My thoughts on tipping...
I'll start off by saying that these come from a U.S. person.
It seems like older generations tip less or maybe it's as you get older you realize you need to hang onto your money more.
A piece of advice passed onto me that I believe in is that if you can't afford to tip then you shouldn't be going out.
I tend to tip 10% for fair / poor service, 15% for normal / expected, and 20% or more for good. Tip jar places, I'll give a buck most of the time and not a percentage and this is also true for pick up orders.
I'm not sure why, but even if I get shitty service, I still tip. I don't go back, but the message is that even without giving decent service you still get a tip and I don't agree with that so I need to stop tipping crap service.
The places I go to a lot, I tend to tip more because you get to know the people that work there and they are more apt to know what I want almost without asking.
I believe in tipping as an incentive system and don't think they should get rid of it.
Individual places set up how tips are distributed. I think it's old school places where the waitress (waiter) tips out the busboy and cook and whoever else helps them provide better service. This makes sense to me as incentive. Another method is the pooling of tips and splitting them out evenly. This doesn't make sense since someone may not carry their own weight and be rewarded for that. There are other methods to curb that behavior. Full Metal Jacket comes to mind. I think the business itself can take a cut of the tips which to me seems pretty lame unless the owners are actively providing service.
In Oregon, service people get minimum wage (no waiter wage) so with tips, you can actually make a really solid living.
I always thought the smartest people in this trade are the ones that work at high class joints. 20% of a 10$ tab is 2$, but 20% of a 100$ tab is 20$ and that's some payola for likely a comparable amount of service.
For the math challenged, an easy way to figure out ~20% is to take the first two digit of the tab, multiply by 2, and then move the decimal one to the left. So for a 56.78 bill... 56 * 2 = 112... 11.2 or 11.20 tip.

That's not what progressive means, in this context. A progressive tax system is one where you pay a (progressively) higher rate when you have more income.

The US Income Tax is a Progressive tax, exactly as you described and exactly what I said. Since our current tax code has the bottom 50% of wage-earners paying only 5% of the Income taxes, than that's a Progressive system. I nailed exactly what it meant. Whatever you're saying here sounds like a distinction without a difference.

I know that quite a few of your companies weasel their way out of paying any tax at all, but I don't know how many overall manage this.

http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/accounting/papers/Hanlon.pdf

Yup. It happens. This particular study suggests that once a company becomes 'big', they find ways to jigger the system to the point where they are paying around 20%. Obama just dropped the corporate tax from a staggering 35% to a more realistic 28%. Hopefully that will make it so companies are compliant, rather than gaming the system to get around the "too high" rate that previously existed.

However, the real problem is in companies that are getting massive political payola. Every administration has companies like this. For Obama, it is sleaze-mongers like Immelt and GE who are pushing the bologna that is "Green Energy", which Obama likes - so he gives them so many tax breaks and subsidies that they paid ZERO taxes in 2011. Not to mention they also got massive subsidy payments on top of it. It is that kind of bogusity that ticks people off.

A reasonable corporate tax rate is fine. Set it at a decent level - say 22% - and get rid of the loopholes, subsidies, foreign incorporation, and all the other gimmicks. I dont' have a beef with "taxes" in general. I have a beef with taxes that are too high, and tax codes that encourage modern patronage.

Bill Gates - and all the ProgLibDytes on the forum - entirely miss the point.

You could take every single member of the top 5% of the United States and immediately confiscate 100% of all their wealth, income, assets, property, and leave them penniless paupers in the gutter. It would not so much as balance the Federal Government's budget for one QUARTER, let alone a whole fiscal year. The problem is not that taxes on the rich are too 'low' (they certainly aren't). The problem is that government spends too much money on crap that government has no business spending so much as one thin dime on (IE all the social programs). Government has over-promised on too many things to too many groups for far too long. They foot a bill too long for their purse and can't pay it - no matter how much it taxes the rich, corporations, or anyone else.

Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Warren Buffett's secretary (also rich), Hollywood, and all the other rich idiots with their crocodile tears about not being taxed enough... Every single one of these hypocrites has the address of the National Treasury, and can write out checks giving every penny they earn to the government. They can fire thier accountants tomorrow and not use all the exemptions they fight so hard to maximize. They don't need thier taxes raised. They could pay higher taxes this very instant under current law.

So why don't they? Simple. They know government is a terrible place to put money.

Gates is dumping money into private philanthropical efforts - which shows that he hasn't completely lost his wits (even though he's talking like a total moron in this clip). No one believes that giving the government more money is a good idea. The US government is one of the most wasteful, and least efficient organizations on the planet. Bill Gates knows this. So it isn't hard for him to figure out that "the nation" would be better served dumping his money in an incinerator rather than pay the Feds more tax money.

So what's with these hypocritical screeds that rich sleazeballs like Buffett? The answer is also quite simple. They are doing nothing more than mouthing platitudes specifically to assuage all you ProgLibDyte peons with your class warfare pitchforks.

It is quite amusintg, really, just how easily and thoroughly people on the left like the Sift are duped. All Gates has to do is go on a show here, or a show there, and say a few of the correct leftist catchphrases. Then suddenly all the lemmings are literally knocking each other over to be the first in line to start french kissing Gates or Buffett's duodenum.

See - that's what's so funny. You ProgLibDytes don't care that Gates is laughing his way to the bank, and that he will NEVER pay a cent more in taxes than he has to. Oh no. That doesn't matter. All that matters to all you agenda slaves is that he blathers the right sound bite at you. Then your ideological addictions get thier nice little junkie fix, and you're putty in his hands, laughing at you because he knoew (A) he isn't going to pay more taxes and (B) all he has to do is keep shunting a few bucks at the right leftist radicals and he will have political protection payola shielding him for life. And all he needs too keep the racket going is a bunch of you simpletons brainlessly following your left-wing marching orders so he has a permanent audience to sing to. How's it feel knowing you're the intellectual equivalent of Bill Gates' used condom?

Probably not the best people to pick to represent the movement - but that's also probably why Colbert picked them. It is hard with these kinds of PC lefties to know when they are being serious or not. Any normal, sane person would take only two minutes of conversation with these two OWS glitterati to come to the accurate conclusion that they were a complete waste of time.

But to the point - who else should have been picked to 'represent' OWS? I mean really. Of all the guys down there, who would have done a better job of exemplifying exactly what OWS 'is'? The only consistent message they have is "We hate Wall Street". OK. Most folks can agree that WS/Banks acted recklessly, and have been given way too much political payola. And the next step is...? Is...? To wave your fingers?

That's where OWS and normal, sane people part company. OWS has no sane, rational position beyond "we're mad at Wall Street excess". People agree with that. Everything else OWS says might as well be coming from martians.

Wealth disparity is a red herring. It is one economic indicator out of literally thousands. Neolibs like to harp on it, but when the poorest schlub in the US has 2 cars, 2 flat screens, air conditioning, and more food than they can possibly eat then it holds very little meaning. I'm a statistician, and there is always a curve in wealth with extreme ends. Deal with it.

Again - they're focusing on the wrong problem. The problem is a corrupt and powerful government. Lobbyists push for bad laws, but bad laws can't get passed without corrupt legislators. In the past, the robber-barons just did what they wanted and government was too toothless and feckless to stop abuses. Today the robber-barons are back, but they are aided and abetted by a powerful, corrupt government that creates a maze of loopholes, exemptions, and laws to pick and choose which company gets to be the one to get away with murder.

The first thing that has to happen is that government needs to be reduced in size and power so that they cannot be the kingmakers. Then you pass a set of simple reforms that are clear and basic so everyone knows 'the rules'. Companies get away with crap because government passes laws that allows it (like the repeal of Glass/Steagall). Peel the lobbyists out of such a system, and all you do it create an all-powerful government that crushes (or blesses) specific industries according to its whimsy.

For example - Obama has been literally shovelling cash at the 'green' industry. Solyndra (and others) have shown that it was all a subsidy-scam. There was no possible way these solar companies could possibly turn a profit. Not to mention ethanol subsidies, et al... They all lobbied big time and got a pile of political payola. It is modern day patronage. Meanwhile Obama is doing all he can to slap down oil and coal. The government is picking some industries to grow, and others to punish. That is totally bogus. And (just so you neolibs don't get mad) it is bogus when it happens to companies like Exxon or Haliburton too.

The government should not be this power broker that picks and chooses which industries get favoritism, and which ones get the thumbscrews based on the political preference of the legislators in power. That creates an unpredictable, uncertain, arbitrary system where industry is more beholden to politicians than the public. Who cares if a company makes a lousy or unprofitable product when they can just pay a lobbyist, or donate to a candidate, and end up getting piles and piles of taxpayer cash?

THAT is the real problem here. Wall Street, Solydra, Enron - all these companies are just symptoms. The disease is the government.

I'm very confused. Let me get this straight...

You're gonna blame the repeal of Glass-Steagall (a law that REGULATED financial markets) on Barney Frank who voted AGAINST the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which is the legislation that repealed Glass-Steagall?! You do realize you're basically making effectively a socialist argument, right?! You're saying the repeal of Glass-Steagall was intended to help the poor, but it didn't. Glass-Steagall is fundamentally socialist, so you're saying repealing it hurt the economy?!

Other than the fact you got the critical detail of Frank voting against Gramm-Leach-Bliley wrong, I completely agree with you.

In respect that job reports have been disappointing, you didn't address what every objective report about the stimulus bill says it created jobs, and those jobs did go to lower and middle class people. There's a disappointment it didn't do more than it ended up doing, but it DID create/save jobs in the short run, that's undeniable. Extension of unemployment benefits helped the poor and middle class. I could go on and on. You're seriously gonna fight this point?! Ridiculous.

Every company Obama visited and showed as a good example folded, huh? Let's see some proof. I want to see everyone of these companies, and what happened to them. You don't get to throw idiotic statements like this out without proof and expect not get called out on it. You're full of crap on that.

Oh, so if the jobs went to people you blanket don't like, it didn't do any good? LOL! Nevermind they're poor and middle class jobs, those very people you said weren't helped. I don't blame you. Those fat cat teachers and other civil servants, robbing the country blind with their gross underpay and what not! BTW, state employees are not all union members. There are in many states laws against state employees unionizing. Minor detail really...

So you're talking about "real Socialist" countries, not the fake ones I described. Are they more left than us? YES! You then mentioned we've gone "too far to the left" and the pendulum swing of a correction is coming to smite us! Are you suggesting the UK, France, and Britain were smited by the wrath of the free market gods for being too socialist? How have they managed to avoid the smite?!

As to the US education system today. First off, I'm glad you agree with me that universal public education system did coincide with the rise of the US as an economic superpower. You do at least seem to understand attacking that point is pretty pointless. But that also means you lost the argument. We had undeniably the world's best education system during that time, and it was a socialistic program in nature. Do we have the best education system now without question? No. What changed? Not the public mandate. Not the fact it's still mostly gov't operated. That's the same. Therefore, it's undeniable that you can have a top notch gov't run public education system.

Need more proof?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/dec/07/world-education-rankings-maths-science-reading

What do you notice about the countries with the best education systems? Oh wonder of wonders, virtually all of them have gov't operated public education systems! How do so many evil socialist programs work so well?! Hmmm, maybe it's because sometimes, socialist ideas work the best, and maybe you should open your mind a little, look at specific things, look at data objectively, and apply socialist or capitalist solutions, whichever work the best? I know that's apparently revolutionary for you, but it's called "effective problem solving".

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

Amazing how all leftists are criminally corrupt, all of them, apparently. Just because you're a leftist, it automatically means you don't care about the people.
Of course not all of them are corrupt – just most of the ones in political office. However, that is more endemic of being a politician than a leftist as the GOP is corrupt to the core too. I’m sure on some level even the corrupt political leftists believe they ‘care’ and are ‘helping’. But their method of helping is a poison pill destined to kill the supposed beneficiary. For example… Barney Frank thought he was helping the poor by pushing to repeal Glass-Steagall. In Frank’s fuzz-filled brain, he helped the poor get “uffodubble howsing”. But the result of his policies speak for themselves. The poor were NOT ‘helped’, and the nation’s financial stability was ruined by leftist plans for making banks give out loans to people who could not afford them. The left’s method of ‘help’ almost universally manifests in the form of inefficient, expensive, wasteful, freedom-killing big government programs which inevitably crash, burn, and make things worse than any leftist ever DREAMED life was like without their ‘help’.
Obama's big gov't spending doesn't do anything for the poor and middle class. You mean, except saving jobs when the economy tanked, the vast majority went to the poor and middle classes. Other than that... LOL...
That’s why every month the US has “unexpectedly high” unemployment figures. It’s why every job report for the last 3 years has been ‘disappointing’. It’s why every company Obama visited on the stump as a ‘shining example’ for jobs has folded. There are multiple reports that prove Obama’s stimulus money has gone almost entirely to labor unions, or state governments (and thence, THEIR unions) who supported him. In short, like a typical Chicago thug, he used the stimulus as political payola “walkin’ round money”. Jobs for the middle class & poor? Maybe 1 for every million bucks.
Leftist governments do not help with wealth distribution?! They just make it worse? I'm sure that's happened on occasion, but that's generally patently false.
I’m talking REAL left government – socialism. History has proven that leftist political philosophy’s ultimate end is wealth concentration at the top of government with the ‘people’ in utter poverty such as Soviet Russia, North Korea, Cambodia, Cuba, et al. What you are talking about are not really socialist governments. They are capitalist with socialist programs IN it (sort of the mirror image of China’s “socialist with capitalist programs”). The US ever since FDR has not been so much a ‘capitalist’ society as much as it is just another European-style capitalist with social program left-leaning government. The New Deal, the Great Society, and so many other leftist programs have routinely and regularly siphoned wealth from the middle class and used it to conduct failed social experiments. For the last 20 years or so, the US has gone further and further left in terms of spending and economic policy.
For example….universal public education and a progressive income tax coincided with the rise of the US as a global economic superpower as those first generations of publicly educated people came of working age.
Like all socialist systems, it starts well but ends badly. Remember Orwell's "Animal Farm"? Look at the US education system today and tell me it is “working wonderfully”. It is one of the most expensive in the world, while at the same time one of the least effective. Universal education is great. PUBLIC universal education? Not so much – and mostly BECAUSE it is a ‘socialist’ program. Open up a voucher system and let people choose the school, which will increase competition and lower costs.
Now - I don’t disagree with the underlying premise of your position. A pure capitalist freedom isn’t good either. Freedom is the best choice, tempered with a distant set of standards. I don’t have a problem with government mandating universal education, or even with it establishing some basic, simple standards. However, the pendulum has swung too far in the ‘socialist’ direction, and we are due for a correction. However, the people who benefit from the social system (government & unions) are responding as predicted to pullback, and would rather blow up the system than give up their power and money. Such is the end result of socialism, alas.
The founding fathers had it right. It is best to leave such matters at the state level where the people have more control and there is more accountability. The federal government should serve as ONLY a place where people can go to redress grievances (abuses). Central systems are fine when they are distant, have little power, and serve as little more than a final authority to appeal to, or as a repository of advised (but not REQUIRED) standards. The ‘system’ should be about 5% centralized and 95% local. Right now the US is more like a ‘45% federal, 55% local’ government and it is coming apart at the seams.

Amazing how all leftists are criminally corrupt, all of them, apparently. Just because you're a leftist, it automatically means you don't care about the people.

Of course not all of them are corrupt – just most of the ones in political office. However, that is more endemic of being a politician than a leftist as the GOP is corrupt to the core too. I’m sure on some level even the corrupt political leftists believe they ‘care’ and are ‘helping’. But their method of helping is a poison pill destined to kill the supposed beneficiary. For example… Barney Frank thought he was helping the poor by pushing to repeal Glass-Steagall. In Frank’s fuzz-filled brain, he helped the poor get “uffodubble howsing”. But the result of his policies speak for themselves. The poor were NOT ‘helped’, and the nation’s financial stability was ruined by leftist plans for making banks give out loans to people who could not afford them. The left’s method of ‘help’ almost universally manifests in the form of inefficient, expensive, wasteful, freedom-killing big government programs which inevitably crash, burn, and make things worse than any leftist ever DREAMED life was like without their ‘help’.

