Saturday, October 18, 2025

The Bipartisan Machinery of Control: From Biden’s Civil‑Rights Reinterpretations to Trump’s  Authoritarianism

Across two administrations, the language of civil rights and legality has been steadily repurposed into an instrument of coercion. What began under President Joe Biden as an ideological campaign to enforce pro‑Israel conformity on U.S. campuses evolved, under President Donald Trump, into a national system for disciplining political and cultural dissent. Both relied on the same bureaucratic mechanism—the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) of the U.S. Department of Education—and the same guiding idea: that any federally funded institution can be forced into compliance by redefining civil‑rights enforcement.

Biden’s Politicized Civil‑Rights Apparatus

In 2023 the White House launched the National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism, jointly coordinated by Vice President Kamala Harris, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, and advocacy groups such as the Anti‑Defamation League (ADL) and the American Jewish Committee (AJC) (White House, 2023). Soon after, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights issued a series of Dear Colleague Letters warning universities that they risked losing Title VI funding if they failed to “protect Jewish students,” explicitly invoking the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, even though it is not codified in federal law (U.S. Department of Education, 2023).

Universities reacted quickly. Many suspended or banned student groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace, effectively transforming protest and expression into potential civil‑rights violations (Politico, 2023).

Biden’s position reflected political loyalty rather than moral principle. In his widely reported January 2025 interview with MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, the president acknowledged that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had “convinced him” that indiscriminate bombardment of Gaza was justified by analogies to Dresden and Tokyo. His resigned comment—“What could I say?”—showed both awareness of civilian deaths and unwillingness to intervene (New Republic, 2025; New York Times, 2025). Domestically, the same logic underpinned his use of civil‑rights enforcement to silence critics of Israeli policy.

Trump’s Expansion of the Machinery

Trump inherited these tools and rapidly broadened their reach. Through executive orders such as Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit‑Based Opportunity and Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism, his administration fused Title IX onto the existing Title VI framework (White House, 2025). OCR investigations soon targeted not only alleged antisemitism but also supposed “reverse racism” and “un‑American gender identity.” Within months more than fifty universities were under review for “DEI discrimination” (NPR, 2025).

Using the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership as guidance, Trump extended these audits to cultural and informational institutions—museums, PBS, NPR, the National Endowment for the Arts, and even the National Park Service. Federal grants were frozen or clawed back under claims of “civil‑rights non‑compliance” (Center for American Progress, 2024; Artistic Freedom Initiative, 2025). What started as partisan campus policing became a government‑wide culture purge in which defunding replaced legislation as the main means of control.

Vanishing Transparency and the Managed Spectacle

Both presidents curtailed press accountability. Biden held only 36 formal press conferences over four years—the lowest number of any modern president—and revoked hundreds of journalist credentials (Axios, 2024; American Presidency Project, 2025). Managed appearances and written statements replaced unscripted questioning, leaving major policies uncontested in public.

Trump did not restore openness; he re‑engineered it. His method was volume and simulation: daily “interviews” with sympathetic hosts, influencer livestreams, and heavily edited highlight reels. The effect was omnipresence without accountability—a spectacle that served as political camouflage for administrative secrecy.

The Structural Lesson

The line from Biden to Trump shows continuity, not rupture. Biden demonstrated that civil‑rights statutes could be manipulated to penalize dissent; Trump proved that the same laws could police identity, education, and culture. Once such reinterpretations are bureaucratically normalized, every future administration inherits the habit of coercion.

The slippery slope from moral panic to authoritarian bureaucracy was built one step at a time—each step justified as pragmatic or necessary, whether cynically political or bureaucratically expedient. Once those tools exist, they invite expansion.

The larger lesson is this: when laws are repurposed to silence the dissent of one group, the door opens to their misuse across multiple domains. Each administration that bends the law for its own political ends makes it more likely that the next will bend it further. Legal reinterpretation does not guarantee authoritarianism, but repeated abuse of legal instruments steadily increases its odds.

To treat Trump’s consolidation of executive control as a partisan aberration is to ignore its origin. The present regime of coercive legality is bipartisan—an accumulation of moral panic and political convenience. No manipulation of law for ideological ends is benign. Each distortion widens the precedent for future suppression, until nearly every federally funded domain becomes vulnerable to political screening. Behind the rhetoric of “civil‑rights protection,” “anti‑woke reform,” or “national unity” stands the same structure: an unaccountable state that governs by spectacle and legal compulsion.

References

American Presidency Project. (2025, September 18). Presidential news conferences: Comprehensive data set. University of California, Santa Barbara. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/presidential-news-conferences

Artistic Freedom Initiative. (2025, April 6). United States of America UPR 2025: Artistic freedom and federal funding. https://artisticfreedominitiative.org

Axios. (2024, July 3). Biden’s media evasion: Fewest press conferences of the last six presidents. https://www.axios.com/2024/07/04/biden-media-interviews-press-data

Center for American Progress. (2024, December 31). Project 2025’s distortion of civil‑rights law threatens Americans with legalized discrimination. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/project-2025s-distortion-of-civil-rights-law-threatens-americans-with-legalized-discrimination

NPR. (2025, September 4). How Trump is using civil‑rights laws to bring schools to heel. https://www.npr.org/2025/09/04/nx-s1-5500262/trump-civil-rights-schools-students

Politico. (2023, October 30). Jewish leaders to Biden officials: “We’ve never seen anything like this.” https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/30/jewish-organizations-cardona-antisemitism-action-plan

The New Republic. (2025, January 16). Biden just gave away Netanyahu’s whole game—and it’s bad. https://newrepublic.com/post/190365/joe-biden-benjamin-netanyahu-gaza-bombs

The New York Times. (2025, January 17). Biden says he urged Netanyahu to accommodate Palestinians but was “convinced otherwise.” https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/17/world/middleeast/biden-interview-gaza-netanyahu

U.S. Department of Education. (2023, November 6). Dear colleague letter on shared ancestry and ethnicity discrimination. Office for Civil Rights. https://www.ed.gov/sites/ed/files/about/offices/list/ocr/letters/colleague-202311-discrimination-harassment-shared-ancestry.pdf

U.S. Department of Education. (2024, May 6). Dear colleague letter: Protecting students from discrimination based on shared ancestry. Office for Civil Rights. https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/colleague-202405-shared-ancestry.pdf

White House. (2023, May 24). Fact sheet: Biden‑Harris Administration releases first‑ever U.S. national strategy to counter antisemitism. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/05/25/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-releases-first-ever-u-s-national-strategy-to-counter-antisemitism

White House. (2025, January 21). Ending illegal discrimination and restoring merit‑based opportunity (Executive Order 14189). https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-illegal-discrimination-and-restoring-merit-based-opportunity

## References

American Presidency Project. (2025, September 18). Presidential news conferences: comprehensive data set. University of California at Santa Barbara. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/presidential-news-conferences

American Progress, Center for. (2024, December 31). Project 2025’s distortion of civil‑rights law threatens Americans with legalized discrimination. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/project-2025s-distortion-of-civil-rights-law-threatens-americans-with-legalized-discrimination

Artistic Freedom Initiative. (2025, April 6). United States of America UPR 2025: Report on artistic freedom and federal funding. https://artisticfreedominitiative.org

Axios. (2024, July 3). Biden’s media evasion: Fewest press conferences of the last six presidents. https://www.axios.com/2024/07/04/biden-media-interviews-press-data

Politico. (2023, October 30). Jewish leaders to Biden officials: ‘We’ve never seen anything like this.’ https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/30/jewish-organizations-cardona-antisemitism-action-plan

The New Republic. (2025, January 16). Biden just gave away Netanyahu’s whole game. And it’s bad. https://newrepublic.com/post/190365/joe-biden-benjamin-netanyahu-gaza-bombs

Tuesday, October 14, 2025

How to Profit from Absolutely Nothing: The Corporate Art of Reverse Cognitive Jujitsu (Satire)

In an era when workplace guides urge us to maximize every minute and optimize out of existence the last vestiges of inefficiency, one man—a self-styled “corporate chill artist”—is swimming blissfully against the riptide. Meet the mysterious figure who insists that, in business as in life, the greatest power move may be doing absolutely nothing at all.

I found him at a networking event, looking remarkably at ease for someone in business attire. Our handshake was firm, yet strangely uncommitted.

“How are you?” he asked, eyes scanning the crowd for neither enemies nor opportunities.

He claims no formal job title, unless you count “Full-Time Chill” (it’s on his business card, under an illustration of a languid man cloud-watching at his desk). “My friend works here,” he tells me, leaning in conspiratorially. “They invited me to the party—I don’t really know anyone. I suppose you could say I’m paid to do nothing, professionally.”

The Method of Masterful Inaction

The uninitiated might mistake him for a loafer or, if feeling generous, a Zen dropout reincarnated in corporate America. “I’m a rest in the music of business,” he clarifies, beaming. “Imagine music with no silence—just notes, notes, notes. Insufferable, right? That’s your modern office: motion without meaning. I just introduce a pause.”

A pause, it turns out, can yield miracles. “People are always on ten, amped up, itching to go. Eventually, you burn out. You need to learn how to really chill. If you can’t, you bring in someone like me. Someone who can chill for you.” He claps me on the shoulder, like the world’s friendliest sedative.

This is not, he asserts, mere passivity. “It’s not just doing nothing,” he insists with an air of reversed gravitas. “It’s doing nothing at the right time, in the right place, to create a breathing space for the corporation. You need someone to disrupt the momentum—not with action, but with stillness!”

