The Temptation To Say "It's Over"

 When I say, "we won," I say it with the expectation that I don't have a whole heck of a lot of conservative followers anymore so...

"We won."

I imagine many of you are wondering why that's not all in caps or with a butt-ton of exclamation points or whatever, but I feel the simple period says it best. That's probably because the natural extension of that thought right now is, "It's over."

"We won. It's over."

Except that it's not. Over, that is. It's really just beginning. Which is... exhausting. Because it's been an incredible battle to get to where we are right now at this moment, and where we are is that roughly 20% of the country turned out to vote for a racist fascist with the hopes of keeping him in power. And, possibly as bad as that, around 1/3 of the country couldn't be bothered to show up to vote one way or the other.

Let's see... "Hey, there's a wannabe dictator running for President of your country, would you like to go vote for the other guy?" "Nah, I can't be bothered with that."

Which is to say that more than half of the citizens of the United States are, minimally, perfectly fine with the downfall of democracy in the US.

Anyway...

What we have to look forward to, now, is that over the next couple of months Trump (#formerfakepresident) will be out trying to whip his drones into a frenzy about how the election was stolen from him with the hopes that they will do something, anything, to keep him in power. I guess we'll see how that plays out. Violence is my guess, but I hope I'm wrong.

And that's not even the real fight.
The real fight is that Darth Mitch still holds the Senate in his purple-inflamed fist and is already vowing to, well, keep doing what he's been doing, blocking everything that doesn't support his agenda to subvert the judicial system into a racist conservative perversion that only supports rich white people. The real fight is in, initially, trying to repair all of the damage done by the petulant toddler who's been inhabiting the White House for the last four years.

The really real fight is going to be trying to restore the environment and people still, largely, are not being aware of how critical this is and that, in many ways, maybe most ways, the damage has been done and can't be fixed; all we can do is try to lessen the effects of what's coming.
--For fuck's sake people, an iceberg the size of the state of Delaware has just decided to begin roaming the Atlantic and is expected to bring catastrophe to an environmentally-important species-diverse island.

So, while it would be great to sit back and relax and hold onto the thought of "it's over" as if it's a steaming cup of coffee on a chill morning and it feels oh-so-good on your cold fingers, it's not time for that yet. The real fight is still ahead. The fight to get Biden into office was the fight to get us into the real fight. The fight for the environment. The fight against the racist assholes who support #fakepresident. The fight to reform the criminal justice system into something that's fair for everyone, not just those who are white and/or rich. The fight against ignorance, stupidity, and intolerance.

The fight against "christianity" and the destructive forces of religion in our country. But more on that later.

I guess what I'm saying is this:
Take a breath if you need to. Go dance in the streets some more and ring some more bells (thank you Paris and Berlin, in particular). Be happy in this victory.
But do not think "It's over; we won," because this was just a skirmish, and, really, we barely won it, this which really should have been a no-brainer of a victory. Taking the Senate should have been an easy job, and we're still waiting to see what happens there. We lost seats in the House for no good reason other than the fact that Democrats are horrible at down-ballot voting. Democrats and liberals are not fully invested in what's going on; Republicans and conservatives are. They are bringing this fight as hard as they can and have been doing so for decades.

So dig in. It's not over.

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 Return To Writing? Who Knows...

Some of you may have noticed that I wrote an actual post last week. Ah, who am I kidding? That post received one whole comment, so I'm pretty sure it had about as much impact as a feather falling on snow. But, whatever, right? No one comes here for the words; it's all about the pretty pictures these days. I guess I can't really blame anyone for that; I do take some pretty pictures. But, you know, I haven't turned this into a photography blog... yet.

I suppose that's what instagram is for, though, but I haven't gotten very good at posting pictures to there. When they start letting me post them from my computer, I might get better at it. Right now, I have to move my pictures from my camera to my computer and, then, onto my phone to be able to upload them, and that's more than I want (or remember) to do most of the time. Besides, who puts pictures onto their phone? That's assbackwards.
But I digress...

So will I be writing more?
I don't know for sure. I want to, but time these days... Look, it took me two weeks -- two weeks! -- to write my review for Face the Music. And that shouldn't have been a difficult write up but, I suppose, with kids home all the time now...

Don't get me wrong; I don't want my kids not at home. I mean, I don't want my daughter in school, that's for sure, not that she didn't already have COVID-19, because we're pretty sure she had it back in February. We're early adopters, don't you know. But I do wish they didn't make so much noise. My kids, I mean. All the time. Background music is not my friend when it comes to writing, but I'm pretty sure I wrote about that way back in the mists of time.
Wait, wait... The Myst of Thyme.
Why wasn't that a thing?

Anyway... I have things I want to write. I have a bunch of drafts that are mostly just titles so that I will remember my ideas for posts, but getting thoughts onto virtual paper has been a... challenge. To say the least.
And, of course, with the election coming up... Let's just say that the chaos is only going to get louder.

Personally, I'm a bit tired of the chaos. The seven largest fires in California's recorded fire history (which started in 1932), as well as the first and fourth most deadly, have been since trump (#fakepresident) was elected. And I'm not saying there's any causality, but it's a difficult correlation to deal with.

Actually, I'm not saying there's not causality, either, because he, trump (#fakepresident), has been a horror to the environment. And, dude, come on, stop telling us to rake the forest! Shut your stupid, fat pie hole. Science is real, not an opinion.
Which is my cue to say one word: VOTE!

As I said to someone earlier today (the day I'm writing this, not the day you're reading it), trump (#fakepresident) has treated his presidency like a demolition derby, speeding around in his great clown car squeezing his great clown horn. The problem? Everyone else has tanks. And he can't tell.
That's also beside the point.

As I was saying, I have things I want to write, so, hopefully, this place will start to be more of a writing space again.
I guess we'll have to see what happens.

Why "Racist/Racism" Doesn't Work

Let's talk about grammar for a moment.
Yeah, yeah, I know that's not what the title of this post suggests is about to happen, but we're going to do it anyway.

When we talk about what a word means, we can do it in one of two ways: the denotation or the connotation. The denotation is the specific, literal meaning of a word while the connotation, generally speaking, is how people use the word. A good example of this, actually, is the word "literally;" at least it was before some dictionaries changed the denotation of the word. Not to get pedantic, the denotation of "literally" is the literal, specific meaning of something, without exaggeration. The connotation of "literally" is the exact opposite, the figurative or exaggerated meaning of something. You can see the confusion that this kind of thing could cause if one person is using the word one way and someone else is taking it the other way.

So let's talk about racism...
Racism has a specific denotation which includes both a person's hatred of some other racial group and the belief that one racial group is superior to some other (or all) racial group. Racism can be one or both of these things.

However, the connotation of racism, meaning how most people use it, is the hatred of some other racial group. And this is where we run into problems and why white supremacists are "winning" the racism battle.

It's clear that Trump (#fakepresident) has run and is running on a white supremacist platform and that he has surrounded himself with white supremacists, some of them more explicit than others about their white supremacy (Stephen Miller, Asshole Supreme). It's also clear that Trump's "base" support this white supremacist platform, some of them more explicitly than others. It's so very clear that all of this is racism and that all of these people are racists. After all, it's right there in the definition of racism, the belief that one race is better or superior to some other (or others) race.

But that's not hatred.

So when you call out a Trump supporter for their racism, what they hear is

You hate black people.

or, maybe,

You hate Mexicans.

They hear "hate" and, of course, they get upset by that. What they're thinking is, "I don't hate anybody." Well, except, now,  the person calling them a racist.

All of which might explain the animosity between Conservatives and Liberals.

And, no, I'm not saying that Conservatives didn't start all of this shit, because they certainly did. That's not even an opinion. You can trace all of the current political turmoil back to Newt Gingrich (and, man, if my parents named me "Newt," I might be full of the same kind of vileness as him) and, before him, the rise of the new fundamentalism in the US, which took on a new life in the late 60s and through the 70s as a reaction both to the Civil Rights movement and hippies and their "free love."

But it doesn't really matter who started it, because someone has to be the adult in the room, and the Conservatives are not that. They are more like toddlers throwing a tantrum, and they hate being called racists. It just makes them more petulant and foot stomping.

Before you ask, no, I don't have any good ideas on how to deal with this issue on a global level. Or even, really, a personal level, other than having real conversations with Trump supporters about what it is they believe and what they are voting for and trying to explain that believing "white people are just better" is racism. Of course, the problem there is that most of them haven't verbalized their belief like that in their own heads; they just know that the system, as it has been, the system that supports white people at the expense of brown and black people, is the system they want. The "white people are better" system. So I don't know...

It's all very complicated. Except that it's really not. It's a bunch of people who can't see those Magic Eye pictures claiming that it's not real just because they can't happen to see them. Or don't have the patience to learn how (you know, refuse to be educated).

What I know is that approaching Trump supporters as racists isn't working. It hasn't been working, and it's not going to start working; it doesn't matter if it's true. At this point, because there's not really a lot of time left before what could be the most important election in US American history, the best thing to do as a liberal or a Democrat or just someone who opposes Trump (#fakepresident) is to show up and vote. Or, you know, mail it in. Just make sure you vote. This is not a time for thinking that your one vote won't make a difference. Every vote counts, and it needs to be overwhelming. VOTE!

The Art of Scapegoating and of Being Scapegoated

Image by Heidelbergerin from Pixabay

I'm assuming most of you know what a scapegoat is, even if you don't know the origin of the term. That's not really important, and you can look it up if you want to know.
Also, before I go on, I want to call your attention back to this post from something like six years. It's both relevant and important.
[If you went and read that old post, I'm sure you can see how it's relevant to our current political crisis. I want to reiterate that I wrote that well before 2016.]

Let's just assume that you didn't go back and read the post about "The Boss" (since I feel fairly certain that most of you did not) and I'll give a very brief introduction. Very.

There are certain personality types that want to be in charge, completely in charge, with no cost. By "no cost," I mean they don't want any of the responsibility that goes along with being the boss. They just want to be followed blindly and never carry the burden of any mistakes they make. In fact, they are so self-assured of their own "rightness" that they believe they cannot make mistakes and, therefore, if something goes wrong, it must be the fault of someone else. These people are in constant need of scapegoats.

But let me be clear, this is not because there is some conscious thought process that says, "I messed up, but I don't want anyone else to know, so I need to find someone else to blame." It's not like that at all because it never occurs to "the boss" that any mistake may have been his. He just looks for someone who must be at fault because, clearly, someone messed up.

I grew up with one of these types of people, my stepfather, so I am very familiar with how this works. I was, of course, the scapegoat in my house. It was even more fun because the blamelessness extended to my brother, who was his biological son, so any time my brother messed up it was somehow my fault. Here's my favorite story:

I had a mostly unsupervised childhood and I roamed pretty much freely all the time. As long as I was home by dark, no one really questioned where I was or what I was doing. However, on this particular day, I had been to a friend's house and, for whatever reason, I'd actually asked permission to go there. Possibly, it was farther away than I usually went; I don't know. But I had asked my mother if I could go and had permission to make the walk, because I walked everywhere or, later, when I had one, road my bike.

At any rate, when I arrived home, I found that I was in trouble, in trouble for somehow breaking a lamp while I wasn't home. I, of course, responded to the accusation from my father with, "I didn't break it. I wasn't even home." He then accused me of being gone without permission.

And this is where it gets tricky. See, my father knew that my brother had broken the lamp and, yet, he accused me of having done it as soon as I walked in the door. You have to try to follow the process of how this played out.

I said I did have permission because Mom had said I could go.
But that didn't matter because he hadn't said I could go so, therefore, I had not had permission.
It was my fault the lamp had been broken because, if I had been at home, I could have stopped my brother from doing it. Thus, I broke the lamp.
I want to point out that my "father" had been sitting in the chair next to the lamp when it happened.
But, see, it somehow was not my father's responsibility to be keeping an eye on my brother. That was, evidently, my job, a job I had failed to do because I wasn't home. I wasn't more than 10.

This was the way things were during my childhood, and there's not much you can do about it when you're in an insulated situation like that, which is what most households are, insulated little kingdoms.

Don't worry, it gets even more weird.

When I was a teenager, my dad was on of the van drivers at my church. He mostly didn't do any driving for the youth group but, on some trip or other, the guy who usually drove us wasn't available, so my dad was driving. It was a full van of middle and high schoolers all doing what teenagers do when they are in a group together, meaning they were being goofy and making a lot of noise.

Except me. Because that's not what I did. I had a book and was sitting against the window reading and ignoring what was going on. That was my normal.

Maybe this was why my dad never drove the teenagers; he didn't like the noise.
So we're driving along and I suddenly hear my name being yelled angrily. I look up to see my "dad" staring venom and hatred at me through the rear view mirror. Evidently, he had had to yell my name three or four times to get my attention and the only reason it had worked was because everyone else shut up after the second time. Look, I said I was reading, didn't I? And I was focusing really hard on it because of all of the noise and commotion. I don't remember the exact words my "father" used, but it amounted to "Shut the fuck up." No, he didn't curse. We were on a church van, but that's what came through.

Everyone stared at me.
Everyone knew that I hadn't been making any noise.
Not thinking clearly about what was happening, I opened my mouth, "I was rea..."
"I said shut up!"
Everyone looked at my "dad" then looked back at me.
I went back to my book.

Before that happened, everyone had liked my dad and wondered why I didn't care for him. Yeah, that's really about how I felt about him, like he was a type of cookie on a plate of cookies and my response was something like, "No, thank you, I don't care for that one." That's how disassociated I had become from him by the time I was in high school. I mostly just ignored his existence.
Except for those occasions, like this one on the van, where I was forced to acknowledge him in some way.

What I'm saying is that some people have to have someone to blame for their inability to handle situations, whatever those situations are. And I want to be explicitly clear, Trump (#fakepresident) is not ever thinking to himself, "Man, I screwed this up, but I can cover it up by blaming someone else." I think that's what people think about the way he deals with stuff, that his blaming of... whoever... is some sort of conscious deflection. It is not. He just knows that there must be someone to blame and has no concept whatsoever that that someone might be him.

And that, really, is the best way to scapegoat someone. Total belief that the person you are scapegoating must really be at fault. After all, when the Jews sent the scapegoat out into the wilderness, they believed that goat was carrying their sins with it.

When Trump blames WHO for the current state of affairs in regard to the pandemic, he believes WHO is at fault. They must be. Who else it could it be? Oh, China. It's also China. And the media.

These are not lies. Well, they are, but they are not the kind of lies someone makes up in order to change the narrative. It's all self-deception because Trump (#fakepresident) is incapable of looking at the truth. He's actually not smart enough to lie.
It's just like my dad believed it was my fault that my brother broke that lamp. With every fiber of his being, he believed that.

I don't want to say that the pandemic is a good thing in any way, because it's not. People are dying. Lots of people are dying. None of the numbers, especially in the United States, are accurate because there isn't enough testing being done (okay, South Korea's numbers are probably accurate). Why? Because the "president" has been a roadblock to any kind of appropriate response to what is happening. BUT!

But it is good that people -- governors, specifically -- are beginning to ignore Trump (#fakepresident) in order to do what needs to be done. Ignoring these kinds of people, these "bosses," is often the only way to accomplish anything. Or to live peacefully. Or whatever.

Strange Planet (a book review post)

I feel like I can't do this book justice without attempting to do this review in the same manner of speaking the alien beings use. However, I'm also feeling like I don't have the creativity at the moment to figure out how to do that writing paragraphs. There's a reason, I guess, that these are cartoons using short statements by the aliens.

That said, this is a delightful book.
It's a delightful book that I looked at quite askance when I received it for Christmas from my wife.
Evidently, this whole thing began as some kind of web comic, so, of course, I'd never heard of it. And I still haven't looked it up online but, then, I didn't really need to since I have the book.

And let me step aside from the actual review for a moment, but I think this is the perfect time for a book like this. I mean, it's the perfect time for you to read it. [For context for you people reading this review sometime in the future: I'm writing this review during the COVID-19 pandemic and the even worse pandemic of the Trump (#fakepresident) presidency. The world, in short, sucks.] The book is sweet, endearing, and lighthearted, even when dealing with serious subjects, which it does touch on from time to time in the book. It's the kind of book you can pick up and open to any spot, and it will put a smile on your face.

