go_team

I need to go to the store for basic food staples like eggs and bread (we've finally admitted that the bread machine isn't working) but in the meantime, a little brain dump.

Previously worrisome tax stuff about the house has been sorted with our big scary corporate lender; now all I have to do is remind Lane County that I own this house, too. That's not so bad. However, while I'm on the subject of taxes, I for one am not happy to hear that the Bush administration's tax reforms may focus on taxing consumption instead of income. That translates as "big tax cuts for people with more money than they can spend", mmkay? It is bad news if you are spending anywhere near what you earn, living paycheck to paycheck, or borrowing money, you will be paying proportionally more. Isn't that kind of the definition of regressive taxation? I haven't looked it up yet, but I'm definitely feeling suspicious. If any of you want to beat me to researching this and writing or drawing it up in catchy Internet meme form, please feel free.

I think maybe I need one of these shirts. Longsleeve, though; my t-shirt collection is still pretty out of control. I'm glad to report that my crew at work is mostly shell-shocked and/or disgusted by the events of this Tuesday; the one guy who probably voted for Bush isn't scheduled to work with me for at least another two weeks, so that's all good. By then I'm sure he'll be rooting for some other team he thinks is a winner, or else I can always ~~kick him in the balls~~ ~~accidentally bump him with a hot pan~~ add him to my list of "okay, so you voted for the guy, now explain me why" interviewees. I think I'll probably be able to maintain horrified curiosity, but if he gets obnoxious, there's always the hot pan fallback plan.

I am loving SorryEverybody.com. Part of me still wants to be writing letters to everyone I know outside the U.S. to remind them that 3.5 million is not that big a lead and there's no way of knowing how much of it is faked or stolen or due to voter intimidation or crappy machines or provisional ballots or whatever but most importantly there's still millions of people in this country who are not actively trying to bring about the Eschaton. But actions are louder than words, yes? Better than a personal letter from me to a few friends and relatives is for many more people to see the world news have report millions of U.S.-ians protesting the stupids in charge. Hint, hint, y'all.

Speaking of news, self-censorship can suck it. Last night after I finished closing, I stopped by the office to chat with my manager, as I am wont to do. He's in "turn off the TV'" mode, which I can respect a bunch, oh yes. But I was never big on the TV to begin with, and I do still want to keep informed. This is where all y'all help me make a list of independent media sources so I can see things through more filters than just The New York Times, AlterNet, and whatever generic Associated Press-style shows up on my Yahoo! homepage when I make my daily email check there. I check out Common Dreams from time to time, I don't read or listen to Democracy Now! nearly as much as I should (note to self; independent radio news is kewl) and I like Salon, maybe even enough to put my money where that comment is and subscribe (they do, after all, publish Lynda Barry and Keith Knight's comix, which is reason enough to love them right there). But where else should I be looking? Keep me posted, kids!

I don't want to take the No on 36 sign out of our window. I'm thinking of adapting it to say "Constitutional Amendment 36 is still wrong".

At the very least, I'm working on compiling a big list of the good and hopeful and productive and just interesting things people are saying in the wake of this election. I'll probably write some more about hope, since that's my theme for now, but after that I'm not sure where to go. Do I try to make it into a book? Would any of you who wrote in last time be interested in contributing to a book about hope? How about a more self-published indie zine-type thingy that we sell on the Internet all underground economy style because it's easier than trying to shop things around to publishers? Again, bring the ideas, please.

Note to self: write defiant "Dear U.S. of A." letter.

Current Mood: out-reachy
Current Music: Wig in a Box (Hedwig covers; a mixed bag)

So. Having got my cussing out of the way, what I really have to say about yesterday's U.S. Presidential election mostly concerns the popular vote. (Mandate or not, it's orders of magnitude better than last time, and oh shit international opinion is not going to be good, but I'm trying to keep my thoughts as local as possible for the time being.) I find it hard to believe that more than half the country thinks we're on the right track and should keep going along these lines, but that's what the people who voted yesterday seem to be saying. Yeah, there's been plenty of dirty tricks and voter fraud and intimidation and whatnot --- again --- but 4 million is too big a number for me to write off as pure corruption. Much as the goings-on in Ohio may resemble those in Florida in 2000, at the end of the day there's some 4 million more people who voted "four more years!" over "no! please! anything but that!" and that means either this year's spectacular get-out-the-vote efforts were unable to reach a lot of malcontent and disenfranchised people, or there's a lot more people in favor of the status quo than I thought, and it's making me feel even more like an alien than usual. That said, it's been reassuring to retreat into the bubble of like-minded people on my LiveJournal Friends list, even if it doesn't really change anything in any way. Which is starting to get to the point of this post. You may have already heard or read something by me to this effect before, but I feel it's worth repeating:

