For the Record: The Era of Tubes

Got kind of snappish with a good Twitter friend, of which I'm not proud, but for the record, and because we maybe got somewhere:

A bit beyond the criticism of the media well deserved as it is what in the f*#k is Tom Perez doing?
After Iowa which was unforgivable now virtual rally failures?
You know that line "You had only one job"?

— Heim Yankel (@heim2yankel) May 10, 2020

People have a weird idea of what his one job is. DNC raises money and is doing it pretty well. https://t.co/cxwHJjInRn Much better than Republicans except in the dark money field. That's not the problem.

— Leaves of Yas (@Yastreblyansky) May 10, 2020

Philosophic Nub

Not relevant to the post, but expresses something of the way I feel. xkcd via an old Language Log.

Are you sick of being forced to choose between (in the words of Margarita A. Mooney, Associate Professor of Congregational Studies at Princeton Theological Seminary, from a 2012 blogpost at Patheos describing lessons she learned when she was a grad student, on a flight to Paris with the eminent political scientist Paul Sigmund, a son-in-law of Ambassador Lindy Boggs)

Marxist materialism and other forms of collectivism in which the individual is subsumed to the communal and the individual has no inherent worth

and

the idea that economic prosperity is the final ends of individuals and societies

?

Then David F. Brooks (I think there may be a David Brooks Plagiarism Watch situation with Mooney, whose post he links in today's column only after 14 paragraphs of material most of which she discusses) has a philosophy for you! As he says, "Personalism: The Philosophy We Need". Are you sick of philosophies you don't need? Me too! Those things are just taking up space! Plus, they're a fire hazard, since they're entirely made of straw, and extremely dry.