Category Archives: Blogs' Archive

There are a couple of political groups whose views I think are completely unreasonable, and support for them marks somebody, in my opinion, as somebody who hasn’t thought things through, at the very least. Libertarians and Anarchists. They are very different, of course. Libertarians are basically Republicans who might have slightly more liberal attitudes toward marijuana and the sex industry, but mostly just don’t want any regulation on their shady little businesses. Anarchists are just nuts who like wearing masks and throwing shit. Their basic argument, that we’d be better off without any government at all, is pretty weak when you realize it means public hospitals, schools, fire departments, and poli…oh, wait. Look what just happened in Minneapolis.
A couple of white cops (from the names I saw, one might have been Asian) held a man down, one of them had his knee on the man’s neck, until he died. The man, George Floyd, had been inside his own car when the police decided to hassle him for ‘intoxication.’ Not drunk driving, mind you. Just sitting in his car, drunk. Or maybe on drugs, whatever. He wasn’t waving a gun around. He hadn’t robbed anybody. But, he was black. And the police killed him.
There were lots of witnesses. People filmed the incident. People were telling the police, “Hey, you’re killing that guy.” Didn’t stop them. People tried to intervene. The police told them to stay back.
It makes me wonder if the anarchists aren’t right. If maybe we wouldn’t be safer without any police at all.
In any event, all of the officers present should be charged either with murder (in the case of the one who kept his knee on Mr. George’s neck long after any resistance had stopped) or accessory to murder. And they should be convicted. There is video evidence. There is eye witness evidence. There is no excuse.

Things are starting to get back to normal a little bit here. Sam went back to work at KFC today but they had to have their masks on, as did their customers, although I guess they were allowed to remove them to eat. Personally, I wouldn’t mind seeing the quarantine continue a bit till we’re more certain, but I understand that the quarantine has been harder for some others. For me, it’s just meant staying at home, watching Netflix and getting high a lot. Sort of like my usual life, just a tad lazier.
Anyway, as I was walking to the Metro today, one of my neighbors said to me “You know, you don’t need to wear the mask any more.” (actually, you do in most places)
Don’t get me wrong. This is a very nice lady, she knows everybody in the neighborhood and she’s always pleasant and friendly to me. Salt of the earth.
But, I remember a few years back. It may have been the Mayan apocalypse in 2012. It wasn’t Y2K because we weren’t living here yet then, but it was one of those events that come around every few years, when the Jesus people are saying that the end times are upon us. She stopped me, probably in about the same stretch of sidewalk as today, to tell me it was time to get right with Jesus because that’s what her preacher had said, the world was ending.
Well, the world didn’t end. So, while I like this person very much, I do not consider her a source of good advice. I’m going to be wearing a mask for a week or two after the official all clear, I think. Just to be on the safe side.

It certainly doesn’t look as if Bernie is going to unsuspend his campaign, no matter how obviously unelectable Biden makes himself. This is a damned shame. But, he’s even asking Bernie delegates not to make a big stink at the convention, which kind of pisses me off.
But what if there was another candidate who was just like Bernie, who we could switch our allegiance to, somebody who is still in the race? Somebody who believes in a Green New Deal, who wants to put up more windmills and solar panels, build high speed rail all across the country, clean the air and save the planet, just like Bernie. Somebody who wants to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, just like Bernie. Somebody who wants Medicare for All (the lack of which is one of the reasons over 100,000 Americans have died from the Covid-19 virus) just like Bernie. Somebody who wants to legalize marijuana, and end private prisons, just like Bernie. Somebody who can speak coherently and doesn’t insult people at random, just like Bernie. Somebody who’s never had a sex scandal, a nepotism scandal, or a plagiarism scandal, just like Bernie.
It seems logical to me. As much as we love Bernie, the reason we were supporting him were those policies. Which means that, even though the candidate and those policies have diverged, we should, given a chance, continue to vote for those policies. Continue the fight.
And such a candidate exists. He is Howie Hawkins, of the Green Party.

I just finished reading ‘All Tomorrow’s Parties’ by William Gibson, an author I’ve avoided up till now because I’m not really a computer geek and thought some of the tech and terms might make for tough sledding.
But, with the quarantine, I figured it’s a good time to read books that are a bit challenging, so I did. It wasn’t as hard as I thought. Confusing in parts, but not really so tech detailed that there was anything I didn’t understand. There was VR, there was AI, there was a sexy hologram, and there was the guy who was living in a cardboard box in a Tokyo metro station and monitoring the whole world, but there wasn’t too much nerdy stuff about the inner workings, and the book was written in 1999, so all that stuff is old hat by now.
In fact, although set ‘in the future,’ it seemed to be set in sort of an alternate present, and one that is similar enough to our own present, that it didn’t really seem like sci-fi at all.
Interesting enough, though. I’d give it 3 stars out of 5.
I’m also reading a book about famous inventors, and how quirky they are (or were, in some cases) in their private lives, and Ulysses, by Joyce, who I’m finding much less readable than Gibson. Oh, well. Lots of time inside, and no better time for it.

Full disclaimer straight up, right off the bat, I, like Joe Biden, am whitey white white, not a person of color by any definition, unless that definition includes sort of an off beige.
But, Joe Biden is the one who is running for president, and Joe Biden who said, to a black interviewer, “If you’re still deciding between me and Trump, then you ain’t black, man.”
There are multiple things wrong with that sentence. First of all, it’s not just Biden v. Trump. People, people of all races, are allowed to vote for Howie Hawkins of the Green Party, or any of the other numerous names on the ballot. It is clear that the DNC’s strategy is just to keep hammering away at that ‘Us v. Them’ argument, which did not work for them in 2016, and seems unlikely to in 2020.
Second, what’s this ‘still deciding’ stuff. It’s early stages. Joe is not the nominee yet, and we are still six months away from the election. The choice seems clear to me (I’m voting Green because both Biden and Trump suck), but there are a lot of people, like millions, who will still be making up their mind in late October. They are dumb asses, they probably shouldn’t be allowed to vote, but they are.
Then there’s the whole thing of Joe Biden telling a black man that he isn’t black if he doesn’t vote for Biden. As stated above, not my place to call it, but if I was black I would be pissed off.