Resistance Is Contagious

A recent teachable moment with my two boys, aged 9 and 11:

"[Younger], what should I make [Older] for breakfast?"

"His own flesh."

"[Older], what should I make [Younger] for breakfast?"

"I was going to say pancakes, but: his own flesh."

"See? Cooperation will often benefit you more than hostility."

For the record, [Younger] doesn't like pancakes; so [Older] wasn't planning on being generous, just didn't have the same stakes in mind as his younger brother.

Humans are innately social. We constantly, automatically look to others to determine how to act and what to think--without even being aware of it. Others are always influencing us. And we are always influencing others. It's instinctive, unconscious, and inescapable.

Who you are, what you say, and how you act will always have at least some small impact on everyone who observes you. You contribute to the collective consciousness, will always sway in some small way the behaviors, thoughts, and values of groups you're a part of.

In situations where you desire change--where you might hope others will join you in some form of defiance or resistance--compliance, silence, and acceptance will signal to others you support the status quo. Dissent, though, signals to others that they can also disagree. That they are not alone in also disagreeing. Dissent gives permission to more dissent, lends support to resistance. It alters the group's collective outlook. Actions, words, conversations--big and small. It all contributes. It can add up. If there is enough, it can make a positive spiral or feedback loop, building towards the change you want.

Resistance is contagious. Expose others to your resistance.

I shared with my friends on Facebook this letter I recently submitted to my elected representatives at house.gov and senate.gov:

My Representative/Senator,

I am a life-long Kansan. I work for the local government as a public servant (librarian), my parents were both public school teachers in Kansas, and many in my extended clan have also served their Kansas communities as teachers, police officers, and similar.

I first want to say that Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and their administration do not represent my values. I oppose the majority of their policy positions. And I would like to see you take that into consideration as you represent your Kansas constituents in your decisions and negotiations.

More importantly, I vehemently oppose the methods the administration is using to implement their policies and positions. I accept that my views may not be in the majority and don’t expect them to be uniformly enacted; however, I expect them to be respected, considered, negotiated, and subject to due process and compromise. That is the basis of our system. It is explicitly designed to force debate, negotiation, and compromise. Regardless of the other values under consideration, this should be a baseline fundamental that cannot be questioned or skirted. Otherwise, the freedoms and rights we hold so dear will be degraded.

Again: Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and their administration are acting in opposition to American democracy, freedom, and values. Many of their actions are illegal, and they are actively working to destroy our system of government.

They claim many U.S. citizens and residents, the very people they have been elected (or not, in the case of Musk) to represent, serve, and protect, are “enemies.” NO. We are all neighbors and community members, all in this together. We will disagree, but we must do so as fellows. If they cannot respect that, they do not deserve your support.

I ask you to please use all of your power and influence to require this administration to respect our system of government, accept the necessary compromises of checks and balances, and represent all Americans, not pick and choose among us.

Thank you.

Resistance is contagious. Expose others to your resistance.

I also recently posted this thought: It's about reputation and perception. If this president says something is so, his supporters will accept that as a true fact not open to question. Even if he does something contradicting what he has said, others attest to those actions, and evidence of those actions is provided, they will not question it so long as he stands by his claim.

Many items I've shared lately on this blog have influenced what I wrote above, about resistance being contagious. Here are some of the key ideas that keep running through my mind:

Anticipatory Obedience

Social Proof

The Defiance Domino Effect

Conformity and Dissent

Living Authentically

The Power of Language & Storytelling

Here's a bit more about each of them:

Some democracy advocates worry that too many of our civic institutions are softening their postures toward Trump to avoid getting on his bad side, pointing to what the historian Timothy Snyder calls "anticipatory obedience:"

"Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do."

Source: The NFL is Removing 'End Racism' from Its Super Bowl End Zone

See more at post: Look at the World from a Different Perspective

Social proof is a psychological phenomenon where people look to the actions of others to determine appropriate behavior, especially in uncertain situations.

“It states that one means we use to determine what is correct is to find out what other people think is correct,” social psychologist Robert Cialdini wrote in his best-selling book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. “The principle applies especially to the way we decide what constitutes correct behavior. We view a behavior as more correct in a given situation to the degree that we see others performing it.”

People tend to copy what other people do. If something is popular, we tend to trust it more. When many other people buy a product or follow a trend, we tend to assume it’s good. Our brains are wired to look for clues from other people’s choices. It’s a basic human instinct to follow the crowd. "Monkey see, monkey do."

Source: 90 Percent Will Click This Post. Here's Why

See more at post: All Wars Are Civil Wars

When you defy, it transforms you because you can be more yourself. You’re more authentic. You have a more joyful, honest life. That fascinates me as a psychologist.

[The second thing] is what I call the “defiance domino effect.” This is how defiance transforms the people who observe it.

 . . . That moment affected me. It changed how I thought about defiance, and what I would like to see in the world on a larger scale. Society is built on all of these smaller moments, and I want to see a society where one of the teens would’ve spoken up against his peers so my immigrant mother wouldn’t have to. That’s the type of social change that I would like to see in the world — one where every individual makes a difference.

Source: How the “Defiance Domino Effect” Can Improve Your Life and Transform Society

See more at post: All Wars Are Civil Wars

A great deal of coordination is accomplished via conformity to norms. Conformity has been observed in every domain of life where researchers have looked for it. Experiments have revealed conformity in fashion, political and musical preferences, moral values, eating and drinking behaviors, sexual practices, social attitudes, cooperation, and conflict. What people think, feel, and do is influenced, often to a startling degree, by what they believe everyone else is thinking, feeling, and doing. And because they are bound to groups and identities, the particular norms that guide people at any given moment can vary depending on which parts of themselves are the most salient and active.

-

The real benefits of dissenters come less from the ideas they espouse or suggestions they make than from the ways they change how the rest of us think.

When people are exposed to popularly held ideas, their thinking tends to be lazy and narrow, focused on whether or not the majority view is correct. But when they hear a minority point of view, a rarer perspective, their thinking expands. They start to ponder why anyone would endorse that idea. Truth be told, they often start to argue against it, but in doing so they are forced to cast a wider net of thought, considering and perhaps even questioning their own assumptions.

This is critical because this is how dissent can improve innovation, creativity, and group decision-making. Dissent is effective because it changes the ways that other people think. This means that dissenters do not actually have to be right to benefit the group—they just have to speak up enough to get others thinking. Their mere presence can spark more divergent thought and open up space for others to express alternative views.

Source: the book The Power of Us: Harnessing Our Shared Identities to Improve Performance, Increase Cooperation, and Promote Social Harmony by Jay J. Van Bavel and Dominic J. Packer.

See more at post: Expand Your Identities

Contemporary dissidents share a mindset, what Václav Havel once called an “existential attitude.” They did not wake up one day and decide to take on the regimes of their countries. They just allowed themselves to be guided by their own individuality . . . Dissidents are born out of this choice: either assert their authentic selves or accept the authoritarian’s mafioso bargain, safety and protection in exchange for keeping one’s head down. Those rare few who just can’t make that bargain—they transform into dissidents. . . . 

They wanted to live authentically in societies that asked them constantly to lie. . . . 

What dissidents teach us is not to normalize. . . . 

They are outliers not because they run toward oppositional views but because they simply insist on pursuing their interests, their curiosities, their desires and unique ways of being human.

Source: What Dissidents Can Teach Us

See more at post: A Blend of Boldness and Despair

And one new one from Rebecca Solnit, who has been inspired by recent events to start sharing her own resistance in the hopes that it will be contagious.

To Use Their Language Is to Endorse Their Lies

Every crisis is in part a storytelling crisis, and the current one here in the US is also a language crisis. How we use the language and how we listen for lies that are in single words and phrases as well as in sentences or narratives is part of what we can and must do to resist the Trump Administration's authoritarian agenda. A single word can be a lie. For example, journalists are still calling what Musk and his child army have been doing an operation in pursuit of government efficiency. It is true that in a wink-wink jokey way DOGE is called the Department of Government Efficiency. It's also true that it's not a department, they demonstrably don't give a damn about efficiency, nor are they competent to produce it or pursuing it. It's about efficiency in the same way that the Ministry of Truth in Nineteen Eighty-Four was about truth.

The language to describe DOGE should be the language of invasion and attack, on specific departments, on the stability and functionality of the US government, and on the Constitution and the rule of law, on the rights and needs and even survival of ordinary people. What Musk and Trump are engaged in is a coup attempt and an assault on the federal government, and while more and more people are using the word coup, in other stories journalists are still perpetrating the lie that efficiency is DOGE's goal. It is cheaper to build a car without brakes, though when the driver wants to stop, the results may be undesirable. Severing a limb is a quick weight loss method. We will quite possibly spend less money on a federal government that is no longer functional--but it's our money and we do get some things in return for it we cannot do without.

Departments that protect people, systems, and places are being destroyed, sabotaged, wrecked, their security trashed, their functions halted or impaired, their staff sidelined or shut out, and their websites taken down. Even in a piece of journalism reporting on the damage and destruction, talking about efficiency as the goal legitimizes the motives and muddles the impact. Many are doing the same now with Musk's attacks and agenda. If DOGE was really interested in improving thrift while preserving function, it would probably use accountants who are actually skilled at reviewing spending, but I have heard no reports of accountants involved. It's transparently ridiculous to pretend that a bunch of tech dudes can pop into a complex administrative department and somehow over a weekend or in a matter of days improve it. You can destroy things without understanding them. You can't redesign them without that understanding. . . . 

The language belongs to all of us and to each of us, and under most situations short of torture and imprisonment most of us have some agency in how we use it. Authoritarians recognize that authority over language itself is vital to their power, and these ones want to use language to impose white supremacy, trans hate, the anti-indigenous politics of putting President McKinley's name back on Mount Denali. Going along with them is a surrender most of us don't have to engage in.

But a lot of major corporations have. Not only have Google and Apple both changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the preposterous but oh-so white nationalist Gulf of America, but the Associated Press reported it was coerced to do so, and to its credit it protested publicly. . . . 

Meanwhile a novelist alerted me that the National Endowment for the Arts grant applications have added a requirement that applicants must comply with Trumpian ideology. . . . 

In this moment it's not hard for you and me and lots of everyday people to have more integrity, more respect for truth, and more courage than too many of our largest corporations, news organizations, and politicians. It's a small part of the work we need to do, but a vital one.

My emphasis added.

That's where my mind has been lately. Attention glued to the news, feeling distraught and powerless, wondering what to do about the damage being done to our government and to people's lives. It's been hard to find the focus needed to read, but I've managed a few books along the way.

First, a snippet from Fake Chinese Sounds by Jing Jing Tsong.

I love this!

Black-and-white talk = nonsense.

Things are never just black and white.

(What I wrote of the book in my review, for context: An excellent story of a middle grade girl navigating American life as a Chinese immigrant and her efforts to figure out how to meld the two cultures into her identity. Very everyday, slice of life and relatable; not preachy; sometimes poignant, but understated and not dramatic. It's a personal and personable story.)

I didn't really write reviews of the first two books in N.K. Jemisin's The Broken Earth trilogy because they are already well-known and popular, but I felt moved to write this after finishing the third, The Stone Sky.

Fantasy and science fiction stories almost always involve an element of race relations. I realized this in seventh or eighth grade when Tolkien turned me on to the genre and that was all I read for years. The differences between humans, hobbits, dwarves, and elves, how their societies navigate those differences, the conflicts that arise between their cultures, the ingrained hatreds and mistrust of difference. In sci-fi, the same dynamic but with aliens. Even at that young age I never felt these were escapist imaginings, but allegorical and metaphorical reflections of social, cultural, national, and racial dynamics in real life.

It's not an absolute universal, but it's there more often than not--real life, after all, can't avoid tribal dynamics; so if the people in a fictional story are to feel real and true, tribal dynamics will be a part of their lives, too. Sometimes that's all it is, a small element of the characters' thoughts and relationships to give them grounding and context. Often, though, race relations are fundamental to the characters' journeys and are a key part of the heart of the story. Real social and psychological dynamics at the core; a story of fantastical adventures on top.

The Broken Earth trilogy is one such story. From the start, it implicitly considers what qualifies a sentient being as "human." And, along the way, what qualifies as "a sentient being." Those considerations only grow as the tale does, becoming more integral to the characters' journeys, dimensions and layers added as more of the story of this planet and its inhabitants revealed. Not only cultural and racial differences, but different versions of human, artificial intelligence, and intelligent nature. There are forms of slavery, caste systems, species hierarchies. And it demonstrates difference is no barrier to personhood and humanity, that compelling human experiences come in all shapes and sizes.

I mention this core of social and psychological dynamics mainly because the fantastical adventures layered upon it are so engaging, interesting, and exciting that no more needs to be written about them. It's an amazing story of magic and technology gone awry to such an extent to have broken the earth and the broken lives the succeeding generations of survivors must live--and the small group of individuals hoping to bring healing to their unstable planet. It is a masterfully told, deeply satisfying story.

Worthy of the acclaim.

A couple of excerpts from this book that stood out to me:

There are stages to the process of being betrayed by your society. One is jolted from a place of complacency by the discovery of difference, by hypocrisy, by inexplicable or incongruous ill treatment. What follows is a time of confusion--unlearning what one thought to be the truth. Immersing oneself in the new truth. And then a decision must be made.

Some accept their fate. Swallow their pride, forget the real truth, embrace the falsehood for all they're worth--because, they decide, they cannot be worth much. If a whole society has dedicated itself to their subjugation, after all, then surely they deserve it? Even if they don't, fighting back is too painful, too impossible. At least this way there is peace, of a sort. Fleetingly.

The alternative is to demand the impossible. It isn't right, they whisper, weep, shout; what has been done to them is not right. The are not inferior. They do not deserve it. And so it is the society that must change. There can be peace this way, too, but not before conflict.

No one reaches this place without a false start or two.

-----

"What is it that you want?"

"Only to be with you," I say.

"Why?"

I adjust myself to a posture of humility, with head bowed and one hand over my chest. "Because that is how one survives eternity," I say, "or even a few years. Friends. Family. Moving with them. Moving forward."

"Friends, family," you say. "Which am I, to you?"

"Both and more. We are beyond such things."

"Hmm."

I am not anxious. "What do you want?"

You consider. Then you say, "I want the world to be better."

I have never regretted more my inability to leap into the air and whoop for joy.

Instead, I transit to you, with one hand proffered. "Then let's go make it better."

You look amused. "Just like that?"

"It might take some time."

"I don't think I'm very patient." But you take my hand.

Don't be patient. Don't ever be. This is the way a new world begins.

"Neither am I," I say. "So let's get to it."

And one shorter quote that I appreciate: When we say that "the world has ended," remember--it is usually a lie. The planet is just fine.

I don't know why I decided to read The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez or what brought it to my attention, but I enjoyed it. Here's a review.

As much a collection of ruminations as a story. And intentionally cryptic and cagey about whether it's fiction or autobiography.

The story is about a somewhat older author named Sigrid Nunez living through lockdown and social distancing during the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020. Well, maybe named Sigrid Nunez--I don't think the narrator names herself, but she says at one point her computer spell-checked her name and suggested "Sugared Nouns"; and other details about her would seem to match. This is in one of many sections of ruminations about writing and authors and authorship, one that includes: You can start with fiction or start with documentary, according to Jean-Luc Godard. Either way, you will inevitably find the other. As I said, cryptic and cagey.

Anyway, the story is about an author resembling this book's author during covid in 2020. She, like many others, must take extra care to isolate because she is vulnerable to the infection. She has good friends, but lives alone. Then she is invited to house sit for the friend of a friend to take care of a parrot. And then she is joined by the bird's first sitter, a male college student, who had earlier abandoned his post. It's a story about isolation and unexpected connections.

More than the story, though, I enjoyed the ruminations. The author's thoughts about a wealth of topics related--sometimes only vaguely and tangentially--to events in her life. I wasn't engaged by the story, but by her and her storytelling.

It's a thoughtful, reflective, introspective book that I quite enjoyed.

A few of her ruminations that I marked:

Only when I was young did I believe that it was important to remember what happened in every novel I read. Now I know the truth: what matters is what you experience while reading, the states of feeling that the story evokes, the questions that rise to your mind, rather than the fictional events described. They should teach you this in school, but they don’t.

-----

Some writers use pen names so that they can be more truthful; others, so that they can tell more lies.

-----

[Of the documentary film My Octopus Teacher, made by Craig Foster:]

Gentleness is the most important thing that hours and hours in nature can teach, Foster says.

She made me feel just how precious wild places are, he says. You start to care about all the animals, even the tiniest ones, you understand how highly vulnerable these animals' lives are, how vulnerable all lives are. You start to think about your own vulnerability and about death, your own death.

And in the hours and hours he spent exploring the kelp forest, he was stunned repeatedly by the intelligence--the genius--of what he calls the forest mind, a great underwater brain developed over eons, and the intricate work it does to keep everything balanced.

What matters is what you experience while reading.

Finally, a poem.

Two-Hour Delay

Abby E. Murray

It’s February                                 and already

I’ve overspent my budgeted bewilderment

for the year, most of it on deep & constant

sorrow: war, deportations, deployments, hatred

forged into policy, theft, dead phone lines

and locked doors. I’ve seen more planes fall

from the clouds this winter than snow. So,

for less than an inch of scattered flakes across the city,

our superintendent delays schools for two hours,

and before I fill them with what I have in excess—

lack of amusement, a backlog of worry, and work—

my daughter runs outside, gloveless, hatless,

and all I can think is how lucky she is, at least,

not to be named after industry or my assumptions

about her purpose on this planet. When I read

about the young couple practicing eugenics

in preparation for an apocalypse, the mother’s

ridiculous straw bonnet and father’s smug face

don’t make my jaw drop. My eyes don’t widen.

Belief is the new disbelief. Grief, not shock,

is this year’s renewable resource, and baby,

the harvest looks plentiful. My daughter returns

to show me how she scraped together

just enough sidewalk grit and ice to sculpt

a snowman the size of a pigeon. She props it up

in the weeds we call a yard and it stays for days,

long after the sun revokes what’s left

of the frost and glitter. It delights us without

the burden of surprise, which has never improved

anyone’s life, or built a single beautiful thing.

from Poets Respond

Build beautiful things.

Be contagious.

Look at the World from a Different Perspective

Everyone you see is your neighbor.

-

The first step in making society better is caring about things that don't impact you directly.

-

"People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character."

― Ralph Waldo Emerson

-

"The way we see the world shapes the way we treat it. If a mountain is a deity, not a pile of ore; if a river is one of the veins of the land, not potential irrigation water; if a forest is a sacred grove, not timber; if other species are our biological kin, not resources; or if the planet is our mother, not an opportunity - then we will treat each one with greater respect. That is the challenge, to look at the world from a different perspective."

― David Suzuki

-

"It's only water in a stranger's tears."

