Saturday, June 14, 2025

No Kings

I’m ignoring the “tinky tank parade” in the District, other low quality melodrama, and heading out to a hacky sack tournament. That’s my idea of a real summer.

On the way, though, I’ll check out one of the more far flung No Kings rallies, a franchised operation conducting itself nationally, a reminder from the populace that we recognize no monarchy.  

Kings of old could embroil their serfs in wars as cannon fodder no problem, in feuds by proxy. We came to a New World to get away from those guys.

Since I’m on a tight itinerary, I have to avoid the larger No Kings rallies downtown and along MLK, and pick one more aligned with my route and goals. The hacky sack tournament is actually also a chance to rendezvous with one of the faculty I keep blogging about.

I’ll likely be seeing him again later in the week, along with Casey, and later Ryan, as we’re engaging in a kind of mini-summit around the Summer Solstice.

The three of us, me, Don and Dave, attended the final meetup this term of the Dead Mathematician Society at MHCC, for a brilliant talk on Group Theory, Burnside's Lemma, complete with table top game like activities.

I’ve been communicating with the organizers about doing my Quadrays talk or something like it, and did some brainstorming on what we’d do for a tabletop game. I was thinking BRYG and “how would you, if the designer, bridge XYZ and the IVM.” In a way, that’s not a new problem, but the Quadrays aspect makes it more number crunchy.

If you’re new to my blogs, here’s fair warning I’m one of those Americans who mocks The District as a soap opera capital far less talented than LA when it comes to screenwriting. West Wing melodramas really suck. I’m so glad I don’t waste a lot of time with its products, not that the ripple effects can always be avoided.

Bioregionally, we’re Cascadians out here with our Pacific Rim identity. We’re not “Atlanticists” as they’re called, mostly a lotta prep school prima donnas with east coast breeding. Like what we used to call Yankees. I mostly just call ‘em Anglos. They’re still living in the eastern hemisphere in their own heads, thinking the whole world revolves around their Old World fantasies.