Today's Jon Carroll column

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Vote, you fools, vote

Are all my friends out there in newspaper land planning to vote? I certainly hope so. There are really no good excuses not to vote. None zip zero. Of course, you may already have voted by mail, and if so, good for you. God bless the absentee, as Paul Simon once said. But also, maybe you have not.

I'd like to speak to the have-nots.

What are the popular excuses for not voting? The polling place is too far away? Where do you live, rural Kentucky? Mine is a nice walk from my house. The route takes me up a hill, but I need the exercise. Maybe you need the exercise. Could be. So strengthen those heart muscles while exercising your civic duty.

I vote in the auditorium of an elementary school. It's very sweet. I am surrounded by neighbors I would not meet under other circumstances. I vote in the afternoon, and the light in the auditorium is beautiful. It's almost like a Norman Rockwell sort of deal, a lovely ritual that predates both Fox News and thermonuclear warfare. I know, we haven't had thermonuclear warfare yet, so we can say for sure that this ritual predates it.

Back when I was a stripling, one of the reasons that people voted was thermonuclear warfare. We were agin' it. Some candidates seem to think that it might not be all that bad an idea. Have you seen "Dr. Strangelove"? It's a documentary.

So that's a good reason to vote: Because something bad might happen if you don't. Like Proposition 23 might pass, although I make no recommendations. If you stay home and mutter that the Democrats and the Republicans are the same and they're all crooks paid off by special interests and things are so bad they can't get any worse, don't worry: They can get worse.

Maybe if you vote, they'll get less worse. Maybe you don't much care for the famous people at the top of the ticket - although it would be nice if you voted for the short lady - but there are unfamous people further down the ticket and they are largely unspoiled by ambition, at least at the moment. Filthy lobbyist cash has yet to trickle down to them. Get 'em while they're young and innocent, I say.

Will it rain on election day? It might. Have you purchased an umbrella lately? Umbrellas are one of the tools of a living democracy. And look, you don't have to walk to your polling place just because I said so. I am not an agency of government. Take your car. Acres o' free parking, probably, because no one votes in an off-year election.

Or perhaps you are worried about germs. After all, you don't know who was in the voting booth before you. Coulda been a Libertarian. (Joke - don't be a hater.) Well, you can purchase some hand sanitizer, can you not? Maybe bring some of those nice wipes to clean the surfaces. Help democracy work! You know, in the olden days, our forefathers and foremothers and foreuncles had to vote in an unsanitary environment. That may explain Calvin Coolidge.

But you can guarantee yourself a healthy, organic, fully natural voting experience. Don't let all the cardio exercise you've gotten on the way to your polling place get ruined by last-minute squeamishness. You make your own health, just as you make your own decisions.

That's right, your vote is entirely private. No one is keeping track. (Well, of course they're keeping track; that's the whole point, but they are not linking your personal self to your vote.) If you vote yes on Prop. 24, no one will know that, not even Time Warner, Viacom or Genentech.

Doesn't that sound like something worth saving - the private vote? They can't take the vote away from us, but we can take the vote away from ourselves. We can pretend that cynicism is the same as realism. We can pretend that our sloth is some kind of political philosophy. Or we can suck it up, go vote, get a cute sticker and figure that at least they won't be able to blame us when the deal goes down, if indeed the deal does go down.

Also, and few people know this, polling places are great venues for meeting people of the opposite sex or the same sex, whichever sex gets your butter melting. Heck, yeah, strike up a conversation. "That Prop. 25 sure was an easy decision, yes?" you might say, and if the other person nods assent in a maidenly (or studly) way, you've got a budding friendship right there.

Vote or I will kill this dolphin.

