just rambling

 Today is the 5th day of the 3rd week, the 17th day of the 1st month, the 17th day of 2025, and:

• Ben Franklin Day - his 319th birthday.  By all accounts he was a bit of a lecher and tippler, albeit a brilliant man and statesman.  I wonder how he would fare today with all his little slips on full display?  
• Cable Car Day 
• Customer Service Day
• Ditch New Year's Resolutions Day
• Hat Day
• International Fetish Day
• International Mentoring Day
• Judgement Day - Created by a married couple, who argued that you don't have to wait until you die to measure whether or not you measure up to your diety's standards - just look in the mirror and be honest with yourself.  
• Kid Inventors' Day
• National Bootlegger's Day
• National Classy Day
• National Hot Buttered Rum Day
• National Hot Heads Chili Day
• National Rye Whiskey Day
• Popeye the Sailor Man Day - celebrating his debut appearance back in 1929 and forever enshrining the value of spinach and "I yam what I yam". 
•  World Waterfowl Day
• and Voyager 1 is ~23h 04m 29s of light travel time from Earth

Quote of the day:

"Today you are you!  That is truer than true!  There is no one alive who is more you-er than you!"
~ Dr Seuss

No coherence to this post, just random thoughts that have been floating about my brain and refuse to coalesce into pithy blog posts with introductions, transitions, and conclusions.  So, if you are still reading, buckle up, it's going to be a messy ride......

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I find these days that on social media I am deleting posts after having written them.  Most have to do with politics, and as I sit and look at the story I just shared and commented on, I find that I am rather overwhelmed with the thought that nothing I say matters.   I watch the media change their perspectives to catch what they perceive as the prevailing winds, and it makes me feel even more hopeless for the state of our country and democracy as a whole.  

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Once again, as happened in 2016, the election was decided not by those who got out and voted, but by the number of people who opted not to vote.  I remember all kinds of statements about the importance of getting out and voting and none of them seemed to matter - over a third of the voters just stayed home.  My assumption is that they refused to vote for Donnie, but as happened in 2016, just couldn't bring themselves to vote for a woman.  

And here we are, faced with the stark reality of the return of the Gilded Age when the only people who get to benefit from government or toil are the oligarchs.  

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 I'm a Neil Gaiman fan.  Kind of late to the party, altho I had read American Gods a long time ago, when Good Omens hit Prime, I re-discovered him and recklessly dived into his body of work.  He was very active on social media, and I followed him.  Overall, I like him, and just as other fans, was shocked when all the allegations of misconduct came to light.  I will admit that my reaction was tempered by the shock of not getting a full third season resolution to Aziraphale's and Crowley's story.

But as everyone rushes to judgement, I noted there was talk from one or two of the ladies of a "contract" and even of payments.  And then there was the issue of Neil demanding to be addressed as "Master".    And I keep wondering - could this be an example of a BDSM relationship?  I know only a little of that shadowy world [and how I learned of it in and of itself could be a very long blog post that I might write some day] but I can say that for those of you who read Fifty Shades of Gray, that was not a good example of a healthy BDSM relationship.  And I know one of the worries that Doms/Master/Tops have is the way the relationship will be presented to the vanilla world [that's the more conventional world] if a sub/slave/bottom becomes ...  alienated?  disaffected?  Someone who becomes rich and famous would be very vulnerable to that.  

Of course, this is all mere speculation on my part.

And then there is the question - do you stop reading/listening/watching the product when the creator is revealed to be less than noble?  Fandom brushed with this question as J K Rowling spouted off her anti-trans screed, but never resolved it.  Fact is, the creation[s] achieve a life of their own that continues no matter what we find out about the person behind them.  And Benjamin Franklin is far from a saint, but there is no stain on his contributions to America,  and DJT is going to be inaugurated as POTUS on Monday, so why should modern entertainers be held to a higher moral/ethical standard?

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From return-to-office mandates to limiting gov't OSHA regs to child labor to refusing to increase the minimum wage, the war on workers continues as the oligarchs want to enjoy ALL the fruits of their employees labor and want them to be grateful for having a job.  Of course, they don't put it like that - instead they complain about diversity initiatives and even having too many women in the workplace.  

And when you ask them about their billions, the answer is that "they make the money themselves".   They seem to forget that their riches are not a fruit of their own labor.... 

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Wen GoFundMe first debuted, I thought it was an excellent opportunity for individuals to practice charity, giving donations to those who need it most rather than to a faceless organization. As time has passed, I have started to see it as a symptom of a truly sick society, one that refuses to pay workers a living wage for their time and energy, a society that refuses to build a healthy social infrastructure to help the most vulnerable among us.   As The Guardian points out, donations are dependent on what I call "reach" - the ability to make your case convincingly and the wherewithal to promote yourself. 

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Any one of these segments, dystopian as they are,  could be expanded into a full essay.  Someday down the road, when I have the time and energy to research and polish, I might expand on one or all.  In the meantime

Right now the sun is shining

It is Friday

It is payday

'Nuff said