Black, Indigenous, and People of Color.

I’m assuming that white is not considered a color?

And I’m assuming the category is one of struggle?

Sure, I’ve been called Muhammad (wrong religion—I’m atheist), sand n-word (wrong part of the world), and Geronimo (even wronger part of the world), but can I really claim oppression?

Is Sundar Pichai oppressed?

How about Satya Nadella?

And how oppressed are all the doctors I work with?

Or, for that matter, the one I live with?

There’s more.

What happens during the Upstate New York winters, when I embrace four months of no sunshine and write blog posts no one reads? Do I become POP (Person of Pallor)?

What about halfsies?

Does place of birth matter?

Does life experience play into this at all?

Or are we limited to a visual assessment regarding the collective action of hundreds of genes?

Regardless, in the era of hyperindividualism and self-determination, I feel I should have some say in the matter.

Rather than BIPOC, I kindly request that you refer to me in one of the following ways:

• A Ball of Cells (BOC)
• A Ball of Atoms (BOA)
• A Collection of Particles (COP)
• A Morsel of the Universe (MOTU)
• Ashes (A)

Thank you.

The post Please Don’t Call Me BIPOC appeared first on ComposeMD.

The downside of that approach, of course, is that I piss off 50 percent of the country.

As a writer, I’d rather piss off everyone.

You can go ahead and call it existential nihilism, if you must.

I prefer to call it something else—the big picture.

To find it, I don’t have to look far—it’s lying on the bookshelf.

It starts here.

…Imagine a world in which everyone, but especially people with power and influence, holds an expanded view of our place in the cosmos. With that perspective, our problems would shrink—or never arise at all—and we could celebrate our earthly differences while shunning the behavior of our predecessors who slaughtered one another because of them.

The cosmic perspective reminds us that in space, where this is no air, a flag will not wave…

And goes here.

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral Arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.

…Lots of the people [are] mean, and most of them [are] miserable, even the ones with digital watches.

The Answer to the Great Question…Of Life, the Universe and Everything…Is…Is…Forty-two.

Where the vinyl lies, there’s more.

A heart that’s full up like a landfill

A job that slowly kills you

—

I’ll take a quiet life

A handshake of carbon monoxide

—

No alarms and no surprises (let me out of here)

No alarms and no surprises (let me out of here)

No alarms and no surprises, please (let me out of here)

Not to be outdone by this.

I tried so hard and got so far

But in the end, it doesn’t even matter

I had to fall to lose it all

But in the end, it doesn’t even matter

So please, during election season, don’t ask me what team I’m on.

Because we all know the answer:

The Milwaukee Brewers.

The post How I Deal With Election Season appeared first on ComposeMD.

It’s a moratorium barring state approvals of hyperscale data centers (those using 50 megawatts or more of power) for up to one year.

But that’s not the point.

The point is that Downstate New York, once again, has found the rope, the one it uses to suffocate its Upstate cousins.

Let’s rewind the clock.

It’s 2008, and everyone is talking about hydraulic fracturing, aka fracking, the process by which underground rock layers are blasted with a high-pressure mix of water, sand, and chemicals to release trapped oil and natural gas.

The economically depressed Southern Tier of New York, along the Pennsylvania border, is rich in such shale (rock) formations.

Localities there debate the pros and cons. When you’re in the middle of nowhere, economics and the environment are not abstractions—they’re about survival.

Eventually, in 2014, those conversations are silenced by a statewide fracking ban, something pushed heavily by a primary challenger to Governor Andrew Cuomo, leaving him with little political choice. That challenger, needless to say, is from New York City.

Meanwhile, nearby Pennsylvania and Ohio continue to cash in.

Fast forward to 2011, when ridesharing services begin in New York City. Existing commercial licensing infrastructure in the city allows this to proceed, while New York State law prohibits the use of personal vehicles in this capacity.

That means that Upstate New York has to wait six more years for Uber and Lyft. In fact, New York State is the last state in the continental US to allow ridesharing.

And that gets us to these hyperscale data centers, used to support cloud computing and, of course, AI.

By definition, they use a massive amount of power, potentially driving up electricity costs for those in the vicinity.

They also require millions of gallons of fresh water for cooling, make a lot of noise, and result in a relatively modest number of permanent jobs.

Finally, they are the backbone of an industry that sells itself as Brahma but might actually be Shiva, at least from a societal employment standpoint.

All this, and the powers that be often seek tax breaks to boot.

In other words, the plot is worthy of rigorous debate—just not at the state level.

The author of the legislation that resulted in a parallel executive order (courtesy Governor Kathy Hochul) is State Senator Kristen Gonzalez from, yes, New York City—Brooklyn to be exact. Brooklyn, at last check, is nowhere near the proposed facilities.

Then there’s Niagara County, home to its namesake waterfall that provides hydroelectric power, lying in a cool climate near two Great Lakes (i.e. fresh water that can be used for further cooling), and the site of abundant industrial infrastructure based on a manufacturing past.

The city of Niagara Falls (NY) is an eyesore, the victim of a loss of geographic relevance—that is, until now.

But, alas, New York City, located seven hours away, always knows what’s best.

And big tech, when confronted with a data center ban, knows something too—where to find the other seven Great Lakes states.

The post How New York’s Data Center Ban Kills Upstate (Again) appeared first on ComposeMD.

I know what it’s like to be misunderstood.

I am from the Rust Belt, after all.

But you—I get the sense that you don’t even know who you are.

It started in 1796, when you joined the Union, as in became a state.

Your eventual capital, Nashville, was even named after a Revolutionary War hero.

But then, in 1861, you pulled a South Carolina and left to join the wannabe country with the copycat flag. You were confused, as East Tennessee wanted no part of secession.

Of course, like a little sh*t, you came crawling back.

And ever since then, say 1865, you’ve stayed confused as hell.

You and Nathan Bedford Forrest gave us the Ku Klux Klan.

You also gave us some of the best HBCUs the country has known.

Like most US states, you treated women like second-class citizens.

By being the 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment, you also gave women the right to vote.

You prosecuted John Scopes for teaching evolution.

Then you did God’s work at Oak Ridge by helping make the first atomic bomb.

You’ve provided a safe haven for climate skeptics.

You’re also a leader in nuclear and hydroelectric power.

You became the home of the lefty Al Gore, whose wife, Tipper, tried to stifle artists and their lyrics.

You’re also the home of the right-wing nut job Marsha Blackburn, who has made a career of supporting artists.

It’s safe to say you’re into the Bible—I have firsthand knowledge.

You’ve also opened your arms to the largest Kurdish community in North America—it prefers the Quran.

Nashville has gone from a shade of blue to really damn blue.

It presides over a state that has gone from a battleground to really damn red.

You have no state income tax.

But you’re obsessed with consumption tax.

You love your hot chicken.

And you apparently like chicken vindaloo as well.

But despite it all, Tennessee, you are still a state that preserves the past.

Just ask your transplants who work at Oracle and Amazon.

Sincerely,

Khan Trae Dick Shin

The post Dear Tennessee: Who Are You Anyway? appeared first on ComposeMD.

On July 26, 2026, relentless Cyber-wandering landed me on a headline: “Colorado River reservoirs hit record lows as Trump administration threatens major cuts.”

I feigned shock—could rapid population growth in a desert have consequences?

Seven states—Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, California, and Arizona—depend on the 1,450-mile-long river and its famed reservoirs (Lake Powell and Lake Mead) to quench their thirst.

One—Arizona—deserves special attention.

Located at the end of the line before the river dives into Mexico and empties into the Gulf of California, the state has concocted the following formula:

Keep taxes low.

This will ensure low per-pupil spending, low teacher salaries, and dated facilities.

The result will be the worst public school system in the country.

Allow high-tax states like New York—home to the best public school system in the country—to educate the next generation.

Meanwhile, use the low taxes to steal businesses from other states.

Then, go ahead and steal the young residents that other states paid to educate in order to fill those jobs.

While you’re at it, take some retirees as well so they can spend their life savings in your state as opposed to the ones where they made a living.

All of the above will equal Phoenix, the tenth-largest metro area in the country, home to 500% population growth over the past 50 years and 5.2 million residents—in a desert.

To make the place look nice, build a ton of golf courses and use the Colorado River to water them.

