Today in mounting anxieties:

Yeah, but without the electoral college,
Democrats would win just because they
get more votes, and how is that fair?

How...who are they even allowed to get away with...? Huh? Who? What? I'm glad I pretended you asked, I'm talking of course about the new paralyzing anxiety we now have in our lives: the dread that even if enough of us vote Biden/Harris to overcome the bullshit that is the electoral college, that it still won't be enough to overcome the blatant election fraud that is the President's appointed Post Master General removing mail boxes and sorting machines just before an election in which most Americans will be voting by mail.

"See? This is way easier on postal workers-
also, we're taking away their overtime."

-The USPS

According to a spokesperson, the USPS:

"...does routinely move equipment around its network as necessary to match changing mail and package volumes. Package volume is up, but mail volume continues to decline. Adapting our process infrastructure to the current volumes will ensure more efficient, cost effective operations and better service for our customers."

-Some spokesperson, 

assuming we're all idiots

Cool, so when there's less mail, they "routinely" dismantle and remove the sorting machines. You know, like moving a food truck to a different corner where there's more business. It's for us, the customer, and this whole "rigging the election" thing is just a big misunderstanding.

Pictured: one of those machines the USPS just routinely shuffles
around to be more efficient. I'm sure it folds. Probably has a handle.

"Gentleman, I propose that the Presidency go
to whosoever most expertly games the system."

-Some Founding Father

Oh, incidentally, the Postal service did send out letters warning states that ballots may not make it in on time, even if mailed by state deadline. Which, ok, hang on a sec, because I'm having trouble with-just...just to sum up, this means that they're saying to us:  due to the declining volume of mail, we're scaling back operations, but be advised, but to the impending increase in mail volume, expect not only delays in mail, but the re-election of the floundering incumbent who put a campaign donor in charge of the Postal Service.

"People who vote for Joe Biden just want
to destroy America, so what's the problem?"

-Some goon

Anyway, the USPS has magnanimously agreed to stop removing anymore machines and mailboxes until after Donald Trump is re-elected by the people whose ballots get counted, but they're not saying that they'll be putting back the ones they already took and in fact, a lot of those have been scrapped. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is calling Congress back in to session early to hold some votes on some legislation to try and fix this, so that's something, right? Right?

Oh, and they're also going to hold hearings and have called in Trump campaign donor, and because our system is broken, Postmaster General Louis De Joy to explain himself. I'm sure he'll help us get to the bottom of this.

So the fate of American Democracy hangs on a Trump appointee
not only showing up to a Congressional hearing but also truthfully
answering questions posed by Democrats? Holy shit, it's over isn't it?

What's uh...what's the plan here?

I guess if anyone knows fraud it's the
guy who founded Trump University.

"It'll be the greatest rigged election in history. It will be the greatest fraud ever perpetrated..."

-Donald Trump, on the 2020 election

And he's right, just not in the way that I think he thinks he is. He's referring here to mail-in voting which he is baselessly insisting is prone to fraud and the last thing anyone here wants is someone in the Oval Office who didn't win the popular vote, amiright? Because that would be disastrous.

Basically. 

Anyway, he went on:

"...other than perhaps what they did to my campaign, when they spied on my campaign President Obama, Biden and everybody else. And they got caught, let's see what happens."

-Trump, having some

kind of episode?

Nothing. Nothing will happen. Wanna know why?

As is often the case, the
original film was much better.

Because legally speaking, you can't prosecute people for things they did in a dream you had. I once had a dream where I went to see a remake of the 1986 sci-fi comedy Short Circuit. In this version Ellen DeGeneres played the Ally Sheedy role and instead of being a cute robot, Johnny-5 was a quantum computer made out of rope lights and peanut butter. No, really. And I bring this up to illustrate the twin points that dreams are weird and that you shouldn't tell people about them. 

"Yeah, well, poor people,
 so not like, nice homes."

-An impossible goon

Especially when you posses the nuclear codes. It puts people on edge. And we're already all on edge. We're like in month six of the pandemic, police are beating and teargassing people for protesting how police are beating and teargassing people and this impossible goon is behind in the polls so he's holding up relief funds because they come attached to money for the post office so that people don't have to risk catching COVID just to vote him out of office. Yeah, people may loose their homes because this guy wants to steal an election.

I guess what I'm getting at here is what is the Administration's end game? Like, we're a country that has riots when our home team wins a Super Bowl and that's when we're not all one Netflix outage away from pitchforks and torches. Does he honestly think that if on Election Day we find that millions of our mail-in ballots just don't get counted that we're going to be cool with another four years of angry tweets and rambling press conferences about how Obama secretly reads his diary or whatever? Because we won't be.

Sure hope that bunker is comfortable.

Well, it's probably for the best then...

Above: a franchise. 

Remember when we talked about how there were not one but three Star Trek movies kicking around? You don't? Well, we did and there were. And a fourth one being pitched, because why not? But it doesn't matter because they're all on hold. Evidently Paramount, the studio that owns the movie rights to Star Trek, has decided to take a breath and try and not run this in to the ground like a certain other space based franchise. And again, I totally hate the term franchise, but it's the word I guess so...

Anyway, since being put on hold, some details about what these takes on the series would have been like have come out. It turns out that the Noah Hawley one was going to be about a space-pandemic that wreaks havoc throughout the galaxy and I guess Paramount decided that that would be just a little too close to home right now.

"We don't have to wear masks because we're smart."

-Some Pakleds

"Yeah mobsters who say "fuck" a lot."

-Quentin Tarantino

So that makes sense, but what doesn't make sense is why Quinten Tarantino's version-yeah, it still sounds weird to talk about Quinten Tarantino's Star Trek movie. Anyway, because he's Quinten Tarantino, his movie was going to be about mobsters. No, really. It was going to be a follow-up to an episode of the original series called "A Piece of the Action" in which the Enterprise encounters an entire planet run by the mob. Like honest to God, Al Capone, nyah, see?, mobsters. Fedoras, suits, Tommy guns, all the tropes.

"Captain, this is preposterous. Even for
us, and I'm a half-alien that can read minds."

-Spock, not buying it

The premise was that a previous starship crew left behind a book about 1920's gangs and the native Sigma Iotians basically made it their bible. It apparently contained everything they needed to pattern their entire civilization after the mob which is weird because why did someone take a coffee table book full of instructions on how to build the afore mentioned fedoras and Tommy guns into space with them in the first place? Anyway, I'm a fan and all, but 1960's Star Trek could get pretty preposterous and I just don't see how space mobsters, even in-or maybe definitely in-the hands of Quentin Tarantino could be anything but a disaster.

And look, I'm not saying Star Trek hasn't had ridiculous moments. In fact, in the most recent film, Star Trek Beyond, Chris Pine defeated the Idris Elba with the power of the Sabotage by The Beastie Boys. But this would have been an ultra-violent take on one of Star Trek's dumbest episodes and given recent events, haven't we been through enough?

What I am saying is that rock monsters once made Kirk and Spock team up
with Abraham Lincoln and Vulcan Jesus to have a fist fight with Genghis Kahn
and Kahless the Unforgettable. Like, how was that not Tarantino's movie?

You could say it's gone viral.

But please don't because that's dumb and we're better than that (although I'm clearly not). But hey, you know who's a goddamn hero? Hanna Watters, a sophomore at North Paulding High School in Dallas, Georgia. You know why? Because this:

Pictured: like one, maybe two kids wearing masks. Although weirdly they probably
had to walk through metal detectors and have their bags searched. Because America.

"Whatta scoop!"

-Watters (I hope) 

She captioned her now viral (sorry) photo with:

"Day two at North Paulding High School. It is just as bad. We were stopped because it was jammed. We are close enough to the point where I got pushed multiple [sic] go to second block. This is not ok. Not to mention the 10% mask rate"

-Hanna Watters, teen reporter

(I'm not being sarcastic, I

am 100% pro-muckraker)

Well, they insist it's a punishment, but
out of school is where the virus isn't so...

Watters, and at least one other student posted photos like this online showing students at their high school packed into a hallway exercising their State of Georgia-guaranteed right (we'll get to that) to recklessly endanger their lives and those of others by not wearing masks. But weirdly, instead of immediately shutting the school down and throwing Watters a socially-distanced ceremony where they give her the keys to the city and a Zoom-parade or whatever, the school suspended gave her a five-day out-of-school suspension.

Now if every student in America could
just violate school policy we'd be good.

Technically she was violating school policy. Policies in fact. At North Paulding, and I would imagine most schools, students are prohibited from using their phones without permission from the administration and from posting picture of minors without consent. And that's a good, perfectly reasonable policy. But. But we're in the middle of a national crisis made exponentially worse by inept leadership and the insane decision to pack school kids into enclosed spaces and not insist they take even the simplest of precautions against a highly contagious disease that totally kills people.

Otott, seen here taking the "super"
out of superintendent. Burn. 

The district superintendent, Brian Otott, released a letter to parents saying:

"There is no question that the photo does not look good. I can understand if your first reaction was one of concern...Some individuals on social media are taking this photo and using it without context to criticize our school reopening efforts. Under the COVID-19 protocols we have adopted, class changes that look like this may happen, especially at a high school with more than 2,000 students."

-Superintendant Brian Otott, making 

the case that: hey, whatta ya gonna do?

Above: a graver offense then
spreading a pandemic. Evidently.

But aside from his passive voice instance that gross incompetence just sort of happens sometimes, the worst part is that he's backed up by the state's policy regarding masks:

"Wearing a mask is a personal choice and there is no practical way to enforce a mandate to wear them. What we will do is continue to strongly encourage all students and staff to wear masks."

-Brian Otott, a man inexplicably put 

in charge of the education of children

Really? There's no practice way? To be clear, there are school policies that prohibit students from using their phones for social media during school hours and from posting pictures of fellow students online. And again, these are good, sensible policies. Policies backed up by the threat of suspension. But when there's an out-of-control, highly contagious respiratory illness that spreads like wildfire in enclosed spaces like, say a crowded school, wearing a mask is a personal choice and Hanna Watters gets a five day suspension.

Hey, I'm not an educator, but what if they told students
that they have to wear masks? And then maybe suspend the
students who refuse? You know, like a policy or something? 

Today in things you shouldn't gargle:

I guess it's kind of...well, comforting isn't the word, but is there a word or a phrase that captures the feeling you get when you see elected officials in other countries displaying even a fraction of the idiocy so many of our own so readily embrace? No? Not even in German?

"Nien, but then we believed the scientists
when they said to take the pandemic seriously."

-Some German stereotype

Yeah, that red-ish stuff they smear on
people before they go into surgery. 

Because this. Not going to click? Fine. It's about how the Governor Hirofumi Yoshimura of Osaka Prefecture in Japan told everybody that if COVID-19 patients gargle with povidone-iodine, it will prevent them from getting the most serious symptoms. The Governor was citing some study done in Osaka that said it would mitigate the-huh? No it won't, of course it won't. How do I know? Well, like everyone who's not a doctor, I'm not a doctor, but doctors both in Japan and from the World Health Organization agree that this is nonsense. Even Governor Yoshimura agrees. Which...

Pictured: Tuesday Yoshimura, seen here
saying several words about how his magic
iodine gargle has a preventative effect. 

Yeah, on Tuesday, Yoshimura talked up the health benefits of gargling povidone-iodine. But then everyone started clearing out the drugstore of the stuff and doctors pointed out how preposterous the claim was, so on Wednesday Yoshimura said:

"I never said a single word about it having a preventative effect..."

-Wednesday Yoshimura

And yeah, ok, he didn't use the phrase "preventative effect" but he did say that it's better than gargling with nothing and I'm not sure it is. I mean, that stuff can't possibly taste good, and since it doesn't goddamn do anything, I'd suggest that it is better than gargling with nothing.

Incidentally, how does one gargle with nothing?

"So maybe stop talking?"

-Doctors everywhere

Also, despite what he claimed on Wednesday, and his not at all being a doctor, he totally did say:

"I even think that gargling with povidone-iodine could defeat the Coronavirus. But it's still in the research phase and we can't say anything definitive. "

-Governor Yoshimura, saying

something definitive

So in many ways Governor Yoshimura
should, I don't know, shut the hell up?

