Talking to Myself in Public |
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Happy Star Wars Day. Season 2 of Andor is something worth celebrating, unless you're a right-winger who hasn't figured out yet that the bad guys are based on you because thinking isn't one of your strengths, like this demented jackass who's too pathetic to be real.  Palpatine was based on Richard Nixon, so the red lightsaber checks out. I watched Revenge of the Sith in the theater for its 20th anniversary re-release. It had a cool intro by Hayden Christensen, enjoying his new popularity after years of hate. He said, "This is where the fun begins." I was like, "He said the thing!" When I first watched it almost twenty years ago, of course it hit differently. For one thing, I thought it would be the last Star Wars movie ever. For another, I had no idea that it was heavily inspired by the then-current Bush administration's executive overreach and crackdown on civil liberties. Darth Vader literally paraphrases Bush at one point, and morons still think the Sith are Democrats and complain about Mark Hamill "turning to the dark side" when he speaks out against fascism. And now we have another Republican president who simultaneously builds on Bush's legacy and makes him look a lot better. We are in one of the darkest periods of American history. I would consider it second only to the Civil War. But this movie franchise reminds us that there's still hope. Rebellions are built on hope. Though the orange taint is clearly a net negative for the world, there are silver linings. His phenomenal unpopularity has sunk the right-wing parties in Canada and Australia, which were poised to win their respective elections by substantial margins before he decided to piss everyone off for no reason. You're welcome. Being surrounded by people with the critical thinking skills of sea cucumbers has baffled me almost as much as it's sapped my will to live. This video shed some light on that phenomenon for me. My only gripe is that he tried too hard to make this politically neutral, saying, "And here's the thing, it's bipartisan. Both sides of the aisle have their own brands of boneheadedness. One side thinks we can shoot hurricanes and the other thinks banning plastic straws will save the whales even though they just flew into the rally in a private jet." The average left-winger doesn't have a private jet, but the average right-winger believes climate change is a hoax and consistently supports policies that harm the environment. Yes, left-wingers can also be idiots, but the dumbing down of the United States is central to the right-wing agenda. Left-wingers don't call educated people "elitists," don't complain about fact-checking, don't want to defund the Department of Education or make student loans unaffordable, and, most significantly, have nothing close to an equivalent of Donald Trump or his cult. It's not a coincidence that educated people overwhelmingly lean left, and it's not because their Marxist professors brainwashed them either. Other than glossing over that reality, this is a good video.
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Pope Francis coincidentally died the day after a meeting with the anti-Christ's vice president. Trump was upset that the funeral wasn't about him, and so was everyone else. The late Pope was one of the earliest cracks in my Mormon testimony because I found him far more inspiring than my "prophet," Thomas S. Monson. I was not very impressed with Monson's stories and platitudes. I think Francis revolutionized the culture of Catholicism in positive ways, if not the actual teachings, but I'm no expert on that. I have one hardcore Catholic Facebook friend. I added him years ago because he said he was trying to build bridges between Catholics and Mormons. It turned out he actually was trying to convert Mormons, so that was kind of a dick move. Anyway, I sometimes see him expressing strong opinions about points of Catholic liturgy or doctrine that I'm quite certain have as much eternal significance as whether Spider-Man could beat Superman, and it's weird, but I'm sure I sounded similar when I talked about Mormon theology that can be directly traced to a nineteenth-century treasure hunter plagiarizing other people's ideas. I was a little more affected to learn of the death of Deserae Turner-Buck. I talked to her only briefly when I met her in a Mormon Institute of Religion class almost four years ago, but she was semi-famous for surviving attempted murder via gunshot to the head. She had health problems and a reduced life expectancy, but she wasn't supposed to die at age 22. She had stomach cancer and a lung infection. I have no idea whether those can somehow be traced to getting shot in the head or are just incredibly unlucky coincidences. In her final interview, she said she was tired, had chosen not to fight, and wanted to let her body go. "Death is scary, not gonna lie. Everybody is scared of death, and... yes, I guess I am scared a little bit, but I also just want it to come quick, come for me and be done." Damn. Something I wrote about her in my recent book, Goodbye Mormonism, Hello World, has now been resolved: [S]he said apostle Ronald A. Rasband had given her a blessing and promised that someday she would regain the use of her left arm. Sometime after I left the LDS Church, I remembered that and realized with horror that she probably never will regain the use of her left arm, and she might well lie on her deathbed wondering what she did to disqualify herself from that promised blessing. Maybe she’ll rationalize that Rasband was talking about the next life, where complete healing was already a given, rendering the blessing superfluous." That, I'm sure, is how any still believing Mormons who know about this blessing will rationalize its lack of results. If you think that sounds like a really lame copout, you are so right.
My dog, Milo, died over eight years ago. I wish I could have been with him at the time. On Tuesday morning I had a dream about him. I believe this dream was influenced by the spiritual things I study and by getting the best high of my life on an empty stomach on Sunday evening, so its real world significance is up for debate. I'd like to think his consciousness was literally visiting mine, but I won't know anytime soon. Basically, in the dream, I realized that Milo wasn't dead, he was right here. We were on beautiful forested hills above a lake. I stayed pretty stationary while he romped all over the place and peed on things. Some other guy (whom I want to believe was some kind of spirit guide) was there with a rabbit. I couldn't describe the guy if my life depended on it, but the rabbit was big and shaggy and the same colors as Milo (brown and black). I kept expecting Milo to chase it, but he left it alone. Then he pooped in the lake, and then he went right behind me to shake himself off. My first reaction was annoyance that he had all this space and chose to shake himself off on me, but it quickly gave way to amusement. And then I realized my back actually felt wet. The contrast of this real feeling with the unreality of the dream caught my attention and left an impression on me as I woke up. I was, fortunately, not wet in real life. But I want to believe that feeling proved it was a real experience and not just a random byproduct of firing neurons. Happy Easter! Today, the most vile, hateful people in the US celebrate the resurrection of a man whom they would have been first in line to crucify. Like all major holidays, I'm spending it at home alone. Here's the text of a letter I sent last week to the Herald Journal, Cache Valley Daily, and the Utah Statesman. I haven't bothered to check whether any of them had the cajones to print it because that's out of my hands. I did my part by writing it and sending it. I am a proud Aggie. I have two degrees from USU, but the most important things I learned there were critical thinking and empathy for people with different experiences from mine. These abilities changed my life in beautiful and profound ways, and as a graduate instructor, teaching them to my own students was my highest priority. In the few days since then, the weak, incompetent bully named Donald Trump has already claimed that his threatening letter to Harvard was sent by mistake. What a pathetic chicken shit. And that's why this regime will fail, probably sooner than later, if Americans stand up for themselves and don't comply in advance. I bet the president of Columbia University feels really stupid right now. A more pressing issue, of course, is the regime defying the Supreme Court and sending brown people to a foreign concentration camp with no due process. And a lot of white Americans seem fully on board with that. A lot of fascists are taking off their libertarian masks as fast as they can. These people, being as stupid as they are racist (not by coincidence), can't comprehend that if "illegal violent criminals" aren't entitled to due process, all the regime has to do is claim they're illegal violent criminals, and then they can't prove that they're not because they have no due process. A toddler should be able to understand this. In fairness, though, some of these fascist idiots are Russian bots trying to stir up the real fascist idiots.   But yeah, I'm really glad I found a progressive church where I don't have to worship alongside trash like this anymore. And either I'm going to hell or they are, so I won't have to put up with them after this life either. (I'm being snarky. I don't believe in hell. I'm just saying fuck these people.) I protested on Wednesday and then, of course, I protested yesterday. I felt like shit yesterday. After a night of indigestion and sleeplessness, I showed up to protest having eaten nothing but Pepto-Bismol. I spent most of the time lying in the grass and wondering if I'd need someone to carry me down the hill. But I had a generic Gatorade equivalent, and it gave me the strength to join the march. Today I feel better but am clearly still sick because I'm not hungry. (I plan to take a Kush Kube this evening, and I'm not sure what it will do to me on a mostly empty stomach, but I hope it will be said of me, "He is risen indeed.") Anyway, protesting isn't usually a sacrifice for me because I live close to the Capitol, I have no family, and my work schedule is entirely self-determined, so I accepted yesterday's suckage as an opportunity to sacrifice more and show how deep my values go. I only took a couple of pictures after the march ended and most people left - this one because I loved the Nelou Keramat quote so much:  And this one because I love Lamb Chop, the sassy puppet who resides in some of my earliest memories.  In closing, please enjoy this Easter message from the anti-Christ.  Last night I finally watched Inside Out 2, which made me cry, but not as much as the first one. It was interesting to see the similarities to a parody script excerpt I swear to God I wrote on my blog several years but can't find now. In it, Riley's head was invaded by triplets named Love, Lust, and Infatuation who were impossible to tell apart. Then Lust said it was his turn to run the controls, and when Joy hesitated, he whipped out a machine gun and reiterated, "I SAID IT'S MY TURN TO RUN THE ****ING CONTROLS." Great stuff. Why don't I work for Pixar? Tonight I attended Bernie Sanders' Stop Oligarchy rally at the University of Utah just to break my parents' hearts. Being on a college campus again broke my heart a little. It didn't make me too nostalgic, though, because while USU has a few of those hideous modern cube-shaped buildings, UofU campus appears to be entirely covered with them. Give me the old yellow brick buildings any day. Anyway, I was indifferent to Bernie when I first became aware of his existence in 2016. I obviously wasn't going to vote for him, but I didn't despise him for being a socialist because I'd grown up a little since the days my parents made me believe Obama was the Antichrist. Now I regard him as one of this country's greatest heroes of all time. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is phenomenal too. They're leaders with integrity, character, and courage, the opposite of our president in every way. And their views only seem radical in this country because it's so out of touch with the reality that most of the world lives in. This was one of the coolest experiences of my life. The crowd, the noise, the energy, the music. Even cramming into the train like clowns in a sardine can on the way there - everyone cheered when we reached the stop twenty minutes late - and walking for seven minutes to get to the end of the line added to the experience. It was worth foregoing my usual Sunday evening ritual of Kush Kubes. Though come to think of it, that could have made it even better. I also bought a shirt to make the trip worthwhile because I honestly thought I wouldn't be able to get in. I heard five thousand people weren't. The five counterprotestors (excluding the poor kid who doesn't know better) looked really stupid next to that crowd pouring in, but none more so than this same jackass I've seen with his creepy AI art four times now. I knew he was several fries short of a combo when he wore a Pope costume while trying to disrupt a pagan gathering at the Capitol, but depicting the richest man in the world as Robin Hood is a level of delusion that shouldn't be humanly possible. I have to wonder if he's a double agent trying to make conservatives look deranged. Buddy, they don't need the help.  I got one picture each of AOC and Bernie. I knew they would suck (the pictures, I mean), and they do suck, but they're my mementos (in addition to the shirt, I mean).   Here I am with some friends from Cache Valley Unitarian Universalists who drove down. Of the pictures that were taken, this one makes my sunburn from sitting in the yard while working on my computer the least obvious.  Speaking of working on the computer, I think my AI training job will get me through the coming economic storms all right. Because I'm not an actual employee, the company can dump me whenever it wants with no explanation, but I should remain in demand as long as I do quality work. And I won't lose my retirement fund to the orange taint's stock market shenanigans because I've never had one. My retirement plan is to die young. This job also gives me the flexibility to attend protests pretty much whenever I want, like the one against the SAVE Act tomorrow and the one against everything on Saturday. With every fiber of my being, I exhort you to join your nearest protest on Saturday if you're able. Anyway, here's a video of the rally from Bernie's channel, albeit without the opening musical performance by Talia Keys. I don't feel like writing much about this because I've made my political views well known and written about the experience of protest and futilely encouraged other people to protest several times. I just want to say that, again, but for real this time, my pictures don't do the scale justice. At least 10,000 people were there. Not bad for the same weekend as the Mormons' General Conference, which I'm pleased to say I heard and cared very little about. The next nationwide protests are April 19th. Join them, for Christ's sake.       I wondered if I should blur this guy's face, but he didn't make any effort to hide it, so neither will I    I zoomed in to take this just for Mary  Tariffed penguins are the new transgender mice, except they're real |
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About the AuthorC. Randall Nicholson is a white cisgender Christian male, so you can hate him without guilt, but he's also autistic and asexual, so you can't, unless you're an anti-vaxxer, in which case the feeling is mutual. This blog is where he periodically rants about life, the universe, and/or everything. Archives
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