It’s a Monday night in rural Douglas County, and the night has been breezy and warm. Lisa and I are relaxing in the living room, watching some tv. The show we’re watching Trump’s reactions to civil unrest, and we’re watching this clown make his comments. He’s such a tough guy, a strong man, that has placed himself above the law, refuses to acknowledge lawfully issues subpoenas.

We’re still in trouble in America.

We are the laughing stock of the world.

And the people that support Trump don’t really care. They seem to think that their bluster and their big talk is a replacement for real diplomacy and negotiation.

They are fools.

I’m not going to write a whole lot more tonight.

I hope we can get past this clown of a president as soon as possible.

I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.

OK, it’s been about a week since the last time I updated my blog, and the world is changing. I’m about fourteen hundred words behind on the month, so this particular entry is going to be a long, protracted mess as I try to recover my word count and get back to “keeping it real”.

Last time I posted, the US was trying to come to terms with death of George Floyd, a man who was killed by police officers in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Since then, there have been daily protests, not only over his death, but others who have died at the hands of police. Those protests have lead to even more conflict. One of the more heinous of those events was the clearing of Lafayette Park in Washington, DC. Foreign journalists were assaulted, and peaceful protesters were hit with tear gas and rubber bullets. Initially, the park service denied that they had used tear gas, but since then, they have admitted that they used chemical deterrents and apologized for lying about it. Of course, that didn’t keep the Attorney General from denying it. Kind of crazy.

In Buffalo, a 75 year-old-man was pushed backwards by a couple of officers, and he fell, slamming his head onto the the concrete sidewalk. The video showed he was bleeding out of one ear. The two responsible parties have been suspended from the police department, and 57 other officers resigned from that response team in protest. I’d be curious as to how those officers explained their actions to family members, and how they rationalize in their own heads why the suspension of those two officers was wrong and why they shouldn’t be singled out for disciplinary action.

It’s pretty crazy out there. IN Lawrence, there was a peaceful protest downtown, but since then, it has been discovered that one of the protestors participated in the march, did not wear a mask, and has since been discovered to have been a carrier of the coronavirus.

I can’t help but wonder what’s going to happen with the spike. The news has been pretty good this week, actually, as far as the number of reported fatalities. The number of new cases, however, is going up. There has also been some interesting reporting on the Florida and Texas COVID-19 fatalities, as those states have reported fewer than average COVID-19 fatalities… but in Texas, the number of pneumonia-related deaths have quadrupled for the same period of time. I’m going to guess that if they were to take a closer look into the actual cause of death in those patients, there would be a need to make an adjustment to the death counts.

And then there was the Atlantic interview with General James Mattis that came out in the Atlantic magazine this past week. The article can be found here.

I might have to subscribe to The Atlantic magazine.

Anyway the article is a scathing indictment of Trump and his administration by his former defense secretary.
______________________________________________________________________________

James Mattis Denounces President Trump, Describes Him as a Threat to the Constitution

In an extraordinary condemnation, the former defense secretary backs protesters and says the president is trying to turn Americans against one another.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG JUNE 3, 2020

James Mattis, the esteemed Marine general who resigned as secretary of defense in December 2018 to protest Donald Trump’s Syria policy, has, ever since, kept studiously silent about Trump’s performance as president. But he has now broken his silence, writing an extraordinary broadside in which he denounces the president for dividing the nation, and accuses him of ordering the U.S. military to violate the constitutional rights of American citizens.

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“I have watched this week’s unfolding events, angry and appalled,” Mattis writes. “The words ‘Equal Justice Under Law’ are carved in the pediment of the United States Supreme Court. This is precisely what protesters are rightly demanding. It is a wholesome and unifying demand—one that all of us should be able to get behind. We must not be distracted by a small number of lawbreakers. The protests are defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values—our values as people and our values as a nation.” He goes on, “We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution.”

Mike Mullen: I cannot remain silent

In his j’accuse, Mattis excoriates the president for setting Americans against one another.

MORE STORIES

• History Will Judge the Complicit

“Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us,” Mattis writes. “We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to our children.”

