Slope of Hope Blog Posts

Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.

Phasing Back

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We all keep hearing about we just have to tough it out through Easter, and everything’s going to be totally back to normal. Spoiler Alert: it’s not. Indeed, the end of this endlessly-cited “15 Days” is on Tuesday! So there seems to be this cultural meme being bandied about that we’re just a few days away from ending this thing. We ain’t.

Of course, at some point, things will start to drift back to normal. In sharp contrast to the opinion of our ostensible leadership, however, I don’t think an enormous “pent-up demand” is suddenly going to explode into the former capitalist society of ours. I think it’ll vary tremendously. Off the top of my head:

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House Arrest

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Nothing is normal anymore. So there’s no reason I should expect it to be.

But normally, I wake up very early on Saturday morning, and I’ll toss the dogs in the car, drive off to some coffee shop (the dogs enjoy the windows down), and settle myself in there for some writing. That’s partly where posts come from.

Such simple luxuries don’t exist for now. I have a relative abundance of time, thanks to the market being closed, but nothing but starting scraps in the hopper. So I need to get to work. It’s just a lot more fun if I’ve got a chai in front of me, and the murmuring of strangers close by. Not to worry. I’ll get it done.

We Don’t Need Another Hero

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In spite of all evidence to the contrary, I’ve never been a nerd. I’ve never played Dungeons & Dragons in my life. I never was particularly good at computer programming. And I was never into comic books.

Having said that, I’m wading into unfamiliar waters when I observe anything from the world of comics, and it certainly isn’t anything I follow. But I was struck by this news that just tumbled out:

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