Random Thoughts: Alexa, Change the President

Tweets from October, 2020:

• 2020-10-01: Me: "Alexa, change the President."
  Alexa: "Sorry, I'm not sure."
  Alexa must be the last undecided person in America.
• 2020-10-01: "Insects have been around for 480 million years, solving nearly every problem nature has dealt them. Maybe it's worth listening to what they have to say." -- Natalie Angier
• 2020-10-01: "Stand back. Stand by." -- Donald Trump.
  "Bigotry or white supremacy in any form is blasphemy against the American creed." -- George W Bush, after Charlottesville in 2017.
  There. That's not hard, is it, Mr. President?

After the jump, more random thoughts.

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• 2020-10-01: The "etc" is carrying a lot of weight in this sentence.
• 2020-10-01: Trump's support must be cratering fast. Latest fundraising email: "You're going to love this. President Trump handpicked 100 of his VERY BEST supporters from around the Country to join the EXCLUSIVE Trump 100 Club, and you were one of them." I'm one of a hundred left, I guess.
• 2020-10-01: BREAKING: Gov. Abbott issues proclamation requiring all completed mail-in ballots to be dropped off at the rear servants' door at the governor's mansion in Austin. This is an election security measure.
• 2020-10-02: Review: The Mirror & the Light: 3rd volume of Hilary Mantel's life of Thomas Cromwell, chief minister of Henry VIII. Covers 4 years from the execution of Anne Boleyn to his own downfall, with all the court intrigues in between. Masterfully written. Insight into his thinking. B+
• 2020-10-03: Received a Trump fundraising email from Kimberly Guilfoyle, who is still identified as the National Chair, Trump Victory Finance Committee. You'd think they'd want to hide her and the sexual harassment allegations against her.
• 2020-10-03: To everyone inside the White House: Get out! We traced the COVID-19 phone call. It's coming from inside the house.
• 2020-10-03: I prefer Presidents who stop pandemics.
• 2020-10-03: The story has quickly morphed from national sympathy for a sick man to coverup inside the White House.
• 2020-10-03: Resign.
• 2020-10-04: Pro-tip, women: If you take a pregnancy test every day, you can't get pregnant.
• 2020-10-05: I suspect Trump decided in January that a pandemic would sink his re-election chances, so he placed all his bets on "no pandemic" and hoped to bluff his way to victory. But viruses can't be bluffed and his hoped-for "miracle" never happened.
• 2020-10-05: Cornyn "let his guard down" by slavishly joining the Trump cult.
• 2020-10-06: Funding battle between Angie Chen Button and Brandy Chambers. Both have a lot of money, but look at where it comes from. Button has 166 contributors. Chambers has 10,956. That's right, Chambers has 66x times the number of supporters. Button has the big donors.
• 2020-10-08: Debate scores: Harris in first, then the fly, then the moderator for letting Pence look awful by ignoring her and droning on while she tried to get him to stop, and in last place low-energy Pence.
• 2020-10-08: The last question captures the whole election: the 8-yr-old girl who is tired of seeing politicians arguing with each other. Harris talked about the cooperative nature of "Joe." Pence didn't even mention Trump.
• 2020-10-08: Debate transcript. Susan Page: "Thank you, Mr. Vice President. Thank you, Mr. Vice President. Thank you, Mr. Vice President. Thank you, Mr. Vice President. Thank you, Mr. Vice President. Thank you, Mr. Vice President.
• 2020-10-08: Bad Education (2020): Drama based on real life. Embezzlement in a Long Island school district by a popular but smarmy superintendent. Plot unfolds like you'd expect. Great cast does their best with so-so script. Maybe screenwriter should have gone all in on black comedy. B-
• 2020-10-08: Mike Lee is a Republican senator from Utah. He reveals how Republicans can support Donald Trump. They actually support authoritarianism if they think it will help protect their stocks. Prospefity (sic) over Democracy.
• 2020-10-08: "Militia group plotted to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, feds say." Why are white terrorists not called that, but instead a "militia"? Muslims are terrorists. Blacks are thugs. Whites are "militia" like Paul Revere or something. Systemic racism is deep, as deep as language.
