quiddities and agonies of the ruling class - a rolling new york times thread

NYT's getting really good at even making people on poverty incomes sound like terrible ruling class:

Sure, her partner, Michael Fleming, is an artist and craftsman who tosses around phrases like “humble aesthetic” and speaks of the way driftwood “resonates,” but he can also toss around a hammer. He built their magnificent oak-and-maple bed, which is weathered silver and white. Of course, if he gets a buyer he will sell it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/01/garden/in-maine-gifts-from-the-sea-and-the-landfill.html

I hate these people.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/01/fashion/fertility-is-a-matter-of-age-no-matter-how-young-a-woman-looks.html?ref=fashion&pagewanted=all

so apparently some people figured out that looking young doesn't equal being young

Those people are just funny.

STAB STAB STABBY

For so many reasons in that article.

“I’ve spent hours of my life and a lot of money making sure I was healthy, and that my hair was shiny, my teeth were white and my complexion clear,” said Ms. Foss, a magazine editor in New York City.

So when it came to conceiving a child with her husband, a marketing executive, Ms. Foss wasn’t at all worried. After all, she noted, those same traits of youth and beauty “are all the hallmarks of fertility.”

I MEAN WHAT. What a horrible person she sounds like.

I have more stuff to s

Isn't it Louis C.K. who says there's very little in the world worse than a 20- year old complaining about the kind of job 20 year olds take?
--remy bean

had never read the analysis of professor of economics ck he seems v interesting, however I would say there is pretty good evidence that today's job market is a little bit different from the job market when he was 20. the large majority of ameicans have never lived in an era w/ job prospects as bad as today's. /things are different/

that just sounds like an immeasurably stupid thing to believe?

that's an xp to laurel

well, if you're a dog breeder, she's not so far off.

"if i get my teeth whitened and my hair done i will totally have a genetically better chance of making a baby"

seems as if she confused genetic fertility with... guys wanting to have sex w/ you bcuz you're pretty

I mean the whole "I went to a good school, I deserve a good job" is just meritocratic bullshit filtered through the lens of the academy. Correct reading of that passage above: I was sufficiently privileged as a child and thus admitted to a 'top' school that my parents paid for /was be-scholarshipped/attended on a good loan package, and now I should get a good job unlike those schmucks who didn't go to a college/went to a state school or community college/spent time in the military/took time off because I am a Hard Working Kid Who Deserves More even though I have done very little but attend a liberal arts program and maybe work summers serving ice cream on a pier.
--remy bean

this is also bullshit btw

why

seems as if she confused genetic fertility with... guys wanting to have sex w/ you bcuz you're pretty

Ding ding ding (sorry if you hate that)

But this is just another totally gross, insidious example of pushing a very shallow kind of desirability as if it is other things that it's not. Like fertility, or character, or anything except "based on nothing but your appearance/photograph, more strangers are likely to want to fuck you". It also disinherits the UN"desirable" from the ranks of people who are "allowed" to have the traits in question -- fertility, in this case.

And there's just so much class grossness in that package that my brain is pushing the whole article away and refusing to ponder it much more than that.

that young lady seems typical of those who moved here to live inside Sex & The City.

I think Louis CK will be Dennis Miller in ten years or less.

what the fuck kind of gypsy curse is that

haha

why
--remy bean

I have to get on a train, will respond later

k

In re Amy Andronicus, Yglesias says things.

I'm sure Rollins considered it "professional suicide" when he joined Black Flag too.

Okay this is surely related, via my friend Abby on Twitter:

Dude whining near me on the patio: "My sister already started an orphanage in Ethiopia and she's TWO YEARS YOUNGER THAN ME."

hey guys, shitting on academia as a source for job security should imo be a lot more controversial than you are making it sound
i mean i have a friend who worked trying to get poor kids into college & i think he wd probably disagree

i tend to think that college is a bit overrated & shouldnt be treated as an 'in' to complete job happiness, but

its also a major financial investment (college loans etc) that should probably promise some kind of return!!

idk, it just seems like there is a difference between feeling frustrated and undervalued at your job, and thinking that the only jobs that you *can* get are somehow beneath you.

― elmo argonaut, Thursday, September 1, 2011 4:15 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

feel like in our america of today the virtue and vitality of work has been debased and its sad

like only good jobs are good and everything else is a shitty waste of time

something is "wrong" with a system where a guy can get a (or multiple!) degree(s) and not find work putting those degrees to use! and frankly it feels sorta unfair to point and laugh at the guy who bought into the system when there probably werent a lot of alternative messages out there. im all for "get over it" in certain circumstances but this dockworker MBA didnt come up with the situation were in

max & cr?m otm

Nobody's shitting on academia, as far as I can tell. But, I'm sorry, the insistance that college makes you more 'worthy' of a good/stable/high-paying job is silly, and kind of elitest – and that if you go to college you are more deserving of one than somebody who didn't/couldn't/hasn't yet.

Mind you, I've got 2 post-bac degrees, and I've worked minimum wage for most of my career.

(i fucking hate it)

yeah idk i think most bad jobs are shitty, dispiriting wastes of time and its super gross for louis c.k. are anyone to be like 'dont complain' abt them

remy otm

like i can sort of see the argument that 'in our america of today the virtue and vitality of work has been debased' but i think that has as much to do w/ the type of 'work' ppl are being forced to do, rather than our prevalent attitudes towards 'working'

calling the dockworker MBA--or whoever is out there saying "i have a degree, i should be putting it to use"--elitist just occludes the fact that we have what is apparently a very broken system in place. it puts the blame on the people who were "screwed" (for lack of a better word) instead of the institutions doing the screwing

yeah idk i think most bad jobs are shitty, dispiriting wastes of time and its super gross for louis c.k. are anyone to be like 'dont complain' abt them

― *clicks 'OK'* (Lamp), Thursday, September 1, 2011 6:53 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

eh i think what he said is otm & funny but more in the "no one has dream jobs at age 20" sense

i should add that i dont really think theres anything "elitist" about wanting some kind of return for the time and money you invest in a college education!

most jobs are shitty –– if there's a truism in the universe it's that you don't have any right to be happy at work. it's nice, and lucky, if you are. but you should also feel very, very lucky to have a job at this particular juncture in history and not be a grudge-filled asshole about it.

like i can sort of see the argument that 'in our america of today the virtue and vitality of work has been debased' but i think that has as much to do w/ the type of 'work' ppl are being forced to do, rather than our prevalent attitudes towards 'working'

― *clicks 'OK'* (Lamp), Thursday, September 1, 2011 7:55 PM (40 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i think its def partially to do w/that, like good blue collar jobs dont exist anymore, but its also a state of mind thing imho

But, I'm sorry, the insistance that college makes you more 'worthy' of a good/stable/high-paying job is silly, and kind of elitest

really? i mean maybe not automatically but shouldnt at least have some correlation to them? and if it doesnt than what should? luck? ancestry? being handsome? nothing?

there is something inherently elitist in thinking that your time spent talking about chaucer in small groups of like-minded people qualifies you for high-paying work more than four years as an apprentice electrician running cable in the rain at 5am for $12/hr

yeah, that's hyperbole

if we believe that to be true why shit on the dockworker MBA?

but you should also feel very, very lucky to have a job at this particular juncture in history and not be a grudge-filled asshole about it.

so honduran migrants picking crops in south florida for a few dollars a day should just be happy theyre making more than they were in their villages?

i mean lol internet arguing tactics but i mean...

there's more than one conversation happening here

1) higher education is kind of broken, as is the economy

i do thinks its p fd up that everyone is always u need college to get a good job then these kids pay all this money to go to college then they cant get a good job and everyones like welp - but on the other hand you do have to be somewhat savvy in life to do well

wtf @ driving slowly to save gas

― call all destroyer, Thursday, September 1, 2011 3:51 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

iirc the sweet spot is 50-55 mph to get the best gas mileage

2) certain disciplines are maybe not a good idea to get a degree in anymore