All this talk about how historic the election because of the race of the President-elect is makes me wish for the real historic time when the race of our President won’t be news one way or the other. Nothing says real acceptance like banality.
Going to my polling place today made me really happy and proud of our democracy. I felt a lot brighter about it than I had in a long time. As the night wore on, I felt worse and worse. And it had nothing to do with who won. The concession and acceptance speeches both emphasized (elequantly and importantly in my mind) the importance of different beliefs in America. One of the few things McCain did right in his campaign was stress his voting with Republicans and Democrats.
People aren’t stupid just because they disagree with you. People aren’t less American because they disagree with you. In fact, people are more democratic for doing so. Remember when a few years ago lefties brought out the “Dissent is American” pins?
Yeah they still apply to the minority even if you aren’t in it.
I really like the idea of America. Like, really like it. Like, broke down into tears at the Library of Congress like it. I like OG America though, not really new America. And though I call myself a Libertarian when pressed to choose a party, many people have argued I am not because several of my beliefs are completely out of line with Libertarian thought. Which is wildly true, but 1. there’s not any other party which is CLOSER to my political beliefs and 2. We live in a country that is democratic and a republic, and thus, as the country was set up, some non-libertarian things must stand (notably, public education).
So, if you are sick of my snarky frustrated comments that are equally anti-McCain and Obama this season, you might want to stop here. Otherwise, herein (woo–constitutional!) I will identify my strong political beliefs and we can all decide who I should vote for.
1. Immigration– I haven’t seen that big green lady with the sign up close, but I am pretty sure her whole deal is we accept anyone in any condition. I don’t believe in illegal immigrants. I think it’s hypocritical to have quotas. While I am all for a citizenship test, and say, a certain number of years residence, I would prefer someone who busts their ass to get here and make a living be a citizen over a person born here who couldn’t answer the questions on the test. I think it’s awesome that lots of people want to live in my country! I think the main reason people are anti-naturalization is benefits. So perhaps we should hinge that on other things? I dunno.
2. Health care–Holy Jeebus, socialized health care is the only way to go. At the very least for emergency health care, although I think study after study has shown that’s way more expensive than doing preventative health care as well. The whole idea of a government is to protect their citizenry from harm. That’s mainly taken to mean a standing army, but in this time period, I can’t imagine anything that prevents people from experiencing life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness like poor health care and bankrupting insurance. And if the government has a monetary interest in the health of people, then maybe lobbyists for
3. Drugs–In the short term, I am for the legalization of all drugs (all. all. yes, heroin. yes, all.) regulated in the same way cigarettes or booze is. States can determine more extreme laws to regulate that if they want, but clean, taxed, less stigmatized drugs equals a lot of money for most governments and less people dying of bad drugs/wacky dosages.
4. Abortion–I am a very rational person, generally. This is an area in which I am not rational. Abortion, legal all kinds, all times. No consent forms.
5. Taxes–I am no economist. This is generally out of my depth, as it is for most Americans. But I am very pro a waaaaaaaaaaay more simplified tax situation. No writeoffs, religions (and religiously derived non-profits) are taxed, including property. Companies are taxed. No, really, how they actually should be, no writeoffy lobbyists. Flat taxes for them! Woo! And no tax breaks for having children.
6. Education–All the Education money gets divided equally per student, with maybe some differences for cost of living. Definitely kids should be allowed to go to any public school, regardless of district. More magnet schools, including for disadvantages as well as advantages (i.e. magnet school for kids with XYZ learning disability). Way more stringent rules on home schooling. No funding for school sports. Again this is an area I could know a lot more about and I don’t have a complete solution. But I strongly believe as, say, Thomas Jefferson did, that a democracy rests on an educated electorate. I would also like it if religions could not have schools. But I think that’s not based in any reason. Just my personal dislike of religions.
7. Marriage–I don’t want gays to be able to legally marry, but I also don’t want heterosexuals to either. Marriage (as currently construed) has no place in a legal venue. It’s a religious bond. Yay. So civil unions for everyone, which include property/financial rights, next of kin, custody, etc. No tax breaks for getting married, either.
8. Transportation–Driving a car should be extremely more expensive in America. And carry way more responsibility. Drinking (or drugging) and driving should ban you from operating a car, first time, for years. Five, maybe? Also, in urban centers, cars would be banned from most places in Jennylandia. And by banned, I mean prohibitively expensive. Taxing vehicles in large urban centers would give us enough money to build a far more extensive public transit infrastructure, a la Europe. Driving tests would be way harder and driving instruction far more professional/required. I love that there’s all this talk about finding new driving technology so we are not so dependent on other countries’ oil, when this country used to have a public transit infrastructures in most cities that would have avoided the need for cars in most places.
9. Environment–More nuclear power plants, simply. Water, wind, wolar, that’s cool too. Some research on alternates to gasoline for the short term.
10. Guns–I like them. I feel very uncertain about how to legislate them. Essentially, if you force people to register their guns, you are defeating the purpose of having them in case of a rogue government. I know legal gun owners aren’t the problem. And I think legalizing concealed weapons is great.
11. Foreign Policy–I know the secret to “why they hate us”–it’s that we are in a freaking codependent relationship with Israel. We need to cut that out. I know it’s unpopular to say, but historically we have always backed terrorists who kill tons of innocent people. We just happen to like certain terrorists more than others. Let’s stop that. Also, can we start treating Putin like the crazy, crazy KGB agent he really is? And not be all buddy buddy with a dictator who kills all opposing forces in the media? That would be amazing. Also, could we stop bombing civilians anywhere? I agree that just leaving Iraq tomorrow would make that whole region way more unstable, but I don’t think forcing people who hate us to make a “democracy” that idolizes America will work out either. Do we really need another country where we will have military bases FOREVER? A hasty look at the pornography of Germany and Japan says that our intervention has seriously messed up those countries in a deep, deep (no pun intended) way.
12. Civil liberties/torture– Uh clearly PATRIOT is evil, and I wouldn’t vote for anyone who voted for it. The president and even federal government should not have as much power as it currently does. Also, all people “detained”/arrested should get the full rights of any American citizen–habeas corpus, miranda, charges and arrest before incarceration, lawyers present, no torture etc. Torture, while a moral issue, is more important here as an information issue. As these are my areas of expertise (information AND confession. it’s a useful intersection of expertise at this juncture), unlike, say, the economy, torture produces a lot of information. Information that is unreliable, and, unless you have some other way to corroborate it (and, if you did, why would you be torturing someone?), is useless. There are about 4 trillion studies that also show that people who torture will get crazy, and will not be able to keep it professional/aimed at actual answers. Has anyone who is pro-torture ever watched Lost? Seriously it doesn’t work. http://dir.salon.com/story/opinion/feature/2004/06/21/torture_algiers/index.html
13. Military–not my area of expertise either, but I think universal military service is a great idea.
14. Foreign Aid–Helping other people is good. And I’ll be all for helping other people in other countries when everyone in this country is adequately fed and clothed, well, and literate. Get back to me when that happens, Bono.
Alright these are the basics. So who should I vote for?
A post on the Google blog post pointed out that New Orleans has street view on Google Maps now. A lot of it is really good. And a lot of it makes me ashamed to be American. I urge you to take a look. Flood St. is a great place to start. The number of moving vans you see in these, and the advertisements for home buying, are interesting.
Dwight Yoakam used to do impressions of Richard Nixon.
*According to wikipedia
Do other people think things like, “Oh awesome–this dirndl inspired shirt is totally perfect for the Holocaust denier lecture I am going to.”
I totally wish all clothing was dirndl inspired because they look particularly awesome on me. Not because I go to a lot of Holocause denial events.
Can I just mention how excited I am that this recent salmonella outbreak (which is terrible and horrible) is veggie related? You know in ten years when I mention eating a tomato, no one is ever going to say, “OH I’d never eat those! All those people got salmonella from them!” Yet any time I mention how much I love Jack in the Box, I get a hearty laugh and people say they’d NEVER eat there (even though fewer people got sick in that incident, and JitB now has the most extensive food safety testing of pretty much any restaurant) because of their food poisoning incident. I mean it’s horrible that we have to be skeptical or frightened of any food, but the fact that, for some reason we have been frightened into believing things that grow from a literal pile of excrement are less likely to make us sick than things protected from it by hide is bizarre to me. Obviously proper handling is necessary for both, and there are temperature issues for meat, but how saintly are vegetables that it never occurred to people that they too could poison people?
Now I want a Jack taco. Sadly the nearest one is over 600 miles away.
It is very difficult to avoid the presidential election process. This is very hard when your business is news. I don’t care, and the primary annoys me. In November, I will care. Now I do not. And this morning I realized I think why it annoys me so much. Because I am still totally confused as to why people think Obama is so awesome/different/better than candidates before him. Obviously his PR, personal style, and speaking ability distinguish him. But the fact that he’s already backpedaled his strong beliefs (Rev. Wright scandal) and avoids stating any strong beliefs that might be controversial is just more of the same political machine it seems to me.
Yes, of course, everyone in this situation (war, healthcare, economy) loves change. But that depends whether your change involves blaming America for 9/11. I just see no definition of what these platitudes mean, and when there is definition it’s still so slimy politician what you want to hear. What I’d love to really hear is an educated candidate who say, “Yeah I don’t agree with everything my preacher says, but clearly the US Government has been shafting black people for a long time.” or, “YeS our involvement in Israel is a root cause of 9/11.” But he doesn’t do that, he says something bland instead. Can anyone help explain why they have an Obama crush?
Dear Germany, Finland, & Austria,
Thanks for taking the heat off of America. You have been upping the crazy recently. Sure, we have school shootings, but you have been kicking it old school. Which suits you, since you are America Old School. First you had your own school shooting, Finland. Then you, Austria, had the second kids raised in an incest cellar episode. The story doesn’t even make sense–there’s about eight parts of the story that seem impossible (who doesn’t go in their cellar for 22 years?). And it’s the second time it happened there! Is Flowers in the Attic available in German translation? Because I bet it would be selling like hotcakes right now.
And then today, frozen babies found by their siblings in Germany. What is going on Europe? Is the crazy tied to the Euro to dollar ratio and it’s finally swung around to you in a big way? Or are you just so bored with the American political news you had to step it up? I mean the rest of the world is trying with volcano eruptions and Earthquakes in the Midwestern US, and the crazy fundie mormons, but kudos, Europe. Way to school us.
All my love,
~J
I never thought I would see Spike Lee tell someone to stop talking about racial issues. What would Mookie say?
On this super mega-important day in the democracy [sarcasm], I recall one of my favorite Bill Hicks bits:
“I’ll show you politics in America right here. ‘I believe the puppet on the right shares my beliefs.’ ‘Well, I believe the puppet on the left is more to my liking.’ Hey, wait a minute, there’s one guy holding up both puppets! ‘Go back to bed, America, your government is in control. Here’s Love Connection, watch this and get fat and stupid. By the way, keep drinking beer.’”
Found via Idun’s Apple
Important question for tonight’s GOP YouTube Debate.
On March 15th, Ryan Skipper was found stabbed to death on the side of the road in Wahneta, Florida. Ryan was murdered because he was gay. (The Ledger).Ryan’s parents, Lynn and Pat Mulder, have posted a question for the Republican YouTube Debates which will air tonight, Wednesday, November 28th. They’re asking what the GOP candidates intend to do to combat “social climate of condemnation and rejection which is often the result of misguided religious teaching.”You can help insure this video gets the attention it deserves. Please …
1. Repost this bulletin
2. If you have a blog - blog it!
3. Email it to your friends, family, etc., and of course …
4. Watch it.
When I was a kid, my mom took me to the mall a lot. Outdoor, 70s-type malls that were bigger than 90s strip malls. And a lot of them had public art. The art was pretty contemporary, and “out there” and often, fake paranormal exhibits, or Rube Goldberg machines. I LOVED these things. I remember the day they took the magical moving rock away. You could see the wires left bare, and the magical moving rock sign was still there. It was like finding out there was no Santy Claus.
My favorite art mall was the Cermak Plaza in Berwyn, IL. It had car pelts…..flattened cars hung like bear rugs. It also had this AMAZING landfill commentary sculpture made of old household appliances. It was torn down when I was a kid. But the biggest, most spectacular piece was the car spindle.
You might know it better from Wayne’s World. But it’s really in Berwyn, not Aurora.
The parking lot of where the car spindle is was probably the last place I ever drove a car (in driver’s ed), ironically. I have taken many people there over the years, and the longer it stands, the more I wonder, “Cars were really that big? Why?” The last time I went there, we were in a Honda Civic. It looked miniscule! Using consumer trash and cars for art in the parking lot of a suburban mall is ballsy, and far more meaningful than putting it in a museum.
I love public art. I love contemporary art. I love controversial art. I really dislike cars. I really don’t think our culture (including me) thinks enough about how much technology we throw away needlessly. I can’t help but think that these very core beliefs I hold as an adult had nothing to do with some of my happiest memories as a kid with this art.
And now they are tearing it down.
To build a Walgreens.
There’s already a Walgreens IN THE MALL.
If you live in Chicago you will understand the true irksome nature of this. Chicago has a Walgreens every 5.8 feet. You know, in between the hot dog stands and the banks. Seriously, I have never seen more drug stores than in Chicago. I guess you need a lot of Tums with the hot dogs.
There’s not a lot of current news that I can find, but if we can still do anything, here are some links. My brother saw it up on November 3, and there’s a Flickr photo from Nov. 17. I hope it sticks around another month so I can go see it one last time. Critical mass did a ride to it:
When’s the last time you saw Critical Mass protecting cars?
Anyone “on the ground” have some news?
As a person who wears mostly black, hated high school, listens to metal, and shoots guns, I feel my brethren are giving us a bad rap what with all the school shootings. I mean this current guy and I pretty much watch exactly the same movies and love the same books.
So I have a new freelance service. I will come to your high school and hang out. I will turn the metalheads onto metal that happened after 1997 and outside of Germany. I will chat with them about how there is no god, and how jocks suck, and how cool conspiracy theories are. And then I will show them the Anarchist’s Cookbook, and tell them about the old days when we had to go to the library to learn to make a pipe bomb. I will chat about French existentialism. I will also give them some punk rock because oddly, punk rockers never really fuck up the establishment. And then I will snitch. I will tell you, after five minutes which of these kids is your school shooter. Because it is PAINFULLY OBVIOUS. It’s social profiling. I might even be able to read a few blogs and tell you. And then I will also point out the “cool kids” who are totally forcing the metalhead’s hand to blow up the school.
On the grounds that they are both held equally responsible.
It’s good to see the education system in other countries is making kids just as miserable as it is here!
Well, that’s not certain, but all the things I have been yelling about terrorism and how the US does exactly the wrong thing in response is scientifically explained here in Wired. Hallelujah! Now when I get all crazy eyed and sound like a conspiracy theorist on this issue, at least I’ll have something to point to when everyone else gets awkward and quiet.
One of the coolest places I have been ever hands down is Dead Horse Bay, or Bottle Beach. I went on an Internet organized field trip there. Basically there used to be islands off the coast of Brooklyn where people in the good ole days put their trash. Then someone got the bright idea to cover it all up with sand and connect it to Brooklyn. Sadly, the combo of landfill and oceanfront waters do not a constant landmass make. Oops. There was also an animal processing plant there. This results in a lot of pre-1960s garbage (mainly glass, some metal, and appliances) and dead animal bones covering EVERYTHING. It is definitely the place I would LEAST like to fall down in.
I was amazed at
I went on Earth Day, which was a great day to think about trash and such, but in a way, I am sort of excited that people threw trash out in such an idiotic way. I wouldn’t have learned so much if they had, and an anti-outdoors person like myself would have never ventured to a national park otherwise. In fact, I think this was my first national park ever.
Since I generally veer toward isolationism politically, it should come as no surprise that I am not whole hog on the war in Iraq. While I, like most Americans, probably, try to put it out of my mind as much as possible, this whole fourth anniversary thing has brought it to the forefront. I think it’s a bad idea to NOT think about it, but generally I feel pretty powerless and don’t know what to do.
And then today I went to an AWESOME exhibit at the Museum of Art and Design on radical knitting. In it, there was a recreation of a war knitting circle, complete with wartime patterns. Generally I find a lot of the WWI knitting stuff pretty cute and nostalgic, but one of the patterns is for Body Count Mittens. The idea is, you knit the number of soldiers dead on the day you make the mittens. Whoa. That totally crystallized it for me. And a woman at the exhibit started talking to me about this whole shoes protest along the same lines as the flags. And this was a total stranger who just came up to me and basically just earnestly went on about how the war was bullshit. Which, in retrospect, is probably not “ballsy” in an art museum in New York City, but still, it’s pretty surprising that such an anti-governmental stance is pretty commonplace to talk about these days.*
Once again, humor got right to the farcical heart of the matter. Let’s hope the Onion survives another century.**
I am forming the belief that RN was the coolest president ever. Some basic reasons why:
1. Although he got a free ride to Harvard, he went to a small Quaker college instead…
2. …where he founded a frat based on watching football.
3. And drank a lot.
4. Nixon’s speechwriters included Pat Buchanan, Ben Stein, and William Safire. Imagine them sitting around at a coworker bar event–awesome? YES!
5. Unlike other presidents, he said what he thought, including calling Ghandi’s widow an “old witch” and the infamous bitchy Khrushchev “debate.” That’s pretty awesome–I mean presidents now don’t say what they actually think.
6. Sure, he went on Laugh-In. But he also went on HEE HAW! AWESOME
7. “Swears like a sailor” could be a more effective metaphor if it were “swears like Richard Nixon.” Everyone knows swearing is cool.
8. Because of Watergate, his papers are still government property, yet he privately funded his own library–cool.
9. At said library there is a statue of Nikita Khrushchev. Say that about any other paranoid republican Cold War American president with a history of bitching out Communists!
10. Crucial to Space program–cool.
11. A republican who was pro-environment–pretty cool.
12. Supported minority owned businesses–cool.
13. Anti-segregation–awesome.
14. pro-oil conservation–uh, if only we could get ANY side to be pro-this now.
15. Used pingpong in integral foreign relations policies.
16. Hung out with Johnny Cash (okay that would be cool for anyone–but THE PRESIDENT? Way cool).
17. Encouraged a drug addict to come to the White House with a gun. Then accepted said gun in the most famous picture ever of Nixon–shaking hands with Elvis. If George W. Bush accepted a gun from like, Ted Nugent, that would not be widely accepted. If he deputized Nugent? Less popular.
18. Nixon would call the losing Super Bowl team every year to offer condolences? What? Crazy!
19. He took commercial flights instead of Air Force One for personal travel–how salt of the earth is that? I don’t even want to fly in commercial planes.
Obviously there are some bad things about Nixon, but he seems like a cool GUY if not a nice guy/president. From this list, I would TOTALLY hang out with Nixon. I mean we could watch some HeeHaw at a bar, shoot things, and call up Cash and Elvis, then watch football. How fun would that be? And even if you don’t like Nixon, you must obey ROBOT NIXON:
So, I convinced my board of elections that I am me and eligible to vote. In the interim, the quality control woman and I had a chat about how the “orientals” sign their names poorly on purpose because everyone is stealing your identity “over there.” Enlightening!
So due to my newfound status, I am attempting to find some info out about my candidates since I am not a party line voter. I used to use vote smart, but it has little to no info. I tried league of women voters, but the same thing. Anyone have any ideas? I was spoiled in OR where they would send you hundreds of pages of info on the candidates, and you could vote by mail at your leisure. Voting in a voting booth is like, the SAT. Voting in OR is like a take home open book essay test.
Even the basic info I have gotten is depressing me. It’s one thing to be in a party that’s not in office. It’s quite another to see none of your beliefs represented ANYWHERE. From this basic info I may be voting for my first republican ever. woo. Even though he, like everyone else I vote for, has no chance of winning. yay.
I wish the damn liberals would stop making the weather so bad only to try and further their global warming agenda. Damn you, Al Gore!
