The writing prompt this morning got me thinking about the idealism often involved in standing up to large corporations with their lawyers in tow, who come into a community, wanting to buy property on which to place some sort of structure(s) that may or may not provide the promised economic stimulus, or long-term employment opportunities, or increased tax base.

It’s one thing to oppose such a proposal based on perceived, perhaps justified suspicion of large corporate entities, or possible damage to wetlands or other environmentally sensitive areas, or the less quantitative defense of “quality of life” issues that may arise.

But it’s another thing to oppose something simply because change is hard and we prefer things the way they are and have always been.

Data centers are at the fore in this neck of the woods right now. I’ve read my share of op-ed articles and news reports, and I’m of the mind that opposition to such huge projects, while based on the potential for undesirable outcomes, may also be short-sighted, given that the main reasons for such data-driven expansion are because of the billions of us who upload or watch videos on YouTube or hold Zoom meetings or depend on TikTok as an income stream or store our billions of photos in “the cloud” which is not a cloud at all but myriad computers tucked away in one of these demonized data centers across the country and around the world.

In short, no small reason for this expansion of data capabilities is… us.

While it is appropriate to maintain a certain amount of skepticism regarding the potential for abuse and misuse– i.e. surveillance and data collection, nefarious AI manipulation, etc., Big Brother stuff– the main driver appears to be our own demand.

In a conversation I had with Chat GPT, which I find a bit ironic to admit, I learned that modern society has shifted from being electricity-intensive in the industrial age to electricity and computation-intensive now.

So, it appears we may have a choice to make– swallow hard and back away from our on-demand lives, or scrupulously and persistently hold Amazon and the rest to account after they knock on our doors looking for acreage and dangling “life-changing” million$ to build giant buildings full of the technology that supports our online habits.

Hantavirus and now… Ebola.

Human life is constantly under assault, for one reason or another. But what turns the knife, what should get way under our collective skin—since we now know that the latest Ebola outbreak went undetected for a while—is the knowledge that our very own President and the rotten crew of misfits whispering in his ear have defunded, compromised, and in some ways eviscerated the CDC and the WHO—two organizations which, prior to this nightmare of an administration, were watchdogs on the forefront of vigilance and research and vaccine development.

How on earth could anyone think that hobbling these essential players was a good idea? It is beyond mind-boggling. It is hateful, extremely short-sighted and ill-advised.

And intentional? Please tell me that’s not true. We’re flying blind intentionally?!

See you at The Hague, Donald.

I wish.

Politically speaking, one of the reasons for things appearing so intractable is due to truth becoming a moving target. Trump and the rest of the hangers-on have only to forcefully and repeatedly offer an opinion based on alternate facts or pure conjecture and falsehoods, and enough people seem OK with that.

It’s what allows Trump to say, among many other things, that the angry mob scene at the capitol on January 6 was actually a love fest. This mindset allows Republicans to counter just about any claim or statement. When everything is relative, there is little to hang one’s hat on, little to hold onto, no pillars, no universal beacons of truth. Advantage: Heritage Foundation, etc.

You are what you eat, so to speak, and many a diet is full of empty calories anymore.

Words. Language. Tonal, audible, recognizable utterances. The interaction of visible, audible stimuli and the brain, of memory and cognition. A means by which we get to convey information and emotion, or the lack thereof.

Language development and acquisition has fascinated me since the grandchildren came along. I’m sure I paid attention to this with our own children, but maybe I just have more time to sit and listen and absorb now.

Our youngest grandchild is providing a storehouse of great moments, since she has progressed from the primal utterances of infancy—crying and cooing and such—to learning words and having these humorous and revealing streams of consciousness where one can tell she’s making an attempt at reporting and trying to get answers and make sense of things, while still having some blanks to fill in.

It’s a marvel to watch—this journey from a certain isolation to being able to express oneself, to interact and be more fully heard. And seen.

I apologize for lingering over this, but it is ever-present in my field of view, and it’s growing increasingly infuriating and unacceptable. I feel like I need to write until I stumble onto the exact proper turns of phrase, somehow capturing the essence of my anger and dis-ease.

In simple words, It’s Donald Trump. In addition, it’s the apparent willingness of most Republican members of Congress to back him up, to go along with his insidious emptiness and have the temerity to double down on embracing the mob boss chic.

It has been difficult to shake the feeling that Mike Johnson and the rest are morphing into biblically illiterate zombies, on some sort of mission to remake America into a place where no sane person would want to live: an isolated dystopia, an ecological disaster, a bleak, miserable landscape characterized by poverty and prejudice and negligence, ruled by a handful of owned, misguided fish out of water and an angry, judgmental God.

How hateful and un-American are they willing to get? We appear to be on the road to find out.

Who the hell can be excited about celebrating our 250^th birthday? What is there to get excited about, right now? What are we celebrating? Will we be told what we should be celebrating?

Who, and what, are we?!