Entry 335: Long Weekend or L-o-o-o-ong Weekend?

Hey y'all, it's the weekend -- a long weekend at that.  I don't have much time or energy for a post though.  S has been away for the past week on work, and these kids are wearing me the eff out (kid, really -- the baby is no problem since my mother-in-law is here, but Lil' S1 has been beyond a handful of late).  I'm hanging in there, but it is taking every fiber of my being.  Also it doesn't help that it went from temperatures in the mid-50s to the high 80s in, like, a day, so I got caught without any coolant in our AC unit (we have to fill it at the beginning of every summer), and due to the holiday the earliest anybody can come out is Tuesday.

Also, I used the sliver of free time I did have while I was still somewhat alert and coherent (i.e., it wasn't 11:00 at night and all I wanted to do was eat a bowl of granola and watch an episode of Broad City -- my newest binge watch) to blog about my latest crossword puzzle.  So you can read that if you so desire (warning: contains spoilers).  I riff about the awkward time I watched Revenge of the Nerds with my parents, and give my opinion or the "real trooper" vs. "real trouper" debate.  Yes, apparently that is a thing.

Alright, hopefully I will be back next week with a "legit" post.  Until then, let us heed the imperative of Ric Ocasek.



Until next time...

Entry 334: My Response to All the Bernie Sanders Posts in My Facebook Feed

As I've mentioned before, I don't like posting or responding to political stuff on Facebook.  Sometimes I can't help it, and I put something up, in which case one of two things happens: (a) nobody says anything; (b) I get sucked into a war of posts that I instantly regret because I expend a bunch of time and energy and nobody ever changes their mind about anything.  So if the best case scenario for something is that I get ignored, then it is probably not worth doing that something.  I often wish I could be the type of person who could mix it up on Facebook without becoming subsumed by it.  But I can't, so I usually don't.

Lately, however, I've really had to bite my tongue (pinch my fingers?) at every turn.  I have a few pro-Trump friends who post stupid shit (it's pro-Trump, after all); I have a few libertarian friends who post stupid shit (they really love guns and really hate the $15/hour minimum wage); and I have a few nature-worshiping friends who post stupid shit (anti-vax garbage, Food Babe nonsense, etc.).  But lately the worst, if only due to the sheer volume of their posts, are my "Bernie or Bust" friends.  This post is for all of them.

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I'm losing respect for Bernie Sanders and his "revolution" with each passing day and each passing accusation of a "rigged" system.  You mean the rigged system, in which the person winning is actually the person with $3 million more votes than her opponent?  Again I will ask the question I've been asking repeatedly: How else should it be?  For somebody running on a populous platform, Bernie Sanders is surprisingly indifferent to what the populous actually wants.

The thing is I really liked Sanders when he first got into the race, and I still agree with him on most issues.  If he was going to be the Democratic nominee, I would support him, but, barring something very unusual, he's not.  And what's worse, as his loss becomes more and more certain, he's spinning off further and further into the land of tinfoil hats and truthers, and he's taking many of his supporters with him.  Sanders and Sanders fans repeatedly rail against a rigged system, but their notion of what this means is becoming more and more refined to the point that their current definition seems to be "any system in which Sanders is not the winner."  It is getting to be quite absurd.

I mean, there are huge problems with "the system" in this country.  You need huge amounts of money to run; the two major parties have a virtual duopoly on every important office; the winner-take-all (by state) Electoral College makes it so that only the votes in a few swing states actually "matter"; there is voter suppression through ID laws, long lines, etc.; so on and so forth.  But if you just look at the primaries, in particular the Democratic primary, it is reasonably fair.  It's not perfect, but it does have one really big thing going for it: The candidate whom most voters pick is the candidate who wins.  That's it.  That's how a relatively obscure one-term senator won in 2008 against the "establishment choice," and it's how Bernie could have won against the very same opponent.   Turn out more voters and get more votes.  Bernie tried.  He's still trying.  But he can't do it.  His ideas aren't quite popular enough.  Yes, it sucks, but that's how it goes.

And, now, instead of accepting this reality and making the best of it, he and many of his supporters are deeply in denial about it, blaming everybody and everything except their lack of votes.  And if you really look at the things they are complaining about, there is just no there there.  To wit:

Superdelegates
In theory superdelegates could be incredibly unfair, and I wish there weren't so many of them in the Democratic party.  (I'd be fine to get rid of them altogether.)  However, in practice, it's a moot point, because there has never been a Democratic primary in my lifetime (I only went back to 1976) in which a candidate had more pledged delegates, but lost due to superdelegates.  In fact, 2008 completely belies the "superdelegates decide" narrative, because Clinton started with more than Obama, but they switched once Obama started beating her.  This almost certainly would happen for Sanders if he started beating Hillary too.  Sanders would be the Obama of 2016, if people voted for him like they did for Obama.  But, like I said above, they aren't.

Also, it is more than a bit ironic that Sanders' only path to the nomination now relies largely on superdelegates.  Do his supporters know this?  Do they care?  They are basically saying, "Superdelegates are totally unfair... except when our candidate needs them."

Closed Primaries
Bernie does better when independents are allowed to vote, not just registered Dems.  But this is a tough one for me.  Does it make sense that people who are not Democrats are allowed to have a say in who the Democratic nominee is?  If we had a viable third party in this country (or better yet, viable fourth, fifth, and sixth parties) I would say no.  But Sanders' hand is a bit forced, in that he has to run as a Democrat to be taken seriously (see Nader, Ralph).  This inclines me to say yes to open primaries, as it is the only way people who aren't Democrats or Republicans can have a say real in who the candidates will be.  However, I understand why the Democratic party wouldn't want it this way.  I see both sides of this one.

But even if I concede that non-Democrats should be allowed to vote in primaries (and they are in some states) there are two big reasons why I still don't believe closed primaries have rigged the system in Clinton's favor:  (a)  Although Sanders does better in open primaries, he still doesn't do as good as Clinton.  Doing the addition from this page, I get 798 pledged delegates for Clinton in open or semi-open primaries, and 547 for Sanders.  Since pledged delegates are awarded more or less proportionally to the vote, this means Clinton beats Sanders 59%-41% even when independents are allowed to vote.  (b) Sanders does especially well in caucuses, which are the least representative of the people and have the most byzantine rules.  It's funny how I never hear Sanders' supporters complain about the unfairness of caucuses.  Yes... funny.

The Nevada Fraud Imbroglio

I don't really want to get into this.  You can Google it if you are interested.  I'll just say that the stakes were -- what? -- two delegates?  Five?  Even if Bernie won all 35 pledged delegates in Nevada (which would be a highly undemocratic since Clinton got more votes, but I'm making a point) he still would be way behind.  He still would have no realistic way of surpassing Hillary.  It is so disingenuous for Sanders and his supports to claim the system is rigged because of this.  It's like if there is two minutes left in a football game and your team is losing 34-10 and a field goal you make is disallowed because of a questionable call and you say, "See the game is fixed!"

The Wyoming primary was similar in this regard.  So many people on Facebook posted that moronic Joe Scarborough clip, which is obviously little more than anti-Clinton trolling.  First, consider the source: Joe Scarborough has a history of not knowing what he's talking about.  Second, he makes no distinction between pledged delegates and superdelegates (again, superdelegates can and would switch allegiances if Bernie ever actually overtook Clinton in pledged delegates).  So basically the entire issue is that one pledged delegate, one, was awarded to Clinton instead of Bernie because of how the vote was rounded.  (There were 14 pledged delegates, and they split 7-7, because Sanders got 56% of the vote, which wasn't quite enough for an 8-6 split, since 8 out of 14 is a little more than 57%.)

Here's what Bernie's argument about Nevada and Wyoming boils down to: Currently Clinton is winning among pledged delegates 1,768 to 1,494, but you could make the case that perhaps it would be more fair if it was 1,763 to 1,499.  The system is rigged!

