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Donald Trump Rips Megan Rapinoe For Anthem Protest
Marc Atkins / Getty Images
Ever since the 2016 campaign, President Donald Trump has sought to make political hay of athletes protesting during the national anthem. When then-San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick first began the protests in 2016, Trump told him to "find another country," per NFL.com. The following year, Trump escalated his battle with the NFL, referring to protesting players as "sons of b**ches" and wishing for owners to cut players who participated in the protest.
The president mostly stayed silent about the protests during the last NFL season, and as the Los Angeles Times reported, this had something to do with a tacit agreement in which the Trump and the NFL owners worked together to solve an "obscure trade issue" involving revenues from Canada, which improved relations between the parties.
Now, the president has weighed in on the anthem protest involving an athlete in another sport.
U.S. women's national soccer team star Megan Rapinoe has been protesting during the anthem for several years. She formerly kneeled during the anthem, and now merely doesn't sing along with it prior to matches in the Women's World Cup. In an interview with The Hill published Tuesday, Trump made clear that he doesn't approve of this.
"No. I don't think so," the president said when asked if he is in favor of Rapinoe's protest.
The president went on to say that "I love watching women's soccer," but didn't take a position on the women's national team's quest for equal pay to that of the men's team. The women's team has won multiple World Cups, while the men did not qualify for the most recent World Cup in 2018.
Trump says Megan Rapinoe's silence during national anthem at World Cup is inappropriate https://t.co/5dBBxY8e0N
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) June 25, 2019
Rapinoe explained her protest in an interview with NBC Sports back in 2016.
"I felt like it was the right thing to do. I think it was the right time to do that," Rapinoe told the outlet. "I've talked to people who are equally inspired and outraged, and I welcome both of those conversations and think that they are both incredibly important. I think overall it's been positive."
The 33-year-old Rapinoe has played for the national team since 2006 and played in her first World Cup in 2011. That year, in the quarterfinal match against Brazil, she got the assist on Abby Wambach's famous goal in the 122nd minute to tie the match, which the U.S. went on to win on penalty kicks. The U.S. team lost the World Cup final to Japan that year but went on to win the World Cup in 2015.
NBA Rumors: Andre Iguodala's Top Suitors Are Rockets, Clippers July 15, 2019


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Are neoliberalism and Trump's populism incompatible? In the scattered debates that have arisen in the wake of his presidential victory, these two somewhat vague terms are contrasted with one another in order to make sense of his rhetoric of protectionism for US manufacturers and labor, to the detriment of immigrant workers. To say nothing of the fact that the previous White House occupant had deported approximately 2.5 million people from the United States, there appears to be something approximating continuity between the two men in this regard (and arguably, this stretches further down the hierarchy of the executive branch). While immigrants are arguably among the most sensitive to the recent assault on labor, there is little evidence to suggest that native born workers will therefore enjoy higher wages in their absence. Trump obviously does not support unionization and does not support any national referendum on raising the minimum wage at the federal level. So then why the optimism among conservatives who seem to believe truly that the exclusion of illegal immigrants will benefit the American worker? Or, perhaps more germane to this audience — why is Trump's populism being posed as a reactionary check on neoliberalism? A look at John Smith's latest work, Imperialism in the 21st Century (Monthly Review Press, 2015) may provide some grounding in the problem as he looks at the "neoliberal turn" in the imperialist world order.
In this ongoing obfuscation of the Global South's contribution toward the economic values ingested by the Global North, what is really at stake is how neoliberal capitalism still manages to use the existing channels carved out by imperialism centuries ago. With the opening of China in 1978 and continuing through to the collapse of Stalinism throughout the 1990s, an unprecedented market of cheap, exploitative labor was there for the taking. Smith plots the trajectory: starting with low-tech items such as toys and clothing, Northern transnational corporations (TNCs) were ultimately able successfully to export even more technology-intensive manufacturing at the cost of paying the producers less and less in wages. Armed with the ability simply to close shop and hire cheap labor abroad, firms increasingly began to take part in industrializing the Global South — faster than the previous mode of state-led attempts at developmental autarky or some new form of economic nationalism. For John Smith, the result is not simply a new trend within international trade, but a new element in Marx's categories of absolute and relative surplus value — a third form of it, wrought from what academics refer to as global labor arbitrage, or globalization of cheap labor. It is this movement of cheap wages into the Global South which defines the operation of neoliberal capitalism, or imperialism in the 21st century.
One of the main attributes of this new imperialism is that Northern firms often prefer to use local intermediaries to outsource their labor, and get around any legal — to say nothing of moral — responsibilities tied to the host country's labor practices. It is how in the wake of the collapsed garment factory in Dhaka in April of 2013, Gap, H&M, and Walmart were able simultaneously to lash out at the prevailing safety codes in brutally impoverished Bangladesh, all the while legally distancing themselves from having any culpability. Smith also cites Coca-Cola's ability to absolve itself from contractually-obligated guilt when its Colombian subcontractors hire paid thugs to assassinate trade unionists. Since these subcontractors are often based in countries that are dominated by Northern imperialism, the respective political regimes frequently respond with violence and intimidation, de facto tolerated in the West so as to keep their labor market competitive. Such is the hidden cost of their relative comparative advantage. With Northern firms' operations not being the sites of the lion's share of labor (or guilt) and Southern subcontractors applying what brutal methods they need to keep their workers attractive to capital, the relationship works out fairly well for the most part.
What can we deduce then from this brief sketch of Smith's argument? For one, Trump's populism ought to be grounded in a materialist analysis beyond its reprehensible xenophobic rhetoric. Second, by offering major tax credits to American auto manufacturers that come at the cost of social spending, Trump could renegotiate NAFTA to be more detrimental to Mexico, without actually reducing outsourcing much. It would preserve outsourcing of parts of production, just on worse terms of trade. At the same time, consistent and more aggressive attempts to enhance border security and improve deportation capabilities ensure that labor, unlike capital, is more restricted in its movement, contributing further to the growing reserve army of labor in the Global South, in which competition between Northern and Southern workers increases, spilling over into an even more cutthroat competition among Mexican or Salvadoran workers for small scraps of the wage. It is entirely conceivable that Northern firms that reap major profits off of super exploitation abroad could at the same continue to underpay or super-exploit migrant labor working within the US. In this regard they are two ends of the same dynamic at play.
Trump's populism therefore cannot be understood strictly along the lines of economic nationalism tantamount to the German National Socialism of yesteryear. Populism, ironically, carves out and abstracts from an already diverse working class in the United States, one composed not just of native-born workers, but those who are also immigrants, regardless of their status. But in doing so, Trump and those who support his perspective are able provide animus for the further immiseration of not just the native-born or immigrant workers, but also the ongoing exploitative relations for workers well beyond the US border. In this sense, Trump only bolsters the existing neoliberal movement of capital both within the United States as well as outside of the country, using populism as a means to further divide workers everywhere. Populism is thus the sharpened spear-tip of neoliberalism, and it is unlikely to see defeat at the hands of a more socially and economically nationalist framework.


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A digital newsletter from NTEX
Kundtidning
Ströms blogg
Väderstad and NTEX are growing together – now on 10 markets
Published: 20/05/20
As Väderstad, the international manufacturer of agricultural machinery, has expanded, our assignment with them has also grown. Starting by transporting spare parts to the markets in the Baltic countries, we are now making everyday deliveries to 10 markets.
In the small town of Väderstad in the municipality of Mjölby, Väderstad AB is the single largest employer, with approximately 1000 employees. In addition to the headquarters, there are about 500 additional employees in the consolidated group. Väderstad is represented in 40 countries and on all continents through subsidiaries, factories and retailers. The factory in Väderstad transports agricultural machinery and parts to machines all over the world.
NTEX's first assignment for Väderstad took place in 2010, when Väderstad decided to test a new carrier for the Baltic States. Today, NTEX is the company's single largest carrier in trailer traffic.
– Colleagues had heard that NTEX was a good carrier, which they also have turned out to be. NTEX is very flexible and responsive and as a customer, we have a good contact with the entire organization, not only our contact person but also with those who work operationally and in traffic management. We are very pleased with the collaboration, says Michael Sköldestig, transport developer at Väderstad.
