Seth Godin on big ideas:

It’s probably not completely original.

It’s probably not breathtaking in scope.

It’s probably not immediately popular.

But… it’s definitely worth pursuing, consistently and persistently for years and years.

If you care. If it’s generous and helpful and worth the journey.

All the big ideas that made a difference follow this pattern.

What’s your big idea?

Bradford Doolittle, reporting for ESPN:

No player on the Hall’s 2021 Baseball Writers’ Association of America ballot reached the 75 percent threshold needed for enshrinement in Cooperstown. The results of the voting were announced by Hall of Fame president Tim Mead on MLB Network on Tuesday night.

The leading vote-getter was controversial pitcher Curt Schilling, who was named on 71.1 percent of the ballots, 16 votes shy of the minimum needed for selection. Schilling was followed by all-time home run leader Barry Bonds (61.8 percent) and 354-game winner Roger Clemens (61.6) in the voting.

I will never get this. It’s pretty obvious Bonds and Clemens should be added to the Hall. No one cares about the PED crap.

The others are borderline and, of course, Schilling is an asshole which makes it difficult for voters to put him in while he’s still being an asshole. I mean, I’m 100% positive Pete Rose is getting into the Hall of Fame, but not until he passes away. I’d bet hard-earned money next year’s class will include Bonds, Clemens, and Alex Rodriguez.

Michael Lopp, writing at his site Rands in Repose, had an interesting experience with real-time news. He was trying to follow the storming of the Capitol via Twitter and quickly learned a valuable lesson about the social media platform.

As it became clear the domestic terrorists were breaching the Capitol, I was glued to Tweetbot, my favorite Twitter client, looking for the latest developments. Years ago, Twitter put limits on their API, effectively lobotomizing third party clients. This meant within Tweetbot, I had to sit and wait for slow manual refreshes of the latest tweets on the insurrection. And there were a lot of tweets. It was a rapidly developing, incredibly well-documented event, and it was clear I was missing content as I sat there glued to Tweetbot waiting for my horrifically slow insurrection updates.

The obvious answer was to move either Twitter’s mobile client or move to their website. As I was at my desktop during this failed coup, I moved to Twitter’s website and remembered what I learned years ago: their website is hot garbage.

I smiled when I got to that section of his post because I thought, “If he’d just switch to Tweetdeck, he’d be much happier.” Lo and behold, that’s exactly what he did.

The revelation was upon him, and he went on to explain what he did and how he’s using the platform now.

My doomscrolling has calmed since the inauguration. Nothing is fixed, but we are heading in the right direction. If you follow me on Twitter, you’ve noticed the tone has been uncharacteristically political. That’s not changing. One of the many lessons I’ve learned over the past four years is the seductive power of lies. I’ll be using every tool at my disposal to remind everyone of the power of the truth.

You’ve been warned.

Haven’t we all.

MacRumors has posted, well, a rumor that the next Apple Watch will have a blood glucose monitor that eliminates the need for fingersticks, testing strips, and a separate glucose monitor.

Apple is said to have secured patents around blood glucose monitoring, and the company is now purportedly “focusing on securing reliability and stability prior to commercialization of the technology.” The Apple-designed optical sensor is believed to be a skin-top continuous monitoring solution that does not require an implant.

Rumors suggest that Apple has been interested in adding blood glucose monitoring to the Apple Watch for some time. The company reportedly established a team of biomedical engineers and consultants specifically working on sensors for non-invasively monitoring blood sugar levels in 2017, and work on the sensor reportedly progressed to trials at clinical sites in the San Francisco Bay Area. Apple CEO Tim Cook has even been spotted testing what was believed to be a prototype glucose monitor connected to his Apple Watch.

This is the holy grail of features on a smartwatch. I do not have an Apple Watch, and I might consider getting one if this was available. If consumers could move away from the ecosystem of diabetes management, including needles, strips, readers, etc. and just wear a watch, it would put so many companies out of business. It’s a quantum shift game changer if the information it provided is reliable and accurate.

William Saletan, writing in Slate, has some smart insight on “right vs. left.” He says it doesn’t exist anymore. It’s not right versus left or conservative versus liberal. It’s “people who care about basic facts vs. people who don’t.”

Trump and his acolytes don’t just spin facts; they completely disregard them. They repeat fantastic lies about election fraud, and when they’re confronted with contrary evidence, they’re not even embarrassed. If we don’t get control of this — if we don’t reestablish an ethic of respect for facts — nothing else will be solved. We can’t extinguish the virus if tens of millions of Americans insist it’s a hoax and refuse to be vaccinated or wear masks. We can’t restore public faith in election results and put down insurrectionism if half the population refuses to believe anything the media report. Repairing the consensus that facts must be respected won’t settle our debates on spending, education, or criminal justice. But without that consensus, the crisis we’re in will get much worse.

It’s going to get worse. There has to be a price to pay for being wrong. I’m not talking about morals or politics. I mean “the sky is red, not blue” wrong. If we all can’t get to basic facts being basic facts, then we will be in an ever-changing hellhole of “alternative facts” and other bullshit. Lying under the previous administration was catastrophic for thousands, if not millions, of people. They have to be held accountable.

If you miss questions on a test, you are wrong. There is no “alternative answer” to 2+2=4. You are wrong. It’s the same thing across the board in our everyday lives and the sooner there is accountability for those who are lying, the better.

You’ve probably heard of Patton Oswalt. He’s an actor, stand-up comic, and voice actor. His brother, Matt, is a writer and photographer. Over at the Daily Beast, he put together a showcase of sorts of his most recent photos highlighting his new coffee-table book, Liquor Stores and Detours. They are really stunning.

This bit about a secret world behind these liquor stores made me laugh.

I have an irrational theory that the reason LA liquor stores continue to thrive despite the onslaught of online sales is that they’re all fronts for a shadowy crime network. A certain purchase at a certain time of night is like a key that opens a secret world where anything is possible. Buying a snack cake is like a signal you need a gun professionally cleaned, or asking the clerk you’re desperate for a bottle of Löwenbräu is the code for getting a body disposed of. Can’t get the covid vaccine? Just buy a Zagnut bar.

But seriously, don’t sleep on your local liquor store.

I might have to buy this book.

Amanda Gorman read her poem, “The Hill We Climb,” at the Inauguration, and I couldn’t take my eyes off her. The words were wonderful. Her eloquence was on full display. The power of her poetry was inspiring and moving. I had to learn a bit more. There’s Anderson Cooper’s interview with her and the New York Times story tells us a bit more about this amazing young woman.

I was sent a text of the poem the next day, and I’ve added it below because it needs to be read far and wide.

When day comes, we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade?
 The loss we carry. A sea we must wade.
 We braved the belly of the beast.
 We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace, and the norms and notions of what “just” is isn’t always justice.
 And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it.
 Somehow we do it.
 Somehow we weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished.
 We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president, only to find herself reciting for one.
 And, yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, but that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect.
 We are striving to forge our union with purpose.
 To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and conditions of man.
 And so we lift our gaze, not to what stands between us, but what stands before us.
 We close the divide because we know to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside.
 We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another.
 We seek harm to none and harmony for all.
 Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true.
 That even as we grieved, we grew.
 That even as we hurt, we hoped.
 That even as we tired, we tried.
 That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious.
 Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division.
 Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid.
 If we’re to live up to our own time, then victory won’t lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we’ve made.
 That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb, if only we dare.
 It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit.
 It’s the past we step into and how we repair it.
 We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation, rather than share it.
 Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy.
 And this effort very nearly succeeded.
 But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated.
 In this truth, in this faith we trust, for while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us.
 This is the era of just redemption.
 We feared at its inception.
 We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour.
 But within it we found the power to author a new chapter, to offer hope and laughter to ourselves.
 So, while once we asked, how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe, now we assert, how could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?
 We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be: a country that is bruised but whole, benevolent but bold, fierce and free.
 We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation, become the future.
 Our blunders become their burdens.
 But one thing is certain.
 If we merge mercy with might, and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change our children’s birthright.
 So let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left.
 Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest, we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one.
 We will rise from the golden hills of the West.
 We will rise from the windswept Northeast where our forefathers first realized revolution.
 We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the Midwestern states.
 We will rise from the sun-baked South.
 We will rebuild, reconcile, and recover.
 And every known nook of our nation and every corner called our country, our people diverse and beautiful, will emerge battered and beautiful.
 When day comes, we step out of the shade of flame and unafraid.
 The new dawn balloons as we free it.
 For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it.
 If only we’re brave enough to be it.

