Entry 438: The Less Than Compelling Testimony of Bart O'Kavanaugh

I didn't listen to yesterday's testimony by Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh live, but one of the few advantages of today's perpetual stream of news is that it's very easy to stay up-to-date on things without following them exactly as they happen.  I've listened to the highlights of it, listened to analysis on the radio and podcast about it, and read around ten articles on it.

My conclusion: Dr. Ford is telling the truth.  She was assaulted by Kavanaugh when they were both teenagers.  He doesn't remember it because he was very drunk when it happened and also, possibly, because, at the time, he perceive his actions as memorable -- they didn't amount to anything more than fooling around or "boys being boys" -- certainly in his mind they did not constitute sexual assault.  I think he thinks he's telling the truth in his adamant denials.

Where Kavanaugh's defense utterly falls apart, however, is around the parameter.  He is either lying or psychotically in denial about his drinking habits, the company he kept, and his attitudes toward sex and women as a teenager and a young adult.  He also mounted a contradictory defense by claiming that: a) Dr. Ford is credible; b) this is all a leftist conspiracy to smear his name.  If a) is true, then investigations and hearings are warranted, and there is no basis for b).  Basically, what Kavanaugh is saying is -- I think allegations of sexual assault should be taken seriously, unless they are against me.

I also think it is very telling that he evaded all questions concerning an FBI investigation.  If he wants so badly for his name to be cleared, then ask for an investigation to clear it!  It's obvious that he doesn't want one, and it's obvious why.  It's not because the FBI will find proof of the assault or even of the party at which it allegedly happened.  It was over 35 years ago; all physical evidence is likely to have been erased by time; and it's very likely nobody but Ford remembers it.  (Why would they?)  The reason Kavanaugh doesn't want an FBI investigation is because he's painted himself into a corner by significantly playing down his past boorishness.  An honest investigation will not definitively expose him as an assaulter, but it will definitively expose him as being less that truthful, and it will destroy this pristine image -- all-American good guy, hard worker, occasionally beer drinker, sure, but all in good fun -- he's tried to cultivate of himself as a young man.

But anybody who lived through high school can see through his dishonesty immediately.  He's is not being truthful about his yearbook.  His references to the "Renate Alumni" do not have to do with an innocent kiss.  They are clearly a reference to a girl he and his group of friends used to brag/joke about doing sexual things with.  This is the type of thing dumb-ass high school boys (i.e., high school boys) would write code messages about in a yearbook -- not some little smooch.  And Kavanaugh's insistence that "boof" means fart and "devil's triangle" is a drinking game are even more absurd.  These are (or at least were) well-known terms for anal sex and two-guy-one-girl sex, respectively.  Again, this is the type of thing high school boys joke about.  No high school boy would use a term meaning anal sex in a wink-wink message in a yearbook earnestly thinking it was about flatulence.  That's one of the least believable things I've ever heard.  It's so unbelievable that even the Republicans I know who support Kavanaugh would admit that it's not true.

Then we get to his drinking.  I think the term "blackout drunk," which came up several times in the hearing, is a problematic one.  I think of blackout drunk as having no memory of the night before.  I've been drunk many times in my life and only once was I blackout drunk, by this definition.  "Memory-impaired" is a better term.  I've been memory-impaired -- not remembered little parts of a night or they were so hazy I effectively don't remember them -- many times.  Again, there is absolutely no way Kavanaugh has never been memory-impaired from drinking, given what we've heard from people who used to party with him.  An investigation would make this clear immediately.  His old buddy Mark Judge -- who literally wrote a book called Wasted: Tales of a Gen-X Drunk (in which Kavanaugh is obviously referenced under the quasi-pseudonym "Bart O'Kavanaugh") -- would make this clear immediately.  And also that's why we didn't hear from Judge yesterday, despite the fact that he was allegedly in the room when Kavanaugh assaulted Ford.

There was another path for Kavanaugh -- a more honest one in which he owns up to the gross references in his yearbook and his prior hard-drinking and classifies them as something many teenagers/early twentysomethings do (which is true!) and they don't give an accurate picture of him as a fully formed adult.  But he didn't take it.  He took the Trump track, which is to become indignant and deny everything, and claim "The Left" is out to destroy you, even when the facts suggest otherwise.  (Curiously, The Left took down Al Franken and let Neil Gorsuch be.  It's almost as if they only go after people who have been credibly accused of sexual misconduct.)  And it will probably work.  The only people Kavanaugh needs to convince to be seated as a Supreme Court justice are Republicans, and the Republicans are currently a party in large part comprised of aggrieved white men, and they want on the court somebody like them, who will unabashedly fight for them.  Kavanaugh showed yesterday he fits this description to a tee.

I predict he will be voted in early next week along party lines.  The only possible Republican holdouts -- Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski -- will come around.  They sometimes claim to stand up for women's rights, but I predict partisanship will overcome any such sentiment in the end.  It will be a sad day for the Supreme Court, a sad for women, especially victims of sexual assault, and a sad day for our country in general.  But don't despair.  Vote.

Until next time...

Entry 437: The Worst Defense of Brett Kavanaugh Imaginable

This article by Dennis Prager has been making the rounds on some podcasts I listen to, by which I mean people have been using it to underscore the absurdity of some of Brett Kavanaugh's defenders.  I wasn't going to read it, because I've read and heard stuff by Prager before (he used to come on The Adam Carolla Show from time to time), and it's almost always truly awful -- a trifecta of bad ideas, poorly argued, underscored by hubris -- but I finally caved, and unsurprisingly it really is as bad as advertised.  I decided to do that thing where I copy the article in full and then ridicule it, because some things need to be ridiculed, and this article is one of them.  After the dashes everything in plain print is Prager's article and my comments are in bold.

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The Charges against Judge Kavanaugh Should Be Ignored

It is almost impossible to overstate the damage done to America’s moral compass by taking the charges leveled against Judge Brett Kavanaugh seriously.

It undermines foundational moral principles of any decent society.

Taking charges of sexual assault seriously undermines foundational moral principles of any decent society?  I would say committing acts of sexual misconduct does more to undermine such principles, but so far at least we are very much on brand for a conservative like Prager -- being an accuser is often considered worse than doing the misdeeds one is accused of.

Those who claim that the charges against Judge Kavanaugh by Christine Blasey Ford are important and worth investigating and that they ultimately, if believed, invalidate his candidacy for the U.S. Supreme Court are stating that:

Before he gets to his points, notice he's already packaging two separate issues together: 1) Whether or not the charges against Kavanaugh are worthy of investigation; 2) Whether or not they are invalidating if believed.  It's a perfectly consistent position to say they should be investigated, and then ultimately decide they are not invalidating.  In fact, the very purpose of an investigation would be to determine this.

a) What a middle-age adult did in high school is all we need to need to know to evaluate an individual’s character — even when his entire adult life has been impeccable.

Literally nobody is saying this.

b) No matter how good and moral a life one has led for ten, 20, 30, 40, or even 50 years, it is nullified by a sin committed as teenager.

See above.

No decent — or rational — society has ever believed such nihilistic nonsense.

Yes, and neither does anybody else except Prager's straw man.  My last post expressly addresses the quandary of handling accusations against adults from their teenage years, and if you want to hear somebody more professional and more prominent than me talk about it, listen to Slate's episodes of Political Gabfest on Kavanaugh.  Emily Bazelon, certainly no fan of Kavanaugh's jurisprudence, states explicitly how uncomfortable she is with holding adults accountable for things they did as children.

This is another example of the moral chaos sown by secularism and the Left. In any society rooted in Judeo-Christian values, it is understood that people should be morally assessed based on how they behave over the course of their lifetime — early behavior being the least important period in making such an assessment.

If you want to get into a debate about Judeo-Christian values versus secularism when it comes to sex, I'm all for it.  Because I can't think of anything that has a worse track record on anything else in the history of humankind than religion does on sex.

These religious values taught us that all of us are sinners and, therefore, with the exception of those who have engaged in true evil, we need to be very careful in making moral evaluations of human beings.  

"True evil" is such a catch-all cop-out (what is it? and who gets to decide?), but okay I agree with the larger point about being careful in making moral evaluations.

And, of course, we were taught to extend forgiveness when people demonstrate through their actions that they have changed. As a well-known ancient Jewish adage put it: “Where the penitent stands, the most righteous cannot stand.” In other words, the highest moral achievement is moral improvement.

This is subtly one of the weakest arguments Prager proffers (and that's saying something), because, although I'm not religious, I know that key pieces of many religions, including Judaism and Christianity, are atonement and repentance.  Kavanaugh has neither atoned nor repented for his "sins."  On the contrary, he's categorical denied them, in effect saying his accuser is either lying or mistaken (as if it's impossible that the guy who used to drink to excess and has already shown his "flexibility" when it comes to truth and who doesn't want an investigation by a neutral party could be the mistaken/dishonest one).

