah Goldberg right here at NRO accused me of “blaming the victim.” Et tu, Jonah! I can’t take most of the criticisms seriously, but I will respond to Jonah: No, I was not blaming any of the 26 victims or the parents who enrolled their kids at Sandy Hook. I am, however, blaming our culture that denies, dismisses, and denigrates the masculine traits—including size, strength, male aggression and a male facility for strategic thinking–that until recently have been viewed as essential for building a society and protecting its weaker members. We now have Hanna Rosin at Slate urging parents to buy their little boys Easy Bake ovens so they’ll be more like little girls. Women are less aggressive by instinct, and they are typically trained to be nice. I praised and continue to praise the courage of the Sandy Hook principal, Dawn Hochsburg, and the teachers who gave up their lives along with her, but with some men on the scene who knew what to do, some of those lives might have been saved.
I am also responding to David Weigel, who told me I gotten my facts wrong: that there are actually two men, a custodian and a fourth-grade teacher, on Sandy Hook’s 52-person staff. He’s right, and I stand corrected. This does help prove my point, though: just two adult men in a building containing 500 people — and it’s not clear that both of them were at work that day. Indeed, a visit to Sandy Hook’s staff website is a depressing experience, the sea of women’s names. Why aren’t there more men? Perhaps not enough want the job? But why? Because they are tacitly discouraged from careers in elementary education? It’s certainly not the money, because union rules typically require kindergarten teachers and high-school chemistry teachers to be paid on exactly the same salary scale. Another depressing page on the Sandy Hook website is the “Safe Schools Climate” page. It’s a page of links to “anti-bullying” resources. Yes, the Sandy Hook staff’s idea of a “safe school” was a school where kids didn’t say mean things about each other on Facebook! The Sandy Hook massacre was a tragedy, but it was at least in part a tragedy of the collision between feminist delusions and reality.
aaaaaargh what the actual gently caress
Switching gears, here's some horrible bullshit from Peter Hitchens of the Daily Mail:
"If we are all so disgusted by the Savile affair, which is over, why are we not much more revolted by the schools and clinics which, during next week, will be giving contraceptive jabs and implants to underage girls, so they can have underage sex?"
"How many years, I wonder, before child prostitution is once again openly practised in this country? Laugh if you like."
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Jan 7, 2013 06:40
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- Nick_326
- Nov 3, 2011
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History's Latest Monster
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The guy DOES make some good points about technological advancements making things easier for a poor person nowadays than a rich guy in the 1920s, but following this line of thought, wouldn't that mean that a modern day rich guy be even better?
This reminded me of some small controversy that went down last year, when some news site published a story that included a photo of a an 8-year-old with an iPad on the steps of his public housing development. I like the point the author made here:
quote:I could try to defend myself and say that I think it's ridiculous for anybody in any income bracket to buy rims, but that's rather beside the point. I'm not my best self when I'm sitting in judgment and managing other people's money, and I doubt you're at your best when you do.
The idea that most people in public housing are living the lush life has persisted for at least as long as presidential candidate Ronald Reagan started using the offensive "welfare queen." But you ought to take a walk through the Iberville if you think its residents are living like royalty. Walk through and see if you'd exchange their thrones for yours.
The sight of a kid in public housing with an iPad doesn't offend me. Actually it gives me hope. So many poor people have no access to the digital world. They fall behind in school because of it. They miss the opportunity to apply for certain jobs. Yes an iPad is an expensive gadget, but we can't deny its usefulness. As computers go, an iPad comes cheaper than most laptops and desktops.
Back on topic, with some context courtesy of this post in a thread on miscarriages of justice:
Wrongfully convicted people is what always infuriates me. This country has a track record with doing this to blacks. The absolute worst cases are when multiple people are tried for a crime and all wrongfully convicted.
One of the most famous cases is the Central Park Jogger case that convicted 5 minority males, a.k.a. The Central Park Five, of brutally assaulting and raping a white woman in Central Park. They happened to be running with a group of 20-30 juveniles who were committing actual harassment and assault on people in the park, but happened to do at the same time a serial rapist named Matias Reyes was brutally raping Trisha Meili. They weren't near the location when it happened, but during questioning the police never told the kids where the crime took place. The kids were railroaded and coerced into implicating the others.
