A Frustrating Few Weeks

If you’re like me and you follow politics and you think a second Joe Biden term would be disastrous for the country, the past few weeks have been frustrating.

Among my problems with the Democrats, two of the big ones were that 1) the Democrats have consistently refused to strongly call out anti-Semitism in their own ranks and 2) the Democrats have no problem shredding the Constitution to get what they want.

So, of course, Donald Trump goes off and has dinner with two of America’s best-known anti-Semites (yes, Milo was there as well but I’m not sure anyone who isn’t very online has the slightest idea who Milo is) and then he demands that the Constitution be shredded so that he can be president again.  Thanks, Don!

(For whatever it’s worth, I don’t think Trump is himself an anti-Semite.  I just think he’s a man in his mid-70s who isn’t really in touch with modern pop culture and who can’t let go of a grudge and who will have dinner with anyone who sucks up to him.)

Myself, I’ll be voting for DeSantis.  Or Kemp.  Or Youngkin.  Or even Larry Hogan!  (I like Larry Hogan more than most Republicans and I think he was effective as any Republican governor could be in a state as blue as Maryland.  But I know there’s no way a Hogan presidential campaign would get beyond New Hampshire.)  In 2024, vote for a governor.

What Technology Would I Better Off Without? And why?

WordPress has been kind enough to provide me with a prompt for today’s post.  What technology would you be better off without and why?

That’s a deceptively simple question.  For all the time that we spend decrying all of the recent technological changes and advancements, many of them have been for the good.  Even most of the ones that seem terrible still have their good points.  iPhones may be turning people into walled-off zombies with no social skills but they also mean that help is almost always right at your fingertips.  On Monday, I went down to the local convenience store to grab a carton of Cokes and I was shocked to discover that there was still a payphone sitting outside of it.  I’m old enough when I can remember the days when, if you found yourself in a sudden emergency while you were outside, you would have to not only track down a payphone but also hope that you had enough coins with you to operate it.  Now, everyone has a phone in their pocket or their bag.  It’s not always a good thing but it’s not always a bad thing either.

Weapons of mass destruction seem like an easy pick when it comes to something we could do without but, in many cases, those weapons are the only thing that are keeping the world from descending into complete chaos.  It’s a cliché but the idea that we need the weapons so that we’ll never have to use them is a true one.

Actually, now that I think about it, the answer isn’t that complicated.  I would do away with robocalls.  I think everyone can agree with that.  Keep the phones.  Keep the nuclear weapons.  Do away with the robocalls.