Note: Because of the chaos of last week, I was never able to collect links like I usually do. So, the handful that I had that I was originally going to post last Sunday are here with the ones for this week.
“HuffPost spoke to nine children of QAnon believers in seven states, ranging in age from 19 to 46. Some are desperately trying to deradicalize their moms and dads — an agonizing process that can feel maddening, heartbreaking and futile. Others believe their parents are already too far gone and have given up trying to help them. A few have made the painful decision to cut off contact entirely, for the sake of their own mental health.”
This Politico story about the QAnon Casualties Reddit board is along those same lines.
I’m glad to see that Shelley Duvall is alive and well and living in a community that cares for her. She deserves it.
“Happy Anniversary to the Best Accidental Headline in Christian Newspaper History”.
“House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday that Congress will establish an independent, Sept. 11-style commission to look into the deadly insurrection that took place at the U.S. Capitol.”
“American anti-majoritarians have always promised that minority privilege will deliver positive results: stability, sobriety, the security of the public debt, and tranquil and peaceful presidential elections. But again and again, those promises have proved the exact opposite of reality. In practice, the privileged minority has shown itself to be unstable and unsober.”
“With Trump out of office, this group of researchers is now working to make sense of the deluge of data that they’ve collected from platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. It’s been a lesson in modern populism: a world leader amplified once-obscure conspiracy theories, with each tweet and retweet strengthening the ideas and emboldening their supporters. Now, researchers are retooling to understand — and prepare for — what comes next.”
“Working for the Trump hotel meant putting on a performance every night—right down to the gummy bears and popcorn.”
“Scientists have recovered DNA from mammoth fossils found in Siberian permafrost that are more than a million years old. This DNA—the oldest genomic evidence recovered to date—illuminates the evolutionary history of woolly mammoths and Columbian mammoths. It also raises the prospect of recovering DNA from other organisms this ancient—including extinct members of the human family.”
There’s a disclaimer at the beginning of The Muppet Show episodes on Disney+, because as my friend Therese notes, it’s a 40-year-old show and some things that were funny or at least not remarkable in the 70s are not so today. Deal with it.
The snow truthers of TikTok.
I don’t know when lying stopped being a sin. It’s still in my Ten Commandments.
“Ah, those delightful Germans! Always with the single word that describes a very specific thing that any normal language would never have a single word to describe! Well unsurprisingly, the Hamsterkauf was just the Eisbergspitze. Over the past year, German has coined some 1000-plus new terms endemic to the Now Times — ironic capitalization, by the way, being an annoying method that English-speakers use to create new language.”
“The world is a bit bleak at the moment, so we decided to get a little nerdy this week and dive into an entirely new frontier. So grab a bowl of your favorite Klingon cuisine and a barrel of blood wine, because we’re exploring something a bit different: the Klingon language and its interesting impact on modern pop culture.”
“Over the next five-plus years, I learned a lot about covering national politics. Some lessons came the hard way: By being really wrong. So now that we’re about a month into a new presidential administration, I’m trying to keep those lessons front and center.”
“Federal judges are at risk. What are we going to do about it?”
“Using social media, people across the state are volunteering their time and digital expertise to help others navigate the complicated and confusing web of allocation lists, websites, phone numbers, and seemingly endless waiting lists that make up Texas’s COVID-19 vaccine distribution plan.”
“Is it Mr. Potato Head or not?”
You too can help beloved MAD Magazine artist Al Jaffee celebrate his 100th birthday, but you will have to act quickly.
Why is there so much help for people with parents who are Q Anon or Trump brainwashed, but no help for people who have parents who suffer from Stage Three Trump Derangement Syndrome, and violently attacked neighbors saying that they are going to “die of stupidity,” and they “get the government they elected.”
From the Trump Hotel article:
“The upper echelon of hotel management portrayed themselves as true Trump believers, but the majority of those who fed and cleaned up after the right-wing clientele were ambivalent at best. They clocked in because the place paid well. Really well. Michel Rivera, a former bartender at the lobby bar, says he pulled in more than $100,000 a year with tips (at least $30K more than he made at the Hay-Adams). He says it’s the best-paying job he’s had in his 25-year career, with generous health benefits to boot—a comment echoed by many other ex-employees.”
So, it sounds like the Trump Organization demanded excellence from their employees, and those jobs paid very well, much better than similar jobs with non-Trump employers.
Is this supposed to be negative? We find out Trump pays his employees better than average. Um, OK, Orange Man Bad for paying more for excellence.
I don’t know how anyone can spin that The Muppet show requires a warning “disclaimer” with a straight (no pun intended) face. I get that down with the cause leftists are going to back whatever comes from the upper echelon (the more outrageous the better, I guess), but I don’t see regular every day people, especially those of us old enough to have seen the show when it came out, thinking, “Damn right it’s offensive and needs a warning.”
This is actually a hallmark of Marxism. In Soviet Russia, it wasn’t that the people didn’t know that Pravda was just lying propaganda….it was that they knew it was bullshit, but weren’t permitted to actually SAY it was bullshit. They were expected to regurgitate the lies, the more outrageous, the better. This is how you demoralize a population. [You are here.]
The Muppet show was the epitome of family friendly programming, that grandparents, parents, and kids could all watch together. Compare and contrast to the absolute filth and degeneracy that constitutes most television programming these days. I would actually enjoy watching the show today, since I probably missed most of the episodes when they aired, but I am certainly not going to give Disney any of my money. They started their downward slide when Eisner was the CEO, and it just got worse as time went on.
What’s next? Warning labels on Fat Albert, the Cosby Show, and Family Ties?
The German Way
Ha Ha!
Can’t wait for Der Spiegel to report on our exemplary
Sportstadionparkmassenmobilimpfstationvoranmeldungssystem.
Alles klar?
For fascists that worship a golden calf/trump, to get upset about a disclaimer is ironic.
Bill, the Russian buffoon was not paying them that well, customers were greasing their palms for various reasons.
Jason, you would have loved Hitler or Stalin, they had everything trump had and more.