1/ Andrew Sullivan with an interesting look at Trumpism.....the extremism of the left, and maleness.
Photo: ERIN SCOTT/Bloomberg via Getty Images
There is merit, at times, to thinking about what might have been. Counterfactual history can help us see what our factual history has actually told us.
So reflect for a second on the campaign of 2016. One Republican candidate channeled the actual grievances and anxieties of many Americans, while the others kept up their zombie politics and economics. One candidate was prepared to say that the Iraq War was a catastrophe, that mass immigration needed to be controlled, that globalized free trade was devastating communities and industries, that we needed serious investment in infrastructure, that Reaganomics was way out of date, and that half the country was stagnating and in crisis.
That was Trump.
http://nymag.com/
2/ Sobering story from the Times on how vast areas of Australia becoming uninhabitable due to drought....ironic that Australia's
government is an active climate denier, all of their politicians are owned by the coal and mining industries....
EUCHAREENA, Australia — Fleur Magick Dennis has stopped showering every day, allowed her vegetable patch to die and told her four sons to let the dishes pile up. Sometimes, all her family has is bottled water, and they have to preserve every drop.
A year and a half ago, the reservoir in their town, Euchareena, went dry, leaving the family and some other residents without running water.
“I didn’t think I’d be in this position, trying to fight for water for basic human needs in Australia,” Ms. Magick Dennis said.
As a crippling drought and mismanagement have left more than a dozen Australian towns and villages
without a reliable source of water, the country is beginning to confront a question that strikes at its very
identity: Is life in Australia’s vast interior compatible with the age of climate change?
3/ Seth Meyers with a list of Trump's crimes.....one most amusing minute....they go fast!
4/ Holy Moley....this is an ad from Andrew Romanoff, running for Senate in Colorado that is an apocalyptic reminder of what will happen if we
continue to do nothing on the climate.....a four minute wow!
5/ Now you've watched the powerful commercial, here is some reality. David Wallace-Wells writes since the climate talks collapsed last week
the nightmare pictured above seems to be coming true. He also cites Australia as an example of a continent about to become uninhabitable....see #2....
UN Secretary-General António Guterres was “disappointed” by the Madrid talks. Photo: Celestino Arce/NurPhoto via Getty Images
You could see the failure of the United Nations’ COP25 climate conference, which just concluded in Madrid, coming from months away — if not years or decades.
It was, of course, the 25th COP, and judging by the only metric that matters — carbon emissions, which continue to rise — the conference followed 24 consecutive failures. Emissions set a new record in 2018, and are poised to set another again in 2019. Just three years since the signing of the Paris accords, no major industrial nation on Earth is on track to honor the commitments it made in Paris. The apparent failure of those accords follows the undeniable failure of previous agreements reached in Copenhagen in 2009, Kyoto in 1997, and Montreal in 1987. The original host of COP25, Brazil, backed out when it elected a climate sociopath, Jair Bolsonaro, as president; the replacement site, Chile, canceled their event just a month before, amid civil unrest sparked in part by rising transportation prices.
6/ "Best Christmas Ever".....a wonderful classic piece from SNL.....3 painfully funny minutes...
7/ "Democracy grief" is real.....excellent column from Michelle Goldberg in the Times that says just how you feel....
The despair felt by climate scientists and environmentalists watching helplessly as something precious and irreplaceable is destroyed is sometimes described as “climate grief.” Those who pay close attention to the ecological calamity that civilization is inflicting upon itself frequently describe feelings of rage, anxiety and bottomless loss, all of which are amplified by the right’s willful denial. The young activist Greta Thunberg, Time magazine’s 2019 Person of the Year, has described falling into a deep depressionafter grasping the ramifications of climate change and the utter refusal of people in power to rise to the occasion: “If burning fossil fuels was so bad that it threatened our very existence, how could we just continue like before?”
Lately, I think I’m experiencing democracy grief.
8/ Tom Tomorrow, spot on as usual....
9/ This is a horrifying story about older people and their meds.....it coins a new word too....polypharmacy!
While news reports focus on an epidemic of opioid abuse among young adults, another totally legal and usually hidden drug epidemic is occurring at the other end of the age spectrum: the fistfuls of remedies — both prescription and over-the-counter — taken by older adults.
According to the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists, people aged 65 to 69 take an average of 15 prescriptions a year, and those aged 80 to 84 take 18 prescriptions a year. And that’s in addition to the myriad over-the-counter drugs, herbal remedies, vitamins and minerals they may take, any of which — alone or in combination — could cause more problems than they cure.
