• Beginning in January 2009, I’ll be serving on the advisory board for the Pittsboro St. branch of the North Carolina State Employees Credit Union.  I love the NC SECU!  If you’re a member– at any branch!– of SECU, feel free to tell me how it’s going.  Advisory board members love to hear what’s going well and what you’d like to see from the SECU.  Ideas for services you’d like to see are particularly welcome!  (No, “free money” or “money for hugs” are not suggestions I will take to the branch manager.) 
• I have finished the first seven days of a 30-in-30 grind.  30 poems in thirty days.  After seven days, I have five sonnets.  I did not set out to write sonnets, people, it’s just happening.  But I am finding them tremendously liberating.
• This is my first post since election day, and I suppose that just about everything that could possibly be said about this election has been said.  I have nothing new to offer.  I feel a great sense of hope about the direction that this country could take under Barack Obama.  I really believe he’s going to be an incredible President, because more than any politician I can remember in quite some time, I believe he’s an incredible human being.  (And I am delighted with the direction of the Democratic Party under another guy I think is pretty great, Howard Dean.)

  But for all the hope I feel, as proud as I am of the American electorate, I am just disgusted with referenda passed in states like Florida and California that deny human beings basic rights, that relegates some people to second-class citizenship.

  Gay rights are civil rights.  

  According to tax laws, if a tax-exempt group — religious or secular — promotes ideas which contradict important public policies (like desegregation), then the group’s tax-exempt status may not be granted or extended. Tax exemptions are provided in exchange for groups’ providing services to the community; when the groups undermine important goals of the community, then the tax exemptions are no longer justified. 

  I have heard some calls for petitions to strip the Mormon Church of its tax-exempt status for its role in the passage of California’s Proposition 8.  I support this action, and I support the removal of tax-exempt status for any non-profit institution which engages in partisan political activity.  I hope you will too. 

You thought the tire slashing and dead bear cubs were rotten.  Now take a look at this:

State Democratic and Republican party officials are decrying the appearance of a casket with an anti-Barack Obama sticker at a Craven County polling place. State Democrats said Saturday the coffin and sticker are an attempt to intimidate people voting early. And Republican Party spokesman Brent Woodcox said the matter should trouble all citizens. “All decent, law-abiding citizens of North Carolina are outraged by this incident,” said Woodcox. The state NAACP says the casket was in place for at least several hours. A bumper sticker on it showed an image of Obama and the phrase “O’ No!” (THE NEWS & OBSERVER; THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, 11/01/08).

Very classy.

So, I hate to be the jerk here, but are there similar incidents that might be construed as an effort to suppress the Republican vote?

This comes from this morning’s Insider:

A Dunn teen has been cited in the slashing of tires on vehicles parked outside the Crown Coliseum during presidential candidate Barack Obama’s speech last week, the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release Monday. According to the news release, the slashings were a prank and the vandalism was “in no way politically motivated.” There had been speculation that the tires were slashed by local Obama opponents. Timothy Michael Strickland, 18, of the 8300 block of Norris Road in Dunn, faces 11 citations. An unnamed 15-year-old suspect is also under investigation for allegedly conspiring with Strickland to damage the vehicles, the release said. Strickland is scheduled to appear in Cumberland County District Court on Thursday. He is cited with willful injury to personal property. (THE FAYETTEVILLE OBSERVER, 10/27/08).

Following this story (which followed this one):

Seven Western Carolina University students dumped a dead bear cub draped in Barack Obama campaign signs on the campus earlier this week as a prank, according to authorities. Possible charges were being discussed with the local prosecutor, said Campus Police Chief Tom Johnson. Police did not release the students’ names. The students told authorities they took political signs at random to cover the bear’s wound and prevent blood from spilling into the bed of the truck they were driving.

They discovered a carcass of the cub, which had been shot in the head, while camping over the weekend and brought it back to a gathering at an apartment near campus Sunday night, according to a statement from the school. It was during that gathering, officials said, that a student suggested placing the bear at the base of a statue at the main entrance to the campus. Maintenance workers found the bear cub’s body early Monday morning near the school’s entrance. “I am pleased to hear that this situation appears to be a stupid prank,” Western Carolina chancellor John W. Bardo said. (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, 10/21/08).

Thank heavens!  All of these disgusting tactics were just kids being kids, and have nothing to do with politics.  Kids being kids is the most natural and American thing since Manny being Manny.  PLEASE MOVE ALONG.  THERE ARE NO ATTEMPTS AT VOTE SUPPRESSION TO SEE HERE.

… but crap like this makes me question sometimes how deep that devotion runs:

State wildlife officials and Western Carolina University campus police are investigating the discovery Monday of a dead bear cub draped with a pair of Barack Obama campaign signs. Leila Tvedt, associate vice chancellor for public relations, said Monday night that maintenance workers found the 75-pound bear cub shot to death around 7:45 a.m. in front of the school’s administration building at the entrance to the campus near N.C. 107. The Obama yard signs were stapled together and placed over the bear’s head, Tvedt said. The bear had been shot in the head, Tvedt said. (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, 10/20/08).

There’s just something wrong with behavior like that.  And the tire-slashing at Obama rallies.  And the physical assaults on members of the media at Palin rallies.  And while I know that there are going to be bad apples anywhere you live, there’s been enough small-minded, vicious behavior in North Carolina this election season to turn anybody’s stomach.

• Driving back from lunch with Pam Pate yesterday, I saw a campaign sign for Vernon Twinburger, with the slogan “Already Serving You” and a link to his blogspot.  The b&w drawing on the sign made it look like the dude had a very fake mustache.  So I checked out the blog to see if this was some viral thing, and sure enough, it’s a fake candidate with a very fake mustache.  The site is fairly lame– a couple videos (shot, as I found out from Ruby at Orange Politics, at Weaver Street, so the pranksters are local), but no real substance or lampoon.  But at the end of one of the videos, the voice says, “Vernon Twinburger is not campaigning for anything, because you’re already being served.”  Being served, indeed.  (The whole “you got served” thing would be more appropriate if the site had caused me to do anything other than waste two minutes on some YouTube videos.)
• My ability to work effectively is diminished by a factor of 12 for every hour of sleep under 7 that I get.  I slept about four and a half last night.  And somehow got dehydrated, even though I didn’t drink anything but water yesterday.  Like 20 gallons of it.  So I’ve spent most of the day getting rid of some of the more trivial, administrative things that I needed to do for, um, weeks.
• I swear to you, this campaign season is making me so tired.  I cannot stand it.  I cannot.  I just want to fast-forward now to November 4, cast my vote, and then sit back, drink a beer with friends, and watch CNN’s coverage of the widespread voter fraud and election-stealing.
• I got an iPhone app that allows me to upload photos to Flickr immediately after taking them, but have come to the realization that I don’t really have anything that I want to photograph.  I saw a bright orange ‘76 Mustang this morning and thought, “This could be my best chance to photograph something today.”  Hella lame, I tell you.

I will leave you with these thoughts from a friend who teaches elementary school:

1:17 PM I love being a kindergarten teacher: one of my boys just informed me that it took 3 dimes and 5 penises to make 35 cents

1:18 PM it’s the new math I guess

1:20 PM he then proceeded to tell me how his dad uses dollars because penises are hard to carry around

it took everything i had not to fall on the floor laughing hysterically

1:21 PM

my favorite one this week though is one of the boys very solemnly came up and asked me if I’d ever been in love

1:22 PM and whether it felt like a popsicle melting in your pants

1:25 PM

I just ate the sticker off my granny smith apple.  Well, to be more precise, I just ate anout 3/4 of the sticker, and when I was taking the next bite, I saw the remaining bit.  So I didn’t eat the whole sticker.  But now I am left wondering which is more toxic– the pesticides no doubt used to make sure this delicious apple grew to be ginormous, or the sticker and its adhesive?  I mean, they have to consider that 1 in 10 dummies will just end up eating the sticker, right?

Michael Pollan wrote a tremendous pieces for the NYT Magazine this weekend: An Open Letter to Our Next Farmer-in-Chief.  In it, he argues that the American food system is deeply broken, and with the price of oil rising, in need of reform… soon.

It must be recognized that the current food system — characterized by monocultures of corn and soy in the field and cheap calories of fat, sugar and feedlot meat on the table — is not simply the product of the free market. Rather, it is the product of a specific set of government policies that sponsored a shift from solar (and human) energy on the farm to fossil-fuel energy.

The piece lays out an agenda that includes not just reform of the government’s approach to agriculture (which should delight free-marketeers), but a prescription for better health (cutting back on plentiful corn and soy could mean limitations on cheap non-food derivatives like high fructose corn syrup) and some re-tooling of the educational system as well (taking a long hard look at agricultural/industrial education and how we promote certain careers).  This is the kind of thoughtful editorial that could spark some real discussion in a classroom– you could use it as-is for high-schoolers or adapt it for middle-schoolers.

After some early Obama-mania, I’ve been feeling kind of lethargic about the election, namely because I am so tired of S*r*h P*l*n that I could throw up every time I hear or see her name.  Seriously, this election cycle has gotten so cynical and ridiculous that I just want it to be over.  My enthusiasm for Obama remains undiminished; it’s my faith in this process and the current system that’s been battered and almost extinguished.

I haven’t donated to a candidate since Howard Dean, but since I’ve been carrying around some serious dread about the fact that our country, at the end of this administration, will be in the worst shape since I’ve been alive, I thought now might be a good time to give away some of those cheap American dollars.  My buddy Porter has promised to match donations to the Obama campaign given through his site, so I hope you’ll go there and give $20 or more: http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/main/portermason

I don’t get the notion that in order to be considered for the office of Vice President of the United States, you have to make a big show about how you aren’t interested in holding the office.  I mean, Hillary did that, but you know, that’s her prerogative because she thinks Obama will be a shitty (not to mention black) president.  She still thinks she was wronged somehow that the American public did not choose her.   But the rest of the jokers whose names are being bandied about, they didn’t run.  They have no conceivable reason to not want to be Vice President unless, y’know, they actually don’t want to be Vice President.  But this kind of noise just makes me tired of being American: “I haven’t sought it, I’m not running for it, I’m not asking for it. I never asked anything of the campaign. I didn’t endorse him to get anything. I endorsed him to help him.“  Why not just come out and say, “But if he asked me, I’d say hells yes and gladly serve under the exceptional human being that is Barack Obama, and if he doesn’t ask me, I’m still the Governor of Virginia and kind of a badass in my own right”? A little truth, please.

Also, is this the guy who thought the Internet is a series of tubes?  Did anyone notice that the media is now burying the fact that the guy is a Republican when he’s crooked, but displaying in line 2 of the story when he’s a Democrat?  Is that because crooked Republicans aren’t really newsworthy these days?

Also, please note: Dale broke the Internet.  It’s his fault.  This happened right after he started a game with me.

Good Lord. It’s officially a circus.

Creighton outlines some issues with Cary’s instant runoff elections, and in so doing, shakes my faith in the American voting system and baseball’s MVP voting.

All along, I’ve been thinking that I was an Obama or Clinton supporter… but according to the overly simplified flash app at ABC News, my ideal candidates, in order, are Mike Gravel, Chris Dodd, and Dennis Kucinich. However, given that I believe Kucinich hasn’t got a bat’s chance in hell of being elected, and didn’t even recognize the pictures of Gravel and Dodd when they popped up, I’m guessing that I won’t be THROWING AWAY MY VOTE when North Carolina’s primaries roll around. Here’s the worst part about it: ABC matches your views with those of the candidates. Out of eleven key issues, I share views on five with Gravel and Dodd, four with Kucinich.

Heather returned packet #5 today. I could, in theory, be officially done with my essay semester. But who am I kidding? On to packet #6!

Fox News Channel is debuting a parody news show. “Unfair and unbalanced” is how they promote it. This makes me sick! I’ve been teaching my students about rhetoric and how you can gain authority in a poem. This should make an excellent example.

Man, this is how f–ed up the world is right now:

We put all kinds of dollars into nanotechnology so researchers at Cal Tech can make the world’s smallest g.d. smiley. We can’t cure AIDS or cancer.

Our news outlets consider it news that we think the news sucks. Meanwhile, the news continues to suck.

Who the hell is in space to see Apple’s iPod ad? If you’re a damn astronaut, you should already have an iPod, because you have to be playing Steppenwolf’s “Magic Carpet Ride” on repeat.

I don’t give a damn that Randy Quaid was screwed by the producers of Brokeback Mountain. How the fuck does he command a seven-figure salary in the first place?

Oh, and our President still thinks he’s the fist of God. Newsflash: God wouldn’t pick a former cokehead for her fist! She’d pick someone cool and ironic, probably one of those dandies from Belle & Sebastian. I vote for the one with the ears.

… that is, if one can call the Durham Herald-Sun the “mainstream media.” I guess they’re more mainstream than Fox News. But that’s not to say that blogs don’t make it easier for Fox News. Because, hell, they’ll call anything news.

Hey, all you Southern poor! This is working very well for you!

This came in the inbox today, and I think it sounds perfectly reasonable:

“ICE – In Case of Emergency

A campaign encouraging people to enter an emergency contact number in their mobile phone’s memory under the heading ICE (In Case of Emergency), has rapidly spread throughout the world as a particular consequence of last week’s terrorist attacks in London.

Originally established as a nation-wide campaign in the UK, ICE allows paramedics or police to be able to contact a designated relative / next-of-kin in an emergency situation.

The idea is the brainchild of East Anglian Ambulance Service paramedic Bob Brotchie and was launched in May this year. Bob, 41, who has been a paramedic for 13 years, said: “I was reflecting on some of the calls I’ve attended at the roadside where I had to look through the mobile phone contacts struggling for information on a shocked or injured person. Almost everyone carries a mobile phone now; and with ICE, we’d know immediately who to contact and what number to ring. The person may even know of their medical history.”

By adopting the ICE advice, your mobile will help the rescue services quickly contact a friend or relative – which could be vital in a life or death situation. It only takes a few seconds to do, and it could easily help save your life. Why not put ICE in your phone now? Simply select a new contact in your phone book, enter the word ‘ICE’ and the number of the person you wish to be contacted. ”

I’ve been stewing about the Supreme Court’s decision to extend eminent domain to private use. So I’m glad to see that a developer proposes to have his local government sieze David Souter’s home for private use. I will publically support this, and I pledge to bring my tax dollars to your community when I next vacation if this hotel gets built.

Man, this is the kind of stuff that makes you sick: Nike shits all over Dischord Records. Never mind that Nike has made billions upon billions of dollars and has become the establishment in the sneaker industry… they must have felt that the holdouts in the indie arena either wouldn’t notice or wouldn’t care if they co-opted an image from one of the greatest punk albums ever, whose rightsholders wouldn’t have granted permission in a billion years.

The Grokster decision, handed down by the Supreme Court today, says that infringing technologies’ creators can be held liable if the technology is clearly labelled for illegal use. Which means that the little-guy innovators will have to run scared from the Hollywood machine even if their intentions and marketing were not geared towards illegal use, because the Hollywood machine is desperate to preserve that failing business model. But when the big guys clearly steal from the little guys… well, no one is going to raise much of a stink about that. Especially if your government is the one stealing from you.

Update: Winckles has some good thoughts on what Grokster really means.

I was just lying in bed thinking about the fact that political blogs are all pretty lame, and people who only talk about politics are generally shitheads with nothing but bile in them. Left or right. Lame. They’re just writing about politics because it gets a reaction, and a lot of people crave a reaction.

I used to consider myself not strongly Republican and not strongly Democrat, and I really only got heavily into being a Democrat recently, when the Republican leadership turned batshit crazy. But I don’t consider myself a leftist or particularly liberal. I still think I’m pretty moderate, because I don’t think that the ideas that the right wants me to believe are outrageous are really outlandish at all.

Some thoughts to that end, a.k.a, Why I Am a Moderate

• Being pro-gun control is not liberal. Being anti-gun is liberal. I’m pro-gun, because I think that there Second Amendment was just and rational, but I don’t think that anyone in an informed populace needs more than a few handguns and certainly none of them need to be M-16s. A waiting period and a backround check is not unreasonable and doesn’t circumvent the Second Amendment.
• Being pro-choice or pro-life as an economic or constitutional issue is moderate. Being pro-choice as a women’s issue is liberal. I’ve thought a lot about this one recently, and I’ve decided that I don’t really believe in women’s issues at all any more. But I do believe in a fundamental equality in all of humankind, and life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness applies to everyone, and I find that it’s a pretty moderate to believe. In order to be guaranteed those rights, a certain amount of personal choice is involved. From a constitutional standpoint, I find no evidence that bans on abortion are warranted. But I do, with the separation of church and state being pretty clearly defined by our forefathers, find a pretty strong case against banning abortion for religious/moral reasons. (And as for other “women’s issues,” you’ll find that I’m very much aligned with some of them, because they fall pretty squarely in line with equality issues and people issues. So, ladies, either take advantage of your majority, or realize that your issues aren’t radical, they’re fundamental, and couching them as women’s issues only makes them divisive.)
• Reforming campaign finance is not liberal, it’s populist. It guarantees that the people are heard. Wouldn’t it be awesome if there were a hard cap on how much could be spent in an election… and both sides couldn’t get around it? Then politics would be dependent on the free flow of information and the power of a concerned citizenry.
• Using natural resources in a socially responsible manner is moderate. Being environmentalist is liberal. I don’t mind saying that I think capitalism is working well, and as long as my health isn’t harmed and my future isn’t jeopardized, it’s A-OK to use natural resources. If your corporation is profiting in the short term but will cost the government and the taxpayer in the future, then I’m not in favor of your activities. Why conservatives aren’t all over energy-efficiency and alternative fuel sources is beyond me… since conservatives should be all about conserving the resources available.
• National health care isn’t liberal. I’m just miffed about the fact that an inmate in a federal prison can get access to decent health care on the taxpayer dime and the kids in our schools can’t.

There’s more where that came from, but I want to go to bed.

Normally, I welcome your comments in this blog. Hell, I live for them. But on this topic, I don’t really want to hear it. I’m leaving comments open, and if you’re respectful, cool. But if you’re not, I’ll just delete it, because it’s my blog, and you know what? I don’t want your hate here.