Category: politics

also

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It’s a fact that I’m not technically allowed to watch Bruce Lee movies, in that I get kind of hyped up and destroy college apartments.

But damn, man. So good. He beat up Jackie Chan and broke Chuck Norris’ neck (Chuck, who had a good thing going until he came out MAGA and now, no one thinks he’s invincible; he’s just another asshole).

Anyway, I should probably clean this mess up.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1699 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Sloppy Seconds, Tucker Max (somehow even stupider than the other ones)
Comics: Tomb Raider v2 18, Lara Croft And The Frozen Omen 1-3
Music: War, U2

rounding down

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I honestly don’t know where to go from here. The situation in the States gets worse and worse; they don’t even pretend to care about reality or facts anymore. They just spout lies.

How long before they just start murdering their opponents? I mean, Virginia Guiffre did not die of suicide – that’s bullshit.

They’re already doing it. The question is, how long before they just fake some charges and start doing it against the people they really want to do it to – senators and governors and journalists and such.

Someone hide AOC.

You know it’s where they’re headed – there will be no election in 2026. Not if they can help it.

You know if there is, and it’s not just a total scam, they’d get blown right the fuck out of office.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1086 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Sloppy Seconds, Tucker Max (nascent right wing culture, right here)
Comics: Tomb Raider v2 6-9
Music: Walk On The Wild Side: The Best Of Lou Reed, Lou fuckin' Reed

almost, but not quite

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Thought I’d be caught up by now, but nope.

Too much doomscrolling.

Motherfuckers. Stop being so doomsy.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1013 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: SNAFU, Ed Helms
Comics: Monster War 4, Tomb Raider: The Greatest Treasure Of All 1, Tomb Raider: The Beginning 1, Tomb Raider v2 1
Music: Wake Me Up When September Ends, Green Day (please)

shocker

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The shooter’s not a lefty. He’s a right wing nut for whom the man who wants to stone gays and take away women’s right to vote isn’t extreme enough.

Shocker. Colour me shocked.

And yet, still, MAGA rages on, vowing war and retaliation against the left, who, once again, had nothing to do with the violence.

That is, as it has been and will continue to be, exclusive to the realm of fascists and bigots.

AKA – the modern right wing.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1402 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Carpet People, Terry Pratchett
Comics: Tomb Raider 50, Monster War 1-3
Music: Waiting For Herb, The Pogues

charlie kirk

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Let’s be clear: political violence, and indeed, violence of any kind, is not okay.

But let’s not do the thing we always fucking do when someone dies and pretend like they weren’t a complete asshole. This man actively spoke against the rights (and lives) of gays, trans people, women, blacks and various other minorities, often in hateful, violent terminology.

All you really need to know about the guy is that he thought gays should be stoned and it was fine if toddlers died in school shootings because it meant he got to keep his guns.

So, no, I’ll decry violence to the end of days, but I will not shed a single fucking tear for a man who believed the murder of toddlers was fair game, and that empathy was something to be exterminated.

And don’t pretend, right wingers, like you’re on the higher path here: you did nothing when children were shot, you mocked Democrats who were shot or beaten, made fun of George Floyd and Paul Pelosi, and were upset that the kidnapping of Gretchen Whitmer was stopped before it happened.

You cheer concentration camps and openly assert it’s right and good for people to die of preventable diseases. You laud Donald Trump’s violent, divisive, bigoted rhetoric and are fine with the U.S military blowing up a boat of people without warning or due process, even when they had no actual idea who was on it.

So, yeah, spare me your false equivalence.

If you despise political violence, you do it across the spectrum, as I do – and I’ll say it again – the shooting of Charlie Kirk, no matter what he was, is not okay. If you only care about it when it’s some guy you only just realized existed because Donald Trump somehow broke the news before the rest of the world knew?

Well, then fuck you and your disingenuous sanctimony.

It doesn’t serve you, or this world, unless your only aim is more, not less, violence.

As long as it’s against the people you hate, right?

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1555 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Carpet People, Terry Pratchett
Comics: Tomb Raider 46-49
Music: Eye Of The Tiger, Survivor

three down

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That’s it. The villain has been shanked, the prison’s a riot, the mayor’s fled the country.

All of this will make sense.

None of it will make sense, because it is about nonsense.

Our current nonsense.

LET THEM EAT LAW.

(Sorry, don’t know why I went all Dredd there for a minute – speaking of which, who saw the Karl Urban version? Fuckin’ terrific! I love Lena Headey! Something tells me she’s one of these people who plays an incredible villain, but is an absolute sweetheart in real life. Or so I hope. I honestly hope everyone is sweet in real life.)

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1408 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: The Time Machine, H.G. Wells (better than I remember, but I'm still icked by the classism)
Comics: Tomb Raider 43-45, Tomb Raider: Arabian Nights 1
Music: Extras: A Collection Of Rarities, The Jam

rants that went the wrong way

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But were still somehow kind of right? Like, it’s the stuff you don’t want to say out loud, because it’s the kind of thing that a good and just society would never say or do, but ultimately, knows sometimes needs to be done?

I mean, I’m not saying anything in particular. In this case, it’s a part of Bad Neighbours, a peak point where things have gone off the rails and the main character has made a certain decision that ultimately, is the wrong decision, but also, kind of the right decision, in the way that we’d all like to ignore Nazis and let them have their little hate parades and such as long as they’re just out there playing pretend and don’t have any actual power and aren’t physically hurting other people.

