tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3954207327610800971Wed, 02 Jul 2025 04:23:49 +0000Montanamermaidsnakedoceanswanderinghttp://beholdthesky.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com (BeholdTheSky)Blogger241125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3954207327610800971.post-5608283091607040320Wed, 03 Jun 2020 17:10:00 +00002020-06-03T10:10:20.110-07:00 the ease with which Bakari Sellers thinking of his children asks what do they do if and then names George Floyd killed slow by the knee on his neck and then Brionna Taylor shot sleeping and then Ahmaud Arbery hunted in a "good old fashioned Georgia lynching" is a social fluency in 2020. it is one of the languages spoken by those with their eyes open there are fewer verbs in this http://beholdthesky.blogspot.com/2020/05/beneath-sobs.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (BeholdTheSky)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3954207327610800971.post-8422690937835940480Fri, 10 Apr 2020 15:44:00 +00002020-04-11T10:09:03.592-07:00 My brother is about to lose his job. He'll join the record 16 million who have started down that path in the last three weeks. It's the only formal job in his household, so he, his wife, and my two nephews are passing through the antechamber of a fragile-by-decree democracy into its great hall.  It's in that room, with the soaring frescoed domes and neolithic stylings, that wealthy http://beholdthesky.blogspot.com/2020/04/its-time-for-end-of-health-insurance.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (BeholdTheSky)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3954207327610800971.post-4634308023763391132Tue, 17 Mar 2020 17:06:00 +00002020-03-18T12:15:37.683-07:00 "If you need to be right before you move, you will never win." Dr. Michael Ryan, Exec Director, WHO on the lessons from Ebola 15 March 2020 Dear Future - Today, New York City announced an 80% increase in cases, in 24 hours. The curve of our detection capacity is, finally, starting to chase the curve of contagion. At 3,000 or so confirmed cases today, we have every reason to expecthttp://beholdthesky.blogspot.com/2020/03/letter-to-future-xvii-sweet-quiet-of.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (BeholdTheSky)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3954207327610800971.post-1375050415070872643Mon, 16 Mar 2020 20:48:00 +00002020-03-18T14:04:53.972-07:00 March 16, 2020 Let's talk about socialism - specifically, the socialization of risk.  We're likely about to be asked to bail out the riskiest elements of the American energy sector. Others - like airlines and cruises - will line up after it. A lot of human beings are looking down the barrel of job loss because of what's unfolding in markets. In energy, it's already savage. Oilhttp://beholdthesky.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-socialization-of-risk.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (BeholdTheSky)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3954207327610800971.post-1954414219329636450Tue, 03 Mar 2020 22:23:00 +00002020-12-14T11:30:30.647-08:00 5 March 2020 When asked on Monday whether he would declare a federal state of emergency in response to SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing the COVID-19 disease, which would free up federal funding to try to head off a national contagion, President Trump said no. It hadn't risen to that. At a press conference Monday, it was unclear as to whether Medicare and Medicaid would cover medical services http://beholdthesky.blogspot.com/2020/03/covid-19-new-paradigm.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (BeholdTheSky)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3954207327610800971.post-8595112065074922321Fri, 10 Jan 2020 23:25:00 +00002020-01-10T15:25:18.832-08:00 she places two wet lips on my ear how can she be that close, to me blows a whisper into me; i am inoculated and it blossoms builds and unfolds in the manner of exponents the clouds of new stars she is leaving with her mouth new words in me, covering the domed ceiling of my cave with something ancient and pictoral, she makes clear what she does not care for only in what does not grow from what http://beholdthesky.blogspot.com/2020/01/everything-is-here.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (BeholdTheSky)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3954207327610800971.post-5906535862682017909Fri, 10 Jan 2020 14:43:00 +00002020-01-10T06:43:14.168-08:00 It's not a positive indicator when an airport worker at the mouth of the check-in line hears your destination, lets you pass, and then yells to their colleague and points at you. You are The One they've been waiting for. The woman at the counter looks very worried. She retrieves my reservation and leaves several times, disappearing quickly in one direction only to reappear some minutes later http://beholdthesky.blogspot.com/2020/01/escaping-bogota.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (BeholdTheSky)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3954207327610800971.post-4754735965381810752Fri, 16 Aug 2019 00:51:00 +00002019-08-16T05:20:43.635-07:00 An executive I know told a room of junior officers: all communication is manipulation.  It was a mentoring session and its retelling made my hair stand up. It sounded like a thing Patrick Bateman would say to someone just before disappearing them into the walls of a 5th Avenue penthouse. American Psycho I thought of it when I saw Bill Hader transmorph yesterday. For a second, on an http://beholdthesky.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-deepfake-decades.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (BeholdTheSky)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3954207327610800971.post-6346316805575034783Sun, 07 Jul 2019 02:53:00 +00002019-07-06T19:57:30.694-07:00 “…take our fate into our own hands.” - Chancellor Angela Merkel I started writing this piece two years ago. I felt it had missed its train on account of my lollygagging. Today, we're back on the station platform; this time we won't miss it. But let's go back. It began in Venezuela. Two years ago around this time, a mob stormed the National Assembly with sticks and pipes, bashinghttp://beholdthesky.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-women-holding-world-together.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (BeholdTheSky)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3954207327610800971.post-8513556512703824563Sat, 06 Jul 2019 22:29:00 +00002020-09-03T11:13:05.806-07:00 Georgehad laid down in the apartment breezeway It was fucking cold, and I was a little drunk. I made him eggs, he slept on the floor, next to my air-mattress, and, well, I watched him all night, for fear he'd kill me in my sleep, and rob me of my dried beans or air-mattress pump. http://beholdthesky.blogspot.com/2019/07/doorway-george.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (BeholdTheSky)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3954207327610800971.post-4616092009297032837Fri, 05 Jul 2019 12:24:00 +00002019-07-05T05:24:14.798-07:00 I love the Fourth. Today is for our independent streak and the curve of my appreciation for what history has stacked on the shoulders of American independence has pretty dramatically steepened in the last few years. Of course, the stone legend structure of our founding has rightfully become cracked in places, and flaky. To recognize the true original condition of our freedoms we have to face http://beholdthesky.blogspot.com/2019/07/our-wonderful-irreverence.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (BeholdTheSky)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3954207327610800971.post-616919948909165081Tue, 12 Feb 2019 10:50:00 +00002019-02-12T04:04:29.286-08:00 rumors abound about a tool buried in our yard they say it’s rickety  straw man bone worn good, from its time on  either side of ground sweat-dipped tenants put their  stories on it into its wood grips and in its metal fork-wave mouth they all talked to themselves as they worked and all that talking over this tool couldn’t but unsettle the steel I'm out there often my ear to http://beholdthesky.blogspot.com/2019/02/rumor-of-tools.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (BeholdTheSky)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3954207327610800971.post-8336199081609038268Thu, 15 Nov 2018 02:55:00 +00002018-11-14T18:55:34.598-08:00 i don't know how to write about you you tiny ones that slip my hands and spin away you are runners, i wager foot to dirt on those high paths you  lean into the dark hill trails and you're pulled away before the light can get you to us your mother whispered things to you, you know crazy beautiful things in the human fashion. i found her looking at a closed door you had just walked through,http://beholdthesky.blogspot.com/2018/11/i-hope-you-learned-to-dance-first.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (BeholdTheSky)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3954207327610800971.post-2795464189613170902Wed, 31 Oct 2018 01:56:00 +00002018-10-31T04:52:56.173-07:00 “Octonions are to physics what the Sirens were to Ulysses.”  - Pierre Ramond, particle physicist, University of Florida === The story relates a picture of William Rowan Harrison strolling the Royal Canal with his wife, in Dublin, on an October afternoon in 1843, when some trap door in his head fell open and he slipped inside the room where quaternion groups live. These are the http://beholdthesky.blogspot.com/2018/10/letter-to-future-wonder-on-bridge.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (BeholdTheSky)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3954207327610800971.post-4684590046286766550Tue, 30 Oct 2018 02:18:00 +00002018-10-31T06:36:15.267-07:00 Data: Social Security Administration. Chart: author. Income earned beyond $128,000 per year is not taxed for social security. That's about $1.2 trillion, or 17% of national income. On your paystub you'll find a line labeled "FICA" or "OASDI" (Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance Trust). That's your payroll tax and it makes you a sustainer of one of the most powerful social http://beholdthesky.blogspot.com/2018/10/social-security-why-are-we-ignoring-12.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (BeholdTheSky)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3954207327610800971.post-5755380155531597214Sat, 13 Oct 2018 00:06:00 +00002018-10-12T17:06:38.407-07:00 A journalist was kidnapped in his own consulate. Emerging reports - which American officials have surely had for days - describe audio tapes provided by Turkish intelligence which record Saudi journalist, legal American resident, and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi being beaten and tortured to death in some back room of his consulate in Istanbul, likely just adjacent to hallways http://beholdthesky.blogspot.com/2018/10/consulate-murders-and-american-standard.