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 Here’s the thing: I’m fine with wearing a mask. As in, I’m genuinely fine with it. Not only does wearing one not bother me, but…I honestly kind of like it. The discourse on masks has mainly centered on their use being a mutual-protection kind of thing, which is absolutely true, and I have a whole lot of things to say about the degree to which this particular pandemic crisis has really exposed the degree to which a deeply depressing percentage of Americans simply have no investment in being parts of a larger, functioning society. Many see masks as just one more battlefield onDown the rabbit hole….

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I created this the other night: This is part of my newer way of thinking, part of which is my newfound aversion to snark. I fully accept that I’m a strange person, and I’m fine with it. Embracing the weirdness seems a lot more productive and likely to produce longterm fun, for me, than trying to aim for some level of conformity that has never much produced large dividends anyway. I could pretend to be a normal person with a normal haircut and normal clothes and normal hobbies, but as they always say on Aaron Sorkin shows, I haven’t gotDown the rabbit hole….

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Here’s something else that annoys me: News headlines that are deliberately misleading, in hopes of getting people to click through. The other day I saw on AOL this headline: Harry Potter actress reveals pregnancy. Obviously they’re hoping that people will think, “Oh my God, Emma Watson’s pregnant? But she’s only seventeen!” Of course, it’s only Helena Bonham Carter who’s pregnant, not the person most people are going to think of as a “Harry Potter actress”. And since I’m in a complaining mood, does every home run Barry Bonds hits now that he’s broken the all-time record really warrant a front-pageDown the rabbit hole….

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It sickens me that in this day and age, it’s people like the church mentioned in this news article are the ones who get to lay claim to the word family, and get to parade themselves around as champions of family values, even as they cheerfully spit on every family that doesn’t line up precisely into their tiny, small-minded little definition of the word, all the while with that same nauseating smile of false piety on their faces. You know that smile — it graces the lips of every single televangelizing cretin preacher on the Earth, and Jerry Falwell hadDown the rabbit hole….

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For some reason, the local country station — which I hear occasionally at work — plays “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” daily, which drives me nuts because I consider it to be one of the worst songs in the history of musical expression. And not just human musical expression. Human song, whale song, Vulcan song, Gungan song…”Devil Went Down to Georgia” is worse than all of it. First of all, the whole idea’s just goofy; second, there’s the sad fact that the fiddle playing in that song is, well, crap. I always break out laughing when I hear what’sDown the rabbit hole….

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Kevin Drum on the American unwillingness to take vacations: Of course, I’m hardly one to talk. In theory, I agree with Ezra [Klein, who has a LA Times op-ed about this], and I would have preferred a job that paid 10% less but provided 10% more vacation. In reality, I rarely even used the two weeks of vacation I got. Partly this was because I was caught up in the work ethic feedback loop that’s spiralled almost insanely out of control in America, but also, ironically enough, because I only got two weeks of vacation. So I hoarded it. YouDown the rabbit hole….

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Pennsylvania passes a law protecting the right to breastfeed in public. Wow — ditching Santorum, now this! Good on them! (Via PSoTD, who coins the term “feed-o-phobes” to refer to people who are against public breastfeeding. Nice word.) UPDATE: GAHHH!!! Yes, in the title of this post, I used “here” when I meant “hear”. This is because I wrote the post in about nine seconds when I was tired, and these days, I’m seemingly morphing into something of an idiot. But hey, making these kinds of errors has never stood in Matthew Yglesias‘s road to blogging fame and fortune, soDown the rabbit hole….

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Roger had a list the other day of technologies that USA Today touted as the most important to come along since 1982, and he gave his opinions/thoughts on each entry. I figured, hey, why not do the same! 1. Cellphones Don’t have one. Someday I’m sure I’ll get one, because there really is some convenience there, but I’m in no hurry. Plus, for all their usefulness, they’re also too damned everywhere and they seem to turn otherwise-normal people into rude boors who think that their own personal connectivity to anyone and everyone is more important than being polite to peopleDown the rabbit hole….

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For folks attending A Taste of Buffalo this weekend, two key points: :: Each booth serves, at most, three or four different things, and that’s it. So if you wait in a line for more than, oh, one minute — and exactly zero booths at ToB have wait-times less than that — then there’s absolutely no reason why you can’t know what you’re ordering by the time your turn comes up. So, please oh please, don’t stand in line with two other people, and then when your turn arrives, turn to your cohorts and say, “So what do you guysDown the rabbit hole….