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Mole

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Everything posted by Mole

  1. Clearly you never met my old commanding officer.
  2. I get that it’s a handy way to encapsulate a lot of loosely related activities and people, but the rise of the term “content creator” speaks to the commodification of everything that drives this problem — art, music, film, written word, and criticism has become merely a product to be consumed. At least when it comes to music, the application of IP law is insane and comes from a place of total musical ignorance that is only possible once it’s been relegated to just a commercial venture and the creation of some product rather than an act of community that we engage in together. I’m looking at you, Marvin Gaye’s estate.
  3. It’s a good chance to remind them that family values and character in leadership used* to be core conservative values. This case lays bare the reality that conservatives have abandoned** their core values. *in some mythical past, perhaps **embraced, but we like to lie to ourselves
  4. Mole

    Israel

    I don’t see how they are necessarily related or in opposition. It’s a question of why that’s being missed here. Missing the why leads to connecting dots that simply don’t connect. Support for Israel is more based in a general support of “God’s chosen people,” which has little to do with end times stuff. There’s a reasonable biblical case to support this view of Israel, assuming you accept the connection between modern Israel and biblical Israel. The view is that you support Israel because God will bless those who support Israel and curse those who don’t — or something along these lines. The support for Israel isn’t specifically connected to the belief concerning the believed imminent return of Jesus anymore than any other view or belief. This is the case even for the view that somehow the creation of modern Israel checks some end times box in the sky. The idea that support for Israel is due to some Kirk Cameron-fed desire to bring about the end of the world (let’s help check those boxes) is decidedly not mainstream. I’m come from many years in evangelical environments and have never heard a preacher or believer express dominionist-like views in person. From my experience this is a minor (and certainly problematic) view that is amplified on the internet. It doesn’t reflect mainstream evangelical views, even relatively conservative ones. Most end times talk centers around the perceived decay of society (I’d say the perception of decay is accurate, but often too outward looking as to why the decay is happening) and of course the general scariness of our modern world — wars and rumors of wars in end times parlance. Christians have believed in the imminent return of Jesus long before the creation of modern Israel.
  5. Mole

    Israel

    The mainstream evangelical support of Israel is theological, but not because of end times stuff. That article is making huge leaps in order to connect the dots to paint a dishonest picture. The theological reason for evangelical support of Israel mostly has to do with supporting “God’s chosen people” and seeking God’s blessing. The suggestion that it has to do with speeding up end-of-the-world beliefs is mostly nonsense that people on the internet say to feel superior. There are surely those who believe that way, but they are far outside the mainstream, even in conservative evangelical circles. Any suggestions otherwise are simply not truthful. If the issue is specific to the Christian or white nationalist position, I can’t speak to that since I avoid those types of environments. Belief that we’re in the end times has probably been the mainstream position (or among the mainstream positions) since the death of Jesus.
  6. A band nerd dirty joke: A girl went out on a date with a trumpet player, and when she came back her roommate asked, "Well, how was it? Did his embouchure make him a great kisser?" "Nah," the first girl replied. "That dry, tight, tiny little pucker; it was no fun at all." The next night she went out with a tuba player, and when she came back her roommate asked, "Well, how was his kissing?" "Ugh!" the first girl exclaimed. "Those huge, rubbery, blubbery, slobbering slabs of meat; oh, it was just gross!" The next night she went out with a French horn player, and when she came back her roommate asked, "Well, how was his kissing?" "Well," the first girl replied, "his kissing was just so-so; but I loved the way he held me!"
  7. Sister Cindy is one the great performance artists of our time: Whom
  8. Too much news and it’s too exciting. Most news should be pretty boring. If it’s constantly making you angry, you’re consuming propaganda, not news. Certainly some news should make you angry, but the constant stream of rage isn’t healthy and doesn’t give you an honest view of the world. The nearly live clips (with no context) are exciting. They make you feel something. They show a very narrow, less-than-honest view of what’s happening but make you feel like you know what’s going on, all while feeding your need for anger and rage. It isn’t news; it’s propaganda.
  9. In terms of luck, let’s not forget being a big toe away from nocking off Milwaukee in their championship run. What an amazing clutch shot that came less than an inch from being so much bigger.
  10. Mole

