As I am like to do, I pulled myself together, erased the omen, and immediately received a call from my partner…he was coming, he was just out late celebrating the Celtics victory, and was a little hungover. Wonderful. My team was spanked, and I still dutifully made it to my crappy job on time. He showed up two and half hours later, after I had taken in the shipment, and was laughing because someone had erased what he had written on the board. “Yeah, that was me,” I said. “What are you superstitious dude?” “Not usually, sometimes, well, it depends…” Oy. The day proceeded pretty normally from then: coffee, inappropriate jokes that would get us fired from any other job, coffee, talk radio, mind-numbingly boring work, soul-crushingly agonizing realizations that I have a college degree and I sort books for a living, unparalleled bi-polar bouts of depression and sexually charged manic joy all congealing under interrogation style florescent lights as if God was playing good cop/bad cop with Jesus to make me confess that my life is going nowhere, more coffee, etc. Around twelve thirty the witty banter on the talk radio station halted, and one of the personalities announced that he had sad news to report. I stopped trash talking for a minute to listen. Tim Russert had just died.

The news personalities showed due respect. I was moved to nearly the point of tears, though I would never let it show amidst the manly domain of the Barnes and Noble stockroom. I was standing in this exact spot when I received the news that Heath Ledger had died some months ago, and I had had a similar reaction. That day hit me close to home because he was a young actor who was about to emerge as one of the finest of a generation. This day hit me because Tim Russert was the eminent political reporter of our country, and was universally regarded as one of the last truly decent journalists. I know, I’m a nerd, but this was for politicos what the death of Alec Guinness was to Star Wars fans. It was a big deal. When I made it home I flipped on MSNBC to see a shaken Keith Olbermann host a series of equally shaken guests eulogizing Russert, who, it turns out, had died suddenly of a heart attack not two hours before in the NBC studios, while recording voice-over tracks for his upcoming show. The tears finally came to my eyes. I was pinned to my couch for a half-hour, realizing that the Lakers’ loss had paled in comparison. Finally, I broke free from the somber face of Olbermann, and sat in Friday traffic for twenty five minutes, to travel a meager six miles to my friend’s bar.

If there is a self-pity inherent in treating yourself to several beers at 4pm after receiving heart breaking news, then I was neck deep in it. I had just seen a steady stream of heavy hitters of the political world nearly break down on national TV because of how much this guy meant to people. Even Barack Obama and John McCain stopped what they were doing to call in and pay tribute. Needless to say, I was a little caught up in the moment. It was a deep jarring sting then, when Russert’s face appeared on the bar’s TV, and several of the regulars began to rejoice in his death. Appalled, I buried my face in a Los Angeles Times article about the Lakers’ meltdown. I heard them say things like: “Russert? Fuck that liberal son-ova-bitch!” “Fat fucker’s dining on dirt now” “Rot in hell Timmy,” and the like. One fat, mangled jackass, with a tube of mustard bulging from his shirt pocket, was particularly harsh. Every few minutes, for the duration of his time at the bar, he would scream, “TIMMY!” at the top of his lungs, jolting me back to reality from my Hefeweizen induced buzz. I finally asked my bartender friend what his name was, as he clearly was the type of useless hunk of shit that would regularly patronize a dive of this sort in the afternoon. “Oh, that’s just Robo, ignore him,” she said. Robo? Perfect. Three beers in and I was contemplating fighting a colossus of a man-child called Robo. I figured I could handle him; he looked like he weighed about as much as my shipment that morning, and I kicked that shipment’s ass.

But my cooler head prevailed, and I realized that I was in fact in a dive bar, and perhaps the amped up opinion of drunken regulars wasn’t exactly something I needed to take to heart. I can be sensitive sometimes. To me, Russert’s death was tragic, but most likely, nobody remotely close to my age felt the same way. So, as I am like to do, I pulled myself together, and that night went out with some friends, where I was briefly accosted by a young actor acquaintance of mine. He proceeded to launch into his version of the speech…THE speech. Actors will know what I am talking about. It’s the paragraph you have memorized to justify what you are doing with your life should the need arise, both to yourself and to those around you. It usually comes out neatly packaged after someone asks you, “so how is acting going?” which is the worst fucking thing a struggling actor can be asked, so we dole out our charming version of the speech, because the truth: “Fucking HORRENDOUS, and I don’t want to talk about it EVER,” would come across a little harsh. But for an actor to launch into the speech unsolicited, as he did, can be both inspiring and a little sad. His was rather upbeat, mostly about staying positive and achieving success by not stepping on anyone’s toes, and it had me actively nodding my head, and giving my polite “uh huh, yes,” and “well it sounds like you have the right attitude,” and the like, all the while desperately scanning the area for a friendly face that I could somehow plead to rescue me with my eyes. I have convincing eyes. It made me think about what it was like to be an actor fresh out of college and ready to take over the world, and how I wish I could spare this kid, annoying as he was, the heartbreak that would come over the next couple years.

That night I went to bed a little weighed down from the events of the day. But everything was going to be okay, I told myself. I’m not superstitious, but Friday the 13th was coming to end. Besides, it really is just another day on the calendar. I pulled myself out of bed the next morning, and made it to work by 7 am.

More to come. Thanks for caring.

What does it mean that a person who’s ancestors could have been slaves in this country, could now hold the most powerful office of government in that same country? I truly wouldn’t know. I love history, so I can at best recognize the historical significance. I did not live through the civil rights movement, so I can in no way understand the historical significance. My generation does not fully understand the significance of nominating a Black man for President, and that is perhaps one of the most beautiful things about this country. We don’t see what the big deal is. We don’t hold the belief, as many over the age of 50 do, that race is something to consider when electing politicians. I love my generation. I also love my party. The Democratic Party broke down barriers when it nominated an Irish Catholic for President in John F. Kennedy. We did it again when we nominated Geraldine Ferraro as our Vice-Presidential candidate in 1984, the first woman to ever be considered for the second highest office in the land. We did it yet again when we nominated the first Jewish candidate in Joe Lieberman, and in the last two years, we made a woman the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and very, VERY, nearly nominated a woman for President. This is important. This is historic. No political party in the history of the world has had more respect for, and active pursuit of, minority representation. Though the Republicans call themselves the “Grand Old Party,” our party was founded much earlier, in 1792. Our first President, Thomas Jefferson. We are the history and revolutionary progress of America.

I also love my country. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran said that America would never nominate a Black man to be President. I love proving our enemies wrong. We are better than they. It feels good to show the world that we aren’t the country of George Bush, but rather becoming the country of Barack Obama. We are not a country that will be held down by racism of the past; we will self correct and charge ahead with a new generation that is colorblind. We will come together for our own betterment and the betterment of all mankind, because fundamentally we are good people, and right can yet be on our side.

John McCain had best be shaking in his boots. There are movements afoot, except that it is more than a movement; it is a revolution. To quote one of the worst movies ever made, “a movement…hence the name…it moves so far, and then it stops. A revolution gets its name by always coming back around in your face.” So John McCain, welcome to the revolution. When I see John McCain barely able to fill a 300 hundred seat conference room with snoring supporters, and mumble out a speech universally considered to be one of the worst in modern history, while Obama packs a 20,000 seat arena with 15,000 more outside clamoring for a view…I say, welcome to the revolution. When the conservative, American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), gives McCain a lukewarm response, and Obama tears the roof down…I say, welcome to the revolution. When McCain’s only strategy is to paint Obama as closer to George W. Bush, the leader of McCain’s own party and the most unpopular President in American history, than McCain himself, when McCain’s policies are 95% identical to Bush’s…I say, welcome to the revolution. I can’t wait for November. Thank God the General Election Campaign has finally begun.

Sometimes the beauty of the world can be so powerful, it can utterly destroy the darkness of the past. A tremor has rocked me in the midst of my sleep, and I feel as though I am about to awake from a great nightmare.

