July 24, 2019

Tired of constantly changing the toilet paper? Our new #CharminForeverRoll might change your life!

https://twitter.com/Charmin/status/1120535844882874370

July 23, 2019

"the unconscious mind knows exactly what one is doing, even as the conscious mind denies it"

Yale psychiatrist explains the root of Trump’s ‘pathological racism’

Raw Story: It has been a week submerged in Donald Trump’s racist remarks. You yourself got wrapped up in the controversy.

Dr. Bandy X. Lee: I believe people thought I was giving excuse to Donald Trump’s racism, when I was trying to add another layer. As a psychiatrist, I will see different things. What is medically salient is not always evident to the average person, while ideology or political position may not be as interesting to me as a medical professional. When appropriate, the medical layer should give depth to our understanding and, in fact, seriousness to this situation. We as a nation consistently underestimate the dangers. No matter how we may say we already know the president is dangerous, we will lack the appreciation of just how dangerous.


Dr. Bandy X. Lee: Surely he is racist, but that is not all. When he says, “I am the least racist person you have ever met,” he tells me that he is surely the most racist person I have ever met. In psychiatry, we are trained not simply to believe a person’s words at face value but to evaluate the person’s reliability, whether there are consistent patterns of defense, and whether it is the person or the disease that is speaking, before we believe.

Mr. Trump’s patterns indicate that when he says others are “hate-filled extremists who are constantly trying to tear our country down,” he actually means, “I am a hate-filled extremist constantly trying to tear this country down.” When he says, “Presidential harassment!” he is describing harassment that the president metes out. And his statement, “Their comments are helping fuel the rise of a dangerous, militant hard left,” is an admission that his comments are doing this of the militant hard right. The reason why the attribution is uncannily correct is because the mind is not random: the unconscious mind knows exactly what one is doing, even as the conscious mind denies it.

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/07/yale-psychiatrist-explains-the-root-of-trumps-pathological-racism/

July 23, 2019

Tiny Apartments and Punishing Work Hours: The Economic Roots of Hong Kong's Protests

three people live in this space





HONG KONG — Rents higher than New York, London or San Francisco for apartments half the size. Nearly one in five people living in poverty. A minimum wage of $4.82 an hour.

Hong Kong, a semiautonomous Chinese city of 7.4 million people shaken this summer by huge protests, may be the world’s most unequal place to live. Anger over the growing power of mainland China in everyday life has fueled the protests, as has the desire of residents to choose their own leaders. But beneath that political anger lurks an undercurrent of deep anxiety over their own economic fortunes — and fears that it will only get worse.

“We thought maybe if you get a better education, you can have a better income,” said Kenneth Leung, a 55-year-old college-educated protester. “But in Hong Kong, over the last two decades, people may be able to get a college education, but they are not making more money.”

He is one of 210,000 Hong Kong residents who live in one of the city’s thousands of illegally subdivided apartments. Some are so small they are called cages and coffins.

His room, by comparison, is a relatively spacious 100 square feet to sleep, cook and live. He sometimes struggles to make his $512 a month rent after paying for food and other living costs.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/07/22/world/asia/hong-kong-housing-inequality.html?fallback=0&recId=1OPAsAsPYOubC7IERaUarZieCof&locked=0&geoContinent=NA&geoRegion=CA&recAlloc=top_conversion&geoCountry=US&blockId=most-popular&imp_id=615285431&action=click&module=trending&pgtype=Article®ion=Footer

July 23, 2019

The parents of a toddler who died after falling from a Royal Caribbean cruise ship blame the company

I think this is the windows with the railings.





The toddler was with her grandfather, Sam Anello in the "water park on the ship, which is designed for the kids -- kids are meant to be there," Michael Winkleman, the family's attorney, said earlier this month. Winkleman says there's a row of windows in the area, and Anello placed his granddaughter on a wood railing by the windows, believing she would bang on the glass just like she does at her brother's hockey games. But the window was open.

"Next thing he knows, she's gone," Winkleman had said.

Holding the company accountable
But Kimberly Wiegand says she blames the cruise company and wants them held accountable in court, adding "this cannot happen to another family."

"There are a million things that could have been done to make that safer," she said this week. "I never want another mother to have to experience this or to see what I had to see."

Grandfather didn't dangle baby from cruise ship window. This is not the 'Michael Jackson story,' says family attorney
No matter the reason, she said those windows should not have been open.

