Paul Jorgensen

Follow @somanyhills on Micro.blog.

“Mum Does the Washing,” by Joshua Idehen. Do not sleep on this. H/t Andy Cush at Hearing Things

→ 6:52 PM, Nov 20

John Gruber experiences a different Apple News+ than me. I canceled my latest free trial early because it was mostly garbage being served up. Nothing felt curated. Filtering doesn’t work transparently. Oh, and the ads sucked. On that, we both agree

→ 6:32 PM, Nov 20

More examples of drumpf +mob being all about tactical wins with zero fucks given about strategy or even what will any of this will mean. “Unintended Consequences” are something that happens to other people, I guess? Also, those voters needing Helene relief I guess are SOL until the new Dems come in?

North Carolina Republicans advanced extensive legislation Tuesday that would weaken the powers of the incoming governor, attorney general and schools superintendent - all Democrats who were elected two weeks ago - and shift election board appointments to the GOP state auditor.

– WUTV 9 News

→ 5:47 PM, Nov 20

For me the worst philosophical sin is not being wrong, or even making logical errors. It is being dogmatic. Although I try not to be dogmatic about this.

– Ethan Mills

→ 8:02 AM, Nov 18

🔗 Pink Floyd's Echoes

I’m usually not a fan of male pomposity. A shirtless man band strutting around a Roman amphitheater in Pompeii for a 24 minute song sounds like my idea of a bad time.

But if the men in question are dedicating themselves to one of the most epic pieces of popular music ever created I guess I’ll let it fly …

– Nickle Bin #24

Echoes is almost comically absurd in how good it is. I agree that it’s one of the best – if not the best – Pink Floyd song. When I found a copy of the Live In Pompei VHS tape as a freshman in high school, my mind was blown 🤯.

All of which makes me wish I’d discovered this video below when it emerged four and a half years ago at the dawn of the pandemic.

It’s Rodrigo y Gabriela. It’s stripped down. It’s beautiful. It’s here.

→ 8:38 AM, Nov 16

… it was a useful lesson in humility, a reminder that for all our presumption in explaining China to the world, we had little idea what was going on around us — and that any time we were too full of ourselves, too cocky about our analytical triumphs, we were probably about to learn that the world is more complicated than it seems.

– Nicholas Kristof | China Books Review | 14th November 2024](h/t The Broswer)

→ 3:21 PM, Nov 15

🔗 The End of Inevitability

I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness… ~ Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World, 1995

– via Fix The News

→ 10:47 AM, Nov 14

🔗 Throwing Muses – “Drugstore Drastic”

Excited!!!

Throwing Muses, the long-running indie rock band led by Kristin Hersh, are getting ready for a new release sometime next year. Though we don’t have any more information on that front, the band have shared today’s new single “Drugstore Drastic,” their first new music since their 2020 album Sun Racket. “Drugstore Drastic” is built off a power-pop acoustic guitar chug. Hersh explains in a statement: “The bulk of this song comes from a New Orleans sidewalk: an overheard conversation between a sober and a not sober person, as we all made our way toward the Cool Tree, an uptown meeting point with a shifting cast of characters, exotic birds and weird, twisting, tendril-like branches that reach out along the ground.”

– via Abby Jones at Stereogum

→ 11:19 AM, Nov 13

When the musician Brian Eno spoke to the New Statesman in May, he seemed to be irritated about the art world, its inflated prices and its critical language that so few people understand. When the potter and painter Grayson Perry began giving his Reith Lectures last month he paid tribute to Eno’s 1995 “sabotage” of a Marcel Duchamp urinal in New York (Eno siphoned his own urine into the artwork to explore whether the piece might be more valuable if it had been “worked upon” by two people).
– The New Statesman (h/t The Browser)
→ 9:33 PM, Nov 11

This is a time when it is frightening to be alive, when it is hard to think of human beings as rational creatures. Everywhere we look we see brutality, stupidity, until it seems that there is nothing else to be seen but that — a descent into barbarism, everywhere, which we are unable to check. But I think that while it is true there is a general worsening, it is precisely because things are so frightening we become hypnotized, and do not notice — or if we notice, belittle — equally strong forces on the other side, the forces, in short, of reason, sanity and civilization.
– Dorris Lessing (h/t The Marginalian)
→ 9:25 PM, Nov 11

🔗 We Need To Fight For Free Speech More Than Ever

Either way, the point stands: we need to protect our free speech rights more than ever. Trump and the MAGA crowd are going to gleefully try to stomp them out. They will push to repeal Section 230. They will push to outlaw all kinds of content they dislike (if you thought existing book bans were bad, just wait). They will push to outlaw all sorts of things.

