Different Day, Same Shit.

So yours truly decided to create an open thread for general commenting. Why?

All blog posts are closed to commenting after five days, unless otherwise specified by the blog owner. This is to prevent the comments sections of older blog posts from being inundated with spam or posts that are in violation of the House Rules.

The above was intended to keep the idiots and assholes among us from spamming the comments section while nobody's looking. Unfortunately, it also gives off the appearance of stifling debate. Just an unintended consequence of protecting blog-goers from the slings and arrows of stupidity.

In contrast to 99.999% of the regular posts here at DDSS, the Open Thread comments will remain open. Forever. At least that's the plan.

Everything else concerning the House Rules apply. Don't want everyone getting carried away, now.

I read somewhere that roughly 95 percent of blogs wind up abandoned after a short span of time. Sometimes, I feel as though this place is on the verge of abandonment. Not saying that DDSS is done for, but something has to be done to keep this place alive or it's gonna end up like a lot of other blogs that have been abandoned for various reasons.

Mine? I've had a lot on my plate, as I've hinted in one of my previous updates. My day job and the never-ending struggle to maintain a reasonable standard of living for yours truly means that updates are often sparse and sporadic. The fact that DDSS is a one-man show also means that updates are often sparse and sporadic. It takes a lot of time, effort and energy to create a quality post that I feel is worthy for DDSS. Unfortunately, my day job also involves the literary arts and that also takes a lot of time, effort and energy. At the end of the day, the last thing I want to do is jump from one energy sink to another. I hate to describe DDSS that way, but there it is.

Then there's the pace at which news travels. I realize that a ton of shit happened this year. I read it on news sites, other blogs and the good ol' Twitter feed. But it's hard to actually blog about since I simply don't have the time to actually sit down, pore over the details and offer a uniquely interesting take that passes muster for yours truly. Add on the fact that trying to absorb all of the news of the day causes information overload, which causes my brain to just lock right the hell up and suspend itself in a crippling limbo of indecisiveness and inaction.

So between the lack of time, the Twitter/Internet ADHD/overload and my own vicious perfectionist streak, things haven't been looking so good here. Which is probably why I haven't bothered to make a rundown of all the shit that's happened in the news during the year. And that's probably why I haven't made as many updates as I should have.

I'm not a pundit and I don't get paid for this shit (although I wish I did). I did this as an outlet and as a place where people who find what I write interesting can read it, draw their own conclusions about things and perhaps leave their own comments. If I were a professional blogger getting paid good money to blog about political and social issues, this place would be livelier. But as it stands, I do what I can whenever I have the opportunity to get it done.

And as I've also mentioned before, I'm seriously rethinking my approach to DDSS. I still have no idea what format I should pursue or how to get it done. Suggestions are welcome. I'll do my best to maintain the Tumblr blog for short vignettes, but even that's running into the same problems as the main blog. Nevertheless, yours truly will continue to see things through and not end up like those aforementioned 95 percent of blogs.

Although it wouldn't hurt if DDSS was whisked up to the rarefied air of the upper-crust 1 percent blogs, sans the attendant loss of principles, of course.

By the way, Happy (soon to be) New Year.

Yours truly may or may not be on hiatus. Maybe there'll be a new post coming in the next few hours - or maybe next month. Right now, I'm seriously rethinking my approach to DDSS and to blogging in general.

Hopefully I'll have things figured out in due time. Who knows?

Just want to remind frequent readers that there is, in fact, an abridged version of "Different Day, Same Shit" that's updated on a near-daily basis. As originally intended, this place will play host to longer, more substantial and better though-out blog posts.

Here's a link to DDSS Abridged. In fact, there's a link in the upper right-hand corner, right next to the Twitter link, which unlike the abridged blog is updated whenever the hell I damn well please. So there's that.

DDSS is a one-man outfit and as such, there are times when The Man hasn't got enough time in the day to pick through the issues and lay them all out in the way he damned well pleases. So here's a rundown of all the things he'll get to soon enough.

- The Man will get to former president Jimmy Carter agreeing with the Zimmerman verdict. In the meantime, here's a piece from David von Ebers:

When did this become a thing, that centrist Democratic ex-presidents could do no wrong? When did it become not only acceptable, but expected, that centrist Democratic ex-presidents would routinely bash a sitting Democratic president, and the ideological purists on the left would cheer them on – without so much as questioning those ex-presidents’ own liberal bona fides?

He'll get to Charles Barkley too, don't you worry.

- The Man has a couple of upcoming posts about Detroit, one of which has been in the works for a while.

- The Man also has a few transportation and transit-related posts he wants to get off his chest. They're a bit local, but interesting noneoftheless.

- The Man keeps trying to cast a side-eye on Edward Snowden, but things outside of DDSS continuously conspire to make that...well, not happen.

- In lieu of The Man speaking on Rachel Jeantel, here's a poignant rundown by Abagond. He also has a lot to say about the president's most recent speech.

- The Man also has his eye on David Sirota (again), Rich Benjamin and any "Puritopian" emoprog who happens to stray within The Man's line of sight.

The Man will get to all of this stuff as soon as he can. Again, this is a one-man outfit and well, this shit takes time to do.

Dude fuck you. Fuck the police and riot in the streets? Don't try to justify this as a reasonable expression of emotion. It's a violent call to action. Maybe you enjoy living in a shit-hole but the rest of us do not.

No one cares.
That's what you don't seem to get.
No one give a damn about you. Or why you're pissed. You don't matter.

Here ya go, dumbass - learn something today:

"Of the six members of the jury, all are women and only one is a person of color."

http://jetmag.com/news/all-wom...

Class dismissed. Your diploma is worthless.

Get your facts straight, dipshit. The jury wasn't "all-white".
I didn't even bother to read past the first line since you obviously don't have a clue.

mack lyons, you're a moron.
that is all.

The above comments were left behind on several open comment threads. These comments are the reason why the House Rules exist.

These comments did not meet the acceptable standards required here at DDSS, which is why they're no longer visible to the public. The people who chose to make these comments instead of engaging in constructive discussion must now watch from the sidelines. Anytime anyone bellies up to the bar for the sole purpose of the above, they'll find themselves bounced out.

Other blogs allow for open, raw commentary. Unfortunately, that usually attracts trolls with an eye towards lowering the standards of discourse. The standards one walks past are the standards one accepts. The above comments do not in any way reflect the standards of this blog.

Consider this an official welcome to the new and very much improved DDSS. The old Blogger template was not only getting a bit cramped and outdated, but there was also a question of readability to be answered, especially when dealing with sorta-white text on a sorta-blackish background. The new template should provide a brighter and more comfortable reading experience for blog-goers.

All of the potential bugs have been ironed out save for one. For some reason, the front-page post pagination script doesn't like blog stories with quotation marks in the title. No clue why. I've already spent the good part of the day trying to get that sorted out. Fortunately, there's a simple workaround, but that involves going back through years of blog posts.

Nevertheless, everything's up and running, so enjoy.

Unlike most other blogs running on Blogger, I don't use the default commenting system it offers. Instead, I use Disqus. Not only does it discourage most of the anonymous trolls that drift from blog to blog, it also gives yours truly an effective way of dealing with those that do end up here. As a result, anyone posting a comment through Blogger's default commenting system won't see it posted on DDSS. Because it will be, by virtue of Disqus, effectively hidden.

Speaking of hidden comments, here's one from...who else? Anonymous:

It's sounds as though you assume the elderly man was racist. You see the colors white and black... and it just has to be huh? And what do you mean when you say "these people"? Plain and simple, this young man did not deserve losing his life!!! Not that it matters in the least, but in the news, articles, etc. the gun used was not a shotgun... if your going to blog, please get your facts straight.

Anonymous should ask him/herself if John Henry Spooner would had acted any different if 13-year-old Darius Simmons looked just like his grandkid, if he had any. Would he have had that 9mm pistol (see, anon? I double-checked and made corrections) at the ready to confront him if Simmons was of a less "color-arousing" skin tone? I suspect this story would have had a much different ending if Simmons was a young white American male.

Now, I don't have a beef with anonymous comments, except when they're used to facilitate drive-by sniping, "race realism" and other such foolishness. Some blogs welcome these comments as examples of how the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory comes into play every single day. Not this one.

All comments are welcome, as long as they're within reason and posted in accordance with the House Rules.

I'm not sure I mentioned this before, but I'll mention it again. I've decided to split off DDSS into two components: a small Tumblr blog for posting day-to-day stories and updates* and this blog, which will serve as the platform for longer, more thought-out posts.

The posts on the Tumblr page will be short, sweet and to the point. Meanwhile, you'll get much of the same you're getting here, but with more feeling. Isn't that wonderful?**

The link to DDSS Abridged is up top (or you can just click here if you're afraid of overexerting yourself).

*And I'll make sure to update every day. I promise.
** Sarcasm!