Winter Isn't Coming, but Baby It's Cold Outside

While it may be hard to remember, there have been numerous occasions throughout history when we have been divided.  There has been strife. There has been extreme violence.  Our government has been more than dysfunctional.  In other words, now is not a first.  It is also not the end. I don't want to seem too Pollyanna about the current strife we face, but we have faced these problems before.

So why do they seem so extreme this time? We are interconnected in ways we have never been connected before. Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, even LinkedIn, does a number of things, the least of which gives us insight into another person but allows us to surround ourselves with people who think like we do.  It's like eating fast food every night may seem like a good idea, but it makes us fat and lazy. The same is true when we feed ourselves a steady diet of only one point of view. That said, most observers of the current election agree, we have never seen an election like this.

I've struggled to blog about this election because I just cannot believe that anyone can support Donald Trump. I should state that I honestly don't care about Hillary's emails because I also don't care about the emails deleted by Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice who also maintained separate accounts and deleted their emails. Dick Cheney deleted some 22 million emails, that's right 22 million, off a private server set up in the White House by the Republican National Committee. You know what all of these have in common? Nothing was wrong with that then, and it wasn't when Hillary Clinton did it. No security breaches of any kind have been discovered. We may have lost some history, but, for the most part, emails are pretty much not worth much. So if you're upset about the whole email thing, then you should also be furious about the others too. BTW, those who keep posting the meme 18 U.S. Code § 2071, you should probably fact check its use. Even the guy who first brought up the idea has agreed that this law cannot apply.


Benghazi is something else that is, excuse the pun, trumped up.  We have had 10 congressional committee investigations at a cost of millions of taxpayer dollars, not including hours spent which resulted in every hearing finding "no wrongdoing" by any person or party. Other than these two incidents, I don't understand why so many think Hillary is so crooked. Is she a politician? Yep. Does she maintain multiple positions? Yep. Name a politician that doesn't. Is she highly experienced?Yep.  I suppose I should point out that I read the released speech from Wikileaks, and Hillary really was referring to the movie Lincoln. Clinton said politicians must balance "both a public and a private position" while making deals. Clinton gave an example from the movie "Lincoln," and the deal-making that went into the passage of the 13th Amendment, a process she compared to sausage-making. In fact, the only major candidate who has zero public service experience is Donald Trump. 

Before Trump supporters say, "Exactly, the point," I would also like to point out that he has seemingly zero understanding about a lot of things. If you went to a doctor or dentist, would you really want the one with no training? No insight? Just a laptop and Google for information. I just cannot keep up with everything Trump doesn't know. To announce that Hillary is a liar one must also accept that Trump has barely a passing nod to the truth.  His Fact Check file is far worse than Hillary. No! You may not blame Fact Check or Politifact as Liberal propaganda. Shooting the messenger, or the ad hominem or scapegoating, is a classic fallacy and has zero validity. Yes, Fact Checkers do have an agenda; it's the facts.  Hillary has been fact checked 266 times. Her mostly true and true statements are a 135. Trump has been fact checked 285 times. His true and mostly true statements are 45 in number. Clinton has been rated false to pants on fire 33 times to Trump's rating of false to pants on fire a whopping 149 times. Hillary's mostly false is 40 and Trump's is 51 time. Mendacity is not Trump's strong suit. 

Look, I blogged in 2012 about my concern over the lies told by the candidates then.  That said, Mitt's, Ryan's, Obama's, and Biden's abilities to tell the truth makes them look like the Popes compared to Trump's knowledge about the truth. You cannot dismiss one for lying and ignore that the other lies too. It is not just the lying...

I can only say one thing about Trump's taxes. Do you honestly believe that other than signing them, that Trump actually does his own taxes? He has tax lawyers to do his taxes. In fact, one former Trump tax attorney from the 90's says that not only did he not do his taxes; he had no interest in them and did not seem to understand them. 

