If I wasn't about 1 hour out from a midterm, I would write more of my own thoughts, but I have to echo John's thoughts in this post where he discusses one civil rights victory and one defeat.
All the money that was poured into this kind of makes my stomach turn a lot.
But I am celebrating the presidential victory...
Showing posts with label Election 2008. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Election 2008. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Friday, October 24, 2008
I needed a good laugh
This article if written by David Sedaris and published in the current addition of the New Yorker. I was going to post a link, but it's to good to to copy and paste.
I saw Sedaris tonight at the Long Beach Convention Center and this story was by far the star of the show.
I don’t know that it was always this way, but, for as long as I can remember, just as we move into the final weeks of the Presidential campaign the focus shifts to the undecided voters. “Who are they?” the news anchors ask. “And how might they determine the outcome of this election?”
Then you’ll see this man or woman— someone, I always think, who looks very happy to be on TV. “Well, Charlie,” they say, “I’ve gone back and forth on the issues and whatnot, but I just can’t seem to make up my mind!” Some insist that there’s very little difference between candidate A and candidate B. Others claim that they’re with A on defense and health care but are leaning toward B when it comes to the economy.
I look at these people and can’t quite believe that they exist. Are they professional actors? I wonder. Or are they simply laymen who want a lot of attention?
To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?”
To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.
I mean, really, what’s to be confused about?
When doubting that anyone could not know whom they’re voting for, I inevitably think back to November, 1968. Hubert Humphrey was running against Richard Nixon, and when my mother couldn’t choose between them she had me do it for her. It was crazy. One minute I was eating potato chips in front of the TV, and the next I was at the fire station, waiting with people whose kids I went to school with. When it was our turn, we were led by a woman wearing a sash to one of a half-dozen booths, the curtain of which closed after we entered.
“Go ahead,” my mother said. “Flick a switch, any switch.”
I looked at the panel in front of me.
“Start on the judges or whatever and we’ll be here all day, so just pick a President and make it fast. We’ve wasted enough time already.”
“Which one do you think is best?” I asked.
“I don’t have an opinion,” she told me. “That’s why I’m letting you do it. Come on, now, vote.”
I put my finger on Hubert Humphrey and then on Richard Nixon, neither of whom meant anything to me. What I most liked about democracy, at least so far, was the booth—its quiet civility, its atmosphere of importance. “Hmm,” I said, wondering how long we could stay before someone came and kicked us out.
Ideally, my mother would have waited outside, but, as she said, there was no way an unescorted eleven-year-old would be allowed to vote, or even hang out, seeing as the lines were long and the polls were open for only one day. “Will you please hurry it up?” she hissed.
“Wouldn’t it be nice to have something like this in our living room?” I asked. “Maybe we could use the same curtains we have on the windows.”
“All right, that’s it.” My mother reached for Humphrey but I beat her to it, and cast our vote for Richard Nixon, who had the same last name as a man at our church. I assumed that the two were related, and only discovered afterward that I was wrong. Richard Nixon had always been Nixon, while the man at my church had shortened his name from something funnier but considerably less poster-friendly—Nickapopapopolis, maybe.
“Oh, well,” I said.
We drove back home, and when asked by my father whom she had voted for, my mother said that it was none of his business.
“What do you mean, ‘none of my business’?” he said. “I told you to vote Republican.”
“Well, maybe I did and maybe I didn’t.”
“You’re not telling me you voted for Humphrey.” He said this as if she had marched through the streets with a pan on her head.
“No,” she said. “I’m not telling you that. I’m not telling you anything. It’s private—all right? My political opinions are none of your concern.”
“What political opinions?” he said. “I’m the one who took you down to register. You didn’t even know there was an election until I told you.”
“Well, thanks for telling me.”
She turned to open a can of mushroom soup. This would be poured over pork chops and noodles and served as our dinner, casserole style. Once we’d taken our seats at the table, my parents would stop fighting directly, and continue their argument through my sisters and me. Lisa might tell a story about her day at school and, if my father said it was interesting, my mother would laugh.
“What’s so funny?” he’d say.
“Nothing. It’s just that, well, I suppose everyone has a different standard. That’s all.”
When told by my father that I was holding my fork wrong, my mother would say that I was holding it right, or right in “certain circlesWe don’t know how people eat the world over,” she’d say, not to him but to the buffet or the picture window, as if the statement had nothing to do with any of us.
