Category Archives: Blogs' Archive

Much of the stuff on my Facebook feed is the same stuff that everybody’s been saying for the last year. The Hillary people are blaming the Sanders people and the Sanders people are blaming the DNC, and the Trump people are calling the Hillary people whiny crybabies, and everybody is calling the Trump people knuckle dragging mouth breathers. Not that all of this is inaccurate, but it is repetitive and unproductive.
The whining about the Electoral College, the issue du jour, is repetitive in a long cycle. Every four years, when people are reminded it exists, they bitch about it. I would not object to scrapping it, but I see it as a minor detail. A quirk of the system, rather than a major flaw. Consider the way Republicans demanded term limits after FDR. You have to realize that the shoe, the next time, might be on the other foot.
There were a couple of well written pieces I read today. There was one from Robert Reich, and one from Michael Moore, talking about what we need to do now.
One of my Bernie or Bust buddies went off on Moore, saying we couldn’t trust him after he’d supported Hillary, but that’s just a ridiculous expectation of ideological purity. If the Sanders crowd expects to have any influence, we can’t reject everybody who chose the more moderate, saner seeming path after the primaries. We can’t reject Moore, and Reich, and Sarah Silverman, and even Al Franken or Elizabeth Warren, though they turned on Bernie well before it was even necessary. You can have a broad coalition, with more tolerance for different viewpoints, or you can have a small coalition,with more precise stands but not enough people to win elections, but you can’t have both.
What we truly need, I think, is a more intelligent, and less repetitive, conversation. That includes everybody.

RIP, Leonard Cohen. Thank you for many decades of beautiful songs, and thank you for pushing Trump and Clinton off the front pages, for a moment.

My Facebook feed is absolutely chock-a-block with butthurt Hillary supporters blaming everybody who failed to vote for her, particularly us Stein supporters, and just refusing to admit that she was a lousy candidate.

I’m not the greatest political expert in the world. I don’t have the intellectual rigor or the objectivity of someone like Nate Silver, for instance, but here’s my take on why she lost, for what it’s worth.

I’ve written a few times throughout this campaign that Trump was trying to lose. What kind of a presidential candidate insults POWs? What kind of presidential candidate makes fun of handicapped people? What kind of presidential candidate brags about not paying his taxes?

I still think he was trying to lose. But, the Democrats tried harder. First, the debates. Republicans had about 20 of them. Oh, yeah, they were a shit show, but it was hours and hours of free publicity for their party, and any publicity is good publicity, and they did serve the purpose of identifying a candidate who had broad public appeal. The Democrats had four, and they were not at times peak TV watching. They just threw that away because identifying a candidate who had broad public appeal was not what they wanted. They already had their minds made up.
So, they rigged the nomination and just brushed aside the legitimate winner, who was leading Trump in the polls by double digits.
Then, the campaign. Trump carried on having massive rallies (as Sanders had had) and Hillary Clinton carried on having dinners with her rich friends. She said she didn’t need progressive votes and she picked a conservative for a vice-presidential candidate. (I’ll bet Tim Kaine is more pissed off than anybody right about now)
Her whole campaign strategy was to have her supporters tell everybody on social media that they were stupid if they didn’t vote for her, and hated women.
Really, truly, a glaringly tone deaf, incompetent campaign.
I’m glad it’s all over.

I just came from a poetry reading at Žižkovšiška (Zheeshkovsheeshka, which as far as I can figure out translates as Žižkov Pine Cone. Žižkov is the neighborhood.) on Bořivojová St. (Borzheevoyova, after somebody named Bořivoj, I’m pretty sure)and it was a nice event.
For a change, I wasn’t reading. They had a full program, were trying to get some new faces in, and I appreciate that. The Prague poetry scene definitely could use some new blood. That’s not slamming the Prague poetry scene, which would be a pretty lame attitude for me to take, since I am such a part of it and, you know, wherever you go, you bring yourself.
No, what I mean is that every poetry scene everywhere needs new blood all the time because whether you define poetry as a search for the truth, an attempt to entertain, or a primal expression of our deepest emotion, new is always good; fresh is as desirable in poetry as it is in fruit.
It’s an interesting atmosphere there, sort of a cross between a tea room and a pub, with a heavy dose of art gallery thrown in.
Unfortunately, I could only stay for the first half. They posted the start time as 7, but I’ve been in Prague a while, and was at that pub for a poetry reading once before. Prague standard is for events to start at least a half hour later than posted, and the Pine Cone takes that a bit further. I got there at 7:45, had a Ginger Tea which was interesting, my mouth is still tingling a bit, but I don’t know if I’ll order it again, and things kicked off about a half hour after that.
When I snuck out at the half, it was 10 p.m., and I’ve got to get up early tomorrow.
It’s getting so I just can’t keep up with these young kids.