The collaboration began with the delivery of machine parts to the Baltics and has grown since then. Today, NTEX trailers are carrying goods for Väderstad in no less than 10 markets; UK, Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Germany, Italy and Russia.
– You could say that Väderstad and NTEX have grown together. Both as individual companies but also with regard to the cooperation, says Michael Sköldestig.
NTEX Area Sales Manager for Väderstad is Birgitta Motin who really enjoys finding efficient and new customer solutions with focus on high quality.
– To produce grains for the production of food and animal feed effectively also means that the logistics chain around these products must operate efficiently and safely. So, you can say that Väderstad + NTEX is a so-called "perfect match", says Birgitta Motin.
In photo from the left: Birgitta Motin from NTEX together with Michael Sköldestig, Johnny Thörnqvist and Tommy Karlsson representing Väderstad.
NTEX Invests for Growth: Expands with Terminal and Warehouse Space of 13,950 sqm
Transport and logistics company NTEX is creating space for more clients, more efficient cargo handling and warehousing with newly built premises strategically located near Scandinavia's largest container port. "With these premises we can offer even better handling of cargo flows to and... Read More
NTEX Continues its Ambitious Climate Work – Test Drives Truck Unit Powered by Biogas
NTEX is taking the next big step on its journey towards a more climate-friendly fleet. In partnership with Gasum and Volvo Trucks, the company is now testing a truck unit that runs on liquid biogas (LBG). NTEX's first gas-powered truck unit may be on the horizon in the near future.
NTEX converts to fossil-free transport: kick-starts with one of the first electric trucks by Volvo in Western Sweden
NTEX, one of Sweden's largest private freight forwarder, is now investing in fossil-free vehicles. Their first investment is a full-electric truck from Volvo Trucks that will transport goods in the greater Gothenburg area. This investment is expected to lower carbon dioxide emissions by 19.6 tonnes p.a.
Extended confidence from Kährs
Since the beginning of October NTEX has taken over the responsibility for Kährs' domestic shipments in Sweden. The expanded collaboration means that NTEX will handle approx. 24,000 shipments, or 3,200 tons, for Kährs annually.
As fragile as glass
Since 2015, NTEX UK has handled and shipped road marking glass beads from Scotland to Sweden and Norway. What started with 30-40 loads per year has developed into 178 loads, so far this year.
NTEX delivers fuel pumps to the Nordic and Baltic countries
NTEX has shipped Gilbarco Veeder-Root's products to petrol stations around the Nordic and Baltic countries since 2018. Every week, NTEX transports petrol pumps, charging stations, terminals and level measuring equipment from Italy and Germany to Circle K, OKQ8 and ST1 among others.
New box trailers for Carpet Logistics provide increased safety and performance
NTEX offers a unique logistics service called Carpet Logistics. Focused on carpets, Sweden and Norway are serviced with carpet transports from both the Netherlands and Belgium. In September, seven new box trailers were put into use, completely adapted for Carpet Logistics with better performance and increased safety for the drivers.
Helicopter transported from Visby to Chicago
Earlier this year, NTEX received a request to transport a helicopter that was in need of service from Gotland to Chicago, USA. Due to the pandemic, the mission was paused. After the summer and careful planning, dismantling and custom packaging, the helicopter was finally transported by special transport from Visby to Arlanda and on to Chicago with a chartered plane.
An extraordinary shipment
We've been a member of OPCA (Overseas Project Cargo Association), a global agent network of professional project cargo freight forwarders and logistics companies, since 2016. OPCA serves "Project Focused Networking Strategy" which refers to gathering project cargo specialists with a background in project cargo field and that are willing to collaborate with fellow agents based on project cargo shipments and management.
New terminal and new traffic lines in Gislaved
In April, Fraktkompaniet established a new distribution facility with domestic service and warehouses in Gislaved in Småland. The facility is shared with the parent company NTEX who in Gislaved has taken over some traffic from Borås and now handles traffic to and from Norway, Finland, the Baltics and Central Europe.
Information to customers regarding the Corona virus (Covid-19)
Health and safety of our employees, customers and suppliers is our highest priority. This means that we closely monitor the development and statements made by relevant authorities in the countries concerned.
New services between UK, Spain, Portugal and Italy
NTEX UK has developed its existing services, and now offers new full-service services for its customers to the southern European market.
NTEX and Ecus in cooperation on Brexit
Two years ago, NTEX initiated a collaboration with the customs management experts Ecus in the customs handling of transport to and from Norway. When NTEX's Customs Manager, Jenny Wallberg, visited the Customs Podcast at the beginning of the year, she talked about how the collaboration has now expanded to the UK, and the company's customs handling in connection with Brexit.
NTEX CEO Thomas Ström featured in Dagens Industri
Today, Dagens Industri, one of Sweden's largest business media published a great piece on our CEO Thomas Ström and the story of developing and managing NTEX, the largest private freight forwarder in Sweden.
NTEX acquires JEK Forwarding AB - The seventh company acquisition in two years
It is now official that NTEX acquires Gothenburg-based JEK Forwarding AB, a transport company focusing on sea and air freight. This is NTEX seventh company acquisition in two years and it means that NTEX, through acquisitions and organic growth, will have a turnover of SEK 2.4-2.5 billion in 2020. This will make NTEX the largest private freight forwarder in Sweden.
Multilingual "control tower" – effective and safe for Valmet
Flexibility, responsiveness and short lead times were some of the reasons why the large industrial company Valmet chose NTEX as a carrier. Finnish language skills were another reason that facilitated coordination for transport between different markets.
Fraktkompaniet becomes part of NTEX
The two Gothenburg-based transport and logistics companies becomes one when NTEX acquires Fraktkompaniet. Both companies are among the most expansive in the Swedish industry and the merger enables an even greater growth rate. Through the acquisition, NTEX increases its turnover by approximately 360 million SEK and welcomes 100 new employees. Fraktkompaniet will be run as an independent subsidiary under the direction of CEO Anette Yngvesson.
A tank truck comes loaded
Cold beer deliveries all over Sweden when NTEX delivers Carlsberg on tank.
Daily deliveries for better the acoustic environments
Reliability and quality - two cornerstones in the long-standing collaboration between Ecophon and NTEX. A collaboration that began in Sweden but today also includes transports outside the country's borders.
The first half of 2019 - the best ever
There is much to suggest that 2019 will be the best in NTEX's 16-year old history. At least if you look at the first half of the year when sales increased by 14 percent to 900 MSEK and the number of shipments to about 400,000 units.
NTEX Continues its Expansion: Opens Office in Malmö and Establishes Itself on the Austrian Market
NTEX has recently announced the next step in its development. The company has signed up a number of new employees with top expertise and a long experience in the industry. By the end of April 2021, they will move into a new office in Malmö, but the expansion doesn't stop there.
NTEX Hires New HR Manager with an International Focus
From 13 employees in Sweden to 600 across Europe and with further expansions in sight. Expansive freight forwarding company, NTEX has hired Camilla Hultkrantz to be in charge of human resources, corporate culture and a globalized NTEX. Camilla has a long experience in the transport and logistics industry and has most recently worked at Toyota Material Handling Logistics Solutions.
Is your business ready for Brexit?
On 1 January 2021, new rules will be introduced regarding customs handling in trade with the UK. Through our specialists, NTEX offers full guidance, services and is ready to help customers for the best possible transition.
Caring & Committed
NTEX core values is what defines the company as well as the backbone of everything it does, both as a company and as a brand. Based on its core values, such as"Caring" and "Committed", part of NTEX's aim is to further engage co-workers to develop the corporate culture.
Quick and flexible to manage Covid-19
With 500 employees and offices in nine different countries across Europe, NTEX is constantly operating under a myriad of laws and regulations. The current corona pandemic gave birth to new and swift directives and preconditions, while also differing between markets. With a close eye on the development, NTEX has adapted and taken measures to secure operations and continue providing the best possible services, also during these challenging times.
