Peltola should go on TV, say she fired the staffers, and call them “retarded f——ts”. To send a message to the voters and also to the little snowflake pieces of shit like those who whined to Mommy Times about the Mean Lady. Fucking Christ.
So her staffers should be feeding her daughter's pet chameleon? Next you'll be telling them to get off her lawn....
More importantly, I do not think anyone who uses the term "faggot" should be in office period. Part of the problem is that our political system selects for mediocrity and ignorance, then when those candidates win they do not have the moral integrity to stand up for anything but what the ruling class tells them to stand up for. Are there any decent, well-referenced, intelligent and imaginative individuals running for office? Anyone who will fight to change the system despite getting a talking to from Barack Obama? Doubt it. But damn I wish those kids would feed her lizard.
About 20 years ago I got an email from a leading expert on dog IQ criticizing my use of the word "schizophrenic" in its informal metaphorical sense of "multiple personalities, contradictory, hypocritical." She pointed out that real life schizophrenics aren't like that at all, and that they and their loved ones have enough problems without pundits like me promoting the use of misleading definitions of schizophrenia.
I quickly fired up a snark reply. But just before hitting the Send button, it struck me that, you know, she was right and I was wrong. Everybody dealing with schizophrenia has more than enough trouble in their lives without me making it slightly worse by misusing the term. So, I haven't used it that way in decades.
I just want to pipe in that reps, Senator's and staff should all be paid more. Pay hasn't been adjusted for nearly 20 years. I can't say for sure that the quality of representation is hurt by falling real wages, but it certainly encourages it to be a job for the Independently wealthy and the super ideologically committed. The latter is probably more of a problem for the staffers.
Broadly agree with Matt's take. But you know I have a quibble.
The NYTimes article was anonymously sourced (the info critical of her, not the comments praising her). Mary Peltola is not a progressive. There is zero evidence that this information was sourced from *progressive* aides, and a strong possibility that the idea originated from one of her opponents, who found former aides willing to spill and introduced them to the Times, which is, after all, a newspaper and this stuff sells papers.
Interesting, well-written piece that makes an important point: check. Gratuitous swipe at progressives: also check.
I really do think there needs to be a cultural change in the Democratic ecosystem to weed out the type of person who would complain about Ms. Peltola to the press about this trivial stuff.
We all know this type of person, and they really sink the brand.
Conservatives tend to rate higher on conscientiousness and respect for hierarchy, which is why (despite many many flaws themselves), they don’t have this problem as much.
The comment by Ned Balzer above makes a good point. Peltola isn't a progressive at all. Other than stereotypes about staff at that age (valid), is there any reason to believe her staff would be? If she'd been a Republican hiring Republican staff, could you swear there would be no gripes about the lizard?
I thought I saw something that liberals are more conscientious now, which fits with what I uh observe from a lot of their voting base, but could be wrong
I owned a small business and routinely worked 12 hr. intense days. It was critical that my employees did their jobs fully or I added hours and hardly had time to sleep. Most of my people were great even though I couldn't afford to pay well. I had one teenager who shirked and she didn't last long. If she didn't perform her duties, other people had to. That was simply not fair.
Regular ordinary workday things in glorious grocery life:
-boss gives you the P-card, says to run to Office Depot stat cause we're out of toner, or to a pharmacy for, uh, "feminine products" cause the supply in the restrooms got stolen and they're urgently needed
-get yelled at across a language barrier about why SNAP doesn't cover alcohol or toilet paper
-nevertheless persist when nextdoor's construction project periodically empties out their PortaPotties (the times when I sympathize most with NIMBYs)
-process these returns, including goods we haven't sold for a decade, liquefied fish, and bloated diced onions. "I was cleaning out my house and found these, they're no good anymore..."
-apologize to customers about the "water leak" from overhead pipes, locate the large ladder, discreetly remove and dispose of dripping maggot-infested rat corpse
-long-running repeat customer, super devout kindly Christian warns coworkers to avoid the gay, else they'll be damned to hell (doesn't realize like half the employees are LGBT, no one has the heart to tell them)
-experience suicidal ideation from being forced to listen to Taylor Swift on the corporate radio
&tc, &tc, I could go on. I don't doubt that congressional staffers have problems too, but to quote Wag the Dog: This Is Nothing. Orders of magnitude more and worse shit at frontline jobs all across this great nation, every day - we'd kill to only have to deal with crickets and language that barely registers as slurs among the blue-collars anymore. And you don't see me wrining to the Grey Lady and possibly endangering flipping the Senate over it. I mean didn't we literally just (re)learn this lesson with Platner, that there's annoying lapses of judgement and then there's Oh No He Didn't? Thank you for calling Character Matters, your call is important to us. For relative moral exemplar candidates, press D. For all other inquiries, please stay on the line...
At my first job one of the shift leaders set up a fight club to entertain everyone during slow times. He'd pair off 2 people and throw us in the walk on fridge and we'd wrestle and beat each other up until one of us gave up. Good times! Kids these days are so soft.
Agree with the underlying message but mixing home and workplace with one's employees is as out of favor as use of the "R" word unless you individually own the enterprise.
In some ways, Jeffries was the nearest thing she had to a boss and if I was Jeffries, I would get annoyed that a staffer was bringing live crickets that could get into other offices and reptile shit into work. It might not be worth the flight with a swing state member, but if she was in a safe seat, I would have told her to hire a pet sitter and stop doing weird shit.
One other aspect of this is it just makes your life better. Is it better to feed the lizard or get into an argument with your boss and then feed the lizard.
Not 100% the same thing, but I used to get into arguments with my boss over edits to my writing (as a lawyer) that I didnt agree with. At some point, I realized that my job was to write what my boss wanted me to write (even if my version was better) and everything was a lot more copaceptic.
I’m going to throat clear here and say that I’m pretty much in the camp of the stuff being described in this hit piece is mostly of the “eh probably shouldn’t use those words” and “eh, your boss shouldn’t have you do personal stuff for you often but there are exceptions where this probably ok and this seems like one of them” nothing burger of the story. And to any staffer who decided in the last month this was the optimal time to put your name out to this kind of story of maybe not ok but nothing close to egregious behavior…seriously priorities here!
All that said….I’m sorry was the original title of this post “Get off my lawn!”? Seriously, a post that’s essentially these kids today don’t work hard anymore?! You know the whole “Gen Z is ‘quiet quitting’” was completely made up right? You of all people know what actually happened is 2021-2023 due to labor shortages resulting from reopening the economy + ZIRP meant labor had a level of bargaining power they hadn’t had since the late 90s
This is an old story. Remember “Millennials don’t want to work hard anymore”? I know you do and I know remember “kids don’t have money because they’re buying avacado toast”! Or more directly related to the post remember circa 2010-2011 the “millennial men don’t want to work because they’re too busy playing video games” nonsense. I remember because I was one of those people struggling to find work and there were very real articles in the paper of record about this. Also, it had a political valence because it was trodded out by people like Tyler Cowen to basically argue against Keynesian stimulus spending. I bring up because are you really sure it wasn’t the Sullivan campaign that fed a lot of opposition research to the Times or at least pointed them in the right direction? I don’t even bring up this point to smear the Sullivan campaign (as much as I want them to lose) just to point out that it’s pretty standard practice for campaigns to feed any and all negative stories you can to the press to see what sticks. To be bipartisan about this, remember Rand Paul “aqua Budda”? An even more nothing burger of a story that only junkies like me remember that clearly was a “throw stuff at the wall see what sticks” rival campaign oppo dump.
Also, the “kids don’t want to work” today story is literally not just decades old but centuries old. Seriously look this up. You can find nobles in the like the 14th century complaining how these younger serfs/yeoman farmers don’t want to work like the old days; when the real story is the black plague actually gave workers bargaining power because suddenly there was a worker shortage due to the Black Death.
Do you...work with a lot of Gen Z and Alphas? There's good and bad apples in every generation, but having been at my job for one complete Changing of the Guard by now - few Gen X and up employees left, my Millennial cohort now in majority-minority, it's mostly young blood - I don't know, man, it's just hard to believe the new vibe is entirely based on labour market strength. Instead of /r/antiwork escaping containment and teaching a new generation that if their chin gets checked, it was probably a racism or something, instead of them being a bad employee, acktually. Sometimes I feel like we've taken the Inverted Pyramid management structure too far, where the bosses have to beg the kids to do any work. Which leads to mikromanagement and all its resentments, and thus the cycle repeats. When literally hundreds of applicants flood our portal every time a position opens up...
It is legitimately a bad word. We shouldn't use it. With that said, when a person of my age and generation uses it in private, I don't lecture them. I understand how they intend it. But future generations should be freed from it.
Peltola should go on TV, say she fired the staffers, and call them “retarded f——ts”. To send a message to the voters and also to the little snowflake pieces of shit like those who whined to Mommy Times about the Mean Lady. Fucking Christ.
So her staffers should be feeding her daughter's pet chameleon? Next you'll be telling them to get off her lawn....
