No Kings

Scenes from the No Kings protest at the Austin Capitol on Saturday. It was hot and crowded and did I mention hot? I rounded up a van full of friends and we went for it anyway. My 17yo even came along for his first political event.

"Give me your tired, your poor..." and "Hold my hoops"

Lots of Mexican representation:

Sometimes I'm a little petty; what can I say?

"No Kings, No Tyrants, No Gestapo"

Loads of signs with "Abolish ICE", plus an excellent Cheeto Puff in chief

After a while, the crowd felt a bit too close, so we walked the perimeter of the grounds. 

It was a relaxed feel, more spread out but still tons of people. I saw one claim that the total attendance was around twenty thousand.

The cops we encountered were calm and friendly.

Perfectly nasty women

Hideous, friendless, and so very terrible at his job

"Don't confuse our rage for hate. This anger is rooted in love and humanity."

Brief detour for a couple signs I saw online, that were from other protests...

Our group had joked about waiting for our checks for being paid protesters. 

We saw a couple like this in Austin, too.

This one caught my middle schooler's eye, and we had an immature chuckle about it being captured on the MSNBC coverage:

Anyway, back to Austin.

Our group ranged in age from 17 to 84, and that was pretty representative of the crowd, too. 

A good day to exercise those ever more precarious rights. My son and I talked later about how it was actually kind of boring, just standing there in a crowd for a couple hours, not able to see the stage or even hear the speakers very well. But of course, boring is better than eventful in this case, and the point is that you just keep showing up and saying out loud, "I insist that we do better than this." 

Poster festival at the Capitol

Kelly and I went to the Texas Capitol yesterday to join one of the 1200+ pro-democracy, anti-fascist demonstrations that happened across the country.

We made signs. Bright ones!

Good stuff right off the bat: "Live, Laugh, Lock Him Up"

"So many issues; so little sign"

Spot the Hamilton reference:

Lots of penguins.

"The bankruptcy king crashes the economy and celebrates playing golf with the Saudis"

A serious southern burn: "JD Vance puts his cast iron skillet in the dishwasher"

"Ikea has better cabinets"

Also, not fully pictured, but it made me snicker like a middle schooler: "Flush the turd reich"

"Well, the patriarchy isn't going to smash itself"

A variation on a theme: "So much wrong; so little cardboard"

"We need to talk about the elephant in the womb."

Penguin standing tall.

"Congress is complicit"

Ashamed lady liberty

"Resistance is not terrorism; free Palestine"

"It's not red vs blue; it's billionaires vs you."

"There will be hell toupee if we don't speak out"

We heard from a variety of speakers, including US Rep Lloyd Doggett, US Rep Greg Casar, and Texas Rep Vikki Goodwin. The two quotes that stood out to me were from people whose names I didn't catch, so please forgive the lack of citation. 

"Next time you see a social media post that makes you angry but doesn't suggest any action, block that account."

"It's not time to be an ally; it's time to be an accomplice."

Highlights from Kamala's speech

I came home from a busy night and was able to hop on my laptop the exact moment when Kamala Harris was being introduced for her keynote address to the DNC and the country. My newly minted middle schooler is very interested in this race, and he watched it with me. 

Below are my favorite snippets. I know that some of it is exactly what you'd expect from a big, splashy political speech: appeals to the middle class, campaign promises, and general love for America and American ideals. But the sharp comparisons she drew between herself and her opponent, about our troops, about dictators, about who the president should serve? She hit her mark. She stuck that landing like Simone Biles.

I can't wait to vote for this intelligent, accomplished, joyful patriot.

"You can always trust me to put country ahead of party and self."

*****

"I will be a president who unites us around our highest aspirations. A president who leads. And listens. Who is realistic. Practical. And has common sense. And always fights for the American people."

*****

"In many ways Donald Trump is an unserious man. But the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious."

*****

"Consider the power he will have, especially after the United States Supreme Court just ruled he would be immune from criminal prosecution. Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails.

How he would use the immense powers of the presidency of the United States? Not to improve your life. Not to strengthen our national security. But to serve the only client he has ever had: Himself."

