Tik, Tik, Boom.

As easy as it is to blame governments for all our problems, the glaring truth is that much of the responsibility for what we currently experience is our own fault. I know, that doesn’t sound like a friendly way of starting the morning, but the truth is that what I’m seeing between the various ugly and disgusting headlines is a clear message that we could have stopped a lot of this but chose to go ahead anyway. We choose who runs for office. We choose how we spend our money. We choose how we spend our time. When we do not make responsible choices, we pay the consequences and, to a large extent, that is what is happening right now.
A shocking tuberculosis outbreak in the Kansas City, Kansas area is frightening, but it can be easy to stop if people in the area make the right choices. Washing your hands, covering your mouth when you cough, and staying home when you’re sick are all things that keep TB at a minimum. TB is one of the world’s biggest killers, though, and winter is a great time for it to spread. Make wise choices.
Reading skills among US children are diminishing, and their math scores are horrible. Blame the schools all you want, but it’s mom and dad who are responsible for setting up a child’s brain to read. We ‘read’ to infants with picture books because it helps develop an association in their brains between symbols and words. As they get older, their brains develop a deeper understanding of the relationship between letters, numbers, and the world around them. All five of my kids were reading at some level before they started kindergarten (sometimes creating difficulty in an unprepared classroom). Parents set their kids up for success or failure on this front and we have to accept the responsibility for the outcome.
Then, we discover that the ‘Doomsday Clock’ broke a two-year stagnation and moved a second closer to human annihilation. One of the primary reasons for the move is rhetoric, the spreading of misinformation regarding who is going to do what to whom. How we perceive someone else’s willingness to engage in nuclear battle is based largely on the talk that is perpetuated through social media. The spread of disease and our lack of cooperation in global medicine also increase the chances of a pandemic wiping out large numbers of people. These are all things that we control and can adjust.
No, I’m not dismissing the fact that the current US administration is pure evil and that Republican governors are making the situation worse by forcing local law enforcement to cooperate with federal thugs. We need to be up in arms about the signing of the Laken Riley Act as it allows people to be detained and deported without a trial, in violation of the Constitution. Action needs to be taken to stop the use of military bases in Colorado as detention camps. And don’t even get me started on the dismantling of DEI protections. We need to be willing to go to war over that one.
I’m also concerned that the top headline from Reuters this morning was ‘Alibaba releases AI model it says surpasses DeepSeek‘ and right under that was ‘Dutch chip firm ASML sees flood of orders amid AI boom‘. Despite all the billions of dollars in investment, the US is losing the race on AI, which means that not only are our kids less intelligent but so are our computers. DeepSeek’s new AI chatbot and ChatGPT answer sensitive questions about China differently, among other factors. AI developers have the ability to rewrite what we know about history, skewing our view of the entire world.
Today, we can ill afford to put our heads in the sand and ignore everything going on around us. We are responsible. We are also response able. We are not helpless. We are not without voices. We are not without agency.
Together, let’s fix this.

Thursday, January 30, 2025
Watch Out For That Rabbit Hole!
One of the worst things to do to my brain is to feed it a headline without context. Within seconds, my mind creates its own context, then proceeds to take that context out of context and head off down rabbit holes from which there is no return. The first partial headline I saw this morning, just at a glance as I was getting dressed, read, “Are we all aliens?” As I snapped the last button on my shirt, my brain began singing Petra’s 1983 song, “We are aliens. We are strangers. We are not of this world.” The song is based loosely on I Peter 2:11, which uses a similar phrasing but is in conflict with Ephesians 2:19 which specifically says that we are not strangers and aliens, both of which have issues with I Chronicles 29:15, which claims that our ancestors were “aliens and pilgrims before you.” This was one of those times when having all that Bible stuck in my head could be a problem.
Oh, but then my brain jumps completely out of context while I’m outside with the dogs and somehow, “We are aliens” becomes “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” from the musical Gypsy, but specifically the version sung by the late Ethel Merman. Why? Because I’m just that old. As my brain is singing, “You’ll be swell, you’ll be great, Gonna have the whole world on a plate!” Belvedere walks around the side of the house with a large paper plate in his mouth. I asked him if he had the whole world on that plate. He put the plate down and looked up at me as if to say, “I ate that part. Can we have breakfast now?”
Hound dogs; they’re always hungry.
The story on everyone’s mind this morning is the collision of an American Airlines regional jet with a military helicopter at Ronald Reagan Airport just before 9:00 last night. I saw the alert come across as I was getting ready for bed last night, but the event was too new for there to be any detail. What we know this morning is that the plane, which originated in Wichita, KS, was carrying members of the US Figure Skating team, their families, friends, and coaches. Officials are warning that the precise number of victims is unclear as rescue crews hunt for survivors. One headline I saw claimed there were at least 19 fatalities, but crews are still searching the Potmomac and no names have been officially released.
This is the first major aircraft collision in the US in almost 16 years. There are going to be a lot of questions over the next several days stretching into months and possibly years. Did the president’s firing of the head of TSA last week have any impact? Was there a shortage of aircraft controllers in the Ronald Reagan Tower? Who was given permission to enter the airspace first?
A 2023 article in the NYTimes claimed that near misses between commercial aircraft happen more often than people realize. FAA Data Reveals 1100 Runway Near Misses in 2024. This raises the inevitable question of who the fuck’s in charge? Expect a lot of finger-pointing as no one wants that responsibility laid at their feet.
Last May, we had an older couple park on our lawn for the 500. He was a retired aircraft controller who had been in that job since Ronald Reagan (yeah, the same guy for whom the airport is named) fired all the nation’s controllers for attempting to go on strike. I asked him if all the horror stories I’d heard were true. He confirmed them and more. Burnout among controllers is high. They are overworked, undertrained, and under constant pressure to work longer hours. They are inherently aware that they hold the lives of thousands of people in their hands as they guide aircraft across tarmacs. While English is the default language, many pilots don’t understand it that well and miscommunications are common. Equipment frequently breaks down, especially at night when there are no maintenance people available. While flying has always been considered one of the safest modes of transportation, he explained that it is a mixture of miracles and hard work that has prevented more accidents from occurring.
I know that for many people, last night’s collision is a tragic break from the neverending political horrors being shoved down our throats. Ten days in, we’re tired of the nonsense from this administration already. One can safely assume at this point that every decision made in the White House is unconstitutional and is going to have a significant legal fight ahead of it.
As I’m typing, an alert just came through my phone saying that 27 bodies have been recovered and all are feared dead.
You know, if the base DNA material that allowed life to develop on this planet is foreign, that could explain why this planet is always trying to kill us; it sees humans as a disease that needs to be eradicated. That would so easily justify the high number of biological elements that conflict with our health and well-being. We get cancer and are susceptible to plagues because our DNA was never designed for this planet.
But if we came from stardust, then it may well be that we leave the same way. Another headline well below the fold this morning warns that a newly spotted asteroid has a tiny chance of hitting Earth in 2032. This news isn’t as ‘new’ as one might think. Astronomers have been watching this thing for a while, concerned that its potential path might bring it close enough to Earth’s orbit that a collision would be inevitable. The chances for severe damage currently sit at about 1%. They could drop to zero in the next few weeks. Still, it’s interesting to ponder the possibility that the same type of event that allowed us to form on this planet could be what takes us all out.
Rabbit holes. Damnit. Kronk, aka Pinball, just crawled up in my lap, put his head in my hand, and closed his eyes. I think that means I’m done typing for the morning. We have naps to take and more rabbit holes to explore.
And coffee. Must drink the coffee.
Share this:
Like this: