Seemed To Care
Wednesday. No word about MSR, whether she's a mother or still an expectant mother. No word he came early, though, and was born on 6-6-6.
You're beating that one to death.
Yes, well, these things happen when you're keeping a journal. I'd write about Iraq and Iran and Palestine and Somalia, but we've all been reading about them to our continuing discomfort, not to mention South America (Venezuela, Brazil, Chile), China and Indonesia (there's a volcano about to pop). Locally, well, locally the Republicans are energizing their base and debating a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and eliminating estate taxes for the top one half of one percent of people who actually have the kind of money required to qualify. Plenty of disconnect here: you don't have to be a Democrat or a Republican to be offended by some aspect of all of this but, well, that's what blogs are supposed to be about. We journalers address a wide range of interests, usually centered on our day's aches and pains, triumphs and tragedies, kitty cats and children. We leave the heavy lifting to the bloggers. We handle the shouts in the night: kitty cats and kids!
Moan.
Well yes, we are skating along the edge here, aren't we? I've read Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Rolling Stone piece on the Ohio 2004 Presidential election.
“After carefully examining the evidence, I've become convinced that the president's party mounted a massive, coordinated campaign to subvert the will of the people in 2004. Across the country, Republican election officials and party stalwarts employed a wide range of illegal and unethical tactics to fix the election.”
Not a good piece to read if you're at all susceptible to political paranoia. The problem with statistical analysis - and there's a fair amount of it required in understanding the Ohio results - is that, if done correctly, it's very accurate and what it points to here is fraud. Although the media hasn't touched the issue it does certainly seem, from reading it, that the Republican controlled election apparatus in Ohio did steal the contest for Mr. Bush. Kenneth Blackwell, the Ohio Secretary of State and the man in charge of counting the vote was, of course, the co-chair of President Bush's re-election committee. This is depressing. I would like to see a bluer than blue ribbon commission that includes statistical heavy weights do an analysis of the results. I would like to see an analysis I could trust that told me what may have happened in Ohio (and the other states that put up illogical, didn't make sense, off the wall numbers) because if we don't “rigged” elections will become the norm for both parties. Anybody else worried about this (other than my sister)?
I guess the question is are we living in times where election theft is more prevalent than in the past? Boy, I doubt it unless technology has been an enabler. Maybe, with the internet and the proliferation of sources of information, the ease in “getting the word out”, we're now seeing more than we've been allowed to see in the past. Still, the rule of law seems under attack. I thought my generation's contribution to the history of this country would be written in the Civil Rights movement and the refusal to fight a misguided war in Vietnam. Maybe our contribution will be the giving up of our American democracy through, I don't know, sloth or the fact nobody seemed to care.
Yup! Kitty cats and kids.
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