More importantly, I do not think anyone who uses the term "faggot" should be in office period. Part of the problem is that our political system selects for mediocrity and ignorance, then when those candidates win they do not have the moral integrity to stand up for anything but what the ruling class tells them to stand up for. Are there any decent, well-referenced, intelligent and imaginative individuals running for office? Anyone who will fight to change the system despite getting a talking to from Barack Obama? Doubt it. But damn I wish those kids would feed her lizard.
About 20 years ago I got an email from a leading expert on dog IQ criticizing my use of the word "schizophrenic" in its informal metaphorical sense of "multiple personalities, contradictory, hypocritical." She pointed out that real life schizophrenics aren't like that at all, and that they and their loved ones have enough problems without pundits like me promoting the use of misleading definitions of schizophrenia.
I quickly fired up a snark reply. But just before hitting the Send button, it struck me that, you know, she was right and I was wrong. Everybody dealing with schizophrenia has more than enough trouble in their lives without me making it slightly worse by misusing the term. So, I haven't used it that way in decades.
As the parent of newly employed children, amen.
I just want to pipe in that reps, Senator's and staff should all be paid more. Pay hasn't been adjusted for nearly 20 years. I can't say for sure that the quality of representation is hurt by falling real wages, but it certainly encourages it to be a job for the Independently wealthy and the super ideologically committed. The latter is probably more of a problem for the staffers.
It also encourages corruption.
Broadly agree with Matt's take. But you know I have a quibble.
The NYTimes article was anonymously sourced (the info critical of her, not the comments praising her). Mary Peltola is not a progressive. There is zero evidence that this information was sourced from *progressive* aides, and a strong possibility that the idea originated from one of her opponents, who found former aides willing to spill and introduced them to the Times, which is, after all, a newspaper and this stuff sells papers.
Interesting, well-written piece that makes an important point: check. Gratuitous swipe at progressives: also check.
Is it interesting or news worthy? Most people's reaction to this was "so what?"
I really do think there needs to be a cultural change in the Democratic ecosystem to weed out the type of person who would complain about Ms. Peltola to the press about this trivial stuff.
We all know this type of person, and they really sink the brand.
Conservatives tend to rate higher on conscientiousness and respect for hierarchy, which is why (despite many many flaws themselves), they don’t have this problem as much.
The comment by Ned Balzer above makes a good point. Peltola isn't a progressive at all. Other than stereotypes about staff at that age (valid), is there any reason to believe her staff would be? If she'd been a Republican hiring Republican staff, could you swear there would be no gripes about the lizard?
I thought I saw something that liberals are more conscientious now, which fits with what I uh observe from a lot of their voting base, but could be wrong
Could be! I would love a link to material about that topic, if you have it.
I owned a small business and routinely worked 12 hr. intense days. It was critical that my employees did their jobs fully or I added hours and hardly had time to sleep. Most of my people were great even though I couldn't afford to pay well. I had one teenager who shirked and she didn't last long. If she didn't perform her duties, other people had to. That was simply not fair.
Regular ordinary workday things in glorious grocery life:
-boss gives you the P-card, says to run to Office Depot stat cause we're out of toner, or to a pharmacy for, uh, "feminine products" cause the supply in the restrooms got stolen and they're urgently needed
-get yelled at across a language barrier about why SNAP doesn't cover alcohol or toilet paper
-nevertheless persist when nextdoor's construction project periodically empties out their PortaPotties (the times when I sympathize most with NIMBYs)
-process these returns, including goods we haven't sold for a decade, liquefied fish, and bloated diced onions. "I was cleaning out my house and found these, they're no good anymore..."
-apologize to customers about the "water leak" from overhead pipes, locate the large ladder, discreetly remove and dispose of dripping maggot-infested rat corpse
-long-running repeat customer, super devout kindly Christian warns coworkers to avoid the gay, else they'll be damned to hell (doesn't realize like half the employees are LGBT, no one has the heart to tell them)
-experience suicidal ideation from being forced to listen to Taylor Swift on the corporate radio
&tc, &tc, I could go on. I don't doubt that congressional staffers have problems too, but to quote Wag the Dog: This Is Nothing. Orders of magnitude more and worse shit at frontline jobs all across this great nation, every day - we'd kill to only have to deal with crickets and language that barely registers as slurs among the blue-collars anymore. And you don't see me wrining to the Grey Lady and possibly endangering flipping the Senate over it. I mean didn't we literally just (re)learn this lesson with Platner, that there's annoying lapses of judgement and then there's Oh No He Didn't? Thank you for calling Character Matters, your call is important to us. For relative moral exemplar candidates, press D. For all other inquiries, please stay on the line...