As I mentioned in my previous post, if Kavanaugh had responded differently to the charges -- if he had said that he doesn't remember everything he did as a drunk, dumb kid, and that he was sorry if he caused any pain, then things would be very different, but he didn't say that.  He makes no acknowledgement of any mistakes on his part at all.  Until he does (which he won't), getting into all this "where the penitent stand" stuff seems moot to me.

Perhaps the most important principle violated by taking this 36-year-old high school-era charge seriously is the principle of the moral bank account.

Every one of us has a moral bank account. Our good deeds are deposits, and our bad deeds are withdrawals. We therefore assess a person the same way we assess our bank account. If our good actions outweigh our bad actions, we are morally in the black; if our bad actions greatly outweigh our good actions, we are morally in the red.

This is not how society works.  This is not how morality works.  We don't allow people to commit crimes and behave immorally because they have enough credit in their moral bank accounts to make up for it.  (It's like a riff on that Simpsons clip: I'd like to remind the court how many good things I've done in my life.  I should be able to run over as many kids as I want!) This is such a simplistic way to view morality, and more problematically, it's a total useless and impractical one, because there is nobody qualified to evaluate our moral currency and run our accounts.  There are no moral bankers.  How much does a grope cost?  How much does a lewd comment cost?  How much credit do you get for not harassing somebody?  And what do you get for doing something good for one person that's simultaneously bad for somebody else?

But this is how Prager thinks.  I've heard him talk about why he's religious, and one of his reasons is that without God there is no "objective" moral truth.  He's very bothered by the relativism of human morality.  And, by the way, so am I!  It's scary and weird to think that there is nothing out there to keep us in line -- that there is no ultimate justice -- that we are all we have.  But my answer isn't to make a bunch of shit up and pretend as if there is.  And even if Prager is right about a real God holding an objective moral truth, it does absolutely nothing for us now as flawed humans trying to adjudicate the actions of other flawed humans.  But I'm digressing...

By all accounts — literally all — Brett Kavanaugh’s moral bank account is way in the black. He has led a life of decency, integrity, commitment to family, and commitment to community that few Americans can match. On these grounds alone, the charges against him as a teenager should be ignored.

Ignored?  No.  Ultimately dismissed?  Maybe.  We need to know, as best we can, exactly what happened, and we need to know if he's being truthful about it.  Again, that's the whole point of an investigation and hearings and further inquiry.

Also, it's worth noting, being a Supreme Court judge is not only a morality competition.  If Kavanaugh is knowingly lying about the charges against him that would disqualify him from the court in my view, even if he's such an upstanding citizen, he's still morally in the black by Prager's reckoning.

So why is this charge taken seriously?

Because charges of sexual assault should be taken seriously, even if the accused are teenagers.  At 17, you are not legally an adult, but you're not a little kid either.  You're in between, which makes cases like this very sticky.  And I'm not the first one to point out that when it comes to a poor black teenager accused of committing a crime, conservatives rarely have issue with him being treated and tried as an adult, and yet when it's a privileged white kid, suddenly it's a different standard.  (And sometimes they aren't even kids -- George W. Bush tried to slough off bad things he was doing in his mid-30s as youthful indiscretions, and don't even get me started on Don Jr.) 

One reason is, as I recently wrote, the greatest fear in America is fear of the Left — the fear of what the Left will do to you if you cross it. Not fear of God. Not fear of doing wrong. Fear of the Left. Offend the Left and you will lose your reputation and, quite often, your job or your business.

One reason conservatives hate "victimhood culture" so much is because they want nothing more than to be the victims themselves.  They love pointing out how persecuted they are.   The big bad Left coming to get you!  I mean, sure, the Right (to use the counterpart of Prager's term) holds all three branches of the federal government and the majority of state governments and governorships, but it's actually the Left who holds all the real power.  They should be feared.  I mean, just look at all the great men they've destroyed: All Harvey Weinstein has is the millions of dollars he made while sexually assaulting his underlings, same with Matt Lauer.  Louis CK had to leave the comedy scene for almost a whole year, and look at how mean everybody is to Donald Trump -- he almost didn't get to be president!

As a middle-age, upper-middle class white man, I know exactly what Prager is talking about.  I mean, yeah, sure, we've controlled the entire country since it's inception over 200 years ago, and we don't have to worry about things like, say, a police officer mistaking us for a burglar in our own home and killing us.  But if we grope just one woman or defend somebody who does, we will absolutely get destroyed on Twitter. 

Oh, by the way, Christine Blasey Ford is receiving death threats and is too scared to live at home right now.  She's probably just afraid the Left is going to take her reputation.

Another reason is pure, amoral, demagogic politics. No honest American of any political persuasion believes that if a woman were to charge a Democrat-appointed judge such as Merrick Garland with doing to her 36 years ago in high school what Brett Kavanaugh is charged with having done 36 years ago in high school, the Democratic party and the media would be demanding that the confirmation vote be delayed or that the candidate withdraw.

This is flat-out wrong.  Did Prager not follow the Al Franken story?  The Left, with dwindling few exceptions, doesn't like sexual assault because it's wrong, and it sucks for women.  The end.  It doesn't matter who carries it out.

One of the Right's staple moves is to project their own failings onto the other side.  Their party is now run by a man who has been credibly accused of sexual assault by nearly two dozen women (and who admitted it on tape), and they supported an alleged child molester for Congress.  They have no honest defense for this, so they either shamelessly deny it (despite the evidence), or they do what Prager is doing and play the "both sides" game.  But there is no both sides in this one.  It's not equal.  The Right supports sexual assaulters (perhaps begrudgingly, but they support them nonetheless); the Left doesn't.  Period. 

A third reason is feminism’s weakening of the American female (and male, but that is another story). A generation ago, a drunk teenager at a party groping a teenage girl over her clothing while trying to remove as much of her clothing as possible would not have been defended or countenanced. But it would not have been deemed as inducing post-traumatic stress disorder either.

Hey, if anybody knows about the weakening of the American female, it's a 75-year-old man, right?  I mean, I could either trust his views on the subject or those of every woman I've ever talked to.

As for the rest of the paragraph, Prager is right: A generation ago we did not treat sexual assault allegations with the gravity they deserved.  Is this supposed to be in support of his thesis?

This weakening of the female is perfectly illustrated by the statement released by Susanna Jones, head of Holton-Arms School, the private preparatory school for girls in Bethesda, Md., that the accuser attended. “As a school that empowers women to use their voices, we are proud of this alumna for using hers,” Jones said.

“Empowers women”? Please.

Speaking out against sexual assaulters knowing full well an avalanche of shit from people like Dennis Prager is coming your way is indeed empowering.

Nearly every woman past puberty has experienced a man trying to grope her. (This is, needless to say, wrong.) My mother was groped by a physician. She told my father about it. My father told the physician that if he were to do it again, he would break his hands. And it remained a family folk tale. If you had told my mother she was a “survivor,” she would have wondered what you were talking about. The term was reserved for people who survived Nazi concentration camps and Japanese prisoner-of-war camps and for cancer survivors, not women groped by a man.

That's what his father did?  That's the appropriate solution?  Why didn't he report this man?  Did he still have a job?  Did his mom still see him?  How many other women was he assaulting?  Couldn't his dad have prevented a lot of groping (which, needless to say, is wrong) by saying something more public?

Also, his point about the term "survivor" is totally irrelevant.  It's what I call terminology trolling (which is some terminology I just made up on the spot -- what do you think?).

When my wife was a waitress in her mid teens, the manager of her restaurant grabbed her breasts and squeezed them on numerous occasions. She told him to buzz off, figured out how to avoid being in places where they were alone, and continued going about her job. That’s empowerment.

This -- and I say this without exaggeration -- is the most embarrassing paragraph of an opinion essay I've ever read.  If my name was attached to something this terrible, I would destroy my computer and then I would destroy my wife's computer and then I would go door to door, city to city, country to country, in an attempt to destroy the entire Internet one computer at a time.  I wouldn't succeed, but I would try (and even if I did somehow manage to do it, I have enough credit in my moral bank account that nobody could hold it against me).

Think about what Prager is saying: The way to handle sexual assaulters in the workplace is to tell them to "buzz off" (which I'm sure hurt this man's feelings immensely) and then do... nothing.  You shouldn't report them.  You shouldn't call them out.  You shouldn't hold them accountable in any way.  In fact, it's on you to change your work life so that you don't get harassed anymore.  Avoiding your boss so that he doesn't sexually assault you: That's not empowerment.  That's acquiescence.

