Bryce Moore's Blog, page 140

December 4, 2017

Quirky Local Celebrations?

This past weekend, the family headed out for the yearly Chester Greenwood Day Parade. I’m pretty sure I’ve blogged about this in the past, but for those of you not in the know, Chester Greenwood was the inventor of the earmuff, and he’s from Farmington, Maine, right where I live and work. So the first Saturday of December is always Chester Greenwood Day, and there’s always a big parade in town where everybody wears earmuffs. (Even the trucks and buses.)


We’re just cool like that.


But I wondered what other places do for quirky celebrations. I know Payson, Utah does Onion Days every year. (Having attended a few Onion Days parades myself). It celebrates the onion harvest, because . . . I guess onions were really big in Payson? (Clearly I fail at understanding why I’m watching a parade dedicated to an onion year after year.) And the whole state of Utah has Pioneer Day, celebrating the day the pioneers first entered the Salt Lake valley. (See? I did better at that one.)


So my question for you this fine Monday is what quirk celebrations do you know of in your neck of the wood? After all, that seems to be where Groundhog Day really came to life. Quirky local celebration makes the big-time. Who knows. Maybe Chester Greenwood Day will be all the rage years from now. I know the parade this year was pretty darn big. The sky’s the limit! (As long as the sky is wearing earmuffs, that is.)

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Published on December 04, 2017 09:36

December 1, 2017

Celebrating Christmas 25 Ways

The holidays are a busy time of year for me. I’ve written posts about that in the past, and this year will be no different. We have a whole slew of traditions to follow through on, decorations to put up, and lifelong memories to make. (No pressure, right?) So I would have to be really imbalanced to want to add a monthlong routine to the mix.


And yet that’s exactly what I’m going to try to do.


The Mormon church did something like this last year, and they’re bringing it back this year. A campaign for Christmas, where they’re encouraging people to take time each day (from today until the 25th) to think about giving and doing service for others. It’s called the #LightTheWorld campaign, and they’ve got handy calendars that help you get ideas for each day.


Up today? “Freely ye have received, freely give.”


To act as a hook for the concept, the church did a bit of a social experiment last year, setting up two vending machines outside its temple in Manhattan. One was your typical “buy stuff from a vending machine” rig. The other allowed you to buy stuff for other people. Donate clean drinking water to a village, or a goat to someone on another continent. And the one that let you donate to others became way more popular than the standard setup. Here’s the video, which I really enjoyed:



Honestly, I’m not quite sure how I’m going to stay on top of it. I like the program in theory, but I know how easy it is for me to get swamped with things that have to get done this time of year. So I’m committing to do at least this much: have a conversation about the topic each day with my kids. Discuss it over dinner. Maybe read the scripture that inspired the theme, and talk about how we do as a family living up to that principle. If I can incorporate an activity into the mix, so much the better.


Why do I want to do this? Because I think it’s important to get outside myself. Because when I take the time to do things for other people, I’m a happier person myself. And because as much as I love the season of Christmas, I know I have a tendency to get bogged down in the commercial side of it. I would love to do a better job avoiding this, and I hope this idea helps.


Wish me luck.

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Published on December 01, 2017 11:32

November 30, 2017

Admission Essay Tips

I’ve had several friends and family members mention their children are working on admission essays for college right around now, and it’s made me nostalgic. Back in the day, I moonlighted as an admission essay advisor. (Actually, I checked to see if my old company is still kicking around, and it is. They specialize in law school applications, and they’re now charging $895 for the full service. Honestly, when you consider how important it is to some aspiring lawyers to get into “the right” law school, and what that might do for them long term, I think it’s a pretty good investment. They end up with some pretty stellar essays, if I do say so myself.)


I won’t go into detail about what we would talk about during the drafting process. It’s too complex to really get down into a blog post, probably because in many ways, it felt much more like therapy than it did like simply drafting an essay. I think many people expected us to just say “write this,” but we’d start right at the beginning with coming up with the proper topic. Something that represented the person and was compelling. That’s harder than it sounds (and it sounds pretty hard.) We’d ask them to do a ton of free writes on various topics, and then we’d sift through those free writes for nuggets that could be used later on.


I did that for a few years. I was never as good at is as the founder (who was just fantastic), but I think I did an okay job. And from my experience with it, I do have a few recommendations for people who are looking to write a good essay for a college application.



Be yourself. Honestly, I think this is one of the biggest principles people should keep in mind. The rest of your application will detail all about how smart you are, the classes you took, your extracurriculars. The essays are a chance for you to literally show the committee who you are beyond those facts and figures. Don’t tell them what you think they want to hear. Everybody’s doing that. I know you might not think you’re unique. You’re wrong. It’s just that it can be hard to see yourself accurately enough to realize the things you do that are really you.
Don’t fall into the rut of just rattling off the first topic that comes into your head. These usually fall into tropes that a whole slew of people are also writing on. The Big Sports Game. How Hard My Life Is. How I Overcame That Hard Thing. I’m not trying to say you can’t write on those topics, but if you do, you raise the baseline of how good your essay needs to be to stand out. Think of it like this: the committee is reading through hundreds of essays. Which will be easier to stand out with: one of a hundred essays that talk about The Big Sports Game, or one of the only ones that discuss how hard it was to give up your addiction to broccoli? I guarantee you one of those will be more memorable than the others.
Show, don’t tell. I know, it’s a principle that’s been repeated so many times it seems trite, but it’s repeated because it’s true, and it’s a huge key for a good essay. Here’s the thing. The committee doesn’t know you. If you use your essay to tell them who you are, then they are liable to question your claims. If, instead, you show them who you are, then they will believe it so much more easily. I could tell you I’m a hard worker. Great. You might or might not believe me. But I could also tell you that I worked sixty hours a week for a charity drive for the last three months of my junior year, all while keeping straight A’s and taking care of my ailing French poodle. (Note: not actually true.) But if I tell you that story, you will likely come to the conclusion that I am a hard worker. If I don’t have to come right out and say it, it’s so much more powerful.
Provide details. This is connected to the Show Don’t Tell principle. Get specific. Don’t tell me the room was messy. Describe the mess. The smell. The way the molding potato chips squelch under your feet after three months.
Keep it focused. Decide what you want the takeaway of the essay to be, and then make sure that’s what it’s centered around. You don’t have a lot of space. It’s going to have to be tight to have it be good. Too many people try to throw in everything they can think of to try and fill all that space. If you’re doing it right, you’re going to be bemoaning how little space you have to get it all done.
Take time. When I was working with clients, I would work with them for weeks. Months, sometimes. Lots of people sit down and try to bang out an essay in an hour or two. If you wait until the last minute to do it, then that’s what you’re stuck with. If you start well ahead of time, you have so much more time to get it done right.
Don’t worry too much about the prompt. Most of them are pretty generic on purpose. Write a great essay, and then tailor it to the prompt if you absolutely need to. But they’re almost all there to try and get you to show who you are. Start with that.
Be careful about what you include. The wrong sentence in an essay can stick out and erase everything else you had in there. You might have a gorgeous essay that’s just incredible, but if you throw a quote from Hitler or Stalin, that’s going to be the one thing the committee ends up remembering about you. “Do you remember the kid who quoted Hitler?” (Hint: that’s not a good thing.) In other words, watch out for sexist, racist, elitist language.

Honestly, this is a topic I could probably write three or four more posts about easily. I think the biggest takeaway is to remember that the essay represents who you are individually. It’s your chance to show the committee why they simply have to have you come to their school. So many people will be trying to just wow them with the same themes, over and over. Make yours unique and well-crafted, and you’ll really stand out as an individual.

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Published on November 30, 2017 11:03

November 29, 2017

On Not Being a Creep, Jerk, or Harasser

In hindsight, perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised that so many revelations about men in positions of power have been coming out, one after another. There’s a reason there’s a stereotype for the “casting couch” and the like. That sort of thing doesn’t come ex nihilo.


That said, it’s getting to the point that I start to wonder who isn’t a creep out there in the world. Of course, I know that’s not the case. There are tons of good men out there who aren’t walking around, creeping on everyone they come in contact with. But those men don’t get news stories written about them. And thank goodness, I suppose. How depressing would it be if it started to become newsworthy when someone wasn’t sexually harassing people?


At the same time, I’m continually dismayed by the tone deafness of some people out there. This past week, the Magic the Gathering scene has had its own brush with controversy. A YouTuber with more than 100,000 subscribers has been, apparently, trolling the interwebs, casting stones at just about anyone he could hit, and a well known cosplayer has stepped away from the game because of it. This caused a cascade of criticism to follow, all aimed at the YouTuber, detailing the many different things he’s said and done, and the behavior from his fans that he has at the very least turned a blind eye to, and at the worst encouraged.


I’ve watched the clips and read some of his posts, and I’m just left shaking my head in disappointment. Disappointment that someone out there can be that much of a jerk and claim to not understand he’s being a jerk. Even bigger dismay that 100,000+ people like his content enough to subscribe to him.


But he isn’t alone. There are many people who are making good money by being brusque and uncaring. By being as provocative as they can be to anyone that might get them more eyeballs. It’s the Simon Cowell effect on the internet. Some people just love to watch a good train wreck, and if there’s someone who’s going to sit back and say mean nasty things about other people, that inevitably attracts those people, like moths to a flame.


Part of me can understand the appeal. I was an American Idol fan back in the day, and I used to love to be shocked at just what Simon got away with saying. But it didn’t stop with Simon. People (and television executives) discovered this was a sort of brand you could replicate, until all judging shows seemed to have the requisite jerk. Donald Trump went from “rich white guy people sort of abstractly know about” to “judge of The Apprentice.” He rode that Jerk train all the way to the White House, where he’s become the troll in chief.


It should not surprise us that behavior like this is rampant in our society. Not when a man can say and do the things Trump has said and done and still be elected President.


There is a large contingent of mostly white males who are outraged. Outraged that people are becoming more tolerant. They’re disgusted by what they call PC culture. Enraged that some people are actively trying to make the world a better place. Social Justice Warriors, they call them. SJWs for short. I’ve seen this happen in fantasy author communities, video game communities, politics, religion. You name it. I assume it’s pretty much anywhere, to one degree or another. It’s ugly, but it seems the people spewing this hate just don’t get it. They do not understand that what they’re doing and saying is harmful and obnoxious.


Trump tapped into this vein in his run for office as well. “Make America great again” speaks to this mindset. Reassures people that this new world where people can be accepted for who they are and treated how they wish to be treated is something that doesn’t have to stick around. That we can go back to the good ol’ days, where white men got to grope who they wanted to grope, say what they wanted to say, and could crush anyone they didn’t like.


The sad truth is that 38% of the country still think Trump’s doing a good job. “Pay attention to what he does, not what he says,” they tell me. While Hawaii is testing its nuclear alert system and North Korea is playing chicken with the world. “It’s just an act,” people reassure me. And never mind that just today, Trump retweeted anti-Muslim videos posted by far right extremists. I continue to believe Trump has made this country much worse in his two years of influence. (The first when he was running for office, the second as he’s been in it.) The country I live in now is an actively worse place to live than it was two years ago.


But there’s hope. I see all these accusations of sexual harassment coming out against people at the highest levels of entertainment and news. Matt Lauer. Kevin Spacey. And there are very real consequences for them. That’s good. There needs to be. My hope is that Trump’s presidency ends up being a wake up call to the majority of people in this country. That we reject what he stands for the way we’re standing up and rejecting a culture of sexual harassment.


I know not everyone will agree with the change. But I’m consoled by the fact that I believe the ones who are scared by it are on the decline, while the ones who find Trump reprehensible only gain in numbers every day. And I think the more Trump bangs his little drum of hate and discord, the more he strengthens the opposition.


In the meantime, I continue to do what I can to be a good person. To say nice things. To try to improve myself, and to not just do unto others as I would have others do unto me, but to treat people how they ask to be treated. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

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Published on November 29, 2017 09:51

November 28, 2017

Heavy Meta #12: Traveling with Theresa Overall

HM LOGO


There’s a new episode of my podcast, Heavy Meta, up now for your listening pleasure. This week, Kelly and I talk to UMF professor Theresa Overall about her experiences traveling the world. Give it a listen!


Right click to download audio file.

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Published on November 28, 2017 07:20

November 27, 2017

Broadway Review: The Band’s Visit

While down in Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving, Denisa and I made our yearly trek into New York City to go see a show on Broadway. My dream this year was that we’d be able to go catch Groundhog Day before it closed. Alas, it was not meant to be. It ended its run back in September. (But fear not, Woodchuck Chuckers! It’s supposed to go on a national tour next year. Hope is not lost yet!) So I was left to scratch my head as I scanned through the offerings. Should I see something new? A revival? Hamilton? (Spoiler: no. Tickets at Thanksgiving were still through the roof.)


I turned to my intrepid agent, as I usually do on all things Broadway-related. And he had a strong recommendation right away: The Band’s Visit. I’d never even heard of it, but that’s not surprising, as I don’t follow the ins and outs of Broadway too closely. I turned to the Googlewebs to find out what it was all about. A Broadway adaptation of an Israeli movie from 2007, it tells the story of an Egyptian military band that ends up in a tiny town in Israel by accident for one evening. Its one big name star is Tony Shaloub (of Monk and Galaxy Quest fame). Kind of an inauspicious introduction to the musical.


But then I checked out the reviews, which were through the roof excellent. The show had started off-Broadway and had made the move to Broadway, opening November 12th after previews. Critics were gushing, and I was more than intrigued. Ticket prices were higher than some of the other shows I could see, but I liked the idea of seeing something fresh and new, so I went for it.


After a delicious Thai dinner at Yum Yum Too (food was great, naming of the restaurant leaves some to be desired), we saw the show, which is just an hour and a half long, with no intermission.


It was fantastic. So different from the other musicals I’ve seen. It’s got a variety of song-types, mainly Middle-Eastern themed. The musicians in the band on stage are actual musicians. Just amazing at their craft. The acting is spot on. I really don’t go to musicals to get engrossed in character development most of the time, but this musical . . . just incredible at that. I’m still thinking of the songs and characters, a week later. The story is simple, but because of that, it opens up so much room for exploring motivations and personalities. It was a beautiful experience, and I’d recommend it to anyone in a heartbeat. So glad we went. It’s an easy 10/10.


Unfortunately it’s too new to even have a cast recording for me to point you to. That’s supposed to be coming soon. There are a few YouTube videos that give snippets of the songs. But for now, if you’re in New York in the next while and are looking for something awesome to see, you should put this right at the top of your list.

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Published on November 27, 2017 09:55

November 20, 2017

The Great Stock Experiment

Back at the end of 2015, I had about $500 kicking around. I’d watched the stock market from afar, particularly the tech stocks. I felt like I had seen so many tech stocks skyrocket in price, and that I’d known ahead of time those stocks would do well. I knew the tech was good, so I figured the stock would be solid, as well.


I decided I’d finally put my money where my mouth was.


Square was a company I’d followed for some time. They made little portable registers that people can use on their phones to take credit card payments, and they’d recently branched out to making full fledged devices. They were brand new on the market, and I bought 40 shares of their stock with my $500, resolving to see how things went.


For the first while, they didn’t go so hot The stock that I’d bought at $12 went down to $9, and I felt kind of dumb. But I held onto it, and eventually it rose back to $12. Then it hovered at $14.


Earnings were good. People gained faith in the stock. The company branched out into new areas. And the stock kept going higher.


Today it broke the $45 mark, and I was faced with a new decision. The company has branched out into Bitcoin, and I am quite skeptical of that currency. I feel like that’s the reason the stock has gone higher the last bit, and I don’t feel like it’s sustainable. I had first bought the stock expecting to hold onto it for ten or twenty years, but I had about tripled my money in two years. Did I want to bet that the stock would keep going up, or did I want to get out while the getting was good?


In the end, I got out. My logic was as follows: it’s like I’d gone to Vegas and put all my money on Red for a couple of spins. And I’d gotten lucky. Red was hot. So now I could either let it ride or walk away. There’s certainly a chance Square will keep going gangbusters. And perhaps in a couple of years, I’ll be looking back and wishing I’d kept it in.


But there’s also a chance the stock goes down a ways, and then won’t I feel good about myself.


So anyway, I’ve taken the money out, and now I have to figure out what I want to do with that money next. Maybe I’ll celebrate and buy $1,800 of Magic cards, but something tells me I’ll put the bulk of it into a safer investment and then take that initial $500 seed money and pick another stock to invest in.


I’ll have to mull it over some. But in any case, it’s certainly been a fun (and profitable) experiment.

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Published on November 20, 2017 10:09

November 16, 2017

Fighting Burnout

The end part of a drive is always the hardest part for me. It doesn’t really matter how long the drive itself is. If I’m going on an hour drive, then I begin to get antsy at the 45 minute mark. If I’m on an 8 hour drive, then the last hour or so will be rough, but I breeze through that 45 minute mark. (This is one of the reasons that I try to trick my mind when I go on trips. I say to myself that an 8 hour trip will be 10 hours, and I keep focused on that 10 hour mark the entire trip. Surprisingly, this actually works for me. Perhaps I’m just that good at deluding myself.)


