This Means War: Where I Am Right Now

Well... here we are at election day.

You know, the one that is being billed as the most important election, possibly, ever. I'm not sure I'd go that far, but it's at least the most important election in the last century.
All I feel is... dread.

And maybe I'm too pessimistic about humans -- although what I have learned in the last four years is that, really, I have not been pessimistic enough -- but I don't think it matters which way the election goes: There's going to be violence.

The most likely scenario is this:
Trump -- already a #fakepresident -- loses the election. His supporters, already primed for violence and on standby, "revolt." They will claim that the election was rigged and try to use force and violence to help Trump reman in office. Will this be an actual civil war? I don't know. It really depends on whether these guys organize or not. It could just be like spot fires that have to be stamped out but, if any state governments get behind this shit, it could be a whole lot worse.

The problem, here, is that I think Democrats are thinking that if Trump (#FAKEPRESIDENT -- yes, I'm saying it again) loses that everything will... just be okay. Everything will go back to "normal" and we can all pretend that the last four years didn't happen.
I don't think it's going to be that way. At all.

The other scenario is that Trump "wins," again losing the popular vote but by an even greater margin. The electoral college again fails to do the job it was created to do and gives the election to Trump. This will be the slow burn war that might result in an actual civil war. Two things will happen:
1. the GOP will pull out all of the stops on their facism
2. liberal will organize

Of course, all of this will be complicated -- or maybe simplified -- by what happens in Congress. If things remain relatively as they are now -- specifically, the GOP retains control of the Senate -- I think the likelihood of everything I've just been saying goes up. McConnel is drunk on power, right now, and already out of control. If Republicans retain control of the Senate, it will be like Palpatine declaring himself Emperor.
But if the GOP loses control of the Senate, especially if the loss is significant, we may be able to make it through all of this with a "minimum" of violence, whatever that means.

None of which is to mention that Trump is already calling for Biden to be assassinated and some of his followers, his cult, have already been taking that seriously. Because of course they do, and he wants them to.

So, yeah, that's where I am right now.
I really hope that you're in a better place than me, but I really don't see how we get through all of this without bloodshed. Maybe it was always going to be that way with where we are in the political cycle; I don't know. And I hope I'm wrong. I hope people (by "people," I mean Conservatives) regain their senses, but I think they've moved past that. When I see them posting things about Trump being god's chosen one, I can't get away from the fact that all of this has become a holy war for them. This is no longer politics; it's religion. It's disgusting.

A Few Words About Old Joe

First of all, evidently, the term "Old Joe" is slang for... all kinds of things, none of them Joe Biden. However, "Old Joe Biden" does seem to be a nickname-ish for Biden. I suppose there are so many Old Joes out there that you have to add Biden to specify which Old Joe is meant. So, yes, I am indeed talking about Joe Biden.

I don't like him.

Not that I don't like him. He seems like a perfectly affable fellow and completely likable. He was a fine Vice President. Or fine enough, anyway.
But he's way past his expiration date.

And I don't just mean that he's old. He is old (and, god, I am so tired of old, white men in government), but it's that his ideas are old. His ideas are old, but he's still treating them as if they are as new as they were in the 90s. We're past all that, Joe. Get your foot off the step of the progressive bus if you're not going to get on. The rest of us have places to go.

Needless to say, I am unhappy that Joe is who we are left with as the presumptive Democrat nominee. Is this really the best we can do?

No, not really, but "we" forced all of the better candidates out of the race.

This may all sound like I'm a Sanders supporter, but, no, he, too, is way past his expiration date. Sure, I would take Sanders in a heartbeat over Biden, but why is it that old, white farts are what we seem to get stuck with way too often?

And, now, let me return to my initial thought that spawned this post, rather than go off in the myriad directions I'm tempted to go in.
Joe Biden is the fear choice. He's like... I don't know, a safety word. Everyone is convinced that if he had just run in 2016 that we wouldn't have ended up with the orange carrot shit of a #fakepresident that we currently have. [Look, my dog likes carrots. When she eats a lot of them, like she did a few days ago, she gets the carrot shits. They make me think of Trump.] I'm not convinced of that, but I'm not not convinced of that, either. But it doesn't matter.

Look, we are way past making the safe choice. We are in... oh, trouble doesn't cover it. The carrot shit "president" has created global crises in so many areas, and all we have left to fix all of this are bold moves, especially in regards to the environment. And healthcare. And immigration. Fuck, so many things. Biden is not a bold choice. He's the choice that will quit making things worse but won't do anything to make things better. He's the status quo choice. And not even the return to the previous status quo choice, because he's so milk toast that he won't fight the GOP to even get things back to the way they were. He'll try to work with them and compromise based on how things are now, and we'll sit in stasis for at least another four years.

Evidently, we are going to have to be at the actual edge of environmental collapse before people wake the fuck up and realize that everything is about to collapse. Not that we are not already there, but it really has to be slapping people in the face, hard, before they are willing to look at it. The last time we made any significant changes in our approach to the environment happened when there was actual acid coming out of the sky. The ice caps melting is just too far away for people to take it seriously. Maybe when New Orleans and Miami and New York are under water.

Will I vote for Biden? Of course, I will vote for Biden. If he's the option that is not Trump (#fakepresident), I will go with that, because the Democrats don't have an option that dips down into the sewer where the GOP seems to live. And the GOP had to reach into the depths to come up with Trump. What I'm saying is that I can't visually a Democrat option worse than Trump.

Will I be happy to vote for Biden? Only in relation to that he is the better option than Trump. But I won't really be happy. It makes me sad and angry that Biden seems to be what we're going to be stuck with. We really have to do better! But we also have to get Trump out of office and we have to vote out as many Republicans as possible. So it makes me more mad to see people who say they are against Trump talking about how they won't vote for Biden if he's the nominee. I'm sorry, we're way past that. Your protest abstention is how we make Trump a two-term destroyer of the US Constitution.

So man the fuck up and determine to vote for whoever the Democrat nominee is. It's more important to get Trump (#fakepresident) out of the White House than it is for you to hold onto some false moral imperative to only vote for the "progressive" candidate. You do what you can do without whining about what you want to do instead. If you're starving, you don't whine about not getting cake, you ate the fucking stale bread that you're given. Right now, we're all starving. Biden is the stale bread choice, but he's better than nothing.

Rebels: "In the Name of the Rebellion: Part Two" (Ep. 4.04)

-- "We turned a worst-case scenario into the best!"

Considering that we know where Saw Gerrera ends up, it should be no surprise that this episode puts us on the trail of the Death Star with the discovery that the Empire is transporting another overly large Kaiburr crystal. This ongoing plot line, carried over from Clone Wars, is one I really like. It's interesting to follow the rebels trail to discovering the Death Star, not that they were able to do anything about it before it was too late. At least too late for Alderaan.

Which takes us back to our question from last episode... sort of. Because this episode doesn't really address the issue; it just kind of skirts around it. Rather than dealing with the philosophies of the opposing viewpoints -- one being that we should be better than our enemies rather than lowering ourselves to their level, the other being that we should win at all costs -- they turn it into a personal matter for Ezra and Sabine because Saw betrays them when they balk at what he wants them to do. They're not likely going to see any part of the side of "win at all costs" when they are the ones being considered a cost of victory.

But that still leaves the philosophical question hanging in the air. I mean, we know what the Empire is doing and that they're going to use it to destroy whole planets, but does that, even with knowledge, justify the sacrificing of some "innocents" to achieve victory?

I don't have any answers at the moment.

But I'm sure that this question is weighing on me the way it is because, in many respects, the GOP is currently the Empire, and they are doing their best to build a Death Star and, mostly, the Democrats are just arguing about what to do about it. We already saw in the last election that "going high" when they go low does not win battles. Or elections.

"What you're saying is that we owe you."

"Just an observation, this isn't a very good rescue."

"This droid is cross-wired."

"Those two can't go anywhere without blowing something up."

Left

L is the Left and its public adherence.
Be aware, we're not gonna quit.

The Voice of Freedom

There's been a lot of talk in the last six months or so about the lack of leadership in the Democratic party, which is true. When Obama left office, he also stepped away from any and, seemingly, all roles of leadership. And that's too bad, because he's the closest thing to a unifying leader the Democrats have right now. But, honestly, it's not a lack of leadership that's the problem.

It's the lack of a voice.

And I don't mean the lack of a voice for the Democratic party; I mean the lack of a voice for Freedom. The Voice of Freedom, right now, is silent.

Which is not to say that there are not rumblings from it, but, so far, since the rise of Trump, no one has picked it up and shouted it with a unifying Voice as key individuals have done in the past:

Abraham Lincoln
Mahatma Gandhi
Winston Churchill
Martin Luther King, Jr.
even Ronald Reagan with his stance against communism in the 80s

Sometimes, that voice is sung, as it was in the late 60s by people like
Bob Dylan
Peter, Paul & Mary
Simon and Garfunkel

Or in the 80s by
U2
The Alarm


Today, the Voice of Freedom is silent and needs to be picked up as a unifying cry against the Voice of Fear that Trump continues to spew out of his horrible maw in the same way that Hitler did.

See, the Voice of Fear is loud and has provided a rallying point for Conservatives (because studies show that Conservatives are more prone to fear and have a much greater fear of change (and, let's face it, the times they are a changin')), and they have responded to that call with a vengeance. A vengeance which includes white supremacists feeling like they have been empowered to murder and terrorize and that that is somehow patriotism (to use the words of a white supremacist terrorist).

Not to go all Star Wars on you, but the Voice of Fear is the Dark Side. It's not more powerful, but it is quicker, easier, more seductive. People like quick and easy and don't like or want to put in the work for Equality and Freedom.

And, just to be clear, the Voice of Freedom is also the Voice of Equality, because real Freedom, true Freedom, cannot exist without equality. The equality of all people to have the same access to healthcare. The equality of all people to have the same access to education. The equality of all people to have the same access to opportunity. The Voice of Freedom, the Voice of Equality, is the Voice of the People.

The Voice of Fear is the voice of slavemasters, those who want you to put up and shut up and just do as you're told. It's time to throw off Fear.

"We want to play for you now a gospel song. A gospel song with a restless spirit."
It's time to pick back up the Voice of Freedom, the Voice of Equality, and sing it and sing it loud.

My Apolitical Life

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you guys out there think I'm "political." As things stand at the moment, I could certainly understand that perception; after all, I've been writing some pretty politically charged posts, lately. However, the idea of me being "political" is one of the most outrageous thoughts anyone could have, which is why I never have that thought.

Probably what killed politics for me -- maybe I should say "who" -- was Thomas Jefferson. Seriously, what an ass.

Oh, yeah, a lot of you, probably most of you, are saying right now, "But he was a great man!"

And I just want to say to that: Not so much.
In fact, he was so much not a great man and so ashamed of himself over how he handled his presidency that he didn't want to be remembered for it. At all.

And you're all saying, "But! But! Declaration of Independence!"

Okay, sure, the man could write, but, really, he did his best work when he wrote the Declaration and it was all downhill from there.

