I’m sorry, where are you getting your data for your assertion that “the vast majority of people dislike [Pollock’s art]”? Your own meme indicates that people with that opinion are in the minority and that half the people with that opinion wouldn’t even know what they’re talking about. Obviously the meme isn’t a real bell curve, but still.

I’ll be honest, it sounds like you made that up based on not much at all. If that were the case, I’m sure I’d have heard many others express a dislike for Pollock, which I don’t think I ever have, besides you.

If we’re sharing unpopular art opinions, though, I hate Zawadzki and Beksinski (really just dystopian surrealism in general, it tries a little too hard to be spooky/dark/edgy imo and usually has that overly polished digital art look to it). Reminds me of something I’d see on Deviantart or something.

I blocked them, but the moth memes keep coming! Make it stop! 😭

This article is expressly anti voting at home, written by a conservative with an agenda to push and a book to sell, and is published by a rag that spawned out of the Heritage Foundation, which created Project 2025.

I’m sure the guy who wrote “The Myth of Voter Suppression: The Left’s Assault on Clean Elections.” is going to have some very balanced and fair views on making it easier for people to vote, right?

Max Stirner and Max Payne: will break your fingers if they feel like it

That was the other thing I had considered. I ultimately figured those tourists were in the minority, though, but I could be wrong. Visiting National parks will definitely lead to seeing more of the country seeing as most aren’t that close to a major airport, but at the same time, it’s a specific destination in the same way a major city is, in that many will come just for the park and then leave. Maybe that doesn’t matter, though.

Of course, and that’s not what I had in mind, either. All of those places are most certainly worth making trips to. I’m just assuming there are some countries even most Europeans don’t bother visiting. Maybe Moldova (sorry Moldovans)? Again, I don’t really know, though.

Yeah, but in the same sense that when one says they’ve “travelled” the US, chances are they’ve only actually seen a small portion of the country, just like it’s a little dubious when US tourists claim to have “travelled” Europe and only actually seen a small portion of the continent. The contiguous US is only a little bigger than Europe, most US states rival European countries in terms of size, and many European countries have administrative regions (using whatever term they prefer) that are also roughly the size of many US state counties, so I feel it’s actually a pretty apt comparison all the way down. San Bernardino County, CA, for example, is about the size of Tuscany.

I’m surprised your main gripe with places like LA or NY are that they’re too big and sprawling and not that they’re dirty and full of unseemly things like homelessness and drug use (though I feel those issues are blown out of proportion by the culture war and deserve actual help). That’s par for the course for many big cities, though.

I’d agree that most large cities have the same problem with travelling any large area in that you could live there for years and still not see everything. Any big city will have cool places to check out, but you’ll definitely get an authentic USA experience visiting places like the ones you’ve been: blue-collar workers enjoying a beer after their shift at the local dive bar; small town events and celebrations; regional gatherings like rodeos, etc.; tiny, greasy, 50-year-old eateries with the best burgers or BBQ around, etc. Simple living. It’s not all so romantic, though. There’s a fair amount of poverty in those parts of the country and substance-abuse is quite common in some parts, too. People tend to be very friendly, though, which isn’t always the case in larger cities.

Appalachia ought to be on your list for seeing rednecks as well. It has the same problems, but also many of the same kinds of draws. It also has a lot of natural beauty. Totally different kind of redneck. Another kind still, are the bayou rednecks.

Can’t blame you for wanting to stay away at this point, though.

This was my first thought when I saw your meme lol. Only other major destination might be Chicago

I’m sure that’s true for many people. When European tourists visit the US, however, how many are actually going deep into the interior of the US? Most tourists, I’d imagine, would be staying somewhat near one of the coasts and mainly sticking to the major cities. I doubt many Europeans have anywhere in Nebraska on their itineraries. Probably not a ton of European tourists in the US right now anyway, but I mean in the recent past at times of relative political normalcy.

It makes sense, though. Most people who are travelling don’t have the time or money to spend months seeing all the highlights of a place as large as Europe or the US. Even just these countries offer a ton to see, whether its the cities or the countryside. I can’t speak for how well-traveled Europeans are, but very few people in the US, even those who have lived long lives here, are able to say they’ve even visited every state, let alone seen the whole country. I bet that’s probably true of Europe for Europeans, too.

I myself don’t have much money for travelling, so I’ve only been to 11 states (and never even left the country), and I certainly did not see everything those states had to offer. Some states are often called “fly-over” states and, frankly, aren’t usually considered worthwhile places to visit anyway (even by Americans), so you can be forgiven for skipping those. I’m sure Europe has its equivalents, too.

Seems insane to me to not even say where it was found, that’s like a critical piece of the story. It would give important context as to why it took so long to find. Was it in someone’s personal collection? Was it just randomly dumped in some hidden alley or something?

I’ve had to read a few old German documents for personal genealogical research and good god, the handwritten words were hard to make out. Spent like 20 minutes just trying to read the phrase “ein und funfzig” (51, as in 1851). Someone else who’d read those documents completely misread them and listed his birthyear 20 years later than it should be, implying he was a 13 year old boy when he married a 30-something year old woman.

You’ve changed the subject immediately, none of this has anything to do with a general strike. Did you seriously think I was talking about 2020 when I brought up Seattle? But hey, if you want to change the topic to another thing I’m pretty knowledgeable about, that’s cool, too.

Oh right, I just remembered you also used to complain all the time about BLM because you had to briefly sit in traffic a couple times and now are on the side of the police state. Way to remind everyone of your petulant pettiness, too.

It sounds as though you’re advocating against any kind of protest now. Your sentiment seems to indicate that if you don’t get every single demand met permanently, then it was a total waste and you should’ve just stayed home and stayed silent, but that’s ridiculous. It’s worthwhile to stand up and fight against an unjust system simply for the sake of opposing evil in the world. Getting crushed under the boot of the police doesn’t make you wrong for that. You don’t protest with the expectation of winning any concessions, you protest to stand up for what’s right.

Besides, cops having a way outsized budget was the case before the protests, too, so what’s your point? It’s still just as worthy of protest now as it was then. The protesters won concessions, but they were almost immediately and undemocratically reneged on. For all the “defund the police” hysteria the media threw around, it never really happened anywhere (not even Minneapolis), despite many promises from officials in major cities all over the country. It’s like if the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was dangled to get marches to stop and then it was thrown out as soon as they did. You make it sound like it was the fault of protesters that city councils nationwide voted to increase their police budgets after promising they’d decrease them.

Tell that to Seattle.

General strikes can be localized, too. They don’t need nationwide adoption.

I think I’ll take my activism advice from someone who doesn’t actively despise homeless people, but thanks, Jordan.

I was wondering that myself, but judging from the beach grass, where the whale rests must be the high tide line. The water pushed it as far as it could. The whole beach must be very low and flat to be so wide, though it’s possible the photo was taken at a particularly low tide, which would make the beach even bigger than normal. Looks like a humpback to me (based on the appearance of the throat), anyone able to back that up?

You’re right, this is clearly a case of self-defense of a third party

Honestly, maybe not the easiest concept for Disney to pull off when more than a hundred of their films (a little over half) have a main character with one or both parents dead or missing. Even with just the ones on the box, Ariel’s mom is dead, Max’s mom is dead, Tiana’s dad dies off-camera during the movie, and we all know what happens to Mufasa.

Or jeans, or beef stroganoff, or every other time lemmy immediately runs a new joke into the ground and continues to do so far beyond when the joke is completely dead

“By precisely reflecting sunlight that is endlessly available in space to specific targets on the ground, we can create a world where sunlight powers solar farms for longer than just daytime, and in doing this, commoditize sunlight.”

Not to mention too expensive. The base ticket prices have skyrocketed over 1600% since 1996. In just the seven years between 2015 and 2022, attendees with household incomes of less than $100k dropped from around 56% to 40% and attendees with household incomes of $100k-$300k+ have risen from 43% to 59%. Over the years, it’s seemed like the crowd has been increasingly yuppie and increasingly white collar; these numbers appear to back that notion up. I remember seeing a video from a few years ago where Andrew Callaghan was talking about how he paid $10k for an RV spot and 2 tickets. He also complained that a lot of the people there seemed like “weekend-warrior-types”. I can only hope that price is with an insane scalper markup or a super deluxe VIP package or something. $10k is an unthinkable price for a weeklong camping trip in the desert, even a really cool one.

That, the heat as you mentioned (I found a chart that demonstrates rising averages and most in the comments are saying the reported highs are far too low), and the floods last year I think have combined to scare a lot of the core demographic away. I dreamed of going to Burning Man for years, but I haven’t even thought of it in quite some time since I learned how prohibitively expensive it would be to go.