We need to act now because our democracy is on the line. We have everything to gain if we do and everything to lose if we don’t.
On Saturday, April 5th, the people are taking to the streets around the nation to fight back Trump and Musk. Join Hands Off! and other organizations to defend our democracy.
Susan Crawford defeated Brad Schimel for a State Supreme Court seat. Even though Trump endorsed Schimel and Musk spent $21 millions trying to buy the election, Judge Crawford won by a significant margin. Wisconsinites fight back the Trump and his authoritarian regime. Other states must do the same to defend our democracy.
Xuân and I are transitioning slowly back to the skatepark.
Xuân is catching up to his skills from last year on his scooter. He’s a bit more careful now than before. He takes less risks. That’s good. I don’t want to have to go to the ER.
As for me, my routine is the same on rollerblades. I am not learning anything new. I am not dropping in from the deep end of the bowl. I am not interested in grinding. I am pretty much stalling. I am losing motivation.
I have been wanting to try out skateboarding because I love snowboarding so much. In fact, I have been missing skiing and snowboarding. I have been spending a lot of time searching for a board for Xuân and one for Đán, yet I keep wanting to buy one for myself. I want a dedicated carving board, but the price range is from $800 to $1,200. I can’t afford that.
I am still keeping my hope up for one last spring skiing and snowboarding week in the second week of April. We’ll see. I am still waiting for my wife to book a spot.
After reading two books on democracy back to back, I needed something lighter. Rob Sheffield’s book on how Taylor Swift reinvented pop music seems like a good reading detour. I must confess: I am not a Swiftie. I tried to listen to her albums, but I can’t get past three songs. I read Sheffield’s music reviews for Rolling Stone every once in a while; therefore, I wanted to know what he has to say about Taylor Swift. Not knowing her work makes it hard for me to follow the book. I enjoyed it though. It’s a quick read. I might take a deep dive into her catalog like I had with Miles Davis, JAY-Z, and Bob Dylan. Will see!
Fuck no! According to the Twenty-Second Amendment:
No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.
Trump is not joking when he floats the idea of running for a third time. Take him as serious as cancer. If we don’t prevent him now, it will be too late. We can’t let him break our Constitution. We need to save our democracy.
Democracy is dying in the United States. It is up to us, the people, to save our democracy. In this brief book, the authors provide 10 steps to defend our democracy:
It’s a quick read that will help you to get involve. I don’t care about politics, but I care deeply about our democracy. I am doing a small part on this blog to defend our democracy.
In Democracy Awakening, Professor Heather Cox Richardson teaches an essential civic course that Americans need to learn about democracy. From historical to policial to cultural to social to moral, Professor Richardson provides each perspective with clarity. The US democracy has survived over 200 years, but not without challenges. More than ever, democracy is on the brink of collapsing today with Trump and his lies. Professor Richardson writes:
If he could get Americans to reject the truth and accept his lies about what had happened, they would be psychologically committed to him. …
He had successfully sold his own narrative over the truth, and his supporters would continue to believe him rather than those calling him out.
Professor Richardson provides details on Trump lies:
Far from retreating, Trump had moved to the stage that scholars of authoritarianism call a “Big Lie,” a key propaganda tool associated with Nazi Germany. This is a lie so huge that no one can believe it is false. If leaders repeat it enough times, refusing to admit that it is a lie, people come to think it is the truth because surely no one would make up anything so outrageous. …
Big lies are springboards for authoritarians. They enable a leader to convince followers that they were unfairly cheated of power by those the leader demonizes. In the U.S., the power of Trump’s Big Lie to rally supporters meant that the Republican Party gradually purged those members who continued to stand against him, and leaders consistently refused to acknowledge that Biden had won the election. “Election denier” became a political identity, and going into Biden’s presidency, most Republicans simply affirmed that he was the current president.
Professor Richardson gives a brief explanation on how ur political system should work:
The Constitution established a representative democracy, a republic, in which voters would elect lawmakers who would represent the people. That legislative branch would be a balance to a single leader at the head of the executive branch; each would prevent the rise of a tyrant from the other side. Congress would write all “necessary and proper” laws, levy taxes, borrow money, pay the nation’s debts, establish a postal service, establish courts, declare war, support an army and navy, and organize and call forth “the militia to execute the Laws of the Union” and “provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States.”
The president would execute the laws, but if Congress overstepped, the president could veto proposed legislation. In turn, Congress could override a presidential veto. Congress could declare war, but the president was the commander in chief of the army and had the power to make treaties with foreign powers. It was quite an elegant system of paths and trip wires, really. …
Finally, the Framers authorized a third branch of government, the judicial branch, with a Supreme Court to settle disputes between inhabitants of the different states. They also guaranteed that every defendant had the right to a jury trial but said little else about the judiciary.
This book is a must-read for American citizens who ignored democracy or were clueless about democracy. Learn the truth and recognize the difference between democracy and autocracy. Without democracy, the United States is no longer the land of the free. Without freedom, nothing else matters.
I missed this special because I didn’t subscribe to Netflix in 2023. Watching it now brings back the Smith-Rock slapping incident. In addition to the gay and the transgender, Chappelle mocks the handicaps. The most memorable part of the special is when he tells a long story about his dream of being a comedian. What a talent man with such a dedication to his craft. He makes his performance looks easy, but he puts lots of efforts into them and he delivered every time.
At the last minute, I decided to attend the Computers in Libraries 2025 in Crystal City, Virginia. In the previous years, I came away disappointed and this year was even more. The web presence talks from previous years have been replaced with AI presentations.
I hadn’t followed up on AI as much as I should so I figured I would learn something. Unfortunately I didn’t find the IA talks to be useful. The speakers went through lists of AI tools for web design, marketing, social media, and on and on. Out of all the talks, I found one somewhat useful: “AWS & Cloud Computing: Server Management.” I asked the speaker if there’s an automated tool for upgrading the OS. His answer was not really. I am running two cloud instances for my personal sites on DigitalOcean’s Droplet and I am getting tired of having to upgrade them every few months.
Despite not finding these presentations too useful, I still attended to get out of work without taking personal days off. I just needed some escape from my home office as well as my work office for a few days. I am not sure if I will return next year. I wish there are other useful conferences around the Metro area. I don’t want to travel far. I need to start searching.