Actually, the Declaration is the root of the problem. See, I believed it. As a kid, I mean. Well, I still do. "All men are created equal." ALL humankind are created equal.

I was a really patriotic kid. It was a thing my teachers would comment on to my mom, even, about how much I knew about the Revolutionary time period and the people involved. Yeah, the Revolution was one of those things I got into sometime after dinosaurs. Dinosaurs at four. Astronomy at five (which started out being related to dinosaurs). The Revolution at six. Because, hey, it was 1976, so I started reading books and books and books -- lots of biographies -- about the Revolutionary War and the founding fathers.

So, we have this document, see, that says "all men are created equal," and we fought a war over it to gain independence from a government that treated us unfairly and, then, after winning that war, we doubled down on slavery because of "politics." And I get it. I mean, I understand why Washington and a few of the others decided that the new nation was too fragile at the time to deal with that issue and felt the need to put it off till later, but... BUT!

Thomas Jefferson, the man who WROTE "all men are created equal" would not defend that. Didn't even believe that. He kept his own children as slaves and refused to free his slaves even on his deathbed, while many, if not most, of the other founding fathers had done at least as much as that, but Jefferson refused. He adamantly refused to free his slaves even upon his death despite the urging of many of closest friends and allies. Basically, Jefferson's life and lifestyle didn't match his rhetoric, and the whole thing really soured "politics" for me. I mean, if you couldn't trust Jefferson... Well, who could you trust, right?

Actually, in high school, I became a great admirer of Alexander Hamilton. Not that that was enough to make me like politics.

It's not really politics that are the problem; it's the politicians.

All of that to say: None of this is about "politics." It's not about Republicans and Democrats. It's not about the Right and the Left. It's not even about Conservatives and Liberals. It's about what's right and what's wrong.

And I don't mean what's right and wrong as defined by some (usually false) sense of Christian moralism. I mean what's right as defined by the ideals we (theoretically) ascribe to by being American (which I will define narrowly as someone who is a citizen of the United States of America), the highest of which is, "All men are created equal."

Honestly, we weren't ready for that idea when Jefferson tossed it out there. Obviously, Jefferson wasn't ready for it, either. But he did toss it out there, and we've been fighting to reach that ideal ever since. Fighting for the innate right that each person should get to choose how to live his or her own life without someone else coming along and saying, "No, you can't do that," for no reason other than that that person doesn't choose to live that way.

Look, the USA is NOT a Christian nation. It never was, and it was never intended to be. If you believe that, then you believe a lie. In fact, the whole idea was that this would very definitively NOT BE a Christian nation. That's how the Constitution was set up: to allow people to live and believe as they want to live and believe. It is the fundamental principle that our nation was founded on.

I find it egregious that people like Trump and Bannon want to eradicate decades worth of work toward actually achieving that goal, not a goal of freedom (though it is that, too) but a goal of equality. I find it even more egregious that "Christians" have embraced their philosophy of hate and discrimination.

So, no, this is not about "politics" for me. It's about standing up for what is right and good. It is right and good that all men and women should be treated as if they were created equally, because that is what we say we believe. To my mind, the ones opposing equality (the racists, the misogynists, xenophobes), they're the ones who are unAmerican. Trump doesn't know or believe in American ideals and he wants to take away and kill the one thing that really has made America great. It's up to those of us whole believe in what "America" stands for to oppose him. It's not about politics.

Voting by Mob Mentality

Okay, so, this is one of those posts where I'm going to be talking some psychology. I'm going to be working from some general principals, and I'm not going to be citing references. That's because I'm not looking up any new information, not that I would probably cite references even if I was. Basically, if you don't trust me to know what I'm talking about, you should do your own research to verify the things I'm going to say. Or even if you do trust me to know what I'm talking about. I frequently do verification research even on people I trust. Heck, I do verification research on myself all the time just to make sure I have the details correct before I actually post something.

Facts matter. Science matters. Stay educated.

Here's an example of why you should research:

Common sense and general accepted practice over the last decade or so says that group efforts results in better work than individual efforts. This is why teams have become such a thing in business and in schools. The problem is that research shows that group tasks result in overall inferior work because the work is dragged down to the level of the least competent member of the group. It's one of those things where you can't go faster than the slowest member of your team. Basically, rather than the work being elevated by the more competent members, the more competent members have to dumb down to operate on a level with the least competent members.

And that goes against conventional wisdom of how these team efforts work, so people keep proponing group efforts over individual efforts because they don't bother to look at the science. So, go ahead, go look at the research and the data, the actual science. Stop listening to conventional "wisdom."

Speaking of humans in groups, one of the principles of psychology and sociology is that people in groups, also, tend to become, let's say, less intelligent as the groups get larger. Groups of any sort tend toward the lowest common denominator. [As a complete aside, this is an important thing to acknowledge when you look at the FACT that Republicans tend to be less intelligent and less educated than Democrats. The lowest common denominator on the Republican side of things is MUCH lower than on the Democrat side of things.] This is how mobs start, because people of lower intelligence are more easily riled up, but, once one gets a few people riled up, it spreads through the group. It is literally like an infection.

Recently, The New York Times published an article in which Satan (oh, I mean, Steve Bannon) is quoted as saying that the media didn't understand the forces that drove Trump into office. I think he's right. The media didn't understand what was happening at the time -- but, then, no one did except, perhaps, Trump and Satan himself (oh, I meant Bannon again) -- and they still don't understand now. However, it came to me the other day, and it was one of those "d'oh!" moments where you have to wonder why you didn't see it sooner, especially since the correct comparisons were being made.

Trump got to office on mob mentality. Seriously, think about every Western you watched as a kid and remember the lynch mob scenes and how the crowd was chanting, "Lock her up! Lock her up!" Oh, that's not what they were chanting? Same thing, though. Trump riled up a mob, formed a posse, and rode out to get himself someone to lynch. And got elected to the highest office in the world on the energy of what amounts to no more than a lynch mob. Only, this time, there is no white hat to step in between the mob and the instigator and talk them down. As if that has ever really been a thing anyway.

The problem with mobs, though, is that they take a lot of energy to keep going. On their own, mobs are short-lived entities that begin to dissipate from the fatigue of the individuals within the mob. In short, it's easy to get a mob all worked up (you can look at Trump's rallies to see that), but they take energy to keep them going. They take somewhat constant agitation.

Trump needs the mob. He needs his posse. His lynch mob. This is not just the energy that keeps him going, that he feeds off of (it is that, too); this is the energy that is keeping him in office. As long as the mob stays riled, the Republicans will fall in line behind Trump and whatever insane thing he is doing. Republicans have come into the realization that to go against Trump is to go against the very people who got them into office, and they can't risk offending those people, because the mob will turn on them just as quickly as it goes after liberals and Democrats.

Because Trump needs the mob, he has to continually agitate them to keep them riled up. This is, at least in part (the rest of it is because he has no impulse control and can't stop his tongue and his fingers from saying whatever stupid thing comes into his head), the reason Trump says and does outrageous things that have no basis in fact or reality, like demanding an investigation into voter fraud. It doesn't matter if the claim is ludicrous, because it keeps his base riled up and mob like. The mob has no logic or thought. It reacts to Trump on emotion and faulty instinct.

What, then, is the answer to the mob issue? How do we get people to slow down and actually apply thought and logic to Trump? [As if most people (and those people in particular) use much thought and logic to begin with.] I don't have a good answer to that. Generally speaking, the way to stop a mob is to let it play itself out, but Trump seems especially good at keeping his base agitated and in play for him. And, honestly, part of that is due to us, those who are standing against Trump. When we react to something Trump has done, like the Muslim travel ban, it serves to foment his followers without much work from him, allowing him to go off and do things like hosting special screenings of Finding Dory [I bet Trump feels a special connection to Dory and her inability to keep anything in her head.] or, you know, put Satan on the National Security Council.

The other thing that can stop a mob is a sudden shock to the system, so to speak, something which instantaneously catches the mobs attention. For that, it's possible that Trump could do our job for us, not that we should count on that.

At any rate, I think it's important to know what you're dealing with and that it's probably pointless to engage with Trump supporters in any kind of rational discussion. You can't reason with a mob. Or with someone in an abusive relationship. It just makes the person defend the abuser, put the person on the same side with the abuser. You have to wait for them to realize they are being abused and be ready to confront it. That's the current state of Trump supporters. Eventually, Trump will do something that will affect each of them personally, then you'll see them get it, get that Trump is a liar and a cheat and has just been using them for his own profit.

Eventually, Trump, already the least liked President a week into his presidency, will have no one left on his side... except Republican politicians (>cough< McConnell >cough cough< Paul Ryan >cough<) whose heads are stuck too far up Trump's ass for them to get away.

Repeal and Replace

The Republicans have been talking a lot, lately, about "repeal and replace," not that they have any good plan for that. It's just all about their rabid drive to undo everything the black man did while he was in the White House. They're really a sad, pitiable lot, but I'll wait to pity them once they're no longer in control of things, because, right now, they're rampant destruction of everything good needs to be stopped. [Seriously, it's a government BY the people and FOR the people, but Republicans seem intent on handing everything over to corporations and greed.] Okay, no, I will probably never pity them just like I don't pity anyone who was a Nazi during World War II.

Okay, I'm getting off topic...

Now, just a little more than a week into Trump's presidency and all of the horrible things he's been doing (seriously, he's turning us into the playground bully, and Mexico is his current target to punch on and steal lunch money from (except he calls it "wall" money)), I think it's time for a new approach to Trump's administration.

See, what I've been seeing is people starting to focus on the 2018 midterm elections, and that's good! But I don't think it's good enough or soon enough. Trump's first week was a disaster, and, personally, I'm not into waiting two years before we can begin to mount an effective campaign to stop him. So I think it's time for us to have our own "repeal and replace" strategy.

Before I go on, yes, I know I live in CA and that I'm getting off easy with this idea. I mean, California is THE state setting itself up to be the opposition force to Trump and his agenda. And, well, we have the weight to do it as the 6th largest economy in the WORLD and being a state that gives more to the federal government than it gets back. HOWEVER...

It's like this, the thing that our congressmen, especially those in the House, want most, generally speaking, is to be re-elected. They spend, especially those in the House, inordinate amounts of time on that rather than just doing their jobs. Especially Republican congressmen considering they've spent most of the last decade almost literally doing nothing. So, while starting now on campaigns to get Democrats into office during the 2018 elections is a really good thing, that's still two years away, and incumbents tend to have an advantage during elections.

I don't think we need to wait. It's time to "repeal" some of those congressmen. That sounds so much better than "recall," don't you think? "Sorry, Ted Cruz, you've been repealed." Wouldn't that make such a great headline.

The hitch is that there is no mechanism for that... and it has never happened before. BUT!

Hey! Don't turn away from this just because it sounds impossible. Our government is still, theoretically, by the people and for the people, so, if we the people want a thing done, if enough of us get behind having that thing done, it should be possible to have that thing get done. That said, it's time for a movement to put into effect a recall mechanism, a repeal mechanism, for members of congress.

