Really‽ 

I just received and read this extraordinarily brief Business Insider piece and am now compelled to publicly communicate that I, like Ken Burns, don't hang out with or know Justice Thomas¹.✌🏼

For fuck's sake, it is easy to justify a description of this timeline as either loathsome or tiresome, or both, given each day's birthing evermore reactionary behaviors & attitudes, like the presumable knee-jerk whining & opining (to chase sheep-crowd-clout?) after seeing a man standing next to other men in a photo that impels some 'need' or de facto 'requirement' to make public announcements to quell unthinking & unsupportable—and, therefore unanchorable & untenable—'righteous' bullshit spewed by the mob.

Regardless of your politics if, at this stage, you continue to support or defend Justice Thomas you are a loser!!

Regardless of your politics if you presumed Ken Burns 'guilty' of something or suddenly saw him as some sort of betrayer to the 'correct' or 'pure' side simply because you saw one picture of him standing next to Justice Thomas then you are a loser!!

 September 22nd, 2023; last edit 23-Sep-23

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¹ I might pen a short story about a man or woman from a small town who is refused service at their local soda fountain shoppe² because it is rumored that they know and hang out with a film + music + (of course) technology startup incubation & seed financing celebrity who lives in Los Angeles.

² all small towns have soda fountain shoppes; they even spell shop s-h-o-p-p-e — that's just a known fact

Watch this [Stop] Cop City story. I'm not close enough to it to say how many indictments are complete poppycock but my gut says the use of labels like domestic terrorists and/or domestic terrorism reeks of a surveillance and police-state becoming bolder and intentionally redrawing the edge-lines of freedoms [to protest/gather/speak/etc.] on behalf of a status quo that's failing millions of its citizens. Reeks of horseshit. 

September 5th, 2023

A friend of mine has filled me in on the farce presently underway on Twitter. I found the news amusing enough to reactivate my Twitter account & post a comment; however, I deleted it, re-deactivated my account & am posting here. 

Elon & all the whining celebs can go fuck themselves.

The blue check crowd are a fucking plague on humanity. As I understand it, some of them have been whining (and are still?) about how they've created content for the Twitter platform...as if posts made by millions of the unwashed masses hadn't also been an act of content creation...even if such posts were simply content in the form of replies to (and feeding the egos & vanity of) celebs.

To the man in charge at Twitter, regarding your having recently shown the world that fame & fortune are rewarded with preferential treatment:

In an era with no shortage of ridiculous persons you seem driven by a preternatural ambition to showcase yourself as one of the most ridiculous.   

April 23rd, 2023, edited May 2nd, 2023

Ask me my feelings regarding how automotive dealers can effectively pocket some or all of the tax incentives available on hybrid/electric vehicles (credits ostensibly intended for consumers) via dealerships pricing certain ("in-demand") makes & models above MSRP.

I've said it before, worth repeating: Capitalism, as too often practiced, is a pig-ridden land. 

April 13th, 2023

I love walking & hiking. Enjoy jogging & running, too — on the days when my respiratory system plays nice. However, I admit I enjoy sedentary moments. Times where I remain... in place, stationary. Like the way I remain regarding my opinion about those people who helped lie us into war 20yrs ago who have recently exerted serious Mea Culpa & self- redemption efforts. I'd be willing to consider these people sincere were it not for the fact many of them continue signaling & communicating bellicose & jingoist bullshit (vis-a-vis Iran, China, Russia, etc.).

March 21st, 2023

Sharing publicly the essence of what I shared with a buddy who asked me how I felt about a (meaningless) loss. I told my friend I would do this—share publicly—and I promised them that my intention would not include their name; they'll retain their anonymity; and regardless of the tone of my reply, they know I love 'em like a brother and would do time in the trenches with 'em.

There are Turkish & Syrian people still dealing with rubble; I don't give a fuck that KU men's basketball got knocked out in the second round of the tournament.

