May 2021

Memorial Day in a blue state

Over the course of United States history, millions of men and women have given their life to fight for the ideals of freedom and liberty we all, to varying degrees, take for granted. They made the ultimate sacrifice. For what? Here in the State of Washington, they made the ultimate sacrifice so we could sit home and fear getting together at organized Memorial Day commemorations because we may all get COVID and die even though the majority of states across the country have lifted mask restrictions and essentially gotten back to normal. While we “follow the science” (which is…

Read More

The racism is no consequences

As blue cities around the country pull back on enforcing the law, they reveal their true racism. The premise of defunding the police is that black people can’t stop themselves from breaking the law and that the real perpetrators are those who apprehend them and lock them up when they’re committing a crime. More specifically, the premise is that black people will be black people and can’t help themselves from breaking the law. We can’t expect them to behave like civilized people and follow our laws, so it’s inherently racist to enforce the law because to do so necessarily…

Read More

Season four: episode 789

Yesterday, we found ourselves scrolling through DirecTV when we happened upon the game show “Wheel of Fortune.” A look at the program information included the season and episode. I never thought of game shows in the context of “episodes,” but this most recent episode was season 38, episode 185. That’s more than 7000 episodes over the span of the show. In this binge-watch culture, I wonder if anyone undertook the chore of binge-watching all 7000 episodes of Wheel of Fortune? If you’re looking for something a bit more enlightening and simple, try reading through the archives of The Bubbler….

Read More

Tracking your child

This past weekend, a couple I know asked my opinion of putting a phone tracker on their child’s phone. They were thinking of using an app like Life360, which would allow them to follow where their child’s phone is at any one time (which hopefully corresponds to the whereabouts of their child, as well). When my kids were younger, my wife and I had the same conversation, and we concluded it was unnecessary. First off, there’s the very predictable: we never had trackers when we were growing up, and we not only survived, but ended up just fine. But…

Read More

Sore need of grace

As America slowly tugs itself into pieces and divides itself based on how evil we assume people with opposing views to be, there’s one thing sorely missing: grace. Because we don’t have enough division and angst in this country, there are always people out there actively scouring social media and other digital records looking for anything various people may have written or posted that would warrant cancelling them from culture. And I’m not just talking about people who are still alive. We are looking through historical records and judging all people, past and present, against the cultural “norms” of…

Read More

Top seven stressors

My friend, who’s a mindfulness professional, was telling me that one of her resource books list the top seven sources of stress as (in no particular order): Getting married or divorced Chronic or serious illness Moving Changing or losing a job Going to prison Death of a loved one Significant financial obligations It struck me that one of these stands out from the others: prison. Unlike the others, going to prison equals a loss of freedom. Unlike the others, you don’t get much say in going to prison (after you made the decision to do whatever it is that…

Read More

The devil I know is content

There’s an old saying: “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.” It speaks to the advantages of working or dealing with a person you don’t like but know well versus someone who is unknown and unpredictable. I think it is this kind of thinking that is largely responsible for the state of the United States today. People are so risk-averse and so afraid of being challenged or uncomfortable that they’d rather just suck it up and deal with what’s happening to them rather than putting their energy toward finding something better. Sitting and suffering is the…

Read More

Mask protection conversion

Our local grocery store recently changed it’s mask policy. If you have been vaccinated, you don’t need to wear a mask. I am not vaccinated, nor will I be. So naturally, I was excited to get back to entering the grocery store with no mask on. The residents of the Pacific Northwest did not disappoint. I’ve been in that grocery store five times since they changed their policy. Each time, I was the only person in the store without a mask on. There’s no way to know this, but given the anecdotal evidence and sensibilities (such as they are)…

Read More

The racism of audience targeting

You can’t see a television show, streaming series, commercial, or nearly any cultural event without noticing how overtly everyone is trying to make up for their own racism. You can’t swing a dead cat without seeing an over-representation of black people in nearly everything you see in media. Movies. Television shows. Tik Tok clips. Award shows. Hallmark specials. Commercials. Advertising. No matter where you turn, you’d think America was 75% black people, based on current casting practices. Which is fine. If the content of the story or the successful sale is the point, who cares whether it’s a man,…

Read More

Short term thinking in a long term business

A friend of mine just traveled to Hawaii only to find that, along with all of the expected pains in the ass presented by COVID, he had no rental car waiting for him after reserving it two months earlier. Meanwhile, it is nearly impossible to rent a car at one airport if you’re hoping to drop it off and fly out of a different airport. It’s a fairly well-known and universal travel problem right now that car rental companies have no inventory. Why do they have no inventory? Because when COVID hit, they thought the best idea out there…

Read More