And out with a bang it did go. Actually with a sound more like rushing water..
This article at Making Light is good advice for those readers suffering media fatigue (You know who you are. Of course, it does mean you need a distraction other than news sites.)
This post and its comment stream leaves me nearly at a loss for words. I thank my parents that I don't truly understand it. I find it nigh incomprehensible that these things are still true in the richest country in the world. It (and, really, much of the other stuff I've been reading in the news recently) shows me that my life really is quite pleasant no matter how little I enjoy it sometimes. (It's worth noting that one of the more, uh, contentious commenters is an ex-coworker I now genuinely hope that I never see again, lest I feel the overriding need to be gently artistic.)
As for the enjoying, I really need to remember that even an Anna's burrito is not enough fuel in a day to keep a Karl functioning normally. The rest of my life and the rest of the world at the moment does not contain enough good things to keep the despair away in the face of low blood sugar. (Certain specific things can: conversation with some people, or some jiujutsu classes (the ones that leave me tired, but still getting up quickly to the technique again), or actually getting interesting code written, but if those are unavailable or end...)
43 folders had a link to an article about the notion of pronoia, a sort of inverse paranoia where you convince yourself that the world is out to delight you and make you happy. An interesting notion, but it sounds like denial in the face of this sort of thing.
Also Pharyngula has a link to a relatively damning article that contains the really quite apt variation of Clarke's law: Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.