And it's an acquiescence that too many women have had to do for too many years.  And it needs to end.

This betrays the mindset of people like Dennis Prager: They just don't think sexual assault is that bad.  That's the bottom line.  They might not like it.  They probably don't treat women that way themselves and wish other men wouldn't as well.  But ultimately it's just not something that we as a society should make that big a deal of.  Boys will be boys, and girls just need to deal with it.  It's nothing deeper than that.

In sum, I am not interested in whether Mrs. Ford, an anti-Trump activist, is telling the truth. Because even if true, what happened to her was clearly wrong, but it tells us nothing about Brett Kavanaugh since the age of 17. But for the record, I don’t believe her story. Aside from too many missing details — most women remember virtually everything about the circumstances of a sexual assault no matter how long ago — few men do what she charges Kavanaugh with having done only one time. And no other woman has ever charged him with any sexual misconduct.

Maybe Mrs. Ford is an anti-Trump activist because she's anti-sexual assault.  That would make a lot of sense, actually.  As for the rest of his account, well, it's also true that women rarely manifest fake accusations, and when they do, they are rarely as lacking in lurid detail as Mrs. Ford's.  So, there's that.

Do not be surprised if a future Republican candidate for office or judicial nominee — no matter how exemplary a life he has led — is accused of sexual misconduct . . . from when he was in elementary school.

Hahahaha... It's funny to think of an elementary school kid committing sexual misconduct, isn't it?  But, seriously, I won't be surprised if a future Repulican is accused of sexual misconduct, and I also won't be surprised when other Republicans support him nevertheless.

Entry 436: How Much Are You Who You Were When You Were a Kid?

I haven't written much about politics on this blog in a while.  It's been a conscious decision.  With our current president dominating the ether (though, maybe, hopefully less so than before -- is his act finally getting stale?), I need a reprieve from all that when I'm writing this blog.  I am still paying attention though.  And I am donating to Democratic candidates to retake the House and possibly, though likely not, the Senate.  I recommend you do the same.  Dems are by no means perfect, but they really are the only choice for people who care about America's democracy.  Right now, they really are the only choice for anti-Trumpers.  And there are more anti-Trumpers than Trumpers, even if you add in the soft supporters -- the people who say, for social reasons, they don't really support him, but actually do, because they voted for him and they vote for all the other Republican candidates who cover up his misdeeds -- the people who think saying they "disagree" with one of his crazy lies is a courageous act of independence -- but the Trumpers hold outsize political sway because they vote more reliably, and because they have a huge demographic advantage, both through anti-democratic gerrymandering and unfortunate natural sorting (Dems are mostly packed into big cities).  But Democrats can overcome this disadvantage with just a bit of extra turnout at the polls.  We've seen this in special elections already.  And money can help with turnout by raising awareness (running ads, knocking on doors, etc.).  So, if you can spare time or money (and most people can) donate or volunteer with ActBlue or the DNC or your local candidate or something, and if you live somewhere where it matters, or even where it doesn't matter, vote!

In other political news, Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation went from being a done deal to being, well, still pretty much a done deal, in my opinion, but perhaps one that's more politically risky for a handful of Republics (e.g., Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski) than before.  The only chance Dems have of blocking that seat is to somehow delay a confirmation vote until after the midterms and then win the Senate, a prospect I give roughly 0.1% chance of happening.  For one thing, Republicans know this, so they are almost certainly going to vote before the midterm, and they are almost certainly going to vote yes unanimously (again, in my opinion).  There will be some hearings and a lot of talk about "standards of evidence," and then they will toe the line.  And even if they don't, even if they somehow don't have the votes to confirm, there is only a slim chance (maybe 1-in-3) of Dems winning the Senate in November, anyway.  They have to net two seats out 35 of which 25 are currently held by Republicans (or something like that).  So, even if the "blue wave" comes to pass (a big if) it still might not be enough, in which case, it might not be Kavanaugh, but it will be somebody just as bad.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Today's big question: Do you consider the accusations of sexual misconduct by against Kavanaugh, by a childhood acquaintance, Christine Blasey Ford, as disqualifying from Supreme Court confirmation?  I say yes, but I already would vote against him, if I could, for many other reasons, so I'm not impartial.  If I really liked his jurisprudence would I consider the accusations disqualifying?  That's trickier.  So far, there is just one allegation against him from one person at one time.  Is that enough?  It depends on, among other things, how credible it is, and this one does seem to be credible to me.  Ford is a well-respect professor, and there is evidence she's not just making this up now -- she told her husband about it years ago, as well her therapist, although she didn't name Kavanaugh explicitly to the latter.  Also, the man who was allegedly with Kavanaugh at the time, Mark Judge (not to be confused with the creator of Beavis and Butt-head), has written extensively about his escapades of blackout drunkenness, so it's certainly possible that the event happened and neither man remembers it.  It's also possible Kavanaugh remembers it and is lying when he says doesn't.  And of course it's possible Ford is lying or completely mistaken, but that seems much less plausible to me than the first two.

My opinion: I think something happened.  Whether it was an attempted rape or just kids doing stupid shit because kids do stupid shit, I think we will never know.  That's the other thing: Kavanaugh was not an adult when this was said to have happened.  That muddies the water a lot for me.  Kids often treat other kids inappropriately and cruelly, because their brains aren't developed enough to completely understand how their actions affect others and because they lack impulse control.  I've seen kids, ever older kids, 16-, 17-years old, do fucked up sexual things to other teenagers and didn't think it was wrong.  I even thought it was funny at the time.  Once a wrestling teammate of mine put his dick on another teammate's forehead while he was doing a bench press, as a "joke," (the funny part being that the guy couldn't do anything about it because he was holding 200-pounds in his hands).  I thought it was hysterical, everybody did, except the guy who the got the dick on his head.  He was mad and embarrassed, understandably so, in retrospect, because that's sexual harassment.  Obviously, something like attempted rape is a whole different ball of wax, but maybe that's not what was intended.  Maybe Kavanaugh and his friend thought it was all a joke or thought that that's what you do when you want to hook up with girl, because they were privileged, shelter, dumb-ass kids, who went to all-boys school and didn't learn how to interact appropriately with opposite sex.  Should this be held against them into adulthood, if there is no evidence they behaved this way as adults?  How much leeway should we give to kids to grow up?

My answers to these questions are that we should give people a lot of leeway and not judge them for what they do when they are kids.  Childhood, after all, is when we are supposed to learn from our mistakes, even our big mistakes.  However, with respect to Kavanaugh, there is a reverse Catch-22 for his detractors.  It goes like this: He is now an adult, and by categorically denying the charges against him, he is in effect calling his accuser a liar, impugning her character, and giving carte blanche to his supports to go after her.  If you believe Ford to be credible at all (which I do) then this is a disqualifying act.  It's not the original act he did as a child; it's the false denial he did as an adult.  However -- this is where the Catch-22 part comes in -- if he admits he did it, then instantly the public outcry would be so great, he would likely not to be confirmed anyway.  So, he now can't win.  (Unless enough people agree with him that his accuser is lying or wrong, in which case, he can win, and that's probably what's going to happen.)  What Kavanaugh could have said is that he takes allegations of sexual harassment seriously, but he doesn't remember this event happening, but he did drink as a teen and do stupid things he doesn't always remember now (like most people), so although he would never have tried to rape somebody, if he did touch somebody in an inappropriate, scary way, he's very sorry, and it's only because he was a drunk dumb kid, and that's not who he is today, and not how he ever behaved as an adult.  Furthermore, he's deeply troubled by the distress this has caused Ford over the years, and he's reaching out to her directly to try to make amends and reconcile the situation as best as possible.  That is the more human response, and one that would, I suspect, more accurately reflect the truth.  It's also the tougher row to hoe.  Would this be good enough for people?  Would he still get confirmed if he said this?  We will never know, because he didn't say this.  He took the easy way out, which, I think is also the dishonest way out, and this is the problem.  In general, forthrightness is not Kavanaugh's strong point, and this is another major demerit.  We should demand a higher level of rectitude from Supreme Court justices.  I mean, isn't Clarence Thomas enough?  We need another one?

Anyway...

I think that's enough for now.  Until next time...

Entry 435: Ain't No Cure for the Sunday Night Blues

The Sunday Night Blues are in full effect tonight.  You know that feeling of ennui mixed with sadness you get as a kid on Sunday night because you have to go back to school?  Well, I get that as an adult too.  It was really bad in grad school, because, like Susanna Hoffs, Sunday was my fun day.  It was the only day of the week I took a prolonged break from my research, and I would go to my local water hole and watch football with my friends all day.  When I returned home, I was still two-thirds drunk and crashing hard from my high of Miller Lite and Buffalo wings, and that's when the blues would creep up with a vengeance.  After getting married the feeling wasn't as intense, and since having kids I don't notice it as much (Who has a time to wallow in languor with kids?), but it still returns from time to time.

