Car dealers are not mad at rich Manhattan developers. This is blindingly obvious. The material success that angers small town elites is when it comes to nonwhites. But we use abstracts so that we can pretend Rick Buick voted for Trump to protest Elon Musk’s wealth.

There were Nazis before there was a Great Depression!

Yep. That’s the thing that leads to confusion and gets people upset and talking past each other. “Unskilled” means you can start the job without pre-existing skills and learn them on the job, not that there are no skills involved at all.

(And if you say, but architects *are* really arrogant, I say, imagine how bad they used to be)

When institutions fail, bad people amass unaccountable power. Most of the time, people who are both toxic enough to do this and ambitious enough to want to do this are....weird people. It's both.

I don't think you're saying otherwise, I'm just taking the opportunity to clarify. Modernists thought wedding cake Victorians were hideous, while we tend to like the survivors. But there were instances that absolutely deserved opprobrium, & I think we shouldn't shy from saying it.

Sure, but I'm not using "ugly" to mean "style I don't like", I'm using it for "malproportioned, ill-conceived, inhumane." I know a lot of people like to say that everything is de gustibus, but to me there's something nihilistic about that, bc it says that no amount of effort can make a better objet.

My son's name is Kai, my dad's is Cal, and in a certain accent, they sound all but identical.

I will never get over Good Times being their very first track ever.

bsky.app/profile/jmro...

I’m torn on this. I do not believe that every building is equally pleasing, nor that ugly buildings and lovely ones are equally valuable, nor that cities are equally good with lovely or ugly buildings.

But I also know that 90% of hoi polloi have no ability to distinguish.

The thing about reactionary propaganda is that there are 2 underlying conditions (good/bad) and 2 goals they have (blame/don't blame the in party). In 2/4 cases, their job is easy, and they can make ppl think things are worse than they are. But the 4th case is simply impossible.

I was going to say, morning or afternoon makes all the difference.

I'm sorry for you and your fellow riders, but this is objectively hilarious.

All due respect to NYT Cooking, which has many fine recipes, it is such a pale shadow of ATK, and I feel faintly embarrassed for people who make it their personalities.

PS my family adores your yogurt soup recipes (among others).

I don't need this for Thursday, but soon, and for the rest of my life.

[har har joke about paying for dinner]