President Obama impresses me every day with what he is doing, and what he is trying to do. But I'm appalled at the obstructionist, mendacious behavior by some of the Republicans, taking advantage of his openhanded overtures to try to turn the stimulus bill into something that weakens or destroys its impact, and then falsely claiming they've been shut out of the process and voting against it anyway. Either they refuse to belief the economic facts in the face of all evidence, or don't care about anything but the approval of like-minded constituents. Perhaps they really believe that, as GOP Chairman Michael Steele said, "The Obama-backed stimulus is just a wish list from a lot of people who have been on the sidelines for years.. to get a little bling, bling."
Yeah, right. That's what President Obama and his allies are trying to give the country: the "bling" of jobs, a stable power grid, a decent education, bridges that don't collapse, levees that don't fail, and a safety net to catch us as we fall with this crashing, underregulated economy. Here's what's at stake for me: the difference between a decent job in my field and economic ruin. I'm pretty sure John and I can't keep up house payments if we both end up working for minimum wage, or not at all. I know I've written about my job situation before, but here's an update, because things are only getting worse for us. This what I just wrote in response to one of those Obama "Share Your Story" emails:
Late in 2002, in the last month of my mother's life, I returned to college while working full time as a travel agency's bookkeeper/accountant. I got my accounting degree in early 2005, and left my job of 12 years to work for a mortgage firm as a staff accountant. In August 2007, the mortgage firm went bankrupt in the housing meltdown, even though it wasn't primarily a subprime lender. I learned about FMFC's collapse from a newspaper headline outside McDonald's on my way to work.After a temporary maternity relief job with a used clothing retail chain, I started work with a large RV dealership. But gas and diesel became too expensive to fill an RV's tank, and people don't buy $100k luxury items when their jobs are at risk. So I was laid off, and the dealership subsequently declared bankruptcy. A month later, the travel agency where I'd worked for so long closed its doors after 50 years in business.I had a 90-day temporary contract with a local aerospace firm last summer, but I've been completely out of work since early September. Actually, I did get a job briefly, doing taxes inside a check cashing store, with no rest room access. But I had no tax experience, and the CPA decided to pull out of that location after police spent half a day there. I had been employed for 29.5 hours.Now I'm working on a CPA review course, and watching job sites that have fewer relevant listings each week. That degree was supposed to make me more employable, but it's not longer working. Clearly, I'm neither lazy nor unreliable nor undereducated nor stupid, but there are no jobs for me. Unless something changes, my unemployment benefits are scheduled to run out in seven weeks, shortly after I turn 52 years old. Meanwhile, my husband just survived a major round of layoffs at his company, so our position is more precarious than it's been in decades. We refinanced our house in 2005, and have never been late on a payment. But that could change all too easily if John loses his job and I don't find one.I figure that here in Tucson, infrastructure investments mean construction and solar and education and maybe broadband. Such projects will need accountants. I haven't done governmental or construction accounting, but I can learn. And I'm ready to go on payroll accounting for new jobs in the private sector.Put me to work. Please. Or failing that, help me and my husband stay solvent until people start hiring again. If it comes to that, I'll work at some low-paying job until something better comes along. But it makes more sense to get the economy moving again, and open up jobs for people in the fields for which they are qualified.Thank you, President Obama, and all who are working with you to solve this terrible economic crisis. And shame on everyone who stands in your way due to cynical political calculations and disproved economic models. President Obama, Paul Krugman, Robert Reich et al. have it right. Don't stand in the doorway, don't block up the hall.
Oh, and by the way, I had a cancer scare this past fall, and no health insurance to pay for tests. No cancer, but I have to figure out how to pay the last of the bills for that.
This is the world the obstructionists are ignoring, a world where formerly hardworking Americans are sidelined through no fault of their own. A capital gains tax cut will not get me a job or health care, or help me keep up the mortgage payments. The stimulus plan might. Even if it doesn't help me directly in the short run, I'm confident it will help us all over time. We need it, badly.
I'd write to my Senators, but I'm darn sure that neither McCain nor Kyl will listen. I only hope the rest of us can overcome the obstructionists, and get the economy moving again.
Karen
I've written lots of stuff elesewhere since the election, but this specific piece is one that I feel I should post here. It is the text of the "Tell Us Your Story" response I sent to Change.gov just now:
Two years ago, I was doing pretty well as a staff accountant for a large mortgage company. In August 2007 that company folded overnight in the mortgage crisis. My next "permanent" job, for a large RV dealership, ended because nobody can afford to buy and fuel RVs anymore. Even the company I worked for before I got my accounting degree, Tucson's oldest travel agency, is out of business now.I've been unemployed since early September, and have had only one job interview since then. That's given me lots of time to volunteer for the Obama campaign. I did data entry, designed lots and lots of buttons, blogged on behalf of Barack Obama in several venues including Huffington Post, and even, despite a phobia about it, made some Get Out the Vote phone calls. I did all that because I genuinely believe in the principles and programs our new President-Elect stands for, help for the global economy and ordinary Americans, access to health insurance, a smarter, less belligerent foreign policy, inclusiveness instead of divisiveness, etc. Like much of the country, I was thrilled when the networks called the election for Barack Obama. I kissed my husband and hugged my dog, and was proud of the speech the President-Elect gave in Grant Park.One particular issue of the campaign became much more urgent for me tonight when my doctor called with some test results. There is a small chance that I have cancer, and I have no health insurance. If I find out that it is cancer, it instantly becomes a preexisting condition. Is it even possible to finance cancer surgery on credit cards? And if we do, how will we ever pay it off?This sort of thing should not happen here, or anywhere for that matter. I doubt that our new President will be able to do anything about health insurance in time to help me, but maybe I'll at least be able to get a job as the economy improves. And it's not all about me in any case. I believe that President Obama can work with Congress to significantly improve the lives of everyone, just be going forward with the policies he campaigned on, to the extent that they can be done on a realistic timetable. I urge everyone to set aside wrangling over whether we're a "center-right" nation or need to be more progressive, blah blah blah, and to support President Obama in his efforts to do exactly what he said he would do. That truly is the "change we need."Karen Funk Blocher
I had yet another run-in with forwarders of anti-Obama smear emails, which you can read about on my other blog. I also finally worked up the nerve to make GOTV phone calls tonight, but that's not what I want to talk about right now. Instead I'd like to share another email back-and forth that followed a big online tussle about Barack Obama's birth certificate. I had just refuted one claim about him being born in Kenya when another one surfaced, originating from a different friend-of-a-friend. My friend ignored all that just happened, and obliviously forwarded the latest version of the smear.
My reply:
Oh, F., do you even read my replies to this stuff? Obama is a Hawaiian natural born US citizen. He just is. His birth certificate has been verified and analyzed to death, claims to the contrary have been disproved, and challenges to his citizenship have been thrown out of court. Yet still people ignore all the evidence and bring it up over and over. Do you honestly believe that the Chicago Tribune, the Associated Press, the State of Hawaii, the Los Angeles Times and all the major fact-checking sites are all lying or mistaken? Not to mention the courts in Ohio and Hawaii?
If you forward negative claims about Barack Obama, at least forward the other side of the story. Thanks!Barack Obama's birth certificate revealed here | Los Angeles TimesPolitiFact | Obama's birth certificate Final chapterAssociated Press: State declares Obama birth certificate genuineOfficials verify birth certificate of ObamaObama birth certificate rumor debunked - Chicago TribuneOhio challenge to Obama's citizenship tossed - Seattle Post Intelligencer FactCheck.org: Born in the U.S.A. Regards, Karen
This stuff drives me crazy. It really does.
K.
On Outpost Mavarin: Wasting My Time
On Huffington Post: Arizona Arts and Crafts for Obama PHOTO SLIDESHOW
P.S. SF writer, columnist and big-time blogger John Scalzi wrote an awsome endorsement of Barack Obama today. Check it out:
Just to Make Things Official About This Election: Obama for President by John Scalzi
Another day, another smear email. Here's my reply:
To those of you who don't know me, I beg your indulgence for a few minutes. You received yet another baseless attack on Barack Obama by email today. I think you deserve to be exposed to the other, better side of the argument. I'll see your Wheeler endorsement and raise you by a few hundred endorsements - politicians, diplomats, military figures, newspapers, actors, directors, writers and organizations. It's all here on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obama_endorsements Incidentally, there's no substance to speak of to the attack on Obama below. An "empty suit?" I challenge you to watch any speech, any debate by the man. Listen to the quality of his reasoning. Listen to how much he cares about you, even if you're a McCain supporter. Honestly compare what the two sides say, and which one actually makes logical sense when you look at the policies they have. Wheeler also indulges in race-baiting, pretending that the only reason anyone would ever vote for a black man is out of liberal guilt. Obama never, ever, attacks anyone for "the sin of being white." I wish I could say the same for the other side. And if being black were an ADVANTAGE in a presidential election (maybe in Upside-Down Land), people like Jesse Jackson (who is a bit of an ass), would have done better in past races. No, Obama isn't winning because he's black. He's winning because he's that good. Contrast Jack Wheeler's remarks with the words of Colin Powell: (I then quoted Powell's seven minute endoresement in full. A few highlights:) GEN. POWELL: On the Obama side, I watched Mr. Obama and I watched him during this seven-week period. And he displayed a steadiness, an intellectual curiosity, a depth of knowledge and an approach to looking at problems like this and picking a vice president that, I think, is ready to be president on day one. And also, in not just jumping in and changing every day, but showing intellectual vigor. I think that he has a, a definitive way of doing business that would serve us well. ... Mr. Obama, at the same time, has given us a more inclusive, broader reach into the needs and aspirations of our people. He's crossing lines-- ethnic lines, racial lines, generational lines. He's thinking about all villages have values, all towns have values, not just small towns have values. ...Now, we have got to stop polarizing ourself in this way. And John McCain is as nondiscriminatory as anyone I know. But I'm troubled about the fact that, within the party, we have these kinds of expressions. So, when I look at all of this and I think back to my Army career, we've got two individuals, either one of them could be a good president. But which is the president that we need now? Which is the individual that serves the needs of the nation for the next period of time? And I come to the conclusion that because of his ability to inspire, because of the inclusive nature of his campaign, because he is reaching out all across America, because of who he is and his rhetorical abilities--and we have to take that into account--as well as his substance--he has both style and substance--he has met the standard of being a successful president, being an exceptional president. I think he is a transformational figure. He is a new generation coming into the world-- onto the world stage, onto the American stage, and for that reason I'll be voting for Senator Barack Obama. More of Powell's Meet the Press interview can be read and watched here: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/10/powell-obama-en.html I imagine it's perfectly possible to vote for John McCain for reasons that aren't based on lies or innuendo. You may believe that the war in Iraq is being won, and will be won if John McCain is allowed to manage it. You may believe that he has a plan for capturing or killing Osama bin Laden, which he's not disclosing for security reasons. You may feel that McCain's approach to foreign policy is better than Barack Obama's, by dint of greater experience and toughness. You may believe that we need a saber rattler in the White House, not someone who prefers diplomacy and direct talks, who, to paraphrase McCain's hero Teddy Roosevelt, speaks softly and carries a big stick. Maybe you don't believe that Obama even carries a stick. Similarly, you may know perfectly well what the factual differences are between John McCain's economic policies and Barack Obama's, and still prefer McCain's. Despite evidence to the contrary, you may believe that the economy needs to be rescued from the top down rather than from the bottom up, with people who earn over $250,000 a year getting the bulk of the tax breaks rather than being made to pay what they were paying the day George W. Bush took office. But here is what I believe, based on extensive reading, and listening to quite a few talking heads from both sides of the aisle. John McCain has wrong-headed ideas on both foreign policy and the economy that are extremely similar to the ones that got us into the predicament we're in now. He has not offered one new idea with a reasonable chance of doing any good, and several that are likely to cause further harm. He has chosen a running mate who believes that dinosaurs walked the earth at the same time as man, who condones witch-hunting, who uses Alaska resources for her personal ends, who lies to the public frequently and without shame, whose husband belonged to a secessionist party for years, and who apparently cannot string two coherent sentences together without a TelePrompter. If the selection of Palin isn't sufficient evidence of McCain's poor judgment, add in his frequent lies about his opponent's policies, personal attacks based on tenuous relationships, baseless innuendo about socialism and other-ness, and massive hypocrisy in constantly accusing Obama and company of doing the same things he and his campaign do to a far greater degree. This is a man I've voted for for Senator, because I used to believe that even if his ideas were mostly wrong, at least he was a man of integrity. I was mistaken. Barack Obama, on the other hand, has a keen intelligence, an outstanding education, a steady temperament, a willingness to listen to Republicans and well as Democrats, compassion, fair-mindedness, charisma, eloquence and, most of all, policies and plans that will help the country and the world. With all due respect to Hillary Clinton, there is only one candidate this year, of any race or gender, with such a potent combination of assets. And a week from now, barring a major disaster or even more massive election-tampering than we've seen so far, he'll be the President-Elect. I hope you will all take a look at http://www.barackobama.com, and see who he is and what he says, instead of relying on what his enemies say, usually resorting to distortions or lies to scare you away. While you're at it, take a good look at John McCain as well. I think the choice is clear, for a whole host of reasons. But if you still want to vote for John McCain, based on his policies, his history and his character, you go ahead and do that. That's how democracy is supposed to work. Karen Funk Blocher
To those of you who don't know me, I beg your indulgence for a few minutes. You received yet another baseless attack on Barack Obama by email today. I think you deserve to be exposed to the other, better side of the argument. I'll see your Wheeler endorsement and raise you by a few hundred endorsements - politicians, diplomats, military figures, newspapers, actors, directors, writers and organizations. It's all here on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obama_endorsements Incidentally, there's no substance to speak of to the attack on Obama below. An "empty suit?" I challenge you to watch any speech, any debate by the man. Listen to the quality of his reasoning. Listen to how much he cares about you, even if you're a McCain supporter. Honestly compare what the two sides say, and which one actually makes logical sense when you look at the policies they have. Wheeler also indulges in race-baiting, pretending that the only reason anyone would ever vote for a black man is out of liberal guilt. Obama never, ever, attacks anyone for "the sin of being white." I wish I could say the same for the other side. And if being black were an ADVANTAGE in a presidential election (maybe in Upside-Down Land), people like Jesse Jackson (who is a bit of an ass), would have done better in past races. No, Obama isn't winning because he's black. He's winning because he's that good. Contrast Jack Wheeler's remarks with the words of Colin Powell:
(I then quoted Powell's seven minute endoresement in full. A few highlights:)
GEN. POWELL: On the Obama side, I watched Mr. Obama and I watched him during this seven-week period. And he displayed a steadiness, an intellectual curiosity, a depth of knowledge and an approach to looking at problems like this and picking a vice president that, I think, is ready to be president on day one. And also, in not just jumping in and changing every day, but showing intellectual vigor. I think that he has a, a definitive way of doing business that would serve us well. ... Mr. Obama, at the same time, has given us a more inclusive, broader reach into the needs and aspirations of our people. He's crossing lines-- ethnic lines, racial lines, generational lines. He's thinking about all villages have values, all towns have values, not just small towns have values. ...Now, we have got to stop polarizing ourself in this way. And John McCain is as nondiscriminatory as anyone I know. But I'm troubled about the fact that, within the party, we have these kinds of expressions. So, when I look at all of this and I think back to my Army career, we've got two individuals, either one of them could be a good president. But which is the president that we need now? Which is the individual that serves the needs of the nation for the next period of time? And I come to the conclusion that because of his ability to inspire, because of the inclusive nature of his campaign, because he is reaching out all across America, because of who he is and his rhetorical abilities--and we have to take that into account--as well as his substance--he has both style and substance--he has met the standard of being a successful president, being an exceptional president. I think he is a transformational figure. He is a new generation coming into the world-- onto the world stage, onto the American stage, and for that reason I'll be voting for Senator Barack Obama.
GEN. POWELL:
On the Obama side, I watched Mr. Obama and I watched him during this seven-week period. And he displayed a steadiness, an intellectual curiosity, a depth of knowledge and an approach to looking at problems like this and picking a vice president that, I think, is ready to be president on day one.
And also, in not just jumping in and changing every day, but showing intellectual vigor. I think that he has a, a definitive way of doing business that would serve us well.
...
Mr. Obama, at the same time, has given us a more inclusive, broader reach into the needs and aspirations of our people. He's crossing lines-- ethnic lines, racial lines, generational lines. He's thinking about all villages have values, all towns have values, not just small towns have values.
Now, we have got to stop polarizing ourself in this way. And John McCain is as nondiscriminatory as anyone I know. But I'm troubled about the fact that, within the party, we have these kinds of expressions.
So, when I look at all of this and I think back to my Army career, we've got two individuals, either one of them could be a good president. But which is the president that we need now? Which is the individual that serves the needs of the nation for the next period of time?
And I come to the conclusion that because of his ability to inspire, because of the inclusive nature of his campaign, because he is reaching out all across America, because of who he is and his rhetorical abilities--and we have to take that into account--as well as his substance--he has both style and substance--he has met the standard of being a successful president, being an exceptional president.
I think he is a transformational figure. He is a new generation coming into the world-- onto the world stage, onto the American stage, and for that reason I'll be voting for Senator Barack Obama.
In other news, I got a McCain robocall today, and hung up on it. But from the opening, I'm sure it's the same one that other Arizonans have reported receiving.
And I designed a few more buttons:
And for Doctor Who fans:
More of my recent political writings (and yes, there's a lot of overlap):
I received yet another email forward, and it set me off on another rant. I offer it up as a guide to your own responses to this junk.
The original email is too long to reproduce here, so I'll settle for a few excerpts:
-----Original Message----- Subject: Fwd: FW: Most Americans are aware of Bill Lear,Thu, 23 Oct 2008 07:54:47 -0700Straight talk for Republicans and Democrats. Most Americans are aware of Bill Lear, because of his Lear Jet business; however, he has accomplished much more, as you can see at this link: William P. Lear -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia . His opinions are worth a read: A Humble Plea to McCain and Obama Supporters: Dear friends, I am truly astonished by the ignorance Obama supporters have displayed in their quest to get someone - ANYONE - into the White House. Now, wait a minute. I can well understand your dislike or even hatred of our clown, GWB, but he is not the root cause of all of our problems. Our Congress is. And a change there would be welcomed by all. You ain't gonna get it done with Obama. You gotta fire the whole damnable crooked Congress. ...While McCain has abstained from playing "the race-card", Obama is playing it to the hilt even though he's technically not an African-American. To qualify for this distinction you must be at least one-sixth black. Obama is only one-eighth. His father would be, as he was one-sixth. No, Obama is more Muslim than black yet he trades on his blackness. The larger question I have about him is that we really don't know much about him other than what HE tells us, what we read on blogs and from some serious non-partisan investigators whose factual reports are, unfortunately, generally ignored and which receive precious little media exposure. I, as a registered Independent, a military veteran and a patriot, beseech you to put aside party considerations and vote for the lesser of the two evils. Yes, I am NOT a McCain supporter, but he is, at least, not a flake, doesn't carry Muslim baggage and is a PROVEN hero and patriot WITH experience. It's not a party issue. It's all about electing the best we can trust with what we've got to work with. Mr. Obama is NOT that guy.
-----Original Message----- Subject: Fwd: FW: Most Americans are aware of Bill Lear,
Thu, 23 Oct 2008 07:54:47 -0700
Straight talk for Republicans and Democrats. Most Americans are aware of Bill Lear, because of his Lear Jet business; however, he has accomplished much more, as you can see at this link: William P. Lear -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia .
His opinions are worth a read:
Uh-huh. Sure.
