An interesting element of the Google memo story was this quote from CEO Sundar Pichai:

“To suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK. It is contrary to our basic values and our Code of Conduct,” he said.

"Not OK" is a locution that's always bugged me. I started noticing it about twenty years ago in blog & BBS comments. It was popular with women who'd not done much with their lives besides raising children.

Now, raising children is a fine pursuit, and we shouldn't be surprised that it has its own linguistic patterns. But when women who've given their attention to little else came online to join political conversations with strangers, perhaps for the first time in their lives, they didn't always recognize that expressions of moral or ethical condemnation as "not OK" sound [A.] condescending (I ain'tchoe three-year-old, Beyotch) and [B.] damningly provincial to those who've spend adult life in adult company (You don't know anything about policy anyway, lady).

Pichai grew up in India, and apparently came to the States for grad school. He's obviously a brilliant guy, exquisitely attuned to our social culture as well as the tech challenges of the Valley.

So I wonder if he chose the phrase "not OK" consciously or unconsciously. Either way, it's a brilliant pander to those (women, mostly) who want to get upset about the faults (and truths) of the Damore memorandum.

I hate "not OK" with all my heart. But when the Devil plays a poker hand with such concise articulation, it's hard to begrudge him the ante.

A note on the approach of autumnal distractions.




The national mood during Trump's first international crisis.

"Not okay" is the type of phrase you use when dealing with children as they have difficulty distinguishing between "your actions were bad" and "you're a bad person" unless it is spelled out for them. It's a non-committal phrase that condemns without being condemning.

As more women have joined our body politic, our discourse has taken a new tack, one that is at times shrill and at times sensitive and collaborative to the point of dysfunction.

Notice that many of our highest-ranking women politicians got into politics as the children were growing out of needing a full-time mother and the mother needed to feel that she was as necessary to at least some part of the world as she had been to her children.

A business career was not an option as she'd been out of the workforce for years and didn't want to rejoin it a the bottom, she wanted credit for the work she'd done before and during being a SAHM. Run for the school board or the city planning commission and you could re-join the adult world at a level that did not reduce you to starting over at the bottom.

That these women achieved high levels of success in politics shows they had skills beyond changing poopy diapers and driving carpools.

With the transition into politics, they brought the speech patterns and phrasings of SAHM-dom with them to their new endeavor.

In contrast, the husband who gets into politics later in life is usually retiring from a career with a low retirement age (military, police, etc.) or got displaced (layoffs or downsizings at an age when finding a new career is difficult). Same motivation (feeling necessary to some part of the world), but these mid-life politicians bring a business or military jargon and means of getting things done with them to their new endeavor.

Google News:

Top Stories
[CNN]


Mattis claims North Korea diplomacy is working, but Trump intensifies threats

CNN 57m ago
Related Coverage

> at times sensitive and collaborative
> to the point of dysfunction.

But is it sustainable & empowering?

Haven't followed the link yet... Just ask my ex.

Chase Strangio, the American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who defended Chelsea Manning, distanced himself from the organization’s defense of Milo Yiannopoulos Wednesday.

“I don’t believe in protecting principle for the sake of principle,” he stated.

http://dailycaller.com/2017/08/10/aclu-lawyer-refuses-to-defend-the-first-amendment-because-milo-is-reprehensible/

Oh, dear, what to do when SECDEF speaks belligerently?

The DPRK should cease any consideration of actions that would lead to the end of its regime and the destruction of its people.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/08/09/gen-mattis-warns-north-korea-not-to-invite-destruction-its-people.html

Collusion:

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/how-the-postal-service-tried-to-swing-the-election-for-hillary-clinton/article/2631196

Corruption:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/email-batch-provides-additional-evidence-that-clinton-foundation-donors-got-access-at-state-department/2016/08/10/de2c0066-5f1a-11e6-9d2f-b1a3564181a1_story.html?utm_term=.221a529de6eb

Does anyone think electing a belligerent, bankrupted, illiterate real estate developer to the office of Chief Executive was a cute idea? ~ Crid at August 11, 2017 5:41 AM

I don't think the North Korean leadership gets just how much power is in the hands of that real estate developer. A single aircraft battle group has more destructive power than the entire North Korean military. And the president of the United States has 13 of them at his disposal.

Trump is trying to convince Kim of his willingness to use that power. However, unless Kim starts to realize just what he's facing and that this president is not Johnson, Clinton, Bush, or Obama, he'll dismiss Trump's bellicosity as bluster.

The real risk is how many past presidents talked tough but let the Kims off the hook and what that appeasement did to the current Kim's willingness to accept that he's outmanned (both in nuclear capabilities and conventional ones) and boxed in.

Kim's tanks are 1950's Soviet models, exactly the kind of tank that the A-10 was purpose-designed to wipe out wholesale. The M-1A1 Abrams can destroy that tank with one shot.

Kim holds very few cards and is trying to bluff his way to victory. The problem here is what is his objective? What does he want to accomplish? Past saber-rattling efforts by the Kims have been aimed at getting food or money. What does he want this time?

And what would be the implications of giving him what he wants, but leaving a victorious and nuclear-armed Kim in place to rattle his sabers again? Trump has very few good options on this one. And no other president would either.

On his end, Trump needs to get better at playing the cards he is holding to resolve this situation. He could pressure China to rein in Kim with the threat of nuclearizing both South Korea and Japan, a development China desperately wants to avoid.

Nickelodeon's animator Butch Hartman is infamous for using this trope:

https://accordingtohoyt.com/2017/08/09/the-myth-of-the-peaceful-woman-by-outofthedarkness/

"Past saber-rattling efforts by the Kims have been aimed at getting food or money. What does he want this time?"

Most likely more of the same. In the past NK was able to shake out some resources from the USSR and China as it played between the two of them and made clear their enemies were it's enemies. But Putin doesn't care. He is more interested in reconquering near European lands and couldn't give two figs about the far east. China is also increasingly disinterested. Threatening the US in the hope of getting a payoff worked a bit with Obama. On top of that Kim's domestic situation isn't good. He has tried to consolidate power. But an internal coup isn't unlikely. So if Kim can't get external funding to buy off his domestic problems he may have nothing to lose in starting a war with the US.

And none of that is Trump's fault. It was heading in this direction for quite some time. But fault or not it is Trump's problem to solve. Even if that solution ends up wiping out NK. And whatever collateral damage throughout east asia as well.

Haven't followed the link yet... Just ask my ex.

Crid at August 11, 2017 5:51 AM
____________________________________

"10 tips from a world-famous divorce lawyer to save your marriage" it said.

I didn't really look at the other nine either, but "don't shop together" does and doesn't make sense. If you aren't BOTH shopping for yourselves at the same store (such as a clothes store), yes, that makes sense. But if you are, why not, most of the time?

My father and I love yard-saling whenever it makes sense - as in, when there are at least 30 to choose from. However, he likes to move fast, so as to go to as many as possible, so I have to accept that. (It's the only way I WOULD get to go to that many, as it happens. Besides, he does all the work of looking them up on Craigslist and mapping out the route.)

"Threatening the US in the hope of getting a payoff worked a bit with Obama. "

He got quite a bit out of Bill Clinton and Al Gore. That's how all of this got started. The China interests that were paying off Gore convinced him to persuade Clinton that NK could be bought off (and that the U.S. should pay for it rather than China).

And don't forget that part of the problem here is that China has not enforced the existing sanctions; companies in China continue to engage in trade with NK, particularly coal and ores. Trump could put a stop to most of that by bombing NK's port facilities. That's why China is so insistent that the U.S. not conduct a first strike. But they know that if NK launches a first strike, the pretense is gone and China has no recourse, either militarily or diplomatically, against an American retaliation.

They wouldn’t have even known about the allegations without Tsuruta, he claims: He was the one who told Augustana that he had been accused of rape. His accuser only told police “a month later at the school’s behest.”

She said Tsuruta chased her down as she tried to leave his apartment. That’s an important nugget that the incompetent investigators ignored, particularly because she wasn’t exactly a credible person.

https://www.thecollegefix.com/post/35372/

Fat studies is a thing. Because every thing is a thing now.

http://www.campusreform.org/?ID=9570

> I didn't really look at the
> other nine either

#11: "Don't marry a slender but perky woman with angelic features who wears translucent, underwear-exposing sweaters."

That might have been #12 or #13...

Oh how I love living in the First World.

Meanwhile, coming to a checkout magazine rack near you . . .

http://www.mrctv.org/blog/trans-traitor-chelsea-manning-now-posing-swimsuit-vogue

On top of that Kim's domestic situation isn't good. He has tried to consolidate power. But an internal coup isn't unlikely. So if Kim can't get external funding to buy off his domestic problems he may have nothing to lose in starting a war with the US. ~ Ben at August 11, 2017 9:21 AM

We would have to weigh the consequences of leaving a nuclear-armed Kim (or other belligerent authoritarian) in charge of North Korea. We can't keep going through these brinksmanship exercises every few years. We've been kicking the North Korea can down the road since 1952, and now the Kims have nuclear-armed missiles.

Heh.

https://twitter.com/joshdcaplan/status/896024040506368000

I agree Conan. I was just dumping what I think of the situation. I don't see many good solutions at this point. Too many presidents have kicked this can down the road and Trump may not be able to kick it any further. Not his fault but since it is his watch it is his problem.

I don't see appeasing Kim as a good answer for the US. But from Kim's situation I don't know if he can survive not getting appeased. There will probably be a coup if he doesn't bring home the money to buy off his adversaries. So there is a double appeasement issue. Hence Kim can't get appeased just once. He too has to keep appeasing the generals and family members or he dies.

The alternative is war. Not a good solution either. South Korea and probably Japan would take significant damage. The US is not at significant threat at this point. But there could be some damage there as well.

If Trump is lucky he can convince the Chinese this is their problem and they need to fix it. That way they are doing the appeasing and assassinating instead of us.

We'll see.

Alkon's neighborhood.

Moar

> If Trump is lucky he can convince
> the Chinese this is their problem
> and they need to fix it.

This is pathetically naive... Unlearned and ahistorical. All the sudden your Golden Combover needs "luck" to "convince" the Chinese of things.

> Well see.

Handsomely, if bogusly, blasé.

Some of the comments here are truly golden.

"Top Stories [CNN]"

You hysterical consumer of for-profit "news", you!

(Note: observation stands across several subjects. Wait for CNN excuse for riots, see anti-2nd A stance, etc. for examples.)

You have better, from better agencies.

The obsession of you goofeez for blaming things on media is pathetic.

"This is a reminder to kill all your tiny dogs

Sign up to receive email notifications regarding best ways to do so, including strangling, drowning, and others.

Paid For By The People For Mike Pence

If you are looking for the attractive body builder named Mike Pence, click here.

COMING SOON: Russian Translation"

Alkon's neighborhood. ~ Crid at August 11, 2017 3:44 PM

I'm seriously impressed with the speed with which someone was able to deploy those signs.

"Fat studies is a thing"

Yes, and in that vein I'm writing a new children's book: "Kim Jong Un and The Magically Bottomless Basket of Pork Buns".

Gen-X, already squeezed by the Baby Boom which wouldn't let go of its jobs and political power is now being squeezed by the Millennials won refuse to respect older workers and voters who have more experience. Speak up now or lose your chance forever.

"already squeezed by the Baby Boom which wouldn't let go of its jobs and political power"

That is the funniest thing I've read all day!

> seriously impressed with the speed

Capitalism is quicksilver.

> You hysterical consumer of
> for-profit "news"

Raddy's seriously into NPR.

I think we should tease him about it.

The great thing about being a rich investment banker?

Your wife doesn't out you in your obit for pooping the food cart mid-flight in front of the President of Portugal.

This may turn out to be interesting.

Has Voat finally stabilized? The last time I remember they were being chased off ISPs by SJWs because someone dared to call it a viable alternative to Reddit's (politically) Progressive censorship.

Gog-- So I started reading up in him, and it turns out his arrest preceded a descent into Alzheimers a few years later.

See this interview with Alice, who recounts the unusual behavior by a drunken Glen Campbell a few years before his own onset of Alzheimers.

Also died this week.

So what I'm saying is, all of life's a circle.

Or, maybe, there's this thing where people who don't have alcohol problems until late in life a foretelling really bad times in old age.

Crid - yep, he died in 2005, the plane incident was in 1995.

How far along he was 10 years prior to his passing, or if he was suffering any debilitation at all, is unknown to me.

From what I've seen of it (and only a few people close to me) is that it's hidden until it's not and then the downturn is rapid. Some folks linger in confusion for years in nursing homes, some turn to alcohol which they can no longer tolerate well. Others eat a bullet.

So until we get the straight poop from the family doctor, I'm still raising a glass on October 20 to Gerard Finneran, the East Coast's own DB Pooper.

Ah, I didn't read the date of you linked obit, but that makes the interval even more similar to Campbell's, no?

Having seen it happen to a loved one, I'd salt a bullet and chow down. But as we've noted so many times before with this topic on Amy's pages, talk is cheap in those circumstances. Once You've Lost your clarity, you won't have the wherewithal to take such a big step. Ever read the Franzen novel "The Corrections"?

Others eat a bullet.

Thats my plan, with a will that stipulates that if I die after a protracted illness all my assets are sold and donated to what ever cause pisses off my family the most which is currently the catholic church. But if someone pulls the plug on me, within a short timeline they get everything

Raddy's seriously into NPR.

I think we should tease him about it. -Crid

OK

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sd8JPd47IIg