Bette Midler is an ignorant twat, and the worst kind of American.
I have had the honor of teaching and tutoring hundreds of immigrant students from grade school to college. For the last 27 years, I have seen some of the hardest working people I’ve ever met in these classrooms.  I, embarrassingly, am a monoglot, despite the fact that I’ve taken multiple years of classes in three different languages, I am not conversant in any of them.  And that was me having not a hell of a lot else going on in my life, just school.  And I still couldn’t do it.  For a while, I thought I knew how to speak Spanish.  But then I went to Mexico and stayed with a local family for 2 weeks…I do not know Spanish.  But these people, these legal immigrants…imagine it: you just managed to get yourself and your family out of an intolerable situation, you’re in a new country where you may have never been previously, you don’t read or write the language, you don’t know the money system, and you’re expected to take care of your family, find a place for you all to live, and find and keep a job, and, oh yeah, you also need to learn one of the most difficult languages on the planet, from the alphabet on up.  I don’t know that I could do it.  But they do.  In my classes they work their asses off learning the language, while many native speakers could be bother to crack the textbook.  But the immigrants don’t have that luxury: they need to learn the language to survive.  

So they learn basic English…just barely enough to get by, but enough, and so they get the first job they can get, probably at the neighborhood grocery store or coffee shop, because, oh yeah, they don’t have a car.  Keep in mind, some of my students held PhDs, law and engineering degrees back in their old country. But here they are bagging groceries and retrieving shopping carts all day long, then busting their ass to try to get to my class and learn English at night.  And they do it.  And they continue to do it, every goddamn day, working their asses off at some menial job, just tying to get food on the table and try to get ahead in their new home.   They are the epitome of what it means to be American.  And then, one day, while they are working far harder at their job than any of their American teenage coworkers ever will, some shitbag American starts making fun of their poor English or heavy accent.   Starts yelling and giving them shit about being a foreigner.  It happens all the time, and I despise it.  Bette Midler is just such a shitbag.  Her behavior is classless, un-American, and despicable.  As she sits in her Hollywood mansion mocking legal immigrants’ accents, she personifies the image of the Ugly American.  Bette Midler is a disgrace, beneath contempt, and an embarrassment to real Americans.  

 

N.P.: “Press Enter To Exit – HAAi Remix” – The Horrors

What’s crackin’, dear reader?  I was working on some prime invective for you this evening, but then got a call from an old friend and ended up talking for hours.  Which was wonderful.  But you don’t get your invective tonight.  But tomorrow!  Yes, tomorrow I shall drain this pen of bitter ink.

N.P.: “My Sharona” – The Knack

The only people who believe that the United States is systemically racist or even just a racist country are those who have never even seen much less been forced to live under actually racist systems.  After a conversation today, I’m confident that they don’t actually know what the term means.  If some black people can succeed in The System (e.g., a two-term President or a middle-class state worker) then all black people can succeed in The System.  That they don’t cannot be blamed on The System.  Racism is binary: one either is racist or one isn’t.  So there cannot exist a racist system that is only racist in some of the cases.
Say there is a college class composed entirely of black males.  50 students.  And its a community college, so they are all from very similar upbringings.  Many of them graduated from the same high school.  This class and the instructor are notoriously difficult for everybody (yeah, I know…let’s pretend it’s some weird place where truly academically difficult courses are taught at community college).  Okay, so at the end of a very difficult semester, two students get As in the class.  Four get Bs, and four get Cs.  So 10 people passed the class.  Is the reason the other 40 people failed systemic racism?  If you think so, you’re going to need to account for (in a believable, realistic way) the apparent immunity to systemic racism enjoyed by 20% of black people in this example.  Racism cannot possibly be blamed.
But let’s say that the grades in the class were actually much better.  Let’s say instead of only 20%, a full 50% of the class passed.  Meaning that of the 50 original students in the class, 25 passed and the class and advanced to whatever’s next, while 25 failed and did not advance.  Why did these 25 fail?  We have no way of knowing, but we know for certain what didn’t cause them to fail: say it with me now: systemic racism.
The U.S. Census Bureau would have you believe that the majority of African American families are middle-class.  Which means that more than half of the students have passed the class.  Why didn’t the other half pass?  Again, we have no way of knowing, but we know for certain what it wasn’t.

N.P,: “Masquerade (Live)” – Berlin

Dearest reader, I don’t know how it’s going over there, but over here, every day is exactly the same.  This is causing Time to do heretofore impossible things, even accounting for its relativity.
Which is okay.  It really is.  Especially if it’s a good day that you keep having.  But it does mean that I don’t have a hell of a lot to report to you here.  A bit of invective has been building up, so I might spew that here this week.  Just to keep things spicy.  You know how I like to do.

N.P.: “DFCK” – Code:Manta

Moved a bunch of monitors and computers around, trying to get ready/make room for the new book-making monstrosity I’m building.  I’ve been busy as hell the last few days, but not writing nearly enough.  It’s been weird.  I’m going to get back to it and see if I can’t turn things around.

N.P.: “Diggin A Grave” – Micah P. Henson

“Attachment leads to jealousy.  The fear of loss is a path to the Dark Side.  Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.”  ~ Yoda

N.P.: “A Split Second” – Rigor Mortis

Did you see the date, dear reader?  Yep, the 21st.  We’re now two months away from that insipid summer solstice and the nights are getting noticeably longer.  And in one short month, it will be Fall!  Finally.
Did a lot of sitting in front of this monitor today, hands over the keyboard, ready to type, but I didn’t get all that much writing done.  That’s just how it is some days…slow going.  But still a good day.

N.P.: “DYSTOPIA” – Rein

Today was better than I expected it to be.  Except for the air quality…that was shit.  But the rest of it was better than I expected it to be.  Glad it’s over.

N.P.: “Life’s What You Make It – 1997 Remaster” – Talk Talk

Finally figured out why California’s been so hot this week…the whole place is on fucking fire.  Anyway, today was busy as hell.  Got a lot of words down…good stuff.

N.P.: “Graves” – Whiskey Shivers

Hotter than fuck again today, dear reader.  It was so hot today, a gang of snakes showed up at the back door, evidently demanding entrance.  I don’t speak snake, but what they seemed to be saying was, “Nope…this is too much, we’re done, let us into your climate-controlled paradise, please, goddammit.”  I patiently explained to them that while I am beyond sympathetic with their plight (imagine having to crawl across the hot-ass ground on your taint all day), they were collectively shit out of luck when it came to gaining entry into my air-conditioned Xanadu.  One of them tried to get a little pushy, so he got launched into a neighboring yard.  The other two seemed to get the hint and slithered away hurriedly on their scaly taints.

N.P.: “West Coast Poplock” – Ronnie Hudson