What A Piece Of Work

So every year, I teach a class called College Readiness. It is intended, among other things, to help students apply to college and win admission; since I am an English teacher, that means helping them write application essays. I generally use the Common App prompts — which I recommend, if you’re looking for college admission essay topics — and they write several drafts over the year, with revisions and feedback about how to make their essays more interesting and more effective.

And then, for their last essay draft of the year, I have them pick one of the topics from the University of Chicago’s list of topics. They have two essay questions for their applicants: the first is a very standard, straightforward essay, about why you want to attend UChicago and what you are looking for there; and then the second — well.

They asked prior students and graduates for ideas for essay topics. And those students and alumni delivered.

You should go take a look at them — but here are some highlights.

Essay Option 1

Exponents and square roots, pencils and erasers, beta decay and electron capture. Name two things that undo each other and explain why both are necessary.
– Inspired by Emmett Cho, Class of 2027

Essay Option 2

“Where have all the flowers gone?” – Pete Seeger. Pick a question from a song title or lyric and give it your best answer.
– Inspired by Ryan Murphy, AB’21

Essay Option 3

“Vlog,” “Labradoodle,” and “Fauxmage.” Language is filled with portmanteaus. Create a new portmanteau and explain why those two things are a “patch” (perfect match).
– Inspired by Garrett Chalfin, Class of 2027

Essay Option 4

A jellyfish is not a fish. Cat burglars don’t burgle cats. Rhode Island is not an island. Write an essay about some other misnomer, and either come up with and defend a new name for it or explain why its inaccurate name should be kept.
– Inspired by Sonia Chang, Class of 2025, and Mirabella Blair, Class of 2027

Essay Option 5

Despite their origins in the Gupta Empire of India or Ancient Egypt, games like chess or bowling remain widely enjoyed today. What modern game do you believe will withstand the test of time, and why?
– Inspired by Adam Heiba, Class of 2027

Essay Option 6

There are unwritten rules that everyone follows or has heard at least once in their life. But of course, some rules should be broken or updated. What is an unwritten rule that you wish didn’t exist? (Our custom is to have five new prompts each year, but this year we decided to break with tradition. Enjoy!)
– Inspired by Maryam Abdella, Class of 2026

Essay Option 7

And, as always… the classic choose your own adventure option! In the spirit of adventurous inquiry, choose one of our past prompts (or create a question of your own). Be original, creative, thought provoking. Draw on your best qualities as a writer, thinker, visionary, social critic, sage, citizen of the world, or future citizen of the University of Chicago; take a little risk, and have fun!

So I require my students to choose one of the topics — there are over 40 others after these six — and write an essay on it. And I ask them if there is one topic they would like me to write an essay about.

This was their choice for this year:

You are on an expedition to found a colony on Mars, when from a nearby crater, a group of Martians suddenly emerges. They seem eager to communicate, but they’re the impatient kind and demand you represent the human race in one song, image, memory, proof, or other idea. What do you share with them to show that humanity is worth their time?

And here is my response.

Okay look. There are a bunch of assumptions in this question. First it assumes that I want to communicate with the Martians, when in reality I might just want to atomize them with my Blastotron 5,000,0000X Destructothunderation Disintegratorianator. And that does seem like a poor assumption since I am an American, after all. When have we ever talked first and slaughtered after? Then it assumes – even more strangely – that the Martians have the same senses we do, and would be able to appreciate something I could present to them at all, let alone having the same aesthetic senses or interest in what I would have to present. It assumes that I would have this thing on me at the moment I met them, or access to it (which probably shows an assumption based on the existence and ubiquity of smartphones, which is fine, I would no doubt have my phone with me on the Martian surface – but also, I bet the wifi signal there sucks.), and that I wouldn’t just be limited to what I would normally be able to produce on the spot – which now relies on my performance skills. (Which are, I grant, stellar. Out of this world, even. Especially my punnery.)

And worst of all: the question assumes I believe humanity is worth the Martians’ time. 

So, considering all these considerations, I have several answers, the specific choice between being reliant on the specific situation. 

First, I would not immediately blast the Martians, because of course it would be better to lull them into complacency and then carry out a sneak attack later, preferably on their home territory; that’s the proper American way.

Second, we’ll take it as a given that the Martians would have at least similar senses to mine – though I will say, if they do have a different set of senses, I would absolutely play to that, because a society focused on smell would be far more impressed by our greatest olfactory achievements than any symphony or art work or whatever I could present. (And in that case, the smell would be a Thanksgiving feast: the scents of turkey and gravy, fresh bread, and apple pie, with a delicate touch of the smell of candle wax burning, hickory wood burning in the fireplace, and a whiff of my wife’s perfume.) But for the sake of argument, we’ll accept that they would use primarily sight and sound to interact with their environment, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to communicate their intentions to me, and if they just came at me waving their tentacles or whatever, it’s Blastotron time. On sight.

So what would I show them to prove that humanity is worthwhile – or, in a more moralistic sense, that we are good? See, now we get into questions of aesthetics, for art, or into questions of values in general, and it becomes almost impossible to answer. I recognize that the goal of the prompt is to examine my aesthetics, my values, to find out what I think is the highest achievement of humanity; but since my area of interest and expertise is actually rhetoric, and that means I choose my communication with my audience in mind, I know better than to decide something like this only using my own criteria and nothing else. If you seriously just want me to pick the best thing in the world according to me with no other considerations at all, I’m going to go with the poetry of ee cummings, particularly “anyone lived in a pretty how town.” But see, much of the beauty in that poem comes from understanding both human society and the history of human poetry, and it wouldn’t translate quickly enough to the Martians; so that can’t be my answer.

If we imagine that the Martians have been watching us through Martioscopes for centuries – and why wouldn’t they? Don’t we watch fail videos constantly on YouTube? And what is human history if not one giant fail video? – then the background knowledge necessary to understand the context could actually be assumed; and in that case, I might go with something like cummings’s poetry. Or for visual art, I would probably select Michelangelo’s Pieta, or the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Or, for the sake of including multiple senses in my appeal for the value of humanity, I might go with a performance of an opera or a musical, because that can include singing, dancing, music and literature, all at once. In that case I would pick Hamilton, which I think is utterly brilliant  dramatically, musically, and poetically — though that thought process does lead me to consider movies as a way to include visual and auditory art, and to include many different kinds of aesthetic appeal: and in that case I would choose either Pleasantville, partly because it includes quite a bit of very beautiful art; or Fantasia, because it includes so much beautiful music.

But this all assumes that art is the highest achievement of humanity. I think there is an argument for that, because what is important for humanity, specifically, has to be the things that are unique to humanity; and the only things I believe are unique to humanity are the search for truth, and the creation of beauty, both for no reason apart from the intrinsic value of truth, and of beauty. Other creatures seek and discover truth – the best way to pull termites out of a mound, for instance – but they do it in pursuit of survival, not for the joy of discovery and the goal of understanding. Not that survival is less valuable than art for art’s sake and truth for understanding’s sake; but survival for survival’s sake is less human. So I do think that beauty is one of the crowning achievements of humanity: but I would have a much more difficult time arguing that it is the only, or the best, achievement of humanity, rather than truth.

So I have to also consider: what is our greatest truth?

Is it science? Perhaps; but the creation of the scientific method as a formula is pretty well associated with only one man – and I have a hard time accepting that a dude who died trying to freeze chicken is literally the one best person in the history of humanity. Especially when his name was Francis Bacon. But then, if it’s not science, what is it? What is the one greatest truth that humanity has ever known, which I could then speak to an alien race and show them what we have accomplished?

I can’t think of one. (Take it as a given that it is not math.) Mainly because so much of our truth-seeking has to do with ourselves: and we still don’t know jack about ourselves, not really. I could go with “The only thing that I know is that I know nothing,” from Socrates, or “Existence is suffering, and suffering is caused by desire” from the Buddha; but honestly, I think “All you need is love” by Sir Paul McCartney is just about as profound and valuable as either of those. 

That’s why I turn to art. But that’s not fair: because I’m biased. So my biased answer suits the intent of the essay prompt, as my choice says something about me; but it wouldn’t actually present the pinnacle of human achievement unless I assume that I am qualified to judge that – which implies that I am the pinnacle of human judgment. And I’m not: I ate Peeps dipped in salsa. That was not sound judgment on my part. This, of course, also implies that I should not be choosing the pinnacle of human artistic achievement (though I sure did that without hesitation, didn’t I?), as that too requires judgment.

So I think the best answer is this: I would not choose.

Because I know nothing, because I have great respect for humanity (And much respect for myself, don’t get me wrong; but more for humanity), and because I don’t actually accept the premise of this question, I think that what I would choose to present to show the worth of humanity is – humanity. 

All of it. All of us. Because part of the glory of humanity is how incredibly different we all are, how various, how multifarious; and yet at the same time, how similar: because my mom is nothing like your mom, and yet somehow, the way my mother used to kiss my head when she tucked me in is exactly how your mother kissed you when she tucked you in. Or maybe how your father did, or your grandparent. The way I look up into warm raindrops and smile is exactly the same way you do it, when we are dancing in the rain. The incredible pride I feel when I finish the project I’ve been working on – whether it’s a novel about vampires or pirates, or a bookshelf I built, or the successful sale of my mother-in-law’s house after her husband died – is the same as the incredible pride you feel when you finish what you’ve been working on, whether that is a sales presentation, a complete re-watch of every episode of Supernatural, or helping your child master their dance for the Christmas recital. And yet how much does your child’s dance recital routine resemble my pirate novel?

It depends: does your kid dance the hornpipe?

If I want to show humanity’s greatest achievement, I think I have to show humanity’s greatest strength: our diversity, our individuality, and our unique and personal ability to take almost anything and turn it into a work of art, a magnificent accomplishment, just because one human being – and often, no one else on the whole damn planet – saw that activity, that pursuit, that project, that idea, as worth all of one human being’s time and energy and focus: and thus that one human being accomplished something incredible.

Now, this would likely encounter some resistance from the Martians. Because, as the prompt says, these beings are impatient: they are the ones who asked me for one single piece of work to present to them to represent all of humanity.

But really? That’s just a request for a sales pitch. They’re asking me to convince them that one thing is the best thing in all of human history. (I would prove this by asking them to show me, first, the one thing that represents all of Martian culture. And by the way, if they could do so, then I would have an excellent idea of what their aesthetics or values are, and I could think of one wonderful example to show them in return. But I bet I’m right: because this seems like an absurd request with any race. I mean, show me the best cat of all time. The best horse. The greatest star. You see? There are too many criteria, too many options, in almost any collection of items as large as everything accomplished in an entire race’s history.) So I would first show them this:

And then express that here we have an example of nearly perfect writing, combined with – I wouldn’t necessarily call it nearly perfect acting, because I don’t want to judge; but it’s not only one artist, you see? The words have to be brought to life by the actor, and the end result – is that the accomplishment of one human? Or two? Or many, since directors and acting coaches and everyone else who contributed to these performances also participated in the creation of this moment. And since there are so many interpretations and versions of this particular speech written by William Shakespeare, it’s hard to say if this one is the best version of it – or maybe this one.

Or this one.

Or no. It’s this one.

(Actually, I can’t find a clip of my favorite version of this speech, which was my first encounter with it: when Nick Nolte gives the monologue in the movie Down and Out in Beverly Hills. Other than that one, I think I actually like Cumberbatch the best out of these.)

