Category Archives: Blogs' Archive

The highlight of my day was going out for a walk (masked, of course, and I kind of hate that, because it doesn’t feel free, but that’s just how it is) and I scared a pheasant out of the grass, and got rained on, just a little bit.
But, I also took advantage of yet another day of inactivity to watch two movies I’d never seen before, although they were kind of big when they came out.
The first one was Catch Me If You Can, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks, and Christopher Walken’s dad, and it was a great scene when Walken said to Hanks (who was an FBI agent) “I would never give up my son” and that just took me right back to the movie where Walken was on the other side of that issue, trying to get Dennis Hopper to give up his son.
The second one was Crazy Rich Asians.
I liked them both pretty well, kept my interest throughout, but neither one was exactly what I thought it would be (and that’s a good thing)
CMIYC was a bit slower paced than I thought it would be, and I thought he was going to be more like a super criminal, like impossible to catch and of mythic proportions, but the fact that it was based on a real case mitigated that a bit. He was just a kid when he started impersonating other people, his total crime spree was only a few years, and he almost got caught a few times. But, it was interesting. How he did it, how he got away with it, which, in the end, he didn’t, but he sort of did.
Crazy Rich Asians was more than just the romantic comedy I expected it to be. There was no cute meet scene, the film starts with them already being a couple, she just doesn’t realize how incredibly rich his family is. It was more of a family drama with a few quirky characters thrown in for laughs. And a tourist ad for Singapore. It was definitely that.

Some politicians can get away with anything. Some can’t. Ronald Reagan is the first president I remember being referred to as ‘Teflon,’ but I’m sure this dichotomy goes back into the deep, dark depths of the past.
Clinton could get away with anything. That’s why they called him Slick Willie. His wife never had the same talent.
Donald Trump has the talent, big time. He just stands up there and spews out ignorant, racist bullshit and his idiot, racist fans love him for it.
In fact, most politicians who last have the talent, whereas people like Ed Muskie, Howard Dean, Michael Dukakis and Al Franken can have their political careers ended by a bad soundbite, an unfortunate image, or a bullshit accusation. In a heartbeat.
Joe Biden does not have the talent. He is where he is because the DNC and the press have colluded, up to this point, to say nothing bad about him. But, he’s getting a ton of shit on line and it’s not going to go away.

One of the reasons, I think, is a political technique I call the pivot. The good ones can all do it. If a reporter asks a question they don’t like, they’ll say something glib and then turn to something else, sometimes within the same sentence. Those politicians who can pivot well, do well.
But Joe can’t do that. When asked about the sexual allegations, he can’t shift to another topic. Why? Because he has no other topic. Bernie Sanders would have said “It’s all untrue, but let me tell you why we need Medicare for All,” because that’s his signature issue and he could talk about it all night long. Biden can’t pivot to the environment, or jobs, or reforming government, or reforming the justice system, or anything really because he’s been on the wrong side of these issues for his whole career.
So, he’s stuck answering questions about Tara Reade. Tough luck, Joe.

In trying to find a topic for tonight’s blog, I tried really hard to find a topic that wasn’t Covid-19 or the American election, but as I scrolled through Facebook looking for inspiration, that’s pretty much all there was. I did see an article about dinosaurs, but didn’t bother actually reading it.
Dinosaurs are cool and all, I liked Jurassic Park, but I’m not really excited about the fact that new fossil finds have radically changed our view of dinosaurs, because it doesn’t matter. Our view of dinosaurs before was cool, and our view now, I’m sure, is cool. It was a long time ago and doesn’t affect our lives.
I’m also on a lot of poetry sites, but I don’t want to drag the arguments people have over there (rhyme v. non-rhyme, what is the purpose of poetry, just how much should you totally ignore the reader and keep on defending any old word salad you toss as ‘self-expression’ before you realize you’re writing absolute shit and should just give up, etc…
Also, since most people aren’t interested at all, any side taken in these debates is a subset of an already miniscule subset.
So, tomorrow maybe I’ll come up with a better topic. Now, I’m going to get back to ‘The Last Kingdom.’

For the ardent Bernie or Bust person, there are basically 4 options open to us, barring Bernie Sanders re-activating his campaign, which I don’t think he’s likely to do.
1) Not vote. It is the popular choice. In the 2016 election, far more people didn’t vote than voted for either candidate. Almost as many people didn’t vote as voted for both candidates combined. 2020 might be even higher. Some people never vote at all. They say things like “I don’t vote. It only encourages them.” and “No matter who you vote for, the government always wins” which are kind of clever, fun things to say. You won’t be barred from the cool kid’s table for not voting, that’s for sure.

2) Hold your nose and vote for creepy old Joe. Not my choice. The way I see it, if Biden wins it will signal to the Democrats that they can nominate any old pile of shit, because that’s the way to win. They’ll never nominate anybody decent ever again. So, I’m not advising anybody to do that. I’m just listing the available options.

3) Write in Bernie. A healthy thing to do, a fuck you to the system. I’m sure it will make you feel good to do it. But, it doesn’t actually accomplish anything.

4) Vote Green. If they get over 5% of the vote, they get full ballot access in future elections. And if Bernie or Busters vote for them, they’ll be over that easily. And their agenda is, essentially, Bernie’s agenda.
So, if you like Sanders because of his positions, and I think that’s why most of us like him, Green is the obvious choice.

It is late, the end of a completely unproductive, stay at home day, as each day becomes more like every day before it than the day before it in an infinite regression.
I watched several episodes of The Last Kingdom, and the episodes are an hour long. It’s sort of historical, I justify it like that. I checked on Wikipedia, as I do. King Alfred is represented pretty close to historical accounts, but his nephew Aethelwold, who is presented as a drunken, womanizing fool, which is why he wasn’t the king, but in reality he was an infant at the time of Alfred’s coronation. Still got screwed out of being king, but for different reasons. The main character, Uhtred, had almost nothing to do with the historical Uhtred, who came about a century later and spent most of his time fighting Scots instead of Danes. Ubba was a real character, and some of the others. Some of the events, most of the battles, and the overall sweep of history, plus lots of super bloody fight scenes and unrealistically good looking people having sex makes for a great show.
Then, because I figure Sam needs a few history lessons and I can’t keep up with the math or physics he’s learning in school, we watched a film about Churchill, The Darkest Hour. Meh. Entertaining film, didn’t cover any new ground. And just now I’m watching my second Dave Chapelle comedy special in a row.
Talk to you tomorrow.