Update: I received a delightful letter from Dan Piepenbring that reveals him as a thoughtful and humorous person. I won't reprint the whole thing for privacy, but I will provide this excerpt:
'I confess that I read your letter while standing in a bodega, which may not endear me to you. I hasten to add, then, that you are correct: as the longtime driver of a 2002 Camry perilously close to its final mile, I know nothing about the construction of pickup trucks. '
I hope the rest of his reply is as thoughtful and a dialog has opened!
Maybe it is a chance for him to have non artificial inputs to his consciousness or have someone who lives "in the country" and isn't a Wes Siler like person as an acquaintance..
If he's like most 2002 Camry owners (probably a 2.4L guy) I suspect it's probably an elderly crossing guard that's still jammed in between the core support and engine under the front of the car that is probably still voicing its concerns about being a burden, and will probably continue to make a noise until the latitudinally-placed, cylindrical meat obstruction self-clearances enough where it's no longer in contact with tarmac.
early 2AZ 2.4L Camries have a bit of a mixed reputation. IIRC they have a similar thread/pitch of headbolts as the notorious northstar with similar consequences. But there are still a bunch of the early cars that racked up a bunch of miles on original motors. My cousin in Siberia had an 06 Russian market car with 1M KM of local(!) miles (which is like a 5x multiplier on regular use) on an 06 XV30 body Camry with the 2AZ when he finally pulled it to rebuild, Russian mechanics figured out a way to resleeve them as I recall.
I briefly owned a 2.4 Camry, it lasted about three or four months, I sold it and bought a malfunctioning-ish, low-mile 1989 Lincoln Mark 7 LSC to replace it.
I actually enjoyed his reviews and his imagined attitude towards real estate sales. Interesting that he referred to buyers as tenants; I'm happy to live in Ohio.
I was idly wondering what my current home outlay would get me west of Central Park. The answer is: 2 bedrooms in 1000sqft of what looks, in the photos, like a burned out house trailer.
You would miss out on Yemeni bodega owners and Mexican abuelas; Senegalese taxi drivers and Uzbek nurses; Trinidadian line cooks and Ethiopian aunties.
Plus, I don’t think there’s an Outback “Steakhouse” anywhere nearby.
It's 32 minutes from the Dakota with one change; Keen's, which is where The Commander and I last had a steak in the city, is 25 minutes with no change but a bit of a walk. About ten years ago I walked across the Brooklyn bridge for lunch at Outback; that one is sadly closed from COVID along with 55 Bar and many other luminous NYC legends.
Every steakhouse in NYC is overrated, because it's in New York. You get a better steak in the Haneda airport for $18 than you get anywhere in the boroughs. I have probably been to half of the top twenty-ish in Manhattan and I have yet to leave astounded.
Come to think of it, "The Top" in Columbus, Ohio is better than almost all of them, and you can walk out under $100 for two people.
Meat On Ocean beats them all, Epic in SF is also pretty good.
I have no pity for Mamdani and I'm quite sure that he has more than a little Jew hatred in what passes for his heart.
I wouldn't expect for him to mention the million or so Jews that will now be his constituents (not even the pathological judenrat Jews of JVP and Neturei Karta who gave him visible support), but at least he could make a nod towards the Italians and Irish. Sure, Somalians may have been the weave to the warp in the fabric of America since before Plymouth Rock, but I'm pretty sure the Irish and Italians had something to do with the building of NYC.
I had a filet medallions meal at Texas Roadhouse, of all places, and found it better than expected. Not the best I’ve had, but not the gristle plate that I’ve been led to believe the family-priced franchise steak places are. Cooked to medium-well perfection, with as many starchy sides as you could order, with the obligatory fried onion rings appetizers, and I think I came out of there with a couple dollars change from a $50 including tax and tip—would go back.
He just needs to listen to a podcast where they talk about lifting weights instead of all getting in the same room and jerking off to “Wolf Of Wall Street”. There's a fellow, Andrew Tate, who might be a good choice.
No movie, even one allegedly "based on a true story," is true to life. Even those based on what moviemakers actually know, like The Player or Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, aren't entirely accurate.
I've started a moratorium on watching historical dramas that are allegedly true stories because, more often than not, when I check out the actual history, I'll find out how much in the film is fiction, even when the actual story is well documented, like Midway or The King's Speech. I think that Ed Zwick almost ruined Defiance, about the Bielski partisans in Belorussia during WWII, with some deux ex machina having one of the Bielskis show up with a machine gun crew just in time to fight off some Panzer tanks. I've read a couple of books about the Bielski's, including Nechama Tec's, which is credited by the film. The scene with the tanks never happened.
I read it for the same reason I read the NYRB and LRB: if I am not continually acquainted with what the literati are thinking, I will descend into the same hidebound ignorance regarding them as they have regarding me..
Every time I see a "Drug Free School Zone" sign, I keep looking for another sign that reads, "Leaving Drug Free School Zone, Resume Drug Use."
When I see a "Drug Activity Impaired Drivers Call #677" sign on an Ohio interstate, I wonder if that ever inspires some self-reporting based on the syntax.
Or replace a speed limit sign at the peak of the highest bridge around with an official-looking “Jump Off This Bridge” sign, then count the number of suicides?
What if we merely dabble with spotty acquaintance in regards to what they have to say, simply because I'm finding it a bit difficult to stay engaged in reading material that's produced by high-falutin' folks who are educated far beyond their intelligence level?
Okay, maybe the fifth-most-boring individual? That's the problem with assessing everyone's "most boring" meters, you never really know where you stand.
Yeah, I'm loudly curious about that myself whenever I write out a quickie joke story that's maybe two sentences long and a chorus of TL,DR's begin dropping out of the sky like dead parrots.
I have no idea, given the fascinating company that Jack keeps in here, I thought it best just to blindly push through with an apostrophe and hope for mere banishment if it was wrongly utilized.
i guess all the people i've never heard of have varying degrees of influence in the worlds which they inhabit; those worlds having distant if any relation to the basic tenets of maga and life as it is actually lived today. it reminded me of my english prof when i said i was of russian descent: he said 'oh you've read tolstoy in russian!' i told him dad said the last great russian writer was gogol; tolstoy was just another hack like steinbeck. i wish you could've seen his expression...
I've been in one Chekov play (The Bear), and played five different parts in a college production of Neil Simon's "The Good Doctor", my favorite short piece out of that group was "Surgery", where I turned the struggle to avoid getting dental work done into a WWE wrestling match (a girl was the dentist, we spent as much time on choreographing the fight as we did getting the lines and blocking down, we went nuts with the wrestling bit, I even built a balsawood chair for her to break over my head), that piece was done without the director seeing what we were doing until the finished product was revealed on opening night.
If I had a favorite Russian author, it would be Chekov. The only Tolstoy story I like is about Tolstoy's writing process, he supposedly converted an insulated slaughterhouse into a writing room, gave the kids the rest of the estate to play on, with strict instructions not to get anywhere near the slaughterhouse or someone might get hurt.
I admit to having never finished Crime and Punishment. After 50 pages, I was thinking, "So kill her, already."
It's interesting how many Russian authors are admired in the West, when Russia has always seen itself as at least an arm's length removed from the West.
Fun fact, the current Head of the House of Tolstoy was raised by and is the stepson of the author who's work is being read in the ACF book club, Patrick O'Brian.
That you wrote them at all. That you are dunking on an Indian socialist. That you end your letter wishing them well in their campaign to rid the world of Zionists.
That ending is confusing. I thought the people who read Harper's are woke? Are woke people no longer containing the cognitive dissonance of "I support Jewish Americans as a protected class like other disadvantaged minorities" and "I must support Palestine because it's the current thing," which is now spilling over into some kind of anti-semitism?
(Ronnie will fill me in on the details in the next few hours, I'd wager)
Harper's articles will work some mention of Gaza in about 50% of the time; it's probably warranted one in ten times they do it.
I am not necessarily 100% behind Israel's actions in the Middle East. I *do* think it is moral cowardice and possibly plain evil to aggressively go after Jews under the cover of them being Israeli. People who "love the Jews" and "hate the Zionists" are doing nothing but making it obvious that they don't want the Jews to have their own country. Whether it's because they want the Jews weak enough to be purged one country at a time, or it's because they think Jews should operate the levers of every Western country, thus rendering Israel unnecessary, I never tire of pointing out the unresolvable conflict in their doublethink.
Oddly enough, given what I've seen with business hiring practices over the last four or so years, I'm solidly convinced that most corporate entities are way over-prioritizing "must be a psychopath/sociopath" over "might have something of a competent IQ".
I've never said "is there a gas leak in here?" as many times before 2025 as I've said it just in the last six or so months, and that's just with a small handful of potential emplouyers/the jobs that my wife has ran screaming from, it's almost as if the same two groups of insane people own all corporate entities here in the USA.
If I send you a copy of Dara Horn's book, People Love Dead Jews, will you read it? She makes the point that nobody would care about Anne Frank if she had survived and was a 95 year old Bubbie in Brooklyn or Beersheva.
I try very hard not to be obsessed about Jew-hatred. My lady friend's parents went to the camps at 17 and 12 and I often caution her about the obsession. That being said, it's been impossible to avoid the topic since Oct. 7th.
While there are elements of normative bigotry in Jew-hatred, for example resenting what Thomas Sowell calls minority middlemen, or xenophobia, which is a natural human reaction to outgroup members, I've come to the conclusion that Jew-hatred is sue generis and has a supernatural element to it, that a certain percentage of people will hate Jews, Judaism, or the God of the Jews, for any and every reason (Jews are communists/Jews are capitalist exploiters). While it's normally below the surface, and may subside for a generation or two at times (see Russia in the 19th century), it doesn't take much to cause it to erupt.
Sometimes I wish the haters would get some new material. Going after the Talmud? Really? Nothing like embracing literally medieval thinking. Twenty-four wagonloads of the Talmud were burned in Paris in 1242.
Regarding doublethink, it's interesting to see Groypers and others that profess to be conservative reciting anti-Zionist and anti-Jewish tropes that either originated with or were amplified by the Soviets.
The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan occupies 75% of Mandatory Palestine. The British gave three quarters of "Palestine" to some shirt-tail relatives of the al Saud clan, the al-Hāshimiyyūn, and called it "Transjordan" as a reward for helping them fight the Ottomans during WWI. A majority of its subjects (it's an absolute monarchy) identify as "Palestinian". It's not entirely nonsensical to say that there already is a Palestinian state in historical Palestine. I'll note that from 1948 to 1967, when Judea and Samaria (aka the "West Bank") were occupied by Jordan, and Gaza was occupied by Egypt, there was no effort on the part of Jordan or Egypt to create a Palestinian state. That's because the entire purpose of the "Palestinian" movement is not to create an independent state of their own (they prior complained of being separated from their brothers in Syria after the fall of the Ottomans, giving Palestine to the Brits), but rather the goal is to excise Jews from the land.
Jordan, though, is not likely to accept any more Palestinians. There's no love between the Hashemites and the Palestinians. King Abdullah II's grandfather was assassinated by an Arab of Palestine (the term Palestinian typically meant a Jew living in pre state Palestine, before the Soviets started the PLO in 1964) in 1951. The assassin was part of the Grand Mufti, Amin al Husseini's clan. That's the guy pictured chatting amiably with Adolph, and who helped raise a SS division made up of Bosnian Muslims. In the early 1970s, as part of Black September, the Palestinians tried to oust Abdullah II's father Hussein and start a civil war.
I love the idea of a flatbed, but not the looks, as a mechanic, it is a purpose built appliance for the back of a truck, as a consumer, it looks so unfinished, that it couldn’t occupy my driveway for anything longer than a day, unless said driveway was 400’ long and had a pole barn behind the garage… I don’t have large bulky things that require a flatbed to move, and in my mind, a trailer would work better for most things. Most flatbed trucks I am around were designed with docks in mind, all of this misses the point Jack is making about Harpers…
"Plot twist, when you have a 400' driveway and a pole barn out back....you'll want a Land Rover parked in the driveway"
Agreed. I once had a 399' driveway and had no such inclinations. It was only after accidentally adding a foot of gravel at the end when I suddenly began to have hankerings for a first-gen Discovery.
Typically, wood poles and trusses sheathed in steal or wood, gravel floors, but can be concrete, doors on both ends, and depending on code, may or may not have electricity, people park rv’s in them or make shops out of them, depending on tax code…
Depending on who's building it, it's a cheaper way of building a large covered building, with one of the primary losses being that you're not exactly getting the engineering precision one might expect with the Chrysler Building.
Very popular in rural areas, usually only a single-story affair, and they're not exactly the best-insulated of buildings.
But wait, this is only the simplest of introductions to the wonderment that is pole barns. There's a lot more that you need to take in regarding their place in society, just what it means to both build and maintain a pole barn, what exactly is the pole barn feeling in regards to their existence, is it a happy pole barn...no, wait, don't get up, I've only got 1013 more pages to go!
I checked and Jack's on EST, so his funemployment Ketel 1 binge could have started at 5:01. Lets get him a day job before he starts drunk texting Vodka McBigBra fellas.
Big Macs are typically assembled to order, allowing for topping variations, but the beef patties have likely been sitting in the warming drawer for a while.
Quarter Pounder patties, on the other hand, are cooked to order from fresh beef.
For what they charge for a single Big Mac nowadays, anything that might guarantee a good one is worth knowing.
Fortunately, after McDonald’s redid their regular-based burgers for taste, I don’t eat Big Macs as much, since they also doubled the sauce, which tastes great, but becomes a mess to eat!
If it makes you feel any better, I've applied for (wait, checking my application tally...) 904 jobs since December 2021.
I've gotten actual (not "we went with a better candidate...and please ignore that we're about to relist the job immediately after sending this rejection email" responses) responses a grand total of 12 times out of the 904 applications sent in or dropped off.
I think that there's a ghost job listing shortage. I've set up a bogus account on LinkedIn just to annoy the living shit out of recruiters and HR types who really are as stupid as they appear to be with their posts and commentary.
