Not surprising of course, but Twitter had another major outage yesterday followed by Elon tweeting
“Ugh. The System is so fragile. The whole thing needs to be redesigned from the bottom up.”
Who pray tell, will be doing the redesigning since what’s left of your staff is repairing leaks in your sinking ship?
Gosh, the system is fragile? No shit, Sherlock
We humans have a tendency to believe if we exit our hard earned leadership positions that the world will fall apart yet nothing could be further from the truth.
On the work front, having been retired for almost a year I can assure you the positions I have left behind are in good hands. On the political front it’s just time to pass the baton to the younger generation and get out of the way. This applies to all political persuasions.
There are two main reasons that are driving this post. The first is, I have closely observed what kids today have to offer on a technical level and I couldn’t be more impressed. There is no shortage of talent and enthusiasm out there that should be tapped into, if only my generation would step aside. At Xerox I spent some on College Campuses recruiting grands and getting to learn about their projects and internships. The resumes are extremely impressive. Below the college level, kids as young as 9 are pumping out code on complex game projects and robotics, competing with peers using technologies we only dreamt of as kids. I have no worries that the kids can step up if they want to. The talent is there.
The second reason has more to do with politics. There’s never been a more convincing case for term limits than the current House, Senate, and Presidential leadership. I realize that at the core of governing this country with its constitution is by design a very slow change management system. That was put in as a feature, not a bug. The reason for mandatory turnover in politics isn’t complicated. New blood can cut old ties to lobby interests. The biggest reason of all though is my generation has had control of the wheel for much too long. It’s time to pass the baton to the people who will have to live in this world 40 years from now. They should be the ones having the conversation about Supreme Court justices, climate change, gun control, the national debt, and human rights… and from leadership positions.
Poor Mike Lee looked absolutely incredulous at last night’s State of the Union message after Biden called out the ultra conservative Tea Party group headed by Rick Scott for having formally proposed phasing out Social Security. He has this look of “what the heck could you possibly be talking about?” on him. He may have gotten away with it except Meidas Touch was clever enough to embed side-by-side videos of Lee looking stunned by the news at the SOTU and in the next panel, talking to a small group about his plans to phase out Social Security. Republicans sure like to fly under the radar with their secret plans when they can.
Bummer, Mike.
Republicans will need to spare me the faux outrage of the Chinese weather balloon incident. It’s been quite entertaining to watch the pundits on the right second guessing Biden’s decision making process as if it were the second coming of Benghazi. Oh wait, that was a nothing burger too.
Up until the acquisition of Twitter, Elon Musk was seen as this sort of eccentric guy, a little on the weird side but nonetheless a highly successful business mogul. He had to be. How else to you get to hold the title of the world’s richest man? With the Twitter purchase though, it turns out maybe the emperor has no clothes, or perhaps just enough clothes to make you want to get the guy some sunblock.
I applauded the powers that be at Twitter after the decision was made to ban Trump after the Jan. 6th insurrection. People died as a result of his recklessness. It was the right thing to do and it didn’t matter if you were an ex-president or not.
Like many others I had concerns about the buyout of Twitter by Elon. His motives seemed suspect. He claimed twitter interfered with free speech and promised to bring back open dialog. I decided to stick around and see how things unfolded. It didn’t take long at all to unmask the real Elon. He just can’t help himself. He overestimates his sense of humor and his intelligence.
The first thing I noticed was that he seemed to be running his newly acquired $44B business from tweets in full public view. It started with some push-back from Stephen King who complained about the $20 fee for being a blue-check. Keep in mind that even at $20 for every blue-check, Twitter’s revenue shortfall would be far from resolved. That’s why I was surprised when Musk replied back to King with “How about $8?” Say what? You just dropped your price by over 50% in about 2 seconds without giving it any thought. It was one of the most puzzling and impulsive things I’ve ever seen by a company leader, in real-time no less. My thoughts were wow, this is weird. I better stick around, this could be entertaining.
The next rather odd thing Elon did was retweet a conspiracy theory about Paul Pelosi (82) who had been attacked in his own home by an intruder with a hammer. For some reason Elon thought it would be wise or funny or ? to propagate the lie that Mr. Pelosi’s attacker might well have been his gay lover trying to get out of the house instead of in. It was neither wise nor funny. It was careless and sick. By this time I’m getting the sense that Mr. Musk is not only impulsive but possibly a bully and immature.
The next several days we were witness to Musk getting absolutely roasted over the coals by the vast majority of users on his own platform that he just paid $44B for (well, maybe $22B of his money and $22B from the Saudis). It turns out some of his advertisers were not amused by the Paul Pelosi retweet and decided to leave. I was definitely sticking around for this. Logging in to scan the feed for the barrage of insults as the wheels were falling off added high amusement factor to my day. One can imagine if this scenario happens to any other company they are going to step back, re-evaluate the events of the day and try to lure those advertisers back. Nope, not Elon. Someone tweeted that Elon should retaliate by organizing Twitter users to boycott the advertisers for leaving. In his infinite wisdom Musk opines in a tweet that he will go “thermo-nuclear” on the advertisers for causing him loss of revenue. Really? I’m starting to think this guy doesn’t really know that much about business or is just plain dumb.
Now faced with a significant drop in advertising dollars, Musk launches in to the next project on his agenda: Fire 1/2 the employees. In 42 years in the corporate workforce I had never heard of a company axing 50% of its payroll in one knee-jerk event. That’s a real risky number to just pick out of the air. Clearly Elon is a risk taker in a big way. One thing Elon didn’t consider is that by pissing off half his workforce by unceremoniously firing them on short notice, they might not all go quietly. Witness the new nickname he got assigned by his ex-employees the day after they were given the heave-ho: Space Karen. It wouldn’t surprise me if a fair amount of Twitter source code now lives in a private Github repo. I was waffling between him being bad at business or just plain dumb and now I’m leaning more towards dumb.
Elon, unable to sense any consequences from his actions so far, then doubles down on his emperor status and starts dictating terms of employment for the remaining employees. These include a 12×7 work schedule, no more work from home and oh, pledging allegiance to Elon The Great. As it turns out, a goodly portion of the remaining employees told Musk to pound sand and went their merry way. Now he’s down to bare bones.
Having fired most of his content moderation employees, Musk is now at risk of his platform spewing hate speech to the point of getting kicked out of the Apple store, which would be the final blow for Twitter.
The internal conflagration has been very enjoyable thus far, but I felt I’ve seen about enough. Elon as a person is no longer a mystery. He’s an impulsive, arrogant, mean spirited, risk taking fool. That’s why when he announced he intended to re-instate the account of Donald Trump I deactivated my account. No need to stick around for the rest of this clown show. I can read the highlights on my next platform. Maybe Mastodon, Tribe Social or Post. Something will work out. At this point it’s just embarrassing. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.
Most pundits predicted a pretty good shellacking of Democrats in the midterm but that never materialized. The Dems held the Senate and lost only a few seats in the house. At present we see a lot of finger pointing going on within the Republican Party. Was it Trump? McConnell? Rick Scott? The Hobbs decision?
The way I see it, there were 4 main reasons. 1) Trump as kingmaker picked some terrible candidates. 2) Women broke hard for Democrats because of the Dobbs decision. 3) Gen Z turned out in big numbers which coincided with the 65+ crowd having fewer people on the voting rolls. 4) People rejected mean.
We don’t have to spend any time on the lack of candidate quality for Republican Senate races. Oz and Walker are bottom of the barrel, end of story. The Dobbs decision is a classic case of “careful what you wish for.” After 50 years of trying, republicans finally overturned Roe v. Wade at a time when 70% of the country supported abortion with some restrictions. Republicans underestimated the fallout from the Dobbs decision big time.
Gen Z turned out in big numbers and broke for Democrats 70-30. Of all the issues republicans need to deal with in their post-mortem this one has to be the most concerning. It’s not going to get any better in 2024, in fact it’ll get worse for them.
Lastly, voters rejected mean. Marjorie Taylor Green and Kari Lake and many of the election denier crowd came off as just plain mean. Nasty, nasty politics in an effort to be even more Trumpier than Trump himself. Bombastic behavior played well to the crowds in 2016, but after 6 years people are tired of it and have had enough.
You know how it is when you’ve worked really hard to achieve something and then you feel this immense sense of accomplishment that you’ve reached the finish line? Yeah, that wasn’t my high school experience.
I literally skated for 4 years wondering what the big deal was with this place. We aren’t doing anything that challenges me in a way that makes me feel like I’ve accomplished anything. This isn’t a huge surprise since I subscribed to a strategy of taking the easiest classes available and being satisfied with a GPA that was anything north of 3.0. I was able to do that pretty much in my sleep.
Not every class was a cakewalk for me. I’m not trying to say I was too smart for the place, far from it. I don’t know what my ranking number was at the end of senior year but it couldn’t have been very high with a 3.1
That was by design though. I went in with a goal to get a 3.1 which was just high enough to keep the parental alligators at bay and also good enough to get into the JC I aspired to go to next. Mission accomplished with very little effort. I always felt like committing to a 4 year school and getting ready for SATs was just too much. After all, I really just wanted a living wage job and to go to work, come home and be able to do the things that I like to do. I never dreamed of being rich or a doctor or anything that ambitious.
I knew from just looking at the job market that the diploma itself was pretty much worthless. There was no career path ahead by just accomplishing getting out of Centennial High School with a diploma and I knew it. It was going to take at least 2 years at a JC to get a living wage job and for sure I’ll apply myself there when the time comes.
So it’s not a surprise that when graduation day came around I was ambivalent about the festivities and decided not to go. I went and played 18 holes at Glendoveer instead. I was finding it hard to put on a fake face for even one day to pretend I had actually accomplished something when in reality I hadn’t done much of anything. Let’s have a celebration after I’ve actually accomplished something hard.
I did take an interest in a challenging series of English classes my senior year because they offered college credit for them. Writing 121, 122, and 123. I admit to applying myself to those classes for sure and aced them all (took some serious effort), but only because it was going to help me the following year at Mt. Hood Community College.
By senior year I had enough credits to get away with taking a 1/2 day of classes (3) for my entire senior year. Additional classes were available but I took a hard pass. Half days are just what I had in mind to complete my 4 years of showing up. Now please hand me my participation trophy.
Another factor was I had a long term girlfriend from another school in town which affected the amount of extra curricular activities I engaged in. I probably should have spent more time in these and been more connected to my school, but that’s not how it played out.
So congratulations, you jumped through the hoops and earned a high school diploma. BFD.
One might wonder if this obvious lack of motivation hurt me at the next level. The answer is, maybe just a touch. The math classes had students in them that were ahead of me on day 1, but not necessarily at the end of the term. I had to buckle down a little bit to get through 4 terms of calculus and the courses leading up to them, but it wasn’t rocket science. I think it affected the amount of studying I had to do but not the grades I got in the end.
My college level approach to GPA was very similar to high school. I’m a lifetime 3.1 student and proud of it. Yes, I could have worked harder. No, I didn’t want to. And I was gainfully employed for 42 years as an engineer so maybe it wasn’t a horrible strategy.
But hey, kids, don’t do what I did. Find some balance with studying and having a healthy social life. Create some memories. I didn’t do that, and when I look at Facebook and see old high school acquaintances, I find it really hard to relate. For some reason it’s almost required to be a Trump supporter to be with the cool kids these days. Hard pass. I’ve never understood that, but that’s apparently how it is in SE Portland Oregon these days. Go figure.
My best advice would be to educate yourself to the point of understanding enough about The New Deal to realize it’s absolute lunacy to join the republican party. They won’t be happy until they’ve unraveled the entire safety net FDR and his democratic successors created. At least then you won’t be voting against your own self interests.
As we emerge from Covid and re-engage with friends and family I’m reminded of how badly Trump has damaged public discourse to the point where it’s now necessary for republicans to state which of the 3 categories they belong to. So let’s see, are you a Liz Cheney type with conservative values but a never Trumper? Or do you fall more in the camp of a Mitch McConnell, a chicken with no backbone who secretly hopes Trumpism goes by the wayside but is afraid to say so publicly for fear of losing Trump’s base. Or have you gone full election denier, Q Anon, Trump Cult and sympathize with the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers? Which is it, I really need to know!
Because if you’re an election denier, birther, racist cult member, we don’t have much to talk about. In fact I’m inclined to find some other place to be if you’re around.
If you’re in the Liz Cheney camp then we can definitely socialize and have a good time because while I know we will disagree on policy issues, you understand what ethics are and are strong enough put country over party when no one else will. Also I can be pretty sure you haven’t lost your mind.
If you’re in the middle camp of people who are either afraid or unwilling to denounce Trumpism or don’t really agree with it but engage in debate for sport in order to own the libs, then we don’t have a lot to talk about because it’s really difficult to engage in conversations with people who are intellectually dishonest.
My approach is to cut people a little bit of slack to start with because most of us are born into (and subsequently adopt), the party of our families. If your parents espoused Republicanism, chances are you’re an R. I get that. Bummer of a birthmark, but it happens. Maybe you’re mostly apolitical or inclined to holding out for republicanism to return to normal someday. That’s very optimistic of you to think that, but okay, no judgement.
And if you voted for Trump the first time because you were holding out for tax breaks or are passionate about the second amendment or abortion or whatever the case might be, I get that too. You get to be you. It’s unfortunate you didn’t heed the massive red flags from the campaign but hey, mistakes happen.
If though, after 4 years of this shit-show that left no doubt that Trump is a racist with no redeeming qualities, you voted for him again, then I’m going to suggest an intervention is warranted. Not by me, I don’t have time, but hopefully you have some friends and family who can help you see the light. Best of luck to you, have a nice life.
But republicans please, whether it be a subtle hint or an outright declaration, let us know what camp you’re in so we know what we’re dealing with. Thank you.
2 years ago I predicted that Jerome Powell wouldn’t do the right thing and raise interest rates because it would have an adverse effect on the stock market which is not acceptable during a republican administration. Everyone likes to let the good times roll while they are answerable for the economy. Predictably, when the fed was rumored to raise interest rates during Trump’s term, the toddler in chief threw a hissy fit and I believe it gave Jerome Powell enough pause to reconsider the move.
The fed chair is suppose to be a non partisan position but Powell, a republican, has masterfully navigated choppy waters and made sure in not so subtle ways that any interest rate hikes would happen on the Democrat’s watch. This enables republicans to scream Jimmy Carter! Jimmy Carter! at the top of their lungs when the stock market reacts to news of the hikes.
Democrats need to do a better sell job on this economy. Yes interest rates are elevated but the biggest underlying reasons have to do the pandemic which in turn is affecting the supply chain. Unemployment has gone down from 6% to 3.9% since the Biden Administration took over. How is this getting missed by the main stream media? That’s a loaded question, I know.
The Newberg, Oregon School Board has been in the news lately for instituting a district-wide ban on political symbols. Four of the board members have taken umbrage to Black Lives Matter and the rainbow colored flags that suggest support for gay rights.
But they didn’t stop there. A few months later in a surprise agenda item at a school board meeting, the four members moved to fire superintendent Joe Morelock for not doing enough to enforce the bans.
There are a number of pending legal issues having to do with the First Amendment which may have had something to do with the pace of Morelock’s enforcement, but that didn’t slow them down from giving him the heave-ho.
I would argue that such a ban isn’t realistically enforceable. Newberg School District has close to 5,000 students and the dress code police can’t be everywhere at once. Families will act out in subtle ways and likely make the board regret the decision.
This all stems from right wing republicanism of course. The problem is as far as gay rights are concerned, that ship has sailed. There isn’t any going back to the good old days of June Cleaver.
As far as Black Lives Matter goes, republicans just don’t get it.
...but, but, ALL Lives Matter.
Yes, of course they do. But at this moment in history we need to be reminded that Black Lives Matter because too many people of color have been shot at, harassed, pulled over and sent to prison for the crime of roaming around in a white neighborhood. Can we be big enough to support the concerns of our brothers and sisters?
Apparently not in Newberg.
View from my PDX Window 