It looks like livejournal is falling into the clutches of a dictator. It might be time to so farewell. It is a shame that the web is so poisonous and terribly designed now. It all disgusts me. Livejournal was a good starting point, but everything raced to the bottom to become the outrage/distraction/attention machine that the web has become. It ( Read more... )

Had a terrifying Trumpcounter... the kind of thing that is going to happen more and more often until we have to abandon the continent for northern Canada. I was driving north on Tucson Boulevard when a woman having a breakdown of some sort wandered into traffic ahead of me. She wasn't in my lane, but I stopped, because she was being erratic. She ( Read more... )

Chapter 5 - Compromise ( Read more... )

I would like to do this somewhat simple science experiment ( Read more... )

Where would one go to discuss "a thing?" Why do I want to discuss this "thing?" What "thing" are you talking about? The thing is not an object. It is a behavior. The behavior is this: Walking (or strutting, frankly) down the sidewalk with ear buds in, LOUDLY rapping and gesticulating. The gesticulations are like the kind people did when "spoken ( Read more... )

So... if you have a legal right to hold a sign... you get sign spinners. The sign spinner has a legal right to hold a sign, and a legal right to wear a bowler hat. For a few months you have a sign spinner out there with a sign and a bowler hat on. Everyone knows that that guy with a bowler hat has a right to stand there with his sign. One day, he ( Read more... )

The sign spinning craze has died down, because people find them to be trashy and offensive and distasteful and methy and annoying as fuck. But I've been thinking of what a fascinating battle it was over the last ten years or so ( Read more... )

I recall a bumpersticker I saw a while ago. It read, "Capitalism: Making lazy people whine since 1776." Now, I know the point of this bumpersticker is that the message transmitter, the car owner, was announcing, "I'm not lazy, unlike all you pieces of shit who I have to WORK for and support. You shiftless Liberal scum." Something like that. And the ( Read more... )

I had a rare "Instant Justice" moment. I was driving home from delivering a few books to a few different Little Free Libraries. I was on a four lane road, two lanes in each direction, with a speed limit of 35. I am going 37, with the cruise control on. So, from way far back I can see a car coming up real fast. There are two lanes, mind you. There ( Read more... )

I have noticed a strange decision, or lack of a decision, in certain private spaces, that may serve as a metaphor, or a guide for modern thinking in society at large. It has to do with the self-checkout layout in modern stores. It has to do with the ruleset surrounding the lines. Basically, the stores have abdicated to anarchy. It's interesting. ( Read more... )