Status

Listening to the Nineties, today.

The author of a sub-blog I follow produced a series of posts called Insanely Great Nineties Songs You Aren’t Sick Of. Start here if that speaks to you… He has a post per-year and links to YouTube videos of all of the songs he mentions.

I worked for a record store from the summer of 1990 to the summer of 1994 and these hit home for me. But fair warning, these are mostly not Top 40 song lists.

This just in:

COVID is still deadly.

Putting some thoughts here, while they are on my mind:

Political parties and news organizations love to pretend that an election is an ideological mandate. When the candidate you vote for wins, it’s fun to feel that way.

I think an election is simpler, it’s a snapshot in time, and it’s very much about who is on the ballot. Sometimes a vote is yes to a candidate, to a party or to a platform, but sometimes a vote is against a specific person. I suspect that the 2016 and 2020 elections reflect this in America more than Americans traditionally would admit.

I think the political parties are their own machines, representing their own self-preservation and the agendas of large donors. As such, neither party in the U.S.A. would ever change anything fundamentally.

I don’t think that political parties represent a mandate any more than an election does.

I think political parties aren’t representative of us, of We The People, because the parties generally and the candidates specifically are beholden to money.

I think Ranked Choice Voting is worth a try and might better represent overall preferences, or show where more of us actually agree. We really need to pay attention to what we have in common and fight hard for that.

I think it’s really hard to step outside of a bubble I have willingly been inside of for decades.

I used to wonder why George Carlin seemed so angry toward the end of his career. I’m starting to understand.

Watching the snow fall in Saint Paul and singing a song quietly to myself

Just got news several extended family members are simultaneously ill with the UK Variant of COVID, one very seriously. They believe they were being cautious and don’t know how they got it.

Take care of yourselves, keep others safe. We aren’t out of the woods.

The forgotten director who gave us The Force, inspired 2001, and changed film

@ Ars Technica

Hot coffee and cookies on a cool morning

One of these things is not like the other