I’m honestly just so sick to death of seeing hypersexualised female celebrities. It’s so, so damaging and to think that my nieces are growing up surrounded by it makes me worry constantly about the next generation of girls and women.

And it’s so fucking prevalent. Hypersexualised female celebrities are the norm, not the exception. Especially black/brown women. When I think about how every single Top 40 song sung by a female is about male pleasure, it hits home how profoundly mired in patriarchy we are.

Can we just have female celebrities that aren’t forced to sexualise themselves? Is that too much to ask for the diet that young girls grow up on?

Ariana grande’s latest album is *literally* named after trying new sex positions—for a man. The most famous pop song by women of last year, WAP, was literally about male pleasure and the lengths women will go to for it, and included the lyrics, “I wanna gag, I wanna choke.”

Don’t even get me started on the imagery. The music videos, the photography. The constant fucking nudity. The way almost every dance move is an allusion to sex.

Something that would help our field, it seems to me, is to separate the Music Director position from the Principal Conductor position at orchestras. If nothing else, you'd get a wider range of musical tastes/interests at the top, which would serve the institutions well.

I've also seen too many situations where big/biggish-name conductors shoot down an idea that has the backing of their orchestras' creative staff, because it's just not of personal interest to them. Conductor ego is a substantial source of regressive energy in classical music.

We have a *major* resource problem in the field of new music. There's not enough $ to go around, and definitely not enough to make the field truly open and accessible. In that light, we need to be strategic about targeting the spaces where new resources could come to the table.

I've long been critical of orchestras, but I've never said we should tear them down. Far from it. Orchestras are central arts organizations with access to community resources of all kinds, including but not limited to $. That's why they have to become true leaders in the field.

Do you know how hard it is for a new music organization to develop the kind of resource base that an orchestra has? A few have come close, but it's practically impossible, especially now, with so much arts funding having dried up and no new apparent boom on the horizon from tech$

I've seen a lot of praise for this Kevin Williamson piece on Trump and the GOP. I obviously agree with the "Trump is bad" sentiment, which accounts for its popularity among Never Trumpers. However....

There are a couple massive flaws worth highlighting, because they're characteristic of the poisons that inhabit even many species of anti-Trump conservatism.

The first his Williamson's whitewashing of William F. Buckley's support for white supremacy:

Williamson justifies Buckley's support for disenfranchising blacks on the grounds that Buckley also wanted to disenfranchise "unqualified" whites.

But that was not on the table. What was on the table was measures to equalize voting for blacks and whites. Buckley opposed them.

And while his view "evolved," that means that he gave up on restoring de jure segregation after he lost his fight to preserve it.

His principle didn't change.

Thread: Meaning and loss in American conservatism

I've written a lot about how Christian supremacism (expressed and implicit) is the underlying objective of most Trump supporters but the psychology of American conservatism is very important in its descent into madness.

We're seeing it manifested heavily in the present moment as Trump and his followers are forced to contemplate the loss of the presidency but it's important to realize that losing is the psychic core of the U.S. right.

Trump's repugnant demeanor and prior history of political moderation is what made him so reviled by conservative activists and donors in 2015 but his angry victim complex so deeply resonated with the GOP base that this is why he won the primary.

American conservatism has been obsessed with death and loss since it emerged in the 1940s. The utter humiliation of Herbert Hoover and the rapid growth of federal spending and regulation under FDR was an existential moment for the corporate barons who started the U.S. right.

The rise of explicitly atheist Marxist-Leninism was also immensely triggering of long-time fundamentalist fantasies of persecution and death before the return of Christ. Most Christians don't see John's Apocalypse as a literal text but fundamentalists do.

Cipla concall was today at 10:40 pm (late night)

Here are the key takeaways 😃

@unseenvalue @darshanvmehta1 @AlgoBoffin @iramneek

Introduction

- Company being the first one to launch Remdesivir and the whole portfolio for covid 19

- Company is no.2 in lung leadership. Will try to unlock the complex generics in US.

- Growing faster than the average market growth.

- Trying to bring respiratory technology in China and in Brazil.
- There is a fair amount of unlocking through digitalization.
- ESG to improve in future. Becoming carbon neutral and water neutral.

US business
- Were able to add

- would be doubling the revenue in US.

- The pipeline is nicely diversified , now the products are diversified into respiratory + injectable around 30%

Indian market: One india strategy
- To cosumerize the business.

- Generic business is no.1 in india.

- Brand is moving from generic business to consumer business.

- Goal is to keep beating market growth by expanding the depth in portfolio.

