Setting out with hundreds of millions of his father’s money along with the help of tabloid journalism and primetime television, it was easy for Trump to be whatever he wanted to be. It would be easy for anyone to be whatever he or she wanted with that much on their side. Smoking makes you a man and Donald Trump is out for the little guy. Both have been believed in the core being of millions of people. Both are not true.
Content population is a lot like mowing a yard
Last week in a meeting, I compared the populating of content in the CMS of a website to mowing. The rhythm and the rhyme, down and back, to and fro. With effort, one row at a time. After I said it I thought it may have sounded wrong. But with more thought, I think I was right in the moment. Keep it steady, get in the flow, row by row, and get that website content populated. Done and done.
On Editing
Just because there seems to be infinite space on the Internet, doesn’t mean you should post everything you can to it.
Nonsense Privilege
That’s it. I’m coining a phrase. “Nonsense privilege.” This is when you are so goddamn comfortable, so secure, so coddled, that you feel it’s your god given right to believe whatever the hell you want. You see no need to participate in commonly understood politics and debate. You have no need for facts. No need for data. No need for research. Instead, you see your truth and apply it outwardly without any evidence whatsoever. Whether climate change denier, birther believer, or anti-vaxxer, you use your privilege to peddle in nonsense because you can. And your nonsense threatens us all.
Poster: STRIKE!
Pro-Union, Pro-People. The power of the collective, to organize and to demand, to work and to earn, to bargain and to strike, is one of the great American powers. The collective helped build the middle class, end child labor, implement the 40-hour work week, and earn a respectable living for millions. Because of ruthless conservative policies, they have been weakened in the last couple decades. But no more, they are on the comeback. Whether or not America actually becomes a country where anybody, anywhere can create a meaningful life will in large part depend on the effectiveness of unions. Because without them, where people work together for a better tomorrow, America will remain a place where only the rich thrive and the rest of us toil away with little hope for the future.
For the workers and the teachers out there in need of a sign for their next protest. Download, print, mount, take to the streets!
Recruited in the USA
The misreading of one of the greatest protest songs ever recorded has always struck me as odd. Isn’t it obvious what “Born in the U.S.A.” is about?
Growing up on the great plains, basketball was my game of choice. I’d enter 3-on-3 street ball tournaments in the summer with a couple friends and we’d hit the pavement. A handful of games over a weekend was always a good time.
Aside from the games, it was also fun mingling about. Walking around, looking for girls, being a little rowdy, sometimes acting a fool. In the mix of all this were the tents. Places covered from the sun where sponsors set up to sell you something.
Inevitably, there was an Army tent. Ready to convince you to join. Sign up, be somebody, be an army of one. And always blasting out of the tent speakers on regular rotation was “Born in the U.S.A.” Always, without a hint of irony. The slick recruiters obviously never stopped to listen to the lyrics.
I suppose it didn’t matter. That chorus was all they ever needed. And whether the Viet Cong, Al-Qaeda, or the Taliban, they’re still there while we’re all gone, also of no concern to the recruiters. They just wanted our signatures.
On the Country
Based on how it behaves:
I see a country okay with inadequate health care.
I see a country with racist policies.
I see a country full of polluted communities.
I see a country who puts vulnerable people in cages and ruthless people into positions of power.
I see a country giving every advantage to the wealthy at the expense of the poor.
I see a country full of white supremacy.
I see a country who refuses to educate all its children.
I see a country who refuses to offer liberty to everyone.
I see a country who cannot have a meaningful conversation with itself about where it plans to go.
I see a country who does not believe in the future.