Obama's big gov't spending doesn't do anything for the poor and middle class. You mean, except saving jobs when the economy tanked, the vast majority went to the poor and middle classes. Other than that... LOL...

That’s why every month the US has “unexpectedly high” unemployment figures. It’s why every job report for the last 3 years has been ‘disappointing’. It’s why every company Obama visited on the stump as a ‘shining example’ for jobs has folded. There are multiple reports that prove Obama’s stimulus money has gone almost entirely to labor unions, or state governments (and thence, THEIR unions) who supported him. In short, like a typical Chicago thug, he used the stimulus as political payola “walkin’ round money”. Jobs for the middle class & poor? Maybe 1 for every million bucks.

Leftist governments do not help with wealth distribution?! They just make it worse? I'm sure that's happened on occasion, but that's generally patently false.

I’m talking REAL left government – socialism. History has proven that leftist political philosophy’s ultimate end is wealth concentration at the top of government with the ‘people’ in utter poverty such as Soviet Russia, North Korea, Cambodia, Cuba, et al. What you are talking about are not really socialist governments. They are capitalist with socialist programs IN it (sort of the mirror image of China’s “socialist with capitalist programs”). The US ever since FDR has not been so much a ‘capitalist’ society as much as it is just another European-style capitalist with social program left-leaning government. The New Deal, the Great Society, and so many other leftist programs have routinely and regularly siphoned wealth from the middle class and used it to conduct failed social experiments. For the last 20 years or so, the US has gone further and further left in terms of spending and economic policy.

For example….universal public education and a progressive income tax coincided with the rise of the US as a global economic superpower as those first generations of publicly educated people came of working age.

Like all socialist systems, it starts well but ends badly. Remember Orwell's "Animal Farm"? Look at the US education system today and tell me it is “working wonderfully”. It is one of the most expensive in the world, while at the same time one of the least effective. Universal education is great. PUBLIC universal education? Not so much – and mostly BECAUSE it is a ‘socialist’ program. Open up a voucher system and let people choose the school, which will increase competition and lower costs.

Now - I don’t disagree with the underlying premise of your position. A pure capitalist freedom isn’t good either. Freedom is the best choice, tempered with a distant set of standards. I don’t have a problem with government mandating universal education, or even with it establishing some basic, simple standards. However, the pendulum has swung too far in the ‘socialist’ direction, and we are due for a correction. However, the people who benefit from the social system (government & unions) are responding as predicted to pullback, and would rather blow up the system than give up their power and money. Such is the end result of socialism, alas.

The founding fathers had it right. It is best to leave such matters at the state level where the people have more control and there is more accountability. The federal government should serve as ONLY a place where people can go to redress grievances (abuses). Central systems are fine when they are distant, have little power, and serve as little more than a final authority to appeal to, or as a repository of advised (but not REQUIRED) standards. The ‘system’ should be about 5% centralized and 95% local. Right now the US is more like a ‘45% federal, 55% local’ government and it is coming apart at the seams.

Here is a fascinating side-line to the story...

http://wcbstv.com/topstories/tea.party.naacp.2.1812710.html

Quite clearly this woman was a racist. Props to the NAACP for agreeing with the dismissal, and their claims that they will investigate the "disturbing" attitude of the audience which applauded the racism. But you know what? You're late to the party. For decades your organization has tacitly approved of this kind of attitude. Gone are the days when good men like King led a just movement based on the principle of true equality. The modern race industry is more about payola than principle.

The cancer of racism within your organization is persistent and prevailant - and it is going to take more than 2 seconds of navel-gazing. The words of your leaders (Wright, Sharpton, Jackson, Farrakahn, Shabazz, and many others) constantly drip with race-oriented attitude, and demands for unequal treatment under the law based on skin color. Until you start consistently hammering all racism across the board then your repentance is rhetoric and Sherrod nothing but a sacrificial lamb.

