Blackmoor Vituperative

Tonight’s Cult Movie Night was “Interview With The Vampire” (1994) and “Queen Of The Damned” (2002). “Interview” is definitely the better film, but the cast in both is really quite good. And Aaliyah was just pure magic in “Queen”. She steals the movie, even though she only has a few scenes.

I have been making a sincere effort, for the past few months, to focus on the positive. To “promote what I love instead of bashing what I hate“. To find joy in my gardens and the view from my living room windows, rather than focusing on… well let’s just leave it at that.

sigh

To not fantasize daily about moving to a more pleasant land, and instead gaze upon the grace and beauty and (increasingly) the potential of my birthplace.

Instead, day after day, I am exposed to evil, and evil, and evil, and evil…

Not merely a difference of opinion, but genuine evil: the desire to harm others, and the power to do that harm. That is what we-the-people of the United States have put into power, and what we seem intent on keeping there.

Venal. Ignorant. Malicious. This is the United States of America in the 21st century.

We the people elected an overtly corrupt, vulgar narcissist and habitual liar to the highest office of the land. This was not an isolated incident: we have been filling the upper levels of government with people like this for decades. Trump is not the disease: he is just the most visible symptom — the ugly rash that we complain about while our brain and internal organs are being eaten away by syphilis. A large portion of the United States has exactly the government they want.

Trump may stay or go: it truly doesn’t matter. The real problem is the people who elected him, and who will continue to vote for Republicans after he is gone (and that we even need to quibble over whether they are the technical majority is a sign of just how serious this problem is).

I do not have a solution, other than fleeing. But my wife won’t leave as long as our parents are alive.

Twitter is the very worst of humanity, delivered 140 characters at a time. It is the untreated sewage of the Internet.

I have been saying for some years now that the United States does not have a “left” and “right” — we do not have “liberals” and “conservatives”. Not in our major political parties, anyway. What we have is “conservative” (the Democrats) and “batshit crazy” (the Republicans).

It was not always like this. But the Democrats and Republicans of 2017 are not the Democrats and Republicans of 100 years ago, 50 years ago, or even 20 years ago. The Democrats have become the Republicans, and the Republicans have become something out of a Monty Python skit.

It will get worse before it gets better.

Observation: “mansplaining” is the early 21st century version of “hysteria” — with a single one-word accusation, you can devalue someone’s humanity, experience, and point of view, based on nothing more than pointing out their gender.

Of course, as usual, men have it better. No one is going to be involuntarily committed due to a diagnosis of “chronic mansplaining”.

That’s progress, I suppose.