Skip to main content

Posts

American Pride: The memoir of a future President, Part 3 The trouble with tribal

 "I haven't decided if I want to be a brain surgeon or a short order fry cook." I use to hear this growing up from my grandparents, it was from the show The Beverly Hillbillies, but it was accurate to my teenage years. I learned and played the Trombone, loved the Trombone, kept playing it in college for any group that thought I was good enough to join. I also loved engineering.  There was something about taking the abstract concepts of science and math and finding practical application.  I loved solving problems too. By the time I was in high school and people start asking what I wanted to do with my life, I very seriously said I wasn't sure if I want to be a Professional Engineer or a Jazz Trombonist.  I did both for as long as I could but only one of those was a tried and true career path.  It didn't stop me from minoring in jazz arrangement.  I even wrote a disco song for jazz ensemble that I called "We're Fabulous".  When your in the your late te...
Recent posts

American League Division Series, Detroit vs Cleveland

 You know what's great about this series?  Two teams from two cities in an area the coastal folks call "the rust belt" but should be better known as the Great Lakes Watershed. Detroit has been through some really tough times in the last 30 years, you'll have that when all of your economic base leaves for cheaper labor markets. Cleveland has been through some really tough times in the last 30 years, you'll have that when your economic base pollutes the land and waterways so badly the river catches on fire regularly. These are major American cities, both of them degraded by decades of corporations chasing cheap labor,  lacks environmental protections, pre-1970s, that left a scarred landscape that 50 years of the clean water, clear air, RCRA, and Superfund sites has only recently started to show real improvement.  And lets not forget the trade deals that hollowed out Detroit and Cleveland for imports from China and Mexico. Detroit and Cleveland... I think you mean th...

Donald Trump Failed This Country

 It boggles the mind how the US presidential race could be this close.  We know what the choices are and it couldn't be more obvious what the "best choice" is. I am definately not saying that I think Kamala Harris the right choice, but given the choices she is the best option. Donald Trump had 4 years to show us what he was about and what he could do and the answers were painful.   He alienated us around the world, with this international antics.  It was the pathetic display of an entitled rich kid that got where he was on a combination of luck, cheating, and his privaleged  upbringing.  Go back and think about it.  He pushed other world leaders out of his way to ensure he got a prominent spot in a group photo.  There was that weird photo of him and a bunch of Saudis touching that glowing ball, what ever was happening there.  He insulted Angela Merkel.  He threatened to pull out of NATO.  He tried to blackmail the very leader o...

American Pride, The Memoir of a Future President, Part 2 Go Planet!

 It's no surprise that I came to the book "50 Things Kids Can Do To Save The World".  The world decided for me that I was going to be an environmentalist.  Some of my first and most indelible memories are images of oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico.  The dead birds, fish, ect... covered in oil all from ONE  accident.   Like many young Michiganders I grew up spending many a hot summer day on the beaches of Lake Michigan.  Too see an area similar to one of my happy places turned to ruin in days... leaves a mark on your brain similar to the first time your family pet dies.  I love this and something terrible has happened to it. You have to treasure the good things in your life while you have them, and that includes the natural beauty around you.  That was something I learned early. It is also true that kids latch on to things and don't let them go.  I got in to recycling, big time.  The local community waste transfer center started...

American Pride: The memoir of a Future President, Part 1

(I have had this idea for a while and want to start writing some of this down.  Since I am unwilling to buy an MS office subscription when all I want is a one time cost for a one user license, like it used to be, I am just going to write things down on here.  I don't really use this blogger account like I thought I would anyway.) Its dehumanizing, the job of President of the United States.  No one really cares about the things that make a person a person when that person is the President.  During the campaigns my competitors distill me down to about 5 or 6 things they think will play well with their base and my election team does the same, sometimes on the same 5 or 6 things.  This has happened to me no less than five times and each time it feels hollowing to hear your self described as just 5 or 6 things. Gay Environmentalist Liberal Engineer Socialist Weak On Crime (Opponents always claimed this but the data from The city of Kalamazoo, State Of Michigan, and F...

Nikki Haley, needs to own the Bossy Female Leader trope

Nikki Haley needs to be more direct against Trump.  His followers like bluster and crassness and don’t appreciate dancing around the issue.  Attacking Trump directly is the only way to knock him down. I like her talking point about chaos following Trump but let’s be direct about it.  Chaos doesn’t follow him, he makes it.  But regardless of where the chaos comes from, a good leader is someone that people can rally around and break through the chaos and make their polices work. Donald Trump is a bad leader because he hasn’t done, doesn’t have the skills to do that and actually seems to prevent others in his leadership team from being able to do that. Stop vying for a spot in his cabinet if you lose and call it like it is.  He has no leadership skills.  And Nikki Haley needs to say it.  Regardless of where chaos comes from a good leader works through it and keeps his team focused.  We know Trump can’t run a cohesive team even when it really matters,...

Common ground

If we all talked openly about what we really want from our politicians I think we would find a lot in common.  I also think we would find that none of us truly likes the choices we are given. U.S. politics is overrun with business people and lawyers.  Neither one of which is particularly adept at problem solving.  Career politicians are worse, they make their living off knowing how to kiss ass and beg for money.  Also worthless at problem solving. In this modern era of challenging scientific and technical information it is kind of important to have people with training in these issues representing us, or at least willing build a basic understanding before handing down decisions.  What we have now are representatives considering privacy issues with Facebook that have no idea how the internet works.  Lawyers arguing about environmental policy that don’t know earth history well enough to understand how coal ever came to exist or why understanding that woul...