Black and white thinking.

So I was thinking about racism today, as I guess a lot of people are. Jimmy Carter says that Joe Wilson's outburst during Obama's speech last week was racist, and there are lots of accusations of racism being thrown at the protestors who amassed in Washington this past weekend.

I talk about politics (or I used to, now I mostly just listen) with a large group of women on a forum...the core group has been talking politics together for more than five years. There's a good mix of Republicans and Democrats from all the shades of the spectrum. The outrage some of the conservative women feel over being called "racist" reminds me very much of the mouth-foaming outrage I used to feel from 2002-2008 when I was called "unpatriotic." One epithet is more distasteful than the other, but both are far too simplistic.

I voted for Obama and was very pleased that he won, but that doesn't mean I mentally rubber-stamp everything he does with a big smiley-face. I'm very unhappy with the vast amounts of money his administration is throwing around like confetti. And I'm not at all convinced that this is the proper time for the government to step into health care, much less that we should run a health care bill through in fast motion.

And although I think Rep. Wilson was rude in his outburst, sometimes I think Congress and the President could benefit from some of the no-holds-barred discussion that you can watch in the British Parliament on C-SPAN--those guys are masters of theatrical disagreement.

And since "my people" could exercise their rights to protest the war in Iraq, I have absolutely zero problem with the other side protesting government spending. Protest is good; it keeps the powers-that-be on their toes, or it should, anyway.

Is Rep. Wilson a racist, since he comes from South Carolina? I have no idea. Were there racists in the crowd in D.C. this weekend? Probably. Are there people in the U.S. who hate Obama and everything he stands for simply because he is a black man? Not much doubt about that.

But protesting against and disagreeing with a President who happens to be black doesn't automatically make one a racist. And voting for a black man to be President doesn't automatically make one non-racist, either.

Right now I live in a neighborhood and a city that is far more racially diverse than any place I've ever lived. And it makes me uncomfortable almost every day. I never had racist thoughts when I lived in lily-white communities. Living in this neighborhood that I none-too-affectionately call "ghetto" (which is both inaccurate and also racist of me) has brought out some feelings in me that I have really had to struggle against. I am so not proud of that.

So a disinterested observer might look at my voting record and my beliefs about social issues and stamp me as a bona-fide open-minded and tolerant liberal. But I know the truth about myself.

That's why I can't look at the typical conservative voter who hates big government or health care reform or whatever else Obama does, and call them racist. (The nuts with the threatening signs, yes, I think we all know how they feel, and they are terrible and very wrong.) But not the people who merely (or loudly) disagree with me and the guy I voted for.

This topic, as it's bandied about on all the talk shows and blogs right now, fits in with the general drift of the past ten or twenty years: it polarizes people and divides them even further. The media loves this, because it helps them sell ad time. But it's not reality, and we are foolish if we believe it to be. Racism is real and very wrong. Throwing labels around willy-nilly is also wrong.

Goods and bads.

Todd and I briefly discussed Senator Ted Kennedy's death at dinner this evening. Todd has absolutely no use for the man because of Chappaquiddick. I have more ambivalent feelings--knowing that he committed negligent homicide and got away with it, and yet knowing all that he did for this country and the groundbreaking laws that he worked to pass, it's pretty hard for me to say how I feel about the guy.

It's been interesting to read and hear from people who actually knew him as a friend and who testify to Kennedy being someone who wanted desperately to help other people and to give his friends and family anything they needed that he could give.

I said to Todd that I certainly wouldn't want to be remembered only for the worst things I'd done in my life. Of course, I haven't committed anything quite as egregious as some of Kennedy's sins. (Not yet, anyway, but hey, I'm still young.)

I've wondered before, and thought of it again today, whether the biggest sinners out there might not also (if they've experienced grace and taken it to heart) be the most compassionate people out there, too. It's easier to have compassion for other people's failings when you're all too aware of your own tremendous failings. It's easier to see people's pain and regrets when you carry around a huge pile of your own. Maybe it's easier to see people as human beings who deserve rights and respect when you've been in situations where you had to take an uncomfortable look at your own humanity.

I certainly don't know if any of this is true of Senator Kennedy, but some of what I've heard and read today makes me think it might be. The Kennedy men have always interested me--such inspirational public lives, such degraded private lives. It fascinates me to read a biography and look at a life and try to balance the good and the bad in it, and Senator Kennedy's life has much larger goods and bads than most people's, that's for sure. If it's not fair to laud him without remembering Mary Jo Kopechne, I also don't think it's fair to condemn him without remembering civil rights, voting rights, rights for the disabled, OSHA, COBRA, FMLA, Title IX, AIDS research and care, Head Start, WIC, Meals on Wheels, and a host of other things that have made the U.S. a better country.

Just some stuff I was thinking about today while cleaning out the closet and listening to NPR.

I've always found this eulogy he gave for his brother Robert to be extremely moving.

Do you remember the time?

Well, I am going to do something I almost never do on this blog: talk about a celebrity and a current event. I don't talk about celebrities much because I'm not really a celeb lover, and I don't talk about current events because that's not really what this blog is for.

But Michael Jackson! How could I not talk about him?

Actually, it would be really easy for me not to talk about him and his death. I was never a big fan--he had some songs I liked and that was about it. And I've spent the past 15 years or so just shaking my head every time he popped up on the news. He was a very sad, very damaged, very sick guy.

However. When you're in those years when you're really starting to notice the world and make all those memories that shape the rest of your life--say ages 10-20?--the things that happen in those years almost become part of your DNA. And Michael Jackson was happening in those years of my life. You couldn't get away from him, he was absolutely everywhere, especially when Thriller was out. It's hard to explain to someone who wasn't there how pervasive his face and his music were. Life in the 80's wasn't like life today, where everyone has their own little obscure bands they listen to that only 10 other people have ever heard of. Even if you weren't really a fan, if you listened to the radio at all, you listened to Michael Jackson.

So I think that when someone like that dies, part of the shock or grief or whatever it is that people feel has less to do with that specific person, and maybe more to do with how that person made them feel, the memories associated with them, the feeling of who you were when their music was playing in the background of your life. Part of the mourning is a mourning for that time and who you were then.

You shared planet time with an extraordinarily talented person, and now he's gone and you're still here. Which also feels weird and unsettling, and maybe worthy of taking a minute or two to ponder.

I turned on the news for about five minutes but no one was talking about anything beyond speculation--what happens to his money? to his kids?--so I started channel-flipping and landed on MTV, which is showing his videos all night long (extremely fitting, since he almost singlehandedly put MTV on the map.) Now I'm just sitting here and blogging and doing some crossword puzzles before bed, and enjoying the music and memories. Feels nice.

Babbles.

I'm up late at night again, talking to myself. Todd conked out at 9:30 while we were watching "The New Adventures of Old Christine" on DVD. I love Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Anybody who can look that good at whatever her age is--without getting all plastic-surgery-freakish--is a hero to me. (Wikipedia says she's 48.) And she is so funny, and she loves being funny and doing whatever it takes to get the laugh. Love it!

We had fajitas tonight because I saw Tyler Florence make them on the Food Network last week and they looked delicious. I used his recipe, which calls for chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, which I'm sure are stacked in mountains on the grocery store shelves in L.A. and New York, but which are harder to come by here in what we fondly call the butt crack of Virginia.

I had to go to two different stores to find them, and in the second store, I had to keep muttering "chipotles in adobo, chipotles in adobo" to myself as I was shopping, so I wouldn't forget to go back to the Mexican aisle and pick them up, as I'd already passed that aisle once and forgotten.

It occurred to me that "chipotles in adobo" would be a good mantra if you were in one of the goofier meditative religions and needed a catchy mantra. It's just this side of nonsensical, especially if you mutter it 10 or 20 times.

I think weird thoughts in the grocery store. At my old grocery store, I would wheel my cart around and sing along with the oldies they played on the Muzak system, so chanting grocery items is a step up from that, I think. Maybe not. Anyway, the fajitas were good. It was hard to scrub the chipotle stink off my hands, though.

I was doing really well for a long time with planning meals, making grocery lists, and cooking, but somehow the double whammy of Christmas travel and being sick really threw me off my stride. We're still eating at home most of the time, but I'm scrounging around at the last moment every night for an idea, and I don't like that. I need to get back into my groove.

The couponing has just been dreadful lately, too, and that's also disheartening. There are so many of them I just can't or won't use because the products are too salty or too gross or whatever, and it seems like the ones I do use are getting worse. 50¢ off one item is much better (when your store doubles and triples coupons under 99¢) than $1.00 off two items is. And the sticker shock is such that I really feel motivated to get those coupons and USE them with the sales. It's just not happening.

I've been having to go to my happy place a lot the past few days because of my anxiety over this economic stimulus package and the cost of it and hearing every day about jobs lost, and homes lost, and the post office talking about cutting back mail days because it's so broke...it's all a little disturbing. I try not to fret about it because there's nothing I can do about any of it, but it's this nagging worry and you can't help but wonder how bad it's really going to get. And you have no idea who to believe about what we need to do to fix it all. It's not keeping me up nights, but I know there are lots and lots of people who are having sleepless nights wondering how they're going to survive, and I feel terrible for them. We are doing okay for now--Todd's company has more work than they have people to do it--but I don't want to get complacent. Things can change in an instant.

And on that cheerful note--night-night.

President Obama.

I haven't written very much about Barack Obama in my blog. It's hard for a hopeful yet cynical person to know what to say about him.

I have never been a sloganeer or a follower or a breathless believer in much of anything. I haven't trusted a politician since Gary Hart broke my 14-year-old heart in 1984.

So I don't have much use for "Yes, we can!" or for the people who seem to think that the minute Obama places his hand on the Bible, America will spring into glorious Technicolor, just like when Dorothy stepped out of her house into Oz. Nobody, and certainly no politician, has that kind of power in this country. Obama is taking on the presidency at a scary and dangerous moment, and most of his plans will fall under the twists and turns of forces and people outside his control.

But I did vote for him, and I am excited about today and I do like him. The main thing that makes me root for him to succeed is that he's my kind of person. He's a reader. He likes to think and talk about big ideas. He likes to look at all the different sides of a thing. He seems to take his life's responsibilities seriously. I just hope someone like that can succeed in today's Presidency.

The former President was the exact opposite of my kind of person. He could not have been more opposite. The only thing I kind of liked about him was that he could be a bit of a smartass. But since he was usually being a smartass about things that are important to me like...oh...war...and you know, the Constitution and stuff, I didn't fully appreciate that side of him, either.

Anyway, I'm pretty neutral about what Obama will be able to do--not quite pessimistic, not quite optimistic. More of a wait-and-see setting. The disappointments of the Clinton era are still a little too fresh in my mind for me to think that Obama will be able to enact many, if any, of the major changes he has in mind. I just hope he stays safe and healthy, that his wife and daughters thrive in their new life, and that we see some real cooperation and agreement in our government on where to go from here.

Just kidding about that last part. That would be Oz!

Buh-bye.

The time has come to say good-bye. So, guys...

...For all that you did.
...For all that you didn't do.
...For all that you did and pretended you didn't do.
...For all that you didn't do but patted yourselves on the back for anyway.
...For all that one of you did while the other was oblivious.
...For all that one of you did while the other pulled the strings.
...For all that you ignored, neglected, manipulated, obstructed, hid, scoffed at, and just plain screwed up.
...For all the power grabs, bogus invasions, signing statements, late-night Justice department phone calls, facial shootings, malapropisms, record deficits, wiretappings, waterboardings, vacation days, and deleted e-mails.

For all these things and more, we'll never forget you guys.

Even though we wish we could.

Don't let the back door hit ya where the good Lord split ya.

Food for thought.

I heard this writer George Packer on NPR this morning, talking about what sort of president Barack Obama will be, and I was very interested in his outlook. Here's the show On Point: Obama and the Liberal Moment, and here's Packer's New Yorker article: The New Liberalism.

President-elect Obama!

My, that sounds nice!

My favorite line from Obama's speech last night:

"To those who would tear the world down: We will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security: We support you. And to all those who have wondered if America's beacon still burns as bright: Tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope."

Congrats to him--he looked pretty solemn last night and I think he has a pretty good idea of what's in store for him. But last night was still a delicious moment. Humbling, too, to see what this election means to African-Americans who probably never thought such a thing would happen in their lifetimes.

I'm not a person who puts a lot of faith in politicians. But I have to say that after eight years of feeling smothered under Bush/Cheney and their utter disinterest in and disdain for the American people, this feels like a breath of fresh air to me.

Vote!

I don't know whether to feel left out that I don't get to go vote with everybody else today...or glad that I don't have to stand in line in the pouring rain! Brrrr!

