Category: ranting

Once again, for my birthday, I’m going to look back at the past year briefly. I don’t like to dwell on the past but it’s good to take stock as I celebrate another revolution around the sun.

The best of the year was both my daughters passed their big tests. Olivia passed the PLSE with results she was happy with and got accepted to the secondary school that was her first choice. And Victoria did well on her O-Levels, more than good enough to apply directly to a foundation year program she wants. Congratulations to them, they did well and made it through a stressful year (for them as well as for my wife and I!)

I also visited America for the first time since 2017. I went home for a simple ceremony to bury the ashes of my maternal grandparents. It was the first time I have been home, to Charlottesville, since my dad died in 2017. And the first time I’ve been to Pipestone, where my mom grew up, since 2014. I saw a lot of people, family, I have not seen in years —several decades in some cases. My family is very spread out with people living or working in the far corners of the US —Minnesota, Oregon, Arizona, Virginia, even Alaska. And I don’t know if any are there these days but for a while there were some in Europe, both the eastern and western parts.

On the way I also got to see two old friends in New York. I had planned to see A█████, which was great. We met up in the city and caught up on each other’s lives after a long time. It was great to reconnect with someone I haven’t really spoken with in years. Then I had the most random encounter. While I was sitting in the café of the TWA Hotel [twahotel.com] at JFK, someone came over and said “hello”. I wasn’t paying attention, reading a book so I didn’t notice until they said something. It was M███! Of course! It could only be M███ (see here [confusion.cc]). She just so happened to be in the TWA Hotel as a friend was flying through and had a long layover (the result of M███’s years as a flight attendant). M███ was waiting on the café to brew a new pot of coffee and only saw me because she was waiting around, had there been a fresh pot she would have never seen me. The last time I saw M███ was in like 2013. We spent a few hours chatting before she head to head out and I needed to get ready for my flight.

Anyway, I will put up a proper post of my trip to the US once I get a chance to clean up the photos I took. Nothing much but a good excuse for some photos and a post.

I’m not going to talk about the alarming (in my opinion) shift to the right wing on global politics. I’ve said enough what I think of right wing populism and its evils focusing on the US election (here [confusion.cc], here [confusion.cc], here [confusion.cc], here [confusion.cc] – and even in a timely book review here [confusion.cc]) and more post over the last year that are at least, tangentially, political. It is what it is. Four more years of Trump as president. I hope the world survives.

What else?

I read a lot more last year than I have been. I worked at incorporating a daily 30 minutes or so, many more than I review on Confusion. Let’s see, in 2024 I read:

• Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, by Edger Allan Poe (it’s a long book, over 1000 pages I started it in mid/late 2023!)
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by J. R. R. Tolkien
• A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay
• Gene Mapper by Taiyo Fujii
• The Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
• The Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler
• An Instance of the FingerPost by Iain Pears
• Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer
• Seven Surrenders by Ada Palmer
• The Will to Battle by Ada Palmer
• Perhaps the Stars by Ada Palmer
• The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
• The White People and Other Weird Stories by Arthur Machen
• Absolution: A Southern Reach Novel by Jeff VanderMeer
• Colorless Tsukuru Tanzanian and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami

I also too the time to play some video games. I spend several hundred hours exploring The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and I replayed Hollow Knight getting past 100% (it’s a thing, it goes to 112%).

And of course, as usual, I took an end-of-year holiday. Back to Japan this year to Kyoto and Osaka. I’ll get around to that. Sometime.

Ok this post is long enough. That’s a decent summary of my 2024, focusing on good things. The world might be a dumpster fire but I’m not doing too bad.

So, it’s Election Day, and the polls will open in a few hours. The greatest show on earth once again comes to an end. Like a lot of Americas I already voted —weeks ago— as I need to mail it in and it needs to arrive on time(I have no trust in Singpost… in the past I could fax in my ballot so I didn’t have to rely on them, but that option is no longer there for me…).

I heard someone on the BBC a while ago say something I though summed up the choice:

Trump is asking for the loyalty of the voters. Harris is promising loyalty to the voters.

Overheard on the BCC

And even if I disagree with some of the Harris policies, I think that that loyalty to the voters and to the institution of democracy is the most important thing on the ballot.

Whatever the vote count is tonight, whoever is declared the winner tonight or in the coming days, or weeks, we are fucked. If he wins then we are fucked by his “authoritarian tendencies” and the christo-fascism of the MAGA faithful and those who surround him. If he loses we are fucked by his big lie and the mess MAGA will no doubt make of their conspiracy theories for weeks… or months.

I wore my election pin today:

In last week’s post on the election [confusion.cc] I mentioned how close Trump is to winning made me feel like I am on that boat with Willy Wonka… IFKYK. So. I looked up the “lyrics” (yea apparently it’s considered a song, called Wondrous Boat Ride) to the ride, you can see them here [lyricsondemand.com], and I came up with my own parody for the election:

To the voting booth and home again
That's the democratic way
Faster faster, faster faster

There's no earthly way of knowing
Which direction this election's going
There's no knowing how swing states are voting
Based on what the polling is showing

Is it red, is it blue
Is a landslide a-coming

No sign of advantage is showing
So the uncertainty keeps on growing
Are the fires of fascism a-glowing
Is the grisly reaper mowing

Yes, the uncertainty must be growing
For the pollsters keep on polling
And they're certainly not showing
Any signs that they are knowing

With a few weeks to go until Election Day the race is close. Very close. In fact it’s been getting closer, according to 538 [fivethrityeight.com] for weeks and their most recent update actually puts Trump ahead for the first time in months:

I have the same feeling I had eight years ago [confusion.cc] sitting in Australia watching the New York Times needle shifting more and more into confirming Trump’s win. I feel like one of the passengers on Wonka’s boat ride… a feeling of “it can’t be real, but…”. I can’t believe that half of America can vote for Trump, again. I get not liking Democrat’s policies or preferring the traditional Republican policies of low taxes and small government. But I can’t understand how anyone with any appreciation for democracy, government or history can consider voting for Trump, want MAGA… again.

The narcissism, bigotry, toxic nationalism of Trump get’s more and more like some B-movie plot showing how the world walks, once again into the all the stupidity that led us to World War II, and all it’s horrors. The rise of protectionism and begger-thy-neighbor trade policy that Trump espouses with his across the board tariffs, something he began in his first term and has been more or less continued by Biden, the normalization of outright bigotry, racism and the ethno- or religious nationalism that goes with it. It’s not just the US… there are literal Nazis winning elections in Germany, and neo-fascist in Italy, to say nothing of racial riots in the UK. Not to mention the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.

It’s so depressing.

I said, after the first debate that I would still vote for Biden even if he was mentally questionable, because Trump has proved to me over-and-over, every time he opens his mouth or his sycophants start talking about their plans that he is more unfit to govern then a dementia addled Biden would be. Luckily Biden stepped aside. For good-or-bad Harris quickly consolidated the nomination. I would have liked to hear for others but c’est la vie. I’ve been impressed with Harris in the interviews and in the debate. Too vague on policy but four more years of Biden’s policies would be better than anything I can grasp for a MAGA policy, be it Trumpian nepotistic self-enrichment, narcissistic reality-TV foreign policy or the horror show that is Project 2025…

I was ashamed eight years ago, but even more so this time that the race is even so close, that anyone can genuinely what a second term for Trump is mind boggling.

I got my ballot the other day, I need to send it off ASAP to get their on time. The thing I wanted to point out, when I got it, something that most non-American’s I have talked never understand is it’s actually not just Harris or Trump, Democrat or Republican on my ballot. Even with RFK Jr. dropping out my ballot still has six options, as well as the write-in option this year:

We all know that the Greens, Libertarians, and the independents have no chance of winning even a single state. But they do have an impact, people do vote for them. The number of people who voted for parties other than the Democrats and Republicans was over 5% in 2016. And while I read that it would not have made a difference in the electoral college had they not been on the ballot I can’t help but feel they should take note of how the French center and left wing parties played the recent election there. Even half a percent of votes in the swing states could swing the election. It takes a certain kind of hubris to run for president, it’s amazing that Biden bowed out in the end, I wish the non-mainstream parties would have done the same.