Sweeping Little x's Under the Carpet: Overturning a Pennsylvania Election.

The news gets worse and worse. 

Republicans in Pennsylvania are refusing to swear in a Democrat who won a seat in the Senate. 

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/pennsylvania-republicans-jim-brewster-state-senate-210000041.html 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/05/pennsylvania-senate-fetterman-brewster/

https://www.inquirer.com/politics/pennsylvania/spl/john-fetterman-pennsylvania-senate-removed-republicans-jim-brewster-20210105.html

At issue would seem to be the legitimacy of some of the mail-in ballots - apparently a bunch of them didn't have hand drawn dates on the envelopes. 

Apparently, under Pennsylvania law, that matters.  

If these ballots could be disqualified, then there would be just enough of them to overturn the results of the election. So that is just what Republican Senators are trying to do. Overturn the results of the election. Funny how that just rolls of the tongue, doesn't it? 

They would argue that they're just upholding the rule of law - rules are rules after all, and we wouldn't want anyone taking office by breaking the rules now, would we? That would be cheating. Technically, they would be right. So why do I find their argument so incredibly unconvincing? 

The short answer is I find that an incredibly stupid reason to disenfranchise someone. 

When I vote, I put a little 'x' on a little piece of paper, which represents my little say in who ought to run my little country. I consider that little 'x' a very big right, a fundamental, unalterable Right, that ought to be protected and not discounted on some flimsy bureaucratic pretext. If they told me they would not count my little 'x' because the paper had been folded incorrectly, or I used the wrong pencil, or my middle-name didn't appear on the register, or I didn't renew my license plate stickers on time, or took thirty seconds too long, or broke wind in the booth or whatever. . . my reaction would not be "Whoops! My bad." I would fight tooth and nail to make sure my little 'x' got counted. 

You see, I don't think voting should be a Kafkaesque process. It should not depend on successfully navigating an arcane administrative maze. It should not be cancelled by some procedural booby-trap. The Powers-That-Be ought to facilitate voting, not prevent it.  It should never be conditional on fine-print. It should not be comparable to a Chinese puzzle, a riddle, or a cryptic crossword. 

I take a dim view of my rights being contingent on arbitrary procedures. 

The important thing about the Pennsylvania ballots is that people voted, not that somebody somewhere forgot where to put some pencil markings. (And if we're going to indulge conspiracy theories, have any Republicans been caught carrying erasers lately?). This is a technicality being used to disenfranchise people and Overturn the Results of an Election. This is a Bad Thing. 

Just this morning, Andrew Coyne wrote in the Globe and Mail wrote "If the Republicans will not accept defeat in [November's] election, what reason is there to suppose they will accept it in any?" 

As we can see, we have no reason at all. 

The Noun of the Daleks in the Key of Schmaltz for Piano

 So, let’s start the year off on something light. No talk of pandemics, crisis in democracy, ecological degradation or the decaying of the public discourse. That doesn’t leave much, but fortunately there was a new seasonal Doctor Who special, so we can talk about that.

I can say it’s a vast improvement over last year’s New Year’s Eve special. More explosions, more extermination, fewer “inspiring” speeches. . .unfortunately, just as much, if not more, schmaltzy sentimentality.  

The curse of the Chibnall era has to be its painfully earnest tone. The monsters are fine, the villains are fine, the diabolical invasion plots are fine – but every episode the directors insist on bringing the action to a dead halt in-order to have these nauseating heart-to-hearts, complete with slow piano music. It’s contrived sentimentality with all the same cardboard emotions of a Celine Dion concert, a Mitch Albom pamphlet, or a Nancy Reagan after-school special. You can almost hear the mother-superior demanding you pay attention so you don’t miss the moral.

The world is ending, but let's stop and have a chat. . .

It’s not that Moffat or RTD didn’t have their share of sentimentality. But it seemed so much more smoothly integrated with the flow than now. Teary moments happened in the beginning or at the end, and were always kept brief. Now, they just drag on. And on. And on! How long did it take Ryan to say goodbye? I honestly don’t know – I watched on PVR and zapped the whole scene until we got the bicycles. It was not the first time during the episode I did that. 

I did want to stay positive though, so enough of that. The Daleks are great, and there’s even
a good plot reason for them to look different (And a great surprise internet spoilers failed to spoil. I love surprises. . .).  Captain Jack inserts a few moments of much needed life into the often leaden proceedings. And I would love to see Chris North return as Jack Robertson, who’d make a great recurring anti-villain, like the Meddling Monk, Sabalom Glitz, or Gene Hackman’s Lex Luther. In short, things were great as long as the principals stayed off the screen. 

