From the time that I first saw him(at the time I was a Biden/Dodd backer), back in February,and felt the electricity of the man to now I can not even begin to say how happy I am about the results of the Presidential election.

This was the fourth Presidential election that I have participated in. I am 30 now, I first voted for Clinton at 18 and watched Bush steal two elections from the American people. My faith, belief and hope have been shattered over the last 8 years. The American Dream that brought my grandfather here felt out of reach to me. While I am still personally struggling the one thing that I felt from Obama was honestly, Hope.

Our standing in the world is going to be restored. Our belief in our self is going to be restored. I know it’s a slogan(and really Obama’s were exceptional), but this is change I believe in.

Good night and Good luck

Another month another post….

So the lady and I got up early got some coffee got in line and voted. We got there a little after 7:30 to our polling place that was in the lobby area of the hospital next door. By that time there were already people voting on the floor, on couches and in the booths. They were out of booths and by the time we signed in they were out of the voting pens.

Not wanting to have my vote be invalidated I waited a little extra to make sure that I got the official pen though they were saying that any black ink marker would work( like a Sharpie). So I have done my civic duty. It took about a half an hour and at 8 a.m. I was already the 55th person to vote.

While the Presidential election was oobviously the big draw, but there are so many big ballot propositions here that the polls are going to be packed. The early voting numbers have been huge and today is a very exciting day.

Since life and work seem to be getting in the way of blogging it has been a bit. Don’t have a lot to expound on for the moment just found this and had to post it.

Just very badly burned.

It’s been a bit since I have updated this site. Since that time I am working full time(temporarily) and I have been a touch on the sleepy side so blogging has not had a lot of room in the routine. A bunch of good stuff besides getting paid has happened. As of right now the Red Sox are one win away from making the playoffs again, the apartment has come together(we’ve even had guests), my tomatoes are dying, we are seriously looking at getting a pet and all in all we feel more a part of this city than we have.

Part of feeling like we are a part of this communit is participating in cultural events. On Thursday I went with my main man Zac to see(hear?) Junot Diaz speak at the Herbst Theater as a part of City Arts and Lectures.

For those of you unfamiliar with his work he is the author of a collection of short stories, Drown, and most recently the Pulitzer Prize winning, Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. His work is an interesting look into the worlds of the Dominican diaspora especially the effects of the Trujillo regime(particularly in the novel) on the Dominican, as well as the lives of outsiders in an outsider community.

Oscar Wao is the main protagonist of the novel though he is not the narrator. Diaz spoke eloquently about this during his interview showing the bright academic intellect that he is. It made me feel like I was back in class soaking in the ideas of post-modern fiction and academia. He spoke of informing the work with an unreliable narrator because one of the over arching themes of the novel is how easily we believe an authoritative figure. In this case the fiction of the dictator of The Dominican Republic was comforting to many of the people during his reign. The people comforted themselves by becoming a part of this fiction. By using the unreliable character of Junior to recite the story to the reader you as the reader are expected to do the work.

Or as Diaz put it in response to a question about the accuracy of the footnotes he uses(one of which tells you later that that one of the first footnotes was wrong) “Fuck. You’ve got to do the work Motherfucker!” I am obviously paraphrasing since I was only listening and not taping the presentation.

If you want to hear his language(coding as he referred to it) KQED runs the interviews on air(Diaz is 11/10), but to me it was a wonderful blend of Jersey with Academia that could switch into Dominican Spanish. He even spoke of the notion that he was not truly comfortable in either language having learned Spanish first and that starting and living in English since he was 6. He was always aware of the construct of each language having to think about his words before he speaks them. The natural fluidity of language is foreign to him.

There is so much more to explore, but to keep this from turning into an academic paper I will spare you, but if you want to know more get the books and we can chat.

About an hour ago we had a pretty nice bump. My second earthquake. Nothing else really to report it was only a few seconds. 4.0 on the Richter Scale

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I’ve been trying as hard as I can to avoid over ranting about politics, but it has my total attention right now. There is such a plethora of unbelievable stuff coming out right now that I can hardly contain myself.

As I mentioned there is way too much about Sarah Palin( a whole blogs worth at least) that I am just going to let that go for now. I know that all of this mentioning of the truth just plays into the Republican’s hands in terms of there beloved liberal media bias, but there is just a never ending stockpile of material. Again the Democrats are no angels either see: Obama and Tony Rezko, but they are not staking their party on being just like you and me i.e. the guy you wanna have a beer with. As asinine as that is it is how they run a campaign; well that and character assasination.