He goes on to contrast the American ethos of unity with Nazi ideology. “Instructions given by the military departments to our troops before the Normandy invasion reminded soldiers that ‘The Nazi slogan for destroying us … was “Divide and Conquer.” Our American answer is “In Union there is Strength.”’ We must summon that unity to surmount this crisis—confident that we are better than our politics.”

Adam Serwer: America’s racial contract is showing

Mattis’s dissatisfaction with Trump was no secret inside the Pentagon. But after his resignation, he argued publicly—and to great criticism—that it would be inappropriate and counterproductive for a former general, and a former Cabinet official, to criticize a sitting president. Doing so, he said, would threaten the apolitical nature of the military. When I interviewed him last year on this subject, he said, “When you leave an administration over clear policy differences, you need to give the people who are still there as much opportunity as possible to defend the country. They still have the responsibility of protecting this great big experiment of ours.” He did add, however: “There is a period in which I owe my silence. It’s not eternal. It’s not going to be forever.”

That period is now definitively over. Mattis reached the conclusion this past weekend that the American experiment is directly threatened by the actions of the president he once served. In his statement, Mattis makes it clear that the president’s response to the police killing of George Floyd, and the ensuing protests, triggered this public condemnation.

Read: The Christians who loved Trump’s stunt

“When I joined the military, some 50 years ago,” he writes, “I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens—much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside.”

He goes on to implicitly criticize the current secretary of defense, Mark Esper, and other senior officials as well. “We must reject any thinking of our cities as a ‘battlespace’ that our uniformed military is called upon to ‘dominate.’ At home, we should use our military only when requested to do so, on very rare occasions, by state governors. Militarizing our response, as we witnessed in Washington, D.C., sets up a conflict—a false conflict—between the military and civilian society. It erodes the moral ground that ensures a trusted bond between men and women in uniform and the society they are sworn to protect, and of which they themselves are a part. Keeping public order rests with civilian state and local leaders who best understand their communities and are answerable to them.

Here is the text of the complete statement.

IN UNION THERE IS STRENGTH

I have watched this week’s unfolding events, angry and appalled. The words “Equal Justice Under Law” are carved in the pediment of the United States Supreme Court. This is precisely what protesters are rightly demanding. It is a wholesome and unifying demand—one that all of us should be able to get behind. We must not be distracted by a small number of lawbreakers. The protests are defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values—our values as people and our values as a nation.

When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens—much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside.

From the July/August 2020 issue: History will judge the complicit

We must reject any thinking of our cities as a “battlespace” that our uniformed military is called upon to “dominate.” At home, we should use our military only when requested to do so, on very rare occasions, by state governors. Militarizing our response, as we witnessed in Washington, D.C., sets up a conflict—a false conflict—between the military and civilian society. It erodes the moral ground that ensures a trusted bond between men and women in uniform and the society they are sworn to protect, and of which they themselves are a part. Keeping public order rests with civilian state and local leaders who best understand their communities and are answerable to them.

James Madison wrote in Federalist 41 that “America united with a handful of troops, or without a single soldier, exhibits a more forbidding posture to foreign ambition than America disunited, with a hundred thousand veterans ready for combat.” We do not need to militarize our response to protests. We need to unite around a common purpose. And it starts by guaranteeing that all of us are equal before the law.

Eliot A. Cohen: America’s generals must stand up to Trump

Instructions given by the military departments to our troops before the Normandy invasion reminded soldiers that “The Nazi slogan for destroying us…was ‘Divide and Conquer.’ Our American answer is ‘In Union there is Strength.’” We must summon that unity to surmount this crisis—confident that we are better than our politics.

Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to our children.

From the June 2020 issue: We are living in a failed state

We can come through this trying time stronger, and with a renewed sense of purpose and respect for one another. The pandemic has shown us that it is not only our troops who are willing to offer the ultimate sacrifice for the safety of the community. Americans in hospitals, grocery stores, post offices, and elsewhere have put their lives on the line in order to serve their fellow citizens and their country. We know that we are better than the abuse of executive authority that we witnessed in Lafayette Square. We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution. At the same time, we must remember Lincoln’s “better angels,” and listen to them, as we work to unite.

Only by adopting a new path—which means, in truth, returning to the original path of our founding ideals—will we again be a country admired and respected at home and abroad.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG is the editor in chief of The Atlantic and a recipient of the National Magazine Award for Reporting. He is the author of Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror.