He calls it “reverse cognitive jujitsu.” In regular jujitsu, he explains, you use an opponent’s energy to bring them down. “In reverse jujitsu, you use whatever energy people have left to lift them back up. They’re already down—creatively, mentally, emotionally. I get them standing again. Sometimes, by doing less than nothing at all.”

Case Studies in Corporate Zen

His techniques are as subtle as they are questionably HR-compliant. “I once noticed two colleagues about to clash like cats and dogs. I simply wandered over and pulled up a chair between them—purely ‘by accident,’ of course—and sat there, blocking the reengagement. At first, they were annoyed, but then, having broken their flow, they lost interest in the quarrel. Pretty soon, chaos was replaced by an awkward peace.”

Then there was the time he sabotaged a photocopier at a moment of peak workplace distress. “A woman was cursing, about to blow a gasket. So I jammed the paper tray. She was forced to take a break. By the time maintenance fixed it, she’d calmed down completely. Sometimes salvation is a paper jam.”

He is, in his own estimation, a cross between a “corporate therapist” and “human speed bump”—a master of strategic nothingness. “I just shake things up—by not shaking at all.”

Rising to the Top by Lying Down Flat

Don’t confuse him with a slacker. “To do nothing well requires tremendous effort. You must project busyness at all times. There’s method acting involved. You shuffle some papers, scribble nothing on a notepad, furrow your brow at a spreadsheet—techniques learned from the masters.” He winks. “Most professionals do less than you think. I simply make an art of it.”

If accused of stealing time, he shrugs. “If no one notices and the business is thriving, maybe my inaction is the missing ingredient to success.”

When not offering his high-level “services” to one corporate ecosystem, he moves to another, leaving no trace—except, perhaps, a temporary lull in the local chaos. “If I get found out, I just leave. New office, new pseudonym, same nothing. The beauty of my method is that it works everywhere and nowhere.”

The Last Word in Mindful Inaction

What, then, can today’s hyper-digitized, burnout-prone workplace learn from the maestro of doing nothing? “Introduce silence,” he says, “make space for spontaneity. Throw in a paper jam. Let things breathe. You might be amazed what bubbles to the surface.”

As our conversation ends, he offers me his card, the ink so faint you can barely read it unless you really squint. “‘Full-time chill,’” it says. “That tells you all you need to know.”

I shake his hand, a little lighter now, and step back into the noise just long enough to wonder: was he ever really there at all?

Thursday, October 9, 2025

In The Clutch of Trees (Draft 3)

In the Clutch of Trees

There is a clutch of trees on the edge of the city, where Riverside meets the hush of the river. All summer, their branches hum with birdlife: a living chorus, each song braided into the shimmering air. No other trees nearby are so alive with sound. On the hottest days, even the city's restlessness pauses here, just for a breath.

A boy named Theo—quiet, curious, and slow to speak—begins to linger on the old park bench beneath these trees. At first, he comes simply to escape the sun, but soon, he finds himself listening with a strange new attention. Morning and afternoon, birds arrive and depart. Their chattering, frantic at times, flows around him like wind.

As the hours accumulate, his ears learn more than language. At first, it's only rhythm and pattern: the tumbling rise and fall of trills, the sharp alarm, the gentle call. Then, as days lengthen, he senses something else—a current of meaning, woven beneath the surface. He listens, as children do when no one expects anything of them, until understanding begins to dawn, piecemeal and imperfect, but real.

In late summer, when heat bleaches the sky, Theo sits longer than usual, notebook in hand. The birds' gatherings grow noisier, but a new tone creeps in—edge, urgency, a flicker of unease. He closes his eyes and lets their voices wash through him. Sometimes he feels joy so clean it stings. Sometimes, dread.

By early autumn, the trees shift their scent, and the chorus changes. He hears not just a gathering, but a council. The chattering, once chaotic, is shaped by a gravity he senses as sadness and fear. Into the hubbub, three voices rise, distinct and urgent.

The first: old and heavy, her song dropping like stones into still water—slow, weighted with memory. She seems to mourn aloud, each phrase thick with loss.

The second: brisk, orderly, sharp-eyed—the call staccato and angular, mapping routes and warnings, a blueprint in sound.

The third: darting, anxious, never settling—voice rising in pitch, flickering branch to branch, naming dangers in the shadows.

Theo shivers. For the first time, he feels the frantic burden under their music. He cannot ignore what is being said.

Over days, he wanders the neighborhood on small, invisible errands. He finds the scattered feathers, the quiet remains. He notes the places named in the birds' councils—quiet alleys, overgrown yards. He tallies. He records. In the park one afternoon, he tapes a single note to a lamppost: Please keep cats inside at night. The birds are dying.

By evening, the note is gone—torn or ignored, he cannot say.

He carries his notebook to the Parks Department. The officials are skeptical at first. One woman barely glances up. But a park ranger, Mr. Ramos, listens and follows him through the affected blocks. That evening, patrols are arranged. Signs appear: Keep cats indoors.

Theo feels a seed of hope, brief and fragile.

But the city returns swiftly to indifference. The trees do not.

One cool October day, when the council above is nearly silent, three birds leave their branches and flutter down to the railing near Theo's bench. For a long moment, they regard him—heads cocked, bright eyes sharp with knowing.

He whispers softly, "I tried to help. I wanted you to be safe."

The birds—elderly, ragged, vital—listen. Something almost like gratitude threads through the world between them. The eldest lets fall a muted trill, not of warning or grief, but of acceptance. The strategist chirps once, crisp and final. The anxious bird fluffs and smooths its wings, as if making peace with uncertainty.

Theo smiles, blinking tears, and for the briefest moment, the distance between ground and sky seems very small.

Then, as autumn deepens, the gatherings thin. The birds ready themselves for journeys Theo cannot follow. One dawn, the branches are bare. Only a lone feather spirals to the bench where he once sat, a voiceless reminder.

He visits sometimes, but the trees are silent now. Still, he listens—catching the river's quiet, the whisper of unseen wings far overhead, the memory of a chorus he will never quite understand but will always hear, in some gentler place within himself.

And sometimes, he hears them there more clearly than he ever did in the branches.

Through joy and loss, presence and parting, he has learned—beauty, when listened to with a full heart, is inseparable from its passing

The Clutch of Trees/Theo and the Secrets of Birdsong (2 dif. approaches/ drafts )

In the Clutch of Trees

A boy—quiet, curious, and slow to speak—begins to linger on the old park bench beneath these trees. At first, he comes simply to escape the sun, but soon, he finds himself listening with a strange new attention. Morning and afternoon, birds arrive and depart. Their chattering, frantic at times, flows around him like wind.

As the hours accumulate, his ears learn more than language. At first, it’s only rhythm and pattern: the tumbling rise and fall of trills, the sharp alarm, the gentle call. Then, as days lengthen, he senses something else—a current of meaning, woven beneath the surface. He listens, as children do when no one expects anything of them, until understanding begins to dawn, piecemeal and imperfect, but real.

In late summer, when heat bleaches the sky, the boy sits longer than usual, notebook in hand. The birds’ gatherings grow noisier, but a new tone creeps in—edge, urgency, a flicker of unease. He closes his eyes and lets their voices wash through him. Sometimes he feels joy so clean it stings. Sometimes, dread.

The first: old and heavy, weighted with memory—remembers flocks vanished, nests raided, the sorrow of vanished kin. “Already, we mourn too many,” she laments, her song thick with aching loss.

The second: brisk, orderly, sharp-eyed—plots new routes, higher perches. “Stay to the upper branches!” he calls. “Roost in groups, move swiftly—danger comes at night now!”

The third: darting, anxious, eyeing the shadows—whispers of hidden plots and hungry green eyes. “It is not just chance,” he insists, “There are patterns to the deaths. Some force—new and cruel—hunts us.”

The boy, listening, shivers. For the first time, he feels the frantic burden under their music. He cannot ignore what is being said, and sets out to learn more.

Over days, he wanders the neighborhood on small, invisible errands. He finds the scattered feathers, the quiet remains. He notes the places named in the birds’ conferences—quiet alleys, overgrown yards where cats prowl, wild-eyed and relentless. He tallies. He records. He weeps.

He takes his findings to the Parks Department. The officials, skeptical at first, follow him, and soon they see what he’s seen. The news spreads. There are changes—traps, nightly patrols, a flurry of signs to “keep cats indoors.” But the city returns swiftly to indifference; the trees do not.

One cool October day, when the council above is nearly silent, the elders leave their branches and flutter down to a rail near the bench where the boy sits. For a long moment, they regard him—head cocked, bright eyes sharp with knowing.

He whispers softly, “I tried to help. I wanted you to be safe.”

The birds—elderly, ragged, vital—listen, and something almost like gratitude threads through the world between them. The heaviest, her feathers dulled, lets fall a muted trill not of warning or grief, but of acceptance. The strategist chirps a single, crisp acknowledgment. The anxious bird fluffs and smooths its wings, as if making peace with uncertainty.

The boy smiles, blinking tears, and for the briefest moment, the distance between ground and sky seems very small.

Then, as autumn deepens, the gatherings thin. The birds ready themselves for journeys the boy cannot follow. One dawn, the branches are bare. Only a lone feather spirals to the bench where the boy once sat, a voiceless reminder.

He visits sometimes, but the trees are silent now. Still, he listens—catching the river’s quiet, the whisper of unseen wings far overhead, the memory of a chorus he will never quite understand but will always hear, in some gentler place within himself.

Through joy and loss, presence and parting, he has learned—beauty, when listened to with a full heart, is inseparable from its passing

The Boy Who Heard the Birds’ Secrets

Summer Listening

On the edge of Riverside Park, a clutch of old trees leaned against the wind, their branches tangled like outstretched fingers above the city’s stone riverbank. In summertime, the trees filled with a chorus that spun through the humid air—chirps, rattles, trills—a language no one stopped to notice. Theo did.

He was a new arrival in the city, shy since the move, unused to the rush and grind. Most afternoons, he slipped from his apartment to the worn park bench beneath those particular trees, sketchbook in hand. At first, he drew: birds darting, flapping, arguing over scraps. But soon sketching became listening.

Their voices seemed random, but the longer Theo sat, the less he believed it. Songs flowed in waves, passing secrets from branch to branch. He found if he closed his eyes and breathed, patterns hid beneath the chaos—grief in the low crooning, warning in the jittery chirps, a kind of joy in the bell-like whistles. He mimicked their calls under his breath until understanding flickered at the edge of sense.

Autumn Warnings

When September crept in, the sun slid lower. Theo’s bench grew chilly, but the birds gathered in larger numbers—noisy conferences echoing across the quiet. One golden afternoon, a hush spread through the leaves, and three birds took center perch: a snowy-headed thrush, a lean starling, and a sapphire jay with restless wings.

The thrush spoke first, her song slow and heavy.
“We mourn too many,” she intoned. “Old nests left empty, kin lost to the shadows. I sing them awake each morning, but hear only silence.”

The starling interrupted, brisk and precise.
“Higher branches! Roost in clusters. We must move swiftly, avoid ground after dusk. Danger hunts the unwary.” She rattled a series of short, clipped notes—strategy in every sound.

The jay, twitchy and sharp-eyed, hopped forward.
“It is no accident! I have seen cats climbing branches, stalking from rooftops. Their eyes burn green in the night. Watch for patterns—they return where blood has dried.”

Theo’s chest tightened. That night, he scribbled down addresses and street names he caught in their council, determined to help.

The Peril Unfolds

The next morning, Theo followed the clues. At a crumbling brownstone, he knelt beside a scatter of blue and gold feathers. A tabby cat blinked at him from the weeds—unhurried, unrepentant. Theo’s fingers trembled as he recorded the address, then hurried on.

Other sites revealed grim evidence: a raided nest beneath a rusty fire escape, a broken egg, a heap of down by the stoop. At one alley, he overheard two neighbors bickering about “messy birds” and tossed bread crusts, indifferent as the city’s traffic. He felt invisible, but kept going.

When Theo finally approached the Parks Department, he was nervous. The first official—a tired woman juggling paperwork—barely listened. “Cats? Birds? It’s nature, kid,” she shrugged. “That’s how it goes.”

Theo returned the next day with his notebook and three plucked feathers. A kind park ranger, Mr. Ramos, bent to study his entries.
“These are all recent?” he asked gently.
Theo nodded. “And there are more. The birds told me, sort of. In their way.”

They walked the affected blocks together, taking photos, jotting locations. That evening, patrols set out and signs appeared warning to keep cats inside. Theo felt a seed of hope, if only briefly.

Meeting and Farewell

Days grew colder, the bird council’s gatherings smaller. Theo kept listening, shivering on the bench as the wind turned. At dusk, the three elders glided down to land not three feet away, wary but brave. Leaves spiraled around them, the river’s chill rising.

The thrush sang softly, her voice sad but grateful.
“You kept watch. You mourned with us. That is a gift.”

The starling bowed, wings tucked.
“You changed the ground beneath our roosts, for a while. Not all trouble can be mended, but sometimes, noticing is enough.”

The jay hopped closer.
“Next season, perhaps, we’ll return. Perhaps not. But the sky is larger than sorrow; your listening is our measure of joy.”

Theo felt tears slip down his cheeks. He whispered, “I’m glad you saw me. I will remember you.”

The three elders sang a final round—a song of good-byes that spilled into shadow and wind. As dusk deepened, the flock scattered, rising in a rush of wings, riverward.

Theo waited into darkness. Looking down, he found a small, cobalt feather by his shoes, still warm from flight. He tucked it into his sketchbook.

New Season

Winter passed; Theo grew and changed. By spring, the city had forgotten the bird troubles. But Theo hadn’t. He started a wildlife club at school and sometimes helped Mr. Ramos hang new nesting boxes in the park. Most afternoons, he returned to the clutch of trees, listening and sketching.

Not all seasons bring song, but when the birds returned, he heard their council in the wind, a chorus braided with memory and hope. Theo smiled—a little older, a little wiser, and always listening for what the world might whisper next.

