This is Petty

Our country has deep, intrinsic flaws in its design.

Simply put, while the United States of America is supposed to be our country, it is built on a framework into which most Americans at the time had no input, and while that small group of politically ambitious white male property owners deliberately placed provisions to amend the Constitution in the Constitution itself, their successors have, over many generations, deified the document, effectively barring us in the present from adapting it to fit modern reality. 

But this post isn't about that. 

This post is petty. 

This post is about something that has deeply bothered me for as long as I can remember. Something that feels like knives being driven into my brain each time I see it.

This logo is the work of a psychopath. There is no other reasonable explanation or justification for this egregious assault on sanity. I mean, you see it too, right? 

RIGHT?

LOOK:

WHAT IS GOING ON THERE?!!

The GOP elephant's trunk bottoms out below the level of its feet. 

Has the fragile masculinity of the party's leadership caused the trunk to slowly grow longer over the years?

Or has it always been that way? 

If so WHY?

Did the logo's designer simply not use a straight edge when drafting the outline? 

Or is this jarring, irrational inconsistency deliberate??

Is the elephant attempting to burrow into the ground trunk first?

Is the elephant hoisting its whole body into the air with its trunk? 

Is the elephant wearing invisible shoes? 

Is the elephant standing on the precipice of doom, dangling its trunk over the edge to taunt people below with hollow words of patriotic encouragement?

WHY?? 

WHY???

There's no closing moral to this diatribe, this is just something that has legitimately bothered me for as long as I can remember, and I figure if I'm going to be branded as a seditionist and an enemy of our country, I should make the evidence they'll be presenting in the faux trial more interesting 

No C&C Permit Required for COVID-19

I'm a Stay-at-Home-Dad. Ordinarily, I don't get out much, and it doesn't really bother me. I'm pretty happy just being home with my son. I don't even own a car, in large part because it would seem like a waste of money.

In the first half of March, my wife became a Work-from-Home-Mom. Her employer was quick to respond to the COVID-19 threat by allowing anyone who could work from home to do so, and soon after mandated that. We've now been social-distancing for over a month. Here's what that's primarily consisted of:

• We cancelled all travel plans through the summer.
• When we started, we took a couple of trips to the local park to walk our dog, but gave up due to other people not respecting the six foot minimum, forcing us to drive our stroller through mud to avoid them. Since then I've been taking the dog to an empty parking lot after dark to get exercise.
• We've been ordering our groceries for pick up or delivery, and limiting our trips to once a week, loading up with as much stuff as possible in a single trip. We did curbside pickup at Home Depot once and went to several restaurants to get curbside pickup, but have since largely shifted to delivery for food and ship-to-home for everything else. My wife made one trip to the local post office to drop off a package, and one trip to the bank to cash a check.
• Out of total desperation because of insufficient baby supplies - I have been into Wal-Mart twice since this began, and my wife has gone in there once. Both times I was in the store I used self-checkout to limit face-to-face interactions, but it was busy, and few people aside from the employees were taking any protective measures. 
• My wife made masks for us out of pillow cases, and we've been wearing them since the CDC said to. Even before that, though, we were not only washing our hands thoroughly after such trips, but also throwing our clothes directly into the wash with disinfecting detergent, disinfecting our phones, wallets, etc., and showering.
• We had someone come out to test our water; they were supposed to follow social distancing recommendations, but didn't. I took the baby, left the room, and refused to interact with the man. My wife hurried him off as quickly as possible.

The fact that other people in our area haven't been taking this seriously isn't too surprising. We live in a fairly small backwoods town in Eastern Tennessee, hours away from the hardest hit cities in our state. Even now, our state health website reports only 16 cases of COVID-19 in our county, and only one fatality.

Over the course of this seemingly interminable bottle episode, my wife has experienced tightness in her chest, and I've experienced some symptoms easily connectable to spring yard work. We've both been fatigued, which is attributable to first year parenthood. We've both had intestinal discomfort, likewise easily attributable to our current delivery-heavy diet, and I had a low fever that lasted no more than a couple of hours and never returned. Our 8.5 month old infant has had no unusual symptoms beyond clinginess and irregular sleep. He's been playing hard and eating well.

When drive-through testing was offered last Wednesday to anyone with symptoms, we stayed in, as neither of us considered ourselves to be 'symptomatic'. When it turned out few people in our county attended the drive-through testing, we were told it was open to asymptomatic people. We made an appointment for Friday, to help the state develop a more accurate account of the virus's spread. It sucked, but once we got through the line, it was over quick. Tonight (Sunday), I got an unexpected call - turns out, I tested positive. 

I have COVID-19, and I had no real reason at all to think that I did, nor would anyone interacting with me. Every symptom I might have had was fleeting to the point of potentially being the result of error, or easily explained away as normal discomfort and inconvenience. We're still waiting to find out what the situation is for my wife. It's phenomenally unlikely she doesn't have it, but I think that they now have so many positive cases, they can't spare the time to call people who tested negative. 

I effectively have a concealed weapon that kills randomly and requires no permit to carry. I could 100% walk into one of those 'Operation Gridlock' or 'ReOpen Tennessee' rallies being planned, and breathe on every maskless person there; no one would have any reason to question my presence, and those military-style AR-15s they'd brought to protect themselves would do jack all to help them. When I think about the fact that all the people there will be protesting the sacrifices their neighbors have been making to protect society as a whole, I find it tempting - after all, they've been warned of the danger and showed up anyway, so would it really be my fault if some of them got sick? If some of them died?

Yes, it would. 

And even if it weren't my responsibility to protect them from their own stupidity, there's no telling how many of the people at the rally would become asymptomatic carriers just like I am, and spread the disease to their family, friends, and neighbors.

So, rather than engage in lazy bioterrorism, I'm going to stay home for another 14 days, check my temperature obsessively, and hope that I continue to be as fortunate as I have been so far. I hope the rest of you who can stay home will continue to do so. However, for those of you who are planning to protest the necessary closures in our state, I hope you will ask yourself some questions: 

How many asymptomatic carriers in your area will have been tested?

How many of the people in your area would believe the test if it came back positive?

How many of those who do accept the test results, would choose to show up at your rallies anyway? How many would think that their right to assemble outweighs the risk they pose to you? How many would think that they're furthering some survival of the fittest philosophy? How many would believe that God will protect you and your family if you're worthy of God's love (and not give a damn about you if you aren't)? How many people out there would show up and infect you, just because they are total assholes?

Think carefully about those questions, and then ask yourself again, how badly do you really want to go play rebel-without-a-brain with your dumbass friends?

Your Rights as a Parent: You don't have any.

My home state of MO is toying with legislation that would allow parents to pull their children out of public school classes in which they might be exposed to information about sexual orientation or gender identities. There's a lot of support for it on Facebook, with lots of people saying that they have a right to teach their kids what they believe, and to prevent them from learning about other beliefs, or factual information that challenges their beliefs.

Why on Earth would anyone think that?

How arrogant and entitled do you have to be to think that you have the right to prevent someone else from learning things?

Parenting is not a right, it's a privilege, and that privilege comes with responsibilities which are not optional.

If parenting were a fundamental, inalienable right, adoption would work very differently - there'd be no background checks, no steps at all to protect the child's welfare, because the adult's right to be a parent would supersede any of that.

If parenting were a right, any form of child abuse would be fair game, because your freedom to discipline your child how you see fit would override any standards or morals otherwise agreed upon by society.

If parenting were a right, you'd be under no obligation to feed your child or put a roof over his head. You could give her a bowl of dogfood every other day and make her sleep out in the backyard at night, because your decisions as a parent would be subject  to no criticism or oversight.

If it was your right to parent however you wanted, your children would effectively be your property.

But they aren't your property, they're human beings, and you can't choose to do whatever you want to them as their parent (thank God).

You have an obligation to provide for them, to keep them healthy, safe, and nourished, and to prepare them to live independently of you one day. The minor choices are yours to make - do they get chicken nuggets or a hot dog for dinner, do they take violin lessons this summer, do they get a new action figure, do you play the Santa Claus game, etc.

But the big choices are not yours to make. You do not get to decide whether burning your child with a cigarette butt is a reasonable way to teach them good diction, or whether 13 is too young to get married. You do not get to decide whether a breatharian diet would be healthier for them in the long run, or whether blood letting is a reasonable response to chicken pox.

You do not get to do these things, because your children have rights as human beings, and your 'right' to 'parent' however you want does not eclipse society's consensus regarding individual human rights to live free of abuse.

Deliberately keeping your child ignorant is another form of neglect, and lying to them about important things they will need to know to be a healthy adult is a form of abuse.

Your misogynistic or patriarchal beliefs do not entitle you to prevent your child from learning that rape is wrong, or that women should be paid the same as men.

Your racist or white supremacist beliefs do not entitle you to prevent your child from learning about the evils of slavery, segregation, or the holocaust.

Your unswerving faith in Reaganomics does not entitle you to prevent your child from learning about societal problems like poverty, hunger, or homelessness.

Your sincerely held belief that "0" is not a number does not entitle you to deny your child a math education.

And your equally preposterous, indefensible belief that homosexuality, bisexuality, or nonbinary gender identities are 'mental health issues' or 'liberal propaganda' do not give you the 'right' to prevent your child from learning information that challenges or disproves your beliefs.

You have the right to choose to be ignorant;  you do not have the right to force your ignorance on others.

Googling Evil

While both sides of a deep philosophical or moral divide are inclined to label their opposite as "evil", it often feels like one side tends to do it a lot more than the other. Thinking about this, I'm reminded of two exchanges from Star Wars:

Obi-Wan: "Anakin, Chancellor Palpatine is evil!"
Anakin: "From my point of view, the Jedi are evil!
Obi-Wan: "Well, then you are lost!"
...
Anakin: "If you're not with me, then you're my enemy!"
Obi-Wan: "Only a Sith deals in absolutes."

This is either brilliant piece of dialogue highlighting the hypocrisy of the Jedi Order, or an egregious example of a writer spectacularly lacking in self-awareness. Either way, it encourages me to check my own biases.

My predisposition is to perceive individuals on the conservative end of the spectrum as more likely to vilify their opponents than individuals on the left end. This perception is partly based on personal observation, and partly based on the distinct association between the right and evangelical groups which talk like... well, evangelists. As much as liberals focus on climate change, conservatives seem to focus on fire and brimstone, and there's a lot of moral absolutism when you start talking about God and the Devil. 

Is my perception accurate though? As a loose test of my own implicit theory, I tried a number of google searches, and recorded the number of hits, hypothesizing that those on the left end of the spectrum would be renounced as evil more often than those on the right.

First, I searched without quotation marks. This yields all hits where the words appear on a page together. The notable disparity is marked by bold font.

• Evil Republicans = 12,500,000 hits
• Evil Democrats = 22,600,000 hits
• Evil Conservatives = 9,130,000 hits
• Evil Liberals = 8,050,000 hits
• Evil Right-Wing =  66,200,000 hits
• Evil Left-Wing = 59,500,000 hits

This search was consistent with my expectations. However, "Democrat" is nearly twice as likely to appear on a page with the word "evil" than "Republican" is. It's hard to interpret this, though. For the Right/Left and Conservative/Liberal dichotomies, there's little difference in the likelihood of appearing on a page with the word evil, so we lack a consistent trend. Furthermore, searching for just "Democrat" and "Republican" together yields 132 million hits, so there's definitely going to be an overlap between "Democrats" and "Republicans" appearing on a page with the word "evil". Finally, appearing on the page together does not necessarily mean that the word "evil" is being applied to the target. 

So, I repeated each search with quotation marks:

• "Evil Republicans" = 23,800 hits
• "Evil Democrats" = 24,300 hits
• "Evil Conservatives" = 7,680 hits
• "Evil Liberals" = 48,100 hits
• "Evil Right-Wing" = 110,000 hits
• "Evil Left-Wing" = 14,200 hits

As you can see, there's some extreme and puzzling differences here. There's little difference between Republicans and Democrats now, but there are over 6 times as many hits referring to "Evil Liberals" as there are hits referring to "Evil Conservatives", and nearly 8 times as many hits referring to the "Evil Right-Wing" as to the "Evil Left-Wing" (searching for "Evil Leftist" yields only 15,700 hits, so not significantly more than "Evil Left-Wing"). Given the seemingly inconclusive results, I tried another set of searches, altering the grammar to be more broad:

• "Evil Republican" = 75,200 hits
• "Evil Democrat" = 23,000 hits
• "Evil Conservative" = 39,300 hits
• "Evil Liberal" = 27,100 hits
• "Evil Right" = 320,000 hits
• "Evil Left" = 72,200 hits

Again, this bucks my hypothesis. The search for "Evil Right" was greatly inflated by an internet meme referencing Austin Powers' "Dr. Evil" saying the word "Right", with air quotes, but even considering only the Republican/Democrat and Conservative/Liberal pairings, Republicans/Conservatives seem to be subjected to more morally-absolutist rhetoric. This certainly didn't map to my expectations, but it then occurred to me that the two sides of these dichotomies may speak in distinctly different ways, such that the syntax of the statement matters. So I tried repeating the second search with "evil" as a predicate nominative rather than as an adjective.