But the point is, I would argue, that because of the individual ability of humans to interpret reality, and to translate it, inculcating our own ideas and feelings into what we take in, blending what we learn with what we are – to understand one great accomplishment of one human, one also has to appreciate the other versions of the same idea, the same art, the same achievement. When I was young, I was deeply impressed by Thomas Edison – and then when I learned about Nikola Tesla, I was even more impressed by him, because of what I had felt about Edison; and then, honestly, I was once again impressed by Edison (Though I know that isn’t the popular interpretation, as the memes nowadays would have us believe that Tesla was all of the genius and Edison only stole it: but no, Edison was more than that. But this isn’t the argument I want to have with these Martians.).

If I got them listening with my versions of this speech as presented by different actors, I would then point out that every one of Shakespeare’s plays was based on a story written by someone else. That the Bard himself, whom I still consider the greatest wordsmith in the history of the English language, wrote adapted rather than original screenplays – and who knows, maybe the Boccaccio version was better. 

(Okay, that pun might be the greatest accomplishment of humanity. But probably not.)

So then, once I had them on the hook with this idea that different humans can create different versions of the same masterpiece and make it into entirely new and different masterpieces – then I would show them all of humanity that they could ever want to see.

I would show them the internet.

I would hand over my phone, and starting with the items that I have mentioned here – the poetry of ee cummings, and the art of Michelangelo, and the work of Shakespeare and of Lin-Manuel Miranda, and of Pleasantville and Fantasia, and also Mozart’s Requiem and the album In the Court of the Crimson King and Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things and everything else that is perfect – I would show them everything that can be found on the internet that shows what humanity is and what humanity can do.

Including the wars. And the genocides. The atrocities and the errors and the destructions. The atomic bombs. The Holocaust. The history of holy wars around the world. Because those, the perfect masterpieces of evil that we have created: those are humanity too.

And the Martians should have some warning, at least.

And then, once they were all completely riveted by what they saw on the screen?

Blastotron.

Whoa There Buddy

I mean, leaning into the insults is one thing, but… really?

After my last post about my buddy Joe Biden, I was challenged. I was challenged from both sides: by a liberal friend who focused on my point that Biden was the lesser of two evils, and couldn’t get beyond that to my points about how, really, the election of Joe Biden is about preventing actual evil which would result from the election of Donald J. Trump, and that by comparison, Joey B. is not evil at all; and by a conservative friend who pointed out that I was far more forgiving of certain of Biden’s traits than I would be if Trump, who shares many of those traits, were to win the next election. (It is possible that both of these friends would object to my characterization of their objections [and the one for my use of the descriptors “conservative” and “friend”]; if so, I apologize now for what I am about to say regarding both of these positions as I have characterized them. Please feel free to challenge me again, and I may add a third post about this issue — or if you wish, feel free to post a comment directly on this post which expresses your objections to everyone who reads this.)

Regarding the idea that Biden is the lesser of two evils: granted. He is. Does it make any difference if I point out that every single election ever can be characterized as being between the lesser of two evils? That Abraham Lincoln was the lesser of two evils? That George Washington running unopposed was the lesser of two evils, because the other option was the collapse of this particular democratic nation, which would have been a much worse outcome than electing Washington — an appalling elitist snob and a lifelong slave owner who wore dentures made from the teeth of human beings he bought and sold?

What if I point out that every politician is evil in one way or another? That every human is evil? We all have our bad qualities. We all have our wrong-headed opinions. We all make mistakes, and even worse, we all do the wrong thing and do it proudly, and determine to repeat the same wrong action if we are given another chance to do it. All of us.

I understand the desire to have a candidate for president that matches what we really want, that has the right opinions and the right history and the right qualities and the right intentions. I understand the frustration and exhaustion that comes from a lifetime of never getting that candidate. I think it’s the same frustration that comes from never finding the right person to love, especially if one has several failed attempts at finding that person, or if one has the terrible experience of being with entirely the wrong person, and suffering because of it. And as someone who has actually found the right person for me to love for the whole of my life — and who found her early on, when I was only 20 — I can’t blame someone for wanting the same thing that I have. I suspect a lot of people who feel this way about the President are those who feel like they maybe had that person in the past; for a lot of people of a certain generation, it was John Kennedy, and when he was assassinated, Lee Harvey Oswald stole that perfect President from them.

But here’s the thing: John Kennedy wasn’t the perfect president. Neither was Ronald Reagan, or Jimmy Carter, or Barack Obama. Franklin Roosevelt interned hundreds of thousands of Japanese-American citizens. Abraham Lincoln wanted to repatriate the freed slaves to Africa. Bernie Sanders would not be the perfect president: he has a tendency to yell at people, which would not go over well in diplomatic circles. My love is not the perfect love: she is not always easy to live with, as she would be the first to tell you. I am also difficult to live with, as I will be the first to tell you. Nobody is perfect. Every relationship — romantic, Platonic, professional, political — is a compromise. Which means every relationship, always, can be characterized as the lesser of two evils.

Or it can be characterized as the best of all possible options.

There’s a saying which I am particularly fond of: Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. The intent of the saying is to prevent a bad choice that a number of my students — especially my Honors students, my Gifted and Talented students — tend to make: they work on an assignment, create something they are not very proud of, that they don’t love, and they know they could do better — so they never turn it in. And they get a 0, rather than the less-than-perfect grade they could have gotten if they just turned in the thing they completed but didn’t love, because they would rather have nothing than accept something that is less than perfect: and so they suffer an even worse consequence. They lost the good, because they were only willing to accept the perfect, which then got in the way of the good. We all do this kind of thing all the time: knowing we can’t do something perfectly, we never share what we can do, so we never sing karaoke or bake a dessert treat for the holidays or share that poem or short story. Or that blog about politics: which I frequently stop myself from writing or sharing, because I’m not nearly as smart as the writers I read, as the pundits I pay attention to — so who the hell am I to post my opinions? I’m certainly not perfect, so often, I tell myself I shouldn’t write or post anything at all.

And it’s a mistake. We should do those things, because we can do a good job of them, even if not a perfect job. But the goal of any attempt is not perfection: it is a positive result. You don’t have to hit every note to sound good and entertain the people at the karaoke bar; you don’t have to have perfectly shaped latticework crust on your apple pie for people to enjoy it; you don’t have to have every word just right to be able to communicate your thoughts in a creative way. As I can attest to, and I hope many of you will agree with.

You don’t need to find the perfect person to find love. Just someone who is good for you.

Or, of course, accept that you don’t need someone to love at all, and just love yourself.

For the President, you don’t need to love him, or even like him. You just have to pick one who will do you good. And while Joe Biden could be a lot better than he is, and Bernie Sanders would be better than Biden could ever be, still Biden has done and will do good for this country. I think that’s what this argument against Biden boils down to: we can easily imagine the perfect candidate (though I suspect that when we do so, we are ignoring some aspects of the perfect person which would actually make them less perfect, more human; more evil.), and JRB sure as hell ain’t it. So we don’t want him, because he’s not perfect — some of us would rather have nobody. And I do fully recognize that nobody expects a politician to be perfect; people arguing this position just think Biden isn’t good enough to deserve a vote, no matter how bad they may agree that Trump is. Not that he’s imperfect: it’s that they think Biden sucks. If it isn’t clear, I don’t think that’s true, but if you do think that, then please, feel free not to vote for him; you can always choose to not accept any of the choices you don’t like.

Let me say it as clearly as I can: I am not saying that every individual reading this — including my friend who is sick of choosing the lesser of two evils in every election — needs to vote for Biden. You do not. I think voting third party is an excellent choice. I do think that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a vile candidate — much closer to the greatest of three evils than the least — but if that’s the way your vote needs to go, then do it. We should break the two-party duopoly, and voting for a third party candidate is an important step along the way to accomplishing that.

However. If you do choose not to vote for Biden because he is not someone you can support, but you recognize Trump is a serious problem, then I would like to make two requests of you. The first is that you do actually vote. Staying home out of frustration with the system is an emotionally appealing choice, but it does simply lump you into the great ignorant masses who don’t vote for no good reason. The parties, aware that you’re not voting, will consider you “Uninformed” or “Unmotivated,” rather than “Protesting the neverending stream of bullshit we call U.S. politics.” That means they will use their favorite strategy to reach you in the future: advertising. Lots and lots and lots of paid targeted advertising. If you choose not to vote, you are lining yourself up for even more ads in the future, I guarantee it: and that means even more politicians stumping for money, and compromising with the wealthy donors rather than trying to work with voters. Whereas if you show up and vote, and vote for a third party candidate, especially the one closer to the “traditional” party you might otherwise vote for (so if you’re a Democrat, vote for Cornel West or Dr. Jill Stein; if you’re a Republican, vote for the Libertarian or Constitution Party candidate; and if you’re an anti-vax conspiracy theorist who wants to use your family name to shill for corporate lobbyists, vote for RFK. Or actually no: if you’re in that last group, go ahead and skip voting.), you will be one of the voters that trouble them: and their strategic response might be to move closer to that third party in the future, to change their candidates or their policies to ones that you can support. I want that to happen, so if you do vote third party, thank you. Also don’t listen to people (including me in 2016, before I was corrected) who blame you for the outcome of the election. If Biden and the Democrats lose, it will be because of Biden and the Democrats, not because of the people who voted their conscience and picked third party.

What I want to do here is get people who want to vote for Biden to be excited about that vote. Because it is a good vote. For all the reasons I posted two weeks ago, with the main one being that Joe Biden has far and away the best chance of preventing a second Trump presidency: and that is something we very much need to prevent.

Which brings me to the second thing I would like to ask third party voters to do. Try to do something, other than casting your own vote for Joe Biden, which will help to defeat Donald Trump. If you are willing to vote for Democrats down ticket, do that, and try to help them get elected — because honestly, if Trump won the White House but the Democrats picked up majorities in the House and Senate, I’d almost enjoy watching TFG get stymied at every turn (Almost. Except for the Supreme Court, which will obviously back DJT even to the extent of slow-walking his criminal trial until after the election because they need to hear some absolute bullshit immunity argument. And that’s why I intend to vote for Biden, and encourage you to do the same. Even if he did fail to increase the Supreme Court to 13 members, or to work to impose term limits and ethics requirements on those corrupt assholes.). But if you want to vote third party for President and then vote for Democrats after that (And again, vote your conscience in local and state elections; third parties need to start with the grass roots, and that means getting elected to local school boards and county commissions and so on), that would be great. If you want to volunteer for the Democratic party, to help get other people out to vote for Democrats downticket — especially if you can swallow your ire and let those people vote for Biden, if they want to — then that would be wonderful. And if you can do something to impede Trump: if, for instance, you could find someone like you, too disgusted with the two-party system to vote for either of these shitheads, but who would lean towards voting for Trump because they hate Biden that much, and you could then convince that person to join you in voting third party? Well, you have just taken a vote away from Trump, and you have helped to stop a possible dictator from doing everything he can to tear down this democracy we live in and the rule of law that keeps us all whole and alive. So thank you for that, and for voting your conscience. Those are my two requests, if you can’t vote for Biden but you know that Trump is a danger.

And if you can join me in voting for Biden in November, thank you.

Okay. Now let’s turn to Objector #2, who pointed out, and maintained in the face of my rebuttals, that I had soft-pedalled certain objections to Biden’s qualifications for the presidency, which, he said, were reasonable objections that had been leveled reasonably against Trump as well; and he opined that, if Trump were to win this upcoming election, I would feel much too hypocritical because I would be making the argument that these qualities of Biden’s which I am ignoring or apologizing for now are disqualifying attributes of Donald Trump’s.

Specifically, the arguments that Joe Biden and Donald Trump are old white men who speak badly and suffer from some level of mental deterioration from age.

