Category: The Current Situation

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The Current Situation The Good Fight

“Just not a political person”

“Just Not a Political Person” poster
Tap to view at full size.

My response to “I’m just not a political person” is usually either “Bullshit” or “So, you’re just useless then.”

To borrow a paragraph from Sami Fishbein Sage’s essay, Unpacking “I’m Not A Political Person”:

It’s A Privilege To “Not Be Political”

When you say you’re not political, you’re telling on yourself. What you’re saying is that you’ve only been on the receiving end of all these invisible perks the government provides, rather than being on the side that suffers from the lack of them or that is even actively harmed by them. For example, it’s only because of active participation in politics that same-sex marriages are legal. That happened less than five years ago, and it would no doubt be the dream of a conservative Supreme Court to overturn it. Try telling your gay friend, whose marriage status could be in real jeopardy based on election outcomes, that you’re not political and see how they react.

By the bye, you can order this print on Etsy.

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Money The Current Situation

Also: You can’t make guacamole or toast with Bitcoin.

Tweet: “Turns out avocados were the real inflation hedge all along.” with chrat showing an overlay of 2020 to 2022 price trends for Bitcoin and avocados.
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Here’s Tracy Alloway’s original tweet.

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America The Current Situation

Useful tribal knowledge for a mass shooting era

Keyboards on a wall display at a pawn shop under a “KORG” banner.
Keyboards at Little River Pawn, Little River, South Carolina.

Chad Baker posted this bit of advice on Facebook back in 2018, and I became aware of it yesterday thanks to Tim Tate:

Apparently this tribal knowledge has not been passed down.

If someone at school is bullying you, go to any pawn shop (there’s one in every town) DO NOT GO TO THE RIFLE WALL, TURN AROUND and go to the OTHER wall, and buy one of these:

An electric bass guitar with a price tag.

Or, if your preference is towards keyboards, something like this:

Joey deVilla’s collection of electronic keyboards and accordions.

You can purchase one at any age. There is no background check. They are cheap. There is no waiting period. You can open carry them anywhere.

Take it home. Practice. Talk to other dorks that wear the same shirts you do. Start a band. Get loud. Scream about how rotten it is that everyone is against you and no one will sleep with you. Get it all out.

DO NOT KILL ANYONE.

A family in Austin, Texas posing with “80% of their gun collection” laid out on their large back deck.
“Joel, 44, and Lynne, 43, in Austin, Texas, with their children and 80 per cent of their gun collection.” From a series of photos by Italian photographer Gabriele Galimberti, who traveled the U.S. taking photos of Americans and their guns. See Tony Pierce’s Facebook post for more from the series.

Now don’t get me wrong: guns are cool and fun to fire (my great-uncle’s company is the Philippines’ biggest Winchester importer), but too many people in the U.S. have either made it the god they worship, or at least a core part of their identity. And as a result, the guns come out whenever they feel threatened, or even just slighted — as a response to bullying, the bogus “Great Replacement,” or even when a fellow movie-goer throws popcorn at them.

Infographic: The Social brain and Music, showing the mental health benefits of playing and listening to music
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The old canard that hardcore misinterpreters of the Second Amendment like to pull out after every shooting is “We don’t have a gun problem, we have a mental health problem” (and while mental health does play a role, science — and Science — point out that the issue actually is an over-proliferation of guns).

But let’s assume that it’s just a mental health issue. Want a fix? Get more people to pick up musical instruments instead of guns. We have lots of research and evidence showing the cognitive and emotional benefits of listening and playing music, and lots of research on the deleterious effects of guns and “gun thinking.”

Anitra Pavka and Joey deVilla at their wedding, with Joey playing accordion.

Pick up an instrument. Master a skill that will pay off in so many ways, from dexterity to improved brain function to confidence discipline and time management to creativity to making friends.

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The Current Situation

The Joe Rogan approach, captured in a single meme

Categories
The Current Situation

My Mother’s Day greetings for 2022

And last, but certainly not least, is a Happy Mother’s Day to my own mom, whom I haven’t seen in person since December 2019, but whom I’ll get to see soon!

Categories
America The Current Situation

European conservatism vs. American conservatism

Comic that opens with “I’m from Europe and tend to vote Conservative, so whenever I see something political going down in America I just kind of figure I”m on the Republicans’ side.”
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Categories
The Current Situation

A message from Arnie to the Russian people

Arnie posted a video of an intense, impressive, and impassioned speech to the Russian people and government. It cites his connection to Russia through his idol, Yury Petrovitch Vlasov, multiple world record-breaking weightlifter, his work on Red Heat — the first American film to shoot on location in Red Square (and hey, who doesn’t remember “COCAINUM!”?)…

…and he even cites the story of his father, Gustav Schwarzenegger, who was a Nazi Brownshirt and took part in the attack on Leningrad in WWII:

Now let me tell you: When my father arrived in Leningrad, he was all pumped up on the lies of his government. And when he left Leningrad, he was broken, physically and mentally.

He lived the rest of his life in pain. Pain from a broken back, pain from the shrapnel that always reminded him of those terrible years, and pain from the guilt that he felt.

He also commends the people in Russia who are protesting the war, commending them for their courage (remember, protesting the war can land you a 15-year jail sentence).

The video is subtitled in both Russian and English. It was originally posted on Twitter, but copies have been floating around in various places online, and it will probably become hot “samizdata” if it hasn’t already done so.

As long as we’re watching Arnie sending important political messages, let’s watch his message on the Capitol riot of January 6th, 2021: