11.30.00 - 16:37:47

hi.

it's been a while.

i've been in cognito. not incognito. that space was not accidental. i like looking up things on search engines, but deliberately misspelling a word. you can find almost everything like that, and it really cuts down on the number of hits, unless you hit upon a really popular misspelling, like millenium instead of millennium. i actually have a millennium t-shirt with millennium misspelled as millenium.

my mom bought it. for a dollar.

so. at least the foray into illiteracy wasn't expensive.

i will be most relieved when this whole election thing is over. first, here is what i think should REALLY happen:

certain electors and/or the Florida legislature or SOMEthing should say this should be moot. Gore won the nationwide popular vote by at least 250,000 votes, Gore should be president. the nation likes a divided governments, and both houses of congress belong, still, to the republicans, therefore a democratic president would be best for the country. especially because dubya is a spoiled rotten brat. and knows very little about foreign policy. do YOU want him trying to mediate between the palestinians and the israelis now?

how about kosovo? how about chechnya? uganda? you think dubya even knows where uganda is? eriritrea? the sudan?

why is an open market policy good for china, but not cuba? it's only a question.

my politics are informed by generosity, and i dislike politics informed by something other than some sense of generousity of spirit. i don't want anything to be us v. them. i'm usually them, and even then i don't hate us. you know, kids should have a decent education. kids everywhere should have clean water, normal shots, and know that they'll have breakfast in the morning.

and that breakfast won't kill them.

and that a shell won't crash into their house because they are on the wrong side of a line.

and so on.

and, yeah. kids, everywhere, should know where breakfast is coming from. i don't care how 'lazy' you dream their parents, we're lucky. we're smart, smart enough and privileged enough to have an imaginary life outside our little shells of skin and bone. we're lucky. i cannot - ever - imagine working at mcdonalds. working as a home health aide for five dollars an hours. at fifty. and knowing this is all i'm ever going to do. so. yeah. all kids need a chance. some kids need MORE of a chance than others.

i don't care what their parents are. i don't care that you turn them into objects of derision. i don't care. see? the thing is i know there's a whole population whose vision of the world is entirely opposite mine, somehow. i'm being generous with THEIR money.

or whatever.

bleh. i sense this very ugly core at the heart of some of these right wing groups, who are doing the shady things like mini-riots to intimidate the vote counters in miami-dade. etc. and they scare me.

...so, yeah. electors in several states other than Florida should desert and vote for gore. republicans should stop their mob tactics, and stop changing definitions, changing rules mid-stride. they file suit to stop recounts, and then refuse to certify the recounts because they weren't in on time because they stopped counting because the republicans file suit and the republicans say 'can't you do anything on time' ?

uhhhhhm.

not when you're filing writs to stop me, i can't.

so. that's what SHOULD happen. but for whatever reason, it won't. that being said? gore should lighten up. am i the only one who thinks if he fuckin' admitted he wants to be president that the whole country would like him a helluva lot better?

how about this:

'yes. obviously i'm challenging the florida certification for more reasons than the good of the democracy. what we see in florida is, particularly, that our patchwork of county to county voting laws is a problematic in the fabric of democracy. it does not mean that anyone deliberately set out to steal this election, of course. and i don't want to either. i continue to contest the florida vote because: 1. i received a majority of the popular vote across the country; 2. because i received a majority of the popular vote, i feel justified in continuing my pursuit of the election. voting irregularities make it possible that i have legitimately won the electoral college vote as well as the popular vote.; 3. i believe our country is stable and mature enough to engage in this sort of process without serious consequence, and that is a real testament to our development as a country. 4. i want to be president. i wouldn't have run if i didn't; 5. i have suggested to Mr. Bush several compromises, which he has refused. we have made clear that we would accept either a statewide hand recount or a hand recount in those four specific counties where the most irregularities occurred. Mr. Bush has not responded or accepted. in such case, who is being recalcitrant?; 6. i do not endorse jesse jackson rallying protests in palm beach county any more than i endorse the republican mobs who intimidated the miami-dade canvassing board into stopping their recount. mr. bush, if you win by mob tactics, will you accept those electors? i would encourage you not to.

uhm. so. i'm just saying he could handle it better. i really think the republicans are more at fault than gore is. i really think gore should be president.

i also really think, at this point, gore should stop. step down. concede. but do it with sufficient humor and dignity and whatever that dubya looks like the total annoying brat he is, and point out HOW the republicans won. and start immediately working on coalitions, rather than splintered interest groups. democrats need to come up with a theme. republicans already have a theme, and it revolves around 'don't-likes'. it's harder to make a theme based on likes, but possible. and better. i don't think it would be stronger, but better.

god. i want the election to be over. i had a strange dream, last night. part of it was erotic, but it also included jeb bush, which i'm sure splashed seriously cold water on my horny dream. other things involved included mount everest, which was in alaska. i visited it. actually, apparently i visited it the year before the dream, too, and was rather familiar with the everest economy, since i told jeb bush why his large-wheeled truck, machine and the like business wasn't flourishing this year, when it had the year before.

because, see, they completed everything the year before. there was no need to bring all those overlarge tonka toys to everest this year. i also went on a tour up high with someone. i met him while he was working at jeb's place (i THINK) or on the tour. i told him how the tour was better last year, and how i always came here (everest, in alaska) before going to hawaii, and then australia. that's what i'd done before. the year before. in the dream. when the heavy-equipment dealer was superbusy on everest. everest (alaskan dream-version) then someplace wildly warm and tropical with a coast like northern californias, all wild rocks and spray and stately trees in the distance, with a welcoming bay and a feeling of drenching sunset.

then australia. then onward. there was this conviction sense that i'd traveled round the world, but what i remembered were great sweeping cliffs bleeding red light reflected from the setting tropical sun as i swooped in on one of those small planes adventurers use. seaplanes.

so i told someone about that, or perhaps merely remembered it. and then he wanted to go to NC State. Meaning, North Carolina State University. so i showed him around. we went in the back of a large building, and skirted around, quiet and sneaky. inside it was square, but huge, this huge central place was pretty much deserted, and it make me think of how the bieneke rare book library at yale would look if you emptied all the books out and just put a few caf� tables to one side.

i think there was sex involved, but the thing is - i remember that there were intricate and absorbing but trivial details in this part of my dream, but not really their measure, shape and weight. it's like stepping into a shower, when the air is still humid and thick from the running water, and expecting - because of that thickness of air - that the water will slam into your back and shoulders and neck and you'll feel feel feel it, but you don't. you're expecting the sudden assault of water, but all you get is this humid, anticipatory air.

this part of the dream involved much sneaking, including into another building next door in a different college, whose name i don't remember. we didn't see anyone, except for a whole yellow school bus stuffed full of fraternity types.

and i think jeb bushed showed up at the end. or we had a meeting with someone.

i don't know.

i don't remember.

i'm going back to work, now.