Known Plaintext

For the last few years I've been making life updates over at Facebook (and to a slightly lesser extent Google+), mostly because of the network effects.  There are a lot of people there; it's an easy way to reach a decently large audience.

Unfortunately, most of the social networks are for the most part ruled by people who believe reason and education are against their religious convictions.  The level of discourse is so de minimis that it staggers my imagination.  My average post there is about three paragraphs, and is longer than 99% of the stuff in my feed.  I don't know how to function in that environment, much less thrive.

So, it's back here, at least as an emergency measure.  For God's sake, won't you please make me think?

Some brief updates:

• My nephew shot himself in the foot with a shotgun in late December.  He's keeping the foot but has a long rehabilitation ahead of him.  Whether he's learned anything about the importance of proper firearms safety remains to be seen.
• I almost died in a fire in December, when my upstairs neighbors decided to extinguish hot fireplace coals by bagging them and putting them on the balcony, thinking the winter weather would quench the coals.  Needless to say the bag was paper and the balcony made of creosote-impregnated wood.
• My Uncle Lou died sometime in the night between January 5 and January 6.
• I turned 42 the morning of January 6.  The celebration was short-lived.

Anyway.  Talk to me.  Make me think.  Or if you can't make me think, just speak up and let me know you're reading what I'm writing.