CSR partner to the world's largest handball club
During the spring, NTEX joined as the official CSR partner for the world's largest handball club, IK Sävehof. As a partner, NTEX supports Sävehof's long-term social work with #viställerupp (#wewillbethere), which aims to create a local community development for a healthier and more inclusive place for children and young people.
Increased interest for becoming a truck driver
In February, the TYA (Transport Trades Occupational and Safety Board) presented a report showing continued high number of applicants for Sweden's upper secondary school's vehicle and transport programs, but also that the proportion of girls in the second year today amounts up to 27 percent.
Strengthened sales organization for NTEX in Norway
To improve its customer service even further, NTEX has expanded its sales organization with two new employees focusing on the Norwegian market.
A stable development of NTEX in Norway
In 2015, NTEX established its first own terminal in Norway. Since then, the business has expanded greatly, with a doubling of the number of employees and a terminal and warehousing operations that has grown from 3 500 to 10 000 square meters. In order to meet this increased demand, operations must now be further broadened.
Having the world as our market
As a worldwide player, NTEX is represented all over the world. To meet new and existing partners, the company is part of four major global partner networks in transport and logistics. NTEX Business Unit Manager, Jerry Nilsson, has participated in four meetings during this year.
A highly qualified IT manager for NTEX
A few weeks ago, Jonny Synnergren started as new IT manager at NTEX. Jonny joined NTEX from consulting firm Evry, where he has held various roles for the past nine years. Among other things, as a key account manager and most recently responsible "architect" where he designed IT... Read More
Securing talents for the future
In order to keep giving their customers the best possible service there is, fast growing companies like NTEX needs to attract the best employees. At NTEX in Immingham, England, an apprenticeship investment has successfully been beneficial for both its customers as well as the company.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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1935 Duesenberg Model JN Convertible Sedan by Rollston
June 25, 2021 6:00am by Barry Ritholtz
The Duesenberg Model J is a luxury automobile made by Duesenberg. Intended to compete with the most luxurious and powerful cars in the world. The Model J, which debuted on December 1, 1928, at the New York Automobile Salon. The stock market crash and the Great Depression soon followed.
No car in history has sprung on the scene and redefined performance the way the J did. Its 265 horsepower was more than double the horsepower of the next most powerful American car. Power comes from a 420ci Lycoming straight-eight backed by a three-speed manual transmission (with reverse). The Duesenberg brothers had already won the French Gran Prix and Indy four times, so the J engine was essentially a racing engine for a luxury car.
Duesenberg were owned by the rich and famous: Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, and others.
The JN featured wider, lower-slung coachwork penned by Duesenberg's chief designer, Herbert J. Newport. Features include dual taillights, chrome bumpers, cowl-mounted Lorraine spotlights, dual mirrors, right-side external exhaust pipes, and driving lamps. The folding blue convertible top features a glass rear window and is stored under a matching cover. The folding B-pillars were repainted in preparation for the sale, and the bodywork was polished.
The car is exceedingly rare: Approximately 480 examples were produced through 1937, including 10 revised "JN" models in 1935. This JN is one of three to wear a convertible sedan body.
The car below is finished in dark blue with a matching soft top over red leather upholstery, offered for sale by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Foundation.
Upon its introduction, the Model J carried a price of $8,500 for a bare chassis. These Duesies typically sell for 7 figures or more, and this one is already bid to 1.2 million dollars. If you want this one, you better hurry: the auction ends today!
UPDATE: This beauty sold for $1,341,000.
Source: Bring A Trailer
December 2, 2010 BAC: Senate Banking Committee Hearing (12/1/2010) vs Conf Call
January 28, 2009 Credit Weakness Spreads from Subprime to Alt A to Jumbo
March 17, 2010 Art Cashin St. Patty's Day
Fun with Leverage!


Framed perfectly on the 12,000-foot spectacle of Mt. Agung, Bali's major and most holy volcano, this villa is 2500 square feet of Indonesian luxury.
This Villa sits in the heart of East Bali. Away from the surf tourism and jet set bustle of Kuta, Legian and Seminyak, this area remains the heart of the undiluted Balinese culture where real villages, real fishermen and real artisans live and work in harmony with the breathtaking natural surroundings.
Featuring deluxe his and her bathrooms, a two-person tub, living room, hand-sewn teak floors and king-sized bed, this villa was designed to house those who require the very best. It's 25-ft. high ceilings, woven bamboo walls and huge sliding windows make it the epitome of living close to the environment. The ocean thrums 75 feet from the east deck and the sunrise, for early birds, are nothing short of symphonic.


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WebPlus 10 review
Serif's web builder gets even better
By PC Plus
A host of options are readily available.
This clever software makes website building even easier
More behind-the- scenes infrastructure
New ecommerce tools
A good deal of assistance is provided
Lack of ability to create custom rollovers
Serif made its name by introducing DTP to people who, at that time, couldn't afford PageMaker. With WebPlus, it does the same thing today for people who can't afford Dreamweaver. WebPlus also takes a lot of the complication - that is, HTML - out of web design, although you can still get your hands dirty with a bit of hard coding if you really want to.
WebPlus is based very much on the desktop publishing paradigm, although it's clearly geared towards electronic rather than paper pages. Many of the tools are similar, with lines, simple graphics, artistic text and text frames, but there are also web-specific ones such as HTML and Java fragments, HTML tables and sound and video clips.
The interface now relies heavily on tabbed dockers down the right-hand side of the screen, so you can get at a huge range of attributes without having to dive deep into the menus. A good deal of assistance is provided in the form of professionally designed colour schemes and style sheets, and there are even a number of templates for complete sites. If you're really pushed for time, you can call up a template and simply modify it with your own text.
Despite it being intended for newcomers to web design, parts of WebPlus 10 have become quite complex in themselves. It's good, then, that Serif has one of the best documentation teams in the business - the online help and user manual are exemplars of clarity, providing design tips as well as full explanations of complicated concepts.
New to version 10 are ecommerce tools, Smart Objects and the source pane. If you want to include the ability to sell goods or services from your site, you now have the basic tools to do it. You can directly add PayPal facilities - or rivals RomanCart or Mal's - to a page using a wizard.
The program adds extra pages to your site with all the appropriate buttons and graphics on them for your visitors to use. And you can even specify the style for these pages, so they don't stick out like sore thumbs from the rest of your site.
Serif has provided more behind-the- scenes infrastructure in WebPlus 10 and is offering a series of Smart Objects, such as mailing lists, polls and custom blogs, which it hosts free of charge on its servers. You can add these facilities to your pages through more wizards and include things such as RSS feeds for news tickers, or you can even create your own feed to push news that is specific to your interests out to other sites.
Simple navigation
This version of the program also takes most of the effort out of creating navigation bars - the menus which control routing through your site. Rather than having to create them button by button, you can now specify the structure and let the program add new buttons, corresponding to new pages as you add them to your site. Navigation bars can be positioned horizontally or vertically, to fit with your design style.
One of the things sadly missing from WebPlus 10 is proper provision for designing individual rollovers so you can create your own animated buttons or image slices. You can use the pre-designed buttons and cut-ups, of which there are plenty on the separate Resource CD, and you can import graphics from Serif 's sibling product, DrawPlus 8, but that means extra expense. It would be good to have an applet within WebPlus, so you could do the whole thing in the one application.
Once you've become more familiar with web-design, you'll probably want to tweak your pages to achieve exactly the effects you're after. If you are well-versed in HTML, you'll be able to add your own code directly. While earlier versions of WebPlus enabled you to include HTML snippets in your pages, version 10 offers you complete HTML pages, so you can see and edit custom code pages directly.
In many ways, WebPlus is getting more like the heavyweight webdesigners it once tried to undercut. While still not as big and butch as Dreamweaver or Fronall thattPage, and still easier to use than either, there's certainly a steeper learning curve to negotiate now. Serif still approaches the market with the maxim, "Why shouldn't non-coders be able to do the fancy things web users expect from professional sites?" With WebPlus 10, it has provided many useful extra tools that will encourage newcomers to create their own presence on the web, and it still comes at an attractive price. Simon Williams
Serif Webplus 10: Price Comparison
PC Plus
AMD makes another blunder – what on earth is going on?


Even though, lately, I feel like I'm constantly remarking how old I feel, tonight I went out at 10:30 like it was 2004.
Laura and I arrived in Madrid and enjoyed a lovely late supper. The restaurant was cozy and filled with people of all ages.
After we finished eating, Laura asked if I wanted to get a drink somewhere else. I'm pretty sure my face answered her question. It is definitely not 2004.
Well, at 65 years old, you might skip the late supper and go right to bed! Not that I would really know . . . !


We all view the world through the lens of experience. Research has shown that the presence of attuned and responsive caregiving provides children with a strong "blueprint" for healthy relationships and other positive outcomes. Exposure to negative life events and relational trauma influences an individual's ability to naturally seek adult support with difficult emotion, which can then present as challenging behaviour.


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Thinking About Art
January 27, 2018 September 4, 2018 Mark Noonan
So, I'm still writing the novel. Just past 57,000 words, now. I figure I've got about 20-25,000 left to go. Very importantly, I figured out how it ends. Meaning, I knew in general how it ended all along, but now I know how to get there. I've re-read what I've written from time to time…make a few changes here and there, but the main thing is the story is compelling. At least, to me it is. I do hope other people like it. To me, it's a real page-turner…and I already know what's on the next page, being the author of it, and all. There will be a lot to do in the re-write after the first draft is done…increasing the descriptions, diving a bit more deeply into character development, making the overall Narrative flow better. I'm having a lot of fun writing it. Though it will take longer than I first thought – originally hoped to have it out in May, but now that will slip by several months. Partly because I got dragooned into working on another project which will absorb some writing time over the next month or so.
The other day the news did what Chesterton pointed out is the primary purpose of the news: telling people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive that Lord Jones is dead. In this case, Lord Jones was Ursula Le Guin. I had never heard of her until I found out she was dead. In case your ignorance matches mine regarding this lady, she was a famed sci-fi/fantasy author…writing lots of books and winning all manner of awards. Someone quoted a passage from one of her books and said this was the most beautiful opening paragraph he had ever read:
Current-borne, wave-flung, tugged hugely by the whole might of the ocean, the jellyfish drifts in the tidal abyss. The light shines through it, and the dark enters it. Borne, flung, tugged from anywhere to anywhere for in the deep sea there is no compass but nearer and farther, higher and lower, the jellyfish hangs and sways; pulses move slight and quick within it, as the vast diurnal pulses beat in the moon-driven sea. Hanging, swaying, pulsing, the most vulnerable and insubstantial creature, it has for its defense the violence and power of the whole ocean, to which it has entrusted its being, its going, and its will.
If you like that, then I'm afraid my novel is going to be a terrible disappointment to you. It is just a bunch of words strung together, in my view. I initially thought the guy who posted that on Twitter was joking – and maybe he was (it is hard to tell), but the comments from people about it indicates that some people actually think this is meaningful stuff. Deep. Thoughtful.
Its about a freaking jellyfish drifting with the tide! Its drivel!
It got me thinking about the whole concept of creative arts – and thinking that it is in a very bad way. Ms. Le Guin wrote that on purpose and people read it and gave it awards. I am flabbergasted. I'd be embarrassed if I wrote anything like that. I'm hoping that she wrote it as a joke – that the rest of her writing was better and that she merely put that out once securely rich and famous as part of an "I wonder if they'll really just buy anything I write?" experiment.
Then I read a bit from Andrew Klavan about how he was viewing the upcoming Oscar awards:
The Oscars as a glamorous, televised, fun event are a relic of the days when film was the central American art form, the way America told stories to itself. When an art form is at its peak — which usually comes pretty early in its life cycle — the greatest works and the most popular works are usually one and the same. The movies, for instance, peaked around 1939 when the nominees included Gone With The Wind, Dark Victory, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Ninotchka, Stagecoach, Wuthering Heights, and The Wizard of Oz. All are still rightly considered classics and all were in the top ten at the box office.
I'll have to agree with that. My Mrs gently chides me for my preference for old movies, but I really find most modern movies unwatchable. There have been a few recent offerings I liked. In sci-fi, for instance, I liked Interstellar. It got panned, but I thought it the most interesting sci-fi movie since, say, Planet of the Apes in 1968. But, mostly I just keep watching old movies. They are just better, in my view. For instance, for most of my life I had ignored Citizen Kane: mostly because I figure a movie that praised couldn't be as good as people were saying. Then I watched it all the way through. And then watched it again. It is the best movie ever made in my view. I've watched Lord only knows how many movies, but I've never seen anything as interesting as that – something so crisply done, such great dialogue, such phenomenal acting and cinematography. Klaven has hit upon something – the movies are worn out. So is fiction writing. So, too, is writing in general (Matt and I were most pleased with those who opined Worst was well-written; we really appreciated that…but, I can't argue against the people saying it…most books written these days are simply badly written…I mean, just terrible, and they are written by people who supposedly went to school and learned how to write. I just started writing in 2003 and slowly got better at it).
It occurred to me that part of the reason I'm writing my novel is the same reason that C S Lewis wrote the Narnia series: he took one look at what people were reading, was appalled and set about trying to write something worth reading. So am I. I don't know if anyone will read it; I hope they do. But my purpose is clear: to write a story which will be interesting and fun to read.
And I think that is where the modern arts have gone wrong: they aren't trying for interesting and fun. They are trying for something else…a message, or a moral, or simply to be as weird as they can, because that is where the awards and book contracts are. I'm writing a fairy tale – and that means I've taken some average folks and put them in strange, dangerous situations where they can only rely on their courage and each other to triumph over evil. You know – it is a story which you can imagine yourself landing in, and then imagine how you might react. There is no sex in my book; though there is love. There is violence, but not gross violence. No one is depressed. They are, at turns, afraid and unsure…but they aren't wallowing in self-pity and trying to get to some cosmic truth because they have it hard. Having it hard is just part of life, and you take it with as much grit and good humor as you can.
We need to recapture the sense of wonder and hope which art is supposed to provide us. We've had quite enough of weirdos and psychopaths. Maybe my book flops. Doesn't matter. I'm writing it because it is fun to write…and I'm going to keep on writing it. I just hope that other people will join in – we've learned that our experts in most areas are rather dumb. The experts in the arts are no less so. If you've got a song in your heart, a story in your mind, a painting that is waiting to be done…do it. After all, the really great art wells up from the people…and perhaps it is time for we, the people, to take back the arts, too.
Pop Culture, Social IssuesChesterton, Movies, MSM, Novel Writing
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30 thoughts on "Thinking About Art"
Amazona January 28, 2018 / 1:39 am
I don't think I would brag about not knowing of Ursula Le Guin . Yes, as a stand-alone paragraph that one is pretty pretentious, but she created some fascinating worlds, vivid and detailed and mysterious. I don't know the source of that quote, but if it is the beginning of a book about the power and mysteries of deep space and the vulnerability of earth-born men floating in it, at its mercy, it is not "drivel" but a poetic introduction to a theme.
Her husband is a poet, which might help explain some of her prose style.
I hope your book is wonderful, but you will have a long way to go to match the record of Ms. Le Guin. From Wikipedia:
In 2016, The New York Times described her as "America's greatest living science fiction writer", although she said that she would prefer to be known as an "American novelist".
She influenced Booker Prize winners and other writers, such as Salman Rushdie and David Mitchell, and science fiction and fantasy writers including Neil Gaiman and Iain Banks. She won the Hugo Award, Nebula Award, Locus Award, and World Fantasy Award, each more than once. In 2014, she was awarded the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. In 2003, she was made a Grandmaster of Science Fiction, one of a few women writers to take the top honor in the genre.
You may not like the genre in general. I love good sci-fi, not the monsters from outer space kind of sci-fi but the way it works when it creates an entire world, with an entire culture, out of whole cloth. To me, that is the height of literary genius.
M. Noonan January 28, 2018 / 2:01 am
I concede she might have some better stuff…but that is along the lines of the old Peanuts bits where Snoopy is writing a novel: "It was a dark and stormy night; a shot rang out, the maid screamed, a pirate ship appeared on the horizon." I certainly hope she wrote some better stuff than that. But I think what got me going is someone claiming it was the most moving opening he'd ever read…and then other people chiming in with the same opinion.
Of course, all fiction is a matter of taste – some things you like, might dislike and vice versa, with no one being able to say definitively that one is bad, the other good. Music is also like that. But the general degeneracy of all art is, I think, abundantly clear. I think if I were to write a paragraph trying to give some impression of the ocean I'd go along the lines of…
The sun shimmers off water turning from iron grey to brightest green as the ocean rolls on, never beginning or ending. Adrift in the great waters, a jellyfish basks in light and shadow, having no direction or purpose but what the power of the ocean provides.
And that took five minutes to write. I think it better; others will take their own view of it. But one thing I can't stand in writing is piling up word count…
Retired Spook January 28, 2018 / 11:07 am
I tried to write children's stories about 15 years ago, finally gave up after 3 or 4 years when it became obvious, at least to me, that I wasn't very good at creating vivid mind pictures with words. To me, one of the most successful attributes of a good writer is making the reader want to get to the next paragraph and the next page, and the next and next. I think it has a lot to do with an individual reader's tastes, at least as much as it does with the author's talent. But, in the end, I don't care for a writing style where I find myself reading the same paragraph 2 or 3 times just to get the gist of it. A good example of that was Thomas Sowell's Conflict of Visions, which I read on Amazona's recommendation. While I DID gain some insight into the difference between the mindset that drives Conservatives as opposed to that which drives Collectivists, the book just explained that difference from many different historical perspectives, basically saying the same thing over and over — at least that was my reaction, and I like and admire Thomas Sowell as much as any contemporary figure.
one thing I can't stand in writing is piling up word count…
I have always been a subscriber to Thomas Jefferson's, "never use two words when one will do" philosophy. But communicating well in writing and telling a compelling and captivating story are two completely different things. I probably would have made a good newspaper reporter.
Amazona January 28, 2018 / 3:31 pm
There is certainly room in literature for a straightforward narrative style: He did this, she did that, and then something happened. Your submission of how the Le Guin paragraph could have been "improved" involves shifting it to a more linear narrative style. It could be summed up as "the light changes the color of the sea and the jellyfish floats". If your goal is to describe the ocean and the image of a jellyfish floating with no means of its own propulsion, it works just fine.
But there is a literary style which asks the reader to immerse himself in an emotion, which is felt and not simply described to him, to more fully experience a sensation and become part of it instead of simply viewing it from the outside. It requires a slight untethering of an attachment to analytical perceptions so the person can slip into the sensation of being part of what is happening.
Some great literature manages to evoke that sense of "being" in the moment of the story while employing a more narrative style. I think Patrick O'Brian was a genius at this, using the actual logs of real British naval officers and a narrative about sailing and navigation and battles and 18th Century politics yet creating characters, and more important creating relationships among those characters, that draw the reader into a powerful emotional connection with what is going on. Brad Taylor uses a narrative style but also, though his use of humor and characters relating to each other, creates an emotional connection with the narrative.
Then there is the Jackie Collins style of narrative, in which you know a character is charismatic because she tells you so—"she was very charismatic"—without an iota of character development or relating to other characters to let you draw your own conclusion about whether or not she had charisma.
But back to the Le Guin paragraph and the style of inviting the reader to set aside his own reality and enter into the one she is creating: She uses powerful word imagery to do this. wave-flung— tugged hugely— the whole might of the ocean— the tidal abyss— the vast diurnal pulse— moon-driven sea". These are emotionally powerful and evocative words which go levels deeper than a mere narrative stripped down to "floating on big ocean in the moonlight".
Yes, you can say "tides in a deep ocean" but there is something emotionally evocative about "tidal abyss" and "vast diurnal pulse" and "moon-driven sea" that add texture and depth and emotional meaning to an otherwise rather sterile concept of an ocean that is deep and has tides.
She goes on to emphasize the fragility and vulnerability of the organism she chooses to illustrate her concept: Hanging, swaying, pulsing, the most vulnerable and insubstantial creature, it has for its defense the violence and power of the whole ocean, to which it has entrusted its being, its going, and its will. When she is writing about a human organism, vulnerable and insubstantial compared to the majesty and power of its medium (deep space) and leads you to understand that this organism has submitted itself to that immense mystery and power and potential violence, she could say from the most basic narrative form "space is big and scary and dangerous" or she could paint an almost visual picture of a massive, dark and intimidating world shot through with flashes of light, in which life itself is not a given but is vulnerable and subject to a violent end at any moment. To me, this leads to a sense of relating to how it must feel to be that vulnerable organism, if it is sentient, adrift in this wholly alien world and at its mercy.
There are times when I personally prefer a straightforward narrative style. I read a lot of it. But every now and then I am in the mood to simply immerse myself in an alternate reality, and really FEEL it, and then someone with the word art skill of Le Guin is just the ticket. Sometimes I just want to see a snapshot of a person and sometimes I want to immerse myself in the nuance of a great master's painting in which the very angle of the lighting on the face conveys a message about the subject's relationship with God and everything in the painting is symbolic of something deeper than just the superficial appearance.
"..one thing I can't stand in writing is piling up word count.."
I agree. I see a lot of that in books I read. Stephen King is the master of "too many words" and every time I try to read a King book I think that he badly needs an editor. A really really tough editor.
It also happens when a book depends on the stupidity of its character(s). When a book is 300 pages long and you realize it would have been 30 pages long if the main character had recorded a phone call and then reported the threat to the police, it's a great example of "piling up word count".
But I also think that Le Guin mercilessly edited her work and that every word she left in was there for a purpose. When I read that paragraph I didn't see any extraneous wording, given what I think she was trying to accomplish.
M. Noonan January 28, 2018 / 5:37 pm
It might well be that I'm being unfair to her – recommend one of her works to me and I'll read it. Whichever one you think her best effort. But that passage just irked me…as I guess you can see.
I, too, have tried to read Stephen King books and simply couldn't get past a chapter or two…they bored me, intensely. That could be, partially, the genre he mostly writes in. I've never got the appeal of being terrified. I guess a lot of people like it, but I'd rather a book bring me to tears than to fears.
My novel got its inspiration from a short bit in the novel Phantastes by George MacDonald. First published in 1858, I had heard it was a major inspiration for C.S. Lews, J.R.R. Tolkien and G. K. Chesterton. Given these are my three favorite authors, I had to read it. And I can see where all three of them drew inspiration. And, now, I have. The book is very short, especially by today's standards…and we cut the author slack because he did have to write it all by hand. It is a difficult read for the modern mind – it is written in a style to appeal to readers in the mid-19th century and so some of the structure of the sentences seem odd. I was able to get it in because I'm very familiar with the time frame…but even for me, it took some doing. One of the more interesting bits is the passage from which you can tell Tolkien drew his concept of the Ents. But MacDonald gets to the point – even in the parts that are written in poetry, with an economy of words that I wish more modern authors would emulate.
Spook, I too got bogged down in Conflict of Visions, It is the reason I would like to start, or join, a conservative book club, because I thought that it was a book that called for discussion. My reaction was not that it was too wordy, but that it was too densely populated with ideas for me to deal with on my own and it would help me to talk it out with others to get their input on how they were processing what he was saying.
Back to the comment about analyzing great art——I am a total novice at that, but I have seen just enough of analysis of great art and music to be aware of how little I know and how much more there is if I could only understand it.
I recently listened to an audio book on great music, and while it was fascinating I probably assimilated about four per cent of it. But my admittedly vague overview was that I was really surprised to learn that much of the music we just think is cool, like the 1812 Overture, is packed with political symbolism and strongly influenced by the culture of the time. I will never develop a fondness for, or even a tolerance of, medieval madrigals,but it was interesting to hear them analyzed for their cultural and political influences. I feel the same way about a lot of art—-being aware of deeper significance is not the same as being able to recognize it or analyze it. But I like knowing that depth is there, think it fascinating that it is there, and in the meantime I can just look at it and think "Gee, that's really pretty".
Retired Spook January 28, 2018 / 4:22 pm
I'm not sorry I read Conflict of Visions,, but it was clearly written for someone much more intellectual than I am.
