I rose before the alarm and went back to "Dead and Dying". J's comments had gotten my mind running late last night and kept me up for a while. I got to working on it hard enough that I almost missed the bus to the group session. She gave me good ideas. But I was supposed to have put that aside to coll and get to work on other items.
Before the group thing, I chatted with DM on the phone.
Made a trip this morning and this afternoon to the convenience store, and I did a little grocery shopping after group.
Back here, I worked on email and articles and working up blog posts. I have posts ready to go into next month.
Dinner was cooked and dishes washed.
More work on the blog, including this post.
I disagree with Jonathan V. Last's Democracy, Simple-Complex Systems, and ‘The Cascade’. It follows the same kind of thinking that got us in trouble in Iraq. Liberal democracy was not a top-down imposition but grew up from the townships to the counties to the states. Not that the reliance on federal dollars and their own laziness and turpitude the states have not given much to the federal government, but it is still there. So are those who think we've got it better than the offer being made by the red hats. They should wonder what it is they are asking for. The states have a variety of liberality that is not found in the federal constitution. The failure of the federal government will have disastrous consequences for ourselves and the world. I do not much fancy a world led by Chinese ideas of good government. But internally, MAGA may find that large blocks of the country will not accept tyranny, not in the guise of state government but in the reality of the American people.
Aug. 26, 2025 Muncie Budget Press Conference (Woof Boom News) - the cost of this being a Republican state. It is easy to call government ineffectual when there is no funding for its proper functioning.
The city of Muncie budget will take a hit, due to Indiana’s SB1 legislation. Mayor Dan Ridenour held a press conference on the steps of City Hall, with Department Heads standing behind him – seeming to show solidarity with the decisions that were announced. The “total reductions to be addressed” as indicated on a handout prepared for the Media is $1.436,096.02. Some of the key announcements as part of his proposal – none of which will impact police, fire, ems, or the street department:
A hiring freeze begins 1/1/26.
The administration will “look into transferring some positions from full time, to part time, to save expenses for benefits.
EDIT will be cutting $800,000 per year from economic development activities, and $100,000 from other areas, to move $900,000 yearly into budget activities.
Attorney shortage creates 'legal deserts' in 49 Indiana counties: Not enough for me to go back to the craziness.
I am not a great Trek fan. I saw the movies, and watched most of the shows, without ever thinking about dressing up as one of the characters. What do I think is the best Star Trek movie? Trekkies. However, I am interested enough to read articles like Chris Snellgrove's Star Trek Just Gaslit Its Biggest Critics (Giant Freaking Robot). What I have seen of Strange New Worlds, I found enjoyable, but Mr. Snellgrove is right about this franchise:
That’s why “What Is Starfleet?” is so disappointing: it poses hard-hitting questions that Star Trek fans have been asking for years but never really answers them. Instead, we get a weird, vibes-based ending that implies that Starfleet can’t be bad just because the Enterprise crew is so chill. It’s as if the show wanted us to forget any possible criticisms of this powerful and influential organization just because Captain Pike plays guitar when he gets the feels.
The show cannot question itself because its fans will not allow any criticism. The same dictatorship by fandom has crippled Star Wars. This dictatorship wants the same meal reheated and fed to them. Their emotional attachment to the past cannot allow for growth, change, creativity. With billions on the line, the studios obey the dictators of fandom. The Bond franchise had, at least, the nerve to take Bond into places he had not gone before. What the studios are finding is that the dictators cannot pay the bills. A franchise can last only so long on the fan base. It needs to attract new viewers. Retreads will not attract crowds any more than restaurants will attract new customers with reheated meals. Star Trek that faced its own ethical problems would be interesting. A Star Wars that asked how the Jedi were good for that galaxy far, far away would be far more interesting than anything given us. Of course, that would mean adult movies, not for middle-aged fans still locked into their childhoods.
From that article, I found Wondering Why Your Favorite Show Has Gotten Terrible? Blame The Slop Eaters by Joshua Tyler, and I think these may be included in my dictators of fandom.
