Powderhorn

Well, well, well ...

My mom would make offhand references to "come the revolution" when I was growing up. I'm not going to say she went out of her way to suggest that would yet skip a generation, but if she knew it would hit me, she was hiding it well.

She was a Democrat, to the point of being part of a few campaigns for congressmen and senators. My dad, on the other hand, was fully on board with the Thatcher/Reagan trickle-down mindset. Why Thatcher first? We didn't have a portrait of Reagan in the office.

We were nonetheless a family that got invited to things. The Christmas party with Sandra Day O'Connor every year. Gubernatorial candidates from both parties would show up on off years.

When you grow up like this, it's very easy to believe the system is working for everyone. College was paid for, even though I never finished. The experience of going into debt would wait a few years. And then, the layoffs.

At this point, the only reasons I'm not totally fucked are I work freelance and can't be found. I've not talked with the friend whose address I use in months on account of creditors showing up at 9 p.m. attempting to serve papers. His kids go to bed at 8, so I get it.

But what has sprung from this is a drastic shift without a clutch (ask your parents) from thinking being part of the system was the best outlet to effect change to having zero belief the system can be changed. Sure, it can be, but we'll get the same results, just slightly less lemon.

I don't think you can get much more establishment than aspiring to The Washington Post. I still have an April 2003 A1 where I moved a hed after the AME/News came down to review my redesign, 18 months out of college and without a degree, and invited me up for a night on the desk. It sounded a lot more impressive at 23, I'll grant.

He'd then tell me in Savannah, Ga., over a beer at the hotel bar that he thought I was Post material, but I needed to get the immature shit out of my system, first. Ahead of the Post contingent and me piling into a car where the main topic was "what bullshit did Woodward pull today?" Seriously, consider hearing this conversation less than a year into your career in journalism.

I believed in it back then. I can't now. And to be honest, it's broken me of having a full eight hours to devote to the craft. I'm lucky to have four hours before by brain says no.

What the Post and L.A. Times have done may look bad externally; internally, I assure you it looks worse. NYT thankfully showed its true colours quite some time back, so this was more waiting for shoes to drop.

I did not join Beehaw to change the world. I joined my school paper to do that.

And, well, now Gannett owns everything. You can't even sell efficiencies to managers there, since they need bad data to justify their jobs.

There is no solution here within the scope of the current economic model. So, congratulations, deregulated capitalism, you fucking turned someone raised to accept you. I suspect many others have something to say.

Not that there's anything good about this, but hearing that both Steven Pinker and Richard Dawkins "resigned" from whatever honorary positions they had with the FFRF rather made my heart sink.

I was a linguistics student for a time, and Pinker's books always had a sociolinguistic aspect to them, but I never saw transphobia. It was admittedly a while back, so it really wasn't yet settling into the national consciousness.

I also admired Dawkins' writing style; again, I saw nothing transphobic.

So for both of these guys to be like "nope, you should have totally kept a piece up that says transwomen should have fewer rights and options" is, maybe, the final insult of 2024.

... and so it begins. Not that this is the first example, but what's somewhat scary here is that people feel this emboldened before he even uses an oath to dismantle everything the oath requires him to uphold.

And the FDA is supposed to ... do what again? Oh, that's right, avoid shit like this. Enjoy the regulatory capture; tip your ag company, avoid the veal.

It's almost like financial services exist to shaft the poor.

I should have known better than to have something delivered just before Christmas. While a DC-DC charger from the alternator was delivered, it was not the right one and utterly useless in a chassis that cannot serve as ground.

In the past, this sort of error has been fixed by returning the errant item to the locker and having a replacement on its way. That's apparently no longer an option. I have to go through the replacement process, wait for the money to be refunded to my credit card, and then wait for the thrill of being allowed to order again. I sent the requested photographic proof, showing I'd received the box for a nonisolated version, and the rep said he was an electrician and immediately saw the problem on an aluminum chassis, but his hands were tied.

Earliest I can now attempt to receive the correct item is Dec. 30. Because it's cloudy often this time of year, this charger is the baseline needed for solar to consistently be reliable; last year at this time, I had two mains options to plug into.

It's beginning to look a lot like a shit Christmas. There's nowhere in town that sells what I need. On the plus side, at least I can't work without reliable internet, and it looks like T-Mobile just decided it doesn't like my 5G SIM card for that.

It's difficult to know whether sharing mine would seem self-serving or inviting.

It was election night, 2000. I was newly 21, as was my editor at the college paper. She got to go to an election party where the mood turned out sombre, and I'm left to figure out just how much we blow deadline by. Then call an editorial cartoonist at 3 a.m. to draw up a recreation of the Dewey hed. Which took up half the page above the fold (you don't call someone at 3 a.m. and then bury the art) under a hed of "Florida Holds the Keys."

Once we'd gotten the flats to the printer (due by midnight), USA Today was already on the rack on the Ave. when we got back. The first dek on the A1 election story was "Florida holds the key." This is where I start thinking I might be capable of pulling this off as a career.

That night was a crazy outlier. Goddamn Aaron Sorkin scene writ large. We weren't just short presidential results, but I think there was a congressional district too close to call. There was, of course, attrition as the hours got so late they became early, but with those who remained, there was a bond.

And, frankly, I'd take that night again over an orgasm any day. Or night.

Dear god, no. This is an abjectly terrible idea. Dems aren't going to win until they stop being the other party of billionaires who are centre-right at best yet claiming to be for the working man. Come on, learn something from this election. We want a Sanders or AOC, not this milquetoast rejection of the full scope of the Overton window.

This is going to be a crazy four years, and to suggest we come out on the other side wanting a return to the same bullshit that held wages and lifestyles back for, by then, 50 years, is a failure to read the room. No one wants what the Democratic party currently offers, and I don't see her suddenly becoming progressive. We don't need another president on the cusp of getting Social Security when elected.

We want that for ourselves after paying into the system for so long, but that's not going to happen. Find a new standard-bearer or die. Learn. Adapt. Run on real change, not the incremental shit that was resoundingly rejected and so generously provided us with the shitshow we're about to endure. Voters stay home when you do that, and here we are.

I mean, how many CEOs need to be killed before anyone gets the message that what they're offering has the current panache of liver and onions? Doesn't matter how well it's prepared; the world has moved on, and whoever gets the nomination in '28 needs to as well. Harris is not that candidate.

Here we go again.

(edited title to revise death toll down per latest reporting; we'll see if it stays that way)

0027CST update: The shooter has been identified as a 15-year-old girl, whom I won't name given standard journalistic practice for minors. That's available in the link, alongside an inexplicable reference to her sometimes using another name, as though this is somehow relevant. The good news is two have been released from hospital, but two remain in critical condition.