===CORN POP CRITICAL EXEGESIS===
first, the fabula:
1. a young, Joseph R. Biden becomes the lifeguard at an integrated community pool (a rarity at the time)
There are 2 highly contextual story elements endogenous to the chronotype of early 1962 Wilmington. Biden, in recounting the story in 2017, stresses their peculiarity-"And to show you how things have changed,"
He's not talking about race relations, but Pomade.
Pomade was a water-based styling gel made from lanolin, beeswax, or petroleum jelly, and was popular (along with hair relaxer) in 1950s-60s African-American young men's fashion.
This detail is not simply "cosmetic', but ironically integral to the story's main conflict.
Although popular imagination attributes more "natural" hairstyles to the '60s, pomade was still in vogue as a styler, as William Morris--AKA "Corn Pop" illustrated. However, it's the likely conjunction of Pomade and some unknown chemical relaxer, which sets the stage:
At the time, hair relaxing or a "perm" invented in 1906 was a treatment popular in Black communities as a way to straighten hair with by chemically "relaxing" the natural curls, using a strong alkali, usually ammonium thioglycolate or even formaldehyde, every 8-11 weeks.
a perm is ruined by water, necessitating here, a Swimming Cap
it's absolutely critical to understand that although Corn Pop was indeed by all third-party accounts, "a Bad Dude", young Joseph Biden was absolutely the instigator of this conflict, as his reflection in the story's 3 sequential episodes, reveals progressively:
Corn Pop violates a minor safety rule on the pool's diving board. Having presumably had his hair relaxed and pomaded, is wearing a swimming cap.
And while for new lifeguards diving boards are an item of frequent accidents and special anxiety..
however, while story itself is dependent upon a host of highly contextual and historical elements, its dramatic impetus of the story notably does *not* follow from any of them but instead,
5. Biden publicly rebukes, humiliates Corn Pop, derisively calling him "Esther Wiliams"
Esther Williams was a competitive swimmer and hollywood starlet quite famous in the late 40s and 50s, and in 1962, a household name
yet what is critical at this affective, contextual juncture is Biden's crude analogy--the association of her signature swimming cap, and Corn Pop's own
not only did biden overstep his authority as lifeguard--unwisely and unfairly choosing to publicly shame and punish where mere discipline was necessary to enforce reasonable rules...
Biden, panicked, seeks out Bill Wrightmouse, a pool mechanic, who immediately furnishes him with a 6-foot length of chain to use as a weapon, along with its own bombastic flavor-text:
"You may gut me, man, but I'm gonna wrap this chain round your head."
Biden seeks him out for help in defusing and/or avoiding the confrontation he has provoked with Corn Pop...
to Biden, this is out of character for wrightmouse, who was for biden, a trusted elder and presumably a Cooler Head
the hypothetical imperative posed by the supposed mentor here is significant, but only in its careful ambivalence...
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— Tom Clark (@prospect_clark) November 2, 2018
Corbyn opposes the exploitation of foreign sweatshop-workers - Labour MPs complain he's like Nigel
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Oh myyyyyyyyyy
— Mike Dunford (@questauthority) January 25, 2021
Good morning, followers of frivolous election-related litigation - new filings in Seditionists v 117th Congress et al. (aka in re Gondor)
I've really got to get stuff done, but there's time for a really quick overview.
As far as I can tell from the docket, this is the FOURTH attempt in a week to get a TRO; the question the judge will ask if they ever figure out how to get the judge's attention will be "couldn't you have served by now;" and this whole thing is a
The memorandum in support of this one is 9 pages, and should go pretty quick.
But they still haven't figured out widow/orphan issues.
https://t.co/l7EDatDudy
It appears that the opening of this particular filing is going to proceed on the theme of "we are big mad at @SollenbergerRC" which is totally something relevant when you are asking a District Court to temporarily annihilate the US Government on an ex parte basis.
Also, if they didn't want their case to be known as "in re Gondor" they really shouldn't have gone with the (non-literary) "Gondor has no king" quote.
This is shameful legislation, that does nothing to tackle the problems with UK elections.THREAD
Millions of people do not have photo ID. By forcing through mandatory voter-ID the government risk disenfranchising millions of legitimate voters. https://t.co/y0Upzof2FI
— Electoral Reform Society (@electoralreform) February 17, 2021
There is no evidence in-person voter fraud is a problem, and it wd be near-impossible to organise on an effective scale. Campaign finance violations, digital disinformation & manipulation of postal voting are bigger issues, but these are crimes of the powerful, not the powerless.
In a democracy, anything that makes it harder to vote - in particular, anything that disadvantages one group of voters - should face an extremely high bar. Compulsory voter ID takes a hammer to 3 million legitimate voters (disproportionately poor & BAME) to crack an imaginary nut
If the government is concerned about the purity of elections, it should reflect on its own conduct. In 2019 it circulated doctored news footage of an opponent, disguised its twitter feed as a fake fact-checking site, and ran adverts so dishonest that even Facebook took them down.
Britain's electoral law largely predates the internet. There is little serious regulation of online campaigning or the cash that pays for it. That allows unscrupulous campaigners to ignore much of the legal framework erected since the C19th to guard against electoral misconduct.
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Always. No, your company is not an exception.
A tactic I don’t appreciate at all because of how unfairly it penalizes low-leverage, junior employees, and those loyal enough not to question it, but that’s negotiation for you after all. Weaponized information asymmetry.
Listen to Aditya
"we don't negotiate salaries" really means "we'd prefer to negotiate massive signing bonuses and equity grants, but we'll negotiate salary if you REALLY insist" https://t.co/80k7nWAMoK
— Aditya Mukerjee, the Otterrific \U0001f3f3\ufe0f\u200d\U0001f308 (@chimeracoder) December 4, 2018
And by the way, you should never be worried that an offer would be withdrawn if you politely negotiate.
I have seen this happen *extremely* rarely, mostly to women, and anyway is a giant red flag. It suggests you probably didn’t want to work there.
You wish there was no negotiating so it would all be more fair? I feel you, but it’s not happening.
Instead, negotiate hard, use your privilege, and then go and share numbers with your underrepresented and underpaid colleagues. […]