I suspect I might just be too lazy to write everything down, and then there's the work update from the spouse this morning in regards to the outright insanity that she was presented with from the top three employees in the building that she inherited when she took over the place...an assisted living facility...and how the VP of Operations...the existing VP of Operations...the existing VP of Operations that isn't going anywhere else for the foreseeable future VP of Operations...the female VP of Operations who's been making up stories about how broken this building has been for the last several months, while coasting through for a big paycheck because of her sick elderly husband...and this lady isn't elderly BTW...this VP's regular job has her on the road a lot, all of her family is centered in this area, great, I get it, I'd do everything I could, pull every shenanigan I could pull, to stay as close as possible to my spouse if she were ill and my job required me to travel.
But in the meantime, she has sabotaged the building due to sheer incompetency and has left the mother of all messes (pun intended) behind, a minefield of astounding proportion to navigate while the spouse attempts to fix what all is broken. And a lot of these problems stem directly from VP's laughably lazy nature, where she dumped most of a building's responsibilities upon an aggressively stupid female employee who's now convinced that she's the actual director of the building and my spouse is just some sort of figurehead that still can't be trusted with any responsibilities...this is a $25 an hour office manager, btw.
I could probably write a smallish book on what happened just yesterday in this building.
And this is only a variation of what happens every day.
And corporate doesn't really see a problem.
That bit above is what I need to focus on, as this is the first time I haven't been along for the ride in six years, I couldn't do it all over again with yet another schizophrenic corporate employer that can't make up their mind as to which direction to go to destroy their own company.
In short, this is the face of an industry that only a mother could love, and only a mother could love to fuck up.
The forever-broken HR departments and associated recruiter types are merely one facet of an entirely broken industry, and it's also an industry that's been entirely given over to the fairer sex to run and mismanage. This is the core of the self-inflicted problem that faces too many corporate entities and smaller businesses as well: Feminism wanted to replace men in a stereotypical good old boys club and tear it all down, they didn't tear it down, they rode in with a set of stereotypes that they got from watching "Bewitched" and other 1950's/1960's TV shows where the TV show husbands went to these magical place where they got to goof off with their friends every day, and they were smoking cigars and making ridiculous blunders in every episode, and I think it's this mostly false stereotype that has guided women at the ground levels of Feminism to move up and replace the good old boys club...with an actual malfunctioning, psychopathic, and schizophrenic good not-so-old girls club.
They rode in hard with promises to fix everything, life would be better, hear women roar, look out for them, they're going to tear everything down and build it all back up better and more equal, when what's really happened is that they can't be bothered with day-to-day minutiae (something that the men actually had to do, you just didn't see it in those 1950's/1960's sitcoms), they're simply setting up personal fiefdoms and allowing every business they're at the helm of to run into the ground, this is the same fairer sex that can't be bothered to tell you where they want to eat dinner, but also get pissed off if you pick the wrong place, regardless of the fact that you've received zero input as to which place should have been picked.
...and this same fairer sex that can't make up its mind as to what it wants or what it wants to make it happy has been put in charge of many businesses in many industries. After years, decades of this, my spouse is still asking me daily, "Is it me? Am I the problem here?", and my response is, "can you remember a single employee of the fairer sex that wasn't having some insane type of emotional issue while at work?", I've worked with her for 6 years, and we could only remember one woman between the pair of us that wasn't some level of insane...and even that one had a few minor problems.
From a "guys" standpoint, it's more like an even 50/50, if anything, we had more of a problem from the effeminate males in the buildings, while the typical stereotypical males ranged from fairly solid employees...she's hiring one this morning...(the wife can't stand working with women any longer) to not-so-pleasantly stupid, but at least they weren't organizationally so.
And then there's a little problem with the type of people that these women are hiring, which transitions neatly into a little issue with recent hires who all come from a particular little country with a five-letter-name, who are rapidly becoming known for taking over entire companies the moment they get one of theirs into an HR position...
"Have you applied to Jim Farley's $120k mechanic jobs?"
Oddly enough, I've lived near a Ford dealership for going on 18 years, have applied numerous times to try to work there, and have been blown off for 18 years straight. I sort of gave up after the first year, but I still religiously apply for various jobs there (only the ones I'm qualified for), while I've worked for every German car dealership in town, Subaru, Chevrolet (all owned by the same two groups, all ran horribly), apparently I'm overqualified to work with Porsche and BMW, but nowhere near as qualified to work for a Ford dealership (although I did work at one in 1992-1993 as a PDI guy).
No way in hell I'd ever turn wrenches for someone else's business ever again, I've got enough trouble just working on and modifying my own garbage to ever think about touching someone else's car in paid-for anger.
I do wish he would simply stop talking, he already looks way too much like his cousin Chris, every time he comes out and says something painful to listen to, it's really starting to take on the tone of the SNL skit "Van down by the river", but in this case, he's freaking serious about it.
The main reason why I put up with the crap that I do at my current job is because the process of looking for another job is so miserable. None of the people you have to deal with in the job hunting process seem to undrestand how important it is to the job applicant and manage to treat them with contempt at every stage.
Leaving the Foucault references in might’ve actually increased your chances of being published. The moment they saw their hero’s name, they might’ve gone glassy-eyed and blissfully ignored everything else you said.
Blah blah, how come I'm not as famous as that Ta-Hissy black dude, blah blah, Jews, blah blah I wanna teach at Harvard so here is my application, blah blah blah, when can I start?
There, I summarized that article for you so you don't have to bother.
Maybe it's more of a blessing? I find these sorts of problems often to be self-correcting, especially if they're under the impression that people might actually want to pay to read it.
"Messrs. Mishra and Piepenbring would likely both benefit from picking some non-theoretical experience in the 97% of “the West” not served by a bodega."
Plenty of them did and do, but their "They All Come to Look for America" pieces aren't any better off. You have to take off your journo hat to meet people where they are, but how many of them (and us) are really that humble?
As for Mr. Mishra, I doubt he cleared >$1.50 word, so being an FP "top global thinker" may be a nice plaudit, but it ain't paying the bills.
Per Wiki: "Mishra married Mary Mount, a London book editor, in 2005.[22] She is the daughter of the writer Sir Ferdinand Mount, 3rd Baronet, and a cousin of former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom David Cameron."
Doesn't sound like they need help paying the bills…
Past a certain point it does little good to attempt to assault the sensibilities of selectively-learned individuals, that's the point of toxic online disinhibition effect, short of showing up at their home or office armed with a barbwire-wrapped Nerf bat, there's very little way of getting under their skin.
I tend to actively ignore book reviews and social commentary by progressive coasties. However, like Jack—but to a much lazier and lesser extent—I do try to keep up with what the leftist/socialist crowd is up to. I appreciate Jack taking one for the team here, since I’d sooner vacation in Port au Prince than read Harper’s. I feel more situational aware having read this post. Much like knowing about the Morning Glory Milking Farm—which may be Jack’s most epic book review evah.
The trick is to find what might be called the "alt-left" writers who do their own reporting and original thinking, while avoiding all the petty inquisitors out there. This essay fits the bill:
Pankaj Mishra sticks in my mind because he had the nerve to chastise Ta-Nehisi Coates, in the pages of LRB, for being insufficiently leftist; leaving me torn between admiration at the man's chutzpah and indignation at his condescension toward someone who is, after all, my countryman.
That Purnell essay (despite the lazy proliferation of profanity, which, alas, now seems to characterize even high-brow writing) was a searingly candid portrayal of addiction. The author seems like the type one -- supposing himself bold enough -- would be inclined to put the question: just what kind of god, specifically, do you not believe in?
"The author seems like the type one -- supposing himself bold enough -- would be inclined to put the question: just what kind of god, specifically, do you not believe in?"
It's a useful question dialectically, but I am honestly curious about how various people would answer.
We live in this strange age where every half-educated sophisticate thinks he knows Christianity, when what he really knows is a popularized simulacrum of "the dissidence of dissent." The Puritans dissented from English Presbyterians, who dissented from Anglicans, who dissented from French Calvinists and German Lutherans, who dissented from Roman Catholics. By the time you get to modern American Evangelicals, you're way out on a historical outlier. (Not that they aren't real followers of Jesus, mind you! Just that they are a distant branch from the trunk of historical Christianity.)
A good example was that social media meme that went around a few years ago, with the girl shouting "make it make sense!" at the fact that the gospels "just happened" to be named after Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Oh dear.
I suppose being a nation of dissenters and religious refugees makes our conflicting bag of highly-affected religious public posture vs highly-individualized * actual * practice uniquely American.
I've heard argued that certain officaldoms - like a state religion or a constitutional monarch - relieves some of these pressures. That is, one doesn't have to imbue all of "British Meaning" into the PM if you've got a long-standing King or Queen. And similarly with religion.
I spend enough time in France and the UK to call that BS (esp now), but there's still something to it.
I'm content to say that monarchy is legitimate and probably the most natural form of government, but that Americans are formally unsuited for it. On the other hand, I'm mindful of Hilaire Belloc's remark that, the despite the trappings, the USA is far more fundamentally monarchical than the UK, with a kingly seat of government standing over a subject land -- DC as our Versailles. He was writing early in FDR's administration.
Re #2 - I remember when Duvall's The Apostle came out. Coastal audiences and critics treated it like an art film or something exotic, like an Egyptian submission to the Oscars.
It won the IFP award that year, but it was probably an indie world nod to how Duvall had to go indie to make it.
I'm hardly a practicing Christian, but I recommend the film all day, every day, and twice on Sunday to people who seem baffled by the "clinging to religion" folks.
All the performances are great, including a barely-started-acting Walton Goggins and Billy Bob Thornton in probably his most understated role.
Update: I received a delightful letter from Dan Piepenbring that reveals him as a thoughtful and humorous person. I won't reprint the whole thing for privacy, but I will provide this excerpt:
'I confess that I read your letter while standing in a bodega, which may not endear me to you. I hasten to add, then, that you are correct: as the longtime driver of a 2002 Camry perilously close to its final mile, I know nothing about the construction of pickup trucks. '
I hope the rest of his reply is as thoughtful and a dialog has opened!
Maybe it is a chance for him to have non artificial inputs to his consciousness or have someone who lives "in the country" and isn't a Wes Siler like person as an acquaintance..
Either his Camry is on mile 999,999 or he also does not know how long they last.
“It's making a noise.”
Sounds like the beginning of a wonderful Crabspirits story.
If he's like most 2002 Camry owners (probably a 2.4L guy) I suspect it's probably an elderly crossing guard that's still jammed in between the core support and engine under the front of the car that is probably still voicing its concerns about being a burden, and will probably continue to make a noise until the latitudinally-placed, cylindrical meat obstruction self-clearances enough where it's no longer in contact with tarmac.
If I was drinking morning coffee, my phone would have been full of it, from the approximate location of my nasal passages.
early 2AZ 2.4L Camries have a bit of a mixed reputation. IIRC they have a similar thread/pitch of headbolts as the notorious northstar with similar consequences. But there are still a bunch of the early cars that racked up a bunch of miles on original motors. My cousin in Siberia had an 06 Russian market car with 1M KM of local(!) miles (which is like a 5x multiplier on regular use) on an 06 XV30 body Camry with the 2AZ when he finally pulled it to rebuild, Russian mechanics figured out a way to resleeve them as I recall.
"Russian Machine never breaks.-Alexander Ovechkin"
-AK47isthetool
"What Would Ivan Do ? " .
-Nate
Hopefully a “No Parts Required” repair!
Yeah ;
The "WWID" ? thing is in reference to repairs in Russia where they get _really_ creative .
-Nate
I briefly owned a 2.4 Camry, it lasted about three or four months, I sold it and bought a malfunctioning-ish, low-mile 1989 Lincoln Mark 7 LSC to replace it.
At least I got comfortable seats in the bargain.
I actually enjoyed his reviews and his imagined attitude towards real estate sales. Interesting that he referred to buyers as tenants; I'm happy to live in Ohio.
I was idly wondering what my current home outlay would get me west of Central Park. The answer is: 2 bedrooms in 1000sqft of what looks, in the photos, like a burned out house trailer.
You would miss out on Yemeni bodega owners and Mexican abuelas; Senegalese taxi drivers and Uzbek nurses; Trinidadian line cooks and Ethiopian aunties.
Plus, I don’t think there’s an Outback “Steakhouse” anywhere nearby.
It's 32 minutes from the Dakota with one change; Keen's, which is where The Commander and I last had a steak in the city, is 25 minutes with no change but a bit of a walk. About ten years ago I walked across the Brooklyn bridge for lunch at Outback; that one is sadly closed from COVID along with 55 Bar and many other luminous NYC legends.
Keen’s is overrated in my opinion.
Also true 25 years ago. (Peter Luger's as well.)
Every steakhouse in NYC is overrated, because it's in New York. You get a better steak in the Haneda airport for $18 than you get anywhere in the boroughs. I have probably been to half of the top twenty-ish in Manhattan and I have yet to leave astounded.
Come to think of it, "The Top" in Columbus, Ohio is better than almost all of them, and you can walk out under $100 for two people.
Meat On Ocean beats them all, Epic in SF is also pretty good.
Did you notice that he didn't mention any native Americans in that tossed salad of ethnicities?
Probably because he is pathetic little Jew Hater!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have no pity for Mamdani and I'm quite sure that he has more than a little Jew hatred in what passes for his heart.
I wouldn't expect for him to mention the million or so Jews that will now be his constituents (not even the pathological judenrat Jews of JVP and Neturei Karta who gave him visible support), but at least he could make a nod towards the Italians and Irish. Sure, Somalians may have been the weave to the warp in the fabric of America since before Plymouth Rock, but I'm pretty sure the Irish and Italians had something to do with the building of NYC.
I had a filet medallions meal at Texas Roadhouse, of all places, and found it better than expected. Not the best I’ve had, but not the gristle plate that I’ve been led to believe the family-priced franchise steak places are. Cooked to medium-well perfection, with as many starchy sides as you could order, with the obligatory fried onion rings appetizers, and I think I came out of there with a couple dollars change from a $50 including tax and tip—would go back.
“Medium-well perfection”
What in tarnation?
"I know nothing about the construction of pickup trucks"
this is my shocked face
Tell him he’s a cuck and that he should get a Monster Truck and move to the REAL America to get his life on track.
He just needs to listen to a podcast where they talk about lifting weights instead of all getting in the same room and jerking off to “Wolf Of Wall Street”. There's a fellow, Andrew Tate, who might be a good choice.
