Been a student. Been a clerk. Been a salesperson. Been a manager. Been a teacher. Been an expatriate. Am a husband, father, and chronicle.

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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 4th, 2023

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  • This develops into the toddler who —after you’ve given advice, demand, direction, instruction, or other adult support — looks you dead in the eye, does the exact opposite, and acts like it’s your fucking fault.

    They perfect trolling.

    Hopefully, by the time they’re four, they come to understand that trolling your family is not a great survival strategy. Some people grow out of it. Some are just trolls to ‘others’, outside their established ingroup.

    There are some people who’d sell their own mothers on a lark. Or, reneg on a friend just to see them squirm. Or, impose tariffs on allies and inflame every enemy but one. Those people, they’re behaving like toddlers.





  • That a bunch of barbarians from north and western Europe whose primary values were ownership, sequestration, exploitation, and domination set the political, economic, social, and psychological agenda for an entire planet. True, this may have been the mode of survival from Rome to the Renaissance, but why are we still locked into it now?

    The next part of this comment includes crude generalizations of 1st to 18th century for every continent. Historians, feel free to clarify. Ahistorical boobs, at least be willing to ask questions before you attack.

    Turtle Island sustainability and oral history, Asian cosmic coexistence, Middle Eastern knowledge preservation, African social development, East Asian detente, Australo-Pacific deep time and vast exploration, and/or panhumanistic duty to family — no. Every other culture and value system expressed by non-Europeans was summarily suppressed, violently undercut, and disregarded as backward, non-Christian drivel. This continues into today.

    Gangsters, germ warfare, rapid industrialization — yes. Every means of short-term gain, power concentration, expansionism, and advantage-taking is normal. Inter- and sometimes intra-familial feuding, marriage pacts, and warmongering is normal.

    Sometimes, it seems that almost ANY other system than the one we have now — centered on wealth and weapons — would be an improvement. However, ever other system can not contend with the threats of wealth and weapons.





  • Lilo and Stitch is the best Disney movie.

    Many, many spoilers below. But, seriously, this movie is 21 years old. Get over yourselves.

    Check it: a young girl adopts an illegal alien (killing machine from deep space) and protects him from the U.S. (and galactic) government (Military-Industrial complexes), while keeping her incredibly depressed sister (slices both ways) from giving up completely as they keep their Indigenous Hawaiian family together in their co-opted homeland. One sister works a series of dead-end tourism jobs; the other has anger issues. The hate each other and love each other fiercely, though they are about 12 years apart in age.

    Oh, yeah, and their parents are dead.

    Meanwhile, the alien is a political refugee and freedom fighter fleeing from his own people who want him dead for —get this— existing. A lab-grown, indestructible terrorist, he seeks asylum on an island — but he can’t swim.

    He does learn to surf.

    The only downside to this film is that Disney produced it. And Elvis.

    “Ohana means family. Nobody gets left behind or forgotten.”