Entry 440: Life Update

Just a quick, or semi-quick, maybe, life update for all my fans out there.

Things have been going pretty well for me -- they're mostly normal.  In the lead-up to the midterms, I've been simultaneously trying to remain pissed off and stress-free.  These emotions aren't as contradictory as one might think.  I heard Rebecca Traister, one of my favorite voices of feminism, on a podcast recently promoting her new book Good and Mad, and she talked about the virtues of anger, and how being mad doesn't preclude you from being healthy and sane.  In fact, anger is often the appropriate human emotion for a situation, and actually letting yourself feel it, embracing it even, is better than bottling it up and pretending it doesn't exist, or feeling guilty about feeling it.  The key, I think, is focusing it in the right direction.

Right now I'm focusing my anger by donating to various blue candidates and causes.  I will vote too, which is the most important thing, of course, but I live in DC, so it doesn't matter much on a national level.  (Although DC politics is interesting and important in it's own right.)  Now, if DC could obtain statehood that would be a different story, but I don't see that happening in the immediate future.  It is something, however, that I think Democrats should fight for.  Why not?  We are US citizens.  Why don't we have the same representation as everybody else?  Same for Puerto Rico.

The answer, of course, is that Republicans are in power, and they don't want it, because they are very unpopular among the people who live in these places.  And the key mission of Republicans -- their primary unifying feature -- is staying in power even if it means employing anti-democratic methods.  The Republicans are the party of entrenched power, and they use that entrenched power, mostly to further entrench their power, even if it means denying the will of the people -- and that's exactly what it means right now.  One thing that annoys me a bit is when liberals blame Democrats for being weak and/or not being able to win elections.  There is some truth to it, of course, but the far bigger issue is that Democrats, being the party that represents traditionally marginalized groups (racial minorities, women, LBGT folks, youths, etc.), are constantly fighting an uphill battle against the centuries-long vice grip on power of older white males who currently comprise most of the GOP.  You can see this in the voting results -- Democrats almost always win more total votes than Republicans.  They frequently win the "popular vote" -- often by a significant margin -- and still lose.  Clinton received millions more votes than Trump; Dems in Congress received millions more than their Republican counterparts; and yet Reps control all three branches of government.  It's not fair; it's not democratic (little d).  And it's because Republicans don't believe in fairness or democracy.  They believe in gerrymandering, voter suppression, fearmongering, and straight-up lying.  This isn't some unhinged, leftist rant; this is an accurate assessment of the current political situation that I could back-up with a bevvy of facts and examples.

What to do about it?  Donate, vote, speak up, get involved, don't give up, don't get discouraged -- what else can you do?  Overwhelm them with democracy at every level.  Be angry.  But also stay sane and live your best life.  Don't let the bastards get you down.  That's my advice.

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On the topic of staying sane, my Krav Maga classes have become and important part of my life maintenance.  There's something so satisfying about exhausting yourself physically, and doing it in a group is way better than doing it alone.  I fear my gym is struggling financially, though.  They recently raised rates -- it's not cheap: $50/week -- and I've noticed a down-tick in class attendance.  That's expected -- it's basic microeconomics -- but I don't know if they're making up for it with the higher rates.  I got a text from them the other day that said, "Hey!  This is E from Krav Maga :)  Just checkin' in!  How's training been going??" and I'm not sure why they would send that unless it's some sort of virtually glad-handing.  I also didn't really know how to respond.  Is this a pro forma group thing they sent out to everybody?  Is E actually expecting me to continue a personal dialogue?  If I ignore it, and then I see her at the gym, will it be awkward?  Will she say something about it?  I wrote back, "Pretty good, I think.  Thanks!"  And then she wrote, "Awesome!  We love having you here!"  So, it obviously is a membership outreach thing.  Also, perhaps she's trying to trawl for people who might be considering leaving.  I think reliable cash flow is an issue, which is why they went to a weekly payment system instead of their old monthly system.  Anyway, you probably don't care about any of this, so I will move on.

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S and I had a date night on Friday, and we saw First Man at this cool, trendy boutique theater in this cool, trendy part of town.  It's good to have the occasionally reminder as to why it's nice to live in the city.  The movie itself was decent -- not fantastic, but worth watching.  The main problem with this movie is that it couldn't match the magnitude of the actual event.  The moon landing might be the coolest thing humankind has ever done.  This The Onion article captures it perfectly.  Also, the film is a biopic of Neil Armstrong, and Armstrong was a very quiet, calculating man.  Those are fine qualities for leading a stressful space mission, but they don't necessarily translate into great cinema.  The entire time I was in the theater, I just felt like I'd rather be watching real footage or reading about the actually moon missions rather than watching Ryan Gosling look pensive on the big screen.  (Nothing against Gosling, who is good in the movie.)  Also, as S pointed out, there was too much screen time from inside a capsule with the camera shaking repeatedly.

