It Takes A Village: VNV Wednesday – Omens

The Village News & Views August 23, 2017
Wednesday Get Over the Hump Free for All

Greetings, Village Meese. It’s Day 216 of the Resistance and time for another Get Over the Hump post and discussion thread.

Banner photo courtesy NASA, though I don’t think it is from this week’s eclipse. But you get the idea. Banner caption should be, “Is this a hint or something?”

This week… I got nothing. So today’s theme is Pause and Re-Group.

However I reserve the right to throw some random stuff out here and… oh, but you’re used to that by now, right?

WTFJH Yesterday – Day 115: Principled Realism

Join the Battle for Net Neutrality – If you haven’t done this, we are going to run out of time to comment rather shortly.

DK: While Pres. Trump took to TV to talk about War, Rev. Barber II came to Topeka to talk about Hope

Music after the break – WARNING! NOT SAFE FOR WORK!

This song is loud, classic punk style, courtesy of legendary DEAD KENNEDYS frontman Jello Biafra. 

A little background…

Nazi Punks Fuck Off” was the fifth single by the Dead Kennedys. It was released in 1981 on Alternative Tentacles with “Moral Majority” as the B-side. Both are from the In God We Trust, Inc. EP, although the EP version is a different recording from the single version. The single included a free armband with a crossed-out swastika. The design was later adopted as a symbol for the anti-racist punk movement Anti-Racist Action.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Punks_Fuck_Off

 After Donald Trump won the presidential election, Jello Biafra, former Dead Kennedys frontman, fell face first onto his bed, pounding his fists and shouting, “How can people be so fucking stupid?!?” For Biafra, who has spent nearly 30 years as a leftist pundit, doing as many spoken-word appearances as punk-rock shows, Trump’s ascendancy confirms his darkest conspiracy theories about fundamentalist right-wingers taking over the world.

Jello Biafra on How to Stand Up to Trump, Why Punk Still Matters, by Steve Knopper , 

… and so, Nazi Trumps Fuck Off was born.

On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog” is an adage about Internet anonymity which began as a cartoon caption by Peter Steinerand published by The New Yorker on July 5, 1993.[1][2] The cartoon features two dogs: one sitting on a chair in front of a computer, speaking the caption to a second dog sitting on the floor listening to the first.[3] As of 2011, the panel was the most reproduced cartoon from The New Yorker, and Steiner has earned over US$50,000 from its reprinting.[1][4][5]

Wikipedia – On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog

Twitterverse…

https://twitter.com/AnneFrankCenter/status/900326889998385153

 

 Palate Cleanser

Critters

https://twitter.com/CUTEST_ANlMALS/status/899784221748678656

https://twitter.com/CUTEST_ANlMALS/status/899479865753190404

That’s it for me, enjoy some beverage, chat with your friends and fellow Resistors and just take a moment to enjoy some part of your day.

Thank you for your patience. Love and peace, Village! Enjoy your Wednesday gathering.

We are #StrongerTogether

We are #TheResistance and #WePersist

 

About MomentaryGrace 41 Articles
I voted for the Democrat in every election since 1976. I appreciate honesty, kindness and courage. I loathe cruelty and indifference. I am Discordian. I mean you no harm. But if you are cruel, or indifferent, I may point and laugh. #stillwithher.

25 Comments

  1. Morning yall! Okay so I’m a bit pissed off, and indulged myself in some wonderful unapologetic punk rage… But it’s culture, yanno! ;) Peace, Love & Resistance! 4ever Your MG….

  2. {{{MomentaryGrace}}} – thanks for the double duty, a stellar round up as usual. Punk is not my thing (neither is rage for that matter) but to each her own. And anger most certainly beats despair – rto keeps saying “stay angry” – but that only works if you’re channeling the anger Energy to deal with the evil. And of course Obama, kids, and kittens always touch the heart and remind us what we’re fighting for – that Loving-Kindness Hillary ran on – and won the popular vote on.

    Gotta get to work. Back when I can. moar {{{HUGS}}}

  3. Wow, it ate my comment. Hey, Meese, I was here earlier, lamenting the loss of our peaceful village and thought I posted my comment. I guess I didn’t. However, a scaled down version is that I am tired of trying to channel hpg’s energy (or whatever you want to call it). He spams every single diary. If one person (bfitz not included…her stuff is needed) is responsible for half of the comments, he’s spamming. Although he has reduced the CAPS, he’s still got a lot of !!!!!!! and the stories from The Hill.

    So, I am going to pull back my participation. I will r,r,t,c and stay until he goes spamming. Then I’m gone.

    Breakfast and my stress reducing elliptical workout for me.

    • This makes me sad, even though I understand it completely. I’ve found that I just scroll by his comments and look for where the real conversations are happening. Unfortunately, at this point, our Village has been shrinking even more, and I have no doubt it’s frustration over the spamming. I rarely even tip his comments anymore, the exception being when he posts following your model of multiple tweets in one comment.

        • I rarely do, but then he posts something that’s actually interesting and I find myself rec’ing. I should just make it a hard and fast rule, but I’m not sure it would matter.

          • It probably doesn’t matter, and I do rec… occasionally, if it is relevant, interesting.

            As a by-product, it’s cut down my tweet posts. :D

          • I love your tweet posts! Hit-and-run tweet posts, not so much, but yours never fall into that category.

  4. I tried. Goddess knows I did. Grace, njm5000, Melaka, bfitz…we’ve all tried. He even spams Michael’s diaries and I think that’s why they’ve shrunk in readers lately. It’s just not feeling like a Village. Batch says he’s a secret Berner sent to break up the Village. I’d report him to admin for spamming before I’d let him take us down (except I don’t know how to do that). ????

    • Batch is paranoid but just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean the aren’t out to get you. I wondered that myself (about the secret berner). I don’t think so. But I did wonder.

    • Yes, you have. I give you high marks for that, because it’s not something I’ve done. At this point, I think the only one he even responds to (at least on a regular basis) is bfitz. Even if all of the assumptions we’ve made (young, ESL, lonely, social media-awkward, etc) are true, if someone doesn’t engage, it’s hard to know how to handle the situation. Even when I write my most heavily-researched, content-filled diaries, there’s no reaction, just a rush to start embedding tweets. (OK, that may be my ego speaking, but I don’t apologize for having an ego!)

      I’m seriously considering doing a No-Tweet Tuesday post at DK under the guise of reintroducing ourselves to one another or maybe as a “reaction” to 45*s tweets. It would be completely unenforceable, but it might be worth a try.

        • I think I’ll try to find an article about “the decline of conversation in the age of Twitter” and use that as the basis for my post. I’m sure someone has written something along those lines. (And of course, we always have MM for any and all tweets we want to share!) I have to think this through a bit more, but I’ll see what I can find…and wait to see what bfitz and WYgal say too.

          I never go onto DK at night anymore; is the spamming just as prolific in sj’s diaries?

          • If not worse. Yesterday and again today, he copies over tweets from the night before. If you hadn’t been in the evening edition, you’d probably ok. Those of us in both, hence my Groundhog Day remark yesterday, it’s annoying. Also, if you find a good diary, link it. If the diary is about a story you tweeted? I’m not interested. But that’s me.

      • I’d support that (and I do tweet in my opening post). However, I also acknowledge the diary, comment about what’s happening, thank the author…

      • If we all followed the rules of no tweeting, it would certainly show how prolific his tweeting is. We can link to stories like we did before Twitter took over.

        • I’m certainly not going to try to encourage no-tweeting-ever, but I think I can do a diary and propose using it as an experiment (and bfitz would get a special dispensation for any tweets that she uses in the community links). If the diary comes across as old woman shouting at clouds, then so be it. If conversation is non-existent, then it certainly gives us all something to think about. If the threads with back-and-forth get long, that too gives us something to think about. If someone chooses to disregard the experiment, then a gentle call-out would not be out of line; I’m not even going to make an exception for pooties and woozles!

          And yes, linking to stories (even if they’re originally found on Twitter!) and using blockquotes always provides more insight than an embedded tweet, which depends all too often on the reader clicking on the tweet (which probably happens less than we think). It also provides insight into what each individual finds important/enlightening/funny/sad, and that’s an icebreaker in and of itself.

          I hope you guys understand that I love Twitter and the ease it provides in finding content. None of this idea came about because of you; it’s 75% about the spamming, and 25% about what I see as the decline in conversation. I suspect some of the decline has to do with August recess and the fact that most of us are in Resistance-recharge mode, rather than active resistance. That just makes for fewer personal stories and anecdotes. But yeah, mostly this is about the spamming.

          • I agree. It’s the spam. I don’t think he even reads the stories or he wouldn’t post duplicates or falsely claim something that the headline infers but the story doesn’t. Let’s do this. I’m in.

  5. Thanks, bfitz…I saw your comment on DK. You took the bull by the horns, but with a kindness and clarity I would not have been able to muster. I’m still going to do a No-Tweet Tuesday diary though…

  6. i don’t know what to say about hpg – I think young, probably ESL, and possibly ADHD as he seems to get overexcited rather easily. I see no harm in him. definitely not a bernie troll. not sure he’s American (as in not sure he lives here) as he was awfully interested in teh UK elections and knowledgeable enough to engage in a difference of opinion with Michael. The tweet blast is annoying – not nearly as much to me as it is to you, but then I don’t spend as much time in the diaries as you do. If you want to do a ‘tweet-free’ day i’ve got no problem with that. Except for the “action tweets” i really try to get them out of my community links list as soon as I can find another source for the information to link to – that’s just because my list takes up so much space as it is.

    I have just posted a long comment to hpg attached to a repeated tweet asking him not to do that. You folks will see it next time you’re in there so I won’t copy it here. He does sometimes try to interact – always says “thank you” if somebody checks and comments on a diary or a link and sometimes asks questions. He doesn’t seem to be very good at conversation – which is probably why he posts the tweets. Sort of the online version of not knowing how to make conversation but wanting to be a part of one so naming all the movies you’ve seen in the last year (used to run into that kind of situation when i was teaching). We shall see if we can maybe shape him in the direction of learning conversation with the ‘no tweet’ idea. That would be a good thing.

    • I promise I will try to be as kind as you, and while My Plot will be obvious to those who are tired of all the tweets, it won’t be done in a way that amounts to shaming or meanness. I’ve already found several articles that address issues unique to social media, so they will form the foundation of my post. And it really is an experiment for ALL of us; I’ll be very interested to see what happens.

    • Yes, as always, you were very sweet and loving (how I always wish to be but its like hitting my head against the wall with hpg). I was about to suggest we have StarbucksGirl come and pay a visit to shut him down. I’m getting desperate, I guess.

      I feel awful even bringing it up (and I don’t want you to think I’m trying to hold the diary hostage or something). If y’all are ok with hpg, then I will drop back when it gets to bothering me too much and you will know why. It won’t interfere with me tweeting up your diaries (or writing one from time to time). {{{HUGS}}}

      • {{{WYgalinCali}}} – wish I could come up with a solution that would be good for everybody. Certainly don’t want you dropping back. and maybe I’m being suckered, but hpg feels vulnerable to me, wants to be a part of the group but doesn’t know how to be a part of a group. And that could be 100% projection – something I’ve had a problem with much of my life as did many of my students. (I taught the “at-risk” kids most of the 5 years I taught public school.) But really, really don’t want you to feel uncomfortable. moar {{{HUGS}}}

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