Been a student. Been a clerk. Been a salesperson. Been a manager. Been a teacher. Been an expatriate. Am a husband, father, and chronicle.

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  • 42 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
Cake day: July 4th, 2023
  • eightpix@lemmy.worldtoAsklemmy@lemmy.ml•To people who choose not to swear (for non-religious reasons), what is your motivation to be that way ?
    4·
    4 days ago

    It was a cycle for me:

    Not swearing led to swearing.

    Swearing led to learning to swear in other languages.

    Learning to swear in other languages served me well as I moved out of North America to teach.

    Being out of North American led to me being more humble and less the brash North American. Also, I spent a lot of time with children.

    Being less brash and speaking in other languages led me to think more about what I say before saying it.

    Thinking about my speech led to downgrading swearing to make a point. I’ll swear, depending on the audience.

    Specifically — like L-Boogie said — “I’ll add a MFer so you ign’ant ****s hear me.” (Fugees, The Score, “Zealots”) If I’m cursing, it’s prolly because there’s some ignorance in my area.

    I admit, sometimes it’s mine.

    Also, the irony is not lost on me that L fell off not too long after this rhyme. Celebrity culture can be a scene full of ignorance. I don’t blame her. I blame the industry.

  • eightpix@lemmy.worldtoAsklemmy@lemmy.ml•What franchises do you consider part of the "pillars" of popular culture?
    1·
    1 month ago

    This is an impossible question to answer. But, I’ll give it a shot anyway. I’ve expanded the meaning of “franchise” to include “all properties sublicensable for the purposes of profiteering.”

    If “popular culture” refers to the recognizable and persistent elements of living in society that the majority people share in common without having to communicate that recognition, I’d regard the following franchises as having broad impact worldwide:

    • McDonalds/Subway and all attendant advertising as a signpost for food. Franchises abound.

    • Esso/Shell/BP as gateways to modern conveniences and transportation. Every gas station, residence, farm house, hen house, outhouse, and dog house is connected to these franchises in some way.

    • G4S/Securitas/Garda as the front line protecting the ‘haves’ from the ‘have-nots’. Franchises abound.

    • Most athletic, luxury vehicle, and brands as the status symbols they want themselves to be. Franchisees promote the brands as a means of collecting clients.

    If, on the other hand, “popular culture” is, ‘traditions and material culture of a particular society. In the modern West, pop culture refers to cultural products such as music, art, literature, fashion, dance, film, cyberculture, television, and radio that are consumed by the majority of a society’s population. … types of media that have mass accessibility and appeal’ (ThoughtCo.) then the following are some fairly strong indicators of popular culture:

    • Hello Kitty (be pleasant)

    • Pokémon (pursue goals)

    • Superman/Batman (masculinity, vigilantism)

    • Paw Patrol (institutions are essential)

    • the Olympics (do athletics)

    • Michael Jordan (be excellent)

    • Mickey Mouse (dream big)

    • Star Wars/The Bible (G vs. E)

    The ones I wish would take hold and have more of an influence:

    • X-men (biodiversity is good)

    • the Expanse

    • Battlestar Galactica (genocide, rebellion, impersonation, terrorism, coups d’état, civil war, infidelity, succession, military conflict, asymmetrical warfare, treason, mutiny, pirate broadcasts, nuclear warfare… and that’s just the first half of the series)

    • Tony’s Chocolonely (ethical economics)

  • eightpix@lemmy.worldtoAsklemmy@lemmy.ml•Who is the GOATest GOAT?
    2·
    2 months ago

    Right, because being America’s whipping boy (yeah, I said it) is really working out for Ukrainians.

    America needs Ukraine to buy obsolete weapons now, use them against Russia’s current military capacity so that there’s real-world applications for next generation weapons. Also, all the strategies designed to contain a more militant Russia needed to be gamed out. Ukraine will be paying this war back for generations. Think Haiti’s reparations to France, but with bigger numbers.

    A years-long conflict also “softens” Russia up for the next round of sanctions — maybe they’ll be effective this time!

    Chomsky said, in effect, ‘Nope, that’s dumb’ (not a quote). Also, there were months and months of Russian build-up on the border. Before that, years of signals, comments, and overt actions showing that they are legit pissed that NATO came knocking. There should’ve been diplomacy, dialogue, deal making. ‘Nope, that’s dumb. War is profitable.’

    NATO (read: USA) wasn’t about to be told who can be in their little club. Russia wasn’t about to be told that ICBMs would be parked on their doorstep. So, conflict.

    So, what else has Chomsky said?

    “the U.S. seems to be fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian, reiterating the conclusion of Diego Cordovez and Selig Harrison that in the 1980s the U.S. was fighting Russia to the last Afghan.”

    "It is, surely, worthwhile to think seriously about the history of the past 30 years since Bill Clinton launched a new Cold War by violating the firm and unambiguous U.S. promise to Mikhail Gorbachev that “We understand the need for assurances to the countries in the East. If we maintain a presence in a Germany that is a part of NATO, there would be no extension of NATO’s jurisdiction for forces of NATO one inch to the east.”

    "Those who want to ignore the history are free to do so, at the cost of failure to understand what is happening now, and what the prospects are for preventing “much worse.”

    Sources: Chomsky.info and Truthout

  • eightpix@lemmy.worldtoAsklemmy@lemmy.ml•TV nerds: what should I watch
    6·
    2 months ago

    Travelers, The Expanse (noted by OP), Beef, and Breaking Bad are all solid. Add Mare of Easttown, the Morning Show, and the Newsroom and you’ve got half of my favourite shows of the past 15 years.

