Friday, November 9, 2012

Pot in Colarado and a lot of money spent by Obama and Romney

Earlier this week people were calling me on behalf of the President. There were so many I stopped answering 0800 numbers. They they got me by using a local code.

I resorted to brusqueness and confusion tactics, completely flooring one woman by telling her I was going to vote for John McCain.



For some reason nobody representing the President has called me since Tuesday, perhaps because he will continue to be the President and I am just some unimportant and rude sort of bloke.

I'm not really complaining. The best guy won and there was no way I was going to vote for a guy whose company did all those bad things in El Salvador. I've seen the movie Salvador a couple of time and there were scary dudes out there in retro sunglasses. At least the photographer gets the killer shot at the end - just before his head is blown off.

The election was fun in it's own way. I derived the most pleasure by flicking over to Fox to see the normally smug expressions pained. It's always good to see Bill O'Reilly looking peturbed but am I alone in finding his comments about the white establishment subliminally racist? Why do whites have a right to be the establishment? And how come O'Reilly never mentions the Native American establishment which was quite well established before the white establishment?

So while election night was worth it just for the expressions over at Fox, I am rather concerned that the election cost about $2 billion. That's a lot of money to spend for no change. If you went to a car dealer and put down $20,000 for a new Cadillac you'd be somewhat miffed if the guy told you, you'd purchased your old Chevvy again.

At least Obama can say he won. Apparently one Republican candidate for Senator out west somewhere spent $3 million but lost.

At the risk of sounding all PC here I do wonder if some of that money would have been better spent digging wells for impoverished kids in Africa or even helping kids in the ghetto with education programs. The scary thing is the only other person who seems to have taken issue with the cost of the US elections is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Incidentally is it just me or does this guy never age? Maybe it's down to what Bruno described as his taxi driver chic. Given Bruno's wide knowledge of Middle Eastern affairs, who can argue with him?



There has been something else that has been bothering me about the election. Oh yeah that will be the X billion fiscal cliff we are about to fall down. If this was such a massive and pressing issue how come neither candidate mentioned it during the election? More to the point how come nobody in the media thought it was worth a question in the three debates? The other big question raised by the election was surely how was it that Colorado backed the legalization of cannabis while Oregon,  a state that surely contains more New Age liberal types, rejected it? There must be some Rocky Mountain high theory.

That's a sort of comedy in itself, but on the issue of comedy I was sad to read this week about the death of Clive Dunn. He was 92 so you can't say it was tragic but Dunn was part of my childhood and always reminded my of my own grandfather who died when I was about 12. I still remember my brother throwing up in the back of the Morris Marina during the funeral procession and an outraged great aunt almost giving herself a hernia by jumping out of the way; I remember slugging back the whisky that nobody else would drink, which is probably not groovy for a 12-year-old.

Dunn played Cpl Jones in the comedy Dad's Army, a character who was famous for his meandering monologues. I checked out a video of the comedy at the time of his death and was amazed at how well it was written and the brilliant characterization. It's not easy to sum it up succinctly but I hope I can do better than Jones. The comedy was about a Home Guard unit from World War Two, typically made up of oldesters and those not fit enough to fight who would be the last line of defence if Jerry came over the White Cliffs of Dover.



It was headed up by an officious and self important bank manager Captain Mainwaring, his effeminate number two Wilson and a troop that conspire to do everything shambolically, to the chagrin of Mainwaring. It struck me that you seldom see comedy like this anymore. And for some reason Godfrey's "Good Evening" is the funniest moment of the scene.

BTW thanks to all of the new followers I gained from Mina's Resurrection blogfest thingy. I used to get a shed load of comments on Brits but it has tailed off in recent months. The Resurrection thingy was a timely reminder that I need to get off my backside and comment on other people's stuff more.

17 comments:

  1. hahaha, "a timely reminder that I need to get off my backside and comment on other people's stuff more". Did you write that for me?? But thanks for the visit. :)
    I love Dad's Army, it's brilliant comedy, somewhat similar to the US election coverage, but better written. Thank goodness we're over the inane sound bites on the US election, but they're still dissecting it here. Perhaps we became the 52nd (??) state and someone forgot to mention it.

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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    2. I sometimes feel we are all the 51st state.

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    3. sometimes I feel I am in the 1st state

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    4. for real Sue - maybe the whole rest of the world is another state of the US

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  2. I was out to dinner on election night and someone passed around the Fox News site on their phone - Obama's win was the 4th news story listed! I would've loved to see those pained expressions. Oh well - only 4 more years to wait to do it all again!

    And as for the insane amounts of money spent - how about throwing some of that to create sandbags around this fiscal cliff that everyone's suddenly worried about?!?

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    1. yay for that Valley Writer - recently I caught up with Karl Rove's denial which was funny.

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  3. I think the amount of money spent on advertising on TV and radio and by mail and by phone calls for the election is obscene. I'm so glad the whole thing is over. Living in Ohio made it even more obnoxious. We were absolutely bombarded with phone calls, mail, and TV ads--all of them extremely annoying. We stopped answering the phone altogether just letting the machine get it. It rang all day long. I loved that you told them you were going to vote for John McCain-hahahahaha! Wish I'd thought of that. Mostly I just hung up on the first few early calls that we got until we stopped answering altogether. What a ridiculous waste of money that most assuredly could have been directed to a better use.

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    1. it is crazy when you consider what you get for the money - insane

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  4. It is sick how much money these elections cost. And I'm so proud of my former homestate of Washington legalizing weed too, and Mass. voted to legalize medical marijuana. The states are finally coming around at last. I'm just glad it's over although my Facebook feed is now full of gloating and whining which is annoying in and of itself.

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    1. Oh did Washington legalize weed too - must have missed that - cool.

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  5. It's over. TG!

    Just think of all the good that money could have done. So depressing!

    Thanks for stopping by!

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    1. I could have used the odd million Yolanda - thaks for stopping by too

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  6. You make a great point about our media. How could there not be a single question about the fiscal cliff in the debates? Boggles the mind.

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    1. I know - starting to believe in conspiracy theories Tim

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  7. I agree wholeheartedly with everything you said, David. I don't know Dunn, though I'm glad you slugged that whiskey. Now, disgruntled voters are demanding a re-count. I knew that would happen. How many more billions should be thrown into a re-election? I think I need some whiskey.

    Cheers.
    xoRobyn

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    1. yay for the whiskey Robin - fortunately it wasn't close enough for all the recounts - 2000 must have been nuts to be here.

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On Blog PTSD

Now then. What the heck. It seems I had forgotten about my blog completely rather than just neglecting it this time. To return after so long...