There’s an upcoming TV series starring Jeremy Piven, “Wisdom of the Crowd,” in which Piven’s character gathers the combined input from millions of computer users/observers in order to solve crimes. That appears to be happening in real life as pictures of the far right protestors in Charlottesville are being widely circulated and their lives are crashing down around their ears. There are already several instances where they have been fired from their jobs because their employers didn’t know that they were employing right wing Nazi sympathizers. Observers are cheering these results because they are determined to destroy these guys. Indeed, that’s why members of the KKK always wore hoods, so they could do whatever they wanted while avoiding the consequences those actions might result in.

This may outrage fans of mine, but every time I hear about another far right guy losing his job or having his life destroyed, I hate it. Just hate it.

Now if it’s someone who performed a criminal action–he assaulted somebody, for instance–then I’m all for it. Bring him down.

But if all he did was open his mouth or wave a sign, I’m sorry, no. He shouldn’t lose his job for that. He shouldn’t be prosecuted for that. I mean, obviously it didn’t interfere with his ability to do his job because his employer was fine with keeping him on as long as he didn’t harass others with his views. But now they’re being fired because their employer knows where his sympathies lie? That’s just not right. For two reasons.

First of all, all it’s going to do is drive him further underground. He might indeed start wearing a hood and, cloaked in anonymity, do worse things than he was already doing. His boss and fellow employees couldn’t sit him down and say, “Why do you feel this way? Have you ever considered maybe you’re wrong?” Engage in conversation that might change his mind (as unlikely as that may seem.).

And second, getting him fired is simply going to galvanize his hatred of the left. Before his reasons for prejudice were all lies that were fed to him by right wing sources. Now, though, he has a genuine reason to hate those who were opposed to him: they got him fired. They wrecked his life. What’s to stop him from planning revenge against his enemies? What’s to stop him from hopping behind the wheel of a car and running over some of those lefty bášŧárdš and exacting some payback? Before he was just an áššhølë. Now he’s a genuine enemy.

It is NEVER a good idea to punish somebody just because you don’t like their opinions.

PAD

On Comedy Central, they have a weekly sitcom in which a comedian imitates Donald Trump. It’s called “The President Show” and the announcer always declares Trump to be, at the top of the show, “the 45th and last President.” With what’s going on this week, I’m beginning to wonder just how accurate that may be.

Continue Reading “Freak Out Friday – August 11, 2017” →

I could do my usual thing of itemizing Trump’s insanities/inanities. But you probably have heard them discussed on CNN or supported on Fox or destroyed by comedians.

Instead for this week I’d like to take a broader view.

It’s just that I’m looking at the state of the world. The Russians obviously tampered with the election because they hated/feared Hillary that much. The Senate’s strike back at them was signed into law by Trump because he had no choice; they could have overridden his veto. This obviously infuriated Putin who retaliated diplomatically, which means we are teetering on another Cold War. Meanwhile North Korea continues to test missiles which can reach as far as California, DC, and New York, and I don’t think anyone remotely believes that Trump is capable of handling NK’s dictator if the hammer comes down.

And what I keep coming back to is this:

Let’s say five years ago, someone wanted to tell an end-of-the-world story. Governments have broken down, diplomacy has gone out the window, and lunatic nutbags are running things. If the storyteller wanted to provide a shorthand to establish how things could have possibly gone so wrong, all he would have to do is have a newscaster talking about “President Trump.” Because five years ago, the audience would have snorted and said, “Well, sure, I totally believe that if this country was stupid enough to put Trump into office, then it makes sense that the entire world is falling apart. Hëll, we probably deserve to be nuked out of existence if things have gotten that bad.”

Writers do that all the time. Alan Moore made sure that Richard Nixon was still president in the time of “Watchmen” because you could totally buy into the notion of Nixon overseeing a steady but inevitable crawl toward atomic destruction. In the episode of “Supernatural,” The End, Dean Winchester of 2009 is transported forward into 2014, where mention is made of President Sarah Palin while the world falls apart. It’s a nice writing shorthand to establish a reality on the edge of total destruction.

Except that’s fiction.

And this is fact.

The fact being that we have a man in office whose mere mention in a work published or shown five years ago would have viewers buying into the notion that we are all effectively screwed.

