Actually, you’re not being clear, at all. The article you linked, yourself, notes that the 37 murdered political candidates were local government candidates murdered between September and May, not national candidates. Far cry from your insinuation that 37 of Claudia Sheinbaum’s political opponents were murdered so she could win by the hands of the cartels.

“You are shredding the UN charter…with your own hands.”

As he shreds the UN charter…with his own hands.

I didn’t think about it as a dog whistle, but I’m sure it is. That is me being ignorant. I’m not trying to use it in that fashion. It’s not right he owned slaves. Once again, my main point is that he was not completely okay with slavery, as the original person I responded to was asserting.

You’re getting into his role in drafting laws, which I havent commented on because I simply don’t know, off the top of my head, what is attributed to him besides much of the original Constitution. I can only guess in regards to that, and I would guess that, being a white man, he considered and heavily favored the interests of other white men in the drafting of laws, and is responsible for much of the inequity we still see today.

By the way, Nike has been accused of utilizing forced labor in the past.

I mean, I never said it was okay he had slaves. It’s obviously monstrous. And yes, it was cowardly not to be public with his private opinions on the matter. My whole point is Jefferson was not completely okay with slavery, although evidently he was okay enough to own slaves (depending on your viewpoint, that make your opinion of him either better or worse), and that he didn’t fuck a bunch of his slaves.

Edit: And i suppose that contradicts my Nike comparison (hence why I emphasized “softly” there). Still, I’d say Jefferson was a product of his time and place, for the worse.

Edit2: actually no, it doesn’t really. My point was that a person can be uncomfortable with a thing (Nike’s labor practices) and still perpetuate it because of the just vast vast acceptance during the time

I didn’t say you stated them. The person above did – the person I originally responded to. When I say “If you’re going to invoke history…” I mean, “If a person is going to invoke history.” Maybe I should have been clearer there.

I personally don’t believe Boles sanitized Jefferson’s biography. Again, I think he did a good job of outlining his life without letting him off the hook. It’s cool you’ve been to Monticello, and that you know about Jefferson. But if a person is looking for a fair depiction of Jefferson, is that really the place to go? I mean, certainly slaves were the ones who built up that place. I’ve never been, so I can’t say for sure that they (the curators) don’t condemn Jefferson in the way that you’d like, so doesn’t that point kind of undermine your argument? Hey, I’ve never been, so I don’t know. I’d guess Monticello is just as likely or more to have sanitized Jefferson’s life than Boles’ book.

And sure, there were people that opposed slavery centuries before Jefferson. But I’d wager to guess they were in the minority (ie, not the prevailing notion) considering there was an entire industry revolving around the slave trade during Jefferson’s time, consisting of more than just two individuals.

Edit: Sorry, this doesnt really cover your entire comment because of your edits, but yeah I think the general jist is that we disagree about the level of Jefferson’s “alrightness” with slavery. I mean, yeah he’s totally a hypocrite, and you could argue it makes him worse that he acknowledge slavery was wrong, but still perpetuated it. I’m hesitant to do that, because of the time and place that he lived.

I’d very very VERY softly compare it to the fact that today, we know Nike has bad labor practices. Am I going to condemn everyone I know who wears a Nike product? Probably not.

I mean, it’s not defendable on any level, except that the prevailing notion of the time was that black people were inferior to whites. Obviously that doesn’t make it right, and by today’s standards Thomas Jefferson is a monster.

I’m not trying to defend Jefferson as being a good person, but expound upon the (what I consider) false assertion that Jefferson had no issue with slavery whatsoever (from his private letters, he held views against slavery) and that he fucked a bunch of his slaves. I agree with the point of the individual above that the US was built by white men for white men. But, as I said earlier, if you’re going to invoke history in your argument, it’s best to do it with some level of accuracy.

Since I recently read that John B Bole’s biography on Jefferson, I figured I’d chime in. The biography tries hard to put Jefferson in his time and place, establishes him as somewhat of a renaissance man (which, again, shouldn’t be praised much due to his privilege and use of slave labor on his projects), and also highlights out his hypocrisy and disappointing refusal to support anti-slavery movement publicly.

That is all true

I’m not really doing any mental gymnastics, nor am I sucking him off. I’m just pointing out that you weren’t historically accurate in your comment, despite the sentiment being correct. I also happen to think that history is interesting (despite most of it being about rich white men – lots of credit to People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn) and that its important not to always paint over it with a wide brush soaked with our own modern sense of ethics and politics.

Edit: Also, I’m literally a socialist. You could be less reductive.

Not that I don’t agree with the general sentiment, or want to condone slave-owning in any way, but Thomas Jefferson only had children with one of his slaves, and from the historical record it appears to have been a consensual romantic relationship, insofar as one can have one with such a vast power difference (you cannot, really). He did oppose slavery privately, however he owned slaves, himself. Although, again from the record, it appears that they were more a part of his household, and treated (relatively) well, rather than how we typically imagine slaves in the South. Again, still not right, but compared to his contemporaries, you would call Jefferson a good owner. Still fucked up to say. A further disappointing fact is that, despite the fact that he deemed slavery reprehensible, he also deemed it to be political suicide to try to change the status quo. He brought the issue up a few times during his very long political career, but quickly abandoned the efforts. Additionally troubling is that, like many other in opposition to slavery at the time, he thought the solution was to ship black people to an island in the Caribbean so that they could form their own nation. This was not an uncommon opinion during that era – I believe even Lincoln bought into this “solution,” at one point. Also fucked up, but somehow better than the at-the-time alternative of continuing slavery.

Anyways, I don’t mean to undermine your point that many of the individuals who established this country did so with the idea that black and brown people, women, and the lower-class, were less-than, and established it in such a way that made it difficult or impossible for them to participate. However, I think your specific examples aren’t super accurate, and since I just read a pretty fair biography of Jefferson recently called Jefferson: Architect of American Liberty by John B Boles, I figured I would chime in. Really interesting and very much puts a great (in terms of historical stature) and flawed (in terms of our modern sense of morals) man in the context of his time and place.

That’s too bad, but if you didn’t enjoy it then there’s not much point in continuing.

I guess my point was you don’t really have to deal with UG or be very skilled to enjoy playing, but if you didn’t like it (calluses are kind-of a must, tbh) then it’s not worth sinking time into, imo

Aw:( I dont think an annoying website design should shy you away from playing music. Being able to express yourself with guitar is more than worth having to deal with UGs shittiness, or calluses for that matter, even if it just means playing your own rhythm of G-C-D, or some simple chord progression.

Maybe if you pick it back up one day, try not to think of it as a chore to learn songs you like from tabs, and instead just explore the instrument and the sounds you can make with it.

I mean, yeah, you’re coming to a small community of LOTR fans and accusing the author of their fandom of being racist. I’m not sure what you expect lol.

But yeah there are some dubiously racist characterizations in the novels. There are also some moments of reflection, like Sam seeing the dead Harad soldier:

He was glad that he could not see the dead face. He wondered what the man’s name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home.

I mean, the book is written from a Western POV, and by a white Catholic guy who was born in the late 1800s. I think the chances were pretty slim of him having a modern outlook on race, gender, sexuality, etc.

Edit: omg on midwest.social too hahaha

I don’t know, unfortunately. GF watched it on Netflix while she was in Portugal. Then we watched it together in the States, by means of the high seas. Matey.

My GF recently introduced my to a show called Please Like Me. It’s out of Australia from a comedian named Josh Thomas.

Don’t look at the IMDB score or anything like that – this show is pure art. It’s got a lot of heart and the cinematography is better than it has any right to be.

Please Like Me is honestly better than Fleabag in that it is a dramedy that covers real issues, but it resolves more satisfyingly and feels more grounded in reality. It is so good and nobody has heard of it.

I love Ted Lasso season 1, and season 2 to an extent is also very good, but it kinda lost its footing in season 3, IMO.

The longer episodes are not as tight, writing-wise, and the story suffers a quite a bit because of it. Still a good show, but it went from “This might be one of the best shows I’ve ever seen,” to “Yeah it’s not bad, but…”

Hoffman is one of my favorite youtubers. Great presentation, lots of knowledge, straightforward. I know he is the most popular coffee youtuber and that may peeve some people off, but he is the most popular for a reason – because he’s the best.

His aeropress videos really helped me make the best cup of coffee I have ever made – every time – even though I don’t use his exact method. A couple hours watching his videos is well worth the time.

Hey! I’m not on the toilet.

right now…

US colleges after 10,000 Palestinian children are killed: “We need to stop antisemitism on campuses at all costs!”

Dude. I found a working baratza preciso at savers for $11 a couple days after I realized the same thing and decided I’d start hunting for an espresso grinder.

It was the perfect confluence of timing, interest in making different style coffees, and unwillingness to spend a fortune.

Undoubtedly my best thrift store find.

Now I can get pretty much like 75% of the way to real espresso (won’t get crema, but whatever) with my free secondhand aeropress and my $11 grinder. It’s amazing. Another $15 for a milk frother and I’m making yummy cappuccino style drinks easy peasy

Def agree on half-life 2. I even played HL1 before to prep, and weirdly enough enjoyed that more than I enjoyed HL2. Guess it’s hard to understand the hype when you weren’t there when it came out.