Pointless Man

Shortly after breakfast this morning, Nathan turned to me and declared, "Dadda, I'm hungry, and I don't want fruit." We have apples, cherries, raspberries, and blueberries at hand. "If you say you're hungry, but you won't eat fruit you like, you aren't hungry," I informed him. "We've had this conversation before." "But not today," he replied.

Today, the clouds left the sky feeling open, but blocked enough sun for me to take off my hat and glasses. It was such a wonderful, temperate afternoon, I turned my lunchtime stroll into a jog. Running toward the breeze, it rushed past my ears, making it sound like this lumbering man was moving at speed. I always liked that auditory illusion; it clears the mind.

One reason arguing from definitions tends to fail is there are almost always multiple senses, uses, meanings, and connotations to words (even just sticking to proper, formal, and accepted interpretations). If you are in disagreement, chances are part of that stems from seeing the same things differently.

The low slung, full moon is pale gold tonight, and quite large. Smaller than they make it look in Hollywood, but no less beautiful for that. A pleasure to walk under.

Humans are not quarks or Hawking radiation. In society, nothing comes from nothing. Everything has a lineage. Thus grappling with the present requires understanding the past. Just sayin'.

Between the regular elections in 2008 and 2010, Democrats won 7 of 10 special elections for positions in the US Congress. You may recall the 2010 midterms, in which Republicans won 63 seats in the House and 6 in the Senate, showed that those earlier special elections did not set any sort of trend. There is a special election in Georgia today for a single seat in the US House of Representatives. It is being hailed (by, for example, the BBC) as "important" and potentially "a major blow to Donald Trump's presidency". I don't want to downplay the impact congresspersons can have on their constituents. Every election to a position of power and visibility is important. But this doesn't have major national implications outside of messaging and mood--and those are outsized and largely irrational. If Jon Ossoff wins, it won't tip the balance of power in Congress. If he loses, Republicans won't be more powerful than they already are. And in less than t...

I've been confused over the last year or two at the liberal use of 'neoliberal' and 'neoliberalism' amongst liberals. Admittedly, definitions can shift, and meanings can be added to established words, so I get that usage here is changing. Still. As I understand the terms, they denote belief in pure, free-market, market-driven, and laissez faire economics and economic political policies; and support for privitization, deregulation, and free trade. But then there are people who seem to think 'neoliberal' means "establishment", "internationalist", "centrist", "Keynesian", or simply "not as far to the left as me". Some use it as a handy cudgel, a term of clout without semantic content, removing the possibility of meaningful conversation. I understand these are words with a convoluted history involving multiple schools of shifting thought, so some confusion (and conflation) is understandable. I admit some con...