190 Matching Annotations
  1. May 2024
    1. Catholicism

      News to me that Catholic liberals don't exist, and news to them as well: https://www.ncronline.org/opinion/ncr-connections/liberal-catholicism-weve-been-here-all-along

    2. Liberalism is, truly, the love that dare not speak its name.

      Think "the love that dare not speak its name" is a stupid cliche? "Truly" should fix that.

    3. These values will persist no matter how evil the moment may become, and by whatever name we choose to whisper in the dark.

      I'll share this conclusion with the democratically-elected Maga fascists as they're loading their rifles. Thanks for the read!

    4. as the world picture darkens, her dark picture illuminates

      Ah! Sublime turnabout!

    5. One turns back to Helena Rosenblatt’s 2018 book, “The Lost History of Liberalism,”

      Christ, he's still going

    6. The rest of us may drown.

      and will want to, after reaching the end of this tortured metaphor.

    7. Motown

      Curious.

    8. The vociferous critics of liberalism are like passengers on the Titanic who root for the iceberg

      Pretty sure the whole issue with the Titanic was that they didn't know about the iceberg until it was too late? Maybe I'm misremembering.

    9. Try publishing an anti-Communist book in China or a critique of theocracy in Iran

      There are no other countries than these two with which to compare American or British democracy. Don't bother looking it up.

    10. and what happened was not that values changed on their own but that a form of rights-based liberalism of protest and free speech convinced just enough people that the old order wouldn’t work and that it wasn’t worth fighting for a clearly lost cause.

      Laws changed. The protests in favor of desegregation were very unpopular at the time. Just because Biden needed to watch Will and Grace to learn empathy for gay people wouldn't mean shit without gay rights being enacted into law.

    11. familiar horseshoe pattern, he has become hard to distinguish from a reactionary

      Radical centrism strikes again!

    12. liberals are far more reticent, since they don’t want to undermine the institutions that give reality to their ideals

      Ah! Why were Biden and Strom Thurmond so close? To not be best buddies would undermine the institution of friendship that gives reality to his ideals - not that he's a reactionary twit, of course.

    13. this gain in social equality is the result of a history of protected expression that allowed gay experience to be articulated and “normalized,” in high and popular culture

      Gay marriage was only just legalized, and the terror of "the gay experience" being "normalized" is what is motivating Kagan's former party more than any fart-sniffing disagreement about positive versus negative rights. If this man opened TruthSocial his head would explode.

    14. a society more broadly equal than the one next door

      Unless they don't have a king, I suppose.

    15. But Thatcher would have said so, too, and just as passionately.

      The woman who famously said society does not exist would also want a fair and free one? Curious! https://newlearningonline.com/new-learning/chapter-4/neoliberalism-more-recent-times/margaret-thatcher-theres-no-such-thing-as-society

    16. people in Ohio

      ?

    17. is uninspiring to the idealizing mind

      And to anyone who still lacks healthcare in this country!

    18. which ended, amid all the compromises

      A failure to act, even though his party held a supermajority.

    19. Actual politics is much more like setting the timer on the coffeemaker than like riding on a beam of light.

      Not one person who isn't drinking paint every morning instead of coffee will find this observation useful.

    20. Still, thought experiments may not translate well to the real world.

      No shit!

    21. a comfortable and secure middle-class life, however boringly Norwegian

      If social democracy means less chin-scratching op-eds in their most respected periodicals, I envy the Norwegians.

    22. No doubt it is a good idea to tell people to keep cool in a fire, but that does not make the fire cooler.

      People aren't told to 'keep cool' in a fire; they are told to escape the fire in as quickly and safely a way as possible. No one is leaning on a jukebox, picking their teeth with a knife.

    23. “Free and equal” is not the same as “free and fair,” and the difference is where most of the arguing happens among people committed to a liberal society.

      Is it? I see a lot of arguing about whether or not gender wokes are brainwashing our children with indoctrination from cartoon shows with too many black people. Do you yourself live in a busy box?

    24. smoking weed all day, though that, too, can certainly be calming in a crisis

      Certainly! Pass the dope, my good sir!

    25. “Reflective equilibrium trains us to see weakness and difference in ourselves,”

      Everyone is always saying this!

    26. racy anecdotes

      Define racy, I beg you.

    27. as the water we swim in without knowing that it’s wet

      sigh

    28. overreaction to those failures may have been destructive

      She vowed to take away milk from schoolchildren.

    29. excesses of capitalism

      See: life-extinguishing climate change, for one small example.

    30. liberal busy box

      An accidental if accurate description of all of the work examined here, including the author's own.

    31. like elevating ordinary people into temporary power, on an Athenian model that’s now restricted to jury service.

      imagine getting a summons to be on the Supreme Court

    32. The relevance of such books may be manifest, but their contemplative depth is, of necessity, limited

      Correction: limited in both depth and relevance.

    33. Kagan details, mordantly, the anti-liberalism that emerged during and after the Civil War, a strain that, just as much as today’s version, insisted on a “Christian commonwealth” founded essentially on wounded white working-class pride.

      Love too be lectured by a war hawk who lied about Iraq!

    34. brave journey from neoconservatism to resolute anti-Trumpism,

      Ha ha! Ha ha!

    35. (“We’ve lost him, Holly. Damn it, we’ve lost him.”)

      It is journalistic malpractice to try and make this funny a second time.

    36. (“C’mon! Breathe, damn it! Breathe! ”)

      1996 called on the landline and they want their joke back.

    37. to the leftist imagination, at least

      YOUR imagination! You do not know what the left thinks! Just say so!

    38. discard them

      If you make a revolution within a parliamentary system, aren't you discarding the idea that the institution is "something of a bourgeois trick"? Make it make sense!

    39. when a dissident rabbi was crucified and mysteriously revived

      "His name? Oh, I think you may have muttered it once or twice while, say, working one's feet into a particularly, vexingly small pair of shoes that, not a week previous, seemed snug but not upsettingly so."

    40. parliamentary government is something of a bourgeois trick played on the working class
    41. nonpejoratively, dogmas

      "Time to use a word almost always used pejoratively."

    42. Say that.

      Who is giving this advice? Is this every talk-show host, in each respective country? Do you need to listen to James Corden's rules of etiquette?

    43. a more expansive term that includes John McCain and Ronald Reagan

      So...just make sure you mention republicans? Who are not alienating? Pro-tip for next time: mention every politician, ever, to make sure the audience of this mysterious "talk-show host" is completely on board.

    44. “Don’t mention the word ‘liberalism,’ ” the talk-show host says to the guy who’s written a book on it.

      Love this incisive, direct and informative writing.

  2. May 2020
    1. Something green and powerful was sprouting, growing roots in the autumnal streets and pushing up towards the future.

      That thing? A tree.

    2. But while Bono and Bob Geldof knew they were never going to go hungry themselves,

      it's not too late

    3. “I always wanted to be a gatherer, and I became a musician because it seemed like the only way to get people to gather together.”

      I have good news for Amanda regarding literally hundreds of other vocations

    4. it doesn’t even have to be good!

      ;)

    5. “I think this is it, Jack,” she said. “A revolution.”

      Narrator: It wasn't

    6. In one, her life will continue as it always has, she will make music and watch her son grow up. In the other, she will retreat to a fortified compound to eke out subsistence farming in parched soil.

      I wonder which she'll choose?

    7. briefcases and smiles

      NAME A MORE ICONIC DUO. I'LL WAIT.

    8. “Can’t help you.

      I REFUSE TO LOOK AT HER

    9. She paused, sipped her drink.

      imagining a "SLURRRPPPPPP" that lasts for thirty seconds

    10. Foreigners come shooting, and the police do nothing.

      she seems nice

    11. It was hard to forget the legacy of communism in Prague, which knew its dark side better than most places.

      it was also not that long ago, honestly

    12. WB_wombat_top

      okay now I'm just realizing I have no idea what the fuck this is supposed to mean

    13. The Union of Socialist Soviet Republics was born out of war in 1922 and euthanised itself in 1991.

      "In this essay I will..."

    14. It’s hard not to draw parallels.”

      I will bet cash money that this is one of ten times this person will bring up her "Bachelor's in Chinese studies" before the day ends

    15. especially if food crops begin to fail

      agreed that this would not be a good thing for society

    16. the scale of the task.

      we're talking about a concert, right?

    17. “So, if I stand still, but five hundred people fly to see me, is that better for the environment?” she asked.

      No.

    18. “Yes, you don’t want land, you want other people,”

      but you'll also want land. just something to think about

    19. Even if he’s okay, he might be living in a lawless dystopia.”

      a lawless dystopia does not sound 'okay' to me but to each their own I guess

    20. The day after Antwerp, I woke from dreams of being trampled by animals made of smoke to find Amanda’s crew watching Greta Thunberg on their phones.

      Here we go

    21. But safe in the corridor, guests could pretend all was normal.

      whispers it's just construction

    22. more ways than one

      wait what's the other way

    23. This will not be enough in the 21st century.

      more wombat tops! now!

    24. we just wanted a nice evening out and to hear some songs.

      oops! wrong concert

    25. There were tears on my cheeks.

      "not mine, though"

    26. “I don’t think that’s quite ‘on message’ for Amanda,” I said, but I wrote it down anyway.

      they're not her opinions! why would they be on message for HER?

    27. A man in sunglasses, hitherto silent, spoke up calmly. “Nothing will change until we start killing the rich. We need to kill bankers.”

      is it too late to make the profile about him

    28. mental to-do list
      1. write good song
    29. This got an easy cheer,

      "she's done!"

    30. the link with women’s reproductive rights was not immediately apparent to them

      I'm not sure I'd argue that the children are dumb, as Jack is here. Maybe, being Belgian, they don't speak English?

    31. A sea of silent faces looked back at her uncertainly

      was it the strange woman yelling at them to play the ukulele naked. was it that.

    32. all leaders are imaginary

      all fruit is vegetables! all cows are people!

    33. same tunes

      famous '60s protest song, "Y.M.C.A."

    34. morning

      *fuck-o-clock

    35. dozen
    36. I was reminded of Martin Luther’s 95 Theses five hundred years ago, which had triggered a complete upheaval of the European social order. Along with centuries of war.

      KIDS, NO! YOU KNOW NOT WHAT YOU DO

    37. ‘fuck o’clock in the morning,’

      oh my

    38. Or perhaps there would not be a meeting.

      Ah! Very curious

    39. no people around

      is the argument here that total extinction makes feminism superfluous?

    40. ‘normal people’

      ???

    41. What mattered was people’s growing fear that society was spinning out of control, and nobody was at the wheel.

      there's a bunch of nazis down the street, yeah?

    42. I suspected that it didn’t matter if it was true or not in the immediate sense.

      Really? Seems important

    43. the police lined up to buy cakes at the bakery.

      ominous

    44. how my writing was actually helping the planet;

      do Medium posts convert carbon dioxide to oxygen? if not, I have bad news for you

    45. What are you doing to help? How are you contributing?”

      "Why can't Amanda Palmer become a cobbler instead?"

    46. It seems to be getting darker and darker outside, and nobody seems to know what’s happening.

      it's called "night" and happens every 24 hours? wtf

    47. beneath that was a more general anxiety, expressed in lines Amanda would repeat every show as she tried to justify her work to her audience and herself.

      "No refunds."

    48. Hannah Gadbsy, Nick Cave and Bruce Springsteen

      that classic trio

    49. many people are looking

      are they though?

    50. questioning of the value of her own work

      ;)

    51. Amanda Palmer understands climate change in the abstract.

      Good!

    52. But in the course of this tour, I found dozens of people suffering the same lonely madness of pretending everything is okay as our biosphere collapses.
    53. We know we should intervene, but we don’t know what to say, so we stare into our soup instead.

      starting to sound like something that has actually happened? hope I'm wrong.

    54. It is the guest sawing off their arm at dinner.

      as they say

    55. elephant in the room

      Fans of part 1 will also remember an unnecessary elephant metaphor.

    56. Climate change.

      it's not good, folks

    57. continent was ablaze

      you could even say...beds were burning? huge missed opportunity to quote fellow Aussies here.

    58. That same feeling fuelled Amanda’s confessional concerts,

      when people realized they were in for a three hour long ukulele performance with added screaming

    59. Further afield, they were marching in Algeria, Bolivia, Catalonia, Chile, Ecuador, Egypt, Haiti, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon.

      ah, I see. people were protesting in lots of countries. Here are some of those countries in alphabetical order. No country that starts with something after the letter "L" deserves inclusion here.

