Monday, January 13, 2020

Monday, January 13, 2019

 Let's see how weird this week will be. Let's see if by the end of the week if wingnuts are still pretending to care about Iran. I'm not saying they're hypocrites - though they are - I'm just saying the news moves so fast these days, it's barely worth it to try to nail them down. Marshall McLuhan was an optimist.

 Anyhow, in the last 36 hours or so, we've had two more hopefuls for the Democratic nomination drop out and neither were Michael Bloomberg. Cory Booker and Marianne Williamson both called it a day, as it finally became obvious that they weren't going to claw themselves out of the basement. All I'll say about Williamson is I never thought her bid was a serious one; that is, she went into it wanting to spread wisdom rather than actually win. There's nothing wrong with that, despite what people who enjoy the smell of their own farts will tell you. Selling a book isn't an easy thing.

 Like with Julian Castro and Kamala Harris, though, I am a little disappointed that Booker's campaign didn't catch more fire. Very centrist and perhaps a bit too skittish about rocking the boat, but he said a lot of good things about poverty and prison reform, something no one else is discussing. Granted, given the ongoing horrors in Mississippi's law enforcement, I am a bit biased towards this topic - seriously, click that link, it's a booger - but I digress.

 Another problem with Booker dropping out is the game board gets that much whiter and, at the risk of ageism, over 70. I don't see Tulsi Gabbard or Andrew Yang making much more of a dent than they already have, and apart from Bloomberg, does anyone really know who's in the race beyond Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttegieg and Joe Biden?

 Still and all, Booker's out and it remains to be seen where he goes from here. He would be a prime candidate for Vice-President and remains a solid voice in the Senate. The race is starting to heat up with or without him, anyway.

 That being said, we may be wanting it to be hotter than it actually is. Media reports are saying that back in 2018, when discussing possible runs for 2020, Bernie Sanders told Elizabeth Warren that a woman can't win the Presidency. Apparently, four different people have verified this conversation went on, but differ in how things were said. For their part, Sanders has denied he said anything like that and Warren won't even acknowledge the question.

 And, of course, liberal/left-wing Twitter has been in a three-alarm tizzy all day. This is another example of Bernie's rampant sexism while at the same time a bit of rat-fucking by Warren since she's the DNC's golden girl this time around. It's just another example of both candidates attacking the other, like they have the whole campaign even if they never did it out loud and it was generally their followers looking for reasons to get huffy.

 Or it could be a nothing that the Corporate Media is blowing up because they're lazy, this sort of thing is a reliable page-filler, and it will always pull in eyes or garner clicks. Something to think about, maybe? I mean, it is possible that Sanders did indeed try to torpedo Warren's hopes before they got off the ground, assuming she'd be his biggest competitor for the left-leaning vote. Or it could be that Warren is actually blowing up this as yet another example of her trying to trash Bernie because he's got a grip on the left-leaning vote.

 It could also be that 95% of the political experts on Twitter have absolutely no idea what they're talking about, no clue how politics works and a naive if hopeful view of how journalism operates. Instead of looking for conspiracy theories in everything objectionable, maybe consider the press is full of lazy drones who depend on eyeballs to pay their rent and get little Lisa her braces. It's bad enough the press is that indolent and rote that they'll print another version of the same story they've been running at least since I've been paying attention to go looking for more sinister reasons. Does no one remember the whole PUMA thing?

 And, yes, that sort of view is naive. Looking for some grand plan when it's as often as not just people trying to hold onto their own is distracting and pointless. It's like thinking the Illuminati is behind everything or that every misspelling in one of Trump's tweets is a secret message to the Q folks. Sometimes shit just is. Really, half of the existential angst the average American boob suffers is because they're looking for fairies at the bottom of the garden instead of just enjoying the flowers.

UPDATE: I finish this and sit down to supper to find out that Warren is corroborating this story but doesn't consider it worth too much consideration, as Sanders wasn't saying so much that a woman shouldn't be president but that Trump would use sexist tactics against her. That should surprise no one and Warren repeated that her friendship with Sanders and shared progressive goals overcome any media punditry wanking. Meanwhile, Twitter's huff-o-meter pinged out in righteous indignation.

 Okay, that's about it, but a couple more quick shots. Trump apparently authorized Soleimani's killing seven months ago which sort of pokes holes in the story he initially gave, but no one's going to care by this time next week. Here's a neat story about the Hubble Deep Space Telescope finding little clumps of dark matter (maybe), and here's an interesting piece about Artificial Intelligence and the fundamentals of quantum mechanics. Here's an interesting video about the connection between nihilism, existentialism and absurdism from a literary perspective. If that don't pull your little red wagon, here's another from a philosophical perspective. Both talk about Albert Camus' The Stranger, which is a pretty good read regardless.

 So, yeah. Have fun.

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