    Media Bias

    NPR suffers from the affliction known as bâton dans le derriére. This infects everything they do, particularly their news/political coverage. I used to enjoy their lighter Saturday broadcasts, but those have become more political and less funny in our present era. I just want to hear clever puns with underlying snobbery, not tired jokes dunking on terrible people. It’s nice to be able to hear classical music on the radio even if they’re apparently contractually obligated to play Beethoven or Brahms every 3rd piece. I haven’t listened much in recent years to see if I can still hear Alec Baldwin’s gravelly voice introduce yet another performance of Beethoven 7. Bruce Adolphe’s piano puzzlers on performance today are fun though. Diane Rehm’s fart sniffing was worth it to hear Claude Bolling’s Toot Suite as the theme song. Their local/state news coverage is quite good, complete with that awkward local NPR feel.
  11. In 2018, RimjobSteve posts a meme on Reddit of Trump storing walnuts in his rectum. The meme goes ignored until the pandemic when prospective juror #69 sees it while doomscrolling and shares it on Twitter. No one cares at the time. In 2024, the meme is read into the court record during jury selection. In 2117, as historians study the fall of the United States, the rectum/walnut meme is regularly cited in the most prestigious journals. RimjobSteve is a small but important player in history. What a time to be alive.
  12. I’m late to the party, but this is the key phrase here with every outrage of the day.
  13. 1. Small town folk hero mayor/pastor leads a relatively inclusive Baptist church and is loved by all. 2. Mayor/pastor secretly cross dresses and also has an out gay son. The family knows about the cross dressing, but the general public doesn’t. 3. Mayor/pastor posts cross-dressing pictures online semi-anonymously. He also posts violent/erotic stories. Some of these posts bring real people — innocent bystanders — into the story. 4. A culture warrior pseudo-journalist who preaches violent non-inclusion acquires the mayor/pastor’s pictures and posts them online. The pastor and family beg the culture warrior to remove the story. 5. I’m pretty sure that this story ended up in another thread on this site where the “southern Baptist cross-dressing hypocrite” narrative was accepted uncritically. I could be wrong, but this story seems familiar. 6. The pseudo-journalist culture warrior then posts the erotic fiction as well. 7. Mayor/pastor kills himself; a family and community are broken. 8. Pseudo-journalist rationalizes his terrible behavior. 9. We all start our Saturday morning with a nice, terrible emptiness.
  14. This thread makes me think of those city girls who lived up the stairs.
  15. Disrespect for geometry is obtuse behavior.
  16. It depends on how much the assignment is worth and the student’s record. Usually, a first offense is a zero on the assignment and some training. If they have some history of cheating, it progresses to being withdrawn from the class with a failing grade or expulsion. I’ve come to respect our worst writers on campus — at least I know they’re failing honestly.
  17. Sources of academic fraud that I see from my small corner of academia: 1. For-profit institutions 2. The shocking number of folks in administrative roles calling themselves Dr. when their doctorate comes for a school whose campus is a post office box in Biloxi, Mississippi. 3. Those moronic ChatGPT generated essays from my students that turn everything into a discussion of sustainability and income inequality and read like they were trained on the dumbest parts of Reddit.
  18. Regarding carts, we should give a pass to people who may feel vulnerable and exposed in the parking lot — e.g., women alone at night, depending on the neighborhood. If you feel threatened or unsafe, put your stuff in your car and leave as quickly as possible with no shame. The rest of us need to put our carts back though.
  19. To be fair, Elmo took over the show in a way that contributed to the decline of the show’s quality; and he is whiny, even by muppet standards. On the other hand, my son loved the Elmo’s World segment and Mr. Noodle and his brother and sister was pretty good physical comedy.
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