The "Media Blackout"

I saved the best (i.e., the most ridiculous) for last.  Here's what somebody posted on Facebook:

I thought to myself, "Media blackout?  That doesn't sound right."  So I Googled "Bernie Sanders New York rally" and here is a sample from the first page:

There's your media blackout, folks!  This rally was only covered by such tiny outlets as CNN, NBC, Business Insider, the New York Times, and the BBC.  (Not too mention ABC, Time, the New York Daily News, and the Observer, all on Page 2 of the search.  I'm sure it would have kept on going if I had kept clicking through the pages.)  Oh, and, by the way, Sanders did a great job drawing crowds; he was less successful at getting voters to the polls.  He lost to Clinton by about a quarter million votes.

Now if you're argument is that there is not a literal blackout, but that Bernie receives less news attention.  That is still a tough argument to make.  As Charles Blow points out, a lot of Clinton's news is negative, and the LA Times says that since the beginning of 2016, after it became clear Bernie was going to be a real contender, the media started covering both the candidates equally.  Furthermore, by my estimation, Sanders sometimes got unduly favorable media coverage because horse races get ratings; media outlets wanted to make the race seem closer than it was.

Plus, there really is no "the media" now.  There is a lot of little media pockets that are inhabited by people who want to consume that specific type of media.  Walter Cronkite died a long time ago.  I think pretty much every potential voter in the Democratic primary knows who Bernie Sanders is and what he stands for.  They had -- what? -- 10 nationally televised debates?  Everybody who wants to be well-formed about the candidates is.  A conspiratorial media blackout depriving voters of information about Bernie Sanders is incredibly difficult to swallow.

Here's my bottom line with Bernie and his supporters: If you like Sanders and want to support him to the bitter end, great.  If you loathe Hillary and can't support her under any circumstances, that's also great.  I'm assuming you know what's at stake if she loses the general election (it's something loud and orange that wants to build a giant wall), and if you still chose not to vote for her, then that's your choice.  I'm not going to begrudge you for that.  However, it would be nice if y'all could come back to reality.  That's my request: Vote how you are going to vote; support whom you are going to support; but just come out of your left-wing bubble.  You lost fair in square.  Now stop pedaling bullshit -- the right already has that market cornered.

OK, that's it.  I feel better now.  Thanks for listening.

Until next time...

Entry 333: FoMO

I'm depressed.  I don't mean this in the clinical sense; if I went to see a therapist I doubt he or she would diagnosis me with the mood disorder commonly referred to as depression.  I mean I'm feeling down in the dumps.  I've got a case of the blues.  I've got FoMO, which seems a bit a silly to write, but it's true.

S is at the wedding of a good friend that I couldn't attend.  She took Lil' S2 and her mom with her, so it's just me and Lil' S1.  I'm looking at her pictures on FaceBook, and I really wish we could be there with her.  It certainly doesn't help that the wedding is in beautiful Santa Barbara, and I'm stuck in D.C. -- which apparently now stands for Dagobah Climate, as it has been wet and dreary the past two weeks straight.  Spring is supposed to the nice season in D.C.  Pretty soon it's going to be triple digits and disgusting here.  If it is going to rain now, during our prime weather season, things are going to be tough.

[D.C. these days]

Then to make things worse, the entire reason I couldn't attend the wedding is because I was going to be short on leave because we were planning on going to the Outer Banks next month.  So getting screwed over on that trip, also indirectly screwed me over on this wedding trip.  I totally could have gone.  But by the time this actually dawned on us, ticket prices were extremely expensive and there were no "convenient" flights.  I use quotes because there is really no such thing as a convenient cross-country flight; it is a matter of degree of inconvenience, but when you are traveling with a small child, this degree matters a great deal.  So I'm stuck at home in thunder storms, while my wife puts up pictures of the sunny beach.

Also, my 20-year high school reunion is this summer, and I really want to go, and I can't.  As bad luck would have it, it falls on the only date of the entire summer on which I already have plans.  I'm going with some buddies to see Ken Griffey Jr. get enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.  Now, obviously this should be fun in its own right, but I'm mainly going to spend time with friends I don't see very often, and had I known the reunion would be on the same date, I would have tried to make plans to do something else with these friends on a different date.

