August 2021

End of a week without

I didn’t write this week, though there definitely was temptation. Obviously, it was a horrible week.

Obviously the big story of the week is the disaster that is Afghanistan. Obviously, I’m connected to the military. My entire childhood was spent as an Army Brat. My dad would talk about the thing that brought him closest to resigning his commission was Operation Eagle Claw, which he referred to as “Desert One.” What happened in Afghanistan was a modern equivalent.

I have ideas about what happened, but I don’t know that any single person is to blame.

But it doesn’t really matter.

It’s over. They failed. Move on.

In the background, however, unscrupulous politicians are at work trying to capitalize on the situation. (I get that they would like a different word that doesn’t include “capital,” but…)

I just want to go somewhere else.

Twenty

Finishing thoughts, reactions, etc.

So, today’s the last day of this bout of feeding my writing compulsion.

Except for forgetting to kick it off on day one, I’ve done it every day.

Some of these have been incredibly brief, but I’ve been ~~distracted~~really busy.

I still need to figure out what to do to kind of actually take a break from it all for a while.

I’m sure I touched on it last year, but I am jealous of Dave Rubin’s moth of disconnection during August.

How the hell he pulled that off as a political pundit, I don’t know.

I do wonder what it’d be like to have a week a bit like I had as a kid at Boy Scout camp. The world goes on outside, but I don’t care.

Instead, I’m always listening, reading, etc.

I care about things like TV audiences.

I have the show listed on my DVR, but I can count on one hand the number of episodes I’ve gotten through. it’s no Red Eye.

I’m wondering if part of what I don’t like about it is the strange socially-distanced set arrangement.

Who knows. During the month, unfortunately, the utter stupidity of government’s response to a now rarely-fatal virus.

I don’t know if it’s true, meaning I haven’t seen corporate press corroboration, but purportedly, there’s a plan by truckers in Australia to just block all the roads to protest lockdowns.

I should probably wrap this up, however. My plans for the rest of the year are a bit unclear at this point. I have my trip to NYC in October. I’m planning to take the week between Christmas and New Year’s off.

Otherwise, no idea. I need to fill my fantasy league.

Nineteen

Yet another day of sort of free-writing.

I am finished working for the week. Naturally, I’ll probably check email because I’m a glutton for punishment that way, but habits are hard to break.

So he writes just after he removes his fingernail from between his teeth….

I need to figure out how to tune out for a while.

I’m wondering if I had my own roomette on a train whether they’d bother me about wearing a mask in there.

So far, I’ve not seen that Amtrak is going to try checking vaccine passports.

Got into a brief discussion on Twitter with Matt Welch after reacting to his column.

I’m just not going to participate. I’m not going to go as far as a fake passport, but I do appreciate what they’re doing.

Thaddeus Russell said when it came out a few weeks ago that one of the government agencies was planning to ban menthol cigarettes trying to figure out a way to produce them.

Yes. Or kits to make them. Either or.

I’ve always lived trying to stay in others’ good graces. But why? I just won’t do anything with them at all.

You can leave.

Eighteen

I’m going to resample a prompt I’ve done a few times, but it seems appropriate for today.

Nervousness. Write about what last made you really nervous.

I guess there’s been a few times during the public health disaster, but really not many.

I’m really wondering if I can get there anymore.

I’ve completed what I need to do, and really don’t have many things that really make me uncomfortable at this point.

Do what you want; I don’t care. Was it Ray Lewis who proclaimed something like, “I’m a machine; you can’t hurt me, jerk?”

So, what else? Another shot. Yay.

Maybe I can delay that until after my NYC trip. Maybe.

Seventeen

Very long, very exhausting day.

But I think I’m showing how to use new tools effectively. What I got accomplished in about 45 minutes would likely have taken three days using the old methods.

News.

Obviously, there’s still a ton coming about what’s going on in Afghanistan.

I’ve listened to a few takes on various podcasts, etc., but there’s really no way to sugar-coat this.

The Operation’s over.

We failed.

Let’s try not to do that again.

You can point all the fingers you want. Every President since 9/11 bears responsibility. The current administration, and the corporate media will try to pin it on someone they don’t like, but what’s the point?

For every excuse found, there’d be an easily-found counterpoint. When you’re not playing for one of the two big teams, it doesn’t really matter.

Speaking of not being on teams, Tim Tebow was released. That brings me to the bit I’m recycling from my drafts folder —

Thanksgiving Football

From Thanksgiving 2014:

Also, what the fuck, NFL? Six NFC teams? Part of the draw of Thanksgiving football has always been that one game was a conference rivalry (often in-division), and one cross-conference game. Lett us not forget Leon in the snow at Texas Stadium.

