[-] Powderhorn@beehaw.org 1 points 9 minutes ago* (last edited 8 minutes ago)

I was running my college newsroom for the 2000 election. I called up an editorial cartoonist at 2 a.m., having already blown deadline by two hours (it would be four by the time we got the flats to the printer), to provide the main art for A1. It remains the only time I have run an editorial cartoon out front.

As these things go, the art I requested was of Gore holding up a paper with a hed of "Bush Wins" (because we were upstyle back in the Dewey/Truman days). Then went with a dek of "Florida holds the Keys" ... we finally put the paper to bed at 4 a.m., went out to a 24-hour diner, as was customary, and when we got back to the U-District, the major papers were out.

USA Today (McNews) went with "Florida holds the key," completely missing how to use that reference. That was the morning I decided to drop out of college and fix this shit. Oh, the irony that I'd later work in automation for Gannett against their wishes (you can't tell my team that they suddenly need to produce 33% more pages per hour and expect me to not start coding).

Now that I've vomited irrelevant verbal diarrhea, the answer is we never had a chance. The system doesn't like people enjoying their lives, it's just rent-seeking.

[-] Powderhorn@beehaw.org 1 points 30 minutes ago

Friendly reminder that part of the ethos of Beehaw is assuming good faith. I don't see in that response what you're accusing them of. These are tough times, but giving up our humanity and ability to connect with each other only worsens the problem.

[-] Powderhorn@beehaw.org 1 points 38 minutes ago

I found some success with psilocybin. For about six months, life seemed manageable again.

[-] Powderhorn@beehaw.org 4 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

Welcome. I wish it were under better circumstances. I know well the pain of trying to find the right meds -- it can take years and is unlikely to be useful if treatment-resistant. I'm not going to make suggestions, as you're likely just finding out whether an SSRI/SNRI is working, I will point out that the purpose of U.S.-based medicine is to make sure you never get better and have to keep paying because, somehow next month ...

[-] Powderhorn@beehaw.org 7 points 12 hours ago

Report that. I can guarantee few things in life, but racism here is taken very seriously.

[-] Powderhorn@beehaw.org 3 points 18 hours ago

Saying that's part of the problem is akin to saying the asteroid was part of the problem for dinosaurs. All you're really missing is the gutting of critical thinking in public education under Reagan.

[-] Powderhorn@beehaw.org 8 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

They really are. I chose this one because the writing was sharp, and I didn't really want to spam y'all on what was already a rough day.

But for anyone who doesn't regularly read Rolling Stone (I didn't until the Post shat the bed), the political coverage is incisive and pushing the left edge of the Overton window, which is precisely where you want your journalism.

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No notes.

[-] Powderhorn@beehaw.org 3 points 1 day ago

Thanks for this! I knew nothing about the region ahead of watching the video, and some of their concepts from 800 years ago would be useful for today's leaders to bear in mind.

4

This gets a bit into the linguistic weeds, and if you're familiar with Dutch or High German, the errors are somewhat comical, especially with SVO vs. SOV. But overall an interesting exploration and distraction.

[-] Powderhorn@beehaw.org 5 points 1 day ago

Centralizing local coverage has been tried at scale before. At least with weather, there's less opportunity to get street names wrong, but the only plausible outcome here is a worse product.

[-] Powderhorn@beehaw.org 12 points 1 day ago

Fourth Reich is definitely starting out pretty chilly!

15

I started following Shives because of his takes on Trek. But this seriously has one of the best lines I've heard delivered in an offhand, sardonic manner past college. I'm not going to ruin it for anyone, but as we start the hell that is tomorrow, I hoped I could share a laugh.

Be well, be safe, stay warm.

[-] Powderhorn@beehaw.org 3 points 1 day ago

The larger goals of neoliberalism are beyond the scope of this post. I get what you're saying, but we're still trying to pretend the thin, shoddy veneer is walnut.

[-] Powderhorn@beehaw.org 3 points 2 days ago

This isn't just politics ... I've gotten a 5 in a performance review and gotten a 0% raise as a result. The midterms were very much a reaction to Dobbs, not a referendum on Biden. It's confounding how anyone at the DNC saw the House loss as a sign that the plan was working.

6

YouTuber I ran into today. This is from seven years ago, but accomplishes both explaining things I got from neither the text nor movie and being relevant as we head into Monday. Be safe and well, everyone!

21

As @spit_evil_olive_tips@beehaw.org predicted not too many hours ago, it has begun.

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submitted 3 days ago by Powderhorn@beehaw.org to c/usnews@beehaw.org

He certainly won't, but he's not going to have much to show for his purchase going that route.

31

Well, well, well ...

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submitted 2 weeks ago by Powderhorn@beehaw.org to c/chat@beehaw.org

My mom would make offhand references to "come the revolution" when I was growing up. I'm not going to say she went out of her way to suggest that would yet skip a generation, but if she knew it would hit me, she was hiding it well.

She was a Democrat, to the point of being part of a few campaigns for congressmen and senators. My dad, on the other hand, was fully on board with the Thatcher/Reagan trickle-down mindset. Why Thatcher first? We didn't have a portrait of Reagan in the office.

We were nonetheless a family that got invited to things. The Christmas party with Sandra Day O'Connor every year. Gubernatorial candidates from both parties would show up on off years.

When you grow up like this, it's very easy to believe the system is working for everyone. College was paid for, even though I never finished. The experience of going into debt would wait a few years. And then, the layoffs.

At this point, the only reasons I'm not totally fucked are I work freelance and can't be found. I've not talked with the friend whose address I use in months on account of creditors showing up at 9 p.m. attempting to serve papers. His kids go to bed at 8, so I get it.

But what has sprung from this is a drastic shift without a clutch (ask your parents) from thinking being part of the system was the best outlet to effect change to having zero belief the system can be changed. Sure, it can be, but we'll get the same results, just slightly less lemon.

I don't think you can get much more establishment than aspiring to The Washington Post. I still have an April 2003 A1 where I moved a hed after the AME/News came down to review my redesign, 18 months out of college and without a degree, and invited me up for a night on the desk. It sounded a lot more impressive at 23, I'll grant.

He'd then tell me in Savannah, Ga., over a beer at the hotel bar that he thought I was Post material, but I needed to get the immature shit out of my system, first. Ahead of the Post contingent and me piling into a car where the main topic was "what bullshit did Woodward pull today?" Seriously, consider hearing this conversation less than a year into your career in journalism.

I believed in it back then. I can't now. And to be honest, it's broken me of having a full eight hours to devote to the craft. I'm lucky to have four hours before by brain says no.

What the Post and L.A. Times have done may look bad externally; internally, I assure you it looks worse. NYT thankfully showed its true colours quite some time back, so this was more waiting for shoes to drop.

I did not join Beehaw to change the world. I joined my school paper to do that.

And, well, now Gannett owns everything. You can't even sell efficiencies to managers there, since they need bad data to justify their jobs.

There is no solution here within the scope of the current economic model. So, congratulations, deregulated capitalism, you fucking turned someone raised to accept you. I suspect many others have something to say.

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submitted 2 weeks ago by Powderhorn@beehaw.org to c/science@beehaw.org
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Not that there's anything good about this, but hearing that both Steven Pinker and Richard Dawkins "resigned" from whatever honorary positions they had with the FFRF rather made my heart sink.

I was a linguistics student for a time, and Pinker's books always had a sociolinguistic aspect to them, but I never saw transphobia. It was admittedly a while back, so it really wasn't yet settling into the national consciousness.

I also admired Dawkins' writing style; again, I saw nothing transphobic.

So for both of these guys to be like "nope, you should have totally kept a piece up that says transwomen should have fewer rights and options" is, maybe, the final insult of 2024.

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submitted 3 weeks ago by Powderhorn@beehaw.org to c/usnews@beehaw.org

... and so it begins. Not that this is the first example, but what's somewhat scary here is that people feel this emboldened before he even uses an oath to dismantle everything the oath requires him to uphold.

17
submitted 3 weeks ago by Powderhorn@beehaw.org to c/usnews@beehaw.org

And the FDA is supposed to ... do what again? Oh, that's right, avoid shit like this. Enjoy the regulatory capture; tip your ag company, avoid the veal.

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Powderhorn

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