The election is over

Somehow I thought there'd be dancing in the streets. That the heavens would be opened up above the T platform in Wollaston, hovering over us all day long. But it was pretty much business as usual on the street, at the office. Except for a few of my younger co-workers who could not contain their elation, it was pretty much the same.

But it was different, wasn't it?

Walking to the polls on that beautiful Tuesday morning, through our neighborhood, past the old Victorians, through that golden light reflected off the fallen leaves thick on the lawns and the sidewalk, still clinging to the branches, it hit me more than ever that it was do or die for our country. That if we didn't turn it around on that day, we would sink and then we'd never have a chance to get out of everything we've dug ourselves into.

Even now, I'm not so sure that we can. It's like now, the concept is sold, now we have to execute it. I'm not so sure it's possible. It's an awfully tall order. But now it seems we'll have the rest of the world behind us. I think we'll be welcome back into the world order, and for those of you who don't understand that, what that means, well, I've said it so many times now, I'm sick to death of explaining myself. If you don't get it, it's not my job to educate you. You can drown in your own shit.

But I'm old enough to remember Kennedy and the Kennedy years, Camelot and all that. And just like the war in Iraq is so reminiscent of Vietnam, I do hope that this administration isn't the mirror of the Kennedy administration. Obama is not a god. He is a politician, and a darn good one, just like Kennedy.

I'm glad it's over and I'm glad Obama won by a landslide. And those who are saying that there's a lot of people who wanted McCain, the same was said by the Democrats during the last two elections. Be adult and rally around the president-elect and your country. But I'm afraid that's not going to happen, either.

There was a lot of ugliness and hatred. And it's still happening. Maybe it's who I choose to associate with, but my Facebook turned into an ugly, hatred-filled exchange by people I don't even know, people who I befriended because of our common interest in acting. And it was curious to stand back and watch these strangers. For awhile, anyway. How these people can stand to look at themselves in the mirror is beyond me. They think they're so smart, so worldly, and oddly enough most of them describe themselves as being Christian. What is it that Christians seem to be the meanest people on the planet? Is it because they believe in all that business about forgiveness? Just like the Catholics who have Confession, so no matter what you do your spiritual permanent record will be wiped clean, Christians fall back on some Jesus factor? Let me clue you in: There ain't no heaven and there ain't no hell. This is it. And what they fob off as practicality is simply meanness and greed and selfishness.

So, I'm glad the election's over. And I'm glad Obama won. But "it" ain't over. There's still a lot of strife and hatred and racism and I think it's still all going to come to a boil. I hate to say it, but I do.

President Sarah Palin--hilarious!

Some copywriters (who else?) at an ad agency had some time on their hands and put together this hilarious, interactive site showing what it would be like if McCain took a dirt nap and Palin became prez.

Click on Bambi. Gotcha.

Palin represents just how low our standards have become

I've been shying from commenting too much about the election. I mean, really. Does the world need one more voice crying out in the wind on this subject? I I couldn't add any more original content, what's the use?

I, frankly, am not that impressed with either of the two major candidates, but that's just me. I wrote an op-ed column for a newspaper for about fifteen years, and politics was a big topic of that column. I followed politics closely, but towards the end it was getting hard for even the likes of me to tell a Democrat from a Republican. They all lied and postured and were on the take with Big Business and lobbyists. I guess over time I slowly evolved to a sort of loose Libertarian with rough edges, kind of like now I'm sort of a Catholic-Buddhist. I make it all up as I go along.

I've long realized that anyone who was qualified to live in the White House didn't want the job. The really qualified, good people didn't want to put themselves or their loved ones through that mud-slinging circus. That's one of the few reasons why I'm not that enamored with Barrack Obama. I figure if he wants the job so bad there must be something wrong with him. It just hasn't come out yet.

So, with that, I figured come election day, Obama is going to take Massachusetts, so I can write in any candidate I deem deserves my vote--Al Gore or Colin Powell--and I can leave the voting booth with a clear conscience.

Then Sarah Palin enter the scene.

