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.

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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The Last Downvote

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I’m not always the sharpest knife in the drawer, but this time, I really outdumbed myself.

For weeks now, I’ve been increasingly concerned about the tone of the site. I have spent an inordinate amount of time addressing this issue, mostly behind the scenes, with a combination of engineering efforts and diplomacy.

Anecdotally, we might guess where all the “Dislikes” are coming from, but I’ve got the data. (As a courtesy, I have blurred out the actual names, since Lord knows there is a lack of civilized decorum in present society). One of these chaps is dead, so no more worries there, but it looks like some folks spend an awfully lot of time bashing that downvote button. Thousands upon thousands of dislikes.

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