That's why I think that if your experience is significantly different to the point where you assume that I must not have spoken to any, that the information needs to come from you.
Ethnic Cleansing was the best play a few months ago, sure. Too many people are looking at their watches now, with much more modern and enlightened definitions of "fairness" than we had back in the days of the atom.
It has to do with the whole "let's say that I assume that CJ doesn't want to lie... and let's say that I assume that CJ doesn't want to agree with me... what positions might he take to maintain both of those?" and the one you've got is one that does that.
I'm trying to imagine mindsets that make your stated position likely.
Haaretz talked this morning about how Rubio "says U.S. troubled by Gaza humanitarian situation" to Netanyahu. A couple hours later, it talked about how Trump's meeting with Syria's new leader shows that Israel has lost clout.
If leftists are looking for stuff to say "see? It's okay to vote your conscience instead of voting for Kamala", Haaretz is giving it to them.
Do you mind if I interpret that as being an answer in the ballpark of "it's not that big of a deal anymore, certainly nowhere near as big a deal as the stories I heard in the 70s"?
"Ethnic Whites" is a term that was popular in the 70s.
It referred to Italians, Irish, so on. Distinct minority groups with a culture and religion of their own. (I mean, if your baseline is "WASP", that is.)
What are the freakin' rules, Saul? If murder is insufficient reason to deport an illegal immigrant, but saying that Jews aren't trustworthy is a reason to deny refugee status, I am unclear on the freakin' rules!
What are the rules we're using?
Because if you're trying to push some variant of "tragedy is when I cut my finger, comedy is when you fall down and open sewer and die", let me just say that:
You're goddamn right that I am a contrarian degenerate.
Any given special-interest group has concerns that are serious and legitimate and, unfortunately, sometimes they have concerns that are unserious and stupid.
I don't know which of these Ms. Free's are but if I wanted to pick a worse time to have a 61-year-old woman get rid of a 25-year-old firebrand, I'm not sure I could do a better job than when the 25-year-old firebrand was complaining about calcified power at the top.
AND I'M NOT EVEN SAYING DAVID HOGG WAS GOOD!!!
There are only a handful of reasons to know who a DNC vice-chair is and they are:
1. They do an exceptional job. Seriously out of this world.
2. They effed up so badly that it's fodder for late-night comedy show opening monologues.
3. They're publicity hounds that are more interested in going into self-promotion than in promoting the Democrats.
Two of those are bad!
BUT GETTING RID OF HIM BY PULLING A #2 IS BAD TOO!!! YOU'RE FIXING A MISTAKE BY MAKING A BIGGER MISTAKE!!! AAAAAAAAA
And, to be perfectly honest, removing Hogg from his seat not because "you can't sabotage Dems in good standing from your position of Vice-Chair, no matter how Righteously Angry you are... do it yourself, not as a DNC official" but because "you're male" is one of the things that does, in fact, matter for the Democrats in November 2026 (and 2028, and 2030, and so on).
There's a very particular reason that the Democrats have a lower approval rating than Trump and the stuff like this is why.
Good news/Bad news. The bad news first: David Hogg's election to the position of Vice-Chair is a step closer to being overturned.
The good news: It's not related to his arguments that we should primary useless Democrats in safe seats. It's because he's male.
The ruling by the credentials committee on Monday was not technically related to Mr. Hogg’s plans to engage in primaries. Instead, it was the result of a complaint from Kalyn Free, one of the losing candidates in the vice chair race. Ms. Free said the party had wrongly combined two separate questions into a single vote, putting at a disadvantage the female candidates because of the party’s gender-parity rules.
It describes writing a paper thusly: "The assignment itself is a MacGuffin, with the shelf life of sour cream and an economic value that rounds to zero dollars."
That's actually one of the reasons I posted a bunch of my college papers here. I worked hard on those papers back in the 90s! If I could wring out a handful more readers by making blog posts of them, dang it, that's a way to turn the sour cream into honey... and they found honey in the pyramids that was still edible.
The part of the essay that everybody is quoting is this part:
Earlier this semester, an NYU professor told me how he had AI-proofed his assignments, only to have the students complain that the work was too hard. When he told them those were standard assignments, just worded so current AI would fail to answer them, they said he was interfering with their “learning styles.” A student asked for an extension, on the grounds that ChatGPT was down the day the assignment was due. Another said, about work on a problem set, “You’re asking me to go from point A to point B, why wouldn’t I use a car to get there?” And another, when asked about their largely AI-written work, replied “Everyone is doing it.” Those are stories from a 15-minute conversation with a single professor.
"You're not always going to have a machine god in your pocket" seems a silly thing to say.
It's certainly not an endorsement of Moira Donegan's playbook.
Was Al Franken considered a victory?
