…so…there’s no shortage of the “usual” sort of thing

Agencies across the federal government faced a Thursday deadline to submit plans for a large-scale firing of employees, but scant details were made public about what the White House said would be a “mass reduction” of the federal workforce.

The White House did not preview the plans, saying only that it would share their contents “once the plans are enacted.” What they contain could offer a view into how much further President Donald Trump and his Cabinet plan to alter the U.S. government, whose agencies include 2.3 million employees and serve daily functions from weather forecasting to cyberattack defense.

The Office of Personnel Management will work with the U.S. DOGE Service and the individual agencies to review each agency’s plans before reductions are made, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. It was not immediately clear how many agencies had submitted plans ahead of the Thursday night deadline. DOGE, overseen by billionaire Elon Musk, stands for Department of Government Efficiency.

Much about how the reductions could be carried out is unknown — including what avenues for legal challenges may be open to fired workers. Reductions-in-force in the federal government are subject to complex rules and are typically undertaken methodically. The Trump administration, however, has sought to move quickly, leaving the process rife with questions, experts on federal workforce employment said.

White House expects ‘mass reduction’ of federal workforce as deadline looms [WaPo/archive.ph]

…these things don’t make for fun reading…& even if we stick to just the one place to pull ’em from…they…don’t exactly align neatly

Two federal judges on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to immediately offer jobs back to thousands of fired probationary workers as they imposed separate, broad roadblocks on the administration’s efforts.

The rulings — in Maryland and California — mark the most significant challenge so far to Trump’s campaign to shrink and reshape the sprawling, 2.3-million-person bureaucracy. Trump would now have to appeal and win in two, separate legal cases — or seek Supreme Court involvement — to get his workforce reduction effort back on course.

In Maryland, U.S. District Court Judge James K. Bredar required 18 federal agencies to rehire any probationary employees they had terminated since Jan. 20, when Trump took office, and to submit reports to the judge by March 17, outlining compliance with his order and naming each reinstated employee. His ruling came in response to a multistate lawsuit accusing the federal government of illegally terminating tens of thousands of probationary workers, arguing those firings were conducted in an opaque way that has overwhelmed state government support systems for unemployed workers and caused economic harm.

Hours earlier in San Francisco, U.S. District Judge William Alsup said at a court hearing that the Office of Personnel Management — which serves as the federal government’s human resources agency — had no legal authority to direct the mass firings in conference calls and written communications last month. He added that individual agencies could downsize their staffs by following the steps laid out in the federal Reduction in Force Act, a process that administration officials have already put in motion.

Judges order Trump officials to offer jobs back to thousands of fired workers [archive.ph/WaPo]

…but…in a different sense…it’s kinda hard not to look at them…& see it as in a bunch of ways just saying the same thing over & over

The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to allow U.S. officials to begin implementing a limited plan to end birthright citizenship for children born in the United States to undocumented immigrants and foreign visitors.

Judges in three states — Maryland, Massachusetts and Washington — have issued nationwide orders blocking Trump’s executive order, which civil rights groups and Democratic-led states say is clearly at odds with the nation’s history and the Constitution.

The order, signed on Trump’s first day back in the White House, is part of the administration’s broad offensive against illegal immigration. It directs the government to no longer recognize automatic citizenship for the babies of immigrant parents who are in the country without authorization, provided that neither parent is a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident. The directive would also bar automatic citizenship for children born to noncitizen parents who are in the country on temporary work, student or tourist visas.

In its request to the Supreme Court, the administration asked the justices to limit the nationwide orders to the individuals or states involved in the litigation while those cases make their way through the court system, or to at least allow the relevant agencies to begin developing plans and issuing public guidance.

Trump asks Supreme Court to okay limited plan to end birthright citizenship
Lower court judges have blocked Trump’s initiative nationwide, saying it violates the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment. [WaPo/archive.ph]

