From the sublime to the ridiculous

[sejintenej]

This is from a column in the Sydney Morning Herald, an Australian newspaper

If Trump was captain of the Titanic:

1.There isn’t any iceberg


2.There is an iceberg but it’s small and in another ocean


3.The iceberg is in this ocean, but it’s small and will melt in about three days


4.There is an iceberg but we didn’t hit the iceberg


5.We hit the iceberg but the damage will be repaired very shortly


6.I didn’t know how big the iceberg was until a week ago


7.The iceberg is a Chinese iceberg


8.We aren’t taking on water, but every passenger who wants a lifeboat can get a lifeboat and they are beautiful lifeboats because we make the best lifeboats in the world


9.Look passengers need to ask nicely for lifeboats if they want them


10.We don’t have any lifeboats, we’re not lifeboat distributors

[sejintenej]

After suggesting injecting disinfectant to beat covid-19, Trump is being charged with Bleach of the Peace and Domestos Violence




* I used to spin the toilet paper like I was on Wheel of Fortune. Now I turn it like I’m cracking a safe.

* I need to practice Social-distancing from the refrigerator

* Still haven’t decided where to go for Easter —The Living Room or The Bedroom.

* PSA: every few days try your jeans on just to make sure they fit. Pajamas will have you believe all is well in the kingdom.

* Home-schooling is going well. Two students suspended for fighting and one teacher fired for drinking on the job.

* I don’t think anyone expected that when we changed the clocks we’d go from Standard Time to the Twilight Zone.

* This morning I saw my neighbor talking to her cat. It was obvious she thought her cat understood her. I came in my house and told my dog ... we laughed a lot.

* Quarantine Day 30: Went to this restaurant called THE KITCHEN. You have to gather all the ingredients and make your own meal. I have no clue how this place is still in business.

* My body has absorbed so much soap and disinfectant lately that when I pee it cleans the toilet.

* I’m so excited — it’s time to take out the garbage, What should I wear?

* Classified Ad: Single man with toilet paper seeks woman with hand sanitizer for good clean fun.

* Day 27 of Home-schooling: My child just said “I hope I don’t have the same teacher next year” ... I’m offended.

“My kid started home-schooling today, how do I get him transferred out of my class?!”

[sejintenej]

- 2019: Stay away from negative people. - 2020: Stay away from positive people.

- The world has turned upside down. Old folks are sneaking out of the house, and their kids are yelling at them to stay indoors!

- You think it’s bad now? In 20 years our country will be run by people home-schooled by day drinkers.

- This virus has done what no woman has been able to do ... cancel all sports, shut down all bars, and keep men at home!!!

- Do not call the police on suspicious people in your neighborhood! Those are your neighbors without makeup and hair extensions!

- Since we can’t eat out, now’s the perfect time to eat better, get fit, and stay healthy. We’re quarantined! Who are we trying to impress? We have snacks, we have sweatpants – I say we use them!

- Day 7 at home and the dog is looking at me like, “See? This is why I chew the furniture!”

- Does anyone know if we can take showers yet or should we just keep washing our hands???

- I never thought the comment “I wouldn’t touch him/her with a 6 foot pole” would become a national policy, but here we are!

- Me: Alexa what’s the weather this weekend? Alexa: It doesn’t matter – you’re not going anywhere.

- Can everyone please just follow the government instructions so we can knock out this coronavirus and be done?! I feel like a kindergartner who keeps losing more recess time because one or two kids can’t follow directions.

- I swear my fridge just said “what the hell do you want now?”

- When this is over ... what meeting do I attend first ... Weight Watchers or AA?

- Quarantine has turned us into dogs. We roam the house all day looking for food. We are told “no” if we get too close to strangers, and we get really excited about car rides.

✧ ✧ ✧

[sejintenej]

Confused

As a man, I used to think I was pretty much just a normal sort of chap, but I was born white, into a two-parent household which now, whether I like it or not, makes me “Privileged”, a racist & responsible for slavery.

I am a fiscal & moral conservative, which by today’s standards, makes me a fascist because I plan, budget & support myself and my family.

I went to Grammar School & have always held a job. I now find out that I am not here because I earned it, but because I was “advantaged.

I am heterosexual, which now makes me a homophobe. I am not a Muslim, which now labels me as an infidel.

I am older than 70, making me a waste of space and resource who doesn’t understand Facebook, Instagram, or Snapchat. This I accept!

I think and I reason, and I doubt much of what “mainstream” media tells me, which makes me a “Right-wing conspiracy nut.

I am proud of my heritage & our inclusive British culture, making me a xenophobe.

I believe in hard work, fair play, & fair compensation according to each individual’s merits, which today makes me an anti-socialist.

I believe our system guarantees freedom of effort - not freedom of outcome or subsidies ... which makes me a borderline sociopath.

I believe in the defense & protection of Great Britain for & by all citizens, now making me a militant.

I am proud of our flag, what it stands for and the many who died to let it fly, so I must be an imperialist and a racist.

Please help me come to terms with the new me because I’m just not sure who I am anymore!

Funny - it all took place over the last 7 or 8 years!!

If all this nonsense wasn’t enough to deal with, now I don’t even know which damn cloakroom to use!!

[Pe.A]

Confused

As a man, I used to think I was pretty much just a normal sort of chap, but I was born white, into a two-parent household which now, whether I like it or not, makes me “Privileged”, a racist & responsible for slavery.

I am a fiscal & moral conservative, which by today’s standards, makes me a fascist because I plan, budget & support myself and my family.

I went to Grammar School & have always held a job. I now find out that I am not here because I earned it, but because I was “advantaged.

I am heterosexual, which now makes me a homophobe. I am not a Muslim, which now labels me as an infidel.

I am older than 70, making me a waste of space and resource who doesn’t understand Facebook, Instagram, or Snapchat. This I accept!

I think and I reason, and I doubt much of what “mainstream” media tells me, which makes me a “Right-wing conspiracy nut.

I am proud of my heritage & our inclusive British culture, making me a xenophobe.

I believe in hard work, fair play, & fair compensation according to each individual’s merits, which today makes me an anti-socialist.

I believe our system guarantees freedom of effort - not freedom of outcome or subsidies ... which makes me a borderline sociopath.

I believe in the defense & protection of Great Britain for & by all citizens, now making me a militant.

I am proud of our flag, what it stands for and the many who died to let it fly, so I must be an imperialist and a racist.

Please help me come to terms with the new me because I’m just not sure who I am anymore!

Funny - it all took place over the last 7 or 8 years!!

If all this nonsense wasn’t enough to deal with, now I don’t even know which damn cloakroom to use!!

It was so much simpler in your day...

[sejintenej]

Looking back over all the pages of Sublime and Ridiculous I was having a quiet chuckle until I came to the Stella Awards which I put up in January 2017
The Stella Awards which are for cases of stupid legal actions in the USA. They are named after Stella Liebeck who sued MacDonalds over a cup of coffee which was too hot.

Here is a recent case
Rosemary Aquavia, a secretary for the mayor of Naugatuck, Conn., was reprimanded by her supervisor — orally, not even in writing — after she allegedly used a borough fax machine for a personal matter.

Rather than accept the rebuke for breaking the rules, Aquavia filed a federal lawsuit against the town for violating her First Amendment right to free speech.

The case actually made it to trial. A jury of Aquavia’s peers agreed that the slap on her hand was too harsh a penalty, and awarded her monetary damages. The total amount awarded by the sympathetic jury: one cent.

Aquavia appealed the reward to U.S. District Court Judge Janet Arterton, asking her to increase her damages — to one dollar. (Yes, really.) The judge turned down the appeal.

The case took three years from incident to the end of her appeal, and cost Aquavia $5,000 in legal fees. While amusing, think of the costs to the town and the federal government, since the case was heard in federal court. That means you paid for Aquavia’s tantrum to be heard.


For more stupidity try https://stellaawards.com/penny-earned/


In a case recounted by the judge's daughter the English courts occasionally spot something stupid. Going way back in the annals of UK law a case reached the highest appeal court of similar idiocy. The appellant stood to have to pay a moderate amount in damages and a huge amount in costs, all over something completely minor. In his commentary Lord Justice Scrutton saw the facts for what they were. The appellant was found guilty but the case should not have been brought in the first case. He awarded a payment of one penny but the aqgreived party had to pay all legal costs for all the trials. Lord Justice Scrutton then paid the one penny himself.

[sejintenej]

Covid 19 - the quarantine

I hope they give us two weeks’ notice before sending us back out into the real world. I think we’ll all need the time to become ourselves again. And by “ourselves” I mean lose 10 pounds, cut our hair, and get used to not drinking at 9:00 a.m.

New monthly budget: Gas $0 Entertainment $0 Clothes $0 Groceries $2,799.

Breaking News: Wearing a mask inside your home is now highly recommended. Not so much to stop COVID-19, but to stop eating.

Low maintenance ladies are having their moment right now. We don’t have nails to file and paint, roots to dye, eyelashes to re-mink, and are thrilled not to have to get dressed every day. I have been training for this moment my entire life!

When this quarantine is over, let’s not tell some people.

I stepped on my scale this morning. It said: “Please practice social distancing. Only one person at a time on scale.”

Not to brag, but I haven’t been late to anything in over 6 weeks.

They can open things up next month, I’m staying in until August to see what happens to you all first.

Day 37: The garbage man placed an AA flyer on my recycling bin.

The spread of Covid-19 is based on two things: 1. How dense the population is. 2. How dense the population is.

Appropriate analogy: “The curve is flattening so we can start lifting restrictions now” = “The parachute has slowed our rate of descent, so we can take it off now”.

People keep asking: “Is coronavirus REALLY all that serious?” Listen y’all, the churches and casinos are closed. When heaven and hell agree on the same thing it’s probably pretty serious.

Never in a million years could I have imagined I would go up to a bank teller wearing a mask and ask for money.

Putting a drink in each room of my house today and calling it a pub crawl.

For the second part of this quarantine do we have to stay with the same family or will they relocate us? Asking for myself...

Enjoy your day. You don’t have anything else to do.

[graham]

Confused

As a man, I used to think I was pretty much just a normal sort of chap, but I was born white, into a two-parent household which now, whether I like it or not, makes me “Privileged”, a racist & responsible for slavery.

It doesn't make you a racist or responsible for slavery but, because of the color of your skin, you are indeed privileged and have benefited from hundreds of years of institutional racism and slavery. This isn't just some left-wing opinion. It's fact. Look up the UCL legacy of British slave-ownership project. It turns out that plenty of middle class people owned Black people in the West Indies at the time of abolition and they received financial compensation. I have not done any research into it but I would not be surprised to discover that Christ's Hospital owned and benefited from enslaved people during its history.

Please remember (or discover) that calling a policy or institution (or opinion) racist does not assume intent, but impact. For example an "equal opportunity" policy is not racist by intent but is racist in impact if it fails to correct historic racial imbalances in the field it is implemented in. You don't have to acted in a racist way towards an individual to have benefited from racist policies.

I am a fiscal & moral conservative, which by today’s standards, makes me a fascist because I plan, budget & support myself and my family.

see above - if your positions fail to acknowledge that past systemic racism has placed minorities in positions where they cannot do what you do and you don't seek to redress that imbalance, then you're propping up a racist system (again, no claim to intent - I don't call you a racist or fascist)

I went to Grammar School & have always held a job. I now find out that I am not here because I earned it, but because I was “advantaged.

You can have earned it and been advantaged at the same time. As a working class kid who became a professor at one of the world's leading academic institutions (apologies for the humble brag) it took me a while to come to terms with this. I did work hard to get where I am today. But would Black or Brown kids have had the same opportunities that I did? If I had a foreign sounding name, would people have responded to my emails inquiries in the same way? A good body of research tells us the answer is no.

I am heterosexual, which now makes me a homophobe. I am not a Muslim, which now labels me as an infidel.

I think part one is only true if you are - and only you know the answer to that. As for part 2, I'm an apathetic agnostic (I don't know and don't care), which labels me an infidel in the minds of many of the governing Christian class. Religion really is a problem, huh?

I am older than 70, making me a waste of space and resource who doesn’t understand Facebook, Instagram, or Snapchat. This I accept!

I feel this way at 40.

I think and I reason, and I doubt much of what “mainstream” media tells me, which makes me a “Right-wing conspiracy nut.

Do you think, reason and doubt what much of the right wing media tells you?

I am proud of my heritage & our inclusive British culture, making me a xenophobe.

