Welcome to my first blog post in 2026, everyone. My last post was about what a &@(#!ng year 2025 was. We’re not even a month into the new year, and it’s even more &@(#!ed than the last one!
The pace of mind boggling, frightening and destructive events is hard to keep up with. If your feed is anything like mine, it is currently full of horror stories of what is happening with the ICE Troopers’ reign of terror in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Meanwhile, the international order is being cracked apart by offhand remarks from our leader, the criminal supervillain Lord Emperor the Orange One.
Reaction to these events has been split. Bizarrely, there seems to be a segment of the public that actually supports what the administration is doing. As I’ve written often before, in this Information Age, we are caught in a partisan political conflict, where shaping a narrative in the digital space is crucial to maintaining partisan solidarity in the fight. MAGA partisans have to twist themselves in knots to justify what the government is doing, even if that requires, in Orwellian form, disbelieving the evidence of one’s senses.
Aileen has been in the comments section of posts lately, arguing with accounts that support the MAGA perspective. She says that they are either bots or boughts. “Bots” as in apparently AI generated or operated accounts, and “boughts” as in profiles that might be run from an Internet accountfarm, where someone is getting paid to spread propaganda. If a profile looks like it might be a real person, then they could also be a “bought” in that they’ve bought into the regime’s narrative.
I personally wonder if there is any point in her investing time arguing with accounts that are either fake or are MAGA loyalists, though I suppose if there is even a small chance of changing a real person’s mind, it is worth a great effort. She is incredibly patient and kind in her responses, which is not something I could be. I am more of a “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all” person. Aileen reports any account that threatens or insults her, and often sees the accounts deleted. Sometimes comments are deleted – programmed behavior, or a real person giving up?
Could it be that Aileen is the only real human being in the comments section, battling an army of bots like a lone warrior in a zombie apocalypse?
If nothing else, I’d like to think that her comments that calmly and rationally explain why what ICE is doing is wrong will get scrubbed and fed to the AI models, and add to the weight of bot account responses that are grounded in reality. Aileen has expressed hope that her efforts, being visible to anyone reading through the comments, might provide moral support to people like us, who uphold the Resistance narrative.
We believe that ICE is repeatedly violating the Constitutional rights of the American people, and Aileen is willing to take the time to argue that position, even if arguing mostly with AIs. And despite what the President might claim, she is not getting paid to do this. She is not a “bought.”
Aileen believes that naming things and taking meaning from names is an important part of the intuitive process. When she looked into the meaning of the name of the woman who was murdered by an ICE Trooper recently, she discovered the following
“Renee” means “rebirth.” “Nicole” means “victory of the people” or “victorious people. “Good” defines itself.
Do you remember there was a Netflix movie that came out at the end of 2020 called Death to 2020? It was a mockumentary trying to make light of what an awful, awful year that was, hoping a little satire might make the pain more bearable.
Well, then along came 2025, the year of the MAGA apotheosis, that made 2020 look like a walk in the park.
This year was a disaster, Rhonda, a complete and utter disaster!
Yet, looking back, as a family we did so much in 2025. There was plenty of personal growth and accomplishment and the year could hardly be called a disaster from our domestickal perspective. We had some amazing times, and kept our chins up as fascism trampled its way across America.
The early part of 2025 was theatre-intensive. Aileen and I continued with our Pennsylvania Independence Awards adjudicator duties, which typically take us into April. We saw over twenty (20) high school musicals together.
A promo shot of the cast of Arsenic and Old Lace
At the same time, we were in rehearsal for a play we were both acting in, along with Tiernan. We were doing this while also working, and in Tiernan’s case finishing his first year at Kutztown University. Whew!
The folks at the community theatre were wonderful, and we had a great time. It was a learning experience for me – to at least learn that I could still memorize lines and not be paralyzed by stage fright, though unlike Aileen and Tiernan I had a small part. Much gratitude to friends and family who came out to support us.
Another exciting thing happened in the early Spring of this year – Lionel proposed to his girlfriend, Bianka! He surprised her on a “birthday” trip, making it out to be a special occasion for his birthday, but it was really a moment for him to break out an engagement ring. Our son has a fiancée now – they are growing up so fast!
April – Out on the Town and No Kings I
The first weekend of April was our show dates for Arsenic. Later that month, we saw our last high school show for PIA, and mid-month Aileen and I went to see Ani DiFranco at Union Transfer, a music venue in downtown Philly. It was a chance for us to feel young and hip again (OK, maybe not young,as we had to stand the whole time – achy!). Aileen even ran into someone from her “vagabond days” in the city – the Vagabond Acting Troupe being her theatre company that was founded in the 1990s, before her kids were born. She reminisced with him while I hovered patiently nearby.
The next weekend we got see the premiere of a short film that Aileen and Tiernan were in. They filmed it in the summer of 2024, and it was shown to cast and crew (and family members) on April 19th. The film has since made the rounds in some short film festivals. It’s about a family gathering, based on the creator’s real family, some of whom we met at the premiere. A lot of the crew were folks who work on Saturday Night Live, which is kind of cool.
You can watch the film here: Revere Street (PW: mcginley).
