Newspaper Headlines That Make You Want to Give Up on Life

Duff you should give hockey a chance you might like it.

Ha, I don't really have a problem with hockey particularly, I'm just not doing sports anymore, and you guys tend to keep every other major sport confined to its respective thread.

Anymore...? What happened?

Part of it is the surrounding culture, part of it is about getting too wrapped up in something that ultimately is just dudes playing games, part of it is I'm just not interested anymore.

Anyway, this has been like a decade now and feels pretty good turning off the news ten minutes early every night.

Edward Snowden joins Twitter so he can talk to Neil deGrasse Tyson

We live in the dumbest of times.

I do not like the popular internet man Edward Snowden.

Ned Braden wrote:I do not like the popular internet man Edward Snowden.

Please explain.

Nick wrote:

Ned Braden wrote:I do not like the popular internet man Edward Snowden.

Please explain.

If life were a mafia movie, and the NSA was the mob, Snowden would be a rat. And even though all the murdering stuff the mob does is wrong, fuck being a rat. Plus, I don't like his smug face.

This is a pretty close summary of my feelings about the guy:

http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/edward-snowden-is-no-hero

I have a lot of issues with Snowden but I have more with that article... the distinction between legal and ethical whistleblowing they're making is... confusing to me, and the issues with him fleeing the country? The Obama administration has been historically merciless with whistleblowers and leakers... of course he fled. I wouldn't use a word like "hero" which is dicey in the best of situations but he is a product of the world the NSA has created and hopefully what he did will contribute to a long-term reduction in the size of the surveillance state.

You don't think he could have found a way to expose warrantless domestic surveillance without committing treason?

no. whistleblowers seem to generally have their lives ruined however they choose to undertake the process and however just the blowing may be.
he chose maximum impact, i guess, which had a drastic effect on his being.

He's an American hero and I don't accept any arguments to the contrary.

reuben wrote:You don't think he could have found a way to expose warrantless domestic surveillance without committing treason?

Maybe, although as mentioned above the government has come down on people who acted much more judiciously than he did. He could have done things differently but his indiscretions pale in comparison to the government's. Basically I don't see the point in holding whistleblowers to such a high standard while giving so much deference (explicit or implicit) to the government. On the see-saw of "government's ability to conduct covert intelligence" vs. "public's ability to assess transparent democracy" I'm more worried about the latter than the former.

This story about the 9 year old boy being executed in an alley as a form of gang retaliation has me sickened this week: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-child-fatally-shot-briefing-met-20151105-story.html#navtype=outfit.

25 year old father with a criminal history and alleged gang ties and wasn't willing to cooperate with the police immediately.

I went and saw Father Michael Pfleger speak a couple days after that happened. The shooting was only a few blocks from his parish. Absolutely sickening that this might have something to do with gang retaliation. Pfleger emphasized that the police would not allow the father to see his child because it's "protocol." Also mentioned that when Pfleger pleaded with the officer to make an exception the fucker said, within earshot of the father, "what does he care, he is just a gangbanger anyway."

Really not interested in simplified rhetoric that makes police officers out to be the biggest cunts in the world. But that was really sickening to hear.

Apparently a gofundme or Kickstarter was created for the boy's funeral that raised a lot of money. Way too much for a funeral. A couple of days ago the mother purchased a car. Everyone is making a big deal out of that as well. Pretty ludicrous.

These attacks in Paris have me numb right now. Basically just watching Twitter and refreshing BBC news stories. It's something so extremely sad to me that I can't cry, get angry or feel much of anything.

I'm very depressed about this. That's probably all I should say about it for a while.

Same. I've been struggling with terrible anxiety for 48 hours. Then I heard about that I actually couldn't breath for a while.

I immediately typed up a note in French to the family who I spent 10 weeks with in Paris. I've been refreshing my e-mail constantly for the last hour hoping for a response. I really hope they are all safe.

This is just devastating.

Completely awful.

I found out that almost everyone I know in Paris was unaffected by what happened last night, which is a really big personal relief. The only person I haven't heard from is a professor who actually lived just a few blocks away from the theater.

All of this has been really hard for me to process. Only a few months ago I was hanging out near these places drinking beer and having the time of my life. I'm so, so sad. I'm so, so nervous about what is going to happen next both for people's security and our sense of political priorities. It's scary to think that the insane rhetoric of Le Pen & the National Front could really gain serious traction. It's scary that in the middle of all of this is a humanitarian/refugee crisis.

It really seems like no matter what direction people choose it isn't going to have the impact that everyone hopes for. I did see a video of a guy playing "Imagine" on a piano outdoors. People were singing a long and crying. Although that absolutely breaks my heart into a million pieces it was also really beautiful and touching. The #PorteOuverte stuff on Twitter was another example of the incredible degree of compassion and solidarity on display during this tragedy.

I just hope for the absolute best, whatever that might mean or entail...

It's scary to think that the insane rhetoric of Le Pen & the National Front could really gain serious traction. It's scary that in the middle of all of this is a humanitarian/refugee crisis.

I'm trying not to say a whole lot about this as we're all processing it, but this isn't gonna be good.

Definitely a solid policy.

We should all prepare to give up when the footage of this Chicago police officer murdering a black teenager is released tomorrow.