Ang's Journal

Quantity	Item	5/2/25 Price
12 oz	Nestle Toll House Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips	$4.99
17 fl oz	Private Selection Avocado Oil	$7.49
20 oz	Seattle's Best 6th Ave Bistro Dark Roast Ground Coffee	$10.79
1 qt	Kroger 2% Reduced Fat Milk	$2.29
12 ct	Kroger Medium White Eggs	$3.99
18 ct	Vital Farms Pasture-Raised Large Eggs	$12.99
32 oz	Kroger Wild Caught Pacific Cod Fillets Frozen BIG DEAL!	$17.99
1 lb	Perdue Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts	$7.88
1 lb	Black Seedless Grapes	$4.98
1 ea	Fresh Banana	$0.25
1 pt	Fresh Blueberries	$4.99
1 lb	Fresh Strawberries	$2.99
1 ea	Medium Avocado	$0.99
	Total:	$82.61

The total cost of this grocery list increased from $76.50 on April 1st to $82.61. This is an increase of $6.11 or 7.98%.

Well, we haven't even gotten a full work week into our glorious new Administration & here are three ways that I, a pinko Commie liberal, have personally experienced getting owned:

• Earlier this month, I was invited to join the Board of a local environmental non-profit, the Uncompahgre Watershed Partnership. I attended a really great briefing on their big watershed restoration project for 2025 - a plan to protect & restore a type of habitat called iron fens. Iron fens trap carbon, increase water retention, & sequester heavy metals, improving water quality & water flow stability while providing a minor buffer against climate change. But, one of President Trump's first acts on Monday was to suspend spending under the Inflation Reduction Act, which was the funding source for this project. Therefore, this project is now in limbo.
  
• My boss & I had a frantic phone call this morning regarding concerns from one of our Native American employees: Navajo folks are getting caught up in ICE sweeps & the Trump Administration is questioning the birthright citizenship of Native Americans. (You really have to stop & admire the irony of that for a moment.) We are debating what to do to keep our three Native American employees safe while they go about their personal & professional business in the land that their ancestors have occupied for tens of thousands of years.
  
• One of my friends, who identifies as non-binary, reached out to me in the midst of a panic attack on Wednesday when, as part of their company being acquired, they were sent an HR form asking them to self-identify their gender identity so the acquiring company can use the information for "federal and state Equal Employment Opportunity record keeping". They finally decided to be honest & identify as non-binary, but what a world where someone has to weigh their honesty, self image, & mental health vs. a sense of safety & financial stability.

We are making America GREAT! /s

My self-image is that I am a rational person. I consider myself intelligent, well-educated, & curious. When I need to make a decision, I gather information (considering the source's expertise & bias & trying to find as many opinions & lines of evidence as possible), I look to history for information on previous, similar situations, & I try to identify my blind spots (cultural cluelessness, my own biases, areas of knowledge where I have zero experience or understanding). I draw a conclusion, but then I try to remain open to changing my mind, if I am presented with more input. BY NO MEANS do I consider myself a perfectly rational decision-maker, no one is. But I think my methods have given me a fairly decent algorithm by which to discern fact from fiction, to predict effects from causes, & to navigate the world.

But now, I am living in a world where facts are... whatever someone chooses to believe, I guess. Or rather, facts are whatever are being promoted as facts in a person's particular social niche, media bubble, or information silo. If you are a progressive, blue, Democratic-leaning voter in the USA, then facts include:

• The election system in the US is not perfect, but it is generally secure & correctly reporting the will of the voters.
  
• Sexual orientation & gender identity are complicated processes, & cannot be simplified to "conform to the norms of the majority or be considered evil".
  
• Human activity is contributing to global climate change, primarily via the release of carbon dioxide & methane to the atmosphere.
  
• Etc. etc. etc. It's boring to list them all. They even made signs to put in your yard that displayed an abbreviated list of "progressive facts".

But my point is that I believe these statements to be true because I have reviewed evidence that I find credible supporting these assertions, & I have not encountered much evidence that disproves them.

But if my method is solid, & I'm actually following it, then why did I have a conversation last week with A* that went like this?

Me: Can you give me one thing to look forward to from the next Trump Administration?
A*: Improved economic conditions.
Me: How will that be achieved? Through tariffs?
A*: No, I don't really understand how the tariffs are supposed to work.
Me: How then?
A*: Through energy independence.
Me: Even though the US is already the world's top producer of oil & natural gas...?

But instead of trying to argue, I sat quietly for a few minutes, thinking through my response to this reasoning. (Side note: it took an immense amount of effort to NOT argue based on what I consider facts.) I realized that I would never support the Trump Administration's approach to "energy independence", which (without a doubt) will be to promote increased extraction of & reliance on fossil fuels. So then I asked:

Me: Do you believe that human industrial activities contribute to global climate change?
A*: I don't know.

And there you have it. A* is an intelligent person. He worked in journalism for more than three decades. He's certainly seen the arguments regarding human impacts on the atmosphere & the consequences, but he doesn't believe the data that seems so irrefutable to me. But because he doesn't believe in the connection between releasing carbon dioxide & methane & dangerous changes to the global climate, he isn't going to worry about supporting an "energy independence" policy that will increase the burning of fossil fuels.

This realization has sent me spiraling. We had a near-fight earlier this year when I asked A* if he thought Haitian immigrants were eating dogs & cats in Springfield, Ohio & he also said he didn't know. How can he not know? How does he determine what is true & what is false?

But on climate change, it hurts more. I am literally a professional environmental scientist. While the global climate is not my specific area of expertise, I am knowledgable enough to have a pretty good grasp on the data & the arguments. But apparently, my husband doesn't believe me when I say that data models have predicted for DECADES that continued release of carbon dioxide & methane into the atmosphere is going to have horrible consequences for humanity (well, for the entire planet), & that so far, real-world observations either confirm the predictions made by modeling or suggest that they were too conservative & things are actually getting worse more quickly than predicted.

So, does A* believe anything I say? Does he think my career is just some big joke? What is he thinking when I prattle away about my models of natural attenuation of dissolved-phase contaminants in groundwater? Does he want to pat me on my head & tell me to just go back to the kitchen & stop worrying my pretty head? Poor deluded little girl, thinks she knows something about how the world works! It's cute!

I don't know how to live in a world where - it's not even a world where we don't agree on facts, but a world where we don't even agree on how to determine whether something is true or false. I don't know how to talk to people. I don't know how to process any incoming information or answer any questions. There's doesn't seem to be a point to doing those things anyway, because how are you supposed to decide what you should be doing, if you don't know what's true?

In this mindset, the mental obliteration promised by a long, hard drinking session sounds really good. So do other forms of annihilation. I'm not there, but it's been a long time since those things seemed so tempting.

Audio version

My cousin asks if I can describe this moment,
the heaviness of it, like sitting outside
the operating room while someone you love
is in surgery and you’re on those awful plastic chairs
eating flaming Doritos from the vending machine
which is the only thing that seems appealing to you, dinner-wise,
waiting for the moment when the doctor will come out
in her scrubs and face-mask, which she’ll pull down
to tell you whether your beloved will live or not. That’s how it feels
as the hours tick by, and everyone I care about
is texting me with the same cold lump of dread in their throat
asking if I’m okay, telling me how scared they are.
I suppose in that way this is a moment of unity,
the fact that we are all waiting in the same
hospital corridor, for the same patient, who is on life support,
and we’re asking each other, Will he wake up?
Will she be herself? And we’re taking turns holding vigil,
as families do, and bringing each other coffee
from the cafeteria, and some of us think she’s gonna make it
while others are already planning what they’ll wear to the funeral,
which is also what happens at times like these,
and I tell my cousin I don’t think I can describe this moment,
heavier than plutonium, but on the other hand,
in the grand scheme of things, I mean the whole sweep
of human history, a soap bubble, because empires
are always rising and falling, and whole civilizations
die, they do, they get wiped out, this happens
all the time, it’s just a shock when it happens to your civilization,
your country, when it’s someone from your family on the respirator,
and I don’t ask her how she’s sleeping, or what she thinks about
when she wakes at three in the morning,
cause she’s got two daughters, and that’s the thing,
it’s not just us older people, forget about us, we had our day
and we burned right through it, gasoline, fast food,
cheap clothing, but right now I’m talking about the babies,
and not just the human ones, but also the turtles and owls
and white tigers, the Redwoods, the ozone layer,
the icebergs for the love of God—every single
blessed being on the face of this earth
is holding its breath in this moment,
and if you’re asking, can I describe that, Cousin,
then I’ve gotta say no, no one could describe it
we all just have to live through it,
holding each other’s hands.