…round & around we go…where we stop…nobody knows…but…it feels like we’re going some places…&…some of the folks with destinations in mind seem like they might be a danger behind the wheel…&…I dunno…somehow that seems like maybe a difference in degree as far as the ambient “mood music” of “events, dear boy, events“…hasn’t shifted much…the song remains the same might be a bit of an exaggeration…but the tone of the piece…that didn’t have a lot of room to go from where it was to something “bigger” in the ways that the shift in likely trajectory that arc of history is describing to pass through some classically troubled waters…analogies to the 30s abound…& the echo behind them is inevitably about the mistake it can be to declare “peace in our time”…& the militaristic immiseration of europe…but…not to get overly maudlin about it…it strikes me that the people I used to know who knew about living through that kind of thing…they didn’t say “never forget” because they were so sure it could never happen again that they thought the thing they fought against would be forgotten by humanity as it passed out of living memory & history would wonder why we ever fought any kind of war & they didn’t want to be painted as monsters who had no respect for the sanctity of life…they said that shit because they knew damn well that fight would never be over…that the appeal of that kind of power structure would ever sing its siren song to the very people who know they couldn’t get the support to put them in the positions of power…or give those the gradient they need in terms of an unbalanced dynamic with which to wield it…without the kinds of “cheat codes” you get by going that way…so…if there’s a god…may they have mercy on those souls…because they must be spinning in those graves…even the ones who saw no conflict between that “never forget” & calling it “the war to end all wars”…what with all the fuckery everyplace you look that seems to be nothing if it isn’t a bunch of wars looking to start clubbing together to form like fucking voltron…&…that’s on a “day of rest”

Environmental groups sound new alarm as fossil fuel lobby pushes for immunity [Guardian]

…sorry…wrong “war”

The UK government embracing AI? I’m sorry, that’s nonsense and I can prove it [Guardian]

…I’ll get it in a minute

Apple’s UK encryption legal challenge heard behind closed doors [Guardian]

…what do you mean I sound like I’m taking the piss…there are a lot of headlines & I can’t remember where I put the one I was…oh…you mean not making your argument for nobody getting to shut out eavesdroppers in a place you wouldn’t want anyone listening you didn’t know was meant to be…while also saying you were all aboard what is effectively a techy version of the classical magic black box that you can’t meaningfully take to pieces in a way that lets you know for sure it isn’t doing anything but what you want it to…all of which being relevant specifically on account of the primacy of the economic role played by industries that would probably look some kind of different if those fossil fuel interests had to settle the tab they ran up getting us here…you’re saying that’s *me* taking the piss…huh…maybe…I’d call it an occupational hazard I suppose…we’ve all got our preoccupations…I have at least a few that don’t make an appearance hereabouts…but…those don’t feel like they’re much use to the exercise it feels like I’m engaged in…maybe that’s wrong, too…maybe what I’m doing isn’t what I think I’m doing, after all

…I know…this isn’t what I “usually” do…it’s normally less me talking by ratio to how much text I slap together out of other people’s mouths…& I can’t help it that it turning out that way feels…indulgent…when by sheer proportion of scrollable inches of text I already feel like I’m out here trying to speak quietly while wearing a hot mic…so…what the fuck, amirite?

…if you can feel that’s what you’re doing…& it isn’t the thing you think you want to be doing…& ain’t nobody got a gun to your head* making you do it…what’s stopping you from doing something else?

…I don’t know that I have an answer for that…at least not one that doesn’t make me very possibly far enough over the crazy line for people to be muttering about how the line is a dot to me…& how maybe in uppercase that’s funny…because…I mentioned in the brain drain yesterday that I was talking to someone & wound up with a hankering to re-visit some flicks…that whole thing came out of a joke…that if you “join the DOTs”…& don’t believe me when I say I don’t expect a particular result from any of them so that can’t help me avoid it being on target…then that’s a lot of “doing the same thing & expecting a different result”…if the result is assumed to be the world starting to agree with me about what’s crazy rather than file me away as yet another crazy in my own right…right?

…the straight story…stubborn dude takes slow road to a matter of urgency…get low…unpopular cantankerous bastard gets snake-oil-salesman-with-tarnished-heart-of-gold to turn his funeral into a carnival he gets to attend…when the last sword is drawn/the twilight samurai…when the values of an age & the passage of a time get remodelled for a new era…what does it mean to model the bits you’d be best advised to hang on to

…if someone’s got to be crazy for the picture to make sense…is it “you”…I guess it’s worth asking from time to time even if this seems like a good example of why maybe doing it every day might be a tad…impractical

…so…anyway…this is late & I don’t know yet if I plan to go back & pack more links in above this part…but I’m pretty sure I know what I aim to put between here & the tunes…so I’ll go ahead & loft it into place in case anyone’s up early & feeling chatty