Today the conditions were perfect for a unwanted visit -- specifically, the weather.  Just like Scott Weiland, I think so much depends on the weather, and it has been brutal this weekend -- a relentless downpour.  It came at the worse possible time too because as I mentioned in my last post, I have Lil' S2 by myself right now, and not being able to go outside makes things so much more difficult.  Yesterday morning, we went to the park, even though it was very soggy, because it was the only two-hour block in which rain wasn't in the forecast.  As it turns out, we didn't even get that.  We got caught in a cloudburst and had to hurry home.  Only for some reason Lil' S2 refused to ride in the stroller, so we couldn't even hurry.  We meandered home in the driving rain, while Lil' S2 threw periodic tantrums because he didn't want to walk but also wouldn't get in the stroller.  We took about a half-hour to travel a route I could finish in literally three minutes if Lil' S2 would've just let me push him in the stroller.  We were both as drenched as you could possibly be.

Today I didn't even bother to try to leave the house.  It was raining so hard all day, we would have gotten soaked just going to the car.  And I didn't know what to do anyway.  A museum would require street parking (no thanks), and I'm not sure Lil' S2 would go for one of those indoor play areas by himself.  I could envision us going there and him not really being into it, and not interacting with the other kids, and just hanging on my pant legs.  So, we just stayed home.  I tried to make the best of it, but there is only so much you can do, especially when you have a kid who wants to be entertained all the time.  He's usually not like that -- he's the more independent one of the two -- but with S being gone, he's been super clingy, and I mainly indulge it because I know he misses his mom.  So, basically our day consisted of hide-and-seek for 15 minutes, ride scooters on our the deck for 15 minutes, read a story for 15 minutes, watch iPad for 15 minutes, lather, rinse, repeat.

Also, I was constantly checking scores of games on my phone, which is a terrible habit, and such a colossal waste of time.  I can't help it though.  I managed to curb my social media use drastically.  I never check Twitter anymore, and I only lurk on Facebook (I haven't posted in a long time) for maybe five minutes a day.  But I can't shake the compulsion to constantly look at sports scores on my phone.  I am in a super tight fantasy baseball match, which is my excuse today, but there is always something for which I can make an excuse.  At some point I just need to put down my phone and not pick it up.  I somehow managed to make it through the first 35 years of my life as an avid sports fan without having to check my phone every 30 seconds.  It's just so depressing to look at the clock, realize I've been awake for six hours and the only thing I've "accomplished" is following my fantasy teams.  Now, to be fair to myself, it is hard to focus on anything of substance when your primary task is watching your kid(s), but still I could be doing something else.  Taking up crochet would be time better spent than what I do now.

Speaking of sports and time, this website is pretty fun if you're a baseball fan.  It tells you who the first younger player than you in MLB was, and who the last player older than you was.  The first player younger than me was a pretty good third baseman for the Pirates and Cubs name Amaris Ramirez.  The last player older than me is to be determined, because it hasn't happened yet, but it will likely be ex-Mariner closer Fernando Rodney who's got me a by a few months, and is still pitching pretty well.  (The only other option is Bartolo Colon who's 45 and kinda sucky.)  In the NFL, there's a decent chance it will be none other than the ageless wonder Tom Brady, who was born in the same month, in the same year as I was, a few weeks before me.  I feel like we're basically best friends because of this.  Actually, I'm not sure Brady would be such a great hang.  He had a MAGA hat in his locker and called Trump a friend, and he's also into some weird fitness shit -- the sports equivalent of Gwyneth Paltrow's GOOP garbage -- so I'm not sure we would get along.  Although probably we would, I get along with almost everybody.  But given the opportunity, I think I would rather kick it with Aaron Rodgers.  He seems cooler. 

Anyway, I think that's enough of that.  Until next time...

