I keep missing topics that I intend to write about, because the firehose of absurdities keeps flowing.

Click to read the many words of other people...

Other people have written well about anti-intellectualism in the USA across its history. I like this quote from this article (The Atlantic; sorry, locked behind a paywall).

“Above all, historians should make us understand the ways in which the past was distinct,” the New York Times columnist Bret Stephens wrote. When we are told that historical writings should be irrelevant to our contemporary debates, it is not hard to figure out why. History, when taught truthfully, reveals the bigotry in our contemporary debates. Which is why the conservators of bigotry don’t want history taught in schools. It has nothing to do with the discomfort of children. It is uncomfortable for the opponents of truthful history to have the rest of us see them, to have their kids see them. They don’t want anyone to clearly see how closely they replicate colonizers, land stealers, human traders, enslavers, Klansmen, lynchers, anti-suffragists, robber barons, Nazis, and Jim Crow segregationists who attacked democracy, allowed mass killings, bound people in freedom’s name, ridiculed truth tellers and immigrants, lied for sport, banned books, strove to control women’s reproduction, blamed the poor for their poverty, bashed unions, and engaged in political violence. Historical amnesia is vital to the conservation of their bigotry. Because historical amnesia suppresses our resistance to their bigotry.

More recently, a science/tech vlogger on YouTube created this Short video about current news.

Right now, the most powerful people in America aren't coming after science because it threatens some people's ideologies or their world views or their livelihoods. They're coming after science because it threatens their power... I think that this is an attack on the idea that some people have information that might contradict the desires of the select few who see themselves as the only legitimate powers.

Succinct. I like it. Why are these ideas relevant? And keep in mind that this is just the start of this new administration...

• https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2025/03/19/tracking-the-trump-administrations-attacks-on-libraries/
• https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/science-research-policy/2025/03/20/trump-order-threatens-university-libraries
• https://www.ala.org/news/2025/03/ala-statement-white-house-assault-institute-museum-and-library-services
• https://truthout.org/articles/erasing-history-erasing-democracy-trumps-authoritarian-assault-on-education/
• https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-administration-disbands-two-expert-panels-economic-data-2025-03-05/
• https://www.npr.org/2025/02/11/nx-s1-5293447/jan-6-evidence-captiol-riot-donald-trump
• https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/mar/16/murder-the-truth-review-david-enrich

Kids in cells made for bad optics last time around, so this time we seem to be going for an Abu Ghraib / Guantanamo Bay style of exported incarceration. It's a lot harder to monitor the truth when you export it outside of the national border. What could go wrong with that plan?

The intake began with slaps. One young man sobbed when a guard pushed him to the floor. He said, “I’m not a gang member. I’m gay. I’m a barber.” I believed him. But maybe it’s only because he didn’t look like what I had expected—he wasn’t a tattooed monster.
- Time.com

Knowledge is a threat to fascism. (me) Reality has a well-known liberal bias. (Stephen Colbert) Ignorance is the handmaiden of tyranny. (Robert Reich)

It's only 8:40am local time, but I already feel unreasonably happy today.

The guy from Wolf Pest Control showed up promptly at 8am this morning. He sprayed the hornet nests, using his ladder to climb on top of my front porch to reach the 2nd one. The 1st one is easy to reach, near the ground. He had a bulky full-body suit like a firefighter that he wore for the work. He said to give it at least a week before trying to seal them up. He recommends people just wait through the winter too. I'll try clearing up the brush next week, at least, so the painters have clear access to my house later. I shouldn't be bothered by hornets by then. It was definitely worth the $240 for 30 minutes of work this morning.

He was surprisingly nice to talk to, while I wrote out a check afterward on the front porch step. He said he doesn't exterminate bumblebees, which are more regulated than hornets, even if they're the infestation, "because pollinators are good". Maybe he liked my pollinator-friendly yard? Appropriate to the business name, he definitely had the "wolf" look with a full beard, from the bear terminology. I have no idea if he's family, but I'll hope that he is.

The mood in Minneapolis is gearing down for winter. I didn't get everything done that needs to be done for the house, but I got the first floor painted, with plans for the second floor this year. I got the 4 worst windows replaced, with only 1 more to go. I bought the latest new smart phone generation, replacing the broken one I had for years. Thanks to a generous gift from my parents, my bank account didn't even suffer from all this spending. It's still growing into what for me is a large nest egg, so I could easily withstand another year or two of unemployed job hunting, if it came to that.

