PicoBlog

There was no 20-minute sex sequence this week, so we already won. This time around on The Idol, we delve deeper into Tedros’ background and the hold he has on his minions Chloe and Isaak. Elsewhere, Leia lives through her personal nightmare, Xander pushes for a scandalous album cover, and we unpack Jocelyn’s dark past & the hairbrush from hell. If I were Leia and a walking rattail were critiquing my driving (“you’re fucking up the vibe”) I would shoot him on sight.

What is positivism? Basically, positivism (or “logical positivism”) = empiricism + verificationism. Empiricism: The thesis that there is no synthetic, a priori knowledge. Verificationism (or “the verification criterion of meaning”): Roughly, the view that the meaning of a sentence is given by its verification conditions. To understand a sentence’s meaning is to know under what conditions it counts as being verified or refuted. If a sentence cannot be tested, then it is meaningless.

Imagine the following scenario: You’re the head of a post-sales customer success team for a small-ish software company. Despite the struggling economy, your company is doing surprisingly well. You’ve grown your team considerably over the past year and plan to open up new roles soon so you can keep up with demand. But not everything is roses. You sit down to your laptop to start preparing for your day and the very first email in your inbox is from your top customer success manager.

In April, Grand Central Publishing will release The Fixer: Moguls, Mobsters, Movie Stars and Marilyn, a new biography of midcentury private investigator Frank Otash by Josh Young, who coauthors book professionally, and Manfred Westphal, an entertainment industry PR executive who has been attempting to write a book about Otash since 1990. A onetime vice squad cop, Otash became infamous as a fixer for Confidential magazine and later claimed to have spied on everyone from Rock Hudson to Marilyn Monroe, alleging that he was present when Hudson admitted to being gay and when Monroe died minutes after a physical altercation with Bobby Kennedy.

There’s something bittersweet, even melancholy about the place 1991’s Ernest Scared Stupid holds in Ernest P. Worrell mythology. The Halloween-themed horror comedy marks the end of an era and the close of Ernest’s Golden Age.  For four glorious years Disney honored the legacy of its founder and longtime leader by employing the services of Jim Varney as hillbilly hero Ernest P. Worrell in a quartet of motion picture masterpieces.  For the first time in its whole miserable existence Disney was finally responsible for something that brought people joy and made moviegoers happy: an Ernest movie.

Noun The most important member of a group or part of a system, that holds together the other members or parts or makes it possible for them to operate as intended. (Definition from the Cambridge Dictionary) I remember when, in 2002, a couple of months after I joined PayPal, I interviewed a new product management candidate named Alan Tien. He was more seasoned than the rest of us at the time—especially me.

First, before we get into the story, we must pause to celebrate that today is the start of our National Hispanic Heritage Month. In the United States, National Hispanic Heritage Month runs from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15 and is a time to celebrate the valuable contributions of Hispanic and Latino Americans. Initiated as a weeklong observance in 1968 and expanded to a month in 1988, this period pays homage to the histories, cultures and influences of American citizens whose roots trace back to Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America.

When I started my blog, I made a promise to myself that this would not become a place where I just wrote out my longer tweets. I do intend to keep that promise. Know Your Frenemy #1 is on the way (starring a fan-favorite Italian communist) and I have other longer form essays I plan to write soon too! You can read Know Your Frenemy #0 here! BUT in the past week there has been a lot conversation on Twitter about what is okay or not okay to do to bad people, and what is okay or not okay to celebrate.

With opening arguments about to be made, the People v. Donald Trump has already reached an important milestone: forcing Trump to shut up and listen. Indeed, last week Justice Juan Marchan commanded him to “have a seat” as the defendant prematurely rose to exit. Trump did as instructed. It was a moment to savor. Charged with committing fraud as he sought to cover up “hush money” payments to porn star Stormy Danials and Playboy model Karen McDougal, Trump is getting his days in court.