In the wake of George H.W. Bush’s death there has been a lot of nice things said about him. That’s to be expected. It’s what people do when a person dies. What has been less expected, although not totally unexpected, is the reaction of many people on the political left. They have been posting a…
I like to complain because it’s fun. There’s nothing quite like whipping myself into a righteous fury and listing all the reasons why something is terrible. I did that a few weeks ago, when I went on a voice rant in my friends and I’s group chat about how Bardock has been changed for the…
Elizabeth Warren dropped out of the 2020 presidential race today. I’m having a hard time with it. As I’ve written about before, I don’t just think Warren was the best candidate in the 2020 election, I think she’s the best candidate of my lifetime. That, in and of itself, is pretty demoralizing, but I don’t…
I’ve listened to Christmas in the Stars: A Star Wars Christmas Album a lot over the years. I started listening to it as a little kid, and it’s still one of my favorites. When I was little there were two parts of the album that I didn’t really get. One was in the song, “What…
When Antonin Scalia died in 2016, Mitch McConnell and the Republicans refused to let the sitting president, Barak Obama, fill the empty seat on the Supreme Court. They said that it was an election year and the seat should be filled by the new president. Everyone knows that. It was an unbelievably scummy thing to…
A lot of white people who support Black Lives Matter have been using a slogan lately. They use it on signs, in posts, in memes, and in tweets. It is, “I understand that I will never understand, but I stand with you.” I get it. I know what it’s trying to say, that as someone…
Liam Kofi Bright wrote a fascinating article called “White Psycodrama”. (Available here: White Psychodrama Final Version (philarchive.org)) In it, he describes three archetypes involved in the culture wars: Repenters, Repressors, and PoC Intelligentsia. He argues that the culture wars make us all worse and that the only way to improve things is to opt out…
China and Japan have been in the news recently for the same reason. They both have shrinking, and aging, populations. The reactions of both countries have been similar, too. They are looking for ways to increase their populations. Since neither country is immigration friendly, they are trying to do it through increased births. China’s population…
Having a sick kid is the worst. It’s a stress like no other. And my kid isn’t even seriously ill. It’s just a nasty cold. She’s going to miss a couple days of school and then be fine. It’s not half as bad as when she got the flu a couple years ago. But I…
Have you ever heard a song where they set up an obvious rhyme and then don’t deliver on it? The most famous example I can think of is the song “In Summer” from the movie Frozen. Olaf sings, “Winter’s a good time to stay in and cuddle/But put me in summer and I’ll be a…