I replied:
Vague smears and pleas to "trust me" from a millionaire industrialist do not move me, especially coming from someone with the slogan and book title, Fly Fast, Sin Boldly (See http://www.billlear.com), who admits to spending much of his life outside the U.S.. Contrast Lear's reasons, which basically come down to "he's a Muslim" and "he's uppity," with Colin Powell's well-reasoned, seven minute endorsement, and there's a huge difference in the quality of the argument. Details of Barack Obama's life have been thoroughly investigated and reported on for the past two years. Millions and millions of words have been written about him, true and false. Lies are perpetrated by far right nutcases (including an anti-Semitic would-be lawyer who was refused admission to the bar due to personality disorder)* and passed on to people who are made nervous because he has dark(ish) skin, a dead father from Kenya and a funny name. The smears are distortions at best, out-and-out lies at worst, endlessly passed on and believed despite being thoroughly debunked in the press and on several fact checking sites. (And in case you assume that Politifact, FactCheck.org and Snopes.com lie, consider that they debunk anti-Palin and anti-McCain stuff too, and Politifact even calls Obama out on inaccurate statements he makes.) Why is all this happening? Rich people with a vested interest in Republican power, and people who honestly believe Obama is dangerous because he's "not like us" are willing to lie and cheat to convince you not to vote for Obama. They know they can't win on the issues. Obama's tax plan is the one that benefits most people, while McCain' s will continue to redistribute the wealth upward to the richest 1% of the country. McCain's will result in more dead soldiers, and more hatred of the U.S. around the world. And by the way, his support of veterans' issues, such as funding of the VA, is abysmally poor. So the Republicans and radical right try to distract you with vague insinuations about Bill Ayers (who sat on a board with prominent Republicans as well as Obama) and a heaping helping of lies and distortions. YOU ARE BEING PLAYED. If you don't know who Barack Obama is and what he stands for, you're not looking very hard. Venture beyond the email forwards, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and the Drudge, and check out a wide range of newspapers, magazines and tv networks, the fact-checking sites, and Obama's own site. If you dare to do this, and give these resources your honest attention, I think you'll be surprised. I am Karen Funk Blocher, and I wrote this message. * His name is Andy Martin. See http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/us/politics/13martin.html Resources: http://www.barackobama.com/index.php http://www.snopes.com http://www.factcheck.org/ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/ http://www.nytimes.com/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ http://digg.com/2008_us_elections
Another email required a much shorter response:
Subject: McCain's or Obama's Computer Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2008 01:29:39 +0000 Barack Obama has put out an ad that simply reminded us John McCain cannot use a computer. Well guess what ... Barack cannot land a jet plane on an airc raft carrier at night.
Subject: McCain's or Obama's Computer Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2008 01:29:39 +0000
Barack Obama has put out an ad that simply reminded us John McCain cannot use a computer. Well guess what ... Barack cannot land a jet plane on an airc raft carrier at night.
This was followed by a picture of a laptop next to a picture of a jet cockpit, and then a goofy photo of young Obama next to one of McCain posting next to his plane. "If your [sic] still thinking about voting for Obama ; I have a question for you..." the email says. "Is your head up your..." well, you know the rest.
How exactly does crashing several Air Force planes forty years ago make John McCain more qualified than Obama to lead this country? http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/did_mccain_crash_five_planes_did_he.html (As the article notes, he was not actually at fault for every crash and near-crash, but he did cause at least one actual crash, plus an international incident when he brought down power lines while clowning around in the cockpit.) Although the "McCain doesn't know how to use a computer" ad was a bit of a cheap shot, I submit to you that knowing how to use a computer to retrieve and disseminate information is slightly more relevant than knowing how to fly a outdated plane, which McCain probably would not do anymore because of his injuries. Neither skill is a strong reason for voting for or against anyone. Fortunately, both men have far more important qualifications. Karen
Will the people forwarding such emails listen? Maybe not. But it's important to counter the smears, ignorance and disinformation as best we can.
For weeks I've been wearing either a Barkers for Barack or Bloggers for Obama button on my daily trips to Miko's Corner Playground dog park with Cayenne and Pepper. I seldom hear a comment on these, even when Cayenne wears a Barkers button on her bandanna. But today I wore my Obama T-shirt for the first time, and that provoked a stronger reaction. Nobody said a word to me about it, but they did talk to each other:
Woman #1: I should have the word McCain tattooed to my forehead.Woman #2: I was going to wear my Obama shirt today.Woman #1: I should have worn my Palin shirt. Can you imagine?
Young Man on Bench (to wife or girlfriend): Don't worry. We have two McCain stickers on one car!
Such is life in Tucson, 13 days out from the election.
In other news, Huffington Post has published a roundup of Off the Bus "Grassroots Correspondent" entries, featuring my button maker photo at the top of the page. As it happens, more than a few of them are from AZ and NM, and most of them are much more interesting than mine. Check them out!
I had the honor today of getting my first entry published on Huffington Post, specifically the OffTheBus grassroots correspondent section. I would tell the various groups I belong to on here, but two of the three emails I've sent to the listserves in the past never went through. I'll investigate whether I'm doing something wrong and how to fix the problem, but my hopes on that aren't high.
The HuffPo entry is headlined Campaign Journal: Making Buttons For Obama Supporters, but that's just a small part of the story, such as it is. Last week I attended my first actual campaign event. No, it wasn't that huge rally in Missouri, or the other huge rally in Missouri. It wasn't even the Women's Day of Action with someone I admire, Governor Janet Napolitano of Arizona. It was a trip downtown to see a bus. That's right, a bus. And secondarily, to meet someone else's Congressional representative.
Let me tell you about it.
The Obama bus outside REA Media on 9th St.
It was the Obama Tour '08 bus, which apparently carries volunteers around to promote the campaign and sell T-shirts, buttons and such. The merchandise, like my buttonmaking, is a grassroots effort, not something produced by the national compaign. The bus and and the volunteers were at a PR media office off Tucson's Fourth Avenue, as part of a meet and greet headlined by Congressman Raúl M. Grijalva. He has been campaigning for Obama since the end of January. His own campaign headquarters is also a center for Obama volunteering and events.
Congressman Raul Grijalva
Grijalva turned out to be an interesting guy. I told him that I'm not in his district (my Representative is Gabrielle Giffords), but had heard good things about him. He was very gracious about this. When I asked to photograph him for my blog, he asked me exactly what a blog was, but stopped me before I finished the sentence. He was messing with me! I must say I was relieved to learn that he knows his way around the Intertubes. When I mentioned Huffington Post, he told me and the people around him that it's a good site.
There's a little more to the entry, but I'm not going to reproduce it here. You can find the rough draft and lots of pictures on Outpost Mavarin, and the final version on the HuffPo page linked at the top of this entry. Oddly, they published it with all but one of the links stripped out, all the photos removed - and the captions for the removed photos retained as subheadings. Uh, okay!
See also:
P.S. Another HuffPoster reported on the Napolitano appearance. Her entry is here. Yet another HuffPoster from Tucson reports on the results of her recent phone calls in support of early voting. Read that one here.
Adapted from an entry on Outpost Mavarin:
There are a few more, but you get the idea. See the whole collection at http://picasaweb.google.com/Mavarin2/Obama#. You're welcome to use anything you find there as a button, a sticker, a graphic for your blog or Facebook page, etc. I only ask that they not be used for profit - any money beyond costs should go to the Obama campaign.
In other news, I responded to yet another email smear yesterday. This one was titled "What Does Obama Read?" and to her credit, the first forwarder listed do not include the most egregious falsehoods seen on the version covered by Snopes.com. My response:
I've ranted a few rants on my main blog since I last posted here. Here are the links:
That's it for tonight. Now to follow Twitter links to political articles until I absolutely have to go to bed!
I'll come back later and reconstruct the entry I lost last night to site maintenance.* But for now, here's my reply to something that turned up in my spam folder today:
From: Karen @ ...
To: Christian Response <info@christianresponseupdates.net>
Subject: Re: 7 Reasons Why Barack Obama is Not a Christian
You people should be ashamed of yourselves. This lie has been thoroughly debunked, as you well know:http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/muslim.asphttp://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/church.asphttp://www.newsweek.com/id/145971 http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/sliming_obama.html http://www.factcheck.org/specialreports/that_chain_e-mail_your_friend_sent_to.html As a Christian who is webmaster for a mainstream church, I am frankly appalled that some self-proclaimed Christians place one or two issues that Jesus never spoke about ahead of His mandates to love your neighbor, love your enemy, be a good steward, care for the poor and be pure of heart. Your willingness to lie and cheat in order to mislead Christians into voting against Obama on the basis of false information is an affront to everything Jesus stood for - and still does. Oh, and by the way, take me off your mailing list. It will be one less odious spam to delete. Karen
*Okay, so I never got around to rewriting that lost entry. But you can probably get the gist of it from my recent entries on Outpost Mavarin. See my October 15th entry above for links to those rants.
Adapted from a late-night post in my other blog, Outpost Mavarin:
I need more time to digest before I have much to say about Friday's debate. Part of this is due to an odd disconnect in the way my mind works. When I read something that is supposedly factual, I am constantly analyzing it for plausibility, internal inconsistencies, lapses in logic and variance with previously established facts as I understand them. But when I hear a speech, even as part of a debate, I'm a bit more gullible. Even politicians whose positions I abhor acquire a certain Grima Wormtongue quality when delivering their prepared remarks, and sometimes I come very close to buying into the truthiness of it all. (By the way, although I don't watch his show, Stephen Colbert deserves the thanks of a grateful nation for two highly useful words, "truthiness" and "wikiality.") It sometimes takes me a while afterward to apply the same kinds of standards to the spoken word as to the written one. I say "same kind" because they can't quite be the same actual standards. Everyone misspeaks, stumbles over an occasional spoken word, and says things off the cuff that don't quite make logical sense. A certain amount of slack must be cut.
Photo: Homemade signs at Pima County Democratic HQSo listening to George W. Bush the other night giving his economics speech, I had to grudgingly admit he did a pretty good job of explaining the situation we're in, if not necessarily exactly how the bailout will help. And listening to the debate tonight - on tv at home, in the car, at Democratic HQ, and finally in various post-debate wrap-ups - I found myself sometimes agreeing with what John McCain was saying. As did Barack Obama, it turned out, who graciously acknowledged when McCain came out with something similar to Obama's own policies. And no, I don't count it as a weakness to acknowledge when your opponent is on the right track. That is intellectual honesty and consensus building, not weakness and deference to the superior debater or candidate.
Photo: Yes we can eat cake!But McCain wasn't gracious in return, and maybe that's why the Wormtongue effect didn't work very well tonight. Much has been made already of McCain's failure to look at his opponent throughout the debate, beyond a fleeting glance or two in his general direction. It's a little difficult to be charming and ungracious at the same moment.Maybe that's why McCain's frequent claims that Obama "just doesn't get it" hit my ears as a desperate and condescending lie rather than a sincere attempt to point out a genuine weakness in his opponent. Obama consistently showed a wide-ranging knowledge of foreign policy issues and the major players involved, and was even able to connect the dots between the individual conflicts and the strategic disadvantages of being dependent on foreign oil. Meanwhile, McCain showed a similar level of knowledge at times, but stumbled over a few names, got a few facts wrong, and stated no clear policy of his own while frequently distorted Obama's. When your opponent just proved to anyone who is listening that he has a strong working knowledge of the subject, it seems dishonest and pointless to claim otherwise a second or two later. Say that you disagree with your opponent's assessments, and here's why your opponent's ideas won't work. Don't try to pretend that the disagreement stems from ignorance, not when the other candidate is clearly demonstrating the opposite. Whom was McCain trying to convince? Maybe, maybe, sound bytes of his accusation will be believed by people who rely on such things, and will never hear what was said immediately before or after. But those are the people who already believe the ignorance and inexperience claim. To everyone else, each repetition just made McCain look more petty and desperate, and more as though he's the one who doesn't "get it."I'm not going to include all of the other posting here - you can always check out the other blog if you're intered. So let me just add that I've been designing canoaign buttons for the last few days. Here are a few of them:These designs and quite a few others can all be seen and downloaded on my Obama gallery on Picasa. There are designed for use with a 2.25" buttonmater, but can be resized. Share and enjoy!
Oh, and one more thing. In case you missed it, check out a new posting on YA for Obama, wherein YA sf writer Scott Westerfield does the math on how the two major political parties have fared on the economy since the days of Herbert Hoover: http://tinyurl.com/4zpox2. Amazing!
Adapted from last night's Outpost Mavarin entry:
Yesterday I found my way to an odd little discontinuous stretch of 1st St. behind Speedway here in Tucson. I had been a little surprised that there even was an Obama HQ in Tucson, since it's John McCain's constituency and the new statewide Obama office in Phoenix was just announced in email last week, with no mention of a Tucson one. When I actually arrived at the place, though, all was revealed. It was the Pima County Democratic Headquarters. There were so many campaign signs on the wall outside for so many different races that I looked them over three times before I found the Obama one. Okay, so I'm not the most observant person in the world.
Photo: The table I worked at, in a room with many campaign signs. Inside, though, it quickly became clear that much of the activity was centered on getting Obama elected. I found myself speaking to several people and being gradually conducted counterclockwise around an entire rectangle of rooms with tables, a cubicles and a couple actual offices. I filled in a form, and they hoped to put me to work updating lists of volunteers. One problem: they didn't have a computer available for me to use.No problem. I drove home and brought back mine.I ended up working until just after 5 PM, sharing a folding table with several other volunteers doing similar work. One of them joked that we were a table of Old White Women (which in my mind, I immediately abbreviated as OWW). I refrained from mentioning that I'm not even close to 60 years old. I'm not sure I got as much work done as I should have, because of a very minor learning curve, a few technical issues, and (mostly) because we were enjoying each other's company a little too much. I'll do better tomorrow.The guy in charge (Estaban) was smart and funny and appreciative. He said that the retro shirt I was wearing reminded him of Good 'N' Plenty. From now on, that's my Good 'N' Plenty shirt. He said something about some people not wanting to do volunteer work once they learn it's "not glamorous. It's appreciated, but not glamorous." Once people find out it's not about getting to meet George Clooney, he said, they don't want to do it.I said that it might not be glamorous, but there's a certain romantic idealism to it. I mentioned my childhood friend Joel, who was working for Eugene McCarthy's election back when we were in sixth grade. I didn't give details, but here in the blog I'll tell you that I never thought I could get involved in social or political causes the way Joel did and and still does. But I admired him for doing in, and still do. Estaban said that McCarthy came to Tucson in the 1980s(?) for a poetry festival.
Photo: I see Rose Mofford, and Janet Napolitano, and...!In the front of the HQ are books and framed photos. The photos are of past and present Democratic presidents and governors and so on. Three of them are of JFK: a portrait, an enlarged photo of him with two men I don't recognize, and a 1960 campaign poster. I don't want to call the area with the campaign poster a shrine, but in a secular way it almost is, at least for me. As a lifelong democrat who actually remembers the day JFK was shot, I was impressed to be working in a room decked out with vintage Kennedy stuff, and nearly 50 years of party history.
Photo: JFK campaign poster. Drat. I messed up with the flash.It's probably facile to compare JFK with Barack Obama, but I'm going to do it anyway. In 1960, Kennedy had to deal with mistrust on the part of some people because he was *gasp* a Roman Catholic. Obama is carrying a similar burden several times over, as a black man with a mixed parentage that I think was still illegal in some places in 1960. If that's not enough, xenophobic idiots get all aflutter about his Muslim-sounding middle name, and accuse him of being secretly part of the one religion it's socially acceptable to hate, at least in some quarters. Throw in an anti-intellectual charge of elitism and other spurious claims, and you have an effective bit of what my husband John calls "hate porn."
Photo: JFK and supporters. I bet these guys were inspired by their candidate too.
But if Obama has an exaggerated version of Kennedy's challenge as a member of a mistrusted minority, he also has some of Kennedy's strengths. He's smart and articulate and funny, with great rhetorical skills. He has relative youth, charisma, and a rare combination of optimism, idealism and pragmatism. Like Kennedy, Obama inspires others to do for their country, to believe they can do more than they ever thought they could accomplish. From what I saw yesterday, I'm just one of millions of people who are inspired and enthusiastic and accomplishing things after decades of depression and disappointment and cynicism.Will it all translate to a win in November, or fall before the constant onslaught of lies and hate porn, and all come to nothing? Can we overcome both open and hidden bigotry, ignorance and greed, honest disagreement, voter fraud, deliberate falsehood and reckless disregard for the truth? If he's elected, can we expect policies to be made and laws enacted that start to make things better than they are now?Okay, so it's not a certainty. Far from it.But yes we can.Karen
Update: My second scheduled day of volunteering fizzled today due to a personal crisis involving my unemployment claim, but I'll be back tomorrow. Meanwhile, I was in long enough to see more volunteer enthusiasm, and amazement at McCain's odd attempt to postpone the debate. Will anyone but his core supporters take this week's actions by the McCain campaign as Presidential or reasonable? Time will tell!
A couple of entries ago, I wrote about the fact that shy as I am, I would be extremely uncomfortable with making phone calls or knocking on doors. Nor can I host a debate watching party, for different reasons. I concluded that all I had to offer was the small donations I managed to make before and immediately after I became unemployed, plus whatever good I could do by blogging.
Pepper and Cayenne wait for something good to happen.
I underestimated.
Last night, I wrote about how I finally took a somewhat firmer approach to the nasty, paranoid Obama-slurring email forwards I occasionally get. I emailed Senator Obama's economics video to the person I always get this junk from, and wrote my own response to two new right wing emails and replied back along several links of the chain.
But wait; there's more.
Today I joined a group called YA for Obama, essentially a politically active social networking site for authors of young adult literature, their readers and fans. I'm about 40 years past their reader demographic, but I still read and write YA fiction. It's a good group and growing fast, and I recommend them to anyone with an interest in the YA field. Each day, they will have a new essay by a major YA author in support of Obama. They started this feature with a bang - legendary (and frequently banned) writer Judy Blume wrote the first of these postings.
Anyway, I messed around on that site a bit, uploading a few images and so on. I have no illusions that this accomplishes much, but at least I can promote the site a little bit here. It is poised to inspire thousands of kids, and get them actively involved in convincing adults to vote for Obama, and to look forward to the day when they can be voters themselves.
Then in the afternoon, I got a call from the Tucson campaign office for Obama, asking me to help with the campaign. I explained (well, not so much explained as stated) that I was unwilling to knock on doors or man a phone bank.
That's when the volunteer at the other end of the line expanded my horizons, suggesting something I hadn't even considered.
"You could work in the office. Can you do data entry?"
That's a big yes. I am an accountant, after all. Data entry has always been part of what I do as a staff accountant.
So the volunteer set the phone down, and checked whether they needed anyone at the office. I explained about my job situation. The next thing I knew, I was volunteering to work three hours a day for the rest of this week. It would be nice not to be available by next week due to getting a job, but I'm not counting on it. (I did apply to two jobs today, though, and nagged my primary recruiter.)
See? Unemployment is a good thing! It makes me available to work for free! Okay, so I'm being facetious and a little sarcastic. But it's better to do something productive in a good cause than to just sit at home reading liberal blogs, and adding word balloons to pictures of my dogs.
Then tonight I finally joined some of the groups on this site. Two of them are engaged in the kind of work I was ranting about last night: countering slurs and disinformation with factual information about Barack Obama and his policies. With a little nudge out of my protective shell, I should be able to help out with their good work.
Does this happen to you?
(Has anyone read this blog? Ever? I think I hear crickets!)
I have this friend - well, more of an acquaintance, really, but at least a borderline friend. (Put it this way: she's got my last name wrong in her address book.) We met at work, before the company we both worked for collapsed in the mortgage crisis. She's the sort of person who likes to forward the Joke of the Day, chain letters involving prayers or pictures of flowers or kitties, virtual hugs - you know the drill.
And political claptrap.
Most of the rumors on the Fight the Smears page, I recognize from F.'s email forwards. She's also sent a few that haven't even hit Snopes, let alone the Smears page. One or two of the major smears she's sent on more than once, even after I sent her back the debunking, with the link to the relevant Snopes page. It's as if she accepts forwards completely uncritically and passes them on, but ignores what is said firsthand by someone she actually knows. Or maybe she accepts whatever fits the worldview that has somehow been inculcated in her, and ignores whatever doesn't.
For over a year I've been deleting most of F.'s forwards unread, the jokes and virtual hugs and cutesy graphics. I don't want to offend her and hurt her feelings by asking her to stop sending them. It's only the ones whose subject headers seem to indicate allegedly factual content that I even bother to open. If indeed an email contains some kind of wild claim(s), I then Snopes the darn thing and send back the result, along with a plea that she think about what she's reading and do at least minimal research before she forwards this junk. (I do this with any factually challenged email forward, no matter who sends it.)
I never, ever see a forwarded retraction. I almost never hear back at all. All I get is mailer daemons from a few addresses if I dare to "reply all."
And now I see that there are right-wing rumblings accusing Snopes of pro-Obama bias. Funnily enough, I've also heard at least one person bitterly accuse Snopes of right-wing bias.
A week or two ago, I took my Snopes-based reply tactic a step further. Rather than burden the other recipients of one of these junk emails (this one implied that Obama was the Antichrist), I sent my debunk and my plea for critical thinking to every person listed in the subject headers as having actually forwarded the thing, as far back as the headers went. I think there were literally six degrees of separation between me and the first sender listed. At least I would be reaching some of the people who were actually spreading the lies around, even if they didn't heed me. As usual, there was no reply. Except...about a week later, I got an email directly from (I think) the first person listed on the older forward, linking to an alleged (and of course totally bogus) Obama sex video. This is actually a virus, so presumably this Obama hater now has an infected computer, unless of course she acted on my email warning her of this. Schadenfreude, anyone?
Yesterday, F. sent me two new email forwards. One was a relatively sane but logically flawed attack on Obama as an employer. The other tried to blame all our economic woes on those darn immigrants.
"Fwd: FW: Obama practices gender pay inequity in his Senate Office" uses carefully documented but misleadingly applied statistics to "prove" that Senator Obama as an employer doesn't practice what he preaches on equal pay for equal work, using the fact that many of his top advisers are male to show gender inequity. This leaves out the "for equal work" part of the equation, folks. If a President McCain made more than a VP Palin (and let's make sure this never happens), would that be gender inequity? Heck, no. That would be a pay scale based on the job positions, not on who fills them.
Similarly, if you have, let's say, seven top-paid advisers and only three of them are women, that proves you're a sexist hypocrite, right? Um, actually, no. Nothing short of a strict quota system would ensure that at least 50% of employees at every pay level lack a Y chromosome, regardless of other qualifications. Otherwise, there will always be the possibility that the right person for a given executive job might actually be a man, in more than half of the cases. This is especially true in a relatively small staff, where there aren't hundreds or thousands of employees to make the sample statistically significant, and even out probability. McCain's laudable record on pay scales among his staff shows that he doesn't exclude women from consideration for top posts, and that's a good thing. But his numbers are no more statistically significant than Obama's, and do not prove superiority in his policy or practices toward equal pay for equal work. The sane and reasonable alternative to strict quotas that ignore qualifications is to choose the best person for the job regardless of gender, and not adjust the salary based on whether the successful candidate is male or female. And if Mr. Jones and Ms. Smith are both hired on a given date to answer phones or screw in a light bulb, they should earn the same wage, and get raises based on identical criteria. That's what "equal pay for equal work" means. Give equally-qualified women and men the same shot at the same job for the same pay, whether as CEO or dogcatcher, and watch the glass ceiling shatter.
The other recent email tries to prove that "$ 338.3 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR" is spent on illegal aliens in this country, directly or indirectly, based on benefits, education, law enforcement, remittances to other countries and ill-defined lost wages for Americans; and that these costs, not Iraq or Wall Street, outsourcing or the mortgage meltdown, are "what's bankrupting us." I passed that one on to Snopes, because they have nothing like it yet. My gut reaction is that most of the statistics are likely to be news reports featuring people who spout distorted or made-up numbers. Also, it's a logical fallacy to say that if A is a drain on the economy, the unrelated factors B and C must be irrelevant to it, particularly if you don't research B and C's numbers.
This weekend, I decided to risk F.'s annoyance with a new tactic. I sent her an email forward of my own:
Hey F. --Instead of just forwarding anti-Obama emails that try to scare people on the basis of ethnicity and logical fallacies, creative use of statistics or outright lies, none of which have anything to do with the issues, why not listen to what he actually has to say about the most important issues?(Canned text follows)This week, the economic troubles that have long been simmering on Main Street boiled over to Wall Street, putting our entire economy in danger.Barack Obama laid out a plan to address this crisis and offered strong, practical solutions for American families.The Obama team put together a short video that speaks to these problems and describes Barack's plan. Watch the video now:http://my.barackobama.com/economicplanThanks***Karen again: from now on, every time I receive an anti-Obama email from you, I will counter it with factual information on what he actually stands for. You deserve to know the truth!Karen
I'm currently adapting this entry as a reply to the equal pay email.
Will F. read the emails? Will she watch the video? Will it inspire a change in attitude, or just get me kicked off her email forwarding list, which would be more relief than punishment? Stay tuned. Based on my experience to date, it's more than likely that nothing will change.
A page featuring Barack Obama's recent 2-minute video about the economy invited readers to "share your story" on the economic situation. I did so, and I think it's worth sharing again here:
A little over a year ago, I was a staff accountant for a national mortgage broker, making adequate pay while the company was riding high on the housing bubble. In mid-August 2007, I learned from a newspaper headline that my company had collapsed, and arrived at work as my co-workers were walking out with their boxes of belongings. Needless to say, I lost my job as well. After a temporary position with a clothing retailer, I found myself working for a large RV dealership. But we all know what gas prices have done this past year. Who can afford to fill a $100,000 RV with diesel fuel? So that job, too, went away. Now, another temp job later, I am unemployed again, and one of my recruiters tells me that displaced CFOs in Tucson are taking lesser positions, pushing everyone else down a rung. This is a "fundamentally strong" economy? Not where I'm sitting!Everything Barack Obama is saying about the economy makes sense to me. Let's have some of that, please, because it really is the "change we need." John McCain is more likely to provide incentives for the execs from that mortgage company I was with - the millionaires who are now back in business under another name. Meanwhile, I've had a paycheck from the bankruptcy court in payment for my last two weeks of work at that company. I think it was for about $65.
