Maybe I was terribly, terribly wrong all this time and should vote for Donald Trump after all…
Category Archives: General
Politics, again…
…beware!
For those still here:
One of the more interesting animal myths is that of the lemming. You know the concept, if nothing else…
Those who “know” about lemmings and the fact that they follow each other, even off a cliff, should also know this: It is a myth. This myth first appeared in, of all things, the Walt Disney Studios “White Wilderness” episode of the True Life Adventure series, released in 1958 (you can read about this here).
While the myth is just that, there is something, obviously, that resonated with this myth. The idea that a group of animals could, en mass, blindly follow their leader to their death(s) was something that’s grabbed the human imagination.
Today, as we approach the 2016 Presidential Election, people have noted that as opposed to days past, there are fewer and fewer “cross party” voters. In other words, if you vote Republican or Democratic, you tend to do so for the rest of the ticket. Thus, your vote for your Republican/Democratic candidate for Presidency -the biggest vote- tends to mean you’re more likely than ever to then vote for subsequent Republican/Democratic candidates for Senate, the House, etc. etc.
This does not mean, however, there isn’t a breaking point, a point where you can no longer stomach “your” candidate and begin the sometimes painful mental process of realizing you cannot follow what your party is offering.
It appears that to many, this happened with the Repulican candidacy of Donald Trump. While there remain those who support him, there have been many prominent conservative minds who rejected his candidacy and refuse to vote for him.
Now, in this fascinating article by Michelle Goldberg and presented on Slate magazine, another large group, self-described conservative women, also appear to have had enough:
The Anguish of Being A GOP Woman In The Age of Trump
As of today, Monday the 24th of October, indications are that Donald Trump will not only lose the Presidency, but do so in a rather historic fashion.
Until the day of the election, this is obviously not something written in stone.
However, articles like the above show why Donald Trump, with his abrasive style and even more abrasive message, has a tough -perhaps impossible- path toward winning this election.
If self-described conservative women are finding it difficult to vote for Mr. Trump, one huge piece of the Republican electorate, then what chances does he have?
So…politics…
Run away, I’m about to get political!
Still there?
For those who were living under a rock the past year or so, last night presented (lucky us!) the last of the three Presidential debates. It was also the only one I watched start to end. For the record, I caught large chunks of the other two but was in and out of the room during each.
My opinion, for what its worth: Donald Trump proved yet again, as if he hadn’t done so 21,987,450,289,145 times before, that he simply isn’t qualified, tempermentally or intellecutally, to be President of the United States.
Having said that, I’m not surprised he made it this far in the electoral process. In the first phase of the election and when he was in the primaries facing a large group of other Republican candidates, Mr. Trump was brilliant at cutting them to the quick. The Republican front runner going into this race, Jeb Bush, was slaughtered by Mr. Trump…and rather quickly. After knocking out the Republican “favorite”, the others he faced were revealed to be weak sisters and Mr. Trump had a target rich environment to knock down.
However, things fell apart rather quickly when it was just Trump v Clinton: Dawn of Justice.
When facing one rival candidate and with the press scrutinizing his actions more (no others to scrutinize but these two), the seams showed. Mr. Trump’s sharp wit turned into thin-skinned shrillness and his petty statements against Mexicans or Muslims or Judges or Gold Star Family members or, incredibly, a previous Miss Universe (!) winner, wound up grating.
Sure, there were many who even now admire this talk and I have little doubt he’ll garner a fair number of votes. Having said that, I suspect there are few people out there, “professional” political observers or not, who feel the number of votes Mr. Trump ultimately receives will give him any sort of chance of winning this election.
Over at FiveThirtyEight.com, which offers a “poll of the polls”, they peg the chances of Hillary Clinton winning the election at nearly 90%. Notably, this has been the case since roughly October the 5th. If you look around that page, you’ll find Mr. Trump’s downfall began shortly after his poor performance in the first Presidential Debate on September 26th and reached that high point and has remained there these past 15 days, which of course does not bode well for the remaining 18.
Could things change?
Of course they could. As I said, there’s still 18 days to go before the election but early voting has already begun in several states. In Florida, you can request a mail-in ballot and we’ve already gotten ours. Early indications are that there will be many people voting this time around and, in general, the more people vote, the better it appears to be for the Democratic candidate(s).
The bottom line? Brace yourselves.
By the way, the high (actually low) light of the debate for me? While many were shocked that Mr. Trump hinted he wouldn’t accept the results of the election, I wasn’t. He’s been doing this for weeks now, why was it such a shock he’d do so now?
This, to me, is Mr. Trump’s very worst moment and it proved, as if we needed even more proof, how thin-skinned he is:
Finally…vacation
So the previous four days have been quiet around here because …ta da!… I took a vacation.
First one since last year.
I couldn’t go very far away from home and it was a part of a “family” event at my younger daughter’s University yet we wound up not doing much there and instead headed to Orlando for a couple of days at the parks there. The first date was at Epcot and my wife in particular wanted to go there as they are doing their annual Food and Wine Fest and you get a chance to try out all kinds of world-wide fair.
