Snapshots

This is a page to park good things on. Fragments of posts, photos, links. Half cooked ideas, or things I’d just rather not forget. Check back often, new additions will be added to the top of the list. It is intentionally unorganized.

DO INTERESTING THINGS. KNOW INTERESTING PEOPLE.

That quiet kid I knew in high school, who didn’t make a big deal out of much, but seemed to listen hard and know a lot? Yeah, he went places. Nice work David:
https://www.mso.org/backstage/article/david-cohen-trumpet?fbclid=IwAR3XTlbn6wKL_Te5WjVwJKilKw38g6dEtKHjoKvYg4qxLESkDJY-_l0eTn0

(posted 2018.11.15)

PROTEST

Malcolm Jenkins has some very cogent thoughts on protest and community action.

(posted 2018.11.11)

UNSUNG VOICES

My friend Nick wrote a thing I’ve been thinking about a lot:

“This morning’s free write: At some point our human expression somehow leaned into an atrophied gender asymmetry where the outer, unguided masculine began to make all the rules, and have now, for thousands of years, subjugated and dehumanized other groups thereof, only to harden their own hegemony. Today we’ve inherited such white male dominance, a hallmark signature of global market capitalism, too, penetrating penises of fossil extraction, gun shafts erect, fleshy fingers pointing, shouting and shooting and shooing and spouting over the calm, over the collected, verbal and sexual and ecological assaults at every corner firing shots across the world without consent, barreling through town to clench what’s left of our psycho-adolescent control of the sandbox while previously unsung voices continue to shine through with ever-more truth, ever-more vitality, ever-more authenticity, and, therefore, ever-more authority. It’s all a threat to the Secret, the lie we’re told as young boys, of hyper-masculine dominance, of power acquired through the Take: steal the football, steal the base, capture the flag, go for the jugular, go for the gold, that never-take-no-for-an-answer approach to making deals, making friends, getting paid and getting laid. This calculus of oppression—colonial, racial, sexual, environmental—are all to be glazed over, set firm to law and textbook, truth eclipsed by a machismo perpetuated through failed generations of broken men just following protocol: to be a man, to nut up, that, to be a feminist is to somehow threaten one’s manhood, to get down and give me twenty, to some militant allegiance to secrecy all the way down to its hollow core, a core stewing in lies, lies that keep us on top, so to speak. No more. I am a man. I am also a feminist. And I believe her. All the hers.”

More of this, because it makes me ask- how can I understand others better? How can I listen better? Ask better, more caring questions? How can I use my strength and my privilege, to support those not graced with similar luck? Unsung voices- we need your truth, your vitality, your authenticity, your honesty. We need to hear it to guide us. I need to hear it, to guide me.

thanks Nick.

(posted 2018.10.06)

ARISTOCRACY

This:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/the-birth-of-a-new-american-aristocracy/559130/

As Abigail Adams and I forge our new life together, we face many decisions colored by the data in this piece. The question is how to use that data to limit future risk.

“It’s going to take something from each of us, too, and perhaps especially from those who happen to be the momentary winners of this cycle in the game. We need to peel our eyes away from the mirror of our own success and think about what we can do in our everyday lives for the people who aren’t our neighbors. We should be fighting for opportunities for other people’s children as if the future of our own children depended on it. It probably does.”

THE RECIPE

Been a while. But these words still speak:
https://medium.com/mft-discourse/the-recipe-a9424af82f29
“This is a recipe. Some ingredients are hard to come by, and even more difficult to prepare.”

(posted 2018.04.30)

LEARNING

I see a lot of stuff on LinkedIn, and rarely find it worth repeating or thinking about. But this made the cut:

Learn to Master Anything

GOOD ADVICE

From the rad dude at semi-rad.com:
http://semi-rad.com/2017/11/52-pieces-of-adventure-advice/

It’s just good advice for being in the mountains. Seriously.

(posted 2017.12.23)

KNOW WHAT YOU CARRY

It takes real courage to process and release a tragedy. Shake hands with the skeleton in the closet:
http://www.wbur.org/kindworld/2017/11/21/48-the-secret

(posted 2017.11.22)

REAL ISN’T PRETTY

http://findingjoy.net/the-power-of-community/#.WhGgUxNSxE7

I know I do this a lot. Put on a pretty face before I let someone in. I know I foist that expectation on other peope too- “pack your bag so it looks like you know what you’re doing”. It’s hard to say that we don’t know, or are still getting experience, or maybe were just tired and needed to be lazy that day.

