Tomorrow's Thanksgiving

Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving. It will be just Sue and me. We’re keeping it small. When I was at the grocery store today the clerk asked me if I was picking up last-minute stuff. I guess it was because I wasn’t buying very much. Olives. Prosciutto. Rolls. A small bag of beans. A ham hock for the beans. No, I said. One of the kids is in New York and the other is in Florida, so it’s just my wife and me. It sounded kind of pathetic, as the words came out of my mouth. Just a couple of people getting on in years, spending Thanksgiving alone. There’s more and more of that every year as both kids get older and on with their own lives. I remember my parents feeling the same way.

We’re ok. We don’t really do holidays that much anyway, except maybe for Christmas, but we don’t want to ignore them either. A friend of Sue’s called her the other day to see if she wanted to go for a walk tomorrow because her husband will be watching sports all day. I like the holidays, though, and this year it’s been kind of tough. Money is tight since we had to buy a new used truck, and I haven’t found any work since the beginning of the year. And the election seems to take a lot out of you. Just the sheer emotion of it all. The outcome makes you wonder what’s going to happen, and uncertainty is anxiety-making, though we do have plenty to be thankful for, just starting with each other. It’s just the times. Alley Cat Theater is coming along and I have high hopes for that project, but that’s a long way off, too. I’ll know in January when I’m in Vermont at the Vermont Studio Center if I got funding. If I don’t, I’m not sure what I’ll do.

I was going to make salmon but it wasn’t local at the fish store, so I bought halibut, which was out of Boston. I really support local farmers and fishermen, and it has to be wild-caught or organic. Our food chain has become pretty much compromised over the years, thanks to our bought and paid-for politicians in Washington and their lobbying friends. As my mother used to say, they’re all in cahoots, and it’s true. If this past election didn’t prove that, I don’t know what will convince the American people. They’ll just believe what they want to believe.

Bay scallops were $37.99 a pound. Is that normal? I asked, knowing full well it wasn’t. It seems kind of expensive. It’s a little high, he answered, in that understated way some New Englanders have. Martha Vineyards’ scallops are only producing about 100 pounds a day. I guess that’s not a lot to go around. I prefer bay scallops, but bought sea scallops for $20 a pound, and got a little over a half pound. I’m roasting brussel sprouts that came from our garden, and making rice, since we already have it and it’s cheap. I buy everything on sale. I told Sue I’d make French toast for her for breakfast. That’s her favorite, and I don’t usually make it during the week. It’s a holiday that’s all about food (and well, getting together with family, but that’s not happening) so I imagine if the rain holds off we might go over to the Blue Hills for a hike. My one knee has really been bothering me though from me pushing it one day over there in the Blue Hills, so a nice stroll in the woods would be fine to keep the sludge moving.

It almost seems as if we’re doing the holidays underwater, in that slow-motion way, going through the motions but it seems we’re in a dream. Next week is Sue’s birthday, then the week after we’re going to New York for Ferris Wheel Management’s Christmas party, then it will be Christmas, and then I’ll be in Vermont, working on Plank. There’s a few parties mixed in there, but again, it’s the election that I think is throwing us all. I called the election, and I hated the fact that I knew Trump would get elected. Arrogance on the part of the Clintons and corruption in the DNC gave the election away, coupled with the press not doing its job, which it gave up on a long time ago. They don’t report on the news anymore; its job is to just make money now, and that means pushing an agenda set by the advertisers. I keep working on Plank, and want pull up The New American, too. I just keep crossing my fingers that Alley Cat Theater will work and I can put these plays on. I guess what I can be most thankful for is just the chance to do this. Isn’t that what we used to say about the United States? The land of opportunity. Just give us the opportunity and we’ll take it from here?

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.

ROTFLMAO

Check out this video of Clinton. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. And I'd hate to meet the person this vid is targeted at.

I don't do cute and nice.

But good lord, who's the target here? Some woman locked back in 1965, wearing one of those blonde flip hairdos, driving some big car with wings on the back, pearls around her neck.

It certainly is a strange country.

