Month: January 2022

Why I’m not dumping Spotify

Because of the whole Joe Rogan controversy, Brene Brown won’t be podcasting in the near future. Like Rogan’s, her podcast is presented exclusively on Spotify.

Like Neil Young, Barry Manilow, and a growing list of others, she can do what she wants within contractual terms. It’s a free country that way. If the list gets long enough, I’ll move just because I want all my songs.

Until then, I won’t move.

Spotify is moving away from music. They have a ton of revenue but no profit. And they view podcasts as the way to fix that. The great thing about podcasting is that anyone can do it. I’d be doing it if I weren’t lazy and dead tired at the end of the day.

As a result, you get a wide spectrum of views. Some of those views are clearly unacceptable. Image the Gay Nazis for Jesus podcast (it doesn’t exist). It clearly wouldn’t last long because it would cost Spotify too many listeners.

Brene Brown clearly lies on the other side of that line. If you haven’t listened to her, do yourself a favor. She’s great.

And Joe Rogan lies in the middle. He doesn’t do anti-vax talk 3 hours a day. No one would listen to that. His podcast is topical and runs into controversy–like Howard Stern, one of his fiercest critics.

Joe Rogan has no first amendment right for Spotify to carry his podcast. If they dropped him, I’d stay, too. But the desire to force him to at least modify his stances is understandable and it’s what you do in a free society.

All the major platforms hold a huge number of Podcasts. If you look a little, you’ll find something that’ll piss you off. Spotify also carries Proletarian radio, a Communist podcast. A short search shows that Apple carries them, too, but iHeart doesn’t seem to. Both iHeart and Spotify carry something called Gun Talk. I don’t think it’s about your biceps after a workout.

Joe Rogan is wrong about vaccines. He’s wrong about Ivermectin. He’s probably wrong about other things, too. But people will find his podcast, even if it’s posted on his own service, which he can assembles on the $20 million Spotify’s already paid him.

I listen to Gary and Shannon on Spotify. I like them because they’re reasonable. And if iHeart started hosting a Justice for J6 podcast (they haven’t), I wouldn’t listen to that podcast. That might be enough for me to dump IHeart (they’re also available on Spotify and Stitcher).

It’s your right to boycott. But offensive crap is everywhere. I’m not going to run from it. I just won’t listen to it.

Missing the point of grace

What if it were easy? What if the pressure went away?

All my life I’ve been motivated by a fear of failure. For the first part of my life, I was afraid enough of failure that I didn’t do much of anything. That doubled down on my view of myself as not really being worth it anyway, so why bother trying?

It’s taken a long time, but I’ve replaced that approach in many areas with the more traditional fear that failure is one step step behind me. At work, there’s always a tension, a feeling that I’m one miss away from oblivion. I’ve been working since the waning days of the Carter administration and oblivion came once–and it wasn’t my fault. I survived it.

But what if failure didn’t exist?

I’ve been thinking a lot about that as I see evangelicals all keyed up. On the other side, the contemplatives also tout grace, but they sometimes seem to view their approach as the one and only way. Both insist theirs is the right view and dismiss the others.

What if we didn’t have to try that hard?

Grace is the instrument by which God extends his love to us. No questions asked.

Grace is the father of the prodigal son–the master–keeping watch every day for the son who wished him dead. And racing to accept him before he got all the way home.

Rembrandt’s Return of the Prodigal Son. Notice how the father has one masculine hand and one feminine.

Grace is Jesus picking the woman who had to go to the well in the heat of midday because the proper women wouldn’t let her come while it was still cool outside. Grace is Jesus telling the woman caught in adultery that he didn’t condemn her–after he turned away her accusers while not condemning them.

Grace is also Jesus spending time with Nicodemus, a member of the religious elite who doesn’t quite get it. It’s also Jesus forgiving Peter for denying him three times, then making him the rock on which the church is built. It’s accepting Paul, the first-century equivalent of Hitler, but giving him a thorn to help keep him humble.

Grace takes a way the ultimate test anxiety. It welcomes everyone, even the ones who don’t seem to belong. It throws open the doors the lowly, but doesn’t exclude the mighty. It’s there for anyone who accepts it.

