The trees are finally turning. On me, I mean. They whisper as I pass and snicker. We used to be friends. But now they're against me. Well, I'll show them: one of the big ones in the front is coming down, hard, in a few days. It's going to be ground up to dust.

I'm not happy about it, but having learned it's as hollow as a straw, and would probably take out a garage across the street, yeah, it has to go.

Also, the leaves are starting to change color. The drought means the hues will be wan. Instead of everything shifting color, nature will just move the saturation slider to the left. I saw a Halloween decoration today, and sighed: no. It was a big inflatable monster on someone's lawn. It looks like the guest who shows up at the party at the time on the invitation.

Went over to Napoleon's Shoe Shine and Repair Emporium today to drop off some stuff. He's reopened his shop in the Westin hotel - a nice sign of skyway life, even if the Starbucks next door is closed. (I think half are still shuttered.) One of the knock-off effects of work-from-home: fewer people need good shoes. The office workers who used to drop by for a shine or leave a pair in need of revival has plunged to zip, because everyone's tapping away from the den, wearing tennis shoes. The number of people who give a thought to the crease in their slacks has dropped by 65%.

The mobile class, the laptop class (of which I am a charter member) doesn't regard them as expendable or inevitable by-products, because they don't think of them at all. If they do, we'll get think-pieces about how actually it's good that no one wears dress shoes to the office anymore; they enforced class codes, signified unearned status, shoe polish is made in toxic environments, and so on. Tennis shoes, sneakers - they have a egalitarian spirit.

Then again, there are hopeful signs. The other day I saw one of the guys from Lobby Pizza (Note: not the real name) pushing a cart with 30 pizza boxes, headed for the elevators. Someone's upstairs. I share the elevator with somoene about twice a week now, which is an uptick. Today it was a guy in the company that does transport logistics, and I would have loved to talk about supply-chain issues, but I had to get off.

Working from home, you never get any cross-pollination.

Well, as long as I'm cranky, let's see what's going on down in Pine Ridge. I mean Twitter. It's the marketplace of ideas! Well, the wet-market place of ideas.

If Freedom of Speech was proposed today, it would be turned down by most liberal democracies. If allowed, it would have a giant asterisk the size of a WalMart logo.

		Yes. Yes, I do mean the ability to “lie.” Let me give you an example, you who are probably a shite-stirring bot: The United States is not fundamentally racist

"Good on them! See, I know their vernacular!"

Let me give you an example of a dangerous lie:

The United States today is not fundamentally racist

This abrades some, because their mindset requires it as a predicate for everything. They cannot conceive how anyone would disagree, so someone who says so is either stupid, or lying.

The stupid people on Twitter can't spell and have eagle avatars, and can be dismissed until it's time to ban them on general principle. If the people who punctuate correctly and have credientialed bios say “The United States is not fundamentally racist, ” they know the truth, but are lying, because they are grifting racists or racist grifters or that ancient hybrid of lore, the Griftist. I think there's a Babylonian relief of one in the British Museum.

It’s a common posture these days:

“I support free speech.”

“No, you just want to say bad words and spread fake news.”

Since that's the only reason the wrong people would want free speech, of course. So we have to forget about free speech, and work to prohibit wrong speech. Lucky for everyone, the end result of any contraction in the things one can say is a carefully constructed fence around a highly specific set of words and ideas, and that fence will never be expanded depending on whims or fashions. Everyone’s agreed: these words, this set of phonemes. Everything else is okay!

Well hold on a minute, not this word, not these ideas. They’re related. So we’ll include them. And keep in mind that anything adjacent to these things are included, because they’re lies. You know they’re lies, right? Are you one of those people who don’t think they’re lies?

They will qualify every right out of existence in favor of vague, super-better future rights which produce equity, as sure as a quarter in a gumboil machine produces a perfect sphere of delicious sugar.

Nobody should be doing those fun things:

		Hey, a couple of years, what’s the harm? You ever see that movie, First Men on the Moon? There were these space ants living on the moon, and when the sun streamed through their honeycomb windows they came to life. When the sun went away they all froze in place and hibernated. Society and business are just like that. Everything can just stop and then we can start it up again. It’s better if we all stay home for two years - well, to be honest, three, just to be safe.

Noah’s problem with life: too many variables.

This is popping up all over today, thanks to another dump of info, as related in that MAGAtrash rag, the Telegraph.

		No I think it’s controversial because maybe GoF killed 700K Americans?

Did the uptalk help, Nurseypants?

I am not opposed, in principle, to GoF research. There are useful things to be learned. I would rather the US do it than outsource the know-how to institutions tied to the Red Army. Note: everything in China is tied to the Red Army, if there is money or influence involved. Gasp! Paranoia, ignorance! Okay. Do you believe that the US Military might have connections to a research facility in Des Moines that worked on GoF, because it might produce a useful weapon, and you never know when such a thing might come in handy?

If yes, then kindly cinch your fargin’ bat-soup hole. Also, do you believe that the US Military would circumvent laws on biological warfare? YES YES THEY ARE LUNATICS WHO PLAN DEATH. Okay. But the Red Army wouldn’t? No? Okay.

The Jacobin instinct emerges when the opportunity opens up:

		Ad if he had the power, they wouldn't.

Remember: Americans are dolts because most don't have passports and have never been to Europe. Also, you shouldn't get a passport and go to Europe.

I can see someone making the case that business travel was unnecessary, and should be eliminated in favor of Zoom. I can also imagine the person who would say such a thing, and they probably live in New York and require a vast carbon-emitting infrastructure to deliver their foodstuffs. I can imagine this person caring terribly abou the lives of the service workers, and also shrugging if the hotel industry contracts by 70%. They can get Universal Basic Income and stay home and reach their full potential consuming mass media and going to weekly block meetings where Comrade X talks about the struggles in Venezuela, and then everyone has a robust, vibrant rooftop party without having to worry about getting up in the morning. Also, the hotels have been converted into housing to house people experiencing unhousedness, and while they generate no property taxes, any shortfall can be made up by imposing a non-occupancy tax on 100% on the supertall New York skyscrapers bought by Chinese businessmen and Russian crooks as pied a terres. Except now the Chinese are selling their units because they need cash, fast, because their property bubble popped, and while they might contest the 100% tax because it was based on pre-crash values, it'll take a year or two to move through the courts.

Anyway what really matters is that the writer of the Nation article gets to tell people where to go and what to do.

In the old days, you were allowed to do things. These things must never be allowed to resume.

For some people, that's the new template, and they look around with keen eyes to see where it fits next.

Oh, what do you know, it fits everywhere.

It’s 1908.

We’re in between the eras of front pages with lots of ads, and front pages with a picture or two.

That list in the lower middle is like a hole you can grab and attempt to widen, so you can find a way into the page.

		Ginners terrified by night riders . . . or maybe not?

What was the beef? We associate night riders with the Klan, but that wasn’t always the case.

The term “night riding” is frequently synonymous with “whitecapping” or “bald knobbing,” all terms denoting extralegal acts of violence targeting select groups and carried out by vigilantes under cover of night or disguise. Beginning in the 1900s, cotton farmers were often the targets of night riders seeking to intimidate farmers into selling their crops at higher prices than offered by the big agricultural companies.

Dang you, mister, you’d best get yourself the better price or we’ll burn your place down!

More, elsewhere.

		They didn’t want the price undercut. It had fallen, and would stay low, until European markets expanded and the price went up.

More, elsewhere:

		Spoiler: it did not.

News of importance from a nearby state:

		He did not have to part with Maud.

		Buzzards and a stench, there’s your first clue.

		A little dig at competing papers, if I’m reading between the lines. Think of all the contention, arguments, laziness, frustration, and annoyance that must have characterized the committees.

		Missus Addie must have kicked up quite a stink. Here’s Mom. On the left. Dad’s philanthropy is still honored at the VAN LANDINGHAM GLEN. The daughter? Happy to say she pulled through. Not permanently, but that’s the case for all.

Even in the old days, they knew the virtue of messing with the medium.

I wonder if some thought their copy had been vandalized.

		That will have to do. Really, if it doesn't, you ask too much. I'm just one man.