Category Archives: Blogs' Archive

Well, well, a couple of good news items today.  Jim Webb has dropped out of the race.  That’s not so much good news as it is an inevitable development, but it’s still welcome.  It reduces the Democratic choice to Hillary Clinton and the 3 guys who are to the left of Hillary Clinton, which is good, because Hillary Clinton is about as far to the right as someone should be allowed to be and still consider themselves a Democrat.

Justin Trudeau

Webb says he’s keeping his options open and may launch a 3rd party bid.  I don’t see it happening.  People far more charismatic than Jim Webb have tried 3rd party bids and fell flat on their face.  Even Teddy Roosevelt couldn’t pull it off, and he was a reasonably popular ex-President.

The other great thing, of course, and this is the much bigger thing, is the Liberal Party’s big win in Canada, meaning Stephen Harper is out  and Justin Trudeau is in.  So, it isn’t just the U.S. that has political dynasties.

Whenever Conservatives lose, anywhere in the world, it is a victory for mankind.  Conservatives, if you take them at their word (usually a mistake) and the literal definition of the word, want to conserve, mostly to conserve the status quo.  They are, by definition, against progress.  If you regard their actions, they are hell-bent on destroying the environment, starting wars, and stealing all the money in the world, like evil supervillains or some such shit.

So, congratulations, Canada!  You did good.

When news  is slow, there is time for rumors to swirl.  So, there were two stories I read today that I place squarely in the “I’ll believe it when I see it” category.

Richard Branson, who I greatly admire, is talking about some kind of U.N. announcement that the War on Drugs is over.  As much as I’d love to see it, I think this is unlikely.  The whole  War on Drugs is a U.S. initiative, and so whatever is said at the  U.N., is largely irrelevant.  Or maybe not.  It’s a rumor.

If we lived in a world where facts determined actions, not only would the war be over, there would be amnesties and apologies all around, and marijuana would take its rightful place in human civilization, as a wonder drug, and we’d start growing hemp for all sorts of stuff, too.

The other rumor is that Joe Biden is about to announce he’s in the race for the White House.  I don’t like this at all.  It sounds like the party insiders, having realized that Bernie is going to take the nomination away from Hillary (he already leads in the first two states in the process, Iowa and New Hampshire, and his popularity only increases with name recognition) have decided they’d better put another candidate in the race, somebody who can beat Sanders but is still acceptable to Sanders supporters.  Somebody who can keep the lid on this simmering pot, someone who will maintain the status quo.

Well, too late, lame ass party hacks.  We’ve actually got a Democrat who’s talking like a Democrat, not somebody who lets the Republicans get away with their bullshit, not somebody who gives weaselly, calculated answers to everything.

So, even if Biden gets into the race now, he will lose.  There will be two status quo candidates, but Sanders will still be Sanders.  And that’s all he needs to be.

I watched the Saturday Night Live debate sketch twice today, because it appeared on my feed probably about 10 times (one of the things I find  irritating  on facebook.  Once I’ve seen  a thing once, and commented on it, I don’t need to see it again – without my comment.  That’s just frustrating), and I thought it was pretty funny.

Larry David as Bernie Sanders

Generally, they were accompanied by a teaser line like “Larry David is perfect as Bernie  Sanders” or “Larry David Nails It.”  No, he didn’t.  He was really funny, especially the part about only  owning one pair of underwear and drying them on the radiator.  When he said “Some of these billionaires, they have 3, 4 pairs of underwear, I did laugh out loud, really out loud.

But being really funny and  doing a perfect impression are different things.  He was not perfect in the role of Sanders, in the same sense that Tina Fey was perfect as Sarah Palin, so perfect that people  confused her for Palin, that people forgot (like immediately) that “I can see Russia from my house” was Fey’s line, and not Palin’s.

Rich Little was pretty good as Richard Nixon, too, but that’s way ancient history.

No, what  David did was a very funny Jewish old man.  Nothing wrong with that.  Bernie Sanders is an old Jewish man who looks, and talks, like an old Jewish man.

Like Albert Einstein.  Like  Mel  Brooks.  Old  Jewish  men are a staple of comedy.  Loaded with stereotypical speech and behavioral patterns, plenty of attitude, and crazy hair.  What’s not to laugh?

I think one of the reasons the sketch went  over  so well was that people like that character, and they like Bernie Sanders.  Even most of his opponents (within the Democratic party) say their main reason for opposing him is they don’t think he can win.  But almost nobody doesn’t like Bernie Sanders.

He’s a quirky, funny old Jewish man.  And he’s going to be the next president of the United States.

This morning I was walking with Sam to his football game when I got an idea for a poem,  it was a damp morning, it’s been raining off and on for a couple of days, and I noticed how the leaves on the sidewalk seemed to be glued to the ground, and I remember the line “The leaves up there were golden yellow, now they’re dead and brown, something something something as they’re lying on the ground” but I didn’t write it down.  I’ll sleep on it.  Maybe it will be there tomorrow.

(the basic idea is that autumn is the season of things rotting and  dying, but in a nice way)

I didn’t write it down because I didn’t take a notebook (old meaning of the word) with me.  I did, however, have my Kindle, so pre-game, half-time and post-game, I read from “The Color of Magic.”  I’m almost finished with it.  I haven’t read too many  Disc World books, but I liked “Mort” better.   Also, that one with the policeman who travels back in time.  I forget the name.  But, it’s entertaining and clever and I’m enjoying it.

They lost the game, 0-1.  I didn’t feel too bad about it.  They were only spared a much worse defeat because of some great work by the goalman, a few shots going a bit over the net, and one goal being called back.  It could have been 0-6, easy.
Writing that poem and finishing that book were not the only things I didn’t get done today.  I didn’t do the proofreading that I’ve promised to finish this weekend.

So, tomorrow’s going to be a busy  day.

I may be spending a bit too much time on this subject, beating a dead horse, banging my head against a brick wall, but when somebody says  something and you offer a rebuttal and they dismiss your rebuttal and compare you to a group of people you think are assholes (I probably shouldn’t say that – we will undoubtedly be political allies eventually – but damn, grow a thicker skin, people) then one feels it incumbent upon oneself to rebut their dismissal of your rebuttal of their arrogant and  unfounded original statement.

Salon magazine, along with  most of the mainstream media, immediately said Hillary  Clinton had won the debate.  I saw a bit of it, she did pretty well.  “Won” is not really a usable term, because there’s no way of directly keeping score.

They did totally ignore online polls (which are, admittedly, unscientific) and a focus group (slightly less unscientific) and the fact that Sanders numbers surged on Twitter (skewed to people who use twitter) and on Google (which indicates curiosity rather than support), so it should have come as no surprise to them that thousands of Sanders supporters were swamping the internet with “Nuh-uh, Bernie won.”

Salon should have just left it at that.  Instead, they wrote an article insinuating that Sanders supporters were similar to PUMA (Party Unity, My Ass), the small group of petty minded, embittered feminists who just could not stand it that she had lost to the upstart, Barack Obama.

We are nothing like that.    First of all, it is early stages of the game and our candidate is going to win.

I think it does indicate, though, that we are in for a nasty, bitter, rules and honesty be damned election campaign.  The powers that be can no longer get away with ignoring, or dismissing, Sanders.  That’s why they are starting to attack him (and      his supporters) with  such vehemence.

We are going to see money spent like it’s never been spent before, and it’s likely to get very uncivil.  We can try and slow that down, but we can’t stop it.  Neither side wants to lose.