This book was mainly about Chiho, my favorite character in the series, so it was a light and easy read. It's also short which helps. Basically it's about her fitting in with modern Japan's expectations and getting ready for college and work in the future, nothing I really approve of. The nonsense that a boy won't be attracted to a girl unless she has a good degree and career is absurd, it's the exact opposite. A girl won't be attracted to a boy unless he has a degree and a career, but a boy will become less attracted to a girl the more hoity-toity she becomes. It's much better for everyone if she stays a simple housewife who admires her husband, not competes with him. All we ask from girls is that they remain girls -- nurturing, cute, faithful and devoted. Somehow this myth has sprung up that girls are more attractive the more they act like men and replicate everything men can do, based on absolutely no evidence. In fact, if a girl has a high degree or a high paying job, she either doesn't marry at all or quickly divorces the guy she outshines. Science has already predicted what will become of such maidens.
It's true that men prefer working women who can at least cover their own expenses, but that's a low threshold anyone can reach even on minimum wage. Chiho working at McDonalds is actually the ideal balance of a overall sweet girl with a touch of self-sufficiency. As far as I can tell she is, right now, at the peak of her attractiveness, and anything she does from here would only make her less suitable as a bride.
But oh well. We all know Maou isn't going to get with Chiho no matter what she does, he's going to end up with Emi, so everything Chiho does or doesn't do is equally futile. It's a pleasant illusion we get to fantasize about in this volume, but inevitably the later volumes will rip the fantasy apart. Really the author is surreptitiously telling Chiho to move on with her life and expect to remain a single career lady using the flimsy excuse that this could somehow make her more attractive to Maou in the future. It rings hollow because that was never the true purpose in the first place. The true purpose was to give Chiho a 'happy ending' as a single career lady once she's rejected by Maou.
Meanwhile, the college football season is rocketing to a close, with conference championships this week and the playoff field being set right after. I'd be more excited if so many teams hadn't halved their schedule, meaning there's no real evidence whether they're good or not since they haven't played anybody. Ohio State reaching the playoff with only a 6 game schedule is absurd, even if they win every game.
Oh well. It's better than nothing. The NFL season is much more respectable, with every team playing a full slate of games like any other season. The Chiefs are totally dominant with their passing attack, but even they lost a game, which means the Super Bowl could end up anyone against anyone. There are so many teams that have shown flashes of brilliance and so many dominant teams suddenly looking awful that every playoff game is going to be wild. I mean, look at that Browns vs. Ravens game. Lamar Jackson was on fire. If he plays like that against the Chiefs, what would happen?
The popular vote gap between Biden and Trump is now at 7+ million. Regardless of what fraud may or may not have occurred in the swing states (that Michigan report of a 68% failure rate on Dominion voting machines is mindblowing) Biden clearly won the popular vote, and democracy should be about who wins the most votes anyway, so it's all bullshit. The Republican party has won the popular vote once in the entire 21st century, and yet ruled most of it. The situation is absurd and it has to stop. Democrats would be perfectly morally justified to cheat in the swing states if it brings about the justice of the winner of the popular vote winning. The electoral college is just state-sanctioned cheating to begin with.
I don't want Republicans to win through legal shenanigans even though everyone in the country hates them. That kind of victory is illegitimate and anything they tried to do wouldn't have a democratic mandate anyway. I want Republicans to switch around their platform into a winning coalition, to change until they are the popular vote winners. Studies show that Republican voters are economic centrists and social conservatives. The way to win more votes is to stop with the libertarian crap and open up the spigots of tax and spend liberally. If we switched to national heath care like every other modern democracy on Earth that alone would be enough to swing the necessary votes. Free college also isn't a bad idea, Germany already does it and their economy works. Of course, I prefer the citizen's dividend that Yang touted, but strangely that isn't a popular policy so if you want to chase votes it isn't the way to go.
Tough on crime, opposed to immigration and affirmative action, anti-abortion and cisheteronormative, but nevertheless willing to aid the downtrodden and soak the rich who have more than enough money as is, that's the niche the Republican Party could occupy and win with.
Biden is the economic centrist we all yearn for -- the only reason people voted against him is his 'defund the police,' 'transgender story hour,' 'green new deal,' 'ban guns,' extremism. Steal his economic platform and Trump would've won by seven million votes. Then it wouldn't have mattered what the machines in Detroit reported. It's time to be a little more canny. We can no longer insist on unpopular policies because 'our principles' require it and expect the electoral college to deliver us victory anyway through the back door. Democracy doesn't care about principles, it cares about compromising a sufficient amount to reach majority support. If you cling to your principles you'll become just as irrelevant as the real libertarian party. Do we want Republicans to poll at 1% of the vote too? Do we want to win 1% of the vote and then be awarded the presidency anyway in the courts through some legal technicality? This is not the right trajectory or the right mindset. We need to admit we lost, we lost in a landslide, by over seven million votes, and it's on us to change, not the vote counters in Atlanta.
I wish Trump were a gracious loser who wouldn't confirm every worst slur ever said against him in the press by refusing to concede and acting like a wannabe dictator. But we all know this is how Trump is and always was and always will be. The important thing is for the adults in the room to disassociate from him and move the GOP away from that vein of foolishness. We existed before Trump and we can exist after Trump. We aren't beholden to humor his antics any further now that he's lost and proven he can't deliver the goods. He's yesterday's news. Honestly I wish I never had to hear his name again or listen to one more word he has to say. The case for traditional morality has nothing to do with what Donald Trump wants or thinks. In fact, Donald Trump has nothing to do with traditional morality. He was about our worst bannerman imaginable.
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