Holding Truth Against the Tide

In Brigands and Breadknives, by Travis Baldree, Bradlee asks Fern if she just absconded in the night. Finding it weird to talk to sentient cutlery, Fern claims it was a accident, to which Bradles says it “seems like a pretty long-running accident.”

In a later scene, a pile of planks and pulled nails lie beside a door. The room smells pungently of goats. A brown-and-white-spotted nanny regards the group with disdain.

It’s still getting hard to get used to the daylight shift. On November 16, I would have gone hiking if it weren’t for a two hour nap I took to clear my sinuses. Instead, I spent the bulk of the day reading Brigands and Breadknives. Later about 4:30 pm, I followed an Instant Pot recipe to make Peruvian Chicken Bowls. While prepping the ingredients, I noticed that I had bought boneless, skinless chicken breasts instead of boneless, skinless chicken thighs. The result was delicious, including making a green sauce with japapenos, and very full-filling. About 7 pm, I dropped off the donations of clothes and books for the VOA shelter that I had amassed in a cooler box.

The next morning was similar. While I got up early and continued my reading, I found a mild lower pain sending me back to bed. I dreamed about a number of things, including people and machine gargoyles coming from the future and the nuclear holocaust of 1995. In my dream world, 1995 as a future event didn’t seem odd. The machine gargoyles would split open to reveal the human travelers inside, and a brilliant white dot on the horizon representing the explosions in the “future” bleeding through was clearly visible. The next thing I knew was that I desperately craved sex, and even given the AI robotic forms available in the dream I was unable to satisfy my urges. It seemed I was in a state of insatiable arousal, until Callie jumped on me and slowly woke me from my dilemma.

In Dayspring, by Anthony Oliviera, the narrator’s friend tells him to hang on, he’s got to piss. The narrator asks why he brought him. The narrator is told that it’s because he likes him.

In “Building Your Company’s Vision,” James C. Collin and Jerry I. Porras state that “core authentic values that have weakened over time can be considered a legitimate part of a core ideology.” Visionary companies are differentiated from the rest of the pack by the authenticity, discipline, and the consistency with which the ideology is lived. It is also important to remember “People who share the same core values do not necessarily all think or look the same."

In “Reinventing Your Business Model,” Mark W. Johnson, Clayton M. Christensen, and Henning Kagerman point out that the result of trying to be all things for all people results in dissatisfaction. National Jewish was allowed to develop processes that integrate the way its specialists and specialized equipment work together by narrowing its focus. Tata reconceived its supplier strategy to reduce transaction costs and achieve better economies of scale.

In “Blue Ocean Strategy,” W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne shared that 14% of companies that invested in creating new markets and industries delivered 38% of total revenues and 61% of total profits in comparison to companies that just offered line extensions. Red ocean strategy denies the distinctive business strength found in the capacity to create new uncontested market space. In the competive space, companies are driven to outperform rivals to capture greate portions of the existing market.

In “The Secrets to Successful Strategy Excecution,” Gary L. Neilson, Kayla L. Martin, and Elizabeth Powers share the fact that according to their research, 71% of respondents in weak-execution companies believed that decisions were being second-guessed. In one instance, when an effort was made to expedite decision-making by establishing central and regional centers of excellence, key managers weren’t sure if they had the right to take advantage of these resources. The organization’s ability to track individual achievement in addition to being able to focus energies on the mission were improved by clarifying decision rights and responsibilities.

In When the Tides Held the Moon, by Venessa Vida Kelley, Benny wonders what type of people would pay to visit a big, metal box by the ocean. Benny molds the frames and panels with San Juan sabor, glancing daily at the building next door.

A merman’s mother discovers a rare treasure among scattered broken glass, rotting bulkheads, and iron sheaths. He asks what new delight she plans for it. She tells him it will be a carving of the moon over the reef in the Tailfin sea that delighted him as a merling.