I had heard of Palin a few months prior to McCain tapping her from Short Shorts. I read that blog just about every day, and back when Becky made Palin out to sound like a real interesting pol. But then we all got to know her for the absolute incompetent that she is, and that's when I realized I better shout out here.

Sarah Palin represents how low our standards have become for what we expect of the leaders of our country. She can't name the newspapers she claims to read. She says, and it seems she honestly believes, that being able to see Russia from her house qualifies her for foreign diplomacy, as if it is some sort of neighborhood watch. She doesn't even know what the job entails, something that anyone who stayed awake in high school civics would know. The choice of Palin for Republican VP gives us a good idea of the kinds of choices and decisions McCain will make. Palin, according to McCain, is the very best he could come up with.

And what's even worse, she's considered a valid candidate is given all the attention appropriated to a valid candidate and there are people who undeniably believe that she deserves the job.

We have sunk to an all-time low here, folks, and it's not even funny any more.



These people actually are allowed to vote for the president of the United States. Listening to these people--and please don't tell me they are entitled to their opinion--reminds me of how much this world has changed because of the Internet. As of this writing, this particular rock on Youtube was picked up and looked under 1,166,454 times. Before the Internet, we'd never know these people existed, much less would they have had an outlet for their vitriol. Now, the Internet and Youtube gives them validity, and instead of them being embarrassed I'm quite certain they probably look at the number of hits they're getting and think that their day has finally come.

Democracy is a responsibility that requires not only that a person keeps up with current events, but you have to exercise more than a little intelligence. That Obama's middle name links him with terrorists is not only idiotic and illogical, it's also very dangerous thinking.

This is the reason why sometimes I've felt we would be better off with a benevolent dictator rather than a democracy. Just as Palin is woefully unqualified to be vice president, some people are woefully unqualified to perform their civic duties, too.

Politicians are chicken

From Dede...a story about Farmer John...

John the farmer was in the fertilized egg business. He had several hundred young layers (hens), called "pullets", and ten roosters, whose job it was to fertilize the eggs.

John kept records, and any rooster that didn't "perform" went into the soup pot and was replaced. That took an awful lot of his time, so he bought a set of tiny bells and attached them to his roosters. Each bell had a different tone so John could tell from a distance, which rooster was performing. Now he could sit on the porch and fill out an efficiency report simply by listening to the bells.

John's favorite rooster was old Butch, a very fine specimen he was, too. But on this particular morning John noticed old Butch's bell hadn't rung at all! John went to investigate.

The other roosters were chasing pullets, bells-a-ringing. The pullets, hearing the roosters coming, would run for cover.

But to John's amazement, old Butch had his bell in his beak, so it couldn't ring. He'd sneak up on a pullet, do his job and walk on to the next one. John was so proud of old Butch, he entered him in the Renfrew County Fair and he became an overnight sensation among the judges.

The result...The judges not only awarded old Butch the No Bell Piece Prize, but they also awarded him the Pulletsurprise as well.

Clearly old Butch was a politician in the making: who else but a politician could figure out how to win two of the most highly coveted awards on our planet by being the best at sneaking up on the populace and screwing them when they weren't paying attention.

Vote carefully...the bells are not always audible!

Sarah Palin: sportscaster

hey, i'm not saying there's anything wrong with being a sportscaster...hell, it ranks above weather reporter...but is this what sarah palin was doing with her life to prepare her for the white house?...this is really what the republicans are proposing for the white house??...have our standards fallen this far??...i mean, is this really the very best we or the republicans can come up with?...really???

What makes a small town?

Right in line with my belief that you have to watch the left as much as you watch the right, that both sides talk out of both sides of their mouths, and that the Democrats are just as dumb as the Republicans...

When it comes to politics, I've learned that it's like shooting fish in a barrel.

Well, after listening to those poor slobs in West Virgina during the Democratic primary, now it's the Republican's turn to look ignorant and uneducated...

Sarah Palin, sexism, and Jon Stewart

They all talk out of both sides of their mouths...this just happens to be the Republicans...but God bless Jon Stewart...he's a national treasure, equal to Mark Twain...

