ROLEY

Category: Blog

  • Monday, November 14th, 2022

    • As we begin another week, I want to note what happened last week. While the craziness was going on, my wife was in the hospital, and it wasn’t a good thing for the first couple of days. Thankfully she turned a corner, and we returned home on Sat. So, she is fine, and WE are fine.

    But, on the other hand, I am not OK, and I’m not anywhere near fine. I haven’t been fine for a long time, and I’m surprised that I even have the self-awareness to recognize it. What I can’t do, haven’t been able to do, is define the problem. I can tell you that not a lot matters to me right now. I’ve just become indifferent to just about everything. My default response lately is a shrug and some Meh. I don’t want to be around people, haven’t wanted to be around people for a while. I’m getting sick of social media, I’ve almost deleted all my accounts 3 or 4 times in as many months. I basically feel like disappearing, I feel like no one would care much if I did, and I might just be ok with that. To be clear, I’m not having thoughts of self-harm. Not talking about unaliving. I’m talking about checking out from the world and being alone.

    I’m exhausted. I’ve had so much on my plate for so long it’s finally gotten to me. One of my ex-girlfriends from the Mesozoic Era that still keeps in contact with me every now and then tells me that I’m on the verge of a breakthrough. Doesn’t seem that way. A breakDOWN on the other hand, I’ll buy that. Of course, I probably can’t be having a breakdown if I’m thinking I’m having a breakdown. I don’t think that’s how it works. I’ve said on occasion that I think I need to see a therapist, the trick is finding the time to see a therapist. That’s funny. I know this, every tool I’ve learned to use since my moment of clarity in Sept 2005 isn’t working. I think I need help.

    • I heard someone ask another person if knowledge and belief had a divorce inside them, and that has got to be the politest of burns. I must remember that one.

    • Congress is back in session today to begin their ‘lame-duck’ session. I encourage you to watch the proceedings on C-SPAN and stop letting other people tell you about it. See it for yourself. As we get closer to the end of the Continuing Resolution to fund the Government on December 16th, start taking note of the things the parties say. They’re going to complain about being held up in DC when they could be home for the Holidays, just like they’ve said for every fucking year they kick the can down the road and put themselves in this position. This is the beginning of an education on how the playbook only changes colors every few years, but everything else is the same. Watch what happens in the House if the GOP take the House. The Dems will start using all the complaints and parliamentary tricks the GOP used. They also won’t actually solve anything definitively. Ever. This should make you mad.

    • On a related note, the pleas for bipartisanship will last about a week until the President says or does something they can interpret as not really meaning it. Just like they do at the beginning of every Congress as long as I can remember. Really. This bullshit rarely changes, and that should outrage you. I promise you, if people actually watched Congress do it’s job, they would demand better Reps and Senators. Also, younger. Grassley is 89 years old. He voted with a feather and a fucking inkwell when he started. I’m begging y’all. Start paying attention to first degree sources, and stop giving the outrage machine, the angertainment, the infotainment…the NOOZ your time.

    I’ll leave you with a photo Kimmers took of a minor victory. Oreo is very clearly Kim’s cat, but she’s starting to trust me. I think some guy abused her and abandoned her, and that’s why she lives here now. This was a pleasant surprise.

  • Sunday, November 13th, 2022

    Hey, there’s a new Podcast in the feed today. Also, if you’re so inclined, there are four new bonus podcasts over at Patreon. Until the end of the year, those Patreon podcasts (and anything else I put up there) are available to everyone. Enjoy.

    I’ve been playing around with Mastodon a little, and it just reminds me of the path we took to get to this point on the internet timeline. Most of us regular (old) folk started in a walled garden like CompuServe or AOL. Then we branched out with things like Netscape, ICQ, Usenet, and IRC. Things became more open. Social Networks swung the penduluum back in the other direction and made the data we gave them a commodity to be traded, and then someone figured out how to weaponize it. That’s why I find the Fediverse so intriguing. There are open alternatives to the social networks we use today. Is it ready for prime time? Not quite yet. The Mastodon server I selected was on the verge of a nervous breakdown for the surge of signups. I’d say take a look and play around with these alternatives. It can’t hurt. Not sure if this is the future, but it’s an option if you’re sick of the status quo.

