Flow Freely

My thoughts don’t always 

Organize themselves in prose 

They can flow freely 

Reviewing The 2020 Game Plan

At the start of 2020, I set four personal objectives. I don’t like to call them resolutions. It’s more motivating to work toward a goal than to test one’s resolve.

The first objective was to travel as much as possible. Unfortunately, the virus put a quick halt to that plan. I was booking a trip to California when COVID-19 started spreading throughout the US. I have put all of my travel plans on indefinite hold.

The second goal was to avoid buying any new music or photography. I wanted to make the most of the equipment that I already owned instead of chasing after shiny new gizmos.

The third objective was to spend time doing what I do best. In a nutshell, there are things that I do well, and there are other things that I can do competently, but I’ll never be elite in those areas. While I recognize that it’s a good practice to work on your weaknesses, I wanted to make sure that I was spending enough time in the areas where I can deliver the highest quality results.

The fourth and final goal was to finish some important projects that I had left in an incomplete state. I have made some progress in this area - I finally finished scoring and mixing the Tuba Concerto in G minor, which I composed in eleven days some years ago. That feat that left me so exhausted I never got around to finishing the paperwork. I hope to be able to share more completed soon.

It has been a challenging year for a number of reasons. My professional work has been intense and frequently exhausting. The virus has forced us to change the way we do almost everything.  The lockdown had a negative impact on my health. But I have been able to make progress on endeavors that are important to me, and the results have been rewarding.

Thank you as always for reading my musings. Your time is appreciated.

Top Priorities For The Biden Harris Administration

Top Priorities for the Biden/Harris Administration

A Baker’s Dozen

1. Get the virus under control

2. Get the kids out of the cages and back to their mothers

3. Fire anyone appointed by the Trump administration and hire back competent people like Sally Yates and Preet Bharara

4. Pass the Biden jobs and infrastructure bill

5. Medicare For All

6. Protect public lands from exploitation

7. Reinstitute pollution controls that were relaxed or eliminated by Trump

8. Rejoin the Paris Climate Accord and make it stronger

9. Reaffirm support for NATO

10. Reimpose sanctions where necessary

11. Impeach and replace Brett Kavanaugh

12. Prosecute the crimes of Trump Administration officials

13. Full statehood for Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C.

Deregulation

Conservatives love to sing the praises of deregulation. They claim that it helps businesses and creates jobs.

Deregulation led to The Great Depression, the Financial Crisis of 2008, and the collapse of the Savings And Loan system in the 1980s. Financial institutions took on more risk and engaged in more speculation. Why? Because the regulations that would have discouraged this behavior were weakened or eliminated.

Deregulation is like giving whiskey and care keys to teenage boys and expecting them to go out and start responsible businesses.

Every time we go through one of these massive catastrophes, responsible people come up with a set rules and best practices to prevent a repeat of past mistakes. The pushback begins immediately. “All of these regulations are hurting our business!” No. These regulations are preventing BUSINESSES from harming THE REST OF US and then asking for a BAILOUT when they get into trouble.

Radical Agenda

If a living wage and universal healthcare coverage are your idea of a radical left-wing agenda, look in the mirror and ask yourself why you believe that you’ll be better off when your neighbors are sick and broke.

Two Hurricanes

Never before have two hurricanes battered the Red States of the South during the Republican National Convention. God is angry with Trump. The pandemic was just the beginning.

Trump’s Biden Strategy

Trump’s strategy for defeating Joe Biden is and always has been to find some information on Biden that’s so revolting that people would rather vote for the president. This dates all the way back to the Ukraine extortion scandal for which Mr. Trump was impeached.

I question the feasibility of the strategy. What damaging evidence on Biden could the Trump campaign (and his comrades, the Russians) dig up that is more repulsive than Trump’s child separation policy AND more dangerous than Mr. Trump’s inept handling of COVID-19 AND more undemocratic than the systematic firing of federal prosecutors and government watchdogs AND more corrupt than not only accepting, but REQUESTING foreign influence in US elections AND more unconstitutional than sending unmarked federal storm troopers to break up peaceful protests AND more blatantly un-American than trying to cripple the US Postal Service AND more racist than supporting the white supremacists who marched on Charlottesville AND more indifferent than refusing to help Puerto Rico after multiple deadly hurricanes and earthquakes? 

I mean, seriously? How do you top that?

It would be like trying to convince people to vote for Goldwater because Johnson drank the wrong brand of beer.

RNC Coverage

Fox News Channel refused to broadcast the Democratic National Convention. They played their prime time opinion shows instead.

CNN and MSNBC will be broadcasting the Republican National Convention this week.

Let this put an end to the notion that Fox News is “fair and balanced” or that CNN and MSNBC are left-wing equivalents of Fox. There is no such equivalency. CNN and MSNBC cover important political events regardless of which party hosts them. Fox News is a vehicle for right-wing propaganda.

I won’t be watching the RNC this week. I have watched every political convention since 1968. I watched the RNC in 2016, but I’m going to pass on this one. I’m not in the mood to listen to a bunch or lies, false accusations, and xenophobic rhetoric.

We don’t need speakers to describe what a Trump presidency will look like; we’ve lived though it. We don’t need to listen to his friends and family members justify his corruption, his ineptitude ineptitude in negotiating international trade deals, his disregard for democratic institutions, his flaunting of the rule of law, his incompetence in handling a deadly pandemic, or the unspeakable cruelty of his family separation policy. We have witnessed all of this day after day in graphic detail. No amount of rhetorical sugar coating is going to convince reasonable voters that the last three and a half years have been a success story, or that the guy who got us into this mess deserves another term. No one is that stupid. 

Nor do we need to hear a bunch of fear mongering about how horrible a Biden presidency might be. Why? Because we lived through the Obama years when Biden was a governing partner. And except for Moscow Mitch trying to block all progress at a congressional level, the Obama years were pretty darned good. The Obama White House did good things for a lot of people. They provided comfort and empathy in times of trouble. They punished Russia for their incursion into Ukraine. They hunted and captured our number one enemy, Osama bin Laden. Our country and our leadership were respected around the world during the Obama presidency, and we will regain that respect, which Mr. Trump squandered, under the leadership of Mr. Biden.

So, I’ll offer my apologies in advance to MSNBC and CNN. You’re doing the right thing by broadcasting the RNC - it shows that you take journalism a lot more seriously than a certain propaganda channel - but I’m not going to waste my time watching a disingenuous, xenophobic, white-supremacist clown show. I just don’t have the stomach for it.

Grief In The Alley

Grief rumbles on

In the background

Like a loud, rusty garbage truck 

Parked in the alley

Running its compactor

Day and night 

“Why does he sit there?”

You wonder

“When is he going to leave?”

Conversation Tips For Introverts

Conversation Tips For Introverts

1. When other people are talking, let them talk. Don’t interrupt. They might go on forever.

2. When it’s your turn to talk, ask questions. This will encourage others to talk more.

3. If you can’t avoid talking, discuss something that really excites you, even if it’s daring or unusual. Talking about your passion is always fun, and if you’re lucky, the others will mistake your zeal for obsession and decide that it’s better to leave you alone.