Sunshine and Olly

by Jonathan Blaustein

Life is strange.

When I was a columnist, I often wrote how lucky I was to be "forced" to be creative each week.

How good it was, as an artist, to keep the creativity tap open, all the time, because once you get rusty...

You get rusty. 

(And no one likes to feel like "less" than they used to be.)

But here we are.

These days, I’m not writing or making art on a weekly basis, and I’ve become one of those people trying to get by on the creative dregs of parenting, cooking, and martial arts. 

I rarely blog here anymore, because it’s hard not to compare today to the old days. 

Back when people read, (instead of watching short-form video,) and I was a part of a team with 100,000 readers a month. (In the A Photo Editor heyday.)

Not to mention how a more-insecure version of me enjoyed the thrill of telling people, for six years, that I worked for the New York Times. I feasted off the look people gave me after I dropped the name. 

(Looking back, I clearly needed the validation.) 

The current version of me just doesn't care about the same things. 

I knew less than I know now, but had a much bigger audience, because times change, cultures change. 

C’est la vie. 







I’m writing today, though, aren’t I? 

Because I’ve come to accept we’re in a moment where anyone and everyone, with any sort of platform, no matter how small, needs to speak up.

These are the times that try people’s souls. 

Secret police killing protestors, on video, is 50 steps too far. 

We all need to speak up.

Now.

Anyone with a brain knows that right-wing protestors have been bringing guns to protests forever.

It’s their thing.

We all know this.

So if bringing a gun to a protest is now grounds for public execution, with no legal repercussions, then shit’s about to get real.

Normally, advocating the voice of reason, I’d say everyone needs to chill out.

But these are not normal times.






ICE’s funding went up exponentially, in one year. 

The potential for corruption and mis-training was always staggering, but now we have the evidence. 

Masked, secret police shooting people is actual Nazi stuff, not metaphorically Nazi. 

Regular law enforcement needs to step up, and the DHS needs to unwind the madness.

Now.