The most central person responsible is Linda Fairstein who was the lead investigator (and busy promoting her books on Facebook, who has never suffered any consequences for ruining the lives of five kids. In fact, after Mr. Reyes confessed to raping the woman, Fairstein only slightly changed her original conclusion and said the kids must have helped him rape her because no man could to that by himself.
The five kids filed a malicious prosecution lawsuit against the city of New York, and the city refuses to settle.
Another much more well-known case is the West Memphis Three. Going with the theme of Satanic hysteria, the teenagers were accused of murdering young boys in a Satanic ritual.
PBS recently aired a documentary on the case, and some guy started a petition to get Elizabeth Lederer (the case's prosecutor who, to my knowledge, has never apologized for her role) fired from Columbia Law School. Sounds understandable, right?
Jim Dwyer, a Pulitzer-winning journalist who appeared in the documentary and had written about how Lederer misrepresented evidence, somehow has the loving gall to make this staggering false equivalency:
quote:It was a simple task to discover Elizabeth Lederer on Google, just as those boys were easy to find in the park. The petition has found someone to blame, repeating the very mistake of the injustice it deplores.
Yes, convicting a group of people for a crime they didn't commit is the same as trying to hold a public official accountable for poo poo she actually did.
quote:The petition against Ms. Lederer, in part, reduces her life in public service to a single moment, the jogger case. In fact, she has a lengthy résumé of unchallenged convictions in cold cases, having pursued investigations of forgotten crimes.
There are people who are in prison solely for marijuana possession. Countless people in prison are there because they were judged on single moments.
quote:No one lives without error.
This is true. Just last month I got several people convicted for rape by misleading everyone, which allowed the real rapist to continue going around raping other people. WHOOPSY DAISY.
quote:And designating a single villain completely misses the point and power of the documentary. The jogger case belongs to a historical moment, not any one prosecutor or detective; it grew in the soils of a rancid, angry, fearful time.
And that means nobody should face any consequences for this travesty. Got it.
Ta-Nehisi Coates responds to this, and is golden:
quote:For my part, I'm a little puzzled by Dwyer's defense. Before she scrubbed her bio, Lederer proudly advertised her role in the prosecution of the Central Park Five. Ledere did not simply fail to live "without error." She sent a 16-year old boy to Riker's Island on the basis of coerced testimony. She sent four other boys off to prison, and she did this even after it was revealed that no DNA from any of the attackers was found on the victim. The real rapist was not found because of the investigative efforts of the police or Lederer, but because of his own need to confess. If not for that confession the Central Park Five would still be considered rapists. By that time the rapist had gone on to rape other women, killing one.
The notion that someone who played a principle role in this travesty should be training lawyers at one of the best schools in the country is rather amazing. We are not suggesting that our prosecutors must live "without error." We are suggest that those who participated in one of the most dubious cases in the city's history, and have never apologized for it, should not be in the business of educating the next generation of lawyers.
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May 10, 2013 22:26
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- Nick_326
- Nov 3, 2011
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History's Latest Monster
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"I Got Yelled At By An Inner City Kid At A YMCA Camp."
That's the actual title of the piece. Let that sink in for a moment.
quote:I never went to public school. This is probably for the best because frankly I don’t think I would have survived.
I did, however, go to summer camp with the inner city kids. So I got a brief taste of what public school would have been like. I got to experience the unapologetic cruelty of kids in their early teens, their insatiable sense of entitlement and their uncanny ability to rebuff their peers with reckless abandon.
The summer when I was ten I spent a few weeks at YMCA camp. Our day was regimented with various activities, none of which I was good at, like swimming, basketball, being outside, and doing crafts in large groups. I was good at crafts, just not group crafts, because anyone who has ever survived a group project knows that maybe two out of seven kids come away from it feeling good about the final result, and those are usually the ones who didn’t care to begin with.
So naturally, the boy who gave me a welcomeness complex did so during a group project. Let’s call him Paul. Honestly his name doesn’t matter because I haven’t seen him since 2001 and I wouldn’t recognize him if I tripped over him. We were sitting at a long table, and the craft du jour was to paint a long piece of brown paper (the kind grocery bags are made of) until it could reasonably be called a banner. I don’t remember the details. As with most group projects that involve more than ten rambunctious kids, I didn’t feel very attached to the project.