Some of you are thinking at this point, "Why don't we just go straight for the President?" Two reasons:
1. I think that would be much more difficult and wouldn't produce the desired result.
2. If Trump gets removed from office, that will leave us with Pence, who is possibly worse than Trump. No, he wouldn't spend his time trying to build an implausible wall; he would spend his time doing horrible things like funding conversion therapy.

Wait, wait! What's the desired result?

Well, the ideal result would be putting a mechanism into the Constitution to repeal congressmen. And, yes, that would take a long time, I'm sure, but, in the short run, it would let some Republican congressmen, especially those in the House, know that we are really, REALLY serious about opposing Trump and opposing the whole Conservative agenda that's set to turn our country back more than half a century, destroy the environment, and, possibly, involve us in some major confrontations if not all out war. Republicans who want to get re-elected are going to start listening to their constituents rather than toeing the Republican line. In fact, some of them might start doing the equivalent of grovelling to try to keep their seats.

Trump came into office on this whole idea of change and shaking up the establishment, something he's done NOTHING of. In fact, he's done the opposite by making the government even more establishment and by handing even more of it over to corporations. Now, it's time for us to be the change and to cause the change. It's time to stop Trump, and the best way to do that is stop Republicans. And it's time to do it now.

The Education Divide, Not a Myth

Talking about education is not something I'm unfamiliar with. Aside from the fact that I've worked as a teacher both in the South and in California, I did a whole series about education as it relates to my younger son, my middle child.

In relation to the recent election and Trump's victory, there has been a lot of reporting about the uneducated, or under educated, white people who voted for Trump. Not to mention that Republicans, conservatives, tend to fall into that same group. Sorry, the data (science!) shows the truth: Conservatives tend to be less intelligent and/or less educated than liberals. Maybe that's why conservatives also tend to hate science so much.

Look, I'm not saying that there are NO smart Republicans/conservatives out there but, on the whole, they tend to be the duller knives in the drawer.

Yes, it's all well and good to talk about studies and data and science, but your opinion is just as good as my facts, right? Well, let me give you a practical example of how all of this plays out in the real world. What I'm about to talk about is NOT science; it is my personal experience and, while subjective, it's also an objective look back at my past.

As I've mentioned before, I grew up in the South, and I also grew up in the Church. Like all typical church kids, I had two groups of friends: the people I went to school with and the people in my youth group at church. In some ways, both of these groups were atypical.

First, church kids are always atypical. The real church kids, at any rate. I'm not talking about the ones who go on Sunday mornings because their parents (moms) make them; I'm talking about the youth group kids who are involved in all the stuff: Sunday morning, Sunday night, midweek youth group, even choir. Those kids are a fairly small population from any high school.

However, my high school, as I've mentioned before, was also atypical. It was one of the first magnet schools in the nation and was (and still is) the top ranked high school in Louisiana. So, yeah, Louisiana: That's not saying much. BUT! At a time when Louisiana was ranked somewhere around 48th in education (not that it's not still down there), my high school was one of the top ranked high schools in the NATION. Top 10 for years. I think it was #3 at some point, even.

Needless to say, I didn't have the typical Southern education, and neither did any of the other teenagers I went to high school with.

Surely I have a point beyond bragging, right? I do! And this is it:

Of the people I'm still in touch with (more than a few) with whom I went to church, the ones who went to regular high schools and received a typical Louisiana education, well, they pretty much all voted for Trump. The exceptions are all female. Every dude I went to church with, every under-educated one of them, voted for Trump.

Now, of the people I went to high school with... Wait, let me drive this point home: You had to be smart to get into this school to begin with and, even so, half of the freshman class EVERY YEAR failed out because they couldn't cut it. So we, at my high school, were both on the smarter end of the scale and receiving a superior education.

Now, of the people I went to high school with with whom I am still in touch (more than a few), nearly all of them supported Clinton. I know of two exceptions: one male, one female (but she was also a church kid, and that kind of conservatism tends to skew things (I say that from my own experience)).

I could go on with this, but I think it's pretty clear. And, sure, some of the people in my youth group went on to higher education, but many of them did not. Those that did didn't go to universities that anyone would consider top notch, and I'm pretty sure, for most people, if you haven't encountered an education that makes you think, requires you to think, before you're out of high school, college is too late.

The truth is that conservatism is based around accepting what you're told without question, Questioning is the enemy. Questioning things that come your way can overcome confirmation bias, and Republicans/conservatives are much more susceptible to confirmation bias than liberals. That's why 85-90% of the fake news during the election was pro-Trump/anti-Clinton. One of the biggest peddlers of fake news stories during the election said they tried, also, on Democrats but just couldn't get Democrats to take the bait.

Look, I'm not trying to offend anyone, not this time. If you feel offended, it's probably because you know this is you. That's not my fault. I'm not calling anyone stupid. [Okay, there is ONE person I would gladly call stupid, but I've already done that, and I don't think he reads my blog anyway.] To some extent, intellect is a choice, because intellectual curiosity is a choice. YOU can choose to not just accept the shit you're eating. YOU can choose to educate yourself.

Stop reading and listening to Right Wing propaganda. Find the news and information that is objective, the places reporting FACTS, not opinions, and follow that, instead. Listen, the only reason the media is "liberal" is because the Right is SO FAR RIGHT that everything else looks liberal. Facts and data and SCIENCE are not "liberal;" they just are. So...

