Stop doing the shit that makes you a target.
Jun 23 2025
Mountainhead (on Crave)
Maybe I’ve just been naïve, but I found this movie very frightening. It gets a bit silly about 1.5 hours in, but otherwise …
Via ‘new’ tech that exacerbates to the nth degree everything that’s horrifying about AI and apps that enable fake pictures, videos, and text/news—essentially, lying—it shows
the concentration of power
in the ‘hands’ of four white men
who are puerile, narcissistic, delusional, and so out of touch with their own selves, nothing is personal
who speak in metaphor, as cowards do, afraid to admit what they really mean, what they really do
and in a sort of insider ‘bro’ code, so desperate are they to be considered cool and winners (as measured by net financial worth)…
It’s certainly an argument in favour of a profit ceiling.
And it makes me wonder whether only tech from China, where the pursuit of profit is fettered, should be trusted/used.
Pity our choice seems to be between capitalism and dictatorship (though Trump seems to be marrying the two). Where is ‘pure’ communism? Or even socialism? Sweden?
Jun 20 2025
An exit strategy (for Trump)
(You seem to be painting yourself into a corner, and you’re 79, and you need an exit strategy …)
‘You know, someone asked me the other day, what am I gonna do next? Well, I’ll tell you. I’m gonna quit. Quit while I’m ahead. That’s the smart thing to do. I’m the richest man on Earth. No one else can say that. I’ve tripled my money in just the last few years. No one else can say that. America’s great. I love America.’
Jun 18 2025
The trade war
You know, I’m confused about this whole trade war thing. Better a trade war than a nuclear war, for sure, but … Isn’t it good for a country to reduce its dependence on other countries? Isn’t it good to reduce one’s deficit, to balance the budget?
If the States doesn’t want to buy as much oil from us, that’s a good thing! It means we can drill less. We shouldn’t be drilling in the first place. Read Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything.
If they don’t want to buy as much lumber, that’s also a good thing. We can stop cutting. Given the forest fires of 2023 and 2025, don’t we need every single tree that’s standing? To absorb some of the global-warming carbon dioxide that’s filling our atmosphere?
I guess Trump’s decisions are a problem if he’s breaking promises to purchase, especially if we’ve already prepared to sell. But can’t we either just sell to someone else or keep it for ourselves? Maybe then our own prices for gas, wood, etc. could go down.
And/or maybe the problem is the system. Why shouldn’t countries be able to increase or decrease how much they buy and sell from each other? Is the problem that he just suddenly decided to reduce purchases rather than renegotiate trade agreements that bound him to said purchases?
Jun 16 2025
Trump on trans rights
https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2024/05/10/trump-promises-rollback-on-trans-rights-heres-what-hes-said/
Yes! (Canada, take note!)
Jun 14 2025
Strip Search – movie by Tom Fontana – highly recommended NOW
I watched this years ago, but happened to watch it again today (it’s on CRAVE), and WOW. Talk about timely. The current political context in the States adds so much to the viewing. Highly recommended.
(Though I the classroom ‘What if?’ bookends are unnecessary and, actually, reduce the film.)
Jun 12 2025
Trump and the ban on food additives
Love the idea. Wish it were worldwide policy. Should’ve gone further to address the entire food process, banning harmful chemicals in fertilizers, pesticides, etc.
Jun 11 2025
American workers / Mexican workers / GM
“Think of how handily Detroit’s auto workers were distracted from GM’s greed when they were given Mexican free-trade-zone labor to treat as a scapegoat; the American worker’s enemy isn’t the Mexican worker, it’s the auto manufacture who screws them both.”
from Overclocked, Cory Doctorow
Jun 07 2025
from The Last Election, Andrew Yang and Stephen Marche
“It is a successful fifteen seconds of television, the result of months of planning and hundreds of thousands of dollars in consultancy fees.” p24
Yeah. Politicians are as bad as business owners. If they spent their marketing budget on making a better product, providing better service … There ought to be a low ceiling in both cases for such expenditures. At the very least, it would go toward leveling the playing field.
“… Americans don’t want reliable information anymore. they want confirmation of teir biases and rage.” p97
Jun 06 2025
funny bit from John Scalzi
I’m reading through his “Whatever” archive …
“See, now, this is a dog: [picture of Kodi …] as opposed to a Shih Tzu, at which you look and say to yourself ‘This is what happens when you put a mop and a stuffed animal in a room with a Barry White CD.'”
fiction
