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If you've read the news in the past few weeks, you may have a little trouble figuring out what the word "terrorism" actually means these days. It's being thrown around a lot to cover a lot of situations. So let's see if we can help clarify.

Merriam-Webster.com: ter·​ror·​ism, n: the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion.

Wiktionary.com: terrorism (usually uncountable, plural terrorisms) The use of unlawful violence against people or property to achieve political objectives.

Kids.Britannica.com: (under ter​ror​ism) Terrorists are people who use fear to try to change society.

As you can see, performing "terrorism" generally requires intent that the act would intimidate others into compliance with your desires out of a sense of fear. Darth Vader was a terrorist; he made his Imperial officers watch him kill their leaders so they would be too afraid to question his amoral orders. On the other hand, Freddy Krueger was not a terrorist; he was just a monster who enjoyed killing people.

The October 7 attack on Israel was an act of terrorism. The September 11 attack on America was an act of terrorism. Wearing white sheets and burning crosses in front yards has always been terrorism. Shootings on school campuses can be terrorism, but they can also just be murder. Trafficking drugs is itself not generally an act of terrorism, but in the right situation with the wrong sorts of people (like The Joker), it could be. Holding protest rallies is not terrorism (so long as there's no threat of violence). Fleeing across political borders, while illegal, is not terrorism (because people themselves are not inherently terrifying or seeking to force societal change by standing on one side or the other of an imaginary boundary).

Trying to escape police, while possibly unwise, is definitely not terrorism. Likewise, shooting someone in self defense, even if you were wrong to think you were in danger, is not terrorism either. But a hypothetical case of encouraging lethal force to subdue a fleeing suspect so others will think twice about trying to escape if they find themselves in the same situation? That's Darth Vader territory.

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I took a bunch of pictures of yesterday's magnificent sunset, and I was going to post some of those, but looking at my camera roll I see that I have this pic of Henry playing with his Christmas present, and dogs are more important than clouds.

Clouds don't beg for belly rubs.

UPDATE: Just now, Henry walked up to the door to my bedroom and stood staring at me. It took me a minute to realize that he had just been outside in a light rain, and whenever his feet get wet, he has to go straight to the shower for a mud rinse. He was waiting for me to run the water so he could get clean and be allowed on the bed. I did what he wanted because I'm well trained.

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Look, I love Benson Boone's "Mystical Magical" as much as the next guy, but after hearing it in every commercial break since ESPN's coverage of the U.S. Open used it for intro and outro bumpers in August through this week's NFL coverage, maybe there is such a thing as overexposure.

I'm not alone in thinking that. There is, Google assure me, a pretty sizable backlash to the rapid, overt commercialization of Mr. Boone's music. Selling out is fine in America; greed, not so much. The singer and his team are aware of this, and his music video for "Mr. Electric Blue" makes a good-natured joke of it by removing any hint of the hypocrisy that pollutes the modern zeitgeist. (Yes, despite being an old fogey who doesn't really care for music, I do watch music videos on YouTube as the Internet Gods intended. The old-school media's widely reported recent death of Music Television has been greatly exaggerated; music videos are not dead, linear television is.)

It's kind of a funny thing to say that you could hear any piece of music "too much." Despite the tendency of human beings (at least American human being) to resent the familiar, there are a bunch of songs I just never get tired of hearing. Back in the day when I was a waiter at Chili's, the chain played tapes of licensed music over and over until the entire wait staff would gather around the back office cassette player and argue over which tapes management was NOT allowed to play again that day. (No tapes were ever destroyed, but some were occasionally hidden. I hope they still haven't been found.) Despite the repetition, there was one song on those tapes that I could never get sick of. I bet you'd never guess that it was "Silly Love Songs" by Wings. Live and let die, indeed.

Several Paul McCartney songs, both with and without co-writer John Lennon, are high on my list of endless listening, which probably demonstrates that I have a high tolerance for what McCartney is interested in writing: the poppiest of pop music. Fizzy, friendly, sugary pop music. Overproduced sounds that have a good beat and you can dance to, lyrics that really shouldn't be thought about too hard. That's my jam. Music crafted to please the widest possible music-illiterate crowd, "Moonbeam ice cream" sort of stuff, like Dua Lipa, Katie Perry, Madonna, Michael Jackson, or, say, Olivia Newton John.

And please crowds they do. Why else would Madison Avenue adapt catchy tunes for advertising in Apple product ads or the memorable '90s Philips campaign that used the Beatles "Getting Better" (somehow always fading out just before the "it can't get no worse" refrain) or this year's sanitized-for-Christmas "Greased Lightnin'" (with zero creaming girls) or Target's 2025 commercials of their animated Get-Ready Yeti dancing to "Mystical Magical."

Okay, fine. I'm not sick of moonbeam ice cream just yet. 'Cause once you know, once you know...

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I'm starting to feel like a broken record, but the coming year has got to be better than the last, right?

The legacy of 2025 will be that of a time of transition. I have lived through the coming of cable television and the Internet and social media and smart phones and now AI and the loss of newspapers. More than ever, it feels like the billionaire-run corporations own us, body and soul. It certainly doesn't help that the elected head of our government, the man who is supposed to be a champion of the people, is shattering every cultural and economic norm he can reach.

Take heart that there are a lot of us feeling fed up right now. And, as always, the voices of history can provide some guidance in these troubling times:

Someday, somebody's gonna make you want to turn around and say goodbye. Until then, baby, are you going to let 'em hold you down and make you cry? Don't you know? Don't you know, things can change? Things will go your way if you hold on for one more day.

Can you hold on?

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In an apt metaphor for America in 2025,¹ I'm ending the year trying to find a bandage that will stick and cover the self-inflicted wound to my scrotum.²

¹ You know what I mean. I have actively tried to avoid posting about current events this year because I've been trying to keep my attention on things that don't make me miserable. The results have been mixed. I've been through four 1.75 liter bottles of Kaluha.

² It's not what you think, unless you think I intentionally stabbed myself with a pointy object. I nicked a tiny skin tag with scissors. Maybe I *should* shave; band-aids would adhere better.

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