1/ Thomas Frank, author of "What's The Matter With Kansas" interviews British economist David Graeber who has some insights into the job market of today, and some fascinating theories about what has happened to the workplace after computer technology has transformed how business is done.
He explains how a large corporation functions, the rise of inequality, the creation of what he calls "bullshit jobs", and how we have ended up so that if you have a job that's worth doing, or fun, or meaningful, you are paid less because you are privileged to have a decent job.
I can't really summarize this properly, but read the two excerpts below and tackle the whole article - it's excellent work, and explains what's really going on and why there's so much anger out there.....
David Graeber (Credit: AP/Michelle Mcloughlin)
David Graeber is an American anthropologist who teaches at the London School of Economics. He is the author of the classic “Debt: The First Five Thousand Years” and played an important role in the launching of Occupy Wall Street. Last year, he wrote a much-discussed essay asking what happened to society’s old promise of more leisure time for workers; for the tasks that have come to occupy the hours that were once promised to be ours, Graeber invented the delicate and slightly obscure label, “bullshit jobs.”
I wanted to know exactly what he meant by that, and so we discussed the matter over email. The following conversation has been lightly edited.
..............................
Let’s talk about “bullshit jobs.” What do you mean by this phrase?
When I talk about bullshit jobs, I mean, the kind of jobs that even those who work them feel do not really need to exist. A lot of them are made-up middle management, you know, I’m the “East Coast strategic vision coordinator” for some big firm, which basically means you spend all your time at meetings or forming teams that then send reports to one another. Or someone who works in an industry that they feel doesn’t need to exist, like most of the corporate lawyers I know, or telemarketers, or lobbyists…. Just think of when you walk into a hospital, how half the employees never seem to do anything for sick people, but are just filling out insurance forms and sending information to each other. Some of that work obviously does need to be done, but for the most part, everyone working there knows what really needs to get done and that the remaining 90 percent of what they do is bullshit. So the right wing manipulates the resentment of the bulk of the working class from being able to dedicate their lives to anything purely noble or altruistic. But at the same time—and here’s the real evil genius of right-wing populism—they also manipulate the resentment of that portion of the middle classes trapped in bullshit jobs against the bulk of the working classes, who at least get to do productive work of obvious social benefit. Think about all the popular uproar about school teachers. There’s this endless campaign of vilification against teachers, who they say are overpaid, coddled, and are blamed for everything wrong with our education system. In fact, grade school teachers undergo really grueling conditions for much less money than they’d be paid if they’d gone into almost any other profession requiring the same level of education, and almost all the problems the right-wingers are referring to aren’t created by the teachers or teachers’ unions at all but by school administrators—the ones who are paid much more, and mostly have classic bullshit jobs that seem to multiply endlessly even as the teachers themselves are squeezed and downsized
..............................
So if you’re a fork-lift operator or even a florist, you know your kid is unlikely to ever become a CEO, but you also know there’s no way in a million years they’ll ever become drama critic for the New Yorker or an international human rights lawyer. The only way they could get paid a decent salary to do something noble, something that’s not just for the money, is to join the army. So saying “support the troops” is a way of saying “fuck you” to the cultural elite who think you’re a bunch of knuckle-dragging cavemen, but who also make sure your kid would never be able to join their club of rich do-gooders even if he or she was twice as smart as any of them.
So the right wing manipulates the resentment of the bulk of the working class from being able to dedicate their lives to anything purely noble or altruistic. But at the same time—and here’s the real evil genius of right-wing populism—they also manipulate the resentment of that portion of the middle classes trapped in bullshit jobs against the bulk of the working classes, who at least get to do productive work of obvious social benefit. Think about all the popular uproar about school teachers. There’s this endless campaign of vilification against teachers, who they say are overpaid, coddled, and are blamed for everything wrong with our education system. In fact, grade school teachers undergo really grueling conditions for much less money than they’d be paid if they’d gone into almost any other profession requiring the same level of education, and almost all the problems the right-wingers are referring to aren’t created by the teachers or teachers’ unions at all but by school administrators—the ones who are paid much more, and mostly have classic bullshit jobs that seem to multiply endlessly even as the teachers themselves are squeezed and downsized
2/ The sage, Frank Rich, on the weeks news.......
