Grant and I worked together at Khimetrics 2003-2008. He's a few years older than I am, primarily a database expert (at least so far as I know him) with a strong enthusiasm for math-geeky stuff. I also know him as a serious enthusiast of hiking in the Grand Canyon and I find it hard to recall him without a smile on his face. I've never sensed much of a political sense, but he wouldn't be the first to go left-wing-progressive bonkers in his senior years. For those not familiar with it, LinkedIn is a job-hunting forum based on the notion that knowing people is the key to finding good people because recommendations are too-often poor representations of what a person can actually do in a technical position. While political drivel on Facebook may be acceptable, I consider anything of a political-soapbox nature on LinkedIn to be a serious violation of protocol. I'll connect on Facebook and Instagram with people who have common experiences even if I don't know them well, but I won't connect on LinkedIn unless I can actually speak to how somebody can do a technical job.

     Alas, in all the years I've seen and used LinkedIn I don't know anybody who got a job through it and it seems to have become a forum for selling company technical products and announcing job changes and technical certifications. It has kept me somewhat in touch with some friends of long ago, but it's promise of being a career-contact resource seems to have remained unfulfilled.

     I'm sharing what Senator Mark Kelly sent this morning. He embodies the ethics and the kind of leadership that I want. If you disagree, I'm happy to discuss this with you privately.

     "If you're reading this, you definitely remember what happened on this day five years ago. Donald Trump sent a mob to the Capitol to steal an election.

     "He had just lost, fair and square, and he didn't like the result. So he decided he was going to try to silence the voices of 81 million people.

     "It was one of the darkest days in the history of our country, but we made it through.

     "Now he's back, five years later, and it's the same scheme. His Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, is trying to silence me right now. He thinks he can make an example out of me and intimidate others into staying quiet.

     "But here's the thing: Americans really like freedom of speech. You sign an oath to defend it when you join the military. Trying to silence people into compliance is just about the most un-American thing you can do. Period.

     "There is nothing Trump or Hegseth or anybody in that administration can do to shut me up. I am going to keep fighting for our people, our democracy, and our Constitution.

     "We're not going to let him win. Not a chance. So, five years on from January 6th, I want you to take this to heart: Do not be afraid. Do not be silent. Speak out.

     "We're going to get through this the same way we did back then: together.

     "Vote to protect our democracy!"

     In the current fascist police state in the USA, I urge all of you to look in the mirror and ask, "What am I doing to stop the destruction of our democracy?"

     Are you prepared to deal with the orange man's SS and Gestapo? They are killing US citizens each day without restraint. Are you ignoring that? Doesn't that disturb you? Do you understand that we are all targets of their hate?

     We cannot conduct business as usual in these conditions.

     Write your senators and representatives, but know that they are not doing much to stop these murderers. Congress and the Supreme Court are complicit in this, not just the Executive Branch.

     Step up. Speak out. Vote! Run for local, state, and federal office. As a statistician, I'm sure you are better than the ones in power now.

     Read Gandhi. Listen to CS&N "Ohio". Be angry, but kind, unlike the evil clowns who are running the show right now.

     I'm not sensing a lot to do with careers in utility analytics here, rather a social-medium-style spew of political polemic, once wrong for its lack of understanding (which I'm happy to discuss in another forum) and again for having it on LinkedIn where it's just totally inappropriate.

     If you didn't write this (I certainly hope not!), then you likely have been hacked and should change passwords and take other precautions.

     Setting aside our different opinions of what is appropriate for LinkedIn, just what do you think I had wrong in my original post that offended you?

     Rather that dredge up a large volume of political mess that we have managed not to argue about for almost a quarter century of knowing each other, I'll answer the direct question you ask.

     I will point out that I would have been nearly as disturbed had you come out on the side that didn't do unspeakable horrors in a deliberately-professional forum like LinkedIn.

     There were two posts, one on the 2020 election and the other equating those who opposed Stalin and Hitler and their democracy with fascism and Hitler and the Gestapo and the SS.

     First, I'm more disappointed than offended. The election was http://the-adam.com/adam/issues/elect-2020.html mathematically obviously stolen. If you have some alternative explanation for what happened, then I'm anxious to hear it. The one I'm hearing is that the voters on 2020 November 3 were so incensed by the "insurrection" on 2021 January 6 that they turned out in droves to vote for Biden. (These are the same people who claim climate warming 1920-1960 was caused by fossil-fuel burning 1960-1998.) You're supposed to be a mathematically-literate person and here you are promoting the worst form of propaganda "innumeracy" based on ridiculous distortions of what actually happened.

     Second, positions promoting "democracy," "genocide," and "diversity" should scare us all. Most concerning is comparing http://the-adam.com/adam/issues/nazi-01.html those who fought and died defending values of decency against progressive hate with those very progressives, most overtly Adolf Hitler.

     I'm happy http://the-adam.com/adam/issues/index.html to explain America and its values to somebody whom I never have realized so opposed them, and I spent a lot of time writing these expository essays. I'm not willing to sit as an equal with one whose movement killed 262 million of their own socialist citizens, including six million of my own aunts, uncles, and cousins, as someone who has spent four decades trying to raise awareness so it won't happen again, as it did on 2023 October 7 with Hamas.

     If you got this far and still are on speaking terms with me, then I'm happy to get together for lunch sometime. We can talk about this. Or we can talk about mathematics and databases and the stuff we have enjoyed for many years.

     I'm deeply disappointed that you have misunderstood everything I've said about the current political situation. I am trying to forgive you for the insults against me because you clearly don't hear what I have to say. If you think that I am "so opposed" to America and its values, you owe me an apology and need to learn to listen better.

     If I misunderstood, then I'm sorry. I read what you said which may not be what you meant. If you can say it better, then I'm all too happy to read it and to try to understand, or to share a meal where you can explain it to me.

     As I said, I haven't sensed any of what I read so clearly here for twenty-three years, so I have to wonder where it came from.