Day To Be Living

A few recent things on my mind these last few days that I’ve come across:

Marketplace’s special released recent episode. www.youtube.com/watch

Full episode required listening! I mean, Kai Ryssdal in his element is always great to hear. I need not convince regular listeners of the program on why.

I wasn’t familiar with his interviewee, Kyla Scanlon, despite her being close to my age, probably since I’m not on social media anymore. www.kylascanlon.com (As a side note, I often find that women my age who are a little nerdy adds to their overall attractiveness for me.) Super cool nonetheless!

Regular listeners of NPR in the morning have undoubtedly heard the unmistakable voice of David Brancaccio of the Marketplace Morning Report. It’s cool to see how Ryssdal and Brancaccio are good colleagues with a warm relationship. Ryssdal finished everything by talking about his unwillingness to compromise on national security as a veteran, fact based reporting, and democracy itself in his economic journalism. Respect!

On a different topic: the Epic History YouTube channel. I thought the story about the Apollo program was interesting! Like many people, I’ve been thinking about space exploration more with the successful completion of the Artemis II mission. www.youtube.com/watch I haven’t watched or listened to any of the other history videos, but I don’t doubt they’re highly informative and accurate. For the history nerds out there, Epic History appears solid.

On this topic of space, I found a short clip on the Star Talk channel, discussing how and why it’s not currently feasible to send human astronauts for Mars exploration, let alone “colonize” Mars in the way Elon Musk had allegedly mentioned. www.youtube.com/watch

Mars at its closest to Earth is still supposedly 3 light minutes away (and 22 light minutes at its furthest orbit)? For comparison, the moon is just over one light second away. Mars is so far for human travel, it’s hard to conceptualize as it would take many months each way in the fastest rocket. Just the fact that rovers have landed on the planet is pretty badass. Some of the scaled videos of I’ve seen of the solar system make it make better sense. www.youtube.com/watch

The fact humans have learned so much about the solar system and observable universe over so many decades is amazing. What a far cry from the hypothesizing of early astronomers like Newton and Galileo. When we consider our political priorities, why wouldn’t humanity want space exploration to be even a small part of what we spend? A good short video by Neil DeGrasse Tyson: www.youtube.com/shorts/Ww…

Come to think of it, my last post on the night sky apps should have been titled “Night To Be Living” as a pun from the title of this blog. Sometimes the creative juices come to mind NOT at 9pm after a long day. But there you go.

Anyways, yesterday was a good day to be a honker, because Goose released a new song yesterday which is worth a mention, titled “Good2B.” It’s got a fun jam. It’s not in my all time top Goose songs, but I mean, it’s vibes bring me joy. Their EDM remix of “Everything Must Go” has been on regular rotation in my shuffle too. There is much good live music on the horizon this year. The intro bass riff, low mix synths, percussion, vocals, and the Rick’s fretwork: I tip my hat as a fan and fellow musician.

Ok, lunch is over. Back to work. But, I had to give an honorable mention to the song. www.youtube.com/watch

Every once in a while I like exploring some of the popular apps on the App Store. Most of the popular ones I already have, and some are worth a more in-depth shoutout, soon but two must haves come to mind for tonight.

The first is the Sky Guide app. I can’t recommend it enough! It’s so cool how you can point it at the night sky and know what you’re looking at. It will also gives the option for alerts for when the International Space Station flies by, as well as calendar alerts to upcoming celestial events. These could be at your geolocation, and/or around the world over the coming months and years. I can read about the cool ones and add them to my Google Calendar with months of advanced notifications!

I have been very fortunate to have seen one total solar eclipse (August 2017), and one total lunar eclipse in my life here in Oregon (March 2025). It would be a real treat to get to see other amazing celestial events in the coming years.

I saw my first total lunar eclipse, in part due to this app right outside my front door. It was a work night, but I went to bed and briefly woke up to see it and go back to bed. We got really lucky with a bit of clouds clearing just in time. It was around 12:07am on March 14, 2025 (unfortunately I missed the most recent total lunar eclipse on March 3rd, although the timing was worse, as I would have had to wake at 3am and go back to bed on a work night, but I still wish I had added it to my calendar).

The second app that I like is the Aurora app for tracking the northern lights. You can see live webcams of some of the best activity in the world at the moment too which is cool. In the Portland, Oregon region, getting the northern lights is so rare, and I was bummed out not seeing it last time. But this app does notify you when there is a slight chance of auroral activity at your location. The closest spots to Oregon are often at best British Columbia, but more often Yukon or Alaska. So not exactly a quick drive. But one I’ll do someday? You bet. Mother nature’s, trippy, colorful night skies are indeed on my bucket list to see at some point!

The American Immigration Council, a subsidiary of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) is an excellent nonprofit advocacy organization. They are much like the ACLU, but with a niche pro-immigration law and policy focus.

The following blog article, from several months ago is well worth a read regarding the Dignity Act. www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/legi… I heard about it from an immigration lawyer I follow on YouTube, Brad Bernstein, who made jokes about it has a practically zero percent chance of passing. www.youtube.com/shorts/bs…

If you are familiar with the Dignity Act, then wow! Kudos to you for learning about the most esoteric, inconspicuous Congressional activity that’s been given functionally no media attention. In many ways, it makes sense, given it’s virtually impossibility of passing in this hyper-partisan gridlock. Indeed, the insanity surrounding ICE got front page headlines, and deservedly so. Even so, I was a bit surprised to have not heard about it. I thought I follow U.S. immigration news pretty closely, and even I wasn’t familiar.

There are elements of the Dignity Act that both progressives and conservatives will absolutely hate. I don’t love it myself, especially as our border with Mexico is as secure as ever. Mexico is not run by ISIS or Kim Jong Un. But much like Oregon’s property tax system, there is no perfect fix to the last 30 years of U.S. immigration history, but that doesn’t mean all ideas are are equal. E-verify is so piecemealed anyways, replete with perverse incentives, that this does a quasi-reset anyways.

To help appease Republicans, the proposed Dignity Act mandates nationwide E-verify, increased border security, and that it only applies to non-criminal undocumented folks, who don’t get an independent path to citizenship or federal benefits despite paying into them, and pay a $7,000 fine over time. It also wouldn’t use any taxpayer funds, and would be immigrant funded, a net tax benefit. I could see how that could be a selling point to Republicans, those who ostensibly claim to not hate immigrants who want to “pay their debt to society” for “not getting to the back of the line and doing immigration the ‘right’ way.”

However, to help satisfy Democrats, it creates a new lawful immigration status called “dignity status” which provides both international travel and work authorization, and protection from deportation if program conditions are met. If those with dignity status are married to a U.S. citizen, or have U.S. citizen children over 21, they could much more easily adjust status outside of the dignity program, and get potentially get inadmissibility bars like unlawful entry waived. It also gets those who entered the U.S. without inspection as children (whether or not DACA status is active) automatically upgraded to a conditional green card, followed by a lawful permanent resident green card, and eventual citizenship if conditions are met.

Side note: speaking of citizenship we MUST affirm birthright citizenship. I hope the Supreme Court does so, and I think they will. Not only does the 14th Amendment speak for itself, but so many people fail to understand that NOT every child automatically gets their parents' home country’s citizenship, and even when they do, it can cost money and time. Plus it will fuck over regular U.S. born children to U.S. born citizens, who don’t automatically get citizneship at birth, but have to go through far more bureaucracy to prove their parents are citizens. It would create a ton of hassle for entirely native born American families.

The prospect of statelessness, where someone is born without citizenship to any place, I see as a very dangerous human rights problem, even if it’s only temporary. It could easily open the door to babies of Mexican immigrants being deported to impoverished, unstable third countries like South Sudan. Everyone deserves to have at least one reasonably stable, peaceful country in the world claim them as their own people from day 1. While I reject American exceptionalism, and believe America is only one of many great countries to be a citizen of in the world, you should get to be a born a citizen where you first arrive into this world, period, full stop. Regardless of the parents, I just think that’s only right and just for humanity.

While not without some serious downsides, compared to the status quo, the Dignity Act sounds like a net improvement from my read of it. For progressives who oppose this legislation, under the excuse of creating second class residents, I would ask, “how is the status quo any better?” Because it isn’t.

Photo below: Oh no! There’s a gap in the border fence! Look at all of those violent criminals and kilos of fentanyl coming through there, by the millions!

Lately I haven’t prioritized my blog and writing daily like I normally like to do. My list of topics I want to write about has been growing faster the days elapsing, which is pretty cool, huh? It feels like life has had one thing after another these last couple of weeks, both good and bad. It has been wonderful finally having the whole interior of the house painted (as it looks and smells way better after the kitchen fire) but it has created a lot of house work with packing and moving, and unpacking belongings in addition to the usual requirements. That said, I’ve been running and went to the Wildwood Trail today for over 12 miles to avoid the sun and get some time jogging. Marathoning again this year is tbd, but feels great to try to stay in good shape nonetheless, especially for the Cascade Relay coming up which I’m joining upon invite!

The Oura app finally gave me my chronotype and body clock since my last post. I am officially a “morning type” based on its assessment, and supposedly my ideal sleeping time is 9:53pm, midpoint at 1:53am, and awake at 5:53am. It’s kind of cool to know this. My Oura sleep stats have worsened the last week or two as I think the scores are more calibrated to my baseline rather than the generic person, although I am very fortunate to sleep mostly well most nights. My weekend scores are invariably better with not waking up at 4:45 am. It will be cool to see more as things progress.

Also, I rarely watch TV, but now that we have a TV in the bedroom mounted, I started watching and listening to the sitcom “Kim’s Convenience” when folding laundry and puttering. It’s about a Korean-Canadian family running a convenience store in Toronto. It is hilarious! And has the cringey, ridiculous style humor of The Office, which I love. I never even knew about it. I guess most Canadian TV shows just aren’t very popular here in America? Since this family is stereotypically Korean-Canadian, both in the show and real life, it is full of their own good-natured Korean and Canadian stereotypes. Now how about some kimchi bulgogi beef bibimbap with my ketchup chips and Molson, eh?

Today I checked out a new hiking area en route home from the Oregon Coast with my wife and two dogs, called Drift Creek Falls Trail 1378. It was on a very narrow paved forest road from the Lincoln City area. We brought some binoculars in hopes of seeing the whale migrations at Boiler Bay State Scenic Viewpoint (apparently whales are supposed to be headed from Mexico up to Alaska at this time). We didn’t see anything in the sunny, cold, and very windy beach weather. Mildly disappointing, but maybe some other time. It was nice to just do a day trip and get a change of pace on a nice day.

A couple cool YouTube videos that I stumbled across this last week while I haven’t been updating the blog:

1. Neil deGrasse Tyson gives a very insightful astrophysicist’s perspective of why war is very bad for humanity and the planet from an evolutionary standpoint. The Star Talk channel that he leads seems intriguing so I subscribed to it. Totally makes sense why the guy is good friends with Bill Nye, The Science Guy. www.youtube.com/watch

2. I mentioned James Talarico before, but he continues to impress me. At this point, he’d be my top choice for a “national” 2028 Democrat who’d make a great president, even over Gavin Newsom. Talarico just has serious charisma, he’s well spoken, and sounds moderate, patrioritic, and Jesus loving in rhetoric, while being totally progressive on policy, which is perfect (While, for example, I love Zohran Mamdani, but realize he’d be too progressive in rhetoric for a national candidate). This video was great with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov of Raging Moderates. www.youtube.com/watch

3. SNL last week was awesome! Harry Styles joined in a couple of some funny clips too! Plus, Weekend Update was great as usual. Not to mention James Austin Johnson’s impersonations are spot on. My faves from last Saturday: www.youtube.com/watch www.youtube.com/watch www.youtube.com/watch

Will have more to add soon too!

Recently my direct supervisor in our team meeting mentioned how he wanted to prime our meeting with a Beastie Boys song, but didn’t have a jam in mind with “work appropriate” lyrics. (I highly doubt anyone on my team would have been taken issue with less-than-clean lyrics, but I get it. It’s a professional setting, and better to be safe than sorry on a topic eligible to be a needless HR headache. Fair enough.)

So, with the “clean lyrics” ethos in mind, I had the audacious and silly Michael Scott-esque idea of offering to share a poem on property tax appeals, when the next team meeting started. As a matter of fact, my very first ever ChatGPT prompt was asking it to write me an Oregon property tax poem, to which it blew my mind in 7 seconds!

My direct supervisor, whom I like and respect a lot (and I’d imagine he feels similarly towards me), and shares a similar sense of humor, was coincidentally gone that meeting (although that wasn’t a factor in my calculus of whether or not to share). In a half serious, half joking, prim-and-proper tone, I pitched it as a potential on-topic way for us to get in the zone and maybe even better engaged with the minutiae of our [dry and administrative] job duties, as a plausible, “clean lyrics” alternative to our boss’s cool idea.

If you’re already chuckling, and maybe cringing a little, you’re in good company. I took it a step further and decided to take a verbal poll over Zoom, and ask if anyone wanted to hear it. One of my colleagues suggested waiting until our supervisor was back so he wasn’t left out. I laughed and replied “that’s the nicest way I’ve saying, ‘please no, spare us the cringe! Don’t be a Michael Scott with us being Jim Halperts.’ But it’s all good, I’ll spare you guys.” Given the cultural popularity of the TV Show “The Office,” I knew most people would get the joke, and it seems everyone did. I got some hearty laughs after that.

Most people seemed to enjoy my sincere and goofy essence, especially since I’m a good colleague that cares about others, and gets my job done. And honestly, if that type of completely innocuous humor happened to be less than well-received by someone, who didn’t say anything, I don’t fucking care. Those wouldn’t be the people that I’d click with or win over anyways. If you have a problem with me as a colleague, you’d have a problem with anyone as a colleague.

I’ll take my net social winnings with those who matter and actually appreciate me, and those who don’t can be dismissed as overhead on my figurative social balance sheet, as emotionlessly as utilities or administrative fees. With age, my figurative social net operating income (NOI) only increases, and figurative social expense ratio only decreases, especially measured year over year, or longer.

