The title might be evocative of a frustrating dialog box on a screen from the past. Yes, that’s kind of the intention…
Yes, I’m awake very early on a Saturday morning. My scarred brain is going a million miles per hour the past few days. No, I haven’t had any coffee yet, and maybe that’d help settle things a bit, but I wanted to really get a move on several things.
Versus
Went to the Reason Versus debate on Thursday night. I expect they’ll put it up on Rumble or Totes-Didn’t-Used-To-Do-Evil-TV in the next few days. I supported the proposition at the outset, though I admit that I was waffling throughout. I ended up still voting in favor of the resolution because the participants’ arguments didn’t change my inclination.
Where I was getting bound up with that discussion is that there’s been so many strictures put in place that it’s nearly impossible, even if you’re here legally, to just go and make your own way. You’re going to be put into a box, and you shall not exit that box. Sure, there might be a few random people who slip past the fences, but your path is pretty much set. You are on a track that is largely set by your background and schooling, and the only deviation from that path is downwards.
*searches past writing for things about the PRO Act*
I’m almost certain I’d touched on that, but it was one of the two pieces of outrage legislation that failed in the wake of January 6th. (The other being the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which would have essentially made everywhere a Democrat-dominion…exactly as Joe Biden’s Southern Senate buds intended….) The PRO Act really enforced the worst “pro Union” laws in the entire country. There would be no right-to-work states. Every business could be a “closed shop,” meaning that even if you, personally wanted to, you couldn’t deviate from the course you’d started at a very early age. If you did want to do something else, you’d need to start at square zero, and couldn’t ever hope to move to a level commiserate with your age. If I was healthy enough to change, say, to a career in the culinary arts, I wouldn’t be allowed to do that.
Trump got a lot of pushback on his desire to erect a physical wall stretching the Southern border. No, I didn’t think that was ever going to work. Biden scrapped a bunch of unused materials while allowing millions of people in.
But can those people work to build lives? Not when they can’t legally work.
Retirement/Disability
I think that this is finally moving along. I am not at all happy that it looks like I’m going to have to apply for Social Security disability. I never ever wanted to do that, honestly. Why? When I’d first looked at it when my bouts of sporadic employment began, the amount I was going to get was so tiny it wouldn’t have even paid our rent. Part of the reason I stayed in my last job as long as I did is that it looked like the private disability insurance included would have prevented me from using Social Security disability. Turns out it doesn’t, and my attorney said that the insurance company will pretty much force me to file at some point. Whatever. The estimates, now, would at least allow us to pay our rent. I don’t know how the coming haircut is going to affect things, but it’s only a chunk of what I should get with the private disability supplement.
But I think I have at least a start on the application ready to go. I know that it’s going to be declined at least once. I’ll reach out to my old Administrative Law professor to handle the appeals.
But, back to the appeal on the LTD claim, it’s underway. I think it’ll happen this year, thankfully. So I’ve been still plunking around with guitar stuff, and preparing to feed my compulsion in November. As well as travel.
I understand that nobody is reading this, but if you want to prove me wrong, email me a writing topic for November.
BARPod/Katie’s Book/Deleting Your History
Katie Herzog, one of the hosts of the Blocked and Reported podcast has written a book on how she stopped drinking using a particular method with an assist from medication.
She’s been making the rounds on various podcasts pitching the book. Here she is on with Heaton, who opened the Reason Versus event….
In preparation for the book release, she’s been scouring the Internets looking for stuff she’d written in the past that might not present her in the most-positive light. She’s been going through and asking for deletion on things she’d written, or edits. Look, cher, we know you used to work with the guy who forever redefined the name Santorum. Whatever you’ve written is there. If somebody isn’t going to buy your book because of something you barfed out years ago, so be it. Do I search for myself sometimes? Sure. But little of what I’ve put up over the years matters.
Do I plan to buy and listen to her audiobook? Yep. Do I disagree with her and Jesse’s politics? You bet. But what they’re not doing, and probably a big part of why I listen, is propose ways to throw people who don’t share their conclusions in prison.
Some of the discussion on one of the recent episodes sharing discussion with the Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em ladies, was her trying to remove things she’d written while trying to use someone else’s style.
Why is this a problem?
I was reminded of Dave Grohl talking about coming up with the drum part of Smells Like Teen Spirit. He credited The Gap band as partial inspiration. Now listen back-to-back, and not hear it. Revelation is like a bomb being dropped.
Much as I am loathe to give Chomsky credit on anything, I suspect there is something to generative grammar. Anything that’s more than a few paragraphs long will get the author’s uniqueness.
I was going to say that I don’t understand the desire to start from scratch, but that wouldn’t be true. One of the more irritating things about Twi^H^H^HX is that it’s a lot harder to completely wipe clean what you’ve put up in the past.
But at the same time, many it’s okay that you can’t easily do it.
And there’s always the possibility that someone took a screenshot.
And, now I think it’s time for some coffee….