If I sound dismissive of these arguments, I sort of am. I did not claim that Trump was too old or too white or too bad a speaker or too far down the path of mental decline to be President; I maintain that he is a dangerous narcissistic conman who wants to profit from the destruction of this country as a modern democracy that obeys the rule of law, and who sees racist, sexist, xenophobic fascism as the best means to accomplish that and profit thereby. So I don’t agree that I will feel hypocritical if Trump wins, because I still won’t argue that he is too old and too white and too bad at speaking and too mentally incompetent to be President. I will certainly admit that I might level some insults at that shitbag, because I hate him and everything about him, and in among those insults might be comments about what a dumbass he is or how much of a fumble-mouthed fool he is; but that will be me being shitty to Trump because I hate him, not leveling the same arguments against him which I drew back from in regards to Biden. My criticism of his presidency, if he wins again, will be that he is a dangerous narcissistic conman who wants to profit from the destruction of the rule of law in this country, and sees fascism as a convenient way to achieve that destruction. If there was a young Black woman with a high IQ and a silver tongue running as a dangerous narcisstic conman who wanted to profit from the destruction of the rule of law through the implementation of fascism, I would not support them either. Honest.

In other words, she doesn’t get my vote, either.

But okay, let me address these specific claims. Because I did state that these things are unimportant for Biden, and that may seem inconsistent for me as I have argued in the past that we should have better, younger, and less white leaders, even if I didn’t make those arguments about Trump specifically. In 2020 my first choice was Elizabeth Warren, who I would still vote for if she ran right now; and part of the reason is because she is younger (though not enough younger) than Biden, and smarter and a better speaker, and a woman — though still too white. So how, if I argue that Warren would be better because of her speaking and her mental acuity, can I turn around and say that Biden is a good choice despite his failings in those areas?

For a couple of reasons. First of all, I do not personally believe in the power of identity in politics. For my own self, and what I see as important in a politician, I would happily say “I don’t give a shit who the person is, what race or gender or sexuality or age or any other subgroup they belong to, as long as they do a good job.” The reason I don’t say that is because I understand that the subgroup that someone belongs to is important to millions of people, and I don’t get to tell them how to feel, and because I understand the power of a symbol. Barack Obama did not serve better because of his race: but the fact of his race was important to millions and millions of my fellow citizens, and therefore the fact that he was our only non-white President is important. The thing is, our national politicians need to represent everyone in the country, and so no matter who they are, they need to look beyond their own identity; that includes politicians who are not old white men, because even they need to represent old white men with whom they do not personally identify. Biden won’t do a worse job just because he is an old white man, and if he weren’t an old white man, he wouldn’t do a better job simply because he wasn’t an old white man. Symbolically, he would be LEAGUES better as a candidate if he weren’t an old white man. But anyone who gets the job and does the job well will never get my criticism just for being an old white man.

Donald Trump, on the other hand, wants to make life better for old white men and worse for everyone who is not an old white man. (And actually, inasmuch as he is willing to let his asshole party eliminate Social Security and Medicare, he’s only serving rich white men and not old white men. Biden is largely doing the same because he is indebted to Wall Street and corporate donors. But that also has nothing to do with race and gender on Biden’s part, any more than it has to do with Trump’s identity.) He wants to do that by implementing fascism in order to break down the rule of law in this country, so that he can profit thereby. That is a much bigger problem.

So that’s the first reason: I don’t think identity in and of itself is salient in national politics. I do think socio-economic status is salient, because money insulates people from real life and that does make them less able to empathize with other people, in a way that being old or white or male does not necessarily do; and since Trump has always been insulated by wealth, and Biden has not always been insulated by wealth, I think that’s a mark in Biden’s favor. But he is certainly not in the right place policy-wise when it comes to economics. A good place, but not the right place.

The second reason I will argue that Biden’s qualities are not marks against him as a President is because I have realized, since this whole Trump debacle began, and since I have started learning more about politics and looking back on the Presidents in my lifetime, that a strong single Executive is not in the best interests of the country. The people elected to the post are not reliable. And more to the point, they change at least every eight years, and this country is now so evenly divided that half of the time, that election is likely to reverse the results of the last one — and hand that strong executive power right back over the bad guy. It’s like if Thor defeated the enemy — and then picked them up, handed them Mjolnir, and said, “Here, your turn.”

This is why I argued in my last post that Biden’s general weakness would actually be a benefit, as it would force him to surround himself with good people who would help him do a better job than he can do on his own; I think we are largely seeing that, and seeing the benefit of it compared to Trump’s administration. Trump tended to fire everyone who pissed him off, and then he was left with not enough people to do the work of government; this worked just fine for him because he wants to break government, which will then prove his case that government doesn’t work — a fine and long-established conservative strategy. Biden, however, not looking to do everything himself, but rather trying to show that government can do important work to help people, has done plenty to strengthen the federal bureaucracy, and the result has been a more efficient government that has managed to get more shit done to help people: and that’s a good thing — and it is a result of Biden being willing to delegate authority and work with other people, which Trump is not.

A simple example of this is student loan forgiveness. Biden tried to do it all on his own through executive order, and he was stopped by the Supreme Court. That pissed me off because student loans should be forgiven, and I would love to just see it done with the stroke of a pen; but also, because I do believe more in the rule of law than in student loan forgiveness, I can see the point that Biden’s argument for how he wanted to do it was flawed. I will also argue that the Supreme Court never should have heard the case because the determination of standing on behalf of the plaintiffs was fucking nonsense — “You shouldn’t get your student loans forgiven because I can’t get mine forgiven” is a neener-neener argument, not a real one — but I recognize, again, that some Court cases don’t come from good standing, because the Justices want to put their foot down for one reason or another. I can accept that. So I can accept Biden’s initial plan being struck down as part of the rule of law, and therefore a successful action by government, to stop Biden from taking too much executive power, even if he was in fact doing the right thing and we’d be better off if he had been able to do it.

But Biden then went ahead and started finding small ways, legal ways, acceptable ways, that he could forgive student loans. And it’s slower, and it’s not enough, and that leaves a lot of people out in the cold — but it’s progress.

And because I don’t want a dictator, I am more willing to accept slow progress through compromise within the rule of law than I am fast action by a strongman.

Did I always feel this way? Of course not. When I was a kid, I read Piers Anthony’s series Bio of a Space Tyrant, about a charismatic man who becomes the dictator of a planetary nation-state, and who imposes his will — all for the good of the people. He’s a benevolent dictator, and when I was young, I thought he was both cool and brilliant, and I thought his system was the right one. But see, then I grew up and stuff? And realized that democracy, while it is impossibly frustrating and also slow, and requires compromise with awful people, which then causes harm to good people — is also the best system of government possible, because it disseminates and dilutes power. And power corrupts. (I kinda want to go back and re-read the series now, because I wonder if Anthony’s intent was to show that power corrupts, and that his character was actually an anti-hero like Paul Atreides from Dune — or if Anthony was just playing out his personal fantasies of godlike power and authority, all for the good of the nation, of course. Since he named his character Hope Hubris, I think it was probably the former. But also, Hope gets laid a lot, like a lot a lot; so it might be the latter. Anyway.)

Also let me just say, out loud, that anarchy would be better than any government at all. But as long as we believe we need government, we do need it; and we should have a democratic government. You want to talk about actually eliminating government, I’m interested in chatting about it.

So okay. I realized that Barack Obama, for all of his charisma and intelligence, was an ineffective president — unless you happen to be a Wall Street banker/trader/mogul, in which case he did wonders for you. (It said a lot to me when I found out that Obama had trouble with Mitch McConnell because Obama wanted to argue and debate issues on the merits, and McConnell just wanted to cut a political deal. I hate that McConnell’s stance is more realistic, because I relate to Obama’s desire to convince the other side of his rightness with every ounce of my soul; but I get that McConnell’s stance is more realistic. This is also when I realized for sure that I would be an awful politician.) I realized that Biden, for all of his stupid-ass gaffes and his inability to give a good speech, has done more for the 99% in four years than Obama ever did in eight — and more than that charming amoral shitbag Clinton did in eight, too. I realized, as I’ve said, that a stronger executive, while it does potentially achieve more of my goals because it means someone can actually implement progressive ideas over the objections of Congress and the courts, is bad for democracy, even if those ideas are good — because I’ve watched Trump do shit that he shouldn’t have gotten away with, but he was able to because past Presidents created an atmosphere where he could do it. Like using executive orders to incarcerate migrants, for instance.

Which Barack Obama did as well.

And Joe Biden, too.

So: the fact that Biden is a weak leader? Not a terrible thing. It would be great if he was a better, stronger, smarter man — IF he also had the right ideas. And he doesn’t have enough of them, and that’s a problem; but since he doesn’t have all the right ideas, it makes it better that he’s not strong enough to implement all of his bad ideas over the objections of everyone else in the government.

The real problem in his weakness is how he deals with strongmen, which is — not well. He has been incapable of suppressing Putin or Xi Jinping, he has not been able to handle Iran, and he has given bombs to Bibi Netanyahu. I don’t know how many of those things could have been different if he had been stronger, but I do see his personal weakness as an issue with all of that.

But also? Trump would be actively worse in every single way, and we all know it.

Okay, my friend who raised this objection doesn’t seem to know it, as he said that he doesn’t see much difference between Biden’s foreign policy and Trump’s; but that’s whataboutism, and it’s nonsense –same as when he also tried to equate Biden lying about his past (Specifically this: “He lied about his attendance in a black church as an adolescent in Delaware, his work for desegregation, and his role in the civil rights movement? He has simultaneously claimed to have, and to not have marched.”) with Trump’s lies. Trump lied about winning the 2020 election, which he lost; and his continued attempts to maintain his lie about that election have severely damaged this nation in a way that Biden making himself look better than he actually is never, ever will. The two are not the same. Trump would, so far as we can tell, actively support Putin, and Netanyahu, and also obviously Viktor Orban, and Kim Jong Un, and probably several other authoritarians; because that’s who he wants to be. Because Trump is a narcisstic conman who wants to profit from the destruction of the rule of law through the implementation of fascism.

I don’t give a shit that he’s an old white man. If that means a younger, past version of me would be upset by my failure to maintain the party line regarding race and gender and age, sure, that’s fine. I’ll own that. And I would still like to see someone younger, less male, and less white running the country, because I believe in the power of symbols; I would even more like to see anyone at all in power actually doing everything that should be done to help people who are not white, not male, not old — and not wealthy, most of all.

Biden is doing more of that than Trump ever would.

So Joe Biden has my vote. And, I hope, yours too.

Abidin’ Biden

There’s my guy. My buddy Joe. Pretty regular fella — other than the fact that his 81-year-old face has fewer wrinkles than my 49-year-old one, which, sure, fine, lots of people use Botox and plastic surgery and all — but Joe is unquestionably at the stage where his face has been so thoroughly Zambonied that it looks more “plastic” than “young.” But other than a flat plastic face, overly-squinchy eyes, and those too-white-pearly-whites? Very normal man. Reminds me of my dad. Especially when he talks, since most of the time he sounds like he’s kind of running out of breath, unless he is particularly excited.

I have to admit, though, that for a normal man — a regular dude — he’s sure fond of supporting some pretty fucked up things. Like Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Hopefully we can all agree that the ones really responsible for the atrocities and the genocide are Hamas, and Benjamin Netanyahu’s war-loving government, both of whom benefit from increased conflict and greater frequency and intensity of atrocity, as it increases their support by radicalizing more of the population; and also creates enough confusion among the smoke and rubble for them to siphon off wealth. I do not for a second believe that my old buddy Joe could put his arm around Bibi’s shoulders, lean in real close, and whisper, “Hey, man, cut the shit, okay?” and get any kind of real result. Netanyahu is never going to stop the war, because when the war stops, so does his political career, as he is epically unpopular now — but when he leaves office, he’ll no longer be able to avoid prosecution for his corruption, which is pervasive and pretty concretely proven everywhere but in that court of law he is avoiding. (Sounds like a certain would-be Fascist dictator in this country, doesn’t it? No wonder they get along.) But on the other hand, even though Ol’ Joe can’t stop the genocide in Gaza, I would very much appreciate not having my country supply the weapons to Israel for their genocide.

And then there’s Joe’s past support for crime bills targeting African-Americans, and a lack of support for abortion access for women, and for clearing Clarence fucking Thomas for the Supreme Court, and his willingness to destroy people’s lives at the southern US border, which he backs partly because he wants to be able to blame the Grand Ol’ (Fascist) Party, the GO(F)P, for their failure to secure the border, undercutting their own main talking point; but also because he’s clearly pretty comfortable with adopting said Fascist party’s framing of the issue as a crisis at the southern border, and the problem being one of too many people trying to live out the American dream and the ideals we claim to stand for, and with the argument that punishing those people as brutally as we can is definitely the best way to handle it.

All of that is garbage. And all of it is Joe Biden.

Plus there’s the simple fact of the man’s titanic goddamn ego, which makes him look in the mirror every morning and say, in all sincerity, “The only man who can be President is you. The only man who can stop Trump is you. You have to run again, Joe. You gotta save the world! All by yourself! LET’S DO THIS!” That’s Joe Biden, too.

But you know what else is Joe Biden?

He’s the most progressive president we’ve had in 75 years — even though he failed to provide Medicare for All or a livable minimum wage or a permanent child tax credit or a Voting Rights Act or a balanced and reasonable Supreme Court.

But the focus on climate change spending, particularly in the Inflation Reduction Act, is brilliant. The Infrastructure bill was good though not enough — but it was good, no question. The change in tone and the reintegration of the US into the world’s leadership, particularly NATO, was necessary. And his administration has done a good job of making sure the US did not fall into the economic malaise that the rest of the world has fallen into. I don’t like everything about the way they did it, because like always, inflation was brought under control mainly by punishing working and middle class families by raising interest rates to levels high enough to make us stop buying houses, even though the rent is too god-fucking-damn high; and like always, the majority of the GDP gains went to the top 1% so the corporations and Wall Street mavens could keep making campaign contributions to Joe and the Democratic party; but still, unemployment is ridiculously low — and there have been some actual gains to wages set against inflation and the cost of living.

So. Considering all of that, I have a request for all of you.

Vote for him. Vote for my man Joe in November.

I mean, to be clear, the only other realistic option for someone who could actually win is the fucking Fascist. And you — yes you, person who is reading this right now, who has felt enough connection to me that you came here to read this piece that I wrote — you better not vote for the fucking Fascist.

But that’s not the issue here. Right? Millions of cultish fans, and millions of people freaking out over the scourge of Socialism, are going to vote for Trump; but he lost the popular vote in both of his elections, so I expect he will lose again. The issue is whether or not enough of the voters on the margins, the ones who maybe don’t want to vote, who don’t care enough to vote, or who are wavering between the two choices, will swing the battleground states to the right side to win the Electoral College. That’s what the issue is, and what I want to talk about: will the undecided voters decide to go the right way?

It should honestly be pretty simple for every Democrat and progressive: Joe Biden is no progressive — but the progressive movement has made major gains with this administration, and importantly, Smilin’ Joe’s worries about his legacy, and also his genuine and historic support for unions and the working class, mean that he would likely continue to move slightly to the left of center, and might be able to enact and solidify some of the gains made in this first term. Any other president, from the left or the right, would be likely to ignore Biden’s accomplishments and try to create their own: but Biden will try to make sure that Biden’s wins stay in place. And Barack Obama doing exactly that is why we still have the Affordable Care Act despite all the best attempts by the fascists and corporate interests to root it out and remove people’s health insurance. Compared to Medicare for All, the ACA is hot garbage; but it was and is progress. It was and is a good thing. The same goes for Biden’s wins. Even though we’d like to have more of them, it would be useful to make sure what we’ve got, we won’t lose; like any other leftist/progressive idea, once it is in place, people realize it’s probably a good thing — and then they don’t want to get rid of it. Just ask Trump and his Republican congress about the ACA.

So re-electing Biden would make sure that we don’t move backwards. And let me point out how important that is: both Trump and Biden did a whole lot of stuff through executive order; and because those come from one man’s pen, they can be (and were) undone by another man’s (or a woman’s) pen. That fact, and the stark contrast between Trump’s foreign policy (Which is basically this) and every sane President’s desire to remain involved with the world on some kind of good terms, are why so much of the rest of the world is now wary of relying on the US for anything. And while I definitely think it would be better for the US and the world not to have the US in any kind of leadership role, since we have fucked up almost every other country on the planet at one time or another for our own desires or aggrandizement or simple profit, I do think that inconsistency from our policies or our economy has severe negative long-term knock-on effects on the rest of the world. So keeping ourselves in check is the best possible thing for everyone: and for that, a second Biden term, with his focus on maintaining American value around the world and renewing and continuing old policies about connection and cooperation, are the best possible choice.

I understand and agree that just maintaining what we have is not enough. We need to have an actual progressive administration, and more importantly, a progressive congress to go with a progressive executive, so they can name progressive judges, and then we can do some of the things we really need to do. And the more often we are given this kind of bullshit either-or, Lesser-of-Two-Evils choice, the longer we have to delay an actual progressive movement and the accomplishment of simple but necessary things that will save lives, like a livable minimum wage and Medicare for All. But to accomplish that, we need to start at the grass roots: and that’s where progressives suck. Don’t we? Because we won’t fear monger the same way the establishment and especially the Fascists will, we can’t drive the same kind of brand loyalty that only comes with paralyzing fear of the other side. We have to educate. And the political education of the populace relies on one thing: actual policy wins. Actual things being done, by government, to help people. And you know what we need in order to achieve that? More progressives in office, which basically starts with more progressives in the world.

And you know what drives more progressives in office? Anger and frustration with Fascists and with the establishment Democrats who appease them. In the large historical sense, the longer we have to deal with these people in charge, the better our side will do in recruitment and inspiration and drive. You cannot stop the pendulum from swinging: the GO(F)P has done a fantastic job of slowing down the swings for a long time now; but there have been lots and lots of little swings — LGBTQ rights, for instance, even though we’re seeing the violent Fascist reaction to that swing — and the big swing? It’s coming. And it’s going to swing a long way.

And then it will swing back again.

Let me also point out that the reason the GO(F)P has done so well for the last twenty-five years is because they started at the grass roots FIFTY years ago, and built up slowly; and the best news I can say for the future of the progressive movement is that Trump and MAGA have completely torn down the Republican infrastructure that helped put Trump into office. So if we can stay focused, and pay attention and do the work, we can take the country back. For real. I’ll write more about that another time.

And if none of that convinces you? Let me just remind you: the guy on the other team is a fucking Fascist. And no, I won’t tone down that language or that accusation: it is appropriate, and accurate. I will express that in greater detail another time, but I hope everyone reading this is already close to accepting that, if you’re not already there.

So let me sum up.

Biden has done a genuinely good job. He should have done more, but he has done more good than harm — and that’s an important metric for any politician. The first line of the Hippocratic Oath is “Primum non nocere” — first, do no harm. Politicians should all swear the same thing. Actually, we all should. And Biden has done good, for the economy, for the country’s manufacturing and infrastructure, for climate change adaptation, and for the international rules-based world order.

The best criticisms against him are: he has failed to end support for the genocide in Gaza, which is an entirely fair criticism, and the reason why I voted against Biden in my state’s primary, as I want him to recognize that this is an issue; he has tried to meet the GO(F)P in the middle of the aisle, particularly on the border, which shows far too much acceptance of Fascism and, essentially, racism and sexism, which were already issues for Biden as they are for so very many white male Americans; and he has accepted the current framing of issues like the economy, where he has failed to support the real change that would actually achieve his “from the bottom up and the middle out” economic growth.

Oh right — and he’s old.

And he sounds kinda dumb when he talks sometimes.

Those criticisms are bullshit.

He’s old. Granted. So why does he need to be young? Because only young people understand the needs of young people? Are we really that wedded to identity politics, that we believe that nobody can understand the needs of a group to which he doesn’t belong? That nobody can be sympathetic to those needs, and supportive of them? How different are those needs, really? Do we actually think there’s that much of a gap between the basic human needs of someone who is 8 and someone who is 80, when both people are human beings? Both love their family, both want to be safe and healthy, both love cheese and naps; must we have an 8-year-old president in order for 8-year-olds to live good lives? And if not: why do we need a 40-year-old President? Or a 50, 60, 70-year-old President?

He doesn’t speak well. And? Why does he need to speak well when he can get other people to deliver complicated policy platform announcements, or to handle press conferences with the piranhas of the press corps? Do we really need Joe Biden to inspire us with his soaring rhetoric? Or could we maybe read a book, listen to a poem, watch a Rage Against the Machine concert video, and get our inspiration from those? If we have a President who needs the help of other people to run his administration, then maybe we get something more like, I dunno, a representative Republic serving democratically. Instead of a strongman who handles everything himself, and who can and might want to build a cult of personality.

Whatever else you say about Old Joe, he is not going to build a cult of personality. None of us can stand his personality. No: he will build a team of smart and capable and driven people, who will help to fill in the gaps where he doesn’t have the best strengths. One of the best things about Biden is that he realizes who he is and what he can do (Other than his enormous ego, but clearly that is a prerequisite for an American politician), and he looks to others for help. He stood behind Barack Obama completely. That says a lot. I am also, despite my criticisms of his past shitty positions, genuinely impressed with his ability to recognize when he might be wrong, and to listen to others with better ideas. The fact that he is not the same man with the same ideas he had fifty years ago? That’s a good thing.

Look. Seriously. The President doesn’t need to be young. The President doesn’t need to be strong. The President doesn’t need to be a good speaker. We like all those things in our politicians, as we like them in all of our celebrities: but the reality is that the President is a politician and a leader. And that doesn’t require strength in a physical, youthful sense. It requires determination and drive: and Biden has those. Even if he needs to take a nap every day (And don’t pretend we wouldn’t all support a President who mandated a daily nap), he gets up and still has the same absolute convictions about the right things: the goodness of America, the desire to help people, the opposition to cruelty and violence. Right? You can’t miss those things when you talk about Biden. That same ego I was mocking earlier actually shows his strength in this area: he believes he is right, and a lot of the time, in a lot of ways, he is.

Let me also note: if our President is strong-willed, so strong that nobody could stop him or oppose him or stand in his way — how do we not end up with a dictator? Hell, we almost got a dictator with the last guy, and he only thinks he is strong and commanding. Someone who actually is? There’s a real risk there. And there’s only a benefit in that if we think that this country is actually carried by one guy.

It is not. The strength of this country is not in the leadership. It is not in the White House. It is not in our politicians, at all: they are all — or almost all — weak people. Weak morals, weak wills, and a lot of weak minds, especially in the GO(F)P.

We are the strength of this country. We are smarter, stronger, braver, wiser, kinder, and better in every way than our political leaders. As we should be: because we are the ones who run this country. We are.

When we abdicate those roles and those responsibilities, when we elect politicians intending for them to carry the load for us, to do our thinking for us, to do everything for us so that we need to do nothing for ourselves — we get exactly what we want. We get controlled. We get exploited. We get screwed: because we put people in power over us, people who want to screw us, and we hand them the tools to do it.

Joe Biden, whatever else he is — old, weak, stumbling, mumbling, moderate, somewhat racist, somewhat sexist — he is not looking to screw us. He just wants to help.

