#ronald reagan cut up while talking

[mbta-unofficial]

I might be asking the wrong person here, but why is the Acela so expensive? I need to travel from Boston to DC for a week for work so I compared costs and convenience of driving, flying, and taking the Acela and was surprised to find that the Acela costs more than flying (I was able to find round trip flights BOS-DCA for about $170, the Acela starts at about $140 each way) despite being significantly slower. Why does it cost so much?

I will concede that the Northeast Regional is cheaper than flying (about $60 each way), but it's also even slower than the Acela.

The Acela has several problems compared to analogous systems in other countries, and as a business problems mean costs and costs means prices.

Making a direct comparison to air travel also requires talking a little bit about the economics of air travel, since there are surprising number of weird things about that business compared to rail.

Part 1. Amtrak doesn’t own most of its own tracks. While it does own most of the North East Corridor, it leases track rights for the boston-providence leg from ME MOTHERFUCKER I’M THE PROBLEM and also the states of NY and CT own a section between NYC and New Haven. Now, when you are trying to have trains at up to 160mph, you need maintenance to be done within extremely tight tolerances, you need signaling to be extremely precise and consistent, and small mistakes can be deadly. Signaling and Maintenance on rented tracks are not literally impossible but they are a huge pain in the ass. These sections are slower and make the whole network much more expensive.

Part Two! Electification: this is one of the oldest rail corridors in the world and that means there’s a lot of old DNA in the network that it would not have if there was a full rebuild. One of these design “features” is that when the line was built, electricity wasn’t standardized and different plants would churn out different voltages and AC frequencies.

Between NYC and Washington there is a catenary system that operates at 11kv, 25hz that was built in 1905. This is insane. The modern grid runs at 60hz, and transforming power from a modern plant into 11kv, 25hz is a huge project in and of itself. But of course, the Boston to Providence section, electrified in 1990, has only the most cutting edge technology. It’s electrified with 60hz, 12.5kv, 10 years ahead of its time which was 35 years ago. And, when the Acela was first planned and operated in 2000, it was planned and operated with the now modern standard of 60hz, 25kv. So there are three different electrification systems and, to not have to switch trains, each train needs to be able to run with all 3 of them.

This is deeply stupid and only something you would have to deal with if you were hacking together increasingly expensive short term repairs onto a system that would be cheaper in 20-50 years to completely overhaul but in the present would cost 10s of billions to meaningfully bring up to 20th century operating standards. It’s a good thing we did the smart thing in the 1970s when Amtrak nationalized the collapsing private passenger rail companies and Conrail nationalized the collapsing freight rail companies and we recognized that running these crucial services with public money could generate huge amounts of economic activity and benefit society even if they ran at a fiscal loss, and properly funded the systems to build reliable and interoperable infrastructure for the next generation. Hold on I have to take this phone call.

………….

Yep.

…………..

Yeah ok.

…………..

They did WHAT?

Part Three: Ronald reagan is not dead enough

So yeah the main reason that none of this shit got fixed in the last 50 years is that for 4 successive administrations between Reagan and Bush 2 electric boogaloo the government has been slobbing on that Neoliberal knob like its subsidized corn on a subsidized cob. Private operators immediately saw the potential for infinitely lucrative federal contracts when the US seized the assets of Erie Lackawanna and Penn Central during their bankruptcy and formed Conrail. This was mainly Norfolk southern and CSX, former competitors who pushed hard for the reagan, bush, and clinton organizations to refurbish the lines at taxpayer expense before selling them to absolute corporate bottomfeeders so they could snap up lines that had been the main sources of revenue for these defunct companies at kleptocratic rates. But we’re not done. Freight companies hate two things more than even paying taxes, and these are OSHA and Passenger rail.

You see, it’s actually very hard to run freight and passenger on the same tracks. Freight is slow with long trains, long sidings, and loose schedules. Freight is optimized to get there, you know, sometime as cheap as possible. However, if you have passenger rail, those people have places to be. They need things like advanced signaling to move faster than 15 miles an hour, sidings long enough to pass at speed, and even, gasp, rails that don’t have holes in them so they don’t derail on corners. It’s not hard for a freight train to move along a track that is 85% rust, they just go slow and if they derail you’re only looking at maybe 2 superfund sites. But passenger rail, there will be bumps and passengers will complain. Customers are so unreasonable.

So when the federal government acquired all the tracks that became conrail, what did they do? Cut sidings, cut double tracks down to single tracks, cut maintenance, sold land. None of these bothered their future freight owner-operators. But they did undermine American passenger rail, on purpose, for 50 years. As soon as the work was done, the tracks were unfit for anything other than 400 box trucks of nitroglycerin pulled by two locomotives with one operator. How do you run passenger rail on that? Well, you play by CSX and Norfolk Bastard’s rules. Fuck your schedule. Fuck it slow. Fuck it for so long that it hurts. And, when you’ve bled enough revenue, complain to the federal government that you can’t possibly keep going and need to be sold off to private equity for parts.

So yeah. Freight rail in the 70s, the ruthless march of neoliberal capitalism, a frankenstein’s monster of a network, and a complete lack of revenue from either public subsidy or ridership to fix either problem.

Oh and there’s the fact that every single Major airline operates their flights at a loss and use credit cards as their primary source of income. The scheme is you take out a credit card, they run like a normal credit card company, except whereas most banks give you cash back they give you “miles” or “points” the vast majority of which will never get spent. It’s almost a license to print money as long as you have enough people you can convince will someday be able to afford to go on vacation with that fancy credit card they paid for. Budget Airlines who don’t run this scheme are folding both in the sense that they are going under financially and also in the sense that you better hope that your spine lets you compress into the overhead compartment if you want to get to your destination.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Kim Messick at Salon:

During the 2024 presidential campaign and after, a recurrent theme among the commentariat was that liberal Americans shouldn’t be, well, mean to Donald Trump supporters. This admonition applied to words as well as sticks and stones; there were just certain things liberals shouldn’t say to, or about, Trump’s familiars. Foremost among these was any hint that proposing to elect a man with 34 felony convictions who had attempted a coup might signal a shortage of smarts, at least when it comes to politics. This, apparently, would be a very not-nice thing to do.  “[T]he liberal impulse has been to demonize anyone at all sympathetic to Donald Trump,” Nicholas Kristof intoned in The New York Times, imploring liberals not to “belittle” voters eager to send a sociopathic ignoramus back to the White House. Quoting the Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel, he then sighed that “scorn for people with less education [is] ‘the last acceptable prejudice’ in America.” In other words: Hey, all you smarty-pants liberals — you’re the real bigots here! Take that!

I have searched unsuccessfully for any other way to describe people able to gaze upon the human wreckage that is Donald Trump and conclude that he is fit for any office that doesn’t have bars. Well, I try — really, really try — to be nice to everybody. And I would never say that all Trump voters are stupid. Quite the contrary, actually; in many cases, I have no difficulty understanding why people would vote for this viper. If you are an oligarch who wants to turn the federal government into your valet (like, say, Elon Musk), then it makes perfect sense for you to support Trump, an oligarch wanna-be who will help you loot the treasury as long as you line his pockets and fawn over him. If, on the other hand, you are an oligarch who just wants the government to cut your taxes and let you poison the planet (like, say, the Koch Brothers), then, again, a vote for Trump is completely rational. Alternatively, you may not be an oligarch at all, just an average joe who loves Trump because he hates the same people you hate. In none of these cases would I say people are behaving stupidly. Despicably? Sure. But stupidly? Nah.  

But then we have voters like the ones in this Times piece from early December. Asked for one word to describe Trump, their choices include “common sense,” “compassion,” and “patriotism.” Keep in mind that they are talking about a man who suggested ingesting bleach could help cure COVID, put migrant children in cages, and tried to steal an election. Later, a truck driver says that Trump “believes in Christ,” while a lacrosse coach tells us that he “runs this country like a business,” though he does allow that it’s “tough for some people to see that.” Yeah, I confess to getting hung up on small details like the eight trillion dollars Trump added to the national debt. As for Trump the apostle of Christ, well, this brings to mind the words of the Duke of Wellington: “If you can believe that, you can believe anything.”

And this, in sum, is the problem. We’re not talking here about thinking that Mitt Romney’s views on marginal tax rates were incrementally better than Barack Obama’s, or, alternatively, that Ronald Reagan’s vigilance toward the Soviet Union was a better bet than Walter Mondale’s more dovish approach. These positions moved, more or less persuasively, within the space of rational discourse; perceptive, well-informed people could profitably debate them. But seeing Trump as a compassionate Christian, or as a brilliant businessman and avatar of common sense, signals an epistemic collapse so profound that it removes the opinion from the sphere of rationality and into that of pure, unfiltered credulity. There is simply no way for a person whose cognitive faculties are operating efficiently to hold these views. 

This is a strong statement, and I don’t want to be misunderstood. To be crazy when it comes to politics is not to be crazy in any global way. Most of the people in the Times piece are, I’m sure, perfectly competent in other areas of life — they hold down jobs, raise kids, socialize with friends, etc.. I’m sure, also, that they are perfectly nice people. But when it comes to politics they are willfully ignorant. There — I said it. I have searched unsuccessfully for any other way to describe people able to gaze upon the human wreckage that is Donald Trump and conclude that he is fit for any office that doesn’t have bars. It’s not a close call — it’s the only call. Trying to evade this fact makes it more, not less, difficult to understand what is happening in our politics. What we’re dealing with is nothing short of a crisis of political rationality — including the possibility, suddenly very urgent, that rationality may no longer be a concept of any relevance in politics. It is an explosion of irrationalism not seen in the West since the 1930s. Remember how that ended?

And it comes in many guises. A more subtle variant is to attribute the choices of working-class Trump voters to economic motives alone. Stranded in the blasted industrial heaths whose defunct smokestacks once sustained whole communities, they feel neglected, bitter, and vengeful — and Trump is their retribution. An excellent recent example of this approach is Jonathan Weisman’s “How Democrats Lost the Working Class,” which also appeared in the Times. His argument, put simply, is that Democrats in the late ’80s and early ’90s succumbed to the market triumphalism that attended the fall of the Soviet Union, dropping their advocacy of economic justice in favor of a corporate-friendly regime of globalization, low taxes, and deregulation. Now, a generation later, the results are in — shuttered factories, withered towns and cities, and a working-class so steeped in despair that suicide seems preferable to living.

Any blame for things that go south in America during Trump's term rest with the MAGA Cult.

[mariacallous]

Americans love to focus on presidential campaigns. The House of Representatives and Senate receive some attention every now and then, but our political love affair tends to center on the race for the White House. When congressional elections gain some attention, it usually happens during the midterms when political junkies don’t have much else to talk about.

But this is a mistake. Congress matters. The outcome of congressional elections during a presidential campaign is crucial to shaping the first two years of an administration, the period when the opportunity for legislating is greatest. In the coming months, the fate of the Democratic Party agenda—regardless of who wins the presidency—will depend as much on how power is distributed on Capitol Hill as who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Even after a mandate election, just one chamber of Congress can be sufficient to check a new president’s agenda. This was the story in 1980. The election was devastating to Democrats. Ronald Reagan, who was a key figure in the modern conservative movement that took hold in the 1970s, promised to move the national agenda sharply to the right after the one-term presidency of Jimmy Carter. And then, for the first time since 1954, Republicans won control of the Senate with a majority of 53 seats.

The saving grace for Democrats that year was the House, where they remained on top. While Reagan defeated Carter in an Electoral College landslide, 489-49, Democrats exited Election Day with a 243-seat majority. Though the number of conservative Democrats had increased, the caucus as a whole was quite liberal compared with the Republicans. Under the speakership of Tip O’Neill, the lower chamber became the last bastion of liberalism. Using this as a base of power, Democrats were able to veto many of Reagan’s boldest initiatives while continuing to push forward their own agenda, even as the chances for passage were minimal.

The impact of a Democratic House was evident in both domestic and foreign policy. Republicans were forced to back away from many of their most ambitious plans to slash the social safety net. When the administration moved to reduce Social Security benefits for early retirees in 1981, O’Neill mobilized a coalition as he warned that the president aimed to dismantle this popular program. Republicans were shaken. Rep. Carroll Campbell was frustrated with the electoral impact: “I’ve got thousands of 60-year-old textile workers who think it’s the end of the world. What the hell am I supposed to tell them?” Democrats also approved a budget that raised taxes, a move that was anathema to Reagan’s acolytes. In 1983, the administration worked with congressional Democrats to shore up the financial strength of the program. The Democratic majority would be bolstered in the 1982 midterms, which took place in the middle of what O’Neill called the “Reagan recession.” The political scientist Paul Pierson showed in Dismantling the Welfare State? the limited progress Reagan made on cutting most major programs.

Similar effects were evident with foreign policy. Reagan’s hawkish posture toward the Soviet Union had been defining as he rose in national prominence during the 1970s. He railed against Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Carter for practicing the policy of détente, easing relations with the Communists, while ramping up rhetoric against the Soviet Union, calling it an “evil” empire in moralistic terms that presidents had traditionally avoided. He also curtailed negotiations over arms agreements and increased support for anti-communist operations in Central America.

House Democrats responded in force. In 1982, 1983, and 1984, they passed the Boland Amendments, which curtailed Reagan’s ability to provide support to the government of El Salvador and the anti-communist rebels in Nicaragua, the Contras. The global nuclear freeze movement also found strong support on the Hill as a number of members supported resolutions for limitations on nuclear arms production. “I can’t remember any issue, including Watergate, that has moved so many people so quickly,” Democratic operative Robert Squier noted in 1982.

None of this meant that Reagan could not achieve big changes. After all, the president pushed through a massive supply side tax cut in 1981 that made deep inroads into the finances of the federal government and began a path of ongoing cuts that privileged wealthier Americans and business. Scared to oppose him, many House Democrats voted for the cuts of their own accord. Reagan increased the defense budget, and his administration used illegal methods to direct support to Central America. And House Democrats couldn’t stop the enormous impact that Reagan had on pushing national rhetoric toward the right, either. Nonetheless, House Democrats played a pivotal role in restraining conservatism while protecting the liberal legacy of the New Deal and Great Society.

The reverse has also been true. Some congressional elections are extraordinarily dramatic. For all the attention paid to the legendary political prowess of Lyndon B. Johnson, the fact that the 1964 election produced massive Democratic majorities in the House (295) and Senate (68), while shifting the balance of influence within the party away from conservative southerners toward the liberal North, was instrumental to the passage of the Great Society legislation: Medicare and Medicaid, the Voting Rights Act, higher and secondary education funding, immigration reform, and more all became possible because of the size and structure of the Congress that Johnson was able to work with. “The once powerful coalition of Republicans and conservative Democrats appeared to have been rendered impotent, or nearly so,” the New York Times noted in 1964. Once the 1966 midterms revived the conservative coalition of southern Democrats and midwestern Republicans that had ruled Capitol Hill since 1938, Johnson’s window for legislating closed.

Most recently, there was the 2020 election. One of the most important outcomes was Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock winning in Georgia, giving Democrats two Senate seats and effective control of the upper chamber. As soon as they won, the Biden administration’s fortunes changed dramatically. With unified control of Congress, Biden’s path to legislative success opened. Although the administration would have to struggle to placate the demands of Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, Biden kept his party united enough to move a series of major bills on COVID-19 relief, infrastructure, and climate change. In so doing, he racked up an impressive record.

When Biden was still at the top of the Democratic ticket, one of the greatest sources of concern for Democratic legislators such as former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Adam Schiff was that he was making a Republican Congress almost inevitable. Democrats in many parts of the country watched as their polling numbers plummeted.

With the energy and momentum that Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, have brought to the campaign, the odds for Democrats to win control of the House and possibly the Senate have vastly improved.

As much as Democratic voters will be focused on raising money, canvassing, and promoting their presidential candidate, they would do well to devote as much energy to key congressional races—whether the seats in Long Island that Republicans picked up in 2022 or Senate races in states such as Montana and Ohio.

Johnson always understood how Congress controlled his fate. In 1968, when Treasury Secretary Henry Fowler told the president, “You are the master of the Senate and always have been,” Johnson responded: “I’m not master of a damn thing.” As a veteran of Washington, Johnson always understood that his legacy would ebb and flow based on the composition of the Congress.

This time around, Democratic control of one or two chambers will be pivotal, regardless of who wins. If Donald Trump is reelected as president, congressional power will be essential to impede his inevitable efforts to aggressively deploy presidential power and dismantle the administrative state.

If Harris wins, on the other hand, congressional power will be essential to ensuring that she can use the limited window she would have to expand on and strengthen the legislative legacy of Biden—and to start tackling new issues aimed at exciting an emerging generation of voters.

[ddrqoyote]

173 Influential SCPs

I went to SCPper, found the most upvoted articles by users who've made at least one SCP, and sorted by time. These aren't necessarily the 173 best articles on the site, but I think they're likely to be the most influential. Longtime fans have probably read most or all of these but maybe this could be a starting point for newcomers.

I think sorting by time is important because the Foundation's been around almost 17 years. Writers come and go, trends come and go, new writers are influenced by what came before, and later articles are often longer and more complex than earlier ones. Just sorting by most upvoted bounces you around time; on the main wiki you read mostly series 1 articles then get dunked into SCP-5000. I hope this is a more natural progression, and that by the end people have more context for what's going on.

Using upvotes from writers only is important because the more writers like an article, the more likely later SCPs are to be influenced by it, so those articles are more likely to be important for understanding the wiki as a whole.

I might do an alternate version of this list that replaces the extremely long articles with shorter SCPs.

If you have trouble understanding one of the articles (some of the later ones get LONG), look it up on r/SCPDeclassified. If you would prefer audio narration/explanations, The Exploring Series and TheVolgun are both excellent. And of course, make sure to look in the sidebar on the wiki for guides, lists and explanations.

SERIES IV AND LATER ARE IN REBLOGS DUE TO TUMBLR'S POST LIMIT

Series I Era

SCP-173 - The Sculpture - The Original

SCP-093 - Red Sea Object

SCP-294 - The Coffee Machine

SCP-682 - Hard-to-Destroy Reptile

SCP-055 - [unknown]

SCP-914 - The Clockworks

SCP-085 - Hand-drawn "Cassy"

SCP-184 - The Architect

SCP-231 - Special Personnel Requirements

SCP-990 - Dream Man

SCP-999 - The Tickle Monster

SCP-835 - Expunged Data Released

SCP-701 - The Hanged King's Tragedy

SCP-586 - Inscribable Object

SCP-610 - The Flesh that Hates

Log of Anomalous Items Vol I

SCP-087 - The Stairwell

SCP-049 - Plague Doctor

Revised Entry

Document Recovered from the Marianas Trench

SCP-426 - I am a Toaster

SCP-096 - The "Shy Guy"

SCP-106 - The Old Man

SCP-140 - An Incomplete Chronicle

Kill 682

SCP-001-Bright - The Factory

SCP-666-J - The Roaring Flames of Hell

SCP-895 - Camera Disruption

SCP-5308-J - The Collection

SCP-8900-EX - Sky Blue Sky

black white black white black white black white black white gray

Eldritch Application

Nobody Knows

SCP-871 - Self-Replacing Cake

SCP-001-Mann - The Spiral Path

Series II Era

SCP-1000 - Bigfoot

SCP-902 - The Final Countdown

SCP-993 - Bobble the Clown

Transcript of Dr. Clef's seminar, "Reality Benders and You: How to Survive When Existence Doesn't."

SCP-001-Swann - The Database

Bees

SCP-006-J - WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT THING

10:30 A.M.

Ethics Committee Orientation

SCP-1959 - The Lost Cosmonaut

SCP-____-J - Procrastinati

SCP-1048 - Builder Bear

SCP-001-EX-J - Records of the CKG Gathering

SCP-1893 - The Minotaur's Tale

SCP-1983 - Doorway to Nowhere

SCP-1733 - Season Opener

SCP-1230 - A Hero is Born

SCP-1322 - Glory Hole

SCP-1370 - Pesterbot

SCP-1193 - Buried Giant

SCP-1545 - Larry the Loving Llama

SCP-1981 - "RONALD REAGAN CUT UP WHILE TALKING"

SCP-even number-J - An [Adjective] [Animal]

SCP-1867 - A Gentleman

SCP-1609 - The Remains of a Chair

SCP-1440 - The Old Man from Nowhere

SCP-1425 - Star Signals

SCP-1173 - The Islamic Republic of Eastern Samothrace

SCP-1171 - Humans Go Home

SCP-1678 - UnLondon

UIU Orientation

SCP-1437 - A Hole to Another Place

SCP-1958 - Magic Bus

Quiet Days

Why Change?

SCP-186 - To End All Wars

Treats

SCP-348 - A Gift from Dad

SCP-1295 - Meg's Diner

SCP-1342 - To the Makers of Music

SCP-1504 - Joe Schmo

The Executions of Doctor Bright

SCP-1471 - MalO ver1.0.0

The Young Man

wowwee go kill ursefl

[puppygirl-slimegirl]

bro last night was Ronald Reagan Cut Up While Talking

[leafdoggy]

If you spend too much time near fiberglass you become ronald reagan cut up while talking

[meisekimiu]

I was the production assistant for a short film called "Ronald Reagan Cut Up While Talking" but I can't put it on my portfolio because the only copy was ceased by the fucking government. This is bullshit.

[fernsam]

Kendrick Lamar - A hip-hop Genius

Bitch don’t kill my vibe. I’m sure many of you recognize this line from the famous rapper Kendrick Lamar. That was the first song I heard from him, and got more into him as I heard more and more. Although I have listened to a considerable amount of his songs, I have never really looked at the deeper meanings behind his work (I know. It's a crime). I’ve always known that his songs usually have complex themes but I have never actually figured out the whole story. In fact, I don’t really know much about Kendrick besides that he makes good music and is considered one of the greatest rappers of his generation (so seriously: I know nothing). This post will hopefully figure out what exactly helped him gain such a title.  

Background 

In Compton, on June 17th, 1987, Kendrick Lamar Duckworth (like the song? :O) was born and became one of the most influential rappers of the 21st century. Compton was an area that was plagued by violence and poverty. According to Britannica, Kendrick grew up in a high-crime area of Compton and began writing rhymes as a teenager relating to this. In 2003 he released his first mixtape called Youngest Head Nigga in Charge, which impressed a record label known as Top Dawg. I tried to look for this mixtape but surprisingly it was not online. Although the mixtape is hard to find, Kendrick explained in an interview with HipHopDX that the record label told Kendrick he “sounds just like he’s Jay-Z.” Also, a lot of people in his life and at school were talking about him made him, which made him realize the influence that he has. 

Kendrick: “Damn, my shit is really making an impact on the city and go full force with this shit.”

Discovering the influence music brings as well as his upbringing in Compton, Kendrick Lamar had found something to shape his music and storytelling around. 

Rise to Fame - Section.80

In 2011, Kendrick dropped his first album: Section.80, a 14-track tape that received a high amount of praise. Through this album, Kendrick uses his storytelling abilities to address complex social issues. Medium described the album as “a meditation and analysis on the vices and pitfalls that follow his generation, all while painting a loosely-tied narrative about two women, Keisha and Tammy.” 

According to Genius, the reason for the name of the album is that in 1982, Ronald Reagan cut funding to the Section 8 program in half. This means that he believed social programs were not necessary and his campaign increased the divide between the rich and poor in America. I have learned about Reagan in history class and his Cold War policies, but I never thought about the effect it had on the poor. I even loved the song Ronald Reagan Era, but hearing the context makes the song hit harder. 

The first song on the album is literally called “fuck your ethnicity.” This is one of my favorite songs on the album because not only is the instrumental a bop, but his message is very empowering. Kendrick is trying to express how race is leading to more division between people and he welcomes anyone who can understand his story. He also introduces two characters: Keisha and Tammy to explore two different stories of people who grew up in Compton. The characters are explored on their own in other songs. For example, Keisha’s Song (Her Pain) talks about how prostitutes get treated badly by their boyfriends. The women are vulnerable, and it's a challenge to keep fighting. 

The album as a whole reflects on issues like the crack epidemic, gang violence, and the effects of Ronald Reagan's policies on the African-American community. Kendrick was able to incorporate musical abilities, such as rhyme patterns and unique instrumentals, with narrative abilities to produce a compelling first album, but this was just the first album. I feel that although Kendrick nailed the narrative component, all of his songs were not musically interesting. He had his high moments, with killer songs like HiiiPower and Rigamortis, but there is room for improvement in terms of making it sound good. And he improves just that through his second album: good kid, m.A.A.d city. 

A Turning Point -  Good Kid, M.A.A.D City 

As mentioned previously, the first Kendrick song that I heard was Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe. This song came from his second album, good kid, m.A.A.d city (gkmc), which was released in 2012. After this album was released, Kendrick exploded in popularity. It “debuted at number 2 on the Billboard 200 chart” and Kendrick was even nominated for seven 2013 Grammy Awards, including Best Album and Best New Artist. Although he didn’t win (which I think showed how stupid the Grammys are imo),  Kendrick continued to gain millions of fans and supporters, even making major TV appearances such as performing on SNL. His fan base grew as well, with not only hip-hop fans, but more college students and alternative rock fans. (I have no idea where alternative rock fans came from but thanks biography.com.) 

Like Section.80, this album continues the narrative approach except in a more autobiographical sense. The album paints a vivid picture of Kendrick's personal teenage experiences in Compton. The title itself explains how he is just a good kid in a crazy city. Interestingly,  according to Spin, "M.A.A.D" stands for both "My Angry Adolescence Divided" and "My Angels on Angel Dust," indicating the juxtaposition between his desire to maintain innocence and the chaos of his environment. Along with his complex themes, he also upgrades the musicality and there are a lot of musically pleasing songs on this album. 

A song on this album that encapsulates the artistic genius of Kendrick is Swimming Pools. Without looking deeply, this song sounds like a song you would drink and vibe to (which is what I always thought), but looking at the lyrics there is so much more deep stuff going on.  Kendrick talks about how peer pressure affects alcoholism. The irony is that although this song sounds like a club song, it talks about the negative effects of alcoholism and how much it is normalized in Kendrick's environment. Tying a metaphor between a swimming pool and alcoholism shows how easy to drown in either. Even towards the end of the song, he builds on the overarching story by talking about how K. Dot’s (a character of this album) actions led to his brother being killed. 

