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some European prime minister has the pussy to announce:

"we're offering political asylum to American trans people"

then they push up their glasses to look smart and logical to add:

"the community has above average intelligence so they will be a boost to our productivity in this age of tariffs, nothing woke about it, it's for gdp"

The Pitt 1x03

On Freedom (Timothy Snyder, 2024)

"Once we join the libertarian cult, we do not have to take the trouble to evaluate the world.

We are soothed by the notion that our impulses are automatically translated into the general good.

We use our minds to rationalize, to justify whatever the markets give us, a habit that is submissive in the extreme.

If a problem such as global warming looms on the horizon, we imagine that the “free market” will somehow automatically address it—a delusion that is suicidal.

To be sure, elegant answers have their charm. It is tempting to submit to a single value, to relinquish the aspiration to be free.

The extreme solutions calm us by removing any occasion for thought: large state and tiny market (Stalinists), or large market and tiny state (libertarians).

When we give ourselves over to these total solutions, we are pacified, no longer wrestling with the world.

We have an answer for everything, like a simple computer program. We have retreated from the borderland of the unpredictable into the safe space of automatic replies.

Havel defined ideology as a “bridge of excuses between the system and the individual.”

Libertarianism is exactly that: a bridge of excuses, a substitute for thinking."

The Documentary Podcast: BBC Trending: Passport bros

"Dating in Medellín, Colombia is being promoted to foreign men on YouTube, TikTok and other social media platforms.

Lots of the videos, in English and Spanish, contain misogynistic language and suggest that the local women are both accessible and easy.

These videos are part of a wider trend of "passport bros" many of whom are American men, seeking life abroad in places marketed by content creators as being good for meeting women.

In theory, adult men going to meet adult women is not a problem, but Medellin has a huge problem with sexual exploitation.

It is often nicknamed by the press as 'the world's biggest brothel.

Since the pandemic the city has introduced curfews for underage girls in some neighbourhoods while NGOs work against the issue."

Laura Ballarin Cereza:

"To Musk, Zuckerberg, and company, in Europe we have a market of millions of users that provide money to your companies, yes.

But we also love protecting our citizens and democracies by making laws.

If you don't like it, you can always take your nazi salutes and your masculine energy and go back home.

Viva Europa hoy más que nunca, muchas gracias."

Source: VRT NWS journaal 19u van dinsdag 21 januari 2025

in Squid Game 1x02, Jun-ho visits In-ho's (the front man's) room and finds the invite to the game

it's interesting to go back to that scene and see 1) that In-ho seemed to be living like a monk/student, 2) which books the creators of the show decided to put on that man's desk to characterize him

first things first he's a certified fan of surrealist Belgian babe René Magritte

there's a book about him on the desk, which has the painting The Empire of Light on its cover

and there are two replicas of that same painting in the room, one is taped to the wooden panel of the right side of the desk, and the other hangs on the wall behind the desk

guggenheim.org: "With no fantastic element other than the single paradoxical combination of day and night, René Magritte upsets a fundamental organizing premise of life. Sunlight, ordinarily the source of clarity, here causes the confusion and unease traditionally associated with darkness."

other art books in the room: Vincent Van Gogh, Claude Monet, and two about Pablo Picasso (one is on the desk, the other next to the invite box)

so far so good, we love an artsy girlie

now onto the red flags

I immediately spotted Nietzsche's comical moustache on the spine of the yellow book, and yes I'm afraid it's Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the übermensch has entered the chat

the orange one is Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, lovely read on an angsty afternoon

between Nietzsche and Salinger we've got Jacques Lacan's Seminar (book 11: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis), and there's another one by Lacan next Magritte's, The Theory of Desire — I mean it could be worse, it could be Freud

I couldn't decipher the thin book on the far left but apparently it is Albert Camus's The Stranger, and I feel like I should have guessed that one just based on the vibe we were going for so far — of course there's some Camus in there!

I think on the right of the orange Salinger book there are two notebooks (it's written "campus life" on the spine), because our man likes to write down his own existential musings when he's not busy watching people get slaughtered

and finally there's a set of two books between the notebooks and the massive Van Gogh bible, but alas I can't figure those out

I did google translate the Korean words on the spine: "rose of anger"

the only book in Korean that I could find with that title is by Judith Gould

but when I wiki this Judith Gould, I read that it's apparently a pseudonym for two American gay guys who write romance novels together??

as much as I love and endorse the idea of In-ho reading smut, I feel like I might be missing something here

at first I thought that "rose of anger" would turn out to be Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath but it doesn't seem to be it

anyway I think we can conclude that what those books tell us about the character is that he's a sad and edgy and pretentious motherfucker

and by god I cannot judge him because I've also read Nietzsche and Salinger and Lacan and Camus

as well a book on the semiology of Magritte, one of Van Gogh's letters, and the book Life with Picasso — not to mention that I have a Monet on my wall.......

.....wait

I should send my resume to the squid game, I fit the profile perfectly!