Job vs. No Job
Mojo Nixon, 1957-2024
Kobe: The Statue vs. The Moment
The Secret is Out
When it comes to the countries of the collective West, the large network media, TV channels, (and) large newspapers can in no way boast of even trying to at least look impartial in terms of coverage.
These are all media outlets that take an exceptionally one-sided position. Of course, there is no desire to communicate with such media, and it hardly makes sense, and it is unlikely that it will be useful.
Severe Weather Alert
I saw a sign on the freeway today:
SEVERE WEATHER ALERT
AVOID TRAVEL
THRU TUESDAY
“Severe weather” in most of Southern California, including where I live, means you’re going to have to turn on the windshield wipers. And I mean turn them on and leave them on, not in intermittent mode.
Media Companies With Millions of X Followers?
— Enguerrand VII de Coucy (@ingelramdecoucy) January 25, 2024
I’m posting the above tweet not for the content but because if you look at the @NBCNews profile on X, you’ll see that the account has (allegedly) 9.4 million followers, and the tweet, when I looked at it, had 65 likes.
How can an account with 9.4 million followers be getting 65 likes on a tweet?!
First of all, I’m not singling out NBC. There are many media accounts on X with (allegedly) millions of followers and almost no interaction.
Second, I didn’t cherry-pick a tweet with just a few likes. The NBC account has some tweets with more likes, some tweets with fewer, but 65 is not abnormally low.
I picked it because of the comment underneath the original tweet. It’s a drawing of the Frog of Shame, and reads “If the Frog of Shame gets more likes than the original tweet, then your tweet really sucks.”
The Frog of Shame (as I write this) has 316 likes.
Joy Reid’s Hair
BREAKING PREDICTION:
In Joy Reid’s bleaching quest to be accepted by White liberals, she will be fired by those same White liberals at @msnbc for her over the top racist rants against and about White people. You don’t know? You better ask @TiffanyDCross and @rolandsmartin.… pic.twitter.com/xYtiAuN2z7— Vernon Jones (@VernonForGA) January 16, 2024
I read about the Vernon Jones remarks in an article, the point of which was that Vernon Jones is a terrible person for saying these things about Joy Reid.
I think it’s fair comment. The only thing Joy Reid seems to hate more than white people is her own hair.
2023: The Year in Books
These are the books I read in 2023, roughly in the order listed. The ratings are mine. They don’t represent a consensus of opinion.
Books of the Year: The Life Before Us by Romain Gary (fiction), and Where Are the Customers’ Yachts by Fred Schwed (non-fiction).
The Three Keys to Success by Claudine Gay
Seven Years
We’ve had seven years and counting of Hitler and Nazi references directed at Trump and his supporters, but in recent months we’ve had an opportunity to see who the real Jew-haters are in our country. And they’re not MAGA Republicans. Amazingly, the Hitler references continue. They haven’t stopped. This seems self-destructive.
We’ve had seven years and counting of “Democracy is in danger” from a party that rigged the 2016 Presidential primary so Bernie Sanders wouldn’t win, rigged the 2020 Presidential primary so Bernie Sanders wouldn’t win, colludes with intel agencies, corporate media and Big Tech to lie, spy and censor. Amazingly, “Democracy is in danger” continues, even as they prosecute political opponents and take names off ballots. You can’t vote for the wrong candidate if his name isn’t on the ballot, right?
Forget democracy. Democracy is dead. We had to take away your right to vote for the candidates of your choice in order to preserve your right to vote for the candidates of your choice.
Asking for Help
Home Alone, Too
Feel-Good Marketing
Over the past few years, marketing has become much more inclusive in terms of using models of all ages, shapes, sizes, colors, not retouching the photos, etc., rather than saturating our lives with images of flawless, unattainable beauty. Why is this not a terrible idea?
Of course, we’re all beautiful in our own way, but from a marketing perspective, the ideal consumer is someone who is anxious, depressed and constantly dissatisfied. Academic studies from the most respected institutions show that sad people are bigger spenders.
Helping people feel better about themselves the way they are may be laudable, but it doesn’t make the cash box jingle.
P.S. I’ve never worked in marketing but I think I’d be good at it. Although I would also hate it.
I Know When You’re Awake
More Words and Phrases I’m Sick Unto Death Of
Sometimes when two people are leaving each other’s company, one of them will say as a parting shot, “Stay out of trouble.”
It doesn’t make sense, except as something to say to someone who’s in serious trouble all the time.
Otherwise, it sounds like the speaker is trying to position both people involved as affable rakes who might stir up a bit of naughty fun from time to time, no harm done, that sort of thing.
When someone says “Stay out of trouble” to me, I respond by saying “You too” and then Swatting them.
Why Popular Music is Rubbish
Almost all the female singers have the same voice, like a half-mumbling toddler.
The male singers have a broader range but not a lot broader: the screamer, the effeminate and the high school dropout.
But the main problem is that whoever is writing the songs, it is just not their destiny to be songwriters. There’s a complete lack of imagination, resulting in only a few themes, endlessly recycled:
- I love you
- I love you and you love me
- I love you and you don’t love me
- I love you but you left
- Let’s fuck
A Few More Reasons Teachers Don’t Want Parents to Know What Their Kids Are Doing at School
- Newlywed Iowa Teacher, 24, Accused of ‘Engaging in Sexually Oriented Acts’ With 3 Students as Young as 13
- Special Education Teacher Charged With Sexually Touching 7 Boys at New Jersey Elementary School
- Teacher Charged With Raping Child Under 13 Says She’s Pregnant
- Teacher, 33, Charged With Raping Student She Met at 14 and Who Fathered Her Baby at 17
A Lone Individual
But tonight I would like to think of one man, a lone individual, a man without name or country, a man whom I respect because he has absolutely nothing in common with you–MYSELF. Tonight I shall meditate on that which I am.
The Day the Delusions Died
The contradictions and moral bankruptcy of a worldview that spends years worrying about microaggressions and tone policing, but can’t decide what side it is on after the beheading of babies, aren’t exactly difficult to spot.
To put it another way: when Black Lives Matter organizations are lionizing Islamist terrorists by posting a paraglider logo, you’d be a fool not to reassess things.
Don’t Kill the Message
As a Democrat who has been left homeless, who is now definitely in the center but probably leaning increasingly right, I am left yet again with an appreciation, despite the messenger, of the message of the Trump administration because what those guys did was pretty incredible in hindsight.
So much of the work that happened in that administration turns out to have been right. And that’s what is so frustrating for me. The work on the border wall? We didn’t like the messenger, so we killed the message. Turned out it was right. Issuing long-term debt to refinance when rates were at zero? We didn’t like the messenger, so we killed the message. A structural peace in the Middle East? We didn’t like the messenger, so we killed the message. When are we gonna stop shooting ourselves in the foot? And when are we going to actually see and take the time to look past who is saying things and actually listen to them word for word?