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Posts Tagged ‘blogging’

Throwback Thursday and the Playgirls

Posted in Diary, Miscellaneous, Philosophy, tagged , , , , , on June 25, 2026| Leave a Comment »

There is nothing as good for anxiety as feeling supported and cared for!  –  “Diary #625”

It’s hardly incisive criticism or inspired analysis to point out that children see and enjoy different things in a movie or show than adults do, or that young adults and older adults may enjoy different things about the same show.  –
“The Eye of Childhood”

Art cannot exist as handmaiden to politics.  This is not to say that art cannot be political; “Guernica” is art.  But if the artistic impulse does not precede the political one, the result is mere propaganda.  Artists can make political statements, but partisans can’t make art.  –  “Tweets Aplenty”

Grief, loss, and pain are transmuted [by the brain’s alchemy] into art, much like a compost heap transmutes organic garbage into humus for growing new plants.  –  “Diary #782“

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Blue Skies Above

Posted in Biography, History, Miscellaneous, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, Words, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 19, 2026| Leave a Comment »

They'll need to figure out how to send a letter back in time to threaten Warner Brothers as well.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-05-14T18:02:09.514Z

This is called "the martial arts".

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-05-17T04:09:51.125Z

I reckon this must be a tataille, because it sure ain't a lougarou.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-05-17T17:54:41.692Z

"When somebody offers you a seat on the rocket ship, just get on" http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/5…

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-05-18T03:50:10.197Z

Reporters, please stop saying "pod" to mean "cell block". Imprisoned people are neither whales nor alien body snatchers; they don't come from "pods". Just because the monsters in the US carceral system use euphemisms to hide their evil, doesn't mean you need to parrot them.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-05-19T16:59:03.072Z

If you think THAT'S something, just wait until you see Ram Man.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-05-21T04:12:32.430Z

People are doing "10 bands you've seen live" on Twitter & it keeps reminding me of Grace, who was a studio musician for years. Once we were at a party where this girl was bragging about getting backstage passes & Grace said to me, "I've *blown* more big name rock stars than she's seen in concert."

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-05-21T16:52:25.724Z

"Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them." – Frank Herbert, "Dune"

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-05-22T17:29:39.662Z

It boggled my mind that a restaurant would be named after a dessert. It still does. I mean, nobody goes to "Flan Bell" or "Hand Pie King" or "Spumone Hut".

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-05-23T18:42:01.117Z

No D&D player should be surprised when a high-level cleric quotes a high-level wizard.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-05-25T17:06:01.707Z

Crypto-moralists never let little things like facts get in the way of barfing the word "unhealthy" in people's faces every time they do anything more exciting than eating raw vegetables & water once a day after their toil & drudgery, then going to sleep on the floor in an un-climate-controlled room.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-05-26T16:52:56.642Z

"Are we just going to give up and breathe?""Are we just going to give up and eat?""Are we just going to give up and be affected by gravity?""Are we just going to give up and have mass?""Are we just going to give up and emit heat?"This is what you sound like to sane people.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-05-27T17:35:31.457Z

You'd think that after all these decades as an adult, I'd have grown jaded enough to feel something milder than utter contempt for nitwits who believe the entire world of human political thought can be reduced to a single one-dimensional axis. But in actuality, my contempt merely grows more bitter.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-05-29T17:23:12.409Z

If you're a scientist on social media who wants to be accepted as an authority in your field, it's probably a bad idea to claim that a cause can be responsible for "more than 100%" of an observed effect.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-05-30T17:01:30.319Z

"Trump is acting like an authoritarian" = "Einstein is acting like a scientist" = "Streisand is acting like a diva" = "Spielberg is acting like a director" = "Kermit is acting like a Muppet" = "Lassie is acting like a dog" = "Yersinia pestis is acting like a disease organism".