Why voting is such a good idea - it's not just citizenship anymore.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... z144bJc8BH

[Bleyseng]

yes I voted yesterday via mail from this remote country. Read the news lately of Chavez nationalizing more private companies to create more jobs? WTF?
Raining on voting day? Hah, its gonna be 90+ here and Sunny.
The Teaparty wants to take back America but from who? Us thats who so they can have a nice right wing crazy christian no taxes gun toting country. Sounds downright silly to me but I am in a country where I can't fire an employee. Atleast I can drink and drive with an open can of beer in my hand, now that's Freedom!

[ruckman101]

Cha, went down to the elections office because my ballot is in mail limbo between changes of address, changed my registration address and inked in my choices on the ballot. Did what I could as I always do.


neal

[Gypsie]

Sat around the kitchen table with our 10 year old and discussed the initiatives and how to make sure you understand what your vote means cause they can have tricky language in the text. Yes means no type of thing. signed sealed and delivered.

Now my pot awaits my chicken...

[MeyerII]

Voting is so nice, I voted twice!

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This song's for you

I've been watching a lot of sports on television lately, so I've seen a lot of songs and recitals and moments of silence "to honor our men and women in uniform" who are sometimes said to be "guarding America's freedom."

I too support our troops, as they say, a lot of whom are in some tactically useful hellhole because of social or economic pressures not of their own making. I do not believe that most of them are guarding American freedom, which thankfully does not depend on the success or failure of our military efforts in any specific region in Afghanistan.

Even if the Taliban were to take over all of the country, I don't think we'd be a wit more or less safe than we are now. Indeed, if history is any measure, groups within the Taliban would start fighting each other for supremacy and forget about the Great Satan entirely, except during days of patriotic unity.

But with all of these events celebrating our men and women in uniform, maybe we could have a few - 10 percent, say; I'm not asking for much - celebrating other Americans. For instance, gay men and women in uniform who, at some risk to their careers, are continuing to serve because they believe in the mission, even if their country does not believe in them.

That is an act of daily courage, and I think they deserve a flyover or two; maybe even a singing of "God Bless America" by RCA/Jive recording artists Stormwatchers, whose new album "Burn Time" will be available in stores this week. Not that you'll buy it; you'll just download it. Anyway, hooray, gay people and this one's for you.

Not going to happen, I know.

How about just one "Star-Spangled Banner" for the men and women who have sacrificed their time, their energy and a portion of their incomes to oppose the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? They too are acting as patriots, and while they are not risking their lives, they are risking some measure of public disapprobation for taking their unpopular positions, at least in some parts of the country.

How about a hearty Marine band rendition of "America the Beautiful" for American Muslims who, under extreme pressure from marginal lunatics and political opportunists, have nevertheless continued to live here and worship here. Let's make them feel welcome for once. It's more than just not burning their Qurans; it's public acknowledgment of their role in making the engine of America chug along.

Maybe one politician could give a speech saying "Hooray, Muslims" as opposed to "We support your right to worship any monotheistic entity you choose." It occurs to me just now that the current political policy toward Muslims is a lot like the one toward gays - don't ask, don't tell. Please don't tell me you're a Muslim; it makes such trouble when it gets out at campaign time.

Maybe just a "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean" sung by the reconfigured edition of Up With People! Is that too much to ask?

As long as we're parading the flag around, let's take a turn for doctors who continue to provide abortions for women who choose to have them. They are putting their patients first, even at the risk of boycotts, picket lines and, occasionally, murder. Is that not a hero's death, dying to protect those who trust you? I think so. Can we get an array of patriotic pennants and banners for them?

I know! A 21-gun salute for the first politician who says, "Taxes are too low and we need to raise them across the board." That's the truth, and everyone knows it's the truth, but no people will say it because it means an end to their tidy sinecures in some legislative body or another. Probably also entitlements need to be cut and the Defense Department needs to be sliced way back. Not ideal, but we're already in a not-ideal situation. Let's have a nice Sousa march for that idea.

