Some thoughts on the state of America

One of the things I have missed about regularly posting on our blog has been the ability to really work out my thoughts in writing, which is ordinarily not something I get to do much anymore. We don’t use social media much these days, especially since Elon Musk bought Twitter and then proceeded to wreck it. I am still on Twitter (I steadfastly refuse to call it X), because there are still good people on there and I refuse to let Elon and his troll mob chase me away. Kelly is on Instagram a good bit. But Twitter is not designed to really let you express yourself eloquently when you have to pay Elon money to write anything more than 140 characters long. And he has enough money, he doesn’t need any of ours.

The 2026 midterm elections are now less than a month away, and I am admittedly a bit apprehensive about what will happen. All hyperbole aside, this election is going to be immensely consequential because it may present the only chance the American public has to stop Trump and his enablers in Congress before the 2028 presidential election. Without even going into whether or not the 2028 election is going to happen and whether Trump will put himself on the ballot, I am just not sure how much damage will be done to the country by November 2028 to be confident that we can wait until then. Trump’s first term was bad enough. But after having four years to plan how they would do things differently if they returned to power, Trump and his supporters have been rapid and methodical in their destruction of America’s reputation on the world stage, in the erosion of our civil liberties, in the sheer scale and variety of the virtually open public corruption now happening, and in the reduction or elimination of countless Federal programs and departments (much of it through DOGE) that were designed to serve the public good. It will take decades, possibly generations, to repair all of the damage that is being done, and I think we don’t even know or understand the full scale of it all yet.

The Republican party essentially no longer exists except to support Donald Trump. It has become increasingly authoritarian and even less willing to tolerate dissent than before, which hardly seems possible. I am somewhat encouraged by the fact that Trump’s popularity of late has weakened considerably, but I worry that the Democrats, particularly among their leadership, may not measure up to the crisis that is building. Supposedly they are planning for all sorts of possible problems that may happen concerning the midterms. I sincerely hope so. I have great confidence in local and state officials here in Vermont. My confidence in the Democratic party at the national level is less than I would like. And I worry that there will be voters that, although they don’t like or trust Trump and his party, they may not feel great about the Democrats either. And that needs to change. People desperately want to see real results. I know we do. People need to feel like it is still possible to save our democracy and that the Democrats are able and willing to do so. I think that is what people want and need to hear.

-Geoff

Goodbye to a sweet kitty

I am a little late in posting this, as it happened a couple of weeks ago, but I wanted to make a post about our cat Mabel. She was the older calico cat that we adopted about three years ago. She mostly stayed in her room, and so the person she interacted with the most was me. And she was daddy’s girl, in many ways. She loved to sit with me when I was reading. She also loved pets and cuddling near me in cold weather. We were really hoping that she would eventually be comfortable enough with the other animals to not just have to live on her own in her own room, but it just wasn’t meant to be. We know that Violet really wanted to be friends with her. I wish that had happened. Still, she was loved dearly, and we were happy to have given her a comfortable and loving home in her golden years.  We miss her already.

-Geoff

Mabel Hopkins-Michael 2013-2026

Massive winter storm on the way

This weekend promises to have both record-breaking cold and deep snow for us here in Vermont. We have an Extreme Cold Warning for tonight and tomorrow where the wind chill is expected to be 25 to 35 degrees below zero and a Winter Storm Watch where we are expecting total accumulations of snow from Sunday to Monday to be between 12 and 18 inches.

Of course, if you are a nimrod who doesn’t understand the difference between weather and climate, like the current occupant of the White House, you may ask “what happened to global warming?” But hopefully no one reading our blog is that dumb.

-Geoff

Hello, and long time no blog

Well, it occurred to me today that it has been a very long time (two and a half years – yikes) since either of us have posted anything here on the blog so I thought I would do something about it.

We have been steadily making changes and improvements to our house here in Vermont. The two most notable things done in the last year or so are 1) the clearing out of all the overgrown invasive species in the front, side, and back yards, and 2) the addition of a solar panel array to the house.

The solar panel array as seen this fall. Note also the lack of heavy vegetation in the yard.

So once I can remember how to properly post everything, I will put up some more posts.

-Geoff

160 years ago today, a young Union officer was killed on his birthday

December 29th, 1862. Young Major Adolph G. Rosengarten, temporarily in command of the 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry, is killed while leading an ill-conceived charge on two regiments of South Carolina infantry concealed in a cornfield behind a fence at Wilkinson’s Crossroads, in Middle Tennessee. It was his 24th birthday. His second-in-command, an even younger (only 20 years old) Major Frank Ward, is mortally wounded in the same charge.

The 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry, also known as the Anderson Cavalry, was a unit with something to prove. The regiment had actually mutinied at the beginning of the Stones River campaign due to problems with the commissions of their officers, and so only 300 or so men from the regiment actually left camp on December 26th. But there was a great need for cavalry, and so those men were put at the front of the right wing of the army commanded by Major General William Starke Rosecrans to scout Confederate positions as the army advanced from Nashville to Murfreesboro. They skirmished with some cavalry from Texas at Nolensville on December 27th and then made contact with Confederate infantry on the 29th at Wilkinson’s Crossroads.

I will write up a bit more on this fascinating (at least to me) unit in another post when I have more time.

One reason I love this house – the fireplace

Doing some housecleaning today in the kitchen and the room next to it. The room next to our kitchen is kind of a warming room, at least that is how I look at it, but we also call it the library annex since it is next to the library and will, most likely, contain a number of bookshelves and lots of books.

The room’s most distinguishing feature is the mantle and fireplace. It is gorgeous. They literally do not make them like this anymore.

The most important function of this is, of course, to provide a place to hang stockings at Christmas time for our furkids.
The mirror just needs some cleaning, but otherwise is in great shape. Not sure how old it is, but older than us for sure.
Love these details. Beautiful.
The cast iron insert and cover, which are rare enough to be notable, were clearly designed for coal. Still, we should be able to build small wood fires in it.
Close up of one of the columns.

I can’t wait until the day I am able to make a small fire in there, and enjoy the space by sitting with Kelly while having a glass of port or Madeira and maybe some of the furkids warm themselves in front of it too.

~Geoff

Greetings, everyone, from our new home in Vermont.

As we had mentioned earlier, we had been looking for a house in Vermont for some time. We had been looking for months, and then a few days before Christmas last year, we put in an offer on this house. That offer was not accepted for a good while. That’s a long story.

Well. It has been a long, long time since either of us posted here. But to be honest, we really had a lot going on. After all, we packed up all our stuff, put it in storage, moved to a long-term hotel, found someone who could board both of our cats, cleaned out and fixed up the house in Winthrop, sold that house, looked endlessly for another house in Vermont, finally found it, put in an offer, waited for it to be accepted while we struggled to find others, got our offer accepted, then had to threaten to take the seller to court after he had signed the purchase and sale agreement and then changed his mind, moved to another hotel, finally closed on the house six months after our initial offer, found contractors, struggled to get them scheduled in a timely fashion, looked for new jobs, changed hotels again, found new jobs, started new jobs, moved into the basement of the house, got Vermont identification and car registration, and waited for all the contractors to finish their work so we could figure out when we could actually move into the actual house and not have to sleep on Army cots in the basement anymore.

And if you think that’s a lot, that’s really just the abridged version. We also lost our beloved Scratch Fury, who suddenly threw a clot, became paralyzed while boarding, and then rapidly deteriorated, so we had to quickly go see him while we still could.

Oh yeah, and I also had my left knee replaced, and had to undergo the surgery, recovery, and physical therapy while all this other crap was going on. Like I said, busy.

So anyway. We finally found the sort of house we wanted, in the village of Bellows Falls in the town of Rockingham in Windham County, nestled in the southeast corner of the state. This beautiful old Victorian was built in 1904, and came with a first-generation garage that was built sometime in the 1920’s. Both the house and the garage are part of the Bellows Falls Historic District.

The house, sporting its new roof. Please note the ridiculously overgrown foliage in the front yard.
The garage, which was clearly designed for a car the size of a Model T and would be a tight fit even for our Mini, Maisie. Also note the jungle-like foliage and distinctly NOT dachshund-proof fence and gate.

So there have been a LOT of projects here since we closed on the house in June. The first was replacing the roof on both the house and the garage. We also repaired (inside) and replaced (above the roof) the chimney.

Our gorgeous new chimney, complete with ornamental brickwork and chimney cap.

We also had the entire electrical system rewired, as it was largely still knob and tube, and while the electricians did that they also wired parts of the house for ethernet and for speakers. They even replaced some of the fixtures with pretty ones that Kelly and I had found on craigslist.org. Some were cheap, and some were free. Much shopping Kung fu on Kelly’s part.

The dining room, with the awesome new brass chandelier, painted walls, refinished floor, and original stained glass.

Also also wik, we had all the wallpaper taken down and we picked some lovely (and historically appropriate) colors for the walls. They really turned out beautifully.

This is the main bedroom upstairs, with painted walls and newly refinished floor.
The warming room (next to the kitchen), which we also call the library annex. Note the gorgeous mantle and fantastic cast iron fireplace insert.

There were also some other improvements made to the house, such as improving the half bathroom next to the kitchen and making some other adjustments and improvements to the plumbing in the basement. We also got a brand-new dryer (the old one died a sudden death, after popping the breaker a few times) and as of this weekend, we will also have a new kitchen refrigerator. The old basement fridge died within 48 hours of the dryer dying, and so we had the contractors move the old kitchen fridge to the basement to take its place. We also added a security system, which is nice for seeing when packages get dropped off. Seriously, it works GREAT for that. And we had gutters added to the house, because it didn’t have any for some reason. We also had to make some adjustments to the fence in the back yard, after Nymeria proved she was more than a match for it on several occasions.

So I will make a point of doing some follow-up posts to show you our progress.

~Geoff

Scholarship Drive

I’m in my final semester at UMass Amherst in the Union Leadership and Activism program. I have a remote semester in January in which I do my capstone project and then I graduate with my MS. Why am I telling you this? Because today we launch our 4 day fundraiser to fund our scholarship program.

I’ve benefited from this scholarship as have many of my fellow classmates. This year we’re spreading a donation link out among our social networks to see how much we can raise to enable the next generation of union leaders to attend this program. If you are not able to donate I ask only that you pass along the link.

The people who are making unions more diverse, inclusive, accessible, and just are coming from this program.

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Thank you!

Kelly

Second Class

Today the United States made approximately 52% of the population second class citizens. In doing so, it removed any doubt as to whether or not the US is a first world nation. Any nation that is so corrupt as to allow the system designed to keep different branches of the government both separate and in check to rot away completely is a failed state.

Overturning Roe isn’t just about the overweening hatred of women and pregnant people that is foundational to the Republican/Fundamentalist/Catholic/White Supremacist/Billionaire/Toxic Cis Hetero-normative hegemony in this nation. It’s about fear and control. It is not and has never been about the unborn. If it was, prenatal care would be both funded and required, and people who neglected pregnant people’s healthcare would actually suffer consequences. But they don’t.

There is no pro in the “pro-life” movement. The anti-choice movement was created as a political movement to unite historically opposed allies so Republicans could get elected. That’s it. That’s the “pro-life” movement. It’s a con, and a very successful one.

If you think you’re virtuous because you’re screaming at people going in and out of Planned Parenthood, the vast majority of whom are receiving basic medical care regardless of sex or gender, you’re just being a judgmental asshole. If you think it’s acceptable to tell people that “women just shouldn’t be able to kill babies” then you don’t understand science, and you’re still an asshole. If you think someone who has been raped should be required to carry their rapist’s potential offspring to term, you’re certainly not getting your advice on morality from Jesus, and you’re an asshole.

The truth is, abortion is not mentioned in the Christian Bible. Other faiths, such as Judaism and Islam, actually value the lives of their adherents and consider abortion to be necessary medical care to save the lives of the already born. You know, those of us in whom society has already invested. In other words, the lives of actual people.

But here in the United States a small group of very wealthy, very white nominally Christian people have hoodwinked many of you and outright fucked the rest of us. They play on your fears. They turn your basest instincts about in-groups, out-groups, skin color, and sex, into weapons and then use them against you. Really, to a large extent this isn’t even about Democrats or Republicans, this is about Oligarchs. Because at the end of the day, if you have a uterus and you’re rich, you’ll be able to get necessary medical care, like an abortion, no matter what.

It’s the ordinary people, the rest of us, that will suffer, as we do now. We suffer in a failed nation with no nationalized health care; institutionalized racism and sexism; homophobia and transphobia; ableism and systemic and cultural indifference to the disabled; and with a huge part of the population that genuinely believes that it is really OK to hate loudly and proudly. We suffer with the largest incarcerated population in the “civilized” world, and we have an epidemic of gun violence unlike any other country on earth.

Roe is the first, but it won’t be the last. While we’re all angry now, let us make today important not because of what we lost, but because of what we begin. Let today be the day that historians recognize as the beginning of the revolution. Oligarchs, we are coming for you. Everyone else needs to get on the correct side of history, or else fall with the Oligarchs. They are going to wish we only had torches and pitchforks.