Even with that horrendous tape that released (warning it is uncensored here), all the issues were there.  Just look at his tweets. He has clearly made racist statements. He has consistently verbally attacked women about their appearance and even bodily functions. He has attacked Muslims. He has attacked African Americans. He has attacked Immigrants. He has attacked war heroes. He has attacked a war hero's family. He has attacked the entire military. He has attacked the disabled. He has hired as a campaign manager a man who once worked for Russia. He has personally praised Putin as a great leader.  He has praised Saddam Hussein and was endorsed by North Korea media controlled by Kim Jong Un. He is also clearly narcissistic. His morality attack on Hillary Clinton is moot for a man who is on his third wife and has admitted he had affairs while married to the other two.  He has dismissedded his vile comments about women as "locker room talk" while he was clearly not in a locker room but actually working and his surrogate Rudy Giuliani uses this line as a puchline. And this list is just the highlights. 

He currently has a campaign manager whose association with the alt-right is long standing.  Steve Bannon announced when he ran Breitbart that it would be a platform for the alt-right. If you do not believe that the alt-right is the new face of racism, conspiracy theory, and other populist and supremacist organizations, all you need to do is spend a minute with Google. If you want to know their talking points, the alt-right held a two-hour press conference which you can find on YouTube. There is also a post with the main talking points here. Is Bannon a member of the alt-right? I do not know, but he has clearly used them for his own purposes and Trump has espoused many of the conspiracy theories espoused on Breitbart. 

Then we have the debates. Trump threatened, to the cheers of his supporters, to put Hillary in jail. I don't know how to put this to you, but not only does such a threat have totalitarian overtones, but also it is illegal.  In fact, when Richard Nixon was about to be successfully impeached, part of the articles of impeachment included misuse of the justice system for political reasons. Trump's threat is illegal. 

Does it not concern supporters that Putin's Russia clearly wants this man to be president? Yes, I know that the hacks are actually more designed to sew distrust in our elections, something that Trump has tried to do too, but the attacks are also clearly for Trump. Despite what Trump has said, he was personally told, according to NBC news, that Russia was responsible for the hacks. It is also clear that Putin is trying to manipulate our election. He has tried this also in European nations. By the way, "Wouldn't it be nice if..." we got along with Russia, North Korea, etc is not a foreign policy; it is the title of a Beach Boys' song.

Does it bother anyone that not a single major paper nation-wide has endorsed Donald Trump? Generally, newspaper endorsements don't mean much, but there are papers that have never endorsed a non-republican who have refused to endorse Trump. There are even papers that have never endorsed anyone or have only endorsed once or twice that have come out endorsing Clinton or saying that Trump is categorically unqualified to be President.

Trump is up at 3 AM tweeting about the weight of a beauty queen. He is by all accounts unable to control his responses. If elected, HE WILL HAVE THE NUCLEAR CODES! The use of these codes requires no congressional approval. Every president in the modern age may order a nuclear strike. It is true that he is supposed to get a second confirmation, but I remind you that the "football" is always with the President. I know conservatives are worried about the Supreme Court appointment, but that will hardly matter if there is no Supreme Court left. Clinton is a centrist. Sorry, Bernie fans, but she is. She is not likely to appoint an extreme left Justice. 

This was all there for the viewing before that horrible tape came out on Friday or before the accusation by numerous women. If you're angry a Washington, I get that. If you are going to throw the molotov cocktail that is Trump at Washington and  have no plan what will replace it, you will end up with a burned down building ruled by a dictator because everything will be gone.

I will not tell you who to vote for. I am just saying, do not vote for Trump. 

Finally, I want to leave you with a moment of hope. At the beginning of my little rant, I told you we have had hard and turbulent times before. It's true. It is also true that when this turmoil has happened we have grown as a nation. We have become better. I am hopeful that this is true now. 

The Lesser of Two Evils...not Really

I've seen more than a few folks announcing that this year's election is a direct result of voting for the lesser of two evils in the two party system.  I humbly and respectfully would like to tell you that you are completely wrong. These two candidates are something of an anomaly in the trustworthy and truthful polls, but they are not a result of voting for the lesser of two evils for generations. By the way, the Lesser of Two Evils argument is a classic logical fallacy. It is also used in virtually every election. It's not new.

The problem with this belief is a simple one. History. No president's legacy is clear, according to one historian. It is really not clear until at least 50 years after their presidency. According to Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, Gordon Wood, “It’s a fool’s errand you’re involved in. We live in a fog, and historians decades from now will tell their society what was happening in 2014. But we don’t know the future. No one in 1952, for example, could have predicted the reputation of Truman a half-century or so later.”  There have been elections where we have voted for the least, the most, and just the average. We voted for. We voted against. We voted. We did not know that Reagan would become a myth for Republicans or that Jimmy Carter would become far more influential after his presidency than when he was president. We did not know that John Kennedy would become a legend in his own right or that Texan and southerner Lyndon Johnson's legacy would include civil rights or that Nixon, who won by a landslide, would become "Crooked" or "Tricky" Dick Nixon and be forced from office.  We didn't know that Bill Clinton would oversee one of the most prosperous economic times in US history while dealing with his own scandal.  We did not know that George W. Bush would face 9-11 or would become president even though he lost the popular vote.

We vote for. We vote against. I've voted for Independent candidates, for Republicans, and for Democrats. I've voted against Republicans and Democrats. I've voted for candidates that have won and for candidates that have lost.  I have, however, never voted for a candidate simply because they belong to a particular party. That would be possibly the worst reason to vote for a candidate. To say, however, that this, the most acrimonious election in memory is a result of constantly having to choose the lesser of candidates is both logically and historically incorrect.

In my lifetime from birth to now there have been strong, weak, crooked, legendary, good, and bad presidents.  They have, in short, been human.  I was born during Eisenhower, who was followed by Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush 2, and Obama.  I am sure you may have heard of a few of them.  But these men, are not a result of choosing the lowest common denominator.

Their elections were results of smart
campaigns, the presence of spoiler candidates, a dislike for the president they followed, or a host of other reasons. Some were elected twice, some were elected once, one was forced from office, one was never elected, one died, one chose not to run a second time. Some won the office by a lot, some won by a little. Some were hated while they were president and some were loved.  Some had congresses who were willing to work with them, some had congresses that wouldn't. Some were considered weak when they were in office and discovered to be right after they left office, and some were considered to be smart while in office and not so smart after.  Some were turned into mythical figures.  Very few of them got through the office without being surrounded by controversy and all of them who survived the office looked much more aged by the time they left the office.


Only one president was unanimously elected, George Washington.  He was also the only one who had no party affiliation. No, we did not always have Republicans and Democrats. No, Republicans were not always the Conservative party. No, Democrats were not always the Liberal party.  Harry Truman was supposed to lose. Few knew that Kennedy suffered from extraordinary back pain and Franklin Roosevelt took great pains not to be seen in his wheelchair, but it is also a myth that it was kept secret. He actually used his disability to his advantage.  Grover Clevland had surgery on a boat to prevent the press from learning of a cancerous growth that needed to be removed. In fact, presidents have gone to great lengths to avoid appearing ill or weak.  Even Ronald Reagan Junior says he believes that his father was beginning to show signs of his Alzheimer's disease while still in office. Lincoln, yes Lincoln, was a hated president while he was in office.

While we do not know what Obama's legacy will bring, certainly as the first African-American president, he will have a mark in history, just as Hillary Clinton will be remembered as the first woman to run for president for one of the major parties. While we have not always been Democrats and Republicans, we have always been pretty much a two-party system, but the Founders actually hated political parties, but I am sure they realized they were a necessary evil. The actual truth is, that with the exception of Washington who ran unopposed, presidential politics have always been pretty vicious. They did not include political parties in the Constitution. It wasn't because they didn't think about them. If they had truly only wanted a two-party system, do you think we would have Libertarians and Green and Socialists and a whole slew of other parties on the ballot? The Republicans would have never existed, nor the current Democratic party.  The Federalists and the Jeffersonian Democratic-Republicans would still be in vogue.

No, history just doesn't bear out why we have Trump and Hillary as our candidates. It is not from years of voting for the lesser of two evils. Logic and history, simply makes this argument truly false. You'll need a better argument.

