Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Another Short List of Things That I Hate

I really hate bumper stickers that don't respect my time. "Free Tibet."  Really? I barely have time to go to the bank on my lunch break. I'm supposed to free Tibet? I barely have time to grab a bagel. I don't even have enough time to Free Leonard Peltier. You want me to free an entire freakin' mountainous nation?!

I hate when people say "no pun intended," especially when there wasn't even a pun spoken. If you said a pun, you probably intended it. If you don't know what a pun is, shut the hell up. Puns are the lowest form of comedy.  Chances are if you use puns often, they have some unfulfilled need to be funny and yet you lack the ability to be funny.  Please stop trying. I am embarrassed for you.

I hate it when people say they are going to pray for me. I usually politely ask them not to. I hate the idea of someone wasting their time on my account. They might as well say to me, "I am going to stare at wall for you."  Same effect. Please don't.

I hate dream sequences. When I watch a television show and they spend ten minutes on a character's dreams, all I think it is that the writers are out of ideas. This just gives me time to piss without putting the show on pause.

I hate Yankee fans. Being spit on by complete strangers really turns me off.

I hate when people say "very unique."  Unique means one of a kind.  You can't be "very" one of a kind. You are either one of a kind or not, there are no degrees of being unique. I had a writing teacher that used to say "unless you are writing about a unicorn, you should avoid unique." So stop, all of you. All you are doing is lessening the uniqueness of something by adding "very" to it, the opposite effect that you intended.

I hate celery. It is just crunchy, stringy water.

I hate how people use the the word "literally" exactly the opposite how it should be used. Young people do this a lot.  I hear someone say "I am literally dying." I ask myself "Should I call 911?" She said she is "literally" dying. When I hear the word "literally," I immediately start processing the sentence like I am an android. Why? Because that's what literal means! I literally hate you, if you use "literally" when you mean "figuratively."

I hate commercials. I just hate being lied to. No, I don't believe that "Coke adds life" nor do I believe that "Love makes a Subaru, a Subaru." Just because something is "All Natural" doesn't mean it is good for you. If I filled a box with arsenic and poison ivy and wrote "All Natural" on it, I could probably convince someone to eat it or rub it all over their body. I am grateful for on demand television so that I don't have to watch commercials anymore.

I hate when someone thanks me for my patience, when I am clearly not being patient. This is usually someone on the phone. They obviously don't hear me sighing and groaning?! PERHAPS I SHOULD GROAN AND SIGH LOUDER!! My response is usually, "Does it sound I'm being patient?" which doesn't end well.

Thank you once again for letting me share my hatred with you.

Sunday, March 10, 2019

A Short List of Things I Hate

I hate the fact that whenever I say when I enjoy Ryan Adams' music, there is always someone that thinks I am talking about the Canadian no-talent ass-clown Brian Adams. Sometimes they even start singing "Summer of '69" and I just want to die inside.

I hate that whenever I announce that I am atheists in a crowded room, there always seems to be someone that is shocked, even here in liberal Vermont. Some even ask me "don't you need religion as a moral guide."  What like all those rapist Catholic priests? As if I need the guidance of a book, written in the Bronze Age, full of superstition and hokum, to guide my perception of reality and morality. I've got Walt Whitman and Bob Dylan for that. Shouldn't it be more shocking, when an otherwise rational person believes in magical underpants, people coming back from dead and walking on water.

I hate the noise the fans make at Atlanta Braves home games. I hate it so bad, that even though I am a rabid baseball fan, I won't watch or listen to a game when it is at this stadium. The noise is racist and annoying. Considering how close the stadium is the Trail of Tears, I find this particularly distasteful. Because of this, I will always root against the Braves and in my quest to visit all Major League Baseball parks, this stadium will most likely be the last.

I hate that people are so wildly inconsistent. I have a friend that will only each organic vegetables because he doesn't "want cancer" while he smokes a few packs of cigarettes a day. I know a woman that seems to be obsessed in equality, and yet she still wants men to pay for her on a date and open the doors for her. I also hate that they don't seem to understand me when I point these inconsistencies out. To channel Whitman, I realize we are "large" and "contain multitudes." Inconsistencies is all apart of human nature, but they could at least acknowledge some of these inconsistencies as complete bat shit. One wonders how much self reflection is happening.

I hate Republicans. No explanation needed. I really wish they'd stop proving me right on how truly disgusting they are.

I hate that some people call themselves "bad spellers," as if this is a forgone conclusion and cannot be resolved like being tall or short. When someone announces they are a "bad speller," they are just telling me that they are lazy and/or they don't give a shit about what they are writing or trying to communicate. Everyone was once a bad speller. Those of us you aren't, have simply put the effort into not being. Put a dictionary by your keyboard or add dictionary.com to favorites on your browser.  Look up every word after you type it. You can verify that you have the correct word as well as the spelling. Do this for years until you are not a bad speller. I still find myself looking up words for every blog post I write. This is because I give a shit. Confusing "since" and "sense" or "their" and "there" is your problem, not your readers. If you don't give a shit about what you write, why should I, your reader, be?

