Oh thank you Ellen for telling us that it’s so much better for you when you took off and left. Those of us lessers who didn’t have the foresite to have enough money to pick up and flee the country now know so much better.

Get fucked.

Fahrenheit 451 is probably my most read book, but then again I grew up in a house where there was a Bradbury book laying around almost always within arms reach. I’ve always said when Bradbury writes, it’s almost poetry, and creates that pacing like where you say the internal audio speeds up and slows down. Of what I’ve called the “dystopian trilogy” of 1984, Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451, it seems that one is the least read and I feel is definitely one more people should read because it really looks less on the government and more on the people themselves… and it’s frankly frightening.

But, I feel often Bradbury was an optimist. Unlike many, while Fahrenheit 451 is one of the dystopian novels, it does have hope written into it as well.

Complete aside, my dad was a firefighter, and as I said, I was raised on Bradbury due to him. There’s an artist who made clay dragons, many were incense burners. I saw one where it’s a dragon reading a book, and the incense would come out from its nostrils and pour over the book. I said I’d need to get one for my dad that had Fahrenheit 451 as the book, the artist hadn’t read it before. The next week she had read it, and made one of these dragons where it’s wearing a fire helmet with the 451 on the shield, and the book he’s reading is Dante’s Inferno, and instead of the smoke coming from the nostrils, the hole is hidden by the book so the pages would look like they’re smoking. She caught the feeling of the book with that one, so that’s one of those that has been most prominently on display at my dad’s house since I got it.

They’ll put 2 and 2 together and get whatever the GOP tells them. They don’t think. They won’t think. If Trump gets bad they’ll dump him, but then go for the next one. I live in a red state where we voted in some worker rights, but people still had to vote for that R… and now that the workers rights are being taken away, the republicans are still mouthing the party line of “It’s bad for business” even when they voted for it.

Honestly I think the big thing is we’re every day spiraling to Fahrenheit 451. Sure the government at top is doing it now, but these have been calls from the people for years. Beatty’s speech, the villain monologue, feels more and more pertinent.

That said, Internet exists so I’m pretty sure the blues in the red will still have access.

Access is one thing, the stories that’s actually pertinent to the people is another.

I live in one of those areas where the local NPR stations run stories for the local farming communities, the things that will make a LOT of difference for the people around, the investigative journalism for things that come up for this area. When doing online news… you get a lot of the coasts. One of those local stations is VERY in danger of shutting down with this.

Oh well. I know my local station is going to be okay, those out there, it’s gonna suck for them. I’ll keep saying it, I’ll feel bad for those that voted against it, you have my condolences as we all live in this shitshow together. But those that voted for or didn’t bother to vote that get affected by this, well I’ll just take the consolation prize of shaudenfruede

375 miles away from spawn point, but my tutorial zone (where I actually grew up) was 215 miles away from there and 215 miles away from my current home point.

I lived in the city of my birth for a bit for a job, fucking hated that city, it was never home. Lived off and on where I grew up, and now have lived in my current for about 10 years.

Where I grew up is a complicated feeling. I miss the Ozark mountains, the flatlands I live in now I don’t like despite liking the city. But the area has changed so much and so rapidly it’s like coming to the bones of an animal where nature has rapidly overtaken the body and saying that’s the animal. It’s… recognizable if you squint at it, but it’s dead and gone and now something completely different.

I’m not sure if where I live now is “home” still. But if where I grew up was home, I can never go back there. I can live in that place, but the farming town is now a metro that is unrecognizable.

Fuck that, the lost causers who fell for the southern side of the civil war has been marching this path for over a century. Putin was certainly willing to give us a push out the window but we as a country were half hanging out of it already.

Went to college, roommates were introverts who ate in rooms because my college didn’t have dorms, so just apartments where a bunch of us had spread out. I think the most I ate with others was lunches where there were a lot of people in a student lounge, but that’s one of those not anyone eating together, just where everyone cycled in and out and whoever happened to be eating was eating there.

But being commuter college means that lunch was the only time the dining hall was open so otherwise, pretty much eating on own 90% of the time.

I mean… through the 18-24 area, I pretty much ate every meal alone.

Still do at 38.

The base of true MAGA believers isn’t that big, but those that vote R no matter who is on the ticket is FAR larger when you live in the midwest or the south.

The only reason Missouri has anyone in congress that’s not a Republican is because of cities… and if they could figure out how to get rid of them, they’d do the same. And I know the commentary will come up on gerrymandering, but when it comes to state level elections there isn’t the gerrymandering problem and yet people still vote Republican overwhelmingly in the state.

And there it is. In my own state I keep hearing how medicaid cuts will get people to see the light, no it fucking won’t. These people are so deep in the cult they won’t get out no matter how much they’re fucked.

I mean, yes, but no, it’s actually worse.

On the federal level, yes, that’s exactly in the case. But the Missouri AG was not put in by the fed, instead elected by the state, who also elected any other fuckwit with an ® next to their name, despite going after the very bills that the state voted on saying we didn’t know what we’re voting for.

Our state is filled with a bunch of fuckwits who keep voting for progressive policies across the whole state, yet can’t vote for anyone that doesn’t have an ® next to their name and are consistently shocked when their ballot measures get pulled.

Yea, when I moved up here, KC called Kansas “Brownbeckistan” then he got pulled and now Kansas is the “Progressive” state over Missouri…

And that’s with y’all having a veto-proof Republican majority in the legislative branch… holy hell.

God our AG is a fuckwit.

I live in Missouri.

Not gonna argue with you.

See, I’ll drive for the most part, because to add on to my bitching about public transportation.

One time had to go to a place for work training. It was 12 hours away. I wanted to drive, company says no, they have me tickets.

It took me 14 hours to get back home from what was a 12 hour car drive. And flying always ends with me pissed off.

So it’s all just absolute shite.

Once Kansas City had apparently a fantastic streetcar. Then the car companies bought it up and tore out the rails. Now we’re getting a streetcar being built again but it’s just doing downtown on one street. I’m not near the streetcar.

So I drive to work. It’s 12 miles, about 30 minutes (or 20 miles, 30 minutes if I take interstate around the city… honestly this city is weird, EVERYTHING is 30 minutes away.) If I wanted to take the bus, the shortest time frame would be 1 hr 35 minutes… not including that I’d have to get halfway there to get to the first bus stop.

Cities… if I wanted to take the train, I can go to Chicago for relatively cheap using Amtrak… but gotta plan that 3 months in advance, and the 8 hour ride we HOPE doesn’t get extended because Amtrak doesn’t own the rails it’s on. Flipside, driving is 8 hours. Other cities, St. Louis, Wichita, basically I have two train lines, one in state, and one cross country. If I want to go to Denver… it’s not happening.

So to answer your question, I want you to try to imagine how bad you think our public transportation is. Then lower your expectations.

It is.

Why do you think they’re trying to make one legal and the other not?

100% with you on that one. I’m told that I need to be considerate to them when they start learning the errors of their ways because then they might be allies.

Fuck that. I’ve lived in red states all my life, they hurt and they “turn over a new leaf” for a second, then the second a Democrat has the gall to help them out of the hole they scream communist then go running to the person worse than the last.

I’m done, I’ll help those around me that I can to try to cut down the suffering… but if they voted for this or stayed home, they can rot for all I care.