The Wolf of Wall Street is a terrible movie! I got up and walked out of the theater.
Agree. The excessive excess finally became too much to watch.
The Wolf of Wall Street is a Northwestern Mutual employee’s idea of “Wall Street” work culture.
The only movie that gets remotely close to the dynamics, personalities, and jargon is Margin Call.
Love Margin Call! Great movie.
No movie, even one allegedly "based on a true story," is true to life. Even those based on what moviemakers actually know, like The Player or Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, aren't entirely accurate.
I've started a moratorium on watching historical dramas that are allegedly true stories because, more often than not, when I check out the actual history, I'll find out how much in the film is fiction, even when the actual story is well documented, like Midway or The King's Speech. I think that Ed Zwick almost ruined Defiance, about the Bielski partisans in Belorussia during WWII, with some deux ex machina having one of the Bielskis show up with a machine gun crew just in time to fight off some Panzer tanks. I've read a couple of books about the Bielski's, including Nechama Tec's, which is credited by the film. The scene with the tanks never happened.
It may be, that the protagonist/antagonist “wolf” is a protracted and unrepentant liar.
SIR. Margot Robbie is more than worthy for that pastime.
From what's going on in the UK, I don't think South Asians need advice from a pimp.
You and Baruth crack me up. Bravo, sirs.
Sounds like he could benefit from some ACF time
People still read Harpers?
I had the same thought. Had no idea it still exists, and from the sound of it, I was better off that way.
I read it for the same reason I read the NYRB and LRB: if I am not continually acquainted with what the literati are thinking, I will descend into the same hidebound ignorance regarding them as they have regarding me..
And - TBH - some of the most focused anti-interventionist writing can be found in those pages.
Are "anti-interventionist" people the nihilists who remove "BRIDGE OUT AHEAD" signs on public highways?
bridge out?
when is it coming back?
Yes!
Every time I see a "Drug Free School Zone" sign, I keep looking for another sign that reads, "Leaving Drug Free School Zone, Resume Drug Use."
When I see a "Drug Activity Impaired Drivers Call #677" sign on an Ohio interstate, I wonder if that ever inspires some self-reporting based on the syntax.
Or replace a speed limit sign at the peak of the highest bridge around with an official-looking “Jump Off This Bridge” sign, then count the number of suicides?
That should be a thing in Northwest Ohio!
Bless you for wanting to materially contribute to the mental health community in your local area.
Honestly sounds like a Mr Beast stunt.
I wonder what the survivability of such a scenario would be
What if we merely dabble with spotty acquaintance in regards to what they have to say, simply because I'm finding it a bit difficult to stay engaged in reading material that's produced by high-falutin' folks who are educated far beyond their intelligence level?
I feel like we could be friends.
I'm the third-most-boring individual it would ever be your middling displeasure to know.
Doubtful
Okay, maybe the fifth-most-boring individual? That's the problem with assessing everyone's "most boring" meters, you never really know where you stand.
You do, of course, so we don't have to.
If you start optimistic talking about sweater threadcounts and slave labor, you’ve gone too far
Ignorance is bliss—as long as they can be outvoted!
People still read?
i just hit the keyboard and let vibes do the rest
Yeah, I'm loudly curious about that myself whenever I write out a quickie joke story that's maybe two sentences long and a chorus of TL,DR's begin dropping out of the sky like dead parrots.
with all that texting going on,m of course they do!
Just maybe not English….
people writing for harpers bazaar actually living in a bazaar
wild
Harper's is NOT Harper's Bazaar, amazingly!
wait what
thats gotta be a spinoff or sister publication then
Famous for their cover of 59th Street Bridge Song.
Harper's Bizarre?
That’s “Harper’s Bizzarre!”
Fixed it for ya! 😁
Harper's who?
maybe theres more than one harper and they accidentally added the apostrophe
I have no idea, given the fascinating company that Jack keeps in here, I thought it best just to blindly push through with an apostrophe and hope for mere banishment if it was wrongly utilized.
Harper Valley PTA.
Harper Lee.
i guess all the people i've never heard of have varying degrees of influence in the worlds which they inhabit; those worlds having distant if any relation to the basic tenets of maga and life as it is actually lived today. it reminded me of my english prof when i said i was of russian descent: he said 'oh you've read tolstoy in russian!' i told him dad said the last great russian writer was gogol; tolstoy was just another hack like steinbeck. i wish you could've seen his expression...
Lmao!
The grapes of wrath sucked. I enjoyed the tolstoy one i read once i figured out the names. Thats wasnt easy!
I've been in one Chekov play (The Bear), and played five different parts in a college production of Neil Simon's "The Good Doctor", my favorite short piece out of that group was "Surgery", where I turned the struggle to avoid getting dental work done into a WWE wrestling match (a girl was the dentist, we spent as much time on choreographing the fight as we did getting the lines and blocking down, we went nuts with the wrestling bit, I even built a balsawood chair for her to break over my head), that piece was done without the director seeing what we were doing until the finished product was revealed on opening night.
If I had a favorite Russian author, it would be Chekov. The only Tolstoy story I like is about Tolstoy's writing process, he supposedly converted an insulated slaughterhouse into a writing room, gave the kids the rest of the estate to play on, with strict instructions not to get anywhere near the slaughterhouse or someone might get hurt.
Favorite Russian authors: I'll vote for Bulgakov and Dostoyevsky.
I admit to having never finished Crime and Punishment. After 50 pages, I was thinking, "So kill her, already."
It's interesting how many Russian authors are admired in the West, when Russia has always seen itself as at least an arm's length removed from the West.
It's quite dependent on the translation. Read a couple of pages and if it doesn't work for you, move on to the next.
Fun fact, the current Head of the House of Tolstoy was raised by and is the stepson of the author who's work is being read in the ACF book club, Patrick O'Brian.
I don't think I have access to that particularly charming little book club as of yet, but if all goes well, it's on the to-do list.
It's just a bunch of wine drinking and talking about female genitalia.
None of the Porcaros sang on Africa. That was Paich, Kimball, Lukather, and Timothy B. Schmit.
Porcaro is credited as the writer.
Yes.
I'll be highly pleased if they come back to my email and note that neither Porcaro contributed a vocal track.
Paich wrote the lyrics, and he and Jeff wrote the music. The Porcaro brothers' father Joe did some percussion on that track as well.
Somebody covered weezer already? It just came out.
Sometimes I find your behavior strange and difficult to comprehend. This is one of those times.
Because I subscribe to the magazine, because I bothered to contact them about it, or for one of several other legitimate reasons?
That you wrote them at all. That you are dunking on an Indian socialist. That you end your letter wishing them well in their campaign to rid the world of Zionists.
That ending is confusing. I thought the people who read Harper's are woke? Are woke people no longer containing the cognitive dissonance of "I support Jewish Americans as a protected class like other disadvantaged minorities" and "I must support Palestine because it's the current thing," which is now spilling over into some kind of anti-semitism?
(Ronnie will fill me in on the details in the next few hours, I'd wager)
Harper's articles will work some mention of Gaza in about 50% of the time; it's probably warranted one in ten times they do it.
