something I am grateful for today

several consecutive days of mild, stable weather -- the sort of thing I often insist never happens here! It has helped my head settle down somewhat, which in turn has been beneficial for my sleeping... and I'm especially grateful for it in light of the brutal weather that has recently been hammering New England and environs...

ethereal vandalism

In the past, I have wondered about what moves people to commit acts of vandalism. Why destroy rather than create? (To me, as a creator, it makes no sense.) But eventually I decided that at least part of the motivation is the need to feel powerful, to have a sense of agency: the desire to cause things to happen, to make a visible difference in the world (for good or ill) that people could not prevent you from making. To leave some sort of mark on the world of your own design. 

More recently, I have been wondering why people deliberately create hoaxes and false news items**, distributing them and freaking people out, if only for a time. And now I suspect that what this is, is vandalizing people's minds.


** not all of them are Russian trolls, eh