My Culture Tracking In 2024

So, I have talked a lot here about catastrophizing and the fact that I find it a critical flavor of autistic scripting. Underpinning this is the idea that anticipatory anxiety is better than compensatory, because the latter actually can lead inappropriately and disastrously to fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. It was on my mind this week because...

Former candidate for the position from District 3, Jon Walker (tagline: “He’s Boring”), has been insisting for days on Bluesky that “voters were repeatedly told” that the Mayor would have the tie-breaking vote, period—including in the matter of the Council electing its own President. Yesterday, I addressed what the Charter provides on this count....

Yesterday I got up early, sat my iPad on an articulated arm attached to my nightstand, and watched the first session of Portland City Council under its new form of government with councilors elected from geographical districts. If you read anything about the session, you probably know that it took multiple rounds of voting to elect a Council...

As I noted back in October, “there are exactly two days every year that like clockwork make me feel the weight of living”: my birthday, and New Year’s Day. For the past two years, at the end of this annual hellscape, I’ve published a sort of round-up offering my picks for what I find to be my best blog posts of the year ending. It’s a way of...

The principle “Life cannot be delegated” is simply a guidepost.5 It keeps before us the possibility that we might, if we are not careful, delegate away a form of life that is full and whole, rewarding and meaningful. We ought to be especially careful in the cases where what we delegate to a device, app, agent, or system is an aspect of how we...