Love is a strange thing, don't tell me you knew, as she climbed into your window you left open. She came to your bed and lifted your head and kissed you, then told you that you were hers, and something had you believing that you believed her, and she took you down some stairs that you never thought were there, and she held you in her arms, told you there would be no harm, and you believed her.

Winter comes down, but the air is good.

AGE WELL CENTERS WIN THE BETTER WORLD AWARD!!!

THE STATUE OF LIBERTY WINS THE BETTER WORLD AWARD!!!

California School For The Blind wins the BETTER WORLD AWARD!

Holland is now a Merit Nation.

Perhaps we need another Holocaust Museum in America. (Something to combat ignorance and weird interests in nazism.)

Alice in Wonderland and Franz Kafka’s The Trial share striking structural similarities, as both narratives subvert the "elite, intellectual" labels often placed on them to deliver raw, visceral critiques of systems that strip individuals of control. While The Trial is treated as an existential nightmare and Alice as a whimsical children's fantasy, both stories explore the absolute terror of being trapped in an absurd, unaccountable system.The two works mirror each other through specific narrative mechanisms:The Illusion of RulesThe Trial: Josef K. is arrested for an unstated crime by a faceless, labyrinthine court system. The rules are entirely opaque, yet he is expected to navigate them perfectly.Alice in Wonderland: Alice is constantly scrutinized and judged by characters who demand adherence to arbitrary rules of etiquette and logic (e.g., the Mad Hatter's tea party rules or the Queen’s croquet game).The Critique: Both authors show that when a system's rules are unpredictable and hidden, the individual can never truly be "innocent" or safe.The Tyranny of the Absurd Administrative StateThe Trial: The court offices are hidden in cramped, suffocating attics, run by low-level, incompetent, yet fiercely punitive bureaucrats.Alice in Wonderland: Wonderland is governed by an unstable, violent bureaucracy. The Queen of Hearts operates on raw, unchecked power, famously demanding "Sentence first—verdict afterwards!" during the trial of the Knave of Hearts.The Critique: Just as Kafka captures the modern dread of an unaccountable administrative state, Lewis Carroll captures the exact same nightmare under the guise of nonsense literature. The "court" in Wonderland is not interested in justice; it is an exercise in pure institutional ego.The Subversion of the Intellectual CanonKafka: Mainstream literary critics often gatekeep Kafka as an "elite liberal modernist" icon, ignoring the fact that his work is a deeply populist, accessible warning against centralized institutional power.Alice: Carroll’s work is frequently intellectualized by academics analyzing its mathematical logic and linguistic philosophy. Yet, at its core, it resonates with anyone who has ever felt powerless against arbitrary authority figures who make no sense.Both stories pull back the curtain on elite institutions to reveal that underneath the grand titles and complex language, the system is often just a chaotic, irrational machine designed to crush individual sovereignty.