Version 2.177

The LA Dodgers just beat the Tampa Bay Rays or, as I'm thinking about it, California, the most progressive state in the federation, beat Florida, the state that gave us George W. Bush. Maybe it is a sign that the stars are aligning. We also learned today that the Trump campaign has cut some of its campaigning in Florida, shifting part of the cost to the Republican National Committee.

Coronavirus cases are skyrocketing and should continue way past the election. Many of the places that are seeing increases are full of people who do not believe that it is real. At this point, if you don't take this seriously and take precautions, you're setting yourself up for failure, but everyone has the right to make a mistake. It's just that sometimes a mistake can be the last.

Version 2.176

I voted Mr. Trump out today. There was hardly anyone in line, perhaps because this was a new venue that is not usually open for early voting. It is a Baptist church. Most of the people that I saw were older folks, including the lady that checked my passport. I always take my passport in case they question my citizenship, but most Americans in Memphis do not vote with a passport and sometimes they don't even know what one looks like. Anyway, I showed the lady my passport, she looked at it funny, typed in a number into an iPad -- did I mention that this was an older woman, maybe in her 70s or older? -- and then asked me for my voter registration card.

Now, the voter registration card is not required to vote, but of course I had mine: I always take mine. And sometimes I even take a utility bill to confirm my address, in case anyone questions it. It's OK, you may think I am crazy, but voting is that important to me. Of course, I don't vote in Portugal. The Portuguese government is not really interested in making it easy for me to vote. Kind of like the Trump administration does with minorities, but I digress.

The point is that I, along with over 64 million people, as of Monday evening, October 26, 2020, have voted. This is more than the early voting that took place by election day in 2016 and we still have 8 more days to go until the polls close. Granted that fewer people will likely vote on election day, but I have seen estimates that maybe 100 million people will vote early this election and overall turnout could be of 150 to 160 million. In 2016, the total number of votes was less than 139 million. It could be a massive turnout.

I cannot really express how amazing it is to live in a place where people vote en masse, when they feel the fate of the nation is at stake. Everyone can make a difference and even homeless people are voting: "My vote counts, you know what I'm saying? I ain't ever voted. This will be my first time to vote.", said a homeless man interviewed on NPR. Maybe that is the silver lining on this massive cloud that is this deadly pandemic.

For the last four years, Mitch McConnell, the leader of the Senate majority, has been justifying the GOP actions by saying that their majority is a mandate from the electorate to push the conservative agenda. We will see how the people will mandate next, but if he loses, he can always drown in sorrows in Kentucky bourbon. After all, America is the land of opportunity and we would not want this one to go to waste.

Version 2.175

My goal for tomorrow is to go vote. We are allowed to take two hours off work to vote in elections, but I don't know if the line is long and it will take more than two hours. However, I only have four more days of early voting, so I really need to get this done, as I do not wish to wait until the day of the election.

What a strange situation to have an election in the middle of a pandemic, but I suppose we should get used to things of this nature every so often. I hope the next incident is not a nuclear war, but I am not holding my breath.

The Arkansas Democrat Gazette, the largest newspaper in Arkansas, the state that gave us Bill Clinton, is endorsing Donald Trump. The Las Vegas Review Journal and the Santa Barbara News-press also endorse him. They are all minor newspapers and they all endorsed Trump the first time around, so it is not surprising. Of the weeklies, the Jewish Voice in also on the Trump bandwagon.

People cannot claim this time around and Trump will act presidential once he's in office, so maybe that will discourage some voters. Speaking of discouragement, there is another coronavirus outbreak in the White House, this time in Vice-President Pence's office. This White House is a freaking disaster. We have never had such clueless people in office.

Version 2.174

One of my neighbors is a DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) agent. Over the last couple of days, his house has been under surveillance with at least a police officer always parked in front and there is also a huge machine that serves to film the street. At night, the machine has this blue lights that flicker and give the idea that we're about to have a rave party. I really don't understand how anyone would attack my neighbor's house with such vibrant paraphernalia parked in front of it, but maybe that is the point: to let the future perpretator know that he will likely get caught.

I don't really know that neighbor, although I have been to at least one event in which he participated. He seemed awfully young, maybe in his late twenties or early thirties. He lives with his fiancée and they were about to be married this fall, I believe. A few months ago, the post office dropped off some of their packages at my front door twice and I took them over and left them on their doorstep. I did not knock or anything, as these are not good times to be social.

His house has a sold sign now, but I don't know if that is real. If it is not real, it would be very easy for a bad guy to figure it out, since home sales are public record. Gosh, it would be terrible if anything bad were to happen to this young couple.

Version 2.173

Tomorrow's plan is to give away three books: two because I am trying to convert a friend of mine to reading poetry, so I am going to start her off with two books by Pablo Neruda, as they are bilingual and her mother tongue is Spanish. Then shall give an extra copy of a Portuguese book I have to a new friend who is Portuguese and lives in Memphis. Yes, it only took me almost 6 years to find one and the funny thing is that we have acquaintances in common. I am happy to have someone with whom to converse.

I am grateful that today was Friday and the weekend is finally upon us. This week was exceedingly tiring and there were several days in which I worked a little bit extra, which is problematic for my health. For one, I really enjoy my work and I absolutely lose track of time. I can spend hours on end sitting in front of the computer just playing with numbers. This sedentary life is bad for my mobility, but also means that my eyesight is deteriorating due to dryness. I am rather terrible about putting artifical tear drops in my eyes, since I don't really like how they feel.

As I walked into the kitchen today, I realized that I had made a huge mess. I had so many dirty cups that should've been put in the dishwasher and dirty dishes. I don't know why I was such a slob, but it's hard to be organized when you're always so eager to get back to work. But I need to get better.

The U.S. had 80 thousand positive cases of Covid-19 today, which means we are indeed having a Fall/Winter wave, as I had suspected. Most everything is running fairly well now and there has been tremendous innovation along the supply chain and how people conduct themselves in public. Maybe we will not need to have another national shutdown.

Version 2.172

We are happy to report that the second presidential debate is over. If after the first one people were surprised at what had just happened to the rules of civility, after this people will be surprised at how well Donald Trump performed. Age weighed heavily on Biden, who stumbled on his words and lost his train of thought on multiple occasions. But no harm, no foul: the Biden supporters were happy and equally happy were the Trump supporters. I was mostly disgusted for having to vote in Biden because he is clearly not surrounded by people who can train him properly.

The most jarring moment for me was when Donald Trump listed everything that had been going wrong in America: opioid addiction, suicides, etc. Trump even said that it had never been this bad. Biden did not have the clarity of thought to attack the President, to state the obvious fact that it had gotten worse under his watch and, if he did not prevent it or try to fix it in his first term, then one could hardly give him a vote of confidence to elect him for a second term.

On the Biden side, the stupidest thing of the evening was when he brought up Hitler to the debate. Godwin's law states that as an online discussion progresses, it is inevitable that someone/something will be compared to Hitler or the nazis, at which point the discussion ends. That pretty much did it for me. If he cannot weave a convincing argument without invoking Hitler, then he must have not done his homework.

For example, at some point Donald Trump was talking about how he rescued manufacturing. Manufacturing jobs are lower now than when Trump took office, even though the administration spent a pretty penny trying to subsidize companies to hire more American workers and also staring a trade dispute with China. The tariffs that were imposed on China were passed on to American consumers as higher prices, which Biden failed to state clearly.

You have to assume that most citizens don't know the intricacies of how trade and the U.S. work. They need the background information in a simple form that can be understood. That is one thing that Trump does well: he dumbs stuff down. His supporters think that it's for their benefit, but it has to be dumbed down for Trump and even then he may not fully get it. After all, he does not even know that a full time preganancy is 9 months and men don't have uterus.

According to Trump, the U.S. economy could not support the cost of $100 trillion in environmental regulation over a period of 100 years even if it had the best years of growth. In 2019, the U.S. economy grew $21.4 trillion dollars (American trillion or 10 raised to the 12th power). Trump clearly does not even comprehend how big the U.S. economy is and neither does Biden.

