March 5, 2026

Dear Persia: I am holding you in my heart.

Dear Persia-

Land of ancient beauty.

Cradle of civilization.

Dear place, of immense history and innumerable contributions to the legacy of human creativity.

Dear people, with so many brilliant hearts and minds, and so much tragedy and suffering.

This American never wanted my country to be part of your long agony.

I always hoped that your determination to define Persia's identity and destiny in your own terms would lead to another great flowering of culture and intellect and leadership in the world.

I still hope that.

And I am so, so, sorry that I can do so little to prevent those in power, here in America, from adding to your pain.

I will not stop trying.

And you will be in my heart always.

Doostet daram, khoda ba to bashad.

sadly,
Bright

February 15, 2026

Pragmatic Hopes

In my dreams, I am watching on a large-screen television, where a panel of grave-looking officials in formal business attire and eminent jurists in their robes of office are reading a long list of deeply serious crimes, pronouncing guilt, and passing sentences mostly in the 'many decades in a supermax Federal prison, no appeal and no parole for at least 25 years' range. Before them, sitting in a row, each with an alert Federal officer behind them, is a long array of criminals including [Redacted], Vance, Bondi, Lutnick, Musk, and a dozen other doyens of Project 2025 and architects of the devolution of the American Republic.

Sometimes the dream includes a pan across the new 13-member Supreme Court (one member for each Federal appellate circuit), highlighting the presence of Chief Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and a truly diverse array of other dedicated, qualified, experienced Justices.

Alas, these are but dreams. Beautiful, pleasant dreams, but I know they are as likely of achievement as my debut next year at the Metropolitan Opera in the role of Tosca.

The (not very) United States of America is a very complex political, social, and economic entity. Rarely, if ever, have we been able to achieve transformative change on a scale that would produce an immediate and lasting turnaround bringing to a decisive and complete end some situation of deep injustice and/or inequity.

I stand by this assertion. Do not bring up "the Civil War" until you have read the history of Reconstruction, Jim Crow and the KKK. Every momentary progressive triumph has been diluted in short order and then subject to piecemeal and often successful attempts to undo its progress via a corresponding backlash. The best we have EVER managed to achieve is along the lines of two steps forward to one step back.

But this is enough!

With this pragmatic reality in mind, what is the best I hope for America's future?

Realistically? The midterms place the House of Representatives in Democratic control, shaves Republican control of the Senate to a razor's margin (with at least one or two newly-minted 'moderates' scared witless by the narrowness of their victory,) tip the balance blue in some of the smaller 'purple' state administrations, and produce one "shock" flip in a previously-reliable red state.

What can we do with that?

Before you answer "stonewall the hell out of the [Redacted] administration and keep sending predictably popular, high-profile progressive legislation to die in the Senate and/or under the veto pen" consider this:

How did the GOP get where they are? Delivering real improvement to voters' lives, pocketbooks, futures? Oh, please...

They got where they are by 1) Becoming a wholly-owned subsidiary of the most extreme predator capitalist fortunes; 2) Selling their souls to anyone who will bankroll their election victories, including foreign authoritarians, stateless oligarchs and outright enemies of America; and 3) Using those resources to build, deploy, maintain, and constantly improve the most effective Disinformation Machine in history.

And THAT is what we are up against. This machine is already recalibrating its targeting mechanisms to undercut and undermine every Democratic victory in the midterms, and inject enough poison into the process to sabotage the 2028 general election to result in weak administration and deeply divided legislative branch. It doesn't matter to the Masters of the Machine which party holds which fragments of the once-powerful government. As long as the 'winners' can sabotage each other and prevent us from rolling back the orgy of deregulation and corruption that's left an unelected oligarchy in effective control, that's all they need.

What, then, do we do with two years of the lower house, a precarious and unreliable brake in the upper house, and a growing momentum of states opposing federal overreach?

I would hope the answer has two main elements: The first is to focus on undermining and countering the great Disinformation Machine. The second is to be strategic in taking small but significant steps to impede the attempt to vitiate the general election of 2028. So... don't expect a lot of highly-visible, substantial change during the two years.

If we can accomplish that, and get legislative and executive control in 2028, what then?

Above all, avoid wantonly provoking heavy ideological backlash that the Masters of the Machine will be ready to exploit to derail things in 2030. Instead, focus on an economic transformation by developing a massive increase in employment across all aspects of the spectrum but particularly un- and semi-skilled work and trades/construction/transit jobs. This can be accomplished with a 'moon shot' level of focus, spending, and investment into infrastructure.

And that's all I got, so far. But if we succeed in that - pulling the fangs of the Disinformation Machine (and it won't be easy, because we actually DO believe in the First Amendment!) and pushing to completion a thirty-year plan to completely rebuild the utilities, communication, transit, supply line, housing, and, ultimately (gasp!) financial infrastructure, we may be able to maintain enough control to quietly clean up the worst of the authoritarian damage and take down the oligarchich stranglehold without major civil violence.

If we're lucky, determined, and persistent.

But I think it's do-able.

speculatively,
Bright

January 24, 2026

Some of us have been here before. And our memories remain vivid.

Here is what happens in America when you start killing people who are standing up for peace, justice, and the Constitution:

MORE PEOPLE come into the streets, with more candles, more signs, more noisemakers, more determination, and more willingness to pay the ultimate price, to preserve the freedoms of their neighbors, their community, their families and their children/grandchildren.

Too many of these fools were not around for Kent State.

We have officially arrived at "blood in the gutters"... from here, there is no going back. The available directions are limited, and they have chosen the direction that leads to "yet more blood in the gutters."

This will not end well for them.

prognosticatorially,
Bright

January 15, 2026

Dear Greenland... Think about this, okay?

Yes, given a choice between dealing with a central government in Copenhagen and a central government in Washington, DC, I'm totally with you - even the Danish royal family is a better option than the open sewer on the Potomac.

BUT...

Think about this:

What if you could negotiate statehood?

FULL statehood.

Okay, granted, one measly Congresscritter wouldn't tip the balance much.

Nor are the Federal handouts what they used to be.

But there are two things it might be worth thinking about:

First: Your own state Constitution, defining your own state government, laws, administration, etc. The only constraints on State constitutions are that nothing in them must be contrary to what is in the U.S. Constitution - so, no, you can't restrict speech, enter into separate treaties with other nations, impose import duties, stuff like that. But read it in detail. Check out Article IV, about "Full Faith and Credit", and another favorite, the 10th Amendment - whatever the Constitution is silent on (and it's silent about a LOT) is all yours to decide, make laws about, etc. So, that might not be so bad, especially if you arrive at the negotiating table with a draft State Constitution in your back pockets.

Second: If you're a U.S. State, you get TWO (2), count 'em, TWO Senators to represent you in the U.S. Senate, which is currently so deadlocked that your new Senators could pretty well own the joint with their votes. This, will, I guarantee, make the entire Republican Party of the United States of America publicly crap their pants and run crying for their mommies at the thought of a State with 89% Inuit population having that much say in anything about the U.S. of A.

So, anyway... just putting this out there.

I totally get your not wanting anything to do with us. I wouldn't either. (I'm kinda hoping [Redacted] will repudiate the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, actually...) But it's a thing to think about, eh?

slyly,
Bright

(P.S. DUers in case you can't tell, this post is IRONY, not a serious suggestion. Sheeesh...)

January 10, 2026

She had to die, because she showed no fear.

The body cam footage shows Renee Good smiling and talking cheerfully to the pathetic loser who murdered her in the instants before his rage boiled over and he shot her in the face.

That is likely why he felt he NEEDED to kill her: She was not afraid of his macho official skeeriness.

Heavily armed pathetic losers are always terrified that others will see through the skeery appearance they assume to the sad little insecure loser underneath. They want everyone to cower before their heavily armed intimidation.

If you don't, well...

...they're heavily armed, and you just terrified them.

What do you think is going to happen?

So... yeah, she EARNED being killed. It was her fault for not cowering in terror of the Big Skeery Thug who couldn't bear anyone to know he's basically a pathetic loser.

disgustedly,
Bright

January 9, 2026

Heavily armed pathetic losers are the most dangrous thing in our world.

And to be clear, "heavily armed" refers not just to weapons, but to money, influence, and political power.

They are the most dangerous because they believe the only way to convince others (and thus themselves) that they are not pathetic losers, is to do maximum harm to those who remind them (by NOT being pathetic losers) that they are, in fact, pathetic losers.

Now, all of us are, at one time or another, pathetic losers - being human exposes us to all kinds of challenges, risks, and experiences, and it is inevitable that in some cases we will lose, and likely feel pretty pathetic about it for some period of time. This is a normal part of the human condition.

But people who are not, fundamentally and intrinsically, convinced that they are ALWAYS pathetic losers, address these experiences in various ways - learning new skills, for instance. In some cases it's becoming more mature and self-aware. In some cases, it is even demonstrating an understanding of what actually does convince other people you're not a pathetic loser - which is, to be kind, and do kindnesses even when you feel bad yourself.

But the ones who are deeply and irrevocably convinced that others see them as pathetic losers, and who are so overcome with their own rage and inadequacy that the only response that makes them feel, briefly, like not-losers is to do maximum harm to others...

...those are the ones you need keep away from weapons, money, influence, and political power. We used to do this by applying strong cultural sanctions of acknowledging that behavior focusing entirely on harming others to inflate one's own self-esteem was indeed the mark of a pathetic loser. Knowing that provided some incentive for pathetic losers to overcome the tendency or at least to indulge in their repulsive behavior in relatively private ways like family violence and cruelty to animals.

But apparently we have removed that cultural sanction, and the nation's Strategic Reserve of Pathetic Losers has been loaded for bear. And now, everyone who is not a pathetic loser is at risk of being kidnapped, renditioned, beaten, tortured, and/or killed, by pathetic losers, with impunity.

I have no idea how to undo this.

sadly,
Bright

January 3, 2026

Wow. There must be something TOTALLY, UNEQUIVOCALLY DAMNING in those Epstein files...

Plus, someone check the online gambling sites... who had big-money bets on "Maduro ousted January 3rd?"

That is all.

disgustedly,
Bright

December 31, 2025

Trudging out of 2025...

Humans do this weird thing of finding or (in the apparent absence of any to find) making patterns in just about everything. We seem evolutionarily programmed to perceive patterns, to help us survive, to solve problems, and maybe most of all to relieve anxiety in a scary and getting scarier world.

The existence of time (duration) isn't in serious doubt but there's an awful lot we don't know about it. We've been imposing patterns on time since our ancestors noticed the cycle of stellar change above us. Some made pretty good sense - identifying a cycle of seasonal patterns based (although we didn't know it initially) on the orbital cycle of our planet around our sun allowed the development of agricuture, yay for the survival of humankind.

The planet we live on orbits the star that (captured it?/threw it off?) so far back our hominid brains can't seriously grasp it. The planet we live on spins, producing dark/light cycles we call 'days'. Certain materials release subatomic particles in a decay process at various rates. Humans can measure those things and map the patterns we impose on duration to their processes.

Universe, however, doesn't actually give a shit what we call our time-patterns, how we organize them, or what we think they're useful for. Our attempts to use phenomena we observe at some point in duration, to predict anything other than the particular process of the specific observed phenomenon are particularly laughable. ("Comet portends wrathful visitation of Invisible Asshole Beings!" is an old favorite.)

