Comments

2

The bitch squealing coming out of Iran tells us the President has them by the short hairs...

3

Let's stop giving reverence to celebrates who off themselves.

4

I'm pretty sure Trump is not her type.

5

I guess that means no Super Bowl tickets for Khamenei. Or something.

9

Beckie took a good penalty. She hit it hard into the corner. It wasn't like she hit it softly, or over the bar (which is fairly common).

The goalie just guessed correctly. It goes down as a great save, but it was largely luck. If she dove to the other side, the game would have been tied.

10

president rapist ought to know by now that the denial comes first, then the ad hominem.

12

Political scientists years ago demonstrated that our country is an oligarchy, and the actions of our federal government have nothing to do with what the American people need and want, and in fact our malevolent rulers frequently work against us with disastrous results. Even still, it’s nauseating that the totalitarian Iranian theocracy has more credibility than Prezirapist AntiChrist.

Where are the mass resignations at the DOJ, the FBI, DHS, and the Pentagon? Where’s the refusal to carry out the deranged orders of a fake, cruel, criminally insane, racist moron? Who are these idiots only following orders that betray us and WTF is wrong them? The emperor has no clothes, dumfux.

If only we could just skip to the end, with $hitler and Melanoma in an underground bunker, or more likely a New York City penthouse.

15

@7,

I think your surprise stems for your ascribing attributes to humanism which don't actually exist. Though ultimately I think both 11 & 13 sum it up quite nicely with no further analysis needed.

16

@12: You ask where are the mass resignations? I don't doubt that they would all materialize if next month's rent or mortgage was not a concern.

Don't conflate lack of virtue with practicality.

17

I did it a couple times driving past Canlis but I would pull into the drive and ask for directions to the nearest Taco Bell. It embarrassed the passengers in the car. But was funny -- I thought.

18

@7: Generally speaking, the moral relativism you speak of is laughed at by anyone who actually thinks...it is really only supported by the dumbest/loudest corners of the internet and the dimmest bulbs in Philosophy 101 courses.

Actual Western culture is one of discrimination, where we do strive to find what is best and we cast aside ideas and ideals that we do not have use for.

What you are describing is some kind of post modernist trainwreck that does not exist and thankfully never will.

19

@9 is correct, eh?

21

"Today, Iranian president Hassan Rouhani referred to the White House as being 'afflicted by mental retardation.'"

Wow, who knew Iran's President could speak so sympathetically. (Right after we overthrow him, we're gonna re-install a Pro-corporate-capitalism puppet of our very own. [Because, lookit all their OIL!] Just like we did in Iran in 1953! -- but, that was a LONG time ago, so, who gives a fuck?!)

Over here, those unconcerned with political correctness simply call him Retarded.

Which is not the same as Narcissistic Personality Disorder, of which he shows, sadly, many severe symptoms, but, close enough for government work.

Best President ever?
Possibly, but for Whom?

Not US.

22

Oh, and don't forget to make sure you're well-Registered for the Draft -- "President" Trumpfy's gonna need A LOT of bodies for his new War.

24

@20: I honestly can't even tell if comments like this are jokes any more. I have to assume they are, but...

26

@23: Yes, this comment is a great example of why people laugh at such statements regarding morality. Thank you for sharing.

26

Speaking of overthrowing Iran's democratically-elected President, in 1953, August 19th, to be exact, remember that date -- August 19th. trumpy's a Stickler for dates, so, that's probably the day (the 8/19th) he's gonna start WWIII. The BIG one.

Armageddon AND Bust, baby.

Good ole Neocons.
WHERE might we be, without you?

27

@25: You're adorable.

28

@3, I hope you have no offspring, and thus have not contaminated the gene pool. Chef Bourdain was a vastly better human than you or @7 will ever be. It is truly sad that you are alive, and he is not.

30

@28: Sorry that my opinion offends you. But we all have our convictions. Suicide, except perhaps for a terminal illness, is the ultimate selfish act that sentences their families and loved ones to haunting torment for the rest of their lives.

32

@31: I wouldn't return the same insult to you, because there at least two people in the world that would dearly miss you.

33

@3 I'm not celebrating that he killed himself, I'm celebrating his life. Your conviction tells you I ought to stop appreciating his work and his spirit because he lost a battle with depression?

If you are honestly thinking to prevent suicide by de-memorializing people as a penalty, I can tell you there are more effective means of suicide prevention. Would you like to learn more? Or is that not actually work you do, and this is you signaling virtue?

34

@33: Actually, chipping away at the memorializing could help save a life. But that's just my opinion.

36

I must say that if the post had been about something like one of Bourdain's favorite restaurants celebrating his work, I wouldn't have commented. But it being about marking a year since his suicide and birthday I found gratuitous.

I apologize if I offended anyone.

37

This new park might be an excellent spot for a small homeless camp.