Within the african american community there is a disturbing trend of too many events, activites, speeches, attitudes, projects, and causes that are designed around an attitude of race. Within these events there are too many demagogues who are just as racist as the woman in this video. And within the crowds there are too many amens, cheers, claps, and nods of agreement.

If racism is really a bad thing, then it can't be given a pass when it shows up among groups with which you may be sympathetic. What happens when racism is ignored when it shows up among groups you like, and only gets a frown in groups you don't like? It becomes a 'card' to play and not a sin to correct.

I don't defend racism in the Tea Party. When it shows up, I hope they stomp on it. But their mission statements are clear, simple, and have NOTHING to do with race. The NAACP in its very title is a racist organization (Advancement of COLORED People). A group that is built around racism like they are gets a much more critical eye from me.

The scary part happens when Republican presidents get the media to systematically silence dissent...

The only ‘silencing of dissent’ is on the left side of the aisle. And how nice it all sounds… ‘Net Neutrality’, the ‘Fairness Doctrine’, ‘Political Correctness’, ‘Academic Fairness’… The left is the side that engages in the systematic suppression of dissent – not the right. I have a longer memory span than 5 minutes, and there is nothing BUT ‘dissent’ when the GOP is in the White House. Dissent was ‘patriotic’ during Bush, but now is ‘the party of NO’ during Obama, right? But of course good little left-wing zombies have no problem with that.

If I break something of yours, do you have to 100% go through the courts to get compensation? No. Why? Because civil court is totally optional.

If you break my stuff (and refuse to pay for it) then YES I 100% have to go through the courts to get compensation. You’ve proven my point. I don’t go to Obama’s pay czar. Court is where I go, and failing that, I call my congressman and let him know the courts aren't doing their job. I do NOT go to the Executive branch except to write a whiny letter.

I have not been programmed to have a knee-jerk Pavlovian response where I wet myself with fear whenever the word "government" comes into play.

This is patently untrue. You do have a knee-jerk Pavlovian response to wet yourself with fear whenever the word ‘government’ comes into play and ‘conservative’ is involved. The blind, unthinking, slavish trust only applies when a left wing radical is in charge. I believe it was Lenin (another leftist) who called these kinds of fanbois “useful idiots”. People who aren’t critical of government at all times and in all things are fools. The price of freedom is vigilance, and the only good government is LIMITED government.

I'm sure there will be Congressional oversight of this

Oh – well – that ignores history, facts, and precedent - but as long as you're SURE... You aren’t picking up what I’m putting down. I don’t care if Obama is distilled perfection made of unicorn hairs and angel feathers… It doesn’t matter if BP ‘volunteers’ (yeah right – then why the closed door meeting?). This is not something the Executive branch is allowed to do for ANY reason. Ever. Period. It has no authority to do this, and government isn’t allowed to just ‘assume’ authority over whatever they want no matter how munificent they may think they are.

Ahh, so now you're defining down what constitutes a legitimate claim from what even BP says is legitimate? Good to know you don't want to "let them off the hook"...

No – I’m defining ‘responsible’. BP isn’t responsible for lost business. Tourism down? Is that BP’s fault? Maybe partly. But you can also blame the media, the government, the economy, and a whole host of other parties for that. BP is responsible for damage and cleanup. That's it. I see no need for them to pay for ancillary issues that may or may not be related.

Everyone is answerable.

To who? When? You say ‘answerable’ but one of the main problems with federal government is that NO ONE is ever held responsible for anything. They never go to jail for breaking the law. They never pay damages for the consequences of their bad politics. So they ‘lose an election’? Awwwwwww – how terrible for them. They still keep getting money & payola. They still get political back-patting. They still get put on unaccountable ‘blue ribbon’ panels for exorbitant payoffs. They keep getting on TV shows and money for speeches, commentary and books. They still are put on cabinet positions, or other unelected unaccountable political jobs where they still effect policy and get away with murder.