The last step, of course, is to complain that there’s not enough water.

As a final option, consider asking the states from which you stole businesses and residents if you can use their water.*

—

*The Great Lakes Compact, signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2008, is an agreement between the eight Great Lakes states (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin), coordinated with two Canadian provinces (Ontario and Quebec), that with very rare exceptions bans the diversion of Great Lakes water outside its natural basin. And, on that note, I’ll have another glass.

The post Why the Colorado River Can Kiss My… appeared first on ComposeMD.

I was supposed to be working—or doing the dishes. For that matter, anything else would have sufficed.

But as a writer, even of the uncompensated variety, daydreaming is a prerequisite for rolling the pen on paper.

And on this particular day, the thoughts took on a life of their own.

December 2, 1859. Charles Town, West Virginia. The place was still part of Virginia, whose western cousin didn’t exist yet. That’s when the abolitionist John Brown was hanged for raiding a federal armory in Harpers Ferry. So much for the slave rebellion he was trying to incite.

Wait, whatever happened to Angie Everhart? Remember her—the redhead model who was in that Schwarzenegger movie Last Action Hero (and a ton of other stuff)?

I briefly looked at the blank computer screen and noticed the song playing in the background.

Chrissie Hynde did have a fantastic voice.

That show Providence was pretty good. I wonder what Melina Kanakaredes is up to these days.

I looked back at the still-blank screen.

How cool would it be to win a Pulitzer Prize? Rita Dove won the Pulitzer for Poetry. I think she was the United States Poet Laureate or something.

She must have been like the LeBron James of poetry.

Man, those NBA Finals between LeBron and Steph Curry were so good.

I stared at the computer and noted the music again.

The Black Keys weren’t very good live. I still like them though.

That was nuts in second grade when we all huddled around the TV in the classroom to watch the launch of the Space Shuttle Challenger. And then they just ushered us out of the room without saying a word. Poor Judith Resnik.

James Harrison was undrafted?! He was such a dominant linebacker for the Steelers.

My wife called and asked what I was doing.

“Uh, making money online,” I blurted out, hoping she wouldn’t check the bank account any time soon.

I sat back and wondered.

Had I just had the daydream from hell?

Or was it from Akron, Ohio?*

—

*Everyone mentioned was born in and/or spent spent significant time in Akron.

The post My Daydream From Hell appeared first on ComposeMD.

After all, it was the New York newspaper that incited me to take action.

On May 22, 2026, in between doing nothing, I discovered that the Journal had published a piece called “Dad Books Are a Dying Breed”.

The gist—sales of so-called “serious nonfiction” books, particularly the print versions, are down and out.

To blame is the smorgasbord factor, i.e. the mix of podcasts, Substack newsletters, Netflix documentaries, and so on that sates the desire of men to know boring stuff.

In the mix, of course, is a societal shift away from plain text as a means of consuming information.

And that gets me to the Great Lakes reading list.

What should a text-obsessed middle-aged man confronted with an uncomfortable reality about the future of text do?

Simple—push more text.

If you think that makes me fuddy-duddy, just wait for the books I recommend.

The Death and Life of the Great Lakes by Dan Egan

Bro—as in Egan—can write. In fact, the former reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel can write so well that he’s been a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize on multiple occasions.

If you only read one book on the Great Lakes, this should be the pick. Meticulously researched and fantastically readable, the blend of science, history, and storytelling amounts to a biography of the lakes, with special attention to how human actions like canal building, shipping, and farming have paved the way for invasive species and toxic algal blooms, thereby threatening one of the world’s most important natural resources.

In the final notes, Egan writes: This book is the sum of more than a decade of reporting…

It shows.

The Living Great Lakes: Searching for the Heart of the Inland Seas by Jerry Dennis

Dennis has made a name for himself as a nature writer, and this is perhaps his magnum opus.

Despite already being a walking encyclopedia regarding the lakes, the Michigan native set out to find an overarching narrative that could tie his knowledge together.

Enter a six-week journey on the Malabar, a schooner that in the spring of 2000 would take Dennis through his beloved inland seas.

The result is a passionate memoir, one peppered with enough historical, scientific, and nautical nuggets to make you an expert of the lacustrine variety.

