Month: January 2025

With the new administration, there’s much talk about DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) and its systematic elimination from our government.  For better or worse, DEI has become a dirty word.  We treat it like the new boogeyman.  We don’t need to know what it actually does; all we need to know is that it’s bad.  Gone are the days of COVID-19, when Trump could blame China (and transitively target Asian Americans with hate crimes).  He needs a new target for his blame; this has become DEI.

Naturally, nothing is ever that simple.  We often wince at the label ‘socialist’, and it’s weaponized to elicit images of communist countries.  However, we’ll object to the elimination of social security.  We complain when our roads and bridges deteriorate into disrepair and demand their maintenance.  We envision retirement and access to Medicare.  All these programs are forms of socialism, yet we don’t object to them.  However, despite the name social security, we don’t think of it as socialism.

Continue reading “The Vilification of DEI” →

I first played with Lego bricks as a child in Puerto Rico in the 1970s.  My father owned a restaurant, and I rarely got to play with him during the day.  I have cherished memories of building wild and whimsical structures from brightly colored bricks as we sat on our cold tile floor late at night.  He passed away shortly after that when I was nine.  To this day, those little plastic bricks remain my ethereal line to a father I barely knew.

Over four years ago in 2020, I purchased a set that tickled my fancy.  This is no surprise; I have many Lego sets.  However, this set was one for The White House.  Though I might have built it whenever I wanted, the notion of building it during the Trump presidency filled me with profound sadness.  I refused; I set it aside.  On January 20, 2021, shortly after President Biden’s inauguration, I finally opened the roughly 1500-piece set and started building it.  I finished by evening, but still on Inauguration Day.

Continue reading “Dismantling my White House” →

I connected a Wacom drawing tablet to my home computer many years ago.  I used it with drawing programs on the computer rather than a conventional mouse.  While it worked well, my next dilemma was the need to switch back and forth between the mouse and the drawing pen.  To streamline the use of both devices, I did what made sense at the time.  I started to use one of these left-handed; I chose to move the mouse.

Having about half a dozen computers between home and work, I changed all the mice to be left-handed.  I reversed the function of the two mouse buttons and moved the mouse to the other side.  I endured the first week with excruciating futility; by the end of the second week, I could accomplish most tasks without much struggle.  However, this little activity taught me more than mere muscle memory, it gave me a new perspective on my biases.

Continue reading “The myth around racial guilt” →