Here's the thing about the current president and the people he's brought along with him: They don't view other people (you) as their neighbors ("love your neighbor as yourself"). They don't view them (you) as fellow community members or citizens. They don't view most others (you) as part of their "tribe." They don't think of most people (you) as people, really. Just numbers to manipulate and eliminate. Just categories, often unwanted. Not human or meaningful in the same way they think of themselves.

They don't care if they cause others to suffer.

They don't care about jobs lost or lives upended or personal finances disrupted. Because the people who are experiencing it, from their eyes, don't really matter. Their (your) suffering doesn't matter to them.

Not One of Us - Peter Gabriel

It's only water

In a stranger's tear

Looks are deceptive

But distinctions are clear

A foreign body

And a foreign mind

Never welcome

In the land of the blind

You may look like we do

Talk like we do

But you know how it is

You're not one of us

Not one of us

No you're not one of us

Not one of us

Not one of us

No you're not one of us

There's safety in numbers

When you learn to divide

How can we be in

If there is no outside

All shades of opinion

Feed an open mind

But your values are twisted

Let us help you unwind

You may look like we do

Talk like we do

But you know how it is

You're not one of us

Not one of us

No you're not one of us

You're not one of us

Not one of us

No you're not one of us

I recently made a new Facebook profile "photo"; my first ever with words

Those are just a few things I've posted to social media lately. It might all be moot, because they're in protest of the current president's administration, which is working as fast as it can to destroy our current government departments and institutions. I've also attended a protest at my state's capital, contacted representatives, and done other things to further the resistance. But it's hard in this moment to not feel that they have all the power. So most of this post's contents are related to current affairs that may soon not be relevant. But here are some things that capture this moment.

But, first, a detour through a book I read recently, Before Takeoff by Adi Alsaid. Some thoughts:

I read a lot of books. Because I love reading, yes, but also because I'm a librarian and it's an occupational hazard. And while I always enjoy the books I read on some level, churning through one after another can sometimes begin to feel a bit like a chore, can lead to the act of reading losing a bit of its zest. On one level I know I really liked reading a given book, but on another level I wasn't fully immersed in the pleasure of it the way I could be. And then, sometimes, in the midst of that, a book will come along that will shake me out of that state and remind me fully of the joyful experience reading a good book can be, leaving me with a happy, satisfied glow.

Before Takeoff was one such book for me. An unexpected delight. I found the lighthearted narrative voice charming and loved spending time in its company. It's conversational, personable, and personal. It spends the largest part of its time relating the perspective of James, a smaller but significant portion giving us insight through Michelle's eyes, bounces around into the heads of various other characters, and every so often speaks directly to readers; usually with foreboding warnings of ill to come. Because for all the lightheartedness of the narration, the story it tells includes some real horror and tragedy. Not only darkness, but some is definitely there.

For, ultimately, this is a story about humanity, about human existence in an unpredictable, unexplainable, absurd world. In an amplified, accelerated microcosm. James and Michelle are stuck in an airport waiting for delayed flights to depart, when something kind of weird happens. Then the weirdness escalates. To share specifics would delve into spoilers, so I'll simply say that eventually the airport seems to become its own pocket universe, cut off from the outside world, where the laws of physics, cause-and-effect, and normalcy are broken. The social contract breaks among the airport's occupants, too; the bonds of normalcy and consideration and compassion. People react in different ways, some forming tribes among the anarchy. James and Michelle find each other. Through it all, the narrator provides commentary, insight, and perspective, shedding light on different human reactions and tendencies.

How do you deal with the fact that life is scary and confusing? How do you find meaning and happiness in the midst of it?

It seems everyone is grieving or destroying or fleeing on foot.

-----

"You have to admire life's ability to provide joy amidst heartache. I'm so often blind to that. Of course, that's because of a chemical imbalance in my brain, or whatever deep-seated childhood trauma causes my social anxiety."

-----

He's starting to question what this fear is good for. Absurd or not, there are events in the world that James will simply have to live through. The joy's nestled in among it.

-----

Just zoom in. Shit gets scary when you look at the big picture. But if you zoom in to individual people, I think you're more likely to feel better about the world. Zoom in, and you can see the good.

This book reminds me in many ways of the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It's surreal and magical realism and romance, with just a bit of social commentary and philosophy thrown in; almost glib in its lighthearted representation of tragedy and horror. It's an odd, inventive, and unique mix that I'm sure doesn't work for everyone.

And yet it, somehow, feels accurate to me; it captures some essence of truth in a way that makes me feel happy. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

For flavor, a longer bit of the narrative from Before Takeoff:

It is still unclear if there is something nefarious afoot in the Atlanta airport. The air-conditioning is whirring, strong as it ever was. The Wi-Fi signal is functional enough, though every fifteen minutes it forces users to click through and accept the terms and conditions again. In the too-bright white floodlights, the airport hallways look more like a film set, like the last act of an action movie, or the first act of a horror film. James would really rather not be in either. Where are the romcoms, you know?

He's sitting stiffly in his chair, wondering what he should be doing. He wonders what he should be feeling, if his reactions should more closely mirror what others around him are doing. Is panic the move here? He doesn't feel panic, not yet anyway.

The screamers have exhausted themselves, so the airport is much calmer. There seem to be no explosions, no gunfire, nothing that points toward violence or imminent danger. A few people are still running around. Those who look official have not drawn any weapons, and despite the strangeness of the situation, this detail puts James at ease. James has not seen anything like this before, but he knows that if shit is going down, you probably don't have to look far to find a gun.

And I like this description of some unnamed, unseen horror:

The thing from the hallway is back. This time it's less of a feeling, more like something real. It has a shape, though James can't quite say what the shape is. He thinks of it as a creature now, though he has the suspicion that he's miscategorizing it, somehow. That it's not strictly alive, not even strictly singular.

What he sees: Great swaths of darkness. Moving black holes, absorbing light and life. Multiple legs and tentacles, the stuff of childhood horror movies. Bathroom halls at midnight. The dread-inspiring thought that people are generally more bad than good, that humanity is truly intent on destroying itself, and James will be a witness to the moment that it does.

Like in a nightmare, James finds himself unable to run away. His legs don't function; the synapses in his brain are firing orders to run, but the message gets lost along the way. James sees a thing he cannot escape, a cruel embodied truth: tragedy befalls us all. And here it comes for him, his family gone, violence in the air, the world flipped on its head.

Michelle sees something very different. Her grandfather in a hospital robe, shuffling down the hall alongside one of those IV-on-wheels things. He's smiling at her but won't say a word. She lost her chance to tell him anything, she cannot regain the past.

Basically, it seems, the creature--or creatures, or monster, or whatever--is like that things from Harry Potter that shifts according to each person's specific fear. Not that the monster's unoriginality makes anyone feel better. The B gates return to mayhem.

And this last bit, only because it's relative to something at work. On one of my team's communication forums, I've been asking a weekly question for teambuilding. The week I read this book--a few days before I read the passage that follows--I asked, What have you got in your pocket? From Alsaid:

He's in his sixties or seventies, his white mustache the only recognizable feature on his face, the rest hidden by aviator sunglasses and a cowboy hat. He looks like he might be a regular at a dive bar in Tennessee, some old converted inn that now holds bluegrass jam sessions. James has the strange urge to approach the gate and rummage through the guy's pockets, unveil the hidden details of his life, some clue as to why he's in the horde. A leather-bound flask, a cheap Velcro wallet with pictures of a wife, grandkids, himself as a young man on a motorcycle. Dried tobacco flakes mixed in with lint, so old they crumble between his fingers every time he reaches in.

This thought hits James and sends through him a mad desire to know the contents of every single pocket at the airport. He looks over at Michelle, who's right now taking the lid off the bamboo dim sum container and scooping out a soup dumpling with a spoon. "How much stuff do you have in your pockets?"

Michelle chews, pulls her phone out. She hits the button as she does so, checking for notifications. Nothing on the screen but the time and a picture of a setting sun somewhere James has likely never been.

"That's about it," she says, patting her legs. She slides her European Union passport out from her back pocket. Its corners are creased with use and maybe carelessness. It's bigger than any passport James has seen too, the pages thick with ink. "Why do you ask?"

James reaches out to the passport, little head nod to ask if it's cool to look through it. He starts to flip the pages, looking at the stamps and visas. "I just had this thought. It's kinda stupid, fake-deep."

And a more complete version of my asking of the question at work:

What have you got in your pocket?

 

Option A: Tell us about some actual thing you have in your actual pocket. Not just name it, but something about it--why you carry it, its history or emotional weight, what it means to you.

 

Option B: Get a bit fantastical.

• First generate a random number between 1 and 100. You can grab your handy 2d10 percentile dice or use a website like this one: https://rolladie.net/roll-a-d100-die.
• Then take your number and find it on this table: https://dnd5e.wikidot.com/trinkets. (If you don't like your result, roll again or pick an item that speaks to you.
• That is what you have in your pocket. Tell us something about it. Not just name it, but something about it--why you carry it, its history or emotional weight, what it means to you.

 

“That’s why I like stories. They usually wind up revealing more about a person than what they’d tell you about themselves. It’s not that they lie intentionally, but when people describe themselves they’re really describing what they see in a mirror, and most mirrors are too distorted to show us the truth. If you listen hard enough, there’s more truth in fiction than in all the other s*** combined.”

― Shaun David Hutchinson, Feral Youth

I also asked the question before getting the idea to write about the Funtunfunefu Denkyemfunefu symbol I carry in my pocket that became the beginning of the blog's last post, but I shared that as my answer. Here's a selection of some of the other responses:

I have two bobby pins in my pocket. I carry these bobby pins in case I decide to change my hairstyle throughout the day. This gives me options. I get out the door quicker in the morning when I have bobby pins in my pocket, because it means I can adapt as the day goes on. The bobby pins have a very low value and if I lose them, it's okay. No fret.

