Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1414
Buncha politics stuff: Biden, ceasefire, tiktok, etc. Inflation. What if Alaska found oil before statehood could we have been an arctic petrostate? An awesome covers mix.
Good morning! Hello! How are you? All well? Holding up? I am good. Cold. It is 17 degrees out there. Shit I wonder if the greenhouse froze let’s look. Crap. yep. Got down to 28.9 last night. Dammit. Should probably go over there later and check on things. Dammit dammit.
Issue #1414. That is nicely palindromic. Hrm. I guess not a palindrome. Symmetrical? No. Well, it has a nice… repetitive quality to it, I guess.
Here is a video I watched the other day of a parade in my home town of Fairbanks, Alaska, from 1957 (that seems to be distinct from our glorious annual parade, Golden Days) in support of Alaska Statehood:
In 1957, my father, grandparents, and uncle all lived in Fairbanks after stints in Wainwright and Nome, and all of them were pretty pro statehood. My grandmother was especially active in local politics, so I thought maybe I could catch a glimpse of them in this archival footage.
Unfortunately it turns out that everyone in 1957 dressed the same and everyone looks like my grandparents so… no luck. I sent the video to my uncle Jack but it is occurring to me right this second I might have texted it to his old phone. Whoops.
Anyway, they got Statehood two years later and everything worked out just great yep yep. If they had found the largest oil reserves in the world before this maybe we could have become an independent petrostate but no luck, the first component of this, Prudhoe Bay, was not discovered for eleven more years. Real shame. Maybe we could have had our own glowing orbs and Burj Khalifas.
The GMHHAY slack group has kicked off, and it is doing well so far. As a recap, I will keep posting these over on Facebook for a while, but eventually they will stop over there. You can continue to read and comment by signing up for the email edition, joining the Slack, or both. There are links in the comments of the Facebook post. If you are an email reader, feel free to reply to this and I’ll send you a slack invite.
About 30 of you have signed up, and there was some decent chatting. It seemed pretty quickly clear that “one giant chat group” wasn’t going to work great, so we’ve made a few rooms for assorted topics. I need to re-work how things work with the actual daily post and how to comment on it, but I have a decent idea to try with that today.
I am… relieved? Optimistic? It’s a good group already. Of course, people do tend to fall off with Slack groups, and we gotta get chatting a bit, but it is going far better than I dared hope for a single day.
Oh and yesterday I said Slack was owned by Microsoft so it wouldn’t change much. I mis-spoke. It’s owned by Salesforce. My god. Even better. Do they ever change anything, except trying to upsell?
Turns out Trump and Biden are both trying to find ways to reverse, or stave off, the TikTok ban, because, of course. Can’t let the other one get the credit. And who cares if that long-established, neutral process I mentioned the other day found a neutral decision. TikTok voters are still voters, dammit. I’ve found this whole thing to be too good to be true, and have assumed that someone would find a way to stop this. But that is a bummer to me yes siree. I think most social media, in its current state, should be banned, but, alas, we do not have a legal framework for banning most social media. We do have a legal framework for banning TikTok, though, so let’s go for it.
I do not view TikTok as a free speech issue any more than the right to do graffiti is a free speech issue. We can debate “speech and reach” but I see it a little differently: speech and mediums. The constitution does not address mediums.
N.B. The words “in its current state,” two paragraphs up, are doing a lot of work. I do not think all social media should be banned. I think it should be regulated: I am against opaque algorithms, I’m against the bastardized manner in which we have implemented Section 230, causing utter chaos and confusion about a platform’s role in moderation. I kinda think Section 230 should be repealed, actually, though that is a loosely held view. The widespread use of algorithms as a process distinct from 230 was never envisioned when the law was passed. And the “conventional wisdom” of how algorithms interact with 230 strikes me as profoundly misguided.
So, this ban is supposed to happen Monday. Also happening Monday, supposedly, is the start of the new Gaza ceasefire. Real nexus of events on the issues that divide liberals coming on Monday, huh? Nice way to cap off our supposed control of the White House the next day. Really kind of too much for one week.
Big article in ProPublica last night about the Biden State Department’s approach to the conflict in the Middle East and the Gaza holocaust. I have a friend who had been telling me these things the whole time, so most of it is not totally surprising, but the Orwellian banning of certain terms like “Palestinians in Jerusalem” is really fucked up. I suspect Biden thinks his role in this ceasefire (fairness, efficacy, and durability TBD) will offset his utter failure to hold Israel in check in any way, but no, no, it will not.
