Every national religion has a tendency to make man vain, unsocial, and wicked; the first step toward humanity is to permit each one to follow peacefully the worship and the opinions which suit him.
Your host, Jean Meslier
Did you know it’s “Constitution Day”? I didn’t.
I’m going to do a small series of postings extracted from an archive of video interviews that I made in 2010. It was one of those projects that (so far) has died a horrible “death from success.”
There’s been a great deal of conversation about de-platforming and the free speech of some proto-fascists, or homophobes, or white supremacists.
Kurdistan is still on track for its independence referendum on Sept 25.
I had been wondering how the US would bounce, and so – probably – have you. Well, the Magic 8-Ball we used to call the US Foreign Policy has spoken and it’s:
… and thought, “that can’t be right.” Then, as soon as that thought crossed his mind, he’d think “good,” and pick the next of his neatly-folded uniform jackets off the stack, struggle into it, then turn off the light and leave.
There’s a small bit of kerfuffle around the new iPhone facial recognition feature.
The US was built on inequality, and was structured so as to maintain that inequality. It’s so deeply embedded in the fabric of the country that most people don’t see it – they’re indoctrinated to see the flip-side of that inequality as “middle class” and “upward mobility.” When a president talks about “helping the middle class” it’s not saying “We’re going to make things better for people!” it’s saying “We’re going to make things more unequal!” Because, the fact of the matter is that the middle class is smaller.
Just farting around in photoshop and imageready.
Ursula Le Guin has a blog. Did you know that? I didn’t. [le guin]