Stuff happens to interrupt your plans…
The more you look into the future, the more you’ll be interrupted by the present. Screw being here now, screw mindfulness, just know that life is about unexpected interruptions and the older you get the more they relate to health.
While you’re thinking about achievement, nature is throwing a wrench into the works. You can try to stay on track, but recovery is a more useful skill than the ability to plan.
The older you get the less possessions mean to you.
When you’re a kid you need the latest toy, the newest cereal, you’re all about accumulation. Get older and not only is your stuff an impediment, suddenly it doesn’t get you high like it used to. You treasure experiences, if you can remember them. And now this is impacting the younger generation, with so much of our lives being virtual. Kids are the first to give up cars, they don’t need their license. They’re willing to live in shoeboxes in cities, in order to have community. Maybe child is truly father to the man.
People believe the news they want to.
The right wing has turned the New York Times into a joke. The establishment is up for grabs. Bedrock is a fictitious place for Fred and Barney. We live in a Tower of Babel world. Not only do we listen to different music, watch different TV shows and pray in different houses of worship, we don’t even agree on the same facts. This is not about fake news, this is about a schism in society, which no one is willing to address as they’re busy pointing fingers at each other.
History is prologue.
Why did the Democrats believe they could defeat Donald Trump when no Republican could come close to doing so?
The divide is not between the ethnic groups and the whites, but between those who live in the metropolis and those who live in the country. Read this story by Eduardo Porter:
“Where Were Trump’s Votes? Where the Jobs Weren’t”
Oh, that’s right – it’s in the Times – so it must be untrue.
The truth is the New York Times runs this country. It sets the agenda for the Republicans. It’s the only news outlet with boots on the ground everywhere. The Wall Street Journal, the right wing paper of record, cut so many reporters that its paper resembles a pamphlet – it’s not quite as irrelevant as the Los Angeles Times but it’s moving in that direction.
Remember Tech 101; the outlet that doubles down, despite being excoriated all the while, wins in the end. The Times just has to stay the course. I have not forgiven it for missing the election. It’s too rooted in old school journalism. But like Amazon, it dominates. Come on, what would they have to talk about on Fox News if it weren’t for the New York Times?
Music is niche. And movies too. There’s nothing we’ve all got to see. The purveyors have been so busy chasing bucks that they’ve given up on appealing to everyone. But the truth is society is dependent upon universality. The last time we had that in music was with Adele’s “21.” But “25” just wasn’t good enough. As for refusing to be on Spotify… Ain’t that a modern musician, bucks are primary, cultural impact is secondary. How did we get here? Where who you are and what you have to say is secondary to how much money you make.
Incentive is being squashed by the billionaires.
The best and the brightest don’t want to work in fields with a ceiling, they all go into finance and tech, to our society’s detriment. You work 60 hours a week and you make a couple of hundred thousand dollars. Your compatriot works as hard and 10 ten to 20 million. You feel like a chump.
As for those pooh-poohing the wealthy, that’s fine, but stop poor-mouthing.
If you’re wearing your downtrodden economic status as a badge of honor, you’ve missed the memo. Everyone’s on their own in America. It’s a greased pole, it’s hard to get ahead, and that needs to be fixed, but just because you’re poor you’re not better than the rich.
Why does everybody need to feel superior to everybody else?
The truth is we’re all in it together, we’re all dependent upon each other. It’s just that you can’t go anywhere or buy anything without someone saying, “it must be nice.”
Hell, I got an e-mail from someone who said they couldn’t afford $200 for a phone upgrade. To quote Bob Dylan, they want to drag me down into the hole they’re in. But I’d rather try to climb the ladder, however difficult that might be. Put me down, think you’re better than me, but the joke is on you. He not moving forward is being left behind.
The educated abhor the rich and the poor abhor the elite and no one’s got any idea what the other thinks.
Protocol is everything. How dare Bob Dylan not acknowledge his Nobel. Remember when it was a badge of honor to question institutions? What happened to that precept?
There’s always a vocal minority that can’t accept progress.
