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And now begins my favorite time of the year, that is, the 10 and a half month or so period before Christmas rears its overly saccharine head again sometime in the middle of next October. I am a bit of a Grinch, and it’s totally unjustified, because we just spent a very pleasant 3 days at the cottage, I totally overdosed on Christmas chocolates, and it was sort of a white Christmas, much better than last year’s mudfest but I’m really glad we didn’t have to go anywhere because the roads were totally treacherous, basically a big skating rink with hills.
I don’t really hate carp or potato salad, I just don’t find either of them particularly festive, and if I never see Home Alone again, I would never feel the lack.
I did get plenty of swag, including Yuval Harari’s Homo Deus, which I’m finding quite interesting, and the Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1, the kindle version, which is interesting because he’s an important historical character but from what I’ve read so far, it’s nowhere near his best writing. It’s a bit more like a diary, including lots of detail about how much various things cost, and who among his publishers and acquaintances were leeches and swindlers.
Tonight we’re going to watch “Don’t Look Up” and in a couple of days time we’re going to take a couple of days to visit Budapest, which I’m looking forward to very much. The only time we were there before was a couple of hours at the tail end of a longer trip, and I’ve wanted to give it a more proper viewing ever since.
Merry After Chrismas, everybody!

Kim Potter has been found guilty of manslaughter in the shooting death of Duante Wright, and sentenced to 6 to 8 years.
At least that. I’m glad one more racist, murdering, police officer is off the streets, although I think the charge should be murder and her allegation that she thought she was holding a taser because she shouted “Taser! Taser! Taser!” before she shot her victim to death would be laughable bullshit except that a man is dead, so it is not laughable.
I saw one comment that there was no way murder could be proven, and I suppose it’s true that state of mind is hard to prove, but by that logic almost nobody should be in jail for murder, unless they wrote a note (witnessed and stamped by a public notary) beforehand saying “It is my clear intent to murder ____ ____,” and then they go out and do it.
I am reminded of the man who, accused of murdering his wife, says “I beat her up lots of times, she never died before.” It is almost no defense at all.
I don’t know the law in Minnesota, but I certainly hope that Potter is barred from ever serving as a police officer again, and is barred for life from owning a lethal weapon, especially as she can’t tell the difference between that and a taser, but I’m not hopeful.
6 to 8 years, and I suspect she’ll be out, without a lot of media attention, in 2. Still, she is going to jail, there was a conviction, and I am glad of that small win.

I’ve just found out that a good friend of mine, and someone whose opinion I value highly, has been permanently banned from Facebook. This is a thing that sucks.
Mike Gisondi is an extremely intelligent person and, despite the fact that he can be extremely sarcastic at times, and often deflate you positions with a well placed sharp quip, he was never one to indulge in spreading falsehoods, writing in hate speech, being racist, sexist, or any bullshit like that. Like me, he valued the power of words and his posts were always correctly spelled and logical, which in my opinion puts him in the category of top 5% or so of Facebook users, in terms of being worth reading.
His comments weren’t always political. He loves living in Georgia (the country, not the state), and often posted food pics, travel photos, interesting stuff like that.
Like me, he is a Berniecrat, and when they banned him, they also took down his site “The AfterBerner,” and I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the reason. In fact, I am fairly sure the reason was political, and maybe something he said just came too close to the truth. Because he is well informed, and insightful. That is far more likely than that he actually violated their ‘community standards.’ Mike has a very highly developed sense of community standards. Managed a language school for a while. Owned a pub. Is great at throwing parties.
Anyway, I am pissed off about this, and looking about for social media alternatives. Because if they can ban somebody like Mike Gisondi, the rest of us may not be very far behind.

I decided, in this particular case, not to leave a comment on this particular thread, partially because it’s a trivial matter and, despite the fact that I have an opinion on it, there was no reason for me to put a damper on the party, to bring everybody down, and plus I’d already been active this morning on a couple of other threads, making comments that offended easily offended people, as I sometimes tend to do. I am not a mean person, but some people just make it so damned easy.
The headline was “Try This Sans Comic Trick.” I get irritated by that, by the very idea that our valuable time should be consumed in worrying about fonts, when there are important things to be said, important subjects to be debated. I’m not worried at all about fonts, and the various ways in which they can be manipulated. Before social media, I don’t think anybody was worried about fonts at all, or even aware of the concept, outside of typesetters and people who worked in advertising.
It’s similar to the one space or two after a period argument. The machine is going to decide it for you anyway, so what does it matter? I grew up leaving two, and still do, and it gets edited down to one, and I don’t care. It never, in any way, changes something I’ve said.
There is that old saying “It ain’t what you say, it’s the way that you say it” and in some rare circumstances that may be true, but I would generally hold to the opposite maxim. It’s not how you say it, it’s what you say. Letters are representations of sound, and very arbitrary ones at that. But, the words we write have meaning, and they are being posted on the internet, to last forever and ever and ever. Choose your words carefully. Bugger the font.

Last night I went to a truly exceptional poetry reading at Medium 43, a cozy little place on Husitska St. in Žižkov. I’d been to a couple of poetry readings there before, and thought I knew what I was in for, but I was wrong, in a good way. When I got there (nearly an hour late, but actually just in time, as is often the way) the back room was full, and I didn’t know a single person there except for the guy who organized it, Javier.
Then, it was billed as a mixed arts event, and the first performer showed a slide show of her pen and marker drawings of buildings, most from Prague, some from other locations in the Czech Republic, a couple from Barcelona. They were simple, they were colorful, they were sweet. Then, and this is what made the evening different, they went around the room and everyone commented – well, almost everyone, you were allowed to pass, but most people said something.
Then a guy read a long poem in Russian from his phone. I didn’t understand, of course, but I heard the name Sarah Connor and waterfalls were mentioned on several occasions and it was all very poetical and dramatic. Wisely, they limited the comments to people who actually spoke Russian, which turned out to be about half the room, and so there was an extra four or five minutes of not understanding, but I could tell that most of the comments were positive.
My stuff was well received. The comments thing is really an alternate form of the polite applause you get at most poetry readings, but a bit more. Of the poems I read, one or two clear favorites emerged, and that is useful information. When the girl with the slideshow was done, one of the commenters had some commercial ideas. A first time poet got all sorts of positive advice for moving forward and emotional support.
I’ll be keeping an eye out for more of this group’s events.