Justin P. Miller

Cat Valente:

Prodigy was upset that people were, by and large, using the free communication service they tossed on there just to have more content and not their weird Random Garbage You Don’t Need Storefront. And in many ways, that complaint has only gotten louder over the decades. Stop talking to each other and start buying things. Stop providing content for free and start paying us for the privilege. Stop shining sunlight on horrors and start advocating for more of them. Stop making communities and start weaponizing misinformation to benefit your betters.

It’s the same. It’s always been the same. Stop benefitting from the internet, it’s not for you to enjoy, it’s for us to use to extract money from you. Stop finding beauty and connection in the world, loneliness is more profitable and easier to control.

Stop being human. A mindless bot who makes regular purchases is all that’s really needed.

And I also understand that we are the generation who has to go through this part of it. We’re the ones born in time to be forced to make the rules and defend them. To say hey maybe one guy shouldn’t be able to own the village square. Because it was never remotely possible before. It’s all new and we have to figure it out. To agitate and legislate and be constantly vigilant. Maybe it’ll all seem so obvious and settled in 50 years, but those are our 50 years and no one else is going to have to be the first to have these conversations and try to make policy out of them. That’s us, it’s our lot, and it sucks ass, but this technology is the singularity we geeks have been talking about, and it turns out it’s not just impossible to imagine life on the other side of it before it happens, but it’s really fucking hard to figure out life on the other side of it once you get there, too.

Congratulations to Brian Marshall on his election to be the next Judge of the Centre County Court of Common Pleas!

As much as I want to blame the children who run the Centre County Democratic Party for Ron McGlaughlin’s loss, the bottom line is that the Democrats ran a better campaign. The local party officials may be insufferable, but they got their message out and delivered voters to the polls. That’s how you win an election.

A major question I have is this: Why didn’t the Republican Party pull out all the stops for their candidate like the Democrats did for their’s?

I know I and several other Democrats received a lot of pushback from the party over our support of Ron McGlaughlin. I have no interest in relitigating those arguments, other than to say all politics is local, and all local politics is personal. And when it comes to candidates I have the right to support whomever I prefer, especially if I know one of the candidates personally. That freedom of association and affiliation is the essence of our system. To demand loyalty to party over all else is to undermine the very institutions we ostensibly support.

Finally, I do have reservations about Attorney Marshall, but I think he will make a fine judge. They all have rocky starts, and there is a learning curve for each of them. I hope he takes the next two months to observe as many court proceedings as as he can and studies as much as he can so he is as prepared as he can be on Day One. I know the other judges are ready and willing to help him transition to this new role, as were their peers when each of them was first elected.

I also hope he takes up the challenge of winning over skeptics like myself because, at the end of the day, in the courtroom we are all on the same side. We, the bar and the bench combined, all swear or affirm to “support, obey and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of this Commonwealth […]” That collegiality is what binds our chosen branch of government together.

I would like nothing more than to be sitting here in a little less than ten years, writing a hearty endorsement of Judge Brian Marshall for retention. Serve with a fair, judicial temperament. Bring an inquisitive mind to the bench, with an eagerness to learn. Make just, equitable, and ethical decisions. Rule with compassion and humility. Impress the hell out of us.