RNC08: Sarah Palin — Babies, Lies

It just seemed like a lot of image last night (or rather, this a.m. when I watched her speech; yes, I have an Internet connection--at least today I do. We'll see what kind of shitty service Comcast brings in the future.)

But I tell you, I don't think I saw one non-white person in that audience. And all that hockey mom hoopla and nice white American values....they just poured it on like sugar on cereal, didn't they?

It's all image, isn't it? That's really what it's all come down to.

Found this on Jack and Jill Politics. It's just more food for thought.

I, frankly, am having a real hard time cutting through all the bullshit on both sides.

RNC08: Sarah Palin — Babies, Lies & Scandal

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Elelcted

Becky C, Just A Girl In Short Shorts Talking About Whatever, has a great idea for someone for president. Yep, Alice Cooper.

I listened to a lot of Alice with friends back in high school. Big snakes and gallows. Remember: Dead Babies can't take things off the shelf? When punk came around, I went, uh, yeah??

But first you have to get...elected.

I heart Paris

I really do...I think she's a heckuva lot smarter than most people give her credit for...it's real easy to pick on a skinny, white, blonde, rich chick...and did I mention good-looking?

Would I want Paris living next door to me? No. But I don't think that's going to happen in Quincy anyway.

But is she on my short list of people I'd love to sit down and have a beer with? Most def. And I think she'd do it.

And here's her response to John McCain making reference to her in one of his campaign ads. It's so funny, smart, and quick. It's a response reminiscent of a childhood hero of mine, Bugs Bunny. Yeah, I know he's a cartoon character, but in my world that makes him real.

And the great thing about Bugs was, he didn't cause trouble. He just went through life enjoying it. But if provoked, say if someone stuck a double-barrel shotgun down his rabbit hole, he retaliated, and really enjoyed it, too.

See if you don't agree with me.

Return of the Grievous Angel

how come the good ones all seem so damn crazy...and how come they die so young?

Won't you scratch my itch sweet Annie Rich
And welcome me back to town
Come out on your porch or I'll step into your parlor
And I'll tell you how it all went down

Out with the truckers and the kickers and the cowboy angels
And a good saloon in every single town

Oh, and I remember something you once told me
And I'll be damned if it did not come true
Twenty thousand roads I went down, down, down
And they all lead me straight back home to you

`Cause I headed West to grow up with the country
Across those prairies with the waves of grain
And I saw my devil,
and I saw my deep blue sea
And I thought about a calico bonnet from
Cheyenne to Tennessee

We flew straight across that river bridge,
last night at half past two
The switchman wave his lantern goodbye and good day
as we went rolling through
Billboards and truckstops pass by the grievous angel
And now I know just what I have to do

And the man on the radio won't leave me alone
He wants to take my money for something
that I've never been shown

And I saw my devil,
and I saw my deep blue sea
And I thought about a calico bonnet from
Cheyenne to Tennessee

The news I could bring I met up with the king
On his head an amphetamine crown
He talked about unbuckling that old bible belt
And lit out for some desert town

Out with the truckers and the kickers and the cowboy angels
And a good saloon in every single town

Oh, but I remembered something you once told me
And I'll be damned if it did not come true
Twenty thousand roads I went down, down, down
And they all lead me straight back home to you

Twenty thousand roads I went down, down, down
And they all lead me straight back home to you

Check this out, darlin'....

It seems I'm constantly a day late and a dollar short...

Now ain't that just a plumb down-home way of saying I just don't get things right sometimes?

We all talk funny in this country...and a lot of us--the ones with a bit (or a lot) of Southern influence in our raising--seem to talk a little funnier than our more sophisticated, better-educated counterparts, particularly in the media.

I guess last week or so Obama brushed off a reporter in Detroit, and called her "Sweetie" to boot...I didn't hear about this until today...oh lordy, I groaned, here we go again...

Okay, first, let's get this out, that reporter for WXYZ in Detroit asked one lame-ass question: What are you going to do for the American auto workers? She threw that out to Obama as he was walking by. That's really the best question you can come up with when you got the potential leader for the entire free world in front of you? Something that open-ended and unfocused? If I were her editor, I'd call her a helluva lot worse than sweetie when she got back to the newsroom.

From the sound of her voice, she sounds pretty young. I guess this is the generation we're handing the country over to...people who can't read or formulate good questions.

And Obama gets whacked for calling her Sweetie and telling her to "hold on one second..." She signs off by saying, "this sweetie never did get an answer." Now ain't she cute? I think we finally found a replacement for America's other little darlin', Katie Couric.

Then all the pundits had to give their analysis, what the women think; we got a recap of the feminist movement, it's causes and effects; we got an analysis of Obama and how the comment showed just how green he is.

The best one I heard is from this guy, the one that made the most sense to me was this one. Of course he's some fat white guy:



We get to hear Obama's entire apology, something nobody else ran...and I love this guy's final comment, about how guys might be able to relate finally to Obama...

This is something I fight all the time. I call women, darlin' and I don't mean any disrespect at all. As a matter of fact, if I do call you that, it typically means I like you. I'll call you, hon, too, and it means I'm feeling for you. I also call men, dude, bro, and man.

I hold doors for women (hell, I hold doors for everyone; it's a miracle I get to where I'm going for letting everyone go ahead of me), I let people get on and off elevators before me, I offer my seat to older women and men on the subway. Just the other night I offered my seat to a white-haired gentleman, dressed in the uniform of intelligentsia around these parts: blue blazer, khaki pants, blue button-down shirt, a rep bow tie. He declined, I think he was a bit amused by the whole affair, and I spent the rest of the trip wondering if I insulted him.

But I gotta watch myself. The other week in a meeting I told a young woman of color to calm down because she was all excited and in my face because I made a comment about her blog, and she threw it out that she hates when men tell her to calm down. Just like a man can't call a woman sweetie, a man can never tell a woman to calm down. She can holler and scream all she wants because she's sticking up for herself and being strong. She's not being aggressive or impolite. Conversely, a man has to stay calm and collected, otherwise he's being aggressive and will find his next meeting in the HR department. Welcome to the double-standard that occurs so often in this society.

The best thing you can do in these situations is know your audience. If you're around people who take offense to certain things you do, no matter how innocent it is, it behooves you protect yourself (and also respect them for the people they are, too) and don't do what offends them, again, even if it is of the most innocent intent. So, I don't call women darlin' at work, even though I do it all the time in the outside world, and I'll be careful in particular what I say to certain people.

It's called survival and putting food on the table.

And I've also learned to remove myself from something or someone who potentially could get me in trouble, again, even in the most innocent of situations.

Obama can't do this. He's in the public eye and can't run and hide like I can. Obama should know not to call someone sweetie, just like I know I have to be careful who I call darlin' and who I tell to calm down. His apology was the politically correct thing to do, and as the commentator on the video says, it's a good one. Obama, as I could tell all along is a good politician, which frankly worries me more than him calling a reporter sweetie.

Don't bet on a horse if you're not riding it

Something I've learned in my long life is never bet on a horse race if you're not riding the horse.

Don't get caught up emotionally in baseball teams, football games, or basketball playoffs if you're not swinging the bat, throwing the ball, or standing at the foul line.

Same for political races. And don't tell me that voting is like batting in a baseball game. You get one measly vote, and just like one of anything--one shot at a charging rhino, one meatball, one last lonely dollar--it doesn't give you a lot.

Here in Boston you get that lesson a lot with the sports teams. Balls going through first baseman's legs when a win has been clinched (well, obviously, a win is only clinched when the score is totaled or the votes counted), and 16-0 teams falling flat on their faces (or other parts of their anatomies) in the Super Bowl. Most recently the Celtics going 0-3 on the road with Cavs. Just learn to watch and see what's going to happen.

Anyway, of course I'm getting around to the election here, and my absolute disgust for what's ensued.


When my mind's eye falls on Clinton I recoil. And she just keeps getting worse, rallying the poor whites in every state to the point where it's really starting to look just plain ugly. In a very sympathetic moment, I feel that a lot of the people supporting Clinton now are being unfairly judged. Most, it seems, are uneducated and scared, which still doesn't absolve them of their actions and the things they are saying. But they are being publicly ridiculed and frankly proving exactly what Clinton is saying. Hopefully they'll just be so disgusted in November that they won't come to the polls. Let them feel like they're being heard now, when it really doesn't count. But if they decide to actually vote in November, that won't bode well for Obama.

Seriously, how are you supposed to take someone seriously when you see video of people drawing and shucking that they think Obama is Muslim and or his name is Hussein and "I've had enough of Hussein," or that they just can't vote for someone who's black? (Extra: he's not black; he's bi-racial. Ah, you know what I mean.) Unfortunately, in this country, really dumb people are allowed to vote for president.

And, frankly, in that dumb group of people I also include the people who are voting for Obama because his skin color (I'd like to see an African-American in the White House before I die; this is for my grandmother who lived during Jim Crow), and there are lots of people who are voting for that reason. It's just as racist to vote for Obama because of his skin as it is to vote against him for the same reason.

I simply don't know about him because all he's been is a symbol for change. And I don't vote for symbols. And that's really all I have to say about him, because after all this campaigning, I still don't feel like I know him.

McCain? He's not a visionary. I can't see him talking to, say, the founder of Google, or discussing social networking and it's affects on society. Come to think of it, I can't see Obama or Clinton doing that either. All we seem to get from McCain is he's this grizzled veteran whose experience will come in handy if terrorists attack us again. Well, that's handy.

I guess my prime beef with all the three of the major candidates--I'm still including Clinton because, as I've blogged before, you can't kill a Clinton. They're like snakes that you keep wailing on with the flat side of a shovel, then when you put the shovel back in the shed they slither away under some rock--my biggest complaint is none of them are visionaries. None of them give you something that makes you say, wow.

Again, I'm just speaking for myself, this middle-aged white, Buddhist, country-music-loving, hillbilly. With all three all I see is more government, more taxes, more of the same. I don't see any of them who seem to have a clue about where this world is going because of strides in technology, changes in the economy, major shifts in society, or in the world in general.

But I live in Massachusetts, and barring a real catastrophe, Obama will take Massachusetts, which means I can actually walk out of the voting booth with a clear conscious, having had voted (even if it's a write-in) for someone who I believe deserves and can handle the job.

Red State Update

This is kind of old (considering the news from the North Carolina and Indiana primaries, but I still wouldn't discount Clinton) but these two guys are pretty funny doing the Hee-Haw imitations and scathing social satire thing...

The thing about Clinton, it's like in a movie when the evil villain monster has been filled with the combined magazines of about a hundred machine guns, and people ease up to the dead, putrid corpse, and then when they get right up to arm's length of the creature it comes to life for one last time. The thing about a Clinton is, they don't die.

It's finally over

C, who knows so much more about these things than I do, says it so over it's not even funny. (Well, unless you have the kind of sense of humor I have, and you can find humor in just about anything. Remind me to tell you about the time my father had a heart attack and lost his teeth.)

Anyway....

The electability challenge, boiled of fat

From C:

"I really don't want an African-American as President ... I thought about it. I think he would put too many minorities in positions over the white race. That's my opinion. After 1964, you saw what the South did ... There's a lot of white people that just wouldn't vote for a colored person. Especially older people," - a Clinton supporter in Eastern Kentucky, to George Packer of the New Yorker.

This is really no surprise to anyone (especially a white person) who has lived in any of the less progressive areas of the United States. I say white person because a person of color wouldn't get the honesty.

Rev. Wright: How many years did Cheney serve?

Electability

We have a new issue injected into the Democratic presidential race. Electability.

It's not who the people want in the White House (popular vote; the most votes), it's who can get elected (win the most electoral votes.) Big difference. Who can win the big states for the Democrats like California, Ohio, and Pennsylvania? Or rather, who is more attractive to redneck, blue-color white voters that gave Ohio and Pennsylvania to Clinton: a white woman or a man with brown skin? That's the big burning question right now.

