"... if you’d been thrown off your Peloton bike and onto the ground: What in the holy fuck just happened? I hope you might consider this: What happened is inexplicably incredible. It’s the greatest gift ever unwrapped. Not the deaths, not the virus, but The Great Pause. It is, in a word, profound.... What the crisis has given us is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see ourselves and our country in the plainest of views.... If we want to create a better country and a better world for our kids, and if we want to make sure we are even sustainable as a nation and as a democracy, we have to pay attention to how we feel right now. I cannot speak for you, but I imagine you feel like I do: devastated, depressed, and heartbroken. And what a perfect time for Best Buy and H&M and Wal-Mart to help me feel normal again. If I could just have the new iPhone in my hand, if I could rest my feet on a pillow of new Nikes, if I could drink a venti blonde vanilla latte or sip a Diet Coke, then this very dark feeling would go away.... What is about to be unleashed on American society will be the greatest campaign ever created to get you to feel normal again. It will come from brands, it will come from government, it will even come from each other, and it will come from the left and from the right.... This is our chance to define a new version of normal, a rare and truly sacred (yes, sacred) opportunity to get rid of the bullshit and to only bring back what works for us, what makes our lives richer, what makes our kids happier, what makes us truly proud. We get to Marie Kondo the shit out of it all.... But only if we resist the massive gaslighting that is about to come. It’s on its way. Look out."
Writes Julio Vincent Gambuto in "Prepare for the Ultimate Gaslighting/You are not crazy, my friends" (Medium).
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136 comments:
I love the random profanity which emphasized that the shitty writer is a fucking moron.
JVG is a writer/director in NYC and LA.
We could tell.
I’m enlightened. You’re a sheep led by the nose by propaganda.
The 7 zillionth rephrasing of the tired Marxist meme of false consciousness.
Consumer choice is a great thing.
Knowing that you’re full of shit just like everybody else is the first step toward enlightenment.
...thrown off your Peloton bike and onto the ground: What in the holy fuck just happened?
Someone else mentioned that they were hit by a parked car while riding a stationary bike. Maybe that's what happened.
This is our chance to define a new version of normal, a rare and truly sacred (yes, sacred) opportunity to get rid of the bullshit
This time socialism will be different.
what makes our lives richer, what makes our kids happier
I bet he's not referring to go-cart racing.
If people finally recognize how dreadful the media have become that would make a huge difference. Most won’t.
At Peace Plaza East, we celebrate the constant recurrence of piety. Moments of purity are sacred.
-Join hands and chant Earthsong in Nanture’s grandeur every evening
-Liberate yourself sexually, morally and politically from the old order and all traditions.
-Learn the rhythms of Nature, through seed planting, animal care and harvest, but not like farmers, capitalists, country people and Christians have done before
-Make it modern, and new.
This is your time. This is our time.
I think it will be like Prohibition ending. A great nationwide orgy of imbibing in all of the pleasures of social and commercial interaction.
I for one will immediately head to my nearby bar and swill about 10 pints of Santan Devil’s Ale. Hopefully with as many people as possible.
I’m here for your questions for the next few minutes.
Come to our outreach seminar and meet ‘Ludmilla’. She our little Finnish activist keeping us honest. She’s come to lead the Sunshine Youth Brigade and disrupted many, many Peace gatherings.
Namaste
Come to think of it, we don’t know where Ludmilla’s family is from. She’s a fiery orator though. We might just have 3 years to live.
Pre-hyping the hype.
This is our chance to define a new version of normal, a rare and truly sacred (yes, sacred) opportunity to get rid of the bullshit and to only bring back what works for us, what makes our lives richer, what makes our kids happier, what makes us truly proud.
What if there is no such chance? What if "evolution doesn't want us to be happy; it wants us to survive"--so we are never satisfied for long?
What if this is just left-wing creationism?
It’s fascinating to look at the prof’s overnight open cafe.
There are quite a few people who sit on this board 15 to 20 hours a day!
All commenters,
We welcome you to our bug-paste tasting and Community tour.
We have NO coronavirus positive test results. Off Rte 9.
Empathy. Earthsong. Equity.
***Community members are positioned at publications and universities across the Nation. Our time is coming.
If you really want to blow out the old and bring in the new, I suggest Purple Owsley.
Yes! What we really need is a set of visionaries, like the Paris student group that was the nucleus of the Khmer Rouge leadership! A sort of American Pol Pot to force us to return to an agrarian way of life. You want no cars? We can DO that! You want to reduce American consumerism? We can DO that, too! You would like to work in the fields instead of sitting in your Manhattan apartment idly? Gotcha covered.
devastated, depressed, and heartbroken.
