The Trump coalition is a strange beast. There are the MAGA voters of course, the hard core racists, the fascists. There are the Fox News angry old people. There are the religious right nutcases. There are the tech bros who think democracy has run its course and now it’s time for something newer and better and AI based, and of course one that shovels even more of our money into their pockets. A subscription based high tech government where instead of voting you can click Like, and instead of paying taxes you just give them money and your smartphone keeps letting you buy things like food and shelter. But all those parts just don’t add up to a whole enough to elect a raving dumbass into the white house so they can get their hands on the levers of power. What you need is another piece that is, oddly enough, even bigger than all of those others put together.
You need the clueless. The oblivious. The ones that never start paying attention until just before the election. The ones that only watch the headline news, barely taking any of it in, because their favorite celebrity gossip show or reality TV comes on afterward. The ones that can seldom even motivate themselves to go vote but they will if there is nothing better to do that day.
There’s a whole lot of them and they can be easily manipulated by the skillful, the morally unconcerned, and the Russian. Especially in these days of commercial social media where you find lots of them spilling their guts about every little thing that interests them. Ever notice how those Facebook quizzes (Your Five Favorite TV Shows…The Top Things On Your Bucket List…) always start showing up in your feed more often close to an election? Where before you had to run surveys and host viewer panels to figure out how to manipulated them, now they show you all their buttons that you can push on Facebook and Twitter.
They’re proudly not political. They don’t want to hear it. Politics either bores them or makes them uncomfortable. So they avoid it.
These are the ones that can push your candidate over the top in a close election. But here’s the thing about those voters: you really don’t want them to start paying attention. Your candidate can screw them over and over and over and their general obliviousness still makes them easy to blame someone else for it and look the other way. Up to a point. Or as Abe Lincoln once said…
You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.
You really don’t want this generally oblivious subset America paying attention. Because when that start paying attention it’s almost always because they have become angry. And when it gets to that point, they will know who to be angry at.
One good way of getting their attention is taking their paychecks away.
One semi pleasant side effect of the No Alcohol restriction I’ve been on since before the surgery (I should write some posts about the surgery I reckon) is I don’t go out to eat at my favorite places very much because they are where I do most of my drinking (margaritas usually). So this is saving me money by mostly eating from my own kitchen. Plus I have a fully stocked bar downstairs I can visit when the restriction is lifted. Restaurant and bar drinks are hella expensive.
I dine out half for food better than I can make myself, and half for company, which is why I always sit at the bar. I can chat with people at the bar. Table for one just reminds me how single I am. I won’t do table for one anymore. Staying home all the time reminds me of it too, but at least I have part-time work for now.
This is something else I like about train travel. I get to chat with my fellow passengers in the dining car and the lounge car. A certain someone once told me how good I was at getting a standoffish table talking to each other, but that’s because some situations have their own built-in ice breakers. Hi! Where y’all from? Where you headed? This your first train ride? I’ve had some amazing conversations on the train.
My problem with cancelling my Disney+ subscription is I did that months ago when I found out my Disneyland annual pass had been allowed to expire and they never told me that was going to happen.
The theme parks are apparently run as separate entities under the corporate umbrella, and Disney World spares no effort to let me know when my annual Disney World pass is getting close to expiring. I get email notices, letters (big poster card letters) in the mail reminding me that it’s time to renew. Disneyland could not have cared less and when I found out I was heartbroken because it was such a lucky break that I got it at all. Disney hands out chances just to buy an annual pass now like they’re indulgences from the gods above. So in my anger I cancelled Disney+ even though I really Really wanted to watch the next installment of its Percy Jackson series.
But I have many, Many more issues now with Disney and the parks, not the least of which is I just don’t feel safe going down to Florida anymore.
“We’ll end up having pockets of outbreaks of different types of infectious diseases,” Florida’s former surgeon general, Scott Rivkees, told the BBC. “Individuals who are older, immunocompromised adults and children who may have cancer, for example, are going to be afraid to go out into public.”
If Florida goes ahead, it would be one of the first states to officially do away with childhood vaccination mandates, which have long been a fixture in parents’ back-to-school plans. In April, Idaho’s governor signed a law loosening vaccine requirements.
These moves come as Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, a vaccine sceptic, undertakes remaking US vaccine policy, and the nation’s public health agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), is in turmoil.
So, dig it. DeSantis’ Florida removes vaccine mandates for school children and Walt Disney World is full of children and their parents. Pixie dust, magic and disease.
I got talked back into DVC and now I have points in Saratoga Springs (gives me walking access to Disney Springs) but I can rent my points out and get some of that money back. The parks have changed so much since I started going in 2006 it’s not the fun it used to be. The Writer’s Stop is a tap bar now, because I suppose you can make more money selling beer to adults than books to kids. Star Wars has overrun half of Hollywood Studio, The Great Movie Ride is gone, MuppetVision 3D is gone, the riverboat and Tom Sawyer Island are gone, the bar seats are back at the Tune-In Lounge but you still can’t order food. And tickets are worthless if you don’t also make a Park Reservation. Don’t get me started about park reservations!
