Jump to content

The Original Greaser Bob

Certifiably Surly
  • Posts

    2821
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by The Original Greaser Bob

  1. If you best argument for a change in policy is that it offends the snowflakes, your underlying policy may not be that rigorous.
  2. Not a good analogy. You son goes out to work on an oil rig first day on the job. Are you going to worry about his safety or whether he was thinking about whether he is secretly biased against his African American coworker? I can remain committed to equality and opportunity without using the specific jargon of equity and diversity. I can't be committed to safety without following safety guidelines. Finally, there are built in financial disincentives to not following safety policies let alone the finality of death or dismemberment. Your term lip service is appropriate. I think DEI in lots of lip service in many private firms. To me it almost hides issues of opportunity. We remove that veil then after this administration is done we can work on the real problem and not put the veil up again as lip service. Netted out I see it as an opportunity if discourse and the quality of legislators ever improves.
  3. I guess I need to see the data on this. Corporations will continue to be able to "sell" inclusion and basically continue as they have been and try to avoid discrimination lawsuits of all types. What they are giving up is the D and E of DEI -- nomenclature that fostered a cottage industry that didn't feel particularly successful. The question is -- how effective were DEI initiatives pre-Trump II? I mean, they had to be highly successful, no, guaranteeing equity in the board rooms and in equal pay? I think the best argument is that attacks on DEI are symbolic of more serious racial divides that Trump is pushing, but I just don't think making private company employees attend three hours of DEI and unconscious bias classes every year was much more than window dressing. Dems should focus on economic affirmative action that would really mean something. DEI feels like the "ho hum" being the enemy of "great".
  4. Many companies didn't do much more than change the wording. Absolutely no changes were made to employee interest groups, or any other policy. Companies were always subject to reverse discrimination actions so I am assuming most companies didn't have to do a whole lot in terms of changing policies other than clarifying or opening up certain training or mentorship programs to all races and sexes. Which is probably not a bad policy to begin with. DEI and the related "unconscious bias" are both somewhat sloppy, careless terms and opportunity for truly underrepresented groups can proceed better without those terms. Netted out, the executive actions related to DEI all demand one thing - don't exclude white males. That's not a tall order for companies that weren't doing that anyway, and that gives Dems lots of incentive to truly look at inclusion of all groups. I'm being Panglossian, but this chainsaw allows people who care about opportunity to go forward while jettisoning the weight of those terms.
  5. Still one of my favorite tv bits. Are people starting to do this if Trump is in visual range?
  6. Mass Deportation of People in Droves Now! I would prefer: Compassionate Due Process Deportations of Persons Illegally in this Country, Now! I'm seeing the only way for Dems to win the immigration war is to continue criticism of the needless inhuman treatment and lack of due process, but to really focus on the need to keep the US as a beacon for people in those countries that are shittier than ours (theoretically), and our economy's need for immigrants. But frankly to be almost as ruthless as MAGA about anyone who hasn't followed the rules for admittance to the letter.
  7. I'm an employment lawyer and we tweaked our DEI program - some would call it a rollback, but most DEI programs can be modified pretty easily just by emphasizing the term "inclusion" and getting rid of the terms diversity and equity. Focus on color-blind inclusion of disadvantaged candidates should have been embraced by the left decades ago. Getting forced out of the cookie cutter DEI industry is going to be good for the left in the short and long run.
  8. Hmm. I just went out of my way to go into a target and get a phone protector and screen protector instead of getting it from Amazon. Did I do the right thing?
  9. “If you think that it would be impossible to improve upon the Ten Commandments as a statement of morality, you really owe it to yourself to read some other scriptures. Once again, we need look no further than the Jains: Mahavira, the Jain patriarch, surpassed the morality of the Bible with a single sentence: 'Do not injure, abuse, oppress, enslave, insult, torment, torture, or kill any creature or living being.' Imagine how different our world might be if the Bible contained this as its central precept. Christians have abused, oppressed, enslaved, insulted, tormented, tortured, and killed people in the name of God for centuries, on the basis of a theologically defensible reading of the Bible.” ― Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation
  10. Water under the bridge. Putting faith in the youth. Need to attack political Christianity wherever it shows its face.
  11. Biden could have stepped down with more than a year to the election. The Dems could have had an orderly process of picking a candidate, who would have been able to distance himself from the Biden Administration on immigration. There was a thread here where people suggesting this were slammed because incumbency was such a strong advantage. An attack on Kamala as a woke candidate would have been advantageous. Yes it's hindsight, but the Dems need to be better. And if Biden had been as infirm there isn't much of an excuse.
  12. Fastbreak, my dad enlisted when FDR was President. I read about FDR in the encyclopedia. I feel I sort of know and he was almost like a friend. Fastbreak, Biden is no FDR.
  13. I suggest that one should vote for good people and not for bad ones. Trump supporters - all bad. Dems who propped up Biden knowing he had issues - example of bad ones as well. To me, not as bad as Trump supporters, but still bad. The closest these folks should be to elective office is podcasts.
  14. Only two beefs with Wes: 1) Moonrise Kingdom 2) Not sure I like how he treats non-animation dogs (Moonrise/Royal). I would love for Wes to pull a really low budget style flick that takes place in Dallas/Houston/Auston that's has the feel of Bottle Rocket and introduces some fun new actors. Shit, why not a movie about some young guys making a movie? Rushmore may be favorite movie of all time, and I love his style, but Bottle Rocket is like your first kiss.
  15. Fantastic Mr. Fox fantastic. Just watched it last night. Isle of Dogs a little less so, but still top notch.
  16. I've only seen Bottle Rocket. This looks like a stylistic reach. Is Kumar in this? I like Kumar.
  17. Hellhound on His Trail (2010) (Audio) Great lickity split procedural. The short section on the events that led to the garbage strike just put me into a funk. I actually couldn't listen to the whole section. Heartbreaking/how can man and God be so heartless.
  18. Well, there's pride and there's puro pride.
  19. Cleetus will assemble Mardi Gras beads and he'll like it.
  20. He's exactly who America voted for. There a few in America who are move situated to fuck things up like he is. The "he's elderly and being taken advantage of" has the double danger of a) reminding Americans who the Dems protected last cycle and b) blames the problems on stupidty/age/etc. (Or you're just being sarcastic and I'm missing the sarcasm.)
  21. This is just such a dumb issue. He clearly has enough energy to appear to be able to do this job. He's evil and a lunatic but he's 10x more involved than Biden and harping on this just elevates the issue.. Next fucking issue. Which should be making sure every contested race in the future has a decent, marketable, Dem candidate.
  22. Hopefully it goes without saying that if you draw a circle around the idea of the pure value of the actual undergrad education (excluding the prestige of the piece of paper), Stanford is not any better than anywhere else. Educating undergrads is low on the priority of Stanford professors, and most professors at research schools If you do throw the whole picture in, there is no place like Stanford. Grad schools, connections, numbers of sports, home of Olympians, relative success in sports, passable success in the big three, connections, the fucking weather, and connections. The conference realignment is cause for concern, but to me, less so in terms of not having a place to play football then it affecting the plethora of sports and especially having Olympians there.
×
×
  • Create New...