And, of course, it will also be difficult to put down. You might think you're only going to read a few pages of it -- you know, a half a dozen cartoons or so -- but you inevitably keep going until you've read a third of the book without realizing it. It's a great book to keep by your bed for some light reading just before you turn your light off for sleeping. Which is why you should have the actual book form and not rely on the online comics, because you shouldn't be online directly before trying to go to sleep.

Maybe that's just me.

At any rate, I'm now a fan. At some point, I'm sure I'll check out the web comic. Right now, I'm being satisfied with the book and having it by my bed to glance through at night.

2019: A Year

I don't generally do these year-end kind of things. Not that I haven't done them before... or maybe I haven't? I don't know. I'm not going to go digging back through my posts to find out. I'm pretty sure I haven't done one recently, but I suppose that depends on how you define "recent." But 2019 has been... a year, and I feel like talking about it. Not that I know what I want to say about it, so let's see where this goes.

The last few years have been... tough, to say the least. Mostly, it's the world and the fact that everything is descending into madness and chaos. If you've been around my blog for any length of time, you'll know that I spent 2017 mostly writing political posts. A lot of 2018, too. Not so much in 2019 but not because I didn't want to or don't feel they're important anymore but because they felt redundant or that whatever I was going to write about was no longer exactly relevant by the time I was going to write about it.

So, yeah, there is this existential gloom that has been getting worse since the election in 2016, and it might be okay if it was just the US, but it's the whole fucking world. People everywhere seem to be hellbent on sending us all to Hell. Or turning the world into Hell, even more than it already is, and even the best politicians, the ones really out there trying to make things better, are not able to stand against the tide of right-wing fundamentalism who want us all to burn.

What, then, to say about 2019? Politically, I mean. I don't really know.
I want to be happy about the impeachment, but it's hard to be. McConnell, the truest evil in Washington, is just going to dismiss everything as quickly as he can, so, really, what is the point to all of this? And it's not that I don't understand this idea of "making a statement," but, from a practical standpoint, it's worthless and difficult for me to feel good about.
And don't even get me started on Britain. They seem even more determined than the US to wreck their country. I mean, voting for fucking Boris? Clown Trump? That's more insane than voting for Trump, and Clown Trump makes fun of Trump! Not that every leader outside of the US doesn't make fun of Trump, but Johnson is demonstrably dumber than Trump -- maybe not his actual intellect (because it's very difficult to be more dumb than someone already dumber than a box of rocks), but the total package of him is just... dumb -- and Britain gave him the victory, anyway. They gave it to someone determined, vocally determined, to destroy Britain at all costs.
I don't understand!!!

Apart from all of the meta-angst, this year has just been... difficult. It has been the year of home and vehicular "disasters," some of which I've written about, like the whole sewage escapade, which was, arguably, the worst of the disasters... other than being without a fully functional refrigerator for something along the line of two months, which I haven't written about, but could also be argued to be the worst bit of 2019, especially considering we mostly lived out of an ice chest for three weeks or so. There were also six new tires, one new battery, three calls to towing companies, and one dead computer. Mine. Again. I'm pretty sure there were some other things, too, but I'm not really feeling the need to dredge down past the things that bubbled up on their own. Oh, yeah, and one fire evacuation. There was that, too.

Needless to say, the year has been... challenging. Which is not to say that there haven't been good things that have happened but, overall, the year has been tough. And, I think, in the future when I look back on 2019, the things that are going to most come to mind are the sewage incident and the refrigerator.

I am, indeed, ready for 2019 to be over.

And, man, I hope 2020 brings better things. Which is not to say that it's not going to have its own foreseeable issues, namely, the election. I can't say how much I am not looking forward to this campaign season. But it is what it is and, hopefully, 2020 will end on a much more positive note, with the GOP losing the White House and the Senate and, maybe even, a lot of them going to jail. I can't wait to see the orange on orange look of the "peach" fake-president.

A Delicacy of Eggs

Eggs are like writing.
No, seriously.
Look, I know, everything is like writing, but eggs are really like writing.
It's about the attitude.
I mean, it's only eggs, right?
Anyone can cook an egg.
That's how people feel about eggs, and it's true as far as that goes. There are certain things with eggs anyone ought to be able to do proficiently enough so that they're edible. Minimally. Hard boiled. Scrambled. Egg over hard. (Look, I didn't know what it was called; I had to look it up. Dumb name, and I never make them that way, because, basically, that's an unskilled way to make a fried egg.)
And people seem to think that "everyone has a story in them," which may or may not be true, but people say it all the time.
There's this attitude that anyone can write if only they sat down to do it.
Like anyone can make eggs.

But not everyone can make good eggs. If anyone and everyone could do it, diner eggs wouldn't need salt or hot sauce or ketchup. They would just be good and you could eat them without a bunch of augmentation. But when was the last time you had eggs at a diner that didn't taste like paper?
When's the last time you made eggs that didn't taste like paper?

The problem with eggs is that they actually take a lot of attention. That is, if you want them to be good, they do. They're only "easy" to make when you don't care what you're getting as the end product.

Let me give you an example:
I make what we in my house call fancy eggs. They're "fancy" because they're all creamy and stuff. In fact, they have cream in them.
And here's the problem with eggs:
A recipe won't get you where you want to go, not with eggs. There's no "cook for four minutes" that will get you good eggs every time you make them. Or, probably, any time you make them.
So fancy eggs start out as mostly conventional scrambled eggs. [No, I'm not giving out any of my cooking secrets! They were hard won, and you can go figure out your own secrets!] Then, when they're almost done, almost but not quite, you turn the heat off, add in the cream, and mix it in in the still hot skillet.

This did come from a recipe book, but the book is... well, it's not anymore clear than I just was about when and how to add in the cream. Why? Because you have to be standing there watching the eggs to know when. In fact, you have to work these eggs the entire time they're cooking if you want them to turn out right. There's none of this pouring the eggs into the skillet and doing something else for a few moments while the eggs cook on their own, then stirring them up a bit and going back to the other thing, repeat until eggs are done. [I know that's how you do it, because, when you make plain old scrambled eggs, that works just fine. Fine enough, at any rate.] But for these eggs, you have to work them the whole time and you have to pay attention to just how cooked they are so that you know when to add the cream.
Too soon and you have runny, soupy eggs that no one is going to want to eat.
Too late and the eggs are cooked through and the cream won't mix in so you have scrambled eggs sitting in a puddle of cream.
How do you know when you're at the correct moment to add the cream? Experience.

No two eggs are alike. It's similar to why I hate recipes that call for two cloves of garlic. What does that even mean? Garlic cloves can vary in size from the size of your pinky nail to the size of your thumb (or thereabouts, it's close enough, okay!). You have to be more specific. And who only wants just two cloves of garlic anyway? Wimps, that's who!
Look, what I'm saying is that you don't get the same volume of egg goop from six eggs from one time to the next, so the cooking time required is going to be different every single time. Sure, the difference is a matter of seconds, but when your eggs go from not-done-enough for cream to too-done for cream within about 10 or 12 seconds, you don't have any time to play around with. You have to be working the eggs and have the cream ready to go in. Also, the amount of cream has to vary somewhat, and you can only tell how much to put in by paying attention to the eggs.

It's expertise.

I know I started all of this by comparing this whole egg thing to writing, and it's a good metaphor. Most books are diner eggs, and that's probably all I need to say about that.
However, I think this is also a good metaphor for democracy. ["Oh, god, does everything have to be politics?" Well, yes, I think maybe it does. Right now, at any rate.] I think we in the United States took our democracy for granted, had that whole "it's only voting" mindset. We quit paying attention to it and let it get too done. Maybe burned. Maybe ruined. I don't know. I suppose we'll find out in 2020. If Trump (#fakepresident) wins again, legitimately or not, we'll know that democracy is over in the USA. The Republicans will be too firmly entrenched and civil rights will really begin to become a thing of the past. They're working hard at making that so right now.
Sorry, women, take your shoes off and get your asses back in the kitchen.
Sorry, black men... Yeah... Just, I'm sorry. I have nothing quippy to say to that.

