We are all Slave now.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Just learned that my father was at Ted Williams's last game. How did I not know that?

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Because Michigan has different priorities than NY or Cali and we don't want them to be able to steam roller us? Now multiply that concern by 10 for the actually small states.

?

So it's okay for it to work in the exact opposite direction? It makes more sense to have a smaller number of people control decisions for a much larger number? Hell, states with higher GDPs already subsidize states with lower. It just got worse with the latest bullshit tax bill. And the more Republicans are in power, the more will be transferred to states with fewer people and resources. Now, if Republicans weren't so against that as a concept when it's applied in any circumstance in which a person of color might benefit, it wouldn't piss me off so much. But why should anyone in a state with all the people and the money be okay with it?

TM

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Just learned that my father was at Ted Williams's last game. How did I not know that?

times like this, I miss Penske....... sniff

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

?

So it's okay for it to work in the exact opposite direction? It makes more sense to have a smaller number of people control decisions for a much larger number? Hell, states with higher GDPs already subsidize states with lower. It just got worse with the latest bullshit tax bill. And the more Republicans are in power, the more will be transferred to states with fewer people and resources. Now, if Republicans weren't so against that as a concept when it's applied in any circumstance in which a person of color might benefit, it wouldn't piss me off so much. But why should anyone in a state with all the people and the money be okay with it?

TM

Michigan has more water than any of you all. Should California be able to divert it? Or should California have more say in that question than Michigan? We don't have complete power over any question as the House is still tied to population, but I see value to the Senate being equal.

For that matter, throw out the electoral college (which is really the same question) and when do you think we will ever get another Presidential candidate not from NY/Ill/Ca or Texas? And, no offense, I am not so in love with the one NY just gave us.

Bad facts lead to bad laws/rules. We need to get some balance in congress and get someone who doesn't have bad chemicals in his brain in the white house. that might mean dealing with gerrymandering and insulting third party voters every chance we get until 2020, but it doesn't justify throwing out the baby.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Michigan has more water than any of you all. Should California be able to divert it? Or should California have more say in that question than Michigan? We don't have complete power over any question as the House is still tied to population, but I see value to the Senate being equal.

For that matter, throw out the electoral college (which is really the same question) and when do you think we will ever get another Presidential candidate not from NY/Ill/Ca or Texas? And, no offense, I am not so in love with the one NY just gave us.

Bad facts lead to bad laws/rules. We need to get some balance in congress and get someone who doesn't have bad chemicals in his brain in the white house. that might mean dealing with gerrymandering and insulting third party voters every chance we get until 2020, but it doesn't justify throwing out the baby.

Hey, Illinois is diverting your water right now - it dug the Chicago River to connect up the Mississippi watershed and let them flow the river backwards when they feel like it. I don't see why we shouldn't just keep the water flowing to places that really need it.

I have no interest in this as a practical discussion, was just responding to the stuff thrown out.

The only changes to the Senate I'm in favor of pushing are making PR a state, so we never have a debacle like the hurricane debacle again.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Hey, Illinois is diverting your water right now - it dug the Chicago River to connect up the Mississippi watershed and let them flow the river backwards when they feel like it. I don't see why we shouldn't just keep the water flowing to places that really need it.

I have no interest in this as a practical discussion, was just responding to the stuff thrown out.

The only changes to the Senate I'm in favor of pushing are making PR a state, so we never have a debacle like the hurricane debacle again.

we kicked Ohio's ass in a war over toledo, and won that shit, people should quit fucking with us.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

we kicked Ohio's ass in a war over toledo, and won that shit, people should quit fucking with us.

You guys can't even win something called the "out back bowl" - what is that, an outhouse somewhere in the Everglades?

[Bucco Bruce]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

You guys can't even win something called the "out back bowl" - what is that, an outhouse somewhere in the Everglades?

Spoken like a man who has never enjoyed the bliss that is a Bloomin’ Onion fresh from the fryer.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Bucco Bruce

Spoken like a man who has never enjoyed the bliss that is a Bloomin’ Onion fresh from the fryer.

one thing about reduced foot traffic here, we can better guess the sock master- this does not sound like pony, so I'll take NotBob.

[ferrets_bueller]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Just learned that my father was at Ted Williams's last game. How did I not know that?

I was at that game as a junior high school student. My father had been temporarily transferred to Massachusetts, and he had been comped tickets by a salesman. Moreover....I read the Times article about the 8 millimeter movie, as you probably did...my father took a film with his 8 millimeter camera as well. We always knew the film existed. My brother, as we speak, is searching through the film-converted-to-CDs for the possibility that we have a Hall of Fame piece of film of the last home run by Ted Williams. I have the film itself in an airtight metal tin. The trouble is, neither the film tins nor the CDs are properly labeled, and we have to go through every vacation, every Thanksgiving, every Christmas from about 1946 to 1964 to find the right few seconds of film.



It is going to be a rainy weekend. Good time to look at old home movies.


P.S. The number of people who attended that game was approximate 3 million, if they are to be believed. I think I've got proof.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Michigan has more water than any of you all. Should California be able to divert it? Or should California have more say in that question than Michigan? We don't have complete power over any question as the House is still tied to population, but I see value to the Senate being equal.

Let's just go back and forth with examples. That will be productive.

The simple facts are these: We are moving away from agrarian- and industrial-based economies towards technology. That means we are going to be more concentrated. The more concentrated we become, the more antiquated our voting system becomes. It makes absolutely zero sense for Montana to have the same amount of power in the Senate as NY, CA, or TX. And the more people move from states that have very few people and who produce very little, the less sense it makes. We should be about efficiency and representing people in a way that makes sense in our current and changing reality.

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

For that matter, throw out the electoral college (which is really the same question) and when do you think we will ever get another Presidential candidate not from NY/Ill/Ca or Texas? And, no offense, I am not so in love with the one NY just gave us.

Yes. Throw the electoral college all the fucking way out. It's stupid.

And do you think your argument about not having a President from NY or CA is convincing? That's where all the people live. As for your dumbass example of our current President being from NY, I'm going to let you sit and think about who elected him (here's a hint--it wasn't NY, IL, or CA). Be consistent with your argument.

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Bad facts lead to bad laws/rules. We need to get some balance in congress and get someone who doesn't have bad chemicals in his brain in the white house. that might mean dealing with gerrymandering and insulting third party voters every chance we get until 2020, but it doesn't justify throwing out the baby.

I'm not sure your first sentence makes any sense at all in the context of this discussion, but okay.

Let's look at the rest of your statement. If I say the system is flawed and becoming more flawed because it rewards states more power than they should have based on their population and production and punishes states where all the people live and work, then I am necessarily saying that we need to change it. Yes, I know that the proposal is different than how we've always done it. But if representation is no longer even close to fair (the President won while losing the popular vote by 3 million fucking votes!) and is getting worse, why wouldn't we change it? Again, it was set up the way it was set up in a completely different era. And it no longer makes sense.

And here's another reason why our current system doesn't work: White people in this country do not act rationally. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/19/o...publicans.html

TM

[ThurgreedMarshall]

I recommend everyone read this short article about how and why white people push back on any discussion of racism. I've been saying this here (and lots of other places) less eloquently for many years. This is easily the best piece on racism I've read since college and I already bought the book.

https://www.newyorker.com/books/page...ronting-racism

TM

[Adder]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

I recommend everyone read this short article about how and why white people push back on any discussion of racism. I've been saying this here (and lots of other places) less eloquently for many years. This is easily the best piece on racism I've read since college and I already bought the book.

https://www.newyorker.com/books/page...ronting-racism

TM

This sounds familiar:

“The most effective adaptation of racism over time,” DiAngelo claims, “is the idea that racism is conscious bias held by mean people.” This “good/bad binary,” positing a world of evil racists and compassionate non-racists, is itself a racist construct, eliding systemic injustice and imbuing racism with such shattering moral meaning that white people, especially progressives, cannot bear to face their collusion in it.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by ferrets_bueller

P.S. The number of people who attended that game was approximate 3 million, if they are to be believed.

I think they got confused by reading the Updike piece.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

I recommend everyone read this short article about how and why white people push back on any discussion of racism. I've been saying this here (and lots of other places) less eloquently for many years. This is easily the best piece on racism I've read since college and I already bought the book.

https://www.newyorker.com/books/page...ronting-racism

TM

It's not bad, but it didn't move me the way it moved you. What did you think was fantastic about it?

eta: I agree that white people are bad at discussing racism, in predictable ways. I think there's a lot of self-interest in it. I agree with what's said about the good/bad binary. But I don't think it's helpful to talk about how "society is set up", and I think it's wrong to say "that white progressives cause the most daily damage to people of color," even if they are often self-serving. And I don't think it's helpful to describe (not sure whether this is the reviewer or the author) white racism as "a pathogen that seeks to replicate itself" -- that constructs removes the agency and incentives the author has identified.