I don't understand how we got here. I honestly don't. It's like we're in a race to the bottom.

Segundo Debate Presidencial

Version 2.171

Another day in the surrealistic Trump Republic. FLOTUS Melania Trump is not campaigning for her husband maybe because she does not enjoy it, maybe because she and their son tested positive for coronavirus, so she doesn’t feel like hanging around people. 

President Trump is being sued for defamation by a woman who alleges he raped her in the early 1990s and the Justice Department has taken over his defense. This is clearly a personal matter, but even if it were not,  the POTUS cannot be sued by defamation, thus it makes no sense for the Justice Department to defend him and yet...

Over these last few months, Trump has used government resources for his campaign, which is a violation of campaign finance law, not to mention that he benefits personally from conducting government business in his own properties, a violation of the emoluments clause in the Constitution. We know where this is going: if he survives the election, there’s plenty of options on how to impeach him again and this time the Senate is not going to save him. 

The overall sentiment is that he is unfit for the job and, at this point, he is no longer an asset for the GOP. I am sure Vice-President Pence would happily pull the rug from under the President, as he has been eager to become President himself. During the impeachment process Pence did his best to act presidential. Still, the way things are going, even if Pence pulls that off, he might end up impeached himself. 

But those are the back ups, the big hope is that Trump loses the Electoral College vote. It is certain that he will lose the popular vote. The GOP will strengthen if Biden becomes President. 

Version 2.170

Portugal continues to puzzle me. The level of nonsense does not seem to wind down. And despite so many saying that they are above it all, come Election Day, the usual suspects will get elected because either people don’t vote or, the ones that do, vote for mediocrity. Mediocrity rimes with poverty and the country is well on its way to become even more impoverished than what it already is. 

Of course, this comes at a time in which the rest of Europe is also poorer, so there will be less money to waste on the folly of helping those who refuse to help themselves. Maybe Portugal will threaten to leave the EU if they don’t pay up, kind of like when Trump threatens to leave the UN, the WHO, etc. Political tantrums usually go a long way.

Version 2.169

I took the morning off so that I could prepare a proper breakfast and say goodbye to my friend who was visiting. I sent her home with some plants and she left with a smile on her face. A few weeks ago, when I stopped by Fayetteville, I was surprised at how quickly she decided to come visit me. 

We usually see each other at least once a year and one could say that this year has been quite remarkable, since we have been together at least three times that I can recall, plus we also saw each other over Christmas. She’s only been to my place once and the rest of the time it was me who visited. Another friend mentioned the other day that she had never known anyone who traveled as much as me. I always think that I am quite sedentary. 

The next big item on my list this week is to vote early. I have just been waiting a few days to allow for the early crowd to get out of the way. 

Jeffrey Toobin, a commentator for CNN, had what I would call a “personal maintenance incident.” He accidentally got caught on camera masturabting during a work conference call. It’s about time that something like this would happen to a famous person. I am sad that he got suspended.

Version 2.168

Today was pretty much a perfect day, even though I had trouble sleeping last night because I was concerned I might not wake up in time to cook. All was good on that front: both the chai tea and the Brazilian cheese bread came out pretty good and we were able to leave on schedule to get to the marina at 12:30 PM. 

If we had custom ordered the weather, we would not have been able to pick a better day. It was warm, but not excessively hot. It was not windy, so the boat ride was rather smooth. We only saw one barge coming down stream, so there was hardly any traffic, not even leisure boats. Along the margin, we saw a couple of barges, one for grains next to a grain elevator, and one for oil. 

When we returned to the dock, the Asian carp were jumping out of the water like crazy. I’d never seen anything like it. They are large little beasts, with heads as big as my hands. Dinner was early and we chatted around two tables put together to allow for social distancing. 

One of my friends has a daughter who is an MD and she is working at one of the hospitals dealing with COVID-19. Every day, she spends about 2-3 hours talking to families, explaining why they cannot be with their loved ones and trying to provide some comfort. The last time she had a day off, she was unable to get out of bed. I suppose one would just wish the brain would shut down for a bit to provide some respite. 

Every one is talking about voting and the best way to safeguard that our vote will be counted. There is an app online that tracks each person’s vote and people can check to make sure it has been accepted. If it is rejected, people can got back and try to correct the problem. 

Still, it is entirely possible that we all live in a bubble; that this drive for change away from the current administration is more wishful thinking on our part, rather than an actual change of course. Soon enough we will know.

Version 2.167

The weekend is halfway through and much has been accomplished. We started with a fridge full of veggies and most have been cooked into soup, roasted delicata squash, roasted cauliflower, beef stew, breakfast smoothies, and avocado toast. Yesterday, we went to the Dixon, Burke’s bookstore, and finished the evening with dinner at the Alchemy—we ate at a table outdoors along the sidewalk. 

At the restaurant, the most surprising thing was that we had to check in online and give our information so that the restaurant could do contact tracing, if they needed. The menu was also online and we accessed it by taking a photo of a QR code, which was stuck to the table, with our smartphone. After dinner we picked up Julian from day camp at PetSmart Hotel. He’s still tired today, but we managed to do a portrait session with him.

We went to Palladio Garden to look at water fountains for my garden and saw quite a few ideas that looked interesting. Next weekend, they have their Christmas open house, which might be a good excuse to visit again. 

Tomorrow, we have scheduled meeting some friends for a boat ride in the Mississippi after lunch and dinner at the dock to see the sunset. Julian might need to spend the day and night at the pet hotel, since we will not be back in time to pick him up by 6:45 PM. My plan is to take hot chai and Brazilian cheese bread for dinner. For a pandemic weekend, it has not been bad at all.

Version 2.166

 My “American Mom” is visiting, so since yesterday I have been focused on being a good hostess. Today, we went to Alchemy for dinner. We were only thinking about getting drinks, but ended up ordering an appetizer, then a main course. I had duck confit and she had shrimp and grits. It was excellent, although I feel like I had enough calories for a week.

At Burke’s Bookstore, next door, I found a copy of Richard Zenith’stranslation of Pessoa’s poems, which I already have, but ended up buying because this book was better than my copy. It was a fun day, but I cannot believe how exhausted I am. Tomorrow, we do fun things again.

Version 2.165

The day was gloomy and I spent a chunk of it cooking, not really paying attention to anything else, as I was expecting company for the weekend—a first since the beginning of the pandemic. Things are getting worse quickly, as was expected, and the reproduction rate in Memphis is greater than one.

My team was planning on starting to slowly work in the office, a few people in the beginning and then the plan was to expand. It does not seem that the safety criteria are being met, so it has been delayed for now. 

I went ahead and stocked up on toilet paper and food, so I should be set for a while. Now is the most dangerous time for us, as we may have become more relaxed. Plus, it’s allergy season and the other bugs are coming out. We shall see how we fare...

Version 2.164

Idealism is alive and well in America! People are enduring long lines to vote early and in person, as they do not trust that voting by mail will be problem-free, given that the President has said that there is voter fraud. The Post Office has also had a few incidents that have people questioning whether they are up to snuff. Next week, I will vote. I did not want to go first thing, but my plan is to vote early and in person. 

Today was the last day of Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s hearing. She’s as good as confirmed, which will increase money donations to the Democratic Party, plus it acts as an incentive for people to vote. Once she is part of the SCOTUS, Roberts will become less of a conservative. And I have a few questions about Kavanaugh because, every once in a while, he does vote liberal, as if he’s giving the finger to his detractors. 

Well, the country is in a bit of a mess and many of these people have to pick a side because History is calling. Even William Barr’s inquiries are coming out empty-handed or being postponed until after the election, like he realizes that the President is on the way out. If Trump does lose, it will be interesting to see where a lot of these people will end up  Barr is going to enjoy retirement, but those that are of working age will have a hard time getting jobs. People are mad and they’ll boycott companies that hire them.

I would not be surprised if Trump had to declare bankruptcy again. And I also have a feeling that Ivanka Trump’s reputation and businesses will be damaged.  Neither Democrats, nor Republicans, can risk her eventually running for office and hijacking the GOP like her father did. It is more likely that the Trumps will be treated like weeds.