Yippee-IA, Motherf***ers! IRRATIONALLY ANGRY PT. 2: Irrationally Angrier

Creative AI is so boring

why does my upstairs neighbor need to shout AT THE TOP OF HIS LUNGS every time he sneezes?

Don’t get me started about neighbors clearing their throats like they’re expectorating baby Godzilla

xp It's cos he takes a deep breath and gets real high

For some reason (probably a stupid reason) I started following some social media groups based on local history.

I am an avid student of local history- not in an idolatrous way, it's just one of my scholarly interests. Further, knowing the more about the history (good and bad) of the ground I stand on provides richer context and makes me feel more connected to my community and its culture.

Anyway approximately 72.4% of what people want to talk about is Boomer nostalgia shit about how much they miss the town they lived in when they were younger, and how much it has changed. Guess what? That is what wooly mammoths and tyrannosaurs would probably say (if we could ask them, and if they could answer).

And do NOT get me started on how indigenous folks might react to your feelings about how a store you used to shop at has now closed, grampa.

xp haha

The year is 2024 A.D. ...

https://i.imgur.com/WcbbIEv.png

Where the Sherwin-Williams is now?

See, even you know. Where has Greg been lately?

Posted that here as a follow-up to Puffin's post. That restaurant has been mentioned so many times on the same "Then & Now" page that at this point, it's pretty obvious that the Boomers are just looking for excuses to post that name in ALL-CAPS to see if anyone tries to get "P.C." on them.

Pplains, it's interesting that people who have reached a certain age (mostly, yes, I mean Boomers) tend to want to voice their mourning about retail establishments.

They don't tend to want to talk very much about parks or museums or houses or vehicles or trees or specific household appliances or pets or items of clothing. They want to talk about a store they used to shop at sometimes.

People can like what they like, of course, and mourn what they choose to mourn. I am just bored by people talking about stores and restaurants and shopping malls.

Please note thread title

Oh, thread title noted. Your post was very appropriate for this thread.

For some reason, I thought Sambo's became Seasons. Apparently not. Some of the stores changed their name to "The Jolly Tiger." The one remaining Sambo's, in Santa Barbara, changed its name in the wake of the George Floyd protests to "Chad's."

I always thought they and Denny's had some sort of Hardee's / Carl Jr.'s relationship.

History tends to get studied chronologically, with good reason. I love studying history, but my sense is that history education isn't paced well.

We always spent most of the year on stuff like the Stamp Act and the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act and Teapot Dome. Never even got to the Cold War.

Or, teachers would (at the end of the school year) suddenly fast-forward through more recent history and call it good. Evidently it is way more important to talk about Lewis and Clark or Andrew Carnegie than, say, Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich.

It is currently March 2024. My child's AP US history class has gotten up to... 1890 or so. We're talking about the Gilded Age, and looking forward to discussing the rise of industrialism and vertical integration. At this rate, how on earth will they ever get to suffrage, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Selma, Vietnam, Iraq Wars, the internet, George Floyd?

The answer is that they won't. Or perhaps they will, in the last week or so of the school year, spend a cursory few days on the history that is actively affecting millions of lives right now.

Teachers chronically claim that they simply run out of time. I dunno, as I am not a teacher, but maybe we could plan better? Maybe spend a little less time on the specific details of the Missouri Compromise so you have a bit of time left over for, say, 9/11?

Not irrational to get angry about this— and it’s also worth noting that there is some amount of speculation that this is intentional. Ie— get up the civil rights movement and anti-Vietnam sentiment and then history stops there, which allows a rosy picture of this so-called democracy to take hold

Yeah the weird thing is that I can talk with my kid for hours about the Constitutional Convention or westward expansion or the Louisiana Purchase.

My problem is that she will never, ever, ever, get a lesson that covers Stonewall or Watergate or the ERA. Because American history ends, apparently, in approximately 1930.

Yeah, it’s frankly infuriating. It also makes me realize that my public middle school education was a lot better than I realized— 8th grade history was the 20th century, and we got up to the Reagan years. We took a class trip to visit the Vietnam memorial. And in English class, we read Wiesel’s Night, and had frank discussions with our 60+ teacher, who was Black, about racism. I mean, yeah, it was the Philly burbs so I knew even then it was atypical, but apparently it was a lot more atypical than I ever thought.

Glad you got some real discussion there, table.

Seems like every school I've encountered (which is quite a lot) is like "oops, it's June, guess we have to stop now," when they get to maybe 1910.