I am not necessarily 100% behind Israel's actions in the Middle East. I *do* think it is moral cowardice and possibly plain evil to aggressively go after Jews under the cover of them being Israeli. People who "love the Jews" and "hate the Zionists" are doing nothing but making it obvious that they don't want the Jews to have their own country. Whether it's because they want the Jews weak enough to be purged one country at a time, or it's because they think Jews should operate the levers of every Western country, thus rendering Israel unnecessary, I never tire of pointing out the unresolvable conflict in their doublethink.
Ah. That makes more sense. So you're hoping that there is someone intelligent enough at the magazine to pick up on your subterfuge. Noted.
Yeah, and that probably makes ME an idiot.
We do a little trolling, it's called we do a little trolling
Oddly enough, given what I've seen with business hiring practices over the last four or so years, I'm solidly convinced that most corporate entities are way over-prioritizing "must be a psychopath/sociopath" over "might have something of a competent IQ".
I've never said "is there a gas leak in here?" as many times before 2025 as I've said it just in the last six or so months, and that's just with a small handful of potential emplouyers/the jobs that my wife has ran screaming from, it's almost as if the same two groups of insane people own all corporate entities here in the USA.
they seem to prioritize people who "don't offend anyone" and "meet their metrics"
You need a hard copy of the The NY(war crimes)T.
Display it on your dining room table and really get the conversation going.
https://newyorkwarcrimes.com/
If I send you a copy of Dara Horn's book, People Love Dead Jews, will you read it? She makes the point that nobody would care about Anne Frank if she had survived and was a 95 year old Bubbie in Brooklyn or Beersheva.
I try very hard not to be obsessed about Jew-hatred. My lady friend's parents went to the camps at 17 and 12 and I often caution her about the obsession. That being said, it's been impossible to avoid the topic since Oct. 7th.
While there are elements of normative bigotry in Jew-hatred, for example resenting what Thomas Sowell calls minority middlemen, or xenophobia, which is a natural human reaction to outgroup members, I've come to the conclusion that Jew-hatred is sue generis and has a supernatural element to it, that a certain percentage of people will hate Jews, Judaism, or the God of the Jews, for any and every reason (Jews are communists/Jews are capitalist exploiters). While it's normally below the surface, and may subside for a generation or two at times (see Russia in the 19th century), it doesn't take much to cause it to erupt.
Sometimes I wish the haters would get some new material. Going after the Talmud? Really? Nothing like embracing literally medieval thinking. Twenty-four wagonloads of the Talmud were burned in Paris in 1242.
Regarding doublethink, it's interesting to see Groypers and others that profess to be conservative reciting anti-Zionist and anti-Jewish tropes that either originated with or were amplified by the Soviets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dm51dcsKGWU
So many of the bad ideas that have currency today, well beyond anti-Zionism, originated in the USSR.
"i support palestine becuase we need somewhere to deport them"
The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan occupies 75% of Mandatory Palestine. The British gave three quarters of "Palestine" to some shirt-tail relatives of the al Saud clan, the al-Hāshimiyyūn, and called it "Transjordan" as a reward for helping them fight the Ottomans during WWI. A majority of its subjects (it's an absolute monarchy) identify as "Palestinian". It's not entirely nonsensical to say that there already is a Palestinian state in historical Palestine. I'll note that from 1948 to 1967, when Judea and Samaria (aka the "West Bank") were occupied by Jordan, and Gaza was occupied by Egypt, there was no effort on the part of Jordan or Egypt to create a Palestinian state. That's because the entire purpose of the "Palestinian" movement is not to create an independent state of their own (they prior complained of being separated from their brothers in Syria after the fall of the Ottomans, giving Palestine to the Brits), but rather the goal is to excise Jews from the land.
Jordan, though, is not likely to accept any more Palestinians. There's no love between the Hashemites and the Palestinians. King Abdullah II's grandfather was assassinated by an Arab of Palestine (the term Palestinian typically meant a Jew living in pre state Palestine, before the Soviets started the PLO in 1964) in 1951. The assassin was part of the Grand Mufti, Amin al Husseini's clan. That's the guy pictured chatting amiably with Adolph, and who helped raise a SS division made up of Bosnian Muslims. In the early 1970s, as part of Black September, the Palestinians tried to oust Abdullah II's father Hussein and start a civil war.
I think it might have something to do with your sweater vests.
I love the idea of a flatbed, but not the looks, as a mechanic, it is a purpose built appliance for the back of a truck, as a consumer, it looks so unfinished, that it couldn’t occupy my driveway for anything longer than a day, unless said driveway was 400’ long and had a pole barn behind the garage… I don’t have large bulky things that require a flatbed to move, and in my mind, a trailer would work better for most things. Most flatbed trucks I am around were designed with docks in mind, all of this misses the point Jack is making about Harpers…
98% of the time you'd rather have a bed than a flatbed.
1% of the remaining time, what you really want is a stakebed.
For the last 1%, I'll use a flat trailer.
If you don't have forklifts on both ends of the job, you probably don't want a flatbed IMO.
Totally accurate!
100%. Flatbeds are a single use tool.
At acf foreve we call them shermans
I feel bad liking that so much.
He makes fun of me for loving my dad. I make fun of him for being a tool. It’s kismet.
“1% of the remaining time”
1% x 2% = 0.02 %. So what do I want for the other 1.98 again?
A 1990 LS400.
sold
wrong. Miata is always the answer.
Agreed
the ls400 is what you get to complement the miata of course
Would make a nice summertime daily!
I wish my head cleared the headliner in those cars.
"If you don't have forklifts on both ends of the job, you probably don't want a flatbed IMO"
are you referring to adventures in dating?
(I don't know what made me crack that joke. it'd been a long day)
If you got a forklift for dating you might need a doctor and some wratchet straps
Not those kinds of adventures 😂🤣🤣
They are great for sleds.
Plot twist, when you have a 400' driveway and a pole barn out back....you'll want a Land Rover parked in the driveway
The servants can drive the flatbed
Only if it is old school with points and carburetor, with the manual and the auxiliary transmission…..
the Marlin Perkins model!
"Plot twist, when you have a 400' driveway and a pole barn out back....you'll want a Land Rover parked in the driveway"
Agreed. I once had a 399' driveway and had no such inclinations. It was only after accidentally adding a foot of gravel at the end when I suddenly began to have hankerings for a first-gen Discovery.
What is a "pole barn"?
Typically, wood poles and trusses sheathed in steal or wood, gravel floors, but can be concrete, doors on both ends, and depending on code, may or may not have electricity, people park rv’s in them or make shops out of them, depending on tax code…
Got it and many thanks.
An outbuilding that's usually made with post and beam, as opposed to stick framed, construction
Depending on who's building it, it's a cheaper way of building a large covered building, with one of the primary losses being that you're not exactly getting the engineering precision one might expect with the Chrysler Building.
Very popular in rural areas, usually only a single-story affair, and they're not exactly the best-insulated of buildings.
Now I know more than I ever wanted to know about pole barns. I have spent a long life as a city person not knowing that they even existed.
But wait, this is only the simplest of introductions to the wonderment that is pole barns. There's a lot more that you need to take in regarding their place in society, just what it means to both build and maintain a pole barn, what exactly is the pole barn feeling in regards to their existence, is it a happy pole barn...no, wait, don't get up, I've only got 1013 more pages to go!
