Musings – Page 3 – Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3

Things Are In The Air

Things are in the air. I keep searching for a breath of hope. I’m not finding it.

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Too many conversations with too many good folk who are either in denial, purposefully choosing to avoid difficult discussion, or just too wrapped up with life things to be able to pay attention. With some there’s a see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil feel to it.

I can’t begrudge anyone any way they need to find their path through what we’re going through. I do hope that at some point they begin engaging with the reality of what’s ahead.

It’s coming. And we need to be ready.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate the holiday.

Thanksgiving Dog and Cat Use.

May you find joy, comfort, laughter and love in the company of family and friends today. May your football team not embarrass you, and may your cup be full. Eat, drink, be merry, and give thanks for your blessings. My hunch is these holidays will too soon feel different going forward.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

A Nice Thanksgiving Day Tonic for Football Fans: ‘It’s In The Game’ Madden NFL

Fun behind the scenes look at the creation if the popular Madden NFL video game.

Football is, for better or worse, a Thanksgiving Day ritual. There’s always a game playing from morning until night. Before, during, and after meals. Before, during, and after naps. Sometimes the stakes don’t matter. Sometimes they do. It’s may not be the main course, but it’s that side-dish that’s shows up every Thanksgiving-loved by some, despised by some, but always a tradition.

If you’re unlucky enough to follow some of the teams playing this year, (Chicago Bears, NY Giants, Dallas Cowboys) who have put up dismal records so far, and you still need a football fix, It’s In The Game, Madden NFL might be a satisfactory substitute instead of watching the games those teams are scheduled to play. I’m not saying those games will suck, but chances are they’ll be background noise even before the tryptophan, the booze, or the gummies start to kick in

It’s In The Game Madden NFL is currently streaming on Amazon Prime and the four episodes chronicle some of the victories and defeats behind the long running and popular Madden NFL video game franchise. If you’re a fan of the sport, the video game, or just a gamer in general, it’s fascinating backstage viewing, though not the best produced documentary I’ve seen. I haven’t played the game since the 90’s, but I’ve watched cousins, nephews, and a bevy of friends love it and play it far into adulthood.

So, if you’re a football fan looking for a tonic that’s not really a palette cleanser you might want to check it out. The trailer is linked below.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

Avoiding Thanksgiving Political Squabbles

A preemptive attempt at avoiding holiday harangues over politics.

Thanksgiving kicks off the end of year holiday season. Time to gather with family and friends and give thanks for our blessings. Time to get tied up in traffic or airports. Deal with weather delays. Pass illnesses around like we pass the potatoes, (hopefully not COVID), and either argue over our political differences or sit around the fire pretending that those chasms don’t exist.

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Yeah, it’s a time for anxiety and has been for almost a decade now. So much so that it has become a political cliché and a sad shortcut for what we’re all living through. Certainly there’s joy to be found in the warmth and good company of family and friends, but in my life those circles are smaller than they used to be.

In the early years of the first Trump administration I didn’t initially shy away from arguing politics at family gatherings. It was largely a fruitless endeavor. We knew less then than we do now. After a few bouts of that my wife and I agreed that we’d just keep our opinions to ourselves going forward to avoid the aggravation. We largely did, even in the face of being baited now again by Trump worshipping, Fox loving sycophants.

We’ve largely tried to adhere to that avoidance game in the wake of this year’s calamitous election. We’ve actually turned down an invitation or two and will probably do so again in the future. While we’ll avoid conflict and aggravation when we can, I’ve made it plain in our house that I won’t hold my tongue going forward if someone tosses out the bait.

This Thanksgiving we’re fortunate in that we’re going to a small celebration with family and friends who view the world much the way we do, so that should be anxiety free. This scheduling has nothing to do with the political situation and we’re thankful for that. But we know there will be other invitations forthcoming during the next month or so.

With that in mind I’ve developed my response in case those show up. Here it is:

Thanks for the invitation. We’d love to attend. Before we accept there a few things I want to make clear. We know we disagree on politics, and while we’ve largely avoided that topic at past gatherings, it is important for you to know that I feel I can no longer avoid doing so. Preemptively, I am sharing some feelings and beliefs important to me.

You may not believe it, but I feel we’re heading into a dangerous and difficult time that will see much of how we’ve both viewed the world come to a crashing end. I could go on and on about Donald Trump’s lack of character and disastrous policies, and the ignorance of those who elected him, but in the interest of brevity I’ll boil all of that down to the single, simplest reason why I don’t want to spend time with you pretending.