• "Republicans are evil" = 75,500 hits
• "Democrats are evil" = 81,800 hits
• "Conservatives are evil" = 31,700 hits
• "Liberals are evil" = 579,000 hits
• "Right-Wing is evil" = 7,610 hits
• "Left-Wing is evil" = 5,810 hits

Altering the grammar of the search in this way closed the Republican/Democrat gap. "Evil Democrat" or "Evil Democrats" doesn't show up much on Google, but the phrase "Democrats are evil" appears a lot. The Right/Left difference is minor, but the big shocker is the conservative/liberal dichotomy, with "Liberals are evil" appearing 579,000 times, compared to "Conservatives are evil" appearing only 31,700 times

Ultimately, I leave it to the reader to decide which of these approaches, and the results they yielded, are most valid, However, I would venture one interpretation. Fundamentally, this little diversion was about moral absolutism - the extent to which one side dismisses, even dehumanizes the other side using the word "evil".  I had initially assumed the grammar was only marginally relevant, but in retrospect, there's a big difference here. If I refer to a "black cat", the implication is that not all cats are black, which is quite different from saying "cats are black". Likewise, saying "Liberals are evil" is much more absolute than referring to "evil liberals." From that perspective, the results would seem to support my hypothesis, but only for the liberal/conservative dichotomy. 

Of course, another important point, which is more than I can get into before making lunch, is that the pages generated by these searches seem very different. My general observations from the first pages of each search were that articles about 'evil republicans' or 'evil conservatives' tended to be editorials about the melodramatic demonization of the right (often compared/contrasted to similar rhetoric about 'dumb liberals' or 'stupid democrats'), whereas 'evil liberals' or 'evil democrats' were being discussed on sites like Church Militant (a site which I feel dirty for even clicking on), or in articles directly quoting the President of the United States. Both of which are kind of chilling when you think about it.

Why Horizon should come to Eastern Tennessee

To the fine folks at Turn 10,

I picked up Forza Horizon 3 after my wife became pregnant because I needed a quick pick-up-put-down, clean, nonviolent game. I became addicted to it, so too did she, and our baby was born last summer with a particular affinity for Fitz and the Tantrums' "Handclap" and other songs that play on Horizon Pulse. Since then we've acquired the DLCs, Forza Horizon 4, its DLCs, and I've started to actually make an impression as an in game artist, with over 1,000 downloads! (Which probably isn't really all that much, but it's still more success than I've had self-publishing fiction novels on Amazon KDP, so I take my victories where I can.)

We have talked a couple of times about good locales for future Horizon games. An obvious choice, of course, is Japan, but I would venture another choice: Eastern Tennessee.

We live in Oak Ridge, TN, a small town northwest of Knoxville. Oak Ridge, "The Secret City," was created by the U.S. military in the early forties as part of the Manhattan Project, and continues to host Oak Ridge National Labs. ORNL is involved in a wide range of engineering projects, and is fond of demonstrating new technologies through automotive exhibitionism. In particular, they've taken to 3D printing cars, including reproducing a complete Shelby Cobra. Local Motors also has a factory on the edge of town. 

The neat thing is, depending on the map size, you could range between the thickly forested areas north of Oak Ridge to the Smoky Mountains southeast of Knoxville, with Knoxville sitting between them to provide some urban street racing environments. With Nashville down the highway west of Knoxville and  Bristol down the highway east of us, racing and music are big parts of the local culture - a great fit for a Horizon Festival. The area also provides pretense for some neat gimmicks to keep things fresh - a country or southern rock radio station, developing and testing cars with experimental technology (especially alternative/sustainable energy), story missions that dive into Oak Ridge's history with vintage cars and military vehicles, off road races that tread in mildly radioactive restricted areas, and - of course - monster trucks, demolition derbies, stunt shows, and all sorts of other less civilized motorsports popular in the American Southeast and Midwest.

The reason I felt compelled to write this is because of a story reported by Oak Ridge's local newspaper this morning; for essentially the same reasons I mentioned above, the city is talking about sponsoring the construction of an actual real-life motorsports park that would provide test tracks for the lab, and entertainment for racing fans. And here's the kicker - they're wanting to build it at Oak Ridge's Horizon Center along with an amphitheater for shows and such. So, hypothetically, how awesome would it be to sponsor a real-life Horizon Festival to tie into the release of a future game? Personally, I think it would be pretty cool.

Anyway, just an idea. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

Thanks for making great video games that have kept us sane through the first six months of parenthood,

Best,

James McDonald

(aka, "Caelus Prime")

Sorry, Not Sorry

I have been told that the letter I wrote to my Republican senators and shared online last night was "tepid fear-mongering", "asinine, moronic drivel", and the reason that 'both the right and the left hate' 'dumbass liberals'. The reader in question seems primarily to have been offended by the phrase "Antifa extremists", I assume because the person is an Antifa supporter and does not like to think of himself in those terms.

I think most people would understand that I wrote that letter from the perspective of a jaded voter dressiing-down a conservative reader. Part of doing that was speaking in terms the person I was insulting could understand, couching my talking points within concepts they ordinarily embrace.

To clarify, however, if I believed the Antifa movement was an extremist group, I wouldn't have said "Antifa extremists", I would simply have said "Antifa". There's a reason we say "Islamic extremists" but we don't say "Nazi extremists"; the former requires the qualifier, the latter does not.

My intention in the letter was to convey the arc of escalation our country is on right now. As rule of law erodes, I see the rule of fear and violence inevitably overtaking it. As a left-leaning/liberal American (and yes, I say both, because 99% of Americans use the words interchangeably; get over it), I'd like to think that the authoritarian nationalism that has become intimately tied to political conservativism in America makes disenchanted right-wing Americans the only threat to our future, but that's a biased opinion, and to be completely fair, disenchanted - and increasingly disenfranchised - left-wing Americans have more reason to resort to terroristic violence, even if they innately have less proclivity towards it.

It would be nice to think I'm "fear-mongering" for some sort of personal political gain, but the reality is that right-wing domestic terrorism is already a problem, and it's only natural that the left will eventually spawn individuals who attempt to retaliate. To me, the Antifa movement will be the most likely source of these individuals for multiple reasons.

First, an authoritarian power thrives on having a recognizable and frightening enemy to rail against. I would expect that whatever left-wing counter movement escalates to violence, it will probably be egged-on and quietly supported by right-wing interests. I can think of one conservative media darling, employed by Breitbart, who already has past experience acting as an agent provocateur (his name literally appears on the wiki page for that term), and he has been very (suspiciously) quick to report on Antifas' actions, presenting them in the worst possibly light. I think the seeds are already there.

Second, Antifa have the name-recognition to draw out and empower left-wing individuals with militant views and the online presence to connect them, while also being too decentralized to rein in or take responsibility for their members in any meaningful way. While the Antifa movement may not transform into an organization of violent extremists, it's the most likely body on the left to spawn one.

Third, and finally, while I regret having caused emotional distress to any Antifa members out there who were offended by my use of the phrase "Antifa extremists"... Actually, no, I don't regret offending you. You're pricks, and more than anyone on our end of the political spectrum, you're the ones who make us 'dumbass liberals' look bad.

Antifa aren't the Black Panthers. The Black Panthers showed their faces when they turned out to support their cause - despite being people of color extremely vulnerable to systemic and personal reprisals. They had the dignity, pride, and bravery, to put their lives on the line for their people. Anonymity empowers people by deindividuating them, freeing them from personal accountability or moral responsibility. It's a tool of cowardice, a bullying tactic, and it's toxic.

And does anyone really believe that the black bloc attire that Antifa protesters are notoriously associated with actually conceals a diverse and inclusive body that genuinely represents the underpriveleged Americans they're supposedly advocating for? No, I don't think many of us really believe that - cherry-picked interviewees aside - Antifa is anything more than another excuse for entitled middle-class, white boys to put on costumes, light fires, and frighten people they hate.

And America has had one too many of those for a very long time.

Three Gods and a Banshee Walk Into a Bar

[Quick off-the-cuff write up using characters from my books.]

Washington D.C., 2019

Anne returned from the bar with four Flat Tires which she planted before her fellow non-humans, "So, fess up, did any of ye actually vote for him?" Anne's voice dipped briefly into her old Irish accent.

Persephone scoffed, "No, certainly not. I can't think of any human being that I could possibly loathe more - as a woman or as an Earth goddess."

"What about you Hades? You may not be king of the underworld anymore, but still the Greek god of wealth, right?"

"I've seen his tax returns and I've heard his prayers," Hades popped the cap off of his beer, "in terms of wealth management or, well, any type of management, he's an embarrassment. Plus, he really reminds me of my brother."

"Which one?" Persephone asked.

"Entitled, misogynistic, bullying windbag that expects total devotion from the people he reigns over and has a record of sexual assault and incestuous leanings? Take your pick. Though the bloating reminds me more of Poseidon. Adresteia? What do you think?"

Nemesis didn't take her eyes off of the screen playing the impeachment proceedings. The television was muted, but the goddess of justice could hear the words nonetheless. There was a time when Hades bringing up Zeus would have ruffled her feathers, but Zeus's crimes against her were millennia past, as was her retribution against him. Now it was just part of her history, ancient history. "Either comparison is unflattering," she said, "but Zeus and Poseidon were, at the very least, not cowards. They fought in wars, risked their lives against powerful enemies, so I'm not sure who comes off worst in your parallel."

"Well, I'll tell you, if he'd lived back in our time, he'd have had no shortage of patrons," Hades said, "Enamored with violent authoritarians? Zeus. Got the working class shtick down to a T? Demeter and Poseidon. Multiple marriages and affairs? Hera and Aphrodite. Corpulent blood-sucking vampire? Dionysus. And I love Hestia, but she probably would have been on board with his build-the-wall thing back in the day."

"Depends on whether she or Poseidon got the contract to build it," Persephone said, delicately sipping her beer.

Over three hundred years - much of that time being friends with Adresteia - Anne had learned a fair bit about the ancient Greek pantheon, "That's all your brothers and sisters, what about the younger generation?"

"Well, Dionysus and I were part of that generation," Persephone said, "Demeter and Zeus were our parents."

"But what about the rest of you? Big family; had to be a lot of political differences that'd make the holidays downright miserable."

"Artemis would hate him as much as Persephone does," Hades said, "And probably would have killed his eldest sons by now. Hephaestus would have been a Yang supporter..."

"Really?" Persephone looked at him skeptically.

"He'd go with the tech guy. You know he would. And if he ever met the pig-in-chief, the asshat probably would have mocked him for being disabled."

"And gotten a blacksmith hammer to the face for it," Persephone said.

"Nah, for better or worse Heph was way chiller than that; he'd have gone and blogged about it. Either way, point is, he'd not be a fan. Heph's brother, Ares, would definitely hate the worm for being a draft-dodger. Athena would hate him for, well, being an idiot. Now, Hermes, I do not know. Hermes was all about business for the sake of business. Sweet talking people to get something for nothing was basically his bread and butter."

"So you think he'd have liked him?" Anne asked.

"I don't know," Hades said, "Hermes would respect the grift, admire it even, except that when you watch this con-man in action, it's difficult to see how he's been so successful. It just makes no sense."

"And Apollo?" Anne asked.

Persephone sucked air through her teeth, "Yikes. Yeah, that'd be interesting."

"Why?"

"Adresteia never told you what happened to Apollo?" Hades asked.

"No..."

Eyes still fixed on the screen, Nemesis gave the summary, "Helped Athena perpetrate a coup to overthrow the gods so that man would be free of their abuses. Was horribly disfigured by Hera and thrown from Mt. Olympus. Sulked in the Underworld preaching about the evils of gods and religions, then eventually found Jesus."

"What do you mean he 'found Jesus'?" Anne asked.

"I mean he found him. In the desert. He tried to tempt him away from his destiny and ended up becoming rather enamored with him."

"For real?"

"I was there," Nemesis said.

"You met Jesus?"

"Yeah. Is that really that hard to believe? People who claim to be gods kind of get my attention. Punisher of hubris and charlatans, and all that."

"And?!"

"Well I didn't punish him, if that's what you mean. We had a nice conversation, the three of us. He wasn't like us; he was something else. But he restored Apollo to his former state, healed the wounds Hera had left a thousand years prior, and then we all parted as friends."

"Just like that?"

"Well, I stuck around for a while to mete out a little divine retribution after he was crucified, but I knew he'd protest, so I restrained myself. Mostly."

"God damn. So Jesus was real? Is real?"

"Was. If there's an afterlife, he's there now. I hope for his sake there is," Nemesis's face softened slightly, "He was a sweet guy, and kind of got screwed on the life thing. Gods are supposed to live past forty."

Hades and Persephone clinked their beers together. "Maybe the real ones don't," Hades said.

"You think he was the real deal?" Nemesis asked.

"You met him; you tell me?" Hades said, "I mean, titles aside, we're not real gods. We're all faking it. Been faking it for over three thousand years, but we're still faking it, and I'd sure like to think there's something more than us looking over this world. Because if it's just us... well the world's kind of fucked."

"... I have to start going to church now..." Anne shook her head.

"Well, good luck finding one that believes in him," Nemesis said bitterly, "Most of them worship something else, slap a white man's face on it, and call it Jesus."

"Well anyway," Persephone interrupted, "Apparently, Jesus told Apollo to keep being a skeptic. Basically charged him with challenging mankind to be better. For about two thousand years he's taken that job pretty seriously, so ten-to-one, given the current proceedings, he's not far away. He'd be up there arguing both sides of the case if they let him."

"You didn't say," Hades said, "Who you voted for, Anne? We've delved into the Olympian demographic, what of the Fae? Your lot certainly carry more weight at the polls."

"Who would you expect me to have voted for?" Anne asked with a wry smile.

"Well, the president hates immigrants and doesn't drink alcohol," Persephone said, "so I imagine you'd not trust him too far."

"That's true enough," Anne said, "And I don't have much patience for racist bigots. I shed enough blood endin' slavery and killin' Nazis that I don't much care for them that wave either of those flags, or for them that tell me what to do with my own body, thank you very much."

"Hillary for sure, then?" Persephone asked.

Anne shrugged.

Nemesis finally tore her eyes away from the screen, "Anne, tell me you voted for Secretary Clinton."

"Well..."

"Who. Did. You. Vote. For. ?."

"I wrote in Bernie's name."

Hades burst out laughing, Persephone shook her head as she got up to get another beer. Nemesis's eye twitched tensely.

"You, a citizen of the United States of America since before it was the United States of America, who fought in almost every war in its history securing and defending the right to vote, entered the voting booth in November of 2016, and voted for someone who didn't even make it onto the ballot?"

"Actually I voted in October of 2016. Mail in."

Nemesis clawed at her temples in frustration, "What were you thinking?"

"What? I thought you of all people would be a Bernie supporter! You're all about fairness; Bernie wants to make the privileged and fortunate people share what they have with the less fortunate to balance the scales! That's... that's you! Balancing the scales! That's your thing!"

"That's... urgh... Anne, a president cannot do the things Senator Sanders promised. His agenda is moot, because he could never, would never be able to follow through with his plans. He's just another old white man telling people what they want to hear to keep his own bread buttered. Just like Samuel Adams. Would you have voted for Samuel Adams? Hm? No, because he was a shallow self-serving prick."

"That's not fair," Anne shook her head, "Sam wasn't that bad."

"Ben Franklin would be rolling in his grave if he heard you say that," Nemesis said.

"That's low, Addy."

"Why?" Persephone asked, confused.

"Ben and I had a lengthy friendship and a... dalliance."

"Seriously?" Persephone laughed, "Was he good?"

"For an old man?" Anne said, "Yeah, he really was. I had no complaints, certainly. And neither did he."

"Look, primaries start on Monday and this farce of a trial will essentially be over in the next 24 hours," Hades said, "So the real question is who we're backing in 2020? Anne's still going to support the Berninator, I assume."

"Yes, proudly."

"Well, my girl A.O.C. gave Bernie her endorsement," Persephone said, "So I'd probably swing that way. I'm guessing, my dear husband, you'll be supporting Bloomberg?"

"Nope," Hades shook his head, "Mayor Pete."

