ChiselerNeil

@chiselerneil.bsky.social

106 Followers 75 Following

My posts are split between "decline and fall of western civilization" and nonsense. Fair warning: nonsense always gets the bigger reaction. Never even close. He/him.

John Mark Ockerbloom (@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social): "Today is August 4, 2026," says an automated voice in a house devoid of people near the start of Ray Bradbury's post-nuclear-war tale "There Will Come Soft Rains". Bradbury's story first ran in the May 6, 1950 issue of Colliers, a few days before appearing in the book _The Martian Chronicles_ The story is still under copyright, but you can get the book from many libraries and bookstores. Collier's also ran many other stories over the years; many issues can be found here: https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/
American flags, curtains, and Trump's hair and forehead at the bottom of the frame.
The Episcopal residence was an old adobe house, much out of repair, but with possibilities of comfort. Father Latour had chosen for his study a room at one end of the wing. There he sat, as this afternoon of Christmas Day faded into evening. It was a long room of an agreeable shape. The thick clay walls had been finished on the inside by the deft palms of Indian women, and had that irregular and intimate quality of things made entirely by the human hand. There was a reassuring solidity and depth about those walls, rounded at door-sills and window-sills, rounded in wide wings about the corner fire-place. Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather, Book 1, Chapter 3
John Mark Ockerbloom (@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social): I'm at a conference now at West Virginia University, which recently had to cut 28 majors and hundreds of jobs after a $45 million funding shortfall, but has put $3 million towards a new center mandated by the GOP-controlled legislator and the state governor, who said last year he intends the center to "push back on the woke ideology that has infected our schools". As of this week, the number of students registered for the new center's courses is... 1: https://westvirginiawatch.com/2026/07/08/one-student-enrolled-in-wvu-washington-center-after-gop-lawmakers-mandate-creation-of-program/ #HigherEd
Of Human Bondage is a 1915 novel by W. Somerset Maugham. starring Charlton Heston … the Vampire Slayer (Wikipedia link with jammed-together description)
Fontaine Fox cartoon, October 17, 1917. The gentleman taking the next seat in the one-arm restaurant brushes his coat over the terrible tempered Mr. Bang's lunch. (In the dining area of said one-arm restaurant, a row of men sitting in seats which look like school desks (but worse). One of them (Mr. Bang) has knocked off the hat of another with a ferociously lobbed piece of pie.)
TV GUIDE CLOSE UP -- 7:30, 5 (KPIX San Francisco, CA) THE BEATLES - Variety 'BIG NIGHT OUT' Special - The Beatles (Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, pictured to the right) are interviewed and sing five of their hits. Joining them are songstress Jackie Trent and the Lionel Blair Dancers. Mike and Bernie Winters are hosts for this half-hour film which begins with the Beatles returning to England after their 1964 US tour. Included in the question asked the group is what type of fan mail have they been receiving. (TV Guide, June 15, 1965, Northern California edition. Note that CBS gave 7:30 Tuesdays back to their local stations during the 1964-65 season, so this wasn't a network broadcast.)
The Sickos guy ("Yes... ha ha ha... YES!") except with Greg Evans' signature on his shirt.
Bluesky License for ChiselerNeil. License class: CITIZEN.
Long Waves Best? The virtues of short-wave broadcasts are not, however, yet proved; for on January 1st-2nd of this year Daventry made its first real attempt to transmit a special programme to America on 1,600 metres. Music and speech were picked up clearly at Belfast, maine, superceiving station, relayed on a short wavelength to Bound Brook, New Jersey, re-broadcast throughout the American continent, and simultaneously picked up at the British receiving station and relayed back to 2LO. (excerpt from Wireless World, January 13, 1926)
A grand howl: One member of the small party present at the studio inquired what would happen if 2LO had relayed the programme, as it was received from WJZ, to Daventry for retransmission--his idea apparently being that something in the way of perpetual motion would thus be achieved. The result would have been that 5XX would set up a howl that would have been heard right across the American continent. (excerpt from Wireless World, January 13, 1926)
NY Times 1/2/1926: Undulating Sound Waves. The music then came in and was recognized as "When You and I Were Seventeen." Both the words of the announcement and the strains of the song came over the air in peculiar, undulating sound waves, which gave one the impression of being at the ocean shore watching huge waves break on the beach in regular time beats, or of being on a ship at sea in heavy weather.
Radio Times schedule for 5XX Daventry (note the absence of any mention of international broadcasts here): 10:30 a.m. -- Time Signal and Weather Forecast. 11.0-1.0 -- The Radio Quartet and Emilie Waldron (soprano), John Turner (Tenor), Annette Claire (Piano). 1.0-2.0, 4.0-11.0 -- Programmes S.B. from London. 11.0-12.0. -- Jack Howard's Band from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden 12.0-2.0 a.m. -- Jean Lensen's Ciro's Club Dance Band.
Violinist Godfrey Ludlow
New York Times 1/2/1926, with an excerpt from a broadcast speech by RCA's David Sarnoff: "The great significance of the demonstration which radio broadcasting is making tonight is in the vista which is opened of national as well as world service by radio. Superpower broadcasting brings into view that exchange of national cultures which can only serve to enrich and strengthen our own institutions. It brings into view a national broadcasting service that will transmit to every home in the land the cultural and educational advantages developed by the best thought of the nation. It brings into view a system of service by radio, which will help to place the most modest home in the village or on the farm on a par, culturally and educationally, with the richest home in the metropolitan city."
A detailed program what John McCormack and Lucrezia Bori performed on the January 1, 1926 international broadcast, with selections mostly drawn from the classical repertoire, orchestra conducted by Josef Pasternack, as listed in the January 15, 1926 issue of Talking Machine World. "At the conclusion of the public program, Mr. McCormack was induced to offer an encore, singing 'Mother, My Dear,' and at the close extended greetings for the New Year to the unseen audience in a manner that was characteristic." Some, but not all, of the selections in the printed program still exist on the surviving Victor recordings.
ENGLAND TO BE UPON AIR International programs are scheduled tonight.
BRITISH FANS ARE PUZZLED BY ANNOUNCERS (1925) London, March 28 -- British listeners-in are extremely puzzled by the American announcers' expression "stand by." In response to many letters of inquiry the explanation was published, showing that the term was based on the fact that most announcers were trained as ships' operators. The English fans are particularly interested in Station KGO, Portland, Ore., where the announcers refer to the studio floor as the "deck" and the walls as the "bulkheads" and other nautical terms which are now explained.
United Press via Trenton Sunday Times, March 14th: "The most significant piece of radio news during the past week was the brave attempt made by station WJZ, New York to rebroadcast the program of station 2LO, London. "From the viewpoint of the casual listener-in, the results were atrocious, with a super-preponderance of static's squeals and howls, and with but an occasional something resembling the music which was supposedly picked up. "However, from the viewpoint of technicians and radio enthusiasts, the event proved to be a little more than a mere magnificent gesture."
Headline: "Ufc to pay White House fighters in crypto issued by trump company"
The tarp-covered name of the Kennedy Center as captured on the MS NOW stream at 9:37am EDT. The tarp is a pattern of two thin lines and one thick one randomly broken up by a dotted line which would appear to be seams.
Clifton Fadiman on Don Quixote in The Lifetime Reading Plan (1960 edition): "However, if you use, as I suggest, a complete translation, do some skipping. Whenever (or almost whenever) you come to a goatherd or a shepherdess, some drivel lies ahead. Skip all the interpolated pastoral yarns that pleased Cervantes' audience but bore us stiff. Skip every bit of verse you meet; Cervantes is one of the world's worst poets."