If you’ve felt condemned by the religionists, they were wrong.

You don’t have the pass the test. You don’t even have to take the test.

You just have to say yes when the Father runs from his rightful place of might and asks you in.

It seems to me if the Elect, such as they are, would relax and accept that which is freely given, we’d all be much better off. And there would be a lot more of us.

How’s your mental health?

As I write this, the last couple of days have been dark and dreary. It’s been rainy and cold. And it’s day 4,815,162,342 of the stupid Covid which means relative isolation, watching what you say at work in case someone has a different viewpoint, and reading almost gleeful headlines about the New! and Improved! variant discovered someplace.

To be honest, I’m a little bitchy right now. And yes, I used the b-word.

It’s reasonable to be bitchy after the last couple years.

For those of us working from home, the sameness can be a little stifling. Sure, it’s a privilege. We’re saving money on gas, reducing our risk, and avoiding traffic problems.

We’re also sitting in the same chair at the same desk every day, with human contact only coming from Zoom calls. Beyond the perfunctory chit-chat before the demand for immediate issue resolution on an IM, there’s no bonding or small talk.

And then there’s inflation, empty shelves, war and rumors or war, and the fact that you can’t say good morning without it generating a political judgement for or against what you said.

It’s bad enough that a group of Boston area moms gathered on the local high school’s football field and screamed. Just screamed.

As a dude, I’m a little jealous. I don’t think that would be acceptable for us. It might also result in police activity.

So how’s your mental health?

Need to scream? Need to get away?

At this point, a blog written by a trained mental health professional would suggest some things you can do. Take a walk. Responsibly spend time with friends. Engage my services at $150 an hour.

I got nothing. Except I see you. I acknowledge you. I recognize you.

If you need help, get it. Or take a walk. It’s been dark and dreary here, so I used a light box yesterday. It simulates the sun or people who get like that guy who was Betty White until he had a Snickers bar.

This really sucks and it’s reasonable to have some down days.

If misery loves company, consider this company.

Should Spotify dump Rogan and eat at least $80 million?

Spotify didn’t take choose Neil Young over Joe Rogan because they don’t want to lose $80 million. That math isn’t hard.

If you’re unfamiliar, Young gave Spotify a me-or-Rogan ultimatum after Rogan repeatedly aired episodes with false information about Covid vaccines and alternate treatments, like Ivermectin. Spotify said no and Neil Young pulled his music–reducing my main playlist by a dozen or songs or so.

Young has had health problems from youth. By his sixth birthday, he could barely walk. As a child, he was diagnosed with epilepsy, polio, and type 1 diabetes. In 1999, he almost died because of a brain aneurysm. He still suffers from epilepsy.

His health issues give weight to his stance. Rogan’s stances re-enforce actions that endanger him and people like him. As we covered earlier this week, not everyone can be done with Covid.

Neil Young

On the other side, Spotify has on the hook for eight more years of their contract with Rogan to exclusively carry his podcast–a deal valued at $100 million. Depending on his contract terms, they’d presumably lose most, if not all of that money, plus whatever revenue Rogan generates. He would take his podcast to another hosting service, taking listeners with him as well.

For the current fiscal year, Spotify has revenue of 7.1 billion Euros, about $7.9 billion. On that revenue, it makes a profit of about $2.3 million. It has only recently became profitable. A few years ago, its continued existence was uncertain. In other words, Spotify can’t afford to write an $80 million check to make Rogan go away, even if it wanted to.

In a free society, as long as Young has contractual ability to do so, he should be able to take his playlist anywhere he wants. And Rogan should have the ability to say whatever he wants. And Spotify would be able to broadcast it or not.

The question is whether they should.

It’s easy to say that if Spotify shouldn’t have taken the risk of signing Rogan. But that’s the deal broadcasters have made with edgy talent since the beginning of time.

Howard Stern, a fierce Rogan critic, is rumored to make $100 million per year with Sirius/XM. When he first signed in 2004, he was still the type of talent that could cause a company to eat an expensive contract.

Guys like Stern and Rogan don’t just go away if you cancel their contract. They litigate and agitate.

Depending on Rogan’s contract, if Spotify cut him, they’d be on the hook for the rest of his contract, plus possible legal fees and potential punitive damages. That could trigger another round of lawsuits from investors who finally started to see a profit. With such a slim profit margin, they’d probably fail and put 6500 people out of work. In the end, everyone by the lawyers would lose financially.

You can argue that Joe Rogan is causing the death of hundreds of thousands of people. But the information is already out there. The people who won’t take the vaccine aren’t taking that stance because Joe Rogan told them to. He’s probably re-enforcing that stance.

And the comparison to what Donald Trump and others did after the January 6 insurrection doesn’t apply. Rogan isn’t calling people to violence.

If Rogan should be driven from the airwaves for this stance, then what stance is next? Should people be drive off for denying man-made global warming? That’s gonna kill people. For pushing back against the concept of white privilege? Is being anti-vaccine mandate enough?

In an ideal world, people would always triumph over money, regardless of amounts. In reality, if that were true, we’d still be locked down after more than two years. Alcohol and cars would be illegal and Tough Mudder wouldn’t exist.

In this case, no general risk-to-benefit consensus exists. In general, the people most likely to suffer and die from Covid are the unvaccinated. My libertarian tendency is that if Joe Rogan wants to be publicly wrong, so be it. People are adults and can make their choices. This is largely a pandemic of the unvaccinated. If you want to take the risk, you get to bare the consequences.

If I were Neil Young or Rachel Pross, I would probably disagree. I might call Rogan’s stance unacceptable for public consumption. If this blog reached enough people, I might call for WordPress to dump it. From their point of view, that’s a very rational decision.

As with everything related to Covid, a loud plurality would indicate that there are simple answers (though they wouldn’t agree on what those answers are).

The reality is much more complicated.

Covid shame is a sign we need to step back

If you work on reported cases alone, roughly 20% of the people in his country have had the Covid. Nearly two-thirds (63.7%) meet the current definition of fully vaccinated. A quarter have gotten a booster shot.

As soon as a celebrity (especially one of them with questionable politics) gets the Covid, becomes seriously ill or dies, the first question is often were they vaccinated? And since we’re awash in variants, here’s one: I bet they weren’t vaccinated. The presumed answer to this question determines whether they deserve sympathy or public scorn.

This is typically followed by mask-related judgements. I bet they didn’t wear a mask. Or if they did, I bet it was a cloth mask. Or they didn’t wear it right. Or stay inside. Or socially distance.

There’s enough judging going on that Covid shame is a thing.

Everyone’s on edge. We’ve been shut in for two years and it doesn’t appear to be letting up. Every time on variant starts to wane, the headlines almost gleefully shout that there’s another one in the wings. Every hopeful message about getting back to normal is countered by one saying it’s too early. All in language focus-group tested to generate clicks.

It’s easy when you’re on edge to direct your anger at them. To look back on two years of isolation and say it’s their fault you’re isolated. If they got Covid, they must’ve done something wrong. If they didn’t do something wrong, they wouldn’t be in this position.

It’s like the book of Job, adopted for modern times. In popular culture, Job’s the story of a guy who had a phalanx of really bad days. In reality, most of the book is about three friends who tooks turns telling Job he’s a terrible human being if all this happened to him.

Blanket condemnations of the unvaccinated don’t care if the person couldn’t get vaccinated. They’re too focused on the righteousness of their stance.

The people casting the stones are loud and persistent and about as subtle as Job’s friends.

There are people who pore over data every day studying ways to divide us. They’re very well paid by other people who use that knowledge to derive power. If they can convince a fraction of the population that they’re virtuous and their future depends on defeating that group of outsiders, they’ll amass more power. They’ll get to shape the future.

They’re handing us gasoline to pour on the fire, so it burns those horrible people out. Fire’s fire. It goes where it wants.

It’s reasonable to be angry. The last two years have sucked.

At its peak, the current surge infected more than three times the peak of any previous surge. That’s with vaccines, better masks, and more knowledge about what really constitutes risk.

It’s not reasonable to demand retroactive thought purity from those who are sick. It’s heartless to demand proof of vaccination from someone who might soon die–from the comfort of your Twitter account.

It’s possible they aren’t vaccinated. It’s possible they didn’t wear their mask correctly at every instance. It’s possible they don’t support vaccine and mask mandates.

It’s possible they’re fully vaxxed and ideologically pure.

It’s also possible they rebelled against the aggressive groupthink that didn’t allow questioning or variance of any type.

It’s a reasonable time to be angry. But when that anger leads to shame for people who caught Covid, that anger needs to be dialed back.

But my anger goes to 11.

Do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few?

Rachel Pross looks like the type of person you’d like a little without even knowing her. She’s a pretty blonde woman with a nice smile who appears to be living the life. And she has MS. You can’t read her Tweet without pausing for a second.

A lot of people with Fibro also have MS or another problem that makes living riskier. Even if you’ve taken all the shots and boosters, your immune system isn’t as strong as everyone else’s, so you’re more apt to have problems during a pandemic.

And some people can’t get vaccinated. Not because they’re stubborn or selfish or want to own the libs, but because they can’t.

What do we do about them?

Whatever we do, it won’t be fair.

According to her Twitter profile, this woman is a credit union executive. She plays the violin. She’s a mom, a boxer, and she likes to backpack around the Pacific Northwest. She loves her dog and cat. If all that’s true, she’s living life to its fullest and doing it with MS–a disease that’s limiting by nature.

As she does all those things, she has massive struggles–and that’s before you figure Covid into the equation.

Once Omicron passes and the rest of us go back to our semi-normal lives, she’ll still have to be extra careful. As she said, she can’t be #donewithCovid.

What does that mean to the rest of us?

Were I to invoke logic, logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one.

The wisdom of Spock

Were I to invoke Jesus, Jesus clearly dictates that we’re to love each other as we love ourselves.

The wisdom of Jesus

Neither answer is entirely satisfying. An approach driven by empathy would suppose that we need to accommodate the weakest among us, even if that means limitations on everyone else. It sounds good on paper, but in reality, it would mean living forever as if it were 2020. That’s not fair, either.

I wouldn’t presume that Rachel Pross would want us to live as if it were still the early days of Covid, though her Twitter feed seems to indicate she wants people to wear masks and get vaccinated–a reasonable stance if you’re immune system is compromised.

Catholic Social Teaching indicates that we’re to have a preferential option for the poor. That doesn’t mean you make every decision in favor of the poor, as in “I could have rice and beans for every meal and give all the money I save to the poor.” It means that you consider the impact on the poor in decision making. That sometimes you decide in their favor.

Maybe the same should apply to our decision making as we finally maybe start to put the pandemic in the rearview mirror (at least for most of us).

A permanent requirement to wear N95 masks isn’t feasible. Yes, healthcare workers wear them every day, all day, at work. Show me a healthcare worker eager to keep them on outside work. The first second most of the danger passes, most of the people who wear them now will stop.

Where does that leave people like Rachel Pross?

She may have to wear masks in close quarters for the rest of her life. She may have to avoid some places because of the risk. That sucks.

I’m not willing to normalize what I’m doing now–wear an N95 mask every time I go inside, avoid indoor dining, and generally stay away from other people, to accommodate those in her position. It’s a mean thing to write, but I hated eating outside in Florida the last two summers and I don’t intend to do it again.

But I am willing to listen and to endure discomfort here and there so people like Rachel Pross live a better life. As much as people accrue power and make money presenting it that way, it’s not a zero-sum game.

As we hopefully maybe someday if God loves us emerge from the Covid, we can’t live life around the needs of the few. But we can’t dismiss them, either.

Sometimes the problem is in the mirror

“Eff that guy.”

We were sitting in line for the RV show at the Florida fairgrounds the other day and saw a giant pickup truck with a giant three-percenter window decal on the back window.

That was my response. He didn’t hear it. He didn’t know I said it. But it was still wrong.

If you aren’t familiar, Three Percenters are a group in the Patriot movement that believes in gun rights and anti-government conspiracy theories. They believe that county sheriffs are the supreme law of the land. Six people identified as Three Precenters were indicted by a grand jury after the January 6 insurrection.