For that matter, how about a drum and bugle corps for single mothers, lonely pensioners, pizza-delivery guys, half-time freelance graphic artists, volunteer firefighters, amateur photographers, part-time CPR teachers, Little League coaches, people in early recovery, nail salon owners, struggling sex workers, fishing boat captains and all the unemployed factory workers and matchmakers and 24-hour photo shop employees taking a few hours off from juggling their finances to watch a sporting event and forget? Yay, you!

Let's have a full-throated rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" for tire salespeople everywhere.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... z14GSwo4rG

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What it all means, 2010

Let us hurl our brains back to 1994, when the Republicans scored an overwhelming midterm victory, attaining a huge majority in the House. Sound familiar? Their leader was Newt Gingrich, and he produced the Contract With America, which was all about lower taxes, a balanced budget (!), welfare reform and all that stuff.

Gingrich also championed and passed something called THOMAS, an Internet-accessible database of all proposed bills before Congress, other supporting documents and contact information. Said Gingrich at the time: "This will change the balance of power in America toward the citizens out of the Beltway. There will be a shift to talking about ideas, not personalities."

How's that working out for you, Newt?

The Contract With America was an artifact of the great conservative resurgence of 1994. The Republicans controlled both houses of Congress. And yet only parts of the Contract ever became legislation. Some of that was because of the threat (or the reality) of presidential veto; a lot more was because the bills were watered down in order to collect votes.

Y'all know what happened next. Bill Clinton was re-elected in 1996, and the Congress was reduced to pursuing the Monica Lewinsky matter, effectively blocking legislation of all kinds. As you don't need to be reminded, a lot of Republicans had an almost irrational antipathy toward Bill Clinton, and it turned out that the Contract With America was mostly "We'll get that Clinton one way or another."

During his terms as speaker, Gingrich was charged with 84 ethics violations, although he was reprimanded for only one. His popularity plummeted. He resigned in 1998 and became a shadowy figure with little influence. He has tried to take credit for the Tea Party movement, but the Tea Party, filled with self-approbation at its own world-changing ideas, has largely ignored him.

Things change fast in Double Jeopardy.

I feel silly pointing out the similarities between 1994 and 2010, but I will anyway. The Democrats, who just two years ago had scored an amazing - and largely personality-based - electoral victory, lost much ground in the midterm elections. This is standard in American politics; every president promises more than he can deliver, and life is still hard and money is still tight.

(For most people, money is tight even in time of prosperity. The common standards of prosperity mostly measure how rich people are doing. If you don't own stocks, your interest in the Dow Jones industrial average decreases substantially.)

Clinton's second term was marred by his personal failings and by the willingness of his enemies to sell out everything in pursuing him.

One thing I would note about the Tea Party people is how much of their vitriol is directed at Obama himself rather than his policies. (For instance, lots of right-wingers complained that Obama had raised their taxes, when he had done just the opposite.) Some of this antipathy is, I believe, pure racism, but a greater component is economic hardship. They blame him because he's in charge, although the reasons that jobs are being lost are many and complex, and most of them predate Obama's election.

It seems laughable to suggest that Obama will get caught in a sex scandal, although you can be sure there are people looking into that right now. But I imagine that the new people in Congress will be looking into every nook and cranny, real and imagined, for something to hurl at Obama. The stuff they're hurling now is largely not real, and largely not even the stuff worth hurling.

(My guess about the Tea Party, based admittedly on their craziest candidates, who largely lost, is that they will lack the patience for the really tedious business of making laws, which entails making compromises. Some people could tell them how to go about it - they could ask Barney Frank, for instance; they could ask John Kerry - but that would be against their self-image as libertarian radicals who will remake Washington. As those of us on the left can tell you, remaking Washington ain't that easy and may be impossible. Ah, well - Sarah Palin quit as governor of Alaska; who knows when the new people will check out?)

In any event, as I promised: "What it all means," by Jon Carroll. Answer: not too much. Come see me in 2012 and then we'll talk.

Be not disturbed and anxious, my children; we have been here before, and so shall we be again.

http://www.sfgate.com/columnists/carroll/#ixzz14SMjnppF

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Small? Government? Surely you jest.