So let him.

Vote for him.

My man.

Combat Fatigue

(With apologies to those who have seen actual combat, because what I got ain’t that.)

I was going to write about Biden today.

I started the post and everything — jotted some thoughts down this morning, came up with a title (which I will probably change because unless the title is reeeeaaallll simple, I almost never like the ones I come up with. “The Adventures of Damnation Kane,” about a man named Damnation Kane having adventures. Good. “Brute,” about a brute. Nice. “Lesson,” about a teacher. Cool. “The Dreamer Wakes?” Mmmm, feels off somehow.), thought off and on today about what I wanted to write about. I feel bad, because I’ve been putting this one off, but I know that it’s important; and then also because I had the last week off, and I never got around to writing it. Of course, that’s partly because the week of Spring Break is when teachers get all of their life stuff done — I went to the dentist, the hair salon, and the tax accountant, in addition to donating blood, seeing friends I haven’t seen in a while, and doing hours of yard/housework — and partly because I spent part of the last three days grading student work. I could have spent those hours writing about politics instead, but — well, it’s my job, right?

It’s fine, I thought: I’ll write it Monday evening.

And now it is Monday evening. And I am too tired to write.

I’m so freaking tired.

Why, though? It was only ONE DAY. One day of classes — and Monday is my easiest day in some ways, because I have one extra prep period, because one of my classes only meets four days a week. One day, with one less class, after a whole week off?!? Why the heck am I so tired???

And then my wife, in recounting a conversation she had with one of her students today, put it into words.

“Miss,” one of her students asked her after she had snapped at some loud talking, “why are you so mad?”

“I’m not mad,” she replied, “I’m just annoyed.” (I wasn’t there, so I won’t argue with her characterization of her mood, but in my experience, every single time someone says “I’m not mad,” they’re actually mad. And “Annoyed,” for me, is “I’m mad but trying to control it.” So, respect to my wife for fighting back the rage.) And then she explained to the student why she was annoyed. “This? Teaching? It’s just a job. I didn’t get into it because it was some calling, it’s just a job. I should be able to show up and do my job and that’s it, no big deal.

“But you guys — you make everything so hard. Everything about this job is more difficult because of the students, and how you all act. Imagine,” she said, “if you had to go to work at a fast food restaurant, or whatever — and every customer was a problem. Every. One.”

The student nodded in understanding. My wife went about the rest of her day, and then when I came home she told me this brief story,

It spoke to me. Because that’s it: that’s why I’m so tired. That’s why this job, this teaching, is so damned exhausting all the time. Because every customer I have (Or nearly every customer, and I will also say that every one of them has good days when they are easy and even fun and rewarding to work with [when they order the food]) makes every damn thing so bloody difficult.

So picture this. Most people have worked in fast food; I actually never have, but I have sold concessions at a concert hall, and I have worked a register in a retail store, so I get the idea of this.

Imagine you’re behind the counter at a Popeye’s Chicken or a Five Guys or whatever. Someone comes in, bell on the door dings, you say, “Welcome to Five Eyes!” in your bright customer service voice.

They don’t say anything.

They walk slowly up to the counter — they do not look at the menu — and they stand directly in front of the register. They have a hoodie on, and the hood up, and Airpods in their ears. Phone in hand, they stand there, at the counter, in front of the register, and look at their phone.

“Hi, can I take your order?” you say.

They don’t say anything. They don’t look at you or acknowledge your existence. They keep scrolling through Instagram or Snapchat or whatever on their phone.

“Would you like some of our delicious Chickburgers? Or some fried ham?” you ask, naming two of your favorite items from the menu, two of the most popular orders, which you know all about how to make just right, and people have told you in the past you prepare perfectly.

No answer. Still scrolling. And now there is a line forming behind them.

“If you’d like some more time to look at the menu, maybe you could step to one side and consider, and I can help the people behind you. Whenever you’re ready I can take your order.”

They glance behind them, see the line of people waiting, and then go back to looking at their phone. They still have not looked at the menu, nor responded to you in any direct way. They have not yet acknowledged your existence.

Now you’re getting annoyed. “Sirma’am, I need to help the other customers. If you know what you want, I’d be happy to take your order right now.”

Now they laugh at something on the phone. They do not respond to you.

“Ma’amsir, if you could just look up at the menu and let me know what you want — or even just give me some idea of what you feel like eating, and I can help you pick something. Do you want biscuit fries? Maybe some gravy nuggets?”

Their phone rings. They answer it, and begin a conversation. They do not step away from the counter. They do not look at you, or at the menu. They are talking loudly and laughing, though what they are saying is mostly inane: “No, yeah, I know, yeah, right? I mean, for real, like for real for real. Yeah. Yeah, I know.”

Now you lean over the counter and stare into their eyes from six inches away. They look back at you when you do it, but their eyes are blank. “Ma’sir’am,” you say firmly, “You need to either order, or move aside.”

They stare at you, blankly. They do not respond. You see, out of the corner of your eye, your manager coming up behind you. So you try to remain calm. “Sma’amir,” you say calmly, though there is a growl in your voice that doesn’t seem right, and your heart is beating pretty fast and you seem to be kind of panting and maybe sweating a little — all of which would be normal if you were on the fryers, but not on register. Is something wrong with you? “Do you want to order anything?” You say it loudly, though also, you think, calmly, and slowly.

“Is there a problem here?” the manager asks.

“They won’t — ” you start, but then the customer cuts you off.

“No problem,” they say. They flash the manager a smile. They look at the menu.

You and your manager lock eyes. “Take it easy,” the manager says to you, “just take their order, okay?”

Flabbergasted, you can only nod. The manager walks away again.

The customer looks back at their phone.

You decide to just wait. They looked at the menu, they came in here and stood in front of the register: they surely want food, food that you have, food which you spend all day providing to hungry people. You can’t tell if this person looks hungry, exactly — but come on, everyone needs food. That’s what you sell here. Why would anyone come into this place if they didn’t want food? In the past people have come in already knowing exactly what they want, delighted and even grateful for what they get, for what you provide them with a smile. You brighten days. You provide vital nutrients, and you brighten days!

Minutes go by. They still don’t order.

You slap the counter. “COME ON!” you shout. “ORDER SOMETHING!”

The kitchen behind you goes silent. The people in line look around the person in front, and stare at you. The manager pokes their head out of the office and glares.

You take a deep breath. “Sorry about that. I would really like to take your order and get you some delicious food. Don’t you want delicious food?”

The person in the front is now staring at you, after your outburst. The phone is now in their pocket. But they still don’t order anything. They just stare at you, blankly. They don’t order anything.

Finally you shake your head. You lean close. “Okay, look. If you decide you want to eat something, then you go ahead and tell me what you want, and I will get it for you. But for now, I need to help the people behind you.” They don’t respond. You lean to one side, and look at the person right behind them. “Next, please! Can I help you?”

The second person in line is wearing Airpods. They are staring at a phone. They do not answer you, or look up.

They do not order food.

That’s what it’s like. All teachers want is to help: we know how to help, we have the help ready to give. Students need the help, and mostly even want the help. And yet they are difficult. All the time. One after the other, all day long. For no reason. Annoying their teachers constantly, just because they don’t think about what they’re saying or doing. Avoiding, at the same time, the one thing that would actually do them some good, the whole point behind school, behind teaching, behind all of it. They frequently apologize, especially when the teacher snaps angrily, or chews the students out for not doing enough work or caring enough about their own education. They say they’re sorry — and then they go right back to doing exactly what they were doing before. Nothing. Annoyingly.

My students want to learn. They should learn. But they don’t. Because they won’t try. I have to work five times harder, ten times, a hundred times, to get them to do the thing they should be doing, and they know they should be doing it; but they don’t.

All day long. Every day. For no reason. And that might even be the worst part: because I can’t explain why they won’t do it. I can’t understand why they won’t do it. Neither can they. I can empathize, because I didn’t want to do work in high school either; but I actually liked learning — and I recognized that I needed to do enough work, to do enough learning, at least to pass and move on.

In other words, when I went into the fast food restaurant, I ordered the goddamn food.

My students don’t. They just stand there. It’s not their fault, and they don’t do it intentionally — but my God, I am so very tired of fighting them just so they can eat a delicious meal.

What a Weekend!

WOW! That was… amazing.

This last weekend was the Tucson Festival of Books. And for the fourth year, I had a booth, and I offered my pirate books, the three volumes of The Adventures of Damnation Kane, for sale to anyone who: 1) Saw my tri-corner hat and pirate-themed shirt; 2) Noticed the name of the booth, or 3) Paused to look at the INCREDIBLE art that my wife Toni DeBiasi created for all three Volumes of the series.

And that was a LOT of people.

I went there with, I think, about 65 books.

The first day, Saturday, I sold 42 of them. (The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything!) I sold every copy of Volume I I had with me. I went home, got the four other copies of Volume I at my house, also grabbed my VERY FIRST copy, the first printed copy of any book I have ever written, and brought that on Sunday. I used the very first copy (which was NOT for sale) as a display copy.

I sold the other four. And six more copies of Volume II and Volume III. And I unfortunately had to turn away a few other people because I didn’t have a copy of Volume I to sell them, at the end of the day, or else I would have had at least two or three more sales.

I now have 13 copies left of the 69 copies I brought with me to the Festival.

I have never done that well. The Festival has always been pretty good to me: I have a good book (Three of them, I think), I have a good hook — “Can I tell you about my time-traveling Irish pirate?” — and the aforementioned three attention-grabbers (sign, cover art, and stylish chapeau) brings people close enough to get drawn in by my elevator pitch. But my previous record was, if I remember right, 29 books sold. So I almost doubled that.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, to everyone who came and bought my books. I am honored beyond belief. And now I am anxious as hell that you all won’t like the books, or that you won’t like the third book, or — I dunno, something. So if you could see your way clear to tell me if you do like the books: go to the Contact link at the top of the page (Under the three lines, on mobile), or click on the Feedback link that should be floating in the bottom left corner of the page, and send me a message. Send me a Facebook message or Instagram message — @TheodenHumphrey, in both cases. (Also the same handle on X, if you are a glutton for punishment — or Threads, if you’re a glutton for social media.) Or if you’re really feeling good about my work, post a review somewhere — Amazon, or Goodreads, or Lulu.com where the books are produced — and then let me know that you did so. Thank you.

Thank you, as well, to my fantastic booth partner Amanda Cetas, who stood with me on a patch of sole-stabbing gravel for eighteen hours over two days, who covered me when I wanted to take a break (And made sales for me, too), who directed people to my side of the booth when they seemed more interested in fantasy than in historical fiction, and who stayed positive and energetic all the way through. Thank you, also, to all the people who bought Amanda’s books — she said she did better this year than she has before, too, so it wasn’t just the Pirate who made out like a bandit.

Amanda also shared my confusion over our nearest neighbors, who were… intactivists. Anti-circumcision activists. With whole books. About… circumcision. Now, I actually know the arguments against circumcision, and — how do you fill an entire book with them? Let alone TWO?!?

Needless to say, they did not send many customers over our way, and we didn’t send any their way, either. I didn’t have any people come to my booth and say, “Pirates, huh? You wouldn’t have anything about foreskins, by any chance?”

(I would have sent them over if they did. But they didn’t. The people over there still had people at their booth all weekend, so I think they did fine, too.)

If you didn’t get the book or books you wanted, or you now want more books, then please use the links on this page to Contact me or to order yourself a copy from Lulu.com. (If you Contact me, I will sign the book for you before I ship it.) If you didn’t make it to the Festival this year, then come to next year’s — Amanda and I will be there (Hopefully with our partner, the Poet, Lisa Watson, who wasn’t well enough to attend this year), and I will have all of the Adventures and at least one new book, as well. Amanda will probably have nine new projects, all of them as wonderful as the ones she has right now.

And if you bought books, two things: thank you for reading. You, along with the rest of the literate people, are the bulwark holding back the tide of Fahrenheit 451. You are giving my world meaning. You are joining me in this weird sort of slow-motion conversation that is a novel.

And also: get off the internet and go read. Like I’m about to do.

(If you’re wondering, I only bought two books this year. But that’s because this is my TBR pile.

No, I’m not kidding.)

Here are the two books, anyway.

Happy Reading, all.

Please Allow Me To Introduce Myself

So I recently got asked to do a second interview by the same website that interviewed me before, though now it was for a new — page? A new site? A new theme? I dunno, it was an interview, and it was all done through email, so that’s the kind of interview I like. They did a lovely job with both interviews, I thought. So go check it out, give them some views, maybe find out something about me and my writing.

Here it is.

And then a couple of months ago, a student of mine had to make a website about a teacher, and he chose me. I am a little displeased that he included every time I said “like” in the interview, but he was certainly accurate in his transcription. And otherwise, it’s a lovely site and a flattering compliment.

Go look at it.

All right: and then, for some new content in this post, I looked up Bad Interview Questions, and got this list of 100. I am not going to answer them all: they are British, some are about sports, some are Gotcha questions about physics that I do not know. But maybe this will be fun. Let’s see.

Credit where credit is due.

Cue ridiculous interview questions…

1.‘ If you could be Batman or Robin, which one would you be?

Come on. Batman. Let’s not be stupid. Who the hell would say Robin? “Would you rather be a billionaire playboy who is secretly the coolest gadget-centric superhero in history — or a ward named after a bird?”

2.‘ What football team do you Support? ‘ Why them?

No, we’re not going to answer that.

3.‘ Do you prefer cats or dogs?

I do not. All pets are wonderful.

4.‘ Why on earth are you here today?

On Earth? As a human? I think our purpose as conscious beings is to experience the universe in whatever way we can. I think our purpose as human beings is to create art and discover truth. I want to do all of those things. I’m here today because it’s today, and I should be here: on this blog, posting.

5.’ What was the most traumatic experience to happen in your personal life?

Definitely not going to answer that one.

6.’ Sing a song that best describes you.

I mean…

7.‘ When you go on holiday, when do you pack your case?

Morning of or night before.

8.‘ What would I find in your fridge right now?

Food? Cheese, milk, soda, beer, leftovers, some vegetables, buncha condiments… food. Nothing shocking.

9.’ How would you explain a database in three sentences to your eight year old nephew?

My question would be: how the hell did I get an eight-year-old nephew?

10. ‘If aliens landed in front of you and, in exchange for anything you desire, offered you any position on their planet what would you want?

I don’t see the downside here. Why is this a trade?

11.’ If Hollywood made a movie about your life, whom would you like to see play the lead role as you?

Imma go with Jameela Jamil. I’d like to be that beautiful once.

12.‘ If someone wrote a biography about you, what do you think the title should be?

Cap’n English Sings The Blues

13.‘ If I assembled three of your format supervisors in a room and asked them about you, what would they say about you that you would say is not true?

First YOU tell me what a format supervisor is.

If you asked my former principals, they would probably say that I was stubborn as hell. I’m not: except when the policy is stupid, and then no, I won’t obey it.

14.’ How would you design a spice rack for a blind person?

Specific single-jar dividers and either braille or raised letters to identify each spice.

15.‘ If you were a character from Star Wars, which one would you be?

Darth Vader because he’s the best. The most like me is probably Obi Wan Kenobi: I think I’m a good enough teacher, but I’ve probably helped create the end of all good things, and my winning move is sacrificing myself.

16.‘ Sell me this glass of water.

*Grabs collar*

*Smashes water glass across face*

*Threatens with shattered glass shards*

“GIVE ME ALL YOUR MONEY!”

17.‘ What has been your most bizarre life experience?

Teaching for 24 years.

18.’ Why are manhole covers round?

So they don’t fall down the hole.

19.‘ What do you think would be a fitting epitaph on your gravestone?

“I’m Crowded…. Roll Over”

20.‘ What’s the most interesting holiday you’ve ever had?

My first Christmas with my wife, when she went back to visit my mom with me in Massachusetts and I almost killed her with a train.

21.‘ What would you choose as your last meal?

My own heart.

22. ‘How would you define your personal work-life balance in terms of ratio (50/50 70/30 etc)?

I think 50/50 is probably accurate, but I’d like to shift that to less work and more life, more like 30/70.

23.’ Given the numbers 1 to 1,000, what is the minimum number of guesses needed to find a specific number, if you are given the hint ‘higher’ or ‘lower’ for each guess you make?

One if you guess it right.

24.‘ Using a scale of 1 to 10, rate yourself on how weird you are.

Banana.

25.‘ Explain quantum electrodynamics in two minutes, starting now.

26.‘ How many balloons would fit in this room?

Inflated? Several hundred. Empty? Probably hundreds of thousands.

27.‘ If you were shrunk to the size of a pencil and put in a blender, how would you get out?

I’d be poured out with the rest of the goo. Now you tell me why the fuck you picked a pencil as the size comparison for a question about blenders.

28.’ You have a bouquet of flowers. All but two are roses, all but two are daisies, and all but two are tulips. How many flowers do you have?

Three: one rose, one daisy, one tulip.

29.‘ What is the philosophy of martial arts?

30.‘ Explain to me what has happened in this country during the last 10 years

The culmination of the 50-year project by the corporatocracy to create their utopia, in which the rest of us rank somewhere between slaves and livestock.

31.‘ If you could be any superhero, which one would you be?

I’m tempted to say someone with infinite power, but I’d really just like to be Spider-man.

32.’ How do you weigh an elephant without using a scale?

Guess ten tons: if the elephant is flattered, double it; if the elephant is offended, halve it.

33.’ If you had 5,623 participants in a tournament, how many games would need to be played to determine the winner?

IT’S ME. I’M THE WINNER.

34.’ How many bricks are there in Shanghai? Consider only residential buildings.

No.

35.‘ You have five bottles of pills. One bottle has 9 gram pills; the others have 10 gram pills. You have a scale that can be used only once. How can you find out which bottle contains the 9 gram pills?

What the fuck kind of scale can only be used once?!?

36.‘ How would you market table tennis balls if table tennis itself became obsolete? List many ways, then pick one and go into detail.

I’d have my wife paint eyeballs on them.

37.’ How many Smartphones are there in London?

Nah.

38.’ You are in charge of 20 people. Organise them to figure out how many bicycles were sold in your area last year.

19 to ask around, one to ask you why you care.

39.‘ Why do you think only a small percentage of the population makes over ‘125,000 a year?

See Answer #30 about the corporatocracy. Income inequality is their mission.

40.‘ You have three boxes. One contains only apples, one contains only oranges, and one contains both apples and oranges. The boxes have been incorrectly labeled so that no label accurately identifies the contents of any of the boxes. Opening just one box, and without looking inside, you take out one piece of fruit. By looking at the fruit, how can you immediately label all of the boxes correctly?

Open the one that is labeled apples and oranges and pull out one fruit: if it’s an apple, then label that box as such, label the Orange box “Apples and Oranges” and the Apples box “Oranges.” If it’s an orange, reverse this.

41. ‘How many ball bearings, each one inch in diameter, can fit inside a 747 aircraft?

More than a couple.

42.‘ You need to check that your friend, James, has your correct phone number but you cannot ask him directly. You must write the question on a card which and give it to Heidi who will take the card to James and return the answer to you. What must you write on the card, besides the question, to ensure James can encode the message so that Heidi cannot read your phone number?

JAMES WHY THE FUCK CAN’T I ASK YOU DIRECTLY IF YOU HAVE MY PHONE NUMBER AND WHY DON’T I WANT HEIDI TO KNOW IT?

43.’ If you were given a free full-page ad in the newspaper and had to sell yourself in six words or less, how would the ad read?

“Buy me. I’m dope af. 100.” Gotta appeal to that Gen Z demo.

44.’ How do you feel about affirmative action?

It’s a poor solution to a much larger problem — but it’s better than nothing, which is what we have without it. And if you’re asking would I be willing to give up a job in favor of a minority candidate? Yes, I would, because I can go find another job, and I don’t think something, like a job I’m applying for, or a slot in a college, belongs to me when it… doesn’t belong to me.

45.’ You are given 2 eggs, you have access to a 100-story building.’ Eggs can be very hard or very fragile which means they may break if dropped from the first floor or may not even break if dropped from the’100th floor. Both eggs are identical. You need to figure out the highest floor of a 100-story building an egg can be dropped without breaking. The question is how many drops you need to make. You are allowed to break 2 eggs in the process.

Chuck them both at the interviewers while singing this:

46.‘ Are you a cat person?

No, just a regular human.

47.‘ If you were a salad, what kind of dressing would you have?

I think I am salty and bitter at heart, so that’s probably how I taste (Also describes much of my diet, so) — which means I’d say I’d taste best with something a little sweet. I’ll go honey mustard.

48.‘ How do I rate as an interviewer?

Banana.

Okay: I think that will do. Do I get the job?

Vote No

Okay. Let’s talk about it.

I understand if you don’t want to discuss the election that will take place later this year. I sympathize, I absolutely do.

But I’m going to talk about it. And I’m going to ask you to listen, even if you don’t want to — or really, to read, even if you don’t want to. I’m going to ask that you take a deep breath, let it out, say out loud — as loudly as you can — “I don’t want to think about this” (and if you are so inclined, add “shit” at the end of that sentence).

And then read what I have to say. Because it’s important. Not because I’m saying it: I’m just a regular guy, smarter than some and not as smart as others; good with words but far from the best; aware and knowledgeable in some ways and deeply ignorant in others. Just a regular guy. But the topic is important, which is why I’m writing about it — even though I don’t really want to. I want to take a break from writing: I just finished editing my book. I want to take a break from politics: I’ve been much too closely involved in the subject for way too long now.

But this election, this November? It’s a big one. That’s not to say it is the only important election; all elections are important, to some people, for some reason. But this one is important to all of us. And I mean ALL of us: this one has literal global implications, pretty serious ones. It’s our responsibility as people to be decent to each other, to try not to harm each other, to try to help each other; and in this case, that means we need to talk about the election in November, and we need to think about it, and then we need to do the right thing. Or else we are not living up to our responsibilities as human beings. I don’t want to be that person, and I presume you don’t, either — or else you’ve already clicked away from this, and you’re not reading these words right now.

(By the way: if you clicked away, it doesn’t mean you’re not a decent person; but if you’re not a decent person, you’ve definitely clicked away. Because I’m gonna get all woke and try to shame you, and you don’t put up with that kind of shit. But getting all bunched up about being woke-shamed? That means you’re an asshole. Not to say that woke-shaming is good; I have people who try to woke-shame me, and it’s obnoxious; but I put up with it because I’m not an asshole. If you’re still here, you’re at least tolerant, and therefore not an asshole.)

I’m not actually going to woke-shame you, by the way. Because I don’t need to. You don’t need to be a woke liberal snowflake to recognize the right thing to do in this election. That’s the point of this post: I’m not even talking about my opinions about what is best for this country, or the best choice to make in November; I may talk about that some — I plan to get into the best choice in the next post. But for this one, it is simple, it is stark, it is clear: it is black and white.

Vote No on Donald J. Trump for President of the United States.