Todd called me on his way to work at 6:30 and said that the line at our polling place was halfway around the building, everybody standing in the dark with their umbrellas. So maybe I'm glad I didn't have to go deal with that. It's great to see that people really care about getting their voice heard this year, though.

Despite some people at the forums I read who are trying to pee in my Cheerios and harsh my buzz, I really am excited about Obama's potential win tonight. Fingers crossed!

If your buzz is feeling harshed, too, hike on over to Oodles and Oodles and read the poem she's got on her entry there today (scroll down just a touch). It's wonderful!

SB pages.

Here's what I've been working on the past couple of weeks. Sorry about the bad pictures on the 12x12s...my new scanner just isn't that great for scanning/stitching, so I just plop the biggies on the floor and snap a pic. I used to be such a pro at stitching 12x12s...sigh!


It feels good to get some of these pictures scrapped...or as my friend Janet used to say, "Another memory saved, baby!" I'm working backward through 2008, then I'll hopefully move on to 2007, for which I only have a handful of layouts, and then finish off 2006, which is about half done.

Can I just say here how bad I hate postbound albums? My gosh, are they hard to deal with. I'm putting all the 2007s and 2008s into one giant D-ring album, all different sizes, and that is SO much easier than trying to find post extenders and cram a million layouts onto the posts and then simultaneously hold it all together and screw it shut. If you've ever done it, I know you feel my pain!

I have taco soup brewing in the crockpot, since it's quite chilly today. It's supposed to have chicken in it, but I had a little package of stew beef in the freezer, so I used that instead. And you put in a whole bottle of beer. I just went down and stirred it--it smells very beery! Todd will turn up his nose at the beans, but he'll live.

I mailed in our absentee ballots this morning...I'm not sure I've ever said a prayer when voting before, but I actually did close my eyes and mumble a little blessing before I dropped the envelopes down the chute. I really hope that whoever wins, that will be the best choice for the times our country needs to navigate through. It's been an exciting election year--in a good way--but it's also been sobering to see the full scope of what we're up against, economically and globally. I think most of us just want what's best for America. Hard to remember that sometimes.

I'm out, see ya later!

Monday stuff.

Look at these cutie-cute pictures I got in the e-mail today...

My in-laws went to Pennsylvania for "Grandparents Day" at my nieces' school. Here's my father-in-law with Evelyn:

And Anna showing off her family picture:

And here are my in-laws with the girls and their grandma on their dad's side, Judy:

It's so fun to see the girls in their schoolrooms. Seems like a really nice thing for the school to do, too, they had a little program and everything.

Todd is in North Carolina till Wednesday on his bi-annual windsurfing trip with the Central Ohio Wind Surfers (COWS.) However, it doesn't sound like there's much windsurfing going on--no wind. He took his kayak, so he's been floating around trying to kayak fish, but not having much luck at that, either. He fished from 8 to 5 yesterday and didn't catch anything but a sunburn. Still, he's not at work, so I imagine that's all that really counts.

I've been doing some cleaning and straightening (still have lots to do, though) and some scrapbooking. And some reading. I was watching The Colbert Report last week, and he was talking about how all the pundits, on both sides, go on and on about how McCain and Obama have such compelling personal stories.

So Stephen started comparing Obama and McCain to Shakespeare characters (Obama = Hamlet; McCain = Macbeth--this is all extremely tongue-in-cheek, of course) and he brought on this Shakespeare scholar from Harvard to talk about it. At the end of the segment, he held up the expert's book, and--no lie--I had just gotten it in the mail from PaperbackSwap that very day!

The book is called Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt. Books about Shakespeare are always interesting because so much of what we "know" about him is pure speculation. What this author does is link historical events and personal experiences that probably occurred in Shakespeare's life to similar events and experiences in his poems and plays...speculating about the ways that Shakespeare must have taken what he saw and felt and used that in his creations.

It's a very readable book, and so interesting. In some ways the speculation is frustrating, because it runs against so much of what historical writing and biographical writing should be, but since it's unavoidable in this situation, it makes the character of Shakespeare that much more compelling. He's fascinating because we know so little about him, I guess is what I'm stabbing at.

Since Todd is gone, I'm taking the opportunity to not cook, or at least, to cook very little. I made a giant pot of soup on Saturday and have been eating it for a couple of days, and tonight I'm going to make another giant pot of soup and eat that till he comes home Wednesday night. And since he's not here, I get to eat stuff he doesn't like, like chili with lots of beans!