If I write about streaming services my inbox fills up with missives saying Spotify is gonna kill music. Last I checked, the Internet allowed everybody to play. Supposedly Napster was gonna kill music, but now the problem is there’s too much of it!
Ticketing is becoming even more opaque.
Even talent agencies are in the ticketing business. No one respects the customer. Art is secondary to commerce, the artists have been neutered and the businessmen have won. Remember when you signed a deal and delivered your LP and the label had to release it, no matter what it sounded like? Those days are done, because the investment in marketing is just too large, and the suits know better. Why do we live in a society where the suits always know better?
Nobody in power sees the cliff ahead.
The NFL could not see ratings tanking and Hillary Clinton could not see the public embracing Trump (never mind Bernie). As the seer once said, “Don’t follow leaders, watch the parking meters.”
You don’t admit fault, you double-down.
This is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it’s a badge of honor to admit your mistakes, to say you were wrong. But the truth is the naysayers are so busy playing GOTCHA! that you must fight back and repel them at every turn, something the Democrats have not learned. The Republicans define the debate, the Democrats play catch-up. Is this any way to run a country?
Looks rule.
If Ivanka Trump were ugly would everybody be singing her praises?
Your biggest enemy is you. Just ask Roger Ailes and Kanye West. You may think everybody’s out to get you, but the truth is you’ll be brought down by your own doings.
The big get bigger and no one does anything about it.
Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google run tech. The goal is sell your company to one of the four. But since the companies are so venerated, since techies are the new rock stars and can do no wrong, no one is raising their finger and saying “Wait a minute here…”
“Everyone’s on their own in America. It’s a greased pole, it’s hard to get ahead, and that needs to be fixed, but just because you’re poor you’re not better than the rich.”
Growing up it was the opposite. There was a stigma of being poor. At least some of the aspects of being poor. People used to be embarrassed to be on welfare. Men who were on welfare used to think their not going their manly duties providing better for their family. Go to a grocery store and pay with food stamps or WIC. Go to school and have free or reduced lunches.
Hell it used to be a stigma of buying non name brands at the store or going to Aldi’s meant you were poor.
A lot of that stigma is gone. In most of the black, hispanic or poor white communities it’s kind of a badge of honor to be on the government doll. It’s an coming of age tradition in some communities. Learn how to ride a bike, getting your drivers license, get married, have kids, be on welfare…
Maybe that will change in the next four years. Maybe it will get worse. Who knows. Ask at 2020.
How did this country get to a point where people think you need to apologize for being successful?
My 16 year-old nephew, who hasn’t worked a day in his life, yet insists on wearing $200 Air Jordans, thinks the gates of all gated communities should be torn down because the people living in those communities “think they are better than everyone else.” He didn’t care that maybe those people (unlike him) worked hard for their nice things.
I cringe when I think of where this country will be in 20 years.
Many people today don’t know how people become rich.
Many think you become rich either though sports or entertainment or inheritance.
You’d be shocked by the percentage of millennials who think they should be owning the kind of home they grew up in straight out of college. The same home their parents bought in their late 30’s or early 40’s after years of moving up the ladder and saving money.
I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.
Does history record any case in which the majority was right?
“The right wing has turned the New York Times into a joke.”
The New York Times is in need of no assistance turning itself into a joke.
Objectivity is and has been, in the rear view mirror of the NYT for 30 years.
On August 7th. Jim Rutenberg, NYT, wrote that “Trump Is Testing The Norms Of Objectivity In Journalism”. Rutenberg goes on to give de facto permission, based on his own subjective opinions, to “move closer than you’ve ever been to being oppositional”, as if, the NYT wasn’t already a Think Tank for Progressive Ideology.
” Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations,” said George Orwell. For those two self-evident reasons, being “oppositional” is the only place political journalists should ever be, no matter who is in power or who is campaigning.” — Ken Silverstein
Mark Liebovich of the New York Times vetted his stories prior to publishing through Jennifer Palmieri, who, after perusing them, wrote, “pleasure doing business”. Jennifer, I assume, was just as “objective” as the New York Times needed her to be in order to, themselves, remain “objective” (cough…, cough, or should I say, hack…, hack).