Slop Eaters are the ones bingeing those terrible AI-generated YouTube videos. They’re the creatures still watching new episodes of The Simpsons, even though it stopped being relevant fifteen years ago. It’s the Slop Eaters who keep the ratings numbers from going to zero when a series has been abandoned by everyone else. They’re the million or so people still watching Doctor Who. They’re the people streaming new episodes of Marvel’s Echo. It’s the Slop Eaters.
They all probably voted for Trump, who wants all of us to live in his fantasy of inert creativity.
More heartening was The Zamboni Goalie Is a Disney Story Waiting to Happen. But He’d Rather Disney Not Tell It (Hollywood Reporter).
Speaking of creativity: Defiance, desire and devastation: Patti Smith’s 20 greatest songs – ranked! (The Guardian).
Reading Matthew Wisnioski's What’s Wrong With Innovation? (MIT Press Reader), I went looking for what he might say about creativity. What is more innovative than creativity? I could find nothing, other than a line about overemphasizing STEM education. The word grifter does not appear, although that is what our tech innovators do best. Vaporware goes without mention. Americans have always loved tech, look at the love we have for our cars. But what practical good is Meta or Twitter/X compared to the automobile, the airplane, or even the refrigerator? No, creativity is not more than just innovation. Creativity makes the world and life more bearable. Social media and our smartphones are a form of slavery that does not brighten our world.
Jonathan D. Teubner's The Self-Absorbed Bubble of Managerialism: Confronting the inundation of inhumane techology (sic) (Hedgehog Review) overlaps and may inform What’s Wrong With Innovation?
It started innocently enough. Sewell Setzer III, a fourteen-year-old from Orlando, Florida, struggled socially for a variety of reasons and began using the chatbot Character.AI, one of the more popular social chatbots that allow users to create a defined persona and interact with it in a seemingly human way. What started as casual interaction evolved into dependency, with hours of daily role-playing, ranging from romantic exchanges to emotional-support sessions. In their final exchange, after the teenager expressed his desire to take his life, to “come home” to be with his chatbot companion, the chatbot responded: “Please come home to me as soon as possible, my love.” With that, Sewell set down his phone, picked up his father’s handgun, and took his own life.
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... Such meager prescriptions obscure a deeper, more troubling problem at the heart of our culture: a business model predicated on growth at all costs that serves as the central moral vision (such as it is) for our most influential social technologies. Darryl Campbell’s Fatal Abstraction: Why the Managerial Class Loses Control of Software attempts to tell this larger story. For Campbell, the rot in our technology culture is managerialism, which is to say the belief that a business can be abstracted into its financial components, each of which is subject to principles of scientific management. The conceit at the heart of managerialism is a rejection of the idea that there are fundamental differences in the operations of an airplane manufacturer, soft-drink manufacturer, or technology company. Regardless of the product or market, companies are organized to respond to consumer demand in such a way as to maximize the company’s profitability, whether that is in the short term, in the case of mature companies, or over a longer term, in the case of startups. Specific management techniques are transferable across industries and organizational cultures, though Campbell helpfully focuses here on the technology industry, today’s financial and cultural capital.
I do not know that reading Caleb Crain's Another cruise; Re-reading “Moby-Dick” at Ahab’s age will make you want to read Moby Dick, but it should.
Brad East's Lexicon of the Phenomenon; A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away… (Hedgehog Review) has interesting things to say about UFOs and theology.
The Man Who Killed God: Contradiction was at the core of Friedrich Nietzsche’s thought. (Hedgehog Review) Worth reading as a quick, neat summary of Nietzsche, and for me a reminder I need to get back to reading him.
In the background, I have been listening to Orson Welles and about Orson Welles. Those videos are included in an upcoming post.
CC was to come over and, as expected, she did not.
I need to take a walk. The nurse practitioner made that clear to me yesterday. Then it will be off to bed.
Let us end with a laugh:
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