Scripting News: Thursday, June 12, 2025

Thursday, June 12, 2025

Today I'm going to teach WordLand how to manage a linkblog. Before doing that I tried to figure out what a linkblog is. I have been using various homebrew linkblogging tools which I have shared with others, but none of them became popular products. I wrote a summary to help guide the development work I have planned. #

I was lucky to grow up in NYC, and had to commute from Queens to the Bronx every day to go to school. Some days I took the Q44 bus over the Whitestone Bridge, and other days I took the Q16 to the 7 train through Manhattan, and then the 4 or D trains up to 205th St in the Bronx. Took the same amount of time either way. So at age 15 I was able to go see the Grateful Dead after school at the Fillmore East on April 27, 1971. Midway through the set, a special guest band who they didn't introduce started tuning up on stage. We all wondered who they were. I now know the history thanks to the 500 Songs podcast, and this was the return of a band that had fallen out of favor, a band whose hits we all heard on WABC and WNEW-FM. When they started playing one of their biggest hits, Good Vibrations, the audience erupted in ecstasy. The Beach Boys now looking a lot different, but playing the same wonderful California music from the 60s. They couldn't be more different from the Dead, but there they were up on stage together. They were back, this time for good. This is a recording of the whole concert, the link points to the beginning of Good Vibrations. You can hear the gasp of recognition, and the bands recognition of the recognition, and from their it was a party in a party, including a sing-along part -- "gotta keep those a lovin' good vibrations happening with you." We were all growing up very quickly, but we had a moment when we could return to a more innocent time. Lovely the way music pulls you back in time. Brian Wilson wasn't there that night but his music certainly was. #

Democrats and men#

Yesterday I posted a link to my political disclaimer from 2018. Also listened to a podcast interview with Senator Gallego of Arizona who says, correctly, that the Democrats have work to do with men. It's true, speaking as a man who has been voting solid Democratic since Kerry, but I didn't stop being a man, which is something that makes me cringe to say it, the way I cringed at admitting to being Jewish when I was a kid. I lived in a place where hate of Jews was always just under the surface in school, but not so well hidden at the playground. #
Men as a gender were really pushed into a corner we couldn't get out of during #metoo, all men, not just some. If they say they weren't they're lying. I went to a future of journalism conference in 2018, and the only thing men talked about, quietly, among ourselves, was how scared we were of losing everything. It really was bad, but since then it's eased. #
I wrote about #metoo in my political disclaimer, but didn't promote it for fear of retribution. I was threatened when I stood up for a friend whose life was ruined for as far as I could tell doing nothing wrong. If you don't shut up we'll do you too, basically. #
Women are people just like men, and when they got to rage online against men, even people I thought I knew and were friends behaved abhorently. The way we imagine Trump might deal with us soon. #
I have to add not all women, there were some who didn't forget that their male friends were still friends.#
It was very clear where the Democratic Party came down on all this, and of course, the Republicans took total advantage of this. If you want to understand the manosphere as you all call it, start here. I vote with you all, but absolutely abhor the way you pushed us all into a corner and shut down our pride. Women are people too and they can be just as ugly as men. If you believe otherwise you're believing lies. I speak from experience, I was raised to believe all women are saints. That lie did not prepare us well for life. #
The good news is if the Democrats can make peace with men, there are a lot more votes available to us. We can put it behind us, but we can't ignore that in the late teens we went absolutely fucking batshit crazy about half of the electorate. It's amazing the whole thing didn't completely crumble, irrevocably. We can still fix it, but we have to acknowledge that men were hurt in that period. You all seem to have forgotten that we are just people too. #
PS: Re-reading the #metoo section of the disclaimer I can't believe how I tiptoed around the truth. The truth I didn't dare say was it was a huge hate campaign as divisive as anything the Repubs ever did. In a country that was supposed to outlaw this, and from a political party that was supposed to be liberal. The "both sides do it" reality probably hasn't yet sunk in but the Democrats sided with sadists and fascists. No other way to put it. Men absolutely were silenced. Afraid to speak for fear of retribution. If you were on the wrong side of this you have some soul-searching to do. And you probably pushed a lot of people of all genders into voting for Trump. The Dems posture of "who me?" has an answer -- yes you. #

Last update: Thursday June 12, 2025; 9:17 PM EDT.

You know those obnoxious sites that pop up dialogs when they think you're about to leave, asking you to subscribe to their email newsletter? Well that won't do for Scripting News readers who are a discerning lot, very loyal, but that wouldn't last long if I did rude stuff like that. So here I am at the bottom of the page quietly encouraging you to sign up for the nightly email. It's got everything from the previous day on Scripting, plus the contents of the linkblog and who knows what else we'll get in there. People really love it. I wish I had done it sooner. And every email has an unsub link so if you want to get out, you can, easily -- no questions asked, and no follow-ups. Go ahead and do it, you won't be sorry! :-)