Utterly brilliant.

John Scalzi, on his personal site, has a few words about the ex-president. He starts off hard and doesn’t let up.

First and always, a liar.

Then a con man, a thief, and a grifter. A man who never saw a venture he couldn’t make fail, which is why he was always starting new ones: It was easier to jump to a new ship than stay with the sinking one. A cad, a harasser, allegedly a rapist. He treated women like they were disposable vessels for anxious manhood and was loved by the “family values” contingent for it, because they see women the same way he does. A racist, a bigot, a white supremacist. He saw neo-nazis march in Charlottesville and some part of his brain knew then that he had found his shock troops for an insurrection. A bully, a boaster, a braggart. He looked up to the worst leaders in the world because he wanted what they had: To be unquestioned, feared, and obeyed.

A bad man, a bad human, a bad person. And a bad president.

Not just bad, of course: In fact, the worst. A recitation of his moral failures and actual probable crimes would have us here all day, so let’s pick just one: 400,000 dead, so far, from COVID during his presidency. He is not responsible for the virus. He is responsible for denying its seriousness; for choosing to downplay it because he thought it would make him look bad; for making something as simple and useful as wearing a mask a political issue; for bungling a national response to it and then the distribution of medical supplies and, later, vaccines; for spreading misinformation and lies about it; for, fundamentally, not caring about his fellow Americans, and viewing the pandemic through the lens of him, not us. Hundreds of thousands of Americans who are now dead would be alive under a better president. Their deaths are on his hands, and he simply doesn’t care. He never will.

Good riddance.

Donald Trump was the worst president this country has ever had.

You may disagree, but you’d be wrong. Who do you suggest is worse? I guess James Buchanan, who let the country slip into the Civil War, is up there. Still, Trump is worse because he would have loved for the country to fall into a Civil War and was actively pursuing ideas and throwing them out into the world that would mean a Civil War. Buchanan was ineffectual, but Trump was active.

I can’t accurately state that James Buchanan loved his country, but I can tell you for a fact Donald Trump did not and does not care about the United States of America. At all. He does not care about the American people or our founding principles or our Constitution. He only cares about himself and his utterly desperate attempt at not being exactly who he is: a loser.

Not one thing can change Trump being labeled a loser. The country is profoundly better off now that he’s gone. This petty, small man is ensconced in his Florida estate, and America and the world finally have let out a sigh of relief. The rest of us have so much to do and so much to fix.

To not have to think about him and what incredibly stupid thing he has done now is freedom. We have endured him.

Go away and never come back.

Onward, President Joe Biden.

I’m not sure how I feel about Paul Stanley covering “ O-O-H Child.”

The idea of Stanley turning into Rod Stewart-doing-the-American-songbook era of his career is oft-putting. I don’t dislike what he’s doing here, it just isn’t something I’d actively go out and purchase or even be remotely excited about. I’m not also all that fond of the song and much prefer his version of “ Ohh Ohh Baby.”

To be perfectly honest, I hope he got all of this out of his system and can focus on creating a new KISS album. He always says he’s not really “feeling” a new KISS record, nor does he want to tarnish what was done before.

If I were the KISS manager, Doc McGhee (I’m not), I’d be pushing to get the band into the studio to cut a new album and generate some buzz for the resumption of the KISS End of the Road tour as well as figuring out how to reacquire the master recordings to all of their music and rights to their videos. It seems obvious to me it’s time for the band to start taking the reigns outside of working with a traditional label or partners.

On the other hand, I am a sucker for behind-the-scenes recording/making of documentaries. Again, I’m not totally sold on this era of his career, but he is having a great time, and he surrounded himself with the best musicians in the business.

One thing’s for sure, Paul’s voice sounds really strong with this type of music. “ I Do “ sounds great.

This video from Matthew Cooke is an excellent and succinct plea for Republicans and Trump supporters to come back to reality. It won’t happen, but it is an amazing video.

Joey Wagner, writing for the Illini Inquirer, has a fantastic story on Bobby Gikas, one of the basketball managers for this year’s Fighting Illini Basketball team. The story behind “juice” is the best.

The Illini had a shiny, top-10 ranking and — though Underwood has since heaped praise on Ohio which is 7–5 and №122 in KenPom — should have won handily but instead were on upset alert. The Bobcats were loud and did everything on the bench short of bringing in a strobe light to start the party. Illinois? Not so much. Something had to change.

“That was, I think, the most pivotal moment of our season so far because we’re down to Ohio, a team we should be beating, then I look over to our bench and everyone was sad and down and not saying a word,” Gikas said. “I’m like, ‘All right, well, this is not how I want to start my senior year.’”

Illinois ended up winning and, in the process, “juice” was born. Underwood had told his team that they’d have to “bring their own juice” this season. Gikas took it to heart.

Next up was a game against №2 Baylor in Indianapolis and Gikas noticed an extra dry-erase board. He grabbed a hold and simply wrote one word: “Juice.”

That board hasn’t gone away, though it can’t be a permanent fixture near the court or it will lose its meaning. It’s intended to create a spark, to quill a big run by the opposing team or to kickstart one of their own.

“Reading that word right there makes us play harder and keep going and if you’re on the bench it makes you be louder and bring more energy,” Curbelo said. “That’s definitely a great thing. If I could advise managers on other teams, they should be looking at Bobby because he does a really good job in always taking care of everything so we’re ready to go. By him doing his job and coming to the court for the game and bringing all that energy, I think it’s great. I’m really, really happy I know that guy and I’m really happy he’s our manager.”

Love everything about this.

Miles Surrey, writing for The Ringer, has a few thoughts on the recent trend of multiversal superheroes showing up.

The biggest issue with DC and Marvel going full multiverse isn’t a financial consideration, but more of a creative one: a superhero movie landscape shaped by myopia. These cinematic universes aren’t just doubling down on superheroes, they’re doubling down on the ones that “work.” Instead of embracing more obscure heroes like, say, the Guardians of the Galaxy, we’re going to be subjected to several iterations of Batman and Spider-Man, who have already been through countless on-screen reboots in the past three decades. (Lest we forget, the list of Batman alums also include Christian Bale, Val Kilmer, and George “Bat Nipples” Clooney.)

The creative reason is the only reason to do this. It also could mean more financially in the long run, but the “anything-goes” creativity this should spark is what’s drawing actors, directors, and, you know, writers.

This is some pretty good satire from Slate. Here’s the brilliant opening written by, ahem, the Joker:

It’s been a traumatizing couple of weeks in Gotham City, full of unthinkable violence and chaos. We’ve all seen the appalling footage: the exploding shark, the pier bombing, and the United World Organization building-until last week, a powerful symbol of the democratic hopes of the entire world- being invaded, vandalized, and defiled by the “United Underworld,” an alliance between the city’s most dastardly criminals: Catwoman, the Penguin, the Riddler, and even the Joker, the coolest supervillain of them all (although his role in the plot was very minor or maybe even nonexistent, from what I’m hearing). People across Gotham are frustrated and angered, and the vicious, unwarranted vigilante attack launched by so-called “crimefighters” Batman and Robin against the crew of a whimsically-decorated Navy surplus submarine in Gotham Harbor did nothing to lower the emotional temperature.

Now it appears that Commissioner Gordan and Chief O’Hara are planning to bring criminal charges against the ringleaders of the United Underworld. This is a grave mistake. Our great city should be looking forward right now, not dwelling on the past. A trial would only dredge up traumatic memories and evidence of the terror unleashed by the Penguin, the Riddler, Catwoman, and possibly others. Criminal trials should not occur in the heat of the moment, if ever, and I fear that investigating this shameful incident any further would only be inflammatory and incriminating. We could waste months looking into exactly which supervillain used a stolen piece of distillery equipment to dehydrate all nine members of the Security Council as part of a deranged kidnapping plan, but would that do anything to improve the life of the average Gothamite? In the spirit of healing and unity, I believe that the members of the United Underworld, especially the Joker, should be released immediately and face no further consequences for their alleged involvement in this plot. Anything less risks angering Gotham’s supervillains and their henchmen further while doing nothing to stop the cycle of super-crimes.

Man, this makes me laugh.

Matt Taibbi is one of those writers that makes me think about things in a new way. I don’t always agree with his ideas, but I admire his thoughtfulness in what he writes. In his Substack, he outlines the problems with the traditional news media today and outlines how a new type of media would ideally work.

