First the Phillies, Now This????

Wow, I don't know how much happiness I can contain!!!

Buena suerte, President-Elect Obama. You've brought me the hope I've been lacking for eight years now. Whether or not we know it yet, we are all behind you.

Woo-hoo!!! Obama!!!

A Tightening Race?

Could it be that the hate-calls are working? New Hampshire has gone from dark blue to light blue on electoral-vote.com (meaning having fallen from "strong Dem" to "weak Dem". Could McCain's accusations of socialism in the Obama camp actually be taking root? It's not beyond the realm of possibility. And I know this guy loves the underdog position, so I am officially now, right worried.

The election nightmares continue.

Can this be over now?

The Madd(en)ing Crowd.

I read this article on Yahoo today: "McCain booed after trying to calm anti-Obama crowd". When your own supporters won't listen to you defend the integrity of your opponent, that's a sign that your own rhetoric has gone too far.

The fact that the GOP has whipped up the troops into a frenzied hatred of Obama strikes me as being more than reckless in the face of what could potentially be an Obama win. Disrespecting the opponent in such an irresponsible way just seeds further divisiveness on the whole, and can only lead to disaster in the long run, especially if the Dems win.

I'm thinking now of how much I've come to resent Bush and his cronies, not to mention his social conservatism and general ideological platform... But I can't imagine ever shouting things to the tune of "kill him!" or "off with his head!" or even "traitor!", mostly because that kind of thinking represents only the basest and most violent tendencies of our (animal) behavior.

The xenophobia that appears to be the lifeblood of the Republicans these days scares the hell out of me. This is barely concealed racism. In the case of calling Obama a terrorist, it is out-and-out racism, just not in the form that we were expecting, tying Obama to a religion (one that he doesn't profess, by the way) rather than to his skin color. But at the end of the day it's the same thing: they just don't want the guy who's "different" to be their president.

I used to respect McCain for being a different kind of Republican. I used to buy the "maverick" tag line. But his choice of Palin and the way he's been running his campaign has destroyed my trust in him, just as surely as for the other side his camp has made it impossible for nearly half the country to ever trust Obama.

Unwise policy when we all have to live together.

I am frightened.

Sorry for the cop-out post last night

I know that was a cheap post that I "wrote" last night about Stouffer's Mac n Cheese, but I had to post *something*, and I was not digging the blog vibe yesterday... I had a bad taste in my mouth after thinking more about memoir, which made me feel like more of a narcissist than I really am. But I am a Writer Chick, and that lends me to being a little more self-involved on the whole... And thus the reticence with the blogging.

That and the utter appreciation of Stouffer's Mac n Cheese.

So, I looked at the map at www.electoral-vote.com and was dismayed to notice that overnight, NC had swayed into Barely Republican territory, and Missouri went from Barely Dem to Exactly Tied. I don't know what caused the shift, but it's scaring me a little. Something must've happened in the news that I'm not aware of, since I'm boycotting TV.

"McCain needs a game-changer." "McCain has to stop the hemmorrhaging of his campaign." Why do I have a sneaking suspicion that he's doing it? That somehow he's finding a way to play dirty pool and shift things in his direction? Is it the Ayers thing? Is it the low-down-dirty pool he's playing? I've never seen a nastier campaign. Please don't let McCain swift-boat Obama!

I had a dream Obama won, and there was such joy in me that I was virtually bursting at the seams.

I hope it's a premonition.

Ode to 7-11

“Hello, Lady, Long Time No See You!”

I’m in here every day
just not when you’re working
but I must admit
I enjoy our 3 a.m.
discussions in broken English,
mine shattered through exhaustion,
yours still incomplete
after your long journey.

I came for my Obama cup
for the 7-Election
Your brilliant marketing ploy
to get out the vote.

I came for Spaghetti-O’s
I came for Fruit Cocktail,
Muscle Milk,
Stouffer’s frozen Mac ‘n Cheese
and Oatmeal Raisin Cookies.

But most of all I came
for your coffee,
your Dark Mountain Roast,
your high-test,
keep me awake
elixir that tastes like
percolated
mediocrity.

Where’s my Obama cup?

I want it to be
worth something
someday.

7-Election?

Went to the 7-11 today... I was over in Delaware to go to Borders to look for some new books of poetry and some other piece-of-garbage book on writing to semi-inspire me for NaNoWriMo. (I have a serious addiction to these books on writing, which have succeeded in getting me precisely nowhere. DinerGirl has published *nothing* to speak of, in spite of Julia Cameron's wit and wisdom.)

Anyway, at the 7-11 there was a sign out front for the "7-Election": "Every Cup Counts" it said.




Wow. If you click on the above picture it will take you to the 7-Election site, where you can see how the candidates are doing in your state. To my absolute horror, the John McCain coffee cup is winning in New Jersey. Whaaaaaat? That's not supposed to happen in a Blue State! I fear cup tampering! At least in Delaware, it's 63% in favor of Obama.

The 7-Election. Would that it were so easy.

(P.S. For the opposing viewpoint of a cup-carrying McCain supporter, click HERE. I love a good debate.)

I've Got Hope!

Not that polls really mean anything, but I was really, really glad to see this headline on Yahoo! : Obama Takes a 7-point lead over McCain.

I've been refraining from the whole "Got Hope?" thing, because I'm a natural pessimist, and the proliferation of McCain-Palin signs in Hometown were giving me the willies. But after seeing this, wow! Do I ever have hope!

Tonight is the Vice-Presidential debate, and being a South Jersey girl, I often feel like Joe Biden represents me more than... uh... whoever the current NJ Senators are. (Sad that I don't remember their names, but what can a girl do?)

I'm concerned that Joe Biden will be crucified for "sexism" in whatever he chooses to say to Sarah Palin, who seems to be able to get away with abusive, condescending, belittling mockery of Obama simply because she, too, represents an "exceptional" ticket--i.e., she's a woman.

Just leave identity politics out of it, everyone, rise above the fray.

Hope!

NaBloPoMo October

So, I just discovered NaBloPoMo online. It's like NaNoWriMo, only you don't have to write anything necessarily coherent and/or publishable, just write 31 posts in 31 days. A challenge! It's not easy! A friend of mine tried to do it back in May, and she failed miserably, making it through maybe a week before she gave up. Albeit, she was writing a chapter of her dissertation at the time, and really didn't have time to actually post about anything except the deadlines that were making her crazy.

So, this month's topic is "VOTE". Alright. Here's my sitchy:

I live deep in the belly of NJ, a red county in a blue state. My father's cousin is a great big bigot that somehow got my email address and sends me horrible emails about how Obama is a Muslim, how he is unpatriotic, and other random b.s. about putting up a fence between the U.S. and Mexico to keep the undesirable immigrants out. To which I say, I hope you're enjoying that South Jersey tomato, Cousin Charlie. Wanna know who picked it?

Today, interestingly enough I saw a Prius in Hometown, NJ. A Prius--rare in these parts--with a McCain sticker on the back. Wha-wha-whaaat? One of these things is not like the other.

So, I'm thinking about heading down to Obama HQ and seeing if I can help out in winning the election so that it can put people like Cousin Charlie in their right place. Not because of his politics--I respect conservatives even though I don't agree with them. But I cannot abide his xenophobic and reactionary, nonsensical vitriol that holds less water than a slotted spoon.

The debate is tomorrow. I'm going to go to Local Bar and watch, if there's no Eagles game on. If the Eagles are playing, then there's no hope to see Biden tap dance around Sarah Palin's gender; train wreck of a moron that she is, everything that Biden does will be scrutinized for condescention and sexism.

Go, Joe! South Jersey believes in you! (Or at least this SJ Diner Girl does!)