What’s going on? Is he really as strong as he appears to think?
In 1999, I was working in a remote part of rural Russia for a German-based international relief agency; we were building housing and trying to teach peasant agricultural methods to people who’d only ever known massive, collective factory farms. I was staying in the home of a family of four with two young children; Dad was Russian and Mom — her name was Olga — was from East Germany, although she’d grown up watching West German TV. https://hartmannreport.com/p/
What would you do if democracy was being dismantled before your eyes? Whatever you’re doing right now
How would you behave if your democracy was being dismantled? In most western countries, that used to be an academic question. Societies where this process had happened, such as Germany in the 1930s, seemed increasingly distant. The contrasting ways that people reacted to authoritarianism and autocracy, both politically and in their everyday lives, while darkly fascinating and important to study and remember, seemed of diminishing relevance to now.
Hatred is a poisonous thing. It can corrode us. Warp us and twist us into a mirror image of that which we hate. But, when harnessed and processed, it can drive us to become something entirely different. We can look into the face of the hated and decide, through sheer force of will and tenacity of spirit, to steer away from that which we revile and evolve into its antithesis. This takes a ton of work, however, and a near constant vigilance.
Aglobal youth revolt is shaking the foundations of political power. In just a few months, millions of young people have taken to the streets across continents – from Timor-Leste, Indonesia, Nepal, the Philippines, Kenya, Tanzania, Morocco, Madagascar, Peru and Paraguay – to denounce corruption and collapsing public systems. The spark is familiar: governments accused of looting public wealth while ordinary citizens face unemployment, rising costs, poverty and failing services. These digitally connected protest movements – leaderless, borderless and fast-moving – have toppled governments in Nepal, Peru and Madagascar. The anger is not abstract. It is directed squarely at political and economic elites who have turned public office into private estates. What they are confronting, often without naming it, is state capture – a form of corruption so deeply embedded that it shapes the rules of democracy itself.
From afar, the past week and a half looked so disastrous for Graham Platner, the upstart Maine Senate candidate, that I contemplated canceling plans to see him campaign in person. It would be pointless to make the trip, I thought, if the whole enterprise was on the verge of collapse.
Platner is the oyster farmer and former Marine with a baritone voice and a Bernie Sanders endorsement who this fall came seemingly out of nowhere to capture progressive hearts nationwide. Recently, a barrage of ugly revelations made it look like perhaps all the hope invested in him had been misplaced. https://www.nytimes.com/
It seems at first to be your standard six-part mystery-thriller. The Ridge opens with the protagonist, Mia (Lauren Lyle, last seen in The Bombing of Pan Am 103 and as the eponymous Karen Pirie, and so good in everything) having nightmares about her traumatic childhood. She wakes to a morning routine of yoga and deep breathing – though that doesn’t seem to help as much as the opioid patch she whacks on her thigh – before heading to the local hospital, where she works as an anaesthetist and where a patient comes round during an operation, then dies on the table.
Ethan Hawke is hilariously raccoon-like in The Lowdown; not just because his hair is all scraggly grey-and-black, and usually in various states of disarray depending on whether his Lee Raybon is crawling out from the wrong side of the bed or the trunk of some neo-Nazi’s car.
A freelance journalist by trade (among other things), Lee is the self-appointed gumshoe in creator Sterlin Harjo’s deliciously pulpy and deceptively lighthearted noir caper. He sniffs around Tulsa, Oklahoma, digs through people’s trash, repeatedly makes a mess of things and mostly gets hostile responses from the people who have the misfortune of crossing paths with him (pretty much the world a raccoon lives in). But, every so often, someone will find Lee adorable or sympathetic enough that they just might lend him a helping hand, or even take him to bed with them. https://www.theguardian.com/
This is the one you’ve got to see. Kathryn Bigelow’s “A House of Dynamite” is the one getting all the hype, but “The Perfect Neighbor” will get to you. This is America.
