Hearts and Minds! That's My Specialty

[mallorys_camera]

Dreamed that I was in some kind of posh resort with B. Resort was modeled after an ancient Roman villa. I was nattering away at B about some earthshaking theory or another of mine that would utterly transform life on this planet as we know it – my usual conversational gambit, in other words – when I suddenly noticed there was a lion in the room, staring at B. I quickly took the back way out of the room, ran into the lobby and began screaming for security. “A lion! A big lion! And it looks hungry!” But there was no security, just a group of soft, slightly overweight privileged people who stared at me with various degrees of befuddled. Uh oh, I thought. We’re on our own.

###

Long phone conversation with Max last night. We hadn’t spoken in some weeks on account of we’d decided to investigate a communication channel that involves stamps, envelopes, pieces of paper. While I still think that’s a worthy communication channel, functionally, it means that we go weeks and weeks and weeks without contact. So maybe we need to integrate letters with phone calls.

Max sounds very good. Super involved with various activist projects. He’s going to Standing Rock in mid-December. Is trying to collect money to give to the protestors.

“No, it probably won’t change anything,” he told me. “Pragmatically, I know that. But it feels like it’s an important thing to do. Particularly now that the police have turned so vicious. If nothing else, to bear witness.”

“I get it,” I said. “I’m going to the Women’s March on January 21 in DC. Will it change anything? No. Will I be freezing cold and horribly uncomfortable because I have to pee and there are no bathrooms? Yes. But it feels important to go.”

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Attendance at my Intermediate English Class is still down 60%. Last night, I did gerunds and infinitives with them. Why do English speakers say, “I didn’t want to vote for Donald Trump,” and not, “I didn’t want voting for Donald Trump”? They’re equivalent, right? Although written out and side-by-side, unexpectedly I see that both sentences make sense if the second is a more general case of not wanting.

Ines will be sworn in as a citizen on December 2.

Par-tee!

###

This article courtesy of nodressrehersal is a really fascinating look at the nuts and bolts of setting up one of those right-wing Breitbart-esque clickbait websites. And how to use Facebook as a tool. In the wake of that conversation some of us were having on this very LJ several days ago, I find it most intriguing. Frankly, I would love to do something like this aimed at a Left-leaning audience. And I’d be so-o-o-o good at it!

Until a few days ago, I wouldn’t have thought it was possible. Left-leaning people are less credulous, right? All that expensive education has taught them critical thinking skills, right?

Uh uh.

Anyway. George Soros, if you’re reading this – fund me! Hearts and minds! That’s my specialty.

Comments

[bb-lurks.livejournal.com]

You'd be bigly great at it. But first, buy real estate 😏

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Too late for that, I fear! :-(

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Why do English speakers say, “I didn’t want to vote for Donald Trump,” and not, “I didn’t want voting for Donald Trump”? They’re equivalent, right? Although written out and side-by-side, unexpectedly I see that both sentences make sense if the second is a more general case of not wanting.

Unfortunately, this is not generalisable. Cf.

"I love to vote for Donald Trump."
"I love voting for Donald Trump."

YMMV, but IMD these are nearly equivalent in that both imply I'm the person doing the voting. (To get a more generalised sense, I'd have to say, e.g. "I love people voting for Donald Trump".)

The hard truth is that the distinction is to a large degree lexicalised: Some verbs unpredictably prefer one type of non-finite verb form over the other. But no one wants to hear that when wrestling with the daunting task of learning a whole language.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

The hard truth is that the distinction is to a large degree lexicalised

Oh! I love that verb.

Yeah, that was my thought as well. I had them do a bunch of exercises, and when they asked, "Why is it this way and not the other way?, I said, "Because."

[therobertpaul.livejournal.com]

my usual conversational gambit – This gives me all kinds of delusional fantasies about you recipe book. “The chicken a l'orange will replace capitalism. And this apple pie will cure cancer. It’s all right here but you need to ground your own cinnamon. That’s very important.” The rest of that dream makes me want to put on my Dr. Freud slippers.

Standing Rock: would be nice if Obama spent a little time working on that particular transition of power. But, I understand, it would probably be all for naught come January 20.

Left-leaning people are more credulous, right? The first thing they teach you when you study propaganda is that everyone is susceptible.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

True.

[sulphuroxide.livejournal.com]

Very interesting article.

Its ironic that the very globalist system that over educates and under pays millennials also forces them to cater to ideology for ad revenue dollars -- helping to destroy the very system that created the underpaid and over education in the first place.

[sulphuroxide.livejournal.com]

My brother points out that William Randolph Hearst made a fortune telling people what was true. He did help inflame public sentiment for the short lived Spanish-American War.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Hearst's yellow journalism is widely credited with having incited the Spanish American War -- which, I suppose, means that Hearst was responsible for Teddy Roosevelt's Presidency. :-)