2025-03
2025-03-04 Tuesday
According to this article on NPR, laying off using your smart phone for anything beyond phone calls and text messages, after two weeks, is as good as an anti-depressant. I am in Day 2 of an undeclared “detox” of this flavor, and I feel strong mourning, for what I do not know. Maybe that’s a withdrawal symptom from pulling the social media dopamine drip, or maybe this is just because I was sick yesterday and my emotions are following my body.
I had a moment to catch up with the old blog before my Passport appointment at the Post Office. No travel plans. No emigration plans. But supposedly the Real ID thing will be Real this year and if I’m going to get a federal identity document, I’m going to get the one that can get me not merely to Nevada, but to Japan, just as well. I saw the other day that we were at 150 yen to the dollar! That would be a nice budget vacation for a solo traveler! But we’re going to Kentucky for a little family shindig later this year.
2025-03-05 Wednesday
A nice summary by Roger Farnworth about the Zelenskyy meeting, explaining how it demonstrates many dynamics used by abusers, and some advice on where we can make a difference in the world. Jon Stewart had a punchier analysis, using WWE to explain that “Trump turned ‘heel'” by nut-punching a good guy. America thus changed from a “Face” that everyone loves, to a bad guy “heel” that everyone loathes. This works if your ambition is to end the post-WWII international order, where the United States is a friend to democracy, and want to instead run the world as one of competing “Great Powers” that can bully their respective geographic Spheres of Influence.
You and I can’t end this Darkness from the top. But we can be agents of Light in our own lives, working from the bottom. I appreciate that Roger Farnworth listed organizations you can support. I haven’t done much, yet. Well, I do a lot in raising my boys, and the regular work of helping out around the community, lately more with Cub Scouts.
With the new car I figured out how to configure the “preset up/down” buttons to “seek up/down” buttons so when I drive somewhere I hear new voices and new music from the region where I live. We have two public radio stations, plus KPFA, and Stanford’s KZSU. This morning I caught the most uplifting woman on the Bollywood station. She wasn’t talking about The News. Just light, uplifting banter to help us all rise to the day. At the coffee shop, I skipped social media and found an email to send her a thank you. I’ve been giving money monthly to my mainstay public radio, KQED, for years, a bit higher in recent years. Well, a week or two back I ponied up $10/mo for KPFA. They were talking about Fredrick Douglas and I’m looking forward to receiving my Fredrick Douglas graphic novel as a Thank You Gift.
2025-03-19 Wednesday
I wonder if we are falling into a pace with the Trump Regime. The headlines are shifting away from Elon and towards the courts ordering Congressional funding restored and Federal workers back to their jobs. The madness will continue, but unless you’re Chuck Schumer, there is some balance in a vast number of people fighting back. Not just in the United States, but our allies boycotting American products to repudiate threats of Trade Wars and Shooting Wars. Solidarity all over the place. Unless you’re Chuck Schumer. Fuck that guy.
This weekend I drove past the Tesla dealership twice. The first time was too early: all quiet. The next trip was between 2-4pm on a Saturday when both sides of the street are lined with protestors. I was with the kid. We slowed with windows down and I tooted the horn. Two hours per week at the Tesla dealer isn’t the most radical protest but Sunnyvale’s a very quiet town and it helps.
The wife visited Target to get cash from the ATM. She said it was a ghost town with no checkout lines. I said they should have boycotts more often. We went off in search of kids shoes. The first local business was out of stock, but we got the hook up at Nordstrom. I have no idea of their DEI policies. What I do have an idea of is the CEOs of Amazon, Facebook, and Google stood at Trump’s side at the inauguration. I think we’re informally boycotting Whole Foods, cut back on Amazon, find local merchants … I’m still on Facebook but the wheels have been coming off that site more and more over the past few years … Google is not easily avoided. I like my Android phone and my Gmail but the momentum is changing.
There are a billion shades of grey, but come Collaborators put themselves out there. People whose desperation for power flagrantly outstrips their innate moral character. These are the people who choose the front row photo ops with the Next Autocrat. These are the people, who, when in a position to fight, tuck tail and sell out. These are the targets of our ire, and there is a lot of ire that needs expression.
Sunnyvale has no Trump Tower, but Elon Musk has conveniently opened a chain of MAGA Embassies throughout affluent blue communities to receive our ire. For two hours a week. Pace ourselves.
A week later, the older son and I spent a while at the Tesla protest down on El Camino. It was cathartic.
2025-04-01 Tuesday
For the record, the passport and passport card were received within a few weeks. We aren’t running. We are here for the fight.