Super Tuesday

So Obama and Clinton are neck and neck and today is Super Tuesday and hopefully we'll break this horse race wide open.

I can't imagine Clinton as president. It's kind of like you get this package deal with the Clintons, and they are just so underhanded. So slimy. So sleazy.

If Hillary wins, I'll be feeling like someone picked my pocket. I knew this young girl once, she was all good intentions but fast-talking and always trying to impress you with how cool and street-wise she was when she really wasn't, and she was entertaining as all get out, but every time I was finished talking to her I always had the urge to touch my back pocket to make sure she hadn't lifted my wallet. There was just something about her you couldn't trust. That's the same feeling I get from Clinton. Fast-talking, someone selling me a bill of goods, someone trying to win my favor for their own benefit. And underneath it, there's something sad going on. And that wouldn't be so bad if the sadness wasn't so dangerous.

But I have my doubts about Obama, too. His lack of experience is a huge liability, but not a big as the lack of integrity that the Clintons have. The young vote has to come out strong for him if he's going to take the White House. And I'm not so sure that's a bad thing. This country needs a big change. A big shaking up. The only trouble is, we can't have change just for the sake of change.

McCain? I wouldn't feel bad about him at all if he weren't so old. He's what?--71? He'll be 72 if he takes office and 76 after four years of hell. It's awful but a vote for McCain is almost like betting the Grim Reaper for his running mate, whoever that will be. Colin Powell?

The media has ruined the electoral process

Tomorrow's Super Tuesday. Not a football game, but might as well as be. I wouldn't mind seeing Clinton and Obama in pads, down in three-point stances, then on hut one, hut, two, hut three they fire out throwing forearms at each other's heads. It would be better than the sniping they do at each other. It's like I used to tell my kids when they were little and they'd be bickering at each other and come running to me. I don't want to hear about it unless blood's involved. I wouldn't mind seeing a bloody nose or two on the campaign trail.

Oh, wait, we're all much too civilized for that, aren't we?


All you read about in the news (and yes, I still get most of my news by reading it, and not listening to late night talk show hosts joke about it) is how the media is rating the candidates on their lack of messaging, or connecting with the voters.

Effing reporters anyway. They've gotten as bad as lawyers. Lawyers ruined government because all they think about is making laws. Reporters have ruined the electoral process the same way. Reporters, or writers, think in terms of messages, the one big idea, breaking communication down into its parts. So all these reporters are judging the candidates the way they'd judge communication experts. And candidates, thank the good Lord, or not candidates, they are not equipped to run the country. And for some damn reason, because the politicians craved the press' attention so much, they just played along. This happened over time, but now our campaign process has been taken over by the media. A bit of the inmates running the asylum, with candidates jumping through hoops that the reporters set up.

It's been described as a circus, and that's what it looks like from my perspective, complete with some of the goofiest clowns on the planet.

The presidential horse race

Hillary Clinton raised $27 million in the past three months ($27 million!!). Barack Obama raised $20 million. We don't even blink at numbers like that anymore, whether it's fundraising for a presidential election (if you want your candidate to win, damnit, you damn well have to pay for it) to professional athletes to the daily cost of the war in Iraq.

I think usual normal working stiffs just can't comprehend the size of the dollar amount. Just figure out your annual income, think about how hard you work everyday just to make ends meet, then just overlay that figure over a politician's war chest or a baseball pitcher's contract. You start by doubling, then doubling, then doubling some more, realizing that you would make that much sometime around the next ice age. The figures, you realize, are epochal.

Lots of people are saying Clinton is going to win. Bush, they say doesn't have a chance. Obama is losing steam, as indicated by his "lackluster" fundraising in the past three months. (I wish my paycheck was that lackluster.) I don't know about Clinton. The Northeast is so insular. People here forget there areSti 3,000 miles between here and northern California, and I still can't see people in say, Nebraska, voting for Hillary. But other, smarter, more politically astute people start dickering with all the electoral votes, and they say it's clear she'll win.

I'm not sure I'd want either one in the White House, but I know a few people that would just spit nails if Clinton won, and it might be worth seeing the look on their faces to have it happen.