Paul was sitting next to me, listening to music on a bulky set of headphones. They must have been the 1999 equivalent of Beats. That’s how cool he thought he was. In the middle of the project Paul excused himself from the table but before doing so, he handed his headphones and CD player (back in the day…) to the kid sitting across from him and uttered something to the effect of “yo man check this out.”
Yo Man across the table did check it out. He put on the headphones and started grooving. Then he put the headphones and player back on the table and the kid next to him picked it up and started listening too. He also seemed to like what he heard. So when that kid put the set back down on the table it was clear to me what I needed to do. I picked up the headphones and put them on. I smiled at the other two kids, as though this was some sort of initiation. We all liked the music coming out of Paul’s headphones so naturally we must all be fast friends.
I might have gotten to enjoy about two drumbeats before Paul materialized before me. He had returned to his seat. I smiled at him proudly – I was a fan of his music so he must be a fan of me. We were friends now, right? Wrong.
Paul was mad. I cautiously removed the headphones and began handing the set back to Paul, but not before he could shout, “What do you think you’re DOING?” I told him what I thought I was doing: “I thought you wanted us all to hear that song.”
Paul didn’t want us all to hear that song.
As tears began to well up in my eyes one of the camp counselors appeared between Paul’s chair and mine. “What’s the problem, Paul?” she said in a tone indicating that this was not Paul’s first problem of this sort. “She had my headphones! She was all puttin’ em on her EARS!”
He said this as though my ears were the last surface any pair of headphones could be unfortunate enough to find themselves upon. My ears were very clean, thank you very much. I had just come back from swimming in the vat of chlorine that is the YMCA pool. But regardless of the quality of my ears, it took everything in me not to run away crying. Paul had humiliated me. He could have just dealt with it. He could have been nice. He could have reacted in any way more mild than publicizing my rejection so that the whole camp could tune in.
I guess you could say I’m not the kind of person who takes welcomeness for granted. I tend not to assume I’m part of a group unless I am told directly or it otherwise becomes obvious. Coworkers, school friends, I know when I am in and when I’m hanging around the outskirts. And when I’m hanging around the outskirts I have a tendency to just leave. Outskirts are no fun. You’re expendable. You’re the one that finds out on Monday morning what the group did over the weekend. I don’t do outskirts. I’m in or I’m gone. I’m not saying that’s how everyone should live, it’s just what I’ve found to be most assuring.
This is not to say I blame Paul or this one arbitrary episode for my insecurities as an adult, although they do say that the things you remember from your childhood are remembered for a reason. That those instances shaped a part of who you are, how you identify yourself, how you are hardwired. They are indicative beyond the surface.
What do I mean by “welcomeness complex,” exactly? Just that I never go ahead and make the assumption that I’m welcome with a new person. I feel situations out first. The person I am today wouldn’t pick up Paul’s headphones without being very sure it was okay with him, that we were on that level. Maybe that’s just because I’m older. Or maybe it’s because sometimes people make us feel a certain way that we are committed to never feeling again. Rejected. Unwanted. Repulsive. We avoid their recurrences like the plague and that is how we become guarded.
I think most of us have stories like this. Little ones, big ones. I’m sure many people have much worse ones that would break your heart to hear. This one is minor, relatively speaking. But I suppose the lesson here is that you never know what words you say that some people will never forget – for better or for worse – that they will allow to shape and mold their character and the walls they build. We can’t always predict when or why our words will become immortal.
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Aug 14, 2013 17:16
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- Nick_326
- Nov 3, 2011
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History's Latest Monster
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This thing is related to the Incognito/Martin story in the NFL. If you're not familiar with the story, here are some links that might help:
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3580737
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/9939308/richie-incognito-jonathan-martin-miami-dolphins-bullying-scandal
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/11/you-dont-want-to-fight-an-nfl-lineman-stop-talking-like-you-do/281161/
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/11/richie-incognito-and-the-banality-of-supermacho/281203/
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/11/how-to-be-one-of-the-guys/281296/
http://www.reddit.com/r/nfl/comments/1q6rg1/official_incognitomartin_megathread/
Short version: Miami Dolphins player Jonathan Martin recently came forward and said that teammate Richie Incognito was being a gargantuan piece of poo poo as part of some "hazing" bullshit.
Some other NFL players, many of them anonymous, have defended Incognito's actions because uuuuugggghhhh. Former Dolphins player Lydon Murtha wrote an editorial defending him:
http://mmqb.si.com/2013/11/07/richie-incognito-jonathan-martin-dolphins-lydon-murtha/
quote:Martin was expected to play left tackle beside Incognito at guard from the start, so Incognito took him under his wing. They were close friends by all apperances. Martin had a tendency to tank when things would get difficult in practice, and Incognito would lift him up. He’d say, there’s always tomorrow. Richie has been more kind to Martin than any other player.
In other situations, when Martin wasn’t showing effort, Richie would give him a lot of crap. He was a leader on the team, and he would get in your face if you were unprepared or playing poorly. The crap he would give Martin was no more than he gave anyone else, including me. Other players said the same things Incognito said to Martin, so you’d need to suspend the whole team if you suspend Incognito.
Which brings me to my first point: I don’t believe Richie Incognito bullied Jonathan Martin. I never saw Martin singled out, excluded from anything, or treated any differently than the rest of us. We’d have dinners and the occasional night out, and everyone was invited. He was never told he can’t be a part of this. It was the exact opposite. But when he came out, he was very standoffish. That’s why the coaches told the leaders, bring him out of his shell. Figure him out a little bit.
http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/9926139/richie-incognito-miami-dolphins-used-slurs-messages-jonathan-martin
quote:Multiple sources confirmed to ESPN that the following is a transcript of a voice message Incognito left for Martin in April 2013, a year after Martin was drafted:
"Hey, wassup, you half n----- piece of s---. I saw you on Twitter, you been training 10 weeks. [I want to] s--- in your f---ing mouth. [I'm going to] slap your f---ing mouth. [I'm going to] slap your real mother across the face [laughter]. F--- you, you're still a rookie. I'll kill you."
Yes, when I want to get to know someone better, I leave death threats and use racial slurs.
quote:That’s where Incognito ran into a problem. Personally, I know when a guy can’t handle razzing. You can tell that some guys just aren’t built for it. Incognito doesn’t have that filter. He was the jokester on the team, and he joked with everybody from players to coaches. That voicemail he sent came from a place of humor, but where he really screwed up was using the N-word. That, I cannot condone, and it’s probably the biggest reason he’s not with the team right now. Odd thing is, I’ve heard Incognito call Martin the same thing to his face in meetings and all Martin did was laugh. Many more worse things were said about others in the room from all different parties. It’s an Animal House. Now Incognito’s being slandered as a racist and a bigot, and unfortunately that’s never going to be wiped clean because of all the wrong he’s done people in his past. But if you really know who Richie is, he’s a really good, kind man and far from a racist.
Hahaha sure.
Meanwhile, other players have different opinions on this "good, kind man":
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/11/08/cam-cleeland-victim-of-hazing-aghast-at-martin-reaction/
quote:“I’m not afraid to say that he was an immature, unrealistic scumbag,” Cleeland said. “When it came down to it, he had no personality, he was a locker-room cancer, and he just wanted to fight everybody all the time. It was bizarre beyond belief.”
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Nov 9, 2013 18:53
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- Nick_326
- Nov 3, 2011
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History's Latest Monster
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But wait, there's more! Another former NFL player, Nathan Jackson, defends Incognito:
http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/richie-incognito-2013-11/
quote:Through the TV screen, Richie Incognito looks like the big jerk. But we don’t understand the context, intent, or perception of the joking that goes on in that locker room, or whether it was perceived as joking in the first place. The voice-mail in question sure sounds like a joke, albeit a bad one: It allegedly involves Incognito using the N-word and offering to poop in the dude’s mouth.
Of course, no one but ESPN’s Adam Schefter takes the mouth-defecation threats seriously. I mean, imagine the logistics there. But that Incognito called Martin a half-N-word is worth discussing. Out in society, the word friend of the family still excites and appalls, and a white man who is unlucky enough to utter it, even in jest, is forever labeled a racist. But inside an NFL locker room, the meaning of the word has washed out. There are white men who are so close to their black brothers that their lexicon is identical, and they communicate with the same phrases, jokes, and nicknames.
Some in the media were quick to label Incognito a racist, but some of his black teammates defended him. Every NFL locker room is full of proud black men who have a keen eye for the intentions of their white peers. If Richie Incognito said the N-word in a malicious way, those teammates would have taken care of the problem.
Thankfully, Ta-Nehisi Coates is there to call him out:
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/11/richie-incognitos-accidental-racism-an-apologia/281320/
quote:The thinking here is unfortunate. If I am found on camera inveighing against "hook-nosed Jews," to call myself "unlucky" would be deflection and self-serving understatement. The word "unlucky" presumes that virtually all adult white men can be found, at some point, in full on Michael Richards-mode and those of us who shame them for it are the real culprits.
This is is accidental racism, which is to say white innocence, at its finest. Richie Incognito did not choose to employ the most incendiary slur in the American lexicon, so much as he was caught by some peeping Tom (who happened to be the victim.) Riley Cooper didn't physically threaten a black security guard with a phrase that has been accompanied some of the worst acts of terrorism in our country's history, some rude voyeur videoed Cooper relieving himself in public.
quote:The limits of using work-place friendships to analyze something that happened outside of the workplace, are evident in Jackson's notion that "friend of the family" is the ultimate statement of fraternity. White people who actually spend time around black people--not black individuals whom they know from work, but black people with their families, in their communities, with their parents--will quickly notice that using "friend of the family" actually isn't a barometer of closeness. I'm black and I don't call even some of my best friends friend of the family. They, unlike me, are offended by it. Black humans, like most humans, are different from each other. But to grasp this, you must have to have relationships with black humans that go beyond your job.
That is why black players defending Incognito is irrelevant. Those players are free to invite Richie Incognito to call their voicemails and threaten their lives, and threaten their mothers, and threaten to poo poo in their mouths, and call them half-niggers, and when it all becomes public hold a press conference in which they laud Incognito as the second coming of Lincoln.
But Martin doesn't have to live by their standards. Arguing that he should because, like, these other black dudes I work with it said it was fine, is myopia.
Read TNC's article. It's good, like all of TNC's stuff.
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Nov 10, 2013 19:55
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- Nick_326
- Nov 3, 2011
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History's Latest Monster
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Dana Milbank over at WaPo: "Congress wouldn't be so partisan if there were more noble veterans in there! We should bring back the draft."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...c0a9_story.html
quote:As I make my rounds each day in the capital, chronicling our leaders’ plentiful foibles, failings, screw-ups, inanities, outrages and overall dysfunction, I’m often asked if there’s anything that could clean up the mess…
But one change, over time, could reverse the problems that have built up over the past few decades: We should mandate military service for all Americans, men and women alike, when they turn 18. The idea is radical, unlikely and impractical — but it just might work.
There is no better explanation for what has gone wrong in Washington in recent years than the tabulation done every two years of how many members of Congress served in the military.
A Congressional Quarterly count of the current Congress finds that just 86 of the 435 members of the House are veterans, as are only 17 of 100 senators, which puts the overall rate at 19 percent. This is the lowest percentage of veterans in Congress since World War II, down from a high of 77 percent in 1977-78, according to the American Legion. For the past 21 years, the presidency has been occupied by men who didn’t serve or, in the case of George W. Bush, served in a capacity designed to avoid combat.
It’s no coincidence that this same period has seen the gradual collapse of our ability to govern ourselves: a loss of control over the nation’s debt, legislative stalemate and a disabling partisanship. It’s no coincidence, either, that Americans’ approval of Congress has dropped to just 9 percent, the lowest since Gallup began asking the question 39 years ago.
Because so few serving in politics have worn their country’s uniform, they have collectively forgotten how to put country before party and self-interest. They have forgotten a “cause greater than self,” and they have lost the knowledge of how to make compromises for the good of the country. Without a history of sacrifice and service, they’ve turned politics into war.
A rebuttal, as if it needed one: http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/the-dumbest-argument-for-restoring-the-draft-yet/
Virgina Postrel over at Bloomberg: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-02/who-needs-a-raise-when-you-have-tv-.html
quote:Are you better off now than you were 10 years ago? For middle-class Americans, a common answer to this version of Ronald Reagan’s old question is no. Nor are they optimistic about the future. The recession may be over officially, but a lot of smart people are convinced that broad-based improvements in the standard of living are largely a thing of the past.
