Category Archives: Blogs' Archive

Damn, this is the problem with binge watching, it’s almost 1:30 in the morning and I look up and haven’t written my blog yet.  It’s an interesting premise, but mostly lots and lots of action.  The idea is there is another species that walks among us, Homo Sensorium, and they come in clusters of 8 people who can read each other’s minds totally, like live vicariously in each other’s bodies, and so the Korean lady kick boxer is always getting called to Africa, or London, or Mexico, to kick somebody’s ass, and the trans girl in San Francisco is hacking computers for everybody, and the African bus driver gets called on as the getaway driver, and the Chicago cop or the German safe cracker come in whenever it’s a big shoot ’em up.
Occasionally, they offer a bit of scientific insight into what’s going on, they explain the premise better than most shows which use sci-fi as an excuse for action adventure, and they also deal with some real ethical dilemmas and at a few points make reference to how their connection resembles what’s beginning to happen via the internet, but mostly it’s fast paced action, great music, and interesting characters in interlinking stories.
A bit too much gay sex for my tastes, but fair is fair, there are plenty of heterosexual sex scenes, too, and I’m sure there are some people who would like fewer long, drawn out martial arts scenes where you know who’s going to win, and some would like fewer scenes of hackers typing away like mad, racing against the clock, or other cliches.
Over all, a goddamn brilliant damn show.

Yesterday the wife and I were out doing stuff, we had to go to the American embassy because she wanted to find out about getting a Green Card and we waited about an hour and then they said we should just apply on-line, but the woman we talked to was very nice about it.
It was raining when we came back out but trams are frequent, so  we didn’t  get too wet and we went to the food court at Zlaty Smichov (Golden Smiley?  Something like that).  We went to Kavarna Creperie and it was very nice.  I had a bagel with chicken strips, camembert cheese, and bacon which struck me as humorous because bagels are, originally, a Jewish delicacy and, you know, bacon.  Not kosher at all.
So, I wrote a little poem about it:

Cultural diversity
or cultural appropriation
this morning at a creperie

I had a bagel with cheese and bacon

I posted that at a couple of my poetry groups, as I do.  I’m not selective.  I don’t post absolutely every poem I write, because even as biased as I am  (I maintain that I am the most under-rated living English language poet in the world.  Which doesn’t necessarily mean I’m great, but you don’t get much more under-rated than not rated at all) I know that some of the stuff I spew is completely without merit.  But, a four liner which makes sense and includes a little humor, sure.
I didn’t expect much reaction, because I never get much, even with my best work, but there were a couple of comments.  And by a couple, I mean two.  In the first, a woman expressed her outrage.  “What is this?  Is this an attack?  Is this a request for information?  You obviously don’t understand what we’re trying to do at this site.”  (It’s a poetry site.  People post poetry.  Most of it is really long, doesn’t rhyme and is angsty as fuck.)
Her second comment was “You know what.  I’ve seen your previous posts, and you contribute nothing of worth.  You’re blocked.”
I suspect she was reacting to my last poem, which was an ode to Bernie Sanders.  Those Hillary people have no sense of humor at all.
But, now I’m the one making assumptions.

Of course, the major hurdle is getting the Democratic nomination.  The DNC, and their allies in the mainstream media, which is virtually all of the mainstream media, are dead set against him and not at all unwilling to cheat.
But, just look at all the bozos they’ve put up against him.  Buttigieg and Messem list mayor as the highest political office they have achieved.  Marianne Williamson wrote a couple of self-help books.  Castro was once Secretary of something.  And, among the candidates with more impressive resumés, Harris is pro-prison, Booker is pro-pharmaceuticals, O’Rourke is against medicare for all, Klobuchar throws things at her interns, and Elizabeth Warren does not have a history of coming out on top in arguments with Trump.
Bernie needs 51% of the delegates on the first ballot, or the DNC will cheat (again) and lose the election (again) because they’re cool with that, they’ll still get paid.  I think he’ll get it.  He’s just that popular.
Then, there is the question of the general election.  My brother is a blue no matter who person and he’s worried that Bernie Sanders will be another George McGovern.  Here’s why I don’t think so.
Blue no matter who is basically two groups of people.  The DNC, of course, will officially stand by their own pledge.  It will be reluctant, but they’d look real hypocritical if they said they were voting for Trump.  Some may do that, of course, in the privacy of the voting booth.  But their numbers are negligible.  We’re talking a couple of thousand people -those who are holding a high enough office that the corruption money is worth it to them.
Then there are the rank and file blue no matter who voters.  They will have no problem voting for Bernie.  He’s for all the good things.  Like cleaning up the environment, and giving everybody health care, and legalizing marijuana, and not starting wars.  These are popular positions.
Then, there are the conservatives and independents who like and admire Bernie even though they think some of his policies are wack.  Likeability is important.  It’s what most people base their vote on.
Of course, the press will try to dump on Bernie every day, because they are all controlled by billionaires, but they won’t be able to ignore him any more, once he’s the nominee.  And, no matter what they write about him, it winds up making him look good.  Because he’s Bernie.

A couple of weeks ago, when there was the now-infamous land line poll, in which only old, technologically challenged people were interviewed (they only called land lines), and Joe Biden was promptly, and loudly, declared the winner of the poll and the presumptive Democratic nominee.
Polls themselves have little weight, there’s a new one every day on Facebook.  The amount of press a poll gets weighs a lot.
So, knee-jerk Berners like myself were outraged, and have posted many posts about DNC shenanigans, press shenanigans, and how outrageous it is that they are trying to rig the primaries again, and to rig them in favor of a losing candidate.
Then I saw one comment from one guy on Facebook, and he (I think it was a he, maybe it was a she, it doesn’t really matter) said (I paraphrase)  We should learn from this.  We should be campaigning in the Old People’s Homes, and at Bingo games, and any place else that old people who still have land lines hang out.  Because that’s a demographic that’s often overlooked, and could probably be won to our cause.
I realized right away that this poster was right.  It doesn’t do much good to point out that the mainstream media is biased.  They won’t change, and the general public has forgotten about that poll already.
So, we need to address that demographic, and pivot to the next poll, the next speech, the next issue.
It is often said that no one’s mind is ever changed by an internet comment.  Well, mine was.

When the Burj Khalifa was completed I thought “That’s it.  The race is over.  This is so much higher than any other skyscraper, and already so impractical and not cost-effective, that nobody’s even going to try and top it.  It will probably remain as the world’s tallest building for the length of my time, and possibly until the end of the anthropocene era.”
I thought wrong, apparently.  I guess I underestimated the spirit of human competitiveness, or maybe it’s not as financially impractical as I thought, or maybe the state of human architecture and engineering is more advanced than I thought.
In any event, this morning I was glancing at a list (I hate lists on the internet, but I do sometimes get sucked in) of 10 tallest buildings to be completed in 2020, and my eye was drawn to the #1 contender, as none of the others tops the Burj Khalifa.
Jeddah Tower, in Saudi Arabia, will be over a kilometer tall.  That is a darned impressive milestone.  It’s ironic that it is being built in such a shithole country, a country where women are seriously oppressed, and people are executed for homosexuality.  And a whole bunch of other stuff, too, they have executions, frequently, in public.  It’s also uncertain that it will be completed, whether because of financial or logistic difficulties, I’m not sure.  But, the project in on hold at the moment, and only about 3/4ths complete.
So, it’s interesting, but hold the fireworks.
In fact, even if it is completed, hold the fireworks.  Having the tallest building in the world is not going to make Saudi Arabia a better, more tolerant country, that does not murder journalists by cutting off all their body parts one by one with a bone saw.
What the world needs is not more and higher skyscrapers.  What the world needs is greener buildings.  Greener homes, greener offices, greener schools, greener hospitals, libraries, restaurants, and shops.
There should be prizes.  If there were a billion dollar first prize awarded annually for the greenest structure, based on lowest carbon footprint, there would be a race to find ways to lower the carbon footprint until, pretty soon, we would cross that threshold and all new constructions would have a reverse carbon footprint, and function as purifiers of the atmosphere.
And the world would be a better place.