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 lo lejos...

I've been reading a lot of the blog Wabi Sabi Moments, an American citizen writing from abroad about the election--*AWESOME* blog.

It's made me reflect, though, on my experience of the 2000 election, when I was in Spain, and having to explain to people every day about the Electoral College and, later, what the HELL was going on in Florida...

... but this was before YouTube, and even Teh Interwebs were in their adolescent stages of development.

The day of the election, I took myself to a little Internet Cafe and tried to get on cnn.com to get any sort of information that wasn't from the International Herald Tribune. There were, apparently, so many hits on the site that it had slowed to a crawl and there was simply no getting on.

So I resorted to Radio Nacional de España and listened to what was happening the night of, which was the morning of the day after for me. I woke up at about 6 a.m., knowing that the polls had closed, and heard the official result... Bush had won with 271 electoral votes.

I don't remember, prior to my existence on that day, ever knowing that 270 votes were needed to win the presidency. But I won't ever forget it now.

Bush won, and we all know the rest of that story.

I sneaked over to my American friends' apartment across the patio and attempted to stick a little note in their reja with the news. At that moment J. came out and I handed him the paper that said "Bush won. 271 votes." He looked at me, his liberal Oregonian face semi-shell-shocked. Slowly put down the paper and said "What does this mean?" I just shook my head and shrugged.

And then the Florida thing happened and there was, for a minute, hope.

But honestly, the 2000 election, being as far away as I was, never fully registered with me. Only now, after 8 years of That Man do I realize how much was at stake.

This One Just Blew My Socks Off

For Democrats Who Are Fearful...

Two links for those of us who still think that something might "happen" ahead of the election to screw it up:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/barackobama/3260074/Republican-fears-of-historic-Obama-landslide-unleash-civil-war-for-the-future-of-the-party.html

and

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/10/25/obamas_lead/

HOPE!

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?

Thoughts at 3:30 a.m.

I'm giving in: I am a chronic insomniac. No sense fighting it. Up all night, getting lots of work done, none of it writing... mostly just plowing around looking through job ads and craigslist.org hoping for a lead in the writing/publishing arena. But this is South Jersey, so that's pretty scarce. Doing some freelance work in the meantime and plowing through that as best I can.

I'm starting to have dreams--hell, sometimes they're nightmares--about the election. Not just about Obama vs. McCain, but also about my friends in CA who are going to have to deal with the outcome on Prop 8, which would amend the constitution so as to ban same-sex marriage. Having a lot of friends to whom this would matter greatly, I am worried. But anyway.

Back to my insomnia: I don't know which I prefer--late night productivity or restless, nightmare-laden sleep.

Too much anxiety these days, way too much, in spite of having tied up a few loose ends that were bugging me.

As for the situation with the exbf, I found out through the grapevine that he is married now. Married! That puts him strictly off limits. Yes, strictly off limits. Sad. I really miss him. G. always made me laugh, and I could use some laughter these days, and not at the expense of Sarah Palin, although that kind of laughter is very very satisfying.

I know someone who is straight as an arrow but has a girl-crush on Tina Fey. God bless Tina Fey for lightening up this election season... although her imitation of S.P. has a way of drawing attention to the fact that she is totally unqualified for the post. She makes Dan Quayle look like a Rhodes Scholar.

How I miss Bill Clinton.

Redemption for Colin Powell?

He just endorsed Barack Obama, and chided McCain.

Bravo.

Well, That Oughta Do It.

I just got an offensive forward from one of my "friends" around here.

Here it is, done in the spirit of satire and parody, but laced with hatred, as per usual:

*********


Subject: Fwd: Illegal immigration into Canada :)

From the MANITOBA HERALD, Canada (a very underground paper):

A flood of American liberals sneaking across the border into Canada has intensified in the past week, sparking calls for increased patrols to stop the illegal immigration.

The possibility of a McCain/Palin election is prompting the exodus among left-leaning citizens who fear they'll soon be required to hunt, pray, and agree with Bill O'Reilly.

Canadian border farmers say it's not uncommon to see dozens of sociology professors, animal rights activists and Unitarians crossing their fields at night.

"I went out to milk the cows the other day, and there was a Hollywood producer huddled in the barn," said Manitoba farmer Red Greenfield, whose acreage borders North Dakota. The producer was cold, exhausted and hungry. "He asked me if I could spare a latte and some free-range chicken."

Officials are particularly concerned about smugglers who meet liberals near the Canadian border, pack them into Volvo station wagons, drive them across the border and leave them to fend for themselves.

"A lot of these people are not prepared for rugged conditions," an Ontario border patrolman said. "I found one carload without a drop of drinking water."They did have a nice little Napa Valley cabernet, though."

When liberals are caught, they're sent back across the border, often wailing loudly that they fear retribution from conservatives. Rumors have been circulating about the McCain administration establishing re-education camps in which liberals will be forced to shoot wolves from airplanes, deny evolution, and act out drills preparing them for the Rapture.