I'm going to encourage this good mood today and avoid the news.

Today's theme song arrives here thanks to news from Texas, where a judge ruled that a school district can restrict the length of hair of its male students. This ruling contradicts the recent CROWN Act in Texas that banned race-based hair discrimination. Minnesota passed a Crown Act recently too. A Texas judge has now ruled against a key feature of their law in that state.

I've said it before, and I'll probably say it again before we're finally through these troubles, but please find a way to move somewhere safe. Heed the signs. Until then, enjoy this song in the spirit of longhair solidarity.

And the sign said, "Long-haired freaky people need not apply".
So I tucked my hair up under my hat, and I went in to ask him why.
He said, "You look like a fine upstanding young man, I think you'll do."
So I took off my hat, I said, "Imagine that. Huh! Me, workin' for you!"

Whoa! Sign, sign, everywhere a sign!
Blockin' out the scenery, breakin' my mind!
Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign?

And the sign said anybody caught trespassin' would be shot on sight,
So I jumped on the fence, and I yelled at the house, "Hey! What gives you the right?"
"To put up a fence to keep me out or to keep Mother Nature in?"
"If God was here, he'd tell you to your face, Man, you're some kinda sinner."
...
And the sign said, "Everybody welcome. Come in, kneel down, and pray."
But when they passed around the plate at the end of it all, I didn't have a penny to pay.
So I got me a pen and a paper, and I made up my own little sign.
I said, "Thank you, Lord, for thinkin' 'bout me. I'm alive and doin' fine."

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I know that a lot of luck has kept me here in this world for so long. Today is nearly done. I kept my belly full all day, my skin warm, and my cat purring in my lap, so I know that today was a good day for me. I wish the same for everyone else in my troubled part of the world and places like it elsewhere. I don't yet have any good ideas for how to make it happen, though.

Stay safe out there.

At last report, Voyager 2 was 18h 27m 03s of light-travel time from Earth. Then on July 21, we lost contact with the craft. We sent a bad command to Voyager 2 that made the spacecraft lose its antenna alignment toward Earth. NASA has finally heard back from it! They received a "heartbeat signal", so they know it's still operating. They're hopeful they can realign its antenna with Earth again.

As of today, marijuana is legal in Minnesota. Most cities are still restricting sales until they can develop local rules, but a Minnesota tribe made history with the state's first legal marijuana sale.

Ten years ago today, gay marriage was legalized in Minnesota. Some people are noting this 10th anniversary of the special event. Civilization, you may notice, did not collapse as a result of this change.

My overdue #ALittleGoodNews tag leads us instead to a lot of good news. :)

Energy: The headlines include lots of encouraging developments. Both in the USA (in 2023) and in the world (by 2025), renewable energy sources are overtaking coal energy generation. And that trend will continue to improve, thanks to forecasts like USA utility-scale new solar capacity outpacing new fossil fuel plant construction.

Environment: We have proof that farmers devoting 10% of their land to wildlife-friendly planning can lead to improved bird population. The Nature Conservancy uses easements this way to make the environmental practice continue even with private ownership of land tracts. Obviously, they're using a good tactic that can provide meaningful results. A startup company named GaeaStar is developing a 3d-printed clay alternative to disposable food containers, preventing a common daily source of plastic waste. Researchers in Japan have found a "cheap" (gold nanoparticle) catalyst that can convert plastic waste to more useful substances.

Legal (Social and Anti-Capital): Gender bias in academics is improving, and now "tenure-track women are at parity with tenure-track men in three domains (grant funding, journal acceptances, and recommendation letters)", but the details get more nuanced the deeper you look into them. Progress, though, is progress. Librarians are celebrating a lot of creative works entering public domain this year. I maintain that we all do better when we all have access to the sum of human creative endeavors. (I suspect that most claims in favor of creative control boil down to some form of capitalist need.) Also, Time magazine is removing their digital paywall. Even a Fox News poll found that "57% think political attacks on families with transgender children is a major problem". Yes, that Fox News, but their viewers continue to vote for politicians who do it anyway. Colorado becomes the first USA state with a right-to-repair law for farmers. This anti-capitalist move is very welcome, and we should celebrate those farmers for their important victory!

