SOB_Van_Owen
Appalachian here. No doubt curbing demand for coal and doing little to take up the slack in viable livelihood has dropped an economic bomb on an already historically depressed region. All of the programs you hear about teaching coal miners to code and such are superficial window dressing and often non-profit grifts that fold in a short time leaving executives to float away on golden parachutes. Whichever way you turn it, people here are exploited and propagandized. Most often attributing their woes to the wrong sources. Folks that are for sure feeling the effects of a changing climate with frequent severe storms, 1000 year floods, etc.
Sadly, the sociopath/idiotic formula does seem to resonate with the algorithms and/or the public. There is a local creator that I know to be a thoughtful, well-rounded person, yet they had to reduce themselves to a cartoon caricature in order to get traction. But that approach seems to have worked out for them, at least initially through Tik Tok and YouTube. Now I see them taking on increasingly sketchy sponsorships as their 15 minutes fades. And of course audience capture indisputably steers media makers into conspiratorial niches they can’t escape without sacrificing views/payout. Authenticity be damned.
We lost our oldest last Friday. But we had nearly 15 years with her. A long and healthy life for a German Shepherd. Thankful she was active to the end. An awfully good girl.
Chickens are doing alright. The new australorps are really overdue to be moved out of their temporary digs. Old enough now to join the others. We got a rooster this time and he’s just started crowing.
Whoa. “Going to Hell in a handbasket” just got literal.
Picard’s alternate life on that doomed world inspires some deja vu bumping up against current events.
Or you arrive to find the civilization has had time to collapse and given way to the rise of damned dirty apes.