At the time of its first release, the United States was still formally at peace with Nazi Germany and neutral during what were the early days of World War II.
Chaplin plays both leading roles: a ruthless fascist dictator and a persecuted Jewish barber.
Davis compares cultures quickly and easily, looking for lessons for us who haven’t lived with Amazon tribes for years.
Of the thousand key point, one really struck me. His discussion of how the British — on arrival — could not understand the Australian aborigines.
These are and were a people with no notion of linear time.
Theirs was one of the great experiments in human thought. The notion that the world existed as a perfect whole, and that the singular duty of humanity was to maintain through ritual activity the land precisely as it existed when the Rainbow Serpent embarked on the journey of creation.
… But in life there is only the Dreaming, in which every thought, every plant and animal, are inextricably linked as a single impulse, the inspiration of the first dawning.
Had humanity followed this track, it is true that we would have never placed a man on the moon.
But we would most certainly not be speaking of our capacity to compromise the life support of the planet. I have never in all of my travels been so moved by a vision of another possibility, born literally 55,000 years ago.
The word quisling has come to mean a citizen or politician of an occupied country who collaborates with an enemy occupying force – or more generally as a synonym for traitor.
I was surprised to learn his wife Maria lived in Oslo until her death in 1980. Never charged with any crime, despite the fact that she spent a lot of money supporting their opulent life style.
HERE IS HOW platforms die: First, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. …
I call this enshittification, …
Amazon, Facebook, Tiktok. All of them.
The Google search engine app on my phone is totally ‘enshittified’ — nobody could appreciate so many inappropriate advertisements.
Wikipedia is not enshittified.
Why?
It’s not based on advertising. Ads are the main reason the internet is getting enshittified.
I don’t suffer much because I have every ad blocker known to man working in the Chrome browser. I rarely see ads, except on my phone.
Facebook ads are hardest to avoid.
I pay for YouTube Premium to avoid ads in the middle of my videos.
Though Kingsolver lives in southern Appalachia, I can’t fathom how effectively she puts herself into the mind of the boy — Demon Copperhead. It’s a coming of age story.
Ground zero of the opium epidemic. Demon is born to a drug-using teenage single mother in a trailer in Lee County, Virginia.
Since his mother is in and out of rehab, Demon is partly raised by the sprawling, warm-hearted Peggot clan.
Almost everyone in this dirt poor place is drastically hurt by the Sackler family’s killer drug OxyContin.
“I don’t know a single person my age that’s not taking pills,” Demon says at one point.
The Sacklers paid a $6 billion settlement to avoidcivil lawsuits. It’s fair to call them killers.
I listened to the audio book. Recommended, as the reader has the right accent and tone of voice.
Dylan’s father was going blind when DT wrote this poem. Some suggest that dying of the light is a reference to darkness and being blind.
For me it’s always urged not to capitulate in the face of evil and wrongdoing.
If you see something wrong, take ethical action. Do something. Do not ignore it.
In the context of social media I often get the comment … “Why are you so negative?”
Typically from friends who don’t like me challenging some statement they’ve made that I consider wrong. (I’ll unfriend if you insist the world is only 5000 years old, by the way. 😀 )
As I was going to be out of town on Alberta election day — May 29, 2023 — I voted by mail. Early.
And It was easy to vote by mail. I could write in the candidate running in my riding, or the Party.
I was voting against the unelected premier Danielle Smith as she’s untrustworthy and a rightwing whacko. The NDP is the only alternative that MIGHT form the next government so I voted for Rachel Notley.
IF unelected whacko Danielle Smith manages to lose in historically conservative Alberta, she’ll certainly claim a BIG LIE as she’s a fan of Trump and DeSantis.
I feel the GOP USA has only one overriding goal ➙ make the rich, richer.
To that end they don’t want to improve education, health care, nor raise the minimum wage.
Greedy Americans are why there’s so much poverty in the most affluent nation of the world.
Green River, Utah
The Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling author of Evicted, Matthew Desmond, reimagines the debate on poverty, making a new and bracing argument about why it persists in America: because the rest of us benefit from it.
The United States, the richest country on earth, has more poverty than any other advanced democracy.
Why?
Why does this land of plenty allow one in every eight of its children to go without basic necessities, permit scores of its citizens to live and die on the streets, and authorize its corporations to pay poverty wages? …
I’ve not yet cancelled J.K. Rowling though her legacy won’t be Harry Potter — it will be her weird transphobic attacks on transgender people.
I say weird because for most of her life Rowling has advanced philanthropic causes. The charity Lumos. She worked for Amnesty International documenting human rights issues.
In fact, 95% of her works have been for the greater good.