    Following the Senate races, I’m glad to see the side interested in preserving democracy held on. That said, I don’t trust Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema any father than I could comfortably spit a rhinoceros. Here’s a scenario to consider: Let’s say that Georgia proves that it’s brain dead and elects Walker. That means the Senate remains 50/50 as it is today. If I’m Mitch McConnell, I’m offering the moon on a goddamn string for one or both of them to pull a James Jeffords, switch parties, and hand control of the Senate to the GOP. Manchin is the likely candidate to flip, but don’t take Sinema for granted. Those two will go to the place they can have the most power, and exert the most influence.

    Let’s say that the Dems hold both houses and the Senate at 51/49 with Warnock winning the runoff. Then Biden realistically 12 months to put the fucking hammer down and pass his agenda, maybe 18 if you want to push it. You put so much pressure on Manchin/Sinema you make diamonds out of them., eject the filabuster, hit the warp speed button, and pass all the things. Codify Roe and Obergfell. Pass the College Loan Forgiveness Plan. Pass 35 dollar insulin for everyone. Expand healthcare to be on par with the rest of the world. Pass gun control laws, paid family leave, fund the bullet train we should have had years ago…every ding dang thing. I promise you once those things kick in and start to help us regular folks, that’s the thing that scares the GOP the most. They know they’ll be back in the minority for a generation at least.

    Here’s something else that scares the GOP: the calendar. By 2028, Millenials and Gen Z will be the largest voting block out there. By 2035 or 2040, white folks will be in the minority. They know this, and every trick they play to supress the vote, gerrymander districts and the like are designed to keep Evangelical White Republicans at the top of the food chain. It’s literally an economic and political apartheid if they get their way. We can’t let that happen, and I think the young people are going to ensure that it doesn’t happen.

    Remember to hug a pollster today, they’re very fragile right now. Thoughts and Prayers.

    Assholes.

  • Wednesday, November 2nd, 2022

    • I might be nitpicky here, but I saw an ad for a product called the Bionic Spotlight last night. I don’t want a Bionic Spotlight. I don’t know who they’ve been. A roundabout way of saying that words mean things.

    • From the Wayback Machine, ABC News from 11/8/1979. The show that would become Nightline was originally a daily recap of what was happening with the Iranian Hostages. So early on that Ted Koppel was a reporter, and Frank Reynolds anchored. Koppel was at his Alfred E. Neuman best.

    • I have reached the point that the candidate who tells me that my mailbox is not going to be stuffed with election bullshit, and my phone isn’t going to blow up with text messages will get my fucking vote. I’m really more upset about the mail, trash that just takes up space.

    • I may have mentioned this before, but I think I have figured out one of my main problems. The experts call this object permanence, which is a fancy way of saying if I can’t see it, it doesn’t exist. That’s why I’ve been so unsuccessful at keeping a journal of any substance. On the other side of the coin, having all that shit out on my desk looks cluttered, and my poor brain has to reconcile that. No wonder I’m fucked. I literally have a journal that I wrote “DON’T PUT ME AWAY” in Sharpie. WHY BRAIN DO THIS?

    • Last night, something happened to my website, it caught a critical error. Anytime I’ve run across this in WordPress, where it happens suddenly after having been writing a draft earlier in the day, it’s a plugin. What I didn’t expect after deactivating the plugins in PHPMyAdmin and reactvating them one by one, it was Jetpack that was the error. It had updated during the day automatically and borked my site. I think what I need to do is control when these plugins activate and not let them auto-update. Hive mind, what say you? Yeah?