I'm not sure that Black, Asian, and other British citizens feel quite that British culture is quite so inclusive. If you're proud of the inclusiveness but are not listening to those people's concerns then xenophobe is not the right term but ...

I believe in hard work, fair play, & fair compensation according to each individual’s merits, which today makes me an anti-socialist.

I believe our system guarantees freedom of effort - not freedom of outcome or subsidies ... which makes me a borderline sociopath.

Sounds great. If we can give every one the exact same opportunities and support, regardless of income, post-code, etc. Does that happen?

I believe in the defense & protection of Great Britain for & by all citizens, now making me a militant.

Not Northern Ireland?

I am proud of our flag, what it stands for and the many who died to let it fly, so I must be an imperialist and a racist.

When you say you're proud of the many who died to let it fly, does that include the hundreds of unarmed citizens who died at the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre in 1919, the tens of thousands who died during the Mau Mau uprisings, or the millions who died in the Bengali famines? A rational person does not think it is bad to proud of one's country. A rational person is also not proud of mass genocide in the name of imperialism. It is important to have nuance and reflect on the pain our flag causes to some because of its terrible associations, while also be proud of the positive.

Please help me come to terms with the new me because I’m just not sure who I am anymore!
Funny - it all took place over the last 7 or 8 years!!

Maybe you're just getting more conservative as you age, but society in the US, UK, and elsewhere has begun (very slowly) to start reckoning with its past over this same period. Terms like white privelage, systemic racism and so on are difficult to reckon with. They illicit very strong defensive reactions because, after all, how can we be privileged or racist when we worked hard to get where we are and have lots of Black friends. But that's not it. It's the recognition that despite all those things, society is just set up for straight, white people in a way that it's not set up for anyone else. And for straight white people, challenging those ideas is tough. But here's the thing. No one's asking you to say you don't deserve all you have. No one is questioning your work ethic or your morals. No one is saying you're a bad person. What they're saying is that, on average, Black and Brown people who started out in your situation with your drive and work ethic would not have achieved what you did, not because they didn't work hard enough, but because society just wouldn't let them. It takes a lot of thought and introspection to come to terms with that. If you are indeed a socially conservative person who is proud of our British inclusiveness, then I think you'd want to make sure that society changes in a positive way by increasing the representation of minority folks in all walks of life.

If all this nonsense wasn’t enough to deal with, now I don’t even know which damn cloakroom to use!!

Ok, I think you might actually be a homophobe. Just saying.

[Pe.A]

Confused

As a man, I used to think I was pretty much just a normal sort of chap, but I was born white, into a two-parent household which now, whether I like it or not, makes me “Privileged”, a racist & responsible for slavery.

It doesn't make you a racist or responsible for slavery but, because of the color of your skin, you are indeed privileged and have benefited from hundreds of years of institutional racism and slavery. This isn't just some left-wing opinion. It's fact. Look up the UCL legacy of British slave-ownership project. It turns out that plenty of middle class people owned Black people in the West Indies at the time of abolition and they received financial compensation. I have not done any research into it but I would not be surprised to discover that Christ's Hospital owned and benefited from enslaved people during its history.

Please remember (or discover) that calling a policy or institution (or opinion) racist does not assume intent, but impact. For example an "equal opportunity" policy is not racist by intent but is racist in impact if it fails to correct historic racial imbalances in the field it is implemented in. You don't have to acted in a racist way towards an individual to have benefited from racist policies.

I am a fiscal & moral conservative, which by today’s standards, makes me a fascist because I plan, budget & support myself and my family.

see above - if your positions fail to acknowledge that past systemic racism has placed minorities in positions where they cannot do what you do and you don't seek to redress that imbalance, then you're propping up a racist system (again, no claim to intent - I don't call you a racist or fascist)

I went to Grammar School & have always held a job. I now find out that I am not here because I earned it, but because I was “advantaged.

You can have earned it and been advantaged at the same time. As a working class kid who became a professor at one of the world's leading academic institutions (apologies for the humble brag) it took me a while to come to terms with this. I did work hard to get where I am today. But would Black or Brown kids have had the same opportunities that I did? If I had a foreign sounding name, would people have responded to my emails inquiries in the same way? A good body of research tells us the answer is no.

I am heterosexual, which now makes me a homophobe. I am not a Muslim, which now labels me as an infidel.