Objectively, the only difference between the day we call "December 31st" and the day we call "January 1st" is a matter of a few minutes' change in light/dark duration depending on which hemisphere the observer looks from. The fact that we increase an essentially random number by one as our pathetically imprecise 24-hour clocks tick from 12:00:00 to 12:00:01 (or is it from 11:59:59 to 12:00:00? There's still a debate about that...) means nothing of significance to Universe.

We have, at various times, mapped the single-integer increase of various ongoing counts of planetary orbit cycles at other times in the cycle, for reasons that ranged from functional ( "We can pretty much start planting when the duration of light exceeds that of darkness in a day cycle, let's call it a new 'year' then." ) to egotistical ( "Big Kahuna took over telling everyone what to do and looting from our collective wealth creation on THIS day, let's date our 'years' from this day to keep Big Kahuna happy." ) Not to mention the many attempts to perceive and impose super-cycles on duration based on astronomical observations and calculations ( "Our Smart Peeps say THIS is the day the next cycle of the Really Signficant Star Movements happens so that'll be the new 'year'." )

Birds gonna migrate based on what they perceive. Bears gonna wake up, sniff around and decide whether to go back to sleep or start foraging based on what they perceive. Snowdrops gonna start pushing a flowerscape through incredibly hard frozen ground based on the information stored in their DNA. None of them give a shit about our calendars. Punxsatawney Phil is just another human nod to the reality that all our duration-slicing and pattern-finding is, objectively, unreliable as hell for any actual predictive purpose.

So here we are on another December 31st, about to advance our particular random four-digit year number by another single integer.

Objectively, big whoop. However, being a human being who functions better using patterns to organize how I think about duration and its implications, this is traditionall a time to think about how I would like to function differently in future duration than I have been able to function in past duration.

Strictly speaking, I know perfectly well that "now" - the bit of duration I am actually experiencing - is the only place I can really make any difference. But it could be helpful to reflect on any patterns I can perceive in my responses to events that remain in memory storage of 'past' duration, and think about any ways I could potentially make choices that offer some likelihood of improving how I experience the uncertain 'future' duration. If only it were as easy as modfying a few lines of code...

But here goes, anyway:

I want to be quicker to recognize the bitchy voice of my jerkbrain inside my head and firmer in shutting it down when it tells me how unworthy, inadequate, weak, selfish, undisciplined, heedless or unrealistic I am being.

I want to apply more of my creativity to accepting and finding ways to optimize changes I can't control. (The older I get, the more important this one seems. You kids will find out.)

I want to take more risks in experimenting with self-change, and be willing to step out of my comfort zone more often.

I want to learn more about things and people I don't understand, and more about events and ideas that make me uncomfortable.

I want to be willing to re-evaluate past decisions that may have been made with too little information.

I want to learn more about the kind of love I think of as 'divine' - that is, not ego-based, transactional human attachments, but the perception, appreciation, and connection to the ineffable embodiment of life and its potential here and now.

I'm going to stop there. If I can manage even one of those things as I continue accumulating duration, it will be a worthy gift back to the source of all life.

The duration of individual experience is limited, often shockingly, usually unexpectedly so. I suppose we need that mistaken sense of permanence to allow ourselves to function in the uncertainty of duration, but it does sometimes blind us to the value of the only experience we really have - this time, this place, these beings.

For me, that would be today, here on DU, with all of you. Thank you for sharing duration, place, and existence! Words are wholly inadequate to express perceptions and feelings, but they're all I got.

Love ya, DU community.

pedantically,
Bright

November 20, 2025

Two difficult things covered (so far) in Ken Burns' "American Revolution"

I get tired of Ken Burns' mannerisms and tropes and then he dazzles me again with a new docuseries. In this case, "American Revolution". I haven't finished it yet but am looking forward to it.

