Fear of a Black playing Country music.

So Queen Bey released some Country songs from her new, unreleased album.

Rhiannon Giddens is featured on one of the tracks, playing some banjo.  I discovered her more than a year ago.  And now, some white supremacists are complaining that Blacks are taking Country from them.

Well, that really ain't true.  It might be an overstatement of fact to say they stole if from us, first.  But just like most "American" music. If it were not ours, Black folks' music, singularly, first, it was built on stuff that was first, ours.

I am tagging John McWhorter, because he is the Black man so stupid he runs around saying "Western Culture" is the best.  But that Black man does not mean, far as I know, because it is greatly stolen from other, not white European folk.  And I am tagging the OWL because even if she hasn't mentioned this "story" yet on her blog.  If and when she does, she will either say something so ignorant about Black  folk I will want to lump her in with certain, unsavory and ignorant (regarding not white folk,)  white Americans.  Or she will do that odious thing, given the number of unsavory and ignorant (regarding not white folk,)  white Americans who comment on her blog.  She will post something about the white supremacist driven fake controversy, without real comment, and let the white supremacist trash spew any kind of anti Black white supremacist trash they like in the comments section, short of using the En word.  As if use of the En word is singularly the signifier one is white supremacist?   

I do babble sometimes.   I need to get back to watching the vid.

The OWL Hearts Bozo!

 "The nearly $355 million disgorgement was, as the law requires, based on the Trump Organization’s ill-gotten gains, including reduced interest rates on loans and profits from two deals that would not have occurred without Trump having lied about his financials."

Why the Huge Penalty in Trump Fraud Trial? 

I am probably breaking some standard composition rule, for front loading what I think is the most critical fact about the verdict in bozo's fraud trial.  This isn't a figure for a fine pulled out of the air.  Like a punitive damages finding by a jury in some defamation, and shit case.  Like what happened in that case against Oberlin College.  Where the jury awarded $33M when even the alleged compensatory damages were flat out fictitious claims, at best.  In the NY fraud case, the fines are based on bozo's company's ill gotten gains.

And who seems to disagree with that?  The OWL.  Former law professor, who seems to have sweet spot for bozo.  Instead of recognizing that bozo was a crook, and got caught.  Shit.  I used to be a member of the defense bar. Even I admit.   People do bad shit.  They break the law.  And get caught.  It's kind of the social reason for having law courts and shit?  

I mean I get, it when the corrupt political hacks affiliated with The Federalist Society  rush to defend bozo.  It's seemingly required to be a proper member of that club.  But the OWL really isn't a member of those clubs?

What is her deal, I will never know.  She does such a terrible of of expressing her thoughts that, and this is my opinion, only.  They look and smell like ripe stinky brain farts.  That is metaphor.  She just doesn't seem to make a lick of sense.  Often.  Enough.  Even when the subject is law.  It's like she doesn't understand the most basic concepts.  Such as if one engages in fraud, to the verified level of  $355 million. One should be forced to pay the fine.  Of $355 million.

It might be true that some paranoid people might actually have people chasing after them.  And as well, some people who have people after them, might really be bad people.  And the people chasing after them, have factual and legal cause to do so.

Last point, and I will make a similar argument, in form.  I was there at the victory party for Tish James' first election to AG NY.  So I heard her say she was going after that crook. And to me it was less of a personal or political promise.  It was more like when, some 18th century village is plagued by a wolf.  And the previous constable failed to catch the wolf.  And someone else stands up and says something like:  "Make me the constable.  I will go after the wolf.  I will catch the wolf."  

Even if I am not a New Yorker by address,  I am a native of the area.  And for most of my adult life, a NY worker and taxpayer.  So like so many natives.  I knew that bozo was even if not a wolf."  He was a chizzler, and a cheat, and a fraud.  And I like the idea of his ill gotten gains going to the coffers of NY.  Hope they make good use of the money.  The city, particularly, needs it!

Althouse Defends Cain, in Recent Bloggingheads Vid.

No. No no no no no no!

It might be a good seven years since I was practicing employment law, but I remember well the general rules of workplace behaviour. Never mind a lot of the law. Now silly person Ann Althouse chose to defend Cain's possible over-the-top, and possibly too familiar work place behaviour. She basically argued that it was a valid defense to being such (as opponent in the vid, Glenn Loury suggested,) a cad that that just his personality. Ya. She went there.

Then she made the to my mind totally 100% wrong statement that his personality was running afoul of something that was merely a subjective standard held by some people in that work place. Now I have heard more offensive and blatantly wrong defenses of Cain's alleged, and similar alleged behaviour. but this is likely the worst offending bullshit I have heard from a lawyer (leastwise, one who's day job is not being a wing nut pundit, radio/TV host.)

