Tag: politics

The year-end post, circa 2020

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This video by Carters encapsulates how I feel extremely succinctly.  I know 2020 has been a historically catastrophic year by any number of measures, and I’m not going to even try and change anyone’s mind who’ve already decided that there’s absolutely nothing at all redeemable about it.  It’s a fair judgment, and there’s tons of justification to where I just have to shrug and agree that such X and other Y really are terrible things, and leave people alone to continue believing that 2020 was the worst year in human existence.

Frankly, if not for the one obvious event in my life this year, I’d probably be right there with them.  But because of said event, there’s absolutely nothing else that could really occur that can make me possibly think that 2020 was anything other than among the greatest years of my life.  Like many, I too know my share of people whom coronavirus has dually affected throughout the year, or had some very unfortunate events or news take place, and my heart genuinely, sincerely goes out to them, and I wish for nothing but the best for them and their loved ones.

But nothing is going to change my perspective on 2020 being a magnificent year, because nothing has been a greater event in my life than the birth of my daughter, right before all the shit really began to hit the fan.  And throughout the remainder of the year, for every piece of horrible, shitty news, note about someone dying, bad day at work, or any other reason for stress and unhappiness, I was always mere steps away from being able to go pick up my daughter and hold her in my arms and will away the negativity.

As ironic as it may seem, and I’ve said it as much, as much as coronavirus and the global pandemic have been devastating to the world throughout the year, it’s inadvertently put me in the most optimal position in the sense that I’ve gotten to work from home since the shit hit the fan, and I’ve gotten to spend a tremendous amount of time more raising my daughter than if the world wasn’t in lockdown and I had to go back to work in the office while my child would be in a daycare, in the hands and responsibility of people I don’t know. 

I don’t fucking want that, even if there were no coronavirus in play.  I’ve been fortunate and I treasure all the time I’ve had and will continue to have being close to my kid, and it’s ironic that I have to thank the selfish stupidity of ‘Muricans for being so stupid and greedy that they can’t or refuse to comply to the behaviors that would’ve eradicated all of this if we just had some collective cooperation.

But outside of my child and coronavirus, 2020 has been somewhat of an eventful year.  Yes, most of it was bad, but not everything was completely putrid.  And as I tend to do every year, I take some notes on a daily basis of the things that happen that are remotely interesting to me, so I guess behind the jump, we’ll take a look back through the year that everyone loves to hate and can’t wait to see end:

Continue reading “The year-end post, circa 2020” →

All I want for Christmas is for people to put their fucking political signs away

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This is a house in my actual neighborhood.  Prior to the presidential election, all they had were the laughable “CHOOSE FREEDOM, VOTE REPUBLICAN” sign as well as the requisite Potato / Puppet sign that 74 million other racists in the country proudly plopped onto their properties.

Full disclosure, I deliberately went on walks in my neighborhood in many of the days after it was called that Joe Biden was the elected winner, because the weather wasn’t terrible, I wanted to get out of the house, take my daughter out in the stroller to get some fresh air, but most importantly, take inventory of all the racists in the neighborhood to see who was taking their signs down and who wasn’t.

At one point, this specific house took their signs down.  I was pleased.  If there’s one thing that the regime of the baked potato really exposed was that there are a frighteningly high amount of racists in this country, and are proud to tell everyone they are, and no more indicative than a sign for the potato and his puppet, and despite the fact that the baked potato losing isn’t going to magically take the racism out of all 74 million of his dumbass supporters, ignorance is bliss, and I’d rather all these assholes go back into obscurity.

But because Georgia has become ground zero for the next major battleground, the Senate, where two run-off elections that will decide the two remaining seats that will determine whether Mitch McConnell will have control or not, the political bullshit most certainly has not ended here, and has in fact, gotten kind of worse, than before the presidential election.  I’ve literally received mail from Democratic boosters in other states, bemoaning the importance of my vote in Georgia, and how the royal we control the fate of the country in our hands.

On the right, we have Kelly Loeffler and David Purdue, two literal sock puppets who have a tremendous track record for insider trading and other self-interests, but are firmly entrenched in their positions because the country has 74 million racists that auto-vote for the names that their lord kings tell them to vote for.

And on the left, we have Reverend Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff vying to oust their opponents.  I like Warnock, but I can kind of understand why Ossoff turns voters off, seeing as how he already lost a very public special election, but the reality is that I’d rather vote for a Vidalia onion and a boiled peanut over Loeffler and Purdue.

But once it was established that all eyes would be on Georgia entering 2021, not only has Georgia seen no shortage of political bullshit, the brainless Republican supporters are tripling down, digging their heels in, and continuing to root for their parade of assholes like Loeffler and Purdue, and the signs are popping up in droves.

And in the case of this clown in my neighborhood, not only did they plant their own Loeffler and Purdue signs in their yard, they went ahead and put back their baked potato sign, as if it’s like a Game Genie that will enhance the chances of these self-serving insider traders.

Continue reading “All I want for Christmas is for people to put their fucking political signs away” →

Few things are as satisfying as watching shitheads turn on each other

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

More specifically: after losing Georgia to Democrats for the first time since Bill Clinton, the baked potato publicly lashes out at Georgia governor Bubba Kemp for not helping him cheat to win, states he is ashamed to have ever endorsed him

Actually the headline is a little inaccurate, as it’s more accurate to say that the baked potato has turned on Bubba, while Bubba, in typical Bubba fashion has cowered completely to his lord king in chief and has gone completely silent in response, like a scared cat that just saw a cucumber.  Just like he went completely quiet after the baked potato publicly lambasted him after “reopening” Georgia way too soon amidst the pandemic, he’s basically in hiding until the heat dies down.

There’s really not much more to say about this, honestly.  Baked potato is just steaming because he lost Georgia, a state that’s historically almost automatically red, and for the first time since I’ve lived here, I can really say that I’m proud to be a Georgia resident. 

I wrote a few more paragraphs but Word shit the bed on me and lost it all, and I have no desire to re-write any of it because it’s about politics and once is too much as it is, so I’ll just leave it at the fact that I love watching shitheads turn on each other, and it’s great to see them flaming each other instead of respectively griefing the state and the country instead.

The 2020 Election Post

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the span of the last week, as I’m sure it’s been for large swaths of American citizens, it’s been an absolute roller coaster of events, emotions and life in general.  I think it’s safe to say that the 2020 presidential election was possibly the most high-stakes, emotional and draining election that there’s been in generations, and it’s probably taken its toll on the millions of Americans who cared about what the end results were.  It certainly has done all of that and then some to my household, and I for one am tremendously relieved that it’s over, and the end result was the one we were hoping for.

But there were still a ton of things that swirled through my mind throughout the week of the election and the long, dragged out process that transpired in order for it to reach its conclusion, and because I don’t really want to make a bunch of posts about it or politics in general, as I’ve made way more political posts over the last few years than I thought I ever would, I’m going to do my best to consolidate it to a singular post and hopefully be done with it, and try and get back to writing about anything else, but probably falling back on the topics of how chaotic my life is as a first-time father and talking about poopy diapers.

As election day came and went, I remember feeling like there was a massively important sports game where I had a tremendous amount of vested interest in – meaning I didn’t want to know what was going on as it was going on, since I always feel like solely me and my participation in watching it will entirely sway the result into precisely what I did not want to see happen.  That being said, as the afternoon rolled into the evening, polling stations closed down, votes began officially being tabulated and counted, and news outlets all turned into gigantic tickers with silhouettes of the states of the United States turning red or blue but mostly red, much to my disgust.

There were many states that it was no surprise to see go red, and the real game was in all of the states that were known battleground states, as well as the few states in which always are the ones that sway most of the elections in the past, like Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan.  And because all of flyover America have fewer electoral votes, it’s always disheartening all the same to see the vast majority of the land of the United States glowing red from the onset, and it always creates that feeling of blue team always feeling like they’re playing from behind, and as sports fans, how much it sucks to always feel like you’re playing from behind.

