https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9X7u-MeJz0
I think the video of his speech speaks for itself. I discovered him just a few days ago and am impressed by his knowledge. He seems more of a psychologist to me though than a philosopher since his arguments and ideas stem mainly from the science of the mind.
And so it starts. The northern developed countries no longer need oil. So let the Middle East--the Arabs, the Iranians and all the rest of them with oil under their asses rot all on their own, mostly from climate change our fabulous technologies have wrought upon the earth, and those sad areas with so little water. Now, we aren't going to drive oil guzzlers, now we'll drive lithium and cobalt guzzlers. So, let's get the hell out of that troublesome Middle East and ravage new places. How about Chile? How about the Congo? Come along all ye greedy of the world, we have new places to rape with our callous, hypocritical, down-right stupid foreign policies.
The solution, idiots of the world, isn't a new way to ravage the earth, it is LESS CARS, more public transportation!!!
https://news.yahoo.com/pope-says-italys-plunging-birthrate-120343724.html
So, we like this Pope. He seems to be the most open-minded, inclusive Pope in recent memory. But he is still the head of the Catholic Church and his comment about Italy's birth-rate is just sad. As we humans scramble to find solutions to pacify the planet we have used and abused and is now beginning to pay us back, this man advocates making more humans. The humanity's problems aren't going to be solved with switching from one form of energy to another, case in point, the ravages that mining for lithium and cobalt will result in as the greedy and the corrupt begin to exploit the demand. The solution is population control. Education and birth control in those countries who still believe people must have ten children, sorry sons, to work the fields, or that the majority of their children will die in infancy. Less humans, less consumption. It isn't the Earth we should worry about; it will go on after us; it is our own quality of life we should consider. And with more people born it won't be pretty. No two people should have more than two children. One child to replace each parent.
I sent my kids to Horace Mann from pre-K through 12. Karol Markowicz, who twitted : ) about the school's mask mandate, seems to be critical of it. Well, sister, this is an academically rigorous school. Academics come first, something that school closings, faculty sick-days and remote learning damage. The rules are strict, but fair and right. Not to mention that when a school costs as much as private schools do in NYC, it must deliver instruction which it can't do when whole swath of its population is sick. So, good for you Horace Mann. Let the whiny parents whine all they want.
I have one sentence for the democrats: Do to Manchin, the closet Republican, what the Republicans did to one of their own, Cheney. Penalize the mofo! Sure with opposition to raising taxes on the rich and the rich corporations, plus the rampant inflation, spending more money, putting more cash into the economy might not be the most economically sound idea, but to do nothing is political suicide for democrats and will definitely cost them, if not Manchin, many seats, and so the loss of control of Congress. Bullshit just continues to reign, or rain, as you wish 😀
I first came across Jan Wolkers when the New Yorker reviewed the translations of his novel, Turkish Delight. Since it was sexually explicit, I had to read it! I greatly enjoyed it. It turned out to be a wonderful love story with the love-story appropriate tragic ending. So, I googled Jan Wolkers to see what he looked like. It turns out the book is kind of autobiographical. Olga was real; he was also a sculptor and the sculptors he made of her still stand in the Netherlands. Wolkers, as it turns out, is one of the four greatest modern writers in his home country. I looked at Turkish Delight again on Amazon. It got exactly 14 reviews! 14. None of his other works have been translated into English that I could find on Amazon. As I'm currently being ignored or rejected by agents, I feel if I'm in this kind of company, let me stay 😀
The article above appeared in The Times online today. A staunch pro-choicer, I have thought often of how America will look post Roe v. Wade. Like cannabis, it will be left to the states. Will there be migration? Maybe. Like we need more people in NYC! Will there be hardship and misery? Definitely. But there may also be a result that I don't mind. For a long time, as I have witnessed the https://metoomvmt.org, I have thought that it goes too far and becomes warped. When young women dress as they do, with tits and ass hanging out all over the place then complain that men look, well that's just hypocritical. I think many women love the male gaze. I know I do. But if you don't and don't want it to visit you, then dress appropriately to someone with that claim and aim. So, back to the no-choice America: Maybe this will get women to keep their legs closed more often. Maybe it will put a dent into the hook-up culture that is sold as feminism but is far from it. Men and women are equal but not the same. Biologically and chemically and physiologically we are different. And as such I don't believe casual sex is what women really want, or what imparts equal pleasure to both sexes. Men don't need us to get off, we, however, need them. They don't need us to do anything to them, just lie there. But we need them to either get hard or use their other body parts, like hands and mouth. So, hey, maybe, we'll go back to the days when men actually had to win a girl, court a girl, shell out for a girl to get her to spread her legs. Not like nowadays when it's basically a free for all.
