comes along bort posted:

D E H U M A N I Z E Y O U R S E L F A N D F A C E T O B L O O D S H E D


Yep, that'll fix all their problems.

Shear Modulus posted:

This is the network that kept Chelsea Clinton around for years when reportedly everyone else in the office hated working with her (and I sure as hell bet nobody was tuning into NBC specifically to see her). Nepotism plus apparently having some confidence at your job probably gives you a meal ticket for life.

Nonsense posted:

NBC is easily one of the most in trouble broadcast news & broadcast networks. I have no real idea beyond GE/Comcast (I don't know who runs NBC News tv department) keeping the lights on.

edit: If they're turning to Luke as the future of NBC News along with Morning Shoe blowhard Scarborough they're truly out of ideas and talent.

It is a hack dominated show only speaking to other pols in Washington and maybe a few select lobbyists, very much not useful unless you want to see John McCain melt live.

Shifty Pony posted:

Anyway there is a scammy "church" group here who are 1000x worse about aggressive panhandling than the homeless ever are.

Joementum posted:

The White House's June photo album is up.

PupsOfWar posted:

iirc didn't kerry run up big leads against bush on the economy issue? Republicans might have a weird lead on the economy right now, but I don't think it is irrevocable.


inbound, possible derail (but I don't think so), watch out

I dunno how many of y'all goons played high school football or anything like that, but I did, so I'll take a stab at explaining some of the phenomenon from a participant's perspective, particularly as it pertains to Bumfuck Small Town USA.

- First of all, this is a sport that a large percentage of people have experienced in a very direct manner. You're looking at 50-60 dudes per high school team, plus dudes who wanted to/whose dads wanted them to be on those teams but who couldn't for whatever reason, plus other people like the marching band, cheerleaders and such whose activities are generally subordinated to those of the football team. While on one of these teams, there is a "football isn't just a game: it's a way of life!" mindset that is encouraged by coaches, school faculty and fans (parents and former players). Participants are expected to gear their entire lives around football, which becomes an accepted justification for missing class, reneging on other commitments, and getting away with dumb poo poo. When I was in school, players would get up at 5:00 A.M so that we could get to school early and lift weights for an hour to an hour and a half before classes began. Practice (or after-school workout sessions, in the offseason) would be held every day and run until 6:30 or 7:00 in the evening, meaning that some kids wouldn't get home until after 8:00. An expectation of commitment that all-consuming naturally breeds fanaticism, even in cases where it hasn't been present since childhood.

- Kids flock to do this because (in some cases) they enjoy the sport, because it is the activity that most reliably confers a certain level of prestige, or because it is a family tradition. More generally some combination of all three.

- Most of these kids' athletic careers end the moment they play their last snap in high school. I think something like 5% of high-school football players ever get to see the field as part of a college team, of which many wash out, many never make it off the bench, and many are disillusioned because playing kickoff coverage for Blandsville Junior Technical College is not the glorious experience they grew up watching on Saturday teevee.

- This creates a large cast of disappointed young men (and women, when you look at girls who had been similarly invested) who devoted the best four years of their lives (a sobriquet commonly applied to high school rather than college, in Smalltownsville) to an institution that didn't actually do anything for them in the long run. These become disappointed middle-aged men, disappointed old men and so on. Romanticizing that institution is a much more comforting response than saying "wow, that was stupid, I probably shouldn't of spent literally all of my teenage years to that sport", so former players generally become the most fanatical of all fans, vicariously reliving their glory days by providing a zealous support base to their high-school alma mater and to any prominent professional or collegiate teams in the area. They induct their eventual children into this same behavior, so fandom becomes a generational practice.

- There is, therefor, a sort of feedback loop where fanatical participation breeds institutional fandom, which breeds fanatical participation, etc. I'm not sure how you'd go about solving the chicken/egg dynamic there, but that is the process.

Other factors:

- In impoverished and especially minority communities, sports have historically been seen as one of the few routes to success that is ~comparatively~ open to them. Becoming a famous sports hero, while highly unlikely, seems a lot more plausible to a poor kid than attending a top-10 college and becoming a Wall Street mogul or some other process that is a lot more demographically closed (the main reason I don't resent how massively overpaid pro athletes are is that a huge proportion of them come from genuinely impoverished backgrounds and I enjoy seeing them get rich more than I enjoy a lot of things). And even for those who don't have super ambitious dreams, there's still the hope that maybe you can get a half scholarship or financial aid kickback from your crappy local college that will allow you to afford school. There is a reason "I gotta impress the scouts so I can escape The Streets/The Mines/The Steel Mill" is such a common narrative trope in Americana. This kind of thing then contributes to the feedback loop mentioned above.

- High Schools and especially Colleges deliberately take advantage of sports fandom as a recruiting and community-building tool, and students (even ones without athletic backgrounds) love buying into this because it is nice to feel like you belong to a tradition.

- As alluded previously in this thread, local/regional ballteams are often the most prominent, long-lasting or successful public institutions in an area (the lattermost of these is especially important when you consider the perspective of otherwise-undistinguished locales. There's a lot of "Well maybe Somewhereburg is a better place to live than Nowhereville in almost all respects, but at least we have beat 'em at ball for the past six years running!" that goes on), so it makes sense for people to latch onto them as a source of pride.

It's a huge political and economic factor in Small Town USA, when you consider the massive cultural weight associated with it. There is usually a huge degree of social overlap between booster clubs, local business associations and city/county/magistrates' councils, for instance. I know that in my hometown, the composition of the school board would always fluctuate wildly according to our desperate desire for our ballteam to suck less.

computer parts posted:

My Imaginary GF posted:

Let us give them 1-on-1 time with a drill instructor instead. We have an excess of returning veterans and could use a good anti-bullying employment program.

Other options include fining parents and making a parent liable for any mental health expenses their child inflicts upon another, as determined through the court system.

My Imaginary GF posted:

Worse than doing nothing? Those are the three realistic policy options for bullying with this Congress.

My Imaginary GF posted:

At this time, it is very popular to "make parents accountable for the actions of their teenagers."

Is the answer, 'poor people'? I am in favor of policies that end poverty and enable more time for parents to spend with their children in a stable home environment while also having an adequate safety net that includes mental health coverage.

Vahakyla posted:

What rational claims are there for any corporal punishment?

My Imaginary GF posted:

A kid eating a hot-dog sits near the wall. There is an outlet behind them. You've explained before the dangers when they attempted. They laughed, reacted, said they understood. Now, three days later, fhey turn knife in hand and move to get down and point it at the socket.

What do you do?

My Imaginary GF posted:

Ranch must be treated like the infectious disease it is: isolated, contained, quarantined to the south.

E:

Exceptions may be made for salads.

Shbobdb posted:

Does Peter Thiel donate to Rand Paul much? I could see a new coalition forming between gay men and the radical right to keep women down. Don't you see, it's everything they ever warned us about.

sleepingbuddha posted:

I agree, but how much of the "Moral Majority" will they lose? I imagine a lot will just stay home and not vote. I get excited by this prospect.

SedanChair posted:

Hillary won't even admit that she used to be against it. That's Hillary for you, always trying to drag her supporters into some Orwellian mindfuck that supports her self-aggrandizing narrative.

SedanChair posted:

She triflin'. I sure hope she stomps a mudhole in the turtle but she has not done one thing to impress me. (Plus her gaze is hollow; I love to use my nonverbal skills to read people and make wild allegations about their character.)

My Imaginary GF posted:

Biden/Warren v. Clinton/Emanuel

Vote!