Category: Uncategorized

Headline reference. Reactions to this week’s nonsense with Virginia.

My former Representative, and Virginia’s two senators, called for that yesterday.

.I disagree. Ralphie is a horrible governor, and politician, that’s to be sure. There’s a reason why more than once I set out specifically to vote for his opponents, and against him in Norfolk Democrat primaries. (Norfolk has been a single-party city since the Northern occupiers left in the 1870s.) I do admit that that was more about his undergraduate stint at a state-funded military academy that didn’t admit women until twenty years after the Federal service academies. I also, professionally, cannot name a single Keydet I’ve worked with whose presence didn’t actually detract from the mission at hand….

But, no, I don’t think Ralphie is racist. I think he’s a typical well-to-do Virginia Democrat. Until very recently, proper admiration of the racist party overlords was required to advance.

You can’t just erase that history.

The statues the racists in Charlottesville were concerned about — those were erected by Virginia Democrats.

I almost said I can’t believe that there’s efforts to pretend otherwise. No, it makes complete sense. Erase the past completely, and maybe people won’t point fingers. Nope. Didn’t happen. There’s no record of it.

And even if there was a record of it, all of those racist Democrats, like Fritz Hollings from South Carolina, all became Republicans, right? Erected the Confederate flag over the South Carolina statehouse, went to the Senate, and switched parties.

Oh he didn’t switch parties? My mistake.

But parts of the party’s history, and personal histories of adults involved in it don’t disappear dow the Memory Hole, by just pretending that it never happened because it makes your party look bad.

(Yes, I have a legitimate excuse for whatever I did in 1984; I was a very young child.)

Recruiter called and didn’t leave a message. Called the number back, and, naturally, it’s a huge staffing firm. The person who answered finally figured out who called me, and put him on the phone.

We have an opportunity in (somewhere I don’t live) with (some company who’ll remain nameless).

Uh, no. I’m not in that area, nor will I ever work for (nameless company).

This confused the hell out of him.

Wh-why won’t you work for them?

Because they’re dishonest, and I’m not at all interested in something if I”m not hired as a regular full-time employee.

He still didn’t understand.

Maybe I should have told him just to go fuck himself; perhaps he’d have understood that.

Christmas was okay. Same for the New Year.

Not a lot going on, other than archiving a ton of email off GMail.

Yay for a day to recover, even if I only had one drink to celebrate yesterday.

There is a lot going on right now and I am in a funk.

So today I wanted to discuss the thought of life being fair.

There is stuff that is going on in my family and it brings up some feelings that I just don’t know how to process.  I should be upset, but I’m not.  I really just don’t care about it.

Then I think of something that happened in the past and it makes me angrier.  The most undeserving people are often the ones who receive the most consideration.  And that just pisses me off to the core.

Until tomorrow…

Bonding with strangers.

One of my sister in law’s coworkers came over for dinner with his wife.  I ended up making fast friends with them by sharing our mutual love of food and cooking.  We even traded Instagram account info, so we can keep up with each other’s culinary adventures.

I swear these will get longer and I will stop waiting until the last minute to write.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve really made an effort to really withdraw from social media.  There are many reasons for this.

1.  Google and Facebook.  I was utterly disgusted listening to the Senate testimony a few weeks ago.  The company who used to have the principle of “don’t be evil,” is now okay doing things with repressive governments.  I also noticed that GMail, and Facebook were suggesting friends I’d never even considered connecting with apart from private emails on 757.org.  So, the bits of doubt were planted early.  The testimony, the actions of perhaps less-than-honest mining, and politicans who purportedly represent me, I decided to really curtail things.  Well, that combined with;
   
2. Politics.  I am at odds with the strains of jubilation from people who view me as a heretic, as well as the even older people who trot out other stupid stuff.  I don’t care.  Really.  Everybody thinks I’m evil because… Again, I don’t care.  I am who I am.  I explore ideas that are contrary to my conclusions.  But I shouldn’t be able to do that.  That I might access things not approved by the commissars is a problem.  I’m free to leave. Well, for now.  The strike-through is intentional;  I can leave, and there’s nothing that can stop me.  This is a problem for both businesses and governments.  Sorry.  The Internet, and the math that underlies it, are things that business and government can’t surpress without resorting to the ultimate weapon of government — force.  Fine.  Whatever. 
3. When I chose to withdraw from FB, I jettisoned also G+, and LinkedIn.  G+, of course, had a similar data breech to FB.  I was tempted to say, “purportedly it’s shut down,” but i looked around, and it’s still up.  For now. I’ve complained about LinkedIn before, but it seems to be nothing but recruiters these days.  (Aside:  the legion of corporate recruiters is likely attributable to the major increase of folks graduating with Arts degrees.  Spell too well to work as a Barista?  Don’t worry.  You can work in tech staffing!!1!)
   
4. Google’s decision to push all traffic in Chrome to SSL is a really bad idea.  Hey, it’s sekur, so nobody can look at it.  Except, of course, the totes didn’t use to be evil company, and the NSA.  You’ve also killed off all the sorts of things developed to make Intertubing faster since the web came into being.  I really don’t care that my people can see what banner ads I’m seeing, and those might be cached somewhere else.

I’m preparing to write again in November.  The summer writing went well this year, but I didn’t feel the need to do it.  There’s periods at work when I’m very busy these days, and don’t have the urge to write to kill time.  But I do miss writing.  As the year ends, I might have more to say.ca

I’ve been picking through past writings.  Words used to come so easily;  my diary would show that, if you could read all of it.  (And, no, even if you’ve got an account there, you can’t.  Much of it is only for my own consumption.)
I’m trying to remember how easily this stuff used to come to me.  Perhaps my inability to really read many things stops the thought flows.  Who knows?
I listen to lots of podcasts.  I’ve not dug out my radio from where our stuff is stored.  I do listen to some things that are broadcast, but much of it is Intertubes-only.
I also might not have as much time to think as I’d like.
Getting closer on my work setup in the temporary landing spot.  Maybe I’ll get it finished soon.  *shrug*
Reading old entries, I have to wonder if I actually could handle law school now.
Yes, I can’t see worth a damn.  My speech is even slower than ti twas before they know what was wrong with me.  But I can still listen.  I can still write.  Could I be lawyerly?