Amazona January 29, 2018 / 10:24 am
Spook, I have no doubt that you could have slogged through the rest of Conflict of Visions if you hadn't just decided it wasn't worth the effort. I admit to wondering if there were nuggets of brilliance buried in the complex verbiage, but I just didn't feel like trying to find out. It had turned into more work than I was willing to do at the time.
Mark, I agree with you about books (and movies) that are based on trying to terrify me. Many years ago a friend who had seen The Exorcist said, afterward, "I can't believe I just spent three dollars (this was a long time ago) and two hours of my life just to be miserable". That's the way I feel about Stephen King. Dean Koontz has some King-ish books, but some of his are more gentle, and a partial autobiography, about his first dog ("A Big Little Life") is lovely.
There are just different tastes in literature. Some people love the stripped-down prose of Hemingway and value thriftiness of words. Some people love words and love to see them used like paint in a portrait or notes in music. Someone who puts a high value on "economy of words" is probably always going to be annoyed by writing where this is not a priority.
M. Noonan January 30, 2018 / 12:43 am
The only scary movie that I can look back on and say "I like it still" is the Sixth Sense…trouble with that one is you can really only watch it once. I watched them, of course…especially the slaughter flicks when I was of the age when the "cool" thing to do was watch them (13 to 15 years old, mostly). But, also, death isn't a game – there's a place for it in movies, of course, and if done right it can move your soul in strange and beautiful ways…but, these days, I can't stand to watch brutality of any kind.
Retired Spook January 29, 2018 / 12:17 pm
Spook, I have no doubt that you could have slogged through the rest of Conflict of Visions if you hadn't just decided it wasn't worth the effort.
Oh, I read the whole thing. In fact, by the time I was finished I had probably read it 3 or 4 times.
Sowell's books tend to require several readings before you can get all he's trying to say…thing about real genius is there are layers upon layers of it.
Now you've got me discouraged. I just quit when I got bogged down and decided to look for a discussion forum in hopes it would help me clarify it. But if you didn't get it after several readings I am sure I wouldn't.
I still got a lot out of what I DID understand, which is a perspective on why people end up conservatives or Liberals.
I am reminded of some examples of bad writing I read when I was about 12, that had me laughing hysterically.
(1) Two shots were fired. One of the robbers fell dead and the second went through his hat.
(2) He ran from the house, leaped onto his horse, and rode madly off in all directions. (When I grew up I realized he was a Democrat.)
Cluster January 29, 2018 / 8:22 am
There is a reckoning coming. The lines have been drawn and a civil war is on the horizon.
Following last nights completely unwatchable and political Grammy awards, the MSNBC panelists including turn coat George Will are calling the President "remarkably ignorant" and questioning not only the integrity, but the intelligence of Devin Nunes. They are claiming that the memo is nothing more than an attack on Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, because he wont fire Mueller as requsted by Trump. In other words, they are laying cover the firmly entrenched progressive deep state, meaning they are complicit. I am convinced all of them are in on it. They are all aware that the federal bureaucracy is populated with partisan hacks who do the progressive bidding behind the scenes and they will risk their careers to deflect attention away from this fact. A fact which is well articulated in the following article.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/01/why_arent_the_democrats_horrified_by_the_corruption_at_the_fbi_and_doj.html#ixzz55ZhhWo8y
It is becoming clearer by the day, after over a year of investigations, that the Obama administration did indeed weaponize the DOJ, the FBI, the CIA, the ATF, the IRS and the NSA. Over those eight years, each of the above agencies was transformed into an arm of the Democratic Party tasked with crippling the opposition and abrogating the Constitution.
Cluster,
The last two paragraphs of your linked AT article still have me laughing:
Shouldn't the Democrats be as angry about this as Republicans? (why would they be angry about simply using their playbook?) Has their hatred for Trump so impaired their judgment (Judgment? What judgment?) that they have sacrificed their integrity (integrity? — puleeeeeze), their respect for ethics and the law? (ROTFLMAS!!) How else to explain their full engagement in the cover-up, fueled by their wholesale denial of the facts? (the phrases, "by any means necessary," "whatever it takes," and "the ends justify the means," come to mind)
Once DOJ IG Michael Horowitz's report is released, and if the FISA memo is made public, much more will be clear to everyone. One has to wonder how the Democrats will recover their lost dignity. (dignity? What a howler!) Their many months-long defense of the indefensible will have done significant damage to their brand (their brand? Their "brand" is doing exactly what they've been doing.) unless Democrat voters are as unscrupulous, as unconcerned about honor and ethics (it's pretty obvious that a lot of them are.) as their elected representatives have proven to be.
And WRT a civil war, I'm less concerned than ever. The Left has no troops, no arms and no ideal worth fighting for, unless you consider tyranny an ideal. But, if it's war they really want, then, in the immortal words of Captain John Parker at the battle of Lexington, "Don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here."
Cluster, I think we are in the middle of the civil war that has been, for some time, the result of Leftist efforts. I just don't think it is, or will be, a shooting war.
I believe that at one time the Left thought it could push the country into a shooting war, but depended on it being a race war after they got enough black people inflamed by their rhetoric to openly form gangs and go after white people. They were getting uncomfortably close to achieving that goal. I believe that if Obama had managed to get a third term, it might have happened. Even with Hillary as president it was a possibility. But electing Trump pulled the plug on that, and now it is just a sputtering annoyance of verbal dreck.
I don't see a shooting kind of civil war any more, though for a while it sure looked like it could happen. For one thing, the Left oveplayed its hand, in several ways. The NFL take a knee antics were, I think, supposed to fire up the nation, but all they did was tick people off and when they had to pick sides they picked the flag. It was an experiment to see which way most of the public would go, and the outcome did not indicate a willingness of most of America to go against the country. Instead of firing up enough people backing the symbolic attack on the country to encourage escalation, the Left watched its puppets, the NFL players and owners, take a major hit, one from which they may never recover. (We'll have to see what the Super Bowl figures are. I'll be watching the Everly Brothers special on PBS. I already saw part of it, and there was enough music in it to make it worth watching again. Did you know that early in their careers the Rolling Stones were the opening act for the Everly Brothers?)
The Left has, I think, backed off its efforts to spark a real civil war in which the country is divided enough to take up arms, one side against another. They are, at least for now, working on splintering the country, hoping that eventually when they think the time is right they will be able to unite the splinters into one big mass fighting against conservatives—-because that is the real breakdown.
The whole black-rage-against-all-white-people thing has calmed down a lot, which shows us how much it depended on support and participation from the administration. The efforts to continue it by portraying Trump as a white supremacist Nazi haven't really been very effective because all they have to back it up is a speech where he said there were some good people in the marches in Charlottesville. BLM took a hit when the NFL theatrical posturing took a hit.
I for one am not worried about a war that depends on sad, confused people more worried about whether a pee-pee means they can't be women than about violently overthrowing the government. I don't see a charismatic leader on the horizon who might be able to unite and inspire such disparate groups as females intent on killing their babies, the gender-bewildered, Hollywood playactors who think public temper tantrums are meaningful, Leftist "educators" who think people will get responses from 9-11 if they report someone stapling an offensive poster on a notice board, the simpering talking heads of Leftist TV, or any of the other splinter groups of the Left. People who fall to the ground in quivering sobbing heaps at seeing the terrifying specter of a banana peel, or who protest against cotton because it is racist, don't make me feel I need to spend more time at the shooting range. When I look at the numbers of Leftists who are totally freaked out by the very IDEA of guns, I don't fear that they will suddenly overcome this and become armed enemies.
There is a civil war going on right now, but it is between the rational and the irrational. It's a media war, a war of emotion and invective and hysteria on one side and bored dismissiveness on the other. The Left is gaining ground in some areas, but I don't see those areas as threatening. They merely provide numbers and noise–fewer numbers than the Complicit Agenda Media would like us to believe, and noise that seems pretty confined to their areas of indignation. I think the NFL "protests" really shook up the Left, I think they believed that vast numbers of Americans would join in disrespecting the flag and indicate a pool of possible recruits in an anti-American movement, and it just didn't turn out that way. The only true heroes in this country, its pro athletes, were mostly seen as fools and morons, and for the most part the country sided against them and their silly antics. If that had gone the other way, I would be more worried.