Although even if I wasn't going to Cooperstown, it would still be a pain to go to my reunion because it's the third week in July, and we are going to visit my family in early August.  I don't think moving the trip date up is realistic for S's schedule and the schedule of some of my family members, so I would either have to fly out just for the weekend and fly out again a few weeks later, or I would have to stay out there for like a month, which probably wouldn't go over too well with work or with S and the kids.  Basically, the reunion falls on the worst possible weekend for me.  If I could just push it back a week (or even better two weeks), everything would work out perfectly.  *Sigh*... C'est la vie, I suppose.

And, yes, I am aware that there are people who have real problems.  Many people are unemployed or stuck in dead-end jobs or in unhappy relationships or have serious medical problems.  If my biggest complaints in life are that I missed one wedding and that I can't go to one fun event, because I have plans to go to a different fun event, then I must be doing okay.  But the thing about that is that I have disproportionate concern about my problems, because, you know, they are my problems.  I mean, it's good to have perspective, but I don't think people can make themselves feel better by thinking about other people who have it worse.  Feelings just don't work that way.

Anyway... This bad weather is also limiting my options with Lil' S1.  Yesterday there was a birthday party for one of his friends, so that was a good way to spend a few hours.  There was a magician there, who was really lame, even by doing-birthday-parties-for-four-year-olds standards, but the kids still seemed to enjoy it, so whatever.

Today I took the little guy to the gym and then we got lunch, which killed some time.  But we still have a good six hours left before he goes to bed, and he doesn't nap anymore.  Eh... We will figure something out.  I could get in touch with my friend RB, she's been implying that she wants to do something, but she's tricky.  Mostly she's a great person to hang out with, but a nontrivial percentage of the time she gets into a funk where every conversation is steered back to how she's lonely and wants a husband and kids and feels like it's slipping away, and pretty soon she's going to be too old, and so on.  That's fine if we're at a bar and there are no kids around and I have beer (and preferably a sporting event on in the background for a distraction when needed), but with Lil' S1 climbing all over me, it's a tough conversation to have.

Plus, she does this weird thing where she'll text me with the vague implication that she wants to do something, but she will never actually try to make plans.  Here's an example:

RB -- This looks cool: [link to an event at a nearby brewery]
Me -- Yeah, looks pretty cool

And then that's the end of the exchange.  Here's another one from today:

RB -- When does S get home?  What are u guys doing?
Me -- S comes home Tuesday.  We just got back from a little father-son lunch.  Now we're just chillin'.
RB -- Cool

And that's it.  What am I'm supposed to do with this?  I think what's going on is she wants to hang out, but for some reason she wants me to be the one to make the plans and ask her.  But I don't want to do that.  If I wanted to do that then I would just do that without any prompting.  It's a weird (and kinda annoying) idiosyncrasy.  Like at the end of her first text, why doesn't she say "Any interest?" or something like that.  And at the end of her second text, why doesn't she say "Want to hang out?"  Those are perfectly acceptable questions to ask, and the answer might be "yes."  I might be down to do something, but I'm not going to be down to initiate something, when I'm not even completely sure what that something is supposed to be.

Alright, Lil' S1's show is about to end, and although I'm tempted to just let him watch TV all day, I'm not going to do that -- good parenting, see.  Oh, and by the way, on the off chance you read this RB, please know that you are a wonderful person, and I very much value your friendship.  I just don't know what to do with your weird, passive text messages -- that's all.

Until next time...