If Trump (#fakepresident) loses... Well, it may also already be too late if he loses. I suppose we'll have to wait and see how that plays out. One thing is certain, he's not going to pass over the reins of power peacefully. At the very least, he's going to start screaming that the election was rigged, which is where things will get dicey. It's all going to depend on how his followers, both in and out of the government, respond to his throwing a tantrum. It may mean that it's time to throw that skillet of eggs in the trash and start again.
But I hope not.
Because it will mean that blood is being spilled.
And blood is already being spilled.
Or put in cages.
People being allowed to die, at any rate.

What all of this comes down to is that if you want to be good at something, at anything, you have to pay attention to it. You have to practice it. You have to do it. You can't leave your eggs to cook themselves, and you can't allow other people to take care of the vote you ought to be casting.
And putting words on a page in sentence format doesn't mean you're going to have a book worth reading.

The Destruction Proof

My oldest son's introduction to Lego was largely through the release of Star Wars Lego in 1999 (which makes me feel fucking old, now, realizing that that was 20 years ago). He was three and totally in love with Star Wars, and I was still collecting Star Wars stuff at the time and bought some of the initial Lego releases. Of course, he also fell in love with Lego, though the Star Wars Lego releases were always his favorite, as opposed to my younger son who loves Bionicles the most. Which doesn't mean that he, also, doesn't have plenty of Star Wars Lego.

At three, though, building Lego was a bit beyond what my oldest could do. We would sit together and I would build the pieces while he watched and "helped" me find pieces and, sometimes, push a piece into place. And all was fine with the world...

...until we got the x-wing fighter Lego. The x-wing fighter was a bit larger and more complex than the other Star Wars Lego my son had, and he quickly learned that his favorite thing to do with it was to crash it. Of course, when he did, he couldn't fix it.

So, see, you have this Lego set that took... Okay, I don't actually remember how long it took to build it -- that was 20 fucking years ago -- but more than an hour, I'm sure, based on the build times for smaller sets I've done more recently. Not that it took that long to fix it, but it still took me much longer to put it back together than it took him to crash it. Over and over again.

Fortunately, the x-wing was a pretty simple design. Usually, it was just the wings he'd knock off, though, sometimes, he'd break the fuselage in half, a more complicated thing to fix. Still, it could take 10-15 minutes to fix it, and he'd turn right around and immediately crash it again. A few seconds worth of time.

All of that changed when we got him the Millennium Falcon. The Falcon was a large set that took hours to build and was a complicated design. That didn't stop him from having "crashing it" being his favorite thing to do with the set.

This is when this behavior became a huge issue, because there was no "fix" for the Falcon that took less than half an hour and, sometimes, he'd do something to it that would require sections of it to need to be deconstructed before it could be put back together again. There were times fixing the thing took almost as long as the initial build.

Then there was the Gungan sub, which had these long, thin, blue tube pieces that served as the propulsion system, like long thin straws that were too tiny to actually drink through. On top of crashing the sub all the time, he also chewed up the propulsion system. Yes, my son did that, not the dog. The tail piece got funkier and funkier as he went from chewing one tube to the next until it couldn't be put back together at all.

And, yes, we did talk to him, repeatedly, about crashing the Lego sets and chewing on the "straws." Especially about chewing on the straws, because he got more and more upset about the fact that the tail piece to the sub didn't look right and wouldn't spin correctly. And, yes, there were times when I wouldn't fix his Lego, especially the Falcon, because it just took too long to do. He'd go throw a fit about it and eventually go back to playing. It took him a long time to get past the breaking stage of his Lego play. Basically, it took him getting to the point where he could build things himself; then he no longer what his sets to be destroyed.

Which might be a metaphor in and of itself.

The real point, though, is that destruction is much easier than construction. I'd say that ease of the process is a clue as to what is going on.
So, you know, when #fakepresident Trump says he's "making America great again" and does something like rolls back environmental guidelines or puts people in cages or gives money to the rich, you can see that all of those things have "crashed" decades worth of work from other people. This is not creating or making anything great; it's just the destruction of what other people have worked to build.

Sometimes for the sake of doing it, like doing his best to destroy everything that Obama accomplished while he was in office, especially the affordable care act. Some of the things #fakepresident Trump is doing cannot be rebuilt, the equivalent of my son chewing up those blue straw pieces. Possibly, the environment will not recover.

What I'm saying is this:
If someone tells you they're building something great, look at the process. If it's something that's quick and easy, it's more likely he's not building anything at all but just acting as a wrecking ball. #fakepresident Trump is someone who gets off on destruction. On destroying the work of other people. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that destruction is never great. Sure, sometimes it's necessary, but it's always destroying the work of someone else and should never be done just for the sake of doing it.

Maybe if #fakepresident Trump had ever actually built anything himself he would have more respect for the work of others, but I'm pretty sure Trump isn't actually even capable of building a sandwich, so what we're going to get are his repeated attempts to tear down what other people have done.

TVland

Ah, yes... The sun always shines on TV. Or, at least, it used to.
I'm sure no one watching Game of Thrones, right now, has any belief in this anymore.
Because TV has changed.
No longer is it an idealized land of make-believe where everything works out in the end, the bad guys are defeated, and the hero gets the girl. Or, you know, whatever version of that you believe in.
And, yes, I'm pretty sure TV did used to be that way.
Thinking back through all of the old shows I used to watch when I was a kid, stuff from the 50s and 60s, I can't think of any shows that didn't always turn out right in the end. Well, except, maybe, Gilligan's Island, because they never did get off of that thing (not until years later when they made the TV movie to get them back home again), but, then, that was the point of that show, right? Within that context, though, everything always turned out fine.

At some point, reality began to work itself into TV shows (and other media, too (I'm, of course, tempted to talk about Marvel Comics and their breaking of the CCA in 1971)) but, really, I blame the 90s. Maybe, even, I blame MTV and The Real World, not that The Real World had anything to do with reality, but I think reality television changed the way things work. Not in a good way.

It gave us Trump (#fakepresident).
More importantly (to this discussion, at any rate), it gave us his obsession with ratings.
And, man, is he obsessed with ratings. His own ratings.
Which is not new information but, you know, sometimes you know things but don't quite grok them (yeah, if you don't understand the term, go read my review of Stranger in a Strange Land, then read the book), and I recently grokked something that scared the shit out of me:
To Trump (#fakepresident), this is all just TV. The things he does, the firing people and the chaos and everything else, are because those are the things you do to keep your viewers. To keep people watching you. It's that whole "all publicity is good publicity" thing.

I suppose I could break this all down and go point by point, but I don't think I need to do that and am not feeling compelled to do so. All of this came upon me because I was listening to one of his associates, someone who has been with him for decades, describing his "style," this style that he's had for, well, decades. A style he developed because of his reality show, evidently, and I had one of those... moments. An "Oh, shit! He thinks the presidency is TV!" moment. It's just to keep eyes on him and keep him in the news and people talking about him.

So, you know, if we end up in an actual war, say, with Iran or China, just know that it's because war is good for ratings.

Fuck this shit.
The sun has gone down.

The Book of Vice (a book review post)

I'm going to be honest: I only picked this book up because it was written by Peter Sagal of Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me! fame. I love Wait, Wait, and Sagal is great, and the book looked amusing, at least, and, since I was getting it on, mostly, trade at a used book store, I figured I didn't really have anything to lose. For the price I paid, I'm sure that's true.

And the book was amusing, at times even fascinating. But...
But.

By the end of the book, I was really wondering what it was supposed to be about. Because it's presented in such a way as to be about something, and it looks like it's supposed to be about something, but, at the end, I failed to see whatever that something was. Or is. I mean, beyond it being a list of "naughty things" people do. And I think it fails to be even that.

Or maybe I just missed the point since the book is supposed to be something of a parody of, or response to, The Book of Virtues, a book I haven't read. What I do know is that Vice didn't live up to its title: The Book of Vice: Very Naughty Things (and How to Do Them).

It's that "and How to Do Them" part that is the problem because, at no point, does Sagal ever go into how any "normal" person could go about doing the things that he's talking about. Not that I was looking for any instruction on how to pick up some vices, but it's right there in the title, man! Plus, he seems to have some confusion on what a vice really is, which is weird since he spends part of the introduction defining it, something you do for which you feel shame about later. In other words, something you don't really want other people to know you do.