"Come up with some other mechanism to make guests comfortable, rather than creating a tremendous safety hazard that cost our child her life."

https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/23/us/parents-toddler-cruise-ship/index.html

July 23, 2019

interesting,,, why we square danced in PE class - because Henry Ford hated Jazz and Jewish people

https://qz.com/1153516/americas-wholesome-square-dancing-tradition-is-a-tool-of-white-supremacy/amp/

If you live in the United States, chances are high that, growing up, you had to take square dancing in gym class. I myself spent a week at my Rochester, New York, high school learning to allemande left and right—skills I was highly unlikely to ever need again. At the time, although I thought it was odd, I was merely grateful for not having to change into my gym clothes.

As it turns out, there’s an unusual reason why so many American students spend their formative years learning to do-si-do. Twenty-eight out of 50 states have declared square dancing their official dance. This is part of a coordinated campaign—a dancespiracy, if you will—to make square dancing the official dance of the United States, in the hope that doing so “would give square dancing and its related activities more visibility and have a positive effect on recruiting new dancers.”

But the institutionalization of square dancing isn’t just about the joy of dance. It’s also about America’s legacy of racism and anti-Semitism—and the surprising tools that get used in the effort to uphold whiteness.

Henry Ford was scared of jazz
To understand how square dancing became a state-mandated means of celebrating Americana, it’s necessary to go back to Henry Ford, the founder of Ford Motor Vehicles. Ford hated jazz; he hated the Charleston. He also really hated Jewish people, and believed that Jewish people invented jazz as part of a nefarious plot to corrupt the masses and take over the world—a theory that might come as a surprise to the black people who actually did invent it.

July 22, 2019

"Because he tends to fall asleep in meetings, they try not to put him in a position where that could

“Because he tends to fall asleep in meetings, they try not to put him in a position where that could happen... There’s a small window where he’s able to focus and pay attention and not fall asleep.”

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/22/wilbur-ross-commerce-department-dysfunction-1424427

https://twitter.com/maddow/status/1153366143987572736

July 22, 2019

12 tweets from Trump today already.. .attacking "the squad" and the media

July 22, 2019

Puerto Rico protest on the highway. A view from someone's window

https://twitter.com/DavidBegnaud/status/1153344412107399169

July 22, 2019

remember senator Ensign?

https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/former-nevada-sen-john-ensign-divorces-wife-1808479/?utm_source=onesignal&utm_medium=push_notification

Former Nevada Sen. John Ensign divorces wife

------

Ensign was first elected to Congress in 1994, defeating Democrat Rep. Jim Bilbray in a year when former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s revolution swept a more aggressive crew of GOP freshmen into the House. Ensign won re-election in 1996.

In 1998, he challenged Sen. Harry Reid for re-election, and nearly defeated the veteran lawmaker in the closest election of Reid’s career. (Just 401 votes separated the two men statewide, according to official election results.)

Ensign won election to the Senate two years later, filling the seat vacated by the retiring Sen. Richard Bryan and defeating attorney Ed Bernstein for the post. In 2006, Ensign beat back a challenge by Jack Carter, son of former President Jimmy Carter.

But in 2009, Ensign’s political career started to unravel after revelations that he’d had an affair with Cindy Hampton, the wife of his Senate chief of staff, Doug Hampton. Ensign dismissed Doug Hampton from his Senate office after the affair came to light, and Ensign’s parents made a $96,000 payment to the Hampton family that Doug Hampton said was a severance payment. (Cindy Hampton worked for Ensign’s campaigns, and also lost her job.)

In March 2011, Ensign announced he would not seek re-election in 2012 because of the scandal. But he resigned in May 2011, as the Senate Ethics Committee investigated his conduct.

Then-Gov. Brian Sandoval appointed then-Congressman Dean Heller to fill Ensign’s seat. The Hamptons divorced after the incident.

Since leaving public life, Ensign returned to his pre-political career as a veterinarian. He owns and runs the Boca Park Animal Hospital, which advertises itself on its website as a “state of the art medical center” with “five-star customer service.”

July 22, 2019

"Discrimination is not tolerated in Texas." says Texas Gov. Greg Abbott about chick-fil-A

https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1152680830009073664

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/453978-texas-governor-holds-ceremonial-signing-of-save-chick-fil-a?__twitter_impression=true

Abbott surrounded himself with associates and Chick-fil-A menu items and vowed to protect religious liberty in response to criticism citing the fast food chain’s owner's support for anti-gay groups and opposition to gay marriage.

The law was sparked in response to the San Antonio City Council to block a Chick-fil-A location from opening in the local airport.

“Discrimination is not tolerated in Texas. No business should be discriminated against simply because its owners pay to a church or the Salvation Army or any other religious organization,” Abbott said at the ceremonial signing. “No business should lose a government contract because of their religious beliefs. The ‘Save Chick-fil-A’ legislation that I’m about to sign is a victory for religious liberty in Texas.”