Am I the only person to whom this has occurred?

PAD

I’m still on the road and was inclined to give Trump one more week off, but I can’t. I just can’t.

1. Always prepared. So Trump spoke at the Boy Scout Jamboree, pointing out that Obama had never done so. Which wasn’t true: Obama had recorded a video message addressing the 2010 Jamboree. Obama was also a Boy Scout in his youth, as were George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. But not Trump, of course. Trump made his speech quite memorable, violating eighty years of presidential tradition by presenting a highly partisan speech in which he slammed his predecessor and Hillary Clinton, and told them a long, rambling story about a multi-millionaire who wound up buying a yacht and presumably having sexual activities on it. The Scouts ate it up while the organization quickly released a statement emphasizing that the organization is non partisan. Apparently inviting the president to speak at the jamboree is tradition, but I will be very surprised if they maintain that tradition and invite him ever again. Hëll, let them invite Obama next year. I bet he’ll come.

2) Anyone else getting sick of Health Care? Once again, for something like the sixty second time in the past seven years, the GOP endeavored to get rid of health care and failed. Naturally all the Democrats voted against it, but of greater interest was that enough GOPers voted against it as well. Granted, some of them believed that it was gutted too much while others thought it wasn’t gutted enough. Fortunately even the notion of just scrapping Obamacare while replacing it with nothing didn’t go over. Yet the GOP still won’t let it go, now actively discussing a brand new plan that is a “slimmed down” version of the ACA. One wonders how many rejections they are going to have to endure before they give up. Even Trump is now advocating that they just wait for Obamacare to crash and burn, which–to my understanding–it’s showing no sign of doing, although it is saving countless lives. It’s impressive how something can last when the process is done correctly, over a period of months with public hearings, as opposed to the way the GOP has been attempting to do it.

3) We’ll have a gay old time. People are declaring that the LGBTQ community has been “betrayed” by Trump’s recent declarations that transgender individuals would not be permitted into the army, effectively firing something like 15,000 people. And then the White House built upon that as the Justice Department filed court papers stating that the 1964 Civil Rights Act doesn’t protect people from discrimination based on sexual orientation. But this is not remotely a betrayal because, I’m sorry, any LGBTQ individual who believed Trump was on their side is quite simply too stupid to have his or her feelings seriously considered.

Of COURSE Trump went back on his word. Trump ALWAYS goes back on his word. Trump ALWAYS betrays you. Just ask his old pal, Jeff Sessions, the first senator to support him who Trump is now relentlessly assaulting on Twitter.

And the truth is of no relevance to him. He declared he spoke with his Generals. The Pentagon said no, he didn’t. He said that he didn’t want to deal with the “tremendous medical costs.” Interesting. The Rand corporation did a study. According to AOL, they “found that the costs of allowing transgender people to serve in the military would have a ‘minimal impact’ on the budget, amounting to $2.4 million to $8.4 million each year, or 0.04 percent to 0.13 percent of the military health care budget. That’s little more than a rounding error when compared to the total U.S. military budget of roughly $700 billion.”

So Trump’s reasons are BS, as is everything he says. It has nothing to do with money and everything to do with the fact that he doesn’t like gays, period, close quote, end of story. The hilarious thing is that some critics are declaring that Trump’s reasoning is sound because the army has other medical restrictions. For instance, people with cancer, diabetes, etc., can’t join. Because apparently they are stupid enough to think that being transgender is somehow physically debilitating. Idiots.

Did he do anything right? No. It was a solid week of saying and doing stupid things.

PAD

May I highly recommend a new biography, A Lit Fuse, that covers the life of one Harlan Ellison. Harlan gave the writer carte blanche to cover whatever he wanted–the good, the bad, and the ugly. He speaks quite highly of the result, and that is certainly good enough for me. Plus it features commentary by such individuals as Patton Oswalt, Neil Gaiman, and, well, me. So head to Amazon and snatch yourself a copy.

PAD

It’s kind of last minute, but I just wanted to let everyone know that Kathleen, Caroline and I will be at the Florida Supercon this weekend. Swing on by and say hi. I’ll be at booth #930.

PAD