What I Hate About Being An Adult Today: An Ongoing And Neverending Series

Random observations of grown-up life in the last week -- 

• there is water damage in the ceiling of my home office again 
• that means the second floor toilet is almost certainly leaking again
• I got pink eye from my kid 
• the house and car insurance payments are due and they've jacked the rates again
• I need to shop for fucking insurance again 
• speaking of insurance, my company changed health insurance providers
• have I mentioned that I really hate researching insurance providers and policies? 
• it will be time to do taxes soon 
• my retirement savings are in the toilet
• that kind of brings it full circle 

Dear Senator Franken

I voted for you twice. I have been an ardent supporter, and I was proud of the way in which you worked to oppose President Trump's nominations, particularly Betsy DeVos and Jeff Sessions. I also lauded your efforts to push for thorough investigations of Russian election tampering, and to fight the Republican legislative agenda. I have called your office to thank you for all of these things.

So when Leeann Tweeden wrote her essay last week, as a constituent and genuine admirer, I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt -- you have worked hard for Minnesota, and you have championed many of the issues that are personally important to me.

I cannot, however, ignore the second set of allegations against you that were published this morning in the StarTribune. For the good of Minnesota, I think it is time for you to make arrangements to end your career in the senate.

I did not weigh in publicly before now, because I was trying to be patient, and I was experiencing so many conflicting feelings. After your eloquent and personal apology to Leeann Tweeden and her acceptance of it, I breathed a sigh of relief and I was prepared to move on. From my remote vantage point, it seemed as though Tweeden was at least open to the idea that whatever happened between the two of you was a misunderstanding.

This second story recasts all of that. The incident occurred at the State Fair - the quintessentially Minnesotan family-oriented event. It was openly discussed by the accuser at the time, and it happened when you were our sitting senator. Even though what is alleged by the second woman is not as bad as what Tweeden said happened to her, it is still terrible, and perhaps worse in its own way: it happened in a context where your conduct should have been far beyond reproach.

I am not saying this out of fear of the narrative that will be spun in some circles -- people often tell tales regardless of truth. My concern is the actual harm that you did to these women. For that, you should step down. Minnesota needs a senator who better represents the values of the progressive movement.

This is not an easy letter to write, and it is not a knee-jerk reaction -- this is my considered opinion as a voter in Minnesota. I have spent a great deal of the last four days thinking and listening to people -- especially women -- and now that I have heard a second accuser step forward, I have come to a realization: you can no longer effectively serve us, your constituents. This story will follow you wherever you go, and it will render you irrelevant at best. I shudder to contemplate the worst-case scenario.

I would rather not take a chance on a special election. But these allegations are not going to go away.

Please do the right and honorable thing. Make us proud one more time.

"Get Over It"

In a discussion thread about the potential consequences of a Trump presidency, one commenter offered me this hoary advice:

Get over it. Let a businessman take a crack at it.

I am certain many others have encountered similar admonishments. But what is this really telling us to do? In the interest of saving everyone's time, I have compiled a list of things that we are being asked to "get over":

• that members of the FBI up to and including its director materially tampered with the election by selectively releasing information about one candidate.
   
• that Russian agents hacked one political party with the intent of damaging that party's candidate and influencing the outcome of the election. The beneficiary of this responded to this not by condemning the cyberattack, but by attacking American intelligence services.
   
• that the "businessman" in question...
• has global financial interests and has refused to divest himself from his businesses, release his taxes, or offer any other assurance that he will put the country's interests before his own.
   
• has been embroiled in more than 3500 lawsuits, declared bankruptcy on multiple occasions, and in at least one instance, committed outright fraud.
   
• bragged proudly and publicly about adultery, sexual assault, and lechery.
   
• did no preparation for the job of POTUS.
   
• that the "winning" candidate lost by almost 3 million votes, but will be installed as the victor thanks to an antiquated system designed to empower rural white slave-holders.
   
• More repugnant than anything else, we are being asked to "get over" the fact that seemingly normal people made common cause with literal Nazis and Klansmen -- i.e., actual villains -- in order to elect a racist, plutocratic, authoritarian degenerate. 

Orange Is The New Darkness

Here's what I can't understand: in this election, people who appear on the surface to be good and decent made common cause with literal Nazis and Klansmen in order to elect a racist, plutocratic, authoritarian degenerate. In this task they were abetted by a Russian dictator and his spies.

AND. FOR. WHAT.

A fucking tax cut? Because abortion is icky? Hillary had an email server? Because brown people are so scary? I just do not get it. I do not think I will ever be capable of getting it. Might be time to revisit Viktor Frankl.

The inimitable Driftglass, in July:

The Democratic Party held a brilliantly coordinated, four-day political convention. The Republican Party held a four-day, wingnut Ghost Dance intended to resurrect the Confederacy.

Here's the punchline: it worked.

Long will it be before I can forgive those who collaborated with Trump and his deplorables.

Truth and Consequences

Yesterday morning I felt confident that the country would be waking up today to the election of the first woman president.

I could not have been more wrong. 

So what happened?

