I am just as appalled as everyone else at the events of January 6… but I keep thinking, ‘it’s better to have these people out in the open so we can deal with them’. I am firmly behind getting DJT out of office ASAP, regardless of the amount of time left in his term. That’s true now, and it’s been true for 4 years. It’s not that things suddenly went south for us in 2020 – we were lucky that it didn’t go south in an equally awful way at some point in the previous three years. Putting an incompetent, incurious, narcissistic asshole in charge of the federal government was … are there words for what a stupid idea it was?
Well, I guess it’s not a stupid idea if you don’t want government to work. But I do.
I’m a business analyst, and one thing I’ve prided myself on is feeling free to ask questions like, ‘why is everyone worried about how so-and-so will react when we examine his team’s processes’? “Oh, he’s touchy’, they say. “Oh, he’s an adult in a job”, I say. If so-and-so is in a position of power and isn’t using it to maintain or improve whatever his job function is, but rather is using it for his own personal ends, well, that’s a problem. Shine a light on it. Don’t pretend it doesn’t exist. Maybe you decide that it’s worth it to continue to live with the problem (this is all stuff I got from my CBAP training), but at least you’ve done that risk analysis.
So I guess what I’m saying here in my first-draft way is that sure, we may have more riots and more displays of white-power rage. I’d rather have that boil over than keep simmering – then we can take it off the stove completely.
I’m also behind the idea that we don’t necessarily need more laws to address these issues. The laws are there, they are simply enforced inconsistently. And of course that’s a fear too – if you, for instance, call a policeman up on charges for murdering a civilian, and all charges are dropped because the DA or the judge just doesn’t want to prosecute a policeman, that’s a weakness – dare I say ‘rot’ – in the system that then needs to be addressed.
I’m not the first to make this point, but these last four years have really shown a light on some foundational weakness: rotting timbers shoring up the roof, termites, that sort of thing. The ability of the media to brainwash entire segments of the population into believing nonsense. The infiltration of white supremacists into law enforcement. Hell, the infiltration of uninformed corrupt idiots into our legislature. The poor choices to ignore preparedness for an epidemic that was inevitable – if it wasn’t COVID, it would be something else.
Argh, I’m rambling, but I feel like we just opened up a garage filled with crap that needs to be cleaned out, and it’s a huge job, but we are way past the point of just shutting the door and leaving it for another day. Let’s put on our work gloves and start hauling stuff out into the driveway so we can deal with it.
What have we been up to? Wrapping up the Christmas season, mostly – watching various and sundry Xmas movies, and then, this past weekend, packing it all up again. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – we’re now old enough that it feels like we just did this two weeks ago. On the other hand, we certainly have the routine down now. Life hack, guys – store your Xmas tree light strands one apiece in grocery bags or whatever. They won’t tangle with each other, and probably won’t tangle with themselves much.
I’ve been moving ahead on better habits – doing my Noom routine at a particular time each morning, planning my meals, trying new recipes. I’m drinking less during the weekend, and not drinking at all (or much…) during the week. Adding morning stretches and/or yoga to the powerwalking, although I’m skipping that today.
I have a ton of home projects, mostly of the ‘neat up the office’ sort, that all should be done but nothing is that pressing. Well, I guess I should be getting my taxes together, there’s a deadline on that. Upcoming is a three-day weekend, and I don’t really have anything other than normal laundry stuff, so I’ll knock off some of that then.
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Hang on tight, guys, it’s going to keep being interesting for a while.
Oh, here’s a coda. Noom made me give myself a reward, and the reward I gave myself was to listen to a favorite album as G-d intended, all the way through in order from start to finish. I chose Christine Lavin’s Future Fossils. It deserves a blog post all on its own, and may get one, as I encountered it at a real formative point in my life and it helped open me up in a necessary way. Worth the acquisition, if you don’t have it already.
The Toast Point Page 