If you don't want the "Coastal Liberal Elites" looking down on you and thinking you're stupid (and sometimes calling you stupid), start educating yourselves on the actual data. And, you know, maybe read the Constitution and look at the laws that Trump is already violating.

Make a difference.

Dying of Cancer

I've never talked much about my childhood on here, and I don't particularly care to, but there's a thing here that's important to what I'm going to say, so here's your bit of insight into me.
If you read carefully, that is.

Until I was four years old, I lived with my mother and my grandparents but, even after my mother got married, my grandfather was the primary male role model in my life. He was a large man. Quiet. Great "table muscles," as he called them. I never once heard him raise his voice to anyone, much less his hand, and my mother says she can't remember him ever once saying anything bad about anyone (my grandmother, evidently, was another story; she had the temper). He used to read to me. I'd sit in his lap and smell the engine grease on him and in his clothes (he was a mechanic, but there's more to the story than that) -- that smell was just a part of who he was -- and he would read to me, frequently the same book over and over again. Little Black, a Pony and some book about an old, beat up blue truck. See, I still remember them.

When I was 19, he was diagnosed with cancer; I don't remember what kind. It was one of the fast ones, though, but the doctors told us they'd caught it in time and that he would be okay. They continued to tell us that all through the treatment. "Everything's going well." "He's responding well to the treatment." "He should be going home in no time."

The last time I saw him was a Monday night. We'd gone to visit him at the hospital, which was in another city, but he spent most of our time there asleep. He did grip my arm before I left, a grip that was still powerful despite his weakened condition. Even that night, the doctors were telling us that he was doing "very well" and they expected that he would get to go home soon.

When the phone rang Wednesday morning, I knew what the call was. Part of me died that morning, too.

Cancer can be insidious that way. It doesn't ever really go away; it just hides. That's why we say it's in remission rather than cured. Maybe there will be an actual cure someday but, for now, the best we can do is treat it into submission and hope that we outlast it. The problem many people run into is that they treat it as if it's a curable disease so ignore the symptoms of it coming back because they don't want to confront the issue of still being sick.

Racism has a lot in common with cancer. It's not a curable thing, though many of us have wanted to treat it that way, even going so far as to declare on television that racism is a thing of the past. I understand the allure of believing that, but it's that kind of thinking that allows the cancer to spread. It's a thing that needs constant awareness just to keep it in check, and, as a society, we just haven't been doing that. We can see the results of ignoring the symptoms in the recent rampant tumor growth across the US. Well, not just the US, but I don't think other parts of the world ever thought they had "cured" racism.

At any rate, this past election has in many ways reminded me of my grandfather's cancer, not least in that everyone kept saying, "It's going to be okay. Clinton is going to win, and we're going to treat the racism (and sexism) cancer back into remission." But the cancer won; Trump won; and the emotions of that were very similar to that phone call letting us know that my grandfather had succumbed to the cancer and died. I'm not going as far as to say that the US has succumbed to the cancer, but the cancer, right now, is having its day.

This is no longer the kind of racism that only expresses itself through things like implicit bias and in systemic, institutionalized ways. It has become very explicit and in your face because people who have previously felt social pressure to keep their racism internal have suddenly found new freedom to externalize it. We have moved past implicit bias into explicit hatred and hate crimes.

So let me just be clear in case what I'm saying here hasn't been explicit enough:
Racism (and sexism) is a cancer eating this country up. It has been the great, ongoing conflict we have been dealing with since before the US became the US. Racism was one of the great issues that pushed us into a two party system with Alexander Hamilton and his Federalists (the modern Democrats) on the side of racial equality and Thomas Jefferson (the modern Republicans) and his Democratic Republicans on the side of racial discrimination and slavery. [Jefferson may have written "All men are created equal" but he only meant white men when he wrote that. He even kept his own mixed race children as slaves during his lifetime. That's just sick.]

Those of you who voted for Trump, whether you are feel as if you are racist or not, voted for the cancer. You voted for the cancer to have its day, or its four years as the case may be, and, in that, you are showing that you believe that you are more important than what Trump represents and that, my "friend" is racism. You are saying that you, you white person, deserve better treatment than the people that Trump has stated he intends to persecute, whether they be Muslim, Mexican, or female. You have said, "I know Trump is horrible and intends to do bad things to certain groups of people, but I am more important than those groups of people and I deserve my day at their expense." And, well, that, also, is just sick.

And the best part is...? Trump isn't going to give you your day, either, because you're not rich, and his policies are going to be just as disastrous for you as they will be for everyone else. So, yeah, good job.

What Your Blog Says About You: Part Two -- Content

Closely related to the personality of your blog, is the content. One informs the other to a certain extent. I mean, if you want the personality of your blog to be humorous, you don't want your content to be about death or terminal illness or human trafficking or climate change or... I'm sure you get the idea. Although, now that I think about it, a humor blog about death could be, well, funny.
Don't eat the salmon mousse, right?

Your choice of content is the biggest factor in determining who's going to read your blog. In that respect, choosing a topic like "writing" is going to significantly decrease your potential audience. Sure, there may be lots of people out there that think they can write a book and many people with some scribblings, but most people don't want to spend a lot of time reading about how to write. And if your specific topic is grammar... well, good luck with that. No matter how funny you are [See, grammar is one of those topics that most people don't relate to humor, like history. Or quantum physics.], you are not likely to be attracting the masses.

So, then, it's important to look at whom you want your audience to be before you settle on what you want the content of your blog to be. When I started my blog, I knew I didn't want to just talk about writing, because I didn't want to just have other writers reading my blog. Again, as many people as there are out there writing, it's still a small audience, relatively speaking, especially since most people who are out there trying to be writers do it without bothering to really know anything about how to write. (The overall quality of self-published works wouldn't be so piss poor if that were not the case.) And, well, there are so many bloggers that will tell you in excruciating detail the way to be successful as a writer that I didn't want to get mired in all of that.