38

Yeah, I miss Anthony a lot. It isn't as if I agreed with him 100% all the time, but even if I did differ, I knew his POV came from logic and worldliness. We could still be best buds. Just goes to show you how fragile the human spirit can be. He had great success later on, had a daughter he adored, and all it took to extinguish that great little light of his was a random night of hopelessness. It's why we need mental health outlets de-stigmatized and available to all.

39

@7 & 23: I honestly can't tell if you're smoking too much pot or not enough.

@36: Honoring him and highlighting how he died brings visibility to the issue of depression and helps with suicide prevention.
And I don't want you to kill yourself Phoebe. I think the Sausage was out of line with that comment.

40

@36 - I agree with you. Celebrating a suicide (when suicide is a growing problem in the US, especially among young people and veterans) seems in exceptionally bad taste. I'm guessing (hoping) it's poor judgement based on youth and lack of experience.

41

@6 I think the only people in the world that might not understand that "Supreme Leader" implies all of the alternatives you suggested are living in countries that wouldn't allow them read any of this anyhow.

42

@7:

Humanists don't believe "there is no meaning in life" - you're thinking of nihilists - they believe that the ONLY meaning in life is the one each of us personally ascribes to it, whatever that may be. It comes from within, not from some external source.

43

@39: Thank you Lissa - Sausage is one fascinating case study.

45

@44: Make sure you lift with your legs each time you shift those goalposts, you don't want to do damage to your back. And don't forget the sunblock either!

46

You could also go to the Crest in Shoreline to see $4 movies, every day of the week.

47

@44 still doesn't know what Humanism is. As a Humanist I believe that humans control the direction and means of humankind and not a supernatural or divine force. It's to care for other humans and the state of humankind in general. We are guided by logic, science and applied thought. A Humanist can be spiritual but not religious. The spirit being human spirit and compassion from within and not derived to serve an omnipotent being. Were Jesus of Nazareth alive today he might find a Humanist has more in common with him in terms of moral values these days than many that identify as Christian.

48

Regardless of how morally satisfying one may find the concept of deity or Plato's Ideal Forms, it's pretty meaningless if one's epistemological framework cannot brook such as conclusions. What one believes - defined in philosophy as what one holds true - can be extra-factual, but not counter-factual, and only extra-factual in a direction defined by intuition (which is subjective, but not volitional; that is, intuition has no recourse to anything empirical, but we don't simply decide to intuit). We might hold something counter-intuitive to be true if the facts contradict our intuition, we may intuit rather fancifully (depending on temperament) where the facts are silent; radicals of all stripes may even accept the received wisdom of ideologues as "alternative facts," as with followers of Young Earth Creationism and other anti-Evolutionary quackery, but even that speaks to the intuition guiding the way we discern facts, which is to say it's still not a volitional act.

So one might say that if you're so concerned about humanists, what you should be mounting is not an argument as to how morally troubling you find it, but as to how anyone might epistemologically come to believe anything else.

Then again, I don't buy your case at it's root, @7, 23, & 44 (and wherever else I may have missed). I don't even buy @42, since I openly identify as a nihilist, but I see what he's getting at. I would say that, at root, meaning is something we invent wholesale. The only meaning that exists when I'm alone is the one I personally ascribe to. The meanings that hold sway when I encounter another organism include the meaning I ascribe to, the meaning contemplated by the other organism, and/or whatever meanings arise from our either agreeing on common meanings or engaging in competition of noeses.

These "what ifs" are absurd, facts2supportURpoint. Which is fine; all phenomena are absurd, arguably. If Stalin or Hussein ascribe meaning to their megalomania, it's OK ... if you ask them. People directly affected by the acts that grow from such may find otherwise, and engage in contracts to protect themselves accordingly. Hopefully these contracts will be based on shared values other than the desire not to be killed by tyrants, but some of our contracts are more utilitarian than others.

What I find valuable is largely personal. But it's also highly social. Even my deepest personal convictions reflect my upbringing and my place in my current community (and in every community I've ever belonged to), and that community's place in the concentric circles of human collective enterprise. Being social animals, most of us will come to share at least some values with those around us.

Can those values lead us astray? Sure. It's worth question our own communities and questioning ourselves. Part of being a social mammal in a globalized world is balancing what serves us as individuals with what serves us as communities, and each of those in turn with what serves other communities, tribes, citizens of other nation-states.

But yeah, some rare individuals aren't as interested in that whole "social animal" thing, and will try to live according to precepts we find abhorrent. And those precepts will be what that one individual has arrived at for the moment, and our opposition to it will be the same. Our moral codes are the result of an evolutionary predisposition towards reasoning internally and negotiating, cooperating, and revising externally. And those who stand outside or against that are a part of that process - the Stalins, the Husseins, the Mansons, the Berkowitzes. And how we deal with them will define us collectively, and sometimes those collective decisions will be signs of our enlightenment, at others shameful embarrassments. Sometimes, the collective actions we're proud of will be found to be mistakes by later generations - the Inquisition, slavery, Manifest Destiny, some wars, some executions (maybe any and all executions).

None of this makes choice meaningless. On the contrary, it makes choice paramount. Nothing matters BUT what we choose, what we manage to negotiate.


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