See also the recent post on my main blog:
Unemployed, Dog-Loving Woman For Obama
I've been remiss in my political blogging this week, mostly relegating my thoughts on the subject to Twitter. It's easy to post reactions of the top of your head, 140 characters at a time. Link to some blog or news article, express outrage or amusement, and seconds later, you're done.
A good blog entry, though, takes more work than that, and more thought. To write about Sarah Palin or some other political subject (and to be honest, most of my political thought this week involves Palin in some way), I first need to know what my opinion is, not just what weird and fascinating stuff I've been reading. I need to know what the facts are, if such have been determined, and decide whether those facts are relevant to the election, or merely appeal to my sense of the absurd, or to a streak of Schadenfreude I didn't think I had.
So. Sarah Palin. I find myself laughing at the suggestion that being across the Bering Strait from Russia qualifies as foreign policy experience, but I'm not overly concerned about her experience overall. Nor do I find it appropriate to suggest that she should be a stay at home mom, although I do find her judgement in flying from Texas to Alaska when the birth of her special needs baby was imminent highly questionable. Is that relevant to the election? Probably not.
But other stuff has been popping up on the online rumor mill, hopping between Twitter, blogs and news or quasi-news sites like so many trained fleas. Is the background info by Wasilla resident Anne Kilkenny accurate? Probably, to the extent that anyone's memories are likely to be accurate a decade later. Are they relevant? Probably. It points up major discrepancies between the Republicans' preferred portrait of Palin as a fiscal conservative (she left Wasilla with a debt that wasn't there when she took office), a tax-cutter (the combination of two tax programs was a net increase for most people, but benefited the rich) and an earmark-buster (but we already know about that one). She even sacked city employees for having supported her political opponent in the mayoral election. Talk about holding a grudge - and it fits right in with Bush-era policies of hiring and firing government people based on a conservative litmus test rather than expertise in their jobs.
One thing from the Kilkenny letter that I find particularly telling is the library censorship story, which is getting a lot of play this weekend on Twitter and in the blogs, with a little help from the mainstream press. There seems to be little doubt that Palin asked the city's librarian whether she would be willing, if asked, to remove certain books from the local library. The librarian said no, was nearly sacked soon thereafter, and ultimately resigned several years after that. Some of this was reported years ago, and the story was picked up recently in the New York Times. But this weekend, someone posted a blog comment that claimed to list the actual books Palin wanted to ban. It was packed with Banned Book Week favorites, and was problematic from the start because it contained books not yet published when the initial standoff with the librarian took place. It soon became clear that the list was unrelated to Palin, and right-wingers started whining about liberal "slurs." Meanwhile another anti-Palin rumor surfaced, in which she called Obama and Clinton rude names in a restaurant. Umm, so? We already know she says rude, uncalled-for things about people outside her circle of friends and allies.
Still, I can't help but wonder to what extent this instant communication of political rumors helps and hurts us as an electorate. On one hand, it seems to be a surprisingly efficient way to run down the facts quickly. A claim can appear in one venue, spread to a hundred others, be subjected to scrutiny by thousands of bloggers and news junkies, and get confirmed or debunked, all within a few hours. On the other hand, there's a danger we'll pay too much attention to stuff that at best is irrelevant to someone's fitness for office, and at worst is libelous and defamatory. One can debunk an anti-Obama email a hundred times, and still there will be some people who can't quite shake off the doubts the email instilled or inflamed in them.
That's why it's important that we be careful in reading and disseminating claims about any candidate. If someone posts a claim that Candidate X spoke out against apple pie, we may get a little thrill of pleasure in reading about it, but after that we need to do some fact-checking. Did a nonpartisan news organization report on the pie speech, or was it some anonymous poster? Does the claim state that this happened in Ohio on Wednesday, when it can easily be confirmed that the candidate wasn't in Ohio at all that week? And does the candidate's alleged disdain for pie also include a plan to derive others of pie, to encourage companies to outsource pie, or to allow wiretapping to see whether certain people are eating too much pie, all of which might reveal something about the candidate's policies? These are the sorts of questions we should ask ourselves.
Recently on Outpost Mavarin:
Weekend Assignment Results: Those Wacky Candidates! (September 4) - bloggers tell of oddball candidates, from Prince Mongo to Bill the Cat.
Republicans or Butterflies? (September 4) - I rant briefly about the RNC, and decide to focus on butterflies instead.
References (September 3) - photos and a few paragraphs about voting in the local and statewide primary, mixed in with other stuff.Sometimes I Don't Understand Humans. (September 2) - My rant about Sarah Palin and the infamous "HANG" ad.
I guess I've been posting political stuff to my blog after all. And some of it was based on rumor and speculation. See? I'm not immune, either.
Drat. I just lost my entire post. Starting over.
I don't have time for yet another blog. Practically every social networking site wants you to have a blog with them, to create user-generated content and keep eyes in their pages. Mostly I either skip it or leave a single entry pointing to my real blog. This particular site is a little different in purpose and focus, but even so, I don't have time to maintain multiple blogs all over Cyberspace.
So here is what I'm going to do. When I write something political on my real blog, I will precis and link to it here. If you like those entries, you can then click on the "Politics" tag for more on the subject, or explore the rest of my blog for rants and rambles about dogs, Tucson, the monsoon, art, my church, Doctor Who, jobs, writing, etc., and lots of pictures of dogs, sunsets, monsoon clouds, Disneyland and local landmarks. Fair enough?
To start you off, here are links to my most recent politics-related entries:
Weekend Assignment #231: Candidates With a Difference (August 29, 2008)
I post a Weekend Assignment writing prompt every Thursday night, usually after midnight. In the current one, I ask, Who is the most unusual political candidate you have ever supported, either seriously or in jest? My own answer: Howard the Duck! (But yes, I still voted for Carter that year.)
Scroll down to get to my review of the Obama and Gabrielle Giffords web sites.
Chasing the Invisible Motorcade (July 19, 2008)
GWB came to Tucson for a Tim Bee fundraiser. My commute coincided with the motorcade route. I photographed the preparations, including sign-carrying activists on both sides of the political divide. Funny thing: nearly all the Democrats were diverted to an intersection miles away from the action.
Defending the Constitution (July 05, 2008)
That's enough for now!
