The Books of Bokonon

This one will be a little more personal, but it seems like a good time to reflect a bit. I turned 59 today. I have spent the day, and a couple before it, sick. One of the joys of working in any level of the education sector (I'm in higher ed) is being exposed to pretty much any and every virus in circulation at any given time. It goes with the territory and I accept that. I had some hope briefly that after our shared experience with the COVID pandemic that a new work and classroom attendance culture would take hold - one a bit more forgiving for those who are really just too sick to be in class. From a health standpoint, it would be great. As long as the work gets done, I'm okay with that. There will always be a subset of colleagues who will disagree, and I accept that too. Most likely, I will be well in a day or two - knock on wood. The last several days have been rough for us as a nation. As my kids have wished me a happy birthday, I've lamented the world they are inherit...

      Today marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, one of the most notorious of the Nazi concentration camps during WWII. On this international Holocaust Remembrance Day , let's memorialize this atrocity as a harbinger, an omen, a warning, as many of the posts on the Guardian's live blog of this occasion remind us. One million people of Jewish descent were murdered just at Auschwitz alone. Wrap your mind around that statistic, and then remember that behind the number were living breathing human beings whose lives were snuffed out. The survivors have undoubtedly experienced a lifetime of PTSD, but also have been among our most powerful witnesses to the very worst of what humanity is capable. I've had the opportunity to speak with survivors of Auschwitz and other similar camps. Their stories are not pleasant but need to be heard. If you never had a chance to visit with someone who lived through that atrocity, there are other resources that are digitally...

Sometimes, all you can do is laugh at the absurdity of our present moment, and thankfully, Jon Stewart is there to lead the way:

  These are just a few memes floating around the internet tubes. It's going to be a long several years.

I haven't put up a Jon Stewart video in a few weeks. Perhaps I was not much in the mood. But I am now. This Monday evening, he unpacked a new year with two terrorist attacks that fit nobody's preconceived narrative, and a January 6th that went much differently than the January 6th of 2021. Amazing what happens when the losing candidate handles it with panache, rather than throws a temper tantrum. Jon Stewart laughs, but as we all know, he does so with a certain amount of moral outrage. There was a line from V for Vendetta - I don't remember it exactly - where the character Gordon Dietrich is asked if everything is a joke to him. He answers "only the things that matter." I feel that. Let's watch the video:  

Just four years ago, the US almost experienced a successful coup. That is not hyperbole. It happened. Any of us who were anywhere near a cell phone, computer, or TV would have seen coverage on Donald Trump's self-coup throughout the day, starting at the Ellipse with speeches by Trump and his henchmen that ginned up the crowd to the attack on the Capitol Building grounds. There were injuries and deaths as a result. Congress members' lives were in danger for several hours. The whole thing was so well-documented and footage would continue to stream long after the coup was finally put down. There was no love there. These were not tourists. Even if the insurrectionists don't want to be seen in this light, the reality is that they were terrorists and traitors.  Trump had telegraphed his self-coup well in advance, laying the groundwork in the early fall prior to the election in 2020. The many lawsuits and schemes for fake electors in swing states that went to Biden were part of th...

It's been a minute, but I want to get back to this series of videos that accompany Timothy Snyder's book, On Tyranny . This particular lesson strikes me as more common sense than anything else. Keeping in contact with friends and acquaintances from other countries strikes me as a sound idea, for more than a few reasons. One is that our peers often offer a perspective on how our nation is faring that can be quite illuminating, if we are willing to listen. Even better is the realization that our peers elsewhere across the world may have direct experience with authoritarian systems and know the importance of exercising our democratic rights and responsibilities. We can learn by studying other democratic systems and what aided their survival or led to their downfall. I also see the value in having a passport - partially to travel to see the world and experience new people and cultures, but also just in case something goes sideways. Snyder continues to repeat the importance of under...

As the late great Yogi Berra once said, "it's deja vu all over again." It is the beginning of the 119th Congress and the House side of Capitol Hill has had a bit of a rough start, for the second Congressional session in a row. Mike Johnson, who became Speaker in the middle of last session, ran to remain Speaker, and he was arguably in a much better position than his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, was at this same point as the 118th Congressional Session started. Johnson had - at least to start - far fewer initial holdouts after he initially failed to get the nomination during the first vote for Speaker. The saving grace for Johnson was that some GOP members on the House floor changed their votes, thus belatedly giving Johnson the Speaker's gavel. There was plenty of drama on the floor for a while, and the GOP looked like there was a struggle to simply get their act together, so not a great start. At least we'll avoid the seemingly countless votes for the Speaker...

I am posting a track from Herbie Hancock and Foday Musa Suso's 1985 LP, Village Life. The whole LP is worth listening to, especially for fans of Herbie Hancock and world music more broadly. This track embodies the LP's fusion of electric jazz and Zambian folk music and a bit of the Griot tradition.    Before Progress Pond had a bunch of technical difficulties, I would post a weekly Cafe and Lounge feature on Wednesdays each week. For now, I am not able to do so, but I have my own blog, so I can indulge in some music that way. I started the series in part as a response to a more nationalistic and populist turn I was seeing even among lefties after the Trump election of 2016, as a way of saying I don't dig on building cultural walls - quite the opposite, really. So yes, I can throw down the gauntlet with some tunes (some chill, some with considerably more volume), to express a fundamental part of my value system. Cheers, everyone, and Happy New Year.

    I have no idea what all will unfold over this next year, but it will likely be another one of those years where I will just mutter to myself, "we live in interesting times." Sounds like something my dad would have muttered back in the day. So it goes. 2025 will start out with plenty of turbulence and will likely end with plenty of turbulence once all is said and done. I'll be with you every step of the way. Hang in there.