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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The crisis of global climate change isn’t the first man-made climate disaster we’ve faced in recent history. In the twentieth century, America dealt with and solved a regional crisis of our own making. It almost happened again soon after.
1/12
We prevented a second disaster the same way we had resolved the first one. It was solved by federal intervention.
In the early 1930s, the American Southwest was engulfed by a serious drought, which was exacerbated by then-current farming and grazing techniques.
2/12
This area used to be the breadbasket of the nation. Taking advantage of the rise in grain prices from the First World War, farmers in the southwest overplanted, removing most of the indigenous grasses and other flora with long roots that used to hold the soil in place.
Imagine a room. Maybe it's an attic. It holds everything you ever valued. Your money, yes. Also hundred-year old pictures of your great-grandmother. You dad's wedding ring. That novel you read. The proof your children are yours.
1/5
It's got your retirement investments. The medicines you need to survive. Your memories of that special teacher.
All of it is in that room in the attic.
Imagine one day a bunch of chimpanzees get in there. Some of them have Tiki torches.
2/5
You can hear them shouting at each other. Breaking the crystal ware. Setting fire to the file cabinets. Shredding the Batman sheets you slept in as a child.
They're throwing their crap at each other. They're eating your ancient vinyl records.
2/5
Republicans really don't like to be told they're wrong.
I honestly think they don't understand the difference between "facts" and "opinions."
This means they say and believe a lot of bullshit that simply isn't true. And they can't be corrected on that.
1/9
Showing them "the facts" has no effect, because they insist you're only telling them your opinion. They cannot differentiate between facts and opinions.
This is true in any subject, from climate change to vaccines, taxation and economic policy to immigration, crime, guns,
2/9
human rights, foreign affairs--everything. There is no topic on which "facts" matter, because Republicans are convinced everything in the world is simply "opinion."
This is also why they don't care about the source of facts or opinions (some sources are better than others).
3/9
I don't worry about cancer, or damage to my liver. I love good cigars and single-malt scotch, and I don't worry about what that might do to my health. There's not enough time left for me to care.
1/4
I do worry about what the world will be when I'm gone. I worry about my kids and grandkids, and their children yet unimagined, and the growing fascism they will face.
I also worry about saying everything I need to say in whatever time I have left.
2/4
I'm not sure younger people understand the depth and urgency of this worry.
I am dedicated to making a difference, making the world a better place before I die.
I feel my mortality, staring into my eyes.
I curse the Reaper. I will not go quietly. I rage against the night.
3/4
We all know the name "Colossus" is related to the word "colossal," and means "big," and we likely all have some vague memory of something from Greek myth or something.
But so what?
It's teriffying.
Look, we all know Musk reads science fiction.
2/13
I read a lot of sci-fi. I'm a science-fiction writer. I love SF. I hate that Musk reads this stuff, too. It feels creepy that he does, like he's raping literature.
Lots of SF explores the dark side of technology, warning us what we shouldn't do (ex: Jurassic Park).
On this memorial day, we should pause to remember those who died because Trump maliciously screwed up the response to Covid-19.
Below is a picture of the Michigan Stadium. It seats 100,000 people.
1/6
You would need 11 Michigan Stadiums to seat all the corpses of the Americans who died because Trump worked so hard to make the Covid pandemic worse.
I'm not going to list all the things Trump did, knowing they would kill Americans, from tossing out the pandemic playbook ...
2/6
... to forcing States to bid against each other for medical supplies that Trump intentionally made sure were in short supply (and then stealing those supplies from the winning State, to sell to his friends).
No, I won't list all the ways Trump purposely screwed us.
3/6