2025-06
Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2025/07/01/2025-06/
2025-06-12 Thursday
Since the fall of Twitter I have found that I enjoy visiting Reddit. Twitter was great for instant validation from like-minded folks for my half-baked quips. I can see why Elon loves it hard.
Reddit, on the other hand, I participate in different forums, each with its own culture. I can chime in and reply to a post with a half-assed snappy comment, and sometimes it lands. But there is a lot more listening and holding my tongue. People are often seeking advice and there is something to learn along the way. And if something is really just mediocre or worse, I can have the satisfaction of a down vote and move along.
Another nice thing with Reddit is that it isn’t as addictive. It is easier to browse for a bit and say “well, that is Reddit, let us do something else.”
The biggest Quality-of-Life advice I have for Reddit is to turn off the default feature where it shows you posts from forums that you haven’t joined but that the Algorithm thinks you might like. That might be helpful for new users, but pretty early on I was like “why is it showing me this stuff?!” There’s a fine interface for finding new subreddits when you want to go exploring.
I have had a home for my half-baked notions all along. It is this blog. Twitter was nice because it only wanted a sentence or two. Low effort. But you know I think it is kinda nice to say “okay brain, that is a cute idea, but let’s just share the ideas that grow into a few paragraphs.”
The other thing with posting to social media is it is about me and my need for validation. Me me me me me me me me! Whee! Aren’t I special? Do I need to interact with normies IRL? Yeah, fuck that. On Reddit, your profile is pretty low key. Every post or comment I read I read on its own merit: the author I barely notice. You are not your profile: you are your words! Where Social Media is about me me me me me me me me me, forums are about a group of people working things out together. Community. We can use a lot more of that.
This blog is about me. It has not been served to you on an algorithmic platter. You have to find and read what I have to say for your own reasons. And I would love to hear from you.
Thank you for prompting these thoughts, jamelle.
2025-06-17 Tuesday
Last night my toe molted a thick layer of skin like a growing snake. I marveled at my human body and its capacity for healing. There are other animals who can re-grow whole limbs of course but if I can get my toe re-skinned in a few days I’m really just amazed. Also, self-interested. I don’t want to suffer a whole lot. A little privation here and there can be good for the soul but … anyway.
Saturday I joined the local No Kings protest. Locally, it was going to be protests along seven miles of El Camino Real between two Tesla dealerships. It sounded a bit flakey to me, and I was going to content myself with driving past and tooting my horn between kid errands. But on Thursday, my state Senator was forced to the ground and handcuffed in Los Angeles and that helped remind me that the Regime is always up to a new level of depraved WTFery.
Sometimes I feel like I need to do something. So I made a sign.
Wife handled the kids on Saturday. I crafted a sign and walked from our place down to one end of the protest and then I walked to the other end. I respect the idea of sitting on the sidewalk with a sign just fine, and along the way I exchanged joyous greetings with thousands of people, not to mention all the honking horns. But for me, I just needed to stretch my legs and move and get it out of my system. It was a One Man March. Well, there was another guy who paralleled me for about 5 miles. And some folks on bikes coming the other way to get amazing footage of the crowd.
I made a sign, then I wrote on the sign. Then I walked over ten miles carrying the sign around. I was granted flags along the way. And several blisters. I love my country. We have a lot of good people.
I have read that the ACLU claims a cumulative attendance of 5 million across 2,000 cities, which would be the biggest protest in American history. The energy that I experienced was huge and amazing. And this in the quiet suburbs. Owing in part to the fact that I walked the length of a line, I ran into a bunch of folks I knew, and missed plenty of others in my haste. But the energy, as I experienced it, was really unprecedented, especially for suburbia. And I have been to a few protests in my time.
2025-06-23 Monday
This morning I had to toot my horn at a Tesla driver who did not understand how a four-way stop sign works. A block later, I had to toot my horn at an ICE driver who did not understand how a green light works. (Put down the damn phone!) A mile later, feeling spicy, I went ahead and flipped off someone driving a blue Cylon Tesla, as they do not understand how Fascism works.
By way of explanation, a “Cylon Tesla” is a model of Tesla with a headlight that stretches across the front of the car. Like a Cyber Truck. This style became available to consumers after Elon’s “Roman Salute.” Most of the time I try to be a pretty chill driver, but I figure if you’re okay buying a car from a Nazi, (and I hope you got a really good deal) you can accept that people are going to flip you off from time to time. A little bit of social friction to make Collaboration less palatable.
I am listening to KPFA this morning. TIL Ralph Nader, 91 years young, hosts a weekly “Ralph Nader Radio Hour.” I caught a little bit of Bernie Sanders speaking in the past few days. When either of these guys or Elizabeth Warren gets going, I feel Grandma Marnie is present. She was old enough to remember the optimism that was raised in the New Deal, which got ground away with much of the rest of the century. These old folks remind me of that optimism, and that un-flagging will to keep fighting the good fight. But what I appreciate most is feeling Grandma Marnie around, and the spirit of her generation. It was that spirit of progress that “Made America Great” in its time, and that is the spirit of progress and optimism which America needs to realize its greatness anew.
2025-06-27 Friday
Speaking of voices that thrilled my Grandmother, Bill Moyers died yesterday. He was a voice for righteousness. Democracy Now had a very nice piece about him on the drive in this morning.
I think this country is in a very precarious state at the moment. I think the escalating, accumulating power of organized wealth is snuffing out everything public, whether it’s public broadcasting, public schools, public unions, public parks, public highways. Everything public has been under assault since the late 1970s, the early years of the Reagan administration, because there is a philosophy that’s been extant in America for a long time, that anything Public is less desirable than Private.
And I think we’re at a very critical moment in the equilibrium. No society, no human being can survive without balance, without equilibrium. Nothing in excess, the ancient Greeks said. And Madison, one of the great framers of our Constitution, built equilibrium into our system. We don’t have equilibrium now. The power of money trumps the power of democracy today, and I’m very worried about it. And if we don’t address this, if we don’t get a handle on what we were talking about, money in politics, and find a way to thwart it, tame it, we’re in trouble. Democracy should be a brake on unbridled greed and power. Because capitalism – capital, like a fire, can turn from a servant, a good servant, into an evil master. And democracy is the brake on my passions and my appetites, and your greed and your wealth. And we have to get that equilibrium back.
I said to a friend of mine on Wall Street “how do you feel about the market?”
He said “well, I’m optimistic.”
I said “why do you then look so worried?”
He said “because I’m not sure my optimism is justified.”
I feel that way. So, I fall back on the Italian political scientist Gramsci, who said that he practices the pessimism of the mind and the optimism of the will. By that, he meant, he sees the world as it is, without rose-colored glasses, as I try to do as a journalist. I see what’s there. That will make you pessimistic. But then, you have to exercise your will optimistically, believing that each of us singly and all of us collectively can be an agent of change. And I have to get up every morning and imagine a more confident future, and then try to do something that day to help bring it about.
-Bill Moyers, 2011
There is a new coffee place in town that had a ribbon cutting this morning. I popped by to check it out. Not open just yet as the VIPs were still gathering and I had to get to work. I peeked in the window and saw some fancy coffee machines and no chairs or pastries. I hustled over to my Usual Place, where I was informed that all the chocolate croissants had been sold already, but the owner had set one aside for me. (A big fat one.) I quietly snuck an extra $5 bill into the tip jar.
A few weeks earlier, they served me this amazing specimen, who has so much character the smart phone rendered it in portrait mode.
