Well, That Happened

Biden did fine.

Could you stand for 90 minutes feet away from Cheeto Hitler without literally smacking him across his fake-tanned face?

Also, Kamala will destroy Pence.

— Antifa #BLM James (@wetcasements) September 30, 2020

"no legitimate reason"

Bob Mould, "Next Generation"

He plays guitar harder than he ever has at the ripe old age of 59.  Anger makes you young.

We can't be complacent.  Donald Trump and the Republican Cult that supports him to the death are going to try and steal this election.

But frankly, it puts a spring in my step to realize that there's a more-than-zero chance that Cheeto Hitler and at least one or more of his horrible fail-children will go to jail in light of recent news:

"He pointed specifically to consultant fees paid by Donald Trump to Ivanka Trump. Since Ivanka Trump was already an employee of the Trump Organization, Akerman said, there was 'no legitimate reason' for those payments. 

He speculated the two could have been shifting the money around to avoid paying taxes on it.  

That, he said, could lead to an ominous development for the president should he leave office in January. 

'The only thing that’s saving him at this point is the Department of Justice’s guideline that says you can’t indict a sitting president,' Akerman said. 'Once he’s no longer a sitting president, he is subject to being indicted.'”

To quote a certain highly decorated starship captain, "Make it so." 

Electioneering

 I voted.

Washington State Ballot.

Same US address I've used for over a decade now (my last residence in America before moving to South Korea).

COVID changed things a bit though.  I usually send my ballots snail-mail, no insurance, because I've got pretty good faith in Korean and US mail.

But this year, and for months now, the Korean post office has warned that letters and packages can be delayed by over a month.

So I went to Daegu FedEx, and they told me they won't ship to PO Boxes.

Went to Korean post office, asked for "EMS" (express) service, and they said the same thing.

So, being that Washington State is primarily a Democratic one that actually wants folks to vote, I've done my first ever scan-and-e-mail ballot.

This is no shade on my Washington State county whatsoever -- they've been routinely excellent at letting me vote for over a decade now.

Anyhow, just thought it was worth sharing.  This election is not a normal one by any means.

Vote the bloated orange pussy-grabber out with enough vengeance that his inevitable cry of "illegal immigrants voting!" is drowned out by the joyful noise of a country that has an outside chance -- certainly not a definite one -- of making something of a comeback from the brink of tyranny and/or mediocrity.

Tediocraty?  Myranny?

This Wednesday is the beginning of Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) so I can get up and watch the first debate in the comfort of my boxer-shorts.  Lucky me.

I'm not expecting Ciceronian perfection from Biden, but I think he's got enough left in the tank and a sense of history to know that he needs to be sharp.

He can be.  He needs to be.

I'm Not Rooting For The Apocalypse, I'm Just Plague-Curious

Professor Kate Soper writes in The Guardian about how COVID-19 might teach us (the hard way) about better possible futures once (if) the pandemic dies down:

"Covid-19 may have caused us to re-examine this status quo. According to the ONS [Office for National Statistics], household spending decreased by a fifth during lockdown. For decades, economic liberalism has affirmed the idea of the self-interested consumer as an almost natural human state. But during the pandemic, a more public-oriented spirit seemed to emerge. People signed up to volunteer for the NHS in droves and mutual aid groups flourished. As commuting dropped off, people had more time to spend at home and in their communities.

Lockdown momentarily benefited our physical environments, too. Cities became less air-polluted and congested, and seasoned walkers and cyclists enjoyed the utopian experience of moving unmolested on roads usually dense with cars, while others took up cycling for the first time. For a brief period, wildlife reclaimed some of its former territory and roadkill fell dramatically. Many reported hearing more birdsong. Those living under flightpaths savoured the experience of plane-free silent skies. As people flocked to parks, it became clearer than ever why we need to defend our green public spaces."

I'm all for it, but we also can't take our eyes off of the folks who have no industry, or hollowed out ones at best, to return to -- restaurants, hotels, airlines, etc.

But by all means, let's stop pretending that anyone but the most fevered of capitalists enjoys living a life of stress and greed and mindless consumption of bullshit things and services.

"the average American disagrees with Republican orthodoxy on every major issue"

David Litt is more optimistic than I am after the death of Justice Ginsbug, but is concise in stating the obvious -- Republicans have been handed every structural advantage imaginable (Senate, Electoral College) and it's still never been enough:

"For one thing, America’s political institutions are currently biased – in many cases quite aggressively – in favor of conservatives. Restrictive voting laws make casting a ballot disproportionately difficult for lower-income, non-white and young Americans. Unprecedented gerrymandering gives Republicans a built-in advantage in the race for the House, and according to FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver, the Senate’s bias toward rural states makes the chamber about seven points redder than the nation as a whole. Thanks to the electoral college, two of the past five presidential elections have been won by Republicans who lost the popular vote – one reason why even before Justice Ginsburg’s death, 15 of the past 19 supreme court justices were appointed by GOP presidents.

The conservative movement, in other words, already had it pretty good. The average American disagrees with Republican orthodoxy on every major issue: healthcare, climate change, gun violence, immigration, taxes, Covid response. Yet thanks to the biases embedded in the American political process, Republicans have not just remained viable, but secured extraordinary amounts of power. We can’t know for certain who would benefit from upending the status quo that existed at the time of Justice Ginsburg’s passing – but we do know which party has the most to lose."

Biden doesn't just need to win, he needs to win big to avoid a major Constitutional crisis at best, and prolonged street violence -- cheered on by Trump -- at worst.

But as I've been saying, if we are looking at Civil War II scenarios, denying Merrick Garland a hearing was the proverbial shooting on Fort Sumter.

McConnell shot first.  Dems need to be certain to shoot last.  If Biden has to be dragged kicking and screaming to this realization, so be it.

Universal voting registration.  Statehood for D.C. and Puerto Rico.  Pack the court.

"truth must be spoken of as it is"

South Korea has a reputation for being a sexually conservative society, but it's also one where secret cameras in women's bathrooms are a rampant social problem, and the drugging and gang-raping of women in a nightclub leads to very little consequence for the (famous, wealthy) perpetrators.  So it's a shame that small steps towards balanced, comprehensive sex education have once again been shot down by the government:

"Contrary to parents’ belief that sex education will lead to their children having more sex, earlier, a survey on the aftereffects that CSE [comprehensive sexuality education] demonstrated on sexual behaviors revealed that 37 percent of 87 countries that were surveyed said its students had delayed initiation of sex after education, 31 percent said the frequency of sex was reduced and the use of condoms increased in 40 percent of the countries. 

 

Rather than lingering on the ministry’s already-made decision, Nam Yoon-jeong, the president of Think Sing Together who led the Nadaum project, hoped that this incident could be turned into an opportunity to talk about sex education and how sex is dealt with in Korea.

 

'Korea had been lacking proper sex education and any discussion on sex or human rights has been shut down whenever it began,' said Nam. 'We are exposed to sexual consumption and imagery everyday and everywhere, but an ironic stoic sentiment forbids us from talking about it publicly or officially. The ambivalent culture leads to children wondering about something they are exposed to, but getting twisted ideas of it because they’re not taught properly about what it is exactly. The truth must be spoken of as it is.'”

Nothing good can come of a hyper-sexualized society that can't talk openly and plainly about sex, contraception, homosexuality, sexual violence, and gender equality.  And if you click through for pictures, you'll notice that these so called "controversial" books are about as tame as can be.

Fall in Daegu

 

Sam Prekop, "Above Our Heads"

Can The Sea and Cake or any variation thereof do wrong?  I don't think so.

Summer can run a little long here in lurvely Daegu, but safe to say as of today there's that slight crispness in the air which means fall is almost here.

And I know I write this same post every year, but after the hellish blast furnace of Daegu summer there really is a slight smile on my face walking to work, and taking the extra-long way home and not turning into a ball of sweat.  I sleep with all my apartment windows wide open.

Soon enough the hills around northern Daegu will start browning, then yellowing and redding and oranging.

And I know I've said this before but this is probably my last fall in South Korea.  My dad needs full-time assistance now.  He can't drive.  He lives in the middle of nowhere.  His "girlfriend" is threatening to leave him.  (And that's probably for the best.)

So I'm going to try and appreciate every damn day I have left in Korea, until this February when my current contract finishes up.

And for what it's worth, winter isn't so bad here either.  But it ain't fall.

"This is about power."

I don't like the expression "Democrats going nuclear."  We didn't start the fire, broseph.  If Biden wins and we can take back the Senate this November there should be hell to pay.  (Likely perhaps, but not certain.)  Mitch McConnell has been wiping his ass with Senatorial norms for his entire career.  He's the one who pushed Dems into a corner.  If a moderate Merrick Garland was on the Supreme Court now, Republicans would still be in the enviable position of getting a fifth extremist right-winger onto the court.

Long story short, David Corn gets it -- "To Honor Ginsburg, Democrats Have One Choice: Go Nuclear":

"It will be bare-knuckles politics from the right. Do or die. By any means necessary. To replace Ginsburg with a young right-wing extremist. And for the Democrats to have a chance of thwarting them, they must realize that this fight is not only a matter of persuasion. They will not win by writing well-reasoned op-eds. Cable host tirades will be of little use. Panel discussions will be irrelevant. Clever ads highlighting GOP hypocrisy won’t do the trick. Angry editorials in the New York Times won’t help. Not even a freckin’ David Brooks column ('conservatives should realize they have an interest in preserving democratic norms!') will do them any good. Passionate speeches on the floor of the US Senate? Fuggedabout it.

This is about power."

Obama's greatest fault was believing that Republican politicians would ever deal with a black president in good faith.  Observing norms served him well as a rising politician, but they failed him as a president in a post-factual, post-policy era of Fox News.

Biden might well make the same mistake.  If things break right this November, it's our job to hold his feet to the fire and remind him that post-Trump nothing is sacred, and everything (for better or worse) is now possible.