…maybe I don’t “remember the last war”…maybe I’m still trying to fight it instead of the one we’re all in…there are a lot of classic blunders that aren’t getting involved in a land war in asia, after all…but…just maybe…I’m trying to be the change I want to see in the world…which is a suggestion I wouldn’t voluntarily make…but some friend of mine that thinks they’re funny did one time when I tried to explain what I thought I got out of doing all this instead of just going back to my calling as an inveterate lurker online who was…effectively…under a self-imposed vow of silence

…a bit much, I assume you’d agree…not to do any of your good selves down…but…deadsplinter isn’t a town square…it’s more like a village local…the food’s pretty good…there’s a nice warm fire when the weather’s cold…nobody makes you wear a tie…your credit’s good…& the regulars are a pretty decent bunch

…kinja, though…kinja was pretty different…if you overthink the thing…or maybe are the right sort of intoxicated…& squint at it right…you could argue it had some microscopic properties that gave it a passing resemblance to a canary in a macroscopic coal mine…&…chatting to the sorts of folks I did back then IRL…it was a context I usually needed to spend some time explaining before they could see why I’d fuck with it ATL..much less read the comments

…I know some pretty smart people…some of them are even what you might call successful…some of them attended august institutions & have letters after their names…some of those did that without attending the sorts of schools that cost more than taxes…some of them lived in buildings that had the word “castle” in the top line of the mailing address…some of them lived in caravans long enough to have the courts grant them ownership of the land it sat on…some of them went on to work in sectors that shower you with riches enough to retire “early”…some of them worked their whole lives…some of them scraped by financially in order to teach…or do outreach work in prisons or with homeless people or “youths”…from time to time a few of them even did things of sufficient consequence for me to spot their name in a ‘paper…none of them gave a fuck about what went on with kinja…few of them would indulge me long enough to get their head around why it held my interest

…but…for a moment…for reasons I shall never fully comprehend…a small thing I did resulted in big fun for me…the slow demise of a venue in which I could find a broad & amusing collection of voices I could dip in & out of to see what I was missing about the stuff I could read about elsewhere hit a point where my access to it had a step-change in loss of convenience…& at some point after I got over my incredulousness at it being electorally viable to be orange a straw had broken the camel’s back & cracked a dam & I’d started arguing with trolls in the greys of kinja-as-was…I didn’t expect many people to be taking the kind of time they’d need to for that system to put what I was saying in front of them…I knew it was in many ways a pointless task…but it didn’t seem to do any harm & it let me discover what in fact happened when things I would have been easily persuaded most would ignore as obvious bollocks of one variety or another were offered that perspective

…& it let me talk to fellow comic-book & movie nerds

…I did that long enough that I got a pretty decent grasp of how kinja functioned as a system…honestly it was sort of amazing that way…if you poked about enough the documentation was available & some of the functions people had cobbled together out of it were pretty great…if you know why when one guy called ernie left the dev team I felt the need to send the benny hill song about the milk float their way in tribute…you’d know what I’m talking about

…along the way I also learned some other stuff…I might have forgotten a lot because a lot’s happened since then but oh, so many moons ago I studied, among some other stuff, some bits & pieces about ethics & moral philosophy & theory of mind & cause & effect & simple principles & emergent properties & complex systems & the power of iteration…& about the…for want of a better term…functional mechanics of language & logic & what some refer to as “formal argument”…no biggie…lots of folks did that sort of thing one way or another…but I couldn’t do much about the bits of that which informed the way I…interrogated kinja…or the way that it spotlit some stuff about how & why certain sorts of keyboard warriors approached the thing with the kinds of “engineering” they employed…it could be…for want of a better term…subtle…& in some senses it was since the goal was pretty much always…for the “better” ones…to be read as other than they were expressly to thwart a conversation they wanted to murder in its crib…some of them were almost admirable in terms of how successful they were…on splinter in particular I can recall one who almost always had their comments raised into the visible spectrum who would nuke the replies back to what they thought was a favorable mic drop on their part upwards of a few dozen times in a day across the bridgeheads they’d set on a single post…the sheer time commitment alone required to run that one account…was a legitimate job of work that didn’t seem like it could be covered by a legitimate check…& it was beyond clear that many bad faith users of the platform had “alts” like you’ve had hot dinners…some even had enough pride in their craft that they had a sort of nomenclature that to varying degrees flagged the affiliation of individual sock-puppets…tomatoface being the great white whale of the genre in so far as the popular lexicon had it…but…imho…in fact being arguably closer to the exception that proved some rules for me…mind you that’s a whole different post…probably a series, to be honest…if I tried to explain what trying to get my head around what sort of person was behind that effort…& to what purpose…starting with the myth & working back through the market-place to figure out the forgeries & identify the real mccoy & then speculate to accumulate some sketchy knowledge to try to shade in over time…& what that seemed to teach me about what…it’s not wholly implausible there might be a book in that, even…& as some wag once had it…everybody’s got a book in ’em…but most of us have the good grace to keep it there

…so…irony of ironies…that wasn’t what I was about…in the sense that I seem to have set about this post even if it doesn’t appear to rise to the sense of the damn thing seeming to be about much in particular

…something something…road to hell…something…intentions…something…plans…something…mice & men…something something…[insert-laughing-deity-here]

…anyway…if we continue to pretend I might be going someplace with all of this…where was I trippin’ along?

…ah, yes…kinja tripping up my access to the voices you could find in the comments at splinter by blowing up the spot…& why I did the next bit…because all that shit I was on about I learned mostly because it was the cost of doing business if your business was dredging the pig-swill for the pearls on offer…I was more of a mudlark than a muckraker, you might say…so…I wasn’t going to miss the trolls & the griefers & the brigaders & the keyboard warriors…or most of the shit-posters…but it was going to take an effort where it didn’t used to for me to hear what the names I was always pleased to see bob up were saying for themselves…& those made me feel like maybe I wasn’t losing my mind…& even made me crack a smile or maybe laugh or bob my head in time to a beat…which had value to me

…& like the little knowledge that’s a dangerous thing…I thought I saw a way…if some enterprising soul had previously automated a process to turn every document issued by the white house to the press pool into a kinja post…I could build myself a “feed” in my very first “alt” that was just comments from that crowd of folks I didn’t know & wouldn’t hear from otherwise…that’s what I thought I was doing…more or less entirely for selfish reasons I believed to be of interest to very-probably-nobody-that-wasn’t-me

…that part…I turned out rather wonderfully to be spectacularly wrong about…wrong enough for my conscience to take about 24hrs to start in on me about finding out how to give away whatever it could potentially be to as many of the people who seemed like they might like that as could be tapped on the shoulder & handed the flyer…& that turned out to be a lot of people…so it’s not like I could just do that on my own without losing my mind & probably any realistic chances of steady employment for however long I tried to keep up with the snowball as it rolled down the hill…or the boulder if you prefer to think of me as being in front of the thing on account of this feeling like you’re scrolling down but rolling one of those uphill on your day off with no guarantee you’ll like the view if you ever get to the top…which is the bottom…I know…terrible analogy…where was I?

…figuring out that the previously available functionality with which “proper” sub-blogs at kinja had been created had been quietly deprecated while leaving the documentation available to suggest that it hadn’t, I believe that would be…so…as I became we…we…made it up as we went…the whole thing was kludged together out of work-arounds, basically

…except one part…oddly…the one part it would seem like kinja didn’t have at all if you were a casual observer who never once left the verticals…how it looked when the un-fucked-with moderation system worked if actually used in what its functional characteristics strongly suggested being the way it was designed to

…& for a few short weeks a few thousand people that probably spent a bit too much time online at the time pretty much threw a round the clock party that didn’t get crashed until “the powers that be” nuked the site from orbit just to be sure

…& we…found a workaround…until they nuked *all* those sites from orbit…& I’m pretty sure some people who’d put years into some of those spots feel like our little runaway train was a proximate enough cause for it to have been exactly as selfish as the altogether different & totally harmless thing I’d originally set out to do…but…some of us remember…& if you can phrase the question *just right*…like they say…the internet never forgets

https://web.archive.org/web/20201114124911/https://ifyoubuildit.kinja.com/at-the-going-down-of-the-sun-and-in-the-mourning-1839738292

…even when most of us never remember the other verses to the thing we all know because we’ve heard it so many times