Wednesday, October 8, 2025

When Institutions Don the Mask: How American Accountability Vanished (Op-Ed)

In the still-dark hours one recent morning, federal agents descended on a South Shore apartment building in Chicago. Armed, masked ICE officers rappelled from helicopters, burst through doors, and swept through every floor—detaining adults and children alike, some in pajamas, zip-tied, and held in the parking lot for hours. Debris, toys, and broken furniture littered the halls. Most of those swept up—including U.S. citizens and legal residents—were released without charge, and Illinois’s governor himself said he could not learn where many had been taken. No search warrant for the building was ever produced; no clear, timely explanation was offered. Days later, federal officials released a glossy, edited highlight reel of the action on social media, justifying the operation with boilerplate language about “reliable intelligence” and “criminal activity”—but without specific details or transparency.

Just days earlier, federal agents shot Marimar Martinez, a U.S. citizen, five times during an enforcement action. Agency spokespeople initially claimed she was armed with a semi-automatic weapon and attacking officers. Court filings, bodycam footage, and shifting official statements soon told a different story: Martinez was unarmed and shot after being rammed by a law enforcement vehicle—yet these contradictions were buried in reporting, and the government never appeared publicly to account for the action.

Once upon a time—in real life and in Hollywood’s imagination—a crisis like this would have produced another kind of public spectacle: the American press conference. Police chiefs, agency heads, mayors, even presidents would line up, awaiting unscripted and persistent questioning. Reporters would demand not just numbers but clear explanations—why these tactics, who authorized them, what went wrong, what safeguards existed. It was sometimes flawed, sometimes messy, but it was a ritual of transparency, the people’s demand for answers. It was the face of democracy, unmasked.

Today, that ritual of public explanation is vanishing. The sharp decline in presidential and agency press conferences—already pronounced in Trump’s first term—deepened under President Biden, whose administration held fewer formal pressers and revoked hundreds of journalists’ credentials, setting a modern low for media access. What began as neglect or caution became, under Trump’s new tenure, not accident but deliberate camouflage: a standardized, institutionalized form of political inaccessibility, now deployed as cover during domestic deployments of extraordinary force.

The “faces” of power—like those of masked ICE agents—are now concealed behind layers of PR statements, staged media events, and rare, tightly-controlled briefings. When violence erupts, when citizens go missing, when entire families are rendered temporarily homeless by a federal sweep, both government and media largely move on. No high-profile pressers for the nation to watch. No opportunity for a governor, police chief, or agency head to be grilled in real time. The press, itself increasingly cowed by the threat of lost access or outright retribution, seldom notes this radical transformation of public life.

This is not an accident. Trump’s regime has standardized inaccessibility—making secrecy and evasion fundamental tools of power. The “mask” becomes both symbol and method, hiding not just the faces of agencies on the ground, but the responsibility and reasoning of those at the top. In this new landscape, democracy’s rituals—press conferences, Q&As, unscripted follow-ups—have been quietly replaced by spectacle, a highlight reel in place of an honest reckoning.

The mask is not just on the agents. It is worn now by the state itself. And every time the news fails to pull it back, we drift further into a republic where anything can be done in the night, unknown and unexplained, fitting the shape and story of unchecked power.

References:

[TIME: Military-Style ICE Raid On Chicago Apartment Building]

[Books-Ideas: From Vulnerable Groups to Iconic Institutions – Trump’s Hybrid Regime]

[CNN: 37 people arrested, American kids separated from parents]

[PBS: Immigration agents become increasingly aggressive in Chicago]

[Reuters: US Border Patrol raid sweeps in citizens, families as Chicago crackdown intensifies]

[Presidential News Conferences | The American Presidency Project]

[CNN: Biden did half as many news conferences as Trump]

[Axios: Biden's media evasion—Fewest press conferences of last 6 presidents]

[Daily Press: Biden holds record for lowest number of press conferences]

Sunday, October 5, 2025

The Diary of Dr. Rationale (draft 1)

The Diary of Dr. Rationale

Entry 1: In Praise of the Plane

Ah, the satisfaction of a life well spent in the service of Reason! Few can claim, with honesty unmarred by hyperbole, that they have single-handedly persuaded every member of their immediate family to commit—under oath—to the Principle of Non-Contradiction. I remember the family gathering well: Aunt Paradox tried to object but, inevitably, logic won the day. It was then I realized my talents were exceptional.

Why settle for mere compliance when one can inspire the Dictate of Reason? Thus was born the celebrated Center for Applied Reason, uniting politicians, citizens, and even the taxman under the banner of rationality. Our automated Compliance Protocols ensure that no one need trouble themselves with the burden of independent thought—simply follow the prescribed rational response to each scenario, and efficiency shall reign supreme.

The world has never been so straight. So perfectly, beautifully straight.

But why stop at Earth? I have today received an invitation from representatives of the so-called "Locus of Loco"—a domain, they claim, "in desperate need of straightening out." Suitably intrigued, I have packed three rulers, a protractor, and my pride.

Entry 2: The Descent Into Curiosity

By all that is holy and Euclidean, I was not prepared.