To be honest, I didn't even know the tournament was happening until yesterday; spaced it off.

March 19th, 2023

Given that members from the Bush Administration—including spokespersons, consultants & aides, etc.,—have not been charged by the International Criminal Court (ICC) I am, for the present, going to continue assuming charges made by the ICC against select persons have as much to do with justice as they do a schema & mechanism allowing extant institutions and distribution & control systems of socioeconomic power to direct & deploy social pressures & influence on the general public (via media?) by manufacturing a type of (contrived) legitimacy allowing these sources of power to make statements like: "You must support these [i.e., our X, Y or Z] efforts, else you are siding with (or, abetting, in some manner) a known criminal."

Update, 19-Mar-23

As I was saying above... CNN, on cue, offering up Opinion space for 'the message.' (As if America herself earnestly recognizes or gives any consideration to the ICC with respect to how she undertakes actions or conducts herself.) 

Comical. Absolute absurd hilarity. 

I know. I know. I know. Don't tell me foreign policy 'experts'... America has "unique" responsibilities. 

March 17th, 2023 / last edit: March 20th, 2023 

Reading, here & there, this & that -- primarily the most recent 10-K for SVB¹.

I trust anyone who finds & reads this can and will come to their own conclusions. That they'll ask themselves questions & deliberate. There are obvious questions: What about the moral hazard? 

But there are other questions, too. Such as: Outside the obvious (overly generalized, milquetoast & easily propagandized) argument for "protecting depositors," who personally or professionally benefits the most from the disposition—sale, wind down &/or liquidation—of assets of the types on SVB's books and the updated valuation of loans, or lack thereof, etc., when afforded the protection of a veil, a curtain--when calculated &/or transacted away from the public, outside the light of the marketplace?

As an example: HSBC reportedly buying SVB's UK business for £1

Where I am presently on this matter is where anyone who intimately knows me expects me to be on this matter.

President Biden, the Fed, the technology VC & startup community and their media allies can try & dress up the SVB bailout as a Joe & Jane Q Public Depositor-friendly endeavour and not an action affording special consideration(s) to the economic (and, by extension, sociopolitical) positions & interests of the limited few comprising the "higher" classes, but I am not buying it. I'm not buying it at all. Especially when I consider the way that railroad workers were recently treated, and those (complicitly) silent as laborers got shafted.

Yours truly, 

A mild-mannered Kansan (definitely not the one from Smallville)

March 13th, 2023

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¹ If you're an independent journalist covering finance or technology or the class war, I recommend reviewing the most recent 10-K; you might consider Loans amount on the balance sheet & the notes to the financial statements; reviewing these could foster additional questions & considerations effortlessly leading you beyond the bank to theorizing on the likely extended impacts to & issues with the tech startup & venture finance (including LPs) ecosystem.

To Whom It May Concern:

Cautioning individuals against blindly accepting & submitting to mobbish tendencies & group think¹ is one thing. I'd argue that a noble, worthwhile endeavour. But don't get it twisted. Do not think for a minute that such positions are siblings to think pieces and articles serving as essential defenses & protections of status quo imbalances or cousinly to the insidious soft-shoe messages essentially urging the general public—comprised of multitudes with different backgrounds & lives, languages & dialects, faiths, etc., who through innovations now have access to public platforms & mics, as skewed as that access remains at times—to figuratively carve out their own tongues in the spirit of "civility" — a term often conveniently defined by present power structures. 

March 11th, 2023/last edit: March 12th, 2023

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¹ Reactionary, misguided, unsupportable, illogical, overly "woke," or incapable of being universally applied, etc.

The current strategy & tactics (efforts & machinations) executed by certain handfuls of people in positions of wealth, influence or privilege—or combination of the three—who are attempting to water down the disappointment & disillusionment &, yes, at times, the rage felt by many, a conditions & positions I believe fair & earned given recent history of repeated letdowns or outright failings of the oft-presented-and-held-out-as-blessèd institutions (coincidentally mostly operated by only the handfuls), is disgusting.