_____________________________________________________________________________

By the way, you should subscribe to magazines like The Atlantic, too. I don’t make any money off of my blog, but writers like Jeffrey Goldberg should be compensated for their work. Patronize their advertisers, too.

Also, John Kelly, another retired Marine Corps general and Trump’s former Chief of Staff reinforced the sentiment of Mattis in this article.

______________________________________________________________________________

President Donald Trump’s former chief of staff and Homeland Security secretary John Kelly said Friday he agreed with former Defense Secretary James Mattis’ criticism of Trump and said “we need to look harder at who we elect.”

Asked about Mattis’ statement by former White House communication director Anthony Scaramucci, Kelly said, “I agree.” 

Kelly told Scaramucci in the live-streamed interview that Trump did not fire Mattis, despite Trump’s tweets claiming he had fired his former top Pentagon official. 

“There is a concern, I think an awful big concern, that the partisanship has gotten out of hand, the tribal thing has gotten out of hand,” Kelly continued. 

In a statement released Wednesday, Mattis blasted Trump as a threat to American democracy for dividing the country and forcibly clearing mostly peaceful demonstrators  for a photo op.

Nicholas WuUSA TODAY

______________________________________________________________________________

That’s just part of it. Also in the news this week… the NFL. Commissioner Roger Goodell came out and admitted the the league was wrong in their approach to Colin Kaepernick’s peaceful protest when he took a knee during the national anthem. That must’ve rubbed some folks the wrong way, but the truth is, there was nothing wrong with Kaepernick’s protest. It was protected freedom of speech under the Constitution. He was very clear about his protest and why he was protesting in that fashion. But, once again, people did not want to accept his explanation, and those that needed to manufacture a reason to despise the man did just that.

I think part of the league’s statement has to do with the fact that they expect a lot of players to be taking a knee this fall. Might as well get out ahead of it.

That’s what I’ve got for now. I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.

I’m emotionally exhausted. Since my last post, the rioting and protests over the murder of George Floyd have been getting progressively worse, and now we’re getting reports that part of the most aggressive rioters are white supremacists that are trying to make the peaceful protesters look bad, all the while having their own sick version of Krystalnacht, destroying the communities and businesses that are the cornerstones of their respective communities. It makes me sick.

I also have about 800 words to get in to close out my month. I’m going to close out May with some sad reposts.

Obituaries.

From https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/amberjamieson/george-floyd-obituary

Friends Say George Floyd Always Went Out Of His Way To Help People Who Were Less Fortunate

“He was articulate. He was grounded. He was spiritual. He was an athlete. He was an organizer. He was a comforter. He was an encourager.”Amber JamiesonBuzzFeed News Reporter

Posted on May 27, 2020, at 6:13 p.m. ET

“One day it’s going to be you and God. You’re going up or you’re going down,” George Floyd says in a video circulating on social media in which he calls on young people to avoid gun violence.

Floyd, 46, died in police custody on Monday after a white police officer pushed his knee into his neck on the ground outside a supermarket in Minneapolis. Video footage showed Floyd saying “I can’t breathe” until he became unresponsive, but even then the officer continued to keep him in a neck hold.

Floyd’s family did not immediately respond to BuzzFeed News’ request for comment, but they, along with friends, have been sharing stories of his life online and with the media.

Floyd, also known as Big Floyd, reinvented himself over and over again. In the 1990s, he was part of a rap crew from Houston’s Third Ward, working with DJ Screw, a well-known local musician.

“Floyd was my brother. We called each other ‘Twin,’” former NBA player Stephen Jackson said in a video posted to Instagram on Tuesday. Jackson, who grew up with Floyd in the Third Ward, shared photos of him in his high school football uniform.

“Made it to state championship,” Jackson wrote. “Bruh wasn’t no bum. Had hoop game too.”

The mother of his 6-year-old daughter told the Houston Chronicle that he’d received a football scholarship to Florida State University after playing for Yates High School.

In recent years, Floyd moved to Minnesota.

“He was changing his life,” Jackson said in the Instagram video. “He went to Minnesota. He was driving trucks. I just sent him up two or three boxes of clothes. My boy was doing what he was supposed to do.”

