Voting
I biked down to the local technology school (Thaddeus Stevens) to vote. Got there about 3:30 and walked right in, no lines. They looked like they'd been busy earlier. I like my polling place. It's festive, rollicking: they give a cheer whenever a first-time voter walks in.
My girlfriend was one of the few undecided voters I knew. Not that she's uninformed, but she found both candidates so distasteful in their own ways that it was a tough call for her. She went into the booth expecting to pull the lever for Bush, but just couldn't do it, so she voted for Kerry. "I agree that Iraq is hugely important, but in the end, I was even more swayed by weight of a million other issues I felt so strongly about that I knew weren't Bush or republican values."
My ward is heavily minority, and the neighborhood is full of rental properties. I'm one of the few single-family homeowners on my block. Consequently, the MoveOn, Democratic Party, and other heelers were out in force, knocking on my door every hour and a half, all day. That wouldn't be such a problem, but I work second shift and sleep during the day. So after about the fifth interruption. I was tempted to hang a note on the door saying, "Yes, I know what day it is. No, I don't need a ride to the polling place. I'm sleeping. Go the fuck away." But I got up instead.
Interestingly, many of them came to the door with lists of registered voters in hand. I've been in my house for 14 years, and the person before me was there for 20 years, yet there's several people with names like "Rosario" I've never met who list my house as their voting address. I can just imagine how many votes they cast for the straight Democratic ticket.
Out on the main intersection downtown there's a scruffy slacker guy with a splotchy growth of beard and tribal earrings holding up a Kerry-Edwards sign to passing traffic. On the other corner a white-haired guy with a Bush-Cheney sign is passing out Bible tracts. I think they ought to switch signs, just to make things interesting.
If I ever get fired from here, I think I'll open up a service that hires out protesters/rally attendees who defy stereotypes. A local anti-war rally with people in neat haircuts and business suits would really be a nice break from the usual crowd of patchouli-reeking neo-hippies and Birkenstocked little old lady Quaker librarians. And I bet it would get a lot more attention.
My girlfriend was one of the few undecided voters I knew. Not that she's uninformed, but she found both candidates so distasteful in their own ways that it was a tough call for her. She went into the booth expecting to pull the lever for Bush, but just couldn't do it, so she voted for Kerry. "I agree that Iraq is hugely important, but in the end, I was even more swayed by weight of a million other issues I felt so strongly about that I knew weren't Bush or republican values."
My ward is heavily minority, and the neighborhood is full of rental properties. I'm one of the few single-family homeowners on my block. Consequently, the MoveOn, Democratic Party, and other heelers were out in force, knocking on my door every hour and a half, all day. That wouldn't be such a problem, but I work second shift and sleep during the day. So after about the fifth interruption. I was tempted to hang a note on the door saying, "Yes, I know what day it is. No, I don't need a ride to the polling place. I'm sleeping. Go the fuck away." But I got up instead.
Interestingly, many of them came to the door with lists of registered voters in hand. I've been in my house for 14 years, and the person before me was there for 20 years, yet there's several people with names like "Rosario" I've never met who list my house as their voting address. I can just imagine how many votes they cast for the straight Democratic ticket.
Out on the main intersection downtown there's a scruffy slacker guy with a splotchy growth of beard and tribal earrings holding up a Kerry-Edwards sign to passing traffic. On the other corner a white-haired guy with a Bush-Cheney sign is passing out Bible tracts. I think they ought to switch signs, just to make things interesting.
If I ever get fired from here, I think I'll open up a service that hires out protesters/rally attendees who defy stereotypes. A local anti-war rally with people in neat haircuts and business suits would really be a nice break from the usual crowd of patchouli-reeking neo-hippies and Birkenstocked little old lady Quaker librarians. And I bet it would get a lot more attention.