Now, I get it: I’m tired, too. I’m tired of the political game the two parties play, where you have to vote for OUR candidate because THEIR candidate is SO MUCH WORSE. We have to vote for the lesser of two evils, and it’s exhausting and depressing to never vote for anyone with some actual hope in our hearts. Honestly, that’s why the last two presidents — not the current one — got elected: because people felt hopeful about their candidacies. Obama was inspiring; Trump was energizing — for different sections of the society, of course. People who were inspired by Obama did not find Trump energizing. But in both cases, Obama and Trump offered something different from the usual kind of political candidate, and that newness had a lot to do with how they won. And I hate, I loathe, that the Democratic party, rather than taking an opportunity to back a candidate who had some new ideas, who had some integrity and consistency, and who inspired some of the same energy in their electorate — Bernie Sanders — went sprinting straight back to a 50-year Washington insider, an old white male politician who has literally never inspired anyone to do anything.

But we’ll talk about ol’ Sleepy Joe next time. This time we have to talk about the other old white male politician running for this election. The dangerous one.

This guy.

Trump will only be a dictator on Day One

No, no, I know he was kidding. Of course he was; he says that he has two intentions on day one, for which he claims he would use power dictatorially: to close the border, and to drill, drill, drill (for oil). “After that,” he says, “I’m not a dictator.” Totally harmless. I shouldn’t take things so seriously, especially not when Trump says them, right? He’s just kidding around. Just a lil funnin’.

But let’s be clear. First of all, in terms of the joke, Sean Hannity set that up as a serious question, saying “Under no circumstances, you are promising America tonight, you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody.” When Trump drops his joke, there is a clear moment of horror, because he didn’t say “Absolutely.” He didn’t say “Of course I would never do that.” He didn’t say “In America we believe in the rule of law and in democracy, so I would never act like a dictator in any way.” He said “Except on day one.” In a moment when he was asked for sincerity, for honesty, for a promise to the American people: he made a joke. A joke about being a dictator.

And considering it realistically, it seems perfectly reasonable to assume that he is sincere in his two intentions to use power dictatorially: to close the border, which would mean violating dozens of laws and international treaties and disrupting the lives of millions (because I assume by “close the border” he means stop allowing people to cross the border, including innocent legal travelers; or else he means send overwhelming military force to stop all illegal crossings at the southern border, while also defying due process in order to build some ridiculous wall covered in electrified barbed wire and anti-personnel mines filled with Sarin gas and anthrax: either way he would be breaking the law and disrupting the lives of millions.), and defying all science in order to destroy the environment while feeding money into the bottomless maw of the fossil fuel industry: also in violation of who knows how many laws and policies of our own government. Of course he is serious about that: those are two of the “policies” (To be clear, he has no policy positions or plans at all; he’s running purely on hate and lies) he is running on, which are both very popular: fuck everyone who isn’t already American (by which we all know he means “white”), and fuck the environment and everyone who cares about it.

I refuse to then believe, subsequent to misusing presidential power for these two issues, that he would not immediately misuse presidential power to do what he does not tell Sean Hannity, what he does not promise the American people, that he would never do: seek retribution against his perceived enemies. Because of course he would do that: it’s all he ever does. He did it while he was in office, he has tried to do it since; he ran on the promise that he would lock up Hillary Clinton, and he is running now on the promise that he will weaponize the DOJ and FBI and go after all of his enemies, while filling the government with people loyal to him.

You know all this, right? I mean, I know we’re all tired of listening to him speak, and we’re exhausted by the constant news cycle of the whatever is the most recent travesty he said aloud — a news cycle that has gone on uninterrupted for the last nine years, since Trump declared himself a candidate for the Presidency — but still, the information is everywhere, the facts are unavoidable.

So why is he leading in the polls?

I’ve been avoiding writing this post because I can’t think of anything new to say. Every time I think, “I need to write that post about why people should vote against Trump, why people should fight Trump’s reelection,” I then think, “But what will I say?”

What can I tell you that you don’t already know?

What insight can I offer into the threat that Trump poses that you’re not already aware of?

What point can I make that hasn’t already been made? Here, this piece from The New Republic literally says everything I want to say about why Trump is dangerous and why we need to stop him from getting reelected: read this, if by some chance you don’t already know everything it is going to say.

But if you know everything that I know about Trump, why the fuck is he leading in the polls???

Seriously, I cannot fathom this. It has been driving me nuts. I keep telling people my opinion: Trump hasn’t done anything to make himself more popular, so he can’t possibly be more successful in this election than he was in the last — which he lost, as I hope everyone reading this is painfully, exhaustively aware. But every time I say that, smart people around me say, “I dunno, man. He’s leading in the polls.” Every time I open a newsletter or listen to an episode of my favorite political podcast, Unfucking the Republic, the host is saying he expects Trump to win this next election. Trump. To win. Not cheat his way into the White House like he already did in 2016, not lead an insurrection to take control of the country like he tried to do in 2021, but win. The election. With votes. From Americans.

I know you have to sign in to watch this, but do it. For me. And for America.

What the fuck is happening here? pic.twitter.com/Atn1SWVqN1

— Tom McGovern (@tommcgovern27) August 3, 2023

This is about something else, but the lyrics are apropos. Plus it slaps.

I honestly don’t know how to deal with this. I know I’m not alone: listen to Jonathan Capeheart coming a hair’s breadth away from just losing his shit in this interview with Presidential historian Michael Beschloss, about 2:45:

(The Black, gay, liberal MSNBC host clearly has reason to lose his shit, as he expresses later in the clip.)

Okay, I understand some of the issue here. I get that if 44,000 votes, out of 150,000,000, had gone the other way, then Trump would have won reelection. And actually, I get that if he had, a number of people think things would have gone better, or at least not much worse, over the last three years; they’re wrong, but I can’t disprove a hypothetical any more than they can prove it, so I can accept that people believe it. It pisses me off that people mock the opposition to Trump by saying the only reason we don’t like him is because he was too mean on Twitter, like there aren’t a thousand reasons to despise Donald Trump and what happened during his administration (Top ten: insurrection; impeachment; second impeachment; The Big Lie; 6-3 Conservative SCOTUS; COVID non-response; tax cut for the rich and $8 TRILLION added to the deficit; “Very fine people on both sides” and also the trans ban for the military; pulling out of the JCPOA and Paris Treaty and shit-talking NATO and all other treaties; and it wasn’t part of his presidency, but I’m not going to ignore all of his sexual assaults) — but I understand that people believe lies about all of those things, or those things at least align with things they do believe. And I mock the other side for their stupidity, so I can accept that they mock me for what they perceive as mine.

I know that, in conjunction with what I’ve just been saying, the country is so divided along partisan lines that people would generally vote for a disease-carrying mosquito rather than cross party lines; and that means any GOP nominee can count on 200 or so electoral votes, just as any Democratic nominee can count on 200 or so different electoral votes, and while Trump has only gotten worse over the last four years, so has inflation, which people blame Biden for. They shouldn’t, but again, I don’t know how to prove that, either. If you don’t know that corporate profits and supply chain issues were responsible for the inflation of the last three years, then you’re not paying attention — or you’re paying attention to the wrong things. (Best line from the article at that last link: “It is unlikely that either the extent of corporate greed or even the power of corporations generally has increased during the past two years. Instead, the already-excessive power of corporations has been channeled into raising prices rather than the more traditional form it has taken in recent decades: suppressing wages.”) I know that our country is awash in lies about socialism and government takeovers. I know, also, that there are people who vehemently believe in Great Replacement theory, the conspiracy theory which claims Democrats (Or even better, the “global elite” led by Jewish people) are bringing dark-skinned people into this country to replace white people, because one of them yelled at me on Facebook not too long ago.

I know that people are not excited about voting for Biden. I hoped he wouldn’t run, too — but come on. Let’s not pretend that anyone who decides to be President doesn’t already have an ego that needs its own West Wing. You can’t be an ordinary person and believe that you would be the right individual, the only right individual, to lead this entire country. You have to think you are the greatest ever. That’s why we have term limits in the first place: because after FDR, who clearly believed himself to be the only person who could ever run this country, believed it strongly enough to run FOUR TIMES, we recognized that it was genuinely unlikely that a modern President would give up power. And look at how they all run for that second term. All of them. (Quick tip of the hat to LBJ for backing out of a second run because he thought the country was too divided over his war in Vietnam) So we all knew he would try for the nomination again — and if the DNC backed him over Bernie in 2020, why would they stop backing him now?

I want to talk more about voting for Biden, because he’s actually done an outstanding job as president; but that’s not the topic for today.

The topic for today is voting No on the question of whether Donald J. Trump should once again be President of the United States.

This is our duty. It is our responsibility, both for the sake of our country and our democracy, but also for the sake of the world. Everybody, literally, is counting on us to stop this asshole from fucking up everything in this country that he hasn’t already fucked up.

I know we don’t like voting for the lesser of two evils, so let me put it this way: I’m not asking you to vote for the lesser of two evils. I’m asking you to vote against evil.

I don’t actually care how you do that. I think the safest course is to vote for Biden, because in our winner-take-all electoral college system, voting third party is potentially dangerous; but if you want to vote for Jill Stein or Cornell West, please do so. I’d love to see the Green Party gain more national attention, and I think Dr. West is far and away the best candidate running right now. (Oh — don’t vote for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Libertarians are dangerous, particularly when they are also anti-vax. And he is the worst kind of anti-vax. Don’t give him a platform, please.) But what matters is taking away votes from Donald Trump, so if you were going to vote for the Democrat and you don’t want to vote for Biden, be aware that taking your vote away from Biden is not voting No on Trump. It is voting No on Biden. You are welcome to do that, as I said, especially if you live in a safely blue state like New York or California; but you first need to vote No on Trump.

Vote No on Trump by giving a political donation to the Democratic party. Vote No on Trump by volunteering to help the Democrats get voters out and registered and to the polls — which is still what I plan to do, now that MY BOOK IS FINISHED and now I have time to do that. Vote No on Trump by convincing a would-be Trump voter to change and vote for someone else (They can even vote for RFK, because if he pulls votes from the GOP he’ll never get conservative backing again, and that would be swell.). Vote No on Trumpism, as well, by supporting those who oppose him: vote Democratic or Green or Progressive or left-leaning Independent on all of the downticket races; pay for and consume media that does not support the Trumpiverse view of things.

Or vote No on Trump by voting for Biden, even if you don’t like or agree with him, because in our system, Joe Biden has far and away the best chance to stop Trump from becoming President again.

This isn’t a matter of picking between two identical puppets run by the same political machine. It’s certainly true that the moderates of both parties are frequently indistinguishable in their actual governance, even if their rhetoric has contrasts; but the Republican party has had to fall in line behind Trump — and they have done it. They are obedient acolytes, they are foot soldiers, drones, servants of their Beloved Leader. Trump knows it, and he pushes them around at will; he will, of course, continue doing it as President — because while he may be a lame duck president, he will continue to apply pressure to the members of his party; he will anoint the chosen and castigate the insufficiently loyal: and all of them, it seems, will dance to his tune. Biden may be a puppet of the powers-that-be, and that is dangerous; but he’s not the puppet master, and Trump is. (Even though Trump himself may be controlled by others, either autocrats like Putin and Netanyahu and Kim, whom he somehow needs to impress, or anyone with power enough to gain access, and brains enough to manipulate that goddamn idiot.) If we retain Biden and those who have influence over him, it won’t lead to the collapse of this country’s democracy. Trump’s election might. I won’t say he definitely will turn himself into a dictator and end American democracy entirely — but I also won’t definitely say he won’t do that. He is a danger to this country, and because we are the richest, most powerful, and also the most toxic country in the world, Trump is therefore a danger to everyone — look no further than Avdiivka for that.