Vanita Williams, a friend, met Floyd through his work driving trucks and as a security guard at a downtown Salvation Army homeless shelter.

“He was sober. He showed me resources,” Williams said. “He gave us hugs and told us it was going to be OK. He told us we could make it. He was such a big brother to me.”

Williams said Floyd embraced people of all backgrounds, including trans people, sex workers, people experiencing homelessness, and people with addictions.

“He gravitated towards the less fortunate,” Williams said, “the downtrodden, the ones they said wasn’t going to make it.”

She said Floyd would give people a few dollars, new clothes, or whatever small thing he could.

“Whatever he needed to do, he would help you,” she said.

He also worked as a security guard at Conga Latin Bistro in Minneapolis.

“This person was my employee, and a very good friend,” Jovanni Thunstrom wrote on Facebook. Thunstrom also told local station KSTP that Floyd would drive patrons who were drunk home to make sure they were safe.

“He wanted me to teach him how to Bachata dance,” Thunstrom said. “And I gave up because I couldn’t turn him because he was [6 feet 6 inches].”

His former girlfriend Christina Dawson shared photos of Floyd smiling, wearing his security T-shirt, and cuddling a dog.

“They really killed my baby!!” she posted. “THAT KING DID NOT HAVE TO DIE BEFORE HIS TIME.”

Floyd was popular with women because of his charm and height, Williams said.

“There’s going to be so many women going to come out of the woodwork when they hear,” she added. “He was a big teddy bear.”

She added, “You could talk to a thousand people and nobody is going to have anything bad to say about him.”

His brothers and cousin also spoke to CNN’s Don Lemon about their search for justice after the four officers involved were fired.

“It definitely warms my heart to see we have so many people willing to support and to protest and to give him a voice,” said his cousin Tera Brown, “and keep this going because he was a very loving person. And he didn’t deserve what happened to him.”

His friends agreed.

“He was articulate. He was grounded. He was spiritual. He was an athlete. He was an organizer. He was a comforter. He was an encourager,” Williams told BuzzFeed News. “I could just go on and on and on about who he was.”
______________________________________________________________________________

From https://www.cbjohnsonreidfs.com/obituary/Ahmaud-Arbery

Ahmaud Marquez Arbery

May 8, 1994 ~ February 23, 2020 (age 25)

Mr. Ahmaud “Quez” Arbery of Brunswick, GA. passed on Sunday February 23, 2020. Celebration of Life will be held on Saturday February 29, 2020 12:00 p.m. at New Springfield Baptist Church 1996 Hatcher Mill Rd. Waynesboro, GA 30830. with Rev. Barrett A. Madison officiating. Interment church cemetery. Visitation will be held on Friday February 28, 2020 from 3:00 p.m.- 7:00 p.m. Chavous B. Johnson & Reid Funeral Service 885 Waters Street Waynesboro, GA. 30830 (706)554-7843. Ahmaud Marquez Arbery, “Quez”, was born on May 8, 1994, in Brunswick Georgia. He was a loving son, brother, uncle, nephew, cousin, and friend. He was humble, kind and well mannered. He always made sure he never departed from his loved ones without an “I Love You”. He had a smile that would light up a room. He loved to tell jokes, to elicit laughter and had a beautiful personality. He enjoyed downtime with his family and friends. He loved sports; basketball and football were his top choices. He was quite the athlete and chose to wear the football jersey #21, which was passed down from his older brother, Marcus, Jr. Ahmaud was among the graduating class of 2012 at Brunswick High School. He later attended South Georgia Technical College in Americus, Georgia. He is survived by: his mother, Wanda Cooper Jones; father, Marcus Arbery, Sr.; one brother, Marcus Arbery Jr. of Brunswick, Georgia; one sister, Jasmine Arbery of Albany Georgia; two loving nephews, Marcus, III and Micah Arbery; one godsister, Seneiyah Brown; grandmother, Ella Cooper; ten aunts, Bertha Waymer, Nellie Bea Eldridge, Bessie Dix (Paul), Linda Ellison (Keith), Debbie Dixon, Kimberly Cummings, Ruby Preston, Diane Jackson (Ulysses), Evon (Henry) Lakes, and Theawanza Brooks; six uncles, Jerome Holmes (Regina), Inus Holmes, Terry Holmes, Micquell Cooper, Gary Arbery (Carla) and William Arbery (Marva); and a host of cousins and friends