Of course, at least half of the book is about sex.
And, let's face it, at least half of America would be more than fine if children grew up believing they were the products of spontaneous generation and that sex didn't exist at all.

The problem, though, is that after the first chapter... Wait, let's deal with the first chapter:
The first chapter is about swinging. And the first chapter is about regular people who swing. Mostly because, I think, he spends a good portion of the introduction talking about Power Exchange, a swingers' club in San Francisco (nope, never been there and, though I think I've heard of it, I didn't know that's what it was until I read this book), at which no actual swinging happens. In essence, he was forced to find some "real" people who do it to be able to talk about it. That said, I'm not sure it qualified as a vice for any of them since they had no secret shame over it. True, they didn't want it spread around that they spent weekends at a private swinging event, but none of the people he talked to treated it as if it was something wrong or bad that they were doing.

After that, though, each chapter dealt with the... providers...? of said vices.

The second chapter is about food but, rather then deal with people who, say, eat packages of Oreos on the sly, he dealt with high-end foodie restaurants, specifically with Alinea, and what goes into making very expensive food. I'm not really thinking that people who eat at places like that think of that as any kind of vice. You go to that restaurant, you brag about it after, not try to keep people from finding out you went.

The chapter on gambling deals with the establishments and how they know they'll win. Though the question is raised about why people would gamble knowing they're going to lose, he never actually talks to the regular people who go deep into debt from gambling addictions. The chapter on strip clubs approaches it from the perspective of why would a woman do that for a living, not a vice, rather than the perspective of the man who can't keep himself from stopping at a club every time he has a few dollars in his hand.

The chapter on consumerism... Honestly, I'm not even sure what that chapter was about. There's no "vice" for that. Unless breathing is a vice. Or drinking water.

The chapter on lying dealt only with some high profile liars and, since the book came out in 2007, we don't even get to see his take on Trump (#fakepresident), possibly the biggest lying liar ever. But I have a hard time classifying lying as a vice, too. Maybe it qualifies in some cases, but, at that point, I think it would more likely be called a pathology.

And the chapter on porn is all about porn stars, not the people who have their porn stash hidden away and only get it out when no one is around.

Substance abuse, including cigarettes and that "one" glass of wine after dinner every night, isn't even mentioned.

So, yeah, it's mostly amusing and, like I said, bits of it are fascinating, but, in the end, I'm not sure what he was trying to get at, especially since his own judgements about any particular "vice" are glaringly obvious:
Porn is bad.
Gambling is fine as long as you're the smart guy (him) who plays the one game where the odds are in the favor of the gambler; otherwise, your stupid to gamble.
High-end eating establishments, like Alinea, are dumb and people who spend their money at them are even dumber. Find a Jack-in-the-Box (his idea) and be satisfied.

Hmm... That sounds a bit more harsh, maybe, than I intend it to sound, but, well, that's how it ends up coming across. But, you know, if you want a light, amusing read with some interesting character studies, this may be the book for you.

Parasitic Services

Let's talk about Toys R Us for a moment. This is one of those write-what-you-know moments; I know because I used to work there. You know, before they ran themselves out of business.

One of the reasons they went out of business was their... let's just call it their fear of being taken advantage of. As such, they had very draconian return policies and spent huge amounts of time being obsessed with "shrink," which is to say theft, especially employee theft.

I was reminded of this general atmosphere, recently, in dealing with eBay. As I've mentioned before, I've been selling off old collectibles of mine on eBay. Not because I want to use eBay or love eBay or because of any liking of eBay but because they are the best parasite for the job. Sort of like eating a tape worm before going to certain countries. You don't want to swallow the tape worm, but you do it because you don't want worse things to happen.

In this case the worse thing being my garage door exploding because there's too much stuff in my garage.

In theory, eBay is a platform designed to facilitate... I don't know... selling stuff to other people. Not just tangible items, though, so it's not as simple as just selling off your beanie babies (the most popular item on eBay for years after it started). And, you know, it did start out that way. It was even a free service for a while, until the traffic on the site became too heavy for the creator to pay the fees for the upkeep without charging people for using the site.

But that was 20+ years ago. These days, eBay is violently afraid of anyone selling anything without them getting a cut of it. You know, because they deserve it in some way. On site communications cannot include any type of contact information because, you know, you might be trying to solicit sales outside of eBay and that is strictly forbidden. And nothing in an auction post can even hint at requesting communication from a potential buyer, because that could also be a solicitation for selling off of eBay. Not mention the fact that they are now auto-relisting auction posts and charging you for it and not giving you an option to not choose that.

They have become the epitome of a parasitic service that exists to suck as much money out of its users as possible while giving back as little value as possible. Let me put it another way:
I started using eBay back in the 90s, so I've been there a long time. In the time since I started using them, they have not increased the value of their "service." That's pretty much the same as it always has been; however, the cost of using the "service" has increased dramatically: Their listing fees, for example, are seven times higher now than when I first started using the site, not to mention all of the other fees that didn't even exist 20 years ago. Back in the day, it was perfectly fine for me to direct attention to my own website, so eBay could actually be used as a marketing tool (which was cool); these days, I can't even exchange an email address in private communication.

I could go on, but I'm sure you get the idea.

To say that I have been annoyed by all of this would be an understatement. But it did start me thinking about the general tendencies of "platforms" to become parasites. Lyft, Uber, Airbnb, all platforms that started out as a cool idea with the idea in mind to help people, just like eBay, until someone, often not the creator, realized they could make a lot of money from it without really doing anything. Just hang on like a tick and get fat. [I wanted to use a picture of a tick for this post, but the one of the mosquito being so full of blood that it was dripping out was too gross to pass up.]

Then it occurred to me that this is the same thing that Trump (#fakepresident) is doing to the United States, right now, turning it into one big tick to feed him and his cronies. Not that this has not being going on, especially among Republicans, for a long time, but Trump (#fakepresident) has been going about removing any pretense at all of giving any value back. Because, you know, the government is supposed to be symbiotic with the people (that would be us): by the people, of the people, for the people and all of that. Evidently, Trump (#fakepresident) believes that the only humans who count as people are rich, old, fat white guys. Which we already knew, but it's so blatant... so blatant... All you have to do is look at his proposed budget to know how little value he wants to return to "the people."

None of which has anything to do with where all this started out, but this is the way my brain works. Or something.
And you might be saying, "Well, don't use eBay, then." Or any service that acts as a parasite, but, really, it's not that easy. Or it is that easy as long as I'm okay with having all the stuff in my garage, because there is no real better option, and that's how they get you.

No, I don't have any solutions. I feel like this is all a big trap we've gotten ourselves into as a society, including insurance companies, which may have been the first big corporate parasites, companies that want to take in as much money as possible but do everything they can to avoid paying out. Or maybe it just all goes back to the elite, ruling class living on the backs of the serfs, and we're all just still serfs who haven't figured out a way to get out of that tyranny yet. At any rate, it's these kinds of thoughts that allow me to understand the growing hate of capitalism by the young.

And they may be right. Maybe service companies shouldn't be allowed to be "for profit."
No for profit hospitals.
No for profit prisons.
No for profit insurance companies.
No for profit platforms that exist only to suck the profit out of other people's work.

No for profit government.
Or government employees who are only there to make themselves rich.

We've been living by the laws of greed for... a very long time. Maybe it's time to try altruism.

Vice (a movie review post)

I wanted to see Vice as soon as I saw the trailers for it, and I'm not going to lie: That was mostly because of Sam Rockwell. Rockwell as W.? I'm in! Despite Rockwell's Oscar win last year, he tends to be pretty underrated in Hollywood. And, since we're on the subject of Rockwell, he was great. I'd say he nailed W. and was very enjoyable to watch; however, his performance pales in comparison to Bale's.

I feel compelled to point out here that I am not a Christian Bale fan. On a personal level, and I say this without ever having met the man, he seems to be an asshole. One of the flaming types. And he was a pretty crappy Batman, though that may have been more Nolan's fault than his. In fact, based on Bale's apparent level of skill, I'm going to have to say that his failing at being Bruce Wayne has to have been bad directing, because Bale is an acting genius.