Every week, New York Magazine writer-at-large Frank Rich talks with contributor Eric Benson about the biggest stories in politics and culture. This week: the controversial homecoming of Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl; Obama's bold new EPA regulations; and the dangerous case of James Risen.
Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, America's last prisoner of war in Afghanistan, was released last weekend by the Taliban in exchange for five prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay. The prisoner swap has incited a flurry of criticism, with detractors questioning the legality of President Obama's use of executive power, the wisdom of negotiating with a terrorist organization, the circumstances of Bergdahl's disappearance, and even thesignificance of Bergdahl's father's beard. (Okay, that last one was only harped on by Bill O'Reilly.) Usually the homecoming of a captured American soldier would be cause for universal celebration. Why has this one produced such uproar?The key reporting on this entire incident comes from Amanda Terkel andSam Stein of the Huffington Post, who found that as recently as May 22, Senator Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, now a loud Republican critic of the swap, had issued a press release urging the Department of Defense “to do all it can to find Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl and bring him home safely,” and that in February Mitch McConnell had joined a resolution "to express the sense of the Senate that no member of the armed forces who is missing in action or captured should be left behind.” So what has changed in the weeks since? Not much. Even Bergdahl’s disillusionment with the war was previously part of the public record, thanks to a lengthy Rolling Stone article by the late writer Michael Hastings, published in 2012. So what have we learned? That America is “negotiating with terrorists” — something it always does when it is trying to broker peace and end a war, let alone the longest war in our history. That some of Bergdahl’s fellow soldiers believed that his disappearance cost lives when others went searching for him — a claim not yet substantiated, unless repetition on cable news (CNN as well as Fox News) counts as such. We’ve learned that the released Taliban thugs — the “Taliban dream team,” in the sloganeering of Lindsey Graham — may rejoin the Taliban.
3/ The Bergdahl story is obsessing the media this week, and Jon Stewart looks at some of the coverage and wonders how this went from a good news story to the worst crime inflicted on our nation since Benghazi......two parts, three and five minutes, and one of his good ones.....
By the way, since this aired some of the rumours on right wing websites have been debunked: there was no "suicide note" written by Bergdhal, the Secretary of Defense has said there were no deaths resulting from soldiers sent to look for him, and General McCrystal has said unequivocally "we don't leave soldiers behind. In addition, the Taliban are Afghan tribesmen, NOTHING to do with Al-Queda.
Jon Stewart opened Tuesday night with “a magnificent, wonderful story” about an American POW returning safely home… except, well, it turns out we all may have rode the “patriot train to Fuck Yeah! junction” just a wee bit too soon…
Stewart mocked all the clichés coming from the Obama White House and its critics, not to mention how amid all this, President Obama himself made a big show in the Rose Garden about it. But Stewart also took on Fox News for the “ugly” way they quickly pivoted to remarking on the foreignness of Bergdahl’s father’s beard, pointing out that if you gave him a bandana and a duck whistle, Fox would love him.
So rather than being “a magnificent, wonderful story” this turned out to be… “an absolutely terrible, disastrous catastrophe that is the single worst thing we as a country have ever done, and yes, that includes when we gave syphilis to prisoners.”
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/
4/ Part 2 of Chris Hayes's excellent interview with Neil Degrasse Tyson, and Tyson comments on climate deniers......again, two very intelligent people having a quiet chat.....a wonderful six minutes.
When MSNBC’s Chris Hayes previewed his one-on-one interview with astrophysicist and Cosmoshost Neil deGrasse Tyson last Friday, he teased much more of their discussion to come. On Monday night, Tyson was back on All In, this time sharing his thoughts on divisive topics like climate change and creationism.
Tyson’s outlook on the climate change issue managed to be both devastating and hopeful at the same time. “It has been said that every great, emergent scientific truth goes through three phases,” Tyson told Hayes. “First, people say it can’t be true. Second, they say it conflicts with the Bible. Third, they say it’s true all along. And so, there you have it.”
For people who still don’t believe that man-made climate change is real, Tyson said the “evidence will show up when they need more evidence.” He pointed to “more storms” and “more coastlines getting lost” as two physical manifestations, before mentioning something that could have a bigger impact: “People beginning to lose their wealth.”
“People, if they begin to lose their wealth, they change their mind real fast, I’ve found,” Tyson stated. “Particularly in a capitalist culture.”
One thing Tyson said he tells people in the New York area to really “wake them” up out of their climate change ignorance, is that if the polar ice caps melt, the water will come up to the Statue of Liberty’s elbow — “the one that’s holding the Declaration of Independence.” He compared it to the final scene of the original Planet of the Apes when (spoiler alert) Charlton Heston finds the Statue of Liberty buried in the sand.
“I don’t see people trying to repeal the law of gravity just because they’re gaining weight,” Tyson continued. “I didn’t see people trying to repeal E=MC2 because it somehow conflicted with their political philosophy. These are emergent scientific truths. So I’m disappointed when I look around and I see people cherry-picking the consensus of observation and experiment that has emerged in science.”
In the end, Tyson said he has nothing against people believing whatever they want to believe, but has a problem when those beliefs start to influence society in a detrimental way.
“Part of what it is to be in a free country is, you can believe what you want,” he said. “The problem comes about if you believe what you want and you are responsible for the governance of the nation. I’d like to think that governance is based on objective and verifiable truths. Otherwise, what kind of culture have you created?”
5/ I saw this on Facebook posted by some Australian friends, and it's a four minute clip from John Oliver on Tony Abbott, the prime Minister. He appears to be a complete asshole.......but don't forget he has also dismantled Australia's environmental policies and is wholly owned by the Aussie coal industry, so yes he's a dick but he's a dangerous dick....
Tony Abbott’s endless, cringey gaffes have provided comedic fodder for Aussie entertainers for years — and now, the rest of the world getting in on the joke.
Which would be hilarious, if it wasn’t such a sad reflection of the sad state of our politics.
Yep, HBO’s satirical news program Last Week Tonight with John Oliver has poked fun at our ever-awkward Prime Minister in an hilarious segment aired today.
The four-minute segment takes a swipe at Mr Abbott’s “religiously anti-immigation” policies — referring to Tone’s famous declaration that “Jesus knew there was a place for everything and it’s not necessarily everyone’s place to come to Australia” — before pithily remarking that “Australia is for real Australians, like Tony Abbott — who was born in London, England.”
6/ Samantha Bee with a semi-serious investigation of the anti-vaxxers, people who won't let their kids be vaccinated. And this anti-science nonsense is coming from right wing loonies? Nope, it's white upper middle class liberals......
Liberals always complain about how conservatives are ignorant and anti-science, but as The Daily Showdiscovered tonight, vaccine skepticism is bringing easily preventable diseases back to the United States and it’s all thanks to “left-leaning idiocy” about vaccine science.
At first, correspondent Samantha Bee was convinced it was the “right-wing nutjobs” who are the real villains here, before discovering “stage four science denial” exists in spades on the left. She attempted to contain the anti-vaccine disease as much as possible, but alas, you can’t shut down every Starbucks in New York City.
And The Daily Show isn’t the only Comedy Central program to take on vaccine denialism; Stephen Colbert did just that back in April, and he spoke with the same man, Dr. Paul Offit, that Bee spoke to for her report.
7/ Viral video time - 84 million hits, amazing for a three minute clip.....a filmaker asked 20 strangers to kiss......
