What even is “this” anyway?
Is there anything left under the noise?
The other shoe finally dropped in the Iran War last week and amongst all the chaos I don’t think most people even noticed.
On the one hand, the fact that the cost of living crisis is finally serious enough that we can’t be distracted from it anymore is its own kind of progress, but on the other I think the fact that an attack on a nation that isn’t directly involved in the conflict was launched from another country also not directly involved in the conflict should probably be bigger news.
In the meantime, folks here at home are starting to get an up close look at just how policies and laws made at the state and federal level come home to roost at the local level.
And overall it’s not pretty.
We can’t afford to repair the roads or build new sidewalks and when you call the police department an AI gets to decide whether or not the fact that someone walked into your backyard and tried to steal your bicycle merits speaking to a real live police officer.
And then when said officer does call back a different AI decides it’s spam and kicks the call to voicemail without even asking you first.
This cannot be what I’m paying taxes for.
There’s a guy running for Senate in Michigan with a very simple slogan “life shouldn’t be this hard”.
50% of his state population thinks that’s too extreme.
I wonder if they’d still think that if he wasn’t a Muslim with an 11 letter first name.
The most dangerous bias is the one we won’t admit we have, and if we don’t get real comfortable with owning up to that real fast we may never get out of this mess.
We cannot let our fear of the different lead us to extinction.
We’re already at the brink, with one foot dangling precariously out over the edge.
This is our last chance to turn around.
I hope we take it.
Image Credit:
Pot Holes by Wikideas1
Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons