A Christmas Gift

Unsavory, but still a fantastic christmas gift if you have friends who own a pool.

Articles and Political Ramblings

In the interest of fair play, I have come across two different articles in these post-election days.

The first was sent to me by my old roommate Dimitri. I have to give warning to would be readers, this article is a bit abrasive. It's a riot and on point in places but it's title alone should give you warning, so here you go, Fuck the South.

The second article was sent by the oft mentioned John F. in Indy. Usually I mention him in pre-warning about a nasty comment that I believe to be forthcoming. John and I have made a lifetime of arguing politics. It's probably lucky for the retention of our friendship that we haven't been around each other during this last election. Nonetheless, John sent me this article and I present it here in the interest of fair play.

I have had several friendly conversations with fellow Blue voters over where this election went wrong. The easiest answer is that the republican national committee and Bush's re-election campaign simply outmaneuvered the democrats. It would be easy to say that the republicans used dirty tactics and ran a dirty campaign, but both camps are guilty there. Bush and Kerry both insinuated that voting for the other would bring more terrorist attacks. The republican campaign, however, went after the gays.

I could spout off for endless pages here about how ridiculous this notion is, I'll limit myself to a couple. The moral majority (or whatever name is being used by right wing extremists who are NOT the majority of "christian" America) didn't want gays to be sexually promiscuous, objected to the open sexuality of the burgeoning gay community. They said gays were ruining American society.

Today gays (some and thank god not all) are having children and trying to connect in marriages and civil unions. The same argument comes out from the extremists, that gays are ruining American society. I think it's time for moderates, democrat and republican to stand up and say "Look, gay people are part of our society, they're not hurting you and they're not going away."

My question about this issue is, where was the democratic national committee to say these things? Was Terry Macaullife too busy raising money and "improving technology" to pay attention to what Karl Rove was doing? Were they too busy to say, "Hey, does anybody think that these gay marriage bans might mobilize extreme right voters? Shouldn't we be out there telling people that this isn't about their church but about a civil contract? " Would this have been so hard? I guess it's too late to save this election but it's not to late for these things to be said, to have them out there. The DNC needs to put emphasis on their party's real platform and quit selling out whoever isn't popular at the moment. Though it pains me to involve church and state in any way, the DNC has to make themselves more available or at least more tolerant of moderate religious groups. Of course, this can't come at the price of selling out other groups, namely gays, so who is going to bridge this gap. Macaullife's term is ending and it's rumored that Howard Dean may take over the DNC. One can hope that positive change will abound.

A fellow Blogger at Halloween.

Patrick at Halloween

Third time is a charm

Okay, this is the third time I have tried to write this entry and blogger keeps dumping it. Let's try again. I have been sick in bed for three days taking tons of cold medicine so I might have to come back and re-clarify this post later.

Lately I have been frustrated with some things about my work. Some observations:

• If you are a shift manager (meaning you are a manager of a single shift) then really, manage. Don't "empower" me to take care of something if you're going to criticize the end result. On that note, if you are a manager who insists of taking care of things personally and not "empower" your staff to make decisions, then at least make yourself available to make that decision. When I have asked you four times to at least come and visibly look at a homeless person who I want to have barred, tear yourself away and come look at them and make a decision to bar them so they'll stop pawing my customers and panhandling.

• If you are a manager and you decide to berate me in front of other employees and customers by telling me that everyone else doubled their sales for Halloween and you can't figure out what my problem is, make sure that I worked the previous Halloween. It might make your case seem stronger. As I suggested at that point, get a job with a suicide hotline encouraging people just to go ahead and off themselves, you'll be a success!

• If you are a shift manager who feels the need to play a petty game (like cartman on South Park: "You are not respecting my authoriti") about when people will leave and when people will come on, try not to be so obvious about it or at least have the balls to admit what you are doing and have dialogue, you are supposed to be the manager after all. Leaving me on the bar after you had all the customers for an hour and then keeping my relief bartender in the back cooling his heels for an hour is very obvious and petty. You get a bonus check for holidays when you don't do anything managerial, at the least you could act managerial when you are the manager.

Just some observations.

In other news, Ashcroft resigned, Hooray! Let's see what kind of replacement we get. Dare I say they couldn't be worse. Perhaps Bush will go get a snake charming Pentecostal from rural West Virginia.

I love Bill Maher. When I watch Real Time I think, "My god, did I write this?"

Let me say this in caps so as not to be mis-understood: ENOUGH WITH THE FUCKING YELLOW LANCE ARMSTRONG BRACELETS. ENOUGH ENOUGH ENOUGH. Every trendy and/or wanna be trendy fag who is wearing these bracelets, stop, stop now. Buying them on Ebay doesn't donate money to the cause.

Enough for now, I'm going back to bed.

Ray, a drop of Golden Sun

OH MY GOD! I can't believe that there are any rays of golden sun in the days following the election, but today there are some. The most unbelievable of them comes from the most unbelievable source. Arlen Specter, whom I prayed wouldn't be re-elected, has surfaced with a warning for President Elect.

Second terms for Presidents often comes with changes in cabinet positions. Though it's way too early to be sure it will happen, THIS gives me hope. Though they say, be careful what you wish for, the next one up could be convinced the world is flat. Nothing would surprise me. It looks like for now we'll have more of "SuperHawk" Rumsfield but the possible demise of Condoleezza "Exxon Supertanker" Rice.

Those of you who know Mattie, and his upcoming move westward, this AP article about the new Mayor of San Diego shows that Louisiana style politics are possible anywhere.

In complete other news, I am a procrastinator. I put things off often, forgetting about them, ignoring them and one of those things is parking tickets. I knew I had several of them out there but was definitely surprised to find a big orange boot on my car today when I left to go buy dog food. I called the office of parking administration and found out I have 10 unpaid tickets. 10! I won't go into the amount that I had to pay but suffice to say I'm poor again. It's my own fault of course so I wasn't really that upset. I mean, being mad at someone else was silly and hey, I can forgive myself quite easily.

I was struck by something about this whole ordeal. Given the number of tickets and boots I see on a daily basis in the quarter, how can this city not be paving the streets with gold. Let's just do a little math. Every Tuesday and Thursday the streets of the French quarter are cleaned ( if you can believe that.) Let's just say for shits and giggles that 30 cars are towed each of those two days. This is an EXTREMELY low estimate. Each one of those cars pays a 25 dollar ticket plus a 75 dollar tow fee. 100 bucks X 30 X 2 = $6,000 a WEEK! That comes out to $312,000 a year, not to mention the massive number of tows and things that go up during holiday weekends when people park everywhere and get towed away. Then there are the tickets. Let's just say that in the Quarter alone the city issues 100 tickets a day, seven days a week. Again, this is an extremely low estimate. 20 bucks a pop, 100 tickets a day, there are some free days so let's say 350 days a year nets an additional $700,000 a year. A million bucks a year just from the French quarter alone. I've been here five years and this summer has been the first time I have ever seen ANY street work done around here. Now I know that they have to pay all these people and from the looks of the meter Nazis, they are paid well. Nobody could be that fat on low pay or pay that much for a weave.

Against my better judgment I'm off to work. I have made the decision not to discuss politics, either pro nor con when alcohol is involved for the time being. I'm sure I will not keep this promise to myself but it was made more to prevent me from becoming upset and despondent about the election. I was trying to come up with a name for my feelings but my best effort (and please, your comments about a good name would be appreciated) was PETSD (Post Election Traumatic Stress Disorder.) This article from gadfly was also well received by me today.

Dazed

Voice mails are piling up on my cell phone, which has gone unanswered since yesterday afternoon. Only a lack of food in my kitchen got me out of the house today. Going to the grocery store gave me something to do, something to focus my energies on. Thanksgiving is coming up and I will undoubtedly want to make something new, but I am a little short on thanks right now. I made a grocery list and Jeff went with me, probably more because he was worried that I might drive the car off the Crescent City Connection than anything else. When I came home I cleaned out my cabinets, freezer and refrigerator, throwing out anything that was anywhere close to an expiration or if I was knew it had lived out it's usefulness. It was somewhat healing. My recipe files were all out of whack so I organized them and started the dishwasher. Jeff's parents are coming by this weekend so the house should be cleaned up. They live in Jackson Mississippi and voted for Bush, I should probably be gone when they show up here.

To write about my anger, my frustration, my depression, my fears and worries would likely be preaching to the choir of the people who are "likely" readers of my web-blog. I thought I would throw out some info:

Orleans Parish voting record.

Jefferson Parish voting record.

