He's right that the press is harder on him than any other president. Rightfully so. Because he's the worst man to be a president, and the press is who we rely on to tell the story. The truth of his behavior is why the press is harder on him. He deserves it all.
But press, shut the fuck up about the trivial. Just because it would be a major story of any other living politician, candidate or famous person did it doesn't mean you have to elevate the petty hypocrisy to a major story. THERE ARE PLENTY OF REAL FAILURES every week in this man's dossier to address before sinking to perverse trivia.
We don't need new evidence each day about the following realities about Trump:
1. He's a constant liar. 2. He embellishes everything about himself. 3. He does so by criticizing others whenever they disagree or point out his painful or embarrassing truths. 4. He's white and as an extension of his inferiority complex, he needs for that to be supreme as well. 5. He's incapable of complex thought. 6. He doesn't care about anything that doesn't specifically make him look good or bad, and (see #1) he will lie to make himself look good to himself (no one else really believes him -- his supporters know in their souls he's full of shit).
Be hard on President trump because he's a terrible president, and be hard on his proposed policies that are making America the worst it's been in my lifetime. Race relationships have been worse, and treatment of African Americans has been worse (watch The Vietnam War on PBS if you think otherwise), but this is our biggest backslide ever. The economy has been worse. The state of war has been worse (with the exception of our current North Korean situation, for which Trump is partially to blame, but not entirely -- the Korean problem has escalated with the advancement of their march toward nuclear capabilities which would have happened no matter who is in the White House.)
Saturday, October 21, 2017
Wednesday, October 18, 2017
The Benefits of Self Reflection - Any Mirror Will Do
A friend's Facebook post: [paraphrase] "This scriptural study of Job was a good reminder ..."
Whatever the strawman around which you want to wrap a personal reflection, it's your wrapping around it in which the benefit lies, not the strawman. Whether you take a moment of intentional analysis of one of the universal conflicts of the human condition using the Bible, Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, an episode of Sex In The City, or a scholarly article by a clinical psychologist, your throw your life experience and natural attitude up against some idea or principle and compare and contrast, judge, butt and rebut, accept and deny and so forth. It's particularly useful when there's another thoughtful member in the room making it a threesome (you, them, and the literature) or three or more (with diminishing returns).
An open dialogue with the expectation that you will come away from the encounter with a better understanding, able to understand and incorporate a heftier hunk of some small part of the universal whole.
I've come to believe that it's sometimes useful to deconstruct the universal principles of human existence to appreciate in explicit detail the nuance of any given circumstance, and later reconnect it to the singular octopus, to remember that for certain, it really always abuts the oneness of all.
About the strawmen: for any individual, different strawmen may be more accessible (a literal minded person may struggle with something spiritual or metaphorical, a Christian may find their history with scripture richer), but it's also a great exercise in expanding our perspective by branching out to less natural strawmen. For a scientist to spend more time with a piece of literature to explore selflessness and altruism, or an acolyte to dissect the implications of kin selection in evolutionary psychology to explore how "goodness" can be baked into the human psyche through the invisible hand of our genetic drive to replicate itself. Either way, it's in the ping-pong of ideas that we grow.
Whatever the strawman around which you want to wrap a personal reflection, it's your wrapping around it in which the benefit lies, not the strawman. Whether you take a moment of intentional analysis of one of the universal conflicts of the human condition using the Bible, Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, an episode of Sex In The City, or a scholarly article by a clinical psychologist, your throw your life experience and natural attitude up against some idea or principle and compare and contrast, judge, butt and rebut, accept and deny and so forth. It's particularly useful when there's another thoughtful member in the room making it a threesome (you, them, and the literature) or three or more (with diminishing returns).
An open dialogue with the expectation that you will come away from the encounter with a better understanding, able to understand and incorporate a heftier hunk of some small part of the universal whole.
I've come to believe that it's sometimes useful to deconstruct the universal principles of human existence to appreciate in explicit detail the nuance of any given circumstance, and later reconnect it to the singular octopus, to remember that for certain, it really always abuts the oneness of all.
About the strawmen: for any individual, different strawmen may be more accessible (a literal minded person may struggle with something spiritual or metaphorical, a Christian may find their history with scripture richer), but it's also a great exercise in expanding our perspective by branching out to less natural strawmen. For a scientist to spend more time with a piece of literature to explore selflessness and altruism, or an acolyte to dissect the implications of kin selection in evolutionary psychology to explore how "goodness" can be baked into the human psyche through the invisible hand of our genetic drive to replicate itself. Either way, it's in the ping-pong of ideas that we grow.
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