We only got up to WW2 in my American history class but my friends on the AP course got closer to the present day (and got assigned Zinn). But we had tons of electives (European history, USSR, Political Behaviour, World Religions) to take up the slack.

my high school ap american history teacher somehow finagled the school into allowing him to teach an elective that was entirely focused on the history of the vietnam war. i only realized how cool that was after graduating. he wasn't the aged hippie type you would expect that from though. he was a sensitive soul from the deep south and was somehow still a true believer in the US, so he was very disturbed by what he saw as its failings. he once admitted to our class that he felt guilty that he still notices when he sees an interracial couple and hoped that one day it wouldn't register. he would show glory every semester and cry

The equivalent of my AP US history teacher in high school basically covered the same ground as 8th grade, but in a lot more detail and with a lot more foaming at the mouth progressivism. What I remember most is reading primary sources about the Great Migration, and his lecture on all the Black cities and towns that had been destroyed in the South— we learned about the Tulsa massacre!

At first, I'm thinking that maybe it is more important to dig deeper into the Missouri Compromise than, say, 9/11. Everyone knows what the latter is about, while the anniversary of the former isn't observed year after year.

Plus, with a relatively recent event like that, there's going to be much arguing by state education boards about things such as "Was Bush a dimwit who completely ignored all warnings," versus "Bush was a hero who stood on top of a pile of rubble with a bullhorn."

But all that said, I'd be very interested in taking a class that went backwards. "Here's the fucked-up situation we're in today. How did it happen? Well, let's look at the last ten years. Then, let's look at the Invasion of Iraq. 9/11. Hanging chads. The impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton..."

You'll eventually get to a point where the instructor could ask, "Now, how come the U.S. didn't colonize Mexico after winning that war? Stay tuned next week for 'The Missouri Compromise'..."

Everyone knows what the latter is about

You have not met any college or high school students recently, have you.

They know what happened, but maybe not what led up to it.

Which also accurately describes a lot of folks who were alive during it.

True enough.

I’ve been exploring Keto/Sugar-free/Diabetic baking recipes - the authors drive me crazy.

Handwavey instructions like “mix until uniform” (ok…?)
PLUS these types of super-hyperspecific micro-instructions like bake for x minutes “until an inserted toothpick comes out almost clean with just a little batter on it that balls up between your fingers (DO NOT wait for it to be totally clean)”

I appreciate detail but sometimes I really wonder about the ppl who write these things.

fold in the cheese!

In the US school system, do you get lessons on history around the world? Like WW2, ancient civilizations, French Revolution, Russian Revolution? In Brazil, we'd always have 2 different teachers, one for 'World History' and the other for just Brazil. Sometimes it was hard to tie the 2 togethers...

Also, BR history we did try to get as close to the end of the 1960s/1970s Military Dictatorship (we had others, that's why I have the year there), and some political reform things (like the 1988 Constitutional reform), but I feel we do lose a bit in looking at other details, like trying to explain our external debt, or our economical situation in the 80s with hyper inflation. It also had nothing on the strikes done by the steel workers in SP (where Lula rose to prominence)

My kid took AP Euro last year

We barely learn American history

I sneeze once a day. Always have done, presumably always will do. No idea why, it doesn't impact my life at all really. All I want is for people to completely ignore me sneezing, but no. Polite, friendly fuckers kindly say "bless you" and turn this into a social situation which I now suddenly have to navigate.

dude they're literally driving out the demons that entered your soul during the sneeze

have they considered maybe I like the demons being in there?

In the US school system, do you get lessons on history around the world? Like WW2, ancient civilizations, French Revolution, Russian Revolution? In Brazil, we'd always have 2 different teachers, one for 'World History' and the other for just Brazil. Sometimes it was hard to tie the 2 togethers...

Also, BR history we did try to get as close to the end of the 1960s/1970s Military Dictatorship (we had others, that's why I have the year there), and some political reform things (like the 1988 Constitutional reform), but I feel we do lose a bit in looking at other details, like trying to explain our external debt, or our economical situation in the 80s with hyper inflation. It also had nothing on the strikes done by the steel workers in SP (where Lula rose to prominence)

― fpsa, Monday, March 18, 2024 12:18 PM (forty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

We learned some pretty basic world history, certainly ancient civilizations, world religions, medieval europe, crusades, industrial revolution, wwi and wwii, etc. A massive amount was left out and there was definitely a failure to tie US and world history together well. I don't recall covering the Russian Revolution at all. My US history experience wasn't terrible but it kind of stopped at the Vietnam War even though it was already the late 90s.

