Quote of the Day

This one, courtesy of Tanita, is disturbingly prophetic.

"When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental--men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost...All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre--the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
--H. L. Mencken, in the Baltimore Sun, July 26, 1920

Moral Values and Stuff

I overheard the following disturbing conversation at work* today--a great example of the "moral values" so important to the Bush-electing public:

Employee #1: Did you hear about this guy who was so distraught about Bush winning that he killed himself at Ground Zero?
Employee #2: Well, we probably didn't need him in our society anyways.

How very empathetic. I'd like to counterbalance that bit of ugliness with something much more heartening. Why not pay a visit to SorryEverybody.com? It's the best thing to come out of this election, so far.

*I've been working for the past week-plus at a temp job at the Secondary Wastewater Treatment Plant and Composting Facility for the City of Modesto, apparently a stronghold for the Central Valley working man. And I do mean man, as I am one of two women in the entire facility. And I thought IGN was estrogen-deficient.

You Take the Good, You Take the Bad...

Oh yeah...Right now, on ABC Family, the Facts of Life Reunion movie (which I just learned is not new but was released in 2001--so much for the thrill of discovery). Argh...must...not...watch.... Must...spend...time...productively....

And Another Thing

Check out Ben's latest entry on his blog, Who Digs Ben--a rare political rant, and very well-written, -thought-out, and -argued. Explains, from a Republican's perspective (albeit a reasonable, centrist, and, dare I say, liberal one), why the current administration is bad. Click on 11/01/04.

Kill Your Television

I'm really getting depressed. It's not just the mind-numbing, low-paying, slightly skilled labor; the way-too-early mornings; or the incessant sneezing which had better not be heralding a cold. It's the prospect of not having sufficient funds to move to Canada in the event of a Bush emergency, which would raise my personal terror alert level to Infrared (meaning: Out of the Way, Brain About to Explode). Perhaps I could try to flee across the border as an illegal alien, dodging Mounties left and right. I could beg for political asylum. I could found a commune and declare it a sovereign nation. I could try to win that private island they keep talking about on the TV commercial. These are all sounding pretty good right about now. And there I was feeling mild elation all day at actually getting my "I Voted" sticker this time, and hoping that my wearing it might guilt some apathetic person into going to the polls.

I realize nobody in their right mind is reading my blog right now for their political updates or any kind of updates, but here's a really cool, interactive, dynamically updated election map from the BBC.