______________________________________________________________________________

From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Breonna_Taylor

Breonna Taylor

Louisville, Kentucky

Jun 5, 1993 – Mar 13, 2020 (Age 26)

On March 13, 2020, Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old African American woman, was fatally shot by Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) officers. Sergeant Jonathan Mattingly, Detective Brett Hankison, and Detective Myles Cosgrove entered her apartment in plainclothes in Louisville, Kentucky, while serving a “no-knock warrant“.^[1][2][3] Another police officer and an LMPD lieutenant were on the scene when the warrant was executed.^[4] Gunfire was exchanged between Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, and the three LMPD officers who entered the apartment. Taylor was shot eight times,^[5] and Mattingly was injured by gunfire.^[6]

The investigation by the LMPD was centered on two individuals who were already in police custody^[7] and suspected of selling controlled substances from a drug house more than 10 miles (16 km) away.^[8] One of the individuals in custody, Jamarcus Glover, had a prior relationship with Taylor.^[9] The search warrant included Breonna Taylor’s residence, which had been suspected of receiving drugs in the case,^[8] and because a car registered to Taylor had been seen parked on several occasions in front of Glover’s house.^[10]

According to police, Walker fired first, injuring a law enforcement officer, and police returned fire. According to a wrongful death lawsuit filed against the police by Taylor’s family, the officers entered the home without knocking or announcing that they were police officers, and “then proceeded to spray gunfire into the residence with a total disregard for the value of human life.”^[2][11]

Persons involved[edit]

• Breonna Taylor (June 5, 1993 – March 13, 2020) was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Her parents were Tamika Palmer and Troy Herrod. She graduated from Western High School and went on to study at the University of Kentucky. She was an emergency medical technician^[12] and worked at two hospitals, University of Louisville Jewish Hospital and Norton Healthcare. At the time of her death, she was working for University of Louisville Health.^[12][13][14] She was buried in Spring Valley, Illinois^[13]
• Kenneth Walker was Taylor’s boyfriend, who lived with her in the apartment.
• Jonathan Mattingly is an LMPD police sergeant who joined department in 2000.^[6]
• Brett Hankison is an LMPD plain clothes detective.^[6]
• Myles Cosgrove is an LMPD plain clothes detective.^[6]

Investigations and legal proceedings[edit]

Walker initially faced criminal charges of first-degree assault and attempted murder of a police officer.^[2][15] An LMPD statement alleged that the officers announced themselves before entering the home, and were immediately met with gunfire from Walker.^[16] According to that statement Walker allegedly discharged his firearm first, injuring a law enforcement officer. Walker’s lawyer stated that Walker thought that someone was entering the residence illegally, and that Walker acted only in self-defense. The 911 calls were later released to the public, with Walker recorded telling the 911 operator, “somebody kicked in the door and shot my girlfriend”.^[16] Walker was later released from jail due to coronavirus concerns, which drew criticism from Louisville Metro Police Department Chief Steve Conrad.^[17] In late May, Commonwealth’s Attorney Tom Wine moved to dismiss all charges against Walker. The case could be presented to a grand jury again after reviewing the results of investigations by the FBI and Kentucky Attorney General’s Office. Wine dropped the charges because the officers never mentioned Breonna Taylor by name to the grand jury or the fact that they shot her. Walker’s close friends said that his job was to protect Taylor at any cost.^[18][19] On May 22, Judge Olu Stevens released Walker from home incarceration. Rob Eggert, an attorney representing Walker, released a statement saying, “he just wanted to resume his life”. At the same time, his attorney said that he could be charged again later as more facts come out of the shooting.^[20]

On May 15, 2020, a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Taylor’s family. The lawsuit stated that Taylor and Walker were sleeping in their bedroom before the incident happened, and that the police officers were in unmarked vehicles. None of the officers were wearing body cameras, as all three were plainclothes narcotics officers.^[21] Taylor and Walker thought their home had been broken into by criminals and that “they were in significant, imminent danger.” The lawsuit alleges that “the officers then entered Breonna’s home without knocking and without announcing themselves as police officers. The Defendants then proceeded to spray gunfire into the residence with a total disregard for the value of human life.”^[2][11]

On May 28, Louisville office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced it had opened an investigation.^[21] Robert Brown, special agent in charge for the office, said “The FBI will collect all available facts and evidence and will ensure that the investigation is conducted in a fair, thorough and impartial manner.”^[21]

Aftermath[edit]

On May 21, after intense local and national criticism for the department’s handling of the case, Police Chief Steve Conrad announced his retirement to be effective on June 30.^[22] The LMPD has also announced that it will require all sworn officers to wear body cameras and will change how it carries out search warrants.^[21]

On May 14, photos were released to the public in The Courier-Journal by Sam Aguiar, an attorney representing Breonna Taylor’s family. The photos show bullet damage in their apartment and the apartment next door.^[23]

On May 26, multiple protesters, including friends and family of Taylor, surrounded the office of Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer, demanding the three officers be arrested and charged with murder. Another protest is planned for May 30.^[24]

For weeks after Taylor’s death, there was very little public reaction or response from government officials.^[25] The LMPD has not provided many details about the shooting or answers to questions about the case.^[26] Taylor’s death gained national attention when activist Shaun King posted about her shooting death on social media.^[26] On May 13, 2020, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear responded to reports about Taylor’s death and said the public deserved to know everything about the March raid. Beshear requested that the Kentucky Attorney General, Daniel Cameron, and local and federal prosecutor to review the findings of the Louisville police’s initial investigation “to ensure justice is done at a time when many are concerned that justice is not blind.”^[27] On May 14, Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer and Louisville Metro Police Department Chief Steve Conrad announced they have asked the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Attorney to review the local findings of the Public Integrity Unit’s investigation when it is completed.^[28]

On May 27, 2020, the LMPD said it had received multiple death threats like “All cops need to die” and “kill pigs”. On May 20, officers were responding to a 911 call near Taylor’s apartment and multiple people threw pieces of concrete at them and then ran away. No law enforcement officers were injured.^[29] On May 28, around 500 to 600 demonstrators marched in Downtown Louisville, where people chanted “No justice, no peace, prosecute police!” and “Breonna, Breonna, Breonna!”^[30][31] The protests continued into the early morning of May 29, when seven people were shot; one of the victims was in critical condition. At the same time, Taylor’s sister, Juniyah Palmer, posted a response to the protests on her Facebook page saying “At this point y’all are no longer doing this for my sister! You guys are just vandalizing stuff for NO reason, I had a friend ask people why they are there most didn’t even know the “protest” was for my sister.”^[32][33]
______________________________________________________________________________

Our cities have protests, riots, looters, and curfews. More innocent people will die. We are hurting. There is evidence of ties of certain law enforcement officers to white nationalist/supremacist organizations. There is evidence that racist groups are infiltrating peaceful groups and instigating hate.
And yes, there are some assholes that just want to loot and see the world burn.

It’s a rough time, gang. Remember this though – it’s not up to the victims of racism to do a damned thing. It’s up to the racists to change. You’re going to read about folks saying, “Why didn’t they do this?” or “Why didn’t they do that?”. That’s all a smokescreen. The racists are going to point to the protestors and say “They need to change!”, but in reality, the racists will point to anything they perceive as a slight as a justification for their racism.

And the cycle will continue as long as people can justify their hate.

Don’t get caught in that cycle. It’s toxic.

I hope the world it treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.

I’m sitting here thinking about how I want to approach tonight’s blog entry, and there’s a commercial on for BBC America featuring snoring, sleeping bunnies. Or wild hares. Whatever they are, it was funny listening to them snore.

Tonight I’m thinking about our societal need/fixation on grouping people. It’s an interesting phenomenon. It makes for good data – but sometimes I wonder about the depersonalizing nature of the process. We break things down by so many different parameters – gender, age, religion, color, education, background, all broken down into the smallest segments we can calculate within reason in order to identify trends, convert all of that raw data, the cold numbers into something from which we can organize and inform.

I’m not a big fan of generalizations. We focus on what we have in common rather than what makes us distinct. In every parts of our society, you’ll have the most honorable people and the worst of our species spread out across every variation of skin tone, eye color, height, weight, religious inclination, ad gender identity. If people classify as “Caucasian”, I can guarantee you’ll find a wide variety of opinions as you move across economic strata and educational spectra.