No, that’s not quite fair – I don’t have such a hate-on for Whitaker as all that. But she does 
seem to be fed some of the worst lines. (Though hinting that she tried to eat through her prison bars was probably her most “Doctorish” moment yet). The trouble is they’ve turned eccentricity into immaturity, to the extent that she needs counselling from someone like Ryan. That does rather undermine the otherworldly, ancient wisdom the character is supposed to exude. Indeed, this whole business of "The Doctors needs humans to keep them grounded" is incredibly tiresome, and only really worked with Donna. 

In short (and this goes for the whole series, not just this New Year's Special), the supposedly emotional bits all feel contrived, overwrought buzzkill, as conducive to excitement as Question Period, or a bucket of ice, is to foreplay. Maybe we just need new companions, or new writers or TARDIS roundels. . .or new editors who can helpfully cut out the boring bits to make way for more Burger King ads.  Definitely ditch the piano interludes and let the audience decide what to feel and when to feel it.

Captain Jack: Much needed levity in a leaden cast 

A handful of other thoughts: 

Yaz: the Doctor has just spent the last decade in prison. She didn’t do it        to inconvenience you.   Do not act as if you are the suffering party here.

(Come to think of it, I can’t imagine the Doctor just sitting in jail for ten years waiting to be rescued!)

Ryan: for god’s sake, get over yourself and give your step-dad a fist bump! God forbid you lighten up a little. . .

At least they kept the theme tune and title credits. Thank God for small mercies. . .

 

2020 Reading List

 One habit I am not trying nearly hard enough to break (though not the one I should break the most) is treating holidays as deadlines in which things must be achieved. These many blogs must be written, these many pages completed, these many films watched, these many miles hiked, these many people spoken to, and these many books read. I did not expect to beat last year's total, and tried not to think of it as some kind of race, but I did and did, completing twenty-four as of New Year's Eve Eve. That said, I read few short stories - 42- to last year's 48- so I suppose it's still a loss. I'm not so anal as to start counting pages, though I can't help wondering if massive epics from previous eras ought not to carry more weight than contemporary kids books. No matter - the purpose is in the reading. 

I did not quite match last year's total for short fiction - 43 stories as opposed to last year's 48. As of writing, it's not too late to close that gap, but that'd be exactly the sort of arbitrary goal-post chasing I'm trying to avoid. 

Last year I swore I would have something to say about each of them, but ended up posting none of them. So here's a list, before forget, to show that it wasn't an entirely wasted year. 

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw - Jeff Kinney.
The Noise of Time - Julian Barnes

Invaders of Space - Murray Leinster

The Information - Martin Amis

The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins

The Cowards - Josef Skvorecky

Chocky - John Wyndam

There's One in Every Crowd - Ivan E. Coyote

The Chimes - Charles Dickens 

The Fall of Berlin - Anthony Reed/David Fisher

No Doors, No Windows -Harlan Ellison

The Hobbit - JRR. Tolkien

Black Arrow - Robert Louis Stevenson

Neuromancer - William Gibson

Transformations - James King

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Holdon 

100 Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The Quiet Boy - Lois Lowery

White Fragility - Robin 

Etienne's Alphabet - James King

Mother Tongue - Bill Bryson 

The Two Towers - JRR Tolkien 

Gathering Blue - Lois Lowery 

Farewell Party - Milan Kundera 

  

 

 

If nothing else can be said about this wretched year (and to be sure, very little can), at least that orange creature in the White House has been sent on his way. Not willingly and possibly not permanently, but undoubtedly (except perhaps in his own imagination).  No one expected him to go gracefully, but I for one didn’t expect him to go this pitifully – a pathetic patch of pouting petulance, not even a pretext of maturity or adult dignity.

I remember watching not long ago a comedy sketch in which a Trump impersonator refused to leave a day care centre full of toddlers, throwing a tantrum and clinging to his bouncy ball. A grotesque parody I thought at the time. But we’re living in times beyond parody, and the sketch has proven a prescient prediction. He’s given up even pretending to be President, instead devoting all his time to sulking on Twitter. He finally got around to signing the coronavirus relief bill, dithering and delaying while people were going hungry and losing their homes. He’s devoted all his energies to ridiculous conspiracy theories which have been contemptuously thrown out of court, and which even some of his closest allies and ardent supporters have had trouble swallowing.  It is beyond farcical.

But let’s not forget how scary and disturbing it all is nonetheless. A sitting president has refused to concede office, and cast doubts on the electoral process. Do we need any more proof of his authoritarian tendencies? Utter ineptitude kept him from pulling it off, but the very fact he was able to attempt it should terrify us all.

