I just want to pop in here for a couple things. It is election week - this one is going to matter. I don't know if it is possible to not know this is election week, or that it matters, but you never know in this country. I imagine everyone knows it is election week, at least if they own a TV or a phone or any other device capable of being spammed with ads for and against whoever's running in their state. What a nightmare the media landscape is these days around election time. I am well aware that Troy Jackson has a temper and loves his mom and thinks people should be able to afford health care or a house and that Susan Collins picked potatoes, takes bribes and is largely responsible for the end of Roe v Wade. I would have known those things without being reminded of them every time I tried to watch a video about funny cats or Alice Cooper or Trevor May's opinions on the World Series or the East India Company's conquest of India. I will be glad when the election is over for that alone - let alone the crap I keep getting on my phone.
On the merits - most people expect the Democrats to win big, though they also expect the Republicans to ratfuck the election any way they can. Hopefully short of sending in the tanks, though I don't think anything is off the table with that gang. What will the Democrats do if they win? I worry about the ones cautioning against impeachment or whatever - Kamela Harris talking about trying to get things done, instead. Which - all right, from a practical standpoint, I don't think it likely that we can really get rid of Donald Trump, maybe not even Pete Hegseth, before 2029 or the grim reaper comes to save us. But I don't quite know what they think they will get done while Trump is still in office. A nice lady canvassing the other day asked me about what issues I cared about most: I started in with health care, medicare for all or whatever form it takes - I do think that is the most important long term goal we have... But then started in: put Trump in jail - get out of the Iran war - and might have gone on for half an hour more had she not panicked and more or less fled. It is true - I have a laundry list of things I want to see happen, now and in 2029 - and impeaching that villain is high on that list. and Hegseth. Kennedy. Get out of the Iran mess, obviously, and go back to whole heartedly supporting Ukraine. Start prosecuting people for corruption. Remember the Epstein files, take seriously allegations found there in, even if we have to wait until 2029 to actually prosecute the orange menace. Abolish ICE. Those are short term - long term starts with health care, moves on to strengthening labor, restoring Roe v Wade, which probably means packing the courts, obviously undoing all the stupid trade war crap Trump has inflicted on us. Finding some kind of decent solution to Israel and Palestine. And more. So much more.
That's politics. We will find out this week how much better things could become - though who can say if even a big win would make things better or worse in the short term. There is not much we can do other than vote for Democrats and try to hold them to their promises. Try to get them to act, with every tool at their disposal.
That is politics. That is not the whole world - I also want to make a quick note about the Brewers, winning their first World Series in a commanding fashion. Having a smallish market team win will probably do nothing to convince the baseball owners that they don't need to upend the game to save its competition - but obviously, they have never cared about competition in the least, the Dodgers were just a convenient scapegoat to get stupid fans to take the owners' side. That has never worked as well as they'd like - no matter how stupid some fans get, the mass tend to want to see ball games and like the players more than the owners. So we can hope. If competition mattered, they would notice that free agency and lack of a salary cap has created more competition in baseball than any other sport. Spending a ton of money is one way to win a World Series - it's not the only way. Never has been.
I don't know. I do know that the Brewers are a cool team, that deserves to be there, and has been good for a few years now, without becoming a big spending team. Ditto the Rays. I hope the sport can work things out and we can see more of these teams - and see if the Dodgers can buy another one, and all the other stories we could follow. Come on, Padres and Mariners! We want to see you play for a title!
And finally, just because this is kind of an olio of a post, it is November, so I am, as I have for the last decade or so, writing a "Novel." This is always fun. 50,000 words has always been the easy part - it's finishing the story that gets in the way. Last year, I did, in fact, write 50,000 words, and even reached a fairly stable real ending to the story! (Through the simple expedient of "novelizing" a Traveller game we played.) As punishment, my computer died, and I hadn't backed it up - woe! This year it's a Cthulhu by Gaslight game we played, last year, so all my notes are lost in the same flood that got rid of last year's novel - so, hey, it's all from scratch! Anyway - wish me luck, not with the words, which I can do almost in my sleep, but with the story, which I owuld love to actually finish.
And back up. There is that.
