[pilowsky]

Now we know where the inspiration for the zombie genre comes from.

[thepossum]

Just came back to this wonderful thread after a few weeks.
I have no idea where to start but am happy to see that my concerns about the role of entertainment, media and popular culture are being widely discussed

I realise I could be part of the problem enjoying the more satirical/comic shoot-em up genres. You can't win

EDIT I must admit to being something of a Die Hard fan and find it one of the most rewatchable examples of its genre. As for Bruce Willis one of my favorite films of all time was the Hollywood remake of 12 Monkeys

EDIT 2 on a very serious note I feel it is hard to argue the case that the availability of <insert problem product here> is not linked with increased use/abuse

EDIT 3 (almost forgot - trying to cover everything in one post) its also a sad reflection n society and the state of the world that a 1970s/80s (?) Star Trek scene is what passes for philosophical discourse these days. That is the state of the world now

EDIT 4 As for the state of the world can you really not watch a Tarantino film during certain hours in England anymore?

EDIT 5 Hopefully the last one. While the above points may seem like trivialising the impact of culture/entertainment/games on people's behaviour I have become increasingly concerned (without having researched it) in the apparent increase in people being unable to separate fantasy from reality

EDIT Sorry this is the last and it ties everything together about the state of this world and what appears to be the problem. In fact all my points are linked. Dumbing down of a whole planet. More and more low quality product. Not every movie is a Tarantino and most people appear incapable of analysing such a movie or industry anymore anyway etc

EDIT N Maybe start questionning the world when the industries supposedly most concerned with our physical and mental well-being have also become dominated/obssessed by fake reality and technology. Imagine a world (its here) where your life can be ***ed up in VR too. Link the dumbing down, massive bloat in certain sectors it means that all of us are rats in mazes these days. Oh those ones didn't make it. Never mind on to the next etc. Don't forget all of us are small mammals on the same ship, despite how much resource is wasted trying to find another one. I nearly forgot, some of us have quite high level knowledge of research on (juvenile) psychopathy but don't feel qualified to comment. People being silenced using that kind of ad hominem is another way the world has plummetted especially when so many of those supposedly qualified cannot even put up a good argument about anything much. 1st year academe from memory (I think a 101, maybe a 2 but it should be primary or pre-school level) included not relying on or using argument from authority yet sadly it is used constantly. I realise that I have contradicted myself on how this world has been degraded (for whatever <political?> reason) but is not everything self-contradictory

[y66]

John Dean, former White House counsel for Richard Nixon said:

I think we need a Pat Cipollone moment.

https://www.ft.com/c...f0-77e4424cdb4c

[kenberg]

thepossum, on 2022-June-29, 20:04, said:

Just came back to this wonderful thread after a few weeks.
I have no idea where to start but am happy to see that my concerns about the role of entertainment, media and popular culture are being widely discussed

I realise I could be part of the problem enjoying the more satirical/comic shoot-em up genres. You can't win

EDIT I must admit to being something of a Die Hard fan and find it one of the most rewatchable examples of its genre. As for Bruce Willis one of my favorite films of all time was the Hollywood remake of 12 Monkeys

EDIT 2 on a very serious note I feel it is hard to argue the case that the availability of <insert problem product here> is not linked with increased use/abuse

EDIT 3 (almost forgot - trying to cover everything in one post) its also a sad reflection n society and the state of the world that a 1970s/80s (?) Star Trek scene is what passes for philosophical discourse these days. That is the state of the world now

EDIT 4 As for the state of the world can you really not watch a Tarantino film during certain hours in England anymore?

EDIT 5 Hopefully the last one. While the above points may seem like trivialising the impact of culture/entertainment/games on people's behaviour I have become increasingly concerned (without having researched it) in the apparent increase in people being unable to separate fantasy from reality

EDIT Sorry this is the last and it ties everything together about the state of this world and what appears to be the problem. In fact all my points are linked. Dumbing down of a whole planet. More and more low quality product. Not every movie is a Tarantino and most people appear incapable of analysing such a movie or industry anymore anyway etc

EDIT N Maybe start questionning the world when the industries supposedly most concerned with our physical and mental well-being have also become dominated/obssessed by fake reality and technology. Imagine a world (its here) where your life can be ***ed up in VR too. Link the dumbing down, massive bloat in certain sectors it means that all of us are rats in mazes these days. Oh those ones didn't make it. Never mind on to the next etc. Don't forget all of us are small mammals on the same ship, despite how much resource is wasted trying to find another one. I nearly forgot, some of us have quite high level knowledge of research on (juvenile) psychopathy but don't feel qualified to comment. People being silenced using that kind of ad hominem is another way the world has plummetted especially when so many of those supposedly qualified cannot even put up a good argument about anything much. 1st year academe from memory (I think a 101, maybe a 2 but it should be primary or pre-school level) included not relying on or using argument from authority yet sadly it is used constantly. I realise that I have contradicted myself on how this world has been degraded (for whatever <political?> reason) but is not everything self-contradictory

This post, relating to the changing world, solves a problem for me.
This morning there was an obit in WaPo about Sonny Barger, the founder of Hell's Angels. I found it interesting in a historical way and considered posting it on RIP but I thought many people, including Barger, might object. You can find it here: https://www.washingt...ls-angels-dead/
So I have now posted it here.

He was 83, so am I. The obit says he founded Hell's Angels in 1957. I have sometimes tried to sort out the history, since we had a Hell's Outcasts motorcycle club in my high school. No, I wasn't a member but the head guy and I were in metal shop together. The initiation ceremony was rumored to be seriously risky. The obit also mentions that Barger saw The Wild One in 1953. I saw it also, but in 1955. I can pin that down because it was a double feature with Blackboard Jungle , a '55 film. I bought my ticket expecting to prefer Jungle but I much preferred The Wild One, especially the music. See https://www.youtube....h?v=-g1bev7dAEg for example. I bought the soundtrack, it was on two 45s.


No, I am not advocating such a life. And Johnny (Marlon Brando) comes to that conclusion at the end of the movie. Of Course, he did, I am sure the Hollywood Code at the time would insist that he do so. The opening line is something like "It all started with the girl".

My life was much more sedate. But I do think that sometimes when "experts" discuss issues of adolescence they sound as if they themselves skipped over that period of their lives.

[y66]

Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said:

In just two weeks, the court has acted to erase reproductive health freedom, flood our public places with more deadly weapons and, now, to let our planet burn.

Cormac McCarthy said:

It's a mess, aint it Sheriff?

If it aint it'll do till a mess gets here.

Not just the Supreme Court. Our entire system of government looks more like the crime scene in "No Country For Old Men" every day.

[y66]

SC Justice Elena Kagan said:

Whatever else this Court may know about, it does not have a clue about how to address climate change. And let’s say the obvious: The stakes here are high. Yet the Court today prevents congressionally authorized agency action to curb power plants’ carbon dioxide emissions. The Court appoints itself — instead of Congress or the expert agency — the decisionmaker on climate policy. I cannot think of many things more frightening. Respectfully, I dissent.

[y66]

Josh Chafetz, Georgetown Law said:

End of the day, the Court is just playing Lucy-and-the-football with Congress: you may *think* you've delegated this power by using broad language, but according to the rules we've just made up decades later, you haven't *really* delegated it.

There's also a profound disconnect between applying public-meaning textualism to interpret most statutes, but applying an insistence on evidence of specific legislative intent in delegation cases.

The words of a statute mean what a reasonable reader at the time it was passed would have understood them to mean.

Oh, okay, well, the Clean Air Act appears to delegate to EPA broad power to make rules that will keep the air clean!

You see, in cases where textualism would lead to the regulatory state having the power to undermine conservative policy goals, then we turn to our fallback methodology, which requires that Congress use a special magical incantation in the text. True ... this magical incantation was not known to Congress when it passed the Clean Air Act, but the fact that it didn't use it anyway is just evidence that its delegatory heart was insufficiently pure.

Let's be clear: the Court can talk all it like about the alleged democratic deficiency of administrative agencies (although: pot, kettle), but this is fundamentally a Congress-disempowering doctrine. It makes it nearly impossible for Congress to pass laws accomplishing its goals.

[Winstonm]

Anyone not following the Jan. 6 hearings on emptywheel.net is missing out.

We are at a tipping point, testing whether this nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure-and it ain’t looking good.

[barmar]

Winstonm, on 2022-June-28, 07:46, said:

It’s hard to know how to respond to claims that “the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun” That may well be accurate, but what if you start with the premise that there are no guns? Wouldn’t that provide an alternate method?

The argument the gun rights advocates make is that you can't make it that there are no guns, because the bad guys will just ignore the laws that are supposed to prevent them from getting guns. Meanwhile the good guys would obey the laws, which makes them cannon fodder for the bad guys. Therefore, we have to give guns to good guys so they can level the playing field.

But the argument is specious. Most gun violence is not perpetrated by criminals who plan ahead and would know how to get guns illegally. It's mostly spur of the moment -- accidents, crimes of passion, arguments, etc. This may not be true of some of the most notorious mass killings, but while they get the most press, they're a drop in the bucket compared to all the gun deaths that happen on a daily basis.

[barmar]

kenberg, on 2022-June-29, 08:12, said:

It got me wondering to what extent the president can say where he wants to go and to what extent the Secret Service can overrule him.

From https://civilservice...-the-president/

Quote

By law, the Secret Service can override the President. The President communicates with the Secret Service about what he would like to do or where he wants to go. It is then up to the Secret Service to determine if it is a risk to national security for the President to do so. If not, a protection plan is formulated and executed by Secret Service agents.

Presumably they have standard procedures for routine activities. So if POTUS frequently goes to McDonald's, they know how to handle this. OTOH, they may need to decide quickly about requests to go to an insurrection.

[barmar]

Winstonm, on 2022-June-25, 14:02, said:

Mike, first of all thank you for adding your lawyerly insight for us, the non-lawyers. What do you think of the argument I saw recently that privacy, although not enumerated specifically in the U.S. Constitution but as I understand it the basis of Roe v Wade, must be an implied premise of the 4th Amendment rights to be secure in persons and papers?

I believe the argument by pro-lifers is that the unborn child also has this right, and aborting them denies them their right to life.

If you ever listen to interviews of these people, they never use words like "fetus" that suggest that the unborn are anything less than human.

[kenberg]

barmar, on 2022-June-30, 22:21, said:

From https://civilservice...-the-president/

Presumably they have standard procedures for routine activities. So if POTUS frequently goes to McDonald's, they know how to handle this. OTOH, they may need to decide quickly about requests to go to an insurrection.

Thanks for the reference. The whole article was interesting. Apparently the basis for the the Secret Service interfering in the president's wishes should be based on national security. Eg

Quote

One of the most noteworthy overrides of the President’s wishes by the Secret Service is when former President George W. Bush wished to return to Washington D.C. after the 9/11 attack to the Twin Towers in New York.

I guess doing something really stupid is ok unless it interferes with national security. Marilyn Monroe? Boys will be boys. And as I mentioned during the Bill Clinton days, I don't see how anyone can prefer a Big Mac to a Whopper.

[pilowsky]

Then you have to wonder what they were thinking when they let Dubya land an aircraft on an aircraft carrier in a war zone.

[Winstonm]

barmar, on 2022-June-30, 22:28, said:

I believe the argument by pro-lifers is that the unborn child also has this right, and aborting them denies them their right to life.

If you ever listen to interviews of these people, they never use words like "fetus" that suggest that the unborn are anything less than human.

Those who do so are religious nuts, emphasis on the nuts because when it comes to what they believe there cannot be any talk, discussion, or debate; only perpetual backslapping for other faithful.

[Winstonm]

kenberg, on 2022-July-02, 06:03, said:

Thanks for the reference. The whole article was interesting. Apparently the basis for the the Secret Service interfering in the president's wishes should be based on national security. Eg

[/color][/font][/size]
I guess doing something really stupid is ok unless it interferes with national security. Marilyn Monroe? Boys will be boys. And as I mentioned during the Bill Clinton days, I don't see how anyone can prefer a Big Mac to a Whopper.

Obviously, Monica Lewinsky did not.

[Winstonm]

Welcome to the new U.S. theocracy:

Quote

In trainings, Florida tells teachers that religion belongs in public life

[hrothgar]

pilowsky, on 2022-July-02, 06:10, said:

Then you have to wonder what they were thinking when they let Dubya land an aircraft on an aircraft carrier in a war zone.

W was a passenger, not the pilot

[y66]

Laura Vozzella and Gregory S. Schneider at WaPo said:

RICHMOND — Gov. Glenn Youngkin flew to New York last week to meet privately with GOP megadonors in Manhattan, a move that underscores recent hints that the Republican is considering a run for president in 2024.

The day-long visit, which was not listed on Youngkin’s public calendar and included a trio of national TV interviews, comes as the new governor prepares to headline his first out-of-state political event since taking office, with an appearance next week in Nebraska. He also has begun speaking more often about the needs of “Americans,” not just “Virginians,” and has subtly changed how he answers questions about whether he will seek the White House.

https://www.washingt...2024-president/

[johnu]

pilowsky, on 2022-July-02, 06:10, said:

Then you have to wonder what they were thinking when they let Dubya land an aircraft on an aircraft carrier in a war zone.

I personally enjoy San Diego, but yes, there are some rough parts of town where you can get into some trouble. The carrier was 30 miles outside of port so if Bush had waited a couple of hours he could have walked up the boarding plank but being flown onto a carrier in an anti-submarine jet was a PR stroke of genius. Fortunately the captain turned the ship back to sea so that downtown San Diego wouldn't show up in the background.

[pilowsky]

johnu, on 2022-July-03, 00:34, said:

I personally enjoy San Diego, but yes, there are some rough parts of town where you can get into some trouble. The carrier was 30 miles outside of port so if Bush had waited a couple of hours he could have walked up the boarding plank but being flown onto a carrier in an anti-submarine jet was a PR stroke of genius. Fortunately the captain turned the ship back to sea so that downtown San Diego wouldn't show up in the background.

I've been to SD many times.
I'm not surprised he tried to invade it.