So, as you may have heard, President Trump has decided to destroy the East Wing of the White House to build some kind of Bribery Ballroom (name pending, but actually not because it’s going to be called the Trump Ballroom because of course it is). He also, you may not have noticed, cut down a few heritage trees for the same reason. If this were just a normal building somewhere else, owned by a real property owner, this would have been illegal. Mostly due to lack of permits, environmental protection (or lack of report of environmental impacts),...
Continue reading...Dragon books
Fuck it. We did Psalm 1; let’s do Psalm 2. For the past several years, in my old age, I have gotten back into reading what I call my “dragon books” — fantasy novels — to have some semblance of escape in my reading from the horrors of societal life since circa 2015. While it is true I have interspersed them with canon and non-canon “good” literature (not sure where Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem falls in there) as well as great non-fiction (I highly recommend Foner’s Reconstruction, which I read in 2018 according to Goodreads), I always...
Continue reading...What are they thinking?
Janet Mills, former Democratic governor of Maine, is running for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate. Many have described this as a “coup,” specifically for Sen. Chuck Schumer, who wants to regain the majority in the senate, and has been trying to get Mills to run this cycle, seeing her as the best possible nominee for the Democrats. Some have called her some kind of dream candidate, one with the best chance of winning the seat for the Democrats due to her popularity and proven ability to win state-wide in Maine. She’s also 77 years old. Now,...
Continue reading...Rapture ready
Well, lol, tomorrow’s supposed to be “the Rapture.” Are you Rapture Ready™? Those of us who grew up in fundamentalist/evangelical confines can probably readily remember the phrase “Rapture Ready.” We’d get asked that a lot: “If the rapture were to happen today, would you be ready? Would you be [cough] Rapture Ready?” I still have a ton of internalized anxiety about the so-called Rapture. It’s such a thing, a cursory search let me know it even has a Wikipedia page. I’m at point where I absolutely know it’s not real, never going to happen, is totally made...
Continue reading...Emails
Instead of writing a post tonight I wrote an email to a friend. Remember that? Writing an email to a friend? It was like letters that you would send, through the post office. “Remember me when I am killed at war,” I imagine them seeming like. It was a long time ago, but before email, people would literally put pen to paper to compose a letter to a friend. Eh, maybe I’m being too stupidly nostalgic. But times are weird, man. It always feels good to be thought of, and the opposite of fascism is community. Write...
Continue reading...The two ways
Okay, everybody open up your bibles (or whatever you call them) to Psalm (or whatever you call it) one. Not One Psalms (there aren’t multiple books of Psalms that I know of*), but the first psalm (the capitalization here is getting confusing). I guess before we get going, though, I should note that I know this particular psalm well. And to tell you why would require quite a bit of backstory. But this is my blog, so let’s do a backstory. The church I guess you could say I largely grew up in was a fundamentalist Christian...
Continue reading...What even is TV now
I wake up, in what amounts to some kind of haze. I’ve never been much of a morning person, so usually it takes an hour or so to just get back to cogent thought. If I have nothing urgent to do (work, or commuting to work, or the sporadic brunch appointment), I’ll shuffle downstairs, plop onto the couch, and throw on the television. What do I watch? Who cares. It doesn’t matter. So I fire up Hulu with Live TV, the modern equivalent of cable, and see what is airing live. Turns out, these days, it’s nothing....
Continue reading...In the Garage
Garage season brings a smile. The bay door is up and the back door is propped open with a lawn bag of branches trimmed off the hedge earlier in the week. The openness allows a nice cross breeze as I sit here in a lawn chair, enjoying the shade, and looking out at the street and the bright hot sunlight. There is a soft hum coming from the mower battery charging, which is interrupted by the loud cars driving bye at steady clip. Rakes and shovels line one wall. Old skis, a golf bag, and kids bikes...
Continue reading...From occupied DC
How does it feel to live in an occupied city? Well, it fucking sucks, man. How does all this feel? It fucking sucks, man. In case you’re unaware because you’ve been living under a rock for the past week or so, our so-called commander-in-chief decided that the capital (capitol) city is such a hornet’s nest of criminal activity that it is a national emergency that he had to surge the troops or whatever the fuck he is thinking on any given sundown. It’s all bullshit. This whole administration is bullshit. Don’t worry, though: it’s all a distraction....
Continue reading...Plumbing the series of tubes
Did the internet somehow break while I was away? Did something change in the past 30 or so years since the internet went mainstream? Because there are a couple of weird undercurrents happening right now, in earnest, with great urgency, that seem to suggest that maybe something changed about the internet that really needs fixing. First, for some reason, laws requiring age identification are sweeping not just around the US, but globally. Why now? Well, at least in the US, the Supreme Court changed its mind and said it’s okay now. Sure, fine, whatever, they’ve been doing...
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