-----

If there's ever anything in my pocket it's my Aldi quarter. I like Aldi as my grocery store because they pay livable wages to workers and it's the most affordable for customers. I love their quarter/cart system. Often Aldi regulars exchange quarters/carts in the parking lot so you don't have to walk your cart all the way back. It's the only grocery store that has given me a better sense of community in that way. Oh, and I like their bag system: bring your own, or grab an empty stock cardboard box, or buy if needed. #AldiForLife 

-----

When I put on my various jackets once cold weather hits, I usually find walnuts, beads, banged up coins or anything else I picked up in the colder months. I usually try and pick up microtrash on my walks (or sometimes just neat things I find like the walnuts) and somehow they don't ever make it out of my jacket pockets..... 

-----

I almost always have a spare hair tie in my pocket, in case the one I'm wearing breaks.  Also, I almost always have a note or notes (I currently have two) to myself of things I need to remember to do, either today or the next.  At night I empty my pockets and any notes about things I need to remember for the next day go on my bathroom counter so that I'll see them first thing in the morning.  Then those notes usually go back in my pocket until the task is complete.  It sounds really organized, but I'm also a procrastinator, so sometimes those tasks still don't get completed on time, about which I am constantly reminded.

-----

I've always been more likely to wear a talisman/something significant than to carry one in my pocket. My pockets usually have the little things of daily life... hair ties, post-its, tissues, receipts... a piece of candy that hasn't been smashed if I'm lucky.

To that last one I replied: You say that like "the little things of daily life" aren't worthy of mention or a microstory. I'm not sure I agree. (I was thinking more along the lines of "the little things of daily life" until that muse struck me.)

It was a delightful little exercise.

Here's one more item not about current affairs that caught my attention due to my interest in stories and how they shape the brain.

Your Brain Wants a Linear Story

Artists may jumble time for dramatic effect. But your unconscious is always putting the narrative in order.

Because we live our lives chronologically, making sense of big leaps in a narrative sequence entails heftier mental work: Research shows our reaction times and reading pace slow and we have a harder time accessing memories related to events when they are presented to us out of order. . . . 

Our brains use temporal cues—like the time cards in the movie, or words related to the passing of time in a written or spoken story—to reorganize events into chronological order in real time. “I think the fact that we found evidence for this unscrambling on the fly during a complex narrative stimulus shows just how sensitive our brains are to temporal information,” says neuroscientist Emily Finn, a co-author of the study. . . . 

An instant mastery over the chronology of events may serve a greater purpose, Finn and her colleagues reason: Encoding events in the correct order in our memories could be very helpful for understanding the causal relationships between one thing and another. The more you understand about cause and effect, the better you may be at predicting what is yet to come and making sense of the world and your environment, says Finn. . . . 

I find that a fascinating bit of information.

Everyone's feed is currently flooded with news about what the administration is doing along with commentary and thoughts in response. I've tried to be selective in what I share/reshare in the hopes what I do will bee seen and read instead of lost in the flood. Here, in my mind, are some of the key ideas in opposition to what they are doing. Shared without much comment or context; except they all contain ideas and philosophies I hold fundamental.

Civil Servants Are Not America's Enemies

Donald Trump is waging war on the civil service in the name of efficiency. But Washington created the modern civil service to make the government efficient in the first place, ending a patronage system wracked with graft and incompetence. Trump’s so-called reforms will only make it harder for the White House and the Republican Congress to enact their own policy aims, and harder for any president to get things done in the future. . . . 

In many ways, Trump is seeking to return the country to the spoils system that existed in the 19th century. Pioneered by President Andrew Jackson, that system awarded tens of thousands of civil-service jobs to allies and co-partisans of the White House. (The phrase “to the victor belong the spoils” does not originate in ancient Athens or Rome. It was first uttered by New York Senator William L. Marcy in the early 1830s.) This kind of patronage was efficient, Jackson and his supporters argued: “Rotation in office” meant that the civil service aligned with the ideology of the president, and brought fresh workers into the stodgy government.

But having party loyalists manage the Postal Service and firing thousands of people every time the White House changed hands was not a model of efficiency. Postmasters, clerks, and surveyors paid a share of their salary as kickbacks to the party in control of their position. “Solicitation letters were sent by the party to each worker, return envelopes were provided to ensure that payments were made, and compliance was carefully monitored,” the economists Ronald Johnson and Gary Libecap note. Scandals abounded. The collector of the Port of New York embezzled $1 million, not adjusted for inflation, before fleeing for England in 1838.

In 1880, President James Garfield ran on reform, promising in his inaugural address to pass civil-service regulations “for the good of the service” and “for the protection of incumbents against intrigue and wrong.” . . . 

The Pendleton Act of 1883 finally ended the spoils system, requiring government employees to pass an exam and forbidding hiring on the basis of race, politics, religion, or national origin. It led to a 25 percent reduction in staff turnover and increased the qualifications held by bureaucrats. Postal-delivery errors dropped by 22 percent, and the volume of mail delivered by carriers increased as much as 14 percent. . . . 

Today, a thicket of laws prevents the White House from making partisan hiring decisions, and civil servants from engaging in partisan activity. The Government Accountability Office and inspectors general root out incompetence, inefficiency, and waste. . . . 

Every bureaucracy has some bloat. But there are no more civil servants now than there were in the late 1960s, even as the population they serve has grown by two-thirds. . . . Moreover, federal workers are more efficient than private workers; they are less expensive to hire too. . . . 

Other countries show the risks. Viktor Orbán’s attack on Hungary’s civil service has led to the degradation of the country’s water, sanitation, and electric systems, and corruption in the construction industry and real-estate market. In Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro’s purging of public officials made the government less efficient.

In the United States, the strong, nonpartisan civil service reduces costs for taxpayers, with meritocracy and impartiality bolstering the country’s economic growth, one sweeping review found. The system also protects the public from graft and lawlessness. . . . 

Trump is seeking to cow the civil service and politicize it, not reform it. Rather than seeing the country’s 2 million public employees as agents, he sees them as enemies. This is not going to make the government more efficient. It is not going to make America great.

Letters from an American - February 7, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

 . . . Senator Angus King (I-ME) took his Republican colleagues to task yesterday for their willingness to overlook the Trump administration’s attack on the U.S. Constitution. King took the floor as the Senate was considering the confirmation of Christian Nationalist Russell Vought as director of the Office of Management and Budget. Vought, a key author of Project 2025, believes the powers of the president should be virtually unchecked.

King reminded his colleagues that they had taken an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic” and noted that the Framers recognized there could be domestic enemies to the Constitution. “Our oath was not to the Republican Party, not to the Democratic Party, not to Joe Biden, not to Donald Trump,” King said, “but…to defend the Constitution.”

“And…right now—literally at this moment—that Constitution is under the most direct and consequential assault in our nation's history,” King said. “An assault not on a particular provision but on the essential structure of the document itself.”

Why do we have a Constitution, King asked. He read the Preamble and said: “There it is. There's the list—ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, ensure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” But, he pointed out, there is a paradox: the essence of a government is to give it power, but that power can be abused to hurt the very citizens who granted it. “Who will guard the guardians?” King asked.

The Framers were “deep students of history and…human nature. And they had just won a lengthy and brutal war against the abuses inherent in concentrated governmental power,” King said. “The universal principle of human nature they understood was this: power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

How did the Framers answer the question of who will guard the guardians? King explained that they built into our system regular elections to return the control of the government to the people on a regular basis. They also deliberately divided power between the different branches and levels of government.

“This is important,” King said. “The cumbersomeness, the slowness, the clumsiness is built into our system. The framers were so fearful of concentrated power that they designed a system that would be hard to operate. And the heart of it was the separation of power between various parts of the government. The whole idea, the whole idea was that no part of the government, no one person, no one institution had or could ever have a monopoly on power.”

“Why? Because it's dangerous. History and human nature tells us that. This division of power, as annoying and inefficient as it can be,… is an essential feature of the system, not a bug. It's an essential, basic feature of the system, designed to protect our freedoms.”

The system of government “contrasts with the normal structure of a private business, where authority is purposefully concentrated, allowing swift and sometimes arbitrary action. But a private business does not have the army, and the President of the United States is not the CEO of America.”

In the government, “[p]ower is shared, principally between the president and this body, this Congress, both houses…. [T]his herky-jerkiness…this unwieldy structure is the whole idea,... designed to protect us from the…inevitable abuse of an authoritarian state.”

Vought, King said, is “one of the ringleaders of the assault on our Constitution. He believes in a presidency of virtually unlimited powers.” He “espouses the discredited and illegal theory that the president has the power to selectively impound funds appropriated by Congress, thereby rendering the famous power of the purse a nullity.” King said he was “really worried about…the structural implications for our freedom and government of what's happening here…. Project 2025 is nothing less than a blueprint for the shredding of the Constitution and the transition of our country to authoritarian rule. He's the last person who should be put in the job at the heart of the operation of our government.”

“[T]his isn't about politics. This isn't about policy. This isn't about Republican versus Democrat. This is about tampering with the structure of our government, which will ultimately undermine its ability to protect the freedom of our citizens. If our defense of the Constitution is gone, there's nothing left to us.”

King asked his Republican colleagues to “say no to the undermining and destruction of our constitutional system.” “[A]re there no red lines?” he asked them. “Are there no limits?”

