Anger Politics - Why?

Being angry all the time only serves to blind you to reality.  Anger politics favors the powers-that-be, at your expense.  Left or Right, it doesn't matter, they just want you to get riled up.

In the campground across the field is an older motorhome flying a Trump flag.  People stop by on occasion - perhaps they are planning another insurrection.  One fellow who drove in had a sticker that said, "We the People... are pissed off!" which I thought was odd, as he was driving a brand-new pickup truck, and was clearly well fed.  What was he pissed off about again?

It is no different than the folks in Ithaca, New York, who have bumper stickers saying, "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention!"  Mark and I once joked that when Ithacans buy their new Subarus, the dealer will carefully remove the bumper-stickers from their trade-in and re-apply them to the new car, for a small fee.  Or perhaps they could offer "sticker packages" for various political stripes, to pre-apply to the car before delivery.  Left-wing or Right-wing, it doesn't matter, you just need to plaster the back of the vehicle with crazy.  It could be a decent business model - and it's yours, for free!

But make no mistake about it, anger politics either attracts crazy people, or it makes normal people go crazy.  Consider this fellow - the Bradley Manning of the far-right!  Wanted to blow up a mosque because it was an affront to his Christian beliefs, but at the same time, wants a sex-change operation.  Now he will spend 50 years in a women's prison.  Time to transition to Lesbian!

Democrats have their out outrage sideshow as well.  Best to ignore that, too!

So why do both parties do this?  Why do they cultivate outrage and what are the consequences of this?  Well, the latter, we have seen - everything from attacks on the Capitol, to someone shooting up a Congressional softball game.  People actually buy into this nonsense, and fail to realize it is window-dressing.

But the why is money.  Every day, in my inbox or SPAM box (because I mark 'em!) are pleas from various Democratic politicians.  I'm on a mailing list - and not by choice.  Each e-mail is designed to alarm me - and of course ask for money.  Trump will be reinstated unless I donate $10 by midnight tonight!  The election of 2022 will be lost unless I donate NOW!  Never mind the election is a year off.  We need the money!  And some of these organizations have odd-sounding names and I'm not sure if they are even legit.

But even the legit ones go into survival mode, and you don't survive and prosper unless you can panic your supporters.  It is the classic page from the NRA playbook - "The Gubment is coming for your guns!  Unless you send in money NOW, your rifle will be confiscated by Nancy Pelosi!"  And people believe that.  Right or Left, it doesn't matter, but the right lately has been honing their techniques pretty well, and it was the Right who came up with the "Prayer in School" and "Right to Life" and "Coming for your Guns" messages that resonated with the "low-information" voters so well - something to get people not merely to vote, but to get outraged - all while ignoring real issues and real policies that often work against their own interests.

Organizations go into self-preservation mode, and just as the NRA folks started wallowing in the cash (as the United Way people and the NPR people did before them) many liberal causes are finding out that the leaders of a PAC or organizing group can take home six or seven-figure salaries with not a lot of effort.  If you can get a million people to send you ten dollars, that's the trick.  Take a little from a lot, and no one will notice.

But anger politics doesn't just affect your pocketbook through donations and yard signs - indeed, this may be a trivial amount of money for some folks - although others will pour thousands of dollars they can ill-afford to lose, at political causes or evangelical churches, which to some extent, is a redundant statement these days.

Yes, churches too, have found that alarmist messages puts butts in the pews.  When I was a kid, you went to church and the minister told you to be nice to people, because Jesus said so.  Then he would launch into a boring sermon that put half the congregation to sleep.  Not surprisingly, attendance in the 1970's started to taper off.  But a new breed of "evangelical" churches with funny names came into being.  They preached that the world was going to hell - or would end soon - and you'd better do something about it, buddy!  Even conventional churches jumped on the bandwagon.  A friend of mine told me she voted for Trump because her (Catholic) Priest said to do so - during a church service!  Politics and religion are one and the same, today.  And again, the sense of urgency is driven home.

It is,of course, a classic marketing technique.  You are selling cars and a "prospect" seems interested in your De-Luxe 2022 Hupmobile.  But he dithers.  Maybe he should think about it.  "Well, you know," you say, "There was a fellow in here the other day excited about buying this very car, and they didn't make many in chartreuse!   If you don't buy today, I can't promise the car will be here tomorrow.  And I can't promise when we'll get another one in here just like it - if ever!"   Sale closed!

So these e-mails I get, don't talk about 2022 like it is a year or more away, they talk about it in terms of midnight tonight.  They compare their fundraising goals with that of Republicans,or recent poll numbers - as if those were the elections, not what happens at the polls (something both parties seem to conveniently forget, from time to time).

But getting back to personal economics, how does this harm the individual, other than the cash spent on Trump signs or "Coexist" bumper stickers?   Well, I think there are several ways is harms people.  First, it degrades one's mental health.  As I have noted before, mental hygiene is like personal hygiene - you have to work at it.  When you find yourself going "down the rabbit hole" (and we all know when it is happening, too - don't deny it) one has to pull back and think where this is going.  We all get upset by politics or stupid human behavior.  The guy in the car ahead of you cuts you off, and you wish you had a missile launcher mounted under the hood, so you could blow his car to smithereens and drive through the cloud of wreckage.  But that's just a childish revenge fantasy,not a practical solution to the rough edges of daily living.

When people buy into these extreme political views, they start to lose their minds.  And this means losing friends, family members, spouses, jobs, and even careers.  Some of the people arrested in the January 6th insurrection - including the "Qanon Shaman" claim they have had a road-to-Damascus experience and now realize they have been snookered.  Whether they are sincere or not, I do not know.  I am sure some are - ordinary people who now realize they have lost their jobs (some of them actually cops, too!) and careers as a result.  No one will ever hire them - or it will be hard to find a job - when "insurrectionist" is on their resume.  They've destroyed their lives, and for what?  So some Jackass at Mar-A-Lago can call them a "political prisoner."

But the same is true for leftists.  We saw in the 1960's, young people threw their lives away for "SDS" - to end a war they never were in danger of fighting in. They became criminals - some killed people - some spent decades in jail - some their entire lives.  And for what?  It isn't like anything they did accomplished anything.  By the way, notice how the link above include a pop-up window exhorting you to donate $10 to the cause....

People get caught up in these political "causes" and damage their own lives.  I know in my own family, this was true.  My elder siblings bought into this idea that "materialism" (not being poor and destitute) was somehow bad, and thus rejected advancement and success.  My brother lived in an unheated barn in Vermont for a decade, following the orders of a sketchy "Guru" (who even looked like Manson) instead of advancing his own career.  It wasn't until I was in law school that he decided, two decades later, to go back to college and get an advanced degree.  My poor (in every sense of the word) sister renounced materialism and married a man who could barely provide for himself, much less a family.  But that was better than marrying some bourgeoisie executive who would have taken her to the Opera.  Too late in life, she realized the error.  But you don't get a do-over in life.

Myself, I derailed my own career with 10 years of drug use.  It was only my hard work and strong personality that saved me - as well as going to work for General Motors at age 18 - and realizing that not being poor and wanting wasn't something evil, but in fact, quite the opposite.   It took me a long time to realize that pledging your life to "causes" was stupid and something that only losers in society (usually middle-class losers, too) do.  The revolutionaries in any society don't come from the lower classes - they are the failed sons and daughters of the middle and upper classes.

And too late, they discover that their efforts for the "lost cause" were futile.  Ask Trotsky about that.  The revolution didn't quite turn out the way he thought it would, and he went from being a hero of the people to an enemy of the State.  And speaking of "lost causes" - how many dirt-poor Southern sharecroppers lost everything - including their lives - fighting for an unjust cause that was not even their own?  The vast majority of soldiers in the Confederacy didn't own slaves and never would have.  Their officers, of course, did.  These poor dirt-farmers gave their lives to support an economic system that was exploiting them, as well as the slaves.  It made no sense, but you can get people to do anything in the name of  "patriotism".

As we see today....

Slide-Outs

Slide-outs are all the rage, and in fact, it is hard to find a camper without them.  Are they worthwhile?

I recounted before how a friend of ours had a "paid-for" RV motorhome, but when they went to the "Motorcoach Resort" they were mocked by a neighbor - someone they didn't even know and would never see again - for not having a slide-out on their camper.  Duly shamed, they went to the nearest RV dealer to trade-in their "old" camper for a de-luxe model, which was repossessed a year later, when they couldn't make the payments.

There was a time, when slide-outs first became widely popular, where you could buy a camper without a slideout, for cheap, as everyone "had to have" a slideout, and in many cases, it was a matter of "me too!" engineering - adding a feature for the sake of having a feature.  And sometimes, it was ludicrous.

For example, we saw an 18-foot travel trailer (which is pretty small) with a slide-out that went out one foot.  Why not simply make it a 19-foot travel trailer?  Same amount of room, and a lot cheaper to make and sell - and a lot fewer hassles down the road.

Well, OK, that's a small, low-end unit. The large bus motorhomes and 40' fifth wheels with four slides - that makes sense, right?  Well, maybe.  To begin with, such units are already huge, so there is already a lot of room.  And in many cases, these are the coaches that retired couples use, so there are only two inhabitants in these monster rigs.  And the room?  It is not very useful space.  We were in one Fleetwood coach (before the crash in 2008) and with the slide-outs out, there was a ton of interior room, suitable for ballroom dancing and not much else.  I mean, room is nice, but just empty space?  Is that worth the cost and hassle?

The other problem is with the slide-outs in, there often isn't any room at all.  Dinettes and couches on the slide-outs are now in the middle of the room, and the walls of the slide-out block access to the back of the coach.  In some models, you cannot reach the bathroom without sliding out at least one slideout.  Handy when traveling!

But beyond that is the design and quality. I addressed the quality issue before in another posting.  But it is the fundamental design which is the problem.  The slideout, by nature, is a box that slides out, and relies on a seal to keep water out of the coach.  The top of the slide-out is flat, so the water doesn't run off naturally - the seal has to keep it out.  And this is a sliding seal, not a permanent seal, so over time, it can leak - or even leak from the get-go.

Your car windows have a seal to keep out water, right?  So why do those work so well?  Well, the answer is, they don't and they are not designed to make a perfect seal, as auto manufacturers realized a long time ago that relying on a sliding seal to seal 100% of the time is foolish.  Instead, a small amount of leakage is expected, and water runs into the door and out the bottom through "weep holes" - which need to be kept clear of pine needles and detritus, lest the door fill up with water during a rainstorm.  You should check this. 

Sunroofs are the same way.  Clueless owners claim "the seal is leaking!" but they are designed to leak, at least a bit.  The water is channeled away through channels in the side of the opening, through hoses, and down the A- and B- pillars and out the bottom of the car.  Again, if these channels are clogged, water backs up and suddenly there is a "leak" near the headliner.  Find those drain tube outlets on your car if you have a sunroof, and make sure they stay clear.  I covered this before, by the way.

So, slideouts - how do they handle water?  The designers assume the seals will always seal, and maybe they will at the factory.  But wear over time, UV light and other forms of degradation, plus the rocking and rolling motion of the trailer going down the road (which flexes even the most expensive coaches) will result in slight gaps and leaks, over time.

The fix?  A classic patch that would make Microsoft proud!  They put little awnings over the slides to keep rain out - and it works, provided the rain always falls directly down at a 90 degree angle to the horizon.  Anything else, and the water lands on the top of the slide.  And the awnings sag over time, so owners inflate a beach ball and put it under these awning-ettes to keep them from holding water.  This means, of course, you have to have a step-ladder lashed to the back of your rig, so you can access your beach-balls. Some fun! And super-convenient, too!

This doesn't even address the big problem - the slide mechanism itself. They are remarkably primitive and while some provide a manual crank backup, most newer ones do not.  So if the slide refuses to go in, you are stuck at your campsite until the "Mobile RV Repair" guy shows up.  Each campground brochure has paid advertisements from at least two or three Mobile RV Repair outfits.  It is a lucrative business!  And often the problem is something as simple as a blown fuse - but not a fuse in the fusebox, but rather hidden inline fuse or fusible link, buried behind the sofa or above the water tank or some other convenient place.

So why do people obsess about slides?  Well, to some extent, as I noted, you cannot find an RV without them.  No RV maker wants to lose a sale by not having a slide, so the "me-too-ism" effect strikes again.  This effect is noted in many other venues, such as computers or cars, where manufacturers feel the need to up the "features" (feature creep) so their product appears competitive on paper with their competition.  So they add a non-functional USB port, so they can claim the feature - expecting that few people will use a USB v.1.0 at a time when there were no USB products to plug into it.  Years later, though, people discover they paid extra for a non-functional feature.

If you make an RV with a slide - even a ridiculous slide like these 1-foot jobs - people who insist on having a slide are satisfied.  The non-slide or I-don't-give-a-damn people will also buy the same unit.  But the no-slide unit?  It has a niche market at this point.

There are, of course, some instances where a slide is helpful.  If you have a family of six and are buying a 40' "bunkhouse" model, you may need all that room for the family.  But in other instances, it is a matter of raising the level of complexity for no real gain.  For example, some modern rigs have slide-out bathrooms and slide-out kitchens.  Think about that for a second - such slideouts require flexible electric lines, plumbing lines, and sewer lines - not to mentions propane lines.  What could possibly go wrong with that?  What's more, think about what would go wrong if it went wrong.  Sewage on the ground, Propane leaks burning down your rig.  Nothing major, of course.

The other aspect of this is, modern RVs now tower over their predecessors, as manufacturers like to make full-width slides, so they mount the entire chassis above the tires to eliminate wheel wells entirely, so as to allow slides anywhere on the chassis.  So modern RVs are a lot more top-heavy than their predecessors, but then again, so are the tow vehicles - jacked-up pickup trucks that need a jacked-up 5th wheel trailer, just to clear the bed.

The full-length slides are particularly problematic.  Take a cardboard box and cut one entire side out of it.  Now place a book on the box and see what happens. Odds are, it will sag or collapse.   Now drive that box down a bumpy road at 70 mph and see what happens.

You might think all of this is carefully engineered and tested, but you'd be wrong.  I've visited more than one RV manufacturer, and the "Engineering" department comprises one or two guys and a drafting table (today, a CAD system).  Much of the engineering is provided by the component suppliers, who are not necessarily testing the final product. While your car may undergo millions of miles of testing and abuse at the manufacturer's proving grounds - and on the road in the real world - most RVs are made and then sold and you are the Beta-tester.  Real problems are often not discovered until years later, once the warranty has expired.

I related before how a friend of ours had a slide-out where the motor burned out.  They put to lounge chairs in the trailer and one leaned up against the slide-out switch.  "What's the humming noise?"  "What humming noise?  I don't hear it!"  "Well, don't you smell that electrical burning smell?"  Old people lose their senses and miss these things.  Yes, that was classic "user error" and they were fortunate - the slideout came with a crank so you could slide it in manually.  It wasn't hard to do, either - I did it for them on more than one occasion.

My brother-in-law bought a used "Titanium" fifth wheel - a monster of a thing and the pride of Canada.  Problem was, all the seals, such as they were, were shot.  The slideout was starting to settle on the frame, too, so even with new seals in place, you could see daylight with the slide-out slid in.  Not good.  And no way to fix it.

Of course, more expensive rigs have better quality slide-outs.  But you'd be surprised how even expensive rigs can fail - the very design is the problem.  When you rely on a sliding seal to maintain a perfect seal at all times, something bad is bound to happen.  For example, you camp under a tree, and leaves fall on top of the slide-out.  Or acorns, or a small twig.  Or God-knows-what.  You slide in the slide-out, and this detrius jams into the seal - which may let water in, tear the seal, or deform it.

So you get out your stepladder and broom and before you slide your slide-out in, and you climb up there and sweep off all the leaves and junk and remove your beach ball.  Again, convenient.  The idea that you can just care-free slide the thing in without checking is somewhat overstated.   And we see this all the time - people with elaborate 4-slide 5th wheels taking an hour or more to hook-up, because a half-hour is devoted to slide slavery.

Isn't there a better way to design slides?  Some way so the water runs off and the seal is not so critical?  Maybe a channel to capture water that gets by the seal and drain it off like a sunroof drain?   Maybe, maybe not.  One manufacturer I know of offers peaked slideouts, so the water will run off at least.  But the seal is still there, and wind blowing against the unit could force water past the seal, if it has any faults whatsoever.

It is just a basic Engineering principle that the more complicated you make any machine, the more possible modes of failure you introduce.  One reason I was a little hesitant to buy the King Ranch was that it had all these "toys" on it, and more modes of failure as a result.  We've already had two instances where the main screen failed to "boot" - which means no navigation, no radio, no HVAC controls. Fortunately, pulling the correct fuses (or disconnecting the battery) re-booted the screen.  And it hasn't happened since.  Hopefully it won't happen again.  But such is the nature of modern cars - they are more reliable than in the past, so we keep loading them up with more features to bring the reliability level back down.

From a personal perspective, there is a point to all of this. If you don't "need" to have a slide-out in your RV you may be in the catbird seat, as you will find that the prices of non-slide units are far lower (they cost less to make and are less in demand).  They also will provide you with one less thing to deal with while camping, and one less repair headache, or better yet, one less thing that can never really be repaired.

Are Positive Stereotypes Actually Negative?

Positive stereotypes are actually negative.  More gay stereotyping from SNL.

Further to my previous posting, it struck me that some racial stereotypes are deemed "positive" but are still used to marginalize minority groups.  In fact, these "positive" stereotypes may be even more damaging, as they are often used to portray a minority as threatening.

For example, the stereotypes about Jews might at first seem positive.  They are all wealthy, of course, and work in the professions - Doctor, Lawyer, etc.   And they are smart with money and are found in high places in the international banking system.  These initially all sound like positive aspects.  But if you scratch the surface, these were the same excuses the Nazis used to exterminate six million Jews before and during World War II.

If you portray a group as having to much power, too much wealth, too much control, it is all that much easier to perceive them as a threat - and threats need to be dealt with.  Even today, the stereotypes about Jews are used by the far-right to paint them as puppet-masters ruling the world.  And it isn't too hard to figure out what these folks on the far-right think needs to be done about it.

Asians are plastered with so-called positive stereotypes.  "They're so good at math!" people say, "and they are so hard-working!"   This latter "positive" stereotype, as we shall see, is quite damaging.   Of course, Asians are also portrayed as inscrutable and plotting.  Once again, a threat.  And on the world stage, we see how this stereotype about "Asian hordes" is playing out.  The "threat" of Asians overrunning the world has been around literally for centuries.   This is not to say that countries like China are not banging the drum (or gong - is that racist?) of war lately, only that this stereotype of "Chinese aggression" clouds the debate and our perception as to what is really going on.  And as recent events illustrate, our perceptions can be clouded to the point where we engage in pointless 20-year wars.

So yea, it worries me, that the same right-wing people who mutter things under their breath about Jews are muttering pretty much the same things under their breath about Asians - and the number of hate crime assaults on Asians has increased dramatically in recent months.  This is how it begins.

But I mentioned "hard-working" as a positive stereotype that is actually negative.   "Hard-working" is often a dog-whistle for "they took our jobs!" and is often applied to other minorities.  For example, Hispanics are often talked about as "hard-working" which many are, as they may be disadvantaged economically, and have to work twice as hard to get ahead.  "Hard-working" isn't a cultural value or a choice they made, but may be their only option, particularly if they are illegal immigrants.

If you think about it, it is kind of an insulting compliment.  I imagine back in the day, the slaves were said to be "hard-working" too - but again, not by choice.   In Living Color  did a series of skits about Jamaicans where they were stereotyped as "hard working".  "You have only three jobs?  You lazy mon!"  I am not sure, again, if this is a positive stereotype, or merely describes the plight of immigrant Jamaicans, who have to work multiple part-time jobs, just to make ends meet.  And this is particularly true in America today, where full-time employment is harder and harder to come by, as employers no longer want to pay benefits - something they can skip out on, for part-time employees.

So "hard-working" has an evil side to it.  Saying the busboy at the restaurant is "hard-working" isn't a compliment - it is how his life just is.  And by the way, saying an Hispanic person is "hard-working" is sort of a slight against other minorities, one minority in particular ("they're so lazy!").   You see how this works.

A friend of mine played the video above and thought it was hilariously funny.  Mark and I were less amused.  For one thing, we didn't get it.  A lot of SNL humor is like that - if you lived in a fabulous penthouse in New York City, maybe it makes sense.  For the rest of us, not so much.  The idea that you can give "two tickets to Italy and $40,000" to each guest at your wedding is not funny, it is just stupid.  If you have 100 guests, well, that just cost you four million dollars.  Yea, I know, it is exaggeration for the purpose of the joke.

But what is that joke saying?  It seems to be giving voice to a simmering resentment of gays, particularly successful gays.  Is this a thing?  Do straight people really feel intimidated by the gay?

What this stereotype is saying, in a eerie parallel to Jewish stereotypes and Asian stereotypes, is that maybe the gays have it too good - and they are intimidating their "straight" friends to the point where they seek anti-anxiety medication.  Maybe it is time those gays were dealt with.   After all, they all have high-paying jobs in the big city - probably have a hand in the international banking system as well!  They need to be taken down a notch!

But again, I wonder what the hell happened to Lorne Michaels to make him hate the gays so much.  SNL has a long, long history of going for cheap gay jokes, and it hasn't let up, even in recent years.

Of course, as in all comedy, the real offense is not being funny.  And that is the real issue when it comes to offensive comedy.  You may recall Michael Richards - the "Kramer" of Seinfeld fame, destroying his career with some racist rant at a comedy club.  "The white man is talking" he said.   It was offensive, yes, but it also wasn't funny at all.  And that's the number one rule in comedy - you have to be funny.

Racial humor and stereotype humor will always be with us.  Comedy is supposed to be edgy, and the best of comedians skirt this fine line in humor, and sometimes briefly cross it.  When done right, it isn't offensive - or not very offensive.  When done wrong, it is just bald-faced racism and bigotry.

It is like dropping the F-bomb in comedy.   In the right circumstances, it might be funny.  But it is too easy to over-do it.  Just getting up on stage and saying, "Fuck, Fuck, Fuck!" over and over again, isn't funny, just desperate.  As Jerry Seinfeld noted, gratuitous use of vulgarity is usually the sign of a weak comic.  I think gratuitous use of stereotypes works the same way.  It isn't funny, particularly if it isn't funny.