Laughing out loud!! Many thanks, again!!!
I checked and Jack's on EST, so his funemployment Ketel 1 binge could have started at 5:01. Lets get him a day job before he starts drunk texting Vodka McBigBra fellas.
#loveyoumeanit
I'm trying! I had a job interview TODAY! It was *not* at McDonald's, but I am strongly considering McDonald's, if only for the crew meals.
Hang in there dude!
But dont take this too literally
Always order your Big Mac made fresh. The difference can be astonishing.
You can do that?
Yup. They will lie to you and say it will take 10 or 15 minutes. It won’t. And it’s worth the wait.
Or, do what my buddy does and order one without one of the standard toppings, or extra something.
Big Macs are typically assembled to order, allowing for topping variations, but the beef patties have likely been sitting in the warming drawer for a while.
Quarter Pounder patties, on the other hand, are cooked to order from fresh beef.
For what they charge for a single Big Mac nowadays, anything that might guarantee a good one is worth knowing.
Fortunately, after McDonald’s redid their regular-based burgers for taste, I don’t eat Big Macs as much, since they also doubled the sauce, which tastes great, but becomes a mess to eat!
If it makes you feel any better, I've applied for (wait, checking my application tally...) 904 jobs since December 2021.
I've gotten actual (not "we went with a better candidate...and please ignore that we're about to relist the job immediately after sending this rejection email" responses) responses a grand total of 12 times out of the 904 applications sent in or dropped off.
The legacy media keeps telling us "There's a LABOR SHORTAGE!!1!!1!
Have you applied to Jim Farley's $120k mechanic jobs?
[N.B., there's no such thing as a "shortage" in a free market]
I think that there's a ghost job listing shortage. I've set up a bogus account on LinkedIn just to annoy the living shit out of recruiters and HR types who really are as stupid as they appear to be with their posts and commentary.
Umm, that sounds like loads of material for an interesting Substack. Just saying ...
I suspect I might just be too lazy to write everything down, and then there's the work update from the spouse this morning in regards to the outright insanity that she was presented with from the top three employees in the building that she inherited when she took over the place...an assisted living facility...and how the VP of Operations...the existing VP of Operations...the existing VP of Operations that isn't going anywhere else for the foreseeable future VP of Operations...the female VP of Operations who's been making up stories about how broken this building has been for the last several months, while coasting through for a big paycheck because of her sick elderly husband...and this lady isn't elderly BTW...this VP's regular job has her on the road a lot, all of her family is centered in this area, great, I get it, I'd do everything I could, pull every shenanigan I could pull, to stay as close as possible to my spouse if she were ill and my job required me to travel.
But in the meantime, she has sabotaged the building due to sheer incompetency and has left the mother of all messes (pun intended) behind, a minefield of astounding proportion to navigate while the spouse attempts to fix what all is broken. And a lot of these problems stem directly from VP's laughably lazy nature, where she dumped most of a building's responsibilities upon an aggressively stupid female employee who's now convinced that she's the actual director of the building and my spouse is just some sort of figurehead that still can't be trusted with any responsibilities...this is a $25 an hour office manager, btw.
I could probably write a smallish book on what happened just yesterday in this building.
And this is only a variation of what happens every day.
And corporate doesn't really see a problem.
That bit above is what I need to focus on, as this is the first time I haven't been along for the ride in six years, I couldn't do it all over again with yet another schizophrenic corporate employer that can't make up their mind as to which direction to go to destroy their own company.
In short, this is the face of an industry that only a mother could love, and only a mother could love to fuck up.
The forever-broken HR departments and associated recruiter types are merely one facet of an entirely broken industry, and it's also an industry that's been entirely given over to the fairer sex to run and mismanage. This is the core of the self-inflicted problem that faces too many corporate entities and smaller businesses as well: Feminism wanted to replace men in a stereotypical good old boys club and tear it all down, they didn't tear it down, they rode in with a set of stereotypes that they got from watching "Bewitched" and other 1950's/1960's TV shows where the TV show husbands went to these magical place where they got to goof off with their friends every day, and they were smoking cigars and making ridiculous blunders in every episode, and I think it's this mostly false stereotype that has guided women at the ground levels of Feminism to move up and replace the good old boys club...with an actual malfunctioning, psychopathic, and schizophrenic good not-so-old girls club.
They rode in hard with promises to fix everything, life would be better, hear women roar, look out for them, they're going to tear everything down and build it all back up better and more equal, when what's really happened is that they can't be bothered with day-to-day minutiae (something that the men actually had to do, you just didn't see it in those 1950's/1960's sitcoms), they're simply setting up personal fiefdoms and allowing every business they're at the helm of to run into the ground, this is the same fairer sex that can't be bothered to tell you where they want to eat dinner, but also get pissed off if you pick the wrong place, regardless of the fact that you've received zero input as to which place should have been picked.
...and this same fairer sex that can't make up its mind as to what it wants or what it wants to make it happy has been put in charge of many businesses in many industries. After years, decades of this, my spouse is still asking me daily, "Is it me? Am I the problem here?", and my response is, "can you remember a single employee of the fairer sex that wasn't having some insane type of emotional issue while at work?", I've worked with her for 6 years, and we could only remember one woman between the pair of us that wasn't some level of insane...and even that one had a few minor problems.
From a "guys" standpoint, it's more like an even 50/50, if anything, we had more of a problem from the effeminate males in the buildings, while the typical stereotypical males ranged from fairly solid employees...she's hiring one this morning...(the wife can't stand working with women any longer) to not-so-pleasantly stupid, but at least they weren't organizationally so.
And then there's a little problem with the type of people that these women are hiring, which transitions neatly into a little issue with recent hires who all come from a particular little country with a five-letter-name, who are rapidly becoming known for taking over entire companies the moment they get one of theirs into an HR position...
"Have you applied to Jim Farley's $120k mechanic jobs?"
Oddly enough, I've lived near a Ford dealership for going on 18 years, have applied numerous times to try to work there, and have been blown off for 18 years straight. I sort of gave up after the first year, but I still religiously apply for various jobs there (only the ones I'm qualified for), while I've worked for every German car dealership in town, Subaru, Chevrolet (all owned by the same two groups, all ran horribly), apparently I'm overqualified to work with Porsche and BMW, but nowhere near as qualified to work for a Ford dealership (although I did work at one in 1992-1993 as a PDI guy).
No way in hell I'd ever turn wrenches for someone else's business ever again, I've got enough trouble just working on and modifying my own garbage to ever think about touching someone else's car in paid-for anger.
I do wish he would simply stop talking, he already looks way too much like his cousin Chris, every time he comes out and says something painful to listen to, it's really starting to take on the tone of the SNL skit "Van down by the river", but in this case, he's freaking serious about it.
Chris was a comedian; Jim is a clown!
It would be cool if you would send him a letter and also contact the media.
A Transit or maybe even an Econoline.
"I live in a Transit down by the...wait, would you be interested in purchasing a new or used Transit? We have some incredible financing plans!"
The main reason why I put up with the crap that I do at my current job is because the process of looking for another job is so miserable. None of the people you have to deal with in the job hunting process seem to undrestand how important it is to the job applicant and manage to treat them with contempt at every stage.
I'm fairly convinced that they're not there to hire anyone, they're there for ghost job listing management.
The level of disconnect they display is alarming.
When I worked at McDonalds I got a hamburger, small fries, and a small drink - but only if you worked a full shift.
I was paid $1.37 an hour so it WAS a while ago. Maybe meals are bigger now....?
You might want to dumb that down, Jack, I don't think they will understand it
I already went through and removed all the references to Foucault
Leaving the Foucault references in might’ve actually increased your chances of being published. The moment they saw their hero’s name, they might’ve gone glassy-eyed and blissfully ignored everything else you said.
"As Focault once noted, 'Bitches ain't shit but hoes and tricks.'"
If only Foucault had written something that intelligent.
There was a Foucault who did! (See my comment below.)
What did Leon have to do with it?
Nooooooooooooo. He should dumb it up.
(Begins recreation of Underbridge Cybergoth Dance Party while standing in line at the DMV)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPbVRpRgHso
That first paragraph is gold.
I'm okay with labeling it "gold-pressed latinum" if there are any DS9 folks in da' house.
Good lord, I read the linked Amazon review of Flat Earth. Desperately looking around for a palette cleanser.
May I suggest the 1971 Cadillac prestige brochure?
I do have a copy and it is like a relic of a lost (and much better) civilization. May we scale those heights again.
You said to the marriage counseler I WAS SITTING RIGHT THERE that you would never again bring up your 1971 Cadillac prestige brochure!
I hope you know that I'm getting the brochure in the divorce!
(Runs away, sobbing hysterically, trips over coffee table, flattens the house cat that nobody remembers bringing home)
Blah blah, how come I'm not as famous as that Ta-Hissy black dude, blah blah, Jews, blah blah I wanna teach at Harvard so here is my application, blah blah blah, when can I start?
There, I summarized that article for you so you don't have to bother.
more drivel behind a paywall. sigh.
Maybe it's more of a blessing? I find these sorts of problems often to be self-correcting, especially if they're under the impression that people might actually want to pay to read it.
"Messrs. Mishra and Piepenbring would likely both benefit from picking some non-theoretical experience in the 97% of “the West” not served by a bodega."
Plenty of them did and do, but their "They All Come to Look for America" pieces aren't any better off. You have to take off your journo hat to meet people where they are, but how many of them (and us) are really that humble?
As for Mr. Mishra, I doubt he cleared >$1.50 word, so being an FP "top global thinker" may be a nice plaudit, but it ain't paying the bills.
Per Wiki: "Mishra married Mary Mount, a London book editor, in 2005.[22] She is the daughter of the writer Sir Ferdinand Mount, 3rd Baronet, and a cousin of former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom David Cameron."
Doesn't sound like they need help paying the bills…
This Mishra moron is EVERYWHERE. He is a supreme rich-person grifter.
And in the case, you probably can’t understand a damn word that the SOB is saying!
GET HIS ASS JACK
Past a certain point it does little good to attempt to assault the sensibilities of selectively-learned individuals, that's the point of toxic online disinhibition effect, short of showing up at their home or office armed with a barbwire-wrapped Nerf bat, there's very little way of getting under their skin.
i get where youre coming from
however
when subtlety fails go kinetic
That's about the point where I whip out "mental troglodyte".
I tend to actively ignore book reviews and social commentary by progressive coasties. However, like Jack—but to a much lazier and lesser extent—I do try to keep up with what the leftist/socialist crowd is up to. I appreciate Jack taking one for the team here, since I’d sooner vacation in Port au Prince than read Harper’s. I feel more situational aware having read this post. Much like knowing about the Morning Glory Milking Farm—which may be Jack’s most epic book review evah.
The trick is to find what might be called the "alt-left" writers who do their own reporting and original thinking, while avoiding all the petty inquisitors out there. This essay fits the bill:
https://thebaffler.com/salvos/i-will-disrespect-you-nathan-west
Haiti?!
I was thinking Beirut, ca. 1980s!
And yes, after that other review, I REALLY wondered what the world was coming to!
And I’ve always been able to figure out lefties/socialists:
“Republicans SUCK!
America SUCKS!
The GOVERNMENT is King!
Gimme muh FREE SHE-IT!”
Nicely done.
Pankaj Mishra sticks in my mind because he had the nerve to chastise Ta-Nehisi Coates, in the pages of LRB, for being insufficiently leftist; leaving me torn between admiration at the man's chutzpah and indignation at his condescension toward someone who is, after all, my countryman.
That Purnell essay (despite the lazy proliferation of profanity, which, alas, now seems to characterize even high-brow writing) was a searingly candid portrayal of addiction. The author seems like the type one -- supposing himself bold enough -- would be inclined to put the question: just what kind of god, specifically, do you not believe in?
"The author seems like the type one -- supposing himself bold enough -- would be inclined to put the question: just what kind of god, specifically, do you not believe in?"
Game-set-match, sir.
Absolutely. We have some high-octane readers here.
It's a useful question dialectically, but I am honestly curious about how various people would answer.
We live in this strange age where every half-educated sophisticate thinks he knows Christianity, when what he really knows is a popularized simulacrum of "the dissidence of dissent." The Puritans dissented from English Presbyterians, who dissented from Anglicans, who dissented from French Calvinists and German Lutherans, who dissented from Roman Catholics. By the time you get to modern American Evangelicals, you're way out on a historical outlier. (Not that they aren't real followers of Jesus, mind you! Just that they are a distant branch from the trunk of historical Christianity.)
A good example was that social media meme that went around a few years ago, with the girl shouting "make it make sense!" at the fact that the gospels "just happened" to be named after Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Oh dear.
I suppose being a nation of dissenters and religious refugees makes our conflicting bag of highly-affected religious public posture vs highly-individualized * actual * practice uniquely American.
I've heard argued that certain officaldoms - like a state religion or a constitutional monarch - relieves some of these pressures. That is, one doesn't have to imbue all of "British Meaning" into the PM if you've got a long-standing King or Queen. And similarly with religion.
I spend enough time in France and the UK to call that BS (esp now), but there's still something to it.
I'm content to say that monarchy is legitimate and probably the most natural form of government, but that Americans are formally unsuited for it. On the other hand, I'm mindful of Hilaire Belloc's remark that, the despite the trappings, the USA is far more fundamentally monarchical than the UK, with a kingly seat of government standing over a subject land -- DC as our Versailles. He was writing early in FDR's administration.
Most people who criticize Christianity are actually criticizing, in no particular order:
0. the poor
1. the stuff poor people like
2. something they saw on TV that was written, directed, and acted by Jews
3. Islam
Re #2 - I remember when Duvall's The Apostle came out. Coastal audiences and critics treated it like an art film or something exotic, like an Egyptian submission to the Oscars.
It won the IFP award that year, but it was probably an indie world nod to how Duvall had to go indie to make it.
I'm hardly a practicing Christian, but I recommend the film all day, every day, and twice on Sunday to people who seem baffled by the "clinging to religion" folks.
All the performances are great, including a barely-started-acting Walton Goggins and Billy Bob Thornton in probably his most understated role.