It's surprisingly nice......and sensual......
8/ Ho hum - another mass shooting, and the media doesn't even bother to pretend that anything will be done about it. As Jon Stewart points out we have gone through the four stages of emotion, and have ended up with no regrets, just acceptance on Fox News, which is pretty scary.
Jon Stewart returned from a week-long vacation Monday night to more news than he knew what to do with, from the resignation of VA Secretary Eric Shinseki to the marriage of Kanye West and Kim Kardashian. And, of course, another mass shooting, something Stewart said seems to happen every time his show is off for a week… and every time they’re working. “Actually, it seems to happen every fucking week,” he said.
To try to make sense of how America is dealing with these consistent tragedies, Stewart took a look back at how the media reacted to Columbine, Aurora, Newtown and other incidents. He marveled at how the media used to pretend that mass shootings like these could be stopped, but have now moved fully into “acceptance” mode. This new outlook was personified by Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly who said last week, “No matter what society does, there will always be mass murder — always.”
“It’s like America has a dog that’s always shitting in the house,” Stewart analogized. “And we solved the problem by getting a brown rug.” Instead, Stewart turned his attention to “the real victims,” the media, who are “still going to have to waste valuable time going through the motions of covering these inevitable, clearly unstoppable, everyday, ordinary, soul-destroying slaughters.” With help from his stable of correspondents, Stewart gave the media a tutorial on how to get “back to apathy as quickly as possible.”
9/ Guy video - a three minute collection of fails, set to Dean Martin's "That's Amore" with amore changed to moron.
Note - some of the idiots in this video definitely went to the hospital.....not for the squeamish....
10/ And as always, Tom Tomorrow nails it.....gun nuts......great cartoon....
11/ A seven minute TED talk about food marketing, and an expert explains how Big Food manipulates us into buying all of the garbage they put out.....but there's an edge to this talk, and watch the audience......
A powerful clip with a serious message.......starts a little slow, but stick with it....
12/ Crows are very intelligent birds, and in this BBC four minute special Dr. Alex Taylor watches a crow solve a problem that would stump a lot of humans.....
The BBC has some of the best documentaries, and this segment is just part of a program looking at animal intelligence. Fascinating....
Multi-step puzzles can be difficult for humans, but what if I told you there was a bird that could solve them on its own?
In this BBC special, Dr. Alex Taylor has set up an eight-step puzzle to try and stump one of the smartest crows he's seen in captivity. They describe the puzzle as "one of the most complex tests of the animal mind ever."
This isn't the first time crows' intelligence has been tested, either. Along with being problem solvers, these animals have an eerie tendency towards complex human-like memory skills. Through several different studies, we've learned that crows can recognize faces, communicate details of an event to each other and even avoid places they recognize as dangerous.
This bird, dubbed "007" for its crafty mind, flies into the caged puzzle and spends only seconds analyzing the puzzle before getting down to business. Despite the puzzle's difficulty, the bird only seems to be stumped momentarily. At the end of the puzzle is a food reward, but how he gets there is what will really blow your mind.
13/ Pentatonix is a wonderful acapella group, and here they sing "Royals" by Lourde......so talented, so together and they sound like a real band by just using their voices.....
14/ You may have seen how the President has had the EPA implement rules to cut CO2 from coal fired power stations, and is getting a lot of flak from the energy oligarchy and their minions, the Republicans. However, as this article points out, the new rules were written with the coal industry and are really a political act to say the Obama Administration is doing something on the climate. They will cut emissions, but only a little and VERY slowly.
The political posturing may be choreographed to make it seem the rules are tough, but more likely it's just the knee jerk reaction of opposition to anything the President proposes.
I really don't have too much hope for the planet.......
Shutterstock
The rules are finally out. In what some pundits are calling the most important act of President Obama’s second term, on Monday morning the EPA released its “Clean Power Plan.”These are the proposed rules that will require reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from existing electric power plants. Electric generation accounts for about 40 percent of current U.S. CO2 emissions.
