Collective Experiences Make Up The Whole

But now that we’re 18 days out from the election, Mr. “Severely Conservative” wants you to think he was “severely kidding” about everything he’s said over the last year. He told folks he was “the ideal candidate” for the Tea Party, now suddenly he’s saying, “what, who, me?” He’s forgetting what his own positions are, and he’s betting that you will too.

I mean he’s changing up so much—backtracking and sidestepping. We’ve gotta name this condition that he’s going through… I think it’s called “Romnesia.” That’s what it’s called. I think that’s what he’s going through.

Now, I’m not a medical doctor but I do want to go over some of the symptoms with you because I want to make sure nobody else catches it.

If you say you’re for equal pay for equal work, but you keep refusing to say whether or not you’d sign a bill that protects equal pay for equal work—you might have Romnesia.

If you say women should have access to contraceptive care, but you support legislation that would let your employer deny you contraceptive care—you might have a case of Romnesia.

If you say you’ll protect a woman’s right to choose, but you stand up at a primary debate and said that you’d be “delighted” to sign a law outlawing that right to choose in all cases—man, you’ve definitely got Romnesia.

Now, this extends to other issues. If you say earlier in the year I’m going to give a tax cut to the top 1 percent and then in a debate you say, I don’t know anything about giving tax cuts to rich folks—you need to get a thermometer, take your temperature, because you’ve probably got Romnesia.

If you say that you’re a champion of the coal industry when while you were Governor you stood in front of a coal plant and said, this plant will kill you—that’s some Romnesia.

So—I think you’re beginning to be able to identify these symptoms. And if you come down with a case of Romnesia, and you can’t seem to remember the policies that are still on your website, or the promises you’ve made over the six years you’ve been running for President, here’s the good news: Obamacare covers pre-existing conditions.

—President Obama, coining a phrase in Virginia this morning (via barackobama)

We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection.

—Dalai Lama  (via quote-book)

(Source: carloscoreas, via you-and-me-is-destiny)

Children have no real sense of how life can flip. School perpetrates an illusion of stasis. If you are 15, and mostly hating the social world of your high school, it is incredibly easily to conclude that your life will always be that way. Childhood is so closed-off and institutionalized. It is a prison. Self-esteem, in the main, comes from three places—school, sports, and the opposite sex. If you fail at those things you are likely to have a harder time. Worse, it’s easy to conclude that this is your life, that whatever you’re experiencing is somehow a sign-posts for the rest of years. If that is the case, why not end it?

The tragedy is that childhood—and specifically young adulthood—is such a slender, ridiculously small sliver, of the human lifespan. It’s sad to think of people who only get to see that.

—Ta-Nehisi Coates, on teenage alienation and nerd culture. (via theatlantic)

(via mamaatheist)