diff --git a/content/journal/dispatch-22-december-2024/index.md b/content/journal/dispatch-22-december-2024/index.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..45c1444 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/journal/dispatch-22-december-2024/index.md @@ -0,0 +1,40 @@ +--- +title: "Dispatch #22 (December 2024)" +date: 2024-11-11T00:54:09-05:00 +draft: false +tags: +- dispatch +references: +- title: "Daring Fireball: How It Went" + url: https://daringfireball.net/2024/11/how_it_went + date: 2024-11-11T05:54:54Z + file: daringfireball-net-9cm2ax.txt +--- + +Some thoughts here... + + + +### This Month + +* Adventure: +* Project: +* Skill: + +### Reading + +* Fiction: [_Title_][1], Author +* Non-fiction: [_Title_][2], Author + +[1]: https://bookshop.org/ +[2]: https://bookshop.org/ + +### Links + +* [Title][3] +* [Title][4] +* [Title][5] + +[3]: https://example.com/ +[4]: https://example.com/ +[5]: https://example.com/ diff --git a/static/archive/daringfireball-net-9cm2ax.txt b/static/archive/daringfireball-net-9cm2ax.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f1927fb --- /dev/null +++ b/static/archive/daringfireball-net-9cm2ax.txt @@ -0,0 +1,370 @@ +[1]Daring Fireball + +By John Gruber + + • [2]Archive + • + • [3]The Talk Show + • [4]Dithering + • [5]Projects + • [6]Contact + • [7]Colophon + • [8]Feeds / Social + • [9]Sponsorship + +[10] 1Password + +[11]1Password — Secure every sign-in for every app on every device. + +How It Went + +Friday, 8 November 2024 + +My mom died at the end of June this year. + +I know, and I’m sorry — that’s a hell of a way to open a piece ostensibly about +a depressing, worrisome, frightening election result. But here’s the thing I +want to emphasize right up front: my mom’s death was OK. It really was. She was +78, which isn’t that old, but her health had not been great. She was +hospitalized for several days in May, just a month prior, after she had +collapsed at home, too weak to stand, and for days it wasn’t clear what was +wrong. Then some more test results came back and we had the answer. She had +ovarian cancer, bad. It had already metastasized. The prognosis was grim: +months to live, at best. And those months, toward the end, would inexorably +grow ever more painful and profoundly sad. + +Her mental acuity had begun to slip in recent years, too. Not a lot, but if you +knew her you’d notice. But she faced this prognosis with remarkable dignity, +courage, and clarity. She knew the score. It was what it was, and she’d make +the best of the time she had left. She was tired but still felt pretty good +most days. There were flashes of her younger self, the Mom I remember growing +up with. It was wonderful to see those flashes. The bad times were coming, but +they laid ahead. On the last Monday night in June she and my dad went out to +eat at their favorite restaurant. They had a good meal and a good time. It was +a great day. Tuesday morning she played Wordle and reported her score to our +family group chat. Then around noon, she just fell over, dead. My dad found her +unresponsive, called 911, and they arrived in minutes, but she was gone. No +suffering. The whole dreadful grind of battling cancer never came. It’s such a +cliché but clichés are often true: given what she faced, it was a blessing she +died how and when she did. She never wanted to suffer and she didn’t. I loved +her and I miss her. + +Like I said, it was all OK, in the end — the way and how and when my mom died. + +But my dad. My dad is 86, in exceptional good health, and he remains sharp. +Until recently he not only played golf but walked the course, carrying his own +clubs. He stopped playing golf last year, because — and I realized this only +after my mom was hospitalized in May — he’d more and more been shouldering all +of the responsibilities of daily life for the both of them. Even just nine +holes of golf takes a few hours, and he didn’t want to leave her alone for that +long a stretch of time, so he stopped playing. He still walks a mile or more a +day, weather permitting. They were married 52 years and spent only a handful of +nights apart in that entire span. They were in some ways an opposites-attract +couple, but they were inseparable. They were good together. After accepting her +cancer diagnosis, my mom was ready, I think, even for something as sudden as +what happened to her at the end. My dad was not. + +But he’s an optimist at heart. You’d like him. I, of course, don’t know who you +are, dear reader, but I know you’d like my dad, Bob Gruber, because everyone +likes Bob Gruber. He can tell a good joke and he loves to tell them. There’s a +quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln, that I was reminded of, just the other +day, from of all things [12]a garbage can: “I don’t like that man. I must get +to know him better.” I don’t share Lincoln’s +there’s-something-to-like-about-everyone optimism about our fellow men, but my +dad does. + +He’s been doing good, I think, these months since her passing. I talk to him +almost every day. He’s naturally outgoing and still goes out. He’s got +friends — which fact alone can be rare for an 86-year-old — and he sees them +regularly. He attends mass frequently and takes tremendous solace in his faith. +He misses my mom, his wife, desperately, but he puts on a good face. He gets +sad and he admits he gets sad. But the very last thing he wants is for anyone, +especially me or my sister, to worry about or even feel sorry for him. I’m like +that. I get it. You often hear about old men who just shut down and fade away, +rather quickly, after their wives die. My dad’s not shutting down. + +I thought of my dad this week when I watched [13]Harrison Ford’s gravelly +endorsement of Kamala Harris, which he began thus: “Look, I’ve been voting for +64 years. Never really wanted to talk about it very much.” My dad’s politics +are like that. His religion is too. Strong beliefs that he doesn’t feel the +need to broadcast or proselytize — and deep suspicion, bordering on contempt, +regarding those who do. My dad is old and white and lives in a suburb in a red +Pennsylvania county, but he is a lifelong Democrat. He can’t abide Fox News and +never understood his age-group peers who succumbed to Rush Limbaugh’s daily +siren call. His entire life he’s seen the Democrats as the party of and for the +people. The party for working men and women. The party of equality and justice +and minding your own goddamn business what people do in their private lives. He +votes every election, even the odd years, when the only office on the ballot +might be the borough tax collector or members of the school board. He rightly +sees voting as a citizen’s civic duty. My dad is the most honest and +trustworthy person I’ve ever known, or even imagined. If they ever somehow met, +my dad and Joe Biden would become fast friends. They share a worldview, and +grew up at the same time, in similar places, from similar means. They even both +love trains. (My dad, though, thought Biden was too old to run again. “I know +that walk,” he told me early this year, regarding Biden’s stiffening gait. He +thought it was good, and noble, when Biden dropped out.) He despises Donald +Trump and sees right through him. + +So, when my dad called me Tuesday morning, I thought it would be the election +on his mind. It was all that was on my mind, that’s for sure. He had, in fact, +just come back from voting, but it was something else. His voice was chipper, +upbeat, but I could tell it wasn’t a good story. I know him too well. + +Turns out, he had gone out to eat, by himself, Monday evening. In fact, at the +very same restaurant where he and my mom ate their last meal together. He ate, +drove home, and once home went to wash his hands before going to bed. That’s +when he noticed his wedding band was missing from his finger. + +It was lost. + +He looked around to no avail, and went to bed without it. In the morning light, +he retraced his steps. He felt certain he had it on while at the +restaurant — not because he took any note of it while dining, but because he +knows he’d have noticed its absence. If you wear a ring every day on the same +finger, you know how true that is. He almost never took that ring off. + +At some point when I was a little kid, my dad told me he had never once removed +his ring since my mom put it on his finger at their wedding, the year before I +was born. My mom, I knew, took hers on and off all the time. In fact she often +wore other rings in place of her actual wedding band, because she found them +more comfortable, and she placed little sentimental value on the ring from her +actual ceremony. I asked my dad that day about his, and he told me he simply +had never taken it off. I found that to be amazing. From my childhood +perspective, he’d worn that ring nonstop for a lifetime. He broke that streak +eventually, for some small reason, and it wasn’t a big deal to him, the +never-having-taken-it-off thing. But I knew from that time I asked him about it +as a child, that the ring itself was deeply important to him, in a way that my +mom didn’t feel about hers. Some people imbue meaning and sentimental +importance to certain objects. My dad saw his wedding ring like that. It was a +sacred token. And now he’d lost it. + +Through my youth — his 30s and 40s and early 50s — my dad always looked how I’d +describe as “of average build”. Neither thin nor heavy. Strong but not muscled. +He looked like the sort of man who in his youth played third base, and batted +near the top of the order, which he did. A former athlete who could still hit +the living shit out of a golf ball. In his middle age, he gained a bit of a +paunch. (It happens, I now know.) But in the last few years he’s lost quite a +bit of weight. He’s downright bony now, in an old man way. His old pants (and +nearly all his pants are old — he’s 86) need to be cinched with a belt or +they’d fall right off him. His fingers too, have gotten bony. So his ring had +gotten loose. He’d offhandedly mentioned that fact to me a few months ago even, +telling me he needed to be careful whenever his hands might get wet. + +After waking Tuesday morning, he searched everywhere he could think it might +be. The kitchen. The bathroom. The shower. The sink. The other sink. He took +the couch cushions off. He looked in his car. He went back in the house and +searched everywhere all over again. He took a break to vote, came home, and +went back out and searched the car again, this time with a flashlight. To no +avail. It’s a sick feeling after you’ve lost something of value, when you start +losing count of how many times you’ve looked for it in the exact same places +you’ve already checked. You can’t stop looking, but can’t think of new places +to search. + +He called the restaurant, but they weren’t yet open, so he left a message, +leaving his name and number in case anyone had found a simple well-worn gold +wedding band — and if no one had, well, maybe could they keep an eye out for +it. He called me after he left that message. He wasn’t forlorn. He laughed +even. That’s how he is. That’s how I am. That’s how we are. I’m his boy, as he +still sometimes reminds me. But I know what that ring meant to him. + +And my mom had just died so recently. It has only been a few months. The +seasons have only changed once since we buried her. + +Fuck. + +It was a bad start to a day that I began, like any keen political junkie, with +a nervous feeling. I’m not superstitious but a bad omen is a bad omen. You want +every little thing to break right on a high-stress big day, and Election Day, +for us, had begun with a small heartbreak. I told my wife about my dad’s ring +and she almost burst into tears. She loves him so much. “He just lost your +mom”, she said. + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +You know how the rest of Election Day went. My wife and I voted. We both like +the ceremony of voting in-person on Election Day. It helps that we live in a +neighborhood with a vibrant civil infrastructure, with no-wait polling places +no more than a block or two away from any residence. We were both feeling good. + +But then what? I was reminded, once again, that I never know what to do with +myself on Election Day in a presidential election. No information or results +can be gleaned until polling places start closing in early states at 7pm ET. +What do you do until then? It seemed pointless for me to write anything further +about the election, but equally futile to think I could concentrate on anything +else. Expounding upon [14]Kottke’s treatise on the art of hypertext writing +[15]was a good distraction. I got to write about something I care about, and +because the inspiration was the NYT editorial board’s [16]receipts-packed +110-word admonition to end the Trump era, my effort felt at least tangentially +related to the election that was then (and alas, remains now) front of mind for +me. I could focus on that, and I didn’t finish it until just before 7:00pm. +Perfect. + +That’s [17]Kornacki time. Steve Kornacki’s data-driven, map-based analysis has +been the heart and soul of MSNBC’s presidential election night coverage for all +three Trump elections: 2016, 2020, and now 2024. I honestly don’t remember how +I watched election results before Kornacki. I know I’ve been watching election +night results on TV since at least 1992. As best I can recall, before 2016, I’d +flip around between CNN, MSNBC, and the broadcast networks. I basically just +“watched the news on TV”, not on any particular channel. But starting in 2016, +we just watch Kornacki. We put on MSNBC and we don’t flip. The desk chatter +amongst commentators and panelists that consumes the time between Kornacki +updates is background noise. But what Kornacki does is genius. Maybe the other +networks have caught up and do something similar now. I don’t know, because I +no longer flip. + +The way it works is that every news operation has a “decision desk”. The +decision desk staffers are off-screen analysts, not on-air talent. They call +state-by-state results only with absolute certainty. That absolute certainty +can and usually does come before every single vote in a state has been counted, +but comes after the likely winner is ascertainable beyond a reasonable doubt. +The decision desks make their calls not when the writing appears on the wall, +but when the paint has started to dry. + +They weren’t always so fastidious, because nerve-rackingly close results in +American presidential elections used to be the exception, not the norm. But +after the contentious and almost impossibly close election of 2000, when, on +election night, multiple networks — including Fox News — [18]had projected Al +Gore the winner early in the evening, based on exit polls rather than tabulated +votes, every such major decision desk has become quite rigorous about this, +regardless of the political bent of the network or publication. Rigorous to the +point of almost entirely avoiding controversy. We can see that even now, on +Friday 8 November, as I write this. At the moment, none of the major decision +desks have yet called Arizona or Nevada, despite it being a near-certainty +Trump won both. The only exception I can recall was four years ago, [19]when +Fox News called Arizona for Biden at midnight and the AP followed a few hours +later. Biden did in fact win Arizona, but when Fox and the AP called it for +him, with 80 percent of the state’s ballots counted, Biden was ahead by a +seemingly comfortable 9 percent. By the time all ballots had been counted, days +later, the margin had closed to a whisker-thin 0.3 percent. They were correct, +but by their own standards of rigor were mistaken to call it when they did. +It’s an interesting sign of how independent the Fox News decision desk is, +though, that when they got reckless, it was in Biden’s direction. + +What Steve Kornacki does at MSNBC is make de facto calls without making actual +calls. Or better put, he presents real-time data and context that allows you, +the attentive viewer, to start making calls long before the decision desks +reach their standards of absolute certainty. “You don’t need a weatherman to +know which way the wind blows” goes the Bob Dylan line. Steve Kornacki isn’t +the weatherman. He’s our finger in the air. + +What he does is find telltale counties in important states. A suburb of +Atlanta. A suburb of Charlotte. A suburb of Philadelphia. With, say, half the +vote counted, he might show that Harris is winning 75-25 in that county. That’s +a solidly blue county. A 50-point margin is, you know, good. But then comes the +context. That same county, let’s say, went 80-20 for Biden in 2020, and went +75-25 for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Now that 75-25 margin for Harris doesn’t +look good. It looks like 2016, not like 2020. Or go the other way. Kornacki +finds small rural counties of note. Some red county Trump was certain to win, +but which he was winning this year by margins that looked like those in 2016, +not 2020. + +It’s quite remarkable, Kornacki’s gift. He presents the story, the explanation +of how the election results are going, without ever saying what exactly it is +he is explaining. He shows you just the right trees to give you a sense of the +entire forest. He never says “It looks like Trump is going to win North +Carolina.” He simply presents facts, cold hard facts, that, if you consider +them, explain why it looks like Trump is going to win North Carolina. They are +conclusions left for you, the viewer, to draw. It’s incredibly disciplined. But +he never ever gets ahead of the actual NBC News decision desk. He doesn’t have +to. The way he does what he does, he can’t be wrong. If Kornacki paints a +picture of live data and historical results that indicate that Trump is heading +toward a win in, say, Georgia, hours before any official decision desk call is +made, that’s because the data available up to that point just factually shows +that Trump is on a path to win Georgia. And if something were to happen with +the remaining votes that change that path, he’ll simply present that new data +as it comes in, later in the evening. + +Closely watching Kornacki didn’t mean I knew Trump was going to win early in +the evening. But it meant I knew it sure looked like he was going to. I was +concerned when Florida’s results came in, shortly after their polls closed at +8pm. (Say what you will about their debacle in 2000, but in the aftermath, +Florida got its shit together and now tabulates the entirety of their statewide +vote with remarkable alacrity and promptness.) I of course had no expectation +that Harris might win Florida, but [20]she lost by 13 points. Trump only won +Florida four years ago [21]by 3 points. That swing alone was an ominous early +sign of the nationwide trend. That’s when the pit formed in my stomach. Uh-oh. + +I don’t flip channels but I do of course watch with my phone in hand. The New +York Times’s infamous “needle” lurched