I think part one is only true if you are - and only you know the answer to that. As for part 2, I'm an apathetic agnostic (I don't know and don't care), which labels me an infidel in the minds of many of the governing Christian class. Religion really is a problem, huh?

I am older than 70, making me a waste of space and resource who doesn’t understand Facebook, Instagram, or Snapchat. This I accept!

I feel this way at 40.

I think and I reason, and I doubt much of what “mainstream” media tells me, which makes me a “Right-wing conspiracy nut.

Do you think, reason and doubt what much of the right wing media tells you?

I am proud of my heritage & our inclusive British culture, making me a xenophobe.

I'm not sure that Black, Asian, and other British citizens feel quite that British culture is quite so inclusive. If you're proud of the inclusiveness but are not listening to those people's concerns then xenophobe is not the right term but ...

I believe in hard work, fair play, & fair compensation according to each individual’s merits, which today makes me an anti-socialist.

I believe our system guarantees freedom of effort - not freedom of outcome or subsidies ... which makes me a borderline sociopath.

Sounds great. If we can give every one the exact same opportunities and support, regardless of income, post-code, etc. Does that happen?

I believe in the defense & protection of Great Britain for & by all citizens, now making me a militant.

Not Northern Ireland?

I am proud of our flag, what it stands for and the many who died to let it fly, so I must be an imperialist and a racist.

When you say you're proud of the many who died to let it fly, does that include the hundreds of unarmed citizens who died at the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre in 1919, the tens of thousands who died during the Mau Mau uprisings, or the millions who died in the Bengali famines? A rational person does not think it is bad to proud of one's country. A rational person is also not proud of mass genocide in the name of imperialism. It is important to have nuance and reflect on the pain our flag causes to some because of its terrible associations, while also be proud of the positive.

Please help me come to terms with the new me because I’m just not sure who I am anymore!
Funny - it all took place over the last 7 or 8 years!!

Maybe you're just getting more conservative as you age, but society in the US, UK, and elsewhere has begun (very slowly) to start reckoning with its past over this same period. Terms like white privelage, systemic racism and so on are difficult to reckon with. They illicit very strong defensive reactions because, after all, how can we be privileged or racist when we worked hard to get where we are and have lots of Black friends. But that's not it. It's the recognition that despite all those things, society is just set up for straight, white people in a way that it's not set up for anyone else. And for straight white people, challenging those ideas is tough. But here's the thing. No one's asking you to say you don't deserve all you have. No one is questioning your work ethic or your morals. No one is saying you're a bad person. What they're saying is that, on average, Black and Brown people who started out in your situation with your drive and work ethic would not have achieved what you did, not because they didn't work hard enough, but because society just wouldn't let them. It takes a lot of thought and introspection to come to terms with that. If you are indeed a socially conservative person who is proud of our British inclusiveness, then I think you'd want to make sure that society changes in a positive way by increasing the representation of minority folks in all walks of life.

If all this nonsense wasn’t enough to deal with, now I don’t even know which damn cloakroom to use!!

Ok, I think you might actually be a homophobe. Just saying.

Someone had a lot of time on their hands...

Just toying whether to address some of your points...

[graham]

[quote=Pe.A post_id=148310 time=1595097291
Someone had a lot of time on their hands...

Just toying whether to address some of your points...
[/quote]

Haha, not really. But the repercussions of the recent spate of police killings here in the US have led to a lot of introspection and action in academia. I’ve been involved in equity, diversity and inclusion initiatives for a while now but have resolved more recently to be more actively anti-racist in my day to day life. I know some (one) on this forum is a keen promoter of books so let me recommend another - how to be an anti-racist by Ibram Kendi. It is certainly very US centric in anecdotes but the perspectives, I think, translate to UK culture too.

[Pe.A]

Confused

As a man, I used to think I was pretty much just a normal sort of chap, but I was born white, into a two-parent household which now, whether I like it or not, makes me “Privileged”, a racist & responsible for slavery.

It doesn't make you a racist or responsible for slavery but, because of the color of your skin, you are indeed privileged and have benefited from hundreds of years of institutional racism and slavery. This isn't just some left-wing opinion. It's fact. Look up the UCL legacy of British slave-ownership project. It turns out that plenty of middle class people owned Black people in the West Indies at the time of abolition and they received financial compensation. I have not done any research into it but I would not be surprised to discover that Christ's Hospital owned and benefited from enslaved people during its history.

