Slope of Hope Blog Posts

Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.

Skeleton Keys

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Here I am again. Parking lot. Laptop. Nighttime. And, twenty-four hours from when I’m typing this, the results are going to start tumbling in. Say what you will about how many hours, days, or weeks it’ll be until the POTUS is decided, the fact is that plenty of other interesting and important races (like, say, dozens of Senate seats) will have conclusive results.

As we bid a relieved farewell to the 2020 political campaign season, let’s take a parting glance at some key indexes and what I see as some critically-important support and resistance levels. We have the S&P 500:

slopechart SPX
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Not Guilty

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I tend to think in analogs and metaphors, as I’ve mentioned before. This morning, I was hit with one that clarified my feelings of anxiety lately: I feel like I am seated in court, awaiting the jury to return a verdict for a crime that I never committed. I am anxious. I am uneasy. But I didn’t do anything.

I mean, this is just a plain goofy situation. Let’s bullet-point my properties:

  • White;
  • Male;
  • Protestant;
  • Middle-Aged;
  • Has money;
  • Married to his childhood love;
  • Devoted family man;
  • Religious upbringing;
  • Grew up in the deep south;
  • Loves mah dawgs

I mean, Mr. G.O.P. all the way, right? And it was true for most of my life. But I’m a man without a party now (since, let’s face it, the Libertarians are well meaning but ain’t getting any posts except a few local school boards).

Look, let’s just be decent to one another this week, OK? Emotions are going to run hot. Let your better angels win the day. Please. For all of our sakes.

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Castro-ted

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The town directly south of my own home of Palo Alto is called Mountain View. It is a similarly-sized town, and although these days it seems like governments are capable of nothing but losing money, Mountain View has proved itself quite different:

surplus

That was no fluke, by the way. The year prior, the town threw off a profit of over $100 million. Not a bad business! But I think those days are over.

The “main drag” in Mountain View is called Castro Street (not to be confused with the gay mecca of the same-named street in San Francisco). Castro is packed from end to end with all kinds of restaurants and retail stores. Until Covid, it was reliably one of the most vivacious places to go in the Bay Area.

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