*****

(On Project 2025) "Written by his closest advisors. And its sum total is to pull our country back into the past. But America, we are not going back."

(Crowd chanting: We’re not going back. We're not going back.)

*****

"I will fulfill our sacred obligation to care for our troops and their families. And I will always honor, and never disparage, their service and their sacrifice."

*****

"I will not cozy up to tyrants and dictators like Kim-Jong-Un, who are rooting for Trump. Because they know he is easy to manipulate with flattery and favors.

They know Trump won't hold autocrats accountable- because he wants to be an autocrat."

*****

"In the enduring struggle between democracy and tyranny, I know where I stand, and where the United States of America belongs."

*****

"None of us has to fail for all of us to succeed."

*****

"Our opponents in this race are out there, every day, denigrating America. Talking about how terrible everything is. Well, my mother had another lesson she used to teach. Never let anyone tell you who you are. You show them who you are. America, Let us show each other- and the world- who we are. And what we stand for. Freedom. Opportunity. Compassion. Dignity. Fairness. And endless possibilities. 

We are the heirs to the greatest democracy in the history of the world."

*****

"Guided by optimism and faith [...] together, let us write the next great chapter in the most extraordinary story ever told."

Here is the full speech, and I think it's worth it to take the time to watch it. She got it done in under 40 minutes, because who in the world wants to listen to a 90 minute speech?

But what about the men?

Yesterday while talking with a friend, I mentioned "that football player's ridiculous commencement speech from a couple weeks ago," and she looked back at me blankly. Naturally I had to pull up a clip of Harrison Butker speaking at Benedictine College in order to get her up to speed. I fast forwarded past his anti-LGBTQ Pride, anti-abortion, anti-diversity, anti-Fauci, and anti-Biden comments, and played his advice to the womenfolk:

"For the ladies present today, congratulations on an amazing accomplishment. You should be proud of all that you have achieved to this point in your young lives. I want to speak directly to you briefly because I think it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you. How many of you are sitting here now about to cross this stage and are thinking about all the promotions and titles you are going to get in your career?
Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world. 

I can tell you that my beautiful wife Isabelle would be the first to say that her life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother.

I'm on this stage today, and able to be the man I am, because I have a wife who leans into her vocation. I'm beyond blessed with the many talents God has given me, but it cannot be overstated that all of my success is made possible because a girl I met in band class back in middle school would convert to the faith, become my wife, and embrace one of the most important titles of all: homemaker."

My friend had the response you'd expect from any woman with an egalitarian worldview: eye rolls, disgust, annoyance, etc. We moved on.

Later, my curiosity got the best of me. What else did he say besides the lady stuff that grabbed most of the headlines? I went back and read the full transcript of his remarks. Y'all, HB is working out some big feelings about how the Catholic church does things, in matters both large and small. He spent many, many sentences on the importance of attending the traditional Latin Mass, and also took a swipe at priests who "prioritize their hobbies or even photos with their dogs and matching outfits for the parish directory." 

Um. Ok.

Butker never spelled out the so-called diabolical lies that women are allegedly being told, but he did get more specific when he addressed the men:

"To the gentlemen here today: Part of what plagues our society is this lie that has been told to you that men are not necessary in the home or in our communities. As men, we set the tone of the culture, and when that is absent, disorder, dysfunction and chaos set in. This absence of men in the home is what plays a large role in the violence we see all around the nation. Other countries do not have nearly the same absentee father rates as we find here in the U.S., and a correlation could be made in their drastically lower violence rates, as well.

Be unapologetic in your masculinity, fighting against the cultural emasculation of men."

I have some questions.

First, who is saying that "men are not necessary in the home or in our communities"? Where is that message being shared? 

I have a wide social circle across the political spectrum; I'm active in my school, neighborhood, and church communities;  I consume a variety of news sources and opinion pieces. Through all these interactions, I have never been told that men are not necessary. Additionally, I have been married to a man for nearly 27 years, and I am raising three young men, and none of them have ever received that message.

So what exactly is he talking about? This is not a rhetorical question. If you are reading this and you, like HB, feel that men are being sent this message, please tell me specifically from where and from whom it is coming.

Second, is it possible that rather than reacting to having heard this anti-man message directly, HB is referring to something more vague, such as a perceived loss of male power and status compared to other times in history? Because a quick look around will confirm for you that men still run literally everything. They are at the head of most of the world's largest corporations; they lead school boards and colleges and media organizations. Men overwhelmingly outnumber women in the US House and Senate, as well as the Supreme Court. Every president we have ever had since the country's founding has been a man, with two of those same men set to be the candidates in our upcoming election. Only men are even eligible to hold the highest positions of leadership and decision-making in Butker's Catholic church, something he and I have in common, actually, since it's the same way in my Mormon church (and in many other mainstream Christian sects).

Butker claims that when men are absent from families or are no longer setting the tone of the culture, then society falls into disorder, dysfunction, chaos and violence. So my third question is, who does he think is creating the chaos and doing the violence? When I look back through history, men are the ones who have waged the wars. In incidents of mass shootings or one-on-one gun violence, men are usually the ones who pulled the trigger. Intimate partner violence has always been committed primarily by men. Rape has always been committed primarily by men. Child molestation has always been committed primarily by men.

I hate that I even have to pause here and do a "not all men" aside, but here goes. As I said above, I'm married to a man (an excellent one), and I'm raising up three men. I love and care about and work next to many wonderful men. I want very much for their life experience to be good and fulfilling. But men have been in charge of basically everything for basically forever, and their results are mixed at best. Perhaps we could shake things up and decide that decent men and women together could "set the tone of the culture".

My fourth and final question was just posed by my 11 year old son, who was reading the laptop screen over my shoulder, scanned the Butker quote above and said, "Wait, what is the cultural emasculation of men?" 

I stumbled through an attempt at speculation: "I guess it's when men don't feel like they are allowed to be...manly...anymore? Or something?"

What is the cultural emasculation of men, and how does HB want men to fight against it? 

I assume that this is at least in part a coded way to talk about the loosening of some of our gendered social norms? There's a guy that we see sometimes at church who wears nail polish. Does his existence signify the cultural emasculation of men? And if it does, how would one fight against that? By forcing him to stop wearing nail polish? If you are a man who doesn't want to wear nail polish, but you have to occasionally see a man wearing it, does that somehow culturally emasculate you? I'm not aware of any forced nail polishing or similar de-masculinizing efforts.

If you care about men and their current struggles, I hope you will look for real solutions that are actually achievable. Butker's comments hint at some very real issues that men are facing, but his prescriptions are vague and non-specific. Here are some ideas that could help.

• Let's teach kids not only that we don't solve problems with violence (I hope we already teach that) but also about de-escalation and how to be an active peacemaker rather than a bystander.

• Figure out how to help boys and men to develop more and better in-person friendships. I don't know how we do this, but it is essential that we figure it out. Men are lonely, and loneliness easily turns to agitation, resentment, and angrily searching for a scapegoat.

• Maternity and paternity leave. Give men the chance to establish a relationship with their kid from the start, and to experience how demanding hands-on child care really is.

• Let's encourage men to pursue caring professions such as nurses, teachers, counselors and therapists, fields which are currently populated with far more women than men. If a man recognizes that he needs therapy and would prefer to talk to a male therapist, his options are limited, and he might forgo therapy because of it. Plus, boys growing up seeing more men in caring professions sends a message that it is up to both men and women to care for others in society.

• If you are a manager, a VP, a CEO, or anyone else who holds sway within a company, please implement family-friendly work arrangements such as flexible hours and the option to work from home. This allows parents to share the considerable responsibilities of raising children together, with less stress on the whole family.

• Worker protections, higher wages, job training for those whose jobs are being phased out, access to health care and child care: all of these things will ease the burdens men are carrying in this modern economy where blue collar and manufacturing jobs are rapidly disappearing.

I'll bet you didn't expect a reaction to a graduation speech would veer into a bunch of policy proposals, but Harrison took us off the traditional path when he brought up the evils of birth control and dog photos, so I guess you can take it up with him.

***

Somehow this will be my second (fairly lengthy!) essay in a row dealing with players from the Kansas City Chiefs football team. Am I in a simulation right now? Is this the AI version of me, writing what it thinks I would write? Who even knows.

My Super Bowl analysis contains no football

Last night I watched the entire Super Bowl from start to finish, the first time I’ve ever done that. My kids (two teens and a tween) are really into football right now, so there I was, sitting on the couch beside my kid, one more mom who's desperate to find a way to connect in spite of the ground constantly shifting beneath our relationship.

Since I certainly don’t have any insights about the actual game play, here instead are my thoughts on the non-football parts.

First, let’s get the worst moment out of the way: Travis Kelce getting screamy, aggressive, and borderline violent with his coach. I was mostly neutral on him before, but this was such bad form. Imagine if you did that to your boss at work, shouting at the side of their face and shoving into them. You’d be fired on the spot. I guess we have different workplace standards for an intense game of football, but should we? Surgeons, airline pilots, and school teachers have intense jobs (with potentially dire, real-life consequences, I might add), and we wouldn't accept them behaving that way. 

This boils down to a big ol' man tantrum. I didn't get what I want, so I'm going to get ugly about it. Not a good look, Trav.

So profesh.

Shortly before the game, one of my boys commented that despite football having a reputation as a sport that men watch, he's seen lots of women at the high school and college games he has attended. We wondered what the male/female ratio is at pro football games. Then in the first ad break, here comes a drug to treat perimenopause symptoms. Then the second ad break had Dove soap talking about body confidence and how it affects girls in sports. That doesn’t answer my question of how many women are attending the games, but there must be plenty of GenX and Millenial women in the TV audience to justify those ad buys.

The commercials for online gambling seemed in particularly poor taste, with their little 800 number in small print at the bottom, ready to help you out as soon as you lose your money, job, family, whatever, to your gambling addiction. Not unexpected, of course, since the Super Bowl was in Las Vegas, and the NFL is fully in bed with the online betting industry. But still disappointing. The slate of celebs pushing it felt like the new version of all those shills for crypto a couple years ago.

Here's my internal monologue during some of the other commercials:

Wicked: Where’s the guy who left his wife for Ariana Grande?...I kinda want to have an Oz movie marathon, but in which order? Original first, then the prequel, or vice versa?

Feet washing: Huh, a commercial for Jesus...Where have I seen a picture like that before? Oh yeah...

(I will always take an opportunity to reference Fred Rogers doing the quiet work of discipleship. "I don't have a towel." "It's ok; you can share mine." Low key radicalism in 1969.)

Lindor truffles: Good reminder; I will grab a bag when I’m at the pharmacy filling my prescription for that perimenopause drug and buying Dove soap.

Jeff Goldblum: Always a delight to see him. What's he promoting again? Eh, whatever, just keep being weirdly appealing.

Dunkin' Donuts: I do appreciate when a celebrity can make fun of himself, so you win, Ben Affleck. A fun and goofy contrast to your put-upon, grouchy persona.

Beyonce: She and Tony Hale make a good buddy comedy! She looks amazing in every iteration. This is a beautiful commercial. 

My son and I had a good chuckle at the Kawasaki ad. Eagle gets a mullet! Turtle gets a mullet! Bear gets a mullet! Doggie gets a mullet! Everyone gets a mullet! (I reserve the right to enjoy this commercial while reiterating my strongly held objection to the current mullet revival among the young people.)

The list of tech services advertised makes an interesting time capsule for 2024.

-Crowdstrike, to fight security breaches

-Guided Frame Google AI, to help partially sighted people use their phones

-Homes, a Zillow competitor. Yay! more ways to browse houses far beyond your price range

-Copilot, "your everyday AI companion" to help you finish college, create a movie, start a business, become a nurse, I guess...etc.

-Temu, at least three times, encouraging me to "shop like a billionaire". As far as I can tell, the business idea behind Temu is "what if we sold the same cheap crap as Amazon/Wish/Alibaba, and threw in more data mining plus multi-level marketing?"

-And the most cynical award goes to Snapchat, which positioned itself as distinct from and better than that pesky "social media" that encourages kids to chase likes and engagement and shallow connections. Oh yes, Snapchat, with its disappearing posts and snap streaks and suggesting randos who happen to be near you is definitely very different from all that. LOL forever.

