Category Archives: Politics & Government

William Gibson quoting Martin Luther King

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“I call on every man and woman of good will all over America today …to take a stand on this issue. Tomorrow may be too late. The book may close. Don’t let anyone make you think that God chose America as his divine messianic force, to be a sort of policeman of the whole world. God has a way of standing before the nations with judgment, and it seems that I can hear God saying to America ‘You are too arrogant! If you don’t change your ways, I will rise up and break the backbone of your power! And I will place it in the hands of a nation that doesn’t even know my name. Be still and know that I am God.'”

— Martin Luther King, 4 April 1967 (one year before his assassination)

William Gibson on Creationism

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“Re Creationism, I must point out an unfortunate subtext that’s no longer quite so obvious. Having grown up in the previous iteration of the rural American south, I know that what *really* smarted about Darwin, down there, was the logical implication that blacks and whites are descended from a common ancestor. Butt-ugly, but there it is. That was the first objection to evolutionary theory that I ever heard, and it was a very common one, in fact the most common. That it was counter to Genesis seemed merely convenient, in the face of an anthropoid grand-uncle in the woodpile.”

Thomas Friedman on the 2004 election

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“…this election was tipped because of an outpouring of support for George Bush by people who don’t just favor different policies than I do – they favor a whole different kind of America. We don’t just disagree on what America should be doing; we disagree on what America is. It seemed as if they were voting for what team they were on. This was not an election. This was station identification.”

The full article is worth a read. [Thanks to John for the link]

Voter #1

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Our polls don’t open until 6:00 a.m. but I was there at 5:00 a.m. No other voters. No poll workers. Just me. By the time they opened the door to let us in, there was probably 150 people lined up.

By the time I cast my ballot at 6:02 a.m., there were easily 200 people in line (photo above).

Never again will I say it doesn’t matter who wins.

Election day

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Okay, here’s the plan for tomorrow. I plan to be at the polls no later than 5:30 a.m. Polls open at 6:00 and I expect there to be a line when I get there. Not sure how much work I’ll get done during the day because the temptation to follow The Story will be strong. Our four state news networks will be reporting throughout the evening and I’ll be helping get as much of that online as possible. I’ll be pleased and surprised if it doesn’t turn into an all-nighter. Might be a bit before I get back here.

William Gibson on why OBL and W need each other

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“OBL today is probably a very satisfied, very optimistic man, and if he can skew the last-minute dynamic of the election in Bush’s favor, he’ll have cause to be all the more satisfied.

And that’s the danger, that some crucial percentage of our dimmer, more reactive voters will flash back to 9-11 and the Bush of the bullhorn, the Bush buffeted with the heartbroken grit of Ground Zero, and vote for that — childishly imagining that such a vote runs counter to the wishes and the needs of OBL, the bearded stickman, the cave-dwelling spider, our new Old Man of the Mountains. Player of the long game.”

What do George Bush and Dick Cheney dream about ?

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What do George Bush and Dick Cheney dream about when they’re deep in REM sleep? James Wolcott wonders:

“Suppose there had been no Iraqi insurgency, no al-Sadr popping out from behind the curtain or Saddam loyalists prepped for guerrilla war, no car bombings or beheadings or roadside explosives. Or an insurgency so feeble and scattered it was swiftly squashed and swept up. Just imagine how different things would have been over the last year, how different they would be now.”

Love it or leave it

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That was a popular “establishment” slogan back in the sixties, aimed at those protesting the war in Vietnam. The idea being expressed was, if you didn’t support the war in Southeast Asia (it was a lot more than Vietnam), you should leave America. (We lost that war against Communism but gained a new trading partner.) The notion that if you don’t agree with the current administration’s foreign policy you’re un-American and should leave, was as lame then as it is now. But that’s not my point here.

I’ll be 57 next March. White male. Married. Two Golden Retreivers. Our house is paid off (Barb has a spare in Florida) and we have money in the bank. This country has been “berry, berry good to me.”

And for the the first time in my life, I’m not completely convinced America is the best country in the world. It might be. I hope it is. But I’m no longer positive. I haven’t traveled much so I don’t know much about other countries. But Canada seems like a good country. Sweden, Denmark, Australia, New Zealand. They all seem like pretty nice places. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not thinking about leaving. I like it here. But I’m sad to think we might not be the best country in the world. Maybe we never were, but it was nice to think it was true. I’d like to think so again.

Old TV, New TV.

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A friend who had seen Jon Stewart savage the Crossfire weenies called to tell me about it and I remember thinking, “Crap. I missed it.” Then, I remember thinking, “I’ll be able to find it on the Net.” And I did. Jeff Jarvis calls it “the future of TV”:

“In old TV, a moment like this came, and if you missed it, you missed it. Tough luck. In new TV, you don’t need to worry about watching it live–live is so yesterday–because thousands of peers will be keeping an eye out for you to let you know what you should watch, and they’ll record it and distribute it.” [C|Net story]