Being 'into politics '
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Mr. Tea
Shub-Niggurath, Please
Piers Morgan's really taking his sacking by ITV pretty hard, huh?
craner
Beast of Burden
Pertinent to some of the things discussed in this thread:
olivercraner.wordpress.com
The Writing Racket: Balzac’s ‘Lost Illusions’
During his lifetime, Balzac’s debts were as famous as his novels and more widely discussed than his love affairs. Money was the great unifying subject of La Comédie humaine and the legal and moral …
olivercraner.wordpress.com
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I haven't smoked in years but nice to see it's legal.
A few highlights from form House speaker John Boehner's new book:
On Ted Cruz:
It’s no secret that Ted Cruz is pretty much universally loathed. (Boehner writes, “Even Mitch McConnell hated Ted Cruz with a passion I didn’t know Mitch had in him.”) Boehner says of Cruz, “There is nothing more dangerous than a reckless asshole who thinks he is smarter than everyone else.”
On Bill Clinton:
Boehner says Bill Clinton was a fantastic talker, though he could be too slick for his own good. “He could steal your watch right in front of you and you’d be grateful when he told you the time,” Boehner writes.
On Mark Meadows:
Following a failed attempt to overthrow Boehner as Speaker in 2015, Representative Mark Meadows — a Freedom Caucus founder who would later serve as President Trump’s chief of staff — came to Boehner’s office and got on his knees to beg for forgiveness.
“I hadn’t expected to see a grown man huddled on the rug at my feet,” Boehner says. “So I did the only thing that came to mind. I took a long, slow drag of my Camel cigarette. Let the tension hang there a little, you know?”
While Boehner eventually gave Meadows a pass, he adds, “I knew he was carrying a backpack full of knives and sooner or later he’d try to cut me again with them.”
On Nancy Pelosi:
“Nancy Pelosi has a killer instinct and may be the most powerful Speaker ever,” Boehner says of his successor. She understands power, knows how to use it, and rarely “leaves fingerprints.”
Boehner illustrates this point with a story about when, in 2008, Representative Henry Waxman ousted the powerful and much-feared chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, John Dingell, thanks in large part to Pelosi’s work behind the scenes. She had “gutted Big John Dingle like a halibut she found floating around the San Francisco Bay, then calmly sat back and had a cup of coffee,” Boehner says.
On Ted Cruz:
It’s no secret that Ted Cruz is pretty much universally loathed. (Boehner writes, “Even Mitch McConnell hated Ted Cruz with a passion I didn’t know Mitch had in him.”) Boehner says of Cruz, “There is nothing more dangerous than a reckless asshole who thinks he is smarter than everyone else.”
On Bill Clinton:
Boehner says Bill Clinton was a fantastic talker, though he could be too slick for his own good. “He could steal your watch right in front of you and you’d be grateful when he told you the time,” Boehner writes.
On Mark Meadows:
Following a failed attempt to overthrow Boehner as Speaker in 2015, Representative Mark Meadows — a Freedom Caucus founder who would later serve as President Trump’s chief of staff — came to Boehner’s office and got on his knees to beg for forgiveness.
“I hadn’t expected to see a grown man huddled on the rug at my feet,” Boehner says. “So I did the only thing that came to mind. I took a long, slow drag of my Camel cigarette. Let the tension hang there a little, you know?”
While Boehner eventually gave Meadows a pass, he adds, “I knew he was carrying a backpack full of knives and sooner or later he’d try to cut me again with them.”
On Nancy Pelosi:
“Nancy Pelosi has a killer instinct and may be the most powerful Speaker ever,” Boehner says of his successor. She understands power, knows how to use it, and rarely “leaves fingerprints.”
Boehner illustrates this point with a story about when, in 2008, Representative Henry Waxman ousted the powerful and much-feared chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, John Dingell, thanks in large part to Pelosi’s work behind the scenes. She had “gutted Big John Dingle like a halibut she found floating around the San Francisco Bay, then calmly sat back and had a cup of coffee,” Boehner says.
