Early

Deep mist curled all around the house last night; I kind of hoped it was a thaw but everything is still iced over this morning, the snow unchanged except where cars have gone through it. Of course, this is before sunrise, so maybe things will warm up later. I'm up early, so exhausted after yesterday that I just collapsed at about 9.30.

Not before I watched The White Lotus season 2 finale. Hmm. No, this ending is not as good as season 1, but it's hard to say why. The Tanya McQuoid plot line is the funniest with all the best lines (https://twitter.com/EmmaTolkin/status/1602172270712999936 ) and it has an excellent ending, but the rest? Clever but eh. I'm still on for season 3, but they need to up the pay-off.

R is looking/sounding better, which is a relief, but this weird oppressive sense is not shaking off. I don't quite know what to do about it, or even what's causing it.

The Woke Mind Virus

Having made a bad business decision, Elon Musk turns the Twitter trolling factory into his Twitter trolling factory. And I swear, he's trying to wind his detractors up into spontaneous combustion. Twitter was good for on the spot observation and swift messages, but conversely, it has always been a troll/bot playground, the wild west of disinformation. Discerning the true from the false can be incredibly difficult, and perhaps we no longer have to, given that it's becoming the equivalent of Elon Musk carving his face on Mount Rushmore. Are people actually leaving in droves? I don't know. Mastodon feels like one of those parties where somehow we've all turned up too early. But then, I have nothing to say on Mastodon, same as I have nothing to say on Twitter really, not beyond the occasional 'pull yourself together' at some gaslighting Con.

Ah but the Woke Mind Virus! A phrase coined by Elon Musk probably with the purpose of coaxing his detractors back to Twitter so they can be angry with him... and in anger, continue to engage. It's quite marvellous really, this faith in the three word byte; Take Back Control, Get Brexit Done, Woke Mind Virus. Phrases superb in their ability to mean absolutely nothing but evoke anything.

This Elon statement's a zinger:
The woke mind virus is either defeated or nothing else matters

It's a marvel of meaninglessness, something that one can flare up at instantly, so instantly one doesn't examine it to check and find that, sure enough, there's nothing actually there.

Oh it leads into all sorts of discussions; there is certainly a pernicious current of censorship which is unlikely to survive, not because people shun guilt - various religions have shown us we can sustain that for centuries - but because there are so many things to be guilty for, things we can't keep in our heads at the same time. And people have come too far working several jobs a day and still needing a foodbank, to listen patiently to how privileged they are, how their attitudes and vocabularies need correcting, how they shouldn't, and they mustn't, how with just a bit more effort they can... No. No they can't. They have no more effort to give. They don't need homilies, they need brass in pocket. The key challenge is poverty, not pronouns.

But while folk are talking war about what 'woke' means, all this remains untouched. The indignation with Elon Musk being a strange wax-faced* knob end with too much money takes over from harder conversations like what the hell we do about people who don't have enough to live,how we create, not just safety but opportunities for all. But here's the thing about poverty as a conversation; it's depressing. There's no witty fire, no memes, no quick way to score points. One can't sort it out in a pert 280 characters while a chortling chorus hearts endless approval. Poverty is drab and hard, even as a topic. So back goes the conversation, to Elon's perfidy and the Woke Mind Virus.

*And he is, isn't he? Zuckerberg's the same. Were their faces always so shiny rubbery smooth? Conspiracy theories would be easier to argue against if fewer of the super rich looked like constructs, lizards, and henchmen.