I hate most poetry. The poetry I like, I love a lot, but most poetry is truly awful with tired metaphors, references to people's hearts and other cliches. I just start zoning out when people start reading their poetry to me. It is the same feeling I get when someone starts describing the dream they had last night or go into details about their fantasy football team. I politely nod and going into la-la land. Thanks for helping finalize my Costco shopping list because that is what I am thinking about while you opine about a fucking flower.

I hate the fact that whenever I mention logic while in any discussion, someone mentions Mr. Spock from Star Trek. This is a red flag. The only exposure to logic this person has is a TV show from the 60's. This is even worse if they actually say "Dr. Spock" who is an entirely different person. This can get even worse, if they pronounce the show "Star Track." You should be able to kill someone for this type of stuff. They are truly lost and should be stopped before they reproduce.

I hate it when I am playing a game with someone, either on-line or in person, and they quit in the middle of the game. This usually happens when I am winning. This is something I learned when I was a child, you start a game, you are in it until the end. The person who is winning the game, has earned the victory and you committed to it when you started the game. This happens to me a lot when I play chess on my phone(Chess with Friends, user name manofwow44).. I make a great move, get my opponent's queen and then they quit. When they quit, I don't get to work on my endgame. My endgame is bad, I really need practice. This is a just another red flag as where we are as a culture, not just Americans because the people I play are from around the world. Respect for one's opponent is a pillar of civilized society. Leaving a game because you are losing, is the ultimate disrespect.

Thank you for reading my list of hate.

Sunday, March 3, 2019

Hindsight 2020 - March 2019 edition

Before I say anything the 2020 election, let us give thanks to the president. Thank you, Mr. Trump for setting a new precedent for presidential power. Traditionally, Congress has the power of the purse. Congress consistently told him "no" about funding the building of a wall on our southern border, but he is choosing to ignore it giving us a new tier of presidential power. We will surely remember this when a Democratic president takes over. We can declare emergencies also. If Congress refuses to fund the Green New Deal or the Medicare For All ... we say "Emergency" and pull out the funding reserved for disasters and invasion for our pet product.  Thank for having the foresight for giving us this power.

Trump's 2020 campaign has started collecting data on three Democrats, according to Politico: Booker, Warren and Harris. We look like we have some front runners at least in their minds.

Back to the issues: About those issue, David Leonhardt in the NY Times suggested that the issues don't matter much in the Democratic primary. Why? Because the candidates (12 now I believe), mostly agree with each other. So we should primarily be concentrating on one thing: Who can beat Trump?  He says that Sherrod Brown and Kamala Harris are the standouts.But they are all out there, still talking about the issues. You may or may not agree with them, but every single one of them is better than Trump. If you say that both parties are to blame for our awful political situation, then you are just announcing to the world that you haven't been paying attention for the last 30 years.

The Republican party is still the party of global warming denial, maintaining the status quo on health care and billionaire tax cuts. By the year 2050, there may be no maple syrup production in Vermont and no wine grapes growing in California, but yet, a border wall is the emergency. I think the existential and economic crisis of our environmental situation is the real emergency. How silly of me!

I would love another president, like Obama, that would make the right wing extremist freak out. This generally means we are going in the right direction as a society. So a Jewish, Hispanic or a Black Woman as a president would be a really good thing then we can watch every scumbag pundit on Fox "News" heads explode.

Announcing this month:
Vermont Senator, Bernie Sanders: Bernie was the dark horse candidate in 2016. He enters this race as one of the front runners, if not the front runner. At this point, they could all be chasing him if he gets the momentum that he did last time. He is 77 years old which for many makes him too old. Is this ageism or simple practicality? The presidency is a very stressful job so his health is something to take into consideration, but health and age are not the same thing. His VP candidate should be chosen wisely because of this. He has two scandals behind him: (1) his wife's problems with Burlington College and (2) the sexism in his staff during the 2016 campaign. Hopefully, both of them don't weigh too heavily in the general voter's minds. If you think about him running against Trump, these "scandals" are minuscule compared to anything Trump has accumulated in only two years in office. As a Vermonter, I like Bernie and I have voted for his for both Rep. and Senator. I also voted for him in the primaries in 2016. I have met him twice. I disagree with him on a lot (particularly on economics), but I know him as an honorable and honest person. I vote for him because I trust him. He represents us well. He'd be a fine president. Jamelle Bouie in NY Times, says that Bernie is the only candidate so far that has a clear and comprehensive message on foreign policy, something he lacked during the 2016 campaign.

Bernie has the passion without details while Warren has details but is lacking in the passion. This makes me think that among the two further left candidates, Bernie is more likely to beat Trump, but far left is still going to be tough to win in the general election.

South Bend Mayor, Pete Buttigieg: In last month's Hindsight 2020, I didn't mention Pete Buttigieg (pronounced Buddha judge), who is the two term mayor of South Bend, Indiana. What's a mayor of a city of 100,000 people doing running for president? Good question. One thing to point out, he has more experience in government than Trump did when he became president. He is another Rhode Scholar, an Afghanistan war veteran and is openly gay. Just on that last sentence alone, he is a better candidate than Trump. I've heard him speak a view times in the past few weeks and I like him, a lot actually. But the key question here is: will the general public vote for a gay man? a married gay man? It is hard to believe he'd win the general election.

New York Senator, Kirsten Gillibrand: She is very pleasant and personable. If you have watched Colbert at any point in the past, you may have seen her on one of his shows. She was conservative in her past, but has claimed to be reformed. She appears to me to be an opportunist and a hypocrite.When she talks about important issues she comes off as being quite trite. When sexual assault accusations came out about Senator Al Franken, he asked for investigations into the allegations and she lead the charge to throw him under the bus. Now that much worse allegations have come out about Lt. Governor of Virginia, Justin Fairfax, she is calling for an investigation. Not sure why Al Franken didn't get this respect. She is a lightweight and I wouldn't turn my back on her.

Governor of Washington Jay Inslee: He is the current governor of the state of Washington and used to be a member of the US House of Representatives. His campaign is the only one so far to have his campaign headquarters fully based on the West Coast. He is from humble stock with his mother being a clerk at Sears while his father was a high school counselor and football coach. His big issue is the environment which makes him appealing to me. Can a relatively unknown like this defeat a sitting president? Since that President is Trump, perhaps, yes.  Clinton did it to Bush and Bush (the first one) was a half decent President.

Marianne Williamson: She is a new age spiritualist author from Houston and is often called Oprah's "spiritual adviser." I don't take her very seriously and unless I see something that makes her qualified to run this country, I am not going to mention her again.

Those still not declared yet:
Former VP Joe Biden, former NYC mayor Mike Bloomberg, Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, Governor of Montana Steve Bullock, former Governor of Colorado John Hickenlooper, former Governor of Virginia Terry McAuliffe, Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley, Rep. from Massachusetts Seth Moulton, former Rep. from Texas Beto O'Rourke, Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan, California Rep. Eric Swalwell and Mark Warner, Senator from Virginia.

The rest of the field:
Cory Booker: I have notice that eight of my friends, on Facebook, are following Mr. Booker. One of them is a staunch Republican so I know this doesn't mean much, other than he probably has the most name recognition in the Democratic field right now, among those who have announced. He made a visit to Iowa in February and is hiring staff in the early primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. He is trying to draw a distinction between himself and his competition stating that they haven't run anything and while he has run a major city, Newark. He has released a plan to reduce housing costs.

Kamala Harris: California's primary has been moved up early this year. This gives a distinct advantage to Ms. Harris. She has visited Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada in February. She advocated for universal childcare and has proposed the LIFT act to assist struggling middle class families.

Amy Klobuchar: The Senator from Minnesota raised $1 million within 48 hours of announcing her candidacy which is pretty impressive. She is the only candidate that is positioning herself as a moderate. She may do well if Biden stays out of the race. If he does enter the race, his name recognition alone may overshadow her.

Elizabeth Warren: While Bernie talks about blowing the system up and rebuilding, she talks about restructuring the system from within. She has proposed a universal childcare program.and a family leave act. She is a policy candidate, which may have a lot of appeal to someone like me, but many voters choose based on personality and the "would I like to share a beer with this person?" question looms bad for her. If I were voting on domestic policies alone, she may have my vote.

Julian Castro: He plans on visiting all 50 states during his campaign. I'm looking forward to seeing him here in VT if he lasts that long. Maybe he should just come on over when he is pounding the pavement in New Hampshire. Since we're overwhelmingly for Sanders, I doubt if we'll see him.

Tulsi Gabbard: If you are looking for the peace candidate, she might be your candidate. She has come out strong against US involvement in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Here is an interesting fact about her. Her net worth is only $208,504.00. This is really amazing since she lives in a very expensive state, Hawaii.

John Delaney: Because he declared so early, he has already visited all 99 counties in Iowa. He is another moderate candidate who has gotten accolades from even conservatives like George Will who in a November 2018 opinion piece in the Washington Post, stated that Democrats should consider a moderate like Delaney to defeat Trump. While having a background in business might not appeal to the left in the Democratic party, it may be gold in the general election. He is pro-business but he still stands in all the right places on the issues that Democrats care about: health care, the environment and education etc.

Andrew Yang: He is another candidate I am not taking too seriously because he has no government experience, but it seem like others are. Rolling Stone Magazine puts him at #17 among 27 candidates (published in mid February 2019) which is not great but is higher than Delaney or Gabbard. So I will keep him on my radar.

Talk to you next month.