Disclaimer: I didn't watch the debate except for a couple minutes here and there. This still makes me laugh:


I think the only thing they left out was the "winsome wink" option. Maybe that falls in the "something really cute" category. Hearing about the winking makes me glad I didn't watch, because vomit stains would be hard to clean out of my carpet.

Keeping a smile on your face...

...is starting to feel harder and harder, isn't it? People on the message boards keep talking about stockpiling food and buying guns to protect it...the polar bears are dying...and this is what we've come up with to take over the country when McCain keels over.

I can't imagine this woman sitting down with a cut-throat like Putin. When Katie Couric can make you look like an idiot, then you know you have a big problem.

Ugh, it's all so alarming. You don't know whether to watch the news or just look away and cross your fingers. I remember telling Todd a few years ago that I thought people in the future were going to look back at the 1990's as the last golden times before the fall, and I'm really starting to worry I was right. What does a country do when it's up to its nose in debt, with no money, no skills, nothing to trade, and a corrupt government that couldn't find its rear with both hands and a flashlight?

I think France's solution 200 years ago was the guillotine, but that seems a little extreme.

I try not to worry because that helps nothing, but it's getting me down. I don't want to be living in a dumpster when I'm 80, dreaming about the good old days before we became a Chinese slave colony.

I'm reading this book about Abigail Adams and the scary Revolutionary times when they all thought they might be executed as British traitors if they weren't killed in a battle first, and the terrifying task of putting together a country and a government that just might not make it, and it gives me a little perspective. But she was a person who felt that a country rose on its morality and virtue, and fell on its vices, and I can only imagine what she'd say if she saw where we are today.

A driver is stuck in a traffic jam going into downtown Chicago . Nothing is moving north or south. Suddenly a man knocks on his window.

The driver rolls down his window and asks, ‘What happened, what’s the hold up?’ “Terrorists have kidnapped President Bush and Vice President Cheney,” the man answers.

He continues, “They are asking for a $10 million ransom. Otherwise, they are going to douse them with gasoline and set them on fire. We are going from car to car, taking up a collection.”

The driver asks, “On average, how much is everyone giving?”

“About a gallon.”

-------------------------------------

I want to laugh at this joke, but it's getting harder and harder to find the humor in our national debacle. Still, I'm in for a gallon.

Mmmm...crabcakes.

Yes, today is the day--the day of the Potomac Primaries, the Chesapeake Primaries, the Beltway Primaries, the...Crabcake Primaries?! I can't believe people get paid to come up with such silly names.

I went out and voted this morning...I've been looking forward to this for weeks! I don't remember ever voting in a presidential primary before..it seems like we've always lived in places that voted late enough that the candidate was already a done deal by the time it came around to us.

So this year is exciting. The race is exciting. I voted for Senator Obama, I guess I don't need to make a secret of that. I think he's got a better chance of a) winning the election, and b) being able to govern effectively, than Hillary does. I can't wait to see how it all turns out today and in the races to come!

In other news, I burst a blood vessel in my right eye somehow. I got up yesterday morning and looked in the mirror and yikes! The white of my eye was all bloody. I went straight to the eye doctor and he looked at it and said it wasn't serious, and the red should go away within two weeks.

Meanwhile, I'm walking around looking like something out of a particularly nasty freak show. It's gross. I went out to vote and get Valentine cards for the kiddies, and grab some lunch, and I was afraid to make eye contact with anyone lest they recoil in horror. I'm trying to figure out how to make a fetching eye patch out of scrapbook supplies!

More later, I still have a ton of pictures from December to post.

Mixed feelings.

So I saw that Jerry Falwell passed away today. Talk about mixed feelings.

Mr. Falwell was a highly-regarded figure at the Christian school I attended in the mid-1980s. He may have been the first person who made me realize, as a teenager, that there were going to be people in the world identifying themselves as "Christian" who see that title far, far differently than I do.

Or it may have been Pat Robertson who made me realize that. At any rate, people like Falwell, or Robertson, cause me lots of brain strain as I try to wrap my mind around the gospel they preach, the politics they practice, and the good they do (they do do some good, right? right?) and how all of that fits in the same box called "Christianity" that I store my beliefs in.

