Thursday, February 28, 2008

5:23 PM - try your own!

late to the party, as usual

I just now learned about Google Trends, which allows you to generate hilarious stock-market-like graphs comparing abstract terms. My favorites so far include Cake vs. Pie, iPhone vs Wii, Art vs. Science, Problems vs. Solutions, and Survivor vs. Project Runway, American Idol, and Library.

In other news, it really feels like spring today... the sun is bright and warm, the birds are chirping, and there is pollen everywhere.

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

12:59 PM - unless you are a candied yam

unless you are a can of ham

I found my new polling place this morning. I was a bit disconcerted because the address was described as a "garage" and I felt a bit sketched out. (Here Tony, come into this garage, and write your vote down. Don't worry, it will be counted. Honest. Come on in here.) It worked out fine, though, and I even got a receipt for my paper ballot and everything.

I also got to walk 2 blocks of sheer cliff face back to my home when I was done. Yay, San Francisco.

I've really been struggling with this vote, because everything is so close and volatile and... important. I really wanted to allow myself to get wrapped up in the audacity of hope, and vote for a candidate who wasn't business as usual. And yet... I'm essentially a two-issue voter, and I always said that I could never vote for a presidential candidate who was opposed to same-sex marriages. I've said it before, but civil unions are the colored drinking fountains of our decade, and anyone who uses a religious definition of marriage to maintain a structure of oppression is disregarding both the 1st Amendment and Brown vs. Board of Education.

And yet... HRC-style political strategists would probably argue that no viable candidate is going to come out in support of same-sex marriages because of the risk of alienating Christian voters, and that doesn't mean that the candidate is inherently anti-gay. A lot of people would argue that the best strategy for having a civil-rights friendly president is to engage in the "politics of sit down and shut up" by pretending that I don't exist. I've been struggling with this for weeks, and it turns my stomach. In the past, I've even voted for unlikely candidates who accurately represented my views, rather than compromise on the things that are important to me.

In the end, today I chose to sit down and shut up about my own civil rights. But I still want to say that the vote comes with a 756-sized asterisk, and maybe I'll end up drafting a letter on that topic, because every politician loves a good letter this time of year.