Upon my dignified arrival in the Locus, I graciously explained the virtues of logical proof and efficient queueing. The locals responded with a parade of rubber ducks. Not metaphorical ducks—actual rubber ducks, thousands of them, squeaking in what might have been harmony but was certainly not in any known key. Then came a spontaneous poetry contest where all entries consisted solely of the word "pickle," differentiated only by volume and accompanying facial expressions.

Their laughter echoed like Schrödinger's cat in a box of whoopee cushions. Order was nowhere. Syllogisms received standing ovations—after being read backward.

Undeterred, I announced an emergency seminar, "Sensible Steps for Sensible Souls." Attendance: one dapper llama (wearing a monocle, inexplicably) and what appeared to be a sentient mop. The mop took better notes.

Entry 3: The Curvature of Doubt

Yet tonight, as I retire to my quarters (which periodically rotate between upright and sideways, apparently as a matter of cultural tradition), I find myself afflicted by a new sensation: envy.

These natives, unburdened by syllogisms, seem possessed of a joy I am struggling to rationalize. They shout contradictions at each other and embrace. They wear hats that serve no protective function. They laugh at nothing in particular and everything in general.

Is there method in this merriment? Or have my lifelong labors prepared me not for conquest, but for conversion?

Tomorrow: I attend the "Festival of Fungible Suppositions," hosted by someone named Big Babbler. I shall bring my best flowcharts—and, secretly, a sense of anticipation I cannot quite diagram.

Entry 4: The Festival of Fungible Suppositions

If there is a taxonomy of illogic, then today I have catalogued its rarest genus.

The Festival began with what appeared, at first, to be a serious debate—until the participants produced their opening statements in the form of interpretive dance atop a stage coated in jelly. Before I could object, Big Babbler himself took the microphone (which turned out to be a banana) and declared, "The suppositions, like socks, are best changed when nobody's looking. ARGUE AWAY!"

Big Babbler is a tall man with wild eyebrows that move independently of each other, and he has this habit of punctuating his pronouncements by spinning exactly one and a half times. He spun now.

The assembled Loquacious Loonies shouted contradictory slogans in unison, but laughter overpowered all. A woman in a hat shaped like a question mark yelled, "All truths are contextual!" while simultaneously a man in a cape hollered, "Some truths are eternal!" They high-fived.

Babbler spun nonsense into gold. "Let us now distinguish between the absurd and the merely wild—one wears a hat, the other becomes one!" The crowd roared, and—to my horror and secret pleasure—so did I. An involuntary snort escaped me. In public!

The effect was... pleasurable. I felt my mind—those hard-wired avenues of reasoning—start to unspool, threading through the uproar like a ribbon through a maypole.

Babbler noticed. One eyebrow rose while the other furrowed. He winked: "Laughter is just logic in a clown suit, Dr. R."

I have not stopped grinning since.

Entry 5: The Revelation

I hardly slept— —my head buzzing with paradoxes and punchlines. I tried (as per habit) to organize my thoughts, but they tumbled wildly— rhyming without reason, colliding like those rubber ducks in— what was I saying?

I find myself awaiting each of Babbler's pronouncements with a hunger once reserved for theorems. Last night he said, "If you drop a contradiction from a tall enough building, it lands as a duck."

Ridiculous. Yet.

Liberating.

I have begun doodling ducks in the margins of my reform proposals. Could it be that sincerity was always a ruse? That the only thing making existence bearable is this rolling carnival of—

Today, at Babbler's behest, I donned a hat shaped like a question mark (the same one that woman wore—she lent it to me with a solemn wink) and joined the procession of Suppositionalists.

Babbler declared, "Logic builds bridges, but nonsense gives you wings—the first gets you to the next town, the second to the moon and back without moving an inch!"

It landed not as a syllogism but as a cosmic prank on my former self. I felt as if laughter were peeling away the dull lacquer of all my "accomplishments." I found I wanted to listen, not out-reason. Not correct or improve or straighten—just listen and laugh and be.

Later, with Babbler's hand on my shoulder (he smells like cinnamon and chaos), the festival crowd chanting impossible riddles, I saw my role clearly: not the stern corrector, but an emissary of the unexpected—a missionary to Earth bearing glad tidings of the absurd.

Entry 6: The Missionary's Oath

Babbler and I, after much giggling and several buckets of metaphorical "truth pudding," sat under the Wobbletree (it wobbles).

He handed me the Universal De-Rationalizing Translation Module. It resembles a whoopee cushion crossed with a cathedral—iridescent, vaguely spherical, making a sound like distant bells whenever someone nearby thinks too hard.

"Go, Dr. R," he intoned, spinning one and a half times. Both eyebrows rose in unison, which I'd never seen before. "Bring the gospel of glorious gibberish, the celebration of the unexplained!"

His last line has twined itself in my mind: "Absurdity isn't senseless—it's sensibility without railings."

I swore then to sow unpredictability where the literal and the linear once held sway, to make the world safe for nonsense. To free them from the tyranny of prescribed responses and automated compliance.

Tomorrow, I return.

Entry 7: Earth—The Escher Descent

Returned, module in hand.

I found Earth changed—or maybe I saw for the first time.

I went first to the Center for Applied Reason, my greatest achievement. The building still stands, chrome and glass, efficient angles catching the gray morning light. I expected to find it humming with orderly activity.

Instead: silence. Not peaceful silence—empty silence.

I walked the halls. Every workspace occupied. Every person at their station. But no one spoke. They stared at screens, tapped keyboards, moved through their tasks with the precision of clockwork and the enthusiasm of rust.

I approached a woman at her desk. "Excuse me," I said. "I've returned from—"

"Nice weather," she said, not looking up.

"Yes, but I wanted to tell you about—"

"Nice weather," she repeated. Same inflection. Same hollow tone.

I moved to the next person. A man in a gray suit. "Hello! I've discovered something extraordinary—"

"Nice weather."

I fled to the streets. Surely outside the Center, people would be different—messy, unpredictable, human.

The sidewalks were full. Thousands of people moving, but not together. Each on their own trajectory, surrounded by others doing the same, never exchanging more than a glance, a fleeting brush of coat-sleeves. Like Escher's endless staircase—everyone descending, no one arriving.

I tried to make eye contact. I smiled broadly (perhaps too broadly—my face was out of practice). I positioned myself in someone's path and said, "Good morning! Have you ever considered that contradictions might land as ducks?"

A young man's eyes flickered to me for a fraction of a second. "Nice weather," he said, and flowed around me like water around a stone.

I tried again. And again. Different people, different approaches. I told jokes. I made absurd observations. I activated the Universal De-Rationalizing Translation Module—it chimed and shimmered, broadcasting waves of whimsy.

"Nice weather." "Nice weather." "How can I help you today?" "Please select from the following options." "Nice weather."

The responses came not from thought but from somewhere deeper—or shallower. A pre-programmed reflex. My Compliance Protocols, I realized with dawning horror. They hadn't enforced rationality. They'd simply... replaced it. Replaced thinking entirely.

I wandered for hours. The city stretched in all directions, an endless cathedral of descending escalators. The air buzzed with the drone of duplicated small talk: "Nice weather," repeated ad infinitum until it meant less than nothing. I heard a joke—the same joke—land with the hollow thunk of déjà vu in seven different conversations within a single block.

This was not the joyful chaos of Loco. This was not even my rigid rationality of before. This was the unreason of rote survival. The insipid void. No mirth, no marvel—only the sterile echo of things once logical, now drained of all meaning.

Not all unreason is equal.

As evening fell, I stood on a corner and watched the crowds flow past. I clutched the Translation Module and felt it chime softly against the proximity of so much vacant thought.

A thousand responses answered my attempts at connection. But not a single soul understood.

I had come to free them from the tyranny of pure reason. I discovered instead that I had helped build something far worse: a world where no one reasons at all. Where no one needs to. Where the prescribed response is always ready, the automated answer always sufficient, and the human being beneath it all slowly, quietly, forgotten.

The module chimed once more in my hands.

Then fell silent.

Saturday, October 18, 2025

The Bipartisan Machinery of Control: From Biden’s Civil‑Rights Reinterpretations to Trump’s Authoritarianism

Biden’s Politicized Civil‑Rights Apparatus

Trump’s Expansion of the Machinery

Vanishing Transparency and the Managed Spectacle

The Structural Lesson

References

Tuesday, October 14, 2025

How to Profit from Absolutely Nothing: The Corporate Art of Reverse Cognitive Jujitsu (Satire)

Thursday, October 9, 2025

In The Clutch of Trees (Draft 3)

In the Clutch of Trees

The Clutch of Trees/Theo and the Secrets of Birdsong (2 dif. approaches/ drafts )

In the Clutch of Trees

The Boy Who Heard the Birds’ Secrets

Summer Listening

Autumn Warnings

The Peril Unfolds

Meeting and Farewell

New Season

Wednesday, October 8, 2025

When Institutions Don the Mask: How American Accountability Vanished (Op-Ed)

Sunday, October 5, 2025

The Diary of Dr. Rationale (draft 1)

The Diary of Dr. Rationale

Entry 1: In Praise of the Plane

Entry 2: The Descent Into Curiosity

Entry 3: The Curvature of Doubt

Entry 4: The Festival of Fungible Suppositions

Entry 5: The Revelation

Entry 6: The Missionary's Oath

Entry 7: Earth—The Escher Descent

The Bipartisan Machinery of Control: From Biden’s Civil‑Rights Reinterpretations to Trump’s  Authoritarianism