    60. these were not isolated events

      they seem isolated - in content, and by geography - but let's see where we're going with this

    61. I was not expecting to encounter neo-Nazi parades through suburban German streets or to witness a two week occupation of central London by grief-stricken environmentalists.

      Correct, these are not things one normally expects to see.

  3. Nov 2019
    1. or in Iceland’s case - whenever the Hell’s Angels dropped by.

      come again?

    2. And on every single step there was just a very small misunderstanding, but all these steps in a row led to a further widening of the opinion and cultural gap in our society.

      get a grip, Philip

    3. Here were people, on the internet, engaging with weighty issues in good faith.

      fuck that

    4. I didn’t know enough about Austria to know, and nor, I was sure, did Amanda.

      and so we're moving on, right? right?

    5. “You think this is a joke?” he said.

      bud you're wearing leather shorts, calm the fuck down

    6. I’m a mushroom farmer

      is it too late to make the profile about her

    7. “Yes. I mean… officially… ”

      but I know a guy who can get you some

    8. her cleavage just bewilderingly proclaimed NAZIS

      ha, oops

    9. A dozen young white women in black suits, shades and ties, topped with jaunty green berets and with a green sash across their chests.

      is it too late to make the profile about them

    10. wall of flesh

      Let me ride on the Wall Of Flesh one more time Let me ride on the Wall Of Flesh one more time You can waste your time on the other rides This is the nearest to being alive Oh let me take my chances on the Wall Of Flesh

    11. BECAUSE OUR FANS WERE TOO SAD!

      psa - there are other, better reasons for artists not to have sex with their fans

    12. Subul manning the merch trailer in Graz

      precociously

    13. details of why someone wrote “I LOVE IBIZA” on her thigh

      drugs

    14. australians, same thing

      or...Austrians?

    15. Someone handed Amanda a baby

      oh my god, why

    16. It was all very punk.

      Jesus was the first punk

    17. Christ-like

      oof

    18. dressed universally drab

      yeah, fuck ya'll

    19. pink cocoon of femininity

      are we talking about the dress? what is happening here

    20. rural purity

      ?

    21. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go smoke a joint by the water.”

      is it too late to make the profile about this woman

    22. “Shock, initially. Followed by jealousy, curiosity and disgust, all mixed together.”

      wow don't sugarcoat it, Gaby

    23. like diamonds

      or splinters, whatever

    24. I imagined the pushback I might receive, lurking in the toilets with a tape-recorder

      understandably

    25. one of the few political issues which cleaves across the Left

      god I wish this were true.

    26. When you are sometimes making political statements and sometimes riffing on your emotions, is it a bit much to expect your audience to keep track of which is which?

      if only the show was longer!

    27. quadruple entendre

      of course

    28. self-consciously

      this is the one thing it is not

    29. Ah we need to chop your clock off tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock

      say what you will about the content, these are just beautiful lyrics

    30. And yet transphobia is one of the most frequent of the many attacks made on Amanda
    31. On the contrary,

      she's one of the least transphobic people alive actually

    32. As someone who has known Amanda Palmer for a long time, I can confidently state that she is not transphobic.

      phew!

    33. She didn’t mean it unkindly, but I recoiled terribly.

      she told you what song was allowed to be your favorite based on whether or not you had an abortion. seems pretty unkind imo

    34. Subul on the bus in Limerick

      brushing precociously

    35. “These men join the lifestyle thinking it’s going to be Motley Crue in 1987, and it’s not, and they take it out on everyone because they don’t have the partying they think they were promised.”

      any person getting on Amanda Fucking Palmer's tour bus and expecting a Motley Crue vibe instead of an Indigo Girls one needs a great deal of help

    36. She just strides through spaces like she has every right to be there,

      ma'am what are you doing in my bathroom

    37. Wandering its halls, I mused on how much access to space is a function of privilege.

      another surprise. this piece keeps you guessing!

    38. notable for its location

      that notable location

    39. White.Gold.Wind.Water.

      By your powers combined..I AM CAPTAIN EXTROVERT

    40. It just doesn’t have a very strong bass line.

      like protest songs...always...do?

    41. worshipping the sun

      speaking of the far right...