We all know that all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. Donald Trump is evil. Whatever else you think of him or about him, his intentions, his corruption, and his ability to do harm through the office of the Presidency are far too great for any of us to ignore. So please: do something. \

Vote No on Donald J. Trump for President of the United States.

The Adventures Conclude

Art by Toni DeBiasi.

#500 is #3

So I noticed, not too long ago, that I was getting pretty close to 500 posts on this blog. That’s a lot of writing, over the last nine years I have had this blog, especially since there have been a couple of fairly lengthy hiatuses — hiati? — lacunae in those years. The majority of those posts are pretty substantial, some running to several thousand words and hours and hours of effort; though some are just short comments or jokes or links. But still, 500 posts seemed like a lot, and also a number worth celebrating.

And then I hit a wall, when my family crisis happened in October. That last post before the crisis was #497. And a month or so ago, I posted an explanation as to what was going on and why I hadn’t been following the carefully established once-a-week-new-post pace that I had maintained fairly well for about 16 months at that point; that explanation was #498.

Last week I posted about politics, and my desire to take up the fight. I will have more to say about that — but also, I couldn’t help but notice (though of course I already knew) that that was post #499. Which meant this one was the big one.

So what to post about? More politics? Teaching, which has been the bulk of the last 499 blog posts? I thought about a book review, because I have a good one to write.

But then this happened. I did it. It came in the mail.

Volume III of The Adventures of Damnation Kane.

It’s bizarre to me that this is such a clear mirror: but I had to take advantage.

This is not, of course, the finished book, because that will not be the cover image; my wife had a great idea for it, and she is prepping the board for the painting. (**Please note: if for any reason she is not satisfied with her image, then I will use something else for the cover; probably some old painting of pirates which is in the public domain. I’m just trying to say that the plan is for all three books to have original Toni DeBiasi covers, but if they don’t then they don’t, and so be it.) I printed one copy with a nothing cover as a galley proof so I could do one last edit of the text, which I find easier when it is printed on actual paper.

But the book is written. The story is done. This is the end of the Adventures of Damnation Kane.

Here they all are.

So this is my 500th post: it is announcing to all of you that the book is done, and it will be published and available within the next two months. And I am very, very proud of me.

Thank you for reading, to all of you who read, for whatever you read. If you are reading my pirate books, you’ll have one more to buy pretty soon.

Here we go.

It begins tonight.

The Republican voters are caucusing in Iowa tonight, starting in a couple of hours and finishing sometimes before midnight. And the expectation is that Donald J. Trump (Is it meaningful at all that it just took me three tries to type his name correctly? Probably only indicative of the fact that I’m pretty tired right now, and I haven’t done a lot of typing in the last few weeks. Or it’s an omen.) will win, thereby “signaling” that he is “most likely” going to be the Republican party’s nominee for President this year.

Seriously, guys? I mean, come on.

So here’s the reality. Trump is definitely going to win the Iowa caucus tonight, despite the absurdly cold weather, despite the hilarious fact that some unknown number of Iowans registered as Republicans specifically so they could vote against Trump in the caucus, and, of course, despite the fact that Trump has been indicted in four different criminal cases, along with currently being in court for two civil cases, and fighting off who knows how many other claims against him personally and against his businesses. He’s going to win the Iowa caucus for the same reason he’s going to win every single Republican primary in every single state: because Republicans love him.

They love him for a variety of reasons. Some think he did a phenomenal job as President. Some think he projects an aura of strength, which they think we need with so many problems going on in the world today. Some think he is just like them, and they want to see him succeed because that implies that they, too will succeed. Some love him because he’s a racist, sexist piece of shit, and so are they, and they think he will help them to achieve the racist and sexist dreams they hold close to their hearts.

(All of these people are wrong, by the way. But they believe they are not. Don’t judge them too harshly: we all believe lies. Many people reading this believe that Barack Obama was a great man and a great president. Many people reading this believe this country is a democracy, and that we are free. Many people reading this believe that things will turn out all right in the end. None of those things are true, either.)

And then there’s the biggest group: the people who will support Donald Trump despite knowing that he’s a racist, sexist, corrupt, narcissistic piece of shit, because they believe he will be better for the country than the Democrats, and specifically Joe Biden.

Those people might be right.

All right, hold on; no, I haven’t lost my mind, and no, I haven’t surrendered to the cynicism that did definitely increase thanks to the pretty awful situation my family has gone through over the last year or so. I am probably trying to be more honest in this post than I frequently am, because normally I shape what I’m saying for my audience, and I am rethinking that. I am also certainly looking to shock some of you with this opening; and now that I have your attention and you are maybe a bit off balance, I will explain further, and see if we can come to a consensus.

Unlike Americans.

See, there has never been a single majority opinion held by Americans. Not by the majority of us. The majority of Americans do not vote, so no election has been decided by the majority; and the majority have not been consulted in every non-democratic decision made in this country, which is the vast majority of them. We don’t all agree, and we never have. What we do is comply, and accept.

We accept that the two-party system is what we are stuck with, and then we comply with that system. We accept that capitalism is the system we are stuck with, and then we comply with that system. We accept that we cannot eliminate racism from the American consciousness, and then — and this is the difficult part, but it is a true thing — we comply with the system of racism that exists in this country. We may not do it, depending on who we are, for racist reasons; I am not a racist, and I hope and trust that most people reading my writing, therefore, are not racists. Though I was brought up within a racist system and a racist culture, so there are definitely racist ideas in my head and racist feelings in my heart, and there always will be, because we do not, ever, escape our childhood and upbringing, a fact that has been brought home to me recently. But I am not a racist because I do not subscribe to those thoughts and feelings when they arise: I question myself constantly when I think about race, and I question whether my instincts are reasonable, or racist; and if they are racist, I try not to listen to them.

But I comply with a racist system. Take, for example, de facto segregation in this country, which is almost universal. I live in a less-desirable area in Tucson, Arizona. I used to live in a much more desirable area, but we rented there, and we own our home here. We own our home here because this is what we could afford: we had an area we wanted to buy in, and an area we were willing to buy in — and then there was the area we could afford to buy in. Which is where we bought.

Now: guess which, of the desirable area and the less-desirable area, is more diverse racially. You already know, don’t you? And because we want to move to the more desirable area, we will be moving out of the racially diverse area and into the racially homogenous area as soon as we can afford to. And there are plenty of good reasons for us to move — one of which is, honestly, entirely unrelated to race, and it might even be the best reason to move: our commute is too bloody long, and we’d really really like to live closer to school — but all of them, all of them, comply with and therefore encourage and maintain the racist system that is the status quo in this country. There is more crime where we are now, and less in the desirable area. The property values are better in the desirable area. There are fewer homeless people, and less trash on the street, in the desirable area. There is more open space and more green space in the desirable area to walk our dogs. Those are all good reasons for us to move, and they are why we will move. But when we do that, we will be moving our white selves into the white area, and out of the more racially diverse area. We will be maintaining the segregated status quo in Tucson.

Why? Because we can’t change it. And because we have enough other shit to deal with in our lives without spending what energy and passion we have in a futile effort to change Tucson’s, or Arizona’s, or America’s, or the whole world’s racist systems.

But, see, that’s where we’re wrong. We do impossible things by doing them. Not by recognizing that they are impossible, and then walking away without fighting. We decide to try, even though we know it is impossible, and we try, and we fight — and that’s how we win. That’s how things change.

Does it always happen that way? Of course not: impossible things are impossible for a reason, and that reason is usually enough to overcome efforts to change things that cannot be changed.

But sometimes? Sometimes things change.

And on this day, named in celebration of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I think it is only appropriate to recognize that sometimes, it is worth fighting the impossible fight, because sometimes, you win.

Even if you then get assassinated and much of the country goes right back to the same racist status quo.

It’s worth fighting for change because even though that happened to Dr. King, he still made things different. He moved the needle. Trump is no worse a racist piece of shit than half of the past presidents of this country, but the main difference now is that we recognize that he is a racist piece of shit. And that is a problem for him. He needs to fight that perception, he needs to talk in dog whistles. Not always, because there are plenty of racist pieces of shit who support him, and they like when he says shit directly like “Immigrants are poisoning the blood of this country.” (And then defends it by saying he didn’t know that was a racist piece of shit thing to say.) A century ago, he wouldn’t have had to defend that, he would have repeated it and made it part of his stump speech. So: progress. Change.

Why hasn’t the change been larger? Simple: because not enough of us fight. That’s why it hasn’t lasted longer, and why it hasn’t spread farther, and why so many of us don’t see positive results. Not enough of us fight that fight.

I want to fight. I intend to fight. Probably for more than one thing, more than one cause, more than one change. I do want to fight systemic racism: but not only that. But I want to do it right. I want to do it strategically, and intentionally, and thoughtfully — which has never been how I’ve written, or how I’ve done anything. I vastly prefer flying by the seat of my pants.

But I just spent the last eleven years writing a single story, The Adventures of Damnation Kane. And while I think I’ve written some excellent pieces on this blog, and I’m proud of everything I’ve written on this blog, that story — those books — are better. Because I spent even more time thinking about them than I did writing them.

So I need to think more about this, and I need to strategize and I need to plan. Then I need to get to work.

This post is intended to make that public, in order to give me more motivation to do this thing the way I need to do it. It’s sad that I need an additional push, but that’s the truth: I do. Otherwise I’m just going to fly by the seat of my pants. (By the way, I’m also still going to write about teaching and school, and to review books and all of that. But there will definitely be more political speech in this, and more attempts to drive and enact social change. That’s the fight. And I’m going to get into it.) And I suspect that I will continue to fly by the seat of my pants, and to write extemporaneously, while I work on my strategy and my plan; because writing is how I form and crystallize my thoughts, and this is a good way to do that; and because I am loath to try to conceal my plans. I think it will be more convincing if I can be open about what I am doing and why, all the way. Here’s hoping I’m right.

So let me bring this back to where I started: now that it is nearly 4pm MST, and that means the Iowa Caucuses are probably starting to cast their votes for Donald Trump.

I, like everyone else who opposes Donald Trump becoming President again, wish that he would just go away. I wish that he would die (and I won’t apologize for wishing that, not when he talks openly about killing people as a joke), or I wish that he would be convicted and go to jail.

But I realized something in the last week. That’s wrong.

Trump should run in the Presidential election. He should run: and we should fight him.

And we should win.

We need to have that fight, in this country, and we need to shoulder our part of that fight, and do what needs to be done. That’s what will make the greatest change.

So: I want Trump to win the caucuses tonight. I want him to succeed in putting off all of his trials until after the election. I want him to hold rallies, and say every shitty thing that comes into his little hairball of a brain, and I want millions of Americans to laugh and cheer and agree with him. I want him to win the GOP nomination and have every Republican line up behind him, and I want him to run in November.

And then I want for all of us to fucking destroy him at the polls.

Then I want him to go to jail for the rest of his miserable traitorous life. I want him to die in prison. And I want the history books to describe his legacy in actual, factual terms: I want historians in the next fifty years to write about how lucky we all were that Trump never got a second term, because of the existential danger he posed to democracy and to the rule of law and to America as a nation and as a people.

I do not want people to turn him into a martyr and pine about what could have happened if the Democrats hadn’t put him in prison (or killed him with COVID vaccines, which is, I don’t doubt, what millions of dipshit Americans will believe whenever Trump dies, however he dies) and he had been allowed to run, and they had been allowed to cast their votes the way they wanted to. I want them to vote for Trump.

And I want them to lose.

I want to fight.

I hope to convince you all to join me in that fight.

And in the next one.

Thank you for reading.