Why It Hurts

The dust is settling.  A collection of rationalizations are being developed.  Many believe that the lives they have known will continue largely unaltered.  Some even hope things will improve.

There are some of us, however, that have already been changed.  You see, we saw a light.  It was dim, but it was there.  The future we dreamed of was so close.  In 2008, I joined the Democratic party long enough to vote in the primary.  I was glad I did.  In 2016, I did so again.  The candidate I chose was not chosen by the party.  However, I gave my support to the Democratic party regardless.  The future would come slower, but it would come.

And then November 8th came...

I watched as it became more obvious that the election had been decided.  I watched as news organizations held off from "calling it".  I watched as 61,000,000 Americans voted for the past.  I watched as 61,000,000 Americans voted for failure.  I watched as 61,000,000 Americans voted for hate.  Meanwhile, 90,000,000 Americans didn't care enough to even express an opinion.

And now, I no longer care.  I had held on to hope.  I had believed in my fellow humans.  That belief had been tested again and again, but it had remained.  It has shattered.

I may be wrong about what the next few years will bring.  I do not believe I am.  I believe history has given us quite enough examples to make a projection.  I will not throw around cliches or comparisons.  If the parallels aren't clear to someone, it is because they are deluding themselves.  It can happen here.  It can happen now. 

I will not "hope for the best" or "see what happens".  Instead, I will give people exactly what they have asked for.

On the hills

The light burns in the land of Eternal Twilight
It has its time but is quickly obscured
Gray and green rule and their reign is not tested
I am not of this land

My land is far across the sea
It calls to me
Its voice made louder by the waves
Just yesterday I pondered leaving
Now I know home

I have become addicted to her moods
I think on her often
She that fed me from birth
Her ways have become mine

Soon I will leave this land
I will soar away
I have left no mark upon it
Has it left a mark on me?

The Third Party... Racists

I was reminded that the Democratic party aligned with the Ku Klux Klan.  Many people will simply ignore this as rhetoric.  However, we should not ignore this.  There are a large group of people that are not aligned to a party but to hatred.

The Dixiecrats, Strom Thurman, George Wallace... they may have been labeled Democrats at one point.  They may have referenced "states rights", but it has always been the same.  At the moment, the hate mongers have aligned with the Republican party.  I need not provide evidence for this, the nomination has already taken place.

Time and again, politicians have made references to stereotypes to further their agendas.  The references may have been less obvious in other cases, but the truth is that "the race card" is played by the hate mongers in nearly every election year.

We should not simply ignore misinformation and half-truths.  We must call out all direct and indirect racism.  The re-emergence of more direct racism is not really surprising.  The hate mongers have always been there.  They will always be there.  We must identify them.  We must stop pretending that we are talking about a tiny fraction of the population.  Hate is commonplace.

The lines have been drawn.  Open racism has again reared its head.  We must all now choose how to react.

In search of an audience...

I can not say I write only for the love of the written word.  I desire feedback, interaction, readers, viewers, etc.  I have recently been considering transitioning to a video blog for precisely this purpose.  Blogs seem to be a disappearing medium.  Audio and video have replaced the written word several times, and so this is not surprising.

After all, we humans developed the written word relatively recently.  All communication was interpersonal at one point and a great deal of our communication still is.  The written word is also not ideal for the conveying of emotion.  It invokes emotion, but conveying it is difficult when the inflection of a voice is taken out of the equation.  There have been some recent attempts to compensate for this, but they fall short.

I can not say whether I will end up doing this.  I'm not particularly photogenic, nor am I great public speaker.  My voice will probably be lost in the sea of content just as my words are here.

Because no one asked

I've recently spent a good bit of time in the realm of online dating.  I have only really experienced, and only will experience, a subset of the possible interactions.  However, I have noticed some patterns that I felt the desire to share.  Obviously, I am not the desired audience for many profiles, but I have never thought that my opinions are unique.

First, a large percentage of online profiles of women are fake.  This is a combination of "bots" and scams.  This can lead to some odd behavior by men as they try to ascertain if they are chatting with the person actually photographed.  This is more true on some sites than others.  Each site has its own personality: Tinder is a dating app that a segment of its user-base wishes was a "hookup" app, there are actual "hookup" apps and websites, but most of them are just scams, eHarmony is notorious for attracting boring people, etc.

I have not used every dating, "hookup", and chat app and website available.  I believe there are hundreds at this point.  However, I have looked through a lot of profiles and felt the need to give some feedback.  This may be considered a rant.  As I am one voice in a tiny corner of the Internet, very few people will hear it regardless.

Let's start with profile photos.  If you do not have one, I assume you are either invisible, incapable of using a camera, or are so disturbed by your own visage as to consider an image of you a destructive force that should not be unleashed.  If you choose to post profile photos, there are some things to avoid.  If you look unhappy in all of the photos you appear in, I must assume that you are never happy.   If figuring out which individual within the photos the profile belongs to is impossible, I'm going to simply move on.  I am a fan of puzzles, but playing "Which person is the same in the most photos?" is not a fun puzzle.  By all means, let people know you have children, be proud of them, but the profile is yours, the majority of your photos should not be of them without you.  That is a little disturbing to be honest. 

As for the profile text, describing oneself is time consuming.  A "blank" profile is not truly a negative in my opinion.  Leaving your profile text blank for an extended period of time, however, will only attract the illiterate and the shallow.  Being able to communicate in your primary language is an important skill.  Text and chat messages are by their nature abbreviated, profiles are not.  If your profile contains no punctuation, and you are not an inspiring poet, I recommend deleting the text.  It is not helping you.

I am very glad that online dating has become as mainstream as it is.  The social gatherings of the past have disappeared and there really aren't good alternatives.  I would never have met my ex-wife in a bar, and we lived less than 15 miles apart when we met.  I wish all that are currently "looking" success.