I’m so tired. Part of it is being sick. But a bigger part is just mental fatigue. The world really sucks these days. Gone are the days of Trump gaslighting me. But it’s been replaced with most of the right doing something similar. We are still in the middle of a pandemic and they are denying it.

And the only “coming to Jesus” moments are from people like Dick Farrel below. Ron DeSantis will never admit that he was wrong. And I doubt seriously he will ever be punished. More likely, he will be rewarded. It’s just horrible. Speaking of which…

Political Hot Air Can Kill You

Right-wing radio talker Dick Farrel died of COVID-19 Friday. He was until recently very much against the vaccines. He called them “poison” and said, “I know I don’t need it nor ever will.” Well, after he got very sick, he changed his mind. You know: wisdom comes suddenly to some. And then they die.

Much has been made of how he told others to get the vaccine from what turned out to be his death bed. I have a bit of a problem with this. You spend months telling your very large audience not to get the vaccine. And then in your dying days you tell your close friends and family? That’s not really enough.

But I’m sorry for those who were close to him. It sucks to care about loud-mouth idiots.

Paulogia

If you look back at my writing on religion, you will find that in late 2014, I started moving away from the online atheist community. And it wasn’t just people like Sam Harris (or worse: The Amazing Atheist). Even people like Hemant Mehta, who was reasonably respectful of others, showed some pretty sloppy thinking.

But recently, I watched some videos by Genetically Modified Skeptic. I’m not that interested in his videos. But I do like that he is respectful of others and doesn’t seem to be engaged in culture war. And that’s all I really want. I don’t really care if people are Christians as long as it doesn’t get in the way of their lives. Humans are generally irrational and I don’t get upset that people believe foolish things. I’m sure I do too.

Via GMS, I discovered Paulogia, who creates videos I’m more interested in because I find textual analysis interesting even if it sometimes makes my brain hurt. But I couldn’t get into this if the tone of the videos weren’t respectful. Here’s a good example:

Another issue is that I do think that most people would be better off without their religious beliefs — especially considering how devoid most of them are of theology. But the only way to convince theists is to respect them — at least the ones who are honest and sincere.

So I hope that GMS and Paulogia are indications of the direction that the atheist/skeptic community is going.

(There is one thing I’m not too keen about with both these guys: their apparent admiration for Christopher Hitchens. He’s fine. He was a good rhetorician. But he was not a serious thinker and the atheist/skeptic community needs to move past him. He was a big part of what poisoned the community starting a decade ago.)

I also got reintroduced to Bart Ehrman whose book Misquoting Jesus had a huge effect on me. Here’s a lecture about it but the book is really worth reading:

Good Filmmaking vs Bad Filmmaking

Recently, I was watching M Night Shyamalan’s film The Happening and I came upon a featurette that explained how they had accomplished the “amazing” Jeep crash scene. And I thought: what bullshit! They spent a huge amount of time and money to create an absolutely boring scene in one shot that would have been better if they had created it via editing.

And it got me thinking about the amazing meathook scene in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. It’s done with just two camera set-ups and is incredibly effective. I’ve spoken to people who have never gotten over the scene decades after they saw it!

So I wrote an article comparing these two scenes. I’m pretty happy with it, so check it out: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre vs The Happening: Comparison of Two Scenes.

If We Were Treated Like We Treat Cuba

Janine Jackson made an excellent analogy to the way the US continues to treat Cuba and the way many have reacted to the pushback against our horrible international meddling.

Imagine if China used its power to cut off international trade to the US, including for things like medical equipment, because they didn’t like Joe Biden, and hoped that if enough Americans were made miserable, they would rise up against him, and install a leader China thought would better serve their interests. How would you think about Chinese media that said, “Well, we heard a lot of Americans say they were unhappy; they even marched in the street! Obviously, that was a call for foreign intervention from a country that understands democracy better than they do.”

And then what if some Chinese people said, “Wait, you can’t immiserate ordinary Americans to push them to overthrow their government; that’s illegal and immoral,” and other Chinese people explained, “You don’t get it; US politics are very complicated”?

COVID-19 Is Back

I used to check the CDC COVID-19 tracker every day. But a month ago, our 7-day running average of deaths got below 200 and I decided to stop. I shouldn’t have. I should have known that there are vested interests in this country that will keep this pandemic coming.

For almost a week now, our 7-day running average of deaths has been up over 400 with every sign of a continued trip upward. I think we are just going to have to get used to more people dying. And being vaccinated won’t help us. Soon, we will have a variant that isn’t controlled by the current vaccine.

And this is all because our authoritarian neighbors really want to make a statement. It boggles my mind that people are upset about mask mandates. How does this harm anyone? I can see people being upset that others don’t wear masks. But how did this minor inconvenience become a matter of “liberty”? (That’s a rhetorical question.)

For centuries, governments have taken extreme measures to fight pandemics. But suddenly, among the American right, doing anything at all is tyranny. It’s absurd.

Be Nice

I got some good feedback on this tweet over the weekend:

Over the last 24 hours, I've seen a bunch of people fat-shame Scott Apley, height-shame Ben Shapiro, and slut-shame Melania Trump. I think these three are horrible people but such insults are easy, cruel, and off-point.

— Frankly Curious (@FranklyCurious) August 8, 2021

It’s weird to me. For one thing, these insults don’t even make sense. Sure, Apley was overweight but that wasn’t why he died. Ben Shapiro isn’t that short. And I don’t know why anyone claims Melania Trump is a slut.

But that isn’t the point. I don’t believe in shaming anyone for these things, right or wrong. And I don’t think people on the left think we should either. I just think it’s easy. But we should stop.

One person replied, “But Melani Trump is easy, cruel, and off-point.” But she thought better of it and later deleted it. If you are going to be offensive, at least be funny.

Sorry for being absent so much. The truth is that I’m just a lot more focused on horror films these days. I’ve started a Diary over at Psychotronic Review. It’s the one place on the site where I allow myself to vent. The idea of the site is to appreciate what is good in any given film. But it is true that I get annoyed from time to time.

A problem I’ve been having a lot recently is watching a good film that is at least lessened by a terrible ending or coda. For example, The House of the Devil is pretty good and then they add a coda that destroys a good ending and offends me by making explicit what was clear in the film. Ugh! But it’s still better than American politics…

Impeachment

I was shocked that 7 Republicans voted for impeachment. I wasn’t even certain that Mitt Romney would vote to convict. I’m pretty sure it all came down to the big news (which wasn’t new) that Trump talked to Kevin McCarthy during the Capitol siege and he was indifferent. He reportedly said, “I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.”

Of particular note is Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) who said that he voted to convict Trump because he thought he was guilty. It’s a shockingly simple statement compared to the likes of McConnell who come up with procedural reasons to acquit. It’s always the same: if they want to vote a certain way, a politician can always come up with a plausible reason to justify it.

But the truth is that it doesn’t matter what individuals in the Republican Party do. The party itself is committed to Donald Trump because the base is committed to him because he provides the clearest expression of why they’ve been voting for Republicans all along: he hates the people they hate.

How I Would Vote

I would have voted to convict Trump for the same reason that Cassidy did. But I will admit that I don’t find the case that compelling that Trump incited an insurrection with his acts on that day.

Trump incited an insurrection for months — going back well before the election itself. The problem with this is that this means that the majority of Republican office-holders also incited an insurrection. And they did! But threading the needle and talking mostly about January 6th didn’t stop Republicans from seeing their own culpability.

GOP at the State Level

We’ve seen all kinds of censure announcements of Republicans from state-level organizations. This is nothing new, of course. The GOP has always been fanatical about purity in a way that can only exist when a party has a huge systemic advantage at the polls.

But it’s interesting that these censures have nothing to do with ideology. All those decades of the GOP dog-whistling to their authoritarian base has come home. It is no longer a political party. It’s now a cult of personality.

I wonder what happens if Trump dies.

Mitch McConnell — Impeachment Next Time

If this situation comes up again to impeach a Democratic president who is out of office, McConnell will make a 180° turn and vote to acquit. I know what his argument will be. He’ll say, “The Senate established that you can convict a president after he’s left office. Live by the sword, die by the sword.”

And the media will report it as though McConnell is making a good argument. Sure, people at The Nation will note that McConnell voted against conviction because he said it was unconstitutional even though the Senate voted that it wasn’t. (Not that it is up to the Senate.)

People claim McConnell is brilliant but that isn’t the case. It’s just that our media system is hopeless. In my dark moments, I think any system that can be so effectively manipulated by the likes of McConnell deserves to die.

Mitt Romney — Again

I paid over 18 percent of my income in federal taxes this year. It would have been over 20 percent except for a special COVID-19 tax credit. That’s on less than $27,000 in total income. I want to put that into perspective.

When he was running for president, Mitt Romney released his 2011 taxes. He paid 14.1 percent in federal taxes on his $13.7 million in income. I’ve always assumed (with good reason) that he paid more that year because he knew it would be public.

So he made over 500 times as much money as I did and paid a smaller percentage in taxes. This is the man who was complaining about poor people paying no federal income taxes. This is the man that the mainstream press holds up as a good Republican.

Fuck. Mitt. Romney.

Note: I don’t think there is anything wrong with my paying this amount of tax. And I do it happily because I am a patriot.

Jonathan Chait’s Lazy Apologetics

Jonathan Chait wrote an article defending Gina Carano’s firing. I’m sympathetic about this because I really don’t like to see people fired. I’m not keen on public shaming either, to be honest. But Jeet Heer pushed back on Chait’s argument in a way I very much agree with (I admire Ilhan Omar and the freak-outs about her are racist):

Check out the image on the right that shows one thing that Gina Carano tweeted. In a response to Heer, Chait wrote a whole article in response. And this is what he says of the image:

Is this image anti-Semitic? On the one hand, it suggests certain populist conspiratorial themes that are consistent with anti-Semitism. On the other, it lacks any identifiable Jewish features.

As regulars around here know, I’m not very good at recognizing people and I don’t know much about what’s going on in pop culture. But the most obvious figure in that image is George Soros. Chait is incapable of admitting error and this claim shows the lengths that he will go to avoid it.

Tonya Harding

Tonya Harding is the reason that I lost all respect for institutional figure skating. She made me see that it wasn’t really a sport. At her peak, she was probably the best figure skater in the world — certainly in the US. Yet she struggled because she wasn’t the right kind of person and body type for the sport.

I’ve always thought she got a raw deal. So I was thrilled to hear about a new podcast called You’re Wrong About. They look at past events and show that what people think they know is actually wrong. They did two shows about Harding (part 1, part 2).

I highly recommend the podcast. I’ve listened to a ton of episodes now on a lot of things (they get far afield of their stated mission). Check it out!

TTYL

I’ll talk to you later!

I’m a bit scattered these days. Just when I was going to file for divorce, I was served with divorce papers from my wife. Good news, you might think. And in some ways, it is. But my wife is asking for $2,000 every other week in alimony. It’s ridiculous in the sense that, this is roughly what I make in a month before taxes. But also: we haven’t even seen each other in over a decade.

But the whole thing brought the phone calls and texts back. She’s screaming and threatening. So I blocked her number. Then she started emailing me. More threats. It’s very stressful. Anyway, on to the odds and ends.

Kathleen Parker

I saw a very annoying headline at The Washington Post last week, The GOP isn’t doomed. It’s dead. It was written by “moderate” conservative Kathleen Parker.

Every time the Republicans lose an election, establishment-types declare it dead or in need of reform. Instead, the party just moves further right and becomes more loony and they win control of Washington and a majority of states.

You would think that The Washington Post would hire political columnists who know at least a little political science. If they did, there wouldn’t be ridiculous articles like this. Because there are systemic qualities of the US (both planned and accidental) that allow Republicans to be far more conservative than the country itself.

But the reason I bring this up is because Parker wrote the following, “The party’s end was inevitable, foreshadowed in 2008 when little-boy Republican males, dazzled by the pretty, born-again, pro-life Alaska governor, thought Sarah Palin should be a heartbeat away from the presidency.” Oh, I see! This started all the way back in 2008!

Mitt Romney

Over the past four years, Mitt Romney has been allowed to rebrand himself as the sensible, truth-based, Republican. But that’s ridiculous! I was blogging full-time during the 2012 presidential election. I remember what a mendacious campaign he ran.

Michael Cohen (not that one) in The Guardian expressed it well:

Granted, presidential candidates are no strangers to disingenuous or overstated claims; it’s pretty much endemic to the business. But Romney is doing something very different and far more pernicious. Quite simply, the United States has never been witness to a presidential candidate, in modern American history, who lies as frequently, as flagrantly and as brazenly as Mitt Romney.

As you know, I don’t like PolitiFact. Like most fact-checkers, they work really hard to find “lies” from people on the left to balance out the abundance of actual lies on the right. But despite this, Romney has far more lies than Obama:

Happy Birthday, Ronald Reagan

And speaking of the mythical past, Ronald Reagan would be 110 years old today. Most things we’ve said about Trump over the last four years was said about Reagan. In particular, Reagan was a champion norm-buster. Like Trump, he didn’t know any better. And when he was told, he didn’t care.

In 1982, Rolling Stone noted, “Two years into [Reagan’s] presidency, federal regulations go unenforced, poor and middle-class incomes have decreased and social services were slashed.” The only thing that was different were the times. I don’t think Trump harmed the country any more than Reagan did. It was just that things were worse when Trump came in.

Some Leftists

But lest you think I am only going to be attacking conservatives today, there are some leftists who are really annoying me. Or maybe I should say “leftists,” because I’m not at all sure where these people are coming from.

There are a number of people in this small but vocal group, but I’m going to highlight Briahna Joy Gray. She has Opinions about the minimum wage!

There’s no doubt that the minimum wage should be higher. The Center for Economic and Policy Research calculated that if the minimum wage had been raised at the rate of productivity growth since 1968 (which is the rate it increased before then), it would now be $24.

But this is a political fight, not an economic analysis. If we can get a $15 minimum wage, that would be great. Then we can work on raising that. But Gray’s take is not helpful. It’s a way of telling the Democrats that they shouldn’t even work on winning over progressives because we will never be happy anyway.

Obamacare

I’ve seen this a lot with respect to Obamacare. People claim that it means nothing because millions still don’t have healthcare. Well, I’m one of the millions who do have it because of Obamacare. So it is something.

But this is relatively new. I don’t remember people on the left saying it was nothing at the time. What’s changed? Patreon, I think. There are a lot more people on the left who can make money online grandstanding like this. Clearly, Sam Seder and David Pakman fill the thoughtful niche. So people like Gray and Jimmy Dore are working the Howard Beale lane.

Rant On

And I get it. I feel like Beale a lot of the time too. But if you’ve watched the film, you know that Beale didn’t bring change. People just liked an excuse to get angry. And when Beale started preaching degeneration, people tuned out. People were only ever mad as hell. They were definitely going to continue to take it.

These leftists are not helping. They are actually harming the cause. It doesn’t look like we are going to get the $15 minimum wage after all. But with it or without it, Briahna Joy Gray’s position is the same: Democrats suck.

FOLE

Last weekend, I got a call to write an article (quickly) about what was going on with GameStop, Dogecoin, and other related stuff. You can check it out: GameStop, AMC & Dogecoin. The whole thing is just a pump-and-dump scheme. But I do think it matters who’s doing it. Millionaires sticking it to billionaires is good. My concern is that regular people get caught up in it.

I’ve felt rather good that the two things I said should go up early last year — silver and Ethereum — did. Of course, I didn’t invest in them. I’m not a speculator. “Fear of Missing Out” is also “Fear of Losing Everything.” Get it? “FOLE”? Pronounced “folly”? People should think more in terms of FOLE than FOMO.

It’s sad that we live in a society organized in this way. It isn’t a great way to allocate resources.

TTYL

I’ll talk to you later!

Hell of a year, huh? It wasn’t strangely hard on me because my life is already mostly online. But even for me, it’s been hard. It’s one thing to choose to be alone. It’s another to be forced. Nothing makes me want to go outside like knowing that I can’t!

I don’t have a lot to say otherwise. Here are just a few things worth mentioning.

James Fillmore

I’m sure that this will embarrass him, but I want to highlight James Fillmore. He continues to write here. And I’ve gotten a number of compliments for his writing. So let me be clear: look at the author! I know, it’s in small print. But some of the best stuff here is by him.

