Once I think about boxed macaroni and cheese, it is only a matter of time before I eat an entire box. I can picture where the box is in the pantry, what additions (olives or sausage or canned oysters) I am going to mix in. Until I sit down and churn through the last elbow, I am on the mac train.

Speculation and mac & cheese can take over my thinking. Once I think about stringing a couple facts together to come up with a narrative that suits my wishcasting or doom flinging (mood dependent) and forming it in language that wanly alludes to some possible objective research or years of close study that I may have done, it is very hard not to complete it.

I don’t seem to be alone in my love of addiction to speculating. I have an email inbox that brims with newsletters I signed up for in some weak moment when the tiny “no thanks” text lost out to the big Please Listen To Me1 button. These newsletters are speculation plantations; the apparent requirement that they send me a new writing every 48 hours does not suggest that they are deeply researched or exhaustively reported.

They are largely speculation. Red yarn connecting grainy photographs on a bulletin board in a poorly lit basement room.

After the recent primaries, there is a lot of narrative around who won and why. The astute “analysis” (speculation) tends to be that voters across the country are speaking to a national trend towards…

• Democratic Socialists of America

• Corporate Democrats

• Independents

• Electability

• Anti this

• Pro that

I got really jealous of all the delicious macaroni and cheese that all of these newsletter writers got to eat. I presume that network talking heads are eating similar meals, as that is a vocation of constant speculation to elevate the blood pressure of their viewers.

I could do that! I should start a newsletter and just eat delicious speculation every 48 to 72 hours. All I need is two points that are similar, such as an election in Michigan and an election in Seattle. I can pick what defines them as similar. In such a case, they are similar in that they are elections.

With just two data points and the ability to search the internet2 for the exact thing I want to believe, I can find enough evidence for a sizzling 1200 words that will confirm the bias of my readers.

Now I even have supporting links (not evidence. That would not be any fun) and links to other people who share my views. These articles likely have as much credibility as an AI chatbot prompt. In fact they may well be the output of an AI chatbot.

“Write me an article that reassures me that the DSA is taking over the Democratic Party and that evil Corporate Democrats are doing terrible things to try to stop them.”

“Write me an article that shows how stupidly simplistic the DSA fans are using electoral data from previous elections and a Pew poll or two.”

I regret that I have not been following Republican primaries very closely across the nation. Would it take me much longer to come up with speculation on what those elections mean? Nah.

Today is not a day for me to dine on macaroni and cheese, however delicious it will be.4 I know that all of these elections have a ton of nuance. They are the outcome of the unique demographics of the district, on how the campaigns are run, on the nature of the candidates.

Broad stroke, dramatic changes across the board are for a propaganda blurb about something 50 years past in an eighth grade history book.

In the newsletter ecosystem, they are for people too afraid or lazy to get involved in their local politics who desire to read something that reassures them that nothing they do can stop some inevitable wave that they have brilliantly identified so they can now just sit around eating delicious cheesy pasta while the world does what it inevitably does.

If I can resist the processed meal, I don’t speculate. I help.

“Just two minutes before the filing deadline, U.S. Sen. Steve Daines withdrew from the 2026 U.S. Senate race Wednesday. … Daines’ decision to withdraw promptly before the filling deadline appears to have been intended to dissuade anyone — except his chosen successor, Montana U.S. Attorney Kurt Alme — from joining the race. … State campaign filing records show Alme, who has never previously held a statewide office, registering his campaign eight minutes before the filing period ended.”1

Montana Republicans were pissed.2 Well-known state politicos, like Secretary of State Christ Jacobsen, would have gladly run for Daines’ seat. But, they were denied their shot, because Daines snubbed his local party to fix the race for Kurt Alme, a MAGA cultist who served one single year as Trump’s hand-picked U.S. Attorney for Montana, in preparation for this stunt.

Montana is a historically purple state.3 Statewide offices, particularly recent Governors and Senators, have commonly been Democrats. So, you might think Democrats would see a civil war inside the MTGOP as a golden opportunity to seize a Senate seat from MAGA.

But, you would be wrong.

Former U.S. Senator Jon Tester was the last Democrat to hold statewide office out here under the Big Sky. He was the leader of the Democratic Party in Montana, alongside former Governor Steve Bullock, another purple Democrat.

Both Tester and Bullock built their Montana political careers, as Democrats, by appealing to the solutions-oriented center between both major parties.

Along the way, their state party organization, the Montana Democrats — typified in very recent years by Rep. Zooey Zephyr (D - Missoula)4 — regularly opposed and confronted their own elected statewide leaders. Loud county party activists repeatedly called out their elected officials willingness to compromise, cut deals, and win incremental, bipartisan victories, instead of die on unwinnable hills.

When Daines’ race-fixing created a chance this year to take a Senate seat from MAGA, Tester chose to put his political connections behind an independent. He decided not to risk this opportunity on whomever might emerge from a primary process largely dominated by far left county-party activists. Just like Daines, Tester snubbed his local party.

Instead, as someone whose own political organization won three statewide elections to the U.S. Senate, as third-generation Montana farmer, he said “I’m going to continue to try to help push the Democratic Party in a way that will hopefully allow them to win some races moving forward.”5

The independent Tester chose to back is former Univ. of Montana President, Seth Bodnar. Bodnar is a former U.S. Army Green Beret, raised by two public school teachers, whose banner issue is protecting Montana’s public lands. Montana’s huge tourism industry is dependent on public access to our vast natural beauty, which America’s wealthiest keep trying to buy and privatize. Public lands are a hot, and widely resonant, issue in Montana. One that strikes deep inside our working class economy, both for how we work and how we play.

Bodnar’s platform6 is thick with mainstream meat and potatoes. His veteran status carries major weight in Montana’s rural culture. He has a bigger campaign war chest than his Republican opponent, and he holds major endorsements from Montana cultural leaders and political figures on both sides of the aisle.

It is also true that while Bodnar is known to be personally and professionally supportive of LGBTQ people, his campaign is largely silent on this issue.

In terms of social issues typically used to drive voter turnout, Montana already guarantees a woman’s right to choose, directly in our State Constitution.7 That said, Montana has also only ever sent one woman to Congress, Jeanette Rankin, first in 1917, then again, decades later, in 1941.8 Rankin was the very first woman ever elected to the U.S. Congress. A long, long time ago.

For their part, the Montana Democrats chose to run Alani Bankhead for Senate. Bankhead is a “leadership coach” with no campaign or elected experience, no major endorsements, no compelling background story, and almost no campaign funding; nor does the state party have much, if any, money for her. While she did win her primary, with a lot of outside money, the Teton County Democrats (county seat: Choteau) recently passed a resolution of “no confidence” in her. Bankhead moved to Montana just three years ago, from DC. She has highly problematic views, for a Democrat, in circulation, such as a coaching video in which she asserts “ … if you’re poor right now, it’s because you decided you wanted to be poor.”9

Given she has no history as a Montanan, Bankhead apparently saw moving to a rural state, and running for one of its two Senate seats, as an opportunity to show leadership. Yet, given the realities of money, advertising, and rural Montana culture, Bankhead has zero chance of being elected to the U.S. Senate here. Bodnar does.

Bankhead’s fans want Bodnar to drop out, claiming “he is spoiling her race.” But, why would he? He has better endorsements, more money than any candidate, including Alme, and is ahead in the polls, with bipartisan support.

But, Bodnar loses if Bankhead remains in the race.

Bankhead is the spoiler in this race, not Bodnar. Anyone who has lived in Montana for more than, say, three years, knows she cannot win.10 At least if they are being honest. It does not take polling to prove how money and culture drive elections, but the polls show it anyhow.11 Bankhead is already behind Bodnar and Alme, and losing ground. Yet, the same polls show that if she steps back, Bodnar pulls up neck and neck with Alme, or ahead, and can take Daines’ seat from MAGA. Alme is neither popular nor well-known, and his sponsor, Daines, angered his local party. Again, just like Tester.

So, this race boils down to two questions.

1. Does purple Montana want to take a Senate seat away from MAGA?

2. Or, will harcore Democratic activist circle their wagons, and spoil this election, when they are already at risk of slipping back into a legislative super-minority?

There is a big difference between winning an election on an issue, and working for an issue, once you have won your seat in Congress. Both ways lead to the same seat, but one of them is far harder. Ask anyone who has been elected.

Montana Democrats can absolutely win statewide elections on jobs, schools, public lands, and the environment. Tester, Bullock, Baucus, Schweitzer, Melcher, Metcalf, Mansfield, and more are all proof of this. Montanans will also do the right thing, and protect personal freedom, on controversial social issues, like a woman’s right to choose abortion. Article II, Section 36, of our constitution, protecting this right, was voted in, by statewide ballot initiative, in 2024. The same year we re-elected Trump.12

But, Montana is a purple state, not blue. No statewide candidate is ever going to win here without big inroads into my birthplace and hometown, Billings, our largest and most conservative city, much less Kalispell and Great Falls.

Pulling out bullhorns and screaming at people does not win votes in places like Billings, the way it might in Michigan, Oregon, or New York. Or Missoula.

Democrats will never vote in lockstep like Republicans. We have to herd the cats and win on broadly popular issues.

So, when it comes to statewide and national elections, I hope rural Progressive activists start thinking of things bigger than just their towns and counties. When the stakes are as big as the United States Senate, we need coalitions big enough to win votes in “Billings,” too. Elsewise, get comfy with MAGA.

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9

In a December 2025 episode of her podcast, The (Humble) Warrior Podcast, Bankhead said: “So if you’re poor right now, it’s because you decided you wanted to be poor.” Bankhead also has a long association with an anti-choice, anti-LGBTQ church.

Alani On The Record

The worst of the worst from Alani Bankhead (so far)

DISCLAIMER: This is not AI, these are Alani’s actual words and beliefs…

Read more

a month ago · 2 likes · Alani On The Record

I was planning on writing on another topic but I was distracted by this loss. It has struck me hard.

I was talking last night with my sweetheart about it. We had both stayed up late the night he died listening to his music and watching videos of him.

Glen was an Irish musician. You might likely know him in the musical and movie Once. In particular his song it is built around, Falling Slowly.

If you needed to say two things about Glen, they would be that he was a musician and that he was Irish. His Celtic accent and mannerisms were beguiling to me, but there was something deeper about his Irishness; the heritage of Irish music and history and the tales told informed everything about him.

He started busking on Dublin streets at a very young age, and would frequently return to the idea of singing on the street for people.

His concerts frequently were sing alongs, which he seemed quite happy about.

When Irish musicians become internationally famous, they are frequently undercut for their sincerity and passion. Think Sinead O’Connor and Bono. Looking at how Glen spoke about Ireland, I get a sense that the sincerity came from a strong shared belief in the heritage that propped up everything he did, that his purpose was to carry that heritage out to us, be we Irish or not.

I reflect that when a person from a strong culture, such as the Irish or Native Americans, come out into our dried, rationalized, world, the sincerity of them is what is attacked and undermined.

That they are oppressed and broken by empire when that sincerity is what can hold us together and make us resistant to being colonized.

Cynicism is the position that the oppressor can take to avoid criticism.

When you adopt cynicism, you are accepting subjugation of your heritage. Our belief in our community and ourselves, our belief in our stories and songs, is our resistance to being conquered.

Watching videos of him speaking, I came to understand what I felt we lost when he died; we lost someone who believed in us and could help us believe in ourselves.

When I first saw Once I was surprised how attached I felt to a story that was so simple sweet. Glen bought a simple integrity to everything he has done. I am sad that such a builder of community strength is no longer with us.

A community theater here in Central Oregon put on Once this year. We went and it was gorgeous. The intimate space spun the story, a simple tale of love, into one that I felt I was participating in. And when we audience members squeezed out into the dark street, I felt close to all those who shared those songs with me for an evening.

Before that performance, Glen toured through Oregon. The cast of this small local performance of Once drove the several hours to see him play. Glen learned that they were there so he brought them on stage to sing.

There he is, in the background, letting others take the song forward. Take the song to me.

I feel grateful for the years Glen was here on earth getting us to sing together. I will look to the next person who will take his place. For its rock hard commitment to standing up for sincerity, I wouldn’t be surprised if they come from the streets of Dublin, too.

Along the way, I interrogated myself over the privilege I have, to even consider going on a road trip in July of 2026. My inner dialogue was typical of someone who spent 36 years living in Portlandia:

Inner Inquisitor: “The Strait of Hormuz is bent with American bombs. How dare you drive 1,800 miles to visit friends you could watch on Zoom?”

Me: “Zoom calls are thin stew compared to being welcomed into a friend’s living room, eat their curried chicken, meet their new cat, and struggle with the lighting by their guest bed. And besides, I want to listen to audiobooks.”

Inner Inquisitor: “But, you are polluting the planet with car exhaust!”

Me: “I know. And, I know my carbon footprint, thanks. Michael and I have no kids, our car gets 36 mpg, and we performatively recycle, even out here in Montana, where there is nearly nowhere to take old packaging but the dump. Besides, eco-shaming individual travel choices is a corporate propaganda tactic to deflect attention from industrial-scale pollution.”1

I spent most of my week travelling scenic byways I have never seen. I have now almost been to Lobster Valley, Oregon. Not many can say the same.

I was happy with my audiobook selections, even if I screw my own eyes at the irony of burning 50 gallons of gas while listening to them. I want to know more about how western ethical culture is trying to respond to the ways automation and AI are impacting humanity.

• Magnifica Humanitas, by Pope Leo XIV. An encyclical restating the Roman Catholic church’s support for human work and dignity, now in the face of AI.

• The Story of Christianity, by David Bentley Hart. An academically-sound survey of how the world’s biggest faith tradition grew into a disjointed mess.

• Against the Machine, by Paul Kingsnorth. A compelling neo-Luddite2 rant about how mechanization erodes what it means to be human.

Was a week made full by nurturing six friendships, exploring scenic backroads, and listening to great and good teachers about humanity and ethics, worth the carbon load I added to the atmosphere?

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Ned Ludd was the mythical leader of an early Industrial Era movement in England, which evolved to oppose technologies designed to eliminate jobs.

A self-described misfit anarchist friend of mine sometimes reads Old Truck Good Coffee. He offers occasional comments, public and private, sometimes chiding my willingness to speak to the middle path: that politics is the art of compromise as much as the craft of social posturing.

Recently, he pointed me towards a new ethnography of conservative, rural Americans, and the varying ways they view democracy. It is titled “Faith, Family, Freedom, Place: An Ethnographic Study of Conservative Americans’ Relationships to Democracy.”5

This report analyzes and describes a type of folk I know here in Montana, including many of my relatives. People I sit down to dinner with on the regular.

Page 21 of this study attributes the following to a Minnesota man named Jordan:

This simple metaphor has stuck with me over the weeks since I took my friend’s suggestion, and read the report.

My hot take is that, as trivializing as this quote is to the progressive preference for direct action in pursuit of immediate justice (or at least rage), it also offers a valuable thought on looking before we leap. On asking “why is that fence there?”

Nothing new here, of course. Strategic questions of when to act, and when to pause, are as old as the very first thrill of the hunt.

(There will be an OTGC podcast discussing this report sometime soon!)

Turning sixty this spring left me noticing some age in my bones. I care for my joints with a daily set of joint rotations; but, aches persist, and a few joints no longer work as they did. Every body reading this will either die young, or feel the same at some point. The later the better, but reality pops us all out eventually.

A few nights ago, while standing in the kitchen with Michael, washing up from dinner, we talked about his father’s need for memory care. Thinking about dementia, while feeling my aching knee, queased my stomach for a moment. I had an insight flash into the way aging involves an ever-growing vulnerability; one we can stave, a bit, and ignore, but never eliminate. We soften, grow weak.

While young, we can imagine ourselves doing anything, and at least half-believe it true. For the lucky ones, it is. Heroes exist. So do good genes and silver spoons.

But, we are born on a track. We have a precious, but uncertain, amount of time, will, and talent by which to drive ourselves through life. We launch, arc, hop a little or a lot, peak, slow, view the scenery, and eventually fall. Every one of us.

All the way along, we are dependent on the societies, systems, and natural laws enmeshing us, whether we see them or not. Whether we respect them or not. Whether we tear the fencing or ask why it is there. Experience—the most literal byproduct of aging—makes our track more apparent as we drive. We see what we have been taking for granted, as potholes widen, roofs leak, knees creak, prices rise, joints swell, and leaders launch more wars to feed the machine that gave them power, and us comfort.

Awareness of vulnerability—some imagined, some real, some imposed— leads to the common political conservatism of the elderly and the poor, who staunchly vote to protect their “home.”

I feel this. Recorded human history is only a few thousand years old. Humanity has been chewing up our only planetary home—like some out of control teenager—for two to three centuries now, since the dawn of the Industrial Age. Our humanity is a renewable resource. Babies exist and culture evolves. But, coal is not, and neither is the cobalt inside the device on which you are reading this.6

Occasionally, while scrolling, I feel my mind being mined. My time and attention being extracted in exchange for little rewards that sizzle in my nerves. When I am able to step away from the sizzle, I want my time and attention back. And, I also know this craving leaves me, if I put the phone away for a couple of days.

The act of sitting next to a friend, in a real, physical room, full of texture and scent, telling stories and exploring notions, cannot be replicated by technology, only facilitated. And, there’s the rub. On one hand there is facilitation, and on the other, replication. Imitation. Fabrication.

Industrialization.

Yes, technology extends our human reach with tools. But, technology also automates, mining traditional human skill sets, and grinding away at the dignity of labor, for the benefit of corporate shareholders.

How does it feel to be a coal field?

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Some of these break my heart and batter my hopes for a better world.

One example is when I look over at their phone and see that they are using Spotify. Spotify was a lousy company from the start and keeps getting lousier. I don’t need to go deep into it here. You can choose from any number of articles about Spotify’s nativity, the algorithms that removed income from your beloved musicians, their playlists that drive you to low cost boring empty crap, and of late their embrace of AI to actually make you listen to fake songs that they claim are from your favorite dead artists.1

Due to the enthusiasm for fiery conversation that can some from shared alcohol consumption, I got into a back and forth with one of my tech-working family-way comfortable-urban/suburban-living friends about Spotify. I can’t recreate the conversation, but this is the gist:

Me: Why do you use Spotify?

Him: Because it is a good app that works well. My kids demand the sharing features so they can interact with their friends. And choosing some other app that is not as pleasurable will have no effect on making the world better, so just use the best one.

Me: So if your purchasing decisions will have no effect on making the world better, what would?

Him: Changes in the law. Regulations and requirements. I have some ideas, like changing intellectual property rules.

This gets me excited, because I very much enjoy participation in the political system. So if my friend wants to change law, let’s team up, make a coalition, and get it enacted.

Me: Will you work with me to help change these laws?

Him: Its hopeless. Big money decides everything. There is no use in trying.