To be perfectly honest, I think that he represents a fairly important victory for #MeToo but I have argued against people who see it as an excess. Something to the effect of "We shouldn't be leaning on #MeToo if all it does is result in people like Al Franken, Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Jeffrey Epstein, and Andrew Cuomo either going to jail or getting their charges dropped or having to resign or whatever weird thing happened with Bill Cosby that still isn't exactly clear."
Remember The Crappy Media Men's list? Moira Donegan paid out a six-figure settlement over that thing.
In any case, Hogg's statement strikes me as being, at least!, a pivot away from the #MeToo actual energy of 8 short years ago (while allowing that the theoretical energy that anybody would defend was a needed corrective for the time).
My take on the whole take on young people wanting to get laid thing is that this is one hell of a departure away from #MeToo and, as one hell of a departures go, they probably needed a better spokesperson. One who was less of a weenie.
Like, imagine if Joe Rogan said such a thing. It might mean something.
As it is, Hogg is a walking "Why 'Baby It's Cold Outside' is Problematic" essay and he comes across with that sort of energy.
That said... a correction is needed and handling it less than perfectly is probably the only option and, as such, well... we're stuck between the weenie and the waiting for someone good to say it. The weenie is not obviously the wrong option.
Now, with *THAT* said, this is a completely different message than "we're going to light fires under the Dems in safe seats by primarying the useless ones!"
If the DNC chair fired Hogg for saying "We need to reach out to young people without sounding like those PMRC Schoolmarms", I'd find that to be the funniest thing that has happened this week.
However, the DNC chair seems to be firing him for running ahead with the whole primarying safe dems thing *BUT* using the whole "we elected a white dude instead of following our diversity goals" rule which, somehow, manages to take a reasonable position ("you don't get to threaten safe dems in safe seats as the DNC vice-chair") into an unreasonable one and, somehow, also turning it into the funniest thing that has happened this week.
On “Open Mic for the Week of 5/12/2025”
The ones I have here mostly agree with me.
That's why I think that if your experience is significantly different to the point where you assume that I must not have spoken to any, that the information needs to come from you.
"
Because your advice to me was to get this information from you directly.
"
It's like cannibalism. It's always the savages in the next tribe over.
"
Are you, CJ, still not “really” white yet back there in the tri-state area?
"
Ethnic Cleansing was the best play a few months ago, sure. Too many people are looking at their watches now, with much more modern and enlightened definitions of "fairness" than we had back in the days of the atom.
"
Are you one?
"
It has to do with the whole "let's say that I assume that CJ doesn't want to lie... and let's say that I assume that CJ doesn't want to agree with me... what positions might he take to maintain both of those?" and the one you've got is one that does that.
I'm trying to imagine mindsets that make your stated position likely.
"
Are WASPs a big deal down where you are?
"
Haaretz talked this morning about how Rubio "says U.S. troubled by Gaza humanitarian situation" to Netanyahu. A couple hours later, it talked about how Trump's meeting with Syria's new leader shows that Israel has lost clout.
If leftists are looking for stuff to say "see? It's okay to vote your conscience instead of voting for Kamala", Haaretz is giving it to them.
"
Do you mind if I interpret that as being an answer in the ballpark of "it's not that big of a deal anymore, certainly nowhere near as big a deal as the stories I heard in the 70s"?
Because that's how I'm interpreting it.
"
Which is why I'm asking.
When I say "they aren't really a thing", I, of course, acknowledge that Episcopalians with nicknames like "Chaz" still exist.
I'm talking about as a cultural driving force.
But I'll ask again: Are you, CJ, still not “really” white yet back there in the tri-state area?
"
And how does that play out in practice?
We can't get into the good Rod and Gun Club?
"
They're not a thing out here on this side of the Mississippi.
Are you, CJ, still not "really" white yet back there in the tri-state area?
"
"Ethnic Whites" is a term that was popular in the 70s.
It referred to Italians, Irish, so on. Distinct minority groups with a culture and religion of their own. (I mean, if your baseline is "WASP", that is.)
WASPs aren't really a thing anymore.
Welcome to the club.
"
Plus one of them is an outright anti-Semite of the most vile tropes of anti-Semitism.
I find it difficult to believe that the examples that you, yourself, gave to me are the "most vile tropes of anti-Semitism".
From what I've seen of anti-Semitism, they're somewhere in the middle of "prejudiced".
Maybe I've seen more than you have.
Which, lemme tell ya, would surprise me... but it's certainly in the realm of possibility.
"
What are the freakin' rules, Saul? If murder is insufficient reason to deport an illegal immigrant, but saying that Jews aren't trustworthy is a reason to deny refugee status, I am unclear on the freakin' rules!
What are the rules we're using?
Because if you're trying to push some variant of "tragedy is when I cut my finger, comedy is when you fall down and open sewer and die", let me just say that:
You're goddamn right that I am a contrarian degenerate.
"
Wait, are people with sufficiently offensive views not allowed to be refugees now?
This is a tool that I'm pretty sure that Trump and his ilk have been waiting for.
I'm sure that they'd say "thank you", if they knew you gift-wrapped it for them.
And look at your examples! Holy cow! Yeah, this would be amazing in the hands of someone sufficiently thin-skinned.
"
Any given special-interest group has concerns that are serious and legitimate and, unfortunately, sometimes they have concerns that are unserious and stupid.
I don't know which of these Ms. Free's are but if I wanted to pick a worse time to have a 61-year-old woman get rid of a 25-year-old firebrand, I'm not sure I could do a better job than when the 25-year-old firebrand was complaining about calcified power at the top.
AND I'M NOT EVEN SAYING DAVID HOGG WAS GOOD!!!
There are only a handful of reasons to know who a DNC vice-chair is and they are:
1. They do an exceptional job. Seriously out of this world.
2. They effed up so badly that it's fodder for late-night comedy show opening monologues.
3. They're publicity hounds that are more interested in going into self-promotion than in promoting the Democrats.
Two of those are bad!
BUT GETTING RID OF HIM BY PULLING A #2 IS BAD TOO!!! YOU'RE FIXING A MISTAKE BY MAKING A BIGGER MISTAKE!!! AAAAAAAAA
"
And, to be perfectly honest, removing Hogg from his seat not because "you can't sabotage Dems in good standing from your position of Vice-Chair, no matter how Righteously Angry you are... do it yourself, not as a DNC official" but because "you're male" is one of the things that does, in fact, matter for the Democrats in November 2026 (and 2028, and 2030, and so on).
There's a very particular reason that the Democrats have a lower approval rating than Trump and the stuff like this is why.
"
Even a blind squirrel is right twice a day.
"
Good news/Bad news. The bad news first: David Hogg's election to the position of Vice-Chair is a step closer to being overturned.
The good news: It's not related to his arguments that we should primary useless Democrats in safe seats. It's because he's male.
On “From New York Magazine’s Intelligencer: Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College”
The Chronicles of Higher Education has a cri de coeur: Is AI Enhancing Education or Replacing It?
It describes writing a paper thusly: "The assignment itself is a MacGuffin, with the shelf life of sour cream and an economic value that rounds to zero dollars."
That's actually one of the reasons I posted a bunch of my college papers here. I worked hard on those papers back in the 90s! If I could wring out a handful more readers by making blog posts of them, dang it, that's a way to turn the sour cream into honey... and they found honey in the pyramids that was still edible.
The part of the essay that everybody is quoting is this part:
"You're not always going to have a machine god in your pocket" seems a silly thing to say.
On “Open Mic for the Week of 5/12/2025”
The same thing that #MeToo had to do with it.
In theory, it wasn't sex-negative but abuse negative and fought *VERY* hard against abuses large and small up to and including those of Al Franken.
In practice, it resulted in Al Franken resigning and all sorts of weird cultural eddies. I mean, you've witnessed the last decade or so, right?
We've seem to come a long way from trying to get justice for Jackie Coakley.
"
It's certainly not an endorsement of Moira Donegan's playbook.
Was Al Franken considered a victory?
To be perfectly honest, I think that he represents a fairly important victory for #MeToo but I have argued against people who see it as an excess. Something to the effect of "We shouldn't be leaning on #MeToo if all it does is result in people like Al Franken, Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Jeffrey Epstein, and Andrew Cuomo either going to jail or getting their charges dropped or having to resign or whatever weird thing happened with Bill Cosby that still isn't exactly clear."
Remember The Crappy Media Men's list? Moira Donegan paid out a six-figure settlement over that thing.
In any case, Hogg's statement strikes me as being, at least!, a pivot away from the #MeToo actual energy of 8 short years ago (while allowing that the theoretical energy that anybody would defend was a needed corrective for the time).
"
My take on the whole take on young people wanting to get laid thing is that this is one hell of a departure away from #MeToo and, as one hell of a departures go, they probably needed a better spokesperson. One who was less of a weenie.
Like, imagine if Joe Rogan said such a thing. It might mean something.
As it is, Hogg is a walking "Why 'Baby It's Cold Outside' is Problematic" essay and he comes across with that sort of energy.
That said... a correction is needed and handling it less than perfectly is probably the only option and, as such, well... we're stuck between the weenie and the waiting for someone good to say it. The weenie is not obviously the wrong option.
Now, with *THAT* said, this is a completely different message than "we're going to light fires under the Dems in safe seats by primarying the useless ones!"
If the DNC chair fired Hogg for saying "We need to reach out to young people without sounding like those PMRC Schoolmarms", I'd find that to be the funniest thing that has happened this week.
However, the DNC chair seems to be firing him for running ahead with the whole primarying safe dems thing *BUT* using the whole "we elected a white dude instead of following our diversity goals" rule which, somehow, manages to take a reasonable position ("you don't get to threaten safe dems in safe seats as the DNC vice-chair") into an unreasonable one and, somehow, also turning it into the funniest thing that has happened this week.