How my home builder reminded me that voting is pointless

The timing couldn’t have been better.

I’d just finished a load of laundry and was taking it upstairs when I grasped hold of the railing on the basement steps, and felt it wiggle. Like a loose tooth, it felt as though one good yank would pull the sucker clean of the wall. Upon inspection, I saw further cracks in the drywall surrounding it, and up and down the walls leading to the ground floor.

Terrific, I thought. Add that to the drywall already crumbling on the second floor, the holes in the garage walls (cleverly concealed from the home inspector before we moved in), the drafty doors, the sagging fences, the leaky garage roof, the splintered paneling and the walls thin enough to allow us to hear the neighbors playing World of Warcraft at 10 p.m. on a worknight. Some of this stuff is doubtless normal wear and tear, but much of it is the result of shoddy construction, and all of it will have to wait until other repairs are done on the condo I’ve owned since 2005 and rented for years now since I can’t get rid of it in the current market. It's enough to get you to start drinking vodka in the morning. Except I already do, so I guess I can't blame the house. 

When I got back upstairs and checked the mail, still juggling figures in my head and trying to decide whether the drywall repair could wait until spring or not, I found a nondescript envelope bearing the title “voter” next to my name. When I opened it, it turned out to be a letter from my builder. Advising me on how to vote.

I won’t quote the letter, but the gist of it was that my builder, reminding me of his credentials as a small business owner of the community who’d been building homes for fifty years and employing tens of thousands of people in the industry, had concerns over the direction the country was headed under President Obama and certain members of the House and Senate. He advised me to vote Republican, under the grounds that the country can’t afford another four years of reckless spending on entitlements and ill-advised programs. It closes with an urgent call to action: it’s time to take back the country for the next generation.

The basement wall is perfect symbolism for the 2012 election. The drywall represents my eroding trust in our electoral system, and the paneling is pure evil. 

 Take it back? I can’t help but wonder. Take it back to what? Back to military aggression, unaffordable tax cuts and a public docile from fear of terrorism, happily signing their library records away to the government and racking up credit card debt? What planet is this guy from?

Well, at least he gave me a better reason to break out the Absolut. Got to give him that. 

“Reckless government spending” is a line that’s starting to get old for a number of reasons. Mostly because “reckless” (or whatever derogatory term you prefer) is an epithet applied selectively, depending on whom you ask. Some argue that massive spending on health care for the poor and infirm is unaffordable while others argue that wars tend to be pretty reckless, especially if you decrease taxes while fighting them. But hey, my builder wants to build more homes. He’s throwing his weight behind the guy he thinks will get that to happen. If I had to bet, I’d say you’re barking up the wrong tree, but good luck with that anyway.

Actually, my builder’s letter infuriates me for a different reason: He’s forcing me to stick up for President Barack Obama.

Let me be clear: I am not making a partisan argument here. Vote your conscience. But as historian James Loewen reminds us, although we’re all entitled to our own opinion, we are not entitled to our own facts.

There’s a current of thinking that seems to be building steam: Things were great back in the aught’s (2000-2008-ish) because back then, we had President Bush and the Republicans in charge. Unemployment was low, the stock market was booming, consumer confidence was high and nobody was making any noise about hope and change. We were on top of the world, but then the Democrats took Congress in 2006, and Obama took over in 2008. Suddenly, the economy crashes, people lose their homes, we’ve got a massive deficit and China and India are killing us on the global market. So if we just get the right guys back in charge, we’ll be back in the good old days again.

All of that used to be called a “straw man argument.” Then it surfaced as a viral email debunked by Snopes. Now it’s circulating in my newsfeed.

Were I to rebut all of these points one by one, I’d be, at best, parroting finer minds than my own; at worst, outright plagiarizing them. But I hope it’s not untoward of me to point out that to accuse Obama and the Democrats of tanking the country after a mere 15 to 20 months or so in power is to severely overestimate their power. Remember that President Bush was in office for eight or nine months when 9/11 happened, yet to blame him and him alone for that would be idiotic. Rather, one has to take a wider perspective of our foreign entanglements, and once you do that, you go beyond one president and one party, and start to focus on the military/industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about in 1961. Ditto with the economy: anyone who can think their way out of a paper bag will have no trouble drawing a line from the Friedmanite/Reaganite overhaul of the 1970s/1980s to the deregulation and subprime mortgage vomit-inducing monstrosity that left us all holding the bag while the criminals went off scot-free, more powerful than ever and ready to do it all over again.

