Wondering which of the many corporations you deal with, if any, "have your back" regarding government requests for information about you? The Electronic Frontier Foundation can tell you. Of the 26 listed corporations, the worst seem to be Snapchat and AT&T, which latter corporation we already knew handed over your private info to Tha Bush Mobb faster than Pierre Laval handed over Jews to the Nazis. Comcast ain't too great, either, though their record for defending their users' privacy (from the IRS, anyway) is slightly better than the others'.
There have been plenty of bad op-eds concerning the "chilling effect" of student protests prompting controversial commencement speakers to withdraw voluntarily from their speaking engagements, and FAIR finds one of the worst, in the New York Times, no less. Read the block-quoted paragraph: see how the writer implied that the only choices you might have for your commencement speakers are a) someone who's done very bad things or b) someone who's a "benign mediocrity," like, say, a sitting Supreme Court justice? So you must have a war criminal/other species of jerk at your graduation ceremony, or your graduation ceremony will be dull, and what could possibly be worse than that?
From the "'pro-business' policies kill economies" file: after $1.1 billion in Kansas state tax cuts, mostly for the wealthy and for corporations, the state lags behind national economic growth. And the state Supreme Court has stepped in to halt school budget cuts, but can't fix rising poverty rates by its lonesome. It's enough to make you think that tax-cuts-for-the-rich is just a way of redistributing taxpayer money upward to the rich. Luckily, Gov. Brownback proves he's serious about poverty by ensuring that everyone who wants to get married gets an 8-hour class on how to be married. Unless Paul Davis runs an utterly incompetent campaign, Mr. Brownback will be back in the private sector (finally!) by early next year.
House Republicans have actually proposed allowing public schools to solve their budget crunches by opting out of federally-mandated healthy lunch programs. Because there is no other solution to a budget shortfall than to take good ideas hostage! The House's newest idea will no doubt please the right-wing warriors who think making kids eat healthy food while they're on school grounds is GUMMINT TELLING US WHAT TO DO!!!!! I guess these folks never tell their kids what to do, or maybe they shadow them at school while taking government assistance because they don't work. I mean, those would be the only options that wouldn't make them utter hypocrites. Also, too, we are the government.
Former Missouri defensive end Michael Sam kissed his boyfriend on live TV after the St. Louis Rams drafted him in the 7th round of the NFL draft, but not everyone was happy about that, like this Dallas, TX TV host, who said, more than once, "I don't want to see that." Also THINK UV THA CHILDRENZ!!!!, who presumably will have questions about the kiss you, as a parent, might be able to answer without having a tantrum yourself. Folks who claim that the sight of gay men kissing is somehow "forced" on them might want to ask whether they've ever felt the same about the sight of a man and woman kissing. I mean, you do see a lot more of that, and by God why does no one ever think of the children when they kiss in public?
Finally, the National Labor Relations Board rules that workplace policies mandating "positive and professional behavior" actually violate the National Labor Relations Act. I'm not sure I agree, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter: telling people to BE POZITIVE!!!!!! is nowhere near as effective as creating a work environment where people will choose to be positive more often than not, and if managers don't often create that environment, that's no reason to throw up your hands and embrace cynicism. (Full disclosure: there is actually no good reason to embrace cynicism.)
Comments