…in case it isn’t obvious by now…the one who made the crack about me being crazy is one of the few people that wasn’t “there” that’s held still long enough for me not to have to explain it all from the beginning so they’re basically comatose before we’re through with establishing context for the parts that might be interesting…& from their point of view…all that might be all very well & not even necessarily a figment of my personal imagination being over-susceptible to your common-or-garden mind-virus…or…err…meme…if you want to throw etymological gauntlets at the feet of culture warriors or whatever…which I don’t particularly…but getting shit off my chest in as muffled as spot as I can think of without there being literally no difference between keeping it to myself & the sort of off my head it represents…might be one of them distinctions without a difference

…so far…for reasons which may sometimes surpass my understanding…but have none the less long cemented a claim to my undying gratitude…you lot have put up with it anyway…& in the odd heroic case actually summoned the ability to make it sound like it might not be entirely viewed as an imposition

…& even the one that thinks they’re funny agrees a verifiable by product has been the evening of my keel these several years…because they know damn well I haven’t mellowed with age living through this iteration of the modern age…so it’s fairly clear to them what I get out of it even if they can’t much see what anyone else would be getting out of my part of it

…well…they say that…but…they do tend to think they’re funny…& they can get a mite cute if they think they might be able to tell you a joke you’d find funny while missing the one they’re quietly giggling to themselves about…so…that part is what got me to the part that got me to starting where I did with this today & getting down here the way I did

…it’s not “normal”…but…to me…trapped in my own perspective…it still is normal in that none of that stuff going through my head is unusual in any sense that seems to matter…&…I don’t love how accurate it feels to say that about the stuff these are usually filled with…they’re the normal stuff talking about the normal stuff because some things never go out of style & the style of the times is that everything old is new again & somehow a surprise despite all the alarm bells & flashing lights & explosions & things getting lit on fire

…but…that only gets to be normal if we all act like it’s the sort of normal that can’t be helped…& not the sort of not-normal that requires being treated that way if we ever expect to be able to agree on a normal that’s got a shot at a goal with more of an upside than “maybe we slow down how fast things get worse” the way we don’t let the heat death of the universe’s inevitability stop us getting out of bed to face another day…but one where the room for improvement is the part that’s thriving…so…I thought maybe I’d give them a taste of their own medicine…because sculling around somewhere I could find things they said from way back to try to pay back them serving me that link from the wayback machine like it was a mic drop moment

…&…well…I couldn’t present them like a playlist the way I could that akala-fire-in-the-booth/ren-money-game run at the back end of thursday’s playlist.. but that someone that I used to spend a lot of time with around that SplinterRIP-on-kinja time…isn’t really a rapper…in fact they would most probably laugh if you said that about them…but has hung out a fair bit over the years with some people who like to do that…in front of the public in some cases…but also in front of those rapping types…& in my hearing to boot…& some of that…I have the receipts for

…& they said some things about some things back then…one of them they even let someone browbeat them into setting out with a refrain/chorus type repeated bit…but I can’t serve them up with a wicked beat & the author’s intonation like the akala/ren stuff…so they might sound different in your head to the way they do in mine…either way…this one…with the “chorus”…they said that in ’14…around the mid-terms before the US threw the game away rather than vote for a lady they didn’t like enough not to pick the actual worst guy…they claim they were talking about “I dunno – a bunch of stuff, I guess…it kinda depends on who you think is saying which parts to who & what looks parallel to that & where you think your vanishing point is on what sort of horizon”…which is sort of like them…in that it also sounds like you can almost squint your hearing until it says “great question I totally didn’t think I answered by writing the thing – how about you stick your head up your ass & see if you find the answer…I’ll wait”

…anyway…that one starts “this ain’t that conversation, son” & goes like this

this ain’t that conversation,
son

that time may come
but this ain’t the one

take it from me, right now
– this is done

& what’s coming next
ain’t no kind of fun

you need to go home
& start again

grab a pad
& a fucking pen

& use them eyes
to see what lies

within
your ken

’cause maybe it might happen,
then

sure, you can do it
your own way

keep right on
railing away

claim you can’t listen
you got so much to say

but holding forth
ain’t holding sway

>>>>chorus

so you hold US
in your hands

stomach in, chest out
hurling commands

’cause the whole world’s lost
its way

in an entropic trance
of wilful decay

so you mark my words
right here, today

because this fate
that we refuse to face

is going to invade
our personal space

& just like the truth
in many ways

it’s starting to look
like it’s seen better days

chorus<<<<<

like just how

​can​ life var​y​
in line with the fee?
if this
proactive, protective

aggressively-defensive
spree

is just
the way

things have
to be

just how how far
can we stray from the tree

& still claim to know
what it is to be free?

they got keystrokes logged
& CCTV

they got bio-metrics
& the family tree

they’re tracking motions
we can’t even see

so just how the hell is it
that they still can’t see me?

>>>>>>chorus

so you hold us
in your hands

stomach in, chest out
hurling commands

’cause the whole world’s lost
its way

in an entropic trance
of wilful decay

so you mark my words
right here, today

because this fate
that we refuse to face

is going to invade
our personal space

& just like the truth
in many ways

it’s starting to look
like it’s seen better days

chorus<<<<<

I may be sat here
but my mind’s on the run

so I don’t even know
what it is that I’ve done

& in its eye stands my conscience
& he’s holding a gun[*]
[* – …see…gun to head…say hello to your own petard, smart-ass]

& his gaze burns like a nova
that once was a sun

which, for sure,
is a fearsome sight

but I ain’t going gentle
& this ain’t been a good night

I got more questions than answers
but that don’t make *you* right

so bring what you got
but what you’ll get is a fight

>>>>chorus

so you hold us
in your hands

stomach in, chest out
hurling commands

’cause the whole world’s lost
its way

in an entropic trance
of wilful decay

so you mark my words
right here, today

because this fate
that we refuse to face

is going to invade
our personal space

& just like the truth
in many ways

it’s starting to look
like it’s seen better days

chorus<<<<<

& now that I’m looking
I’m starting to see

why he’s all fired up & packing,
finally

’cause what has him riled
isn’t actually me

& now I see the point
I’m inclined to agree

between heaven & hell
lies a state of grace

that don’t much resemble
what I’ve seen of *this* place

but if we clearly just
can’t hack the pace

why insist that life’s journey
is only a race?

>>>>chorus

so you hold us
in your hands

stomach in, chest out
hurling commands

’cause the whole world’s lost
its way

in an entropic trance
of wilful decay

so you mark my words
right here, today

because this fate
that we refuse to face

is going to invade
our personal space

& just like the truth
in many ways

it’s starting to look
like it’s seen better days

chorus<<<<<

welcome to my
imagination

you may prefer
to change the station

no guarantees offered
by the state of this mind

though I’ve never known

for ​it to treat *me* kind

wonders past numbers
may lie within

but still beware
what you begin

as was writ
on maps of old

of far off lands
from tales bold

‘here be dragons’
have a care

so hitch them wagons
if you dare

>>>>>chorus

so you hold us
in your hands

stomach in, chest out
hurling commands

’cause the whole world’s lost
its way

in an entropic trance
of wilful decay

so you mark my words
right here, today

because this fate
that we refuse to face

is going to invade
our personal space

& just like the truth
in many ways

it’s starting to look
like it’s seen better days

chorus<<<<<

you get what
you pay for

in this life

& the free-ride
through this door

is paid for
in strife

so leisure prospects
are poor

& hazards
are rife

where words
don’t just score

but flay you
like a knife

like nature
red in tooth & claw

always a widow
& never a wife

mother to all
& eternally raw

death ain’t so fearsome
compared to life

chorus<<<<<

so you hold us
in your hands

stomach in, chest out
hurling commands

’cause the whole world’s lost
its way

in an entropic trance
of wilful decay

so you mark my words
right, here – today

because this fate
that we refuse to face

is going to invade
our personal space

& just like the truth
in many ways

it’s starting to look
like it’s seen better days

chorus<<<<<

& if we aren’t left
to our own devices

how are we supposed
to figure out what nice is?

or recognise
the signs of vices?

or what the difference
between men & mice is?

what’s coming next ain’t
no kind of fun

take it from me
right now – this is done

that time may come
but this ain’t the one

this ain’t that conversation
son

…I mean…& I mean it in a way less cheeky than it sounds…you wonder what goes on in their head(s)?

as a melody guides
one heart to sing
but leaves another
broken, twisted anew

so the mind’s eye’s
a fragile thing
a singular infinite vista
from a room with no view

thine own self’s self
a you within a you
wisdom borne of stealth
of notice given to

unheard words
& sights unseen
tastes unsavoured
& maybe could have beens

as though mind
from mind withdrew
to lend in kind
to thought reality’s hue

so if insight strikes
with fading sight
is it any wonder
many find delight

setting mind to wander
long into the night
chasing shades
of ideas bright

to mark the sight
with all their might
for all it may
in turn incite

in hopes they might
forestall the light
& set somehow
the world to rights

a world in which
dawn greets each day
as sure as each
must find their way

while the current’s
currency holds sway
among the tides who’d
have their say

dissent’s descent
can often seem a rise
time’s own daughter
in another guise

for in the end
the part that flies
untethered glides
through endless skies

as those one finds
behind closed eyes

…you can feel sorry for them if you like…they’d probably appreciate it…definitely more than they’ll appreciate me putting that stuff where people they don’t know could catch sight of it…but…honestly…they really did bring that part on themselves…that said…in the 10 years that have gone by since they said that shit where I could hear it…I don’t think I can say much I like the sounds of when it comes to our “consider rate”…& I wouldn’t say they’d done anything to particularly make *that part* their fault in a way it isn’t all of ours

take your time
have second thoughts
& thirds

they may flit or soar like birds
flock or swarm or run in herds
or spoil the way that spilt milk curds

they’re cheaper than the thinnest dime
wisdom or folly, reason or rhyme
in thought will not be found the crime

make of all those thoughts a train
forge link by link opinion’s chain

so that even under strain
these may yet a course maintain

this is why there should be oughts
holding fast among those thoughts
judgement though there be no courts

for frontiers breed the staunchest forts

before at last they’re cast as words
or dug in deep
& left to steep
behind a wall
that’s no less tall

our own thoughts are ours alone
but words once spoken then are sown

& thus their fruit is ours to own
ours the marrow of that bone

consider it
or them

their merits pit
against their flaws

test them for their shape & fit
find out just what sort of hit
might split
or bend
or break their laws

& frankly then appraise the cause

a harder task if in poor light
though strain you may with all your might
though you may fight with fervour bright
to catch the sight of wrong or right

dialogue should not berate
a tendency, if left too late
that seals up its starting gate
leaving swift yet baseless hate

that hardens to a settled state
but rises fresh to every bait
which is why I would debate
the pace of our consider-rate

if you set that rate too low
consideration’s hard to show
if you don’t at least attempt to know
what’s against or with the flow
of current, tide or undertow

or would you trust
your judgement just
when its foundations lie in dust –
a train of thought long left to rust?

considerate –
though writ as ‘rate –
we rhyme with ‘ut
an almost utterance
that’s not by chance

a row that’s hoed
by a simple stance
an honour bestowed
that can be paid at a glance

you’ll find there’s really nothing to the trick
no hoop to jump or box to tick
if there’s a body politic
what fool sets out to make it sick?

politic or polity
there’s us & them
& you & me
the few & the many

in the kingdom of we
it never hurts to be polite
for the only glorious war
is the one we don’t fight.

…I dunno folks…I ain’t exactly planning on going anywhere this-place-wise…& I appreciate y’all’s company more than you might be inclined to believe…but I feel like things not being normal being normal for so long that in half as long again there’ll be people voting who never knew it any other way…& here we are already forgetting the never-forget we carved with fucking nukes

…&…I don’t want to get all carried away…to the bouncy-walls hotel or the end-times bunker…but…you lot…as a mostly-pretty-merry-all-things-considered bunch of random pseudo-anonymous internet-friends of…some years now…if…when the something that’s seemingly got to give…gives out on us all…& if part of that giving blows up our little spot somehow…the way they nuked the kinja sub-blogs from fucking orbit, say…if not from the wayback machine if you have some way to stumble upon the memory you’re looking for

…& some stuff we say ages better than other stuff…like bill hicks talking about “the” war in iraq, say…most of us can’t pull that sort of thing off from beyond the grave that way

…but…the person who said that stuff I can’t produce a link to the audio of…I still hear from them from time to time…& they seem pretty content to say they meant it then & they don’t think they mean it any less now…& that strikes me as not a terrible thing to hope to get to say of the things we say long after they’re said & done

…so…for the record…or at least a record I hope we don’t one day have to hope the internet archive crawled & stashed somewhere we might even find it

…it’s been an actual pleasure, folks…at least for me?

…speaking of what some folks like that others might not…this one might be a bit heavy on the tastes I seem to have acquired…so if that’s not your cup of tea it’d only be fair to mention up front that the last one runs about an hour all on its own?