We have three days left, so I withhold judgement, but I swear to fucking god, the number of things Biden could have done in the last month, that he didn’t do kind of makes me lose even more respect for him. Well, it will. We will see. He is running out of time and “saving TikTok” should maybe not exactly be number one on his priority list.
I dunno, man. I guess I should go watch his farewell speech, or at least read the transcript. You know, try and give him the benefit of the doubt. But him, now, advocating for Supreme Court reform (a milquetoast reform at that) and a bunch of other things that, I dunno, maybe he could have advocated for or even, you know, worked for? While he was president? A bit irksome.
Went to the grocery store this morning, needed more eggs and grapes. Was looking at my posh eggs and they were fifteen dollars and I was like “what the hell, these were $10 a week ago.” It was actually 14.99 and 10.99 but whatever. But then I realized oh, Vital Farms sells their organic eggs in 18-packs now. And, in buying 18 eggs, you got about a 30% discount. Not bad! But boy it says a lot that I totally believed egg prices could jump that much in a week. Inflation’s not going anywhere, huh? Last inflation report said it was creeping back up, and save for browbeating and scaring the bejeezus out of people, Trump doesn’t seem to have a whole lot of… shall we call them, “policies” to address this. Ditto interest rates. Not promising, not promising.
Ha I was trying to turn to grocery shopping to be more chipper here. Anyway, I also stocked up on my favorite new product ITTY BITTY MINIS Snyder’s Pretzels. Did you love Snyder’s Minis because they were cute small pretzels? Well, you’re in luck! Now they have ITTY BITTY MINIS. Even smaller. They do not seem to have them here at Walmart or Lowe’s Foods, but they do have them at the Teet. I do not know if they are limited edition or not. But boy, gotta tell you, Wegovy be damned, ITTY BITTY MINIS are bringing me a smattering of joy these days.
A few weeks ago I started working on a list for you guys that was “things that currently bring me little sparks of joy” but as I worked on the list I realized every single item on it was food, and boy that really shut the whole thing down due to “probelmatic” and “embarrasing.” Alas.
Speaking of which, we are almost ready to start pimping GIRL SCOUT COOKIES to you guys, which you will be able to order right here in GMHHAY. So, you know, as the ceasefire, TikTok ban, and Trump’s Inauguration all come to a head, you will be able to take comfort in GIRL SCOUT COOKIES. Or, at least ordering them. They might not arrive by inauguration day. Real oversight by the GSA on that one. Wait are they called the GSA. Hold please let me just check in DIGITAL COOKIE. No, they are called the Girl Scouts of the United States of America, so I guess their acronym is GSUSA, which is not as catchy but at least won’t be confused with the General Services Administration.
This morning Jane let me brush her hair in the car without a fuss provided I could do it “before we counted to ten.” We pulled it off. She also insisted on walking into the school without a jacket in 17-degree weather. “I am good with the cold,” she told me.
A true Alaskan.
Got a covers playlist for you today. Those are always fun. Mayhaps a nbit over-reliant on the amazing Red Hot TRANSA album, but c’mon man, that album is just phenomenal. Is it on vinyl? Oh god, now I want it on vinyl. NO VINYL this year. It is going pretty well, actually. And far less has randomly arrived at the house than I thought would by now. I am stressing that I cannot pre-order the new Samia, Brian Jonestown Massacre, Ether Cain, Aphex Twin, Doves and Sault records. It will get harder. BUT ALSO, it will be kind of fun in January of next year to pick, like, the ten records I REALLY REALLY wish I bought this year and just buy those.
Oh right. Covers. Well, I am sorry about the late Christmas cover from two nepo babies. Very into this Sega Bodega fellow he makes a lot of great covers. Kind of into these Spotify “cover artists” who just do a ton of amazing covers. It’s.. an art? Elias from No Age covers Spacemen 3 and it frickin rules I get so excited when people cover the greatest band ever. Emma bought me the Garbage covers album and I was unaware of this great Psychedelic Furs cover. Just a lotta great stuff on this mix.
Until tomorrow.
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Thanks for reading.
And hey! Maybe buy one of my books!
Good Morning, Hello, How Are You vol 1.