The Epic Saga Continues!

10:43pm: Debate One Down
Wow. I was seriously impressed tonight with Obama's performance. He was aggressive and knowledgeable, and managed to throw every embarrassing McCain quotation (and a few Bush quotations as well) back in the man's face. McCain, by contrast, seemed scattered and fishing for topics, coming back into coherence only on a few particular issues.

Of course, my worry is that partisan news sources will simply collect the clips that support their candidate and declare him the victor, so Fox News will be all about "McCain's stunning performance" and declare him the winner, as they would regardless. MSNBC at this point is probably equally skewed towards Obama. I kind of miss the Fairness Doctrine, which Reagan's FCC axed back in 1985.

Still, from where I stand, TRYING to look at it objectively even though I have my own biases to be sure, Obama looked like he came across far more in control and focused, answering McCain's criticisms of him far more skillfully than McCain answered Obama's challenges.

Will it matter? Does anything at these debates change voting behavior, and will we get any real sense from the so-called polls of what people actually think? I can't bear to listen to any commentary tonight so I'll have to wait to find out what the media decides reality will be like tomorrow...

- SW

8:39pm: Call me loony and paranoid but...

...economy going into the shitter to the point where the govt is essentially stepping into take over the system...

...two wars abroad...

...a constitution that we've already degraded by allowing the loss of privacy rights, rights to a trial, and ignoring all prohibitions against torture...

This seems like very, very fertile soil for fascism to take root.

Not a lot of people are really FEELING the crunch yet (it's all abstract, in hard-to-understand news bytes), but when it finally hits (and it will), people will be afraid and angry and looking to a man on horseback. Not a good recipe if the wrong man comes along.

- SW

8:29am: A new record
Wow. I taught a lesson on Catcher in the Rye today that, over the course of 58 minutes, included Simon & Garfunkel's "I am a rock" and episode#2 of Doctor Horrible.

You cannot say I am not trying with these kids!

- SW

9:56am: I just do not get it
I just do not get it. The major polls keep showing McCain ahead, albeit not by much.

Everyone agrees the country's in the toilet right now. For 6 of the last 8 years, the Republican party controlled EVERYTHING. The White House, Congress, and the Courts. No one stopped them from doing ANYTHING. Even the last two years of a Democratic congress didn't really slow them down. They got whatever they wanted:

- wars with unlimited budgets
- No Child Left Behind
- huge cuts to medicare and welfare
- a huge tax cut for the wealthy
- unregulated markets for energy and housing
- North Dakota's abortion ban that pro-choicers can't challenge because the Supreme Court will use it as an excuse to overturn Roe v. Wade, paving the way for other states to do the
same
- limitless domestic spying
- complete free reign to dispense with the constitution and human rights laws when it comes to terrorism
- anti gay marriage amendments to dozens of state constitutions

They only lost on two initiatives: privatizing social security and drilling in ANWAR, and it looks like the drilling thing is going to go in their favor soon any day now.

So in short, the Republican Party has been doing whatever it wanted with the country, unopposed, for 8 years. We are living entirely in the country of their making.

But everyone agrees the country's in the toilet right now.

Yet the polls still favor McCain.

Somehow, Obama being perceived as an "elitist" (even though McCain is just as wealthy and privileged) and out of touch with the "working man" (even though McCain owns 5 homes) is enough to make people want to sign up for 4-8 more years of what brought us this mess...?

Or is it a fear that Obama is going to raise taxes? McCain wants to not only continue our two current wars but possibly involve us in Iran and who knows, maybe Georgia, too. And he's going to pay for this WITHOUT raising taxes?

Is it the idea that McCain is a "maverick", even though he voted with Bush 90-95% of the time, and Bush is the guy who, once again, got everything he wanted and yet we're still in this mess?

I just do not get it.

Not that I'd would throw in the towel just yet. The political analysts have been so consistently wrong throughout this whole election that I don't trust either their numbers OR their ability to make inaccurate numbers into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Remember last year this time, when the media was *certain* that this would be a Hillary/Giuliani or Hillary/Romney race? Remember the huge wave behind the idea that Fred Thompson was going to be the Republican man on horseback? Remember how Hillary was going to wipe Obama off the face of the political map after Super Tuesday?