His purchasing decisions can’t make the world better. His political power can’t make the world better. He just lives, it seems to me, in a narrow world trying to optimize for his family while the whole structure falls apart for the human spirit everywhere.

This is so confusing to me. It seems like a bad decision. The human spirit degraded is everyone, including him. Including his kids who want to share music with their friends. Including his friends like me.

It is jaw dropping to me that someone can live in this kind of cynicism. Although I am aware of the influence of money on politics and policy, I am also aware of good people working hard to make our situation better. I want to see support for them and I want to see more of them. The equation that equals a better world requires hope.

In my view, the folks with the currents of power in hand have that power because of policy, and policy can be changed.

• Because we don’t tax wealth or business.2

• Because we don’t regulate corporate gifts to politicians.3

• Because we don’t have an FCC Fairness Doctrine anymore requiring equal time for different views on all television channels.4

• Because private equity and shareholder value have become the primary scorekeepers for businesses.5

• Because we have no right to privacy or control of our own data other than in varying legal interpretations. [^ https://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/rightofprivacy.html]

• Because technology platforms are not responsible for the content they relay to you.6

All these obstacles are law, not culture. But when you hear the Altmans and Musks and Zuckerbergs and the mini versions of these explain it, they suggest that the misery and cynicism is inevitable and natural.

With just a little knowledge of law, you can understand that it is not inevitable. With a little knowledge of history, you can understand that cyncism will continue the degradation and hope will reverse it.7

I was refreshed shortly after this conversation when “My” Leo8 sent me a juicy read.

Each generation inherits the task of shaping its own era, of guiding history to become a place where the dignity of every person is safeguarded, justice is promoted and fraternity is made possible. Yet every era also runs the risk of creating an inhumane and more unjust world.

— From the Introduction to Magnifica Humanitus: of His Holiness Pope Leo XIV on Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence

Published in May of 2026, one year after he assumed the papacy and took the name of a Pope who spoke out for workers during the industrial revolution, Magnifica Humanitus is a long read, but refreshing. Pulling from history and the sum efforts of his church, the First American Pope builds an expectation that we participate in bending our history.

61. In this sense, we can say that the whole is “greater than the sum of its parts” [78] and that, for this very reason, “the mere sum of individual interests is not capable of generating a better world for the whole human family.” [quoting Pope Francis Fratelli Tutti from 2020] Indeed, it is an illusion to think that simply pursuing one’s own progress without caring for others is sufficient for contributing to the good of all.

The Pope seems to have a stronger understanding of AI and tech economics than the entire US Senate. He offers a historically-supported and human-centered way out of where we collectively find ourselvesMagisterium Humanitus specifies that without a government role, the means of pervasive technology will be used for the few who control access.

In many cases within the digital context, control over platforms, infrastructure, data and computing power does not rest with States, but with major economic and technological actors. These entities effectively set the conditions for access, determine the rules of visibility and shape the very possibilities for participation. When such power is concentrated in the hands of a few, it tends to become opaque and evade public oversight, increasing the risk of distorted forms of development that give rise to new dependencies, exclusions, manipulations and inequalities.

In this, my technically settled cynical friends and Pope Leo seem to agree. Spotify compels my friend to use an app he knows is damaging to his world. What Leo does is build from generations of effective guidance that has moved the direction of our lives in the past and can do it again. When I read it, I see a fellow in agreement with me, and that gives me hope, and in that hope I can continue to imagine repair of our world and support those who also imagine technology used for human flourishing.

Apps to use other than the ones run by assholes that you use

Although my friend thinks that it does not matter if you use Spotify, I feel better when I send my money and attention to people who share my vision of the world. Here are a few that I use.

• Kagi for search.

• Qubuzz for music

• Bitwarden for passwords

• Open Camera (Google Play or FDroid — a way to get apps outside of the Google Play ecosystem) for Android photos

• Guru Maps instead of Google Maps or Apple Maps

• Signal instead of text, iMessage, Facetime, Discord, Zoom (somewhat) or WhatsApp

• Pocketcasts for podcasts

Consider sharing this publication with people of like minds. And with people who wildly disagree. They can take it.

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How does that play out? The left of center politics of Oregonian Joel and Montanan Leo look at these structures, in particular the militant vegan politics of Oregon’s IP 28 and the legitimate independent candidate for Senate in Montana Seth Bodnar.

250 years ago, 56 men1 woke up having signed a document that put their lives on the line. If things did not go the right way, the proof at their trial would be the indelible ink on the Declaration of Independence.

They won that war. They were not executed for their defiance of a king. You know that.

It is 250 years since. Their experience is complicated to explain across the 250 years. You could say that a group of racist, sexist, elites signed a paper that amplified a war. Their heritage, which had already caused great damage to the cultures and people who had lived on that continent, went on to brutalize them for hundreds of more years.

You could say that they were heroes, visionaries. You could say that they paved the way for people all across the world to have unprecedented say in their fate.

The signers were a divided group, full of very real disagreements. They disagreed about whether a human could be property. They disagreed about religion. They disagreed about the goals of the very war they were fomenting. They would continue to disagree as our then shiny-new country was being formed.

I am no scholar of the United States Constitution, but I sure appreciate it. In these divisive times, I think of it as a platform for non-violent disagreement written by people who witnessed violence, survived, and wanted to minimize further violence. More parades that get a mention in the local paper and then fade from memory. That is the good life.

250 years later, I share that goal. And I believe that our founding documents can continue to serve us. They seem to be such enduring genius.

We are living through history now, history that we will be asked to account for. History that will be simplified for age-appropriate lessons that will be taught to the test. Just as 1776 is simplified.

Living through history, I see that my old lessons of Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington are too narrow. It was murkier, noisier, more chaotic. It was hard to tell what was important.

But they placed bets and worked for what they believed in. In the course of all those shots heard round the world, they had disagreements that seem petty now. They believed things that seem ridiculous now.

We know what was going to happen next. They did not.

I don’t know what is going to happen next for us. I don’t have any astute analysis. I just know what I am going to do. I am hopeful that we can turn this into boring history as quickly as possible.

When those men all woke up on the fifth of July, what did they think? Were they resolute? Were they doubtful? I have certainly felt both at times over the last ten years. I imagine that they did, too.

I am waking up today with a bundle of worry and hope in my head. But I lean on two things.

One, I lean on the uncertainty. If someone tells me that they know it is going to go one way or another, I know they are an idiot. If someone says we should play the odds and plan on what they think is likely, I won’t be swayed from doing what I believe is the right next thing. The future is guaranteed to surprise us, regardless. Prediction is akin to surrender in my book.

Two, when I put my phone down, I see more good people doing good things than bad. My phone selects for unusual cruelty and idiocy. Most people I meet in person act with caring and thought. My phone is not an accurate sample. I believe in the communities that I see with my own eyes.

Maybe that is what the signers were thinking on the morning of the 5th of July, 1776. They saw all the troubles around them but they saw that their community was holding together, prepared and capable. That the world ahead extended beyond their own imagination but that they could help bend its direction.

Happy birthday, USA. I believe in you.

I am choosing to run this article anyhow, with this added preface, because its core meaning remains: Democrats in states that allow ballot measures1 need to be far more responsive when extremist ballot measures circulate in their state, because they get hung around far more necks than just their own.

Update: On July 24, 2026, the Oregon Secretary of State determined IP28 failed to gain sufficient valid signatures to qualify to appear on the 2026 ballot.

Back in the oughties, I served for three years on the Executive and Central Committees of the Democratic Party of Oregon (DPO), as Chair of its Platform and Resolutions Committee. During those years, I learned first-hand how elected officials, and party officials, will say what they please, even if the party has taken a different stance, whether by resolution or by a platform plank. These same officials will also remain silent, if they please, blaming the party for not having yet “spoken” on a topic, again whether by resolution or platform plank.

Said differently, party officials say what they please, regardless of what their party activists may resolve. Party platforms and resolutions exist to provide foils or fig leaves, as any party official may need, while keeping the activists who draft them busy, believing they are doing something relevant.

Shortly before I woke up to this, and resigned, I watched the Chair of the DPO chuck her hand-delivered copy of the 2010 DPO Platform—the final work product of that election year’s platform convention, representing thousands of hours of collective effort, by delegates from across the state—into the remote bowels of her desk, to deliver the clear message that she could not care less what it said.

I got into a bit of a dustup on Facebook last week.

IP28—which 131,220 Oregonians have signed, so far, will be on Oregon’s November ballot. If passed, it will criminalize fishing, hunting, rodent trapping, and livestock herding. It would extinguish Oregon’s support for ancient Tribal fishing rights. It would exterminate significant parts of Oregon’s outdoor recreation industry, and wipe out dairy farms (bye-bye Tillamook Cheese?) It could shut down the Oregon Zoo. IP28 exists to criminalize treating any animal differently than a well-kept household cat2.

Several friends in Portland seemed incensed that I expect elected Democrats in Oregon, including the leaders of Democratic Party of Oregon (DPO) itself, to speak out against IP28. Loudly, and promptly.

One friend repeatedly insisted that elected Democrats cannot be expected to say anything about IP28, because they are not allowed to, until the DPO Central Committee has issued a resolution on the topic at a quarterly meeting.

I rolled my eyes.

Said sarcastically, IP28 is an attempt to write “The Vegan Agenda” into law.

Historically, Montana is a purple state. For decades, the legislature and statewide offices were swapped between the parties. Then, in the 2022 and 2024 elections, the Montana Republican Party began posting billboards reading “Don’t Want Montana to Become Portland? Vote Republican.” The state turned bright red.

Just this month, Montana’s right-wing Christian Nationalist Governor, Greg Gianforte, has begun running ads mocking “Democrats” for Oregon’s IP28 (“They are literally trying to outlaw hunting”)—even though he’s not even up for re-relection. And, even though IP28 is happening over in Oregon, not Montana.

It is a very effective message, outside of Portlandia.

To a far greater degree than my many friends in Oregon realize, “Portland, Oregon” has become a national code-word for radical left-wing extremism.

Which is problematic, because Oregon’s nearby rural Western states—Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas—have 10 total Senators, compared to just 6 for the whole Left Coast—California, Oregon, and Washington.

Yet, those 10 rural Senators, now all Republican, are elected by just 5.5 million people, compared to the 55 million mostly-urbanites, who elect the Left Coast Six. Greater Los Angeles alone has over twice the population of these five rural states combined. Wyoming has less registered voters than Portland.

Jon Tester was the last Democratic U.S. Senator elected from among these five rural states. He lost, in 2024, by being framed as a “Democrat extremist,” controlled by the Left Coast. Tester is now backing an Independent, Seth Bodnar, in a credible and well-funded effort to replace Montana’s outgoing Republican Senator Steve Daines, by appealing to our state’s historic political centrism. After 18 years in the Senate, Tester sees the now urban-dominated Democratic brand as too extreme to win any longer, in Montana.

For their part, the Montana Democratic Party—which holds no statewide offices since Tester lost, and is nearly a super-minority in the legislature—has chosen to back a political unknown named Alani Bankhead, who moved to Montana three years ago because she “decided she likes us.” She has no chance of winning. But, her vanity campaign will guarantee the Republicans keep Daines’ seat.

The USA is in a Cold Civil War. This should be obvious, even in Portland.

Republicans have about seven million less registered voters, nationwide, than Democrats4. Yet, they control all three branches of the Federal Government, and a majority of State legislatures, because they play way above their weight through a) unified political messaging, b) gerrymandering, and c) billionaires.

Democrats care about regular people too much to have many c) billionaires on their side. And, Democrats tend to consider themselves “above” the sleazy politics of b) gerrymandering (until this year).

So, one might think Democrats would at least keep their shit together, when it comes to a) messaging.

But, one would be wrong.

I know full well, from 36 years of living in Portlandia, that 133,220 Oregonians would gladly sign onto The Vegan Agenda of IP28.

I also know these same folks—who would be happy to force their vegan values onto others—are mostly incapable of seeing how forcing their moral views about animals onto other people makes them no different from those who force their moral views against same-sex marriage onto my own life as a gay man.

Legislating other people’s morality, beyond the basics of public safety (no killing, no stealing, no lying in court, no driving through red lights, etc.) is un-American. It is the opposite of what it means to be liberal.

Yet, even though IP28’s war on ranchers is being weaponized against Democrats throughout the West, we are have been, until just a few days ago5, hearing crickets from Oregon Democrats about it.

My progressive friends pushed back at me, claiming that IP28 is not their problem. That it wasn’t backed by “real” Democrats. That it would never pass.

It is irrelevant how many “real” Oregon Democrats are behind IP28. It does not matter if it is likely to pass. It it meaningless whether it is some nefarious right-wing subversion to drive the conservative vote.

Even if all that is true, it just means Oregon Democrats let themselves get played.

As I was taught by the same DPO Chair who chucked the 2010 DPO Platform into the bowels of her desk, “the perception of political power is political power.” If voters see something to be true, then it is true, for all political purposes.

So, it is irrelevant how IP28 got wrapped around the Oregon Democrats’ neck. It is there, and completely credible, because it is consistent with Portlandia’s brand. A brand that loses elections outside of Oregon’s Willamette Valley, even if it remains exciting in safe, bright-blue districts Democrats already control.

Oregon Democrats need to start responding to national politics with something more effective than yet more screaming about Trump. They also need to work more closely with rural activists, who understand the voters who control most of America’s state, federal, and county governments, outside of safely packed and cracked urban districts.

Because there is a war going on. And, the rest of us need the Left Coast’s help.

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To me, Greater Idaho and The PEACE Act are a pair of awful twins, pinching each other and crying in complaint.

In 2020, a group emerged whose name said it all; Move Oregon’s Border for a Greater Idaho. They have been advocating that Eastern Oregon is more culturally aligned with Idaho. They point out that it fells like Oregon’s powers that be ignore and undermine Eastern Oregon. Therefore, the land of Eastern Oregon should become Western Idaho.

This is an unrealistic idea that won’t happen, but I despise it and work to disable it.

Still, resolutions in favor have passed in most of the counties that their proposal covers. In urban places, Greater Idaho is a laughing stock. It made it to an episode of The Daily Show.1

Is it funny because it is something that the people who want it are nearly powerless to do within legal means? I never thought it was funny. Kinda like when a TV personality ran for the Republican nomination for President on a platform built to appeal to disaffected rural people. I didn’t think that was funny either.

Two years after Greater Idaho came into being, the first PEACE Act came out of urban Oregon and started collecting signatures. The People for the Elimination of Animal Cruelty Exemptions Act, would categorize farming, fishing, hunting, pest control2 as animal cruelty, thus making them illegal. The PEACE Act comes from an odd organization out of Portland with some really wacky funding.3 Here in 2026, they have sought signatures again to get the PEACE Act on the ballot. Having spent at least a quarter of a million dollars, it looks like the PEACE Act will be on my Oregon ballot. This is an unrealistic idea that won’t happen, but I despise it and work to stop it. Along with Democrats across Eastern Oregon, My county committee has passed a resolution in opposition. We are holding meetings and speaking out on social media.

Like Greater Idaho, The PEACE Act would destroy towns. The fact that someone would propose something so destructive and pain-inducing boggles my mind. I struggle to empathize with them.

It is not in the least bit funny to me. It is not something I can ignore.

And I place the PEACE Act next to Greater Idaho as signs of the poor interchanges here in my state.

In conflict, we often try to discern “who is the aggressor.” It is a treacherous pursuit, because each escalation is a response to the other. Each aggressor has a reason in the actions of others to explain their act.

Greater Idaho says that urban Oregon is the aggressor. The PEACE Act is evidence to that claim.

As a culture we try to draw lines as to what aggression is acceptable and what is inappropriate.

Oregon is in dysfunctional conflict.

I love every corner of Oregon. If you read Old Truck Good Coffee with regularity, you have heard me sing praises and lay out critiques of the left (The Good Coffee) and the right (The Good Trucks).4

I think our conflict makes us vulnerable. Both Greater Idaho and The PEACE Act receive funding from outside organizations who seem to be more interested in starting fires in our house than making Oregon better for people. Now, we have to spend time talking and working on these issues instead of on our schools (which, by the way, could really use the help).

Something I love about Oregon is that historically, we have gotten through this. Oregon was famous for collaborative politics in the 80s and 90s. We can do it again.

And we are. This May, Wallowa County voted to kick Greater Idaho out of their county.

To date, 12 County Democratic parties have passed resolutions in opposition to The PEACE Act. More are in the works (Disclosure: I am organizing for this project. My County Democratic Party passed that resolution in May5). The Democratic Governor and her Republican challenger are both in opposition to The PEACE Act.

I don’t regularly meld my political efforts and Old Truck Good Coffee. Leo and I want Old Truck Good Coffee to be read across our interchanges and inspire community thinking outside of partisanship. These days, party membership is legitimately distracting and distrusted, so not that useful.

But this moment seems exceptional. Everyone (except that substitute teacher, his distant funders, and his paid signature gatherers) is behaving really well. People are recognizing how damaging this proposal is and they are taking it seriously. Not because it might pass but because we don’t want to be associated with it. Because we understand the culture, livelihood, and meaning in hunting, fishing, and farming. Because we share priorities.

I am sad with where we are, but I see the work being done to fix us. To allow all of Oregon to see each other, despite these outside-funded efforts to ram us into each other.

It is a good question. Astrophysicists now estimate there are 2,000,000,000,000 (two trillion) galaxies in the known universe. Which means there are more galaxies than a human brain has neurons. There are more galaxies than Musk has dollars.

Our own galaxy has 100,000,000,000 (one hundred billion) stars, of which our planet Earth orbits exactly one. One.

Said differently, humans are physically incapable of allocating even one neuron per galaxy to how big our (presumably God-given) curiosity, and resulting technologies, now know physical reality to be. We live inside Plato’s cave.

Yet, the largest two religions on the planet, Christianity and Islam, plus many smaller ones, teach that we can only be “saved” by believing in a set of stories that are only available on Earth.

It would make for quite a bottleneck on the road to salvation, if you had to find some planet named Earth, and read a particular book, to stand any chance of an afterlife. You could be eternally damned, just for belonging to a species that evolved in the wrong galaxy, or on the wrong planet, or in the incorrect era of our 13,200,000,000 year old universe.

Myself, I doubt “God” sucks so bad at engineering.

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Any religion which cannot be as true in one galaxy as it could be in the next one cannot claim to be a universal (aka, “catholic2”) faith, just a regional culture, no matter how big the region.

Which is fine, at least in a free country, and good for those who feel into it. Civic cultures can be valuable, particularly in the face of AI. It takes work to maintain our humanity, and it helps to show up for face to face meetings.

But, a civic culture is less than what major religions present themselves to be: as the one way, truth, and life, for all; albeit differently stated, often in conflict, and sometimes enforced with a sword.

This could all be unpacked much further, of course. Religion is a big topic. But, for the purpose of commentary relevant to Spielberg’s latest flick, it seems to me that neither time nor geography could be preconditions to any credible, universal faith. No one, true, monotheistic God worthy of that moniker would demand a faith based in historical events arising from a brief era on a single planet as a mandatory requirement for “his” love.

Any such God would be a bigot.

And, while many have tried, no one has ever convinced me of that.

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For me, I wanted this year to be a year to consider what is good friction and what is bad friction.

The plan this weekend included a walk through Bend (Oregon) First Friday. My sweetie lives here and loves it. I see that Bend is …objectively worthy of appreciation. It is a smaller city but with great restaurants. It is in a beautiful part of the world. I like to recreate in a lot of the ways it does. I hike and run its trails, fish, and camp. I should be pro-Bend. And I want to be.

However, I tend to get wound around my old cultural objections to Bend; it attracts people who move here for the lifestyle. They are not of here, and it is hard for me to see a place populated by folks not connected to the earlier chapters of the Ongoing Story of Here.

I also find the people to be so suspiciously beautiful and well appointed. I get a sense of emerging women’s fashion walking around Bend First Friday.1

We went to the grand opening of a new space for art creation. People can rent small studios there and enjoy common space. There was an area for teenagers with a coffee bar, open space to sit, and a shared guitar. I love a shared guitar.

I overheard one painter standing outside her studio space say exactly my fear, “well I work remotely and my goal is to get here to my studio by noon every day.”

I had to wrestle with the sense that she is living La Vida but has no culture. That she is adrift, seeking pleasure and ego rewards, anchored to nothing.

Maybe that remote-working painter is unmoored from culture. I can’t say. If so, I think it is very sad for her and I hope she finds some connection. But perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps she has a rich faith community that gathers in worship throughout the week. Perhaps she has a close family. Perhaps she is driven to community service. All this AND she works from home AND she maintains an artistic practice? Amazing.

We continued our journey. We went to the book release celebration of a local non-fiction author. We bought stickers at a fundraiser for a high school speech and debate team. My new sticker says “Be Kind and speak your mind.”

In the late afternoon, downtown Bend was an ambient temperature such that you did not even notice the weather. People were milling about. Many were in the peak fashion I can’t help but notice. There was a well-dressed but bored looking group at a very fancy real estate office. A DJ was playing unoffensive rap over different beats.

On another corner was a funk band playing their version of Dolly Parton’s “Nine to Five.” I realized that we passed several original bands including a hardcore drum and guitar duo, a largely female band playing originals that reminded me of Siouxsie and Galaxy 500,2 and an alt country outfit. The main stage by the river was also a band playing originals, where I had expected someone playing pleasing straight ahead covers.

Perhaps Bend has developed an original local music scene that even my snobbish tastes can enjoy.

I looked around and saw not just high fashion worn well. I saw people dressed like me. I saw high school age people trying on identity. I saw older people out engaging with the people around them.

My sweetie invites me along to a lot of events. Last year she brought me to a presentation by the Oregon State economist, Damon Rundberg, speaking about Bend’s economic situation. Before the talk, I had presumed that Bend was akin to Vale or Steamboat Springs. That recreation and out of town money dominated it. You can see the experience of that in the housing market here, it is definitely true that out of town money has increased housing prices.

But Rundberg (who is, by the way, one of the most engaging, affable public speakers you may ever get to see) said that the economy here is more diverse than you would think. And on reflection, I know folks who run a machine shop here. There is industry. It has problems, but Bend is not completely lost to an addiction to out of town money.

My sweetie loves it here, and she loves events like this. If she had not invited me, I would not have chosen to come to Bend First Friday. However, I am glad now for the good friction of passing into a place and seeing it in more dimension.

I was also happy to leave, to go back downstream the next day to my part of the river where it waters a thin strip of the desert to crowded green, where I am not able to discern the latest in women’s fashion.

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For the third annual High Desert Low Speed Mixer and Brunch, I had a blessed number of people at my house in the high desert of North Central Oregon. To my knowledge, no political fracas occurred. Perhaps this is the sort of mixer to pull America back from the brink.

The mixer part of the weekend is a morning run where participants1 get paired off with another person for a short leg in our beautiful desert meadow. I provide poor directions and distractions so that people get a little lost sometimes and have to work together to get back home where the chilaquiles are cooking up.

Other than the little run, we cleared some brush for my neighbor, played with dogs, cooked, ate, and talked.

After three years the logistics are less challenging, but my primary concern is the primary reason that I set this up; my invites go to friends of mixed political stripes.

I did send out one email prior to the event reminding people to use their best judgement to not be a part of the two stage rocket of political dispute:

1. Avoid saying things that might trigger someone else.

2. If someone does say something that triggers you, wait a beat and think what response (if any) is going to be productive.

Three of us were hauling my neighbor’s brush to the dump. We drove past an overlook of the river with the mountains behind it. We had just found yet another agreement across our divides; that Coors tastes best at 30 miles per hour.

James then confused me. He said, “you know, Joel, you live the life of a conservative.”

I was befuddled. I made babbling noises for a minute. James lives in a fancy part of Idaho part of the time and San Antonio part of the time. He works in banking. He is a thoughtful guy about a lot of things but we don’t align either politically or in the way we spend our days. Mostly, pickleball and grandkids. I want neither of these things.

I live in a pretty rural area — though to be clear not an agricultural community. My home is in a place developed in the 1980s on a historic ranch. It is largely retired people. Registered Democrats are a small percentage of voters, true. So are natives; most of my neighbors moved from cities.

Do I live the life of a conservative? I never thought of it that way. I live the life of my family, which is a mixed, politically moderate group. I live where I like to fish and where I can be with family that anchors me. I live on the land that I was formed upon. That is not intentionally a political act.

I asked James what he meant but did not get anything that clarified. “You live free out here,” was something to do with it.

While the Republican Party has embraced the idea that rural is inherently Republican (and the voter registration demographics of the last three decades bear that out) it was not historically true.

The shift of the working class and rural people towards the Republican party is within my memory. That is a small slice of our shared 250 years. There is nothing about living in a rural area or having a particular lifestyle that makes you of one political stripe or another.

Rural areas in America gave birth to the Grange. Folks working the extraction economies of rural Montana, West Virginia, and California were the strong spine and legs that moved America’s labor movement forward. They would not be considered conservative in their own time or in ours.

From what I understand about the people of those movements, I imagine that those families also cleared brush for their neighbors and would enjoy nice beverage while in motion on occasion.

I have come to reject the “spectrum” metaphor of our politics. We are all more complex, more beautiful than a dot placed on a line that blends from blue to red, from left to right.

Metaphors like that are more powerful than people imagine. Putting people on this spectrum allows you one calculation: how far away are we from each other?

James works for a bank. He is highly mobile. His family structure is not a simple nuclear sort. He loves close family members who are gay.

Are these supposed to describe a liberal lifestyle, even though he votes Republican? We have had wonderful conversations, driving down the road blasting Whitney Houston, about what matters in our lives. He has offered me valuable advice. Except pickleball and progeny, his world makes as much sense to me as my own. The distance between us is close to zero.

There is no spectrum.

Luke was the third person riding with us. He also votes Republican. There is no simple way to describe Luke (like everyone else) but for brevity I will say that he carries forward the redneck he was raised in.

A while later, having a beer that we consumed while sitting in one place, he called back to our conversation on the way to the dump.

“You know,” Luke said, “I don’t think we should think of the Republican Party as a lifestyle brand,”

“That’s smart,” I said, “Democrats neither.”

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Please forgive! Now, on to some weekly truck … - Leo

We managed to get outside for a while on Saturday. It is Memorial Day Weekend, after all. The holiday when the 94 million acres currently known as the State of Montana is body-tackled by tourists slathered in technicolor outdoor-fabric, gunning to snag some fish from a river and slap it on a grill. With beer.

I trailed my husband, walking along an unofficially abandoned railroad line instead1. We are not fishermen. He collected rusty bits and worn wood pegs, all likely to end up in his ceramic creations. I shot patterns and textures.

For the line of thought I am nurturing here, the key part is that we were outside, walking along the leftovers of a transport technology which once bound together two of Montana’s more significant towns: Helena and Great Falls. People were fishing and camping all around us, along this Recreation Road we would likely never camp on ourselves. It is much too close to the highway. We know how to get far more lost, if we want. This afternoon stroll is a mere thirty minutes from our front door.

We finished up our mild adventure with a cuisine-grade burger at a nearby taphouse. One well worth your while, should you ever be nearby. Wifi was available, along with local brew, as well as Montana’s very good regional cider brand. There was even a weed shop down the street, in the tiny riverside town where we ate. Which I mention not because I partake any longer—cannabis rattles my nerves, and leaves me feeling blue for days—but because there is no need to stay in a city if one wants “accoutrements” to go with your bit of nature. Even in rural Montana, intoxicatingly tasty elements of the anthropocene era2 have spread along rocky canyon riverbanks once dominated by mountain goats.

It has become harder to find the wild. Still, I would rather be sitting in one of these curated outdoor dining experiences than staring at a screen. Or, so I say here now, while staring at a screen, writing about a previously lived experience.

Could I survive with neither nature nor screens? I do not know. I have not had to try, at least not since growing up before personal computers were invented. People somehow managed without, and my family took only occasional trips to the mountains.

My life has been privileged enough to consume nature for its beauty, on demand, taking photos on the wildly powerful computers I now carry in my pocket. I keep thousands of those photos stored on my phone, and in a data center, somewhere, the location of which no doubt changes regularly. I have no idea where.

I have never had to survive outside of my physical comfort zone, even if I have pushed myself to try a bit, in certain ways.

Social comfort zone, though? That’s a very different story.

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A brother of my Masonic Lodge in Portland frequently complains of the way he sees this old civic organization we share as “infected with white trash Trump voters.” He is a single, seventy-year old, upper middle class, retired white lawyer, born in the middle of the baby boom. He lives in a home he bought and paid off long ago, in Portland’s Hawthorne-Belmont neighborhood3, one of the deepest blue political zones in America.

He does not get out much. He lives most of his life via keyboard.

His open bias against rural American culture is ironic, given he is a Freemason proudly living in the heart of Portland. Portlandians are well-known for their claims to embrace diversity. And, reaching across divisions, in search of shared light, is a core tenet of Freemasonry4. I like to remind him of these points. He seems not to care.

I do. I have to.

Out here in Helena, Montana, I know several men in my local Masonic Lodge who are part of that demographic my lodge brother in Portland appears to despise. They hunt, wear caps, love football, drink beer, and often do not bother to put on a suit or tie for lodge meetings, though they have one, for funerals and degrees. I am sure some voted for Trump. I also know they show up, do the work, and would be among the first to offer me help, if I had need. No questions asked.

Early on, when I first met these guys, a few looked twice at the “George Michael” hoop earrings I wear specifically to make me look more gay. A couple of them paused, briefly, the first time I mentioned “my husband, Michael.” A fair number of them have since told me of their LGBTQ children, siblings, cousins, aunts, etc.

So, I know for a fact, from my very own “lived experience,” that just showing up, month after month, and being completely myself—earrings, husband, and all—has built bridges, and shored up trestles, among some “white trash Trump voters,” where these bridges may have never existed before5.

In other words, I see these guys work harder to bridge actual social gaps than some highly vocal Portlandians I know, parked behind keyboards and shooting off their mouths. I expect many of my local guys would never vote for Trump again, if they did before.

But, I will not ask them.

Shaming people does not win votes or friendship, much less a chance to change somebody’s mind.

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Those rusty old railroad tracks Michael and I walked did not lead anywhere in particular. We had no destination or agenda. Still, the trestles crossing the river were strong. The rust added color. The air was clear and fresh.

We could have stayed home, staring at a screen. But, we drove off and walked along some abandoned old technology anyhow. We went someplace similar, but unfamiliar. Unexpected. We found some beauty there.

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Is anyone in the United States happy with the way things are? No matter who I talk to, conservative or liberal, Democrat or Republican, or a someone who (gasp!) defies a label, no one seems happy.

It feels like we hate them and they hate us, whoever they or us may be. But if we’re all unhappy with the current state of affairs, shouldn’t we be able to find some common ground? As both sides launch rotten tomatoes at each other, you’d think the people in the middle suffer the most.

Actually a recent Gallup Poll shows unaffiliated voters represent the biggest part of the electorate. Forty-five percent of voters are registered independent, unaffiliated with any party, as opposed to 27% who are registered as Democrats or 27% who are registered as Republicans. Look at all that untapped power!

It might be wrong to assume all 45% of unaffiliated voters sit in the middle ideologically. Some may think more extreme than either party. Polls show most independents lean left. At least independents step away from irrational party loyalty.

Like New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill recently said, “People almost treat political parties like sports teams so anybody against them in any way is doing something bad or wrong.”

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Friends Christina and Erin and I pondered these possibilities over coffee/matcha/tea. Christina decries the two-party system. “It sets up the energetic field for failure in collaboration, because you’re defining two sides based on opposing views and you’re asking them to come together and come to a resolution. Energetically you set a stage for opposition.”

Christina says get rid of the categories and labels.

“But that requires people who want to look forward,” says Erin. “Right now I think there’s a pandemic in our society of people who want to look backward because in their mind there’s this glorified beautiful past where life was simple and America was good.”

You know, those Archie Bunker, All in the Family values: “Girls were girls and men were men.” (Note: girls, not women.) “Didn’t need no welfare state. Everybody pulled his weight.”

Erin is right, of course. We need to look forward to a new future. But as Erin points out, that takes courage. “Hope looks scary because it’s unknown and it’s new.”

Hope looks scary? Why does hope always play like a wide-eyed child while cynics come off as worldly wise? I have two words for those who find safety in pessimism: Chicken Little. Who was naive in that scenario?

People who criticize have nothing at stake. They appear to stand above looking down, but they offer nothing constructive.

Hope requires bravery, curiosity, imagination and the real work to build our future. Real solutions come from people who don’t care about following the party line. How do we elect genuine problem solvers?

By definition, independents don’t have the political machinery to run a campaign. Extreme opinions lend themselves to motivating slogans, but imagine a slogan for the middle: “Calm Down!” “Moderation.” “We Want Solutions!” “Come Let Us Reason.” The middle defies marketing. (Or does it? Maybe you have some ideas.)

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We, the middle, need to find our voice. People who seek power need to know what we want.

Christina wants candidates who have experience, collaborative energy, diplomacy and inclusivity.

Give me, Pat, a candidate with solutions. Don’t complain to me about ICE atrocities. I already know that. Tell me how you’re going to use resources to create sanity at the border for citizens and for immigrants.

I refuse to vote for anyone who berates their opponent. Tell me why I should vote for you. Give me something constructive.

Don’t try to make me afraid of the other guy. Tell me how you’ll make things safer.

Do you believe in dignity? Prove it. Say something good about the other candidate.

I believe in hope. I believe hope for our country lies between the extremes. If you agree, help increase the voice of the middle. Consider sharing or restacking this post. Let’s grow the middle voice.

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For the latter half of the oughties, my activist tendencies led me into a handful of political party roles, culminating in a three-year stint as Chair of the Platform and Resolutions Committee of the Democratic Party of Oregon (DPO). Last year, I felt gratified to learn—from my OTGC writing partner Joel—that a small handful of process improvements I helped navigate into place, back in the day, still guide aspects of that state party’s bi-annual platform convention.

Along the way to those, though, I learned how visibility is the only political currency in a democracy, and that small-stake contests are as bloody as any other. Many party animals will stab backs as needed, to rise into the lights.

Ask me how I know.

Which is why I know that people occupying a political spotlight for more than a hot minute tend to be deeply compromised, and to avoid making changes that would matter to average voters. Average voters do not own spotlights, much less have enough money to pay the power bills needed to keep those spotlights lit.

I do not feel particularly bad about any of this. Human beings preen. Preening is baked into our biology. We preen to get laid, and scream to dominate. Parties are full of ambitious people, acting out on their ambitions.

It would be naive and utopian of me to expect any different.

But, this also means I often have better places to spend my time and money than helping party activists play their party games, inside a broken process.

Thirteen years ago, the Christian aspects of my spirituality settled into the Anglican tradition, for it being a welcoming and gently held approach to my childhood catholicism. Some ritual, some mysticism, and easy on the dogma. It works, for me.

The American expression of Anglican tradition is The Episcopal Church. This church operates as a democracy, not an empire. A democracy that has, at points, told both Popes and Kings to go take a walk; a fact that nurtures my middling anti-authoritarianism. Leadership, yes, but also decentralization, please.

Anglicans walk a willfully middle way between the ancient, imperial Christian tradition, with its pope and patriarchs, and the younger traditions, which have been protesting against Christendom for the past 500 years, to the point of giving any dude with a Bible the right to thump it at others for money.

The middle way takes some of each and leaves the cultishness behind. The only promises one makes as a member of this middle way are listed in a Baptismal Covenant, the most often cited line of which is:

Episcopalians are offered an opportunity to speak and re-commit to this line, publicly, as a group, on Easter every year, if one chooses to do so. No one will likely notice if you keep quiet, much less ask you to leave. It’s a personal thing.

Regardless, every human being is a very big group. We need to work together.

I dropped out of party politics after the 2010 election.

In doing so, I joined the apparently incomprehensible (to party leadership) 45% of voters, averaged by age, who do not identify as Republican or Democrat2 and so are without an organized political home, due to the laws of American politics.

So, does this mean that (a) I support baby-murder, per much of the party with 28% average voter loyalty3? Or, does it mean (b) that I want Trans people to die, per much of the other, which likewise commands about 28% voter loyalty4?

Yes, #notalldemocrats and #notallrepublicans adhere to these hyper-partisan litmus tests. But, they are very real, and many do. These and similar trigger points (e.g., guns, racism) ignite enough passion to get ambitious party animals elected, by the dwindling ranks of party loyalists who show up for screaming.

(N.B.: the root problem is in the laws governing state by state election processes, which give unfair structural primacy to the two historic parties; but, the toxic impact of closed primaries, invested interests, and resulting stranglehold on genuine political diversity and discourse, is beyond scope this week.)

But, to simplify, if screaming led to positive change, wouldn’t we know by now?

A Vice Chair of the Democratic Party of Oregon once advised me, “process rarely works, Leo. You only win with popularity.” He was right. Our process has delivered President Trump, twice. He is very popular. His people love him.

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Myself, I choose none of the above.

Instead, I consider every candidate. I look for one, single, over-arching theme in the noises any candidate makes: do they see every person, who would be subject to the laws they want to make, judge, or enforce, as deserving equal justice, peace, and dignity? Or, do they think some folks are, for any reason whatsoever, “more equal than” others?

I read candidate’s websites. It does not take long. They tend to be short these days, composed of little more than partisan catch-phrases. But, I try to read between whatever lines they provide, and assess their pool of concerns.

For example:

• Everyone needs roads, otherwise we smash our axles and drive through yards. So, will they take care of the roads?

• Everybody needs water and a place to poop, otherwise we all get cholera. So, does this candidate care about water, sewers, and public infrastructure?

• Everybody needs food and a safe place to sleep, else we get criminals crawling through our windows. Does this candidate seem ready to manage the fact that starving and/or addicted people will kill to get what they need?

• Everybody needs access to digital communication, to participate in the economy. Will this candidate work to ensure everyone does, and securely?

• Everybody needs a planet to live on. Will this candidate waste our planet, or protect it? It is the one and only livable planet we have.

• Every person needs the feel the dignity of their labor is respected. So, will this candidate help ensure there is dignified work available for everyone?

• Every adult needs to live among voters who can read, write, do basic math, and understand civics well enough to vote. So, will this candidate ensure good public schools and teaching are available for everyone?

• Does this candidate seem mature enough to grasp simple principles, like an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure?

• Is this candidate mature enough to grasp things most of us know from shopping at Costco, like buying in bulk saves money?

I could go on. So could you.

The point is: none of these ideas are hard. None are extreme. All of them leave room for diversity. All of them are boring, and agreeably middle of the road.

Too boring to get the screamers, who want to dominate others, enough attention to get elected. And that is the problem: good public administration is boring, but Americans love excitement. Americans love screaming, and horror movies.

Can systemic political polarization be fixed by an unorganized 45% of the electorate, sitting in the middle of the road, looking for some quiet? I do not know. Still, that is where my deepest beliefs put me: in a middle ground where every person has the right to expect equal justice, equal peace, and common dignity, and otherwise be left to follow their personal weird.

This goes especially for any weirdoes I do not like.

Any candidate who can place this “baptismal” truth at the center of their politics will get serious consideration for my vote.

I could not care less what color they wear while doing it.

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Today is getting above 60 degrees Fahrenheit, so I shouldered a backpack sprayer and headed out to the strip the cheatgrass is growing. Sixty degrees is the temperature that the weed killer does its business.

I have been passing that row every few days, looking for what I think a baby cheatgrass would look like. I know that this blanket of spring green that I see, the short-lived photosynthesis of desert grasses, includes the invader.

I know that what I should have done is put a pre-emergent spray on the weeds in the fall to kill the seeds as they embed in the soil. Two autumns ago I didn’t do it because spraying is bad. After a year watching the cheatgrass spread, I didn’t do it last fall because I just didn’t have the money.

This spring I am spraying with a vinegar solution, to kill the young plants. With vinegar, don’t have to worry about the dogs getting in to it nor feel guilty about contributing to the collapse of plant pollinators.

But there is Roundup in my garage and I will be using it this year.

This is my fourth summer here. Every year the cheatgrass has gotten worse. For certain, the routes my dogs have dug in the soil crust has encouraged it. Also, my attempts of a couple years of a rookie chemical-free management has allowed the vile weed to expand its range.

In my post two years ago, I talked of using the heat of the sun to kill the cheatgrass seeds. An expert resident of my neighborhood, 80 years old and running a tractor at the limb dump, patiently explained that this internet theory is nonsense.

“I tried that. At the bottom of my pile was a nice scattering of fertile cheatgrass seeds. Its fire or nothing for these bastards.” I will be bagging and taking all my cheatgrass to the limb dump, where they all get burnt up in midwinter.

I will still be pulling up cheatgrass this year, but I hope to kill off some before it gets to that. It is a lot of hours of somewhat useless work; you pull up the plant, the seeds fall into the loosened soil where the roots once were, and next year you are back in the same place cursing at the same damn plant.

I am learning. I have learned to think about the cheatgrass earlier. I learned the phone number of a local guy who will spray this thing called a pre-emergent on your land in autumn. I am learning from my neighbors that the previous owner of this land, although she hated to use cling wrap because of the environmental impact, put a lot of chemicals down to keep the place free of the noxious and invasive. She is a thoughtful person and I expect it was with some consideration.

So this year, I am a little better. I know how much time the cheat grass is going to take from me. I seek to shrink its population for 2027. I am spraying to do so, because in our lives we are always balancing opposing goods.

My neighbors may judge me for the cheatgrass this year, but I appreciate their patience. We all need patience as we wrestle with hard decisions.

On Sunday’s Old Truck Good Coffee, our guest writer Pat Kruis shared her thoughts on how to consider the regret of some Trump voters.

Perhaps you are as a neighbor considering the weeds in my garden, expecting that I will come around and get better for caring for my land and our community.

It is May, and I am already thinking about cheatgrass. I hope that in September, I have the wherewithal to spray the pre-emergent like my more experienced neighbors do. I will feel sad about the chemicals, but realize that it is a better option than losing all of my land to cheatgrass and pulling their seeds from my dogs’ ears.

When I learned how to drive, my instructor warned us about ‘target fixation’, the tendency to steer toward what you’re looking at. Rubberneckers get into accidents because they look at the obstacle, so they steer toward the hazard and *BAM* things only get worse.

My driving instructor, thank you Mr. Snapper, told us to focus on our intended path, 15-20 seconds ahead, not on the spectacle.

Right now I see people, including myself, expending a lot of venom criticizing the current administration. Instead of tallying all the wrongs, can we get a clear vision of what we do want in leadership? Let’s focus on an intended path.

What if we don’t fixate on Trump, or waste our energy hating people who voted for him? If we want more balance in Congress, some of those Trump voters will have to change their minds. The “you’re so stupid” rhetoric repels the very people we need to help turn the country in a positive direction.

(If you’re a Trump voter, thank you for reading this far. I really want to hear your opinion.)

Listen to what Allyson Reynolds says about creating a soft landing for people stepping away from MAGA. She has an Instagram series called “Things I didn’t know when I was a Republican.” She says shaming and blaming will not change minds.

Reynold’s video is about three minutes long, but many of you may not have time to listen to it, so here is a key paragraph:

“As more people come out of the MAGA fever dream I think it’s important to keep encouraging people who are opposed to Trump and MAGA to create a soft landing for people who are leaving.

“And I hope to do that by explaining just how easy it is for many Americans, especially privileged White Americans and poor uneducated White Americans to not know the things that you think everybody already knows or ‘should know.’”

Newsweek reports on a Navigator poll that shows one in five Trump voters regret their decision. The poll indicates these dissatisfied voters are younger, most younger than 45, and describe themselves as moderate. Most of them, two-thirds, don’t like Democrats either.

Research shows the top two reasons people voted for Trump: the economy and immigration. Guess the two top reasons for Trump voter dissatisfaction: the economy and the violent tactics in immigration arrests and detention. Add to that the Iran war started by a president who promised no more wars.

Intelligent people voted for Trump. That may be hard to admit when you’re stuck in Trump disgust mode. We need to face the fact Trump won the presidency because Trump opponents didn’t offer a better alternative.

I’d rather concentrate on hope than hate, but don’t mistake this for some milquetoast plea to “just get along,” or civil discord. This requires something far more strategic. It’s not enough to vote against something, we need something to vote for. What is that? What’s that platform? Who is that?

I have not heard this articulated. Maybe you have. Show me where to look. What do YOU want in leadership? What causes can our nation successfully rally around?

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Here’s some information I found valuable:

—A recent (April 17-20, 2026) Echelon Insights poll of 1,012 voters, showed 42% of Democrats think their party should move more toward the center to win the next elections, compared to 22% who think the party should move left, and 18 percent who think the party should stay the same.

—Check out the Third Way and its Moderate Power Project. This is the MPP mission statement:

We amplify center-left views and voices to challenge the far left, push back against the MAGA right movement, and govern effectively from the middle.

MPP takes polls, does research and supports moderate candidates. It’s latest Data Dispatch highlighted Blue Rose Research that showed successful messaging about the economy. Interesting. Helpful.

I don’t pretend my little Substack has superhuman power, but I believe in engaging constructively, joining the positive voices.

More than ever, I hope you comment on this post. I want to hear what you’re thinking. I want to hear about candidates you think can bring hope to our country. Together let’s break our fixation on what’s wrong and focus on the path forward.

Along the way, at my request, we stopped at the gravesite of an old friend of mine. His headstone is set in the cemetery of the tiny Kansas town where his parents adopted him from a mother he never found, despite great efforts. Efforts that ended with a government letter telling him to stop looking; or, so his brother reminded me at graveside.

Looking over the headstones resting quietly under a fluffy Kansas sky, I recalled this story myself, from a long-locked trunk in my head. This trunk also let me recall how William S. Burroughs had become a friend of my friend in college, over coffee Darren would serve him, in the college-town café where he worked while earning his degree. Burroughs was a flirt.

My friend and lover’s adoptive brother—now the local fire chief—and I had first met many years ago, briefly, once. It had become my role to pour Darren’s ashes into the ocean at Oswald West State Park, a beachfront for connoiseurs of the Oregon Coast. It was my duty, as a friend and former lover, to do so over family objections, if any. This was Darren’s will, and a good one, under circumstances particular to his family, and to the age of untreatable HIV/AIDS. At his brother’s request, though, I had allowed a small portion of the ashes to travel back to Kansas. No, his family could not have it all. It was much too late for that.

Those spoonfuls of ash were now mingled in the soil below a headstone I was viewing for my first and only time. Which was sitting next to the headstone of “a loving father and friend” of whom I had heard unspeakable tales.