On that note here are Cindy McCain and Laura Bush just two average gals and the wardrobes they picked out for the convention via Vanity Fair

Laura Bush
Oscar de la Renta suit: $2,500
Stuart Weitzman heels: $325
Pearl stud earrings: $600–$1,500
Total: Between $3,425 and $4,325

Cindy McCain
Oscar de la Renta dress: $3,000
Chanel J12 White Ceramic Watch: $4,500
Three-carat diamond earrings: $280,000
Four-strand pearl necklace: $11,000–$25,000
Shoes, designer unknown: $600
Total: Between $299,100 and $313,100

Now there is some arguing in the comments of the Vanity Fair article about the valuations on the outfits, but if any of them are even 25% accurate Cindy McCain’s necklace is worth more than all the clothing that I own. Now in fairness there is no reference point to how much Michelle Obama’s outfit was put your guess in the comments, but I would guess it is somewhere closer to Laura than Cindy.

I know this is like shooting prejudiced misguided fish in a barrel, but just watch.

I have been reading all of the same reports that everyone else has and there are so so so many issues bundled into Sarah Palin that I am only going to touch on a few.

Since the announcement it has come out that McCain really wanted Lieberman and was forced into another choice in the end. So what does he do being the “maverick” that he is, he goes with a woman that nobody knows and that his campaign has not vetted.

What happens. Kaboom! Non-issue after non-issue being brought out. From trying to get her ex-brother in-law fired to having a child with a child. None of that really matters to me personally. Humans are flawed; indiscretion does not affect ones ability to govern see: William Jefferson Clinton.

That being said Sarah Palin is really a terrifying thought on issues and McCain’s big issue “experience.”

She has been governor of a state with a population that is less than the city I live in(San Francisco) for two years. When your own campaign mentions your credentials as being the point guard for your college hoops team and PTA president maybe your resume is a touch thin.

Than onto to the issues: Wow. She is more conservative than McCain could even dream to be and not in the fiscal conservative Libertarian way, but in the government tells you what to do way. The way that says we as government make your choices for you and we will not give you any assistance because of it. To be blunt it says to me: unwed mother you have to have that baby that you don’t want, but we the government will not help you with this child nor do we care about this child after it is born. It is an appalling way of thought.

With McCain’s health history Sarah Palin is knocking on the door if they are elected and that is not a realistic option.

There is so much about her that is troubling. I am looking forward to her speech tonight. I am sure I will cringe. I just hope she can turn off enough people that their campaign will be idling until November.

As excited as I was about Barack Obama’s pick of Joe Biden as VP I am equally confused by John McCain’s pick of Sarah Palin. I will have to learn a lot more about her before I opine more about it.

What I noticed as I was doing said research was this poll that the Chronicle ran. I know that the Chron is not trying to or even pretending to be the newspaper of record, but really this condescending poll is the best that you can come up with.

Now since I do not have cable I am not a regular or even interested watcher of the Daily Show. What I have seen is funny, but the show is just that a comedy show and the level of awe that the show generates sometimes dumbfounds me. That being said this article that I came across in the Chronicle yesterday really made me smile.

Stewart was at a breakfast for journalists at the convention, in fact some major players in media, when he made mention of the lack of quality reporting in modern media. He points out some of my gripes with the 24 hour news cycle; news is now distilled to sound bites and that now all news is breaking news(the most important thing on tv ever!) with conjecture replacing reporting.

My favorite quote was this:

“We’ve fallen into this false sense of urgency that they create,” Stewart said. “That idea that everything is breaking news and that if you’re not watching us, you’re going to miss this thing.

“But nothing they’re saying is of any import because nobody filters it. (Print reporters) are able to step back for a moment and think. They’re not. They’re just pointing a camera and saying, ‘What do you think that is? I don’t know. Let’s go to ‘The Situation Room.’ “

It is so much easier to read multiple news sources thanks to the web. On any given day I am able to peruse as many newspapers as possible and I usually read anywhere from 5-7 every day. Yet it’s cable news that rules the day. News that is in “The No Spin Zone” or whatever stupid tagline they are using( I no that is Bill O’Reilly but it is the one that annoys me the most) has replaced news that is never spun it is, reported.

That’s right reported by a trained professional who is able to distill all sides of the story and present it clearly, concisely and thoughtfully. The fact that it takes a comedian to point this out to us says something about the state of media and our dying intellect. We are afraid to be elite(another topic touched on in the article) instead we are all trying to be the lowest common denominator. Everyone should strive for what they want, but never lose sight of who they were.