2025-03-12 12:00:00
This is an ongoing series in which I dig into the dustier corners of my MP3 folder.
Julian Angel - Beautiful Beast
Julian Angel is a German musician / producer who I think makes his living producing events, doing soundtrack work, etc. Back in 2011 he released an album that was straight out of 1986. You can smell the Aquanet through your speakers. Is there anything mind-blowing on this record? No. Are there a couple of tunes that could have made this a platinum album in 1986? Absolutely. It's kind of a perfect encapsulation of a Sunset Strip record from 1986. One or two really fun tunes, everything else is fine but nothing special.
This tune, if it had been on the first Poison album, would have been #1 on MTV for weeks.
Verdict: Tossup. I could just put on Ratt or Poison to hear this, but there is no reason to not keep it.
2025-03-12 12:00:00
This is an ongoing series in which I dig into the dustier corners of my MP3 folder.
Adam Rotherberg- All the Whispering
This self-published CD was released in 2001. I have no idea how I acquired it. It's this guy. He has performed with Joan Baez, and was the musical director for the Linda Ronstadt Experience. He also produced Dar Williams. So he has become a bit of a big deal since he was trying to be the next James Taylor over 20 years ago.
The record is fine, it's a comfy folk-pop record.The two standout tracks for me are:
If more than a couple of you click through we are going to double his YouTube Music streams. He might even notice LOL.
2025-03-09 13:00:00
I got up at 8 AM this morning, which is 7 AM to my internal body clock because of daylight savings time. I do prefer my extra light in the evening, but if we are going to jump the clocks forward an hour once per year, 4 PM on a Friday seems like a much better time to do it. Imagine the happy hour parties we could do every year to coincide with the clock change at 4 PM. The time change does seem to mark Spring this year though. It's been 60F and sunny all weekend, and the forecast for the week is 70s and sunny, with it tantalizingly close to 80F on Saturday. I'm so tempted to pull the camper out of storage and de-winterize it, but the historical last freeze in central Virginia is the first week of April. So I will wait.
If you could use 3.5 minutes of relaxation this compilation of bird videos from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology is perfect.
There have been a lot of "how to save democracy" posts lately, but this one focuses on stuff you can actually do now. Calling and writing your Congressional Representatives is important, but Congress and the courts will not save us. We need to cut the legs off the fascism stool, and those legs are mostly made of corporate money.
I don't think she is wrong here about the impact of digital marketing on everything happening in the world. That is a troubling, because I've worked in the web marketing adjacent world of web design for most of my adult life.
Instagram sucks, but unfortunately a lot of local organizations use it as their main channel for outreach. Instaloader is a command line script that will download public IG accounts to your hard drive, and keep track of what it has downloaded when it updates. I'm using it to follow the RVA chapter of the Feminist Bird Club on IG, even though I deleted my IG account last year.
That's all for this week. In a world where you can choose to be anything, choose to be kind.
2025-03-08 13:00:00
This was my first time at Cumberland Marsh Nature Preserve. It's only 25 minutes from home, so it won't be my last. We got 34 species this morning, including 7 bald eagles, a bunch of ducks, and more geese than I could count. You do have to walk a bit as the prime marsh viewing area is about a 1.75 mile hike from the parking lot. So birding and hiking this morning. That's a good Saturday.
2025-03-06 13:00:00
Congress, the courts, or a grand gesture will not save us. We win by refusing to lose. Every single day. The following is not my work. It was published at Notes From the Circus by Mike Brock and released into the public domain. So I'm sharing it here, because it's important.
I’m here to tell you what should already be abundantly clear: that simple truths, all around us, reveal things that are blatantly obvious. That we are now ruled by liars, cheaters, and men with an unbounded appetite for power. And this leaves us with only one path forward: revolution. Not a violent one. Not with guns. A cognitive revolution.
This revolution begins with a fundamental shift in understanding. Democracy doesn't die in a single dramatic confrontation. It erodes every minute of every day, through thousands of small surrenders to convenience, to fear, to the path of least resistance. And so it must be defended the same way—every minute of every day, through countless small acts of moral courage that rarely make headlines or history books.
The thing about moral choices is that they don't arrive on a schedule. They don't announce themselves with trumpets, or come with convenient warning labels. They happen every minute of every day, in moments so small we barely notice them passing.
That quick decision to speak or stay silent when you hear a lie. The instant calculation of whether to stand with someone being mistreated or look away to avoid complications. The split-second choice between comfortable complicity and uncomfortable truth. These aren't dramatic crossroads with flashing signs—they're the quiet, constant texture of a life lived.
We love to imagine ourselves at the barricades, facing down tanks with flowers. We romanticize the grand gesture, the defining moment when heroes are made. But democracy doesn't die in a single dramatic confrontation. It erodes every minute of every day, through thousands of small surrenders to convenience, to fear, to the path of least resistance.
And so it must be defended the same way—every minute of every day, through countless small acts of moral courage that rarely make headlines or history books.
This is why asking "what should we do?" misses the point entirely. There is no single action, no perfect strategy, no one-time gesture that discharges your moral responsibility. The question isn't what you should do—it's who you should be. Every minute of every day.
Be the person who names the lie, even when everyone else plays along. Be the one who remembers what happened yesterday, even as others accept today's contradictory reality. Be the colleague who refuses to participate in the ritual humiliation of others. Be the friend who doesn't laugh at cruelty disguised as humor. Be the citizen who treats democratic norms as sacred, not optional.
These choices don't require special talents or privileged positions. They don't demand heroic sacrifice or martyrdom. They simply require the decision to remain morally awake when everything around you encourages sleep. To maintain your full humanity when systems push you toward becoming a fraction of yourself.
Every minute of every day, you have opportunities to practice standing firm. Each small choice builds the moral muscle memory you'll need for bigger challenges ahead. Each moment you choose courage over comfort, clarity over confusion, community over isolation—you're not just preserving your own humanity. You're keeping something precious alive in our collective existence.
The autocrats understand this reality better than most democrats. They know that control doesn't come primarily through dramatic shows of force, but through teaching citizens to police themselves—to make the thousand daily calculations that slowly transform a free person into a subject. They don't need to watch you constantly if they can get you to watch yourself, questioning every impulse toward authentic expression or moral solidarity.
Our resistance must be equally granular, equally present in the everyday. Not just in elections or protests—though these matter enormously—but in the minute-by-minute choices to remain fully human, fully connected, fully awake.
This doesn't mean living in a constant state of high alert or performing radical acts at every turn. It means developing habits of truth and solidarity that become as natural as breathing. It means creating communities where moral courage is expected rather than exceptional. It means practicing the small disciplines of democracy until they become muscle memory.
Every minute of every day, remember what's real. Remember that two plus two equals four, regardless of who claims otherwise. Remember that human dignity isn't negotiable. Remember that your conscience doesn't need external permission to speak.
Every minute of every day, choose connection over isolation. Reach toward those who share your commitment to truth, even when it's uncomfortable. Build networks of mutual support that make courage possible not just for the exceptionally brave, but for ordinary people facing extraordinary challenges.
Every minute of every day, reclaim joy from those who would reduce existence to power and fear. Autocracy wants you exhausted, isolated, and grim. Find delight in small beauties, in genuine human connection, in the deep satisfaction of living according to your values. This isn't frivolous—it's revolutionary.
When I say every minute of every day, I'm not suggesting a life of grim, performative virtue or constant confrontation. I'm describing a way of being fully present in your own life, making choices aligned with your deepest values rather than drifting with currents of fear or convenience.
This is how freedom persists in unfree times. Not through grand gestures alone, but through the accumulated weight of countless small choices to remain human, to stay awake, to act as if your individual decisions matter—because they do. Every minute of every day.
This is our theory of change.
Licensing & Attribution Notice
This declaration is not copyrighted. It is released freely into the public domain, without restriction or requirement for attribution, though I am its author. It is not a personal work but a prosecutorial document, presented on behalf of The People—those who would undersign the basic liberal values it embodies. Let it be used, shared, and invoked wherever the defense of reason, democracy, and human dignity demands it.
2025-03-06 13:00:00
This will a tough one for me. I do watch my share of TV, but I don't really think about it much. It's like cotton candy for my brain after the workday.
Although not one of the questions, right now, we are doing a re-watch of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Those kids' lives would be so much easier if they would just stay the hell out of basements.
What TV Character From A Beloved Show Do You Wish You Could Be Best Friends With In Real Life?
I thought about several characters here, Buffy, Brandon Walsh from 90210, Jack Bauer, Eleanor Shellstrop from The Good Place, Sam Malone from Cheers, but I think I'm going to go with Hawkeye Pierce from MASH. He's funny, he enjoys a good drink, he likes poker, and he has a healthy lack of respect for authority. I think we'd get up to some serious shenanigans together.
If You Could Binge-Watch An Entire Series Again For The First Time, Which One Would You Choose And Why?
So many to choose from, maybe the original Star Trek? The shows had a lot more going on than was obvious from the surface plot, and I was a kid when I saw them all the first time. I think watching Star Trek now for the first time would be a much more profound experience than the "cool spaceships and aliens reaction" I assume I had as a pre-teen.
Name A TV Show That Changed Your Perspective On The World Or Taught You Something Valuable.
I don't know that I have a big aha moment from a TV show. But I do have a few thoughts.
Loudermilk gave me an appreciation for the fine line that addicts live their lives on as they try to stay sober.
Battlestar Galactica (the reboot) gave me a lot to think about regarding how quickly the good guys can become bad guys, or at least as bad as the bad guys. That seems particularly salient these days.
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver almost always gives me something new to think about.
Black Mirror. I used to consider myself a tech-optimist. Black Mirror started me down the path of thinking much more critically about the role of technology in life, or more specifically, how those with power will use technology to maintain and grow power.
I think everyone I "know" well enough here to tag has already done this one, so consider this a virtual double secret tag. If you've been waiting to be tagged, you are it.