Sleep: Last night was below average. I was in bed just after 10, asleep fairly quickly, but I woke up at 5 & never got back to sleep. I got up around 7 AM.

Program: I didn’t remember to pray this morning. But I had a good afternoon meditation session. I didn’t call my sponsor – mostly because when I thought of it, I couldn’t think of a single thing to tell her.

Work: Bad day. I got nothing done, again.

Mood: Bored/anxious at work – thanks procrastination. Fatalistic over our national politics.

Exercise: I had thoughts of going to Phoenix for CrossFit, but my right knee is hurting. I opted for a quiet night at home.

Food: normal breakfast (coffee w/cream, keto casserole, cheesy biscuit). Then some of my WINNING chili over Fritos with cheddar, some fresh fruit, some mac’n’cheese, a cup of sweet iced tea, some carrots & pea pods, & corn bread with habanero jelly. Cheese & crackers & blackberry kombucha for a late dinner.

Grats: Struggling with this tonight. 1. I’m feeling economically secure this month, for the first time since I lost my job with ER last December. 2. B* is going to arrive in Denver tomorrow, to stay! 3. I have plans to see K* & M* on Sunday. There you go.

I'll admit, I'm a slow learner. Despite having been online since the early days of Usenet, I still haven't learned that arguing with people on the internet is absolutely pointless.


As usual, xkcd nails it.

I do try to limit the scope of my stupidity, however, by only engaging here & there. This week, I've been "in conversation" with a internet-only friend on Facebook. She is outraged by the "thugs" & "punks" protesting in Baltimore, & truly incensed by Lil Wayne's disrespect for the American flag. I have been trying to point out that the people in Baltimore have a lot of legitimate grievances that haven't been addressed when they tried more normal forms of protest, & that while I don't like seeing someone trash the American flag, they have every right to do it.

My friend's very conservative, right-wing rebuttals have usually included references to the facts that members of her family have been police officers &/or served in the US armed forces. She feels that this gives her a special understanding of these situations, or perhaps she feels it gives her feelings more priority. I feel that, in reality, it's almost the opposite. Having family that were police doesn't make you an expert on civil rights - in fact, you probably have an emotional bias in favor of the police that you should consider when you are responding to these stories. Having family that served in the military doesn't give you particular insight into the First Amendment - in fact, you might have an emotional bias regarding our national symbols that you should consider when you are responding to these images.

I too have family that served in the US armed forces. My grandfather fought in WWII as a Seabee, my uncle went to Vietnam, my cousin was a Marine. But their experiences are THEIRS - they don't lend me any righteous patina or extra patriotism. And even if it did, it doesn't make me an expert on Baltimore, race relations, civil rights, or the freedom of speech.

Maybe it's time to stop arguing with people on the Internet for a while.

Waiting to watch the President's announcement, but the news is: Osama bin Laden is dead.

I have been waiting for this day for nearly ten years.

Here he is! Live-blogging....

Hahaha, we removed the Taliban government in Afghanistan. We had operations from around the world.... but he's not mentioning Iraq. Funny - bin Laden wasn't found dead OR alive in Iraq. Huh.

A compound deep inside Pakistan? Where? Twitter is saying Islamabad. NO - Obama says it was a Special Forces strike in Abbottabad.


View Larger Map

Hate to think this way, but what a shot in the arm for Obama2012!

Also: HILARIOUS that this announcement was a cutaway that overrode Trump's stupid Celebrity Apprentice show.

I've said it before, if I were a news correspondent, I would spend all my time following Donald Rumsfeld around. He is, without a doubt, the most reliable source of stupefyingly wacko sound bites. A friend of mine recently introduced me to some collections of Rumsfeld quotes that have been turned into poetry ( a la the classic George W. Bush poem "Make the Pie Higher"):

( Click here for poetry )

( Ghostwriterxx asks some HARD questions! )

Forgot to remind everyone: if you want me to interview you, post a comment letting me know & I'll reply with your five questions. Then take the five questions back to your LJ & post your answers there. Ta-dah!