Shine on, harvest moon.

  I hope everyone had a pleasant Christmas or if that's not your bag, a nice Friday. For whatever it's worth, mine was pleasant. It's still a bummer we couldn't do the big family gathering thing my family usually does, but that's how it goes. Maybe next year.

 Anyhow, let's do the do. It's been a weird week, to say the least. We started off Monday with the idea that we might see the COVID stimulus bill and possibly a larger check for folks Wednesday. Reality took a hard turn Friday with the explosion in Nashville. Again, luckily, no one was killed although there was quite a bit of property damage.

 The law dogs have been working all day to find out what they can, and they've come up with what they're calling a "person of interest." Sixty-three-year-old Anthony Quinn Warner is apparently the owner of the RV used in the bombing. There were human remains found after the blast and officials are trying to figure out if that's Warner. They've traced the ownership of the RV back to property Warner signed away in the last couple of months. Twitter detectives have come up with that owner, but as they don't seem to be involved, I see no reason to bring them into all this.

 For now, the FBI is dealing with all of this as a "suicide bomber," though they've given no inclination they know why Warner blew up the RV with himself in it if that's indeed what he did. Again, the Tweeter gumshoes have thrown up some ties to white supremacist movements but I haven't seen anything concrete.

 So that's where we are. Unless something's happened in the last hour or so, Trump hasn't said a thing about the blast. He has complained that his wife hasn't been on any glamour magazines and more whining about getting curb stomped last month, but nothing about Tennessee. Actually, apart from those tweets, Trump has spent most of the Christmas weekend golfing. I don't think anyone is really surprised or, for that matter, really cares.

  I really do think most people are tired of his shit, honestly. The Base gets loonier and loonier, making greater stretches and leaps of logic to explain why Trump actually won. And they just don't care. All morning Twitter was ablaze with the news that Adam Schiff had been arrested based on an obviously faked page. This is why you don't put much stock into the efforts of Twitter shamuses. Give everything a little bit of time to marinate and work out the kinks, just like with computer games. Life is full of buggy software, especially these days.

 Beyond that, well, the black mood seems to have blown over. I still have nothing kicking inside my head when I drift away from The News. I've been staring at that last sentence for a good 20 minutes. I've spent a lot of time picking guitar but I really can't do anything besides strumming rhythm. My fingers are simply too short, too fat, and my lack of grace extends to my entire body.

 I really haven't been posting this elsewhere because nothing interesting's being said. The news about Nashville can wait until tomorrow's round-up. Like I said, let it marinate. Scoops are great, sure, but let real professionals take those hits. Most of us can wait.

 I think I'll twist this off here. Something interesting, yadda yadda. I've got my Actual Paying Work done and may fool around with XCOM: Chimera Squad some more or perhaps Tyranny. Or I may read more of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Or go to sleep. Hell, I don't know.

I feel a storm, all wet and warm, not ten miles away approaching my Mexican home.

 Getting a late start on this tonight. Or a normal one, depending on how you look at it. In any event, it's 9 p.m. and I need to get something in the can for today. Before we get on with the business, links to this week's News.

Monday

Wednesday

Friday

 I'm particularly pleased with Friday's effort. As a part of the general thing the country finds itself, in re: dealing with systematic racism, there's a serious movement in the Mississippi Legislature to remove the Confederate battle emblem from the state flag. I went into a little detail of why this is a big deal and why we're waiting until 2020 to make anything happen. A little history and a little background, that's what I'm here for.

 Wednesday was pretty good, too, as a look at the mess that was the Georgia primary vote and what it bodes for November. In short: nothing good as the GOP will use all at its means to decide the election. Monday was a fairly bog-standard wrap up of the weekend's events concerning the protests across the country in reaction to the murder of George Floyd, the growing discontent among some higher ranking Republicans with Trump's chances come November, and a little bit about Tropical Storm Cristobel, which thankfully turned out to be not much of nothing. A good piece for what it was, though.

 I've been keeping my eye on what's going on in Seattle, the "Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone" or "CHAZ". In all things, I recommend eschewing the national press and paying attention to the folks who actually live in a place that's in the news. I've long been a fan of indie magazines, having written for several, and The Stranger is considered one of the very best. Plus, they're keeping a solid look on what's going on without the bias and ignorance of some of the national publications.

 It seems folks in Nashville are trying to kick up a similar "autonomous zone" type thing, as well, despite dire warnings from Gov. Bill Lee. I don't know what he thinks he's going to do. I do believe that apart from the hard-core authoritarian types, any sort of government heavy handedness, from state or federal forces, doesn't go down as well as they think. It's interesting that a lot of the voices that have been screaming about government tyranny or Second Amendment rights - from the Bundy-types to the NRA - have been pretty quiet when the rubber is hitting the road. Undoubtedly, since this is happening mostly to black folks and left-leaning types, they're all of the sudden down to the ground with an authoritarian government ignoring basic civil rights.

 Anyhow, The Nashville Scene is a pretty good magazine, as well. Full disclosure, they paid me less than $50 for a story about someone, I think either Slobberbone or The Drive-By Truckers, nearly 20 years ago. As I said, I've always preferred those sort of magazines and have worked for a couple in the past. They never pay well or, indeed, enough to live on - this is indie journalism, after all - but it's always much more fun.

 Me and Momma had a fairly heavy conversation about all this and what it implies the other night. My mother is a very intelligent woman, but she is - by her own admittance - happily provincial and a bit naive about how the world outside Itawamba County actually is. She's also old fashioned and conservative. What I'm saying is she will listen but you have to take a hammer to her if you ever want to get anything through.

 Plus, while she understands what I mean when I tell her about being an atheist who leans towards far-left anarchism, she really doesn't like those stances. I think I got it through to her why this autonomous zone business wasn't the popular perception of anarchy but rather the political connotation of anarchism. That is, a rejection of unearned authoritarian groups as someone automatically obeyed. If your "leadership" fails to the extent that it did the folks in Capitol Hill, or so they consider, feel they're justified in telling them to piss off and taking it over on their own.

 If I get Sarah Thompson to understand that anarchism is a viable political ideology, I'll consider this a life well lived. Anyhow, that's plenty. I intend to keep the weekly stuff done in the morning (or as close to morning as I get) but anything goes for the weekend. In the meantime, keep safe, wash your hands, maintain social distancing, and don't let the bastards grind you down.