Listening to the whole album was such an experience. As Pitchfork put it, “It feels like walking directly into Lamar's childhood home and, for the next hour, growing up alongside him.”  Kendrick discusses his struggles with the effects of gang violence, drugs, and poverty in his community. I wanted to discuss certain songs that I really enjoyed, but honestly, Kendrick did such a good job with the consistency. I was going through my playlist to see which songs I liked and I realized I have most of the songs except the first song and the last two songs (Real and Compton). Maybe I’ll convert and like these as well one day. The music and lyrics speak for themselves, and the entire album does a great job of keeping a narrative theme as well as maintaining this sort of serious yet chill vibe throughout. 

A Masterpiece - To Pimp a Butterfly 

Just when you think an album can’t get any better, Kendrick Lamar releases To Pimp A Butterfly (tpab) in 2015. Kendrick continues to keep the narrative theme and explores society as well as self-worth. This time, however, there are even more unique musical factors such as jazz, funk, and spoken word poetry. According to Britannica,  the album broke a Spotify record because it was streamed more than 9.6 million times within a week of its release. President Barack Obama even declared a song on this album his favorite song of 2015. He also finally won the Grammys (I still don’t like them) with best rap performance and best rap song (both for “Alright”), best rap/sung collaboration (for “These Walls”), best music video (for “Bad Blood”), and best rap album (for To Pimp a Butterfly). 

Considering how successful this album was, what made it so good? The diversity. Like good kid, m.A.A.d city, and Section.80, tpab follows the typical narrative story that Kendrick had previously portrayed; however, this album has a lot more variety of characters and includes a lot more themes that relate to society as a whole. There is also a lot more variety in terms of genres. Although this is a rap album, there is half a jazz band present at all times, a pianist, a sax player, slam poetry, and sound effects (according to Pitchfork).  

“ALLS MY LIFE, I HAVE TO FIGHT.”  Alright is a song on tpab that showcases the jazz aspect of the album. The music is so catchy and just makes you want to shout the whole song. Although this song is very short, Kendrick shows how he is going to escape his troubles. It’s a simple idea: “we gon’ be alright.” Under the surface, however,  this song creates awareness of police brutality. In fact, in 2015, the Black Lives Matter movement used the phrase  “we gon’ be alright” to protest against police brutality. 

Throughout this album, Kendrick delved into the depths of black identity and societal struggles, painting a picture of personal conflict within racial injustice. Although I love this album, unlike gkmc, I only really liked a half of the songs on this album. But when I did like it, I REALLY liked it. I appreciate the experimentation and am happy on how this album turned out. Alright is probably one of my favorite songs, but I also really love King Kunta, The Blacker the Berry, These Walls, i, and How Much a Dollar Cost. 

Continuing the legend - DAMN.

Continuing his streak of groundbreaking albums, DAMN. was released in 2017. This album earned Kendrick his first Billboard No. 1 single with HUMBLE. and won the Pulitzer Prize for Music, which made him the first rapper to receive this honor. According to Britannica, HUMBLE. won Grammys for Best Rap Album, Best Rap Song, Rap Performance, and Music Video. That is a lot of categories! This man is just collecting everything (and rightfully so).  

In DAMN. Kendrick used a raw, more direct narrative. This album is a lot more broad and explores the themes of fate, spirituality, and the complexities of the human condition. And although the album sounds simple, there was a lot of conspiracy that followed the release of this album. According to Medium, Kendrick confirmed a theory that the album could be played in reverse, telling two different stories: weakness and wickedness. 

In a more broad sense, This album had a lot of hits like DNA. and HUMBLE. Honestly, comparing this album to the others, this album is not one of my favorites. I liked a few of the songs but in terms of diversity, I felt that it was lacking. This is more of a contemporary and mainstream rap album, which is fine. I like the idea of how the album tells two stories. I feel like listening to it backward was interesting, especially considering how the first song was DUCKWORTH. (one of my favorites from the album). Hearing the little reversed part from DUCKWORTH reversed back blew my mind. According to Genius, that audio symbolized “a flashback or a wormhole representing Kendrick’s life”. Kendrick was able to use his outro to portray such a unique idea. 

Expanding outside of Albums - Afterwards 

Throughout the releases of these albums, Kendrick has been featured in many great songs. For example, family ties, made me find out that Baby Keem and Kendrick Lamar are blood relatives (they definitely act like it). In 2018, Lamar produced an album that was from and inspired by the famous movie Black Panther. Think about that: he made music for a famous Marvel movie.

He also again won a Grammy for best rap performance. In 2022, Kendrick Lamar performed at the Super Bowl halftime with the infamous Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, Mary J. Blige, and other hip-hop stars. In the same year, he released his fifth studio album, Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers. It won Grammys and produced some banger songs like N95. 

The Influence

Kendrick Lamar is not just a rapper; he's a storyteller, a social commentator, and a visionary artist. Watching his journey, either through directly listening to his albums, or watching how much he has grown as a musician, is definitely an experience. Fans are invited to be a part of his lifetime from the streets of Compton to his present global success as an artist. That is what is so amazing about him, Kendrick Lamar started off great and just kept on getting better. It’s no wonder that he is called one of the most influential rappers of his generation. 

Not only is his music in a league of its own, but Kendrick was able to use his fame in the hip-hop world to make an impact on American culture through his insight into Black culture and the flaws of modern society as a whole. What I really enjoy about Kendrick is that he creates a space that allows everyone to listen to music. As a casual listener myself, his songs sound good and are so unique. He also manages to not sound too preachy throughout the whole process, which is pretty impressive. Kendrick Lamar does the inconceivable and can successfully tell a compelling story while also making banger music.

[finalhaunts]

Wait ronald reagan cut up while talking is a real thing. I thought that was just a joke phrase someone came up with

[phinnsyreads]

SCP-1981 - "RONALD REAGAN CUT UP WHILE TALKING"

by Digiwizzard

Today's installment of the Expanded Series, featuring Lee Daniel, was requested by Patreon patron, Gregg. The Database thanks you for your continued support!

[snowgrave]

i keep using the phrase of like “im going to cut someone up” or other variants and im referencing that one scp Ronald Reagan Cut Up While Talking but that doesnt come across easily or at all so it hasnt been that funny to people

[tomiyamachoji]

i still havent gotten to go through that big box of vhs tapped somebody donated last year im gonna finally get around to it and find fuckin RONALD REAGAN CUT UP WHILE TALKING arent i

[grapesodadarkchocolate]

On My Mind: 100 days and counting while thinking

Nature365: Eagle owl: Watch , April 27, 2025 🦉

Starling murmuration: Watch  (Super cool) 🐦‍⬛

Match up: Art and Flowers — What more can be seen? Which art piece goes with which floral arrangement? What do you think?

Dear Mr. President, 

100 days, huh. So how many days yet remain? Finding nature and history continues to ground me to the floor I continue to pace along, for sense is a struggle to be found. From your renaming of Denali, it has simply gone down hill from there. 

Sincerely,

A disheartened American 

Related blog entry: On My Mind: History remembers —everything: Read, January 23, 2025 🍇🥤🍫

This week: 

Reading: Birding to Change the World by Trish O’Kane 📗

Listening: St. Philip the Deacon Faith and Life Series Talk by David Brooks: Listen, April 24, 2025🎙️

Thinking: “You can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey or Japan, but you cannot become a German, a Turk, or a Japanese. But anyone, from any corner of the Earth, can come to live in America and become an American.

“We lead the world because, unique among nations, we draw our people—our strength—from every country and every corner of the world. And by doing so we continuously renew and enrich our nation. While other countries cling to the stale past, here in America we breathe life into dreams. We create the future, and the world follows us into tomorrow. 

“Thanks to each wave of new arrivals to this land of opportunity, we're a nation forever young, forever bursting with energy and new ideas, and always on the cutting edge, always leading the world to the next frontier. This quality is vital to our future as a nation. If we ever closed the door to new Americans, our leadership in the world would soon be lost.” — Ronald Reagan [Remarks at the Presentation Ceremony for the Presidential Medal of Freedom,” January 19, 1989]

Resource: Letters from an American “April 26, 2025” by Heather Cox Richardson: Read 📝

Learning: AP News: Secret note hidden in Dachau-built ‘Violin of Hope’ tells a tale of survival and craftsmanship by Justine Spike: Read, April 28, 2025 📰

[theurbanologist]

When I first start planning this series for the Chicago Public Library, the pandemic was just warming up. In June 2020, I started filming this series with a very accomplished videographer and sound guy. It was all a bit hectic, as there was great uncertainty——would local business owners want to talk with us given all that was going on?

Fortunately, we were able to create this program to celebrate the vast contributions that many, many immigrants and other new arrivals have brought to the Loop.

What follows is some personal recollections of each of the stops we made for this program.

1. Iwan Ries Tobacconist

“You know we have 15,000 pipes around here, right?

Those were the first words spoken to me by one of the clerks as our crew walked up the stairs to begin filming this segment. His next words were “I don’t want to appear on camera, but you all can stay as long as you like."

Pretty charitable, I thought—odd to find people who don’t want to be on camera these days, no?

When Emil Hoffman, a German immigrant, first hung out his shingle in 1857, smoking was more or less ubiquitous in all public and private spaces in Chicago—and for that matter, everywhere else in the United States. His nephew, Iwan Ries, eventually took over the tobacco-juice stained reins and today the Iwan Ries store has a private smoking lounge where members can sit and sip and smoke and look at their phones for $15 a day. It remains the oldest retail establishment in the city of Chicago, hooray!

I learned a number of other curious facts that I didn’t get to toss into this segment, including that in the 1910 Chicago business directory, there are listed at least 100 tobacco stores in the Loop.

That’s a lot of puffing.

Tobacco aside, the most compelling aspect of the Iwan Ries store is that it is in the gorgeous Jewelers’ Building, which happens to be part of the Jewelers Row District.

While we were there filming, you’ll noticed the first floor was undergoing a complete down to the studs renovation. That project has since finished (hey, it’s been almost five years), so I recommend wandering by and taking a look.

2. Rahmanim’s Imports

A block away, I wandered into the Mallers Building (also part of the Jewelers Row District) looking for any jeweler who would appear on camera for this segment—I didn’t have any takers until I located the very gregarious Rahmanim family.

Originally from Iran, the Rahmanim family left in 1979, along with tens of thousands of other Iranians (you’ve read Persepolis right? Beautiful graphic novel) and made their way to the United States. They were able to set up shop in the Mallers Building and they have been there for over forty years.

Part of our conversation revolved around the challenges faced by having a small business in an older building. Some of the remarks that didn’t make it into our final cut involved water leaks, frozen pipes, pest infestations, and occasionally, fellow tenants.

The family certainly knew other local businesses, because on the way out they told me “You should go talk to the folks at Iwan Ries——they also have great stories!"

