Soul Screaming, a weekly newsletter about finding inspiration as the world spirals

Posted on April 9, 2026 by chrisryanwrites

You that never done nothin’
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it’s your little toy

-Bob Dylan, “Masters of War”

***

Hi, I’m Christopher Ryan, a hybrid author with forty years of experience in journalism, education, sketch comedy, indie film, unions, community service, parenting, public speaking, acting, podcasting, but mostly writing fiction, poetry, and pop culture essays. Now I’m working to discover what more I can achieve and share with the world, and whether an older author can find a place in the storytelling business. Together, let’s see if I can get there.

***

NEWSish Stuff

***

PHOTO NEWS

Artemis shares great moon shot!

Bro, I know Yankees Opening Day was on Good Friday, but c’mon…

Upcoming live events

  • StokerCon, Pittsburgh, PA, June 4-7

***

The pacing continues

My most recently completed WIP is in the hands of wise industry veterans who generously agreed to give it a read. The sensation is kind of like continuously hearing the soft ticking of either a beautiful watch or a devastating bomb… lol

***

New WIP is getting invigorating nods from my writers’ group

We never really know how a new story/poem/novel is going because writers live with a metaphoric split personality, one side is the passionate, hopeful writer, the other is the infernal editor voice that hates whispers “impostor” at every turn. When that is happening, a writers group can prove invaluable.

Writers groups members aren’t in your head. They aren’t getting paid. They are all there for the same reason—to get honest feedback they can use to improve the work.

And in this case, while they are pointing out opportunities to expand, deepen, or insert additional punchlines, overall the majority seem to be enjoying this WIP.

That is energizing.

I’ll show my gratitude by working diligently to keep the quality up for the rest of the tale.

The lesson here is that when writers groups are working, they are fabulous.

***

Tell The Damn Story features an intriguing guest in a fascinating interview

Brandon Easton is experienced, honestly outspoken, and has the receipts. He dynamically engages is a wide variety of topics from breaking through to racism in the creative industry, to the value of being seen and engaged with as a creative of value. Plus, he discusses his incredibly fun and fantastic projects. Really worth your time.

Here’s the link:

***
Handsome fella seen around local baseball games, thrilling fans

Our own Sonny Mehlman has been attending local baseball games to support some of his favorite coaches (my son Sean, as well as Tyler’s wonderful girlfriend), earning oohs and ahhs and compliments about his undeniable good lucks. He did, however, receive one image-shaming comment despite months of diligent dieting. Sonny is seen here rising above such coldhearted insensitivity. Behold dignity, brothers and sisters!

***

POP CULTURE FUEL!

Books

My addiction to great storytelling continues. Here are my latest obsessions:

The Stranger by Jim Donohue is a weird western horror treatment of the “stranger comes to town” plot and the author handles it well, offering a fun, fresh, quick reading experience that starts with a great horror tension and keeps it going throughout (well, I haven’t finished yet, but so far, so good!)

Recommended.

I stumbled across The Name of This Band is R.E.M. in my favorite way -by wandering the aisles of a book store letting books call to me. It is well-written, doesn’t demean itself with gossip, and allows readers to experience the evolution of this fascinating band from arms distance. Thoroughly enjoyable.

Recommended.

Yes, I started reading Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir following two totally thrilling viewings of the film, and I am so glad I did. Weir has a knack for creating engaging characters we find ourselves routing for, and for weaving very human humor through the science fiction. I am grateful that he smoothly explains the science in short, simplified bursts that do not slow the addicting pace of the narrative and that he never backs away from reminding us what the best aspects of humanity can be.

Most highly recommended.

MUSIC

Peter Gabriel In The Big Room came out this year, capturing a recording made in 2003 at the performance space in his recording complex. Great sound, thrilling performances, and well worth your time.

Recommended.

U2 released the EPs Days of Ashes on Ash Wednesday and Easter Lily during Holy Week, making a combined statement on top of each EP’s individual messages. Days of Ash is dynamic, thrilling, and political, exploring many of the horrors going on in the world these days. Easter Lily is spiritual, hopeful, and gorgeous, exploring our better angels, and offering a potential path to peace for all of us.

Both are most highly recommended.