All is not lost. But it's going to be a really tough battle for Obama, and I still don't understand why.

-SW

9:41am: Strange flavor pancakes
So I usually make pancake batter with yogurt instead of (or in addition to milk). Makes for thicker and more robust pancakes.

This morning we had some leftover Egyptian-style tsatsiki that Sagasorceress made a few days ago that I didn't want to go bad, so I used that in the pancake mix. That and some fresh chopped strawberries.

From the smell alone as it all fried on the grill, Sagasorceress declined participation and made herself some toast with melted cheese. I nevertheless boldly went ahead and ate.

She awaited my response.

It was, "Festive."

Kind of like sweet and sour bread with dill and syrup.

To borrow a standby from notsweeney's first girlfriend, "Shan't try that again."

- SW

6:50am: 9/11 Anniversary
Today Americans will be remembering and mourning the loss of 2,974 innocent people in the 9/11 attacks. Behind each of those 2,974 people is a family, a set of friends, and a community still grieving and hurting from their loss.

Capitalizing on our grief and anger at 9/11, our country's leaders have launched two wars that have taken the lives of around 80,00-90,000 Iraqi civilians and around 10,000 Afghan civilians, not to mention 4,739 US soldiers. Behind every one of these deaths, also, is a family, a set of friends, and a community still grieving and hurting from their loss. And the death count keeps rising. So too does our government continue to rob us of our rights to privacy, a fair trial, etc, all in the name of keeping us "safe."

As we consider how to memorialize our own fallen, we need to ask ourselves, is this the legacy we want for them? Perhaps by the next anniversary of 9/11, we will have started down a path towards healing, and not just perpetuating the cycle of death, grief, and revenge.

- SW.

1:28pm: Weird moments in Bollywood
So apparently some Bollywood studio is being sued for ripping off Harry Potter with their new film, Hari Puttar, which from all appearances seems to be a Home Alone ripoff with some magic thrown in...

Oh, those silly Indians...

-SW

7:49pm: Sow now Vladimir Putin, Russia's no-longer-official-yet-still-kind-of-in-power President, is claiming that he found evidence of US military advisers in Georgia trying to provoke the conflict there as a means to get America involved in a military confrontation during election season, so that people would elect McCain.

Nutty conspiracy theorist? Or one power-mad ruler showing he knows how other power-mad rulers try to keep power?

Even a stopped clock can be right twice a day (once if it has a PM indicator...)

- SW

7:05pm: Obama's speech: Impressed and wowed me. Even though I know so much of the DNC is pagentry, I still feel that I have been turned around on my previous anti-Obama positions. No, the man is not perfect, no, he is not my ideal as a progressive, but he seems to have a set of core values that are actually somewhere close to mine. Spec:
- the idea that we are an interdependent nation
- that the wealthy need to pull more weight in supporting the working classes on whose backs they have made their money
- that health care is a human right
- that the Iraq war needs to end ASAP
- that America needs to restore its place as a member of an interconnected world
- that security is about far more than tanks and bombs
- that the struggles of minorities and women have been just ones

Still uncomfortable with his stances that
- putting more troops in Afghanistan and killing more people over there will somehow make us safer
- coal and nuclear energy, with a measly 10% renewables commitment, constitutes and enivornmental agenda (although lord knows it beats McCain's, which is just "drill more oil")

And frankly, I am 100% convinced that, although the country might not change in all the ways I want it to under Obama, ANYTHING would be a better option than McCain and his "continue the Bush agenda" policy.

Now, speaking of McCain...BIZARRE VP pick with Sarah Pailin. He's obviously trying to poach those pro-Hillary fanatics who vowed not to vote for Obama even if his opponent was Adolf Hitler. But really, even though the news give enormous airtime to these people, how many are there, REALLY? Come on. Plus Pailin's under indictment, although as we all know, Republicans are absolute teflon when it comes to the law.

I'm more impressed with how McCain used the announcement to steal thunder from Obama's post-election headrush. But that's a temporary thing. By next week it'll be old news.

Frankly, even the people I know who are planning on voting McCain don't particularly like HIM, they just can't bring themselves to vote for someone who is Pro-Choice, or who they think is going to raise their taxes (even though Obama claims he's only planning to raise taxes for the wealthiest 5%, and cut taxes for the rest). For people who think those issues are worth a continuation of Bush-style economic devastation and perpetual wars...geez, you totally deserve whatever horrible stuff happens to this country should your guy get elected.

If this were a fair electoral system, Obama would have a real shot of winning, but with all the rigged voting machines, he needs a huge lead. This election seems like a real turning point...will Americans be able to pull out of the nosedive, or are we so wedded to fear, anger and apathy that we will let our already half-buried nation dig its grave completely?

Because remember, kids, Al Qaeda killed 3000 people and knocked down a handful of buildings. It was horrible, but that was ALL. PERIOD. The economic RECESSION (bull on this "downturn" phrase), the crashes in the housing market, soaring gas prices, increasingly unaffordable health care and college education - WE let that all happen. The guy in the Oval Office either caused it (emptying the treasury and burying us in debt with tax cuts and two misguided wars) or took no real steps to stop it (Katrine, gas prices, etc). America's in shambles not because of a foreign enemy, but because of domestic villainy and incompetence. If we vote in that villainy for a third term, we don't even need foreign enemies. We'll be taking the knife to ourselves.

- SW

5:05pm: DOWN WITH THE CULTURE WARS!
Ok, in a somewhat Jonathan Swiftian moment, I decided to write "the op-ed piece I could never actually send anywhere." Except the internet, of course. :)

Down with the Culture Wars!

By Sagawizard

I am so sick of the so-called "culture wars". Ever since the 2000 election it seems as if Americans, against all rational thought and self-interest, continue to base their political alignment around a key set of cultural issues around which they become unmovable. They attach to these pet topics like some demented Chihuahua on a raft clutches on a bone, not letting go even though the raft is sinking due to much, much larger reasons.

The American raft is sinking because of high-energy prices, environmental corrosion, soaring health care costs, inadequate schools and an otherwise wrecked economy. Everyone, North or South of the Mason Dixon line, on the coasts or in the heartlands, can agree with this. But the decisions that make them cast their votes? The questions we hear moderators pose to candidates? Abortion. Gay Marriage. Immigration. Gun control.

It boggles the mind, and, worse, it allows both parties to offer candidates that propose no good solutions to the big raft-sinking issues, because they know the only things that turn out the votes are the culture war issues. They stoke these fires because it lets them off the hook for having to actually do anything real.

I'm sick of it. So I'm proposing a platform for our next presidential candidate, of either party, to end this stupidity once and for all, issue by issue:

1. ABORTION/CHOICE: Outlaw abortion, keep birth control legal and subsidize to make it cheap enough for anyone to afford it. This quiets the pro-lifers and lets pro-choice women still control their reproductive functions.
As a corollary to the abortion ban, however, the country pledges to provide childcare (on a sliding scale, based on net work, up to 100%), and I mean everything, food, clothing, medicine, the works, including special needs for retarded and disabled kids.
Will this increase government spending? Hell's yes. It will be huge. There will have to be new taxes. But when people complain, remind the entire Bible Belt that "savin' babies" doesn't come cheap, and if this issue was really of such shattering, handed down from God importance to you, then put your money where your mouth is and REALLY "save" these kids. You don't like it, go back to the old system and shut up. And if women don’t want to have this many kids, at least they won’t be the ones paying for them.

2. GAY MARRIAGE: Abolish the State role in marriages, all marriages. Replace the marriage license with a "civil union license" in all states and make it available to any non-related couple above age 17 who wants to get "unioned." Unions get all the tax benefits and legal advantages/restrictions that marriage entailed. If you want to call it a "marriage", you've got to get a house of worship to sign on to it. There are more than enough religions and denominations out there that someone will likely do it.
If the religious folk have a problem with someone, somewhere calling two men or two women a married couple, then tough, take it up with that church or synagogue or Rastafarian-ganja-hut that authorized it. Leave the State out of it and let politicians get back to real work.

3. GUN CONTROL and DRUG LEGALIZATION: Two with one blow here. Legalize all guns, everything up to and including howitzers. Legalize all drugs, which then removes the #1 thing that people commit violent gun-crimes over.
Tax the hell out of all gun and drug sales, and use that money to fund the medical bills for the increase in people getting shot or suffering overdoses. Case closed.

