“One day, the mainline Christian movement will itself recognize that Jesus was never into expelling or excluding—only transforming and integrating. In fact, you might say that, for Jesus, the very act of expulsion is the problem.”
— The Wisdom Pattern: Order, Chaos, Reorder by Richard Rohr OFM
Daring Fireball: Howard Stern on Trump
Howard Stern echos something I’ve said for a while, but I think what may be the case is that these people don’t necessarily love Trump himself so much as what he represents to them, which they personally identify with. They see themselves in Trump’s persona and thus any negative statement about him is translated as a personal attack in them. To these people we are deep within a class war between “elites” and what they believe are “normal people,” which they define as anyone who agrees with and acts like them, and which they call “common sense.” The war began when Newt Gingrich ascended to Speaker of the House.
I am one of many people who really like the note-taking app called Roam that is currently in beta. However, it seems some think that bidirectional note linking is the primary feature of Roam, and while I think bidirectional note linking is a differentiator it is not the only reason why I prefer Roam. For me the main reason why I like Roam is that it is an outliner for developing and maintaining a wiki that automatically supports bidirectional links.
I’ve tried amplenote.com that claims to be an alternate to Roam that supports bidirectional links, and I does in fact do a very good job of importing content from Roam. However, Amplenote is not an outliner and I quickly found that true outlining, not just bullet lists, is a must have requirement for me.
It should be obvious to people that an illness that spreads between humans and human density are bad combinations. The virus still exists and does not cause symptoms in all people, therefore putting yourself in any confined space like crowded restaurants and packed airplanes is putting your life at risk.
“The cross calls all of us to a mystery of transformation. On the cross, none of us is in charge, none of us is in control, and none of us can possibly understand, just like Jesus himself. On the cross, someone else is in control. Someone else is in charge. Someone else understands. Someone else is obviously a much more patient lover than we are.”
— The Wisdom Pattern: Order, Chaos, Reorder by Richard Rohr OFM
“Private feelings are our form of truth today, a kind of ultimate self-absorption—understandable because there are no universal patterns. Yet, in expressing private feelings, people really think they’ve done something great.”
— The Wisdom Pattern: Order, Chaos, Reorder by Richard Rohr OFM
Corporations don’t want government to tell them what to do. They pay lots of money to politicians at all levels of government from POTUS to state representatives to make sure they can do whatever they want. These corporations don’t care about people who work them as they are expendable, thus there will be no rules placed on companies that are doing nothing more than keeping plants open to make money regardless of how many of their employees and the citizens in the surrounding community dies.
There was a day when there would have been strikes all over the place, but union busting has mitigated that risk to corporate America.
The flowering trees in my neighborhood are starting to bloom, including one of the largest flowering trees that I have ever seen.
I wonder if the families of the people who died in the swing states agree with President Trump? They will answer the question in November.
Today was the best weather day of the year so far, with sunshine and temps in the 70s. Fortunately my schedule enabled me to take several walks outdoors. We live in a condo, of which I often brag of not having to cut the grass. Today the lawn care company was cutting the grass for the first time of the year due to the governor lifting restrictions and allowing them to work. Just smelling the freshly cut grass lifted my spirits, a small bit has returned to normal.
Republicans ought to be nervous. A presidential re-election during a time of crisis ought to be a slam dunk, but Trump is not competent enough to know when to stay out of the way.
I hope this is a good sign. Today is the first day that my county reported single digit new cases and deaths since the COVID-19 crisis began.
I’ve been frustrated with the gray, cold, and windy weather we have had this spring, so I am grateful for the sunshine and warmth today
Just realized the iOS microblog app now provides a way to edit posts. Happy.
Nothing to see here, just moving through.
I think the real problem with transitioning to the current state of lockdowns to something that resembles normal is that doing so requires cooperation from everyone to a degree that doesn’t seem possible today. It requires people to wear masks in public, to get tested, to stay home if they get sick and it will require people to be willing to get vaccinated when a vaccine becomes available.
Unfortunately we live in a world where selfishness and greed is the default expectation. In that world in which you cannot count on people to do the right thing, someone has to be a parent and that means the government.
Me, on September 27, 2008:
I think what we are witnessing today is the result of the greed plus poor leadership equation. If this moment in history is to truly be a fork from the road we are heading down, we have got to start recognizing the greed within all of us and learn to understand what is enough, and we have got to start scrutinizing our leaders, particularly the leaders of our companies.
It is a strange time to celebrate a birthday, and yet, here I am celebrating in midst of a COVID-19 imposed lock down. Actually, this is not a new experience for me. Once before I celebrated a birthday while confined to the walls of my home and compared to that experience this one is much better. I find how people are reacting to a reality in which they do not have control to be very instructive. A self-centered view of the world is a creation of the ego projected inward and outward by the Powers That Be.
Remember, Republicans are the ones who enabled COVID19 to become so bad in the United States in the first place! Why should they be trusted, they demonstrate an inability to make good decisions and thus are bad leaders.
Some people still want to think that COVID19 is no worse than the flu. The facts just don’t support that thinking. The government tracks the flu and the from what I see the peak influenza-associated hospitalizations in the entire state was about 150 in 2017-18. over a 30 week period of time. Right now we have that many people in individual hospitals, so probably 10x that number across the entire state.