Spook's point is a good one. People who are willing to fight have to have a belief to fight FOR. And the potential fighters for the Left have no coherent ideology.
People who are willing to fight have to have a belief to fight FOR.
And THAT really is the bottom line. There is literally nothing that is part of Leftist — whatever they believe in; as you say, it's not a coherent ideology, that will attract a significant number of people to go out and risk or even sacrifice their lives for. And we really have the hierarchy of the Progressive movement itself to thank for the current state of the very young people (Millennials) that they would use as cannon fodder. They've been taught that words with which they disagree are actually violent assaults. Most of them are afraid of their own shadows. I guarantee you that people who are fighting to preserve freedom will be a much more formidable force than someone who is fighting for the right to not be offended.
I can just imagine a Leftist "army" with each platoon fighting for its separate cause, without a unifying ideology. There is a strong dislike among black people in general for homosexuality and in the mainstream black community a sense of dignity, so the LGBTXYZ platoons would probably not be very welcome in the BLM/Black Panthers groups, and the howling females dressed as genitals would probably not have much in common with mainstream black culture.
As an example, I have read of some "Dreamers" who are quite happy with the idea of a border wall as long as they get their own immediate needs satisfied.
Tunnel-vision, issues-based ideology doesn't hold up well in a big picture scenario, and Identity Politics is, obviously, based on Who more than on What.
Cluster January 29, 2018 / 6:43 pm
Did you know that early in their careers the Rolling Stones were the opening act for the Everly Brothers?
Very cool trivia.
I wasn't worried about a war starting this morning …. I was openly advocating that we start it LOL
I am fed up with the dishonest and relentless attacks against this administration when IN FACT there are some real concerning issues with our government. Many federal agencies have been weaponized by the Democrats and the left; ie: George Soros, Tom Steyer, etc. by staffing them over the years with deeply partisan and unethical people who willingly break the law to achieve their goals. The ends justify the means. And in the process they are destroying the Constitution and threatening our Republic. This is a hell of a lot bigger then just election tampering.
Laughing along with you, my friend.
But we have to remember, there are different kinds of wars, and the Dems are stuck in the middle of one that they started, that can best be described as a circular firing squad. As far as we are concerned, as long as they keep this up we win no matter what happens, so just sit back and pass the popcorn….
…and maybe wear a splatter shield or raincoat, like the front rows in an Orca act at Sea World.
Chuck U Schumer goes after Trump, and Libs applaud and throw roses. Chuck U Schumer gets his heinie handed to him by Trump and is reviled, picketed and slimed by howling mobs of Liberals who demand that he resign. Does it get any better than that?
Females howl at the moon because Trump used a word often associated with kitty cats. Too vulgar, too sexist, too misogynistic! And within months those same females are strutting around wearing vagina hats proudly identified as p**sy hats, and proud of it. Pass the popcorn.
Hollywood types squeal in outrage at the lie that Trump "bragged about grabbing a woman by the genitals" and then the tape proves he only said he could if he wanted to, if the woman made herself sexually available to him because of his status—-and then photos surface of them proudly posing with a man who actually DID this, to countless women, and everyone knew about it including those who carried on about Trump and ignored it in their own industry because ignoring it advanced their careers. Ooops
The Left loves Hillary—till she stabs a Farther-Lefter in the back, and then she is slime and must be stopped. But then she is stopped and they hate the guy who stopped her. Hilarity (or should we say "Hillaryarity") ensues and we sell tickets.
Building a border wall is viciously racist, bigotry against Mexicans—but then Trump offers to trade amnesty for some illegal Mexicans for support for the wall and suddenly it ain't racist against Mexicans after all, it's a pretty sweet deal, according to the Mexicans who will benefit. Refill on that popcorn, please!
We don't need to fire a shot. We've got the Left alienating millions of Americans, who vote with their football tickets and TV viewing, by attacking the nation of the United States of America instead of a few miscreants who do repellent things. Out of the way, folks—the pandering spineless anti-American NFL is falling, and we don't want to be trapped in the wreckage.
Oh, S**T !! The Olympics are coming! And it's the Winter Olympics. so we won't have bunch of black track stars and basketball stars pumping fists in the air! What to do, oh what to do? Cheer for the flag? Can they do that? Change channels to watch the Mad Cow? Would they do that? Arrgghh! Brain cells (shriveled as they are) are exploding! Hit Pause and Record, I need to make a pit stop.
OK, I'm back. The poor Left is in a tizzy. They are reduced to SNL skits about—-get this—George W. Bush! Why? Because people are starting to admit they like him after all! But SNL has to acknowledge the IQ if its average viewer, so instead of just presenting a skit that shows a fake Bush acting stupid they have to have the fake Bush say "You do realize I was a really bad president, don't you?" Double points for us on that one—they are still freaked out by W. and their base is so profoundly stupid they have to explain the joke. OK, it was a bad joke, but still….having to explain it? Why not bring out a whiteboard and draw arrows? At least they know their base, and its intelligence. Got any Red Vines left?
It goes on and on. Jimmies, Kimmel and what's his name. Maddow. Pelosi. Schumer–again, but it's so much fun. Crumbs. Armageddon. Extinction of all life on Earth. Rosie breaking federal laws by promising to bribe federal employees. Russian collusion morphing into Dem/Russian collusion faster than Dems can keep up. "Lost" email recovered.
Want to see the Dem Party in action? Watch this:
A fighting war? I can't keep my ammo dry, I am laughing so hard I am crying. I can probably be more effective with a slingshot launching banana skins and cotton balls!
And even more reason for war ………
The Democrats are at war with the very system of federalism that is our system of governance. They are nullifying federal rights when they should be supporting them, as required by the U.S. Constitution. This is surely a despicable attack on our legal system and the foundations of our republic. Nullification has been going on for a long time, but it has been weaponized by the Democrats to destroy the institutions we love.
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/01/using_nullification_to_destroy_federalism.html#ixzz55Zsshnmk
Most who vote Democrat don't even know what "federalism" is. They don't understand that the nation was founded on, and structured around, a balance of federal and state powers.
What I have noticed is that when it comes to expanding the size, scope and power of the federal government to advance Leftist agendas, there are no limits—the federal government should take over health care (going beyond merely controlling contracts between citizens and companies that pay for health care, to actually paying directly for health care) and education and pretty much every aspect of life in this country—-but should have nothing at all to say about who can live here or under what restrictions.
The federal government should be able to dictate what kind of light bulbs we can use, what kind of toilets we can buy, what kind of cars we can drive, how fast we can drive them, how many miles per gallon they must get, how warm or cool our houses should be, how we heat or cool those houses, whether or not we can mine coal or drill for oil, how our food should be labeled. what our children can't read in school and what they must read, what our children must be taught about sex and gender and values and the family, what we pay for gasoline, and so on. Federal judges should be able to tell states, and the people in them, that their rights to religious freedom are limited, that they should not be able to demand photo IDs to vote, and override state and local legislations at will.
Leftism is all about increasing the size, scope and power of the Central Authority. But when it comes to laws established by the Central Authority that conflict with another Leftist agenda (vote mining by importing voters) suddenly the federal government should be powerless to enforce its own laws.
(Venezuela) has officially lost half of its economy since 2013.
According to the International Monetary Fund, Venezuela's inflation is at an all-time high with the prices of goods expected to skyrocket by 13,000% and unemployment will reach 30% this year.
Last year alone, inflation rose above 4,000%.
"This year will mark the third consecutive year of double-digit contractions in Venezuela's gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic activity. The nation's GDP declined 16% in 2016, 14% last year and it's projected to fall 15% this year, according to the IMF," writes CNN Money.
The socialist country has been in a state of chaos ever since Hugo Chavez introduced the socialist political system back in 1999 and President Nicolás Maduro has followed in his footsteps.
http://bullmarketrodeo.com/2018/01/half-of-venezuelas-economy-has-disappeared-since-2013
What do Lefties think of the socialist takeover of a once-flourishing nation?
One of my biggest inspirations is President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Yea, President Hugo.
