My dad was (among other things) a draftsman when he was young. He made blueprints and drew technical pictures. He had an impressive drafting table and some really cool drawing tools.
This was WAY before computer art.
1/10
He had a set of drawing tools--a compass, a ruler, stuff like that--he once told me had paid for the downpayment on the first house he bought.
I remember that house. It was a tiny 2-bedroom thing in a Chicago suburb. I was five when we moved out.
2/10
Dad qualified for the mortgage loan on that house because he got a VA loan. He was in the National Guard during the Korean War, and until I was about six. They taught him drafting. They also taught him to play the tuba. He was in the marching band.
3/10
He later took what he learned about the tuba and used to to learn to base the bass. Back then, there were no bass guitars. He had this enormous and beautiful string bass he plucked.
He inspired me and my brother to learn music. I played keyboards, my brother played guitar.
4/10
Dad would write sheet music for us, and we'd practice, the three of us, a sort of little family band. (My keyboard was an accordian. This was decades before Weird Al made accordians cool.)
Dad eventually got an electric bass guitar. It's a vintage Fender bass.
5/10
My nephew, my other brother's son, now has his grandfather's bass guitar.
Dad played in bands until the week he died. He retired to Florida, and put together a band. It wasn't the first band he'd assembled. He loved music. The National Guard gave him that.
6/10
The Guard taught Dad music, as they taught him to make technical drawings, as they paid for his college, as they underwrote the mortgage for his new house.
That gave me the chance to learn to love music. Dad kept up with popular music even better than I did.
7/10
The Guard gave me my first home. It gave my family the chance to live a middle-class American life. I am today building a house into which my wife and I will retire, and part of that, I owe to the National Guard.
8/10
Dad was a pacifist. He was also a patriot. He joined the Guard so he could serve America, but not be sent to an active war. The Guard repaid his patriotism, and me--and my brothers, and our children--still benefit from that.
9/10
Republicans are trying very hard to dismantle all the programs that gave my family everything we have today. I do not want to pull the ladder up behind me. I want everyone to have the chance to live the life I've had.
Okay, this was a little bit political.
10/10
PS. I was reminded of his drafting skills today, because Dad once sat with me and my brother in a hospital waiting room, and patiently drew a series of sketches, feehand, to explain to us how a car worked. Mom was in the hospital. Dad took the time to distract us from our fears.
I was reminded of that because my son asked me some questions about how a car works. I remember how and when I learned.
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There's no other candidate.
There is no plan for picking a new candidate.
There is no plan for assembling a campaign structure.
There's no plan to get any money.
There's no plan to get names on state ballots.
A new slate will be challenged in all red or purple states.
1/6
Legal challenges will go to SCOTUS.
There is no nationally-known figure to swap in anyway.
Except Harris.
Most people who don't want Biden
--don't want Harris either.
An "open primary" would be a circus
wrapped in a bloodbath.
Voting starts in September.
2/6
There's no plan to get a new candidate in front of all Americans by September.
There's no guarantee Biden can beat Trump.
But he can. He's the only one who ever has.
Anyone else will lose forty states to Trump. At least.
3/6
In 2002, popular and beloved two-term Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone ran for reelection to a third term. He died in a tragic plane crash on October 25, 2002, shortly before the election.
Minnesota's Democratic Party scrambled to find a replacement candidate.
1/5
Democrats choose an equally popular and well-respected, well-known former Vice President, Walter Mondale.
Minnesota was considered a purple state then. Mondale was seen as a likely shoe-in.
But Wellstone's death had thrown the party and the campaign into disarray.
2/5
Mondale lost to the Republican challenger, Norm Coleman, who was so lousy and hated that he served only one term, and was defeated in 2008 by former comedian, Al Franken.
But the point is, even Walter Mondale couldn't beat Coleman after being substituted at the last moment.
3/5
A Few Things that Will Happen if President Biden is NOT Reelected (which means, if you don't vote for Biden, you are voting FOR these things):
* criminalization of abortion
* criminalization of IVF
* criminalization of contraception
* criminalization of LGBTQ
1/8
* end of all climate programs
* end of the EPA
* criminalization of DEI
* end of Dept of Education
* end of Dept of Commerce
* end of Dept of Energy
* weaponization of DOJ to attack Trump's enemies
* end of NATO
2/8
* teachers and librarians who made banned books available will be arrested
* banned books classified as 'pornography'
* criminalization of pornography
* "investigation" and arrest of Obama and Biden Administration officials for being Obama and Biden Administration officials
3/8
I've been castigated a few times by younger people who disagree with me. That's okay, I can handle disagreement. But often, the criticism they level is that I'm old, and therefore I must not care about the future, because I'll be dead soon anyway.
Insane.
1/10
First, I have kids and grandkids, and my grandkids are nearly old enough to have kids of their own. I fear the world they're inheriting. I'm enraged that they have fewer rights than my wife and I did. I'm incensed they have fewer opportunities.
2/10
If you want to see rage and passion, try fucking with an old guy's grandkids. I dare you. Just try it. We will bury you.
What being old gives me is not an unconcern with the future, but a different perspective on time.
I don't know how to put this clearly. The horrible SCOTUS immunity decision did not confer any additional powers on the president. It just protects the president from criminal prosecution.
Too many people confuse the concepts of "ability" and "immunity."
1/11
See, right now, today, you have the ability to buy a gun and hold up a liquor store. You can do that if you want. You will likely be arrested and prosecuted for it, but you have the ability to do it.
2/11
If tomorrow the Supreme Court granted you immunity from prosecution for any armed robberies you want to commit, that wouldn't give you any new powers or abilities. It would just mean you could execute an ability you already had, without being prosecuted for it.
Something I learned long ago as a fiction writer: A happy ending happens only because that's where the author stopped telling the story.
Life always goes on, and even after momentous achievements, there will come more challenges.
Why am I telling you this now?
1/9
I've had some dorks ask me versions of, "Why should we reelect Biden to save democracy? What's he gonna do to fix the problem?"
They're looking for a permanent happy ending. They want Dumbledor (or Harry Potter) to save us all, once and for all.
That's not how it works.
2/9
Biden isn't going to permanently "fix the problem." No one is, because it can't be "fixed".
YOU save democracy, by electing the non-fascist candidate. And YOU have to do that every goddam election. (Yes, you lazy bastard, you have to vote every goddam time.)
3/9