I’m trying to figure out where to watch the election results after I’m done working the polls. I definitely don’t want to be alone, win or lose. I got an e-mail about an Election Party at Kieran’s, an Irish pub in downtown Minneapolis. If anyone wants to join me, drinks are on me. And we might need a lot of drinks.
One way or another, this election will come to an end on Tuesday or (hopefully) soon after that. And we’ll have to live the outcome while keeping some modicum of perspective. The world will not end if Bush is re-elected. Likewise, Kerry will not be able to usher in a Progressive Golden Age if he is elected. This election is critical, no doubt about it, but there is more to human existence than politics and we’ll all remember that soon enough. There are always new endeavors to attempt, new places to visit, new friends and lovers to discover. Life is too short to spend it brooding over what might have been. Sometime after the election, I’m hoping to persuade a friend to take a trip with me to warmer latitudes. The skies over Minneapolis have been interminably gray for the last few weeks and I wouldn’t mind seeing blue skies and blue water again.
But for the next four days, it’s go time, people.
A college friend in Madison told me on Wednesday they were expecting 60,000 people for the Kerry rally featuring Bruce Springsteen. Looks like the actual attendance was more like 80,000-100,000. You can find some amazing pictures here. Yes, it’s heavily Democratic Madison, but I can’t imagine Bush being able to turn out 100K, even with an assist from someone like Schwarzenegger.
One thing that the voter protection trainer didn’t cover very well on Tuesday was the rights of voters with disabilities. There is the expectation within much of the disability community that GOP challengers may try to block individuals with perceived cognitive disabilities from voting. They may try to convince election judges that if someone has a guardian, they aren’t eligible to vote. It’s a bullshit argument, but it’s a method designed to intimidate potential voters. I don’t predict that this will be a huge problem, but it will be something I’ll be watching for on Tuesday. I’m not as worried about physical accessibility of the polls. In general, Minnesota does a good job of ensuring access to voting places.
If you still don’t believe that there are active efforts to suppress voter turnout, look at this flyer that was being distributed in African-American neighborhoods in Milwaukee. Sometimes I wonder if I’m not paranoid enough.
Can the Sox pull off a sweep tonight? They’re up 1-0 in the 2nd as I type this. And will a Sox win somehow translate into another point or two for Kerry in the polls? Though I’m not a huge baseball fan, I know there are some long-suffering Sox fans out there who have been waiting for a very, very long time for their team to reach this pinnacle. For your sakes, I hope you don’t have to wait any longer than tonight.
Ever since I first heard “Stan,” I’ve liked Eminem’s music. I put his stuff on when I’m feeling like the world just doesn’t get me. I don’t buy the accusations that he’s a misogynist or a homophobe. Those claims seem to confuse his stage persona with his true self. Eminem is a gifted writer and his latest single, “Mosh,” is a great anthem for the upcoming election. It’s currently on heavy rotation on MTV and the video suits the music perfectly. Watch it yourself and see what I mean. If it gets a few thousand more young people into the voting booth, a few thousand more to tip the scales, Eminem should be given some sort of honorary post in the White House, like Undersecretary of Angry Suburban Youth Affairs.
I attended voter protection training earlier tonight at the U of M Law School. It felt really weird to be sitting in the same room and in the exact same spot I occupied for Con Law and Employment Law. I’ll confess to having a few nostalgic pangs as I sat there. For all the times I may gripe about law school, it was three of the most exciting and intellectually charged three years of my life. Which reminds me, I felt kind of sorry for the guy leading the training tonight. The room was filled with maybe 60-70 attorneys and law students who kept peppering the poor man with questions and hypotheticals to the point where you could tell he was getting flustered. This is what happens when you convene a roomful of attorneys; we get all Socratic Method on your sorry ass. Nevertheless, I’m looking forward to Tuesday and playing a small role in the election.
Sitting in a a warehouse somewhere is an iPod Photo with my name on it. I wonder how much I can get for my old one on eBay. More than a C-note, you think?