To be fair to my history minor and subsequent history reading, nothing so far as been entirely "new". But it has been easy to 'read past' some things, without seriously contemplating them and fitting them into the larger historical context, and considering their lasting implications. So far, Burns has done an excellent job of covering two of those things:

First, the extent to which the desire of the more powerful and wealthy colonist entrepreneurs to grab and exploit lands belonging to Indigenous nations figured into the train of events severing them psychologically from England and its rule. The way it played out made me think of some of the things today's oligarchs use to rouse the rabble and consolidate their power. As new land-hungry colonists arrived, it was easy for the propagandists of the time to stir up discontent with England's policy of "hands off" lands on the other side of the Appalachians.

England wasn't doing this 'to be nice to the natives'. They sought control over a fast-growing and diversifying colonial population, and to do that with limited military and civil authority resources, they needed to control the size of the colonist-occupied territories. The politics between the many remaining intact Indigenous nations, England, the other European powers, and the various colonies, were far more complex than I knew.

And that led to the more powerful and influential among the colonial leaders and propagandists making the most of England's other attempts to control and/or generate sufficient revenue from the colonies to support the costs of their colonial in-place military and bureaucratic infrastructure. Which, when examined objectively, were not unreasonable goals, but Lordy did the Brits ham-handedly find their way to every worst-choice scenario they could in trying to implement such things. This contributed to the long, dark root of America's "You're not the boss of me!" strain of libertarian psychosis.

The second thing, and it's odd how diametrically and conceptually opposite it is to that first thing, was the nature and ubiquity of the "Committees of Correspondence/Inspection/Safety" as things edged closer to the flashpoint. They were essentially vigilante groups enforcing approved anti-British, pro-Revolutionary rules.

The Commitees' self-appointed jurisdiction applied to almost all aspects of people's lives - whether or not they supported aid to Boston, whether they spoke kindly of English authority or insultingly of Colonial leaders and their actions, what pamphlets they read (or just had in their homes) what they ate or drank (NO boycotted English products or even local products that might resemble "British" wares), who they did business with. And whether, when publicly hauled before a forum of their neighbors, they spoke correctly about their views and agreed vigorously enough with the approved doctrines or apologized abjectly enough for some infraction.

Which sounds very Cultural Revolution, to me. Very authoritarian, even. God help the uncommitted individual going about their business and making a spot of mild tut-tuttery about the mobs forming around the taverns to revel in, shout agreement with, and get increasingly rowdy in response to fiery speeches. What must it have been like for them? While they may have been in a minority, the choice given them between fear-based compliance, and going over to the Loyalists entirely must have been a painful one.

They weren't really nice people, most of those Founding Fathers. They kept slaves, they believed in liberty for white male property owners, and what they REALLY wanted was freedom from any restraint on land-grabbing, commercial exploitation, and building their own wealth no matter the potential damage to anyone else.

And yet, they managed to define a framework for self-governance and a set of ideals for its purpose that changed everything. They set the course for a long, difficult effort to bring about a system that increasingly allowed more and more previously disenfranchised people into the big tent of self governance, checks and balances, equality under the law, and power sharing.

I sometimes wonder whether, if we could wake all those Founders up today, how many of them would find themselves cozy quarters at the Heritage Foundation and in the new White House Ballroom with the other oligarchs, and how many of them would be hollering their lungs out at the next No Kings march.

musingly,
Bright

November 5, 2025

Make no mistake: [Redacted] was on EVERY BALLOT

This is ALWAYS the case in the first election after a general election - it's a referendum on the ticket-header from the winning party of the general election. Forever and ever, AMEN.

So when [Redacted] whines that the GOP's resounding defeat happened because "he wasn't on the ballot" the bullshittery is beyond transparent denialism.

It can't even be gaslit, at this level. EVERYONE knows he was on every ballot.

And EVERYONE knows that voters turned out in record numbers to asskick fascism, and specifically, the incompetent Fascist-in-Chief.

Every ballot cast was a big, loud, "Fuck ALL THE WAY OFF" to [Redacted].

It drew blood.

And he WILL retaliate.

prognosticatorially,
Bright