Merry Christmas, if you’re into that sort of thing!

Huh. I brought up the Larry Nassar thing multiple times over the past several months and it never really got any traction here.

It hasn’t gotten as much media coverage as it should have, but it did get some. Aly Raisman has been on 60 minutes and morning talk shows to discuss it. The info has definitely been out there and for awhile.

To be honest, I’ve got to lay some of the blame on the social justice sections of the internet for not pushing this. Why they never embraced it? My guess is because it involves sports and not movies, video games or other geek and geek adjacent things that a lot of feminists and other social justice type people are into.

If anyone does want to know more, I’d definitely recommend Aly Raisman’s twitter feed. You don’t need an account to look. Also Google Rachel Denhollender. She hasn’t gotten as much attention as Aly because as a rhythmic gymnast who has no Olympic medals, she’s not famous. But she’s the first one to come out publicly as a survivor of Nassar’s abuse. Both have been absolute heroes in all of this. Shout out also to Sarah Jantzi, the head coach of Twin City Twisters. She overhead her gymnast Maggie Nichols talk about Nassar’s “treatment” and was the first one to report him and didn’t let the subject drop.

Senator Kamala Harris is cosponsoring Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for all bill
https://twitter.com/SenKamalaHarris/status/955936256998985728

Now I’m indulging in fantasies of a progressive black woman running against Trump and winning. The Trumpkin tears over that would be the most delicious liquid anyone ever tasted.

@ Makroth

Kinda feel like Spec Ops: The Line hits the same rut from the opposite direction. Instead of simply the narrative overemphasizing the effect on the Americans’ psyche, it just zooms into the mind of one specific American and retells Vietnam from a directly-controlled first-person perspective.

My response to that loading screen saying it was all my fault was just “no, it’s not.” And the game never really explains why it’s supposed to be. It felt more like it was trying to shock the player into confusion, then manipulate them into agreeing. Then again, I was absolutely not the target audience, so I could just be missing the point.

@ weirwoodtreehugger

I briefly forgot the rule to never read the comments. My happiness over the Medicare For All sponsorship was tempered slightly by the immediate 2016 primary re-litigating in the comments (though resurged somewhat by the Canadians and Europeans saying, basically, “welcome to the rest of the world”).

Best war movies are Glory and Captain America. More important today than when I 1st saw em >.>

Heard about the Nassar stuff here and there for a fewe months. Don’t think I heard his name much (completely forgot it until brought up again here), but the story’s been around

@WWTH
Brown + woman + democrat is, like, 60% of my rubrick for a 2020 candidate. I’m in full vengeance/catharsis mode 😛

@Z&T: Have you thought about applying at a temp agency? That’s how I ended up getting a permanent job, eventually.

RE: Ursula Le Guin. That’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time. If I had to guess, I would have to say that I thought she’d died a long time ago.

I’ve been sick with the flu for the last few days. I haven’t caught a bug like this in at least 10 years.

I’m also relieved to hear from David.

Mark E. Smith, founder and sole consistent member of The Fall, has died.

@Axecalibur:

Best war movies are Glory and Captain America. More important today than when I 1st saw em

Isn’t that list missing a glaringly obvious one, in the present context? 🙂

Also: Which Captain America? There’s three of them (and counting), though you probably meant the first, which has extensive World War II stuff in it.

@wwth

Thanx for that link! I’d totally forgotten about Shakesville, used to read it often

@Z&T
Alan and Dormousing_it have given you excellent advice. I know from experience that temporary agencies can often get you work right away.

I don’t know if it’s true in your part of the USA, but at least in some areas, it’s easy to get a job right now — but the job might be low paying. I know you don’t want low-paying, but it’s better than no money — and you can use the money to pay some portion of your debts now. I walked through two blocks of a San Francisco neighborhood the other day and counted five help wanted signs — that’s a lot in SF. One of them was the Post Office. Another was Whole Foods, which was looking for part-time and full-time people. The other three were small local retailers.

Do you have a Whole Foods near you? The one in SF was willing to hire people with no experience at 50 cents per hour above the local minimum wage. (SF is so expensive that we have our own minimum wage, which is $14 per hour — soon to become $15 per hour! Thank you, Fight for $15 peeps!) Whole Foods advertises for help online for their stores nationwide.

I think you were the Mammotheer who pointed out that finding a job is often a matter of being in the right place at the right time. Sound advice!

@Axecalibur

I can’t believe you’ve already forgotten the big, major feminist film of 2017. 🙂

@Kat:

The problem with low paying jobs is, sometimes they’re flat-out unaffordable.