King looked at USAID and said: “The Constitution does not give to the President or his designee the power to extinguish a statutorily established agency. I can think of no greater violation of the strictures of the Constitution or usurpation of the power of this body. None. I can think of none. Shouldn't this be a red line?”

Trump’s “executive order freezing funding…selectively, for programs the administration doesn't like or understand” is, King said, “a fundamental violation of the whole idea of the Constitution, the separation of powers.” King said his “office is hearing calls every day, we can hardly handle the volume. This again, to underline, is a frontal assault of our power, your power, the power to decide where public funds should be spent. Isn't this an obvious red line? Isn't this an obvious limit?”

King turned to “the power seemingly assumed by DOGE to burrow into the Treasury's payment system” as well as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, with “zero oversight.” “Do these people have clearance?” King, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee asked. “Are the doors closed? Are they going to leave open doors into these? What are the opportunities for our adversaries to hack into the systems?... Remember, there's no transparency or oversight. Access to social security numbers seem to be in the mix. All the government's personnel files, personal financial data, potentially everyone's tax returns and medical records. That can't be good…. That's data that should be protected with the highest level of security and consideration of Americans' privacy. And we don't know who these people are. We don't know what they're taking out with them. We don't know whether they're walking out with laptops or thumb drives. We don't know whether they're leaving back doors into the system. There is literally no oversight. The government of the United States is not a private company. It is fundamentally at odds with how this system is supposed to work.”

“Shouldn't this be an easy red line?” he asked.

“[W]e're experiencing in real time exactly what the framers most feared. When you clear away the smoke, clear away the DOGE, the executive orders, foreign policy pronouncements, more fundamentally what's happening is the shredding of the constitutional structure itself. And we have a profound responsibility…to stop it.”

King’s appeal to principle and the U.S. Constitution did not convince his Republican colleagues, who confirmed Vought. . . . 

'Reboot' Revealed: Elon Musk's CEO-Dictator Playbook

In 2022, one of Peter Thiel's favorite thinkers envisioned a second Trump Administration in which the federal government would be run by a “CEO” who was not Trump and laid out a playbook for how it might work. Elon Musk is following it.

In 2012, Curtis Yarvin — Peter Thiel’s “house philosopher”—called for something he dubbed RAGE: Retire All Government Employees. The idea: Take over the United States government and gut the federal bureaucracy. Then, replace civil servants with political loyalists who would answer to a CEO-type leader Yarvin likened to a dictator.

“If Americans want to change their government, they’re going to have to get over their dictator phobia,” he said.

Yarvin, a software programmer, framed this as a “reboot” of government.

Elon Musk’s DOGE is just a rebranded version of RAGE. He demands mass resignations, locks career employees out of their offices, threatens to delete entire departments, and seizes total control of sensitive government systems and programs. DOGE = RAGE, masked in the bland language of “efficiency.”

But Musk’s reliance on Yarvin’s playbook runs deeper. . . . 

In an essay dated April 2022, Yarvin updated RAGE . . . 

"Trump himself will not be the brain …He will not be the CEO. He will be the chairman of the board—he will select the CEO (an experienced executive). This process, which obviously has to be televised, will be complete by his inauguration—at which the transition to the next regime will start immediately."

This CEO will bring a new radical new style of leadership to the federal government:

"The CEO he picks will run the executive branch without any interference from the Congress or courts, probably also taking over state and local governments. Most existing important institutions, public and private, will be shut down and replaced with new and efficient systems. Trump will be monitoring this CEO’s performance, again on TV, and can fire him if need be."

Sound familiar? . . . 

Yarvin is not alone in envisioning a massive purge of government. In 2021, J.D. Vance lauded Yarvin's work and called for a government purge . . . Like Yarvin, Vance compared the federal government to a conquered enemy . . . He added that Trump should defy any court orders designed to stop his purge. . . . 

What once seemed like a fringe theory is now being carried out by the corporate powers that have wholly captured our government. . . . 

What surprises me most is how the political press generally fails to inform the public that Musk is taking a systematic approach, one that has been outlined in public forums for years. . . . 

We are witnessing the methodical implementation of a long-planned strategy to transform American democracy into corporate autocracy. The playbook was written in plain sight and is now being followed step by step. Some dismiss the Yarvins of the world as unhinged nuts, but that's the point. These guys, with their bizarre and dangerous ideas, have gotten very far in 2025. Just look at the news.

Yarvin pitched his vision as a fictional or unlikely scenario. Unfortunately, it now appears to be our new reality. The press's failure to connect these dots isn't just a journalistic oversight — it's a critical missed warning about the systematic dismantling of democratic governance. By the time most Americans understand what's happening, the "reboot" – the destruction of government – may already be complete.

The Attack on Trans Rights Won’t End There

The American populism of this century is one of financial elites feigning rebellion while crushing the vulnerable. . . .

The damage wrought by legitimizing this form of discrimination will not be limited to the trans community. Laws and legal rulings that undermine trans rights may soon be used to restrict the rights of other, less marginal groups. Anyone naive enough to think that the government can deny fundamental rights to one group without putting another’s at risk is in for some nasty surprises. That much became clear during oral arguments at the Supreme Court in December over Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors. . . . 

The outcome of this case has much broader implications than it might appear, because if a state can, as Prelogar put it, force people to “look and live like boys and girls,” subject to the government’s definition of what that means, then a lot more people might be affected. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor pointed out during oral argument, for many years, some states prevented women from becoming butchers or lawyers. Women could not have their own credit cards or bank accounts until the 1970s. If it’s not unconstitutional sex discrimination for the government to say that people cannot behave “inconsistent with their sex,” well now you’re really talking about a lot of people—a lot more people than the rather tiny population included in the category of “they/them” that the Trump campaign was hoping you feel disgust and contempt for.

Much depends on the nature of the justices’ ultimate decision and how far-reaching it is. The conservative movement’s mobilization against trans rights, however, is just one step in a wider rolling-back of other antidiscrimination protections. Conservatives have consciously targeted a diminutive, politically powerless segment of the population, trying to strip them of their constitutional rights, and then used those legal precedents to undermine laws that prevent discrimination on the basis of race, religion, sexual orientation, and other characteristics. The trick was making Americans think that only the rights of trans people are on the chopping block, that “they/them” could be persecuted without consequences for “you.” . . . 

Many of the rationales offered by the conservative justices during oral argument echo the reasoning of those opposed to bans on racial discrimination. . . . For example, defenders of Tennessee’s ban have said that it does not discriminate based on sex, because it prohibits gender-affirming care to both boys and girls—a point Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett raised during oral argument. Similar assertions were made in defense of interracial-marriage bans, which prevented both Black and white people from marrying their chosen spouses. . . . 

The point of equal protection is to prevent fundamental rights from being subject to mere popularity contests . . . 

The Trump administration’s early actions make clear that exploiting voters’ fears about trans people was part of a larger plan to undermine antidiscrimination protections for many other people, even as they intend to make the lives of millions of others—including many of Trump’s own supporters—much worse. Among the first actions taken by the administration was the repeal of the Lyndon B. Johnson–era directive ordering federal contractors to avoid discriminating on the basis of race, as well as subsequent orders barring discrimination on the basis of gender. The administration has also frozen all new cases in the civil-rights division of the Justice Department. Trump has also ended all federal-government diversity efforts and intends to fire employees involved in them. The administration’s executive order on DEI also threatens to sue companies for having diversity programs, a threat that will encourage companies to resegregate to avoid being accused of anti-white discrimination. Trump has shut down the White House’s Spanish-language website, ended refugee- and humanitarian-parole programs, and unconstitutionally attempted to nullify birthright citizenship.

Even before Trump took office, Republican-controlled states passed laws that curtail women’s rights to free speech, privacy, and movement on the grounds that those restrictions are necessary to ban abortion—something that, as Justice Samuel Alito took pains to reiterate during oral argument in Skrmetti, neither he nor his colleagues in the conservative movement regard as sex-based discrimination. . . . 

This is shameless bullying, but then, the president is himself a bully of the highest order, and presidents are moral exemplars, for better and worse. It is not necessary for one to approve of gender-affirming care in order to respect people’s right to make their own decisions about what medical care is best for them and their families, or to oppose this kind of outright, ideologically motivated state persecution.

Over the past century, many groups have successfully sought to have their rights recognized, winning, at least on paper, the same rights as white, Christian, heterosexual men. The right-wing project today, which Trumpist justices support, is to reestablish by state force the hierarchies of race, gender, and religion they deem moral and foundational. Whether that’s forcing LGBTQ people back into the closet, compelling women to remain in loveless marriages, or confining Black and Hispanic people to the drudgery of—as Trump once put it—“Black jobs” and “Hispanic jobs” in which they are meant to toil, the purpose of this ideological project is the same: to put the broader mass of people back in their “proper places.” To those who see the world this way, freedom means the freedom of the majority to oppress the minority. Attacking trans people first was simply their plan for getting the American people on board with taking many other freedoms away.

The new talking point in response to this tragedy is that "the best and the brightest" means NOT DEI. Meaning racial minorities, women, those with disabilities, and similar--anyone who is not a white man--cannot by definition meet the standard of "the best and the brightest."

Trump Officials Baselessly Blame DEI in Plane Crash Presser

Other Trump administration officials echoed the president's sentiments about the connection between DEI and the quality of the federal workforce.

