Reading

Created
Thu, 15/08/2024 - 00:30
Corporate capitalism too Sociologist Jessica Calarco (“Holding it Together: How Women Became America’s Safety Net“) believes that one reason we cannot have nice things, The Ink explains, is “because Americans have been sold a manufactured ideology of personal responsibility, bolstered by the work of neoliberal economists, and for the most part accept it as tradition — even though it’s largely an invention of 20th-century business interests and crafted as part of the backlash to the New Deal.” That system is not just propped up by cheap labor, but by women’s labors specifically: The situation persists largely because women have been forced to make up for the lack of real social policy. Whether that’s to do with a conservative vision of women’s roles being as homemakers, helpmeets, and mothers or our reliance on poor women, women of color, and immigrant (and undocumented immigrant women) to fill the low-paid jobs in child and elder care that make American society possible, it’s women who do the devalued and relentlessly taxing work that can’t be made profitable in the market.
Created
Thu, 15/08/2024 - 00:13
As a subject, economics seems to have a fear and disgust of thinking about philosophy and methodology that might be described as Freudian. While other social scientists’ obsession with minute discussions of their methods and rhetoric, standards of proof and what they hope to achieve might be thought of as pathological in another way, the […]
Created
Wed, 14/08/2024 - 23:27
You are reading this because Mr. Sauce, Esq. pointed out I didn’t do a single Wiener Wednesday this summer. And I want to give him a hearty thanks because, however neglectful I’ve been to the blog, I couldn’t let this year pass without an addition to the Wiener Wednesday archives. It would be wrong. Plus,Continue reading WIENER WEDNESDAY: 203. Stuffed Franks
Created
Wed, 14/08/2024 - 23:00
WTFness at the NYT The spouse’s sharp eyes picked out a detail in a New York Times account of Ukraine’s surprise counterattack last week that sent its forces over the border into Russia: Ukrainian troops sliced easily through a thinly defended border, pushing tens of miles into Russia and shifting the narrative of the war after a glum year in which Ukraine had struggled, often in vain, to hold back Russian advances across its eastern front. By Monday, Ukraine’s commanding general had told President Volodymyr Zelensky that his troops held 390 square miles of territory in Russia’s southeastern Kursk region. Two dozen settlements were overrun. You take some of our land, Vlad? Fine, we’ll take some of yours. But that account from Monday is not what raised the wife’s ire. It was the story in Tuesday’s The Morning briefing by German Lopez on what Ukraine hoped to gain from the incursion: to “divert Russian troops from strategic locations,” to improve Ukrainian morale, to impress Washington, and “to shore up support abroad“: Kyiv has relied on aid from Western nations to defend itself.
Created
Wed, 14/08/2024 - 22:00

Let us go then, youse and I…

Do I dare
Distoib the universe?

In the room the women come and go,
Talking of Larry, Curly, Moe…

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons…
You knucklehead! That’s not coffee—it’s gunpowder!

And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk!

The yellow fog…
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
Zzzzz—mimimimimimi—zzzzz—mimimimimimi…

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us—
Whoop whoop whoop whoop whoop!
—and we drown.

Created
Wed, 14/08/2024 - 20:04
I spent yesterday evening watching Agnieszka Holland’s remarkable film “Green Border” which has just been released to streaming in the UK after spending about 30 seconds in cinemas. The episode that provides the film’s context is the 2021 decision of Alexander Lukashenko, dictator of Belarus and Putin’s puppet, to make use of refugees as a […]
Created
Wed, 14/08/2024 - 13:22
Short Take: the NATO invasion of Kursk

Before NATO invaded Kursk–and make no mistake, it was a NATO incursion by proxy–the Ukraine was not in any existential danger. Now, however, words this evening from former Russian president Dmitri Medvedev, “you’ll know it when you see it and you’ll see it soon,” make it abundantly clear that the peace will be dictated by Russia.

Full stop.

No third party intercessors, except maybe China. Non-zero chance for India.

But for the West and NATO? How you like that crow you pack of corrupt idiots? Y’all make Tommy “Catastrophic Success” Franks look like a modern day Sherman.

Created
Wed, 14/08/2024 - 12:38

A prominent propaganda outlet in the Balkans, which is directly overseen by a British government agency that Reuters once labeled “an influential soft-power extension of UK foreign policy,” appears to be on the brink of collapse after a major schism between staff members and leadership. Leaked emails reviewed by The Grayzone reveal a “deep crisis” has engulfed the Western-created and funded Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), which threatens to tear the organization apart. A flagship propaganda platform in the arsenal […]

The post Internal crisis shakes Balkan media network run by UK intel, leaked emails show first appeared on The Grayzone.

The post Internal crisis shakes Balkan media network run by UK intel, leaked emails show appeared first on The Grayzone.

Created
Wed, 14/08/2024 - 10:46
Two hot air balloonists were blown off course. They descended, floating over a person walking on the street.One of the balloonists leaned out and yelled down: “Where are we?”The man looked up, thought for a moment, then earnestly replied: “You’re in a balloon!”The other balloonist grinned and said: “That person must be a microeconomist…”“How do […]