And Democrats are going to fall for bullshit moral panics and agree to help them.

Don’t let them. Speak up and protect free speech rights.

I know that some people will incorrectly claim that Trump was only elected because he and his supporters were allowed to lie with impunity about basically everything. But that’s bullshit, first of all, and giving up your free speech rights won’t help.

Shutting down free speech rights is capitulating in advance, because you are handing over the very tools that Trump and his censorial cronies will use to shut up anyone who criticizes him.

In the coming years, there will be many efforts to try to protect the US against growing authoritarian and fascist plans. None of that will be possible if we don’t protect our free speech rights first.

– Mike Masnick via Techdirt

→ 8:59 AM, Nov 8

"… be an example of what you want this country to be. Lead with courage and compassion, face down injustice and immorality, and speak the truth. But also be willing to listen. People had reasons to vote how they did. Hearing them, and talking to them, and then fighting for solutions that help all of us and uplift all of us, is how we make real fundamental change."
– via Piper Haywood
→ 8:51 AM, Nov 8

Make the time.
I hate that sentence.

It assumes a lot about agency, not to mention the reader’s mental and physical abilities. The core of it is necessary to hear, though. It would be better stated as, “You must fight for enough time to devote to the things that matter.”

No one will give that time to you. It’s too valuable to them.

– CJ Chilvers
→ 8:47 AM, Nov 8

Eight years ago today, the day after the 2016 election, I rode a Delta 747 to Tokyo. It was planned well before early voting started, before James Comey’s October surprise. I experienced the first three years of drumpf 45 from the other side of the world.

That won’t work this time.

→ 9:02 PM, Nov 6

Dear @manton, I’m trying to get #org2blog in #Emacs working with MB via metaweblog API. I’m not puzzling out how to set up my custom domain based on Using MarsEdit help document. I have a token but not sure what url to use and the username syntax that would apply. TIA

→ 1:14 PM, Nov 6

What colour is this blowing autumn wind, that it can stain my body with its touch?

— Izumi Shikibu & Edwin A Cranston, The Izumi Shikibu Diary. (Harvard University Press, 1969); h/t Live & Learn

→ 2:17 PM, Nov 3

I kind of wanna marry these two: Not just Douglas Adam’s fans, but Starship Titanic fans; Pink Floyd’s Animals; The Cars and a bunch of my kind of music. 🔗They Were Just What They Needed

→ 8:46 AM, Oct 27

Celebrate #Chattanooga’s historic Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Auditorium turning 100 with an unforgettable night featuring Charley Crockett. Enter to win tickets from WUTC 88.1, the Tennessee Valley’s NPR station (where I work!). Learn more here.

→ 9:21 AM, Oct 26

The Truth Is Paywalled But The Lies Are Free

– Nathan J. Robinson 🔗

→ 8:17 AM, Oct 26

Color Green IG getting ready to go in at Cherry Street Tavern IG #livemusic #Chattanooga

→ 10:22 PM, Oct 25

The Pink Stones IG #livemusic #Chattanooga at Cherry Street Tavern IG

→ 9:19 PM, Oct 25

The Pink Stones IG on stage in #Chattanooga

→ 9:10 PM, Oct 25

I wish the Apple loud sound notification on the Watch had a “I’m wearing ear protection” or “I’m driving with the windows down and my arm out the window” button

→ 9:07 PM, Oct 25

Getting ready to see Color Green IG and The Pink Stones IG play Cherry Street Tavern IG in #Chattanooga #Americana #psychedelic #rock Everyone I’ve talked with about this show is excited for it

→ 8:38 PM, Oct 25

Finished reading: The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle 📚💙

Engaging read. I’m still reflecting on it. The novelette reminded me of Lovecraft Country (could easily have been one of the vignettes in there) and Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shay’s Illuminatus Trilogy.

→ 6:11 PM, Oct 25