Well to be fair, Cindy Sheehan has the IQ of endangered Salmon, so not a very good source. However, many leftist politicians, including Obama once marveled at the deft political acumen of Hugo Chavez. And keep in mind, Venezuela owns of the worlds largest oil reserves.
When I went through my list of the world's s**tholes, every one of them was a place of at least adequate and often extensive natural resources capable of sustaining a decent quality of life, until it was destroyed by the Left.
Fun article:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/455869/robert-mueller-investigation-rod-rosenstein-shirks-his-supervising-role


In 1988, the BRAC decided to close Pease AFB during the first round of closures. Pease was home of the 509th BW which flew the FB-111. With the new B-1 coming onto the scene, the committee decided this airbase was no longer needed. They were able to keep the 132 ARS, which was a KC-135E ANG wing at Pease. Then in 1991 the BRAC came through again closing Loring AFB, home of 42nd BW B-52 wing, which was deactivated. The town had a population loss of approximately 22,000 people and nearly 9900 jobs. The town surrounding Loring never survived unlike Portsmouth NH.
Now we fast-forward to 2005 when BRAC comes around for its next closure list and New England gets hit hard again. The Brunswick NAS in Brunswick Me will be shut down completely, relocating all the planes and personnel to NAS Jacksonville FL. NAS Brunswick is home to 5 active duty and 2 reserve squadrons that belong to the Command Patrol and Reconnaissance Wing Five. The wings fly the Lockheed P-3 Orion and also have a C-130T Reserve Fleet Logistics Support Squadron. NAS Brunswick is Maine's second largest employer with 4,863 military and civilian personnel and is the last Active Duty military installation in New England.
Currently scheduled overseas deployments are for Dec of 2008, late spring of 2009 and Dec of 2009. Squadrons will return to NAS Jacksonville as long as the construction is completed. NAS Brunswick will stay an operational base until the last airframe departs; BRAC has set Sept 2011 as the "get out of Dodge date".
The other unit in Maine is the 101st ARW/ 132nd ARS (known as the "Mainiacs"), which is flying the KC-135E model. With the BRAC recommendation of closing the Niagara Falls ARS, their KC-135R's will be delivered to Bangor International for the 101st ARW and their aging E models will be flown to AMARC at Davis-Monthan AFB, AZ. The transitions to R models should start taking place in March of 2007.
In New Hampshire there is the 157th ARW/132nd ARS (The Wildcats), which flies the KC-135R, they currently have 9 aircraft but will be losing one of those. The 157th and 101st ARW are two major units in the Tanker Task Force that helps the North East keep the aircraft flying to and from overseas.
The 158th FW/134th FS at Burlington Vermont operates the F-16 Falcon; they will receive 3 aircraft from the 177th FW currently based at Atlantic City NJ which is transitioning to the F-15C Eagle.
In Massachusetts, the 102nd FW/101st FS based at Otis ANGB on Cape Cod will send its F-15C's to Barnes ANGB in Westfield. The 102nd FW has been a part of Massachusetts since 1921 and will disband after the transfer. They will end up sending their F-15s to the 104th FW at Barnes, which will transfer to the Eagles. The USCG station, Army National Guard, the 253d Combat Communications Group, and 267th Communications Squadron will remain in place at Otis, with 104th Fighter Wing at Barnes providing administrative support as the parent wing.
The 104th FW/131st FS (known as the Death Vipers) will send its A-10s to Ft Smith AR; the transition will start in the spring of 2007. Alert hangers still need to be built for the fighters and modifications to the hangers for the larger aircraft will need to be done. Along with the aircraft, the firefighter positions will move from Otis to Barnes.
Westover Joint Air Reserve Base is home of the 438th AW, they fly the C-5A Galaxy out of Chicopee Ma and is the largest Air Force Reserve Base in the United States. The 438th AW wasn't affected, but the base will be the new home of the 5th JTF, 654th ASG, and the 382nd MP Battalion due to the Army units being consolidated.
103rd FW/118th FS (known as the Flying Yankees) based at Bradley International in Windsor Locks CT will be transferring its A-10 to Ft Smith AK. In return, they will transfer over to the C-21. They are scheduled to receive their first aircraft some time in December according to PAO Maj. George Worrall. The TF-34 engine maintenance facility will be relocated to Bradley.
The final unit in New England is the 143rd AW of the Rhode Island ANG. They are based at Quonset State airport in North Kingstown RI. The 143rd operates the C-130E and was the first unit in the Air Force to receive the C-130J-30, this is the "stretched" model of the newest C-130 Hercules. BRAC has recommended that with the 175th AW realigning at Martin State AGS in MD, the 143rd would receive up to 4 of their -30J models and retired two of the RI's current E models but for the time being has been put on hold.
It's hard to know what will happen with the empty bases of NAS Brunswick and the 102nd FW ramp at Otis. While the former Pease AFB has turned around to become the "poster child" for a base to become a very successful business area, Loring AFB in Maine and Plattsburgh AFB in NY are two bases that never recovered once the military moved out.


Hewlett-Packard Co duly unveiled its new Pentium II-based Kayak PC workstations running Windows NT which support a new generation of Visualize fx graphics accelerators which are also available for HP's Unix systems (CI 3,342). HP will use the Kayak brand to distinguish high-end workstation PCs from its Vectra commercial PCs. Kayaks are priced at from $2,250 to $17,760, but fitted with a Visualize fx4 3D graphics board cost from $13,760. The board utilizes Kayak's Intel 440LX AGP chipset, designed to connect graphics directly with the CPU and memory. Kayaks come with one or two 266MHz or 300MHz Pentium II processors, 4.5Gb or 9.1Gb drives, RAID, power and other management software. The Kayak XW line also supports AccelGraphics' PCI bus-based AccelEclipse 3D graphics accelerator. With 128Mb RAM, 4.5Gb drive and a 300MHz Pentium II, the XW starts at $17,170. HP claims the NT configuration outpaces $39,500 Sun Microsystems Inc Ultra-2 2300 Creator 3D and $48,500 Silicon Graphics Inc R1000 Octane MXI Unix workstations across a range of graphics performance benchmarks. The Kayak XU PCs are Vectras upgraded to Pentium IIs supporting Matrox Millennium II 2D graphics. Prices start at $3,500. The uniprocessor Kayak XA line with a 233MHz, 266MHz or 300MHz Pentium II, Cirrus Logic 5465 AGP graphics, is priced from $3,000 with 32Mb RAM and 2.5Gb disk.


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What sets us apart is our dedication to delivering highly customized care. During your first appointment, you will work directly with one of our highly trained clinicians to create a personalized patient care and treatment plan that is completely focused on you and your wellness goals. We combine a customized plan with patient education to provide a unique experience in a professional health care environment.
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Facebook iPad App Now Live, here's the first look
Talker October 10, 2011 Facebook iPad App Now Live, here's the first look2017-11-08T14:05:12+00:00 App Reviews
We just got news of the new Facebook iPad app that was just launched and wanted to share initial thoughts and images for everyone.
Overall, it's very similar to the iPhone app and at first look does nothing "fancy" that the current iPhone app will not do. It does make browsing easier and faster than going via Safari and I'm sure it's 100% better than most of the Facebook apps currently out there today. Oh, the best part, it's free just as you would expect – so no more paying for a decent Facebook iPad App.
Honestly…it's about time Facebook! However, I wasn't "un-happy" per-say with using Facebook in Safari but I know a lot of people that were so now both crowds can be happy.
Facebook for iPad Images
http://epicagear.com/facebook-ipad-app-now-live-heres-the-first-look/http://epicagear.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/9e8eace82a8018f36fe191738903578a-768x1024.pnghttp://epicagear.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/9e8eace82a8018f36fe191738903578a-150x150.png 2011-10-10T06:34:14+00:00 TalkerApp Reviewsapps,facebook,ipadWe just got news of the new Facebook iPad app that was just launched and wanted to share initial thoughts and images for everyone.Overall, it's very similar to the iPhone app and at first look does nothing "fancy" that the current iPhone app will not do. It does make...Talker vontsira@outlook.comAdministratorTechnology News & Reviews
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