Sports Betting: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
(LastWeekTonight) March 16, 2025: John Oliver discusses sports betting, how it became so popular, why it can be so damaging, and – of course – how toned John’s shoulders are. Very toned. According to him.
Connect with Last Week Tonight online...on YouTube for more almost news as it almost happens, on Facebook like your mom would, on Twitter for news about jokes and jokes about news, or visit official site for all that other stuff at once: hbo.com/lastweektonight.
It's interesting, isn't it, how our English words "waste" and "waist" are homonyms? What goes on our waistline butt our excess? Why do we have so much excess that we have to carry it around like baggage? Could it be systemic? That is to say, could it be because of a system working upon us rather than the way we are told to think of it, which is just personally problematic? For instance, what does "mortgage" mean? You know that thing that will get you a house? It literally means "death pledge," because we make a "pledge" (gage) to keep paying until we die (mort as in mortician). There goes our whole life.
There is a rebellious punk rock song by Deadly Reign promoted by the Dead Kennedys' Alternative Tentacles Records (a subsidiary of Jello Biafra, Unincorporated) that has the refrain, "Systems suck, system's f*ck*ed, systems suck, okay?" (from Not So Quiet on the Western Front). And the DKs have a song called "Life Sentence" about the way we've mortgaged our lives away.
May Day honors the general strike that culminated in the Haymarket affair in 1886, which “signifies the labor movement’s struggle for better working conditions, fair wages, the rights of workers and efforts in driving social progress,” according to the WEF. In Hollywood, the rally and march begins at Sunset Blvd. and Gower St., then heads north to Hollywood Blvd. before ending at Hollywood and Highland. The rally starts at 2:00 pm, and the march begins at 3:00 pm. Hollywood streets will be closed from 12:00 noon to 5:00 pm.
The first Monday in May sometimes substitutes. It is related to Labor Day in some countries [1] and often referred to as May Day [2, 3]. It is a celebration of laborers (the proles in 1984) and the working classes. It is promoted by the international labor movement and occurs every year on the first of May [4, 5] or the first Monday in May [6, 7].
Traditionally, May 1 is the date of the European spring festival of "May Day." In 1889, the Marxist International Socialist Congress met in Paris and established the Second International as a successor to the earlier International Workingmen's Association. They adopted a resolution for a "great international demonstration" in support of working-class demands for the eight-hour day.
Are you worried, Bibi? - Nah, CIA protects me.
The date was chosen by the American Federation of Labor to commemorate a general strike in the United States, which had begun on May 1, 1886, and culminated in the Haymarket affair four days later.
The demonstration subsequently became an annual event [5]. The 1904 Sixth Conference of the Second International, called on "all Social Democratic Party organizations and trade unions of all countries to demonstrate energetically on the First of May for the legal establishment of the eight-hour day, for the class demands of the proletariat, and for universal peace." [8]. More
COMMENTARY
Does sex work count as labor? - Do you sweat?
Q: Should I celebrate? A: Look down at your collar. What color is it? Whatever color it is, yes, you should celebrate it. Our lives depend on the workers we exploit, underpay, and overwork. This movement merely tries to make things fairer for those who sweat and toil, while we sit at desks or behind registers collecting profits for the bosses, exploiters, and owners of the means of production (the capitalists). While we all imagine we will be rich, there is still reason to support labor, the foundation of any society. If we were to only consume, we would soon starve. A society must produce, and that production is brought about with labor (until the capitalists bring in the functional robots to replace the laborers). Is it any wonder Luddites in San Francisco are beating driverless cabs stealing food from their mouths?
(KTLA 5/GMA) Oct. 15, 2023: Iconic working class Catholic Irish American actress Suzanne Somers (née Mahoney) -- who fought against the "dumb blond" stereotype and pushed for income equality/equity -- has died rich of cancer just one day shy of her 77th birthday, her publicist confirmed to KTLA.
Rick Chambers reports for KTLA 5 News at 6:00 pm, Sunday, Oct. 15, 2023. (KTLA 5 News -- Keeping Southern Californians informed since 1947).DETAILS: ktla.com/entertainment/suzanne...
Life is fleeting. It would have been better to practice the Dharma and pass away liberated in bliss. Or "I feel that if I had been uglier," sing Bauhaus, "it would have been easier." Gothy McGothison has a Bauhaus remembrance for Wisdom Quarterly:
Trump organization guilty on all counts and Indonesia criminalizes sex
I didn't do it. My organization did. Jail them!
(The Daily Show with Trevor Noah) The Trump organization is found guilty of tax fraud and other financial crimes, Spain and Switzerland are knocked out of the World Cup, Indonesia bans sex outside of marriage for all citizens and visitors, and wage theft [cheating US workers out of pay for work they have done] is on the rise. #DailyShow#Comedy
Trevor Noah explains why he's leaving The Daily Show
(TODAY) Dec. 1, 2022. Daily Show Host Trevor Noah talks about his upcoming Netflix comedy special “I Wish You Would” and the reasons for his departure from The Daily Show. He also shares a hilarious experience in which he was mistaken for The Weeknd at a basketball game.
De-funding the police is interesting and may work in many places, but would it work in the megalopolis of Los Angeles, a 50 square mile area of just about the biggest population in the world?
It's going to take a lot more than some much needed defunding to fix a corrupt and racist system of "slave patrolling" in the north.
Slave patrol are what modern police forces originated from. In the north they have had a long and storied career "union busting." The only slaves to patrol in the north are "wage slaves."
L.A. has the biggest prison-industrial-complex in the entire world. ("Mass Incarceration, Accountability, and The Wire" with Prof. James Forman Jr., earwolf.com).
Prison-industrial complex's incarceration rates
In short, it'll take us more than simply defunding, for there are too many vested interests we need to stop from benefitting from the system as it is.
There's also the fact that police are currently being asked to do everything, which essentially gives them a lot more power than they should have ever had.
(TEDTalks) Freakonomics author Steven Levitt presents new data on the finances of drug dealing gangs. Contrary to popular conception, he says, being a gang-member street-corner crack dealer isn't lucrative: It pays less than minimum wage. And your boss can kill you.
TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED (technology, entertainment, and design) Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers are invited to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes -- including speakers such as enlightened neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor, Sir Ken Robinson, Hans Rosling, Al "Loser" Gore, and Arthur Benjamin. TEDTalks cover many topics and science, business, politics, and the arts. Watch the Top 10 TEDTalks on TED.com, at ted.com/index.php/talks/top10.
This column will change your life. How to tell whether you have a bullshit job: "Is the job you're doing, or applying for, one the world would be fine without?" (The Guardian)
My wage slave job has no point. Well, it has one point, as I found out one day at work.
.
Bullshit Jobs: A Theory review -- the myth of capitalist efficiency
The BS box tickers have taken over (Alamy)
Is your job one that makes the world a better place? If not, it is probably "bullshit," part of a system that is keeping us under control.
I had a bullshit job once. It involved answering the phone for an important man, except the phone didn’t ring for hours on end, so I spent the time guiltily converting my Ph.D. into a book.
I’ve also had several jobs that were not bullshit but were steadily bullshitized: interesting jobs in the media and academia that were increasingly taken up with filling out [bureaucratic] compliance forms and time allocation surveys.
I’ve also had a few sh*t jobs, but that’s something different. Toilets need to be cleaned. But to have a bullshit job is to know that if it were to disappear tomorrow, it would make no difference to the world: In fact, it might make the world a better place.
Tatted up butch cop giving out BS tickets
When I read [American anarchist London School of Economics Anthropology Professor] David Graeber’s essay "On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs" in Strike! magazine in 2013, I felt somehow vindicated.
I had sat in the pub on many a Friday evening moaning to colleagues about data entry and inefficient meetings. But with the Martian gaze of the anthropologist, Graeber managed to articulate my plight in a way that made me feel part of some grand, absurdist outrage.
INTERVIEW: The Nature of Work and Paying for Time - author explains the bullshit jobs (iTunes) Anthropologist David Graeber talks about how over the years the concept of time has evolved to be used for control through hourly paid work ("wage slavery") leading to the proliferation of unnecessary jobs. He is known for his role in jump-starting the Occupy Wall Street Movement in 2011... LISTEN (KPFA, Berkeley)
I wasn’t alone. The essay went viral, receiving more than a million hits and being translated into a dozen languages.
“Guerrilla” activists even replaced hundreds of ads in London tube carriages [subway trains] with quotes from the essay, presumably in order to jolt commuters out of their apathetic stupor. As is the way in the world of reactive non-fiction publishing, a book followed.
The argument of both essay and book is this: In 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that technological advances would enable us to work a 15-hour week.
Yet, we seem to be busier than ever before. Those workers who actually do stuff are burdened with increasing workloads, while box-tickers and bean-counters multiply.
In an age that supremely prizes capitalist efficiency, the proliferation of pointless jobs is a puzzle.
Why are employers in the public and private sector alike behaving like the bureaucracies of the old Soviet Union, shelling out wages to workers they don’t seem to need?
Since bullshit jobs make no economic sense, Graeber argues, their function must be political. A population kept busy with make-work is less likely to revolt. More
Former Apple chief executive Steve Jobs holds original iPhone, one of
the biggest technological breakthroughs of modern times (Alessia
Pierdomenico/Reuters)
This chart shows every major technological innovation in the last 150 years — and how they have changed the way we WORK
Since 1760 productivity has increased almost 30 fold [3,000%].
That is largely down to tech innovations like electricity, phones, and Internet.
[How 99% of us work today is as "wage slaves" or peons with bosses who want more and more efficiency to give us fewer and fewer jobs.]
Barclays chronicled the world's rising productivity in its latest Equity Gilt Study.
LONDON, England - Humanity is always moving forward [except when it's moving backward or stagnating in place] with innovation after innovation improving planetary quality of life.
The last 150 years have seen the most remarkable advancement of technology in our recorded history [unless we look at ancient Buddhist, Vedic, and Sumerian texts that tell of previous golden ages and better technology due to beings from space and advancements developed here].
Electric lighting, cars, toxic plastic, the telephone, and television are all less than 150 years old, while newer innovations such as the Internet have spurred ever more rapid societal development.
Bitch slap workers like this, right on the face
Technological advances have boosted productivity by allowing workers to get more done in a day. This helps to increase output and boosts economic growth.
In its recent Equity Gilt Study, which is a massive annual report by Barclays chronicling the bank's thoughts on important topics in finance and economics, the bank focused heavily on new technologies and particularly on cryptocurrencies and artificial intelligence.More
Tesla says its factories are getting safer. These workers tell a different story (digg)
Owning a home is easy once your mortgage or bank loan is approved [and you're ready to sign away the next 30 years of your life to wage slavery].
But building a home [or really cool meditation hut] from scratch can be incredibly rewarding. It's why so many people love taking on those do-it-yourself projects.
Now some folks might choose to build a tool shed, while others will build a home from the ground up.
Fortunately, the Internet offers several how-to-videos to help figure out how to take on such a challenge. In fact, it's so easy that even a 13-year-old can do it. (Clickbait version or see story below)
How a 13-y.-o. Iowan built his own house for $1,500 (And why you might want to, too)
Everything's cute, except gas and electricity bills. Sorry, no toilet (Des Moines Register).
There are other ideas for little DIY houses.
Just ask Luke Thill, a 13-year-old teen from Dubuque, Iowa. Luke's at that awkward stage where he's got plenty of energy, but not a lot of things to do.
So one summer he decided to overcome that boredom by building a house in his family's backyard. But as any builder will tell you, the end result will leave you speechless.
Building a house required lots of materials, which meant Luke needed cash. So he asked his parents, and they said yes! His [banker] dad, Greg, was excited for his son, who chose to do something other than sit on the couch and play video games all day.
