EXCHANGE INTERFACE

observations from a tipless restaurant (part 1)

A certain small number of very vocal men (and it was always men who were vocal about it) resented that we were not letting them try to exercise additional control over our team members. This was true even though compelling research has shown that servers do not adjust quality of service as a result of tips; instead the idea that the restaurant was not offering our servers up as objects of control, was heresy. For these people, the primary service they wanted from the restaurant was the opportunity to pay for favors from the server — much like the patron at a strip club pays the club for the opportunity to dangle bills in front a dancer for individual attention. The idea that a restaurant could legitimately want to be in a different business than a strip club, was not an idea these guests could countenance.

You should read through all the parts and the postscript, because it's really an insight into the American psyche as well as an exploration of the illogicity of tipping.

Now I want a study about tipping in Australia vs. tipping in America, what it means and how it operates in comparison to the things that he looked at in his article...

Putin and his American Instrument: Putin and his Trumpet.

Silencing The Hillary Clinton Supporter: we've heard everything about the Trump supporters - to the point where mainstream media has been trying to 'humanise' right wing white supremacists, but nothing about the people who mostly supported Hillary - their hopes, their dreams, and what they lost when Trump was elected.

Brandon Hatmaker on Colin Kaepernick: Brandon Hatmaker is the husband (presumably) of Jen Hatmaker, an American Christian who spoke out in favour of LGBT in the church and had her books dropped from sale by one of the biggest Evangelical publishers in the US (and probably the world).

That Which Google Has Named Evil...: By co-opting a word with moral meaning to describe the functional impediment of technology without any specific morality attached, Google has effectively reframed the context of 'good' and 'evil' so that Google is God - the arbiter of what is right and wrong.

A Woman, Explaining Things: Yeah, you've probably seen this, but it's still good.

First They Came For...: New York Times, which means you might not be able to read it. (I saved it in Instapaper, which takes the page data and strips it down to the text and key images.)

This has come as a great shock and demoralizer to many Americans, not necessarily because they didn’t think Trump was capable of such depravity, but because they simply were unprepared for the daily reality of living a nightmare.

There is an enduring expectation, particularly among American liberals, that progress in this society should move inexorably toward more openness, honesty and equality. But even the historical record doesn’t support that expectation.

Some things get better, many things get worse.

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Australia has had an interesting week of governmental resignations (which everyone else would have missed while That Orange Guy was tweeting away).

Two Greens Senators and a Liberal (conservative party) Senator have had to resign because it turns out they have dual citizenship, which isn't allowed for serving members of Parliament. Another Liberal Senator no longer has a dual citizenship, but was only notified that he'd been de-citizened from the other country five months after the election that raised him to his position.

And, of course, he was one of the loudest voices criticising the Greens senators for getting it wrong.

What do I say? What can I say when the policies won't affect me directly (but the attitudes of entitlement will)?

I wrote this this morning, I don't think it quite says what I wanted it to say, but it's peeling back the layers of how I'm going to live out my faith right now in the current situation and the clusterfuck that American Evangelicals have been a party to. (They're not the only problem, but they're the one I think I understand the most because there but for the grace of God is me.

Quenched: identity in Christ - a personal faith perspective. Don't feel you need to read it. It's pretty rambly, and more a reminder for me and a way to hold myself accountable in future.

In the meantime...

Can I help? Is there something that you need that I can provide? Distraction? Stories? Cat pictures? Anything?

(I was hoping to make this post 6 hours ago, when it might have been useful. Sorry. Life got away from me. As it does.)

Maps of the World's Countries Rearranged By Population: take the largest geographical countries in the world, and move the countries with the largest population into those spaces.

It's quite fascinating: apparently Indonesia would get China, China would get Russia, the US would remain pretty much the same, while Canada would now occupy Pakistan. (India gets Canada. Man, the US racists would SHIT BRICKS; they've got Ethiopia on one side, and India on the other...)

Australia would end up in Spain (weather's not bad, but this whole 'land borders' business is a bit shoddy), while Pakistan gets our "shores guarded by oceans wide". That'll make a difference from the mountains they're used to...

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Thank You, Mr. Trump: A letter about the things that Trump has revealed in US society and the US mindset; while it's not nice to discover You're Actually Not All That After All, it'll be a good kick in the butt for some, even if others drag their feet.

As a middle-aged white woman, I thought we'd come further than we have. I'm grateful that you've shown that I'm wrong. That just means that I have to help the change that should happen.

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Unpacking Casual Sexism/Racism In The Classroom: or, how to start a discussion, not a defence.

Some thoughts on how to unpack the way we speak: 'you're such a girl', 'man up', 'that's gay'. I have no doubt it works better on those with a mindset to learn than those who think they know everything or that they're okay, but it's something that I think I'm going to have to try somehow, particularly when dealing with racial microaggressions.

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Speak The Truth To Trump: An article from Christianity today, pointing out the flaws in voting for Trump from a Christian (Evangelical?) perspective. I don't agree with all the points they make, but the ones they make about how all earthly political systems are going to be flawed and trying to coerce them into working our society into a theocracy can too easily become idolatry of human processes are very relevant, I feel, particularly for American Evangelicals I know for whom this idea of 'a Christian society governed by Christian laws' is something that they really want.

You know, I understand the anger. People have suffered a lot, and it's not just the Trumpists who are angry.

A Tea Party friend of mine (yes, I have friends who are conservative USians) once sneered at the idea that America should take the higher ground on War in Iraq because of the opportunity/strength it had.

And, out of the ashes of Iraq and Afghanistan rises DAESH.

A lesbian friend of mine once said that while she advocated for gay marriage, all it would do for her was give her relationship legitimacy. Her joy was her own, her satisfaction in her life was her own, and the people who'd rejected her would continue to reject her and hurt her, while the people who accepted her and her partner, legal or not, would continue to love her.

In short, the law closes the legal loophole, but it doesn't heal the wound.

I guess that's what I'm seeing on the liberal side here. The woundedness, the righteous anger, justifies burning the ground and sowing it with salt. There is no halfway. There is no mediation. There's only destroying the other side with anything and everything they have in them. Laws would close the loophole, but nothing heals the wound.

And to imagine the other side has more reasons than just 'I'm a racist, sexist redneck from a rural area' is unacceptable.

I guess I posted the article because I figured, sure, Trump supporters are all that, too, but that kind of mentality - that blindness and stubbornness and cruelty and stupidity - it doesn't happen in a vacuum. Which is what I felt the author of the article I originally posted was trying to say.

It's hard to think through the sting, though. I admit, I had a few moments where I saw red after being told I'm an idiot for not even having a different opinion, but for just adding depth to the matter. But what can I do? Nothing more than anyone can do: live your life, own your own opinions, deal with the fallout.

I have few friends who'd rise up to defend me, I think; they have their own concerns to attend.

My impression of Gary Johnson is as the (stero)typical American.

1. Nice enough guy on the surface (as long as you're 'his kind' of people).

2. Ignorant as all get-out about anywhere apart from the USA (doesn't want to learn, either).

3. Obsessed with his freedoms (his, and nobody else's).