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The Art of Not Having an Opinion
Philip Ellis, writing for Man Repeller, has some thoughts regarding having an opinion about the political news of the day.
The urgency to be informed about politics and have a vocal position on everything was palpable. I would rage and rant about injustice and inequality, and half the time my anger would be directed not at those who were behind it, but the people in my life who hadn’t read up on a particular topic and formulated a stance on it. “Ignorance isn’t innocence,” I would say, a hint of superiority in my voice.
But at an indistinct point along the way, I confused saying something — anything — with actually having something to say. Responding to world events began to feel like a race to have the most insightful takeaway. The impulse to formulate a hot take become more informed by a rush of endorphins than inspired by genuine activism.
Twitter, for example, is filled with “hot takes.” The feeling of writing something smart and smug can be intoxicating and addicting. Personally, I wrote hot takes regarding this administration up until I couldn’t take it anymore and I had to stop. Now, I’m engaged, but not at the “everything, all the time” level. Ellis goes on about finding the right balance.
Disengaging in this manner isn’t about abstaining from discourse altogether, it’s about eschewing your knee-jerk reactions in favor of something slower and more thoughtful. Of actually taking the time to figure out how you really feel about a certain issue or a series of connected issues. This deliberateness is more difficult to parlay into glib dunks on Twitter or Instagram, especially in a frantic 24-hour news cycle where the headline which piques your interest or stokes your outrage is replaced by an even wilder one before you have figured out where you stand. And that’s a good thing, because snap judgments are a trap. The situation is a lot more nuanced than that.
It’s understandable to feel numb or just downright exhausted in the face of everything that’s happening. And there’s merit, I think, to stepping back from the rapid-fire arguing to see the forest for the trees. Doing so will not halt progress or make us apathetic — but rather make us thoughtful, and even give us the space to examine our own role in where we are today, instead of always assuming we’re categorically righteous. It’s okay to conserve energy, to pursue deeper reflection and to pick our battles — there are plenty in front of us.
Scene 38 Reimagined
Christopher Clements has recreated the lightsaber duel from Star Wars IV: A New Hope making it longer, more action-oriented and smartly incorporated call-backs from the prequel trilogy.
It reminds me a lot of Star Wars Revisited.
Make Them
Brian Beutler, writing for Crooked Media, pens an essay lambasting the Deomocrats response to the Mueller Report.
Their dithering about the Mueller report is sadly typical of the party’s general paralysis in the face of the most corrupt and dishonest administration in the country’s history, and it carries a sobering lesson for all those who might themselves in Trump’s crosshairs: Democrats won’t come to your rescue unless you make them.
He goes on to outline the fear of the leadership.
They fear that if they do the right thing, they will not do as well in the 2020 elections as they will if they do the wrong thing. This fear is highly speculative, and thus irrelevant. We can’t know if an impeachment inquiry would help or hurt Democrats next year, but we do know that the wrong thing causes real harm to people right now. Politicians should pay political penalties for hanging supporters out to dry like this—without the threat of penalty, Democrats will proceed under the impression that abdicating their obligations is costless. We should all demand that they stand and be counted while it’s still an option, and should interpret failure to do so as a profound, collective failure of character.
This really is unacceptable. The House has an obligation.
Legal Opinion
Zachary Basu, writing for Axios, reports on an interesting development into the Mueller Report.
More than 650 former federal prosecutors have signed onto a statement asserting that if the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) did not prohibit a sitting president from being indicted, President Trump would be charged with obstruction of justice.
I’m waiting for the Robert Mueller testimony asserting that he would have indicted Donald Trump were it not for the OLC opinion. While I understand my bias here, I’m saddened Mueller did not just go ahead and indict him for obsctruction. It would have made headlines, but not much else would have changed I don’t think.
Teenage Pricks
Alex Pareene, writing for The Baffler, has an incredible long read about Trumpism, young boys, and race. He opens with this perfect paragraph.
A bit of symbolic generational warfare has always suffused American politics, with various cliques of self-appointed “adults in the room” dismissing challengers to the status quo as immature, idealistic, or juvenile. But when it comes to figuring out what This Whole Trump Thing really means, actual juveniles are reading at several grade levels above the sophisticated adults. While editors send reporters to do anthropological fieldwork in the Rust Belt, and Democratic senators from red states fret over precisely how many unqualified ideologues they must confirm for lifetime seats on the judiciary in order to win re-election, teenagers have had the whole deal figured out from the beginning. They present their findings regularly, if you know where to look.
The teenagers get it because Trumpism is nothing more than adolescent sulking, raging, and ranting. They not only sympathize, they understand the well-spring of bullying and misogynistic tendensies and embrace it.
When will the adults in the room take over?
The Story of the Queen of the Mommy Bloggers
Chavie Leiber, writing for Vox, has an incredible profile on Dooce.com founder Heather Armstrong. I admit, I had not heard of her prior to reading the article, but I learned a great deal.
Seven Minutes Ago
The sun could have blown up seven minutes ago and that would really ruin the rest of your day.
