Three Dozen Absolute Crackpots

What's in YOUR Inoreader?

Everything in this world is moving faster and faster, like when you and your friends all lunged for the same side of the Tilt-A-Whirl car just as it started to move. But Insane Clown Posse’s horrorcore song named for the ride seems apropos for the 2024 media environment. How does one cope?

I have my own Insane Clown Posse - the very last folder in my Inoreader setup, containing 36 RSS feeds that, were I religiously observing my Stop Ingesting Crap prohibition, I would never read. But this is where Inoreader shines …

Attention Conservation Notice:

This is literally about media hygiene and attention conservation. If you’ve already got a way to maintain situational awareness without sticking your head down every rabbit hole you come across, you’re free to find something productive to do instead of reading this.

A Recent Sample:

Here’s a sample I took first thing in the morning, showing some of the origins and story titles. Some of the feeds mysteriously lack an origin, and I’m OK with that. My usual “keep it neat” attitude goes right out the window for this area.

Who qualifies for inclusion? The poorly reasoned foreign policy ideas of Responsible Statecraft have the most volume. I’m sure some of the Butthurt Crack Babies of Kiwi Farms will peruse that list and immediately run off to jab Jim Stewartson and Steve Jarvis. Those two are filed here due to the truthy nature of their writing. Some of the things they cover are events where I was present as they happened, these things were well before either of them came along, and they both end up “connecting” a whole bunch of “dots” that were not in evidence at the time.

And yet … there are times where I will scan their feeds, Jarvis about three times as often as Stewartson, because there IS a lot of truth in what they discern, and they play in hazardous areas that DO concern me.

Inoreadin’:

This is one of those times where Inoreader really shines. Once you configure a feed it just keeps saving stuff. If my name gets brought up in some silliness, I can just put it in the search box, and maybe get a clear idea of what happened and when, without spending hours dog paddling around Space Karen’s cyber cesspool.

And this is also a great way to stash grabasstic informant bullshit, as seen below. This persona, which I will not dignify by actually typing out the handle, was originally a schizotypal cyberstalker in western Canada. If you paid close attention in Julian Assange Flipping? or if Individual None made an impression on you, and left you curious, now you know. I’m well known for keeping The Fuckery Files, my records from roughly 2010 through 2013. Here we see a professional dullard launching something that would be abbreviated the same way, hoping to goad me into some sort of engagement. And failing hard, dullard style.

An individual with a Canadian accent turned up in a Twitter Space for one of the people I ghosted in April, claiming this identity. The host validated the persona and later attempted to relocate it from western Canada to a far eastern province. Given the change in personality AND voice, it was a terrible ploy. I have never so much as bothered to read the ledes closely, let alone sully my mind by reading the articles in detail. That’s a case of Stop Ingesting Crap in action.

Inversion:

There is, of course, a mirror image to that folder, the one at the very top of my feed, the dirty dozen that ask me to do things, who bring interesting digital ephemera to me for examination, and in a couple instances they might even Paypal if I ask nicely.

Between those two extremes there are two dozen other folders and another three dozen sources I have not yet sorted. Now I’m getting that “and the ghosts of the Tilt-A-Whirl will linger inside your head” feeling just thinking about it.

Conclusion:

I rode the waves of public fascination in 2011 and 2012, like a pre-contact Hawaiian with a handmade board at Waimea. Today (and by that I mean every! single! day!) looks like there’s an extra-tropical cyclone bearing down on Nazaré, with ten story walls of water in a never ending train. You need automation, in the form of a jet ski, to tow you into position. And even then only if you’re among the elite 0.1% of riders that dare to try.

Nazaré has killed twice. Maya Gabeira was brought to the beach dead in 2013, she was revived, and seven years later she moved the women’s world record up from a 68’ wave to 73’. Marcio Freire was not so lucky a year ago January. I find it amazing there’s only ever been the one loss there. I guess it is an off/on kinda thing, it’s not like Everest, where n00bs can pretend they’re doing OK up to the point where oxygen becomes mandatory.

The unreality coming at us isn’t some man (or woman!) against nature challenge, it’s like a sewage filled wave tank, pounding endlessly until anything placed inside is beaten to pieces. Chris Rufo attempted that with Katherine Mayer, but NPR stood fast, as we saw in passing in Signal vs. Telegram. That’s a very rare success, usually the right wing smear and sneer machine will lead our rotten 4th estate around by the nose.

If you’re reading this, you might just be part of the elite, the people who get it enough to shut out the noise and start looking for solutions. I hope you’ve managed to find something to do that qualifies as a good use of your time and talents.