Category: Politics, justice, etc.

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A great Huffpost read about life as a cable tech. The tales of America’s seedy underbelly are disturbing, as is the LGBT bigotry, but also the horrific conditions under which these people work; I’ll never give a cable guy grief again.

Read the full article

I was filling out the work orders and emailing my supervisor to give him a heads-up on a possible call from a member of every cable tech’s favorite rage cult, when his wife knocked on my van window. She stepped back and called me “ma’am.” Which was nice. Her husband with the tucked-in polo shirt had asked my name and I told him Lauren. He heard Lawrence because it fit what he saw and asked if he could call me Larry. Guys like that use your name as a weapon. “Larry, explain to me why I had to sit around here from 1 to 3 waiting on you and you show up at 3:17. Does that seem like good customer service to you, Larry? And now you’re telling 7 to 10 days? Larry, I’m getting really tired of hearing this shit.” Guys like that, it was safer to just let them think I was a man.

She said she was sorry about him. I said, “It’s fine.” I said there really wasn’t anything I could do. She blinked back the flood of tears she’d been holding since God knows when. She said, “It’s just, when he has Fox, he has Obama to hate. If he doesn’t have that …” She kept looking over her shoulder. She was terrified of him. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just need him to have Fox.” I got out of my van.

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Here’s the thing. We — users, especially those of us in the U.S. and Europe — are what Facebook values. They make money from each of us. A lot of money. In 2017, each U.S. user was worth $20.21 (and Canadian users, $26.76). At some point, we have to accept the reality — continuing to use Facebook means we’re complicit in the drug killings in the Philippines, the rise of hate content, the harassment of women and minorities, and the ongoing genocide of the Rohingya. As long as we stay on the platform, Facebook will continue to make money selling ads from unsavory characters. It’s time to quit and make a statement.

With the impending doom of G+, this is on my mind a lot.

View this collection on Medium.com

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Please make a post or posts about a Jewish thinker, artist, activist etc. that has made you or your world better. Tell me about the impact they had on you and the world. Big or small, I want it all. sayeth Mo Jave

It’s hard to narrow this down to even one, as famous people aside, I grew up in Skokie, IL and then went to college an hour or so north of NYC, so virtually every single best friend of mine since I was four has been Jewish.

But if we’re going got talk famous people — Jewish-American culture is American culture, we’re all soaking in it — I’ll name-drop Harlan Ellison and Chris Cornell.

I realize he is a problematic figure now, but Ellison was the writer I wanted to be when I was in my teens and 20s. No other author has ever had the effect on me that he did.

Cornell is my vision of gorgeous manhood and musical genius; if there’s an album I’ve listened to more than Supeunknown, I’m not sure what it is.

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I was re-bagging some old comics yesterday and was reminded just how many goddamn ads there were in these things. And then I thought about how bizarre it is that people were so concerned about the impact of the content of comics books on children, but nobody ever seemed to give a damn about all of the product scams and MLMs foisted on kids in this medium. Fucking capitalism, man.

Bonus shock for seeing all the ads featuring OJ Simpson (and to a lesser extent, Pete Rose) BITD.