These people and their frigging drama, the endless posing and preening, so tedious.
We get it: it's an opportunity to de-clutter our lives.
As if de-cluttering wasn't itself a heavily touted marketing trend before Wuhan Flu.
Hear story of Xamancha:
This tiny global refugee was found floating down the Hudson in a basket. Fortunately for her, she washed ashore near the UN building.
She was spirited inside and wrapped in resolutions. She was raised by a Global Village of diplomats
Raspberry bug-paste!
This depressed, devastated, etc feeling that Julio is experiencing right now is just a preview of things to come, if he and his ILK keep pushing the Green New Deal delusions.
Lack of everything. Lack of freedom to choose. Lack. Restriction. And being deprived because YOU VOTED FOR THIS CRAP and never thought about the consequences to YOU. Right? The consequences are for other people. Not for YOU.
At least we 'think' there will be a light at the end of the tunnel on this Corona Lock Down and the heavy hand of government slapping us if we stand too close in line or sit in our car at a electronic church service.....someday.....we think.
Vote for the Green New Deal and you have sealed your future. I'll be dead by then.
“This tiny global refugee was found floating down the Hudson in a basket. Fortunately for her, she washed ashore near the UN building.”
You mean the East River, not the Hudson. The UN building is many, many avenue blocks from the Hudson.
Obama, Hillary & the FBI tried to rig an election, spied on the Trump campaign and conspired with the Russians.
And they will get away with it. And their followers will remain convinced that Trump was the traitor and colluder.
Find a way to de-clutter that.
The bad guys win surprisingly often!
If you can get past the, I don’t know the word for it, condescension here there is a nugget of a good point.
Cultural clutter we can do without:
My pronouns are ...
That’s white supremacy ...
My lived experience is ...
This beautiful child is native.
Keep your grid pattern, experience, memory recall and spatial reasoning to yourself.
I first saw this yesterday when my younger daughter and a former co-worker both shared it on Facebook. I tried to read it but could barely ge through a couple of paragraphs before I began skimming and then just quit. I did not find it enlightening at all.
Ken B,
We have a position open for Health Minister at Peace Plaza East. We have observed your keen understanding of facts, virtue, and ability to stay on message.
Mind if we affectionately call you ‘Corona Ken ‘ or the ‘Covid Kid?’
Namaste
Poor Julio. He just realized that the core of his life and beliefs is in the owning of STUFF. His Pelliton bike, shoes, I phone etc. Superficial stuff.
His sad life has been (and still is even if he won't admit it) is centered around STUFF. Being the narcissistic and self centered person he is; living physically in the most superficial of worlds, he assumes that everyone else also lives this way.
He also assumes that somehow there is a big cohesive US who that needs to be controlled and coerced into HIS new way of thinking.
This earth shaking change he is experiencing is nice for him. Take it to heart and change YOURSELF.
There are quite a few people who sit on this board 15 to 20 hours a day!
"A day" is quite a stretch, but it's actually a rather easy thing to do in between doing a lot of other things. You type out a comment, go change the laundry over, fold some clothes, put the clothes away, type out another comment, straighten up a room, type out another comment, unload the dishwasher, type out another comment, read an article, type out another comment, etc. It doesn't really require sitting at your computer the entire time.
What if this is just left-wing creationism?
After a proper education, the New Soviet Man will appreciate Gambuto's art films.
As for this article, what a mishmash. A good reminder of why I hate stream of consciousness writing.
1- What Anthony said at 8:13AM.
2- Happy Easter to all!
If people finally recognize how dreadful the media have become that would make a huge difference.
Start with you, Ken, start with you. Go ahead, take that first step to recognition.
I wondered about how many habits we are breaking that people depended on for a living. I don’t stop at Dunkin's for a cup of coffee when I pass by anymore, there are thousands of little habits we have all formed that make our economy go.
This seemed kind of a voluntary activity, offered to those who might see some value in it. I didn’t read the whole thing, was there something about re-education camps in there? “Joy Camps” in 1984 speak, or “Fun Camps” as Hillary called them?
a real authority
Julio, Julio, Julio.
If I want life-style advice, I’ll consult my own thoughts, feelings, and values. Right now I am trying to figure out how to get money to friends and strangers who have been financially devastated by this. Maybe the uber-Keynesian approach taken by the government will work. I’ll be looking for Mayor Lightfoot and President Trump flying over the west side in helicopters pushing bundles of $20 bills out the door.
What is a Self, if not a collection of stuff at the intersection of Identities?
***Who needs Manhattan street names and numbers when you’ve got intersectionalism in your pocket?
Also, please do not mention ‘Me and Julio Down By The Schoolyard’ as that song is likely racist. Who is Rosie and why does she have to be the Queen Of Corona?’
Sexist, classist, racist and oppressive.
...well, except for all those folks whose small businesses are being destroyed and all those other folks who are now flat broke because they do not have a job. Their consumerism is certainly damped at the moment.
Up all night recording hymns, postlude and prelude and preparing streaming video for services.
At the request of a number of friends, will do a FB live concert sometime this week. Popular music stuff, not sacred or classical.
This will be a rare opportunity for my enemies on this board to to insult and backstab me in real time. I feel as if I haven’t been getting my fair share of abuse. A good time will be had by all.
Oh the humanity. People have to live a true conservative lifestyle. Deplorables hardest hit.
"I cannot speak for you, but I imagine you feel like I do: devastated, depressed, and heartbroken."
No. Because: HE IS RISEN!!!
what was the name of ed Norton's character, tyler Durden's ego, yikes,
@Chris N,
You have me smiling. Thank you.
To those of the non-Orthodox Christian persuasion: Christ is Risen! Thanks be to God!
To those of us (perhaps it is only I) of the Orthodox Church: Let us go into Holy Week cognizant of the suffering of our Lord and ready ourselves for His glorious resurrection.
A few observations. We're living the Green New Deal right now! This ChiCom Virus is what evolution looks like. And, being Easter,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHPOzQzk9Qo
I Marie Kondo'd the shit out of it all, and decided that writer/directors who come up with Very Deep Thoughts while looking down on flyover country on the way back and forth between NYC and LA do not spark joy. Thank you for your service, but something tells me the Goodwill won't have any use for you either.
What hits me is all the people who would finish that novel or learn the banjo or whatever else if only they had the time. Buddy, if you're furloughed and don't do it now, it ain't happening.
Kill your Peleton, your plastic fantastic lover, man. You dig?
You people don't have to read the drivel. It's more mentally healthy than stewing in the juices.
Weird article. Why didn't he just say Orange Man Bad and save us all a bunch of time.
Flagellation line forms at the malt shop in 15 minutes. Attendance will be taken.
Pastor Julio
"What is about to be unleashed on American society will be the greatest campaign ever created to get you to feel normal again."
But first, the greatest campaign to get us to believe that devastating the economy was necessary. "What if we hadn't!" "If we only saved one life!"
But it will be a little tricky to feel normal: with the memory of too many lives ruined, too many people eager to give in to panic, too many pols enamored with total control, too many Americans hankering for security provided by government. After all that, what's "normal"?
OH, I believe there is massive gaslighting to come. That I do believe.
Allelujah!
Christ is risen!
And that is the true transformation.
Did someone say something? There is a weird buzzing going on. I am sure moderation will fix it.
Lots of commercials and news talking heads speaking of the "new normal." THAT is gaslighting.
"This is ... [an] opportunity to get rid of the bullshit and to only bring back what works for us ..."
No, Julio, we're stuck with assholes like you.
indeed
"If we want cleaner air, we can make it happen. If we want to protect our doctors and nurses from the next virus — and protect all Americans — we can make it happen. If we want our neighbors and friends to earn a dignified income, we can make that happen. If we want millions of kids to be able to eat if suddenly their school is closed, we can make that happen. And, yes, if we just want to live a simpler life, we can make that happen, too."
Of course, those hopes are irresponsible slogans.
Has anyone else read "The Greening of America?"
I would suggest people take Gumbuto's advice and stop watching and reading the material of big nobodies, the size of a little nobodies.
Does anyone here make Easter baskets for their kids? When I was growing up, Easter was all about baskets and egg hunts.
Happy Holy Day, to everyone.
Julio is one of those guys who serves as a judge in the screenplay writing contests that I have entered and lost. He wouldn’t know a good and commercial script if it hit him in the face.
the python 'how to do it sketch' in space no one can hear the vacuousness,
It never occurred to me before, but I suppose to the French underclass, the Terror seemed like a way to Maire Kondo the shit out of France. Careful what you wish for Julio.
The gaslighting has been going on non-stop for weeks from all angles. It will increase to insane levels over the next two weeks as the argument shifts from locking up the populace for an indefinite time period to allowing those scum back out on the streets. The media will be on the side of keeping us locked up. (I count myself as one of the scum.) Bet me.
