Vitamin D…in November?

It was a tough day of synthesizing vitamin D from sunlight. Hey, you think it’s easy – sure, it’s easy in July, but much harder in the November sun, especially when you’re also running the Krebs cycle and synthesizing ATP as fast as you can.

Check out the stats from today’s ride on my computer readout. If it’s hard to read, net mileage was zero (I ended where I started) gross miles zero (none of the miles were gross – they were all fun). Net climbing zero again – I started and ended 856 feet above sea level. Gross was just enough to reach the top of every hill. Average speed – yup, average. Total miles exactly equaled the distance from my house back to my house. Heart rate was non-zero throughout.

The plan was to ride north, but there was a strong southern breeze so I rode east and south so I could ride home with a tailwind. It actually worked. At each junction I rode whichever way looked best. Hope, Cottage Grove, Deerfield, Stoughton (where even the cheese (kaese) is Norwegian) and various points in between. No maps, no apps. I rode enough so that I drank the last of my water on the last block coming home. The important statistic was 70 degrees (21 Celsius) and sunny – not at all normal for November in Wisconsin, but I’ll take it. The corn is dry and this may be the last week to get it harvested in good weather.

Hope is the word of the day. I woke up to the first full day with a new President-elect. Democracy may survive this. Be on the lookout. The rash of lawsuits contesting election results being filed by the Trump campaign is a misdirection. Watch for a slew of Executive Orders attacking environmental protection, healthcare, worker’s rights, and education in the next 10 weeks. His minions will be working overtime in the shadows to inflict maximum damage. Civil rights will come under attack, except for that second one about “an unregulated militia” – oh wait, that says “well-regulated militia”. One man’s militia is another man’s domestic terrorist group.

AP Photo

This photo accompanied an article quoting a Dallas evangelical pastor calling Trump “the most pro-faith president in American history.” The smirk on Trump’s face says it all – “I’ve really put one over on these dupes.” With his history, one can only assume he is sleeping with his spiritual advisor (the one with her hand on his right arm). I’m surprised no one is kissing the hem of his garment (or would it be the end of his tie?) or his ring.

Her oratorical skills are unmatched.

Primož Roglič of Slovenia entered the penultimate day of La Vuelta a España with a 45 second lead over Richard Carapaz of Ecuador. By the end of the day the lead was down to 24 seconds, the final margin after more than 72 hours of racing.

From NBC TV – Richard Carapaz, Primož Roglič, Hugh Carthy (left to right)

Possibly the last ride of 2020 just for fun. I don’t usually do selfies.

“Sentence first – verdict afterwards.”

And so the Red Queen announced the sentence, “Off with her head!” in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. I thought this was absurdity or satire, not news, when I read it.

Illustration by John Tenniel

The news is at least as absurd. On Tuesday night, our only president announced his victory in the election before the votes were counted. He tweeted “Votes cannot be cast after the Polls are closed” – not that anyone was trying to cast ballots after the polls had closed, but they were attempting to count ballots after the polls are closed – that’s sorta the way it works. It appears that he considers counting the votes to be STEALing the election. He announced that his leads were “magically” disappearing as “surprise ballot dumps were counted”; which appears to mean that he didn’t want the absentee ballots to be counted, or maybe there were just certain counties whose ballots he didn’t want counted.

I’ve never really understood election results watching as a spectator sport. It seems like watching a sporting event in which all you can see is the scoreboard. The excitement, such as it is, is to watch the numbers change, not to watch the athletes at work. Co-workers stayed up late, or woke up in the middle of the night due to anxiety, turning on the TV to see what was happening.

As this is being written, the score is either 248-214 or 253-214, depending on which scoreboard you’re looking at. (One of them just changed – during proofreading – to 264-214; the other is still at 248-214.) It appears to be the ninth inning, the 4th quarter, or the third period if you’re a hockey fan. The trouble with this sport is that after the game is over the score could still change. Points could be transferred from one to the other because the final score isn’t really final for over a month, even though we all want to wake up to a final score on Wednesday morning, or stay up to see it Tuesday night. We could go into overtime, only to have the Supreme Court suddenly declare Game Over. The way it looks right now, if each wins all of the states in which he is considered to be leading, it is a Biden victory 270-268. The trouble with that is that Biden’s leads are slim and Trump’s leads (particularly in PA, the biggest prize remaining) are larger. Not to mention that there will certainly be demands for a recount, especially if Mr. Trump loses – he is already demanding recounts and hasn’t lost yet.

I see three possible scenarios: 1) Trump wins and we have 4 more years of this madness; 2) Trump loses and has almost 12 weeks in which to metaphorically torch everything on his way out (or, for another metaphor, the Trump administration is like a rock band that has already been paid and trashes the hotel suite on the last night); or 3) the Supreme Court hands him the election in a replay of 2000. I’m not really sure which is worst.

My fantasy is that he loses and refuses to abdicate. Biden is sworn in and the Secret Service forcefully evicts the former president on January 21. Maybe the sheriff could toss his belongings to the curb. Maybe we could see a perp walk to a waiting squad car, hands cuffed behind his back. The charges? Criminal trespass, impersonating the President. (18 U.S. Code § 912)

Then the indictments begin. The RICO (Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) Act seems ideally suited for this. Then we have tax evasion (like Al Capone), fraud charges for the funds he diverted from his charitable organization, the Emoluments Clause, and various state charges. Who gets to extradite him first? Or can we pronounce the “sentence first – verdict later”?

As spectator sports go, I gotta admit I’m enjoying the NBC Extended Highlights of La Vuelta a España much more than this presidential race. They don’t go online until late afternoon but they’re worth waiting for.