The Big 2-0!

And so, as if in the blink of an eye, this blog is all grown up and ready to set off on its own in the world. Twenty years old.

I had a nightmare last night. Trump carried Massachusetts on the way to victory. What the actual fuck? Praise the lord I woke up, and that Mary and I head off to Fuquay-Varina under the auspices of County to County to knock on doors for NC State Senator Lisa Grafstein and Safiyah Jackson, who is running for the first time for NC's House. Aside from the gubernatorial contest everything is rather tight here in NC. Everything we can do helps.

I may have touted him before, but for me right now the artist of the year title goes to this Jesse Welles kid from Arkansas. He cranks out a fresh song every few days. Not every one shimmers with brilliance, but none suck and many of them grow on me. The one below is seasonally (and life stage) appropriate and approved for all audiences.

Thanks so much to all my regular readers. You know who you are and I think I do. I appreciate you.

My blog, venerable yet vulnerable

As we shall soon see, my blog has gotten rather long in the tooth. Last night I was looking for a specific post and the whole thing refused to load and for a moment I was filled with fear. Has Google stopped supporting this platform? You can see how it easily might. I sincerely doubt it's a big money-spinner.

Many years ago a friend and reader ran a script and backed the blog up and sent me the file. Which I of course lost. Yesterday I began to reflect on what would be lost if the Grouse disappears. From the perspective of discourse, not so much. Anything I've written here about some abstract topic can either be recaptured elsewhere and/or lingers somewhere in the back of my brain or just isn't that important.

But the specifics of my kids' lives, the notes on their early childhood, those remain rich and irreplaceable veins of gold, if only for me and (if she ever bothered to look at my blog) Mary. So I need to back it up later today, after I get done with work. 

I can't look away

It is very hard for me to consistently tear my eyes away from the images of the destruction in the NC mountains. We were just there in late July/August. I love it out there. 

A couple of thoughts. I am disproportionately swayed by the fact that it is NC. Cross the boarder into South Carolina and -- even though I have friends there -- I am less tied to and influenced by it. This is nothing short of stupid, silly and shameful, yet it remains true.

I am a little ashamed as well that, as was the case with 9/11, I don't have a strong instinct to rush to the scene and help. I have given money a couple of times, to MANNA Foodbank of Asheville, which is hard at work distributing food despite the fact that its headquarters were severly damaged, and to the Governor's Recovery taskforce through United Way (can't find link), but I don't have an urge to run down there because my skill sets aren't well-suited for it. I've never used a chainsaw. I can't build stuff. Almost undoubtedly the highest and best use of my efforts are to stay here and send support, but I'm not proud of that, for some reason.

Closing notes on Isaacson on Musk

For some reason I read to the end of Walter Isaacson's bio of Musk. I guess because my brother-in-law Rob liked it and I'm curious why, because Musk seems so much like the kind of guy Rob would hate.

Musk no doubt impresses with his ability to get stuff done, including big stuff. He has a willful disregard for all norms, rules, laws, anything that would hold him back. He veritably incarnates the marriage of intellect and testosterone. Not generally a good thing.  

Though Musk has indeed made the electric car a thing through his manic mad-dash balls to the wall style of leadership, and has by similar means created in SpaceX a really impressive company, the big question is whether one can lead like that in a way that could save humanity's tenure on earth, honestly a much more important goal than shepherding some small number of us to Mars, the thing that really makes Musk's dick hard. Once there, after all, what will we be doing other than scratching out survival? I am reminded of William Shatner's quote about actually being in space instead of, like Troy McLure, playing it on TV: "When I looked in the opposite direction, into space, there was no mystery, no majestic awe to behold ... all I saw was death... I saw a cold, black emptiness."

Instead of manic turbo-charged project managers like Trump, we need leaders who can calm us down and focus on preserving what we have. I refuse to concede that it is too late, if only because that concession would represent our ultimate failure.

Don't read this book.