Author: From Brassville to...

A career public servant, an adjunct professor, SME in policy analysis, program evaluation, emergency management, local government, amateur and youth baseball, and the interdependences and inter-connectedness if these.

NASA scientist reveals the one thing that convinced her conservative father that climate change is real – Scoop Upworthy

https://scoop.upworthy.com/nasa-scientist-reveals-the-one-thing-that-convinced-her-conservative-father-that-climate-change-is-real

“‘…She said, “My dad was like, well, if capitalism says it’s real, it’s real.” The hosts laughed, saying, “If the greediest people in America think it’s real, then that tells me something.”‘

On knowledge management and innovation [sometimes]

https://www.geeky-gadgets.com/zettelkasten-note-taking-method-guide/

Imagine a note-taking system that works with your brain, not against it—one that mirrors how we naturally connect ideas and make sense of the world. Developed by sociologist Niklas Luhmann, the Zettelkasten method transforms the way you capture, organize, and use information. It’s not just about storing notes; it’s about creating a dynamic network of knowledge that grows and evolves with you.

Rethinking “emergency preparedness”

https://www.domesticpreparedness.com/articles/emergency-management-has-evolved-why-the-all-hazards-era-is-over

Addressing Risk in the Modern Risk Environment-

“…While initially useful, the term “all hazards” no longer accurately describes the functions or mission of the emergency management discipline. In the past few years, state and local emergency managers have led or coordinated governments’ responses to a broadening range of incidents and problems.

“All hazards” is a self-limiting term, not an enabling one. Hazards do not encompass the entirety of the discipline’s current focus, which can include special event planning and coordination, resilience building, humanitarian support (and aid), air and environmental quality, and election security, to name a few.

As emergency managers grapple with new and increasingly complex challenges—such as the intensification of natural disasters and the proliferation of threats like pandemics and cyberattacks—the all-hazards model is inadequate. The current emergency management landscape demands a shift away from the all-hazards approach to a more comprehensive, hazard-agnostic approach. This shift reflects the growing complexity of modern crises and the need for a flexible, adaptable framework that can address a broad range of evolving threats. This approach emphasizes core skills, adaptability, diversity of staff personal and professional experience, identifying commonality of threats, and addressing these by coordinating multidisciplinary solutions. …”

Someone creates a “Disaster Misery Index”

https://phys.org/news/2025-02-length-household-displacement-community-disaster.html

“‘…To understand the impacts of future disasters, the computer model can combine estimates of physical damage with socioeconomic characteristics to predict the duration of household displacement within a community and therefore help inform risk mitigation strategies that reduce displacement risks for members of that community in future disasters.”‘

from Brassville: “‘It’s the Inequality, stupid'”

“‘It’s the Inequality,  stupid'” [to paraphrase the Clinton-era message]

Since Reagan (and I would argue Nixon) Rs have ’tilted the ice’ and have effectively installed Trickle Down philosophies as the common,  central economic norm —  rejecting the New Deal and Great Society ideals as extreme. 

Trickle down is now orthodoxy. Again, Trickle Down came with tax cuts to the wealthy, deregulation of industries, demonization of unions, to name a few.    various markets were becoming less and less competitive as mergers and leverage buyouts accelerated, creating greater levels of wealth consolidation. As a result, the social contract and social safety net are generally forgotten, or labeled as worse.

How this played out during recent election cycles:

–When Dems are in power, they are politically restricted to still working within the Trickle down norms. So, any Democratic party successes are within the existing, skewed playing field.  When Ds are in power, they are politically restricted to still working within the Republicans norms.

So, any Democratic party successes are within the existing, skewed playing field. As a result,  wealth inequality is the orthodoxy. So, even now as the strongest economy in the world, so many Americans do not benefit from any such gains.

Put another way, it mirrors the current “weather  vs climate” arguments -i.e.: ‘economy ‘ is to ‘weather’ as ‘wealth inequality ‘ is to ‘climate. So when Dems respond to the ‘weather,’ they do not /can not fix any of the fundamentals of ‘climate change‘. As a result, the 2024 presidential elections pigeon-holed Ms. Harris as the more-of-the-same candidate who didn’t understand the economic lives of average Americans [granted, there was a lot of mis- / dis- and skewed information btw FOX, corporate media and social media algorithms, but that’s a discussion for another time…]

So how do we get the pendulum to swing back? I’d like to propose a few ideas in other posts that I will refer to as “‘We the People,”‘ proposals as part of future posts.

First & foremost: Corporation’s Are NOT People. This country has to codify in statue – and probably in a constitution amendment in order to neutralize the current SCOTUS.