Magnificent Seven Return of the Classic Western

The Magnificent Seven is a remake of the 1960 movie of the same title which was a remake of Seven Samurai  (1954). It is predictable. It has all the tropes from Westerns you can imagine. It has the long drawn out gunfight battle from Spaghetti Westerns. It has the slow pan up of the hero as he enters that saloon. It has the legendary gunfighter struggling with those he has killed.  It has the unlikely friendship between the Native American and the "Indian" hunter who is a kind and gentle giant. It has insurmountable odds. It has a story of vengeance from the past and a noble band of killers and misfits. It has a plot that pretty much lets you know who will die and who will live.  It has a bad guy who you just can't help but hate. It has the kindly preacher who lets us know that our fighters are more than just hired guns but avenging angels. In short, The Magnificent Seven is a wonderful old-fashioned western.

The acting is solid but given a cast that includes the likes of Denzel Washington and Vincent D'Onofrio and Ethan Hawke, one could expect little else.  Chris Pratt is his usual charming self. The cast is a good one and despite the predictable plot they turn in superb performances. There is little else I can say.

If you like the old classic Westerns, or just want to see an old fashioned good vs. evil, go see The Magnificent Seven. It is everything a Western should be.

The Everyman Hero

The movie Sully is one that I am glad I saw. It is simply told, well written, and well acted. There are a few things that are a bit trite in the telling, but overall, it is a good and moving story of an unlikely hero whose simple and unassuming nature is the measure of the man.

For those of you who don't know the story, Flight 1549 of US Airways was struck by a flock of birds a few moments after take-off which disabled both engines on the plane on January 15, 2009. Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger made the decision that the plane could not make it to the two nearby airports and decided to water land the plane on the only smooth surface he could find in New York City, the Hudson River. It all happened in 108 seconds. More remarkable was that all 155 souls on the plane survived the landing. Sully walked up and down the plane to make sure no one was left behind. It was also remarkable in that not only did everyone survive in frigid winter weather but also people just generally do not survive water landings. The entire rescue was just 24 minutes long.

Sully is more than this story. It is the story of what happened after the landing.  It was not a crash, as Sullenberger pointed out but a water landing.  The movie tells us of the investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board, the press that surrounded Sullenberger, and the learning to deal with the hero worship in the media. If there is a singular problem with the movie, it is the decision to paint the NTSB as the villains in the movie. It is something about which NTSB investigators are less than pleased. Painting government investigators as bad guys is a long-running and trite Hollywood trope.


Still, there is yet another stellar performance by Tom Hanks as Sully Sullenberger.  Hanks has become a master at playing the unlikely, everyman hero. He inhabits the character in ways few actors can.  I believe in Hanks as Sullenberger.  I suppose that one of the reasons he has so few Oscars is simple. He is so good at playing these characters, it seems effortless.  To paraphrase Spencer Tracy, "Never let the audience catch you acting," is exactly Hanks' ability as an actor. His innate ability to look into and past a camera and let the audience see every thought constantly astonishes me.


The rest of the cast consist of primarily Aaron Eckhart as First Office Jeff Skiles also important to the safe landing and Laura Linney as Sully's wife Lorraine. Their performances as also solid and believable. If there are any other issues with the movie, is that Director Clint Eastwood really needs to hire someone that can write music other than the self-written jazz music that he writes for his movies. Sully 

is a solid movie that will leave you feeling good. It is worth the time. I think most folks will enjoy it. 

By the way:

Star Trek and Me: A 50 Year Journey (Part 3)

I did post on Facebook about this incredible gift a group of students gave to me.  If you missed it, here it is. 

A few weeks before the Star Trek 50 in Las Vegas, in late July a former student of mine sent me a message from a friend of hers that she needed to sell her ticket to the event for an incredible price. I explained that my money for August was budgeted, and while it would be cool to go, it just was not in the cards for me. By the end of the exchange, my former student had bought the ticket for me, had contacted several other former students and was in the midst of trying to arrange plane tickets and funding to help cover the cost of a Vegas hotel.  I am forever grateful to this small band of students for this incredible gift and what for me is a once-in-a-lifetime, bucket-list event. It was not just the gift of the convention, but it was also the reminder of the gift that I had when I taught these amazing young people.  They gifted me with a memory of not just an incredible convention, but with why I taught for over 30 years.

So, on Tuesday, August 2nd, I flew to Vegas for Star Trek 50 at the Rio hotel and convention center. I had not attended a Star Trek convention since the 1990's. The Vegas convention would run from Wednesday, August 3rd through Sunday, August 7. It would be five days of immersion into Trek, but it was more.