Among people over 65, 44 percent of men and 57 percent of women take five or more nonprescription and/or prescription drugs
a week, and 12 percent take 10 or more.
10/ The juggler Michael Davis on the Carson Show.....very, very funny.....seven minutes...
11/ If there's one think I find it difficult to stomach about Republicans it's climate denial....ignoring the evidence of science and their own eyes, they are condemning us all to climate ruin...
Excellent column from Paul Krugman...
The most terrifying aspect of the U.S. political drama isn’t the revelation that the president has abused his power for personal gain. If you didn’t see that coming from the day Donald Trump was elected, you weren’t paying attention.
No, the real revelation has been the utter depravity of the Republican Party. Essentially every elected or appointed official in that party has chosen to defend Trump by buying into crazy, debunked conspiracy theories. That is, one of America’s two major parties is beyond redemption; given that, it’s hard to see how democracy can long endure, even if Trump is defeated.
However, the scariest reporting I’ve seen recently has been about science, not politics.
12/ SNL with a holiday ad for Macys.....amusing for parents....two minutes....
13/ Umair on how the average American is a neo-serf.....a little harsh? The stats say 60% of Americans can't find $500 for an
emergency, so this dark essay definitely applies to them....
And if you don't think it will ever apply to you, think again.....
You don’t have to look too hard to see our societies disintegrating. You can judge for yourself whether yours is included in “ours”, I suppose. There’s America, having something like a soft civil war, between the age-old hatreds of the world’s largest former slave state, and the meagre, threadbare forces of decency. There’s Britain, torn apart into Brexiters, who never met a fact they accepted, and Remainers, baffled by how you fight fools. I could go on. China, Brazil, Turkey, India…it’s a long, dismal list. Our societies are disintegrating, falling apart, coming undone. Some might say they’re melting like snow — I’d say they’re tearing themselves apart in psychotic, suicidal delusions which say self-destruction is nobility and freedom.
The question, then, is why. Why are our societies disintegrating? You’ll hear endless pundits hold forth on the fact that they are — but almost no one asks the question why.
14/ A wonderful SNL piece that imagines if Trump was black....."Them Trumps"....two good minutes, and Kenan Thompson is wonderful.......
15/ You haven't heard much about the Kurds since Trump betrayed them, but the situation is dire.....a long and distressing report on what's coming - the elimination of the Kurds by Trumps buddy Erdogan....
Khalaf lived in Derik, a working-class city of cinder-block buildings, about six miles from the Turkish border. It was part of the Kurdish-led semi-autonomous region in northeast Syria known as Rojava, an area that became a symbol of hope for the long-persecuted minority, 35 million strong, divided among four hostile countries. Rojava champions diversity, self-rule, and women’s rights. It is the “most inclusive governance structure in the most diverse region of Syria,” says Nicholas Heras, the Middle East security fellow at the Center for a New American Security.
The democratic experiment could not have emerged under more adverse circumstances. Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s regime is determined to reclaim every inch of territory lost during the country’s nine-year civil war, and it has made steady gains, with backing from Russia and Iran.
16/ Rolling Stone with a list of the best 25 music videos this year.....if you have heard of more than five of these musicians you'll like this.....
What even counts as a music video now? Vevo and Tiktok and Instagram TV have all insisted on blurring the lines, and while it’s tempting to pine for the days of MTV when the medium had a simpler place in the world, there has never been a better time to experiment with what music videos can be or do. They can be an hour long. They can be events again, via YouTube Premiere. They can be virtual reality. They can be an Expensify ad.
Inevitably, making a year-end list of the best ones means resigning yourself to the fact that three months from now, you’ll find a clip from this year that you had no idea about that is profound and moving and funny and a little weird. The best music videos always are. Here are 25 of them, presented alphabetically by artist.
17/ A list of the 50 best movies of the last 10 years.....how many have you seen? The good news is many of these are on Netflix....
It was the best of decades, it was the most WTF of decades — looking back on the movies that came to define the 2010s both critically and commercially, it’s nearly impossible to nail the particular arc of the medium in a few concise words or phrases. (Though “A24,” “superheroes” and “now streaming” immediately come to mind.) You can argue that every that-was-the-era-that-was summary charts an art form in some sort of transition, but this particular 10-year span suggested that cinema — not just a New York word, for what it’s worth — was dealing with one hell of an identity crisis. What was a “movie,” anyway? Was it a nearly eight-hour, multipart documentary that showed in a theater? Was it an auteur-driven pet project that debuted on a streaming service? Was it a TV show made by a director that film critics loved? (The answer to that last one is a resounding no.)
https://www.rollingstone.com/
Todays memes...
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