Dimensionally Barrett

Image source: stablediffusion.com The Future isn’t Written in Stone - some things to bear in mind in the coming months/years This is not going to be a pie in the sky feel good piece, but it is offered to anyone who wants to consider that while democracy has taken a critical body blow, there may be reason for some slivers of hope here and there. No silver linings; but maybe some larger scale obstacles to Trump and Project 2025 getting their wish list filled. Once again, Trump’s appointments gear toward the unqualified and ludicrous. Once again, he’s stacking his advisory board with billionaires and his BFF Elon is at the head of the line. However, many of those billionaires come from the petroleum industry and yes, that’s terrifying and bad in ways I shouldn’t have to describe; but Elon is all about pushing through alternative energy. He’s touted the idea of a fossil fuel free future (as well as relocating to Mars because we’ve trashed Mother Earth), and were this any other crackpot in ...

How are you doing? How are we doing?  Personally, I don’t know whether to cry or throw up. Or both.  I have refrained from saying the most acerbic things about the U.S. electorate over the past however many years I’ve been saying them. I refrained because I want to see the best in people. I refrained because I can’t relate to how fearful and dark your view of the world has to be to support a man so grossly inadequate, petty, and small masquerading as a tough guy or even more laughable, an intelligent one. I refrained because I tend to operate from a space of hope and caring. I tend to care about and for the marginalized, the oppressed, the Other. We have all, at some point, been bullied, threatened, subject to anger, if not hatred. Many of us more than others. The positive outcome can be greater empathy, sympathy, and a desire to understand the person who bullies, threatens, hates. The positive outcome is not giving into, much less returning bullying, threat, and hatred with m...

On this Election Day Eve, I don’t feel compelled to exacerbate handwringing nor even to traffic in hope, though, if you read the previous entry , you’ll find that I’m certainly not un-hopeful. I don’t want to spend a lot of time on building an argument for how or why I look on the current historical moment that we are all part of as I do. Aurelius put it better than I ever could: ”This is a fine saying of Plato. That he who is discoursing about men should look also at earthly things as if he viewed them from some higher place: should look at them in their assemblies, armies, agricultural labours, marriages, treaties, births, deaths, noise of the courts of justice, desert places, various nations of barbarians, feasts, lamentations, markets, a mixture of all things and an orderly combination of contraries.” (The Meditations, VII; 48) This isn’t to say that one assumes an aristocratic, above-it-all, attitude; simply to recognize that what is unfolding moment by moment is part of a greater...

I’ll be voting tomorrow, early, ahead of the Election Day. Why tomorrow? Quite simply, because i’m undecided on several judicial elections, principally in the appellate courts and on a bond issue that isn’t as cut and dried as i originally thought. I figure i have another few hours of research to do on the candidates and while i’ve listened to some in-depth analysis on the bond issue, I remain sitting between two stools. Why am I not addressing the larger contest for U.S. President? Because I genuinely believe that local elections are at least, as important. Because we’ve seen what happens when demagogues get their way and make concerted efforts to determine local politics. For example, i was on the fence about voting for a judge endorsed by both the Dallas and Houston papers. He doesn’t sound like, on the face of it, the type to rule based on a strict agenda and indeed, does have a reputation for adjudicating fairly. However, he also has the support of Texas State Attorney-Under-Indic...