Their vehement support of Donald Trump is problematic, as are some of their stances. In a free society it’s your right to disagree with my views. And it’s my right to say, “Eff that guy.”

I suspect Jesus was disappointed that I used that particular right.

The guy in the truck was going to look at RVs. He wasn’t storming the Capitol or trying to hold a backyard trial to find libs guilty of treason.

More to the point, he’s a guy that God, a guy I claim to worship, told me I need to love. He’s a guy Jesus died for, to make God’s love for us evident.

Jesus didn’t die so I could unilaterally determine who should go eff themselves.

I write a lot about how we’re at each other’s throats and we need to take a step back for a minute. How most people just want to get to the end of the day. How people make a lot of money by keeping us thinking the other guys are out to get us.

It’s hard not to give in to that messaging from time to time.

But it’s important to recognize that and step back.

Odds are pretty good, I’ll never agree with a guy who has a Three Percenter decal on the back of his truck. Odds are stupid.

If he were sitting beside me in a brewery, I’d probably start a conversation with him and enjoy the experience.

We’re about to enter two solid years of political food fights. The 2024 Presidential campaign will start the day after this election day. Because Democrats are likely to lose the House, they’ll probably ramp up the January 6 hearings before then.

Then, we’ll have two years of solid brawling leading up to Donald Trump almost certainly running for President again.

If we can’t get past our impulses to say “eff that guy” now, we’ll be a mess then.

Thought patterns and paper tigers

Earlier this year, as the Jets played the Bucs, I was texting my friend, a Bucs fan. The Jets had outplayed the Bucs the entire game. And yet, I texted her that the Bucs would win.

She didn’t think so.

I knew it. Tom Brady is a winner. He wins. That’s what he does. And the Jets are the Jets. For my entire time as a fan, if there’s a way for the Jets to make the least of the situation, they’ll find it. In both cases, that’s just the natural order of things.

Like any other powerful thing, thought patterns can be used for good or evil. If I only applied that thought pattern to football, it wouldn’t matter. But I don’t. I’ve historically applied it to me, as well.

I have some ideas about how that thought pattern got there, but they’re not relevant. The patterns are there and they limit my usefulness to myself and to others.

And that’s the rub. They’ve been there a long time. For some reason, wonderful things–extreme success and the resulting rewards–were something other people did. Why bother with all the hard work when circumstance will just crap on you at the end?

Some people are made for that and some aren’t.

Don’t let Linda Ronstadt talk to you that way.

That is the biggest bunch of bullshit–and that’s the right word–I’ve ever believed.

Thought patterns are powerful and they take on a life of their own–a very big life of their own. If you’re going to fail at <insert thing you’d like here> because that’s just the way things work, you aren’t just fighting your own brain, you’re fighting the entire freaking universe.

And who are you to spit in the face of the universe?

The universe is a paper tiger. In this context, it doesn’t exist. The great and powerful Oz is just a middle-aged guy behind a curtain, who needs to oversell his power to cover his own insecurities.

The universe is stupid.

The universe exists only in your head. The natural order exists only because you haven’t changed it.

Changing the universe is hard. It’s scary to start believing it’s a paper tiger. What if you believe and you lose anyway? If that happens, you won’t have the natural order of things to fall back on–it’ll be your fault.

It’s worth the risk. The natural order is a mirage. You are worth it. You can achieve that goal. Put a plan together and execute the plan. Even if the plan includes asking for help.

When you ask, you can’t just wait passively for them to solve everything. You own the solution and that makes you mighty.

If you don’t succeed immediately, the natural order hasn’t slapped you down. You’re creating new thought patterns that need some time to take hold. It takes time. The greatest time of danger is when something goes wrong and you give your power back to the universe. You don’t fix it because it’s not fixable.

Don’t do that.

Make changing that pattern the most important thing. Make it something you’re willing and even eager to be creative in achieving. Make it the reason you get up in the morning. Make every supposed failure a stepping stone on the way to success.

Sure it’s trite. But it’s also true. Getting from here to there involves learning and learning involves what other people consider failure.

It take courage to change what you know.

Good thing you’re a courageous kind of person, even if the universe says you aren’t.

The universe is stupid.

A ray of hope during the political s-storm

In an effort to balance my views on political issues, among other places, I go to a message board called Democratic Underground. DU, for short, is a place with a wide variety of political views, all of them progressive.

It’s also a place where you’re widely mocked if you speak out against Covid vaccinations or mandates and die. “Fooled around and found out,” is a common refrain, though the first word’s different.

I was going to post today about the reaction there to Meat Loaf’s death. In general, it ranges from anger to ridicule. And there’s a smidge of happiness that one more anti-vaxxer has met his end. (For the record, he seemed to be anti-mandate rather than anti-vax, but that’s a different topic.)

But that’s as far as the rage and anger seemed to go. FOX News, never one to pass up an opportunity to make the libs look bad, found proof that the libs suck in a series of Tweets from people you’ve probably never heard. And then there was this, from MSNBC host Joy Reid:

Gasp!

Double gasp!

As an aside, you can support vaccination (as I do) and oppose mandates (as I’ve gotten around to doing). It’s unclear whether Meat Loaf was vaccinated, but a quote from his daughter said a number of her friends and family had Covid. She said, “Thank their respect for science that their all vaxxed…” It’s not clear whether her father was one of those people. He’s routinely said he wouldn’t divulge his vaccination status, though he’s spoken out against vaccination and cloth mask mandates. And frankly, it’s none of our damn business.

Most people, even steadfast liberals on my Facebook feed, don’t seem to care about Meat Loaf’s stance on vaccination.

Most, even the most vocal vaccine proponents, haven’t said, “I guess he would do anything for love, but he won’t do that.” (Those who did, proudly pounded their chests after coming up with an obvious joke that’s not very funny.)

Most were sad at his passing or said nothing.

A lot of people make a lot of money by pitting us at each other’s throats over things like mask mandates and politics. Most of the people I know want to treat people decently and get to the end of the day. They might lash out at the other side on a Facebook post, but they’d probably help you if your car broke down.

They want the best possible life for the most possible people and are willing to give a little if asked–but they prefer to be asked.

Maybe they don’t look for every chance to own the libs or trash the MAGAts.

Maybe they just see things differently than others.

I’m related to staunch Trump supporters and to people who think AOC isn’t that bad. They’re all decent people who have wildly different political views. (They all think I’m wrong, which gives them something to agree on.)

Most of the people on the other side are just that–people who disagree. They aren’t waving a black US flag. They aren’t coming for your guns.

As we move into a contested 2022 mid-term election and a 2024 Presidential election shaping up to be a shit storm, maybe that’s something to keep in mind.

Doing something about it

Last week I posted that I’ve put on weight and how this cannot continue. And then I promptly did the same things that made me unhappy with my current weight three of the next four days.

Sigh.

It was time for help. I’ve been toying with the possibility of using Noom for a while and they had a 14-day trial, so I figured there was no downside to trying it.

I didn’t sign up until evening, but the day I signed up, I was happy with my food intake. I made the decision that morning and that made a difference, I guess.

The point is, I wasn’t doing it alone. I was struggling to get something done and it wasn’t working so it was time to try something different.

I really want to lose weight and get back to where I was over the summer. But the bigger goal is to fix the way I view food. Food is for sustenance and enjoyment, but too often I’m eating because I feel compelled to eat, especially in the evening.

The issues preventing me from running will go away and I’ll run again. And that’ll help me with weight. If I can change how I view food, I can maintain even when I’m not running.

And if I can do that, I’ll be healthier.

This isn’t a post extolling the virtues of Noom. I’ve just started and I don’t know yet. But I’m trying something I think can help me make our goals.

There’s a lot good about the ethos of succeeding by force of will. But we bastardize it into assuming that success and failure have to be solo efforts. Success is achieved by finding the best way to do something and doing it. Failure is often achieved by refusing help when it’s available.

I realize that not stuffing his face with spiced gum drops wasn’t a problem my grandfathers had. They were men, and manly men at that. It was a different time, too.

I don’t think they’re looking down from heaven with disappointment because I got help on something difficult.