It’s been a tough semester. Denisa’s been teaching three classes and tutoring students, we’ve had multiple renovation projects going on, I’ve had writing deadlines to worry about, I’m pushing my diet hard, and I’ve gotten a new calling at church that’s keeping me on my toes. And I’ve been handling it all pretty well, more or less. But the closer we get to the end of the semester, the harder it seems to have gotten. This past week there have been multiple times when I just have felt like I have nothing left in the tank. I’m persisting on sheer will power alone, and there’s not much of that left, either.


It’s not a pleasant feeling to have. Some of it must be because I know I’m going on vacation soon. I’m at the tail end of the drive, and I’ve hit the point where I know I’m almost done, and so it’s the hardest to keep going.


At times like this, I try to think of what I would tell someone else if they came to me asking for advice on how to handle it. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. You can lighten up for a few days and be just fine. This is a marathon, not a sprint.” But it’s one thing to know what the advice would be, and quite another to actually follow it. The thing that I’m having to push on the most the past bit is my writing. I get home from work and am just fried. I have pretty much no desire to do anything other than read a book, watch a movie, or sleep. But I know I have writing to do, and so I plop myself down in a chair and get it done. I always feel better having done it, but I wish I could feel better when I’m actually in the process of writing.


I didn’t really set out to complain about stuff in this  post. Many many things are going great, and I have to remind myself of that. But the end part of a drive is always the hardest part for me, and that vacation can’t come soon enough.


Speaking of which, I’m hereby stepping back from the blog for tomorrow and all of next week. This is me, giving myself permission to not blog if I don’t want to. If I have something I really want to say, I’ll pop on here and say it, but don’t be surprised if you don’t hear from me until the 27th. I’ll be on Facebook. You can catch me over there.

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Published on November 16, 2017 06:52

November 15, 2017

Movie Review: Thor Ragnarok

There comes a time with a series that you can begin to have too much success. Where people begin to take your skill and craftsmanship for granted. It’s the same thing that happened to Pixar. We all became so used to Pixar churning out great movies year after year, that those movies began to feel less great.


“Huh. Another fantastically animated, wonderfully scripted movie with superb character development. Par for the course, Pixar. Try to wow us next time.”


I believe Marvel is doing the same thing. They’ve got a recipe, and they’re sticking to that recipe fairly faithfully for the most part. So the question then becomes, where do you go from there?


Obviously one approach is to start making some bad movies. Pixar did that with The Good Dinosaur, though people watched it and ended up blaming Disney more for that movie than Pixar. “A *bad* Pixar movie? It must not have been Pixar, because those movies are always great by default.”


Marvel has come up with a new approach: stick the recipe for the most part, but inject different flavors. Guardians of the Galaxy is a great example of this. It took the superhero movie and inject craziness and a killer soundtrack. Antman turned into a heist movie. Spiderman: Homecoming is the high school flavor. Marvel is doing riffs on a theme at this point, and surprisingly, that’s working really well.


Enter Taika Waititi, a director known for quirky comedy. His What We Do in the Shadows is flat out awesome. The Office meets Dracula. And Marvel hired him to . . . direct the third Thor movie? You know they had to have done it on purpose. He’s got a style that’s unique, and they handed him the keys to Thor, a series that has been one of my least favorite Marvel films thus far. It’s taken itself too seriously, just like its titular character.


I took the kids to watch Thor: Ragnarok last week, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. It’s quirky and funny, peppered with characters that are oddballs. It’s got a lot of humor, some great action pieces, and I really recommend it. That said, I walked away only giving it a 7/10. Why? Because the quirkiness wasn’t quite enough to really set it apart from the other Marvel movies. It was another well produced superhero film. The quirkiness kept it from feeling tired, but it didn’t raise it to a new level, if that makes sense.


(Also, as a side note, this was my first movie I went to in a theater since I got my projector at home. And in the middle of the movie, I found myself wishing the screen were bigger, like the one I have at home. It’s all about perspective and seating distance, folks.)


So good on Marvel for keeping up the quality. I’ll gladly continue to keep paying for it. But I am beginning to wonder how much more they have left in the tank. At some point, things turn from “another quality Marvel movie” into “just another quality Marvel movie,” and from there it’s not too far to “just another Marvel movie,” which is followed by people not showing up at all. Something to think about.


