CategoryPolitics

Wow. What an amazing 24 hours it’s been. Yesterday I came home from work and sat down in front of my computer to monitor the election. Burlington blogger extraordinaire Bill Simmon recently set up a citizen forum called Exit Voices that I spent some time at. From there, I clicked over to our local community access news channel’s streaming video feed of election coverage. Not only did...

Yep, it’s another of those moments when the fate of the United States hangs in the balance… the night before a national election. Things are looking a little better for Democrats than they were two years ago, but I’m trying not to become too hopeful given how many times the Dems have had campaigns crash and burn at the last moment. Instead I’m focusing on Vermont politics...

There’s an article in today’s New York Times about the court martial of an Army officer, 1st. Lt. Ehren Watada, for refusing to be deployed to Iraq. Watada is not a peacenik in general; he objects to the Iraq war in particular as dishonest and unlawful. The manner in which he came to this conclusion is like a geek fantasy: he originally supported the war, but before deployment...

I’ve been watching a lot of politically charged movies lately. A few weeks ago I saw Good Night, and Good Luck, the short and focused account of Edward R. Murrow‘s stand against Joe “Red Scare” McCarthy when no one else would face up to him. It was so inspiring, it actually made me cry. More recently, I saw another Participant Productions movie, Syriana, which though very...

I was just browsing Salon.com and came across this flashback to 9/11. By the time I got to the end, I was feeling pretty emotional, even after all this time. There’s something about being caught in the narrative that brings it all back. Afterward, I decided to look up my old AOL Instant Messenger chats from the same time period. (2001 was my most intense stretch of internet chatting. My...

Tomorrow is the big day. It seems like a lifetime since the Supreme Court selected the smirking chimp as our country’s Chief Executive. It’s hard to believe that in a little over 24 hours he could be handed his pink slip. (Or a bit more than 24 hours if the Onion’s “Countdown to the Recount 2004” scenario materializes. Considering the tales of dirty tricks in Ohio in...

Just gave another $50 to Howard Dean’s campaign. It’s my fourth donation in the past six months. I’ve also given to the Democratic National Committee, though I’m less than impressed with their efforts so far. They haven’t got any fire apart from James Carville, and he’s just one man. He does make me laugh, though. His latest letter began, “If I run into...