A few things to consider:

First: A shit-ton of people voted for him. More than any other candidate in US history. Lots and lots of people not only thought what he did and what he stood for was perfectly fine, but absolutely wonderful. Millions and millions bought into him and stand by him. We are damned lucky that the only person who ever got more votes was Joe Biden.

Second: The President has cast doubts on the very notion of truth itself. Truth is whatever he decides it is. He reserves the right to make it up as he goes along, and cling to whichever version of reality pleases him most. And his millions upon millions of followers have bought into this as well. Now, at a time when accepting a verifiable, quantifiable reality is more important than ever. Climate deniers, anti-vaxxers, Q-Anons are stronger than ever. Our collective well-being depends on accepting science, and millions upon millions simply reject it.

Third: Trump has exposed the vulnerabilities of the system. Sheer incompetence protected us from his worst instincts, but he’s shown how it can be done. How masses can be manipulated, how safe-guards can be bypassed, how scapegoats can be created, how dissidents can be vilified, how reality itself (nevermind the US political system) can be twisted to suit the needs of the Leader. There’s a lesson here for any would be dictator, and the next one just might know what he’s[i] doing.

Happy New Year.

 

 

---

[i] I use the pronoun intentionally: the public may long for a strongman to lead them, but will not allow themselves to be dominated by a strong woman.

We're all in Pins and Razors here. . .

 At the time of writing, the US election has been carrying on with agonizing slowness. Biden is just six lousy points away from victory, and has been for more than twenty-four hours now. The counting seems to be going at a snail's pace; the suspense is excruciating. 

At the time of writing, there are four states left to call. Trump needs to win all four. Biden only one. Trump is leading in three of them; Biden only in one. Biden's lead (in Nevada) is razor thin - only about 11,438 votes (according to the Toronto Star). It is not inconceivable that Trump could close that gap. 

Nor is it inconceivable that Biden could pull ahead in Georgia (behind 12, 835 votes) or North Carolina (behind 76,701 votes). 

The votes are still coming in. Is it any wonder Trump wants to stop them? 

Who knows what will happen. I am not the only one who wishes it would all just hurry up and resolve itself and get this wait over with. Just get it over with. 

In a few days time, this blog will seem hopelessly out of date. But for posterity's sake, I have to make note of where I was at this time, what I was seeing and thinking and feeling. A period of intolerable tension. 

Trump's jackboots are already swarming voting stations, demanding the counting be halted. They see no irony in their position - stopping a vote count in the name of democracy. Trump's got them all convinced these aren't even real votes. That hundreds of thousands if not millions are actually fraudulent. (None of his own of course). In Trump's America, voter fraud means voting against Trump. 

He's losing, and that's all the evidence he and his people needs. 

I wonder what will happen if any of those mobs decide to storm the counting stations, force their way past the guards and break through the doors. I can see them destroying box loads of ballots. 

The Sore-Loser in Chief is behaving exactly as predicted. Does anyone still doubt the threat he poses? 

Well, sixty million of his voters. . .

In short - Trump can still win. Even if he doesn't, he doesn't have to relinquish power 'till the new year. A lot of mischief can be done between now and then. 

Even if he loses, his ideas and his methods were not repudiated - millions and millions thought and think he was and is a perfectly great leader. 

He can run again in 2024. 

Even if he doesn't, someone else in his mold will. And he might know what he's doing. 

 So, the Amazing Randi's passed onto the great beyond. The magician-cum-skeptic-psychic hunter is, I suspect, already taunting mediums everywhere. 

I first encountered his work in high school, when our religion teacher of all people, showed us one of Randi's PBS specials. I'd never believed in all that psychic flim-flam, but I'd never seen it debunked so thoroughly before. Deep down, I think I figured that if there were anything to it, it'd be spoken of more often - maybe in places like science class, rather than dusty books my local library crammed in-between stories of UFO visitation and ghosts. In this way I explained away the occasional telepath or astrologer who apparently got it "right". The idea they were all just magicians was mind-blowing, and made so much obvious sense, I wondered why I hadn't thought of it before. 

Some true-blue believers insisted - usually through tears of rage - that Randi hadn't actually disproven anything. Just because he could duplicate these tricks didn't mean psychic powers didn't exist. Perhaps not, but he certainly made them irrelevant: even if they had powers, so what? Randi could do everything they could without those magic powers. Real or not, psychics became boring. 

Perhaps seeing that PBS documentary (or was it NOVA?), made me a little less susceptible to quack claims growing up.  Perhaps it made me that much more receptive to my third-year anthropology prof who taught us skepticism. Maybe it was the mental tools imparted there that soon turned their gaze to the more entrenched forms of "woo" doled out by certain Seperate School Boards. . .

  James Randi was no saint by any means - there were ethical questions surrounding his more intense investigations. He said some pretty unpleasant things about Social Darwinism. There were times he seemed a bit more contemptuous of certain people - victims of, if not perpetrators of nonsense - than was he needed to be. But, unless you're a Catholic theologian, I don't think you should be looking for saints. 

Almost no one takes psychics seriously anymore, and James Randi played him part in that. But health quackery is more widespread than ever, and thanks to a president who's not ashamed to spread it in a pandemic, more dangerous than ever. In politics and academia  as well as health, the very concept of reality itself seems under attack. People believe whatever pleases them, and make enemies of whatever doesn't. In some places, Democracy itself is crumbling. 

This was not a good time to lose James Randi. 

 

A Fiddle Emporium for Ubiquitous Neros.

So it's been a full six months since I last posted anything. It's not because nothing's been happening. Fact is, the world is changing far faster than my ability to make sense of it. No sooner did I have a thought when it was shown to be redundant the very next day - sometimes that very afternoon. A couple times I started writing impassioned tirades on one subject or other, and then just gave up. Then, the inspiration shriveled and I haven't said a thing. 

I suppose I ought to. For my own clarity of mind if no other purpose. I suppose I can't simply abandon history happening all around me to a multitude of cheap memes. 

Where to begin? 

 Coronavirus has of course changed everything. It is the giant-squid in the room that quite a surprising number of people are pretending isn't there.

In the beginning, I felt it may have been an opportunity for humanity to band together and deal with a common threat. I had ridiculous visions of international cooperation and new levels of community involvement all over the world. I thought we'd finally see the futility of our current economic system, and build something better. I even (briefly) had these ridiculous ideas of rolling up the sleeves and joining a volunteer citizen army to join the workers in the factories producing protective equipment. All out for World War C. 

It all seems so silly now. Now I have very little faith than humanity could band together to solve anything.

Unlike climate-change, coronavirus is something that can be immediately observed. There's nothing abstract about it - it is a tangible threat that can be quantified. Surely this was something we could all agree on, and all face together. We would do what needed to be done, make the necessary sacrifices. Everyone,  would be onboard - even the greedy billionaires.  It would work something like this: 

To stop the spread of the virus, there would naturally be mass lock-down and quarantine. On a scale we've never seen before. To make it work, we would need to ensure people wouldn't starve to death if they stayed home from work. Simple really: you just can't ethically force someone to miss work. People would need to be paid to stay home. The whole thing collapses otherwise. 

Universal income. Paid sick leave. Rent controls. Eviction freezes. This is what it would take to beat the thing. We wouldn't worry about how to pay for it, just like we didn't worry about how much it would cost to beat Hitler. We would pool our resources and we would Just Do It. 

And in the meantime, all those truly essential people - front like healthcare workers, doctors, nurses, those folks who keep the water and electricity running, the truckers who deliver food, and most of all - those teenaged cashiers at the supermarkets - would finally be recognized as society's Real Important People. Indeed, those supermarket workers were called heroes and given bonuses. 

It was all in sight. It could have happened. 

It didn't. And those bonuses were revoked months ago. 

Conspiracy theories started and spread as fast as the virus itself. Basic precautions (let alone social reinvention) have become strictly politicized, with roughly half the world (including all its Trumpeters) fighting tooth-and-nail for their right to get sick.  Wearing masks, social distancing, and staying home when possible were decided to be intolerable intrusions on freedom, comparable to Krystalnacht, armed thugs stormed the Michigan State Legislature, and at the time of writing, there are more cases than ever. 

Meanwhile, a different gang of armed thugs murdered George Floyd, and the great US of A exploded in an orgy of state-sanctioned violence. Their fearless leader took the side of the baton bearing thugs, climate change is probably past the point of no return, democracy Hong Kong has been thoroughly crushed, while the People's Republic continues to stuff Uighurs into concentration camps. 

School openings in Ontario have been a complete fiasco. 

Used bookshops will probably not exist by this time next year. 

It is difficult at this time to hold any faith in humanity. In recent years, we consistently made the worst decisions possible (Stephen Polyana Pinker notwithstanding). It's hard to believe Doctor Tar and Professor Fether are not in charge. Or that the UN isn't a fiddle emporium for Ubiquitous Neros. Of whom, three are worth noting: 

Boris Johnson, Jair Bolsonaro, and Donald Trump, each a contender for the "Asshole of the Year" award, have all at one time minimized, played down, or downright denied the Covid threat. All three have now had Covid. 

Believers in Karma may make of this what they will.