[Poe and Pepper, relaxing on the couch.]
Oh, we do live in interesting times. Trump and Musk are very efficiently dismantling the American Empire, which is a good thing, but they are doing so by dismantling America, which is a very bad thing. In the event that we ever have elections again, with candidates who are meaningfully distinct from one another and from the current ball of hagfish slime inhabiting the halls of power, I will vote from anyone who dedicates their career to overturning Citizens United, and putting strict caps on all campaign donations and all campaign spending. Spending is not free speech, has never been free speech, and must never be considered free speech. Free speech is only that which is enjoyed, both in principle and in practice, by all Americans equally. So any laws which act as de facto aggregators of power rather than dispersers of power are per se anti-free speech, and therefore pro-fascism.
Reading
Samuel Beckett. Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Patsy Southgate. Paul Blackburn. Gary Snyder. Carlos Fuentes. Denise Levertov. Boris Pasternak. All of these writers and dozens more besides, in The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966. This book is keeping me sane, for what it’s worth.
Writing
I felt particularly burned out over the past week and so accomplished very little, writing-wise.
Weekly Writing Prompt
Subject: Espionage, Super Powers
Setting: Border Town
Genre: Fantasy
Listening
Otis Taylor and his band with an amazing cover of “Hey Joe”, performed at the Kitchener Blues Festival in August of 2014. I have been a fan of Taylor since I first heard one of his songs on local station WYCE back in the early 2000s.
Interesting Links
- “Why Techdirt Is Now A Democracy Blog (Whether We Like It Or Not)” (Mike Masnick, Techdirt)
- “The SAVE Act Could Keep Millions of Transgender Americans From Voting” (Cait Smith and Greta Bedekovics, Center for American Progress)