Fuck me. See? This is why I stay my ass out of the VFW. The last thing I need is a shared experience. 😂 We wear the same patch on our right shoulder battle.

And you’re spot on. I think it was a hard thing to rationalize that we went there to help. I mean, “we” thought we were helping. I still don’t know. Either way, you deserve self-empathy friend. Also ketamine. It helped me a lot! 😄

Good on you for making it through the last two decades too! I would gander that we have all gone through some degree of self destruction, and I know some more than others. Keep your chin up and your head down. Don’t drink and drive and if you swim take a buddy.

Yeah, that’s the part that keeps me up at night - the knowing or not of the unknown dead. I know that not everyone that dies from war dies neatly and at the war. And I know that we were only able to account for a body if it was present and discernable. So I don’t know if the estimates are correct or not. But I’m in therapy either way. Mental health is stupid.

Think yourself: Could Hamas really have the capability of producing reliable statistics about the gaza population after month of being bombarded?

Was in OIF. Got mortared, ied’d, and/or shot at nearly every day. Finance nerds still went to work. MI still disseminated no intelligence at all. Marines wrote offensive things and about my mother in very visible places I could not access. In 2003, our csh still kept digital records - on computers and laptops. Everyone did their jobs without any hesitation or meaningful difficulty at all. We all used to be civilians. Everyone has a threshold for the limits of adaptation, but most of us are capable of adapting to war, unfortunately though it may be. I realize that the impression our culture cultivates about war is a guy clutching his knees, weeping, and rocking back and forth while the planet fragments around him - and occasionally that does happen - but esprit de corps tends to motivate people into adaptation. It was my experience that the children in Iraq could follow my leadership and guidance better than their parents. They could also tolerate the terror better. They also had better senses of humor. They could also speak better English. I was an army guy but I still have a hunch that this had something to do with it. So be careful of the narrow perspective that organizational behaviors could only function effectively or reliably when sequestered within utopian sanctuary. People can do amazing things.

I wrote in another comment, but if you examine his life, he was NOT a conformist. My favorite thing about his unconventional style was that he knew he needed a radical music program but had enough humility to know he needed someone else to direct it (he was a very talented musician). So he found the local and famous jazz club pianist and directed him to play whatever sort of music he desired. Johnny Costa, one of my personal icons, was very confused at first because he thought his music would be far too advanced or technical for a children’s show. And if you watch the show, you will notice that he plays every single song in a unique way, every single time. Can you imagine that? Playing the same music for 30 years and almost never playing the same thing. He was an absolute master of not hitting the note that your brain expected him to play, yet still playing enough to resolve and release the tension of the melody. It really is beautiful music.

Whoa, tangent. But seriously, MR was a rebel and the highest calibre of person that Pittsburgh has to offer.

I don’t think he remotely fits the “overly wholesome” aspect of this meme at all. He’s far more relatable to creator #1. He made shows about things that are difficult to talk about with kids. He frequently negotiated topics that others advised against. He was incredibly articulate and relatable when it came to even angry letters from ignorant parents. He communicated with children the same way he would with adults. He literally hired a working jazz club pianist to do the music and when asked what kids songs he was going to be playing, homie’s basically like, “Uh, you do you fam. YOU are the music program.” He even made episodes of his show that were FOR adults. He cared deeply about emotional health and knew how detrimental it is to your development at all stages in life. And he did this for decades as a devout and committed spiritual leader and never mentions God a single time. He knows how to be an example and I would be amazed if he were capable of hiding a sordid and deplorable existence.

He was also an incredible debater and speaker. He does use simpler language on the show but he is very capable. Just adding that because I’m obviously biased. I met him once and my mom wrote him an angry letter. She’s always been a piece of trash but I will never forget his kindness and joy.

How could Last of Us get any scarier? Make all the infected also the corrupted machines from Horizon Zero Dawn. Awesome.

I just love seeing that quote, said in a Germanic language. Fucking hilarious. Hubris is lost on idiots.

Lol, I thought it was just me. 😄

💯 No doubt. They’re merely pointing out that though the empirical winds of ignorance are currently blowing in our beneficial direction, it’s still not a good idea to pee into it. Their change is not rooted in a newfound sense of humanity, empathy, or understanding. It’s just the entitled temper tantrum du jour. They can still turn on the there-are-two-kinds-of-[nonwhite]-people heel midstream and now you’re just peeing on yourself.

That’s fucking hilarious. A whole country of cake eaters.

I work with people that really struggle to grasp this concept. I work rotations and every hitch I find myself spending the first few days explaining that what they call “the economy” I would call the CPI, whereas what capitalists refer to is corporate profits - and never the twain shall meet. But this is yet another complexity that the right benefits from obscuring, and complexity requires thoughtful consideration for understanding. I realize I’m asking a lot from a bunch of blue collar rubes.

I don’t believe for a second that the car won’t be sending either an unremovable error message, a constant and un-mute-able audible alarm, or a complete lockout of subsystems or the entire system itself. The best case scenario is that this is a mild inconvenience.

How are they opposed to bread? It’s impossible to keep up with politics these days. And you can never tell if you’re reading an actual post or just more big leaven lobbyist propaganda.

You’re not wrong, but I have a hard time believing that someone capable of this sort of nuanced perspective wouldn’t already have seen enough evidence long ago for why a TicTac is better suited for POTUS than Trump.

Try to remember that the DNC is just a different brand of capitalism. So, sure, the posturing is expected and a requirement to keep DNC Party Voters in line. But I don’t think the disenfranchised Bernie Bros and independent never trumpers really give a shit which skin suit of propriety the DNC is tucking for at any particular time. They can fuck themselves less than Trump, but not by much.

Lol, from one point of view, true. But if your choice is either Nazi Capitalism or Pandering Capitalism, maybe we don’t have to relegate ourselves to bigotry so quickly. I mean, if we have to live in this late stage capitalist hellscape until the boomers and xgeners die, maybe we don’t have to throw Elon musk a welcome back apartheid party.

The people that need to talk about it have no interest in entertaining the thought.

People should stop giving that coked out drunkard any publicity, that’s literally all he wants.

Well, someone was apparently awake during wonk class. Spot on comrade.

Also anything Alex Jones. This right here, is EXACTLY why he does what he does. No PR is bad PR for him. The dumbest move is trying to tell people about how dumb this guy is. It’s only feeding him. This is how Trump won. Keep your name in the Zeitgeist. Keep gaslighting your victimization and the victimization of your constituency. Gish. motherfucking. Gallop.

Seems I found the first thing you’re ignorant about. Perspective.

I’m sure it would.