So here's what I wish for Mr. Falwell: that when he woke up in heaven this afternoon, his mind was blown by the hugeness of God--the amazing loving Presence that is far, far, FAR beyond any label or creed or rule that we tiny humans try to box God up in. I hope his soul was opened so wide that the wind of God's love scoured it right down to bare earth, and will blow through it forever and ever.

Because that's what I hope for myself when I wake up in heaven.

You go, Jim.

Senator Jim Webb on the floor of the Senate Tuesday:

"As I have said before, it is inverted logic to claim that we should continue to fight this war on behalf of the troops. The fact is that they are fighting this war on behalf of the political process. They deserve political leadership that is knowledgeable and that proceeds from an assumption that our national goals are equal to the sacrifices we are asking them to make."

And:

"What is truly surprising -- and unsettling -- is this administration's lack of overt diplomatic effort to bring order out of this chaos, in a way that might allow us to dramatically decrease our presence in Iraq and at the same time increase the stability of the region, increase our ability to fight terrorism and allow us to address strategic challenges elsewhere in the world."

I'd call it "freaking scary" as opposed to "unsettling," but...anyway... you can read the transcript of his whole speech here. It's worth reading. I'm glad to have one senator with some amount of integrity anyway--I can't say much about our other Virginia senator, Warner, who axed his own Iraq resolution.

Dibs on a terrorist clone.

From Stephen Colbert's show Tuesday night (Stephen is a fake conservative pundit, for those who don't know):

"You’re the ones who made this bed. Now you’re the ones who are going to have to move over so a gay couple can sleep in it. Tomorrow you’re all going to wake up in a brave new world.

"A world where the constitution gets trampled by an army of terrorist clones created in a stem-cell research lab run by homosexual doctors who sterilize their instruments over burning flags.

"Where tax & spend Democrats take all your hard-earned money and use it to buy electric cars for National Public Radio and teach evolution to illegal immigrants.

"Oh – and everybody’s high!"

Love it.

Huzzah!

Well, it's a good week to be a Democrat. (For once.) Got the House back, might squeak through and get the Senate too, and the cherry on the sundae--Rumsfeld gone!

A lot of Republicans are full of doom and gloom today...well, if anybody knows how that feels, it's us Democrats. We thought the world would end in 2000 and 2004, but it didn't. And it won't end now that the balance has shifted a little.

I think I might, however, do something I've never done before and send e-mails to my congressman, to my senator (if it does indeed turn out to be Webb, fingers crossed) and to Ms. Pelosi. I've been feeling fearful that the Democrats do not and will not take Iraq and the larger problem of radical Islam seriously enough. I'm really hoping they don't push through some even more foolish decisions in the name of political capital. Specifically, withdrawing most or all of our troops from Iraq too soon.

Although I don't agree with some Republicans that we're a breath away from being overrun by wild-eyed Muslims...I do think we're in a war of civilizations. And one side has a lot more stomach and will for winning at any cost than the other side does. That disturbs me. A lot. Foolish as I think the decision to invade Iraq was, it would be just as foolish to withdraw and leave it in chaos. Maybe it's not in our power to save Iraq...but we're obligated to do our best. Maybe with a power shift and a Secretary of Defense switch, we can start to do our best. A girl can dream, anyway.

It was exciting last night to hear on CNN that Newport News votes were still being counted very, very late in the evening, right around the time Webb's numbers finally crept up and passed Allen's. Made me feel like my vote really did matter this time around!

Election Day.

Didja vote???


I did!

I love to vote. It's literally one of the most exciting days of the year to me...some years more exciting than others, of course.

I was surprised to find an old-fashioned paper ballot awaiting me...well, not surprised exactly, because this corner of the country seems to be backwards in all sorts of ways...but, disappointed, I guess. I was looking forward to a touch screen, not remembering that it's been paper ballots every year I've voted in Virginia, and a new municipality wouldn't necessarily mean a new technology.

It was a short ballot: our tightly-contested Senate race, three state constitutional amendments, and the congressional race (we're in a new district now) in which the incumbent is running unopposed. Pretty short and sweet.

Tonight I plan to switch back and forth between CNN and a John Ford documentary on TCM...and then do the obligatory Stewart/Colbert hour at eleven. Fun times! Esp. if my party does well...which frankly, would astonish me! But hope springs eternal...if it didn't, would we even have a Democratic party?