In the meantime before the next week’s meeting, I shared the poem with my supervisor during our one-on-one. The look on his face was worth a thousand words. He jokingly suggested that in my free time, I make an AI-generated “chill hip-hop remix” of my property tax poetry lyrics. So I kept that in mind.

The next meeting my supervisor also had to be gone, so I told our team that I already shared the poem with him and we didn’t have to worry about excluding him. To not inadvertently push anyone’s discomfort with my goofy sense of humor too far, I mentioned that if anyone actually wanted to hear the ridiculous poem, to just privately message me. To my pleasant and rather endearing surprise, my one other colleague on my team close to my age (she’s I believe a few years younger actually) reached out and said she wanted to hear it.

Fortunately this type of poem wouldn’t be a foreseeable HR problem. Being a government employee, I know everything I do is subject to public records requests and auditing. I never say anything on my work chat or email that I wouldn’t be okay with my boss’s boss’s boss seeing, or plastered on the front pages of The Oregonian.

More recently this week, even though my supervisor was totally joking about the hip hop mix tape, he was absolutely rolling on the floor cracking up, when I actually followed through on making an AI generated song, and shared the MP3 files, although this time over private personal phone text. I also privately shared the MP3 files over text, to both my boss and my above mentioned colleague.

So how did I pull this off? Well the poem was courtesy of Gemini. The actual soundtrack was courtesy of the free version of the Suno app/website. It was kind of fun, to be honest. On a more serious note, I think real creativity in music is still far better done by human ingenuity. That said, for comedy, parodies, etc., or as a learning tool, AI can be a novel and admittedly fun tool/toy.

It’s a good lesson that while actually doing your job well, with integrity to the public matters first and foremost, it’s also good to be able to make fun of yourself and enjoy the journey along the way. Take your job seriously, but take yourself less so.

So… here’s the poem:

At Five-Oh-One, on Haw-thorne Street, Where pub-lic needs and val-ues meet. I serve the town with heart and pride, With mar-ket da-ta as my guide.

On Jan-u-ar-y first, the day, I look at what the mar-kets say. The stat-ute says that I must be, A source of deep neu-tral-i-ty.

The retail owner has a case, We meet to-geth-er, face to face. We look at ev-ery va-cant space, To find the mar-ket’s hon-est place.

I use the income approach tool, It is the standard coun-ty rule. We take the prof-it, then di-vide, With math-e-mat-ics on our side.

For mul-ti-fam-ly build-ings too, I check the ren-tal facts with you. I find the rates from down the street, To make the val-ue quite com-plete.

The ner-dy num-bers help me show, How val-ues rise or how they go. I share the sales that I have found, To keep the roll on sol-id ground.

Though Mea-sure Fif-ty lim-its change, And keeps the tax-es in a range. It is my goal to be sin-cere, For ev-ery per-son wait-ing here.

The PVAB board will make the call, In-side the coun-ty hear-ing hall. The clerk records the fi-nal word, Where ev-ery voice is fair-ly heard.

How about it eh? I tried attaching the audio file samples to give it a listen, but it didn’t seem to work, so you’ll just have to take my word, or reach out to me. I also attached a screenshot of the Suno website.

I haven’t yet listened (start to finish) the Grace Under Pressure live 1984 Toronto show, posted by Rush’s official YouTube channel yet. www.youtube.com/watch But I did pre-save the Grace Under Pressure remastered album in Spotify, got notified about it. I re-listened to the whole re-released studio portion start to finish on my long, slow run today.

Also, for some book updates, I finished “Abundance” on audiobook by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. Excellent read, and free on Libby! It’s nice to take a little hiatus from podcasts, and the inevitable ads that accompany their free episodes.

The first portion of “Abundance” by Klein gets very wonky, dense, and into the stats. But it all binds together well, without being overly optimistic or pessimistic. If that’s your cup of tea like me, you’re in for a treat. Conversely, if you’re more into the nonfiction narrative, historical explanations of ideas, the Thompson portion (part 2) of the book might be more for you, although both authors feature both wonky stats and narration. Even as someone with formal education in Enviro Econ and Policy, and Public Admin, I learned some new ideas myself, which mostly validated my own intuitions and understandings alike with some broader clarity…and detailed receipts! The big takeaway, in a sentence? We can have a quasi-utopian future of sustainable development by efficiently and effectively implementing clean, cutting edge tech at scale, some of which is already underway.

I’ve also been listening to “The Age of Grievance” by Frank Bruni of the New York Times, also on Libby. I’m about halfway done now, and find it super insightful on how much grievance is glorified in society, in a really unhealthy way. Will give more of an update when done!

Last, I also started listening to “The Let Them Theory” by Mel Robbins. I’ve listened to excerpts of her podcast episodes and like the content I’ve heard by her. She’s chatted with both Jefferson Fisher, and Vanessa Marin before. Not far in, but so far so good!

Yesterday I had a nice surprise to see that my directly deposited paycheck was several hundred dollars higher than normal and expected, after taxes!

As I believe the saying goes, “a life well-funded is a life less stressful.” Actually, I don’t know if that’s a common saying… but I remember hearing it somewhere! Can’t remember the source. But I like it because “well-funded” isn’t simply glamorizing wealth in and of itself.

As it turns out, I’m getting back pay since July 1, 2025 for a retroactive cost of living adjustment, and wage changes, added to my current mid-March paycheck! I hadn’t been following developments closely like I should have, but union negotiations took place for a long time between AFSCME Local 88 and Multnomah County. Then it understandably took time for payroll to process. Information is publicly available here:

www.afscmelocal88.org/2026/02/l…

There is also a NW Labor Press article about it: nwlaborpress.org/2026/01/m… My wife and I both get print editions mailed to our house for free as members, but their content is online. I highly recommend reading it if you care about labor union activity in the PNW!

It was very welcome news during a time of unusual and unavoidable expenses such as immigration filing fees, my car’s registration DEQ and registration renewal, and my wife needing new construction boots and pants. My parents have also generously helped with reducing our housing payment this month, and fronting the cost of the post-fire expenses like the stove, and painting. While my wife and I have been low on day-to-day cash this year, we have proudly been making principal payments on credit card debt, and have exclusively used the debit card for everything.

I think the old saying about money not buying happiness is such a crock of shit for the bottom 90% of society. Here’s my metric: until you can comfortably make ends meet while also having 3-6 months of liquid short-term savings, and are totally debt-free (with the exception of fixed low-interest, secured debt that’s specifically leveraged towards a lucrative investment, like a house), money absolutely buys happiness. Maybe put another way, financial security buys happiness, and well over half of society does not meet that criteria. Beyond that, then it probably buys happiness, but not by big margins, if at all. I think the money-happiness graph follows a logarithmically-shaped line with quickly diminishing marginal returns for each additional dollar beyond a certain point.

I take a more controversial, leftist position than most of society, but I think there should be legal ceilings and floors on everyone’s poverty and wealth. I don’t think anyone should live below the federal poverty line, or personally have more than $999 million dollars. I don’t think billionaires should exist. Multi-millionaires, yes, but billionaires, no. Organizations, foundations, governments, etc. could have billions, sure, but not individuals. The figurative floor to ceiling height is still pretty fucking high. After all, if you’re living just above the poverty line, you’re simply having basic necessities of shelter and food met. Conversely, if you’re not happy with $999 million dollars, the problem is you, and only you. There are plenty of other people that would take $9 million, or $0.9 million and be stoked, myself included.

Today marks 6 years since the World Health Organization officially declared the no-longer-novel Coronavirus a global pandemic. Man, what a long and very strange trip it has been since then, both personally and societally, spanning ages 24 to 30 for me.

Wednesday, March 11, 2020 was also the last “normal” day of major gatherings, such as professional sports and concerts here in Oregon, and very likely elsewhere, as lockdown restrictions came into full effect over the coming days.

I remember that strange day for totally unrelated reasons, as my colleague whom I liked, was terminated for cause, with very unfortunate timing. I remember hearing rumblings about this novel virus before, in late February 2020 when a Lake Oswego School District custodian was hospitalized, and around the same time, The Daily podcast mentioned how what happened in Wuhan (roughly the size of Chicago) with its lockdowns could happen here. But it wasn’t until Monday, March 16, when I got sent home to work remotely and Oregon went into partial lockdown that I fully understood how cataclysmic, devastating, and game-changing this virus would be. I have some strange recollections between March 11th and March 16th, as things became progressively more eerie.

In hindsight, I’m grateful for how privileged I really was relative to most of humanity. I never contracted this microscopic enemy until the Omicron variant infected me in February 2022 (on the tail end of its January 2022 peak) nearly two years later, and after being vaccinated and boosted.

Goose released their final jams of 3/11/2020, which also turned out to be their last “regular” concert before things reopened in 2021. I discovered these hidden jems much later, probably at least a year or two. Their “Lovely Day” cover was awesome and especially their jam starting around 3:57 to the end: www.youtube.com/watch Their version of “Arrow” was also great, and likely one of my favorite versions of the song I’ve heard: www.youtube.com/watch Well mixed too! The cool part is that Jeremy Schon, the lead guitarist for Pigeons Playing Ping Pong, joined on the second part of the Goose song, “Butter Rum.” A fun jam indeed. Plus, Jeremy Schon is such an underrated guitarist. Fitting titles perhaps, given it was last “Lovely Day” of live concerts, as the “Arrow” of the pandemic loomed?

Also, and not for nothing, newly released content by Anika Nilles I see? Um, yes! Sign me up! Need I say more? www.youtube.com/watch The odd time signature rhythms and vibey synths were pretty cool to listen to!

I don’t know where I was going to go with today’s blog post. I had a few ideas. As regular readers of this blog know, I am a regular listener of Ezra Klein’s podcast, as well as the New York Times' “The Daily,” and sometimes I listen to “Today Explained” or “On Point” with Meghna Chakrabarti, all shows aired that have been aired on NPR.

A few thoughts. I haven’t followed the news cycle of late very closely, although I listened to recent podcasts as I was intrigued to understand Iran better. I’m no foreign policy expert, but feel like I have a better grasp of it than many, if not most Americans. While I fully condemn Trump and Netanyahu provoking conflict, and see both leaders as truly evil, reprehensible men, it’s worth noting the silver lining. I saw a report that many Iranians around the world justifiably celebrated the Ayatollah’s killing, especially in hopes of potential future family reunification. I was glad to see the Iranian regime momentarily destabilized. Fuck violent religious fascism or oppression in any form. According to the Ezra Klein podcast I listened to with guest Ben Rhodes–a senior advisor to President Obama, who helped work on the Iran Nuclear Deal–supposedly most Iranians don’t support the regime by about 80/20. Fuck the religious right wing 20% of Iranians that do. Similarly, fuck the minority of Americans that support January 6th Insurrectionists. Same shit, different toilet. Anyways, the worst part is the new Iranian Supreme Leader sounds like just as much of a piece of shit, from the little I saw. I hoped the fleeting celebration would be a precursor to a better outcome. If Trump does one thing that has a positive outcome, I’ll still praise it, even if I hate everything else. But as history seems to teach us over and over again, power vacuums rarely ever have positive outcomes.

Besides an argument for disarmament, the best point I heard from Klein’s conversation with Rhodes (and I’m paraphrasing here but not by much), is that like with nukes, we need a de-escalatory disarmament race, rather than an escalatory arms race.

Most importantly: choosing to not attack a country does NOT mean we approve of their authoritarian regime at all. We can feel sorry for the mostly good people of Iran, and also not get caught up in armed conflict. War should be an absolute last resort. Very rarely in history has it actually been necessary for humanity’s greater good.

From an U.S. immigration perspective, not only is there a visa ban to Iranians, outside of the U.S. at the State Department, but also for Iranians inside the U.S. seeking immigration benefits from USCIS. Like with many Mexicans, there is all too often long term long term or indefinite family separations. The longstanding Iranian regime seemed mostly to blame, although the U.S. government has not exactly made legal Iranian immigration easy. While outright country bans are nothing but racist nonsense, that said, people do need to be vetted. The negative effects of uncontrolled migration and open borders would be very real. I get that. I take a progressive left position on immigration, never a far-left anarchist one. But Canada’s immigration system, while far from perfect, is light years better and more sensible in every detail I’ve read.

I also think there’s some layer of intentionality by the powers that be, in making it difficult or dangerous for Middle Easterners and Westerners to visit each others' very different countries and cultures. After all, if in lieu of propaganda, people from different cultures could firsthandly see and understand the humanity of each other, we’d be less likely to support armed conflict towards the other.

Point being, anything that helps lessen international family separations is a win in my book. It’s something even liberal media doesn’t seem to emphasize enough, if at all. I think most Iranians, Mexicans, Americans, and really most people from most places, even from opposite cultures, are still more similar than different. I think most humans just want to live their lives in peace, and with enough means and dignity to support themselves, their families, and their communities. It’s crazy to think of what a human construct it all is, not just government repression, but nation states and borders.

From an self-serving American perspective though, military action against Iran so dumb beyond belief. Why get involved now? Iran hasn’t attacked us! We fortunately haven’t suffered a major foreign terrorist attack in a quarter century. The number one priority should be preventing terrorism, not attacking other nations, unprovoked. We flushed the Iran nuclear deal down the toilet so stupidly and for nothing! Why risk further entrenching anti-American sentiment among extremists in that region? It doesn’t exactly sound like it’d make our homeland any more “secure.” Hypocritically, somehow it didn’t matter for the U.S. to intervene when the Iranian regime gunned down thousands of peaceful protesters earlier in 2026, but now it’s fine, since Netanyahu has Trump by the balls now? And who the fuck is Israel to be the morality police of Iran, when they have arguably committed full-blown genocide in Gaza, starving and killing magnitudes more innocent civilians than Hamas terrorists, most of whom had absolutely nothing to do with depraved October 7th terrorist attack? Not to mention, the U.S. has no shortage of very real, domestic crises here at home.

I think of Reza Azlan’s premise in his book “How To Win a Cosmic War” which is to refuse to fight one (I haven’t read the whole thing, only the intro, but its thesis is on point). Similarly, I’ve heard scholars on nuclear proliferation say the best thing to do is to not have an arms race, but a disarmament race. Can’t imagine the same analogy doesn’t apply here, given the above-mentioned ethos of most humans just wanting to live their lives in peace around the world.

Let’s hope things get better eventually.

On Friday morning, both my wife and I had the day off of work, and we briefly left our house for the gym around 9:15am to lift weights for 30 minutes.

Upon driving up to the house returning from the gym, everything seemed normal. But then when I turned the front door key, to our utter horror, the entire interior of the house was filled with smoke so thick we could barely see, with no fire alarms going off, and all of the windows closed. We bolted into action. The pets were nowhere to be found. Fortunately everyone was alive and ok, other than some smoke inhalation and vomiting, but we didn’t know that right away.

I’ll always take shit happening over tragedy happening.

Without thinking, we carelessly left a wooden cutting board on our electric, smoothtop stove. It was thoroughly charred, and still in flames when we came rushing in. One or both of the dogs had jumped on the stove when we were gone, to get some blueberries and maybe remnants of tuna, and hit the front facing stove knob to turn it on. We suspect it was Cici, the flat coated retriever. Both dogs have been notorious for counter surfing, and Sage constantly finds non-food items like plastic parts or shoes that she’ll chew up, which we’re usually good about putting in closets.

We were so fucking lucky we came home not a moment later than we did. The fucked up part was the smoke detectors we bought on Amazon a while ago didn’t even go off. What the fuck? That made me angry. One star review on those! Time for a Whole Foods return and refund, and anything short of that, channeling my “I’m quite displeased, and would like to speak to your manager,” vibes. While I prefer not to be, I know how to be a polite, yet firm “Karen” when the situation truly warrants it. Think of your stereotypical Canadian academic when mistreated and angry. I grew up in Lake Oswego after all!

Back to what happened: in an adrenaline-fueled panic, I covered my face with my thin dri-fit running shirt, which did little to filter carcinogens in the air. I didn’t even realize how bad my smoke inhalation was until much later when I could feel this novel, irritated pain in my trachea and bronchial tubes. I probably inhaled 100 cigarettes worth of carcinogens in 10 min. Fortunately, being a marathon runner and a non-smoker helped my already stronger-than-average lungs have optimal resilience and recovery capacity.

I immediately opened every window and ran through the garage to the electrical box to turn off the kitchen range circuit, which took 15 seconds longer than it should, as I couldn’t see well, and had belongings in the way, but I found it. Fortunately, we had a fire extinguisher right by the fridge. My wife had the wherewithal to know how to use it in seconds from her safety training as a pipefitter. I had the intuitive, but profoundly stupid idea of spraying down the stove with water, since it was a wood fire, rather than an oil or chemical fire. But it still could have been very dangerous, since the glass surface cracks from rapid changes in high temps, and has electrical components underneath. I later learned that if you are dealing with oils, gasoline, lithium battery, electrical, or other chemical-induced fires, never use water.

With the fire chemically extinguished, and all of the windows open, and the back sliding glass door open, we searched for all 3 cats and 2 dogs. Turns out Sage was hiding in the master closet, and resisted me rescuing her out of understandable terror. But I grabbed her anyway, reassured her as I carried her down and outside of the house. I knew every second counted. Cici appeared out of nowhere during the process, presumably going outside instinctually, and the cats were found behind the couches, clothes, or in the cat tree.

Once the fire was put out and everyone was rescued, we were all just stunned, and traumatized. We felt this intense mix of guilt for being so stupid and careless, and also gratitude that everyone was alive and we came back when we did.

I hate it when my home, yard, or my car is a total shitshow of a mess, maybe more than most. This weekend definitely overwhelmed me. Sure, my car has a few dings and scratches on it, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I probably do have some level of undiagnosed OCD though, since it just bugs me. Maybe it’s the inability to find things. Maybe it’s the realization of how much more there is to do before I can have some leisure time.

Sometimes I wish I was the chill and laid-back hippie I’d like to be, but when it comes to extreme clutter, grime, hoarding, or messes that are going to take hours or literally all day to fix–I’m admittedly as uptight and rigid as it gets. I just have a hard time relaxing. I’d love to someday be able to live comfortably below my means, and hire help with deep cleaning and/or yard upkeep.

Unfortunately, the stovetop was cracked and permanently damaged. It would have been equally expensive to repair it as to buy a replacement one (with knobs on the back) so we bought a new one. We spent the weekend deep cleaning, scrubbing walls and ceilings, washing dishes, re-washing clothes and bedding that had just been washed. Fortunately it was a wood fire, so the house smelled like a natural campfire rather than melted plastic or something highly synthetic, but it still wasn’t good. It’s gotten better each day though.

The whole thing came at bad timing financially with a lot of expensive necessities happening. My parents have generously helped helped front the cost of the new stove, and painting the house, if needed. Fortunately my in-laws and parents have helped with bringing food. My sister-in-law helped scrub the couches.

The lesson from all of this is obviously to never leave anything on the stove, especially if you have dogs, take off the stove knobs, and unplug dryers and toasters. Clean everything out periodically, so nothing is a fire hazard. Keep two fire extinguishers, and one in the kitchen. Keep a clear path to the electrical, water, and gas shutoffs. It could mean life or death.

It’s a good reminder to everyone to think about your home in the exact same way a firefighter or fire marshall would. If you haven’t done so already, that’s awesome! If not, I urge you to do so as soon as you can.

Regarding community, I mentioned Stavros Halkias previously doing great comedy. Check out this video where he talks about this caller’s dad falling in love with ChatGPT. The latter part is so great, it’s like DUDE! Fucking meet people in-person to play board games! People are lonely. Anyways, it’s funny, and has a good message: www.youtube.com/watch

It’s amazing how much nostalgia I feel sometimes for the in-store, in-person experience. We can get to the nth degree of market efficiency by having self checkouts, but unless it’s one item with a long line, I try to avoid it. It’s good to chat with the clerk at the checkstand. Does anyone under 30 know what that’s really like? Sometimes I wish I could time travel to 1995, where I can only imagine people had to act awkwardly in line, and start conversations with strangers, since smartphones didn’t exist back then.

Usually with products, I want to test out a product in the store. Can’t really do that online.

Similarly, I’ve also never liked the e-readers on my phone. I like the print editions. I recently went to Powell’s Books, and realized how awesome it was just to browse physical copies and run my fingers through the freshly printed pages of a new hardcover. You don’t get that from Amazon. The library feels very similar. We need more so-called “third spaces” for people, which transcend demographics and serve everyone.

It’s one of the reasons why I was especially frustrated with this Multi-Level Marketing Amway scam attempt that happened to my wife and I, at our local Target store last December. You could say we were “targeted,” pun intended! It’s a long story, but for now, suffice it to say there were giant red flags getting bigger and brighter as the conversation went on, leading to a Christmas party invite from total strangers. Odd enough, but okay. But what made me far more upset than whatever dumb bullshit they were trying to sell itself was the deceptive methodology behind it: the exploitation of people’s sincere willingness to chat with strangers, especially in 2026 when everyone’s lonely.