People always talk about Daniel Day-Lewis and his ability to disappear into a role, which is not not true, but he has nothing on Bale, and Bale doesn't take three to four years between roles because he has to recover from being someone else. Look, knowing that Bale is playing Cheney doesn't help you to see him in his performance of Cheney. For all intents and purposes, Bale was Cheney. It was pretty amazing and, at this point from what I've seen, he deserves the Best Actor Oscar. As much as I'd rather see Bradley Cooper get it.

Then there's Adam McKay, the writer/director. Also the writer/director of The Big Short, which also starred Bale and Steve Carell. McKay's origins doing goofy comedies with Will Ferrell is evident in these more serious movies, but I think it makes them more accessible. Or maybe it doesn't. I don't know. What I do know is that I loved The Big Short. I don't think Vice is quite as good or enjoyable, but I think it's vastly more important.

So, yeah, I don't think Vice is quite Best Picture material -- though it deserves the nomination -- but it may be the most important film of last year. If you want to know how and why we got to where we are today, especially the part where Trump (#fakepresident) got elected, you can see an awful lot of that road in this movie. Now, if McKay will do a movie on Newt Gingrich, you'd be able to see the other part of that road.

Of course, that brings up the question of whether the movie is credible or not and all of the accusations that the movie has a liberal bias. I'm actually not going to get into that. For one reason, McKay closes the movie by... well, not dealing with that question exactly but, certainly, bringing it up. For another, it doesn't matter. Which is the sad thing and part of what the movie is about. The facts don't matter. Just saying the word "facts" at this point is confirming that you have a liberal bias. Like facts are some construct of liberalism while conservatives live in the real world of "truth," or whatever it is that they think of it as, where science is evil (of the Devil) and the destroyer of all that really matters. At any rate, we don't have the whole picture because so much of what Cheney did was in secret. You want to talk about emails...

Oh, no, you really don't, because the email thing was just an excuse.

One way or the other, though, if you want a peek, a tiny brief peek, behind the curtain of subterfuge, you should see this movie, whichever side of the divide you're on.

The State of the... Something

It probably seems as if I've been quiet on the political front lately, but that would just be the blog. Here. It's not that I've wanted to be, I just haven't had time, lately, to construct political posts. They take a lot of work and research and, when everything changes as quickly as it has been, well before I could finish with whatever it was I was writing, it would no longer be exactly relevant.

But this is relevant and, barring Trump's (#fakepresident) resignation or assassination, isn't likely to change soon: We have an Abuser in the White House. A liar. A gaslighter. A destroyer. An anti-Christ (because he certainly is an anti-Christ no matter what you believe about the actual existence or relevance of "Christ" or whether there is or will ever be the Anti-Christ). Someone incapable of any good deed except by accident.

But let's get back to this abuser thing, which is something I've mentioned before, somewhere, but I'm not going to go back and look for it now. However, this current situation with the shutdown of the government over this fucking-wall-shit (which I'm just assuming is still going on, today, on the 29th, as I write this, last week, on the 23rd) is a perfect example of what an abuser in a relationship looks like. And, well, no matter whether you want to be or not, we are all in a relationship with this total piece of shit in the White House.

So, see, jump now to the 28th -- because I wasn't able to finish this piece on the 23rd as I'd intended -- and the shutdown is on hiatus because Trump (#fakepresident) wants to give his fucking speech so fucking bad that he turned the government back on so that he can give it. But not till February 5! LOL Because Nancy (whom he calls... wait for it... Nancy) has his number, and is treating him like the toddler he is.

And it's about fucking time, too, that someone stood up to that asshole. Because that's how you deal with a terrorist -- and he is a terrorist -- you don't negotiate. The same as with toddlers. You don't negotiate. And do you know why? Because they are fucking stupid little whiny kids, and you can't negotiate with stupid. You can only set the boundaries and hold firm to them. Any good parent will know what I'm talking about. Sure, the first time or two or three, there will be tantrums but, once the presidential-brat figures out that that wall is real, he'll quit throwing tantrums and just stay on his side. You just wait; if Nancy keeps dealing with diaper-boy this way, he'll start doing whatever she says pretty soon, because he'll know there's no point in pouting or pitching a fit.

But, anyway, back to this abuser stuff...

This whole thing where he shuts down the government over the wall was never over the wall; if he was concerned with the wall, he would have done this sooner. It was all about punishing the Democrats for taking over the House. He wanted to hurt someone over the devastating losses he suffered in November, so he took it out on the only people he could: government employees. And, of course, despite the fact that he said he would take all the responsibility for shutting down the government, as soon as he did it, he tried to gaslight everyone by trying to pin it on the Democrats. Classic Abuser behavior.

It reminds me of when I was a kid and my dad would ask me a question, I would answer, and he would yell at me, "Don't you talk back to me!" then smack me in the face and tell me how it was my fault for "talking back" when all I was doing was answering the question put to me.

So here we are, on a three-week hiatus of the government shutdown before we return to the new normal of the government being shutdown because the Toddler-in-Chief has Putin's arm up his ass and some Russian agent is wearing an ill-fitting McConnell skin-suit.

What's the State of the Union?
Not good, Sir. Not good.

Love, Belief, and Why It Doesn't Matter

Have you ever been in love? I mean really, really infatuated. Remember that feeling?
Oh, wait... Actually, have you ever known anyone who fell in love? Have you watched him go through that phase when all he can think about is her? Have you watched her go through that phase when he can do no wrong?
Have you ever watched anyone fall in love with someone who was bad? Not just a bad match but a bad person.
Did you try to tell her? Did she listen to you?

You don't need to answer that question, because I already know the answer.
Of course, she didn't listen. He didn't either.
Because when you're in love, you don't listen. That's the curse of being in love.

I could go into all of  the neurochemical reasons for this, but I'm sure most of you aren't interested in the actual science behind love and, if you are, you can do your own research. It's all really quite fascinating. What it boils down to, though, is that "love" masks all the faults of the person who is the subject of the emotion. Even if that person were to stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, the person "in love" with the shooter would vote for him anyway.

Belief (or faith) is just like that. It creates the same sort neurochemical response in the brain, a response that overrides reason.

Basically, love makes people stupid. So does belief.

I could also go into why religious fanaticism is so much worse these days, and widespread, than it was, say, 50 years ago -- which has to do with religions shifting their focus to making sure that the "customer" has an emotional experience -- but it's not important at the moment. And, again, most of you probably don't actually care. Well... either you understand the situation and don't need the information, or you're bought into the religious system and will start making excuses for the Fifth Avenue shooter.

The point is this:
When someone is in love, you can't talk them out of it. There's no amount of objective data you can give someone that will convince them that the person they're in love with is going to damage them. Even if that person is doing it at that very moment.
"He beats you."
"But he loves me."
"If he loves you, he wouldn't beat you."
"It was my fault. I deserved it."
"You never deserve that. He beats you!"
"But he loves me."

Or whatever scenario you want to use.

I'm writing this post on November 5. It was supposed to be my post for today, but I didn't get it finished in time, as you can see by the fact that it has posted after the elections. The election has put this topic in my mind, because this is why you can't talk to Republicans. It's why you shouldn't bother. You can't talk them out of their abusive relationship with Trump (#fakepresident), and that's precisely what it is. He does harm and damage to the people who voted for him right along with everyone else, but they make excuses for him because they are "in love." And it's worse because the vast majority of them have it wrapped up in their fanatical religious beliefs.

This is where the exhortation to get out and vote was going to be (because, I'm sure, at this point, I don't have a lot of Right-leaning readers left (a few, yes, but not a lot), so I hope you did. I have my ballot right here next to me, and my wife and I are going to drop ours off as soon as she's home (remember, it's Monday for me). I'm kind of in holding-my-breath mode to see what happens.

Anyway... I'm in rambling stage, so I'm just gonna go now.
I'm sure I'll have something to say about the election at some point, just not today because I'm out of town.