The text of the regulations runs to 645 pages, and it isn’t exactly a page-turner. We suspect you’ve got more fun things to do with your time on this lovely spring day than to read it. So here we answer the nine most important questions about the proposal for you:
1. What will the rules do? The EPA intends to create a “rate-based” limit on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants for each state depending on its current emissions. Rate-based means it sets a standard for how much CO2 is emitted per megawatt hour of electricity produced, not a limit on total carbon tonnage. The plan is designed, as was expected, to give states maximum flexibility to meet these goals in whichever way works best for them and to avoid constricting economic growth. States can, however, choose to convert their rate-based goal into a total tonnage goal if they prefer.
2. How much will the plan cut emissions? Nationwide, the plan is projected to reduce power plants’ CO2 emissions from 2005 levels by 26 or 27 percent by 2020 and about 30 percent by 2030. What’s strange about these numbers is that EPA is setting an ambitious target for 2020, and then barely improving it over the next decade. That’s pretty weak. As clean energy technology becomes cheaper, states should be able to do a lot more to reduce their emissions. The targets can be strengthened in the future, but don’t expect a President Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush to do so. When asked why the rate reductions are so front-loaded, an EPA senior official told reporters, “Some of the measures [to reduce emissions] can be implemented pretty rapidly.”
The targets make more sense politically than policy-wise. 2020 happens to be the year by which Obama has pledged to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels. Setting the power-plant standard just high enough to help the U.S. get there, and then not going much further thereafter, is potentially a way to get credit domestically and internationally for a promise kept, while minimizing industry opposition.
Technically, because the rule is rate-based, it doesn’t call for specific cuts compared to a baseline year. But talking about a baseline year provides a point of comparison. “The reason that we’re using 2005 is because it’s a number people use to measure progress on reducing carbon,” said one senior EPA official on a press call Monday afternoon. “It is not a baseline with respect to the rule. We are not expecting states to reduce from a specific baseline.” EPA is bragging about the 30 percent cut from 2005 levels because it’s a way of keeping both sides happy. Emissions have dropped in recent years because of the recession, the rise of renewables, and the fracking boom in natural gas. Using the current year as a baseline for comparison, the plan is expected to cut emissions by about 20 percent, which is a little bit less than environmentalists were hoping for. To your average Democrat, 30 percent sounds better than 20 percent. But the energy industry knows that it’s really not because of the baseline differential. Environmental policy experts say that appeasing energy companies is important to EPA.
15/ The great trailer for "The Rover", based in an Australia after the economy has collapsed and society is in anarchy. Some guys steal Guy Pearce's car, which is not a good idea......
This movie won prizes at the Cannes Film Festival, and is opening here in three weeks....
16/ The excellent Lauren Ritchie on a disgraceful vote our Lake County commission took to allow a developer to destroy a part of the "Green Swamp", which is part of the watershed of south Lake County. Yes the same watershed that's under stress from overdevelopment, and Niagara taking a million gallons a day.
Live in Lake? Read this, and remember the corrupt Commissioners who have been purchased......and vote the bastards out.....
When Gov. Rick Scott came to power, he thoroughly emasculated the now-defunct Department of Community Affairs, which was struggling even then to act as the watchdog of development.
Since 2011, 30,000 land-use changes across the state have been approved without so much as a burp in Tallahassee. We're "business friendly!"
Until now.
Congratulations, Lake County commissioners. You've become statewide leaders in sucking up to developers by approving what was one of goofiest schemes ever perpetrated with a straight face — the notion that a hill has to be flattened so it can be safe for the handicapped.
How bizarre is that? Are any people in wheelchairs protected from the Colorado mountain menace?
