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It’s time to close out some of the tabs I’ve had open for a bit. ::  This first grouping is about the recent murder of Charlie Kirk, which I have been reluctant to address in any major way, and I suppose I’m going to keep not much addressing it. It’s phrasing things mildly to say that I was not a fan. I do not think that Kirk injected any particular level of intelligent insight into the national conversation; I found his views to be a typical MAGA blend of virulent toxicity, white supremacy, sexism, creepy evangelicalism, and a general lackDown the rabbit hole….

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Let’s close out some tabs! ::  To be fair, I didn’t even read this article. It’s by a woman who moved to Pittsburgh for a job, kinda liked the place, but quickly lost her job, didn’t like the place as much then, and moved to Los Angeles. All that’s, well, fine, whatever. No big deal. But what caught me on this one was the article’s insistence that Pittsburgh is in the Midwest. Uh…no. Nope. Ixnay. Now, admittedly, Pittsburgh is a kind of outlier, region-wise. It’s far enough west that calling it part of the Northeast doesn’t seem right. It’s notDown the rabbit hole….

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::  I tossed out a random thought, and Roger took that thought and ran with it! ::  I don’t know what it is, but I am always fascinated by people who try to befriend the wildlife, to disastrous results. ::  One of two articles on NYC Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani: The attacks on Zohran Mamdani show that we need a new understanding of antisemitism, and Debunking all the BS about Zohran Mamdani.  ::  Buffalo’s One Billion Dollar Cautionary Tale for Baltimore’s Highway to Nowhere. This has been a very frustrating story to watch unfold. Buffalo’s Kensington Expressway, NY33, is aDown the rabbit hole….

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And just where the hell have I been? Well, right here, with all the usual nonsense going on: busy at work, lots of stuff going on at home, and the usual existential stuff about whether or not I’m still a writer or if I’m morphing into a video person. I’ve been making content fairly regularly for Tiktok, and I’ve been sharing that content kind-of reliably to Instagram, but I need to get better about cross-posting it to YouTube. What about this space? It isn’t going anywhere. I’m just trying to figure out how to integrate all of this. ‘Tis not easy, Cap’n!Down the rabbit hole….

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Time to clear out some tabbage: ::  Two morons were convicted in Great Britain of cutting down the Sycamore Gap tree. Good. ::  Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, 80 years old and battling cancer, has called it a career. Tilson Thomas was once music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, from 1971 to 1979. The BPO has been so stable over the years that with Tilson Thomas’s retirement, only three former BPO music directors remain active on the podium: Semyon Bychkov (1985-1989), Maximiano Valdes (1989-1998), and the incumbent, JoAnn Falletta (1999-present). ::  Yes I’m a half-Palestinian lesbian, but I dream ofDown the rabbit hole….

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Yup, it’s that time again: “Wow, I have tabs open that I don’t even remember opening or why I opened them or what point I might have made when I decided to keep them open!” So, here are some things I’ve had open of late. (Or some stuff I did not have open but still remembered I want to link it, you know how it is. Or maybe you don’t know how it is. I dunno, I just blog here.) ::  Athena Scalzi likes stuff: I have the issue of holding objects so near and dear to my heart that itDown the rabbit hole….

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In another quasi-regular attempt to get my browser’s open tabs under control, here’s some stuff! ::  Amplifying: A short film described as “A love letter to Buffalo” is looking for support. The crowdfunding project for this has ended, but I’m excited by the project and hope to support it in other ways. ::  How will 2025 turn out? The life of Jimmy Carter offers unexpected clues. ::  Al-Jazeera looks into climate change and the California wildfires. ::  Trad-wives, Incels, and Cat Ladies: The Year MAGA Broke Heterosexuality ::  No recall how I found this collection of “Best albums of 2024”Down the rabbit hole….

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Here’s some stuff that’s been languishing in open tabs on my browser: ::  Matt Zoller Seitz on Clint Eastwood’s current movie, both as a movie and as a data point in how movies are exhibited and marketed these days. The movie biz has always been a cynical one run by people who would steal the coins from a dead man’s eyes, but sheesh. Read the article for more. (The article has spoilers for the actual movie, but they’re forewarned and they come pretty late in the piece.) ::  There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of buzz in theDown the rabbit hole….

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Yup, here we go again. Time to get some tabs closed. ::  This is an older article, so I don’t know if the phenomenon described here has continued, but…as you know, our dear dog Carla is considered a “pittie”, though breed-wise she’s not an American Pit Bull Terrier but rather an American Staffordshire Terrier (plus some other stuff in there…we had her genetics done some years ago, mainly out of curiosity). There are a number of outlets on Facebook for pittie appreciation, as you might expect…but many of these also draw attacks from trolls who insist that the entire pittieDown the rabbit hole….

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OK, I gotta clean some of this out! ::  Two reviews of the apparently shitty new movie about Ronald Reagan, first off. Now, I haven’t seen the movie and I’ve no intention of doing so, because I make no secret of my loathing for Reagan and for everything he stood for, and my firm conviction that Reagan’s assumption of the Presidency marks an almost perfect inflection point in our nation’s history when everything just started going awry. And my generation, Generation X, grew up firmly steeped in the ongoing mythology of Reagan and his “Morning in America” bullshit, which IDown the rabbit hole….