Intelligence and wisdom are two different things.

I completely get why we generalize based on certain attributes, I do. Sometimes that data stuff is pretty darned powerful. I don’t understand as much as I think I do sometimes… I’ll start to get around the corner with something, and then, that inevitable moment when someone, (gasp!), explains it to me. Oh, and I had been doing so well.

I went off track there somewhere.

I’m losing my train of thought. I think I might’ve had a pretty idea going there for awhile. but then the distractions and the other things in my brain give me a little donkey punch to the side of my head and take me off in some new direction hat has nothing to do with the original thought.

Maybe it comes down to “get good data”, “ask good questions”, and “look beyond the obvious”.

I’ll think on this a little more, and maybe revisit it later this week. My mind is kind of going fourteen different directions right now, and I want to odo a better job organizing these thoughts.

I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.

As I have written before, some days the words come easier than others. Sometimes that is due to the thoughts rumbling through my cerebral cortex, other times it simply has to do with the events of the day. Right now, I am finishing up the Memorial Day part of my holiday and transitioning to the actual vacation part of my vacation Four days of Paid Time-Off. It’s been awhile. I had vacation at my previous employer, but then it was a little more less formalized, with more of an attitude of “if you need some time, take it, and we’ll mark it off”.

Now that I work for a bigger company, a lot of the HR policies are formal, and I welcome that. Last year I didn’t take any time off except for when my dad passed away. I banked my vacation and let three weeks of PTO roll over in to the new year. This week, I need to take some of that time off… and the ironic part is that I could pretty much go whereever I wanted to, but I won’t due to the coronavirus event th we are all dealing with.

I’m home. I’ll take a trip to go see my mom. I’ll goof of and get some yard work done. That’s about it.

I’m going to break out the presentation pointer and drive my dog up the wall. They do love chasing that little red dot.

I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.

It’s a Saturday night in rural Douglas County, and one of my neighbors is really getting in to celebrating the Memorial Day weekend… and the bass is thumping.

I had a pretty active day, for the first day of vacation. I spoke with an old, dear friend who has been going through a rough time over the last year, losing her step son last year and her husband earlier this year. It’s been awhile (25 plus years?) since we’ve even been in the same room together. I extended an offer to her that she should come visit, get away for a bit, and maybe enjoy a change of scenery. She took me up on my (our) offer and is coming up for a visit on Monday.

After that conversation, I started getting some things done around the house, and with the holiday weekend, I decided to smoke some meat this weekend as part of our holiday weekend, and I knew my smoker could use a good cleaning. I had recently picked up some wire brushes to fit in one of my rotary tools. Surprisingly, I tried two different tools to see if there was a decent fit, and the stem on the brush was either too big on one, and two small for the other. Finally, I grabbed a Bosh drill/rotary tool combo and got to work on the scale that had built up on my smoker. I was pretty pleased with the result, and that tool combination was very effective. Dane suggested that next time I could just go straight to angle grinder, and I must admit, that could be a very effective mechanism for cleaning my smoker, that I affectionately refer to as “Joe”. It’s an Oklahoma Joe’s Highland Smoker with an offset firebox.

After cleaning the smoker, I spent a couple of hours on the mower. I still have a lot more to do, but I got a start on it today.

And then I started to feel my age. I got cleaned up. I relaxed a bit this afternoon, though. Tonight we had a very nice dinner, and Lisa tried a new recipe that turned out very good – I think it was called “Chicken Divan”?

This evening I spent some time this evening prepping for tomorrow’s smoke, trimming up the whole brisket Lisa bought for us. I hope I picked a decent rub for it. It had a good combination of spices, but I think I would’ve gone with a little more spice if I had designed it.

Oh… I picked up some pepper seeds today, too. Muahaha.

OK, the puppy is demanding I pay attention to him, so I need to wrap this up.

I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.

It’s been a long day. On delivery days, I tend to get up around 5:30 in the morning. I try to be in my virtual classroom well before the first student arrives, at least an hour before I’m scheduled to start. That gives me a little time to organize my presentations as well as my URLs, and a few other sites/tools I use regularly. Also, if students have arrived earlier into the lab environment, I’m there to lend a hand.