Despite those tales, and my own, Darren’s brother had still listed me in the local obituary, nearly thirty years ago, as an honorary pall-bearer to his brother. To return his respect, I now offered him some photos that no longer bring me tears.

We will never see each other again.

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This hour of memento mori, in a remote graveyard, was not off-point for what came next. Less than two hours further south we arrived at one of the largest Masonic buildings ever built; a temple for remembering death and resurrection.

The next three early mornings were spent in an elaborate, copal-scented room, engaging in contemplative practices before moving into the big, old, leather-seated auditorium, to witness the day’s degrees. No one was permitted in the third and highest balcony. The 1,500 or so available seats have likely not seen a full house for many decades, though there are photos of the glory days, dating to before the First World War.

Still, on each of our three days, hundreds of men were scattered around inside this century-plus old edifice, setting stages, running lights, rehearsing lines, adjusting wireless mics, making food, smoking cigars, talking with brothers, and reading quietly in the rippled glass and carved wood library, or one of several exotically-themed lounges.

At one point we were told 493 men had volunteered to make this weekend happen. The entire event—including months of labor leading up to it, and a week of tear-down following—was an outpouring of old school volunteerism, undertaken in service to moral, chivalric, and philosophical enlightenment. An educational experience dating from an era before highly specialized (and expensive) college degrees became so common as today.

This all happened in a town of 12,000 people, in northern Oklahoma, not far from where tornados hit this past Friday. It felt … inspiring … to learn how a college of mystical interreligious studies, expressing itself through dramatically staged, highly literate rituals, has been dotted across the United States, and woven into the now-fraying American cultural fabric, since 1801.

It takes very little research to learn that philosophical lessons, framed around death and resurrection, have never been limited to the Christian church. The Way is not exactly hidden.

Three days later, my fraternal brother and I drove 1,400 miles back home, including 17 hours in one very long day, crossing stretches of Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Montana. We largely kept to state highways and local byways. We drove past lots of small town cemeteries and museums.

There was a time when we humans had to meet face to face, if we wanted to dramatically communicate vast philosophies, in ways that touch the heart and punch the gut. Now we have YouTube and a cereal bowl.

The first called upon armies of volunteers equipped with scripts, props, and mythologies. The second requires data centers, sucking up aquifers once used for growing food.

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When I look at this history, and then I look at the culture war, I see cause and effect. I see a war being fought over the spoils and the ruins of Progress by people who live in those ruins and are mourning the loss of something they don’t even quite understand. That sense of mourning is common on both the ‘left’ and the ‘right’. Whether they are mourning the end of the arc of history or the end of a country they miss without maybe having known it, the sense of loss is profound, even if unspoken. For many people, everything is broken.

The first half of Against the Machine is bleak. Thus far Kingsnorth has been laying out all that is wrong in our world, the hyper-real commercial experience we live in that obscures and destroys our more natural origins.2 This chapter of the book is starting to gain what I hope is momentum to some kind of path forward for us in response to the mire he has so vividly described.

The idea that we are two camps,3 in opposition and mourning, hits. I take his reference to the “end of the arc of history” to be the progressive left’s general idea, expressed by Martin Luther King, jr days before he died, that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”4 I take the “end of a country they miss without maybe having known it” as the suggestion in “Make America Great Again” that we once were great but are not now.

I am reading Against the Machine with a book club. When we discussed this chapter, one person was able to describe his own mourning in a very detailed way. It inspired further discussion of the things he feels a loss of and a desire for. However, he could not express a belief or understanding of the mourning of those he saw in opposition to what he was mourning.

And it is hard for us to expect otherwise. Everyone mourns in their own way — some violently, some quietly — but little can be done about the direction of ones mourning from the outside. All manner of relations tried to redirect Hamlet’s mourning to something more convenient. They could not change his mood or trajectory.

Forgive me for not doing extensive research on clinical approaches to mourning, but in a quick search I came across The Center for Loss & Life Transition, started by Alan D. Wolfelt. In his article The Six Needs of Mourning he lists

1. Acknowledge the reality of death.

2. Embrace the pain of loss

3. Remember the person who died

4. Develop a new self-identity

5. Search for meaning

6. Receive ongoing support from others.

I wonder about whether we are fostering our own process of mourning or simply striking out to avoid the pain of loss and the reality we are facing.

Right now, there are both numbers and words showing that people are abandoning Donald Trump. In numbers, polls of his approval are dropping. In words, prominent supporters have publicly distanced themselves from the administration.

If you are in opposition to Donald Trump, you have to consider what to do next. To one extent or another, these people have some responsibility for what you view as great ills. You will tell me that “great ills” is doing a whole lot of work there, holding death, cruelty, destruction.

These are things to mourn.

I ask a hard thing, in the midst of the rubble;

Without addressing anything external to these individuals, can you consider the feeling of abandoning something you believed in? Of abandoning hope that would resurrect what you have lost?.

In my social media these days the machines that are designed to feed me rage dressed up like news regularly show me people who I don’t know saying that they will not forgive any Trump voter, that they will not welcome them back. Some are Russian bots, but some are actual Americans, also in mourning.

In the past, I have said that this is stupid strategy unless your goal is authoritarianism of a left-leaning brand built on demonizing large swaths of the popultion.

It still is stupid, but now I consider the mourning, the grieving, the churning processes we are all experiencing. The tragedy that we can not give each other anything useful to our mourning as we have not the strength just now to reach that far.

That we have worsened our communities because our own mourning kept us from comforting our neighbor’s mourning.

Two varieties of deviled eggs were on display, next to a similar count of relish trays, with radish rosettes and pickles pulled from cool basement jars. We also enjoyed homemade pickled beets, a clove-scented delicacy I learned to love from my dad. Cousin Candy brought a big selection of chocolates, nougats, and multi-colored sugar-wafers from Helena’s 104 year old Parrot Confectionary, because, as amazing as her cooking was, back in the day, and it was, Candy gets a pass, now, thanks to her double-tank oxygen supply.

By the time my single-tank mother-in-law, Jeanette, brought out Elvis Presley’s Favorite Poundcake for dessert—complete with your choice of homemade Huckleberry and/or Strawberry compote ladled off-side or over the top—my appetite was nearly in rebellion. Once Elvis was finished with me, I could not eat one … more … bite.

So, I went for a walk. It had been months since I had chatted with Ross, a dear friend, who long helped anchor Portland’s fringe theater scene, as well as stock its weirdest vintage shops, using his eye for worn-classic beauty.

Ross has always nurtured my creative pursuits. This time, he invited me to write about limits. He waxed a bit about “having enough,” in a culture of excess. I avoided thinking about his age, which not quite recently drove past 80. He pondered what it means to pay attention to your belt, or any belt, for that matter, well enough to notice the moment when it goes uncomfortably tight. The irony of which was not lost on me, given I had just pressed pause on the Easter brunch above.

I expect anyone reading this has their own take on what too much can mean. Just having a screen on which to read a Substack article means having access to endless scrolling feeds of whatever we have told the algorithms we like most.

Which is a well-known trope.

What feels less known, to me, is how to navigate based on a sensation of sufficiency. How to say no, without gimmicks or convincing. Not the no of a GLP-1 drug, nor the no of software locking me out of my phone for a while each day. But, the no found on a paint-palette, where an artist has said yes to a chosen set of hues, and what may be done with them.

This notion of limited palettes has floated through conversations with another dear friend, Derek. He works in the software gaming industry. He tells me that when new games are designed, there is a known tension as to how many options to provide. Too many choices, offered too quickly, and many players will be too overwhelmed to bother. They will switch away or keep scrolling. Too few choices, though, and they get bored, and move on. Repetitive flows of simple choices seem to be the baseline drug of choice, as in Candy Crush (or Instagram). Different players also have different appetites, tastes, and capacities, making digital game design a complex process.

And, centuries later, chess remains pretty much the world’s most popular game, with its six types of game piece, arrayed on an 8 by 8 checkerboard.

Early in my software career, I came across “CatB,” which is shorthand for one of the most famous essays in the history of tech: The Cathedral and the Bazaar, by Eric S. Raymond.1 This essay-turned-book teaches many things. I have long held onto one specific takeaway: there are tools, and there are solutions.

A tool is a device to perform a well-defined task. A tool does what it does, and no more. A human can learn a set of tools, and apply them in repetition or sequence, as needed, to solve an endless array of problems.

On the other hand, a set of tools can be pre-selected, sequenced, packaged, and automated to define one approach to an overall process, which is then sold as a (“the”) comprehensive solution to a set of interrelated problems. A set which the makers have defined for you in advance, generally without asking.

Tools keep humans in the middle of a process, requiring us to struggle a bit, at first, as we build our skills, and find our own efficiencies. Solutions, on the other hand, set humans and our struggles off to the side, by selecting a set of problems and defining a problem-solving process. A process which does what its makers designed it to do with their “problem space,” and no more, yet with speed and efficiency. The human is just there to feed it problems.

AI is now poised to become the final solution, for processing humans, by choosing which inefficiencies it finds to be a problem.

I wasn’t sure which compote I wanted on my pound cake. Huckleberry is the Montana classic. Strawberry, though, takes me back to Sunday after-church breakfasts when I was a kid, which were often the best meal of the week.

Michael solved this problem by artfully dropping a spoonful of each on either side of a yellow slice standing in the center of his plate. Myself, I tipped my slice flat and chose my childhood, ladeling on two silky spoonfuls of strawberry, and watching them slide down my own golden wedge.

Two problems, two tools, two solutions, both uniquely delicious.

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