Oh, and my claim back there about his not being a doctor? I felt bad about just saying that without evidence, so I looked him up. Indeed he has no medical training, but I also learned that he canceled Osaka's Sister City relationship with San Francisco because the Pan-Asian Alliance put up a statue honoring the thousands of women Imperial Japan's military used as sex slaves during World War II. Yoshimura insisted that the statue "present[s] uncertain claims and one-sided claims as historical facts." Super.

So I guess we're not the only country where officials make wild and unsubstantiated claims which, when called out on, they insist that they never made and then they accept no responsibility for the havoc they caused. Nor are we the only one with nationalist goons trying to other side history's most shameful moments. You know, in some ways I wonder if the biggest problem right now isn't a virus, but rather shitheels holding high office.

In Japan these shitheels lead to a rush on povidone-iodine.
Here we end up with a death toll in the hundreds of thousands.

You can't just sue America great again...

Oh this isn't going to be pleasant. What specifically? You may ask? I mean, yeah, there is a lot to choose from, but I'm referring specifically to the President's rabid foam railing against mail-in voting and his obvious softening the ground for himself to challenge the results of November's election. Assuming the election even happens in November. Or ever again.

"Here's your ballot, please indicate on a scale of 'Great' to
'So Great you can't even believe', how great President Trump is."

-Our increasingly likely future

"What? You expect us to win
elections based on our merits?"

-Mitch McConnell, 

without irony

Lawmakers in Nevada passed a bill on Sunday that would require every voter in the state to be sent a mail-in ballot in times of crisis, like say, when there's a super-contagious and deadly respiratory virus floating around coupled with an aggressive form of Presidential incompetence that makes everything like a hundred times worse than it needs to be. The vote was unsurprisingly along party lines since Republicans just openly acknowledge now that when more Americans are able to vote they loose. You know, you'd think they'd take the hint, but here we are.

The President's argument, that he's been making forever despite never providing a hint of a whiff of a shred of evidence, is that mail-in ballots would compromise the integrity of the vote. Which...sure, but since since baseless arguments are apparently not working, why not sue?

Cool, he knows what a coup is, right?

Above: The Republican Party reacting to
the suggestion they they might actually
have to stop being so awful all the time.

So couple of things. It was a vote, not a coup. Also, it was a vote by lawmakers who won their respective popular votes. Um, it's not impossible for Republicans to win, they just have to persuade voters instead of relying on gerrymandering and voter suppression. And I can't speak to the Post Office's ability to handle more mail, but they'd probably have an easier time of it if Republicans weren't trying so hard to dismantle it. And as far as COVID goes, the fact that it's still a massive problem is kind of his fault so...

Oh, and I almost forgot. He's right about one thing: we will be seeing him in court someday. I just like to think that it's not going to be in the context he thinks it will be.

I know it's just the fantasy of a bleeding heart liberal reaching the end of his
wits when it comes to watching America be dragged down in a seemingly endless
spiral of nationalism and self-destruction, but it's all that's keeping me going.

Wait, we're rooting for Megatron now?

Remember how I just said like, two days ago that I don't review things on my blog because and I quote: "who cares what I think?" Well, I stand by that. because for real, who cares what I think? That said, I watched the new Transformers cartoon and I have opinions about it that I'm going to share with you now. Just understand that this isn't me saying that you should or should not watch this thing, it's just me-a grown ass adult-having feelings about a cartoon about toys from over three decades ago.

And what's the internet if not a forum for adults to opine about
nostalgia-drenched re-imaginings of childhood cartoons?

No, really, the weeds. So if that's not
your cuppa, maybe bail out now.

Ok, where to begin? First of all, you might not know this about me, but Transformers is one of my areas of nerdery. I'm not as well-versed as say I am when it comes to Star Trek or video games, but I'm conversant. Which is why I-again, a fully grown human-spent nearly three hours of my life watching the overly be-coloned: Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy: Part One: Siege. And just, just brace yourself, because this is going to get into the nerd weeds and for that I want to apologize in advance...still there? Super.

Above: Micheal Bay's Transformers.
Or possibly what would happen if Monster
Energy drink was a Rorschach test. 

For those unfamiliar, and I'll assume that's most functioning adults, I offer some background. Transformers, like as-ugh, sorry, I hate this term, but as a franchise, has been re-booted like a dozen times meaning that most pieces of Transformers fiction exist in separate continuities from one another. TWFCTP1 (acronym!) is no different. It's a reboot/reimagining/prequel loosely based on, but set in a distinct narrative universe from, more well known versions like the 1984 cartoon, Generation 1 (G1) or the Micheal Bay series of movies (objective garbage).

So while the basic story elements and characterizations are the same as G1: Autobots are good, Decepticons are bad, and Starscream is a screechy-voiced sycophant who openly plots to overthrow the Deception leader Megatron, TWFCTP1 tries to tell a more darker, more nuanced, story. One about class war, loyalty, and genocide. No really.

Oh, and it's also trying to sell toys to adults who
will never take them out of their packaging.

"Pichew...pichew...take that Megatron,
 for, uh, trying to resist oppression..."

-Some kids playing with toys

Previously the conflict was based on Megatron's wanting to conquer the Transformers' home planet of Cybertron because, you know, evil, and the heroic Optimus Prime has to stop him because freedom. And that's all still there, except now we learn that the Decepticons were originally built as some kind of worker caste to serve the elite Autobots. After thousands of astro-cycles (yup) of slavery and being forced to fight to the death in gladiatorial games for the amusement of the Autobots, Megatron and the Decepticons rebel. Which, yeah, who wouldn't?

On Cybertron, controversy surrounds
the many statues celebrating the heroes
of the War of Decepticon Aggression. 

It's not the first time Transformers has gone dark. Transformers: The Movie, the animated one from 1986, aimed for a PG rating by throwing in a couple swears and gruesomely killing off most of your action figures including most famously (spoiler alert for a thirty-four year old movie) Optimus Prime. I was just a dumb kid back during the height of Transformers' popularity and don't recall the reasons for the conflict ever getting a lot of detail in G1. But with the Decepticons cast as genocidal fascists and the Autobots as allegorical stand-ins for southern white slave holders, I'm not sure who to root for here.

Of course, this series isn't really aimed at children, but instead at adults who fondly remember the 1980's cartoon and toys. But instead of capturing the tone of G1, it instead opts for something a little more-ok, a lot more, heavy and I suppose my biggest criticism would be that it takes itself too seriously for a cartoon about alien robots that turn into cars.

Pictured: That episode of Transformers where Powerglide goes
on a date with a human woman and rides a Merry-go-round.
Also, did I mention his name is Powerglide? Because it is.

See? I told you we'd
be getting into the weeds.

And not just too seriously in tone, but also in the visuals. I think in an effort to accurately portray the toyline, the character designs are hyper-accurate and everyone comes off as a little to boxy and, well, robotic. Which, I know, but it seems like they could have fudged it a little to give these things more range and emotion. For example, Optimus Prime has this face plate instead of a mouth and on the old cartoon it moved when he spoke, but it doesn't here. It's a small thing, but taking it away kind of robs the character of personality.

Including Moonracer, apparently one
of only three female Transformers on
all of Cybertron so, way to go Prime...

The personality of a robot who is also a toy, but still. And that's probably my second criticism, that some of the characterizations feel a bit off. As a reboot, it's not really setting out to re-create the original characters exactly, but some things are just weird. Like seeing Megatron fighting to free Decepticons from the oppression of the ruling elite. Or Optimums Prime being bad at his job; lurching from disastrous plan to disastrous plan and getting a couple of Autobots killed in the process. But that's just one nerd complaining that the new show isn't exactly like the old show-which again, isn't its job.

On the other hand, the people this is made for are the same people who probably tear up when they hear Stan Bush's You've got the touch. So I guess I feel like this shameless three-hour piece of fan-service only kind of hit the mark. It aimed to give fans of a certain age a deeper, more complex version of the fiction that was also closer to the incarnation they remember than say the live-action movies, but instead maybe went a little too far down the path of grim dark social allegory and forgot to be, you know, fun.

If you're not tearing up at this, you're not human.
Or you're over forty-five or under thirty five. Either way.