Posts

Posted on

I confess that I’m a little lost these days.

I’ve become a restless, reluctant nomad moving through familiar places with a nagging internal dissonance.

I am a lifelong American who is profoundly disoriented trying to navigate this nation now.

I was born here and have spent most of my life here, and yet for a while now, I’ve begun to feel more and more like a stranger in my homeland.

There are dozens, sometimes hundreds of moments in a given day when I look around, and I simply don’t recognize this place anymore. It all seems terrifyingly foreign.

Waking up every morning and walking out into this version of my country is that bittersweet experience of expectantly visiting the town you grew up in as a child, feeling the rapid deflation as you note the changed landscape and strain to see the familiar places you used to know well and feel at home in.

Yes, it’s still a version of the familiar, with quick glimpses here and there to momentarily ground and reconnect you, but so much seems missing and so much feels different that you begin to grieve the alterations that have taken place because of how much appears gone for good. You realize you miss the idea of home rather than the reality of it.

I’ve found myself frantically searching for old familiar landmarks to try and ground myself again: family, neighborhood, community, church, nation—but these have all been renovated to the point of being almost completely obscured by the garish facades in their place; newly fashionable malevolence, bitterness, and cruelty.

See, that’s the thing: it isn’t that the physical landscape that has changed. There are so many people I do not recognize anymore; people whose lives I used to call home, people I once found easy affinity with, people who now make me feel newly orphaned.

I’m unsettled and distanced in their presence; estranged from them because of what I’ve discovered about their hearts, what I’ve heard out of their mouths, what I am realizing about our new (or perhaps newly revealed) moral incompatibility.

They are the America that I am most disheartened to bear witness to. They are the greatest source of my lostness. They are why I wander here.

Maybe this was never the place I thought it was. That image is likely just the selective memory or the idealized version of it all as filtered through a younger, more naive, less aware, more optimistic version of myself. Still, the sense of loss is the same.

Part of me wants to leave altogether, to go and make a new home somewhere else that might feel more aligned with this iteration of who I am, but that would feel like surrender; it would be admitting a defeat that I am still not yet ready to consent to. I still have dreams of what this place can be: not a mythical land born of ignorant nostalgia but a tangible incarnation of the best of its stated aspirations.

Right now, the best thing I know to do is to keep my eyes open for the other restless, reluctant nomads; to look for those who, too, feel lost here but who are still stumbling through increasingly unfamiliar surroundings, trying to manifest quiet goodness in the middle of the loud, sickening march toward national greatness.

I’ll keep seeking out those compassionate, generous, open-hearted sojourners who also no longer feel at home here, and together we will shepherd humanity through these days, and we will be rebuilders.

We will make an America where compassion is our greatest calling.

We’ll make an America where diversity is celebrated.

We’ll make an America where religion isn’t wielded like a weapon.

We’ll make an America where no one goes without.

We’ll make an America that is big enough for everyone who wishes to call it home.

We’ll make an America where no one has to go elsewhere to find refuge or respect.

Fashioning the nation we could be out of the nation we are seems impossible, but I still feel it’s worth trying, because I know I am not alone in my disorientation.

I am surrounded by similarly heartbroken human beings, who are also here in this thick, heavy darkness, passionately stumbling toward the light of what we might still be.

And because of them, though I am an American who is lost in America, I am not yet ready to lose America.

Where do you feel that sense of lostness I talk about? What helps you feel connected? Let me know in the comments.

0 comments

Posted on

Would You Live Here?

Casa Tupin in Brasília has no windows, at least not in the traditional sense, Coral-coloured brick screens wrap the entire house, filtering light, blocking heat, and letting air move freely in every direction. the house sits on 12 pillars so the cerrado can grow beneath it and the lizards and burrowing owls of the Brazilian savanna can roam freely between the garden and the courtyard. From the street it looks closed. inside it opens completely.⁠

[source]

My first thought was what happens to those interiors during a windy thunderstorm? But if you look closely at the pictures (more here) you’ll see that there are actually sliding glass panels inside the brick that can be opened or closed to allow ventilation from the outside. Knowing this, I kind of like the concept, although keeping the place dusted must be a nightmare.

2 comments

Posted on

The Streisand Effect In Full Force

Since kash patel filed his $250 million defamation lawsuit against The Atlantic, reporter Sarah Fitzpatrick says she has been absolutely inundated with new sources reaching up to the highest levels of government, all lining up to corroborate her original reporting. The lawsuit, filed Monday, has functioned more like a megaphone than a muzzle. Fitzpatrick built her initial investigation on more than two dozen sources who described patel as an excessive drinker prone to erratic behavior and unexplained absences, behavior they believed posed a genuine national security risk.

Rather than discrediting the story, the lawsuit appears to have shaken loose even more damaging information. Fitzpatrick went on the Radio Atlantic podcast and made clear she stands by every word, noting that the flood of new sources has been one of the most gratifying responses she could have imagined. The Atlantic has called the lawsuit meritless and says it will fight it aggressively.

What makes this especially striking is why so many people stayed quiet in the first place. Fitzpatrick described patel as someone widely feared to be extremely vindictive, with insiders worried he would pursue them through costly litigation. The lawsuit meant to punish the press ended up proving that point exactly, while opening the floodgates to even more of the story patel desperately wanted buried.

1 comments

Posted on

Friday Tiedrich

I’m so tired of being told that Preznit Fuckwit — a quadrice-indicted twice-impeached once-convicted popular-vote-losing adderall-huffing dead-pedo-bestie-schmoozing East-Wing-destroying insurrection-leading ear-diapering testimony-ducking judge-threatening lawyer-ignoring debate-avoiding witness-tampering disabled-veteran-dishonoring inheritance-squandering rube-fleecing clown-makeup-smearing language-mangling sneaker-hawking serial-sexual-predating draft-dodging casino-bankrupting butler-bullying daughter-perving hush-money-paying real-estate-scamming bone-spur-faking ketchup-hurling justice-obstructing classified-war-plan-thieving golf-cheating stock-manipulating weather-map-defacing war-criminal-pardoning horse-paste-promoting paper-towel-flinging race-baiting tax-evading evidence-destroying charity-defrauding money-laundering diaper-filling 34-count 79-year-old fluorescent-tangerine narcoleptic fart factory — is some kind of second coming of Jesus.

check out Troy Nehls, the doughy pantload who the voters of Texas keep sending back to Congress.

“I believe that Donald Trump is better than sliced bread. I think he’s— he’s almost the second coming.”

nice catch there, Troy, sticking that ‘almost’ in there. we wouldn’t want any ethereal lightning bolts hurled down from above, aimed squarely at our ass, would we?

I’ve got a news flash for Troy, and all these other Republican fucksticks who never stop yammering about how Dear Leader walks on water: Donny is not the messiah. he’s a very naughty boy. now go away.

let’s do a bit of a fact check. here are some highlights from the dog-and-pony show Donny held in the Oval Bordello yesterday.

tell me, would a true messiah never shut his big fat yap about crowd size?

that’s where Martin Luther King gave his— great speech. and he had a million people, and— I had the same exact crowd, maybe a little bit more, but they said I had twenty-five thousand people on July 4th. I have pictures of Martin Luther King’s crowd, my crowd, exact same— everything. but it was seventy years difference. the exact same crowd, but— I actually had more people, but that’s okay. they gave him— they gave him a million people, they said a million people but I had twenty-five thousand people, so, but— these are the things that you get with the— we had on July 4th uhhhh, a few years ago. first term.”

I’m no Biblical scholar, but I’m pretty sure that Jesus never bragged about the crowd size for the Sermon on the Mount — and let’s not forget, the attendance for that sucker was ginormous. the Sermon crowd was so huge that people in the back couldn’t even properly make out what he was saying.

a real messiah would be humble about that shit, and not wave photos at every opportunity. ‘see this crowd? Pontius Pilate’s autopen wishes he could get that many people.’

Donny sure is jealous of the accomplishments of black men, isn’t he? how small and petty is he, that he can’t even mention King’s speech without insisting that his own crowd was just as big — no, wait, it was bigger! — and that he never got proper recognition for it. shut the fuck up, you tiny, insecure gnat.

how hilarious is it that back in the 1970s, Donny and his tyrant Klansman father got fined by the federal government for refusing to rent any of their apartments to black people — and now, black people like Barack Obama and Martin Luther King Jr live rent-free in Donny’s head?

now I ask you, would a true messiah fall asleep at 3:30 in the afternoon, filling the Oval Bordello with the pungent aroma of ass music?

look at this narcoleptic old coot. he can’t hack it.

what in the actual fuck is going on here? Donny is out like a fucking light — and it looks like he’s about to slide off his chair and disappear under the Resolute Desk. won’t anybody help this frail old man? won’t someone get Dear Leader his pudding cup and lead him to bed?

this, by the way, is why Donny’s handlers kept him hidden from the press all week — he’s crashing out, hard. he can no longer handle the rigors of the presidency.

a real King of Kings wouldn’t be pulling that ‘I’m such a sleepy boy’ crap in the middle of the day — not when there are multitudes to be fed. a true messiah would be on that shit.

consider this: the math involved in figuring out how to divvy up one fish and one loaf into— into— hey, how many is ‘a multitude,’ anyway? look, my point is that a real messiah wouldn’t fail basic fourth-grade arithmetic.

the Apostle Brainworms: “[Elizabeth Warren] was ridiculing President Trump for his math. she was saying it’s mathematically impossible to have a drug drop by 600% in cost. I said ‘well, if the drug was $100 and it raises the price to $600, that would be a 600% rise. well, if it drops from $600 to $100, that’s a 600% savings.’”

Donny: “right.”

imagine being this proud of being this ass-clownishly stupid. that’s not the way calculating percentages works, yet Donny and his disciples are doubling down on their dumbfuckery.

an actual messiah wouldn’t need community notes.

a true Light of the World would put down the lamb, pick up a calculator, crunch the numbers and go ‘huh, I guess you’re right.’

a real messiah learns.

I should point out once again that I’m no Biblical scholar — but I’m pretty sure that Jesus never got pissy with a scribe from the Nazareth News Network.

reporter: “what do you say to the American people who question how much longer this will take? obviously you know they’re having higher gas prices.”

Donny: “you’re such a disgrace. did you hear what I just said? how many years was Vietnam?”

oh, now that’s a winning argument, for sure. go right ahead and keep comparing the debacle in Iran to the clusterfuck in Vietnam. I’m sure that’s a pairing that the American people really want to have in their minds right now, as everything goes to shit.

a messiah wouldn’t call someone ‘a disgrace’ just for asking a question. a real Fisher of Men would give a wink and a thumb’s up while convivially winning all doubters over to his side.

but wait — there’s more.

reporter: “does that mean Americans should anticipate spending more on gasoline for the foreseeable future?”

Donny: “for a little while. you know what they get for that? Iran without a nuclear weapon that’s going to try and blow up one of our cities or blow up the entire Middle East. the stock market is at an all time high.”

reporter: “but that doesn’t drive prices down.”

Donny: “let me finish, wise guy.”

there’s nothing in the Biblical record about the Prince of Peace being a thin-skinned piss-baby — and I’m pretty sure that no one had to hold a What The Fuck Is Wrong With You Challenge™ for the ancient scribes of the Lamb of God Press Pool.

so let’s recap.

Jesus: humble as fuck.
Dear Leader: insecure braggart.

Jesus: alert and on the job.
Dear Leader: narcoleptic old fart factory.

Jesus: generous and giving.
Dear Leader: can’t math his way out of a paper bag.

Jesus: patient and kind.
Dear Leader: crabby and short-tempered.

so, it looks like my original premise stands. Preznit Fuckwit is not the messiah. he’s a very naughty boy.

your honor, I rest my case.

this is going to be my closing message for the foreseeable future:

practice self-care. do what you need to do to keep sane. if that means you need to disengage with my daily posts for a while, I get it. this community of ours will still be here when you return.

to all the people who have signed on in the days since the election, welcome aboard. settle in as we all try to deal with the shitfuckery that’s ahead of us.

we are all in this together, and we are all here for each other.

1 comments