2020 has been stressful in so many ways. The coronavirus has also kept many of us at home, enforcing an unwelcome degree of isolation during a challenging time.
I’ve been experimenting with new apps and services to see if any can help me cut through the gloom. By far, the most effective has beenEndel.
In their manifesto, Endel’s team outline the problem they are trying to solve:
We’re not evolving fast enough. Our bodies and minds are not fit for the new world we live in.
The team argues that our brains aren’t wired to handle the massive amounts of information they now receive. This information overload leads to inadequate sleep, increased anxiety, and depression.
Practicing mindfulness can help address this challenge. But the Endel team further argues that we aren’t properly leveraging our glorious new technologies to help us be mindful:
We’re using ultra-modern devices — wireless, wearables, sensors — to deliver static mindfulness content that is no different from what people used 100 to 1,000 years ago.
So, Endel is trying something new. It looks at real-time inputs, such as your heart rate, weather, motion, and natural light. It then creates an “adaptive soundscape” that’s optimized for your current goal. You can use Endel to relax, focus, sleep, meditate, workout, read—whatever you like.
Each soundscape is also aligned with the ultradian and circadian rhythms of a model daily energy curve. The team plans to personalize a daily energy curve for each Endel user. You can read more about the science behind it all.
Endel has Android, iPhone/iPad, Apple Watch, Mac, and Apple TV apps and is also available as an Amazon Alexa Skill. Access to all these costs $5.99 a month, $24.99 a year, or $89.99 for life. (I think they may have recently decreased from $29.99 to $24.99 for a year.)
There is also some sponsored content available free on Endel’s website and also a free “insomnia channel” on Twitch.
I have found Endel to be effective at helping me relax, focus, and sleep. I recommend you give it a try.
Several times when writing this post, I’ve accidentally typed “democrazy” when meaning to type “democracy.” I think perhaps my subconscious mind has reached a sad, troubling conclusion.
Things are indeed crazy in the American democratic system. If it isn’t already fully broken, it soon could be. The process to replace recently-deceased Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg may strain our society past a breaking point. I’m still hoping that cooler heads will somehow prevail.
Listening to the People
I’m going to share my concerns about how this process is unfolding and what I think should happen. I’m a liberal Democrat. You can take my concerns with however many grains of salt you wish. But I’m going to start by articulating a principle I hope most of us can agree on:
The President and the United States Senate should listen to how the majority of Americans want to see this Supreme Court vacancy filled and act accordingly.
According to a Reuters/Ipsos survey, 62 percent of American adults agreed the vacancy should be filled by the winner of the presidential election on Nov. 3rd. This included five in 10 Republicans.
President Trump and Senate Republicans are moving forward without a majority of public support. This troubles me greatly. They are also not abiding by their own rules.
Ignoring Rules and Norms
In 2016, Senate Republicans refused to grant Judge Merrick Garland even a committee hearing when President Obama nominated him to the Supreme Court. Even though there were 237 days until the election, Republicans said a nominee should not be considered in a presidential election year.
I didn’t agree with Republicans' handling of the Garland nomination then and still don’t agree with it now. But I thought we at least had a new Republican-created rule/norm by which they would abide.
Now, President Trump will announce a Supreme Court nominee only 38 days before a presidential election. Hearings will be brief. Many Republican senators are already saying they will vote to confirm the nominee before that person has even been announced.
Many Republicans are still angry about what they saw as unfair treatment of now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh by Senate Democrats during his Supreme Court confirmation. I believe that Senate Democrats had an obligation to investigate claims of sexual assault made by three women against Kavanaugh. Perhaps you disagree.
Regardless of how anyone feels about Kavanaugh’s confirmation, it is not an excuse to ignore rules, norms, and public opinion when filling a Supreme Court seat. There shouldn’t be a different confirmation process based on which parties control the White House and the Senate. Something this important shouldn’t be this partisan.
The Republican “Majority”
Republicans should have humility in exercising their power, tacking more toward the center. They have not been elected at the federal level by a majority of American voters and probably won’t be again in November.
Donald Trump lost the national popular vote in 2016. He won the presidency because the less-democratic Electoral College is what decides the race. And he is likely to lose both the national popular vote and the Electoral College in November based on current polling.
Republicans lost the House of Representatives to the Democrats in 2018. Democrats are highly likely to retain it in November according to current polling.
Senate Republicans owe their slim majority not to getting the most votes nationwide, but to each state having two Senators regardless of state population. This makes the Senate 6 to 7 percentage points “redder” than the United States as a whole (analysis here). Despite that advantage, Democrats are slightly favored to take the Senate majority in November based on current polling. Even if that doesn’t happen, a Republican majority would almost certainly be even slimmer.
With the Electoral College and the state-based Senate, the Framers of our Constitution wanted to avoid tyranny by more populous states over more rural ones. Republicans are now are edging close to the reverse.
Republicans should be mindful of how brute-forcing a conservative Supreme Court pick will feel to the majority of Americans who did not vote for them. They should also be mindful of the majority who oppose making this decision before the presidential election. This would be a massive blow to our already-struggling democracy.
Country Before Party
Our democracy is in crisis. We need Republican Senators to be statesmen and stateswomen. It’s a time for putting country before party.
Too many Republicans are acting like a majority of voters want them to push a Supreme Court nominee through in October. This is simply not the case.
In reality, the designs of the Electoral College and state-based Senate have given Republicans outsized power. They will likely lose that power in January. So they should behave in a more centrist and responsible manner. Our democracy is depending on them.
I’ve always been a bit “STEMy,” but only in the Technology sense of Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics. I hate math. Or, at least I thought I hated math until I tried Brilliant.
You may know Brilliant from educational advertisements that show STEM problems being solved in visual, animated ways. Those ads are awesome. Looking at them, it feels like you’ll soon be as smart as John Nash in A Beautiful Mind. We may as well put all this COVID-19 time at home to some good use, right?
I finally overcame my math phobia enough to try Brilliant. It’s like learning with my high school Algebra II teacher. With Brilliant and Mrs. Lewis, this stuff somehow makes more sense, feels less intimidating, and is even kinda fun. (Kathy Lewis, if you ever read this, thank you for being so wonderful!)
What I love about Brilliant:
You are in control. You choose what courses you take, in what order, and at what pace.
No tests, no shame. You don’t get grades. You don’t hit gates or roadblocks. No one else knows what courses you’re taking or how well you’re doing. If you get something wrong, an explanation sets you straight. (You can look at your Stats if you want to, but you can also ignore them.)
Course variety. You have hundreds of hours of courses to choose from across Algebra, Geometry, Number Theory, Calculus, Probability, Basic Mathematics, Logic, Classical Mechanics, Electricity and Magnetism, Computer Science, Quantitative Finance, and Chemistry. (The Chemistry offerings are fairly basic, and there aren’t any Biology courses. I’m hoping to see improvement in these areas over time.)
Great design. Brilliant has a clean, crisp visual aesthetic that does an excellent job of using images, animations, and videos to convey complex concepts. It also has adorable artwork for many of the logic problems.
Community. You can post STEM problems online for others to solve or join in the solving fun yourself.
Useable anywhere and anytime. Brilliant works on smartphones, tablets, and web browsers. Whether you have five minutes or five hours, you can learn something. Most individual problems can be worked in a minute or two, and your place in a lesson is always synced across your devices.
Brilliant is a bit pricey. There are certainly many apps and websites that teach similar topics for free or at a lower cost. But, I think Brilliant’s combination of self-guided learning, lack of testing or scores, lovely design, community, and usability across devices and situations makes it worth the cost.
If you are a student, the parent of a student, or someone interested in life-long learning, I highly recommend giving Brilliant a try.
Tommy Tuberville won Alabama’s U.S. Senate primary against Jeff Sessions by nearly 30 percentage points this week. I am a liberal. You may be a conservative who strongly supports Donald Trump. Regardless, you should be deeply disturbed about what Tuberville’s landslide victory means for the Republican Party and our nation.
I strongly disagree with Sessions on almost every political issue and didn’t want to see him back in the Senate. But, the news that Alabama Republicans consider Tuberville a better candidate than Sessions by such a large margin chills me to my core.
Let’s consider some potential qualifications for being a Republican U.S. Senator from Alabama:
Government Experience. Jeff Sessions has been U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama, Attorney General of Alabama, U.S. Senator from Alabama for 20 years, and U.S. Attorney General. Tommy Tuberville has been a successful university football coach. There is no question Sessions is the more experienced candidate.
Connection to Alabama. Sessions was born in Alabama and has lived there all of his 73 years. Tuberville lived in Alabama when he coached at Auburn from 1999–2008. He moved back to Alabama in 2018 for this Senate run. So ~73 years living in Alabama versus ~12 years. There is no question Sessions knows Alabama and the challenges Alabama residents face better than Tuberville.
Transparency with Voters. Sessions has years of decisions and votes in public office that voters could scrutinize. He conducted numerous media interviews and made numerous public appearances during this campaign. He offered to have as many as five public debates with Tuberville. Tuberville gave few media interviews and made few open-to-all public appearances. He refused to debate Sessions even once. There is no question Sessions was a more transparent candidate with voters.
Morals and Ethics / “Draining the Swamp”. Sessions is an Eagle Scout who has taught Sunday School classes. As Attorney General, he recused himself from the Russia investigation because of conflict of interest concerns. Tuberville is not a Scout. He was a co-defendant in a lawsuit alleging his hedge fund defrauded investors of $1.7 million. His partner in the fund was found guilty of securities fraud, ordered to pay $2.1 million in restitution and to serve ten years in jail. Tuberville settled his case out of court on undisclosed terms. Tuberville also only gave a one-game suspension to an Auburn football player charged with the rape of a 15-year-old in 1999. Sessions would seem to be the person with the stronger moral and ethical center here.
