how the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30 a.m,
leap out of bed,
dress,
force feed,
piss,
shit,
brush his teeth and hair,
and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else,and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?
charles brukowski factotum 1975

Life lessons garnered:

"YOU can paint a picture."

You don't need to "go to school half your life."
You don't need to be "blessed by Michelangelo at birth."
You don't need 1500 colors. 8 will do.
"You just need a dream in your heart and some practice."

Your base needs to be firm. "If you start with a thin, loose paint, you're going to become a mud-mixer."

Large strokes live in your mind. Details live in your brush. "You just need to push them out."

Don't lose the trees for the forest. Think about the small world that lives in your painting and it will be much richer. "This is where they live [these creatures]... In these bushes"

Painting will teach you to look at Nature and see things that have been there all your life, and you've never noticed. "Look around, look at what we have. Beauty is everywhere."

"In the time you sit around worrying about it and trying to plan a painting, you could have completed a painting already. Let it happen."

"We need dark in order to show light."

And you have to see that your claim of "no good cops" totally ignores those who have not yet witnessed any problem. Perhaps they're new to the force, perhaps they work in an honest precinct. But it's absurd to claim they don't exist. Whistleblowers -do- continue to show up, which is solid proof that some cops are not corrupt.

And yes, I absolutely do believe that tarring the good cops with the same brush is every bit as bad. "...better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer...", as Ben Franklin said. Moreover, if you want cops to be honest, it's completely counterproductive to blast them -all-, both good and bad, for being corrupt. Especially when not doing so is as simple as adding the word "most" or "many" to your bombastic claims. I really don't understand why you're fighting against being accurate in your statements. That's not how I've come to perceive you over the years.

Believe it or not, I do understand the problem with the "thin blue line" mentality. I'm quite sure I've spoken out about it more than once here on the sift. But I strongly object to painting everyone in any group with a single brush. Hell, I even know some decent Republicans.

Claims that one case, or a hundred cases, prove that there are no good cops are absurd and unsupportable. Just as absurd and unsupportable as those claims made here and there that there are no bad cops.

"Access to guns" certainly plays a role, but I'm not convinced that it is even the biggest factor. In web researching gun violence rates and mass shooting rates by country *per capita*, I've found that the US isn't really as much of a "wild west" / lawless nation as the media portrays it.

For example:
http://www.ijreview.com/2015/06/348197-obama-said-mass-shootings-dont-happen-in-advanced-countries-like-in-us-one-chart-proves-him-wrong/
has interesting data. It is *clearly* biased / written with an "agenda", and there are other problems with it (small countries with one or two incidents rule the top of the chart), but it is interesting nonetheless.

I think culture has as big or bigger impact as anything else.


As to your final paragraph, I'm hesitant to paint all "terrorists and mass-shooters" with the "pathetic little shit" brush. I think the tendency to dismiss them in that way when trying to delve deeper into the questions of *why* does us a disservice in terms of preventing and/or limiting those people and incidents.

It's sorta like examining Hitler. Went about as evil and wrong as a human being has ever gone, and so we often want to just leave it at that. But I think that there have probably been plenty of garden-variety non-famous people who have been as evil and wrong as Hitler, but simply didn't have the unique level of power and opportunity to, uh, "sink to his depths".

You took my comment wrong. I'm not ADVOCATING shooting cops, but I'm pointing out that some people DO paint entire groups with one brush (like the cops do, and turnabout IS fair play...but not always smart), and to many of those people ALL cops look like criminal thugs you should defend yourself against. Those people just might have firearms, and a small percentage of them may actually go out and use them. It IS the same mentality that cops use, and is not proper civil behavior, but it is absolutely foreseeable. That's what I meant.

That said, people CAN reasonably assume cops are racist assholes because they're cops because study after study shows that the job apparently MAKES them racist assholes, even the minority ones. It also seems to attract them, and absolutely doesn't exclude them. It seems likely to me that the prevalence of racist behavior among cops is based in the overwhelming negative contact they have with people, and a lack of positive contact. It's also obvious to me that it's getting worse, more prevalent, more institutionally accepted, and at least seems to be getting more deadly (but that could just be reporting trends).

I wish the police would re-instate the 'community policing' methods they used to try, where officers live in the community they police and are incentivized to participate in positive community activities...that would be better for everyone. Unfortunately I think those programs have all but halted.

Don't get me wrong, the cops who do this kind of thing should be sanctioned, and severely so, but surely tarring a whole group of people with one brush is the problem here?

Cops shouldn't assume people are criminals because of the colour of their skin.

People shouldn't assume cops are racist assholes because they're cops.

You're participating in the very behaviour you're complaining about.

It could also be my monitor causing the subtleties to stand out, but If you kind of step back and look at him, he's quite yellow in some areas, quite red in others, and you can see brush strokes between some of the layers of makeup.

"They're freaking amazing scribbles."

Umm... no.

Of course she chooses examples where there's more explainable depth in the artist's intention (e.g., the clocks) or where there's actual skill required (e.g., straight lines with oil paint), but what about examples of paintings made up of random smudges and brush strokes? Not only am I sure I could do something like that, but I've been loosely considering making something like that to hang up at home.

For those who might want to brush up on the proper use of the apostrophe :-)

For those who might want to brush up on the countries of the world

70 years old for retirement!?! You can suck it, buddy! I bet he hasn't ever actually worked hard in his life, certainly not since he had to clear brush at Niggerhead Ranch as a teen (his family ranch, in case you've forgotten).
Interesting he's proposing a retroactive tax on the elderly with his plan by not paying out on the benefits they already paid for. I would think that wouldn't go over well with his constituents...but they mostly can't follow logic, only talking points, so they mostly won't even notice I bet.

That guy has mad touch. I like the technique he uses supporting his brush hand with the bar thingy. That's clever.

ed: Anyone know what the thingy is called? I may have to buy one some day.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I've tried most of these things. the tooth brushing thing is really popular among certain circles - but too gross for me.

My one, single awesome tip for coconut oil is that popcorn cooked in it is absolutely awesome. Like cinema popcorn only 10 X better.