Entry 434: Dinner and a Movie

I guess it was a movie and dinner, if you want to be chronologically accurate, but S and I actually got to go out tonight without our kids like real people.  We are finally done with daycare, after five years, now that Lil' S2 is in preschool, and when we stopped, the woman who runs our daycare gave us a gift certificate to a nearby restaurant and four hours of free babysitting -- some sort of customer appreciation gift.  It's a very nice gesture, especially from somebody who wasn't always the easiest person to deal with.  Let's just say, I appreciate the gift, but I appreciate being done with her daycare more.

We took the opportunity to see Juliet, Naked at our local "arty" theater.  I wanted to see it, because I read the book, and I'm always keen on seeing a movie after I read the book, even if the movie looks bad, or, as in this case, I didn't really like the book.  I mean, the book was fine.  It's by Nick Hornby, and I thought I really liked Nick Hornby, because I loved High Fidelity the movie and then I really loved About a Boy the book (the movie was solid too).  But then I read a few of his other novels -- How to Be Good (bad), Slam (decent), Juliet, Naked (so-so) -- and realized that maybe I don't like him that much.  But Juliet, Naked the movie was enjoyable -- cute is an apt description.  It wasn't brilliant, award-winning cinema or anything like that, but that's not what it was trying to be.  It was really good for what it was.  It was like a Judd Apatow movie (actually he produced it), without the too-clever-by-half dialogue and without being 25 minutes too long.  The three main actors -- Rose Byrne, Chris O'Dowd, and Ethan Hawke -- were all excellent.  I really like Ethan Hawke now, because I heard him on Bill Simmons' podcast, and he was super into talking about his career and his old movies.  He geeked out on them like a fanboy, and I like it when celebrities do that.  I get annoyed when they act too cool for school about their work.  It's refreshing when artists appreciate their art as much as you do (which, coincidentally, is a big theme in the movie).  After Hawke, Simmons had Denzel Washington on, and the difference couldn't have been more stark.  Washington was interesting, and he came off as a decent guy, but his attitude about his old movies was like "You still care about that?  Move on."  Anyway...

Oh, another great thing about Juliet, Naked is that it Matt King (aka Super Hans) had a bit part in it.  I love that guy.*

So, holiday tomorrow.  We have the pool or the beach on the docket.  I guess it's the last weekend for that type of thing.  I mean, with climate change the weather will probably still be really hot here for another couple of months, but Labor Day is usually when everything closes for the season.  I'm pushing for the pool, because it's easier/less expensive.  It's not my call, though.  Our friend is the one with the pool membership, so if she says she wants to go to the beach, then I guess the beach it is.  S said she will take the kids by herself, but I'm not looking for a get-away day.  I want to do something with my family -- just maybe something that takes three hours instead of eight hours, that's all.

Also,  I want to spend time with Lil' S1 because I won't see him for a few weeks.  S is taking him to South Africa with her for a work trip.  Her parents are also going, so it's a quasi-vacation.  I'm not super stoked about it to be honest.  I get really worried when I'm away from my kids for more than a day, especially if they are out of the country, and also it makes me nervous to be the only one around with Lil' S2.  I keep having these awful thoughts of me having a brain aneurysm, and him being trapped alone in our house until somebody somehow realizes I'm gone.  But, you gotta live life, right?  You can't seal your family off in a protective bubble.  And even if you could, what would you do if it ran out of oxygen?

And truth be told, the trip actually comes at a decent time.  When I'm the only parent in town, it's really hard for me to make my Krav Maga classes, which is usually very irritating, but I recently injured my shoulder and could stand to take some time off to try to get it right.  Getting old(ish) is a bitch.  I'm actually not that far off, performance-wise, from where I was in my 20s.  I'm nearly as fit and maybe even a bit stronger now, but I just get destroyed by injuries in a way I never did before.  Seemingly small things linger for weeks, and I can't seem to go longer than a month or two without something major -- pulling a hamstring, spraining my thumb, throwing out my back, fucking up my shoulder.  It sucks.  Maybe I need to start taking HGH.  Anybody know a good PED dealer?

But I really shouldn't complain.  I received news recently that one of my cousins needs a liver transplant -- another one.  He already had his original liver removed because it was cancerous, and now his body is rejecting his new one.  Apparently his chances of getting a different, better new one soon are decent, but still -- perspective.

On that cheery note... 

Until next time...

*Weirdly, I can't find Matt King being credited for being in this movie, but I swear he is.  He even has a line.  I suppose I could have mistaken somebody else for him, but I don't think so.  Also, there is no part listed on imbd that fits the description of his (?) role in the movie.  So, I don't know.