I Voted to Protect Those Who Apparently Didn't Need Protection

In a quick vomit, because my gorge rises at it, a few things about Election Day:

--I'll call them the Reality TV Voters: they apparently are so de-sensitized by bad behavior, like they see on reality TV (which was heavily controlled and scripted), that when it happens in actual reality, they don't care--or perhaps they don't notice the difference. This is exemplified by the fact that Hillary did not get the younger vote like Obama did. (Or not enough of them voted.) I also have to conclude that today's society simply doesn't care as much about decent behavior. I don't want to sound like that old guy, and certainly I'm no paragon of appropriate (or even good and decent) behavior, but then I'm not running for President, either.

--Also, obviously nobody cares about experience. Hillary's vast experience, as Secretary of State, as Senator, and tons of other things, worked against her. The voters wanted someone who literally has never held a political office of any kind. Not even as someone on a school committee or city council. Possibly for the first time in history, we have a President with absolutely zero political experience of any kind, not even on a neighborhood level.

--53% of all white women who voted did so for He-who-must-not-be-named. While this means that they frankly just didn't like her (which is Hillary's fault), it also means that, overall, voting American white women did not care that he sexually assaulted other American white women. This speaks volumes about our current stance towards women, sex, and men who sexually assault women. And the women who do not give a sh-t about it. We should not support those who oppress us.

--Hillary did not get the female vote. Not that women should automatically vote for a woman, but probably they should vote for any candidate who a) is a woman, AND who b) has not sexually assaulted women. Probably women should not vote for a man who not only sexually assaulted other women, but who also bragged about it. And who obviously assaulted many other women who have not come forward. And who has bragged about it when he was not being recorded doing so. It makes no sense to me that the oppressed and the suppressed support those who oppress and suppress them. Unless they believe that he really didn't do these things. If so, they better also believe that Bill Cosby also didn't do the same things. Which he clearly did. Is it possible that many of them believe that the black guy did these things but not the white guy? Or does Cosby not matter? What does matter?

--Apparently we were not ready for a female president, specifically this one. I conclude that angry bitter white men, who for the past 8 years have seen a) a black president; b) gay rights; c) gay marriage; d) transgender rights and e) free health care for the very poor, looked at a woman president and that's where they drew the line. (And so did the white bitter angry women married or related to them.) Okay to A through E, but a woman president? "F--k no!" they said, and voted that way.

--Let's not also forget to be angry at Hillary herself. Fact is, she ran a sh-tty campaign. Though I don't understand it, she did not carry the female vote, the black vote or the Latino vote. (Or, not enough of them voted overall.) I have to conclude that the majority of those three groups didn't vote at all, which is also strange, since they have the most to lose if she lost. It's like they didn't feel the need to protect themselves, like he didn't scare them enough that they felt they needed to vote against him. I, a middle-class white guy, felt I needed to vote against him in order to defend them, so the fact that they didn't feel the need to defend themselves strikes me as inexplicable. But while we blame them, let's also blame her, because she needed to court them and she didn't. She felt, I guess, that she automatically had them, because of how vile his behavior was towards them, and she was wrong. Her assumption, while understandable, is not forgivable in the political game. All she had to do was bury the media with TV ads of him saying these horrible things, especially from a clip of the tape (even if something needs to get beeped out), and constantly remind those three groups of what they had to lose, and she probably would've had them. Had she gotten the female vote and the minority vote, especially the Latino vote (or if more of them had voted overall), she would've carried Florida and Pennsylvania and she would've won. She didn't even try to do that. So she didn't win.

Fed-up, gun control, and two movies

Photo: A pile of confiscated guns in Kenya, soon to be set ablaze.  From Wikipedia's "gun control" page.  The caption with the photo is interesting:

"Pyre of smuggled weapons in Uhuru Gardens, Nairobi, Kenya. Original caption states, 'A cache of more than 5,000 smuggled guns ready to be set ablaze at Uhuru gardens (peace grounds) during the peace support effort between the warring countries surrunding kenya and the communities leaving on the porous boarders of Kenya. This was in an effort to bring peace and end killings in the Northern part of Kenya.'"

There's something very logical about burning confiscated guns (hopefully, with the bullets removed first).  After several hundreds of years of doing this, perhaps America could finally start controlling its guns.  
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It's been awhile; you know how the holidays are--busy, busy, busy.  I'm still going to get to the posts about the guys in office who've said impossible-to-believe things, but, first, a few quick hits:

--I hereby serve notice that I am done with people who shout first and think second--if at all.  Relative, friend, co-worker--doesn't matter.  Life is too short to deal with such people.  Done.  I do not use to jest, as Lord Capulet said.

--Another Pawn Stars pet-peeve moment, of a person with a very valuable item who sells it to Rick for a pittance because he was too lazy and/or impatient to sell the item at an auction (and in Vegas, there are tons of auction houses): a guy had some authentic George Washington inauguration coins and buttons, appraised by an expert, valued at $12,000 to $15,000.  The guy sells them to Rick for $3,000.  Even if Rick is right and auction houses take half of the net worth--which I doubt; I think it's more like 15% to 20%, not 50%, and it's probably negotiable in this lousy economy--then the guy still could have gotten $6,000 to $7,500.  And this guy said he didn't need the money desperately, too.

--Maybe now, after the slaughter of the innocents, we can have a bit of gun control?

--And universal health care, specifically for the unstable who need it most?

--I read an article yesterday that said that The Shining is one of Stephen King's least-read books.  Hard to believe.  And that he was so dissatisfied with Kubrick's movie that he wanted the 1997 tv movie to air to show Jack Toarrance's true character arc.

--I have a few hours of wet-vacuuming of my pool cover to do.  There's a small pond on it.

--You hate to speak ill of the dead, or to blame the victim, but if I'm a parent of a boy with a history of personality disorders and instability, I don't own an extensive gun collection, locked up or not.  I'm not being a Monday-morning quarterback here, either.  This really is common sense.

--The movie An American Haunting is The Crucible meets The Exorcist.  Who would've thought to put those together?  Great visuals, even if they defy logic.  The movie really isn't about any of those other movie's themes, of course.

--Just watched the movie Ghost Story, a 1981 film based on Peter Straub's great book.  (One of the best and scariest books ever, in my humble opinion.  Roger Ebert, who 99% of the time writes things I agree with, said he could barely read the book.  But it's nice to know a famous reviewer reads the book before he reviews the movie.)  Anyway, the movie completely ignores the fact that the woman is a Shapeshifter.  In the movie, she really is just a ghost.  But how to explain that the woman, before she was put in the car, had not had a pulse, yet had not been dead?  And that she'd had, ummm, physical union with men seventy years after she'd been put in the car?  She still looked good, too.)  Didn't know ghosts could do that.  And it's odd to see Fred Astaire and John Houseman in a horror movie.

--Nothing good can ever come out of what happened in Newtown, but finally the media gave us something positive about teachers.

Under-medicated and Overweight America, Take 2

I want to expound upon a point made below, a quick jibe at the pharmaceutical industry, which over-medicates those who can afford it (and often don't need it) and which under-medicates the poor, and/or those without healthcare benefits, by overcharging them.  I realize, again, that I am breaking my own rule about sticking to topics of literature and (my) writing, but this riles me enough so that I may write a novel someday soon that at least glances at this issue.  Plus, this blog is not a democracy.

I didn't mean to suggest in the post that it's the result of a stereotypical lazy-American, or passive-American, syndrome.  You'll find lazy people in any culture, and they don't all get overweight.  I don't have that Roman attitude--remember that Caesar wanted to be surrounded by overweight, bald people who slept well?  Anyway, I digress; I meant to imply that meds cost way too much ($53 for 30 pills?!?  For an acid reducer???  A glorified TUMS???)  And that candy (and alcohol) are too cheap and prevalent.  People can't get well if they can't afford to; people will consume what they can afford.  Keep in mind, too, that fast food places and liquor stores abound in the poorer places, and that the healthier the food, the more expensive it is.  WholeFoods, after all, does not have a dollar menu.

People will eat more the more depressed they are--and if they can't afford the meds they need, they will eat more candy, especially when candy's on sale, two for $1.  Though clearly not a health-food freak, I'm also not exactly slovenly, and when I saw that my 30 pills were $53 (and, I know, that's cheap compared to what many people pay for more important pills), I got gloomy enough to buy the on-sale candy, and race to submit the post.  And, lastly, there was no generic available for my med, which is important for me.  You'll find that the more important, or high-selling, the med, the less a chance you'll find a generic for it.  It took an expiration of the patent before even Claritin finally went in front of the counter.