More to Come. Thanks for Caring.

Until this week, I figured she was about to bow out. “She’ll wait till the last primary ends on June, 3rd,” I told myself with cautious optimism, “and then leave graciously. She has to act strong to get as many votes as possible from the remaining contests, but inside she knows its over.” I think I was just fucking wrong. She won’t leave…ever. She is taking this thing to the convention, and if she doesn’t win there she’ll split the party. It’s happened before. That, or she’ll run as an independent and mop up her portion of the Democratic electorate, dooming Obama for sure. Don’t believe me? Why is she continuing to drive the party apart when the contest is so clearly over? And why does she continue to use fear, and now charges of sexism (SEXISM? NOW? She’s only losing because the millions of people who flocked to Obama, including alllll those women, were duped by sexist media coverage? Desperation is a stinky cologne Hill), to whip up her base to an ever widening frenzy? Why is she still hearkening on this Florida and Michigan thing (which is the dead giveaway) if she doesn’t plan to use charges of voter disenfranchisement as her case at the convention? If she were going to bow out graciously, she would just ride this thing out; continue to campaign, but tone all this shit down, and not go negative at all. No’sir. She is going to be President, or no Democrat is.

Basically, she’s behind in everything now. The Superdelegate trickle to Obama has turned into a downpour. Edwards has endorsed Obama. The Republicans have called out Obama as their opponent to be. Even her own die hards are nervously approaching her about when she plans to leave. She has run out, completely, of reasons to stay in the race, so now she recycles old ones. When Obama won more delegates in the Iowa Caucuses, she said the race was about the people’s vote, not delegates. When he surged ahead in popular vote, she said the election was about the number of delegates. That was her case for months, until now, when he is extremely close to reaching the nomination point of 2,025 delegates. Now her case is back to popular vote. But he is still technically winning the popular vote, so where does she, as they say, get off? Oh that’s right, (sing it now) Michigan and Florida…but wait a minute. Should Florida and Michigan delegates be seated according to the results of their primaries that didn’t count because they broke the rules? Obviously she says they should, despite that fact that she signed the agreement saying they wouldn’t count.

Fine, let’s discount the fact that millions of voters stayed home in Florida because they were told their vote wouldn’t count, and therefore the election results can in no way be deemed as accurate, and just go ahead and give her the Florida votes she won…shit…she still isn’t winning the popular vote. Alright then, let’s move over to Michigan and give her those votes too, never mind the fact that Barack wasn’t even on the ballot there. Hillary was, against party rules. Michigan voters could choose: Hillary Clinton, Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel, or “uncommitted”. Hundreds of thousands of votes went for “uncommitted,” and it only stands to reason that a significant portion of those votes would have gone to Obama and Edwards had they been on the ballot. But in Clinton world, we just wipe those pesky votes off the map (make every vote count right Hillary?), and just assume that Obama got zero votes. ZERO VOTES. Not a one. Not one person in Michigan voted for Obama, according to Hillary Clinton. This is how she figures she is winning the popular vote, because after all that Clinton math (Clinath) she pulls ahead….by five thousand votes. FIVE THOUSAND VOTES? FUCK YOU. This is her case now! She is winning the popular vote by five thousand because Obama didn’t get a single vote in Michigan, so let’s just nominate her. Her big rallying cry is to remember Florida in 2000; the popular vote can’t be overturned. Give me a break Hillary, this is hardly the same situation, and where the fuck were you and Bill in 2000 anyway? Moving your shit out of the White House and throwing “hail to the chief” cocktail parties for George W.? Because you certainly weren’t backing up Al Gore; you certainly were silent on the popular vote back then.

Oh! West Virginia and Kentucky!! The angry white vote! Obama can’t possibly win those people, so superdelegates, choose her, because if any Democrat is going to rob the Republicans of their most loyal support, its going to be Hillary Clinton. And again…fuck you. Granted, she did pretty much annihilate him in those two states, and all the punditry has begun to discuss Obama’s problem with working class whites as a result, but…in the national polls he has pulled ahead by 11 points. And aren’t there working class whites in Indiana, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Iowa, Georgia, Virginia, South Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee, Oregon, Washington, Alaska and Kansas? He wasn’t blown out in those contests, in fact, he won most of them. He is actually beating her now in every single demographic except one; white women over the age of 50, so technically, he DOESN’T have a problem with working class whites. West Virginia and Kentucky? Maybe he just has a problem with working class whites in Appalachia…hmmmmm, what possible problem could a black candidate for President have with working class whites in Appalachia?

Just a guess here, but maybe we should look to that fact that 21% of voters in those states admitted to exit pollsters that race was a deciding factor in their vote, and 90% of those votes went for Hillary Clinton. If 21% of people are saying it, then 42% of people are thinking it. Hillary’s supporters are racist. Any surprise then why the majority of them said their vote was for Hillary or John McCain? What do those two have in common? Neither will cut loose their own racist supporters. A decent person (John Edwards) would tell the electorate in those states, “if you are only voting for me because you won’t vote for a black man, then I don’t want your vote.” Fuck em. They are the lowest of the working class; the ones who have suffered the most because of Republican economic policies. If they won’t vote for the Democratic nominee because he is black, then fuck em. They deserve the shitty country John McCain will give them and their children.

Remember that Barack has received more support from Republicans and Independents than any other candidate. Remember, also, that he is going to win the nomination, and if Hillary can’t except that, and is willing to divide people, play on their worst fears, lie to them, confuse them, cheat them, exploit them and patronize them just to become the President…what the fuck is she capable of once she actually has that office?

More to come. Thanks for Caring.

Bush was in Israel, helping to commemorate that country’s 60th anniversary. In a speech to the Israeli Parliament, he said:

“Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”

This appears to be a thinly veiled attack against Barack Obama, who has said during the campaign that he would meet with American enemies as well as allies, in the hopes of generating diplomacy. Apart from the fact that it is considered tremendously improper for an American politician to discuss our foreign policy disputes overseas, and that making a political speech to the Israeli parliament during their anniversary dishonors what should be a sacred occasion for them, what Bush said is just plain fucking stupid. Of course it has been trumpeted by his few remaining neo-con supporters (and there are an extremely precious few left), and by John McCain (more on that in a minute), but Bush’s statement is a reckless use of rhetoric designed to whip up a fury of support among the American ignorant, the last true vestige of support this administration has. Appeasement is a buzz word that conservatives have long used to highlight supposed weakness among liberal candidates of peace. But Bush actually appears to not know what the word means. To appease, something has to be given away to your enemy. Simply talking to your enemy is not appeasement; it’s diplomacy. Before World War Two, Neville Chamberlain appeased Hitler by giving him control of Czechoslovakia. Obama has never insinuated he would give anything to HAMAS or Iran, other than his ear in the hopes that more innocent people don’t have to die unnecessarily.

Naturally the Democrats are pissed off. Nearly every major figure in Congress decried the President, some quite hilariously (Sen. Joe Biden loudly remarked, “that is bullshit!” after hearing the news), and so Bush seems to once again be doing what he does best: uniting everybody that realizes he is a complete fucktard. Even Hillary rushed to Obama’s defense. I fully expected her to remain silent, seeing as politically it is smarter to never come close to endorsing Obama while her campaign is still fighting him, but for once Hilldog actually did what was right, rather than what was politically expedient. It actually may be the first step toward reconciliation of the two candidates (which, of course, brings a soft little tear to my eye). Hillary, for herself, has said that her policy would be to never meet with America’s enemies without their first adhering to a series of pre-conditions that we set, namely recognizing the right of existence for Israel. Regarding Iran specifically, Hillary said she would use the cold war method of mutual assured destruction to prevent an attack on Israel: were Iran to nuke Israel, Hillary would nuke Iran, a position that, by comparison, makes John McCain look like Wavy Gravy at Woodstock.

Well, not totally. John McCain’s policy would be a continuation of Bush’s: don’t talk to anybody except those who kiss your ass, and bomb the hell out of everybody else. Such a god damn stupid position to take regarding foreign policy, but after 8 years of mindfuck neo-con propaganda, Republicans have people actually thinking this is how things get done. So diplomacy just doesn’t exist any more? Wilson, Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, and Reagan all met with our enemies, and during times even more dangerous than this. Kennedy met with Khrushchev while we were hours away from nuclear war, and by meeting with him, SAVED us from that fate. It doesn’t really matter anyway. McCain’s policy is merely political pandering. McCain rose to prominence by taking a maverick moderate position that put him at odds with the neo-cons. Several years ago he actually said that it was necessary to meet with HAMAS, or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could never be resolved. This was around the time he called Jerry Falwell an agent of intolerance. But while he’s running for President, and needs the conservative vote, HAMAS is too evil to even acknowledge, and Falwell is a great American. So much for straight-talk McCain, the candidate of fierce integrity.

When he makes speeches on this issue, it sounds like he is talking to a kindergarten class. And truly his view, and the view of his supporters could not be more childish. They try to see the world in black and white; we are good and they are evil and we do not negotiate with evil. The world is so much more complex than that, especially the world of Middle East politics. To quote one of my favorite movies: “this shit’s Chess, it ain’t Checkers.” There are so many different tribes and groups among our enemies. They are not one single anti-American block. Luckily for us, they hate each other as much as they hate us. Some of them we cannot talk to. Al Queda, and those like them, are Wahhabi Sunnis. Their violence is driven by religious zeal, and they will never stop fighting until the whole world is Wahhabi Sunni, or eveyone is dead. The only way to fight them is to fight them. Iran, however, is a Persian, Shia state. They are much more intellectually advanced. Shia violence is driven more by their sense of political oppression, than by any religious zeal. They are soldiers, not zealots, and like any army with a political goal, a political solution can be used to pacify them. Also, nearly half of the population of Iran is under the age of 30, and they are surprisingly pro-American; seeing America as better than their own oppressive government. We can use that. Bush will never understand this. If we just go in and bomb the hell out of them, that support is going to dry up real quick. HAMAS and Hezbollah are terrorist organizations, but each now holds powerful positions in their respective elected governments as well. We won’t get anywhere in the Middle East peace process by simply pretending that they don’t exist. This is what smart politics is about. This is what makes Presidents great; the ability to negotiate, to find the peaceful solution.

So while Bush and his supporters continue to reveal how little they know, or care to know about the world they are trampling over, those of us who value reason and diplomacy are beginning to remember why we were so excited about this election in the first place. Let’s stop fighting each other and start fighting them. Thank you President Bush for this gift. God forbid we forget just exactly why we all hate you so very very much.

More to come. Thanks for caring.

Secondly, it is stunning because a California lift on the ban will have a much bigger impact on this issue nationwide than a Massachusetts or Vermont ruling. California’s influence is enormous because of its size, but also because this ruling allows out of state gay couples the right to get married in California, which the Massachusetts law did not. Therefore, even though we weren’t the first state to do this, California has become the center of the gay rights universe. This is all the good news. The bad news, however, is that the permanence of this ruling can in no way be guaranteed, and the forces of intolerance will fight like hell to make sure that it isn’t. It’s also bad news because it has revived a wedge issue that could unite a fractious Republican Party just in time for the Presidential election. So while we hold our breath, and wait to see exactly how this will play out, let’s take time, at least for now, to celebrate an important victory in the cause of civil rights.

(You may have noticed the last entry on this blog was a guest post. I warmly welcome anyone to write on my blog, so long as you let me know what you are going to write about. I strongly encourage anyone to write a post that offers a contradicting point of view to something that I have written, or addresses a completely original topic. I don’t want to see a post that just agrees with, and restates any argument I have made. Hopefully, my arguments stand up well enough on their own. Let me know if you are interested.)

More to come. Thanks for caring.