My favorite story about a bad neighbor was told to me by Al Kooper. I was complaining to him about my problem neighbor and he interrupted me to tell me about his. He was living in the Hollywood Hills and his next door neighbor left their garbage cans blocking his driveway again and again and again, there was nothing he could do or say to stop them. So I asked Al what he did…and he said “I MOVED!”
Entitlement. That’s the scourge of America today. The people who feel that they alone rule their space and they’re entitled to live sans interference. But last I checked we live in a society. And we all have to get along. But we don’t.
He answers, "Yes, but I'm not sure what to do... it's for dry hair, and I've just wet mine."
A blonde man goes to the vet with his goldfish.
"I think it's got epilepsy," he tells the vet.
The vet takes a look and says, "It seems calm enough to me."
The blonde man says, "Wait, I haven't taken it out of the bowl yet."
A blonde man shouts frantically into the phone, "My wife is pregnant and her contractions are only two minutes apart!"
"Is this her first child?" asks the Doctor.
"No!" he shouts, "this is her husband!"
A blonde man was driving home, drunk as a skunk. Suddenly he has to swerve to avoid a tree, then another, then another.
A cop car pulls him over, so he tells the cop about all the trees in the road.
The cop says, "That's your air freshener swinging about!"
------------------------------
"Just WHAT are you doing?" he asks.
"Hanging myself," the blonde replies.
"The rope should be around your neck" says the guard.
"I tried that," he replies, "but then I couldn't breathe."
(This one actually makes sense.)
An Italian tourist asks a blonde man: "Why do scuba divers always fall backwards off their boats?"
Two blonde men find three grenades, and they decide to take them to a police station.
One asked: "What if one explodes before we get there?"
The other says: "We'll lie and say we only found two."
A woman phoned her blonde neighbor man and said: "Close your curtains the next time you and your wife are having sex. The whole street was watching and laughing at you yesterday. "
She married again, and she and Bob had 7 more children.
Bob was killed in a car accident 12 years later.
Judy married again, and this time, she and John had 5 children.
Judy finally died, after having 25 children.
Standing before her coffin, the preacher prayed for her.
He thanked the Lord for this very loving woman and said, "Lord, they are finally together."
Ethel leaned over and quietly asked her best friend Margaret,
"Do you think he means her first, second, or third husband?"
Margaret replied, “I think he means her legs, Ethel!"
Suddenly, an armed man with a huge knife comes around the corner, locks eyes with you, screams obscenities, raises the knife and lunges at you.
You are carrying your truncheon and are an expert in using it. However, you have only a split second to react before he reaches you. What do you do ?
ANSWER:
British Police Officer:
Firstly, the Officer must consider the man's human rights.
1) Does the man look poor or oppressed ?
2) Is he newly arrived in this country and does not yet understand the law ?
3) Is this really a knife or a ceremonial dagger ?
4) Have I ever done anything to him that would inspire him to attack ?
5) Am I dressed provocatively ?
6) Could I run away ?
7) Could I possibly swing my truncheon and knock the knife out of his hand ?
8) Should I try and negotiate with him to discuss his wrong-doings ?
9) Why am I carrying a truncheon anyway and what kind of message does this send to society ?
10) Does he definitely want to kill me or would he be content just to wound me ?
11) If I were to grab his knees and hold on, would he still want to stab and kill me ?
12) If I raise my truncheon and he turns and runs away, do I get blamed if he falls over, knocks his head and kills himself ?
13) If I hurt him and lose the subsequent court case, does he have the opportunity to sue me, cost me my job, my credibility and the loss of my family home ?
Canadian Police Officer:
BANG !
BANG ! BANG ! BANG ! BANG ! BANG ! BANG ! BANG ! BANG ! BANG ! BANG ! BANG ! BANG !
'Click'...Reload...
BANG ! BANG ! BANG ! BANG ! BANG ! BANG ! BANG ! BANG ! BANG ! BANG ! BANG ! BANG !
Irish Garda:
" Jimmie.. Drop the knife, unless you want it stuck up yer arse!"