We can turn this ship from its doomed course. Accept that we'll have to do it with the usual malcontents kicking and screaming their opposition. Do the hard work of turning this civilizational construct anyway. I'm convinced that it's possible for us to succeed. :)

furr_a_bruin died a few days ago. He used that ID on Dreamwidth and Livejournal, but he was also known as "Furr Bear" on MeWe and "Grizzly Dabsquatch" on Mastodon. I knew from Mastodon that he was receiving chemotherapy for cancer, but I don't know any details of his death. Furr was one of the people I've known online for over 30 years but never actually met in person. He didn't shy from sharing strongly worded opinions. I can sympathize with the social trouble he could dive into. It did seem to me that during the last year or two he had "calmed" from some of those intense reactions... relatively speaking.

I went looking online to see if I could find when we first met. Google has my messages on soc.motss (like an early form of a Reddit group, for you youngsters out there) archived as far back as 1993, but he wasn't in those threads. Maybe I encountered him on the Bear Mailing List? (The BML doesn't even get a mention on the bear article at Wikipedia. Inconceivable!) Maybe I posted to Usenet under a different university userid than I first searched for? Yes, that's it! He posted here on 1991 March 3 in this thread on soc.motss, a long conversation that resulted from something I wrote and another person on the internet informed me in an intentionally funny way that I was "WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG!" to say. *gigglesnort* At least I've lived my life consistently, asking sincere questions that trigger norm-violation panic. :)

Anyway, 1991 is the earliest occasion that we crossed paths that I can document. If we ever met in the late 1980s on Relay, there just wouldn't be any public record of it now. I went looking at MeWe after I heard the news, though, and I found our last private chat message:

2021 June 10
I know you're into PowerShell, but I have no idea if you're aware of - or interested in - this. I was looking for a way for a UPS-connected Windows machine could signal something else to shut down too and stumbled into this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26XHb_cpiAA

If you go searching it's a "LCUS-1 type usb relay" - or -2 if you want the dual relay version - in AliEx search terms.

Furr was good with electronics and homebrew gadgets. We shared an intense distaste for all things "New Trek". We also shared a deep appreciation for Babylon 5 (and Fringe), but he won't be here to enjoy the new B5 television series when it arrives. It makes me a bit sad to lose another gay old timer who experienced the days of the last epidemic under President Reagan. A lot of righteous anger is fading into the forgotten past. I worry that mistakes are waiting to be repeated.

I said before everything that needed to be said.  Yet here we are again. There are so many mass shootings that we hardly need special attention for them anymore, lest we risk becoming The Onion reprinting the same article over and over again.

I've mentioned stochastic terrorism before. Keith Olbermann, of course, is using the same language for this event, because it's clear that Republicans in Colorado were speaking for years to encourage exactly this outcome. How many times have you heard about "grooming" from politicians during the last year? It's been popular in Florida for decades, the same place where somebody thinks they could challenge Trump for the presidency. There are no "sides" to an argument when one person thinks that other people just fundamentally should not exist at all. Somebody is grooming people, yes, but for violence. That's stochastic terrorism in a nutshell. AOC, my progressive hero and hopefully the next president, tells people to "connect the dots".


And this white-skinned terrorist previously was in custody for felony menacing and three counts of first-degree kidnapping for a bomb threat, but the District Attorney declined to prosecute then the court records were sealed. What now? Who was this District Attorney, a "bleeding heart liberal being soft on crime"? No, wait, it was a Republican who provided these answers during their recent campaign.


Not knowing anything else about the bomb threat (because the records were sealed), I have to assume the Family Guy racism color chart is at play in this release. We learned nothing from Kyle Rittenhouse, it seems. This emboldened young white guy went on to demand in August that a newspaper remove its article about his arrest since no charges were filed. It's still online because, of course, the threat actually happened.  And he went on to mass murder.

I advised people to get out of repressive jurisdictions like Texas, and people are.  One realty group created a "Flee Texas" webpage to assist homeowners with selling their property.  An Austin Texas news station wrote an article about this phenomenon.

In related news, researchers with the University of California performed a new survey, and they found that half of Americans anticipate civil war, with about 20% expecting to arm themselves for it... coincidentally the same percentage who still think that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump.  In further assortment, Republicans are saying out loud that they will deliberately make government partisan.

Moody Monday, when I try my best to pick the single most important crisis of the week for examination. Hoo boy, these times are special.

