In last week's Presidential primary election, I got to vote for one of my all-time favorite elected officials. Suffice it to say, it wasn't Barack Obama, and it wasn't Hillary Clinton. It was, in fact, Cynthia McKinney, former U.S. Representative from Atlanta, Georgia, now a candidate for the Green Party's Presidential nomination. If you've been tuned into my blog since the old days, you may remember reading my long-winded entry about Cynthia McKinney's fight to win back her seat in Congress in 2004. After serving another term, she got defeated once more, and has since defected to the Greens.
On Super Tuesday, McKinney got 26% of the Green vote in California with 7,000 votes, but was eclipsed by continual candidate Ralph Nader, who took close to 17,000 votes for 61%. And although McKinney fared better in a couple other states, she may not emerge the Green's candidate in the November election.
Not that the Greens matter at that point anyway. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Nader got 2.8 million votes in the 2000 election, and after the devastation of Bush's coup of the "hanging chads," he only brought in 500,000 votes in 2004. Needless to say, this year, with the tide turned against Bush and his War on Everything, the Greens will get even fewer votes, on account of progressives' and liberals' sheer terror of tipping the cart to the Republicans. Since I live in a state that more than likely will go to the Democrat, I can probably get away with a Green vote in November. Of course, if I lived in Florida or Ohio or somewhere, it'd be a different matter altogether.
Point being, I like being excited about someone I voted for for a change. Holding my nose and voting for Kerry in 2004 made me almost hate myself. But why blame the victims of the system (people like you and me who'd like to vote for decent candidates) for what are essentially structural problems, like the Electoral College, the two-party system, campaign finance policies, mega-corporate lobby power, etc?
I'm babbling now, 'night.
xo
Monday, February 11, 2008
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Neverending Winter Break
Wouldn't it be nice if Winter break from school were an endless juggle of skiing, trips to the tropics, relaxing by the fire with expensive whiskey in my coffee mug, communing with friends and family in celebration of various festivals of light?
Well, I did have the celebrations of the season-appropriate holidays. But what if I were to tell you that, come Valentine's Day, I will likely still be out of classes? And as for the skiing and romps to Hawaii, it's a bit hard to vacation when you've been waiting for your financial aid check for months.
I'm sorry to be so cheeky, but that's just the mood I'm in. Truly I can't complain about the extra time off I've had, but on a budget, it's looked more like: sleeping in, playing Tetris, watching the remainder of Angel, Season Five, and cleaning the apartment. Woot, I say, woot!
Don't even ask me if I've worked on my thesis. Don't. I'll sock ya.
So, those of you who have been following the story already know that my crappy-ass college is in the midst of what one of my classmates has called a "hot mess." The latest news is that our faculty are threatening to resign as a group in order to force the administration to permit a "teach-out" to another institution, so that we can get on with our studies. The best case would be that our instructors could follow us to another school and we could continue our curriculum and finish sometime this summer. The worst case is pretty grim: the school shuts down and/or we can't secure a teach-out, and we have to drop out, get jobs, and re-apply to other programs, losing our clinical internships as well as most of the credit for classes we've already taken. And god knows what a pain in the ass it'll be to try to extract our loan money from the black hole that is our financial aid office.
So, yeah, thankful for the free time, but I can't say it's been terribly restful. I will report that my spirits are generally up. I feel really happy about my life other than the hot messiness of the school/money situation. Astrid and I celebrated our 1-year Shack-Up-iversary this weekend, by walking to the Mission to eat yummy tapas, then continuing our stroll for drinks at The Uptown, one of my fave dive bars, and then swing dancing at the Metronome in Potrero Hill. All the while, the evening was filled with oh-my-god-I'm-so-in-love-with-you-cooing and chatting and, yes, I am apeshit in love with that girl.
Today has been a truly relaxing day, even though I've been doing errands and such. It started with a much needed catch up breakfast date with my old pal Chauncy, for whom I made yummy sherry-poached eggs in a nest of wilted chard, onions and garlic, as well as fresh strong coffee and a bowl of fresh fruit - kiwis, bananas, and tangellos. Shoulda taken a photo of breakfast for you, sorry. Then I went to drop off dry cleaning (you don't wanna know how long it's been since my wool sweaters were laundered) and then I got my vote on. More on the presidential race later, perhaps. Are you curious who I voted for? Need I remind you that I'm registered Green...so I'm out of the Obama-Clinton tug o' war for the moment. Then I did a wee-bit of grocery shopping (I'm trying these high-fiber multi-grain tortillas that my mom has been raving about) and now I'm actually putting words to blog template. It's a good day, and there's so much more of it, ta boot. It really helps that it's sunny out.
On to the next thing.
xo
Well, I did have the celebrations of the season-appropriate holidays. But what if I were to tell you that, come Valentine's Day, I will likely still be out of classes? And as for the skiing and romps to Hawaii, it's a bit hard to vacation when you've been waiting for your financial aid check for months.
I'm sorry to be so cheeky, but that's just the mood I'm in. Truly I can't complain about the extra time off I've had, but on a budget, it's looked more like: sleeping in, playing Tetris, watching the remainder of Angel, Season Five, and cleaning the apartment. Woot, I say, woot!
Don't even ask me if I've worked on my thesis. Don't. I'll sock ya.
So, those of you who have been following the story already know that my crappy-ass college is in the midst of what one of my classmates has called a "hot mess." The latest news is that our faculty are threatening to resign as a group in order to force the administration to permit a "teach-out" to another institution, so that we can get on with our studies. The best case would be that our instructors could follow us to another school and we could continue our curriculum and finish sometime this summer. The worst case is pretty grim: the school shuts down and/or we can't secure a teach-out, and we have to drop out, get jobs, and re-apply to other programs, losing our clinical internships as well as most of the credit for classes we've already taken. And god knows what a pain in the ass it'll be to try to extract our loan money from the black hole that is our financial aid office.
So, yeah, thankful for the free time, but I can't say it's been terribly restful. I will report that my spirits are generally up. I feel really happy about my life other than the hot messiness of the school/money situation. Astrid and I celebrated our 1-year Shack-Up-iversary this weekend, by walking to the Mission to eat yummy tapas, then continuing our stroll for drinks at The Uptown, one of my fave dive bars, and then swing dancing at the Metronome in Potrero Hill. All the while, the evening was filled with oh-my-god-I'm-so-in-love-with-you-cooing and chatting and, yes, I am apeshit in love with that girl.
Today has been a truly relaxing day, even though I've been doing errands and such. It started with a much needed catch up breakfast date with my old pal Chauncy, for whom I made yummy sherry-poached eggs in a nest of wilted chard, onions and garlic, as well as fresh strong coffee and a bowl of fresh fruit - kiwis, bananas, and tangellos. Shoulda taken a photo of breakfast for you, sorry. Then I went to drop off dry cleaning (you don't wanna know how long it's been since my wool sweaters were laundered) and then I got my vote on. More on the presidential race later, perhaps. Are you curious who I voted for? Need I remind you that I'm registered Green...so I'm out of the Obama-Clinton tug o' war for the moment. Then I did a wee-bit of grocery shopping (I'm trying these high-fiber multi-grain tortillas that my mom has been raving about) and now I'm actually putting words to blog template. It's a good day, and there's so much more of it, ta boot. It really helps that it's sunny out.
On to the next thing.
xo
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