And that's my brand of feminism babies 😀
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/08/opinion/trump-press-restoration.html
The Media can't let go of Trump! One of the things I was looking forward to was to never see his face after 2020. Well, but what will the media do? He is so clickable. Every where you turn, they are discussing Trump. Below is my response to yet another article this morning in The Times.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/07/opinion/trump-supreme-court-abortion-dobbs-roe.html
The link above is to the opinion piece this moron wrote today in The Times. Almost two thousand comments really show the reality of how little women and children are supported in this country as opposed to in Europe. We are still a backward country with archaic priorities and values--Capitalism that's all we know. And if you doubt my previous blog post, posted today, just check out her name. Yes, another Catholic bozo. I means the woman looks retarded! This doesn't mean that everyone born Catholic is retarded. I'm not perpetuating stereotypes here, but many under the evil spell of its teachings are. I mean you have to be pretty stupid and afraid to believe all that shit.
Follow this argument: Catholic immigrants, low class, uneducated Catholic immigrants from Latin America flood the US southern states aka Texas and Florida. Both states vote for Trump. Trump appoints two conservative judges and skews the court. Anti-choice argument before the Supreme Court wins.
People always think that white trash are always republicans/conservatives and immigrants are liberal because they are mostly poor and minorities--not so. Many immigrants are religious, many are Catholic, many are uneducated, so wake the f---- up. Start educating those MOFOs right away!
The following article appeared in The NY Times yesterday: The Supreme Court Gaslights Its Way to the End of Roe. Below is my response.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/03/opinion/abortion-supreme-court.html
Did anyone with half a brain ever think that this court would uphold Roe v Wade? The conversation should be about what will happen once it doesn't, about how the pro-choice movement is going to fight this atrocity through the power of the states and the legislature. Choice or taking away of it will be a big midterm boost for the Democrats as well as at the polls during the next presidential elections. I hope it will galvanize more people to VOTE. I came from a country where voting is meaningless, the elections are openly rigged, and opponents are murdered. So, to me when an American doesn't vote to protect their rights, it's criminal. The wise knew once the British handed over Hong Kong what would happen and many immigrated immediately. We now know what will happen to Taiwan too, so let's not be surprised when it does. The same way, we must mobilize for this particular sad inevitability.
Nowadays, an artist has to mostly fill out a form, or email the literary agencies, when they are reading that is. You know your query will go to the bottom of a virtual slush pile where I'm convinced the interns and assistants look for their own pre-conceived products rather than hope to pull out a good book. So, what to do? Ask friends and former teachers for a referral. At least, this way, your manuscript is out of the slush pile.
I have to say that in my 20s I took a lot of workshops, where I learned exactly NOTHING. As a friend mentioned, they don't work for novels because once all is said and done, the class will only get to see the first 50 pages, if you are lucky. Then there are as many opinions as there are students and very little consensuses or suggestions as how to fix an "issue." The teacher just moderates and adds her or his own opinion, which carries more or less the same weight as the students. No one ever taught me technique. Which can be taught. Talent can't be taught, but tricks of the trade can be. I learned how to write good dialogue from Leonard Elmore. Reading is the only effective teacher.
I had a former teacher with whom I had reconnected recently. She is now in her 80s and dementia is tip toeing into her brain. She still remembers me, but every time I meet her for dinner asks me how we met. That's why I haven't asked her to read my manuscript. Because hey, she wouldn't remember what happened from one chapter to the next. But I saw on her Facebook page that her most recent novel, Mirage, would be published by a very small house after her other books were published by Penguin. This information came to me through her agent who had posted this triumph on my former teacher's FB page. The agent works for a reputable agency, but from what I learned from her FB page is rather a loser--overweight, unattractive, tackily dressed, and seemed to find stupid things cute. I didn't think she would get my book, but I figured she took another Iranian writer, and works for a good agency and beggars like me can't be choosers. My teacher said she communicates via messenger only. So, I sent her a message. She was very nice and sweet and told me she would love to see a query and the first four chapters. I sent them. She emailed to say she loved my pages and is very excited to see the entire manuscript and to give her time to catch up since she had had the flu recently. She also asked me whether she can have the manuscript exclusively for ten days. Of course, I agreed, cautiously climbing the ladder to the seventh heaven. Dreams I didn't dare dream before started dancing in my mind like Christmas lights.
The ten days came and went and I didn't hear anything from her. No news is good news, I told myself, maybe she is showing it to more senior agents. Well, I finally contacted her via messenger in late November, a full two weeks after the ten day deadline. She told me that although I'm a "gorgeous" writer she was going to pass, because she didn't emotionally connect with the material. First, I just politely thanked her and was going to leave with my tail between my legs, but then I decided, no, I need some honest answers, beyond the platitudes and the bullshit. So, I asked her whether she felt another agent at the agency might be a better fit. She wrote, "I don't think so." So, I asked her, be honest, is it that bad? I wanted her to explain why she felt that a page turner with lots of sex wouldn't sell? Was it that one of the protagonist is Iranian? Is it that the characters are unlikeable, are they just badly drawn, what? What exactly precluded her from resonating with the material, what exactly stopped her fat ass from jiggling with excitement? What I needed was honest feedback, badly. Well, I couldn't ask her any of this, because right after she told me, "I don't think so." She blocked me. The nice friendly agent who thought she could make some money off me suddenly turned into a rude asshole because she believed she couldn't.
Now, I know agents are just sales people. They aren't artists, or even editors, just brokers. But when someone has been so informal as to confide about her flu and work, etc. Someone who had accepted my FB friend request, someone who had asked for the whole manuscript and then once she didn't want it, couldn't be bothered to answer yeah, or nay, until I reached out, you would think that person could be bothered to give me five minutes of her time. Literally, five minutes.
So, I wrote her an email, titling it, "thanks for reading my manuscript," and started out very nicely then I told her what I really thought of her. Basically, all I have written here, but not in so many words. I did tell her she is an asshole.
This, dear fellow writers, is on behalf of all of you. When people treat you like shit, shit on them right back! No apologies.
Shadi Mir
Mr. Cohn is absolutely correct in stating that the choice issue is quite complex. I believe that life begins when an egg and a sperm form a zygote. I also have had two early-term abortions, flanking the two planned pregnancies that I carried to term. They were by no means easy choices, but being a mother, I know how difficult it is to raise children properly, and therefore, I am soundly pro-choice. Was I careless to get pregnant when I was too young, or too poor to parent a healthy and happy child? Yes. But it doesn't mean that a mistake should have resulted in life-long misery for all involved. I know people who have had several abortions because they use the procedure as birth control, which is wrong. Do I condone late term abortion after "quickening" when the mother can feel her baby inside her, usually between 4 to 5 months? No. However, no one has the right to tell another person how to live. In this day and age of human overpopulation, and the tweaking of creation of life in myriad labs all over the world, it seems anachronistic to concern ourselves with "sacredness" of life. Perhaps we should think more about quality of life, not only that of women and children, but of all living beings.
@Shadi Mir, I think you raise excellent points. Historically, quickening was the determining cut-off point for legal abortion in this country prior to the women's suffrage movement (when suddenly abortion became a political issue). However, as a healthcare professional, I know there are humanitarian issues for late term abortion: mental illness, late-stage cancer, anencephaly (no brain development in the fetus leading to suffering and inevitable death), and a host of other disasters make a late-term abortion a humane choice. Every woman I've seen who chooses it knows it is a Sophie's Choice, and the day she has to make that choice is the worst day of her life.
This article appeared in The NYT on June 29, 2020. It was obvious even then that Roe v Wade would be overturned. I wrote the comment below in response to the article. Now, all those of us who are pro-choice have to VOTE! The liberal states will keep their abortion laws, the conservative states will limit or abolish them. Truth be told, we aren't a country, we are a continent, so how we live across this great land, what our values and priorities are vary. No one should tell us how to live, so unfortunately for those in less intelligent states, you have no choice but to move. I moved from one country to another, from one continent to another, so I know it's a pain but not impossible. Leave the benighted to themselves. Also, a great opportunity for entrepreneurs and volunteers in the progressive states, abortion tourism is coming folks! To those in the yucky states, VOTE.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/29/opinion/supreme-court-abortion.html
Shadi Mir | NYC
@Shadi Mir I am glad to see that women's reproductive rights still trigger so many of us. In college, I took part in pro-choice rallies, so of course, I rather the Court uphold Roe vs. Wade, but if it doesn't, due to the vote that brought Donald Trump to the presidency of this country, and the Republican Senate who blocked former President Obama from appointing a more moderate judge--all things bestowed upon us by our outdated electoral college--then no reason residents of more liberal states have to live by the choices of the majority in conservative states, as unfortunately we are at the moment in so many ways from the environment to the pandemic.
Ask a friend to proofread it, they say. I have asked several to be beta readers, feeling bad to ask them to put in hours to edit or proof read. Most have jobs and families to take care of. First peeve with friends: I don't give my manuscript to anyone to read who doesn't ask. When I tell friends I finished my manuscript, they say, "I would love to read it." So, I give it to them. A couple have bothered to read and give broad feedback. I'm keeping their comments in a corner of my mind and wait for consensus (the only way you know something is really an issue) but others, nothing. Makes you feel stupid and unimportant to them, and they are supposed to be your friends.
So, this is where it stands now. No money for an editor or a proof reader, and bum friends. On agents, the next post.
😀
I was extremely critical of this extremely privileged Arab woman, a human rights lawyer, for not speaking out against the genocide in Palest...