There was the plethora of overpriced collectibles and a host of famous and not so famous celebrities selling their autographs, a practice that I think should stop. Yes, I did buy a few mementos including what my wife and I are calling the world's most expensive tee-shirt, but I am glad that I got it. But unlike the conventions that I quit going to, there was an appreciation - a feeling that I felt they had lost when I quit going. As I said in part two, Star Trek 50 renewed my passion. 

You see, when you put several thousand Trekkies/Trekkers in one place, you discover something: as a group, we are kind, friendly, incredibly diverse, and are still filled with hope for human-kind. It didn't matter whether what age, race, orientation, or handicap, everyone I saw was truly thrilled to be there. Celebs, famous and not so famous, were, it seemed, genuinely glad that they were there. Celebrities even were out walking through the halls and easily accessible if fans just wanted to talk without paying for a signature. I have been to conventions where the stars are surrounded by an entourage and security going from their hotel room to the panel hall.

At this convention, I got to talk to stars, saw cast members from Enterprise as we both dined at the bar of a hotel restaurant, talked to Robert Picardo about membership in the Planetary Society, told Andrew J. Robinson of Deep Space Nine how much I enjoyed his psychopath in the original Dirty Harry movie as he passed in the hall, thanked Garrett Wang for his hosting work at Denver Comic Con, and even accidentally captured a pic of Brent Spiner as he went past a cosplayer whose picture I was taking.  He was not the only celebrity that I saw roaming around the convention halls, either. Celebrities were at ease among these fans.  They were clever and charming and had fun at all the panels.  Even the often the self-described pessimist, Walter Koenig danced a little jig when he was introduced for his Q and A. I even got to know a fan from Australia, while we talked with John and Bjo Trimble. I told Bjo that I first saw Trek when I was nine and thanked her for saving if for me.  She told me that we should start an original series survivor's club. 

It was a joyous time. It was almost at times, seemingly magical. What is more, it reminded me of my passion for this series. When I came home, on Monday, August 8th, I had something that for me is an unusual event. I had dreams about being at the convention. In fact, for the next two weeks, I had wonderful dreams about that convention. My family will tell you for me to remember anything about the dreams is quite unusual.

Why Star Trek for these fifty years? The answer is really quite simple and hopefully after three full blogs you'll get why. Trek gives us Hope.

Star Trek and Me: A 50 Year Journey (Part 2)

William Shatner arrives.

So in this 50th Anniversary Year of Star Trek, I wanted to tell you what it was that recharged my passion for what may debatably be the most influential pop culture icon.  I know. I know there are others and some which are bigger and even a few, like Doctor Who, which is older, but from cultural impact, few have had the impact that Star Trek has, and the thing that reminded me of the love I have for this particular franchise was that I went to a Star Trek Convention. 

A cosplayer recreates
Captain Pike

It was not just any Star Trek convention.  I am not saying that I will start going to other Star Trek conventions, but that I was given the opportunity to go to a huge -a bucket list kind - Star Trek convention. I went to the Star Trek 50th Convention, Las Vegas. As a nerd, I go regularly to the comic con in Denver and also added to my bucket list when I went to the grand comic convention in San Diego. While I must admit I was thrilled and awed by San Diego Comic Con as I wandered through it in awestruck wonder, the Star Trek 50th in Las Vegas was very, very different. When I go to comic cons, I know some of the things going on and I also know very little or nothing about some of the other events and panels.  While I enjoy going to celebrity panels, I must admit there are some celebs that I have no idea as to how they are connected to the nerd community. It’s fun to find out, but there is plenty in the pop culture arena that I don't know about.

Star Trek Rat Pack

At Star Trek conventions, I know these people. They are my people. I get them. I've been there since the beginning. Now I admit that I am not as detailed obsessed as a few Star Trek nerds. I cannot discuss the show by episode number nor tell you who was the second camera man or the first red-shirt actor to die in Star Trek, but I get it. I get Star Trek.

To understand, let me tell you a little bit about the five days I spent at this wondrous convention.  People I did not know existed still were there, and it wasn't Q and A sessions with Star Trek actors and a cosplay contest and an auction, it was more. Yes, those things which are staples of the Star Trek conventions were also at Star Trek 50. 