Three commissioners in January approved this patently imbecilic request from Rubin Groves of Clermont: Leslie Campione, a lawyer who often represents landowners; Tim Sullivan, retired from the Florida National Guard; and worst of all, Sean Parks, who is a certified urban, regional and environmental planner who ought to have had at least a glimmer of the absurdity.
Todays video - the 100 best movie quotes, compiled by the American Film Institute.....you should recognise most of these, and it's great to see there are lots of older movies in this collection, including many from "Casablanca".....
Todays religious joke
A few minutes before the church services started, the congregation was sitting in their pews and talking.Suddenly, Satan appeared at the front of the church.Everyone started screaming and running for the front entrance, trampling each other in a frantic effort to get away from evil incarnate.Soon the church was empty except for one elderly cowboy who sat calmly in his pew without moving, seemingly oblivious to the fact that God's ultimate enemy was in his presence..So Satan walked up to the man and said, 'Do you know who I am?'The old cowboy replied, 'Yep, sure do.''Aren't you afraid of me?' Satan asked.'Nope, sure ain't.' said the cowboy.'Don't you realize I can kill you with one word?' asked Satan.'Don't doubt it for a minute,' returned the old man, in an even tone.'Did you know that I can cause you profound, horrifying AGONY for all eternity?' persisted Satan.'Yep,' was the calm reply.'And you are still not afraid?' asked Satan.'Nope,' said the old cowboy.More than a little perturbed, Satan asked, 'Why aren't you afraid of me?'
The old cowboy calmly replied, "been married to your sister for 45 years".
Todays infidelity joke
A housewife takes a lover during the day, while her husband is at work.
She's not aware that her 9 year old son was hiding in the closet during
their meetings.
Her husband comes home unexpectedly, so she shoved her lover in the
closet. The boy now has company.
Boy: "Dark in here."
Man: "Yes it is."
Boy: "I have a baseball."
Man: "That's nice."
Boy: "Want to buy it?"
Man: "No, thanks."
Boy: "My dad's outside."
Man: "OK, how much?"
Boy: "$250."
In the next few weeks, it happens again that the boy and the mom's
lover are in the closet together again.
Boy: "Dark in here."
Man: "Yes, it is."
Boy: "I have a baseball glove."
Man: "How much?"
Boy: "$750."
Man: "Fine."
A few days later, the father says to the boy,"Grab Your glove. Let's go
outside and toss the baseball!"
The boy says, "I can't. I sold them."
The father asks, "How much did you sell them for?"
The son says, "$1,000."
The father says, "That's terrible to overcharge your friends like that.
That is way more than those two things cost.
I'm going to take you to church and make you confess."
They go to church and the father alerts the priest and makes the little
boy sit in the confession booth and closes the door.
The boy says, "Dark in here."
The priest says, "Don't start that shit again...
She's not aware that her 9 year old son was hiding in the closet during
their meetings.
Her husband comes home unexpectedly, so she shoved her lover in the
closet. The boy now has company.
Boy: "Dark in here."
Man: "Yes it is."
Boy: "I have a baseball."
Man: "That's nice."
Boy: "Want to buy it?"
Man: "No, thanks."
Boy: "My dad's outside."
Man: "OK, how much?"
Boy: "$250."
In the next few weeks, it happens again that the boy and the mom's
lover are in the closet together again.
Boy: "Dark in here."
Man: "Yes, it is."
Boy: "I have a baseball glove."
Man: "How much?"
Boy: "$750."
Man: "Fine."
A few days later, the father says to the boy,"Grab Your glove. Let's go
outside and toss the baseball!"
The boy says, "I can't. I sold them."
The father asks, "How much did you sell them for?"
The son says, "$1,000."
The father says, "That's terrible to overcharge your friends like that.
That is way more than those two things cost.
I'm going to take you to church and make you confess."
They go to church and the father alerts the priest and makes the little
boy sit in the confession booth and closes the door.
The boy says, "Dark in here."
The priest says, "Don't start that shit again...
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