They can keep NYC locked down for the rest of the year. The universe would survive and find out- to the author's point- that we will discover that we never needed it to begin with.
BTW- last Friday's news dump was pretty spectacular. I wonder if the 'news' people will discover it.
Happy Easter to all.
https://www.conservativereview.com/news/horowitz-time-end-great-american-covid-19-police-state/
Don’t know how to make it look pretty. Completely surprised I figured THAT out.
Much better article than what AA excerpted.
Let's just say I'm not buying what he's selling. I can go to perdition in my own handbasket thank you very much. I don't need this clown's help.
You mean the East River, not the Hudson
She started from Hyde Park and took the first left.
The real gaslight comes from people like that writer there.
Keep away!
Uhhh, no thanks Julio. See, I kinda liked life as it existed before the world around me shut the fuck down. Only thing I'd like to see change is to have more folks in positions like mine working from home and for the government to largely privatize the work of the CDC, or at least force greater degrees of commercial cooperation in times of crisis, rather than dilly around holding our federal dicks while test kits malfunction and "experts" go on TV to give conflicting advice. And I don't watch TV, so the gaslighting won't be hitting me all that hard. Maybe YOU should change your post-virus world and unplug from the "brainwash box". Follow my lead and get 99% of your visual entertainment from YouTube, where independent creators generate content of a wildly varying nature that you can sift thru to find exactly what interests you. And if you give Larry Page $10 a month, you can do it all without seeing a single ad or banner (aside from the ones put there by the content creator, mostly for their other videos or website).
it took me a while anne, to get the hang of it
Started the thread from the beginning. Holy shit, Chris N is on fire this lovely Easter morning. Well done. Oh, and Namaste.
Happy Easter, everyone! I'm even feeling charitable towards Mr. Gambuto, and urge him to share his deep thoughts far and wide this holiday season.
"Oh the humanity. People have to live a true conservative lifestyle. Deplorables hardest hit."
Nobody knows what this means, including the child who typed it.
You "grew up" in the godless 80s. It kinda shows.
Still better than the Satanic Seventies.
The egg hunts aren't what Easter is all about. They're just an add on.
Thank you, captain obvious. What's your next revelation? Water's wet?
"Does anyone here make Easter baskets for their kids? When I was growing up, Easter was all about baskets and egg hunts."
Yes, and yes.
@Kyzer SoSay:
Nobody knows what this means, including the child who typed it.
Had a similar reaction. Apparently being involuntarily put out of work is a "conservative lifestyle." The ruling class chilling in their palatial spreads while the deplorables carry the heavy load. But it serves them right because they are evil. Or something.
My favorite thing to find in the Easter basket were the balsa wood gliders. I'd forego the candy, pick out the planes, punch out the pieces, put them together, and head right outside (even in the rain, or with snow on the ground) to fly the thing around for hours. Sometimes they'd have propellers, sometimes with the landing gear too, although they were rarely stable enough to actually land that way. In thousands of flights, I probably have less than 5 actual gear-down no-flip pilot-might've-lived landings with those planes.
And don't even get me started on the HUGE styrofoam ones . . .
I suppose tomorrow's White House egg roll is kaput. The Chinese didn't like the patent infringement.
Yes, Julio, the air is cleaner. That’s what happens when people retreat into hovels and stop living their lives. No, Julio, only a few hospitals were war zones…those in sanctuary cities where local politicians encouraged their constituents to hug each other as the contagion was beginning to spread. Yes, Julio, the number of Americans predicted to die by computer modelers with an agenda were vastly overstated by factors of ten or more, and the press did lie when they accepted those bogus predictions and uncritically hyped them. Yes, Julio, people in Wisconsin stood in line to vote but their lives were hardly at risk. Currently, 0.002% of Wisconsin citizens have died from this over-blown scourge. And, yes, Julio, Pres. Trump did publicize a drug that has been proven to stop Covid-19 in its tracks over 90% of the time in the real world, a drug that has been taken safely by millions for decades. And I bet if you or your children got sick with Covid-19 you’d be screaming at your doctor to give it to you. And, yes, I saw homeless people dead on the streets, but that was before the flu. I saw pictures of tent cities erected on public streets and sidewalks in Los Angeles and San Francisco. I saw needles on the ground floating in raw sewage. I saw drug wasted human beings defecating on police cars. And you celebrated their right to do so. Yes, Julio, the progressive system that allowed such conditions to exist and the Democrat political leadership that enabled it has been proven an utter failure. But you, gaslighted by your own ideology and partisanship, will never believe it.
Somebody give old Julio another article to write, and a few minutes of quiet thought. I bet he'll be able to figure out he was gaslit already and just temporarily snapped out of it.
I think my cynicism started a day in the early 1960s when I first get into a hollow chocolate Easter Bunny. I thought it was going to be solid. The air inside was truly deflating
Those were teh psychedelic 70s, mister.
Very non-commercial.
Oh sure. The decade that gave us the Partridge Family lunchbox, the summer blockbuster, and the Star Wars action figure were totally non-commercial.
I was just reading the lyrics when the word "detention" suddenly made me realize you had already quoted it.
And here I thought it was that Howard's first girlfriend turned out to be named Julio.
Now that so many people are doing first-person lifestyle journalism, most of it loses whatever value it once may have had. Was it better, or even that good, before the internet? Or was it just the novelty, which has worn off now that everybody is doing it?
People used to fall all over themselves when a furry creature named John Leonard described what he ate for lunch every week in the Times. Now that everybody can pour out the current state of their soul (with actual photos of their lunches), it's harder to get enthusiastic.
And it's 24/7, so you don't have the anticipation and the pleasure in finally picking up the newspaper and sitting down over coffee to read it.
Shouting Thomas said... If you really want to blow out the old and bring in the new, I suggest Purple Owsley.
What? You have something against Window Pane and Strawberry Sunshine?
The dreaded hollow chocolate bunny. Yes. I always got a little mad at my mom for that.
The candy I hated most: the chocolate-covered marshmallow eggs. Maybe those were tied with Peeps.
Looking back, I am sure my mom hated the grass in the baskets. That stuff got everywhere.
A funny memory: my mom hid Easter eggs (the hard-boiled ones) for my little brother all the way through his college years.
Is there a word for gas-lighting about gas-lighting.
I have no doubt that some people love this stuff. The ones who live off of others, have really lost nothing, have little ambition, and are not responsible for supporting others.
Maybe it’s my assburgers syndrome kicking up, but I don’t feel depressed and heartbroken. I’m rather enjoying The Great Pause. That said, I’m fully conscious of the fact that millions of Americans are in big trouble worrying about paying the rent and taking care of their kids.
On Live PD last night, I saw Officer Addy Perez in South Carolina instruct a black guy out on the 3d floor balcony of a shitty motel to go back into his room so as to not get sick. He was rebelling....and I didn’t blame him in the least. He’s been locked up in a drab residence motel for week in a room that can’t be more than 400 sq ft. while my wife and her twenty something daughter And I have plenty of space, big TVs, large puzzles going on tables, a nice yard, 400MB download internet, a full fridge, lots of books and musical instruments ( including a magnificent 4 manual virtual organ with a sound set of a Baroque German instrument as well as a gorgeous Cavaillé-Coll). I have it damn good. By wrecking the economy, most don’t.
It had better be worth it. I have my doubts, but as Mockturtle pointed out, today is a great day. He is risen, indeed!
- Krumhorn
Oh look, more progressive gas lighting using a crisis.
He lost me at Peloton.
“...a government that has so severely damaged the credibility of our media that 300 million people don’t know who to listen to for basic facts that can save their lives.” The government damaged? Basic facts? In the media?
As gaslighting goes, this author knows whereof he speaks!
Chris N seems to have captured the essence; but I'd like to know more about the purification process. More specifically, I'd like to design the process by which others reach their purified status.
And what a perfect time for Best Buy and H&M and Wal-Mart to help me feel normal again. If I could just have the new iPhone in my hand, if I could rest my feet on a pillow of new Nikes, if I could drink a venti blonde vanilla latte or sip a Diet Coke, then this very dark feeling would go away....
It is impressive how Julio managed to fulfill all of his product placement deals in only two sentences.
But will Starbucks cancel the check because he didn't mention them by name?
YES! We must make fundamental changes or "the virus has won!"
For only $5, plus an as yet unspecified fee for shipping and handling I will send you a list of the changes that are desirable. Call BS-549.
Howard said: I think my cynicism started a day in the early 1960s when I first get into a hollow chocolate Easter Bunny. I thought it was going to be solid. The air inside was truly deflating
I know!!! What a gyp.
I really miss the big divinity filled chocolate Easter Eggs my mother would buy us from See's candy. They were huge. 4" at least of heavenly divinity encased in chocolate with colored icing flowers.