Robert O'Reilly

While there were events like those above, there were also the entertainment events. It is, after all, Vegas and Vegas is about the show. Every night, there was an entertainment event. On the first night, there were the actors in full Klingon make-up. J.G. Hertzler (Martok), Robert O'Reilly (Gowron) and Gwynyth Walsh (B’Etor) were all original Klingons in Star Trek The Next Generation and Deep Space 9. Not only did they come out in full costume and make-up, but they also responded to the audience as if they were their original characters. It was funny and an astonishing exercise in improv theater as these three actors performed as if they were on an Earth-bound, Klingon talk show.

Max Grodenchik

They were not the only entertainment in full make-up and costume.  There was The FERENGIS! with Max Grodenchik (Rom) and Aron Eisenberg (Nog) from Deep Space 9. While they were a little more sedate than three Klingon's on stage, they were also moving as Aron Eisenberg talked about health problems he'd had and what make Max Grodenchik such an amazing human. 

At night, we could go to Quark's Bar. This room, which during the day was a place where attendees could buy lunch and snacks, was also the home to the Roddenberry stage which hosted each night a band called the Roddenberries and also had actress Chase Masterson from Deep Space singing old lounge songs. Yes, she can sing. Attendees could also buy real Star Trek-themed drinks in the bar each night. It was also the place where Rod Roddenberry, Gene Roddenberry's son, hosted a 50th birthday party supplying cake and champagne to every attendee in the room. 

Jonathan Frakes joins the audience.

In addition to this entertainment, there was also the night when the Nevada Pops Orchestra played music from Star Trek with one song being directed by award-winning composer Jay Chattaway. On another night there was the Star Trek Rat Pack with Max Grodenchik (lyricist and producer), Armin Shimerman, Vaughn Armstrong, Jeffrey Combs, Casey Biggs and Bill Burchell as the satiric forms of Frank Sinatra and the old Vegas gang. Add to these events like cakes decorations, or decorate your own cookie or coloring contest or learning to play Star Trek Ascendancy the board game, you get an idea of what the atmosphere was like.

Tribute banner to Anton Yelchin

To these entertainment events, we can add things like places for photo scenes and even a transporter which would make a video of the person being transported. There were astounding cosplayers. There was the art inspired by Star Trek traveling display. There were vendors and banners and even a large banner dedicated to the memory of Anton Yelchin, which attendees could sign. There were demonstrations like Oscar award winning Michael Westmore showing how a Borg is created. Last but not least, there were the panels.

Whoopi and Cosplayers

Almost any major player from every Star Trek series, with perhaps the exception of Patrick Stewart, was there. They were almost always grouped with other members of the same series. They did more than answer fan questions. They created moments for fans to remember. There was the arrival of John and Bjo Trimble who led the charge that kept Star Trek from being canceled. There was the moment that one of the actors from the original series apologized for having difficulty remembering because he was recovering from a stroke two weeks before. There was the moment when Jonathan Frakes kept roaming around the audience and hanging out with the fans. There was the introduction to the actors who had played iconic Star Trek monsters like the Gorn and the Salt Vampire. There were moments when Walter Koenig and in a later event George Takei both seemed to want to make peace with William Shatner. There was the moment that Scott Bakula came out and proved he really is deserving of his nice and genuine guy reputation. There was the moment that Whoopi Goldberg invited all the Guinan cosplayers to the stage and later came out and hugged Nichelle Nichols for her contribution to opening the door for women of color in the 1960's. There was the moment that Adam Nimoy paid tribute in film clips to his dad, Leonard "Spock" Nimoy and Rod Roddenberry's toast to his dad's creation. 

Whoopi and Nichelle

In short, the convention was not just about stuff and celebrities, but about the moments that were created for fans. Most of the questions were ones that every hardcore fan had read about, heard about, or had seen asked at other conventions. What it was that made this convention different was that fans received a gift of memories to take with them. And that is what the events of Star Trek 50 Las Vegas were like, and it is how I renewed my passion. 

So why? Star Trek and Me: A 50 Year Journey (Part 3) is coming next.