One thing I appreciate about it is that it was very accurate -- at least with respect to the verifiable things.  Obviously, not every conversation Armstrong had with his wife is captured verbatim, but the facts about the mission are, as best I can tell, spot on.  (And people who knew Armstrong said in interviews that the film depicts him very accurately.)  Every time I thought something was exaggerated for dramatic effect, I looked it up afterwards and found out it wasn't.  It didn't need to be, because the moon landing was a precarious and dramatic mission from the get-go.  There was no guarantee that they were actually going to touchdown on the moon successfully.  I think Buzz Aldrin said he gave it 50/50 odds before the mission.  Having to abort and return to Earth without landing was a definite possibility.  Although, if that happened, they probably would have just gone back a few months later and then a few months later if that didn't work, until they got it right, and we would have all forgotten the failed attempts, once they actually landed.  So, maybe the stakes weren't that high as far as aborting is concerned.  But also there was the very real chance of them exploding or getting stranded in space.  The odds of one of those things happening were much higher than I think people realize.

One weird thing about moon exploration is how little we've done of it.  The Apollo missions represent the entirety of physical human contact with the moon, and those ended in 1972.  We haven't been in over 45 years, and only 12 people have walked on the moon total.  I think we need to go back as a warm-up and then go to Mars.  I know it's expensive, but, it's worth it, in my opinion.  Doing crazy, mind-boggling shit is a worthy human endeavor.  I do concede however, that there is a big drawback to space exploration: There's nothing interesting close to us.  Why aren't there Martians and moon creatures?  If our universe was made by a divine creator, he or she actually did a very ho-hum job.

On that note, until next time...

Oh, one last thing, a crossword puzzle acquaintance of mine has won on Jeopardy! the past three nights (and he did something on the show, which I don't get but ascertain is funny).  He's the fourth person I know from crossword puzzles who has been a champion on the show -- that's nuts.  Watch tonight if you're a fan of trivia.  He's the reigning champion with the Afro.

Entry 439: On Several Topics

So, as I figured along, Bart O'Kavanaugh was seated on the Supreme Court.  I never thought his status was in much jeopardy.  I knew Flake and at least one of Collins or Murkowski would vote "yes," and then that would be that.  I wouldn't read much into Murkowski voting "no" and Manchin voting "yes."  Those were strictly political plays after the outcome was already decided.  Murkowski, a Republican, wants to emphasize her bona fides as an independent (she won via write-in, after all), and Manchin, a Democrat, can't get on the wrong side of too many conservatives, since he's up for reelection in West Virginia, one of the Trumpiest states of them all.  I'm fine with Manchin's vote, if it helps his reelection.  I'd rather have a Democrat in that seat to cast a possible deciding vote on something that actually matters in the future, than have Manchin make a symbolically gesture against O'Kavanaugh.  As for the composition of the court itself, it's now 5-4 conservative, with two men credibly accused of sexual harassment.  That sucks -- there's no other way to put it.  Be mad, donate, vote.

***

I recently found out two old friends of mine found themselves on the wrong side of the law.  The first is an environmental activist who helped turn off an oil pipeline in Minnesota.  In a surprising move, the court dismissed a criminal case against him and his partners.  Ultimately, I think this is a good thing -- nobody wants their friend to face prison time (he has a wife and three kids) -- but it's bittersweet because it stops a line of communication with the public about climate change.  The defense team had a slate of expert witnesses to testify about our heating planet, and it sounds like the defendants also planned to take the stand to give their own testimony and motivations.  This would have garnered at least a little bit of media attention, and now that opportunity is gone.

This is another big reason a conservative court is going to be damaging to the country (and humans writ large).  They are going to side with business interests in cases of environmental regulation.  Republicans are literally the only major political party in the world that doesn't believe in anthropogenic climate change, and, at the moment, they are the party with the most say in what we do about it.  So, what we do about it is nothing.  Actually, it's worse than nothing, we make it worse.

The weird thing about this, of course, is that Republican need an environment that's suitable for future generations just as much as Democrats do.  But one feature of all Republicans, perhaps the defining feature, is that you believe what the party wants you to believe, even in the face of overwhelming evidence.  Also, there's the fact that conservatives have so demonized liberals that they would rather destroy human life as we know it than take their side on a position.  One modicum of solace I do take is that when climate change gets so bad everybody is forced to reckon with it -- and I do think that day will happen -- we are going to know exactly who was at fault.  This isn't a case of "[shrug emoji], we didn't know any better."  We know better.  We've known better for a long time.  It's just a sliver of people with outsize power, who are in willful denial and/or don't care.  We will be able to call them out by name: The Koch Brothers, Donald Trump, James Imhoff, Scott Pruitt, and every current Republican in Congress right now, without a single exception.  They might all be gone when shit really goes down, but let's not forget them.  They will be the ones most responsible for whatever future we are currently damning ourselves to.

