Part of this has to do with a thunderous absence in the contemporary period, something that has been present for so long and no longer exists in the context of our time: where is counterculture? It’s entirely possible that I have simply been passed by, that I’m no longer plugged in to the same networks that I was at one time. However, it definitely seems to me that there is a decided and somewhat worrying absence of a unified counterculture at this point in time. It feels like the moment at the top of a roller coaster when you can no longer hear the chain clanking along, but just before the drop happens — the mechanism isn’t involved any more and the mechanics have taken over.

Social Murder in Action: Public Utilities in the Burn Down

I want to discuss the rolling blackouts that Evergy – the local electrical utility – engaged in during the President's Day Arctic Vortex, and how it constitutes social murder. While the situation in Missouri and Kansas is nowhere near the level of things in Texas, which produced a number of dramatic photographs (and which is dismissed by many because Texas went red, something that many people worst-served by the state aren’t responsible for,) it was still awful.

Political, Commentary, Written by: CameronCameron SummersFebruary 17, 2021Local, Politics, Public Utilities, Social Murder, climate changeComment

Desperate Lines: On Reading

Reading, and seeking refuge and mental refreshment in books and words and ideas, is also an act of desperation.

Written by: Edgar, CommentaryC.-E. BoylesFebruary 3, 2021Books, Leo Tolstoy, Socrates, Out to Lunch, N.K. JemisinComment

Screw the Line, Save the People (Odd Columns #7)

The Great Recession ended, supposedly, sometime in the Summer of 2009. You wouldn’t know that if you talked to anyone actually working a real job. You would think that it had never ended, because for many of us it never did.

Commentary, Written by: Cameron, Odd ColumnsCameron SummersJanuary 31, 2021Gamestonks, The Stock Market, anticapitalismComment

W(h)ither Cyberpunk?: A Review, an Experiment, an anti-Manifesto

This began as a review for Cyberpunk 2077 and changed into something else. From the piece:

The real world didn’t copy cyberpunk, but it rhymed it, and then one-upped it. A novel set in the real 2021, that accurately reflects it, sent back to Gibson or one of his contemporaries, would be an incomprehensible trip: a hit of uncut psychedelia that would be both banal and mind-shattering (equal parts Dick and Ballard, shot as a documentary).