One has to be careful, however, to not binge too much!
The next, and last day, was spent at the Magic Kingdom and…
…damn were there a lot of people there.
Used to be we Floridians knew there were certain dates you could go to the Parks (any/all of them) and there would be scant crowds to deal with and, therefore, very manageable lines to the various rides.
Used to be October was part of that time period as most people were knee-deep into their jobs/school/etc.
Apparently, that’s changed.
At one point, the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, one of the Magic Kingdom’s newer and more popular rides, was listed as having a wait time of 180 minutes.
In other words, you had to wait in line three hours to go through what amounts to maybe a 1-2 minute long ride.
Sheesh.
Anyway, if you’re hoping to sneak into the area and not face big crowds, at least with regard to Magic Kingdom, you won’t have any luck.
How many more days…
…’til the election? Don’t know? Click the below link.
2016 Presidential Election Clock
For me, it can’t come quickly enough.
Let me reiterate: Please come quickly.
Very quickly.
The whole thing is becoming so damn depressing and I suspect the outcome -barring any major curve ball event- is already decided, at least when it comes to who will be president.
The human race is doomed…part deux
The following photograph has been trending of late:
As you can see, this individual has taken the cliched bathroom mirror selfie picture using his smartphone with one very non-cliche difference: He did this while giving himself a “high five”.
Wow, many have said.
What goes up must come down, I say. It may seem obvious, but…
The Hot New Selfie Trend is a Great Way to Destroy Your Phone
Please, please, please…use your brains, people.
One of the bigger worldwide failures…?
Let’s face it, this world is all about Smartphones. Everyone has one. Everyone is on one, seemingly, at all hours of the day.
We use them to communicate (duh) with others, to search for restaurants, hotels, etc. etc., we use them to order things, to take photographs…you name it.
The two big smartphone companies, of course, are Apple and Samsung.
As most of you know, the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 was their big new release of the year…
The phone was released and had incredibly good reviews. It sold well.
And then, of course, came the problems…
For those who live under a rock, it turned out the phone had a very real, and very scary problem: It could overheat to the point where it caught fire. Several reports came to light of this danger, including one report of a man whose Samsung phone exploded while in his pants and allegedly badly burned him.
The reports built and built and Samsung was slow to deal with the issue. They eventually told people to return their phones for a replacement, but the replacement phones’ release wasn’t specified, irritating clients who wanted a “safe” version of the phone. Further, there was confusion between the various cell phone companies and Samsung regarding the specifics of the return/replace policy.
Then the replacement phones showed up and things looked to turn, at least a little bit.for the better.
Until, that is, reports surfaced that a few of the replacement phones also burned up.
Now, Samsung has officially killed off the Note 7…
Samsung ends production of Galaxy Note 7 smartphone
According to the above article, by Charles Riley and K. J. Kwon and presented on CNNmoney, the company stands to lose a bundle because of this (I bolded the mind-boggling profit loses):
Giving up on the Note 7 will be costly. Analysts at Nomura estimate the total hit could reach $9.5 billion in lost sales and wipe out $5.1 billion of profit.
What’s even more eye opening is what comes in the very next paragraph of that same story:
But Samsung, which has a market value of about $194 billion and annual sales of $179 billion, should be big and profitable enough to weather the loss of one model.
So…I guess it’s all good?!
Why did I get into writing when I could have gotten into making smartphones?!?
To those in the path of Hurricane Matthew…
Fellow Floridian here.
Looks like my area is going to dodge this particular bullet as we’re under a Tropical Storm watch and the latest models suggest the worst part of the storm will not come near enough to us to cause any real damage.
That’s not the case further up north.
I lived three wonderful years in Jacksonville, Florida and attended High School there in the very early to mid-1980’s. I love the large yet small town atmosphere and, maybe one day, I might return.
What I have noticed in the years since living in Jacksonville is that apart from south Florida, most of the middle to upper east coast of Florida, including Jacksonville, haven’t experienced a hurricane, much less one a category 3/borderline Category 4, since well before I went to High School in those parts over thirty years ago.
I worry the amount of time between dangerous Hurricanes may make people less concerned about what’s to come. Based on some of the things my daughter has heard from others, I fear there are some (hopefully not many) up there in Jacksonville who are either blase or simply unaware/ignorant of the dangers a hurricane of this magnitude represent.
In my lifetime I’ve experienced several hurricanes, the worst of which were Hurricane Andrew (1992) and Hurricane Wilma (2005). I also experienced the eye of a much weaker Hurricane Katrina (also 2005), then a category 1 storm, as it went over our house before eventually going on its way to destroy New Orleans.
Each and every experience proved terrifying and I’ll be extremely blunt here: Hurricanes are nothing to fuck with.
Even a category 1 storm has the potential to mess up your property and, especially if you’re foolish enough to be outside when it hits, your life.
Heed the warnings of local and state officials. Do not take this storm lightly or as a curiosity.
And please, please, please, stay safe.
The human race is doomed…
Found this article written by John R. Platt over at takepart.com.
The title is self-explanatory:
The Marijuana Boom is contributing to the Climate Crisis
A quick synopsis (but please, go read the article!):
Now that marijuana is legal in Colorado and Washington, a new study has found that…
The electricity needed to illuminate, dehumidify, and air-condition large (marijuana) growing operations may soon rival the expenditures from big data centers, which themselves emit an estimated 100 million metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year.
Yikes.
Beware…politics…and Beatles music?
I’m deeply invested in politics as the people who will run our government represent the future of this country. Yet I also feel political opinions are too easily spread out there and it is best sometimes to listen rather than “talk”.
This is why I’m always hesitant to get into political topics here. Considering all the things I’ve expressed opinions on these last few years, I shouldn’t be, but political options, and politics in general, have a different impact than my opinion on, say, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
Which isn’t to say I don’t dip my toe into this topic from time to time, which is what I intend to do now. So, if you’re not interested in “talking” politics, turn away. There’s plenty of other good stuff to read around these parts…
Anyway, yesterday the Vice Presidential candidates took to the stage to have a debate and, from what I’ve heard (you couldn’t pay me to watch this one), Republican VP candidate Mike Pence acquitted himself far better than Donald Trump did in his disastrous debate against Hillary Clinton.
And the Donald, from reports out there, wasn’t all that happy:
Report: Donald Trump mad at Pence for being better than him at debate
While I suppose it should surprise me, it doesn’t. Mr. Trump has always struck me as a classic narcissist and woe be to anyone/anything that takes away from his limelight.
Yet on the other hand, and again based on what I heard, it appeared Mr. Pence didn’t exactly go to bat for his candidate, so there could be more complex emotions going on here.
What I find the most fascinating so far with this race is that apart from being a narcissist, Mr. Trump constantly engages in what psychologists have called “projection”, which is defined as:
The unconscious transfer of one’s own desires or emotions to another person.
Many years ago and shortly after the disbanding of The Beatles, John Lennon and Paul McCartney (and George Harrison to a lesser degree) took shots at each other via their songs. Paul McCartney’s “Too Many People”, for example, is widely considered a song which takes aim at Mr. Lennon:
Included in the song are these lines:
You took your lucky break and broke it in two.
Now what can be done for you?
You broke it in two.
John Lennon shot right back with “How Do You Sleep”…
What was most fascinating to me was that in the Imagine film, Mr. Lennon talks about that song and says this about it:
(How Do You Sleep) is not about Paul, it’s about me. I’m really attacking myself. But I regret the association, well, what’s to regret? He lived through it. The only thing that matters is how he and I feel about these things and not what the writer or commentator thinks about it. Him and me are okay.
By the point of this quote many years had passed and the raw/negative feelings the two had for each other subsided but I nonetheless find Mr. Lennon’s statement incredibly interesting.
Sure, on the surface of the song he was going after Paul McCartney and now regretted it. However, I suspect Mr. Lennon was very much on to something with that quote and had realized the song, while appearing to be a full on attack on Mr. McCartney, was also more than a little self-loathing as well.
Check this song lyric from “How Do You Sleep”:
The only thing you done was yesterday
And since you’ve gone it’s just another day
Once again and on the surface it is clear Mr. Lennon is referring to the famous Beatles song “Yesterday”, which everyone who knows their Beatles trivia knows Paul McCartney composed and recorded pretty much completely on his own, and comparing it -unfavorably- to Paul McCartney’s post Beatles solo song “Another Day”…
Now, in light of John Lennon’s statement, one can (ahem) imagine he realizes much of his criticism is indeed projection and that the negative statements he makes against McCartney are about him.
John Lennon was known to be very self-critical and at times displayed levels of self-loathing. I recall reading one interview where he dismissed the entire Beatles catalogue and said if he had to do it again, he would do every song completely differently, implying all those songs they released were not all that good.
There were also interviews where Mr. Lennon expressed equal parts admiration for and jealousy of the song “Yesterday.” It is arguably the single best known Beatles song yet, as noted above, it is entirely Paul McCartney’s work and John Lennon had nothing at all to do with it.
The success of “Yesterday” made Mr. Lennon (and the other Beatles, of course) a ton of money yet it irritated Mr. Lennon. A confidant of his stated:
“Yesterday drove him crazy,” veteran New York journo/broadcaster Howard Smith told MOJO. “People would say, ‘Thank you for writing Yesterday, I got married to it, what a beautiful song…’ He was always civil. But it drove him nuts.” (The full article can be found here: John Lennon was Haunted by Yesterday)
So if we are to believe Mr. Lennon in that later interview and consider the song “How Do You Sleep” as being a projection of and ultimately about Mr. Lennon, the line “The only thing you done was yesterday” takes on a completely different meaning.
Mr. Lennon is making what amounts to an incredible self-loathing statement: “The only thing I -John Lennon- am known for is the song “Yesterday”, and I didn’t even have anything to do with it!”
Perhaps this is indeed the case and Mr. Lennon had an uncanny insight into his own psyche.
Something, sadly, I don’t think Mr. Trump is capable of.