THEATRE

Glorious gifted me tickets to see Jon Bernthal as Sonny Amato and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Sal DeSilva in an adaption of the 1975 film Dog Day Afternoon. Mostly faithful to the film and the Life Magazine article of the true story of perhaps the wildest failed bank robbery in New York history, the show captures the time (Brooklyn, 1972) through music, costumes, and an inventive set, combining to lay a foundation for solid performances and great timing from the cast. Bernthal demonstrates range far beyond the tough guy parts he is known for and Moss-Bachrach displays the courage to pull back and deliver a restrained, dissonant, haunting performance.

Recommend.

***

The power of the people is so much stronger than the people in power

In the streets with children playing

-U2

***

All right, thanks for stopping by. Talk atcha next week.

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Soul Screaming, a weekly newsletter for writers going through it

Posted on April 9, 2026 by chrisryanwrites

“Comparison is the thief of joy.” – Theodore Roosevelt

“Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.” – Suzy Kassem

“…imposter syndrome involves much more than just feeling fraudulent and that it presents itself in a long list of different ways. It may appear as insecurity, self-doubt, fear of failure and perfectionism. Or as self-criticism, low self-esteem, an inability to accept compliments or a focus on where you’re falling short.” – Dr Jessamy Hibberd

***

Hi, I’m Christopher Ryan, a hybrid author with forty years of experience in journalism, education, sketch comedy, indie film, unions, community service, parenting, public speaking, acting, podcasting, but mostly writing fiction, poetry, and pop culture essays. Now I’m working to discover what more I can achieve and share with the world, and whether an older author can find a place in the storytelling business. Together, let’s see if I can get there.

***

NEWSish Stuff

Upcoming live events

  • StokerCon, Pittsburgh, PA, June 4-7

The latest episode of Tell The Damn Story deals with doubt

Co-host Alex Simmons and I deal with one of the most stubborn issues for creatives: impostor syndrome. Here’s the link:

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/MXykzoFwPMQ?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

***

WIP Out to an Unique Readers Group

As it says above, I’m a hybrid author, but my track record for the past several years has leaned more toward indie. Maybe that’s a me problem; I have difficulty trusting the Big Machine, have an apparently unshakable disdain for the gatekeepers, how long it takes, etc. Probably, it can be explained by noting that I have over 40 professional years of overwhelmingly independent experience as an award-winning weekly journalist, founding member/head writer of Salsoul Comedy Troupe, contributing producer and best supporting actor-nominated in a few indie films, and teacher largely left to my own dedication in the classroom. For my whole life I learned it, got good at it, and then did it.

But as the legendary Joe R. Lansdale once told me “getting someone else to invest money in your writing changes how it is seen.” I want to be viewed in that way.

As a result, my latest novel, a YA adventure tinged with sci-fi, mystery, and lots of heart, is going out to market. And I admit that is daunting.

But I am blessed with some help.

A book club populated by publishing professionals, some veterans, some retired, have agreed to read my manuscript. Hooray. With a catch. Uh-oh. They require I attend a post-reading meeting with them for feedback. Gulp.

Am I excited. Yes. Am I nervous about the feedback. Yes. And no. I know the ideas, characters, and intentions are solid. Any rewrite feedback can only make it better.

Still, fingers crossed.

***

The Struggle is Real – Writing This in Yet Another Bout of Impostor Syndrome

Anything can trigger impostor syndrome: awards season, large traditionally-leaning book or writers conventions, good news for contemporaries, and most importantly, finishing a writing project.

All of those are hitting me right now.

The Horror Writers Association’s Stoker Awards nominees came out recently and It’s Been a Privilege, my most often complimented horror books (this one all poetry), a work a surprising number of friends and colleagues mentioned in the same sentence with the legendary awards, didn’t make the final nominations list. Honestly, I don’t even know whether it was even considered.

Second, the Horror Writers Association Convention is coming up in June, an experience that quietly fills me with dread and impostor syndrome to the gills.

Third, several of my colleagues signed impressive publishing deals or came out with cool new books. I applaud them for it, but I simultaneously hear that horrible inner voice silently screaming “And you? What the hell are you doing? Nothing!”

Third again, an email/newsletter from a kind and very supportive established author arrived this morning about his latest project, re-energizing that damned inner voice.

And of course, I’ve finished a major project. That is when impostor syndrome hits hardest for me. Every doubt conceivable haunts me, insisting the work sucks, that I shouldn’t be allowed near laptop keyboards, publishing, or storytelling of any kind. At this very second, it is screaming in my head that I shouldn’t be writing this, that no one will read it, that no one cares what I have to say.

It is exhausting. Debilitating. Depressing. A horror unto itself.

Yet, here I am, still writing.

I’ll take that sliver of hope.

If impostor syndrome hits you, keep writing. Hopefully, next week I’ll be in a better head space and will be able to give you more advice.

***
Why Bob and Grace Won’t Appear Here for the Foreseeable Future/The AI Nightmare

The above affliction isn’t the only horror haunting writers these days. Technology has added a new nightmare: AI.

Publishing is being flooded with opportunistic hacks publishing AI written books, AI-assisted books, or those alleged to be written by an author but showing overwhelming amounts of AI pattern errors.

AI absorbing traditionally written books to teach itself how to write, and the resulting lawsuits are also creating problems in the industry.

AI has created such turmoil in publishing that we now have almost a red scare going on wherein people are running other authors’ books through AI assessment tech which are reportedly only 78 % accurate (below the standard of accuracy required to be considered reliable in court), and using the results to cast doubt on the legitimacy of authors and publishers.

It happened recently to Mia Ballard who denies using AI to write her novel Shy Girl after exactly such accusations were made, moving Hachette Book Group to cancel its publications (for more, here’s a link to an updated report from The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/19/books/shy-girl-book-ai.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

But this isn’t the only AI-related issue that scares me.

Recently, I received an email from a colleague I respect immensely. To my shock and horror, the pleasantly worded email reported that this author felt strongly that they might need to end our professional relationship because they perceived that I was pro-AI.

What? Me?

I am on record as extremely distrusting of AI in at least two (probably more) episodes of the Tell The Damn Story podcast. Additionally, I paid for a new cover for Soul Scream: Come All Ye Faithless once I realized the cover was AI-generated. Worse, I did my due diligence with writers associations, investigating their stance on using AI for marketing purposes, was told they do not see a problem with that usage, and yet I still cancelled Zeely, a marketing tool that uses AI to generate still and video promotions of books, because the author of the email was uncomfortable with the AI aspects of the promotion. So I took the financial loss, never used the ad, and cancelled my subscription to Zeely because I agreed with their discomfort. I was uncomfortable with it, too.

And then came the email. I couldn’t figure out why. So I asked. Apparently, Alex, my TTDS partner, used an AI generated image of me to created an ad for a book project I have coming up.

I was guilty by association.

I contacted Alex and explained the situation, then sent photos of myself imitating the illustration which Alex used to replace the promotion. I offer both here for illustration purposes only:

Why did I insist on the change? Fear.

Fear that AI would ruin my reputation without any merit. Fear that it was already clawing at professional friendships I held dear. Fear that all my hard work would be torn apart on unfounded, inaccurate, and wrong allegations.

Fear of being labelled an impostor.

It is so scary that Bob and Grace, a comic-like feature that is visually created using ChatGPT won’t be featured anymore because, as much as I love their banter, the fear of being labelled an AI hack ruins the joy they give me.

All this feels just like the red scare.

And it is only going to get worse. AI is everywhere. Try writing an email. AI offers to write it for you. Same with trying to do layout, or almost anything creative.

The monster is in the house. And I don’t know if we can escape.

***

What We Need Now is Picture of a Handsome Fella

This week’s newsletter has been a bit depressing. To raise our spirits, here’s a pic of Sonny trying to keep Glorious from leaving for work.

And one of him doing his job as Chief of Security as I wait to be connected for a business Zoom.

***

Pop Culture Fuel is the Same as Last Week And this is running long and I am too down to share this week. My apologies.

***

“A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.” – Richard Bach

“Creativity takes courage.” – Henri Matisse

“Creativity doesn’t have to be taught, it has to be liberated.” – John Cleese

***

All right, thanks for stopping by. Talk atcha next week.

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The Blessings of Our Current President, part 9 – “final words”

Posted on March 27, 2026 by chrisryanwrites

All of us should consider the blessings that our current president bestows upon us. For example, the blessing of “final words.”

I began this series, and wrote nine parts, because I really wanted to be of some service to my fellow Americans. I do not think I am smarter, more insightful, or any in any way better than any other American citizen. I do suspect a lot of us are alarmed with where we are as a nation right now.

In this final entry, please understand that I don’t think we covered all the concerns that are present in our country and abroad right now. Not by a long shot. I do a hope the series provided something to think about. Any one of the long list of deeply concerning actions, accusations, convictions, or behaviors, would rightly give us reason to be concerned about our current president.

But his time is finite.

I am urging all of us to recognize that the aftermath of what he has brought into American life was not done by him alone. Most of our elected officials have some complicity either because they followed him in lockstep or due to hubris, over confidence, and carelessness, they allowed the chaos to get this far. And so did we as voters. The justice system has not been perfect, but it is served us better than any other branch of our government right now.

What that all means is that it is going to take us years (if not decades) to recover from everything that has happened already. The longer we wait to begin seriously considering what to do, the worse it will get.

We as a people are becoming so numb to our own humanity that we are destroying ourselves. The blessings of our current president makes that clear to anyone willing to see.

And the blessings of our current president are capable of opening our eyes to the blessings of Americans everywhere. Here are just a few examples:

The descendants of slaves have every right to say all this is “same as it ever was” and they have a strong and dismaying point. However, at the same time, they represent so much that is the very best of us. They saw this horrific hate, bled from it, many died under its inhumanity. And still, they persevered. They’ve spent their history in America leading by example, showing an unloving country how we can be better humans to each other. We need to learn from them.

The women of the country will say “way ahead of you, privileged white male” and they have a deeply shameful truth supporting the accusation. At the same time, they have a history of representing the most resilient of us. Not because they wanted to be, because they had to be to survive the scourge of male lust and lack of discipline, and so many men’s recognition and fear of women as the true source of life and humanity. The only path open to men is to accept that we need women to drag us away from the abyss we men have created. We need to learn what true power is from them and give up on our greed and politics and predatory failures.

Now we are being forced to see other groups we wrongly ignored. Those of color quietly doing thankless jobs at shitty pay because they know true wealth comes from love and each other. If we all leaned into their mindset a bit more and away from the rat race of wealth uber alles, we would be happier.

Thanks to the blessings of our current president, we can see anew that the answers are all around us, we just aren’t asking the right questions. It is not “how do we win the game of America,” it’s “how do we position Americans to win at life?” The answer is working together to make the promise of America become the reality of America, maybe for the first time ever.

We can do this. We just need to stop for a while to allow ourselves to think deeply and clearly about the madness that is currently America. If we did, we would be insane not to change direction toward the idea of “From Many One” we were always supposed to embrace.

At a time when the rest of the world is racing forward in medicine, science, business, and creativity, this once great nation is falling further and further into hate, revitalized racism, and a cancerous negativity about everything that once made us great.

I can no longer say with confidence that we will ever recover. But we have to try. And we can’t do that unless we really think about what’s going on and what each of us need to do and what we need to insist upon if we are going to give America a chance at fulfilling the dream we always heard about.

God bless America. Please.

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The Blessings of Our Current President, Part 8 – Consistency

Posted on March 25, 2026 by chrisryanwrites

All of us should consider the blessings that our current president bestows upon us. For example, the blessing of “consistency.”

One of the key elements of leading is consistency. Whether it is in the office, at home, in school, on a sports field, or during an emergency situation, knowing that there is someone in charge who will be consistent in decision making and and solid follow through. Nobody enjoys working for a boss that changes policy on a whim, or a parent who is strict some times and indulgent at others, or dealing with special treatment for some but not others in a school setting, or a referee or umpire who calls plays inconsistently, or chaos during an emergency.

Calm, rational, consistent leadership improves every situation, keeps people safer, and costs less in the long run.

Our current president does not practice consistency in any facet of his leadership. Tariffs have fluctuated wildly, negatively impacting our global standing. Funding of several government agencies have been crushed, creating chaos in people’s lives. And some enormous policy changes have caused starvation, illness, and death here and abroad.

Internationally, our reputation for consistent leadership is currently in tatters. Were we always the perfect heroes we liked to think of ourselves in the past? Sadly, no. But these days, very few countries have been treated with consistency by our government. Whether it be fluctuating levels of the aforementioned tariffs, insults and mockery and accusations of other countries ripping us off, or threats to take over entire countries (Canada, Greenland, and Cuba, for example), our government has shocked and dismayed the world.

Additionally, our government either kidnapped or captured (depending on the news source you follow, another inconsistency) the Venezuelan leader and then took that country’s oil. We also allowed our own Puerto Rico as well as Cuba to suffer without power as we ignored people suffering on both islands, despite the USA’s history of being the country that supported people in need. And most recently, our government joined Israel to go to war with Iran “to protect us from imminent nuclear weapons” which our current president claimed to have “obliterated” months ago. As a result, Americans have been left reeling from the chaos.

So many of us are left wondering what the actual plan is, what decisions and/or reports, and/or presidential quotes can be relied upon, trusted, and/or believed. This is not consistency; it is a recipe for disaster.

But all of this does give us the blessing of being inspired to really look at what is happening. The best way to do this is by taking in a wide variety of sources so we avoid just being programmed by one point-of-view that might be more spin and public relations than truth. Once we gather a cross-section of sourced reports, we can see established patterns, make time to sit with what our current president says over a period of time on a specific subject (like the war with Iran), and see whether our leader is being consistent and informative, or inconsistent and confusing. We can reflect and make our own decisions from there.

We The People need to decide for ourselves what we are comfortable with and what we want our leaders to project for our country. Consistency expresses strength. Chaos expresses weakness. Where do you believe we are these days? And how would we prefer our country’s leadership to lead? The answer should be important to all of us.

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The Blessings of Our Current President, part 6 – discipline

Posted on March 23, 2026 by chrisryanwrites

All of us should consider the blessings that our current president bestows upon us. For example, the blessing of “discipline.”

Yesterday, our current president issued an ultimatum essentially declaring that if Iran didn’t open the Strait of Hormuz by today around 4 pm, he would bomb all of their energy facilities out of existence. One can assume that he expected Iran to obey. However, there is no history to support this expectation. Unsurprisingly, Iran did not. Instead their government offered to meet his destruction with their own, announcing they would do the same to neighboring countries’ energy facilities.

This morning our current president backed off, announcing he would delay the utter destruction until a later date.

Our current president has established a strong track record of this kind of behavior, which has earned him the nickname TACO (as in always chickens out).

Should being perceived as always chickening be the issue? Actually, the larger concern should be centered on discipline or lack thereof. This is not to say our current president should have bombed anyone any further. Previous presidents did not issue threats off the cuff, without discussing plans, consequences, national and international impact, and the fallout of failure with competent experts and advisors before saying a word. That was discipline.

No other modern president has ever issued such threats without first gathering a team to create a clear and cohesive plan to carry through because consistent discipline is important, words matter, and both impact our standing in the world.

It further hurts our global standing when our current president does not seem to understand the vocabulary of war. Battles are not excursions. Excursions are a day trips we take during a nice vacation. He means incursions but won’t listen. This is just one more example of our present disciplinary limitations showing.

This is also a blessing because it can spur us to consider what is happening and how it will impact our country and the world.

As another example, insulting NATO allies repeatedly and then getting angry when they decline to assist our surprise war efforts is also not a good demonstration of discipline for us nationally or globally. Having the discipline to employ diplomacy creates much better results than insults, threats, bullying, and mockery.

This is a blessing because it can spur us to consider what is happening and how it will impact our country and the world.

Lack of discipline isn’t just a war concern. Being undisciplined when dealing with the press, for example, demeans not the media but our current president. Personal attacks on the press both by our current president, his press secretary, his defense department chief, and so on, weakens the entire nation’s trust of information coming from the White House. To call reporters stupid, or piggy, lunatics, or bad people for asking questions our current president doesn’t like fails to express discipline and instead makes the Oval Office feel like an elementary school classroom.

This is a blessing because it can spur us to consider what is happening and how it will impact our country and the world.

Further, our current president has turned tariffs into yo-yos, raising and lowering them against other countries so often that many other nations have simply planned their purchases around the US, leaving us out of international trade completely. This cannot be seen as a successful result of his tariff initiative.

Insisting that tariffs are bringing in billions also demonstrates lack of discipline when We The People continue to be forced to pay higher prices for food and gas and, well, almost everything despite our current president’s promise during the campaign to be the president of peace and lower prices. To not have the discipline to deliver on campaign promises weakens that president every day the nation’s population continues to suffer.

These are all blessings because We The People are expected to demonstrate our own discipline by considering what is happening in this country at this time under our current president and how it will impact our country and the world.

If we fail to do so, it is clear that we will just continue down this undisciplined road. Is that what we really want to do?

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Soul Screaming, a weekly newsletter

Posted on March 22, 2026 by chrisryanwrites

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

“Still I Rise” – Maya Angelou

(link: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46446/still-i-rise)

***

Hi, I’m Christopher Ryan, a hybrid author with forty years of experience in journalism, education, sketch comedy, indie film, unions, community service, parenting, public speaking, acting, podcasting, but mostly writing fiction and pop culture essays. Now I’m working to discover what more I can achieve and share with the world, and whether an older author can find a place in the storytelling business. Together, let’s see if I can get there.

***

NEWSish stuff

Upcoming live events

  • StokerCon, Pittsburgh, PA, June 4-7

New series launched on Substack

I tried my best to stay away from writing about politics. I tried just making jokes about it but my thoughts keep going in a different direction. They might strike some as amusing or even sarcastic, and that is okay, but to me they are thoughts that haunt me. Love him or hate him, our current president is offering opportunities for us to re-examine who we are and want to be as a country. I’m going to attempt to focus on that, one concept at a time.

I hope it finds an audience.

Here the link:

This QR code will take you to my website

Here you’ll be able to find all my books and background and a few free reads, including a Mallory and Gunner short story and another featuring Blackjack. Look for these covers:

***
This week on Tell The Damn Story I make amends to an early writing educator

For years on the podcast/YouTube show I co-host with Alex Simmons, I’ve shared what I call the “index card method” of brainstorming, gathering scene and character ideas, and then organizing all those ideas into a rough outline for a writing project. I’ve suggested it as a way to prewrite in at least 100 of our 404 episodes, probably more. Finally, in this episode, I give the person who taught it to me proper credit, and share where writers can experience it for themselves on YouTube and in the book store. Worth your time.

Here’s the link:

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/49fPi43ouCw?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0


Writers on social media have been showing their writing spaces; here’s where I write and record the podcast, etc.

***

First Zeely, now Author Ads Made-for-You

My search for book marketing help continues. At least I’m learning about myself. Last week I learned I couldn’t pull the trigger on using AI to sell my books. This week I had the cold experience of discovering I wasn’t worthy of an “author ads made-for-you” service offered on social media. I actually contacted them, thinking that having pros create ads for me, utilizing the right keywords (that remains a mystery to me), and wording that attracts readers … is only for authors who already earn $6,000 or more per month.

Let that sink in.

The service of marketing ads for authors is only for authors who are already doing okay.

The same company does offer another course for authors trying to raise their work profile, apparently kind of a “here’s what we’ll tell you, good luck” course. Been there, frustrated by that before. But… maybe this time it will be different…

It is an interesting world, folks.

***

And now for a pic of a handsome fella

Mr. Soulful Eyes is sporting his St. Patrick’s Day bandanna because he’s cool like that.

***

Pop Culture fuel

Films:

Saw a 50-year-old movie in IMAX. It seemed merely blown up, but damn, Ken Russell’s Tommy based on the rock opera by The Who, was a blast to see again. I was surprised that a flick I remembered as crazed and incoherent held together much better than expected. And one of the people who I went with, a young rocker named Zephyr, is 14, the exact age I was when I first saw it. So much fun to watch his mind get blown when I told him that.

Recommended. Highly recommended if you are of a certain age.

Books:

After seeing an interview with Tig Notaro, I started reading poet Andrea Gibson. Yes, I am once again late to the party, but I’m glad I got there. Her work is captivating.

Recommended.

***

See Me.

Feel Me.

Touch Me.

Heal me.

***

All right, thanks for stopping by. Talk atcha next week.

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The Blessings of Our Current President, part 5 – leadership

Posted on March 22, 2026 by chrisryanwrites

All of us should consider the blessings that our current president bestows upon us. For example, the blessing of “leadership.”

Presidents of the United States are many things, but above all they are called upon to demonstrate leadership. Webster’s Dictionary defines leadership as “the quality of character and personality giving a person the ability to gain the confidence of and lead others; as, Washington’s leadership was indispensable to the success of the American Revolution.”

We saw leadership when President Kennedy declared we would go to the moon, saying, “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”

President Bush showed leadership after 9/11, going to the pile to show his support and making the following statement:

“Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts. The victims were in airplanes, or in their offices; secretaries, businessmen and women, military and federal workers; moms and dads, friends and neighbors. Thousands of lives were suddenly ended by evil, despicable acts of terror.

“The pictures of airplanes flying into buildings, fires burning, huge structures collapsing, have filled us with disbelief, terrible sadness, and a quiet, unyielding anger. These acts of mass murder were intended to frighten our nation into chaos and retreat. But they have failed; our country is strong.

“A great people has been moved to defend a great nation. Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shattered steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve.

“America was targeted for attack because we’re the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world. And no one will keep that light from shining.”

President Obama demonstrated leadership after yet another school shooting by actually singing “Amazing Grace” to express how deeply the country mourned.

Our current president has expressed his leadership by pushing through the “big beautiful bill” that, among other things, stripped needy people of medical coverage and food support while giving the richest among us enormous tax breaks, by sending ICE out to attack Americans who protested mass deportation without due process, by removing the leader of Venezuela, forcing that country to give up a significant amount of their oil, insist he had a right to take Greenland, Canada, and Cuba, and join Israel in attacking Iran, all without clear explanations as to why any of this should be done.

He also explained his right not to inform other countries of the Iran attack by telling a Japanese diplomat that they didn’t notify him when they bombed Pearl Harbor, shocking her into gasping.

And he shows his leadership repeatedly by posting on his own social media platform, expressing thoughts no leader ever has before. For example:

These actions provide We The People opportunities to consider the kind of leadership we want for our country. Which style represents us best? Which style of leadership do we feel proud to follow? Which form of leadership do we find ourselves embarrassed by?

The leaders we embrace define who we are. And yes, that changes a bit from president to president. Our current president provides us the opportunity to consider how we feel about our country and our leaders today, and what form of leadership we want to embrace going forward.

We should embrace that opportunity because the current form of leadership has certainly embraced us in the eyes of the world.

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The Blessings of Our Current President, part 4 – spending

Posted on March 22, 2026 by chrisryanwrites

All of us should consider the blessings that our current president bestows upon us. For example, the blessing of “spending.”

We are currently being given the opportunity to consider the concept of spending from so many perspectives it can surely be considered a golden age for this topic.

For example, we stopped spending money on USAID, resulting in, at the very least, “hundreds of thousands of deaths” internationally, according to the Center for Global Development, the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, the Maryland School of Medicine, and many more sources. This is one of the monumental changes we’ve accomplished as a nation under our current president. We went from spending serious money keeping people alive around the globe to allowing them to perish. We did that. No receipts. No chance to undo it. And the perishing continues, even if this ongoing death count is no longer covered in the news. We have created this historic money-saving strategy. This now helps define us in the eyes of the world, and our president has blessed us with the opportunity to reflect on how we feel about being viewed as selectively frugal mass murderers.

Here at home, we’ve cut $187 billion from our own Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which, according to multiple news sources, impacts 40 million Americans, including one-in-five children. And our own USDA cut $500 million from the Emergency Food Assistance Program (TAFAP). This is expected to increase food insecurity for roughly four million of our fellow Americans, which could include as many as a million children, according to an article from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Additionally, we’re also looking to slash up to $900 billion from Medicaid, which will potentially strip 17 million Americans of health coverage. It is reported that 40 percent of Medicaid recipients are also on SNAP, so that is a double savings from them, potentially forcing many Americans to choose between food and health.

We sure have been blessed with a lot to think about.

So where are all these savings going? Are we paying down our trillions of dollars in budget deficit? Actually, we are adding to that. But we have given tax cuts to the very richest Americans. And we are planning to build a White House ballroom. And we recently started financing a war with Iran, spending an estimated $25 to $30 billion so far, according to multiple news sources including The New York Times, and contributing to somewhere between 1,000 and 3,000 deaths, depending on which source we go by. Oh, and we bought the Defense Department millions of dollars’ worth of Alaska king crabs and steaks.