    42. The strumming of a ukulele told me I was in the right place.

      see, this was your first mistake

    43. Vienna is a city of gold and white, on such a scale that it feels like it was built by a departed race of giants.

      Very Zoolander-esque "Is this a school for ants" sentence

    44. In a rare confluence of moral and economic motivation,

      psst...it was only the latter

    45. so-called refugee crisis

      just FYI I think it's fair to call it this

    46. To explain why Amanda Palmer was looking at a bum in Vienna, you might go back to the late 2000s, when drought in Syria exacerbated volatile food prices, raising tensions that by 2011 exploded into civil war.

      there it is

    47. Everything is connected, and every beginning has its own beginning.

      who connects the connectors? who begins the beginning?

    48. A woman pushed forward, fumbling with her belt.

      Never a good thing

    49. “Good. I’ll beat them out of you with a bloody fist,” said Amanda with a grin, then retreated to her bunk.

      Dirk was never seen again

    50. Amanda dropped at the airport in Stuttgart to fly to London for Ash’s 4th birthday

      honestly badass shirt

    51. “on the board,”

      Just curious about what this is. No explanation!

    52. It was a Black Freighter of our very own, sporting a tattooed crew of many nations and firing its cannons at the patriarchy; and with her big boots and commanding voice, Amanda was every inch the pirate captain.

      You'll remember the reference from earlier. And spoiler alert: they do conquer and destroy patriarchy by the end of the tour.

    53. mirrored ceilings that had probably witnessed more than they cared to

      i'm sure, but why is this in here

    54. reproductive rights and fascism have a strong relationship.

      the best of friends!

    55. drank up the language

      just as her patrons drank those very beers

    56. a German man

      And that man's name? Heinrich Luitpold Himmler

    57. It was burned in 1938, as part of the Kristalnacht vandalism, then bought up in a literal fire sale by the city.

      Heartwarming story

    58. it was one.

      well, that explains that

    59. whispered words

      so much whispering!

    60. they walked out smiling.

      they were finally allowed to leave!

    61. shaman

      tugs at collar

    62. “Amanda, I’m sad!” shouted an audience member. “But it’s cathartic!” cried another voice in the dark.

      do we have any oversharers in the audience tonight

    63. If I have a job

      ?

    64. abortion and murder.

      one of these things is not like the other

    65. whispering into the microphone

      that religious thing that always happens

    66. tiny human alive

      having fun reading this not as a child but just a very short person whose wellbeing is in your hands for some reason

    67. The show lasts for three hours, and the only reason Amanda doesn’t push it longer is that the concert venues in Europe have curfews.

      that and the grace of God

    68. Subul Lodi backstage

      precociously!

    69. I could see how it might appeal to Amanda.

      Guardian journalists, lock your doors

    70. precocious lighting designer

      an amazing set of words

    71. In The Lord of the Rings

      nothing underscores the seriousness of the current moment more than a quote from a fantasy fable about hungry, adventure-having hobbits

    72. In late 2019, Western societies are at their most precarious moment since at least the Second World War.

      [citation needed]

    73. Embedded journalism. Unpleasant memories of Iraq went through my head.

      Pardon??

    74. “like Almost Famous, but with fewer drugs and more abortion”,

      The reboot Cameron Crowe envisioned

    75. well-received by her fans

      one would hope!

    76. Like a stand-up set, if stand-up lasted for three hours and made people cry.

      So kind of the opposite of stand-up.

    77. She changes her mind.

      The first artist to do so, in fact

    78. And Amanda, the elephant at the center of it all, marches on and trumpets her opinions to the sky.

      this says a lot about society if you think about it

    79. “Ah, she is a philosopher.”

      No one has said this.

    80. In Austria, she is deeply associated with jam.

      ...

    81. She’s the artist whose lyrics can either save lives with their loving empathy or mock a community’s trauma, depending on how you interpret them.

      the two genders

    82. loudest mime band

      very cursed set of words

    83. “Compassion is very complicated. When I was fourteen years old, a man tied me to a table in his basement.”

      I thought this apparent non sequitur would be tough to beat, but later on we will see that achievement unlocked.

    84. ukulele

      Nothing wrong with this instrument per se, but any performer who plucks on one has a 50/50 chance of being the Amanda Palmer "type." Proceed with caution.

    85. There Will Be Some Introspection —

      And some sponsored content. Backstory behind this, er, journalism can be found here.