Weekend link dump for June 11

“There may come a day when you will have to be The Advocate for someone you love. Do not do it under duress because that just creates more problems. Do not do it because you think it will somehow get you in the will because it may not. Do it because you love that person and they just plain need you to be The Advocate. And you must be satisfied with no reward other than that knowing you did the right thing and that you did it reasonably well.”

Two Cosby accusers grapple with the legacy of their stories.

“Having written about these issues for a very long time, here are a couple of truths I learned the hard way: Hollywood is way too quick to pat itself on the back for the smallest and most overdue steps forward when it comes to diversity, inclusion and representation — and the industry is far, far too quick to let the backsliding begin. And when that backsliding does begin (as it has many times in the past), many who mouth easy platitudes — instead of doing the real work of increasing the diversity of the industry — very easily and even reflexively turn a blind eye to the return to the status quo.”

“It cannot be the case that all actions are exempted from potential punishment if one can justify them on the basis of a “sincerely held religious belief.” Inevitably, we must pick and choose, with precious little genuine guidance from lawmakers or the Supreme Court.”

“Trump has no actual policy to change the trends outlined above. Making it easier for coal owners to pollute watercourses and steal the pensions of their retirees, and gutting research into clean energy, are mere acts of spite, as per Krugman. They make no difference to the trends.”

Sometimes, a man just has to mow his lawn, you know?

“Rule of thumb: If it’s hard you’ll have trouble finding people who want to do it. There’s no shortage of people who want to be programmers, designers, strategists, social media consultants, entrepreneurs, investors, etc… But try finding people to work the farm. Hard work is doing the work other people don’t want to do.”

“Advocates of better government should call for a simple reform: any company that receives most of its revenue from the federal government and wants to keep getting that money can no longer pay its CEO more than the government pays the president of the United States.”

“This last really bad week seems to have gotten us to a new point in which administration leaders are openly saying that the President doesn’t speak for himself or his administration. Either in people’s understanding of what Presidents are supposed to do or in the humiliations these descriptions likely amount to for Trump himself, this does not seem like a sustainable solution to the Trump problem.”

RIP, Jimmy Piersall, former MLB player and author of “Fear Strikes Out”, about his battle with mental illness.

RIP, Peter Sallis, the voice of Wallace in the “Wallace and Gromit” movies.

“It is bizarre to design your country’s energy policy — which, even if you disregard climate science, has important implications for public health and international diplomacy — around the goal of maximizing jobs in an industry that employs fewer people than Arby’s.”

“I have often run across men (and rarely, but not never, women) who have become so powerful in their lives that there is no one to tell them when they are cruel, wrong, foolish, absurd, repugnant. In the end there is no one else in their world, because when you are not willing to hear how others feel, what others need, when you do not care, you are not willing to acknowledge others’ existence. That’s how it’s lonely at the top. It is as if these petty tyrants live in a world without honest mirrors, without others, without gravity, and they are buffered from the consequences of their failures.”

If you still have VHS tapes, you better start converting them to digital format, because those tapes will not last forever.

“Top lawyers with at least four major law firms rebuffed White House overtures to represent President Trump in the Russia investigations, in part over concerns that the president would be unwilling to listen to their advice, according to five sources familiar with discussions about the matter.”

“If there is an opportunity, we need to triage Jeff Sessions out of power right now. Trump is the terminal disease that we cannot cure just at the moment. Sessions is gangrenous leg that needs to be sawed off before the infection spreads any further.”

“There is always something obscene about the abuse of power, even if it isn’t sexual.”

RIP, Glenne Headly, Emmy-nominated TV actress and star of films such as Dick Tracy and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

RIP, Adam West, once and always the best Batman.

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One Response to Weekend link dump for June 11

  1. Flypusher says:

    The Cosby thing makes me sick and sad. The guy was very, very funny, and was a groundbreaker multiple times. I have some cherished childhood memories of watching his TV shows and listening to his standup recordings (dude totally nails sibling rivalry). But there’s just too much smoke out there for this to be nothing.

    Re: hard work- all the jobs listed as hard are also very underpaid. That’s a double whammy.

    Re:Trump not listening to his lawyers. That is the one thing guaranteed to get you on my bad side in a professional setting. There are a handful of examples in my career when I literally yelled at someone, and it was over failure to follow my instructions when they had been specifically told to do so. The last incident broke a $15K piece of equipment. I can image the frustrations of anyone trying to gave that arrogant fool legal advice.

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