I Voted Today

And it felt triumphant.

I waited in line for over an hour; there were so many people there at 1 p.m. on a Thursday afternoon. I didn't see anyone turn away because of the lines. People just determinedly took their place and held it. There was remarkably little discussion of politics, probably because everyone thought that everyone else was on the "other side," but we did strike up a conversation with a nice older woman behind us who told us that "my mother must be spinning in her grave that I'm not voting Republican." This was the first time she had switched and voted for the Democratic candidate. "This has gone too far" she said.

We agreed. Let's hope a majority of Americans do, too.

Eminem for President

This justifies my secret love of Eminem, which I have not admitted publicly until now. Watch it. Watch it again. Go buy a black sweatshirt.

Bush Cousins for Kerry

"Because blood is thinner than oil."

More Happy Pics

Here. Scroll down.

I Try to Be Cynical, But it's Hard to Keep Up

This one is actually beyond cynicism. This one is into Holy Fucking Shit Territory, down Jesus Fucking Christ Lane, turn left at FUBAR. The New York Times today (yes, yes, all a part of a liberal ploy to damage Bush before the election, with help of the Iraqis and the IAEA, which my conservative students think is actually a socialist company owned by Sweden) reports that some 380 TONS of explosives were looted in the early days of the 'liberation,' probably while Bush was on that damn aircraft carrier in San Diego spouting "Crusade (excuse me: Mission) Accomplished!" The Administration claims that it did not report the missing plastic explosives because it didn't want the insurgency to know they were missing. ?*^&%@*@#&^#*? They have the explosives, people! They're not actually missing to them! It's not news to them! (Those of you who know me know that I only use exclamation points under extreme duress. Expect more in the coming week.)

And in other horrifying above-the-fold news, 50 Iraqi solidiers were ambushed by people dressed as policeman and shot, executed. In the picture on the Times front page, they are a ragged lot, in various kinds of clothing. All of them, presumably, wished to do something for their country and their people. All of them, at least, wanted to provide for their family by signing up for one of the only paying jobs around (how's that reconstruction effort going, Rummy?) And how did it end for them? On a dusty, hot and lonely road, killed by their own countrymen.

We must get out. We must get out. We must get out.

Happy Picture

Check out this picture from a rally in PA with John Kerry and the Big Dog himself...though it's being reported as "hundreds" of supporters, as per usual corporate-media method of counting (multiply Bush supporters and crazy anti-choice people by 3, discount Dems and Lefties by half).

Why, is that your M.A. thesis you're not writing today? Why, yes, it is, thank you.

Damn Reality! Damn Facts! Imaginary Moral Vaccuum Good!

From Ron Suskind, New York Times Magazine (10/17/2004):

"In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'

what is this glass between us?

Saw I [Heart] Huckabee's last night, a great film. There's a scene where Jude Law's obnoxious corporate character (appropriately named Brad) is confronted with a recording of a story that he tells all the time: June 21st, in the car, August 8th, in the boardroom, etc. And as most of us would do when confronted with our story line, he disintegrates. He is forced to be present with himself without his storyline, without the ongoing narrative that we all carry in our heads that tells us who we are, and why we are Important. He stares into the abyss, and the abyss stares back at him, and it's a testament to Jude Law as an actor that he no longer looks like a stunningly beautiful man, but just a human, looking in the mirror for the first time and not liking what he sees very much.