May 28, 2026 at 11:02 AM Reader spoke to T-Mobile (AI-rendered picture of a someone in a hoodie sitting at an unbranded laptop in a featureless room, implying that reaching T-Mobile fiber's customer support is l33t hacking skill. Which, all things considered, might not be wrong.)
The Facebook memory frame errors out because of T-Fiber bullshit, representing "11 years ago" as a blank gray square.
T-Mobile Fiber form letter as posted to the T-Fiber reddit (with the final line added by the poster): New email: Important Update Regarding Your Internet Service Dear T-Fiber Customer, Here's where we stand — and we want to be straight with you. We replaced hardware earlier today and saw some customers come back online, but we're not done yet. Some connections are still unstable, and we know every minute offline matters. Our technicians are on-site right now and won't leave until every customer is fully restored. This has turned out to be more complex than expected, and we're not taking shortcuts. We'll send another update the moment we have a resolution — no radio silence. Thank you for bearing with us. T-Mobile Fiber ChatGPT ass email lmao
John Mark Ockerbloom @JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social From LB: "In ten days last month, the Wikimedia Foundation fired the longtime lead developer of MediaWiki and disbanded the team whose entire job was to listen to volunteers. Most of the people they fired were union organizers. Wikipedia’s editors are now threatening to strike.... The Foundation has spent twenty years telling donors it is not like other tech companies. The union drive is the moment when that claim either becomes true or admits it was always marketing." https://medium.com/@jakeorlowitz/wikipedia-is-doing-the-capitalist-thing-56a393232943
1980s wrestler Nikita Koloff, pictured with his "uncle" Ivan
John Mark Ockerbloom (@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social): ...The FCC put out a proposal that kids's TV programs with transgender or nonbinary people or "themes" should not be allowed to use ratings indicating suitability for children, and/or should include warnings to parents: https://www.politico.com/news/2026/04/22/brendan-carr-tv-gender-identity-fcc-00887017 Here's the text of the proposal: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-26-392A1.pdf. Initial comments from the public are due today, and can registered here (Note that anything you submit here, including name and address, will be publlic record online): https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filings/express?proceeding%5Bname%5D=19-41
What TitanTV is convinced Friday's CBS midnight block is going to look like, specifically 12:37: FUNNY YOU SHOULD ASK Game/Quiz 10/28/1968 Lloyd Thaxton hosts a game show in which five celebrities are asked questions, then two contestants are asked to identify which celebrity said which answer. That'd probably be a better show than what diehards are going to get.
John Mark Ockerbloom (@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social): I really wish sites on arts or literature would stop posting summaries generated by LLMs, rather than by people who actually experience the works and write on how it actually moves them. I just now searched for Kansas's "The Spider", a song from their classic Point of Know Return album. A top search hit brought up a site that said of it "The lyrics paint a picture of paranoia and inner turmoil...", starting a 200-word "interpretation" of them. "The Spider" is an instrumental. It has no lyrics.
Five champagne glasses come together in a toast.
BLUESKY IS DOWN. YES, AGAIN. A framed collection of intensely blue butterflies (image borrowed from BicBugs, with apologies).
Bored anthropomorphic olive. Bleah.
Dr. Barry Mayfield (Nimoy) in conference with prospective murder victim Dr. Edmund Heideman (Will Geer).
There were few men or women whom Dale Carnegie could not win over, once he was in their presence. But there was an unwritten chapter to How to Win Friends and Influence People. Carnegie realized there were some people for whom none of the rules applied. It was impossible, under any circumstances, to get along with them. The unwritten chapter was to deal with those times when ‘‘somebody has to go to jail, be spanked, divorced, knocked down, sued in court.” Carnegie later said that he never wrote the chapter because he had an opportunity to take a vacation in Europe before he could complete it. Thus he had to send the book to the publisher without his final word on human relations. Given the difficulty of reconciling such a chapter with the rest of the book, the vacation was probably the better course of action. (from Dale Carnegie: The Man Who Influenced Millions by Giles Kemp and Edward Claflin (1988, p. 153))
"The FBI Washington Field Office's National Capital Response Squad has responded to a shooting at the Washington Hilton in Washington, D.C. The subject is in custody." (FBI statement as reported by a BBC News live blog)
Imagine a roaring arena packed to the rafters with pathological liars. High above you in the nosebleeds are podcasters, screaming that you’ll die if you don’t buy their skincare products. Below, on the floor, imagine demonic battalions of super-influencers physically forcing people into home fitness devices designed to dismantle their bodies bone by bone and reassemble them into a grotesque statue of yourself. Out of the throngs, an extremely sick looking man approaches you. He puts his hands on your shoulders. He explains that he is your life coach and that you owe him $800.
John Mark Ockerbloom (@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social): Since various public figures have brought it up, here's a summary of the "just war" doctrine, from the Catechism of the Catholic Church: https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P81.HTM This is best understood as a *minimum* Catholic standard for entering into and conducting warfare. As a few sections (e.g. 2306, 2311) imply, there's also a substantial tradition in the Church for renouncing violence entirely. Pope Leo's recent remarks reflect the "rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy" the Catechism insists upon.
"In the course of my life I have developed five little democratic questions. If one meets a powerful person... ask them five questions: 'What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you?' If you cannot get rid of the people who govern you, you do not live in a democratic system." -- from Tony Benn's last speech in the UK House of Commons, 2001. Full text: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200001/cmhansrd/vo010322/debtext/10322-13.htm
The trending window of the Bluesky web interface at around 10am EDT, with Trans Day of Visibility in the #2 and 4 slots. This list moves surprisingly fast. In the time it took me to make this screenshot, the #2 knocked "Hegseth" out of #1 for half a second.
Publicity photo of Kukla, Fran and Ollie (so a nice midcentury lady flanked by two puppets: a sleepy-eyed dragon and a...um...Kukla)
The program guide interface of the Channel Surfer web app showing a Kukla, Fran and Ollie episode (two puppets and a nice mid-century lady).
Title page for How To Draw The Cat, by Mabel L Greer
Screenshot of two posts in a Bluesky feed which showed up on my feed at the exact same time overnight: * A mutual follow reshares photos of bombed buildings in Tehran from the just-launched Israeli/US air strikes. * NPR headline: "Trump says he is 'not happy' with the Iran nuclear talks but indicates he'll give them more time"
My posts are split between "decline and fall of western civilization" and nonsense. Fair warning: nonsense always gets the bigger reaction. Never even close. He/him.
JOIMS
THE JUNE BRIDE BURSTS INTO TEARS (A young woman is sprawled across a chaise lounge, bawling her eyes out. An older woman walks in on her.) "Wot! The honeymoon hardly over and you in TEARS." "George! Phoned he wooden be--hoo--hoo-home. He's taking an old college chum to dinner." "An old college chum to dinner! Well, there can't be anything wrong about THAT!" "How do I know! He went to a coeducational school!"
John Mark Ockerbloom: A federal judge formally dismissed the NEA/ACLU lawsuit against the US Department of Education, after an agreement that the DoE would not attempt to enforce the anti-DEI "Dear Colleague" letter they sent schools last year: https://newhampshirebulletin.com/briefs/new-hampshire-judge-announces-formal-end-to-trump-policy-against-dei-in-schools/ Here's the motion to dismiss: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nhd.65138/gov.uscourts.nhd.65138.99.0_1.pdf. and the original letter: https://www.ed.gov/media/document/dear-colleague-letter-sffa-v-harvard-109506.pdf Some schools are still cautious, though, which is why #Code4Lib is now in Philly and not at CMU: https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/ (Thumbnail picture from New Hampshire Bulletin: New Hampshire judge announces formal end to Trump policy against DEI in schools)
John Mark Ockerbloom @JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social "Amid occasional applause from passersby, as National Parks workers restored the panels, an unnamed employee said, 'It’s our honor.'" The slavery exhibit is going back up at the President's House at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia: https://whyy.org/articles/philadelphia-presidents-house-slavery-exhibit-restored/. (The Trump administration is also appealing the judge's order to restore it.)
John Mark Ockerbloom @JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social "An agency, whether the Department of the Interior, NPS, or any other agency, cannot arbitrarily decide what is true, based on its own whims or the whims of the new leadership, regardless of the evidence before it." Federal judge Cynthia Rufe orders restoration of the slavery exhibit at the President's House in Independence NHP, finding it was removed without the required consent of the city of Philadelphia. Full text of opinion (which also quotes from Orwell's _1984_): https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.paed.648842/gov.uscourts.paed.648842.53.0.pdf
"You have died of triangulation." (Oregon Trail covered wagon and oxen screenshot...with something extra added.)
As experts here have noted, Trump can't legally "nationalize" elections. But that doesn't mean we should ignore his rhetoric when he calls for it. It reinforces his ongoing attempt to disrupt 2026 elections in his favor, by ramping up intimidation of voters (see MN) and election officials (see GA), and persuading Trump-friendly officials to make it harder for likely opponents to vote (see e.g. the SAVE Act), or have their votes fairly counted. Robert Reich gets it: https://robertreich.substack.com/p/could-trump-really-take-over-the #USPol
annrbbarry on Threads: From a German Thread: Translation: “One gets the impression that in the U.S. they shoot people to distract from the Epstein files, then decide to release the Epstein files instead to distract from the murders, then arrest a reporter to distract from the Epstein files again, and if that doesn’t work, the president just shits himself on camera.” That about sums it up. (The picture, which was added on Facebook (don't ask me by who) shows the current POTUS posing at his desk in the Oval Office...looking (aHEM) RELIEVED.)
At a press conference once, Tallulah Bankhead said, "I'm so glad to see there's a man here from the New York Times, because if I say 'goddammit', they will print it 'good heavens' or 'good gracious.'" --From the Cinema Shorthand Society account on Facebook
Most deaths ICE is responsible for happen away from cameras. Earlier this month in Philadelphia, Parady La, a 46-year-old Cambodian refugee, died in ICE custody about 48 hours after his arrest in Upper Darby: https://www.audacy.com/kywnewsradio/news/local/ice-detainee-dies-at-philly-hospital-after-drug-withdrawal His family says he needed medical treatment for drug withdrawal, and that La had told them that, but Narcan, the treatment ICE says they gave him repeatedly, is instead for overdose, and can worsen withdrawal symptoms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naloxone
Measles has been eliminated in the U.S. since 2000, a designation that indicates the virus is no longer constantly circulating, though there are occasional outbreaks. However, global public health authorities consider the virus endemic — or always present — after one year of continuous transmission. “We have all the ingredients to have our elimination status revoked,” said Amira Albert Roess, a professor of global health and epidemiology at George Mason University. “In previous times, it would be unheard of to lose your elimination status, unless it was a war-torn, collapsing country,” she added.
@JMarkOckerbloom@mastodon.social: As I write this, the CDC's "History of Measles" page has been unchanged since 2024. The page notes that in the early 20th century, measles killed about 6000 Americans per year. It still killed 400-500 Americans per year before the first vaccine was introduced in 1963. In 2000 the disease was declared eliminated in the US: https://www.cdc.gov/measles/about/history.html The US will likely soon lose elimination status. New CDC principal deputy director Ralph Abraham indicates he's unconcerned: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news
"Sphere Entertainment, **the company behind the Las Vegas landmark,** [my highlighting] says that it has inked a deal with the state of Maryland, Prince George’s County, and Peterson Companies to develop and build a second Sphere venue at National Harbor, a major tourism destination in the area."