Roberto Devereux (an opera review post)

Donizetti is one of the most prolific composers of opera who has ever lived, having composed nearly 70 operas in his 50 or so years on Earth. I'm just going to assume, wait, I don't have to assume; he wrote his first opera at 19, so that's better than two a year for the rest of his life. Which I don't know why I'm telling you (or even if I told you before, considering that this is the third Donizetti opera I've now seen) other than to say that Donizetti wrote a LOT of operas, and I'm having to go with idea that they weren't always good. On the one hand, I loved Don Pasquale but, then... Well, then there's this.

I want to make it clear, here, that my problem is specifically with the opera itself, not the production. As is generally the case with SFO, the production was top notch. The set, while not as good as the previous opera we saw, was still pretty fantastic and based, loosely, on the Globe theater. It was meant as a metaphor, but I'm not sure that bit really worked. The costumes were great. And the performances...

Okay, Sondra Radvanovsky, who played Queen Elizabeth, was amazing. Seriously, she was incredible. Both her singing and her acting. I can't quite say the same for the rest of the cast. Not that any of them were bad, they just didn't rise to the same level as Radvanovsky.

And this is where bits of the opera begin to fall apart for me, though. It's a bel canto style opera, which means, approximately, "beautiful song." Donizetti was one of the central figures in bel canto. On the surface, that sounds fine, right, an opera with beautiful songs? The problem is that bel canto can better be described as happy sounding music. It's all light and bubbly and stuff and, well, Roberta Devereux is a tragedy. The words and the music don't fit together at all. It's a little disconcerting to have someone singing about betrayal and heartache while sounding as if she's singing about a glorious spring day.

Then there's the bit where Donizetti and his librettist, Salvadore Cammarano, took an actual historical event and completely fictionalized it... to get at the "emotional truth" of the story, they said. Um, wait... If you completely change the story so that it has no real relation to the things that actually happened, how can you get at any emotional truth involved in what really happened? The short answer: You can't! And they went for the wrong "emotional truth" with this story, anyway.

Which brings us to the biggest issue of Roberto Devereux:
Elizabeth governed England during a time of tremendous prosperity for the country. "She" defeated the Spanish Armada, making England ruler of the seas. And while I know it can be debated how much of this or how much of that can be attributed to Elizabeth, Donizetti reduces her to a petty, lovesick adolescent who has people executed for spite and personal vengeance. A female Trump (#fakepresident), if you will.

It was disappointing, to say the least. It played up all of the worst cliches about women while adding some horrible plot devices, including what can best be described as a "magic" ring that worked as a "get out of execution free" card. This is not an opera I'd ever want to see again, no matter the production. And it puts in doubt future Donizetti operas. Yeah, despite how much I loved Pasquale, this one was so bad that I'm not sure I want to see anything else by the guy. Especially since I wasn't crazy about Lucia di Lammermoor, either. Maybe another of his comedies.

September: A Month of Photos

I'm not going to go into a long explanation here; I'm just behind on things. Writing things. Which includes, actually, the blog, even at only two "writing" posts a week. Which is not to say I don't have things to write about, I do. But you'll have to wait till October to read them, even if they'll be "out of date" by the point. Because they won't be, even if they are not things still in the news. I mean, come on, THERE ARE STILL KIDS IN CONCENTRATION CAMPS, but the news has completely passed over continuing to talk about it because, I suppose, it's old news at this point. But people OUGHT to be talking about it, because it's a fucking travesty.
Among all of the other travesties.
Like Trump's (#fakepresident) renewed and invigorated attack on the environment and his seeming focused intent on killing us all. Or, at least, everyone who is not the 1%, because, I'm sure, the 1% will be able to buy their way out of any catastrophe. Or they think they'll be able to, anyway. Probably Elon Musk is the only safe one among us, because he'll just fly off to live on Mars. Or something.

Anyway...

September will be a whole month of pictures. Having not set those posts up, as I write this, I'm not saying there will be no words, but there aren't going to be a lot of them. However, I will still be around, and I will respond to comments as needed. Which means I will respond to comments that need responses.

So, you know, enjoy the visual commentary on my life.
Because that's what it is, right.
(Yeah, that's not a question, not even a rhetorical one; it's just a statement.)

Issues in Story Telling: Unsympathetic Characters

This was supposed to be one of those great, underappreciated movies, right? Right? One of those movies that only the Academy can appreciate because all of the rest of us are ignorant, low class plebeians. Right?

Unfortunately, it's kind of true. Kind of. Because it is the kind of movie that only entitled white men can appreciate, and it's only because the Academy and other award agencies are mostly made up of entitled white men that this movie received any recognition.

This movie can be summed up in exactly one word: BAD.

The fact that it won the Oscar for best original screenplay is a travesty and can be summed up by the fact that it was written by a self-involved Boomer for other self-involved Boomers, i.e. entitled white men. I can't really argue Casey Affleck's best actor win because he was the only thing that made the movie at all watchable. I think it must take an amazing talent to bring such a lifeless, flat script to any kind of life at all. Or it could just be that the self-involved white male Boomers felt sympathy for the despicable character of Lee Chandler.

But Lee Chandler is an example of bad storytelling. The problem here is that we are, actually supposed to feel sympathy for Lee Chandler. Obviously, he has suffered some tragedy and doesn't know how to cope with it and it has driven him into isolation. On the surface, sure, he seems like a sympathetic character. But as the movie progresses and we find out what happened, we find that he's just an asshole full of self pity.

In a nutshell, it's like this:
Lee's brother dies and leaves his kid to Lee in his will. His teenage son. Yes, that's almost exactly how it happens, and I'm pretty sure you can't do that, but let's pretend there are no issues with that bit. Lee doesn't want the kid and is pretty much an asshole about the whole thing, including getting into bar fights with little to no provocation. Of course, the movie opens with Lee being an asshole before we find out about his brother, so the death of his brother has nothing to do with the asshole-ness.

Oh, wait, suffered a tragedy, right? Well, as the backstory gets filled in, we find that Lee was also a flaming asshole before that tragedy occurred and that the tragedy occurred because of his asshole-ness. Lee was the kind of guy who would come in while is wife was sick in bed with a fever and force himself on her after she'd said she didn't feel like having sex -- 104 degree fever, snot running out of her nose -- but Lee said he wasn't bothered by her being sick so it was okay and, so, she lets him do it.

I have a huge problem with that scene in the movie, but not because I disbelieve that she might have let him do it. It's the kind of thing where a woman might give in because it would take too much energy -- remember, she's sick! -- to say no, but they played it off as an "aw, shucks" moment. "Aw, you're just so cute when I tell you no and you won't listen. You know what, you go ahead and fuck me all you want, because me saying no really means yes." It's the kind of situation where an entitled white guy would totally expect to get his way for the sake of "white-guy-ness." It made me kind of sick, certainly disgusted. This is the guy you want me to have sympathy for?

But it gets better! Or, you know, worse, because they go on to show his asshole-ness in all its glory. Lee has a gathering of his white male friends over. They're in his... I don't know... his man cave? It's the basement room of his house and has a pool table and "man" stuff. There's probably like 10 of them, and they are all drunk and loud. Which is fine, I suppose, until we find out its 2:00am and they're keeping the whole house awake: his wife and his two young children. Lee and his buddies think it's funny when Lee's wife comes down and demands that they all leave. "She can't talk to us like that!" Even though they do. Eventually.

Lee is a self-involved, entitled white male asshole. He suffers a tragedy that he causes and, rather than use that situation for self-reflection or something beneficial, he continues to be a self-involved, entitled white male asshole. The death of his brother does nothing more than to give him greater opportunity to spread that asshole-ness around.

Then there's the kid: Patrick. He seems to take after his uncle (Lee) rather than his father, because he, also, is a self-involved little asshole who seems to be more annoyed at the inconvenience of his father's death than anything else. "Seriously, Dad, I'm busy trying to fuck my multiple girlfriends and your death is really getting in my way." He's a shit of a kid, and there is plenty of evidence in the movie that he's just a shit of a kid and not being one because his dad died. Like, evidently, he likes to start fights with his hockey teammates and is in trouble for that frequently. And I mentioned the multiple girlfriends, right? That he keeps hidden from each other because none of the girls in question would be cool with the way Patrick spreads the "wealth" around.

