I really love the gently acidic way Brent Simmons has been phrasing problems of power lately. Here’s the entirety of this great post:

You run into those fellas in life and online who will always explain, for any situation, why the big company is right.

If asked, they will discuss their political and economic ideology. That ideology, they’ll explain, is about reality and logic — it isn’t some blanket defense of big companies. No way. It could just as easily defend small businesses and working people.

Except… every single time, without fail, they side with the big company. And then you realize that they’re the overdog lovers. They cling to the big wealthy power and hate the underdogs. It would be nice if they’d just say so.

“It would be nice if they’d just say so” is SUCH a polite way to destroy the kind of “I’m just being realistic here” bullshit underlord who paves the way for oppression everywhere, whether corporate, national, or personal.

People who support power because they identify with the powerful, even when they have little of their own. Household patriarchs the world over who spit on the downtrodden and vote for idiot fascists because they like the appearance of power. Fascist fanboys whose vision of “realism” is that consolidated power isn’t an unjust accident of history, but simply the way things ought to be. Ignorant cowards who bluster loudest about how tough they are, usually to a limited audience of their own disgusted families. The lapdogs of history, tiny men who must be handled with care while seeing themselves as wolves, who think their yipping is a powerful roar.

Anyway, that’s the sort of thing that comes out when I try to address these people. I wish I were more readily capable of Brent’s calm; I think it’s more effective for reaching the people whose minds might be changed.

god damn

Catfish and the Bottlemen — Coincide

I heard a BUNCH of coyotes howling and yipping last night as I walked between the warehouses and the tracks. I couldn't tell if they were happy or not, but they had to yell regardless.

I just listened to an hour and twenty minutes of the Abnormal Mapping episode about Super Mario RPG — with 20 minutes remaining — and grew very frustrated!! It’s not sufficient that you simply recap a play experience and say the sorts of things that anyone would say about it. I was carried through on shared reminiscence, and then I was frustrated by the lack of even an attempt at a perspective or new reading of any ingredient of the game. I do not want to listen to a laundry list of things that happen in a media object, without adding anything substantial. Lord! And if you are gonna do that, at least edit it down at all, to remove the parts where you literally had nothing to say!

On the other hand, I recognize that I’ve grown moody about podcasts as I have about music; having done it, and learned to do it pretty well, and then having lost the context in which it worked, I resent the people who keep doing something even though they are mediocre at it, and even attract a paid following. That’s my
problem, and between me and my depression. But every time I’ve tried listening to Abnormal Mapping, because someone else brings it up, I get so bored.

Say! Something! Please! And thank you.

Brent Simmons, whose calm, measured voice is a pleasure in both text and audio, has written a great rebuttal of a bullshit opinion piece. Whether you’ve been following the public debate around Apple’s recent gross rent-seeking behavior or not, this is a pretty good summary of the “argument.”

Which, as usual in our culture, is between brutish, reductive patriarchs who have no idea what they’re talking about but think tough, bad-dad tirades against being “whiny” and “needy” are anything other than callousness; and calm, measured voices experiencing active oppression and exploitation by systems of power, who have figured out what the problems are, and who just can’t get anyone in a position of undeserved authority to listen, let alone change.

Bad Suns — Patience

I've been writing my thoughts down, to clear my mind, to try and figure out my brain. To confront and set aside my pain, and I'm approaching a breakthrough. I'm happy now, though, satisfaction comes and goes. While the saddest facts, they cling like shadows.

One more try for the top of the mountain. Close your eyes, be patient, it's coming.

All my dreams have been weighing me down! Like an anchor to my bed. I can live my life instead.

Liza Anne - Bummer Days

I don't know what I want, but I know that I feel: bad! And then when I feel good, I think I make myself: sad.

Extremely accurate depression feelings! My depression has been mitigated greatly by brain medicine, though it's a different thing every day. And it seems to me like anxiety has tended to sweep into the space left behind. One thing that hasn't changed: I still don't really have access to a clear sense of what I want. But I'm working on answering that question and then challenging the answers less often.

And it does feel easier to get out of my own way, sometimes, in some ways.

There's always something that I'm doing, that keeps me far from where I say I'm going!

And then trying not to do this, either. Good luck, Liza Anne. I like the new record!

Destructoid says there will be an English translation of Hobonichi's Iwata-san / Ask Iwata book. I can't wait!!!