Similarly on theme, I also did a presentation recently in-person at Portland State University that just isn’t the same over Zoom. Speaking to everyone in person was so great! I’m the odd person that usually enjoys public speaking. I did a presentation that explored the practical elements of my completed graduate level experiential learning project: the time management, people skills, and everything else, which meant so much. While there are plenty of people to go around to talk about what such a learning project might be at a local government substantively––which I did address for a few minutes––more importantly, I talked candidly about the practical stuff, from lifestyle trade-offs, tight finances, less social time and partner time, and using AI responsibly rather than avoiding it, which I think people appreciated.

Also on my mind: last night I attended the men’s meetup group for a second time recommended by my therapist (my first time was several weeks ago) which was also great in having a space for men to share more openly challenges they are going through, without stigma or judgment. On the in-person theme: attending in-person was so valuable! I’m making it a goal to go to events like this at least weekly, and also other meetups without pushing myself too hard. The Meetup App, by the way, makes the daunting task of branching out simpler. I highly recommend people download the app and make a free account, as it’s easy to use.

Speaking of Meetups that step outside of my comfort zone: I also look forward to the Dougy Center orientation later this month, as discussed in a prior post, and sharing how that experience goes.

Kai Ryssdal is among one of my favorite journalists. Likely my number 1 favorite of all time. He has an excellent radio voice, radiant charisma, and isn’t nearly as serious as Ezra Klein. Even the recent Marketplace episode (2/24/26) with the outgoing President of the Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank, Raphael Bostic, included some dry humor and charm.

I’m a little late on the subject, but it was great to hear Ryssdal chat with Scott Galloway again recently on the Prof G pod, especially in reverse roles, being interviewed rather than the interviewer, posted on 2/19/26: www.youtube.com/watch

I was a bit surprised to hear Ryssdal mention (I’m paraphrasing here, but not by much) the idea that public media shouldn’t be dependent on federal funding indefinitely, but rather just to kickstart operations. Ryssdal having said that absolutely FLOORED me! But on second thought, his explanation sounded reasonable nonetheless, and had me reconsidering my position on federal funding of public media being essential. I’m not sure that I agree with Ryssdal, in that I still support ongoing federal funding of public media, and think it’s vital to have a public source of news info ostensibly not fully corrupted by corporate money or special interests. There is a reason why NPR, OPB, and Marketplace are less “clickbaity” than CNN or Fox News, or worse of all, hate-mongered disinformation platforms like InfoWars, or 4chan/8chan. That said, even public media has its “underwriters” so it’s not perfect, but certainly not comparable.

Personally, I like Ryssdal much much more than Galloway. While Galloway brings up many good points, my opinion on Galloway is extremely mixed for many reasons. I appreciated his viral TED talk, and his book “The Algebra of Wealth.” However, last year on the Raging Moderates podcast, Galloway and his co-host Jessica Tarlov pontificated some profoundly misguided immigration perspectives (which I will talk about why in-depth sometime later). Admittedly, it really rubbed me the wrong way, as someone who objectively is much more of an immigration subject matter expert than either of them. For another, I think Galloway’s content is excellent regarding the challenges young men face, especially if you read or watch him in depth, which is great. Yet, his social media approach seems to prioritize soundbites designed to get attention, controversy (and consequently ad revenue), rather than to inform well. How ironic given that his published books seem great. Yet, unfortunately in today’s algorithmic social media economy, there is usually a trade-off between being “attention-grabbing” and being “informative.” I think someone with Galloways’ magnitude of wealth and influence should prioritize the latter of said tradeoff rather than the former.

Galloway also sounded like such a negative baby boomer, totally missing the point, when he mentioned to Ryssdal that youth unemployment is around 10%, which is supposedly “typical.” He suggested that youth sentiment might be exaggerated. Are you fucking kidding me? That’d be like telling a school teacher that a class size of 40 students is historically normal, and imply that teacher burnout is just over-exaggerated by social media. Even if you’re not a school teacher yourself in the trenches, assertions like that would be poorly-received. Why would it be any different for young people?

And sure, I’m all for critical thinking, and food for thought. It’s always good to know what the “other side” is saying and step outside of your own echo chamber.

But at the same time, let’s not slip into the tendency of giving misleading data disproportionate “voice” or influence, just to sound “moderate.” Such a statement might sound thoughtful, but sounding thoughtful and being thoughtful aren’t the same thing.

Ryssdal’s reply to Galloway was excellent, challenging him: “well can you blame them [young people]?” To Galloway’s credit, he said no and backed down. Ryssdal then went on to address the substance of the question, in intelligent, nuance-filled depth.

Personally, I don’t care how “typical” 10% for youth unemployment might be, it’s still totally unacceptable, no matter the justification. And it’s all the more unacceptable when so many other unfavorable generational economic factors are stacked on top.

Consider the following: if you used a credible unemployment rate figure for ANY minority or underrepresented group, we’d be deep in a recession right now. If we had 10% “headline” unemployment, we wouldn’t accept that, because that would be akin to late 2000’s Great Recession numbers. It’s why headline economic data (namely unemployment and inflation numbers the Federal Reserve evaluates) must be taken with a gigantic, brick-sized hunk of salt. It’s why we must fund the Bureau of Labor Statistics to give us credible, accurate, and niche government data that is accessible to all of us, for free, as a public good.

Anyways, if you’re not a daily or even regular Marketplace listener, I’d strongly recommend it. Kai Ryssdal has a way of making what could be a dry business program into engaging material. I’ve learned so much from there. It almost all non-partisan, non-clickbaity content. Check it out!

Oh man, I’ve been slacking on the blog! Still have more niche things to write about though!

I’ll give more of a detailed review when I listen to it all, but I must give an honorable shoutout to Goose’s EDM-coated remix of their album Everything Must Go. I love their rave themed coloring of their original album cover, and love the explorative side. U2 did some electronic remixes of their songs too. I always love seeing the creativity and branching out. Some songs I like better than others, but always cool nonetheless to get this surprise! Must have been fun for them!

The last few days I went up to the mountain to ski with one of my best friends. This ski season at Mt. Hood for anyone following has been unseasonably weak this year. I’ve gone up on the best days in a weak season, so conditions have been at least average. Sometimes weather has been amazing, but snow quality has been a B at best. Getting outside, especially on a Friday is so important to me. The fresh alpine air, or going out for a run, it’s important when your job is very sedentary, indoors, and on a screen. My friend and I have been alternating on who drives to the mountain rather than paying each other back and forth for gas money. But you know what? The ski season isn’t over yet, so we’ll hope for a miracle March. The days are getting longer, and I feel grateful to live so close to so much beautiful nature.

It was also fun going over to his house and playing video games this weekend, particularly the cross-platform Dead by Daylight (DBD) game. It’s very niche, but my former roommate and I became obsessed with it during the lockdown early days of the pandemic. Since it isn’t first person shooter (FPS) like Call of Duty or Battlefield, I actually was able to get proficient enough at playing. I don’t watch much TV, so I’ve thought about adopting one of my friends' PS4 consoles now what we have a couple of smart TVs that we got for free. My wife though loves that I don’t play video games, and comically hated the Dead by Daylight game when we all lived together early into dating. When DBD was playing on the living room subwoofers, she thought my roommate was watching porn! The the female survivor characters in the game (notably Feng Min) would squeal and moan in a very sexual sounding way, particularly when injured, or getting hung on one of the map’s sacrificial hooks by one of the killers. It was pretty hilarious! Whoever conceived the idea of this video game were probably a bunch of hetero men, no doubt.