Look, it's okay to fill your stories with despicable characters, just look at Rowling's The Casual Vacancy, but you need to know they're despicable. Trying to write a complete asshole as a sympathetic character only serves to display your own asshole-ness, rather like Trump (#fakepresident) and his constant "woe is me" diatribe about how he's the one being persecuted rather than the one doing the persecution. Having your asshole actions pointed out is not, contrary to the belief of assholes, persecution.

The most unforgivable part of the movie is the ending. Lee's ex-wife -- His ex-wife who is married, now, to another man and has just had a child with him (I think? I can't remember now if she'd given birth by the end of the movie or not.). -- comes to him to tell him how she forgives him for causing the death of their children (the unspeakable tragedy) and that she's still in love with him...
What the fuck?!?!
I'm sorry, but this is the exact the same situation as her being in bed sick and telling him that she doesn't want to have sex. "Look, I know you burned up our house and killed our kids because you were busy being a drunk asshole, but, really, you've punished yourself too much and too long, and you need to move on; after all, I forgive you. Oh, and yeah, I'm still in love with you and never stopped loving you. Even though you killed our kids." In other words, "Aw, shucks, you're just a lovable white guy who shouldn't be held accountable for his actions, so stop punishing yourself."

To put it mildly, there was nothing I found redeeming about this movie. That anyone found the character of Lee Chandler to be sympathetic boggles my mind but, then, the entitledness of the Baby Boomers often boggles my mind. And, yes, the writer of the screenplay is solidly a Boomer. And a white male.

So I'm just going to put it out there: The protagonist in your story generally ought to be sympathetic in some way to the audience. Or you need to have the awareness that your characters aren't sympathetic and be using them to some other purpose. You should not, however, try to pawn off your asshole characters as somehow being worth our sympathy. That's just gross.

The Burr Advice

Obviously, I never knew Aaron Burr so never received any advice from him. I don't really know if he would have uttered the words, "Don't let them know what you're against or what you're for," or not. It doesn't really matter as it's the words I'm dealing with moreso than Burr. Well, moreso than Burr the historical figure. I'm definitely dealing with Burr, the character, from Hamilton.

That said, Burr was a despicable figure, a true scum-of-the-earth human being. And, for what it's worth, I'm willing to go along with Miranda's interpretation of him, on the whole, since it's based on Ron Chernow's book about Hamilton. I would say that Chernow is a more than reliable as a source.

The Burr of the Broadway musical is a conniving piece of trash, a man constantly playing the middle so that he can make sure he comes down on the winning side. A bit of historical curiosity for you: He's the politician who invented going door to door and getting out in the neighborhood, which was not exactly a good thing. He wanted to get people to vote for him because of how friendly he was, how personable he was, not because of what he stood for. He wanted it to be a popularity contest, something like running for class president in high school.

"Vote for me because we could buddies!"

When I was a kid, I was into GI Joe and Transformers. Mostly, I was into the toys, and I collected them and kept them on display in my room. One day, my mom was in my room talking to me about... something I don't remember... when she abruptly inserted, "I wish you didn't have all of these war toys." It was completely out of the blue and, while not exactly confusing, a little confusing.

So I said the logical thing, "Why?"

And she said, "Because if you were ever drafted, you wouldn't be able to tell them you're a pacifist."

Which totally blew my mind. I think I said something like, "Why would I want to tell them that?" I don't really believe in violence as an answer to things, but I'm also not a pacifist. It would never have occurred to me to try to lie to get out of being drafted like, you know, claiming to have bone spurs.

Which brings us back to this idea of keeping your political leanings out of your public life. Not that most of us have a "public" life but, as small as mine is, I do have a public life. The general "wisdom" among my "fellow writers" is that we should keep our politics and our personal beliefs out of our public lives. Rather in the same way that people are saying saying that football players should keep their protests out of sports.

Not that the two things are actually similar. People want football players to keep their mouths shut (or their knees unbent) just so that they don't have to think about what it's like to be African American in America. Writers tell other writers to keep their politics and beliefs to themselves because they'll alienate potential readers if they're open about what they believe.

And that's true. I know that I have lost followers since I started writing politics.

However! The trade off is keeping your mouth shut about the injustices in the world (or, if you're a Trump (#fakepresident) supporter, supporting and praising those injustices). You know why the Nazis succeeded in so much destruction? People kept their mouths shut. People played it safe. People tried not to draw attention to themselves. And you can pfft all you want at this being similar to a pre-WWII Germany, but you can only do that if you're ignorant of the history. Ignorant.

Look, here's the thing:
When I was a kid in school learning about World War II and the Nazis, everyone always said, "Oh, I would never have done that. I wouldn't have kept silent. I would have taken a stand. I would never never never have let anything like that happen or have been a part of it." Everyone said that. But we're in those days right now, the days when people need to stand up and protest fascism and racism and all of the abuses of the Trump (#fakepresident) administration.

Well, for good or ill, all of you out there keeping your mouth shut, we know which side of that equation you would have been on. And all of you out there supporting Trump (#fakepresident), we all know you would have been right in with the Nazi party.
Congratulations on that.

In the end, I'm with Hamilton, "I'd rather be divisive than indecisive; drop the niceties."
Seriously, the Republicans have moved all of this way past "civility." Don't fall for that trap. It's just meant to get you to let them do what they want to do without complaining about it.

Make America Great: Stepping into the Future

While it can't be said that America was ever great in practice, an argument could be made for it having been great in concept. Or, at least, in concept in its own collective consciousness. If that time existed, and I think it did, it was in the post-World War II years and lasted up to around 1970. The assassination of Kennedy and, then, King wounded it, but, really, it was Nixon who drove a stake right into the heart of the idea of American greatness. Then he twisted it around a bit and pissed on the corpse for good measure.

Let's take a quick look at post-WWII America:
First, America had just saved the world. Almost literally. Whether that was actually true or not doesn't matter, because that's how Americans viewed it.
Second, America was helping to rebuild the world, including offering great assistance to peoples who had just been its enemies. Sure, maybe some of that was motivated by the guilt of having nuked Japan but, still, we were doing it.
Third, there was a push toward equality for all. True, it hadn't gotten there, but people began to see it, finally, as a possibility. It brought hope.
Fourth, World War II led the US into a technology boom, which was heightened when Russia launched Sputnik. We had a great focus on education and science and the future, and we really believed that anything and everything was possible.
Fifth, because we believed in the future, we began to build for the future and infrastructure expenditures show it. It was all rather altruistic because it was an idea, not for those doing it, but for those who would come after.

That was the environment the Boomer generation grew up in, one in which there was huge growth, plenty of everything which was handed to them on a platter so they didn't have to work for it, and the future was so bright they had to wear shades. Perhaps, it's no wonder they long for "the good old days."

Of course, their focus is on the physical output of the ideals of a previous generation, ideals they themselves don't hold. They are a generation of consumers and profit and, now, through Trump (#fakepresident), Republicans are engaged in an act of necrophilia. The focus on coal and other dead industries is nothing more than trying to fuck a corpse back to life.

And the worst part? Trump (#fakepresident) is doing it on live TV and twitter for the whole world to watch, dragging us along for the ride. Not that Turkeyneck McConnell, Paul Ryan, and a slew of others aren't humping away with him.

I think the only way to step into the future is to push the Boomers out of power. Probably all of them. Even the "good" ones (and I do think there are some good ones). Leave them to have their orgy of the dead on their own.

It's time to stop letting the future slip away.

Because we are well on our way to not even being on the bus to the future. It's like we were driving that bus, then let China take over, and, now, we're just getting off entirely.

There are so many things on the verge of happening:
Self-driving cars
Flying cars
Sustainable energy
Laser guns! (oh, wait, China already did this!)
a Mars colony
Asteroid mining
Feeding the whole world
Curing cancer
Well, I could go on for a while...

Do you know why none of those things are actually happening? Boomers and their fear of profit loss by not being allowed to rape the Earth and kill species.

It's time to put or focus on the technologies of the future because we can't go there by trying to make coal the fuel of the future. It's the fuel of a long-dead past, and we need to leave it there.

Look, I'm not saying you're ever going to get that personal jetpack, but, if you do, it certainly won't be coal powered. It's time to get rid of the G.Old.P. They are the proverbial weight around our collective neck tying us to the past. Personally, I'm tired of the past.
It's time to step into the future. I want to see it before I'm dead.