Personal


Some vandalism and a look at the MAGA mindset 3

My rear windshield has a decal with the text, “My cat is smarter than your president.” On Monday I noticed that several letters were no longer on the windshield. Some were still on the car, in the gap between the windshield and the trunk lid. Given that so many letters came off at once, It was most likely vandalism. I don’t think any of my neighbors did it. The day before, I parked in a large public lot in Massachusetts for several hours. Most likely it happened then, and I didn’t notice till the next day.

Windshield sticker with missing letters indicated by brackets: "My [c]a[t] is sm[art]e[r] than your president"
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A strange experience on Bluesky

I maintain the @filknews account on Bluesky, which is a manually maintained mirror of the one on Mastodon. It includes reports of upcoming conventions, online filksings, and other things of interest to filkers. This morning I got an email saying:

A Bluesky account you control has been assessed as a spammy, fake, or inauthentic account. Your account was reviewed by Bluesky content moderators and was found to be in violation of our Community Guidelines. As a result, your account has been taken down.
 
As a reminder, Bluesky requires that users not use Bluesky to do harm to others, including spamming, phishing or otherwise using technical means to disrupt the Bluesky experience for other users.

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Now on Bandcamp: Beacons in the Darkness

My latest album, Beacons in the Darkness, is now available on Bandcamp. It’s a living-room album, and I make no great claims for my vocal abilities, so payment is optional. It’s the songs themselves which I think have some interest. The title track, a secular solstice song, is one of my best songs, and it’s on the album in both English and German. Album cover for Beacons in the Darkness. Picture of a lighthouse. Text: Beacons in the Darkness / Songs by Gary McGath. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eiger%C3%B8y_fyrstasjon_28.09.2015_Super_m%C3%A5neform%C3%B8rkelse.jpg

You can find my other albums, likewise on a payment-optional basis, at garymcgath.bandcamp.com.


Several of my blog posts have criticized codes of conduct at fan-run conventions. Good ones, though, are valuable. A provision most of them have is that if people want you to leave them alone, you leave them alone.

I may have reason to remind someone of this provision in the near future, though I hope it won’t be necessary. That’s all I have to say.