See, when you really get down to the brass tacks the political class is in NO WAY ever ‘answerable’ for their bad behavior and terrible decisions. They just get a brief – all too toothless – wet noodling and then skate off clean while everyone else has to pay for them to keep on partying. Clinton. Impeached for lying under oath and obstructing justice. Did he lose his office? No. Did he go to jail? No. Did he have to pay millions in damages? No. He got a tiny slap on the wrist and then the left circled the wagons around him and set him up for life so he’d specifically NEVER have to be truly culpable for his high crime. He should be in jail, or living in a cardboard shack, penniless and shunned to the end of his days. Instead he’s living high on the hog courtesy of constant political payola. And you call that ‘answerable’?

So what happens WHEN (not IF) Obama’s pay czar starts mis-handling the BP funds? Exactly HOW is he going to be ‘answerable’? To whom will he pay millions in damages? What jail will he go to? How will he be banned from politics for life afterwards? And how is Obama ‘answerable’ for unconstitutionally claiming money in the first place? But I don’t hear anyone making him ‘answerable’ for his unconstitutional, illegal act. All I see are left-wing zombies defending the illegal, and GOP cowards who don't have to guts to stand up for the constitution anymore.

Concur on point 2. The timelapse is very poorly done. It's one or two stills of each person she sat with. If we're using it to show that she sat with a lot of people, fine, but that's not the point.

This needed to convey the time spent, which was a large part of the piece. If some people sat with her for 8 hours, and some people for 5 minutes, that time discrepancy needs to be demonstrated through the video.

If people had strong reactions while sitting with her (which I hear they did), the evolution of that person's mood through time needs to be represented.

Just poorly done. Sorry.>> ^Shepppard:

>> ^Chinspinigcra:
Upvote for not being radical-left-wing-GWIZ-lie-machine-democrat-payola-shitt. This video is a proud one percent of it's kind on VS.

First off.... what?

second, this does nothing for me unfortunately. I appreciate the time that went into this, but it's not beautiful, it doesn't show anything deep about the people she sat with, its just.. sitting.

Tell me why I shouldn't just instaban you out of hand?
>> ^Chinspinigcra:

Upvote for not being radical-left-wing-GWIZ-lie-machine-democrat-payola-shitt. This video is a proud one percent of it's kind on VS.

I tend to agree with you. It is an oddly dated piece. But I still think she is a fascinating figure in the 'art world'. Ugh. Hate that word.

From the NYT review:
" The museum estimates that, if she can stick to the plan, she will sit for 716 hours and 30 minutes, earning her a record for endurance in the performance art sweepstakes.

In a sense the whole business is another act of self-enshrinement in the art world’s ego Olympics, and that’s not interesting. Divas are a dime a dozen, and I don’t trust charisma anyway. More interesting, because it ties in with her impulse to conserve a possibly unconservable art form, is the way “The Artist Is Present” attempts to control time, hers and ours.

I have no idea what her experience of sitting in that atrium for all those hours will be; there has to be some serious agony involved, which is where she hooks up with her implacably daredevil younger self. But my guess is that her presence will have a demonstrable effect on visitors to the museum; that it will slow them down, get them out of drive-by looking mode.

And every now and then someone will slip into that chair across from her — that’s what it’s there for — and spend some time exchanging stares, or energy, or going blank, or thinking, maybe for the first time, about that hard, high-flown, funny word “endure.”

>> ^Shepppard:

>> ^Chinspinigcra:
Upvote for not being radical-left-wing-GWIZ-lie-machine-democrat-payola-shitt. This video is a proud one percent of it's kind on VS.

First off.... what?

second, this does nothing for me unfortunately. I appreciate the time that went into this, but it's not beautiful, it doesn't show anything deep about the people she sat with, its just.. sitting.

>> ^Chinspinigcra:

Upvote for not being radical-left-wing-GWIZ-lie-machine-democrat-payola-shitt. This video is a proud one percent of it's kind on VS.


First off.... what?


second, this does nothing for me unfortunately. I appreciate the time that went into this, but it's not beautiful, it doesn't show anything deep about the people she sat with, its just.. sitting.

Upvote for not being radical-left-wing-GWIZ-lie-machine-democrat-payola-shitt. This video is a proud one percent of it's kind on VS.

"...make it more profitable for the wrong people to do the right things."

Or, as they say on the street, payola.