I recently discovered this little fast casual italian place by my office (run by an actual Italian dude from Italy) with surprisingly good food, but it has all these weird quirks that irritate me. First, there isn't enough light inside so it always looks closed even when it's open. Second, the menu is behind you when you're facing the ordering counter, which is very awkward. And there's just something awkward and off about the place, the staff, the ordering process.

Today was my third time and I ordered "Vegetables Parmigiana" off the pasta menu, which I know isn't like a traditional Italian dish but it sounded pretty good. When I went to pick it up, I asked if the pasta was ready, and the woman said "It's not pasta, it's just grilled vegetables." The dish is literally on the pasta menu, and every single other item on the pasta menu is, you know, pasta, and there is no indication that it doesn't have pasta (nor does every other pasta dish expressly state that it includes pasta, because, you know, it's the pasta menu).

To be fair to them, I raised this and they offered to add some penne pasta without any argument about it. Still weird.

that is weird

Every so often you run into these places where they really know how to cook food and are somewhat confused about running a food business. I keep wondering if maybe the concept is more along the lines of something that works in Italy (notwithstanding pasta-less pasta) and not as well in a small US city, because it tends to be kind of empty in spite of the high quality of the food and lack of options around here. For example the atmosphere is closer to a Chipotle or a Chopt than a restaurant, but they sell beer and wine, but they close at 5pm so there's no dinner crowd. I don't think US office workers tend to have a drink at lunch unless they go to a proper restaurant.

I know the type— there used to be a pretty good taco place here in Philly, which still has a dearth of good Mexican restaurants. Their hours were wonky and like the place you mention, they closed quite early but sold beer and wine. It could have been a perfect late-night bar/taco joint, but they couldn't figure it out. Meanwhile, the place was empty most days from 2-5p. They closed during the pandemic.

I have been a canvasser, and know how difficult and shitty it is, but don’t fucking wave at me enthusiastically like I know you— this just makes me upset when I realize you are a stranger trying to sell me a cause

Ugh, I have canvassed too, and I generally hate any false or disingenuous familiarity. Just be up front with me - you are asking for donations or signatures or trying to sell me something. It's your job. Don't tell me you were just chatting with my neighbor John to gain my trust or use some canned line that tries to hide the fact that you're doing what you're doing.

Also, canvassers for charity who want money but can't actually accept money, only take your bank details to charge you every month forever. Fuck off with that bullshit.

Exactly.

if i see one more person do that phony comparison thing on facebook when they want to talk about better ways to do things and how stupid everything is here...and yes everything is stupid here i get that - but when they say "well you know in finland they do your taxes for you and give you chocolates and you don't have to lift a finger and here its a draconian police state nightmare owned by H&R Block..." "oh in finland every child gets straight As and goes on to become a doctor and nobody pays for anything and here all your children are murdered and..." just fucking stop it. there are 330 million people in this fucking world-sized country that includes islands thousands of miles away. there are 5 million people in finland! there are more people in brooklyn + queens then all of finland. if all this country had to worry about was brooklyn + queens i'll bet the recycling pickups would be on time and the post office would get the letter from your brother in queens to your cousin in brooklyn. just shut your fucking finland hole. also, everyone in finland is the same. mostly. do you know how much easier it is to do stuff when everyone is from the same place and speaks the same language? they don't want your tired and poor there. it fucks with the numbers that idiots on facebook beat people over the head with. don't get me started.....

Not saying you're wrong exactly, but this is basically the argument conservatives offer up for "why socialism can't work in America"

Going to start using “just shut your fucking Finland hole!!!”

i'm all for better solutions but adjusting for scale and degree of difficulty is something people never do. this country is just too fucking big. which is why i appreciate the land of Taxxachusetts that i live in. i've had free health care for 20 years!

thank you again, Mitt...

of course i had to have kids and a marginal business to get that free health care...which is stressful and has its own costs. but it was worth it in the end.

it is so much easier to do things when everybody in your country is born in the same place. like, way easier. homogeneousness also pretty big with conservatives. i'm sure most conservatives would love Finland!

I understand that homogeneity may be a barrier to getting things done. But not sure why the things that can't get done are the socialist things, and the things that can get done are capitalist things.