As of this writing, Hillary Clinton's national popular vote tally stands at exactly 64,478,925 to Donald Trump's 62,352,480, with an additional 7,169,272 people having voted for other candidates (Gary Johnson, Jill Stein, various other 3rd party candidates and a smattering of write-in votes). That means Clinton is ahead of Trump by over 2.1 million votes, and I understand there's still up to 1.5 million more left to count, mostly in California. By the time the dust settles, it's conceivable that she could lose the electoral college--and therefore the Presidency--while having beaten Trump by as many as 2.6 million votes.
UPDATE 12/25/20: Another year has passed. 2020 has been The Worst in countless ways. Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away...and was immediately replaced with an ultra-right wing religious zealot. We lost John Lewis, David Prowse, Carl Reiner, Buck Henry, Brian Dennehy, Max von Sydow, Alex Trebek, Kirk Douglas, Sean Connery, Diana Rigg, Chadwick Boseman, Wilford Brimley and Neil Peart.
Oh...and we also lost a friend of mine (well, an online friend...I only met her in person once), Deborah Roseman, one of the sweetest, nicest and insightful women I've had the honor of crossing paths with. She died of a brain tumor in October, leaving behind a husband and young child.
Her pinned tweet remains poignant:
I've come to realize: Privilege is the difference between choosing to advocate change and having no choice but to do so.
Everyone is posting various tributes to the late, great David Bowie today. Most will likely relate to Major Tom, Ziggy Stardust or Under Pressure.
For my part, I'm posting something a little different. Instead of anything from his music career, here's the clip of Bowie's brief but oddly appropriately-cast role as Pontius Pilate opposite Willem DaFoe in Martin Scorcese's "The Last Temptation of Christ".
I finally found time to take my wife and son to see "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" over the weekend. It wasn't perfect, of course, but it was still amazingly good; easily better than the Godawful Prequels, and somewhat better than Return of the Jedi. I'd call it on par with the original (nothing can match Empire Strikes Back, of course).
Anyway, I've seen lamentations from a few people who are under the impression that they're "the only one" who hasn't seen it yet. However, aside from the simple fact that more than one person stating this means, by definition, that they're not the only one, perhaps this will make those folks feel better:
I've watched the original Star Wars trilogy countless times, but ever since my kid was born, every time I watch something catches my eye which I never noticed (or noticed but didn't think about) before.
So, my 9-year old and I are watching "Return of the Jedi" again today (in anticipation of The Force Awakens, of course). In an early scene in Jabba's palace, Princess Leia is sneaking around at night, in the dark, trying to remain undetected so she can free Han Solo from the Carbonite, right? So what does she immediately do?
She bumps head first into a large wind chime which is inexplicably hanging in the stairwell.
(I was originally going for Albert Brooks' famous quitting scene from "Lost in America"...unfortunately the audio cuts out after the first 30 seconds...)