My class this week isn’t incredible large, but it is a pretty active and curious group. I’ve had a couple of questions tossed my way that really caught me, but that’s ok… I take time, do a little research, and I’ll be all the better for it. One question that caught me had to do with path variables in the Azure Cloud Shell (I’m still looking for some answers there).

I’m not as far along in this course as I would like, but that’s always going to be the nature of this sort of training. Sometimes you can stick to stuff close to the surface, other times you have to dive a little deeper based on the needs of the students in the course. I’m having to dive a little deeper, and in the long run it will help me as well as other classes on my schedule.

That’s good enough for now. Lisa has fallen asleep in the chair, and Odin is currently nestled under my lap desk, his soft, puppy coat keeping my legs warm.

I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.

It’s a Tuesday night in rural Douglas County. It was a good night for tacos, and might’ve been a good night for taco salad if the restaurant had completely filled my order. That’s a frustration. Oh well, there were leftovers.

Tonight I started thinking about the turns my career has taken over the last couple of years. I went from daily commutes to Leawood, Kansas, State Line Road, all the way to an eighty-percent travel schedule with my career change to the Mothership, an now, still with the Mothership, but now one hundred percent working from home, with travel maybe, just maybe, starting in the last quarter of 2020, and even then, it will be voluntary and discouraged unless it’s something the customer really wants.

We’re living in some pretty crazy times.

I’m not going to go nuts writing tonight. I just wanted to get back to the habit. I’m going to write and think and consider and do any number of other things that requires a conjunction.

And I’m going to live here at home and stay away from people for a while. I owe it to the ones I love.

I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.

It’s Monday night in rural Douglas County. I’m relaxing with my family in the living room, watching a little TV and reviewing my material for tomorrow’s class. I’ll be teaching on west coast time, so my start time will be a little later for me than normal, but a half an hour isn’t that big of a deal. In the virtual classroom by 8:30, with a 9:30 start.

Dane and his girlfriend have been able to spend some time together these last few days and I can tell they’ve enjoyed the opportunity to reconnect. Bon is enjoying here time back at home, and she’ll be able to be around for another week and a half before she has to head back to school.

Gracie is going back to school this summer, and Dane is planning on picking up a few hours, too.

Lisa will have a full summer as well, between teaching the first part of the summer and picking up her additional responsibilities as department chair.

I’m just going to keep y nose to the grindstone, and stay focused on the work in front of me.

It’s also Monday… which has been my normal day to update my little report on the coronavirus and the COVID-19 fatalities. Worldwide, we’re at 318,465. Not as bad as the flu has been in some years, but this thing is not the flu. More contagious, more deadly. The social distancing and lockdowns have seemed to work, and for the fourth straight week, the number of fatalities in the the United States have dropped…

They trend is heading in the right direction. I’ll be interested to see if the fatality numbers for the week drop below 10,000 this next week. My fear is that we’ll have the spike, and that 10,000 number will slip to the side to make way for a bigger number, the one the experts all fear might happen if we get out of lockdown too soon.

Nothing I can do about it though, but try to keep safe and be smart.

And stay home.

That’s about all I have for tonight. Hoping the puppy sleeps all the way through the night. He’s doing better, as he gets more and more acclimated to the new surroundings. As soon as he gets old enough, we take him in and get him chipped and checked.

OK, that’s enough drivel for now.

I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.

It’s a beautiful Saturday night, with a sunset painted in layers of pink and blue. I am feeling lucky and blessed tonight, as my home is filled with happy people, two dogs, and puppy.

Might be a spider lurking in the furnace room, but we don’t need to dwell on that.

Might freak out my wife and daughter. I have no idea how my son’s girlfriend will react. Probably not well.

It’s been a Saturday, a day to focus on reenergizing and getting our collective heads together for the following week. Lisa and the kids are done with school for the semester, and I have one more week in the classroom, then I’m taking a week off.

I’m trying to flex my imagination muscled, and I’m thinking about some things to write about and try to develop into a story. Time to do a little thinking.

I probably ought to spend a little time playing with Odin before we call it a night. He slept pretty well last night, all the way until 5:30 this morning. Time to grab his little bunny toy and play a little tug of war with the pooch.

I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.