… or properly explain why I’m sharing it now:
This Is Just To Say
I knew
it was that kinda party
and so I stuck my dick in
the mashed potatoeswhich
you were probably
saving
for breakfastForgive me
it was kinda weird
so sweet
and so cold
(see also “Beastie Boys – B-Boys Makin’ with The Freak Freak” and the original Mantan Moreland comedy album source material)
(Yeah, I repost this every year, because I love this gag, and because watching this on TV—and rehashing it with my mom and sisters each year—is one of my fondest childhood holiday memories.)
THANKSGIVING TURKEY GIVEAWAY! (WKRP in Cincinnati) from Tony DeSanto on Vimeo.
This is, in my humble, a damn-near perfect gag—which is saying something, because I find single-camera laugh-track situation comedies almost entirely unbearable to watch.
I hope your day is good and sweet. Gobblegobble!
(If you wanna read more of my thoughts on this specific gag and what it can teach writers, you can do so here.)
Read this article:
Here’s how much America’s billionaires give to charity, in one chart
…and saw the chart:
And then did some math:
The “average American” (that’s a family making $50k–$99k in this article here) gives ~3–6% of their income to charity each year. Now, that’s income, not wealth. If we want to apples-to-apples this, we need to gauge giving vs. wealth. It appears the “average” American’s wealth is something like $97,000 (which kinda sucks, given that the average American home is worth more than twice that—and is mortgaged to the gills). So, we end up in about the same place: The average American annually gives money worth ~3% of their wealth.
In other words, the average American is significantly more generous with their wealth than pretty much every goddamned billionaire out there. Even Warren Buffet (who I actually really admire) is just a tiny bit above average on this one.
So, if your argument against a wealth tax is “It’s OK for folks to sit on billions of dollars, because rich people are super charitable”—well, they just aren’t. In fact, multiple studies have found that as folks get poorer in this country, they give a higher percentage of their income to charity (and generally have zero or negative wealth). People at or below the poverty line often give ~10% of their annual income to charitable causes each year.
So, yeah, give thanks on Thursday, sure—but give some fucking money, too, dammit.
Regarding Mary Phelps Jacob—aka Caresse Crosby—one of several naughty noted authors who invented the bra.
Too many gems here not to share. Happy SatanTerrorGhostlyDemonoGentiles Eve, all! 👻💀🎃
— Greig Johnson (@GreigARJohnson) October 28, 2019
If an atheist wanted to understand what my religion means to me, I’d suggest playing this game.
But, straight talk: I love basically all the games Avery Alder cooks up. My son and I spent a summer playing The Quiet Year, and my wife (not an RPG person) and I spent the early part of this summer playing Abnormal. Highly recommended, all.
Is there an argument to be made that our poor healthcare system and our huge prison population are linked?
Answer to “What are the freakiest anomalies regarding the brain?” by Huyen Nguyen
It’s an interesting answer overall, but here’s the bit that got me thinking about the no-doctor-to-prison pipeline (as a man who has had countless untreated concussions, back in the helmetless 80s and 90s—injuries that my docs have opined probably contributed to the clinical anxiety and depression that started to crush me in my middle age):
Recent studies have estimated 25–87% of prison inmates suffered some sort of traumatic brain injury (TBI) in their life and indicated associations between TBIs and criminal-like behaviour. TBI-related problems can complicate their management and treatment. They can experience mental health problems such as severe depression, anxiety, anger control issues, self-restraint, alcohol and substance abuse.
This makes it difficult for them to respond to disciplinary action in prison, to understand and remember rules, and anger issues can get them in dangerous incidents with other inmates. They also have a higher rate of recidivism.
The spirit of the law is that responsibility for a crime is reduced when a defendant’s cognitive ability is compromised by illness or injury.
… I don’t agree with them about everything, but they’re fun to listen to and they’ve got a pretty way of saying what they’re saying:
This movie was a Big Deal to us back when it came out in 2001, but it hasn’t necessarily aged well (“Oh, look, another annoying young white man talking,” my wife opined near the end).
That said, I was struck, over and over again, by how hopefully the movie is about now.
Even in its cynical moments, it’s hopeful about us—the humans of the future—in a way that feels like something midway between “charmingly quaint” and “astoundingly, nearly nauseously, naive.”
I want to be like the people in this film. I want to see us the way they were certain we’d be. I want to be as confident as they were that we’d at least be trying to be better tomorrow than we were yesterday.
Today is Summer Solstice. Quite literally, it gets darker from here.
Let’s try and be the people we always assumed we were, dee down inside.