Ok, enough about the commercials. Moving on to the halftime show. As with Travis Kelce, I was pretty neutral on Usher going into this, but he was so good! I loved the acrobats and other circus performers at the beginning, plus his gorgeous white cape and suit, like a very fancy ringmaster. He gave a shout out to his mama, a marching band came in, and Alicia Keys popped up for a minute, decked out in red sequins, a red cape, and a red swoosh of a piano. Gorgeous. 

During the sexy slow jam portion of the show, there were plenty of hip swirls, and a two layer undressing: first the easy snap-off shirt and then the peeling off of the tank top. Then more special guests that were impressive, but honestly my favorite part was when the roller skate crew came in, dancing and doing flips(!), and I thought, what in the Surya Bonaly is going on here? And then Usher himself rolled out, singing, dancing, and skating all at once! That's a triple threat I didn't know I needed to see until I saw it. Do we think he already was a roller skate enthusiast or did he learn it for this show? 

(Scratch that. I just googled it, and apparently he has been an avid skater all his life, is coming out with a skating-inspired fashion line similar to the black and blue costumes worn here, and is passionate about spreading rinks far and wide. Usher contains multitudes.)

The grand finale was, naturally, Yeah, and by the end the stage was packed with dancers and bumping so much I was crossing my fingers that they had double checked the structural integrity of it before the show. Those notes from Yeah (boop-beep, boop-beep) have been in my head all day.

So anyway, the Chiefs won. Apparently Mahomes is a very, very good quarterback. 

The end.

Bonus link: my favorite Super Bowl ad from 1999. 

"When I grow up, I want to file all day."

"I wanna claw my way up to middle management."

When this originally aired in 1999, I was just about to finish college, and I didn't even know yet that my first job would involve a mind-numbing amount of filing.

Books read in 2022

I didn't hit my goal of reading 48 books this year, but I read 36, which is the second most I've read in any year. Here's to setting ambitious goals and celebrating even if you don't do everything perfectly!

Highlights below.

Lots of re-reads this year: The Catcher in the Rye (held up fairly well for me!), the first two books in the Baby-sitters Club series (ditto!), Persuasion (Jane is always a good idea), and two faves from just last year's list, Evvie Drake Starts Over and Circe.

Possibly my last read-aloud series with my kiddo (sniff, sniff): Gregor the Overlander. Good but quite violent. Not a surprise from the author who brought us the Hunger Games series. My nine year old has moved on to reading a dragon series on his own, which is wonderful to witness, but I'm still a little sad at the end of an era.

Sprawling epics: 

The Poisonwood Bible. Wow! So good.

The Lincoln Highway, by one of my favorite authors, Amor Towles. Sadly, I haaaaated the ending, and will probably never read it again.

Circe. I want her to be my cool, witchy aunt and teach me all her potion-making, spell-casting ways.

Absolute Obsession: The Heartstopper series. I watched the Netflix show (so sweet and charming and good!) and then went back and devoured the graphic novels via Alice Oseman's tumblr, which is how she originally released the story a little at a time.

Nonfiction that made me...

Inspired: Atomic Habits. Small changes add up!

Angry: Know My Name. Our "justice" system is quite terrible.

Nostalgic: The Nineties. I wish there had been more women included, but still fun.

Refreshingly relevant poetry: What Kind of Woman. Kate Baer is awesome.

13 states in 3 weeks, part 3

My record of our very long road trip has been bugging me with its incompleteness, and I'm old enough to really understand that if I don't write it down, it will soon be a fuzzy memory at best. So even though it's been almost three months (!) since we got back home, here's the final installment.

After visiting friends and family in Louisiana, Tennessee, and North Carolina, we headed up the east coast. We covered a lot of states in one day: through Virginia, through the tiniest corners of West Virginia and Maryland,  through Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and finally arrived in Massachusetts.

As we whizzed by state after state, we quoted popular culture references whenever it was relevant. 

Passing a sign for Chesapeake Bay:

"Lafayette is there waiting, in CHESAPEAKE BAY!"

***

Passing a sign for George Washington's office, one of the kids wonders aloud where GW lived: 

"Young man, I'm from Virginia, so watch your mouth."

