It's the Little Things

As I do nearly every morning, I watched the window behind the morning group on The Today Show.  It bothers me so much to see people jumping up and down and waving their arms wildly while you're trying to listen to whatever is being discussed by the talking heads.  Don't they know they look like idiots?

The people I have the most respect for are the camera men who try to find angles to shoot the stars while cutting off the audience.  There is an art to it.

Before one of the last debates, I was watching MSNBC and Chris Matthews was having a very serious discussion on their outdoor stage while one guy standing behind the stage practically turned himself inside out to get noticed.  The camera man shot the group on stage from the side, then did close ups, and occasionally went back to the full table and the idiot trying to disrupt everything.

(Speaking of my respect for camera men, do you realize that every time you watch some guy climbing a high peak or doing something else amazing that there is a cameraman who is doing it ahead of him, carrying camera equipment.)

As I watched the idiots in the Today Show audience, I was thinking about the little things that irritate me.

We are right in the middle of the deluge of political ads right now and there are some that get me every time.

There is one guy -- a Trump supporter -- who is running an attack ad against his opponent which says that he is backed by environmentalists (oooo...big bad environmentalists) and that if his opponent is elected, he will cut off water to the central valley, which would, of course, be disastrous and sounds ominous unless you understand that the opponent is a farmer in the central valley!!! I guess he is counting on people in cities not to realize how ridiculous that threat is (besides, "backed by environmentalists" would be a plus in my book!)

There is a guy running for Senate who promises that he has a plan that will end the Iraq war. 

There is an ad being run over and over and over again attacking a candidate based on the fact that he sexually harassed a woman 20 years ago.  "a" woman.  "20" years ago.  While I certainly don't condone sexual abuse, if that is all they have against him, it doesn't sound like much.

Then there is the guy, currently in the House, who is running for re-election and his father was running some sort of a money-laundering scam.  The ad says that if he was aware of his father's actions, he's corrupt.  If he wasn't aware, he's completely incompetent

Then there are the state propositions.  The one that is getting most attention is Proposition 61, which is backed by Bernie Sanders, who says we have to stick it to the pharmaceutical companies and who thanks California for standing up to the pharmaceutical industry.  Sounds good, right?  But the "no" vote is backed by just about every medical and and veterans groups in the state who all say it only lowers prescription prices on a few and raises it on everyone else.  I was waiting to see what the democrats would recommend and it turns out that when we got our list of proposition recommendations, 61 was one of only two on which they had no recommendation!  It sounds like this is "damned if you do, damned if you don't" vote! I am having voter angst about this proposition.  Based on the very long list of organizations opposed to this proposition, I can only assume Bernie Sanders was duped into making an ad supporting it.

There is also Prop 53, which would require voter approval for infrastructure-related revenue bonds totaling $2 billion, adjusted for inflation, or more.  The "NO" add is ridiculous and says that big cities like San Francisco would decide what happens to things like road repair and (this is the part that gets me) if the "big one" hits the Sacramento area, could delay repairs for years.  I'm sorry, but if "the big one" hits, it's gonna hit cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles first!!! In fact, if "the big one" is big enough to cause severe damage in Sacramento, it has probably destroyed San Francisco. In comparison, Sacramento will have very little damage (notice I stressed "in comparison"). 

However opposition (or support) for this bill depends on where you live:

The “No on Prop. 53” team has ads running statewide, denouncing the ballot measure as a threat to public safety and local control. But what you see depends on where you live.

In the Bay Area, for example, the ad features Alameda firefighter Juan Medrano, who warns that Prop. 53 would allow “voters in the Central Valley or Los Angeles to veto local projects we need, like fixing bridges and road safety.”

In Los Angeles, though, an L.A. fire captain says that same ballot measure would allow “voters in the Central Valley or San Francisco to veto local projects we need, like water supply and road safety.”

And in Sacramento, it’s those evil voters in San Francisco and Los Angeles who will strip the power to improve water supply and road safety from the good people of the state capital and its surrounds.

In the Central Valley, it’s those city slickers in San Francisco and Los Angeles they need to worry about, while in San Diego those folks outside the friendly confines of Southern California, in San Francisco and Central Valley, plan to impose their will on the oceanside community.

(from The San Francisco Chronicle)

Apparently a lot of us are having voter angst right now. So many that many of the talk shows are having segments on how to handle it, and Dr. Oz (whom I don't watch) devoted a whole show to how to cope with all the anxiety surrounding this election.

Apparently no matter who becomes our next president, it is the end of the world as we have known it, according to the other side.  Perhaps we are gearing up to the zombie apocalypse.  So people are either not going to vote or are going to vote for someone who hasn't a chance of winning (I hear the alternate candidate in Utah, who is not running anywhere else, may actually be winning that state.  Nice for a protest vote, but we have to elect a real president people! and a throw-away vote like that will help one of the candidates you don't like into office.)

It's enough to drive you crazy: