the south, the midwest. what is wrong with them? do they really hate gay people? why? do they hate sick people? do they hate poor people? what do they think about? what’s on tv there? what’s in the water? what does “culturally concservative” mean? how do we fight it? if the wonkette is coping with the election by drinking, can i do it too?
AUGH NBC is calling ohio for bush! fuck fuck fuck fuck one electoral vote short for bush.
Please get a candidate and a strategy next time. These inoffensive corporate white bread wusses are not compelling. “Anybody but X” is not compelling. “Hey, I’m an awesome candidate, hear me scream like Howard Dean” is compelling. Please quit voting for lamers in the primaries.
Bush 102, Kerry 77
excuse me while i bite my fingernails down to nothing
I’m reading that you don’t need to be registered in order to vote for president. If you are a wesleyan student and you are not voting elsewhere, this seems to mean you can go to your local polling station and cast a vote for president. Bring a picture ID and mail to your local address. You cannot vote twice, so don’t do this if you voted in your home state. Find your polling place.
is the question in an election “who do you think is the best candidate” or “who do you want to win?”
– danica
Sometimes the question is “who do you want to lose”. In life, we are not presented with Platonic forms. We have our core ideals, but we must weigh circumstances to figure out the best way to express those principles. Everything in life depends on circumstance. Which is to say the politics make strange bedfellows. Some of the people most active in trying to stop military atrocities in the third world are highly conservative Christians. Sometimes, the goal of stopping mass murder is great enough that that other goals must be temporarily put aside to achieve that goal. If you can have one piece of what you want and not the rest or you can have nothing at all, it’s sometimes better to go for the piece. If it’s a worthy goal. If it’s achievable. Because if you don’t do what you can to stop mass murder done in your name, then you are a party to that mass murder. If you have a clear choice, If you can win a small victory, then the morally correct thing to do is to go for the small victory.
This is not the year for a symbolic vote. Voting for Nader (or whomever) is the moral equivalent of staying home, but somehow compounded by caring enough to show up and be aware of the issues, but not caring enough to actually act on them. It is to act as a passive observer to mass murder. You could have acted, but you chose not to. There are sins of comission, which are things that you do. And sins of omission which are thigns you should have done. Both are sins.
Vote Kerry or risk an afterlife spent in eternal torment.
The most important election of your lifetime is taking place tomorrow. Polling Hours and a link to locations.
Now look, I want to give you my thinking on third parties. I voted for Nader last time and I’m registered Green. Nader said there was no difference between Bush and Gore. It seems this was probably incorrect (but of course, we can’t really know). According to the rhetoric Bush and Gore both used, that was a prediction that looked right. Also, Clinton was hardly a progressive. And to build a strong third-party movement, you have to vote third party. The democrats are right wing and the republicans are super-right wing. People say greens will split the left vote, but I think that the republicrats will split the right vote.
some have accused Nader of lying, for his incorrect prediction. If you make a mistake, that’s not the same as a lie. However, he was lying in pretending to be a part of the Green party. The previous election, he didn’t even campaign. In 2000, he did campaign and did so well, but I think he was registered Green. In this election, he’s left the Greens hanging and run his own meglomanic, republican-backed campaign. He is not doing anything for third party or even progressive politics, but instead is acting as some sort of leech. He’s done so much good for this country and this seems like a new direction for him. I think it’s clear he’s lost his marbles. Which of course, explains the republican support. If he was so senile he didn’t know what year it was, they would just go ahead and run him on a republican ticket.
Getting back on track, Nader did not lose al Gore the election in 2000. Massive dirty tricks and election stealing cost Gore the election. Plus his inability to run a winning campaign. He should have won, but was not compelling and then sat by and didn’t do anything while bussed-in repbulican mobs disrupted the re-count. He let the vote get stolen, as did all the white democratic senators who would not co-sponsor a house bill to question the election result. White democrats, like Gore, were perfectly happy to watch thousands of African American voters be disenfranchized.
That wing is out of power in the dem party (I hope), but the dirty tircks will occur anyway. The reason Bush was able to get away with it because the vote was close. Not only was the electoral vote close and the race in florida was close, but the popular vote was close. If Gore had won a clear majority of the popular vote, Bush would have been at a disadvantage. That is why there are no safe states this year. Every state is a swing state.. They can only steal the election if it’s close. If Kerry is the clear winner of the popular vote, this will change how things happen with post-election shenangians.
Nader is running a real campaign, but he’s out of his mind. He’s taking Republican money and colluding with dishonest Republican signature-gathering firms including the one in Nevada that shredded democratic registrations. The Greens and other left parties are not running a campaign. Cobb is telling people in swing states not to vote for him. The Greens are in a tough spot because after this crisis passes, they want to build a strong third party, but in the meantime, they have to work with moderates and center-right folks to get Kerry, the guy with the best chance of unseating Bush, into power. Then Green party’s spot on this year’s ballot is a placeholder for their spot on next year’s ballot. The same is true of every left party. They don’t want your votes. They want Bush out. Then come talk to them.
You have to vote your conscience, but sometimes ideological purity must be sacrificed for realpolitik. Bush must go. Vote Kerry. Then protest him up one side and down the other. If Bush stays in power, he will lead us into more wars and probably also bankrupt the country which will be personally economically disasterous for every american, ideologically pure or not. Vote for Kerry or vote for re-instating the draft and economic depression. Your call.
Berkeley Measure Q. Yes or no? I live in District 2. (well, sometimes.) I’m naive. I always wondered why there were so many condoms on the streets. Who was leaving them there? I mean, it’s not like the sidewlks are carpetted, but I’d have to be alert to keep xena from getting in to them. And chicken bones. How do so many chicken bones get on to the street? Am I naive again? What about the creepy men in the berkeley aquatic park? Are they looking for drugs or female prostituttes or male prostitutes or each other? That park is creepy in the middle of the day.
The green party says vote yes. But Barbara Lee is remaining quiet on the issue. The city council memeber endorsed by Lee, Darryl Moore, is against Q. The NOW said 30 years ago it favored decriminalization.
Casaninja 1 had prostitutes in the front yard on weekends. Rich folks would come down from the hills and come into my neighborhood to buy cars, drugs and sex. My house got broken into more than once. I lost stuff. I don’t think that I want prostitutes hanging out in front of any house that I’m in. As far as I know (I’m still naive), I’ve never seen anyone working outside of my Berkleey place. What about a ballot measure to enforce anti-prostitution laws only within 500 feet of a residence or a park? Then, theoretically, creepy guys would leave the park and the condoms would (as they are now) stay confined to in front of warehouses. And what about child prostitution? I mean, consenting adults are one thing, but shouldn’t kids get swept up into the system? In short, mix a desire for equal rights for women and workers with some NIMBYism and a what-about-the-children plea. Oh and a concern about property values, which I hate when I hear people say that, but I’m about to make a major transaction and I don’t want my place to fall from its current value. It can stay put forever, but not down. That would make me sad.
Danica didn’t vote on this, so I can’t consult her blog. Arg. What to think?
Say something soon, I’m going to priority mail my ballot tomrrow. I thought it was a postmark deadline, but it’s a reciept deadline. bleah!
[update: i voted yes for every single non-state ballot measure aside from Q, which i dunno about. i’m feeling very affirmative today. bart! sure! parks! ok!. Danica voted no on CC, but Barbara Lee signed the argument in favor of CC . . . Vote against the patriot act, get loyalty from me. . . ]
[update again – what about state props 60a, 61, 65, 67 & 71? state initiatives are not as fun as berkeley measures.]
I’m feeling much better today. Which is good, because I’m in the midst of a disasterous server move. I managed to knock Tiffany’s blog offline. (If you’re looking for it, it’s back up at http://rc.bx9.net/~tiffany/blog.html and hopefully will get a www in the front of it soon.) I even managed to knock down christi’s email for several days and she’s not even on the ded server. Bah.
