A Year Of Eternal Sadness

Here’s my 2015 year in review.

— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) December 31, 2015

2015 started in the early hours of January 1st when 5 people were shot on a New Year’s Eve party bus in Memphis.

— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) December 31, 2015

The next day, another mass shooting (defined as at least 4 people shot, including the shooter) in Savannah Georgia.

— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) December 31, 2015

Two days later, 2 dead, 1 injured in Dallas, and 2 dead, 4 injured in Roanoke, VA.

— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) December 31, 2015

2 days later, 1 dead, 3 injured in Miami. Next day, 1 dead, 3 injured in Chattanooga.

— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) December 31, 2015

--and--

All this data is compiled by https://t.co/KEvaS5kOvN and the redditors at @rGunsAreCool, which tracked 372 shootings & counting in 2015

— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) December 31, 2015

and on and on and on

Required Viewing

It's locked up pretty tight behind pay walls, but John Frankenheimer's Seven Days in May is a mighty good thing to see now and again.

Lotta weird shit goes on most of the time, but now it seems the weird shit meter is about to peg in the red again.  

"...this threat from the far right is never very far from us."

$3.99 on Amazon Video

Today's Pix

Say No To Shitty Ad Practices

I've recently bailed on 2 of my favorite sites - Addicting Info and Little Green Footballs - because their ads got way too pushy and intrusive.

Don't get me wrong, ya gotta pay for things, and these websites don't stay in the Content Business for very long unless somebody ponies up.  

So I'm good with just about everything, but not when (eg) MacKeeper pops up and freezes my browser so I can't do anything if I don't click on their OK button.  Go fuck yourself with a pine cone, MacKeeper.

I'll go back to those sites eventually - I suppose - but for now, this is just one more of my little protests.

About That Christmas Story

So everybody's holiday favorite is the story of how a kid is growing up in Ohio, and he has a toy gun, and how everybody warns him about not getting hurt because of it and his dad buys a weird lamp and some kid gets his tongue froze to the flag pole and it all turns out OK because Ralphie's a white kid and the local cops don't murder him for no fucking reason.

A Tweet And A Quote

Racism doesn't usually look like someone shouting slurs, it's looks like people eagerly looking for a reason why a black kid deserved to die

— Lou Schumaker (@LouSchu) December 24, 2014

Today's Tweet

Ohio is an open carry state, and the cops say they thought Rice was an adult, so what law, exactly, was he breaking?

— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) December 28, 2015

Chris Hayes has fallen way off - along with practically all of MSNBC - but hey, even a blind hog roots up an acorn once in a while.

Show A Little Love

A nice profile from Daily KOS

The only podcast combining politics, humor, outrage, kittens, science fiction and marital bliss is The Professional Left with the husband-wife team of Driftgass and Blue Gal. A new edition comes out every Friday (including Christmas and New Year’s!) and I never miss it, usually listening on bike rides around the park.

They just won a coveted Swifty for Episode 295 (July 31, 2015): "Is Cecil the Lion a Proxy War?"

The Professional Left Podcast 

Teach The World To Sing

The Message Manipulators seem to be bent on stripping away the soul from all of us by reducing everything to a transaction and creating a world of de-humanizing commercialism.

I've been part of that.  I was with them for a long time.  No more.  And never again.

But there are times when my eternally insistent skepticism (which always teeters on the brink of The Cynical Abyss) is tested.  

Wouldn't it be nice if this was more than just another attempt to co-opt something that should be a lot more meaningful than making us smell less like humans. (not that there's anything wrong with smelling better - just sayin')

hat tip = Facebook friend MH

Today's Pix