Thanksgiving Quarantine

People are complaining about restrictions against family gatherings this Thanksgiving.

Don't be a child.  These restrictions are there for your own good.  You skip Thanksgiving this year, so more people are alive to attend next year.

People keep comparing it to Nazism.  Educate yourselves, jeez.  When the Nazis imposed restrictions, their goal wasn't to save lives, and their intent wasn't for it to be temporary.  If the Nazis tried to keep you from seeing your family, it was because they never wanted you to see your family again.  Temporary measures are not the same as totalitarian fiats.  

If you're looking for examples of abuse of power, look no further than Trump's current attempts to overturn a legal election.  But a government trying to save lives by postponing a holiday... that's not an abuse of power.  It's not Nazism, it's not fascism, it's not authoritarianism.  It's protection.  In fact, it's exactly the kind of protection we have governments for.

Be a grown up.  Right now, isolation saves lives.  You can visit your relatives once everyone's been vaccinated.  Until then, please play it safe.

A Blast from the Past

In 1982, I was at a high school basketball game, and ended up getting my picture in the newspaper.  We happened to be sitting behind Johnny Cash, whose son went to the same school.  On a whim, I went searching through the newspaper archives and found the photo.

You can see me on the left, sitting next to my dad.  Unfortunately for my brother, he was sitting directly behind Cash, so you can't see him at all.  But you can see his friend sitting next to him.

From The Tennessean

Monday, March 22, 1982 

Page 15

Congratulations President Biden

Biden Wins!

...for now.  You know Trump is going to pull every trick in the book to overturn it.  In fact, he'll spend his last two months in office focused on this one task, while continuing to ignore the pandemic.  That's just who he is - he uses the office of the President to benefit himself, and screw everyone else.  

I'm worried that the next few weeks will be filled with riots and violence, but to be fair, I was worried about that regardless of who won.  This nation is at odds with itself, and I don't know if it's even possible to reconcile.

I don't envy the work Biden has ahead of him.  Fixing Trump's mistakes will likely take up his first year in office.  A lot of rebuilding will need to be done before Biden gets to square one.  

A note to those Republicans who say, "Democrats only whine about the Electoral College when they lose."

I'm a Democrat.  My party won.  We still need to get rid of the Electoral College.  It sucks.  It's an antiquated system held over from a time when we didn't have the technology for a popular vote.

I'm not saying a popular vote is perfect.  But land can't vote.  A state with three people in it shouldn't have more power just because the state's boundaries are wide.  We're electing a president for the entire country, so we shouldn't be looking at state borders at all.  If the majority of the country's population is around the edges, then so be it.  

What we really need is an end to the idea that if you vote third party, you're throwing your vote away.  Some countries use a ranked voting system where you vote for your favorite, second favorite, etc.  So you could put down the Independent as your favorite, then the Democrat as your second favorite, and both votes would still count.  I wish we would do something like that.

In any event, our voting system is broken.  I believe this even when it benefits me.  I hope it is addressed at some point in the next four years.

Anyway, congrats to Biden and Harris.  I hope they are able to heal some of the scars from Trump's reign.

Election 2020

As I write this on the morning of November 4th, Biden has the lead, but most of the remaining states are skewing red.  So it really could still go either way.  Of course, Trump is already claiming he won.

This is very nerve wracking.  Republicans are currently thinking, "Oh no, Biden might win, and we'll have four years of political correctness!  Can you imagine not being able to use racial slurs?"  Democrats are thinking, "The planet can't survive four more years of this.  People are dying.  The climate is at a tipping point.  Children are in cages.  People can't afford life saving medicines."  

Gee, I'm just not sure which side's concerns should be taken more seriously.

But even if Biden wins, I'm incredibly disappointed in voters.  It should have been a landslide.  What kind of idiot looks at the last four years and says, "We need four more years of this?"

Idiots.  Idiots.  Idiots.  Idiots.  Idiots.  Idiots.  Idiots.