Re: Sorry, Everybody.

1

America fucked up huge, but this time there's much fewer countries to apologise to. Off the top of my head, we have ascendant, authoritarian/ethno-populist governments in Britain, Australia, India, Poland, Hungary, Russia, China, Israel, Egypt, and Turkey.

Wilders and Le Pen are surging in polls. The only hope I have now is they are stopped in the coming elections, and the EU could be an island of relative sanity and protection in all this.


Posted by: real ffeJ annaH | Link to this comment | 11- 9-16 5:39 AM
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Forgot Austria, jfc.


Posted by: real ffeJ annaH | Link to this comment | 11- 9-16 5:43 AM
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Except it isn't, because you have a xenophobia crisis and the only people pushing against it are also imposing a permanent depression.


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 11- 9-16 6:05 AM
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It's certainly at least a xenophobia problem. Whether it's a xenophobia crisis will be determined when the next major elections come around for France (May) and the Netherlands (March). Neither outcome would surprise me, but if the right-populists are indeed held back in these countries, and the establishment then finally gets scared and realises that they have citizens to care for, there could be a sort of cordon sanitaire around the EU27. It's a lot to hope for, but the alternative is too terrible to contemplate.


Posted by: real ffeJ annaH | Link to this comment | 11- 9-16 6:38 AM
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As part of that, and Trump's pro-Putin stance, I expect that the solution to the Syrian refugee crisis is going to be "Surrender to Assad and hope for the best."


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11- 9-16 6:42 AM
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5 might actually be an improvement, except that Assad and Russia don't actually have the ability to win.


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 11- 9-16 6:49 AM
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It won't be an improvement if his father's Hama massacre is any guide. If the U.S. and the E.U. won't take any refugees or other steps, then Turkey and other bordering states will be willing to do whatever they can to stop the flow. Turkey is already cooperating with Assad against the Kurds.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 11- 9-16 7:02 AM
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8

Yeah, but six months after 2004 this blog was mostly not politics.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 11- 9-16 9:22 AM
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You know what keeps on running through my head? A line from _Heathers_: "My teenage bullshit angst has a body count."


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 11- 9-16 9:26 AM
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2: Austria doesn't yet have an authoritarian/ethno-populist government, but it probably will soon. The presidential election is Dec 4th, and if the authoritarian ethno-populist (FPÖ) wins, he'll probably call for new parliamentary elections. They are clearly leading in the polls and have been pretty stable around 34% for about a year, with the social-democrats behind (27%) but rising since they replaced their chancellor, and the conservatives further behind and falling (18%). Then Greens (~11-14) and libertarians (~5-8).

The conservatives (junior partners in the current grand coalition) have been doing their best to copy the FPÖ's anti-immigrant welfare chauvinism (they're currently about to slash the level of the fundamental safety net payments, fueled by an anecdote of a refugee family with many children, some disabled, children pulling down thousands a month, for example) but it hasn't stopped their slide in the polls.

Anyway, the point is, yes, we're doomed over here, but get the timing right.


Posted by: x. trapnel | Link to this comment | 11- 9-16 9:39 AM
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Yeah, I was including Austria in the France/Netherlands column, not with the others.


Posted by: real ffeJ annaH | Link to this comment | 11- 9-16 10:39 AM
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The people I had dinner with here in the Netherlands are convinced that Wilders is going to win now, after Brexit and Trump.


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 11- 9-16 3:53 PM
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This election has completely discombobulated me. I came home early to take a nap due to staying up late to watch the clusterfuck unfold. I woke at 6:30 pm, thinking it am, got ready and went to work, ignoring all the cues like lack of daylight and the wrong thing on the radio. Only once I reached work did I cotton to what's going on. I need recombobulation.


Posted by: togolosh | Link to this comment | 11- 9-16 7:30 PM
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Oh, poor togolosh! That is adorable misfortune and cheered me up, though it's probably not funny to you.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 11- 9-16 7:32 PM
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14: I certainly see the funny side. I'm mildly annoyed but at the same time I feel like I just gained twelve hours I thought I'd lost.


Posted by: togolosh | Link to this comment | 11- 9-16 8:26 PM
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I'm not sure how much detail I'm capable of giving atm, but the gist of things is: I had a mental health crisis so severe last weekend that I was briefly hospitalized; then, since there was no obvious benefit to anyone in my staying at the hospital, I went home, cared for and made amends to family members according to their needs, did chores, and worked the entire week without taking a sick day (from my bed, sure) through the election fallout. My mom showed up Wednesday night and stayed to help out Thurs/Fri; that was great. I'm now working on Saturday night, virtually my only time off from active childcare, on a poorly-organized and asinine but urgent project that I have to ship off in some form for Monday morning. I'm like some walking paradox mascot for the dawning bootstrap/ownership/don't-get-sick society. I think I'm afraid to call in sick because if I let myself take one day off I'll never come back.

