Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Do not bring a durian anywhere.

TM

Ty...
 

This guy Sandel is a sage like Giridharadas: https://www.barrons.com/articles/for...ng-51550835040

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

My sister in law (who is Filipino) said it best:

"Durian taste like someone try to fart in my mouth and shit."

And skip the massage parlors anywhere
 

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/22/new-...stitution.html

Just funny that I stayed at the Royal Orchid in Bangkok (great view from my room) and now this.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Strike that. Reverse it.

Re: And skip the massage parlors anywhere
 

The Epstein scandal is the Everest of this stuff. Trump, Clinton, Prince Andrew... The cover up here had to be amazingly well orchestrated. Dude is a longtime violent pedophile, and gets 13 months on a single state charge? https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/21/u...agreement.html

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Exactly.

TM

Re: And skip the massage parlors anywhere
 

This shit absolutely turns my stomach. And we look at normal people who are convinced that there are constant, vast conspiracies like they're crazy. If you're rich in this country, you can do whatever the fuck you want.

TM

Re: And skip the massage parlors anywhere
 

This shit absolutely turns my stomach. And we look at normal people who are convinced that there are constant, vast conspiracies like they're crazy. If you're rich in this country, you can do whatever the fuck you want.

TM

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Flew them from Schenzen to Shanghai. Was fine. Food was weird to my western sensibilities but why wouldn’t it be?

Re: And skip the massage parlors anywhere
 

Not a Bernie Bro, and yet..

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

General rule: be wary of airplane food everywhere.
Ironclad rule: do not eat on regional carrier flights between cities in China.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

I have only got food poisoning on an airplane once. And it was on American Airlines between SF and Miami.

I learned something, though. Imodium is a product that truly works as advertised.

Re: Ty...
 

He is an interesting guy. I took a class with him once.

Just back from several days off the grid, sea kayaking and camping in Baja. Highly recommended.

Re: And skip the massage parlors anywhere
 

I think the people seeing conspiracies think we have a justice system. This leads to unrealistic expectations. What we have, what our judicial system was designed to achieve, is actually a scheme to establish and protect property rights. It perpetuates unequal and inequitable circumstances and structures far more than it reverses or undoes them.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

The China Eastern food was fine - I ate from the Chinese menu - and there was one vegetable dish that was very good if still not fully identified - but what was notable was the tea. After some great oolong and sencha, I even risked their pu'erh, and it was good pu'erh. The only places in Boston that serve tea that good are the Mandarin Oriental and the Bostonian. Better than the places like Imperial and Ten Ren, which are where I do much of my shopping for basic teas.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

You mean on your flight Boston to Asia? That isn’t a flight between two Chinese cities.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

I don't think China Eastern flies to Boston, so likely an intra-China connecting flight, no?

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

I was last in China 10 years ago. Maybe things have changed, but we got sick from three different meals across 3 weeks. Me? South China Air, Guilin to Shanghai, and I was looking at the meal- something with meatballs- I was the only one that hadn't gotten sick yet- I knew the meatballs were a bad idea. BUT I am adventurous. I ate them and lost the next few days.

Again, 10 years ago, but China seemed a place that was on some whole other level than us as to food safety, air quality, and (returning to one of my memes) lack of public restrooms- the last not so big a problem as one can apparently just pee/poo in public. Everywhere else I have ever been I happily eat street food. China burned that shit out of me real quickly.

Oddly, Guilin seemed way safer than Shanghai or Beijing.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

I should have posted my Eastern China review in answer to another Q, yes, it was the NY to Shanghai flight. I'm going to also take Eastern China to Bangkok, but again not an intra-China flight.

So far, the place where I've most worried about sanitary conditions and what might be in the food was JFK Airport. That place is a dump. But today will be the first time I venture from Pudong to Puxi, and I have the club car to do it, and I still may end up having dinner at a Michelin starred restaurant (it would be my third different one in three days), so this is not exactly an Anthony Bourdain kind of trip.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Jfk depends on terminal. Delta + jet blue terminals are quite good. Terminals 7 and 8 I would use hand sanitizer after washing my hands and wouldn’t eat or drink anything.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Went a few years ago and no one in my family got sick. And we ate dumplings and other street food from a number of places in Shanghai and Beijing.

TM

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Good. It was a stunning place other than that issue. (Bad air too in Beijing)

I bet She's Colorblind
 

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mary-...NjDQnU_YLjyFBM

From the article:

Del. Mary Ann Lisanti (D-Harford), who is white, allegedly told a white colleague late last month at an Annapolis cigar bar that campaigning in Prince George’s County on behalf of another candidate amounted to door-knocking in a “nigger district,” reported The Washington Post.

Prince George’s County, with a population that is 65 percent black, is one of the most affluent majority-black counties in the U.S., according to the Census Bureau. Harford is 80 percent white.

Lisanti apologized for her “word choice several weeks ago.”

“I am sickened that a word that is not in my vocabulary came out of my mouth,” she said in a statement. “It does not represent my belief system, my life’s work or what is my heart.”
________
I guarantee she doesn't think of herself as racist. I guarantee those who know her will say she's not racist. And this is the type of disconnect that white people have when it comes to racism. For her, and so many like her, it's just poor "word choice." She can't even see that it is absolutely her belief system and what exists in her heart.

TM

Re: I bet She's Colorblind
 

Your problem is that you are unable to understand how people are able to use words that are not in their vocabulary. If that word is not in her vocabulary, then she is NOT a racist -- she doesn't even KNOW the word. I'll concede that the fact that she later admitted that she had also previously used the word that is not in her vocabulary is . . . confusing. But the way you are unwilling to accept the disconnect between the things that she says and the beliefs in her heart is petty and unfair.

Re: I bet She's Colorblind
 

Hi! You remember this one B-lister sock called Atticus? Or maybe C-list socks didn't know the upper crust? Anyway on his IRL FB he posted about how one shouldn't walk on wild flowers and wilderness as you kill precious beauty. But I know IRL you ride a bike with fat tires (to support your bulk I suppose?) through the forests in the winter, when wild flowers are supposed to be regenerating. Is "killing next year's wildflowers" in your vocabulary?

Re: I bet She's Colorblind
 

The saddest part is that she would think she's in a safe place to "n-bomb" and apparently to another rep? If she thought she was safe saying that to one rep she probably would have been safe saying it to many others?

Re: I bet She's Colorblind
 

Atticus's Facebook sentiment is beautiful. We have had close to 40 inches of snow THIS MONTH, and this snow sits atop a permafrost from a January where air temps, for a while, hovered around negative 30. Underneath all that snow and ice, there may be wild flowers suffering, but I am certain that they are completely unaware of and unaffected by the passing of any fat bikes on the snow above them. I am certain because I can speak with the flowers, even in winter. Because inside every man lives the seed of a flower.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vF9M2NrPTw

Re: I bet She's Colorblind
 

You're right. I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to understand these types of white people. And I'm failing.

TM

Re: I bet She's Colorblind
 

I just read this, then saw that Flower stole my reply.

This takes cognitive dissonance to a new level. Or maybe not. Maybe the capacity to admit one spoke a word and then say the word is not in her vocabulary is perfectly Trumpian. I mean, he does it all the time, and it works for him, so...?

I don't think Trump or this woman are doing this with any level of serious strategy, but if you consider the way text appears online and the way search algorithms sift through that text, saying "I did it" in one sentence, then "I did not do it" in the next kinda works.

People read soundbites, headlines, dimwitted headers on Facebook posts. If you insert "I didn't do it" right after "I did it," there's a good chance it will be mangled so many times by so many aggregating programs, or selectively quoted by a number of disinformation trolls, that a lot of people will think you didn't actually do what you admitted doing, or that there's a question about whether you did it.

Regarding whether she thinks she's a racist, I think she does. I think she knows it. And if you asked her, she'd say "I'm not racist or bigoted at all. Ask any [insert slur here] I know. They'll tell you, 'Mary Ann is not a bigot.'"

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

It's weird that Cohen testified (is testifying?) about the things he did and exactly none of it is a surprise.

Re: I bet She's Colorblind
 

My hypothesis would be that when people's private racism is exposed to a wide audience, they do not use the moment to engage in some honest introspection and try to describe their inner lives with candor. They have to say something, so they say what they have heard other people say, much like you can always find the neighbor of a mild-mannered dude suddenly exposed as a serial murdered to say that the dude always seemed like a normal guy. And the media likes to regurgitate familiar narratives, so they will run with those quotes even if it takes multiple interviews to get them.

Re: I bet She's Colorblind
 

I expect there is a bit of "deer in the headlights" initially too. It might be interesting to hear how such a moment did/didn't change how people think/act, but a year or more down the road.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Sounds like they have Trump on the hush money, and Cohen heard Trump on phone with Stone re: Assange and Wiki dump.

Most of this is already known. So it's not going to be terribly exciting.

I want to hear his proof Trump is a racist. I was expecting to hear some seriously ugly quotes there.

I also want to hear about Trump's real net worth. I want some numbers. Because you know, that's the only thing Trump really cares about here. Michael will make everyone think I'm not a billionaire!

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

I am laughing at @popehat's tweets about the GOP efforts to undermine Cohen.

Re: I bet She's Colorblind
 

Maybe. But let me tell you a story.

I was out at a bar my friend used to own. I knew some of the regulars. Your typical group of drinkers at an average-ish bar. Colorful people, mostly alcoholic, but mostly nice guys.

One of them was fairly funny--loud, gregarious, fun. We would always chat when I came in. One time he was talking about how generous he was and argued with some dude who wouldn't buy a round. He said, "I said to this guy, 'Don't nigger, it!" I'd never heard that before and was very confused. He read that confusion on my face as anger and then started saying shit like, "No offense, it's just an expression," or some such bullshit. After a moment or two, it hit me and I was like, "Did you just say, 'Don't nigger it?'" I was done with him. Walked away without hitting him.

He was devastated. He kept trying to apologize. He asked my buddy to tell me he's not racist. He was obsessed with trying to convince me that his use of that word was meaningless. And he truly believed it, I think. In his mind, he isn't racist at all.

Now, you can argue that the fact that his obsession meant that he realized from the casual use of a slur that he actually is racist. But I don't think that's true.

I believe this type of thing happens all the time--I am just (and the subject of those types of slurs are just) usually not there to hear it.

So, you could be right. But I think (and I keep going back to the book White Fragility) that white people generally think of racists as Southerners who spend all their time spewing hate, wearing Nazi regalia, sic their dogs on blacks, etc. Good-bad binary. I'm not like that. I'm a good person. Therefore I cannot be racist. That disconnect allows them to say the type of shit she said (with a straight face) and mean it.

TM

Re: I bet She's Colorblind
 

Your bar guy is a different thing. He had the whole pool of people he offended right there and could have said something. Like if he had said, "shit, look I grew up with a lot of hate and bias pushed on me, and I fight it, but I still got a long way to go, sorry, I'm working on it," would you have felt better about him? Was there anything he could say?

Closest I have to this is hearing people say "jew them down," or some other slur. There are two types of people who say that- people who know Jewish people but still say it. That is a hater, apologize all you want, you're a shit. But once (at Graceland of all places) a family from hill fuck West Virginia asked me if I was going to Jew a gift shop clerk down (we were in the middle of a weird, but until then, fun conversation). I looked at them, and realized there were likely no Jewish people in their lives. Somehow it seemed less bad to me, like they were repeating a phrase they had always heard and had little idea why it was wrong and stupid.

Winding back to your bar guy if he had grown up with the phrase, but had no idea the word was this evil hateful thing (which is a null set of people) maybe there is a bit more of a pass?

Re: I bet She's Colorblind
 

Your story is much more interesting, partly because it seems much more likely that your guy was telling the truth instead of posturing in contrition.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Seems like this an obvious point that I haven't heard anyone say:

Trump went to Vietnam to get as far away from Washington and Cohen's testimony as he could.

Re: I bet She's Colorblind
 

I'm not sure what turn this conversation has taken based on what you wrote.

I am offering the story to both of you as an example of what people will say in defense of themselves when it is clear that they are blatantly racist. Whether the story is interesting or different on the facts (as Hank points out) is beside my point.

White people who say the most blatantly racist shit will insist that they are not racist. And the reason why they do is because, for them (and all the white people who try to explain away racist shit by insisting that that isn't what they could have meant or they're a nice person or whatever), "racist" has a very specific meaning that doesn't actually exist in reality.

TM