Reset!

 

For today, I will let President Biden's eloquent letter speak for itself.

In general, yes, it's true. My initial reaction is anger at those Democrats and big media sources that put us in this position. A lot of this was stirred up much bigger than it needed to be.

Regardless of my feelings, this is the decision the President has made. I honor and respect it.

In a way that is virtually unprecedented among politicians, he has put the country's interests ahead of his own.

Can you picture Trump doing anything like this? There are TONS more reasons for Trump to leave the race, and yet, no one can conceive in any reality where he would do such a thing.

President Biden loves his country. Trump loves himself.

Vice President Harris is highly qualified to lead this country. I have already sent donations and will get my bumper sticker once her Vice Presidential choice is confirmed.

Yes, I want to see Donald Trump beaten and never set foot near the Oval Office, not ever again. And, yes, I would vote for a ham sandwich over Trump.  

But with Kamala Harris, I don't have to make that stark choice. She is highly qualified, highly intelligent, empathetic, and decent. She is the President we need at this time, and if there was an open primary, I would vote for her over everyone else.

She's not asking my advice for her Vice President pick, but if she were, I would tell her to double down on an all-female ticket. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer is my favorite. Let's make it truly Roevember!

For those of you who think it is not a good idea to have two women on the ticket, I would like to remind you of what Hillary did in 2016—she selected the blandest white man she could find—Virginia Senator Tim Kaine. Although she won the popular vote (DECISIVELY), she lost some critical swing states in the electoral college. Most pundits agree that going the bland white man route did not help her, not a whit.

I don't value excitement over competency, so I was initially upset by the people who said they were now excited about the election. Sadly, though, I know how politics work. Personalities sometimes overshadow ability.

But, after some reflection, I realize that we now have the best of both worlds - an exciting candidate who is also highly competent.

And now, who has the old man in the race? The Republicans. One who REALLY is suffering from severe cognitive decline and mental illness. Good luck with that!

Let's go, America!

KAMALA 2024!!! 

Modern Day Zapruder

 The assassination of President Kennedy?

Yes. I'm old enough. Eight years old at the time. It was a frightening day, even though it took me a few years to understand its magnitude.  

We were sure what happened, but we needed to figure out why, how, and who.  

It became a kaleidoscope. Every time you looked through it, you saw the evidence and conjecture assembled and came up with a different answer. Lone gunman? Russian communists? Cubans? CIA? The mob? Every book, every investigation, every documentary led to other answers.

The famous Zapruder film, taken on a Bell & Howell home-movie camera by Abraham Zapruder, turned out to be a well-known piece of evidence for ALL THEORIES. What we were looking at? It may have cleared some things up, but mainly, it could be used to promote several theories,

And now we have our modern-day Zapruder footage. This rally was recorded, and it clearly shows that something happened, but it really doesn't clear everything up. Given what was happening, Trump's and the Secret Service's reactions seemed weird and strange. Why was Trump not covered completely in an active shooter situation, exposed as he popped his head up to fist shake and shouted, "Fight! Fight! Fight!" Where were the others hurt, and why do we not see them getting any attention?  

How did the shooter get that close? Especially when they were rallygoers trying to point him out to the police?

What about the shooter? What were his motivations? Was he really a registered Republican? A gun nut? A loner? Someone who gave $15 to a progressive group? 

Some answers may be found out with time. Others may never be found out.

What we do know is that it was a horrific incident, emblematic of the rot and danger in our political culture, in our gun culture, and in our social culture wars.

President Biden, Vice-President Harris, and other prominent Democrats have done a good job in reaching out with empathy and support for those involved and in condemning political violence as a whole.

Yes, legitimately so; there is a whole thing of the pot calling the kettle black. Not universally, but in vocality, Republicans (particularly MAGAs) have been quite violent in their rhetoric and in not being sympathetic when incidents happen - making for of Paul Pelosi after he almost lost his life to a political zealot, dismissing the kidnapping and potential execution of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, denying that January 6th insurrection was any more than just tourists, saying we should "just get over it," after school shootings, calling for the execution of their political opponents (in some cases, their own party, like with former Vice President Pence, and former Congresswoman Liz Cheney), posting memes of President Biden hogtied in the back of a pickup.  

Some Democrats and independents occasionally cross the line, but I'm sorry, never at the level and intensity of the other side. That's just a hard fact.

Please. Scrutinize my blogs, over 2,000 stories. Tell me where I call for violence.  

And no, stating that Trump is an authoritarian and a dozen other negative things is not calling for violence. I'm trying to call out what he actually is and emphasize what things would be like if he ever becomes president again. It won't be pretty; it will very likely signal the end of democracy, and I'm not going to lie about it.

But I've never advocated physical violence against him to anyone else. And yes, 99.99% of those I speak with and are on my side feel the same way.

I want Trump defeated at the polls - soundly. That is the only way to end the MAGA movement. I want his civil and criminal trials to go forward - we have a right to know these and to have them judged by a jury. If he is found guilty, I expect him to pay fines and be punished accordingly. I'm not desperate for him to go to prison, but I'm not against it if that is what his sentence dictates.

I wish Trump a speedy recovery (whoops! that may have already happened - he's back to playing golf). I grieve for the family of the person killed and for those who were injured. No one should have to risk their lives to attend a political rally.

I don't know everything that happened. We may never know.  

I pray that there is no more violence this election (or any election, for that matter).

That does not change what Trump is and the existential dangers he poses.

And I will not stop posting about it.

Top 100 Sci-Fi Movies of the 20th Century!!! Part 1 No. 100 - 94

 I received this issue of Remind, or what Alison calls "my old people magazine," which ranks the top 100 Science Fiction movies of the 20th century.

Remind does have many pop culture stories, focusing primarily on the 1950s through the 1990s, although there are some references to earlier decades  Each issue focuses on different topics, such as country music, westerns, where are they now issues, and much more  I enjoy it, as I love pop history. They also have puzzles and a monthly guide as to what's on TCM (Turner Classic Movies).

I thought it would be fun to see the movies on the list in reverse order and see what I thought of them. The magazine's ranking of the movies is not mine.  

I won't go into detailed reviews, but I will share the IMDb ranking and my own on a 1 to 10 scale.

100)  

Attack of the Crab Monsters

Year: 1957  IMDb: 4.9 Tom: 5  Had I seen before? No   Service found on: Prime

This is a Roger Corman film, a much revered B movie director. Scientists are stranded on an island battling crab monsters who can somehow absorb people's minds when they eat them. One of those stranded on the island is a scientist played by Russell Johnson, who is most known for being stranded on a different island—as the Professor on Gilligan's Island.

99)

The Brother From Another Planet

Year: 1984  IMDb: 6.7 Tom: 6  Had I seen before?   Yes  Service found on: AMC+

From a very good director, John Sayles, known for historical and social commentary, Joe Morton, pictured above, is an alien who lands on Earth to escape a space bounty hunter. He blends into Harlem and gets to know many people, good and bad. He can't talk and looks like a human, except for his really funky-looking three-toed feet. I liked it, although some parts were kind of arty.

98)

Killer Klowns from Outer Space

Year: 1988  IMDb: 6.2 Tom: 6  Had I seen before? No    Service found on:  Roku

I had very low expectations for this movie.  The PG-13 rating made it less gory or exploitative than I thought it would.  The plot is extremely silly—these clowns are evil but not quite as sinister as in later movies.  Is it a gem? No.  But I did appreciate the comedic touches.

97)

The Running Man

Year: 1987  IMDb: 6.6 Tom: 7 Had I seen before?   Yes  Service found on:  Paramount+

Stephen King story?  Yes, please.  Arnold Schwarzenegg ?  Sure!   Richard Daws ?  Oh, my!   It's not a perfect story adaption, but it's fun enough.  Dystopian society disposes of some of its dissidents by a game show that leaves no survivors (unbeknownst to the general public).  

96)

Year: 1963  IMDb: 6.1 Tom: 7 Had I seen before?  Yes  Service found on:  Roku

Set in Britain, a meteor shower brings in carnivorous planta, and the identical shower blinds most people on Earth.   And these plants can walk around.   You can see how being blind would be a disadvantage.   The lead, Howard Keel, underwent eye surgery just before the storm, so his eyes were covered in bandages. In a scene later borrowed by The Walking Dead, he finds devastation everywhere when he removes the bandages and leaves his hospital room.   A handful of survivors struggle to find a safe place.  The movie's wrap-up is out of the germ-style playbook of War of the Worlds, but otherwise a pretty darn good movie!

95)

Phase IV

Year: 1974  IMDb: 6.4 Tom: 5 Had I seen before?  No   Service found on:  Kanopy

Ants become super-intelligent.   I forget why.   Mainly focused on three characters, who seem outmatched by the ants.   Ends with a relationship that seems a little inappropriate, but I guess fewer people questioned it at the time.

94)

Invaders From Mars

Year: 1953  IMDb: 6.2 Tom: 7 Had I seen before?   Yes  Service found on:  Tubi

Oh, my god!  I loved the start of this movie!  Aliens possessing people!  That's my wheelhouse!   A young boy sees a spacecraft land and has trouble getting his parents to believe him.   Eventually, when the father checks it out, he returns...not himself.   Despite the wooden acting, I was ready to go to 8 or 9 on this movie.   But ... it kinda dissipates itself as it goes.  Films used to get cooperation from the military, and we get to see extended footage of tanks and stuff.  Could have done without that.   But whoo!   What a start!

More posts later to cover more of the list!

What's coming up next?

Well, I'll give you a clue.   It stars Steve McQueen!

Getting Off at all the Wrong Places Part 2

   

It's been a little bit of time since I did Part One. The whole debate debacle and the continued (tragically less noted) decline of Donald Trump has consumed everything.

But let me do my best.

How true is the quote Martin Luther King Jr used -  "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." 

After the Civil Rights marches and subsequent progressive legislation of the 60s, it looked like the quote was true, and we were finally moving towards justice.

But then came the one great truth of American politics - The Empire Always Strikes Back.

The Boomer generation, once the great progressive leaders, turned sharply in the 80s towards the Greed is Good model and Ronald Reagan. They kept the part of the 60s that "did their own thing" and "do what feels good" and jettisoned the rest.

Not all did this, but enough to ensure a backward tilt on progress for the next thirty years.

Clinton tried to address this in the 1990s. Still, he was limited in his options, frequently compromising with the dominant conservative trend—bringing in checks on welfare and increasing criminal penalties for crimes committed by the poor and disadvantaged while at the same time loosening restrictions on financial shenanigans.

Generation X (born 1965 to 1980) grew up at a time when the President of their childhood was Ronald Reagan. That has an effect. Just like my President of impression was John F Kennedy, this left a mark of continuing adulation, especially in a media and school environment meant to idolize the President.

Generation X and Millenials (born 1981 to 1996)  grew up when the riches that came to the Boomer Generation seemed less able to happen to them. Who was to blame? The generations were divided, but they went to their separate corners as to who to blame. Some blamed the government and the swell of immigrants they perceived coming in. Others blamed corporate greed and the consolidation of wealth. This accelerated the division in our politics.

Bush Jr. did two things: he brought the culture wars front and center, and he used the Twin Towers attacks to gin up wars in the Middle East, particularly as an excuse to invade Iraq. It became impossible to question this in the 2000s. Eventually, Americans would sour on this, but I remember being afraid to speak up for the first time in my life.

The removal of financial sector regulations led to the Great Fiscal Crash of 2008. This temporary setback in Reagan's vision* gave way to Obama's election.

Barack Obama may not have delivered everything we hoped for, but he was a moral leader and an inspirational speaker. He led us out of the economic morass left us by the previous administration and made significant progress in improving healthcare access.

Within the first two years, it was clear that his success was not universally appreciated. After the elections of 2010, he never really had the majority in Congress, which he needed to fulfill his agenda. Hatred of him was a cottage industry, led by a real estate developer who had gone bankrupt several times and played a fake cartoon version of himself on a 'reality" show; Donald Trump invented the birtherism fantasy. It proved to be a rallying cry for America's racist underbelly.