The cast of Revere Street at the premiere, April 19, 2025
Immediately after the premiere, Aileen and I headed into the city again – this time for the No Kings march. It was a bit chaotic, and again I got the impression there wasn’t a lot of energy behind protesting the Trump administration – not like I saw in the first go around. And he had already decimated the government with his unconstitutional DOGE program, which gave a billionaire donor more power than he ever should have had.
Come on, America, stand up for yourself!
May and June – Europa!
Yes, that’s right – this is the year we went to Europe. It’s no wonder 2025 seems like such a full year, since we spent over two weeks of it on the other side of the ocean.
In mid-May, Aileen, Tiernan, and I left the troubles of America behind and headed for Paris and Rome, and other spots in Italy. It was a trip of a lifetime for me, as I had always wanted to visit those two iconic cities. Aileen also wanted to show me the Cinque Terre, which she had been to on a visit when Lionel was very young, just before Tiernan was born. We hit some other major Italian cities as well – Milan, Pisa, Lucca, Florence – even if only for brief spells.
With all that was going on, we were a little worried about what it would be like as Americans traveling abroad. We even vaguely considered that there might be complications when returning home. Our worries proved unfounded. We had no trouble crossing borders; all our tranportation difficulties were related to the language barrier and the chaos of Italy’s train system (we went with public tranportation the whole way). Once in Europe, America seemed so far away I wondered if its problems were even real.
Totally owning being tourists in Italy, 2025.
I am so grateful to have had this experience, and can’t thank Aileen enough for putting it together. I know it was a huge amount of work to schedule all the transportation and lodging, and she did it all, with me only acting as a consultant for approvals. Our Rome lodging was right next to the Colosseum!
It was a thrill for me to be exposed to so much ancient, medieval, and Baroque history, and to learn how to naviagate an unfamiliar milieu, though it was also a challenge. As a travelling trio, we learned as much about ourselves as about the countries we were visiting. You can read my Italy trip retrospective here.
I’d say we got bit by travel bug for sure, and I would happily repeat the experience – maybe next time with a trip to the British Isles, another place I’ve never been. Though as squirrely as things are getting here at the end of 2025, I wonder if it would be wise for an American to travel overseas, at this juncture.
No Kings II
Shortly after our return to the United States was another No Kings event. This was the one that was taking place at the same time that Cheeto Mussolini was trying to get off on a military parade. Aileen and I debated going into the city, but decided in the end that it would make just as much sense to find a rally closer to home. We ended up going to one in Pottstown, about half an hour away.
It wasn’t a march, it was just a crowd standing along the side of the road with signs for a couple of hours. But it was really well attended, despite the fact that it was raining. We got lots of supporting honks from passing cars (and a few middle fingers from MAGA types), and for the first time in 2025, the energy of the protesters was at the levels I remembered from the first time the loser was President. It felt good to be part of the anti-Trump movement, as the wannabe dictator was sending federal troops into Los Angeles, starting his war against the citizens of his own country.
The Summer of Alice
Some beautiful art from The Arts Bubble production of “Alice by Heart.”
Even while we were in Europe, Aileen was already working on the summer show for The Arts Bubble. The show everyone wanted to do was Alice by Heart, and after some tense weeks waiting to iron out an issue with acquiring the rights, we got the approval and the show was on! I thought it was a great choice for The Arts Bubble, as their previous shows have tended to be odd and imaginative ones, and Alice by Heart fits the bill.
In addition to the summer musical, The Arts Bubble was also doing an educational production workshop of a short play based on Alice in Wonderland, for younger students. If you don’t know what that means, it’s where students come in and write their own play and get experience on what goes behind creating a theatrical production. There’s often a fee the students have to pay, but not at The Arts Bubble, which is always free – or rather, “pay what you can” – and relies on donations.
As has happened in previous summers since The Arts Bubble started, I became something of a “theatre widower” with Aileen being so busy. I did take the occasion to visit my Dad and his wife at their beach condo, and to spend some time with my Mom. While I was up at my Mom’s, I happened upon a really cool edition of Alice in Wonderland in a Little Free Library, which of course I snagged to show to Aileen – it even made it onto the display table at the show.
Tiernan, as the Jabberwock, stares Alice down in The Arts Bubble’s production of “Alice by Heart“
The production of Alice by Heart was just incredible. Aileen directs collaboratively, letting the actors make choices and find their characters. Her cast of high school and college aged kids, as always, demonstrated that young students have as much talent as professionals. I don’t think I ever saw Aileen happier this year than when she was watching the Arts Bubble kids perform. She has said that it was one of the most fulfilling productions she could remember doing in a long time.
Thank you to the many family members who came out to support The Arts Bubble!
Summer Endings and Beginnings
Would you believe that, even as Aileen was directing Alice by Heart and helping with the Alice in Wonderland youth workshop, she was also in rehearsal for another show? It was a second dream role for her: Sister Aloysius Beauvier in Doubt: A Parable. The production was being put up by a new theatre company called Journey Theatric Sanctuary, and it was all the way out in Harrisburg, so that was a long drive for rehearsals!
I actually almost missed seeing the show, because I caught COVID while I was visiting my Mom (which means I did miss Lionel and Bianka’s engagement party, hmph). I went on an antiviral, and tested negative just in time to drive up from Virginia to catch the show on the one weekend it went up. All that hard work for just a few performances; it had been the same for Arsenic and Old Lace. But it was worth it for yet another triumphant moment in Aileen’s very long theatre career (it started when she was 7, she’ll tell you).
Jess Mooney as Sister James, Griffin Yeyna as Father Flynn, and Aileen Lynch-McCulloch as Sister Aloysius in Journey Theatric Sanctary’s production of “Doubt: A Parable”
Other things that happened in August: I launched my Substack, which is where I now do my posts of a political or social commentary nature, with this blog reserved for more personal stuff. I had my last visual therapy appointment, something I had been doing all year in an attempt to fix my bad double vision. I’m not sure if it helped a great deal, but it did teach me a lot about how vision works and gave me some good eye exercises to do.
A big life event was that I lost my job. My contract was not renewed for 2026, and as the company where I worked ends its fiscal year in August, the 31st was my last day. Once again, I was on the dole, looking for work. It had gone really well when the same thing happened in 2023, but this year the job market has not been as kind to me, and I’m still unemployed at year end.
But life goes on, and we must face reality, however grim (it’s not grim, I’m being dramatical). In September, Gavin took a long trip to Alaska, and Potato the cat moved in with us. Another new thing was that we started going into Philly to hang out with some of Aileen’s other old friends from the vagabond days. We called ourselves the “Philly Clown Party” and plotted further protests against the vile fascists running our country.
October – No Kings III and Much More!
In October, Aileen took me to the Philadephia Zoo, which I mention mainly because it was my first time going, odd since I’ve lived in the area since 2018. But the real thrill of the month was the No Kings protest on the 18th. We attended two rallies, one in Pottstown (same place as in June), and then another in West Chester, which had been scheduled for later in the day, making it possible for us to attend both.
Both events were well attended, and man, was that West Chester event jammed full of people! There was so much enthusiasm and it was thrilling to be a part of it. Aileen and I both dressed as clowns, and carried our awesome hand-made signs. I got such a high out of the experience I just wanted to do it all over again.
Aileen and I enjoy a meal after the 10/18/2025 No Kings protest in West Chester, PA
What else could we do, as mere citizens with almost no power, except to use our voice to protest the depredations of the administration? It was depressing to read about the awful ICE raids, and to witness our government paralyzed by an ineffectual legislature, and corrupted and looted by kleptocrats, but we just kept living our lives.
We went out to Reading to see Squirrel Nut Zippers, then later – for the really thrilling concert of the year (sorry, Squirrels) – to Philadelphia for Laufey! She is a very talented, up and coming young singer-songwriter and her live show was awesome!
The first weeked in November, just after Halloween, we saw Terror of Mechagodzilla at the Colonial Theatre in Phoenixville, which was a lot of fun. We don’t usually get to see old monster movies on the big screen, and with a large, appreciative audience.
Also in Novermber, Lionel started streaming on Twitch. It was something he had been wanting to do for a long time, and of course we’ve been very supportive parents, watching him every time he’s live. He streams on Thursdays and Sundays. He started with Dead by Daylight, a survival horror game, but lately has been playing an adventure game called Outer Wilds. If you are inclined to watch Twitch streamers, why not give him a follow or come watch a stream?
November – Democracy Strikes Back!
In November, the government shutdown ended. In the off-year election, Democrats won bigly, with a Democractic Socialist winning the election for Mayor of New York City and Democrats flipping or holding on to key governorships. It was a heartening moment after all the bad political news of the year.
Thanksgiving was at my Mom’s this year, and it was nice to see everyone there. We had a great meal and played some games (would you believe my Mom played Secret Hitler?)
As the year wound down, we had a little more free time. Well, I had the same amount of free time since I’m unemployed, but Aileen had more because of school being out. We worked on some jigsaw puzzles, played some board games including lots of Scrabble® – an old standby game for Lynches and their Barreras.
Gavin and Aileen ❤️
Christmas was at our house, and was fairly low key and lots of fun. Tiernan’s buddy Bob, who’s in the army now, was on leave and came to visit. We also got to see Gavin’s brother and sister-in-law, who came to visit from Boston. We all went to the Surrealism Centenary exhibit at the Philadelphia Art Museum – really neat and on display through February 16 of next year.
They’re all still around for the New Year holiday, which we expect to celebrate with more fun and games.
Heading into 2026
Looking back, it’s hard to believe we did so much this year! Was this really the same year as Arsenic and Old Lace, and our trip to Europe? But there it all is, recorded in our timelines on our phones and feeds, so it must be so.
If you’re in those feeds, but didn’t make it to this post, no slight is intended. I’m just summarizing a very busy year here.
We got a lot done, even as our country was falling apart, and the world order was being scrambled as America switched sides from the Allies to the Axis powers. Another thing that’s hard to believe, but there it all is, recorded in our news aggregators.
All I can say to my fellow liberals is, have heart, and keep up the good fight. To the one or two Trump supporters who might read my blog, I hope you can learn to see an alternate vision of America, not the one that MAGA offers. America will be a better place if we respect laws, even international ones that can’t be enforced, for the sake of our greater humanity. We will be a stronger place if our government is run by qualified and law-abiding people of good character, not loyalists to one unhinged man.
America’s promise to the future has been, in its best moments, a promise of freedom for all people – regardless of their race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, and even immigration status. That, to paraphrase Martin Luther King , Jr., is how we live out the true meaning of our creed, that everyone is created equal. That is how we fulfill our ambition, as expressed by Thomas Jefferson, to be an Empire of liberty. I hope we can live up to that dream.
Peace out and Happy New Year!
Steve. Ocellus reminds you to VOTE!
Come Watch Some Fun Live Streamed Gaming, Why Not?
Years ago, we watched our sons play through a video game. It was a game that was a good choice for having an audience – The Last of Us – because it is visually beautiful and tells a compelling story. It’s such a good story, it got made into a TV series.
When I first posted about this experience, I noted how watching other people play games developed into a pastime with the rise of the Millennial generation. It started with late-wave Gen Xers in the early console gaming era, when video gaming entered the living room, where people were already used to gathering around the TV. With a limited number of game controllers, some people in the living room became spectators.
In the modern “convergence” era, with the Internet now ensconced in our living spaces, and travelling with us wherever we go, there are a myriad of ways to join in with others online and enjoy the gaming hobby. For example, there are countless groups on Facebook where people post pictures of their games in progress, or seek advice on what games to play. Gaming has graduated from the basements of Stranger Things nerds and into the mainstream, and become part of the social media experience.
You can easily watch other people play games online, even live. On YouTube, there’s a popular channel where minor celebrities play board games and tabletop roleplaying games. For video games, there’s a platform called Twitch, where someone playing a game can share their screen for an audience, who can chime in with advice or commentary on a connected group text chat. It’s basically like what we were doing as a family in our living room (watching the boys play a video game), except online and with a potentially much larger audience. We can easily bring up a web browser on our living room TV, so it really is the culmination of TV/Internet convergence for us.
I have an ulterior motive for bringing up Twitch – two of our boys have started live streaming on the platform. If you have any interest in watching (or maybe are already a Twitch user), please check them out. If you are on Twitch, you can give them a “Follow” to boost them.
Our eldest son goes by Purpulous, and is currently live streaming a space exploration mystery adventure called Outer Wilds. He’s also known to do Dead by Daylight, a survival horror game. He is currently working on a schedule of streaming every Thursday and Sunday in the evening.
Our nephew goes by krotronic, and doesn’t have a declared schedule I know of; he tends to stream on Tuesday or Wednesday in the evening. He has been playing some very funny Burger King themed video games so far – who knows what else he’ll do.
They are both a lot of fun to listen to while they play, really good and narrating their experience and keeping you engaged – the particular skill set of the live stream video gamer.
As you may recall, if you follow my blog, we had a cat named Sashimi. When I introduced her, I mused on the moral implications of devotion to a pet. We humans, at least in the advanced economies, have achieved a high level of comfort and ease. This we readily extend to certain non-humans that we admit into our families. And why shouldn’t we?
In 2023, Sashimi passed away, as all living creatures must inna final analysis. That left a big hole in our household’s heart, and it was a while before we were able to accept a new cat into the house. But time heals all wounds, as they say, and this year turned out to be fortuitous for this sweet creature to move in with with us: Potato the Cat.
What happened was Gavin went to Alaska for a couple weeks, so she came over from next door, back to the house where she had been originally adopted by another family.
Wait, what?
Cue tape rewind sound, as some backstory are required.
So Sashimi had a brother named Sushi. The two sibling cats came into Aileen’s life when they were thrown in a box (yes, thrown) in front of her theatre, sometime around 2010 or so. They were neglected and abandoned kittens, lucky not to have perished. Sashimi had a dead tail, which eventually fell off, and she spent her life without a tail.
Sashimi and Sushi were living with Aileen and Gavin and their two sons at the time that I came along into their lives. Sadly, Sushi died after eating a piece of metal or something. He had this unfortunate habit of eating odd things, perhaps a cope coming out of his traumatic kittenhood. It was sad that Sashimi was now alone, so her humans thought of getting her a companion.
As it turned out, their next door neighbors had just adopted a stray kitten, but were planning to move away and needed to find her a new home. So Aileen and family adopted her, and named her Potato. She moved in with them to be Sashimi’s new pal, but unfortunately the two cats did not get along very well.
Maybe Potato, too, was traumatized; she had apparently been nearly starved to death when the neighbors found her. She started off as a very reclusive cat. She would hide away in the house for hours on end, and you would only see her for short periods when she surfaced for food. Eventually she would come out to look for attention, and could be very needy.
Anyway, when the neighbors moved away, Aileen and Gavin bought their house! The plan was to move in and renovate the other house. It didn’t really work out that way, what happened instead was a global pandemic, and I moved in to the new house. I have lived there ever since. Sashimi came over to live with us, so at that point each cat had her own house.
After Sashimi died, we tried bringing Potato over occasionally, but she did not like being in the new house. Maybe Sashimi’s spirit (or odors) still lingered. Potato would complain and stay near the door so we would just bring her back. But then this summer, after we got back from Europe, Gavin went off to Alaska for a trip of his own. We didn’t like the idea of Potato being alone in the old house for two weeks, so brought her over – and this time she was comfortable with it. She stayed!
So now she has officially moved in, returning to the first house she moved into as a kitten. She has bcome very content here, and very affectionate. She joins us for TV time, and sleeps in our laps. It’s nice to have a cat again.
I recently read The Seventies by Bruce J. Shulman, a history of the decade just after I was born, published in 2001. I call the 70s the decade of my childhood, not the decade of my youth, which I would say was the 80s. But my generation grew up fast, and I remember feeling all grown up in the late 70s, and picking up on the free-wheeling energy of the times. But possibly all teens feel this way.
Specific events of the Seventies that I remember include the Nixon Presidency – but only having a vague sense that he was strongly disliked. I was a very young child during his second term. I remember the Bicentennial and the Tall Ships, President Carter, the Three Mile Island disaster, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the Iran-Hostage crisis.
I remember disco, and even dancing to the contemporary disco hits when I was in junior high school. But I was really more into progressive rock, and nerdy stuff like Dungeons & Dragons (I started playing in 1979, even before the kids on Stranger Things). And I remember being infected by the rebellious, free-thinking spirit of the age.
Which takes me to what I thought was the most remarkable thing about this history of the decade, which is how well it aligns with what Strauss-Howe generational theory says about the time period. Any long-time follower of this blog knows how much credence I give to the generational approach. Schulman doesn’t specifcally discuss generations, beyond acknowledging that the Baby Boomers were the young people during the 1970s. But a lot of his analysis fits with Strauss-Howe.
In Strauss-Howe theory, the 70s fit inside a social era they call an Awakening, whose dates they give as 1964-1984. Schulman also allows that the spirit of the 70s extended beyond the exact years of the decade, giving his boundaries as 1969-1984.
An Awakening era is characterized by spritual fervor, new movements that question existing values and institutions, and a shift in focus from the collective to the individual, and from the public to the private. All of this is captured by Schulman, including how the 1970s saw increasing distrust in and revolt against government, culminating in the Reagan Revolution of the 1980s.
This book came out not long after Strauss and Howe published Generations and The Fourth Turning, but Schulman doesn’t seem to be aware of their existence. Which makes it all the more fascinating that he comes to the same conclusions as them.
A definitive look at the decade of my childhood, the 1970s. Author Bruce J. Schulman, a professor of American history, is older than me, but not by much, and would also have lived through this decade during his youth. The book covers developments in politics and culture, and how the transformations of the 1970s led to the social regime current at the time of the book’s publication in 2001, just at the eve of the next transformative era.
The key points that Schulman repeats throughout his book are that the 1970s mark a shift in priority from society to the individual, and in trust from the public sphere to the private sphere. What’s fascinating to me is that this observation aligns with the framework of Strauss and Howe generations theory, including the time range he gives to what might be called the “long seventies,” 1969-1984. Schulman doesn’t explicitly discuss generational effects, except to acknowledge the existence and importance of the baby boomers (his own generation).
The books has nine chapters, covering a variety of topics. Nixon gets his own chapter, as his Presidency marks two important political turning points: the beginning of the disempowerment of the New Deal liberal establishment, and the planting of the seeds of deep public distrust in government that would blossom ten years later during the Reagan Revolution. Schulman makes a great point about Watergate: that the lesson Americans learned from it was not that Nixon was corrupt, but that all government was corrupt. One can easily see that this belief haunts us to this very day (I write this in 2025).
Trends covered in other chapters include the dawn of identity politics and the end of the 1960s-era dreams of integrationism, the shift in political and cultural power from the Northeastern United States to the South and West, the emergence of new styles of film and music, and the rise of new religious movements. The 1970s saw a relaxation of norms and standards and a turning away from traditional values, and a corresponding new brand of conservatism that developed in opposition to these trends.
As already noted, running through this decade was a society-wide movement away from the public and collective and toward the private and individual. It culminated in the Reagan re-election in 1984 and “Morning in America.” At that point the young generations had completed the “hippie to yuppie” transition. Business had replaced government as the trusted engine of productive achievement, and entrepreneurship had replaced political activism as the preferred mode of personal expression and agent of social change.
I was fascinated by Schulman’s claim that the 1970s have a lowly reputation as a dull and meaningless decade. Perhaps, living through it at his age, he recalls the disillusionment coming out of the previous socially charged 1960s. His attitude may be common for his generation; as a slightly younger Gen Xer, I have a warm nostalgia for the era that I think is more typical of my age cohorts. Schulman clearly does have a personal relationship with the time period; this comes out the most in his write-up of the Punk and New Wave genres of rock music, which must have been his favorite growing up.
Overall, this is a nicely written and well-researched account of a social era, though I was a little annoyed that there was so much descriptive text in the end notes that I was constantly flipping back and forth between them and the main text. I suppose Schulman was trying to keep his narrative lean and on point, which he does achieve. A great read, and I do love how well this book aligns with my favorite generational theory.
A wise man once said, “the funny thing about regret is that it’s better to regret something you have done than to regret something that you haven’t done.”
When the Buddha Bear thinks on regret, what comes to mind the most is regret in love. Who hasn’t looked back at their past and wondered at missed opportunities, or mistakes made, in the realm of romance and love?
I know, I know. The Buddha Bear has opined before about the difficulty of living in the past and how regret limits us in the present moment, the only moment we truly have. But certainly we can think about what regret means and how understanding it can inform our choices in the present.
That funny thing about regret holds true because action is what makes consequences knowable. Action allows us to discover ourselves and the nature of our circumstances, where inaction can only lead to us questioning, “what if…?”
Inaction can come from negative conditioning, from hesitancy and fear that result from previous bad experiences. We get burned in love once, and can never love again: it is a familiar story. But if we stop ourselves forever from acting on the impulses of love, we shut ourselves off from a whole world of possibilities.
Certainly there are prudent reasons to refrain from acting on romantic desire, one might say. The obvious one is that one might be romantically attached already, and not wish to betray one’s lover’s faith.
But even for those who are single, there are prudential concerns. Consider the scenario of finding one of your coworkers attractive. If you act on your desires, you might imperil your job. You might be accused of harassment.
There’s a reason there are prescribed methods for seeking romantic relationships – dating apps, for example. This makes it clear what the boundaries are and generally the workplace is not considered appropriate for seeking a romantic partner.
Even if a coworker reciprocated your feelings, and you were able to make something work out, there are problems with mixing work and romance. It could complicate your lives, and the ability to find work-life balance. It could be disruptive for your other coworkers, causing them to question your biases, or provoking jealousy.
But consider the other side of the coin. True love is a hard thing to find. If it comes to you, even in the workplace, you should seize it! Why should you let such nuances of social convention hinder you from finding happiness in this short life?
I hope you don’t think the Buddha Bear is advising you to recklessly pursue every love interest you encounter, like some blundering Casanova. He only means to say that when life presents you with possibilities, which is all that it does, the only way to manifest an outcome is to make a choice.
Even if the choice is a mistake, some good might come of it. And playing it safe and doing nothing isn’t necessarily the best option. There may be someone whom you think of as a dear friend, yet something more might be there, in possibility. How will you know if you don’t take a chance?
So take that chance – it might be the only way to avoid regret.
As a wise woman said, “my advice is always answer the question better that than to ask it all your life.”
This post was inspired in part by this sad and wistful song from Taylor Swift’s latest album. Yes, a Buddha Bear can listen to pop music; it is a treasure of trove of insights into the meaning of life.
In a recent post, I praised the NFL for being woke by inviting a Spanish-language Puerto Rican rapper to headline the Super Bowl LX halftime show, and lambasted the MAGA reactionaries for throwing a hissy fit over it. I called out MAGA for wanting to bring the United States back to the white supremacy of what they think of as the “good old days” – Hispanics need not apply for the role of American.
In my argument, I brought up academic Michael Lind’s idea of how the United States has gone through periodic redefinitions of itself as a nation. As part of that evolution, Lind recognized the emergence of four cultural mainstays of our national identity: baseball, American football, Thanksgiving, and our unique way of celebrating Christmas.
It is because of football’s iconic status as an American pastime that it is so meaningful that the NFL made its gesture of inclusivity to Hispanic-Americans. By the same logic, this is why the gesture upsets MAGA partisans. Personally, I commend the NFL, and that’s all I have to say about that in this post.
Next, I wanted to speculate on what new cultural elements might now be considered essentially American, given the progress of recent decades.
In the realm of professional sports, surely we would have to add basketball. It is more popular than baseball now. It was propelled to international fame by the wild success of the Chicago Bulls in the 1990s, with star former player Michael Jordan now a multi-billionaire. And college basketball’s “March madness” NCAA tournament has been a staple of office betting pools for at least twenty years that I can remember.
I would also add the blockbuster film franchises that have emanated from Hollywood, and which also have global reach. They may be repetitive, each movie following the same formula as the last one, but that’s kind of how audiences want them. They are like a fast food version of entertainment – you know what you are going to get. Based on box office alone, the really big franchises are Star Wars and Marvel, and it was smart of Disney to buy them up, as the luster has come off of its original fairy-tale inspired brand.
For a new essentially American holiday, I nominate Halloween.
Our front porch this Halloween
Halloween, or All Hallows Eve, is one of those Christianized pagan holidays dating back to the middle ages. It is connected with the Celtic festival of Samhain, which marks the end of the harvest season, and came to the United States via Irish and Scottish immigrants in the 19th century.
By the early 20th century, familiar Halloween traditions such as parties, costumes, and trick-or-treating had developed in the U.S. But it was really with the post-WWII baby boom and the rise of suburbia that you started to see the annual spectacle of hordes of kids in costumes swarming neighborhoods on Halloween night.
Each postwar generation has had their own special experience of this holiday. Boomers were there at the inception of the modern mode of celebration. They were trick-or-treating in an era when the suburbs were safe enough for kids to wander unsupervised, and to prank middle-class homes without risking being shot to death. From their childhood comes the sentimental imagery of Linus from Peanuts waiting for the Great Pumpkin.
The Boomer childhood marks the rise of a Halloween costume industry, in parallel with the rise of television, as children wanted to dress as their favorite TV characters. Costumes then, and going into the era of my generation’s childhood (that would be Gen X), were cheaply made, and featured plastic masks and vinyl coveralls you wore over your clothes. They seem chintzy, even bizarre, in retrospect, but how could any Gen Xer like me look back at images of those days and not feel the twinge of nostalgia? Here’s a fantastic archive of these photos: Vintage Halloween Pictures of Generation X.
Those old costume companies have all gone out of business, replaced by the monolithic Spirit Halloween, whose retail outlets spring up perennially all around the nation each October. Meanwhile, the amount of pop culture intellectual property available as merchandise has exploded, with new icons being created each year (anyone dressing as a KPop Demon Hunter?). The industry is huge, set to reach new spending records this year.
In the lifetime of Millennials, Halloween has grown as a celebration for adults only, with new expectations. As the movie Mean Girls put it, it’s the one night a year when a girl can dress like a complete slut and not be judged for it. Any costume, apparently, can be made sexy with a little effort.
A more wholesome trend is the family Halloween costume cosplay, reflecting society’s growing family focus over the decades since Millennials started being born. In photos shared each year on social media, the young post-Millennial generation is enfolded into the holiday tradition with joy and creative spirit.
Halloween is so big now, I don’t see how it doesn’t have equal stature with Thanksgiving and Christmas. These three holidays together, coming at the end of every year, are part of the ineluctable rhythm of American life. Yeah, they’re highly commercialized. The way we celebrate them is unsophisticated, often to the point of complete kitsch.
That just makes them all the more American.
“I Protest Hate Because I Love the USA” – No Kings 10:18:25
These are the words Aileen chose for one of the protest signs we brought to the No Kings event on October 18, 2025: “I Protest HATE Because I LOVE the USA.” A rebuke of the statements by GOP leaders that protesters were coming out because they hated their country. A protestation of the true meaning of patriotism: to stand up for what you know is right, despite the efforts made by the powerful to silence you.
I had a different message on my sign, not a statement of intent but a challenge to the GOP-led government: “3 BRANCHES ? OR 3 RING CIRCUS?” A critique of the travesty they have made of the U.S. Constitution.
The circus theme fit because we were there as clowns this time, representing the Philly Clown Party, a small but growing group of friends that started meeting up in the city this summer. It was Aileen’s idea to run with the clown theme, as a way to build connection through fun and play. Through tactical frivolity and joyful resistance. And to take responsibility for this greatest show on Earth that is the United States of America.
This is our circus.
These are our monkeys.
We were originally planning to go into Philly to march, but Aileen had to work in West Chester in the late afternoon, so instead we went to a No Kings in Pottstown in the morning (it went from 10 AM to noon) and then to the West Chester rally at 1 PM.
I must admit I was a little anxious as we were driving in to Pottstown that the rally might not be well attended, given all the mudslinging against it (that is mud, right?) by the administration. Boy was I glad to discover those worries were unfounded, as there were far more people than had been at the June rally (when, admittedly, it had been raining). The energy was amped-up, and there were even some folks in inflatable costumes, the new symbol of the Resistance.
Aileen met another Steve in Pottstown!
Me clowning around
We stayed in Pottstown for the full 2 hours, almost, giving ourselves a little head start out so we wouldn’t get caught in traffic. When we got to West Chester – wow! The crowd was huge and the energy was through the roof! This was our fourth protest of the year, ever since we went to the People’s March on Washington in January, which seemed desultory to me. This was the first time in a long time that I felt the same level of enthusiasm as at the Women’s March in 2017.
I honestly didn’t take a lot of pictures, which is why you don’t see many here. But I know you can find loads of photos and videos of marches all across the country, because they have been filling our feeds since Saturday. It’s a testament to the millions of Americans who see what is going on and are pissed off, and are also able to express themselves in peaceful and humorous ways. When the people feel that democracy has failed and that the government no longer represents them, they have no choice but to take to the streets.
By the end of the event I was on a high, wanting to do it all over again.
We had a late lunch/early dinner afterwards, and another customer took this awesome shot of us together:
I know the government got the message, and I know the wannabe king is unhappy about it, but you know what? A clown’s job is to make fun of the king.
The National Football League announced last month that rapper Bad Bunny, who is Puerto Rican, will headline the halftime show at the Super Bowl next February. This got MAGA in a tizzy – as everything nowadays must of course become poltically partisan.
Rapper Bad Bunny giving the opening monologue on Saturday Night Live’s Oct 4, 2025 episode
Trump lackey and chief Congressional obstructionist Mike Johnson claimed that someone with a “broader audience” would be a better choice. He suggested an 82-year old country singer named Lee Greenwood (I had never heard of Greenwood until I saw the clip where Johnson mentions him). Doesn’t Johnson know that Bad Bunny holds the record for the most streamed album of all time? Clearly he has a very broad audience!
OK, I’ll be nice. Maybe MAGA missed that Bad Bunny has broad appeal because they don’t stream music, they still listen to Lee Greenwood albums on their old vinyl collection. They’re just a bit behind the times, is all.
But I don’t think that’s where Johnson’s mind was. MAGA’s problem with Bad Bunny is that they don’t think of him – a U.S. citizen, of course, like anyone else born in Puerto Rico – as an American. From the MAGA perspective, Bad Bunny’s broad audience is the wrong audience.
His audience is the Spanish-speaking part of America, the people they are trying to exclude. The people current acting President Stephen Miller is actively trying to remove from the country, and that scatterbrained Homeland Security boss Kristi Noem promises to sic her ICE-troopers on at the Super Bowl itself.
Look behind the headlines to see how MAGA is really behind the times. We all know it’s true: America is becoming more racially diverse. The Spanish-speaking population has grown significantly in my lifetime. This is the trend that MAGA’s policies are trying to somehow reverse, returning us to the great again Golden Age the Boomers grew up in, when America was all white and all Christian.
Never mind that the only way to do this is illegally, outside of the bounds of the Constitution, and at great moral cost. They’re fine with that. White supremacist America has ethnically cleansed the continent before, and they are trying to do it again.
I don’t think this will be possible, given the geographic expanse and huge population of the United States, compared to previous centuries. But I could be wrong. I don’t really know how bad it will get.
In an earlier post, I reviewed a book by Michael Lind called The Next American Nation. In the book, Lind argues that we have gone through other periods of resistance to newcomers to America, leading into eventual assimilation and expansion of the definition of who counts as an American.
First it was just Anglos, the original “Mayflower stock”, so to speak. Then Germans and other Northern European Protestants. With some fuss, the Irish. The freed African slaves following the Civil War. And, early last century, Eastern and Southern Europeans.
We had taken a long journey from being a Protestant offshoot of England to becoming a “Judeo-Christian” melting pot nation. In this melting pot recipe were certain ingredients that give America its distinct cultural flavor. Our unique Thanksgiving holiday, with all its traditions. Our way of celebrating Christmas, including our version of Santa Claus. Our two big major league sports – baseball and American football.
In my generation’s lifetime, the challenge has been assimilating Hispanics, Asians and Muslims, adding them to the melting pot. Hispanics, being the largest population, are bearing the brunt of a backlash that seeks to flip back the calendar to somewhere in the 1950s. The huge irony, of course, is that Spanish-speaking people have been on this continent for longer than English-speaking people have.
Gentle reminder about Spanish-speaking America. This map is from the book The Dominion of War by Fred Anderson and Andrew Cayton.
Welcoming Latin Americans as part of the broader United States of America is the true expression of American values, the true fulfillment of America’s destiny to become a land of freedom and opportunity for all, regardless of race, creed, or national origin. So kudos to the NFL for inviting Bad Bunny to the Super Bowl – an iconic annual event that helps define America – because that clearly moves the country in the right direction.
The assimilation of Latin Americans into the U.S. is already happening in many ways, of course, no matter what anyone does. I’m just glad that the NFL is embracing this instead of fighting it, unlike the backwards-thinking MAGA regime. Even if the NFL is only doing it with their profits in mind. To show my appreciation, I will probably watch the Super Bowl, even though I don’t normally follow sports.
Shame on MAGA for trying to take us backward in time, in such a cruel, repressive, and un-American way.
I remember watching a dashboard of the spreading infection. Before it really hit the U.S., thinking – maybe they’ll do something to stop it. Maybe the authorities will figure their shit out and it won’t be so bad here.
Then the red dots started spreading on the U.S. part of the map. It dawned on me that no, there is no stopping this. I called my boss to tell him I wouldn’t come to the office any more, but would work from home (lucky me with my email laptop job), and hours later got a notification that was sent to the whole company: don’t come to work.
We were in lockdown.
Remember how we knew so little about how this “novel coronavirus” spread that we were spraying sanitizer everywhere? There was actually a rumor for a bit that people were becoming infected when they pumped gas. We kept gloves in our car for the gas station!
And the shortages as people stocked up. Supply chains were in crisis. Suddenly it was revealed that toilet paper was the essential commodity of civilized life. Medical supplies in particular were in short supply, to the point that the Governor of Maryland was hiding testing kits from the Feds. Can you believe that shit?
Was it all a massive overreaction?
That’s such an unfortunate word, IMO, because it implies there is some way to know what the exact correct reaction should have been. But of course there is no way to know that, just as there is no way to know what the outcomes would have been had we made different choices as a society.
What if there had been no lockdowns? There would have been different rates of sickness and mortality and different effects on unemployment and inflation. But would these outcomes have been preferable, even if one could come to agreement on preferences? One can speculate, form a theory, but one cannot test the theory because, by the nature of time and choice, the data are not there.
The simple truth is, leaders faced a high degree of uncertainty, and the glaring fact that, in the initial waves, COVID-19 was an extremely deadly contagion. It both spread easily and had a high mortality rate, and it’s no wonder we were all spooked.
Just consider this: in 2020, COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death in the United States, after heart disease and cancer. That’s insane for a disease that didn’t exist the year before. It’s hard to imagine what an “overreaction” would look like for such a thing. Please do click on that link and look a little closer. For one age cohort, the core of my generation, it was the leading cause of death in 2021. No wonder we drank so much.
I made this chart using our actual spending in 2020, I won’t deny it
I remember how much I blogged about coronavirus in those early years of the pandemic. As the emergency eased, officially declared over by President Biden in 2023, I mostly dropped the topic. In 2024, COVID-19 was no longer in the top 10 causes of death. Accidents and strokes had restored their respectable statuses under heart disease and cancer, the twin grim reapers awaiting us all in our advanced years.
But the disease is still with us, of course, and it is still dangerous. I caught COVID just last month, in fact. I immediately went on the antiviral PAXLOVID, because I do not want that nasty thing multiplying in my body.
SARS-COV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID, is not like influenza or the common cold. It gets into your system and it does damage everywhere. Long term damage that could lead to long COVID, or to some other condition down the road that reduces your lifespan. As one substacker explains it, catching COVID is like smoking cigarettes – you can keep doing it over and over, but you will pay for it in the long run.
Is the pandemic over anyways? There’s no end date given on Wikipedia’s helpful page of deadly pandemics, so I guess not. There COVID-19 sits, nowhere near the death toll of the Spanish flu, history’s GOAT pandemic, but catching up to the slow burn HIV/AIDS.
Luckily, the U.S. is a world leader in medical research. Right?Oh no...