His last article was particularly good, The Strange and Awful Origins of the Resolute Desk. That was really good! It reminded me of the days when I had the time to write cool articles like that! Remember the slogan here, “Everything interesting for everyone interesting!”

Sure, you can find most of that information on Wikipedia. But first, it will be poorly written in a way that will bore you to death. And second, you won’t know to look on Wikipedia for the HMS Resolute.

I spend most of my life editing other people writing. And I always know that something is good when I get interested in the text while editing. I assure you: it is extremely rare and I work with a lot of professional writers!

So thanks James! I really appreciate it. And I suspect a lot of other people do too!

Santi Claus

Early today, I was thinking of Santa Claus, as you do on Christmas Eve. And then I thought, “Oh yeah! Chico Marx and the Santi Claus.”

So I found this bit of Marx Brothers insanity from A Night at the Opera. These two are great together. And this is a great print:

And here is Chico in what I consider his best piano bit in Go West.

Christmas Evil

My favorite Christmas film is It’s a Wonderful Life. Just kidding! I actually hate that film. I love Frank Capra but at his worse, he’s saccharine. And that’s the case here.

My actual favorite Christmas film is Christmas Evil. If you want to know why, go over to Psychotronic Review. I explain this as well as why you should buy the film. But if you don’t want to, there is a free copy!

But now that I think about it, do I really explain why I love the film? The truth is that such things can’t be explained. It is unquestionably a great film. It’s a slasher film that is also an art film. But why do I love it? Because I love it!

Baroness von Sketch Show

The best comedy group I’ve found in the last several years is the Baroness von Sketch Show. They are Canadian and they do some of the best stuff I’ve seen.

Strangely, most people I know aren’t that into them. I’m not sure why. Here’s Santa’s Christmas:

Stewart Lee Doesn’t Ruin Christmas

I was going to return to this old comedy bit by Stewart Lee to go along with my tradition of “Frank ruins holidays” posts. But when I watched it, I realized that he doesn’t actually ruin Christianity. Instead, he acts very pretentious and over-thinks a simple song. It’s very funny.

This is still a large part of his act today. A good example of this is his “pirate’s letter” routine where he complains that the audience isn’t laughing fast enough. And he goes on to explain the joke. People say explaining a joke ruins it, but when it’s done by a pretentious Englishman, it’s brilliant!

I had wanted to add a video of Harry Hill to show you what he was talking about but I couldn’t find a good one. The truth is that I think he’s brilliant but I don’t find him very funny. As for Michael McIntyre, I don’t even see why people think he’s funny. He’s so artificial. But I can tell that he could be funny if he weren’t doing the crap that his fans clearly love.

Merry Christmas

My mother’s side of the family is made up of a bunch of Christian Conservatives. And it’s only since she died that I learned that my mother was very religious in her way. I wish I had known because I would have loved to have talked to her about it.

The truth is that I think religion can be a beautiful thing. So I find it distressing when people use religion for nothing more than to reinforce their bigoted social and political beliefs. As an atheist mystic, I want more.

But regardless of your feelings about Christianity, you’ve got to admit that Christmas isn’t much of a holiday. From a theological standpoint, what does the birth of Jesus mean? There are stories but it has nothing to do with the religion itself. Yet I never hear Christians complaining about the Easter Bunny.

Listen up Christians: Easter is your big holiday. The fact that Christians make a big deal (or any deal) about Christmas show that they don’t take their own mythology seriously. But honestly, I really don’t know what American Christians get from their religion.

But whatever it is would starve any seeker of truth or God.

Merry Christmas!

I’m on vacation and I feel like I’ve already done my civic duty by watching the final presidential debate. And that was some major pain!

The more I see of Biden, the more that I like him. Just the same, it is very clear what the argument for him is: normalcy.

A lot of people are applauding moderator Kristen Welker. I didn’t think she did a good job. But really: no one could do a good job. With someone who is willing to break all norms and lie constantly, pretty much every part of society breaks down.

The fact that 40 percent of the nation still likes Trump shows that 40 percent of the nation is made up of authoritarian followers. I admit: Trump comes off in these debates as more dominant in the way that one dog might dominate another. But does that matter when it comes to being the president?

He plays second-fiddle to most world leaders — as he does to Mitch McConnell at home. It’s all fake. In his bluster we see all of his insecurities. And people with even a modest amount of cunning use it against him.

So let’s forget all that and talk about all the cool stuff that’s been happening at Psychotronic Review!

Christopher R Mihm

There’s a writer-director of direct-to-video films made primarily in the style of 1950s science fiction and horror. They are often amusing but that isn’t so much the point of them. They are more loving tributes of these earlier films — generally better than the originals.

Mihm is a prolific guy. He’s made one film each year since 2016. (The film for this year has been delayed due to the pandemic.) And I watched them all and wrote a 4,000-word discussion of each with stuff about his work in general and specific actors (he has something of a stable).

At this time, all but two of his films are available on Amazon Prime for free. I recommend checking them out!

Diani & Devine

About a year ago, Elizabeth and I began looking for ways to watch films together. Eventually, we settled on a great service, Watch2gether. Lots of services allow you to watch and text. But W2G allows you to talk. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work with things like Amazon Prime. So now we combine services when necessary: using W2G for voice and Amazon with its Watch Party.

This has also allowed me to watch films with Andrea, which we haven’t been able to do much in recent years. And since our relationship is heavily film-oriented, this is great. She suggested that we watch a 2011 horror-comedy, The Selling.

It introduced us to a really good comedy team, Diani & Devine. They remind me a bit of Nichols and May with Etta Devine getting the more outrageous parts and Gabriel Diani usually playing the reasonably normal man in an insane world.

Check out my article, Diani & Devine, How Hollywood Sucks, and One Reason to Be Hopeful. They’ve made two excellent films and they are both on Amazon Prime for free!

John Carpenter’s Vampires

I saw John Carpenter’s Vampires in the theater. And I liked it. I noticed that it didn’t do well and that a lot of critics didn’t much like it so I bought the Blu-ray and created a complete review of it. (One thing that annoys me is when people review a DVD or Blu-ray as a straight film review. Read my review and you will see the difference.) It also includes overviews of all the other releases of this film (there are a lot).

I could have written about Vampires on Frankly Curious. Although I admire the film in most ways, it is filled with toxic masculinity. The main character Jack (played by James Woods) is just awful. It wouldn’t be hard to say the same thing about Snake Plissken. But he abuses bad guys. Jack treats everyone badly.

Now I understand: apologists would say, “He’s just kidding!” But if you’ve spent any time around bullies, you know that “just kidding around” is one of the most common claims made by bullies. “Why are you hitting yourself?” is supposed to be a joke.

The Gates of Hell Trilogy

Lucio Fulci was one of the greatest Italian horror directors. From 1980 through 1981, he released three Lovecraft-style horror films known as The Gates of Hell trilogy.

It’s interesting what my love of these films shows about my evolving tastes. I suspect that 20 years ago, I wouldn’t have cared that much for them. But over time, I have come to appreciate what I would call “pure horror.” It doesn’t matter to me if things make sense. In fact, it is often the attempt to explain that ruins films.

This was seen a lot in 1950s science fiction films where the writers went out of their way to provide preposterous explanations for what was going on. It’s so common that I rather like it the way you might come to appreciate a horrible scar on a lover. I’m happy every time I learn that Glenn Manning is going to die because his heart is only increasing in size at half the rate of the rest of his body.

The Gates of Hell films aren’t like that. But they also don’t exactly explain anything. For example, in City of the Living Dead, the four main characters are discussing what to do next. Suddenly, the doors fly open and a wind of thousands of maggots are blown all over them. Why? I don’t know! But it’s creepy, disgusting, and effective!

I Survived a Zombie Holocaust

Let me leave you with another nice discovering: I Survived a Zombie Holocaust. It’s a New Zealand film about people making a zombie film when there is a zombie outbreak and they are attacked. It’s not as good as The Selling, but it’s a lot of fun and very funny throughout the first hour.

I Survived a Zombie Holocaust is playing over at Psychotronic Review. Watch it now!

Until Next Time

This is my last day of vacation. I may be really busy when I get back. Then again, I may be looking for anything to avoid paying work. So maybe I’ll do something here.

Welcome to another Odds and Ends. Yet another week has gone by without my working on this at all.

The problem is that I’m busy. I try to watch one to two films per day. That may sound like entertainment, but I assure you, it isn’t.

Like yesterday, I watched the John Wayne film Brannigan. It’s a pretty good film. I am a fan of the director, Douglas Hickox. And it’s filled with a lot of good British actors. The problem is Wayne. I’m planning to write a whole article about it soon. So let me leave it at this: he reminds me of Bruce Willis at his worst. It isn’t acting; it’s more like guest-hosting on SNL.

Anyway, it’s time for a couple Odds and Ends.

Democratic National Convention

This week was the DNC. I didn’t watch it. I find political conventions hard enough under the best of circumstances. The idea of a Zoom convention is terrifying.

I did, however, watch the main speeches on C-SPAN and I thought I would share the better ones.

Bernie Sanders

I’ve come to see Sanders and Warren as the dad and mom of leftist politics in this country. And Sanders presented a much-needed indictment of the Trump administration. And he weaved that together with the policy positions we know him for.

Michelle Obama

Watching Michelle Obama was cathartic. She seemed to be channeling my own anger. And it’s mixed with frustration. So many days, my overall feeling is, “Really?! This is what we are now?” I also like that she clarified that “going high” does not mean rolling over. We have to fight.

Trump attacked Michelle Obama for having a pre-recorded segment because she mentioned that there were “over 150,000” COVID-19 deaths. Jonathan Chait noted that this was probably not as good an argument as Trump thinks.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

AOC gave a short speech. I’m only highlighting it because many tried to say it was an attack on the Democratic Party because she nominated Bernie Sanders for president. This was a convention necessity and nothing more. She is very good, though! And it’s constantly amusing that conservatives ignorantly claim she’s stupid. She understands economics better than any major figure on the right. Belittle her if you want. I suspect one day she will be Speaker of the House.

Jill Biden

Jill Biden was great. But what I really want to talk about is the opening tracking shot as she walks into the classroom and then completes the whole speech with a single camera. Very cool! And that hokey ending was sweet too.

Barack Obama

Obama’s speech was spectacular. I think it was the high point of the convention. He was angry. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen a former president speak about a sitting president in this way. And rightly so! Of course, after Trump is out of office, he’s going to talk about the sitting president the way he currently talks about all former presidents. If you only watch one speech, this is the one to watch.

Kamala Harris

Kamala Harris was more on in her speech than I ever saw her during the primary. One thing that has been much on my mind recently is the way that many on the left have attacked her as a “cop” and a centrist Democrat. It isn’t just the mainstream press that grabs onto convenient narratives as this proves. Because other than Warren, Harris is the most liberal Democrat in the Senate. How does that happen? We on the left need to do better.

Joe Biden

It is hilarious that it has become an article of faith that Joe Biden is a decrepit old man who is suffering from dementia. This narrative would anger me if I didn’t know it is going to crash down on conservatives when the debates come.

Congratulations America!

I understand that a lot of people are disappointed that Joe Biden ended up as our nominee instead of Bernie Sanders or another candidate. I share that disappointment, to some extent. But I think leftists need to appreciate what has been accomplished over the last 5 years.

The Joe Biden and Kamala Harris ticket is the most liberal ticket that the Democratic Party has ever run. And frankly, I’m kind of tried hearing leftists-come-lately bitch and whine about a ticket and a party they would have been thrill about just four years ago.

Who are these people who thought a political revolution was just one election cycle away? Too many of the disgruntled leftists remind me of Carey Wedler, the young woman her burned her Obama shirt in 2014 because she was disappointed in him. “But, like a lot of Obama supporters, I sat back for the next couple of years and figured I’d let you handle all that change, because you were the one that was selling it anyway.”

That’s what I saw from a lot of Sanders supporters and I had this vision of him becoming president and then sitting on their asses for six years and then burning his shirt. That’s not acceptable.

The current situation is that the Democratic Party is about 30 percent leftist. The rest are liberals and centrists. What we on the left need to do is change that. We need to convince some of the others that we are right on policy (because we mostly are). And we need to get other people involved.

This is what we need to talk about. All this nonsense about the DNC conspiring to stop us is just nonsense. If we get the numbers, they will join us in an instant.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party has nominated an exciting presidential ticket. This is a good day for the party. And it’s a good day for America. And I will continue contributing both my time and my money to help us take over Washington.

Pamala Harris

My father really likes Kamala Harris. But he’s old and hard of hearing. So he always calls her “Pamela Harris.” But he pronounces it with a soft-a, so he clearly hears the way it is pronounced. He just can’t hear that K. It’s one of the most charming things about my father.

William reminded me of this SNL skit that sums up the issue nicely. If you have an elderly parent, you probably interact with them very much as the Amazon Echo Silver does.

The Jim Jefferies Show

In preparation for when it is reported that Jim Jefferies really has been doing the bad thing that everyone pretty much knows he must be doing because, hey, Louis CK, I feel I must put down a marker and admit that I love Jim Jefferies.

He’s makes me laugh in a way that other people I like never do. Seth Meyers, Jon Stewart, Samantha Bee, John Oliver, Stephen Colbert? I like their work but Jim Jefferies is the only one I consistently find funny.

Politically, I disagree with him about a number of things. But if the world were filled with people like him, it would be a thousand percent better. And I like his straightforward, populist take on the world — even when I disagree.

Here’s a playlist of 11 videos. And if Jim Jefferies ever does turn out to have been like Louis CK, well, it won’t make him any less right about all this.

Valley of the Zombies

Valley of the Zombies is a classic B-feature. What that means is that it was made to be the minor film in a double feature. And as such, it has something that we just don’t see much of these days: a short running time!

It’s just 55 minutes long. And what’s great about this is that there’s no padding. Most films these days are so long because the second acts are extended. And that’s really bad because most second acts are a muddle anyway. So it’s just a bunch more scenes to sit through before the film finally gets around to resolving itself.

That’s not always the case, however. John Woo is famous for third acts that go on and on. But that’s the same thing. The best third acts and quickest third acts. A 45 minute third act is just a short film shoehorned into another film.

Valley of the Zombies isn’t much of a horror film. In fact, much of it is quite funny. And it’s overall effective. Also: it treats cops with the disdain that they deserve.

Valley of the Zombies is playing over at Psychotronic Review. Watch it now!

Until Next Time

I won’t even promise anything for next week. I’m a very busy man!

Welcome to another Odds and Ends. I don’t have as much this week as before because the whole thing got past me. I was busy working away, making money. And then it hit me, “It’s Thursday night!”

A lot has been going on. In fact, I’ve been really depressed. I’ve been concerned about the Post Office and Republican efforts to kill it for over a decade. But now that process is on warp speed — at the moment when we need it for the upcoming election.

What’s always most bugged me about the Republican attacks on the USPS is that they make such ostentatious claims about loving the Constitution. “It’s the greatest document in the history of history!” You’d think that they would thus love the Post Office. Of course, that assumes they’ve read the Constitution — and it was always clear that they haven’t. It’s a holy relic, not a document.

Anyway, it’s time for a couple Odds and Ends.

Racist US Senate

We all know how non-representational the US Senate is. Jonathan Chait noted the following: the four least populous states (Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, and North Dakota) represent 2.7 million people. The four most populous states (California, Texas, Florida, and New York) represent 110 million people. Yet both groups get equal representation in the Senate.

That’s a ratio of roughly 40 to 1. But if you look at just California and Wyoming, the ratio is 70 to 1. It is totally unjustified. But Chait also notes that the more populous states are more diverse. And he quotes some numbers worked out by David Leonhardt.

This table shows how much representation different groups have per one million people.

You might think that the equal protection clause of the Constitution would have something to say about that. But it seems that only applies to rich white men.

Washington Generals

When I was a kid, the Harlem Globetrotters were a big thing. They had their own Saturday morning cartoon! (With Scatman Crothers as Meadowlark Lemon!) And you would occasionally see them on the Wide World of Sports. So I knew about them. In fact, I knew that they always played the Washington Generals. But I was all wrong about what they were.

I figured that they were just local teams who came to play for the money or charity or something. But not that I think back on it, that would be an organizational nightmare. So instead, there was a standing team that traveled around with them called the Washington Generals (and other things at times).

Better Than You’d Think

The team is generally thought of as a bunch of clowns, but of course, they are all excellent players. All over the world are people who are almost at the top of their professions. In most areas, it doesn’t much matter. In anything entertainment-related, it matters a great deal.

So the guys on the Generals aren’t as good as people in the NBA or on the Globetrotters. Looking at the players, they mostly seem to have been very strong players in NCAA Division II teams. They mostly have degrees in business or communications. Many of them also play in professional leagues outside the US.

I love this. It’s a great joy to be good at something. There’s a certain point you reach in a skill where doing it is something akin to a religious experience. And the fact that these guys get to do this for a few years, I think it should be applauded.

What’s more, it pushes against the idea that you should only do something if you can be the best. That’s the philosophy of a society that is on its way down. These young men, who are employed to lose to the Globetrotters are probably better at basketball than I am at anything I can do.

Now I want to pay the ridiculous prices for a Harlem Globetrotters game just so I can see the Washington Generals. (Of course, the Globetrotters are interesting for the same reasons.) There is, however, the question of which Washington Generals. The truth is that there are three different Washington Generals squads. That’s because there are three different Harlem Globetrotters squads. On a given night, they all play in different cities. Each squad plays about 130 games during their 5-month season — sometimes two games in a day!

The Legend of Haggard Vance

This is from a recent episode of Late Night With Seth Meyers. I seem to be the only one of my friends who likes Meyers. I’m not sure what the problem is.

Anyway, they presented the following film poster parody that I had to grab. It reminds me of the great days of The Daily Show — you know: when it was still hosted by someone who cares about politics.

The Woman in Black

Back in 1989, a filmed version of Susan Hill’s Gothic horror novel The Woman in Black was made for British television. (This is not the Daniel Radcliffe film!) Normally, this would be the moment to yawn. But it’s amazingly good.

The truth is that I find most modern horror films amusing. I’m easily startled, but otherwise, there’s just a lot of silliness to them, as in last week’s film Frogs. Ghost stories are one kind of horror that consistently scares me.

And this film is amazing in this regard. What’s more, it does it with some of the simplest things. That’s the thing about ghosts: you don’t know what they are going to do. So just showing them hanging around is enough to give you chills.

But we get a lot more than that here. There are a number of really effective moments. I highly recommend watching this. In fact, I’m so keen on this film that I ordered the new Blu-ray release of it from the UK. As is becoming a thing with me, the films I most like aren’t released here at all. Thank God for all-region Blu-ray players!

The Woman in Black is playing over at Psychotronic Review. Watch it now!

Until Next Time

Hopefully, I’ll have something different in the next couple of days.

Welcome to another Odds and Ends. I almost didn’t write it this week and went with a long article about the falling number of men working (see below). But there’s so much to write about!

Also, I’ve been putting off publishing a general interest article about apples because apples are cool. Speaking of which, my cousin just dropped a bunch of pears on me and this weekend, I need to do some major pie making.

Anyway, it’s time for more Odds and Ends.

Our Messed Up Electoral System

Will forwarded me the current odds on the US presidential race. They are illustrative even if they are more or less what you would think. Biden is -160 and Trump is +135. That means that Biden is a moderate favorite. You have to bet $160 to win $100. For Trump, you have to bet $100 to win $135.

But what’s shocking are the odds of the candidates winning the popular vote. Since neither candidate is the official nominee, it is by party. The Democratic candidate is -600 — bet $600 to win $100. The Republican candidate is +375 — bet $100 to win $375.

Roughly speaking, these are the odds of the candidates winning:

I can accept the popular and electoral vote not being exactly the same. But that’s ridiculously out of balance. Basically, unless there is major voter suppression, Biden is going to win the popular vote. We know that.

Yet here we are worried that the election will be very close or even that Trump will win. Democracies do not exist like this for long. Eventually, people will just give up because they see that the deck is stacked. Americans are clueless but even we can’t stay that way forever.

Kanye West

It looked like nothing would come of Kanye West’s presidential campaign, but it turns out that he has “friends” in high places. You know: Republicans who want to re-elect Trump with an even smaller fraction of the vote he managed in 2016.

I tend to think there is nothing to this. The kind of people who would fall for this are the kind of people who can’t even bother to vote. But I will admit that I’m still concerned. This election could come down to a very small number of votes in a state like Wisconsin. Biden could win the popular vote by 6 million and still lose. So we need to take this seriously.

But I want to say something to people who think we shouldn’t criticize West: fuck off! If he’s mentally ill, then he should have a handler who doesn’t allow him to run for president. He doesn’t get to do whatever the fuck he wants and then have an army of defenders claim he isn’t responsible when he’s criticized. If you’re going to take the love, you’ve got to take the hate too.

And yes: I hate Kanye West. You see, it really doesn’t matter to me whether or not he means to be evil. The actions result in evil being done. And it’s not even being done for the betterment of society. Even if he thinks his “dragon power” would be a force for good in the White House, he is not going to win. So fuck him. Fuck Howard Schultz. And fuck Ralph Nader!

A Social Ill

One last thing: our society needs to get past this idea that because someone is great at one thing they should be listened to about other things. Being a great stock trader does not mean you know anything about macroeconomics. Kanye West is taken seriously as a candidate because he’s a great musician. We’ve already been through that with Trump who was taken seriously by people who mistakenly thought he was a competent businessman.

Update: Kanye West Indicates That His Spoiler Campaign Is Indeed Designed to Hurt Biden.

Don Henley

Don Henley is a well-known asshole. But the guy is smart. At one of Mojo Nixon’s concerts, he forced his way on stage and performed “Don Henley Must Die.” But there was apparently no goodwill about it. He seemed to be pissed off the whole time. Regardless, good for him!

This tweet made me think of him.

This is the first Mojo Nixon song I ever heard. It’s probably the first that most people heard. I probably heard it on Dr Demento. “Elvis is in Joan Rivers — but he’s trying to get out!” The best thing about him is that he never changed.

Employment to Population

Something weird has been going on for a while: the employment-to-population ratio for prime-aged male workers. This is the percentage of men between the ages 25 and 54 who are working. Before the pandemic, it was sitting at roughly 86 percent. But it was roughly 95 percent in 1967 and it has been steadily declining since then.

Overall, the employment-to-population ratio rose from this period to about 1990 due to more women entering the labor market. But even it has been fairly steady in the high 70s since then.

When this issue is brought up, most people brush it aside as due to more people retiring. This makes no sense at all given that this is specifically for younger workers. (I’m not even included in this group!) So I asked Dean Baker about it on Twitter.

Bad Jobs

This resulted in a bit of discussion. Harland AL thinks it is due to the reduction in good jobs since that time. This makes a lot of sense. As economists are always telling us: incentives matter. And given that most jobs pay poorly, offer no benefits, and have little potential for advancement, why would people take them?

Note that the main (usually unstated) reason that conservative hate the safety net is because it gives workers options. The best thing for employers is to have a desperate and terrified workforce.

Mass Incarceration

But Dean Baker is the master at the unusual take and he presented a white paper that his think tank (CEPR) published a decade ago, Ex-Offenders and the Labor Market. It notes:

We use Bureau of Justice Statistics data to estimate that, in 2008, the United States had between 12 and 14 million ex-offenders of working age. Because a prison record or felony conviction greatly lowers ex-offenders’ prospects in the labor market, we estimate that this large population lowered the total male employment rate that year by 1.5 to 1.7 percentage points. In GDP terms, these reductions in employment cost the U.S. economy between $57 and $65 billion in lost output.

This doesn’t give us data over time, but it’s a strong indicator that increases in incarceration has had a notable effect on employment and has harmed the overall economy.

Most Americans think that people who commit felonies “pay their debt to society” and then get on with their lives. This explains why they are so often confused about recidivism. But the truth is that our society punishes felons for the rest of their lives.

Passive-Aggressive Poe

Andrea sent me this.

Kansas Senate Race

There are big happenings in Kansas. Roger Marshall managed to beat Kris Kobach in the Republican primary, which my sources tell me makes this a horse race. His challenger is Kansas State Senator Barbara Bollier. So if you can, donate to her campaign. The only way that we can move forward with Biden as president is by taking the Senate. So this is important.

Frogs

I’m not sure why AIP decided to put out a horror film with the title “Frogs.” They aren’t the most terrifying creatures even if people do tend to find them a bit creepy. What’s next? “Banana Slugs: The Movie”?!

But Frogs is a pretty good little film starring Sam Elliott and Ray Milland. And other there they being a lot of frogs (mostly toads) on screen, it really isn’t about frogs. Nature is turning against man in the form of every creature in the swamp.

Most horror films don’t really scare me except for the jump scares, which I am especially prone to. But at a certain point in Frogs, I was certain things were crawling on me. If you are looking for meatier fare, check out The Mountain of the Cannibal God. But bear in mind that you will see real animal cruelty as well as a man anally raping a hog (thankfully, only simulated). But you get to see Ursula Andress’ boobs!

Frogs is playing over at Psychotronic Review. Watch it now!

Until Next Time

Hopefully, I’ll see you before next week. But it should be next week at the latest.

Welcome to another Odds and Ends. Herman “Shucky Ducky” Cain just died. Unlike most Republicans, he at least had some charm. In fact, he reminded me a lot of George W Bush in that his conservatism was mostly based on a deep unseriousness. It wasn’t that Cain disagreed with liberals; he just didn’t care. And I have more respect for pure grifters than I do psychopaths. Regardless, he had a net negative impact on the world. And as usual for such people, he had a long and happy life. There really is something wrong with our society.

When Tucker Carlson Whines Freelancers Are Doxed

Last week, Tucker Carlson aired a segment where he accused The New York Times of trying to dox him. This is despite The Times being in communication with him and explaining that this was not happening. But really?

Is it reasonable to think that The Times goes around doxing major celebrities? Of course not! This is just the old conservative trick of keeping everyone distracted from what really matters. Social safety net destroyed and clean water gone? No problem! Just imagine what it’s like for Tucker Carlson with the liberal media literally trying to get his children killed!

Scared Little Rich Man

But Carlson didn’t just go after the evil newspaper. He said the names on air of the freelancers who were writing and photographing the nonpolitical story. According to the photographer, Tristan Spinski, “The story would be about this community, this rural community in Maine that is very small, very rural and very kind of Americana and happens to be the location of this massively popular cable news show.”

And what happened? Well, the writer, Murray Carpenter, had his home address was posted online. Even worse, someone tried to break into Spinski’s house when he was home with his wife. So in the name of countering an obviously mythical doxing, Tucker Carlson got two freelancers (not employees of The Times) doxed.

But there’s good news: Carlson saw that he was wrong and apologized. Just kidding! He doubled down because demagogues can’t admit being wrong. It’s off-brand.

I especially take offense to this because I’m a freelancer. I like my life. But you’re kind of alone. If Spinski or Carpenter get into trouble, none of the people they work with is going to run to aid. Anyway, check out some of their work:

• Carpenter’s Five Myths About Caffeine (He writes a lot on this subject!)
• Spinski’s photos of the Forests of Bioko.

Animal Consciousness

I just found an article in The Atlantic, A Journey Into the Animal Mind. It’s a personal essay about animal consciousness. There’s a great story in there about how fruit flies that don’t have good mating prospects seek out alcohol. Amazing!

But I don’t understand why people have for so long questioned animal consciousness. Humans are so self-impressed! As far as I can tell, the best thing about us is not are ability to think but rather our ability to communicate. So it’s the passing down of information that has been key to our success — not are relatively minor individual insights.

I’ll Go On

Barry McGovern is an Irish actor that I know for the excellent Beckett on Film Waiting for Godot. I’d heard that he created a one-man show based on Beckett’s work called I’ll Go On. I still haven’t seen it, but I did find this selection of scenes. It looks great!

A Good Brain

Stephen Colbert made a trailer based upon Trump’s claims about acing that cognitive test. It’s pretty good. Of course, it also indicates that our president is an international embarrassment.

Sexist Hypocrisy

Digby pointed out an interesting contrast.

At The New York Times

In The New York Times, Peter Beinert wrote an excellent article, The Real Reason Biden Is Ahead of Trump? He’s a Man. He notes:

A major driver of the public’s extreme dislike of Mrs Clinton was its perception of her as duplicitous. In a poll taken just days before the 2016 election, Americans deemed her even less truthful than Mr Trump. By contrast, in a Pew Research Center poll late last month, Americans rated Mr Biden as more honest than Mr Trump by 12 points.

Now, you might be able to dismiss that as the result of decades of conservative fear-mongering about her. That doesn’t really explain the moral outrage that people felt toward her. And not just here:

But the same “moral outrage” that plagued her four years ago also plagued this year’s most prominent female presidential contender: Elizabeth Warren. If Mrs Clinton is far less popular than Mr Biden, her fellow centrist insider, Ms Warren has proved far less popular than Bernie Sanders, her fellow progressive insurgent. The data is striking. Most polls show that a majority of Americans disapprove of the gentlewoman from Massachusetts. By contrast, most Americans approve of the gentleman from Vermont, usually by double digits.

That’s all very interesting I think, although I know what some people will say. They will point to this or that aspect of the women that explains it. But to me, this is like conservatives who complain, “But new immigrants aren’t assimilating like they did in the past!” But of course, they are. The same thing was said about past immigrants.

And so too here where there will always be people who claim, “This isn’t sexism! It just so happens that all these women suck and the only good politicians are old white men!”

Meanwhile, at The New York Times

But none of this is the hypocrisy. For that, we have to turn to an article by Rebecca Traister, The Poison of Male Incivility. It notes that just 3 days before The Times ran Peter Beinert’s article on the way female politicians are treated, it ran AOC Unleashes a Viral Condemnation of Sexism in Congress. Traister characterized the article:

All these words somehow cast Ocasio-Cortez and her female colleagues as the disruptive and chaotic forces unleashed in this scenario, suggesting that they shattered norms in a way that Representative Yoho’s original, profane outburst apparently did not.

The bottom line is that a man acted crudely toward a woman and when she responded, she is the one who is analyzed. It’s disgusting. And this is in a “liberal” newspaper.

And speaking of crude men, here’s one who at least is very funny:

Parts: The Clonus Horror

I can always tell if a film is great if while watching it via Mystery Science Theater 3000 I start to get annoyed that they are talking over the movie. Such was the case many years ago with Parts: The Clonus Horror. The first half of it is a great mystery and the second half is the kind of paranoid action that only the post-Watergate era could provide.

It was remade my Michael Bay in 2005 as The Island. The problem was that they never told the original filmmakers. There was a lawsuit and Bay & Co had to pay up. But despite having only 1/200 the budget, Parts: The Clonus Horror is the better film.

It’s playing over at Psychotronic Review. Watch it now! It is really good — like Coma but not boring!

Until Next Time

You know how sometimes you hurt yourself badly? So you go to the doctor and they start treating you? And you feel better just knowing that soon the problem will be fixed? Not knowing if Trump will be re-elected in November is like hurting yourself badly and waiting for a ride to the hospital from your really flaky brother.

I’d feel so much better if I had confidence in the American electoral system or the American people. But I don’t. See you next week.

What a week! The way things are going, I won’t be surprised if Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies before this post goes live. Of course, I’m not sure that it would matter. If Biden is elected in November, he will need to act boldly to stop the judicial take-over of this country that has largely already occurred. And I doubt he will. So we will limp into the future. As usual.

Secret Police in Portland

Trump is going full authoritarian on Portland. But since he hasn’t said the exact words “I’m going full authoritarian in Portland,” most news sources are equivocating or just talking about how it will affect the November election.

What’s happening in Portland is just a replay of what we’ve seen before. Each week, he shows that our government is extremely fragile. The only thing stopping a president from doing almost anything he wants is his own conscience. The American people finally picked for themselves the perfect president. And our system is crumbling.

If it weren’t for the fact that most of the military command doesn’t like Trump, we’d have troops in every major American city. I assure you, however, the next authoritarian who becomes president will be much better liked.

Libertarian Reactions

I watched the reaction to the secret police action in Portland among libertarians over the weekend. Nick Gillespie’s timeline mentioned Portland. But it didn’t rank high in his priorities. Politics is ultimately about what you are willing to fight for. The clearest authoritarian moves don’t animate libertarians like “tyrannical” clean water rules.

One libertarian I saw called out leftists as hypocritical because we believe in mask mandates. So: mask mandates are as bad or worse than secret police kidnapping protesters? This is the kind of intellectual nonsense that drives the libertarian movement. “Hitler was bad but a social safety net is worse because it leads to Nazism!”

This kind of sums up what was happening on Twitter:

As if to prove Pakman right, a ton of libertarians comment with reasons why cracking down on the protestors is right. They also spout a bunch of Fox News talking points. https://t.co/o2cTrMHOhw

— Frankly Curious (@FranklyCurious) July 18, 2020

I appreciate that libertarians on Twitter didn’t think they should be blamed for not speaking out about Portland. Many of them did so. But going through endless Twitter threads, the vast majority of people who call themselves libertarians were fine with what’s going on.

Libertarians Missed the Mark

One argument I found particularly annoying: “We’ve been talking about this for years!” True. They have! But it’s mostly been theoretical nonsense that focused more on the supposed threat from the dreaded “political correctness.” Actual authoritarian behavior on the right was simply ignored.

The libertarian movement does much of the heavy intellectual lifting for the Republican Party. It has allowed the GOP to go off the rails while proclaiming that leftists are the real threat.

Most libertarians are just neo-Confederates anyway. But the movement has never been interested in cleaning house — or even pretending to. Because if they did that, there would be no movement left. I’m willing to admit there are principled libertarians. But they are small in number and cowardly.

Trump Repetition

The media are reporting that Biden called Trump the first racist president. Thank God for that, given it is an absurd claim. What Biden did say was also not true. But he is right that no recent president has been so overtly racist.

What’s more interesting is how Trump responded:

Trump: “I have done more for Black Americans than anybody with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln. Nobody has even been close.” (Sorry, MLK) pic.twitter.com/demOLlXdvD

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) July 22, 2020

Trump has very little to say. We know that he speaks at a very low level. But the main thing about him is that he is repetitious. It’s just the same thing over and over again. I suspect that some of the slip in his approval rating is pure boredom. And I suspect the only support he maintains is simply because he outrages people like me.

John Lewis Dies

Last Friday, John Lewis died of the pancreatic cancer that he was diagnosed with six months ago. I don’t know what to say about him. Truthfully, I’m not that good with commenting on people deaths because I don’t think it is a bad thing. That’s especially true if they’ve had a life worth living.

I can’t think about him without the image of him being beaten on the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday. It’s not pleasant. Just the same, check out this video. It doesn’t look much different from what we’ve seen by law enforcement during the protests the last couple of months.

If the police and others don’t think they are going to look just as bad in a decade or two, they are delusional. There will be no apologists to protect them. They will be busy apologizing for the current events. Conservative ideology has a very short shelf life.

In an amusing story, Senators Marco Rubio and Dan Sullivan both posted pictures of themselves with Elijah Cummings in memory of John Lewis’ death. But you know what they say, “If you’ve seen one bald African American congressman…”

Michael Brooks Is Dead?!

Long-time co-host on Majority Report and more recently on his own show, Michael Brooks died. He was 36. It came out of nowhere. The reports indicate that he died suddenly of a medical condition. One thing I remember about him is that he meditated and ate well.

Anyway, he was always brilliant — especially about international affairs. And he was very funny. His Obama impression easily fooled people.

One thing I especially liked about Brooks was his cackle. Most funny people have restrained laughs. Brooks showed that he was fully plugged in the absurdity of life. It’s a sad loss.

Splatter Farm

Over the last week, I’ve watched about a dozen films by pioneering no-budget filmmaker Mark Polonia (sometimes with his late twin brother John). They are pretty well-made and always feature notable elements. But most of the time, due to budget constraints, they seem more like proof of concepts.

I finally saw what is probably the Polonia brothers’ masterpiece, Splatter Farm. They made it when they were 18 years old. And it is twisted. I’ll just describe one bit of it. There’s these psychopath who works on the farm. He kills someone. Then he cuts off his hand. Then he eats part of it. Finally, he sticks the hand inside his pants and masturbates with it.

It’s playing over at Psychotronic Review. You can watch the whole thing. It’s the kind of film that you’ll want to share with someone you love. Really. It’s amazing!

Until Next Time

I hope there is enough to write about in the coming week…

I thought since I don’t have much time these days to sit down and write a long article, I’d try to put one of these things out each week and add to it over time. We’ll see how it goes.

The Dum-Dum Left

It turns out that the left has consolidated behind Joe Biden. According to a poll by The New York Times, people who supported Sanders during the primary now support Biden over Trump 87-4. And people who supported Warren during the primary support him by 96-0. Amusingly, people who supported Biden in the primary support him slightly less than Warren supporters: 96-1.

But on Twitter and YouTube, the Dum-Dum Left continues to make a lot of noise. In 2016, this group was represented by Jimmy Dore. But this year, it is represented by Krystal Ball. I’ve been pleased to see that a lot of the people who kind of lost it during the primary have come back. Here’s Nathan J. Robinson:

I have regretfully come to the conclusion that The Hill, owned by one of Trump’s close personal friends, puts on Rising mainly for the purpose of trying to trick leftists into softening on Trump & see nationalist racists as preferable to moderate Democrats https://t.co/IOGAv5LET6

— Nathan J Robinson (@NathanJRobinson) June 19, 2020

Kyle Kulinski is another member of this group. What I find interesting about them is that they all used to be pretty generic liberals. But the rise of Bernie Sanders was greeted by them like welcoming Jesus into your heart. And as the the saying goes, they are now holier than the Pope — more socialist than their hero (not that this is saying much).

The Lincoln Project

In one way, I’m not fond of The Lincoln Project. If it took Trump for you to realize something is wrong with the Republican Party, one of two things is true. You are an idiot. Or you don’t actually care about what he does but only about his crude performance.

But this is an all-hands-on-deck moment and The Lincoln Project are allies for the moment. Also, they create political commercials like this one: Names.

What I like about this ad is that it goes after Republican senators: a combination of the worst and the most vulnerable. We see: Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Thom Tillis, Cory Gardner, Martha McSally, Ted Cruz, Joni Ernst, Marco Rubio, Susan Collins, John Cornyn, Jim Inhofe, Mike Rounds, and Steve Daines. (Links are to the opponents’ websites.)

Not to be outdone, the Biden campaign has released a great ad of its own.

Why Do Conservatives Hate George Soros?

I’ve long wondered why conservatives hate George Soros so much. On one level, it’s simple. Conservatives are mostly authoritarians. Elite conservatives have told them to hate Soros and so they do.

How do I know? Because whenever I hear someone blasting Soros, they always bring up the same untrue story about his being a Nazi collaborator. Ben Shapiro even does it in a concern-trolling way of, “The poor kid!” If Shapiro were an honest broker, he wouldn’t bring it up. Even his telling of it is wrong.

But I found an excellent article about Soros in The Guardian from a couple of years ago, The George Soros Philosophy — and Its Fatal Flaw. It goes through Soros’ intellectual development and the current state of things where his dream for the world really isn’t possible with the kind of inequality that we have. In other words: in order to have the Open Society that Soros wants we need to prevent people from becoming as rich as he is.

One thing that the article highlights is that he was a student of Karl Popper. That makes sense. I’ve read a couple of Soros’ books and they are very much in that tradition. But that highlights what’s so bizarre about the hatred of Soros. Popper was a conservative. And ultimately, so is Soros.

I think the right hates Soros because they hate Jews. And it’s telling that Shapiro gets in on the action because he’s shown himself again and again to be more accepting of antisemitic conservatives than liberal Jews.

Speaking of Karl Popper

I found this video of Karl Popper discussing the Open Society. This is what I consider a thoughtful conservative. It doesn’t sound at all like what we think of as a conservative.

And let’s be clear: conservatives never did sound like this. For as long as the masses have been able to vote, conservatives only got power by appealing to bigotry. Look at the people who adore Trump. They aren’t interested in an open society. They are interested in a closed society — but one where they (or people who look like them) are in charge.

