LILEKS (James) :: The Bleat 2018 WEDNESDAY

More rain. No sun. It’s supposed to ruin our fall colors, mute themand make the gradient parade less interesting. That’s a pity, but I wouldn’t have noticed it no one had said anything.

Don’t mind it. The cozier it is inside, the more justified I feel sitting at my desk working on pointless things. Tonight I was trying to find whether a department store I’ve never visited in a town I’ve never seen was destroyed by fire in the last 30s or early 40s - as you might have guessed, it’s a Main Street feature. (You’ll see it in November.) I wonder if you have to be a certain age to feel the pull of these old stores. The name was known in town since the 1880s, and made it to the 1990s before it gave up. The founder died in 1918, but generations knew the store:

These places were important in ways few things are these days. I’m trying to think if there’s any replacement for a community, anything that says home, anything that says “Christmas memory watching Mom light up when she ripped the paper and saw the name on the box.” I suppose their decline was inevitable, and reflects the choices of the locals. After all, they had a mall. It was built in 1966, and I’m sure you can peg the decline of downtown to its appearance.

But then the mall went into a tailspin. Not entirely dead, but weak, with hallways lined with drywall and decorated with pictures of the old town - bitter, that. So you have a dead downtown killed by a mall that foundered, because people - quite understandably - wanted free parking and climate-controlled spaces.

It’s hard to revive a downtown or a dead mall, but the former has a better shot. There’s a yearning for downtown built into people, I think. The history, the architectural diversity, the memory of old signs, the knowledge that this place is unique. I go downtown when I’m in Fargo, and I feel happy; I go to the Mall, and I want to saw open my wrists.

Anyway. You’ll see it all in a few weeks. I had a spare hour after dinner and decided I should lay out the November pages. B&W World, Product, Serial, and Main Street are written through the end of the month. Working on December now, but excited to show you what’s coming in 2019 - and a bit frustrated that a lot of what I’m working on won’t be up until 2020.

Today, just for fun, we'll take a look at the tempered, even-minded, completely normal reactions to recent events, as expressed through the nuanced medium of Twitter.

Spoiler: most of them can't even.


		Honestly? Well, there you have it: he wants the nuclear immolation of the LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.

		The gradual demonization of White Women is an interesting thing to watch in slo-mo. There's going to be a lot of agreement on this among WW, until they're expected to vacate leadership roles.

		Futures destroyed; consequence-free rape guaranteed. You must believe this or you are not paying attention.

		The future depends on controlling vulnerable people's access to media. The best people will determine who is vulnerable.

		The bluecheck names aren't blurred, because they're famous! And asking for it. Again with the white women! Courtney Love blasted her as a Jew-hater, and Sarsour called her . . . well, a white woman! Among other things.

		Okay. This standard applies to everyone in politics with whom we disagree. Commentators included. Heck, Tweeters included! We all get to yell at you for as long as we like. About anything.

		But, you see, it'll work! People get screamed at by unhinged strangers, and they think "perhaps I should examine my heart and change my ways."

		You're right; "socially sanctioned child-bride marrage and ritual genital mutilation" is nine words. If only there was just one word

		It's just a given

		Emo, I am disappoint. As for her, note the upcoming rationale for delegitimizing the Electoral College. Iofe's point is wrong, BTW. Larry Tribe, you're our only hope!

		"Who first took office after losing the popular vote." There, that'll get you some solid legit RTs by the people who care about facts. Even though the Bush appointments were in the second term, after he won the popular vote. Tribe also throws his lot in with the people who want to abolish the Senate because it moderates the power of the coastal majorities. If NYC and CA were full of MAGA types, the Senate would be bulwark against fascism, an invaluable aspect of our system, and proof of our Founder's Wisdom. But since this check has been confounding All the Good Things, it's an impediment, and must be swept away. These are not normal times! Any norm must be sacrificed to combat them!

		I think this is the first example of a major party leader using the new definition of "violence," which takes place of the old word, "disagreement."




		A lone kind, calm voice, cautioning his kin. He'll be in the second wave to the scaffold.

We return to the story of the Purple Monster, who dresses in a very conspicuous fashion, and has come on his own to prepare the Mars invasion. Mars can get to earth, but they can’t get back. So rather than invade en masse and command their slaves to build rockets, they send ONE GUY to steal some plans.

It's rare for a hence to get a card. To bring you up to speed:

Our hero, whose name I always forget, slugs all the guys.

After she’s safe, there’s a gun battle.

Owie! Guns sting! Turns out the gunshots damaged the Annihilator, and also Foster - that’s our hero, I guess - has the Finder, a targeting mechanism that will let him find the Annihilator. Purps lures him to the observatory, gets the Finder, and booby-traps it with a poison dart that will make Crandall - that’s one of the rocket scientist-types - go mad with homicidal rage before he dies.

You can imagine the top Martian guy calling. So. Do you have the rocket done yet?

"No; it blew up. I had to get some fuel. That blew up too. Then we had to get something from this one guy, and I trapped him in a pit of acid, but he got out. Then we got this thing that blows stuff up, it’s really cool, and spent a week blowing up trucks on the highway. This dude came along and kept us from blowing up this one girl, and then he damaged the ray gun, but now I have this trick thing going where one of the scientists will get poked with a needle and be, like, RAWWWWR."

(pause)

Leader: "Kill yourself immediately. A replacement is on the way."

Anyway, Crandall gets poked, and man, he is OFF THE HOOK. Turns out converting your lab to a murder house is pretty easy: