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I read an article today about how Trump never expected to win, did not want to be president, and was totally surprised by the outcome.  I believe that.

It was a widespread rumor during the campaign that there was an agreement between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, that they would both run for president and that way one of them was sure to win.  Of course, from Hillary’s side, she was sure that would be her, and she wanted to be president very much.  But, the rumor was basically based on one photo of them together, laughing, at Donald and Melania’s wedding, and a whole lot of guesswork.  Not even guesswork, really, just speculation.  It’s like investigating Jill Stein because of that photograph where she’s sitting at the same table as Vladimir Putin.  It’s not only not proof, it’s not even enough to base a good conspiracy theory on.

However, now we know (from her emails) that she colluded with the press to try to get Trump more publicity (to elevate him as a ‘Pied Piper’ candidate.  You have to wonder about that choice of words.  Is she familiar with the fairy tale?  Is she aware it did not end well?)  And we know a lot more about what a devious, power hungry, corporate friendly person she really is, so the whole thing, in retrospect, seems very likely.
The thing is, though, if you accept the preposition that Trump wasn’t trying to win, what does that say about Hillary Clinton?  How bad a candidate do you have to be to lose against someone who isn’t trying to win?  You have to be such a bad candidate that you alienate half of your own party.  You have to be such a bad candidate that you spend most of the campaign at fund raising dinners available only to wealthy people.  You have to be such a bad candidate that you don’t bother to make any campaign appearances in states you desperately need to win.

Amazingly bad, really.

I know, it’s not nice to make fun of, or be overly  critical of, the families of famous horrible politicians, and usually I try to respect that rule.  By usually, I mean more than 50% of the time, which I consider admirable restraint.

But, there are exceptions.  If the family members are also famous horrible  politicians, like with the Clintons or another of Washington’s most mockable  couples, James Carville and Mary Matalin, but since she worked for Bush and him for Bill Clinton, you don’t hear much about them any  more, that’s one exception. If the family members have some active role in the famous horrible politicians career, that’s another.  We made fun of Billy Carter but nobody took it too seriously because we knew he didn’t actually have any influence on his brother.  Nancy Reagan,  on the other hand, deserved every bit of criticism she got.  If, somehow, the embarrassing relative of the horrible famous politician in question somehow reflects directly on famous horrible politicians judgement, like the time Mike Hackabee’s son tortured and killed a dog, that’s another.

The Trump family has all of these, in spades.  Don, Jr., Eric, Ivanka and Jared are all open to criticism because they work for their dad and, besides, they are adults, and the boys do horrible things like go to Africa for trophy hunting.  I’ll accept that  we should leave  Barron more or less alone.  But Melania, poor, tragic,  Melania is in a class  by herself.  I don’t care if she wears a dress  that some people think looks like a shower curtain, they say  the  same about celebrity’s I like,  too.  It does bother me that she never smiles.  The only time this year I remember her smiling was when she met the pope,  and I give all credit for that to the pope.  What a guy, eh?  One  other time was that brief  moment at the inaugural, before Donald turned around and wiped the  smile from her face with  just a couple of words, and we still  don’t know what he said.  She just looks like the most miserable person in the world, despite having  billions of dollars and being first lady of the U.S.

Is she miserable  because her husband is an  absolute dick?  Probably.  And I think that’s  worth commenting on.

It’s strange, isn’t it, how there hasn’t been any news out of Iran for a couple of days.  There’s something we’re not being told, but what.  In any event, without news, there’s not  much I  can write about it, just about the fact that whatever’s happening, it’s going unreported.

So, I’ll write about China instead.  They are planning to implement a “Social Credit Score” which will rate all  of their citizens, according to their credit score and a whole  bunch of other  factors.  Everybody, out of the 1.3 billion people living there, are going to have a score.  Dang.  Somebody’s going to feel  like shit.

It sounds horrific, but I was wondering today if there was an upside to it.  For some people, they may feel very validated by having a higher score than they thought.  Some will treat it as a competitive thing and, in a way, that might be good for society.

Also, it’s the kind of thing that’s almost inevitable, with so much available information lying around, just waiting to be aggregated.  So, we’ll see how it goes.

Then  I saw another news story from China, about an app they have on their phones.  A game.  You watch 30 seconds of a speech from President Xi Jinping, saying something like “It is the mission of the Communist Party of China to strive for the happiness and the rise of the Chinese people.”  And then you clap, i.e. tap the screen of your phone as many times as you can in 18 seconds.  You can post your results online!  You can play with your friends!

Sounds dumb, right?  There are already  400 million players.  The president of China is not Justin Bieber.  This, plus the social credit rating thing, is scary shit.

It’s after midnight here in Prague and, as usual, we sat at home and watched it from the balcony and on T.V., Sam was out at a park with friends, that made me a bit nervous but he’s 15 and he just called, but you give ’em an inch, they take a mile, now they’re stopping  for a late night snack but, he’s on his way  home after that so all is good.
Went with Isabel  this afternoon to see Jumanji – Welcome to the Jungle.  It was good, both funny and exciting, and kid friendly.

Back to 2018, though.  Here are my New Year’s Resolutions.

1.  Lose weight.  That’s the perennial, of course, and has been for a few years now.  I’m optimistic, though.  This year is the year.
2. To push this website: https://www.facebook.com/TheUtopianProject/
   I’ve actually started on that one already, by mentioning it here and on  Facebook, and I’m going to start adding material and promoting it regularly.
3.  To find another place on  the internet to sell  my books.  Amazon’s not  doing it.
4. 4.  Four is a three in one.  There are 3 poetry books I’m working on, one, which I’m titling ‘Paradox’ unless I  can come up with something better, should be ready soon, I hope by  the end of January.  The other two, one which will be filled with very long and serious poems about the changes we’re going through in the world  today and the future destiny of mankind, and the second filled with very short poems in what some might call a sort of an anti-literary endeavor, and I’ve barely started with that one.
   If I can accomplish all that, 2018 will be counted as an awesome year.

I get into arguments on Facebook fairly frequently.  I believe that a free exchange of opinion is healthy, and being forced to justify my positions tends to strengthen them – or sometimes to change them, which is important, too.
Very often, in the midst of these arguments, people will call each other idiot, or asshole, or Nazi collaborating spawn of Satan.  It happens.  People even threaten to unfriend each other, and often do.
Do people sometimes take politics too seriously?  Perhaps.  But nowhere near as seriously as gamers take their games.  Check this link: The short version is, two guys were trash talking each other during a game and one told the other he was going to call  the police on him (I guess he was losing the game) and the other said ha-ha, bring it on and gave him a fake address. So, the guy did call  the police and gave them that address and so they went there and shot the man at the door, because that’s what police do nowadays.
Now, I certainly think the guy who called the cops is guilty of manslaughter, at least, and the cop should  be  charged with murder, although they never are, but this is a whole new wrinkle on cops killing people and it needs to be looked at.
Is that all it takes to kill somebody?  Just call the police, make up a story, and voila,  your nemesis is dead.  It’s even relatively easy to do it anonymously, although the guy in question  in this case screwed up that part.

The American police, in their willingness to kill  anybody, anywhere, for no reason at all, have become a blunt instrument for others to use.