I hope some Chameleon or Cricket costumes show up at campaign events, to underline how bogus this “complaint” is.
Should be useful for DC Halloween parties this year, as well.
At my first job one of the shift leaders set up a fight club to entertain everyone during slow times. He'd pair off 2 people and throw us in the walk on fridge and we'd wrestle and beat each other up until one of us gave up. Good times! Kids these days are so soft.
Agree with the underlying message but mixing home and workplace with one's employees is as out of favor as use of the "R" word unless you individually own the enterprise.
1. The interns should shut up and support their boss publicly.
2. Peltola should hire a petsitter.
In some ways, Jeffries was the nearest thing she had to a boss and if I was Jeffries, I would get annoyed that a staffer was bringing live crickets that could get into other offices and reptile shit into work. It might not be worth the flight with a swing state member, but if she was in a safe seat, I would have told her to hire a pet sitter and stop doing weird shit.
One other aspect of this is it just makes your life better. Is it better to feed the lizard or get into an argument with your boss and then feed the lizard.
Not 100% the same thing, but I used to get into arguments with my boss over edits to my writing (as a lawyer) that I didnt agree with. At some point, I realized that my job was to write what my boss wanted me to write (even if my version was better) and everything was a lot more copaceptic.
"I realized that my job was to write what my boss wanted me to write"
Yes.
I’m going to throat clear here and say that I’m pretty much in the camp of the stuff being described in this hit piece is mostly of the “eh probably shouldn’t use those words” and “eh, your boss shouldn’t have you do personal stuff for you often but there are exceptions where this probably ok and this seems like one of them” nothing burger of the story. And to any staffer who decided in the last month this was the optimal time to put your name out to this kind of story of maybe not ok but nothing close to egregious behavior…seriously priorities here!
All that said….I’m sorry was the original title of this post “Get off my lawn!”? Seriously, a post that’s essentially these kids today don’t work hard anymore?! You know the whole “Gen Z is ‘quiet quitting’” was completely made up right? You of all people know what actually happened is 2021-2023 due to labor shortages resulting from reopening the economy + ZIRP meant labor had a level of bargaining power they hadn’t had since the late 90s
This is an old story. Remember “Millennials don’t want to work hard anymore”? I know you do and I know remember “kids don’t have money because they’re buying avacado toast”! Or more directly related to the post remember circa 2010-2011 the “millennial men don’t want to work because they’re too busy playing video games” nonsense. I remember because I was one of those people struggling to find work and there were very real articles in the paper of record about this. Also, it had a political valence because it was trodded out by people like Tyler Cowen to basically argue against Keynesian stimulus spending. I bring up because are you really sure it wasn’t the Sullivan campaign that fed a lot of opposition research to the Times or at least pointed them in the right direction? I don’t even bring up this point to smear the Sullivan campaign (as much as I want them to lose) just to point out that it’s pretty standard practice for campaigns to feed any and all negative stories you can to the press to see what sticks. To be bipartisan about this, remember Rand Paul “aqua Budda”? An even more nothing burger of a story that only junkies like me remember that clearly was a “throw stuff at the wall see what sticks” rival campaign oppo dump.
Also, the “kids don’t want to work” today story is literally not just decades old but centuries old. Seriously look this up. You can find nobles in the like the 14th century complaining how these younger serfs/yeoman farmers don’t want to work like the old days; when the real story is the black plague actually gave workers bargaining power because suddenly there was a worker shortage due to the Black Death.
Do you...work with a lot of Gen Z and Alphas? There's good and bad apples in every generation, but having been at my job for one complete Changing of the Guard by now - few Gen X and up employees left, my Millennial cohort now in majority-minority, it's mostly young blood - I don't know, man, it's just hard to believe the new vibe is entirely based on labour market strength. Instead of /r/antiwork escaping containment and teaching a new generation that if their chin gets checked, it was probably a racism or something, instead of them being a bad employee, acktually. Sometimes I feel like we've taken the Inverted Pyramid management structure too far, where the bosses have to beg the kids to do any work. Which leads to mikromanagement and all its resentments, and thus the cycle repeats. When literally hundreds of applicants flood our portal every time a position opens up...
Today's article exists because it's a thousand times more effective to refute a hit piece by attacking it on the merits.
I often tell my son to stop being retarded. I also tell him that if he ever denigrates a low IQ person with that word he is in for serious punishment.
It is legitimately a bad word. We shouldn't use it. With that said, when a person of my age and generation uses it in private, I don't lecture them. I understand how they intend it. But future generations should be freed from it.