When I woke up this morning to the realization that a socially maladjusted Oompah-Loompah (and not one of the brighter ones) had been elected president of the United States, my first reaction was surprise. Honestly, for all my railing against her, I thought she had this in the bag. I thought it was going to be a 50 state sweep. I mean, why would she rig the primaries and not the general election.
Also, I thought the outrage over his ‘grab ’em by the pussy’ remark was truly broad based. It turned out to be louder than it was wide.
My second reaction was a twinge of guilt (OMG, they told me I had to vote for Hillary or Trump would win, and they were right!), but it soon passed.
First, even if every single Stein voter across the land had voted for Clinton, she still would have lost. It just wasn’t that close. Secondly, I’m a lot more upset about Jill not getting 5% than I am about Clinton losing. Third, I actually see a couple of bright points in a Trump win.
Of course I know he’s a monster and he will be nothing but an embarrassment for the U.S. (It’s not unprecedented. Italy had Berlusconi, we in the Czech Republic are stuck with Zeman) I am not happy he won. I am, however, happy that she lost.
First, it is absolutely and finally the end of Hillary Clinton’s political career. It is a stake through the heart. She is old, and will never rule the oval office. Her iron clad grip on the Democratic party is over, the myth of her as a brilliant politician is shattered into a million pieces and lying all over the floor. I’ll bet she doesn’t even get $250,000 speech giving gigs from Goldman Sachs anymore, much less any multi-million dollar donations to her foundation from horrible dictatorships. Through, finished, washed up,never to darken American politics again.
Secondly, it means that democracy has survived. However misguided and ignorant the American people are, they voted for Trump and they’ve got Trump. It’s not going to be pretty, but it was democratic. As I said, I expected Hillary to win in a 50 state sweep, but I also suspected that would be due to fraud.
It has often been said that you can reach a close election but you can’t rig a landslide. After all, JFK manipulated the vote totals in Illinois and Texas in 1960, and Bush took Florida and the presidency in 2000.
Up until July 25th, I believed that. But, when it became clear that the people supported Bernie, she increased the fixing until she got what she wanted, but she was forced to do it in such a blatant way that it became obvious, and then she got caught. It still looked like she would beat the short fingered vulgarian (that’s not my line, but it’s a great line) by a massive amount, so I was starting to think “Well, maybe cheaters DO win, sometimes.” But she didn’t.
We will survive 4 years of Trump, I think. After all, he is not America’s first retarded president. That was George, Jr.
If the Democrats want to bounce back in 2020, they will have to do two things (and neither one of them, fortunately, involves Hillary Clinton.) The DNC will have to be insanely transparent, because we’re not likely to trust them again after this year. That’s one. Then, they will have to have a whole shitload of debates. Twenty is not at all an unreasonable number. Open and honest debates, with lots and lots of candidates would be a good place to start. Not only will you be able to do it, without Hillary sucking all the oxygen out of the room, and not only will it lead, sure as an invisible hand, to the selection of a candidate who speaks well and inspires his/her fans to appreciate Ursula Leguin a bit more, but it’s hours and hours of free publicity for your party. Which, this year, you just threw away.

I’m watching ‘Elementary,’ the American version of the 21st century Sherlock Holmes, because cop shows are so damned ubiquitous on TV it’s almost impossible to avoid them entirely, so I try to find some that I can tolerate. This is among that small number.
I prefer it to the British version with Benedict Cumberbatch. I understand that women think he’s hot, but I think the other Holmes (don’t even know the actor’s name)is a much more likable person, and more believable. I also like Lucy Liu as Watson, although I sometimes wonder if there are any other female Asian actresses, because whenever the script calls for an Asian woman, it seems she’s it.
I like the way they talk about AA. (on NA, I guess, Narcotic’s Anonymous, although it’s the same program) It’s realistic.
I think the reason I like it better than most police procedurals (and the reason Sherlock Holmes is such a popular phenomenon in the first place) is that it honors and celebrates intelligence, which is exactly the opposite of 90% of television. Which is part of why I liked Monk, and I find Murder by the Numbers a little bit more tolerable than some others, even though Judd Hirsch and that guy who played Fleischer on Northern Exposure are two of my least favorite actors.
Now, there was a strange and brilliant show, but surprisingly, nobody from that ensemble cast went on to great individual success….no, being a cop on a mediocre cop show is not great success.
Of course, celebrating intelligence is also a hallmark of the Cumberbatch Holmes. So, I can’t really put my finger on it.