Thursday, October 28, 2004

A political high from the middle of West Washington

No, no, of course I did not cancel class because of Kerry’s visit. That would be unethical and uncalled for. But I did move it to a date that I have in reserve for make-up classes. As I told them – it was not because of Kerry (that would be unethical and uncalled for). It was because of THE BOSS!

What news services will fail to report about the event:

Only in Wisconsin can a crowd of 80,000 pull off a “wave” with Kerry signs up Washington Avenue![Yes, we were told to leave signs at home, but once inside the ‘gates,’ Kerry volunteers brought batches of hot-off-the-press signs. You know how cool freshly printed paper smells? Yeah! These signs were a nasal high!]

Bruce Springsteen has, unfortunately, a first name that sounds quite like the last name of our Republican candidate. If I closed my eyes to the Kerry paraphernalia, I could at one point, hear the chant “Bruce” and imagine myself to be momentarily at a Republican rally. I’ll probably suffer nightmares from this.

Kerry likened his campaign to being back in college: lots of late nights, beer and cold pizza. Looking at him even from way up the street – he seemed pretty svelte to me. He mustn’t be liking the pizza.

Quote of the afternoon? It belongs to Kerry: "We need a president who can do more than one thing at the same time!"

P.S. I think people are worried about me. I got the following email message from a neighbor:
Nina, consider yourself warned:
(Link to article followed; read it here, or glance over these highlights:)

Doctors are blaming a rare electrical imbalance in the brain for the bizarre death of a blogger whose head literally exploded in the final week of the election! …Experts say he suffered from a condition called Hyper-Cerebral Blogosis or HCB .

…Although Dr. Martinenko says there are probably many undiagnosed cases, he hastens to add that very few bloggers will die from HCB . "Most people who have it will never know. Their heads will explode and they will keep right on posting. At this point, medical science still doesn't know much about HCB . And since fatalities are so rare it will probably be years before research money becomes available. This tragedy today is just another instance where human embryo stem cell research could not have made a bit of difference, but we'd have been glad to have the money from the Federal Government anyway."

In the meantime, the doctor urges bloggers to take it easy and not think too hard for long periods of time concerning the outcome during the last week of this election.

Not think too hard about the outcome? Is that possible? At least today the obsessive thinking took a positive turn. So nice of the Boss and the future boss (yes!) to look after us, the non-swingers.

From the rally:



Those on the stage faced the Capitol and the Kerry banner Posted by Hello

They say the Boss drew the crowds, but everyone I saw wore Kerry buttons. Springsteen looked out at the crowd and said "wow, Kerry sure packs them in!" Posted by Hello

If you followed the rules, even showing up two hours early put you far up on West Wash. Still, I could easily catch sight of Kerry -- thanks for taking off your jacket and standing out in your white shirt! Posted by Hello

I'm very happy that I was able to add one more to the 79,999 that were there to see this guy Posted by Hello

Sixth street pre-election diary*


6th street: is the arrow finally switching directions and pointing .... that way? Posted by Hello
Six days.

On 6th street, it is said that 'Casablanca meets New York City' – at the Zerza Bar (“a multicultural smorgasbord” says the New Yorker). I’ve never been to the city of Casablanca, but I have heard that it is the place to go if you want to see the glaring polarization between the haves and the have nots. [It is also the place to go for turtle soup, since elsewhere, it is illegal to sell turtles for food consumption. Not a lure for me, even though I am a card-carrying member of Slow Food and turtle soup would seem to fit right into the mission to slow everything down in the chain of food preparation and consumption.]

Zerza and the 6th street 'penthouse' apartments Posted by Hello
Today, Friedman writes in the Times about an increasingly polarized world with a missing moderate center (here). I view it somewhat differently. I see nations clamoring to unite in opposition to America’s forceful interventions abroad. I see the disadvantaged end dangerously overloaded with very angry people. Polarized implies a certain numeric balance – as if there were equally divided North and South Poles as it were, with nations and citizens either at one end or the other. I’m thinking the only thing that’s polarized is the electorate in this country. I’m thinking that the current administration should be feeling pangs of discomfort there at the North Pole, looking around at vast empty spaces, muttering perhaps – “it feels awful lonely here at the top.”

The colors of the game

The saying goes – if the Redskins beat the Green Bay Packers this Sunday, then the incumbent stays in the White House (the Redskins final home game before the elections has accurately predicted the winner since 1933; story here). Okay, that sounds to me like one of those baseball curses that (like last night’s RedSox) deserves to be broken. And whom are the players rooting for in the presidential race? Apparently the Redskins are a swing team: some vote red, some blue. The Packers – uh, something tells me that their green colors do not bespeak of party leanings.

(*see “forty-second street pre-election diary” post, September 22, for explanation of post title)