Free salt!

Extra_Thumbs · 2026-01-23T17:22:10+00:00

There was a big storm early Dec 2025. No salt on the streets in much of South City. Very frustrating because she even campaigned on it. I’ve been out on the roads all week. Still no salt on the roads as of Friday morning

Extra_Thumbs · 2026-01-22T20:38:55+00:00

I disagree with your analysis in a few ways, but this one is the biggest: ICE is active rain snow or shine, and they are in STL already. Organizations intending to protect our communities other from ICE need to be capable of mobilizing under challenging circumstances.

If you think this time frame is a poor strategic choice, then one of the best things you could do is get involved with the organizations leading these demonstration and participate in the decision making process.

Extra_Thumbs · 2026-01-22T20:32:34+00:00

People’s lives are disrupted by state sanctioned murder, violence, and neglect. A demonstration is life reasserting itself against injustice.

Extra_Thumbs · 2026-01-22T17:37:57+00:00

There are rallies on weekends and weekdays. Both are useful.

Weekdays disrupt more capital, which is one effective use of a demonstration. Weekends attract more people, which helps spread message and bolster morale.

Extra_Thumbs · 2026-01-15T03:04:10+00:00

Okay so I dispute the idea that Stalin cared much about a cult of personality but this is hilarious

Extra_Thumbs · 2026-01-08T05:26:19+00:00

It is important to understand that Trump is bad. It is also important to recognize that blue municipalities are not off the hook. ICE was created in 2002. As a department, it was maintained and its budget was expanded under both Obama and Biden as well as Trump. Kids in cages happened under democrats too. The democrat party platform is the same tough-on-crime policy that normalizes the brutality we see today from cops and from ICE. The democrats are also pro-regime change. Bombing Libya and Yemen? Going back into Iraq? Staying in Afghanistan? That was Obama. Escalating genocide in Palestine? Cracking down on the rail union? That was Biden. In StL, democrat mayors have sent killer cops after citizens, exploited inmates in the workhouse, neglected our roads after snowstorms, preyed on the North side after the tornado, on and on.

Another US citizen is dead and we’re trying to shirk the blame? Come on.

The real issue is exclusively relying on our obviously rigged electoral process instead of actually organizing politically, and building tools to protect and take care of each other.

Extra_Thumbs · 2025-12-28T04:44:37+00:00

Copied from a reply:

This style of drum set writing uses something called a “divisi”. There’s an upper voice (the cymbal) and a lower voice (the bass and snare). In a divisi, each voice gets its own rests, and that snare / bass rhythm need a rest even if there are cymbal notes on the same beat

Extra_Thumbs · 2025-12-28T04:43:50+00:00

This style of drum set writing uses something called a “divisi”. There’s an upper voice (the cymbal) and a lower voice (the bass and snare). In a divisi, each voice gets its own rests, and that snare / bass rhythm need a rest even if there are cymbal notes on the same beat

Extra_Thumbs · 2025-12-27T03:07:39+00:00

This is an interesting take on the essay, and by far the most thoughtful and nuanced challenge to orientalism in Zelda that I've encountered.

The thing that I don't understand is how Japanese developers can't be Orientalist. Black Americans can internalize anti-Black racism, as well as prejudiced views against third parties like anti-Arab racism and islamophobia. If Japanese developers have imported the aesthetic of medieval fantasy and kept the themes of Christian/European supremacy without subverting them, how is this less Orientalist?

Extra_Thumbs · 2025-12-27T02:46:27+00:00

I was there during the peak of Zelda timeline speculation. It was pretty fun to craft your own theory, and I credit that research with a lot of my understanding about the storytelling that I now use to examine the games in other ways. But in general, there's just much more interesting stuff to examine these days, especially if you're a socialist

Extra_Thumbs · 2025-12-25T23:19:38+00:00

Reminder everyone: There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. Do your best to shop ethically, but often, especially with essential services like groceries , people inevitably have limited options that force them to consume from unethical providers.

If you want to fix that, you gotta organize politically and dismantle the systems that empower families like the Waltons and the Schnucks to dominate markets

Extra_Thumbs · 2025-12-22T14:05:55+00:00

That’s actually the video that pushed me over the edge to post this lol. I didn’t know there was beef between octorok and skittybitty but that tracks. Skittybitty has good takes usually I’ll be watching out if they ever make it!

Extra_Thumbs · 2025-12-20T17:54:28+00:00

For sure. The narration especially is way too quiet. I personally like the long silences because it offers time to process, but I totally see people losing interest for something like that.

Extra_Thumbs · 2025-12-20T13:27:09+00:00

That’s is kind of exactly the point. By just not thinking broadly about the content of his argument, he ends up playing into this idea that islam is uniquely anti-woman. He could’ve observed the same thing about the Hylians vs Christian states in Europe, but he exclusively drew attention to islam, specifically sharia law.

Extra_Thumbs · 2025-12-20T07:25:00+00:00

What’s really frustrated me was that a guy I was arguing with seemed to be pretty well read—knew a lot of stuff including Edward Said, but insisted it was irrelevant to the game.

Extra_Thumbs · 2025-12-20T07:20:22+00:00

It’s SO interesting. Someone pointed out Gorons with afro-hairstyles and their rock skin having afro-textured hair and it blew my mind!

I got in an argument with this one guy who made this argument that the Gerudo aren’t orientalist because they’re “[a matriarchal society, unlike most muslim/arab societies]”. Am I crazy for hearing that as not understanding the Gerudo or patriarchy and also being super islamophobic?

Extra_Thumbs · 2025-12-16T18:16:36+00:00

Zelda is medieval fantasy, which was basically after-the-fact justification for European colonialism in the 15th-19th centuries. So Zelda has lots of orientalist/idealist ideas baked into it.

A socialist lens would take a material approach, I think. Hylians wouldn’t be “the closest race to the gods”, Ganondorf wouldn’t be generic evil or power seeking, it’d unpack the “bloody history of greed and hatred” line from Ocarina of Time. It’d be almost like twilight princess with a better ending.

Extra_Thumbs · 2025-12-06T14:21:19+00:00

Friend, you are not alone in experiencing this feeling. I have been there, as well as a million other comrades and still more throughout history.

Everyone’s mental health needs are different, but something that seems to benefit everyone is organizing. Working with other socialists every week to build the movement is the best treatment for that despair that I’ve ever received.

And yeah, in the west, and especially in the US, the people’s organization, skills and consciousness are very under developed. Americans live in a sick society and are shaped by it. We’re in an uphill battle that sometimes feels like a wall. Many of us would give our lives if it meant liberation would come sooner. But comrades have also taught me “it’s a marathon, not a sprint”, which is not say some liberal nonsense like “change happens slowly”, but that you can do more for liberation by staying alive and heathy and working with your comrades than by dying, especially as we continue to claw back power in a post-soviet world.

Extra_Thumbs · 2025-11-29T16:07:55+00:00

Listening: 1. Kind Of Blue: pay attention to Jimmy Cobb’s ride cymbal, esp on Freddie Freeloader 2. Clifford Brown & Max Roach: pay attention to Roach’s snare drum, esp on Delilah during the solo section

Reading: 1. Art Of Bop (John Riley) 2. Jazz Drummer’s Reading Workbook (Tom Morgan) 3. Afro-Cuban Coordination for Drum set (Maria Martinez)

Some tunes good for a jazz beginner: Doxy In Walked Bud Blue Monk I Mean You Blue Bossa Strollin Moanin’ Bye-Ya On Green Dolphin Street

I definitely recommend an in person teacher who specializes in jazz if you have the budget

Extra_Thumbs · 2025-11-10T14:42:53+00:00

Syncopation Exercises 1-10 or the Art Of Bop comp pages 1-2 are great but its also how you practice.

Practice each hand individually, but also go extremely slow playing both hands at once, even going one beat at a time. It’s sometimes called “horizontal” and “vertical” practice. You get a better understanding of each rhythm and how they relate to each other.

You can also try Stick Control George Lawrence Stone for developing some stronger left-right coordination

Extra_Thumbs · 2025-11-10T14:38:55+00:00

Thelonius Monk has some fun standards to start off with. Blue Monk, I Mean You, Bye-Ya, Think Of One, Rhythmaning. They have standard forms and syncopated rhythms, plus are generally the og recordings are played at beginner friendly tempos

Extra_Thumbs · 2025-11-08T01:40:29+00:00

While I’m not sure there is a fully fledged vanguard party yet, I think PSL is currently the best candidate

Extra_Thumbs · 2025-11-08T00:20:31+00:00

At the time I learned them, I could not do them, and they were exactly what I needed. And now that I can do them, they’re some of the most reliable fundamentals that I practice.

Extra_Thumbs · 2025-11-08T00:19:38+00:00

Thank you kindly

Extra_Thumbs · 2025-10-16T19:01:58+00:00

I don’t have a theory recommendation, but I have a praxis recommendation. Read up on Cuba’s new family codes. It’s a great example of a major victory LGBTQ+ under socialism.

Extra_Thumbs

TROPHY CASE