The Leaders And Those Who Follow Them

As I was driving to take the BeBè to day care today they had some clips on the news talking about the general insanity that we are all living through.  As usual the "Glorious Leader"®ᵀᴹ was going off about something or other that was making him mad.  It made me think about a clips of an interview I heard from his former ambassador to Panama talking about going in to brief him and how he knew he couldn't work for him anymore.  Basically he discussed how he was preparing to brief the president, and how he had briefed presidents before and had a general idea of how these things would go.  The think that was striking to him was that the president asked "what do we get from them?"  That was his focus, what we get from a tiny country like Panama.  However, that's been his general foreign policy focus, to figure out what we can get from other countries and complain and act aggrieved because we aren't getting enough from others. 

This got me to thinking about leaders and their followers, but also how those leaders act.  You could go with someone like Washington, who had many followers and supporters.  He had an idea of insulating us from the "foreign entanglements" which was a nice was of saying don't let them pull you into messes that have nothing to do with you.  You have people like Monroe, who crafted a doctrine that told Europeans to keep their noses out of the hemisphere saying that it was a sphere of influence for the US (though you could consider is kind of related to Washington's "keep out of European nonsense" by saying, you Europeans STAY ON YOUR SIDE! Lincoln said a house divided can not stand.  Roosevelt said to speak softly but carry a big stick.  Obama said when they go low we go high.  

Leaders have always had lots of approaches, and it hasn't always been great or effective, but they had goals and priorities, and they were all forced to work with others one way or another.  We could go through and judge each of them if we liked, but that's not what I'm thinking about right now.  I'm thinking about leaders, and their view of the world.  US leaders of course can be arrogant, I mean, how often have we heard "leaders of the free world" when talking about global politics.  However, at the same time, the structures and how the world has operated since 1945 have kind of leaned into that.  If we look at something like NATO, that President Pissy Pants has been complaining about for a long time, there is a clear situation where the United States has for sure been the largest contributor to.  However, at the same time leaders knew that meant the US would have a big say in how things go, and had to act like leaders.  I of course am greatly simplifying this all, but there were benefits and responsibilities.  Like they say on Spiderman, with great power comes great responsibility.

Then I think of the Tangerine Menace®ᵀᴹ and his focus on "what do we get from them" and "what can we get from them?" There are leaders like that in the world too, that look at things as exploitative.  Extract what we can because we're bigger and we can force them.  The thing is, those leaders are bullies.  They have their little minions, but in the end, they're just pathetic losers who are bullies and use their perceived strength to steal someone's lunch money or force others to to do what you want.  This isn't ground breaking ideas, it's obvious that Donald of clan Combover is this kind of person, but it's just gotten so blatant lately.  Not even a charade to hide behind, just pure Might is Right.  They've event embraced the old Greek quote by Thucydides, "the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must." This kind of thought should be shamed out of the public square.  We aren't some Iron Age city state, we have learned and know better than such nonsense, we should be more civilized than such small minded outlooks.  Greatness doesn't gloat.  Greatness doesn't bully.  Greatness doesn't ask what we get from others.  Greatness doesn't destroy.  So, perhaps the president is right and we do need to make America great again, because what he's doing sure isn't great, but it is embarrassing.

The Hard Headed Way

I remember when I was younger having peers who were so allergic to advice that they became toddlers and would just should "I DO IT!" That's not what they actually said.  What they actually said was, "I need to make my own mistakes."  Which on its face is not necessarily an absurd position.  Like, sure there is a lot of learning that can occur from making mistakes and moving forward.  But, the problem was that they would use this as a "I want to do this stupid thing and you pointing out that it's stupid makes me mad and forces me to acknowledge that it is in fact stupid, and I know it's stupid, and you know it's stupid, but I'm going to do it anyway, and fuck you for pointing it out."  It was a statement from disingenuous people who can't ever hear that they're wrong.

Fast forward a quarter century and we're in the midst of a world full of people with this kind of outlook, and the result is we are having to relearn the lessons that were learned in the past.  We are seeing it everywhere, from public health, to public trust, to the very fabric of our institutions and democracy.  We are ignoring those who have already learned these lessons the hard way, but instead we're turning the clock back on things that we really shouldn't have to because we've decided we need to forget the lessons of the past, ignore history, and refuse to trust that people who know what they are talking about.  It's a stupid world we're living in, and unfortunately we all have to suffer through the morons who have been "doing their own research." 

The biggest example that we can look at today is the fools that are running public health and their nonsense surrounding vaccines.  While this isn't new, what is new is the scale and support from those in power to these foolish ideas that are putting us at risk.  If we take a look at something like measles, it's clear what nonsense is doing to us.  There have been more cases of measles in the US since Trump took office than there were from 2000-2024, combined.  In those 24 years there were 4,485 cases, and just in the past two years we are at 4,754 cases.  So the average the past two years is nearly 2,400 per year (also remember it's only August).  And the average per year from 2000-2024 was 186.  Also of note, the only time that cases got above 1,000 was also the third Trump year.  The result here has been an increase in deaths of a disease we can easily eradicate.  We learned the lesson of these disease when each year tens of thousands of people would die every year, and were able to get the miracle of vaccines to people to avoid these needless deaths.  But, because fools have been indulged and fools have been in charge we are all being forced to learn this the hard way again.

We see the same forces at work last year when the world's biggest moron, Elon Musk and his 'efficiency' goons took out program after program.  Why do we need these things?  Why are we wasting money on these things?  Rather than learn about it, they just went in hacking away at things, and the result again is that we are relearning the lessons that put those things in place.  Take for instance the resurgence of screwworms.  These parasites have been eradicated in the US for the past 60 years, but one of those programs, that dealt with flies, was eliminated by the cartoon buffoon, Elon, and now we've got 37 confirmed cases in the US, and countries now banning livestock from the US.  We knew this is what would happen, we knew that the programs were important.  We learned that over half a century ago, but decided to ignored it and now are dealing with the consequences.

Another case from this summer is the infected produce that took months to identify.  Michigan was hard hit by cyclospora outbreak, and thankfully the Michigan Department of Health seems to be competent and was able to give us an idea of what was behind the outbreak.  But again, why did this happen.  Well, long ago we learned that the best way to avoid these things is to track them, but we need to make our own mistakes.  I mean, it's just diarrhea, who cares?  Well, the people who died care, and such an outbreak may have been prevented if we hadn't stopped tracking these things and could have quickly identified and stopped the products that were of concern.  

Ultimately, it's like those people I used to know who "needed to make their own mistakes" because the people forcing us into these mistakes know that what they're doing is foolish.  We are always the victims of no knowing what we avoided, because we avoided it.  We'll never know how close we came to something, most of the time, because we didn't actually encounter it.  We can't count the number of people who didn't die because they weren't infected by measles.  We can't count the money we didn't lose because our products weren't banned or contaminated because we had control of these pests. Many people learned those lessons, and they had to learn them the hard way because there was no one yet who knew better.  

That's the reason our humanity has achieved so much, we had the ability to records and share what we learned and pass it on to others.  We didn't have to reinvent the wheel every single time, instead we could expand, adapt, and improve upon it.  The result has allowed us to eliminate diseases from existence, to reach the starts, to travel faster than sound, to solve the great problems that face us.  We do this because we are smart enough not to force ourselves to make the same mistakes.  We honor those who learned the hard way by not forcing everyone to learn things the hard-headed way by ignoring those who have seen this nonsense before.  Rome wasn't built in day, but if we had to start over every day, Rome never would have been built.  We need to reject these foolish ideas, and understand the past and the lessons we've learned from living all this time.  Of course, some things we do now aren't great, because those were the solutions of the past based on what they had available to them, so by all means improve upon them, but we can't throw it all out and force the world to die of diarrhea and measles just so we can make our own mistakes because we don't see the cost those who came before us paid.

The Sunday of Summer

If summer were a weekend, it's now Sunday afternoon.  I posted at the start of summer break that it was like a Friday, when there is all the possibility of what could be in store for the weekend.  Well, that framing holds true because it's now Sunday afternoon.  The weekend is nearly over, you're starting to think about Monday.  There are things that you wanted to do over the weekend that aren't going to get done and you'll just have to choose what is still possible and get it done.  That's not to say that I'm dreading Monday, as I did when I worked for the ever horrible Beefus.  Though I still am sad that the "weekend" is almost over because I love the weekend.

There's a few reasons for that, the biggest being that during the "weekend" there's just so much more autonomy.  Teaching sucks from a personal level in that you're tied to a very strict schedule.  I have to consider how much I drink so that I don't have to figure out how to use the restroom before my breaks.  I have to eat at nearly 1:00pm because that's when my lunch is.  I have to choose a lunch that's quick enough to get me out of the house, and that is quick enough to eat during the 20ish minutes that I have to eat assuming I'm not chasing students to the lunch room or having to talk to coworkers about some issue.  So, eating when I want, using the bathroom when I want, and not having to drive are major benefits to summer that I will miss.

It's also a less stressful time, in general.  Sure, I've got plenty of things to get done over the summer, but for the most part anything I want to get done is on my own timeline, so the due dates are just what I decide they are.  Maybe they change because it's too hot out to go out and pain the trim (which I started in June and need to finish because I ran out of paint but it's been too hot).  Maybe it's raining so I'll get to that weeding situation later.  Or it's raining so I'll work in the garage.  I can get things done in whatever order I want.  However, once we get to the end of the "weekend" then it becomes a situation of figuring out what I can get done once school has started, and once we get to the fall and what needs to be done before those things happen.  However, right now it's a "we have an exchange student arriving on Sunday, so we MUST HAVE these thing done before Sunday.  I don't love that part.

At the same time, I also struggle to relax and do nothing in a non-disassociating way.  There's this terrible pressure of productivity.  I think a lot of that come from the years of being in school, working full time, running a theater booster program, assisting with productions, and always having something that needs to be done.  Sitting and reading for a day feels unproductive and wasteful.  Think of all the things that you could have done.  The opportunity costs of "relaxing" is the opposite of relaxing.  Not to mention all the shit people need me to do for them that adds to it all.

So, the summer is coming to an end.  Two weeks from today I'll be back in PDs and my classroom preparing for class.  Three weeks from today we'll be halfway through the first week of school.  The end is near.

Goals Update #7 - July

We're now a sixth of the way through the second half of the year and have some progress on how things are going, but also some areas still lacking.  So, how's it going? 

Goal Number One - Read 12 books: July got some movement with reading as I was able to get two books finished this month, which means as of right now I'm only one book behind in my goals of where I should be.  I've got six when I should have seven, but if I can get two done in August I'll be back on track.  So far this is what I have: 

1. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (311 pages)
2. The Impossible Fortune by Richard Osman (368 pages)
3. Murder by Cheesecake: A Golden Girls Cozy Mystery by Rachel Ekstrom Courage (336 pages)
4. Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt (384 pages)
5. My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry by Fredrik Backman (384 pages)
6. Animal Farm by George Orwell (105 pages)

Goal Number Two - Complete my 5k training program: This month I continued my 5k program, but things were interrupted for my travel down to Georgia for my school visit, and then the week we got back I struggled to get back into.  I'm nearly three weeks down on it, so five weeks to go on it, which I'm sure I can finish before the end of the year.. 

Goal Number Three - Blog more:  I've caught up on this goal for the year, and as of right now if I to a post tomorrow then I'll be completely up to day on my one blog per week.  Of course as we've seen I've been blogging a lot this month to try and catch up for my missing the goal earlier this year.  The key will be to keep it up.  I think in total I need 23 more posts after this one to meet my goal.  It's feasible.

Goal Number Four - Focus on fitness by hitting 10,000 steps a day average for the year: At the beginning of this month things were going in the right direction, but the travel week really was the problem and we had a bit of back sliding on this one.  It was above my may numbers but below my July numbers.  The problem is we had two full days of driving, and two days being in a conference. I don't know if I'll get the year average to 10,000 by the end of the year, but if it seems possible (but I haven't done the math).  

1. January average: 8,966
2. February average: 6,635
3. March average: 7,478
4. April average: 7,561
5. May average: 8,256
6. June average: 9,762
7. July average: 8,833

Goal Number Five - Improve my social calendar: For July I had three events, though I feel like that's not quite right, but that's all I see on the calendar.  It meets the goal, and also we stayed with friends in Georgia so I suppose we could count that one as well. 

Goal Number Six - Usable media memories:  This month I've not done anything with this, but for August my goal is to do something, and I think the focus on it should be completing some home movies and getting them on the home server.  For the photos side of things I still need to do a ton of sorting before I can do anything with it..

Goal Number Seven - Have seven new experiences:  This month finished off this goal and put me one over the goal.  I'm sure I'll probably add some more things as the year gos, but it's nice to have something finished.  

1. Finished Season 1 of Star Trek the original series
2. Attended an event at The Ark
3. Saw Artemis II launch to the moon! 
4. Pacific Rim and Hunã Tiki Bar evening
5. Visited Potter Park Zoo
6. Visited the Georgia Aquarium
7. The RCA Experience
8. Began the adoption process

The end of summer is near, but happy August, or at least as much as can be expected!