This is true in my own case. Right now I get disability, to the tune of approx. $1100/mo. It is, barely, enough to get by on in this area, with my bank account balance growing very slowly over time, though if it ever stops keeping pace with inflation that could change and put me in a bind.

Minimum wage here is $15 (recently, thanks to Fight for 15). If I could get a full time job with bennies and actual job security, even at that wage, I’d more than double my income.

But the only entry-level jobs that seem to exist anymore, even for people with bachelor’s degrees and above, are part-time burger-flipping type service economy jobs (and, even worse, “independent contractor” stuff, such as Uber driver). No bennies. No job security.

What would happen to me if I took one of these jobs? Well, right away I’d have a bunch of work-related expenses. Some of these jobs require you to buy their uniforms (fast food being notorious for the practice), but at least that’s a one-time cost. I’d also have to take a taxi to and from work, since there’s no transit system where I am. This would eat up over an hour’s wages all on its own — so if they wanted me to come in for just one hour on some day, I’d actually lose money on that day. And of course with these jobs the employers will pull stuff like that.

My disability benefits would disappear, and with them, pharmacare, eye care, and dental. So next time I was due for a teeth cleaning or, heaven forfend, had a cavity that needed filling, there go hundreds of dollars. Same if I broke or lost a lens, or got sick with something that needed antibiotics. At least, being in Canada, I’d still have the rest of healthcare. If I needed major surgery I’d be financially fine, but not if I needed antibiotics, ludicrously.

If I got 20 hours a week I’d be making, on paper, maybe as much as what I get now. Add in the taxi fares and occasional big dental/pharma/eyeglass expenses and I’d be making less than I am now.

In short, if I took any part-time minimum-wage job I’d probably be taking a pay cut. Some system is broken here — either disability should pay out more, there should be full-time-with-benefits and/or significantly-above-minimum-wage jobs available for someone with a bachelor’s degree but no experience, or pharma, dental, vision, and transportation expenses for citizens should be socialized like healthcare is, or some combination of these three things.

Oh, and then there’s the (lack of) job security. When (not if) I got laid off from said part-time, minimum-wage job, I’d find myself stuck in a situation where I had zero income but all my usual living expenses until however soon I could get the disability benefits restarted. I don’t even know how to restart it — my parents set that up when I was still with them and just coming out of university. I’d have to learn how while under serious time pressure to get the job done before my savings ran out and my roof, utilities, and access to food went poof! … under penalty of death, in three weeks or so slowly and painfully by starvation, unless I was lucky and it was winter, in which case that very night from exposure rather more quickly though probably still not painlessly.

Note: if I lose my current roof that’s probably the end for me. The way rents have skyrocketed I couldn’t likely find a place that wouldn’t cost more than an entire disability cheque per month. Public housing theoretically exists in the nearest larger city, but that’s a hundred-buck bus ticket away and there’s a years-long waiting list for it. I know — I applied, in hopes of halving my rents, and nothing came of it. So even if I obtained an income again from somewhere, unless it was at least $2000 a month I’d have however many months left to live as equaled the remaining time until winter. The only reason I am even alive right now is a combination of disability benefits, rent control, and luck. If I was tossed out of here for nonpayment tomorrow it would no doubt be on the market at double what I’m currently paying on Friday.

In the long run, I’m doomed if the political winds shift too far toward conservatism, if inflation outpaces benefits too much for too long, or civilization collapses; in the short run I’m doomed if I do anything sufficiently stupid, like get a low-paying part-time job that ends up giving me too few hours and too little pay for the additional expenses it costs me.

The system — both benefits and private-sector-work-opportunities — is broken. Less so than in the US, by far. Less so than a few months ago, thanks to the provincial NDP making a $15 minimum wage a core platform plank for next year’s election and the incumbent Liberals thereby being forced to follow suit if they didn’t want to lose to them a couple of Octobers from now. But it’s broken.

Axecalibur:

OK, now I know you’re trolling me, because now you’re not only still forgetting Wonder Woman, you’re also implying that ESB was not the best Star Wars movie. The odds against anyone both a) being unaware of the former and b) intentionally making the latter claim seriously are six thousand nine hundred and forty to one! 🙂

H-h-h … aven’t … seen it?

wat.

I didn’t see Wonder Woman yet. I’m sure I’ll get around to it eventually. I’m guessing it’ll make it to HBO as DC movies usually do and then I’ll watch it. But I’ve had superhero movie fatigue for about 5 years now. Seeing them is not that big of a priority.