Before you embrace the idea that today is worse than yesterday and tomorrow won’t be much better, however, consider a common experience:
On a flight across the country, you watch the playoff game on live television, listen to some favorite playlists as you catch up on work, then relax with some video poker. Arriving home, you delete the game from your DVR and consider your options. Too tired for an intense cable drama -- which you prefer to experience in immersive weekend marathons of at least three episodes each -- you stream a first-season episode of “Duck Dynasty” from Amazon.com, then run last week’s “Elementary” from your DVR queue. While watching, you check IMDB.com to see where you’ve seen that familiar-looking guest star before, then you jump to your Facebook and Twitter feeds. You finish the evening with “SportsCenter,” recorded just far enough ahead that you can skip most of the commercials.
Little of this customized entertainment would have been possible a decade ago -- and almost none of it shows up in the income and productivity statistics that dominate our understanding of the economy. A form of progress that large numbers of people experience every day, the increase in entertainment variety and convenience represents a challenge to the increasingly conventional wisdom that American living standards have stagnated, at least for the middle class.
Yeah, forget the statistics highlighting income inequality, I can stream "Mad Men" while slurping on Gogurt.
quote:New entertainment options are particularly important to poorer people with ample leisure time. (Those working two or three jobs are a different matter.) That’s because as income falls, the time devoted to leisure goes up, even among fully employed people.
http://www.thewrap.com/colbert-chides-thanks-bloomberg-article-who-needs-raise-tv
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Dec 11, 2013 19:34
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- Nick_326
- Nov 3, 2011
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History's Latest Monster
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This letter to the Wall Street Journal has an interesting theory about the end goal of those who don't love the rich:
This was written by Mr. Tom Perkins, founder of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. There are a few points to disagree on, let's start with how in 1930s Germany the Jewish population didn't have quite the same levels of political power and influence as the organizers of Kristallnacht. Also the super-rich aren't an ethnic/religious minority.
Hahaha WSJ is now defending this bullshit: "Perkinsnacht: Liberal Vituperation Makes Our Letter Writer's Point."
quote: While claiming to be outraged at the Nazi reference, the critics seem more incensed that Mr. Perkins dared to question the politics of economic class warfare. The boys at Bloomberg View—we read them since no one else does—devoted an entire editorial to inequality and Mr. Perkins's "unhinged Nazi rant." Others denounced him for defending his former wife Danielle Steel, and even for owning too many Rolex watches.
Maybe the critics are afraid that Mr. Perkins is onto something about the left's political method.
quote:The liberals aren't encouraging violence, but they are promoting personal vilification and the abuse of government power to punish political opponents.
http://www.popehat.com/2014/01/30/your-criticism-of-my-holocaust-analogy-is-like-yet-another-holocaust/
http://boingboing.net/2014/01/30/wall-street-journal-defends-na.html
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Feb 1, 2014 19:55
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- Nick_326
- Nov 3, 2011
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History's Latest Monster
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Earlier this month, a college basketball player made the decision to transfer colleges so he could be closer to his sick daughter, who requires weekly hospital visits.
Some smug dickhead wrote an editorial focusing entirely on the language of the press release (because this guy is the only person to read a press release he didn't write personally, which is UNFORGIVABLE), complete with dog-whistle racism.
http://www2.kusports.com/news/2014/may/02/column-naadir-tharpe-jolly-good-chap/
quote:
Column: Naadir Tharpe jolly good chap
By Tom Keegan
Interviewing him for three years, I never once heard Naadir Tharpe say, “At this juncture.” But there it was in the press release announcing his transfer, so he absolutely, 100 percent must have said it.
Not only that, Tharpe used the phrase “Due to extenuating circumstances” for what I believe possibly could be the first time in his life. And he used them both in the same paragraph. Clearly, he devoted a great deal of time in crafting his quote. He must have told himself: “I shan’t treat this matter with anything but utmost gravity.”
An excerpt from the release included this Tharpe quote: “Due to extenuating circumstances within my personal life, I will no longer be attending the University of Kansas.”
Then he explained that his daughter has medical issues that require weekly visits to her physician as well as with a specialist.
“At this juncture, I feel it is best to be closer to home where I can assist and support in any way necessary,” he continued.
It’s the right thing for a father to do, so I’m glad he’s doing it. I’m also happy that he’ll have two years to complete requirements for a degree. At least I would hope the NCAA does not consider him a hardship case and let him play right away. He’ll be able to stay at home more often if he’s red-shirting than if he’s playing in away games. Plus, he’ll have a better shot in the business world with two years to earn a degree than if he plays next season and falls short of earning the sheepskin.