So anything you have for me at xkey.com is no more. I don’t have an email address there. I don’t have a photolibrary there. I don’t have anything, cuz the domain got killed. If you used to email me at celesteh@xkey.com, email me instead with the same username at gmail.com. If you are looking for my web presence, aside from this blog, it is now at celesteh.com. My photo library is at celesteh.com/pics. My XML feed for pictures is now at celesteh.com/pics/atom.xml. so the silver lining is that i finally got my super-vanity domain off the ground. But I don’t get email there yet, so don’t email me there.
I registered the domain gardenofmemory.com at dankon.com because it’s the cheepest place to register domains. Network solutions is pricey. However, gardenofmemory now has the wrong DNS servers listed. and the email address I used to register it was at xkey. So I can’t log in. Fortunately, the service is owned by my Esperanto teacher, Ed. In case you’re wondering, “Mi estas en la mezo de la servilatranslogxo de Diablejo” means (i hope) I am in the middle of the server move from hell. I think this is the first time I’ve written a plea for tech support in Esperanto.
I own eguilt.com. Ironically, I sometimes feel bad for not doing anything with it. do you own a silly domain name? Maybe we can trade. Also, I’ve got gmail invites. Get ’em while they’re not nearly as hot as they were.
yes
forgiveness is knowing that even as somebody was driving you crazy, she’d have given her right lung for you in an instant if you needed it.
You can only do the stressed, busy, i’m-not-think-about-that-Ican’t-hear-you-la-la-la-la thing for so long and then you have to stop or be stopped. Being sick and in bed all day has given me ample time to think about my Mom whether /i want to or not. Being sick isn’t all bad. I didn’t have to wash the dishes. I get to sleep a lot. And when I start to feel fuzzy-headed and confused, i keep thinking it’s almost Christmas and I’m going to grandma’s house.
Then I think of the sermon I heard last xmas at the Neuman Center in Berkeley, where the preist read an essay from a newsletter for a group for divorced Catholics where one woman was talking about her first Christmas after being divorced. I did not want to hear it
I’m not going to grandma’s for Christmas. For the past few years, more than a quarter of my life, I’ve had two invitations for every holiday. this Thanksgiving, I’ve got zero. Before it seemed like maybe there was too much love. My mom really wanted me at every holiday and would lay on some pressure. I’m confused, will it be second or third without her?
maybe i should go get a tofurkey. they’re not bad. . . or,no, they’re terrible. i had xmas with all the families one year. so many people. it was all vegan. tofurkey was not a hit. but the stuffing was. it had 11 sticks of margarine in it. oh the transfats. i shortened everyone’s lives. now they’re all dead. no, it’s the people who went to grandma’s house who are dead: mom, grandma F, grandma H, larry, seymore, tom, catherine, cyril, bobby, ernie. it’s like ghosts hovering over us in a ghost house (it’s gone too). there’s only a few survivors and that artificial tree my grandma used every year is my dad’s garage, maybe with those ornaments still on it and the rug it sat in is in brother bob’s living room.
it’s the ghost of xmas past! it’s only october, but it’s so cold already.
forgiveness is not forgetting. i can think about things my mom did that made me angry and how they have chnaged me and that’s ok to think about. I think more often of my grandma’s house then i think of my grandma. how can a place be gone when i can see it so clearly in my mind? I tried to memorize every detail, like a solemn duty, after she died. a death i maybe caused. i don’t know. how is it possible? i felt guilt, tho. what should i memorize about my mom? what should i rememeber? what should i forget?
One year, when I was in junior high, we got in a terrible argument in the car. it was always in the car, becuase neither of us could walk away from each other and i was in puberty and she was in menopause and hadn’t started on hormones yet. and we got in a terrible argument and it was almost christmas and all my christmas presents were in the trunk and she drove me to the mall and made me return them.
it’s only october. why do i keep thinking about christmas?