Brain Worms for Everyone!
"Fix your hearts or die!" Quite literally.
General News
Who is excited for the next Health and Human Services Secretary to be none other than Bobby Fuckin’ Kennedy Jr.? At the rate that child vaccinations are dropping, I’d say that things are looking super–SUPER–good for the United States. Remember when we all had measles in school? Ah, the good ol’ days…so excited to return to the 1950’s. Make America Healthy Susceptible to Preventable Illnesses Again! I’ll say it, I kind of hope that RFK Jr. pulls me out of the drudgery of wage-slavery and puts me where I really belong–on a sheep ranch in Montana. Fuck it. I’m tired of staring at computer screens and answering emails! While we’re regressing, perhaps I can finally fulfill my lifelong dream of being a medieval town crier or a court jester.
Hey, speaking of regressing, isn’t it super fun and cool to think about how the literacy rate in the United States has also been declining since Lock-Down Era school closures? There are numerous consequences to having an illiterate population, but one consequence that weighs heavily on my mind is the impact that it will have on the United States Postal Service. What do we do when the people delivering our mail can’t read addresses? Maybe, and this is just me tapping into the brain of a far-right madman, we could privatize the postal service? Speaking of the Orange Cumrag, his incessant tug-of-war between the executive and judicial branches rages on. It doesn’t help that his little Pillow-Humping Hitler thinks the president is “above” the rule of law. The American Bar Association would disagree, but I don’t think that this chud has the intellectual capacity to understand. Surprise, surprise.
Unfortunately, the administration’s actions aren’t limited to D.C. Here in the Land of Lincoln, former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich was pardoned by the Orange Cumrag after I had released the previous newsletter. During his first term, the Orange Cumrag cut short Rod’s 14-year sentence for political corruption and claimed that Rod was “set up by a lot of bad people.” Two corrupt guys pointing fingers when the consequences of their actions catch up…I wonder what kind of relationship Trump is trying to curry with Rod by pardoning him of political corruption? Looks like it all has to do with internal beef that I don’t have the bandwidth to get into. There’s a reason that I linked the article for you above! Anyway, back to that tug-of-war that I previously mentioned, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul is, once again, joining 24-ish state AG’s in filing yet another lawsuit against the Orange Cumrag. This one dealing with that medical research funding cut that I mentioned last week. Like I said last week, I’m sure I’ll miss things in each newsletter. It’s nearly impossible to keep up. Props to real journalists and professional news writers everywhere for keeping abreast the chaos. I wonder how they maintain their sanity. Oh, and a lot of people are concerned about their jobs!
Speaking of news that’s gone missing or overlooked, did anyone miss the fact that Siri has been listening to you all along? And I said YOU because I know for a damn fact I keep that bitch off! They have not and will not be listening to me. If they ever make it to where you “have to” have Siri on, you bet your ass I’m buying a T9 cellular device. I’ve had enough! This may be a good time to pivot towards Internet Security Culture. As an anti-fascist who has engaged in direct action of varying degrees, I feel like I have a pretty decent grasp on security. Like, hey, TURN OFF SIRI! As some of you may have noticed, large numbers of folks are deactivating their Meta accounts. Since I don’t have Facebook or any other Meta app, I’ve kept my Instagram account (I’m an addict, okay). However, my device settings and account settings are intentionally modified in order for the app to collect as little of my data as possible. I’m not paranoid about “how the information is used” (other than camera/microphone access)– I understand how internet marketing works–but I don’t want Instagram to profit as much as they could if I went with all the default settings. Instagram gets a ton in revenue from advertising. The less it can learn from you, the less it can artfully advertise to you; the less it learns, the less money it makes.
Really doing my best to stay on top of things, though the horrors continue to overwhelm. Have you seen egg prices lately? Who knew that Disney didn’t care about DEI in the first place? Was Woke actually the reason airplanes could stay in the air? That tug-of-war drums on. Fascists controlling cultural/arts programming has never gone wrong once in history. If things look bad, fear not! Google and Apple have complied with the Orange Cumrag’s demand of calling the southern gulf the Gulf of America! Let’s also not forget the on-going ICE raids to round it all out, too. If you’re curious about the activity in your area, I’d recommend keeping this website saved somewhere. Things are getting weird and bad, y’all. I’d recommend limiting as much information as possible for the Tech Overlords. If you use Apple devices, disable Siri entirely. If you use Google, I’d recommend exploring r/degoogle to start with the transition away from it. Does this mean I gotta talk about my experience? I mean, I still use Google to access my gmail account, since it’s attached to everything I do. I’ve been dabbling with onlyoffice in order to move things out of the Google suite. I have an account with Proton and I’m slowly changing my emails on the important accounts. What else? Oh, yeah, using Safari with an ad blocker these days. And, also, not without Ecosia though! Every search plants a tree!
Personal News
My paranoid ass is always thinking about the dangers of AI. Are you wondering where that meme came from? This meme (and the one below) was created using AI via the instructions of my little brother. He shared with me that he has been giving ChatGPT instructions on creating memes. It started with an image of a cat with “Chinese” (unsure whether Mandarin, Cantonese, or otherwise) text around it and my brother asked AI to translate the text. The translation read: “Just writing whatever. / Just anything. / I don’t understand Chinese.” Pretty funny, if you ask me. After asking AI to translate memes for him, he decided to try something else: asking AI to remake meme templates. He was able to get pretty creative with the variations of memes it recreated, so he took this a step further. When he sent me the above meme, I was wheezing over “gram of Pepsi.” I’m still laughing about it, honestly. I think what I love the most about the meme is that it feels so simple, but there’s so much going on. Is AI fun to make memes with? Perhaps. But miss me with sharing my personal information with AI. I absolutely refuse to add Apple Intelligence to my personal laptop.
Did that count as personal news? Well, let’s keep it going. I won’t get into here, but I’m single again. Not a very long relationship. Can it really qualify as a relationship? Whatever. If you’re on the no comment list, you know. That’s all I’ll say about that. Right before another sad Valentine’s Day, I caught a stomach virus. I was absolutely shitting my brains out on Thursday (see image below). Shouldn’t have eaten those ducks on Lake Michigan…
It’s not all bad news, dear friends! I was blessed with the best news possible by the end of the week: 1) Saint Motel released a BANGER of an album! I’ve been listening to them for a decade now. 2) Sabrina Carpenter released the deluxe version of her latest album, Short n’ Sweet, which included an absolute banger of a song called “Busy Woman.” I’ve been listening to “Busy Woman” after it was leaked onto Spotify in the fall of last year. It’s so good; I relate to it deeply. One could even argue that it inspired by detransition…joke’s aside, go listen to it. I wasn’t a fan of the album, honestly, but she has some catchy songs on it. “Busy Woman” is a work of art! 3) Saving the best for last! Beirut announced their longest album titled A Study of Losses'; I’m genuinely surprised–but certainly not disappointed–that they are releasing something so soon after having released Hadsel (2023). I wrote a long piece about my relationship with Beirut’s music over the last 13 or so years on no comment if you’re interested. The time in between Gallipoli (2019) and their previous album was fairly substantial, so that led me to not expect anything new for a while. Looks like Zach Condon has been busy though, which is great news for me! Anyone want to pre-order the forthcoming album for me (12” vinyl LP’s)? In my opinion, musicians and composers put out really good shit right before a fascist regime takes over.
Poetry
Alright, time for the final segment of this week’s newsletter. I’m coming at you today with not one, but two poems! In the spirit of both Black History Month and Valentine’s Day, here are two beautiful love poems by poet and lesbian Audre Lorde (1934-1992). Though I’m more familiar with her critical essays in Sister Outsider (1984), her poetry comes across my radar from time to time. Each time is a surprising and serendipitous treat. As we look at these poems, I want us to think about how precious love is. Not only romantic love, but platonic and familial love as well. The opportunity to touch each other’s hearts is so beautiful–to make someone feel and feel in return, energy flowing between two (or more) people. Even if love is fleeting, it is a gift from the universe. And art is the universe loving itself through us.
P.S.
That’s all I’ve got for this week. What a fucking week, huh? Until next time, shovel your way out of the shit and into the truth!