***

Passing a sign for New Jersey:

"Everything is legal in New Jersey."

***

Passing a sign for Albany:

"Corruption's such an old song that we could sing along in harmony, but nowhere is it stronger than in Albany."

***

Crossing the Hudson River:

"They row him back across the Hudson. I get a drink."

You can see that when I say we quoted popular culture references, I mostly mean we quoted Hamilton. We listened to Hamilton a ton on this part of the trip, and it brought me great joy. I couldn't show too much of that joy, however, because I have two teenagers plus a nine year old who sometimes thinks he's a teenager. If they do something you think is cool, and you mention how much you like it, they will roll their eyes and immediately stop doing the thing.

Anyway, mostly Ham references. But a couple other things, too.

Passing a sign for Allentown: 

"I'm sorry Mr. Marsh, show business isn't for me. I'm going back to Allentown!"

"What was that word you just said, Allentown? I'm offering you a chance to star in the biggest musical Broadway's seen in twenty years and you say Allentown?"

***

Passing a sign for Vermont:

"That sounds very Vermonty."

We waved at Washington DC and New York City from the car, had to let an attendant pump our gas in New Jersey, and paid quite a few dollars to drive on New York tollway. Then we settled in for a week in the Berkshires.

The boys' Massachusetts grandparents live just a couple miles from the Hancock Shaker Village. First stop was the woodworking shop.

This is the round barn.

Baby goats!

Baby pigs!

Milking a large plastic cow!

Weaving!

Teenagers, following their natural instincts to connect with their virtual herd.

While touring one of the houses, I was about to remark on the beauty of some of the cloaks on display, when my mother-in-law said under her breath, "It's a real Handmaid's Tale feel over there..." indicating these rooms with red cloaks and blinder bonnets. 

I mean,...she's not wrong.

In one of the rooms, they had an installation in which an artist put a film over the windows that made the sunlight come through in these rainbows. It was weird and beautiful.

Love that vibrant prism light, but also, that project table! I could make a lot of messes and do a lot of puzzles on that thing.

One late afternoon the big kids wanted to stay home and watch Stranger Things while Matt and Theo and I took a walk along Lake Onota. The heat subsided, the light was golden, the clouds were giant, and the world was perfect for a minute.

Did I mention that New England is gorgeous? We weren't even there for leaf peeping season, but there were lovely summer flowers in most yards, including my in-laws'.

Did I mention that we brought a record-breaking heat wave with us to Massachusetts? I got an absolutely massive chocolate soft serve here, and by the time I had taken a couple bites and decided to take a picture of it, the murderous heat had it half melted. Womp womp. 

Matt made better choices when he took Theo here: order the giant cone in a boat, and take the picture immediately.

In New England you can play outside on a plush green lawn, rather than crispy yellow Texas grass.

We drove up Mount Greylock and wandered around a bit. Lots of stairs in that observation tower, plus a beautiful ceiling. (Side note: this is where the American equivalent of Hogwarts is set.)

A lodge for people hiking the Appalachian trail, or people who just want to spend some time up on a mountain.

 

When you realize you are 30 minutes away from the border of another state, you might as well hop over and add it to your "visited" list, even if all you do is eat overpriced ice cream from a food truck.

Vermont. Check!

Tomato basil risotto. Not for the cheese-averse.

I also may have found the nexus of the universe in Pittsfield, MA?

I'm sad to say that I did not visit any thrift or antique stores in New England; it just wasn't in the cards. One day I did find myself near a goodwill, pulled in where my phone directed me, and found this:

Oh, the heartbreak! I never got to see what old stuff people give away in New England. It's the oldest region of our country; I'll bet their old stuff is pretty good.

I still managed to collect (in my heart) a lot of excellent mid-century architecture, like this roadside motel.

And a couple dozen houses that I wanted to live in.

On the return trip, we stopped back at my sister's house for one more night. Check out my brother-in-law's sweet vintage ride.

And one last pet of the kitties before we continued south.

Home again, home again. 

Well, not really. Once you see this sign welcoming you across the Texas border, it's still another six hours before you reach Austin.