Jon Carroll

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Well, it's about to be push-comes-to-shove time for conservative Republicans, who were elected on a program of lower taxes and smaller government. The government that would remain - size unspecified - would be paid for by "eliminating wasteful spending."

Such a good idea. It is my experience that candidates who run on a platform of "increasing wasteful spending" rarely do well in the polls. Of course, one person's wasteful spending is another person's necessary highway project or dam or public park. It's the reverse of NIMBY: If it's in my backyard, it's a necessary infrastructure improvement; if it's in your backyard, it's just the sort of waste we were talking about.

If the small-government people really live up their ideals, they'll say, "That bridge in my district is not really necessary, and I vote to abandon the project and give the money back to the Treasury." Rand Paul might do that, but then, Rand Paul might do anything. The rest of 'em are going to find out why being an ideologue is so darned hard in Congress.

OK, so we're going to lower taxes for somebody - we'll work it out in committee - and we're going to find the waste, except with a deficit of $1.43 trillion and a debt of $13 trillion, it's going to take a little more than eliminating soybean subsidies to make a sizable dent.

(But soybeans! Vegetable protein! A million uses! Worrisome foreign competition! We must protect our vital soybean resources, because when all the cows are dead, we're going to need every bean.

(Cows! You can't be suggesting that the beef industry should not be supported by the government. It is prey to foreign competition, and also - what is more American than beef? Please, for all our sakes, take your budget ax somewhere else. Have you considered pigs?

(And so on ...)

So whatever are they going to cut? The defense budget? Well, that would be nice - probably there are weapons systems in there we don't need, all of them being built in the districts of Congress members with heavy seniority - but it ain't gonna happen. Conservatives in general shy away from cuts in defense, because they understand that our enemies are all around us and we should do whatever it is - and frankly, it's complicated - to keep those enemies off our shores.

And indeed, our enemies have refrained from invading us. Proof that it works. Those big oceans help too.

So now we come to Social Security and Medicare. Remember, you men and women new to Congress, you now represent real people. Because you never actually said you were going to cut Social Security or Medicare - you were going to cut "waste," remember? - they might be a little put out by whatever you come up with. Want to change Obamacare so seniors pay more for prescription drugs? How about means-testing Social Security?

What about the people who've paid into Social Security all their lives and now will get less under your new deficit-hawk plan? Older Americans - they vote. Wanna be a one-term Congress member? That'd be a good way to start.

I don't mean to harp on conservative Republicans, although it will be pleasant to see their rhetoric come home to roost. We all have a problem, and the way to solve it is together. Unfortunately, that does not seem to be in the cards. At a time of national crisis, at a time in which sacrifice is going to be required of each of us, we have the most partisan Congress in recent memory.

Whatever the Republicans propose, the Democrats will oppose, because it might be a good idea and the GOP would get credit for it and who wants that? And ditto Republicans - they can't let Obama do anything that might actually work, because the whole purpose of Congress these next two years (says Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader) is to defeat Obama. You don't do that by allowing him to have success in solving real problems.

And meanwhile, here we are over in the corner, waving our hands and saying, "When do we get our jobs back?" And no one knows, because no one has been paying attention. (Hint: Tax cuts will not get your job back.) While all of this ideological idiocy has been gripping the country, the real problems of real people really have not gotten better or worse.

I think the president is partly to blame for not concentrating on jobs - although he was busy with what in fact is a pretty good health plan - but I also blame the raucous, Fox-led right for holding up shiny objects and pretending they're the real news. Obama not born in the United States! Obama not a Christian! The ground zero mosque! Keep 'em occupied with rage and helplessness, and they'll forget all about the rent payment.

