Mitch's Blog

Being a person with deadly, incurable cancer who is nonetheless still alive for an indefinite timeframe gives me an interesting metaphor that helps me deal with things like large-scale corruption in government or commerce.

So, there are times when I need to pay attention to the cancer, like, when I have to go to doctor’s appointments, take a medication on time, or make choices regarding self-care to increase my quality of life. But when I am not doing those things, thinking about the cancer is actively harmful.

There are moments when I feel okay, and my daughter wants to play a video game with me. Or I have the chance to see a cool movie, or the urge to write a story. I cannot do these things if I am paralyzed with horror and dismay thinking in detail about what’s happening in my body.

— @mishellbaker.bsky.social

I am blessed with good health, but this is how I think about Trump 2.0. I do a bit of volunteer work for the local Democratic Party. I try to spend an appropriate amount of time on news and social media — but no more than appropriate. And otherwise, I get on with life.

Rebuilding the U.S. is going to be a long process. I probably will not live to see the end of it. Outrage is exhausting, and exhaustion is another form of defeat.

Jeff Bezos is the autocrat of trade that John Sherman warned us about, 135 years ago. And Kier Starmer just abdicated in his favour.

— Cory Doctorow @pluralistic@mamot.fr

This is an excellent list of all the Star Trek movies, ranked, though I can argue with a few points: The list gives high marks to “Star Trek VI,” whereas I found it disappointing. It looked cheaply made and the story was a “Law & Order” episode.

The list ranks “Star Trek V” as the worst Trek movie. I thought it was fine. Kirk hams it up, there’s a bullshit metaphysical theme and plenty of action. That’s what I come to “Star Trek” for.

My biggest argument with the list: It excludes “Galaxy Quest,” the Star Trek movie GOAT.

Jules Feiffer, a ‘smartass’ Jew whose work spanned comics and cinema, dies at 95.

He filleted the neuroses and narcissism of the age, but also the misrule of its leaders, showing, for instance, a young boy watching a series of consecutive presidents giving televised speeches on the war in Vietnam ending. The boy gets older until, at last, he’s in a flag-draped coffin.

…

One characteristic comic, which seems to have anticipated the term mansplaining – or the Me Generation – shows a couple at a restaurant. The man releases a flurry of “Me"s. When his date, a woman, responds with a solitary “I,” he yawns.

Here’s something I received in email last night.

We’ve been watching 70s TV mysteries. Rockford, Columbo, McMillan & Wife, McCloud.

Ascots need to make a comeback.

Please enjoy this visual metaphor for the state of my resolution to stop doomscrolling.

Musk did a Nazi salute at a rally. Twice. And people are trying to explain away what they plainly saw.

I’ve seen headstrong winners of close elections high on their own supply before. As I wrote a couple weeks ago, all of this is meant to hit you with so much sensory stimulus that you become overwhelmed. But the images you see wrapped around you in an iMax theater aren’t real. It’s still a movie.

— A Moment of Calm

Marshall also notes a “for the ages” photo of the CEOs of Amazon, Meta, Google and Apple, “at an inaugural church service feting Donald Trump this morning at St. John’s church across the street from the White House.”

Marshall:

You may not have a billion dollars but your dignity is all yours. No one can take it from you. Compared to some you can already be ahead of the game.

One step at a time. They’re not as big as they look.

I’m doing a bit of volunteer work for our local Democratic club this morning.

I did not time the work to coincide with the inauguration — the work just needed doing today. Still, I’m glad it happened that way.

I can’t affect national politics but I can have a big effect locally. I’m focusing most of my efforts on that.