Adam Wainwright Deserves Better
A blogger named bgh, writing on his Cardinals site On The Cardinals, wrote an inspiring piece about St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Adam Wainwright. It features one of the best uses of a movie quote I’ve ever seen.
Science Fiction Daydream
If I would have read the following sentence as a kid, I’m sure I would have thought it was a science fiction daydream — “In the second decade of the 21st century everyone owns a hand-held computer capable of video communication with anyone on the planet and off, access to libraries of information, a global positioning system, in-depth health information for the user, and more.”
Star Wars Day
I just fished two tennis balls from under the basement couch with an old lightsaber so I could play with the dog. So, happy Star Wars Day.
Ulysses, Bear, or Apple Notes?
Curtis McHale, writing for The Sweet Setup, has an in-depth comparison between three of the most well-known note-taking, writing, and research apps: Ulysses, Bear, and Apple Notes.
For me I’m want to use Ulysses more, but I seem to revert back to Google Docs because I can write on different platforms easier since I use a Windows computer at work and a Mac for everything else.
I’ve been testing Bear for a few weeks now. I’m not sure it’s significantly better than Apple Notes. I like the colors and the fonts better so there’s that.
What works best for you?
Selling Tumblr
I used to have a site on Tumblr.
It was kind of a commonplace book of quotes, images, and videos. It took up loads of time to no one’s benefit, so I killed it after about two years. I kind of miss it. Every now and then, I get the urge to make another Tumblr site and unload all the quotes, images, and videos I accumulate. I dunno. It probably isn’t worth my time.
I know there are some amazing Tumblr blogs still in existence, but I’m not sure the reason why people have kept them. Of course, there are likely millions of abandoned Tumblr blogs too. Apparently, there are 465.4 million blogs and 172 billion posts on the site. Those numbers still mean something, although I’m not sure what other than people still really like the service. And it’s free.
Tumblr, as a platform, is in a weird spot. It doesn’t really have a direction or a focus. There’s plenty of community there still around, but I can only imagine how jaded many of them are with all the ownership changes and the banning porn debacle. It used to be a place for digital creatives and a hub for the weird internet.
Recently, Verizon, who somehow now owns Tumblr, wants to unload the service. Not a huge surprise because they lost billions when they bought all the Yahoo! properties and squandered any goodwill the platform and its users may have had with its corporate overlords.
I have no idea who should buy it or for what reason a responsible company could have for doing so. Molly McHugh, writing for The Ringer, made a list that includes Pornhub and Giphy. I don’t know.
Who could actually reenergize the platform?
Consider the Value
Patrick Rhone with some thoughtful insight -
Consider the value of doing nothing when there is nothing of value to be done.
Consider the value of saying nothing when there is nothing of value to say.
Consider the value of simply being present, listening, and bearing witness, as something of value to be done instead.
“Have you ever had a job where you did nothing for years and nobody found out?”
The story of Bob is amusing to me.
H/T: Laura Olin
Sign of our Times
Michael Wade writes about how people view major events now through a prism of a political point of view.
There are moments when it seems that a sign of our times is that large groups of people can watch the same event and walk away with completely opposite descriptions of what happened.
Perhaps that has always been the case but it is more noticeable now due to social media. One aspect that may be new is the intensity of feeling and the eagerness to designate political opponents as evil. That is not a healthy development for any society.
You do not, to borrow language from YouTube descriptions, OWN or DESTROY or SCHOOL your opponents. You argue with them. It is particularly helpful if that process includes listening.
While he’s not wrong, he’s absolutely, totally wrong. Let me explain.
It would be wonderful if “argue with them” meant “healthy debate,” but it doesn’t. Not anymore. I don’t have to listen to white supremacists justify their actions. I already know their justifications are incorrect and morally bankrupt. I ignore that debate because it can’t be won. It can’t be won because neither side is going to go into the “argument” with the same set of facts. We can “argue” the facts, but not really. Facts are facts. The other side “willfully ignores” or twists these facts to fit an agenda.
And here we are screaming at the other side because, as Steven Colbert once said, “Reality has a well-known liberal bias.” There is no bias. Reality is reality. Facts are facts. The rest is goddamn noise, and no amount of “listening” is going to make a difference.
The only thing that matters is removing the cancer.
Peter Mayhew, RIP
It saddens me to note Star Wars actor Peter Mayhew, forever known as Chewbacca, has passed away. He died on April 30 at the age of 74.
For those of you not in the know, Joonas Suotamo took over the role of Chewbacca beginning in 2015. However, Mayhew was a consultant and helped Suotamo with the character.
Personally, I have a strong memory of seeing Mayhew and Kenny Baker resting by a window at one of the Wizard World Chicago’s I attended. It was an odd juxtaposition of extremely tall and extremely short.
Mario Speedwagon
I bought the latest Mario Kart game for my nephew’s birthday a couple of weeks ago. I had a fleeting thought that Nintendo clearly missed an incredible marketing opportunity by not naming their Mario Kart games Mario Speedwagon.