I told you all that you would get a chance to see what I looked like in a Halloween costume, and, as promised, here you go:
Me as a hobo.
Post Recommendation
Just finished reading this DailyKos recommended diary, Inauguration Ball 2009, and actually got goosebumps.
Update: I am as lily white as you can get. I grew up in a small town in eastern Canada (Clarenville, Newfoundland – 2200+ people) until I was 16. I never knew a black person in all the time I lived there. I moved to Fredericton, New Brunswick in 1986, and there I only ever knew one black kid. He was a member of a performing arts group I was involved with. Wonderful kid. The only reason I noticed he was black was because it was a novelty to me. I had never known a black person.
In 1998, I moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia for a year to do my Master’s degree. Halifax has a large black minority. Again, very little racial tension – at least none that I noticed. I studied and partied with a few black people while I was there. It never occurred to me that there was any difference between us except the color of our skin.
In 1999, I moved to Atlanta and all that changed. I could not believe how racial politcs was. I have never in my life had to walk on eggshells in conversations. It really never occurred to me that there could be such thing as racial tensions. I never knew that growing up. But moving to Atlanta really gave me an education that I did not want to get, because I never had any need for it. The politics of division was something I had never known.
I must admit, part of the reason I support Barack Obama is because he is black. But only part. I did not support Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton – not because they were black, but because I believed neither had the competence for high office. I also believed the only reason they were running was because of race.
In Barack Obama, we have pure, 100% competence. That he is black is a sidebar. But it’s a sidebar that I cannot wait to celebrate late in the evening on November 4th. We’re not only going to elect the most competent president of this decade. We’re going to make history by electing the first black president in this nation’s history.
I am tired of racial politics. Sick of it. I hope, with every fiber of my being, that Barack Obama is as competent as he seems. I want the Neanderthals to see a Black Man run this country well. I want them to eat Jim Crow. I want every decent white person in America to look at their racist friends and say “Look. He’s terrific. What were you thinking all these years you stupid fucktard?” I will be happy to have Obama in office – mostly because I think he is a smart, competent manager. But I admit, the prospect of a black man in office is the chocolate frosting on a very delicious cake.
In one of my first posts on this site (I can’t find it) I said that I didn’t have a racist bone in my body. I was mocked for that – as if to say every white person has at least a little racism running through him. Hopefully, from what I have written above, you can understand why. I just didn’t have those experiences growing up – and I am truly grateful that I did not.
Update: When I say “walk on eggshells” I don’t mean while talking with African Americans – implying that I would be saying racist things. I mean with white people who grew up here and have been subjected to racial politics all their lives.
A Survey
Your help is being requested:
A research team from the Psychology Department at New York University, headed by Professor Yaacov Trope and supported by the National Science Foundation, is investigating the cognitive causes of voting behavior, political preferences, and candidate evaluations throughout the course of the 2008 U.S. Presidential election. This stage of the study focuses on the information people use to inform evaluations in the days immediately preceding the election. They seek respondents of all political leanings from all over the country (and from the rest of the world) to complete a 15-minute questionnaire, the responses to which will be completely anonymous. All respondents are entered into periodic random drawings for prizes of $100. Respondents will also receive detailed information about the research findings after data collection is completed.
The survey is here.
Totally unrelated, but the Princeton University Press has a new blog.
It Is All Too God Damned Short
Dean Barnett is dead at the age of 41 from Cystic Fibrosis.
This is a post I do not want to write, because there is always the chance that when you write these eulogies, some jackass will decide that now is the appropriate time to lace your comments section with expletives about the deceased. Be warned- those sentiments will be deleted.
But back to the point- Dean Barnett is dead, and I am sad. He more than likely has no idea who I am, and there really is no reason he should. My opinions of him mirror the trajectory of my own opinions regarding politics in general – I am too lazy to look, but I am sure I waxed rhapsodic about the things he wrote when I agreed with him in the early days of this blog, and recently, when my opinion of his thinking slipped, I referred to him less politely as Hugh Hewitt’s jockstrap or other less pleasant things (and perhaps that says more about me than it does about Dean). In some respect, I agree with Spencer Ackerman, although I would not change anything I said, and I doubt Barnett would have cared.
But that is neither here nor there. What matters is that he is dead, and life is too short. Not a day passes when I do no ponder my own mortality, and not a day passes without me wondering how I will continue without my parents and the people who mean everything to me. A very selfish part of me hopes that I die before them.
Life is too damned short, and right now Dean Barnett’s family and friends are going through hell. I hope they are able to cope, and I am going to call my parents and tell them I love them and then hug my cat. I suggest you do the same thing with the ones you love. This whole racket is just way too short, and at times is a cruel hoax. Forty-one is just way too damned young.
RIP, Dean Barnett.
To donate to to the Cystic Fibrosis foundation go here. I just sent $50 bucks in Dean’s name, and I hope you will toss out a few dollars, as well. We are all human. This show is just way too god damned short.
What Is Really Wrong With The Post Office?
You know, I don’t understand this:
If you don’t believe me, just watch how Congress and Barney Frank run the banks. If you thought they did a bad job running the post office, Amtrak, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the military, just wait till you see what they’ll do with Wall Street.
Ignoring the rest of the stuff, because I have no personal experience with Amtrak or Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but I guess I don’t understand the post office hatred. I used to make the same cracks about the post office, but now I guess I just do not get it. For me, the post office works. Yes, the hours piss me off at times, but every time I put something in the mail, with exceedingly rare exceptions, it gets where it is going. And that includes the times that I, in a drunken stupor, put in the wrong zip code or scrawled the address in such a hasty manner that it was damned near illegible. Every day I go to my mailbox and find things addressed to me from all over the world. Sure, occasionally, my mailman accidentally includes a piece of my neighbor’s mail, but by and large, I would have to say the post office works. My sister, hundreds of miles away in another state, can mail something to me for a little more than a quarter, and the next day or two days later, I can walk to a box right outside my apartment in my underwear and slippers, sloshing coffee on the way, and there it is. How is that a bad thing?
So, if Barney Frank is in fact in charge of the Post Office, I guess my overall response is “Job well done.” Hell, unless I am mistaken, the Post Office is no longer even subsidized, right? Or if so, at a minimal level. If I could change anything, I would make it possible to have a mail version of the “No call list” so the idiots at the local newspaper could not send me their seemingly weekly trash, but overall, the post office seems to get the job done pretty well (the time it takes to get a passport pisses me off, but that is the State Department, most likely).
Am I just lucky with my service here in WV, or are USPS horror stories just another bit of lore?
What Is Really Wrong With The Post Office?Post + Comments (179)
One More. No On 8
Open Thread
Go to town.