There’s all this talk about how horrible 2016 has been: celebrities dying all over the place, an evil orange dorkwad getting elected to the presidency, etc., etc., etc. But I hate to break it to you, but there’s nothing magical about arbitrary date boundaries — there is no wicked juju over this particular revolution about the sun. It’s just a combination of chance, the large number of boomer celebrities, and a bit of self-fulfilling prophecy — we’re now in the habit of announcing “oh god it’s 2016 again” at every minor bit of bad news.

What that means, unfortunately, is that the bad news will continue to roll out, even after the mystical boondoggle of 1 January 2017. Nothing will change. Different celebrities will die. The sneering orange sphincter will continue to make horrible political decisions. This is simply the new normal. Get used to it. There will be no transition to a less depressing state. There is no hope.

I was thinking about SEK overnight, and realized something. He spread himself thin — he was all over the place, writing and commenting — and I thought about some other people who are all over the place, writing in their isolated little enclaves and commenting, the trolls. But there was a big difference: the trolls write out of spite, say nothing anyone but other trolls wants to see, and their goal is to comment where they aren’t wanted.

Which means SEK was the anti-troll. Here was a guy who liked to write and make people think, and always made a positive contribution. He had his passions, but he wasn’t obsessive, like the trolls are.

Now I miss him more. We need more Scott Eric Kaufmans.

Scott Eric Kaufman,

blogger at Acephalous,

contributor at Lawyers, Guns, and Money,

Salon,

RawStory,

the AV Club,

Lawyers, Guns, and Money,

and popular online writer,

has died. I’ve been reading his stuff for almost as long as I’ve been blogging, and have always appreciated his humor, his openness, his humanity. And now suddenly he’s gone.

2016 has not been a kind year.

You know I filter the comments here and have a fairly extensive block list — it’s necessary. Especially now. You wouldn’t believe the crap people are trying to post here now, emboldened by this recent election. I’ll just put one particularly ugly example from someone calling himself sinceretrupsupporter below the fold. You might want to skip it. I find it useful to remind myself from time to time what we’re fighting.

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I’ve been grading furiously, still plowing through newly accumulated piles. Who knew that all this work wouldn’t get done if I took the weekend off?

Wait a minute…how did I end up in a job that has me working nights and weekends all the time for a lower middle class salary? There are times I wonder about that. Maybe it has something to do with being so unaware that I willingly allow work to pile up, and just accept it as normal.

Only this Thursday has got an extra topping of jetlag and lack of sleep! May die. Gotta get through one more class so I can…go to a dentist’s appointment. The joy is making me delirious. Or is that nauseous? Can’t tell today.

I may be able to post something after my last meeting of the day, after 7. Or not. I may just set fire to the whole day and crawl into the flames.