• 2020-10-08: Fundraising email screams, "Twitter is CENSORING the President of the United States." I hope it's true. The 1st Amendment doesn't require Twitter to give Trump free space to spew lies. Let him pay for his own advertising. Twitter can police what people say on Twitter's platform.
• 2020-10-08: By refusing to fill an empty seat in 2016, Mitch McConnell unilaterally changed the size of the Supreme Court from nine to eight justices. And it looked like he was willing to live with that change indefinitely if Clinton had become President.
• 2020-10-08: I've been seeing Trump ads on TV in Dallas. My rule-of-thumb has always been that if the Republican candidate is pouring money into Texas in October, he's in big trouble nationally.
• 2020-10-09: Succession - Season 1 (TV 2018): Aging patriarch of family-owned media empire faces succession. Schemes, double-crosses, undisguised ill will. Think King Lear, Murdochs, Trumps. Lots of foul language. Lots. Not a likable character in the show. But yet, riveting television. B+
• 2020-10-09: Support local journalism. I really want to do that by giving my subscription dollars to the Dallas Morning News. But endorsements of racists by their editorial board make it very hard for me to continue subsidizing them. I feel sorry for the straight journalists on their payroll.
• 2020-10-10: My wife and I were discussing the Latin alphabet and its similarities with the Greek alphabet and how one evolved into the other. Suddenly we tried to imagine having the same conversation with Donald Trump. We couldn't imagine it. We'd have to start by explaining ancient history.
• 2020-10-10: "Texas state Sen. Royce West won't vote for fellow Democrat MJ Hegar." Texas Democrats are stupid.
• 2020-10-10: "State GOP Chair Allen West, Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller join anti-Greg Abbott protest outside Governor's Mansion." Texas Republicans are stupid.
• 2020-10-12: "I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot 210,000 people and I wouldn't lose voters," Donald Trump 2016 (paraphrased).
• 2020-10-12: I never thought that a Scaramucci could feel so long.
• 2020-10-13: The Forty-Year-Old Version (2020): Character study of a struggling playwright/teacher/wannabe rapper in a mid-life crisis. Should she sell out her vision to be more commercial? The dignity and even greatness in an everyday woman. Written, directed, and starring Radha Blank. B+
• 2020-10-14: "Cowardly DMN Refuses To Endorse Presidential Candidate." OTOH, it picked the "Islamophobe" in Congressional District 24. WTH? I only subscribe to DMN for its newsroom reporting. Its editorial board is an embarrassment to journalism.
• 2020-10-14: "California Republican Party Admits It Placed Misleading Ballot Boxes Around State." Republicans try to show that voter fraud exists by committing voter fraud themselves. But are caught.
• 2020-10-14: The 1st Amendment right Coney Barrett couldn't remember was the right "to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Yet that's the one on display all summer long with the Black Lives Matter marches. It's ironic that a SCOTUS nominee couldn't think of that one.
• 2020-10-15: The Boys - Season 2 (TV 2020): Big pharma, military, a Scientology-like religious cult, and our ragtag team of resisters strive for control of a serum that gives people super powers. Only message is nihilism. If you like gratuitous random exploding heads this might be for you. C+
• 2020-10-15: "Isolation, depression, mental health issues, and suicides WILL increase if we listen to Clay J." It looks like the Covid-19 deniers are good with fear porn themselves.
• 2020-10-16: Daylight Savings ends November 1 at 2:00 am. The good news? You get an extra hour of sleep that night. The bad news? That extra hour extends the year 2020.
• 2020-10-17: Trump fundraising email: "The truth is, President Trump is worried he's losing your support, Mark." It's finally getting through to him. "By becoming an Official Trump Text Member, you'll be one of the President's most trusted advisors." All it ever took was to send money.
• 2020-10-17: Red Wedding coming. There. Fixed it for you.
• 2020-10-17: There is always a tweet. (This one from 2011)
• 2020-10-18: What an absolute coward.
• 2020-10-18: Average people don't pay much attention to the Constitution when it doesn't support their prejudices. SCOTUS justices can overlook the Constitution, too, but not so easily. They need to torture the law first in order to ignore it.
• 2020-10-18: Future job interview.
• 2020-10-19: David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet (2020): Part memoir, part nature doc, part prescription for avoiding environmental disaster. Attenborough calls it his witness statement of global decline in a single lifetime. He warns the next 93 years will be worse without change. B-
• 2020-10-19: 55% of white evangelical Protestants think it "makes our country better" when "Americans" protest unfairness by government. But when the question changes "Americans" to "Black Americans," support for protest drops to 35%. It's not about religion. It's about race.
• 2020-10-19: Just voted, with emphasis. In and out in seven minutes at Richland College at 1:30pm Monday. It was so easy and painless I just might do it again tomorrow.
• 2020-10-19: President Trump previews how a Trump second term would be run.
• 2020-10-19: "Texas's strong interest in safeguarding the integrity of its elections from voter fraud far outweighs any burden the state's voting procedures place on the right to vote." SMH
• 2020-10-20: No one will see this USA Today endorsement as the country's airports and Days Inns have only a fraction of the traffic they had before Trump mishandled the pandemic.
• 2020-10-20: Trump fundraising email: "This will be the LAST 600%-MATCH offer you get before Election Day, Mark. Once you claim your offer, you will NEVER get this email again." So Trump quits asking people for money once they demonstrate they'll give him money? No wonder he's losing.
• 2020-10-21: Lovecraft Country (TV 2020): Monsters, magic, witches, ghosts, shape shifters, time travel, and racism, lots of racism, from 1921 Tulsa race massacre to 1950s Jim Crow. The Korean War filler episode is the best. The CGI is impressive. The plot doesn't make a lick of sense. C+
• 2020-10-21: DMN should share what dictionary they use instead of the one used by the rest of us. DMN headline: "Exxon clarifies Trump's remarks." "It never happened," energy giant says. DMN should "clarify" their headline. "Exxon denies Trump's claim" would have been accurate.
• 2020-10-21: Arrogance or delusional? You decide.
• 2020-10-22: American representative government is unrepresentative. It's one thing to say it's designed to keep the large states from running over the small states, but it shouldn't achieve that by having the small states run over the large states.
• 2020-10-23: Last call.
• 2020-10-23: Instant debate scores. Debate overall was better than first (low bar). Trump was better (ditto). Biden was better (Trump allowed him time to speak). Trump lied and tried to make Biden the issue. Biden parried. Close score but edge to Biden, especially as Biden leads.
• 2020-10-23: My scoring is based on my judgment of the impressions made on voters. Plural. But on this one single voter, me, Trump's lies on almost every answer were a huge turnoff. Clear win for Biden.
• 2020-10-23: Trump workshopping a joke for his standup routine.
• 2020-10-23: Review: The Index of Self-Destructive Acts: The worlds of baseball, statistics, journalism, finance, and religion intertwine and collide in this story of careers rising and falling in self-destructive acts. B+
• 2020-10-23: Trump fundraising email: "We are flying ONE of the President's TOP SUPPORTERS to join us at his favorite hotel in Washington, DC for an Election Night Party." IOW, send the campaign money and the campaign will transfer it to one of Trump's personal businesses (i.e., his pocket).
• 2020-10-24: My Octopus Teacher (2020): Nature documentary like you've never seen. Diver in South Africa spends a year visiting, studying, and learning from one particular octopus. He even makes friends, if that's the right word. It's clearly intelligent, curious, and playful. Fascinating. B+
• 2020-10-24: Demographic destiny.
• 2020-10-25: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (2020): Blunt satire of Trump supporters, debutante balls, plastic surgeons, anti-abortion clinics, and, yes, Rudy Giuliani. But vulgarity is no longer shocking, merely vulgar. But then, Giuliani and Trump themselves are vulgar, so call it a draw. D+
• 2020-10-25: DMN: "Poll: Biden grabs narrow lead over Trump in Texas...The poll [was] conducted Oct. 13-20...Trump's hospitalization with COVID-19 dominated headlines as the poll was being taken." In other words, it's ancient history, but it's headline news in Dallas's only local newspaper.
• 2020-10-25: There's always a tweet...this one Biden's. Check the date: one year ago today, October 25, 2019.
• 2020-10-25: 224,912
• 2020-10-25: White House chief of staff: "We are not going to control the pandemic." If by "we" he means Trump, you have to admit Trump's own chief of staff has a point.
• 2020-10-25: Tell Putin to quit interfering with American elections and go to hell, no matter who he might seem to be helping at any given time.
• 2020-10-25: Is "Netflix and Toast" a thing?
• 2020-10-26: Fourteen fundraising emails from Trump and surrogates in just the last 12 hours. All in the same vein: "They're spreading horrible, vicious lies about President Trump because they're rooting against our movement.
• 2020-10-26: Cowboys' quarterback Andy Dalton was knocked out of the game by a dirty hit. Biggest criticism from Cowboys was not against the hit, but against their own players who didn't retaliate. This is the mentality of sports that I just can't support.
• 2020-10-26: "Why would we want a global curriculum? Where's the diversity in that?" Orwellian logic used locally. Exclusion is diversity! Isolation is strength.
• 2020-10-27: Classy.
• 2020-10-27: Fundraising email from Melania Trump: "It's been a while since I last reached out..." Yeah, 24 hours. And 24 hours before that.
• 2020-10-28: Good job.
• 2020-10-28: The Way I See It (2020): Documentary about Pete Souza, White House photographer for President Obama. It's at its best when it lets his photographs do the talking. It's not as good when it expands to include video and photos taken by others. Souza's "Shade" was a surprise hit. B-
• 2020-10-28: Grifter-in-chief.
• 2020-10-28: "in the aggregate" is doing a lot of work in this sentence.
• 2020-10-28: RISD "will continue to follow the recommendations of the CDC and other health experts and require the use of masks." Stand firm, RISD. What's wrong with our country that this position is at all controversial? Is coronavirus affecting our thinking ability?
• 2020-10-28: The original approach to this pandemic was to "flatten the curve" to buy us time to implement capacity for testing, tracing, and isolation, while a vaccine was developed. Trump put all his eggs in his Warp Speed vaccine development basket and utterly failed at the needed testing, tracing, and isolation strategies, so we're now on our third wave of needing to "flatten the curve" yet again and mourning our 227,409 American dead.
• 2020-10-29: The Pale Horse (TV 2020): Two episode adaptation of Agatha Christie's mystery novel. People are dying. A list of names, including our hero, is found. Police suspect him. He suspects witches. WTH? Convoluted plot but it kind of works out. Good period piece of 1961 England. C+
• 2020-10-29: "I had the nomination in hand...for fifteen minutes. I could taste it. Then I lost it all to Herman Cain. Can you believe it? Shucky Ducky.
• 2020-10-29: "If the Republicans lose it," it'll be "because they stole it." -- Texas Lt Gov. Dan Patrick. Republicans are, more and more, saying the quiet part out loud; they don't believe in democracy because they know they can't win free and fair elections anymore.
• 2020-10-29: Good news: we're in the 208th and final week of the 2020 election.
• 2020-10-29: Congratulations to UT-Dallas for getting into the national political polling game. "Poll: Biden leads Trump by 12 points in University of Texas Dallas survey."
• 2020-10-29: Why is it always the New York Times that has these Bizarro world attitudes towards politics?
• 2020-10-30: Barry - Season 1 (TV 2018): A poignant comedy about a vet with PTSD who turns hit man. On a trip to LA he decides to quit his job and go to acting class. Can he turn his life around? Unlikely stars Bill Hader and Henry Winkler pull it off. Acting lessons are a bonus. B+
• 2020-10-30: Jeff Leach alert.
• 2020-10-30: Red states and blue states. Voting doesn't have to be like running an obstacle course. It can be done.
• 2020-10-30: Texans, take solace in knowing there are crazier state governments around.
• 2020-10-31: I don't know if this will completely fix our democracy, but it will go a long way towards fixing voting.
• 2020-10-31: How to interpret candidates' emails. If they say polls show they're ahead, it means they are trailing badly but don't want to scare off donations. If they say they are behind and just need a little more money to seal the deal, it means they're ahead, whether a little or a lot.