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (BeholdTheSky)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3954207327610800971.post-1531170962912842051Sat, 29 Sep 2018 00:23:00 +00002018-09-28T17:23:16.598-07:00 Minnesota men have a real opportunity this fall. There is a heavy finger tapping on our eyelids. It's telling us to wake up. With expletives. We have a choice. A challenge of consequence to match any other we've faced. It's not pointing at us and saying, "you're a rapist."  It's not saying, "you're garbage, because you're a man." It is saying that, for millennia, the women around you http://beholdthesky.blogspot.com/2018/09/to-minnesota-men.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (BeholdTheSky)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3954207327610800971.post-4220008398713068625Fri, 24 Aug 2018 22:02:00 +00002018-08-24T15:59:33.686-07:00 Last year in the early movements of the Trump administration, the GOP was working on its six-dozenth attempt to disassemble the Affordable Care Act, which had helped reduce the uninsured portion of America's population from 18% in 2010 to 10% in 2016. The Republican draft bills between the House and Senate imagined robust tax cuts for high earners offset by cuts to insurance for http://beholdthesky.blogspot.com/2018/08/thumbs-down-in-high-chambers.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (BeholdTheSky)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3954207327610800971.post-3501261500627469354Tue, 07 Aug 2018 03:28:00 +00002018-08-23T14:38:26.297-07:00 In December of 2017, the United States borrowed a trillion dollars and gave it to the country's top earners. These sorts of giant fiscal moves are usually brandished at the beginning of a business cycle to stoke an economy into recovery after recession, when government is something of a lonely buyer in the street. Below you can see the monstrous leap in federal debt starting with G.W. http://beholdthesky.blogspot.com/2018/08/closing-trickle-down-tap-capital-has.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (BeholdTheSky)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3954207327610800971.post-3234130938742788823Thu, 22 Mar 2018 03:36:00 +00002018-03-21T20:36:09.897-07:00 "It was a magical time,  when the universe, channeled through Hawking,  paid a visit to Cambridge." Frank Wilczek, MIT === Dear Future, It's time we had a talk about heroes. Sometime about 2001, your uncle Dane and I were in a shitty car, traversing Minnesota Street on the east side of Cannon Falls. He was about to graduate high school. Like all Cannon Falls roads, http://beholdthesky.blogspot.com/2018/03/letter-to-future-xv-black-holes-heroes.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (BeholdTheSky)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3954207327610800971.post-5393301404539088604Wed, 07 Feb 2018 14:47:00 +00002018-02-13T18:01:09.261-08:00 "Fuck the cheating motherfucking Russians." =====  A hacker will stalk the asset they seek to infiltrate, looking for human weakness. They'll test the fence's charge and prod armor for softness, that's true, but they'll keep out a special eye for the dozing guard. There's no sense in squaring your chest to the quant hoard of defensive coders at Herjavec Group or Raytheon if your http://beholdthesky.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-memo.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (BeholdTheSky)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3954207327610800971.post-1340280397437152882Tue, 21 Nov 2017 19:45:00 +00002017-11-21T11:49:44.685-08:00 The farce of zero is the veil in which the GOP will raise taxes on the working class. Breaking Even Take an American household making an annual $60,000 - right at median, as many households making less, as there are making more. The 50th percentile. It's tempting in conversations about income and taxes to speak in nameplate numbers: The family making $240k earns four times the $60k family; http://beholdthesky.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-farce-of-zero.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (BeholdTheSky)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3954207327610800971.post-1944813286660766796Thu, 12 Oct 2017 21:13:00 +00002017-10-13T04:59:38.576-07:00 The President has a breathtaking contempt for your understanding of his tax plans.  White House strategists calculate that you will neither take the time to understand their framework, nor will a meaningful cohort of Americans move against a morally-crooked tax restructuring. Meanwhile, they are stacked-up on my desk over here, little cairns of nauseating tax statistics that would guide http://beholdthesky.blogspot.com/2017/10/smoke-and-mirrors-and-middle-class-tax.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (BeholdTheSky)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3954207327610800971.post-1073344929392446138Wed, 06 Sep 2017 21:44:00 +00002017-09-08T09:58:01.878-07:00 It's not nothing that we look at our flooded neighbors on the gulf and check our belts for tools we might have to put in play. Hard-jawed, shirt-off-your-back culture has put Texans in the water for days wading out to find their neighbors. Money, food, boats: purpose leans us toward the tv and hurricane season is made kaleidoscopic in citizen rescues. These disasters are worthy of lyric and http://beholdthesky.blogspot.com/2017/09/a-tax-debate-is-coming.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (BeholdTheSky)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3954207327610800971.post-8125388966743623342Mon, 24 Apr 2017 22:05:00 +00002017-05-14T13:10:23.427-07:00 We be shaking x 3 days. http://beholdthesky.blogspot.com/2017/04/valparaiso-gets-its-groove.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (BeholdTheSky)0