sickeningly rightward early. I stopped +looking at it, but not because I thought it was mistaken. Because I knew it was +probably correct. By 10pm or so, it seemed obvious that Harris’s only plausible +path to victory was for three states — Pennsylvania, Michigan, and +Wisconsin — to buck the nationwide trend of red counties getting redder, and +blue counties getting slightly less blue. There was reason for hope, but not +much. It was like “Tom Brady could lead the Patriots to a comeback in the Super +Bowl even though they’re down 28-3 in the third quarter” hope. [22]That +happened, but that’s not how 28-3 football games tend to go. That’s not how +elections tend to go. And it’s not how this one went. At 11:20pm, my friend +Taegan Goddard [23]wrote this lede in a post at Political Wire: “Donald Trump +is now very likely to win re-election. He has the edge in Pennsylvania, +Michigan and Wisconsin — all states Kamala Harris needs to win.” I wasn’t yet +at the point where I’d have put that into such stark words, but I knew they +were true. So it goes. + +I watched MSNBC for another hour, but only with resignation, not hope. I +watched a Harris spokesman take the podium at her stage at Howard University +and tell the nation she wouldn’t be speaking until Wednesday — just like 2016. +I posted [24]one brief item here, commenting only, “Strong déjà vu as +acceptance sets in.” + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +I woke early on Wednesday, at least by my night owl standards. A gut punch is +not a sleep aid. My dad called, just after 9:30am. He seldom calls that early, +knowing my sleep habits. I hadn’t stopped feeling heartsick about his ring. His +voice though, was excited. He’d gone to mass that morning, driven home, and +parked in front of his house. (Still hard for me not to call it their house.) +Same exact spot where he’d parked the night he lost the ring. It’s a one-way +street, and in front of his house, cars park on the left. He opened the car +door and thought to look down, just in case. There it was. His ring. In the +street, between his car and the curb, nestled amidst some dry leaves. It must +have fallen off his finger as he was opening the car door that night, and the +leaves perhaps deadened any clink it might have made hitting the ground. If +that parking spot hadn’t been open again, he wouldn’t have found it then and +there. If it had rained, it would have washed away. + +He said, “John, when I picked that ring up, I kissed it. 52 years I’ve had this +ring on my finger. I thanked St. Anthony, and I thanked your mother. I think +she found it for me.” + +Given the circumstances when I went to bed Tuesday night, it was no surprise I +was welling up with tears come the morning. But I’d never have expected they’d +be tears of joy, with a sense of hope — however diminished — and abiding love +in my heart. + +Previous: [25]It Doesn’t End + +[26][ ] [27][Search] +[28]Display Preferences + +Copyright © 2002–2024 The Daring Fireball Company LLC. + + +References: + +[1] https://daringfireball.net/ +[2] https://daringfireball.net/archive/ +[3] https://daringfireball.net/thetalkshow/ +[4] https://dithering.fm/ +[5] https://daringfireball.net/projects/ +[6] https://daringfireball.net/contact/ +[7] https://daringfireball.net/colophon/ +[8] https://daringfireball.net/feeds/ +[9] https://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/ +[10] https://1password.com/daringfireball +[11] https://1password.com/daringfireball +[12] https://www.threads.net/@gruber/post/DCDGU6bPsJm +[13] https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/11/04/harrison-ford-harris +[14] https://kottke.org/24/11/the-powerful-density-of-hypertextual-writing +[15] https://daringfireball.net/2024/11/kottke_on_the_art_and_power_of_hypertextual_writing +[16] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/11/02/opinion/vote-harris-2024-election.html +[17] https://www.vulture.com/article/steve-kornacki-2024-election-coverage-live-msnbc.html +[18] https://www.npr.org/2018/11/12/666812854/the-florida-recount-of-2000-a-nightmare-that-goes-on-haunting +[19] https://www.npr.org/2020/11/19/936739072/ap-explains-calling-arizona-for-biden-early-before-it-got-very-close +[20] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-elections/florida-president-results +[21] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-elections/florida-president-results/ +[22] https://www.si.com/nfl/2017/02/06/super-bowl-51-falcons-patriots-comeback-overtime-peter-king-nfl +[23] https://politicalwire.com/2024/11/05/where-the-race-stands-now/ +[24] https://daringfireball.net/linked/2024/11/06/overnight-status-check +[25] https://daringfireball.net/2024/11/it_doesnt_end +[28] https://daringfireball.net/preferences/