232 Matching Annotations
  1. May 2017
  2. Nov 2016
    1. "American Idiot" - Green Day

      Green Day's first number one album since 1994's multi-platinum Dookie--which is likely due to the fact that while the lyrics may have a deeper meaning, the hooks are still there, and they are played with the same intensity that made the group famous more than a decade ago. Spin said the title track was "Green Day's most epic song yet.

    2. Now everybody do the propaganda,And sing along to the age of paranoia.

      The work challenges listeners to dig deeper than the high-octane guitars and thundering drums that drive the record's jubilant pop sheen. This is a multi-layered, literate narrative that effectively wields anger, wit, and bombast to expose the ugliness that seeps below the surface of this country's patriotism, commercialism, and nationalism.

    3. We're not the ones who're meant to follow.

      "A lot of rock music lacks ambition. Rock has become stagnant. There are a lot of bands that aren't doing anything differently than what's currently going on in pop music--like issuing a single, putting out a record, making a video, and hopefully getting on a tour with a bigger band. I think the reason hip-hop has become so much bigger than rock lately is because those artists are much more ambitious, and they are making records that have a concept and characters. They sound like a script." ~Billy Joe Armstrong

    4. Television dreams of tomorrow.

      "All my songwriting is about creating a statement and taking action. On American Idiot, it's reflecting on what's going on in the world right now." ~Billy Joe Armstrong

    1. The 1620 agreement (first called the Mayflower Compact in 1793) was a legal instrument that bound the Pilgrims together when they arrived in New England. The core members of the Pilgrims' immigrant group were Separatists, members of a Puritan sect that had split from the Church of England, the only legal church in England at that time. Others in the group, however, had remained part of the Church of England, so not all of the Pilgrims shared the same religion.

      The Mayflower compact was a signature sheet that would be used for the signers to go to America for religious freedom.

  3. Sep 2016
  4. online.salempress.com.lacademy.idm.oclc.org online.salempress.com.lacademy.idm.oclc.org
    1. Salvadorans generally wear dark colors and dress conservatively. Timeliness is important, and it is typically considered rude and disrespectful to be late in formal or business situations, especially for a first meeting.

      this is interesting because Americans are very similar to people who live in El Salvador, there are a lot of similarities.

  5. Aug 2016
    1. Gunnar Myrdal

      True Confessions: I've never read Myrdal even though his work was of great influence. These days, I read people who cite him. For example, Roberts and Klibanoff start Chapter 1 of their great 2006 book, The Race Beat, immediately talking about Myrdal in depth. Sampler is here at Amazon:

      The Race Beat

      When I need insight into Myrdal, I know where to go first, thanks to this book.

  6. Jun 2016
    1. Two images of the same message. America is the way, the truth and the how. The first image shows how nurturing the United States can be, giving the people who are defenseless and feeble creatures a new take on life and feeding them some well deserve knowledge and information while their former way of living will lead to death. Quite arrogant of America to have this way of thinking but it was completely normal in this setting and time period. To the right is America being stern showing that we can offer a more sophisticated way to be. As you see what is presumed to be the european students learning, you see the african, native american and asian counterparts all in lesser positions in relation to their current living arrangements. Two extreme interpretations and only time can tell what is best for those individuals. The way that the world has evolved, it is hard to argue if that it was best for those countries to conform but as America has grown and become political aware, we are one of the better countries for anyone to be apart of.

  7. Apr 2016
    1. By historical standards, most Americans are quite wealthy. And that’s part of what bothers us. If we were all poor, we might think that’s just the way things are, but when millions of us are doing quite well while others languish in poverty, it seems that something is just not right.

      I don't understand why people are bothered if people are wealthy. People get rich for many reasons. They work hard in school and get a high paying job, they save money, they have inherited the money which also means someone worked hard to get it at some point and then there are the few times that people win money from lotteries or casinos. I don't think people need to be concerned why people are rich or poor. If you work hard and go to school you should be able to get a job and make money. If you end up poor you most likely didn't spend your life working or trying hard, you didn't go to school or you're just lazy. Sorry people worked hard in their life to get to where they want to be. I think saying something isn't right about people being poor and people being rich is complete b.s. because life isn't fair and nobody is ever going to be as good as someone else so I think people need to start dealing with that. I understand it sucks to be a kid and not be able to help yourself but that's not your fault. Parents need to step it up so they can take care of their kids. The top reasons for people in America to be poor are poor economy, drug and alcohol use, unaffordable housing, no education and medical expenses. I think the welfare system is a good idea but I think people take advantage of it if they don't want to work and thats not right. I think there should be more criteria to be able to receive welfare. I think it would be beneficial for the government to build a few cheap housing developments for the poor to help some families. It would be a good charity project. I just think it sucks that people don't work or do anything to help themselves then are complaining about being poor.

  8. Feb 2016
    1. How did animals help create the world? • How were the earth, sun, and moon formed? • Who created human beings? 0 How did Coyote influence the world?

      1) The animals were there for humans when they needed help. 2) They were created by the mother and father. 3) Human beings were created by the mother and father.

    2. How were human beings created? • Where did they obtain their knowledge, and how did they provide for themselves?

      1) Human beings were created by birth from mother and father.

      2) The father passed on his offspring and that his how they gained knowledge.

  9. Jan 2016
    1. Now like all the surpassing beings the Earth-mother and the Sky-father were changeable, even as smoke in the wind; transmutable at thought, manifesting themselves in any form at will, like as dancers may by mask-making.

      It is amazing how descriptive the world was made. The way things are being described in this document make me think of how peaceful this world was made to be. How come it could not be like this anymore?

    2. The boy that remained in the lodge grew very rapidly, and soon was able to make himself bows and arrows and to go out to hunt in the vicinity. Finally, for several days he returned home without his bow and arrows. At last he was asked why he had to have a new bow and arrows every morning

      The boy had to teach himself how to use things. When we grow up we do not rely on our parents as much, we have to explore the world on our own.

  10. Nov 2015
    1. One fascinating study in the 1980s found that American men were less likely to regard gratitude positively than were German men, and they viewed it as less constructive and useful than their German counterparts did. Gratitude presupposes so many judgments about debt and dependency that it is easy to see why supposedly self-reliant Americans would feel queasy about even discussing it.
  11. Oct 2015
    1. If Barack Obama was capable of muscling through the sort of laws that the labor movement—and Barack Obama—would like to see enacted, he would not have to give labor leaders a summit. He could give them political victories. But that does not seem to be the reality of the moment. So we all got invited to the White House instead, to talk about “outreach strategies” and to “#StartTheConvo” on labor issues. I did not get the impression that the conversation needed more starting. We all seemed pretty well decided on what we wanted. Left unspoken was the fact that the working class will not be getting what it wants, any time soon.

      Hurts to read.

  12. Sep 2015
    1. over the past two decades, Americans have become much more socially isolated from one another: More Americans live alone or with just one other person; on average, they have one-third fewer close friends; and 25 percent of Americans now say they have no close friends at all—more than double the figure from two decades ago.
    1. Particularly noteworthy are studies on the struggle over recreational space in Worcester parks (328), the relationship of the automobile to the reorganization of rural American space (176), the changing use of space in charity hospitals (330), and the American depart- ment store (30).
  13. Aug 2015
    1. But politics is about who shows up. The fossil fuel interests that are threatened show up. Nerds like Urban, vaguely repulsed by politics, do not.

      A thousand times yes that "politics is about who shows up."

    2. So perhaps a simpler way of putting the conclusion is that the Republican Party is motivated by a general philosophy while Democrats are motivated by specific policies they want to achieve.

      This is also the source of so much hate toward Republicans spouted by Democrats. It's not uncommon to hear about Republicans who "vote against their own interest". However, voting against one's own interests is a radical and amazing thing to do. If everyone who held significant privilege and power voted against their own interests we might have a more equitable world.

    3. The right-wing base has a coherent position on climate change: It's a hoax, so we shouldn't do anything about it. The left-wing base has a coherent position: It's happening, so we should do something about it. The "centrist" position, shared by conservative Democrats and the few remaining moderate Republicans, is that it's happening but we shouldn't do anything about it. That's not centrist in any meaningful ideological sense; instead, like most areas of overlap between the parties, it is corporatist.

      The worst possible outcome.

    4. What's really being measured is heterogeneity of opinion, not centrism.
    5. There are two broad narratives about politics that can be glimpsed between the lines here. Both are, in the argot of the day, problematic.

      The two paragraphs that follow are spot on. Nerds think government doesn't do anything right and they see government as this monolith thing apart from themselves rather than something they can and should work to affect, rather than circumvent.

      One thing I got out of reading Graeber's "Democracy Project" was the idea that it is not rational people that inhabit the middle of the political spectrum. Most people are more radical than the media makes it seem. The media reinforces the narrative that if you hold strong political opinions you are a radical. Your neighbors think you're crazy. You should probably just follow the herd, more.

      While there are definitely fundamentalists at the political extremes, there are also great thinkers.

    6. A voter with one extreme conservative opinion (round up and expel all illegal immigrants immediately) and one extreme liberal opinion (institute a 100 percent tax on wealth over a million dollars) will be marked, for the purposes of polling, as a moderate.