Observations from the Window 11.27

A cloudy and cold morning in the Village as I went for my morning paper and you could just feel it, the first snow of the year is on its way. You know that feeling if you live anywhere that gets snow, the crisp calm air, the quiet. The city has its own version of the quiet, call it loud quiet. The horns and sirens are just as loud but they sound totally different, somehow distant. My sister tells me there is already a few inches on the ground where she is so it's only a matter of waiting here.

I never watch the Today Show but I have it on this morning for a very good reason. Scarlett Johansson is guest hosting and as I write about the weather she is, you got it, doing the weather forecast. She is guest hosting because she will be doing Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at the Richard Rogers Theater. I think I may need tickets for that even though I'm not a big fan of the theatre. Maybe Chloe would like to go but than maybe I should be saying I just love the theatre.

While I'm on the subject of entertainment, or girls, Lindsay Lohan's performance in Liz & Dick was evidently so bad it had twitter in an uproar. It got so bad Dan Savage tweeted "The mob on Twitter will have the decency to feel bad when Lindsay Lohan kills herself, right?" Sad but I only bring it up because my sister showed me this R.E.M. video over the weekend and Lohan happens to be in it. It's a rather fitting if disaffected video given R.E.M. no longer exists and Lohan's current reviews. The tune, which features Patti Smith, was released last year but the video just surfaced last week, that according to my new entertainment editor Kayla.

Lohan always did look good in black.

link

Published on Nov 15, 2012 by remhq
Directed by James Franco. From 2011 Warner Bros. Records release

11/29 update - So it seems Lindsay Lohan was arrested for assault last night at a club in Chelsea. Apparently after a disagreement with a woman in another booth she got up and punched her in the face. Troubled girl she may be but I can't help but like her.

Observations 11.26

Originally the Supreme Court was to announce on November 20^th whether or not it would hear cases on California's Prop 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Instead it announced a ten day delay in that decision which could be good or bad, who knows. If the court decides not to rule on the Prop 8 case, much more likely than not ruling on DOMA, the Ninth Circuit ruling will stand, Prop 8 will be viewed as unconstitutional, and California will become the tenth state in which same-sex couples can legally marry.

This ad began airing yesterday during the Sunday morning news shows. Such a voice ....

Dawn of a New Day for Marriage Equality


link

Published on Nov 24, 2012 by hrcmedia
Freedom, justice, and human dignity have always guided our journey for a more perfect union. With historic victories for marriage, we've delivered a mandate for full equality. The wind is at our back, but the journey has just begun.

Observations from the Gallery 11.26

I love my Kindle even though I'm using it for something I hadn't really planned on using it for, reading. I have a button attached to Google Chrome that with a click will send any article I can read online to my Kindle, "Send To Kindle for Chrome". With the HD no glare screen it's much better to read on than my laptop and oh so much easier on the eyes than phone reading. Totally worth the investment and worth waiting for the HD models to arrive.

The following paragraph is just a minor geek vent. Somebody recently accused me of setting my tumblrs to private. For the record no I haven't made them private and no it's not something I ever really considered. What would be the sense of having them if I didn't want anybody to see them? Also the links to are right there on this blog's sidebar so I ask again, what would be the sense of making them private? Honestly if this blog got as many hits as my tumblrs I would be a rich girl. But enough about that.

Something else I have found so very interesting is how many people have discovered VPN (virtual private network) software since the whole Petraeus email mess. Suddenly everybody wants to be anonymous and they don't think other people realize that their emails aren't originating in Russia. To be fair I should say that I have been using one program or another for years but it's funny seeing the pizza delivery guy using one. I'm thinking maybe I should just give up art and go into the security business or maybe, even better, art security.

This short geek post is actually a bit of history in the making. This is my first blog post written and posted entirely by Kindle. Technology is a wonderful thing, until it's not.

Sunday Observations 11.25.2

Well I did find something, something I had been saving to write once I found out more about Sandy's hit on Stone Harbor. I never did use it but I do like it and finding a home for orphan paragraphs was the whole idea behind Sunday Observations. I don't remember where it was from or who wrote it but it's just a perfect description of why people feel how they do about the Jersey shore, the shore.

"There are parts of the Jersey Shore that, in high summer, are almost indistinguishable from California or Florida or some other sun-washed paradise. The difference here is that summer dies each year. It is briefer, and thus more precious, and Labor Day is the saddest day of all. That’s why we grasp the Shore so hard, why we hang on to it so fiercely. How much can we squeeze from this wave, from this romance, from this fishing trip, from this bar band, from this sun? How much more before it all chills and fades and we have to wait nine more months to try again?"

Before anyone texts me I know I could just google the first line and find out where it came from but that would take away from it no? Okay it came from a New York Times op-ed piece by Kevin Coyne.

One more thing while I'm thinking about The New York Times. What is up with the Styles section? Its been way too boring for months now. After three years maybe it's time Stuart Emmrich went back to the Travel section and left Styles to somebody new, preferably a woman after two decades under men.

Sunday Observations 11.25

A weekend with the family seems to go so fast but here we are, Sunday, soon time to head back to the Village. I think I will be waiting until morning, traffic be damned, because I have some photo work I can do here and quite honestly I don't feel like going back yet. Usually I have some notes left over to post Sunday morning but I was a bit lax this week so I'm going to have to wing it. Here we go.