In Defense of the Ayn Rand Institute

There was a bit of crowing online last week when it was reported that the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI) had taken upwards of a million dollars from the Paycheck Protection Program. Oh, the hypocrisy! Well, maybe.

If there is a sin here, it isn’t ARI; it’s Ayn Rand herself. Despite her claim that the government was terrible and that it shouldn’t do much of anything, she claimed that as long as it existed with its evil taxes, you should get all you can. She argued that Objectists should take scholarships and government jobs in her newsletter.

She famously collected her Social Security check and used her Medicare benefits. Her argument was that as long as the government was “stealing” from you, you had this right. In the utopian Objectivist World it wouldn’t be necessary. (Because Fairy and Elf doctors work for cheap, I assume.)

The problem is that taxation is not theft. It is part of the social compact. It is the price we agree to pay to live in society. If you don’t want to pay it, you can disappear into the wilderness. But, of course, Rand and her followers have always assumed that the social goods would exist magically if the John Galts of the world were just free from government interference.

Regardless, it makes no sense to accuse the ARI of hypocrisy. They’ve already justified the matter to themselves. And there are far worse things they do than collecting a government handout.

The Andie MacDowell Murders

And finally, America’s Finest News Source (Which is true!) called my attention to an under-reported story, 10 Celebrities You Never Knew Were Abducted And Murdered By Andie MacDowell. I’ve always had my problems with her. She’s beautiful but her acting is kind of awkward. That’s a shame but this is a crime.

Corbin Bernsen is perhaps best known for his role in the hit ’80s TV drama LA Law, but we bet you didn’t realize he was yet another victim of Green Card star Andie MacDowell! In 2010, the Hollywood actress dragged a screaming Bernsen into the trunk of her car before driving him out into the Mojave Desert and shooting him in the head.

Who knew?

Now Playing at Psychotronic Review

You know you can always find a film that is worth watching at Psychotronic Review. This is in contrast to what you probably will watch. This week, we are highlighting the Lucio Fulci classic, The House by the Cemetery.

It is the last of his Gates of Hell trilogy. And frankly, it’s the least of them. But it is also the one people will like the most because it is relatively conventional. My favorite is The Beyond, which seems to be the one that most film nerds prefer.

Here’s the trailer:

We’ll Meet Again

As you may have heard, Vera Lynn died last month. She was 103 so it wasn’t a shock. Anyway, we too shall meet again. Next week, I assume.

There are lots of things on my mind these days. In fact, two of the sections below were going to be full articles. (It shouldn’t be hard to figure out which ones.)

But as serious as some of these issues are, three of them also come with a lot of humor. Humor seems more and more the only way to process political events — especially with Republicans constantly gaslighting us.

Ilhan Omar and her Pro-Israel, Anti-Jewish Detractors

Jonathan Chait has been one of the most hysterical critics of Ilhan Omar. But after all his claims of antisemitism, I thought it was interesting that he said the following:

Note that Omar never said anything about dual-loyalty, but let’s leave that aside. What’s interesting here is that it is no longer about antisemitism; it’s now about anti-Zionism.

Chait himself has said that he’s getting soft on support of Israel because of the behavior of its hard-right government. Somehow, that’s okay but Omar’s beliefs are not. (This is typical of Chait: anyone to the left of him is an extremist.) That in itself is interesting.

But his comments destroy an important myth among the chattering class: that they make any distinction between being against Jews and being against Israel. This is something that Chait shares with many on the right, although those on the right are generally pro-Israel and anti-Jewish. The charge of antisemitism is just a club wielded to attack anyone who isn’t a booster for Israel. And this tactic only makes real antisemitism worse.

Facts Don’t Care About Ben Shapiro’s Feelings

I have a visceral hatred of Ben Shapiro that goes well beyond his vile beliefs. Mostly, it is that he is the ultimate snowflake while being completely intolerant of others’ vulnerabilities. In order for him to admit racism against, say, blacks, Shapiro requires overwhelming evidence over years. But when it comes to himself, one needs only give him the wrong look to start him screaming, “Antisemitism!”

There’s nothing new about this. What’s annoying about Shapiro is what’s annoying about conservatives generally. We see this with the constant complaining about “political correctness.” Student’s not wanting bigots speaking at their school? Political correctness! Outrage at sports figures kneeling during the national anthem? Simple patriotism — in fact, there should be a law against that!

Ben Shapiro’s comments about Ilhan Omar show what a snowflake he is. And I would accept it if he would show one-tenth of the concern for different oppressed groups. This meme shows what’s going on.

Brad DeLong Embraces the Left — Kinda

In a Zack Beauchamp interview with neoliberal economist Brad DeLong, he says that it is time for the old guard of the Democratic Party to allow the younger, most leftist, members lead. It’s gotten a lot of coverage. But most people miss what he’s actually saying.

He’s not saying that the New Democrats (and don’t kid yourself — they are still powerful within the party) should roll over to the left. Rather, he’s saying that there is no point in even trying to work with the Republicans. In fact, he said one thing that warmed my soul:

Of course they didn’t! As John Dean explained over a decade ago, the Republican Party is authoritarian. They aren’t not against the Democrat because of their policy; they are against the Democrats because they aren’t Republicans.

So all DeLong is saying is that neoliberals should form a coalition with leftists. And in a sense, this is radical because there are a lot of Democrats who have looked at the way many in the Labour Party have sabotaged Jeremy Corbyn and thought, “Good idea!” So DeLong’s awakening is a good thing.

Just the same, as Mike Konczal responded, The Failures of Neoliberalism Are Bigger Than Politics. Although neoliberal policy hasn’t failed as utterly as conservative policy has, it has nonetheless failed in terms of helping ordinary workers.

#NeverBernie

Speaking of Democrats who would rather Republicans win than elect someone too far to the left:

Now I understand: some in the Democratic Party have what seem to them to be substantive criticisms of Sanders. I’m not going to litigate that here, but my experience is that the anti-Sanders hysteria is the result of online echo chambers. People can believe whatever they want about Sanders.

When I came upon #NeverBernie on Twitter, I responded as modestly as I could:

I was afraid of this. Best case scenario is that Sanders doesn't win the primary. Even then, this alienates Dems who support Sanders. I just want Trump out of office. And I don't want to again write something like this about any part of the Dem coalition:https://t.co/57lP9hnkpx

— Frankly Curious (@FranklyCurious) March 4, 2019

Overall, the response was positive. But I did get an interesting response, “And are you telling the Bernie people that too??” I have, of course. And she would have known that if she had simply read the headline of my article.

My point is not about Bernie Sanders, per se. My point is that there are a lot of Democrats who support Bernie Sanders. These are people who overwhelmingly supported Hillary Clinton in the 2016 general election. (And note: Sanders supporters appear to have abandoned Clinton less often than Clinton supporters abandoned Obama.)

So is it really a good idea for the Democratic Party to vilify dependable Democrats who just happen to like Bernie Sanders?

Obviously, I don’t think so. These #NeverBernie people are doing exactly what they themselves (rightly) complained about Sanders supporters doing in 2016.

This skit isn’t nearly so funny now:

Brazil’s New President

Back on 25 Feb 2019, Brazilian actor José de Abreu announced that he was the president of Brazil. He is making fun of both Brazilian president Bolsonaro and Venezuelan opposition leader and — according to hypocritical and evil countries like the US — the “real” president, Juan Guaidó.

Right after this announcement, someone changed the Wikipedia entry for Brazil’s president to “disputed.” This is great because that’s what Wikipedia did the moment that the US decided that it could say who controls the Venezuelan government.

The thing is, Abreu has a stronger claim than Guaidó — at least when it comes to the validity of the current presidents. It is often reported that Maduro’s election was invalid because the opposition didn’t run. But it didn’t run because it chose to boycott the election. Maduro didn’t stop it from voting. And there is every indication that it could have won.

Bolsonaro, on the other hand, only won because Lula da Silva was wrongly imprisoned and then forbidden from running. Polls indicate that he would have won in a landslide.

Of course, the US won’t take Abreu seriously for the same reason they don’t care about the imprisonment of da Silva: they aren’t the right kind of leader — the kind that gives away all its resources to corporations.

Fact-Checking Trump’s State of the Union Address

This is from last year, but it’s very funny and insightful. If only our regular media outlets were this good.

See you all later!