I'm updating and expanding my previous warning about anti-trans sentiment in some states.  Now, I'm expanding it to the whole queer rainbow.  Get out.  Get out of your repressive states now.  Move somewhere safe.  Personally, I recommend Minnesota (in spite of it being a hybrid status here), but there are others.

The warning signs of escalation are here:

• U.S. Air Force made the unusual statement that it will help LGBTQ personnel, even if it means relocating them from hostile USA domestic areas.
• U.S. military personnel are receiving advice to avoid certain areas of the USA.
• In Texas, a preacher called for the murder of homosexuals. (video)
• In Idaho, Patriot Front neo-fascists were arrested from a U-Haul van they were hiding in while traveling to a gay pride event. (video) Some of them wore a "Reclaim America" shirt or "Victory or Death" cap.
• In Georgia, one of their U.S. Representatives explicitly embraced Christian nationalism. (video) She says Democrats are domestic terrorists, but the data says otherwise.
• In Georgia, a governor candidate (beside a slogan of "Jesus. Guns. Babies.", my thumbnail icon here is so appropriate) suggests she would execute corrupt sheriffs for treason. (video)
• In Tennessee, they're literally burning books.
• In Wyoming, someone set fire to an abortion clinic.
• In New York, the 3rd-ranking Republican in the U.S. House has endorsed a Hitler-approving candidate.
• In Georgia, Florida, and Texas, some people are okay with outright slavery.  Do not trust these people to act with any humanity.

It is not safe for queer folk like me in these territories.  Leave any state where conservatism took over.  See the color coded heat map on page 16 to find a safe place.  The time for cautionary warnings is past.  Follow the advice of the U.S. military.  Get yourself somewhere safe.  Find a way to resist, if you can.  (Be like Wonder Woman.  Be antifa.)  As with the ongoing pandemic, avoid exposure to dangerous situations.  Reduce your risk.

Yes, I'm now officially breaking my promise to avoid this topic.  I also want to write about the aerosol factor for disease spread.  But for now: Activism!

It was 2020 May, and already enough people had persistent lingering symptoms of SARS-CoV-2 infection that someone created the hashtag #LongCovid on Twitter. It's now 2 full years later with 100+ million more people suffering Long Covid symptoms, yet some doctors still haven't even heard of it!

I'm sorry. I'm afraid that history says it's up to you sufferers to demand change. I've been vocal for 2 years already, but nobody listens to me. It's a great first step that you created your own terminology, but now you need your own version of ACT UP to metaphorically blow up the social apparatus that seems determined to ignore this crisis. It's unfair, but that's what it'll take. Interrupt tv broadcasts. Interrupt political speeches. Interrupt the journalists ignoring you. Create your own logo and plaster it all over cities worldwide. Be loud.

I think your first goal should be to counteract the falsehood that SARS-CoV-2 is merely a transient infection like the flu. Only 8 Americans ever came down with SARS-CoV-1 infection back in 2003, but at least in the lab afterwards in 2004 it was very clear that the infection would be permanent. Start there. Cite the 100+ millions of people already with Long Covid. Cite the documented brain infections. Cite the syncytia formation.  Cite the industries continuously losing staff due to infection. Cite the examples of infections known to persist for 230 days and more (including a rumor of 480 days known by Mayo Clinic and the University Of Wisconsin). Overwhelm the mental resistance.

Time is running out, too. HIV-1 takes many years to progress to immune system failure and the inevitable infection or cancer that finally overwhelms the body. We're now 2.5 years into this new pandemic, and the many opportunistic diseases are finally starting to emerge.  I've seen the new term C-AIDS being used on Twitter. It's unclear to me just how SARS-CoV-2 damages the immune system, but it clearly is happening. It infects and destroys CD4 T cells, but it apparently performs that task at a slower rate than HIV-1. More quickly, however, it seems to task, continuously overuse, and eventually deplete the body's supply of these cells due to excessive overuse during chronic widespread infection. Meanwhile, the virus is still causing blood clots in every tissue and organ throughout the body at every recurrence of infection within the body. While 40% of infected people initially notice no symptoms at all, the damage may still be done to diverse systems like eyes, liver, kidneys, heart, intestines, and brain (and mind).

For immediate concerns, if your doctor is ignoring you, then you should check with Survivor Corps. But you need political clout. You need it fast.  I feel like we're seeing the 1980s unfold all over again.  I avoided seroconversion that time, and I hope I succeed this time too.  I'll continue to be vocal, but you need to exercise your own collective power!