THREAD - Face Covering Regulations: How the UK government instructed supermarkets and major retailers to respond to exemptions. /1

Last year the heads of supermarkets and *major* retailers received a ‘secret’ Cabinet Office document about face covering exemptions /2

An important point to make here is that small independent businesses were NOT given the same details. And neither has the government ever shared it with the public. In fact, they REALLY do not want you to see it. /3

Although I’ve known of this document since September, I previously decided not share it for fear that it would make life even more difficult for people with genuine medical exemptions and disabilities /4

Yet, this week, the government has mounted a fear campaign that has caused widespread confusion and despair for people who are not able to wear a mask. Notably, those with hidden disabilities. It must now be made public /5

Bravery

6 May 17, I was privileged to fly on the last chopper that brought back the released Chibok girls. Seeing the girls - young, naive BUT broken, was a reminder of how cruel man is. When we touched down, I stayed with them briefly in the C-130 before the Abuja lap.

Military medics began basic checks, deworming them and tending their wounds. There was one particular girl who had lost a leg. She said the Air Force had hit BHT positions & during the strike she lost a leg. I stared at her, wishing it was a dream.

Sitting beside her was another girl - the bravest girl I ever met. For the purpose of this thread, let us call her 'N'. N kept a daily journal of what happened everyday at the BH camp. I snapped as many pages as I could. The girls attested that she was the leader of the pack.

Right under Boko Haram's nose, every night, after the terrorists had ordered them for 'lights out', she would organise the girls for prayers & morning devotion the next day. I found myself smiling sheepishly at this. This is faith. This is bravery.

When the medics were done & we were notified that the C-130 would depart for Abuja, N made a signal & all the girls sat up, crossed their legs & bend their heads. N led them in prayers. I would later learn that this was their routine when there was danger or the bombs dropped.

Going to write this out, knowing full well that what I am about will make me sound insane, or something I should be sharing with a personal diary or a therapist or something but if I don't get this outside of my body and put it back in the atmosphere, not confined to a page 1/

where it is locked away safe inside ink and a cover of cardboard. I cannot step away, unless I can teleport like Dr Manhattan to Mars, where I am breathing another air, where the world through which I must navigate is not charged with rage and anger 2/

I have long thought but always denied that I am a weird sort of absorber, and today I am just overwhelmed and not coping. I took a long long break, I tried to work through this. It did not help, because it is in the air that I breathe. 3/

This feels like what insanity must feel like, what having insane thoughts feel like, like madness, like paralysis, like one of those people who don aluminum hats to prevent whatever the fuck they're trying to stop from getting in. Am I fucking losing my mind? 4/

I tell myself this cannot be, that this is not real, that I am only imagining it, yet I cannot explain how I know what I know because I should not know or feel these things. What is wrong with me? /

I first joined Facebook in 2007 to report a Facebook group called "Find Dirt on the New Pastor at Northbrook: Because Everyone Has Secrets," which began within about 7-8 months of me arriving.

It has maybe 450+ members, some of which were children of church members (and maybe some on the membership roles).
It contained pictures of me (one altered to add 666 to my necktie) and my family (one implying that I abused my youngest child).

I reported it to FB, after which the administrators dropped off it. So I contacted FB again, saying if they didn't remove it ithey would hear from my attorney about defamation of character. It was soon removed (though I may still have printouts of all group pages).

(Around the same time there was another Facebook group called "Take Back the Northbrook Youth Group," for which the cover pic was a former youth group member brandishing a handgun. Removed much more quickly when his mother learned of it!)

What I'm saying is this:

1. This is (one of several reasons) why I don't tolerate people misrepresenting me, making unwarranted accusations, or making threats...especially when they are "Christians."

2. Not much has changed on Facebook in 15 years.

New research into anti-immigration rhetoric, which I'll try to summarise in this THREAD.

It basically suggests that the emotive use of metaphor & hyperbole in anti-immigration rhetoric drives base support & INCREASES their likelihood of political

Typical anti-immigration rhetoric used by right-wing populist nationalist parties presents immigrants as outsiders, who are framed as a threat to the populist nationalists idealized nation.

In their anti-immigration rhetoric, politicians typically use strong, vivid, & negative metaphors & hyperboles to frame their political statements.

There is agreement that, at least for parts of the electorate, such populist anti-immigration rhetoric can be highly persuasive.

Metaphor & hyperbole can spark emotions by eliciting a vivid image & can increase perceived message intensity.

Metaphors can activate connotations attached to intense & negative concepts, like war & other threats, & hyperboles can exaggerate danger & emphasize threats.

When metaphor &/or hyperbole are used to frame a political issue, they not only add a rhetorical flourish, but they transfer conceptual content as well: they can promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, problem evaluation, &/or a possible problem solution.

