No secret in our neighborhood that I plan to vote for Kamala. In fact, you could probably say that I’ve understood this particular assignment since 2015. I was one of the first people in our little Village to put out a Hillary sign. Predictably, for the time and the political leanings here (our little Village has gotten fairly blue since then), the sign was stolen. It was also quickly replaced.
Had no trouble with my Biden sign 4 years ago. I ordered 10, put one out and gave the rest of them away to neighbors and friends. It made it from September to November.
Sadly, my Harris sign was stolen on Friday night, along with another that a neighbor had put out. It’s tempting to get frustrated with this, but I choose to take a slightly more strategic view. I’ve already ordered 5 more so the sign will be back up in a few days.
The bigger picture – all the thief did was prompt me to make another contribution to the Harris campaign in the form of a campaign merch purchase. Sooooo…to the thief, whoever you are – the Harris campaign thanks you for your generous donation! 😉
When we travel – when we can – we do like to find unique places to stay. Nothing wrong with normal hotels – they’re just all the same and they’re pretty boring. If you’re visiting Austin, why would you want to stay at a Holiday Inn when you can stay someplace like The Driskill.
We made a quick, overnight trip to Indy and I can tell you, having lived there on a couple of occasions, they have some pretty interesting options when it comes to lodging. We tried The Columbia Club this time around and really enjoyed it.
Here’s an extract from their Wikipedia Page for anyone interested in the history:
The Columbia Club was originally formed on February 13, 1889, by a group of prominent local Republicans as the Harrison Marching Society to support the presidential campaign of Benjamin Harrison.[2] After the election, the society acquired a clubhouse on Monument Circle and changed its name to the Columbia Club to continue operation as a private club. Quickly growing its membership, the club evolved into the premier private club in Indianapolis. The club is no longer partisan and now numbers in its ranks Democrats and members of other parties.[3] According to the club, the founders of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (home of the Indianapolis 500) met there to discuss its construction. In 1984, secret meetings were held there to negotiate the move of the Baltimore Colts to Indianapolis.[4]
Although now non-partisan, the club has hosted every Republican president since Benjamin Harrison while in office or as a candidate and serves as temporary living quarters for many Indiana state legislators during the legislative session. In addition to the thousands of business leaders and politicians who have been members, the club has also included many artists and musicians including Hoagy Carmichael and T.C. Steele.[2][5][6] It is located in the Washington Street-Monument Circle Historic District.
It’s a beautiful old building with some great, unique spaces. The rooms are a little dated but that kind of comes with the historical nature of the place. Non-members can only get a room when they have vacancies, so we just happened to be lucky on this trip. It’s also surprisingly affordable and prices out lower than most of the other downtown hotels. If you have the chance, give it a try – it’s just very cool.
P.S. They also have a decent scotch menu at the Grille.
Made a quick overnight trip to visit our daughter and meet the newest member of the family. Meet Big Blue – the sweetest, gentlest big boy you could ever find.
This boy’s a true rescue – was in terrible shape when our daughter adopted him – but you’d never know it today. He’s as well behaved and affectionate as could be and will play with you for hours.
So very lucky to have him and he’s very lucky to have her!
Have to start by saying that we’re REALLY enjoying both of these shows – different as they are. Having gotten that out of the way, we also can’t help but find ourselves cringing a bit at certain points in every episode.
With “Bad Monkey”, it’s mainly the bad guys – particularly Meredith Hagner as Eve Stripling. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone so completely lacking a moral compass IRL and I pray that I never do. Honorable mention goes to Michelle Monaghan as Bonnie Witt. Taken together, these two make a pretty strong case for celibacy. Still – Vince Vaughn as Andrew Yancy, Ronald Peet as Neville Stafford and Natalie Martinez as Rosa Campesino more than compensate (Natalie Martinez pulls you back from the whole celibacy train of thought) and turn this into a really fun show. Worth a watch.
“The Old Man” couldn’t be more different – every character in this show, with the possible exception of Alia Shawkat as Angela Adams, is humping a huge pack of original sin along with them throughout and none of them are easy to like. Additionally, it is very hard to know who to sympathize with – it’s a collection of incredibly flawed anti-heroes, all of whom are pursuing morally ambiguous outcomes. I find it to be confusing at best and conflicting at its worst. My only caveat – and it’s only my suspicion at this point – is that the true antagonist (Joel Gray as Martin Bote) hasn’t been brought solidly into the story yet. When that happens, it may give us the opportunity to rally around the sorry crew that have carried the show to this point. Overall, it may be a little harder to watch but it’s still very worthwhile.
