2021s
America, in all its sadness: Teachers forced to grab money for their under-funded schools while the crowd cheers.
Every student in America should go on strike.
I’m trying so hard to ween myself from social media. Mostly from Instagram. I do use Twitter but mostly for news consumption, but I do get enough news from RSS, so I could see Twitter going away before too long.
I once again removed Instagram from visibility in my iPhone. It’s there, but hidden. I have found some solace in hyper-focused Discord rooms (mechanical keyboard stuff) and that feels somewhat better.
Murder as grift, that’s a new one.
Today I built my first mechanical keyboard. In the travails of life, it’s so incredibly minor it hardly qualifies as worth mentioning. But I’m mentioning it because it means something to me.
As I’ve mentioned in the past I’ve had a thing for these old-fashioned keyboards. Well, I guess they’re not really old-fashioned since these are all new and literally didn’t exist even 5 years ago, but the fact I was was able to get one was because of the community surrounding this. Now, I know I’m a pretty privileged white male so there’s just a lot of abuse I’m not faced with or even am aware of because it just doesn’t happen to me I’d the (generally) other white males I know. But the little communities I’ve become a part of have made this whole experience just so much fun.
Almost involved in these communities all are much, much younger than I am and, greedily, I’m stealing their energy, enthusiasm, and sometimes their eccentricities. I’m stealing their silliness too.
I’m not into luxury goods. I don’t need fancy clothes, jewelry, or cars. I’m pretty happy with a movie at home or a library book. But I guess I do like some luxury goods after all. As long as I can assemble them myself.
Speaking of that opening scene in Wall*E, I watched that new Apple TV+ movie Finch and there were several scenes that reminded me of bits of Wall*E. There was a scene on the elevated highway and a scene about the storm (the first one) where sensors went off, etc. I’m sure there were other scenes, too.
I used to think that opening scene in Wall*E depicting all the junk in space was a bit of an over exaggeration, but between SpaceX’s internet satellites and now Amazon’s planned satellites, I’m thinking it was pretty prescient.
The other day I was going to write about libraries. They are my favorite place in the whole wide world. I think I was going to say something along the lines of not only would the idea of starting libraries today be laughed at if they did not already exist, the very idea libraries don’t ask you buy anything when you are there AND there is a movement to remove fines from libraries just makes them so incredibly special as an institution. That also got me thinking (I’m not sure how) about child labor. I guess I was thinking about ideas that would never pass now and so creating libraries most certainly wouldn’t happen and passing child labor laws now really feel like it wouldn’t happen.
Then I read about Wisconsin and child labor. In 2021. We are not just sliding to the right, we are making big, big leaps.
I try to stay positive, I swear. But reality… Oh, newspapers.
I just celebrated a pretty mundane birthday (not a big one or anything). But my family and friends made it so special (mostly my wife, but everyone went along) that it might be one of the best birthday weekends I’ve ever had. I am so incredibly grateful.
In fact, almost 9 out of 10 respondents surveyed said choosing their work device was of importance to them (87%) and they’d even be willing to sacrifice part of their salary (89%) to be empowered to choose their technology.
Some of the respondents even said they would be willing to take a pay cut of up to 50% to continue working from home. And, 70% of American workers would forfeit benefits to maintain remote working status, most commonly: health insurance, paid time off, retirement accounts, and more.
Or these articles are full of it.
We do love our children so, food edition.
We do love our children so. Part four hundred billion.
With each passing month of the pandemic, Lilley has grown increasingly concerned that COVID-19 is linked to a massive increase in new diagnoses of pediatric diabetes throughout Mississippi.
Whenever I hear something is too hard or “impossible” I remember we, collectively as an American society, had a car on the moon FIFTY YEARS AGO! Yeah, I know, it wasn’t a car with a radio and cup holders (or doors for that matter), but come on. We CAN do great things if we all work together.
I finally read a James Baldwin book: If Beale Street Could Talk. I had heard of James Baldwin much of my adult life but I had never read any of his books. I took a picture of this passage:
People make you pay for the way you look, which is also the way you think you look, and what time writes in a human face is the record of that collision.
I am glad I read this book.
The email said that “if an instructor is notified by a student that the student has covid-19, the instructor may not tell the class that someone has tested positive for covid-19.”
We are now entering the lawless phase of American Democracy.