In recent days, liberals have turned to sometimes-ingenious ways of crossing the border. Some have taken to posing as senior citizens on bus trips to buy cheap Canadian prescription drugs. After catching a half-dozen young vegans disguised in powdered wigs, Canadian immigration authorities began stopping buses and quizzing the supposed senior-citizen passengers. "If they can't identify the accordion player on The Lawrence Welk Show, we get suspicious about their age," an official said.

Canadian citizens have complained that the illegal immigrants are creating an organic-broccoli shortage and renting all the good Susan Sarandon movies.

"I feel sorry for American liberals, but the Canadian economy just can't support them," an Ottawa resident said. "How many art-history and English majors does one country need?"

**********************

My response follows below:


NOTE: If you haven't already, please read the attached forward below about "Illegal Immigration into Canada" before reading my message, so as to put my outrage in context.

****
Dear all:


As one of the few card-carrying liberals of this bunch, I can honestly say that a McCain-Palin presidency scares the hell out of me. And I can also say that the knee-jerk mocking of liberals in this email is downright offensive, although, I must admit, I've seen much worse out there in the blogosphere and sent to me by other friends and family. Liberals are not latte-sipping elitists; we're people who care about the direction of this country, believe in progress towards social and economic equality, and believe that no child should ever be abandoned to a government that has abandoned them. Justice. Equality. Freedom of thought. The principles of true democracy.

The social conservatism and foreign policy choices of McCain-Palin are frightening because both of them provoke the worst kind of xenophobic hatred among their supporters. Shouts of "Kill him!" and "Traitor!" and "Terrorist!" at GOP rallies only proves that there is much bad blood out there. Obama is not a terrorist. Not an Arab. Not a Muslim. I do applaud McCain for professing his respect for Obama, but the crowds' boos when he attempted to defend his opponent only show that you reap what you sow, and that it's far too late now to undo the divisive damage that they've (honestly, mostly Palin) gone about seeding. When we all have to live together, riling up anti-anyone sentiment in the out-for-blood way that they do is positively reckless, and, should Obama win, will come back to haunt everyone when this country disintegrates into a state of disunity. That will be the GOP legacy: a country more filled with vitriol and fear than during any other era in history, and yes, I'm including the '60s and '70s with their emblematic civil rights movements.

I'm on the job market this year, and am applying for two jobs in Canada, one in Vancouver and one in Calgary. Maybe I, too, will be part of the exodus that the below email parodies. Should I move to Canada, I'll be able to do the following things that the Neo-conservatives have continuously prevented me from doing: 1) I would have free health care so that I could actually afford the medications that I must take in order to remain firmly on this planet. Currently, I owe major thousands of $$ simply because my health care coverage as a graduate student has been so poor that for the last 6.5 years I've had to put my meds on my credit cards. $2000/year of prescription coverage. $6,000+ in expenses/year. You do the math. Universal health care? If you're healthy, I congratulate you. If you have a chronic illness like me, then well, to put it bluntly, then you're absolutel screwed. Scared universal health care is socialist? Look around you at the uninsured and impoverished and tell me then that capitalism is fair to those with less. Ideology is unimportant, and the Cold War is over. Everyone deserves the right to be healthy. 2) If I moved to Canada, I would have equal rights as a non-heterosexual and have the freedom to marry whomever I wish. Now I know some of you may oppose this on religious and/or moral"grounds, but let's put that aside for a minute and think secularly. (This is not a theocracy, after all. We *are*, contrary to all appearances, a secular nation that prizes the rights of each individual.) Are you really, *really* willing to deny any sort of right to a person based on what is essentially an issue that is none of the government's business? Would you do the same for a social class? For a racial group? No. Why is it so easy to do this to the queer community? Because we're different? Because we're "immoral"? Because we scare people with our fashion sense? It is precisely beyond unfair to legislate against a minority group *because* they're a minority group. I'm not saying you have to support or even agree with same-sex marriage. But the next time you voice your opposition, think of me and ask yourself if you'd really like to see me marginalized by the government in this, the 21st century. It's a civil rights issue, not a religious one, not a moral one. Oh, wait, yes it is moral... And the moral is to love your fellow human beings and be fair unto them. And finally, 3) I'd be able to travel to a foreign country without once having to explain the injustices of the electoral college, say ever again the words "I didn't vote for him", or feel guilty about how we squandered the world's goodwill poured out to us in the wake of 9/11. So many, many tragedies came out of that day.

I love my country very much, and it's because of that that I'm sending this to all of you. I'm not trying to get you to vote for Obama, that's not my point. I just wanted you to think about what "jokes" like this really mean to those of us who feel threatened by the government that's supposed to protect us all, not just some.

Thanks for listening.

*************

If that doesn't drive a stake in the coffin of our friendship, I don't know what else will... Oh well, their loss.

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.

It Only Took Eight Years, But...

I got this .jpg attachment in an email sent to me by my Dad on 2 December 2000, right after the "election" of George Dubya Bush. I gave an uneasy guffaw (if that's possible) when I got it. And looking at it now, well, all it's all I can do not to, simply and sadly, turn the page for Bush as he fiddles over the smoldering embers of this nation.





I am so angry at Bush, who is essentially acting like a Deadbeat Dad to this country. I've never been angrier. There is no leadership in Washington right now. NONE.

This election cannot come soon enough.

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!)