Strange

 I’ve been hearing about an increasing number of musicians who have been selling the rights to their music for huge amounts of money over the last few months.   These are folks who lean to the left side of the political spectrum, and who likely voted for Biden.    The most likely reason I’ve heard for this phenomenon is that they are convinced that capital gains taxes will rise sharply under Biden and are trying to avoid that larger tax hit.  I guess they aren’t willing to put their money where their politics are.  

CNN

 The Chyron on CNN tonight read “Out with the old, in with the new”.    Under what possible definition is Joe Biden new?   This old, rich, white, guy has been feeding at the public trough for damn near half a century and somehow managed to amass millions of dollars in personal wealth as a “public servant”.    

New, what a joke.  

Data is interesting

https://winteryknight.com/2021/01/13/is-there-evidence-of-systemic-racism-in-the-united-states-2/

Recently, I've started following some conversations between some "black voices" who interpret the data around racism in different ways.   The link above is from another POC and contains some interesting data.  Listening to "black voices" in and of itself, doesn't seem as valuable as listening to people (who happen to be black) who are seriously interacting with the data.  

John

 "There was a man from the desert with naps in his head
The sand that he walked was also his bed
The words that he spoke made the people assume
There wasn't too much left in the upper room

With skins on his back and hair on his face
They thought he was strange by the locusts he ate
You see the Pharisees tripped when they heard him speak
Until the king took the head of this Jesus freak"

 

Last Sunday, the sermon was about John the Baptist and the baptism of Jesus.  As I listened, I realized that John had a pretty good thing going.  He had a devoted following, he was a celebrity, he was also counter cultural enough that the king himself felt threatened by his popularity.   All in all John had a pretty sweet gig.

Yet, John's message was,“After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”.    

 

As I thought about this I realized something.  I realized that I (we) should probably be more like John.  That we should realize that our call to emulate Jesus, doesn't mean we have the authority of Jesus.  That our call to emulate Jesus is designed to draw attention to Jesus, and not to us.  

Just maybe we should practice a little more of the humility that John demonstrates. 

Storming the gates

 I've seen bits and pieces of stories about conservative protesters storming the capitol building, and while I certainly don't have all the details, I'll say this for now.

1.  I certainly am disappointed and ashamed at the behavior of these protesters.  I expect better from conservatives and can't imagine what could have justified this behavior.

2.   I guess of you are going to storm someplace, it makes more sense to storm the capitol, where decisions are made and where the decision makers are, than to storm the businesses and residences of innocens.

3.   I haven't heard that there has been any destruction as of this writing, but if there is, let's remember to apply the same standards to these protesters that we applied to those from this past summer.

4.   Before those on the left get up on their high horses, and pull out the righteous indignation, let's compare the amount, consequences, and disruption of "protests" from the left, with this one incident.  

As usual, I respect the right of people to protest and publicly express their grievances.   Of course, once it stops being peaceful, then they lose my respect and they deserve whatever consequences they incur. 

 Update:  It appears that president Trump has deployed the national guard to quell the disturbances.   It took Walz days or burning and looting to make that decision, and even longer to implement it. 

"I hate rioting of all types, no matter who is doing it.  But lots of people today are trying to erase recent history.  The fact is that left wing rioters invaded police stations and burned them to the ground, and were not arrested for doing so.  That happened just a few months ago.  All of this nonsense that the police would be coming down harder if they were left wing protesters--were you unconscious all last summer?   Whole city blocks were burned while the police watched passively.  We all saw it. "

Matt Walsh

"The message of last summer is clear: violence works"

Vaiv

"It's llike feeding a dog every time they start begaving poorly in order to get them to stop.  If violence and insurrection elicit hange, people are more inclined to use that option than civility"

Hi 5

I wish...

 I wish I was technically savvy enough to post videos on here.   I just watched 2 exchanges in Instagram that were hilarious.    Some old woman decided that she needed to confront 2 guys on a train drinking coffee without masks on, although they appear to be social distanced, not only does she feel now need to confront them, but she also feels like the interaction should be filmed.    When a third party filmed and posted the interaction, she got in the face of the third party and went off on her.    

Watching libs make asses of themselves is always amusing.   The best way to see this is check out Ashley StClair on Instagram.

Oppression

 I referred to a couple of questions about oppression in another thread, and I wanted to develop those further before risking the possibility of Dan running off on a tangent.   I’ll take time to flesh this out over the next couple of days.  But until then I’ll use this a a place for any comments from Dan that don’t fit in the other thread.  

 

 No, the more important question, as I’m learning from listening to black voices, is whether of not past “oppression” is the only or primary cause of current disparities. The other seemingly important question is the outcomes when the oppression is factored in, compared between different societies.

 

Still haven't had the time or the motivation to flesh this out, and with Dan's obsessive desire to jump right in and comment based on assumptions, I may realize that fleshing this out is a waste of time.   Yet, I do want to throw out one other thought.

If these discussions are to be fruitful, the one things that needs to be agreed on is what measure will define success.    The most common measure I see used is economic.   The other is political.   While I'm fine with either,  I think that looking at the economic condition is probably the best broad measurement of group success.   It's also the one that can be best applied across societies and cultures, which seems like the only way to accurately measure the results of oppression among groups that also cross national boundaries and cultures.