4. IMMIGRATION: Anyone inside the US is now a citizen. Congratulations. From this moment onwards, no more immigration, period. If you cross the border illegally, you get shot on sight, Checkpoint Charlie style. Exceptions: really skilled workers with abilities America needs and political refugees. No one else. When and if the population rate falls below a certain rate, or when and if it becomes clear we're lacking a certain vital skill, we might open our borders again. Will this make America weaker or stronger? Will it mar our image as a country that takes in all who come? Maybe. But we've restricted immigration before, and I'm willing to have us do it again if it shuts up the people who are always whining about this issue and distracting us from more important ones.

5. MORE JESUS IN AMERICAN SCHOOLS, COURTS, GOVERNMENT, etc. This one's simple. Set forth a nationwide referendum, one-person one vote, throughout the country, on the question of making America into a Jesus-based nation. Put it all in writing: ten commandments everywhere, teaching intelligent design/creationism in the schools, Christmas pageants and manger scenes in front of all federal buildings. "Merry Christmas, not Happy Holidays." People of other religions have to convert or lose citizenship. All happy?
But here's the catch: you have to dismantle the entire Department of Defense, the Pentagon, the entire military. Trash all nuclear weapons, dry-dock all cruisers, beat all swords into plowshares. Because at every freaking turn of the Bible, Jesus calls for peace, goodwill to men, turning the other cheek, etc. You CANNOT build a nation based on Jesus that has an army. Costa Rica is an example of a nation that has no army, so it's not far-fetched. Get foreign defense treaties the way they do.
Oh, and Jesus talked all about how worldly wealth was not the way to go, and how it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to get into the kingdom of heaven, and how the meek shall inherit. So do a complete state takeover of all private property, Soviet-style, and make it all public.
Write a constitutional amendment than includes all of this, and then vote. And if the amendment doesn't pass, then all of those Jesus freaks are hypocrites because they just want the idols and the perks, and don't want to do the hard work Jesus asked of them, face the hard questions that got the Romans so freaked out that they crucified the man. If America is willing to put themselves through that kind of crucible, then heck, even as a Jew, I'd convert and play along. Otherwise, shut up and let us get to the real issues.


There. All we need is one president to just carry this all out, and then we can actually get to improving out country. By the time the next election comes, candidates would actually have to do real work.
Either that, or a new culture war would form around Coke vs. Pepsi.

-SW-

12:41pm: I have to say I was impressed with Michelle Obama's speech yesterday.

I'm hoping it sets a tone for the campaign from here on out, because it took the road that I've been wishing for Obama this whole time: McCain is offering you fear, we are offering you hope.

My favorite part:

He talked about "The world as it is" and "The world as it should be." And he said that all too often, we accept the distance between the two, and settle for the world as it is - even when it doesn't reflect our values and aspirations. But he reminded us that we know what our world should look like. We know what fairness and justice and opportunity look like. And he urged us to believe in ourselves - to find the strength within ourselves to strive for the world as it should be. And isn't that the great American story?

I actually do agree with that. Whenever I travel abroad, people I speak with tell me the defining thing about Americans isn't their money, or their rudeness, or any of the other stereotypes...it's that they don't accept the world as it is. Most Europeans I've met, and CERTAINLY most members of the former Soviet Union I've met, seem, even by their own admission, rather cynical about the way the world works.

Americans have defied "common knowledge" so many times, and with it done some pretty amazing (and pretty horrible) things, but the point is, that's us. We don't take "no" for an answer. We created national public schooling, national highways, the internet, an enormous slave-driven economy AND then tore it down...all sorts of things unimaginable to the "authorities" of the day.

Hell, just this morning argued my internet provider out of their latest rate hike by just being stubborn as hell until they gave me the price I wanted.

If I didn't refuse to accept "no" for an answer, I couldn't go into my classroom every day and teach a bunch of teenagers who want to be anywhere but sitting in front of me.

Speaking to this quality in Americans will make them feel GOOD, in an otherwise lousy time.

McCain, when he speaks to Americans, makes them feel AFRAID. That in itself has its advantages. But, at least in America, hope speaks louder than fear.

Yes, Obama has been tossing the word "hope" around a great deal, but in practice most of what he spends his time doing is defending his "patriotism" and trying to show how "tough", in a realpolitik sense, he is. Which is a mistake.

He needs to create tangible visions of a better America in voters' minds. It worked for FDR, with his "chicken in every pot" speech. McCain really has no defense against this approach, other than looking like that crusty old guy who sits on a porch and says, "that'll never work, that'll never work", which is what Obama needs to paint him as.

Every time McCain waves the specter of war and terrorism in people's faces, Obama needs to re-direct the conversation the way his wife did last night, and talk about a focus on people's jobs, health and wallets at home as opposed to guns and tanks abroad.

Every time McCain starts igniting the culture wars with talk of abortion and gay marriage, Obama needs to talk about issues that transcend those allegiances - the environment, health care, etc.

I know I've been saying that for months now, but Michelle Obama finally seems to be doing it. Let's hope her husband follows suit.

If he does, I might even in good conscience vote for him.

-SW

7:53am: And the Obama Veep shall be...


Joe Biden.

Hm. Interesting. Not a result I would have called.

Pros:
- tons of foreign policy experience
- tons of washington experience
- I generally like his politics - an "old school" liberal who actually believed in progressive causes


Cons:
- voted for the Iraq War (although one of those "now that it's not popular I consider my vote a mistake" Democrats)
- Catholic (in a country that's only ever tolerated one Catholic in the oval office, and then shot him)
- not a woman (so the "nobama" former Hillary voters have more reason to sit this one out)
- has made a bunch of verbal gaffes over the years which the McCain campaign can easily pull out of the archives

worst of all

- doesn't bring in any swing states, any new constituencies (ok, maybe Catholics, but Obama's pro-choice so I don't see Catholics voting for him anyway)


So I'm left feeling personally kind of good, in that Biden (his war vote aside) is the kind of guy I'd like to see in charge of things, but bad in that I think this is another in a famous line of idiot strategic moves on the Democrats' part. Obama should have picked someone with certified Southern White Cracker credentials, or a woman, or a woman with Southern White Cracker credentials, or some psuedo-liberal military mind like Wesley Clarke...

...I just don't see what Biden brings...

I mean, I suppose it could be worse, he could have picked Walter Mondale...

I dunno, at this point my only hope for a McCain defeat is McCain making some hideous botch, like getting a Nam flashback during a trip to the Vatican and punching out the Pope...

- SW

3:55pm: Yarrrr!
Avast! Don't look now, but apparently pirate attacks are on the rise, with Iranian, Japanese and other merchant vessels getting fired upon, boarded and looted for booty.

Dunno what's weirder, this or the fact that the Canadians are apparently coming to the rescue...


- SW

6:02pm: Really interesting Atlantic Monthly article about the challenges facing either McCain or Obama should they win and the country remain as polarized as it is...

- SW

10:14am: TARGET's best political ad?
...so I'm making an omelet this morning (which required not only the breaking of a few eggs, but the slicing of a few tomatoes) and listening to the radio, and on comes this really well-done ad in which a suburban family talks, in Leave-it-to-Beaver 1950s style, about how they've been saving their pennies, and how the dad just got a big bonus check, so it's time to splurge, etc etc, except you find out they're talking about doctor's visits. Little Johnny is selling lemonade in the hopes of saving up for allergy shots. Dad is going to spend his bonus check on a doctor's visit. Little Janie has been walking by the glass case dreaming of saving up for vaccinations. And it's all done in this happy-happy "can do" style, which drives the irony home harder.

Sounds like a perfect Obama ad, doesn't it, arguing for national healthcare to help out working families?

Nope. It's from Target. Advertising low prices on over the counter medicines.

It's a really good at that does what Obama has been failing to - speak to the anxieties that unite Americans. Last time I checked, Obama was busy defending his "willingness to confront evil" and being excoriated for not being as direct about it as McCain. It's exactly what I was afraid of, Obama getting sucked into a "No, no, I hate Al Qaeda even MORE than you!" kind of debate, while failing to capitalize on the fertile ground of discontent about real things the last 8 years have laid out for him.

The Target PR people were brilliant in co-opting this. The solution to your problems doesn't require political change, say the corporations. It just requires finding the best buy at the best location, which we provide!

If this capitalist/libertarian wet-dream were true, then why has every unregulated industry (energy companies, mortgage lenders, defense contractors) run itself into bankruptcy, screwed over thousands of people, and eventually had to be bailed out by the government in an act of grand (if grossly unequitable) socialism? I'm supposed to trust freakin' TARGET with my health?

Well, apparently so, because all Obama cares about is how tough he can look speaking about Iran or Russian or whatever-stan we've been told is our real enemy this week. If I were him, I'd hire the same ad agency Target did. Maybe that VP nominee he's been teasing us with will be Sam Wall of Walmart...

- SW

(unrepentently swiped my new LJ icon from sabbathunter)

9:44am: Musharraf's outta here
Wow. Really puts you to shame when the people of Pakistan can successfully impeach THEIR president. A president who's a military dictator, supported by the most powerful country in the world. And they still successfully kicked him out.

Sometimes I think US democracy's like the best 10 speed performance bike in the world that its owners just leave out in the rain all the time to rust...

-SW

5:28pm: Saga's encounter with the FBI
File this one under "What the f***?":

So I come home and find a plain white envelope in my mailbox, no address, no stamp. I figure it's either from my landlord or a neighbor, so as I start wondering whom I might have pissed off recently and how, I open it up.

I find a half-sheet of paper with a typed message (grammatically correct, but with some improper use of capitalization) claiming that it is from the FBI, and that it is important they speak with the recipient of this note because they are conducting a background check on someone in the area, and it's a matter of national security. There is a business card attached with a single staple.

I look and I see my neighbors have similar white envelopes in their boxes.

Now, any critically thinking person in this day and age of spam, scam and id theft would of course come to the conclusion that this is bogus. But there are plenty of stupid gullible people out there who might feel moved to do their "civic duty" and hand over to this jokester their bank account numbers or something, so I decided to do MY civic duty and call up the real FBI office in Boston, which of course does NOT have the same phone number as is listed on the card.

I call up and say I have reason to believe someone is impersonating an agent, and so the operator immediately transfers me to an investigator's desk, and I describe the whole thing to them...

...and am told that it is REAL.

That's right, that it's legit.

What...the...???

I actually burst out laughing. I describe to them the condition of the paper, the capitalization errors, and the guy on the other end insists its real.

But no address or postmark? It's "canvassing", I'm told, and it's a "tactic" (I wonder if this "tactic" is designed to save money on postage stamps so the FBI director can afford an ivory-plated desktag).

I say, "Look, it's not that you need advice from me, but if you're going to have people take this seriously, shouldn't you at least print on letterhead or something?", and the guy sighs and says, "Yeah, yeah, I know." Then he asks for my personal data, which I politely refuse to give him, and hang up.

For the hell of it, now, (and to make sure *I'm* not the person being investigated), I call up the number on the card, and speak to the agent. He asks me about my former housemate from 4 years ago, the woman with whom I had a fight with about the laundry that was so annoying that I wound up writing a column about her that got printed in the local paper. I didn't share that story with him.

He asks if I have any information about her activities that would make me suspicious about her having national security clearance, and I honestly answer that I am completely unqualified to address that question. He then asks for my personal data, which I politely refuse to give him, and hang up.

Surreal encounter of the day, I guess.

I always used to find it strained credibility on the X-files that the FBI would employ someone like Fox Mulder, but truth as usual is stranger than FOX shows...

- SW

10:16pm: Joss Whedon is my new (well, old) deity!
Ok, I realize I'm probably BEHIND the curve on this and you've all seen it, but if you haven't, you NEED, right now, NEED, to go to Itunes and download the three episode run of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog. Just finished it and now I am squee-ing like a little girl.

Seriously. Written by Joss Wheadon starring Doogie Houser, "Mal" from Serenity, and some girl I don't know but she's hot. It made me laugh till I nearly pissed, and also brought tears to my eyes.

It is the best $5 you will spend all month

- SW

8:51pm: Changed our shower curtain today. I am feeling surprisingly good about this.

-SW

8:05pm: Meditations on achieving godhood
Had a strange conversation with SagaSorceress today after reading a book about deogenesis in Hinduism, and how new gods are arising all the time, including one based on a movie character. Not the actor, mind you...but her CHARACTER...who now has a following that earnestly worships that character as a god, and thus she's pretty much "in" the pantheon (along with several hundred thousand other gods). An IDEA becomes a deity...very Neil Gaimanesque.

Somehow got us on the topic of if Oprah has become a goddess in people's minds, and if so, does it matter that there is a real live Oprah who is not a goddess. I mean, in the eyes of non-Christians, there was a real live Jesus but that doesn't stop Christians from worshipping the IDEA of the god-Jesus.

That got us talking about Barack Obama, and how his campaign has essentially been about creating the IDEA of a hope-producing, nation-saving changemaker even though the actual GUY is kind of an ordinary centrist, and if anything gets him elected it will be that IDEA and people's faith in it...

Thoughts, anyone?

-SW

3:05pm: Celebrating victories when they come!
Massachusetts House and Senate passed the Global Warming Solutions Act, and Gov Patrick has said he'd sign it. The bill outlines procedures to reduce Massachusetts' carbon footprint up to 25% by 2020, and 80% by 2050. Which is of course not as dramatic a change as is needed, but which is way ahead of most of the rest of the nation...and, sadly, way behind Europe...but it's SOMETHING. And I definitely feel a part of the process, having been involved in the campaign that got 25,000 petition signatures, phone calls and e-mails.

Our governor also repealed the 1913 miscegenation law that was keeping people from other states from getting married in MA. particularly like the Governor's statement that, in the 5 years since the MA SJC allowed Gay Marriage, "the sky has not fallen, the earth has not opened to swallow us all up, and more to the point, thousands and thousands of good people, contributing members of our society, are able to make free decisions about their personal future". Of course, both the SJC decision and Patrick's move here are also the results of hundreds of thousands of people working for years in grassroots activism.

This, and the above environmental bill, really show a nice model of what is possible when you synthesize organized public movements with sane political leadership, not to mention economics (allowing out of state couples to move here and marry is going to be a huge cash cow for the state, proving once again that racism/sexism/homophobia actually interferes with good capitalism...the ideal capitalist buys and sells from ANYONE, and doesn't discriminate except on the basis of bank account size)

As much as I have problems with Obama, I am willing to entertain the...cautious hope...that he, like Patrick (also a politician with a capital P) would be a similarly sympathetic political leader. Bush's hallmark, his point of personal pride, is how he "doesn't govern by the polls" and ignores public opinion (or anyone else's input, for that matter, from Congress to his own generals, save for Cheney, Rove, and the rest of the ratpack...oh, and Jesus, who he claims speaks to him). While this has been a real positive from a getting-things-done point of view (Bush has accomplished more change in this country than I've ever seen a president since LBJ do), unfortunately, the things he got done really hurt the populace. Since McCain has become Bush Mark II, I have every reason to believe he'll be the same...which leads me to hope Obama will become more of a Patrick-style, "if you can convince me it's in my self-interest and I'll make money off it, I'll do it" kind of leader, because you can at least work with such a person.

-SW

3:41pm: Good news is always a welcome sight
Wow. Sometimes even a neutered dog can bear its fangs. The House voted successfully today to hold Karl Rove in contempt, for which he could serve up to a year of jail time. He'll fight it on appeal, of course, but this is still a major step towards trying to hold SOMEONE in the Bush Admin. responsible for the illegal expansion of Presidential powers over the last 8 years. This, on the heels of the SC decision to reinstate Habeas Corpus, is giving me some hope that we might yet emerge from this mess with an intact Democracy again.

In regards to an intact PLANET, I'm urging all Massachusetts residents to click here for some more easy activism in asking House Speaker DeMasi to sign on to pass the state's Global Warming Solutions Act, which the State Senate already approved but the House is on the fence. The deadline is tomorrow so please act now.

-SW

8:34pm: Gung-ho-bama
In keeping with my earlier posting, our "antiwar" candidate Obama just said he would send 10,000 more troops to Afghanistan if he were elected. Wonder where they're going to come from, since he's unwilling to pull out of Iraq before 2011?

