#36 - four more years.

i don't know if you guys have heard about this yet, but there's a presidential election in three days. i tell you what...i am so ready for this election season to be over. tonight mccain is on snl. it's really wearing on me. i used to have tolerance for all the excess negativity baggage that comes with an election season. for the most part, i've held off on discussing the election here, so i'm going to go on for a while in this entry...you've been warned...

as a younger, pluckier man (of 22, 26 & 30...my bday was two weeks too late for the 1992 election) i only voted in one of three presidential elections, in 2004, believing that in 1996 & 2000, i didn't need to vote because the presidential election was easily going solidly democrat in massachusetts, where i lived at the time. local elections & issues? yeah, for some reason i didn't think about those.

i first registered with the green party & when i got to the polls on election night in 2004, i discovered that there was no green candidate on the ny ballot. i'd just sort of assumed that david cobb would be on the ballot, but nope...as a result, nader got my vote & when i had to go to the dmv to get a new license after being mugged the following february, i changed my party affiliation to independent...or so i thought. as i discovered when i went to renew my license earlier this year, i had actually chosen to become a member of the independence party. oops. now i'm an independent.

this election season, the degree to which people believe the following things astounds me:

- that barack obama is a muslim because his father came from kenya & his middle name is hussein. kenya is 78% christian, according to the c.i.a.. although the name hussein has prominence in shiite faith, barack shared the middle name with his father, who was an atheist. obama belongs to a church, for christ's sake! i'm a confirmed catholic & i don't even belong to a church. my middle name is richard...does this make me a crook? don't even get me started on the idea that barack obama isn't a u.s. citizen. i'm sure plenty of army brats have ties to just as many countries as obama & that doesn't make them less of a u.s. citizen.

- that this matters. muslim ≠ terrorist, folks. all religions have their terrorists.

- that acorn is intentionally registering "illegal voters." acorn's role is to try to get as many people to the polls as possible. is it their fault if a member of acorn, driven by voter registration goals, registers a potential voter & that potential voter has already been approached by someone else on the street a few weeks earlier & they decide to register a second time just to make sure they're actually registered? from what i've heard in reports, these registrations are often sent in flagged by acorn as potential invalid registrations anyhow.

- that this matters. unless any of these people go to the polls twice & vote, risking a $10K fine and five years in prison, it has no effect on the outcome of the election...zero.

- no hillary clinton = sarah palin. i mean, really, ladies? are you serious? i think hillary clinton is up there among the most skilled politicians of recent time, but sarah palin? is this really the woman you want to represent america as the first female elected to the white house? you would give up your right to choose to support her? i can think of 1,000 women who, from a feminist perspective, i would want to hold that distinction before sarah palin...i'd even put her behind maria shriver. at least maria has experience as a journalist, is married to a republican governor of one of the world's top ten-largest economies & is a kennedy.

- that barack obama = socialism. barack obama's definitely an advocate of spreading the wealth through social programs, in an effort to make more people's lives better. that's just his style of politics. some people don't want government to have that role. that's cool, although it's baffling to me that there are people who are christians who won't vote for obama. last i checked, doing whatever possible to benefit the greater good (i.e. spreading the wealth to ensure people have food, shelter, education, a better life, etc.) was part of jesus's teachings, but i haven't been to church in a while, so that may have changed.

- that sarah palin ≠ socialism. last i checked, one of her claims to fame was that as governor of alaska, she helped get every alaskan citizen an additional $1200 rebate, spreading the wealth from oil profits. i may have got a c in my college economics class, but that sounds somewhat like socialism to me.

on the flip side, i'm sure there are accusations that are being made by the obama camp about mccain/palin that are way off-base (hey, remember joe biden? what ever happened to that guy?), but since i'm more liberal leaning, i haven't paid attention to those as much & therefore can't speak to them. either way, when i go to the polls on tuesday, neither mccain or obama will get my vote. in fact, i'm probably going green...that way, i'm supporting a candidate who's both black & female, which makes me totally progressive & revolutionary. luckily, the green party is actually on the ny ballot this year.

i will say this about the 2008 presidential election--it's gotten people amp'd about politics again. that'll come in real handy if mccain happens to steal the election & folks across the country decide to riot. if that does happen, let's keep that energy up, people! democracy rules!

#36 - four more years.

snack: pizza bagels
drink: dogfish head 90 minute i.p.a.

snack time tonight is a pair of pizza bagels, made with thomas' whole wheat bagels, some francesco rinaldi mushroom, pepper & onion sauce and borden six-cheese italian blend. that means mozzarella, provolone, asiago, parmesan, romano & fontina cheeses! i don't even know what fontina is! how exotic of me, right?

i've had many a pizza bagel in my time. they were an easy pop-it-in-the-toaster oven snack back in high school & college & have been for most of the second half of my life save a brief five-year-or-so hiatus that ended a few months back. english muffin substitutions are always acceptable for this snack. recently, i have this thing where the pizza bagel can not cross my lips without a pound of crushed red pepper sprinkled on top. it tastes like burning.

my beer accompaniment, the dogfish head 90 minute i.p.a., was voted the winner of the realbeer.com "battle of the beers" contest three years in a row, from 2003-2005. i can't tell if they even give out this award any more. for all i know, dogfish probably broke it or something. i guess that's what happens when you let someone win three times in a row. regardless, the people voted (via the internet) for their favorite beer & their voice was heard, loud & clear. but seriously, the beer is really good...& the descriptions of the beers on the website have me wicked excited & i'm now obsessed with the idea that i need to go to rehobeth beach, delaware to the brewery ASAP. anyone up for a road trip? under an obama presidency, gas prices will magically drop even more & we'll actually be able to afford it, due to pagan islamic magic! yay, magic!