Currently reading: The Idolatry of God: Breaking Our Addiction to Certainty and Satisfaction by Peter Rollins 📚
Reading this one as part of my church book discussion group.
Currently reading: These Truths: A History of the United States by Jill Lepore 📚
Today is the 51st Anniversary of the Apollo 11 launch. Or the beginning of a great conspiracy theory.
It got hot outside again. Chased back in to the air conditioning.
I see a video snippet of Mike Pence saying “We don’t want CDC guidance to be a reason for not opening schools.” First reaction is WTF not?
The second reaction is that there are two big issues at play here. One is “anti-elitism,” which is a point of view of which there are no experts to trust, everyone should just “go with their gut” or “use common sense.” In most Republican circles “elites” are Democrats or liberals to be ignored out right.
The second issue is relationship between federal and local governments. It’s clear that the Republicans in charge right now think there is no legitimate role for the federal government beyond defense. In their eyes the federal government has no responsibility for solving “big problems” of the nation. In some ways their view of government is more Articles of Confederation than U.S. Constitution. (I find it ironic that a Conservative group calls themselves The Federalist Society but acts more anti-federalist.)
Stated differently, current Republicans take Reagan’s phrase “The Federal government is not the solution, the federal government is the problem” very literally, and apparently lost on them is the irony that the words were spoken by a man seeking the position of being the top person of that federal government.
Hard to believe that a factor of comparison between the Trump and Biden campaigns are their smartphone apps. The contrast is striking.
Relive a part of Xerox PARC’s history: Smalltalk-80 on a Raspberry Pi
Instructions for running Smalltalk on a Raspberry Pi. I may have to try this out.
Wild thing…
Recent feature updates to my blog are the Search and Now options at the top of the page. Click Now to learn more about me and what currently has my attention. It has a easy to remember URL: http://frankm.info.
I think micro.blog needs a new Discover category for plugins, to make it easier to know when plugins have been updated and to find new plugins.
Ice cream outside on a summer day
What one must do to protect their coffee on a windy day when sitting near a shedding cedar tree.
This is much better, temps in the 70s with a breeze, although the humidity is still north of 50%.
I’ve recently purchased a Lenovo Duet, which is a Chrome OS 2-in-1. I am a long time Chromebook user and own a Pixelbook, but the Duet is the first Chrome OS tablet I’ve used and the first time that I’ve installing other Android browsers like Brave. Chrome OS really doesn’t like that there is more than one browser on the Duet because every time I click a hyperlink I get a prompt asking me which browser I want to open it in. There should be a way to override this so I can tell Chrome OS only open hyperlinks in Chrome and don’t bother asking me, but I haven’t found one it exists.
I’ve added a Search option to my blog to enable readers to find topics that I’ve written about. The option is a work in progress, right now after to click through to read an entry in the search result, clicking Back does not return you to the search results, instead you have to re-initiate the search. The option is available to me as a micro.blog plugin.
Dave says Puerto Rico was the canary in the coal mine of how Trump would, and has, handled COVID-19. Why that was not seen that way is that most Americans do not view Puerto RIco as one of us. I don’t just mean those who support Trump, I mean all of us.
Hello world. Typing this at you via the Gluon app running on my Lenovo Duet. Gluon is a microblogging app for Android and iOS and while I use it on my phone, I realize that I can also use this on the Duet. Hope to be able to edit posts in the not to distant future.
I finished reading two books over the holiday weekend. Check them out.
If change and growth are not programmed into your spirituality, if there are not serious warnings about the blinding nature of fear and fanaticism, your religion will always end up worshiping the status quo and protecting your present ego position and personal advantage—as if it were God!
Richard Rohr, Falling Upward
The irony of our time is that the phrase on those hats, “Make America Great Again” were prophetic four years ago. The problem is that Americans don’t seem to understand that greatness is not self-declared. Greatness can be aspirational but for it to be so requires an understanding of how others define greatness.
On the eve of America’s anniversary—our two hundred and forty-fourth—much of the world believes that the country is racist, battered and bruised. “Europe has long been suspicious—even jealous—of the way America has been able to pursue national wealth and power despite its deep social inequities,” Robin Niblett, the director of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, also known as Chatham House, in London, told me.