An apology to the world

For my friends living outside of the U.S. who might be wondering what Americans could possibly be thinking.

First of all, I want to say I voted early and not for Trump.  So, this is not an attempt to explain myself. It's an attempt to explain that part of the population that is going to vote for him.  Please understand, while there are some genuinely crazy, xenophobic, rotten people in that camp (and odds are good those are the ones you're seeing, because their craziness is sort of entertaining), the VAST majority of Republicans are actually good people.  They are neither stupid nor (totally) crazy.  They don't approve of what Trump has done or is doing, and they certainly don't want to do it themselves.  Why, then, are they going to vote for him?

Nobody is really supporting Trump.  In the past, Republicans have been able to truly get behind whatever candidate their party foisted upon them.  Often, the more faults the candidate had to forgive, the more the party faithful would embrace him.  (Think George W. Bush).  4 years ago, they were able to disregard the fact that their nominee wasn't even Christian.  Even Sarah Palin is still active in Republican politics.  It used to be fun watching them perform amazing feats of mental gymnastics, and I've been studying the mechanics of their memetic programming for years.  This time, however, they're not embracing their candidate.  They're not accepting or excusing his flaws.  They're not making up stories to share with each other about how God has blessed them with such a perfect candidate.

We all know what he is.  He is a grotesque, narcissistic con artist.  There's no doubt about that.  He is crude, greedy, foul-mouthed - he's a disaster.  We know this.  And while one might think that this should be enough to at least convince people not to vote for the man (if not disqualify him outright), I contend that this smelly package is precisely why he won their nomination and why they're happy to vote for him.

It is a protest vote.  He is the anti-candidate.  Republicans are so fed up with our government that they would prefer simply to tear it all down.  Trump won their nomination by ridiculing the other Republican candidates, all of whom had government experience, some currently.  (I'm not counting Ben Carson, who would have been a similar anti-candidate).  He ridiculed them BECAUSE of their experience.

Honestly, all the negative publicity that comes out about Trump only serves to strengthen their resolve about their decision.  The worse he smells, the stronger the message they will be sending to the establishment.

So, this might be that part of them that is a little bit crazy.  I had to go back and add that "totally" part in the first paragraph because it does require a certain level of insanity to want to sink the ship you're riding in.  But that is what many of them want.  They are going to vote for Trump to send a message to Washington.  If he loses, they will have still rattled their cages a lot.  If he wins, he will probably be the train wreck we all fear.  Either way, their message will have been sent.

Remembering Patrick Bourassa

I interviewed Patrick in French over the phone for  Server Tech position at Dell.  I was in Dublin while Patrick was in Geneva.  We hired him and I became his mentor,  of sorts, while he was there.  Patrick had his MCSE, was very good technically, and really cared about his customers.

After about a year there, Patrick told me he was taking leave to go to Moscow to get certified in some Russian martial art.  While that part might have been true, he was also apparently going there to pick up (or pick out) a Russian bride; he came back to Ireland with a pretty blond Russian girl.  Then, a few months into her first pregnancy, they suddenly disappeared.

Patrick was living in a small town south of Dublin (think Ballykissangle) and was getting rides to work with a French-speaking TAM from South Africa, who lived even further south.  Colin kept going by, but no one was ever there and nothing ever changed in the view through the window.  It was only months later that we started getting emails from Patrick saying something about his wife, pregnancy, embassy, emergency medical evac back to the states.  The details of it all really were that sketchy.

A few months later, Patrick showed back up in Dublin, hoping to find a job in Ireland.  I saw him for the last time in front of the Dell office and lent him some money.  Obviously, Dell wasn't going to hire him back, but he was hoping to be able to find something.  He was switching between staying with Colin and Nic R., both of whom lived about an hour south of Dublin.  It was then that we found out that Patrick was a raging alcoholic.  He was drinking everything he could get his hands on.  And apparently, he wasn't a fun, happy drunk.  He was paranoid and scary.  He had also gotten some powerful anti-depressants while in the states, but couldn't get the prescription renewed in Ireland.

A not so quick Google search by concerned hosts revealed, among other things, an article in German, complete with an unflattering picture, describing the warrant for his arrest.  We called the police station in Germany to find out if the warrant was still in effect.  It turns out that he had just skipped out on rent and his landlady had pressed charges.  The misdemeanor was of much less concern than the description of the female companion who was also listed on the warrant.  The tall dark-haired Austrian was quite unlike the petite blond Russian we knew about.

There were a lot of theories about Patrick's past.  Personally, I think he may have worked for agency (that must not be named) and had done things that injured his conscience.  I think he had memories that were haunting him and his drinking was an attempt to quiet the voices in his head.  He was smart enough (or well trained enough) to construct completely new identities, which worked for a while until the skeletons in his closet started rattling again.  Then he would have to try to escape them.

In any case, since his reluctant hosts both had families, and since Patrick was becoming increasingly unhinged, they had to kick him out.  Colin packed up his belongings and took them to the nearest Garda station, where he told Patrick to go.  We had to piece together what happened next from various sources.  Ireland does have homeless shelters, but there are rules.  On one particular night Patrick was too drunk to be allowed into the last shelter he tried to go to. January in Ireland is not a fun, snowey Winterland; it's very cold and very wet.  Patrick died of exposure, drunk and homeless, on the streets of Dublin that night, January 29, 2007.

When the police found his body, he had no identification on him.  They were going to bury him in an unmarked grave, but Dennis Muldoon (an Irishman who lived in France and was good friends with Patrick) claimed the body at the morgue.  He had it cremated and arranged with the U.S. embassy to have the remains flown the Patrick's family in Pennsylvania.