Cugalabanza

Yeah, holy ****, they might not be able to live up the standard of excellence set by previous generations.

Fair enough. As a practical point, people with power in journalism have always manipulated things according to their interests. But to state that bias as what is to be understood as the ideal of journalism... that's a step further into crazy.

PPP, the rational board.

Yeah, that guy's not helping his case at all. I agree completely that this view of journalism as activism is bonkers.

This entire thread reminds me of that movie with Don Knotts about the field goal kicking mule. I think Tim Conway was in it too. He played the homeless guy with a shotgun...and a heart of gold.

I’ve met some kids who are pretty impressive in terms of personal discipline, sense of themselves, sense of the world,… I’ve also met a few where you’d make sure to put the tidepods away in a safe place. Seems to me that the proportion of dipschidtt to normal to exceptional is about the same as for my generation. And for my parents’ generation. And probably going back all through history. The whole shake your fist and shout “these kids today…!” is a tired cliché.

Let's just leave that folder on Jared's desk.

She's 70. What do you expect? Here's what the lovely Ivanka's gonna look like the day Jared gets out of prison...

That's where I stopped. I get enough condescension in my life already, thank you very much.

The world is so bonkers, I feel like anything is possible at this point.

I begrudgingly concede much of this.

You should add this to your poll choices.

Yeah, come on guys, let's be cool-headed and non-confrontational, like Donald Trump.

Edit:

I think we're all terrific

My take on Obama (like anybody cares) is that he is, at heart, a good guy. I think he understood what he was up against. Obama is fond of the big ship analogy: to turn around, you can't just crank the wheel--you have to do it very gradually, in degrees. I think that's the essence of his two terms. He made concessions to the status quo in order to make incremental improvements where he felt he could. Overall, I view Obama positively. The one area where I can't quite reconcile is the mass surveillance. For me, that's the worst of Obama's legacy. That's essentially it, yes. But, you know, with flair.

I just read the article. It is critical of Obama, although the scope of the review is much larger than that. This quote is a good representation of the author’s (Pankaj Mishra) beef with the Obama presidency: “During his eight years in office, he expanded covert operations and air strikes deep into Africa; girding the continent with American military bases, he exposed large parts of it to violence, anarchy and tyrannical rule. He not only expanded mass surveillance and government data-mining operations at home, and ruthlessly prosecuted whistleblowers, but invested his office with the lethal power to execute anyone, even American citizens, anywhere in the world.” Also, “…mass deportations, and cravenness before the titans of finance who ruined millions of black as well as white lives.” I think these are valid criticisms. It’s a good article. I’m curious what some here would think of it. The ultimate point of the article has to do with RACE and the failure of liberalism to attack the real fundamental structural problems of inequality in society. This quote I think captures the central point very well: “The widespread belief that Obama had inaugurated a ‘postracial’ age helped conceal the ways in which the barefaced cruelties of segregation’s distant past had been softening since the 1960s into subtle exclusions and injustices.” Ultimately, the author of the article is critical of Coates for not going far enough to impugn so-called progressives for their failures so far in this century. EDIT: By the way, I don't think it would be fair at all to say they treated Obama as "almost as bad as Trump." The article calls Trump an white supremacist at two separate points.

Uhhh, never

dude

"How did they know I have gas? These guys are GENIUSES!"

You may think for a moment that you do, but give him a minute--he'll contradict himself and we'll all wonder: what the hell was he talking about?