(Side note: My original mortgage lender was Countrywide. You’ve heard of them--at least they’re getting slapped on the wrist with a civil suit. But every morning when I wake up, I say a little prayer to the Gods of Retribution that the hookers those guys were frolicking with all had scorching cases of herpes.)

I’m willing to yell about all that to whomever wants to debate the issue, provided we’re interested in arriving at some kind of truth rather than just scoring points and trying to get votes for “our guy.” Hell, I’m no genius, and I need all the perspective I can get. Yet I hope that, by articulating the aforementioned points of view, I’m not forced, by shoddy logic, to take the role of de facto apologist for President Obama. We should all possess the requisite gray cells to qualify the issue here.

There are grave concerns and misgivings I have about Mr. Obama, but almost none of them are shared by anyone in our country’s mainstream political reporting, or, if they are, I haven’t heard of them. “Obamacare,” for instance? Less to be disliked for its “socialism” and more for its subsidies to the insurance companies while simultaneously expanding their customer base.

His foreign policy? Sure, it’s great that bin Laden is dead, although if you want to split hairs, we did commit a war crime. Meanwhile, drone attacks have  skyrocketed under the president from the level they were at under Bush, which is a pretty good way of sowing anti-American sentiment and future self-styled holy warriors with an antipathy for America. (Never mind that their accuracy is abysmal.)

His education plan? A complete train wreck: accountability takes the form of test scores and discounts external factors that have a much greater impact on a pupil’s performance. Race to the Top might as well be called Frankennochildleftbehind.

And don’t even get me started on fiscal reform and his explanations of it thereof. His opponents can scream about how taxing the rich won’t help all they want—that’s a sideshow to me (although if you decide to tackle long-term deficit reduction, the $90 billion a year we’d save turns into $900 billion over ten years, a much more serious figure than the $130 million or so we give to public broadcasting that Mitt Romney sees as so unsustainable). What we should really be talking about is a system of oversight that ensures we won’t have to bail out the banks any more. We should be talking about why Obama’s Justice Department failed to prosecute the worst of the financirati even when they practically had DNA evidence of their malfeasance. And would it kill him to hire economists without fingerprints all over the current crisis?

But none of that has happened, for a perfectly clear reason: Wall Street funds Democrats in addition to Republicans, as do pharmaceutical companies and education reformists/activists/lobbyists. All of them have deep pockets. The voters suckered into thinking there’s a tangible difference between the two political parties include, it would seem, my builder, who’s convinced that his guy will make a difference because he’s not going to throw any lavish cocktail parties and he’ll sleep on a sleeping bag in his office to save money. Sort of like…why, it’s like cutting Sesame Street to pay for a financial bailout, isn’t it?

If we hire a few hundred billion of him and then fire them all, we'd save billions!

In 2008, I was of the opinion that “Change” was a no-brainer: Rising unemployment, two wars, and a looming economic crisis? How the hell did that happen? No, no, we’ve got to turn this mess around!

Now, “change” is being marketed as Change to the stuff we did before the radical socialist took charge, and in order to swallow that pill, you just have to hit the right parts of your head hard enough to forget all the history that led up to the mess we’re in right now.

But if you try to correct the record, if you’re not careful, you wind up playing defense for Team Obama, and until my rental property is saleable, Countrywide is behind bars and drone planes are recalibrated to start dropping books all over the Middle East, I’ll pass, thanks. 

So anyway, Mr. Builder of my Home Sweet Home, I won't be voting for your guy. I'm not even sure I'll be voting for the one everyone assumes is my guy. Or anyone's guy. I don't think there is a guy for us any more, even if we use the term in a gender-neutral sense. But as long as there's guys like you to distract us with the bogus issues, I guess there'll be plenty of mud slinging and innuendo to spare for 2016-on. Now come over and help me fix this wall. You bring the plaster. I've already got plenty of vodka.

The Rage is Not About Health Care." From today's Times, by Frank Rich. Who knew?

Vice-Presidential Potty Mouthes

Vice President Joe Biden's f-bomb after President Obama's passage of the health care bill, coupled with former Vice President Cheney's snarled "go (bleep) yourself" from a few years ago, was shocking. Utterly shocking. Truly and utterly shocking. It's language we haven't heard from the esteemed second banana of the Oval Office...except for a few notable examples. The Flannel Diaries presents an exhausting study of White House f-bombs, culled from the Flannel Diaries' Official Presidential Archives:

"As far as Indochina was concerned, I stated over and over again that it was essential during that period that the United States make it clear that we would not tolerate Indochina falling under Communist domination. As far as the rest of the world was concerned, I stated over and over again that they could all go (bleep) themselves."
--Vice President Richard Nixon, debate with John F. Kennedy

“In the United States today, we have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism.” Off camera: "What the (bleep) does that mean, anyway?"
--Vice President Spiro Agnew, on Watergate

“Never forget that the most powerful force on earth is love. And (bleeping). (Bleeping) is pretty powerful too."
--Vice President Nelson Rockefeller

“Running for President is physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually the most demanding single undertaking I can envisage unless it's (bleeping) Nancy Reagan. Score!"
--Vice President Walter Mondale, on his campaign for President

"Why Iraq? Why Iraq? Why the (bleep) not?"
--Vice President Dan Quayle, on the Persian Gulf war

"(Bleep) me."
--Vice President Al Gore, on the 2000 election

Kids are getting an earful from counseling about college entrance. So I'm hiding in the back, grading papers and reading Salon.com:

Glenn Beck and Eric Massa waste America's time.

Sarah Palin is of no importance.

Does Limbaugh remember 1994? Probably not.

Good stuff.

As far as new years go, this one is a bit of a puzzler.

I'm still reeling over our new president. Or is it that I'm overjoyed that the old one is back in Crawford, patting himself on the back? Or am I secretly pissed that I'm now robbed of the schadenfreude of watching him crash and burn under his failed policies, telling "I told you so" to idiots who argued that, yes, you can fight a war with no taxes, and, yes, we're so not in a recession, because this is America, dammit, and bad things are what happen to other countries?

Guess it doesn't matter. I'm high on Obamarama. On Hopamine, or whatever cynics are calling it. Three executive orders this week reversing Bush's doctrines, and my pretty little head is spinning like a Prom date's at a Motel 6 after hours. It'll wear off sooner or later. Problems will emerge. Mistakes will be made. But I can't see Obama hanging signs and smirking contemptuously in the face of world and, dare I say, national opinion to the contrary while the walls come crumbling down. Optimism has taken the reins for January, for the first time in years.

Still, there's always Blagojevich.

I may be a mediocre English teacher, but I'm still a patron of the arts. And when our governor quotes Tennyson's "Ulysses" (as he did last week in a press conference before Senate hearings began), I have to grit my teeth, because now, any students I have watching the news will confuse that towheaded, hubris-laden pontificator with an old man past his prime, seeking one more adventure. The poem ends with Ulysses imploring himself and his friends "to strive, to seek, to find, but not to yield" as they set sail from home. Blago, I don't doubt, sees himself in a similar vein, but there are obvious differences. He's not an "idle king" (the phone conversations taped and held by the prosecutor show he was anything but idle), and his people do in fact know him; his wife isn't "aged" (seems she had quite a few things to say herself), and as near as I can tell, he has no Telemachus to pass his kingdom off to. Maybe he should have taken up with the Strogers.

So as far as literary connections, "Ulysses" works about as well for him as Sonnets from the Portugese works for me. What Rod should have quoted, as more befitting his refusal to step down and save himself and the state the burden of impeaching him, would be my pal Macbeth. When the Scottish king realizes he's doomed, that the prophecies that supposedly made him immortal have actually led him to his impending demise, he manages to juggle both his own pride and self-hatred at the same time. Blagojevich could even have rewritten the lines to fit his situation admirably:

I will not yield,
To kiss the ground before old special prosecutor's feet,
And to be baited with John Kass' damned columns.
Though truth be come to Springfield,
And me opposed, being of no woman born,
Yet I will try the last. Before my body
I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Fitzgerald,
And damn'd be him that first cries, 'Executive Privilege!'

Now that's poetry, baby.

VIA E-MAIL--It's a damn good thing I didn't enter Congressional fantasy elections this year. I would have gotten killed.

I would have bet on Obama, but...Ohio? Indiana?

Fucking Florida?

And the Dems picked up those seats in the Senate?

I'm giddy.

Dear Senator Obama:

Today, I voted. I'm not saying I voted for you, and I'm not saying I voted for Senator McCain. And I'm definitely not saying I didn't get confused while voting and accidentally figure the booth to be a urine sample collection booth or anything. So for now, let's keep this all in the hypothetical.

Hypothetically, if I did vote for you, it was historic. The first ballot cast for an African-American candidate. I should frame the "I Voted!" sticker I got, except I've already got another "historic" one. The sticker from 2006. When the Democrats took over in 2006.

Okay, maybe that's not a fair comparison. I mean, the Dems have been in charge before, haven't they? Sure they have. And even if they hadn't, your meteoric rise to power is nothing short of staggering, regardless of how one views your political credentials.

But two years after the Democrats swept Congress, look at the state of affairs we're in. The economy. The continuing war in Iraq that nobody seems to want to call a war. Job losses. Property foreclosures. And so on.

I'm not blaming the Democrats, you understand. A lot of damage was done over a long period of time. I just haven't had the kind of leadership I'd thought I'd voted for, and that makes the whole situation dangerous. Because Americans are idiots, and if immediate gratification isn't delivered from the party that just took power half an hour ago, they'll start clamoring for "change from change" and go back to the party that wielded the whip and chair over the previous decade-and-change.

So my prediction is, whatever you do in your administration, you're going to catch a ridiculous amount of flack over it. Which is fine, as long as you stick to your vision. Which is also fine, as long as you have a vision.

You do have one, don't you?

Just checking. I thought you did.

It could be a total disaster with you in the White House. If I voted for you, I might have had this cross my mind. Economists quoted in the elite liberal media to which I subscribe avidly point out that Americans will save more money under your tax plan than McCain's, but they're scratching their heads over how you're going to pay for some of your proposed budgets. You're right in pointing out Bush's shortcomings, and McCain's similarities to him sometimes scare the hell out of me, but seriously, what is your better plan for Iraq? And how do you plan to hold the mortgage companies' feet to the fire to ensure a stable housing economy, so I can get my property the fuck off my hands?

(The Economist advises axing the home ownership tax exemption, by the way. Would save us billions. Maybe look into that? But let me sell mine first, okay? Thanks, big guy. Wink.)

Still, if I were to throw my chips behind you, I'd realize that a black man in the Oval Office is going to generate a lot of waves. Not all of them will be good. Many will be pointless and stupid (does Obama wear a pin? does Michelle Obama love her country? next week, do your children really love you or are they just mouthing platitudes? film at eleven). But I'm hoping that, if you take the reins of power, your vision will soon emerge and evolve into leadership. And Senator, I am so ready to be led.

Sincerely yours,

Another damned blogger

For someone who prides himself on being a student (and occasional teacher and borer-of-students) of rhetoric, I've paid scant attention to the debates. In fact, the only one I watched start to finish was the vice presidential one, and I gotta tell you, What's the friggin' point? If all they're going to do is tout their running mates, that's not a debate. That's a couple of kids nosing up each other on the playground, arguing, "My dad could kick the crap out of your dad!" Entertaining, yes. Statesmanship? Give me a break.

In fact, I'm more soured about this election than I was the last one. I'm a pessimist. I'm not proud of it, but it's how I came out. My first birthday that I can remember, I thought to myself, How many more of these do I have to look forward to? Seventy if I'm lucky. At my senior prom, I was the one shoving Enya and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds to the d.j. And just the other week, I told a class of giggling girls to study their Nietzsche, to realize why they shouldn't be so giggly. For me, the glass isn't even half empty; it's also breakable, with water that will soon evaporate and is all-too-briefly enjoyed. So when Bush said, "Bring it on, Kerry," I thought, Well shit. The Lone Wolf is saddling up. Who can withstand that kind of persuasion?

But at least the last election afforded me the luxury of hatred. I hated Bush then. I hate him even more now. And now that he's on his way out of the office, I feel much like the CIA must have after the fall of the Berlin Wall. I've lost my scapegoat. My focus of contempt for the Republican Party. The anathema to conservatism touting conservatism. The boogeyman. And who do we have to replace him?

A smoov-talker and a war hero.

That's really all it's going to boil down to once the "filter" is cut through. McCain is selling a tax plan that every economist I've seen interviewed acknowledges is sticking it to the very middle class he purports to support. And Obama, as near as I can tell, wants to open the windows of luxury limousines and throw cash by the handful out the door to the starving masses. Pardon me while I vomit ebullience.

The debates (the scant portions I've seen) have told me nothing. When the moderators reprimand both candidates for dodging the question, you have to wonder how they'll stack up against Congress, or their national addresses to the nation.

The SCLM has told me little except that both candidates are prone to misrepresentations, and that they don't like each other. Also that Sarah Palin is entertaining, but possibly vapid. Hats off, folks.

And the polls? Don't get me started. If you polled every American on the face of the earth about the economy and the staggering and frightening dips the market is taking, make one of the questions, "How stupid are you with the economy" and watch the numbers rise. Vox populi my ass.

So my plan is simple: I'm going to find a hole, crawl into it, and come out in twenty years. By then, if history is any guide, we'll be through this recession-in-name-only, and well on our way to another major war, at which point we can focus on a new bad guy, let corruption run rampant and turn a blind eye to the financial sleight-of-hand that gave us prosperity in the short run yet stuck us in this cesspool of a situation at the moment.

And maybe by then, my pal Bush will be doing the lecture circuit or running for Congress. Now there's a fight I can win.

Sad day indeed, when the best political commentary comes from...

...Cracked.com.

I’ve already heard that Obama and Palin are both fairly inexperienced. And I’ve heard that McCain doesn’t know how to use the internet. I’ve heard all the “pig in lipstick” and “I can see Russia from here” lines, because they’ve been repeatedly jammed down my throat over and over and over again. How could I miss them?

I don’t need to hear again about who was a Community Organizer, and who thinks that “Community Organizer” is a laughable position. I’m not concerned with how many houses someone has. I don’t need to be told that someone is a terrific speaker. I don’t care how anyone feels about hockey, and I don’t need to hear about what Priests a candidate may or may not have hung around at some point for some amount of time.

And if I hear “Hey, the bottom line is, she sold the plane” one more fucking time, I’m going to track down that plane, buy the shit out of it, and crash it directly into the White House, regardless of who’s living there. Test me on this.

I feel like all we’re getting are lies and lines, and no one’s talking about the issues and no one’s holding anyone accountable. Media, you’re supposed to be on our side. Stop repeating the same sound bites over and over again. In the history of forever, has a President’s ability to do his job been enhanced or impaired as a result of how they feel about moose-hunting? Then shut up about it.

I mean, is Adam McKay right? Is the media completely dead? Subquestion, why the shit am I getting the most honest and insightful political information from Adam McKay?

Oh yeah. I'm feeling the logic.

Somebody needs to give Bill O'Reilly a reading assignment.

From Kirk Russell's The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Elliot:

Any informed conservative is reluctant to condense profound and intricate intellectual systems to a few pretentious phrases; he prefers to leave that technique to the enthusiasm of radicals. Conservatism is not a fixed and immutable body of dogma, and conservatives inherit from Burke a talent for re-expressing their convictions to fit the time.

See that, Bill? Talking Points that spoon feeds us a few phrases (ego-inflated rather than pretentious, I suppose) are for spaghetti-kneed liberals. Oh, the irony is delicious.

Oh wait, Bill, I know what you'd say. You'd remind me that the following sentence in the passage I've truncated reads:

As a working premise, nevertheless, one can observe here that the essence of social conservatism is preservation of the ancient moral traditions of humanity. Conservatives respect the wisdom of their ancestors (this phrase was Strafford’s, and Hooker’s, before Burke illuminated it); they are dubious of wholesale alteration.

So, does that fit into Scalia's "original intent" framework? Doesn't that pretty well kibosh the revisions made to Article I, Section II of the Constitution? Or the 13th, 19th and 21st Amendments, right? Aren't those alterations that could be classified as "wholesale"?

I'm obviously not directly addressing Bill here. But if I were, Bill and I might agree on Russell's final point:

[Conservatives] think society is a spiritual reality, possessing an eternal life but a delicate constitution: it cannot be scrapped and recast as if it were a machine.

So...there you go. Just like we can't pack everything up in Iraq in a suitcase and Fed Ex it over here, so we can't fine-tune our laws and liberties to fit a particular agenda...any agenda.

(Note--this whole post exploded over a segment I can't find online, which makes me feel somewhat ridiculous, and a homework assignment about conservatism, which I have abbreviated here. Indulge me.)

Things I didn't know about Nixon until finishing Ambrose's third volume of his biography:

--Nixon sold his New York townhouse in 1981 to the Syrian ambassador's office of the United Nations. A company involved with this arm of the UN was involved in selling uniforms to Romania, and uniforms and helicopters to Sadaam Hussein. Nixon may or may not have profited on these sales; as of 1991, Ambrose couldn't be sure.
--Nixon gave two speeches as per his resignation: one was on August 8, 1974, where he formally announced his resignation (without admitting any specific wrongdoing on his part), and one on August 9, to his family and staff, where he made his famous "deepest, darkest valley" comment. Apparently, his family and not a little of his staff was pissed that he'd arranged for the entire thing to be broadcast; in the speech itself, Nixon claimed the whole thing was not set up in advance.
--Oliver Stone must have used Ambrose's work more extensively than I thought. Of course, I suppose he could have gotten some of the dialogue directly from the tapes themselves ("Like the Germans...shoot[ing] down one villager until the rest talk" (sic)..."I really think that's what we're going to have to do..."), but other lines are from Ambrose's own observations: "Eight words back in 1972: 'I covered up. It was wrong. I'm sorry.'" Stone takes Ambrose's sentence and changes it to "I was wrong" and then delivers the line to Haldemann (played by James Woods).
--Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon more out of concern for his own administration and political future than out of worries about tearing the nation apart. I guess I should have figured that out on my own.
--Nixon spent time in W.C. Fields' former Bel Air home at a party. I think it might have been the same house Fields fell down a flight of stairs without spilling any of his drink (as per Carlotta Montijo's autobiography, admittedly problematic).

There's other stuff, but it escapes me at the moment. Volume three sticks in my head better than the others, probably because the last 100 pages covers 17 years and as a result can't be as in-depth; probably because this was the volume I was waiting for all along, with all the Watergage dirt and the resignation itself.

Karl Rove raps at the Correspondents' Dinner. The Times says this cockiness is in spite of the recent brou-ha-ha over Libby's conviction.

I say this is yet more evidence that white people shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a microphone when hip hop is playing, especially not while wearing tuxedoes and sporting glasses and a bald spot.

Daniel Craig shows some clips of Secretary Rumsfeld having some fun at the podium. Not to be missed.

Here's a list of people who owe me $20 (nicknames are used in places):

Dewey: "There's no way the Democrats are going to take any power in this election. The American people are just a bunch of sheep."

Tso: "There's no way Blagojevich is going to get reelected. His corruption has caught up with him."

Tso: "Iraq will not be a deciding factor in this election. America still supports the war."

Rinney: "You're not going to stay sober and watch CNN all election night. That's not possible."

Karl Rove: "[The Republican polls are going to stay in power.] You've got your [electoral math], I've got the math." (said to an NPR reporter, but I bet him through absentee ballot)

George Bush: "The Democrats want to cut and run." (after taking the house, Pelosi denied any such plans, and now that she's all but certain to become House Speaker, people actually started listening to Democrats.)

Look, people, how many times do I have to say it? You think elections don't change anything? What just happened: the President ate his own words, Rummy resigned, and the Democrats aren't talking tax-tax-tax, run-run-run. They're talking higher minimum wage. They're talking redirecting oil funds. They're talking pay-as-you-go.