In Designing Data-Intensive Applications, Martin Kleppman relates how anyone who has worked in software engineering has probably been bombarded with a plethora of buzzwords regarding the storage and processing of data. There were various driving forces for many interesting developments in databases in the decade up to 2017. Internet companies handle huge volumes of data and traffic. Businesses need to be agile, cheaply test hypotheses and quickly respond to new market insight.

November 21st was my mother’s birthday. It is the first birthday that I couldn’t call her up and wish her a Happy Birthday. I miss her dearly. She would have been 82 years old, having lived 25 years after my father passed away.

On November 22nd, at the Utah Stonewall Dems board meeting, we elected a new Vice Chair and decided to postpone adding to new members to our board until we clarify the board positions in the bylaws. We set a deadline to get this done, and are planning a committee meeting on December 6 to review the bylaws and make the suggested changes. I was tasked with making sure all the board members get a fresh read-only copy link to the document.

Immediately after the meeting, the Central Committee of the Salt Lake County Democratic Party met to elect Michelle Rivera as the new Chair and to pass bylaw changes that allowed individual endorsements by officers in the party. The party is still working on finding candidates to file for every seat up for election in the county.

This is probably never going to happen in my lifetime, but I would love to see constitutional amendments that no single party could have more than 66% of a legislative body. Any party with a supermajority can find it really easy to never listen to the concerns of the other side. Without that supermajority, they would be forced to actually listen and maybe care what dissenters might have to say.

In The Rhetoric of Facsism, Nathan Crick describes fascism as an extreme form of cult. The advantages of rhetorically analyzing fascism are found in the discipline’s approach to interpreting rhetorical artifacts. Madeline Albright invites us to consider that fascist attitudes can take root in the soil of human experience.

For Hannah Arendt, fascism means that the hard work of generating political consensus out of diversity is replaced with a model that treats things as raw material to be violently transformed into a work of art according to an artist’s ideal mental image. For Giovanni Gentile, individuals subordinate themselves to an absolute spirit to “make” the state in order to act on the events, people, and objects of the world to actualize a latent national potential. According to Gentile, the ideal model of future Italy required “a collective commitment by individuals to get to work Remaking Shit.”

In “Lock Her Up!,” Stephen J. Hartnett points out that “Trumpism borrows from the realist style the idea of the state of nature as a brutal confrontation with reality (but without a reliance on actual scientific study); it borrows from the courtly style by focusing on the body of the sovereign and the gestures of the leader (but replacing ritualistic decorum with mass spectacle); it borrows from the bureaucratic style a collective refusal to take personal responsibility for anything (but without any respect for actual rules and procedures); and it borrows from the republican style by focusing on oratorical performances (but showing contempt rather than respect for cosmopolitanism and elitism).” Trump’s inchoate war on cosmopolitanism and meritocratic elitism comes off as an assault on contemporary democracy. The trope of “carnage,” the trope of ‘”betrayal,” the trope of “manly consciousness,” and the trope of “specious nomenclature” characterize a fascist rhetorical style

The results of a wide-ranging investigation has been published by the Associated Press that shows that the U.S. Border Patrol buit a nationwide dragnet driver-surveillance system. Border Patrol “intelligence” operatives are monitoring data collected from a secret system of automated license plate readers for any movements they deem suspicious. People are then stopped due to some supposed legal violation and then aggressively questioned, having their property seized without proof of any wrongdoing. The ACLU has yet to know the full extent of the placement of the plate readers which are strung across highways from the southern border to places such as Illinois and Michigan. ICE has direct access to Motorola’s Vigilant database.

In many cases the courts have found that Trump has acted illegally. Litigation has been a tool of first resort in protecting people’s right and freedom. Trump’s second term is differentiated by his shock and awe abuse of executive power to go after politically vulnerable minority groups like transgender youth, immigrants, as well as going after American communities, including immigrants who are here with legal status. He’s deployed federal agents and the national guard as his own personal shock force using SWAT-style tactics. His policies are cruel and designed to terrorize Americans around the country. The other differentiation from his first term is going after institutions that are the backbone of our American democracy.

