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I voted today.  It  was in  the Democrats Abroad primary, something  I did not even  know existed until this year, but apparently it’s happened for the last couple of elections.

The polling  place was my  least favorite restaurant/pub/bookstore in Prague, the only business establishment in the city which I refuse  to patronize.  It’s not because they’re  overpriced, although they are, or that their food is nothing special, which it’s not.  I used to go there occasionally, and we had our  poetry readings there for  a long time.  But, they don’t want to carry my books, so fuck them.  I  even  missed  a poetry  reading there a couple of months ago, and I almost never miss  a chance to  read my  poetry on  stage, that’s how much I hate The Globe.

But, this was important, and I didn’t have to buy anything, so after my classes (which went fairly well today although, as is often the case, I was horrified to  realize  that  some of my students have  an information  retention span  of less than  10 seconds) I took a tram  into the center, filled out  a form to join Democrats Abroad, sat down  at a table  and filled  out a ballot, and plonked  it in  the box for  Bernie Sanders.  It felt  good.

I’m a bit nervous.  If  we don’t win  at  least 3 or 4  states, we’re  in big trouble.  I don’t expect the  press to pay any attention to the Democrats abroad race, with its 21 delegates, but I think we  might win it. Vermont is a gimme, and I’m  pretty sure we’ll  take  Massachusetts.  I’ve got a friend in Colorado caucusing for Bernie, and I’ve got high hopes there.  We could win  Minnesota.  Maybe Oklahoma.  I’d  be delirious if  we won  Texas,  but that may be wishful thinking.

Whatever the outcome, it is on to the next,  and the  fight continues.  We’ve got the better candidate.  There is no doubt about that.

Just got  back from the second session of Gone in 60 Seconds, a rather original open mike comedy presentation.  60 second time limit, with a gong.  Not a real gong, just somebody  keeping time and holding up their fingers when you’re down to 10 seconds.  Come to think of it, a real gong might be a nice touch, or a vuvuzela, or something really to scare the bejeezus out of everybody and attract the attention of people  who are trying to just sip their tea and have a quiet conversation in the next room so that they come in to see what all the brouhaha is about and then you’d have a bigger audience.

It takes place at A Maze in Tchaijovna, just a few steps from Hradčanská Metro Station, which is a very nice place.  Pots of exotic tea, (they also serve alcoholic beverages, of course),big, delicious cookies, couches so soft they can swallow a pothead whole, a performance room with a stage and a piano, lots of cozy, little, side rooms make it a very welcoming and homey atmosphere.

As far as the event itself, in some ways it was a lot like the last one.  In typical Prague fashion, it was slow to get started, with people starting to drift in 15 minutes after the scheduled start time, and nobody wanting to go first.  After a few people had gone up, and after a few people had had a couple of beers, the pace picked up and there was a steady  stream of people getting up, telling their favorite jokes, reciting dirty limericks, falling over the microphone, and having a really good time.

I don’t know when the next one will be, but if you want to try out a comedy routine, or just laugh at other people trying out their’s, you should try and make it.  The one minute time limit guarantees you that  if somebody is totally bombing, you want have to suffer for long.

I don’t really want to write  about  politics  tonight, but I feel I must.  I was very depressed when I woke up this morning and saw the headlines.  It didn’t help that  I have a lot  of Hillary supporters on  my facebook page who were gloating.  Can’t  say that’s  surprising, though.  They  probably believe  in her as much as I believe in Bernie, although I can’t understand  why and they’ve never given me a good  reason, and they were probably just as irritated  with our gloating  after New  Hampshire.

But, I am really, really pleased  with the reaction from team Sanders.  Nobody’s giving  up,  nobody’s ready to throw in  the towel.  One  friend posted  this graphic, which  sort of keeps  things in perspective.

There  were large pro-Sanders rallies in 45 cities  across America, which probably didn’t  get a lot of press because, you know, the press, but that’s why we have social media.  And we picked  up  a major endorsement, from Tulsi Gabbard, a congressperson from Hawaii.  The reason her endorsement is significant is because she was the vice-chairman of the  Democratic National Committee, and she had to resign that post to endorse him.  It’s an act of great political courage, and it says a lot.

Tuesday, there will be 10 primaries.  We’ll pick up a few delegates,  but we’re not  expected  to  win  Tuesday, either.  Nonetheless, the fight will go on, Sanders should do better and better because facts, logic, momentum and the electoral map are on his side, and the only argument Hillary supporters have – that we should give it up and let her win  because she’s winning, already, come on, please….isn’t convincing anybody.

With the increasing inevitability that Donald Trump, who has never held any public office, who has declared bankruptcy 4 times and destroyed Eastern Airlines, who is being sued for fraud over ‘Trump University,’ which  wasn’t a university  at  all, who is despised by many of his own relatives, who cannot give coherent arguments for, or even explanations of, his own positions, who speaks in insults, and has  a hard time spelling even those, will win the Republican  nomination, a lot of people  are  becoming very nervous.

Some Republicans  are very nervous, because they think he will destroy the party.  However, they seem powerless to stop him and most, like Chris  Christie, will get in line behind him and hope for the best.  Others, like Lindsey  Graham, may bolt.

Many Democrats are nervous, of course.  I have seen many  posts today saying “The time has come to stop  treating his candidacy as a joke.  The time has come to be afraid.”

Nonsense.  First of all, I’ve seen  this mostly from my Clinton supporting friends, who want us to unite behind Hillary because we should  fear a Trump presidency.  That is nonsense.  Bernie does better than she does in head to head polls against Trump, so if they are nervous (Nervous is reasonable – afraid is bad.  Fear leads to bad judgements.), then they should  get behind Sanders.

But, mainly, I’m confident that whichever Democrat gets the nomination will win.  Trump gets 100% of the white supremacist vote, which is maybe 30, maybe even 40% of the white population.  He  gets 0% of the  rest.  Well, maybe not 0%.  There are some crazy people in this world.  Ben Carson will  support Trump.

Still, he does not have  enough to win.  So, people  voting in the Democratic primaries should  not be stampeded by fear into supporting  a candidate they don’t actually like.  Whoever the Democrats  choose  as a nominee will be the winner  in November.  I’m  very confident about that.

Most of the comments I’ve been reading about the extended  range of emojis on facebook has been negative.  I suppose that’s natural.  People who like them are likely to just go ahead and use them.  People who don’t are likely to bitch about them.

Surprisingly, I haven’t noticed many people using them yet, but maybe that’s just because most of my facebook friends are old farts and slow adapters.  Maybe it’s because I don’t  pay much attention to that sort of thing anyway.

I am definitely what you’d call a slow adapter.  By the time I got my first mobile phone, everybody else already had one.  By the time I started writing my blog, millions of people were writing blogs.  On facebook, I didn’t even use the like button at first.  Then, I realized that I appreciated it when somebody liked my posts, and figured maybe it was a bit rude of me not to return the favor.

So, maybe I’ll wind up using them eventually.  Most of the posts I’ve seen with regard to them have been mocking, and suggesting different icons.  A stack of poo, for instance, to indicate ‘this post is full of shit’ or a clock to indicate ‘this is an old article’ or a picture of Karl Marx you could use to call somebody a communist.

It’s shorthand.  I feel it’s kind of cheating.  I use words to try and express complete, original thoughts.  Maybe some people aren’t as worried about that.  We’re heading for a collective mind, and everybody expressing their emotions is part of it, however arbitrarily or formulaically they do so.  It’s all good.