Red Tape & Underbites

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"Legal immigration is less like waiting in line and more like winning the lottery: it happens, but it is so rare that it is irrational to expect it in any individual case."
In case you haven't heard - which is possible because several news outlets are blithely ignoring it - our sweat stain of a governor is attempting to secede and start a war with the federal government so... it's Wednesday in Texas. If you'd like to learn more about just how difficult it is to legally immigrate to the US, check out this report from The Cato Institute. Or simply see how long you can look at this image before your eyes cross and freeze into place.

The Habsburg Jaw

This fine fellow is Charles II, the last of the Spanish Habsburg kings. Why was he the last, you ask? And why was his chin so... distinctive? The answer to both questions is, basically, inbreeding.

Look, how I ended up down this particular rabbit hole is of little importance. What's much more interesting is that this phrase - Habsburg Jaw - is a bit of shorthand for rich people who bed their relatives to keep bloodlines intact. In order to keep their wealth and power in the family (literally), the Habsburgs married each other, generation after generation, to such excess that by the time poor Charles came around, his underbite was so severe that he couldn't eat normally. He died at the age of 38, with, "a heart the size of a peppercorn; his lungs corroded; his intestines rotten and gangrenous, a single testicle, black as coal, and his head full of water."

So, you know, stay away from your second cousins.

"Don’t give a fuck about your work. Give all your fucks to the living. Give a fuck about the people you work with, and the people who receive your work—the people who use the tools and products and systems or, more often than not, are used by them. Give a fuck about the land and the sea, all the living things that are used or used up by the work, that are abandoned or displaced by it, or—if we’re lucky, if we’re persistent and brave and willing—are cared for through the work."
The "see all the fucks I don't have to give" joke got tired a couple of years ago. So I almost didn't read this piece, because I thought I knew where it was headed. I did not! It's an excellent meditation on what 'work' really means and how we should all view it and approach it.

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