• "We can only accept the best and the brightest in positions of safety that impact the lives of our loved ones, our family members," Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said at the press conference after Trump spoke.
• Duffy also promised reforms after Trump's comments. "We are going to take responsibility at the Department of Transportation and the FAA to make sure we have the reforms that have been dictated by President Trump in place to make sure that these mistakes do not happen again and again."
• Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth struck a similar note at the briefing. "The era of DEI is gone at the Defense Department and we need the best and brightest — whether it's in our air traffic control or whether it's in our generals, or whether it's throughout government," he said.
• Vice President JD Vance claimed that over the past decade, hundreds of people had sued the government because they wanted to be air traffic controllers but had been "turned away because of the color of their skin."
• "That policy ends under Donald Trump's leadership, because safety is the first priority of our aviation industry," Vance added.

This is just the tip of the blatant racism and sexism that has begun to emerge.

The NFL is Removing 'End Racism' from Its Super Bowl End Zone

So maybe you've heard: the Super Bowl is this weekend! And you've probably also heard: President Trump will also be there! Oh, and perhaps not coincidentally: The NFL is removing the lettering from the end zone on its football fields that reads "END RACISM"!

The NFL started using the lettering back in 2020, in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd and the nationwide protests that followed. But for many reading between the lines of the NFL's decision to do away with that lettering, they saw this: America's most popular sports league was downplaying its diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts after Trump criticized such initiatives and his administration began to target those programs at federal agencies. Other big, powerful corporations like Target and Meta and Amazon were more substantially rolling back their DEI initiatives. . . . 

Some democracy advocates worry that too many of our civic institutions are softening their postures toward Trump to avoid getting on his bad side, pointing to what the historian Timothy Snyder calls "anticipatory obedience:"

"Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do."

Ezra Klein, the New York Times columnist, writes that Trump's blizzard of executive actions is meant to give the impression that the will of his White House is inevitable. But Klein notes that all the activity belies just how many of the new administration's most high-profile decisions have already been stymied by sloppy rollouts, gotten jammed up by the courts, or faced widespread condemnation by world leaders. The Trump White House is governing by blitz, and as any football fan can tell you, the point of the blitz is to keep you jumpy and looking over your shoulder. But it's worth remembering that you play through a blitz by stepping up, absorbing the pressure you know is coming, and keeping your eyes downfield.

Anticipatory Obedience.

Wonderful term, that. And it's amazing how widely spread it is, by far the majority reaction.

This feels like the end of things as we know it, so I hope I can write a new post in a year or some future date saying it all amounted to nothing.

We'll have to see.

Unity in Diversity: All Rivers Flow to the Sea

One is a River.

Everyone is a Sea.

The Funtunfunefu Denkyemfunefu symbolizes the paradox of life:

it portrays unity and interdependence amidst diversity.

Individuals, groups, and even nations with different perspectives or identities

can achieve more together when they embrace their shared interests rather than engage in conflict.

The crocodiles' fight over food despite having a shared stomach underscores

the irony and futility of internal divisions within a unified body.

The symbol calls for harmony,

urging people to focus on common goals rather than on trivial disputes.

ah, bless the animals

we have always been, in our coats and shoes

and clumsy language, bless our willful ignorance,

so enormous, so world-altering, that, like the great wall of China,

it can be seen from outer space,

where the gods are shaking their heads even now,

in pity and in awe.

an artist's or a philosopher's task is to demonstrate the plain structure of the relationship that may restore the connectedness between the Earth and humans

there is no such thing as a murderous catastrophe

the catastrophe in the midst of which we dwell, yes, we ourselves dwell in that ceaseless apocalypse that we need not wait for, but need to recognize is already here, and has been present all along

there is no dualism in existence

all is evil, or else nothing is

everything plays the roles of both perpetrator and victim in this drama of inevitable catastrophe

how it eats at you, the news, always it’s in the news,

not even a story needed, just a snippet of headline

Cooperation is self-interest.

Lately I've been into collecting charms, trinkets, and symbols. While I try to be mindful of cultural appropriation, I've adopted a traditional symbol from Ghana in Africa as one of my own because it speaks so powerfully to me and so accurately captures my values. The Adinkra Symbol of Unity in Diversity: Funtunfunefu Denkyemfunefu.

The symbol depicts two crocodiles crossed over each other, intersecting in the middle--and sharing a single stomach. So, if either eats, it feeds them both. What is good for one is good for the other. I'm fond of sharing the phrase cooperation is self-interest and repeat it often on this blog--usually along with another piece of evidence, whether human or otherwise in nature, that supports the claim. It is one of the key values I live by. And I find this symbol depicts it well. When one benefits, the whole benefits. Cooperation is self-interest.

Yet a dimension to the symbol is that the two heads (and tail and limbs) remain separate and distinct. Sharing a stomach does not mean surrendering all individuality to the collective. Everyone benefits when one head eats, but only that one head has the experience--and, presumably, enjoyment--of eating. Each head can have its own unique experiences, thoughts, perspective, and personality. It is both its own creature and inescapably part of the whole. Independent and united. Individual and connected.

In my last post, All Wars Are Civil Wars, I shared my results on the Strengths Deployment Inventory (SDI), which I recently took for a work function. Part of the description of my style:

You achieve feelings of self-worth by being genuinely helpful to others while developing self-sufficiency for yourself and others.

For you, the real measure of success is how helpful you can be without diminishing the independence of those you are helping. You balance principles and feelings, logic and emotion. You want to see your well-planned help bring out the best in others.

You use reason and systems to improve the welfare and independence of others. You alert others to risks they may not have considered. You prefer an open and tolerant environment that respects people's feelings and is based on fair principles.

And previously I've shared my results from the StrengthsFinder tool (see: The Blockbuster Video School of Life and Find the Thread of Love and Beauty in It All). It ranks you in 34 different strengths, top to bottom, indicating which are most and least you. A person's top five are almost always a unique combination and key to understanding them, the the next five helping to create the full picture.

The strengths fall into four different categories, and most of my top ten fall into what they call the "Strategic Thinking" category. Here they are (with #7 thrown in from the "Executing" category because it meshes so well):

1. Input - Inquisitive, always wanting to know more, craving information

2. Learner - Constantly strive to learn and improve, value the process of continuous learning

3. Intellection - Like to think, like mental activity

6. Ideation - Fascinated by ideas

7. Deliberative - Take serious care in making decisions or choices

8. Analytical - Search for reasons and causes, analyze situations and factors

9. Strategic - Look for patterns and issues, create alternative ways to proceed

I'm a thinker.

But my top ten isn't completely homogeneous, because rounding out my top five are two from the "Relationship Building" category:

4. Connectedness - A powerful conviction that everyone is connected, a belief that everyone is part of something larger

5. Individualization - Understand and are intrigued by others' unique qualities

That, to me, is the point of all of the learning and thinking, to be able to better understand others and know how to help us all discover how deeply connected we are.

I made a poem of sorts with descriptions taken from my top five report. Here's the final part capturing Connectedness and Individualization:

You link ideas, events, people.

We are all connected,

part of something larger,

not isolated from one another

or from the earth and the life on it.

You recognize how people are alike and how they are different,

intrigued by the unique qualities of each person,

you can draw out the best in each,

build productive teams.

You are a bridge builder for people of different cultures.

Unity in Diversity.

Here is a longer description of Funtunfunefu Denkyemfunefu: Adinkra Symbol of Unity in Diversity from TribalGH:

The Funtunfunefu Denkyemfunefu symbol, known as the “Siamese Crocodiles,” is one of the most profound and evocative Adinkra symbols, representing unity in diversity. In Twi, the Akan language, the symbol literally translates as "Siamese crocodiles sharing one stomach but fighting for food". Despite sharing a common destiny, the two heads of the crocodiles struggle against each other for the food that ultimately benefits both. This rich metaphor is used to communicate a universal truth about cooperation, democracy, and the futility of conflict when everyone shares the same end goal.

The Funtunfunefu Denkyemfunefu symbolizes the paradox of life: it portrays unity and interdependence amidst diversity. It teaches that individuals, groups, and even nations with different perspectives or identities can achieve more together when they embrace their shared interests rather than engage in conflict.

The crocodiles' fight over food despite having a shared stomach underscores the irony and futility of internal divisions within a unified body. When seen in contexts like family, organizations, and nations, the symbol calls for harmony, urging people to focus on common goals rather than on trivial disputes.

A famous proverb associated with this symbol says:

"Funtunfunefu Denkyemfunefu, won afuru bom nso woredidi a na woreko"

Translation: "Siamese crocodiles, sharing one stomach, fight for food."

This proverb emphasizes the absurdity of fighting for resources that, when gained, will equally benefit both. It teaches that no matter how different people may seem, their fates are often intertwined. Cooperation leads to mutual benefit, while conflict only wastes valuable resources.

The origins of Adinkra symbols, including Funtunfunefu Denkyemfunefu, can be traced back to the Akan people of Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire. These symbols were historically used to represent deep philosophical concepts and proverbs, with each design bearing cultural, ethical, and moral values. Initially, Adinkra symbols were primarily used in royalty and sacred ceremonies but have since expanded into various aspects of daily life, including clothing, architecture, and even corporate branding.

Funtunfunefu Denkyemfunefu is commonly stamped onto traditional cloth worn during significant gatherings such as funerals, festivals, and political events. The symbol's representation of unity in diversity has made it a popular choice during occasions that bring together people from various backgrounds.

In modern society, the Funtunfunefu Denkyemfunefu symbol serves as a powerful reminder of the importance of democracy and collaboration. Whether in governance, business, or interpersonal relationships, this Adinkra symbol underscores that success is achieved through mutual respect, cooperation, and understanding of shared interests.

No matter how different we may seem, our fates are intertwined.