Please remember (or discover) that calling a policy or institution (or opinion) racist does not assume intent, but impact. For example an "equal opportunity" policy is not racist by intent but is racist in impact if it fails to correct historic racial imbalances in the field it is implemented in. You don't have to acted in a racist way towards an individual to have benefited from racist policies.

Is it really as simple as colour of the skin? This is a very complex topic with many overlapping strands, some counterintuitive, and it's hard to do it justice in a short comment. In the US or Britain is it as much to do with a white privilege, or a majority privilege? Is it as much to do with a white privilege or, if we're looking at black people, a black de-privilege ? E.g. why do Nigerians in the US or Britain outperform other black people? One would think that if skin colour was the be-all-and-end-all, people whose skin colour happened to be dark would perform similarly. This doesn't really doesn't take into consideration culture vs race. Take it back far enough in the US, and instead of a 'white' privilege, we'd be talking about a 'WASP' privilege. After all, how many Italian-American presidents or nominees have there been? There are plenty of black commentators in the US and Britain who are featured on YouTube who would disagree with a lot of what you are talking about.

[Pe.A]

Confused

As a man, I used to think I was pretty much just a normal sort of chap, but I was born white, into a two-parent household which now, whether I like it or not, makes me “Privileged”, a racist & responsible for slavery.

It doesn't make you a racist or responsible for slavery but, because of the color of your skin, you are indeed privileged and have benefited from hundreds of years of institutional racism and slavery. This isn't just some left-wing opinion. It's fact. Look up the UCL legacy of British slave-ownership project. It turns out that plenty of middle class people owned Black people in the West Indies at the time of abolition and they received financial compensation. I have not done any research into it but I would not be surprised to discover that Christ's Hospital owned and benefited from enslaved people during its history.

I am a fiscal & moral conservative, which by today’s standards, makes me a fascist because I plan, budget & support myself and my family.

see above - if your positions fail to acknowledge that past systemic racism has placed minorities in positions where they cannot do what you do and you don't seek to redress that imbalance, then you're propping up a racist system (again, no claim to intent - I don't call you a racist or fascist)

I think part of this is in the eye of the beholder. Is it to do with minority numbers or 'race'? There's been a black president in the US, but not a Hispanic or Asian one. Even talking about historic prejudices, it's feasible that a 'person of colour' could become King or Queen of Britain, but not if they were Catholic. Go figure.

[Pe.A]

Confused

I went to Grammar School & have always held a job. I now find out that I am not here because I earned it, but because I was “advantaged.

You can have earned it and been advantaged at the same time. As a working class kid who became a professor at one of the world's leading academic institutions (apologies for the humble brag) it took me a while to come to terms with this. I did work hard to get where I am today. But would Black or Brown kids have had the same opportunities that I did? If I had a foreign sounding name, would people have responded to my emails inquiries in the same way? A good body of research tells us the answer is no.

Again, is this to do with race or force of numbers, or somewhere in between. Does race disparity in a particular area equate exclusively to racism The current UK race commissioner Tony Sewell is one who questions the notion, or extent, of institutional racism...

[Pe.A]

Confused

It's the recognition that despite all those things, society is just set up for straight, white people in a way that it's not set up for anyone else.

I disagree. It depends on the area

(Moderators - Were you moderating the previous incarnation of this post - because I think it was a fair and pertinent point to make...?)

[Pe.A]

[quote=Pe.A post_id=148310 time=1595097291
Someone had a lot of time on their hands...

Just toying whether to address some of your points...

Haha, not really. But the repercussions of the recent spate of police killings here in the US have led to a lot of introspection and action in academia. I’ve been involved in equity, diversity and inclusion initiatives for a while now but have resolved more recently to be more actively anti-racist in my day to day life. I know some (one) on this forum is a keen promoter of books so let me recommend another - how to be an anti-racist by Ibram Kendi. It is certainly very US centric in anecdotes but the perspectives, I think, translate to UK culture too.

[/quote]

Not into 'isms' as such, prefer to aim to treat everybody as I would prefer I was treated. Suppose it helps having grown up in a very mixed part of the UK