Everyone has the best of intentions. Everyone has helped me to the best of their ability. I have helped others to the best of my ability. I have "reached out to friends and loved ones" and "gotten professional help." I'm narrowly focused on the apologies I owe and the damage I can contain. It will easily take months to recover fully. There's no way to speed it up. There's too much other stuff to do.


Posted by: thinly veiled commenter | Link to this comment | 11-12-16 10:47 PM
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Augh, veiled, I'm sorry it's been so rough. Would you like to be contacted by people who guess they might be able to contact you?

Tonight marks ten weeks I've had a sprained ankle, a few days I've worn my heavy inflatable boot. The pain is bad, but just now I think it seemed a little better when I moved with nothing on it just now. I'm hoping this means things are improving. It's so hard to get on with regular life when there are pains standing in your way.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 11-12-16 11:02 PM
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Contact is okay, but I'll be totally frank that I mostly want sympathy for the great insult of this obnoxious overtime work project and also cookies for how virtuous I am to be doing it, and also (as always) sympathy for family members who may or may not be reading this. My god, I bet you're sick of that sore ankle. I'm so sorry.


Posted by: thinly veiled commenter | Link to this comment | 11-12-16 11:22 PM
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I hereby offer my sympathy about those things.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 11-12-16 11:23 PM
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Sympathy, veiled.


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 11-12-16 11:31 PM
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Work is the worst! Sprained ankles are also not fantastic, I admit, but my work would be even better if I didn't have to use a foot pedal either with pain or with my off leg. It's okay, though, because I'll get better and get from being able to keep my head above water to being able to actually be functional in a useful way. I hope that's what's going on with you too. I'm totally sick of a sore ankle, but there are many worse things in the world.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 11-12-16 11:32 PM
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Sympathy: unveiled. You don't have to hide it, Mossy!


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 11-12-16 11:38 PM
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Discreet sympathy is quite as welcome as the blatant kind.


Posted by: thinly veiled commenter | Link to this comment | 11-12-16 11:41 PM
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What about discrete sympathy versus the continuous kind?


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 11-12-16 11:46 PM
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Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 11-12-16 11:48 PM
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I am way too tired to resist the temptation to overthink that one, and also too tired for the overthoughts to make any sense whatsoever.


Posted by: thinly | Link to this comment | 11-12-16 11:49 PM
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Posted by: discreet | Link to this comment | 11-12-16 11:50 PM
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Always the best sympathy, though.


Posted by: thinly | Link to this comment | 11-12-16 11:51 PM
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Take your time, though, thinly. Not working probably has its good qualities too. When I had shingles and didn't take any time off work, that was noble by certain measures but also incredibly stupid. Trust anyone who warns you if you're doing something equally dumb. (Though I was also dealing with a child who was asking near-strangers if they'd be her mom if her mommy died. And now she's one who could handle my having a babysitter and it's another who kept me from getting to the movie I want to see today. Anyway, trust people who are adults who trust and love you over people who don't fall in all or any of those categories.)


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 11-13-16 12:02 AM
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Sympathy!


Posted by: X.Trapnel | Link to this comment | 11-13-16 1:26 AM
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Sympathies!


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 11-13-16 2:23 AM
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I lament the increasing unsubtlety of our discourse.


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 11-13-16 2:43 AM
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Sympathy!


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 11-13-16 6:00 AM
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34

Sympathy!


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 11-13-16 6:00 AM
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35

34 me. Massive Win10 "upgrade" not merely fucked up my firewall settings but seems to have cleared out all saved information. Thanks, microsoft!


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 11-13-16 6:02 AM
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36

If you want to talk ever, I'm almost always* lying in bed goofing around on the internet. And I have some experience in this area as well.

*Not EVERY day. Just it feels like most of them. Yesterday was like a week. But often! anyway email me, it's under the pseud.


Posted by: E. Messily | Link to this comment | 11-13-16 7:05 AM
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If you email me your address I'll real-mail you actual cookies


Posted by: E. Messily | Link to this comment | 11-13-16 7:28 AM
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Ugh, thinly (not thinly enough for me). Keeping busy is a pretty good way to avoid dealing. Similar to grief, sometimes you just don't have time to deal and you postpone dealing.

Also sympathies on the asinine project. I heard my supervisor voicing he didn't care about my big project (not my idea but my assigned topic). And now every time I work on it I'm so mad. I don't want to do it either but it's my job. But it has to be done. Just let me do it and def don't make it harder/more complex for me.


Posted by: hydrobatidae | Link to this comment | 11-13-16 8:06 AM
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I wrote up my understanding of grief for my blog, because I thought a practical guide might be useful. It was weirdly familiar to be knocked back into grief last week.

Here and here.


Posted by: nageM | Link to this comment | 11-13-16 8:20 AM
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Those are great posts nageM, thank you for them. The first one was particularly clarifying.