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-05-31T17:08:54.673Z

Hey fellow old folks, remember the late '80s, when food companies were trying to cram oat bran into everything because "nutritionists" told the hoi-polloi it had magical life-extension powers?Some things never change.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-06-01T17:10:49.087Z

Sooner or later, sensible people will need to just tell anti-immigration bigots to go to hell. archive.is/ZwLwc

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-06-02T17:26:11.101Z

Also, electricity and the microcomputer actually did most of what they were claimed to be able to do.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-06-04T03:33:10.119Z

Imagine having enough money to do basically anything which doesn't actually violate physical laws, and instead choosing to live your life like this.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-06-04T17:58:36.047Z

The heckler's veto as US government policy.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-06-05T17:57:26.404Z

Nobody who ever watched a single episode of any '60s spy show involving double agents should be surprised at this.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-06-07T17:51:58.453Z

You know how "I had sex with your dad" has become a way for sex workers to mock squares? Well, I had sex with a lot of people's grandpas. A lot of great-grandpas too.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-06-09T17:31:16.476Z

Fucking a lot of people of both sexes, reading omnivorously, writing A+ essays, running a D&D campaign, hanging out with my friends and predicting the eventual disasters that would result from bad US politics?Yep, checks out.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-06-10T17:31:49.443Z

I know it's difficult for males stuck at 12, but not everything is a pissing contest.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-06-11T17:21:28.738Z

Can we please stop saying [name of Trumpified institution] to mean "Trump"? Don't tell me "The Pentagon" or "The Department of Justice" or "The Kennedy Center" did something; the management of those places are just sock puppets speaking in Trump's voice, like an evil Neighborhood of Make-Believe.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-06-12T17:30:43.841Z

"Mythos".They are taunting y'all, and few are literate enough to recognize it.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-06-13T17:38:37.133Z

Doctor Dolittle books. As players rise in levels, they learn more animal languages and gain more animal helpers. Experience is earned by traveling around the world, making friends with animals & with people of different races; by finding unique beings; and by visiting fantastic places like the Moon.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-06-15T03:51:15.730Z

If it looks like a circle jerk, sounds like a circle jerk, smells like a circle jerk, and jerks around like a circle jerk, it's probably a circle jerk.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-06-17T04:07:56.859Z

One of the most important causes of the Great Depression was the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-06-17T18:05:59.672Z

People who accept domination by "leaders" cannot be free.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-06-18T18:42:45.618Z

 

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Atom Age Throwback Thursday

Posted in Biography, History, Miscellaneous, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, Words, tagged , , , , , , , on June 18, 2026| Leave a Comment »

I’ve always thought [“inflation”] was a serious misnomer, because the problem isn’t really that prices are going up; it’s that the value of the currency is going down.  –
“When Ends Don’t Meet”

The one moral concept from my Catholic upbringing which has remained steadfastly lodged in my head is that waste is a sin.  –  “Throwback Thursdays”

While traditional zombies are objects of horror to be feared, modern “zombies” are objects of loathing, to be exterminated…they…are people it’s OK to hate and even kill without having to worry about their rights, a fantasy outlet for violent impulses.  –  “Why Zombies?”

Digital computers…are fundamentally unable to think as we understand the concept, regardless of how big or fast they are or how complex the software, because intelligence requires grasping the concept “maybe”, which is excluded by binary data processing.  –  “Mad Libs (#1546)“

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Black Throwback Thursday

Posted in Biography, Miscellaneous, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on June 11, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Why must I always be put in a position where yelling at some poor working stiff who absolutely isn’t being paid enough to deal with me is the only way to actually get my problem solved?
–  “Customer Disservice”

I figured out at a fairly young age that when anyone demanded obedience, belief, or trust because they had an Important Title or were simply bigger than me, rather than for some reason they could logically explain, that it was usually because they had no sound reason, and therefore were not to be trusted, believed, or obeyed.
–  “Getting Away from the Grownups”

God-king wannabes…[a]re not only trying to eliminate thoughts they don’t like, but also to cram young heads so full of nonsense that there is no room for actual learning…when their victims mature enough to escape their direct control.  –  “Censorship by Commission”

One simple definition of a “friend” could be, “Someone who is there for you when you need them.”  –  “Diary #780“

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Throwback Thursday and the Ballerina

Posted in Miscellaneous, Music, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, Words, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 4, 2026| Leave a Comment »

The naive believe that “child predators” are creepy dudes who hang out at playgrounds; in reality, they are largely people in positions of authority over their preferred targets.  –  “Follow Your Bliss (#1242)”

The more fantastical a world, the more important it is that it doesn’t contradict itself if an audience is to accept it.  –  “The Buffyverse, Part Two”

This is a day for sexual outlaws, not well-behaved “workers”; it is a day to celebrate the triumphs of criminalized human beings against a society that would rather we didn’t exist.
–  “Whores’ Day 2024”

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Back Issue #155

Posted in Miscellaneous, tagged on May 29, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Sexual likes, dislikes, kinks and fetishes emerge by mysterious paths from the murky swamp we carry deep in our brains, and there’s no known way to reroute those pathways once they’re established.
–  “Out of the Dark”

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Uncle Throwback Thursday

Posted in Biography, Favorites, Miscellaneous, Music, Philosophy, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , on May 28, 2026| Leave a Comment »

In the early ’80s…I was much too young…to really feel in my gut what it meant to remember [being in love] across a gulf of decades.  –
“So Long Ago, So Clear”

Trying to use [social media] without muting is like trying to have a garden without weeding.  –  “Maytweets”

Journalism that doesn’t at least occasionally offend the government isn’t real journalism.  –  “Yes, They’re Still Tweets”

My emotions are often insidious, slippery things, which is why I often used to refer to the “snakes in my head”.
–  “Thirty Years Gone“

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Not of Throwback Thursday

Posted in Miscellaneous, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, Words, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 21, 2026| Leave a Comment »

If there is one succinct statement which sums up my political philosophy, it’s “Every adult individual owns themselves and absolutely nobody has the right to overrule that.”  –
“Your Body, Your Choice”

Politicians can always be counted on to pander to hordes of ignorant lackwits who view any knowledge that might contradict their deeply-stupid weltanschauung as an existential threat.  –  “The Kinsey Factor”

I fail to see any important difference between the government forcibly taking people’s homes to quarter troops and forcibly taking them to enable cops and robbers games.  –  “A Broker in Pillage (#1438)”

Prohibitionists have learned…that decriminalization is viewed by all experts as the best framework, so now they’re all lying by calling whatever modified criminalization scam they’re selling “decriminalization”, so as to trick ordinary voters into believing they actually support human rights. – “Not Decriminalization“

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On the Tweet Where You Live

Posted in History, Miscellaneous, Music, Perception, Philosophy, Tyranny, Words, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 18, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Old-style criminals ran their criminal activities as businesses; techies run their businesses as criminal enterprises.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-04-18T07:51:15.991Z

These things look like the wearer's head shrunk, which makes them a perfect visual metaphor for chatbot usage.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-04-21T03:54:52.643Z

"She swindled him out of the $40,000 he spent on her…"Make up you minds; either he spent it or she swindled him. Buyer's remorse does not a "swindle" make.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-04-23T03:32:42.585Z

In my youth, nobody used a word any harsher than "eccentric" to describe old ladies who refused to drive economy cars, insisted big tube radios sounded better than transistor radios, or was unimpressed with cinema special-effects spectacles.I hope to be afforded the same courtesy.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-04-23T17:07:28.260Z

Not crushing enough.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-04-24T17:45:48.193Z

"Sam Altman, the head (in the nautical sense) of OpenAI…"Please proceed.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-04-25T17:29:34.342Z

A sophomoric twit proposes a stupid thought experiment involving button-pushing. If more than 50% of people on social media respond, other sophomoric twits will continue to propose stupid thought experiments, but if less than 50% respond the fad will die. Do you participate?

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-04-26T16:31:10.502Z

I'm sick to death of hearing this nonsense about "girl dads" and "boy moms". How about just being parents who actually CARE about their children, regardless of gender? And I don't mean "help them achieve arbitrary standards of success" or "keep them physically 'safe' at the cost of personal growth".

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-04-27T17:44:27.936Z

I do not keep cursed objects in my home, and furthermore as a wise old crone who lives near a damp, creepy forest I advise y'all not to keep them in your homes, either.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-04-27T18:01:27.631Z

Dude looks like he just got a facefull of Joker toxin.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-04-30T03:59:39.099Z

A housecat is much smaller than a human, and absolutely cannot win in a fight with a determined human. But it doesn't need to; all it NEEDS to do is make grabbing it so painful and bloody that the human decides grabbing it isn't worthwhile.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-04-30T18:23:30.477Z

The Bluesky autocensor has labeled this "explicit or potentially disturbing". If you're disturbed by the Three Stooges' cartoon violence, I suggest you just mute or block me now, because it isn't going to get any better for you.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-05-01T18:04:59.499Z

