No, I don’t have first hand experience, I’m basing that conclusion on this headline.
The critics are forgetting that Bezos went through a divorce last year, so in 2019, it probably took a lot more time, maybe 7-8 minutes of work.
I wonder how many of the critics have given to the recovery.
One woman said she raised nearly twice what Amazon pledged by selling nude photos online.
To which I have no comment.
A friend in Winnipeg is as gifted a punster as I’ve ever known. I guess that’s what happens when you teach middle school for a couple decades. Shortly after the Seahawks loss he wrote:
“Ah, the Seahawks! If one is going win at Lambeau, one has to be tougher than Rambo. Yes, Seattle did Russell up some points in the 2nd Half, But the Packers converted some Big 3rd Downs at the end, by Aaroning it out. It was a Gutsy Performance by both teams.”
It’s really too bad no one asked me for advice with 3:30 left. You can’t punt there because Rogers was routinely finding seams in the secondary.
I liked the decision to go for two and the standard second half rally. Wilson is special, when he’s done, we may never see the likes of him again in the Specific Northwest. Enjoy him while he lasts.
I didn’t like the predictably slow start and the very late drop.
That loss probably came down to the delay of game against San Fransisco which cost home field, and most importantly, a week’s rest.
Oh well, it’s time for basketball, and before we know it spring will be here and “a tradition unlike any other“.
1. Steve Spence’s legendary sub-5:00 mile streak comes to an end after 43 years.
2. Who do the Duke and Duchess of Sussex think they are? Afua Hirsch explains.
“If the media paid more attention to Britain’s communities of color, perhaps it would find the announcement far less surprising. With a new prime minister whose track record includes overtly racist statements, some of which would make even Donald Trump blush, a Brexit project linked to native nationalism and a desire to rid Britain of large numbers of immigrants, and an ever thickening loom of imperial nostalgia, many of us are also thinking about moving.
From the very first headline about her being “(almost) straight outta Compton” and having “exotic” DNA, the racist treatment of Meghan has been impossible to ignore. Princess Michael of Kent wore an overtly racist brooch in the duchess’s company. A BBC host compared the couple’s newborn baby to a chimpanzee. Then there was the sublimely ludicrous suggestion that Meghan’s avocado consumption is responsible for mass murder, while her charity cookbook was portrayed as somehow helping terrorists.
Those who claim frequent attacks against the duchess have nothing to do with her race have a hard time explaining these attempts to link her with particularly racialized forms of crime — terrorism and gang activity — as well as the fact that she has been most venomously attacked for acts that attracted praise when other royals did them. Her decision to guest-edit British Vogue, for example, was roundly condemned by large parts of the British media, in stark contrast to Prince Charles’s two-time guest editorship of Country Life magazine, Prince Harry’s of a BBC program and Kate Middleton’s at Huffington Post, all of which were quietly praised at the time.
Her treatment has proved what many of us have always known: No matter how beautiful you are, whom you marry, what palaces you occupy, charities you support, how faithful you are, how much money you accumulate or what good deeds you perform, in this society racism will still follow you.”
3. Trump takes credit for decline in cancer deaths. The American Cancer Society says he’s wrong. How long until their funding is cut further?
“The President has a history of proposing to cut funding from the National Institutes of Health’s budget, which includes funding for the National Cancer Institute, an agency that leads, conducts and supports cancer research. The final budgets that Congress approved ended up being more generous than Trump’s proposals.
Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz wrote on Twitter, in response to Trump, that ‘cancer rates dropped before you took office. Hopefully they keep dropping because Congress rejected your cruel research budgets, which sought billions in CUTS to @NIH and the National Cancer Institute. This is good news despite you – not because of you.'”
And so it goes, in these (dis)United States of America.
4. Why do people believe in hell?
“How can we be winners, after all, if there are no losers? . . . What success can there be that isn’t validated by another’s failure? What heaven can there be for us without an eternity in which to relish the impotent envy of those outside its walls?”
Until recently, I dabbled with YouTube watching the occasional music video, Saturday Night Live skit, vlog, or epic mountain bike ride compliments of a helmet GoPro camera.