Which brings us to goals. You have to know the goal for your blog before you can figure out what the content should be. Who is it you want reading your blog? Do you just want other writers? Fine, focus your blog on writing related topics. Do you want your blog to be informational? Focus on the data and post links. Do you want to moms to read your blog? Talk about kids and how to make your house function more efficiently. [Yes, I know that that is somewhat sexist, but it's also mostly true. Hey, it is what it is.] Do you want Republicans? Or Democrats? Talk issues and bash the opposing party. As often as possible. Do you want the whole universe reading your blog? Post silly pictures of cats.
Oh, wait, look!

Jack-in-the-Box

No, I do not know what went down the drain.

And if you're trying to get readers? Well, one thing you shouldn't do is spend nearly every post you write badmouthing readers. Seriously, this one guy I follow (and, no, I don't know why I still follow him other than that it was a subscription thing and comes into my email and I haven't taken the time to make it stop (Make it stop!)) spends almost every post (and thank goodness he doesn't post frequently (which is another reason why I haven't gotten around to unsubscribing)) complaining about how readers are just bunch of cheapskates that can't even spend the price of a mocha to buy his books. Or, like in his latest post, he published an email from a reader (I'm assuming without permission, because I can not imagine anyone giving permission for this) and went on to "defend" himself against the allegations the writer of the email had put forth against him. I'm not thinking this is going to help win him any new readers.

So, yeah... What is your goal for your blog, and do you have content to match it?

For example, one of the things I believe (and from comments I've received from people, I'm pretty sure I'm correct) is that people that like Star Wars will like The House on the Corner, so I talk about Star Wars. A lot. Not posts and posts about Star Wars, but I make sure it comes up in conversation. So to speak. See what I just did there?

Once you've decided on your audience and your content, stick to it. People will come to your blog to deliver the type of content you've said you'll have. For instance, I tend to stay away from political stuff and religious stuff and sports stuff. Mostly, that type of content just causes controversy, and I carry enough controversy around with me to want to delve into topics already filled with the stuff. Which is not to say that you can't make the occasional exception, like I did back in this post, but, mostly, you need to keep your content pretty consistent. Do the kinds of posts you do and stay away from the kinds of posts you don't do.

Oh, let me just add that I don't stay away from any topic because I'm scared of controversy. Anyone that's been around here for any length of time ought to know that I have strong opinions, and I don't mind sharing them. However, I dislike getting involved in arguments that aren't (ever) going to go anywhere, and any time you start talking about politics or religion or, even, sports, people already have their minds made up and no amount of talking about it is going to change anyone's opinion, which I talked about back in this series. See, I'm a Cowboys fan--I have been since I was a kid--and no amount of arguing with me about it is going to get me to change my mind. Fortunately for you all, I don't really care about football, so saying that I'm a Cowboys fan really isn't saying much. But I'm still not changing my mind.

All of this talk about content has made me look up at my heading (you can look up at it, too). That's the stuff I decided I'd be talking about when I started up my blog. Yes, that hasn't changed since the blog started. That's still the stuff I talk about: writing, reading, movies, pop culture stuff. I've branched out just slightly from that in that I now talk about my pets and kids and whatever general kind of thing might come to mind, but the core of what I blog about is still that stuff at the top.

All of that to say, or to wrap up, or something: Your content is important. There are a lot of blogs that I have given up on because they never say anything. Wait, no, because the blog doesn't say what it says it's going to say. How many of you (those of you that do) would continue to follow Alex if he started talking about his guitar all the time. Every post. It was all about how great rehearsal was or how he'd learned some new song or whatever. He's established a particular type of content, and, if he morphed into only talking about guitar practice, people would quit stopping by. And what about Matthew? What if he quit doing his query letter thing and started talking about his love for ping pong? All the time. I'm guessing not many of you are that interested in a blog about ping pong.

Content may be more important than personality where blogging is concerned, and I almost used it as part one, but I'm gonna guess that most of you never thought specifically about the content of your blog and just let it develop from your personality, which is fine. As I said back at the beginning, the two things inform each other. I chose the topics I chose because I like those topics, so it makes it easy to have things to write about (as opposed to choosing grammar and trying to make gerunds funny (and I think there's a very in-poor-taste joke there about Richard Gere just waiting to happen, but I'm not going to try and figure out what it is)). So, if your content has flowed out of your personality, it may be worth giving it a think, figuring out what your goals are, who you want your target audience to be, and making some adjustments to your content. Or not. It's just one of those things you should at least think about.

Lincoln (and an anti-bonus and a bunch of news!)

The days when biographical movies tried to give us the whole picture of what someone was like seem to be behind us, and I can't say that's a bad thing. The only thing that movies like that have ever done is give just information to not matter. You just can't get all of history, not even the significant history, of a person into two hours.

Spielberg's new movie, Lincoln, focuses just on the event of passing the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, but, within that event, he manages to capture the essence of who Lincoln was so that we feel we are getting so much more of him. If it doesn't sweep the Oscars this year, it certainly deserves to. The screen writer certainly deserves the credit, as the script, the dialogue, was magnificent (and Tommy Lee Jones in particular took full advantage of his lines, stealing nearly every one of his scenes).