- SW

4:28pm: And...here we go again...whee!
Back from Nippon, just about over jetlag, and now off to send the circadian clocks spinning again as SagaSorceress and I head off for Greece and Turkey where, I imagine, one cannot find Turkeys.

Our itinerary (cue the Indiana Jones red line) takes us from the US to Madrid (me) and Frankfurt (SS), long layovers later into Athens, and then we slowly move down the Aegean, lingering on Samos, ferrying over to Kusadasi in Turkey, and then taking buses all the way up the coast (stopping at Troy, of course!) to Istanbul.

Then a flight to Cappadocia, where, yes, I have secured us accommodations in a cave, because caves are cool and also quite cheap. Then back to Istanbul, then back home, through a wild and crazy series of connections thru Germany and Canada. Yes, this is how we afford such weird wild travels...connections by way of Sri Lanka, hotels that if we're lucky have 4 walls, and peanut butter for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But hey, we get to see the world.

Sagas to come, no doubt. Wish us luck!

- SW

9:45pm: You lost me, Obama.
Despiriting times for those of us who had been Obama supporters. I really allowed myself the luxury of buying into his messages about hope and change, and the last few weeks have kicked me hard in the teeth, driving home the message that this man is in fact, a politician, and a rather centrist one at that. His faith based stuff, his flag pin - annoying. His FISA vote - unforgivable. His change on the war in Iraq - an outright betrayal of those who voted him into victory, just like the 2006 Democratic Congress.

Time to face facts that this election will be, in South Park terms, one more runoff between a giant douche and a turd sandwich, at least on the issues I care about:

1.Restoring our raped Constitutional and privacy rights: Not only do neither Obama nor McCain support this, but both are accelerating the loss of our freedoms.

2. Iraq War: McCain is merely being more forthright about his decision to continue investing gazillions in a failed, unjust, immoral and ineffective war. If Obama keeps backsliding on his promise, he'll soon be pretty much equivalent.

3. Afghanistan War: Obama came out pretty early after his victory over Clinton into saying he wants to accelerate this war. So does McCain.

4. Environmental Policy: Both men talk a good game about finding alternate fuels and weaning off oil dependency, but McCain's plan is mostly coal (polluting) and corn-biodeisel (inefficient and robs us of food supply) and Obama's plan remains nebulous.

5. Education: Heard next to nill from either of them on it, but with most of our money going towards war, how will either of them do anything significant for this issue?

6. Gay Rights: Both oppose gay marriage.

7. Women's Rights: Ok, so this is the only choice voters have really had for the last 20 years in this "you can have a Model T in any color so long as it's black" political landscape.

8. Health Care: Here, too, there might be a difference, but once again, how do you pay for health care if the lion's share of federal resources go towards war?

The Democrats seem to have forgotten that abandoning the left to seek centrist voters, arrogantly claiming "who else are you going to vote for, the Republican? Mwahaha!", failed them as a strategy in the last two elections.

But I've pretty much written off that party as being good for anything. Obama gave me a flicker of hope it might be different, but now that's gone.

What hope I have lies in off-the-media-radar organizations. The ACLU, via the Supreme Court, won us back our right to Habeas Corpus, and marriage equality groups are fighting and, in many cases, winning battles for gay rights. Environmental groups are organizing consumers, with success, to pressure companies to offer all sorts of environmentally friendlier technologies. State and local governments are adopting stricter greenhouse standards. As for the war...well, the antiwar movement, sadly, has been an utter failure, because people just don't care enough to go to the wall, go on strike, block up shipping traffic, and do all the things that have stopped wars before. Things just have to get worse at home - maybe once we invade Iran, get a Draft, and all the public schools close due to lack of funding, people will start to consider stopping the wars a priority.

But my point is, no more money of mine is going to the Democratic Party on a federal level, period. I'm done being hoodwinked. Government, for the foreseeable future, is inescapably conservative and reactionary. Right-wingers, rejoice - you have well and truly won this round, this round being the 2000s.

Maybe some day, the Democrats will undergo a revolution from within, or maybe a new party will arise, but that's in the future. For the present, any hope for a more progressive future for this country is in the hands of small groups of concerned citizens, as Margaret Mead would say. That's where my efforts are going - screw the general election, it's just for the media circus.

- SW