Posts in: DC

Bad air

For the second day in a row, I am explaining to my 3-year-old why we’re not going to the playground. Hauling out the weather app, showing him the AQI map, and saying “Do you remember when you said the air was smoky? You were right - the air is bad right now.” He and his peers are not the first toddlers to have air pollution explained to them (or just have had to deal with it), in fact we have more than enough code orange days around here that systematically impact others more than us, but the intensity, range, and reason is still a shame.

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No Fuck

Drastic climate action is the best course for economic growth, new study finds.: “Based on everything we think we know about technology, climate damages, etc. it would indeed be ‘optimal’ to cut emissions massively now,” ... “early inaction leads to warming that cannot be undone later by spending more on abatement.” (Yale Climate Connections)

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Listening to behind-the-scenes tales of the incoming demise of the debt ceiling negotiations. Democrats playing to lose, as always. Doesn’t matter how bad it gets.

(Edited for clarity: what was intended was the demise of things in the course of debt ceiling negotiations. All lose, no win on the part of the Dems. The negotiations themselves continued and its participants wouldn’t recognize a demise.)

“Propellers are louder over ground.” This study seems to state the obvious, but I am sure I didn’t read the article closely enough to understand what was novel. That said, it also seems to be speaking to its relevance in a near future urban environment with more VTOL air taxis and ubiquitous drones. But I am going to imagine it bears directly on present-day Washington, D.C. which seems to be increasingly (over the past twenty years of living here in three of the four quadrants) plagued by helicopters, seemingly flying lower too. So much so that our non-voting Congresswoman has made repeat protest actions that in yet another way, mark the failure of the Congress to be a steward of the city. (There’s no change that bill will be acted on.)

Mike Gravel would’ve been 93 today. Before the ‘08 election he took me to lunch on the recommendation from Ralph Nader’s camp, hoping I’d join his campaign. I was flattered but passed. I don’t regret it, but even with how I saw things go, I think it was a bigger opportunity than I understood.

Here's a tip

Regarding the Towson Apple Store union request to allow tipping (via Macrumors): As someone who both is pro-union (union family, and while I’ve never had a union job, I have thrown the IWW a few bucks) and a former Apple Store employee, I agree with John Gruber. Tipping is a bad look, even as a sacrificial negotiation point. Tip culture is obnoxious (and confusing). Demand better pay, more time off, and just tell me what the price of the damn computer is.

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My toddler received a STEM “certificate” from the LEGO education booth at the White House Easter Egg Roll with the slogan “rebuild our world” (it was a hashtag actually). My mind went to a dark place … he might just have to.

Kevin McCarthy’s expression when he got the gavel reminded me of my 3-year-old’s reveling when I capitulate over allowing him a too-early or too-late sweet.

Low flying military helicopter over Capitol Hill, DC

Not the most artful shot, but an accurate representation of “a day in the life” common event — a low-flying military helicopter over Capitol Hill, Washington, DC. October 14, 08:56 ET.