The games were actually pretty good this past year. Thanksgiving Football is my favorite part of Thanksgiving. Keep the early games as they were previously; one cross-conference, one divisional. Lions and Cowboys. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. The nighttime game can be all-AFC. Somewhere cold with snow would be pretty neat. I could definitely go for seeing a game in Buffalo, Cleveland, New England, etc..

Enough. Four more days. Three more entries.

Sixteen

Going to free-write more today. I have an off-in-the-ether friend who has a birthday today. I’m not saying anything directly about it because I do hold a grudge…for many years now. It’s something that kind of, sort of began with the early stages of my physical maladies.

But, at the same time, there’d been an instance not too long prior where I was going to be late for an appointment, and I didn’t care. This individual had been late for me several times previously, and I was fine returning the disrespect. And I still beat him/her to the event. Whatever.

I’m kind of eager to apologize often when one isn’t necessary, but I’m reluctant to do when one is requested.

In my life, there’s few things for which I think I should express regret. I can plausibly explain why I did what I did.

It sort of relates to today’s big news story, where the West is running away from Afghanistan.

What we’ve done since we killed OBL is over. It didn’t work. Move on.

Fifteen

Going to hit the wayback machine to revisit what will be five years ago in November.

Halftime. When was/will be the halftime of your life?

This was a rather dark prompt now that I look at it again.

Do I think I’m past the halfway point? I don’t know. Am I there in other aspects of my life? Yes. My professional career? Yep. This particular job? Certainly.

On so many things I ask myself why I continue on. Maybe NoJoMo should be one of those.

I will probably write next year; I don’t just quit, even when I have good reason to. I’m a Saints’ fan, so I’m watching Buddy Ryan Jr.-B’s defense get a good start on serving up the fortyburger in FedEx Field……

So, a bit of freewriting as the Redskins score, what am I looking forward to the next few few months?

Thanksgiving. For the first time in a very long time, I think I will be able to actually enjoy eating this year. Actually being hungry for the first time in almost twenty years is something new.
Travel. My wife and I are planning a trip, and I’m excited about that. The only details I’ll reveal are that French food will be consumed.

That jewelry commercial was more than a little hetero-normative……

Listening to this, and nodding vigorously.

Difficult to know what the halftime of my life is, really. If I’m only in the third quarter,

And if it’s very late, I don’t really care. I’ve done what I can do.

Going to fail the segue on this, too, but it’s a big like I feel about so many things.

Yesterday I was more than a little upset that the corporate press wasn’t covering an earthquake in Haiti.

I don’t even know.

I’m going to finish this streak, then try to get through until…..

Fourteen

I’m clearing out things that are sitting in my draft queue because I’m kind of lazy, and don’t want to really dig through my prompts to find something to write.

News.

Had a big of a recent discussion with someone about what’s going on with the corporate press.

The TV networks are battling for an audience that’s gotten bigger, but less captive.

I think I’ve touched on it a bit previously. There’s just so much fragmentation, and the audience that is still sticking with the legacy methods is dying off.

So you’re NUMBER ONE in cable news? That means, what, three and a half million viewers? There’s more than 300 million US citizens.

When you do the math, it becomes more apparent what the audience is, and why they’re super-serving it.

If there’s a TV commercial that warns of negative effects for those going through menopause, I can know I’m really not in the plurality of the audience.

Some of the discussion I’ve heard on my regular podcasts (I can’t remember which, exactly, could have been “The Fifth Column,” “Blocked and Reported,” or “Honestly.”) the for the print media, with the subscriber model, the editorial decisions about news are really guided by what the paying customers, the subscribers, want to consume.

Oh well.

What needs to happen is the name-credibility of the various major media outlets needs to die.

Who cares that the New York Times reported something? Did they actually report it accurately the first time? What did they fail to report? Were some of the failures to report something based on worry about subscribers’, or the staff’s reaction to the story?

The “alternative” media sources shouldn’t be dismissed immediately because of why they are. Similarly, the corporate press shouldn’t be given any specific weight because of who is reporting it.

I know, I know, Chuck, that’s dangerous. I don’t care.

It might be a fun experiment to do a retroactive validation of various outlets’ top stories for a particular day.

I could wear an Alex Jones Was Right T-shirt now without a lot of irony today.

How dangerous is that, Chuck?

Stories I’m following today.

First, another in the string of complete failures of the US government, Kabul is about to fall in Afghanistan. That’s another in the list of failures we’ve seen since changing leadership in DC.

It’s finished. You failed. Let’s try something completely different.

Another example of maybe super-serving the audience. Thousands of COVID-19 cases and deaths may have been due to wildfire smoke, new study says

Uh, maybe people are, you know, gathering indoors where they’re protected from directly-inhaling the fire smoke by filtering HVAC systems?

“Experts also told The Post that wildfire smoke leads to people spending more time indoors, where the virus is more likely to spread.”

Okay. They did get to it, but it’s way down in the article. Why is that?

And I thought I had problems – 8/9/2000

On second thought, nobody is worse than me. I saw the ex today….didn’t talk to her. But I’m sure it’s her. New car. Go figure. Her hair is now some color not found in nature. But I decided not to pull her over and talk to her. Perhaps I give her too much credit. Her new automobile had a bumper sticker that reads “Bad Cop, No Donut.” Please. Rant forthcoming. If you don’t want to read it, skip a paragraph….

Don’t fuck with the cops….they will always win. If a cop pulls you over, be as polite as possible. Obey everything he/she says. Take mental notes. If it’s a standard traffic stop, and he/she asks to search your car, politely decline. Don’t put anything on your car that’s gonna put them in a bad mood when they see you. They win. You lose. It’s as simple as that. You can’t beat them. But fighting them will only get you hurt. If they do something wrong in the process, your mouth isn’t going to punish them….the law will. But remember, in general, the law is on your side. Your attitude has a lot to do with it. So there.

I cut it there, because the rest was really rambling. I was talking about flirtations with vegetarianism again. What’s there, however, speaks to my general outlook on many things.

Take care of yourself, and don’t intentionally set people off.

I have other things I want to write about, but I think I’m finished for today.

Thirteen

I’m not working, and keep getting distracted. Oh well.

I will get to what I planned to do after I finish this.

Or maybe after I have some coffee.

Things that are distracting me? Things like this. I’ve been lazy, again, about spelling out what the links are about. That one is about how NYc restaurants are refusing to check patrons’ vaccination status.

I applaud that. Sell your shit, and don’t worry about whether or not your customers are living a particular way you like.

People are just refusing to go along with the authoritarian mandates; just say no.

I did hear an interesting podcast, too, about a paper done at George Mason.

The folks who hate the Beltway Libertarians probably would have quit listening after the first few minutes. But it got more interesting as the writer discussed her research.

There was an outsized number of former military folks involved with what happened on January 6th. Yes, and that’s the headline the corporate press is going to report. Yes, and that’s why there’s the stand down on extremism. But there’s a lot more to the story, and it doesn’t make an exciting headline.

How do you get people to listen long enough to really consider things?

RON PAUL

That gets attention. And that’s the important thing when getting a fleeting second of attention is what’s important.

Oh well.

Twelve

Bit of a weird writing time right now. I normally do this either first thing in the morning, or right after I finish work. Because they’re doing this Field of Dreams game on FOX, what I’d normally be watching is preempted. It’s not yet time for Jeopardy!. So knock things out before that comes on…

First up? Looks like I probably should get another shot. While much of what I’ve been consuming lately is decidedly opposed to the vaccine(s), I’m already down the road with it, so why not continue? I am saying, however, forcefully, that I will avoid doing business with companies that are asking to see customers’ proof of vaccine. Yeah, I got it. No, you can’t see it, and you can kiss my dollars goodbye. It’s none of your fucking business.; Just like it’s not any of my business what you chose to have for breakfast this morning.

Next, Afghanistan. The US and the UK are running away. An orderly end was planned, but the new Administration had to do something different than the bad orange man.

That’s fine. We’re finished. You failed. Move onto something else.

As far as Britney, she’s free. That one is a bit of a different take. It’s over. Her dad sortakinda didn’t fail. Move on.

I’m not working tomorrow. Whatever. I still have something like 80 hours’ PTO I need to figure out how burn before the end of the calendar year.

Name some annoyances that may seem trivial, but drive you crazy

There’s so many. “Negative impact.” No, it’s a negative effect. Or something could negatively affect something else. A negative impact is a vacuum; it sucks.

People saying “backslash” when reading a standard URL. There are occasionally web apps, and the like that use a \ in a URL. That said, for the vast, vast, vast majority of sites, it’s a forward slash /.

https://control-h.org

https:\\control-h.org

It’s related to the underlying FHS, if you’re a nerd, and care about that sort of thing.