From Grumpy's Garage

Sunrise over Lake Union, near the Google Seattle office (This is the third in a series of essays that I wrote in early 2024 in response to writing prompts from  Storyworth . This essay has been edited from its original.  More information ) I love early morning walks. Let me get ready for a busy day. When I worked at Google in Seattle, sunrises over Lake Union always gave me joy. Or, if I’m visiting family in Maine, I’ll marvel at a sunset over Flanders Bay. Those are magical times. Sometimes I like to just sit near the water’s edge and watch wavelets lap the shoreline. Or ships pass by, if there are any. On one of our several visits to Port Townsend, Stephanie and I found a wine bar with outdoor seating overlooking the anchorage. We captured the moment. It speaks to the simple joy of the moment. Being with my soul mate. Watching boats at anchor. Sipping wine. Port Townsend Bay I enjoy hearing my own thoughts. It seems that many people can’t just be with themselves in silence. ...

Image: Google Gemini (This is the second in a series of essays that I wrote in early 2024 in response to writing prompts from  Storyworth .  More information ) I knew my maternal grandparents (Gowie and Grampa) better than I did my dad’s parents (Grandpa and Grandma Haney).  Grandpa Haney died of a heart attack when I was maybe five or six years old. My only memories of him are of his thumb. I could push on the face of his thumb and make an indentation, like it was Playdoh. I also remember seeing him wearing a carpenter’s belt, he was at church working in a project with other men there (Pilgrim Temple, Oakland, California). All of my other memories of Grandpa Haney were from photographs around Grandma Haney’s house, most taken on their missionary trips to Liberia, where my father was born. Grandma Haney was rather reserved. I’d even go so far as to say she was a little uptight. She had silver hair and a well-kept home in Oakland.  I recall that she had a contraption ...

Mr. Moneybags in politics Image: Google Gemini What is more democratic: letting people choose their leaders or forcing people to obey corporate executives? Would a "Democratic Party" candidate that has close ties to corporate power appeal to voters as an alternative to a supposed billionaire? In Naomi Klein's book,  No Is Not Enough , she posits that one reason Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election was because she has too many ties to corporate interests and old school power structures. Put another way, Clinton wasn't progressive enough. Klein is an author, journalist, filmmaker, and activist focusing on ecofeminism, organized labor, and corporate power [1] . I've been reading No Is Not Enough to help me understand how we got into our current political crisis and how we might extricate ourselves. The Progressive Guard: Sanders and Warren Klein contrasts Clinton's campaign with that of Bernie Sanders, the senator from Vermont and self-described progressive Dem...

Image: Google Gemini (This is the first in a series of essays that I wrote in early 2024 in response to writing prompts from Storyworth . More information ) I often don’t tolerate advertisements, whether they are on websites that I visit, videos that I watch, or commercial “yard” signs by the side of the road (on public property, I might add). If I’m in the market for something, I’ll search for it online, thank you. My web browser is armed with ad blockers (that I still must disable to get to some websites). That’s an eternal game of Whack-A-Mole. I pay extra to avoid ads on Netflix. (Amazon has just announced that they are going to start showing ads on Prime Video. I don’t watch Prime Video often enough yet to pay the extra $2.99 per month.) I’ve heard that some people get YouTube pop-up nag messages complaining about ad blockers. I say my first one this week. I often look for ad blockers that content sites cannot detect. Yet. In the last week, I’ve installed Pi Hole, a program runnin...

Every now and then I hear a Trump supporter explain why they voted for him: "Because he'll bring market discipline to running the government. He'll run it like a business." But is that really what we want? What would that look like?  Are we seeing that now (April, 2025)? What Trump, Musk, and DOGE Have Done So Far President Trump, "Prime Minister" Musk, and DOGE have:  Identified various divisions (bureaus, agencies, and departments) that they want to eliminate, such as USAID Begun massive layoffs of workers in those divisions Begun massive layoffs even of divisions they intend to keep Started consolidating functions of divisions they want to close with divisions they want to keep Started closing field offices and consolidating functions in larger regional offices Canceled leases and identified properties to later sell off Canceled labor union contracts, including for TSA Canceled contracts and programs that would provide "non-essential" services, ...

Designed by Wannapik Back in December, 2023, my eldest daughter bought me a subscription for my birthday. Storyworth would send me a writing prompt each week for all of 2024. The prompts were always framed as a question, and I was invited to login and write a short essay to answer it. At first, I was intrigued. My kids and grandkids might learn a bit more about who I really was.  While the prompts often seemed trivial, I often found it challenging to write a good answer. The first prompt was, "What are some of your biggest pet peeves?" I know that I have pet peeves. Lots of them. And anyone who spends much time with me quickly learns what they are. But sitting down and simply listing them is kinda hard. For starters, I had to look at my personality and habits from an external perspective. I had to put myself in the shoes of people around me. That requires a certain level of self-awareness that I don't often practice. As I identified some of my pet peeves, I found myself ...

Image: Leonardo.ai Whenever I hear that the Christian right supports Donald Trump, I cringe. Jesus didn't teach what Trump is preaching to the world. Even when he doesn't say anything, Trump's actions speak volumes about his worldview. Jesus called his followers to be humble, forgiving, generous, and loving to one another. He didn't call for followers to spend their time and energy preparing for life after death. Focus on the here and now, not the hereafter. It was about living what you believe by serving others. I especially appreciated how this was captured at the church I attended before COVID. Their motto: "Life is a gift, and love is the point." That pretty much summarizes what Jesus was getting at. Here are a few of Jesus' teachings from the Gospel of Matthew (with one deviation into the Old Testament Book of Leviticus). Compare them with how Trump manifests these Christian values: Turn the other cheek "But I tell you, do not resist an evil pers...

Robert E. Lee statue on a pedestel. Image: Public Domain I've just finished reading Chapter 5 of Naomi Klein's book, No is Not Enough . In that chapter, she outlines how Donald Trump leverages social divides in his predominantly white, sexist, bigoted voter base and the "others," those groups who have historically enjoyed less privilege. Klein, writing in 2017 about the rise of the MAGA movement in America, tries to paint a picture of why Hillary Clinton failed to win the 2016 presidential election. Clinton leaned into identity politics, explicitly calling out women, Black and Brown minorities, LGBTQ voters, and others who have been marginalized by the white majority. In doing so, according to Klein, Clinton alienated white, Christian voters who then cast their votes for Trump. But that's not what I found most impactful. At one point, Klein wrote something that struck me hard. In a section titled  "Racial Capitalism" , she describes how America's cap...

Image: Created by Google Gemini AI As I watch the news, I can't help but be overwhelmed by the leadership counterexample that Donald Trump is presenting to the world. He does not seem to be consulting with people around him. He does not seem to be taking the impact of his actions on other people into account. He certainly is not delegating power to others. (Exercising power is not an inherent attribute of leadership. Quite the opposite: exercising power is usually a sign of the absence of leadership.) Trump's actions as the "Leader of the Free World" are comical. When asked about the impacts of his recent tariffs on imported automobiles, he is quoted as saying, "I don't care if they increase prices on imported cars." No recognition of how this will likely result in somewhat higher prices for domestically manufactured cars. No acknowledgement that this will be a shock to the entire automobile market. No apparent realization that this will impact the lives...

Protestors rally in front of the Capitol in DC. Ted Eytan. CC BY-SA 4.0 I don't think I've ever called my U.S. Representative before. Well, today, after seeing Cory Booker complete 25 hours and 4 minutes in a speech on the Senate floor, I felt I had to do something , no matter how ineffectual it might feel at the moment. So I followed a link to 5calls.org , chose a topic (firing federal workers willy-nilly), and called Rep. Susan DelBene's office in Washington, DC. I didn't follow the 5calls script precisely. I identified myself and where I lived, then shared my personal experience as a federal employee in DoD, and that I had felt like I was doing something worthwhile for my country. I asked that DelBene do something to rein in Trump, Musk, and DOGE. The staffer asked me to provide a few more personal details (name and email address -- which means I'm on her mailing list now), then we ended the call. So I got my name on a list of potential campaign donors for the 2...

 I've started reading Naomi Klein's book,  No Is Not Enough . After an introductory chapter in which she gives an overview of how Trump is (in 2017) shocking the political landscape in the U.S. (and, she forecasts, will continue to do so), she points out that Donald J. Trump is a well-crafted "Superbrand," a type of phenomenon that emerged from the rise of business mega-branding in the 1980s. To understand Trump and his strategies, Klein says that one must understand how Trump leverages the psychology of modern commercial branding to influence large populations. Mega-branding gets people to attach their sense of personal identity to the brand. The human psyche has a fundamental need to connect with others, to belong to tribes. Corporate brands seek to create a tribe for their followers to join. It's brand loyalty on steroids. That is the premise of Chapter 1, How Trump Won by Becoming the Ultimate Brand. She starts with the history of how, in the 1980s, corporatio...