I wasn’t looking forward to that kind of evening, and so I told my father that I had voted. “She let me,” I said. “And I picked Nixon.”
“Well, at least someone in the family has some brains.” He patted me on the shoulder and as my mother turned away I understood that I had chosen the wrong person.
I didn’t vote again until 1976, when I was nineteen and legally registered. Because I was at college out of state, I sent my ballot through the mail. The choice that year was between Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. Most of my friends were going for Carter, but, as an art major, I identified myself as a maverick. “That means an original,” I told my roommate. “Someone who lets the chips fall where they may.” Because I made my own rules and didn’t give a damn what anyone else thought of them, I decided to write in the name of Jerry Brown, who, it was rumored, liked to smoke pot. This was an issue very close to my heart—too close, obviously, as it amounted to a complete waste. Still, though, it taught me a valuable lesson: calling yourself a maverick is a sure sign that you’re not one.
I wonder if, in the end, the undecideds aren’t the biggest pessimists of all. Here they could order the airline chicken, but, then again, hmm. “Isn’t that adding an extra step?” they ask themselves. “If it’s all going to be chewed up and swallowed, why not cut to the chase, and go with the platter of shit?”
Ah, though, that’s where the broken glass comes in. ♦
I saw Sedaris tonight at the Long Beach Convention Center and this story was by far the star of the show.
I don’t know that it was always this way, but, for as long as I can remember, just as we move into the final weeks of the Presidential campaign the focus shifts to the undecided voters. “Who are they?” the news anchors ask. “And how might they determine the outcome of this election?”
Then you’ll see this man or woman— someone, I always think, who looks very happy to be on TV. “Well, Charlie,” they say, “I’ve gone back and forth on the issues and whatnot, but I just can’t seem to make up my mind!” Some insist that there’s very little difference between candidate A and candidate B. Others claim that they’re with A on defense and health care but are leaning toward B when it comes to the economy.
I look at these people and can’t quite believe that they exist. Are they professional actors? I wonder. Or are they simply laymen who want a lot of attention?
To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?”
To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.
I mean, really, what’s to be confused about?
When doubting that anyone could not know whom they’re voting for, I inevitably think back to November, 1968. Hubert Humphrey was running against Richard Nixon, and when my mother couldn’t choose between them she had me do it for her. It was crazy. One minute I was eating potato chips in front of the TV, and the next I was at the fire station, waiting with people whose kids I went to school with. When it was our turn, we were led by a woman wearing a sash to one of a half-dozen booths, the curtain of which closed after we entered.
“Go ahead,” my mother said. “Flick a switch, any switch.”
I looked at the panel in front of me.
“Start on the judges or whatever and we’ll be here all day, so just pick a President and make it fast. We’ve wasted enough time already.”
“Which one do you think is best?” I asked.
“I don’t have an opinion,” she told me. “That’s why I’m letting you do it. Come on, now, vote.”
I put my finger on Hubert Humphrey and then on Richard Nixon, neither of whom meant anything to me. What I most liked about democracy, at least so far, was the booth—its quiet civility, its atmosphere of importance. “Hmm,” I said, wondering how long we could stay before someone came and kicked us out.
Ideally, my mother would have waited outside, but, as she said, there was no way an unescorted eleven-year-old would be allowed to vote, or even hang out, seeing as the lines were long and the polls were open for only one day. “Will you please hurry it up?” she hissed.
“Wouldn’t it be nice to have something like this in our living room?” I asked. “Maybe we could use the same curtains we have on the windows.”
“All right, that’s it.” My mother reached for Humphrey but I beat her to it, and cast our vote for Richard Nixon, who had the same last name as a man at our church. I assumed that the two were related, and only discovered afterward that I was wrong. Richard Nixon had always been Nixon, while the man at my church had shortened his name from something funnier but considerably less poster-friendly—Nickapopapopolis, maybe.
“Oh, well,” I said.
We drove back home, and when asked by my father whom she had voted for, my mother said that it was none of his business.
“What do you mean, ‘none of my business’?” he said. “I told you to vote Republican.”
“Well, maybe I did and maybe I didn’t.”
“You’re not telling me you voted for Humphrey.” He said this as if she had marched through the streets with a pan on her head.
“No,” she said. “I’m not telling you that. I’m not telling you anything. It’s private—all right? My political opinions are none of your concern.”
“What political opinions?” he said. “I’m the one who took you down to register. You didn’t even know there was an election until I told you.”
“Well, thanks for telling me.”
She turned to open a can of mushroom soup. This would be poured over pork chops and noodles and served as our dinner, casserole style. Once we’d taken our seats at the table, my parents would stop fighting directly, and continue their argument through my sisters and me. Lisa might tell a story about her day at school and, if my father said it was interesting, my mother would laugh.
“What’s so funny?” he’d say.
“Nothing. It’s just that, well, I suppose everyone has a different standard. That’s all.”
When told by my father that I was holding my fork wrong, my mother would say that I was holding it right, or right in “certain circlesWe don’t know how people eat the world over,” she’d say, not to him but to the buffet or the picture window, as if the statement had nothing to do with any of us.
I wasn’t looking forward to that kind of evening, and so I told my father that I had voted. “She let me,” I said. “And I picked Nixon.”
“Well, at least someone in the family has some brains.” He patted me on the shoulder and as my mother turned away I understood that I had chosen the wrong person.
I didn’t vote again until 1976, when I was nineteen and legally registered. Because I was at college out of state, I sent my ballot through the mail. The choice that year was between Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. Most of my friends were going for Carter, but, as an art major, I identified myself as a maverick. “That means an original,” I told my roommate. “Someone who lets the chips fall where they may.” Because I made my own rules and didn’t give a damn what anyone else thought of them, I decided to write in the name of Jerry Brown, who, it was rumored, liked to smoke pot. This was an issue very close to my heart—too close, obviously, as it amounted to a complete waste. Still, though, it taught me a valuable lesson: calling yourself a maverick is a sure sign that you’re not one.
I wonder if, in the end, the undecideds aren’t the biggest pessimists of all. Here they could order the airline chicken, but, then again, hmm. “Isn’t that adding an extra step?” they ask themselves. “If it’s all going to be chewed up and swallowed, why not cut to the chase, and go with the platter of shit?”
Ah, though, that’s where the broken glass comes in. ♦
Thursday, April 3, 2008
6 Days of My Life are Gone
In other words, I just finished watching the Season 6 of the show 24. I said I was done after the last season, but rented a DVD last week and went for it. I have been in a DVD coma for about two weeks now, so not that I am done maybe I will move on to a book. I honestly need something cleansing after spending that much time in front of the tube.I am generally not a TV person- that is to say- not anymore. We don't have cable and I can't tell you the last time I turned on the TV to flip through the static-y channels. I do I watch the Office and Grey's Anatomy (1.5 hours per week) consistently, but other than that TV doesn't really phase me. I flip it on sometimes at D's house sometimes because it is a novelty, and tend to see about 2 movies in theaters a month. I also am pretty consistent about watching Project Runway on DVD and last year downloaded This American Life to watch on some plane rides.
I have to say that there is nothing about the show 24 that upholds my values. It's pretty violent, and multiple people are killed in every episode, and it very strongly stereotypes an Islamic hatred of America and the fact that many terrorist attacks come out of it. (Although this time Russia and China were involved.) I guess this season it dealt with some pretty hot political issues regarding the imprisonment of Middle Eastern and Muslim Americans in illegal holding camps. They were held without warrant, without due cause, or proper arrest procedures. So I guess the Fox producers of the show allowed that to be showcased and reflected upon, but beyond that it kind of falls into a violent soap opera (HT to David for that term). American once again, with their rogue agent, Jack Bauer, who never dies but is shot several times a season, or dies and comes back to life, saves the country. He has managed to save his life along with America for 6 Seasons now- each season is only one day long, but have spanned over at least 12 years (because I am pretty sure there have been three terms of presidents.) I am convinced he is some sort of super-hero or maybe just the quintessential bad-ass American patriot who defends his country with honor and killing after killing after killing. (I am Quaker for God's sake, can you believe I am watching this show? It kind of makes me slightly sick to think that I enjoy it so much, and even though I could swear off the next season right now, will probably wind up watching it at some point.)
So I spilled my guts. I have guilty pleasures that result in utter wastes of time. TV is so freakin' draining. Can anyone is explains that? It literally drains me to lay on the couch and watch 3 hours of TV. I feel like every now and then, between episodes I surface from my TV coma and wonder what the hell I am doing, but this thing called 24 certainly is like a drug. You can't have just one. You always want more And even though you know it is wasting you away you continue to partake. Lovely. =)
Oh yeah, and speaking of drugs today equals 3 weeks without nicotine. It's still kind of hard on certain days and I have to admit that I almost broke tonight, but I figured that since I had a television show controlling me at this time, I don't need something else doing it as well. No, but really it has been a hard habit to break, but I am proud of myself and will continue to try and be strong.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
The Life and Times of a 24 year old.
Yep. Now I am 24. (And by the way I had a very nice Birthday and was showered by fun gifts, lots of friends, and even a song just for me)
I'd like to say something very profound about politics and the election, but I just feel nervous about it at this point, and that is none too elegant of a thing. I voted a week ago at the early voting at John Wayne Airport. I voted for Obama and even though I don't love her all that much, I have to say that if Hillary wins it would not be my first choice, but I just want a Dem in office. (I am sorry to sound partisan)
Also yesterday I lost my ipod. Also not very profound but it just sucks and I am very unhappy with myself for doing it.
I think that's all, I just wanted to say I alive, 24, voted, and lost my ipod.
Maybe tomorrow I will be more inspired.
I'd like to say something very profound about politics and the election, but I just feel nervous about it at this point, and that is none too elegant of a thing. I voted a week ago at the early voting at John Wayne Airport. I voted for Obama and even though I don't love her all that much, I have to say that if Hillary wins it would not be my first choice, but I just want a Dem in office. (I am sorry to sound partisan)
Also yesterday I lost my ipod. Also not very profound but it just sucks and I am very unhappy with myself for doing it.
I think that's all, I just wanted to say I alive, 24, voted, and lost my ipod.
Maybe tomorrow I will be more inspired.
Friday, January 4, 2008
Political Detachment
Two people have asked me for a reaction to the victory of Obama and the Iowa caucus, and I have responded with little fervor and energy in my answer. I don't know. I like him, I am glad he won. Not much else I really care to add. I don't insert nasty comments about our former first lady or talk about issues that are important to me.
I have to be honest. NPR has been my biggest (almost only) source for election news, and I think I just realized why that is (besides being a little busy lately). If you asked me if I was a political person the answer would be- very much so. But at the same time the experience I had in the last election has left me politically detached.
I will set the scene for you. I am a senior in college, attending a program through an organization called the Christian College Coalition. I live in Washington D.C. with 40 other students from various Christian Colleges around the nation. I am currently interning in the office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties in the Department of Homeland Security (still not really sure what their function is.) I am pretty much surrounded by very conservative students and colleagues. The moral majority are my roommates and there is a lot of Kerry bashing and such, without a lot of room for conversation. There is more of the I am right, and you are stupid thing going on, and I learn to keep my mouth shut if I am not ready for a huge fight.
I am told that I will be required to campaign for a canidate in some manner. I choose Kerry because I have seen where our country has been for the last four years, and don't want it to stay going in the same election. You need to remember when reading this that this is the first presidential election that I was eligible to vote in, and I am fully involved; cold calling people to encourage them to vote, standing on the Pennsylvania roadside holding up signs for John Kerry. I am trying to grapple with my faith andf politics, and understand how to be a progressive Christian. I am trying to figure out who Christ is in light of all the shit that is happening in my country- not to mention the world.
I am set on this hope of having someone new to make better choices. I don't know if he will be amazing, but I know he will be different. And then, among the moral majority I hear the annoucement being made. Fellow students get chastised because they are leaving class to go to the White House to see the acceptance speech. I 'd like to crawl in a hole (or at least my bottom bunk) and sleep for the rest of the day, but I am forced to go to class with many people who are gloating all around me.
On November 3rd, 2004 I write:
My heart is broken. I did not think it would be this hard, or that I would be so emotionally charged, but I am. I am afraid for America. I feel sick.
Please God don't let me lost my inspiration and purpose. I need you now, and so does this country. I will continue to be driven by hope and emotion, and feeling with my generation. and passion. and hope maybe, but it all seems to bleak right now. so bleak and so dark. how did it come to this.
I wore black for a week- which is funny because you don't stand out all too much when you are wearing black in the capital.
Needless to say my first presidential election was not a good experience. You can chock it up to my surroundings or the event itself, and I am thinking that maybe as you grow up and you are politically involved you learn to deal with the disappointment of such things. But it was a hard first. And I feel hesitant about jumping head first into another one of them, and having all these hopes and expectations just to feel defeat in the end. At least this time I am more aligned with like-minded people than I was then- but at this point I am proceeding with caution when it comes to Election 2008.
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