We each would get one in a pretty little box with cellophane windows. My brother and I would 'chip' away at our eggs that we kept in the refrigerator. Taking just a few bites a day. My Father, on the other hand, would gobble up his egg and then snitch pieces of ours. We would notice and complain but...wadda gonna do. He was really sneaky about it and tried to convince us the we were really eating the eggs ourselves. The very definition of gas-lighting. We learned that at an early age.
My Mother was smart. She hid her egg from everyone.
My friends and I used to swill too much beer at The Gaslight Inn.
Narr
Good times
"It is impressive how Julio managed to fulfill all of his product placement deals in only two sentences."
You can tell the man by the products. I'm less than impressed. For my part, I've been supporting the economy this whole shutdown thanks to Amazon and EBay. Two slow close toilet seats, one painted wood with brushed nickel hinges, the other white plastic with a potty-training insert built in. Bunch of other plumbing supplies, jumbo wax rings, two tank-to-bowl gaskets, brushed nickel handles to replace the brass ones (remodeling is fun!), and some braided stainless steel inflow lines. Having just purchased a new (to me) BMW, I also decided to splurge on two sets of wrenches, some vertical-offset box end and some s-curve box end, in both SAE and Metric (wifey drives a new Dodge). Lifetime replacement! I'm on board - give it about 6 years and all those wrenches will have gotten plenty of use. Also picked up some primo pine boards to build a new attic-entry frame with, and wifey has been buying bins by the dozen for organizing all the stuff that our daughter is RAPIDLY growing out of.
"But will Starbucks cancel the check because he didn't mention them by name?"
No, because thanks to their clever "We're not gonna call it small, medium, and large like normal people" strategy, you still knew exactly what retailer he was referring to.
American Easter commercialism a product of the 1980s. Now that's revisionism!
I finally was able to get my wife to stop making Easter baskets a few years ago. She liked to gather and arrange the stuff, long past the time there was any reason to do it.
Now we just eat the stuff.
Narr
I got her to skip the tree at Christmas too--progress!
My uncle's frat at UNC was next to the Baptist Church. They'd go to their respective churches (or not) and then see who could drink the most beer before the Baptists got out.
It's not a treadmill for most people. Treadmills and running on them are luxuries of the comfortable, who need to simulate activity and work they do not need to do. It's a lifeboat with a hole in it. When you stop bailing and sailing, the sharks feed on you, your family, and everything you have. Of course some people have a permanent lifeboat which they relax in in the garden. Good for them.
Easter candy was always terrible, and the Easter egg hunts a bore.
These are the people who are rejoicing that dolphins have returned to the Venice canals and that the Himalayas are now visible from Punjab. Never mind the toll in human death and misery.
HOW could we resist being here 15-20 hours a day?
Watching people think they are winning a debate with J Farmer is FAR more entertaining than watching a traffic wreck : )
The best is when you (literally!) read someone talking about 'how much they've forgotten'; as if THAT is something to brag about!
"He lost me at "Peleton"
I don't get Peloton. The $2,000 for the fake bike will buy you a very nice real bike that needs no subscription and is fun to use. What exactly are you doing when watching a video image of somebody else on a fake bike yelling at you and all the other people on their fake bikes? You pay a monthly fee for that?
I hear the company financials are terrible.
I don't get Peloton.
Status signalling
Materialist views are rather hard hit by all this social distancing. But people have long counselled against the folly of investing so much of your life in material pursuits, in things that are by their very nature temporary and ephemeral. This is the thing -- man does not live by bread alone.
“If you really want to blow out the old and bring in the new, I suggest Purple Owsley”
That’s a name out of the distant past. Can you actually find it anymore?
It’s all a load of bollocks. The new normal will look exactly like the old normal because that’s exactly what people want. Clearly, as so many people haven’t changed their lives a whit during the WuFlu. Ridiculous the people who act like we’ve been locked in total war for years. For most, it’s been a few weeks with some extra time off. In my job, we’re beginning the ramp-up this week. Starting slowly and progressing towards normal as caution and the prevalence of the virus allow. But the goal is normal. You know, the old normal. Like just a few fucking weeks ago.
Both the societal remodelers and their paranoid antagonists are in for a disappointment.
John Horton Conway died yesterday of Covid-19. Sick on Wednesday, died on Saturday. RIP.
