“Waiter? I’ll take the B.”

Having run newsrooms, this is not news.

My former boss, a complete red-pilled dude I met in detox, got into an argument with me a few days ago over text that ended in civil discourse while we ate breakfast together after he picked me up.

There is still space to interact with those who don’t share your beliefs. The idea that there’s no ground is itself part of the problem.

That’s why Reagan gutted education. To get us here.

In case anyone didn’t realize the actual motivations behind the 2008 crash. These people want a return to feudalism, and they’ll do it any any cost to us.

It’s likely time to switch from calling this “late-stage capitalism” to “endgame.” I guess we have to do this shit every hundred years or so. It just sounds better in the original German.

I don’t think anyone expected this to go well.

God, let’s not bring Disney into this.

There are larger issues at play.

But it was … Gilded. How bad can that possibly be? More after the break.

I was running a paper at 24 without a degree. You couldn’t do that now.

I’m not going to dive into what happened to me as a child, as this is an inappropriate space. Let’s just say it was still a problem in the '80s.

My 20s were the pinnacle of my life. Career was taking off, met my first wife … then the layoffs started in journalism.

“A well-informed populace makes better decisions” as the close of my explanation for modding is becoming ominously prescient.

I’m 45, and never had any financial stability. Sure, journalism wasn’t the best field to get into, but I’ve been laid off so many times in the middle of a lease that I had to drain my 401(k)s each time I had anything saved up. Society is a scam.

I reached peak purchasing power in 2003. It’s been regression since. The social contract isn’t just broken, it’s shredded and burned.

Just adjusting for inflation, I should be making $145K at my experience level from when I started my career. I’ve never cracked $50K. Meanwhile, costs rose to the point that I’d need to be making $145K to have the sort of life one expects in their mid-40s.

Also, copyeditors are no longer a thing.

He keeps claiming he won the poplar vote.

Thanks!

It is an illusion to believe that a durable peace with Russia will break out simply by enshrining the line of contact in eastern Ukraine.

This made me crack the fuck up. It was a joke in my first newsroom during budget meetings that “peace broke out in the Middle East today” ahead of the actual AP News Digest.

I do sometimes miss doing formal news analysis. In college, I thought I was clever and special, but it appears I just gained journalistic competence a bit early.

Can we please get the original link? Archive.ph doesn’t work on VPNs.

Trump trees! Obviously going to be as popular as his steaks.