I’ve always liked Tharpe. Friendly, candid, good sense of humor.
Pity I didn’t get to know the fine lad well enough to converse with him to the point he felt comfortable speaking the King’s English. I read the release and pictured him sipping tea with legs crossed, scarf around his neck, patches on the elbows of his tweed jacket, lamenting, “Oh dear, wherever did I leave the crumpets?”
"He only spoke in that gangster hooligan talk to me! My word!"
"Also, what's so hard about raising an ill child who needs regular medical attention?"
quote:I’m happy he’ll be playing somewhere in New England because it’s best for his daughter, his daughter’s mother, for Tharpe and I suspect for the Kansas basketball team.
When in doubt, college basketball coaches tend to resort to their security blankets, otherwise known as their most experienced players.
As long as Tharpe was in the program, coach Bill Self forever was going to be tempted to play him, thus stunting the growth of players with higher ceilings, such as likely recruit Devonte Graham and rising sophomores Conner Frankamp and Frank Mason.
Do join me in sending a word Naadir’s way: Cheerio!
Yeah thank goodness Tharpe's kid wasn't healthy or you would've had to endure another season with him at KU. Thank God for small miracles.
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May 11, 2014 15:46
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- Nick_326
- Nov 3, 2011
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History's Latest Monster
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I'm not sure it counts as an editorial, but the AP posted this thing a while ago on the guy behind the Chapel Hill shooting and it's just...baffling.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ed392e6110a341a9bbe00578ebfb0919/shooting-suspect-slams-religion-while-defending-liberty
quote:
Shooting suspect slams religion while defending liberty
By ALLEN G. BREED and MICHAEL BIESECKER
Feb. 15, 2015 2:39 PM EST
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) — If his Facebook page is any indication, Craig Hicks doesn't hate Muslims. An avowed atheist, his online posts instead depict a man who despises religion itself, but nevertheless seems to support an individual's right to his own beliefs.
"I hate Islam just as much as christianity, but they have the right to worship in this country just as much as any others do," the man now accused of killing three Muslim college students stated in one 2012 post over the proposed construction of a mosque near the World Trade Center site in New York.
Days after the shooting deaths of Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23; his wife, Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, 21; and her sister, Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19, a nuanced and sometimes contradictory portrait is emerging of the man charged in their slayings.
Police in Chapel Hill said they have yet to uncover any evidence that Hicks, 46, allegedly acted out of religious animus, though they are investigating the possibility. As a potential motive, they cited a dispute over parking spaces at the condo community where Hicks and two of the victims lived.
Hicks' court-appointed lawyer, Stephen Freedman, said he could not comment on the case. Hicks was being held without bond.
In often publicly posted Facebook rants, Hicks was brazen about his disdain for all faiths. In one post regarding specific texts from the Quran, the Jewish Talmud and the Bible about battling nonbelievers, he wrote: "I wish they would exterminate each other!"
But he was just as passionate about personal freedom and liberty — championing an individual's right to worship or not worship, legal abortion and gay marriage and, perhaps most fervently, the right to own and bear arms. If he has a creed, it's the Second Amendment.
quote:In a news conference after her husband's arrest, Karen Hicks claimed to be as baffled as anyone about how a man who loves the Pittsburgh Steelers, the United States Constitution and dogs — especially his own black and brown mutt, Rocky — could have done something so vicious. She was adamant that the shootings stemmed from a long-simmering dispute over parking at their condo complex, not the victims' faith.
quote:One of the victim's fathers, Namee Barakat, told the AP that Hicks also had visited his son's condo previously, flashing his gun as he demanded they stop using visitors' parking spots.
On Monday, Hicks posted a precious video link with his Facebook friends. The clip showed a dachshund puppy, repeatedly dinging a small silver bell with its paw to receive a treat.
"A different take on Pavlov!" he wrote, referring to the famous psychological experiment. "The cutest thing you have seen all day!!"
It was his last post. The following day, according to police, Hicks walked around to the backside of his condo building, entered his neighbors' home and, their friends and family believe, made martyrs of the three young Muslims.
Thanks for telling us that the guy who killed three people loves his dog that is crucial information
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Feb 20, 2015 18:09
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- Nick_326
- Nov 3, 2011
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History's Latest Monster
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http://www.ocregister.com/articles/laws-698065-new-stores.html
It's since been removed, but the fine folks at the Orange County Register Editorial originally included the bold part:
quote: AB202 requires professional sports teams to consider cheerleaders “employees under existing employment laws,” instead of independent contractors. It was proposed by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, a former Stanford University cheerleader, now cheering for excessive government. Being a cheerleader for a pro team obviously has fringe benefit lacking at other jobs, such as working closely with players making an average $1.9 million a year in the NFL and $5 million in the NBA. Six of 32 NFL teams don’t even have pro cheerleaders, meaning the jobs could be kicked through the goalposts of life.
http://www.ocweekly.com/news/this-just-in-orange-county-registers-brian-calle-is-not-a-douche-6877118
http://jezebel.com/op-ed-cheerleaders-dont-need-to-be-paid-since-they-wor-1750989260
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Jan 7, 2016 17:32
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- Nick_326
- Nov 3, 2011
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History's Latest Monster
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Actual title: "Kids would rather play Xbox than make money shoveling. It’s pitiful."
There's so much of the "kids these days!" and "bootstraps! work ethic!" rhetoric that it borders on parody.
quote:But on our Capitol Hill street, it was only the grown-up hustlers peddling their shoveling. The precious snowflakes called neighborhood children?
“I got them outside to help me shovel, but then they just ended up playing in the back yard,” said the toughest, strictest dad I know, a square-jawed guy who manages construction sites.
Seriously?
“It was such a rare storm,” he said. “I had to let them play.”
I knew he was a softie.
quote:While the blizzard was still howling on Saturday, my boys and I suited up for the pre-shovel.
That’s an important lesson, to keep shoveling as the snow falls, I explained.
They scooped, pushed and scraped. Then got bored.
The shovels are swords! And lightsabers!
“Get back to work!” I yelled.
And they did, trying to scrape up the snow they just stomped on.
“No, no, no. You have to shovel it before you tamp it down. Where is your logic? Your technique?” I said. Yikes. I sounded like my dad.
More scraping, scooping, then whining.
“I’m tired. My hands are cold.”
“My feet are cold.”
“The ice shards are flying into my face and cutting me up!”
The dread hit me. If this is their work ethic, what kind of future will they have? Will these kids, defeated by 20 inches of snow, ever make it out of my basement?
My 9-year-old says he wants to go to Georgetown University because he saw a lacrosse game there once. And he likes the bulldog.
“Georgetown? You think you’ll make it into Georgetown with this work ethic?” I warned as he tried to weasel out of shoveling. “College will be, like, impossible if you think clearing off these steps is hard.”
“Can we go inside and have hot chocolate?” they whined.
They won’t even make it out of high school.
quote:As school was closed for the big dig-out, I tried again to inspire some hustle in my little childlumps, whose only hustle was to get a sleepover going.
“There are still lots of cars buried out there,” I said. “I bet you can make enough money for that Lego Poe Dameron X-Wing you want.”
No spark in their eyes. What’s going on? Should I introduce them to Gordon Gekko? Am I raising a Bernie Sanders army?
“Mom. You say we have too many Legos,” one cleverly pointed out.
“We just want to play with our friends,” the other said.
Probably down in the basement.
Pretty fond of this quote:
quote:All over social media, folks were telling kids to get off their Xboxes and get to work.
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Mar 2, 2016 22:16
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May 10, 2024 07:59
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- Nick_326
- Nov 3, 2011
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History's Latest Monster
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"How one 31-year-old paid off $220,000 in student loans in 3 years"
quote:Back home in Joliet, Illinois, Horton took a job as an operations manager at the nonprofit her mother runs. The salary was comparable to what she made in DC, but the cost of living was drastically less. She increased her student-loan payments, setting the lofty goal of paying them off entirely in a year.
Horton and her boyfriend tied the knot soon after the move. Horton's mother gave the couple a condo that she had purchased at an auction for $13,000 as a wedding gift. It became crucial in wiping away the hefty student-loan tab.
Horton and her husband lived in the condo for three months, but then they decided to move in with her grandparents down the street and started renting out the condo to bring in extra income.
quote:To anyone who feels overwhelmed by the prospect of taking on student loans — or paying back any debt they've incurred — Horton has a simple message: "I just want them to feel empowered that they can pay if off. If I can do it, anybody can."
It's that easy!
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Mar 20, 2017 06:03
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May 7, 2012 06:34