Despite this, President Obama handily won a second term. How? The Republicans did not fully understand how much their base had changed. They were presenting policies that emphasized what was called country club Republicans - centered on keeping wealth to the top, deregulation, neoliberal foreign intervention, and working with the Democrats when needed. This genteel version of the Republican party was a thing of the past. Many supporters had moved far to the right of even Reagen. They wanted revenge. They wanted to take no prisoners.

Many moved to change directions beyond normal politics. Only one side offered that change in 2016. Democrats shut down Bernie Sanders, who appealed to the growing number of people who wanted to move the country in a more progressive direction. They went with politics as usual with Hilary Clinton. The other went with a crazed madman who said things they wanted to hear.

It's not that Hilary Clinton would not have made a good President. I believe she, at that time, was the most qualified person to be President. But it was the wrong time to run. Instead of the Democrats shifting to something new that would speak to those who had experienced economic turmoil, they went with the same 'ol same ol'. Nevertheless, even that withstanding, she won the majority of the votes and only lost because of the outdated and unfair Electoral College.

But wait!

There's more!

I don't want these posts to be too long, so I'll finish up in Part 3!

Stay tuned!

* this is not to say that Reagan's vision was good.  It was horrible.  It was to indicate that there were still many in the country who believed it and may want to return to it, for better or worse.  An example of this is the continued belief (as shown in polling) that Republicans are better on the economy.  There has been nothing in the last forty years to indicate that this is true, but the belief persists anyway.

Bucking Up

 Someone commenting on how concerned I and others were about recent events wanted to dismiss and ridicule our concern. They stated, "Buck up, Pal. All will be well. Trust me."

Really?

All is definitely not well. First, we had the egregious debate where all focus was on Biden's performance and little to nothing on the manic serial liar, condemning migrants, claiming the Democrats were killing babies after birth, and shouting one falsity after another. Biden talks too softly, and the media is ready to run him out of town, and the narcissistic misogynistic racist adjudicated sexual assaulter, adjudicated fraudster, convicted felon orange conman gets a pass. A man, who while President, wasn't available until noon, read no briefings, and wanted us to drink bleach. A man who, as a former President, slept and farted through his trial, can't complete a coherent thought, and wants to execute Liz Cheney, and the media shrugs its shoulders.

But, of course, that wasn't the only thing about last week. The Supreme Court, which has been making horrible decisions the last couple of decades, upped its game considerably with four democracy-ending positions.

They ruled that bribery is legal if it's done after the fact.

They ruled that federal agencies no longer have any actual authority. An expert who has spent his life learning about something can now be overruled by the courts, all the way to the Supreme Court. If a certain chemical is contaminating the water supply, who better to determine whether it needs to be regulated than our six far-right Supreme Court Justices? Corporations rule, and citizens drool (literally, depending on what containment is allowed).

They decided that the homeless could be thrown in prison for the crime of not having a home.

And the worst? They made Trump King by giving him immunity for "official acts." And who decides what an official act is? That's right - the Supreme Court.

Some of my like-minded friends have suggested that Biden can now commit criminal acts to advance his own national agenda. Au contraire, Pierre. You need to remember who decides what is or isn't an official act. That's right. It's the extremist six who are running roughshod over democracy.

After the opening paragraphs, our Declaration of Independence was all about not wanting to live under the rule of an authoritarian King who had immunity to do whatever he wanted to us.

And now, on July 1, 2024, we ended our rebellion against a King, and the Supreme Court decided to restore us to a Monarchy.

Buck up? No, this is a DEFCON red alert emergency.

But, trust me, we will be bucking up. Just not in the way my Facebook commenter wanted us to.

We will be bucking up to fight this coming darkness in any way we can.

We will be doubling down in our support of Biden/Harris. 

We will sound the alarm about the Supreme Court, MAGA, Christian Nationalism, and Project 2025.

We will stand up to those who want to take away our rights and freedoms - women's right to reproductive health care, voting rights, support for our lgbtq+ community, support our public schools and libraries, defend our commitment to NATO, fight to reduce income inequality, struggle to make education, healthcare, and housing more affordable, to raise wages and encourage unions, to extend our respective faiths through the power of love and inclusion, and not the power of hate and exclusion.

Yes, there may come a time when we can't fight back, but that time is not here yet.

Until then...

WE ARE BUCKING UP!!!

BIG TIME!