January - 2021

Thoughts of John

A Place Where Optimism and Activism Meet

I believe that Americans deserve leadership who care for the disadvantaged, who thinks about the future of America, and works to build a future where there are no disadvantaged Americans. I believe billionaires should be illegal, and that to build your first billion you took advantage of other people to do it. I believe that non-violent drug possession crimes should be expunged, and those people should be apologized to for our draconian enforcement of racist laws.

I believe that we can be, and must be, better tomorrow than we are today.

Deaths Under Donald

The United States is approaching 400,000 deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic, a number that is terrifying to think of, and the there are more than 2,000,000 deaths world wide. If you'd like to pause here and try to figure out how a country that makes up 4.25% of the world's population also makes up 19% of worldwide COVID deaths, you can take that pause now. Done? Okay. The reasons a country with 4.25% of the world's population has accounted for 19% of COVID deaths are varied,

Unity and Consequences

Over the last few days I've sat and read thousands of words on the importance of unity. There are calls from the right that it's time to move past the actions of last week, and that it's time to let it go. You see, I have issues with this. This same group over the summer called for prison terms, and passed new laws, because they weren't happy about the actions of people who were protesting for their right to live. Literally the right to live. Now, less than a week after a r

Journalism or Propaganda?

Journalists tell the truth. It is their prime directive. A search for the truth is what wakes a great journalist up in the morning, after only three hours of sleep, because they spent the night chasing the great truth. As an American you may know some of their names; Dan Rather and Walter Cronkite, Barbara Walters and Christiane Amanpour, but high profile journalists have never been the ones I've been super-excited by. I've been excited by the work of people like Randy Shil

Attempted Coup? Treason? Yes to Both.

This is an attempted coup. This is sedition. This is treason. Yet, it's important that we remember these people did not act alone. The people you saw on your television today; breaking windows, marching through Statuary Hall, sitting in the chairs of Vice President Pence and Speaker Pelosi, did not do their work alone. These people are not leaders, they are followers. These people followed, and acted on the orders of President Trump, and the people who have enabled his hatef

A Phone Call Worthy of Jail Time

I try to avoid instantly reacting to anything. I try to be measured in my responses to everything that goes on around me, for a measured response brings us closer to truth, and truth is sorely lacking in the America we live in today. It's been a day though. In that day I listened to the phone call. Then I listened a second time. Then I read the transcripts. Let's get a couple of things out of the way right away. There are people in the White House saying "They cut out thing

Hindsight: 2020 in Review

It's strange to think that 2020 is finally over. To call this a challenging year for so many people, for so many reasons, feels like a failure of the English language. In previous blog spaces I've liked to wrap the year up, talk about lessons learned, things we've done, and what comes next. It seems that in the past I only did this every fourth year, and you can see those in this blog now, copied from their original publication locations, and it feels like the right place to