Skip Navigation

User banner

eightpix

@ eightpix @lemmy.world

Posts
7
Comments
251
Joined
3 yr. ago

Been a student. Been a clerk. Been a salesperson. Been a manager. Been a teacher. Been an expatriate. Am a husband, father, and chronicle.

  • Unfortunately, at this point, ICE has legally "Erik Princed" a US city; over a traffic violation. And they're lying, gaslighting, and giving it cover.

    Jump

  • Yes. Lest we forget, Philly PD bombed the city of Philadelphia.

    Note: 9 MOVE members were convicted and imprisoned on questionable evidence in a similar, violent attempt to serve a "warrant". Unless you, bot, believe that those not charged or convicted are guilty of crimes they were not even charged with, let alone the charges (contempt of court, parole violations, loud noise, animals, illegal weapons posession, threats) the warrants were being served represented in a land where people are innocent until proven guilty.

    8 adults and 3 children dead. For what? Procedure? A monopoly on power? What of the 250 people and 60+ homes destroyed in the ensuing fire?

    All this to say, America is mad racist. Still.

  • Unfortunately, at this point, ICE has legally "Erik Princed" a US city; over a traffic violation. And they're lying, gaslighting, and giving it cover.

    Jump

  • "West Philadelphia born and raised..."

    Takes on a spin, no? I prefer the Roots.

  • What are your top 5 anime shows?

    Jump

  • Im ready for the hate, but I content myself that I've gotten through these before having kids:

    • Fullmetal Alchemist
    • Hellsing
    • Voltron (80s, I think I saw them all)
    • Serial Experiments: Lain

    And since having kids:

    • Neon Genesis Evangelion
    • One Punch Man

  • If you could erase the existence of 3 people, who would they be?

    Jump

  • Alex Jones

    Steve Bannon

    Stephen Miller

  • If you could add one book to the required reading curriculum for people under 18, what would it be?

    Jump

  • I read this in 2011, the same year I got my first iPhone and started teaching in a middle school.

    Yeah, things have trended dystopian and proven this book prophetic in many, many ways

  • If you could add one book to the required reading curriculum for people under 18, what would it be?

    Jump

  • The way into Island is really buying into the paradise that it would be and being willing to learn the ways of the Palanese. Oh, and a healthy disdain for the world you'd leave behind.

    I figure that's only gotten easier with time.

  • If you could add one book to the required reading curriculum for people under 18, what would it be?

    Jump

  • I can see you re-read it after. Hope you had a chuckle.

  • If you could add one book to the required reading curriculum for people under 18, what would it be?

    Jump

  • "There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. 

    "One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world.

    "The other, of course, involves orcs."

    [John Rogers, Kung Fu Monkey -- Ephemera, blog post, March 19, 2009]

  • If you could add one book to the required reading curriculum for people under 18, what would it be?

    Jump

  • Was offered this in high school. I read Brave New World and Island by Aldous Huxley instead. I'd say those.

  • What's it going to take to truly stop the US?

    Jump

  • Yeah, a whole-country general strike in America would only last a day, two tops. They don't have the wherewithal to be good neighbours and politically aligned against monied interests the way a nation-state that has a deeper, older history can.

    The history of America is money, interest, and interested money.

    Southern plantations, 17th century land ownership, trade in enslaved persons, ranching, gold prospecting... and war.

    War against the Indigenous, the French, the Spanish, the Mexica, the French again, the British, the Bolivarians, themselves, and then everyone else, forever.

    The way to defeat America is to end its war-making capacity. Explosions, attacks, weathering, budget restrictions, out-competition, and mutually-assured destruction have all failed as gambits. What remains is to undercut the human element — wounding warriors without wielding deadly force. A loss in military preparedness, a disbelief in the stated mission, a war-weariness.

  • What's it going to take to truly stop the US?

    Jump

  • None of these things will stop the US. What will is a general strike, a new constitutional convention, and the reconstruction of the nation from the ground up.

  • Books I've read in 2025, with brief mostly spoiler-free reviews

    Jump

  • Was glad to see the Huxley interjection. If you are so inclined, you could also read his final novel, Island. Both offer utopian visions and dystopian realities. Huxley, in the 30 years between those books, had a LOT of experiences. Not the least of which was becoming a teacher for a young, impressionable George Orwell.

    I read both Brave New World and Island in my senior year of high school. Island has stayed with me longer because, and this is the important part here, it offers the one thing this world sorely needs and actively rejects, compassion. It "forgive(s) us our trespasses" — to quote a prayer — while emboldening us to live differently than capitalism demands.

  • Reside, vacation, party.

    Jump

  • Reside: Auckland or Barcelona, as long as I can make a living there and be in solid with a like-minded group of locals.

    Vacation: Lago Atitlán or Lombok & the Gilis. I've never been to an island in Oceania, so Indonesia is as close as I've experienced. Atitlán is tough to beat as it's in reach to Xela, Chichi, and the much more touristy Antigua. Plus volcano hikes, kayaks, and lots of yoga spots. Good food, great people, and low cost. I wish only two things: more power to the Campesinos (particularly solar power and less cow dung heating), and fewer military-types on their gap-year.

    Party: Seoul, as nostalgia. Or, if I had an unlimited budget, a Berlin, Amsterdam, Prague loop. I'm old. I deserve parties at whichever impact level I choose on that day.

  • HEIST MOVIES

    Jump

  • I only remember it as fun. I don't remember the quality, the plot, the characters, the setting, or the execution. I think I was trying to get into someone else's pants. Maybe that's the fun I remember.

    I've also never felt a need for a rewatch or sequels.

    Ok, noted. No to Now You See Me.

  • Former MP Charlie Angus planned a quiet retirement. Now, he'd rather 'kick at the darkness'

    Jump

  • I think I only know the Barenaked Ladies version.

  • HEIST MOVIES

    Jump

  • Any man who wants to know how to talk to a woman, should pay close attention to Neil meeting Edie.

    Heat remains in my top 5 movie experiences, 30 years after I first saw it.

  • HEIST MOVIES

    Jump

  • Supporting the Guy Ritchie films, for sure. Those should be right up OP's alley.

    Had tried to remember Wrath of Man with earlier as well.

  • Former MP Charlie Angus planned a quiet retirement. Now, he'd rather 'kick at the darkness'

    Jump

  • We had different musical upbringings:

    "So much on my mind that I can't recline, Blastin' holes in the night 'til she bled sunshine"

    ~ Respiration, Mos Def and Talib Kweli are Blackstar

  • HEIST MOVIES

    Jump

  • Up the alley of Oceans movies:

    • Now You See Me
    • Ronin
    • The Thomas Crown Affair (1995)
    • Mission: Impossible octilogy (skip M:I-2, srsly)
    • The Town
    • Hell or High Water
    • 3:10 to Yuma (either one)
    • Assault on Precinct 13 (either one)
    • 21 Bridges
    • Baby Driver

    Not as flashy as those you mentioned, but real thinkers, and excellent crime films:

    • The Spanish Prisoner with Campbell Scott, Steve Martin, Ricky Jay
    • A Simple Plan with Billy Bob Thornton, Bill Paxton
    • Wind River with Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen
    • No Country for Old Men by the Coens with Josh Brolin and Tommy Lee Jones
    • Fargo by the Coens with Frances McDormand
    • Drive with Ryan Gosling
    • Cop Land with Sylvester Stallone
    • Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
    • Glengarry Glen Ross with 5 of the greatest actors of 20th century Hollywood. (TW: Spacey)

  • What is used as an insult, but doesn't really feel like one?

    Jump