{"id":28219,"date":"2016-11-18T13:02:12","date_gmt":"2016-11-18T20:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/?p=28219"},"modified":"2016-11-18T14:04:48","modified_gmt":"2016-11-18T21:04:48","slug":"a-friday-ramble-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2016\/11\/18\/a-friday-ramble-4\/","title":{"rendered":"A Friday ramble"},"content":{"rendered":"

Happy Friday, everyone. Here, for your perusal are a few nice finds and random thoughts.<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

I found the above image via Gab.ai<\/a>, which is now having an influx of libertarians, anarchists, and pro-gunners following the infamous Twitter purge.<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

And here’s a polar bear patting a sled dog<\/a>. This isn’t the first polar-bear-and-dog buddy image on the ‘Net. But it may be the most lovable.<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

Seems everybody’s got a hopeful agenda for Donald Trump, who remains (despite media certainty that he’s Adolf Hitler reborn) quite the blank slate. Some of those hopeful agendas are worth getting behind. But I’ll be falling-down shocked if he even gets close to ending the Fed<\/a> and returning the U.S. to debt-free money.<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

I have this friend — extremely bright guy, professionally respected, funny as all get out, but he completely lacks information filters. He gets on the ‘Net (dangerous territory for him), picks up some random rumor, and becomes obsessed with chasing it down. Doesn’t matter that the rumor comes from a totally unreliable source — a well-known troll, a dubious “news” site. He digs and digs and digs, usually finding very little beyond recursive links that restate the same unsourced information in new words. But he is determined — utterly determined — to root out the truth, whatever it may be.<\/p>\n

To his credit, he’s impartial in his search. Unlike a lot of us, he’s not merely seeking to confirm his biases. He just wants to know<\/em>. He wants the Capital-T Truth, whatever it may be. That would be commendable if he had filters for distinguishing fact from fiction, but the further he digs, the more mere repetition serves him as “evidence.”<\/p>\n

If the information does confirm his biases, he’s consumed with glee. If it tells him he’s wrong about something important, he becomes despondent. But the one thing he never does, and can’t do, is objectively evaluate the veracity of what he’s reading. <\/p>\n

He can’t stop<\/em>, either. Eventually his wife has to take his computer away and hide it. A few days later he’s fine. Until the next time.<\/p>\n

Funny the little quirks people have. <\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

But I can’t point fingers. My quirk is an addiction to politics. Which is worse than a quirk, really. I hang my head in shame. But I can’t help myself. It’s genetic. I got it from My Mother the Rabid Democrat. She got it from Her Father the Socialist. Anecdotal glimpses of Mom’s family tree show the addiction going back at least 500 years. I’m doomed. <\/p>\n

I’m a victim. I should get reparations. Or a subsidy. Preferential treatment in hiring, at the very least.<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

Still. I do manage my addiction without having to hide the computer from myself. Mostly ’cause Ava takes me for walks.<\/p>\n

Yesterday afternoon we had a king tide. Well, maybe a prince tide. The town’s little walking trail wasn’t submerged as it occasionally is in winter, but the water in the estuary, the sloughs, and the drainage ditches rose high enough to drown fields on both sides of the path, leaving fence posts poking out of temporary lakes and sending horses and cows retreating to higher ground.<\/p>\n

Without even a breeze, the water was as still as a mirror. Clouds and sun created (again) a magnificent Luminist light, not only in the sky but reflected perfectly in the calm water. This time, instead of watching from a pier, I was walking a narrow strip, completely bordered by reflections from above. It was as if I was walking on the sky. Long walk. Glorious illusion.<\/p>\n

Then we reached our turn-around point, which just happens to be behind an old industrial building that now holds a commercial marijuana grow. Ava and I stopped briefly. I looked out over the glowing watery landscape while the building’s abundant air-handling equipment wafted the sweet scent of cannabis over me.<\/p>\n

And in that moment life was very, very good.<\/p>\n

Just this month: If you use these Amazon ads — even if you just use them to search for some other product not listed in the ad — Amazon gives me luv, luv, luv.<\/em><\/p>\n