Bag of Randomness for Monday, November 9, 2020

Man, last was long and exhausting with a lot of stuff years in the making concluding on the weekend. There’s a lot of unpack.

First of all, Trump supporters have nothing to fear unlike liberals did four years ago. When Trump was elected, we had no idea what his administration was going to be like. It was going to be unlike any Republican or any kind of administration before considering his campaign rhetoric. His party also had control of the Senate and the House, liberals had no majority representation. Trump supporters will probably still control the Senate and have the likes of McConnell, Cruz, and Graham. Trump supporters have an idea of how Biden will govern because of his long record and his time as Vice-President during the Obama administration. And finally, there’s a conservative majority on the Supreme Court. There is no need to panic.

Last night we sat the kids down before bedtime for a talk about what school is going to be like now that we know the winner of the presidential election. We emphasized the golden rule, to treat others as you would like to be treated, and spoke about integrity and respect. Both the kids are supporters of Biden and think it’s really cool that Kamala Harris will be the first woman (and half-Asian) to be Vice-President. They’ve told us in the past of students who are big fans of President Trump bully others and speak harshly. We told them that as tempting as it might be tease them about their candidate losing, that they need to put themselves in their shoes and imagine how awkward it is for them to just show up at school today. They will have learned a lesson, and one day their candidate will lose and you will face the same awkwardness. As soon as we said that, BoyGeeding chimed in and said we should understand what Joe Biden said in his speech, “Our competition is not our enemy.” My boy impressed me, you have no idea how proud I am of him.

We finally told them that one major reason we all didn’t like President Trump was how he picked on people and called them names. And if they decided to treat their friends who are Trump supporters in any sort of mean or disrespectful way, they were going to be hypocrites and no better than Trump.

I bet some of you think I’m being hypocritical right now and acting like how I told my kids not to. Apples to oranges, buddy, apples to oranges.

Biden won without any major rally or gathering. Fascinating when you think about it. Inauguration is going to be interesting with the pandemic, and I expect it to be worst than it is now when the day comes. It will be a challenge controlling crowd size and space. The optics could make the crowds look odd, and I’m predicting then former President Trump to point out how many more he had at his inauguration. If I were to advise Biden, I would have him do a small ceremony inside the capitol like Reagan did for his second term. Reagan’s second inauguration was moved indoords because of bad wintery weather. Sure, Biden will be “robbed” of his moment and all the people who want to celebrate Kamala Harris’ place in history, but it would be a substantive and profound move. As Spock once said, “The need of the many outweigh the need of the few.”

Biden stuck the landing in his first speech as the president-elect. Any Christ-following person should applaud and feel comforted by it, especially how he ended it. His story of his grandparents telling him to not only remember the faith but to spread it was was fantastic. The optics were also great, a grandfather remembering telling a story about how his grandparents inspired him. I’m unfamiliar with the Catholic hymn “On Eagles Wings” but it fit in exceptionally well. I’m wary of politicians wearing their faith on their sleeve, though at times I find acceptable to reference when it doesn’t feel forced.

Folks, in the last days of the campaign, I began thinking about a hymn that means a lot to me and my family, particularly my deceased son, Beau. It captures the faith that sustains me and which I believe sustains America. I hope, and I hope, we can provide some comfort and solace to the 230,000 Americans who’ve lost a loved one due to this terrible virus this year. My heart goes out to each and every one of you. Hopefully this hymn gives you solace as well.

It goes like this. “And he will raise you up on eagle’s wings, bear you on the breath of dawn, and make you just shine like the sun, and hold you in the palm of His hand.” Now together on eagle’s wings, we embark on the work that God and history have called upon us to do.

With full hearts and steady hands, with faith in America and in each other, with love of country, a thirst for justice, let us be the nation that we know we can be, a nation united, a nation strengthened, a nation healed, the United States of America.

Ladies and gentlemen, there’s never, never, been anything we’ve tried we’ve not been able to do. Remember, as my grandpappy said when I walked out of his home, when I was a kid up in Scranton, he said, “Joey, keep the faith.” And our grandmother, when she was alive, she yelled, “No, Joey. Spread it.”

Spread the faith. God love you all. May God bless America and may God protect our troops. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Obama would often quote from the Bible, but only referred to the holy book as “scripture,” saying things like, “Scripture says” or “Scripture tells us.” I have a feeling that never set well with conservative voting Christians because it seemed insincere and not personal. He really lost a chance to connect with people wording it that way. But,  I noticed in Biden’s speech on Saturday night that he simply called “the Bible.”

The Bible tells us to everything, there’s a season, a time to build, a time to reap and a time to sow, and a time to heal. This is the time to heal in America.

WifeGeeding’s mother is an exceptionally loving soul and does her best to love Christ and share the Gospel. As you may have guessed with this East Texan, she’s conservative and all her children and their family is as well, though WifeGeeding is more of an independent. I’m the lone liberal black sheep of the family and sometimes things get a little uncomfortable for me at family gatherings and I’ve asked to be removed from any of those email forwards. I work very hard biting my lip and just listening, learning to understand their perception of things. Though, from time to time, I respectively chime in, but it’s never as eloquent as I’ve hoped. I’ve been a part of her family for close to twenty years. When Obama won the election over McCain, she sent a message (either email or text) to all of her children and their spouses stating there’s a new president which is part of God’s plan, know that God is in control, take comfort in Jesus, and share grace.” She sent a similar message when Obama was re-elected, but oddly didn’t send one when Trump was elected. It didn’t bother me, I took it as an oversight. However, on Saturday, she texted another variation, which I thought was interesting. Feeling a bit mischievous, I replied.

Thanks for the message. I’m not replying all and hope you take this in the jovial manner it’s intended. But as long as I’ve been a part of your family, you sent a version of this message when Obama won, but didn’t when Trump won. So, you only need to remind us of God’s plan when a Democrat is elected to the White House? 🤔😉

Thankfully, she took it in stride and asked for forgiveness, which absolutely wasn’t necessitated.

Somewhat lost in all of this was that the Trump campaign had a press conference at the parking lot of the Four Seasons Total Landscaping instead of the Philadelphia Four Seasons hotel. I almost couldn’t believe the president’s tweet when I first saw it, but given the president, I could. Then, I heard in the direct vicinity of the press conference was a cremation center and an adult bookstore. I thought, no way, but a quick check on Google Maps verified it. Man, what a dumpster fire of a campaign and administration.

Jeff Leach is a Texas state representative, and unlike me, has a bag of something.

I think this guy is on to something. The next time Trump will be in church is for his own funeral.

Georgia is going to be the focus of the nation with their senate runoff election. The folks at CNN must be happy since their headquarters are in Atlanta.

I got a kick out of how exhausted some of the CBS News crew were on Friday. Ed O’Keefe, in New York, started a question to Reince Priebus in Miklawakee with, “Hi Reince, this is Ed O’Keefe with CBS Ne….oh, well, we’re all on CBS at the moment.” Then, the guy helping Major Garrett run their interactive board answered a qustion with, “It’s hard, it’s very hard, it’s like trying to run out the clock in a baseball game.” Everyone jovially called him out on it.

SNL had a funny skit about a guy named Keith. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Keith is just a terrible name and easily made fun of.

I suppose I should add her to my unkept Half-Asian Hall of Fame.

Kamala Harris’ Grandfather’s Indian Village Erupts in Celebration

Biden says he’s assembled a task force to help with our COVID-19 woes. I wonder how he’s going to do that without interacting with the current figures in charge Fauci and the current surgeon general.

Quality comedy.

Noon, January 20th, 2021

https://twitter.com/animal0lovers/status/1325436220780941312?s=09

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Bag of Randomness for Friday, November 6, 2020

It was odd that the current impeached president waited so long to speak to the nation since election night. But then again, it’s odd for a U.S. President to question our democratic process and its validity. I never thought anyone in that administration had any integrity. For those who may, they should have resigned after that speech last night.

The current impeached president really cares about ratings. I bet a concession speech would big in big, huge numbers. But, we’re not there yet. This must have ticked him off.

Broadcast Networks All Cut Away From President’s Election Remarks

For viewers—and for students of both politics and the news media—it was an extraordinary moment: first that a president would stand at the lectern in the White House and accuse his political rivals of committing fraud without any evidence, and then for the networks to decide it was a smarter decision to stop airing what the president of the United States had to say.

Last night I asked WifeGeeding the chances of a principal or headmaster making an announcement during school should the country finds out who becomes president. She doubted highly and said that many teachers will know by their phones or computers. She’s totally correct, but I got caught up in the moment thinking about stories my teachers told me when they found out JFK was shot. Some told me stories about how it was announced over the PA. Others stated they felt it was best to hold the news until school was out. This brought me back to when the Challenger space shuttle exploded. I had no idea until I came home from school as our teachers kept it from us. Times have changed. News is now delivered instantly and fewer and fewer people will ever experience what it’s like when national news is delivered via a PA announcement.

Twitter suspended former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, after he made calls to behead NIAID director Dr. Anthony Fauci in a YouTube video, which has also been removed.

Should Trump ever leave office and go back into the hotel business, maybe this sleazeball can run one of his properties.

AP sources: Texas AG’s affair tied to criminal allegations

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton had an extramarital affair with a woman whom he later recommended for a job with the wealthy donor now at the center of criminal allegations against him, according to two people who said Paxton told them about the relationship.

“Being Accosted Was Really Distracting”: What It’s Like Counting Ballots Right Now – Chiara Clayton, a first-time ballot counter, wanted to do her part and help out with this year’s election. Then the angry protestors showed up.

It was tough to hear that Norm on The TICKET didn’t receive favorable news regarding his cancer treatment as two more tumors were found. This means additional surgery and chemical treatments. But, in typical Norm fashion, his spirits are high.

The title should have included the word “Legal” right after the word “First”.

Texas Sees Its First Hemp Harvest in 80 Years – Entrepreneurial farmers navigate state regulations and unsteady market, but still sees a bright future

2020 Aerial Photos Of The Year

This Sebastien Nagy piece won first place in Architecture.

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Bag of Randomness for Thursday, November 5, 2020

While the result of the election is tipping towards one direction, it’s a lot closer than I expected. I thought there would be more of a repudiation of the lies, moral character, and the handling of the coronavirus. Perhaps that’s because of what happened four years ago, many Trump voters where silent about their choice. I actually thought it would it would be opposite this year, that many traditional Republicans would be silent about their vote for Biden and that wouldn’t show in the polling data. Should Biden lose, it would be more than devastating for us Democrats. It would be so demoralizing, liberals would have thought what’s the point of voting. The participation and voter outreach was historical, and despite that effort and help from Bloomberg and the Lincoln Project, it would have still amounted to a loss. But then again, Trump and the Republicans still suppressed the vote and slowed the mail and still crying victim. But with a Biden win, the momentum to turn Texas blue along with Texas demographics is promising.

I’m waiting for President Trump to tweet something like the reason there are so many COVID-19 cases are because we are testing too much but put it in a voting perspective. Like, the reason he’s losing the election is because people keep counting votes.

We really need to do away with the Electoral College. Again, in Texas, my voted is always counted, but it never makes a difference.

I wasn’t too surprised McConnell kept his seat, though I was hopeful. But, I’m surprised that both Lindsey Graham and Susan Collins are returning to the Senate.

Something different I noticed many news stations were doing were displaying the difference between number of votes along with the traditional total votes and percentage we are accustomed to seeing. I appreciate them doing the math for me instead of me having to trust my mental math approximation. CBS News did that, but look at the horrible job they did. You can barely see above Trump’s total of 5,250,887 votes that “^177,221” appears. NBC News on the other hand did a great job of showing the difference, it’s easily visible bottom center.

CBS News also decided to move their election news headquarters to Times Square from D.C. Why? There was no change to the viewer and Times Square was empty. NBC no longer paints the ice at Rockefeller Center, that’s one bit that didn’t need to be retired.

Game of Thrones political humor.

Watch This Datsun 280z Get Its First Wash Ever

Imagine you crack open a barn that no one has touched in decades and finding a Datsun 280Z with a mere 350 miles on it. If you’re a car enthusiast, your brain is probably immediately roaring with ideas about what you’re going to do with this car. But before any of that, you have one task: Wash it.

North Dakota legislature candidate who died from COVID-19 wins election

‘Emotional support Canadians’ offer to help Americans stressed by U.S. election

Probably the Trump campaign to pay for the upcoming lawsuits.

Someone Just Emptied Out a Bitcoin Wallet With $964,000,000 In It – It’s not yet clear if a hacker made off with a gigantic payday, or if the wallet’s secretive and long-dormant owner just came out of retirement.

The Story Behind That Gif Of Bugs Bunny Sawing Off Florida

How Rotel Became an Essential Part of Any Queso

The story of Rotel, which is now available in different spice levels and chile types, dates back to 1943. It originated in Elsa, Texas from a vegetable canner named Carl Roettele. Evolving from chile con queso in 19th century Mexico, recipes for cheese dip with various veggies in the early 1900s called for an exhausting process of roasting, peeling, and chopping chiles, then sautéing them with tomato and onions and mixing them with grated cheese. By the 1920s, this type of chile con queso was a common menu item in Texas restaurants and home kitchens. However, according to food writer Robert F. Moss, the cooking process of pepper roasting and cheese grating was exhausting, leading Texans to wonder if there was a simpler alternative.

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Bag of Randomness for the 59th Quadrennial President Election

I thought today’s Bag of Randomness should focus on the history of voting in the U.S. The following are notes I jotted down from the Throughline episode How We Vote. There are a lot of fun tidbits I think you’ll enjoy.

  • IN 1757 George Washington ran for a seat in the House of burgesses. To encourage his neighbors to vote for him, he threw a party at the time of the election which included 46-gallons of beer a hogshead, a barrel of rum punch, thirty-five gallons of wine, forty-three gallons of strong beer, 2 gallons of cider, and three-and-a half pints of brandy.
  • Voting was a very public event in those times. It would not be uncommon to see fiddling, wrestling matches, dancing, feasting and shouting. The tradition ritual was for each candidate to stand on a platform, and they would await for each voter to stand up and verbally announce who they were voting for. Many who announced their votes were subject to all sorts of intimidation. Imagine doing a recount in those times. It gives a new meaning to, “Your vote, your voice.”
  • Voting was very open and very public. Your vote was known to the public because it was for the public.
  • Sometimes voting occurred at the town square or town common. People would simply move to one area or another depending on their voting preference. The voting administers would then count the tops of everyone’s head, a process they called “polling” and that’s how we got the term we use today.
  • Sometimes people simply placed an object, like a marble, pebble, dried corn kernels or beans, or whatever they had around, into a box.
  • In more literate areas, voters would write on a sheet of paper they brought and dropped it in a box. So during this period, there were various forms of voting, from paper to dried beans.
  • The president wasn’t chosen by popular vote, the framers didn’t really care how the public voted one way or another, they left it up to the states.
  • The party system emerged in 1796. For perspective, Washington’s first term was 1789.
  • Parties wanted to maximize the number of voters they could reach and relied on the best technology of the time – the printing press. In the 1820s, paper was suddenly becoming more economical to produce, and the cost to win a voter dropped. They no longer relied on a voter to bring his own piece of paper to write the name of the candidate and drop it in a box. Newspapers were really partisan back then and ballots were printed in them. Voters would cut out the ballot, mark their candidate preference with a writing utensil, and dropped it off at a polling place.
  • By the late 1820s, most states adopted universal white male suffrage. Voters no longer needed land or money to vote, they just had to be white and be a male.
  • People started to call the ballots party tickets because they looked like a railroad ticket. They later became huge pieces and easily spotted. Some party bosses hired henchmen to spot people carrying the large colored party ballot and intimidate them. It was called shoulder striking.
  • The famous case of how out of control this got involved George Kyle of Baltimore, who was going to vote with his brother. He was a Democrate and lived in a neighborhood dominated by the opposition, the American Party, back in 1859. A man tried to snatch the ballots out of his hands and suddenly shots are fired and they kill his brother. An investigation ensued, and the question was asked, “Can a man of ordinary courage be able to cast his vote that day?” There was an implication that the Kyle brothers were cowards.
  • People later realized they could use their votes for something other than voting, they could use it to eat. Poor men would show up to the polling place and ask each side what they would give them for their vote. It was industrial America with a very poor underclass. So, sometimes votes were won with nothing more than a sandwich. People in power were watching. Factory owners could easily see who their workers were voting for. Jobs were loss because the rich fired the poor for not voting their preference.
  • During the Civil War, it fell to the states if and how soldiers would vote. This is when some states started absentee voting. Voting boxes were taken to battle camps, and soldiers were able to cast a ballot. Other states allowed proxies voting. For instance, a soldier from New York. He would enclose in an envelope his ballot along with a document authorizing the ballot and signed an affidavit. That envelope was placed into a special envelope, which indicated it was a soldier’s vote. Both political parties claimed fraud.
  • In 1888, Massachusetts was the first state to adopt the secret ballot – “a voting method in which a voter’s choices in an election or a referendum are anonymous. This forestalls attempts to influence the voter by intimidation, blackmailing, and potential vote buying. This system is one means of achieving the goal of political privacy.”
  • The 15th Amendment granting African-American men the right to vote was adopted into the U.S. Constitution in 1870. Despite the amendment, by the late 1870s discriminatory practices were used to prevent blacks from exercising their right to vote, especially in the South. It wasn’t until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that legal barriers were outlawed at the state and local levels if they denied African-Americans their right to vote under the 15th Amendment.
  • On Aug. 26, 1920, the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution officially took effect when Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby signed a proclamation certifying its ratification. The amendment promised women that their right to vote would “not be denied” on account of sex.

Here’s a bit more about his trip, which from my understanding, he made because he was mentally exhausted and just wanted to get away from everything for a little bit.

So this journey began many blocks from the Whittier polling place when Mr. Nixon and his entourage, which was a military aide and a Secret Service agent, covertly and ever oh-so discreetly away from the press jumped out of the Vice Presidential limo and into a white convertible follow-up car driven by an officer from the Los Angeles Police Department, and off they went, and most importantly, they managed to successfully ditch the press. By the way, Nixon did not just jump into the backseat and say, “let’s go,” but rather the presidential hopeful told the LAPD officer to scoot over and he, Nixon, drove the car himself…

After leaving Oceanside Mr. Nixon and company continued south on the 101 into San Diego. Well, now in San Diego and not too sure what to do or where to go Nixon mentioned he had not been to Tijuana in over 20 years. Shortly there after the man who might be elected President of the United States by the end of that day was now out of the country and in Tijuana.

Mr. Nixon and company, on advice from a Border Patrol Agent, went to have something to eat at the Old Heidelberg restaurant, which the border agent claimed was the best Mexican food in Tijuana.

Word got around Tijuana that a possible future U.S. president was in town and soon joining the presidential candidate was Tijuana Mayor Xicotencati Leyva Aleman. It was later reported that Mr. Nixon and everybody in the group ate enchiladas.

After eating enchiladas Mr. Nixon and company headed back for the states, and at the border crossing checkpoint a border agent was shocked to see who was in the car, but still had to ask, “Are you all residents of the United States?” according to Nixon aides.

 

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