But he decided to let Luke do most of the work himself to teach him a valuable life lesson. However, Luke still needed more help.
[The house, which measures 89 square feet, may soon be up for sale for $50,000.00, backyard not included, and Greg Bank might be willing to finance if you mow the lawn and rake leaves, or come cart it away for $49,000, or AirBnB it for $1,500/night, but call first because sometimes Luke likes to have his friends over to party.] More + PHOTOS
Wage slavery is the predominate form of oppression today. Workers are
forced to sell themselves (actually, their labor power) in order to
survive. Instead of being owned and provided for in some fashion, they
are “free” for the remainder of the day [after the best 8 to 10 hours have been slaved away at this unfair exchange]. However, economic necessity
prevents the overwhelming mass of humanity from being truly free... More
Rosie the Riveter, like women in general, can get it done. DIY (polyvore.com).
[Oingo Boingo, "Wild Sex (in the Working Class)"] Jewish-born Christian-celebrating musical genius Danny Elfman appears on the Kevin & Bean Show (KROQ.com), Monday, Sept. 6, 2016 to talk about his upcoming "Nightmare Before Christmas" LIVE performance in Los Angeles.
A long weekend is appropriate for the observance of Labor Day, celebrated on the first Monday in September in the United States and Canada.
It was first celebrated in New York in 1882, and Congress made the holiday official in 1894.
The New York Times reported on one of the early Labor Day parades on September 7, 1886, noting that 14,000 laborers marched in Manhattan, 6,000 in Brooklyn, and 12,000 in Newark for what was referred to as “Labor’s Day.”
Work, sweet/sour condiments or tartar sauce
The marchers in Manhattan included carpenters, followed by horseshoers, framers, printers, the typesetters of the chapels (associations of employees in a printing office) of the New York newspapers, typefounders, housepainters, bricklayers, shoemakers, buttonhole makers, shirtmakers, furniture makers, woodcarvers, cigar makers, journeymen brewers (“with hop leaves in their hats”), hat makers and, near the rear of the parade, “individual members of a troop of bartenders were recognized by many of the spectators.”
Searches for 'Labor Day’ spike every year on Labor Day weekend. The holiday was first observed in 1882.
A subsequent article reporting on the parades in other cities and reported from Chicago, bore the headline:
HOW LABOR DAY WAS OBSERVED BY ALL CLASSES OF WORKMEN
The timing of these parades was no coincidence: The American Federation of Labor (AFL) was founded in 1886, marking the beginning of a successful, large-scale labor movement in the U.S. May Day (May 1) was designated as International Labor Day by the International Socialist Congress in 1899 and was a major holiday in communist countries.
Trend Watch tracks popular searches to see what people are talking about. More
LYRICS
Rosie the riveting Riveter: Scientists have proven that women are stronger than men [or at least better able to endure pain]. Women live longer than men due to DNA inherited from their mothers." (Eurostat/giphy.com)
"Wild Sex (in the Working Class)"
Work so hard trying to make a few bucks
I pass the hours in a dream
The sweat keeps rolling off the tip of my nose
There's only one thing keeps me on my feet
And I may be greasing the wheels of a noisy factory
Or I may be hunched over metal machines
Watching the gears as they move
Just reminds me of bodies in motion
The sweat and the sound
[CHORUS:]
Wild sex in the working class
After 5:00 it's a gas
Wild sex in the working class
Counting minutes gonna get home fast
Thinking of your warm skin
While I touch cold steel
The days go by to the pounding beat
My back is aching so bad
But I'm grinning inside
Thinking of you keeps me on my feet...
I work so hard thinking of you
Work so hard thinking of you
Work so hard
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I’ve also had several jobs that were not bullshit but were steadily bullshitized: interesting jobs in the media and academia that were increasingly taken up with filling out [bureaucratic] compliance forms and time allocation surveys.
LONDON, England - Humanity is always moving forward [except when it's moving backward or stagnating in place] with innovation after innovation improving planetary quality of life.
