I truly believe John Darnielle is the most talented working poet right now.

Tomas Kalnoky (bands include Catch 22, Streetligh Manifest, Bandits of the Acoustic Revolution, and Toh Kay) is one of the best songwriters of all time, IMO. His lyrics resonate very well with me.

Pat the bunny (Johnny Hobo and the Freight Trains, Ramshackle Glory, Wignut Dishwashers Union, etc) is another great lyricist. While they don’t always speak directly to my personal life experiences, I’ve known a lot of people like those he describes, and his politics match mine closely.

John Darnielle (The Mountain Goats) is just a beautiful poet and puts a TON of emotion into his guitar playing. I truly believe he’s the greatest living poet working right now.

Came here to mention exactly this. It aired for 4 seasons during the late 90s. I watched it weekly with my family when I was a kid.

IIRC, the ending and lore left it wide open for a reboot, although they’d have to drastically change the framing away from a print newspaper.

I’m not a liberal. Thanks.

Research what working in those fields is like and choose the one that has the highest pay for the least time commitment. Whichever requires you to actually be at work the least is your best bet.

My younger daughter’s 3rd birthday is next week. That’ll be pretty fun.

We’re also going on a family vacation this summer across the country. We had been planning to fly, but after comparing prices we discovered it would be cheaper to rent an RV and make it a road trip. I’m looking forward to doing that with my kids.

For headline sports programs like football and basketball, sure. But a lot of scholarships for stuff like lacrosse, track and field, virtually all women’s sports, etc come from the Department of Education.

I can’t picture myself in 5/10 years from now and can’t even imagine what type of job I’d love, bc everything seems out fo reach and impossible

You’re approaching this with 100% the wrong view and attitude. You sound like you’re trying to define your life by what job you have. Your job should just be the way you fund your life.

Find out what you want out of life. Do you want a family? Do you want to travel? Make art? Build community? Learn what hobbies you enjoy, how you want to spend your days, who you like to surround yourself with. Then figure out what you need financially to make that happen to the best of your ability. (Nothing will ever be perfect, and you shouldn’t expect that.) Then find a job that can fund the lifestyle you want.

Who cares what the job is? That’s not what life is about. That’s just how you pay for your life. Most people don’t love their job. Hell, most people don’t even like their job. It’s just how we get food and shelter.

OK, buddy. You’re wrong on like every point, but you go on believing whatever you want.

That is, in fact, how the world works. And communists are leftists…

Just throwing this out there, the fascists and reactionaries have 0 qualms with having a bunch of kids. Do you want the generation of people who will be running the world when we’re old to be entirely raised by fascists and reactionaries? Where will future leftists come from if not from present leftists?

This completely contradicts your earlier point:

People that don’t want children usually think of the potential wellbeing of a future human. People that do want children, usually do so for selfish reasons.

Are you choosing to not have kids (which is a perfectly fine and morally defensible decision to make) because you’re thinking of the potential wellbeing of a future human, or for the selfish reason that it would make your socioeconomic situation more difficult?

Again, simply saying “I just don’t want to have kids” is perfectly fine. But you tried to moralize it by saying people who do have kids are selfish and those who don’t are altruistic. Yet the reason you gave for not having kids was selfish.

I am very much a leftist (anarchist, to be specific). I have 2 kids and I absolutely LOVE being a dad. It’s the single most fulfilling and enjoyable thing I’ve done in my entire life.

If you don’t want kids, that’s perfectly fine. Kids need a loving an nurturing home, and if someone is unwilling to provide that, they shouldn’t have kids just to have them. But I also don’t think there’s anything wrong with having kids if you want them.

From an ideologically leftist perspective (which absolutely should NOT be the determining factor in having kids), remember how much focus the fascists put on family and kids. They are having plenty of kids who will be raised with their fascist ideology. Do you really want the generation who will be running the world when we’re old to be entirely raised by fascists?

I didn’t have kids because of my politics, but I’m happy to know that at least 2 future adults will be raised by me with my values.

most don’t seem to want to have children either for the uncertainty of the future or because they are too expensive or because it wouldn’t give them too much time to organize or whatever

I’d just say that every single one of these factors has been in play for virtually all of history and yet people still had kids and were able to do great things. John Brown had like 20 kids, but that didn’t stop him from fighting slavery. Nestor Makhno had a daughter. Our world is nowhere near as dire as the one Makhno lived in, and he built an entire anarchist society. What do you think the birth rate in places like Rojava is?

These aren’t very good reasons to not have kids, they’re just justifications people pull out when they feel like saying “I just don’t want kids” isn’t good enough. It is. if you don’t want kids, that’s fine. Don’t try to make up some reason why others who do shouldn’t.

Summer.

I grew up in a desert and LOVE the heat. Doesn’t matter if it’s humid or dry, so long as it’s hot I’m happy. And I HATE the cold. If I have to wear long pants and/or long sleeves to stay warm, it’s too cold out.

I think the answer is yes to both.

There’s a really inspiring revolution ongoing. The journalist James Stout has been doing some excellent reporting on his patreon and on Cool Zone Media with his contacts in the rebel movement.

Yet again, you refuse to respond to criticism. Try doing something other than insulting me.

I think you are incapable of forming a response to my very valid criticism of your ill-conceived idea. You keep resorting to the same baseless claim that your system would simply be immune to corruption without ever actually giving a reason why or a method to prevent corruption. The US isn’t the only corrupt government on the planet. All of them are. Every single one.

You act like that since I’m from the US I’m somehow incapable of understanding complex ideas? Yet you yourself are incapable of giving a response. I assume based on your focus on Brexit that you’re from the UK? Are you seriously suggesting that the UK government is hyper-capable and incorruptible? Really?

Try having a conversation like an adult. Why do you not believe that your poll test would be subject to corruption? What mechanism would you include to prevent it? Just claiming that it wouldn’t because it’s not in the US isn’t an argument. It’s an admission that you have no clue what you’re talking about.

You seem to have an incredibly large amount of trust in your government. For your benefit, I’ll assume this is rooted in naivety. Your government does not work for your benefit. A government is made of individuals who are people, just like everyone else. They’re responsive to incentives, just like everyone else. And when someone has power and authority, their incentive is to maintain this power at all costs. This has been true in all countries and all governments throughout history. Yours is no different.

Create the power to control who is allowed to vote and give it to the people in charge of the government and they WILL use it to maintain their power.

You can go on and on about how noble your civil service is, but it’s all bullshit. It’s staffed by normal people, just like every institution is. They react the same as people always have.

Yes. You want a system whereby the people with access to the resources needed to educate themselves are the only ones allowed to vote. What’s more, you want to give the power to control access to the ballot to an unelected group of people who get to determine what education is sufficient enough to give you the right to vote.

You’re just handing the power to pick who is allowed to vote over to the people already in power. Of course they’re going to abuse that power to ensure they always win. That’s ALWAYS what happens in every single government that’s ever existed. People with power want to remain in power and will manipulate the system to ensure that.

Your poll test system is just a shortcut to oligarchy.