I’ve seen this one several times and it speaks to me – felt like I should share.
I am pretty tired of seeing people concoct elaborate, unreasonable explanations for why things might have happened when a more reasonable understanding is so accessible with a little extra effort.
Here’s what I’d suggest:
Very few things are as simple as we’d like them to be.
The truth is almost never black and white – it’s almost always conditional and multi-variate.
If you’re arguing an extreme, absolute position, you’re probably more wrong than right.
CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and the Opinion Sections of major newspapers (much less online, non-MSM journalism) are rarely purveyors of fact – they’re propagators of opinions and perspectives.
Getting to a robust opinion requires diligence – the consumption of multiple sources of information over time – it’s a process of triangulation and critical thinking.
I do believe passionately that so much of the polarization in our civil discourse today grows out of one tragic, overarching reality – an undereducated populace. The issues we’re struggling with as a nation and a global community are incredibly complex – they require serious study to truly understand and over 50% of Americans are incapable of reading at a 6th grade level. That’s a recipe for political disaster.
I wouldn’t expect the majority of Americans to develop the kind of expertise in climate science or geopolitics or even the complexities associated with writing and passing a bill through both houses of the U.S. Congress that might allow them to speak with an expert’s confidence on these topics. I would simply hope that more Americans adopt an ounce or two of humility with regard to their level of understanding before they weigh in aggressively on a topic or take an extreme or absolutist position.
I’d also hope, challenging as it may very well be, that people get off the internet and make the occasional effort to pick up a book or a reputable journal from time to time (e.g., Scientific American, Foreign Affairs). First and foremost, the more you read, the easier it gets. Secondly, it really forces you to engage and think in a way that one shot, quick hit internet content most definitely does not. Questions are better than declarative statements and could / might / maybe are almost always better than is / are.
That’s not to say that everything you read in a book, or a journal can be classified as fact or truth – just that the effort to construct and support a defensible argument on a complex topic takes a lot of work. The discipline that kind of work requires and the broad and public exposure it attracts helps to ensure its value. You won’t get that in a three-paragraph newspaper article, a three-minute cable news panel discussion or a social media post.
To be at least partially and effectively informed, you actually have to dig in a little. I believe it’s worth the time.
I am not – nor have I ever been – a rapid adopter. Whether it’s a new technology, a new author, a new game or – as in the case here – a new social media platform – I generally wait to see how it meets its target market. No innovator gets it right on release and the process of fighting through patches, subsequent releases, hotfixes and redesigns is just not how I prefer to spend my time.
X – the social media site formerly known as Twitter – is a great example. I was a very late adopter. As a general rule, I’m skeptical of social media. Any technology that makes it so easy to shout at the general public guarantees a proliferation of poorly thought-out content.
Nevertheless, once I joined and was able to put together a decent follow list, I found it to be extremely valuable as a source of breaking news, political updates and thought-provoking opinion pieces. So long as I stayed on my “Follow List” and minimized exposure to the General Feed, I was rarely exposed to what so many people describe as the “X Toxic Hellscape”. My primary struggle with “Twitter / X” involved the need to wade through an endless progression of silly ads for ridiculous products and I controlled that by blocking the sites posting them.
That ended today when I finally made the decision to deactivate Twitter / X and fully commit to Threads.
Three things prompted the change:
I’ve been playing around with Threads for about 3 weeks now and I’ve put together a very solid Follow List that allows me to get most of the content I was getting on Twitter / X. That will only get better over time.
Elon Musk has become truly unbearable from a social and political perspective. I simply cannot allow myself to support a company owned by a man that I consider to be a chaos agent who is actively working to undermine institutions that I believe in and have, in my early professional days, proudly served.
The Twitter / X decision to remove the Block Button was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I refuse to support a social media site that won’t allow me to curate / customize my feed.
Short to long – I felt an ethical imperative to leave Twitter / X and did so as soon as I found a reasonable alternative.
Good riddance – don’t let the door hit you on the way out!
