There is both a human touch and a political calculation here that suits me just fine. Allow me to don the toque of pundit qua Krsna, which means pure political calculation, something Krsna of Mahabharata makes sure everyone knows is a vital feature of _survival_. There ain’tgonna be nuthin’ else if we don’t survive, a…
I read Carl Bernstein’s Repeat What We Know But With Details story on the CNN news site. Did you? It’s a line by line, written in ersatz-numbered sentences on legal documents take down of Trump selling out the country for nothing more than more incompetent narcissism. Another news cycle? Until the next tweet. It’s been…
“I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free…I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.” —Abraham Lincoln Lincoln spoke these…
It’s interesting when the point of the lies is to dare those around him to question them, to disavow or question him. If you do, you will be insulted, dismissed, rejected as inferior. It’s not about whether what he says is true or false, it’s about power. Now it’s a test of loyalty to him…
The firing of cops, military leaders like Mattis, Mullen, and Allen speaking out, police chiefs hired for their ability to say the right things, even a serious effort at changing the rules of engagement (with body cams, etc.) and creating mechanisms of accountability, none of these collected points of inflection will be sufficient to change…
Nothing seems to warm white America quite like the idea that things were better back when. Nixon knew it was a lie but could use it for his benefit. How Nixonian. Reagan ran on it. And worse, he believed it. “It’s morning in America…” Trump is the culmination of this dangerous banality, the sick souled…
One more thought this morning about the anger in the streets and the failure of the government to act with clarity and decency—where are the arrests? Where is the law? And we can be sure that the President will make the worst possible remarks and decisions. This led me to think a bit more about…
There is a moral imperative to grieve in these difficult times. We must grieve for lives lost to disease and political incompetence, for a society sick with hate, fear, and racism; we must grieve for the exploitation of earth and the violence that everywhere threatens life itself. If we can grieve together we can also…
To be human is to acquire and inquire. Being acquisitive and, dare I say, not merely inquisitive but critically so doesn’t get a lot of good press in “yoga worlds.” I was thinking this morning about words that really irk or somehow demand that we ignore them out of concern for the trouble they cause….
Governance not politics is the key. Sure, Joe is old even too old but if you surround yourself with the right people then you stave off the exhaustion that let’s you deal with the ordinary pressures. Delegation and competence are the keys to this kind of leadership. He’s gonna need help. So far, so good….