Sensory Overload Sunday Links

by | Apr 9, 2023 | Daily Links, WebDom’s Browser History | 189 comments

I have many young memories of my mother (SP) yelling at us to quiet down, to eliminate needless noise. She used to chastise us for making noise for the sake of making noise. My baby brother and I were loud for the fuck of it. We seemed to think that if we were quiet, we weren’t being seen, and thus our existences weren’t going to be validated by those around us.

The biggest struggle of my childhood was going to Quaker Meeting where we had to sit in silence for an ENTIRE HOUR. In my earliest memories of this, I must’ve been around six. I remember the first time we went to meeting. It was early Sunday Morning. The night before I had gone to Mass with my father. Mom and I went to the Parish hall and into the back room, which was lined with rich mahogany. There was a circle of folding chairs in the middle of the room. Perhaps a dozen. (The circle is because Quakers believe in all Friends being equal.)

Mom told me to sit my ass on a chair and be quiet and listen for God.

I was (appropriately) terrified of my mother, and followed her instructions to the best of my ability. I stared out the dirty window. I stared at all these old people wondering what on Earth they were doing this for. I remember getting up and walking over to the window and using my finger to draw squiggles in the dirt on the glass.

If my mother were here, I’m sure she would say the first couple meetings were more challenging than I recall. But as time went on, slowly but surely, I learned how to calm my constant need to be seen and heard. I learned to listen for my thoughts. I learned to listen for my intuition. I learned to listen for God, though if He ever showed up, I missed it.

Quaker Meeting was my first introduction to meditation though I was too young to know what that was. By and by I began to understand how to be quiet and how to recognise the value of silence outside of Quaker Meeting.

In my teens I struggled with depression and anxiety. I wasn’t special; I was a teenager. My thoughts became overwhelming, and I lost the ability to change the channel. I lost the power to change my thoughts or turn them off entirely. I turned to music. For several years you couldn’t find me without music playing. My brain follows rhythm and narrative, and it was a strong enough pull to take me out of my thought loops.

After I got married, I had to adjust to someone else’s need for constant noise. My ex husband always had something on…soccer, anime, physics podcasts. If we were in the car, he’d put on Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me. If he was cooking, he was blasting music, Comedy Bang Bang, or Hello From The Magic Tavern.

I finally understood my mother’s need for silence. I finally understood the value of silence and peace. And, it was from this, I finally realised why I’m a night owl. It’s quiet. The energy around me is lower. I’m not constantly trying to block out noise. There’s room for me to exist.

Over the last few years this has developed into full-blown sensory overload. I shower in the dark as I can’t handle the light, the water, and the heat simultaneously. I struggle with random noise. After a long day at the coffee shop I have to sit in silent darkness or I feel like my head will explode. I often fantasise about running away to a monastery or moving to a house in the middle of the woods with no humans anywhere near me.

I’ve been using the Odysound app on iOS for about two months now and I’m in love. Odysound was created by sound engineers in France. The soundscapes are varied, but all of them help me in blocking out the excess noises that inundate me. Often when I’m wearing headphones I am playing a soundscape to help me drown out all the extra noise around me. Here’s a sample on YouTube.

Since I started researching sensory overload and how to handle it, I’ve been getting ads for Loop Earplugs. I can’t bring myself to spend $20+ on earplugs though. If anyone knows if they’re worth it, I’d love to hear about your experience.

Can you think without language?

Archive edition of The Bhagavad Gita

Archive edition of The Notable Breweries of Great Britain and Ireland

Faith appears to be shrinking in Ireland

Massive asteroid

 

About The Author

WebDom

WebDom

WebDom grows Peyote buttons in the vast desert of her mind.

189 Comments

  1. Fourscore

    One can react without language. For example, getting your foot on the brake pedal in an emergency situation. Thinking, however, requires language

  2. Shirley Knott

    If we can’t think without language, how was the first word found/learned/discovered/invented?
    ostensibly, by Barry Engel,and, has suggestive hints, but he unavoidably focuses almost exclusively on the problem of how we learn our first word in a familial/social context. Nonetheless, recommended.
    My own thoughts on the matter turn to rhythm, patterns, and the need to share those things (or ideas) with others. Language is inherently social.

    • UnCivilServant

      I can think in words and pictures. I assume the words are from a more recent patch.

    • Sensei

      Anybody seriously bilingual want to comment?

      At this point I can “think” in Japanese just well enough to have a conversation. But if I’m trying to figure something out or plan something I’m using English. No chance doing a “word problem” in Japanese.

      • Muzzled Woodchipper

        My wife’s family is full of multi-linguals. One question they used to ponder was “What language do you think in?”

        All but one said whatever their native language. The outlier said English.

      • Evan from Evansville

        I’d be curious about Singapore. Everything in public is in English. At home? Malay/Mandarin/Tamil/others dominate the dinner table.

        Teaching English phonics to that mix of kids for 2 years was…a lot of work but very rewarding. And paid well. But DAMN rent is high. And two-year lease with girlfriend…who became by ex after the first year…and we still lived together. Slept in the same bed for months before she met someone else. No sex no drama. AMAZING breakup sex. Hands down the best in my life. DAMN.

    • Zwak tastes the soup, but never counts the beans.

      Chicken, meet Egg. In other words, simultaneous development. As we make sounds that mean something and are repeatable, we process the world around us, and inside of us, in those sounds. And, as we didn’t start off thinking about physics or anything else of that higher thought nature, as we developed the sounds we developed the corresponding ideas.

      • Scruffyy Nerfherder

        *grunts at zwak, throws feces*

  3. Gender Traitor

    Though he was a Unitarian Universalist, the Rev. GT (the previous Mr. GT) attended a Friends seminary and spent three years as a residence hall advisor at the affiliated college. He was once invited to deliver a sermon/homily at the campus’s semi-programmed Weekly Meeting for Worship. The silent portion of the meeting followed, and as I recall, no one spoke out of the silence. I – and he – worried that he had “bombed,” but afterward someone remarked to him quite favorably about how “deep” the silence had been. 🙂

    • UnCivilServant

      I’m lost. Was the silence some regular thing?

      • UnCivilServant

        Sorry, I’m not awake. Didn’t make the connect.

      • Gender Traitor

        No worries.

        Another interesting experience from that time: attending a Friends wedding that was almost entirely unprogrammed (silent.) At that event, several people DID feel moved to speak out of the silence with words for the happy couple, and all the attendees signed the marriage license/certificate as “officiants” (or at least as witnesses.)

  4. Fourscore

    “The grown ups are talking”

    /My mother

    “Tell those kids to shut up”

    /My Dad

    • Drake

      Every Mom and Dad in my generation.

  5. hayeksplosives

    Good morning, WebDom!

    I am right with you on sound and the value of silence, but I can’t relate to the extreme sensory overload and need to be in the dark.

    One of the best things about living alone in my new tiny apartment is not having to listen to my husband’s music or YouTube constantly.

    I used to go outside for sanctuary, but sometimes then he’d join me, always with a $&!@$ Bluetooth speaker in tow, thus ruining my quiet float on the pool or sitting by the fire with a book.

    Now I can decompress in silence after work.

    I do enjoy touch sensations so I bought a ridiculously good massage chair. I suppose for some it’d be sensory overload, but I love it!

    Have a great day, WebDom and fellow Glibs! Happy Easter.

    • Ted S.

      I do enjoy touch sensations

      Relevant

      • Shirley Knott

        I has a disappoint. Was expecting this.

      • Ted S.

        I was going to go with this.

      • Tres Cool

        You both disappoint. I was expecting this.

      • Sean

        Same.

        Bunch of weirdos around here…

      • The Hyperbole

        I’m just thankful none of you jerks posted The Doors, it’s an Easter miricle!

      • The Hyperbole

        Also, at the risk of doing a racism of some sort, is that midget in the Bloodhound gang video the midget from game of thrones?

      • Shirley Knott

        You’re just now noticing that? That’s weird.

      • Shirley Knott

        Well, there’s always this. Best selling album ever in Lansing/East Lansing until Carly Simon hit.

    • EvilSheldon

      One of the most wonderful things about wilderness backpacking is the lower overall level of noise. Not absolute silence, but a lower level of ambient noise. I’ve been missing that lately.

      • PudPaisley

        100%. I do a lot of winter hiking / snowshoeing, including all day hikes. I used to listen to a book or podcast on the hikes, but one day I just never hooked up the earbuds. Since then, I almost never listen to anything.

      • Count Potato

        It’s also good to have situational awareness.

      • Fourscore

        That’s why I like fishing/hunting alone

      • Tundra

        Yup. My daily walks I usually listen to something, but my hikes in the mountains never, ever.

      • Zwak tastes the soup, but never counts the beans.

        Light also. The sheer level of brightness we get in town/home is such a contrast to the ambient light of the stars and moon.

    • Zwak tastes the soup, but never counts the beans.

      “One of the best things about living alone in my new tiny apartment is not having to listen to my husband’s music or YouTube constantly.”

      I love my wife dearly, but I do kinda miss just the silence of not having a TV going all the time. She, like many others likes it for background noise, but I would rather music or silence.

      This is why I get up at 5am.

  6. rhywun

    we had to sit in silence for an ENTIRE HOUR

    Please someone send some Quakers to my downstairs neighbors. I would not have thought it possible for children to maintain constant fighting and screaming for hours at a time but it’s real.

  7. juris imprudent

    I appreciate quiet. Mrs JI is the opposite – she likes audial clamor, TV blaring while she’s paying primary attention to something on the internet. Perhaps this goes with the difference in being an introvert versus and extrovert?

    • UnCivilServant

      So you’re an extrovert?

      I need some form of background noise to drown out the quiet.

    • Shirley Knott

      I need music playing pretty much every waking minute. Only real exceptions are watching copied TV shows or movies. I use Rain Rain at night to help me sleep.
      It’s probably an addiction. I don’t care.

      • Zwak tastes the soup, but never counts the beans.

        You have earned it.

    • rhywun

      I’m an introvert and I need the background noise – my TV generally runs all day unless I’m listening to music or working.

      • juris imprudent

        Hmm okay, so this doesn’t correlate at all.

      • UnCivilServant

        My hypothesis is that it’s more correlated to the noise level a person grew up with. My home was never quiet.

      • rhywun

        Hm, same here.

      • Zwak tastes the soup, but never counts the beans.

        The wife grew up out in the country as an only child. So, that doesn’t correlate either.

    • Zwak tastes the soup, but never counts the beans.

      My wife is the introvert, and she is the one who needs the TV going for background noise. I am the extrovert, and I am very OK with silence.

      • Muzzled Woodchipper

        One might hypothesize that introverts need the noise so we can have a feeling that we are not alone. I don’t think it’s that introverts don’t like people, but that we simply don’t know how to deal with them. At least that’s for me. I’d love the invitations from some people to hang out, and I do try when I occasionally receive them, but it’s fucking hard to pretend you can interact like a normal person for very long.

      • Michael Malaise

        I am an introvert, and I am usually okay with either. However, at parties or when we have company over and there are loud people talking a lot, I find myself excusing myself for a bit of a respite either outside or somewhere else in the house.

  8. TARDis

    Didymos spewing actual rocks into space.

    So they’re saying there’s still hope? Bring it Didy.

    ::prays silently

  9. robodruid

    I enjoy my morning silence.
    It allows me to think, read, and plan my day.
    WHen I am outside, i like to listen to words. Podcasts like Critical Role/NADPOD or Survival Podcast (Jack Spirco)
    Motivates me to work.

    Its been a beautiful sunrise.
    Thank you all for being here, Glib’s has been my lifeline for the crazy of the past years.

  10. juris imprudent

    Great music choice this morning! And is Ringo in a contest with Keith Richards – except he doesn’t look as rough. Oh, and if you just let it play, another great song – The Grifter’s Hymnal!

    • Grosspatzer

      Ringo has clearly made a deal with the devil. I look at him and think, how the fuck is that guy older than me?

  11. Ted S.

    When you enjoy the silence, do you find your personal Jesus?

    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      That’s just a blasphemous rumor.

  12. Grumbletarian

    Asteroids may have mass, but they often lack density because their gravitational pull is still very weak. Doesn’t surprise me that a fast spinning asteroid spews pieces of itself, although how it would have gathered the initial mass strikes me as curious.

    • Tres Cool

      Do you know who else spewed pieces of himself ?

      • Scruffyy Nerfherder

        The local leper?

      • Grosspatzer

        Peter North?

    • Grosspatzer

      Sure, if you leave out the fifth commandment.

    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      New Orleans isn’t on the list. Seems suspect to me.

    • rhywun

      number of fast-food restaurants per capita

      wut

      • Dr. Fronkensteen

        A measure of gluttony. I don’t vouch for the methodology. Just a fun exercise.

      • rhywun

        Probably more a measure of poor people.

        There is nothing specifically gluttonous about fast food.

  13. Don escaped Texas

    In the Scouting world around 15 years ago I noticed that the rich suburban types in northern Texas hit the trail almost screaming.

    In my Scouting world well over 40 years ago, we were outdoorsmen before joining, half of whom were serious hunters even at eleven. We of west Tennessee hit the trail with conspiratorial quietude: the common sense and urge to not spook so we could see wildlife was natural and unspoken.

    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      Ugh…

      I can’t stand loud hikers.

      Campers I give a little leeway to, but making a lot of noise on the trail is annoying at best (unless you’re in bear country).

      • TARDis

        I can’t stand loud hikers people. Especially the ones who think every word that comes out of their mouths is hilarious and they have to laugh at it.

      • Fourscore

        Scratches Kamala off Tardis’ friends list

      • JaimeRoberto (carnitas/spicy salsa)

        I don’t understand people who go hiking with a speaker.

      • Zwak tastes the soup, but never counts the beans.

        I went on a long trip, god, 40 years ago now. I was so happy even as a 12 yo when he ran out of batteries.

      • DEG

        I encountered that only once. It was in North Carolina. It was… weird.

      • The Last American Hero

        For me, this is the ultimate test in whether I believe in the non-aggression principle.

      • Muzzled Woodchipper

        There is one sort I can tolerate, and even this should be done as quietly as possible.

        Those who use nature as inspiration to make music. It needn’t be good music to be valid art, but I think the ability to pursue art is a natural right, and nature is the OG muse. This is definitely a thing amongst the modular synth community. They’ll bring a small rig out with portable battery power, and make music while sitting by a stream or some shit. Probably high as balls too.

      • Don escaped Texas

        My Friday foursome includes two golfers who listen to music the rest of the week during their play. My best friend and I are near purists: pushing 60, we walk, we carry our clubs, and we want natural quiet during play.

  14. Mojeaux

    My husband and I cannot share an office space. He wants to chat during working hours. To me, not his colleagues. I cannot abide office chatter while I’m working. I’ve gotten to the point I can’t even abide music while I’m working, not even lofi chill beats or soundscapes. I don’t know what happened between my math + metal == A days of my youth, but while I’m working, no noise.

    NOW. While I am relaxing or cleaning, I MUST have some noise to drown out the voices in my head bringing up every bone-headed cringe thing I ever did and torturing me with them. This is usually TV or podcasts.

    Lastly, I think in pictures, not words. However, sometimes to remember things/people I need to know how they’re spelled.

    • Drake

      My need for background noise is more based on drowning out the tinnitus than my inner voice.

      • Mojeaux

        Mine isn’t that bad yet that I need it in the daytime. I do occasionally need soundscapes for that when I’m trying to go to sleep.

    • Rebel Scum

      There is constant banter in my office. I’m not a people person but I enjoy that while working.

      • Zwak tastes the soup, but never counts the beans.

        I actually miss that being retired. Working from home would kill me.

    • Michael Malaise

      Ha. I cannot work at home when my wife is off (she works in a lab so she cannot work from home thank godness)

      It’s like I’m off, too, and have nothing to do. No, but I do!

  15. Sean

    Prime rib is in the oven.

  16. Drake

    Animals can definitely think without spoken language. Lions can coordinate an ambush, sheepdogs can efficiently round up a flock…

    The language we think has to have some influence on what we think. When the militarized police come to haul Americans away in the middle of the night they might say “your violating my rights!”. Those words and concepts don’t even exist in some languages (Chinese I’m told).

    Reading The Untethered Soul right now. Much of it is about the constant inner conversation most of us are constantly having – and getting control of that inner voice. I wonder if you are thinking without language – is there no inner voice bugging you?

    • Zwak tastes the soup, but never counts the beans.

      Tulpa is always on my case.

      And I am not kidding about that. He wakes me up at 2am, and it takes hours sometimes to talk him down and fall out again. I blame the peeing.

      • Fourscore

        It doesn’t get any better either. I get a lot of exercise at night but usually go back to sleep quickly

      • Zwak tastes the soup, but never counts the beans.

        Yeah, I figured that was the case.

  17. Old Man With Candy
    • Timeloose

      Jesus Christ has risen, that is one of the best cartoons ever. When he makes butt cheek prints in the snow as he runs away from the cabin, hilarious.

      I remember watching this with four of my friends as kids. I still think it is hilarious.

    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      Heidi seems to be embracing the pagan spirit of the holiday.

    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      My first reaction was that there are two animals in the foreground.

    • rhywun

      I got it but there’s no proof that is a “deer”.

      Dumb.

    • R C Dean

      I focused on that bit right away, but it looks absolutely nothing like a deer (specifically, antlers).

      • rhywun

        It took me a while because I was expecting, you know, a complete deer. Not some squiggles.

        And yeah, the “antlers” are wrong.

    • Zwak tastes the soup, but never counts the beans.

      Everyone’s a winner! Seriously, that was easy.

    • creech

      Would you rather be in the 2 percent genius crowd or the 1 percent rich crowd? (No choosing “both.”)

      • Count Potato

        At this point in my life, the 1%

  18. Grummun

    Massive as…

    Paging Tres Cool

    teroid

    never mind.

    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      These are the same people who decry manners and civility as aspects of white supremacy.

  19. Count Potato

    Great thread here:

    “Want to know why Bud Light is teamed up with Dylan Mulvaney? It’s not hard to explain…

    If the HRC came to Anheuser-Busch and told them to celebrate Dylan, and they said no, that would be failing “responsible citizenship” and points would be deducted. The Corporate Equality Index is an extortion racket that makes corporations do these things.

    Anheuser-Busch has been very interested in maintaining a perfect CEI for several years.

    There truly is very little mystery to this, which makes it frustrating to see so many prominent people who think they know how this stuff works completely clueless to it. They’re under the threat of a mafia, like every major corporation in the ESG economy.

    Anheuser-Busch was already completely captured by this indexing racket in 2008, which is the same year Open Society Foundation gave the HRC a three-year $25M grant.

    Transgender activists have been using the Corporate Equality Index to manipulate corporations for the better part of two decades. Dylan Mulvaney is just the tip of the iceberg….”

    https://twitter.com/ConceptualJames/status/1643411107208474624

    • Scruffyy Nerfherder

      They all do it in order to retain access to the capital markets controlled by Vanguard, Blackrock, State Street, etc…

      • Timeloose

        Sounds like a parent paying the local kids to play with their weird kid. The kids will take their money, but they will only be friends for as long as the free pizza and video games are rolling in.

        In the end all will be resentful and nothing will change.

      • Zwak tastes the soup, but never counts the beans.

        Nailed it.

      • prolefeed

        Seems like losing market share ought to be a bigger driver of their decision making than caving to some leftist DoublePlusGoodthinker index. Doubt their core customers have even heard of this index, much less make beer buying decisions on anything other than cost.

    • rhywun

      Corporate Equality Index

      Was not aware of this abomination. But yes, makes sense.

      • Scruffyy Nerfherder

        All of this bullshit is downstream of an easy money policy from the Fed.

        While ending that won’t immediately solve all of these problems, it will slow it down. If InBev is staring at bankruptcy, they won’t be that worried about their equality initiatives.

      • TARDis

        In the beginning of program, I think they used to call it being a “good corporate citizen”.

        This only gets worse until there are helicopter rides to the volcanos.

    • The Other Kevin

      Makes sense. But we’ll see how successful these companies are when they prioritize ESG over customers.

    • Sensei

      My company has achieved 100% on this list without this Bud Light levels of crazy.

      • rhywun

        *tap tap tap*

        My company is not listed. Maybe because we are private?

        But the point above about “If HRC asks you to do this” seems accurate. It is not easy to say “I don’t want to wear the ribbon.”

      • Sensei

        I don’t disagree.

        But it seems like Bud volunteered to lead the way on the insanity here.

      • Zwak tastes the soup, but never counts the beans.

        Seems the bigger the company, the more likely they are to attract this kind of notice.

      • rhywun

        Yeah, I believe Bud was targeted for the insanity.

        What they can’t do in current year is say “No.”

      • Zwak tastes the soup, but never counts the beans.

        Well, they can. We all can, and we all need to. It just takes courage, which is sorely lacking.

      • Grosspatzer

        Not listed, we are probably too small. But I am certain we’ll score 110 if/when we get on the list.

      • rhywun

        I suspect mine would get around 50% at best. We don’t go all out for any of this. We did recently get the usual DEI person but there is absolutely no pressure to pay any attention.

      • rhywun

        That’s headless torso in topless bar level classic.

  20. prolefeed

    * Laying on the bed with Mrs Prole, who is trying to have a Serious Conversation *

    * Slide my hand under her belt and panties *

    Mrs P: “What are you doing?”

    Me: “Squeezing your booty.”

    Mrs P: “Trying to have a conversation here!”

    Me: “I can multitask.”

    * Later, still squeezing her butt *

    Mrs P: “What if your sister asks you to take your mom in if she can’t care for herself?”

    Me: “That’s a big ask.”

    Mrs P: “What!!”

    Hastily: “A big asK. A-S-K. Not A-S-S.”

    Mrs P: “Good recovery.”

  21. Timeloose

    I wear a full helmet and ear plugs when I ride my motorcycle. The purpose is two fold. First you remove most of the wind and bike noise that can lead to fatigue and create a white background noise, secondly you amplify you own actual and mental voice in you head.

    If you are only thinking about how to approach, execute, and exit the next turn or what you see in your environment that could be a threat or is beautiful, you shut off thinking about job, relationship, money, or health problems..

    In the winter I focus or “obsess” depending if you talk to me or Mrs. Time on some project. To accomplish the same thing.

    I can keep a quiet mind much more easily when there is some level of noise outside.

    Music of a certain type allows me the same level of focus. Usually noise or drone.

    This is my meditation

  22. The Other Kevin

    I’m sure you can think without language. I do it all the time when I’m drawing and painting. I think in shapes or colors and don’t bother with words.

    • Michael Malaise

      I thought this too, but those colors have words attached to them in language. I wonder if that counts.

  23. Zwak tastes the soup, but never counts the beans.

    A while back my wife and I watched two BBC shows back to back: Victorian Farm, and Edwardian farm. A couple archeologists and historians spent time on a working historical farm, just to gain perspective on the whole thing, and the biggest take away was the sheer level of quiet in the Victorian age vs, the Edwardian, as that is what the steam driven tractor became common, and industrialization of the countryside started.

  24. PieInTheSky

    Easter is next weak ya bunch of heretics

    • Tundra

      We’ll celebrate both if you like.

  25. The Other Kevin

    As I get older I’m more and more aware of how much I like being alone. Kind of the same vein as sensory overload, but people overload. I work from home but even that can be exhausting, because we still have slack messages and zoom meetings.

  26. DEG

    My ex husband always had something on…soccer, anime, physics podcasts.

    Sounds like my dad who can’t function unless the TV is on and turned up to full blast.

    The song is good.

    Happy Easter!

  27. PieInTheSky

    I find the noise of the city more and more annoying and stressful as time goes by. Sadly I like the amenities of the city to much. The problem with agglomeration benefits is the fucking people.

    • Timeloose

      I don’t live in the country and I don’t live in a city. When I lived in a city for a bit it began to wear on me. The non regular noises of bus and car brakes, crazy people yelling, horn honks and avoiding people on the sidewalk.

      • creech

        I know exactly what you mean.

  28. PieInTheSky

    Children Are Not Property The idea that underlies the right-wing campaign for “parents’ rights.”
    Portrait of Sarah Jones By Sarah Jones, senior writer for Intelligencer

    https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/04/children-are-not-property.html

    “It’s possible to draw a line between Wobbema’s remarks, the push for child labor, and the right’s attacks on trans children. In each case, conservatives betray a conviction that a child is the property of parents. Because parents own their children, they can dispose of the child as they see fit. They can deny them evidence-based medical care. They can put a child to work. They can make sure a child is sheltered from the dangers of a serious education. When a child goes hungry, that’s because a parent isn’t caring for their property — and what a person does with their property is their right.

    Like any piece of property, a child has value to conservative activists. They are key to a future the conservative wants to win. Parental rights are merely one path to the total capture of state power and the imposition of an authoritarian hierarchy on us all. So it’s no surprise that children have long been a fixation to the right wing. “

    • CPRM

      Because parents own their children, they can dispose of the child as they see fit.

      Wait, the crazy right wingers are pro-abortion?

    • The Other Kevin

      The idea that kids pop out 100% formed and capable of making life altering decisions explains a lot.

    • Zwak tastes the soup, but never counts the beans.

      |the dangers of a serious education

      That ain’t coming from the left. Did Johnathon Chait write this? ‘Cause that is his level of stupid. Nope? Well, the stupid is spreading.

    • Count Potato

      Is she lying or insane?

      • Gender Traitor

        Not mutually exclusive.

      • Count Potato

        True, but a person can be one without the other.

      • Zwak tastes the soup, but never counts the beans.

        And. Embrace the healing power of And.

      • Rebel Scum

        Yes.

        And curious use of the word “dispose” since it is leftists that are the baby killers.

    • rhywun

      evidence-based medical care

      Um… no, it actually isn’t.

      The rest of that unintelligent drivel is barely worth commenting on.

      • Count Potato

        It gets worse.

        “State laws passed by conservative Republicans have made LGBTQ children in particular more vulnerable to abuse at home by practically requiring schools to out them to their parents. The denial of gender-affirming care is another act of violence. Far-right activists invent tales of wanton surgeries on minors and irreversible hormonal treatments. In doing so, they obscure the high suicide rate among LGBT youth who need gender-affirming care as a matter of life or death.”

      • Zwak tastes the soup, but never counts the beans.

        Wow. The chickens are chasing the eggs around today.

      • Rebel Scum

        So much wrong in such a short paragraph.

      • R C Dean

        “The denial of gender-affirming care is another act of violence.“

        Violence is another word the leftists are highjacking. It demands a response, as in “No, a law banning transgender surgery and hormone treatments is not an act of violence. You know this, so stop lying.“

      • Rebel Scum

        “Evidence-based” is the new “stated without evidence”.

    • cavalier973

      That’s some grade-A projection, the likes of which I’ve not seen in a while.

    • Gustave Lytton

      conservativesleftists betray a conviction that a childeveryone is the property of parentssocietygovernment

  29. CPRM

    I don’t know the sound of silence. I’ve had tinnitus as long as I can remember. I don’t need a lot of loud noise, but I need something. That is usually a fan.

    • Rebel Scum

      “Greg Abbott also said he strongly supports a bill requiring DA’s to present exculpatory evidence.”

      I was under the impression that the universal standard was for the defense to have access to this.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        It’s cawled discloshuh!

      • Count Potato

        She was so adorable.

      • R C Dean

        Perhaps the bill will impose penalties on prosecutors who fail to do so. Civil penalties would probably have to do, since prosecutors aren’t going to go after each other.

  30. Tundra

    Happy Easter!

  31. The Last American Hero

    My bandmates use loops and love them. They drop the decibels without impacting the pitch/tone. If that’s what you would use them for, they are a strong recommendation.
    I opt for the Hearos plugs that go for about $15 or so. Nicer than the shitty construction plugs but not as pricey as other options.

  32. Zwak tastes the soup, but never counts the beans.

    Around noon today, the wife and I are going to look at… no, who am I kidding, we are going to adopt two more cats. 14 weeks old and brothers. We lost our oldest cat two weeks ago, and we seem to be in an adopting mood. Having gone from having mostly older pets, and having them all go to the pastures of heaven in fairly short order, seemingly, we are going back to the well. In the last few years we have adopted two other cats, also brothers, and a little, very hyper dog. Pictures will be forthcoming.

    My house is turning into Zwak’s Ark.

    • Rebel Scum

      The two times I visited the SPCA resulted in two cats. That’s plenty. And yet the gf sometimes wants to go “just to look”. To which I respond “wait until one dies”.

    • hayeksplosives

      Aww…looking forward to pics.

      Not sure if cats are in my future. Probably in a couple of years if my company is still around and I get a bigger place. For now, it’s just me.

    • Rebel Scum

      Grade A bullshit coming from the fake Christian fake president in the White House.

    • Timeloose

      One is insincere and the other is shit posting.

      Why can’t both loose.

    • Ted S.

      Carly Simon, of course.

    • Zwak tastes the soup, but never counts the beans.

      If you’re gonna video your self in your chones, check for skid marks.

      This has been a Public Service Announcement.

  33. The Late P Brooks
  34. cavalier973

    Jesus’s disciples did not believe that He rose from the dead. Even after Jesus appeared to them, they didn’t believe. Part of the reason may be that Jesus looked different; several passages have disciples not recognizing Him, until at the end of the Gospel of John, at the appearance on the beach, it says nobody asked who He was, because they knew it was Jesus, which is a weird statement to make. Perhaps it was still dark, and they couldn’t see Jesus very well. A common assumption is that they were supernaturally prevented from recognizing that it was Jesus.

    It’s rather bold for the Gospel writers to throw heavy hints that the guy the disciples saw after the crucifixion may not have been the same guy that was crucified. The Gospel writers go on to say, “yeah, it was really Jesus”, but why the mystery?

    The late Chuck Missler suggested that Jesus looked different because His beard had been ripped out; people look different when they have beards, and there may have been some facial scarring, as well.

  35. Count Potato

    “Intelligence leaks surrounding who blew up most of the Russian-backed Nord Stream pipelines last September have provided more questions than answers. It may be in no one’s interest to reveal more.”

    https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1644294009018363906

    OFFS!!

    • rhywun

      It may be in no one’s not be in our interest to reveal more

      FTFY

  36. KSuellington

    Happy Easter all. I don’t know about those earplugs Webdom, but I use the Vital HD ones that are a similar design and they are great. They take out the high frequencies really well and are especially good for bringing down the decibals without much altering the sound if that is a concern of yours. . I damaged the fuck out of my ears by years of playing in bands, going to shows and power tools. Wish I had been more mindful of the damage I was doing as now I have constant tinnitus and hearing loss.

    Speaking of shows, went to see Tommy Guerrero last night at a classic SF venue, Bimbo’s 365 Club. Excellent sounds there, not too loud and very balanced. Tommy put on a great show, I dig every album he has put out. Hard to classify his music but Latin surf rock jazz seems to be about right.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUdh75fpa_8

  37. The Late P Brooks

    Value destruction

    This year, shareholders filed around 540 proposals as of mid-February asking companies to address environmental, social and corporate governance issues, according to Proxy Preview. Resolutions focused on climate change accounted for about a quarter of this year’s total, with the number increasing by about 12% from the same point in 2022.

    Investors want to know how companies are contributing to rising temperatures, and what they’re doing about the problem. They’re calling for executives and corporate boards to set targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, and then to report on their progress. And they want to know how businesses plan to keep making money as industries are reshaped by the push to cut emissions.

    The message to companies is, “set targets, issue plans, give us clear disclosure,” says Kirsten Snow Spalding, who leads investor initiatives at Ceres, a nonprofit focused on sustainability. “And all of it is about, how are you addressing the risks and moving towards the opportunities?”

    Gosh, Kirsten, why don’t you start an engineering firm and create viable solutions instead of heckling from the peanut gallery?

    Your wishcasting and appeals to magic don’t put money in the pockets of actual returns-focused investors. But that doesn’t really concern you, does it?

    • rhywun

      TIL that brainwashing works.

    • Michael Malaise

      540/millions is what percentage?

  38. creech

    Koepka or Rahm?

    • Grosspatzer

      Sorenstam

      • creech

        I once held a door for her and didn’t recognize her other than as a nice looking blond.

  39. Count Potato

    “”The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”

    Well, if that’s the case, why don’t we just replace all our fire extinguishers with flamethrowers?”

    https://twitter.com/davidhogg111/status/1644880673071661056

    Sheer genius.

    • Grosspatzer

      I’m thinking of getting a flamethrower. Here in NJ they are probably easier to get (legally) than firearms.

    • KSuellington

      A much better analogy is that Hogg and his cohorts would like to ban the private use of fire extinguishers and only allow the licensed professionals to have them.