And…a certain someone is gone. For all I know he’s back in Germany because a green card just doesn’t cut it here now.
I just don’t feel like going anymore. It isn’t fun anymore. It isn’t magic anymore.
I reckon I’ll probably let that annual pass expire too. It’s a shame because I really liked going, and even with all the complaints I just listed I could still enjoy going because Disney World is so big and I can have a great time just wandering around the parks and trails between the resorts. I do a lot of pleasure walking. But it’s in DeSantis’ Florida and I don’t feel safe going there anymore.
Not With A Bang Or A Whimper, But With The Sound Of Kissing Ass
Jim Wright today on what happened to Jimmy Kimmel…
Here in Florida, when the governor went after Disney for free speech, Democrats, liberals, the left, and people across the country stood up for the corporation and loudly pushed back against fascism.
Yesterday, @Disney sold all those people out and instead threw their Mickey Mouse hat in with the fascist government.
Disney is the Senator John Fetterman of companies.”
I am one of those people Disney sold out. I’m a gay man and a Disneyphile, and I felt directly attacked by DeSantis and the Florida republicans then. And they’re still doing it to us…
Disney stood up for us, after a fashion, and the Pride merchandise kept coming as did the acknowledgement of Pride month and the fact of our being part of the Disney family.
But this year’s Pride was carefully muted at Disney World…I was there, I saw it. You had to dig to find the references and the merchandise, and there were only one or two new items on display. If you know anything about how Disney markets itself and leaves no money on the table, it was striking. And sad. Very sad.
So you could almost see this coming. I appreciate how difficult a MAGA ruling government can make things for a company that just wants to keep doing business with the America that was. But that America is on its deathbed and if they can’t bring themselves to take the hits, stand up, and fight back, it is gone forever.
You are a media company for chrissake. You have a platform, a bully pulpit. Use it.
Today, like every day since Trump was re-elected, I grieve for my country. I’ve none to spare for Mr. Kirk, but I am sorry for what his family, and especially his kids are going though now. They did not deserve this. They deserved to have a father raise them, nurture and care for them, love them from childhood into their adulthood. I am sorry for their loss.
One could wish Mr. Kirk had spent more of his time on loving and raising his own kids, and not demonizing other people’s kids.
People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned.
-James Baldwin
But also, this…
He who fights with monsters, should see to it that he does not become a monster himself. And if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes into you also.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
I have two thistle feeders I’ve been putting out since last winter, after I discovered the woodpeckers love the new feed mix of niger seed and ground up sunflower kernels. The American goldfinches have been hitting them all summer long too, which is a new thing. Previously they’ve stayed away once the trees got their spring leaves, and I would take them down. But if the woodpeckers and the American goldfinches keep coming I reckon I’ll keep putting them out. The woodpeckers (downy) brought a chick to the feeders back in spring.
The feeders are two different sizes: tall and short. And here’s the strange/funny thing…I have to hang them correctly or the birds won’t come. Tall feeder on the left, short one on the right. If I reverse them it’s like the birds don’t see them anymore. I’ve no idea…
Yesterday morning I was in a hurry and somewhat frazzled and when I refilled the feeders I hung them backwards. I realized my mistake a few hours later, but decided to dig in my heels and see if the birds would ignore the offence. But no. All afternoon the feeders remained vacant.
So I went back out and put them in the correct order. Not two minutes later the feeders were busy again.
Falls Road and Roland Avenue are closed off today from Northern Parkway to Howard Street for the 2025 Maryland Cycling Classic. Looks like The Avenue is caught between them so only foot traffic is getting in this afternoon. Supposedly the roads open back up after 6PM today. Papi’s announced they were closing shop today but I see that post has been taken down so maybe there was just some confusion as to the timing. I can see where a lot of restaurants would be royally PO’d if they couldn’t open on an end of summer Saturday evening.
I’m fine here in Medfield. Although it’s looking like a disgustingly humid day, the more I have to zig-zag around the obstacles on my morning walk the more exercise I get.
I tested negative for COVID-19 a few days ago and my vitals all look good, so I reckon I’m done with it and my upcoming ablation procedure is going to happen on schedule. It’s just amazing, really. Only a few years ago this thing was killing people by the tens of thousands, and now two vaccines and four booster shots later and what I got was less painful than your usual case of the flu. I had a fever for just one day, and my blood oxygen level never went below 95.
Don’t ever get me started on Mr. Wormbrain Secretary of Health and Human Services and his insane ideas about vaccines. And especially childhood vaccines. In 1961 I and a bunch of my elementary school classmates got the first Sabin polio vaccines delivered via a sugar cube. The Salk vaccine had been approved for use in 1955. Those vaccines were considered miracles. Here’s why…
Look at it. This is where you are going when you throw science out the window. Without science all we have are myths, lies, and superstition. And…Darwin, eventually. That prize DeSantis lunatic Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo who got up in front of reporters the other day to announce that making childhood vaccines mandatory for school attendance was like slavery…I got your slavery right there you drooling moron.
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