Anyways, regarding getting outside, if I don’t start my day at 5:30am running with the dogs, I definitely do so at lunch or at least walk around and stretch during my morning or afternoon break. I have a foam roller in my home office area, and I’ve been good lately about doing 5 minute breathing meditations via my Oura app, and “rolling” out my body. I’m also trying to get my morning sunlight and setting my circadian rhythm. It seems to do wonders. I learned that from prior podcasts listening to Andrew Huberman.

I’m not a big fan anymore of popular health and science podcaster Andrew Huberman. I think he has credible info about sleep, sunlight, and circadian rhythms, among other topics. But I found his anti-vax tendencies alarming. His statement on not getting the flu vaccine years ago was eyebrow-raising, but everyone’s own autonomy I suppose? Worse yet, he circumvented discussing Covid vaccines, which was also strange. My fear was all but confirmed when he hosted Jay Bhattacharya, the current NIH director, who’s stance of letting the virus run rampant was nothing short of reckless. The fact that Huberman had on this Trump 2.0 appointee, without tempering it with a mainstream guy like Anthony Fauci said everything I needed to know. I’m all for openness to dissenting or unpopular opinions. But let’s also not pretend like they’re all perspectives have equal credibility. Even the most plausible conspiracy theories at best to me seem just short of 50/50 with the “official narrative.” There aren’t two sides to a story when one side is a lie. For example, flat earth, pizzagate, etc.

First of all, my wife passed the practical turnout test! One not-so-little victory, eh? (My fellow fans of Canadian dad rock will understand the reference. Maybe even those my fellow, unavoidably indoctrinated non-fans?) In any case they’re still several hundred on-the-job training hours (OJT) that need to be completed, and a State of Oregon boiler test, but the hardest part is over. Unfortunately, if you fail the turnout test, you have to defend yourself in front of the Junior Apprentice Training Council (JATC). Rather than having a standardized approach for allowing everyone multiple chances to retake it, nepotism and favoritism often gives way to discrimination. Avoiding all of that is a big win!

Speaking of pipefitting, the UA (United Association) has local union groups in Canada, and Mark Carney has repeatedly talked about the importance of the skilled trades (refreshing to see at least one influential liberal politician say so much). I would not be surprised at all if unemployed American UA pipefitters end up traveling to The Great White North to work there. Time will tell. I realize that the Supreme Court ruled against the tariffs, but it added little substantive certainty in an anything-but-certain economy, as last Friday, February 20th’s Marketplace episode illustrated in great depth.

A couple other quick things on my mind:

Speaking of Canada, Rush came out with some new promotional content and an interview. I must say, Geddy Lee mentioning that he’d be the J.Lo to Alex’s Beyonce had me dying and was NOT on my bingo card! Not to mention, the importance of good health, working out, and mastery all were themes o' the day. Both of the following are must-watches: www.youtube.com/watch www.youtube.com/watch

So, given the “good news first,” I thought it’d be a good throw back to 6 years ago today. My favorite live version of Phish’s “Everything’s Right” was performed February 23, 2020 www.youtube.com/watch It was Phish’s last show from the before times. Came up on YouTube, but been a while since I listened to it. What a great jam, all of it. A good reminder to live presently, and appreciate when things are right.

Communication is so critically important. I’ve always been struck by the irony that humans developed language, and many types of languages over millennia, across all continents and cultures, with a level of message sophistication and precision not remotely observed with other living beings. Yet our world, so often just doesn’t get along well, as evident by the lack of world peace. (Although one could argue that with rare but very important exceptions like the Rwandan genocide, the last 80 years since the end of World War II has seen an overall decline in armed conflict compared to any other time in than in recorded human history. I don’t remember the source, but I’m reasonably confident it’s a historically accurate statement).

Most of the time I am a skilled expository communicator, when writing and speaking, as I’ve had most of my life in school, earned a Master’s degree, and have nearly 8 years of professional full-time work experience under my belt. I’ve invested enormous amounts of time and mental capital on interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence, and see it as vastly more valuable and important than any formal education or intellectual capabilities.

Because when communication doesn’t go well, especially interpersonally, it’s REALLY fucking bad.

Which leads me to two relevant book recommendations from two podcast hosts. They are variations on the common theme, which include healthy communication patterns. Both are books I’d recommend even reading more than once potentially, as the substance is rich, yet very digestible. Even though the authors perhaps more famously host podcasts, it’s nice to get the content ad-free via the medium of good old fashioned books.

1. “The Next Conversation” by Jefferson Fisher. He hosts the “Jefferson Fisher” podcast on communication. It’s not a terribly long read, and well worth your time. It’s truly a must-read, and I think it’ll stand the test of time.

2. “Sex Talks” by Vanessa and Xander Marin. They host the “Pillow Talks” podcast about anything bedroom activity related, which is also highly recommended. Interestingly enough though, their book addresses quite a bit, early on, about relationship communication dynamics OUTSIDE of the bedroom. They address why it’s an important foundation for communication and satisfaction inside the bedroom too. It shows how our society conditions even the least prudish among us to be such prudes, even with our partners, and even for those of us from a more progressive, non-religious background. Which means those that grew up with all the religious dogma, or abstinence-only bullshit, sadly start at a much bigger disadvantage. For anyone with a less-than-satisfactory sex life, especially if the nonsexual parts of the relationship are otherwise going well (or also if not), this is well worth your time. Last, I also don’t think this type of book is truly an “adults only” read. Sure, it’s obviously not age appropriate for the youngest readers, but anyone pre-teen or teen, or old enough for “the talk,” could benefit from preemptively better understanding healthy communication patterns, in the romantic relationship realm.

This is so bat shit crazy, you’d think I’m a conspiracy theorist promulgating a bunch of bullshit.

But I’m not.

I mentioned James Talarico in a previous blog post. I really like the guy. You know what’s bonkers though? Just saw that Stephen Colbert couldn’t even AIR the interview on network TV, and had to do so on YouTube! Check out his statement: www.youtube.com/watch

One more reason I’m glad I don’t have cable network TV, and YouTube Premium instead, like a stereotypical 1990s-born Millennial. What a slippery fucking slope. What’s next? Full on selective Internet censorship?

By the way, here is the interview that CBS with Talarico. www.youtube.com/watch

I’ve always liked Stephen Colbert too. Big kudos to him for maintaining the audacity to stand up for free speech when actively getting tested and provoked. What a refreshing contrast to the powerful institutions, media companies like CBS, law firms, and universities that keep infamously capitulating, like a bunch of weak ass bitches, to the Orange Cheeto and his wicked accomplices.

You have to nip this type of double standard, free speech suppression bullshit right in the bud, otherwise you end up like Iran or North Korea eventually. Fuck that.

