Reflections & Ramblings: Volume Eleven

I.

It looks as if February is going to start off with a blizzard here in the Omaha area. Tonight we are going to get potentially 9-12 inches of snow with up to 50-60 mph wind gusts. When talking about traveling in these conditions the word “impossible” keeps being used. That doesn’t bode well for the fact that Sarah is going into work tonight. The likelihood of her coming back home in the morning seems very, very slim. It looks like it could be a very long night and day for her. We suspect she’ll be trapped at work.

The snow doesn’t bode well for the city considering three inches of snow practically shut down the city recently. But since then the leadership of our city has promised to do better, even buying more snow plows to help clear the streets better.

We here in Omaha love turning our city into all sorts of puns. #snowmahog it is this time around. I’m sure the hashtag will be a blast to follow on Twitter.

Looks like it’s time to get milk, bread, and eggs.

II.

Across the river from here tomorrow evening will be the conclusion of the much discussed Iowa caucus. But did you know that for it being such an important part of the election process leading up to November, only one in five registered voters show up to caucus?

That’s why candidates like Ted Cruz play dirty by manipulating, pressuring, and lying to people to get out to vote.

Who do you got? Trump or Cruz? Bernie or Hillary?
The time has finally arrived to find out. Finally.

III.

Speaking of caucusing. Did you know that there’s a reason caucus is a verb?

Check out how the Democratic caucus works. It’s kind of wacky:

This differs dramatically from how the Republican caucus works, which is basically just a private vote. Whoever has the most votes, wins.

IV.

There are about fifty good articles that come out every day about politics in America, and all that is going on in this campaign season. It’s impossible to read everything or to know all the talking points. But people are baffled by Donald Trump’s popularity. And people are surprised that Bernie Sander’s message and platform has so much support from so many people. A recent article written for Vox really takes a good look at Bernie and Trump and comes up with some really great takeaways that I think would be well worth your time to read.

V.

While I’m on a political train of thought, I read an article in The Atlantic about how America has a misplaced faith in bombing campaigns. The way the author put it is that “many think of aerial bombardment as a cheap, effective alternative to spilling American blood. They’re wrong.”

Overall, we’ve trusted for far too long that bombing is the best solution to win a war. But that has proven to not be true time and time again. Why don’t we talk about this?

It reminds me of an incredible part of the documentary The Fog of War with Robert McNamara where he talks about the fire bombing of Japan during WWII.

The methods of bombing have maybe changed a bit since WWII, but in many ways, we still have the same mindset as we did back then. And it seems that we’ve learned very little.