Great minds, great stories, and all that.

3. Walgreen’s

When you get down to it, Walgreen’s is quite the product of thrifty Scandinavian tendencies combined with a bit of heartland style can-do spirit.

Also, let’s not forget their own in-house brand pharmaceuticals and highly profitable cosmetics counters—do you remember when they got rid of alcohol sales twenty plus years ago?

I do—a dark day at my preferred Walgreens location at 55th and Lake Park Avenues.

Like Ronald Reagan several decades later, Charles Walgreen was born in Dixon, Illinois——and that’s where their similarities start and end. Walgreen was the son of Swedish immigrants and he fell into the druggist trade after an apprentice with one of Dixon’s numerous pharmacists.

Like many other Chicago legacy businesses that started outside of the Loop, Walgreens first set up his own pharmacy in 1901 inside a small grocery at Bowen and Cottage Grove Avenues in the South Side. On the first day of business, Walgreens took a photograph with an unnamed black employee in front of the store—there’s a research project for someone—who was this other man? What did he do? Where did he live?

I mention this photograph because it is prominently displayed in every single Walgreen’s. There’s a fascinating story in that man’s eyes, let me tell you.

When my colleagues and I arrived at the flagship Walgreens on State Street to tell a bit about this most well-known Chicago business, we decided to interview people in the store without asking for permission—just you know, let’s get out there and talk to people about Wal-tussin, prepackaged almonds, phone chargers, and their feelings about Old Style.

We were escorted off the premises immediately, so we just went out on the PUBLIC SIDEWALK and did our thing. Not perhaps the most successful segment in this collection of Loop moments, but we did our best.

Today, the Walgreens “situation” is a bit a-flutter as they announced last year that might close as many as 1,200 of their 8,600 stores. And even worse, the entire company may be purchased by the private equity firm Sycamore Partners.

Who knows what might end up in some of those shuttered stores?

Maybe this is just a sign of what some have called the “retail apocalypse”, mirabile dictu.

4. Italian Village

Honestly, there is no better place to see photographs of long-gone opera stars and other celebrities than the men’s bathroom inside the Village on the top floor of the noted Italian Village three story restaurant juggernaut on West Monroe Street.

Richard Tucker, Jerry Vale, and countless others smile down on you as you attempt to finish your business at the men’s urinals——this entire celebrity photographic extravaganza always amused me——isn’t a bit surreal?

Did they also urinate here?

Did they get into an altercation about broccoli rabe in here?

Did they ever come into the stall to do harder stuff?

The historical record is incomplete on these matters.

I wanted a Loop restaurant in the mix for this segment, and the folks at the Italian Village have always been good to me. The bar at the Village is a great place to meet and greet visitors to Chicago and there’s usually some pre-theater diners talking about Wicked, Hamilton, or a Showboat revival.

Today, it remains the oldest operating Italian restaurant in the Loop and the Capitanini family continues to run the three restaurants in the building. From a design standpoint, the most compelling concept is the one on the first floor, Vivere. Alas, we did not film inside that space.

The interior design for Vivere was created in 1990 by the noted interior designer Jordan Mozer—it’s one of my favorite restaurant spaces in all of, well, everywhere. At the time, it was considered very forward thinking in terms of its overall holistic design sensibility, where just about every single item (host stand, service tables, bar area, etc) was considered as part of the total project. Also, the fact that this interior has barely been modified in 35 years is also kind of bonkers.

Mozer and his design team have worked on hundreds of projects all over the world, including the Cheesecake Factory on Michigan Avenue—another one of my favorite restaurant interiors, even if looking up at the ceiling makes you wonder “Am I in a cow’s stomach?"

Alas, Vivere is only open for private dining and the entire Italian Village family continues to shift and adjust and shift some more to the fickle fortunes of who is doing what in the Loop at night or for a business lunch or for after-dinner drinks.

I’d love to write a long-form piece on Jordan Mozer’s work—might be in the offering for this newsletter, who knows?

More to come and take care, Max

[itsusernotfound]

A preliminary report on Wednesday night’s plane and helicopter collision near Washington, D.C. contradicts Donald Trump’s favorite DEI scapegoat.

An internal report from the Federal Aviation Administration found that in reality, the tower’s staffing at Ronald Reagan National Airport (DCA) was “not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic,” according to The New York Times. There was only one air traffic controller to handle both helicopters and planes in the airport’s vicinity, a job usually assigned to two people.

Having to handle both types of air traffic can be complicated, the Times report states, because air traffic controllers can use different radio frequencies for helicopter and airplane pilots. In such cases, while the controller is communicating with pilots of both kinds of aircraft, the pilots may not be able to talk to one another.

Staffing levels at the airport’s control tower have been below adequate levels for years, like many of the U.S.’s other airports. DCA’s tower only had 19 fully certified controllers as of September 2023, according to congressional reports. This is well below the FAA and air traffic controller union’s preferred number of 30, and is due to employee turnover and budget cuts, according to the Times.

As a result, many air controllers at the airport work up to 10 hours a day and six days a week. Those levels probably have not been helped by Donald Trump’s federal hiring freeze, his gutting of the Aviation Security Advisory Committee, and the FAA chief’s resignation at Elon Musk’s behest. As much as Trump and the right might try to blame DEI or something else ludicrous, perhaps they should look in the mirror.

[hip-hypocrite]

thsanks you ronald reagan cut up while talking and worm suggestion