Colbert doesn’t give a fuck he might get fired. He’s responsibly wielding his wealth, privilege, and public influence to do real meaningful good, all out loud with wit and humor. If push comes to shove, he’ll use his multi-million dollar fortune to take their asses to court and make an even bigger public spectacle. That’s a true grown ass adult, with a gigantic, and honorable figurative nutsack. Maybe a literal one too? Regardless, big respect, that’s all I’ve got to say. What a talent.

Just remember: not all heroes of freedom and democracy manifest in identical form, but this is undoubtedly one of them.

Fuck Brendan Carr. What an absolute shit human. Fuck the FCC. What a joke of an institution. Fuck their bullshit double standard on “cancel culture” when they can’t take criticism, or a fucking joke.

For a while there, I had been consistently listening to nonstop streaks of the New York Times' (NYT) Ezra Klein Show, American Public Media’s (APM) Marketplace with Kai Ryssdal, and most Immigration Answer Shows by Jim Hacking (I’m proudly very quirky and nerdy about my media consumption, I know).

Lately my listening has been more piecemealed in favor of audiobooks, or even individual articles. I realize I do read a ton, even if it’s by podcast, article or audiobook.

Since I posted about Mark Manson yesterday, I thought the following article was very on point on why I keep my news consumption to a minimum, and completely deleted social media. I also have the Meetup app, which helps connect me way better than any mainstream social media platform.

Great article: markmanson.net/why-you-s…

I don’t agree with Mark Manson on social media being not harmful, but his content on that was from the before times, so I’d be curious if he still thinks that today. If so, I would definitely disagree with him there. But Manson is a smart, well-spoken dude.

A few words on Ezra Klein. I found a recent episode that resonated with me, that had very minimal political content titled “Is Your Social Life Missing Something? This Is For You.” www.youtube.com/watch I really appreciated the emphasis on community and what’s gone wrong. the loneliness, the lack of community, especially for younger generations: it just can’t be overstated. It’s truly an unprecedented epidemic on this scale in recorded human history. I’m curious to explore the written content of that episode’s guest, Priya Parker.

I appreciate that the Klein’s episodes always end with guest providing 3 book recommendations. I fucking love it!

I will criticize Klein on one big thing though. He took a lot of heat last September when he said that Charlie Kirk was “practicing politics the right way” following his assassination. I maybe get the merit of what Klein was trying to say in an idealistic sense, but the truth is, Kirk was an awful, bigoted hate-mongering person that did great harm to the world. He did NOT practice politics the right way AT ALL. But I do respect that Klein had progressive black journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates on to discuss differences, and Coates was much more correct than Klein for this one. www.youtube.com/watch

If Kirk was an pre-Trump era, old school Republican, with whom I disagreed profoundly on economic policy, climate change, abortion, border security, guns, etc. as a hardcore progressive, then fair enough. You’re practicing politics the “right way” even I strongly disagree with your views. But when you start becoming a hateful, lying bigot towards oppressed groups of people, then absolutely not. I think this article by David Corn says it much better “his assassination deserves full condemnation; his full impact should not be sidestepped.": www.motherjones.com/politics/…

Similarly, there’s one insightful article from black author Shari Dunn I came across that’s worth sharing. While I disagree with her overarching discrediting of Klein’s intellect, as he think his analysis has legitimate depth, she makes really important points on Klein’s race-based oversights that many white liberals have. Well-stated, and worth a read. sharidunn.substack.com/p/the-pro…

I also started listening to Klein’s book “Abundance” which he co-authored with Derek Thompson. Only a couple of chapters in, but very insightful so far. Will give a more complete review once finished.

Photo credit: people often say Klein is very serious in his demeanor. But I’ve watched him enough to see him smile and laugh a few times. Found a moment less serious, pictured below.

In my experience, artificial intelligence is invariably an abysmal tool for generating responses that assess highly charged emotional topics.

In other words, therapists, like many professionals, are not losing their jobs anytime soon AT ALL to AI!

I’ve always liked the popular writer Mark Manson and his content. Many years ago, I read his bestselling book, “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck.” Great book recommendation, and I’m now intrigued to read his others. I was especially intrigued with his new AI tool, Purpose, to see if its Large Language Model (LLM) did a good job at analyzing a conflict I had via copy and paste that I had over text recently. (While I get the conventional wisdom in ideally solving conflict verbally, face-to-face, or over the phone, I think there are important exceptions to when solving conflict in writing like text or email is preferable, particularly if you’re on the receiving end of someone demonstrating problematic behaviors gaslighting, manipulation, and interrupting.)

Anyways, the Purpose AI app is wonderful in theory, and kudos to the idea, but it’s nowhere near where it needs to be at this time. I tried the 7 day free trial, but recently paid for a month at $19.99 to retry it, in order to juxtapose it with ChatGPT and Gemini. It does have other intriguing content besides chatbot stuff, so I may check out the non-chatbot stuff while I paid for this month.

While ChatGPT is notorious for just siding with whatever you say in your prompts, the Purpose App, at least from my experience, swung too far the other way. I wrote a statement which had healthy boundaries and solutions, and it misunderstood it for being controlling, in a way where an regular human, like Mark Manson, would have understood the context more accurately. Perhaps the experience would have gotten better with more personalization and back-and-forth, or for personal growth via a different context, but I cut my losses. I figured it’d be foolish to invest any more mental capital experimenting with dumb AI chatbots. Gemini was a bit more in the middle, between ChatGPT and Purpose, but way too “formal academia-sounding” in how it responded.

I find the ONLY helpful thing about AI, is to “brain dump” everything comes to your original thought and mind authentically, and have it polish your writing minimally, for certain criteria. Indeed, this is true even if your “stream of consciousness” is obnoxious, unproductive, hurtful, replete with typos, awkward sentence fluency and disorganization… it doesn’t matter. What matters is writing your original human-generated content by yourself, and only involving AI in maintaining your substance, while making minimal edits for what you seek (for me, it’s often so-called securely attached, nonviolent communication styles, firm and healthy boundaries, respect and empathy towards others and the self, cohesion, organization, omitting redundancies). AI algorithms should have common sense shit like this natively built in, but I always specify the above, or something to that effect, to get better generated responses.

What I strongly DON’T recommend is asking AI to generate original content for you, just like if you are a student writing a paper. Unless you want to read a funny poem about Oregon’s property tax system. Then, ask ChatGPT to write one, and you’ll get pretty hilarious iterations (that was also my first ever AI prompt, by the way, back in early AI days of 2023, I believe).

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what healthy boundaries look like. I’ve had this naive, people-pleaser misconception that “boundaries,” more often than not, are cold, selfish, and totally inconsiderate of the needs and feelings of others. But people who actually act THAT narcissistic, are just assholes. They’re also hypocrites, because in being so inconsierate of others, they are violating others' inherent boundaries of basic respect. When healthy boundaries, as opposed to toxic “boundaries,” are an underdeveloped skill, it’s easy to forget how important it is for reciprocity, in boundaries going BOTH ways.

Anyways, onto some good Mark Manson content on this topic: markmanson.net/boundarie…

10/10 would recommend. Check out the corollary articles too, such as on love and vulnerability: markmanson.net/love, markmanson.net/unconditi… and markmanson.net/vulnerabi… Good stuff!