    Ted Lasso was the big surprise to me here. The characters are lovable, caring, and well-crafted, and the story is simple but compelling. In all, only the most heartless, isolate, human beings would get nothing from this show.

  • eightpix@lemmy.worldtoAsklemmy@lemmy.ml•If there's one thing you want people to learn, what would it be and why?
    0·
    3 months ago

    Assuming right-hand side of road driving and right-hand (anti-clockwise) directionality of travel.

    1. Look left. Clear? Proceed. Not clear? Yield.
    2. When safe to do so, enter the roundabout. Locate your exit.
    3. Exit the roundabout.

    Corollary: never stop in a roundabout. Go around more than once if you have to, but don’t stop.

    I assume roundabouts in Australia and England and UK colonies that drive on the left, all instructions are direction-opposite.

    Assuming left-hand side of road driving and left-hand (clockwise) directionality of travel.

    1. Look right. Clear? Proceed. Not clear? Yield.
    2. When safe to do so, enter the roundabout. Locate your exit.
    3. Exit the roundabout.

    Corollary: never stop in a roundabout. Go around more than once if you have to, but don’t stop.

  • eightpix@lemmy.worldtoAsklemmy@lemmy.ml•Have you seen someone die in front of you?
    21·
    3 months ago

    It seems like I’ve been obsessed over death and dying for decades.

    When I was thirteen, as a form of dealing with the concept of death, I imagined hearing the news of the deaths of each of my family members and a couple of the girls I liked from school. Finding out that a person is dead is a singular experience. A few years later, I viscerally understood what was said in Unforgiven, “[death] take[s] away all he’s got, all he’s ever gonna have.”

    When I was sixteen, I did a cooperative education placement in a hospital. As fate would have it, I was placed in the histopathology department. I was surrounded by tissues removed from the dead, the dying, and those who had gotten a new lease on life. In the morgue, I helped discard any samples that were two or more years old. Removed silicone breast implants were frequent, as were containers labelled “uterine curettings.” In that same morgue, I sat in on two autopsies, including one where sections of the brain were needed.

    Between 13 and 18, I began to be much more aware of conflict zones; injustice, and miscarriages of justice involving death; of the legacies left behind in their wake. I became aware of South African apartheid, war — later, genocide — in a disintegrating Yugoslavia, genocide in Rwanda. The collapse of social order in L.A. in '92. Hurricanes in the Caribbean, especially Andrew, which battered Jamaica. The Bay Area earthquake. The Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. The bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City and the bombing at the Atlanta Olympics. This period also saw the formation of my opposition to capital punishment.

    It wasn’t until 9/11 that I saw people die live on TV. I didn’t wake until 10 am that day, but by 1030, I saw both towers fall. By the end of that day, it was a buddy of mine who said, “Why don’t they stop showing this??” It hadn’t occurred to me that we were watching snuff film until then.

    Then there was 17-18 March 2003. I sat and watched as Shock and Awe were released on Baghdad. One of the oldest cities in the world bombed for political expediency. More snuff film.

    ____ and ____ would later start to collect and disseminate the deadliest and the most violate material. I wouldn’t go looking for it, but it would find me. Cartel violence, industrial accidents, gun camera footage, people filming police shootings… there was so much death. Busta Rhymes said it best, “numerals of funerals every day.” Another thought that has not left me.

    I didn’t know why I needed to know. Then, in time, I came to understand that I was bearing witness.

    It was about 2004 when I started to develop an appreciation for the special violence of the Israeli‐Palestinian conflict and the sheer destruction it inflicts. I read a lot about the Holocaust, Jewish diaspora, anti-Semitism, and the campaign to make genocide punishable. Then, I read about the roots of the Israeli state, its funding, protections, and the special relationship it enjoys with the warlike American state and its allies. Then, I read into America and how that state has secured its place in world history. I moved to South Korea and started to understand Korea, Japan, China, and the other nations of Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Oceania, much more clearly.

    What I found out is that, to some, achievable ends are sought by bloody means. This is a pattern across most of the world. In general, average everyday people are just trying to get by and do right by their families. In the places that we can not peacefully coexist, where expropriation and indignity are inflicted by those who wield the power they seek and are corrupted by it. Frank Herbert said, “Power is magnetic to the corruptible.”

    Journalists, in my opinion, are those who pursue power in the practice of relinquishing it to the public. With this in mind, I understand the threat that Julian Assange was to the power establishment in the US. I saw the “Collateral Murder” release that landed him in the Ecuadorian embassy for the better part of a decade. The truly destructive part of this episode is the proliferation of instances in which military outfits across the world are engaged in similar activities. The Dutch Safety Board investigation and publications regarding the shooting down of flight MH17 are exceptional examples.

    All of this is to say that we need to spend more time coming to terms with death and dying. We need to be more aware, not less, of the living conditions that cause people to die. War, famine, pestilence, climate upheaval, conflict zones, refugees from conflict and climate and corruption, drought, flooding, colonialism, austerity, and protectionism threaten almost all of the world’s population.

    The few who are not threatened take refuge in their comfort and contrive to maintain the status quo. They change laws, lobby, employ, and help to elect and appoint those that serve the entreched interests. A future that looks like the present is a dead future, and we are witnessing the spread of atrophy and rigor mortis each day. That’s about as real as it gets.