Since everyone's talking about it, I want to say a few things about crypto.

As a publisher of a satire magazine in a time of Fascism, I am interested in blockchain's possible potential to evade censorship, and get people paid. That's what attracted me initially.
/1 Can blockchain support freedom of speech in these ways? Unclear. ISPs are exquisitely vulnerable to government suppression. It's as if every newsstand in the country could be disappeared with a flick of a switch.

Any publishers who've cracked this, I'd love to hear from you.
/2

As a fellow humorist and magazine editor, who shares a lot of friends with PJ O’Rourke, I have a few thoughts on the occasion of his death. Not on PJ as a person — we only met once, briefly, at a taping of Bill Maher in 2006 — but as a writer, editor, and cultural figure.(1/25) Before I begin, I want to say that PJ’s colleagues — people who worked for/with him at Lampoon who now work for/with me at @BystanderTweets — liked him. That’s by no means universal — paging Mr. Hendra & Mr. Simmons! — so I give it a lot of weight. (2/25)

I spent all yesterday writing & deleting tweets, explaining why US comedy is coming up short as Fascism looms, and...I'm giving up. The topic's too big. I'm just going to blast out a bunch of half-baked BS. Enjoy.

I'm 51, run @BystanderTweets, comedy writer since '90.
1/x Now is a life-or-death struggle for comedy, at least as you and I know it. Not only will you not be able to make or distribute American-style comedy in a White Christian ethnostate, it's clear the GOP would happily toss every comedy person into a Dachau-of-the-Ozarks.
2/x

This is Lucius Cornelius Sulla, Roman general and dictator. Right-wing strongman of the 90s-70s BCE.

I've been thinking a lot about Sulla this past week, and people like him.

Ever heard of him? I bet not. 1/

https://twitter.com/PaulHar77393852/status/1347304519143731203

You've certainly heard of Julius Caesar who (the story goes) ended the Roman Republic, and was slaughtered by freedom-loving patriots.

But everything Caesar did--marching on Rome, setting up one-man rule, remaking the Senate--had been done by Sulla 40 years before. 2/

Why I didn't watch the #debate:

Donald Trump is an abuser.

One of the most powerful tools abusers have is words. If you do not listen, they lose much of their power and control.

Absent yourself--physically if possible; mentally if necessary--and abusers lose. [1] Abusers know this.

If they can't physically trap you and FORCE you to listen, they convince you that you HAVE to listen. That a normal person would, or a nice person would, or you owe them your attention because they're your parent or child, friend, boss, or President. [2]

@AryehCW just told me he's considering writing an article about "how a lot of modern problems are moderator problems."

Being a lifelong editor (and occasional creator), I have a lot of THOUGHTS, which are arrayed below:

[1/x] To me, trouble began when tech companies began saying that "gatekeepers" were holding back a massive flood of genius.

This (turns out, wrong) idea is American to its core, in ways good (anybody can do anything) and bad (my ignorance is as good as your expertise).

[2/x]

I went to Yale from 1987-91, and majored in History.

It is a place full of wonderful traditions, some known, others jealously guarded and not shared with outsiders.

What I'm about to tell you is TOP SECRET, and may well get me disappeared next time I visit New Haven.

[1/6] Public Yale is a beautiful campus full of smart people. But there's a whole other Yale; it's called Stupid Yale, and it produces people like George W. Bush, John Bolton, & Brett Kavanaugh.

They take entirely different courses that come to exactly opposite conclusions.

[2/6]

Appalled & disgusted by the sight of a rich White couple threatening peaceful protestors, I also had the following Prep fashion thoughts:

As someone who grew up in St Louis, I can say that OF COURSE you wear khakis and a pink polo to threaten Black protestors with an AR-15. You want something informal, obviously, and sporty, in case you have to move. Shorts are unnecessary; this isn’t tennis.

Non-preppies may be shocked, but the pink polo is actually an assertion of prep masculinity: “I am so virile I can safely wear a pink shirt.”

The fascinating thing to me about Cabaret is how it reveals ambivalence & guilt about sexual freedom and gender norms. That’s why Fosse’s version in early 70s was a big deal then & endures now. The anxieties which spawned the musical had grown exponentially. #TCMParty 1/x I think Cabaret belongs with things like Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist, which portray repression as actually demonic, but “conjured” by another bad thing: weakening of patriarchy, thus “society out of control.” Big topic of pop culture 1960-80. Maybe THE topic. 2/

I’m a comedy writer, and have cerebral palsy. I don’t like jokes about people’s bodies, and generally avoid making them, even with public figures like Trump.

To me, jokes about Trump’s infirmity are both in-bounds and weirdly important, for the following reasons: Ubermensch physical strength/ability is both a trope of Fascism AND constant messaging from this WH. It’s essential to *them* that Trump be seen as vigorous, capable, strong, etc. And that enemies are infirm.

Trump’s not just healthy, he’s most healthy ever. Biden‘s “sleepy.”