we hold these truths to be self evident i cannot stop thinking about our next president

I can't seem to talk or think about anything besides Election 2008. If you've recently dared to speak at length to me about anything besides the election, I was probs jonesing for a little talk about health care the whole time.

You: "I had a bad day at work."

Me: "OMG! Mr. Palin wants Alaska to secede from the union! Can you believe it?"

You: "I feel like my boss never listens to me."

Me: "SECEDE!! From the United States! Sarah Palin's HUSBAND!"

How can you think of anything else besides. Election. 2008. at this pivotal! moment. in our country's history! I've prepared a graph for you of some of the things I've ever obsessively thought about over the years. I didn't include "myself" 'cause obvs I think about myself all the time, that's a given.

i.
"The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village."
(Marshall McLuhan)

Maybe it's 'cause I've been living in Haviland's apartment, where it seems only natural for MSNBC to be on all the time. 'Cause my roomie's out of town so I've got the place to myself. I sit in the living room facing the television, eyes peeled open like the potatoes I'd like to throw at Sarah Palin's hair.

Or maybe it's just 'cause this is a pivotal TIME! IN ! OUR! NATION'S HISTORY!

Maybe it's 'cause I'm doing customer service work for a political advocacy group that sells/distributes campaign buttons and there's been a massive issue with a post office in the midwest who hasn't been shipping stuff on time -- and just today three people have threatened to vote McCain if they don't get their buttons STAT.

I prefer the slighted button-orderers who present conspiracy theories: Our first black candidate and things aren't going through the mail. COINCIDENCE? I think not.

I'm like, Hey, I think you're onto something there.
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ii.
"In fact it was a better time then [when President Kennedy got shot], and people knew what they were supposed to do and how to make the world better. Now nobody knows anything. We know who's popular, or that social studies is boring."
(Angela Chase, My So-Called Life, 1994)

This is the kind of political obsession that I always imagined people had in other countries. You know -- countries with problems. Like they were starving or being bombed all the time.

But I passed through adolescence -- that crucial period where the heroes of Greek mythology often experience a loss of innocence -- during the Clinton years. Furthermore -- born in '81, I'd been raised to believe Republicans were evil and Regan was ruining everything, and I campaigned for Dukakis until my second grade teacher told me buttons weren't allowed in public school.

2000 was a huge blow to how I thought the world worked. I passed through denial to outrage to complete self-centrism, which is more productive.

Honestly -- I wasn't this worried in '04 'cause I didn't believe there was any possible way Bush could win -- polls be damned, I just didn't think such a thing was possible. He was really bad at that job, I've been fired for much less. I've been fired for giving out tequilla shots, but he can be responsible for the deaths of actual Mexicans and keep his job.

Now, it all feels so real. THIS IS A PIVOTAL! time! in our nation's. HISTORY!.

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iii.
"you can keep the pentagon. keep the propaganda
keep each and every teevee that's been trying to convince me
to participate / in some prep school punk's plan to perpetuate retribution."
-ani difranco

Have you read the Rolling Stone article about the duplicitous lying not-even-a-war-hero John McCain? If you haven't read that article I can't talk to you.

And meanwhile, let's say they "prove" that Obama and Ayers are friends -- then what? What's the point? It's like an essay that "explores" a topic without a thesis. Certainly their thesis can't be "Obama is a terrorist," 'cause that's absurd. But then again, so is the concept that any grown man would actually take action to ensure kindergartners learn to put condoms on those bananas before they eat them. I mean REALLY MCCAIN REALLY? No wonder you graduated second-to-last in your class.

But man it's hard to keep up on all this 'cause although Sarah Palin claims to be reading "all the magazines" -- I actually AM READING ALL OF THE MAGAZINES.

The New Yorker, The Nation, Rolling Stone, Newsweek, Time, The New York Times, Washington Post, The Huffington Post, The L.A. Times, the blogs and the blogs and Vanity Fair and Esquire and Good and the other fine monthlies of this fine country but it's the weeklies that really have the juicy stuff! Like current, but thorough.

When Palin said that, I thought firstly: "Man, she's never even read Ranger Rick."

Then: "Wait. But I AM reading all those magazines! All those newspapers! I mean I really am! And I barely have time to sleep and work, let alone vice-govern the country!"

During the debtates there's liveblogs on cnn, wonkette, jezebel and gawker all at the same time. I mean, that takes a LOT of time right there.

I keep up on these things in the 24/7 news cycle and here's how. Let's pie chart:

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iv.
"it's nice that you listen / it'd be nicer if you joined in
as long as you play their game girl / you're never going to win."
(ani difranco)

I've been trying to put together something about Obama's campaign for this blog -- a top ten covering the issues -- that I made Krista and Natalie and Haviland help me write -- a "form letter" for you to send to your Republican or Undecided friends & family to try to change their minds. I've written half of it in rhyme, half of it in plain non-partisan speak and another random percentage of it in quotes & links. It is not done. Will it ever be done?

Haviland and I have completed several Palin vlogs, I twittered every possible minute of every debate on my twitter feed and using the Election 2008 twitter feed.

It's about right and wrong and the betterment of the world. But it's also for the first time, totally about memememe. And I'm not even talking about gay marriage.

Here's the thing: I'll lose my health insurance, and I'll lose the hope of getting any should I ever earn out of what I've got now, which I hope I will eventually. So if I lose my health insurance then I'll have to move to the Yukon, and I'll stop writing this blog, and then you'll have to talk to each other's faces, except you better be careful, 'cause no one would have health insurance, so you would all have cooties, and you'd all get colds, and be at home in your bed sneezing and then, then, who's a Maverick? Hey-o!

v.
"We must be the change we wish to see."
-Gandhi

Sarah Palin is not smart, not ready, not prepared. She doesn't realize feminism still has a fight, she's a religious extremist who doesn't believe in the separation of church and state. Just health care and state, education and state, and social services and state.

John McCain is a duplicitous liar who can't handle the idea that he can't just get this, like how he crashed planes and blew out the electricity in a country 'cause of bad flying and picked his outpost based on what kinds of strippers he could pick up there. His heroic act was not even heroic, you should read the Rolling Stone article. Besides even if it was I don't get what it has to do with anything.

Obama is a revolution.

I thought Biden ROCKED the debate. Not just in comparison to Palin, I think he got good policy points across, especially the Maverick monologue at the end.

So anyhow anyone who's worked for a corporate restaurant chain can tell you that no matter how regulated and constricted the position, a new manager will bring some kind of change. Of course John McCain will bring some new policies and strategies to the white house. But his intent is the same as Bush's, and intent is a significant portion of the law. He's not straight talk, unless you're the one in the room writing the check.

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vi.
"Night-life. Letters, journals, bourbon
sloshed in the glass. Poems crucified on the wall,
dissected, their bird-wings severed
like trophies. No one lives in this room
without living through some kind of crisis."
-Adrienne Rich

ihate sarahpalin
ihhateaeaosdisarahpalin
i hate ann coulter
i hate elisabeth hassleback
and everyone
but mostly cindymccain evil eye
waawaa witchcraft.
AAA!

Hey, p.s.:

-The United States is the only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not have a universal health care system.

-In one of the wealthiest districts on New York's Long Island, the per pupil spending amounts to $11,265 annually. Meanwhile, impoverished sectors of New York City see only $5,590 per student--approximately half the amount funneled into the rich school districts.

-A recent study cited 80% of inmates in an Oakland jail could be linked back to the same three high schools -- all underfunded, low-performing schools in bad neighborhoods. Prison is far more expensive than even implying that their education matters to the country they live in by giving them books and fixing the walls.

-Our nation has become a self-fulfilling prophecy, with everyone dashing before their turn to pay comes up. I don't know.

I could go on and so I won't. I wanted to give you my mind, but in writing. Maybe you feel similarly.

These attack ads -- it's like that thing they do at the end of a basketball game where they start fouling to get foul shots and then maybe the rebound? but that never works.

I just wanted to share my feelings with you because
I love America!

self evident
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