Donald Trump, among many things, is a rapist and a misogynist. He’s attempting to surround himself with others just like him, proving to me, and the world, just how insignificant and dispensable he thinks women are. Rape is a violent act, and shows tremendous disregard for every human being. If someone thinks rape can be overlooked, there’s not much else that they won’t do to hurt other human beings.

In my opinion, it’s beyond disqualifying someone from office and participation in society. Further, anyone who voted for him can’t overlook the fact that they are comfortable viewing rape and misogyny as acceptable as well. There are no trade-offs for some other policy or viewpoint that excuses that type of behavior.

I won’t argue the point with you. To me, it’s not debatable. I also have no respect for anyone might try and change my opinion on the matter.

I’m not asking you to change your views, they are already apparent and yours to own. But I believe it is important for you to have no doubt about mine.

Happy Holidays

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

Time for Relegation in American Sports

There’s never an end to winter for Chicago Sports fans.

Being a sports fan in Chicago can be as tough as enduring a Chicago winter. Sure, there are moments when you feel like your teams can compete with the rest of their respective leagues, but there are also times when Haley’s Comet comes around. Snow and ice eventually melt, but the cold, hard reality of lovably losing lingers on.

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Chicago fans are not alone. There are other franchises in most professional sports that have also adopted losing and poor competitiveness as a business model. “Wait ‘till next year” is a plea full of promise, but mostly without a pay off.

Unless you’re making bank by being in the game. Given the ever growing revenue these franchises make from media, gambling, and given the enormous salaries these players make it should be at the least embarrassing. Tack on the ever-increasing costs of tickets to an actual game, the obviously approaching move to stream every game for some sort payment, and the ridiculous extortion that rips off taxpayers when owners demand a new stadium, it’s not just embarrassing, it feels like a straight up fleecing of the flock. Al Capone had nothing on this crowd.

Let’s take the Chicago franchises as examples.

The Chicago Cubs keep looking like they might actually find a way to contend but don’t seem to know how to spend the money to compete effectively. Nor do they know how to manage and play the game of baseball when it comes to pitching and making out a lineup. If you add up the losses from the once revered World Series year hero Kyle Hendricks alone this year, the Cubs might actually still be in contention for a Wild Card spot. Yesterday’s heroes don’t win today’s games. Toss in the losses tacked on to their record from not actually having a real closer and you’re also talking a different story.

Here’s the thing, there’s not too many Chicago Cubs fans who didn’t see every one of those losses coming once the lineups were announced and Hendricks was the starter. Sure, he won a few games, but there are other bad baseball teams with anemic lineups too. Those same fans also knew mostly what was coming when Hector Neris was trotted out to save a game.

Then there are the Chicago White Sox, you know the team that’s about to set the Major League Baseball record for the most losses in a season. Ever. As I write this they’ve tied the record and have six chances to forever dwell in that infamy. I doubt any other team will ever live down to that record. The owner, Jerry Reinsdorf, wants a new stadium. I’ve got news. No new stadium is going to fix the roster, the management, or Jerry, who also owns the Chicago Bulls, another amateur outfit picking the pockets of customers pretending to be a pro team still trying to live off Michael Jordan’s legacy.

I don’t follow hockey enough to comment on the Chicago Blackhawks, but I do know things haven’t looked great on the ice for enough time to earn a recent first round draft choice that might offer some hope. If he can survive the hype.

Speaking of hype, there are the Chicago Bears. If ever there was an example of the dangers of overhyping this year and this team is it. You’d think the Bears were a new Crypto or AI scheme or a new iPhone. But they are just a bad meme stock. Sure, every team needs to give their fans hope, hoping to sell tickets. But this year’s overhype was overripe.

The Bears may have landed a couple of good players with all of the draft capital they banked after pretending to be a pro team for so long, but they sure haven’t figured out that in professional football you need an O-line to compete.

Like with the Cubs, every fan can see the faults on the field. It doesn’t do a team any good to spend money on great skill players if you don’t provide them the coaching and the offensive line to let them use those skills. Known as the graveyard of quarterbacks and receivers I’m surprised the owners don’t open their own grave digging business as anxious as they are to break ground on a new stadium. The Bears do have what looks like a stout defense this season, but you have to play both sides of the ball. Perhaps the Bears might do better not fielding an offense.

All is not lost for Chicago sports fans. Chicago’s women’s sports teams at least play like it matters, even if they don’t get the attention or the rewards they deserve.

But that’s the thing. The rewards in the male sports world in Chicago and elsewhere are reaching levels that are beyond the scope of most to comprehend. The salaries, the media revenues, the gambling gazillions, and all the concession and parking prices just continue to spiral even for a less than mediocre team.

Perhaps we should demand a relegation system in American sports. If a team and its ownership can’t cut it, then it gets demoted to an also-ran division and a smaller cut of the pie. Field a winning team and you can move back up to play with the big boys and feast at the adult table. The Open League model is a cruel business model, but it’s less cruel than continually playing a shell game on your paying customers.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

Sunday Morning Reading

Fall is creeping in and things are creeping me out.

The world continues its whirl, the vultures continue circling, and down here on the ground we keep working hard to turn the tide on the ignorant before it’s too late. Still, it’s time to sit down, breathe and enjoy if you can some Sunday Morning Reading.

Perhaps you aren’t aware of the Second Circuit of Appeals decision rejecting the Internet Archive’s fair use defense. You can check out info on the decision here. Reading beyond that check out Matthew Ingram’s post The Second Circuit’s Decision in the Internet Archive Case is Bad. It is bad news for all of us. As a side note, Matthew has recently struck out on his own and you might want to check out his writing on The Torment Nexus. It promises to be a great place to read about issues in the intersection of technology, media, and, well…life.

Politics, or what passes for it these days, continues to dominate much of our attention even as it gets darker and more stupid with each passing day. Springfield, Ohio found itself the unwelcome center of the political world with all of the talk about eating pets and immigration. Isabel Fattal has a very good piece in The Atlantic titled The Springfield Effect. FWIW I don’t think Springfield is going to catch a break anytime soon, but then neither are the rest of us.

Voting is just around the corner, but the discussions and machinations around it now dominate our lives all the time. Check out Eli Saslow’s 3 Georgia Women Caught Up in a Flood of Suspicion About Voting.

Sanewashing is just a new name in a long line of new names for ignoring the crazy, idiotic, and dangerous ways of the decaying orange convicted felon/child rapist and his followers. Parker Malloy tells us Why The Atlantic’s Critique of Sanewashing Doesn’t Hold Up. There’s a link to the Atlantic piece in Malloy’s article. When a thing becomes a thing to criticize it becomes just another excuse for ignoring the truth.

There’s sadly a chance of some sort of carnage, physical or psychic, post-election. Certainly there will be political casualties. Perhaps that’s why we should read Ian Rose’s piece The Hidden Value of Vultures. Let’s hope the vultures doing the cleanup are only feasting on those who caused the mess.

Karen Hao takes a look at Microsoft’s Hypocrisy on AI when it comes to Microsoft working with fossil-fuel companies while purporting to fight climate change.

In a world full of what feels like willful ignorance, Daniel R. DeNicola takes a look at Plato’s Cave and the Stubborn Persistence of Ignorance.

Elizabeth Laura Nelson has a very poignant piece called Friends for 16 Years. Lovers for One Night. Don’t let moments and opportunities pass you by.

Before you clear your palette and move on to whatever you move on to, take a brief trip along with NatashaMH to Bangkok City in When The World’s Your Oyster.

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. You can also find me on social networks under my own name.

Man Made Tornado

Roadside debris fires creating a man-made tornado.

On our recent trip to Memphis for this year’s Ostrander Awards (we won a few) we took our usual path through Illinois then following along the Mississippi River through Missouri and Arkansas.

I don’t think I’ve taken this trip that I haven’t seen large debris burns happening on the wide expanses of farmland that sit astride the highway in Arkansas. On a day like our drive with clear blue skies, you certainly can see it from a distance and as you get closer you can certainly smell it. You can taste it too, if you don’t adjust the air intake in your vehicle.

This is the first time though, that I think we caught a glimpse of what looks like a man-made tornado from the heat of the fire inside the middle of the burn.

Quite a sight.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

Birthday Wishes In This Insane Year

Wishin’ and hopin’ as another year passes.

Pick your metaphor. Pick your favorite song lyric from Hamilton. Pick your poison. The U.S. political and media world is nothing short of a mess as the GOP ~~Coronation~~, excuse me, Convention, continues in Milwaukee.

I’m not watching the event, but have seen enough highlights (lowlights?) to know that bending the knee has leapt beyond typical humiliating political expediency into something that absurdist playwrights, much less contemporary fiction authors, couldn’t possibly imagine. Public ass kissing may not be an Olympic sport, but if it was, America could field one helluva team based on the competition in Milwaukee.

It’s really not fair to blame the media for coverage of the event. They seem to know no better than a child sticking their hand in a fire and there’s nothing normal or predictable about this election cycle. There used to be journalists who would call things as they saw them. There also used to be dinosaurs.

Watching the watchers cover what looks like the closest thing we’ve seen to a Nazi rally in this country for several generations and not calling it what it is pisses me off. The media’s problem is that this is a playbook that’s been plagiarized from the 1930’s in ways that large language models must envy. But the media capitulated then and so here we are. Again. It may not be new, but it’s damn dangerous and they are trying to shoehorn that into an old world model that failed then and will fail again. Things may not be normal but they are too damn predictable. Guess what? That’s the damn story.

Set aside the clichés about not presenting both sides when one side says it’s raining and the other doesn’t. We’re witnessing a complete capitulation to something that’s beyond my understanding. If the red hat brigade takes power, most of those currently sucking up will be in line for internment camps once they’ve reported on how many migrant families have been separated. At least they will be credentialed.

Granted the media isn’t getting much help from the Democrats. That helpless bunch wants to play fair. Again. Thinking the high road will get them there, while the other side is tunneling out the ground underneath them is simply shrinking from the real challenge while grasping at straw men. The only fight they can seem to muster is one against themselves. Hell, they don’t even have the guts to really have that fight, much less finish it. But go ahead. Play nice.

So. Today is my birthday. Given family history I never thought I’d make it this far. But I have. I have two birthday wishes. Here’s the first: I’d love to see some Democratic politician when confronted with some MAGAt gish galloping their well rehearsed rhetoric say directly “take your white supremacist, fascist, misogynistic bullshit and shove it where the sun doesn’t shine.” Hell. Don’t even wait to do it to their face, just do it in front of a camera. Often. Call them on their bullshit hourly. Make them defend against the comment.

For the uninitiated, that’s called politics.

The second wish is that I’d love to see a headline somewhere that says, “The GOP has nominated a convicted felon to run for president.” The lede should read: “The party once proud to wrap itself in the mantle of law and order has now disrobed and re-draped itself as the party that welcomes and supports criminality.” Tell me, what’s not factual about that?

I won’t get either of those wishes. I’m pissed about that. And I’m pissed that it looks like I’m going to be around to watch what this country stood for during the six plus decades of my life rapidly decline and disintegrate during what’s left of it.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

Profound Disillusionment

That sinking feeling.

Last night I spent good time with good company, all of like minds politically and socially. In that good company is a very good friend of substantial means. At one point he asked me if I was going to watch the debate tonight, or as he characterized it, “the TV event that might decide the future of the world”. I responded that I would indeed be watching and felt his characterization, though extreme, was sadly too damn accurate.

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He later said that his financial advisor had called a Zoom meeting of all of his clients for Friday morning to discuss paths forward after the debate and anticipating a SCOTUS decision on Trump’s specious immunity claims. He said his financial guy sounded a bit panicked.

No shit.

Personally I’ve moved beyond panic. I’m now in a state of profound disillusionment. A descriptor I borrowed from Tom Wellborn a fellow traveler on social media. I wrote about that last week on Medium in a post called, well you guessed it, Profound Disillusionment.

I hope you take a few minutes and read it, depressing as it may sound. We live in a country where I fear that if the decaying orange convicted felon, now the candidate for what used to one of two major political parties in this country, but is now just an cover for grifting and cruelty, died a horrible public death, the chaos he’s unleashed can’t be reversed. At least not in my lifetime.

In the light of day last night’s good time feels far too much like commiseration.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

Things We Know

Life sucks when there are things we know and can’t change.

Things we know and it doesn’t appear we can do anything about.

Judge Cannon is on the take.

Our judicial system has been exposed as corrupt beyond repair, much like our political systems. Neither is going to save us from a deranged orange tinged rapist who is willing to blow anything and everything up. Regardless of how the election turns out.

Destroying musical instruments for advertising purposes is apparently a sin against nature.

There are bears in the woods.

There are no answers for the problems in the Middle East. Too many prayers. Not enough thoughts.

Streaming entertainment consolidation continues. Prices will go up, and we’ll see more of the same ads because there’s not enough advertising to go around.

At times Social Media can be anything but.

Moving sucks.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.