Gonzai Gallery

I have agreed with Antonin Scalia twice in two weeks. Either I've lost my mind or he has.

Now if we can just keep the VRA and ditch DOMA...

I know, it's shocking. And then didn't see the movie I went to see. 

Mom wanted to see Les Miz; the paper said there was a 2:45 show. We tried to run a couple errands first, but both took longer than we expected, and then there was traffic, and we wound up at the theatre a couple minutes after 2:45. And the sign there said Les Miz started at 2:30. The paper had the wrong time. Arrrgh. It was already started, and with a line for buying tickets, plus refreshments & bathroom, there was no point. However, Lincoln was still in previews, so we saw that instead. Very well done, surprisingly funny (loved the Ethan Allen story) and remarkably timely in that the process of passing the 13th Amendment is not at all unlike what's been going on in Congress the last few years and now in particular. I recommend it.

That was Bill Maher's conclusion last night (he donated $1m to Obama last winter). He also concluded that 'Mormon has broken' but he won't gloat because 'Republicans are licking their wounds - also known as Romney's health care plan'. Yowza.

Now back to real life. Phooey.

ETA - 2012 Electorial 'In Memoriam' - snerk

Home for the evening and more or less ready for Sandy. Couldn't find any D batteries anywhere, and that's what the flashlights run on, but plenty of AA, AAA, C...lots of candles, radios, lots of stuff charged & ready to go. Freezer is nearly full with ice packs, plenty of non-perishables, books from the library, generally good to go.

Went to do the early voting thing today, the first day it was available. There are five places in my county for that, first we went where we went in 2008, a community center. Naturally every rec field was in use, there was no parking, and the police had to close down part of the road to do traffic control. I saw exactly one sign for Democrats but hundreds for Republicans. Every electioneer - Republican. Eesh. The line? Out of the center, across a pedestrian bridge and into the ballfields on the other side. 2+ hour wait. There was no way Mom could stand that long, so we set off for another place, a library where my Mom used to work and my father had been the manager for many years. Plenty of parking there (nearly abandoned shopping center) but another long line. Not as long this time. A guy ahead of us had gone to a third location before going to the community center and now to the library - he said the first one had a 3 hour wait. Apparently we like to vote around here.

There was another avalanche of Republican signs, but there were only two electioneers there - one for Romney, and one real live Congressional candidate. A Libertarian refugee from the Ron Paul camp. We told him we sympathize, but we didn't want to waste our vote. As it turned out, we were between two middle-aged white men retired on disability. Both Democrats! Very fortunate, it could have been an awfully long wait. But the line moved steadily and it took about 50 minutes to get in, then almost no wait to vote. And Mom seemed to understand the machines better this time. Then we browsed the library, Mom ran into a librarian she used to work with, and then we moved on. I do have to say, though, I was very concerned by the plethora of Republican signs, bumper stickers, etc, some of them outright racist/homophobic, in a blue state and a traditionally Democratic stronghold neighborhood. I hope it's just squeaky wheels. It was certainly heartening to meet two white working-class men who thought Obama was by far the better candidate.

But in this instance, I absolutely must.

Today, Mitt Rmoney claims that his remarks denigrating 47% of Americans were 'inelegant'. If that is so...how does one 'elegantly' tell 175 million people to fuck off and die?

And I'm not even talking about Libya.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/31/jay-townsend-nan-hayworth-acid-war-on-women_n_1560693.html

If you have not encountered it yet, do read
( Ta-Nehisi Coates' cover story in this month's Atlantic )
. It's long, but well worth it. (And I'm a fan of the artwork, too.)

I think...I THINK...it's fully set up and ready to go. And Mom spent all day yesterday reading on it. Fingers crossed she'll keep using it and no difficulties with gadgets arise. Meanwhile I got a new UPS backup for the computer, but that's not going in until I finish data backups. And I more or less donated a printer/scanner/copier to the Obama campaign - the boss's daughter has been hired by the campaign as a field office director (in Roanoke, poor her) and they're shipping her off without so much as office supplies. The boss cleared out a lot of extra office supplies and I pitched in the printer my brother gave us last year, as we've never once used it. It's too big to fit anywhere around my house and I have other gadgets, so the least I could do is put it to good use. Not least of which is annoying my brother.

I ask because there seem to be an awful lot of people out there who think it is. I have been set off by an op-ed in today's Sun (I'll spare you the details; it was written by Christianist far right whacko) who claimed that liberty has been restricted by 'don't ask don't tell', same sex marriage, contraception, et al. Meanwhile the Republicans are busily trying to make sure the 'wrong people' (read young, liberal, and esp. non-white) can't and/or don't vote. I don't understand this insistence that granting freedom to another person takes it away from someone else; I only see it as another person gaining freedom.

So what's the deal here?