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My other friend is currently in prison.  I went to high school with this kid, we were pretty good friends, not BFFs, but we'd hang out quite a bit.  He was a bit-part member of my little crew.  We played lacrosse together on the school team.  We'd shoot pool, play pick-up basketball in his backyard, sneak beers together, stuff like that.  We even went camping together once.  I remember he filled up a Doritos bag with water and threw it over a bathroom stall while my other friend was taking a dump, and we all thought it was the funniest thing ever.  He also was scared of every sound in the night and every animal.  We saw a raccoon, and he just about shit himself.  He literally wanted me to hold his hand to walk 100 yards to the bathroom in the dark.  We were 17-years-old, I think.  (I told him no.)

Anyway, he went to college at UW with some other friends of mine, but everybody lost touch with him after his freshman year.  A while down the road, after graduation, another one of my friends caught up with him, and he was suddenly a millionaire businessman.  He dropped out of college to work for software company (it was the late '90s, when the dotcom bubble was at its largest, and people were getting hired with little experience), and then he started his own company shortly thereafter, and it blew up.  He had a mansion on Lake Washington and a bunch of sports cars and boats and stuff.

Admittedly, I was a bit surprised when I heard this, as he wasn't any sort of computer whiz or business genius or anything like that.  But he was a reasonably smart guy and a hard worker, so, whatever, he hit the jackpot, good on him... or not.  A few years ago he pled guilty in a $100 million piracy case.  He was part of a scheme to sell ill-gotten and pirated authorization codes of Mircosoft software.  This absolutely floored me when I first heard about it.  I couldn't stop thinking about it, and even now it seems surreal.  Unfortunately, I don't know anything other than what I can find online, so I don't know the details or his motivation or even what his sentence is.  I don't know if his business was crooked from the get-go or if he got into it later.  I suspect the latter.  My guess -- based on nothing but high school memories and gut feel -- is that he started his business at the right time and made a bunch of money, but then the bubble burst.  Things went south, and he wasn't ready for it.  He had an expensive lifestyle he felt compelled to maintain, even if it meant doing illegal things.  Another factor might be shame.  He's Korean-American, and growing-up his dad was a stereotypical, hard-ass, super-demanding Asian parent.  Maybe his business was failing, and he couldn't deal with the shame of it.  I don't know.  Other than an odd "what's up" on Facebook, I haven't talked to the guy in 20 years.  I do know he has at least one kid, though, so it's a sad situation, even if he did bring it on himself.

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S took the kids to her in-laws in South Carolina for a few weeks, so I'm by myself for a few days.  I'm going to fly there on Saturday to join them, and then we will all drive back next week.  The kids go to a year-round school, so they get a couple of random breaks throughout the year and this is one of them.  I'd be lying if I said I wasn't enjoying it.  It's just nice that simple things are actually simple again.  I wake up in the morning and just go to work.  I make one breakfast instead of three.  I don't have to fight with anybody to get them to use the bathroom or to put their clothes on.  That's how I've been taking advantage of it -- doing normal things normally.  I also took back-to-back classes at my gym on both Monday and yesterday.  Getting crazy with the exercise.  It feels good, but I'm super sore now.  (I'm not 25 anymore; hell, I'm not even 35 anymore.)  I love taking classes there, though.  It's so much better than exercising alone.  I'm so much more motivated to actually go to the gym and to push myself once I'm there.  I see the same faces every time I go, so I feel like part of a team, and there's a weird accountability, like if I don't go that guy with the braids and that girl with the cut-off sleeves are going to look down on me.  Even though I know in reality the guy with the braids and that girl with the cut-off sleeves don't actually think about me, in my head they are judging me for every class I miss, and it's strangely motivating.  Also, I'm still doing Krav Maga in addition to the fitness classes, so I'm learning self-defense and getting in shape.  The only downside is it's pricey: $50 per week.  But so far it's worth it, and I rarely spend money on myself, anyway. 

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Speaking of sport, I don't think my children -- or at least my oldest child -- is going to take much of an interested in organized sports.  He's still young, but early returns aren't promising.  He goes to soccer on Saturday, and he's kinda into it for the first 20 minutes or so, and then he gets bored and goofs off.  This week the usual "coaches" were gone, so I stepped in with a couple of other parents, and during the scrimmage, I was occupied on another field, but I glanced over and saw him lying down on top of the goal -- like he climbed up the back of the net and just sprawled across the top, while the game was in progress.  Eventually, another parent chased him off, but he still didn't want to go in the game.  He just sat on the sidelines the entire time.

In his defense, it goes way too long.  It starts at 10:30 am, and they are supposed to practice for an hour, and then play a 36 minute game.  With breaks it ends up being over two hours.  It's ridiculous.  They're six!  It's a struggle to get them to stay focused for five minutes, let alone over an hour and a half.  I don't understand what the organizers are thinking.  It should be 20 minutes of practice, a 10-minute break, and then a 30-minute game.  Door-to-door it should be, like, an hour and half out of your day.  That's how I would do it if I was in charge of everything, and if I was in charge of everything the world would be a much better place.

And on that humble note... until next time.