Maggie Halberman of the New York Times, also, equally in Palmieri’s good graces, “teed up” stories for the Clinton campaign and Jennifer reported to her boss, that “we have never been disappointed”.
After these and many more instances of outrageous bias from the NYT while they maintained the pretense of “Objectivity”, 4 weeks ago, Arthur Sulzberger admitted and even apologized for the obvious bias of the Slatternly Grey Lady, whose appearance, now, with the hiring of Glenn Thrush (The Self Admitted “HACK” from Politico, who submitted stories to John Podesta, prior to publishing.) was just hired to report, “Objectively” for that same Grey Lady.
The beat goes on. The NYT currently enjoys the kinds of peer reviews that Stephen King ascribes to the latest 20 or 30 books a week that appear in the “Horror” section at Barnes & Knoble. “A must read!”
Lefty, the NYT is in no way, a “Must Read” anymore for anyone interested in facts. It hasn’t been for a long time.
That said, Merry Christmas to you. Your position as a sycophant/acolyte in the Secular Cathedral of the Progressive 4th estate is as secure as Federal Employee sinecure by way of government unions.
And to all of our kcconfidential commenting cognoscenti, Merry Christmas!
Hearne, Glaze, Merry Christmas.
I agree that the New York Times is a shadow of whatever it used to be.
I grew up – and I’m talking about well into my adulthood – reading NYT news stories on the front page of the Kansas City Star. They still used syndicated news feeds for national news stories.
So I guess, eh, maybe the NYT is still arguably viable. But in a weak, dialed back way and for how long?
Time to let it go.
Nothing is a “Must Read,” as you phrased it. The New York Times publishes facts as well as opinions and you should be able to discern the difference. Their opinion pieces are clearly stated as such. There may be other facts that go unreported by the New York Times as no media source can cover everything. I’m sure someone died in Africa yesterday from a nefarious cause that was edited out of today’s New York Times for reasons of space. You have a right to state your opinion as everyone does, but I rather doubt your opinions are held with the same weight as the New York Times. In addition, I doubt you have the investigative sources that exist at the New York Times, so I’d rather trust their statements of fact than yours, with all due respect.
Apostasy! Excoriated and exposed for a lack of “investigative sources” and the aroma of lese-majeste in a comment re: the New York Times!
Here is what I can “discern”. The New York Times, is an agenda driven de facto arm of the Democrat/Progressive party with the journalistic chops and Independence commensurate of The Havana Times. The call for “oppositional journalism” is in fact, the only time that the NYT has reported honestly on what their REAL Mission Statement. Not objectivity and dissemination of the news, but now, as has been the fact for so long, a PR Bureau for the Democrat Party that may as well be edited by Donna Brazile.
The NYT’s claim to be the nation’s “Newspaper Of record” is no more that a used car salesman’s use of the “Presumptive Close”.
“Of course you are going to buy this beater and take it home. The 1980 Mazda Cosmo is a great car.”
Reporters like Glenn Thrush are every bit as oleaginous and uninspired as the same guys selling you beaters on Metcalf larceny in their hearts.
Progressives, with few exceptions, seem to think they exist in a holy place where their opinions, by virtue of the self proclaimed “It Takes A Village” – “It’s For The Children” high ground, places them in the light under the oculus in an American Roman Pantheon. Thinking that you are standing in the middle, in the light, while the rest of us look on from the edges in the dark, is a prerequisite for Progressive thought.
There is a hard rain, coming through that hole.
And yet, after your reply, they are still The New York Times with 117 Pulitzers and 4 Peabodys, and you are still … well, you, still commenting on a blog site.
Anyone can get a Pulitzer.
It’s Christmas Harley.
I know you are reading this. Humiliation and the ability to see the flaws in your ideology and yourself is progress. None of us, have a choke hold on anything other than own throats when it comes to politics and the zeitgeist.
Own it.
I am wrong, far more than I am right, I am just louder and so are you.
Merry Christmas and may the New Year bring circumspection and a decrease in volume and acrimony.
Everything is different, but the same… things are more moderner than before… bigger, and yet smaller… it’s computers…
San Dimas High School football rules!