Then I watched Youngest watch YouTube content on our new whiz bang television, which I’d never done. So I followed suit and graduated from my desktop computer. It’s transformed my television viewing.
Despite being a technology skeptic who still savors some semblance of privacy, I’m down with YouTube’s algorithm.
It gets me.
For example, remember this description of one of my favorite television shows of all time from almost four years ago? I’m not sure how I’ve lived this long without it. I was equal parts gobsmacked and chuffed to bits when it appeared in my YouTube queue recently. I can’t believe it’s been going strong for the last four dark years, damn the Canadian Broadcasting Channel suits who decided to drop it.
Now I’m binging on it while trying to stay in some sort of cycling shape. Here’s an excellent sampler for your viewing enjoyment.
I’ve also enjoyed meeting Beau Miles a supe-cool Australian YouTuber with the right color hair. In this 17 minute-long documentary he tells a very different kind of marathon story.
If that was your cup of tea, brew one more.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, the bike and telly await.
By Roz Chast and Patricia Marx in The New Yorker.
This one hits awfully close to home:
“Marriage is one of you secretly turning the thermostat up and the other secretly turning it down, and so on, and so on, until one of you dies.”
The New York Times* reports on how. . .
“. . . a right-wing media world that typically moves in lock step with the president has struggled to reconcile Mr. Trump’s surprise escalation with his prior denunciations of open-ended conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Adding:
“Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s former chief strategist, said that he and other supporters of the president were still hunting for an effective defense. ‘This is a very complicated issue, and the people who support President Trump, from Tucker Carlson all the way to Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham, are really trying to work through this,’ Mr. Bannon said on Monday. ‘What you’re seeing now — live on television, live on radio — is people working through what this means.”
Carlson broke ranks with his fellow Fox News nutters this way:
‘It’s hard to remember now, but as recently as last week, most people didn’t consider Iran an imminent threat,’ Mr. Carlson said at the start of his Monday show, going on to mock Mr. Trump’s secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, for saying intelligence agencies had identified an undefined Iranian threat. ‘Seems like about 20 minutes ago, we were denouncing these people as the ‘deep state’ and pledging never to trust them again without verification,’ Mr. Carlson told viewers, eyebrow arched. ‘Now, for some reason, we do trust them — implicitly and completely.'”
The Times summarizes:
“Just as the political world was caught off guard by the killing of General Suleimani, so was the conservative media complex. As reports of the missile strike in Baghdad that killed the general emerged on Thursday, Mr. Hannity phoned into his Fox News show from vacation to offer vociferous praise. That same night, Mr. Carlson warned his viewers that ‘America appears to be lumbering toward a new Middle East war.'”
Credit where credit is due, it’s nice that Carlson occasionally demonstrates independent thought.
But all is not well with him. The Times again:
“After his Monday segment on General Suleimani, he introduced a five-part series, ‘American Dystopia,’ chronicling urban decay in San Francisco.”
Because I find it weirdly entertaining, I watch an occasional Fox News segment. Lo and behold, Monday night I caught the first part of “American Dystopia”. Granted there is a lot of competition for this, and I am only a sporadic viewer, but the segment may very well have been the low point in Fox News television history. At least I nominate it for that.
It was only about 7-10 minutes long. It consisted of an interview with a policewoman who was repeatedly asked what would happen if particular crimes were committed in San Fransisco. Her default answer “you’d be issued a citation” was supposed to highlight the utter failure of progressive social policies. Other viewers and I were supposed to be disgusted by the lax enforcement of criminal laws, but anyone who has paid any attention to what the most informed people working with addicts have to say knows that criminalizing drug use has proven totally ineffective.
Carlson intimated that if we just incarcerated every heroin user the problem would be solved.
The video footage was something you’d expect from a crew of middle school students reporting on urban decay. . . repeated close ups of syringes and repeated close ups of human feces. Over and over to give the impression the entire city was overrun by needles and human waste.
No context was provided for where the footage was shot, how big of an area it was, and whether it was even close to representative of the entire city. Viewers were supposed to conclude that every block in San Fransisco has an assortment of troubled drug addicts on its sidewalks, who, along with other people, randomly shit on the same sidewalks.
It’s weird how San Fransisco’s real estate is among the most expensive in the country when all of its streets are lined with syringes and shit.
Of course, in this case, Carlson is carrying the President’s water, using absolute bullshit reporting in an attempt to tarnish the Speaker of the House, who continually gets the better of the President.
I’m sure Pelosi would be the first to admit that San Fransisco isn’t perfect and that homelessness is a tough, tough challenge. That’s just demonstrating a firm grasp of reality, something Fox News, Carlson more often than not, and the President find difficult.
*sorry Domingo
That’s what I’m talkin’ about Kerry Elson. Elson wrote this before reading yesterday’s post, but major props to her for the perfect follow up.
“Totally legitimate reasons that I can’t go for a run.”
My fav:
“I’m supposed to meet a friend in six hours. If I go for a run, I might enjoy it so much that I end up running for the full six hours. I’m a good friend and I don’t want to be late, so even though I would love to go for a run I will not.”
New Year’s resolutions are a weird example of social contagion because the refreshing of the calendar is an odd catalyst for self-improvement. If anyone’s serious about self-improvement, why wait until such an arbitrary starting point? You shoulda got started yesterday.
Despite that cynicism, I’m all-in on alternative types of resolutions—ones grounded in greater self-acceptance. Maybe people should resolve the following types of things:
The Slate staff has taken this one step further by advising that you mark the New Year by embracing vices instead of resolutions—whether sleeping in on weekends, driving when you can walk, or having a cigarette.
Count me in on Slate’s contrarian, probably tongue-in-check thinking, as another viable alternative to most people’s constant striving for some sort of idealized perfection.
Wouldn’t our mental health be better if this year we dedicated ourselves to trying to accept our limits, our insecurities, our imperfections?
I’ll lead the way with this overarching resolution—I resolve to expect less from myself this year. “Friends” will wonder how that’s possible, but they no doubt mean well.
If you think I’ve finally totally lost it, knock yourself out trying this.
Postscript: Via email, a PressingPause loyalist replied thusly:
“I agree the goal of embracing ones imperfections is one of the most valuable, but how does having a goal in general mean someone is striving for idealized perfection? Also, I like having society wide markers like holidays. I think it makes us feel more like a community. And some people may stress over breaking their resolutions, but not everyone. I just think it’s just the idea of new beginnings. Like baptism or new growth in Spring.”
And as of 1/1/20, ours is free*.
“Zero-fare transit systems report many benefits. Going zero-fare increases ridership which in-turn improves the environment and reduces congestion. It enhances access and equity making communities more livable. Eliminating the fare reduces barriers both for those individuals that can afford to pay as well as those that cannot. And zero fare makes boarding easier and faster which reduces travel times for all.”
Intercity Transit reports that less than 2% of its revenue was coming from fares.
I detect a trend, people paying small amounts with dollar bills and coins is too time consuming. How long until the Costco food court realizes this and soft frozen yogurt is “free”?
*a portion of our sales tax revenue funds it
And ours is now even more accessible.
“Starting January 1, 2020, Timberland Regional Library is no longer charging overdue fees on our collection materials. In addition, we are currently working with our system vendor to remove existing overdue fines. Why are we making this change while facing budget challenges? Research has shown that overdue fines act as an emotional barrier for many people and create a disproportionate financial impact on many in our communities. Library fines represent less than 1% of TRL’s overall revenue and data indicates that it is costing more in staff time to collect overdue fines than TRL receives in fines revenue. We’ve heard from patrons who have stopped using library services altogether because they can’t pay their fines, or they worry about being judged for being unable to pay. They’re not attending programs, accessing online resources, asking for help in finding a job, or utilizing the library in any other way that would enrich their lives. Eliminating overdue fines is a means to bringing people back into the library and supporting our communities.”
Don’t take advantage though.
“Patrons are still responsible for ensuring that items are returned by the due date. This Fines Free policy does not impact fees for lost and damaged items, those charges will remain on patron accounts. Items overdue for longer than 28 days will be considered lost, and patrons will incur a replacement fee for the item. Accounts with more than $10 in fees will have their borrowing privileges suspended until the item is returned or the replacement fee is paid.”
Pressing Pause 