I love this poetic reflection in response to the inauguration of president 47 and other current events.

Alison Luterman

PRAISE THE BROKEN PROMISE OF AMERICA

Praise deep mineral veins under rich dirt,

and fossilized remains of dinosaurs turning themselves into gas

for our benefit. Praise the exhausted earth,

miles and miles of subsidized corn

and cattle lowing from their hell-holes

in automated milking barns.

Praise farmworkers rising before dawn,

their sore backs and aching knees. Praise the myths

that drew them here, stories eagerly consumed

when there is nothing to eat but faith.

Praise the courage of the reverend to look

the dragon in the eye and preach mercy;

praise whatever hidden waterways are still pristine.

Praise music that refused to play at the funeral of democracy.

and the killing cold that swept through Washington

when the fake Pope took power.

Praise drag queens and lipstick lesbians, boys who are girls

and girls who are lions, butch women wearing tool belts,

and all the music theater nerds

who are even now building new passageways

mapping the next underground railroad

and suiting up to be conductors—oh, everybody,

get on board! This train will chug quietly

across the great plains and over rocky Sierras,

into the desert where people still leave bottles of water

and packets of food for the desperate

who have always been the lifeblood

of this nation. It will stop in obscure hamlets

to pick up fugitives with tears tattooed on their cheeks

and fraying backpacks overspilling with contraband books.

Praise the weirdos because if anyone can save us

it will be us. And praise all the glittering illusions

we gawked at, ignoring our own neighbors

in favor of a 24-hour peep show on the internet.

Praise the convict fire fighters on the front lines in L.A.,

battling the insurmountable for ten dollars a day. We gambled

our future for a hot air balloon with a hole in it. Praise

our reckless hubris, and the infinite distractions

of the hall of mirrors we find ourselves in now, and bless

our overwhelmed brains, scurrying like mice for shelter.

Bless our collective rage, and protect

the officers who stood up on January 6th and now see their attackers

roaming the streets like rabid dogs, ah, bless the animals

we have always been, in our coats and shoes

and clumsy language, bless our willful ignorance,

so enormous, so world-altering, that, like the great wall of China,

it can be seen from outer space,

where the gods are shaking their heads even now,

in pity and in awe.

—from Poets Respond

It is no flaw to be flawed. Struggle onward regardless and aspire to be more.

Of Spadework for a Palace by László Krasznahorkai:

The ravings of a mad librarian.

. . . until now been referring to as my dream, yes, from here on it would be different, I would be on my own, by myself, I concluded, having to admit that if what I have been calling the Permanently Closed Library was to be realized, as it must be, then the work, no matter how unrealistic this sounds, would have to be accomplished by myself alone, that is, I alone, all by my lonesome self, must accomplish the transfer of all the books from the New York Public Library to their new location, all 53 million of them, and only the devil however knows exactly how many had to be brought here, to this magnificent Block, so that I quickly went home, sat down in my easy chair in the nearly empty apartment, oh, I forgot to mention that early in the previous week . . .

Krasznahorkai does a masterful job creating this unhinged rant of a man who has, after 41 years as a librarian at the New York Public Library, descended completely into his obsession of creating a "permanently closed library" to never be entered, merely appreciated from a distance for its innate beauty. Mr. Herman Melvill, our narrator who shares a name with the famous author, shares this vision in a single, 96-page sentence, a continuous ramble that is hyper and propulsive and, somehow, engaging and not nonsensical. He even manages to include some literary criticism, art appreciation, and philosophy.

It's fascinating and entertaining.

A longer taste:

. . . this is still the dream I am speaking of, and yes, on the one hand there would be readers who each day will try to enter the libraries in order to request books (to read them in situ or to take them out on loan) but they would not be able to come in and remove books from the shelves or outright borrow them, for the libraries on the other hand would be closed, yes my God CLOSED, permanently, oh, dear God in heaven, the books unmolested and unread, what a lovely notion even just to dream about, and here I will go one step further because, speaking for myself, I trace this vision back to around three months after I started working at the library, yes, by then I already had the feeling that this library belonged to me, and in fact I'd never been crazy about lending things for instance, on days when they came around for the blood drive I never signed up, no, and what's more, if a colleague knocked on my door to ask for a pinch of salt, I had no salt to give away--much less a book from the library--I considered the library books to be mine the same way as my blood and salt were, that's how I felt after not even three months on the job, and that's how it's been ever since, I can't explain how I came to this realization so rapidly, but already back then, after three months, I felt as if I were part of some apocryphal story from the Bible, where the librarian is not some lackey at the beck and call of library patrons, searching out and handing over books, but rather a ... a ... a ... keeper ... the keeper of the Library, who stands fast in front of the unmarked and undivinable entrance, a portal that cannot be entered, refusing to let anyone come in or to allow anything to go out, no reader may enter and no book may leave the premises, that was my dream--conceived and growing and taking shape within me--the secret dream of every librarian, although many would deny it: go and see for yourself (and again I am not speaking to any one in particular, as I've already mentioned I can only write if I address "someone"), yes, go see for yourself, all librarians are like this, when you, a reader, request something from them, the librarians (and I mean the real librarians) will rarely look you in the eye, and they are always irritable, they mumble when you speak to them, without giving you an answer, as if you hadn't spoken loudly enough, as if they'd had trouble hearing your question, or as if they'd found your inquiry simpleminded, and I could go on here, because that's exactly how I too have behaved, and as I've mentioned, I never felt I was the only one, no, I had an entire army of librarians standing behind me, and vanishing--their shoes squeaking off through the stacks--at the sight of a customer approaching with a request slip, no, no, and no again, we did not relish readers and still do not, for in our eyes there is and there can be no difference between one reader and the next, all readers are alike, they interrupt, they impede and prevent us from being real librarians, and, after all, a librarian, as I've said, is not a lackey, such an idea implies an absolute misunderstanding of a library's role, yes, I began to have a clearer and clearer sense of the situation, especially mine, here at the New York Public Library, public library my eye, whoever came up with that appellation got it wrong, divorcing the concept of the library from its rightful definition and reducing it to designate a mere common shop, a lend-ing in-sti-tution, whereas libraries are towers filled with books--and here the "tower" is just as important as "books"--they are towers that ought to be kept permanently locked, and this notion became firmly entrenched in my mind as the months and years and, yes, decades went by, libraries (as I had written down already back then, when I was barely past my earliest jottings relating to the Earth), libraries (as I wrote near the end of my first notebook) are the most exceptional and exalted works of art, yes, that's it, and people on the outside should be gratified to behold them from a distance and reflect, Ah, there is the library and I am here, which is vastly preferable to Ah, here's the library, as they close in on it, which is of course far worse, but in any case, the ideal library with, say, fifty million books shall sit there, a treasure trove that no one should ever be allowed to touch, since it preserves its value precisely by virtue of standing by, ever ready to manifest this value, by being ready and sitting there, in other words, that's all, and after a time this was what I kept writing down day after day, and it became increasingly obvious that this idea simply could not be bottled up although--at this point!!!--I am not sure if anyone beside myself is able to appreciate such sanctity, but in any case I kept writing this vision down, unfurling the thought day after . . . 

And the feelings, at least some of them, that seem to be at the heart of his breakdown:

 . . . in fact, we might as well say it: he was dissatisfied with the Manhattan of today, which was already there in Lowry's day, and which to an extent had had its beginnings at the time of Melville's walks, and the reason he, that is Woods, was dissatisfied was that he loved, truly loved the real Manhattan, and for this reason he needed its reality to demonstrate the extent to which architecture was responsible for our being sundered not only from Heaven, a rupture that had so devastated Melville, but from the Earth as well, so that in fact here in Manhattan we have nothing to do with the Earth we live on, and therefore have nothing to do with reality, that is to say everything is covered up, reality is covered up, and an artist's or a philosopher's task is to demonstrate the plain structure of the relationship that may restore the connectedness between the Earth and humans, Woods made no mention of the Heavens, I believe that he did not think too highly of Heaven, perhaps he was downright exasperated by the way humans for thousands of years have been speaking of Heaven, because we are still stuck at that stage, Woods probably thought, and Melville had written about this, he had created Moby-Dick and all the rest in this spirit, in the awareness that we have a perverted picture of reality, for according to Melville we have brought about a picture of reality that is mendacious, and stemming from that, a blind society, where people are convinced that they know the nature of the reality they inhabit, whereas they are completely misguided, for they are wrong on both counts, on the one hand they haven't the least notion of what reality is like, and, on the other hand, their conviction that they do know what this reality is like is disastrous, said Woods, as had Melville, too, of course, not to mention Lowry, who had not spoken of this directly, but suffered because of it, because of such falsehood, while in his own intemperate way he had suffered from the truth as well, it broke his heart, and that was how he came to write Under the Volcano, with a broken heart, and came to follow in Melville's footsteps, because, let's face it, all three of them were fully aware that catastrophe is the natural language of reality, and that catastrophe may originate in nature, but it may also follow from human evil, it makes no difference, and furthermore according to Woods catastrophe is NOT EVEN EVIL, we cannot speak of it as of some evildoer, the way for instance people speak about an earthquake, that at a given location an earthquake of such and such magnitude killed a given number of people and devastated this or that city and so on, no, not so, said Woods, who died, as it happened, the night Hurricane Sandy hit New York, but Melville had said the same thing and so did Lowry, there is no such thing as a murderous catastrophe, of course with regard to us yes, granted, but the catastrophe itself cares not a whit about whom it may harm, this is a perilous line of thought if we extend it to human evil, but it still leads in the right direction, Woods believed, as did Melville, for these two, and of course Lowry as well, quite simply refused to take for granted that the point of view from where we consider the universal is self-evident, to put it plainly--which is the only way I can put it, I am being rather hypocritical here, since I am incapable of a more complex wording--in any case the question is, what does one, what does humankind need more: reality or the falsehood we can cover it up with, and they had concluded that falsehood carries a far greater risk, and if that is correct, and we provide, and thereby alarm, people with a true picture of reality, then we must accordingly change our way of life here on Earth, namely, said Melville, as did Woods, and Lowry, drunk as a lord, concurred, we must recognize that catastrophe is permanent and is not aimed at us, catastrophe doesn't give a shit about us, of course it destroys us if we happen to be in its way, but as far as it's concerned, this is not destruction, destruction does not exist, or, to look at this another way, destruction is going on every single moment, and the astounding meaning of Woods's message is that the whole works, the entire workings of the universal is destruction and annihilation, devastation and ruination, how on earth can I say this right, in other words there is no dichotomy at work here, no such thing exists, it is imbecilic to talk about antithetical forces, two opposed sides, a reality describable in terms of mutually complementary concepts, silly to talk about good and evil, because all is evil, or else nothing is, for total reality can only be seen as continual destruction, permanent catastrophe, reality is catastrophe, this is what we inhabit, from the most miniscule subatomic particle to the greatest planetary dimensions, everything, do you understand, and again I am not addressing anyone in particular, everything plays the roles of both perpetrator and victim in this drama of inevitable catastrophe, therefore we simply cannot do otherwise than acknowledge this, and deal with the makeup of destruction, for instance the enormous forces that are shaping our Earth at every moment, we must confront the fact of war on Earth, because there is war in the Universe, and here comes Melville again with his brutal notion, that there is all of this and God is nowhere, that benevolent God the creator and judge is nowhere to be found, but instead we have Satan, and nothing but Satan, do you understand?!, by 1851 Melville ALREADY KNEW that only that Emptiness of Satan exists, about whom Auden wrote that