    • Update about the Patreon podcasts: They’re public for now. I think I’ll keep them public until January 1st, and then flip the switch to put them behind the paywall. Everything will be that way until after Jan 1st, I think. …and there was much rejoicing…

  • Tuesday, November 1st, 2022

    • Back in the deep, dark 1980s, there was a shop at Pembroke Mall called A Bit of England. This was the place you went to find chessboards and darts accessories, and most importantly, role-playing games stuff. It was in that store I found my two favorite games, Shadowrun and Paranoia. Pembroke Mall has gone through a cubic shitload of changes in the ensuing years, and Bit of England got the shit end of the stick. Eventually, they got evicted from the Mall because getting knocked down to build a senior living community. If you consider that the demographic that still goes to a Mall is my age, it was already a senior living community.

    I ran some errands and found the store’s new location. I had to walk in. It was just how I remembered it. I ended up walking out with a set of RPG dice on impulse. I haven’t played in years. Call it a memento, I guess. I’ll put them on my ‘shelf of the ego’ and look at them now and then. Nice to walk in the past for a moment.

    I’m not a person who chooses to walk in the past for very long. Like a lot of people, I didn’t have a particularly nice childhood. I have parts of the backstory that I love of course; I will talk your ears off about Guantanamo Bay in the early 80s. There was something special about that place, and I loved living there. But the common thread of my backstory is how often I was left to my own devices. I understand that’s common among my generation, but I don’t wear it like a badge of honor like some creators do on TikTok. I’m Gen X, and as we like to say, “Whatever.”

    • I see the former guy appealed to SCOTUS in another attempt to keep the House from seeing his tax records. I don’t know why you’re even trying at this point. If trends are accurate, the House is going to flip Republican, and that’s it. That effectively means Trump is going to get away with a lot of stuff he should be going to jail for, because our justice system grinds ever so slowly for people in that rarified air. You and I would be well into our first year in Federal lockup. Of course, once the former guy announces he’s running for President again, all investigation is going to halt. He’s counting on that, and he’s counting on heading back to the WH so that he can’t be touched for another four years. We should have arrested him when you had the chance. We’re all kinds of fucked.

    • A serious question: What is the objective reality that we agree exists? I’m afraid it got drowned in a bathtub somewhere. Not to delve too far into Ayn Rand, but one of the central tenets of Objectivism is that A is A, or a chair is a chair. I honestly believe that we have somehow split off into two groups, one that believes in an objective reality that can be observed, and one that believes what they are told is reality. Maybe it’s been this way for a long time, but this darkest timeline we’re living in has brought it into a sharper focus for me. I don’t know how else to explain it other than to say when presented with a demonstrable fact, there is a group of us here in [American] society that can deny its existence based on [insert bullshit here]. How do we resolve that? Can we resolve that?

    • Finally, the first bonus pod dropped into the Patreon Feed today if you’re so inclined. First ep of the main show will be this weekend. LFG, as the youngs say.

  • Monday, October 31, 2022

    • I have reached the point where I despise the word “woke”. I think it’s become co-opted in the same manner that “fake news” was.

    Dictionary.com defines woke as:

    Having or marked by an active awareness of systemic injustices and prejudices, especially those involving the treatment of ethnic, racial, or sexual minorities.

    It seems that the only people using that term these days are using it disparagingly, and I guess I need to ask why. Are we not supposed to be aware of injustices and prejudices that exist? Am I not supposed to be aware of things that happened in the past? See, I think we’re using the wrong term. Those things aren’t “woke”, they’re *kind*. I choose to be kind, and instead of trying to defend against the term “woke”, I would rather ask those disparaging people why it’s wrong to be *kind*.

    Of course, in a few of those cases, It’s the bare minimum to be a decent human, but that’s another story.

    • Here’s a tool for your toolbox: Meet Evan Sernoffsky. He’s the goofball that originally reported that Paul Pelosi’s assailant was in just underwear. The stupid among us grabbed hold of that and won’t let go. Here’s Sernoffsky’s retraction, which the stupid seem to have missed. That’s funny. UPDATE: The AP reports that the suspect in the attack on Paul Pelosi told police that he wanted to break Nancy’s kneecaps and hold her hostage. Gaslight that, morons. BTW, here’s the DOJ complaint.