And that's a good question, and a good lesson to all the young, idealistic people who are getting so involved (finally) in this countries politics. They're learning how our country works. They're learning about democracy, or our brand of it, not the kind that we're exporting to Iraq and Latin countries but the kind where money and delegates matter, not a person's vote. See, when you say one man/one vote, it's like saying anyone can grow up to be president. Or there's a Santa Claus. It's a nice theory, but that ain't the way this country runs.

Electability. It's not even who can beat McCain. It's who can beat the system.

Welcome to the U.S. of A.

Why can't Barack Obama close the deal?

That's the question Hillary Clinton posed about Obama. Sticking him for losing Pennsylvania. It's a jab.

Well, you know what? The same damn question could be put to Clinton. She's not closing anything either, and she doesn't realize that the reason Obama isn't closing the deal (and just the language, the way she posed the question, speaks volumes about her and the reason why people like me can't stand her, the way she represents that white, corporate, back-biting world that sharks like her swim so well in)...the reason he's not closing the deal is because she's siphoning votes from him.

Maybe she thinks she's getting the votes because people really want her in the White House. Sure there are real Clinton supporters out there. But there are plenty of blue-color whites, plenty of rednecks who aren't voting for Clinton as much as they're voting against Obama's skin color.

She (and Clinton supporters would say Obama) is fragmenting the Democrats. But since she posed the question the way she did, she's the one who looks like the egotist, the one who isn't thinking about the country or the voters but her own self and how much she wants to sleep on Pennsylvania Avenue again. She looks like the one who's in it just to bust things up, a la Nader eight years ago.

And there isn't a lot of time between the end of August when the Democrats hold their convention, and the beginning of November. That's not a lot of time to patch things up. To present a united front to the country.

The Democrats remind me of a family of hillbillies fighting among themselves while the rest of the world is stealing from them. It seems the Democrats are too stupid to see that the real fight is against the Republicans and McCain, and they should be focusing all their efforts on that fight. But right now they're just like a bag of cats, clawing at each other and making a bunch of noise.

Ferraro, Obama, and a grain of truth

The Democrats have always had a way of shooting themselves in the foot. The Republican Party is like this Nazi army that just marches and follows orders. They follow the rules they've set and don't deviate from their game plan. They're like mean political machine.

The Dems have always come across like one big crazy band of loons roaming the countryside, never together, like this patriotic amoeba moving this way and that and generally moving in the same direction.

Those are generalizations. In truth, the Dems aren't any more good guys than the Republicans are the bad guys.

So why, when they've got a fairly good shot at the White House (but not the apparent shoe-in that Gore had and blew) does Geraldine "Jerry" Ferraro shoot off her mouth the way she did the other day saying that Obama wouldn't be where he was if he were black?

I mean, does the party really need someone doing someone like that at these times?

Oh, she was just saying what she felt, exercising her First Amendment rights?

Okay, maybe. But a couple of things. First, the Dems don't need someone saying something as divisive as that. It's time to start pulling together, and a big problem with this prez election is the same problem we've always had: It's not about the voters or the country but about the egos of the candidates. Right now it's just one big mud-slinging popularity contest.

The other thing is that in this election, race (and sex) are out there. Whites in Ohio voted for Clinton, or against Obama, depending how you want to look at it. That's racist, but no more racist than blacks voting for Obama in Mississippi. Also, people are voting for Clinton simply because she's a woman and they want to see a woman in power. That's sexist.

So, let's get it all out there. It ain't a perfect democratic process where people are voting for the best person. They are voting their prejudices, which they've always done, it's just a lot more apparent now.

But here's the thing: there is a grain of truth to what Ferraro said. Obama is where he is because he's a person of color (he's not black, but bi-racial.) Guess what, in some ways, Clinton's where she is because she's a woman. The country is dying for a change, and in part both Obama because of his race and Clinton because of her sex represent that need for change.

But to say, or imply, as it seems Ferraro has, that Obama has had it easy because of his skin color is just nuts. He's had it about ten time harder to get to where he is because of his skin color. And you could probably say that about Clinton, too, because of her sex.

So, it's just stand back and watch the idiots come out of the woodwork. The best elections always do that.