As all of this continues to evolve, we have the opportunity to take some time and reflect on our accomplishments and goals and the shifting reality of America here and abroad. Our current president has blessed us with the opportunity to think about who we are becoming and how we can live every day for the rest of our lives knowing we are part of all of this. How we participate in this new American golden age is something we cannot escape. How we carry that truth will say everything about who we truly are.

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The Blessings of Our President, part 3 – word choice

Posted on March 22, 2026 by chrisryanwrites

All of us should consider the blessings that our current president bestows upon us. For example, the blessing of “word choice.”

Recently, our current president said in an NBC interview that he might continue bombing an oil facility on Iran’s Kharg Island “just for fun.” He’s called enemies “scumbags” and “lunatics” and termed accused sex trafficker a “terrific guy” (although he eventually changed his assessment of the same person to “creep”), but recently suggested a daughter “above six years old” would be “of age” (adding to the confusion, this suggestion was made while discussing providing Voter ID). These are just a tiny fragment of all the thought-provoking rhetoric our current president has espoused. And all of it suggests that America is being called to reflect on the value of word choice not only from our world leaders, but also from ourselves.

For example, suggesting the continuation of bombing anything “just for fun” links the speaker of those words to a certain mindset, a particular moral core that others either align with or reject. What does agreeing with this sentiment say about our own moral core? How does rejecting the same reflect upon us? Which kind of person do we want to be?

Do we want our leaders calling people “scumbags” and “lunatics” and if so, what does that say about who we are as individuals, and as a nation? Is this who we want to be?

And who among us sees six year old girls as “of age”? More concerning, “of age” for what, specifically? The connotation of that phrase drags us down a dark, ugly corridor towards problems this country is facing such as sex trafficking and the Epstein files. Is this really where we feel comfortable? The context in which that comment emerged also confounds; do we really think a six-year-old girl is “of age” to have anything to do with Voter ID? Are we as a nation okay with such confounding logic from our leaders? Is this who we actually are as a country?

On almost a daily basis, the current president is providing us opportunities to reflect on how we say things, why these things are said, what embracing or rejecting such phraseology confirms about us, and our leaders.

We certainly have a ton to think about during this presidency. The conclusions we come to may very well determine our future.

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The Blessings of Our Current President, part 2 – fake

Posted on March 22, 2026 by chrisryanwrites

All of us should consider the blessings that our current president bestows upon us. For example, the blessing of “fake.”

Our current president works hard to define journalists and news outlets as fake. He does this constantly. This has led whole groups of Americans to believe the media is actually fake, is lying to us, and can’t be trusted. But according to media sources including NPR, the president himself has said he uses this strategy to render reporting that is critical of himself or his policies as unbelievable. Additionally, he told Leslie Stahl that he “slams” the press to “demean” and “discredit” them so the public won’t believe negative reports. He has acknowledged it as a technique to manage political perception, terming the press as an “enemy of the people” and accusing them of bias so he looks better.

Our current president has blessed us with the need to carefully decide what is true and what is fake. He has pushed us into a corner where, to determine the path of our nation’s future, we must ask ourselves: if our president himself acknowledges this is a strategy to control press coverage of his image, is it the press that is fake, or is it him?

All of us should consider the blessings that our current president bestows upon us. For example, the blessing of “fake.”

Our current president works hard to define journalists and news outlets as fake. He does this constantly. This has led whole groups of Americans to believe the media is actually fake, is lying to us, and can’t be trusted. But according to media sources including NPR, the president himself has said he uses this strategy to render reporting that is critical of himself or his policies as unbelievable. Additionally, he told Leslie Stahl that he “slams” the press to “demean” and “discredit” them so the public won’t believe negative reports. He has acknowledged it as a technique to manage political perception, terming the press as an “enemy of the people” and accusing them of bias so he looks better.

Our current president has blessed us with the need to carefully decide what is true and what is fake. He has pushed us into a corner where, to determine the path of our nation’s future, we must ask ourselves: if our president himself acknowledges this is a strategy to control press coverage of his image, is it the press that is fake, or is it him?

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