In which we make government small while keeping everything we like.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 1GBA96.DTL

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How to be happier

Jon Carroll

Monday, August 15, 2011

It's been a gloomy few weeks, hasn't it? All that nonsense in Washington, followed by that nonsense on Wall Street, followed by rioting in London and most of the nation baked so badly in crippling heat that one is surprised their brains were not fried right there in their skulls like eggs on the sidewalk.

This little financial drama is going to play out, using our money as tokens, and I can't see much to do about that. I wish I felt as though I had an advocate in government, but I don't feel that way. I have been reduced to counting on the cyclical nature of the enthusiasms of crowds, so maybe things will change again and we will be happy. Well, happier. "Happier" is my best-case scenario.

Just because we can find no pleasure in our national and international situations does not mean that we can find no pleasure at all. There is pleasure all around us, and while we are suffering from the News, the not-news should give us comfort. You know, rubber ducks and old dogs and tall trees and tomatoes (They're in! They're fresh! I have mentioned this already!) and good-looking members of the human race. Also wisdom and Rembrandt and jug band music. So many things.

I'd start with a sunset. They're available to all unless the fog comes in too early, and often they are accompanied by high clouds that smear dabs of color across the sky - colors that change every few minutes until it becomes so dark, you have to strain to see the remaining purples.

And then, assuming you have been watching the sunset from a previously chosen vantage point, there's the walk home or to the car. That's a good time for holding hands, when the dusk is heavy and the headlights roll on. If you're watching your sunset from your house, well go inside and have some tomatoes, maybe with mozzarella.

And corn! How could I have forgotten corn? Get back from the sunset, put the water on, shuck the corn you bought that day from a reputable dealer, break out a little butter - are you telling me there's no joy there? You could think about Michele Bachmann or you could think about the crunchy bits of salt on your plate to roll the corn in.

All this from the oh-so-banal sunset. Isn't that what people in personal ads say: "I like sunsets and long walks on the beach." Well, yes. Also sex and ice cream. That line is supposed to indicate that the person is sensitive and nonthreatening, because serial killers hate sunsets. It's a scientific fact. But they are there for all of us, no matter what Mitt Romney is saying. And we should never ever believe that Romney somehow cancels sunsets.

In this case, the cliche wins.

Did I mention sex? Available to almost everyone and at every location. Cuddling, rubbing, talking horizontally, all of that stuff - and it doesn't depend on the deficit reduction to retain its charm. It doesn't even depend on environmental responsibility. Plus, it might get dirty. You like that, but would you rather that peace came to Brixton and Stepney before you lie in a carnal manner?

You know what is good? Trains. Have you ridden on a train in a while? Bumping and clapping across the countryside, not concerned with driving or rest stops or possible high winds in exposed areas - trains are good. You can read or play games or wander down to the dining car, which admittedly is not as it was in days of yore, but then you're not like you were in days of yore either.

It's still a pleasure. Now that tiny clicking and beeping machines have come to dominate our lives, a big old mechanical thing with noise and grade crossings and oh-so-many examples of the Doppler effect is just the ticket to soothe the savage breast that has been rattled by Standard & Poor's. And train trips are pretty cheap - no need to cut down on the 401(k) contributions. Not that 401(k) contributions have exactly stood the test of time.

But I digress gloomily, and such was not my intent. Think of that range of mountains to the east, the glorious Sierra. Hiking trails galore, mountain meadows, tiny streams and raging rivers, sunshine, chilly nights, unexpected weather, lakes just where they should be. Take a tent, have some sex. It's just one idea - there are many places to go to get away from everything - but getting away is the strategy here. Don't worry, it'll all still be here when you get back.

The bad news is always with us; we have to make the good news.

Junkyards are places that some people find appealing; ditto redwood forests. Find your bliss; you'll need it.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f ... 1KME22.DTL

This article appeared on page E - 6 of the San Francisco Chronicle

[Velokid1]

Just yesterday after a particularly oovy-groovy anusara class, I was thinking about how beautiful both sunsets and pregnant women are, and how fortunate it is that they are two omnipresent things in this world.