But the second they do that? Well, I mean, I know how Jack Kirby would have seen it: see a Nazi, punch a Nazi, and certainly, the second there’s violence, it’s up to us to oppose it. I truly believe in the Tao concept of entering a fight like a funeral, with the same solemnity, and the intent to simply end it as quickly and peacefully as possible.

But then, what do I know? I’m a lifelong pacifist who has never actually been in a fight, beyond some wrestling with my older brother as kids. I don’t think I’ve ever been punched in the face.

Then again, maybe that’s because I’m not a Nazi.

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1826 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: Captain Paul, Alexandre Dumas
Comics: Tomb Raider 33-36
Music: Experimental Jet Set, Trash And No Star, Sonic Youth (palate cleanser after Bette fucking Midler. Sweet fuck, why do I do these things to myself?)

guilt

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I mean, I’ve got a lot of it.

I try not to have it. I know people that look like me have done all kinds of horrible shit, and indeed, due to stupidity or selfishness or ignorance of the world around me, I’m sure I’ve done more than my fair share.

I haven’t been a great man. I’m still not, as far as I know.

My life has been defined by trauma – not real trauma. I was never beaten or raped or witnessed a horrible crime. I have PTSD from bad employers, but who doesn’t?

My trauma seems inconsequential; it’s not warzone PTSD or survivor’s guilt.

It’s knowing that every day, things get worse. Brain beaten, bit by bit, until my brain feels like a hockey enforcer with CTE, even if it might not look that way.

But it’s all excuses, or so I’m told. Avoidance. I should feel guiltier, they tell me. I should feel the weight of two thousand years of straight white male oppression.

And I do.

I don’t know how I stand it.

I don’t know how anyone stands it. I sit at the bottom of this world, like Atlas without the muscles, squished, guts oozing out my sides, eyes literally popping out of my skull like a sausage being run over by a Mack Truck.

And yet, somehow, still alive.

I feel it. I feel it all.

I feel the world’s pain, its anger, its suffering.

And I’m not sure how much longer I can stand. 

Target: 1300 words
Written: 2287 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: World Of Ptavvs, Larry Niven
Comics: Tomb Raider Journeys 5-6, Tomb Raider 23-24
Music: Exile On Main Street, The Rolling Stones

edited out

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I’ve noticed a weird trend among my extended family over the years.

For whatever reason, they edit us out of their public lives. I’m not really sure why; it’s not like we’re over here spouting off Trumpisms or committing acts of wanton criminality.

Still, somehow, we never seem to make it into the pictures. If you searched online and tried to find me or my stepdaughter in any picture with my granddaughter (that we didn’t post ourselves), you’d never know we’d even met. Similarly, though pictures of my nieces are routinely posted with friends and other family members and friends of the family, we, despite having spent far more time and energy on the girls, are noticeably absent. These pictures are often accompanied by comments about how great that person is for the kids.

The suggestion, by way of omission, is that we are not good for the kids.

Indeed, at both nieces’ graduations, in which we were present, we weren’t mentioned at all. Well, technically, the second one, no one got thanked at all, it was more about musing on being empty nesters, but in the first one, well, every rando from birth to that day got mentioned, no matter how little time they spent with or on the girls, except us, who were with them more than anyone, except their own parents.

My youngest niece and my wife have a ridiculously close relationship and yet, for some reason, even she can’t make the cut.

It’s a gripe I’ve had for a while, but I just can’t figure it out. It’s not like we’re embarrassing white trash, out here spouting QAnon and JK Rowling.

I’m pro-equality, anti-racist, anti-bigotry of all kinds, anti-fascism, pro-free health care, pro-basic income and taxing the rich (in fact, let’s just do away with billionaires altogether), and I believe all people should be evaluated based on the things they actually do, not whatever random defining fact, like who they’re into or skin colour, happens to be one part of their make-up. Assuming that’s all there is to a person (even if that person is yourself) is such an injustice to people as they are.

We’re all so much more. We contain multitudes, and the only thing we should really judge by is action.

Anyways, not complaining, I get it. People curate their social media and they don’t want people they consider “lesser than” ruining their carefully crafted social images. I personally want my reputation to be based on what I do, not the fucking fluff people put on Instagram.

We all know that shit’s B.S. anyway. Your performative liberalism is better than being a Trumper, for sure, but it’s also shittier than being, you know, a good fucking person.

Disingenuous is better than evil; that doesn’t mean it’s good. Same with hypocrisy. If your hypocrisy is getting people killed, obviously, that’s worse, but if it’s just stalling real progress because the only thing it does is serve your reputation by being part of the collective (and socially and mentally toxic) online outrage?

Well, shit, dude. That sucks too, just not as bad.

It doesn’t help anyone.

And shouldn’t we aim to be better than, you know, not as bad as the other guy?

I mean, I know that’s what I’m aiming for, even if I fall short quite a bit. Being a good person, a happy person (something I’ve not entirely given up on, despite the last forty-eight years of evidence), that’s all I’ve ever wanted. To write me off as an alcoholic redneck and ignore every other aspect of me and the rest of my family (and I suspect a great deal of this is rooted in ableism, even if it’s unconscious), well, then, fuck.

That’s pretty shitty, and it doesn’t feel good.

Maybe we strive for better, yeah?

Target: 1300 words
Written: 1203 words, novel: Bad Neighbours

Read: World Of Ptavvs, Larry Niven
Comics: Tomb Raider: The Greatest Treasure Of All 0, Tomb Raider 19-20, Tomb Raider Journeys 2
Music: An Exciting Evening At Home With Shadrach, Meshach And Abednego, Beastie Boys