Entry 332: Politics and Prognostications

Did you hear Donald Trump is going to be the Republican presidential nominee?  You probably did.  I won’t say I was on the Trump-will-win bandwagon from the beginning, but I jumped on pretty early.  I remember having a (good-natured) argument with a coworker who is a lifelong (Trump-hating) Republican about this; he was saying Trump would absolutely not win, and I was saying he was the most likely candidate to win (although at that point I still would have taken the field).  I think I’m a pretty decent political prognosticator (sports too).  Here are five rules of thumb I follow to get it right: (1) Don’t confuse what you want to happen with what you think will happen; (2) Don’t be so cynical that you only foresee the worst case scenario (this is the opposite of (1)); (3) Know that you don’t actually know what will happen (which actually makes you wiser than those who think they know -- Socrates, see), and so you should always frame things in terms of probabilities -- a “likely to happen,” “very unlikely happen”, “50-50 to happen,” etc.; (4) Listen to smart people and copy what they say; (5) Know who the smart people are.  Item (5) is perhaps the most important.  Although, ironically, one of the smart people I usually listen to is Nate Silver, and he really got the Donald Trump thing wrong.  Nobody’s perfect.

I’m fine with Trump being the nominee.  I mean, if I could pick anybody I wanted then I certainly would not pick him, but if I’m limited to only the field of Republican candidates, then he is just as good (or just as bad, rather) as anybody else.  And if the choice is between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, as it was at the end, then I actually prefer Trump.  That’s how loathsome I find Cruz; I would rather have a xenophobic, bigoted ignoramus then Ted Cruz.  In fact, on balance, Trump’s win makes me happy, because it means Ted Cruz is out.  And then we get to watch videos like this:



I love this video.  It's not just that Cruz makes a gaffe and uses the wrong terminology -- although that is pretty funny in and of itself -- it's that Cruz is in the middle of his "real America" shtick (one he blatantly ripped off from the movie Hoosiers, by the way) and he completely exposes himself as the phony that he is.  (Don't forget, he's a lawyer from an effete Ivy League school, just like every other politician in our country.)  This is the greatest thing since that school in New York denied him the opportunity to come and speak.  The whole "New York values" thing is a very strange angle to play, in general.  I mean, isn't Ted Cruz  supposed to be really smart?  Because categorically insulting the people in the largest and most iconic city of a country, when you are trying to garner votes to become president of that country, doesn't seem very smart to me.  It actually seems pretty stupid.

Also, Cruz was supposedly outmaneuvering Trump with respect to the delegates -- going behind the scenes to curry favor with uncommitted delegates, whereas Trump was largely ignoring them.   My coworker (a different one than above) was saying that he didn't understand this strategy by Trump, and that Cruz might win the nomination because of it.  But my response is that Trump would turn this to his advantage by railing that the system is against him and that they are stealing the election from him... lo and behold.  

Plus the thing about Cruz is that he is just as xenophobic and bigoted as Trump (even worse in some cases!), but he just has a different way of conveying it.  He shrouds everything in Christian moralism, so people find him more palpable for some reason.  He speaks like a preacher and Trump speaks like a carnival barker, but they are basically saying the same thing.

Anyway, here’s a political prediction for you: Hillary wins the White House in November handily.  I don’t think it is going to be a Reagan-Mondale-esque rout, but I do think she takes it comfortably -- maybe like Obama in 2008.  Or 2012 for that matter -- Romney would have had to have flipped four states to win the presidency.  That's not easy.  I can't imagine Trump does better this year.  The Republicans are at an electoral disadvantage in the presidential race, and that's when they are not running a candidate three-fourths of their party detests.  Right now the odds makers are setting it around 70-30 in favor of Hillary.  The positive for non-insane people is that this means Clinton is the overwhelming favorite; the negative is that it means Trump is currently hitting .300.

It certainly doesn't help the odds that many Bernie Sanders supporters seem to think Hillary is just as bad as Donald.  They aren't even in the same universe -- the Supreme Court vacancy alone should be enough to persuade liberals to hold their collective nose and chose the least worst option, but, judging from my FaceBook feed, not everybody agrees with me.  I mean, I don't love Hillary either, but as Dan Savage is fond of saying, "the lesser of two evils is less evil."  Exactly, Dan, exactly.  Now let's please all vote that way... unless you think Trump is the lesser evil.  If that's the case, then you need to stick to your principles and write in Paul Ryan or something.

Until next time…