No outdoors Easter Egg Hunt for my daughter this year. Her Daddy was a bit too gung-ho about getting the yards in shape, and laid down some lawn food/crabgrass killer on Friday morning. I was expecting we'd be able to take her to the park and have the hunt there (after a thorough check for dog waste), but according to my wife if we show up to the park, within about 5 minutes a cop will roll by and order us to vacate. Apparently some of the elderly folks living near the park are watching over it like arthritic hawks. Wifey monitors the "mommy groups" on Facebook and apparently this has been going on for weeks. Parents are even making jokes and daring each other to take their kids out and "break curfew/quarantine" - it's all a farce.
So, because our lawn is still semi-poison covered and the park is off-limits, it looks like we'll just be hunting for eggs inside.
Sad to see just how quickly fellow Americans turn into statists when the media hits the panic button.
I predict, if he survives the Great Plague, two years from now, you will be able to find him in the local Starbucks drinking a Venti Blonde while surfing the web on the latest i-Phone while wearing a new pair of Nikes.
“My friends and I used to swill too much beer at The Gaslight Inn.”
Did you get their nachos? Outstanding!
I hope most can return to normal, but the airline industry is likely to shed a planeloads of jobs over the next year or more. My company is only hoping to stop bleeding cash by years end. From here, 9-11 looks like child’s play in comparison. Happy Easter!
To those of us (perhaps it is only I) of the Orthodox Church: Let us go into Holy Week cognizant of the suffering of our Lord and ready ourselves for His glorious resurrection.
It is an opportunity to see and experience the Passion in a new way -- to not only remember and commemorate, but to live the Passion in a sense, to make Jesus' suffering and Cross our own as we offer up to Him all of our personal crosses, all the deprivations and annoyances and hardships. An opportunity to find meaning in suffering, a new way to share in the work of redemption, rather than being just a passive recipient.
Happy Palm Sunday!
(Of course, in the eternity of God that is not confined to men's calendars, we are all one and this is all a single moment.)
It wasn't immediately obvious to me from the post what the "gaslighting" was. Nor do the other comments seem to address it and yet this is the key to the whole aricle: "The greatest misconception among us, which causes deep and painful social and political tension every day in this country, is that we somehow don’t care about each other. White people don’t care about the problems of black America. Men don’t care about women’s rights. Cops don’t care about the communities they serve. Humans don’t care about the environment. These couldn’t be further from the truth. We do care. "
In other words we can shake off the forces that divide us and through mutual respect for each other individual we can repair our national compact with one another to make life livable for each. We are not a set of group identities in conflict with other group identities. To the first order we are common, and our needs are common. We are more than happy to engage each other on this basis. So our politics need not be based on group identities.
Guys, get a room. There are other people here who need not see you doing this.
Dr Jeffries First Baptist of Dallas had a full choir and congregation . The wife wants to know how they got away with that. I suspect it was a replay from last year with an added sermon. He did it well!
Easter has always been a Thanksgiving type all family hands on deck. Grandparents are sine qua non. This year has been all messaging on iPhones.
When the treadmill stops is where the fitness begins. It’s called “deadmill” where you use your muscles to propel the belt.
It will produce 90+%MHR in a jiffy.
@Ron Nelson:
In other words we can shake off the forces that divide us and through mutual respect for each other individual we can repair our national compact with one another to make life livable for each. We are not a set of group identities in conflict with other group identities. To the first order we are common, and our needs are common. We are more than happy to engage each other on this basis. So our politics need not be based on group identities.
It's an aspirational claim but unfortunately utterly naive. Perhaps some day, but as for now and the foreseeable future we cannot "shake off the forces that divide us."
“Easter candy was always terrible, and the Easter egg hunts a bore.”
Just found out that my partner’s daughter has set up a Easter egg hunt later today for the kids. $20 in each egg, 5 eggs per kid. Except that they are no longer kids. One is 16, two are 18, one 21, and one almost 30. All drive except for the 21 year old, who doesn’t know how, doesn’t want to learn, and lives in his mother’s basement playing video games. My partner should remind her daughter that when she was 21, she was married and pregnant with one of the 18 year olds and would have been insulted to be required to participate in this sort of event. She isn’t my daughter, so I can’t speak up, but I do love her. Just sometimes she does stuff that seems brain dead, or at least addled, to us.
The problem with a candy filled Easter egg hunt for them is that at least the 21 year old doesn’t like sweets, so pointedly wouldn’t participate. I could volunteer to take his place, but my partner would immediately seize my prizes, then dole them out to me a couple jelly beans a night, or just give them to the grandsons present. Of course, I would jump in, if I could, to the grubbing for dollars scheduled today, so that I might be able to recover some of the $100 I expect to contribute to the cause. That isn’t going to happen either.
The White House Easter egg party goes back to Rutherford B. Hayes's day. Actually, kids were coming on to the White House grounds before that to roll eggs, but the groundskeepers ran them off. The official name is still "The White House Easter Egg Roll," but Easter egg rolling doesn't seem to be a tradition that other people have kept up. Of course, the event is cancelled this year, as it was for two world wars, the influenza epidemic and the White House restoration of the 1940s.
Just another lost soul looking for salvation in all the wrong places. Including the high he gets from publishing his scattered and confused ramblings.
"Does anyone here make Easter baskets for their kids? When I was growing up, Easter was all about baskets and egg hunts."
We did both and my kids are 17 and 13. Colored and hid 18 eggs. Hid the baskets filled with some candy and some gifts. Now, the kids no longer get up at 7 am to find stuff, they have to be cajoled from their beds and phones.
what makes our kids happier
Childrens' happiness should not be a parent's goal. Rather bringing up responsible, honest and clear-thinking children should be the goal.
I’m not heart broken or depressed. I’m really , really angry and pissed off at anybody who has bought this complete and utter bullshit (Shutting down the entire country). I’m working in Ventura Ca. This week, staying in a hotel two blocks from the beach (Harbor) and I can’t even walk down to it. There is no situation in which this is sane.
when she was 21, she was married and pregnant with one of the 18 year olds
She had the almost 30 yo right young. Step?
Ugh, I tried wading through this tedious essay posted by many a liberal friend. I like the much shorter meme version: "I finally discovered the reason why my house is always dirty and it's not because I didn't have enough time to clean"
...devastated, depressed, and heartbroken.
You want devastated, depressed, and heartbroken? Try losing a child to suicide.
After dealing with that, a global pandemic feels pretty fucking trivial.
Does the intended audience all use Pelotons?
smh
Howard said...
Oh the humanity. People have to live a true conservative lifestyle. Deplorables hardest hit.
4/12/20, 9:00 AM
Now you're just phoning it in. Weaksauce.
Speaking of weaksauce:
I think my cynicism started a day in the early 1960s when I first get into a hollow chocolate Easter Bunny. I thought it was going to be solid. The air inside was truly deflating
Concur-but if you couldn't tell from the heft that something was wrong, you should have stuck to a life of the mind and avoided all physicality.
One of my lefty friends posted this, and I tried to wade through it. Hard to get past the fact that he really doesn't understand the meaning of the word "Gaslighting." The sad fact is that generations of better writers have said, "You don't want that hamburger. You don't want that shiny car. You don't want to see that stupid indie film. It's just Madison Avenue brainwashing you." These people are closer to gaslighting than anything offered up by the Mad Men. I DO want a hamburger; I DO want a shiny car; I can do without an indie film made by this inarticulate clown.
I don't get the Peloton thing either. I have a Schwinn stationary recumbent bike I bought in 2001. Very low tech in contrast - it has the ability to track speed and distance and that's about it. Changing the difficulty of the ride is achieved by tightening the band around the wheel by turning a knob. We use this bike so much that the odometer has run through its 9,999 mile capacity at least 4x, possibly five.
It sits in front of the TV with endless streaming entertainment options. If the thing ever broke I'd scour EBay looking for a replacement before I'd ever get anything like a Peloton.
How did out “government” destroy the media’s credibility? The media destroyed the media’s credibility by being so wrong so often and never once admitting it.
Tomocc,
Sorry I couldn’t respond sooner. Emergency meeting in the Human Pagoda.
Purification meets the yearning need we Humans have to transcend ourselves by embracing the materialist philosophy, reducing all of life to stuff, and then restlessly rejecting material things. We are scientific, but scientists do oppress.
Purification means boiling down the complexity of experience to economic analysis and then blaming capitalism for the spiritual wasteland. Housewives should be paid a living wage! Now here’s the latest brilliant poetry to nourish your soul.
Protesting is a good, pretty much no matter what the circumstance, because the world became corrupted by the injustice of the half-brainwashed, mostly evil oppressor class. It’s not race, it’s class. Where are you sitting in the classroom?
We must act. Change is a good given our new knowledge. You and me collectively, as a group of conscious actors, mist make the world whole and pure and socially just and equal once again before the Fall. Liberate your experience so you can feel more deeply again.
This is the springtime of your Love.
Namaste.
Kyzer,
Any condom manufacturer can tell you that people don't want size "Small".
320Busdriver,
Re: "my company" -- didn't you recently turn 65? Or was that someone else?
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