During an interview, Cecilia Wang stated that “When you resist, you win.” The National Legal Director of the ACLU, supported her statement by speaking about corporate lawyers fighting for their rights and winning when Trump tried to punish them for assisting organizations like the ACLU to fight unconstitional practices, and about states winning their cases resisting the illegal use of National Guard in their domains. In just this year alone, the ACLU has filed 111 cases against the US President and his administration. The chilling effect over the legal community has dissipated. In addition, lower courts are unanimously holding firm against executive orders that seek to take away human rights, and rights guaranteed in the constitution.

In Illinois, a judge ruled that ACLU Illinois’ consent decree with DHS prohibits warrantless arrests by ICE or CBP unless the person has probable cause to flee. In addition, the conditions of those being detained at Broadview ICE Facility were found by a judge to be inhumane. Federal forces have also been ordered by a judge to stop the unnecessary use of projectiles, chemical agents, and other force against protestors and journalists in the Chicago area.

In Southern California, the Inglewood Police Department was found to have systematically and unlawfully violated the California Public Records Act when it stonewalled serious police misconduct and use of force records from public view. According to Tiffany Bailey, senior staff attorney and deputy project director of criminal justice and police practices at the ACLU of Southern California, “It is…a powerful victory for familes like those of Ms. Kisha Michael who have lost loved ones at the hands of the Inglewood Police Department and who will finally learn the details of their deaths.” In 2021, the destruction of decades of use of force and internal investigation records were authorized by Inglewood just before SB 16 expanded expanded transparency requirements. The destruction was thwarted by the litigation and recent ruling.

Thanksgiving has come and gone. I spent the majority of the day reading The Rhetoric of Fascism. I’m thinking of briefly hopping on the call with “Sips and Solidarity,” hosted by the ACLU of Utah EDIB committee on Monday, where they will be discussing Chapter 7. I am grateful that I can make it through each day, and I have a number of critically thinking friends that I can discuss these issues with. The best way to fight fascism is to stand firm and continue to point out the lies and inconsitencies presented in the spectacle.

We must stand up for one another in solidarity and demand deliberative processes, deliberate representation, and deliberate action that serves all. We must refuse the call to create the “other” and see the humanity and the struggle that each of us have. In the end, we have to stand firm, not just for ourselves, but for out community, and for the stranger in our midst. While we can’t condone terrorist acts, we must also acknowledge that the actions of one person never reflect the actions of a collective, and we must insist that justice is tailored so that only those truly guilty are made to make amends in a way in which the punishment fits the crime and every person is given the due process they deserve.

I am grateful for everyone who stands firm, who refuses to back down, and refuses to do what they know is wrong. I am grateful for people that understand that we all have unique needs, and that we all have the right to have those needs met. It is not any of our concern to tell someone who they are or what needs they are allowed to have met. To be treated as fully human, we need to realize that humans do not need to be treated like interchangeable cogs in a machine. We all deserve to have our unique diversity accepted.

Amid stolen moments of rest, unexpected dreams, readings that stretch the imagination, and the everyday rhythms of cooking, donating, grieving, and serving, one truth keeps rising: we are shaped by the values we live, not merely the ones we claim. From visionary companies to mermen sculpting memory, from scholars warning of fascism to everyday people standing firm against injustice, the lesson is the same—authenticity, clarity, and courage are what allow us to build something worthy of our future. Even in a world frayed by surveillance, cruelty, and political spectacle, we find hope in solidarity, in resistance, and in the refusal to let fear define our humanity. Now is the time to stand with intention—demand transparent governance, defend the vulnerable, nurture community, and insist on a world where every person is treated as fully human. Let us hold each other up, challenge falsehoods wherever they appear, and act with the courage that justice, compassion, and democracy require of us.