"The god of wealth is going to back the one candidate that's not a millionaire?" Persephone quirked an eyebrow.

"You saw all the news coverage with the wine cave, right?"

"That was one of our wine caves?" Persephone asked, "I really have been distracted."

"Well, I was making a big donation anyway, and figured, eh, what the hell? We might as well have some fun with it all."

"That didn't play well for him in the papers," Anne said.

"If you saw the size of the check I cut, you'd know how little that mattered. How about it Adresteia? Who are you voting for?"

"Well I was going to vote for Kamala Harris," Nemesis said, "but that didn't pan out. I certainly won't scribble her into my ballot though," she glared at Anne.

"Well maybe you should," Anne narrowed her eyes, "Because maybe an election is about more than winning."

"Ugh, it doesn't even matter, anyway," Nemesis shook her head, "Between the electoral college and the incumbent rigging the process who knows how many different ways, it's not going to be a fair election regardless."

"Oh, so that's it?" Anne said, "You're just going to give up like that? Not vote at all because the system doesn't work the way it should?"

"Would you play a game with someone who openly cheats?" Nemesis pressed her.

"Depends on the game," Anne shrugged, "For poker that's half the fun. If there aren't five aces in the deck, you're doin' it wrong."

"I'm being serious."

"Well what choice do you have but to play the hand you're dealt as best you can, no matter how much everyone else at the table cheats."

"What choice? I could fly over to that building right now and settle their squabble quite finally. Or maybe just hop on board Air Force One mid-flight and redecorate the inside."

"And thoroughly destroy our country in the process?" Anne said, "Is that what you would want?"

The three gods looked back and forth at each other, their expressions either apathetic or ambivalent.

"We've been around ten times longer than you, my dear fae," Hades said, "It's hard to get too invested when you've seen as many empires fall as we have."

"It's not like the United States was ever really special," Persephone said, "I mean, look at the buildings down the street; even their architecture is derivative of two failed republics."

"You three are really that cynical? Addy, if you go in there all goddess-of-retribution-like, that'll be it for rule of law - it'll just be rule of you. Is that what you want? Three thousand years stalking evil and wickedness in the background of history, and you suddenly want to play god? Like Zeus?"

"Hmm..." Nemesis smiled, "Well, maybe there is another way." She got up and headed to the door.

"What? Where are you going?" Anne asked.

"I need a more convincing birth certificate. Don't want my opponent finding out I was born 3200 years ago in Knossos to nonhuman parents. Pretty sure that would disqualify me several times over."

"Disqualify you?" Anne asked, "From what?"

"Being president, of course. That orange vampire thinks he's a god, so why shouldn't a goddess run against him?"

"The election is less than a year away," Hades pointed out, "Even if I back you, there's no way you can get on the ballot at this point." 

"That's fine," Nemesis said, "I'm sure the ass-hat will try to run for a third term. His kind always do. I can humiliate him in 2024. I'm not getting any older."

Nemesis left her three friends exchanging nervous glances.

"She did actually just leave to start a political campaign, right?" Anne asked, "and not to go do the assassination thing?"

"No... probably just the campaign thing..." Hades looked at Persephone uncertainly, but she just shrugged. "She probably won't kill anyone tonight."

"Probably?" Anne asked.

Persephone gave Hades a worried look, and he sighed in resignation, "Get the tab, dear. I have to go make sure a lot of unrighteous heathens make it safely to their beds tonight."

"She'd go after the turtle man first," Persephone said, "But maybe, you know, let her succeed a little?"

"Succeed a little?" Hades asked, "What does it mean to succeed a little at smiting someone?"

"I don't' know - you know, just a few small lightning bolts instead of one big one? Light smiting."

Anne smirked, "I feel like there's obvious joke about Kentucky Fried..."

"No," Hades stopped her with a raised finger, "Shush. You've done enough. Damned goddesses always having to fix things..." he muttered and disappeared out the door.

"So..." Anne said, "Any more upbeat news to share?"

"Well, I was appreciating the rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere," Persephone said, "Despite the deforestation and wildfires contributing to it. But then the koalas started dying, and now I think it might be past time I did something about climate change. Personally."

"Oh, wow," Anne nodded, "You're going to use your god powers to undo it?"

"...Sure..." Persephone smiled icily, "Something like that."