Deckie007
Well-known member
Nobody beats the Wiz.
OT: The News Thread
- Thread starter MindzEye
- Start date
Wayward DP
Well-known member
linked to the loneliness epidemic, incels, etc.
View: https://x.com/HansFiene/status/1941147806703751512
View: https://x.com/HansFiene/status/1941147806703751512
LeafGm
Well-known member
Doesn’t help either that a lot of these boys are growing up listening to Man-O-Sphere grifters like Andrew Tate, Jordan Peterson or Joe Rogan, and becoming repugnant to most women as a result.
Wayward DP
Well-known member
LeafGm
Well-known member
This is something every social media company is aware of and uses to their advantage.
Anger drives engagement.
Cal Gal
Well-known member
Just now learned that Bill Moyers passed away last month, aged 91. Here's a tribute from Andy's tiny, mighty bookstore in Sonoma.
From Andy
Bill Moyers
Last week my old friend Bill Moyers died in New York. He was 91. In the course of his life he’d been a journalist and a TV personality. He’d once served as LBJ’s press secretary, and later on it was undoubtedly his thoughtful and quiet stewardship that helped elevate the quality of public broadcasting. Bill Moyers was a man of reason, and now, sadly, he is dead. It wasn’t a front page story; in fact, it was several pages in and buried below the fold-–not news, in other words. But for me, it made me stop, and I found myself drifting back to those early tumultuous days of the bookstore.
If you are of a certain age you might still remember the Sonoma Valley Poetry Festival, the goal of which (apart from the sheer love of verse) was to win an appearance by Bill Moyers. He’d just written a large, wonderful book–The Language of Life–and Doubleday, his publisher, had planned a national tour. Then calamity struck: Bill was laid up in the hospital undergoing heart surgery. A book tour was out of the question. He could go to one place, maybe, eventually. But where?
That’s when his editors came up with the novel idea of a contest. The bookstore or chain store or public library that put the most effort into promoting poetry would “win” Bill Moyers for a weekend.
You can see where I’m going with this. At Readers’ we sat around and fantasized. What if it was us? Could we even compete, let alone win? What would that entail? It seemed unlikely. We didn’t have the staff of a corporation like Barnes & Noble. We didn’t have the wealthy patronage of the New York Public Library. We were nobodies from a small, West coast town. Doubleday barely knew we existed. But we went to work, anyway.
We did as many wacky things as we could dream up, whatever related to poetry. We enlisted practically everyone. At our behest, clerks at Sonoma Market stuffed their customers’ bags with printed poems when they checked out. My wife, Lilla, stood on stage and read poems during intermission at the Sebastiani Theater. We formed a Beatnik Drill Team for the Fourth of July and marched around the Plaza in flip flops and sunglasses and black berets, all the while reading in unison from Alan Ginsburg’s iconic poem, Howl. We persuaded the City to close off one end of Napa Street so we could stage a street festival and people could stand on soapboxes and recite their work. Last but not least, we cobbled together a book of local poets, the proceeds of which went to benefit the Poets in the Schools program. In the end, we were the little engine that could. No other entity in the country came close to what we did.
The day we sat with Bill and Judith Moyers on the stage of the Sonoma Valley High School gym the whole town seemed to be celebrating. 1700 people, they said. There were reporters and TV cameras. Everyone was eager to hear about poetry, I’m sure, but they were also proud of their efforts and equally interested in meeting Bill Moyers in the flesh. Ada Limon, I believe, was behind a table as well, helping to sell books. Ada Limon, the future Poet Laureate.
It was a grand event. Bill could not have been more charming or authentic or more well-spoken. He was modest, too, telling the crowd that without his wife, Judith, he could never have had such a successful career. And he meant it.
I remember how egoless he seemed, how genuinely interested he was in other people and what made them tick.
He grew up in a small town in Texas, not unlike Sonoma. He was steeped in the ministry and spent much of his life wrestling with questions of morality. Yes, he might have owed his initial fame to Lyndon Johnson, but his interests always went far beyond politics.
I wonder what he would make of the antics we’re experiencing today–the vile, thuggish, distasteful proclamations of Stephan Miller, Tom Homan, J.D. Vance, and yes, our current president. I expect he would feel disappointed, as if his lifelong passion for decency and justice was being mocked by Know-Nothings, as if the whole edifice of the America he cherished had turned somehow into a sad, flimsy house of cards.
I say Bill Moyers was my friend, but he was more than that. He was everyone’s friend, really. He was rooting for all of us.
–Andy Weinberger
From Andy
Bill Moyers
Last week my old friend Bill Moyers died in New York. He was 91. In the course of his life he’d been a journalist and a TV personality. He’d once served as LBJ’s press secretary, and later on it was undoubtedly his thoughtful and quiet stewardship that helped elevate the quality of public broadcasting. Bill Moyers was a man of reason, and now, sadly, he is dead. It wasn’t a front page story; in fact, it was several pages in and buried below the fold-–not news, in other words. But for me, it made me stop, and I found myself drifting back to those early tumultuous days of the bookstore.
If you are of a certain age you might still remember the Sonoma Valley Poetry Festival, the goal of which (apart from the sheer love of verse) was to win an appearance by Bill Moyers. He’d just written a large, wonderful book–The Language of Life–and Doubleday, his publisher, had planned a national tour. Then calamity struck: Bill was laid up in the hospital undergoing heart surgery. A book tour was out of the question. He could go to one place, maybe, eventually. But where?
That’s when his editors came up with the novel idea of a contest. The bookstore or chain store or public library that put the most effort into promoting poetry would “win” Bill Moyers for a weekend.
You can see where I’m going with this. At Readers’ we sat around and fantasized. What if it was us? Could we even compete, let alone win? What would that entail? It seemed unlikely. We didn’t have the staff of a corporation like Barnes & Noble. We didn’t have the wealthy patronage of the New York Public Library. We were nobodies from a small, West coast town. Doubleday barely knew we existed. But we went to work, anyway.
We did as many wacky things as we could dream up, whatever related to poetry. We enlisted practically everyone. At our behest, clerks at Sonoma Market stuffed their customers’ bags with printed poems when they checked out. My wife, Lilla, stood on stage and read poems during intermission at the Sebastiani Theater. We formed a Beatnik Drill Team for the Fourth of July and marched around the Plaza in flip flops and sunglasses and black berets, all the while reading in unison from Alan Ginsburg’s iconic poem, Howl. We persuaded the City to close off one end of Napa Street so we could stage a street festival and people could stand on soapboxes and recite their work. Last but not least, we cobbled together a book of local poets, the proceeds of which went to benefit the Poets in the Schools program. In the end, we were the little engine that could. No other entity in the country came close to what we did.
The day we sat with Bill and Judith Moyers on the stage of the Sonoma Valley High School gym the whole town seemed to be celebrating. 1700 people, they said. There were reporters and TV cameras. Everyone was eager to hear about poetry, I’m sure, but they were also proud of their efforts and equally interested in meeting Bill Moyers in the flesh. Ada Limon, I believe, was behind a table as well, helping to sell books. Ada Limon, the future Poet Laureate.
It was a grand event. Bill could not have been more charming or authentic or more well-spoken. He was modest, too, telling the crowd that without his wife, Judith, he could never have had such a successful career. And he meant it.
I remember how egoless he seemed, how genuinely interested he was in other people and what made them tick.
He grew up in a small town in Texas, not unlike Sonoma. He was steeped in the ministry and spent much of his life wrestling with questions of morality. Yes, he might have owed his initial fame to Lyndon Johnson, but his interests always went far beyond politics.
I wonder what he would make of the antics we’re experiencing today–the vile, thuggish, distasteful proclamations of Stephan Miller, Tom Homan, J.D. Vance, and yes, our current president. I expect he would feel disappointed, as if his lifelong passion for decency and justice was being mocked by Know-Nothings, as if the whole edifice of the America he cherished had turned somehow into a sad, flimsy house of cards.
I say Bill Moyers was my friend, but he was more than that. He was everyone’s friend, really. He was rooting for all of us.
–Andy Weinberger
Wayward DP
Well-known member
death to the anger-loving algos
WeHaveMoreCupsThanYou
I will get banned again soon, worry not.
The Marner Virus.
axlsalinger
Well-known member
axlsalinger
Well-known member
Cal Gal
Well-known member
Ben Folds, Who Stepped Down From Kennedy Center One Minute After Trump Took Over, Releases Defiant Live Album With National Symphony Orchestra
Ben Folds, Who Stepped Down From Kennedy Center One Minute After Trump Took Over, Releases Defiant Live Album With National Symphony Orchestra
After announcing his resignation as the first-ever artistic adviser to the National Symphony Orchestra in February, just one minute after President Donald Trump’s administrative regime change took hold at the Kennedy Center, Ben Folds has surprise-released the album “Ben Folds Live with the...
axlsalinger
Well-known member
Volcanologist
Well-known member
a veritable buffet table of dystopia
axlsalinger
Well-known member
yup ... and the graphic has that too
axlsalinger
Well-known member
Wayward DP
Well-known member
uh, you mean a vacation? FFS
WellPlayed
Well-known member
U.S. leave is wild. Drop that 3 month old baby off with some strangers and get back to work.
Cal Gal
Well-known member
Yeah, that was another thing. By choice I never had kids. Once in awhile someone would try to guilt trip me into doing something for "the company" because kids weren't in my life, so I could, obviously, have the "free" time to do some task folks with kids just. . .couldn't without more difficulty. Enjoyed telling 'em I couldn't bc I'd be on vacation. 
MindzEye
Wayward Ditch Pig
Something I've generally noticed with Gen Z is that they're pretty obsessed with the idea that they've invented fucking everything in the modern world. Including vacation now, apparently. But yeah, a huge portion of their trends that they've "invented" have been recycled shit from when some of us were young.