I’m so annoyed that Trump is the one who has the power to make decisions. When Sarah mentioned that throughout most of history there are often bad leaders I just hate how that’s the case because in my life and profession I know a lot of people who I consider good leaders. And a lot of people I meet have good ideas about how to tackle big questions like the economy and population. I’m sure there are people who have studied and learned a lot of things who could do a lot of good. But instead because of all kinds of factors- the cost of getting into politics, the media, the electoral system, human psychology we are stuck with Trump being seemingly the only person able to make change. And I hate just waking up and going about my life but his chaos is actively making it harder for anyone to do anything about it. Prices are too high for families to have one income, childcare is broken, the job market is too difficult to switch jobs and of course no one would go into government as a career with all of the cuts. I guess this is kind of a vent but it’s just such a bad situation it’s like getting deeper and deeper into a hole.
As a long time 8th grade DC Trip chaperone and coordinator, I will say hanging out with the friends can actually be one of the best parts of the trip for the kids. It's the cell phones that are a nightmare. Collecting them at night to keep the kids from staying up all night, telling them to put them away while we are walking, trying to get them to actually explore the museums instead of sitting in a corner and gaming. That's my biggest pet peeve each year.
The silver lining to moving across the country to the east coast was knowing that we could digest the history here in small doses. We've been to DC countless times and still have things to see. And, yes, so much walking!!
Ok I don’t mean to go all conspiracy and paranoid here BUT with how easily people can just be moved to the “dead” list with SS, it’s not impossible for mistakes to be made or he gets mad at teachers and starts “ killing” us off. Do people get notified if they are moved to the “dead” list? How does one fix it? Just wondering…for a friend 🫣
Similar to Allison & Susanne’s comments - I agree that Americans don’t want to work in a factory or on a farm but there are so many people I know that dream of doing something more tactile in their day to day job.
Related - back when we had an EPA, they estimated we need 1M new and up-skilled trades workers (mostly electricians of all types) to meet the US’s climate goals. Anecdote on this - My mom owns a speciality electrician contracting business and she finds her work intellectually engaging and physically rewarding. The labor side is getting hard as she and her partner age but they are training young folks and can still engage in the problem solving needed to effectively finish their contracts.
My son has decided he wants to be an electrician and some of the programs we are looking at have long waiting lists. It seems like there is a lot of interest!
Outside of politics, Sarah’s reference to Sliding Door made me smile. A favorite movie I’ve watched too many times. A bit of lightness in a difficult time.
There definitely were some folks who saw exactly this (waves around) coming. They were wearing out their voices warning us that this administration would be just as reckless and unabashed as it has proven to be. But I think maybe they were not heard/believed by those with the power and resources to prepare? I honestly don't know.
I was in DC for the Cherry Blossom 5k and 10 miler, and I was really hoping Sarah would be out there with a sign that said, "have the best race available to you". 😂 While I was there, I told my friend about how I got to see Baby Bush's second inauguration, and how insane that was with all of the security (and it was freezing cold, and us Georgia kids were unprepared, haha.) (And fun fact, I was there in high school with one Miss Maggie! Hi Maggie! 👋🏻)
And finally, does "due process" have a specific definition and is that definition the same for all persons inside the U.S. regardless of any other factor?
I grew up in a rural farming community and I still have the opportunity of visiting the area. I also spent a couple of years shooting news footage while driving through rural areas of Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Kansas. It's more than ever like it was back then. I wonder how people live in those places with few visible opportunities for employment. Walmart has always been big catalyst for economic change. As it displaces local businesses it also becomes one of the largest employers, along with the school district and prisons (at least in Texas). What's left is generally support for agriculture and food processing.
Animal farms and processing plants are and have always been largely staffed by immigrants, including many who are not here legally. I don't know how our domestic economy or food chain is going to survive any of these attacks on the status quo.
Also, I have long thought that access to highspeed internet would help level the technological playing field in smaller cities in rural areas, but I'm rethinking that.
Whenever I drive around rural Texas for work (I am a journalist for horse magazines and I often go to ranches / equine facilities to take photos), when I drive through small towns, I always wonder what that town's industry is. What keeps its economy going? Is this an oil town? Did these people work at a factory? Do they commute to a bigger city?
Ranching and farming have become less and less occupations that people can make work as a career, but they're vital to our food chain. It worries me a lot, especially with the loss of immigrant workers.
Exactly. I grew up south of Lubbock, so all cotton until you drop off the caprock into ranchland. I still know a few farmers who grew up on their own farms, which is really the only way to get into farming that seems doable. But up in the panhandle there's a lot more cattle and feedyards and I'll be honest, I don't know where those animals are being trucked in from anymore. Even among the big ranches, I don't know who's raising cattle anymore.
I grew up on a steady diet of Western Horseman and Horse & Rider, by the way. My grandfather was a cowboy-turned-oil-rig-manager.
Norma I love to hear that about the horse magazines. :-) I’ve written for Western Horseman since 2012 (I have a freelance contract with them), and have written off and on for Horse & Rider since about then too. WH is such a legacy to equine journalism.
I always get startled when I hear Amarillo name-dropped anywhere. If anyone can post the Theo Von clip, I'd love to hear it. My searches didn't turn anything up. The downtown there is actually well into a revitalization--although it was never truly dead and the revitalization is controversial and revolves for some reason around a ballpark. If Von performed at the Civic Center, he was next to said ballpark and right across the street from the Center for the Performing Arts, home of the Amarillo Opera.
Here's the clip. I want you to know that I watched 15 minutes of the actual episode to try to hear it in context, so I could share it in the notes, and I could not. I went into the manosphere, and I went into rejection mode. -Maggie
One of my dearest friends lives in Amarillo and she's very involved in the arts in the city. She just posted about a theatrical production happening soon. She both supports and participates.
I interned at the American Quarter Horse Association in Amarillo when I was in college, and if they'd offered me a job when I graduated (versus four months later when I had a different job), I probably would be living out there today.
To the point about small towns reinventing their economies - we have a local small town that’s now become home for one of the huge data centers for Meta and it’s fueling economy here. It’s controversial as hell - light pollution, energy consumption, etc - but I wouldn’t be surprised if this becomes more normal.
Trump is disappearing people without due process and condemning them to indefinite detention in a foreign concentration camp. He’s openly lying about the outcome of a Supreme Court ruling and musing about using the same process on citizens.
So, I’m just curious: is NOW a good time to start calling it a constitutional crisis? We don’t want to come off as alarmist; that would be just about the worst thing imaginable, after all.
It’s overreacting until it’s underreacting. I think we are well past the underreacting line. Another thing I have pondered, is that the “alarmists” are frequently the people who stop the major alarm from happening. If you don’t use a fire extinguisher when the flame is small, it can consume the whole house.
I think it was highly unlikely the Democratic nominee would have won regardless of when Biden dropped out or if the Dems had held a contested primary. The vast majority of incumbent parties throughout the developed world lost.
I don’t think the state of our democracy hinged so much on Biden’s decision to run for reelection as it revealed an underlying, more fundamental issue- the vast majority of the electorate does not understand or appreciate the underlying principles upon which our system of governance operates.
I’m so annoyed that Trump is the one who has the power to make decisions. When Sarah mentioned that throughout most of history there are often bad leaders I just hate how that’s the case because in my life and profession I know a lot of people who I consider good leaders. And a lot of people I meet have good ideas about how to tackle big questions like the economy and population. I’m sure there are people who have studied and learned a lot of things who could do a lot of good. But instead because of all kinds of factors- the cost of getting into politics, the media, the electoral system, human psychology we are stuck with Trump being seemingly the only person able to make change. And I hate just waking up and going about my life but his chaos is actively making it harder for anyone to do anything about it. Prices are too high for families to have one income, childcare is broken, the job market is too difficult to switch jobs and of course no one would go into government as a career with all of the cuts. I guess this is kind of a vent but it’s just such a bad situation it’s like getting deeper and deeper into a hole.
Have you seen the Chapelle clip on the jobs Americans don’t want? It’s his usual irreverent style but my husband and I thought it was spot on
As a long time 8th grade DC Trip chaperone and coordinator, I will say hanging out with the friends can actually be one of the best parts of the trip for the kids. It's the cell phones that are a nightmare. Collecting them at night to keep the kids from staying up all night, telling them to put them away while we are walking, trying to get them to actually explore the museums instead of sitting in a corner and gaming. That's my biggest pet peeve each year.
The silver lining to moving across the country to the east coast was knowing that we could digest the history here in small doses. We've been to DC countless times and still have things to see. And, yes, so much walking!!
Ok I don’t mean to go all conspiracy and paranoid here BUT with how easily people can just be moved to the “dead” list with SS, it’s not impossible for mistakes to be made or he gets mad at teachers and starts “ killing” us off. Do people get notified if they are moved to the “dead” list? How does one fix it? Just wondering…for a friend 🫣
Similar to Allison & Susanne’s comments - I agree that Americans don’t want to work in a factory or on a farm but there are so many people I know that dream of doing something more tactile in their day to day job.
Related - back when we had an EPA, they estimated we need 1M new and up-skilled trades workers (mostly electricians of all types) to meet the US’s climate goals. Anecdote on this - My mom owns a speciality electrician contracting business and she finds her work intellectually engaging and physically rewarding. The labor side is getting hard as she and her partner age but they are training young folks and can still engage in the problem solving needed to effectively finish their contracts.
My son has decided he wants to be an electrician and some of the programs we are looking at have long waiting lists. It seems like there is a lot of interest!
Outside of politics, Sarah’s reference to Sliding Door made me smile. A favorite movie I’ve watched too many times. A bit of lightness in a difficult time.
There definitely were some folks who saw exactly this (waves around) coming. They were wearing out their voices warning us that this administration would be just as reckless and unabashed as it has proven to be. But I think maybe they were not heard/believed by those with the power and resources to prepare? I honestly don't know.
I was in DC for the Cherry Blossom 5k and 10 miler, and I was really hoping Sarah would be out there with a sign that said, "have the best race available to you". 😂 While I was there, I told my friend about how I got to see Baby Bush's second inauguration, and how insane that was with all of the security (and it was freezing cold, and us Georgia kids were unprepared, haha.) (And fun fact, I was there in high school with one Miss Maggie! Hi Maggie! 👋🏻)
And finally, does "due process" have a specific definition and is that definition the same for all persons inside the U.S. regardless of any other factor?
I grew up in a rural farming community and I still have the opportunity of visiting the area. I also spent a couple of years shooting news footage while driving through rural areas of Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Kansas. It's more than ever like it was back then. I wonder how people live in those places with few visible opportunities for employment. Walmart has always been big catalyst for economic change. As it displaces local businesses it also becomes one of the largest employers, along with the school district and prisons (at least in Texas). What's left is generally support for agriculture and food processing.
Animal farms and processing plants are and have always been largely staffed by immigrants, including many who are not here legally. I don't know how our domestic economy or food chain is going to survive any of these attacks on the status quo.
Also, I have long thought that access to highspeed internet would help level the technological playing field in smaller cities in rural areas, but I'm rethinking that.
Whenever I drive around rural Texas for work (I am a journalist for horse magazines and I often go to ranches / equine facilities to take photos), when I drive through small towns, I always wonder what that town's industry is. What keeps its economy going? Is this an oil town? Did these people work at a factory? Do they commute to a bigger city?
Ranching and farming have become less and less occupations that people can make work as a career, but they're vital to our food chain. It worries me a lot, especially with the loss of immigrant workers.
Exactly. I grew up south of Lubbock, so all cotton until you drop off the caprock into ranchland. I still know a few farmers who grew up on their own farms, which is really the only way to get into farming that seems doable. But up in the panhandle there's a lot more cattle and feedyards and I'll be honest, I don't know where those animals are being trucked in from anymore. Even among the big ranches, I don't know who's raising cattle anymore.
I grew up on a steady diet of Western Horseman and Horse & Rider, by the way. My grandfather was a cowboy-turned-oil-rig-manager.
Norma I love to hear that about the horse magazines. :-) I’ve written for Western Horseman since 2012 (I have a freelance contract with them), and have written off and on for Horse & Rider since about then too. WH is such a legacy to equine journalism.
"Equine journalism" reminds me of that scene in Notting Hill. Please tell me you've seen it. lol
Hahaha I forgot about that. 😆
"Horse and Hound" <3
Yes! That's it lol
Beth, can you say more about the link between the demise of the apostrophe restaurants and technology?
I always get startled when I hear Amarillo name-dropped anywhere. If anyone can post the Theo Von clip, I'd love to hear it. My searches didn't turn anything up. The downtown there is actually well into a revitalization--although it was never truly dead and the revitalization is controversial and revolves for some reason around a ballpark. If Von performed at the Civic Center, he was next to said ballpark and right across the street from the Center for the Performing Arts, home of the Amarillo Opera.
https://youtu.be/AkIrDdvB2ow?si=bJdsyoD4n-vGsCUS
Here's the clip. I want you to know that I watched 15 minutes of the actual episode to try to hear it in context, so I could share it in the notes, and I could not. I went into the manosphere, and I went into rejection mode. -Maggie
Maggie, taking one for the team. Thank you!
I'm actually more confused now that I've heard his quote.
One of my dearest friends lives in Amarillo and she's very involved in the arts in the city. She just posted about a theatrical production happening soon. She both supports and participates.
I interned at the American Quarter Horse Association in Amarillo when I was in college, and if they'd offered me a job when I graduated (versus four months later when I had a different job), I probably would be living out there today.
It's entirely possible that I know your friend. I lived in Amarillo for 20 years and I visit at least once a year because I still have family there.
To the point about small towns reinventing their economies - we have a local small town that’s now become home for one of the huge data centers for Meta and it’s fueling economy here. It’s controversial as hell - light pollution, energy consumption, etc - but I wouldn’t be surprised if this becomes more normal.
Trump is disappearing people without due process and condemning them to indefinite detention in a foreign concentration camp. He’s openly lying about the outcome of a Supreme Court ruling and musing about using the same process on citizens.
So, I’m just curious: is NOW a good time to start calling it a constitutional crisis? We don’t want to come off as alarmist; that would be just about the worst thing imaginable, after all.
It’s overreacting until it’s underreacting. I think we are well past the underreacting line. Another thing I have pondered, is that the “alarmists” are frequently the people who stop the major alarm from happening. If you don’t use a fire extinguisher when the flame is small, it can consume the whole house.
I think it was highly unlikely the Democratic nominee would have won regardless of when Biden dropped out or if the Dems had held a contested primary. The vast majority of incumbent parties throughout the developed world lost.
I don’t think the state of our democracy hinged so much on Biden’s decision to run for reelection as it revealed an underlying, more fundamental issue- the vast majority of the electorate does not understand or appreciate the underlying principles upon which our system of governance operates.