/he/ is unspectacular and always human,

And shares our bed and eats at our own table . . . 

and I am not quoting this from memory, I had to look it up, but anyway, the point is that I believe Auden has really hit the nail on the head, it seems he too is asking here the same question I am asking, namely, how could he (Melville) know?, but who would be able to answer that, am I to say now that Melville knew because he kept on the move, sailed the oceans?, and the oceans he had sailed had given him an extraordinary understanding of the Earth?, but I will not make that claim, because for all of this it was essential that he himself be the one on the move, sail the oceans, and possess this knowledge, in other words, the knowledge, being on the move, and the travels by themselves account for nothing and explain nothing, so let us just say, to repeat myself, he was connected, and all of this connection had come to him when his spirit was at its freshest, and at the same time this spirit kept moving, and as he must have realized THERE IS NO DUALISM IN EXISTENCE, but what does exist, said Melville in Moby-Dick, and Clarel, and Billy Budd, is man's absurd dignity, as a result of which the tragedy of man becomes manifest precisely at the moment, at the sacred moment when man dares to resist this supreme truth, and at the same time this resistance is also the key to his dignity by means of which he seemingly resolves humankind's problem with the universe and the confusion of our ideas about reality, by acknowledging, by proclaiming catastrophe, as the horribly, extraordinarily, fantastically truthful, gorgeous monstrosities seen in the visions of Woods proclaim in the act of collapsing, the catastrophe in the midst of which we dwell, yes, we ourselves dwell in that ceaseless apocalypse that we need not wait for, but need to recognize is already here, and has been present all along, this is what Lowry must have felt as he transported us in Under the Volcano into the immediate vicinity, the awesome grandeur and ever-present danger, of the two baleful volcanoes Popocatépetl and Iztaccihuatl, and this is what Melville kept writing about obsessively for his lone self till the end of his life, and Woods in his notebooks, which will indeed find their place on the most splendid and coveted shelf in the Permanently Closed Library, when the time comes for us to build it, and this is no joke, I am not just jabbering, I mean it seriously, as I have already written, and, for my part, especially after these recent weeks, ever since my new tribulations began, my Calvary, if I may call them that, I have actually been considering myself a day laborer, a spadeworker on this Library Palace, or shall I say again, its palace keeper?, now at last I dare to write this down, at least in lower case letters, palace keeper, on whom the whole thing depends, whether it stands or falls, and I must confess I have shivers running up my spine at this thought . . . 

I, of course, disagree with his mad vision, but it's fascinating being inside his head, caught up in the flow of his frenzied thoughts.

Another book I recently read is The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar. My review:

A vast, permanent underclass. A caste system. Slavery. The majority of human societies seem to create economic systems that require some form of hierarchy where a privileged few benefit from the suffering of the rest. Even in the far future, in space, in a human civilization existing in a nomadic fleet of spacecraft drifting among the stars.

Samatar's short book tells a story from that future setting featuring those living in squalor at the bottom of that economic system--and of how a few of them gain together a new awareness of their system, a realization that what they took for inherent, immutable, unquestionable features of reality are human-made constructs that don't have to be accepted as fundamental and unchangeable.

Samatar is a skilled and imaginative storyteller, and here crafts a tale that is at once lyrical, thoughtful, confrontational, and hopeful. It strikes a powerful chord. 

Samatar's book is the source of one of the quotes at the top of the post:

One is a River.

Everyone is a Sea.

Each person, each individual is a river. All rivers flow to the sea. Each person flows into and becomes part of the sea. Everyone is a sea. So, you can follow the flow of each individual to our collective, shared humanity. We are all distinct and united at the same time. Unity in Diversity.

Not really on theme for the post, but this came across my feed today and tickles me.

The Worst Page on the Internet

The worst page on the internet begins innocently enough. A small button beckons the user to “Click me.” When they do, the game commences. The player’s score, or “stimulation,” appears in the middle of the screen, and goes up with every subsequent click. These points can then be used to buy new features for the page—a CNN-style news ticker with questionable headlines (“CHILD STAR STEALS HEARTS, FACES PRISON”), a Gmail inbox, a true-crime podcast that plays in the background, a day-trading platform, and more. Engaging with these items—checking your email, answering a Duolingo trivia question, buying and selling stocks—earns the player more points to unlock even more features.

So far, so fun. But fast-forward 20 minutes and somehow what began with a few curious clicks has turned into a frenetic effort to juggle ever more absurd online tasks. You must continuously empty your inbox, open treasure chests to collect loot, crush pastries with a hydraulic press, purchase cryptocurrency, and even take care of a digital pet, all while YouTube influencers doing exercise routines and eating giant sandwiches vie for your attention elsewhere on-screen. By the end, you have forgotten why you started playing but feel compelled to continue. A chat box pops up in the corner, in which virtual viewers comment on your performance. “How is this your job?” one asks, sounding suspiciously like my wife.

The name of this monstrosity, which was released earlier this month, is Stimulation Clicker, and it is more than a game. It is a reenactment of the evolution of the internet, a loving parody of its contents, and a pointed commentary on how our online life went wrong. In bringing each element of the web to life and layering them on top of one another, the game ingeniously re-creates the paradox of the modern internet: Individually, the components are enjoyable. But collectively, they are unbearable. When everything on the internet demands attention, paying attention to anything becomes impossible.

The game is the bizarre brainchild of Neal Agarwal, a 26-year-old programmer who has spent years designing online apps that comment on and satirize digital conventions. The Password Game asks players to input a strong password that follows an initially familiar set of rules: letters, a number, a special character. But soon users are instructed to add steadily more preposterous elements, such as “the current phase of the moon as an emoji,” corporate sponsors, and “today’s Wordle answer.” Earth Reviews parodies the star-based evaluations that have overrun the internet by allowing visitors to rate dozens of common items and experiences, including “acne” (1.3 stars, 217,181 ratings) and “grandmothers” (4.6 stars, 160,847 ratings). Other projects have educational components. Space Elevator lets the reader scroll upward from the Earth into the stratosphere, learning about the history of flight, space travel, and astronomy along the way. The Deep Sea does the same, but for the ocean. . . . 

The Internet connects us. Sometimes that connection is a good thing, and sometimes . . . 

Another poem.

P.H. Crosby

COPING

how it eats at you, the news, always it’s in the news,

not even a story needed, just a snippet of headline

finds you scrubbing a little harder with something you shouldn’t,

a piece of steel wool in your fist that will take off enamel,

finds your jaw clenched as you seek some solace in the yard,

icy white clouds rocketing above you in the desolate blue;

and when your wife comes in later from chopping wood,

her face a little gray already with weariness, you convince her to listen to music

instead of turning on the news, so she won’t one more time have to

sit in the grip of powerlessness with you,

unable to affect the course let alone the outcome,

least of all with the lines belting out of your smart little machine,

which ricochet while you pause, searching for the g,

and see you have savaged the very letter off your key.

 

—from Poets Respond

January 21, 2024

Not so hopeful, but it captures and experience, a part of our shared humanity.

Focus on connection.

I was at a thrift store recently, browsing for hidden delights. I was curious about a basket, and when I turned it over I saw some handwriting on it: "Lg. Dinner Roll," "Dad age 51," and an address a few states away from me. I couldn't help wonder about this item's story, treasured enough at some point to be labeled so, now cast off and forgotten. Did "Dad" make this when he was 51? Was it a gift to or from him? Though I didn't buy it, those unexpected messages left me with an unexpected sense of connection to this object that was no longer a mere tool, but a part of some human family and their experience. It suddenly had a life and a story.

One is a River. Everyone is a Sea.

You are both, river and sea.

Just like me.