Conservative “Trumpian” Policies. Sessions brags that he was “Trump before Trump” and has numerous conservative decisions and votes from his government service to back up that claim. Because Tuberville didn’t do debates, has done few media interviews, and has done few open-to-all public events, his policy positions are much less clear. He repeatedly says he supports Trump and Trump’s policies. That’s about it. This policy qualification goes slightly in Sessions' favor. Sessions is a demonstrated conservative while Tuberville claims to be one.
Endorsed by Donald Trump. Trump hates Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia investigation. So he has publicly savaged Sessions and endorsed Tuberville. On this single qualification, Tuberville clearly wins. And, for most Alabama Republicans, a Trump endorsement is apparently the only qualification that matters.
Jeff Sessions has been a deeply conservative Alabama Republican all of his life. He was one of the first major Republican politicians to endorse Trump for President in 2016. Trump might not have won the Republican presidential nomination without Sessions' early and enthusiastic support.
As Trump’s Attorney General, Sessions conducted himself as a staunch conservative and supported Trump in every way but one. Because Sessions had some dealings with Russian officials around the time of the election, he recused himself from the Russia investigation. He did not attack or criticize Trump. He simply stepped back from one investigation for an ethical reason. This was a transgression that Trump and Alabama Republicans would not forgive.
What has just happened in Alabama is an example of what is happening in Republican politics around the nation. The GOP has become a personality cult. Everyone must show allegiance to Trump at all times. No one can criticize or fail to defend the Dear Leader. The only thing that matters to most Republican voters is following Trump’s lead.
I hope with all my heart that Trump loses in November. Having one of our two major political parties engaging in this cult-like behavior is dangerous for our democracy. When voters become rubber stamps for one man’s agenda, we all lose.
I have a confession to make. I didn’t vote in the 2016 presidential election for the United States. I know, it’s horrible. I’m horrible. In my defense, I didn’t think I was allowed to vote.
Being Stateless (Or At Least U.S. Stateless)
We moved away from Virginia and the United States in late 2012 for Switzerland and then in mid-2019 on to Indonesia. While we have remained U.S. citzens, we have not been residents of a U.S. state since 2012.
Since I wasn’t a resident of a U.S. state, I didn’t think I could vote in U.S. presidential elections. Why would I think that?
Well, in a U.S. presidential election, citizens don’t vote for candidates directly. Citizens vote on how the electors for their state will cast their electoral votes. Those electoral votes from states are what actually determine who becomes president and vice-president. (It’s a terribly flawed and undemocratic system, but I’ll save that for another blog post.)
I assumed that without residency in a U.S. state, I had no way to vote for the electors of any state. I also assumed this meant that I couldn’t vote in Democratic Party presidential primaries. The good news is that I think/hope I was wrong and that I can vote in both for 2020.
Democrats Abroad and the Global Democratic Presidential Primary
I’ve found out about a lovely organization called Democrats Abroad. It is “the official Democratic Party arm for the millions of Americans living outside the United States."
The organization runs a Global Democratic Presidental Primary. The Global Primary for 2020 will award 21 Democratic National Convention delegates, holding 17 votes, of which 13 will be pledged delegates allocated by the voting process. Democrats living abroad can register and vote online in the Global Primary until March 10th. Participation is free. You can only vote in the Global Primary if you aren’t voting in a state primary.
Thirteen delegates may not sound like a lot, but the number of Global Primary voters is fairly small. So this is a case where a small number of votes can really matter.
In 2016, a majority of Democrats Abroad voters Felt The Bern. Bernie Sanders received 69% of the vote to Hillary Clinton’s 31%. Sanders picked up nine delegates to Clinton’s four. Sanders also received four pledged superdelegates. Voter turnout was up 50% from the 2008 election, with 34,570 voters from over 170 countries.
I will be voting in the Global Primary. With Pete Buttigieg out of the race, I will be deciding between Joe Biden and Amy Klobuchar. I will probably go with Biden for electability reasons.
If you’re a Republican living outside of the U.S., you might want to check out Republicans Overseas. It doesn’t appear that they do a global primary, but they do help organize Republicans outside of the U.S. in other ways.
Voting for President From Abroad While Stateless
I’ve also found out about a lovely part of the U.S. government called the Federal Voting Assistance Program. It runs a Federal Post Card Application process for U.S. citizens living abroad to request absentee ballots from local election offices in the U.S.
If you’re only voting for federal offices, you can use the address of your last residence in the U.S. without needing to still control that address, without needing to claim residency at the address, and without incurring state or local tax liability. This sounds perfect for my situation.
(If you still maintain legal residency in a U.S. state while living abroad, you can use this same FPCA process to request absentee ballots for federal, state, and local offices.)
I’m submitting my FPCA this week and crossing my fingers. I hope I will get to vote for president this year!