My hometowns voting record:

(Greenwood, Indiana: Johnson County)

(Indianapolis, Indiana: Marion County)

Matties Hometown:

(Kosciousko County)

There are so many things to say, so many things I wanted to hear from Kerry today when he conceded the election. I wanted him to say the things I want to say right now, like "What is wrong with you people?" (shaking fist at middle America!) Sadly it is Karl Rove and W and corporate Americas turn to laugh today, but that laughter will soon die down. I have no doomsday prediction about the next four years, I can't even let myself think that far down the road. While flipping around blogs and websites I came across the text to the Osama Bin Laden tape that was released last week. I'm sure there is some discrepancy to the translation but the message was clear, "We are having the last laugh, we spent 500,000 to take down the WTC and you've spent 500 million and haven't even caught me yet."

Here's a site of interest.

Work out some frustration about our (for the first time) President Elect.

I guess that's all...For now....The pressure from the ever present tears in my eyes today seems to have waned some. My mother agreed that Belize sounded good. Perhaps California, even if the terminator is the Governor. Who's to say. Every list and group whose e-mails I have diligently read over the last year were full of would be hope today. Yes there were some victories, but mostly there was just lies and fear tactics and disappointment.

I am turning off the comment section to this entry to prevent certain people (this would be you John F.) from making comments that would only incite my anger. In a few days, or perhaps weeks I will be able to take the taunting "crybabyliberalstupiddemocrat" crap that will most assuredly be spilled by every cracker with a modem, but today it might force me to stroke out.

Seriously

This is so sad. I cannot understand why this country would re-elect George Bush. Thank god the Kerry campaign learned from the mistakes of the Gore people and decided not to just back down and take it like a little bitch from the republicans. Maybe we are all fooling ourselves that Clevelands democrats can put Kerry over the edge, but I would much rather fool myself right now than think that it's all over. It's a difference of 102,000 votes right now but there are TONS of votes that haven't been counted yet.

Ron Reagan Jr. Has been a commentator on MSNBC all night. He's been right on with several issues ranging from his criticism of the Iraq war to stem cell research. He managed to do it again tonight. I can't believe it took until the night of the election but finally I heard someone say the correct thing about gay marriage.

It's not about religion.

It's not about religion.

It's not about religion.

Should I say that one more time? In the interest of giving credit where credit is due, I have to hand the power of suggestion and crazed fanaticism to the republican party. America has been convinced and manipulated with many stories by both political parties. Since the end of the cold war we've seen many attempts to pick a new "Big Bad Wolf." Gays seem to fill that void quite well. Now we want to get married! Oh My God! Middle America, clutching their kids hands in Wal-Mart to keep us dirty faggots from kidnapping them and selling them into the extremely lucrative world of white slavery, have been convinced that gay people, given this right, will be kicking down the doors at the local Pentecostal church clad in white leather dresses with veils screeching "I DO! I DO!" Seriously. Pardon my run on sentences but it's hard to type out your fury and anger without dropping a little punctuation.

Damn, Damn, Damn.

Arlen Specter made a comeback and is probably going to win. Damn.

The Redneck Riviera (Read: the Florida Panhandle) is full of gun toting, bible slinging, trailer park living, christian radio listening, fear ridden Bushies who have probably given him the state. Damn.

I just ate an entire bag of potato chips to soothe my nerves. Damn.

There is no way this election is going to be decided tonight. Ohio is a mess still, everywhere else is too close to call. Barbara Boxer won re-election, Hooray!

Oh yeah, Karl Rove needs to die.

A Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

I'm nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof right now. Election night and I am at home, too nervous to even leave the house or answer my phone. Jeff is still at work and the puppies are asleep while I switch network to cable channels frantically. I'm sticking mostly with MSNBC even though I really don't like Chris Mathews. People in Ohio are still standing in line to vote and a federal judge has now forced pollsters to issue paper ballots. The panhandle nor Dade county (read: Miami) have turned in their votes but Kerry is 200,000 behind. Kerry should take Pennsylvania but Ohio is a mystery right now. If I were a religious person I would be on my knees right now (and the first one of you bitches that makes a nasty crack about that comment will die a slow painful death.) The only bright spots is the incredible voter turn-out everywhere. I don't care who they vote for as long as they vote. How anyone could vote for Bush is beyond me, seriously, how could anyone be falling for the scare tactic campaign.

Did it dawn on anyone that all these bans on gay marriage across the country were ploys to get out the frantic christian vote?

I'm going back to my potato chips and my nerves, right after I look up the map of Belize to see which part of the country my friends house is in since I'll be forced to move there if the red states win.