Hello, 2020!

Well, in just a few hours, it will be the year 2020.

Amazing.

Seemed like only yesterday that 1984 seemed impossibly far away.

Now...


And yes, there are so many ways you can take that.

To Unify USA...

So for a few years I've been "sort of a volunteer editor" for LiberalResistance.net, a progressive publication that was actually started by Matt Blanchfield--a fascinating character to say the least.

However, recently, Matt had some health problems and had to withdraw from the publication. That's left all the work on me, and I just couldn't manage it. At first I thought I was going to have to shut it down. But, then, the good folks at USAUnify.org, a non-profit "progressive, digital marketing agency," agreed to sort of adopt the site. So, it will go on.

The transfer has proved far more difficult than I'd hoped it would be. We seem to be constantly fighting technical issues. Right now, if you strike on the LR link above, you'll get a rather scary message saying that the site ahead is a "potential security risk." I am told that it isn't. We just need to get our SLL certificate properly installed.

Alas, getting the certificate in place is proving to be sort of like positioning long-underwear on a hot day. There is a lot more tugging, pulling, and stretching than you'd like. And even then, turn the wrong way too fast and ouch.

Wish me luck that everything gets fixed in the near future.

Farewell/Hello

Well, a new blog, and a time of many changes in my life. Last year I became a grandfather. This year I moved to Texas to be near the kids. Positive changes, but no change comes without its unsettling aspects.

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Saying goodby to Albuquerque (city of my youth) was hard, though not as hard as I thought it would be. There is a lot more to do in Georgetown (my present home, just outside of Austin) than there was in ABQ. By that I mean to do culturally. Here we are very close to Southwestern University, which has thriving art and performance scenes, as well Austin itself, which can be amazing in that regard.

I guess there was actually more to do in ABQ than I seem to be suggesting. It, too, had a world-class university and many museums, not to mention a significant art colony. But it was sometimes hard to get at them. You had to drive clear across town. Here, the same sort of thing can be had in a few minutes on the road.


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Other major changes: I shut down the explosive-cargo blog. Actually, I should have done that years ago, no one was reading it. Or, rather, very few people were.

I wonder if this blog will do any better.


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Funny. As an ezine, Xcargo was a rip-roaring success. As a blog, a dud.

Wonder why.


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Also, a much bigger change. Since 2017 I’ve been editing LiberalResistance.net, a small online publication that opposes Trump. Now, I am slowly making my way out of that.

Why? Well, I’m exhausted for one thing. And, for another, I feel sort of like our initial mission is over. Trump is still in the White House, and could easily get re-elected. But, even so, I think the time has come for us to start addressing the problems that made Trump possible rather than the man himself—such as our nation's growing income inequality, the divisions between different sorts of Americans, the fact that automation and offshoring are making many of us redundant and useless…

So I think Liberal Resistance needs to address all that. And I don’t have the resources to make thechange, particularly now that the founder of the publication, Matt Blanchfield, has had to retire from the effort (he has early onset Alzheimer’s, very sad).

I have made arrangements for LR to be adopted by another organization, USA Unify. It seems to be going well, but you never can tell what the future will bring, and we’ve been in partnership  only a few weeks.

Wish me luck on all this.

Hello, and welcome to my new blog!

Hello, hello!

Welcome to my new blog! I'm very much looking forward to getting to know you.

cheers
Michael Jay Tucker, a.k.a., mjt