In an awesome gesture Penn State put the year 2012 on the wall of Beaver Stadium along with the years of all the championships and undefeated seasons. It is meant to honor a team that stuck together through everything that happened in the last year but more importantly it honors the thirty one seniors who held the team together. Penn State won its final game against Wisconsin and finished the year 8-4, pretty damn awesome considering many national writers didn't see them win a single game, indeed hoped they wouldn't.

Bill O'Brien became a legend at state in a single year. Not only did he coach the team to its 8-4 record he did it with a style of football some fans have only dreamed of for years. O'Brien's eight wins are the most ever by any first year head coach of the Penn State football team. An impressive total even though there have only been 15 head coaches in the team's 125 year history. Now rumors swirl that some NFL or NCAA team will try and buy him out of his contract after one year so I guess we'll all find out something about Bill O'Brien in the coming months.

An interesting fact about Wisconsin. The Badgers will face Nebraska in the Big Ten championship game next week even though the finished third in their division. They are just lucky enough to be in the same division as Penn State and an undefeated Ohio State both of which are ineligible for the championship or any bowl games. As for bowl games, I don't care who is playing, none of them will be as good or played as hard as yesterday's come from behind (both teams) over-time win by Penn State.

In totally diff type of football the Penn State women's soccer team will be heading to the College Cup, the final four of NCAA soccer, where they will play Florida State next Friday on ESPNU. Even though PSU has won fifteen consecutive Big Ten titles it will be their first trip to the final four since 2005. Congrats!

Seems Sunday Observations became a sports blog this week. That's what happens when I hang around my dad too much.

Observations from the Road 11.22

It officially begins, the holiday season. It begins with warm pastries, coffee, and a newspaper with enough Black Friday ads to kill a tree. Somewhere in this house my dad surely has a case of win hid but I haven't begun to seriously look for it yet. He started hiding it years ago when he bought a case of wine to last the entire month and I drank most of it over Thanksgiving weekend. My wingnut uncles will do that to me and I can call them wingnuts in writing because I've been known to call them wingnuts to their face. They laugh it off though because they know Katie never has been all there. Little do they know, Katie is just fine but they aren't all there. This is how it goes at our Thanksgiving dinner and I love every wine soaked minute of it.

Somewhere Christmas music is playing now. Probably that overly sentimental sister of mine preparing herself for an early round of shopping tomorrow morning. I know its not my brother because it isn't noon yet so he wont be awake. But I lie, he was up as early as me and made the coffee. Much better coffee than I could have made I might add.

It's a gorgeous if cold morning in Pennsylvania. The turkey seems to be suitably thawed and it looks like a nice if somewhat unlucky bird, it didn't win the White House turkey pardon lottery. Wine, cook, dinner, football, wine, argue, stomp out to the porch for a cigarette, football. I think that covers it but did I mention wine?

Strange but as much as I sometimes dislike this time of year it's also the time of year I'm the least cynical. I really don't understand why that is so I guess it just gets filed in the 'I'm just an enigma' category. So what am I thankful for, it always comes down to my family, really that's all I need and I would't change a thing about any of them. Hell I even enjoy arguing with the crazy wingnut branch of the family but maybe that's just because of the wine. I know they don't celebrate our Thanksgiving in the middle east but the Gaza ceasefire seems to be holding for now. That's something to be thankful for too.

Honestly I don't understand why everybody doesn't celebrate our Thanksgiving Day. I mean seriously, who wouldn't want to remember a group of religious zealots landing in a new land, celebrating with the native population, enjoying their gifts of food, all the while wondering how they could be rid of them in the spring. It's just so American. Sarcasm! Just prepping for my uncles.

Happy Thanksgiving people

Observations 11.20

As I have said before I try and keep my opinions to myself when talking about the Palestinian situation, it's just a no win thing no matter what I think or say. Jews having been killing Muslims who have been killing Christians who have been killing Jews for two thousand years. Sadly I don't think that is ever going to completely change. It seems more wars have been fought over supposedly peaceful religions than any other reason.

It's a little bizarre watching a war unfold on Twitter. One minute you can read as the Alqassam Brigade tweets every time it fires a rocket at Israel and a moment later the IDF announcing something called the 'Iron Dome' shot the same rocket down. Than there is a man who tweets under the name "News of the Middle East" from Oklahoma of all places. That is one person who does piss me off because he is totally pro-Israel and his av is a photo of President Obama with the Israeli flag behind him. Talk about not so subtle propaganda, Goebbels himself couldn't have come up with something better than that.

This is one of those videos I stumble onto while randomly chasing links. I'm not completely sure what the 'Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)' movement is but it doesn't really matter for my purposes here. The video was published in September, long before the current round of fighting began, and watching it I can't help but wonder how the turmoil is effecting these students. What they are doing, how they are coping, if they are even alive today.

Gaza, Palestine Youth Send Message to BDS Activists


link

Published on Sep 20, 2012 by Shahd Abusalama
Young Palestinian activists in the Gaza Strip ask their peers in the United Kingdom and around the world to build the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and attend the UK Student Palestine Conference at the University of Manchester on Sunday, September 23.

Observations from the Gallery 11.20

Reuters: GAZA TRUCE WILL BE DECLARED AT 1900 GMT AND GO INTO EFFECT AT 2200 GMT - HAMAS OFFICIAL SAYS

A mobile news flash, the funny thing with this is that before I could even get it posted and IDF spokesman said that truce talks were ongoing and they were still hopeful. That as the Israeli air force intensified the bombardment of Gaza.

We shall see but I wont hold my breath.

Observations 11.18

I really try not to take one side or the other in the whole Palestine, Israel, Jewish, Muslim historical mess. You really can't win no matter what you say and anybody that knows me can figure out how I feel. Last night an Israeli jet bombed a building housing international journalists and an Israeli missile killed 11 civilians bringing the current death toll in Gaza to over seventy. Another 660 have been injured including well over 200 children. As far as I can tell four Israelis have been killed so far by the dreaded Hamas rocket barrage.

You can call them terrorists, victims, innocents, or anything in between but it doesn't matter in the end. Dead is dead. These are the names of the Palestinian dead as of Sunday morning with their age where it was available. Also children under ten years old are italicized. As to what it means, make and up your own mind.

Abdula Muzanar, Amina Muzana, Suhaila Dalou, Raneen Al Dalou (22), Son of Suheil Hammad, Suheil Hammad (45), Hussam Abu Shaweesh (37), Abdallah Al-Mzannar, Tahani Al-Dalou (46), Samah Al-Dalou (25), Sulifa Al-Dalou (50), Nawal Abdelaal (52), Ahmad Essam Al-Nahhal (25), Tasneem Zuheir Al-Nahhal (13), Eyad Abu Khusa (18 months), Muhamed Abu Nuqira, Tamer Salamah Abu Sufyan (3), Gumana Salamah Abu Sufyan (1), Omar Mohammad Hmeid (26), Tamer
Al-Hemry, Samaher Qudieh (33), Mohammad Al-Louji, Awad Hamdi
An-Nahhal, Mokhlis Adwan, Hasan Isaed, Abdulrahman Al-Masri, Ahmad Al-Ja’bary (52), Marwan Abu Al-Qumsan (52), Osama Abdel Jawad, Ashraf Darwish, Ali Al-Mana’ma, Mohammad Al-Hamss (30), Ahmad Abu Musameh, Ayman Saleem, Khalid Khalil al-Shayer (28), Walid Abadleh (4), Hasan Salim al-Hulei (27), Ziad Farhan Abu Jalal (23), Majd Abu Jalal (33), Abu Jalal (43), Mahmoud Sa’ad-Allah (3), Tahrir Suleiman (22), Ismail Qandil (24), Fares al-Bassiouni (5), Oday Jamal Nasser (16), Tareq Jamal Naser (14), Haneen Tafesh (10 months), Walid al-Abadleh (18 months), Khaled Abu An-Nasr, Rami Hamamd, Hisham Mohammad Al-Ghalban, Wael Haidar Al-Ghalban, Habes Masbah (30), Mahmoud Abu Sawaween (65), Omar Jihad al-Mash-Harawi (11), Heba Adel
al-Mash-Harawi (18 and pregnant with twins), Essam Mahmoud Abu
al-Ma’za (19), Mohammad Hani Kaseeh (18), Ranaan Yousef Arafat (3), Mohammad Al-Hamss (30), Marwan Abu Al-Qumsan (52),
and Ahmad Al-Ja’bary (52).

11:00PM update - I'm not going to keep doing this but after an early Monday morning (Gaza time) airstrike leveled two homes I thought I would continue the list till the end of my day. The new names include five more children: Hussein Nasr (7), Jalal Naser (39), Ahmad Abu Amra, Samy Al-Ghfeir (22), Jamal Al-Dalou, Ibrahim Mohammed Jamal 
Al-Dalou (1), Yousef Mohammed Jamal Al-Dalou (10), Jamal Mohammed Jamal Al-Dalou (7), Mohammed Jamal Al-Dalou, Mohammed Bakr Al-Of (24), Mohammed Salama Jundeya, Hussein Jalal Nasser (8), Nabeel Ahmad Abu Amrra, Nawal Abed al-Ali, Saadiyya al-Theib,
and Atiyyeh Mubarak (54).

Sunday Observations 11.18

Thanksgiving is Thursday so I suppose it is officially the holiday season now. It's cold enough in the Village and I went ice skating last night but something still seems to be missing. Oh yes, the NHL is still pretending to be a league on the level of the NFL and there is still no major league hockey. Some Philadelphia Flyers players are going to play some of the hated Rangers in Atlantic City Saturday night to raise money for Sandy victims and my brother has tickets. This now makes my Thanksgiving dinner goal talking him into taking his loving older sister to the game instead of his girlfriend, something that could be interesting with her sitting there. We shall see, I'll just have to keep their wine glasses full.

Another sign of the season is that I have turned on my iTunes playlist of 500 Christmas tunes. Yeah I know, so not me and I sometimes really don't like the season at all. It's just that same old love/hate thing I have going with Christmas.

There was another bit of election news, this time from Oregon. Democrat Tina Kotek was elected state House Speaker by the state's Democrats on Thursday. She will be the first open lesbian to lead a state legislature. Openly gay people will lead the legislatures of five states now, up from two before the election.

Not much news on the secessionist front but there is this very important petition on the White House website now that I will post below. It has been there for a couple days now and the White House doesn't seem in any rush to remove it. Must be something about the Hostess CEO raising his yearly salary to $2.25 million than filing for bankruptcy and putting 18,000 out of work.

WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO:
Nationalize the Twinkie industry
"We the undersigned, hereby request Barack Obama to immediately Nationalize the Twinkie industry and prevent our nation from losing her sweet creamy center."
Created: Nov 16, 2012
SIGNATURES NEEDED BY DECEMBER 16, 2012
TO REACH GOAL OF 25,000: 22,125

I would scream "save the Twinkie" to finish but to be quite honest I hate the damn things. It would make a good sign for the Walmart Black Friday strikes though so I better get that copyrighted quick.

Observations 11.17

I don't know if I have ever done a post that contained just a single quote before but given the state of the world yet again it seemed perfect dream for a gorgeous sunny morning.

"I dream of giving birth to a child who will ask, 'Mother, what was war?'"
 Eve Merriam (1916-1992)

Observations from the Window 11.16

Age can be a tricky thing in politics. I remember when I first saw Willard's motto "real change" and thinking sure vote for the old rich white guy for real change. Yesterday I had the exact opposite feeling when Luke Russert was rude enough to ask Nancy Pelosi if not stepping aside as Democratic leader in the house was keeping the party from grooming new leaders. Pelosi, who is 72, said she found the question offensive and as much as I like Debbie Wassermann Schultz I would agree, what has age got to do with the job? Russert, who I also like, quieted down like a spanked puppy.

Now I give you Arizona Senator John McCain who at the age of 76 seems to have just lost it completely. First McCain trashed UN Ambassador Susan Rice over what she had said at the start of the Benghazi mess even though Rice was just passing on what the CIA had told her. Evidently CIA Director Petraeus was too busy screwing his biographer that day to appear himself. McCain's outburst prompted this from an obviously pissed off President Obama; "If Senator McCain and Senator Graham and others want to go after someone they should go after me. When they go after the U.N. ambassador apparently because they think she's an easy target, then they've got a problem with me."

But it got even better yesterday when McCain held a press conference demanding more information on what happened in Benghazi. The thing is McCain gave his presser at the very same time the Senate Homeland Security committee was being given a classified briefing on that very subject. When questioned about it by a CNN reporter later in the day McCain went into a meltdown worthy of Fox News on election night. From the CNN article ....

"'I have no comment about my schedule and I'm not going to comment on how I spend my time to the media," McCain said. Asked why he wouldn't comment, McCain grew agitated: "Because I have the right as a senator to have no comment and who the hell are you to tell me I can or not?" When CNN noted that McCain had missed a key meeting on a subject the senator has been intensely upset about, McCain said, "I'm upset that you keep badgering me.'”

Where will McCain go next? Maybe, as The Daily Kos noted, he will demand a hearing into which hearings he should have attended while demanding more hearings.

Observations on Amerika 11.13

Not long after President Obama's reelection the spirit of Jefferson Davis infected some people and they have filed petitions to secede from the union on the White House website. Now you can argue the merits of just letting Texas secede and be done with them but I have this fear of it becoming a narco-terrorist haven. A small country filled with religious zealots, a wacko leader in Rick Perry, and flooded with guns. What could possibly go wrong? Maybe we should just call it Texistan.

But this is the United States of America and if we can't have fun with secession who can? This is an official petition filed yesterday with the White House. I think it is courtesy of our friends at The Daily Kos but I'm not sure, maybe just its rogue editor David Waldman. It only has 25 signatures so far so please do your part to help this fledgling country.

WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO:
Peacefully grant the State of Herp-a-Derp to withdraw from the United States of America & create its own NEW government
As the founding fathers of the United States of America made clear in the Declaration of Independence in 1776:

"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one neighbor to secretly let his dog crap on the lawn of another, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation." Therefore, herp-a-derp-derp, but please keep sending my Social Security check. I earned that, yo.

Created: Nov 12, 2012
SIGNATURES NEEDED BY DECEMBER 12, 2012
TO REACH GOAL OF 25,000: 24,975

11/14 update - Due to the seriousness of the secessionist cause I wanted to update this with some links. The first is a self-proclaimed epic rant by David Badash at The New Civil Rights Movement. Read his article and you will learn that wingnuts in 42 of the 50 states have started petitions to secede, "The Only States That Don’t Want To Secede Are The Ones With Gay Marriage."

On The Huffington Post I found something that's too funny. It seems somebody in Texas started a petition to have the city of Austin secede from Texas and remain part of the union. So far that petition has over 4,000 votes. But also in this article you will see that the Hardin County Republican Party Treasurer, Peter Morrison, called Obama backers maggots. That should give you a pretty good idea what kind of people these are.

From The New Republic comes the best of all, "Go Ahead and Secede, Texas. I Dare You," and the one you need to read if you read any of them. If you do read it you have to read it all from beginning to end. It gets a bit serious in the middle and you'll start to think that maybe Texas would be better off but the finish is totally awesome. I don't want to ruin it but I will finish with the final line from that column ....

"Don’t mess with us, Texas. You just might get what you want."

11/16 update - Sorry for this bit of sad news but the petition for the State of Herp-a-Derp to secede from the union was removed from the White House website because it violates the site's terms of service and is in fact fictional. Really? I never would have guessed. At this writing petitions to deport anybody who signs a petition to secede remain on the site. Probably just wishful thinking on everybody's part.

Observations on the 2012 Election 11.12

Gloat: to exhibit a conspicuous sense of self-satisfaction, often at an adversary's misfortune ....

I started to gloat but as we know I never finished, than I was reading an article about the movie Lincoln and saw a quote from Daniel Day-Lewis that changed my mind about gloating. "There’s a tendency now to deconstruct and analyze everything and I think that’s a self-defeating part of the enterprise." Although it was about his acting style, and not politics, I decided to trash what I had started to just sit back and enjoy the moment. Instead of gloating I thought I'd just share some results.

President Obama was elected with 51% of the popular vote making him the first Democratic President to win two Presidential elections with over 50% of the vote since FDR. I have been reminded that Bill Clinton is the only other Democrat who has even won two elections since FDR, it still sounds good. Obama also won the electoral vote by a wide margin (332-206) so the wingnuts have no possible argument on the results. By the way, have you noticed that a Democrat has won four of the last six presidential elections?

Until now a marriage equality referendum had never passed by a popular vote but this year it did in three states (Maine, Maryland, and Washington) and in Minnesota a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage was defeated.

Some firsts; Tammy Baldwin will be the first openly gay person to serve in the Senate, Mazie Hirono the first Asian American woman to serve in the Senate, Iraq War veteran Tammy Duckworth the first disabled woman to serve in the house, Tulsi Gabbard the first Hindu American to serve in Congress, and Kyrsten Sinema the first openly bisexual woman to serve in the House. As I have mentioned before there will be a record twenty women Senators in the next Congress, only four will be Republicans.

In another first the state of New Hampshire's entire Congressional delegation (2 Senators and 3 Representatives) is made up of women and as a bonus the state elected Maggie Hassan as its Governor. Also in New Hampshire Stacie Laughton was elected to the State House, the highest office ever held by an out transgender person.

In something not totally related to the election MSNBC beat Fox News in the ratings game each of the three nights following the election. Who knows the reason, maybe the Fox News meldown on election night or a Fox anchor calling Rachel Maddow "an angry young man" that same night. As with the election results and the failure of every member of the GOP's rape caucus results sometimes speak louder than words.

I never even got to Karl Christian Rove and his millions of lost dollars.

Finally all too sweet quote from Speaker of the House John Boehner. When asked if, given the election's result, his goal was still the repeal of President Obama's healthcare reforms he answered simply;
"Obamacare is the law of the land."

No, I have no possible reason to gloat.

Sunday Observations 11.11

To be honest nothing much happened this past week that didn't involve the election or the wingnut meltdown that followed. Before you ask, yes I'm still working on that final election post.

After reading this thought provoking article on ThinkProgress I have managed to rediscover the beauty of Buffy's sixth season. I think I've seen every episode of Buffy at least once but I haven't watched any in years, I really did miss her. I should add that 'thought provoking' are the words I use when I personally think the writer thinks too much.

Its probably a bit early for this but Christmas is on the way so I thought I should post my Christmas list in photo form. Don't you think it's much easier that way? It so rarely happens but by posting this I can call myself a fashion blogger too.

Observations on the 2012 Election 11.9

The record twenty women who will be serving in the U.S. Senate at the start of the 113th Congress with the newly elected in bold:

Kelly Ayotte (D-NH)
Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)
Barbara Boxer (D-CA)
Maria Cantwell (D-WA)
Susan Collins (R-ME)
Diane Feinstein (D-CA)
Deb Fischer (R-NE)
Kirsten Gillbrand (D-NY)
Kay Hagen (D-NC)
Heidie Heitkamp (D-ND)
Mazie Hirono (D-HA)
Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)
Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
Claire McCaskill (D-MO)
Barbara Mikulski (D-MD)
Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
Patty Murray (D-WA)
Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)
Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)
Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)

Observations on the 2012 Election 11.8

It's about time to retire the Election 2012 headline but I said I would get back to how historic the day was. Maybe we need to wait a couple years to really say but there are some simple facts that made the day historic and some not so simple ideas. I think I'm going to break this into two parts though. First a few thoughts on the Republican Party, which I may have sent to the dustbin of history a bit early, and than some outright gloating about the winners on Tuesday.

I heard something yesterday that is just dead on, the right wing media runs the Republican Party and not the other way around. They set the tone and the wingnuts run with it and enforce what the talking idiots say. On top of that they get all their news from the same place, Fox News, so it's gotten to the point that they believe everything they say to each other and really can't comprehend that maybe their stands on issues are just way out of line with where the country is going. Tuesday night they were collectively stunned by the results because they do believe all their own bull shit.

The Republican Party itself has to realize this country isn't just changing, it has already changed in many ways. Every month 50,000 Hispanic children turn 18 and they vote. As much as I hate to say it Dubya, because he was Governor of Texas, actually thought out an immigration policy and got almost half the Hispanic vote while Willard got just a quarter of it. Simply trotting out Mark Rubio as the token Hispanic VP candidate would't have mattered even though Bill O'Reilly seems to think that's all it would have taken to win. Another interesting thing is this, have you ever noticed how the wingnuts always talk in code about Hispanics and African-Americans? They like to say that all blacks are on welfare and want free things while all Mexicans are illegals. Now the percentage of Asian Americans who voted for Obama was higher than the percentage of Hispanics but the talking heads never mentioned this fact. Maybe because it doesn't fit their code as they like to say all Asians are hard working and probably don't want to acknowledge that this group is largely turned off by the Republicans too.

But there are so many other problems for the wingnuts and Republicans. Seventy percent of unmarried women voted for Obama and as high as ninety percent of gays voted for him. They may still make the most noise on the subject but it does seem EWS (Evangelical Wingnut Conservatism) is beginning to lose its own culture war. Enough said.

This is just too funny to leave out. Paul Ryan lost his home state of Wisconsin and Romney not only lost his home state of Massachusetts but every state in which he currently owns a home. There are just too many of those to list here.

So could the Republicans have defeated President Obama? Honestly I don't think so but I do think there were two candidates that might have have had a chance. Jeb Bush, the Bush who should have been president before and was smart enough not to run this time, and John Huntsman, a conservative on economic issues but a moderate on social ones he was devoured early in the GOP primary season. Huntsman was the only candidate that actually scared me early in the campaign, the wingnuts took care of that.

Maybe the best and shortest description of the election result came from Charles M. Blow in "Picket Fence Apocalypse" a New York Times opinion on Wednesday. "No, you cannot have your country back. America is moving forward," he began. And than finished with this line; "Republicans are trying to hold back a storm surge of demographic change with a white picket fence. Good luck with that."

Before I finish I need to say this. I hope you saw some of the Fox News election coverage Tuesday night. The epic on air meltdown when their own people called the election for Obama was nutjob theatre at its awesome best, it just had to be seen.

Next up, and my final election post, let the gloating begin.

Observations on the 2012 Election 11.7

Doug Mills/The New York Times

I'm so tired after a long but historic day yesterday, still some thoughts while they are still fresh in my mind. To start Barack Obama won a second term as President of the United States. I really don't know what else to say at the moment. I was sure he would win, again I told you so, but still it's just such a totally amazing thing to be able to say that. One thing it does mean is the country really does have a health care plan for all Americans now. Also we can finally now say that the white male political establishment will never again be the same again, never. Never again will a party win the presidency with just white men, they will need a mix including those 'brown people' and women and poor that the current Republican Party so despises. Welcome to the 21^st Century.

This is something I have been thinking for some time. The Republican side is now for all practical purposes politically bankrupt. For the past four years their only plan was to deny President Obama a second term and they failed. There is no plan B for them. That realization was highlighted last night by an epic meltdown on Fox News and Donald Trump's tweeting for revolution, tweets that he quickly deleted when it was brought to his attention that what he was saying was legally treason. In his concession speech the candidate himself rose above that and showed that he probably is a good man and was brought down by his own party with their archaic ideas. Mitt Romney, Governor of Massachusetts, might have won yesterday.

So where are we now? Hard to tell, a cynic will expect nothing to change. The thing is a second term president is a totally different beast who really has nothing to worry about but his or her legacy. There are no more elections down the road for Obama. The Republicans will have to work with him now or watch their once great party slide into that proverbial dustbin of history. Perfect time for Steven Spielberg's Lincoln to be in theaters.

The American people proved something too. We might disagree on so many issues but don't ever say we cant't vote and don't think you can buy the Presidency of the United States. Karl Rove, the Koch brothers, and all the others could have just thrown all their millions of dollars into a dumpster for all the good it did them.

How historic was yesterday? I'll get back to you, that question has to wait until I have some coffee and ponder it some.

Observations on Election Day 2012

I'm not sure how much I'm going to do here tonight, I seem to be spending too much time on twitter, but I have one thing for you to keep an eye on. The Republican attempt to limit voting in Florida may have backfired as there are reports of record turnout in that state. People don't like being told they can't do something that they have every right to do. Florida covers two time zones so even though the polls close at 7 PM it will be 8 PM EST until we know anything from there. A win by President Obama in Florida would be huge because it might make Ohio, and any possible recount there, a little less crucial.

8:50PM - With pro-choice Independent Angus King replacing Republican Olympia Snowe in Maine and Democrat Chris Murphy easily defeating Republican Linda McMahon, who spent $77 million, in Connecticut it seems the Senate will stay safely Democratic. Still early though. The Connecticut seat was Joe Lieberman's who was Independent but leaned Republican so the King win is a good trade.

10:00PM - SENATOR Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin becomes the first openly gay member of the United States Senate. No matter what else happens tonight it has been a historic election.

11:12PM - With wins in Ohio and Iowa President Obama declared winner of the 2012 Presidential Election. I told you so ...

Observations on Election Day

Generation Vote

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Published by IVOTEnation
We ARE knowledgeable, we ARE passionate, and we WILL vote.
On November 6th, it's Our Turn.

Please Vote

When I first voted in the Village a few years ago I was a little uncomfortable, I was never quite sure why. Either it was a feeling I didn't belong there or the fact that after years of voting in a firehouse I was now voting in St. Anthony's Church, it just didn't seem right. I was up early today to vote before the lines got too long and I didn't have that feeling at all but I was uncomfortable for another reason. After a seemingly endless campaign it's finally over but I'm not sure a majority of Americans have any idea what it was about or just how important this election is. The winner of today will in all likelihood appoint more than one Supreme Court Justice, four of the current justices are 74 or more years old, and decide the direction of this country for generations to come. The addition of just one more conservative member to the court would completely tip the balance of the court and women, minorities, and the poor could say goodbye to any rights they once had.

So please go vote, it really is that important.

For the record I voted for President Obama and Senator Gillibrand.

Observations on Election Day 11.5

My brother sent me a text today saying he saw a billboard truck driving around in Pennsylvania that said "Be Ready To Show Your Photo When Voting." That just shows how ugly this election could become because the court ruled that you can be asked for the photo ID but you don't need to show one to vote. My brother and sis have come up with a little family protest and are going to be sure they don't have any approved ID when they vote. That is going to go over awesomely in our small conservative hometown. I really wish I could be there.

Donald Trump tweeted that you should be sure to vote (for Romney) because we need real change this time. Yes for real change cast your vote for the rich old white man, that always seems to work. I think the first thing I do after the election is remove the 'real Donald Trump' from any of my twitter lists he happens to be on. He doesn't even entertain me anymore but just shows how ignorant some Americans can still be. And while I'm at it I might have to purge my twitter of people that just complain but wont vote for this reason or that. I don't have the time or patience for the ignorance or poor spelling.

Something to keep in mind; in the key states of Colorado, Florida, and Ohio if the winning margin is less than .5 percent an automatic recount is triggered. The recounts are overseen by each state's Secretary of State who in each case just happens to be a Republican.

Considering its not yet election day it's probably early to picking a quote of the day but it will be hard to top this from Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. "If I hear anybody say it was because Romney wasn't conservative enough I’m going to go nuts. We’re not losing 95% of African Americans and two-thirds of Hispanics and voters under 30 because we’re not being hard-ass enough."

Polls open in Dixville Notch, New Hampshire at midnight and New York City at 6 AM.

late update - Tonight Jeff Greenfield of Yahoo! News made a heartfelt plea to undecided voters that I totally agree with, please just stay home.
"And after all this time, you’re still trying to make up your minds. The overwhelmingly likely reason is this: You have the reasoning power of a baked potato."

12:15AM - The long awaited Dixville Notch vote ended in a 5-5 tie. Get some sleep people, it's going to be one hell of a long day.

Observations on the 2012 Election

The election is almost here, proven by the fact that all my favorite people from Alex Wagner to Rachel Maddow to Krystal Ball are all working on a Sunday night. I suppose if I want to act like I know anything at all about politics I must offer my prediction and not wait till the votes are finally counted. Saying I told you so just wouldn't be as much fun if I didn't tell you so in the first place so here is my pick for winner of the 2012 Presidential election.

I'm that rare person who is sometimes accused of being overly cynical but at other times, times usually involving politics, accused of being overly optimistic. That being said I think Tuesday President Obama will win re-election and will win by a margin not as close as the national polls are showing.

You might tell me to look at those polls again but the thing is I don't think late national polls mean as much as they once did for one simple reason. By the time polls open Tuesday more than 29 million people will have already voted, a record any way you look at it. You can ignore that if you want but another problem with national polls is that they are national in the first place. In some southern states Romney is ahead by twenty or thirty points which throws off the national averages yet doesn't effect the final electoral count in the least, Mississippi still has six electoral votes and California has fifty-five in the only poll that matters.

Another reason I don't believe the polls involves women. President Obama is way ahead among single women, younger women, and single mothers yet Romney is ahead among married women of all ages. Are married women and single women that different? I really don't think so, unless they are voting for Romney just because their husbands are voting for Romney but I'm not going there, I don't have the time for ignorance on that level. Another possible reason, and slightly more understandable, is that they don't want their husbands to know who they are voting for.

As always I may be wrong, one way or the other we'll all know together in about forty-eight hours.

Sunday Observations 11.4

As I write this it is only 40 hours till election day ....

It has been one hell of a week so I don't have much this Sunday but I did have one thing I wanted to pass on. Congresswoman and Chair of the Democratic National Committee Debbie Wassermann Schultz is one of my favorite politicians for a number of reasons not the least of which is that she is a cancer survivor. I was catching up on some reading this week and read an article on her in the October issue of Vogue.

"Her seemingly inexorable rise was interrupted in 2007, when she found a lump in her breast while doing a self-exam in the shower. The cancer was at an early stage, but because of a history of cancer in her family, she was advised to undergo genetic testing for the BRCA mutation. "When the tests came back I realized there were too many people in the room for them to be negative," she says. With her BRCA2 mutation the odds were as high as 80 percent that she would eventually develop ovarian cancer, with a similarly high risk of her breast cancer recurring. She opted to have the most aggressive preventative treatment possible: surgical removal of her ovaries and a double mastectomy."

It goes on to describe how the hardest part for her was keeping the news from her kids until she knew she would be fine and from her colleagues because she didn't want any special treatment. During the 2008 presidential election she campaigned for now President Obama even as she underwent seven operations. I wish I could link to the full article, it's very good, but it isn't online anywhere. Wasserman Schultz is now one of the leading candidates to replace Nancy Pelosi as House Minority Leader if she steps down after the election.

Observations on Sandy 11.3

And than yesterday it happened, slowly lights began to spread across lower Manhattan. It started in the East Village where the sub-station had exploded during the storm than spread to Chelsea, SoHo, and finally the Village. You would have thought it was New Years Eve the way people were honking their car horns and yelling in the streets. The gallery is in the East Village and was in the first wave so that's where we spent the evening until we heard our building had power sometime around 11, than it was off to a now well lit and warm apartment. One would think a party was called for but after a small celebration at the gallery all I really wanted to do was crash in a warm bed.

It's nice to have our power back but as I write this there are still a million people without power in New York City alone. Some loose ends ...

I still haven't had much first hand news from Stone Harbor but I saw a headline that said Wildwood and Ocean City were the two hardest hit areas in Cape May County, New Jersey. One is to the south of Stone Harbor while the other is to the north. The storm gods must have smiled on Stone Harbor a bit.

Yesterday afternoon we could hear explosions in the city, under the circumstances not exactly what one wanted to hear. Turns out the NYPD was exploding what they called "damaged munitions" out in the harbor. A heads up would have been very nice, very nice indeed.

Some laughed when Goldman Sachs totally sandbagged their building before Sandy hit, the joke being that maybe they wouldn't take away the bags after the storm passed. Nobody laughed afterwards because their building was the only one in the Financial District not flooded and due to their massive generator it was also the only area that never went dark. The dark area immediately bordering Sachs' building became known as the dead zone.

I never thought much about who lived in our neighborhood a century or more ago until Halloween this year. Street after street of darkened apartment buildings and store fronts looking like one huge eerie haunted village. It wasn't hard to picture ghosts peaking out of the windows and zombies running across the wet streets. You don't believe in zombies? Just wait, if Willard wins Tuesday's election the zombie apocalypse will be upon us for sure.

One important lesson I learned during the blackout was that I can survive for a time on bottled water, those little Via Coffee packs by Starbucks, peanut butter, and Ritz crackers. Good to know.

Sandy

This is another video taken during Sandy that a friend sent me and I never got posted. You may have already seen it because I think its been everywhere but I thought I would post it anyway. It's a great vid but all I could think when I first saw it was 'what idiots,' I mean who rides bikes in a storm like that? This coming from the person who wanders around in storms with water almost up to my knees. For my dad's sake I should add I'm speaking hypothetically. I like the description that follows.

Hurricane Sandy on Bikes in NYC


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Published on Oct 31, 2012 by caseyneistat
Do not try this. also, i know i spelled incident wrong. but thank you for letting me know that over and over again. you see, in addition to the entire city being flooded we also lost electricity. editing video is tricky with no electricity. most of this video was edited at a starbucks in harlem, where there was electricity and some corners were cut. all that and i can't spell very well. i really did think incident was spelled
with two e's.

Observations on the 2012 Election 11.2

The election is only days, literally hours, away now but it really hasn't been on my mind much. I know, I must be ill, but somehow living in the dark zone seems to do that to you. Still I'm still breathing ....

Yesterday, in a totally surprise move, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg endorsed President Obama in Tuesday's election. Bloomberg had stated all summer long that he wouldn't endorse anybody, probably because he thinks the best person for the job is Michael Bloomberg. In all honesty sometimes, especially after the past few days, I think the same thing.

On his website Bloomberg, who is both an ex-Democrat and an ex-republican, said this; "One sees climate change as an urgent problem that threatens our planet; one does not. I want our president to place scientific evidence and risk management above electoral politics." Also important in his decision were education, marriage equality, and women's rights. Bloomberg added that if the Willard of old were running for president he would have voted for him, but he isn't, well not today, maybe he will be tomorrow.

Full Endorsement

Observations on Sandy 11.1

The 'Escape from New York' edition, not the old movie but the story in which the gods conspire to keep us in this cold darkened city. I woke up this morning and it was cold, not arctic clipper sub-freezing cold but hundred year old walls don't keep out the chill and it's 40° but feels a lot worse cold. Plan B call for our escape to my dad's for the weekend but the plan has run into some serious issues. The first being a total lack of gas in Foxy's tank. I know I should have filled it Sunday night but I had just gotten back from the Penn State game and I had other things to do. That and I'm not one to panic, I usually expect the worst but that doesn't mean I always prepare for it.

Buy gas you say, easier said than done. There is none to be had in lower Manhattan and even if there was there is no power to run the pumps. If I took my usual route through the Holland Tunnel I might have enough gas to get to Jersey, where gas lines are a half mile long, but the tunnel is still closed which means I either use the Lincoln Tunnel or George Washington Bridge. The GWB is only 15 miles away but would take an hour to get to in this mess, I don't have the gas. The Lincoln is half the distance but has a totally different issue.

Yesterday traffic in the city was brutal, everybody from the burbs trying to get to work without trains running (fools) and just parking their cars anywhere they felt like. Because of that Mayor Bloomberg announced a three passenger rule for the rest of the week, no car is allowed into Manhattan without at least three passengers. You might laugh but it is being enforced with checkpoints outside the city and if you don't have three or more in the car they send you down an off-ramp, supposedly waiting lines from Connecticut are miles long this morning. I probably could make it to the Lincoln and get gas in Jersey but I have to check on the line first, wouldn't due me any good to run out of gas and have to push Foxy back to the garage.

In other traffic news garages are full, buses are full and drive right by and also don't go south of 23^rd Street after dark, and even though the rule has been waved some cabbies refuse to take multiple fares. I can only think some of them didn't understand the memo because honestly sometimes they don't even understand where you want to go. For now the fastest form of transportation seems to be walking.

3:50PM - At the moment Camp Daddywood seems to be on hold until I can appropriate a few gallons of gas, maybe tomorrow or maybe not, I have no clue at this point.

Under the circumstances I think the city and mayor have done a totally awesome job here but there are a couple things I do disagree with. One is opening everything up so soon instead of waiting till maybe this weekend because it just created total gridlock. I spent half the day just getting uptown to charge some batteries and find some food. I'm sure there are perfectly wonderful financial reasons to do it but just get the brokerages going again if you must and let the rest of us die in peace. The other thing I disagree with is running the New York Marathon this Sunday. Hopefully I wont be here for it but I just don't get running it. The city doesn't even know where to put the people, hotels are all full and such. I know it's not something that can be postponed for a week, I understand that, so just cancel it.

Cell service in lower Manhattan is getting worse and worse, sometimes I get a connection and sometimes not. For good WiFi you have to get yourself above 39^th Street or squeeze into a library because somehow those wizards have managed to get their WiFi back on without power. The library people are quite proud of that fact and by the gods they have every right to be.

Earlier today Mayor Bloomberg endorsed President Obama today citing climate change as his main reason. Imagine that.