And did anyone see Tom DeLay's comment: "The Democrats didn't win. The Republicans lost"? Strange thing for "The Hammer" to say, a man for whom there are nothing but absolutes. When convicted, he'll be saying, "They didn't find me guilty--they failed to find me innocent." And he'll be passing on the soap while saying it, too.

I'm drunk, but this time on elation. And gin.

We had a half day today because of conferences. Normally, I head to Best Buy to waste my hard-earned money on a crappy DVD--last year it was the Special Edition of The Fly; the year before that, Evil Dead II. But I found out I'm not, after all, registered to vote, and while I support wholeheartedly American complacency and the voting gap that lies stinking like an abscessed wound over my generation, I nevertheless felt a transitory yet persistent urge to throw my lot in with the rest of the disenchanted, sick-of-swiping-politicians voters and cast my ballot for the "anybody but the rest of them" party. As much as humanly possible, anyway. So I stopped-and-went along 90 to the Blue Line and hopped a train to the Daley Center (in its resplendent Halloween glory; see image and note below), where I did Late Registration Voting.

It's a humbling process. I should probably point out that I was still attired in my suit-and-tie from conferences, and since the Maiden concert was over and done with, I'd gotten a haircut mere minutes before the meet-and-greet yesterday. So I was looking relatively dapper. As my colleagues like to point out, I clean up good. As I like to point out...well, seriously, ladies, who wants a taste?

But I could have been wearing Armani delux and still received the same treatment.

My first mistake was bringing a book. White guys wearing Ipods, dressed in ratty clothing with hair hanging down their face over a copy of Critique of Practical Reason don't draw a second glance on the Red Line. (Trust me--I know, except substitute Kant for Hustler.) But wearing a rumpled shirt under your suit and carrying a copy of Eleanor of Aquitaine, for some reason, brands you a Hillary-ite. (I'm not saying I'm not one, just that I was labeled.) Seriously, several people passed me tracts. One guy told me he hated New York. Another said he would pray for me. And this was all from reading a fucking book. Or, better still, reading a book about the most powerful woman in the twelfth century. Had I carried a copy of Dr. Phil, I probably would have been safer.

My second mistake was assuming I'd remember the address. I found the building no sweat--only a complete and utter illiterate would have trouble disembarking and walking through the wrong door. I remembered that much from a Chicago parking ticket many moons ago. But I couldn't remember what suite in the Cook County building it was, and the "Information Desks" were anything but informative. The good news: I now know where to apply for divorce. Hey, you never know.

My last mistake was missing the deadline in the first place. Like an utter cretin (but not an illiterate one, I hasten to add), I assumed I'd registered when I moved, when, more likely, I reminded myself to register, forgot the reminder, and assumed I'd done it. Doing late registration seems to be like registering for unemployment--you get a lot of judgmental, "how the hell did you end up here looks from the people behind the desk, you fill out a lot of paperwork, you wait in uncomfortable plastic chairs that somehow mold to not fit your butt, and you listen to other people (losers, unlike you, who screwed up somehow, which is why they're there, even if it's not why you yourself are) screech about long lines, paperwork and uncomfortable chairs.

One interesting wrinkle: I had to vote that day. Late registration precludes you from the Nov. 7 experience. Good thing I did my homework and knew how badly both governor candidates sucked the royal root.

An even more interesting wrinkle: no-votes are possible. You can leave ballot boxes blank. It's the only form of two-party protest I can think of.

And you even get your I voted today sticker to put on Nov. 7.

Free Josh Wolf!!!

This is the first time the government has gone after a blogger's sources officially. Obviously, they'll be after me next.

And a federal appeals court just ruled that the government can look at journalists' phone records. This creates an alarming precedent, unless, of course, we can trust the government to use this precedent to go after genuine threats to security, rather than the muckraking that has unearthed so many bureaucratic ills. Obviously, they'll be going after Janice Effington, of 1034 S. Halsted, Apartment 2D. (She knows why.)

Cagle.com cartoons. Not for those with a right-wing frame of mind.

I have this strange certainty that, in a matter of months, Republicans are going to sweep the midterm elections and take over the Legislative Branch. Don't ask me what makes me so certain, but my Spider-Sense also warns me that once they do, President Clinton will be forced to reach across the aisle on welfare reform in order to get a second term.