In this instance, it isn't funny.  Why?  Because the stereotype presented is idiotic.  Maybe if you live in Manhattan, all of your gay friends make millions a year at high-paying jobs in medicine, law, and finance (double that, if they're Jewish, amirite?).  And of  course they are all impeccably groomed and wear tailored Italian suits that they send to France for dry-cleaning.  Everything they do is perfect, and they are prefect people and - this is key - you just want to hate them.

That is it right there.  They are not human.  They are the other.  They are not one of us regular people.  And once you start thinking this way, it is all much more easier to stuff 'em in the oven - it's been done before, on a grand scale.  It will be done again, you can bank on that.

Of course, it is an idiotic stereotype.  Gays are just like regular people!  I know, this is hard to wrap your head around.  They are not "the other" or "them" or subhuman.   Most are just middle-class schmucks who go off to work every day and try to make a living and put a dollar in their 401(k) when they can.   Most face the same struggles everyone else is facing - the high cost of housing, saving for retirement, paying off student loans.  If you cut us, do we not bleed?

Our wedding was a little less ostentatious.  Just Mark and Me and Ginger, on the beach.  No one got nervous because we invited no one.  And no gifts, either!

Is SNL Republican?

Saturday Night Live acts liberal, but is it really?

Norm McDonald died recently.....was he conservative?  Some conservatives think so.  I recently watched a number of his SNL "Weekend Update" bits, and while they were funny, it seemed to me there was a drumbeat of conservatism in his slant on the news.  Then again, he's only reading what was written for him.  Then again, he's a writer - this might be what he wrote.

Joe Piscopo famously came out as a Trump fan, but I write that off to the massive amount of steroids he took during his body-building years.  Or maybe not.  One thing's for sure - he wasn't all that funny.

And neither is Lorne Michaels.   I wrote before about SNL and its reliance on stereotype sketches.  Gays in particular were ridiculed as being fussy and girlish.  It was all for a good laugh, right?   One of those writers of fag-joke sketches went on to become a US Senator - before everyone else figured out what the gays already knew - he was a jerk.

Eddie Murphy is a funny guy, but this sketch reinforces every negative stereotype about blacks.  Whites have permission to laugh at it, apparently.  I wonder how blacks feel?

Blacks seem to get particular roasting on SNL and somehow SNL gets away with it - even in this era of BLM and raised cultural awareness.  It goes back a long way, too.  Remember "Mr. Robinson's neighborhood" sketch?  It may have been funny (or, in retrospect, not) but it reinforced every black stereotype there is:

1.  Black people all speak in ghetto slang with thick accents.

2.  Black people are all poor and live in a crappy tenement.

3.  Black people are fiscally irresponsible.

4.  Black people are prone to theft and other crimes.

5.  Black people can't help it.  This is their culture.

It is an interesting little dancing lesson SNL is giving - and of course, they are not the only ones giving it.  Other comic (and non-comic) shows perpetuate these sort of stereotypes - and more.   MADTV and the Chappell Show use the same old gags but It's OK, because it is blacks making fun of themselves.

Black Jeopardy! is arguably the most racist sketch on SNL and a more recent addition - that has spawned several other Black Jeopardy! sketches, to the point it is a franchise.

The same could be said to be true of other minorities, but I think there is starting to be a push-back.   I meet a lot of young gays who are not fond of drag shows, which they consider to be regressive - sort of a minstrel show for gays, and perhaps that is exactly what it was, in some instances.

I recounted before how we went to a "drag" show at La Te Da in Key West - right above Alice's Restaurant.  It was a professional show, with great costumes, choreography, and singing - yes, actual singing.  Julie Nixon was a guest star, and no, she's not a drag queen.  It takes some balls (no pun intended) for a man to sing (as a woman) alongside a great Broadway star.

Then we went down the street to 801.  There, they were doing lip-synching, but the bulk of the show was bad drag queens who made gay jokes - insinuating, for example, that they were all lusting after straight men.  Most of the audience had just come from Margaritaville across the street and were drunken straight couples from the midwest.  The running gag was to bring some poor Bubba up on stage and then make a bunch of jokes, with the drag queen acting like she was "coming on" to poor old Bubba.  We were the only gay people in the place and quickly left.  They were not laughing with us, they were laughing at us.

I am not sure if this trend extends to other minorities as well.  Perhaps it is - some Hispanic comedians play upon Hispanic stereotypes, to the amusement of white audiences.  Yea, I am looking at you, "Fluffy".   All of these comedians are the new Stepin Fetchit or Amos-and-Andy of the new Century.

But what about the white liberal cultural and political values the show projects?  After all, they skewered Trump again and again, right?  Well, it is a two-edged sword.  Like I said, it is easy and funny to make fun of a poltician for their orange skin, their posture, how they walk, how they hold a drinking glass, how they slip on the stairs of Air Force One, or how they hold an ice cream cone.  It is all superficial bullshit.  When that's all you got, maybe it means you ain't got much. And oddly enough, when you parody a character on television, you end up boostrapping their stardom, so to speak.  If someone is worthy of mocking, then they are worthy.

Norm MacDonald picked up on this, noting that SNL's Trump sketches may actually serve to help Trump.  By picking at Trump's superficial foibles, they make the case that the case against Trump is superficial.  The "other side" can do little else than to call Trump a doo-doo head, and that's just childish name-calling.  When you don't have anything more important to say, it implies you don't have anything to say at all..  It is like the drumbeat of criticism the Right is using against Biden.  He slipped on the stairs!  He can't hold an ice cream cone!  The ending of the Afghanistan war should have been "better" - although no one says exactly how (extend it another 20 years?  The contractors would love that!).

But I think McDonald had a point - mocking is a form of validation.  When you mock someone, it is a sign you are threatened by them.  And perhaps that is why Alec Baldwin quit doing his Trump impersonation.  It wasn't doing anything but making Trump look better.  As they say in Hollywood, there is no such thing as bad publicity, which is why every has-been star is found shoplifting or punching a security guard.  I am sure we will see Trump taken in after he is found in his pajamas, on the lawn of Mar-A-Lago, screaming at the squirrels.

To tell the truth, I haven't watched SNL in more than a decade.  I watched a few "Cold Opening" sketches on YouTube in the past, but the whole show?  Nah. The sketches were pretty lame, particularly after midnight.  And the guest bands were people I never heard of, playing mostly noise.  It is a marketing machine, designed to promote the latest band and "make fun of" the latest trends while inadvertently promoting them.  In other words, it is part and parcel of the system.  It isn't "out there" or edgy, it is just network television.   The not-ready-for-prime-time-players had prime-time come to them.

Like with Facebook, SNL became a little creepy when my parents started watching it.  It was no longer "cool" after that.  How could it be?  You can't be young and alternative and market to the over-50 set at the same time.  So I am not sure who SNL is aimed at.  I am sure the kids think it is dorky (other than the latest rap band they promote).   And the oldsters are probably mystified by much of the youth culture.

But the real thing is, I wonder how much longer they will continue with minority humor in this day and age.  Do young black professionals or Hispanics get a chuckle out of racial humor that paints them as ignorant and backward?  I think not - just as the younger gays today don't see the funny in many of the old-school drag shows, which rely on similar negative stereotypes.

All I know is this:  While I am not a big fan of Norm MacDonald and other "right-wing" comedians, the idea that shows like SNL are "liberal" or "left-leaning" is sort of ludicrous.  By mouthing idiotic over-the-top versions of liberal thought, they in turn, make it easy to discredit.  And by using racial and stereotype humor, well, they are not too many notches above white supremacists.

It just isn't funny.  Most political and cultural humor isn't.

Have To Change The People First

Rebuilding depressed areas requires changing people's minds, not merely structures.

Brand new pier, and they've already smashed the sign.  Nice.

We were visiting Dunkirk, New York, which has a nice State Park and a surprising number of wineries.  Living in the Finger Lakes, we thought that that region was the ne plus ultra of winemaking in New York State, but it seems they grow even more grapes along the shores of Lake Erie, from Western New York, all the way into Ohio.

Dunkirk itself is nothing to write home about -  just another in a series of tired rustbelt, upstate NY towns that have seen better days.  The town is dominated by a huge power plant, which mars the lakefront.   It apparently has been converted to natural gas, as the train tracks that lead into the plant have a hefty coat of rust on them - no coal trains going this way, recently. Signs dot the homes in the suburban areas, imploring us to be against windmills on Lake Erie.  Not hard to spot who works at the power plant, eh?

They have a nice pier downtown - the only nice thing I could find downtown - with some small restaurants and even a nice bar, playing the Bills game.  Good food and cheap, too!  Lunch for two for under $30 - a pleasant surprise for a change.  Helps to split an entree, though.  Anyway, we took a walk on the pier, which you can also drive on - which seems to be a more popular choice.  Everything is new and reeks of State money.  Fancy fixtures and railings and bench seats and historical plaques.  All very well done.

But for some reason, the locals decided it needed a good smashing, and they've been at it, tearing out the mesh on the railings for some reason. Nearby, a collection of Catholic altar candles and a worn photo of a young man.  I looked it up online, and apparently two young men went into the water, and only one came out - no other word on what happened. Very sad.  Very interesting that there is such a huge Hispanic population in this out-of-the-way corner of New York State.

In the restroom urinal was as "Andrew Cuomo aiming target" pasted to the back of the urinal. Quite ironic, as I am sure these renovations to the pier involved a lot of State money.  I mean, not that I am a fan of the former governor or anything.  Speaking of which, when we checked into Green Lakes State Park, the sign had the usual banner at the bottom naming the governor - the new governor. Changed that out pretty quickly, didn't they? How much State money is wasted - in every State - putting the governor's name on stuff they have nothing to do with?  When you come to Georgia, there is a "Welcome to Georgia!" sign with "Billy-Bob Humbucker, Governor" sign below it. Why does it matter to people traveling from out-of-state who our governor is?  Pure narcissism. And putting the governor's name on State park signs?  Expensive narcissism.

But I digress.

The point is, they spent a lot of money on this pier, and it is nice.  And the first thing the "locals" did was to smash it up as much as they could, or hang out at night, or drive through (not stopping) playing loud music from their cars. You can change the physical surroundings, but that doesn't always change the people.  This is why we can't have nice things.

Much ink has been spilled about public housing, and how "brutalist" architecture makes people in public housing feel inadequate, and thus act out by vandalizing their own homes, and turning to drug use and petty crime. It's all the architect's fault! That is an interesting argument, but I wonder if it really carries water.

When we moved in together in Alexandria, Virginia, we moved to Hunting Towers, which was a three-tower complex on the Potomac built in the 1950's with money from Fulgencio Batista, the Cuban dictator.  It was named Hunting Towers for nearby Hunting creek, but today it is called Bridgeyard for some reason.  Well, the reason is, it is right next to the Woodrow Wilson Bridge.  So close, we joked, that we could catch hubcaps flying off commuters' cars onto our balcony as they hit the potholes on the old bridge.  But that was the East building - torn  down to make room for the new bridge, and now there are only two buildings left (Mark and I later moved to the more tony West building - underground parking no less!).

The place is gussied up nicely for a 1950's apartment building, and they have good tenants and reasonable rents.  But it does look a lot like a public housing project that Robert Moses would have built.  Plain and made of brick, and story after story of sameness.  So... why didn't we all turn into "gangsta's" and deface the elevators with graffiti?

That's the question - you answer it, because I don't have a concrete answer.

Perhaps, though, it hinges on people.  You build a super-nice place for super-nice people and they treat it nicely. You build nice things, particularly free things for not-so-nice people, and they wreck them.  The free part is essential, too.

We paid what we thought was a lot of money for an apartment back then ($900 a month - but that was 35 years ago. Today they start at about $1300 - still pretty cheap!). So we treated the place with respect, even if, at the time, it had hot-and-cold running roaches.  We were just grateful to find a reasonably-priced place so close to Old Town - with a view of the river, no less!  Even then, housing accounted for a big chunk of our income.  Recall at the time, I was starting at the Patent Office at $22,000 a year.   $900 a month was a lot!

Today, the place looks pretty upscale, with new lobbies and gardens and whatnot.  But the buildings still look, well, like public housing.  Get a two-bedroom unit with a balcony view of the river (hold out for underground parking spaces - preferably two of them!) and you've got a nice crib near DC and Old Town for not too much money.

(By the way, it wasn't hard to spot our unit on the 6th floor, from the ground.  Just look for the balcony with all the plants on it!).

It is like I've said before - you are better off living in a cheap house in an expensive neighborhood than an expensive house in a cheap neighborhood.  With the latter, you are sure to get broken-in to.  But a cheap place in an expensive neighborhood, you are less likely to get robbed or burgled, and your kids go to a better school as well.

Of course, there are plenty of other factors, and I guess that is my point.  If you grow up in poverty, you don't see these things - and you aren't reading my blog.  Smashing stuff and spraying graffiti seem like background noise - something your peers do and you do without thinking.  Some even argue these are cultural values that need to be respected and even admired. "He beat that guy's skull in real good!  10 points for style!"

I am not so sure.  Visigoth values should not be glorified.  But then again, we live in an age of Cultural Belligerence where harshness is the new love.  So get with the program, Bubby!  Down to the gym and gun store with you!  And on the way back, stop off at the "Ram" dealer and trade-in that Prius for a real manly truck!  Even if you are a woman.  Time to get butch!

Appreciate and cherish nice things?  That's for sissies!  Go ahead and smash it!  Smash it up real good!

In this age of unreason, it seems even more essential that we change people, rather than merely change their environments. This isn't a different thing than Qanonsense, Antifartism, Anti-vaxxers, or "Free Annual Guaranteed Gubmint Check" thinking.  It is the same damn thing - the decline and fall of a civilization from within.

And all the infrastructure money in the world ain't gonna fix it, if the Vandals tear it down faster than we put it up.