We need a new media channel, the press version of a third party, where those financial pressures to maintain audience are absent. Ideally, it would:

 

• not be aligned with either Democrats or Republicans;

• employ a Fairness Doctrine-inspired approach that discourages groupthink and requires at least occasional explorations of alternative points of view;

• embrace a utilitarian mission stressing credibility over ratings, including by;

• operating on a distribution model that as much as possible doesn’t depend upon the indulgence of Apple, Google, and Amazon.

Innovations like Substack are great for opinionated individual voices like me, but what’s desperately needed is an institutional reporting mechanism that has credibility with the whole population. That means a channel that sees its mission as something separate from politics, or at least as separate from politics as possible.

The media used to derive its institutional power from this perception of separateness. Politicians feared investigation by the news media precisely because they knew audiences perceived them as neutral arbiters.

Now there are no major commercial outlets not firmly associated with one or the other political party. Criticism of Republicans is as baked into New York Times coverage as the lambasting of Democrats is at Fox, and politicians don’t fear them as much because they know their constituents do not consider rival media sources credible. Probably, they don’t even read them. Echo chambers have limited utility in changing minds.

Media companies need to get out of the audience-stroking business, and by extension the politics business. They’d then be more likely to be believed when making pronouncements about elections or masks or anything else, for that matter. Creating that kind of outlet also has a much better shot of restoring sanity to the country than the current strategy, which seems based on stamping out access to “wrong” information.

This is smart, but how would it be funded?

On his personal site, freelancer Dean Sterling Jones, accuses The Atlantic of stealing his work and denying him credit and compensation for the work. Jones said in his post that Atlantic editors have declined to give him credit in spite of “whole sentences and paragraphs from a freelance pitch” he sent to Natasha Bertrand.

Personally, I’m a little confused by the word “stealing.” He sent her the story and the research. He was subsequently credited in the story and linked.

The story was published later that day without my byline, although the Atlantic did eventually agree to credit me within the text of the article (albeit reluctantly and without offering an apology or an explanation for axing me from the story). I didn’t realise my work had been lifted until October 2020, when I was inspired to reinvestigate by the Atlantic magazine’s 800-word correction — and subsequent retraction — of a story by freelance journalist/serial fabricator Ruth Shalit Barrett.

As I told Bertrand in an email, the Atlantic’s refusal to add my byline to the story hurts both of us. I lost out on a writing credit and freelance fee; as a result, her name now sits atop an article that contains copied material.

Being a freelance journalist has its ups and downs, but getting stomped on by a big publication like the Atlantic deserves to be called out, hence this item.

Maybe next time don’t send a fully researched story to a publication without getting a proper contract from an actual editor?

When I was a kid, I watched my favorite shows just like any other kid my age. If you grew up in the 70s, you probably watched the same programs I did, give or take a few. I watched The Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman. I loved the original Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. WKRP was awesome.

Recently, I watched a few episodes of the 60s Batman with Adam West and Burt Ward. I had forgotten just how “tongue pressed firmly in cheek” the whole show was.

When I was still running around in Keds, I had no idea what camp was or that they were spoofing the whole genre. I didn’t know the pedigree of Caesar Romero, Burgess Meredith, or Frank Gorshin. I saw a live-action Batman, and that was all that mattered. Today, the show certainly holds up as the campy kitsch it was, but the wide-eyed wonder of the kid seeing comic books come to life is gone.

Back to back with Batman, The Monkees were also a daily afterschool ritual of my much younger self. I loved the combination of music and silly hijinks. I sort of looked like Mickey Dolenz in my youth — all crazy curly hair and mugging for the camera. The first record I ever owned was the Monkees Greatest Hits, and I remember proudly bringing it to school when I was in the third grade. I haven’t seen any of the old Monkees episodes lately, but I’m afraid I will be disappointed. I’ve since graduated to the Fab Four instead of the Pre-Fab Four. My daughter knows “Last Train to Clarksville,” but she’d rather listen to “Let It Be.” I’m much more interested in reading stories about how the show was created than watching episodes.

I have warm memories of Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends and the various incarnations of the Super Friends. However, I’m deathly afraid if I watch the shows today with my world-weary eyes, I’ll hate it. In fact, I know I’ll hate it. Some things hold up, and some things don’t. The Super Friends cartoon has been available on DVD for quite some time, but I don’t even want to watch it because I know from experience that, seen through adult eyes, it will suck.

I loved Ultraman when I was a kid. I have hazy memories of a giant space guy with incredible powers beating up the Godzilla rip-off of the week, and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I bought the DVD set when it came out and attempted to watch the first two or three episodes. I couldn’t get past everything wrong with it — acting, costumes, the whole premise, for goodness sake. It sucked so bad I let Goodwill have the package. I’m sure someone was happy to buy it.

The sadness I feel at replacing wide-eyed innocence with jaded experience and knowledge is profound but understandable. My ten-year-old self watched The Godfather on TV with my Dad, and I didn’t get it. It was the sanitized television version of The Godfather Parts 1 and 2 recut to chronological order, and I thought it was the most boring thing imaginable. I needed the experience and knowledge to appreciate the work. By that same token, the work I loved as a kid doesn’t cut it anymore as an adult.

Back when my daughter was much younger, we watched the first collection of the Speed Racer cartoon, and it held her attention. We watched it straight through. Sure, the dialogue was borderline unlistenable in places, and Spritle and Chim Chim are still as annoying as, say, Jar Jar Binks in the Star Wars prequels, but the stories were pretty good. Maybe early anime still has some holding power?

My eyes can no longer keep their innocent point of view. I mean, I still want to strangle George Lucas for subjecting me to the antics of Jar Jar Binks. My daughter laughed every time he was on screen.

Today I’m old, crusty, and tired, but what I’d give to be in middle school in the late 70s-early 80s again.

John DeVore, writing on his site on Medium, echoes a lot of what I think about the event at the Capitol.

It wasn’t a coup. It was more like a “fuck you.” A half-ass uprising fueled by revenge and hysteria. A theatrical production of Les Miserables KKK. There are photos of armed men dressed for battle. These men are not anchored in reality. They are fools. Dangerous, volatile fools.

Right. They were hooligans. They were not some sort of organized coup attempt. It wasn’t even a protest because they didn’t even have a position other than keep Trump in office, I guess?

They were loyal Trump supporters doing what they were told to do, which was to cause a ruckus and maybe scare a liberal. Look at the faces of these people. They’re having a good time. It’s a vacation. Burning down democracy is fun. Their king gave them permission to live a consequence-free life and they ran with it.

DeVore has a hard time trying to describe the mob.

No. This wasn’t a coup. Nor was it a protest. I’m reluctant to call it a riot. A riot is a bit more spontaneous than this shitshow. But I still don’t think these mobs breaking into the Capitol were organized. It was pure emotion. A stampede. A herd of beasts electrified by privilege and power and rage. Maybe it was a half-riot. A half-riot, half-melee.

I also don’t think this was terrorism, either. Terrorists usually have goals. Even Bin Laden or McVeigh had messages. This malignant mass panic attack was abuse. The only goal here was to maybe bully a few people into thinking “maybe if I had voted for Trump this wouldn’t be happening!” The only message a muddled demand to speak to the manager or else.

Trump, obviously did not think any of this through.

He didn’t plot a coup. He told a bunch of suck-ups and laidback turncoats to defend his honor and fight a hopeless battle. They answered his weak call. He blushed and thanked them. But nothing changed except, I suspect, turning more weary Americans against the MAGA cause.

Aside from the fact that there were several people there who actually wanted to kill members of Congress and the Vice President, it mostly was a fine example of white privilege.

We are lucky it was not worse.

Rebecca Solnit, writing in the Literary Hub, has one of the better truth bombs I’ve seen lately.

One of the indigestible facts of this country is that most of its terrorism and nearly all its mass shootings are committed by mostly conservative-leaning white men, conservative here meaning those most earnestly committed to their white supremacist-misogynist identity politics, from the unending terrorism of the Klan and other racist groups and the anti-abortion murders of the 1990s to the present-day mayhem.

It is all identity politics. All of it.

David Murphy at Lifehacker has a good idea I’m going to try and implement: a digital declutter of my digital devices.

Everyone should set aside dedicated time to review what they’ve installed on their various devices—typically apps, but that can also include games and addons. In fact, this should be an annual cleaning, at minimum. I can’t stand digital clutter, so I do it every three months, and that means actually setting a calendar reminder so that I remember to do it on a regular basis.

I’m going to try to do this all year.