US Election

In every election, someone wins and someone losses.  My choice "didn't win"...   So we will have President Trump (again), a Republican Senate, probably a Republican House, and a Republican Supreme Court.

I won't get into the politics involved.  I'm not here to start any political or social arguments (I do that elsewhere).  But I will say that I am  thoroughly depressed and worried.  There are likely to be some domestic and international consequences that many people are not going to like.

I will not be watching the political news channels much for a while.  I read The Washington Post newspaper while I eat lunch.  Just skimming the headlines of the various articles will tell me everything I need to know for a while...

There is plenty for me to do in the yard before Winter sets in, and plenty to do in the house after that.  I will post about that.

The Wildlife Is Vanishing

Yes, true worldwide, but I'm thinking of the local ones.  And specifically my yard.  

I keep a mostly organic yard (OK, I spray individual poison ivy plants).  But I do things to help the birds and bees and other stuff thrive.  Half my backyard is left semi-wild.  Lots of small trees for bird-nesting.  I have black oil sunflower seed in one feeder for most songbirds, 2 thistle seed feeders for the purple and gold finches, and 2 nectar feeders for the hummingbirds.

I have 5'x3'pond for frogs.  With plants and debris at the bottom to support aquatic insects.  I have butterfly bushes, pollinator plants, and plants that insect larvae can develop on.  

I used to see some possums and raccoons at night.  I used to hear thousands of Spring Peeper frogs in the swamp across the street in the Spring.

But that has been changing.  I noticed a few years ago that the Swamp was quiet; no Spring Peepers calling in the thousands.  I used to see deer in my front yard and the neighbors in snow prints and visually.  I used to see snow prints of other various critters.

When I moved here 37 years ago, there were no cardinals, finches, etc.  But when I set up feeders, I got up to 6 pairs of cardinals, a bunch of purple finches, a dozen goldfinches, and various smaller birds (titmice, wrens, woodpeckers, etc).  Sometimes, the sunflower seed feeder was mobbed by starlings (I did tend to chase them away as they would just empty the feeder in a few hours, leaving nothing for the other birds and the stuff is somewhat expensive).   I haven't seen it mobbed in a few years.

I think we are in trouble.  If my generally organic semi-wild yard can't support cardinals, finches, and other small birds with good food, something is going very wrong.  If there are no frogs in the pond, something is very wrong.  If the deer (those damned landscape-eaters) are becoming more rarely seen,  something is very wrong.  

My hummingbirds haven't come back this year.  I haven't seen a single butterfly.  I haven't seen a possum on the deck at night.  I haven't seen many bees (Honey or Bumble) and it has been warm enough for a month.  I haven't seen any hornets (not that I love them).  But still, that is not a good sign.

Something is going bad, and I think we are causing all this.  As Pogo said "We have met the enemy and it is us".  

 

New Computer

It arrived a couple days ago.  Need to set it up and migrate the old files to it.  Probably tonight but there is always something else to do.  I don't know about Windows, but Mac Time Machine saved on an external drive works well.

I can delay it a bit because (oddly annoyingly) the current one has stopped auto-restarting randomly and is not overheating after an hour.  It's like it knew it was being replaced...  Of course I don't give sentience to a machine, but it is acting as if it did.  Well, maybe some of the efforts I taken  the past month are actually working.

Still can't get the current one to leave comments on blogs with any regularity, though, so that is enough of a reason to set up the new one.  It's not like I don't try every few days, but constant failure gets discouraging.

I may be avoiding setting up the new one for fear of discovering it doesn't solve the problem.  If it doesn't, I will just scream!   And there is the thought that, if I don't open the box, it is returnable for 3 weeks.  I mention that because this "newest version (2020) has a dedicated Mac M1 chip and may require more app changes.

But if I want to continue with Mac, I probably have to.  A former co-worker just told me her office is going to Google software which (apparently) resides totally on The Cloud.  I don't trust Off-site file storage.  The security is probably better than on my desktop, but I am a WAY lesser target.  And if someone wants to see my photos, they are welcome to.  I keep no financial information or passwords on it.

The Night Before Election Day

A poem expressing my concerns the time before Election Day in the US... 

"Twas the Night of Election Day

As I paced through the house.

Would we get back to normal, the old voting way

Or would Donald steal it, the Cheating Old Louse?

 

I knew that the polls

On MSNBC

Had the Biden team goals

Being granted, you see.

 

But that's what I thought

In '16, when we "won"

But Hillary still lost what most of us sought

So I won't count my chickens until the last one.

 

Cuz Donald makes Tricky Dick

Seem like a nun

Saying he'd cheat the People with legal stuff sick

By saying the voting was over afore it half-done!

 

He said he would do it

Then said it was fake

And when shown the recording a bit

Said "Let them Eat Cake".

 

And spent 15 minutes

Defending you see,

What he claimed he had not said

To the cameras and we.

 

The businesses all boarded

Their windows today

In expectance of armed crazies with guns all aloaded

If Electoral College count drives Trump away.

 

They will say it is fake news

Conspiracy proven

The Deep State and Anti-Fa fears fanning their illusions

Of being the majority as the Biden's prepare move-in.

 

Or maybe tis I to weep who shall

Weep deep bitter tears

At the end of our laws and see autocrat gall

Replace freedom and voting for may yet years. 

 

Ben Franklin once said

When asked by the crowd,

If we had democracy, monarch, or dread

You have a Republic, defend it or be cowed.

 

Republics are fragile

Just ask the Old Greeks

Or the Romans who had some experience a while.

Nothing good lasts for long, go and vote or be weak.

 

So I pace the floor watching

The news of the day.

I think that the outcome will likely be fetching

But I won't be relaxed for many a day.

 

It takes time to count ballots

Mail-ins take some time.

And Trumpians are trying legal tricks quite lots.

But I think that when Electors meet, Biden gets the dime."

 

Elections Are Frustrating Here

I live in Maryland, USA, which is so overwhelmingly Democratic the past few decades that it almost doesn't matter whether I vote or not.   The State Electors will be voting for the Democratic Presidential Candidate even if half the Democrats didn't bother to vote.  And my own Congressional District has Congressman House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer representing it and he is so overwhelmingly popular that he isn't even challenged seriously. 
When I moved to this County, it was somewhat Republican  but new arrivals from nearby Washington DC changed that competely.
Can you tell from that who I support?  Not really.  I could be a happy Democrat or a frustrated Republican.  As it happens, I started out as a Republican (though a progressive one) in the 60's.  Just for info, non-conservative Republicans tended to be called "Progressives" and non-conservative Democrats were called "Liberals".  There wasn't much difference but Progressives were a bit more economically "middle". 
The Nixon political inversion (he made Democratic Dixiecrats" Republican) chased me away.  It was a close call back then.  Unions were TOO powerful but Dixiecrats were MORE too racist.
I don't actually indentify with "party", but I've been forced to vote Democratic since Nixon from lack of ethical choices.  I supported 3rd Party Candidate John Anderson in 1980, but it was so hopeless by Election Day, I didn't bother to stand in the 3 hour line to vote (voting has become much faster since then).
Yeh, I vote Democrat.  It hasn't even been any hard decision.  Bill Clinton was better than Bush I , Al Gore was better than Bush II, Obama was better than McCain (hard decision as McCain was always honorable and trustworthy) and Romney had that election-killing "47% speech".
I thought Hillary Clinton was a walk-in against Trump.  An experienced Senator and Secretary of State VS an inexperienced sexist racist buffoon.  Easy choice and I settled in front of the TV to watch the blowout. 
OMG!  Election night 2016 was a horror show.  I was so horrified that I considered leaving the US.  But I had so much stuff it really would have been a serious bother or else Canada or Australia might have had me (and my retirement pay).  But I hunkered down and waited for Trump to be impeached as any honest Congressmen and Senators should have done.  That didn't happen, but, well, the next election wasn't far away. 
I'm worried.  Trump has arranged government in ways that could get him re-elected.  Voter polls are being purged of legitimate voters, voting locations are being shut down in places where he knows he will lose.  Mail-in ballots are being contested before they are even cast.  The Post Office, a trusted institution created in our Constitution. is being slowed so that ballots will arrive late.  Some places are demanding that mail-in voters come to prove their identity.
I find some comfort that many lifelong Republican strategists and power-brokers are fighting Trump.  But I don't know if they are enough.  All Trump needs to do is report the actual election day votes to declare victory and cause a crisis.  His supporters tend to vote ON Election Day.  The mail-in ballots are counted after the day.  And some investigations suggest that mail-in ballots are routinely dismissed/trashed and not considered "real".
Further, Trump has recently suggested that his followers deliberately try to mess up the system by voting twice.  Once by mail and once on Election Day.  Never mind that voting twice, trying to vote twice, or even encouraging people to try to vote twice is a felony...  There seems to be nothing Trump won't try to stay in office.  And he has expressed a desire for "12 years".
When Benjamin Franklin emerged from the building in 1776, someone shouted out, “Doctor, what have we got? A republic or a monarchy?”  He replied “A republic, if you can keep it.”  It is sometimes debated, but he did say that in a letter to a friend though.
So the question is, can we keep a republic (because we are not actually, technically, not  a "democracy" if we were, then  Al Gore and Hillary Clinton would have been Presidents by legitimate popular vote) and can we keep it.  This election will decide that.
Vote as if your children's future will depend on it.  Because it will...
Trump wants to be Putin.  Biden wants to be a normal US President.  That's all there is to it.

A Political Thought

People have different political opinions.  I accept that.  I don't always agree with the majority but I try to understand varying points of view.  And political thought has been more divisive lately. 

I spend a part of my day watching political commentary, reading politics in the Washington Post newspaper, and thinking about news.

I majored in Government and Politics at the University of Maryland.  I am not active in politics, but I think about politics a lot.

Last night, as I lay in bed hoping for the sweet release of sleep, I found myself considering President Donald Trump.  I dislike him.  But that's not the important thing that came to mind.

As I laid in bed, an odd thought occurred to me.  What if some person managed to become President with the specific intent of ruining US American democracy internally and also set out to ruin our international trade/political alliances/reputation for helping others.

Well, that would be pretty horrible wouldn't it?  And then it occurred to me that such a person would be doing exactly what President Trump as been doing. 

Seriously, what would a person deliberately trying to ruin the US reputation overseas and domestically do that President Trump hasn't already done and is continuing to do?

I'm not going to list all sorts of things he has done.  There are sites that list them and are easily findable with a simple web search.  My concern is that I actually can't tell the difference between what President Trump has done and is doing and someone deliberately trying to ruin the US.

Am I the only person who has had this very uncomfortable thought?