I stopped considering myself a Christian about 50 years ago, and I am still nauseated by the level of blasphemy constantly pouring out of Gomorrah-on-the-Potomac.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-05-02T02:52:58.126Z

I propose we change the name from the Department of Justice to the Department of Vengeance, so as to more accurately describe its activities. If a hypothetical future regime somehow changes that in a way that will make abuse much harder*, we can consider changing it back.*This will never happen.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-05-03T17:54:28.666Z

Millennials and Gen Xers may recognize this song as the main title of "The Adventures of Pete & Pete". But what Polaris didn't dare tell Nickelodeon, for fear of losing the gig, is that the song is about the Kent State massacre. The titular "Sandy" is Sandra Lee Scheuer.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-05-04T16:59:54.865Z

It's true, I was there.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-05-05T04:03:23.278Z

A lot of people (ESPECIALLY in cities like Portland or Seattle) use the term "anarchist" as a synonym for "hooligan", when in actuality they're closer to antonyms. True anarchists have their own moral code which they firmly adhere to, for reasons which should be obvious.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-05-05T16:45:46.775Z

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-05-09T04:45:27.463Z

So the antecedent of "you" here is…countries? Or is he saying all "not stupid" countries should shoot at an individual, such as a US local cop, who shoots at me, Maggie McNeill? Or does he mean there should be a grand free-for-all in which all national militaries avenge all individual shootings?

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-05-09T17:26:29.171Z

"it is context window buffers""I thought a string of instructions could be my friend""Mensa"{insert "I am very smart" meme}

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-05-11T17:19:05.355Z

This looks worse than "Reptilicus".

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-05-12T17:34:06.980Z

My favorite subgenre of country is philosophical country, epitomized by songs written by Jimmy Webb.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-05-13T16:47:24.314Z

Roughly 1/3 of US voters are authoritarian.Roughly 1/3 are liberal.And the remaining 1/3 are spineless reeds who will bend with the political winds.The entire history of US politics, from the founding generation until now, is the struggle to capture the middle third.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-05-14T17:45:43.395Z

He also announced future initiatives to fight saline bags, stints, dental chairs, and MRI machines, but he's leaving the fights against vaccines and antibiotics to his buddy Frankennedy.

— Maggie McNeill (@maggiemcneill.bsky.social) 2026-05-16T17:31:42.572Z

 

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A Novel Process

Posted in Biography, Fiction, Miscellaneous, tagged , , , on May 15, 2026| Leave a Comment »

For most of my life, my writing process was more like gestation than construction; an essay or story would grow in my head until I put it on paper fully-formed.  When a high-school English teacher wanted us to include a “jot outline” of rough ideas along with the essay, I would do the outline after I finished (sometimes as late as the beginning of class) because writing down half-formed notions was simply not part of my writing process, and even in university I typically wrote my term papers at the (manual) typewriter, and the only necessary revisions could be accomplished with Liquid Paper.  When I got my first computer in the spring of 1989 this process became even quicker and more seamless, because with a word processor I could revise without even leaving a detectable trace.  And while this may sound wonderful to those of you who struggle to write, it meant I never developed the cognitive tools to write anything more than a few thousand words long, just as I never developed the cognitive tools to gain understanding of any topic I couldn’t master by simply paying attention to the book or teacher.

It has certainly not escaped the notice of my long-term readers that most of my fiction is in the short-short category (< 2000 words), with only occasional forays into the full-length short story category (< 10,000 words).  So last summer, when I wanted to tell a story that needed more time and space for character and setting development, I needed to learn a new skill: actually plotting a story rather than simply shouting “Eureka!”, reaching up to grasp the light bulb over my head, and quickly inserting it into a document.  Most of the work was still done in my head, and my first two novellas were written all out of sequence, with each scene or section written as it developed in my mind, then put together in proper sequence and polished.  And what I learned from that process made me confident enough to embark on a still-larger project, a short novel (in the 45,000 word range) set in the spring of 1925 and tentatively entitled The Big Boom.  So far, I’ve finished the first draft of the prologue and first three chapters, and yesterday I started chapter four (which will trigger some additions to chapter one).  This story seems to be developing more in sequence than the other two, though it may not continue in that wise; still, given that “Hellhound” was written in sequence to a greater degree than “Until the End of Days“, who knows?  I’m taking my time and enjoying the process, and I hope y’all will enjoy the result.

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