Some odds and ends:



I wish they hadn’t spoiled the appearance of one of the Avengers in the film. That reveal would have been epic if they’d been able to keep it under wraps better.
I really enjoyed the soundtrack. Enough that I had to look up the composer: Mark Mothersbaugh. The name didn’t mean anything to me, so I dug deeper. He was one of the founders of Devo, which vaulted the soundtrack even higher in my eyes. Great synth feel to it. Having more unique soundtracks would very much be a plus for Marvel.
Cate Blanchett’s character development leaves a whoooooole lot to be desired. At this point, I think my biggest beef with the Marvel movies is how generic a lot of their villains are beginning to feel. The superheroes get a lot of development and backstory, but the villains, not so much. You could swap villains between movies, and I don’t think it would make a difference in many cases. That’s a flaw.

Anyway–do check the movie out. Already seen it? Let me know what you thought!

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Published on November 15, 2017 11:41

November 14, 2017

When the Team Becomes More Important than the Player

I’ve been generally disgusted with politics lately. So many people involved in getting so little of real worth accomplished. It’s depressing, and that’s before you trot out Trump and take a long look at just what he’s doing to this country. (Case in point: we’re now focused on bolstering our nuclear defenses, and Congress is examining just what sort of nuclear powers the President should have. This is 2017, by the way. The Cold War has been over for coming up on thirty years. And yet suddenly we’re worrying about this, and I think you can plop pretty much all the blame right at Trump’s bloated feet.*)


But one of the things that has disappointed me the most has been the trend of people more and more focusing on what “team” each politician plays for, and less and less on the character and quality of the actual players/politicians themselves. In the presidential election, many seemed to vote simply because of what the party each candidate belonged to stood for, holding their nose or overlooking anything that candidate might have done or said personally. And I certainly believe Trump and Clinton can have this accusation lobbed at them.


This has become much clearer now with this Roy Moore nastiness. For those of you not following along, Roy Moore is a Republican candidate for Senator in Alabama. The Washington Post published an article detailing an investigation they ran, encompassing thirty interviews with people who knew Moore and connected him with sexually assaulting girls as young as 14 back in the late 1970s, when Moore was in his young 30s. Other women have since come forward, confirming the allegations.


I get that it’s basically a he said/she said situation at the moment. (Though I’ll note that when you have multiple people willing to make the same allegations, that actually turns into a he said/THEY said, and that’s quite a different equation in my book.) Is it possible Moore is innocent and wrongly accused? Sure it is. And some people are taking that line, saying he should step down from the race “if the allegations are true.”


The thing that baffles me—that has my jaw on the floor—is how some others are actually defending his actions, even if those actions are true.


“Take Mary and Joseph. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus,” Alabama State Auditor Jim Zeigler told theWashington Examiner. “There’s just nothing immoral or illegal here. Maybe just a little bit unusual.”


And this one:



Joel Pollak, an editor-at-large at Breitbart, criticized the Post’s report in an interview on MSNBC, saying “the 16-year-old and the 18-year-old have no business in that story” because Alabama’s age of consent is 16. “As far as we know, there’s only one relationship that’s been alleged that is problematic,” Pollak said of the encounter with 14-year-old Corfman.




You have politicians and talk show hosts and public figures defending the man’s actions, even if they are true. And the reason many of them give for it? It’s important Moore gets elected to that Senate seat, because otherwise the Republicans have an even more tenuous hold on the Senate. Better to put a child molester into power than to risk the Republican agenda. Let that sink in for a moment. These aren’t people who are defending his character or saying he’d never do such a thing. They’re saying even if he did it, it doesn’t matter as much as politics.


I don’t know why it should surprise me. People voted for Trump to keep the Democrats out of the Presidency, and Trump was on the record saying and doing awful things. It wasn’t he said/she said. It was just “he said.” And you had him on tape actually saying it.


This is not right, plain and simple. And anyone who wants to show up and start accusing Democrats of terrible behavior in order to excuse Republicans for terrible behavior is equally at fault. I literally do not care what party a child molester belongs to. I’m sure there are terrible Democrats out there. But this isn’t football. Two penalties, one against each team, do not offset each other. Play does not continue as normal. I would much prefer an inherently good person be in office, even if I disagree with that person’s politics, than an evil person who might happen to vote the way I’d prefer from time to time. I don’t think that statement should be groundbreaking, but sometimes it feels to me that it’s heading in that direction.


The best way to make it stop (that I can see) is to break up the parties, which might (in turn) break up the talk radio and biased news reporting. When it becomes less of us vs. them, perhaps Americans can start actually caring that good people represent them once more.


Or maybe I’m just dreaming.


Disclaimer: I do not actually know if Trump has bloated feet or not. Perhaps they’re very dainty. Tiny, even. I have no real desire to find out.

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Published on November 14, 2017 09:30