When I say Trump is not special, I mean his politics fall comfortably on a spectrum between neocons and Tea Party Republican and his preening reality TV persona and alternating gleeful and sulking narcissism are fairly typical for that type of conservative.

Trump's only innovation was to unapologetically say the quiet part out loud and get away with it, bringing the GOP's racism, misogyny, and desire for white supremacist, monarchal rule to the forefront, but Republicans and the media were eager to enable him from the start.

It could have been anyone, though. You can see guys like Jim Jordan and even Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham wish they'd done it first. Because the GOP and their rabid white supremacist base were fully primed for someone to come along and say and do what Trump did.

Once Trump won, the entire GOP folded into Trumpism overnight because there was never any practical difference between them. The early worriers like Graham merely feared it wouldn't work and there would be a political price to pay. It turns out: not really. The base ate it up.

The media spent about a year trying to spin Trump as a continuation of "respectable" Republicanism or in tension with them before they caught on that conservatives didn't care and just started repeating his lies with a shrug.

I've been banging this drum for years now so do excuse Round 5,796,877 of it but the issue of smaller games only finding a relatively small audience is one the trad games press has been pointing out for a very long time now.

I don't think it hurts to do this one over again but with [whatever media], just it absolutely is a fundamental of the games industry and one an algorithm, sexy presentation or whatever can only ever make a limited change to.

Obviously, this is not a reason to not make that change. Usual Twitter/nuance/context loss disclaimer applies here.

So, anything that can help and doesn't make anyone's life worse in any way, go go go. Fully behind it.

Before everything was "influencer" led (Molyneux save me, I hate that term) - magazine staff knew and dedicating space to indies was something that was done knowing it wasn't what people buying were reading in big numbers.

Parler is gone, but the evidence is not. Current @Microsoft employee & fmr Snoqualmie city council candidate Kevin Ostrem (1/26) @parlertakes

Parler is gone, but the evidence is not. Current @Microsoft
employee & fmr Snoqualmie city council candidate Kevin Ostrem @parlertakes (2/26)

Parler is gone, but the evidence is not. Current @Microsoft employee & fmr Snoqualmie city council candidate Kevin Ostrem @parlertakes (3/26)

Parler is gone, but the evidence is not. Current @Microsoft employee & fmr Snoqualmie city council candidate Kevin Ostrem @parlertakes (4/26)

Parler is gone, but the evidence is not. Current @Microsoft employee & fmr Snoqualmie city council candidate Kevin Ostrem @parlertakes (5/26)

Many wonder how epidemiology could have become so politicized. But epidemiology - like climate science (the other "mysteriously politicized" subject) has intrinsic politics: to take epidemiology seriously, you have to acknowledge that our species has a shared destiny.

1/

Much of the debate over "liberty" can be summed up as "you do you" - I'll swing my arm over here, you keep your nose over there, and so long as we both respect each others' "freedom," I won't punch you in the nose and your nose will remain unpunched.

2/

This breaks down when applied to epidemiology: "You wear your mask, I'll leave mine at home, and we'll both exercise our freedoms" is like "You swim in the no-pissing end of the pool, I'll swim down here in the pissing end, and we'll both get our way."

3/

We're in the same epidemiological pool, and the science is clear: masking's benefit is primarily in protecting others from you - your presymptomatic, asymptomatic (or symptomatic) spread of particles. Your decision not to wear a mask puts me in danger.

4/

If your worldview ascribes political outcomes to individual choices (implying that poverty or misfortune are the result of a combination of laziness and inferiority), then anything that demands a systemic view challenges its very foundations.

5/

THREAD: Most advice is garbage

Here's some advice you shouldn’t listen to on startups, careers and life:

“90% of startups fail”

If you’re building a startup for the money, please quit

You’re probably better off working for FB or AMZN and rising the ranks

A successful startup isn't just about the valuation. It's about impact on your team, the world and yourself

The journey is 🔥

“You'll sleep when you’re dead”

If you don't sleep, you'll BE dead

Sleep is crucial to a happy mind and body

Without sleep, you become "foggy drunk", unable to take control of your life, startup or career

Beware of hustle culture and sleepless nights

“Become a doctor, lawyer etc”

This is probably some of the most undercover toxic advice parents can give to their children

The internet has opened the doors for anyone to become anything

Discover WHO you want to become before you decide on WHAT you want to become

“Don’t talk to strangers”

- You can't make lifelong friends if you don't talk to strangers
- You can't really discover who you are if you don't talk to strangers
- You can't get the benefits of the internet without talking to strangers

BE CAREFUL, but please talk to strangers