The Breadbin

My brother-in-law (hi, dude!) brought this to my attention a couple of weeks ago and it's been percolating in my mind ever since. It occurs to me that '6 Harsh Truths That Will Make You A Better Person" is a perfect thing to dissect at New Year's, when much of the world is preoccupied with resolutions. Let's remember that that word, resolutions, should really be hyphenated: "re-solutions". What's in your life that needs solving? And does it really need solving again? If so, why didn't you solve it right the first time?

This article is full of food for thought, written in Cracked magazine's inimitable style. Ultimately, though, the first three courses didn't sit all that well with me...

'TRUTH' 1: THE WORLD ONLY CARES ABOUT WHAT IT CAN GET FROM YOU

The way this is presented, it's self-evident. "Niceness" alone isn't going to count for a whole hell of a lot when surgery is required. Yet even here, something grates …

"A heads-up would have been nice, dear", Eva said to me on the way out of the movie theater.

No kidding. To provide one, however, I would have had to use my own head.

We had just watched the bawlfest known as Les Miserables. She had never been exposed to "the persistent greatness" of the story as the New Yorker terms it (Hugo's novel has been in continuous print since its first publication in 1862 and has been adapted numerous times for various media). I was very curious to see what effect, if any, the movie would have on someone completely unknowing the source material.

God knows the musical devastated me. Thereby hangs a (short) tale.

I saw the Toronto production with my girlfriend at the time--it would have been '91 or '92. We both walked in not knowing what we were in for; I walked out three hours later barely able to see for the tears...along with all the audience. Except Lynne. She had what I swear were the only dry eyes in the house. (You'd t…

The less said about this year the better.

Which is one reason I haven't said much this year.

The Breadbin has reduced its output by about half. One reason has been a deep lassitude that has pervaded my life in 2012; another has been a striking lack of anything good to write about (and as we were all taught, if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all). Low-grade stress has been a constant companion, both personally and in the wider world, and for much the same reason: uncertainty. I'm a person who would much rather hear bad news, even the worst news, than no news at all, and 2012 has been very much a "holding pattern" kind of year, a "through a glass, darkly" sort of year.
The entire year has been a study in low-grade, carefully stoked media panic. The stock market has gone up and down, by my count, exactly 4783 times due to the Euro debt crisis and 3196 times due to the so-called 'fiscal cliff'. I've learned to discount th…

"We will take every step possible to ensure the safety of all of our people...I'm sure many of you who a parents here had the same reaction that I did when I heard this news....Michelle and I will be fortunate enough to be able to hug our girls a little tighter tonight, and I am sure you will do the same with your children."--President Barack Obama,  Friday, July 20, 2012, in reference to the Aurora movie theater shooting

"I can only hope it helps for you to know that you’re not alone in your grief, that our world, too, has been torn apart, that all across this land of ours, we have wept with you. We’ve pulled our children tight."--President Barack Obama,  Sunday, December 16, 2012, Newtown, Connecticut


With all due respect, Mr. President, words are wind.
Your speeches are necessary; they are comforting; they offer some solace in the midst of grief so pressing as to be unsupportable.

But words are not enough. Words alone will do nothing to prevent the next tra…

***note: I am writing this blog in installments. I have not left the house for a week due to a pulled groin that is still making it difficult to sit for any length of time. My apologies if this blog is disjointed. Then again, I'm angry enough right now to let my pain fuel my fingers.***

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I have never in my life felt so much helplessness, so much anger, so much disgust at humanity, as I do today. I've fondled my off switch many times over the past ten years...today I hit it, and hard. Enough. Fucking enough.

I woke up this morning to this. The TL; DR: Admittedly corrupt bank launders billions of dollars in drug and blood money; is fined five weeks worth of revenue on the grounds that any punishment more severe might cause financial unrest.

What does this tell you about American priorities? The Mexican drug cartels actually designed money boxes to exactly fit through the teller windows. Could you be any more brazen? This went on for years. And the bank, as punishment, gets …

The species of hatred I'm thinking of is woman-hatred, misogyny.  Like many forms of hatred, it finds free expression in any number of so-called "jokes".

Reddit-thread that brought this to the front of my mind (it's never far from it, truly): Today I learned there are 17 people alive that were born in the 1800s, and 16 of them are women". Top-voted comment: "You know why women live longer? Because they don't marry women." Somebody down the thread inserts a correction: "actually, married men live longer than single men." The rejoinder: "it just seems longer."

And on and on and on. "You know why women live longer? So they have time to park." Hahahaha, very funny, because women can't drive, get it? Get it?

My wife is one of the best drivers I know, male or female, and I can state with some assurance that she has already lengthened my life. She's certainly added untold measures of joy to it.

And I can say the same,…

Author Charlie Stross muses about the possible end of telephony: "while voice telephony hasn't outlived its usefulness yet, but if we don't find a solution to the spam problem the end is in sight."

The spam problem, oh, yes. Remember when spam used to be shit posing as mail? I haven't had a spam message in my email inbox for so long I'd almost welcome one for the comic relief. I remember those messages used to say things like "Peenizz ENLXXARGEXMENT IN TWO2 DAYS!!!" At least six years. It's been at least that long since I've been bothered by so much as a single unsolicited email.

I get unsolicited phone calls every day. Often several times a day, and sometimes into the later hours of the night. We tend to power down this household at 8 or 8:30 p.m, and if the phone rings much after that I assume somebody's dead or dying. Yet telemarketers think nothing of calling at 9, 9:30, even later, and why would they? It's probably midmorning in…

Currently trying to recover from what may or may not be a pinched nerve. I say "may or may not be" because the pain doesn't seem to be coming primarily from the same place (front of the leg, not so much the back) and because the exercises for sciatica don't seem to be doing any good. Or bad, for that matter. Still, I had real trouble walking yesterday and while I'm marginally better today--painkillers for the win!--I'm dreading work tomorrow.
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So I'm a longtime Redditor. Being male and with a functional libido, I subscribe to the sex "subreddit (which is occasionally NSFW, I'm sure you don't need me to tell you). Anyway, it positively boggles my brain how many of the questions posed in that subreddit can be answered with a single word: "COMMUNICATE!"
"Husband is a disaster in the bedroom, don't know what to do." Uh, have you talked to him?
"Married for fifteen years, want to open our relationship, how…