    • I see that Taylor Swift has made history by having every song in the Top 10 of the Hot 100 charts. I seem to remember the Beatles having the Top 5 in 1964, and I distinctly remember thinking that no one could possibly top that. Madonna didn’t, MJ didn’t, Whitney didn’t, and BRITNEY didn’t. I thought the chance of that ever happening had gone away. I was wrong. I was also wrong about Taylor. My friends, she may not be my cup of tea, but she is legit.

    • I’m the generation of kids that made yellow ribbons for the Iranian hostages. The Islamic Revolution of 1979 was the start of that whole thing, when they deposed the Shah and installed Khomeni as the leader of that country. To see this generation now pushing back against it is amazing to watch, but as you watch it, be mindful of one thing: They shoot without shame. In addition to Mahsa Amini’s death, remember Neda Agha-Soltan while you’re at it. She died in 2009 in the eleciton protests, you may remember her.

    “…and these children that you spit on as they try to change their worlds…”

    • People shooting each other outside a liqour stor in Tallahassee? Shocked, I tells ya. DeDipshit wants to pass permitless carry in Florida. What could possibly go wrong?

    • Just block *Elon. Just block anyone who screenshots Elon. Just block anyone who wants to argue about Elon. Sure, Twitter’s going to auger into the ground like a flaming fucking lawn dart, but I think it might be super fun to watch. I mean, it’s just day three and look where we are. I did sign up for Bluesky, so…

    *Also applies to Trump if he’s reinstated.

  • Judge Rules Business Doesn’t Have To Cover PrEP

    Buzzfeed:

    Hotze’s attorneys argued that he believed PrEp “facilitates and encourages homosexual behavior, intravenous drug use, and sexual activity outside of marriage between one man and one woman,” and that providing such preventive medicine would make him complicit in that behavior

    O’Connor agreed with that argument and found the Department of Health and Human Services had failed, under the provisions of the RFRA, to show it had a compelling governmental interest to substantially burden Braidwood’s religious beliefs, and that this was the least restrictive means for doing so.

    In response to government arguments that there was no factual support for Hotze’s beliefs that PrEP facilitates anti-Christian behaviors, O’Connor ruled the courts were required only to test the sincerity of these beliefs, not their correctness.

    This guy is old enough to have lived through the 1980’s.  I certainly remember that time.  I also remember Ryan White, and he didn’t end up with AIDS because of a behavior or a lifestyle. He got a tainted blood transfusion.  Magic Johnson wasn’t gay either, although you could make the argument that his was a behavioral issue.   Two examples that illustrate the point Mr. Hotze and Judge O’Connor would like you to forget: HIV / AIDS is not limited to the LGBT+ community.  It’s people who needed blood transfusions, it’s promiscuity without protection, it’s addicts who share needles, and most importantly, it’s people who used to do those things, straightened up, and might be attending your church today.  

    PrEP saves lives.  As with all things Christofascists, the cruelty is the point.  

  • Rethinking The News

    From Wajahat Ali’s Twitter:

    Right-wing take over of Politico and CNN, plus mainstream outlets like CBS News and others actively courting Trumpers and pulling their punches for sake of GOP “access” reveals everything terrible about mainstream media and its normalization of fascism. It’s going to get worse.

    …

    Last year, a producer told me how low the bar had become for conservative voices on TV. They had to 1) Accept Biden won the election and 2) Not support white supremacy or be overtly white supremacist. It was very difficult to find these voices.

    Mainstream media outlets like those listed above aren’t moving rightward, but they are normalizing “bothsides-ism”.  That’s the problem; there aren’t both sides to be had here if you’re a sane person.  Anyone who insists that there are both sides to this issue either doesn’t get it or is paid not to.