The Morning After

the night before

I slept well last night after watching President Trump Addresses Joint Session of Congress. I woke up feeling calm and had a cold brew coffee. Next, as usual, I went to Substack.

The first article that caught my attention was 17 thoughts on Trump's big speech by Game A Galaxy Brain Matthew Yglesias. I appreciate his unemotional, analytical style. I agreed with all of his points and will share the last one.

The really nasty partisan tone was new for this stage, different even from Trump’s first term. Conservatives seem to love this, but fundamentally, it’s what prevents him from ever becoming more popular or finding a way to secure big legislative wins. One view is that maybe it doesn’t matter, maybe we’re in a new era where trolling and executive orders is all that matters. But I am skeptical!

For some reason I jumped over to Medium and read Giving Voice the Voiceless: The Healing Power of Hearing the Unheard by Speaker John Ash. And he speaks to me with words that make a lot of sense. I have been a cheerleader for his work off and on for a few years since his appearance on The Stoa - The Wisdom of Iris: Collaborative Sensemaking with AI w/ John Ash.

…we can view communities as groups of people seeking to be heard and understood… We could see all of this emergent technology involving machine learning and blockchain as not the foundation to rebuild capitalism in the computer but rather to build something completely new that transforms the way we react to members of our community expressing their pain and needs. We now have the technology to completely deconstruct and redesign society from the ground up…

At this point in the early morning, Pat joined me and had a video she wanted to share, as she sometimes does. I prefer reading so Pat gives me a different, useful window into reality. Together we watched, and later discussed, TRUMP'S SPEECH TO CONGRESS WAS A DISASTER by Kyle Kulinski.

I chose a particular frame of mind last night watching Trump which was captured in a restack in my Substack Notes feed this morning.

Let me summarize it for you:

1. Trump told Americans what he was going to do.

2. Americans liked what they heard, so they voted for Trump

3. Trump is doing (or trying to do) everything he said he was going to do.

It’s not freaking hard.

And I picked up something else in my Notes Feed - Jane Fonda: Life Achievement Award Acceptance Speech | The 31st Annual SAG Awards. Inspiring, captures the moment! And, yes, as a Baby Boomer I still remember "Hanoi Jane" from 1972, but this will probably mean nothing to most younger readers.

And I watched NEIL YOUNG - BIG CHANGE IS COMING for a second time.

Next, going back to the Russia-Ukraine war, I watched The Logic of Negotiation (video) which had been brought to my attention by my friend Claudia Dommaschk.

Taking a break from absorbing content and writing, I ran for 36 minutes on my treadmill, showered, had breakfast followed by coffee on the terrace with Pat.

I had a look at the financial markets and saw positive signals for Trump.

It is now time to turn my attention to Limicon 2025 with the opening ceremony starting soon.