I also have that gnawing anxious feeling that something terrible is about to happen. Of course, something terrible has happened but now it will one terrible thing after another, day after endless day for four more years on top of whatever personal work bullshit is gnawing at me.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 11-13-16 8:32 AM
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Yeah I also loved those posts, Megan.


Posted by: E. Messily | Link to this comment | 11-13-16 8:37 AM
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Thanks, you guys... however, holy shit, 7.8 quake in NZ 30 miles from Christchurch and tsunami warnings all over the eastern coast of the island. Stay safe.

I will now read the posts in 39.


Posted by: thinly veiled commenter | Link to this comment | 11-13-16 8:44 AM
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Best wishes and hopes going out to Keir.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 11-13-16 8:51 AM
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What chris y said. And hang in there, thinly.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 11-13-16 8:53 AM
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Sympathy, veiled. And I hope people stay safe in NZ.

That New York Times letter worries me.


Posted by: dalriata | Link to this comment | 11-13-16 8:59 AM
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45.2: Fuck the New York Times. Seriously. Back when I was confident that Clinton would win, I wondered whether her presidency would somehow cause the NYT to collapse in some sort of full scale melt down.

35: I initially read "massive win10 upgrade" as "massive wino upgrade" for some reason.


Posted by: AcademicLurker | Link to this comment | 11-13-16 9:18 AM
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Sympathy, veiled and-in.

The posts in 39 good lord yes. I am doing alternating numbness and efficiency, I am relentlessly charming doctors to make sure my dad qualifies for TBI rehab when he's out of ICU, I am prepping relentlessly for my interviews with public interest organizations, I am impressive and righteous, and I when I am not, I am asleep. If Aegi says anything to me outside the hospital he has to repeat it three times before it sinks in. I'm not sure the business is a distraction from the grief so much as an expression of it. It is grating on my brother who is conventionally despondent and his despondence in turn grates on me. I need to soften my heart to other sorts of grief.

Love and work impossible to tell apart.


Posted by: Clytie | Link to this comment | 11-13-16 9:24 AM
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Leon Russell.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 11-13-16 9:31 AM
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It's SO weird that there's no way around death though, like no backsies AT ALL. What is that about.


Posted by: Clytie | Link to this comment | 11-13-16 9:33 AM
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Thanks for those posts, nageM.


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 11-13-16 9:34 AM
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And everyone take everyone up on cookies. I had an old acquaintance message me saying "I heard, I'm so sorry, I wish I could bake you cookies" and I said "thanks, you can. Here's my address." They're snickerdoodles, I'm sharing them with the nurses right now, they're great.


Posted by: Clytie | Link to this comment | 11-13-16 9:43 AM
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http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x16qtcc_george-harrison-leon-rusell-beware-of-darkness-live-1971_music


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 11-13-16 9:44 AM
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Sympathies to you too, Clytie.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 11-13-16 9:45 AM
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Thanks. Email me for my address and you can send me cookies.


Posted by: Clytie | Link to this comment | 11-13-16 9:47 AM
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Best wishes to Stabby, and also to anyone else who I've lost track off, because we seem to be having the ten plagues of the blog right now.


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 11-13-16 9:48 AM
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RIGHT??? What the FUCK?!


Posted by: Clytie | Link to this comment | 11-13-16 9:49 AM
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All my sympathy for you, clytie, veiled. It's all so hard.


Posted by: Heebie | Link to this comment | 11-13-16 9:50 AM
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And I can't send anyone cookies because I don't have a kitchen. Sad face.


Posted by: Mossy Character | Link to this comment | 11-13-16 9:50 AM
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How about dates from Arrakis?


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 11-13-16 9:55 AM
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Thank you. I know I've refrained from offering sympathies on-blog before because I've been like "who am -I- to be popping up in this person's grief-periphery" and now I'm sorry for that. Retrospective sympathy to everyone.


Posted by: Clytie | Link to this comment | 11-13-16 9:58 AM
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I hope nageM doesn't mind but I just tweeted those posts.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 11-13-16 10:03 AM
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I mean I hope you don't mind, nageM.


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 11-13-16 10:04 AM
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Sympathies and BIG HUGS to everyone.


Posted by: Witt | Link to this comment | 11-13-16 10:18 AM
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NMM to Leon Russell. Thanks, 2016!

|>


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 11-13-16 10:55 AM
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52 to 64


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 11-13-16 10:57 AM
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47: Going into Spock Mode for the duration of a crisis helps greatly IMX. Flat emotions all the way gets the shit done that needs doing. Then afterwards one can stay depressed the rest of one's life. Good luck.


Posted by: Biohazard | Link to this comment | 11-13-16 11:28 AM
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Thanks for the niceness about the posts, which I'm just seeing now. And thanks for re-tweeting them, Barry. That's the goal for that blog.

Twitter changed their internal search, I think. Used to be I could find where people had tweeted about a post by searching for the url (even if it wasn't in the text of the tweet), and now that doesn't bring up recent results anymore.


Posted by: nageM | Link to this comment | 11-14-16 11:15 AM
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