Despite all the stupid TV news coverage about the hate and anger and fear driving this election, none of those have ever been the emotion or the question driving me. And I refuse to believe that everyone else who voted this time around was doing it just for hate or fear or anger, too. My emotion, whether I'm feeling it or just thinking about it, is hope. Because (as I told auranja,) dammit, I voted in an effort to make the world suck less. Isn't that the goal? Isn't that what it's all about? C'mon, Team Humanity, help me out here! It's almost enough to make me hit the streets with a tape recorder to start interviewing people. My question before this election and now, and probably for the next four years, and maybe beyond, is: Where do you get your hope? Because hope/hoping is a choice, and I think voting is an inherently hopeful act, or else why bother, because I'm so mind-boggled by the thought that there's so many people out there who pinned their hopes on the Bush/Cheney ticket, and to my everlasting surprise I don't want to give up on the idea that this is still all one country yet, and finally because I'm all too obnoxiously prone to fits of apathy and despair, I think hope is a good theme to be thinking and acting on for a while.

And on that note, I'd like to thank everybody on my LJ friends list who's posted something hopeful, and thank a few people in particular for entries that made me somewhat happier. I'm glad to report that the number of these entries is growing, and I may keep adding to this list, more or less in the order in which I find the entries that qualify for my admittedly somewhat arbitrary "hope fodder" standards: Abi, Lisa, Marcy (as always, way better than Barbie), Crazy Old Man Meyer, my favorite itinerant philosopher, Sara, Dan, and even Kim's little bit of black humor here. I've also had beneficial non-LJ conversations with ideath and pants_of_doom, although there's nothing written I can point you to there.

So. This is the audience participation part of my post. I've thought of another thing I should've added to my list of things I'm not worried about yesterday (filtered), which is my friends being anything less than completely awesome. So tell me about hope, friends. Where do you get your hope? What makes you choose to hope? What inspires your hopes? And so on. I will be filtering your answers, so no one can read them but me; let me know if you want to keep them private thoughts between us or you're cool with me showing them to the whole wide world (this is a public post). Tell your friends to tell me about hope, if you like. Like I said, I want to write about this. I want to think about it a lot. So give me food for thought.

This entry took me literally hours to write, and I've been composing it mentally for far longer. If I'd waited much longer in posting it, I might have had enough second thoughts to keep from posting it at all.

Current Mood: hopeful, dammit.

( Get Your War On cusses for me, but it's too wide for my Friends page so I'm hiding it to spare the myself the formatting issues. )

Current Mood: indescribable
Current Music: Two Towers soundtrack (few words, like me)

Now this is election coverage I can stand to watch.

Current Mood: temporarily not ALL stress.
Current Music: Jon Stewart being funny.

Somehow I managed to miss the following IMs last night:

qousqous: ok so i have a question for you

qousqous: say rehnquist dies this weekend, and there is a lawsuit over the election, and it goes to the supreme court

qousqous:what happens if the court splits 4-4?

qousqous:because i for one have no clue.

I have no answer, except, "Then your Election Night party becomes even more of a slumber party than it already was," and "Dammit! This is why the Supreme Court shouldn't be allowed to get involved in deciding elections in the first place!"

In happier news, I got up because of a phone call from a piano mover and tuner who sounded way more competent and friendly than anyone I called yesterday, so I think he's my guy. Soon I will go to Rachel's house to check out the piano in question, and then we will go to tea. Yay tea! Also while I'm downtown, I will get Dan Bern tickets for Thursday night.... hey, I wonder what happened to the library books I was going to return? Mysteries abound.

Current Mood: tea! and piano!

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Entries tagged with 2004 election

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Where do you get your hope?

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Bless the Daily Show.

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April 2009

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