Dear Chief Justice Rehnquist:
I hope you’re adjusting to life with a tracheotomy. As I’m sure you’re discovering, it takes a bit of getting used to. Your mouth and nose won’t play their traditional roles anymore. You’ll have to make a deliberate effort to smell something. You’ll have to be careful not to button your shirt collar over the trach tube. Neckties present similar challenges. Given your specific health condition, you shouldn’t have any problems eating. Talking might take some practice, though. With a tracheotomy, air leaves the body before it can pass the vocal cords. So you’ll either have to plug the tube with your finger or get it fitted with a one-way valve. You might notice that your voice is softer or raspier. If you’re finding that counsel is having trouble hearing your questions during oral arguments, just have Justice Thomas repeat them for you. It might have the added effect of forcing him to sit up and listen a little more closely himself.
If you have any questions about living happily with a trach, have one of your clerks give me a call. My consulting fee is very reasonable.
Sincerely,
Mark
This election is becoming positively bizarre. You have ads featuring wolves. Ads featuring ostriches. Trekkies for Kerry. I’m at the point where I want to turn off the television, shove my computer in a closet, and spend the next ten days in a North Woods cabin reading overwrought, epic novels (anything by James Michener should do) and smoking my way through a very large bag of pot. Anyone care to join me?
Through the magic of BitTorrent, I downloaded the first episode in a BBC documentary called The Power of Nightmares. It compares two groups, American neoconservatives and radical Muslims, and each group’s brand of fear-mongering. If the first episode is any indication, the series should be a compelling portrait of how these two groups unwittingly provide fodder for each other’s ideologies. Let me know if you need a link for the torrent.
I’m sure a lot of you have heard about the recent PIPA survey that examines the worldviews of Bush and Kerry supporters. It presents some interesting statistics. 56% of Bush supporters believe Iraq had WMD. 57% think the rest of the world wants Bush elected again. 80% think that Bush favors a treaty to ban landmines. A lot of left-leaning bloggers are using this report as proof that Bush supporters are stupid, uninformed, or both. That kind of attack strikes me as cheap and overly simplistic. It’s not that these people are stupid. I think what’s really going on is that Bush inspires an almost cultish following that forces his true believers to resolve their cognitive dissonance with a kind of hysterical blindness. Of course the world loves him. Of course he loves the environment. Of course, he was right when he connected Iraq to 9/11. For these people, any attempt to acknowledge his flaws and failures is tantamount to a loss of faith. And most people don’t part with their faith easily.
But that doesn’t we ignore the source of the problem. This ad should receive heavy airplay in the final days of the election. It’s devastating.
News just broke that Jesse Ventura, our previous governor with a penchant for feather boas, has endorsed Kerry after initially declining to endorse anyone. It was a weird endorsement (Ventura had a proxy speak for him), but whatever. This might be enough to convince a few fence-sitters who voted for Ventura in 1998. Every little bit helps. Another former Minnesota governor, Republican Elmer Anderson, also endorsed Kerry. Then there’s American Conservative magazine, that leftist rag and another Kerry endorser. At this rate, the only people endorsing Bush will be Pat Robertson and Toby Keith.
I’ve concluded that writing sex scenes is hard. It’s hard work. Honestly, I don’t know how people make a living writing romance novels and erotica. I just finished the first sex scene in my book and I can’t tell you how many hours I wasted staring at the screen, trying not to sound like a frequent poster on alt.sex.stories. I kept asking myself “Does this sound real, or am I subconsciously writing Jenna Jameson’s next script?” Maybe that’s the difference. Romance and erotica dwell in a universe where the usual rules of human behavior don’t apply. You can have your characters exploring orifices with little or no set-up. General fiction asks for more believability, for the reader to be able to nod her head and say, “Sure, I can buy that.” I’m not sure if I buy it yet.
S-s-s-o c-c-c-cold. I’m back from the Kerry rally and I’m reassessing my stance on mittens. I normally don’t wear mittens because I regard them as a tad…what’s the word…wussy. But I wouldn’t mind having a little sensation in my fingers right now. Anyway, to the pictures:
Not my best work, but good enough. And here’s one I didn’t take; I wanted to give you a sense of the crowd size:
Kerry sounded like a real populist on the stage. The crowd loved him. I may be wrong, but I’m willing to bet my salary that Minnesota stays blue on November 2nd.