Covered this week; The dark side of 21st century capitalism… And you thought you were having an original thought… The portable Paul Krassner, a 2017 interview… Because ‘his brain is a gilded bowl of rotten nectarines’, Trump dissected… New Banksy art unveiled at hospital to thank doctors and nurses… 50 song mash-up from 1984… Tim Bray goes viral, Tim Bray gets some feedback…
May 4, 2020
The pull quote below sort of sums up the issue here and is the reason why I’m checking back in on Amazon here. Workers lives would appear to be disposable on the stage of 21st century capitalism. It’s one of those profoundly broken aspects of the world that we wish could be made better on the other end of the pandemic. As far as Tim Bray, the essay’s author… getting to speak out as he does here is by itself, worth its weight in gold… blowing the whistle on the injustice to the Amazon whistle blowers that got sacked. Way to go Tim… and don’t miss Tim’s in-article hyperlinks, especially the one on France, they’re great and provide an even deeper context.
But I believe the worker testimony too. And at the end of the day, the big problem isn’t the specifics of Covid-19 response. It’s that Amazon treats the humans in the warehouses as fungible units of pick-and-pack potential. Only that’s not just Amazon, it’s how 21st-century capitalism is done.
May 5, 2020
One of those things that gets sensible folk down in what’s fast becoming the new normal in America, would be the gullibility of such large segments of the population. The meat of this article just makes me sad. Also important is understanding that ‘astroturfing‘ in this context is defined as “the practice of masking the sponsors of a message or organization to make it appear as though it originates from and is supported by grassroots participants”.
But according to new research from cybersecurity researchers, many of these protests are neither spontaneous nor organic. Cybersecurity expert Brian Krebs and researchers at DomainTools have separately analysed web addresses including the word “reopen.” And interestingly, they’ve found that many of these can be linked to domains associated with gun advocacy groups, lobbyists, and other conservative organisations.
May 6, 2020
From an interview conducted in 2017 for The American Bystander, this is a phone conversation with Paul Krassner and Ethan Persoff, with lots of hidden sounds and jokes found within each track.
Persoff had been Krassner’s archivist, and the resulting audio is among the most thorough surveys of Paul’s incredible career, highlighting his work protecting reproductive freedoms, working the phone on conspiracy and paranoia, consuming all amounts of LSD and Pot, and looking on the bright side of all things. Optimism!
From 2019-2020, as an act of grieving, the phonecall audio was restructured into a Spoken Word with Electronics record, making a concise audio format biography. This is a perfect introduction to Krassner, one of the most interesting minds of the last century.
May 7, 2020
In a ‘world-circling-the-bowl’ tour de force… David Roth gives us this truly blistering verbal description of Trump’s brand that reads, like reality feels… the man who’s brain is no more than a gilded bowl of rotten nectarines.
And so they ask Trump questions about what he’s saying, and he talks about what he always talks about; he never knows anything useful, cannot tell the truth about the few things he knows, and is pulled by his own preposterous vanity and insecurities back toward the only thing he really cares about, which is himself. This is what the news is made of, now—the things that a vainglorious fraud says, and then the things that other people on television say about how Dangerous and Irresponsible they are, and then what Trump says about that in his amphetamized after-dark Twitter sessions or scrambling tantrum-swept mornings. It’s not that the things Trump says aren’t actually dangerous or irresponsible: They absolutely are. The bigger problem is that the definition by which these things are considered news—basically, because the president says them—is no longer workable.
May 8, 2020
Superheroes come in all shapes and sizes… Banksy lets go of his latest to the walls of Southampton General Hospital in southern England on Wednesday in appreciation of medical personnel and the daily risks they’re taking.
The framed picture, titled “Game Changer,” depicts a young boy sitting on the floor playing with a nurse superhero toy. Batman and Spiderman action figure toys lie in a wastepaper basket next to the boy.
May 9, 2020
The Hood Internet is a good YouTube subscribe if you like their concept… mash-ups of 50 top songs from a given year… this go ’round, 1984.
May 10, 2020
Let’s end the week in the same place as we began, with Tim Bray’s follow-up to a post that reached far and wide that we linked to this past Monday. Appears to have struck a chord, also gives Fresh Daily some nice bookends this week.
Favorite response? · Note, header not in quotes because nobody asked, but I’ll answer anyhow. I could drop a dozen portentous media-heavyweight names and yeah, pretty well everyone weighed in. But it’s not close, my fave was Wonkette: Amazon VP VIP Tim Bray Quitfires Self Over ‘Chickensh*t’ Activist Quitfirings. It says, of yr humble scrivener, “Come the revolution, let’s remember not to eat this one” and “Class Traitor of the Day”. These lodged in what I thought was a thoroughly lucid and spirited take on the situation.