The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald by John U. Bacon

Bacon, another Michigan native, has carved out a career as a sports writer. But in this masterpiece, he stepped out of his comfort zone to take a deep dive into one of the most haunting shipwrecks in American history.

The 1975 sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior has inspired safety regulations, an iconic song, and a world-class beer, but perhaps its greatest legacy is having spawned this chronicle of human tragedy.

Along the way, Bacon shines a light on the iron ore mining, Great Lakes shipping, and steel production that created some of the most vibrant cities the country has known.

Note: YouTube videos and Instagram Reels are cheaper and less time-consuming.

The post Your Mandatory Great Lakes Reading List appeared first on ComposeMD.

I’ll get there.

First, we have to start with some -isms.

Leading the way is racism.

The concept of race, as viewed from a molecular standpoint, is nonsensical.

Despite the fact that geography and inbreeding have allowed for the development of unique DNA patterns, genetic variation within a socially created group can be greater than that between supposedly disparate groups.

Of course, dismantling a social construct can be met with great resistance, as such an endeavor devalues experience, no matter the flawed basis of that experience.

Racism, as a result, persists in those with insufficient neuronal plasticity and/or oversized egos.

Am I saying it is for the intellectually inferior?

Yes.

Next is sexism.

A double dose of the X chromosome means a female, while an X with a Y equals a male.

Biology, particularly as it pertains to human reproduction, follows suit.

Beyond that, any attempt to categorize can be hazy at best and ignorant at worst.

Of course, this hasn’t stopped many from trying.

Like their racist counterparts, sexists often suffer from cerebral defectivity.

Then there’s ageism.

For one reason or another, despite its detrimental effects on all age groups, some degree of ageism has been deemed socially acceptable.

From forced retirement to the overuse of Boomer to the dismissal of millennials as entitled, this -ism is the least likely to be met with the cancel.

But there is one -ism that is even more acceptable—or outright encouraged.

It’s called cityism.

Ask yourself these questions:

Do you automatically trust a doctor in New York City more than one in Toledo?

Do you value a teacher in Chicago more than one in Omaha?

Do you judge the merit of a place—and its people—based on what you can buy there?

Do you inflate your own self-importance based on where you live?

Do you deflate the importance of others based on where they live?

Congratulations—you just might be a cityist.

The post Sorry, but I Think You’re a Cityist appeared first on ComposeMD.

You might even call it brown privilege.

It started with the parents, loving, stable, and willing to pay for college.

There was, of course, no military service.

Then came the wife, cut from a similar cloth.

By pursuing school excessively, we were able to postpone the real world for years.

Eventually came the two kids, the four-bedroom house, and the playset.

The purpose, of course, was to be able to brag to other brown people, or so I was told.

Unfortunately, by that standard, I was just average.

The house was supposed to be more spacious and the cars more German.

Even worse, the first child—destined for pre-med at an Ivy—ended up chasing music at some anonymous place in the Bible Belt.

But far more revolting than that belt are two others, which combined have condemned me to mahogany mediocrity.

Yet it is in this purgatory that I have realized, yes, I am privileged.

Let me start with a little science, assuming that is still safe.

Open your periodic table and find the atomic number of 26.*

Now subtract 20, and find the atomic number of 6.**

Go ahead and make an alloy.***

When you get a chance, add the elixir of life****, mixing in the atomic number of 8.*****

You’ll find that you’ve made ferric oxide.

Now, if you’ll allow for additional science, let me continue.

Take the elixir of life and spread it out over 7,323 square miles at a maximum depth of 802 feet.

Once done, take a mass of cold air and blow it over the large puddle.

You should find that the air accumulates warmth and moisture.

Allow the air to continue moving past the puddle and come into contact with a cold surface.

Eventually, as the cooling air releases its accumulated moisture, you’ll note that the cold surface changes color.

When it’s all said and done, you’ll have a belt covered in ferric oxide and white privilege.

In other words, you’ll recognize why I, too, consider myself privileged.

Because not just anyone can live in the Rust Belt and Snow Belt.

*Iron

**Carbon

***Steel

****Water

*****Oxygen

The post Yes, I AM Privileged appeared first on ComposeMD.