My wife and I both went to bed feeling disgusted with the state of the country, that in spite of the tyranny endured throughout the last four years, all the bullshit, all the abrasion, all the racism, all the flagrant contrarianism, all the lies, deceit and just plain shitty leadership, the baked potato was still putting up a legitimate challenge to the presidency.  I mean, this was absolutely no surprise at all to me, and I’d warned anyone who would be willing to listen that this was going to be the case, and to expect this, but it was still disheartening to actually see it come to fruition, because in spite of my predictions, I always hoped that this would’ve been like a 2008 election where the victor was determined and announced by 10 pm.

But then the following day, America witnessed as Joe Biden’s electoral vote lead continued to grow, while the baked potato’s EV count remained static.  Maps of the US showed the states that had yet to be called showing surprising splits, and fewer more surprising than North Carolina and Georgia, two notoriously historically always-red states that were wavering.  Wisconsin and Michigan slowly tipped over into favoring Biden and were eventually declared wins for team blue.  Meanwhile, Pennsylvania was decidedly in favor of the baked potato, but the tremendous amounts of mail-in ballots that had yet to be tabulated, were speculated to probably be mostly in favor of Biden, and if and when they were all counted, a blue victory was to be expected.

Continue reading “The 2020 Election Post” →

Election Paralysis

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I never wanted to care about politics in my life really.  For the longest time, I remained ambivalent as possible about them, and I didn’t vote in the first three elections I was eligible to have voted in.  Looking back, I have regret for not doing such because I’ve learned just how important they can be, and the symbolic right and privilege we have in being able to do so.

Naturally, and I surmise it’s a natural progression of aging, I’ve become more woke and attuned to politics, and I try to give somewhat of a shit in regards to the systems that run the country we live in.  It would be somewhat accurate to state that I’ve grown to care, somewhat about politics, much to my dismay.

That being said, I’m finding that myself, along with hundreds of thousands of Americans, are dealing with election paralysis – immense struggles at being able to focus on anything or want to do anything, while the election is still unresolved, and awaiting for something to happen, which will put an end to the election and let everyone collectively exhale and move forward, with knowing who will be leading the way.

Like seriously, I’ve spent the last two nights doing little during my free time other than watching various news outlets and trying to keep abreast of election news, as if the declaration of the presidency of the United States is going to directly impact my life, immediately.  Ultimately, this underscores the fact that I, like many, perceive this particular election to be of the utmost importance, and I’m finding myself caring about it more than I would have ever imagined myself caring about an election.

And while the election remains in flux, I’m finding myself incapable of doing anything else, because I seem to care so much about impending news and information that I can’t focus.  I couldn’t find the motivation to write over the last two days because my eyes were glued to the news.  I didn’t watch wrestling despite being available to do so.  I didn’t scour the internet for money making schemes.

I feel like I’m being held captive by my want to know how the election is going to turn out and it’s kind of sad because I used to not give two shits about any election and now I can’t do anything because I’m vested and want to know.  The only reason this post is coming to fruition is mostly based on the fact that just about everyone I work with is in the same boat, nobody’s working, because everyone is so engrossed in what could be happening in the voting chambers of 3-5 key remaining states that have not called yet.

I get it though.  I eagerly want to know what’s going to happen too.  But I do know that big picture, it’s better for the results of the election to take longer if they’re going to be right and true, rather than know that it’s rushed, and ends up rigged or have a billion valid votes thrown out, and then we as a country are stuck for another four years with an agitated baked potato leading the way.

I just want to relax and not feel like I have to care so much about this shit anymore, and get back to watching wrestling, 90 Day Fiancé, and The Mandalorian.

The tin-foil hat perils of waiting too long

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

mj laughing last dance

I kind of think it’s fake news: Mr. and Mrs. Baked Potato Head test positive for coronavirus

When I woke up in the morning to a text message from mythical wife lol’ing over this news, I also lol’d.  I took my sweet time getting to my computer this morning, because I anticipated most all of my friends were also lol’ing over the internet, and I wanted to dedicate a slice of time in which I could also lol with them, and hope to see a smorgasbord of ironically topical memes.

By the time I opened up my browser, theFacebook and my email, it was everything that I had expected to be, like a conga line of memes, jokes and all sorts of stuff clowning on the baked potato, and the irony that the guy who had spent the better part of the year acting as if coronavirus was a hoax, wasn’t real, was just diagnosed with it.

It truly is the epitome of irony, and couldn’t have happened to a more appropriate person on the entire planet.

I fully intended on writing about such ironies, and I had already picked out some gifs to use with this image, because the hardest thing at that time was deciding on which of the Michael Jordan laughing from The Last Dance gifs was more appropriate for the ensuing post.

But then this shit called ‘work’ kind of took precedence, and in spite of my want to write about the hilarious appropriateness of a clown who denouncing an illness getting it himself.  And as the day progressed, and I began to hear little bits and pieces and the occasional opinions from others, my friends included, most notably all of the potential conspiracies and the obvious revelations that almost no news that has been reported, has actually come from anywhere but the White House itself, leading to tremendous skepticism of its validity, due to the fact that everyone knows just who currently occupies it.

I am obviously no stranger to conspiracy theories, and I enjoy coming up with wild and outlandish theories on my own, but given the track history of this entire presidential term, I can’t help but have this sneaking suspicion that there is entirely the possibility that this is all one elaborate hoax, in order to politicize the whole situation, discredit the media, diminish the reality of the devastation of coronavirus, and turn the tables into some political strategy in order to regain momentum in the upcoming presidential election.

Continue reading “The tin-foil hat perils of waiting too long” →

Have ad blockers become obsolete?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Ever since I got my brog back up, I’ve occasionally struggled to find a good groove in which to get back to writing.  Even being down for four years hasn’t really changed anything in that regard, in spite of how gung-ho and excited I was to get it back up, and thought that I could bounce back quicker than hoped.

Honestly though, it’s not so much the lack of want or desire to write, it’s just that I’ve had difficulty finding things that I want to write about.  Considering my life is basically like 85% thinking about baby, I kind of rely on the internet to feed me news, articles and stories to hopefully inspire me to write words, instead of me having to search for them currently.

But a large part of my difficulties these days is that all of the sites I used to go to, to look up local and national news, stories and potential inspiration, all of them have become neigh unusable for people like me who don’t want to be inundated with ads, because either sites all have anti-ad block blocks on them, or I have to white list them and I’m drowning in an ocean of ads that turns me off faster than seeing pictures of psoriasis on Google images and I leave disgusted.

I guess this is one of those points in my life where I realize how much of a parent I am because I don’t want to dig to find out or look for solutions, but basically I’m a Chrome user, and having Ad Block Plus on either makes the browser mostly unusable unless I whitelist all sites to which then the aforementioned drowning in ads becomes the norm.  I’ve given cursory Google searches to why this is the case but finding no real tangible proof of it, but all I know is that in the end it just discourages me from seeking news from once-reliable sites to seek out inspiration to write about, and it’s definitely contributing towards the struggles to keep on writing.

It’s frustrating because this is one of those situations where a little bit of give and take on either side might fix everything, but advertising has gotten so out of hand these days, which is what necessitated ad blocking to begin with, but with advertisers getting into bed presumably with the sites that shill them, they’re making it less possible for people to browse them without the luxury of blocking.  Maybe if every banner wasn’t animated, needed sound or autoplaying video, they wouldn’t be so obnoxious to want to block, but here we are.

Anyway, this is all mostly one big excuse to why I’m struggling to write more regularly, on top of the usual explanation that my kid comes first.  So I’ll leave it with this unnerving photo I saw on the AJC of some Asian women wearing MAGA caps and shirts that appear to state Asian Pacific Americans for the Baked Potato, and all it really does is make me wince, cringe, and shake my head at how disgusting such a thought is, and how I really can’t comprehend how any Asian minorities, much less those of the female gender, can support a guy who fucking hates their very existence.

What a perplexing and obnoxious ‘Murica we live in today.