At least Dukakis in the tank wasn’t a racial microaggression
It really is astounding—you’ve got Trump barnstorming around the country, killing God knows how many ppl creating COVID clusters right and left, and this guy pandering like a lost jackass w no substance—when he sadly could have been storming the country through IDEAS PPL WANT
Of course I believe Bernie could have mopped the map with Trump, but you don’t have to have been in his camp to believe that Sanders screaming for Medicare For All during a pandemic (DUH) would have been a helluva lot better than whatever TF this is
I mean, is it possible to interpret the Democrats' pro-police, pro-war, pro-Wall Street, anti-universal healthcare, anti-rent relief stance towards Black & Latinx voters—while pandering like THIS—as anything other than utter contempt?
The sad sound of so few claps as Biden came in reminds me of Jeb "please clap" Bush. Incumbents usually win the WH. They've only lost twice in my lifetime (Carter in '80, Bush I in '92).
Just looking at their optics, how could listless Biden beat the hurricane that is Trump?
I mean, I appreciate Biden not creating COVID clusters. But that's why the IDEAS—of which he has no good ones—were so important. Coulda beat Trump w a different vision for a better world in the pandemic. Instead, the Dems have cynically blown it for empty centrism. Shame!
In my next life, immagonna write a poli sci dissertation called "Kinte Cloth and Despacito: How the Democrats Used Empty and Insulting Pandering During an Era of Unprecedented Support for Racial and Economic Justice in Order to Lose the Presidential Election of 2020"
What country do people think this is where one candidate is screaming and frothing at the mouth and the other is talking quietly about nothing and the electorate is gonna go with the quiet one saying nothing? Does it sound like America to you, that it would go with the quiet one?
One of the things I’ve found most disappointing (in terms of tactics and substance) is that if Warren or Sanders were running, they’d be out here yelling—to nearly empty halls bc Covid—but yelling louder than Trump abt healthcare & economics which would excite ppl.
Biden and Harris be out here with the quiet centrist whimpering of pandering, with nothing to say to get anyone excited, and so they mumble their mealy message quietly and shamefully—as if they don’t know what they’re up against.
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As night falls and waking up at 5 AM, flying to New York and 8 hours of street reporting non-stop catches up with me, I am about to leave this party and let these young ppl who welcomed me into their space carry on. But first, some final thoughts…
First, THIS is what university life should be! I saw and experienced some extraordinary things: running into old friends, having substantive conversations with students (from here and even Northwestern/Medill), learned from students, learned in teach ins....But most of all...
Most of all, I saw students experiment w making a society: they are experimenting w self governance, and with educating, entertaining, praying with, feeding, defending, organizing and caring for one another. How beautiful is that?!
1. PHEW. I am overwhelmed seeing all the photos in Pulitzer Hall at @columbiajourn of all the Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza and Lebanon
2. Can’t even see them all in one photo
Well, the universe provides: ran into @MedillSchool alum @yasmeenaltaji, who is studying at Columbia and who created this beautiful memorial to killed Palestinian journalists with The Arab and Middle Eastern
Journalists Association
A side note to the Berkeley law dinner fiasco: Professors shouldn't have work events with students in their homes!!!
This is a problem which extends beyond this situation. "Chemerinsky, who is Jewish, says that the incident is the latest in antisemitic attacks on him and that free speech does not extend to his home." OK, then don't have work events in your house! latimes.com/california/sto…
This is all so bizarre to me. UC Berkeley is a public university & this was a UC Berkeley event! Yet the professor is arguing the mortgage is in his & his wife's names & "No one has the right to come into my house, or yours, and disrupt a dinner." HE INVITED THE PERSON WHO SPOKE!
Cheap rent made Philip Glass possible too, who told me in 2012: “The problem is, when I came to New York, it’s much more difficult now. You could work 3 days a wk loading a truck or driving a cab, and you’d have enough money to live off of" the other 3+ weeks to do your art!
“Work," Glass said, "was a seasonal business! Can you imagine??? "You worked the weekends around the first of the month. And then you had the middle of the month to do your sculpture or your painting or your poetry or whatever you do." Cheap rent made that possible!
Manual labor, Glass said, was great—they didn't even own a van! No pressure, even for parking! "You were in great shape. You were physically very strong bc it was hard work but easy. Hard work but easy to do. Didn't take any brainpower & you didn't have to go to work every day."
As the sheriff evicted an elderly couple and was removing a handicapped woman with Parkinson's disease from their home, her partner doused himself with gas and set himself on fire. "This," Aaron Bushnell so presciently said, "is what our ruling class has decided will be normal."
The framing of this story is wild - the headline makes it about the neighbors' reactions, and the sub headline says the sheriff's office "saved one life today, but the outcome wasn't what they wanted." But the deputies' actions took a life, they didn't save any lives.
Their execution of an eviction also executed the end of one life right away and two lives, really -- what is going to happen to this elderly, disabled and now homeless woman? She already lost her home, and the eviction killed her partner and caretaker.
This is very sad, but I have some thoughts. I think Cecilia would have wanted the truth out there (I certainly do) as she didn't want anyone to feel shame about anything, but I think she'd be sad the major response is to arrest and prosecute the dealers. patch.com/new-york/new-y…
I never feel comfortable when young-ish people die and no one says why. It's usually because they died of overdose or suicide (or, going back a few decades tho sometimes still now, AIDS). Treating them as unspeakable only increases stigma.
Cecilia didn't do stigma.
She didn't do shame, and she wouldn't want other people to feel stigma or shame or to experience barriers to getting help. And when we don't talk about HIV/AIDS, suicide or drug addiction, we increase the barriers to people getting help.