craner
Beast of Burden
It's nice and safe now for Marina to do her routine:
www.theguardian.com
After humiliation in Hartlepool, where now for smalltown detective DI Starmer? | Marina Hyde
When a character’s USP is that he gets the job done – and then he singularly fails to get the job done, questions will be asked, says Guardian columnist Marina Hyde
www.theguardian.com
craner
Beast of Burden
Talking of my favorite specimens, this was an interesting blog post by Ian Dunt recently which gives you some insight into the world of journalism and could have come straight out of Lost Illusions:
iandunt.com
Some bits undoubtedly correct, but others incredible in the contempt for readers displayed and very narrow view of what is possible, for example:
Nine tips for political writing
I’ve been editing other people’s political writing almost all my journalistic career. I hate it. It gives me almost no pleasure at all. Some editors are genuinely good people. They take…
iandunt.com
Some bits undoubtedly correct, but others incredible in the contempt for readers displayed and very narrow view of what is possible, for example:
craner
Beast of Burden
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie | Official Author Website
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is an acclaimed Nigerian author. Her work has been translated into over thirty languages and has appeared in various publications, including The New Yorker, Granta, The O. Henry Prize Stories, the Financial Times, and Zoetrope.
www.chimamanda.com
wild greens
Well-known member
GB News seemingly the end game of all the strange peripheral anti-everything people that England has been fostering for years now. I haven't watched it live but did see that clip of a miscellaneous "Lady" telling the showbiz editor of The S*n the minute differences of the variety of nonces and why we should let Prince Andrew off the hook.
Seemingly the inference there was that Clinton was a supernonce so that should mean we can all still throw racist slurs at Harry's Mrs
It's almost like the whole country is on a collective comedown and this is the point where all the numbers have stopped answering & the only booze that's left is warm cans of skol
Seemingly the inference there was that Clinton was a supernonce so that should mean we can all still throw racist slurs at Harry's Mrs
It's almost like the whole country is on a collective comedown and this is the point where all the numbers have stopped answering & the only booze that's left is warm cans of skol
wild greens
Well-known member
I often think it would be good to get into politics and just blag your way onto all these mad punditry programmes saying all kinds of outlandish shite, but then they'd dig up that time I pretended to be a doctor on dissensus and I'd get cancelled.
Probably better to just stay self-employed and occasionally go the pub
Probably better to just stay self-employed and occasionally go the pub
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie | Official Author Website
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is an acclaimed Nigerian author. Her work has been translated into over thirty languages and has appeared in various publications, including The New Yorker, Granta, The O. Henry Prize Stories, the Financial Times, and Zoetrope.
Surely this is just the modern ittiration of prudent middleclass victorian moralism. And as everyone knows, it is within the middle class (particularly amongst professionals) where the generation war is felt most acutely. If you're in big business or finance, spats are personal games of oneupmanship rather than totalising, and if you're working 14+ hour shifts with shit pay, there is no real need to self-police people as much.
another way to think of this is how ever since the 19th century the idea of the philanthropic feminist lady harbouring moral concern for those below her in the class hierarchy has been valourised in especially British society - and thereby, its colonies. For this kind of person, pursuing anything for nothing but financial gain is generally abhorrent, simply because their world operates according to idealist principles. In this sense ivory tower is a much broader term to refer to a certain segment of society which flexes its progressive credentials.
insofar as the middleclass itself is an unstable formation, and can include everyone from heads of departments, supervisors, to the most highly payed workers, because its position is so unstable and modulated, it is the class which is most dependent upon having an ideological view of society. This is why it is a class with no future, not because it won't continue to exist (it will) but because it is inherently liminal and cannot constitute itself as anything else.
Neither does the stable/unstable dynamic involve a progressive/regressive judgment. The working class occupies an insecurely stable position, and its conditions are absolutely not preferable to the (fairly secure) instability of the m/c.
Whilst the lumpens are the refuse of society, the middle class are the necessary buffer zone, especially given that the classical artisanal middle class of medieval and embrionic capitalist times no longer exists.
insofar as the middleclass itself is an unstable formation, and can include everyone from heads of departments, supervisors, to the most highly payed workers, because its position is so unstable and modulated, it is the class which is most dependent upon having an ideological view of society. This is why it is a class with no future, not because it won't continue to exist (it will) but because it is inherently liminal and cannot constitute itself as anything else.
Neither does the stable/unstable dynamic involve a progressive/regressive judgment. The working class occupies an insecurely stable position, and its conditions are absolutely not preferable to the (fairly secure) instability of the m/c.
Whilst the lumpens are the refuse of society, the middle class are the necessary buffer zone, especially given that the classical artisanal middle class of medieval and embrionic capitalist times no longer exists.
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craner
Beast of Burden
You should definitely read my Balzac essay, Third, it's all about this. You'd love it.
Yes. Looking forward to it guvnor. Big fan of Balzac.