Daniel Day-Lewis also deserves an Oscar, for there was none of him in this movie. The man is amazing and frightening in his ability to assume a character. He completely disappears; only the character remains. This ability is such that he actually had to take a break from acting after his role in The Boxer, because he couldn't find himself again afterward. He spent a year in preparation for his role as Lincoln, and the result of that was that he became Lincoln. He's remarkable.

All of the acting was excellent. I already mentioned Tommy Lee Jones and how he had some of the best lines in the movie, but, really, everyone performed admirably. The performances given are a testament to the quality of director Spielberg is. I have to also specifically mention David Strathairn. He outdid himself as Secretary of State Seward. I like Strathairn, but I've never thought he was particularly great or anything, but he was great in Lincoln. As was James Spader. But I could just keep going on about the spectacular performances, so I'm going to stop. You'll have to trust me. Or go see the movie, which you should do anyway.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the movie, though, has to be one that was unplanned, because I don't see how you could plan for something like this unless you can see the future. The focus of the movie is the political landscape of the time, and, if you think things are bad now, and I'm not saying they're not, you should do some research about how things used to be. If you think our politicians take part in name calling, you haven't seen anything. Heck, they used to beat each other up or even have duels over their political positions. Anyway, the interesting bit is how the parties have changed. Abraham Lincoln made the Republican party into a viable entity, which they had not been before his election, and they were at the forefront of social justice. The Democrats were pro-slavery, anti-equality, everything the Republicans have come to be. It was interesting to see how the roles of those two parties have changed over time with, now, the Democrats at the forefront of social justice. However, it is still mostly the south that is anti-social justice. Yes, I can say that, because I came from there. I know how it is and what it's like. At any rate, it's interesting that we just had so many of the themes from the movie played out on the political stage during this past election, and it shows just how much more work we have to do as a civilization before we actually achieve social equality for all members of society.

This is a must see movie if there ever was one. It highlights just exactly why we consider Lincoln to have been our greatest president and the tragedy of his death. Go see it.

As an added bonus, I'm gonna toss in a second review, but this one is more of a warning.

I finally watched Prometheus (as a result of not having a computer), and, boy, am I glad I did not pay money to go see that in the theater. It might actually qualify as one of the 10 worst movies I've ever seen. What an incredibly lousy piece of film making, and I feel bad for some of the actors... okay, I feel bad for Fassbender and Theron for being in it. Fassbender had the only role, as David, that was worth anything, and he did a good job in the role; it's just too bad the movie was a total waste. And Theron was just there for her name in a completely worthless part.

The movie starts with a series of disjointed scenes that, in the end, have nothing to do with the movie. They're supposed to supply background, but each of them is completely useless. 15-20 minutes of movie that could have been replaced with something that actually made sense. Then, once the movie really starts, we're subjected to just about every sci-fi cliche in the book. Too many characters that have no purpose other than to be there to get killed. The scared crew members that get lost on the alien ship. The guy who is just plain stupid and tries to touch the cute little alien. The sudden storm that causes a disruption to what's going on. The dropped object while running from the storm that causes someone to almost lose her life. It was predictable and stupid. Every single bit of it.

In fact, it was so predictable and stupid that it made me not be able to stop watching it, because I kept thinking "surely, there must be something more to this." I mean, this was a big movie. It's Ridley Scott. There must be something more, right? No, there's not. The characters do things for absolutely no discernible reason and things happen because they are the things that happen in these kinds of movies. What a waste of two hours of my life.

And now for the news:

Item #1: Part 9 of Shadow Spinner will be available for FREE! on Friday, November 23.

Because it's Black Friday, I've decided to make the entire series so far also available for FREE! This is a great opportunity for you if you don't have it or if you are missing pieces (like that pesky jigsaw puzzle with the three pieces missing right from the middle) or if you have a friend that doesn't have it. That's all nine parts of Shadow Spinner available on one day for FREE! And, as an added bonus, "The Evil That Men Do" will also be available for FREE! Don't miss out, and don't let any of your friends miss out either! Deals like this don't just come along everyday! No sir! In fact, I can say that they only happen once or twice every 90 days, because that's how often Amazon let's me do it. Merry Christmas! Or, um, Happy Thanksgiving! Trust me, you'll be thankful to have gotten all 10 FREE! parts!

Item #2: Happy Thanksgiving! Save me a piece of pie!

Item #3: The Merry Christmas To All (e)Book A Day

Traveling Blogathon

(of Doom!)

Did I get all the words in there? I think I did... Yeah, okay, they're all there. Mr. Briane Pagel is hosting a blogathon where he convinces us all to give away books. "But," I said, "I'm already giving away a bunch of FREE! stuff on Black Friday; isn't that good enough?"
"No!" he said, "You must give away more! Where's your Christmas Spirit?"
So I looked for my Christmas Spirit, and I couldn't find it. It's always crawling off and hiding, so I sent the cat off to look for it, because the cat likes to get into strange places. Like this:

It wasn't in there, but there is a story behind that that will come later. Eventually, after much looking, we found my Christmas Spirit hiding under my bed. Well, maybe it wasn't hiding. I think there was something going on with the dust bunnies, but we didn't look too closely.

At any rate, Briane is hosting this blogathon thing that is all about Christmas and giving stuff away, so you should all follow this link and go read about it and, maybe, get signed up. I think it's probably even okay if you don't have a book of your own to give away, because you could always give away someone else's book, and what a great Christmas type thing that would be, because you's be supporting one writer by giving his/her book to one reader. That's like Double Christmas!

I'll be hosting on November 26, December 10, and December 17, so make sure you drop by on those days, but, also, go check out the complete list of participants at that link and make notes to stop by. I already have Monday's post ready to go, and I think it's something you won't want to miss.