Skip to main content

New Year's Wish

2025 has had its joys and its horrors. My country has taken the lead in worsening the climate, has increased childhood measles, has ended the rule of law to the point where armed goons grab people off the street if they don't look white enough.

Cuts in USAID funding have doomed thousands to die of starvation for no particular reason. Billionaires like Musk decimate the folk in our federal government who actually help people and then just walk away.

And yet we resist.

I was born in the early 60's, raised fundamentalist, taught about martyrs facing violence and death to stand for what was right. My folks pointed me to Christian martyrs in history while I followed the Freedom Riders and other civil rights activists who were doing this in real time.

I heard Bernard Lafayette of the SNCC, a surviving Freedom Rider, speak once about how the only folk who made things better were in it for the long haul, and that every loss was an opportunity. I try to have that kind of hope, the kind that actually makes things better.

And so, every act of resistance, the No Kings Rallies, the artists refusing to perform in a memorial to JFK that Trump desecrated, the folks with whistles announcing ICE raids, every act of resistance gives me hope for 2026. This is my choice, because despair is defeat.

Happy New Year to all my readers. Find out how much good you can do with what you have.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Holiday Break

I have been teaching for 37 years now, and I go through many of the same things at the end of the Fall semester each year. There is relief at the completion of a significant task (teaching each of my classes) but there is a good deal of physical and mental weariness and aches. I could sleep for several days straight if not for my sleep disorder. By and large my mind is not very sharp and as an introvert I try to be pleasant with loved ones but am not outgoing at all. With age the feeling of being drained deepens in more and more ways. Of course this is when we have, almost every year, taken a road trip to visit birth families in the Northeast, a full day of driving each way, often involving winter weather far worse than what we are accustomed to in NC. I love my birth family members as well but as with my created family I am weary and not very outgoing. The conversation is rarely about me and my day-to-day life but rather about younger family members and family friends that I do not kn...
Post a Comment
Read more

Accountability

Mathematics as a discipline teaches accountability. Every claim, whether it be a computation result or a statement (theorem) about how things work is accountable. We teach this accountability developmentally, with lower expectations at the beginning, and sometimes folk who study mathematics casually don't understand this. In my multivariable calculus classes, which I teach most frequently, I usually phrase my expectations as "give me a reason to believe your answer", citing my time working at an investment bank where my recommendations had financial repercussions and my supervisor never took my word for anything. In higher-level mathematics classes such as Abstract Algebra or Analysis I can be more explicit: these are the things we all agree to assume, these are the proof techniques which we understand; can you make an argument that convinces the community who have accepted those axioms and rules of inference that what you claim is true? We work hard to remove the ego fro...
Post a Comment
Read more

Contents of Most Recent Email to NC Senators

 Sent to Senators Tillis and Budd of NC this morning: My uncle was a police detective in Philadelphia before he retired. He showed his face and his badge to all he talked to on the job; he gave his name and business card to the public he served. This is what law enforcement officials have done in this country as policy until now; what if anything has changed?   The violent thugs serving in ICE are not law enforcement. They do not protect and serve; they attack and refuse to identify themselves. They are a paramilitary force responsible only to President Trump and his minions, who reflexively desecrate the memory of their victims. All dishonor themselves daily, all lack integrity. Immigration is a serious issue. Using brutal thugs to deal with it is like using a chainsaw to remove an appendix. The appendix may need to come out but using a chainsaw is a silly solution that kills people. It is painful to think of all the children incarcerated by ICE. It is unthinkable to all...
Post a Comment
Read more