Recent Comments

1. about 1 month ago on Pearls Before Swine

   The DEI (which, contrary to popular belief, means Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, not Person Of Color I Want To Discredit) movement has been a couple decades of occasionally-unfair hiring practices designed to counterbalance centuries of continuously-unfair hiring practices. Most so-called “DEI hires,” such as Kamala Harris, are exceedingly qualified for many other reasons beyond their capacity to advance the cause of diversity.

   Harris, for instance, went to school Howard University and then University of California College of the Law, was attorney general of California from 2011-2017, served as a U.S. Senator from 2017-2021, and is currently serving as the Vice President of the U.S.. In other words, perfectly qualified to run for a high-level political position such as president, and in fact more qualified than many of her contemporaries… like, say, Trump, who had no political or military experience before running for president.

   Do white, straight, cis males get passed over for less qualified candidates in the name of diversity? On occasion, sure. But that pales in comparison to the ways in which people of color, women, and LGBTQ+ people have been systematically oppressed for essentially all of American history. Pushes for diversity CAN be over-the-top, unfair, and/or virtue-signaling-y at times (see: every corporation during Pride Month).

   But I think certain people’s obsession with something that is a net positive the vast majority of the time and is really not a big deal when it IS a problem says a lot more about those people than it does about the DEI movement. When one side of the aisle has no rational vision for the country, it’s politically advantageous to make a mountain out of a molehill. I just think it’s telling that they keep choosing these molehills.

2. 5 months ago on Big Nate

   MULLINS

3. 6 months ago on Pearls Before Swine

   Who in thunket is Will?

4. 6 months ago on Pearls Before Swine

   Deuteronomy 32:4: “A God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.”

5. 9 months ago on Big Nate

   “Giant man or short king?”

   Kim: yes

6. 9 months ago on Big Nate

   6/18/13

7. 10 months ago on Big Nate

   To be fair, that would be a much better pitch for someone who’s not under five feet tall.

8. 10 months ago on Pearls Before Swine

   You are correct. The point I was raising is the common conservative viewpoint that platforms like Twitter could one day become powerful enough that getting banned from them, regardless of what the Constitution stipulates, would undermine the principle of free speech. To be clear, I disagree with this, and only brought it up to point out how we’re not anywhere near the point where social media companies possess absolute power.

9. 10 months ago on Pearls Before Swine

   This! Publishers have every right to restrict material they view to be offensive or that no longer reflect society’s values, and usually, they exercise that right responsibly (i.e. pulling Dr. Seuss books with racist imagery from publication). Same goes for various other platforms like Twitter. The only reason why these platforms maybe shouldn’t be allowed to do this is if they become so powerful that pulling these ideas amounts to completely quashing the right of free speech, which is why we have the First Amendment to restrict our government (arguably some of the speech currently getting banned shouldn’t even be protected under the First Amendment, but that’s another matter). And judging by the amount of complaining I’ve heard about this topic, we’re not there yet with any other entity. So if you want to have a book published and it gets rejected due to offensiveness, then find another publisher. If that publisher rejects it, find another publisher. If every publisher in the country rejects it, post it on Twitter in 280-character installments. And if you get banned from Twitter, either organize a protest or maybe reevaluate your life. Because if you wrote something so racist/sexist/homophobic/unappealing/insensitive that absolutely no one wants to give you a platform… you’re exactly living in an Orwell novel, all right? to paraphrase our favorite Chiefs fan, “It’s you, hi, you’re the problem, it’s you.”

10. 11 months ago on Pearls Before Swine

    This does sound like Pastis watched too much Fox News or something, but this is actually based on the Jayson Blair controversy, where a New York Times foreign correspondent got in huge trouble for fabricating stories. Now, the Times is generally a reliable source of news and the Blair incident doesn’t really reflect on the paper at large (especially 20 years later, lol) but I think Rat’s line was fair enough satire considering Pastis was probably exaggerating for the sake of the joke.