Land of opportunity isn't entirely a myth to me. I think, perhaps moreso in the past, Canadians can be particularly aware of the lack of opportunities for artists and creative people in Canada, or having to battle heavily against your own people (the old wannabe-NYC Toronto mentality I call it, where if it's from Toronto it's second rate, and if it's from elsewhere in Canada it's a total joke) or do the whole thing yourself (think Captain Canuck and Cerebus). Musicians, actors, comic artists before Fed Ex express... it used to be you simply had to leave Canada (think Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, William Shatner, John Candy).

An actual meritocracy is mostly a myth situation though, some of the biggest examples of a bootstraps rags to riches person will turn out to be heavily compromised in reality or have some other creative person's skeleton in the closet who got stepped on (Edison is said to have copied from a number of other now obscure people and used connections at the patent office to deny them and ensure his credit). We love it though when there is a real example, exceptional though it would be, it gives hope! Under the restrictive old European class systems if you were not born just right you were locked in for a lifetime to a pre-scripted life with the only other choice being further downward. Even housing is rationed in many places there still, it's just not available to have something bigger or better, or just different (or people don't do that). Japan is a lot like that as well, so not just a European situation. People are born and live generations on the same street all the time outside the U.S.

In the U.S. the story goes if you have a better mousetrap doors can open to you, to capitalize on it mainly but there are things like admiration for work and the individual person's skills, not who their father is or if they have money (Trumpo is never much a throwback to a non-American hedgemony there, sheer entitlement to claim geniushood based on genes which he will actually mention sometimes, having good genes Trumps everything for him which is why he is such a huge useless no idea what work is mess. They talk about dynasties like the old monarchies predicated on generational wealth accumulation, and they step on a lot of others and blame a lot of others while getting those others to write their bestseller books and design their product lines, "buyer beware" America).

The U.S.A. put a man on the moon. That is still going to be a huge thing in a hundred years, sorry if you don't want to wear that all the time.

I'll choose the hope that we can still allow for and even support the genuinely exceptional person to all our benefits than the kind of old world idea of everything structured and frozen and immobile, "great" only for the well born and extensively funded from birth. The pursuit of happiness and ensuring liberty for all regardless of race or creed thing. Not all bad. Sometimes you have to have been outside looking in to see what really still is and has been special about the U.S. Model Ts and Trans Ams, Mickey Mouse and Superman, McDonalds and Cheez-Its, Edgar Rice Burroughs and Neil Armstrong, Susan B. Anthony and Martin Luther King Jr., Elvis and Chuck Berry! That kinda stuff didn't happen elsewhere as often or at all. Opportunity is something to cherish and help to nurture for others because it's best for us all ultimately. Celebrating the individual in the positive sense is in opposition to the simplistic old thinking of celebrating the right family breeding. Those people are welcome to their bizarre in-bred vision like that clown that said he would be dating his own daughter if she wasn't his daughter because she's obviously a ten... it should be that laughable and that devoid of worth!

It's fine that we can celebrate Neil Armstrong. But Armstrong was the first person to acknowledge that it took 400,000 engineers, scientists and technicians to put him on the moon. Which doesn't take away from the accomplishments of he, Aldrin and Collins. But it's still that American myopia of the individual doing everything when it is very seldom the case.

Goodness... This is both on the nose and quite moving.

One can tell that the actor cares deeply about the subject. (No edit either... this was all done in one take). Great explanation of the current popularity of populism.

Yeah, Warmonger , what a Monday.

Here's what we knew all along and what we still know (with appreciation to Charles Pierce):

The Russians ratfcked (to use the great term assigned to such misdeeds by Donald Segretti) the 2016 election.

They were very good at it.

They wanted to put Donald Trump in the White House.

They helped get him in and he doesn't give a flying Fig Newton what Putin did to get him there.

The Russians are going to try to do it again.

They are still very good at it.

They still want to keep Donald Trump in the White House.

He still doesn't care what they will do to ratfck the 2020 election.

And apparently, neither do his slavering minions in the GOP and "the heartland."

So, yeah, good day for the avatar of willful ignorance and autocracy.

And yet, Trump and the GOP have done exactly Jack Spit to recent any of it from happening again. 

Because patriotism, I guess.

That's not exactly true..'not enough evidence to indict' is not the same as 'no one colluded with them'.. especially since we don't have the report yet.. just a summary from an attorney general that was appointed by Trump for the express purpose of making this investigation go away.