re: taxes going up

i originally posted this in response to the status of my cousin and her former roommate, but i feel it should have a place on my blog, too.

you know, ladies, please share this with chelsea, too. the taxes that we pay here are SO substantially less than in places like canada. taxes pay for things like the roads, the high schools you went to, programs to help victims, they pay to keep jails secure and kept up. in the grand scheme of things, i can't believe that is politically the most important thing to the two of you. if it is, i'm very sad about that. i was not going to say anything, but i truly would like to have an open conversation about it.

the taxes that we have been paying have also been going to pay for the billions of dollars we've spent in iraq. they're going to bail out the financial disaster on wall street. taxes are a necessary evil in life, and they end up benefiting you whether you like them or not. you would go through life without health insurance for yourself or your children, would you? not if you could afford it.

taxes are like insurance. the higher rates you pay - the better protection you receive.

disbelief

last night we felt disbelief. we felt honor. we felt so many different things.

but i am mostly taken by my feelings of surprise. i expected barack to win, but it feels so good knowing we didn't screw this one up. after electing bush, unbelievably, twice, i didn't know if america had it in her. i still can't believe the number of friends and family i have that voted for mccain/palin. not to be sour, but palin can take the bridge back to alaska.

i think voting for mccain/palin was a foolish choice, but they probably believe the same of my choice to vote for obama. the race in nc is still too close to call whether obama or mccain won. that is incredible to me. it looks like obama has done it, but at the time of this writing it's still unclear.

what IS clear, is that dole is going home. and hagan is going to dc. i'm very pleased about that. pleased that we have a democrat governor, even though i don't particularly care for her, she's a better choice than mccrory. democrats in nc are different from democrats in other states. they're much more conservative and old boy's club - even the women.

that being said, i can't wait to see if there are celebrations today. i've got an interview at 2 in chelsea, so i will get to see the atmosphere and feeling in manhattan.

voting

the day is almost upon us. i feel like ... no, i know, we're living some serious history the next couple of days. here we go.

obama 08

how the us became what we supposedly hate most

i ain't no france hater. and i ain't no socialist hater. but most of the us could be characterized as such. my favorite article from time of the week explains why we're late to the party, broke when we get there, and the laughingstock of the entire guest list.

So yes, while we're still willing to work ourselves to death for the privilege of paying off our usurious credit cards, we can no longer look contemptuously at the land of 246 cheeses [France]. Kraft Foods has replaced American International Group in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the insurance company having been added to Paulson's nationalized portfolio. Macaroni and cheese has supplanted credit default swaps at the fulcrum of capitalism. And one more thing: the food snob French love McDonalds, which does a fantastic business there. They know a good freedom fry when they taste one.

she's not ready

But there is a profound double standard in this country. The likes of John McCain and George W. Bush can do the craziest, most irresponsible things imaginable, and it only seems to help them politically.

the posts are getting better by the hour

double standards abound in politics

If you spend 3 years as a community organizer growing your organization from a staff of 1 to 13 and your budget from $70,000 to $400,000, then become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review,create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new African Amerian voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor,then spend nearly 8 more years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, becoming chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, then spend nearly 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of nearly 13 million people, sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you are woefully inexperienced.

If you spend 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, then spend 20 months as the governor of a state with 650,000 people, you've got the most executive experience of anyone on either ticket, are the Commander in Chief of the Alaska military and are well qualified to lead the nation should you be called upon to do so because your state is the closest state to Russia.

a sound article on the wall street meltdown

is here

i agree that all of those who are libertarians and democrats, those who favor deregulation, really think about what deregulation has done for wall street and the economy. it's been proven time and again that allowing it to happen creates networks of disaster that end up in millions lost. from enron to wall street we go!

eve ensler - drill drill drill

i've always been a fan of the vagina monologues
the creator, eve ensler, has written a poignant piece on sarah palin

after reading that, i noticed a link to a story about a rally held in alaska - the alaska women reject palin rally. not the most catchy name, and it hasn't gotten a whole lot of media coverage, but over 1400 people attended. in alaska. that is the largest rally in the state's history.

i am still incredibly pissed off that john mccain has chosen her as a running mate. it dominates my thoughts.

oh my god. hilarious:

Gee whilikers, the McCain vampire just won't die! Hit him with a hammer, and he explodes like a jellyfish into a hundred hungry pieces.

unfortunately, the rest of the article i find to be highly alarming. palin is NOT a feminist.

books palin wanted banned

when sarah palin was the mayor of wasilla, she wanted the following books banned. when the librarian refused to ban them, palin tried to have the librarian fired.
the list is taken directly from the official minutes of the wasilla library board.

1. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

2. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

3. Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden

4. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

5. Blubber by Judy Blume

6. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

7. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

8. Canterbury Tales by Chaucer

9. Carrie by Stephen King

10. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

11. Christine by Stephen King

12. Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

13. Cujo by Stephen King

14. Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen

15. Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite

16. Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck

17. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller

18. Decameron by Boccaccio

19. East of Eden by John Steinbeck

20. Fallen Angels by Walter Myers

21. Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure) by John Cleland

22. Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes

23. Forever by Judy Blume

24. Grendel by John Champlin Gardner

25. Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam

26. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling

27. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling

28. Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling

29. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling

30. Have to Go by Robert Munsch

31. Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman

32. How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell

33. Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

34. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

35. Impressions edited by Jack Booth

36. In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak

37. It's Okay if You Don't Love Me by Norma Klein

38. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

39. Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence

40. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

41. Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm

42. Lord of the Flies by William Golding

43. Love is One of the Choices by Norma Klein

44. Lysistrata by Aristophanes

45. More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz

46. My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

47. My House by Nikki Giovanni

48. My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara

49. Night Chills by Dean Koontz

50. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

51. On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer

52. One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

53. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

54. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

55. Ordinary People by Judith Guest

56. Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Women's Health Collective

57. Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy

58. Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl

59. Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz

60. Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz

61. Separate Peace by John Knowles

62. Silas Marner by George Eliot

63. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

64. Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs

65. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

66. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

67. The Bastard by John Jakes

68. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

69. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier

70. The Color Purple by Alice Walker

71. The Devil's Alternative by Frederick Forsyth

72. The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs

73. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

74. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson

75. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

76. The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder

77. The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks

78. The Living Bible by William C. Bower

79. The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare

80. The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsman

81. The Pigman by Paul Zindel

82. The Seduction of Peter S. by Lawrence Sanders

83. The Shining by Stephen King

84. The Witches by Roald Dahl

85. The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder

86. Then Again, Maybe I Won't by Judy Blume

87. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

88. Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare

89. Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary by the Merriam-Webster

90. Editorial Staff

91. Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts: The Story of the Halloween

92. Symbols by Edna Barth

i wish mccain had gotten barack'rolld like this ...

hallelujah

150 days until bush leaves office

it's like seeing a light at the end of a tunnel that has felt never-ending.

let's just hope it's not extinguished.

in sort of related news, i discovered today that my senior year (high school) english teacher, mr. lake, is still freakin cool. he's in a band. and they recorded a song and posted it on youtube. he's the one singing.

i give you ... "new born south"

hot map

we've all seen that website gasbuddy where you can find the best gas prices in your area ... they've now got a map that shows gas prices across the country. i want to live somewhere with public transportation to die for.

sadly funny thought of the day

No matter how many speeches future presidents give, they will never
quote George W. Bush to reinforce a point unless it's about dishonesty
or failure.

quadruple cross posting!

This is unrelated to my work, but I
feel like this video is important for people to see what Iraq is really
like these days. Having now met the Iraqi man behind the diaries that
we have filed for our show, Iraq has a personal face for me. His wife
and children, as well as the rest of his family, are still behind in
Iraq. I struggle every day to come to terms with what has happened
there and in Afghanistan. Some of us are hearing about the troop surge
in Iraq and its effectiveness or ineffectiveness, but this will show
you what it is really like and put a human face on Iraq. Please help
me to spread this information.


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/5/12346/33766/512/562900

true story.

ahmed writes home

Hope is all that I have left right now, and I pray to God every day to see it happen. I hope to come back to Baghdad and be able to drive in its streets without fear and without the concrete blocks the army have put everywhere, without seeing any guns, and without hearing about explosions and dead bodies being found every day.

To be able to park and go to a shop without anyone asking me to move my car because it may be a car bomb. To be able to sit on the Tigris bank and enjoy eating a fish with my children, to be able to visit the museum and show my kids the glorious history of their ancestors, to be able to smell the roses in its gardens and to see its sun fall and hug the waves of its river. And the most important of all, is to see the faces of the people whom I love.

ahmed regularly files an audio diary, and he also works for the ny times. he posted that in his blog today because he has left baghdad and is now here, in the town and state where i live. i cannot imagine what it must be like for him - going from a city like baghdad that has been ripped to shreds, its history destroyed, its people and their lives shattered, everything they knew decimated, to a city like the one that i live in. small. college town. people speaking english, white people speaking english everywhere.

i am thankful. i am regretful that i can't and haven't done more.

sober reminders come from people like ahmed. people who you will never fully understand because you haven't walked in their shoes, but people who are willing to share their story so that you can take a glimpse inside their world and maybe begin to comprehend what life must be like for them.

thank you ahmed.

iran and the white house

they're so planning to bomb iran before they leave office. so planning to bomb.

clinton supporter offers $1 million for delegate votes

well. we all know how i feel about the clinton campaign - like it's just as slimy as a lot of things that went on during the first clinton presidency.

now, i feel the slime all over again. taking this with a grain of salt because it is a clinton supporter and not actually clinton, there's only a little doubt in my mind that the folks surrounding clinton and clinton herself would support this kind of move.