And as I read recently on Twitter but can't find a cite for, Jon Stewart should apologize to a generation of middle-age liberals for convincing us that posting video clips highlighting the egregious hypocrisy and outright lies of Republicans was somehow a "win" for liberals, let alone anybody else in this damaged, teetering experiment in human freedom known as The United States.

Moving Seoul?

Seoul is a lovely capital city, as far as these things go, but there is a growing push to move it -- or at least its most important government functions -- 75 miles south:

"In a National Assembly speech on Monday, Rep. Kim Tae-nyeon, floor leader of the DP, proposed that the National Assembly, Blue House and key ministries in Seoul move to Sejong. He said the relocation would decentralize Seoul and nearby areas and curb skyrocketing housing prices in the overcrowded capital region.

According to a DP source, Kim floated the idea based on a survey conducted by the party last week. The DP conducted a poll on July 17 and 18, the source told the Joongang Ilbo.  

 'In our poll, 62 percent supported the idea, while 33 percent opposed. Five percent did not answer,' the source said. 'We concluded that public sentiment is different from 16 years ago.'  

 After he was briefed about the poll on Sunday morning, Kim decided to include the proposal in his National Assembly speech Monday.  

Building an administrative capital city in the Chungcheong region was a presidential campaign pledge by Roh Moo-hyun in 2002. He took office in 2003."

There's a lot of inside baseball going on here but the gist is this -- about half the population of the entire country is packed in and around Seoul and the surrounding area.  Residents in smaller cities, especially young folks, feel pressure to move to the capital in order to find the best jobs and educational opportunities.  Those smaller cities in turn feel abandoned, and complain they don't receive adequate development resources from the central government.

What the article doesn't mention is that Seoul remains within missile / artillery distance of North Korea, thereby ensuring it will never be the Asian finance hub that Hong Kong was and Singapore and Tokyo remain.

This Year Can't End Soon Enough. Also, Pack The Court.

I am so very eager to hear about how there's no difference between voting Trump or Biden now.

— Antifa #BLM James (@wetcasements) September 19, 2020

What Me Worry?

When the aliens finally land and take over they'll be most interested in figuring out how America, a nation based mostly on white supremacy and a whiny, burning sense of entitlement, ever got as far as it did:

"At least seven people have died in connection to a coronavirus outbreak that continues to sicken people in Maine following a wedding reception held over the summer that violated state virus guidelines, public health authorities said.

The August wedding reception at the Big Moose Inn in Millinocket is linked to more than 175 confirmed cases of the virus, the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday.

Maine authorities have identified overlaps between the wedding reception and outbreaks elsewhere in the state. An employee of the York County Jail attended the wedding, Maine CDC officials have said. Maine health officials have also said an outbreak at a Madison rehabilitation center, which is the site of six of the seven deaths, is connected to the wedding because an employee of the facility lives in the same household as a person who attended."

You get to a point where even Darwin would blush. 

That's The Spirit

 

Covid Squirrel says -- "Mask on!  Talking off!"

As seen on the classroom doors of my college, where some-but-not-all students have returned for classes.

"music is what I've got to give"

 

Toots & The Maytals, "Funky Kingston" live

R.I.P. Toots Hibbert, another great one lost to coronavirus in this hellscape of a year.

No Thank You

 

Electric scooters have made it to Daegu and I have some thoughts in this here Twitter thread.

(Note: None of the thoughts are positive thoughts.)

Food Fight

"Sin taxes" on booze and cigs are nothing new, but more countries (like Mexico) are expanding them to things like fatty snack foods:

"The Gulf coast state of Tabasco passed restrictions on the sale of sugary bottled drinks and high-carbohydrate snacks this week, less than two weeks after the southern state of Oaxaca became the first to do so. Legislators in several more states have introduced similar bills, all of which forbid merchants from selling 'junk' food to minors unless their parent or guardian is present and approves.

 

In the northern state of Chihuahua, Rep. Rene Frias introduced a bill 'to guarantee our children and youths a healthier diet and to fight obesity and excess weight.' The bill has not yet been voted on.

 

In Mexico City, the country's largest retail market, Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said earlier this month 'we are working with legislators to see if it is feasible to get similar legislation in Mexico City.'

 

Some of the measures also would ban vending machines from dispensing such foods and prohibit their sale in or near schools.

 

The issue has come to a head with the coronavirus pandemic with Mexico having the third highest confirmed Covid-19 death toll in the world, trailing only the United States and Brazil. The government revealed that among the 57,774 Mexicans who have died, high blood pressure and obesity were the chief underlying conditions that may have complicated the disease, with diabetes a close third."

South Korea might be doing better with regard to comorbidities than Central and South America, but obesity is a growing problem here.

(Advanced Conversation posts are ones that I use in class with my adult conversation students.)

American Exceptionalism Part 2,836

White people literally drowning to death in their expensive boats to support Trump is peak 2020.

Peak white people, really.

— Antifa #BLM James (@wetcasements) September 7, 2020