Present efforts to reframe, redirect & deflect are so obvious they are comical.

March 9th, 2023/edited: March 10th, 2023

Truly incredible seeing the western voices who have no trouble seeing power consolidate in those hands or those hands or those hands who suddenly—when political ideologies are incongruent—then rattle sabres about the worrisome nature & prospect of power consolidating & resting in another's hands. It's almost as if it isn't about lofty ideals, or about depth of convictions & virtues, but rather simply about nothing more than encouraging & soft shoeing regime change in the hopes that some other, new leader of another country may fit better with the talking head/war pig's personal politics.  

March 6th, 2023 / edited: March 7, 2023

After the Fall of Humanities™ comes the Fall of Comedy™, because who needs "professional" comedians when a state's governor has excavated from the swamplands a gormless armature of fascist clockwork machinery reminiscent of a bygone era. 

If a comic book, then I'd pen a man who rides atop an airboat strapped to the backs of four alligators; a cloudy canopy, the lingering scent of humus; Spanish moss dangles from the gunnels, static at the reptilian speed of 0.5mph; dressed in a Red Skull Halloween costume, a man shouts defiantly, "Ramming Speed!!"

Who knows what's to come. There are stranger things...    

March 3rd, 2023

Obviously, those [public or private] university administrators enjoying 7-figure salary + benefits packages can voice opinions on cultural conditions of economic inequality. I guess they have a right to do so. However, their words fall deafly on my ears. On the occasion I happen to hear them I reply simply: 

Hi! Some friendly advice... you should slither away now... find an abandoned rodent hole and in that shadowy unilluminated stillness go and fuck yourself... repeatedly... your life & lifestyle are buoyed by the present systemic conditions & dynamics (of wealth & income inequality)!! 

March 2nd, 2023 / last edit: March 3rd, 2023

March 1st, 2023

Another one coopted. Another undermined.

This is how it's done. Coinman,

bring another sack of money, if you'd be so kind.

February 23rd, 2023

The neocons, jingoists & their propagandizing amplifiers who have tightly gathered around each other the past couple of days to sing "Your President is mighty, Joe Biden is butch" like an olde time oversized barbershop quartet have brought me hours of laughter.

Apropos of nothing, if you've sailed in a regatta then you've heard or seen race officials use the airhorn, a can of compressed air. What I want to know is where do I get one of those cans that's been upgraded into the class of products & services categorized as belonging to the internet of things? You see, I want a 21st century version. I want to press a button that 1) makes a loud (air raid) noise, 2) makes people halfway around the world believe a dangerous regatta has officially started, and 3) also distributes a digital signal to propagandizing machinery that begins to broadcast the message that the vessel and captain for whom I crew will, undoubtedly, win the race despite the many obstacles and perils presently confronted. ¹

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¹ Leisurely sculling (with tiller) out of a sheltered harbor until our sails catch good wind    

 February 22nd, 2023, 7:48am/edited 4:31pm

All U.S. workers should have similar job security that Mayor Pete & railroad executives have (are receiving & enjoying) as of this writing!!

RE: Palestine, OH derailment

Thank goodness the aliens arrived just in time to distract and aid in sidestepping & avoiding the performance of in-depth, objective investigative journalism by mainstream media outlets and their employees on the [alleged] sabotaging of the Nord Stream pipeline and the train derailment in Ohio.

Truth & Honor takes another hit so securing the status quo, no matter how failing & corrupt, might enjoy another moment. 

Thank you, visitors from out of this world.

Popping balloons has become an outrageously expensive act of machismo.

Of all the revelations regarding the Twitter Files (censorship, mis/disinformation efforts , social media weaponization by special interests, etc.) still unfolding and trickling into the public marketplace of ideas, information & fact, the funniest for me at present is a (tangentially?) related tidbit shared with me by a friend about certain people (still) framing as compassionate their actions & attitudes that are better described as a full-on embrace of ego-driven infallibility—and by extension, therefore, artificial certainty—impelling adoption of fascist practice via their (mis)identifications of precisely who is and is not acting the role and playing the actual threat actor with respect to undermining democracy via censoring or disseminating misinformation or both. 

My eyes teared with laughter when friend shared the little data-nugget, some additional, related information and his opinion of it all.

To my friend: you may be correct in that some folks suffer a hero complex and also a blindness to its negative results.

I understand why some are positioning proposed MA legislation in a certain way; although I am somewhat sympathetic to the arguments for, I can also see through the spin; ultimately, reductions in prison time in exchange for organ & marrow donation is dystopian policy for a government to pursue.

Eek & Ick-level shit!!

Note: link included above is to article in The Kansas City Star. 

Scholarship & intellectual pursuit are fine. Arrogant, entitled (big/little) Ivy grads & their status quo structural power spawning grounds aren't.

Many of us predicted this would be the economic behavior on display "post-crisis." If true, this Moderna pricing is absolute nonsense.

Capitalism as practiced is a pig-ridden land.

I'm especially uninterested & unwilling to champion or cheerlead for privileged kids playing artist or intellectual (radical or not), or those born on Third Base acting as if they themselves hit a triple, or those who soft shoe civility messaging that simultaneously provides cover for & appeases status quo powerbrokers and so serves as methodology positioning them for the desired social-status climb during a period of history when millions of Americans are receiving a multi-faceted shafting.

January 12th, 2023, 3:25pm / last edit: 10-Feb-2023

I mentioned in a WTF post back in October how happy I was my Regnum of Collapse story didn't fall through the cracks, which it could easily have done since the idea came to me while outside gardening in the summertime. I thought this story about a kingdom on the verge—teetering on an edge—and "Pollinator People" was actually (basically) complete; however, I know there's more to the story, a second nemesis of, or threat to, that I, as writer, didn't yet know about when I drafted the earlier versions.

Few things entertain me (i.e., make me smile, chuckle & shake my head in disbelief) more than elitist scumbags busily engaged in their machinations.

If you, Constipated Reader, believe Elon & Co's rolling out & publicly displaying tweet impressions is for your emotional, psychological, spiritual or economic benefit then you are sadly mistaken.

Perhaps folks now better understand my recent decision to step away from social media; disheartened by those who (may've) assumed reasons.

December 23rd, 2022, 7:45am / last edit: 10:10am

My trash removal service continues adding fuel surcharges to my quarterly invoices, though gasoline prices have dropped.

Also, do you, Joe & Jane Q Public, think these additional fuel charges are included along with current base rate fees before being compared to prior year base rate charges when & if used as a component in calculating inflation? Or do you think just base rates are compared and therefore inflation numbers may not include & report on the entirety of the present (higher cost) economic situation?

Personally, I am of the opinion the working class (that, for me, includes various, but not all, office, clerical & other white collar¹ type jobs once excluded from the definition) are getting gored by a limited few, assisted by politicians and media & entertainment rodeo clowns.

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¹ people enjoying lucrative nine-month contracts as Distinguished Writers in Residence at ivy league schools ivies or seven sister schools, institutions with sufficient hubris to intimate an affinity to mythic titanic couplings, the Atlassian & Pleionean shags, with campuses as connections, portals providing access to structural stores of extant socioeconomic & political powers, would not be included in my definition of working class.

While this article may give some people the feels, a sensation that justice is being done, I’ll wait to clap until they charge or hold accountable famous rockers and movie stars who served as faces selling crypto & NFTs

This [article] to me basically does nothing but announce some alleged bad actors being charged with some financial scheme in hopes that Joe & Jane Public forget bigger names & familiar faces who are also responsible, in my opinion, for engaging in financial bullshit, like the cryptocurrency and NFT nonsense

I’ll give Elon shit where & when I think it’s deserved but his efforts to uncover censorship activities done by BIG Tech with or without government coordination & influence & aide & assistance (note: with is worse, obviously) is commendable, IMO.

In the past two days I have been researching, reaching out & reactivating various accounts that were unjustly suspended. The excuses communicated to me by different companies for why they were suspended are eerie & telling. 

Responses, paraphrased:

We’re sorry your accounts were accidentally marked as spam and were suspended by accident; we’ve corrected the issue.

The same basic reply from different companies that had unjustly suspended my accounts around the same timeframe. Quite odd. Given the account’s actual activity. (E.g., not spam.) 

Elon, you want to help in fixing the bullshit censorship, silencing, and overreach that happened and is still happening? OK. Fix it!! Fix it equitably. Stop spinning partisan BS though, because in my own experience the censorship was not done to right-leaning accounts or persons. So, again, yes: Help lift the veil and fix what needs fixing. But STFU otherwise. And stop making yourself the MC, ya dig?!

Injustice & Wealth Inequality Guerrilla Fighter (IWIGF):

“[name of tech wealthy founder/financier] is a fascist!!” “Tax the rich!!” et cetera]

IWIGF, post-Thanksgiving weekend (after learning ma & pa are limited partners/investors in PE/VC funds?):

“I’m moving to [pre-exit tech growth co]!!”

Real quick like (I’m at gym)…

I admit I have read only one Roald Dahl book: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I have seen three movies based on Dahl books. Two versions of Charlie and Fantastic Mr Fox. Because of my limited firsthand experience with Dahl’s work, I have no way of knowing if Dahl possessed only a limited imagination or whether Dahl could not conceive of a world beyond malice and trickery.

But I can say something about Merve Emre’s essay on Roald Dahl.

It has elicited telling replies, lobbed in from the literary Peanut Gallery, signaling an appreciation of a good skewering, a thorough cooking [of Dahl]. Replies with malicious undertones. Salivating. Savoring.

Let me be clear:

1. I am laughing at the pearl-clutching commenters using language written with adult sophistication but crafted by grown-ups clearly still wanting, or needing, and able to enjoy little trickeries, who blanket themselves in malicious, smug self-satisfactions, kindly demonstrating the conditions or states that apparently—if I am to believe the article and the comments—constrained Dahl’s conceptual framework or craft.

These replies, comments and RTs/QTs have made me laugh and made me curious. They’ve caused me to wonder if Dahl ever wrote for children or if the reach of Dahl’s imagination—stunted or limited as it may or may not have been—was sufficient to reach the edge of adulthood realities as evidenced by the child-like glee displayed by Twitter’s Reply Guys & Gals so enamored with paragraphs-as-punches.

2. I have no beef with Merve’s essay, or her. She can write whatever she wants, obviously. Unless of course she writes a takedown of Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators series, which were some of my most memorable childhood reads. If she goes after that series then I must, obviously, embrace Satan & call upon Lucifer’s hellhounds to hunt her down not out of malice, mind you, but simply to exercise their nature & character. In a manner & vibe similar to her essay’s commenters?

Long version: Folks, as far as I can tell only one panel member from the episode Susan [Sarandon] shared on her Twitter TL (see link) is an actual railroad worker. The rest are podcasters. My dad was a railroader. I have friends who are railroaders. I recognize my situation is different. Still, consider the following in lieu of Susan’s suggestion:

Seek out neighbors who work for the railroad. Listen to their story. Learn from them. Form some type of relationship that might carry forward. Build trust. Connection. In physical time-space.

And for the love of Christ stop sourcing the majority—if not all—of your information and news and opinion intake via Parasocial media personage & network modalities!!✌️

Short version: No thank you, Susan!!

Seeing prominent Dem's silence essentially protecting status quo that shafted union (railroad) workers and organized (physical) labor.

you fucking poseurs!!