This article from last week describes the weakness of Clinton's coalition that I (and many others) missed: from the standpoint of the electoral map, her strengths were over-represented in democratic strongholds and under-represented in swing states. In retrospect, it tells the story: Clinton was defeated by these demographic realities and by the anachronism that is the Electoral College, by lower Democratic turnout, and by an unusually high white rural voter turnout. It's also possible that voter suppression laws had an effect on the outcome, but that is more difficult to measure. 

What seems more pressing are the potential consequences of a Trump presidency. With this upset victory, the Republicans suddenly find themselves with more power than ever before. Despite a policy gulf between Clinton and Trump larger than in any election in memory, these differences went shamefully unreported.

Here's a preview of what we might expect from President Trump, Majority Leader McConnell, and Speaker Ryan:

- an end to environmental regulation enforcement
- a supreme court justice who is against choice, gay marriage, labor rights and voting rights
- a repeal of Obamacare, which will strip 22 million people of insurance
- a repeal of Dodd-Frank, and an end to the Consumer Financial Protection Board
- our National Parks could be sold and/or leased for development and/or mining/resource exploitation
- capital gains and other tax cuts for upper incomes
- increases in fees and other regressive taxes for lower incomes
- Medicare replaced by voucher system

- privatization of Social Security
- block grants to states for everything from education to food stamps

All in all, a pretty grim picture.

Welcome to Kansas, America.

Update: SteveM has more. 

The Hammer Salesmen Keep Seeing Nails

It's not an exaggeration to say that Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris changed my life. Before I read The God Delusion and Letter to a Christian Nation, I was merely a lapsed Catholic. But reading these books gave me permission to openly self-identify as a secularist/atheist/agnostic. So I must admit to having a bit of a soft spot for these authors. Unfortunately, I have to call them both out for being jackasses, because sometimes that's what one must do in order to be intellectually honest.

First, in a recent interview, Richard Dawkins tells some anecdotes in which he implies that he does not condemn sexual harassment or pederasty. Okay, I kinda-sorta get what he's saying, so it isn't completely incomprehensible. But for the love of FSM, is this what you think is important to say right now? Is this the highest moral purpose you aspire to in these times - to defend anonymous perps on the basis of "different standards"? Yeesh. You're trolling us, Richard.

Now, I see that Sam Harris has decided to make a meal out of Malala Yousafzai, the teenage girl who was shot for speaking out against the Taliban. Harris seems to be willing to sacrifice anyone and anything in the service of his rhetorical cause. I'm afraid that others who have criticized Harris for rigidity and absolutism are right. Dear Sam: you wrote a great book, and you make some interesting points. But when you appropriate the courageous work of a young Muslim girl in order to make your point that Islam is Evil, well... it might be time to put down the computer and go outside for a while.

Grow up, fellas. We need you. 

These days, I find James Carse more compelling.

Cruz Has My Vote...

...for Grifter of the Year.

I Can't Wake Up For This Bullsh*t

I've mostly been hitting the snooze bar on Benghazi, because it is exhausting to try and keep up with the shifting narrative - the "scandal" amounts to a tragedy from which House Republicans and other loonies hope to make political hay. Eight months of fucking that chicken and nothing to show for it. Give it a rest, fellas!

That said, this article actually did catch my eye, and it is worth a read for its clear-headed and sobering analysis of where the House of Representatives may well end up during Obama's second term.

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Party of Fiscal Responsibility

Somehow I missed this story last July, but it is still relevant, as House Republicans are pushing to vote for the 37th time to repeal ACA. Fifty million dollars for absolutely nothing.

Reminder: these public tantrums cost money! I hasten to add that this enormous cost isn't at all surprising - anyone who works for a big company can tell you that meetings are expensive. And what is a vote on the floor of the House of Representatives if not one gigantic meeting?

Don't Wanna Be Like That

Last night while folding laundry, I caught the better part of a new evening game show called Take It All. In the first rounds, contestants compete for unusual and increasingly expensive prizes by guessing their value, and at the end of each round, the contestant in possession of the least valuable prize is eliminated. I have to admit, I was drawn in by the sometimes bizarre prizes and their surprising values.

In the final round, when there are only two contestants left, the game is changed: the last two players must negotiate a deal in order to actually win the prizes. The game is decided by a secret ballot - if both vote to "take mine," they each go home with the prizes they accumulated throughout the game. If one contestant votes "take it all," that person takes both players' prizes, and the loser leaves with nothing. The catch is that if both contestants choose "take it all," then neither of them wins anything.

So basically, the object of the game is to convince, cajole, coerce, trick, and/or manipulate the other person into selecting "take mine." It is deceit and avarice for the purpose of entertainment. I was sick to my stomach after watching it.

Take me away.

Religion: A Scary Thing, or The Scariest Thing?

Ugandan MP David Bahati has introduced a bill to punish homosexuals with the death penalty. No mention of his religious leanings in that story, but it turns out that Uganda is governed in part by fundamentalist Christians with ties to the American fundamentalist group The Family.

Never let it be said that Christian fundamentalists are less extreme than their Muslim counterparts.

Can You Break A 100,000,000,000,000?

I just read that Zimbabwe recently printed a Z$100 Trillion note. Zounds that's a big number. It makes the Z$50 Billion note pictured seem quaint.

I Told You So

Banks kinda suck. Too bad I work for one.

Thankless Cube

In honor of Cubezoo, I post this collection of Wired's worst office accommodations.

Slow Fade

I just read that India landed an unmanned spacecraft on the moon today. I don't know why, but this bothers me almost as much as the financial crisis that grips the U.S. I love the American space program, and I have always felt a sense of pride in it. But nowadays our education system can't even teach our children science without having to beat back church groups, and in mathematics our children lag behind other nations. And we have no money to address these educational issues - we are heavily leveraged by war and debt and the true cost of the so-called "free" market.

I'm sure Indians feel a great swell of pride in their country's accomplishment, as well they should. But I can't help feel that we Americans should be standing on Moon Base Alpha right now, chillin in a gigantic greenhouse, instead of drowning in ten trillion dollars of debt.

What the Rest of the World Thinks

I found this graph today. It speaks volumes about what the Bush presidency has meant for U.S. standing in the world.

Who Gives A Damn About The Stock Market?

There is strong element of sarcasm in the headline, but there is also an earnestness. Who really suffers from these volatile financial markets? And for that matter, who benefits from them? In the past week, the DJIA took triple digit losses for something like six days in a row. Then yesterday, there was a nearly-quadruple-digit rally. It makes me wonder, who are the people buying and selling that number of shares? They aren't anyone I know.

Like the winners and losers on American Idol, who represent a tiny fraction of musicians and artists, it seems that in spite of how large the stock market looms in our collective consciousness, we are actually thinking about a relatively small number of people who control it. Ordinary folks just have to sit anxiously by and hope their favorite mutual fund doesn't face Simon Cowell's virulent tongue. The only difference is that the stakes are retirement, health care, and municipal works, rather than merely bearing witness to someone else's fifteen minutes of lame.

Right About The Right, Again

Sometime late in the morning four years ago, the day after the disastrous 2004 presidential election, a friend sent me an email which decried the gulf of difference between ourselves and the average voter.

There is a large sector of the American public (51%, I guess) that is uninterested in facts. I'm not saying they're necessarily dumb, but they simply are not interested in weighing evidence or critical thinking. They believe what they believe, and for them, it all turns on social issues... [in that context,] the only way to win would be to sacrifice the social issues... In the meantime, we have no choice but to keep fighting for reason, science, and decency, or else just move to Canada. Obama 2008.

Obama in 2008? What a dreamer. And yet here we are! He gets full credit for calling that one.

I bring up his sagacity because we exchanged some email today about some quotes in the New York Times. In an article about the election, one church-going Catholic seriously asked, "are they going to make it the Black House?" And another: "She said she’s never voted, and was a teenage mom "like Bristol." She likes Sarah [Palin] because she’s "down home" but said Obama "gives me the creeps. Nothing to do with the fact that he’s black. He just seems snotty, and he looks weaselly." This is who we might be going to the polls with in November?

My friend wrote of these shameful (shameless?) pronouncements:

...if we [Democrats] don't [win the 2008 election], it won't be because we don't have a good candidate, or that he didn't run a good campaign. It's just that there are more of *them* than there are of us. And worse, they're outbreeding us by a fairly wide margin.

Goddammit, I suspect he's right again. It sounds a lot like Idiocracy, doesn't it?

Not Another Protest Song

The other day a friend asked me if I knew about any protests against the Republican National Convention while it is in town this September. I'm sure there will be, but I don't know of any. Maybe I'm jaded, maybe I've become too cynical, but these days protests seem kind of pointless: a bunch of folks who agree with one another walking around agreeing with each other. No one else listens or even cares, and I am certain that they do not raise awareness like they once did. They have become a big echo chamber where like-minded people convene to hear themselves speak.

Every time I've been to a march or a protest, I have felt that the energy was false; I have never felt real passion or conviction in the midst of such events. These crowds belch forth narcissistic indignation that says nothing so much as "we are cool because we are fighting the man," or "look at us old hippies, we changed the world by protesting." News flash: no you aren't and no you didn't.

The friend conceded my point, but explained that he has been feeling the need to do something, anything to feel like he is making a difference. He lamented he has little to show for his foray into participatory democracy (voting, caucusing, being a delegate, writing congressmen, etc.), and that Minnesota isn't the progressive place that it once was.

I'm sympathetic to his cry: what can an ordinary person do to affect change in the corridors of power? Year after year, polls tell me that Americans want progressive health care reform, a fair tax structure, a better education for their children. Why doesn't this ever happen? I've been told that "doing all you can" gives one a sense of peace and satisfaction. But for my friend, and for me, that is no comfort.

Do You Want To Be A Good World Citizen Or Not?

Europeans are very pleased to say goodbye to George W. Bush. Not surprising! I've lived through seven presidents. In my lifetime I don't think the world has been happier to bid good riddance to an American president. My experiences abroad have suggested to me that most folks like the American people and all things American well enough, but they despise our leaders and our foreign policies.

Let's do something about that.