Now before I get to the fun part, where I gratuitously use a lot of cuss words (cause I enjoy it, and more so, it's the cheap and lazy way to add emotional emphasis here,) I will recount a story of a fight I had with some fucking idiot on a message board, regarding proper work place behaviour.

Now that week there was this conservate faux outrage story about the unfairness of the treatment of some stage hand/grip booked to work some democratic political event. Now he got his nose all bent out of joint because one of the people higher up the food chain told him to cover up his T shirt, on account it advertised the naval ship named after Ronald Reagan. His excuse to showing up on the job site wearing that shirt, was he was "honoring" his son who served on that ship. Some people, particular the stupid fucker I was arguing with, thought that made it ok. I went bat shit on her. No. That was not ok. And I explained why.

I explained that I had recently been and employment lawyer. But before that I used to be a stage hand myself. And I explained that (often, not always the case) stage hands have dress codes. If I was working backstage at a certain kind of performance, I would be told to wear all black. At another kind of show, classical music performances, where I had to step on stage to move a piano or set up or remove music stands or chairs? I had to be dressed almost as formally as the musicians. Not a tux, but black or dark suit, or suit jacket and pants, proper shirt with professional tie, proper dress shoes. I explained all that to the stupid person to make the point plain, if you are a stage hand, you should be used to being told what you can and can not wear. It's part of the job. It's part of being a professional.

More's the point though, I argued, after switching into lawyer mode, no fucking one was paying him to honor his son. He was there to do his job. To do what he was told, not engage in advertising his opinions or feelings about anything.

And that gets me back to Althouse's silly defense of Cain. Even if he was a lobbyist, and even if doing his job did involve to a greater extent than many people "selling" his personality, while in the office, he had to follow the same rules as the rest of the office. He might be paid, mostly, for his real or imagined or hit or miss allegedly charming way with people. But in the office he was in the regulated zone. There is nothing new about work place standards. There is nothing new about knowing that if there is an objective standard (and that is pretty fucking clear stuff -- has been for decades,) and if one's personality goes past those standards, one not only is fucked. One should be good and well fucked. And that seems to be what was wrong with Cain. Cain must have had several workplace sexual harassment trainings or at least had to read policies and usually one signs the thing, saying they read, understand, and agree to be bound by that. So Althouse's defense is no defense at all.

Even if the rules in the workplace are more restrictive than in the social zone, there are similarities. Try to be charming at your own risk. Try being flirty at your own risk. Try to pick up or hook up at your own risk. And that is why I think Althouse's defense is silly. Not only does it go against the known law, and what most of us at least know is the law of the workplace. But it goes against commonly understood social rules. Be "Yourself," at your own risk. Some people might dig you being you. Others will take offense at your presumptuousness, your over familiarity, your excuseless, rude fucking nerve. And in the work place, more so, if you do any thing past the work place rules about sexual harassment that you likely agreed to on paper (and there is no doubt in my mind there's a signed policy form with his siggy in his archived HR file,) you do so at your own risk. And there's no excuse for it. Never mind, defending it.

Quickies . . .

No, you wing nuts. It's not a double standard when Dems do not go bat shit when people insult Clarence Thomas. We don't like him!

No, you wing nuts. It's not invidious discrimination that causes the imbalance in higher ed academia. It's just that not only are liberal, Dem leaning people more likely to seek a career in academia (pay sucks, even if the benes are not bad.) But any political pov does not rise to the protected statuses, such as race, origin, sex/orientation. Nor should it.

(The presumption is political party is no more worthy of protection than being a "Real Housewives," fan.)


No, you wing nuts. All ideas and speech are not equal.

No, you wing nuts. You don't have a right to an audience.

No, you wing nuts. Right to free speech cuts both ways. If you say your stupid shit, expect to be called out on your stupid shit.

No, you wing nuts. The actual meanings (found in the dictionary) matter more than what you think the words should mean.

No, you wing nuts. If you use the words, don't be surprised if people take you to mean those words.

No, you wing nuts. Violent speech is violent, actually, even if you did not mean it literally.

No, you wing nuts. Believing in magical fixes is not a basis for governmental policy.

Lastly, no, you wing nuts. We know you all are full of bullshit. We know your message, as a whole, is nothing but bullshit. We are on to you. That is why we don't take what you think or say, as serious things. But we do know you tend to break the government when ever you get control of it. So we do know, you all might not be bright, but you all are dangerous.