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Hey blog-readers, I’m not dead, just horribly horribly depressed.
I cannot stand small talk, because I feel like there’s an elephant standing in the room shitting all over everything and nobody is saying anything. I’m just dying to say, “Hey, do you ever feel like jumping off a bridge?” or “Do you feel an emptiness inside your chest at night that is going to swallow you?” But you can’t say that at a cocktail party.
Paul Gilmartin, The Mental Illness Happy Hour
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So what’s going on in current events? Um, a whole lot of people being terrible to each other on the Gaza strip and elsewhere from what I understand.
I used to have coherent thoughts.
Here’s a puppy that looks like a penis.
Chris Christie really is just a louder, fatter, meaner version of Romney. They both cater to the same corporate interests, and they both have no solutions for wealth inequality.
Yesterday, as I watched NBC’s Meet the Press, moderated by David Gregory, I was caught by surprise when I heard Gov. Chris Christie (NJ-R) use the phrase “shared sacrifice,” not once, but thrice. While I rarely give much thought to the words of campaign surrogates, as I take the candidate’s words as his or her official stance, this interview defined this election.
“Shared Sacrifice and a Balanced Approach,” also known as the “Shared Sacrifice Plan,” was President Obama’s fiscal message of 2011. He could frequently be seen touting the fact the he, and people in his income bracket, could afford to give a little more in this time of economic hardship for the country. Obama felt that if cuts to domestic spending, safety net programs included, were being considered, then revenue increases should be as well. His proposed solution would have had everyone with annual incomes greater than $250,000 experience…
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Dear Depression, Go Fuck Yourself
I’m posting today because, dear readers, that time of year has come. It gets dark outside before 7PM, I’m working full-time on my feet, and quite simply, I’m tired of blogging. I’m tired in general.
The part of my brain that does the motivational stuff isn’t working properly anymore.
This post probably isn’t an official “hiatus” post or anything like that. I just put down the payment to renew my domain name, after all. But until my brain reboots itself, there probably will be a slowing of original content, with an occasional political re-blog until the election. After that, I’m not sure…
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I’ve been thinking about Allie Brosh, the author of the web-comic-blog Hyperbole and a Half.
She posted her last comic,“Adventures in Depression,” about a year ago.
October 2011:
But trying to use willpower to overcome the apathetic sort of sadness that accompanies depression is like a person with no arms trying to punch themselves until their hands grow back. A fundamental component of the plan is missing and it isn’t going to work.
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I don’t know how she’s doing, or if she ever got better enough to finish her book. I haven’t heard much since the thread she responded to on reddit 6 months ago. But I hope she’s still doing well. And I hope she finishes her book.
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What the Fuck is Going on with Prop 8?
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A year ago I wrote that SCOTUS would decide on whether or not they would hear California’s Proposition 8 by the end of the term in June 2012. That turned out be totally wrong, which doesn’t make any sense to me since they managed to squeeze in a whole ruling on Obamacare.
Via Prop 8 Trial Tracker:
Oral argument in the Ninth Circuit challenge to Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act was scheduled for September 10. The Justice Department petitioned the Supreme Court for certiorari, to review the case, and the Court won’t decide whether to take the case until September 24 or later. Now the Ninth Circuit has canceled oral argument in the case pending the Supreme Court conference and subsequent decision to hear the case or not.
That’s for DOMA; no word on Prop 8 yet. I also don’t understand why CA same-sex marriages are on hold since it makes more sense for the Ninth Circuit’s ruling to be upheld in the meantime.
A troll on Facebook said yesterday that “gay marriage was so 2007.” Yanno, cause civil right are so passé.
My favorite is “abracadabrant.” =D
Language is a wonderful thing in that it’s always changing. Some words fade away into disuse and new ones are being made up every day. Myself, I have a love of old fashioned words. I say “swell” as often as I say “cool,” and I like to pretend it’s making a comeback. So while I keep working on “swell,” here’s a few extinct words that you can start using to describe the people and things you love. Next time? We’re bringing out the insults.
- abracadabrant: (adjective) marvelous or stunning; beyond belief
- bellibone: (noun) a woman exceeding in both beauty and goodness. A combination of the French words belle (beautiful) and bonne (good)
- blepharon: (noun) a person with magnificent eyebrows
- bloss: (noun) a term of endearment; a buxom young woman.
- cowfyne: (noun) a ludicrous term of…
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AppsBlogger: Nearly Half of All Kickstarters Fail
Mashable released an infographic last week from Appsblogger.com that had the statistic 41% of all projects did not meet their funding goals:
The infographic, created by AppsBlogger.com, looked at a total of 45,815 Kickstarter projects and nearly $215 million pledged funds. It shows that the secret to having a successful Kickstarter project is setting a realistic monetary goal and dedicating the right amount of campaigning days to spend on the site.
Shorter Kickstarter campaigns tend to better, with the average successful project lasting 38 days, compared to failed projects which averaged 43 days. Meanwhile, successful projects typically ask for around $5,487 compared to failed projects which, on average, ask for $16,365.
It’s no secret that social networking and promotion are keys to Kickstarter success. So now that I’ve lured you in…
A friend in Brooklyn, Meg Paska, who is essentially the face of the Brooklyn homesteading movement (also beekeeping) moved to a farm recently and is trying to start up her own place to run farm workshops based on Community Supported Agriculture.
She’s reached the half way point for her goal already with a couple more weeks to go. She wants to grow food and raise animals on a larger scale than what she was doing in Brooklyn.
Remember, projects succeed more often than they fail.
Go and help her out: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1296103575/the-homestead-at-seven-arrows
One of my main criticisms of Occupy was its inability to support specific legislation out of fear of appearing partisan or something. This blog post runs a similar vein about the Wisconsin recall and criticizes a journalist that criticizes the “Wisconsin uprising” for using “traditional politics.”
I’ve read many post-mortems on the unsuccessful effort to recall Scott Walker, many thoughtful, many not. What I haven’t seen discussed, though, are a few fundamental questions crucial to understanding whether the decision to recall Walker was wise, or the effort conducted well: how was the decision made, by whom, and with what awareness and acknowledgement of the risks and difficulties?
Andy Kroll has a thoughtful analysis of the “Wisconsin Uprising” that was first posted at TomDispatch and is now also up at Mother Jones. It’s a good piece, worth reading, but more starkly than most that I’ve read, it exposes what’s missing from almost all the Wisconsin analyses: Who, and on whose behalf, made the decision to recall Scott Walker?
Kroll’s use of verbs, tenses, group nouns and the passive voice reveal some of the problems with the belief that “the movement” was somehow co-opted or led astray by…
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