Being real usually isn’t pretty.

(posted 2017.11.19)

CHOICES

My favorite webcomic of all time, starts here and runs for the next 5 pages. Just read all of it.

“Take wrong turns. Talk to strangers, open unmarked doors. And if you see a group of people in a field, go find out what they are doing. Do things without knowing exactly how they will turn out.”

This has always been the hardest. Maybe that’s why I’m so bent on chasing things that feel unknown and scary. I think that is where the gold is.

(posted 2017.07.24)

UNSLICK POLITICKING

So while it is tempting to drool all over “obstruction of justice”– let’s take a few notes on how to win.

Sheri Bustos has succeeded in something very rare: winning by big margins in Trump country. Her success- “is rooted in unslick, face-to-face politicking. She shows up. She shakes hands. She asks questions—a lot of questions. “Don’t talk down to people—you listen,”

Let’s stop complaining and hoping, and start shaking hands and listening to each other.

(posted 05.16.2017)

UNWEARYING INSISTENCE

“Those citizens who fantasize about defying tyranny from within fortified compounds have never understood how liberty is actually threatened in a modern bureaucratic state: not by diktat and violence, but by the slow, demoralizing, process of corruption and deceit. And the way that liberty must be defended is not with amateur firearms, but with an unvarying insistence upon the honesty, integrity, and professionalism of American institutions and those who lead them.We are living through the most dangerous challenge to the free government of the United States that anyone alive has encountered. What happens next is up to you and me. Don’t be afraid. The moment of danger can also be your finest hour as a citizen and an American.”

-David Frum, “How to Build an Autocracy”, March, The Atlantic. Former speechwriter for George W Bush.

We may believe different things. I stand with unwearying insistence on honesty, integrity, and professionalism. Let’s start from there and refuse to be demoralized.

(Posted 2017.03.25)

STAY FIT.

You don’t have to be aging for this to be good advice. List at the bottom.
http://trainingforclimbing.com/aging-is-mostly-a-state-of-body/

(Posted 2017.02.25)

PROTEST.

Originally from a 1919 edition of the Seattle Union Record, published in “A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn

(Posted 2017.01.31)

What about this seems like good governance or bringing the country together? The answer is “nothing.”
http://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-team-kept-plan-for-travel-ban-quiet-1485738314
If the election results haven’t brought you pause yet, now is the time. Also, the National Security Council no longer considers the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (of the military), nor the Director of National Intelligence, but does include an aging media CEO with no previous government experience and a well documented history of anti-semitism and sexism. This is not acceptable.

(posted 2017.01.29)

Cause for Climate Hope:
http://www.nkarch.com/2016/12/we-remain-optimistic-about-climate-future/
Read the full PDF- it will lift you.

(posted 2017.01.11)

This may be a bitter pill for some, but Karl Rove has been winning elections for a long damn time. Those of us that don’t like him better sit up and pay attention, because I think he is right.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-many-democratic-excuses-for-defeat-1481759539

(posted 2016.12.21)

Community standards

‘”What’s it like around here?”

It’s a fair question to ask about an office, a home, a town…

“Why do people act like that, talk like that, treat others that way?”

The only reason they do is because we let them. People can’t violate community standards for long without being asked to leave the community. Either that, or the standards change.’

-Seth Godin

–>Consider what standard you want to hold, and what you want your community to be like.

(posted 2016.12.07)

This is legit- Joey Alexander tickles the ivory. (posted 11.20.16)

“My response tonight to the election results: went to my first meeting with the Washington State Opportunity Scholarship where I will be volunteering with STEM students over the next 6 months and made a donation to Garden City Harvest to forward experiential learning and community connectivity through food.

The acts of my rebellion are to small, regular, full of love, and unstoppable. Onwards.”
(posted 2016.11.09)

Not mine, but yes. From my friend Ben Chernivsky (posted 2016.11.02)

ways-to-fail

Stop caring what other people think. (posted 10.17.2016) I have a hard time with this and need the reminder.

Dose of humble pie (posted 7.25.2016)

“What does the world need?” (posted 7.18.2016)

A bit of climbing training nerd out. Climbing Magazine (posted 6.19.16)

Alex Honnold is not primarily thought of as a writer, but this is a beautiful piece on the importance of our national parks. (posted 5.24.16)

“Ignorance is not a vitue… Believe in democracy… If you disagree with someone, bring them in, challenge them, and be brave enough to learn something.” Obama, breaking it down for the Rutgers class of 2016: