Saturday, October 10, 2020
I just went to the website that allows individuals to track their votes. Both Linda and I are happy to report that our ballots have been received by the County Registrar. We have no idea of whether 70,000,000 other Americans will join us in selecting Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to be our country’s new leaders, but we wouldn’t be surprised if that many join us. We certainly hope so. Between the addition of new voters (individuals who have turned 18 in the past four years), indifferent voters who sat out the last election, and defectors from Trump’s camp, I wouldn’t be surprised if Biden and Harris end up with somewhere around 72,000,000 million total votes.
Furthermore, I predict that Donald J. Trump will receive less than 60,000,000 votes. In fact, I would be willing to wager that fewer people will vote for Trump in 2020 than voted for John McCain in 2008, despite the fact that there are more than 20,000,000 more eligible voters this year. Trump will be lucky to get 58,780,000 votes.
On a local level, we ended up voting for Robert Fox for the Long Beach City Council. He is the only candidate who seems to care whether Long Beach ever addresses the parking issues in our district. The retiring councilperson never caught on that it is parking that needs to be addressed, as well as other quality of life issues (such as Long Beach’s notoriously polluted air). The mayor of Long Beach, in backing the other candidate (Cindy Allen) only makes it clear to me that he has lost touch with the people who voted him into office.
And we also voted with our shovel yesterday. The city sent out workers a few weeks ago to cut down a dead tree in front of the house we rent (on the city property, between the sidewalk and the street curb), but of course the city’s current budget has nothing allocated for replacement trees. Fortunately, Jenna, a gracious neightbor across the street, donated a sapling that a neighbor down the street had given her and we dug a hole and planted it.
Finally, Linda and I drove over the new bridge yesterday afternoon to San Pedro. After two years of using a zig-zag side route that was marked by shifting concrete barriers like a slalom route on asphalt and concrete, we finally have a quick smooth ride over a very lovely cable-stayed bridge. Hart Crane would love it.
Finally, as a way to calm yourselves while waiting out the next four weeks for votes to be tabulated, here are some film recommendations:
LITTLE FUGITIVE (black and white, 1953, on DVD, a great film. Nominated for three Academy Awards. I’d never heard of it, and good friends who know film say they haven’t heard ot it either. BUT IT’S GREAT. A little slow at the start, but once the younger brother gets to Coney Island, watch ou!. I’m willing to bet that the majority of people who have read my blog this blog the past seven years have not seen this film.
THE GARDEN — documentary on the multicultural squabbles of LA’s inner city
NEBRASKA — the best film script influenced by Sam Shepard. If you like TRUE WEST, you will love this film. In fact, you will recognize a detail from TRUE WEST that is so derivative that the screenwriter/director should have acknowledged it in the film credits.
THE DIVINE ORDER: the struggle of Swiss women to get the vote in 1971.
FINDING YOUR FEET: How rare and lovely it was to see a film about old people falling in love. Mainstream cinema, but does it always have to edgy and avant-garde?
POST-SCRIPT: Bonus Film Recommendation #6: “THE OCTOPUS TEACHER” — one of the final scenes in this film is so tender and full of mutual compassion that it’s closer to a moment of enlightenment than I have approached in a long, long time.
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WILLIAM MOHR
Ballot Issued: 10/5/2020
*Received and Verified by the Registrar: 10/9/2020
*Results displaying a date here indicate your Vote by Mail ballot was received, verified and counted by the Registrar. If your Vote by Mail status returns “Not yet received”, then your Vote by Mail ballot is still being processed. Counting of the Vote by Mail ballots continues 30 days after Election Day.
LINDA FRY
Ballot Issued: 10/5/2020
*Received and Verified by the Registrar: 10/9/2020
*Results displaying a date here indicate your Vote by Mail ballot was received, verified and counted by the Registrar. If your Vote by Mail status returns “Not yet received”, then your Vote by Mail ballot is still being processed. Counting of the Vote by Mail ballots continues 30 days after Election Day.
About Bill Mohr